University of Virginia Library

BOOK I.

BOYHOOD.

1. LAFITTE:
THE PIRATE OF THE GULF.

1. BOOK I.

1. CHAPTER I.

In a secluded and richly-wooded amphitheatre,
formed by a crescent of green-clad hills, among
which the romantic Kennebeck wanders to the
ocean, there stood, until within a recent period, the
ruins of a stately mansion. Its blackened walls
were enamelled with dark-green velvet moss, and
mantled with creeping vines, as if Nature, with a
gentle hand, had striven to conceal the devastations
of ruthless Time.

Huge chimneys, terminating in fantastic turrets,
heavy cornices, deep mouldings and panel-work,
combined with the costly and elaborate architecture
of the whole venerable structure, indicated a relic
of that substantial age immediately subsequent to
the revolutionary war:—an age, although then in

its decline, as eminently characterised by moral
and physical stability as the present by their opposites.
That, was an age of iron—this, of tinsel.

At the period with which our tale is more intimately
connected, the handsome edifice of which
these melancholy ruins were both the monument
and mausoleum, reared its lofty walls amid a grove
of oaks, whose hoary bodies, and the majestic
spread of their gnarled and giant limbs, while they
told of their great age—numbered by centuries, not
years—bore testimony to the dignity and grandeur
of the primeval forest, of which they were alone
the representatives. Here and there, among these
sylvan patriarchs, glistened the silvery trunk of the
classic beech, intermingled with the dark cone of
the gloomy pine, and the tall, spiral poplar, swaying
its graceful head in the breeze.

Beneath the thickly interlaced branches of these
trees, and sloping gently to the pebbly shore of the
river, lay, out-rolled, a lawn of the thickest verdure.
Its green and quiet beauty was relieved and enlivened
by half a score of ruminating, well-conditioned
cows, standing or reclining in those luxurious
attitudes indicative of comfort and repose, and a
small flock of long-fleeced sheep, of a rare and
valued breed, was dispersed in picturesque groups under
the more venerable trees. A gracefully formed
jennet, conjuring up visions of lovely woman, in
velvet hat, nodding plumes and generous robes
sweeping the earth, which the spirited animal beneath
her disdains with his delicate hoofs—a beautiful,
slender-limbed saddle-horse—and a brace of
coal black ponies, with long tails and flowing
manes, which are at once associated with boys and
holidays—stood together in a social group beside a
small but romantic lake in the midst of the wood.
They were mutually reclining their heads upon
one another's necks, each manifesting his sportive

feelings, by occasionally fixing his large white teeth
into the glossy hide of his neighbour.

This pellucid sheet of water was spanned by a
fantastic bridge of tressel-work, suspended with the
lightness of a spider's web, from one green bank to
the other. It connected a broad gravelled avenue,
which, commencing at the river, wound among the
trees, yielding to the natural undulations of the
grounds, and terminated at a spacious flight of steps
leading to the piazza of the mansion, the two fronts
of which were ornamented by a light colonnade of
eight slender Ionic columns. Tall windows—hung
with rich curtains of orange-coloured damask and
snowy muslin, costly with deep broideries of oak
leaves, large as the life, and curiously wrought with
silken floss, in their autumn hues of green and
yellow—extended quite to the floor of the piazza,
and, defended by venetian blinds, served as the only
entrances to the interior, from the front.

The house faced to the west, and commanded an
extensive prospect of the river, sweeping boldly
around the peninsula upon which it was situated,
and forming at the distance of half a mile, and directly
in front, a noble bend, remarkable for the
extreme beauty of its curvature. Beyond, ascending
to the horizon, as they retreated from the eye,
spread cultivated farms, studded with low, black,
farm-houses and huge barns; more remotely, dense
black forests blended with the bases of a chain of
low, blue mountains, known as the Monmouth hills,
which, while they confined the prospect, constituted
a magnificent back-ground to the picture.

At the north and south, the view was shut in by
alternately cultivated or thickly-wooded hills and
rocky eminences, retreating on either hand from the
river in a semicircular from, to a little less than a
mile in the rear, and enclosing the dwelling and
grounds in a spacious vale or glen, which, also

embraced on the western side by the curve of the
river, presented an area nearly circular in its shape.

Political events in sunny France,—that great
political index of this revolutionizing age—in which
the proprietor of this lovely domain bore no ordinary
share, compelled him to seek a land where he could
cherish his liberal principles with safety, and educate
his twin-sons to act their part honourably and
with distinction on the theatre of life. And where
should the expatriated old soldier bend his footsteps
but to the shores of America? Daughter of Europe!
Yet she opens her arms to receive her
exiled children, with the affection of a young mother.
Noble and glorious land! the errors of the
old world shall be redeemed in thee—and, although
the continents of the east have been enrolled, century
after century, upon the scroll of history, yet
their history is ended—thine only begun; and dark
and guilty as are ITS pages, shall THINE be bright
and pure!

Orphans from their birth, his sons never knew
their mother. The hour which ushered them into
existence ushered her spirit into heaven. Strangers
to maternal love, and educated, since the exile of
their stern parent, in almost monastic seclusion,
they early attained an uncommon maturity of mind
and firmness of character, combined with manly
sentiments and a habit of thinking independently,
early taught them by their father's example, and
inculcated, cultivated, and wrought out to maturity
by him, with untiring assiduity.

Their fifteenth birth-day arrived, and although
in yearsthey numbered equally, both in mind, and
person, and habits, they were wholly dissimilar.
Achille, the eldest of the twins, had attained dignity
of mind and manly beauty of person, far in
advance of his years. Tall and finely proportioned,
he was the youthful image of his noble father.

Proud, aspiring and ambitious, with a spirit that
spurned severity, but yielded to gentleness, he acted
from impulse rather than from reflection or a sense
of duty, while a mine of passions, never yet sprung,
existed like a slumbering volcano in his bosom. It
required but a spark to produce a conflagration that
should feed upon and torture him like another
Prometheus, or burn on, extinguishable only with
life.

That spark was at length elicited by his brother,
an amiable boy of a gentler nature, retiring in his
habits, mild and quiet in disposition. The reverse
of Achille, he was apparently as meek as his brother
was spirited. The former resembled his father; but
Henri represented his mother and all her gentler
virtues. Not only did he represent the excellences
of her heart and mind, but her lovely image was
revived in his beautiful countenance; and, as year
after year unfolded in his youthful face the more
striking and perfect resemblance his graceful features
bore to those of his deceased mother, the father
recognized the features of the fair girl who had won
his early affections, and whom, during the few
short months he had owned her as a bride, he
had worshipped with religious devotion.

Notwithstanding the contrarieties of character
exhibited by the brothers, they grew up together,
mutually interchanging all those amiable kindnesses
which are the offspring of fraternal affection.
Achille was the stronger, physically and intellectually,
and unconsciously to the subject, exerted that
wonderful influence over Henri which mind often
asserts over mind. He was his guide in his
studies, his leader in sports, his enticer into dangers,
and his assistant in the thousand petty difficulties
of childhood. He loved him with a sincere and
devoted attachment, fervently reciprocated by his
warm-hearted and unsophisticated brother. But

their mutual affection was the principle which
unites the vine and the oak. His brother's love
was to Henri sufficient happiness, the stay of his
clinging affections; and on the other hand, his
kind and endearing attachment, by drawing out
the kindlier feelings of his brother's sterner nature,
rendered him better and happier.

The morning which ushered in their fifteenth
birth-day was bright and cloudless—a more beautiful
never dawned upon the earth. Could the
tempter have chosen such a day to enter paradise?
Yet on this day his presence was first felt in their
peaceful home.

Achille was standing in the south window of his
father's library, which opened upon the piazza, his
person half-concealed by the rich drapery, gazing
out upon the limpid river as it glided silently past,
bearing upon its waveless bosom the single-masted
sloop with its huge mainsail, the more graceful and
bird-like schooner, her white canvass extended on
either side like wings, the lofty, square-rigged merchantman,
and swan-like sail-boat; their sails flashing
back the morning sun, or changing to a dark
hue as they moved in the black shadows thrown
from overhanging cliffs.

The green meadows beyond the river, sprinkled
with flocks, faded into the blue haze which floated
around the distant hills. The air was alive with
melody from a myriad of glad birds, climbing the
rosy skies, and emulating the poised lark thrilling
forth his matin-song to the rising sun. There was
a charm of beauty, peace and rural happiness
thrown over nature. Her works breathed inspiration,
and spoke that morning in the sweetest accents
to his heart. But he heeded not her language. A
voice, softer-toned and more eloquent pleaded to his
soul. It was the voice of ambition. Of boyish
ambition it is true, but still ambition in her loftiest

mood. In years but a boy, the sterner spirit of a
man dwelt in the swelling bosom of the youthful
aspirant. Visions of the unveiled future, wherein
appeared pageants of conquering armies, thrones,
and scenes of vast dominion flcated before his youthful
imagination; and in the leader of the armies,
the occupant of the thrones, the controller of empires,
he recognized HIMSELF!

2. CHAPTER II.

—H. More.

AN INTERVIEW BETWEEN FATHER AND SON—A CATASTROPHE—REMORSE.

“Achille!”

The young aspirant started from the contemplation
of scenes of triumph and empire, carnage
and blood—the last too soon to be realized—and beheld
his father standing by his side, who had entered
the library and approached him unperceived. Seating
himself in the recess of the window he motioned
his son to a chair, placed opposite to his own. The
bearing of the veteran exile, was at all times in the
highest degree dignified and imposing. His was
the brow, eye, and presence to command respect
and receive homage.

The affection of Achille towards his father was
not unmingled with sentiments of fear. But he
was the only being before whom the proud eye of
the boy quailed!

That his father loved him he had never doubted.
He knew that he was proud of him, “his noble,
fearless boy,” as he would term him, while parting
the dark clustering locks from his handsome forehead,

after he had performed some daring feat of
boyhood. But when he spoke to Henri, the gratified
and proud expression of his eye softened under
the influence of a milder feeling, and his smile
would fade into a sweet but melancholy expression;
nor would Achille have exchanged his inspiring
language to him, “his daring boy!” for the kind
tone, and manner he involuntarily assumed when
he would say, “Henri, my beloved child, come and
amuse me with your prattle!”—nor would the tearful
eye, as he gazed down into the upturned face of the
amiable boy, have pleased his wild spirit like the enkindling
glance of that admiring eye, when turned
upon him in paternal pride. Achille translated his
glance of pride into an expression of love, and sympathized
with one so evidently regarded with an air of
sorrow, if not pity, as his brother. If he gave the subject
a moment's reflection it resulted in the flattering
conviction that he himself was the favourite son.

But on the morning which introduces him to our
notice, he had to learn too painfully, that Henri
was the favourite child of the old soldier's affection,
and that so far from loving him but a little less, he
loved him not. That look of affection which he had
translated as an expression of compassion for the
gentler nature of his brother, he had to learn was
an expression of the intensest parental affection.
In his brother, his father worshiped the image of his
departed wife, and all his affection for her, which
the cold hand of death had withered in its beauty
and bloom, was renewed in his beloved Henri. He
was doubly loved—for his mother and for himself—
and there remained for Achille, so the sensitive and
high spirited boy learned that day,—no place in the
affections of his sole surviving parent.

His father being seated, addressed him:

“Achille, you are now of an age to enter the university,
for admission to which the nature and extent

of your studies eminently qualify you. In a
few days the annual examination of candidates will
take place, and in the interval you can select and
arrange a library for your room, and collect what
other conveniences you may require. You will
leave in the first packet that passes down the river.”

This was a delightful announcement to the subject
of it, and not wholly unexpected. To the university,
that world in miniature, he had long looked
forward with pleasurable anticipations. It was a
field of action, at least, and he panted to enter upon
it.

The two brothers had both prepared for admission
into the same class, and he inquired if Henri was
to accompany him.

“He is not,” replied the father, coldly and firmly.

“He is certainly prepared, sir!”

“Undoubtedly! But I have decided that he is
to be my companion to Europe this season, as I fear
his delicate constitution will not admit of his confining
himself at present to sedentary pursuits.”

“I was anticipating that happiness for myself,”
replied Achille, chagrined at his father's preference
for his brother, so unexpectedly manifested, not only
by the words he uttered but by his tone and manner.
He had long known his intention to visit
his native land, and expected to accompany him,
although his expectations were founded rather
on his own wishes than any encouragement he had
received from his parent.

Now that he learned his intention of taking Henri,
instead of himself, he felt keenly the preference;
and the coldness, if not severity, of manner he
assumed in communicating his determination, offended
his pride, whilst his decided partiality for his
brother wounded his self-love. The old soldier
was a man of few words, and his son was well
aware, that, his resolution once formed, he was unbending.

He knew that his brother was to go, and
and that he was to remain; and with a bitter and
wounded spirit he turned his darkening brow from
the penetrating gaze of his father, and looked forth
upon the beautiful scene which lay out-spread beneath
the windows of the library.

A closing door roused him from his gloomy and
sinful reverie, and turning, he found himself once
more alone! No—not quite alone! An evil spirit—
Jealousy! pregnant with dark thoughts and evil imaginings
was his companion. A long hour passed
away, during which, his first fierce conflict with his
hitherto slumbering passions took place. The first
suspicion that his brother was best loved, then entered
his thoughts. Once admitted, it underminded,
by its subtle logic, the better feelings of his heart.
Doubts were strengthened to confirmations, suspicions
magnified to certainties, in the rapid and
prejudiced retrospect he took of his father's bearing
towards his brother and himself, from the earliest
period of his recollection.

But an hour—one short, but momentous hour,—
for then was fixed the lever which moved the world
of passions within him, with all their evil consequences,
had expired, and the canker-worm of
hatred with its venemous fangs, was gnawing at the
last slender fibre that bound him to his brother, when
the hall door was thrown open and the unsuspecting
and innocent subject of his dark meditations bounded
into the room, holding in his extended hand a
gemmed locket.

“See brother, see!” he exclaimed, in a loud and
delighted tone, “see what my dear father has presented
me as a birth-day's gift!”

Achille raised his eyes and fixed them upon
the sparkling locket which enclosed the miniature of
an exceedingly beautiful female, with a form, cheek,
and eye, radiant with feminine loveliness.

He recognized the portrait of their mother, which
till that moment had ever been worn, as the holy
pilgrim wears the sacred cross, next to the heart of
his father. So dearly treasured had that sacred memento
of his departed wife ever been, that he
never was permitted to remove it from the mourning
ribbon by which it was dependant from his
neck. Now, he saw the cherished relic in the
possession of his brother, a gift from him. His
lip curled, and his dark eye became darker still at
this stronger confirmation of his father's partiality,
yet he neither spoke nor betrayed his feelings by any
visible emotion; but the fires within his breast raged
deeper still. Like pent up flames, his passions gained
vigour by the very efforts made to smother them.

For the first time in his life he looked upon Henri
coldly, and without a smile of tenderness. He felt
indeed, although his lips moved not with the biting
words that rose to them, that the poison of his heart
must have been communicated to his eyes, for, as
his brother caught their unwonted expression, he
suddenly checked himself, and the gay tones of his
voice sunk subdued to a strange whisper, as he
faintly inquired, at the same time placing his delicate
hand upon his shoulder, “if he were ill?”

“No!” he replied, with an involuntary sternness
that startled even himself.

The next moment he would have given worlds
to recall that fatal monosyllable, and pronounce it
over again, more gently; but it was too late. The
sensitive boy recoiled as though he had encountered
the eye of a basilisk; his forehead changed to a
deadly hue, the blood fled from his cheeks, and he
seemed about to sink upon the floor; but, suddenly
recovering himself, he laughed, and the rich blood
came back again, and his eye glanced brightly as
he exclaimed, but half-assured,

“Brother, you did but try to frighten me—you
were not in earnest angry with me?”

His heart melted for a moment at this affectionate
appeal, but with a strange perverseness he steeled it
to insensibility.

“Leave me to myself,” he roughly replied, “I
am not in the humour to be trifled with.”

Mysterious inconsistency of will and action! He
would have given his right hand or plucked out his
right eye, to have recalled the first angry word he
uttered. In his own mind he did not will to speak
thus harshly; yet, by a singular yet frequent anomaly,
his words and manner were directly in opposition
to his will. The first word spoken in an
angry mood, hewed out a broad pathway for legions.

As he uttered his last words, the tears gushed
into Henri's eyes, and yielding to the influence of
affection, he sprung forward and threw himself into
his elder and beloved brother's arms, wept aloud,
and sobbed out amidst his tears,

“Brother! Achille! wherein has Henri offended
you?”

An evil spirit now seemed indeed to have taken
possession of him. With angry violence he thrust
Henri from his embrace, while a curse sprung
to his lips. The poor youth tottered and reeled
fell forward, striking his forehead as he fell, violently
against a marble pedestal upon which stood an alabaster
statue of the Madonna, and the warm blood
spouted from his gashed temples over the cold, white
robes of the image.

It was a spectacle of horror! and the guilty being
gazed wildly upon his prostrate brother, and thought
of Abel and his murderer—upon the red-sprinkled
image, and laughed, “Ha! ha! ha!” as maniacs
laugh, at the fitness of his first offering—a mangled
brother—at the shrine of the virgin moher.

The momentary but terrific spell upon his reason
passed away; and throwing himself upon the senseless
boy, he attempted to stop the ebbing current of
life as it trickled in a small red stream down his pale
forehead, steeping his auburn curls in gore,
at the same time, calling loudly and madly for
assistance.

His father followed by the servants rushed into
the library.

“Help sir, my brother is dying!” he cried wildly.

The old man sprang forward and caught his
bleeding child in his arms. His practised eye at
once comprehended the extent of the injury he had
sustained. He had received a deep cut in the shape
of a crescent over the left eyebrow, yet not severe
enough to endanger life. The free flow of the blood
soon restored him to his senses, and opening his eyes,
as his father with a tender hand staunched the
bubbling blood, he fixed them upon his brother with
an expression that eloquently spoke forgiveness.

“God pity me!” exclaimed the repentant and
now broken-spirited boy; for that look went to his
heart; and burying his face in his hands, he precipitately
left the room.

The long and bitter hours of grief, remorse and
shame, he suffered in the solitude of his own room,
no tongue, but his who has felt like him, can utter.
He experienced sentiments of hatred for himself, a
loathing and detestation that tempted him to put a
period at once to his own existence. When he recalled
the reproving yet forgiving look of his suffering
and magnanimous brother, he felt degraded in
his own eyes, fallen, lowly fallen in his own self-esteem.
That he must be in his brother's he was
painfully aware, and for the first time he felt that
the gentle-natured Henri was his superior.

3. CHAPTER III.

—Anonymous.

A STUDENT—THE RETURN—GERTRUDE LANGUEVILLE—LOVE.

Day closed in night, and night opened into morning,
for many long and tedious weeks, and still
the old soldier sat by the bed-side of his wounded
child.

The generous boy, too honourable to prevaricate,
yet too forgiving and fond of his brother to expose
all the truth, had told him that he had fallen
against the pedestal, but not that Achille had thrust
him against it.

Their father never knew the agency of Achille in
the accident; yet, bearing testimony to the truth of
the maxim, that suspicion is the handmaiden of
guilt, Achille suspected that he was informed of all
the circumstances connected with the act. This
suspicion, giving its own tinge to the medium through
which he viewed and commented upon his father's
deportment towards him after the accident, led him
to conclusions as unjust as they were unmerited by

his parent. Acting from these conclusions he shunned
his society, and never entered his presence but
with a sullen air of defiance.

Occasionally he visited the chamber of his brother,
when, in answer to his frequent inquiries of the
nurse, he learned that he slept; and pressing the
fevered hand, or kissing the cheek of the sleeping
sufferer, he would watch over him with the tenderness
of a mother till the restless motions of the invalid,
indicating the termination of his slumbers, or
the heavy footsteps of his father ascending the stainway
in the hall, warned him to return to the seclusion
of his own room, or the deeper solitudes of the
forests.

A few months passed away, during which Achille
became a student within the walls of a university
not far from his paternal home; while his brother,
entirely recovered, accompanied his parent on his
transatlantic voyage.

The period of Achille's residence at the university
afforded no incidents which exerted any influence
over his subsequent years. It glided away pleasantly
and rapidly. He was known by the professors
as one, who, never in his study, or a consumer
of midnight oil, yet always prepared for the recitation
room; and by his fellows, as a young man of violent
passions, honourable feelings, chivalrous in points of
honour, a warm friend and magnanimous enemy.
Often violent and headstrong in his actions, he was
just and equitable in his intercourse with those around
him. With a love for hilarity and Tuscan pleasures,
he never descended to mingle in the low debauches
and nightly sallies, which, from time immememorial
have characterized the varieties of college
life.

At the early age of nineteen, he received its honours,
and bidding adieu to the classic walls within
which he had passed so many happy hours—the

happiest of his life—he proceeded to an adjacent
port where he expected his father to disembark, on
his return from his long residence abroad.

The little green coasting packet—in that early
day, when steam navigation had not superseded
those teachers of patience to domestic voyagers,
the sloop and schooner—had passed up the river
the previous evening. He crossed to the opposite
shore, in a broad flat wherry, whose representative,
in the shape of a neatly painted horse-boat,
propelled by the Ixion-like labour of a blind Rosinante,
may still be seen plying frequently between
the opposite shores.

The sun had just set in a sea of gold and crimson,
and a rich mellow light hung like a veil of
transparent gauze over land and water, when, after
winding round one of the graceful bends of
the romantic Kennebec, and ascending an abrupt
and rocky eminence, up which the road wound,
the beautiful and wooded glen, with the turretted
chimnies of his paternal roof appeared, lifting
themselves above the oaks, in the midst of which
it stood. Reining in his horse upon the brow of
the hill, he gazed down upon the lovely scene, with
its sweeping river, relieved by a little vessel at anchor
upon its black glassy flood—its surrounding
hills, its venerable oaks, and serpentine walks—
with a thoughtful eye.

Gradually as he gazed, the scene before him faded
into indistinctness, in the approaching twilight,
and the young moon had launched her silver
barque upon the western sky—a timid sailor, venturing
each night, farther and farther up into the
heavens, and spreading her shining sail broader
and broader as she gains confidence from temerity
—before the young horseman shook of the spell
which had rendered him indifferent to external objects—a
spell, whose workings, to judge from the

knitted brow, compressed lips, and pale cheeks,
were of no pleasant nature. We will not attempt
to analyze his thoughts,—he dared not do it himself—nor
will we. Spurring his restless horse
down the precipice before him, as he perceived the
shades of night thickly gathering. he soon gained
the winding avenue leading to his paternal
dwelling.

Nearly four years had elapsed, and its halls had
echoed to the fall of no familiar footstep. During
that period, he had never visited it but once, when
scenes and events he would fain forget, were too
vividly revived, and he shunned a second time to
recall such unwelcome associations.

Now, as he rode forward the retrospection of the
past was clouded by a reminiscence that weighed
depressingly upon his spirits. Entering the bridle-path
which led to the dwelling, he slackened his
rein and moved slowly onward, musing upon the
approaching interview with his long absent parent
and brother, when the sudden glare of a light
flashed from one of the windows of the library full
upon his face, and roused him from his meditations.

Dismounting at the spacious gateway, he traversed
the broad gravelled walk to the house, with a
rapid step, anxious to hasten the meeting, which
his heart foreboded, would be tinged with both pleasure
and pain. He had placed his foot upon the
first step, to ascend to the portico, when the apparition
of a graceful female figure, gliding past the
brightly-illumined window, stayed his ascent, while
emotions of surprise and curiosity usurped for the
moment every other feeling.

“Who can she be?” was his mental interrogation
as her retreating figure disappeared. But
he had no time for conjectures, for the old grey-headed
gardener Phillipe, who had followed his

exiled master, through all his fortunes, recognized
him as he was taking his evening round about the
grounds, and by a loud exclamation of joy, intimated
his arrival to the whole household. The next
moment he stood in the presence of his father and
brother!

We will briefly pass over the interview between
them. By the former, his reception was dignified
and condescending; yet there was absence of affection
in his manner as he received his congratulations,
imperceptible to an ordinary observer, but to
which the lively feelings of the young man, were
keenly sensitive—a cold politeness in his look and
tone, such as a father should not wear to greet a
long absent son. And such was the proud spirit of
Achille, that he assumed a bearing of hauteur
and distant respect, which measured his parent's
coldness.

Henri, whose slight form and girlish beauty
were lost in a manlier elegance of person, met him
as brother should meet brother—frankly, affectionately,
and ardently. Achille returned his embrace
as cordially and sincerely as it was bestowed;
but a cold chill curdled the blood in his veins, as
unfolding him from his arms, the purple scar glaring,
half-hid by his flowing hair, upon his beautiful
forehead, caught his eye.

Days and weeks glided by, and Achille loved!

M. Langueville, a distinguished Frenchman, his
maternal uncle, and the only brother of his mother,
had married an American lady of eminent beauty,
and princely fortune. They both died within a
short period of each other, leaving an only daughter,
appointing his father the guardian both of her
person and inheritance. To receive this trust, was
the object of his visit to Europe; and on his return,
his ward accompanied him to make her uncle's
mansion her future home.

The lovely vision of the library was this cousin.
Gertrude Langueville, at the period of our tale, was
a noble creature, with a form of faultless symmetry,
voluptuously rounded, and just developing into woman-hood—a
rich bud bursting into a full-blown
rose.

Neither too tall, nor too short, her figure was of
that indefinite size, which a graceful poet has termed
“beautifully less.” In her manner she combined
the dignity of a woman with the naturalness
and infantile grace of a wayward child. The infinite
delicacy of her chiselled features, and the finely
turned contour of her expressive head, were unsurpassed.

Just turned sixteen, she knew the power to charm,
while she seemed not to use it, as, with the bewitching
grace of a girl and the refinement of a woman,
she enchained the admiration of those around her,
while they bent forward to listen to the rich, harp-like
tones of her voice in conversation. Her eyes were
of the mildest blue of heaven—the indices of a
pure and faultless mind. They spoke of a spirit
mild and gentle; yet her lofty forehead told that also
a spirit proud and high, slumbered within their gentle
radiance. Intellectual, she was both romantic
and imaginative. Few of her sex were gifted
with a mind of higher order, or more accurately
cultivated.

Obedient to the waywardness and contrarieties
of her character, she was at one moment a Hebe,
charming by her grace and vivacity, heightened by
the sparking expression of her eloquent eyes and
beaming face, upon which every thought brilliantly
played, like the reflection of sunny landscapes upon
a shadowed lake, mantling it with a richer beauty—
or, now a Minerva, commanding admiration and esteem
by her originality of thought, and the lofty
character of her mind.

Achille admired—loved—worshipped her!

We will not linger over the recital of his first
meeting with this charming girl, and the wild impassioned
progress of his love. With the impetuosity
of a mountain torrent, it merged every passion
in itself, absorbing all the faculties of his soul.

His love was unrequited.

4. CHAPTER IV.

Brown.

A MORNING EXCURSION—SCENE ON THE ICE—AN ESCAPE—
LOVE AND JEALOUSY.

Spring was just opening in that enlivening and
rapid manner peculiar to northern latitudes, when
Achille and his brother accompanied their cousin
on a morning excursion along the beautiful shores
of the river. The earth was clothed with the mantle
of green and grey, which young spring loves to
throw around her, and the morning was bright and
warm for the season, as if June had usurped the
wand of rude and blustering March.

They had reined in their horses on the verge of
a lofty cliff overhanging the river, and remained
gazing upon its icy surface, which, as far as the eye
could reach, north and south, presented one vast
plain of chrystal. The lateness of the season rendered
it imprudent to venture upon it, although,
except in its soft, white appearance, under the warm
sun, it presented no indication of weakness. Gertrude,
excited by the gay canter along the cliff, and

in unusually high spirits, proposed galloping across
the river, which, during the winter they had frequently
done, and ascend a hill on the opposite
side, from whose summit there was an extensive
prospect she had repeatedly admired.

“By no means, Gertrude,” exclaimed Achille,
“it would be rashness to attempt it.”

“I think not, cousin,” she replied, with that love
of opposition which is the prescriptive right of the
sex. “It is evidently very firm; only three days
ago, I saw several horsemen passing down the river
at a hand gallop.”

“But you forget the warmth of the sun, Gertrude!”

“Not enough to affect this solid mass before us,”
she replied, “at all events, I can but try it.”

So, slightly shaking her bridle, she cantered down
the smooth road to the foot of the cliff, rapidly followed
by the brothers.

“Do not venture upon the ice, cousin Gertrude,
I beseech,” mildly remonstrated Achille, when they
gained the beach, “you will certainly endanger
your life!”

“How very pathetic and careful, cousin of
mine,” she replied, with a playful, yet half-vexing
air; “if you really think there is so much danger,
we will excuse your attendance. I am fearless as
to the result, and quite confident that the ice will
bear Léon and me. See, now,” added she, as her
beautiful jennet bounded forward on hearing his
name, “ `Léon is more obedient to fayre ladies' commands
than their sworn esquires;' ” and her fine
eyes glanced mischievously as she spoke.

This badinage touched Achille, who was sensitively
alive to ridicule, especially from the lips of
the lady of his love. Biting his lip to suppress his
feelings, he calmly observed, “I regard not myself,
Gertrude, it is for you I speak. If you are resolved

to go, I shall certainly accompany you, although
the greater the weight, the more imminent will be
the danger.”

“So will Henri, will you not, Henri?” she said,
half-assuredly, half-inquiringly; and a sweet
smile, such as maidens love to bestow on their favoured
swains, dwelt, while she spoke, upon her
pretty lips, and mantled her cheeks, with a scarcely
perceptible shade of crimson.

Henri, who had remained silent during this brief
colloquy, though always close to his cousin's rein,
replied.

“Certainly, Gertrude, although I think with brother,
that there is a spice of temerity in the attempt.
Allow me to dis—”

“Allons then,” she gaily cried, placing her
gloved finger upon her cousin's mouth, and exciting
the spirited animal upon which she was
mounted to spring forward on to the crumbling
verge of the ice.

Achille buried his spurs in the sides of his horse,
and, in one bound, was the next moment at the
head of her palfrey and dismounted—with the rein
in his grasp.

“For God's sake, Gertrude, stop! you must not
venture so rashly,” he cried, with energy, “do not
go, I beg of you!”

“Loose my rein, Achille, and don't be so earnest
about a mere trifle,” she said, hastily.

“Nay, cousin,” said Achille, in a softer tone, “the
life of Gertrude can be—”

“Now don't be sentimental, cousin Achille;” she
laughingly interrupted, “do be just good enough to
free Léon's head. See how impatient he is.”

“Do, cousin, allow me to plead!”

“No, no, you know how I hate pleading;” and,
without replying further, she dexterously extricated
her bridle from his grasp, touched her impatient

horse smartly with the whip, and gaily crying,
“Sauve qui peut,” sprung forward like an arrow.

“Achille! your horse!” exclaimed Henri. “Mad
girl, she is lost!” he added, and spurring after her,
was in an instant galloping by her side. Achille
turned on the instant to vault into his saddle, and
beheld his horse, which he had left unsecured on
dismounting, coursing, with his mane flowing, and
the stirrups wildly flying, at full speed on his way
homeward.

“Holy devil!” ejaculated he, through his clenched
teeth, at the same time uttering a malediction upon
the flying animal; then turning to look after the
rash girl, he scarcely forbore repeating it, as he saw
her with his brother at her side, cantering over the
brittle and transparent surface of the river.

They were more than half-way to the opposite
shore, when a loud report, deadened like the subterranean
discharge of cannon, or the first rumbling
of an earthquake, struck his ears, accompanied by
a white streak, flashing, like lightning, along the
surface of the ice, from shore to shore.

“God of heaven!” he exclaimed, uttering a cry of
horror, as he saw the vast field of ice shivered along
its whole extent. With a loud voice he shouted for
them to return for their lives. Yet they heard him
not, although now evidently aware of their danger;
for they increased the speed of their horses, and
made for the opposite shore, to which they were
nearest, as the only chance for safety.

Suddenly, sharp reports, in rapid succession, like
the near explosion of musketry, reverberated along
the ice, which began to swell and heave like
the surface of the ocean in a calm. Save the
agitation on the river, all else was still. The skies
wore the pure blue of spring, the winds were
hushed, the air was close and sultry, and a deep silence,
like that of night, reigned over nature.

A wild cry of terror suddenly reached his ears,—
fearfully breaking the stillness of the morning. His
heart echoed the cry, but his arm could bring no
aid. The adventurers had diminished their furious
speed, and were hovering on the verge of a yawning
chasm, which had suddenly opened before
them. To advance was destruction; to retrace
their way equally threatening. There was a moment's
hesitancy, Achille observed from the summit
of a pyramid of ice, which had been thrown
upon the beach, and then he saw them turn their
horses' heads, and, with a rapid flight, seek, over
the moving, unsteady surface of the heaving flood,
the shore they had left.

Onward they flew, like the wind. The labouring
ice shivered and groaned in their rear, heaving
itself in huge masses of wild and fantastic shapes
into the air behind them. Near the shore towards
which they were now directing their fearful course,
the ice had yet remained firm. But, as they advanced,
it groaned, heaved, and rose in vast piles
in their path, while a yawning chasm gaped wide
before them. Loudly and despairingly Achille
shouted, as he indicated with his riding-whip, the
surer way of escape from this chasm, which was
momently enlarging; otherwise he could render
them no assistance.

They saw their danger, but too late. Their
impetus was too powerful to be resisted by the
slight fingers of the maiden, as she drew in her
reins with painful and terrified exertion, and her
horse dashed in among the broken and heaving
masses of ice, as they were agitated by the swelling
current, and hurled, crashing and grinding with a
loud noise, against each other. A wild cry pierced
the ears of the paralyzed Achille, and horse and
rider disappeared beneath the terrific surface.

Henri, who with a stronger arm had reined in his
fiery animal, no sooner witnessed the fearful plunge,
than, springing from his horse, he flew to the verge
from which she had leaped, and for an instant gazed
down into the cold, black flood, which had closed
like a pall over the lovely girl. The next moment
the deep waters received his descending form into
their bosom!

A moment of intense suffering, during which
Achille's heart distended almost to bursting, passed,
and the waters were agitated, and the head of her
favourite Léon came to the surface. The affrighted
animal glaring around, his dilated eyes intelligent
with almost human expression, uttered a loud and
terrific scream, and pawing with his fore-feet upon
the cakes of ice floating near him, made several
violent and ineffectual attempts, with the exercise of
extraordinary muscular exertion, to draw himself
up on to them; while the big veins swelled and
started out in bold relief from his glossy hide, his
nostrils expanded and gushed forth blood upon the
white ice, and audible groans came from his bursting
chest.

In vain were the tremendous and sublime efforts
of the noble animal—his strength gradually failed,
and he could at last retain his hold only with one
hoof upon the crumbling verge: that at last fell
into the water. The dying steed gave an appalling
cry, which the other horse, who stood gazing
on him with a look of sympathy, repeated, and the
shores caught up and re-echoed from cliff to cliff, till
it died away in the distance, like the wailing notes
of suffering fiends. Then, rolling his large eyes
round in terror and despair, he sunk from the sight
of the horror-stricken Achille.

“She is lost, lost, lost!” he exclaimed, mentally

imprecating his situation, which rendered it impossible
for him to assist her.

Vast cakes of ice, between the elevation upon
which he stood and the place where they had disappeared,
constantly rolled by, tossed and whirled,
like egg shells, tumultuously upon the fierce torrent.
Conscious of his total inability to afford the least aid,
he stood gazing like a rivetted statue upon the dark
sepulchre which had entombed the only being he
loved.

“Merciful providence, I thank thee!” he exclaimed,
dropping impulsively upon one knee, with
clasped and uplifted hands, as he saw appear above
the water, far below the spot where Léon sunk, one
after another, the heads of his cousin and brother.
She was lifeless in his arms, her luxuriant tresses
floating upon the waves, her beautiful head pillowed
upon his shoulder!

With a cry of joy he sprang forward to the point
towards which he was swimming among the floating
ice with his lovely burden. Henri was a bold
and experienced swimmer. In boyhood it was the
only amusement in which he delighted or fearlessly
engaged. Achille stood upon the utmost verge
of the ice, and cast his riding cloak out upon the
water, retaining the tassel that he might draw them,
now almost exhausted, to the shore.

“No, brother,” said Henri faintly, yet firmly.
And a triumphant smile lighted his pale cheek as
he declined the proferred aid. In a moment afterwards
he laid the fair girl upon the bank—the preserver
of her life!

Achille cursed in his heart the fortune that had
blessed his brother. When as he swam with her,
he saw her marble cheek reposing against his, his
arm encircling her waist,

“Would to God,” he muttered, in the dark chambers
of his bosom, “that she had made the cold

waters her tomb than be saved thus! But no, no,
too blessed a death for that proud boy to die. His
death shall be less sacred.”

His lip curled bitterly as he spoke, and his blood
fired with the dark thoughts his new-born hatred
and revenge called up. The passions which had
slumbered for years were once more roused within
him, hydra-headed and terrible.

Like a superior being, his brother gently laid the
breathless form of his cousin upon the bank. Achille
gazed upon them both for an instant in silence, and
while he gazed, felt his bosom torn with conflicting
emotions of love and hatred.

As he bent over the lifeless girl, chafing her slender
fingers and snowy arm, he half breathed the
wish that she might not return to consciousness to
be told that Henri was her preserver. He looked
upon his brother as he assisted him in restoring her
to animation, and felt that hatred, malice, and revenge
burned in the concentrated expression of his
glowing dark eyes; but as he encountered the proud
glance of his brother, and witnessed the calm dignity
of his demeanor, he withdrew his gaze from his face,
but hated him the more.

But a few minutes elapsed after she had been
laid upon the bank, when, accompanied by the old
gardener and one or two of the servants, their father
advanced rapidly towards them, having been alarmed
by the appearance of Achille's horse flying riderless
to the stables.

The breathless old man, instinctively comprehending
the whole scene, kneeled by the side of his beloved
niece, and by their united efforts she was soon
resuscitated. Then, for the first time, he looked up,
and observing the dripping garments of Henri, he
smiled upon him with that comprehensive and affectionate
smile, he wore when he looked upon those
he loved. But as he turned upon Achille, there was

no glance of affection, no smile of approval—his eye
was cold, severe and passionless.

Gertrude at length unclosed her eyes, gazed intelligently
upon those around her, and then resting
them for an instant upon the saturated dress of her
cousin, slowly dropped the lids again to shade them
from the light, while her lips, gently parted, and
almost inaudibly pronounced,

“Henri!”

Achille sprung as though a serpent had stung
him, and a fearful imprecation thrilled upon his
tongue. His father frowned menacingly, while a
smile, just such a one as passed over his face when
he rejected the proferred cloak, and which, from its
proud and happy, if not exulting expression, entered
his bosom like a poisoned barb, re-opening the wound
years had not healed, lighted up his brother's features,
and the glance accompanying the smile was
a glance of conscious victory.

5. CHAPTER V.

Dugald Moore.

A DECLARATION—SOLILOQUY—A MEETING BETWEEN THE
BROTHERS—ITS TERMINATION—A FLIGHT.

But a few days had expired since the events just
related, and the fields of ice had been swept to the
ocean. The beautiful river flowed onward silently
and majestically, gently meandering along the verge
of green meadows, or darting swiftly with noise and
foam around projecting rocks—its pellucid bosom
dotted with white sails, its sloping hills bursting
into green luxuriance, and its overhanging forests
enveloping themselves in their verdant robes.

Achille had passed the day ostensibly in hunting,
but really to prey undisturbed, in the deep-wooded
solitude of the cliffs, upon his diseased spirit.

The approach of night found him leaning
on his hunting piece, his empty game-bag lying
at his feet, standing upon the summit of a cliff
which overhung the river. The sun had just gone
down beyond the hills of Monmouth in his own
created sea of sapphire, the western star hung tremblingly

in the heavens, while the crescent moon,
half unveiling her chaste face, shed a holy light
down upon the earth, mingling her pale rays with
the golden hues of twilight.

The scene of his cousin's rash adventure and his
brother's triumph lay beneath him. A calm and
hallowed silence, broken only by the gurgling of
the waters as they swept by among the loose rocks
at the base of the cliff, or the sighing of the trees as
they waved heavily to the low, night wind, reigned
around him. The wildest spirit becomes gentler
under the soothing influence of such a time! But
the bosom of the young man was insensible to every
external impression. With a troubled brow and
trembling lip, while he crushed a starting tear beneath
his eyelids, he communed with his own wounded
spirit.

“Virgin mother! have I not loved her! loved her
as man seldom loves! Loved her did I say?—was
she not the object of my thoughts by day—the bright
spirit of my dreams! Did I not adore, (forgive me,
Mary mother!) worship her next to thee? Was
not her image enshrined within the inner and most
hallowed temple of my soul? Oh God, oh God!”
and he leaned his head upon his gun, and the big
tears coursed down his manly cheek.

The momentary weakness—if sorrow for shattered
hopes, and crushed aspirations be weakness—soon
passed away, and he stood up with a firm and collected
manner. His brow gradually became set, his
eye glowed, and a withering expression of rage,
curled and agitated his lip, while he continued in a
changed voice—

“Burning, burning truth! my thoughts will consume
me! I would not have profaned her hand by
a careless touch—yet I have beheld her in my
brother's arms!” With fearful calmness he uttered
these last words and in the same tone, added,

“The cheek by me held sacred—its profanation
sacrilege! I have seen laid upon his bosom. Nay!
I will think of it—turn each minute circumstance
over and round that I may survey it well—for it
feeds a passion I must let live, or die myself! Yes,
that cheek, that rich, delicate cheek, with the hue of a
rosy cloud, have I seen reposing upon my brother's—
imbibing from it life and warmth! I have beheld her
tresses mingled with his, her sylph-like waist encircled
in his embrace, and knew that their throbbing hearts
beat together, as in one bosom, beneath the wave.
And I remained silent!—calm!—for myself—
calm. Calm! I burned,—my glowing bosom was
in flames—yet—”

His dark meditations were interrupted by the hum
of low voices, ascending from the beach at the foot of
the cliff upon which he stood. Leaning over the precipice
he looked down, but the deep shadows at the
base obscured every object. Yet he listened with
every sense dilated and resolved into one single one,
as the wily Indian watches for the light footfall of
his foe; his expanded ear alone the organ of communication
with external objects.

A low melodious voice rose upon the still air like
music. It fell upon the heart of the listener, not as
melody falls upon the soul, soothingly, but with
the unholy influence of a spell, withering it to its
core.

“Nay, Henri, I love him not, I fear his wild and
ungovernable spirit—I fear, but I love him not!”

“But now, you said, dear Gertrude, that you could
not refuse your admiration for what you have termed
my fiery brother's noble nature and chivalrous
spirit. Are not these the qualities that win a maiden's
heart?”

“How little you are skilled, my dear Henri, in that
riddle,—a woman's heart! Such qualities may allure,
but never win. Achille can, and will command,

but never win, esteem. He may elicit admiration,
but never love!”

This was the language of the being Achille so
madly worshipped. And did he listen to the silvery
tones of her voice, thus crushing forever all his
hopes, in silence? Yes, such silence as precedes the
earthquake before it bursts. The voices had died
away, but they still rung with fearful echoes through
his bosom. In a few moments, whilst he stood transfixed,
overwhelmed by a wave of passions, a winding
in their path, brought the voices of his brother
and cousin again within reach of his ear, and as
they walked slowly along, he saw the white garments
of Gertrude glancing through the branches
of the intervening trees.

“Then, then it shall be yours, if the gift be worth
accepting!” he heard, in a scarcely audible voice.

“Rich—lovely treasure!” warmly exclaimed the
happy and favoured youth, seizing the graceful
hand she had ingenuously given him, and pressing
it passionately to his lips.

“Hell and devils!” muttered Achille through his
set teeth, and striking his forehead with his clenched
hand.

He had stood till now, with suppressed breath, a
burning eye and expanded ear, like a statue of
stone. But he could endure no more; and scarcely
suppressing a fierce cry, he sprung, leaping and
bounding like a mad-man, down the face of the
precipitous rock, in a direction opposite to that
taken by the lovers, and in a moment stood upon
the beach.

Hour after hour he paced the hard white terrace
of sand, and strove to calm the raging tempest in his
bosom. He bared his head to the cool night-breeze—
bathed his heated brow in the clear flood at his feet.
He gazed upon the placid moon and wooed its soothing
influence—upon the solemn forests and peacefully

flowing river; but the low voice of nature spoke to
his warring spirit in vain. Hour after hour passed
away, and he had given himself up to the guidance
of the dark spirit he could not control, and had
purposed revenge.

“The exulting boy shall feel what it is to cross
my path. He shall die! by heaven, he shall die!”
he whispered, through his compressed lips. At
the same instant a loud voice from the cliff rung in
his ear.

“Achille! Achille! are you there?” It was his
brother. Ascending the cliff with rapidity, the
next moment Achille was at his side.

“No, brother,” he sarcastically replied, with his
mouth close to his ear, “I am not there, but here!”
and as he spoke his voice sounded hoarse and unearthly.

Henri started; but observed, without further noticing
his brother's singular manner, that his father
having apprehensions for his safety, from his remaining
so long abroad, had requested him to seek him.

“Have you met with any game, brother?” he
enquired.

“Yes brother, a sweet dove and a cunning
hawk.”

“Did you secure the birds?”

“Aye, the hawk, but the dove,—the dove, although
it wounded me with its angry bill, I could
not stain its snow-white plumage with red blood.
But the subtler bird I have meshed.”

“Brother, your language and manner is strange
and unwonted, and your face by this faint light
looks pale and haggard. Have you met with aught
to embitter your spirit during the day?”

They now, having walked slowly forward while
speaking, stood upon the spot where Henri and
Gertrude plighted their loves in the sight of Achille.
He made no reply to his brother's inquiry, but stopping

suddenly, seized him with energy by the arm,
and gazed fixedly and revengefully upon his face.

“What mean you, brother? unhand me Achille!”
exclaimed Henri, alarmed.

The fires within, smothered for a brief space,
now raged tumultuously and fierce, breaking out
like a volcano, long pent up in the bosom of the earth.

“Know you where you stand?” he loudly and
angrily demanded.

“Release me, brother—what is your mad purpose?”

“Aye, mad!” he reiterated. “Yes, I am mad.
Know you where you stand?” he repeated, in a
harsh voice, while his eyes glowed visibly even
in the darkness of the deep shadows in which
they stood.

“God of heaven!” he shouted fiercely on receiving
no reply. “Speak, craven, or thus, I'll crush
you!” and with his iron fingers he pressed the
throat of his victim.

“Unhand me, brother!” cried Henri, till now unresisting
in the grasp of one, from whom he apprehended
no real injury, and whose violent rage he
supposed would soon subside. But he knew not the
irresistible power of the stream which he himself,
perhaps unconsciously, had contributed to swell.
He had not traced it from the fountain through all
its devious and subterranean windings, fed by a
thousand hidden springs, until it approached the
precipice over which it was about to thunder terrible
and mighty cataract.

“Do me no harm, Achille, I am your brother!”
he exclaimed, and with a strong effort freed his
throat from his grasp.

“So was Abel his brother's brother, and so—”
and his lip withered with scorn and hatred as he
spoke:—“and so is Henri MINE! but revenge—I
love dearer still. Henri, I hate you? Know you
this accursed spot, I again repeat?”

Henri now released from his violent hold stood
proudly up, and bareing his pale brow to the moonlight,
which fell down upon it through an opening
in the foliage like the visible presence of a blessing,
answered,

“I do, sir; it is consecrated ground; and I learn
from your strange language and manner, that you
have witnessed the sacred ceremony which hallowed
it!”

He spoke calmly, and in a tone of dignity, while
a proud, if not sarcastic smile played faintly over
his lips. Achille already insane with passion,
fiercely shouted,

“And it shall be doubly consecrated by a sacrafice
of blood! Proud fool, your mockery has sealed
your fate. I needed only this,” and springing
fiercely upon him, he seized him by the breast with
one hand, and, glancing in the moon while he
brandished it in the air, his glittering hunting-knife
descended like lightning into the bosom of
his victim. The warm blood spouted into the
face of the fratricide, and bathed his hand in
gore.

“Oh, Gertrude—my father—God—brother! I
for-forgive,” he faintly articulated, and with a
groan that sunk to the heart of the murderer, fell
heavily to the ground.

For a few moments the guilty being stood over
the prostrate body, with his arm outstretched in the
position in which he had given the fatal blow, his
features rigid his eyes glazed, and his whole person
as motionless as marble—the statue of a murderer
chiselled to the life! During that brief moment he
endured an eternity of suffering. The torments of
ages were expressed into one single drop of time!

Who may tell the feelings of the impulsive murderer
as he sees the life-blood gush out—the features
pale and stiffen, and the strong man become

at once a cold corpse at his feet, and when conscience
asks, who has done this—“I, I, I,”—oh,
how bitterly is the confession wrung from his bosom.

But we will not dwell upon this scene. The
fratricide fled, beneath the cold moon and glittering
stars, which like eyes of intelligence seemed to
look down reprovingly upon him. On he fled, nor
dared to look up to them; the little light they shed
became hateful, and he felt as though he would
draw darkness around him like a garment, hiding
himself from both God and man.

“Oh that the rocks would fall upon me and hide
me ever from myself!” he groaned inwardly; and
a loud voice within cried, “Vain, vain! live on!
live on forever!” And he buried his face in his
cloak and fled still onward.

The morning broke, and the miserable fugitive
still pursued the path which led along the shores of
the river to the sea. As the light increased, he
saw, for the first time, that his dress was sprinkled
with his brother's blood. He shuddered, and the
fatal scene rushed once more upon his mind in all
its horrors. Hastily plunging into the river, (alas!
for the tales of blood, of which river and sea are the
dumb repositories!) he removed all traces of the
deed he had committed, from his person.

Two hours before sunset he came in sight of the
bay, its bosom relieved by many green islands and
dotted with white sails. He hailed the broad
ocean in the distance with a thrill of pleasure.

Hastening to the coast, which was guarded by
lofty mural precipices, he swung himself down their
sides with that daring wrecklessness which is often
the surest means of success, and throwing himself
into a small boat which had been left in a cove by
some one of the fishermen, whose huts were scattered
in picturesque sites along the cliffs of the romantic
and rock-bound coast, he raised the little
sail, and steered out to sea.