“Plate sin with gold, and the strong lance of justice hurtless breaks,Clothe it with rags, a pigmy’s straw will pierce it.”
“Plate sin with gold, and the strong lance of justice hurtless breaks,Clothe it with rags, a pigmy’s straw will pierce it.”
“Plate sin with gold, and the strong lance of justice hurtless breaks,Clothe it with rags, a pigmy’s straw will pierce it.”
“Plate sin with gold, and the strong lance of justice hurtless breaks,Clothe it with rags, a pigmy’s straw will pierce it.”
“Plate sin with gold, and the strong lance of justice hurtless breaks,
Clothe it with rags, a pigmy’s straw will pierce it.”
Well, the day of trial came. Public excitement was at its highest pitch. The jailor, accompanied by sheriffs and tipstaves, proceeded to the cell of the prisoner, to escort him to the tribunal of justice. But lo! the apartment was tenantless. The criminal had escaped. A brief survey of his cell revealed the means of his egress. The heavy stones forming the sides of his grated window, were displaced. Large tools lay scattered about—files, chisels, and other articles, plainly indicating a bold confederacy. And such was indeed the case:—for the officers belonging to the same regiment with Derode had contrived his escape.
Words cannot depict Anson’s feelings of mingled rage and disappointment when he learned that his victim had fled. At his own expense, he instituted a search that pervaded the three kingdoms. He himself flew to the continent, and offered a thousand guineas for the capture of the murderer. His efforts were fruitless. The men who liberated Derode did not withdraw their protection until they had placed him in safety.
For more than a year Anson wandered about Europe, in hopes to light upon the fugitive. Weary at length with the vain pursuit, and thinking that the fire in his heart was consuming his life, he returned home, as he thought, to die. He remained in Philadelphia a few months, during which time he conveyed a great part of the remainder of his property to some of our public charities, and then retired from the haunts of men to live and die alone. With a strong tinge of romance, he selected a wild, mountainous country, in the interior of our state, never leaving the precincts of the hovel where he dwelt, except to purchase a stock of the homeliest food.
He had been living thus more than eight years without any thing occurring to disturb the monotony of his life, when one blustering night, a cry from a creature in distress reached his ear, as he sat in his mountain hut, poring over a black-letter folio. Surprised that any one should invade his dangerous premises, and on such a night, he ignited a fragment of resinous wood, and sallied forth. As he descended the path that left his door, and struck into that which wound round a precipitous ledge, the voice came nearer on the blast. Anson shouted loudly to the stranger not to approach, until he reached him, as another step in the dark might be certain destruction. Proceeding hastily onward, he found the traveller standing on the outermost edge of the fearful precipice. The torrent was heard boiling and dashing far below, and the wind swept in eddying blasts round the dizzy cliff. Anson extended his hand to the wanderer, and the blaze of the torch flashed brightly in the faces of both men. Anson riveted his eyes on the features of the stranger, and with a yell of demoniac joy fastened on his throat. It was the miserable Derode, who, in the last stage of poverty, was wandering from the far west, to the sea-board, on foot. In the darkness, he had mistaken the mountain path for a bye-road, which had been described to him as greatly shortening the distance to the village. He quailed beneath the iron grasp of Anson, and struggled to say:—“dreaded man! are you not surfeited with revenge? My ruined daughter!—my murdered son!”
“No!” shouted the infuriated recluse, “my ruined—murdered wife! I see her pale face there—down in the black abyss! she demands the sacrifice! down!”
He hurled the trembling seducer over the precipice, and laughed aloud as the wretch dashed from rock to rock in his descent. A heavy plunge! and the surging torrent closed over the hapless Derode forever!
Anson dwelt on in his gloomy solitude, until his hair became blanched, and the memory of passion and crime had furrowed deep channels in his face. In the summer of 1828, we one day followed a trout stream far up into the mountain, and encountered the old man. Giving him the fruits of our morning sport, and seating ourselves in his hut, we learned from himself the leading incidents of this melancholy story. His eye lighted up with unnatural fire, as he pointed with unsteady finger to the fearful cliff, and said, “there, sir, ’twas from yon projection, I dashed my destroyer into the chasm. The law would call it murder, and I live in daily expectation that the bloodhounds will drag me hence. Well, let them come when they will; from my youth, life has been to me one deep, enduring curse.” We saw him at least once in the summer for many years, and in our last interview with him, we said cheerfully,—“you look quite hale yet, Mr. Anson.” He regarded us steadily for a moment, and said, in a voice that reminded us ofShelley’s Ahasuerus, “I cannot die.” * *
THE EMPRESS.
“Adieu, my lord—I never wished to see you sorry; now,I trust, I shall.”Winter’s Tale.
“Adieu, my lord—I never wished to see you sorry; now,I trust, I shall.”Winter’s Tale.
“Adieu, my lord—
I never wished to see you sorry; now,
I trust, I shall.”
Winter’s Tale.
Itwas evening. The mass had been concluded in the royal chapel, and the Empress Josephine was returning to her apartments through the gallery that led thereto. As she was proceeding along, she felt a touch upon her arm, and, upon looking round, discovered the form of a man beside her. He made his obeisance, and she immediately recognised the Counsellor Fouché.
“What would Monsieur Fouché?” she demanded.
“A few moments private converse with you, if it please your majesty,” he replied, and, at the same time, pointing to the embrasure of a window near by.
Josephine understood the motion, and made a sign that she would follow. He led the way; and when they arrived, she again demanded what he wanted.
“I crave your majesty’s pardon for the liberty I have taken,” said the minister of police respectfully, yet boldly, “but I wish to make a communication, which, though it may not be of the most pleasing nature, yet, demands your majesty’s most serious attention.”
“And what may it be? speak,” said the empress.
“You are aware,” began the minister, “that I am much with the emperor, and have ample opportunity for learning his secret wishes and desires. I have become acquainted with one recently, which, of late, has much occupied his mind, and which he would fain gratify but for the love he bears your majesty. It is this: he wishes for an heir to inherit his title and power. Every man, you know, feels an inherent pride in transmitting his name to posterity; and it is but natural that the emperor should feel such a desire. I would, therefore, suggest to your majesty the necessity of a sacrifice, which will add to the interest of France, make his majesty happy, and which would be as equally sublime as it will be inevitable. Beg him to obtain a divorce.”
During this disclosure, the empress betrayed excessive emotion. Her mild eyes were suffused with tears—her lips swelled—her bosom heaved—her face became deadly pale—and the tremor that took possession of her frame, told how deeply her feelings were agitated. But it was as the momentary cloud that obscures the noonday sun; in a moment it was past, and with a slightly tremulous voice, she asked—
“And what authority has the duke of Otranto for holding such language?”
“None,” he replied, “it is only from a conviction of what must most certainly come to pass, and a desire to turn your attention to what so nearly concerns your majesty’s glory and happiness, that I have dared to speak upon the subject. Nevertheless, if I have offended, I beg your majesty’s forgiveness. Permit me now to depart.”
He stood silent for a few minutes, as if waiting for her assent. She waved her hand, and the boldest political intriguer of his time departed, conscious of having done that which none other in France would have presumed.
Josephine turned away with a beating heart. She reached her apartments, and throwing herself on a sofa, gave vent to her over-burthened soul in a flood of tears. It was not long before dinner was announced; but she refused to appear at the table, on a plea of indisposition, and retired to her chamber.
It was a short time afterward that the door of the chamber opened, and the emperor entered. He approached Josephine. Her eyes were red with weeping, and the tears yet moistened those bright orbs, in defiance of her efforts to appear calm. He seated himself beside her, and put his arm around her waist.
“Josephine,” said he, in an affectionate tone, “what is the cause of this emotion?”
“Nothing,” she answered, in a faltering voice, and scarcely audible.
“Something has occurred to bring forth those tears. Tell me, what is it?” and he looked tenderly in her face.
“I cannot,” she said, bitterly, whilst she leaned her head upon his shoulder, and gave vent to another flood of tears. “No, I cannot speak those fearful words.”
“What words, Josephine? speak; what words?”
She hesitated, and then faltered out,
“That—that you—you do not love me as you used to.”
“ ’Tis false!” he exclaimed.
“Then why wish to be separated? why wish for a divorce? Oh! Napoleon, is it my fault that we have no children to bless our union? God has so willed it,” and her bosom heaved convulsively.
He started as she pronounced the two first sentences, and compressed his lips as if to suppress the pang of conviction that shot through his heart.
“Josephine,” said the emperor, tenderly, “some one has been poisoning your mind with idle tales. Who has it been?”
She then related to him her interview with Fouché, and asked him to dismiss that minister as a penalty for his audacity in playing with her feelings. He strenuously denied the communication; but refused to dismiss him.
“No,” said he, “circumstances compel me to retain him, though he well deserves my displeasure. But why give credit to such silly assertions, Josephine? Have I ever treated you but with affection? Have you discovered aught in my behaviour to warrant suspicion? No; believe me you are still dear to me. Banish those foolish fears from your breast then, and weep no more.” So saying, he imprinted a kiss upon her lips, and left the chamber to attend to the affairs of state.
It was touching to hear such expressions of tenderness issue from the greatest monarch of his time, and to witness that act of devotion—to see that proud spirit unbent; but it was those tears of anguish, and the whisperings of that “still small voice” of conscience, that had humbled him, to whom kings and monarchs humbled themselves, and whose mighty mind aspired to the conquest of the world.
The setting sun threw its parting rays over the earth, and pierced the windows of the imperial palace. The golden flood, softened by the crimson curtains, fell upon the charming features of the empress Josephine, as she sat in thoughtful attitude, with her head resting upon her hand, on a sofa of royal purple, near the centre of her chamber. A page, in waiting, stood near the door, carelessly humming a light ditty; his heart as sunny as his own native France. What a contrast with that which beat within the bosom of the empress! Care weighed heavily upon her breast. Long before her interview with Fouché she had, from the very cause hinted at by the minister, dreaded a withdrawal of her husband’s affections; but since that event her anxieties had doubly increased, and suspicion would take possession of her mind, amounting, at times, even to jealousy. Not that she apprehended his proceeding to that extreme at which the wily minister had hinted; no!—no person on earth could have persuaded her that he, whose joys and woes she had cheerfully shared, wished for a separation: but that some Syren would ensnare him with her charms, and usurp that place in his heart which she only should hold. All the powers she possessed were exerted by Josephine, in order to retain his love, and sometimes she fancied she had succeeded; for of late, in proportion as the sense of injustice he was about to do her, presented itself to his mind, he became more than usually kind and tender; but there were moments when a gloomy melancholy would settle upon her—an indefinable something that seemed to warn of approaching affliction.
It was in one of those fits of abstraction, so foreign to her naturally cheerful nature, that she sat, as we have said, seemingly unconscious of all around, when the door opened, and Napoleon entered. He seemed disturbed, and trouble was vividly depicted in his expressive countenance. He motioned for the page to retire, and seated himself beside her.
“Josephine!” he said.
She started from her reverie, as he pronounced her name—for buried in thought, she had not observed his entrance—and bent upon him such a look, full of sweetness and affection, that it disarmed him; he could not proceed. He arose. He folded his arms upon his breast and paced to and fro; his brow was contracted,—his lips compressed; and the unquiet restlessness of his piercing eye, betokened the agitation he could scarce control. He thus continued for some moments. At length he stopped before her, as if his resolution was taken, and then again turned away, continuing to walk up and down the apartment with rapid and hasty strides. After a short time he stopped again.
“It must be done,” he muttered, “I will acquaint her with it at once; delay but makes it still more difficult.”
He made an effort to suppress his emotion, and seated himself beside her. But again his voice failed him, and he could only articulate,—
“Josephine, prepare yourself for sad news.”
Ever on the alarm, the purport of his words seemed anticipated by her, though not to their full extent, and she burst into a flood of tears, scarce knowing why.
Dinner was now announced, and their majesties proceeded to the table. Silence prevailed throughout the meal, and the dishes were scarcely touched. They arose from their seats, and as they did so, the page on duty presented the emperor with his accustomed cup of coffee. He took it, but handed it back scarcely touched. He then proceeded to his chamber; the empress followed.
They seated themselves when they had entered, and remained for some time silent. The emperor at length spoke.
“There is no use in deferring the truth, Josephine,” said he, in a tremulous voice, “it must sooner or later be made known to you, and suspense is more cruel than certainty. The interests of France demand that we separate.”
“What!” she exclaimed, placing both hands on his shoulders, and gazing with an eager and inquiring look in his face, “what? separate!”
“Yes,” he answered, “France demands the sacrifice.”
Her hands dropped heavily—her bosom heaved—and hot, burning tears, such only as flow from a surcharged heart, gushed forth in torrents from her eyes.
“And I—oh! God!” she exclaimed, “I who have shared your joys and sorrows—who have been your companion for years—who loved you through weal and woe—who—but I will not upbraid you, Napoleon. Yet she who supplants me, Maria Louise, the daughter of the Emperor Francis, can never love you as I have done,—oh! no!”
She buried her face in her hands; the emperor remained silent.
“But,” she continued, starting suddenly, and throwing her arms around his neck, “you do not mean it. Oh! no! say you do not! speak,—you cannot mean it. Tell me, quick—say it is not so—that it cannot, must not be. Speak, Napoleon, and the blessing of God rest upon you!”
“Alas! it is too true,” he said, his eyes suffused with tears. Oh! how keen was the pang of conscience that shot through his guilty heart.
“True!” she exclaimed, “and you confirm it? Then Fouché was right. But I will never survive it—no! I will never survive it. Mon Dieu! mon Dieu!”
She uttered a piercing scream, and reeled backward, for she had risen from her seat in her excitement. Napoleon caught her in his arms, and laid her gently upon the carpet. Her agony was too deep for words, and she could only weep and groan in bitterness of spirit. He stepped to the door and called de Bausset. They raised her in their arms, and bore her to her chamber. Her women were immediately summoned, and she was resigned to their care. Napoleon retired, greatly agitated. De Bausset followed; tears were also in his eyes; for Josephine, by her goodness, won all hearts. Napoleon stopped a moment outside to listen to her groan of anguish. He related what had occurred.
“The interests of France:” he continued, addressing De Bausset, “and as my dynasty does violence to my heart, the divorce has become a rigorous duty. I am more afflicted by what has happened to Josephine, because, three days ago, she must have learned it from Hortensia. The unhappy obligation which condemns me to separate myself from her, I deplore with all my heart, but I thought she possessed more strength of character, and I was not prepared for these bursts of grief.”
They hurried away. Conscience, ever-faithful conscience, was already performing its duty; he felt its just upbraidings. He essayed to stifle it. It was this that led him to utter such language to De Bausset—to assert that he thought she possessed strength of character enough to receive the announcement without those bursts of grief. What virtuous and affectionate woman could receive with calmness a sentence of repudiation; and that, too, by the tongue of a beloved husband? Her heart must have become as stone.
On the sixteenth of December, 1809, the law, authorising the divorce, was enacted by the conservative senate. In the following March the nuptials between Napoleon and Marie Louise, were performed in Vienna; and on the first day of April, a little more than four months after the scene above described, they were joined in wedlock in the city of Paris, by his uncle, Cardinal Fesch.
Thus was consummated that act which cast a stain upon the character of “the great Napoleon,” which time cannot efface. A blot, deep and indelible, that will remain whilst his name lives among men. It was an act contrary to the laws of God and of humanity.
One wrong action will often tarnish a whole life. We may admire his bravery, and courage, his vast conception of mind, his gigantic intellect, his unparalleled energy, his perseverance, and his determination of character, but when we turn to this dark page in his history, admiration vanishes, and contempt and disgust usurp its place. It was indeed an act unworthy of the man, and one that admits of no palliation. It was not to France the sacrifice, as he termed it, was made; it was to ambition. And may we not surmise that the lowering fortunes which ever after were his, and the dark fate which closed his days in a lonely island, afar off on the bosom of the ocean, were, in some measure, acts of divine retribution, which this act of his called forth.
Long years after the occurrence of the foregoing events, and when Napoleon was no more master of Europe,—when Louis XVIII. was seated on the throne of France, and “Le Grand Monarque,” was a prisoner, confined for life on the island of St. Helena—the lovely and accomplished Josephine,—the injured wife,—ended a virtuous life at the villa of Malmaison, near St. Germain, whither she had retired after the divorce. Her death was attributed to disease of the body; but it is likely it was not altogether that, or at least a secret sorrow had so weakened and enfeebled her mortal frame that the least rude touch of disease overthrew the structure. Differently died the repudiator and the repudiated.
Sketcher.
Philadelphia, 1841.
Philadelphia, 1841.
LAKE GEORGE.
Thereis a clear and bright blue lakeEmbosom’d in the rocky north;No murmurs e’er its silence break,As on its waves we sally forth;The mountain bird floats high aloft,Above his wild and craggy nest,And gazes from his towering throne,Upon the torrent’s sparkling breast;While far beneath, in light and shade,The bright green valleys frown and smile,And in the bed sweet nature made,The lake sleeps soft and sweet the while.O’er many a green and lovely wild,The golden sun-beams gaily smile;But ’mid them all he doth not break,As on his race he sallies forth,On fairer scene, or sweeter lake,Than that within the rocky north.M. T.
Thereis a clear and bright blue lakeEmbosom’d in the rocky north;No murmurs e’er its silence break,As on its waves we sally forth;The mountain bird floats high aloft,Above his wild and craggy nest,And gazes from his towering throne,Upon the torrent’s sparkling breast;While far beneath, in light and shade,The bright green valleys frown and smile,And in the bed sweet nature made,The lake sleeps soft and sweet the while.O’er many a green and lovely wild,The golden sun-beams gaily smile;But ’mid them all he doth not break,As on his race he sallies forth,On fairer scene, or sweeter lake,Than that within the rocky north.M. T.
Thereis a clear and bright blue lakeEmbosom’d in the rocky north;No murmurs e’er its silence break,As on its waves we sally forth;The mountain bird floats high aloft,Above his wild and craggy nest,And gazes from his towering throne,Upon the torrent’s sparkling breast;While far beneath, in light and shade,The bright green valleys frown and smile,And in the bed sweet nature made,The lake sleeps soft and sweet the while.O’er many a green and lovely wild,The golden sun-beams gaily smile;But ’mid them all he doth not break,As on his race he sallies forth,On fairer scene, or sweeter lake,Than that within the rocky north.M. T.
Thereis a clear and bright blue lake
Embosom’d in the rocky north;
No murmurs e’er its silence break,
As on its waves we sally forth;
The mountain bird floats high aloft,
Above his wild and craggy nest,
And gazes from his towering throne,
Upon the torrent’s sparkling breast;
While far beneath, in light and shade,
The bright green valleys frown and smile,
And in the bed sweet nature made,
The lake sleeps soft and sweet the while.
O’er many a green and lovely wild,
The golden sun-beams gaily smile;
But ’mid them all he doth not break,
As on his race he sallies forth,
On fairer scene, or sweeter lake,
Than that within the rocky north.
M. T.
Lake George, Feb., 1841.
Lake George, Feb., 1841.
THE REEFER OF ’76.
———
BY THE AUTHOR OF “CRUIZING IN THE LAST WAR.”
———
“Steady, there, steady!” thundered the master of the merchantman, his voice seeming, however, in the fierce uproar of the gale, to die away into a whisper.
I looked ahead. A giant wave, towering as high as the yard arm, its angry crest hissing above us, and its dark green bosom seeming to open to engulph our fated bark, was rolling down toward us, shutting out half the horizon from sight, and striking terror into the stoutest heart. It was a fearful spectacle. Involuntarily I glanced around the horizon. All was dark, lowering, and ominous. On every hand the mountain waves were heaving to the sky, while the roar of the hurricane was awfully sublime. Now we rose to the heavens: now sunk into a yawning abyss. But I had little time to gaze upon the fearful scene. Already the angry billow was rushing down upon our bows, when the master again sang out, as if with the voice of a giant.
“Hold on all!” and as he spoke, the huge volume of waters came tumbling in upon us, sweeping our decks like a whirlwind, hissing, roaring, and foaming along, and making the merchantman quiver in every timber from bulwark to kelson. Not a moveable thing was left. The long boat was swept from the decks like chaff before a hurricane. For an instant the merchantman lay powerless beneath the blow, as if a thunderbolt had stunned her; but gradually recovering from the shock, she shook the waters gallantly from her bows, emerged from the deluge, and rolling her tall masts heavily to starboard, once more breasted the storm.
We had been a week at sea without meeting a single sail. During that time we had enjoyed a succession of favorable breezes, until within the last few days, when the gale, which now raged, had overtaken us, and driven us out into the Atlantic, somewhere, as near as we could guess, between the Bermudas and our port of destination. Within the last few hours we had been lying-to, under a close-reefed foresail; but every succeeding wave had seemed to become more dangerous than the last, until it was now evident that our craft could not much longer endure the continued surges which breaking over her bows, threatened momentarily to engulph us. The master stood by my side, holding on to a rope, his weather-beaten countenance drenched with spray, but his keen, anxious eye changing continually from the bow of his craft, to the wild scene around him.
“She can’t stand it much longer, Mr. Parker,” said the old man, “many a gale have I weathered in her, but none like this. God help us!”
“Meet it with the helm—hold on all,” came faintly from the forecastle, and before the words had whizzed past upon the gale, another mountain wave was hurled in upon us, and I felt myself, the next instant, borne away, as in the arms of a giant, upon its bosom. The rope by which I held had parted. There was a hissing in my ears—a rapid shooting like an arrow—a desperate effort to stay my progress by catching at a rope, I missed—and then I felt myself whirled away astern of the merchantman, my eyes blinded with the spray, my ears ringing with a strange, wild sound, and a feeling of sudden, utter hopelessness at my heart, such as they only can know who have experienced a fate as terrible as mine, at that moment, threatened to be.
“A man overboard!” came faintly from the fast-receding ship.
“Ahoy!” I shouted.
“Hillo—hil—lo—o,” was answered back.
“Ahoy—a—a—hoy!”
“Throw over that spar.”
“Toll the bell that he may know where we are.”
“Hillo—hi—il—lo!”
“Who is it?”
“Bring a lantern here.”
“Hil—l—o—o—o—o!”
“Can you see him?”
“It’s as dark as death.”
“God have mercy then upon his soul.”
I could hear every word of the conversation, as the excited tones of the speakers came borne to leeward upon the gale, but although I shouted back with desperate strength, I felt that my cries were unheard by my shipmates to windward. The distance between myself and the merchantman was meanwhile rapidly increasing, and every moment her dark figure became more and more shadowy. With that presence of mind which is soon acquired in a life of peril, I had begun to tread water the instant I had gone overboard; but I felt that my strength would soon fail me, and that I must sink, unaided, into the watery abyss. Oh! who can tell my feelings as I saw the figure of the merchantman gradually becoming more dim in the distance, and heard the voices of my friends, at first loud and distinct, dying away into indistinct murmurs. Alone on the ocean! My breath came quick; my heart beat wildly; I felt the blood rushing in torrents to my brain. The scene meanwhile grew darker around me. The faint hope I had entertained that the ship would be put about, gradually died away; and even while I looked, she suddenly vanished from my vision. I strained my eyes to catch a sight of her as I rose upon a billow. Alas! she was not to be seen. Was there then no hope? Young; full of life; in the heyday of love—oh! God it was too much to endure! I felt that my last hour had come. Already the waters seemed roaring through my ears, and strange, fantastic figures to dance before my eyes. In that hour every event of my life whirled through my memory! I thought of my childhood; of my mother in her weeds; of her prayers over her only child; and of the cold wintry day when they laid her in her grave, and told me that I was an orphan. I thought too of my boyhood; of my college life; of my early days at sea; of the eventful months which had just passed; of my hopes of a bright career or a glorious death, thus to be quenched forever; and of Beatrice, my own Beatrice, whom I was to see no more. Wild with the agony of that thought, I tossed my arms aloft, and invoked a dying blessing on her head. At that instant something came shooting past me, borne on the bosom of a towering wave. It was a lumbering chest, doubtless one of those thrown overboard from the merchantman. I grasped it with a desperate effort: I clambered up upon it; and as I felt its frail planks beneath me, a revulsion came over my bosom. The fisherman by his fireside, when the tempest howls around his dwelling, could not have felt more confident of safety than I now did, with nothing but this simple chest between me and the yawning abyss. Quick, gushing emotions swept through my bosom; I burst into tears; and lifting up my voice, there, alone, on the wide ocean, I poured forth my thanksgivings to God.
It was with no little difficulty I maintained my position on the chest, during the long hours which elapsed before the morning dawned. Now borne to the heavens, now hurried into the abyss below; now drenched with the surge, now whirled wildly onward, on the bosom of some wave, I passed the weary moments, in alternate efforts to maintain my hold, and ardent longings for the morning’s light. The gale, meantime, gradually diminished. At length the long looked-for dawn appeared, creeping slowly and ominously over the horizon, and revealing to my eager sight nothing but the white surges, the agitated deep, and the leaden colored sky on every hand. My heart sank within me. All through the weary watches of that seemingly interminable night, I had cheered my drooping hopes with the certainty of seeing the merchantman in the morning, and now, as I scanned the frowning horizon; and saw only that stormy waste on every hand, my heart once more died within me, and I almost despaired. Suddenly, however, I thought I perceived something flashing on the weather seaboard like the wing of a water-fowl, and straining my eyes in that direction, whenever I rose upon a wave, I beheld at length, to my joy, that the object was a sail. Oh! the overpowering emotions of that moment. The vessel was evidently one of considerable size, and coming down right toward me. As she approached I made her out to be a sloop of war, driving under close-reefed courses before the gale. Her hull of glossy black; her snowy canvass; and her trim jaunty finish were in remarkable contrast with the usual slovenly appearance of a mere merchantman. No jack was at her mast-head; no ensign fluttered at her gaff. But I cared not to what nation she belonged, in that moment of hope and fear. To me she was a messenger of mercy. I had watched her eagerly until she had approached within almost a pistol-shot of me, trembling momentarily lest she should alter her course. I now shouted with all my strength. No one, however, seemed to hear me. Onward she came, swinging with the surges, and driving a cataract of foam along before her bows. A look-out was idly leaning on the bowsprit. As the huge fabric surged down toward me another danger arose. I might be run down. Nerved to supernatural strength by the immanency of the peril, I raised myself half up upon my chest, and placing my hand to my mouth, shouted with desperate energy,
“Ahoy! a—a—hoy!”
“Hillo!” said the look-out, turning sharply in the direction of my voice.
“Ahoy! shipa—ho—o—y!”
“Starboard your helm,” thundered the seaman, discovering me upon my little raft, “heave a rope here—easy—easy—God bless you, shipmate,” and with the rapidity with which events are transacted in a dream, I was hoisted on board, and clasped in the arms of the warm-hearted old fellow, before he saw, by my uniform, that I was an officer. When he perceived this, however, he started back, and hastily touching his hat, said, with humorous perplexity,
“Beg pardon, sir—didn’t see you belonged aft——”
“An American officer in this extremity,” said a deep voice at my elbow, with startling suddenness, and as the speaker advanced, the group of curious seamen fell away from around me, as if by magic; while I felt, at once, that I was in the presence of the commanding officer of the ship.
“You are among friends,” said the speaker, in a voice slightly tinged with the Scotch accent, “we bear the flag of the Congress—but walk aft—you are drenched, exhausted—you need rest—I must delay my inquiries until you have been provided for—send the doctor to my cabin—and steward mix us a rummer of hot grog.”
During these rapid remarks the speaker, taking me by the arm, had conducted, or rather led me to a neat cabin aft, and closing the door with his last remarks, he opened a locker, and producing a suit of dry clothes, bid me array myself in them, and then vanished from the apartment.
In a few minutes, however, he re-appeared, followed by the steward, bearing a huge tumbler of hot brandy, which he made me drink off, nothing loth, at a draught.
From the first instant of his appearance, I had felt a strange, but unaccountable awe in the presence of the commanding officer, and I now sought to account for it by a rigid, but hasty scrutiny of his person, as he stood before me.
He was a short, thick-set, muscular man, apparently about thirty years of age, drest in a blue, tight-fitting naval frock coat, with an epaulette upon one shoulder, and a sword hanging by his side. But his face was the most striking part of him. Such a countenance I never saw. It had a fire in the eye, a compression about the lips, a distention of the nostrils, and a sternness in its whole appearance, which betokened a man, not only of strong passions, but of inflexible decision of character. That brow, bold, massy, and threatening, might have shaped the destinies of a nation. I could not withdraw my eyes from it. He appeared to read my thoughts, for smiling faintly, he courteously signed to the steward to take my glass, and when the door had closed upon him, said,
“But to what brother officer am I indebted for this honor?”
I mentioned my name, and the schooner in which I had sailed from New York.
“The Fire-Fly!” he said, with some surprise, “ah! I have heard of your gallantry in that brush with the pirates—” and then, half unconsciously, as if musing, he continued, “and so your name is Parker.”
“And yours?” I asked, with a nod of assent.
“Paul Jones!”
For a moment we stood silently gazing on each other—he seeming to wish to pierce my very soul with his small, grey eye, and I regarding with a feeling akin to fascination, the wonderful man whose after career was even then foreshadowed in my mind.
“I see you are of the right stuff,” exclaimed this singular being, breaking the silence, “we shall yet make those haughty English weep in blood for their tyranny.”
I know not how it was; but from that moment I felt certain my companion would make his name a terror to his enemies, and a wonder to the world.
For some days we continued our course, with but little deviation; and every day I became more and more interested in the commander of the man-of-war. Although my situation as his guest brought me into closer contact with him than any one except his lieutenant, yet, after the first few hours of our intercourse, he became reserved and silent, though without any diminution of courtesy. His former career was little known even in the ward-room. He had been brought up, it was said, by the earl of Selkirk, but had left his patron’s house at the age of fifteen, and embarked in a seafaring life. Dark hints were whispered about as to the causes of his sudden departure, and it was said that the dishonor of one of his family had driven him forth from the roof of his patron. Upon these subjects, however, I made no ungenerous enquiries; but learned that he had subsequently been engaged in the West India trade as master, and that he had, on the breaking out of the war, come to America, and offered himself to Congress for a commission in our navy. Some deep, but, as yet unknown, cause of hatred toward the English, was said to have prompted him to this act.
As time passed on, however, I enjoyed many opportunities of studying his singular character, which, had I not felt my curiosity aroused, might have passed by unused. Often would I, in our slight conversations, endeavor to pierce into his bosom, and read there the history of all those dark emotions which slumbered there. But he seemed generally to suspect my purpose—at least he appeared always on his guard. He was ever the same courteous but unfathomable being.
We had run down as far south as the Bermudas, when, one day the look-out made five sail; and in an instant every eye was directed toward the quarter where the strangers appeared, to see if there was any chance of a prize.
“How bear they?” asked Paul Jones quickly, to the look-out at the mast-head.
“I can’t make out but one, and she seems a large merchantman, on a taut bowline.”
“Watch her sharp.”
“Ay, ay, sir.”
For some time, every eye was fastened upon the approaching sail, which, apparently unconscious of an enemy so near, kept blindly approaching us. At length her royals began to lift, her topsails followed rapidly, and directly the heads of her courses loomed up on the horizon. Every eye sparkled with the certainty of a rich prize.
“She’s a fat Indiaman, by St. George,” said our lieutenant, who had not yet so far forgot the country of his ancestors, as to swear by any saint but her patron one.
“I guess we’d better not be too sure,” said a cautious old quarter-master from Cape Cod, as he levelled a much worn spy-glass, and prepared to take a long squint at the stranger.
“By St. Pathrick,” said an Irish midshipman, in a whisper to one of his comrades, “but wont she make a beautiful prize—with the rale Jamaica, my boys, by the hogshead in her, and we nothing to do afther the capture, but to drink it up, to be shure.”
“The strange sail is a frigate,” said the look-out at the mast head, with startling earnestness.
“Too true, by G—d,” muttered the lieutenant, shutting his glass with a jerk; and as he spoke, the hull of the stranger loomed up above the horizon, presenting a row of yawning teeth that boded us little good, for we knew that our own little navy boasted no vessel with so large an armament.
“That fellow is an English frigate,” calmly said Paul Jones, closing his telescope leisurely, “we shall have to try our heels.”
Every thing that could draw was soon set, and we went off upon a wind, hoping to distance our pursuer by superior sailing. But though, for a while, we deluded ourselves with this hope, it soon became apparent that the enemy was rapidly gaining upon us, and with a heavy cross sea to contend against, we found ourselves, in less than four hours, within musket shot of the frigate, upon her weather bow. During all this time the Englishman had been firing her chase guns after us, but not one of them, as yet, had touched us. The game, however, was now apparently over. Every one gave themselves up as lost, to die, perhaps, the death of rebels. Resistance would only inflame our captors. How astonished then, were we all to hear the captain exclaim,—
“Beat to quarters!”
The high discipline of the crew brought every man to his post at the first tap of the drum, though not a countenance but exhibited amazement at the order.
“Open the magazine!” said Paul Jones in the same stern, collected tone.
The order was obeyed, and then all was silent again. It was a moment of exciting interest. As I looked along the deck at the dark groups gathered at the guns, and then at the calm, but iron-like countenance of the daring commander, I felt strange doubts as to whether it might not be his intention to sink beneath the broadside of the frigate, or, grappling with the foe, blow himself and the Englishman up. My reverie, however, was soon cut short by a shot from the frigate whizzing harmlessly past us, overhead. The eye of the singular being standing beside me, flashed lightning, as he thundered,—
“Show him the bunting. Let drive at him, gunner,” and at the same instant our flag shot up to the gaff, unrolled, and then whipt in the wind; while a shot from one of our four pounders, cut through and through the fore-course of the enemy.
“Keep her away a point or two, quarter-master,” said the captain, again breaking in upon the ominous silence, now interrupted only by the report of the cannon, or the fierce dashing of the waves against the sloop’s bows.
“Does he mean to have us all strung up at the yard arm?” whispered the lieutenant to me, as he beheld this perilous bravado, yet felt himself restrained as much by the awe in which he held his superior, as by his own rigid notions of discipline, from remonstrating against the manœuvre.
Meantime, the frigate was slowly gaining upon us, and had her batteries been better served, would have soon riddled us to pieces; but the want of skill in her crew, as well as the violence of the cross sea, prevented her shot from taking effect. The distance between us, however, gradually lessened. We saw no hope of escape. Every resort had been tried, but in vain. Already the frigate was dashing on to us in dangerous proximity, and we could see the eager countenances of her officers apparently exulting over their prize. Our crew, meanwhile, began to murmur. Despair was in many faces: despondency in all. Only our commander maintained the same inflexible demeanor which had characterised him throughout the chase. He had kept his eye steadily fixed upon the frigate for the last ten minutes in silence, only speaking now and then to order the sloop to be kept away another point or two. By this means the relative positions of the two vessels had been changed so as to bring us upon the lee-bow of the enemy. Suddenly his eye kindled, and turning quickly around to his lieutenant, he said,—
“Order all hands to be ready to make sail,” and as soon as the men had sprung to their stations, he shouted—
“Up with your helm; hard,—harder. Man the clew garnets—board tacks—topsails, royals—and flying jib,—merrily all, my men.”
And as sheet after sheet of canvass was distended to the wind, we came gallantly around, and catching the breeze over our taffrail, went off dead before the wind, passing, however, within pistol shot of the enemy.
“Have you any message for Newport?” said Paul Jones, springing into the mizzen-rigging, and hailing the infuriated English captain, as we shot past him.
“Give it to him with the grape—all hands make sail—fire!” came hoarsely down from the frigate, in harsh and angry tones.
“Good day, and many thanks for your present,” said our imperturbable commander, as the discharge swept harmlessly by; and then leaping upon the deck, he ran his eye aloft.
“Run aft with that sheet—send out the kites aloft there, more merrily—we shall drop the rascals now, my gallant fellows,” shouted the elated captain, as we swept like a sea-gull away from the foe; while the men, inspired by the boldness and success of the manœuvre, worked with a redoubled alacrity, which promised soon to place us without reach of the enemy’s fire. The desperate efforts of the frigate to regain her advantage, were, meanwhile, of no avail. Taken completely by surprise, she could neither throw out her light sails sufficiently quick, nor direct her fiery broadsides with any precision. Not a grape-shot struck us, although the water to larboard was ploughed up with the iron hail. We soon found that we outsailed her before the wind, and in less than an hour we had drawn beyond range of her shot.