89. CHAPTER LXXXIX.
THE END OF THE DRAMA.
The speed of their horses was so great that the two men
entered Williamsburg as the sun was rising.
The leagues seemed to have fled from beneath the feet of
the animals—the gray, glimmering landscape had flitted by
like a dream.
As they rushed onward toward the town which gleamed
before them now, they heard a measured and yet confused
noise, at times rising to a roar almost. Something important
was evidently taking place.
The hoofs of the horses clashed on the stones; the riders
leaned forward in the saddle to see what was going on. In
an instant they were in the midst of a shouting and tumultuous
crowd.
The capital seemed convulsed.
The crowd which had thronged the streets three or four
days before seemed nothing in comparison with the fiery
multitude which now surged to and fro from the college to
the capitol—from the palace of the governor to the old
magazine. This last was the center from which radiated
the shouts and cries—the heart from which the hot blood
flowed.
The whole population seemed driven to fury. The two
men heard that hoarse and somber roar which accompanies
the movements of an enraged multitude, as it does the tossing
of the sea when lashed by tempests.
At one spot, before the old magazine, the excitement
seemed to culminate. Here the huge waves of the crowd
rolled to and fro, surrounding, with their tumult and uproar,
the form of a man who succeeded in standing erect only by
leaning on the shoulders of two others.
This person was pale and bleeding from a wound in the
shoulder.
“Morbleu! something strange has happened!” muttered
the captain; “let us find out,” and he addressed his question
to one of the crowd. The information was soon obtained.
Dunmore had affixed concealed spring guns at the door of
the magazine, and the wounded man, in opening the door,
had received a full charge of slugs in his shoulder and
breast.
The face of the soldier flushed like fire, and his hoarse exclamation
was added to those of the crowd, which every
moment seemed to lash itself to greater fury.
“Ah, well!” he growled, bringing round the hilt of his
sword; “the moment comes at last! we will fight, friend!
Listen to that roar, like the growl of a lion at bay! And
look yonder!”
St. John followed the pointed finger, and saw that the
Governor's guards, mounted and fully equipped, were drawn
up before the gate of the palace. Two loaded cannon were
directed point blank upon the furious multitude.
St. John pushed his horse through the agitated mass, and
riding up to the cannon, followed close by Waters, said to
one of the men who recognized him,
“Where is your captain—Mr. Lindon?”
The man whom he addressed looked strangely at him, and
replied with the single word,
“Within.”
“Come friend,” cried St. John, throwing himself from his
horse, the bridle of which he hastily affixed to the wall;
“let us enter! Our game is not here!”
“You are right!” growled the captain, dismounting
quickly; “my game too is there—it is Foy!”
And they hurried onward to the palace. It was in the
wildest confusion. The servants were hastening in every
direction with affrighted looks, and there was no one to announce
them.
St. John heard the voice of Dunmore, however, in the
great apartment which he knew so well; and without ceremony
threw open the door.
As he did so, Captain Foy, who was rushing out, struck
against him. The secretary was armed to the teeth. A
heavy saber rattled against his horseman's boots, and his
leather belt was stuck round with pistols. His somber
calmness had all disappeared. His dark eyes burned with
ferocious excitement, and a sort of audacious pride; his
cheek flushed with the thought of the coming contest. As
he rushed by toward the hostile crowd, he seemed filled
with the gaudium certaminis.
He scowled and then smiled with grim satisfaction, as he
recognized the two men; and then in a martial and strident
voice,
“Come, Captain Waters!” he said; “the moment has
arrived. The pen yields to the sword as I promised you!”
A flush of joy rushed to the martial features of Waters,
aud leaving the side of his companion, he rushed after Foy.
“I will be with you in an instant!” said St. John. “I
have my own game too. In a moment—or Lindon will escape!”
And as the two men disappeared, he hastily entered the
apartment of the Governor.
But he recoiled from the threshold.
At the sight which greeted him, he turned pale and trembled;
a cold sweat burst from his forehead, looking around
as though seeking for some means of escape from the spectacle
which riveted his staring, and horror-struck eyes.
Stretched on a sofa opposite the table of the Governor,
lay the dead body of Lindon, clearly relieved against the
red damask of the couch.
His haughty features were deadly pale—his heavy brows
were knit into a frown of rage and despair—his entire frill
and waistcoat were bathed in blood; and looking again, the
young man saw that his bosom was completely torn to
pieces.
St. John recoiled in irresistible horror. As he did so,
Dunmore, who was surrounded by his crouching and terror-stricken
family, rose wrathfully to his feet.
“So you come, like a vulture, to croak over death!” he
cried, hoarse with passion and agitation; “you scent the
carrion, and rush toward it!”
The young man was speechless with horror and disgust
at the spectacle, and the words of Dunmore. He could not
speak.
“You do not answer! you pretend ignorance!” cried the
Governor, looking at the dusty garments and horseman's
boots of St. John; “you would say that the death of this
person was unknown to you! Well, I'll soon explain that,
sir! I placed guns to defend the arms of his Majesty in
the magazine, from the rioters of this capital and province.
For what reason I know not, nor do I care, Mr. Lindon
went thither, and met with the accident that resulted in his
death! I suppose you will say that it was all my fault! I
say it was his own. He deserted me, and met his reward.”
St. John almost recoiled from the speaker, as he had done
from the dead body—with a sentiment of awful horror and
disgust. Then his mind's eye, with a lightning-like glance,
saw Lindon again rushing, without his sword, from the burning
house—he imagined the unfortunate man flying to Williamsburg—he
saw him stop at the magazine, the key of
which he carried, to procure a sword; he heard the tremendous
explosion, and saw them bear the shattered and
bleeding body to the palace.
“Yes, he met with his proper reward!” repeated Dunmore,
with wrathful agitation; “you do not answer, sir.
Am I not to hear your highness' insults?”
St. John had no time to reply. A roar, like that of a
great dyke giving way to the rush of waters, rolled in from
the street. The crowd had just discovered several barrels
of gunpowder, buried beneath the floor of the magazine,
with trains attached; and this new enormity, in addition
to the rest, made their anger perfect fury.
As the menacing thunder reverberated, the ladies of the
Governor's family rose to their feet with irrepressible terror.
Trembling like aspens—pale, fear-stricken, overwhelmed—
they looked toward the door, and awaited a repetition of
the sound.
Their panic was shared by the Governor. His courage
seemed to give way, his cheek grew pale, and turning toward
the man whom he had just insulted, he faltered out,
“These people will tear us to pieces!”
St. John looked away from the speaker with a curl of the
lip which he could not repress; his gaze fell upon the ladies,
and he saw Lady Augusta, the friend of Blossom, gazing into
his face, with so helpless and beseeching a glance, that
his heart melted in his breast.
“Fear nothing, madam,” he said, replying in words to
the look, and bowing with grace and ceremonious courtesy;
“the men of Virginia do not make war on women. I will
preserve you from insult with my life, if that is necessary.”
And turning to the Governor,
“I place myself wholly at your Excellency orders,” he
said, “and I think that the ladies should leave the palace.”
“Yes, yes! and I, too, sir! I, too, will go! I will no
longer remain where my life is threatened!”
The young man did not wait for more. He rushed through
the palace to the stables, with his drawn sword, compelled
the terrified servants to attach the horses to the chariot; in
ten minutes it stood at the rear entrance of the palace.
The ladies were ready with a few hastily-gathered jewels
and articles of clothing, and quickly got in with the Governor.
Lady Augusta entered last, and St. John long remembered
the sweet look of gratitude which she bestowed upon him.
“Thanks, Mr. St. John,” she said, hurriedly pressing his
hand; “you are truly a gentleman. We may never meet
again, but I will always remember you!”
And, whether by design or accident, she dropped one of
her small gloves at his feet, which he raised and placed in
his bosom, with a low bow of thanks and farewell.
The door closed—the coachman, trembling with fear,
lashed his terrified horses; they started at a gallop, and the
chariot disappeared at the moment when another roar shook
the palace.
St. John hastened to the great gateway—saw a wild, terrible
tumult—was mounted, and spurring his animal into the
meleé, before he knew it, almost, the guards of the Governor
had charged the crowd.
The veins of the young man seemed to fill with fire instead
of blood; his eyes blazed with indignation as the
trampling troopers bore down on the unarmed mass; his
sword flashed in the sun, and digging the spur into the
quivering sides of his animal, he rushed upon Captain Foy,
who, raging like a wild beast at bay, led the guards in their
charge.
But suddenly another adversary was opposed to Foy—an
adversary who cried, as his horse reeled through the mass,
“Now for the Coup of Reinfels!”
Then St. John saw, raised above the heads of the crowd,
two men clash together with a noise like thunder—two
swords gleamed aloft—the combatants grappled, as it were,
for an instant, breast to breast, face to face, and then, as the
sudden blast of a trumpet, and the sound of galloping horses
resounded from the other end of Gloucester street, the combat
came to its termination. Captain Waters rose erect, with
his hat slashed in two, and the blood flowing from a slight
wound in his temple; Captain Foy dropped his saber, and
turning deadly pale, fell forward on the neck of his horse.
His opponent's weapon had passed through his body.
The trumpet and galloping horses announced a company
from the county of James City, and they came on now with
shouts and cries; the guards were seen to waver and fall
back. When it was known that their captain, Foy, was
disabled, they lost heart, and looked around in despair.
Then finally, as the horsemen swept on, they recoiled and
fled, with a last look toward the palace, from which they
seemed to have expected succor. The chariot of the Governor
was seen ascending, at full gallop, a distant hill, and
in that direction they now directed their flight, pursued by
the victorious shouts of their enemies.
Foy glared at his adversary for an instant, like a wounded
wolf, with indescribable hatred and rage; his dark eyes
burned like coals in his pallid face, and he gnashed his teeth
with a sort of helpless fury. Then turning his horse's head,
and shaking his clenched hand at his enemies, with a last
exertion of strength, he dug the spur into his horse and fled
reeling. His unconquerable spirit seemed to supply him
with strength to remain in the saddle. His black horse
darted onward on the heels of the rest—the flying hoofs
resounded for some moments on the stones—then, bearing
away his faint and reeling rider, the wild animal disappeared
from all eyes.
As Foy thus vanished, an immense roar of victory resounded,
and borne on by the tumultuous and shouting multitude,
St. John found himself suddenly by the side of the
commander of the reinforcement. It was the stranger.
But no longer the stranger of the past, in his plain citizen's
accoutrements—the man of the pen. It was now the
man of the sword. His belt was filled with pistols, a long
broad-sword clashed against his heavy boots; with his white
and nervous hand, as supple and hard as steel, he reined in
the fiery and plunging animal which he rode with a grasp
of iron.
His pale face was slightly flushed, his lips compressed with
icy resolution, his dark, haunting eyes, blazed with a steady
flame.
As his horse and that of St. John came in collision, the
young man found his hand enclosed in the vice-like grasp
of the stranger's.
“We meet again, friend,” said the stranger, in his collected
voice, which sounded low and clearly in the midst of the
immense tumult; “I told you that events were ripening—
that the storm rushed on. We'll see now! it has come!
hear its thunder! You will soon see its lightning!”
“Yes,” replied St. John, gazing with absorbing interest
at the pale martial face, “yes! the tongue and the pen are
about to yield—to yield to the sword, as you said.”
“They have yielded! They disappear!” cried the stranger,
with a glance of fiery joy and pride. “We have found
what we wanted—the sword!”
“You have found it? found the leader?”
“Yes! the man who will lead us to glory and victory!
He is already elected general in chief of the armies of North
America!”
“His name?”
“George Washington!”
As though in response to the utterance of the name, a
deafening cheer rose above the multitude, making the horses
start and rear.
The flag of St. George—the banner of England—which
had waved above the magazine, was seen to drop. Then,
obeying the strength of the hundred hands which caught
the ropes, it slowly descended, amid the shouts of the great
crowd.
In an instant it had disappeared. It was trampled beneath
the feet of the roaring multitude, and torn into a
thousand shreds.
“Look, friend!” cried the stranger, with glowing eyes,
“see the banner of England trodden down and torn to
pieces! See the beginning of the end! the advent of war
and revolution! The hour has struck! the day dawned!
The old world has passed away—behold all things from
henceforth become new!”
The triumphal roar of cannon seemed to reply to the
words—the Revolution had indeed begun.
