"Back, dogs! Do ye fear me singly? Oh, ho, cowards! Stand where ye are! and you, traitor," he cried, breaking the cutlass of their leader short to its hilt, "go to your duty! I spare your life!"
"Never!"
"Then go to the devil with my compliments."
With the words he placed a pistol at his breast and fired: the man leaped high into the air and fell backward dead.
"Now, fellows, return to your stations," he said, returning his smoking pistol to his belt. "The first who hesitates or falters lies beside this carcass," he added, touching, with a contemptuous gesture, the body with his foot.
The mutineers dropped their weapons and returned to their posts without hesitation or a murmur. "Lawrence, you are no longer coxswain," said Kyd. "Take this mutineer's rank. See that my orders are obeyed! Lay the main topsail to the mast!"
"Ay, ay, sir!" replied the new lieutenant, with alacrity.
The helm was put hard down, the vessel came up into the wind, the heavy sail was reversed against the topmast, and the vessel became stationary. A plank was then run out over the gangway bulwarks with the largest end inboard.
"Now, Rupert Fitzroy, prepare to die!" said the bucanier, approaching his prisoner, who stood with folded arms and calm brow gazing upon the moon walking in her brightness, and looking as if he anticipated the speedy flight of his spirit through the starry world. He evidently expected death, and was prepared to meet it. His companion stood by him leaning upon his shoulder; his hands were clasped together, and he was pale and deadly in aspect, but not less resigned: nevertheless, he involuntarily shuddered as the footsteps of the pirate approached them, and addresed the former.
"I will give you a free leap into the other world, as your blood is gentle, sir, and will set aside the cravat of hemp; though in a swing at the yard-arm many a better man has gone to his account than Mark Meredith."
"Ha! do you know me?" demanded the other, starting from his revery, and fixing his gaze upon him with surprise and curiosity.
"Thou hast heard whether I do or not, and what was but suspicion is now proved by thy manner."
"Who, then, art thou?"
"It matters not. You must die. The last link that binds you to life is broken. You will soon learn if the proverb be true that saith there is but a step between this world and the next, for you will speedily measure it. The step is rather a wet one, but there is a fire priests prate about that will soon dry you." This irony and sarcasm was spoken with the most unfeeling manner, while hatred and malice seemed todictate each word.
"Surely you cannot, you will not be so inhuman as to do such foul murder!" cried the youthful secretary, placing himself between Kyd and Fitzroy, and stretching forth his hands deprecatingly.
"Who is the blacker murderer, sir—this man who robs of me my good name, or I, who merely take his life?" inquired Kyd, haughtily.
"I robbed you not of it," said Fitzroy. "'Tis true, I have talked to many of thy deeds. But your good name! 'twas already gone—thrown away by your lawless acts of piracy."
"'Tis false! I had never pirated when I took thee prisoner. Smuggling a few silks and laces, or costly wines; defending my ship against officious gentlemen under king's colours, who fain would board me, seeking contraband wares—this have I done, and will do again on like occasion; but pirated I had not then."
"A distinction without a difference; a mere quibble upon words, to cheat thy rankling conscience into security."
"Have it thy own way," said the pirate, with haughty carelessness. "I will not quarrel with a man who has but five brief minutes to use his tongue in. Is all ready there at the gangway? We're losing time here idly. Ho! lead him to his death!"
"Impossible," exclaimed Fitzroy, indignantly; "you will not carry out a suggestion so infernal."
"Nay, sir, you will not do such cold-blooded murder," cried the secretary, catching the hand of Kyd, and kneeling at his feet. "Spare! oh, spare his life, and I will be thy slave!"
"Silence, boy! and you, sir, if you would use your speech, husband it in words of prayer. Thy time has come as surely as the moon now shines inthe east."
"All ready, sir!" said Lawrence, coming aft a step or two and addressing his captain.
"Will you walk to the gangway, sir, or shall my men conduct you?"
"Farewell, my faithful Edwin," he said, with manly dignity, tenderly embracing the youth. "We shall in a few minutes meet beyond the skies!"
The youth cast himself into his arms, and the next moment Fitzroy unclasped his hold and laid him upon the deck insensible.
"I am ready!" he said, calmly.
"Perhaps you have a last request to make," said the pirate chief, sarcastically; "doubtless some wish is lurking in your breast, which, unexpressed, will add bitterness to death! If so, intrust it to me. I'll be its executor. Perhaps," he continued, in the same tone, "you have a ring, a lock of hair, some tender love-token to be returned to the giver. Perchance some maiden will ask how Fitzroy died. I'll bear to her a message! Ere to-morrow night I shall see the peerless Kate of Bellamont; she'll love me for bringing it, and perhaps yield the pressure of her haughty lips. I've had love favours on my own account of the willing maid ere now."
"Villain! thou liest!" cried the young man, goaded to phrensy by his words, and only restrained from springing upon him by the weight of the irons which shackled him.
"Ask her when you meet hereafter in the other world, for you meet no more in this!"
"Monster! the cup of death hath its own bitterness, and needs not thy impious words to drug it."
"Thou hast nothing, then, to ask?" said the bucanier, in the same tone of irony he had hitherto used. "I fain would do thee a kindness."
"Ihaveone request!"
"Name it."
"Take off my irons, and let me freely spring into the grave you have designed for me!"
"Knock off his chains! The devil'll have him bound in double irons ere the waves that gape to take him in flow smooth again above his head."
The manacles were unlocked and removed, when Kyd, turning to him, asked with bitter malice,
"What else?"
"This broadsword!"
Quicker than thought, he snatched a cutlass from one of the pirates, and attacked Kyd with a sudden vigour and skill that was irresistible. The bucanier retreated on the defensive several paces before he could rally or return a single blow for the shower that rained fiercely and unceasingly upon him. At length he caught the blade of his prisoner on the guard of his own, and arrested it. An instant they stood with their crossed weapons in the air, eying each other, and then simultaneously stepped back and resumed the fight. The pirates closed round and would have struck Fitzroy in the back, but the voice of Kyd restrained them.
"Not a blow, men! He is mine! I will tame him down ere long!"
For a few seconds longer they battled with terrible fury, neither having the advantage; now on one side of the deck, now on the other; now striding the body of the insensible Edwin, now fighting together in the waste, retreating and advancing alternately. At length the bucanier began to gain an advantage over his less athletic antagonist; he pushed him hard, and, step by step, compelled him to retreat towards the stern. Finally, by a strong and sudden stroke, he shivered his sword to his hand and left him defenceless. The blow with which he was about tofollow up his advantage was arrested in its descent, and, turning away with a gesture of triumph, he said, as the other, with his arms folded, stood passive to receive the blow,
"'Tis enough for me that I have worsted thee! I have struck my game, so now let the pack worry him! Set upon him, men, and cut him down; he is yours!" he cried, with savage ferocity, pointing to the young officer.
The pirates, with a yell of joy, rushed aft like a pack of wolves and leaped upon him. With the strength and skill of desperation, he wrested the cutlass from the first who reached him, and, springing backward upon the taffrail, defended himself a few seconds against the fearful odds. But at length, yielding to superior numbers, he cast his sword into the air, and, leaping over the stern, amid the yells of the pirates and the firing of pistols, sunk from their sight.
Kyd cast a glance into the dark wave, and, after a few seconds' survey, said half aloud,
"He is no more! Henceforward I am sole Lord of Lester!"
These last words gave the clew to his strange and vindictive thirst for the death of his victim, and was a key to his otherwise unaccountable bloodthirstiness. "Ho! there, villains! why do you gaze upon the water? Make sail on the brig! Man the braces all! Helm hard up! There she yields! Now she falls off. Steady! belay all!"
The after sails swung back to their original position as the vessel obeyed her helm; and at first with scarcely perceptible motion, but gathering momentum as she moved, she parted the moonlit waves before her, and went careering over the sparkling seas in the direction ofNew-York.
"He then would make the nearest isle,And go at night by stealth,To hide within the earth a whileHis last ill-gotten wealth."H. F. Gould.
Towards the approach of evening on the day following the events related in the last chapter, Kate Bellamont was walking beneath the noble oaks that shaded the lawn lying between the front of White Hall and the water. She had been for some time watching the slow progress of a brig into the harbour, which, on first discerning it from the balcony, her spyglass told her was the "Ger-Falcon." Her impatience had drawn her to the water side, where the thin waves uncurled upon a silvery beach at her feet.
Slowly it advanced up towards the town, and the shouts of the citizens, and gun after gun from the Rondeel, welcomed her return. It was nearly night when, coming between Governor's Island and the city, she fired a gun without coming to; the British ensign was lowered at the same instant, and up in its place went the black flag of the bucanier. A loud wail seemed to fill the town.
"The Kyd! the Kyd!" rung through the streets and everywhere spread consternation. The battery on the Rondeel opened a heavy fire, which was returned by two broadsides from the brig, which then stood across towards Brooklyn, and anchored east of the town out of the range of the guns of the fort.
Kate had witnessed all this, at first, with surprise,which grew to terrible anxiety and alarm; and when the return of the fire confirmed the hostile character of the vessel, now too plainly captured by the corsair, a faintness came over her and she leaned against an oak for support. "Where was Fitzroy? A prisoner or slain!" were questions that she dared not ask herself. Overcome by her feelings, she was ready to sink at the foot of the tree in almost a state of insensibility, when she saw a skiff containing two men, which had been making its way from the direction of "The Kills," land not far from the "Rondeel." The twilight was sufficiently strong to enable her to see a fisherman step from it and approach her by the winding of the shore. She struggled against her feelings, for his manner seemed to betoken news; and with a quick step she advanced several paces to meet him.
"Do you bring news of Captain Fitzroy, or come you to confirm my suspicions?" she cried, as he came near her.
"Sweet lady," he said, wrapping his ample jacket closer about his person, "I am but a poor shipwrecked mariner. Yet I do bear sad news for thee."
"Of whom?" she asked, quickly, vainly endeavouring, in the dusk of evening, to read in his shaded features all he had not revealed.
"Captain Fitzroy!"
"Ha! speak! Words! words! why are you silent? I will hear thee."
"He has been captured by a pirate."
"I knew it."
"And is now prisoner to his captor in yonder brig."
"His own courage should have kept it."
"Nay, lady, he did all he could to save his vessel."
"What fate met he? What became of him,seaman? There is life and death in your answer! Lives he?"
"We were captured by Kyd, who now holds our vessel, and all were condemned to walk the plank."
"Ha! and he?"
"Nay, lady, he lives! He, besides myself, alone escaped the death designed for us."
"Lives, lives! 'Tis happiness to know it! How escaped you?"
"I took the leap into the sea. By floating and swimming I was half an hour afterward picked up by a fisherman, who brought me hither."
"And Edwin, his secretary?"
"Alas, I know not."
"Direful, dreadful news! Fitzroy, Fitzroy! oh that I had died ere this sad news of thy dishonour, perhaps thy death, had reached me! Merciful God! sustain me in this hour!"
She buried her face in her hands, and seemed overcome by grief.
"Nay, Kate, dearest Kate, I am here! Fitzroy is before you; it is your Rupert who clasps you to his heart. Speak! I am by you, and fold you in my arms!"
He cast off his fisherman's coat and bonnet as he spoke, and she looked up revived at his voice, and beheld, indeed, the face of him whom she had mourned as dead or lost to her for ever.
"Fitzroy!"
"Fitzroy, and none else, dearest Kate!"
"How could you put me to such a trial?" she cried, almost weeping on his shoulder.
"Nay, forgive me! I planned it not beforehand; but seeing, as I approached you, that you knew me not, the fisher's coat and cap I borrowed of him who fished me from the water having disguised me even to your keen-eyed love, I was tempted to try your affections."
"Nay, Rupert, did you doubt it?"
"I have no cause," he said, embracing her.
"And did you escape as you just now said?"
"Yes. My brig was taken by a strange fatality after I had sunk the pirate vessel. All my men were slain—none, save Edwin and myself, left alive. I, from some strange thirst for blood that possesses Kyd—for I can divine no other motive—was condemned by him to walk the plank. I succeeded in snatching a cutlass, for the purpose of selling my life dearly as might be, but at length was driven overboard. I had, before sunset, seen a fisher's skiff a mile off at anchor; and, rising far from the vessel towards her bows, struck out, when she had passed me, towards it. It so chanced that he had seen the brig lying to, and pulled towards her to find a market for his fish, when I hailed him and was taken on board. Knowing that the pirate would steer directly to this port, I bribed the man to bring me hither through the Staten Island Sound: and here I am once more in your loved presence."
She mused while he spoke, and then, as if unconscious of his presence, said,
"Robert, poor Robert, to what height of crime has passion led thee—to what abyss will it plunge thee! Thou wert my first, my only love! As some wild vine clings around a stately trunk, curling its tendrils about its topmost limbs, as if in one embrace 'twould clasp it all, so did I entwine my heart around thee, taking thy shape! But, at last, the tempest came and swept my stately oak away. Lonely and lost, I stretched my wounded tendrils on every side, seeking some branch to cling to; then fell down, and lay in ruins along the ground.—Ha, Fitzroy! Why is thy eye with such fierce scrutiny fixed upon me?"
The lover started, and then a moment or twohurriedly paced the sward ere, with hesitation and embarrassment, he said,
"It has reached my ears—how, it matters not—that, since my departure, you and this freebooter Kyd have met in private. From his own lips there fell dark words of favours given or received! The thoughts (forgetful of my presence) you now gave tongue to put to this, together, the one strenghtened by the other, give—"
"Fitzroy, cease! why will you seek to cast a cloud over the heaven your presence makes so bright?"
"Forgive me, but some demon tortures me with suspicion, spite of my confidence in thy love!"
"Ha, dost thou know this Kyd?"
"Only as a pirate! There is meaning in your question," he said, earnestly. "Who is he other than he seems?"
"To keep the secret from thee would be doing injustice to my pride of spirit. I have pledged my father to marry thee; I look upon thee as my husband; I will keep nothing from thee."
"Do you not love me, Kate?"
"If I had never loved till now, I should love thee, Rupert, next to my life. I have told thee the secret of my former love, and thou didst say thou wouldst take the half of my heart if thou couldst get no more!"
"I did, dearest Kate! The intensity of my love is alone my apology for intruding upon the sacredness of an earlier passion! Yet I thought thou hadst forgotten this—"
"I had—I but speak of it now. It is forgotten."
She now seemed to struggle with some powerful emotion, and then said quickly,
"The Kyd—is—is Lester!"
"By Heaven! your words have solved a strangefeeling that governed me when I was in his presence to call him by a familiar name! But—"
"He is Lester—and Lester is 'the Kyd.'"
"He fled to sea I have learned, strangely leaving his title, wealth, and home. A pirate?"
"A pirate."
"How learned you this?"
"Through the sorceress Elpsy, and, more recently, through himself."
"You have met him, then?"
"I have, Rupert."
"He pressed upon thee his former passion?"
"He did."
"And you—"
"Fitzroy, enough; I will not be interrogated. If you doubt me, I am unworthy your love; you to suspect my truth, unworthy mine."
"Forgive me, Lady Catharine! Yet you met?"
"For a moment. I told him I was betrothed to thee, and he left me, as I believe, to pursue thee."
"This accounts for his vindictiveness. Pardon me if I have wronged thee. You do not hear."
"I was thinking of Lester," she said, with unsuspecting frankness.
He gazed upon her absent countenance a few seconds, struck his temples with vehemence, and groaned with anguish. Suddenly he turned towards her and said, with the sternness of grief mingled with reluctant jealousy,
"Lady Catharine of Bellamont, answer me in pity, by the love I bear you, by the troth you have plighted me! With all his insatiate avarice and thirst for blood, his moral baseness and his numerous crimes, does there not linger in the embers of your earlier passion one single spark a proper wind may kindle into flame?"
"There is deeper meaning beneath your wordsthan floats upon the surface," she replied, with dignity; "my woman's pride should rise in my defence, and meet with scorn the foul suspicion that lurks beneath them! But I will excuse you. I will think you soured by the recent loss of your brig, and so forgive you."
"This is no answer, lady! This Lester or Kyd, I well know, loves you! Thinking me dead, he soon will press his suit. By soft words, vows, and deep protestations of innocence and promises of reform, will he seek to reinstate himself in your affections—if perchance they are forfeited! He is rich, noble, and smooth-tongued. I am, as now you see me, a shipwrecked mariner, with only my commission and my sword! Nay, you have even cast the loss of my vessel in my teeth!"
The handsome young man, with clouded brow, grieved and goaded spirit, turned away as he spoke, and, folding his arms, gazed moodily on the waves as they unrolled at his feet, tossing liquid diamonds upon the sand. Each word he uttered only served as weapons against him. Suspicion and jealousy will never turn back the current of woman's love if it has once flowed a contrary way. Gentleness will govern it and guide it; but violence opposed to it will, like a dam, convert it into an ungovernable cataract. The attachment between Kate Bellamont and Fitzroy was properly, so far as impassioned love was concerned, only on one side. Fitzroy, or Mark Meredith, had held her from youth in his eye as the star both of his ambition and his love; and when, by a fortuitous circumstance, five years after his departure as an humble lad from the fisherman's hut at Castle Cor, he found himself commander of the vessel destined to convey her to the New World, he, unrecognised by her, and under the name he had assumed, wooed her with diffidence, yet with the perseverance of a love that had strengthened with his strength and grown with his growth. She, in the mean while, was pleased by his attentions, flattered by his devotion, and not insensible to his love. She knew him only as Captain Fitzroy, who had been knighted for his gallantry on the sea, and whose youth only prevented him from attaining the highest rank in the navy. The earl (for the lovely Countess of Bellamont had deceased the year before) seconded the young hero's addresses, anticipating for the youthful knight the highest name and rank.
At length, on the day they arrived in New-York Bay she gave him the promise of her hand, though her heart went not with it. It was her father's wish that she should marry, and she herself believed Lester no longer lived. Fitzroy was therefore accepted; and though she did not regard him with the devotion of love, she esteemed him as a friend; while the gratitude she felt for his attachment he mistook for love. Although such second attachments are not altogether consistent with the character of a true heroine, yet they are not inconsistent with the character of a true woman!
The betrothed lady looked upon her lover with surprise as he concluded, and said mildly,
"This is strange! You are not wont to yield to moods of jealousy, Fitzroy!"
"Jaundiced and jealous I confess I am, until you answer me!" he said, with nervous impatience.
"Thou art ill, I fear," she said, laying her hand upon his shoulder tenderly; "and what at other times I might take deep offence at, having given no cause, I'll now regard as the workings of disease tinging your speech, which else were fair and worthy of you."
"I am not sick unless at heart," he said, buryinghis face in his hands. "She loves me not," he uttered to himself; "she loves me not! I have been blinded by my own deep passion! She loves me not! The hopes, the dreams of years are dissipated! She loves me not!"
All at once he turned to her and said,
"Once more forgive me, dearest lady! I was not myself just now; I knew not—I knew not what I said! 'Tis over now; forget it!"
"I knew thou wert not thyself, and felt not thy words," she said, with sweet dignity. "Nay, shrink not from my embrace, Rupert."
"I am unworthy!"
"Nay, Rupert, I know your thoughts! You do yourself injustice. So far as my love can be bestowed on any one, it is bestowed on thee. That I think of Lester as he once was with tenderness, I do not deny; that I now pity and fear him, you need not be told. Still I do confess to you, that, were he Lester now, and worthy of his name, my love would be his did he claim it. But we can never be aught to each other more. Be jealous no longer! 'Tis unworthy thee; and I will henceforth give thee no cause."
"Nay, lady," he said, with seriousness, kneeling and taking her hand, "though I love thee truly and tenderly; though I have loved thee since my heart was first awakened to passion; and although this hand has been the goal of my ambition, and is at length surrendered to me, and is thus clasped in mine, yet I resign it, and here tender back to thee thy reluctantly given troth, and leave thee free!"
"Thou wilt not, then," she said, playfully, after hesitating in what vein to reply, "deign to accept my heart, while one little corner is reserved for the memory of a youthful passion?"
"Nay, if that little corner alone were whollymine, and the rest were sacred to that youthful love, I should feel myself most happy—most blessed. But not that I may be free, but that thou mayest be, do I make this sacrifice."
"Then it need not be made, Rupert. For it would be also a sacrifice to me."
"Do you say that truly?" he asked, with warmth.
"Truly."
"I am then happy."
"You will not be jealous again?"
"No. But it was my love."
"I confess you had cause. But it exists no longer. Let us return to the Hall."
"I will escort thee there, and then, as I should have done ere this, aid the earl in preparing to defend the town, for it doubtless will be attacked ere morning by Kyd. Lester—Lester, said you? How strange, how very strange! An earldom thrown away; the haughty, highborn noble! Nay, I can scarce believe it. Yet, now I call him to mind, I do recognise the noble in 'the Kyd.' At another time, fair Catharine, you must explain this mystery to me!"
They advanced towards the Hall as he was speaking, and were soon lost in the shadows that were cast by the trees, that stretched their gnarled limbs on every side, covering the lofty roof of the White Hall with a canopy of the densest foliage.
They found in the library the Earl of Bellamont, attended by the captain of the Rondeel and two or three of his council, who were also the principal citizens of the town, in some excitement on account of the reappearance of the Ger-Falcon under the pirate flag. In a few words Fitzroy informed them of the particulars of his meeting with the pirate, the loss of his vessel, and his own escape.
"To the Rondeel, Captain Van Hooven!" said the earl to the commander of the fort, with animation, as he ended. "We shall doubtless be attacked. Let nothing be wanting to defend your position and protect the town. Attended by these gentlemen and Captain Fitzroy, I will visit the other forts and stir the citizens to arms. Watch any movement from the brig, and fire at whatever moves on the water."
They instantly separated: the captain hastening to his fort, the governor and his party to visit the town and the two other forts, situated the one at the Countess's slip, and the other at the foot of the Wall-street, and Kate was left alone. When their departing footsteps had died away, she felt an undefinable curiosity to watch the motions of the vessel, the appearance of which created such a sensation in town and hall. She therefore hastened to her boudoir and took her station upon the balcony. The night had already set in, and the brig lay dark, still, and indistinct where she had at first anchored. All was silent in that direction, and her nicest sense of hearing could not detect a ripple on the water. Did she listen for one? Did she expect one? Did she hope, yet fear; doubt, yet believe, that the outcast Lester would seek her presence once more? There is a difficulty in saying what emotions passed through the maiden's mind. It is puzzling to tell which way the beam of a lady's thoughts will turn when a lover is in each scale! Yet it by no means requires a skilful analyzer of the female heart to tell which of two lovers—a first one unforgotten, though discarded; a second unloved, though endured—will be most in her thoughts. It has ever been a noble, yet weak trait in woman, to love unworthiness, and rarely has there been found a man, however black with crime,however despised by his fellow-men, who has not been, in his lowest estate of guilt and degradation, the object of some woman's devoted and undying love. Such love for such beings seems to be allied to the tender pity with which angels regard the whole erring race of mortals! It is not intended by these reflections to say anything of Kate's feelings that can be construed into disloyalty towards Fitzroy: they are only intended to show that women are good, kind, forgiving, charitable, and somewhat capricious creatures, and that, in loving, they obey the heart rather than the head.
Kate, after watching the still waters of the bay for some time, and catching no sign of movement, hostile or otherwise, on board the vessel, descended the steps of the balcony to the lawn, and, advancing across it, approached the gate that led towards the inn of Jost Stoll, in the direction of which she heard the voices of many citizens congregated there and discussing the crisis of affairs. As she came near it it was opened, and a person hastily entered and closed it after him. She started at the intrusion, and was about to turn towards the Hall, when the stranger called her by name in a low tone.
She stopped and surveyed him an instant as he slowly approached.
"Edwin Gerald, is it you? You are then safe! I congratulate you with all my heart!"
"I am, lady," said the youth, sadly. "But—" and he hesitated.
"You bring me news of Fitzroy's death."
"You speak full lightly of it," he said, with surprise, "did you believe such my message. I know not whether he lives or not. Our vessel was taken by Kyd, who now holds it. Captain Fitzroy and myself alone were spared. He for a dreadful death, I for the more dreadful fate of surviving him."
"You were attached to him?"
"I was. Now that he is no more, I have no longer reason for this disguise, and here—"
"Nay; do nothing rashly, fair sir; if you were about to tell me he loved me, I can tell you he has told me so himself within the half hour."
"How? Explain!"
"He is alive and well."
"Alive. Heaven, thou art kind! most kind! How was it?"
"He was driven overboard, as you believe, but was saved in a fisherman's boat. He will be rejoiced to learn of your escape. How was it, fair sir?"
"Kyd retained me prisoner to bear a courteous message to his lady love. I swore, to purchase my life, to be its bearer when he came to port. For this purpose I was landed above the town on the western side, and guided by him to this gate. He now awaits an answer to this billet. This done, I am released from my solemn oath to him. Fitzroy lives, said you, lady?"
She heeded not his words, but snatching the note from his hands, said hurriedly,
"Wait my return."
She flew to the balcony and shut herself in her boudoir, and, drawing the curtains close, half opened the letter, when she hesitated.
"Nay, it must not be! 'Tis wrong. I will return it.—But perhaps it contains something I should know! I should like to hear what the lost Lester can say. He comes, too, in such gentle guise! I will read it!"
The next moment it was open in her hand, and she read with a fluttering pulse,
"Dearest Kate,"Let me see you for a brief moment just as themoon rises, by the linden that grows at the foot of the Rondeel. My temporal, nay, spiritual welfare hangs upon your answer. I am penitent. I appeal to you as to a heavenly intercessor! Refuse not this request, lest the guilt of my suicidal blood fall on your soul.Lester."
"Dearest Kate,
"Let me see you for a brief moment just as themoon rises, by the linden that grows at the foot of the Rondeel. My temporal, nay, spiritual welfare hangs upon your answer. I am penitent. I appeal to you as to a heavenly intercessor! Refuse not this request, lest the guilt of my suicidal blood fall on your soul.
Lester."
She looked at the lines till they seemed composed of words of fire. Her brain reeled, her heart swelled, and she seemed torn by emotions of terrible power.
"Heaven guide me in this strait!" she cried, falling impulsively on her knees and clasping the letter in her folded hands. "Sudden and strange events crowd thick upon me, with tales of murder foul, and this newborn jealousy of Rupert—whom I know not if I love or no, yet whom I should love hadhenot risen from the grave, as 'twere, to step between me and my newly-plighted troth! My brain is crazed!"
She rose to her feet and walked the room thoughtfully, with the letter in her hand, now looking at it with tenderness, now crumpling it with disdain. Suddenly she stopped and said with energy,
"The struggle is over! I will meet him."
She stepped to the balcony, beneath which the young secretary stood, and said calmly,
"Return, and say I'll come."
She withdrew herself hastily into the boudoir as she spoke, and the youth left her to bear the message back to the bucanier, and thereby redeem his oath and regain his liberty.
The moon was just rising above the Heights of Brooklyn, when, wrapped in a mantle, her face concealed by its folds, thrown over her head in the shape of a hood, Kate Bellamont left her boudoir by the door that communicated with the main bodyof the house. With light and hasty footsteps she traversed a long passage that led to the library. She cautiously opened the door, and, evidently to her surprise and pleasure, found no one within. She crossed it to an opposite door, which she opened with the same caution, and found herself in the family chapel, dimly lighted by two wax tapers placed upon a small stand before a crucifix. She gathered the folds of her mantle closer about her form, and, looking round the obscure apartment to see if she was observed, kneeled a moment in silent prayer before the altar, looking heavenward as she prayed, as if she sought guidance and protection. She then rose to her feet, and hastily walked towards a door partly concealed by tapestry, and passed through it into a conservatory verdant and fragrant with rare plants. A little wicket inserted in the Venetian blinds which surrounded this floral gallery she pushed open, and issued into the open air and upon a lawn that extended close up to the foot of the glacis that environed the Rondeel. She paused an instant ere she crossed the green, as if hesitating. The delay was but for an instant; for she directly afterward moved forward with a rapid pace towards a lofty tree, the topmost branches of which towered above the walls of the fort. Its foot was buried in deep shadow, the rising moon having only touched, as yet, the upper wall. Beneath it walked a man with a hasty and impatient tread, who at every third step stopped and looked towards the Hall with anxious scrutiny.
"'Tis past the hour; the moon is mounting high in the heavens, and yet she comes not!" he said, as he paused and surveyed the darkly-shaded lawn that stretched between him and the mansion. "Cursed oversight in making this boy my messenger! He has doubtless told the tale of Fitzroy's fate, andshe'll not meet his murderer. Ha! a form! Hers in a thousand! She comes! Now aid me, all good angels!"
He advanced to meet her as she came near the tree, and said in a low tone, lest he should be overheard by the sentry on the parapet above,
"Most kind, dear Kate! Forgive the rude and angry haste with which I last left you! You are indeed kind! My strong love told me my appeal would not be made in vain."
He kneeled at her feet as he spoke and attempted to take her hand. She drew back with dignity, and said with firmness,
"Let this distance be between us. You have desired to see me!"
"I have. Is there no hope for me, Kate?"
"How mean you?"
"Do you believe me so far steeped in guilt that heartfelt penitence for what is past will not replace me in the seal of your affections, which I do confess most justly I have forfeited? Is there no hope of pardon for the penitent?"
"The thief found mercy on the cross. Heaven still forgives the penitent."
"And will you be less indulgent? I speak not now of heaven. The seat I have lost is in your heart! It is there, sweet Kate, I would be replaced!"
"Cease, sir. I came not hither, Robert, to hold converse on this theme. Your epistle, which brought me here against my will and better judgment, discoursed other language; atonement to Heaven, not to me. If other than your soul's weal be your aim, then is our conference ended."
She turned to leave him as she spoke, but he caught her hand.
"Stay! be not so hasty! I do confess there issome ground for Rumour's widespread tales, but I am not so guilty as she'd make me. Is there no pathway to your forgiveness?"
"Yes, when you have atoned to Heaven!"
"None to your love?"
"None!"
"Nothing's proved!" he cried, with animation; "I bear the king's commission against piracy."
"The more guilty then, that, under cover of it, you commit piracies. This king's commission! Do not all men know 'twas given thee because you knew the haunts of a dangerous horde of pirates in the Indian seas, having been one of them, though now their foe and rival; and, by giving thee employment, to keep thee out of mischief?"
"'Tis false!"
"I've heard enough. More I could tell thee of recent occurrence."
"Ha, dost thou know—has the boy told—"
"Nothing. I know enough. Your guilt is written out upon the sky! He that runs may read it! Go on; slay and pillage. You have a love of human blood, and, like the wolf, who, once tasting it, will touch no other, glut thyself till satiate."
"Kate!"
"Away, sir! Speak not, come not near me! Thy touch, thy very glance is pollution."
She turned to fly towards the Hall as she spoke, but, darting forward, he caught her by the arm.
"By the cross! if you will act the queen, then will I play the king. I have been an angler, and have learned from it a lesson in love. My letter to thee was but a hook cunningly baited with a gilded fly I knew you would snap at! I have given thee line enough, and now will draw thee in captive!"
He threw his arm about her as he spoke, andwas bearing her around the bastion of the fort towards his boat, which, by making a circuit from his vessel round the bay and approaching the town on the North River side, he had succeeded in running into a little cove west of the Rondeel unperceived. The surprise of the maiden was at first so great as to deprive her of the power of speech. But, as she was borne round the fort by his strong arm, she said, in a tone of perfect self-command,
"Unhand me, Lester! Release me. I forgive you."
"You aremine, proud beauty!" he replied, through his clinched teeth. "I have been the plaything of thy pride full long."
"Unhand me, sir."
"Pardon me if I am somewhat rough," he said, ironically; "on shipboard I will atone for it."
"Heaven, then, has given me this in my hour of need," she cried, snatching a pistol from his belt, and by a sudden effort disengaging herself and springing away from him several feet. As she spoke she levelled it against his person.
"Ha, ha! my pretty one, you do the heroine excellently. Give me that pretty toy, sweet Kate," he said, advancing towards her; "it becomes not a lady's fingers."
"Back, sir," she replied with resolution, presenting it full at his breast.
"Nay, nay, then."
He sprung upon her at the same instant to secure the weapon, when she cried,
"God forgive me, then!" and fired.
Instantly he released her wrist, which he had seized, with a cry of pain mingled with an exclamation of rage and disappointment.
The report of the pistol was answered by the roll of a drum on the Rondeel, and was followedby the noise of alarm and confusion in the town. Kate fled like a deer towards the Hall, while Kyd, wrapping his cloak about his left arm, which was bleeding freely, glided beneath the locust-trees that surrounded the Bowling Green, and gained his boat.
"Shall we pull back by the way we came?" asked the coxswain.
"No. Give me the helm."
The man obeyed his stern voice, and, after the boat had cleared the rocks, he steered her directly across the line of fire from the Rondeel towards his vessel.
Without hesitating, the men pulled steadily and in silence in the face of the fort, and, as the moon was now up, they could not remain long undiscovered. In a few seconds they were challenged from the battery. There was no reply. A second time they were hailed, but still the boat kept on her course straight for the brig.
"Fire!" cried a voice. "'Tis 'the Kyd.'"
Instantly, one after another, the heavy guns opened upon them from the parapet, but the balls went roaring through the air high above their heads. Still steadily and silently the boat kept on her course. A discharge of firearms followed with more effect. Three of the eight oarsmen were shot dead as they sat, and scarcely one escaped unhurt. The desperate helmsman sat stern and silent, and only with an impatient wave of his hand bid them row on. A second volley reached them, and but three oarsmen remained seated and labouring faintly at their oars. Kyd left the helm and caught the fourth oar as the dead man dropped it, and, cheering them on, soon reached his brig, amid a third volley that rattled around him like hail.
"Ship your oars," he cried, as they came alongside, rising to his feet.
Not a man moved.
"Spring to the bows and fend off!" he shouted.
There was no reply; the men sat upright, and swayed their bodies to and fro, and still pulled at their sweeps!
The boat, at the same instant, came against the brig's counter with a shock, and the three men were thrown from their seats backward to the bottom of the boat. They were dead! He had been pulling an oar the last few seconds with corpses. He shuddered and sprung up the side.
Instantly the brig got under weigh, and, sailing up East River to Hell Gate, passed through the dangerous pass, and came to, not far from the Witch's Isle. A boat was lowered, and Kyd descended into it and landed there. As he entered the hut the witch was seated on the ground over a fire, rocking her body to and fro, and chanting a wild song.
"Welcome, Robert Kyd," she said, without turning round. "Umph! I smell blood!" she cried the instant after. "Thou hast been at thy old trade. Hast thou had revenge?"
"I have. His vessel is mine. Him I have slain."
"Did I not promise thee this?" she said, rising and speaking with triumph. "Now thou art come to do my will and to fulfil thy oath."
"I have seen her within the hour," he said, with settled hate.
"And she has scorned thee?"
"Yes. I tried love at first, but it would not do, and—"
"You then tried force?"
"I did," he said, ferociously.
"And she is now in thy state-cabin?"
"No. I bore her part way to my boat, when she drew a pistol from my belt and shot me here."
"And she—"
"The garrison was instantly in arms; the town rose clamorous; she fled like a deer, and mocked pursuit. I barely escaped to my boat, and reached my brig with the loss of every man. By Heaven! I believe a score of balls struck my person, yet they seemed to fall from my cloak harmlessly like hailstones."
"It was the amulet!"
"True, woman! Yet I was wounded by a pistol in this girl's hand. Your charm here failed."
"No. Did I not tell thee—if not, be it known to thee, Robert Kyd—that ne'er devil wrought a charm a woman may not undo. Ball from men can harm thee not, but if a woman use the weapon the charm is naught. What wilt thou now do?"
"Return to Ireland and lay claim to the earldom. Perhaps, when I leave my present course of life, she will listen to me. By the cross! I am ashamed to woo a noble maiden whom I have loved, and still love, so roughly."
"I will woo her for thee."
"Nay."
"I will not heed thy nay! She must be thine. Yet I like this determination to assume your earldom. Go bury your treasures that are here, in some safe place, and sail for Ireland. After thou art become Lord of Lester, they can then be removed, and enable thee to support thy rank with princely state."
"I will take them with me, Elpsy."
"Thou wilt lose them, then, if pursued by a cruiser and forced to desert your vessel. Bury them here, and, when thou art an earl, thou canst come for them thyself, and bear them home without suspicion."
"Perhaps you are right; none will see in theEarl of Lester the outlaw Kyd. Save thyself and Kate of Bellamont, the secret is locked from all human knowledge."
"Her pride will keep her from revealing it, and my projects for thy aggrandizement seal my own lips," said the sorceress. "Here are the treasures which for three years thou hast accumulated," she added, removing a stone from a crevice in the rock against which her hut was built, and exposing, by a torchlight, a cavity therein filled with vast piles of gold and silver coins, countless rings for the ears and fingers, cups of chased gold set with precious stones, bracelets, ducal coronets sparkling with diamonds, and innumerable jewels of every description. He surveyed the valuable deposite, and then, shaking his head, slowly said,
"They have cost much blood, Elpsy."
"Therefore should they be well kept. Take them with thee, and hide them in some secret place, easy of access from the sea, till thou hast need of them."
"I know a spot where three tides meet, which will be a safe repository for them."
"Call thy men and bear them to thy vessel."
"Wilt thou go with me to perform the rites?"
"I have other things to do in town. I have made a discovery there that has filled my soul with joy! Ho, I will tell it you when you return, for it concerns you, boy. Cusha shall go with thee. Slave, appear!"
From an obscure corner of the hut the hideous African made his appearance, his malicious and cunning features glowing with the hateful look they habitually wore.
"Slave, take with thee thy charms and follow thy master here! See that the gold is buried with all the rites of our mystic art."
He prostrated himself to the floor, and left her to obey her commands.
In a short time the pirate's crew had conveyed the treasure from the hut to their boat, and thence on board the brig, and before daybreak the vessel was many leagues up the Sound, steering an easterly course. The succeeding morning she doubled the easternmost cape of Long Island, and, altering her course to the southwest, stood towards Sandy Hook under a stiff breeze from the southeast. By night she entered the Sound between Sandy Hook and the south side of Staten Island, and, steering directly across the mouth of the Raritan, anchored close to an elevated peninsula that formed the northern shore of the river.
The report of the pistol fired by Kate Bellamont not only alarmed the garrison and the town, but brought out the earl from the library, whither he had just retired with his friends, after having taken the rounds of the threatened town.
"What means this, dearest Kate?" he cried, meeting her flying across the lawn.
"Nothing, nothing, father!" she gasped, flinging herself into his arms.
"My child is not injured? What is this firing and sudden alarm? Why are you here, and flying as if for life?" he asked, with anxious solicitude.
"The Kyd—the pirate!" she exclaimed, with indignation.
"Ha!" he cried, bounding forward towards the Rondeel, and thence instinctively to the nearest shore where he anticipated he should meet him. A boat was just putting off. Without delay he hastened back to the Rondeel, and, taking the commander by the arm, led him to the rampart, and said,
"There is the pirate's cutter. Bring your guns to bear upon her."
The result of the fire is already known. When he saw that the boat reached the brig, and that she immediately got under weigh, he left the fort and returned to the Hall to seek his daughter. On his way he met Fitzroy, who had just arrived at the Hall, after having, through the governor, chartered a Bristol ship that was lying in the East Dock ready for sea, with the intention of putting on board of her the guns of the Rondeel, and attacking Kyd as he was at anchor in the harbour.
"She can be got ready for sea in twenty-four hours, my lord," he said with animation, as he met the earl. "But what is this confusion and heavy firing?"
"You are well met, Fitzroy! Go to my daughter, while I return to the fort! The bucanier has landed, so far as I can learn, and like to have carried Kate off, I believe. But I have had no time to inquire."
"I will see her at once," said Fitzroy, leaving him hastily.
"You will find her in her boudoir. I will remain and see that our defences are kept up! Ha! the pirate is under sail, and is moving up the Sound."
"He is going to sea again, doubtless; but, as our guns command both the channels out, he has taken the way by Long Island Sound."
"Heaven grant it be so!" said the earl, as he entered the Rondeel.
Kate Bellamont was walking her room with a rapid pace, a flushed cheek, and a flashing eye as Fitzroy entered.
"Ha, Fitzroy, you have come," she said, with the tone and bearing of Elizabeth of England when insult had touched her pride. "I am glad to see you! I have been insulted."
"Then you shall be avenged!" he said, taking her hand.
"Do you promise it?"
"By the love I bear you, I swear it!"
"Avenge me—wipe out the stain my woman's pride has suffered, and I will be thy slave!"
"Nay, dearest Kate, I would rather thou wouldst be my bride," he said, smiling and kissing her cheek.
"Rupert Fitzroy, touch me not! Think not of love! When thou hast captured this freebooter—when I behold him bound at my feet so low that I can place my foot upon his neck, I will then be thy bride. Ay, to the music of his clanking chains shall be performed the marriage rites."
"If not my own honour, thine at least demands his capture and death. Catharine of Bellamont," he said, kneeling before her and solemnly elevating his hands, "I swear by the cross that is the emblem of our holy faith that thou shalt be avenged!"
She looked on his animated features a moment steadily with her full black eyes, and then said,
"'Tis enough! By thy urgency in this matter thou wilt show thy love for me, and by my determination to press it to its issue thou mayest construe mine for thee. I am now calm. Here is the flag I have worked for thee. It bears thy initials, with the arms of my house, conjoined. Take it, and beneath it win thy bride."
"Lady, it shall be done, or I will never see thy face more!"
"Ay, it should be for the world's weal that it should be done," she said, with eloquent fervour, "when every breeze comes tainted with the smell of blood; when wondering crowds, each with a tale that outweighs that his fellow bears, in nimble speech deal out to one another hourly marvels! When in bolts, bars, and locks before unknown in this peaceful land, each household, for leaguesalong the coast, seeks ill security against midnight dangers! When the fisherman fears to launch his boat, and towns count their strength and weigh the odds (as if a foe were thundering at their gates) against sudden surprise. When he who spreads such terror is captured, I will then be thine!"
"For this very enterprise am I now preparing. Within this last half hour I have got a ship that sails like the wind, which, with arms and ammunition on board, will place me on a better deck than that I have lost."
"Why did you delay to tell this, and lead me to blame you in my thoughts for supineness?"
"I would have kept it secret from thee till I had sailed."
"Wherefore?"
"Having," he said, with hesitation, "some regard for your former love—friendship, I should say."
"Love it once was, therefore speak out and call it love!"
"I feared this might lead you to dissuade me from it. But this sudden attitude you have assumed fills me with surprise and admiration."
"Rupert Fitzroy, have you not been told from what peril I was but now saved? Have you forgotten how, in a jealous fit, you have unawares let drop that Robert Kyd, with his false lips, had said—no matter what—but, being false, can never be forgiven? Until this man is captive and lying at her feet in chains, Catharine of Bellamont's hand shall not be given in marriage. You have heard me, Fitzroy?" she added, retiring to the farther part of her room, as if she would be left alone.
"I have, and you shall be obeyed," he replied, leaving the boudoir.
The next morning but one a merchant-ship washauled from the dock in which she had been several weeks lying, undergoing repairs; and two guns from the Rondeel, and several from the other forts, were placed on board of her, making eight in all. With a bold and willing crew, most of whom had volunteered on the service, at sundown she got under weigh, under the command of Fitzroy, accompanied by Edwin his secretary, and put to sea in search of the bucanier. She sailed through the Narrows instead of Hell Gate, a fisherman having informed him, as they were getting under weigh, that he had seen a vessel answering the description of the pirate sailing towards the mouth of the Raritan; and as sufficient time had elapsed to have enabled him to sail up through the Sound and double Montauk Point, Fitzroy determined to go in pursuit of the vessel mentioned by the fisherman.
The promontory off which Kyd had anchored at the mouth of the Raritan, now called Perth Amboy, descended on the south side to the river above named, with a gentle inclination. On the east it was washed by the waters of Staten Island Sound, and the island which gives name to it stretched east of it, with its high wooded bank far towards the north, till it terminated in New-York Bay. On the summit of the promontory was a small rustic church, with a slender spire towering high above the surrounding trees and humble hamlets. Around the church was a primitive graveyard, with here and there the unpretending tombstone which designated the last resting-place of some English Protestant or French Huguenot. From this rural cemetery was a wide view of island, main, and ocean.
It was twilight when the bucanier's vessel anchored beneath this promontory. At midnight the little churchyard presented a singular scene. In a deep shadow cast by the moon on the westside of the lonely church, were gathered a group of men—the pale light shining broadly upon their rude costume and savage features, mingled with the red flame of dark lanterns, giving them a singularly wild appearance. They were standing with superstitious awe round an open grave, from which the fresh body had just been dishumed and was now lying white and glaring in its shroud upon the ground not far off. Over the grave stood the wizard Cusha, and beside it glittered heaps of treasure. Apart walked Kyd in thought, occasionally turning to the grave, and then walking with quicker pace and uttering his thoughts half aloud:
"Though reason tells me there is nothing in it, and laughs at charms, spells, and incantations curling her lip with incredulity, I cannot get the mastery o'er this superstition, but live its very slave, using the instruments of her dark craft as if my destiny and they were linked, yet scorning while I use them."
"All's ready, sir, black wizard and all," said the mate, approaching him and interrupting his meditations.
"You treat too lightly these ceremonies, mate! There may be deeper meaning in them than you dream of."
"If the infernal pit is at the bottom of them, they are deep enough! This negro wizard looks ugly enough to be the devil's grandfather."
"No more, Loff. Is all prepared?"
"All."
"Then give orders to the men."
"Ay, ay, sir. All hands to bury money!"
The pirates gathered round the grave, part of their number thrown into the shadow cast by the tower of the church, the remainder exposed to the full light of the moon. And moon scarcelyever shown on stranger or wilder scene. The negro was seated sullenly, with his head on his knees, upon the pile of grave-dirt, nor had he spoken until Kyd now approached and addressed him.
"If, as thou dost profess, dark slave, power to thee is delegated, by her whom thou hast served, to deal with beings of another world, by this amulet I wear I command thy service and obedience!"
As he spoke he held the amulet up to his view.
The wizard crossed his hands on his breast, and bowed himself to the ground.
"Cusha is thy slave. Speak."
"There lies heaped beside thee countless treasure—jewels, stones of price, gold and silver coin untold—each ounce of which has been purchased by its weight of human blood. What is so dearly bought should be safely stored and guarded. Perhaps some future day, awearied of the ocean, we may give up our roving life and settle down honest country gentlemen. We shall then need it to buy men's tongues and memories! Now perform the mystic orgies prescribed for such occasions."
The wizard slowly rose to his feet, and walked deliberately three times around the grave, the pirates giving back as he walked in superstitious alarm. The third time he began to chant, in a low key, unintelligibly; but, gradually rising in wildness and distinctness, he, with strange gestures and contortions of form and face, broke forth into the following chant: