Meanwhile, these latter had not been slow in profiting by the important advantages which had crowned their arms on the lake. On the third day after the retreat of the British garrison from Amherstburg, a numerous fleet of large boats was discovered from the town pushing for Hartley's point, under cover of the united squadrons. Unopposed as these were, their landing was soon effected, and a few hours later the American stars were to be seen floating over the still smoking ruins of the British fortress. Emboldened by the unexpected ease with which he had rendered himself finally master of a position long coveted, the American General at once resolved to follow and bring his retreating enemy to action if possible. A force of five thousand men (fifteen hundred of whom were mounted rifles) was accordingly pushed forward; and so rapid and indefatigable was the march of these, that they came up with the retreating columns before they had succeeded in gaining the village, at which it was purposed that their final stand should be made. The anxiety of General Proctor to save the baggage waggons containing his own personal effects, had been productive of the most culpable delay, and at the moment when his little army should have been under cover of entrenchments, and in a position which offered a variety of natural defensive advantages, they found themselves suddenly overtaken by the enemy in the heart of a thick wood, where, fatigued by the long and tedious march they had made under circumstances of great privation, they had scarcely time to form in the irregular manner permitted by their broken position, before they found themselves attacked with great spirit and on all sides, by a force more than quadruple their own. The result may easily be anticipated. Abandoned by their General, who at the very first outset, drove his spurs into the flanks of his charger and fled disgracefully from the scene of action, followed by the whole of his personal staff, the irregularly formed line of the little British army, was but ill prepared to make effectual resistance to the almost invisible enemy by whom it was encompassed; and those whom the rifle had spared, were to be seen, within an hour from the firing of the first shot, standing conquered and disarmed, between the closing lines of the victorious Americans.
But although the English troops (sacrificed as they must be pronounced to have been, by their incapable leader) fell thus an easy prey to the overwhelming force brought against them, so did not their Indian allies, supported and encouraged as these were by the presence of their beloved Chieftain. It was with a sparkling eye and a glowing cheek that, just as the English troops had halted to give unequal battle to their pursuers. Tecumseh passed along the line, expressing in animated language the delight he felt at the forthcoming struggle, and when he had shaken hands with most of the officers he moved into the dense forest where his faithful bands were lying concealed, with a bounding step that proved not only how much his heart had been setupon the cast, but how completely he confided in the result. And who shall say what that result might not have been even notwithstanding the discomfiture of the English had the heroic Chieftain been spared to his devoted country! But this was not fated to be. Early in the action he fell by the hand of a distinguished leader of the enemy, and his death carried, as it could not fail to do, the deepest sorrow and dismay into the hearts of his followers, who although they continued the action long after his fall, and with a spirit that proved their desire to avenge the loss of their noble leader, it was evident, wanted the directing genius of him they mourned to sustain them in their effort. For several days after the action did they continue to hang upon the American rear, as the army again retired with its prisoners upon Detroit; but each day their attack became feebler and feebler, announcing that their numbers were fast dispersing into the trackless region from which they had been brought, until finally not a shot was to be heard disturbing the night vigils of the American sentinels.
With the defeat of the British army, and the death of Tecumseh, perished the last hope of the Indians to sustain themselves as a people against the in-roads of their oppressors. Dispirited and dismayed, they retired back upon the hunting grounds which still remained to them, and there gave way both to the deep grief with which every heart was overwhelmed at the loss of their truly great leader, and to the sad anticipations which the increasing gloom that clouded the horizon of their prospects naturally induced.
The interview so fatal in its results to Gerald's long formed resolutions of virtuous purpose was followed by others of the same description, and in the course of these, Matilda, profiting by her knowledge of the past, had the address so to rivet the chains which fettered the senses of her lover, by a well-timed, although apparently unintentional display of the beauty which had enslaved him, that so far from shrinking from the fulfilment of the dreadful obligation he had imposed upon himself, the resolution of the youth became more confirmed as the period for its enactment drew nigher. There were moments when, his passion worked up to intensity by the ever-varying, over-exciting picture of that beauty, would have anticipated the condition on which he was to become possessed of it for ever, but on these occasions the American would assume an air of wounded dignity, sometimes of deep sorrow; and alluding to the manner in which her former confidence had been repaid, reproach him with a want of generosity, in seeking to make her past weakness a pretext for his present advances.
At length the day arrived when Gerald—the once high, generous and noble minded Gerald,—was to steep his soul in guilt—to imbrue his hands in the life blood of a fellow creature. The seducer of Matilda had arrived, and even in the hotel in which Grantham resided, the entertainment was to be given by his approving fellow citizens, in commemoration of the heroism which had won to him golden opinions from every class. It had already been arranged that the assassination was to take place on the departure of their victim from the banquet, and consequently at a moment when, overcome by the fumes ofwine, he would be found incapable of opposing any serious resistance to their design. The better to facilitate his close and unperceived approach to the unhappy man, a pair of cloth shoes had been made for her lover by the white hands of Matilda, with a sort of hood or capuchin of the same material, to prevent recognition by any one who might accidentally pass him on the way to the scene of the contemplated murder. Much as Gerald objected to it, Matilda had peremptorily insisted on being present herself, to witness the execution of the deed, and the same description of disguise had been prepared for herself. In this resolution the American, independently of her desire to fortify the courage of her lover by her presence, was actuated by another powerful and fearful motive, which will be seen presently.
The private residence of the officer was situated in a remote part of the town, and skirting that point of the circular ridge of hills where the lights in the habitation of Matilda had attracted the notice of Gerald, on the first night of his encounter. To one who viewed it from a distance, it would have seemed that the summit of the wood-crowned ridge must be crossed before communication could be held between the two dwellings which lay as it were back to back, on either side of the formidable barrier; but on a nearer approach, a fissure in the hill might be observed, just wide enough to admit of a narrow horse track or foot path, which wound its sinuous course from the little valley into the open space that verged upon the town, on gaining which the residence of the American officer was to be seen rising at the distance of twenty yards. It was in this path, which had been latterly pointed out to him by his guilty companion, that Gerald was to await the approach of the intended victim, who on passing his place of concealment, was to be cautiously followed and stabbed to the heart ere he could gain his door.
Fallen as was Gerald from his high estate of honor, it was not without a deep sense of the atrocity of the act he was about to commit, that he prepared for its accomplishment. It is true that, yielding to the sophistry of Matilda's arguments, he was sometimes led to imagine the avenging of her injuries an imperative duty; but such was his view of the subject only when the spell of her presence was upon him. When restored to his calmer and more unbiassed judgment, in the solitude of his own chamber, conscience resumed her sway, and no plausibility of pretence could conceal from himself that he was about to become that vilest of beings—a common murderer. There were moments even when the dread deed to which he had pledged himself appeared in such hideous deformity, that he fain would have fled on the instant far from the influence of her who had incited him to its perpetration; but when the form of Matilda rose to his mental eye, remorse, conscience, every latent principle of virtue, dissolved away—and although he no longer sought to conceal from himself that what he meditated was crime of the blackest dye, his determination to secure entire possession of that beauty, even at the accursed price of blood, became but the more resolute and confirmed.
The night previous to that fixed for the assassination was passed by the guilty Gerald in a state of dreadful excitement. Large drops fell from his forehead in agony, and when he arose at a late hour, his pale, emaciated features, and wavering step, betrayed how little the mind or the body had tasted of repose. Accustomed, however, as he had latterly been, to sustain his sinking spirits by artificial means, he was not long in having recourse to hiswonted stimulants. He called for brandy to deaden the acuteness of his feelings, and give strength to his tottering limbs; and when he had drank freely of this, he sallied forth into the forest, where he wandered during the day, without other aim or purpose than to hide the brand of guilt, which he almost felt upon his brow, from the curious gaze of his fellow men. It was dark when he returned to the hotel, and as, on his way to his own private apartment, he passed the low large room chiefly used as an ordinary, the loud hum of voices which met his ear, mingled with the drawing of corks and ringing of glasses, told him that the entertainment provided for his unconscious victim had already commenced. Moving hastily on, he gained his own apartment, and summoning one of the domestics, he directed that his own frugal meal (the first he had tasted that day) should be brought up. But even for this he had no appetite, and he had recourse once more to the stimulant for assistance. As the night drew on he grew more nervous and agitated, yet without at all wavering from his purpose. At length ten o'clock struck. It was the hour at which he had promised to issue forth to join Matilda in the path, there to await the passage of his victim to his home. He cautiously descended the staircase, and, in the confusion that reigned among the household, all of whom were too much occupied with the entertainment within to heed the movements of individuals, succeeded in gaining the street without notice. The room in which the dinner was given was on the ground floor, and looked through numerous low windows into the street, through which Gerald must necessarily pass to reach the place of his appointment. Sounds of loud revelry mixed with laughter and the strains of music, now issued from these, attesting that the banquet was at its height, and the wine fast taking effect on its several participators.
A momentary feeling of vague curiosity caused the degraded youth to glance his eye through one of the uncurtained windows upon the scene within, but scarcely had he caught an indistinct and confused view of the company, most of whom glittered in the gay trappings of military uniforms, when a secret and involuntary dread of distinguishing from his fellows the man whom he was about to slay, caused him as instantaneously to turn away. Guilty as he felt himself to be, he could not bear the thought of beholding the features of the individual he had sworn to destroy. As there were crowds of the humbler citizens of the place collected round the windows to view the revelry within, neither his appearance nor his action had excited surprise; nor, indeed, was it even suspected, habited as he was in the common garments of the country, that he was other than a native of the town.
On gaining the narrow pass or lane, he found Matilda wrapped in her cloak, beneath which she carried the disguise prepared for both. The moon was in the last quarter, and as the fleecy clouds passed away from before it, he could observe that the lips and cheek of the American were almost livid, although her eyes sparkled with deep mental excitement. Neither spoke, yet then breathing was heavy and audible to each. Gerald seated himself on a projection of the hill, and removing his shoes, substituted those which his companion had wrought for him. He then assumed the hood, and dropping his head between his hands, continued for some minutes in that attitude, buried in profound abstraction.
At length Matilda approached him. She seated herself at his side, threwher arms around his neck, called him in those rich and searching tones which were peculiarly her own—her beloved and affianced husband; and bidding him be firm of purpose, as he valued the lives and happiness of both, placed in his hand a small dagger, the handle of which was richly mounted in silver. Gerald clutched the naked weapon with a convulsive grasp, while a hoarse low groan escaped him, and again he sank his head in silence upon his chest.
Nearly an hour had passed in this manner, neither seeking to disturb the thoughts of the other, nor daring to break the profound silence that every where prevailed around them. At length a distant and solitary footstep was heard, and Matilda sprang to her feet, and with her head thrown eagerly forward, while one small foot alone supported the whole weight of her inclined body, gazed intently out upon the open space, and in the direction whence the sounds proceeded.
"He comes, Gerald, he comes!" she at length whispered in a quick tone.
Gerald, who had also risen, and now stood looking over the shoulder of the American, was not slow in discovering the tall figure of a man, whose outline, cloaked even as it was, bespoke the soldier, moving in an oblique direction towards the building already described.
"It is he—too well do I know him," continued Matilda, in the same eager yet almost inaudible whisper, "and mark how inflated with the incense which has been heaped upon him this night does he appear. His proud step tells of the ambitious projects of his vile heart. Little does he imagine that this arm—and she tightly grasped that which held the fatal dagger—will crush them for ever in the bud. But hist!"
The officer was now within a few paces of the path, in the gloom of which the guilty pair found ample concealment, and as he drew nearer and nearer, their very breathing was stayed to prevent the slightest chance of a discovery of their presence. Gerald suffered him to pass some yards beyond the opening, and advanced with long yet cautious strides across the grass towards his victim. As he moved thus noiselessly along, he fancied that there was something in the bearing of the figure that reminded him of one he had previously known, but he had not time to pause upon the circumstance for the officer was already within ten yards of his own door, and the delay of a single moment would not only deprive him of the opportunity on which he had perilled all in this world and in the next, but expose himself and his companion to the ignominy of discovery and punishment.
A single foot of ground now intervened between him and the unhappy officer, whom wine, or abstraction, or both, had rendered totally unconscious of his danger. Already was the hand of Gerald raised to strike the fatal blow—another moment and it would have descended, but even in the very act he found his arm suddenly arrested. Turning quickly to see who it was who thus interfered with his purpose, he beheld Matilda.
"One moment stay," she said in a hurried voice; "poor were my revenge indeed, were he to perish not knowing who planned his death." Then in a hoarser tone, in which could be detected the action of the fiercest passions of the human mind, "Slanderer—villain—we meet again."
Startled by the sound of a familiar voice, the officer turned hastily round, and seeing all his danger at a single glance, made a movement of his right hand to his side, as if he would have grasped his sword—but finding no weapon there, he contented himself with throwing his left arm forward, covered withthe ample folds of his cloak, with a view to the defence of his person.
"Yes, Forrester," continued Matilda, in the same impassioned voice, "we meet again, and mark you," pulling back the disguise from Gerald, "'tis no vile slave, no sable paramour by whose hand you die, villain," she pursued, her voice trembling with excitement—"my own arm should have done the deed, but that he whose service I have purchased with the hand you rejected and despised, once baulked me of my vengeance when I had deemed it most secure. But enough! To his heart, Gerald, now that in the fulness of his wine and his ambition, he may the deeper feel the sting of death—strike to his heart—what! do you falter—do you turn coward?"
Gerald neither moved nor spoke; his upraised hand had sunk at his side at the first address of Matilda to her enemy, and the dagger had fallen from his hand upon the sward, where it might be seen glittering in the rays of the pale moon. His head was bent upon his chest in abject shame, and he seemed as one who had suddenly been turned to stone.
"Gerald, my husband!" urged Matilda, rapidly changing her tone into that of earnest persuasion, "wherefore do you hesitate? Am I not your wife, your own wife, and is not yon monster the wretch who has consigned my fair fame to obloquy for ever—Gerald!" she added, impetuously.
But the spell had lost its power, and Gerald continued immoveable—apparently fixed to the spot on which he stood.
"Gerald, Gerald!" repeated the officer, with the air of one endeavoring to recollect.
At the sound of that voice Gerald looked up. The moon was at that moment unobscured by a single cloud, and as the eyes of the murderer and his intended victim met, their recognition was mutual and perfect.
"I had never expected to see Lieutenant Grantham figuring in the character of an assassin," said Colonel Forrester, in a voice of deep and bitter reproach, "still less to find his arm raised against the preserver of his life. This," he continued, as if speaking to himself, "will be a bitter tale to recount to his family."
"Almighty God, have mercy!" exclaimed Gerald as, overcome with shame and misery, he threw himself upon the earth at its full length, his head nearly touching the feet of the officer. Then clasping his feet—"Oh, Colonel Forrester, lost, degraded as I am, believe me when I swear that I knew not against whom my arm was to be directed. Nay, that you live at this moment is the best evidence of the truth of what I utter, for I came with a heart made up to murder. Butyourblood worlds could not tempt me to spill."
"I believe you," said the American feelingly. "Well do I know the arts of the woman who seems to have lured you into the depths of crime; yet low as you are fallen, Lieutenant Grantham—much as you have disgraced your country and profession, I cannot think you would willingly have sought the life of him who saved your own. And now rise, sir, and gain the place of your abode, before accident bring other eyes than my own to be witnesses of your shame. We will discourse of this to-morrow. Meanwhile, be satisfied with my promise that your attempt shall remain a secret with myself."
While he spoke, Colonel Forrester made a movement as if to depart. Aroused by the apprehension of losing her victim, Matilda, who had hitherto been an impatient listener, called wildly upon Gerald, who had now risen, to fulfil his compact; but the youth turned from her with a movement of disgust, exclaiming, with bitterness—"leave me, woman, leave me!"
Matilda looked after him for an instant with an expression of intensest scorn; then springing to, and snatching up the dagger, which lay glittering a few paces from the spot on which she stood, she advanced silently, but rapidly upon her retreating enemy. Colonel Forrester had gained his threshold, and had already knocked for admittance, when he heard the deep voice of Matilda at his ear, exclaiming, in a triumphant tone.
"Think you twice, then, to escape your doom, traitor?"
Before he could make an attempt to shield himself, the fatal steel had entered deep into his side. Uttering a groan, he sank senseless on the steps, whither Gerald, who had watched the action of his companion, had flown in the hope of arresting the blow. Confused voices, mingled with the tramp of feet, were now heard within the hall. Presently the door opened, and a crowd of servants, chiefly black, appeared with lights. The view of their bleeding master, added to the disguise of Gerald, and the expression of triumph visible in the pale countenance of Matilda, at once revealed the truth. By some the former was borne to his apartment, while the greater portion busied themselves in securing the two latter, who, however, made not the slightest effort at resistance, but suffered themselves to be borne, amid hootings and execrations, from the spot.
The different groups we have described as being gathered together in front of the hotel, had dispersed on the breaking up of the party, which Colonel Forrester, in compliment to those who entertained him, had been one of the last to quit; so that on passing through the streets, not an idler was found to swell the sable crowd that bore the wretched prisoners onward to the common prison of the town. Just as they had arrived at this latter, and a tall and muscular negro, apparently enjoying some distinction in his master's household, was about to pull the bell for admission, a man came running breathlessly to the spot, and communicated to the negro just mentioned a message, in which the name of Colonel Forrester was distinctly audible to the ear of Gerald. A retrograde movement was the immediate consequence of this interruption, and the party came once more upon the open space they had so recently quitted. Stupified with the excess of abjectness in which he had continued plunged, from the moment of his discovery of the identity of his intended victim, Gerald had moved unconsciously and recklessly whithersoever his conductors led; but now that he expected to be confronted face to face with the dying man, as the sudden alteration in the movement of the party gave him reason to apprehend, he felt for the first time that his position, bitter as it was, might be rendered even worse. It was a relief to him, therefore, when he found that, instead of taking the course which led to the residence of Colonel Forrester, the head of the party, of which Matilda and himself were the centre, suddenly diverged into the narrow lane which conducted to the residence of that unhappy woman. Instead, however, of approaching this, Gerald remarked that they made immediately for the fatal temple. When they had reached this, the door was opened by the tall negro above described, who, with a deference in his manner not less at variance with the occasion than with the excited conduct of the whole party on their way to the prison, motioned both his prisoners to enter. They did so, and the lock having been turned and the key removed, they silently withdrew.
Hours passed away without either of the guilty parties finding courage or inclination to address the other. The hearts of both were too full for utterance—and yet did they acknowledge no sympathy in common. Remorse, shame, fear, regret, simultaneously assailed and weighed down the mind of Gerald. Triumphant vengeance, unmixed with any apprehension of self, reigned exclusively in the bosom of Matilda. The intense passion of the former, like a mist that is dissipated before the strong rays of the sun, had yielded before the masculine and practical display of the energetic hate of its object, while on the contrary she, whose beauty of person was now to him a thing without price, acknowledged no other feeling than contempt for the vacillating character of her associate. In this only did they agree, that each looked upon each in the light of a being sunk in crime—steeped in dishonor—and while the love of the one was turned to almost loathing at the thought, the other merely wondered how one so feeble of heart had ever been linked to so determined a purpose.
The only light admitted into the temple was through the window already described, and this was so feeble as scarcely to allow of the more distant objects in the room being seen. Gradually, as the moon sunk beneath the forest ridge, the gloom increased, until in the end the darkness became almost profound. At their first entrance Matilda, enshrouding herself in the folds of her cloak, had thrown herself upon the sofa; while Gerald continued to pace up and down the apartment with hurried steps, and in a state of feeling it would be a vain attempt to describe. It was now for the first time that, uninfluenced by passion, the miserable young man had leisure to reflect on the past, and the chain of fatality which had led to his present disgraceful position. He recollected the conversation he had held with his brother on the day succeeding his escape from the storm; and as the pledge which had been given in his name to his dying father, that no action of his life should reflect dishonor on his family, now occurred to him in all its force, he groaned in agony of spirit, less in apprehension of the fate that awaited him, than in sorrow and in shame that that pledge should have been violated. By a natural transition of his feelings, his imagination recurred to the traditions connected with his family, and the dreadful curse which had been uttered by one on whom his ancestor was said to have heaped injury to the very extinction of reason—and associating as he did Matilda's visit to the cottage at Detroit, on the memorable night when he had unconsciously saved the life of Colonel Forrester, with the fact of her having previously knelt and prayed upon the grave that was known to cover the ashes of the unhappy maniac, Ellen Halloway, he felt a shuddering conviction that she was in some way connected with that wretched woman. In the intenseness of his new desire to satisfy his doubts—a desire which in itself partook of the character of the fatality by which he was beset—he overcame the repugnance he had hitherto felt to enter into conversation with her, and advancing to the couch, he seated himself upon its edge at her side.
"Matilda," he said, after a few moments of silence, "by all the love you once bore me, I conjure you to answer me one question while there is time."
"Fool," returned the American, "I never loved you. A soul like mine feels passion but once. Hitherto I have played a part, but the drama approaches to a close, and disguise of plot is no longer necessary. Gerald Grantham, you have been my dupe. You came a convenient puppet to my hands, and such I used you until the snapped wire proclaimed you no longer serviceable—no further."
Shame, anguish, mortification, all the most humiliating sensations natural to man—for a moment assailed the breast of the unfortunate and guilty Grantham, rendering him insensible even to the greater evil which awaited him. In the bitterness of his agony, he struck his clenched hand against his forehead, uttering curses upon himself for his weakness, in one breath, and calling upon his God, in the next, to pardon him for his crime.
"This is good," said Matilda. "To see you writhe thus, under the wound inflicted upon your vanity, is some small atonement for the base violation of your oath; yet what question would you ask, the solution of which can so much import one about to figure on the scaffold for a crime he has not even had the courage to commit?"
The taunting manner in which the concluding part of the sentence was conveyed, had the effect of restoring Gerald in some degree to himself, and he said with considerable firmness:
"What I ask is of yourself—namely, the relationship, if any, you bear to those who lie within the mound, on which I beheld you kneeling on the night of your first attempt on Colonel Forrester's life?"
"The very recollection of that ill-timed intrusion would prevent me from satisfying your curiosity, did not something whisper to me that, in so doing, I shall add another pang to those you already experience," returned the American, with bitter sarcasm.
"You are right," said Gerald hurriedly. "My miseries need but the assurance of your connexion with those mouldering bones to be indeed complete."
"Then," said Matilda eagerly, and half raising her head, "your cup of misery may yet admit of increase. My mother and my father's mother both sleep within that grave."
"How knew you this?" demanded Gerald quickly. "Instinct could not have guided you to the spot, and by your own admission you were taken from the place of your home while yet a mere child."
"Not instinct, but my father Desborough, pointed out the spot, as he had long previously acquainted me with the history of my birth."
"One question more—your grandmother's name?"
"Mad Ellen she was called, an English soldier's wife, who died in giving birth to my father—and now that you are answered, leave me."
"Almighty Providence!" aspirated Gerald in tones of inconceivable agony, "it is then as I had feared, and this woman has Destiny chosen to accomplish my ruin."
He quitted the sofa, and paced up and down the room in a state of mind bordering on distraction. The past crowded upon his mind in all the confused manner of a dream, and, amid the chaos of contending feelings by which he was beset, one idea only was distinct—namely, that the wretched woman before him had been but the agent of Fate in effecting his destruction. Strange as it may appear, the idea, so far from increasing the acerbity of his feelings,had the tendency to soften his heart towards her. He beheld in her but a being whose actions had been fated like his own—and although every vestige of passion had fled, even although her surpassing beauty had lost its subjugating influence, his heart yearned towards her as one who, wrecked on the same shore, had some claim to his sympathy and compassion. All that was now left them was to make their peace with God, since with man their final account would be so speedily closed; and with a view to impress her with a sense of the religious aid from which alone they could hope for consolation, he again seated himself at her side on the edge of the sofa.
"Matilda," he said, in a voice in which melancholy and sternness were blended, "we have been the children of guilt—the victims of our own evil passions; but God is merciful, and if our penitence be sincere, we may yet be forgiven in Heaven, although on earth there is no hope—even if after this we could wish to live. Matilda, let us pray together."
There was no answer—neither did the slightest movement of her form indicate consciousness that she was addressed. "Matilda," repeated Gerald—still there was no answer. He placed his hand upon her cheek, and thought the touch was cold—he caught her hand, it too was cold and but for the absence of rigidity he would have deemed her dead.
Scarcely knowing what he did, yet with an indefinable terror at his heart, he grasped and shook her by the arm, and again, but with greater vehemence, pronounced her name.
"Who calls?" she said, in a faint but deep tone, as she raised her head slowly from the cushion which supported it. "Ha! I recollect. Tell me," she added more quickly, "was not the blow well aimed. Marked you how the traitor fell. Villain, to accuse the woman whose only fault was loving him too well, with ignominious commerce with a slave!"
"Wretched woman," exclaimed Gerald with solemn emphasis, "instead of exulting over the evil we have done, let us rather make our peace with Heaven, during the few hours we have yet to live. Matilda Desborough—daughter of a murderer; thyself a murderess—the scaffold awaits us both."
"Coward—fool—thou liest," she returned with suddenly awakened energy. "For one so changeling as thyself the scaffold were befitting, but know, if I save had the heart to do this deed, I have also had the head to provide against its consequences—see—feel—."
One of her cold hands was extended in search of Gerald's. They met, and a vial placed in the palm of the latter, betrayed the secret of her previous lassitude and insensibility.
Even amid all the horrors which environed him, and called so largely for attention to his own personal danger, Gerald was inexpressibly shocked.
"What! poisoned?" he exclaimed.
"Yes—poisoned!" she murmured, and her hand again sank heavily at her side.
Gerald dashed the vial away from him to the farther end of the apartment, and taking the cold hand of the unhappy woman, he continued:
"Matilda—is this the manner in which you prepare yourself to meet the presence of your God. What! add suicide to murder?"
But she spoke not—presently the hand he clasped sank heavily from his touch. Then there was a spasmodic convulsion of the whole frame. Thenthere burst a piercing shriek from her lips, as she half raised herself in agony from the sofa, and then each limb was set and motionless in the stern rigidity of death.
While Gerald was yet bending over the body of his unfortunate companion, shocked, grieved and agitated beyond all expression, the door of the temple was unlocked, and a man enveloped in a cloak, and bearing a small dark lantern, suddenly appeared in the opening. He advanced towards the spot where Gerald, stupified with the events of the past night, stood gazing upon the corpse, almost unconscious of the presence of the intruder.
"A pretty fix you have got into, Liftenant Grantham," said the well known voice of Jackson, "and I little calculated, when I advised you to make love to the Kentucky gals to raise your spirits, that they would lead you into such a deuced scrape as this."
"Captain Jackson," said Gerald imploringly; "I am sufficiently aware of all the enormity of my crime, and am prepared to expiate it; but in mercy spare the bitterness of reproach."
"Now as I'm a true Tennessee an, bred and born, I meant no reproach, and why should I, since you could'nt help her doing it, and he pointed to Matilda, yet you know its sometimes dangerous to be found in bad company. Every body might'nt believe you so innocent as we do."
"Innocent! Captain Jackson," exclaimed Gerald, losing sight of all other feelings in unfeigned surprise—"I cannot say that I quite understand you."
"Why, the meaning's plain enough, I take it. Others might be apt, I say, to think you had something to do with the thing as well as she, and therefore its just as well you should make yourself scarce. The Colonel says he would'nt on any account, you should even be suspected."
"The Colonel says—not suspected," again exclaimed Gerald with increasing astonishment—then, suddenly recollecting the situation of the latter—"tell me," he continued, "is Colonel Forrester in danger—is his life despaired of?"
"Worth a dozen dead men yet, or you would'nt see me taking the thing so coolly. The dagger certainly let the daylight into him, but though the wound was pretty considerably deep, the doctors say its not mortal. He thinks it might have been worse if you had not come up, and partly stopped her arm when she struck at him."
Gerald was deeply affected by what he had just heard. It was evident that Colonel Forrester had, with a generosity to which no gratitude of his own could render adequate justice, sought to exonerate him from all suspicion of participation in the guilty design upon his life, and as he glanced his eye again for a moment upon the lifeless form of his companion, he was at once sensible that the only being who could defeat the benevolent object of his benefactor had now no longer the power to do so.
"She sleeps sound enough now," said Jackson, again pointing to the ill-fated and motionless girl, "but she'll sleep sounder yet before long, I take it."
"She will never sleep sounder than at this moment, Captain Jackson," said Gerald, with solemn emphasis.
"Why, you don't mean to say she has cheated the hangman, Liftenant."
As he spoke, Jackson approached the sofa, and turning the light full upon the face, saw indeed that she was dead. Gerald shuddered as the rays from the lamp revealed for the first time the appalling change which had been wrought upon that once beautiful countenance. The open and finely formed brow was deeply knit, and the features distorted by the acute agony which had wrung the shriek from her heart at the very moment of dissolution, were set in a stern expression of despair. The parted lips were drawn up at the corners in a manner to convey the idea of the severest internal pain, and there was already a general discoloration about the mouth, betraying the subtle influences of the poison which had effected her death.
Gerald after the first glance, turned away his head in horror from the view, but the Aide-de-camp remained for some moments calmly regarding the remains of all that had once been most beautiful in nature.
"She certainly is not like what she was when Colonel Forrester first knew her," he said, in the abstracted tone of one talking without reference to any other auditor than himself; "but this comes of preferring a nigger to a white man. Such unnatural courses never can prosper, I take it."
"Captain Jackson," said Gerald, aroused by his remark, and with great emphasis of tone, while he laid his hand impressively on the shoulder of the other, "you do her wrong. Guilty as she has been, fearfully guilty, but not in the sense you would imply."
"How do you know this?" asked the Aide-de-camp.
"From her own solemn declaration at a moment when deception could avail her not. Even before she swallowed the fatal poison, her horror at the imputation, which drove her to the perpetration of murder, was expressed in terms of indignant warmth that belong to truth alone."
"If this be so," said Jackson, musingly, "she is indeed a much injured woman, and deep I know will be the regret of Colonel Forrester when he hears it, for he himself has ever believed her guilty. But come, Liftenant Grantham, we have no time to lose. The day will soon break, and I expect you must be a considerable way from Frankfort before sunrise."
"I—from Frankfort—before sunrise!" exclaimed Gerald, in perfect astonishment.
"Why, it's rather short warning to be sure; but the Colonel thinks you'd better start before the thing gets wind in the morning; for so many of the niggers say you wore a sort of a disguise as well as the poor girl, he fears the citizens may suspect you of something more than an intrigue, and insult you desperately."
"Generous, excellent man!" exclaimed Gerald, "how can I ever repay this most unmerited service?"
"Why, the best way I take it, is to profit by the offer that is made you of getting back to Canada as fast as you can."
"But how is this to be done, and will not the very fact of my flight confirm the suspicion it is intended to remove?"
"As for the matter of how it is to be done, Liftenant, I have as slick a horse waiting outside for you as man ever crossed—one of the fleetest in Colonel Forrester's stud. Then as for suspicion, he means to set that at rest, by saying that he has taken upon himself to give you leave to return on parole to your friends, who wish to see you on a case of life and death, and now let's be moving."
Oppressed with the weight of contending feelings, which this generous conduct had inspired, Gerald waited but to cast a last look upon the ill-fated Matilda; and then with a slow step and a heavy heart for ever quitted a scene fraught with the most exciting and the most painful occurrences of his life. The first rays of early dawn beginning to develope themselves as they issued from the temple, Jackson extinguished his lamp, and leading through the narrow pass that conducted to the town, made the circuit of the ridge of hills until they arrived at a point where a negro (the same who had led the party that bore Matilda and himself to the temple) was in waiting, with a horse ready saddled and the arms and accoutrements of a rifleman.
The equipment of Gerald was soon completed, and with the shot-bag and powder-horn slung over his shoulder, and the long rifle in his hand, he soon presented the appearance of a backwoodsman hastening to the theatre of war.
When he had seated himself in the saddle, Jackson drew forth a well filled purse, which he said he had been directed by Colonel Forrester to present him with to defray the expenses of his journey to the frontier.
Deeply affected by this new proof of the favor of the generous American, Gerald received the purse, saying, as he confided them to the breast of his hunting frock—
"Captain Jackson, tell Colonel Forrester from me, that I accept his present merely because in doing so I give the best evidences of my appreciation ofallhe has done for me on this trying occasion. In his own heart, however, he must look for the only reward to which this most noble of actions justly entitles him."
The frank-hearted Aide-de-camp promised compliance with this parting message, and after pointing out the route it would be necessary to follow, warmly pressed the hand of his charge in a final grasp, that told how little he deemed the man before him capable of the foul intention with which his soul had been so recently sullied.
How often during those hours of mad infatuation, when his weakened mind had been balancing between the possession of Matilda at the price of crime, and his abandonment of her at that of happiness, had the observation of the Aide-de-camp, on a former occasion, that he "was never born to be an assassin," occurred to his mind, suffusing his cheek with shame and his soul with remorse. Now, too, that conscious of having fallen in all but the positive commission of the deed, he saw that the unsuspecting American regarded him merely as one whom accident or intrigue had made an unwilling witness of the deadly act of a desperate woman, his feelings were those of profound abasement and self-contempt.
There was a moment, when urged by an involuntary impulse, he would have undeceived Captain Jackson as to his positive share in the transaction; but pride suddenly interposed and saved him from the degradation of the confession. He returned the pressure of the American's hand with emphasis, and then turning his horse in the direction which he had been recommended to take, quitted Frankfort for ever.
In October of the same year, a numerous body of Americans, principally troops of the line, had been collected under the orders of General Van Rensselaer, and advantage was taken of an extremely dark night to push them across the river, with a view to the occupation of the commanding heights above the village of Queenston. In this, favored by circumstances, the enemy were eminently successful. They carried the batteries, and at day-break the heights were to be seen covered with their battalions, before whom were thrown out a considerable body of riflemen. At the first alarm, the little detachment stationed at Queenston marched out to dislodge them; but such was the impatient gallantry of General Brock, who had succeeded to the command on this line of frontier, that without waiting for the main body from Fort George to come up, he threw himself at the head of the flank companies of the Forty-Ninth, and moving forward in double quick time, soon came within sight of the enemy.
Among the General's aides-de-camp, was Henry Grantham, who, having succeeded in making his escape at the fatal defeat of the Moravian Village, with a few men of his company, had in the absence of his regiment (then prisoners of war), and from considerations of personal esteem, been attached as a supernumerary to his staff. With him at this moment was the light-hearted De Courcy, and as the young men rode a little in rear of their Chief, they were so rapt in admiration of his fine form and noble daring (as he still kept dashing onward, far in advance even of the handful of troops who followed eagerly and rapidly in his rear), that they utterly forgot the danger to which he was exposed.
On arriving at the ascent, the General for a moment reined in his charger, in order to give time to the rear to close in, then removing and waving his plumed hat.
"Hurrah, Forty-Ninth!" he exclaimed, in language suited to those he addressed. "Up these heights lies our road—on ourselves depends the victory. Not a shot till we gain the summit—then three cheers for old England—a volley—and the bayonet must do the rest!"
So saying, he resumed his hat; and wheeling his horse, once more led his gallant little band up the hill.
But it was not likely that the Americans would suffer the approach of so determined an enemy without attempting to check their progress in the most efficient manner. Distinguished from those around him by his commanding air, not less than by the military insignia that adorned him, the person of the General was at once recognised for one bearing high rank, and as such became an object of especial attention to the dispersed riflemen. Shot after shot flew past the undaunted officer, carrying death into the close ranks that followed noiselessly in his rear, yet without harming him. At length he was seen by his aides-de-camp, both of whom had kept their eyes upon him, to reel in his saddle. An instant brought the young men to his side, De Courcy on his right and Grantham on his left hand. They looked up into his face. It was suffused with the hues of death. A moment afterwards and he fell from hishorse, with his head reclining upon the chest of Henry Grantham. There was a momentary halt in the advancing column; all were dismayed at the dreadful event.
De Courcy and Grantham, having abandoned their horses, now bore their beloved leader to the side of the road, and sought some spot out of reach of the enemy's fire, where he might breathe his last moments in peace.
As Henry Grantham glanced his eye towards an old untenanted building, that lay some fifty yards off the road, and which he conceived fully adapted to the purpose, he saw the form of a rifleman partly exposed at a corner of the building, whose action at the moment was evidently that of one loading his piece. The idea that this skulking enemy might have been the same who had given the fatal death-wound to his beloved Chief, added to the conviction that he was preparing to renew the shot, filled him with the deepest desire of vengeance. As the bodies of several men, picked off by the riflemen, lay along the road (one at no great distance from the spot on which he stood), he hastened to secure the nearest musket, which, as no shot had been fired by the English, he knew to be loaded.
Leaving De Courcy to support the head of the General, the young Aid-de-camp moved with due caution towards the building; but ere he had gone ten paces, he beheld the object of his pursuit issue altogether from the cover of the building, and advance towards him with his rifle on the trail. More and more convinced that his design was to obtain a near approach, with a view to a more certain aim, he suddenly halted and raised the musket to his shoulder. In vain was a shout to desist uttered by the advancing man—in vain was his rifle thrown aside, as if in token of the absence of all hostile purposes. The excited Henry Grantham heeded not the words—saw not the action. He thought only of the danger of his General, and of his desire to avenge his fall. He fired—the rifleman staggered, and putting his hand to his breast—
"My brother! oh, my unhappy brother!" he exclaimed, and sank senseless to the earth.
Who shall tell the horror of the unfortunate young Aide-de-camp, at recognising in the supposed enemy his long mourned and much loved Gerald! Motion, sense, life, seemed for the instant annihilated by the astounding consciousness of the fratricidal act: the musket fell from his hands, and he who had never known sorrow before, save through those most closely linked to his warm affections, was now overwhelmed, crushed by the mountain of despair that fell upon his heart. It was some moments before he could so far recover from the stupor into which that dear and well-remembered voice had plunged him, as to perceive the possibility of the wound not being mortal. The thought acted like electricity upon each stupified sense and palsied limb; and eager with the renewed hope, he bounded forward to the spot where lay the unfortunate Gerald, writhing in his agony. He had fallen on his face, but as Henry approached him, he raised himself with one hand, and with the other beckoned to his brother to draw near.
"Great God, what have I done!" exclaimed the unhappy Henry, throwing himself, in a paroxysm of despair, upon the body of his bleeding brother. "Gerald, my own beloved Gerald, is it thus we meet again? Oh! if you would not kill me, tell me that your wound is not mortal. Assure me that I am not a fratricide. Oh, Gerald, Gerald! my brother, tell me that you are not dying."
A faint smile passed over the pale, haggard features of Gerald: he grasped the hand of his brother and pressed it fervently, saying:
"Henry, the hand of fate is visible in all this; therefore condemn not yourself for that which was inevitable. I knew of the attempt of the Americans to possess themselves of the heights, and I crossed over with them under favor of this disguise, determined to find death, combatting at the side of our gallant General. Detaching myself from the ranks, I but waited the advance of the British column to remove from my concealment—you know the rest. But oh, Henry! if you could divine what a relief it is to me to part with existence, you would not wish the act undone. This was all I asked: to see you once more—to embrace you—and to die! Life offered me no hope but this."
Gerald expressed himself with the effort of one laboring under strong bodily pain; and as he spoke he again sank exhausted upon the ground.
"This packet," he continued, taking one from the breast of the hunting-frock he wore, and handing it to his brother, who, silent and full of agony, had again raised his head from the ground and supported it on his shoulder—"this packet, Henry, written at various times during the last fortnight, will explain all that has passed since we last parted in the Miami. When I am no more, read it; and while you mourn over his dishonor, pity the weakness and the sufferings of the unhappy Gerald."
Henry was nearly frantic. The hot tears fell from his burning eyes upon the pale emaciated cheek of his brother, and he groaned in agony.
"Oh God!" he exclaimed, "how shall I ever survive this blow?—my brother! oh, my brother! tell me that you forgive me."
"Most willingly; yet what is there to be forgiven? You took me for an enemy, and hence alone your error. It was fate, Henry. A dreadful doom has long been prophesied to the last of our race. We are the last—and this is the consummation. Let it however console you to think, that though your hand had not slain me another's would. In the ranks of the enemy I should have found—Henry, my kind, my affectionate brother—your hand—there—there—what dreadful faintness at my heart—Matilda, it is my turn now—Oh, God have mercy, oh——"
While this scene was passing by the roadside between the unfortunate brothers, the main body of the British force had come up to the spot where the General still lay expiring in the arms of De Courcy, and surrounded by the principal of the medical staff. The majority of these were of the regiment previously named—veterans who had known and loved their gallant leader during the whole course of his spotless career, and more than one rude hand might be seen dashing the tear that started involuntarily to the eye. As the colors of the Forty-ninth passed before him, the General made an effort to address some language of encouragement to his old corps, but the words died away in indistinct murmurs, and, waving his hand in the direction of the heights, he sank back exhausted with the effort, and resigned his gallant spirit for ever.
For some minutes after life had departed, Henry Grantham continued to hang over the body of his ill-fated brother, with an intenseness of absorption that rendered him heedless even of the rapid fire of musketry in the advance. The sound of De Courcy's voice was the first thing that seemed to call himto consciousness. De Courcy had heard the cry uttered by the latter on receiving the fatal shot, and his imagination had too faithfully portrayed the painful scene that had ensued. A friend of both brothers, and particularly attached of late to the younger from the similar nature of their service, he was inexpressibly shocked, but still cherishing a hope that the wound might not be attended with loss of life, he expected to find his anticipations realized by some communication from his friend. Finding however that the one rose not, and remarking that the demeanor of the other was that of profound despair, he began at length to draw the most unfavorable conclusion, and causing the body of his commander to be borne under cover of the building, until proper means of transport could be found, he hastened to ascertain the full extent of the tragedy.
The horror and dismay depicted in his friend's countenance were speedily reflected on his own, when he saw that the unfortunate Gerald, whose blood had completely saturated the earth on which he lay, was indeed no more. Language at such a moment would not only have been superfluous, but an insult. De Courcy caught and pressed the hand of his friend in silence. The unfortunate young man pointed to the dead body of his brother, and burst into tears. While these were yet flowing in a fulness that promised to give relief to his oppressed heart, a loud shout from the British ranks arrested the attention of both. The sound seemed to have an electric effect on the actions of Henry Grantham. For the first time he appeared conscious there was such a thing as a battle being fought.
"De Courcy," he said, starting up, and with sudden animation, "why do we linger here? The dead"—and he pointed first to the body of the General in the distance, and then to his brother—"the wretched dead claim no service from us now."
"You are right, Henry, our interest in those beloved objects has caused us to be heedless of our duty to ourselves. Victory is our own—but alas! how dearly purchased!"
"How dearly purchased, indeed!" responded Henry, in a tone of such heart-rending agony as caused his friend to repent the allusion. "De Courcy, keep this packet, and should I fall, let it be sent to my uncle, Colonel D'Egville."
De Courcy accepted the trust, and the young men mounted their horses, which a Canadian peasant had held for them in the meantime, and dashing up the ascent, soon found themselves where the action was hottest.
"Forward! victory!" shouted Henry Grantham, and his sword was plunged deep into the side of his nearest enemy. The man fell, and writhing in the last agonies of death, rolled onward to the precipice, and disappeared for ever from the view.
The words, the action—had excited the attention of a tall, muscular, ferocious-looking rifleman, who, hotly pursued by a couple of Indians, was crossing the open ground at his full speed to join the main body of his comrades. A ball struck him just as he had arrived within a few feet of the spot where Henry stood, yet still leaping onward, he made a desperate blow at the head of the officer with the butt end of his rifle. A quick movement disappointed the American of his aim, yet the blow fell so violently on the shoulder, that the stock snapped suddenly asunder at the small of the butt.Stung with pain, Henry Grantham turned to behold his enemy. It was Desborough! The features of the settler expressed the most savage and vindictive passions, as, with the head of the rifle upraised and clenched in both his iron hands, he was about to repeat his blow. Ere it could descend Grantham had rushed in upon him, and his sword, still reeking in the blood it had so recently spilt, was driven to the very hilt in the body of the settler. The latter uttered a terrific scream in which all the most infernal of human passions were wildly blended, and casting aside his rifle, seized the young officer in his powerful gripe. Then ensued a contest the most strange and awful, the settler using every endeavor to gain the edge of the precipice, the other struggling, but in vain, to release himself from his hold. As if by tacit consent, both parties discontinued the struggle, and became mere spectators of the scene.
"Villain!" shouted De Courcy, who saw with dismay the terrible object of the settler, whose person he had recognised—"if you would have quarter, release your hold."
But Desborough, too much given to his revenge to heed the words of the Aide-de-camp, continued silently, yet with advantage, to drag his victim nearer and nearer to the fatal precipice; and every man in the British ranks felt his blood to creep, as he beheld the unhappy officer borne, notwithstanding a desperate resistance, at each moment nigher to the brink.
"For Heaven's sake, men, advance and seize him," exclaimed the terrified De Courcy, leaping forward to the rescue.
Acting on the hint, two or three of the most active of the light infantry rushed from the ranks in the direction taken by the officer.
Desborough saw the movement, and his exertions to defeat it became, considering the loss of blood he had sustained from his wounds, almost herculean. He now stood on the extreme verge of the precipice, where he paused for a moment as if utterly exhausted by his previous efforts. De Courcy was now within a few feet of his unhappy friend, who still struggled ineffectually to free himself, when the settler, suddenly collecting all his energy into a final and desperate effort, raised the unfortunate Gerald from the ground, and with a loud and exulting laugh, dashed his foot violently against the edge of the crag, and threw himself backward into the hideous abyss.
Their picked and whitened bones may be seen even to this day, confounded together and shining through the gloom that pervades every part of the abyss, and often may be remarked an aged and decrepit negro, seated on a rock a few feet above them, leaning his elbows upon his knees, and gazing eagerly as if to distinguish the bones of the one from the bones of the other.
And thus was the fearful prophecy of Ellen Halloway, the mother of Desborough by Wacousta, fulfilled!
THE END.