Chapter 23

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_ CHAPTER XXIII

"Whilst vengeance, in the lurid air,
Lifts her red arm, exposed and bare--
Who, Fear, this ghastly train can see;
And look not madly wild, like thee!"
_Collins_.

It is certain that Tom Coffin had devised no settled plan of operations, when he issued from the apartment of Borroughcliffe, if we except a most resolute determination to make the best of his way to the Ariel, and to share her fate, let it be either to sink or swim. But this was a resolution much easier formed by the honest seaman than executed, in his present situation. He would have found it less difficult to extricate a vessel from the dangerous shoals of the "Devil's Grip," than to thread the mazes of the labyrinth of passages, galleries, and apartments, in which he found himself involved. He remembered, as he expressed it to himself, in a low soliloquy, "to have run into a narrow passage from the main channel, but whether he had sheered to the starboard or larboard hand" was a material fact that had entirely escaped his memory. Tom was in that part of the building that Colonel Howard had designated as the "cloisters," and in which, luckily for him, he was but little liable to encounter any foe, the room occupied by Borroughcliffe being the only one in the entire wing that was not exclusively devoted to the service of the ladies. The circumstance of the soldier's being permitted to invade this sanctuary was owing to the necessity, on the part of Colonel Howard, of placing either Griffith, Manual, or the recruiting officer, in the vicinity of his wards, or of subjecting his prisoners to a treatment that the veteran would have thought unworthy of his name and character. This recent change in the quarters of Borroughcliffe operated doubly to the advantage of Tom, by lessening the chance of the speedy release of his uneasy captive, as well as by diminishing his own danger. Of the former circumstance he was, however, not aware: and the consideration of the latter was a sort of reflection to which the cockswain was, in no degree, addicted.

Following, necessarily, the line of the wall, he soon emerged from the dark and narrow passage in which he had first found himself, and entered the principal gallery, that communicated with all the lower apartments of that wing, as well as with the main body of the edifice. An open door, through which a strong light was glaring, at a distant end of this gallery, instantly caught his eye, and the old seaman had not advanced many steps towards it, before he discovered that he was approaching the very room which had so much excited his curiosity, and by the identical passage through which he had entered the abbey. To turn, and retrace his steps, was the most obvious course for any man to take who felt anxious to escape; but the sounds of high conviviality, bursting from the cheerful apartment, among which the cockswain thought he distinguished the name of Griffith, determined Tom to advance and reconnoitre the scene more closely. The reader will anticipate that when he paused in the shadow, the doubting old seaman stood once more near the threshold which he had so lately crossed, when conducted to the room of Borroughcliffe. The seat of that gentleman was now occupied by Dillon, and Colonel Howard had resumed his wonted station at the foot of the table. The noise was chiefly made by the latter, who had evidently been enjoying a more minute relation of the means by which his kinsman had entrapped his unwary enemy.

"A noble ruse!" cried the veteran, as Tom assumed his post, in ambush; "a most noble and ingenious ruse, and such a one as would have baffled Caesar! He must have been a cunning dog, that Caesar; but I do think, Kit, you would have been too much for him; hang me, if I don't think you would have puzzled Wolfe himself, had you held Quebec, instead of Montcalm! Ah, boy, we want you in the colonies, with the ermine over your shoulders; such men as you, cousin Christopher, are sadly, sadly wanted there to defend his majesty's rights."

"Indeed, dear sir, your partiality gives me credit for qualities I do not possess," said Dillon, dropping his eyes, perhaps with a feeling of conscious unworthiness, but with an air of much humility; "the little justifiable artifice----"

"Ay! there lies the beauty of the transaction," interrupted the colonel, shoving the bottle from him, with the free, open air of a man who never harbored disguise; "you told no lie; no mean deception, that any dog, however base and unworthy, might invent; but you practised a neat, a military, a--a--yes, a classical deception on your enemy; a classical deception, that is the very term for it! such a deception as Pompey, or Mark Antony, or--or--you know those old fellows' names, better than I do, Kit; but name the cleverest fellow that ever lived in Greece or Rome, and I shall say he is a dunce compared to you. 'Twas a real Spartan trick, both simple and honest."

It was extremely fortunate for Dillon, that the animation of his aged kinsman kept his head and body in such constant motion, during this apostrophe, as to intercept the aim that the cockswain was deliberately taking at his head with one of Borroughcliffe's pistols; and perhaps the sense of shame which induced him to sink his face on his hands was another means of saving his life, by giving the indignant old seaman time for reflection.

"But you have not spoken of the ladies," said Dillon, after a moment's pause; "I should hope they have borne the alarm of the day like kinswomen of the family of Howard."

The colonel glanced his eyes around him, as if to assure himself they were alone, and dropped his voice, as he answered:

"Ah, Kit! they have come to, since this rebel scoundrel, Griffith, has been brought into the abbey; we were favored with the company of even Miss Howard, in the dining-room, to-day. There was a good deal of 'dear uncleing,' and 'fears that my life might be exposed by the quarrels and skirmishes of these desperadoes who have landed;' as if an old fellow, who served through the whole war, from '56 to '63, was afraid to let his nose smell gunpowder any more than if it were snuff! But it will be a hard matter to wheedle an old soldier out of his allegiance! This Griffith goes to the Tower, at least, Mr. Dillon."

"It would be advisable to commit his person to the civil authority, without delay."

"To the constable of the Tower, the Earl Cornwallis, a good and loyal nobleman, who is, at this moment, fighting the rebels in my own native province, Christopher," interrupted the colonel; "that will be what I call retributive justice; but," continued the veteran, rising with an air of gentlemanly dignity, "it will not do to permit even the constable of the Tower of London to surpass the master of St. Ruth in hospitality and kindness to his prisoners. I have ordered suitable refreshments to their apartments, and it is incumbent on me to see that my commands have been properly obeyed. Arrangements must also be made for the reception of this Captain Barnstable, who will, doubtless, soon be here."

"Within the hour, at farthest," said Dillon, looking uneasily at his watch.

"We must be stirring, boy," continued the colonel, moving towards the door that led to the apartments of his prisoners; "but there is a courtesy due to the ladies, as well as to those unfortunate violators of the laws--go, Christopher, convey my kindest wishes to Cecilia; she don't deserve them, the obstinate vixen, but then she is my brother Harry's child! and while there, you arch dog, plead your own cause. Mark Antony was a fool to you at a 'ruse,' and yet Mark was one of your successful suitors, too; there was that Queen of the Pyramids--"

The door closed on the excited veteran, at these words, and Dillon was left standing by himself, at the side of the table, musing, as if in doubt, whether to venture on the step that his kinsman had proposed, or not.

The greater part of the preceding discourse was unintelligible to the cockswain, who had waited its termination with extraordinary patience, in hopes he might obtain some information that he could render of service to the captives. Before he had time to decide on what was now best for him to do, Dillon suddenly determined to venture himself in the cloisters; and, swallowing a couple of glasses of wine in a breath, he passed the hesitating cockswain, who was concealed by the opening door, so closely as to brush his person, and moved down the gallery with those rapid strides which men who act under the impulse of forced resolutions are very apt to assume, as if to conceal their weakness from themselves.--Tom hesitated no longer; but aiding the impulse given to the door by Dillon, as he passed, so as to darken the passage, he followed the sounds of the other's footsteps, while he trod in the manner already described, the stone pavement of the gallery. Dillon paused an instant at the turning that led to the room of Borroughcliffe, but whether irresolute which way to urge his steps, or listening to the incautious and heavy tread of the cockswain, is not known; if the latter, he mistook them for the echoes of his own footsteps, and moved forward again without making any discovery.

The light tap which Dillon gave on the door of the withdrawing-room of the cloisters was answered by the soft voice of Cecilia Howard herself, who bid the applicant enter. There was a slight confusion evident in the manner of the gentleman as he complied with the bidding, and in its hesitancy, the door was, for an instant, neglected.

"I come, Miss Howard," said Dillon, "by the commands of your uncle, and, permit me to add, by my own--"

"May Heaven shield us!" exclaimed Cecilia, clasping her hands in affright, and rising involuntarily from her couch, "are we, too, to be imprisoned and murdered?"

"Surely Miss Howard will not impute to me--" Dillon paused, observing that the wild looks, not only of Cecilia, but of Katherine and Alice Dunscombe, also, were directed at some other object, and turning, to his manifest terror he beheld the gigantic frame of the cockswain, surmounted by an iron visage fixed in settled hostility, in possession of the only passage from the apartment.

"If there's murder to be done," said Tom, after surveying the astonished group with a stern eye, "it's as likely this here liar will be the one to do it, as another; but you have nothing to fear from a man who has followed the seas too long, and has grappled with too many monsters, both fish and flesh, not to know how to treat a helpless woman. None, who know him, will say that Thomas Coffin ever used uncivil language, or unseamanlike conduct, to any of his mother's kind."

"Coffin!" exclaimed Katherine, advancing with a more confident air, from the corner into which terror had driven her with her companions.

"Ay, Coffin," continued the old sailor, his grim features gradually relaxing, as he gazed on her bright looks; "'tis a solemn word, but it's a word that passes over the shoals, among the islands, and along the cape, oftener than any other. My father was a Coffin, and my mother was a Joy; and the two names can count more flukes than all the rest in the island together; though the Worths, and the Gar'ners, and the Swaines, dart better harpoons, and set truer lances, than any men who come from the weather-side of the Atlantic."

Katherine listened to this digression in honor of the whalers of Nantucket, with marked complacency; and, when he concluded, she repeated slowly:

"Coffin! this, then, is long Tom!"

"Ay, ay, long Tom, and no sham in the name either," returned the cockswain, suffering the stern indignation that had lowered around his hard visage to relax into a low laugh as he gazed on her animated features; "the Lord bless your smiling face and bright black eyes, young madam! you have heard of old long Tom, then? Most likely, 'twas something about the blow he strikes at the fish--ah! I'm old and I'm stiff, now, young madam, but afore I was nineteen, I stood at the head of the dance, at a ball on the cape, and that with a partner almost as handsome as yourself--ay! and this was after I had three broad flukes logg'd against my name."

"No," said Katherine, advancing in her eagerness a step or two nigher to the old tar, her cheeks flushing while she spoke, "I had heard of you as an instructor in a seaman's duty, as the faithful cockswain, nay, I may say, as the devoted companion and friend, of Mr. Richard Barnstable-- but, perhaps, you come now as the bearer of some message or letter from that gentleman."

The sound of his commander's name suddenly revived the recollection of Coffin, and with it all the fierce sternness of his manner returned. Bending his eyes keenly on the cowering form of Dillon, he said, in those deep, harsh tones, that seem peculiar to men who have braved the elements, until they appear to have imbided some of their roughest qualities:

"Liar! how now? what brought old Tom Coffin into these shoals and narrow channels? was it a letter? Ha! but by the Lord that maketh the winds to blow, and teacheth the lost mariner how to steer over the wide waters, you shall sleep this night, villain, on the planks of the Ariel; and if it be the will of God that beautiful piece of handicraft is to sink at her moorings, like a worthless hulk, ye shall still sleep in her; ay, and a sleep that shall not end, till they call all hands, to foot up the day's work of this life, at the close of man's longest voyage."

The extraordinary vehemence, the language, the attitude of the old seaman, commanding in its energy, and the honest indignation that shone in every look of his keen eyes, together with the nature of the address, and its paralyzing effect on Dillon, who quailed before it like the stricken deer, united to keep the female listeners, for many moments, silent through amazement. During this brief period, Tom advanced upon his nerveless victim, and lashing his arms together behind his back, he fastened him, by a strong cord, to the broad canvas belt that he constantly wore around his own body, leaving to himself, by this arrangement, the free use of his arms and weapons of offence, while he secured his captive.

"Surely," said Cecilia, recovering her recollection the first of the astonished group, "Mr. Barnstable has not commissioned you to offer this violence to my uncle's kinsman, under the roof of Colonel Howard?--Miss Plowden, your friend has strangely forgotten himself in this transaction, if this man acts in obedience to his order!"

"My friend, my cousin Howard," returned Katharine, "would never commission his cockswain, or any one, to do an unworthy deed. Speak, honest sailor; why do you commit this outrage on the worthy Mr. Dillon, Colonel Howard's kinsman, and a cupboard cousin of St. Ruth's Abbey?"

"Nay, Katherine--"

"Nay, Cecilia, be patient, and let the stranger have utterance; he may solve the difficulty altogether."

The cockswain, understanding that an explanation was expected from his lips, addressed himself to the task with an energy suitable both to the subject and to his own feelings. In a very few words, though a little obscured by his peculiar diction, he made his listeners understand the confidence that Barnstable had reposed in Dillon, and the treachery of the latter. They heard him with increased astonishment, and Cecilia hardly allowed him time to conclude, before she exclaimed:

"And did Colonel Howard, could Colonel Howard listen to this treacherous project!"

"Ay, they spliced it together among them," returned Tom; "though one part of this cruise will turn out but badly."

"Even Borroughcliffe, cold and hardened as he appears to be by habit, would spurn at such dishonor," added Miss Howard.

"But Mr. Barnstable?" at length Katherine succeeded in saying, when her feelings permitted her utterance, "said you not that soldiers were in quest of him?"

"Ay, ay, young madam," the cockswain replied, smiling with grim ferocity, "they are in chase, but he has shifted his anchorage, and even if they should find him, his long pikes would make short work of a dozen redcoats. The Lord of tempests and calms have mercy, though, on the schooner! Ah, young madam she, is as lovely to the eyes of an old seafaring man as any of your kind can be to human nature!"

"But why this delay?--away then, honest Tom, and reveal the treachery to your commander; you may not yet be too late--why delay a moment?"

"The ship tarries for want of a pilot.--I could carry three fathom over the shoals of Nantucket, the darkest night that ever shut the windows of heaven, but I should be likely to run upon breakers in this navigation. As it was, I was near getting into company that I should have had to fight my way out of."

"If that be all, follow me," cried the ardent Katherine; "I will conduct you to a path that leads to the ocean, without approaching the sentinels."

Until this moment, Dillon had entertained a secret expectation of a rescue, but when he heard this proposal he felt his blood retreating to his heart, from every part of his agitated frame, and his last hope seemed wrested from him. Raising himself from the abject shrinking attitude, in which both shame and dread had conspired to keep him as though he had been fettered to the spot, he approached Cecilia, and cried, in tones of horror:

"Do not, do not consent, Miss Howard, to abandon me to the fury of this man! Your uncle, your honorable uncle, even now applauded and united with me in my enterprise, which is no more than a common artifice in war."

"My uncle would unite, Mr. Dillon, in no project of deliberate treachery like this," said Cecilia, coldly.

"He did, I swear by----"

"Liar!" interrupted the deep tones of the cockswain.

Dillon shivered with agony and terror, while the sounds of this appalling voice sunk into his inmost soul; but as the gloom of the night, the secret ravines of the cliffs, and the turbulence of the ocean flashed across his imagination, he again yielded to a dread of the horrors to which he should be exposed, in encountering them at the mercy of his powerful enemy, and he continued his solicitations:

"Hear me, once more hear me--Miss Howard, I beseech you, hear me! Am I not of your own blood and country? will you see me abandoned to the wild, merciless, malignant fury of this man, who will transfix me with that--oh, God! if you had but seen the sight I beheld in the Alacrity! --hear me. Miss Howard; for the love you bear your Maker, intercede for me! Mr. Griffith shall be released----"

"Liar!" again interrupted the cockswain.

"What promises he?" asked Cecilia, turning her averted face once more at the miserable captive.

"Nothing at all that will be fulfilled," said Katherine; "follow, honest Tom, and I, at least, will conduct you in good faith."

"Cruel, obdurate Miss Plowden; gentle, kind Miss Alice, you will not refuse to raise your voice in my favor; your heart is not hardened by any imaginary dangers to those you love."

"Nay, address not me," said Alice, bending her meek eyes to the floor; "I trust your life is in no danger; and I pray that he who has the power will have the mercy to see you unharmed."

"Away," said Tom, grasping the collar of the helpless Dillon, and rather carrying than leading him into the gallery: "if a sound, one-quarter as loud as a young porpoise makes when he draws his first breath, comes from you, villain, you shall see the sight of the Alacrity over again. My harpoon keeps its edge well, and the old arm can yet drive it to the seizing."

This menace effectually silenced even the hard, perturbed breathings of the captive, who, with his conductor, followed the light steps of Katherine through some of the secret mazes of the building, until, in a few minutes, they issued through a small door into the open air. Without pausing to deliberate, Miss Plowden led the cockswain through the grounds, to a different wicket from the one by which he had entered the paddock, and pointing to the path, which might be dimly traced along the faded herbage, she bade God bless him, in a voice that discovered her interest in his safety, and vanished from his sight like an aerial being.

Tom needed no incentive to his speed, now that his course lay so plainly before him, but loosening his pistols in his belt, and poising his harpoon, he crossed the fields at a gait that compelled his companion to exert his utmost powers, in the way of walking, to equal. Once or twice, Dillon ventured to utter a word or two; but a stern "silence" from the cockswain warned him to cease, until perceiving that they were approaching the cliffs, he made a final effort to obtain his liberty, by hurriedly promising a large bribe. The cockswain made no reply, and the captive was secretly hoping that his scheme was producing its wonted effects, when he unexpectedly felt the keen cold edge of the barbed iron of the harpoon pressing against his breast, through the opening of his ruffles, and even raising the skin.

"Liar!" said Tom; "another word, and I'll drive it through your heart!"

From that moment, Dillon was as silent as the grave. They reached the edge of the cliffs, without encountering the party that had been sent in quest of Barnstable, and at a point near where they had landed. The old seaman paused an instant on the verge of the precipice, and cast his experienced eyes along the wide expanse of water that lay before him. The sea was no longer sleeping, but already in heavy motion, and rolling its surly waves against the base of the rocks on which he stood, scattering their white crests high in foam. The cockswain, after bending his looks along the whole line of the eastern horizon, gave utterance to a low and stifled groan; and then, striking the staff of his harpoon violently against the earth, he pursued his way along the very edge of the cliffs, muttering certain dreadful denunciations, which the conscience of his appalled listener did not fail to apply to himself. It appeared to the latter, that his angry and excited leader sought the giddy verge of the precipice with a sort of wanton recklessness, so daring were the steps that he took along its brow, notwithstanding the darkness of the hour, and the violence of the blasts that occasionally rushed by them, leaving behind a kind of reaction, that more than once brought the life of the manacled captive in imminent jeopardy. But it would seem the wary cockswain had a motive for this apparently inconsiderate desperation. When they had made good quite half the distance between the point where Barnstable had landed and that where he had appointed to meet his cockswain, the sounds of voices were brought indistinctly to their ears, in one of the momentary pauses of the rushing winds, and caused the cockswain to make a dead stand in his progress. He listened intently for a single minute, when his resolution appeared to be taken. He turned to Dillon and spoke; though his voice was suppressed and low, it was deep and resolute.

"One word, and you die; over the cliffs! You must take a seaman's ladder: there is footing on the rocks, and crags for your hands. Over the cliff, I bid ye, or I'll cast ye into the sea, as I would a dead enemy!"

"Mercy, mercy!" implored Dillon; "I could not do it in the day; by this light I shall surely perish."

"Over with ye!" said Tom, "or----"

Dillon waited for no more, but descended, with trembling steps, the dangerous precipice that lay before him. He was followed by the cockswain, with a haste that unavoidably dislodged his captive from the trembling stand he had taken on the shelf of a rock, who, to his increased horror found himself dangling in the air, his body impending over the sullen surf, that was tumbling in with violence upon the rocks beneath him. An involuntary shriek burst from Dillon, as he felt his person thrust from the narrow shelf; and his cry sounded amidst the tempest, like the screechings of the spirit of the storm.

"Another such a call, and I cut your tow-line, villain," said the determined seaman, "when nothing short of eternity will bring you up."

The sounds of footsteps and voices were now distinctly audible, and presently a party of armed men appeared on the edges of the rocks, directly above them.

"It was a human voice," said one of them, "and like a man in distress."

"It cannot be the men we are sent in search of," returned Sergeant Drill; "for no watchword that I ever heard sounded like that cry."

"They say that such cries are often heard in storms along this coast," said a voice that was uttered with less of military confidence than the two others: "and they are thought to come from drowned seamen."

A feeble laugh arose among the listeners, and one or two forced jokes were made at the expense of their superstitious comrade; but the scene did not fail to produce its effect on even the most sturdy among the unbelievers in the marvelous; for, after a few more similar remarks, the whole party retired from the cliffs, at a pace that might have been accelerated by the nature of their discourse. The cockswain, who had stood all this time, firm as the rock which supported him, bearing up not only his own weight, but the person of Dillon also, raised his head above the brow of the precipice, as they withdrew, to reconnoitre, and then, drawing up the nearly insensible captive, and placing him in safety on the bank, he followed himself. Not a moment was wasted in unnecessary explanations, but Dillon found himself again urged forward, with the same velocity as before. In a few minutes they gained the desired ravine, down which Tom plunged with a seaman's nerve, dragging his prisoner after him, and directly they stood where the waves rose to their feet, as they flowed far and foaming across the sands.--The cockswain stooped so low as to bring the crest of the billows in a line with the horizon, when he discovered the dark boat, playing in the outer edge of the surf.

"What hoa! Ariels there!" shouted Tom, in a voice that the growing tempest carried to the ears of the retreating soldiers, who quickened their footsteps, as they listened to sounds which their fears taught them to believe supernatural.

"Who hails?" cried the well-known voice of Barnstable.

"Once your master, now your servant," answered the cockswain with a watchword of his own invention.

"'Tis he," returned the lieutenant; "veer away, boys, veer away. You must wade into the surf."

Tom caught Dillon in his arms; and throwing him, like a cork, across his shoulder, he dashed into the streak of foam that was bearing the boat on its crest, and before his companion had time for remonstrance or entreaty, he found himself once more by the side of Barnstable.

"Who have we here?" asked the lieutenant; "this is not Griffith!"

"Haul out and weigh your grapnel," said the excited cockswain; "and then, boys, if you love the Ariel, pull while the life and the will is left in you."

Barnstable knew his man, and not another question was asked, until the boat was without the breakers, now skimming the rounded summits of the waves, or settling into the hollows of the seas, but always cutting the waters asunder, as she urged her course, with amazing velocity, towards the haven where the schooner had been left at anchor. Then, in a few but bitter sentences, the cockswain explained to his commander the treachery of Dillon, and the danger of the schooner.

"The soldiers are slow at a night muster," Tom concluded; "and from what I overheard, the express will have to make a crooked course, to double the head of the bay, so that, but for this northeaster, we might weather upon them yet; but it's a matter that lies altogether in the will of Providence. Pull, my hearties, pull--everything depends on your oars to- night."

Barnstable listened in deep silence to this unexpected narration, which sounded in the ears of Dillon like his funeral knell. At length, the suppressed voice of the lieutenant was heard, also, uttering:

"Wretch! if I should cast you into the sea, as food for the fishes, who could blame me? But if my schooner goes to the bottom, she shall prove your coffin!" _

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