University of Virginia Library

10. CHAPTER X.

Jones, when he returned to the woodland cover
which had been assigned to Horsey as his sleeping
apartment, discovered the worthy actor half undressed,
squat upon the turf, and looking around
him with a countenance in which consternation
might be said to be the prevailing expression.

“Why, what's the matter, Mr. Horsey?” demanded
the outlaw.

“Matter, sir,” returned the other, “matter
enough.”

“How! you seem alarmed—you seem angry.”

“Not alarmed, but cursedly astounded, and, as
you say, a little angry. Mr. Jones, I'm cursedly
afraid that this company of yours will not exactly
answer.”

“How, sir?”

“They lack moral, sir,” was the reply of Horsey,
in lower tones, and something more of caution in his
manner.

“Indeed,” said the other, “what leads you to this
conclusion?”

“Nay, let me not do injustice to all, when the
offence may be that of one only. Would you believe
it, sir?—my clothes are stolen!”

“Can it be possible?”

“Not only possible, but true. They are gone, sir,
—a tolerably new coat—blue cloth, gilt buttons, with
velvet collar, and silk lining—two shirts—pants,
a sort of pepper-and-salt, very fine though, with
figured braid front and broad edging—vest, fine satin,
a little frayed at the right pocket, double buckles in
the back, no strings, and my name, written in India-ink
on the lining, `Thomas Horsey, American
Theatre, New Orleans,' all in full. In the vest, a
silver pencil-case, ever-pointed, without leads; in
the pants, a penknife, toothpick, and comb; in the
coat, a handkerchief and pocket Shakspeare, fine
miniature, Cadell's edition, London, much used, and
with pencil-marks for reading, under emphasized
passages. I would not take twenty dollars for the
Shakspeare alone, to say nothing of the clothes.”

“Truly a very serious loss, if they be lost,” was
the reply of Jones; “but I'm in hopes, Mr. Horsey,
that they are only mislaid. Our profession, as you
well know, calls for persons of nice honour in particular,
and I should prefer believing any mischance
sooner than the dishonesty of any of our men. Have
you looked where you left them?”

“Every where.”

“Let us look again. It is too much to lose without
some effort, and you may have overlooked them
in the darkness of the night. Where did you lay
them?”

“Here, on this very pole, and beneath these two
trees; I changed my dress behind them. My saddlebags,
you see, are safe, and that is fortunate, for

my favourite costume, and the most costly, is within
them. I have a Romeo there, sir, a Richard, two
field-officers, a Mustapha, and other uncertain characters.
My Hamlet, you see, I have on, and, egad,
`motley's my only wear' now, unless I can recover
the missing matters. The only citizen's dress I had,
is gone, and I should make a comical figure by daylight,
in this dress of Denmark.”

“A noble figure you mean, sir—you never looked
half so well in any dress in your life, Mr. Horsey,
as in that,” was the reply, full of tones of admiration,
which the outlaw made. It went consolingly
to our actor's heart, through the medium of his
vanity; and the importance of his loss became a little
lessened in his eyes.

“Upon my soul,” continued the outlaw, with a
successful gravity of countenance, while he affected
to look for the missing articles, “were I you, Mr.
Horsey, I should never desire any other dress than
that which you wore to-night. Your figure and
general air, sir, suit admirably the costume of
Hamlet.”

“Do you really think so, Jones?”

“Indeed I do; your carriage was particularly
fine—the union of royal dignity and profound human
thought, which you contrived—I know not
how—to throw into the countenance of the melancholy
prince, was inimitable. The habitual sense of
royalty was there—present always to the sight; and
yet every movement of the lips, every turn of the
body, every glance of the eye, subdued while graceful,
and full of signification while most easy, seemed
to say, with the preacher, `Vanity of vanities, all is
vanity.' Your Hamlet, sir, seemed to denote, what
he must have felt always, that he was the victim of
the destinies.”

“That is a good idea, Mr. Jones—a devilish good

idea—a correct notion of the character. I must
confess I never thought that before, though, certainly,
I must have felt it, if my personation was correct. I
must read the play more closely,—I must renew my
studies. D—n the fellow for stealing the book—the
breeches he may have—can't you make it known
without offending the company, Mr. Jones?—Say
that the thief may have vest and breeches, returning
me my Shakspeare and the coat?”

The result of the search, in spite of the liberal
offer which Horsey had made, was unsatisfactory.
The worthy actor was compelled to wear his professional
costume in common, and the merriment which
his appearance by daylight occasioned among the
outlaws, whom he was still persuaded to regard as
brethren—fellows of the sock and buskin—may be
more easily conjectured than described. Not that he
himself was suffered to become conscious of the fun
which he inspired. Jones had his object in preserving
order, and was successful in curbing the open
expression of that mirth which was felt on every
side as the actor strutted among them—perhaps not
so much dissatisfied with his losses, as pleased with
the opportunity of appearing so often in character,
to a person who, like Jones, seemed to behold his
display with so much unction, and with such a laudable
desire to profit by his exhibitions. It would
have been easy to have kept the actor some time
longer in so pleasant a captivity, had it been the object
of the outlaws to have done so. It was only
necessary on the part of their leader to hint a desire
that the phlegmatic, yet fanciful Hamlet—a Jacques
under different aspects of fortune—should become
the proud and passionate Moor for a season; and
Horsey, whatever might have been his rising suspicions
of his companions, dismissed them on the instant
that he put on the habit of Othello. Vanity is

one of the most unsuspicious of all moral objects.
The ear that is open only to praise seems to acquire
its intense eagerness at the expense of the other perceptive
faculties. The eye is closed to the sneer that
lurks about the lips of irony—and a general obtuseness
of the judgment, in all but the leading desire of
the mind, distinguishes that moral gourmand, for
whom toiling Flattery—a creature that is base in
proportion to the folly which it feeds,—ministers its
spurious sweets, that, perhaps, only do not satiate,
because they are so utterly unsubstantial. But let
us not anticipate. It will not be necessary here to
say how long Horsey remained in the neighbourhood
of Cane Castle, or what were the events that subsequently
befel him. Let us finish with the night in
which he lost his inexpressibles, and in which we
have still something more to do, and some other
parties to produce.

After devoting considerable time, and a reasonable
degree of effort, for the recovery of the lost
wardrobe, Jones left the actor to his sylvan couch,
while he returned to his own—a shelter of twigs,
bark and bushes, some fifty yards distant. The
actor soon slept, to dream of parts and persons, in
the assumption of which the loss of his own garments
could not have been seriously felt. Sleep
soon overcame the outlaw also; and it was only
after several shakes of the shoulder that the latter
was awakened from his slumbers by a stranger at
his side.

“Ha! captain—you!” he exclaimed, when fully
aroused, and starting to his feet as he distinguished
the face and form of his visiter in the dim star-light.

“Yes,” was the answer in the tones of Saxon.
“Have you found your man?”

“He is here,—we have played the game so far
with tolerable success.”

“You have the clothes then?”

“Yes—coat, vest and breeches.”

“That is well. Let them be well blooded; put a
knife and bullet hole in the breast and body, and
send them off with the first peep of morning to
Nawls. Keep up the game with this silly fellow a
few days longer, and I will then give you orders
what to do with him. He is unsuspicious of the
truth?”

“Quite.”

“That is well—keep him so—but do not suffer
yourself to be deceived. He may play in characters
more troublesome to a good beagle than Othello
or Macbeth. You were careful to take him along
the cross paths to the swamp?”

“Ay, sir—it would puzzle him to find his way
out again without help; but he will not seek to do
so while we hold to our theatrical purposes, and
this we can safely do for a reasonable space longer.
Do you leave the castle to-morrow?”

“To-night. I will but see Florence first, and excuse
myself for another flight.”

“That is only a proper caution, sir. She needs
it.”

“How! Have you seen her?” demanded Saxon,
with some anxiety.

“She came out upon us while we were drenching
the boys, in the very height of our play with the
actor.”

“Ha!—well! The old passion, I suppose?” inquired
the outlaw, with some disquiet in his tones.
“Would she were safely in Orleans again. What
did she come for?”

“To summon me to the castle—to make inquiries
after you—your whereabouts—your objects—the
cause of your delay.”

“Jealous, suspicious woman!—I must cure her

of this; but the task is not so easy. She has a furnace
in her veins that maddens her. Her brain is
all fire and suspicion, and her heart—but I must forgive
her all, since her madness grows out of a love,
which is as little qualified and doubtful as her jealousy.
And yet, heaven keep me from such a passion
as hers—to be its object even is a terror. It
would consume while it worships—and still enslaves
by the intensity of its regards. There is no tyranny
like that which never suffers you from under its
eye.”

The conference between the two outlaws was
continued for a brief space longer, but as it involved
matters which have no connexion with our narrative,
it needs no record here. When they separated,
Jones resumed his couch, while Saxon, passing
through the narrow pathway already traversed by
the reader, entered upon that densely encircled area,
on the edge of which stood the little cottage of his
leman.

Florence Marbois—the young, the beautiful, the
devoted—was a Creole of Louisiana, whose parents
were French, and who, dying of yellow fever in
Orleans when she was yet a child, left her to the
doubtful care of indifferent relatives, whose responsibility,
however lightly it may have been felt, had been
abruptly terminated by her clandestine flight to the
arms of another guardian, from whose affection she
had better hopes of those regards and that tenderness,
which were so dear to one so adhesive as herself,
and of which she had heretofore known so little.
Edward Saxon—of whom she then knew nothing,
but that he was noble in form, handsome in features,
proud in spirit and intelligent in mind, far beyond
the average of those intellects to which she had
been accustomed—became her protector—her protector
in that sense of the word which excludes her

from all social consideration; and though it may
most frequently have its origin in love, more certainly
finds its termination in disgrace. She fled to
his arms, and in the intoxication of a first dream of
passion realised, she felt no rebukings of conscience
—no compunctious visitings—no misgivings that the
love which had prevailed over virtue would fail to
survive its loss. But the heart which craved the
affection which it has not often found, is of all others
the most suspiciously watchful of that brief portion
which fate allows it; and when, in process of time,
the various employments of her lover, took him
from her side, and kept him absent for days, and
weeks, and sometimes months, Jealousy, that twin-passion
of love, which, perhaps, must always be as
active as its elder sister, particularly where the
rights of the latter have been left unestablished by
the legitimate authorities, grew no less violent than
the flame of which it may be called the black and
veiling smoke; and she who could dote, at one moment,
with devotion, on the bosom of her seducer,
soon showed him that she was not without the spirit
to rise, at another, into rebellion and hostility. Her
fits of passion annoyed and sometimes confounded
him; and the first impulses having subsided, which
had led him, as fiercely fond as herself, to assume
the charge of one so wild and violent, he sighed
with something of regret as he looked back to a
condition of freedom, which he now craved, but
which he found himself utterly unable to restore.
Though outlawed, he was not utterly abandoned,
and his soul shrunk from the suggestions, which had
never been self-prompted before, to rid himself, by a
single act of brutality, from ties which, however
sweet at first, had now become an encumbrance.
Now, for the first time, however, dark resolves were
self-offered to his mind; and ere he emerged from
the wood which separated the encampment of the
robbers from the area in which the cottage of his
mistress stood, he paused under their influence, and
his lips parted in murmured soliloquy:

“And why should it be borne longer?” he exclaimed—“why
should I be the victim of eternal
jealousies—a suspicion that haunts my footsteps—
that watches my actions—that hangs like an incubus
upon my heart? Can there be any wisdom in such
patience? Shall it be that I, who have shaken off
the fear with the love of man—who have bidden defiance
to his power no less than to that of God—that
I should yield up life and freedom—the enjoyment of
other society which might in part console me for
the loss of those which the outlaw must ever forfeit,
in a base homage to one for whom I have no love
—for whose claims, even lust now fails to offer any
argument? Beautiful once—beautiful still—loving
me as I believe thou hast done—Florence Marbois,
thou art yet nothing in my sight. Thy love is persecution;
and it is pity—pity only—which has made
me, at great effort, wear a face, when I approached
thee, of regard which I can no longer feel. I remember
what thou wast when I first saw thee—
when I first took thee in my arms that fatal night,
when, in a boat which might have been a coffin to
us both, the winds bore us over the Pontchartrain
together—I remember what thou wast, and what I
promised to thee then, and the memory of that night
rises up to save thee and to soften me. But, can I
always spare—can I always endure the tyranny
which thy vain jealousies inflict? Is there reason
why it should be borne—nay, is there not good reason
now, why it should cease soon and for ever. It
must—it shall! There is a bound where patience
may not go—a limit where endurance stops, and
forbearance becomes a shame as it has long before

become a weariness. That bound is reached—that
limit is overpassed; and the heart which now flows
with all its streams to another, must soon be freed
from thee. But for this I had borne with thee still
longer—I had borne with thee in pity for thy youth—
for that love even, which thou still bearest to one to
whom it has been an annoyance for weary months,
and to whom, unless checked in season, it must become
a curse!”

He paused and looked around him, as if struck by
approaching footsteps, but no one approached him.
As if reassured, his words again broke forth in soliloquy—such
soliloquy as denoted the doubts and indecision
of a spirit, for the first time approaching a
purpose of excessive guilt and danger. What he
said tended to show that the woman whom his arts
had betrayed, was about to be cast from his least
regards; and nothing seemed to be wanting to the
more fell and cruel resolution which would thrust her
from his path, but that frequent contemplation of the
subject, which reconciles the corrupted heart, step
by step, to the last degree of crime. That this stage
of wickedness had not yet been reached by the outlaw,
was clear enough, by the frequent recurrence,
in what he said, to that period in the history of their
mutual fortunes, when the intercourse between them
had been productive of equal pleasure to them both.
So long as the memory may still look back with
tenderness to the green garden spots of youth, the
heart is not utterly corrupt—there is still a part not
yet ossified—a narrow, isolated spot, from which the
springs of relieving pity may well up and soften,
though they may not often heal, the rest.