University of Virginia Library

15. CHAPTER XV.
THE SURRENDER OF THE PAPERS.

Satchell was in his dingy office seated at his table in the armchair,
when a rap at his door caused him to lay down several papers
which he was examining, and look at his watch.

“It is two minutes past twelve,” he mumbled. “It must be
Harwood.”

He rose and proceeded to the door of his office-and let in Colonel
Harwood, saying, in a bland manner,—

“Glad to see you, my dear sir. From your looks you have succeeded
with your daughter.”

“My niece, Mr. Satchell!” cried Colonel Harwood, with alarm.
“Do not forget yourself again.”

“I did forget. Be seated, sir,” he added, as he re-locked his
door.

“Colonel Harwood bowed and remained standing; for his former
experience had told him that Satchell's chairs were not to be
trusted.

“I have seen my niece, sir,” observed the Colonel, his voice
agitated in spite of his effort to control its tremulous cadences.

“And what said she? Did you make known to her that your
life and honor were in her hands?” demanded Satchell, with a
keen observing glance from his brow-shadowed eyes.

“Yes, sir, I made known to her so much of the facts as was
necessary, and as I had promised you I would do.”

“And she said what?”

“That she was ready to sacrifice herself, if needful for me.”

“Sacrifice? Was that her word?”

“To speak frankly with you, it was.”

“Very well; I like her no less. No doubt she will look upon it
as a sacrifice to marry an elderly, middle-aged gentleman like myself.
I am very glad she thinks it will be a sacrifice.”

“You are?”

“Yes, sir, I am pleased with her remark; but I am surprised at
her readiness.”

“If you had been present, sir, at our trying interview you would
not have termed it readiness. I thought at one moment she would
have spurned me with scorn and indignation.”

“Yes, she is a spirited girl; that is clear from her eyes. So she
was reluctant at first?”

“No person could have been more so.”

“But she finally yielded?”

“That I cannot, will not say. I performed faithfully my part.
I have now come, sir, to see if you are ready to perform yours.”

“One question more. Do you think she will consent to marry
me?”

“I do not know, sir; she would only do it in the last extremity.”

“That is what I expected. Yet you still think that she might
be driven to consent to be Mrs. Satchell? Speak plainly, Colonel.”

“I believe she would prefer death to such a marriage,” answered
Colonel Harwood, firmly and plainly. “I would rather die than
compel her to it. But I am not alone; there is my wife and children,
who will fall with me if I am arraigned and executed as a
traitor. Were I a bachelor—alone in the world, sir, I would not
take these steps to keep you from doing your worst with those
documents. But if I can save my family—my spirited boy—from
disgrace by this marriage, and she is ready—nay, insists, now that

she knows all, that she shall be made the victim, not me, I can only
let it take its course. It is humiliating; but it is the decree of
fate.”

“Her repugnance to me you think was very positive?”

“I do. But you seem to be pleased at this.”

“I am; I shall, you see, have the greater satisfaction in overcoming
it.”

“You are a very extraordinary person. You seem to rejoice in
what threatens to ensure your defeat.”

“No, I shall not be defeated. The more repugnance she has to
me the better.”

“Have you any secret power over my daughter, sir, as you have
over me?” asked Colonel Harwood, with amazement and alarm.

“No, sir,” responded Satchell, smiling, with a sinister movement
of the muscles of his lip. “Where is your daughter—your niece, I
would say?”

“At Madame Delano's.”

“Did you tell her I would wait upon her?”

“Yes.”

“And what said she to that?”

“That she would see you.”

“How did she appear when she said this?”

“Pale, sir, but firm.”

“Did she say that she should accept my proposals to her?”

“She said, sir, that she was prepared to take any step to save
me.”

“Even to the dreaded one of marrying me?” added Satchell,
sarcastically.

“Yes,” answered the Colonel, agitated with indignant grief at
the painful situation into which his conduct had placed his child.
He looked upon Satchell with the deepest hatred, while he feared
him, as having in his hands the power over his life and honor, and
the happiness of his family. He felt that he could spring upon him
there as he stood before him, and not only wrest the papers from
his hand, which held them in its grasp, but take his life and rid
society of a monster. But Satchell was a man of a more powerful
frame and younger than himself, and the issue he feared might go
against him, when he felt that his fate would be sealed; that, after
such an unsuccessful attempt to gain possession of the papers, no
power on earth would induce him to withhold them from the Government
at Washington. He therefore said as calmly as he could,
“I hope, sir, that you will now surrender to me those letters and
plans, as you promised.”

“I promised that you should have them, and you shall. There,
sir,” he added, extending to him the package of papers, “you will
find them all there, I believe.”

Colonel Harwood almost bounded towards him in his eagerness
to get the fatal papers in his hands. He grasped them with a
strange cry of mixed joy and triumph, and with trembling fingers
examined them one by one by the light of the candle, his whole

frame shaking so with emotion that the floor vibrated, as it often
did when a heavily loaded dray thundered past in the adjacent
street.

Satchell stood by looking at him with a look of seeming indifference,
though a slight smile moved across his face at witnessing the
extraordinary agitation of his late victim.

“You find them all right, sir, I believe,” he said quietly, after
the last document had been opened and glanced at.

“Yes, yes, all are here. Mr. Satchell, this moment is the happiest
of my life! If ever I felt grateful to Almighty God it is at this
moment. I hold in my hand the cause of more wretchedness to me
than ever lay at a man's heart. These papers that I now grasp
have caused me days of misery and wakeful nights of horror.
Thank God, I have them now! and I can even thank you. I feel
as if I could embrace you for delivering them into my possession.
There is my hand, sir. I forgive and forget all that is past.”

“I never shake any man by the hand, Colonel,” answered
Satchell.

“Very well, let it pass. I am so overjoyed that I could not only
take by the hand but hug to my heart every beggar I meet in the
street. Can I realize that I hold these fatal letters in my hand? Oh,
joy! joy!”

“You seem to forget at what price you have got them back, sir,”
observed Satchell, with deliberate and malicious desire to darken
his felicity.

A cloud instantly passed across his face. He sighed heavily, and
ejaculated with anguish,—

“Poor Caroline! My dear victimized child!”

“One would think I were a very respectable devil, Colonel, the
way you regard a woman's marriage with me.”

“When I know WHAT you are, sir, is there any surprise that I
should feel as I do? But the sacrifice is made! But these papers
shall never more rise in judgment against me!” as he spoke he
approached the fire, and deliberately placed upon the blaze the
letters, one after another, and watched with intense attention each
as it consumed to ashes. When he had in this manner destroyed
the last vestige of his treason he rose up, and turned upon Satchell
a countenance that fairly shone with serene happiness. He seemed
to be another man altogether. Joy, peace, composure all at once had
returned to his features, from which they had so long been exiled.
Satchell marked with surprise the change.

“You seem to be a happy man, Colonel Harwood.”

“I am, sir. There is but one cloud that casts its shadow over
my peace. It is the reflection of my poor child's fate.”

“Do not tremble for her.”

“I do not mean to, sir. I still feel that I am her father, and I
shall watch over her with a father's eye.”

“You need not fear for your daughter, Colonel Harwood. I
swear to you, she shall not marry me without her free consent.”

“You do?”

“Yes.”

“Then you have surrendered to me those papers!” cried the
Colonel, as he looked with an air of satisfaction at the heap of white
ashes where he had consumed them. “You have put out of your
hands those papers without recompense; for she will never consent
to become your wife.”

“Very well. I can but try,” he answered carelessly.

“Mr. Satchell, from your confident manner, I feel confident you
possess some secret power over her—some hold upon her fears.”

“No, sir; I have never spoken to her. The first time I ever
knew you had such a child, or that she was in existence, was some
three months ago, in the second interview which I had with you.”

“And in what way then?”

“From your own lips. When I demanded a high price for the
letters, you said that you could not pay it, unless your niece was so
fortunate as to marry a rich young man to whom she was tenderly
attached. Upon my questioning you closely, you told me that it
was Mr. Edward Manning, the son of Judge Manning. You added
that you hoped the marriage would take place, in which case you
knew that your niece would place the money at your disposal.
This was my first knowledge of your child, whom you then called,
not your daughter, but your niece. Upon my asking you what
hope there was of the union, for I wanted to know what probability
there was of my getting the sum I at first demanded, your account
led me to see at once that there was no hope for it; for he already
was betrothed to another, (whom he has married a few weeks
since,) and that the passion was a romantic one wholly on her side.
No, sir, I hold no secret talisman over your child. I depend only
upon natural circumstances for a successful interview with her.
Please inform her that I will call upon her at seven this evening.”

“Not before?”

“No; I have engagements all the afternoon. You seem to be in
haste,” he said, with a keen glance.

“Yes, I am desirous and so is she of having the interview over.”

“In good time. Now that you have got the possession of the
mischievous papers, the matter rests with me and her.”

“How you could give me those documents so freely on an uncertainty,
after having refused five thousand dollars, I cannot understand,
sir.”

“Perhaps you will, one of these days.”

“Will you tell me, before I leave, how those papers came into
your possession?”

“Willingly. I was called upon to give advice to a couple of
criminals in jail. They had been guilty of robbery and murder.
One of them had been a soldier in the war, and in your garrison.
For some offence you had him severely whipped at the drum-head.
He deserted, and fled to the British camp. He became a servant
of General Leslie's, and in his services as valet became a ware of the
correspondence, by finding the letters in the General's pocket. One
day he took his opportunity to secrete them, resolved to escape and

in revenge lay them before the United States Government. This
was the very day General Leslie was killed; and as he fled about
the moment of that event, he was supposed to have been the murderer.
Fearing, therefore, that he would be arrested for it, he
changed his name and made his way to a sea-port. He had not
money to reach Washington, and so he shipped for a voyage to get
funds. He was shipwrecked and met with various adventures, but
always kept these papers, they being in a belt about his body; for
revenge always takes good care of the instruments by which it is
to be achieved. At length, several years after the war, he found
his way here again, and committed a robbery and murder. Finding
I could not do any thing with his case, and that he would without
doubt be convicted, I told him so, and advised him to make up
his mind to die. He then told me he had these papers and their
history, and asked me if I would see that the Government had
them. He offered them to me for twenty dollars; I paid it to him,
for I saw at a glance their value. The man was in a month afterwards
executed; the papers are there in their ashes.”