The Canadian Brothers; Or, The Prophecy Fulfilled Part 33

"It shall be fulfilled," he returned quickly, "but at least deny me not the privilege of cursing the hour when crime of so atrocious a dye could be made so familiar to my soul."

"Crime is a word too indiscriminately bestowed," said Matilda, after a momentary pause. "What the weak in mind cla.s.s with crime, the strong term virtue."

"Virtue! what, to spill the blood of a man who has never injured me; to become a hired a.s.sa.s.sin, the price of whose guilt is the hand of her who instigates to the deed? If this be virtue, I am indeed virtuous."

"Never injured you!" returned the American, while she bent her dark eyes reproachfully upon those of the unhappy Gerald. "Has he not injured ME; injured beyond all power of reparation, her who is to be the partner of your life?"

"Nay, Matilda," and Gerald again pa.s.sionately caught and enfolded her to his heart, "that image alone were sufficient to mould me to your will, even although I had not before resolved. And yet," he pursued, after a, short pause, "how base, how terrible to slay an unsuspecting enemy.

Would we could meet in single combat--and why not? Yes it can--it shall be so. Fool that I was not to think, of it before. Matilda, my own love, rejoice with me, for there is a means by which your honor may be avenged, and my own soul unstained by guilt. I wilt seek this man, and fasten a quarrel upon him. What say you, Matilda-- speak to me, tell me that you consent." Gerald gasped with agony.

"Never, Gerald," she returned, with startling impressiveness, while the color, which during the warm embrace of her lover had returned to it once more, fled from her cheek. "To challenge him would be but to ensure your own doom, for few in the army of the United States equal him in the use of the pistol or the small sword; and, even were it otherwise," she concluded, her eye kindling into a fierce expression, "were he the veriest novice in the exercise of both, my vengeance would be incomplete, did he not go down to his grave with all his sins on his head. No, no, Gerald, in the fulness of the pride of existence must he perish. He must not dream of death until he feels the blow that is aimed at his heart."

The agitation of Matilda was profound beyond any thing she had ever yet exhibited. Her words were uttered in tones that betrayed a fixed and unbroken purpose of the soul, and when she had finished, she threw her face upon the bosom of her lover, and ground her teeth together with a force that showed the effect produced upon her imagination, by the very picture of the death she had drawn.

A pause of some moments ensued. Gerald was visibly disconcerted, and the arm which encircled the waist of the revengeful woman dropped, as if in disappointment, at his side.

"How strange and inconsistent are the prejudices of man,"

resumed Matilda, half mournfully, half in sarcasm; "here is a warrior--a spiller of human life by profession; his sword has been often dyed in the heart blood of his fellow man, and set he shudders at the thought of adding one murder more to the many already committed. What child-like weakness!"

"Murder! Matilda; call you it murder to overcome the enemies of one's country in fair and honorable combat, and in the field of glory?"

"Call YOU it what you will--disguise it under whatever cloak you may--it is no less murder. Nay, the worst of murders, for you but do the duty of the hireling slayer.

In cold blood, and for a stipend, do you put an end to the fair existence of him who never injured you in thought or deed, and whom, under other circ.u.mstances, you would perhaps have taken to your heart in friends.h.i.+p."

"This is true, but the difference of the motive, Matilda?

The one approved of heaven and of man, the other alike condemned of both."

"Approved of man, if you will; but that they have the sanction of heaven, I deny. Worldly policy and social interests alone have drawn the distinction, making the one a crime, the other a virtue; but tell me not that an all wise and just G.o.d sanctions or approves the slaying of his creatures because they perish, not singly at the will of one men, but in thousands and tens of thousands at the will of another. What is there more sacred in the brawls of Kings and Potentates, that the blood they cause to be shed in torrents for some paltry breach of etiquette, should sit more lightly on their souls than the few solitary drops, spilt by the hand of revenge, on that of him whose existence is writhing under a sense of acutest injury?"

The energy with which she expressed herself, communicated a corresponding excitement to the whole manner and person of Matilda. Her eye sparkled and dilated, and the visible heaving of her bosom told how strongly her own feelings entered into the principles she had advocated. Never did her personal beauty s.h.i.+ne forth more triumphantly or seducingly than at the moment when her lips were giving utterance to sentiments from which the heart recoiled.

"Oh Matilda," sighed Gerald, "with what subtlety of argument do you seek to familiarize my soul with crime.

But the attempt is vain. Although my hand is pledged to do your will, my heart must ever mourn its guilt."

"Foolish Gerald," said Matilda; "why should that seem guilt to you, a man, which to me, a woman, is but justice; but that unlike me you have never entered into the calm consideration of the subject. Yes," she pursued with greater energy, "what you call subtlety of argument is but force of conviction. For two long years have I dwelt upon the deed, reasoning, and comparing, until at length each latent prejudice has been expelled, and to avenge my harrowing wrongs appeared a duty as distinctly marked as any one contained in the decalogue. You saw me once, Gerald, when my hand shrank not from what you term the a.s.sa.s.sin's blow, and had you not interfered then, the deed would not now remain to be accomplished."

"Oh, why did I interfere? why did my evil Genius conduct me to such a scene. Then had I lived at least in ignorance of the fearful act."

"Nay, Gerald, let it rather be matter of exultation with you that you did. Prejudiced as you are, this hand (and she extended an arm so exquisitely formed that one would scarce even have submitted it to the winds of Heaven) might not seem half so fair, had it once been dyed in human blood. Besides who so proper to avenge a woman's wrongs upon her destroyer, as the lover and the husband to whom she has plighted her faith for ever? No, no, it is much better as it is; and fate seems to have decreed that it should be so, else why the interruption by yourself on that memorable occasion, and why, after all your pains to avoid me, this our final union, at a moment when the wretch is about to return to his native home, inflated with pride and little dreaming of the fate that awaits him--Surely, Gerald, you will admit there is something more than mere chance in this?"

"About to return," repeated Grantham shuddering. "When, Matilda?"

"Within a week at the latest--perhaps within three days.

Some unimportant advantage which he has gained on the frontier, has been magnified by his generous fellow citizens into a deed of heroism, and, from information conveyed to me, by a trusty and confidential servant, I find he has obtained leave of absence, to attend a public entertainment to be given in Frankfort, on which occasion a magnificent sword, is to be presented to him. Never, Gerald," continued Matilda her voice dropping into a whisper, while a ghastly smile pa.s.sed over and convulsed her lips, "never shall he live to draw that sword. The night of his triumph is that which I have fixed for mine."

"An unimportant advantage upon the frontier," asked Gerald eagerly and breathlessly. "To what frontier, Matilda, do you allude?"

"The Niagara," was the reply.

"Are you quite sure of this?"

"So sure that I have long known he was there," returned Matilda.

Gerald breathed more freely--but again he questioned:

"Matilda, when first I saw you last night, you were gazing intently upon yon portrait, (he pointed to that part of the temple where the picture hung suspended.) and it struck me that I had an indistinct recollection of the features."

"Nothing more probable," returned the American, answering his searching look with one of equal firmness. You cannot altogether have forgotten Major Montgomerie."

"Nay, the face struck me not as his. May I look at it?"

"a.s.suredly. Satisfy yourself."

Gerald quitted the sofa, took up the light, and traversing the room raised the gauze curtain that covered the painting.

It was indeed the portrait of the deceased Major, habited in full uniform.

"How strange," he mused, "that so vague an impression should have been conveyed to my mind last night, when now I recal without difficulty those well remembered features." Gerald sighed as he recollected under what different circ.u.mstances he had first beheld that face, and dropping the curtain once more, crossed the room and flung himself at the side of Matilda.

"For whom did you take it, if not for Major Montgomerie?"

asked the American after a pause, and again her full dark eye was bent on his.

"Nay I scarcely know myself, yet I had thought it had been the portrait of him I have sworn to destroy."

There was a sudden change of expression in the countenance of Matilda, but it speedily pa.s.sed away, and she said with a faint smile.

"Whether is it more natural to find pleasure in gazing on the features of those who have loved, or those who have injured us!"

"Then whose was the miniature on which you so intently gazed, on that eventful night at Detroit?" asked Gerald.

"That," said Matilda quickly, and paling as she spoke-- "that was HIS--I gazed on it only the more strongly to detest the original--to confirm the determination I had formed to destroy him."

"If THEN," returned the youth, "why not NOW--may I not see that portrait Matilda? May I not acquire some knowledge of the unhappy man whose blood will so shortly stain my soul?"

"Impossible," she replied. "The miniature I have since destroyed. While I thought the original within reach of my revenge, I could bear to gaze upon it, but no sooner had I been disappointed in my aim, than it became loathsome to me as the sight of some venemous reptile, and I destroyed it." This was said with undisguised bitterness.

Gerald sighed deeply. Again he encircled the waist of his companion, and one of her fair, soft, velvet hands was pressed in his.

"Matilda," he observed, "deep indeed must be the wrong that could prompt the heart of woman to so terrible a hatred. When we last parted you gave me but an indistinct and general outline of the injury you had sustained. Tell me now all--tell me every thing," he continued with energy, "that can infuse a portion of the hatred which fills your soul into mine, that my hand may be firmer-- my heart more hardened to the deed.

"The story of my wrongs must be told in a few words, for I cannot bear to linger on them," commenced the American, again turning deadly pale, while her quivering lips and trembling voice betrayed the excitement of her feelings.

The monster was the choice of my heart--judge how much so when I tell you that, confiding in HIS honor, and in the a.s.surance that our union would take place immediately, surrendered to him MINE. A constant visitor at Major Montgomerie's, whose brother officer he was, we had ample opportunities of being together. We were looked upon in society as affianced lovers, and in fact it was the warmest wish of Major Montgomerie that we should be united. A day had even been fixed for the purpose, and it wanted, but eight and forty hours of the time, when an occurrence took place which blasted all prospect of our union for ever.

"I have already told you, I think," resumed Matilda, "that this little temple had been exclusively erected for my own use. Here however my false lover had constant ingress, and being furnished with a key, was in the habit of introducing himself at hours when, having taken leave of the family for the evening, he was supposed by Major Montgomerie and the servants to have retired to his own home. On the occasion to which I have just alluded, I had understood from him some business, connected with our approaching marriage, would detain him in the town to an hour too advanced to admit of his paying me his usual visit. Judge my surprise, and indeed my consternation, when at a late hour of the night I heard the lock of the door (from which I had removed my own key) turn, and my lover appear at the entrance."

There was a short pause, and Matilda again proceeded.

"Scarcely had he shown himself when he had again vanished, closing the door with startling violence. I sprang from the sofa and flew forth after him, but in vain. He had already departed, and with a heart sinking under an insurmountable dread of coming evil, I once more entered the temple, and throwing myself upon the sofa, gave vent to my feelings in an agony of tears."