University of Virginia Library

22. CHAPTER XXII.
THE LOVER'S STRATAGEM.

After ten minutes constant exertion, Satchell had the satisfaction
of seeing his victim come to her senses. His joy knew no bounds
when he beheld her open her eyes and look round, wildly and bewilderingly,
indeed, but yet with life and consciousness. He had
feared he had killed her, and the horror this fear caused him, no
doubt prevented his doing so afterward. He had for a few moments
of horrible suspense felt, in anticipation, the dreadful sensations
of the murderer, and he resolved, now that she had revived,
that he would never subject himself to feel so in earnest. He made
up his mind that she should live, and lest he should be tempted to
kill her he broke his knife blade and cast it into the fire-place.

After seeing her open her eyes, he stood back, a little ways out of
sight, to watch the expression of her face when discovering where
she was.

Her wondering wild gaze at length fell upon himself. She
uttered a piercing shriek, but the next moment shrunk from him,
and casting herself upon her knees before him, with clasped hands
and uplifted eyes, besought his mercy!

“I have no mercy for one who would destroy me!” he answered,
gazing immovably down upon her, his arms folded upon his chest,
and his brow contracted with settled revenge.

“Where am I? what would you do with me? that you have
brought me to this place?”

“Keep you from doing mischief abroad! I am not to have my
deeply laid schemes detroyed by your babbling. Edward Manning
shall bear the infamy that I have caused to be heaped upon his
head through you!”

“Through me?”

“Yes, lady. I have only made you the instrument of my hatred
of that young man. He has fallen, and will never rise again! His
father will no more hold his proud head above men. I have
stricken his gray hairs to the ground. He sees his son dishonored!
He —”

“Monster!” she cried, her indignation getting the mastery of her
fears.

“I do not heed names? Words are but air! So long as I have
my ends brought about I care not what you think of me, maiden!”

“Release me, I beg of you, Mr. Satchell! Oh, do not detain me
here!” she cried with touching earnestness.

“I will not trust you. No, no! My safety, the consummation
of my vengeance, depends on keeping you in security. So, come
with me!”

“Whither?” she asked, rising to her feet, and eyeing him with a
look of fearless defiance.

“To the next room, only. I shall keep you there for the present.
Your treatment, and your ultimate release, will depend on your
conduct and submission!”

“I will not go! I refuse to submit to this tyranny!” she answered
with spirit.

“Very well, we will see who is master here,” he answered; and
going to his desk he took from it an old pistol, and presented it
against her heart. “Young woman, there is no necessity for compelling
me to commit a murder. You had best yield quietly, and obey
me. You know me well enough to know that I will stop at nothing!”

“Do not kill me!”

“Then obey me! Go into this room! The door is open. Do not
compel me to take you in!”

The hope of being able to escape from his hands ere long, nerved
her to meet this crisis, and influenced her to assume the passiveness
she was far from feeling. She walked past him into the room, the
same we have already seen closely nailed up on the side towards

the stair-way. He followed her with a light which he set upon a
table. She shuddered as she looked around upon the desolate
apartment. The walls were bare; the floor carpetless, and covered
with rubbish; the furniture consisting only of a pine table, a chair,
and an old sofa, once covered with hair, but now ragged with the
stuffing protruding in a score of rents.

“Here, miss, you will remain till I feel that I can let you out in
safety!” he said sternly.

“You dare not—you cannot keep me here! I shall be missed!
The world will find me out!”

“I shall take care of that! Sit down, and now hear me while I
lay down a few brief regulations for your conduct!”

“I will stand!” she answered, trembling between terror and
indignation.

“Have your own way!” he answered with a sneer.” Now
listen. My object in keeping you here is to prevent you from informing
against me, and establishing the innocence of Edward
Manning, which a word from you can do. It is my pleasure to
have him believed to be guilty!”

“But, I have promised I will be silent!”

“I will not trust you! Once out you would not consider a
promise drawn from you by compulsion binding. You would also
betray me! I have gone too far to go back. My safety depends on
your safe-keeping. My revenge will never be complete if you are
suffered to go free!”

“How long do you intend to keep me here?”

“A week; perhaps longer! But hear my laws by which you
will regulate your conduct. In the first place I premise by assuring
you that escape is impossible. This is a strong room, I have used
it as a prison before. Now listen to my commands. I forbid you
to scream, or speak above your voice, on pain of death! I forbid
you to make any attempt to escape, for if I discover it I will
assuredly punish you. Your safety and good treatment depends
wholly on your conduct. If you behave well, I will treat you well.
Early in the morning I will place a cot in here, more furniture, and
make you comfortable. You shall have books also; and I shall
place with you and old negro woman to keep you company, and
keep watch over you. She will sleep on the sofa, and never leave
you. You need not attempt to bribe her, for she is my agent, and
will never betray her trust. She will have orders to gag you if you
are noisy! Now I have laid down the law, I hope you will be wise
enough to obey it; else it will be the worse for you in the end! I
now leave you to your reflections. If you wish to sleep there is the
sofa for to-night! Now beware any screaming! I will assuredly
take your life as I hear your voice in the next room!”

With these menaces the lawyer turned on his heel and left the
room, double-locking the door after him. Poor Caroline stood
where he had left her, as motionless as a statue. Her face was as
pale as marble. Tears were in her eyes, but they did not flow.

Fear, indignation, wonder, filled her soul. She could hardly realize
the truth! She seemed to be in a dreadful dream.

“Am I really awake! Is all this so? Am I a prisoner to this
hateful being? Let me look around me! Let me put my hand
upon this sofa! It is real! Let me lay my fingers upon my pulse!
They beat! I am conscious! I am awake. It is no vision! Oh,
God protect me! If I have, through my great love for him, done
evil, and sinned against thee, forgive me, and bring me not into
judgment greater than I can bear!”

“Hist, there!” sounded the stern tones of Satchell's voice from
the outer room.

She shuddered, and laid her hand over her mouth with fear. She
tottered to the sofa, and sunk upon it! She began to weep bitterly.
By and by, her head sank upon her shoulder, and she fell into a
deep sleep. He softly opened the door, and stood gazing upon her
beautiful, pale features.

“Poor child!” he said with some feeling of pity in his bosom;
“poor child! I pity her; but it is her own fault. She should not
have alarmed me by saying that she would go and undo all that I
have done. Well, it shall be but for a few days. This young
clergyman will be accused of her death, for that I shall manage as
deeply as I have done the rest. When he is thrown into prison!
Then will my revenge against Judge Manning begin! When he is
convicted by a jury of her murder then will my revenge be ripening;
but it will only be mature when, with these eyes, I can see
him swinging upon the gallows. Then that man's heart will break,
and my vengeance be crowned with the fullest fruition that earth
can give to revenge! Sleep on, child! You will need rest to go
through with patience what is before you!”

With these words he left her, and locking the door reentered his
own apartment. The next morning he performed his promise. He
placed furniture in the room to make her situation, as he sneeringly
said, more comfortable, gave her books to enable her to while away
the time, and also introduced to her a negro woman with a countenance
revolting from its lines of vice and insensibility to every
gentle human feeling.

Under her care, and in this close imprisonment, Caroline remained
several weeks, till at length she began, as if from despair of ever
being rescued, to be reconciled to her lot, and to bear it with as
much submission as was in her power. She knew nothing that was
going on. Of the arrest of Edward for her murder she had not
heard a word. She was in a state of suspense and uncertainity in
relation not only to herself but others in whom she was deeply
interested. She wondered, indeed, that her tyrant should be able
so long to detain her undiscovered. But she was ignorant of the
means he had resorted to to prevent curiosity from being exercised
upon her disappearance, in having placed the mutilated body of a
young female taken up from a grave with her own clothes put upon
it, where it could be found and be taken for hers. This horrible
fact she was wholly ignorant of.

In the meanwhile Edward went to prison, and from the prison to
the bar of his country to be tried for his life, for her murder. He
was convicted, sentenced, and remanded to his cell, to await his
execution.

Of all these proceedings the poor girl was ignorant, enduring with
a sort of submissive despair her own captivity. She was not
wholly passive. She had hopes of effecting her escape, and more
than one plan had been conceived by her for freeing herself from
the power of the evil man who held her in bondage.

The day preceding Edward's execution at length arrived. It was
that after the night on which the swindling conspirators had met in
Satchell's room, as we described at the beginning of our story. The
reader will also remember the Poet whose verses had so often interrupted
their conversation. This Poet was acting a part. He
was a young man of talent, and handsome personal appearance,
who had long been attached to Caroline Kent; but, on account of
the previous possession of her heart by Edward Manning, she could
return him only gratitude for his preference. He, however, continued
to love her, and to visit her as a friend from time to time.

When he heard of her sudden disappearance from the boarding-school
he at first suspected her of eloping; and his grief at the utter
overthrow of all his hopes was very great. But when the body
was found habited in her dress, and pronounced to be hers by her
own father, his grief gave place to wretchedness and despair. At
length he resolved to enter the tomb where she was deposited, and
take from her head a lock of the bright hair he had so loved to
gaze upon as it shaded her fair brow. He gained admittance to the
vault. He saw the body, and to his surprise and joy found, by the
color of the hair, that it was not Caroline Kent. There was not a
great deal of difference, but enough to convince a lover. This discovery
confirmed a previous suspicion that the body found was not
that of the maiden he so fondly loved. He had not seen the body
before its burial. But he was now convinced that it was not the
one supposed to be. He left the vault happy, but in a state of the
most painful uncertainty. He resolved at first to make public his
discovery. Then it occurred to him there might be crime at the bottom
of it, and secrecy would be the only way by which he could ascertain
Caroline's fate. At length circumstances, which we have not
room to follow in their detail, led him to suspect that Simmins
Satchell knew more about the fate of Caroline than any other person.
He had heard from the proprietress of the school that Mr.
Satchell had been to pay her a visit the day before she was
missed. The lover also went to call on her uncle, as he was called,
and, from words he let drop, his suspicions of Satchell were
strengthened: and he made known to the Colonel what he believed
was the truth; viz: that Satchell had a hand in her abduction; for
that she was dead both now equally doubted.

The result was that the two gentlemen conversed confidentially
together. Edgar Harwood made known his strong attachment to
Caroline, while the Colonel confessed the power which Satchell

held over him. It was finally planned between them that the
subtle lawyer should be watched. But how to effect this was a
difficulty that presented many obstacles. At length it occurred to
Edgar, inasmuch as he was wholly unknown to Satchell, to hire a
room of him as a penny-a-liner, and under this guise they hoped to
find out through his movements what had become of the missing
maiden, provided he had had any thing to do with her disappearance.
It was resolved at once to proceed to work, and to watch
him closely as he went out and came in; and if possible learn her
fate; for that it was in some way associated with him, both had
began firmly to believe.

The same day, dressed in a second-handed thread bare, patched
suit, with a bushy uncombed wig, and pen, ink, and paper, Edgar
applied to Satchell for a room; and was shortly invested with the
sole occupancy of the apartment in which we found him at the outset
of our tale.