University of Virginia Library

1. CHAPTER I.

We will introduce our story with quoting a closing paragraph
from the previous Tale:

“That night the head of Blanche Ilillary rested uncasily upon
her pillow, for many a wild vision flitted through it. About midnight
she rose from her couch and gazed upon the beautiful scene
without. The round, full moon was high up in the Heaven and
shone on the tided waters whose surface grew each moment rougher
under the effect of a fresh and increasing breeze from the west.
The Dancing Feather rode restlessly at anchor as if impatient to
spread her snowy wings and skim the waters like a bouyant seabird.
And lo! as she gazed upon the schooner Blanche Hillary
thought she perceived figures moving on her deck. Was this a
sport of her imagination? Some figures clustered near the schooner's
hows, and it actually seemed as if her head swung free!—
Sluggishly now she shook out her sails as if by an act of volition.
There could be no mistake! Up went the foretopsail! the square
foresail, jib and flying jib were hoisted simultaneously! A tall
figure suddenly appeared at the stern with his hand resting on the
tiller; the bellying sails filled freely with the wind; and, with a
rushing sound like that of many wings, the Dancing Feather was
once more upon the waters!”

As the gray turrets of the Gothic villa, before which the schooner
had been riding at anchor, blended with the dark woodlands,
that towered around in the hazy distance, the tall helmsman left
his post to another, and walking to the stern, stood, with folded
arms, gazing in the direction of the villa until it was wholly lost to
his view by an intervening headland.

“Now, fare thee well, sweet Blanche,” he said with tenderness
mingled with bitterness in his deep tones. “But twice only have
I met thee, yet twice has my inmost being been moved by your
grace and beauty! Yet I am despised—nay pitied and forgiven' A
criminal! to be pardoned—an outcast to be commisserated! yes
such am I; and for me to think of her is folly. Love me she never can
—pure and proud and beautiful as she is! How her lip curved as
she bid me leave her—yet methinks I did discover a tear glittering
amid the dark lashes that ever keep in softest shadow her deep
blue eyes. But on me never will beam those eyes in love—never

“Vide last chapter of “The Dancing Feather.”
shall they upon another!” These last words were spoken with
sudden and intense feeling, while his dark eyes flashed beneath
his meeting brows like meteors beneath a storm-cloud. He turned
and paced the deck with a fiery step, which gradually slackened
and, with his manner, became subdned and slow. He leaned over
the taffrail and gazed into the dark tide which, coldly silvered by
the moon gleamed past as the vessel flew onward. Suddenly a
hand was lightly laid upon his shoulder. He started, for he had
heard no footstep, and looked into a face that fixed its gaze upon
his. It was a woman's—oh, how darkly beautiful! how full of expression,
love and passion! she moved not her hand from its gentle
and timid resting place upon his arm; but she bent down ward
her gaze as it encountered the stern, angry surprised glance that
met her look.

“Eve!” he at length repeated in a tone of displeasure.

“Be not angry, dear Carlton,” she said laying her other arm upon
his shoulder as if to soothe and caress him into gentleness.

“How came you on board? not in the boats, surely? Did I not forbid
your following me further! We are nothing to each other
now, Eve!”

“Yet you are every thing to me, Carleton?” she answered
passionately. “For you I have sacrificed all dear to woman in this
life; nay all dear to her being in the life to come! for my love to
you is crime to Heaven, for I worship thee and thou art my god!
In thee I live and exist, and out of thee all is dark and unlovely!
Heaven is where thou art—hell where thou art not! Nay, Carleton
bend not those eyes upon me in wrath, that once only beamed
upon me with love, and shone ever into my heart like the summer-sunshine
upon the fountain, in whose faithful bosom mirrored
its own bright image! Thus is thy image mirrored in
my bosom, Carleton, and though thou, my sun, seest it not for the
clouds that thy wayward humor hath drawn between, yet 'tis
there!”

“This is idle, Eve,” he said with impatience, yet in a tone in
which her sensitive ear detected a gentler mood than he would
show. “But how is it, that I find you here when four hours since
I left you in the city?”

“Carleton your presence is to me life! your absence the darkness
of the tomb to my soul! You told me not—you breathed not to
me, when you bade me, farewell, and commanded me to forget you,
that you were going to leave me forever. My heart is a faithful
monitor, and love hath an omnisciency that is not of earth. I secretly

followed you to the place in the Park, where you met Morris
Græme, and heard your plot arranged! I heard you tell him
how you had the day before seen the schooner riding at her anchor,
and was confident that with twenty good men, you could cut
her out, and that it must be done to night. Morris Græme told
you he could have the men in one hour, if you would provide
boats to proceed to the cove”

“And you overheard all this! Stupid that I was! Others
were listeners too!”

“No! I stood cautiously in the shadow of the tree beneath which
you met. After being satisfied of your intention, I watched your
departure together. I then made up my mind, and returning to my
room, selected a wardrobe and seeking the carriage-stand, drove
rapidly along the water-road until I saw the spiral masts of the
“Dancing Feather,” glittering in the moonlight above the tree.
Here dismissing the coach I proceeded on foot through the wooded
lawn to the silent cove. All was still and strangely beautiful. I
thought sweetly of you Carleton, kindly of all things, and solemnly
of Heaven! The stars gazed down holy and still like eyes of love
and watchfulness; the branches of the trees depending over the
water waved gently in the low night wind; the moon-beams slept
upon the quiet waters, and the green-sward beneath the tree,
smiled as they fell through the branches of the trees upon it. Oh,
I shall never forget the thoughts that filled my soul as I stood in
that spot of lonely loveliness and peace! I could hear my heart
beat! My eyes filled with tears, and my inmost nature felt that
God was there! The stars repeated God is here! the winds sighed
through the grove, God is here! the moonlit waters smiled—God
is here! and a voice in my bosom echoed God is everywhere. Oh
Carleton, if you had been with me you would have believed!”

“But, my little Eve,” he said smiling and tapping her brow
“this deck is no Bishop's desk. I would hear thy tale, rather!”
His brow though still slightly overcast was no longer forbidding,
and as his features were lighted up with the smile that came upon
them like the “summer sunshine,” and were exceedingly fine
and expressive. She smiled as he smiled, like “a fountain reflecting
the sun-beams,” and leaning her head a moment upon his
manly bosom, she breathed in a low, grateful tone “Good, noble,
generous Carleton!”

“But to thy story Eve! I would know the mystery of thy presence
here,” he said playfully; “but do not give me a history, child,
I beseech thee! Thy faith is a pretty one and certainly hath made
thee most poetical!”

“I looked along the dark shadowy shore of the romantic inlet
and at length discovered a boat secured to the bank. I sprung into
this and releasing it from the land with the aid of an oar soon
reached the schooner, which, as I approached it, seemed like a beat
tiful thing of life sleeping upon the water. As I stepped on board
I sent the boat shoreward with a push, but it long floated about
distressed and lost ere I saw it cast upon the land far from where I
embarked. How lonely then was the quiet deck and all around! I
seemed the only living being on earth! To relieve the oppressing
sense of loneliness I leaned here, where you now lean Carleton, and
bent my gaze long and steadily in the direction from which I looked
for your boat. Wearily passed the hours, till the moon had go
to the midheavens, and many a new and strangely bright star had
risen from the East and ascended far into the skies. I knew it
was midnight, and yet the same deep, unbroken repose reigned
around! I grew nervous and then began to feel alarm! Yet I
knew you would come! I knew whatever you and Morris Græme
undertook, you would accomplish. I trusted and hoped and waited
with my eyes still watching the far water. At length the soft
night wind, that had moaned through the wood on shore like the
sound of a far off and indistinct organ breathing a requiem for the
dead, began to strengthen and to curl the surface of the water.
The ripple soon increased to small heaving waves, and these soon
broke, heaving up delicate pearls of foam. These pearls were shattered
before the increasing increasing wind and melted into snowy
caps and the Dancing Feather began to move; at first, with a gen
tle murmur about her bows; but the motion soon became quite
apparent and it was not long before, as if instinct with life and
feeling the free-seaward wind, she began to fret and champ at her
curbing chain like a spirited war horse impatiently held in when
the trumpet sounds the charge! I caught the spirit of the time,
Carlton, and as I looked up to the tall masts and saw the sails
bound to the slender yards, I felt a desire to possess the power to
unloose them to the winds and let the noble vessel free!”

“Brave and beautiful! Thou art worthy to be a sailor's bride,
Eve!” he said with admiration, “and now I dare say, if we had
not come as we did, you would have followed the bent of your mind
and gone to the mast-head and let her sails fly and severed the cable
and set her free!”

“No, Carleton, I should not have gone leaving thee behind!”
she said with feeling. “But my longing gaze in the direction of
the city was at length rewarded I saw a dark object scarcely
distinguishable from the deep shadows of the shore along which it
seemed to be stealing as if for covert. I watched its progress with a
bounding heart and hushed breathing. I feared it would vanish;
that my wishes had created to the eye what my heart would have
had there! But onward swiftly and silently it came! gradually its
outline became distinct and I could then hear faintly the muffled
fall of oars! I bent over the quarter-railing in earnest scrutiny as
I discerned forms of men standing out in the dark moving
mass. Suddenly the advancing barge shot out from the deep
covert of the shore into the broad moon-light and I recognized in
the stern, not your commanding figure, noble Carleton, but Morris
Græme's! My heart sunk within me! Had I placed myself in that
reckless man's power! The barge now came nearer and clearer
into view towards the schooner; and, joy! I saw you stand up in
her bows, your person revealed boldly and distinctly against the
bright water. Your proud eye was upon the object of your daring
adventure and you stood as if impatient to leap on board, and once
more tread her decks her lord.”

“Thou did'st see and read me aright, Eve. Yet I saw thee
not!”

“Fearing now to be discovered, and knowing my life and happiness
were near, I hastened from my post of watching and descended
to secrete myself in the cabin! as I reached it I heard
your foot strike upon the deck! In one of the gorgeously furnished
state-rooms I remained until the bustle and confusion of getting
underweigh had subsided, when with a prayer in my heart for
courage, and strengthened by my love, I came from my covert
into the main-cabin. Morris Græme was there! Before I could
retreat he discovered me, with the exclamation,

“Eve Innes! Carleton has then changed his mind! He said
he was to leave thee behind!”

“He knows nothing of my being here! I learned your plot and
anticipated him.”

“If this be true, thou will not be long our guest, lady!” he said
significantly, and then turned from me. I came to the deck and
beheld you leaning moodily over the quarter. I knew you were
unhappy—I knew, Carleton, you were thinking of your deserted
Eve! and were repenting that you had left her! I approached in
the trusting strength of my love, and in the remembrance how
dearly once you loved me! But when I met your frown—”

The few last words of this strange, beautiful creature who hung
on his arm and bosom were not pleasant to him. He knew he was
not thinking of Eve, but of Blanche Hillary! His darkening brow
checked her voice. He drew himself from her caress! she bent
her head and misinterpreting the cause of the sudden displeasure
in his looks, she said,

“Nay, forgive me! I meant not to reprove thee, because you
frowned! If I am but near thee, Carleton, I will gladly let thee
frown upon me! I will learn to love even thy frowns, because
thine, and strive to convert them into smiles!”

“I know not whether to be pleased or angry at thy conduct,
Eve,” said Carleton after remaining silent a few moments, while
her dark eyes watched with eloquent emotion, the troubled expression

of his countenance. “But at present thou mayest remain!
Return into the cabin, and by and by I will tell thee what
my decision is!”

“Oh, Carleton, listen not to Morris Græme! Thou knowest
he loves me not well. Listen only to the voice of love in your
own generous bosom.”

“Fear not Eve, I will do thee no wrong! Morris thou well
knowest will be in none of my counsels touching thee! I have
not forgotten that thy love and honor met, with proper reproof,
his licentious freedom, and that he is no fit confidant between me
and thee! Good night, Eve!”

Softly she repeated the words, and then slowly retired from the
deck, passing on the way Morris Græme, who haughtily stepped
aside for her to pass. He then walked aft to the spot where Carleton
stood leaning thoughtfully over the quarter railing, looking
with an absent gaze down upon the eddying waters as they danced
and hurried away beneath the counter of the rapidly moving
vessel.