CHAPTER XI.

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“Sisters! weave the web of death: Sisters! cease; the work is done.” _The Fatal Sisters_.

The conversation overheard by the faithless Jennet, and communicated with all its particulars to Sir Philip Gardiner, was, as must have been already conjectured by our readers, the contrivance for Magawisca’s liberation. It appeared by her statement that Hope and Magawisca, unattended, would, at a late hour of the evening, pass through a part of the town unfrequented after dark; that, at a fixed time, Everell would be in waiting for them at a certain landing-place. Before they reached there, Sir Philip knew there were many points where they might be intercepted, without the possibility of Everell’s coming to their rescue.

Sir Philip was entangled in the meshes of his own weaving; extrication was possible--nay, he believed probable; but there was a fearful chance against him. He had now to baffle well-founded suspicions; to disprove facts; to double his guard over his assumed and tiresome character; and, after all, human art could not secure him from accidents, which would bring in their train immediate disgrace and defeat. His passion for Miss Leslie had been stimulated by the obstacles which opposed it. His hopes were {209} certainly abated by her indifference; but self-love, and its minister vanity, are inexhaustible in their resources; and Sir Philip trusted for better success in future to his own powers and to feminine weakness; for he, like other profligates, believed that there was no woman, however pure and lofty her seeming, but she was commanded

“By such poor passion as the maid that milks, And does the meanest chares;”

yet this process of winning the prize was slow, and the result, alas! uncertain.

Jennet’s information suggested a master-stroke by which he could at once achieve his object--a single stroke by which he could carry the citadel he had so long and painfully besieged. If an evil spirit had been abroad on a corrupting mission, he could not have selected a subject more eager to grasp temptation than Sir Philip, nor a fitter agent than Jennet, nor have contrived a more infernal plot against an “innocent and aidless lady” than that which we must now disclose.

Chaddock (whose crew had occasioned such danger and alarm to Miss Leslie) was still riding in the bay with his vessel. Sir Philip had formerly some acquaintance with this man. He knew him to be a desperate fellow; that he had once been in confederacy with the bucaniers of Tortuga--the self-styled “Brothers of the Coast;” and he believed that he might be persuaded to enter upon any new and lawless enterprise.

Accordingly, from Governor Winthrop’s he repaired {210} to Chaddock’s vessel, and presented such motives to him, and offered such rewards, as induced the wretch to enter heartily into his designs. Fortunately for their purposes, the vessel was ready for sea, and they decided to commence their voyage that very night. All Miss Leslie’s paternal connexions were on the royal side; her fortune was still in their hands, and subject to their control. “If the lady’s reluctance to accept his hand was not subdued before the end of the voyage” (a chance scarcely worth consideration), Sir Philip said, “she must then submit to stern necessity, which even a woman’s will could not oppose.” After their arrival in England, he meant to abandon himself to the disposal of Fortune; but he promised Chaddock that he, with certain other cavaliers, whom he asserted had already meditated such an enterprise, would, with the remnant of their fortunes, embark with him, and enrol themselves among the adventurers of Tortuga.

It may be remembered by our readers, that early in our history, some glimmerings of a plot of this nature appear, from a letter of Sir Philip’s, even then to have dawned on his mind; but other purposes had intervened and put it off till now, when it was ripened by sudden and fit opportunity.

The detail of operations being all settled by these worthy confederates, Sir Philip, at nightfall, went once more to the town, secretly withdrew his baggage from his lodgings, and bidding Rosa, who, in sorrow and despair, mechanically obeyed, to follow, he returned to the vessel, humming, as he took his {211} last look at the scene where he had played so unworthy a part,

“Kind Boston, adieu! part we must, though ’tis pity, But I’m made for mankind--all the world is my city.”

Sir Philip, in his arrangements with Chaddock, excused himself from being one of the party who were to effect the abduction of Miss Leslie. Perhaps the external habits of a gentleman, and, it may be, some little remnant of human kindness (for we would not believe that man can become quite a fiend), rendered him reluctant to take a personal part in the cruel outrage he had planned and prepared. Chaddock himself commanded the enterprise, and was to be accompanied by four of the most daring of his crew.

The night was moonless, and not quite clear. “It is becoming dark--extremely dark, captain,” Sir Philip said, in giving his last instructions; “but it is impossible you should make a mistake. Miss Leslie’s companion, as I told you, may be disguised--she may wear a man’s or woman’s apparel--but you have an infallible guide in her height; she is at least half a head taller than Miss Leslie. It may be well, when you get to the wharf, to divide your party, agreeing on the signal of a whistle. But I rely on your skill and discretion.”

“You may rely on it,” replied the hardy desperado. “He who has boarded Spanish galleons, stormed castles, pillaged cities, violated churches, and broken open monasteries, may be intrusted with the capture of a single defenceless girl.”

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Sir Philip recoiled from trusting his prey in the clutches of this tiger, but there was no alternative. “Have a care, Chaddock,” he said, “that she is treated with all due and possible gentleness.”

“Ay, ay, Sir Philip--kill, but not hurt!” A smile of derision accompanied his words.

“You have pledged me the honour of a gentleman,” said Sir Philip, in an alarmed tone.

“Ay! the only bond of free souls. Remember, Sir Philip,” he added, for he perceived the suspicion the knight would fain have hidden in his inmost soul, “remember our motto: ‘Trusted, we are true; suspected, we betray.’ I have pledged my honour; better than parchment and seal--if you confide in it.”

“Oh, I do--entirely--implicitly; I have not the shadow of a doubt, my dear fellow.”

Chaddock turned away, laughing contemptuously at the ineffectual hypocrisy of Sir Philip, and ordered the men who were to be left in charge of the vessel to have everything in readiness to sail at the moment of his return. “And whither bound, captain?” demanded one of his sailors.

“To hell!” was his ominous reply. This answer, seemingly accidental, was long remembered and repeated, as a proof that the unhappy wretch was constrained, thus involuntarily, to pronounce his approaching doom.

Once more, before he left the vessel, Sir Philip addressed him: “Be in no haste to return,” he said; “the lady was not to leave Governor Winthrop’s before {213} half past eight; she may meet with unforeseen detentions; you will reach the dock a few minutes before nine. Take your stations as I have directed, and Fortune cannot thwart us if you are patient; wait till ten--eleven--twelve--or one, if need be. Again, I entreat there may be no unnecessary haste; I shall have no apprehensions; I repose on your fidelity.”

“D--n him!” muttered Chaddock, as he turned away, “he reposes on my fidelity--while he has my vessel in pledge!”

Sir Philip remained standing by the side of the vessel, listening to the quick strokes of the oars, till the sounds died away in the distance; then he spoke aloud and exultingly: “Shine out, my good star, and guide this prize to me!”

“Oh! rather,” exclaimed Rosa, who stood unobserved beside him, “rather, merciful Heaven, let thy lightnings blast her or thy waves swallow her. Oh God!” she continued, sinking on her knees and clasping her hands, “shield the innocent; save her from the hand of the destroyer!”

Sir Philip recoiled; it seemed to him there was something prophetic in the piercing tones of the unhappy girl, and for a moment he felt as if her prayer must penetrate to Heaven; but soon collecting courage, “Hush that mockery, Rosa!” he said; “your words are scorpions to me.”

Rosa remained for a few moments on her knees, but without again giving voice to her feelings; then rising, and sobbing as she spoke, “I thought,” she {214} said, “no prayer of mine would ever go upward again. I have tried to pray, and the words fell back like stones upon my heart; but now I pray for the innocent, and they part from me winged for Heaven.” She folded her arms, looked upward, and continued to speak, as if it were the involuntary utterance of her thoughts: “How wildly the stars shoot their beams through the parting clouds! I have sometimes thought that good spirits come down on those bright rays to do their messages of love. They may even now be on their way to guard a pure and helpless sister: God speed them!”

Sir Philip’s superstitious fears were awakened: “What do you mean, Rosa?” he exclaimed; “what! are you talking of stars? I see nothing but this cursed hazy atmosphere, that hangs like a pall over the water. Stars, indeed! are you mad, Rosa?”

Rosa replied, with a touching simplicity, as if the inquiry were made in good faith, “Yes, by times I think I am mad. Thoughts rush so fast, so wildly through my poor head--and then, again, all is vacancy. Yes,” she continued, as if meditating her case, “I think my brain is touched; but this--this, Sir Philip, is not madness. Do you know that all the good have their ministering spirits? Why, I remember reading in the ‘Legends of the Saints,’ which our good abbess gave me, of a chain, invisible to mortal senses, that encompassed all the faithful, from the bright spirits that wait around the throne of Heaven to the lowliest that walk upon the earth. It is of such exquisite temper that naught but sin can {215} harm it; but, if that but touch it, it falls apart like rust-eaten metal.”

“Away with these fantastic legends, inventions of hypocritical priests and tiresome old women. You must curb these foolish vagaries of your imagination, Rosa. I have present and urgent work for you; do but this good service for me, and I will love you again, and make you as happy as you were in your brightest days.”

“You make me _happy_, Sir Philip! Alas! alas! there is no happiness without innocence; if that be once lost, like the guilty Egyptian’s pearl you told me of, melted in the bowl of pleasure, happiness cannot be restored.”

“As you please, girl; if you will not be happy, you may play the penitent Magdalen the rest of your life. You shall select your own convent, and tell your beads, and say your prayers, and be as demure and solemn as any seeming saint of them all. I will give you a penance to begin with; nay, I am serious: hear me. In spite of your prayers, and visions, and silly fancies, Miss Leslie must soon be here; the snare is too well prepared to be escaped. After this one violence, to which she and cruel fate have driven me, I will be a true knight, as humble and worshipful as any hero of chivalry.”

“But she does not now love you, and do you not fear she will hate you for this outrage?”

“Ay; but there is a potent alchymy at work for us in the hearts of you women, that turns hate to love. You shall yet hear her say, like the lady of {216} Sir Gawaine, ‘Oh! how it is befallen me, that now I love him whom I before most hated of all men living.’ But you must aid me, Rosa; this proud queen must have her maid of honour.”

“And I must be the poor slave to do her bidding!” said Rosa, impatiently interrupting him, and all other feelings giving way to the rising of womanly pride.

“Nay, not so, Rosa,” replied Sir Philip; and he added, in a voice which he hoped might sooth her petulance, “render to her all maidenly service; for a little while do the tasks of the bond-woman, and you shall yet have her wages; nay, start not--you remember the good patriarch’s affections manifestly leaned to the side of Hagar.”

“Yes, yes; and I remember, too, what her fate was--the fate of all who follow in her footsteps--to be cast out to wander forth in a desert, where there is not one sign of God’s love left to them.” She burst into tears, and added, “I would give my poor life, and a thousand more, if I had them, to save Hope Leslie, but I will never do her menial service.”

Sir Philip continued to offer arguments and entreaties, but nothing that he said had the least effect on Rosa; he could not extort a promise from her, nor perceive the slightest indication of conformity to his wishes. But trusting that when the time came she would of necessity submit to his authority, he relinquished his solicitations, and, quitting her side, paced the deck with hurried, impatient footsteps.

There is no solitude to the good or bad. Nature {217} has her ministers that correspond with the world within the breast of man. The words “my kingdom is within you,” are worth all the metaphysical discoveries ever made by unassisted human wisdom. If all is right in that “kingdom,” beautiful forms and harmonious voices surround us, discoursing music; but if the mind is filled with guilty passions, recollections of sin, and purposes of evil, the ministering angels of Nature are converted into demons, whose “monstrous rout are heard to howl like stable wolves.” Man cannot live in tranquil disobedience to the law of virtue, inscribed on his soul by the finger of God. “Our torments” cannot “become our elements.” To Sir Philip’s disordered imagination, the heavy mist seemed like an infolding shroud; there was a voice of sullen menace in the dashing of the waves against the vessel; the hooting of the night-bird was ominous; and Rosa’s low sobs, and the horrid oaths of the misruled crew, rung in his ears like evil prophecies.

Time wore away heavily enough till ten, the earliest moment he had calculated on the return of the boat, but after that it appeared to stand stock still. He ordered the signal lights attached to the mast to be doubled; he strained his eyes in the vain attempt to descry an approaching object, and then cursed the fog that hemmed in his sight. Suddenly a fresh breeze came off the shore, the fog dispersed, and he could discern the few lights that still glimmered from the habitations of the town, but no boat was seen or heard. “What folly,” he repeated to {218} himself a hundred times, “to be thus impatient; they certainly have not failed in their object, or relinquished it, for in that case they would have been here; it is scarcely time to expect them yet;” but the suggestions of reason could not calm the perturbations of impatience. For another hour he continued to stride the deck, approaching the light at every turn to look at his watch. The sailors now began to fret at the delay: “Everything was ready,” they said; “good luck had sent them a fair breeze, and the tide had just turned in their favour.” And in Sir Philip’s favour too, it appeared; for at this moment the longed-for boat was both heard and seen rapidly nearing the vessel. He gazed towards it as if it contained for him a sentence of life or death; and life it was, for he soon perceived a female form wrapped in Chaddock’s watch-cloak.

The boat came to the side of the vessel. “Has the scoundrel dared to put his arm around Hope Leslie?” thought the knight, as he saw the captain’s arm encircling the unfortunate girl; but a second reflection told him that this, which seemed even to him profanity, was but a necessary precaution. “He dared not trust her; she would have leaped into the waves rather than have come to me--ungracious girl!”

“What hath kept you?” called out one of the sailors.

“The devil and Antonio,” replied the captain. “We left him with the boat, and, while we were grappling the prize, he ran away. I had to be {219} chains and fetters to the prisoner: we had not hands to man our oars, so we waited for the fellow; but he came not, and has, doubtless, ere this, given the alarm. Weigh your anchor and spread your sails, boys; starting with this wind and tide, we’ll give them a devil of a chase, and bootless at last.”

While this was saying, the unhappy victim was lifted up the side of the vessel, and received in Sir Philip’s arms. She threw back the hood that had been drawn over her head, and attempted to speak, but was prevented by her kerchief, which the ruffians had bound over her face to prevent the emission of any sound. Sir Philip was shocked at the violence and indignity she had suffered. “Did I not order you, Chaddock,” he said, “to treat the lady with all possible respect?”

“D--n your orders!” replied the captain; “was I to let her scream like forty sea-mews, and raise the town upon us?”

“A thousand--thousand pardons!” whispered Sir Philip, in a low, imploring voice; and then aloud to Chaddock, “But after you left the town, captain, you surely should have paid more respect to my earnest and repeated injunctions.”

“D--n your injunctions! John Chaddock is yet master of his vessel, and boat too. I tell you, when the fishing-smacks hailed us, that, even with that close-reefed sail, she made a noise like a creaking mast in a gale.”

“Oh! forgive--forgive,” whispered Sir Philip, “this horrible, necessary outrage. Lean on me; I {220} will conduct you away from these wretches; a room is prepared for you; Rosa shall attend you; you are queen here; you command us all. Forgive--forgive, and fear nothing. I will not remove your screen till you are beyond the lawless gaze of these fellows. Here, Roslin!” he called, for he still kept up the farce of Rosa’s disguise in the presence of the ship’s company, “here, Roslin! take the lamp, and follow me!”

Rosa obeyed, her bosom heaving with struggling emotions, and her hand trembling so that she could scarcely hold the lamp. “Bear the light up, and more steadily, Roslin. Nay, my beloved, adored mistress, do not falter; hasten forward; in one minute more we shall be below, in your own domain, where you may admit or exclude me at pleasure. Do not struggle thus; you have driven me to this violence; you must forgive the madness you have caused. I am your slave for life.”

They had just passed down the steps that served as a companion-way, when Sir Philip observed, on his right hand, an uncovered barrel of gunpowder. It had been left in this exposed situation by a careless fellow, intrusted with the preparation of the fire-arms for the expedition to the town. “Have a care,” cried Sir Philip to Rosa; “stay where you are: do not approach that gunpowder with the light.” He heard a footstep above. “Here, friend,” he called, “lend us a hand; come down and cover this powder. We cannot discreetly move an inch.” The footsteps ceased, but there was no reply to the {221} call. “I cannot leave Miss Leslie,” continued Sir Philip; “she leans on me as if she were fainting. Set down your lamp, Rosa, and come yourself and cover the barrel.”

Rosa did not set down the lamp, but moved forward one or two steps with it in her hand, and then paused. She seemed revolving some dreadful purpose in her mind. Her eyes glanced wildly from Sir Philip to his helpless victim; then she groaned aloud, and pressed her hand upon her head as if it were bursting.

Sir Philip did not observe her; he was intent upon his companion. “She is certainly fainting,” he said; “it is the close air and this cursed handkerchief!” He attempted to remove it, but the knot by which it was tied baffled his skill, and he again shouted to Rosa, “Why do you not obey me? Miss Leslie is suffocating: set down the lamp, I say, and call assistance. Damnation!” he screamed, “what means the girl?” as Rosa made one desperate leap forward, and shrieking, “It cannot be worse for any of us!” threw the lamp into the barrel.

The explosion was instantaneous: the hapless girl--her guilty destroyer--his victim--the crew--the vessel, rent to fragments, were hurled into the air, and soon ingulfed in the waves.