The Pilot: A Tale of the Sea Part 20

"An American! and disloyal to the liberties of the human race! By Heaven, he had better not cross me; for if my arm reach him, it shall hold him forth as a spectacle of treason to the world."

"And has not the world enough of such a spectacle in yourself? Are ye not, even now, breathing your native air, though lurking through the mists of the island, with desperate intent against its peace and happiness?"

A dark and fierce expression of angry resentment flashed from the eyes of the Pilot, and even his iron frame seemed to shake with emotion, as he answered:

"Call you his dastardly and selfish treason, aiming, as it does, to aggrandize a few, at the expense of millions, a parallel case to the generous ardor that impels a man to fight in the defence of sacred liberty? I might tell you that I am armed in the common cause of my fellow-subjects and countrymen; that though an ocean divided us in distance, yet are we a people of the same blood, and children of the same parents, and that the hand which oppresses one inflicts an injury on the other. But I disdain all such narrow apologies. I was born on this...o...b.. and I claim to be a citizen of it. A man with a soul not to be limited by the arbitrary boundaries of tyrants and hirelings, but one who has the right as well as the inclination to grapple with oppression, in whose name so ever it is exercised, or in whatever hollow and specious shape it founds its claim to abuse our race."

"Ah! John, John, though this may sound like reason to rebellious ears, to mine it seemeth only as the ravings of insanity. It is in vain ye build up your new and disorganizing systems of rule, or rather misrule, which are opposed to all that the world has ever yet done, or ever will see done in peace and happiness. What avail your subtleties and false reasonings against the heart? It is the heart which tells us where our home is, and how to love it."

"You talk like a weak and prejudiced woman, Alice," said the Pilot, more composedly; "and one who would shackle nations with the ties that bind the young and feeble of your own s.e.x together."

"And by what holier or better bond can they be united?" said Alice. "Are not the relations of domestic life of G.o.d's establis.h.i.+ng, and have not the nations grown from families, as branches spread from the stem, till the tree overshadows the land? 'Tis an ancient and sacred tie that binds man to his nation; neither can it be severed without infamy."

The Pilot smiled disdainfully, and throwing open the rough exterior of his dress, he drew forth, in succession, several articles, while a glowing pride lighted his countenance, as he offered them singly to her notice.

"See, Alice!" he said, "call you this infamy! This broad sheet of parchment is stamped with a seal of no mean importance, and it bears the royal name of the princely Louis also! And view this cross! decorated as it is with jewels, the gift of the same ill.u.s.trious hand; it is not apt to be given to the children of infamy, neither is it wise or decorous to stigmatize a man who has not been thought unworthy to consort with princes and n.o.bles by the opprobrious name of the 'Scotch Pirate.'"

"And have ye not earned the t.i.tle, John, by ruthless deeds and bitter animosity? I could kiss the baubles ye show me, if they were a thousand times less splendid, had they been laid upon your breast by the hands of your lawful prince; but now they appear to my eyes as indelible blots upon your attainted name. As for your a.s.sociates, I have heard of them; and it seemeth that a queen might be better employed than encouraging by her smiles the disloyal subjects of other monarchs, though even her enemies. G.o.d only knows when His pleasure may suffer a spirit of disaffection to rise up among the people of her own nation, and then the thought that she has encouraged rebellion may prove both bitter and unwelcome."

"That the royal and lovely Antoinette has deigned to repay my services with a small portion of her gracious approbation is not among the least of my boasts," returned the Pilot, in affected humility, while secret pride was manifested even in his lofty att.i.tude. "But venture not a syllable in her dispraise, for you know not whom you censure. She is less distinguished by her ill.u.s.trious birth and elevated station, than by her virtues and loveliness. She lives the first of her s.e.x in Europe --the daughter of an emperor, the consort of the most powerful king, and the smiling and beloved patroness of a nation who wors.h.i.+p at her feet.

Her life is above all reproach, as it is above all earthly punishment, were she so lost as to merit it; and it has been the will of Providence to place her far beyond the reach of all human misfortunes."

"Has it placed her above human errors, John? Punishment is the natural and inevitable consequence of sin; and unless she can say more than has ever fallen to the lot of humanity to say truly, she may yet be made to feel the chastening arm of One, to whose eyes all her pageantry and power are as vacant as the air she breathes--so insignificant must it seem when compared to his own just rule! But if you vaunt that you have been permitted to kiss the hem of the robes of the French queen, and have been the companion of high-born and flaunting ladies, clad in their richest array, can ye yet say to yourself, that amid them all ye have found one whose tongue has been bold to tell you the truth, or whose heart has sincerely joined in her false professions?"

"Certainly none have met me with the reproaches that I have this night received from Alice Duns...o...b.., after a separation of six long years,"

returned the Pilot.

"If I have spoken to you the words of holy truth, John, let them not be the less welcome, because they are strangers to your ears. Oh! think that she who has thus dared to use the language of reproach to one whose name is terrible to all who live on the border of this island, is led to the rash act by no other motive than interest in your eternal welfare."

"Alice! Alice! you madden me with these foolish speeches! Am I a monster to frighten unprotected women and helpless children? What mean these epithets, as coupled with my name? Have you, too, lent a credulous ear to the vile calumnies with which the policy of your rulers has ever attempted to destroy the fair fame of those who oppose them, and those chiefly who oppose them with success? My name may be terrible to the officers of the royal fleet, but where and how have I earned a claim to be considered formidable to the helpless and unoffending?"

Alice Duns...o...b.. cast a furtive and timid glance at the Pilot, which spoke even stronger than her words, as she replied:

"I know not that all which is said of you and your deeds is true. I have often prayed, in bitterness and sorrow, that a tenth part of that which is laid to your charge may not be heaped on your devoted head at the great and final account. But, John, I have known you long and well, and Heaven forbid, that on this solemn occasion, which may be the last, the last of our earthly interviews, I should be found wanting in Christian duty, through a woman's weakness. I have often thought, when I have heard the gall of bitter reproach and envenomed language hurled against your name, that they who spoke so rashly, little understood the man they vituperated. But, though ye are at times, and I may say almost always, as mild and even as the smoothest sea over which ye have ever sailed, yet G.o.d has mingled in your nature a fearful mixture of fierce pa.s.sions, which, roused, are more like the southern waters when troubled with the tornado. It is difficult for me to say how far this evil spirit may lead a man, who has been goaded by fancied wrongs to forget his country and home, and who is suddenly clothed with power to show his resentments."

The Pilot listened with rooted attention, and his piercing eye seemed to reach the seat of those thoughts which she but half expressed; still he retained the entire command of himself, and answered, more in sorrow than in anger:

"If anything could convert me to your own peaceful and unresisting opinions, Alice, it would be the reflections that offer themselves at this conviction, that even you have been led by the base tongues of my dastardly enemies, to doubt my honor and conduct. What is fame, when a man can be thus traduced to his nearest friends? But no more of these childish reflections! they are unworthy of myself, my office, and the sacred cause in which I have enlisted!"

"Nay, John, shake them not off," said Alice, unconsciously laying her hand on his arm; "they are as the dew to the parched herbage, and may freshen the feelings of your youth, and soften the heart that has grown hard, if hard it be, more by unnatural indulgence than its own base inclinations."

"Alice Duns...o...b..," said the Pilot, approaching her with solemn earnestness, "I have learnt much this night, though I came not in quest of such knowledge. You have taught me how powerful is the breath of the slanderer, and how frail is the tenure by which we hold our good names.

Full twenty times have I met the hirelings of your prince in open battle, fighting ever manfully under that flag which was first raised to the breeze by my own hands, and which, I thank my G.o.d, I have never yet seen lowered an inch; but with no one act of cowardice or private wrong in all that service can I reproach myself; and yet, how am I rewarded!

The tongue of the vile calumniator is keener than the sword of the warrior, and leaves a more indelible scar!"

"Never have ye uttered a truer sentiment, John, and G.o.d send that ye may encourage such thoughts to your own eternal advantage," said Alice, with engaging interest "You say that you have risked your precious life in twenty combats, and observe how little of Heaven's favor is bestowed on the abettors of rebellion! They tell me that the world has never witnessed a more desperate and b.l.o.o.d.y struggle than this last, for which your name has been made to sound to the furthermost ends of the isle."

"'Twill be known wherever naval combats are spoken of!" interrupted the Pilot, the melancholy which had begun to lower in his countenance giving place to a look of proud exultation.

"And yet its fancied glory cannot s.h.i.+eld your name from wrong, nor are the rewards of the victor equal, in a temporal sense, to those which the vanquished has received. Know you that our gracious monarch, deeming your adversary's cause so sacred, has extended to him his royal favor?"

"Ay! he has dubbed him knight!" exclaimed the Pilot. with a scornful and bitter laugh: "let him be again furnished with a s.h.i.+p, and me with another opportunity, and I promise him an earldom, if being again vanquished can const.i.tute a claim!"

"Speak not so rashly, nor vaunt yourself of possessing a protecting power that may desert you, John, when you most need it, and least expect the change," returned his companion; "the battle is not always to the strong, neither is the race to the swift."

"Forget you, my good Alice, that your words will admit of a double meaning? Has the battle been to the strong! Though you say not well in denying the race to the swift. Yes, yes, often and again have the dastards escaped me by their prudent speed! Alice Duns...o...b.., you know not a thousandth part of the torture that I have been made to feel, by high-born miscreants, who envy the merit they cannot equal, and detract from the glory of deeds that they dare not attempt to emulate. How have I been cast upon the ocean, like some unworthy vessel that is commissioned to do a desperate deed, and then to bury itself in the ruin it has made! How many malignant hearts have triumphed as they beheld my canvas open, thinking that it was spread to hasten me to a gibbet, or to a tomb in the bosom of the ocean! but I have disappointed them!"

The eyes of the Pilot no longer gazed with their piercing and settled meaning; but they flashed with a fierce and wild pleasure, as he continued, in a louder voice:

"Yes, bitterly have I disappointed them! Oh! the triumph over my fallen enemies has been tame to this heartfelt exultation which places me immeasurably above those false and craven hypocrites! I begged, I implored, the Frenchmen, for the meanest of their craft, which possessed but the common qualities of a s.h.i.+p of war; I urged the policy and necessity of giving me such a force, for even then I promised to be found in harm's way; but envy and jealousy robbed me of my just dues, and of more than half my glory. They call me pirate! If I have claim to the name, it was furnished more by the paltry outfit of my friends, than by any act towards my enemies!"

"And do not these recollections prompt you to return to your allegiance, to your prince and native land, John?" said Alice, in a subdued voice.

"Away with the silly thought!" interrupted the Pilot, recalled to himself as if by a sudden conviction of the weakness he had betrayed; "it is ever thus where men are made conspicuous by their works--but to your visit--I have the power to rescue myself and companions from this paltry confinement, and yet I would not have it done with violence, for your sake. Bring you the means of doing it in quiet?"

"When the morning arrives, you will all be conducted to the apartment where we first met.--This will be done at the solicitation of Miss Howard, under the plea of compa.s.sion and justice, and with the professed object of inquiring into your situations. Her request will not be refused; and while your guard is stationed at the door, you will be shown, by another entrance, through the private apartments of the wing, to a window, whence you can easily leap to the ground, where a thicket is at hand; afterwards we shall trust your safety to your own discretion."

"And if this Dillon, of whom you have spoken, should suspect the truth, how will you answer to the law for aiding our escape?"

"I believe he little dreams who is among the prisoners," said Alice, musing, "though he may have detected the character of one of your companions. But it is private feeling, rather than public spirit, that urges him on."

"I have suspected something of this," returned the Pilot, with a smile, that crossed those features where ungovernable pa.s.sions that had so lately been exhibited, with an effect that might be likened to the last glimmering of an expiring conflagration, serving to render the surrounding ruin more obvious. "This young Griffith has led me from my direct path with his idle imprudence, and it is right that his mistress should incur some risk. But with you, Alice, the case is different; here you are only a guest, and it is unnecessary that you should be known in the unfortunate affair. Should my name get abroad, this recreant American, this Colonel Howard, will find all the favor he has purchased by advocating the cause of tyranny necessary to protect him from the displeasure of the ministry."

"I fear to trust so delicate a measure to the young discretion of my amiable friend," said Alice, shaking her head.

"Remember, that she has her attachment to plead in her excuse; but dare you say to the world that you still remember, with gentle feelings, the man whom you stigmatize with such opprobrious epithets?"

A slight color gleamed over the brow of Alice Duns...o...b.., as she uttered, in a voice that was barely audible:

"There is no longer a reason why the world should know of such a weakness, though it did exist." And, as the faint glow pa.s.sed away, leaving her face pale nearly as the hue of death, her eyes kindled with unusual fire, and she added: "They can but take my life, John; and that I am ready to lay down in your service!"

"Alice!" exclaimed the softened Pilot, "my kind, my gentle Alice--"

The knock of the sentinel at the door was heard at this critical moment.

Without waiting for a reply to his summons, the man entered the apartment; and, in hurried language, declared the urgent necessity that existed for the lady to retire. A few brief remonstrances were uttered by both Alice and the Pilot, who wished to comprehend more clearly each other's intentions relative to the intended escape: but the fear of personal punishment rendered the soldier obdurate, and a dread of exposure at length induced the lady to comply. She arose, and was leaving the apartment with lingering steps, when the Pilot, touching her hand, whispered to her impressively:

"Alice, we meet again before I leave this island forever?"

"We meet in the morning, John," she returned in the same tone of voice, "in the apartments of Miss Howard."

He dropped her hand, and she glided from the room, when the impatient sentinel closed the door, and silently turned the key on his prisoner.

The Pilot remained in a listening att.i.tude, until the light footsteps of the retiring pair were no longer audible, when he paced his confined apartment with perturbed steps, occasionally pausing to look out at the driving clouds and the groaning oaks that were trembling and rocking their broad arms in the fitful gusts of the gale. In a few minutes the tempest in his own pa.s.sions had gradually subsided to the desperate and still calmness that made him the man he was; when he again seated himself where Alice had found him, and began to muse on the events of the times, from which the transition to projecting schemes of daring enterprise and mighty consequences was but the usual employment of his active and restless mind.

CHAPTER XV.