University of Virginia Library

6. CHAPTER VI.
THE CONSPIRACY.

`The Tutor regarded me with looks of surprise when I had made
this demand of him to explain the mystery hanging over me,' resumed
Rafael after a few moment's silence, during which he seemed to suffer equally
from mental and physical pain.

`Do you not know what I mean, Mr. Whanley?' I asked. `But no, you
cannot or you would treat me as they have treated me! You would scorn me
too, for what God knows!'

`Scorn, Rafael,' he said. `I have only regarded you with love and affection.'
And he took my hand and pressed it with friendly warmth.

`Then let me tell you all,' I said overcome by his kindness.

`I knew you have suffered a great loss in the death of your father,' he said,
`and your emotion I can easily account for. His death has been expected the
last ten days; though you were not written to as you were expected home
daily! Did you get here to see him die?' he asked earnestly.

`Come with me into this room,' I said drawing him into the library and closing
the door! `Mr Whanley I then began, I have seen my father die! I flew
to his bedside to receive his dying blessing, but he refused to look at me! he
refused to speak to me except in accents of horror and hatred! Thus he died
denouncing me as a false son! Before I could learn from him the cause of
this conduct towards me, his spirit had flown forever! I then sought my sister
to learn from her what had happened to bring my father's hatred upon my
head, and I found her equally cold and hostile. Dark hints and fearful suspicions
was all I could obtain from her! You appeared and met me as they
should have met me, kind and friendly and full of affectionate pleasure! I am
willing to attribute something to my sister's grief; but behind all, there is
some dreadful mystery! What have you heard against me?' I demanded with
tears in my eyes.

`Nothing, Rafael,' he said, `I know nothing against you! Your relation
surprises me! I deeply sympathise with you! If you desire it I will endeavor
to ascertain from your sister what has occurred?'

`No, no,' I answered; `I will see my sister and know all from her own
mouth! She will not refuse to tell me. I shall demand the knowledge as a
right!'

`Such was my reply to Mr Whanley,' continued the young Captain of the
schooner; `and leaving while he went voluntarily, as he said, to superintend
the laying-out ceremonies for the dead and arrange for the funeral, I hastened
to my sister. I did not find her in her room, and seeking her, discovered her

in the near verandah and Whanley just about to take her hand and whisper to
her. On seeing me he retired suddenly, while I could not but feel surprised
to find him in that part of the house when I supposed him in the other wing in
which my father had died. I observed he seemed embarrassed and my sister
also. But I did not suspect him then of an evil toward me.

`I have sought you, Anna, I said, to have an end put to this suspense. Whatever
I have done to bring upon my head the displeasure of my father, is
equally known to you, as is apparent from your reception of me. Now tell me
at once what I have done? You have thrown out terms that to me are incomprehensible.
My conscience acquits me of all wrong to him or you!'

`I dont know,' said my sister to me in reply, `which most distresses and amazes
me, your guilt or your hypocricy, in the face of your very letter to dare
to deny your course!'

`What letters? what course?' I asked with surprise. `For God's sake, Anna
tell me what I am charged with?'

`I will answer you by your own written words,' she answered, `if, as it
seems, you have so thoroughly became lost, as not to suspect your present conduct
base and guilty. If you have become so deformed as not to suspect yourself,
I will show you your own letters!'

As she spoke she led the way to the room I had left and going to a desk unlocked
it and from a package of letters, took out one and handed it to me, saying—

`You will not have the daring, brother, to deny writing that?'

`No,' said I as I saw that it was a letter addressed to her in my handwriting
and mailed at New Haven, from which all my letters had been written for
the last three years.

`And, yet you ask why my father died without looking kindly upon you, or
why I receive you as I have done!'

`Then what can I have written in this letter?' I exclaimed unfolding it with
trembling hands and opening it. My eye run hurriedly over the page, and I
was instantly struck with an expression that I knew I had never penned. This
led me to begin and read the letter, when I saw with astonishment that I was
not the author of a single line! The hand-writing was a perfect imitation of
my own and deceived my own eyes, but the language of the letter showed me
that it had never been penned by me. I read paragraph after paragraph with
horror and indignation and revenge at my heart. I will repeat to you the letter,
senors! It was written about two months previous, and dated at College,
and mailed at the same Post Office. It began `My dear sister Anna,

`I have at last made up my mind to communicate to you the change in my
views and opinions in relation to our southern institution. Brought up surrounded
by slaves, and from earliest infancy, seeing them in a position inferior
and servile, I naturally conceived that this was their natural condition. I
have, however, recently changed all my views and opinions. I have learned

at the north the great truth that all men are born free and equal! I have also
learned to regard Africans as men! I have learned to view not only the traffic
in slaves as wicked and unjust, but also to regard as wicked and unjust,
the holding in bondage the children, however remote the generation, of slaves
so stolen and trafficked for? I have, in a word, become an abolitionist! But
this name so defamed and ignominous at the South, is here in this atmosphere
of freedom and human liberty, a distinction of honor. I am proud of the appellation!
and I look forward to the time when I shall hail every southern man
and woman as an Abolitionist! To the emancipation of the poor slaves I shall
henceforth devote my heart and hand, my purse and influence! In this benevolent
enterprise, I know you will join me, my dear sister! I have no time to
write more now; but in a subsequent letter I will enter more fully into the subject,
and unfold before you the arguments which have made a northern-man
of me. I shall also write to my father!

Your affectionate brother,
Raphael.'

`The whole of this letter,' I exclaimed to my sister as soon as I could command
language, `is a vile forgery! I never penned it in my life!'

`But there is the Post-mark! and the writing is your own! `Nay, even the
seal!' she said looking at me with surprise.

My earnestness impressed her; but still she looked suspicious and taking
out another letter, handed it to me saying, but with a doubtful air,

`Nor this either? Is not this your writing?'

`It resembles mine! I should say it was mine,' I answered, `but for what I
have just now read.'

`Read this also,' she said with emphasis.

`I will repeat to you, gentlemen, what I read; for the words are grown upon
my memory. This letter was addressed not to my sister, but to my father.—
The accurate resemblance of the hand-writing to my own, confounded me.—
It began: `My dear father,

After mature deliberation I have come to the determination of writing to you
upon a subject which engaged my thoughts and influenced my actions. Educated
as I was, till I left home the idea that there was a moral wrong in holding
our fellow-beings in slavery never occurred to me. As a matter of reflection
it never entered my mind. I regarded bondage as the natural condition
of the negro and never troubled myself to examine into the wrongs or rights
involved. But I have had my eyes opened by mingling with the society of
northerners, to whom slavery is detestable, and who regard slave-holders with
abhorrence. From them my mind has became enlightened, the veil of darkness
and ignorance has been removed, and the atrocity and wickedness of the
whole system has been revealed to me in the clearest light. I am now a man
and a freeman! I can now point without a blush to the memorable opening of
the incomparable Constitution which declares `all men born free and equal!'
Convinced of the crime of slavery, I cannot consistently act otherwise than

in harmony with my principles! I have written to you the change in my feelings
and views as an act of duty. I feel I shall incur your displeasure, but I
cannot withhold the fact from you, that I have become what I am! In a
word, sir, I feel that I can no longer make use of the fruits of the slaves toil!
and I candidly tell you that when my property comes into my hands, if I cannot
prevail on you sooner to do it, I mean to free all the slaves that fall to me.
I may be impoverished, but this will not alter my opinions; and I shall have
the proud satisfaction of having done my duty. In a few days the course of
my collegiate studies will close, and I shall return to my paternal home.—
There I hope to convince you by irresistable arguments that you are in the
sight of God and all true men guilty of oppression and `of withholding from the
laborer his hire.'

Your affectionate son,
Rafael.'

When the young buccaneer chief had ended the recital of this letter, he
threw himself back upon his pillow for a moment, and covered his face with
his hands, as if renewing again the bitterness of the hour when he first read it
in his sister's presence. At length he resumed:

`This letter is also false and forged like the other?' I cried to Anna, after
I had mastered the strong emotions of anger and surprise that seized me on
reading the second letter and discovering the conspiracy against me. My
sister regarded me for some moments steadfastly, and then said impressively,

`Do you speak truly, brother?'

`As I have a Creator and am to be judged by him, these letters are false!
I never wrote a line of them.' I answered.

`Then you deny the principles! You are not an Abolitionist?' she cried.

`No. I am a Virginian and a true friend to my native state! Some one
has forged these letters to you and my father, for what end God knows! I am
as I was when I left Virginia!'

`And have you not received any letters either from my father nor myself in
reply them?' she asked firmly.

`Not one!' I answered. `I have never got a letter alluding to these letters,
and if you received them it is a wonder I did not!'

`It is very extraordinary. We both wrote you! And you replied to both of
us!'

`Replied?' I exclaimed thunderstruck.

`Yes. Here is your reply to mine, and also to father's!'

`And she placed two letters in my hand,' continued the buccaneer. `I read
them and found indeed that they were mostskilfully executed replies, in which
I defended my course and hinted at becoming a public declaimer against slavery
from the forum.

`Then you are innocent. Rafael!' cried my sister. `You are innocent of
all!'

`Yes. I have been the victim of some dangerous enemy!'

`Then you have not thought of organizing a secret club of young men in this
State for the purpose of creating a revolution, overturning the government of
the State and establishing one upon the same basis as the States of New England?—a
club called `The Brothers of Liberty?'

`Never!' I answered. `Has such a charge been made against me too?'
asked overcome with surprise.

`Yes.' She answered. `Six days ago my father received an anonymous
letter informing him that you were the leader of such a secret party, and that
you were in correspondence with some young men in the county whom your
letters had brought over to your principles. This intelligence was credible after
the letters we had received and it so distressed our father that his sudden
illness may be owing to it; for although a month ago he had a paralytic attack
he was getting over it. But this letter confirming his worst fears, was a severe
shock to him and he sunk under it!'

`I am not surprised now,' I answered, `at my father's treatment or yours.
These letters explain all! I must now find out who my enemy is? Do you
suspect any one?'

`No one,' was her reply.

`Nor did I, then,' said the buccaneer fixing his eye upon us with deep feeling;
but I was not long in ignorance of my enemy, or of his motives, as you
shall learn.'