University of Virginia Library

3. CHAPTER III.

On reaching the head of the precipitous staircase which we have described,
Brigs parted from Carlton Ellery, and took a direction across the
esplanade of Fort Hill, towards Summer street. Ellery, after watching his
receding person till it was lost to his eye in the darkness and mist of driving
snows, said, gathering his outer garment closely about his face,

`There goes as thorough a rogue as ever went unhung. Yet he is a useful
tool to me, and his love of money will make him faithful so long as I
can devise ways for him to obtain it. But when I fail to administer to his
avarice, he will betray me. So long as I can keep him in my pay, by giving
him a certain part of the profits of the robberies I plan for him, I am
safe. The fellow has my character in his base keeping, and I must humor

him! Who would have thought that he knew and hated Daily! What a
discovery! Now, I will to Clow's, and await him, and there we will settle
the matter for Daily in some shape. This has been a lucky night for me.
Daily from this time is ruined, body and soul.

Thus speaking, Carlton Ellery turned down the hill towards Battery-march
street, and following up Kilby into State, passed through Flag alley,
into Dock square. He traversed the walk along the winding sides of this
irrregularly shaped `square' for a short distance, and stopped before a
door which looked like the entrance into a low bar-room. The upper part
of the door was glass, and a light from within shone redly through a crimson
curtain drawn before it. The tenement was old and discolored, and seemed,
beside the bar-room, to be inhabited by various other tenants. Over the
door, before which Ellery stopped, was a small, faded, blue sign, on which
were the letters, `Clow's Tavern.'

Glancing round to see that he was not observed, Ellery ascended the
two granite steps, and opening the door, entered a small entry, shut in on
all sides, in which hung the lamp which had shone through the curtain.
There were two doors, opening to the right and left, from this enclosure.
On one was labelled `Bar;' upon the other, `No Admittance.' The former
Ellery pushed a little ajar, so that he could see into the tap-room, in which
were several persons of the rougher order, smoking and drinking. Closing
it again, he pulled a bell-knob, that looked precisely like a nail-head, at the
other door. After waiting a moment, it was opened by an under-sized, little
man, with a dark, Portuguese-looking visage, though he was a Boston-born
mulatto. He wore his black hair in long curls, or ringlets, upon his shoulders
and about his cheeks, and in his ears were suspended heavy gold ear-drops.
His features were small, and delicately formed; but expressive of
the strongest passions of evil. Avarice burned in his black, shining eyes,
and was stamped upon his thin lips. He smiled pleasantly as he recognised
his visitor, and said, with a bow of respect,

`Come in, Mr. Ellery; I am glad to see you to-night.'

`You are always on the spot, Clow,' said Carlton, as he stole quickly
through the door, which the mulatto closed after him.

`I never leave my business, sir.'

`You 'll be a rich man one of these days, eh, Clow?' observed the young
gentleman, as the other ushered him up a narrow staircase, into a room over
the tap.

`I have no other way of revenging myself against my color and race,'
answered Clow, with bitterness. `Money, Mr. Ellery, will make men forget
that I have black blood in my veins!'

`You would hardly be suspected, Clow,' said Ellery, as he threw himself
into a chair, in a neatly-furnished sitting-room. `If you spoke Portuguese,
you might pass yourself off any where but here for one of that nation.'

`Do you know, Mr. Ellery, that is my thought, and has been the last five
years.'

`The deuce it is!'

`I have been privately studying Portuguese for three years, and speak it
now nearly as well as a native! It is my intention, so soon as I get rich
and master the language, to go to Havana or New Orleans, and there, as a
foreigner, take that position in society which is denied to me here!'

`You can do it, no doubt. You have a good education, Clow!'

`And I have read much. But let this pass. How can I serve you tonight,
Mr. Ellery?'

As the aspiring mulatto spoke, he turned the key in the door, and seated
himself by a large case, that resembled a clothes-press, with this difference,
that the lower front portion of it served as a secretary. Upon it were papers,
account books, and writing materials. The room was half office, half sitting-room,
and, though small, contained many articles of luxury; as if the
mulatto, even now, sought to assimilate his condition with that of the classes
to whose level he was aiming.

`You have a nice room here, Clow,' said Ellery, looking round. `There
is an elegant book-case, well-filled; and those are rare ornaments in ivory
and alabaster upon your pier-table. You have a fine taste in pictures.'

`I amuse myself a little in that way. But your business, if you please,
Mr. Ellery!'

`Oh, ah! Well, I may as well divulge it without any backwardness, as
we have had dealings before!' And Ellery laughed with an effort, as if he
would sustain himself by lightly looking upon his own villany.

`Plate!' significantly and briefly inquired Clow.

`Plate!' responded the young man, in the same tone.

`Where?'

`It will be here soon.'

`Who?'

`Brigs.'

`Very good. How much?'

`About six hundred dollars worth.'

`It is a large sum.'

`I mean that that is the worth of it. I shall ask for only three hundred,
or thereabouts, upon it; but I leave it to your generosity, Clow. Three
hundred I must have.'

`Well, I dare say, if it weighs well, I can let you have it. To-night?'

`Yes. The truth is, Clow, I am in a close corner. I can trust you, and
I will tell you. You know, since my right hand man, Jack, has been in
limbo, I have had my resources straitened; for I was like a sportsman without
a dog. I could find and hit my game, but I could never get possession
of it. Well, to make up for my loss in Jack's useful services, I resorted to
— to — making my pen write another man's name!'

`Ah, bad, bad!' said Clow, shaking his head.

`I know it, Clow. But what could I do?'

`What allowance does your rich uncle let you have?' asked the mulatto,
abruptly.

`A stingy thousand.'

`That should be enough to support a young gentleman who has no board
to pay; for, I believe, you live with your uncle.'

`Yes, it is my home.'

`And you will be his heir.'

`He tells me so. The truth is, Clow, I play, and lose my allowance-money.
Then I have to replenish in some way.'

`If you lose, what do you play for?'

`You are turned inquisitor to-night. If I lose, do you not gain! If I
won at play, would you get a hundred per cent. out of me when I wanted
funds?' retorted Ellery, with quick displeasure. `I play because I have a
passion for it. As I told you,' continued Ellery, more calmly, `I forged a
note, and raised money on it. By good fortune, I won enough for once to
take it up at maturity, and the person whose name I forged never knew it.'

`It was a great risk. Whose name was it?'

`I will tell you, Clow. It was my uncle's.'

`The safest you could take. But you ought to be careful; for you may
risk your fortune!'

`He would not expose me, should he detect me.'

`Perhaps not. But he would be sure to disinherit you!

`That I have thought of, and it is what makes me so anxious to get money
to-night.'

`Have you another forged note abroad?'

`Yes, for five hundred dollars. It is due to-morrow. I have, fortunately,
two hundred. Brigs is off now on an expedition by which I mean to realize
the balance. I must have the money, so as to be in bank the moment the
doors are opened, and pay it.'

Clow sat thoughtful a moment, and his looks were very grave. He regretted,
from his heart, that his promising `customer' should thus risk inheriting
a fortune, much of which he hoped one day to get into his possession.
Moreover, he was in advance to Carlton full eight hundred dollars, to
be repaid with sixteen hundred when he should get his inheritance, which it
was probable would soon fall to him, as his uncle, Colonel Duane, had recently
been severely attacked with the gout, and had been threatened with
apoplexy.

`What would you have done had you not fallen in with Brigs?' asked
Clow, coldly.

`I should have come here to you, and tried your generosity on the old
security.'

`I am already in advance to you, Mr. Ellery,' said Clow, turning over the
leaves of an account-book on the desk by his side, and arresting his finger
upon a page, over the top of which was the name of Carlton Ellery; `I am
in advance to you, on the “old security,” as you smilingly are pleased to
term it, but a very little less than nine hundred dollars. Your rashness in
forging your uncle's name, and risking this security, (slight as it is,) will
prevent any further advances in that way. So take warning!'

`Do you menace me, sirrah!' cried Ellery, with a flashing eye.

`I caution you.'

`What right have you to caution me. I shall do as I please!' answered
the young man, haughtily.

`So shall I, Mr. Ellery,' quietly replied Clow. `You are in my debt,
and are therefore in my power. I have only to say the word, and to-morrow
night you make your lodging in one of the cells of Leveret street!'

`You dare not arrest me, knowing that the law would not sustain you in
your advances. No, no, Clow; you are too bad a man voluntarily to show
face in a court of justice. You dare not present your account against me;
for you know you yourself would be arrested for usury. You are in my
power, not I in thine!'

The mulatto sat with a calm countenance while he was speaking, but
there was a malicious light shining from beneath the lids of his bead-like
eyes.

`We will not quarrel about words, Mr. Ellery. You have confessed to
me a forgery, and told me that unless the note is lifted to-morrow, you will
be detected. All I have got to do, is to refuse the money on the plate you
have sent Brigs for, and then are you not in my power! Or I have only to
secure your person here till after bank hours! Thus are you equally in my

power! I can ruin you, young man, if I choose! All I ask, on your part,
is that courtesy which I will have from all who deal with me for their own
interests!'

Ellery, pale and silent, covered his face in his hands for a few moments,
and groaned heavily. This young man was not wholly lost to a proper
sense of shame, and love of personal reputation. He had acquired a passion
for gaming, which opened the way to all those other moral delinquencies
which lie in the path of this vice. Losses led to temptations to resort to
criminal means to replenish his purse, and these means were afforded
through the instrumentality of the notorious burglar, Jack Brigs, whom he
one night arrested in the act of getting out of a window of his uncle's house,
after having robbed his desk of two hundred dollars in gold. Ellery had
been aroused by the noise of a window that Jack broke in getting out, and
being up walking his chamber, devising some expedient to get money, he
was upon the burglar as soon as he touched the ground. Together they
struggled for a few moments, but Ellery had the advantage, Jack's hands
being both filled with gold.

`Let me go, sir,' said Jack, in a low tone, `and I will give you half the
gold. The old one won't know but I have taken it all off.'

Ellery felt the force of the temptation under his circumstances, and, after
a moment's faint struggle against it, he yielded. The burglar gave him half
the gold, and was released. From that moment there was a compact of
crime between them, and from that hour Carlton Ellery ceased to be an
honorable man. That compact of crime that night had been invisibly sealed
by the Father of Guilt, and onward and downward, from evil to evil, henceforward
was the course of the victim. Yet with such caution did Ellery
pursue his criminal course, that he was unsuspected by his uncle and friends,
and in society sustained the position he held before he yielded to his first
temptation. A vice once embraced, be it that of gambling, of intemperance,
or of gross sensuality, opens at once in the heart of those who before were
upright, doors for every vice to enter in. The soul takes to itself corruption,
and in all its nature becomes corrupt. Thus it was with Carlton Ellery.
Gaming led to every other vice and passion; and he who before was sober,
became an inebriate; he who was truth itself, loved falsehood; he who was
chaste, became a libertine; he who was mild, became passionate; he who
was humble and courteous, became proud and overbearing! These opposite
phases of character he did all in his power to hide from society. But they
were visible, and acted out in the gaming-room, the midnight revel, and in
the abodes of vice and crime, which from time to time he frequented, as he
has done to-night. His darker passions in no instance manifested themselves
more strongly than they did against James Daily, when, a few weeks prior
to the opening of our story, we discovered that Grace Weldon, of whom he
was passionately enamoured, was loved by him, and that this love was,
without a shadow of doubt, requited. Accustomed, since his compact with
Brigs, to let his evil nature have sway, he suffered the feeling of jealousy to
grow and rankle in his heart, till he felt against his rival all the malice of a
demon. The discovery which he had just made, that Brigs was also the foe
of his rival, filled his soul with a ferocious kind of joy; for he saw that by
his aid he could devise some means of fulfilling his purposes of revenge.
What these purposes would be, were still vague ideas in his mind, not yet
vested with form or tangibility.

`Well, Clow,' he said, removing his hands from his face, `I see I may as

well give up to you! I did not mean to irritate you. Let us be friends!
You need not fear for your money advanced me. The old man will soon
slip off, and then I will make you a present of a cool thousand over and
above what I owe you.'

`Pledge me never to forge your uncle's name again.'

`I promise it, Clow.'

`Then we are friends.'

`There is the bell!' cried the mulatto, rising up.

`It is Jack!' exclaimed Ellery, with animation.

The next moment the burglar followed the mulatto into the room, and
flung upon the floor, at Ellery's feet, a sack of plate.