University of Virginia Library

BOOK IV.

SIEGE.

1. BOOK IV.

1. CHAPTER I.

A FEW weeks before that memorable battle, the
last and most decisive fought during the recent war
between the United States and Great Britain, the
citizens of New Orleans were thrown into consternation
by the rumour of extensive naval and military
preparations making by the British, who were assembled
in great force along the northern coast of
the Mexican Gulf; and this alarm was still increased,
by the report, that they meditated a descent
upon the capital of Louisiana.

This point, next to the city of Washington, had
been always deemed in the eye of England, the
most important conquest she could make upon the
territory of her enemy.

And to this point all her forces were now concentrated
for the purpose of striking a blow, which
should at once terminate the war, and make the

Americans of the west, to use her proud language,
“prisoners in the heart of their own country.”

As the rumours became more frequent, and were
finally corroborated by official despatches, directed
to the legislative assembly which hastily convened
to deliberate upon measures for the safety of the
country, the panic increased, until distress, confusion
and forebodings filled the minds of all. Menaced
by so formidable a foe, without any regular
soldiering or means of defence in which to place
confidence, they lost all decision and energy. Business
was suspended, and the streets were filled
with groups, anxiously conversing upon the fearful
rumours, rife on every tongue, or with individuals
hurrying to and fro in exaggerated alarm; while the
roads leading to the interior of the state, were alive
with individuals and families laden with their more
portable wealth, seeking that safety beyond the
probable invasions of the enemy, which their fears,
and, among such a motley assemblage as constituted
the citizens, want of combination, prevented them
from securing by their swords.

Those, whose love for property, or disbelief of the
reports so generally accredited, or patriotism, induced
to remain, were united together by no common
bond; and destitute of that confidence in each other
which the crisis called for. Composed principally
of Spaniards, Frenchmen and Englishmen, each
national division viewed the coming events through
a medium of its own peculiar colouring. Mutual
jealousies arose and general disaffection usurped the
place of good faith. The legislature itself was disserved
and weakened by these party jealousies, and
their deliberations were only scenes of warm and
conflicting debate, from which none of the measures
resulted, demanded by the exigencies of the
time.

Some of the senators whose patriotism led them

to propose such steps as would place the city in a
state for receiving the enemy, were overruled by
others, whose prejudices inclined them either to the
side of the British, or to neutrality, in the character
of French citizens, or as subjects of Spain, with
which countries the English were then at peace.

At this period of indecision and civil anarchy,
and when every good citizen and reflecting man
was looking about for some one who would lead in
this emergency, the American chief of the southern
forces arrived at New-Orleans. His presence produced
a sudden and healthy change in the aspect
of affairs, and before he had been in the city one
hour, his name was upon every lip, either with
hope, or pride, or hostility, and the eyes of all
lovers of their country turned upon him, and marked
him as their leader in the great struggle before
them.

His presence and language roused them to a defence
of their rights, and kindled patriotism and hatred
for the enemy in their breasts. He excited them
to vigilance, and called them to put forth all their
energies for the approaching trial. He was seconded
by the governor of Louisiana, a few distinguished
senators, and numerous citizens. The confidence
which filled his own bosom, was communicated
to the desponding hearts of those around him,
and intrepidity, decision, and energy succeeded the
inaction and dismay which had before reigned in
the bosoms and minds of men. A new spirit invigorated
every breast, and men, strong in the righteousness
of their cause, rallied around the standard
of their country, prepared for the approaching contest.

He recommended to the legislature to change
their temporizing policy for unwavering and dignified
deliberations, burying and forgetting all minor
considerations, in their labour for the public good.

Those aliens who felt no attachment to the existing
government, and were ready to sell or surrender it
to the British, Spanish, or French, as either natural
faction predominated, were allowed, or compelled,
to quit the town.

Every resource that could contribute to the safety
of the city, was in requisition, and operations on
an extensive scale for its defence, were projected
with military promptness and skill. General confidence
became at once every where restored, and
with the exception of some disaffected citizens, who
were strictly watched, there was but one heart and
hand enlisted in the mutual defence. Regiments
were formed of the citizens, and, throwing off the
habits of a life, each man became a soldier. Even
women and children partook of the general enthusiasm;
and when the enemy were at the gates, the
day before the battle, the citizens appeared more
like rejoicing for a victory than preparing to withstand
a siege.

For the greater security of the country, martial
law was at length proclaimed throughout New-Orleans
and its environs, and the whole city became
at once under the rigid discipline of a fortified
camp. Patroles of veterans paraded the streets,
and guard boats were stationed at various points on
the river, before the city.

“All persons,” says a historian of the period,
“entering the city, were required immediately to
report themselves to the adjutant-general, and on
failing to do so, were to be arrested and detained in
prison, for examination. None were allowed to depart,
or pass beyond the chain of sentinels, but by
permission from the commanding general, or one of
the staff, nor was any vessel or craft permitted to
sail on the river, but by the same authority, or by a
passport signed by the commander of the naval
forces. The lamps were to be extinguished at the

hour of nine at night, after which time all persons
found in the streets, or from their respective homes,
without such passport, were to be arrested as spies,
and thrown into prison to await an examination the
ensuing morning.”

It is at this period of the war, and under these peculiar
features of it, at the expense of a slight anachronism,
that our scenes once more open.

The morning after leaving the island of Barritaria,
or Grand Terre, the party, consisting of the
buccaneer chief, his young companion Théodore,
and faithful slave Cudjoe, having rowed all the preceding
night through the sluggish and sinuous bayous,
reached a hamlet of fishermen's huts, nearly
hid in a cypress wood, and amidst tall grass, which
enclosed it on every side. Here they delayed, until
once more, under the cover of the darkness, they
should be enabled to enter the vigilantly-guarded
city unperceived.

Night, hurrying away the scarcely visible twilight,
had passed over city, river, and forest, obscuring
every object in the gloomy shade cast by her sable
wing. Silence reigned over all, that one short hour
before was active and animate, save the occasional
challenge of a sentinel, the ringing of fire-arms
accidentally struck together, and now and then
the dip of an oar—to maintain their position against
the current—heard from the guard-boats, which,
at regular intervals, formed lines across the Mississippi,
against various points of the city. Here and
there, a light gleamed in the mass of dwellings
along the margin of the river, or from the stern
window of some armed vessel at anchor in the
stream.

At the mouth of a narrow canal, opening nearly
opposite to the suburb Marigny, about a mile below
the main body of the city, and communicating

in the rear of the estate it intersected, with the
bayou which the outlaw and his party ascended
from the island, about half an hour after night had
wholly assumed her empire, lay a boat concealed
in the deep shade of a large oak overhanging the
entrance, its tendril-like branches nearly touching
the water. In it sat four boatmen resting upon
their oars, in the attitude of men prepared to use
them at the slightest word of command.

Against the tree, with his arms habitually folden
upon his chest, thoughtfully leaned the pirate, divested
of his cloak, and dressed in the ordinary garb
of his men, from whom he was distinguished only
by his superior height, erect figure, and the deference
shown to him by his companions.

Upon a gnarled root of the tree, which the action
of the water had laid bare, sat his companion engaged
in watching the changing lights moving along
the opposite shore, and listening to the challenges of
the guard boats—his pulse occasionally bounding
with the wild spirit of adventure, as the danger
attending their expedition occurred to his mind.

Cudjoe was hanging by his arms and feet, from
one of the drooping branches, as motionless as the
limb which bore him. The air was still. Not a
leaf moved, and the deep silence that reigned at the
moment, was made more striking, by the reedy-toned
ripple of the flowing water curling among
the tips of the slender branches, as, borne down by
the weight of the slave, they dipped in the rolling
flood.

“Cudjoe, down sir!” said Lafitte, suddenly addressing
the slave.

The African dropped from the limb and stood by
his master.

“You swim, Cudjoe!”

“Yes, Massa, Cudjoe swim like fis'.”

“Do you see that first boat there, just under
that brightest star in the range of those double
lights?”

“Yes, Massa.”

“It is one of the watch boats. There are but
two men in it—go up the leveé till you are about
one hundred rods above the boat—then strike off
into the river and let the current drift you against
her bows. If you are cautious you will approach
unperceived. Then get over the bows into the
boat and master the men the best way you can—
so you effect it without noise. But, slave, take no life.
When you have captured the boat, scull it here!”

“Yes, Massa,” he replied, displaying his tusks
with delight.

“Go, then.”

The slave, with a stealthy step left the shadow
of the tree, and glided along the leveé until he was
above the boat, when, from a projecting limb, he
dropped himself noiselessly into the river; his head
in the obscure starlight as he swum, resembling the
end of a buoy, or a shapeless block floating upon
the water.

2. CHAPTER II.

Sketches of the last war.

THE VOLUNTEERS—COLLOQUY INTERRUPTED—PRISONERS—
THE CITY.

The two men were sitting in the boat, engaged in
social discourse, one with his face to the stern,
the other fronting the bows, upon whose features
the rays of the light shone brightly.

“But, Mr. Aughrim, in your opinion, what think
these Englishers would do with't if they should,
(which is a mighty bad chance for 'em) take the old
yallow fever city?” said one of the oarsmen of the
boat, gently rubbing with his palm the head of a
carbine, whilst with the other hand he occasionally
dipped his oar into the water, with just force enough
to counteract the current.

“Why you see, Tim, dear,” replied his companion,
“the ould counthry has her eye open, sure! and
is not this the kay of Ameriky; it's a kingdom
they'll make of it at wanst—bad loock to the likes
o' thim. Faix, its for faar o' that same Dennis Aughrim
is this blissed night a 'listed sojer.”

“I reckon they'll feel a small touch of the alligator's
tooth, and a kick from the old horse Kentuck,

afore they turn narry acre o' land in the States
into a kingdom, come.”

“Troth, honey—bad loock to the likes o' my
mimory;” said the Irish volunteer rubbing that intellectual
organ, “sure I've heard that same big
bog-trotter of a hoorse, mintioned—the omadhoun!
An' has he divil of an alligator's tooth in his beautiful
mouth, Tim, dear—or is it ony a `figur o'
spache' as ould father Muldoodthrew, pace to his
mimory, used to say.”

“Look! what is that?” said his companion hastily,
pointing out a dark object floating on the water,
towards which they pulled for a moment, and then
again rested on their oars.

“Nothin' my darlint,” said Dennis, “but one of
thim same jewells that coom sailin' all the way from
furrin parts, about the north pole. We'll kape our
four eyes aboot us, sure, but divil a sthraw could
dhrift by, widout Dennis Aughrim's seeing it wid
his peepers shut.”

“Perhaps,” said his companion speaking slowly,
giving utterance to the thoughts the inanimate object
called up, “perhaps that old log has drifted by my
door, and the old woman and little ones have looked
at it, and thought how it was floating away down to
Orleans, where daddy Tim is;” and till it faded in
the distance from his eyes, he gazed after the floating
tree, which, even in his rude breast conjured up
emotions, for a moment, carrying his thoughts far
back to the rude cabin and the little group he had
left behind him, to go forth and fight the battles of
his country.

“Is it far, the childer and the ould 'ooman live,
Masther Tim?” inquired Dennis, chiming in with
the feelings of his comrade.

“It is in old Kentuck—Hark?” he said, as one
guard boat challenged another which was rowing
across her bows.

“An' thin is there the likes o' sich a hoorse in
your counthry?” inquired the Irishman after a moment's
silence, “faix, it's exthraordinary.”

“And you never saw old Kentuck?” said his
companion, recovering at once, the low humour
characteristic of his countrymen, “Well, he's a caution!
He's about four hundred miles long from
head to tail, and when he stands up, one foot is on
the Mississippi and another on the Ohio, and his
two fore legs rest on Tennessy and old Virginny.

“Thrue for you, indeed! Masther Tim; but sure
it's joking you are, Tim, dear,” said Dennis in credulous
surprise.

“Never a joke in the matter, paddy—he's a screamer
I tell you. Why, his veins are bigger than any
river in all Ireland, and he has swallowed whole
flat boats and steamers; and stranger, let me tell
you, the boys aboard, never minded but what they
were sailing on a river—only they said they thought
the water looked a little reddish. Why it takes a
brush as large as all Frankfort, and that's a matter
of some miles long, to rub him down, and every
brustle is a pine tree. When he drinks you can
wade across the Mississippi for a day after, just
about there. He snorts louder than July thunder,
and when he winks, it lightens—make him mad, and
he'll blow like one of these here new fashioned
steam boats.—”

“Oh! Holy mother! The saints betune us and
this omadhoun! But it must take the mate and the
praitees to feed him. Och hone!”

“But this is not all, Dennis;” continued his companion
with humour, amused at the credulity of his
fellow soldier; “his tail is like a big snake and as
long as the Irish channel.”

“The Lord and the blessed St. Pathrick betwixt
us and harm.”

“His back is covered with a shell of a snapping
turtle, that you could put your island under.—”

“Oh murther! but may be it's no expinse the
Prisident will be for a saddle. Lord! Lord!”

“Not a bit, paddy; nor a bridle either, for that
matter,” continued the Kentuckian with impertuble
gravity, while his companion, with incredulous
and simple wonder, listened aghast; “his head is
shaped like an alligator's, with a double row of teeth
and a large white tusk sticking out each side of his
mouth.—”

“Oh! the Lord look down upon us! there
he is!” suddenly shrieked the Irishman, and
fell senseless on the bottom of the boat. Before
the Kentuckian could turn to see the cause of the
alarm, the slave, whose hideous features seen
over the bows, combined with his excited imagination,
had terrified the simple Irishman, already
inflamed by the recital of his comrade, sprung forward;
and he felt the iron clutch of Cudjoe's fingers
around his throat, and his arms pressed immoveably
to his side. Until his captive grew black in the face,
the slave kept his hold; and when he found him incapable
of resistance, he seized the oars and pulled
into the mouth of the canal, opposite which the
boat had now drifted.

“Done like Cudjoe,” said his master, who had
watched with interest, the success of his plan, as
the boat touched the bank.

“Ha, slave! did I not tell you to shed no blood?”
he added angrily, as his eye rested upon the prostrate
forms of the boatmen.

“Cudjoe no spill one drop,” replied the slave;
“one sojer tinky me alligator, curse him; he make
one yell and den go to de debil, dead directly. Dis
oder big sojer—he only little bit choke.”

“Take them out,” he said to his crew, “and lay
them on the bank.”

In a few moments, the Kentuckian revived, and
looked around him in moody silence.

“You are a prisoner,” said Lafitte.

“And to the devil, I suppose, stranger,” he said,
looking at Cudjoe's ungainly figure. The next moment
a thought of his lonely family swelled his
bosom, and a desire to escape suddenly inspired
him. Leaping from the ground, while his captors
thought him incapable of rising, he threw himself
headlong into the river. In a few seconds, they
heard the water agitated far below them by his
athletic arms. He gained the shore on the lower
side of the canal, beyond pursuit, and his receding
footsteps were heard far down the leveé.

“Better he were free,” said Lafitte; “that man
would lose his life before he would betray the
watch-word. But this looks like baser metal,” he
added, placing his foot upon the body of the Irishman,
who, after being deluged with a few caps full
of the cold river water, revived.

“Oh! murther, murther!” he exclaimed, as a generous
discharge nearly drowned him—“Oh! the
hoorse—the hoorse! Och, murther me! It is kilt
you are Dennis Aughrim! Och, hone—”

“Up, sir, up, and stop that howling,” said Lafitte,
“taking him by the collar, and lifting him as a less
muscular man would a child, and placing him upon
his feet—

“What is the pass-word of the night?”

“The woord is't yer honor?” said Dennis, his
consciousness partially restoring—“and devil a bit
did I know, how ever I coome here. Oh, the
hoorse, and the alligathur!” he suddenly exclaimed,
looking about him, as if he expected again to see
the object of his fears—“and did yer honor pick
me from the wather, where he dhragged me to devoor
me. Oh! holy St. Pathrick! but it was a divil
of a craather.”

“Back, Cudjoe,” said Lafitte, as the slave was
gradually creeping round to intercept his vision.
“Give me the pass word of the night, soldier.”

“By dad, an' wid a heart an' a will would I
oblige yer honor; the mither in heaven send blessin'
on blessin' on yer honor's head; for savin' me
from droouin'; but Tim, Tim is it wid de bit paper.”

“No trifling man, or you will be worse off than
in an alligator's jaws,” replied his captor sternly.

“Oh, thin, dear, yer honor! but I must spake it
low,” and standing on his toes, he whispered in the
ear of Lafitte, the pass word of the night.

“'Tis as I thought,” he exclaimed. “Now get
into this boat and guide us up to the city; serve me
faithfully, and you shall soon be free; betray or deceive
me, and you die.”

“Oh, blissed mither! that Dennis Aughrim should
be prisoner to the Inglishers! and, poor craythur!
that he should lit them into the city, to make it a
kingdom. Och, Dennis! but you'll have to go
back to ould Ireland! Amiriky is no more to be
the free counthry o' the world. Och, murther me!
that Dinnis's own mither's son should come to
this!” he soliloquized, as he reluctantly stepped
into the boat for the purpose of betraying his trust.

Leaving orders for his men to remain in their
concealment until his return, and be on the alert
against surprise, the buccaneer chief stepped into
the guard-boat with Théodore and his slave.

Taking an oar himself, and giving the other to
his guide and prisoner, he pushed boldly out from
the bank, and confidently passed the line of boats,
every challenge from them being answered by the
familiar voice of the Irishman, as they passed within
two or three oars' length of the line of guard-boats;
all but the chief and the guide lying in the
bottom of the barge.

In about half an hour after leaving the shore, he
shot into the inlet of canal Mariguay, and nearly
under the guns of fort St. Charles. At this point
were collected many other boats and fishing craft;
and having passed the chain of guard-boats with
security, he pulled along side of the leveé, and into
the midst of the boats, without attracting observation.

Leaving the Irishman in the barge under the
charge of Cudjoe, of whom he stood in mortal fear
—the chief, accompanied by his companion, mounted
the leveé, and with an indifferent pace passed under
the walls of the fort. As he walked forward,
the esplanade in front of the city, was crowded
with citizens and soldiers, along which mounted
officers were riding at speed, and detachments of
soldiers moving swiftly and without music, down
the road which wound along the banks of the river.
At every corner he passed by guards posted there,
and nearly every man he met was armed, and as
the lamps shone upon their faces, he discovered that
expectation of some important event dwelt thereon,
giving a military sternness to their visages.

The parade was nearly deserted except by citizens
and soldiers, too old to bear arms in the field.
Without being questioned or challenged by any one,
for the hour of nine, when vigilance more thoroughly
reigned throughout the guarded city, had not yet
arrived.

Turning from the leveé and leaving the parade on
his left, he passed up Rue St. Anne to Charles-street,
without lifting his eyes to the cathedral, its
dark towers rising abruptly and gloomily against
the sky, overtopping the government house and
other massive public buildings around it.

A soldier in the uniform of Lateau's coloured regiment
was pacing in front of the government-house

with his musket to his shoulder. Against the wall
of the church, leaned a group of citizens and soldiers,
all of whom, though apparently off duty, wore arms,
and had the air of men who momently expected to
be called into action. A neighbouring guard-house
was full of soldiers smoking segars, burnishing their
arms and discussing the great subject of the expected
attack upon their city. Occasionally, a private
or an officer in uniform hurried past on the
trottoir, neither turning to the right or left, nor replying
to the questions occasionally put to them by
the inquisitive passers-by.

“Soldier, is the governor in the city?” inquired
Lafitte, stopping as he met the guard.

“You must be a stranger here, monsieur, to put
such a question,” said he, eyeing him suspiciously;
“next to her noble general, is he not the guardian
of our city?”

“You say well, monsieur—he is then in the government-house?”
inquired the buccaneer.

“Would you speak with the governor, señor;”
said one of the soldiers stepping up.

“I have important papers for him,” answered
Lafitte, looking at the man fixedly.

“You will then find him at the quarters of the
general in Faubourg Marigny—he rode by with his
staff not half an hour since,” replied the man.

“Thank you, monsieur,” said Lafitte.

As he spoke, the bell of the cathedral tolled nine,
and the report of a heavy piece of artillery placed
in front upon the parade, awoke the echoes of the
city, warning every householder to extinguish his
lights, and confining the inhabitants to their own
dwellings. The foot of the loiterer hastened as the
first note struck his ear, and a thousand lights at
once disappeared from the windows of the dwellings;
and before the sound of the last stroke of the

bell died away, the city became silent and dark.
After that hour, until sunrise, with the exception of
here and there one bearing about him a passport
from the American chief, every one abroad was on
the severe duty of a soldier.

“You have the pass, monsieur?” inquired the
soldier, whom he first addressed, extending his hand
as the clock broke the stillness of the night.

Lafitte gave the word which had passed him
through the chain of boats.

“It will not do, monsieur,” replied the guard,
“have you not a passport?”

The soldier who had directed him where to find
the governor whispered in his ear—“Pensacola.”

Lafitte starting, repeated the word to the guard;
adding, “I gave you before by mistake, the word
for the river.”

“It is well, monsieur,” said the soldier, giving
back, “pass with the youth.”

Lafitte and his companion turned and retraced
their steps to the suburb, occupied by the commander-in-chief.

As they were crossing Rue St. Phillipe, some
one called the chief's name in a distinct whisper.
He turned and distinguished the figure of the soldier
who had given him the pass-word.

“Ha! is it you, Pedro? I knew you then! but
how is this? Have you turned soldier?”

“For a time, señor captain—I must not starve.”

“Nor will you if you can find other man's meat,”
said Lafitte, laughingly. “I thought you had taken
your prize money and gone to Havana.”

“No, señor; a pair of large black eyes and one
small bag of five-frank pieces tempted me out of
that.”

“That is, you are married!”

“It is a sad truth, señor. I am now captain of

a carbaret on Rue Royal, and my dame is first officer.
And master Théodore, how fare you, señor,”
he said, abruptly changing the subject and addressing
the youth. “It is many a month since I have
seen your bright eye. Well, you are coming up to
the tall man,” continued the quondam pirate, curling
his mustachio and drawing up to the full attitude of
his five feet one inch, until his eyes reached to the
chin of the young buccaneer. “You will yet walk
a deck bravely.”

“How did you recognize me so soon?” inquired
Lafitte.

“When you folded your arms, and threw your
head up, in the way you have, while you spoke to
the guard, I said to myself `that's Captain Lafitte,
or I'm no Benedict.”

“Well, your penetration has done me good service,
Pedro.”

“Yes, señor; I wish you may always profit as
well by having your disguise penetrated. Your
tall figure, and way of fixing your head, will betray
you more than once to-night, if you are on secret
business, as I conjecture. A little stoop, and a lower
gait, like a padre, if such be the case, would be
wisdom in you, as you walk the streets. You
know the reward offered for your head, by the Governor.”

“I know it, Pedro; and you have no doubt seen
my proclamation for the governor's, wherein I have
done him much honour, valuing his head five times
at what he fixes mine,” said he, laughingly.

“And you are seeking him,” exclaimed Pedro.
“This is strange; but it is like you, Captain Lafitte,”
he added, impressively. “There were six
out of the seven standing with me, when you came
up, who would have taken your life for a sous, if they
could. Be careful señor! but if you are in danger,
you will find many brave hearts and ready

hands even in this city, to aid you. If you would
like a taste of Bordeaux or old claret of the true
brand, I should be honoured to have you seek it in
my humble carbaret. The wine, the carbaret—all I
have, is at your service, señor.”

“All? good Benedictine,” said his former Captain,
playfully, and with a stress upon the first word.
“But I'll come, if thirst drive me; so, adieu, and
thanks for your timely service to-night.”

“Adios, señor; the saints prosper you!” said
Pedro, taking leave of his chief, and returning to
his comrades; while Lafitte, with a firm and steady
pace, proceeded to the quarters of the commanding
general.

2. CHAPTER II.

Memoirs of the War.

HEAD-QUARTERS—CAPITULATION OF THE SENATE—THE GOVERNOR
AND HIS VISITOR.

In the Faubourg Marigny, and not far from the
canal of the same name, at the period of the war,
stood a large dwelling, constructed after that combination
of the Spanish, or Moresque and French
orders, peculiar to the edifices of this suburb of the
Louisianian capital.

It was two stories in height; massive, with thick
walls, stuccoed, originally white, but now browned
by the dust and smoke of many years. Heavy pilasters
adorned the front, extending from the pavement
to the cornice; the roof was covered with
red tiles, and nearly flat, surrounded by a brick battlement.
The street in which this edifice was situated,
fronted the river, and was principally composed
of similar structures, many of which approached
close to the trottoir, while others were separated
from the street by a paved parterre, filled

with evergreens and numerous flowers, leaving a
walk a few yards in length, to the dwelling. Two
or three, including the one we are describing,
were situated still farther from the street, in the
midst of a garden, with umbageous groves of
orange, lemon, fig, and olive trees.

To the house in question, led an avenue, bordered
by these trees, terminating upon the street, in a
heavy gate-way. The gate was of solid oak, and
placed between square pillars of brick, each surmounted
by an eagle, his wings extended, in the
act of rising from the column. The house, situated
about twenty yards from the gate, and fronting
the leveé and noble river beyond, upon whose bosom
rode many armed vessels, was square and very
large, surrounded by ancient trees, which even
at noon day defended it from the southern sun.

The spacious entrance of the mansion, with its
lofty folding leaves, or more properly gates, thrown
open, would freely admit the passage of a carriage.
It gave admittance from the front into a lofty hall,
paved, and without furniture, with doors leading
into large rooms on either side, and terminating in a
court in the rear, also paved, in the centre of which
spouted a fountain. The court was surrounded
with a colonnade or a sort of cloister, and was filled
with plots of flowers and huge vases of plants,
arranged with much taste by the proprietor in many
picturesque and fantastic forms.

About the hour of nine, on the evening with which
our story is connected, this dwelling presented a
scene of warlike animation. Sentinels were posted
in front; officers arm in arm, were promenading in
grave or lively discourse before the door—horses
richly caparisoned for war were held by slaves in
military livery on the street in front of the mansion,
where also a guard was posted in honor of the present

distinguished occupant. Citizens were occasionally
passing in and out with busy faces, and
hasty steps.

Horsemen, with brows laden with care or weighty
tidings, rode frequently up, and dismounting, threw
the bridles of their foaming horses to those in waiting,
and rapidly traversed the avenue to the house,
while others, hurriedly coming out, mounted and
spurred away at full speed.

A door leading into one of the large rooms from
the paved hall of the mansion, through which persons
were constantly passing, displayed within, rich
drapery, curtains, deep window recesses, alcoves
for ottomans and various articles of furniture indicating
the opulence of the citizen proprietor of the
dwelling. Swords, richly-mounted pistols, plumes,
belts, military gloves and caps were lying as they
were hastily thrown down, about the room, upon
ottomans, tables and chairs.

Near the centre of the apartment drawn a little
towards the fire place in which blazed a cheerful
fire, necessary even in this southern clime to dissipate
the damp and chill of the night, stood a large
square table, surmounted by a shade lamp and covered
with papers, charts, open letters, plans of fortifications,
mathematical instruments, a beaver military
hat without a plume, and an elegant small
sword with its belt attached, which a tall, gentlemanly
man, in the full dress of a military chief,
seated at the table, examining very intensely a
large map of Louisiana, had just unbuckled and
placed there.

The rays of the lamp falling obliquely upon his
high forehead, over which the hair slightly sprinkled
with gray, was arranged after the military fashion
of the period, cast into deep shadow his eyes and
the lower portion of his face.

Raising his head from the chart for an instant to

address an officer standing on the opposite side of
the table, his features in the bright glare of the lamp
which shone full upon them, then became plainly
visible.

The contour of his face, now pale and thin,
apparently from recent illness, was nearly oval.
His age might be about fifty. His forehead was
high and bold, with arched, and slightly projecting
brows, bent, where they met, into a slight habitual
frown, indicating a nervousness and irritability of
temperament, qualified however by the benevolent
expression about his mouth.

His eyes were dark blue, sparkling when their
possessor was animated, with a piercing lustre, and
when highly excited, they became almost fiercely
penetrating. His countenance was marked with
resolution, firmness and intelligence. His smile
was bland, his manners easy, and his address pleasing
if not winning, as he spoke to the officer opposite
to him. When erect, his height might be
above six feet, commanding and military. His
frame was rather slight, yet apparently muscular.
Although his physical conformation seemed to disqualify
him for the fatigues and arduous duties of
the camp, yet, the bronzed cheek, the deep angular
lines in his face, and the field-worn, and military
appearance of the officer, showed, that with the
hard details of a soldier's life he had long been familiar.

A gentleman in the dress of an American naval
captain, much younger than the soldier, with a brown
cheek, a frank air and manly features, leaned over
his shoulder with his eyes fixed upon the chart, and
occasionally making a remark, or replying to some
question put in a quick, searching tone by the military
chieftain.

In the opposite or back part of the room, walked
two gentlemen, both of much dignity of person and

manner; one of whom, by his dress, was an officer
in high command; the other was only distinguished
from a citizen by the military insignia of a
small sword, buff gloves, which he held in his hand,
and a military hat carried under his left arm. They
were engaged in low but animated conversation, one
of them often gesticulating with the energy of a
Frenchman, which his aquiline features, lofty retreating
forehead, foreign air and accent, betrayed him to
be. The citizen was graver, yet equally interested
in the subject of conversation. The tones of his
voice were firm, and there was a calm and quiet
dignity in his language and manner, more impressive
to an observer, than the gesticulative energy of
his companion.

In a recess of one of the windows, a group of
young officers stood engaged in low-toned, but animated
conversation; while two or three of a graver
age, promenaded the back part of the apartment
conversing closely in suppressed voices upon subjects,
which, from their manner, were of the deepest
import.

Suddenly, a heavy, ringing tread was heard in the
hall, and an officer of dragoons hastily entered, and
without noticing the addresses,—

“Ha! colonel! good evening.”

“What news, colonel?”

“Hot haste, ha! you Mississippians do nothing
by halves!” from several of the young officers who
crowded round him, he approached the table where
the general officer was seated and communicated
some information to him, which, from its instantaneous
effect, must have been of the most surprising
nature.

Starting from his chair, with his brow contracted,
his eye flashing, and his cheek reddened with emotion,
he exclaimed in a stern voice which rung
through the apartment,

“Capitulate! capitulate! the legislature capitulate!
By the G—d of Heaven we will see to that!
—Where learned you this daming treachery of our
disaffected senate, colonel?” he inquired, addressing
the officer, while his eye burned with rage.

“But now, Sir; as I passed the Capitol, I
heard it whispered among the crowd assembled
before the doors. Dismounting, I ascended to the
outer gallery and found the house closed—yet—”

“A secret conspiracy!” said the general, pacing
the room in excitement—” go on!”

“As I was about to descend, a member, M. Bufort,
came out and told me they were at the moment
agitating the subject of capitulation to the enemy,
and making at once a proffer to surrender the city
into their hands—”

“The false, cowardly traitors!” exclaimed the
commanding general incensed, and in a loud angry
voice—“By heaven, they shall be blown up with
their crazy old capitol to the skies. Governor,” he
said with readily assumed courtesy, turning to the
gentleman in the blue dress of a citizen, “my immediate
pressing duties will not allow me to go
in person and wait on these traitors. To your excellency
I entrust the office. Take a sufficient
force with you—closely watch their motions, and
the moment a project of offering a capitulation to
the enemy shall be fully disclosed—place a guard
at the door and confine them to their chamber. If
they will not take the field, they had better be
blown up to the third heavens, than remain there to
plot treason against the state.”

The governor accompanied by two or three of
the young officers, immediately left the apartment
to execute the command.

“My object in taking this step commodore,”
said the general, quietly resuming his examination
of the chart as the governor left the room, addressing

the naval officer,” is, that they may be able to
proceed to their business without injury to the state;
now, whatever schemes they entertain will remain
within themselves without the power of circulating
to the prejudice of any other interest than their
own. Like the serpent in the fable—if they will
bite, they must fix their fangs in their own coils.”

The gentlemen who remained in the room, were
gathered in a group near the door, conversing upon
the conduct of the senate—and the general, having
laid aside the chart, was engaged in affixing his
signature to some papers lying before him, when a
special committee from the legislative body was announced.

“Admit them!” said the chief somewhat sternly.

Three gentlemen in the plain habiliments of citizens
entered with some embarrassment; originated
perhaps, by the nature of their business.

“Well, gentlemen! “said the general officer
quickly, his brow clouding as he rose to receive
them.

One of the legislative committee advanced a step
before the other gentlemen of the deputation and
said with some degree of hesitation,

“We are sent, sir, officially from the legislative
assembly of this state, being ourselves members of
that body, to ask of you—as commander in chief of
the army, and to whom is entrusted the defence of
our city—what course you have decided to pursue,
should necessity drive you from your position.”

“If,” replied the general, his eye kindling and
his lip writhing with contempt, looking fixedly
upon each individual of the deputation, as if he
sought to make him feel his look—“if I thought the
hair of my head could divine what I should do, I
would cut it off. Go back with this answer! Say to
your honourable body, that if disaster does overtake

me and the fate of war drives, me from my line to
the city, they may expect to have a very warm
session! You have my answer,” he added, resuming
his occupation at the table, as he observed the
committee made no movement to take leave.

“Let me suggest o your hononrable body, however,”
he resumed ironically, raising his eyes as the
deputation were leaving the room—“that it would
better comport with the spirit of these stirring times,
while the roar of artillery is pealing in their ears,
if they should abandon their civil duties for the
sterner and more useful labours of the field.”

“And what,” inquired the naval officer in a low
voice, as the deputation left the department, “and
what do you design to do general, provided you are
forced to retreat?”

“Fall back on the city—fire it—and fight the
enemy amidst the surrounding flame! There are
with me gentlemen of wealth, owners of property,
who in such an event, will be amongst the foremost
to apply the torch to their own dwellings.
The senate fears this—and it is to save their personal
property from the flames, that the members
are willing to surrender the city to the enemy,” he
added indignantly. “And what they leave undone,”
he continued with animation, rising from his chair
and vehemently gesticulating with his hands, “I
shall complete. Nothing for the maintenance of
the enemy, shall be left in the rear. If necessary, I
will destroy New Orleans to her foundations, occupy
a position above on the river, cut off all supplies,
and in this way compel the enemy to depart
from the country.”

As he spoke, a messenger entered and handed
him a sealed paper. Hastily breaking it open, he
glanced over it with a quick eye.

“To horse, young gentlemen,” he said in a sharp
tone, addressing the group of officers, rising and

buckling on his sword; and taking his cloak which
lay on a chair beside him, he wrapped it closely
about his tall form.

“Well, commodore,” he said addressing the naval
officer as he took up his cocked hat and gloves,
“you will co-operate, as we have determined, with
the land forces. Urgent business now calls me
away; I will communicate with you on my return.”

“General,” he said, addressing the French-looking
military officer, whom we have already introduced
to the notice of the reader, “I shall be honoured
with your attendance for an hour. The night
dew will not hurt veterans like you and I, although
it may derange, perhaps,” he said pleasantly, “the
mustachoes of the younger members of our staff.”

At this moment the governor returned, and after
briefly stating to him the situation of affairs in relation
to the legislature, the general said,

“I will return before eleven, your excellency. If
you will do the honors of my household until then,
we will take our leisure to look over this business
the traitorous senators have thrust upon our hands
—as if they were not already filled.”

Taking the arm of the Louisianian general, he
then left the room; and in a few seconds the sound
of his horses feet, moving rapidly down the street
from the gate, fell upon the ears of the governor,
who was now left alone in the apartment.

Approaching the table, as the last sound of the
receding horsemen faded from his ear, he cast his
eyes over the map recently occupying the attention
of the general; and after tracing thoughtfully
with a pencil, a line from the mouth of the
bayou Mezant on lake Borgne to the Mississippi,
speaking audibly, he said,—

“Here is the avenue Packenham seizes upon.
It will conduct him close to the city. Well, let
him come—he will be caught in the nets his own

policy spreads. But these papers from the secretary
of war! I must look to them. This lynx-eyed
general must be ably seconded. What noble Romans
are our senators!” he added, his thoughts reverting
to the commands of the general he had just
seen executed. “They would fain capitulate before
the enemy is in sight.”

He then, taking up a bundle of papers, seated
himself by the table, the light falling upon his clear,
intellectual forehead, and unfolding them, commenced
reading with great attention, occasionally adding
or striking out passages, and making brief notes in
the margin. At length, having been several times
interrupted by individuals desirous of seeing the
chief, he closed the door, and gave orders to the
sentinel to admit no one, unless on business with
himself, and again became absorbed in the occupation
from which his attention had been so frequently
called off.

While thus engaged, and about half an hour after
the departure of the general and his staff, the challenge
of the sentinel stationed before the front door,
was followed by a low reply, and the heavy tread of
a man in the hall.

The door opened, and the governor lifting his
eyes, beheld enter, a tall man in the dress of a seaman,
who deliberately turned the key in the door
and approached him.

The act, the manner and the appearance of the
bold intruder, surprised him, and starting from his
chair, he demanded who he was, and the nature of
his business.

The stranger stood for a moment surveying him
in silence, his full dark eye fixed penetratingly upon
his features.

“Sir,” repeated the governor, after recovering
from his surprise, “to what circumstance am I indebted
for the honour of this visit?”

The stranger, without replying, drew from his
breast a folded paper, and approaching, whilst the
governor placed his hand upon his sword, laid it,
without speaking, upon the table.

He hastily opened and run his eye over it, and
then glancing from the paper to the stranger, alternately
several times, before he spoke, he at last said
while his brow changed:

“What means this, sir? It is but the printed
proclamation for the head of that daring outlaw, Lafitte.
Know you ought of him?”

The intruder advanced a step, and calmly folding
his arms upon his breast and fixing his piercing eye
upon him, said quietly and firmly—

“He stands before you!”

“Ha!” exclaimed the governor, starting back;
and seizing a pistol which lay near him, had just
elevated his voice to alarm the guard, as he levelled
the weapon, when Lafitte springing forward, grasped
it.

“Hold, sir! I mean you no harm! It is for
your good I am here. If I desire revenge, I would
not seek it beneath this roof, and thus place myself
in your power. Put up that weapon, your excellency,
and listen to me,” he added respectfully.

“nay, if you have business with me communicate
it, and let there be this distance between us.”

“As you desire, sir,” replied the Barritarian.
“Be seated, your excellency. I have received communications,”
continued the outlaw, as the governor
somewhat assured, took a chair and motioned him
to another, “from the British commander, that I
would confide to you. I feel they are of importance
to our common country, which, although outlawed,
I love.”

“You are a strange man, captain Lafitte—to enter
a city where thousands know you, with a reward
hanging over your head; and then voluntarily

place yourself in the power of the executor of the
laws you have violated; and on the pretence too, that
you can serve the state, which you have passed your
life in injuring! How am I to understand you, sir?
Shall I admire your intrepidity, or pity your duplicity?”

“Different language becomes our interview, monsieur
governor. At no small risk and trouble have
I undertaken this expedition. Fearlessly have I
placed myself in your excellency's power, trusting
that your sense of justice, would appreciate my confidence.”

“I do appreciate it, sir,” replied the governor,
after a moment's deliberative silence; “and whatever,
so that you do not forget yourself, may be the
issue of this interview, which I warn you must be
brief, for the general and his staff will soon return,
I pledge you my word as a gentleman and governor
of this state, that you shall go as free and as secret
as you came. I respect your confidence, and will
listen to what you have to communicate in reference
to the public welfare.”

Lafitte then briefly related his interview with the
British officer, stated and enlarged upon the overtures
so tempting to a band of proscribed men, who,
weary of their precarious existence, might be desirous
of embracing so favourable an opportunity of
recovering an honourable attitude among men, by
ranging themselves under the banners of a nation
so powerful as the English. After stating his reception
of the officers, and his expedient to obtain
delay to communicate with his excellency, he continued,

“Although a reward is suspended over my head
—although I have been hunted down like a wild
beast by my fellow citizens—although proscribed
by the country of my adoption—I will never let
pass an opportunity of serving her cause to the

shedding of my blood. I am willing to make some
atonement for the violence done to your laws
through my instrumentality. I desire to show you
how much I love my country—how dear she is to
me! Of this my presence here, and these papers
which I bear, are convincing proofs. A British officer
of high rank, whose name you will find appended
to the papers I lay before you, has made me
propositions to which few men would turn a deaf
ear. Two of them are directed to me. One is a
proclamation to the citizens of this state, and the
fourth, admiral Percy's instructions to that officer
in relation to his overtures to myself.”

4. CHAPTER IV.

Latour.

Marboi's Louisiana.

INTERVIEW BETWEEN LAFITTE AND THE GOVERNOR—AN ADVENTURE
IN THE STREETS.

After having placed the papers in the governor's
hands, Lafitte turned away and walked to the window.

“Indeed,” exclaimed the governor, glancing over
the papers, preparatory to a more thorough examination,
as he read audibly the several signatures.
Then taking the letter of the British officer addressed
to Lafitte; he read it aloud, commenting upon
every few lines.

“I call upon you with your brave followers to
enter into the service of Great Britain in which you
shall have the rank of captain.”

“Indeed,” said the governor, looking up at Lafitte
with interest and surveying as his eye lingered over
it for a moment, his commanding figure. “Lands,”
he continued, “will be given to you, all in proportion

to your respective ranks in his majesty's colonies in
America.” (Ha, this is indeed counting the birds
rather prematurely) he soliloquized. “Your property
shall be guaranteed—your persons protected.”
“I herewith enclose you a copy of my proclamation
to the Louisianians, which will, I trust, point
out to you the honourable intentions of my government.”

“Humph! honourable! It is nevertheless a fine
round period.”

“You may be a useful assistant to me in forwarding
them: therefore, if you determine, lose no time.
We have a powerful reinforcement on its way here.
And I hope to cut out some other work for the
Americans than oppressing the inhabitants of Louisiana.”

“Humph! it is to be hoped so.—Well, this is a
most praiseworthy document,” said he, laying it
aside, and again glancing at the pirate, who stood
silently at the window, apparently gazing out upon
the stars; but his eye watched every expression of
the governor's features.

“Now, what says this scion of nobility, commander
of his majesty's fleet,” continued his excellency,
opening a second paper. “This is to Captain
Lockyer, and seems to be a letter of instructions:”

“Sir—You are hereby required and directed, after
having received on board an officer belonging to
the first battalion of royal colonial marines, to proceed
in his majesty's sloop under your command,
without a moment's loss of time, for Barritaria.
On your arrival at that place, you will communicate
with its chief, and urge him to throw himself upon
the protection of Great Britain; and should you
find the Barritarians inclined to pursue such a step,
you will hold out to them that their property shall
be secured to them and that they shall be considered
British subjects; and at the conclusion of the

war, lands within his majesty's colonies in America”—(“yet
to be won, worthy admiral,” said the
governor, in parenthesis,)—“will be allotted to
them. Should you succeed completely in the object
for which you are sent, you will concert measures
for the annoyance of the enemy as you judge
best, having an eye to the junction of their small
armed vessels with me, for a descent upon the
coast.”

“So much for the son of Lord Beverly,” said the
governor, in a tone of irony. “These papers are
growing in importance. What is this?”

“Proclamation, by Lieutenant-Colonel Edward
Nicholls, commanding his Britannic majesty's forces
in the Floridas.”

“This sounds well.”

“NATIVES OF LOUISIANA!

“On you the first call is made to assist in liberating
from a faithless, imbecile government.”—
(“Humph!”)—“your paternal soil!—Spaniards,
Frenchmen, Italians, and British!—whether settled,
or residing for a time in Louisiana, on you, also, I
call to aid me in this just cause. The American
usurpation in this country must be abolished, and
the lawful owners of the soil put in possession.

“I am at the head of a large body of Indians!”
(“Humph! British valour! British chivalry!”)—
“well armed, disciplined and commanded by British
officers. Be not alarmed, inhabitants of the
country, at our approach”—(“Jupiter tonens!”)
—“rest assured that these red men only burn
with an ardent desire of satisfaction for the wrongs
they have suffered from the Americans, to join
you in liberating these southern provinces from
their yoke, and drive them into those limits formerly
prescribed by my sovereign.”

“Bah! this has a tinge of the Eton fledgling!”

“The Indians have pledged themselves”—(“blessed
pledge! assuredly”)—“in the most solemn manner
not to injure in the slightest degree, the persons
or properties of any but enemies to their Spanish
or English fathers. A flag over any door, whether
Spanish, French, or British, will be a certain
protection, nor dare any Indian put his foot on the
threshold thereof, under penalty of death from his
own countrymen. Not even an enemy will an Indian
put to death, except resisting in arms.”

“Well, verily, the rhodomantine Captain must
have tamed his painted allies by some mode unknown
to us. He thinks to conquer by proclamation.
The gallant Lawrence should have taught him
better. So he concludes”—“accept of my offers;
every thing I have promised in this paper, I guarantee
you on the sacred honour of a British officer.”

“Given under my hand, at head-quarters.”

“These papers, Captain Lafitte, united with
your verbal communications, are indeed important,”
said the governor, rising and approaching the outlaw,
with dignity and respect in his manner.

“I do not wish to offend your feelings, sir; but
in the relation in which we stand to each other, I
must have authority for acting upon the knowledge
of their contents I possess. What other authority
than your own word, have I that they are genuine?”

“My person, your excellency!” he replied, with
firmness and unchanged features; “I am your prisoner
till you can ascertain from a more credible
source, the genuineness of these letters, and the
truth of my statements.”

“Captain Lafitte,” said the Governor, struck
with his manner, “I cannot do otherwise than place
confidence in you. I believe you sincere. The
letters themselves bear upon their face, also, the
stamp of genuineness. I will call a council in the

morning of some of the principal officers of the navy,
army, and militia, and, informing them how I
obtained them, submit these letters to their opinions.

“Captain Lafitte,” he continued, in a more friendly
tone, “I know not the motives which induced
you all at once to adopt this honourable course. I
am willing to attribute it to the best—a desire to regain
your standing in society, to atone for your past
violence to the offended laws of your country, and,
to the patriotism of a good citizen. As the last I am
willing to consider you. There is my hand, sir, in
token of amity between us! The proscription
against you shall be revoked, and I shall feel proud
to rank you hereafter among the defenders of our
common country.”

Lafitte, moved by the language of the governor,
replied, with emotion:

“Again, your excellency, I feel my bosom glow
with virtuous emotions. You do justice to my motives,
and I am grateful to you. This reception I
had not anticipated when I determined to make you
the repository of a secret, on which, perhaps, the
tranquillity of the country depended; but I knew
that it was in the bosom of a just man, of a true
American, endowed with all other qualities which
give dignity to society, that I was placing this confidence,
and depositing the interests of my country.

“The point I occupy, is doubtless considered important
by the enemy. I have hitherto kept on the
defensive, on my own responsibility. Now, sir, I
offer my services to defend it for the state. If the
enemy attach that importance to the possession of
the place, they give me room to suspect they do,
they may employ means above my strength. In that
case, if you accept of my services, your intelligence
and the degree of your confidence in me, will suggest
to you the propriety of strengthening the position

by your own troops. If your excellency should decline
my services, at least I beg you will assist me
with your judicious council in this weighty affair.”

“I know not how to express the pleasure I experience
in recognising this extraordinary change in
you, captain Lafitte,” replied the governor; his noble
features beaming with benevolence and gratification.
“So far as my influence extends I accept
your services; but there must be a preliminary and
indispensable step! A pardon for all offences is
first necessary, and this can be granted only by the
president. Your disinterested and honourable conduct
shall be made known to the council in the
morning, and if I can aid you in setting out in your
new and high minded career, my services and counsels
are cheerfully at your command.”

“You can do so, your excellency!” replied the
outlaw.

“In what?”

“In procuring my pardon from the President, and
also that of my followers.”

“Cheerfully! I will at once, by the next post, recommend
you to the favour of the executive.”

“I thank you, sir!” said Lafitte, and turned away
with a full heart to conceal his emotion.

The reception he had met with by the governor,
whom he esteemed—his ready wish to forget his
offences—the prospect of returning to the world, and
of regaining his attitude in society, came over him all
at once with powerful effect. Then, prominent, and
superior to all, the image of Constanza floated before
his mind, and his bosom swelled with renewed being.
The wishes—the hopes—the prayers, of many
days of penitence and remorse, were now about to
be realized! A career in the American army was
open before him—fame, honour, and perhaps love, to
reward him; for, notwithstanding all the barriers
surrounding the young Castillian, he still cherished

a half-formed hope, that she might one day reward
him with her heart. He could not think that a being,
who had exerted such an influence over an important
period of his life, who had thus turned the
current of his destinies, and by her gentle virtues
led him to love virtue for her sake—should come
and depart again, as angels visit earth, and never
more lighten or influence his pilgrimage through the
world.

The governor remarked his emotion, and with
ready delicacy divining the cause, turned once more
his attention to the papers which he still held in
his hand.

“Before I leave your excellency,” said Lafitte,
after a few moments silence—the silence of a heart
too full for utterance—“I desire to learn something
definite as to the course to be pursued with reference
to these disclosures.”

“I have offered to defend for you that part of
Louisiana I now hold. But not as an outlaw, would
I be its defender! In that confidence, with which
you have inspired me, I offer to restore to the state
many citizens, now under my command, who, in the
eyes of your excellency, have perhaps forfeited that
sacred title. I offer you them, however, such as
you could wish to find them, ready to exert their
utmost efforts in defence of their country. As I
have remarked before, the point I occupy is of
great importance in the present crisis. I tender not
only my own services to defend it, but those of all
I command, and the only reward I ask, is, that a
stop be put to the proscription against me and my
adherents, by an act of oblivion for all that has been
done hitherto. I am, your excellency,” and his
voice betrayed emotion as he continued, “the stray
sheep, wishing to return to the sheep-fold![1] If you
were thoroughly acquainted with the nature of my

offences, I should appear much less guilty, and still
worthy to discharge the duties of a good citizen and
an honest patriot. I might expatiate on the proofs
of patriotism I have shown this evening, but I let
the fact speak for itself. I beg you to submit to
your council and to the executive what I have advanced.
The answer of your council I will await
until to-morrow noon, when I will send for it, by
one who will not be molested. Should it be unfavourable
to my sincere prayers, I shall turn my
back upon the dazzling offers of the British government,
and for ever leave a soil, which, dearly as I
love, I am thought unworthy to defend! Thus will
I avoid the imputation of having co-operated with
the enemy, towards an invasion on this point I
hold—which cannot fail to take place—and rest secure
in the acquittal of my own conscience.”

“My dear sir,” said the governor with undisguised
admiration of his sentiments; “your praiseworthy
wishes shall be laid before the gentlemen
whose opinions and councils I shall invite early to-morrow,
to aid me in this important affair. Your
messenger shall receive an answer by noon. I will
also confer upon the subject, with the commanding
general on his return. Perhaps your pardon,” he
added hesitatingly, “may rest upon a condition. I
have thought of proposing to the council, that your
own, and the services of your adherents be accepted
to join the standard of the United States; and, if your
conduct, meet the approbation of the general commanding,
I will assure you of his co-operation with
me, in a request to the President, to extend to all
engaged, a free and full pardon.”

“With these conditions, I most willingly comply!”
said Lafitte. “I must now leave you sir,
but,” he added, laying his hand upon his heart,
“with sentiments of permanent gratitude!”

“Have you the pass-word of the night, Captain

Lafitte?” inquired the governor, turning to the table.

“I have, your excellency.”

“Farewell then, sir! I am your friend. When
we meet again, I trust it will be in the ranks of the
American army;” said the governor smiling, and
extending his hand to the chief.

Lafitte seized, and grasping it warmly, pressed it
to his lips, and precipitately left the room.

Passing through the hall, he was re-joined by
Théodore, with whom he left the mansion, and after
replying to the challenge of the sentinel at the gate,
the two passed at a rapid pace down the street.

The moon was just rising, and they had been
walking but a few minutes, when a clattering of
horses' hoofs and the ringing of arms were heard at
the extremity of one of the long streets, intersecting
that, they were traversing, and in a few moments,
with nodding plumes, ringing swords, and jingling
spurs, the general in chief with his staff, and
followed by two or three mounted citizens, turned
the angle of the street, and dashed past them down
the road to his head quarters.

The outlaw and his companion had nearly gained
their boat, and were walking in the shadow of
fort St. Charles, along the canal, where it was
secured, having met no one but the horsemen, and
occasionally, a guard who challenged and allowed
them to pass, since they had left the house, when
their attention was attracted by a figure gliding
along the side of the canal Marigny, and evidently
seeking to escape observation.

They drew back within the shadow of a building
on the banks, when the figure passed them, almost
crawling upon the ground. Avoiding the street, immediately
afterward, he dropped without noise into
the water, swum to the side where they stood, and
cautiously ascending the leveé or bank, paused a
moment and peered over the top.

Apparently satisfied that he was unobserved, he
then crept along to the side of the fort and lingering
a moment, disappeared around the angle, leaving a
paper affixed to the wall.

“Here is mischief brewing.” said Lafitte—“Did
you observe that fellow closely Théodore?”

“Yes, I thought at first it was Cudjoe.”

“No—no—he is too tall for him”—“we will see
what he has been at.”

Followed by Théodore, he left the canal and advanced,
until he stood under the walls of the fort.

“It is too dark to read in this pale moon; we
will take the paper to the light,” he said passing
round the fort, to a lamp burning in the gate-way,
and over the head of a sentinel posted there.

“Ho, who goes there?”—he challenged as they
approached. Answering the challenge, Lafitte
added;

“Here, guard, is a paper, but now stuck upon the
wall of your fort by a skulking slave, who just disappeared
among yonder china trees—I fear it
hodes mischief in these perilous times!” and as he
spoke, he held up the placard to the light. On it
was printed in large letters both in French and
Spanish,

“Well, this is most politic—`said Lafitte,' our
enemy fights with printed proclamations, signed too
by admiral Cochrane and major general Keane!
Preserve slaves! These Englishmen have shone me
what reliance is to be placed on their promise to
preserve slaves to their masters. Did they not by
their insurrection, expect to conquer Louisiana?”

The soldier who heard him read the placard, was
about to call for two or three comrades within the

guard room, to pursue and arrest the black, when
Lafitte interrupted him.

“Hold, my good man! I know his figure, and the
way he has taken. I will pursue him!” and adding
to Théodore “now we will show our attachment to
the cause we have embraced,” followed the slave.
In a few moments, after passing two other placards,
which Théodore tore down, they saw him
—his form hardly distinguishable among the trunks
of the trees—apparently engaged in affixing another
of the proclamations to a limb. They cautiously
approached, when the negro discovering them,
and supposing himself unseen, drew himself up
into the tree to escape detection as they passed
by. But this action was detected; and Lafitte
walking rapidly forward, before he could conceal
himself, caught him by one of his feet.”

“The negro drew a long knife and would have
plunged it into the arm of his captor, over whose
head it gleamed as he raised it for the blow, had
he not caught his hand, and hurled him with violence
to the ground.

“Oh mossee beg a mercy mossee, pauvre négre—
nigger gibbee all up,” he cried rolling upon the
ground in pain. Lafitte grasped him by the arm
and drew from his breast a large bundle of placards.
“Who gave these to you slave?”

“Mossee de English ossifer.”

“Where is he?”

“Down by mossee Laronde's plantation; he tellee
me stick um up in de city; dey stick um up all 'long
on de fence down de Leveé mossee. Now mossee,
good, sweet, kind mossee, lettee poor négre go, he
hab tell mossee all de libbing trufh.”

“You must go with me,” replied his captor,
heedless of the chattering and the prayers of the
slave; and leading him by the arm, he returned and
delivered him to the guard at the fort.

“Take him to the governor in the morning,” he
said to him as he called some of his comrades to
receive him.

“Thank you Monsieur,” said the guard, as Lafitte
turned away. “You are a good patriot. I
would all the citizens were like you. Will you
take wine?”

“No, Monsieur.”

“Who, shall I tell the governor, has taken this
prisoner?”

He wrote the word “Lafitte,” with a pencil
upon one of the bills, and folding it up, handed it to
him; and before the guard could decipher it, he had
disappeared below the leveé. Springing into his boat,
he waked the Irishman, who had fallen asleep, and
sought once more, through the chain of guard-boats,
the barge he had left secreted at the mouth of the
artificial inlet to the bayou. Then releasing his
Irish prisoner, with a warning to be less afraid of
alligators, and to keep better watch when on post,
he entered his own boat; and before the break of
day, was again concealed among the huts of the
fishermen, which he had left early on the preceding
evening.

5. CHAPTER V.

Latour.

DECISION OF THE COUNCIL—ITS RECEPTION BY LAFITTE—HIS
DESTINATION—A STORM.

The decision of the council, convened by the Governor
of Louisiana, in the executive department of
the government house the following morning, for
the purpose of laying before it the letters of the
British officers, and consulting with them respecting
the offers of the outlaw, is recorded in the history
of that period.

After communicating the information contained
in the letters, and stating the manner in which they
had fallen into his hands, and his reasons for believing
them genuine, the governor submitted for their
consideration, two questions.

“Is it your opinion, gentlemen, that these letters
are genuine? and—is it proper, as governor of this
state, that I should hold intercourse, or enter into
any official correspondence with the Barritarian outlaw
and his associates?”

After a warm discussion, an answer was returned

in the negative, and with but one exception, unanimously.

Major General Villeré stood alone in the affirmative.

This gentleman, as well as Governor Claiborne,
who, president of the council, was disqualified from
giving his opinion, was not only convinced of the
authenticity of the papers brought by Lafitte, but believed
he and his adherents might be so employed
at the present crisis, as greatly to contribute to the
safety of the state, and the annoyance of the enemy.

With this impolitic decision, which time showed
to be unjust and premature, the council broke up.
So far indeed, were they from placing confidence
in Lafitte, that they suggested to a naval officer
forming one of the council, whom we have before
introduced to the reader, who had been for several
days fitting out a flotilla destined for the island
of Barritaria—a descent upon which, having been
some months in contemplation—the propriety of
hastening his preparations for the expedition.

Proceeding from the council chamber to his vessel,
the commodore found he could immediately get
under weigh. The same evening, therefore, taking
with him a detachment of infantry, he gave the signal
for sailing, and moved down the river towards
the destined point of attack.

About noon, the Barritarian chief, ignorant of the
proceedings in which he was so deeply interested,
sent Théodore to the city, for the purpose of receiving
the reply of the governor.

“Well, Théodore, what news?” inquired he,
standing in the door of one of the rude fishermen's
huts, as the boat, which had conveyed the youth, appeared
in sight from the concealment of the narrow
banks of the creek, lined with tall grass and cypresses
which, stretching across from either side nearly
met over the water;“Saw you the governor?”

“I did, monsieur, and a gentleman of noble presence
he is,” replied Théodore with animation; “he
spoke of you in such terms, that I could not but
like him.”

“But what said he?” interrogated the chief anxiously,
springing into the barge by the side of the
youth, “Heard you the decision of the council?”

“Here is a note for you, which he gave me.”

He seized it and read hurriedly—

“M. Lafitte must regret equally with myself, the
decision of the council. It is against your sincerity
and the genuineness of the letters. General Villeré
alone, was of my opinion, of which you are already
informed. Be patient, dear sir—take no rash steps.
I have unlimited confidence in you. I will consult
with the commanding general at the earliest convenience—remain
firm, and your wishes may yet
be achieved. You could not have shown your sincerity
better, than in apprehending the slave last
night. This seal of good faith shall be remembered,
and will materially advance your suit.”

“Is this the way my proffers are received?” said
Lafitte fiercely, with a deep execration, crushing the
note in his clenched hand, while his face grew livid
with passion and disappointment; “Is it thus I am
treated—my feelings trifled with—my word doubted—myself
scorned—despised! If they will not
have my aid, their invaders shall,” he shouted. “To
your oars, men—to your oars!” he said, turning to
his boat's crew. “We must see Barritaria to-night
—I have work for all of you.”

“And for me too, ugh?” said inquiringly, a tall, gray-headed
and dark-visaged Indian, arrayed in loose fisherman's
trowsers, his head and neck passed through
the aperture of a gaily-dyed Spanish ponto, coming

forth from the hut, and standing as he spoke, supported
by a boat-hook, on the verge of the bank.

“Yes, Chitalusa, but not with me. You are
better here. I will soon find you other fish to
catch. Mark me Chitalusa,” said the pirate, hoarsely,
in the ear of the Indian—“before New-Year's
eve, you will find a red snake, with scales of steel,
and more dangerous than the green serpent of your
tribe, with ten thousand human feet beneath his
belly, winding up this bayou, past your hut.”

“Ugh! me un'stan',” said the Indian, his eyes
sparkling with pleasure, but whether malignant, or
a mere expression of delight, it was difficult to determine.

“Then wait here, under cover, till you see it, and
I will then find work for you, chief,” said Lafitte,
springing into the boat and seating himself in silence.

As the men plied their oars, and moved swiftly
down the bayou, the Indian, who was the last of
his name and race—with whom would expire the
proud appellation, centuries before recognised among
other tribes, as the synonyme for intelligence, civilization,
and courage—The Natchez! The injured,
persecuted, slaughtered, and unavenged Natchez—the
Grecians of the aboriginal nations of North
America! The eloquent language of a native poet,
with truth and feeling, might have flowed from the
lips of the old exile—exile, on the very lands over
which his fathers reigned kings—now doomed to
seek a precarious existence, among the Spanish
fishermen of the lakes, wilder, ruder even than himself:

As the boat receded, he muttered, “Ugh! de
snake! Chitalusa know! me know to much.—
Him tink Indian bad as him. Me let he see me no
bad. Me let no red snake—Inglish snake, ugh!
come here! Me no will.”

At once a new thought flashed upon his mind,
and entering his hut, he armed himself with a rifle,
took his paddle from its beckets over the door,
launched his canoe, and jumping into it, paddled
rapidly in the direction opposite to that taken by
Lafitte, and towards the artificial outlet of the bayou,
into the Mississippi.

For several hours, the oarsmen rowed with that
heavy, regular movement of the sweeps, which is almost
mechanical to the thorough bred seamen.
No sound but the regular dipping of the four oars
and the low rattling as they played in the row-locks,
the occasional splash of an alligator, as he
sought concealment beneath the surface of the water,
or the heavy flapping of the wings, and shrill
cry, of some disturbed heron or other water bird,
broke the silence of the wild region through which
they moved. The barge all at once emerged from
the narrow and gloomy pass which it had been
threading during the afternoon, into a broader sheet
of water, and at the same moment, the setting sun
shone bright upon the summit of “The Temple,”
which stood on an angle at the intersection of three
bayous, two of which led by various routes into the
bay of Barritaria; the third, was that which they
had just descended.

Lafitte sat in the stern of the boat, with his
arms folded and his head dropped despondingly upon
his breast, an attitude he insensibly fell into
after the first burst of passion, elicited by the result
of his application, had passed away.

His better resolves held again their influence
over him; his anger and resentment, by degrees

subsided, and he had come to the determination to
exile himself, disband his followers, and depart
for ever from that country he was thought too base
to serve.

“I have won the confidence, and I believe the
respect, of one honourable man. This, at least,
will I endeavour to retain,” he said, abruptly addressing
Théodore. “He has said he will counsel with
the general in chief. I place my cause, then, in
the hands of a brave man. Suppose I see him myself?
Ha! that will do—I will! England,” he
cried, with energy, “thou hast not made me a renegade
yet! nor,” he added mentally, “will you,
Constanza, find me recreant to my pledged faith.
I will not let the prejudiced decisions of a few men,
thus turn me from the straight-forward path I have
chosen. Impulsive they call me.—Well, impulse
shall be bridled, and I will henceforward lead her
—not she, me.”

“Ship your oars, men!” he added aloud, as they
came to a little inlet, at the foot of a mound, just
large enough to contain the boat.

“The dripping oars rose simultaneously into the
air, and were then laid lengthways upon the thwarts.
Cudjoe sprang out, as the bows touched the bank,
and secured the boat to a tree. Lafitte, warning
his men not to go far away, accompanied by
Théodore, stepped on shore, and ascended one of
those mounds of shells thrown up by the Indians,
long before the earliest era of American history,
filled with human bones, and evidently designed,
either as religious, or funereal monuments. From
the prevalence of the former opinion, this congregation
of mounds where our party stopped, has
been denominated “The Temple.” On the highest
of them, according to the tradition of the country,
the idolatrous worshippers preserved burning, a
perpetual fire. Some attempts at one period, had

been made to fortify it, traces of which still existed.

“If I was superstitious,” said Théodore, as,
emerging from the trees near the margin of the bayou,
they came in full view of the largest mound,
“I should believe that the sun—which it is said the
Indians worshipped—in reproof of our unbelief of his
divinity, and detestation to the truth of their religion,
has kindled a flame upon the summit of the Temple.”

Lafitte looked up, and saw that an appearance
like fire rested upon its top—the reflection of a lingering,
light red sunbeam shot from the lurid sun,
then angrily disappearing in the west.

“There is poetry, if not truth, in your language,
Théodore!” replied the chief, his spirit soothed by
the mild influence of the hour. “How beautiful
the theory of their religion! Worshippers of that
element, which is the purifier of all things! Next
to the invisible God—whom they knew not—in
their child-like ignorance, and with the touching
poetry, which seems to have been the soul of the
simple Indian's nature, they sought out that, alone,
of all His works, which most gloriously manifested
Himself to his created intelligences. They bowed
their faces to the earth, at his rising and setting,
and worshipped the bright sun, as their Creator,
Preserver, and God! Author of light and heat, of
time and seasons—visible, yet unapproachable!—
What more appropriate object could they have chosen
as the corner stone upon which to raise a superstructure
of natural religion? For it is our nature,
Théodore, to be religious! All men, and all
races of men, have always been worshippers, either
of truth or falsehood! Does not this choice alone
prove, that, if heathens, they approached nearer to
true religion, in their worship, than all other nations
ignorant of divine revelation? Does it not show
the dignity and refinement of the Indian's mind—

the poetry of his heart—the purity of his imagination?
On their altars burned a perpetual fire!
What a beautiful representation of their divinity!
How infinitely is this pure emblem above the stocks
and stones of the civilized idolaters of old Greece
and Rome! How etherial and elevated the conceptions
of such a people! Yet we call them barbarians—savages—brutes!
If they are brutes, we
have made them so. The vices of the Europeans,
like a moral leprosy, have diseased their minds, and
blackened their hearts! If they are degraded, we
have debased them! If they are polluted, we have
laid our hand upon them!—Ha!” he said quickly,
“yonder sun-beam glows on that bush like fire. It
is a flame, indeed! Your idea, my Théodore, was
very beautiful! But were it not better and more
in unison with our fortunes, my boy! to regard it
as a beacon, lighting us to fame; a bright omen of
good!—Go up the mound, and see if you can discover
any thing moving in either bayou. I shall
give the men an hour's rest, and then start again.”

He stopped on a small mound they had just ascended,
and leaning against a cypress tree, crowning
its summit, he soon became wrapped in reflections
upon the presented crisis of his life and the probable
issue of his plans.

Presently, his eye was arrested by a white object,
dimly seen in the twilight, rolling along on the
ground near his feet. It was round, and at every
turn displayed the eyeless sockets and hideous grin
of a skull. He gazed upon it with surprise, but did
not move; and a fascination seemed to chain him to
the spot, and fasten his eyes upon the loathsome
object.

It came nearer and nearer, and now struck with
a hollow sound against his foot. He was about to
spring from the fearful contact, when the head and
claws of a crab were protruded from the cavities, as

if to ascertain and remove the obstacle to its advancement.

With a smile of derision at this humiliation of
his species, as he discovered the cause of this
strange locomotion, he raised the skull with its
inmate, and gazed on it for a moment, with a lip, in
which bitterness was mingled with contempt.

“And this is MAN! the image of God! the tenement
of immortal mind! Poor crab, thou knowest
not what kingly throne thou hast usurped! Well,
why not a crab as well as brain! The skull can walk
the earth full as well, and to as good a purpose!
And is this our end!” he added, “to become thus
at last!—a habitation for reptiles! And shall I too
come to this? Shall this head, which now throbs
with life,” and he raised his hand to his temples,
“which can think—plan—originate—at last be no
more than this?—so helpless as to be borne about
by such a creeping thing! Where is that conscious
something, which once supplied this crab's place?
Who has displaced it? Death! Death? and what
is death?—Methinks it were better to be like this
glaring ball, than to be as I am! Here,” he continued
placing his hand upon it, “here is no sense
of passing events; of joy or suffering; of treachery
or friendship; of despair or ambition; of praise or
insult. See—I can place my foot upon it, and it
rises not against me to avenge the insult! Happy,
happy nothingness! But is it nothingness? Although
the mind lives not in this glaring shell, which, without
tongue, discourses most eloquently to the living
—may it not exist somewhere? Here I see it not!
It is perceptible to no sense! Yet reason—hope—
fear, tell me it is not extinct. Heaven never made
man for such an end as this! There must be
deeper purpose than we can fathom—a cause remoter
than we can reach, why we were made!
Eternity! eternity!—thou art no bug-bear to frighten

children with. I feel—would to God I felt it not!
that thou art a stern and fearful reality.

“Well, my boy, saw you aught?” he inquired
hastily, resuming his usual tone and manner as the
youth appeared.

“No, Monsieur—the night thickens so fast, that
it is impossible to see far down the bayous—I think
we shall have a storm.”

“There is no doubt of it, if the heavens speak
truly,” said Lafitte, gazing upon masses of black
clouds drifting low above their heads, increasing in
density and blackness every moment, and gathering
to a head with that rapidity, characteristic of storms
in that climate.

“Théodore, tell the men to spread the tarpaulin
over the boat for a shelter from the rain.”

The youth communicated the order, and was returning,
when a flash of lightning, accompanied by
a peal of thunder, loud and abrupt, like the near
explosion of artillery, gleamed like flame through the
woods, and rove to the roots the cypress against
which the chief leaned, with the skull still extended
in his hand, upon which—resuming his reflections as
the youth left him to execute his order, he still
mused—and laid him prostrate and as senseless as
the shell he held, upon the ground. With an exclamation
of surprise and terror, Théodore sprung
forward, and kneeling by his side, called loudly upon
the crew to aid in resuscitating him. They bore
him to the boat, and the youth, at the moment recollecting
the hut of a fisherman, situated about a
mile below the Temple, ordered the men to resume
their oars and pull to that place.

6. CHAPTER VI.

Marboi's History of Louisiana.

FISHERMAN—ILLNESS—CANNONADING—APPROACH THE ISLAND—
[THE OUTLAW'S REPLY TO THE ENGLISH OFFICER.

With the head of his friend and benefactor upon
his lap, and in great agitation of mind, the youth
guided the boat through the bayou, his course lighted
by the lightning, which now became incessant.

“Ho, the boat!” shouted a voice from the bank,
as a flash of lightning showed them the fisherman's
cot, in a bend of the bayou.

“Grand Terre!” replied Théodore.

“Grand Terre it is,” answered the man; who
now came from behind the tree, with an English
musket in his hand, an old canvass cap on his head,
covered with signs of the cross, done in red and
black paint—a blue woollen shirt, and a pair of duck
trowsers, cut off at the knee, leaving the portion of
his legs below it bare. His head was gray and
bushy, and an opulence of grisly beard and whiskers
encircled his tawny face, which was marked
with arched brows and lambent dark eyes—a sharp

aquiline nose, small mouth, and thin lips, displaying
when parted, a row of even and very white
teeth, which seemed to bid defiance to the ravages
of time!

“Where is the Captain?” he inquired.

“Senseless, from a stroke of lightning!” replied
the youth; “we must claim your hospitality, Manuelillo.”

“Pobre capitan! with all my heart. Bring him
into the cot, hombres,” he said to the men. “Pobre
capitan—es mateo—no? Señor Théodore?”

“No! there is life, but he is insensible.”

In a short time, the chief was laid upon the rude
bed of dried grass and rushes, constituting the
couch of the fisherman, who, in addition to his piscal
profession, was also a privateersman or smuggler,
as interest prompted, or taste allured.

Slowly yielding to their exertions and skill, the
stagnant life once more received action, and he returned
to consciousness. In the morning, a fever
succeeded, which increased in violence during the
day. That night he became delirious, and wildly
raved like a maniac—calling on “Constanza,”
“D'Oyley,” “Henri,” “Gertrude,”—names often on
his burning lips, during his illness. For five days,
his fever and delirium continued, without abatement.
His disorder, then assumed a more favourable
character, and he began rapidly to convalesce.

On the seventh day, just before noon, he was
seated at the door of the hut, under the shade of a
tree, which grew in front, giving orders to his boatmen,
who were preparing the barge for departure
that evening, when a heavy cannonading reached
his ears, borne upon the south wind over the level
country, from the quarter of Barritaria, which was
about twenty miles distant.

“Do you hear that, sir?” said Théodore, from

within the hut—who, during his illness, had watched
over him with untiring assiduity and tenderness.

“What means it, Manuel?” demanded the chief,
starting.

“I don't know, señor; there must be some fighting
between your vessels and the cruisers.”

“I suspect as much. Quick, with that boat,
men!” he added, with animation. “We must away
from this.”

With a strength unlooked for, he stepped into the
boat, after grasping warmly the hand of the old
fisherman, and thanking him for his attention and
kindness, and was soon swiftly moving on his way
to the island.

As he approached, the firing increased, and became
more distinct. Night set in before they
reached the mouth of the bayou, from which, as
they emerged into the bay, they could see far over
the water, a flame apparently rising from a burning
vessel. The cannonading had ceased several hours,
and it was now too dark to see across the bay, or
distinguish the outline of the island.

“There has been warm work, Théodore,” said
Lafitte. “I am afraid we have been attacked by
a superior force.”

“It may be Massa Cap'um Pattyson,” said Cudjoe;
“he tinky catch Cudjoe, and make sailor ob
him, when in de boat, when you gone to see de gobernor.”

“What is that?” said Lafitte, quickly. “Press
you?”

“I now recollect,” answered Théodore, “as I
went for the governor's reply, it was rumoured in
the streets, that Commodore Patterson was completing
his crew by every exertion, and that he
was to sail the same evening, on some expedition.
It may have been Barritaria.”

“You are right Théodore, he has attacked our

camp. Set the sail and spring to your oars, men;
we must know at once if our fears are true.”

Having set their sail, their speed increased, and
shooting rapidly away from the mouth of the bayou,
they steered across the bay. They were
within a league of the island, when a barge full of
men, was discovered a short distance ahead.

“Ship your oars; see to your arms, men!” said
Lafitte, shifting the helm so as to weather the boat.
We are now more likely to meet foes than friends
in these waters.”

As he spoke, the strange boat hailed, while the
click of several pistols was heard from her by the
pirate and his party, who answered that hostile preparation
with similar sounds of defiance.

“Ho! the boat ahoy!” hailed a voice in Spanish.

“It is Sebastiano,” said Théodore hastily, as he
recognized the voice of the person hailing.

“Camaradas!” replied Lafitte.

“Ah captain, is that you,” exclaimed a rough
voice with a strong French accent. “We thought
you had gone to pay off old scores in the other
world.”

“I have been on business, Belluche, connected
with our safety, and have been detained by illness.
But the news, the news! Lieutenant Belluche,” he
added with impatience as the boats came in contact.

“Bad enough, my good captain,” said Sebastiano,
interposing in reply, “bad enough for one day's
work, in proof of which, señor, I refer you to this
handful of men, who are all that remain of the
pretty Julié, who by the same token, is burned to
the water's edge. May the grande diable have the
burning of those who compelled me with my own
hand to set her on fire. But it was necessity, captain.
I can prove to you it was necessity.”

“Be brief, Sebastiano! What has happened?

Who are the aggressors, Belluche? What means
the firing I have heard to-day? Be brief and tell
me!”

“This morning,” said the whilom captain of the
Lady of the Gulf, “between eight and nine, we
saw a fleet of small vessels and gun-boats standing
in for the island. Our squadron lay at anchor
within the pass, and on seeing the fleet I ordered
the Carthagenian flag to be hoisted on all the vessels.
As the strangers approached, I got under
weigh with the whole fleet, including prizes, which
made ten in number, and formed in order of battle,
in case the intentions of the fleet should be hostile.
As the evidences of their hostile character thickened,
I sent boats in various directions to the main
land to give the alarm, and ordered my men to light
fires along the coast, as signals to our friends ashore
that we were about to be attacked. The enemy
stood in, and formed into a line of battle near the
entrance of the harbour. Their force consisted of
six gun-vessels, a tender, mounting one six pounder
and full of men, and a launch, mounting one twelve
pound carronade, and a large schooner, called the
Carolina.

“On discovering these demonstrations of battle on
their part, and not being in the best condition to
withstand them, I hoisted a white flag at the fore
on board the Lady of the Gulf, an American flag at
the mainmast, and the Carthagenian flag, at the topping
lift. The enemy replied, with a white flag at
his main. I now took my boat, and went from vessel
to vessel to ascertain the disposition of the crews
for fighting, and none but Captain Getzendanner,
and Sebastiano and their men were for awaiting the
attack. I in vain tried to convince them of the expediency
of fighting to save our vessels.

“I then determined that the Lady of the Gulf
should not fall into the enemy's hands, and telling

Captain Getzendanner what I intended to do, I returned
on board, and fixing a train in the hole, and
setting the rigging on fire, I took to the boats with
my crew. Getzendanner and Sebastiano did the
same, while the other cowardly paltroons deserted
their vessels and took to their oars, and pulled for
the main land. The enemy no sooner saw the
flame rising from the schooner, than he hauled down
the flag of truce, and made the signal for battle;
hoisting with it a broad white flag bearing the words,
`PARDON TO DESERTERS,' knowing that we had not
a few from the army and navy, among our villainous,
cowardly, runaway gang.

“The enemy run in and took possession of the
vessels, while a detachment landed upon the island,
and destroyed our buildings and fortifications. All
this I witnessed from the main land, where we had
retired. The enemy's fleet is now outside, including
our own, numbering in all seventeen sail.
They will probably get under weigh in the morning
for the Balize.”

“We,” concluded Sebastiano, who had waited
with much impatience for an opportunity to speak,
“have just returned from the island, where I have
been since they left, to have occular demonstration
of the true state of things, and an old woman might
as well hold good her pantry against a party of
half-starved recruits, as we could have held the old
island; and this admits of the clearest demonstration,
captain.”

Lafitte listened to this recital in silence; nor did
he speak for some moments after the commander
of the Lady of the Gulf had completed his account
of the attack upon the piratical hold, by the American
flotilla. This expedition was under the command
of that naval officer, whom we first introduced
to the reader, looking over a map with the commanding
general at his head quarters, a young and

gallant man, whose ambition to signalize his command
and benefit his country by the destruction of
the buccaneering horde, who had so long infested
the south-western shores of Louisiana, had rendered
him, with the majority of the council called by the
governor, incredulous to the extraordinary proffers
of the pirate.

If blame in reference to this decision could be
attached to either party, Lafitte felt that it was
justly fastened upon himself.

“It is right,” he said, after reflecting for a
few moments upon the communication of his officer.
“It is but just—not them—not him—do I
censure, but myself—my past career of crime and
contempt of those healthy laws which govern
society. I blame them not. It would be stranger if
they should have believed me.” After a few moments
pause he added earnestly, “this shall not
change me; they shall yet know and believe, that
I acted from motives they must honour. They
shall learn that they have injured me by their decisions.
Injured! But let it pass—my country shall
have my arm and single cutlass, if no more! and
your's too, my boy?” he said to Théodore.

“Wherever you are, my benefactor, you will
find me by your side,” exclaimed the youth warmly.

“I knew it Théodore, I knew it,” replied Lafitte,
returning the enthusiastic grasp of his hand.

“Where, away now Belluche?”

“To the city, captain! We hear of fighting about
to go on there; we may perhaps find something to
do.”

“Sebastiano, Belluche, my worthy comrades and
friends, and you my brave men all! the Americans
have destroyed our fleet; but they have done only
justice. If I know all of you who are in that boat,
like myself, you are Americans by birth or adoption.
Fight not against your country, draw every cutlass in

her defence; forgive her injuries, and fight for her.
The tyrant of England seeks to enslave her; meet
him foot to foot, blade to blade. Endeavour to atone
for your wrongs to your country by devotion to her
cause. Fighting is your trade—but fight now on
the right side. What say you my men? Sebastiano,
stand you for or against your country, in this struggle?”

“Viva Louisiana—viva la patria—viva Lafitte!”
shouted the men.

“That is as it should be my brave fellows, if you
are faithful in the cause you espouse you may yet
get government to wink at the past, and if any of you
choose to follow honest livelihoods, the way will
then be open before you. To the city, I will soon
follow, gather all our scattered force and persuade
them to adopt the same course. You will hear of
me on the third evening from this at the cabaret of
Pedro Torrio, on Rue Royale. I must now visit
the island. Where is Getzendanner?”

“He has taken the western bayou to the city, I
suspect,” replied Belluche,

“Tell him our plans if you meet with him, and
hold out to him pardon. He will acquiesce, I think,”
he said laughing, “for there is a fair frow in New
York, he would fain supply his lost rib with; but
she wont take him without a license from the President.
I depend on you both,” he added more seriously
“to collect our followers and unite them to
the American party.”

With a shout from the crews of each, the boats
separated, and in an hour afterward, Lafitte reached
the island and secured his boat in the narrow cove or
inlet from which he had unmoored it, under very different
circumstances, ten days before, on embarking
to lay before the governor the letters of the
British officers.

The next morning the chief who had remained

all night in the boat, was awakened by a gun, which
on rising, and gaining a slight elevation on the
island, he discovered to be the signal for the enemy's
fleet, with his prizes, to get under weigh.

With calm and unchanging features, he watched
their departure, and as the last sail disappeared on
the horizon, he said turning to Théodore,

“I have only to wait to give the Englishman his
answer,” he said with a bitter smile, “and then return
to New Orleans, and there welcome my captured
fleet.”

“There is a sail south of us,” exclaimed Theodore.

“I see it,” replied the chief, “it may be the
English brig coming in for my reply, although I did
not expect her before evening.” The vessel which
attracted their observation, in the course of an hour
showed the square rig and armament of a brig of
war. Approaching within half a mile of the island,
she put off a boat, which pulled directly for the island.

“What answer shall you give them now, monsieur'?”
inquired Théodore doubtfully, watching the
face of the outlaw, and anxious to know if he would
accept the proposals of the British, now that he
had received such treatment from the American
government.

Lafitte made no reply but hastened to meet the
boat, which grounded, as Théodore spoke, upon the
beach.

“You are welcome to my fortress, gentlemen!
you have no doubt come for my answer,” he said
addressing the midshipman who commanded the
boat. “So your captain did not like to trust himself
on shore again. Well,” he added in a melancholy
voice, “he might have come now in all safety
—he would have little to fear. What says captain
Lockyer?”

“He desired me to give you this sealed paper,
and await your answer respecting his proposed alliance
with you,” replied the youth, giving him a
pacquet addressed to him.

“You have not long to wait,” replied Lafitte, receiving
the pacquet; and taking a pencil from the
officer, he wrote upon the back,

“No terms with tyrants!”

And giving it back to him he sternly said, “There
is my answer!” Then turning and taking the arm
of Théodore, he walked away to his boat, which lay
on the opposite side of the island.

7. CHAPTER VII.

Latour's Memoirs of the war.

THE BARRITARIANS—BATTLE OF THE SIEGE—LAFITTE AND THE
STRANGER.

The subsequent events, immediately preceding
the decisive battle of the eighth of January, having
no material connexion with our tale, we shall briefly
pass by. Lafitte returned to the city, and again offered
his services to his country, with those of as
many of his former adherents as he could assemble.

After the disastrous capture of the American gun-boats
by the British, the invasion of the state was
deemed inevitable, and in the perilous condition of
the country, it was thought good policy by those
entrusted with the public safety, to avail themselves
of the services of men accustomed to war, and
whose perfect knowledge of the coasts and the various
bayous leading from the sea to the capital,
might render their aid of great importance to the
enemy, who it was now generally known, had in
vain and with great offers, entreated them to repair
to their standard. Although the expediency of uniting

them to the American standard, was general y
admitted, it was indispensably necessary that they
should receive pardon for all real or supposed
offences against the laws. This could only be
granted by the President of the United States.
Governor Claiborne, whose faith in the outlaw remained
unshaken, and who regretted the attack on
Barritaria, so far as it rendered, by breaking them
up, the forces of the outlaws less available to the
country, conferred on the subject with the major
general in command.

The result of this conference was very different
from that of the council convened by the governor,
and with the approbation of the commanding general,
he issued the following general order.

“The Governor of Louisiana, informed that many
individuals implicated in the offences heretofore
committed against the United States at Barritaria,
express a willingness at the present crisis to enrol
themselves and march against the enemy—

“He does hereby invite them to join the standard
of the United States, and is authorized to say, should
their conduct in the field meet the approbation of the
major general, that, that officer will unite with the
governor in a request to the President of the United
States, to extend to each and every individual, so
marching and acting, a free and full pardon.”

These general orders were placed in the hands
of Lafitte, who circulated them among his dispersed
followers, most of whom readily embraced the conditions
of pardon they held out. In a few days many
brave men and skilful artillerists, whose services
contributed greatly to the safety of the invaded
state, flocked to the standard of the United States,
and by their conduct, received the highest approbation
of the commanding general.

In anticipation of our narrative, we will here mention,
that previous to their adjournment, the legislature
of the state, recommended the Barritarians as
proper objects for the clemency of the President,
who issued a proclamation upon the subject, bearing
date the sixth of February, eighteen hundred
and fifteen, and transmitted it, officially, to the governor
of Louisiana, by the secretary of state, granting
to them a full and entire pardon.

We will now return from this digression to Lafitte,
the individual whose personal acts are the subject
of our tale.

The morning of the eighth of January was ushered
in with the discharge of rockets, the sound of
cannon, and the cheers of the British soldiers advancing
to the attack. The Americans, behind the
breast-work, awaited, with calm intrepidity, their
approach. The enemy advanced in close column
of sixty men in front, shouldering their muskets and
carrying fascines and ladders. A storm of rockets
preceded them, and an incessant fire opened from
the battery, which commanded the advanced column.
The musketry and rifles from the Kentuckians
and Tenneseans, joined the fire of the artillery,
and in a few moments was heard along the line a
ceaseless, rolling fire, whose tremendous noise resembled
the continued reverberation of thunder.
One of these guns, a twenty-four pounder, placed
upon the breastwork, in the third embrasure from
the river, drew—from the fatal skill and activity with
which it was managed, even in the heat of battle—
the admiration of both Americans and British; and
became one of the points most dreaded by the advancing
foe.

Here was stationed Lafitte, and three of his lieutenants,
Belluche, Sebastiano, and Getzendanner,
already introduced to the reader, and a large band
of his men, who, during the continuance of the battle,

fought with unparalleled bravery. The British
already, had been twice driven back in the utmost
confusion, with the loss of their commander in chief,
and two general officers.

In the first attack of the enemy, a column pushed
forward, between the leveé and river; and so
precipitate was their charge that the outposts were
forced to retire, closely pressed by the enemy. Before
the batteries could meet the charge, clearing
the ditch, they gained the redoubt through the embrasures,
leaping over the parapet, and overwhelming,
by their superior force, the small party stationed
there.

Lafitte, who was commanding, in conjunction
with his officers, at one of the guns, no sooner saw
the bold movement of the enemy, than, calling a
few of his best men by name, with Théodore by
his side, he sprung forward to the point of danger,
and clearing the breastwork of the entrenchment,
leaped, cutlass in hand, into the midst of the
enemy, followed by a score of his men, who in many
a hard-fought battle upon his own deck, had
been well tried.

Astonished at the intrepidity which could lead
men to leave their entrenchments and meet them
hand to hand, and pressed by the suddenness of the
charge, which was made with the recklessness,
skill, and rapidity of practised boarders bounding
upon the deck of an enemy's vessel, they began to
give way, while, one after another, two British officers
fell before the cutlass of the pirate, as they
were bravely encouraging their men by their inspiring
shouts, and fearless example. All the energies
of the British were now concentrated to scale
the breast-work, which one daring officer had already
mounted. While Lafitte and his followers,
seconding a gallant band of volunteer riflemen,

formed a phalanx which they in vain assayed to
penetrate.

As the British column advanced to this attack, a
small boat, propelled by two seamen, and containing
a handsome man, in the dress of a British naval
officer, after ascending the river, unnoticed in
the confusion and uproar of battle, touched the bank
nearly opposite to the centre of the advancing column.
The officer sprung out amidst a shower of
balls, which fell harmlessly around him; then drawing
his sword, and loosening his pistols in his belt,
he hastened forward to the head of the column,
and side by side with a gallant Scotchman, leaped
into the redoubt.

Twice he mounted the breast-work, and was
hurled back to rise and again mount; his blue eye
emitting fire, and his sword flashing like a meteor
as he hewed his way through the opposing breasts
of the Americans.

At this moment, Lafitte bounded into the redoubt,
and turned the tide of battle. The stranger, whose
reckless daring and perseverance had, even in the
midst of battle, attracted the attention of those on
whose side he fought, was also pressed back with
the retreating column. Yet, with an obstinacy
which drew upon him the fire of the riflemen, and
the cutlasses of the pirates, he stood his ground
and fought with cool and determined courage.
Every blow of his weapon laid a buccaneer dead at
his feet.

The British, leaving their numerous dead, had retreated;
yet he stood alone, pressed on every side,
and heedless of danger. His object seemed to be
to press forward to the spot where stood the pirate
chief, who was separated from him by half a dozen
of his men. In vain they called upon him to surrender.
His brow was rigid, with desperate resolution;

his eye burning with a fierce expression,
while his arm seemed endowed with the strength of
a Hercules.

“Take him prisoner, but harm him not!” said
Lafitte, struck with the daring of the man.

“Give back,” cried the stranger, speaking for the
first time. “Give way to my revenge! Pirate,
Lafitte! ravisher! murderer! I dare you to single
combat!—coward!” and his voice rung clear, amid
the din of war.

“Ha, is it so! stand back, men. Hold, Sebastiano!
leave him to me, if I am the game he seeks
so rashly!”

The men who had involuntarily given back at
the sound of the stranger's voice, now left a path
between him and their chief, and, before Lafitte,
surprised at his conduct—but in his checquered life,
not unused to adventure and danger in every shape
—could bring his weapon to the guard, he received
that of the stranger through his sword arm.

“Not that vile stream; but your heart's
blood,” shouted the officer. “Revenge! revenge!
I seek!”—and with a headlong impetuosity that
swallowed up every emotion but the present passion,
he played with fatal skill, his weapon about
the breast of his antagonist, who required all his coolness
and swordsmanship to save his life, for which
it became evident to his men he now only fought.
By a dexterous manœuvre, the stranger caught the
guard of the pirate's cutlass on his own sword, and
at the risk of his life, held it entangled for an instant,
till he drew and cocked a pistol, which he
levelled at his heart.

At that moment, Chitalusa, who, on leaving the
hut, sought in vain to obtain an interview with the
governor, to inform him of Lafitte's intentions, and
had now joined the army, sprung forward to seize

the weapon, crying, “Chitalusa, tinkee you bad,
brother Lafitte! Chitalusa save your life now for
dat.”

His heroic atonement, for what he deemed his
unworthy suspicions, seeing that Lafitte was fighting
on the side of the Americans, was fatal. The
officer fired, and the ball passed through the tawny
breast of the simple minded Indian.

“Me tinkee de red snake de Inglish. Me tinkee
bad,” he murmured; and died, the victim of the outlaw's
change of purpose, on receiving the governor's
note, and of the figurative language in which
he had expressed it to the Indian.

The outlaw felt as if his own hand had slain him,
for his own ambiguous words had caused his death.

The combat now grew fiercer, and the pirates began
to murmur, and fear for the life of their leader,
handling their weapons, and looking upon the stranger
with eyes of malignity; anxious, notwithstanding
his prohibition, to save the life of their captain by
sacrificing that of his antagonist.

Théodore, had stood by the side of Lafitte, with
his sword drawn, often involuntarily crossing the
blade of the stranger, simultaneously with him, as
some more skilful pass threatened his life. His
eye, which all the time was fixed with an inquiring
gaze, upon his features, suddenly lighted up with
peculiar intelligence.

“Hold señor! there is some error!” he said rapidly
to Lafitte, and whispered in his ear.

The point of Lafitte's sword dropped, as he exclaimed,
“Thank God! I hurt him not!”

The stranger, without knowing the cause which
produced it, and in his eagerness, heedless of the
defenceless state in which Lafitte had exposed his
person by the action, plunged his sword into his
side, and would have run him quite through the

body, had not Théodore dexterously caught the
weapon upon the guard of his own.

Lafitte, murmuring—“this for Constanza's sake!”
fell backward into the arms of Théodore and his
men.

His adherents, absorbed by the danger of their
chief, gave all their attention for the moment to
him. When, the next instant, they turned to revenge
him, they saw the mysterious stranger, who
had retired the moment he saw his object—the death
of Lafitte—apparently accomplished, mingling with
the retreating column of the British.

Lafitte was borne within the entrenchment by
his men, who found it useless to pursue his late antagonist.
But as they reascended the breastwork,
Théodore looked back with a searching eye, while
foreboding apprehensions filled his anxious mind,
and saw the late mysterious antagonist of his chief,
distinguished by his naval attire, step into the boat
which had conveyed him to the scene of action,
and amidst the hurricane of iron hail storming
around him, harmlessly, as if he bore a charmed
life, and with great speed, move rapidly down the
river.

With the true spirit of Christianity, the doors of
the churches and convents of the invaded city were
thrown open to the wounded soldiers, not only of
the defending army, but of the invading foe. To the
convent des Ursulines, one of these temporary hospitals
in the heart of the city, Lafitte was borne by
the attentive Théodore and some of his followers.

“Who have you there, my children?” inquired
an aged priest with silvery hair flowing over the
collar of his black robe, as the faithful buccaneers
bore the litter on which lay their leader, into the
paved hall of the convent, and placed it against the
wall. “He is a man of noble presence. I trust
not one in high command.”

“It is of no importance father,” said another
of the priests coming forward, in whom Théodore
recognized the padre Arnaud whom he had seen at
Barritaria, the odour of whose sanctity had not
availed to save Sebastiano's schooner, whose passenger
he once had been, from being finally blown
into the air. “It is enough that he is wounded and
that his situation demands our charity.”

“You say well, my son; call the physician, and
we will have his wounds forthwith examined. Heaven
grant he is not in danger!” he said, looking upward
devotionally: “It were sad to die without
confession and absolution—but Heaven is merciful.”

The father Arnaud, immediately on his entrance,
recognized Lafitte, who had once sent for him from
Havana, to confess and give general absolution to
such of his men, who were Roman Catholics. The
father thought if he was recognized as the outlaw
whose name had struck terror throughout the Mexican
seas, he might not, among the simple-minded
sisterhood and fraternity, receive the attention due
to every human being, in such a situation. He
therefore, with true benevoleuce of heart, sought to
conceal the real character of the invalid, and hastened
to bring to him medical aid.

His wound was probed, and dressed by the surgeon,
who declared his case by no means dangerous,
and said that the loss of blood, had rendered it only
apparently so; adding, that sleep, quiet and attention,
would in a few days restore him to health. Recommending
him to the care of Théodore and one or
two aged nuns, who were bending over him with
commiseration expressed in their calm faces, he
left him with professional abruptness, to attend to
a wounded soldier, just brought in from the field.

8. CHAPTER VIII.

Chesterfield.

A SURPRISE—AN INTERVIEW BETWEEN A NUN AND THE CHIEF.

On the third evening, the wound of the chief
closed, and he was rapidly convalescing; having
received permission from the surgeon to leave the
convent the succeeding day.

The eve of that day, the halls and corridors of the
convent were deserted. Silence reigned undisturbed,
save by the light step of a nun in her vigils
around the couch of an invalid, the deep breathing
of some sufferer, and the sighing of the winds
among the foliage of the evergreens, waving their
branches without. At the extremity of the hall, stood
the couch of the chief, above which a narrow window
opened upon the court yard adjoining the edifice.
The cool night wind blew in, refreshingly,
upon his temples, and the rich melody of a distant
mocking-bird, which loves to wake the echoes of
night, fell soothingly, as he listened to its varied
notes, upon his attentive ear.

Théodore had just deserted his couch, and stepped
forth to enjoy the cool air of the night. Under
these soothing influences, the wounded chief insensibly
slept; but his slumbers were soon disturbed by

a scarcely heard foot-fall at the extremity of the
passage. He opened his eyes, and by the dim
light of a lamp suspended in the centre of the ceiling
of the corridor, he discovered near him, the tall
and graceful form of one of the nuns, who had often
bent above him in his feverish moments, and whose
presence exerted a strange power over his thoughts,
and even the very throbbings of his heart, which
became irregular and wild when she was near.

He felt there was a mystery around her, in some
way connected with himself; but how, or why, after
long hours given to thought and imagination, he
could not conjecture. Her voice he had never yet
heard, but her slight fingers placed upon his pulse
or throbbing temples, would strangely thrill the blood
in his veins. But all his speculations respecting
her were futile—and at last, wearied with pursuing
the vague associations, her presence, air and manner
called up, he would close his eyes, articulating—“Strange!
strange! very strange!” and fall
into disturbed sleep, in which visions of his boyhood
and its scenes of love and strife, passed with wonderful
distinctness before him; yet still, in all his
dreams, the form of the nun was mysteriously mingled
with other characters, which memory, with her
dreamy wand called up from the abyss of the past.

Giving no evidence of being conscious of her presence,
with his eyes closed, he waited with palpitating
heart, the approach of his midnight visitant. She
came within a few feet of him and stopped; while
shading her brow with her hand, from the light of
the lamp above her, she gazed fixedly at the apparent
sleeper, as though to be assured that he
slept.

Her figure, as she bent forward in an attitude of
natural grace, displayed faultless proportions. She
was a little above the middle height of women, and
her brow, as she drew aside her black veil, which,

with a long robe of the same funereal hue encircled
her person, was calm and pale—paler, perhaps,
from the strong contrast of her transparent skin,
with the black mantilla she wore about her head.
Her marble-like features rivalled in Grecian accuracy
of outline, the most perfect models that ever
passed from the chisel of Praxitiles: the colour of
her eye was of a deep blue—not the cold blue of
northern skies, but the warm azure of sunny Italy.
There was in them, a shade of melancholy, cast
also over her whole face. Piety and devotion were
written upon her seraphic countenance, from which
care and sorrow, not illness, had faded the roses
and richness of youth.

Yet she was not a youthful maiden! Perhaps
seven and twenty summers and winters, had passed,
with their changes and vicissitudes, over her head.
Her general manner and air was that of humble resignation
to some great and deep-settled sorrow.
No one could gaze upon her without interest; no
one without respect. Among her sister nuns she
was regarded as but a little lower than a saint in
Heaven; by the devotees of her church, her blessing
and prayers were sought next to that of their
tutelar divinities. Among the sisterhood, she was
was called the holy St. Marie. Her real name,
for which she had assumed this religious one, had
been concealed from all but the superior, during the
twelve or thirteen years she had been an inmate of
the convent.

Apparently satisfied that her patient slept, she
approached him, and uttering a short ejaculation,
while she raised her fine eyes heavenward, she
laid a finger lightly upon his temple.

“He is better! thank thee Heaven, and sweet
Mary, mother! His sleep is calm, and he is much
—much better!” and as she spoke low, her voice,
although saddened in its tones, was silvery.

Its effect upon the chief, was extraordinary; and
although he raised not his eyes, nor moved, his heart
beat wildly, and the veins upon his temple leaped
to her touch. Yet, with a strong effort, anxious to
know more of his mysterious visiter, and wondering
at the strange effect of her voice upon him, he
remained apparently asleep. Still retaining her
hand upon his temple, she continued:—“His sleep
is yet unquiet. Our blessed Saviour grant him life
for repentance!” she said fervently.

“She knows me!” thought he. “Strange
that she should take such interest in me, then.—
Those silvery accents! where have I heard them
before? Why do they move me so? I must solve
this mystery.”

“I thank thee, sweet Mother of Heaven, for this
favour!” she continued; “I may yet be the instrument
in thy hands for good to this wanderer! Forgive
me, Holy Mary—I thought I had bid adieu to
all worldly emotion—and yet I should have betrayed
my feelings to all around me in the hall, when I
recognized his features, so like his father's, had I
not hastened to my cell to give vent to my feelings
in tears. Sinful! sinful, I have been! Resentment
and pity have been s'ruggling the past hour within
this bosom, that should be dead to all earthly excitement.
Pity me, Heaven! I will err no more!
But, oh! what a history of buried recollections has
the sight of him revived! I thought I had shut out
the world for ever; but no, no! with him before
me, I live again in it! Its scenes are present with
me; and when I gaze on this working brow—these
features, which many years have changed, but
whose familiar expression still lives—how can I be
all at once the calm, impassioned nun! I sin whilst I
speak! I know I am sinning! but pity my weakness,
Mary! Thou hast been human, and a woman! and
thou canst sympathize—but oh! censure not! Indulge

me in this moment of human failing, and I
will then give back my whole heart and soul to
thee!”

And as she spoke, she lifted her angelic countenance
upward, clasped the cross she wore, and
pressed it to her lips. At this moment, Lafitte
opened his eyes, and, while every word she uttered,
glowed in his bosom like a pleasant memory of half-forgotten
things—of mingled bliss and woe—for the
first time he had a glimpse at her features—

“Great God! Gertrude!” he exclaimed, springing
from the couch and clasping her uplifted hands
in his own—“Gertrude! speak—Is it you?—my
cousin?”

“It is, Achille! Gertrude—and none other!” she
said, while the rich blood mounted to her pale
cheeks, at the sudden movement and ardent manner
of her cousin.

“Can I believe?” he said, gazing fondly, while he
still held her hands. “Yet, still it must be—and
why here—in this garb? were you not the bride
of—?”

“Of Heaven alone, cousin!” she said, interrupting
his impetuous interrogations.

“Where then is—but how came you here?—I
know—alas I know it all—all!” he added bitterly, striking
his forehead with his clenched hand, and falling
back upon the pillow, as she covered her pale face
with her hands in tearful silence: “I know all! This
hand has made you thus!” and burying his face in
the curtain of his couch, his chest heaved, and he
sobbed audibly and with great agitation.

Gertrude was deeply affected by his emotion.

The discovery of her cousin among the wounded,
had broken up a life of repose, which she had chosen
after the crime and flight of her cousin. Even
when giving preference to his brother, who had won
her by those gentle means, which, rather than passionate

appeals—when the female heart is the prize
—assures victory, there existed in her bosom, a partiality
for, or rather friendly feeling towards Achille,
his own impetuosity of character rendered him incapable
of profiting by. He desired to be loved at
once, and for himself, scorning to seek, by assiduous
attention, smiles and favours which could not
become his own at the mere expression of his wish
to possess them.

In love, as well as in other pursuits which engage
men, it is labour which must ever conquer.
To the contempt by the one, and the adoption by
the other, of this maxim, in relation to a young heart
as yet neutral in its partialities, is to be, perhaps,
attributed the success of Henri, and the failure of
his brother.

“Calm your emotion, cousin; I forgive you all
that through heaven you have caused me to suffer!”
she said, taking his unresisting hand.

Lafitte spoke not, and for a few moments, he
seemed to be suffering under the acutest mental
torments.

“You have—indeed you have my forgiveness!”
she repeated with earnestness; “but it is not to me
you must look for forgiveness, Achille. It is not
me you have injured or sinned against!”

“My brother! my poor—poor brother!” he groaned.

“Not Henri alone. Heaven,” she said with fervour,
“awaits your contrition and repentance,
Achille!”

“Heaven!” he repeated, as though he knew not
that he spoke aloud. “I know it. I do repent and
sue its mercy! But my brother! my innocent murdered
brother?” he interrogated, rising and grasping
her arm.

“Nay, Achille, you are not so guilty in act as
you imagine! Henri survived the wound.”

“Survives! Henri lives! Lives! did you say—
speak, tell me quickly! oh heavenly tidings! Angel
of mercy! Speak, tell me, oh tell me my brother
lives!” he reiterated, with almost insane animation;
while a strange fire filled his eyes, as, sitting
upright, with both hands grasping her sholders, he
fixed them upon her face.

“Say that he lives! that he lives! LIVES!”

“He does, Achille; calm yourself, he lives, and
you may yet meet him.”

“Oh! God—lives—meet again!” he faintly articulated,
“Oh! I could die, with those sweet
words dwelling upon my ear!”

“He recovered and went to France,” she said,
after a few moments mutual silence, “the day after
my arrival in this city to seclude myself, the ill-fated
cause of all your quarrel, for ever from the
world.”

“Heaven is good—too kind!” “You say he
died not! Oh, speak it again!—once more let me
hear the sweet assurance.”

“He died not by your hand!”

“It is enough, enough!” he said, and sunk back
like a child, overpowered by the strong excitement,
weakened as he still was, he had passed through.

In a few moments he resumed his self-possession,
and addressed Gertrude more calmly.

“Where went he, cousin?”

“To France. Since then, shut out from the
world, I have sought to forget it, and have not
heard from him.”

“Why married you him not?”

“As an atonement—the only atonement I could
make, for the mischief of which I was the unintentional
cause—I renounced all worldly hopes and
became the bride of the church.”

“And I have made you thus!” he said sadly;
“but I thank you, thank you for your tidings. This

is too much happiness! I will seek my brother
out, and at his feet atone for the wrongs I did him.
Poor, gentle boy! I loved him, Gertrude, and
would not have slain him.—No, no!” he added,
quickly, and laughed wildly—“ha! ha! ha!—You
tell me he did not die—he lives! God of heaven! I
thank thee! I am not my brother's murderer!”

With his spirit subdued, and his heart full of gratitude,
he hid his face in the folds of his cousin's
mantilla, and wept aloud.

She would not interrupt him, by addressing him;
but silently kneeled beside his couch, and with all
the devotions of a woman's piety, put up a prayer
to heaven, for the spiritual welfare of the softened
being before her. With holy fervor, like a seraph
supplicating, she sought pardon for his errors, and
prayed that the spirit of penitence would embrace
that moment to act upon his heart and renew him
with a right spirit. Every word of the lovely and
devout petitioner fell soothingly, like the pleading
of an angel, upon his heart, and before she concluded
her holy petition, his heart was melted, and
with the quiet humility of a child, he joined his voice
with hers, in responding “Amen!”

The nun rose from her kneeling posture, and taking
the hand of her cousin, said with as calm a
voice and manner as she could assume—

“Cousin, I must leave you now. I have too long
held stolen intercourse with you; but Heaven I
hope will forgive me if I have erred. We must
now part. You leave our convent to-morrow, and
from this time we meet no more—till—we meet I
hope in heaven!” and her soft blue eyes beamed with
celestial intelligence, as she raised them to her future
home.

“God forbid we should part thus! Gertrude!
cousin! bid not adieu! leave me not. Oh, God!
how lonelv and utterly lost I shall be without you!”

“Nay, cousin. I cannot stay; I must go!” she
added firmly—“I must go now!” May God, who
is ever ready to meet the returning penitent, forgive
your past life, and guide you in the new path
you have chosen, and for which you have already
shed your blood!”

“You know me and my life, then?” he inquired
eagerly.

“I know you now, as my cousin Achille, a reclaimed,
penitent son of the church. You have
borne a name I wish not to utter!”

“Lafitte?”

“The same,” she replied, mournfully.

“Why, then, cared you for me?”

“That I might do you good.”

“No one in the convent has recognized or identified
me as Lafitte; how did you?

“The youth”—

“Théodore?”

“That is his name, I believe. He has told me
all.”

“And yet, you can come and see, and talk with
me! Ah! kind, good Gertrude! how much I have
injured you! and yet you can forget it and forgive
it all. Sweet woman! thou art indeed earth's
angel!”

“Now, farewell, Achille. Christianity teaches
us both to forget and forgive,” she said, with humility.
“It is our religion, not me, you should admire.
We will meet in heaven.”

“Oh! go not yet—stay but for a moment!” he
said, rising, and following her. “May I not see you
again?”

“Not on Earth, Achille. I am betrothed to
Heaven!” she said, with dignity united with humility,
in her voice and manner.

Lafitte held her hand for a moment in silence,

while his features were agitated by many conflicting
emotions.

Suddenly, he spoke and said, with energy—

“Gertrude! listen to me! this interview has decided
my fate. I have wronged you; I would
cheerfully lay down my life to atone for it; but
with the will of heaven, I will work out a more
befitting atonement. My brother—thank God, that
he lives—I have injured deeply, deeply! I will
seek him out, if he is yet a living man, and obtain
his forgiveness for my crime. Then, having made
restitution to those I have wronged, as far as lies in
my power, I will devote the remainder of my life
to penance and prayer. Oh! I have sinned—grievously
sinned!

“Yet there is pardon for the guiltiest, cousin!”
she replied, with timid firmness.

“I know it—it is in that I trust,” he answered with
animation.

“May the Blessed Virgin, grant you life to accomplish
your holy purposes,” she said, while her
face glowed with devotion. “Achille—cousin! I
must now bid you farewell.”

“But, the old man, my father?” inquired he, with
sudden eagerness, as memory, though slowly, faithful
to her task, brought up the past scenes of his
early life—

“Lives he?”

The heavy gate in front of the convent, at that
moment opened, with a startling sound, and she replied
hastily—“I know not, Achille. Your father—
my beloved uncle, and Henri, after accompanying
me to this city, departed the next day for France.
From neither have I heard since. He did speak of
leaving Henri in France, and visiting his estate
near Martinique. He may now reside there. O!
what a tide of feeling—of sorrow!” she said, while

her voice trembled with emotion, “sorrow long
sealed up in my heart, have you called forth! Oh!
I must be more than human, not to feel—Farewell!
God and heaven bless you!”

Once more pressing his hand, while tears told
that nature would hold her empire even within
the strong walls and gloomy cloisters of a convent,
she hastily glided to the farthest extremity of the
hall, and swiftly ascending the broad winding staircase
dimly lighted by a lamp, suspended in the hall
beneath, she disappeared from his eager gaze.

His first impulse was to pursue her, though his
purpose, he himself could not have defined. This
determination he however abandoned, as he heard
the tramp of men bearing a litter up the avenue;
when they entered the hall, he had resumed his
original recumbent position on the couch, where
wakeful, and his brain teeming with busy thoughts,
in deep melancholly, he passed the remaining hours
of the night.

In those hours of reflection, he lived over again,
his whole life. With how much sorrow for crime
—how much remorse, was that retrospection filled!
He sunk to sleep as the morning broke, after having
resolved, and fortified his resolutions by an appeal
to Heaven, that he would restore, so far as lay
in his power, the wealth he had taken from others;
although to collect it, he knew he must sail to his
different places of rendezvous. This accomplished,
he determined that he would seek out his brother,
obtain forgiveness for the injuries he had done him,
and then, in the seclusion of a monastery, bury himself
from the world, and devote the remainder of
his life to acts of beneficence and piety.