 | CHAPTER XXXI. The King of the Hurons |  |
31. CHAPTER XXXI.
To prayers than winds and seas: yet winds and seas
Are reconciled at length, and sea to shore:
Thy anger, unappeasable, still rages,
Eternal tempest—never to be calm.”
Milton's Samson Agonistes.
In a dungeon rayless as his heart, Henrich passed the ensuing
night—a night, which to more than one of the inmates of Castle
Montaigne was replete with prolonged misery; a night dilated by
terror, until its moments became minutes, its minutes hours, and its
every hour a long age of anguish and suspense. Montaigne had
preserved an ominous silence in relation to the prisoner, utterly
refusing all intercourse with any one upon the subject, and giving no
other clew to his design in regard to him than could be derived from
a knowledge of the ignominious place of his confinement. Vainly
did Blanche seek again and again her father's apartment; vainly did
she send message after message to beg a moment's interview; she
received no answer; her envoys could not even penetrate to the
presence of the forest autocrat.
In the morning, Carlton alone was summoned to his room, and
the sanguinary nature of a decree emanating from such a tribunal
may well be anticipated.
“He should die, if he had a thousand lives!” said the baron,
striding excitedly to and fro in his apartment, while the gratified count
stood listening to the ebullitions of his wrath, and feeding, from time
to time, its flame: “the disgrace shall be wiped out and for ever; a
to them sacrilege, and the kidnapping of my own child!”
“Besides,” replied the count, “with him will be buried the
knowledge of some circumstances, which—are all right, you know,
but which might be misconstrued by an uncharitable world.”
The baron knit his brow, angry that his secret thoughts had been
probed by his partner in guilt.
“I do not shrink from my acts, sir count,” he said;—“or deprecate
the censure of mortal man. The intended marriage was right, and
shall yet be consummated; it's only obstacle will now be removed,
for mortifying as the fact may be, Blanche has evidently felt or
fancied some attachment for this miscreant. Enough, however, of
this; it was not to decide whether he shall die, that I have called on
you; for justice, honor, and the preservation of discipline alike require
this; I only hesitate whether to accord him a soldier's death.”
“He is not a soldier,” answered Carlton.
“He is not a coward,” replied Montaigne, calling, undesignedly,
the quick blood to the cheek of the other; “and he has done us some
service, although out of no good will, and only in the prosecution of
his own most presumptuous purposes.”
“Yes, certainly, of course; ah, I think you had better hang him,”
said the count, taking a pinch of snuff.
“But then the other is a simpler process,” said the baron, “and
can be more quickly despatched—it is only to call out a file of
soldiers and the prisoner, give the word of command, and it is all
over—what say you?”
The idea of despatch struck the count favorably: “Perhaps it
would be best,” he answered: “I believe you are right: the gallows
would add nothing to his infamy.”
“It is decided then: go if you please, and send Sergeant Grill
to me.”
The count bowed and departed, and in a few minutes the sergeant
entered the apartment where Montaigne was now quietly seated with
machine in everything pertaining to discipline; his obedience was
as perfect as clock-work, and had almost as little to do with any
degree of ratiocination. That an act was ordered by a superior
officer was to him as ample a justification of it, as if its propriety had
been shown by more than Euclidian demonstration; and as he now
made his appearance in the baron's presence, everything in his air
and step, and in the quick, sharp tones of his responding voice, spoke
the rigid martinet.
“Sergeant Grill,” said the baron, with more of a mild and
condescending air, than was wont to characterize his deportment to
his inferiors: “Sergeant Grill will have anticipated that the outrage
of yesterday can have but one issue. The offender dies at noon,
to-day; he is to be shot, on the green, behind the barracks. You
will detail a dozen men for this duty, and report to me when everything
is in readiness.”
The precisian bowed stiffly.
“There will be a strong interest made to save him,” continued the
baron, “and I may be compelled to hear some petitions and
lamentations; if you find me thus engaged, when you call to make
your report, remember that the raising of my finger thus, is a signal
for you to proceed, and while the work is being done, I can hear the
childish supplications through; the easiest way to answer a foolish
remonstrance is by showing that it is made too late, and the sentence
being once executed, acquiescence will speedily follow. If I am not
prevented by any such annoyances, I will myself attend the execution.
Do you understand?”
“I do—I am to report to you when everything is in readiness;
if I find you engaged, this motion,” he said, repeating the one made
by Montaigne, “will be a signal to go on without further orders.”
“Meanwhile,” added Montaigne, “you will hold communication
with no one on the subject, excepting at once to announce to the
prisoner his fate, and provide him a priest, if he desires.”
Grill again bowed and departed.
Blanche, in the meantime, with the aid of both Myrtle and Emily,
had exhausted every effort to learn the situation of Henrich, and the
nature of the punishment which was designed for him. They knew
only that he was in the dungeon, and that the passage which led to
it was guarded by sentinels who permitted no approach to the
prisoner. Miss Montaigne, despite her knowledge of her father's
severity, indulged a strong hope that when the first fierceness of his
anger had cooled, he would not prove sanguinary or unrelenting;
she entertained indeed, no faintest suspicion of the secret sentence
already pronounced upon her friend, nor dreamed that he could be
doomed to death without some show of trial, either civic or martial.
When that should take place, said whispering Hope, she would
herself, if necessary, plead his cause; she would move the stony
hearts of his judges; she would in some way, by some unyielding
importunity, win lenity in his behalf, although it must be the lenity
of perpetual banishment from her presence.
Secret, however, as had been Montaigne's movements, they could
not long be concealed, and it was the knowledge of this fact which
had induced him to appoint so early an hour for the execution.
Conjecture had been rife among his retainers and dependants, ever
since the moment of Henrich's capture, as to the punishment to be
inflicted upon him, and the first note of preparation for the sad
tragedy was heralded by the busy tongue of rumor in every
direction.
Blanche sat in her own apartment, wearied with exhausting
fears, and awaiting the return of Emily and Myrtle, both of whom,
with untiring assiduity, had sought to encourage and soothe her, and
were now absent on some mission of inquiry and observation. The
door opened, and Miss Roselle, pale as a ghost, entered and sank
trembling at her cousin's feet, vainly seeking to speak the words
which faltered on her lips; while Myrtle, with extended arms and
dishevelled hair, came flying behind her, not voiceless indeed, yet
silence.
“They will not do it! they will not do it, dear Blanche,” she said;
“do not be frightened; oh, my father cannot, will not be so cruel.”
“What is it that you mean, Myrtle—Emily? speak quickly, if
you would not see me die.”
“He is to be shot,” faltered Emily, “within an hour!”
“It shall not be!” exclaimed Blanche, springing to her feet,
and looking upwards with a face from which grief and terror had been
driven by a look of the most lofty resolution; “It shall not be!
Thrice has he saved my life, and now—God of Heaven, hear my
vow! I will save his, or die at his side!”
She passed with quick step from the room as she spoke, motioning
to her friends to follow, and in another minute the three were at
the door of the baron's state apartment. A soldier, acting as doorkeeper,
who was stationed there for no other purpose than to save
Montaigne from the importunities which he anticipated, informed the
ladies that they could not enter; but Blanche, without reply, sprang
past the surprised sentinel, as he spoke, and opening the unlocked
door, rushed into the room, followed by her companions. The baron
and the count were together, seated, and earnestly conversing; the
latter rose; the former remained sitting, with fierce and frowning aspect.
“You have sentenced him to die!” said Blanche, standing before
her father, with flashing eyes and pallid face, and quailing not at a
look, which, under other circumstances, would have paralysed her
frame; “you have sentenced him to die, and would have kept it
from us! Now hear me; for I have come, not to beg, but to demand
his release. By your sense of justice,—by the honor of your
ancient family,—by your self-respect, and your hopes of happiness,
here and hereafter,—murder not the man who has been thrice the
preserver of your daughter's life—whose single arm saved us all
from destruction, when this miserable man played the coward and
poltroon.”
She cast a look of unutterable scorn at the count as she spoke, and
again fastened her gaze upon her father's face, searching for some
yielding expression.
“Go on!” said the baron, fixing his stony eye upon his daughter,
with such relenting as the rock yields to the rose.
“For yourself I speak,” she said, breathing hard with the violence
of her emotion,—“lay not this sin upon your soul! nay, you dare
not do it!” she continued, with sudden vehemence, and with a return
of that remarkable expression which assimilated her countenance
so nearly to that of the man she was addressing; “you may
be absolute here; but while from yon bending sky, God and angels
watch your actions, you dare not do it! Oh, my father, my father!”
she added, unable long to sustain so unwonted a part, and frightened
by a changed expression in his face, which, whatever its character, was
not mercy; “save him! pardon him! spare—oh, spare his life!”
Emily and Myrtle added their earnest supplications, the latter
now sinking to her knees before her father, and now clinging to his
neck, and imploring, with prolonged and plaintive accents, a remission
of the prisoner's doom.
“For Blanche's sake,” she said, “for poor dear Blanche—do not
be angry for her words; it was but your own high spirit which spoke
in her; oh, have pity on her, father, or she will surely die.”
“You have all spoken,” said the baron, at length; “is there any
one else? I think I hear voices at the door.”
“The baroness, if you please, sir, wishes to come in,” said the sentinel,
thrusting in his head.
“Admit her!” he continued, with the same calm voice; “we
will hear them all. Are you also, madam, a petitioner for the prisoner?”
“Yes—oh, yes,” said the frightened woman, clasping her hands
and looking everywhere excepting in the face of her lord; “but you
will not hear me—but Myrtle! Myrtle!” she whispered; “speak to
him—the time is short!”
“Myrtle has spoken,” replied Montaigne, “and I will now answer
you all—”
“The Lynx, if you please, my lord, desires to come in,” said the
doorkeeper, again making his appearance.
“Let him come,” replied the baron; and the Indian stalked silently
but swiftly to the front of the tribunal, around which so many
suitors were clustered. He was dressed with elaborate care; his
scalp-lock was trimmed and adjusted with unusual neatness, and his
exposed chest was painted as for some expected ceremonial.
“The Lynx will die for Henrich!” he said: “the soldiers of my
cousin shall plant their balls here,” touching his breast—“not in the
heart of the young Brave of Manahatta!”
The baron scowled ominously as he listened, but before he could
reply, the door again opened, and the Algonquin was announced.
“Show him in!” said Montaigne, now folding his arms, and throwing
himself back in his chair with an air of composed determination:
“show him in, Francis, and please to step aside and leave the way
free for future comers; your labors must be wearisome.”
The Indian stationed himself beside his red brother, and looking
at the baron, said: “My warriors have heard that the young Brave
of the south must die, and their eyes are wet. Let him live, and
they will heap your hearth with the scalps of the Iroquois for his
ransom; the King of the Hurons is not cruel; he will spare his
young brother, and the hearts of our tribes will be glad.”
“I have heard you all—patiently and attentively,” said the baron,
looking at his watch as he spoke, and glancing towards the door
with an expectant air: “you are all my friends, and if I cannot give
you reasons that are satisfactory, within a few minutes, why I ought
not to listen to your requests—I will hear you further.”
Sergeant Grill entered the room at this moment, and stood just
within the door, erect and motionless.
“I say nothing,” continued the baron, “of the nature of the
opposition which I meet to-day in the exercise of my most undoubted
the almost mutinous manner in which I am beset on every hand for
his pardon, as if—”
The speaker paused, and catching the eye of the watchful sergeant,
made the preconcerted signal to the latter to withdraw, and fulfil his
work, and as the officer silently departed, he continued—
“—as if I were incompetent to administer the laws of my own
domain—nay, with a spirit that imputes to me more than the guilt
of the accused, and would hold him innocent. For this cause alone
which strikes at the very foundation of my authority, I should be
compelled to deny your requests; when I add to them the heinous
nature of the crimes to be punished—crimes both private and
political—committed by a citizen of a country with which we are at
war,—while he was in fact receiving our protection—”
The baron paused, and looked impatiently at his watch, and then,
turning towards the window, assumed a listening attitude:
“—and—and—our hospitality; when all these things are
considered, I say, it becomes a matter of surprise that any should be
found who could indulge the hope of lenity to the prisoner. Some
of you, who know nothing of the principles of government, or of the
degree of rigidity in its laws which is essential to its safety, are more
excusable; but there are those here,” he added, glancing at the
Indians, “who compel me to remind them that I have lately overlooked
serious offences of their own—offences which have led
indirectly, to this very crime, which is to-day to be expiated.”
“No—no—no—oh say not so, my father—” Blanche replied
rapidly, and in tones of agony—“you will at least take one day for
deliberation; you will hear his defence—his vindication—you will
not—cannot condemn him unheard?”
“Unheard?” answered the baron in a voice of grating harshness—
“unheard? Have I not myself been a spectator of his crime?
Shall I summon witnesses to prove what my own eyes have
beheld?”
“But you will take one day—oh, one day for reflection,” she continued
with choked and tremulous articulation, and extending her
clasped hands towards her parent; “let it at least not be with the
setting of this sun that he dies; think—oh think, if to-morrow you
should regret it—it will then be for ever too late.”
“If to-morrow I should—regret it,” replied the baron, slowly:
“if to-morrow I should—regret it—then—” and again the speaker
paused—and listened!
His gaze was outward, through the window, and Blanche, whose
eyes were fixed upon his, seemed suddenly electrified by their
expression; a dreadful suspicion flashed upon her mind, and uttering
a piercing scream, she sprang to the door, and in another breath, her
shrieks were heard from without, as she darted along the hall and
into the inner court of the castle. In a moment everything was
uproar and confusion; Myrtle and Emily rushed in pursuit, and the
Lynx, catching with quick suspicion the meaning of the movement,
leaped, like a loosened tiger, through the doorway.
Blanche meanwhile, whose eyes, running rapidly over the ground,
had failed to discover the dreaded sight which she anticipated, had
taken a direction towards the barracks, and turned the corner of the
buildings just as the quick sharp voice of Sergeant Grill rang upon
the air, and the presented arms of the soldiers waited but the final
monosyllabic order, to pour forth their deadly contents. Her white
robes flashed for a moment on the eyes of the astonished soldiers, as
she passed directly in front of their upraised weapons, and in the same
moment, stood panting and speechless before the kneeling prisoner.
Her form intercepted the view of his; her arms were extended—her
chest rose and fell with the stormy violence of her emotion, and flashing
eye, and flaring nostril, and quivering lip, spoke the raging
tumult within.
“Remove her!” shouted Grill, and one from the line stepped
quickly forward for that purpose, but, ere he had reached Miss
Montaigne, the Lynx was at her side, menacing, with drawn knife,
the approaching soldier, who hesitated and looked back for aid.
The Huron meanwhile addressed Henrich, whose bandaged eyes
had, up to this moment, taken no cognisance of the strange interruption
to the melancholy drama.
“I have come to die for you, my brother,” he said, quickly
removing the handkerchief from the prisoner's face; “the King of
the Hurons will hear my words, for the Lynx is a chief, and hundreds
of warriors shout his battle-cry; rise, my brother, and when you
return to Manahatta, tell the Wappeno dogs that the Lynx was not
afraid to die.”
But ere he had finished speaking, other actors were added to the
scene; Emily and Myrtle had arrived, followed at a short interval
by the baron, the count, and the Algonquin Indian.
“See how rapidly spreads the contagion of mutiny and treason!”
shouted Montaigne. “Sergeant Grill, remove these, and complete
your work; let Miss Montaigne be conveyed to her room; you, sir,
must answer for this delay!”
“Hear me, my father, once more!” exclaimed Blanche, maintaining
her position by clinging to the arm of the Huron, whom no
one seemed disposed to interfere with; “spare but his life,—send
him forth in ignominy and alone, to regain his home,—and I here
promise to be obedient to all your requests; I promise, within two
days, peaceably and unrepining, to become, if you desire it, the bride
of Count Carlton;” she glanced shudderingly at the latter as she
spoke; “but if you will not hear me, I here solemnly swear that I
will never accede to your wishes; never shall this man clasp hand of
mine while I have life and strength to prevent it. Here will I stay,
until torn by force away; and him, whom, living, I might have forgotten,
dead, I will for ever love; he shall be enshrined in my heart,
and while life endures, it shall have no other occupant.”
As the baron looked around, he saw, through an open gateway, a
crowd of Huron warriors looking with sullen aspect upon the scene,
and recognised them as the immediate followers of the Lynx; they
were doubtless assembled, unbidden; yet, in the present excited
arrest the Huron, or in applying any force to compel him to abandon
his position. Blanche's resolute language, and above all, her promise
to consent to a marriage with Carlton, had nearly moved him
to a compliance, which only the strong pride of will restrained; but
now even that yielded.
“I accept your terms, Miss Montaigne,” he said; “and be assured,
I shall hold you most strictly to them; this miserable man shall
receive lenity,—such lenity as consists with an immediate banishment
from the territory of New France, under penalty of instant death if
found after twelve hours upon our soil. Sergeant, remove your
men!”
Blanche had been excited to the last endurable degree of intensity;
a sudden reaction now took place, which reduced her to a state
of stupor and bewilderment bordering on a swoon. When she recovered,
she was in her own apartment, and Huntington was already
without the castle walls.
| CHAPTER XXXI. The King of the Hurons | |