University of Virginia Library

17. CHAPTER XVII.
SETTLING ACCOUNTS.

“And now,” muttered Calvert, “for Lieutenant Molyneaux!”

That officer was on deck. He had relieved Eckles, and the
latter had just turned in; but not before he had expressed his
misgivings to his colleague touching the discovery that the captain
had so recently made, and the consequences that would probably
follow.

“I warned you, my dear fellow,” said the good-natured Eckles,
“but you are such a d—d conceited blockhead, and so impudent,
that you will listen to nothing till your head's off.”

“Pooh!” answered the other, “who cares? I am as good as
any man that ever stood on quarter-deck.”

“Say, as great a monkey! But you have n't heard the whole
of it. There 'll be more words to that tune.”

“I 'm not afraid to trust my ears. Get to your hammock,
Eckles, and shut your own ears.”

And Molyneaux lighted a cigar, and began his ordinary paces.
Eckles, yawning, disappeared below.

Spite of his expressed confidence, spite of his effrontery, Molyneaux
was not without his own misgivings. His conscience did
not sustain him. But the same conceit and impudence which
moved him so frequently to offend, sufficed to strengthen him usually
in the encounter with the consequences of his effrontery; and
he nerved himself, with all his resources of blood and vanity, when
he beheld the tall person of his superior emerge from the cabin.

Thus armed and strengthened, he could not help the fancy that

Calvert had grown a foot since he had last seen him. His person
now seemed absolutely gigantic. He himself (Molyneaux) was a
trim, neatly-built, compact young fellow, active in great degree,
and vigorous for his gristle; but, with all his vanity, he did not
deceive himself with the notion that he could, for a single instant,
maintain his ground in a grapple with our rover. He felt that
he was good at his weapon; but he knew that so was Calvert —
good at any weapon — and so powerful, that, whether armed with
rapier or quarter-staff, he was likely to prove a dangerous enemy,
no matter with whom he fought.

These things were all thought over, in a moment, by our lieutenant.
In truth, he had an awkward consciousness of guilt and
offence, irrespective of his presumption in regard to his superior's
wife, which compelled a continually-recurring reference to his resources,
in the event of collision with that superior. His vanity,
his desire of power, his greed of gain, had all combined to involve
him in practices which, he well knew, if discovered, would justify
his principal in resorting to the most summary punishment. But,
as yet, these are secrets. He believes them to be so, at all events,
and in great degree they are.

Calvert, however, was growing suspicious; but, with sufficient
grounds for suspicion, he had yet no proper clues for inquiry, and
no such evidence as would enable him to form a judgment. It
was his present policy to look for these clues. And Calvert,
proud, passionate, resolute, was yet cool enough, and a sufficiently-trained
man, to pursue the search with equal acuteness and discretion.
As yet, his purpose was by no means to push the young
offender to extremity. He was first to ascertain to what extent
the treachery of Molyneaux had been carried, and how many of
the crew had been corrupted. He did not doubt that there was
treachery, but whether it contemplated mere peculation, or an insane
passion after the supreme power, was a question. The former
offence might be winked at in a service so indulgent — the
latter never! For the former, there were mild rebukes, and restitution
would suffice. The penalty of the superior offence lay at
the end of a rope, the swing of a yard-arm, or, in the event of
resistance, a sudden shot from a pistol, or the heavy stroke of a
cutlass. But just now, Calvert contemplated no such necessities.
He had first to make discoveries.

He joined the young man where he stood, on one side of the
quarter-deck looking out upon the shore. Molyneaux flung away
his cigar at his superior's approach, and braced himself for the
encounter, not exactly conceiving in what way it would come. He
was not left in doubt long. The voice of Calvert was mild in tone,
though firm and serious:—

“Lieutenant Molyneaux, I had occasion to use some sharp language
to you in my cabin. You will oblige me by giving me no
occasion in future to repeat the language. My cabin is sacred;
but you are sufficiently well informed, as one of British blood, to
know what Englishmen hold sacred. Your offence consists, here,
in the knowledge that you do and must offend. I should pay but
a sorry compliment to your intelligence to suppose you ignorant
of this.”

“I was invited, sir, by your lady, into the cabin. She—”

“My wife, Mr. Molyneaux, is one of another nation than ours,
and ignorant of our customs. To respond, as you did, to her invitation,
when you knew better, was as great an outrage as if, asking
you for education in the English language, you had taught her
only words of English obscenity. You owed it to her as a lady,
and to me as your superior officer, as well as gentleman, not to
second her in any mistake which she might make, as a foreigner,
by a studious observance yourself of the nicest proprieties upon
which our people so tenaciously insist.”

“But, sir, as a lady, she had a right, sir—”

“Stop, Mr. Molyneaux: it is one of your mistakes that you are
too eager to urge the argument of vanity, rather than to justify
your conscientious convictions of the right. Let me state clearly
my cause of complaint. You knew my wife's ignorance of those
English customs which we hold to be requisite for propriety, and
you encouraged her in her violation of them, in order to take advantage
of her ignorance.”

“What advantage, sir?”

“It is for you to answer. Suppose you do answer me? Why
did you err, sir, violating the rules of the service, as well as our
English proprieties — why do a wrong, which you knew to be
such — then meanly plead the invitation of a woman ignorant of
our laws, ignorant of English customs, to excuse you in your knowing
violation of both, unless that you proposed some selfish object
to yourself?

“I had no object, Captain Calvert.”

“Mr. Molyneaux, I give you credit for vices, but would not
willingly have to reproach you for meannesses also. Suffer yourself
to be silent rather than resort to evasion. But I intend to
deal with you more frankly. Now, sir, had my wife been an
Englishwoman, do you doubt that I had slain both of you, finding
you in my chamber with her as I did to-night? I had as surely
pistolled you both as I now speak to you! I should have listened
to nothing — said nothing — knowing that both of you must have
been aware of the natural impropriety of your being found together
in such a situation, at such an hour, in such circumstances,
during my absence. She erred through ignorance: you can make
no such plea. But that I know her, sir, and know that your arts
can no more affect her natural purity and simplicity than they
can deceive me, I should count you equally guilty. I know that
you employ these arts in vain—”

“I employ no arts, Captain Calvert! I deny, sir—”

“Then you are playing a fool's game, indeed! But, Mr. Molyneaux,
though I feel sure of the purity of my wife — know that
she is superior to any arts such as yours — yet, sir, it is not the
less displeasing to me that any man should so presume as to approach
her with licentious purpose. That she is ignorant of
offence, does not lessen your offence; and I now caution you
against any repetition of it. I have hitherto been a little too
heedless of this thing, rather through a feeling of scorn than indifference.
Now, however, that it has come to be matter of talk in
the ship, among the common crew, I feel it due to my wife's honor,
if not my own, to arrest your further practice of this sort. You
will observe a different course from this moment. Do not, I beg
you, fall into an error, natural enough to young men of large self-esteem,
of supposing that I fear what you might do. There are
many occasions of offence which are not necessarily causes of fear.
With my wife, I could afford you any opportunities, and still laugh
to scorn all your idle efforts, as she would do were she once made
to comprehend them. It will surprise you to know, after all your
labors, that she has no sort of notion of what you mean, and holds
you simply as a playmate, who amuses her. But my own proper
pride, and natural sense of dignity and honor, forbid that I should
tolerate approaches which contemplate an insulting purpose, however

little likely to succeed; and, once for all, I repeat the warning,
that, another such offence, and I shall as certainly put you to
death as that I now speak to you!”

“You have entirely mistaken me, Captain Calvert. I have
had no such purposes as you suppose. I—”

“Not another word, Mr. Molyneaux! — you do not help the
matter. I know young men — I know man — I know you! Our
business connection is such as to render me quite satisfied with
you as a good seaman, as a clever officer, as a brave young man,
who knows his duty and has the courage to perform it. For these
qualities I need you and respect you. That I have done you full
justice for these qualities, your employment from the beginning —
your elevation, as second officer of this ship — will sufficiently
prove. You owe this promotion wholly to me. I have advanced
you, not waiting entreaty, seeing your abilities with my own eyes.
I have still other services for you, and there is still further promotion
if you continue faithful. My purpose, in rebuking, is not
to pain or to degrade, but to save you. I understand, of course,
that, in what I have said to you this night, I have somewhat mortified
your vanity; and this was also a part of my purpose. It is
upon this rock, Mr. Molyneaux — this rock of vanity — that your
ship is destined to founder. It is this rock upon which most
young men sink their fortunes. I have noted this your chief weakness,
and lamented it for a long time. I have seen through all the
little arts by which you have fed your own weakness, and it is
time to open your eyes to your self-delusion. If you are warned
in season, you may cure yourself of this infirmity. If, on the contrary,
you feel counsel only as offence; if your vanity still prevails
over wisdom; if you too impatiently seek your ends; if these
ends really contemplate only the temporary enjoyment and the
gratification of self-esteem — your career will be short, and the
end shameful! I have now sufficiently warned you. It is for
me an effort to do so, and should argue to you a degree of interest
in your behalf which should rather awaken pride than offend vanity.
It would be easier for me, I assure you, to brush off an
offender than seek to cure him. And now, sir, to the business of
the ship.”

We have forborne the various interpositions made by Lieutenant
Molyneaux, in which he sought to excuse his offences, or to

evade the conclusions of his superior, or to assert his self-esteem.
We pass them by, very much as Calvert himself did, and for the
same reason, as discreditable pleas and evasions, put in at the expense
of his manhood. He was not prepared to join final issue
with his superior; and a sense of guilt is, in a young mind, a
necessary source of weakness. But his vanity stimulated him to
replies which were only to be urged at the cost of character and
pride; and to all these Calvert refused to listen, and so may we.
We need not report them, at all events.

Nor did Calvert wholly mistake the nature of his lieutenant, so
far as to suppose that the same vanity would suffer him to grow
wiser after the rebuke. He knew the man too well to believe
that anything short of severe penalties, actually enforced, could do
any effectual service in bringing him back to a right consciousness
of his true relations with the world about him. He rightly conceived
that all which he said would be wasted upon blind ears;
but he had his own policy in his exhortations, and their very
severity on one subject was calculated to render the young man
obtuse to those more searching inquiries which his superior had
to make in other directions. Had Calvert said nothing to him
touching his presence in the cabin, Molyneaux must either have
supposed him grossly insensible to his honor — which he could
hardly be — or too deeply interested in other matters, in which
the guilty man was a participator, to suffer him to attach a proper
weight to this. Briefly, to forbear in the present instance, might
have led Molyneaux to suppose that his forbearance was a blind,
concealing his scrutiny into other offences, quite as flagrant, and
much more dangerous in their consequences. To dwell on this,
as the captain had done, and with so much severity, was, in short,
equivalent to saying to him, “This is my only cause of quarrel or
complaint.”

So Molyneaux construed it; and, conscious of so much more
offence, yet undeveloped and apparently unconjectured, he was
quite willing for the present to escape so easily. But the language,
tone, and manner, of his superior, stung him to the quick; and,
though he endeavored so to compose his muscles, and regulate his
tones and words, and subdue his passion, as to answer with moderation
and almost with humility, the hate all the while was growing
in his heart, in due degree with his efforts to suppress its exhibition.

Calvert read him through; understood all the workings of his
mind; smiled a bitter scorn as he listened to his replies; and said
to himself, at the close:—

“He will not be saved! But my time is not yet come — nor
his. We can both wait!”

And so he proceeded to talk, as it were indifferently, of the
affairs of the ship; taking a minute report of everything that had
been done in his absence, even to a list of the names of parties
engaged in the several tasks of scouting the woods, fishing, loading
and unloading, and of the crews employed in conveying the
boats to town.

“Any signs of Indians?” he asked.

“Yes, sir, but not within five miles. They do not seem to have
found us out yet. There is a new plantation settling, about five
miles below where they have been in considerable numbers.”

“Keep your scouts busy still — your best men — and have a
squad of three or four of them on the other side of the river, with
a boat in cover, directly opposite, night and day. Let them report
to you nightly. Have you had any men missing — any off without
leave?”

“No, sir.

This was said boldly.

“Keep your eye upon the boats, so that none shall be missing
without your knowing it. The danger is, that some of these blockheads
will be running down to Charleston, where a reward is
offered for every mother's son of them! We may, in fact, very
soon have to change our quarters. You have an inventory of all
the goods sent down, the number of loads, and a receipt from
Franks for all delivered?”

“Here it is, sir.”

“Very well. I will examine it by daylight. The light articles
are nearly all gone, I suppose?”

“Two more boats will carry them, sir.”

“We shall then have to devise a plan for discharging the heavy,
so as to avoid this tedious process, which would consume weeks
for us. In fact, the boats can hardly be used for the purpose.
But of this to-morrow. Good-night, Mr. Molyneaux.”

“Good-night, sir.”

And the captain went below without lingering.

“Now, d—n his blood!” broke from the lieutenant, as he shook
his clenched fist toward the cabin when the rover had disappeared.
“But I will have it out of his heart yet! Oh! she is too pure,
is she? — too virtuous, eh? Of course, I can not succeed! He
feels quite safe, does he, on that score? Ha! ha! ha! This is
the way in which these d—d silly husbands deceive themselves.
Well, we shall see! It is a defiance — a challenge! We shall
see! If I am to be taunted on that score, by — I will see if I
can not revenge the taunt! Too pure — too immaculate! Ha!
ha! As if there was ever yet painted daughter of Eve who could
resist the right persuader! We shall see! She shall make me
sweet atonement for all this; and he! — ay, if I do not have it out
of his heart's blood, then curse me for a coward who has no red
blood in his own!”