CHAPTER XXV.
“Avaunt! and quit my sight! let the earthHide thee!Thy bones are marrowless, thy blood is cold!Thou hast no speculation in those eyesWhich thou dost glare with.”Macbeth.
“Avaunt! and quit my sight! let the earthHide thee!Thy bones are marrowless, thy blood is cold!Thou hast no speculation in those eyesWhich thou dost glare with.”Macbeth.
“Avaunt! and quit my sight! let the earthHide thee!Thy bones are marrowless, thy blood is cold!Thou hast no speculation in those eyesWhich thou dost glare with.”Macbeth.
“Avaunt! and quit my sight! let the earth
Hide thee!
Thy bones are marrowless, thy blood is cold!
Thou hast no speculation in those eyes
Which thou dost glare with.”
Macbeth.
It was with the greatest difficulty that James Willmington succeeded in restraining the curiosity of his wife until the period which he himself had appointed to tell her the particulars of the capture of the ship, and also the singular circumstance of his trial, punishment and rescue.
The period had now arrived.
In a beautiful and fantastic pavilion, into which the soft evening breeze wafted the sweet perfume of a thousand delicate flowers which bloomed around, sat James Willmington. He was seated at the head ofa vast, spreading table that was loaded with the choicest and most delicious fruits that the tropics produce. Opposite to him sat Mrs. Willmington, on whose side two very beautiful infant daughters were respectively placed. On the right hand of Willmington was his son, a youth of about eighteen, who was dressed in the uniform of an officer.
The pure wax tapers that burnt in chaste and elegant candlesticks of solid silver, shed a cheerful and soft light around. The faint music of a small fountain that played hard by, fell soothingly on the ear, as it grew louder and louder, or fell fainter and still fainter, according to the direction and strength of the lulling breeze that seemed to sport with its jets. The old family pictures that hung on the walls looked down fiercely and frowningly, or smiled upon the happy and quiet group, according to the stern and warlike disposition or the benignant characters of each.
The servants had all retired for the time to their own apartments; and Willmington sat quietly smoking an exquisite cigar, and sipping from time to time the crystal iced water that stood in a tumbler by his side.
“I shall now tell you,” he said, “the succession of accidents which has brought me back to Trinidad,” and he began to relate the particulars of thecapture of the merchant vessel, the distribution of the shares, his trial, his being thrown overboard, the agony that he suffered on the cask, and finally his providential rescue, the capture of the pirate captain and his supposed suicide. He narrated circumstance on circumstance, quickly passed over the alleged causes of his sufferings, and mentioned Appadocca as one who claimed to be his son.
“Confound his impudence,” cried the youth of eighteen. “I wish I had been there, I should have caned his insolence out of him. The idea! to call my father, his father, vile cut-throat as he was. I wish I had him now. But do you know anything at all of him? How came he to claim you as his father, sir?” he inquired, after a time.
“Do not interrupt me;—do not interrupt me,” was the only answer Willmington made to this home and embarrassing question.
Time had flown during his long narrative. The clock had already struck eleven—a late hour in the tropics—when he was concluding.
“Yes, my children,” he said at the end, with great solemnity, endeavouring to make the contemplated impression, “there is one above to punish evil doers.”
“Ay, and he never slumbers,” replied a deep sonorousvoice from without, and in a moment afterwards the pirate captain stood before James Willmington.
The cigar fell from his jaws, that palsied with terror, now gaped asunder. His hands trembled, and threw over the glass of iced water towards which it was being stretched, his silvery hair seemed to stand on end, and with a sudden bound, Willmington started from his seat and reeled over his chair towards a corner of the apartment.
“Get out of my sight, get out of my sight, accursed, damned spirit; in the name of Christ, I conjure you!” he cried, while his eyeballs glared, and large drops of sweat trickled down his forehead that was almost green with fear.
Appadocca calmly raised the chair from the floor, drew it to the head of the table, folded his thin cloak around him and sat down.
“I did not design to deliver you up to the authorities,” shrieked Willmington, almost inarticulately. “No, no! I had only intended to frighten you, I would have allowed you to escape. Oh, yes, I would have protected you; yes, yes, I would have protected you like a father. Forgive, forgive me, and scare me no more.”
Appadocca looked round upon the miserable Willmington,who, contracted with terror within the smallest possible heap, crouched in a corner.
“Do not look at me,” cried Willmington still more terrified, “vanish, vanish, in the name of Heaven and all the saints. If you come from Hell—to-to haunt me,—return, return. It was not I that wronged you. Forgetfulness, forgetfulness—I intended—I intended always—always to find you out. Your mother, aye, your—your mother loved me. Have mercy—mercy—on me,—the vessel—the vessel took me by—by chance to St. Thomas. I did not—I did ask him: no—no—I was sorry—sorry, when—when—you were drowned. Mercy—mercy.”
“Come here and make your will,” said Appadocca, authoritatively, without paying the slightest attention to the cries of the wretched and almost distracted man.
“Make my will? will!” recommenced Willmington, “do you intend to murder me? Hence, hence, I am a christian, you have no power on me. No, no,—do not—do not—out, out of my sight, damned, reprobate spirit.”
“I am no spirit. Speak not to me so sillily. Make your will, I say,” said Appadocca, with more authority, “and do not let these children suffer from yourloss. The minutes that you can remain with them are counted.”
“Will, will!” exclaimed Willmington, as if already staggering in his intellect.
“Will? I have no will to make. My will is made already. Do not speak to me of wills—do not speak to me of wills, I do not wish to die—I will not die. Leave my sight—leave my sight—leave my sight.”
“Then settle your other affairs,” said Appadocca with the same authority as before. “I allow you five minutes; at the end of that time you must go with me.”
“No—no, I will not go with you,” shrieked Willmington, “I did you no harm——I intended you no harm. Let me live a little longer—give me but seven years to live—five—two;—half a year;—a month—a week, a day;—do not take me away so soon. Let me live, let me live. Do not take me with you. It was not I that drowned you.”
“It would be prudent on your part to fill the five minutes, which are accorded you more profitably than by these vain petitions. I—”
“Vain petitions! Let them not be vain; look at the children that I have to maintain and protect: do not take me away from them,” cried Willmington, interrupting Appadocca.
“I am no ghost,” continued Appadocca, “but something worse.”
“Was he not drowned?” Willmington began to mutter. “Did he not jump into the sea—at the bocas—or farther out?—Can he—could he have been saved? no, no, delusion—delusion. His face is as pale as death. He is still and quiet as the grave;” continued Willmington, as he gazed intently on Appadocca, who was still sitting calmly at the table.
The period had elapsed, the moment of doom had now arrived.
“The period is past, your time is come,” said Appadocca, “rise and go with me.”
“No—no,” shrieked Willmington, madly,—“no—no—no.”
And with a sudden spring he jumped from the corner to one of the doors: he was roughly thrown back by some person who was outside: he then rushed to another, and was again repelled—to another, and he was once more forced back. He sprang on to the jalousies, and as he succeeded in opening one, he was quickly shoved back by some powerful arm from the outside, into the room again.
Like one who endeavours to flee from devouring flames, that rush in merciless fury to close him in, and findsevery passage, every outlet, or crevice for escape barred against him, the unhappy man reeled back into the room in the madness of despair.
“Murder—murder,” he shouted, “John!—Charles!—James!—Edward!—Murder!—Murder!—pirates!—fiends, pirates, robbers, police, police.”
“Ho! there! Domingo,—Gregoire!—Alphonso!—Jose!” called Appadocca, with his habitual calmness.
Four men on the call entered the room. Their flashing eyes shone from beneath their overhanging red caps, and their long beards and mustachios exhibited a peculiar appearance under the silvery light of the tapers, which tended to display to the full their dark and dry complexions.
“Secure him,” said Appadocca pointing to Willmington, as the men entered.
“Do not touch him for your lives,” cried the young officer, the son of James Willmington, that sat on his right.
He, like his father, had been under the power of a supernatural terror from the moment that Appadocca entered, and had been addressed as a visitant from another world; but when he became awake to the fact that the intruder was a being of flesh and blood, he grasped his sword that lay on a table, and rushed at Appadocca.
“Do not touch him for your lives,” he cried, while he made a lunge at the breast of the pirate-captain who still retained his seat. The point was already touching the cloak of Appadocca, when the heavy weapons of some unseen individuals from without, shattered the slender sword into a thousand pieces.
“Secure you the young man, Baptiste,” said Appadocca, unmoved by the danger which he had so narrowly escaped.
A man immediately stepped into the room and threw his arm round the unresisting young officer.
The four men had rushed upon Willmington. Despair had maddened him into a sort of courage: he met the foremost one of them half way, and grasped him around the throat, with the clutch of death. The pirate also seized him, and the two men, animated with passions which though different in their natures were equally fierce in themselves, grappled like madmen, and staggered violently to and fro. The strong effort of the pirate, could not throw off Willmington, who clung to him with the tenacity of the serpent that tightens its refolded coils around the triumphant tiger that still presses its paw on its bruised head.
Lashed into rage, the pirate drew his knife: it gleamed for a moment overhead, and was descending, with certain death upon its point, when——
“Hold!” cried Appadocca, “no blood; help him Gregoire, Jose, help him, there.”
The voice of the captain arrested the disciplined arm.
Spurred by the immediate commands of their chief, the other pirates closed in upon Willmington, and by the exercise of violent force tore him away from their comrade, who stood for a moment with his eyes fiery and glaring from anger, and with his chest heaving heavily and quickly.
The prisoner kicked and shouted until the words rattled hoarsely in his throat; but he was now in no soft or gentle hands. Sooner than we can write it, he was tied hand and foot; his cries, nevertheless, still resounded through the place.
“Gag him,” was the immediate order.
The prisoner’s neckcloth was roughly undone, and violently thrust into his mouth.
“Away with him.”
The pirates stretched out two pikes: the prisoner was laid across them, they raised him on their shoulders, and walked silently out of the apartment.
“Now unhand your prisoner, Baptiste,” said Appadocca, to the man who held young Willmington. Baptiste let go his hold.
“My father, my father,” shouted young Willmington and rushed first to one door, and then to the other, all of which he found guarded on the outside.
“Sir, you cannot go out,” said Appadocca.
“I will go out—I will go after my father,” ejaculated young Willmington.
“You cannot, and shall not,” answered Appadocca.
The young officer rushed to all the doors in succession, and was rudely pushed back at each.
“You see you cannot go out,” observed Appadocca.
“Who are you? what do you wish to do with my father?” inquired the young Willmington, as he turned disappointedly from the door.
“I shall tell you, by-and-bye,” answered Appadocca.
“Tell me at once, and let me out,” cried young Willmington.
“That cannot be.”
“That must be: I must rescue my father,” rejoined young Willmington.
“Banish the idea: you will never be able to do so,” replied Appadocca.
“Why not?”
“Because you will be prevented,” answered Appadocca.
“Prevented?—prevented? Hell, itself, with all itslegions, shall not prevent me,” shouted young Willmington. “I will rescue my father.”
“Do so,” answered Appadocca.
The young man rushed to the doors again, and was thrust back as before. After a series of vain attempts, he staggered, almost exhausted, into the centre of the room.
“You see, sir, I make no ungrounded assertions. It is impossible for you to follow your father,” said Appadocca.
“Why impossible? Confound you as a cut-throat—murderer,” asked young Willmington.
“Because,” answered Appadocca, without noticing the harsh epithets, “because he is implicated in a vow that must be fulfilled.”
“I understand no such vow,” said young Willmington, “and if I had a sword, I should force my way in spite of you.”
“Ha! we shall now understand each other, sir,” said Appadocca, then threw aside his cloak, unbelted his richly-ornamented sword, and laid it on the table. “You can use that, sir,” he said to young Willmington, while he pointed to it, and stepping towards the door—
“Lend me your sword,” he said to one of the men.
The person gave up his sword at once to Appadocca,who went round the room, and carefully bolted every door, one after the other. After that, he said to his men.
“Retire into the high road, and remain there until I call.”
The men retired from the doors, and Appadocca closed with the same care the one by which he had entered.
He was now left in the apartment only with young Willmington, Mrs. Willmington, who lay insensible on the floor, where she had fallen at the appearance of Appadocca, and her two infant daughters, who stared on in a state of absolute stupefaction.
“Now, sir,” said Appadocca to young Willmington, standing by the table, and leaning on the sword which he had borrowed, “allow me to speak to you. I am your father’s son.”
“You are not,” indignantly remarked young Willmington.
“It is an honor,” said Appadocca with a smile, while he bowed to the young man, “which I have never prized, I believe your stock is stamped with a peculiar mark: behold it!” and Appadocca opened his little finger as widely apart as possible from the other, and pointed to something between the two fingers.
Young Willmington looked, stared, and started back in astonishment, but spoke not a word.
“He,” continued Appadocca, after this disclosure, “treated me with harshness, injustice, and cruelty, and wronged, in addition, one whose place I now supply, and in whose name I seek vengeance. I owe him nothing except punishment. I am, therefore, your father’s sworn persecutor, and retributioner. You, he has always treated with kindness and affection; the bonds of natural obligation have been drawn the tighter on you by good deeds. You are, therefore, by the principles of justice, his natural defender. Now he is named in a vow that I have made, and I cannot let you rescue him. I have the power to prevent you from making any attempt to that effect, and I shall do it. But there is yet a satisfaction which I can give you, and I shall do so. With my life, the persecution which is now carried on against your father will cease; for I shall leave none behind me to take up my cause. I am willing, therefore, to throw life and death on a hazard, and to afford you as fair a chance as possible of purchasing your father’s deliverance by your valour and bravery. My sword, which I offer you, is of the finest metal, you may rely upon its fidelity. I challenge you to mortal combat.”
Appadocca put himself in an attitude of defence, bent his left arm over his back, raised his head proudly, and held his sword straight before him.
Young Willmington was undecided: he seemed to be under the power of a thousand different and conflicting feelings. There was no possibility of denying the well-known family mark with which Appadocca was stamped; he saw, consequently, before him his brother, by the laws which nature had made, whatever he might be by those which man had framed, and was forced to recognize in that brother the prosecutor, enemy, and almost murderer of his father. He was divided between two duties, the duty which he owed to a father, and that which he owed to a brother.
“I shall not fight with you,” he said after a long pause. “If you grudge us any of his property, take as much as you please, but render us back our father.”
“Will not fight!” exclaimed Appadocca, “I had imagined that your father was the only selfish coward in an old race of reputedly brave men.”
“Coward do you call me?” inquired young Willmington, with a frown.
“Ay, coward,” answered Appadocca. “First you made a thrust at me when my attention was directed otherwise, and now you seek to wound my feelings by supposing the possibility that I could grudge you your father’s wealth. Grudge, indeed! his most precious jewels woulddisgrace me. My men, however—the friends that received me, shall enjoy it. Coward, ay, thrice four times coward; again, and again, I proclaim you as such.”
“No more, defend yourself,” cried young Willmington, and he clutched the sword which Appadocca had laid on the table.
Young Willmington warmly pressed on Appadocca who still stood on the defensive. Thrust after thrust, lunge after lunge came in rapid succession from young Willmington. Respiration came short and quickly. He made a desperate thrust at Appadocca, who with a slight but quick movement of the wrist at once disarmed his adversary.
Young Willmington bowed haughtily, while his face grew crimson with vexation.
Appadocca quickly picked up the sword and presented it again to the young officer.
“No, no, I am satisfied,” said the last-mentioned person, and refused it.
“You ought scarcely to be so, sir. Recollect this is the only chance that will probably be afforded you,” replied Appadocca, “to recover your father. Try it again.”
“Have you any object in pressing me to fight longer?By the law of arms you are not justified in thus asking me again when I am defeated,” said young Willmington.
“Perhaps not,” answered Appadocca, “but you must recollect this is a very particular case. To be frank, I must confess I am scarcely satisfied with the chance that I have afforded you, I like to satisfy justice, sir. Pray try it again.”
“Strange man, I shall,” answered young Willmington, and then began to prepare himself more deliberately for this second combat.
The swords were again crossed. Willmington no longer thrust so widely as he did—he fenced more cautiously. Appadocca still maintained the defensive. The combat proceeded but coldly—Willmington tried every skilful pass and cunning trick. He had contrived to edge his sword, as he imagined, imperceptibly to Appadocca, within but a short distance from his adversary’s hilt, and was just inclining his hand inwards to thrust home, when Appadocca met the inclination by an opposite movement, and by a sudden jerk again unarmed his adversary.
“Sir, destiny seems to favour me at these. I presume you have pistols, shall we try them?” inquired Appadocca.
“It strikes me you are longing for my blood?” remarked young Willmington.
“By no means,” answered Appadocca, “I have waded through too much of that already. But I am willing to give you the greatest opportunity of redeeming your father. Then am I to understand that you will fight no more?”
“No more,” answered young Willmington.
Appadocca drew forth a small silver whistle, he blew it, and in a moment the pavilion was again surrounded by his men.
“Sir,” said Appadocca, on the arrival of the men, “the safety of my followers require that you should be rendered incapable of alarming the town. You must consent to be gagged and bound. Ho! outside there.”
Three or four pirates entered the room,
“Gag and pinion him,” said Appadocca, and pointed to young Willmington.
In less than a few minutes the order was executed upon him.
“Take him to the remotest room in the house.”
Young Willmington was carried bodily out of the apartment.
“Ho! Jack Jimmy,” cried Appadocca.
That individual immediately rushed into the room, trembling with excitement.
“Rummage the whole house, and bring all the silver and gold. Pedro, help him.”
“Yes, massa,” Jack Jimmy answered, and hurried out of the apartment.
While Jack Jimmy and the other man were intent on searching for whatever valuables the villa contained, Appadocca seated himself on the same chair that still stood at the head of the table.
His eyes had become gradually more and more intently fixed on the two beautiful children, who clung in wakeful unconsciousness to their pale and still insensible mother.
They seemed actually petrified with fear, while their large interesting eyes were firmly rivetted in a vacant stare on the terrible being whose coming had brought so much horror to the happy villa.
“Yes, it is too true,” muttered Appadocca, “the sins of the fathers are visited on their children. Were it not for the injustice of your father, my little ones, I should not be here to-night to terrify you with my fierce and unfriendly looks. If my heart had not been long seared, if there was still in it one single portion that continued as fresh as once the whole was, your silent looks, yourunspeaking terror, would move me more than the eloquence of a thousand glib-tongued orators. Nay, I might, perhaps, forget my vow.
“How poisonously bitter are the cups that others season for our lips? Still, may Heaven preserve in your minds the deeds of to-night, and when you shall have grown up, always recollect this sad retribution, and speak a word whenever you may be able, and say that you know, by the experience of a scene of your childhood, that certain creatures who are branded and repudiated by society are beings who possess feelings, and who claim the same measure of justice as is meted out to all.”
“Me get all, massa,” said Jack Jimmy, who now came in with an air of serious importance.
Appadocca rose and pointed to the door; the two men then walked off from the villa, and were immediately followed by the captain himself.
The villa which, but a short time before, presented a scene of domestic happiness, was now left in the desolation of death, with the lights still burning, and the superfluity of luxury still scattered about. The gate was heavily drawn after them by the three persons that had just passed through, and silence settled over the place.
The pirates, who with their prisoner and booty, awaited the captain in the road, were drawn up in order, and after saying a few words to an officer, Appadocca gave the word to march, and they silently went down the road. He himself remained behind.