University of Virginia Library

23. CHAPTER XXIII.
CONCLUSION.

This movement on the part of the lover to watch Satchell, and
endeavor to discover whether he was guilty, took place but two or
three days prior to the day on which Edward Manning was to be
executed. Edgar was anxious to have his suspicions touching
Satchell, confirmed or destroyed, before that fatal day; for in the
one case the young clergyman would be acquitted by the confirmation,
and in the other he would be reprieved; for Edgar intended to
proclaim to the world that the body was not that of Caroline Kent.
Having succeeded in deceiving Satchell as to his character, he felt
that he could pursue his investigations without obstacles. But the
first and second day he could discover nothing. He had cautiously
followed Satchell out by day, and covertly tracked his steps by
night; but he could not find that he visited any place where he
was likely to have a captive.

Nevertheless, the youthful lover was more and more convinced
that the evil lawyer was in some way connected with her disappearance.
At length on the afternoon after the meeting of the
swindlers, as Edgar was in his room waiting for Satchell to go out,
resolved to take this opportunity to search the old rookery from
garret to cellar, he heard him unlock a door and go into what
seemed to him an inner room. This awakened his attention, for he
had several times heard him turn back a bolt of an inner door in the
same manner. He listened attentively; he thought he heard whispering.
He heard suddenly Satchell's voice raised or rather muttering
in a subdued growl. He then heard a stifled cry! he was
sure he heard a stifled cry! His blood leaped from his heart to
his brain, from his brain to his hand, which he clinched in his excitement.
He laid his grasp upon the door of his room to rush out
and enter that of the lawyer, when he heard him lock the inner
door again, and re-enter his office.

The young man paused to collect himself; he let go the latch
and for a few moments sat down. He was now sure that the
maiden he loved, and for whom he was assuming this disguise, was
in Satchell's power, doubtless an inmate of that barred-up room, he
had so ofter looked upon with suspicion, and which he had resolved
to enter as soon as Satchell should have left his office.

He waited for ten minutes in the utmost anxiety and impatience
for Satchell to leave his room, which he usually did do about this

hour. At the expiration of this time he heard him rise, open his
door and go out. Through the key-hole of his own, he could see
him descending the stairs; he then hurried to the window of the
room to watch him go out of the alley. When he saw him turn
into the street at the extremity of it and disappear, he felt the greatest
delight and relief. He now resolved to penetrate that chamber
and see who the inmate was. If it were not Caroline, he knew
that it was some person whom humanity called upon him to befriend;
but that it was her he sought he had no manner of doubt.
He crossed his room with a light and cautious step as if Satchell
could even overhear where he was, and passing out into the entry,
applied to the latch of the lawyer's door for admittance. It was
locked as he anticipated; but he did not hesitate. In a corner of
the dark entry was a parcel of lumber, among which he found a
heavy piece of wood. This he caught up and with two well
directed blows dashed in one of the lower pannels.

Through this breach he succeeded in making his way and entering
the office. It was now a critical moment. If Satchell should
return he would either be arrested as a burglar, or have to knock
the lawyer down to effect his escape. There was no time for delay.
He made his way across the lumbered-up room to the door which
led into the apartment where Caroline was confined as a prisoner.
He rapped upon the door and then called out,

“Who is in there?”

There was no reply. Caroline had heard the heavy noise made
by the breaking in of the door; and not knowing what to make of
it, and fearing she knew not what new evil, she remained standing
in the floor alarmed and listening. When the voice addressed her
at the door, she knew it was not that of her captor; still she did
not recognise it as that of her lover. She did not reply; yet there
arose in her heart a faint ray of hope that it might be the voice of a
friend, rather than that of a foe. But she had been so long a
captive, had suffered so much in mind, that her nerves were entirely
unstrung; and the least unusual sound caused her to tremble like
an aspen.

“Who is there? Speak, for I am your friend!” again called the
voice without the door of her prison.

At the sound of the voice, which was kindly in tone as well as in
its words, her heart bounded with hope. She sprang towards it
and bending her ear close to it, listened to hear it again. She
thought she recognised it; but the idea was too happy for her to
cherish. She feared that it might be Satchell feigning the voice to
entrap her into some net. She waited trembling, hoping, fearing.

“Caroline, if you are there, speak! It is Edgar.”

“Edgar! Then I am safe!” she shrieked with wild joy. “It
is Caroline! Save me, Edgar! Oh, save me.”

“I will! I have come to save you, thank God!” answered the
lover. “Can you open the door from the inner-side?”

“No. Break it open if you can!”

She had hardly uttered the words before heavy blows were
forcing the door from its fastenings, and half a dozen good strokes
with one of Satchell's iron fire-dogs sent it tumbling into the room,
so that Caroline had to step out of the way to escape its fall.

The same moment they were clasped in one another's arms.

“Ah, what all dat?” cried the negro woman who had slept
through all, and was now at last aroused to look after her escaping
prisoner.

“Who is this, dearest Caroline?” he asked, seeing by the faint
light of a taper, the negro woman approach from the obscurity of
the room, her eyes glaring and armed with a short cudgel.

“It is my horrible goaler; save me from her;” answered Caroline,
shrieking and clinging to Edgar.

“She shall not harm you;” answered Edgar. “Come with me
this way, there is not a moment to lose! When I get you into a
place of safety I will learn all about this outrage. I am so overjoyed
at finding you alive that I can hardly realise that I am not in
a dream.”

“You don't car' te gal orf, not you!” cried the negress, springing
upon Caroline with an open clasp-knife in her hand.

Edgar caught her arm, wrested the knife from her, and taking a
cord, which had once bound Caroline's tender wrists, he bound her
to the sofa by the arms, and there left her howling with rage. He
then half carried, half conducted Caroline out of the room, through
the office of the attorney, and shoving back the bolt on the inside,
threw open wide the door and escaped with her into the entry. He
bore her in his arms down the stairs and hastened a few steps up
the alley to a police office, where he felt that she was safe. One of
the officers at his request went for a hackney-coach, and in five
minutes more Caroline was placed in it, and Edgar by her side.
To the officers he made no explanations, but paid them for their
trouble.

“Which way shall I drive, sir?” asked the coachman as he
closed the door of the carriage.

“To the residence of Colonel Harwood.”

“To my uncle's! Oh, joy, joy! Am I once more free?” cried
Caroline almost overcome with the consciousness of happiness.
“Shall I see him again? Do I owe this happiness to you, sir?”

Edgar briefly related to her how that he had suspected Satchell,
and the plan he had adopted to confirm his suspicions now crowned
with such triumphant success. He did not speak to her of his deep
love for her which had prompted him to do so much. But she felt
that it was to his love that she owed her deliverance; and her
heart overflowed with gratitude.

The carriage at length stopped before the house of Colonel Harwood.
Edgar hastened in to inform him of his success. The next
moment Caroline was weeping for joy in her father's arms. His
happiness who can picture? He received her as alive from the
dead.

After she became sufficiently composed to converse, Caroline
related to them both all of the circumstances, with which the reader
is already acquainted. Her testimony was a triumphant acquittal
of Edward Manning of the crimes he was charged with; and when
she learned from them that the morrow was set for his execution,
she could hardly be restrained, weak as she was, from at once flying
to his release.

“There is full time yet, thank heaven, my dear child,” answered
Colonel Harwood; “full time to save him and crush his oppressor.
You must take some refreshment and then we will go in the carriage
at once to the Governor's mansion, if you are strong enough.”

“Oh, sir, I have strength! I can undergo any thing to save him;
for I have wickedly been the cause of his disgrace and suffering.
Oh, if I had known this about him when I was a prisoner, how
much more wretched I should have been! I could not have survived!
I cannot take any thing; do not delay a moment! Let us
at once see the Governor, that I may tell him all.”

Finding that her anxiety on Edward's account was too great to
suffer her to eat any thing, her father resolved to drive with her at
once to the house of the Governor. There in an interview of an
hour, she unfolded to his excellency all the circumstances which
bore upon the supposed guilt of Edward Manning, as fully acquitting
him of unfaithfulness to his wife by her frank testimony, as
her presence acquitted him of her murder.

It would be impossible to describe the effect which Caroline's
developments had upon those who heard it. The Governor at once
ordered his carriage, saying he would go to the prison in person,
and bring Edward Manning away to be a guest in his own house,
till he could send for his father and wife who had left a few days
before for New York, to escape from the scene of his disgraceful
death. By the Governor's advice, Colonel Harwood at once rode
down to the Police Court and got a writ issued for the arrest of
Satchell; and so prompt was it executed, that as Edward Manning
was leaving the jail leaning upon the arm of the Governor,
Simmins Satchell entered it locked by the two arms by two
officers.

The lawyer's face was as pale as death. His eyes met those of
his late victim, and as at a glance he saw that he was free, and
would be restored to his honor and good name again, he gnashed
his teeth with rage. The jailor to whom had been given by the
Governor, the outline of the facts touching Satchell's fiendish
agency in Edward's imprisonment, upon receiving the lawyer
into his custody conducted him to the cell which the innocent man
had just quitted, and there locked him in, saying,

“I never turned a key upon a prisoner with more pleasure than
I now turn it upon you, Mr. Satchell. If all is true they say about
you, I shall only have a greater pleasure vouchsafed to me when I
unlock your door to turn you over to the hangman.”

We are now at the conclusion of our story. The same day
Edward's pardon or rather innocence, was proclaimed publicly.

The joy of Judge Manning, the happiness of the lovely wife of
our hero, upon receiving a letter from the Governor, communicating
the fact of Edward's innocence of every charge against him,
must be left to the imagination of the reader. Edward remained a
guest of the Governor until their arrival, when he was once more
clasped to the heart of his father while he folded his tearful wife to
his own. Caroline wrote and sent to Edward's wife a full history
of the whole, concealing nothing. Satchell refused to make any
confession. A day was set apart for his trial, but he had not the
courage to face those whom he had injured. He strangled himself
with his neckcloth, and thus rushed to a bar where suitable judgment
for crimes like his could alone be dispensed.

The devotion and services of Edgar won the grateful heart of
Caroline, and she rewarded his noble attachment with her hand.
Nothing now remained to mar the happiness of either party; and
if possible, Edward and his beautiful wife were happier than before
the affictions which had so severely visited them.