CHAPTER VII.

DAWNING DAY.

Courage! You travel through a darksome cave, But still, as nearer to the light you draw, Fresh gales will meet you from the upper air, And wholesome dews of heaven your forehead lave. The darkness lighten more, till full of awe You stand in the open sunshine unaware. R. C. TRENCH.

“Eh?—Stop! What—what name did you say?” exclaimed the hearer, in great agitation.

“I said Desparde—Captain Valdimir Desparde, of Her Majesty’s 000th Regiment of Foot—the man whose money, jewels, letters and name he took, and for whom he passed himself off in this country.”

“How strange!” exclaimed our exile, as the light burst upon him.

“What is the matter? You are agitated,” exclaimed La Motte, in his turn.

“I—I—Captain Desparde was—a near relative,” stammered Valdimir.

“Oh, indeed! Then it is enough to upset you!” said Sims’s biographer, who would then have asked many questions upon the subject had not his young hearer besought him to proceed at once with his narrative.

“To think of you being mixed up in any way with this! No wonder you wanted to get hold of the confession. Well, Mr. Adams, it appears that this Captain Desparde was himself descended on one side from English nobles, and on the other from Polish princes, and that his early youth had been passed in Poland; but his family had come to England after the suppression of the last attempt at revolution there, and that by the help of his English relatives he got a commission in the English army. His regiment was stationed at Gibraltar at the time he first met our adventurer.”

“Yes, you told me that.”

“Well, sir, it appears that this Captain Desparde was a very wild young fellow himself, and kept very wild company. But you might have judged as much from the fact of his acquaintance with John Sims.”

“I should think so,” assented Valdimir.

“At all events they were great cronies, although the Anglo-Pole, being the most skillful gambler of the two, won a good deal of the quadroon’s money. Now came a crisis. The captain had applied for three months’ leave of absence, which he confidently expected to get and which he intended to spend by running over to the United States and making a short tour there. He had never been to America, he had no friends or acquaintances over there, but still he wished to go. He provided himself with letters of introduction from persons of distinction in London to their peers in society in New York and Washington; also with funds for his voyage. He was only waiting for dispatches from the Horse Guards with his coveted furlough. But when the dispatches came at length they contained no leave of absence for the young captain, but, on the contrary, orders for the regiment to sail at once for Calcutta. Well, sir, all this the captain told his boon companion that night, and in his vexation got so drunk that Sims had to take him home to his quarters and remain with him through the night. That night it was that the robbery was successfully effected; but days passed before the loss was discovered; they were in the bustle incident upon embarkation. There was not much opportunity for thorough investigation. The regiment sailed and the matter of the robbery was left in charge of the police. Not the slightest suspicion attached to John Sims. He, with his booty, took passage on a coasting vessel for Havre. And from Havre he sailed for New York. On reaching the great American metropolis he took rooms at a first-class hotel, registering himself as Captain Desparde. Then he sallied forth to present his stolen letters of introduction. One of the first letters he presented was from a gentleman in the north of England, by the name of—of—Just let me have that pamphlet a moment, Mr. Adams, for I really cannot recall the name just at present; but it is in the book.”

Valdimir handed it over.

“Ah, thank you. Yes, here it is,” said La Motte, turning over the pages and stopping at one. “A gentleman of the name of Coyle—Christopher Coyle, Esq, of Caveland, to his brother, Donald Coyle, banker, New York. That was it. Mr. Adams! Bless my soul, sir! you are ill! Jove! I hope you haven’t got the fever!” cried La Motte, who, in returning the pamphlet to Valdimir, was shocked to perceive the extreme agitation of the young man.

“No, no, no! go on!” exclaimed the latter, urgently.

“Yes, but see here, you know! This is not agoing to do! You are shaking like an ague! It always comes on with an ague! Let me try to get out to the next door and have the people send for the doctor for you! I could do that much for the man who has nursed me through my illness,” remonstrated La Motte.

“No, no, no! I assure you I am not ill, or in danger of being ill—in body, at least! It is the surprise—the shock! You must know that Mr. Coyle of Caveland is an old and intimate friend of my family,” said Valdimir, feeling that some explanation of his emotion must be made before La Motte could be induced to go on with his story.

“Oh, ah—indeed—yes. By Jove, though, it looks like a good many of your friends got mixed up in the life and adventures of Johnnie Sims,” said La Motte.

“A good many _did_,” Valdimir acknowledged.

“Which, of course, accounts for your anxiety to get hold of his confession! All right.”

“And now will you go on with the narrative, Mr. La Motte?”

“Of course I will. Well, Sims presented his letters of credit—both social and financial—and they were all equally honored. It must have been fun for the rogue, however, to have Mr. Donald Coyle go with him to the banker’s on whom his bills of exchange were drawn, to identify him as Captain Valdimir Desparde—for, of course, sir, as I told you before, Sims first of all presented his letter of introduction from Mr. Coyle of Caveland to Mr. Donald Coyle of Wall street, who received his brother’s young friend with the greatest cordiality, and offered every service in his power—the hospitality of his home, among other favors.”

As La Motte spoke, day seemed to be dawning in the long, dark night of the young exile’s despair, and to grow lighter and brighter with every moment and every word.

“Well, Mr. Adams, John Sims, ‘Captain Desparde,’ as he called himself, became a frequent visitor at Mr. Donald Coyle’s house. That gentleman had ‘one fair daughter and no more.’ Why should we tell the story that is as old as that of Eve and the serpent? The dark, brilliant Creole fell in love with the fair English girl, or with her fortune, or with both. He wooed her very much as another dark gentleman wooed his love—by telling her hair-raising, blood curding, marrow-freezing stories, and making himself the hero of them all! He told her romances about his maternal grandfather, the Polish Prince Valdimir Zarinski, and himself in the fights for freedom—

‘Where they all, side by side, had striven And o’er the dead their coursers driven,’

until the girl’s head was turned completely, and she reciprocated his passion, and gave him leave to ‘speak to pa.’ Mr. Coyle made no serious objection to the marriage, but some little difficulty about the settlements, requiring also to see some authenticated statements of Captain Desparde’s estate, or prospects, or means of supporting a wife, outside of his pay in the army, which the old man declared to be insufficient—difficulties which the impatient young couple cut short by an elopement!”

“So this John Sims really married a Miss Coyle?” said Valdimir Desparde, “with the sigh of a great deliverance.”

“Yes, he actually married a Miss Coyle! Poor, unfortunate girl! After the runaway marriage the young couple went to the old man to ask forgiveness. They were too late! The shock of his daughter’s elopement, coming upon top of other severe troubles, was too much for the father to bear. They brought on a fit of apoplexy of which he died.”

“That must have been a terrible blow to the erring daughter,” said Valdimir.

“Yes, I should think so. To run away and get married, and come immediately back to ask forgiveness, and to find her father dead! It was the first of a series of severe penances she had to pay for her mad and fatal act!”

“You spoke of other troubles that had affected Mr. Donald Coyle,” said Valdimir.

“Ah, yes! But they were not known or suspected while he lived. After his death it was discovered that he was utterly insolvent! His creditors seized everything—house, furniture, clothing. His daughter was left penniless. When she had got over the first excesses of her grief and remorse, she explained to her husband that although her father’s fortune was gone, yet she was the sole heiress of her uncle, Mr. Christopher Coyle, of Caveland, who would have taken care of her if she had not been married, and she even proposed to Sims to take her over to visit this uncle. But, of course, Sims would as soon have jumped into the fire. For to have gone to Caveland, where the _real_ Captain Desparde was well known, would have been to expose himself as an impostor and subject himself to arrest and prosecution. He was even afraid to remain in New York lest some traveling Englishman who knew Captain Desparde should discover him to be a fraud. He left the city with his young wife, and for the next six years they traveled from city to city throughout the civilized world, where he sometimes went by one name and sometimes by another, for he lived by gambling, swindling, and—stealing. At last, after six years of such adventure, he fetched up at Washington City, where he took rooms at a good hotel, and registered himself and party as ‘Captain Desparde, wife, and two children.’ Here he gambled, and won money, and lived in style, though not in the best company, for he was known as a gambler, and suspected as an adventurer.”

“It was there, I have heard, that his Nemesis met him,” said Valdimir.

“Yes, sir; it was in Washington City that his Nemesis met him, in the form of our member from his master’s district. I told you the fellow had a strain of idiocy or mania in him; if he had not had would he ever have ventured to go to Washington City, where it was at least _possible_ that some Southerner who had known him as a boy might meet and recognize him as a fugitive slave?”

“Perhaps his many years’ immunity from suspicion or arrest had made him reckless. Perhaps also he placed too much confidence in the change of his personal appearance,” suggested Valdimir.

“It may have been so, sir. But as to the change in his personal appearance—to be sure, he had grown taller and stouter—but a remarkable face like his retains its character always, and can never be forgotten, or fail to be recognized. This was really what happened to him in Washington. Our member met him at the faro-table and recognized him at once—having known Johnnie from childhood up to his thirteenth year, and seen him almost daily in the interim—and what is more, he saw that Sims had also recognized him, and trembled. But mark you, sir, how well our member—Mr. Dubourg—acted his part. He gave no sign of recognition, but treated ‘Captain Desparde’ with all the respect he would have paid to any other gentleman whom he had socially met. But mark you again! That very night a letter went off to Louisiana to warn Mr. Eugene Millerue that his fugitive slave, John Sims, was then in Washington, and a detective was employed by Dubourg in the interests of his friend, to keep sight of ‘Captain Desparde!’”

“Who fled, of course.”

“Oh, you may safely swear that! He was not deceived by the fair politeness of his master’s old neighbor, whom he knew so well. He was not thrown off his guard by bows and smiles. He stood ‘not on the order of’ _his_ going, but went ‘at once.’ He left wife and children behind him, and started for New York that night, probably intending to catch a steamer for Liverpool. However, fate, or his luck, had turned, or something was amiss with his destinies. On the train he was taken suddenly ill—so ill, that when it reached the Baltimore station he had to be lifted from the cars and conveyed to a hospital, followed by the detective, in plain clothes, who had ‘shadowed’ him from Washington. He was virtually a prisoner from that moment. He was very ill with malarial fever for three weeks, watched over by the detective, who remained in the neighborhood, in the pay of Dubourg, and visited the patient every day as a friend. His wife was not notified of his condition. The man himself did not desire it. He was flying for freedom, or intending to do so, as soon as he should be able to go, and he could not be encumbered with wife or children, so he did not ask that she should be told of his illness. Nor did Mr. Dubourg think it at all proper that anything should be said to her on the subject. He had seen her at the hotel. He told all about it when he got home. He had seen that she was well educated and lady-like, and was told that she was English by birth. He believed that she had been trepanned into this degrading marriage, and he judged, under the circumstances, that the sooner she lost all trace of this man the better it would be for herself and her unfortunate children. So he would not have her notified of that which was known only to himself and the detective.”

“It was a difficult question to decide,” said Valdimir.

“It would be to _you_, sir, but it was not to him. He considered the marriage unnatural and monstrous, and the lady a victim of a hideous wrong! Well, sir, at the end of four weeks, just when John Sims was preparing to renew his flight, officers sent by his master arrived at Baltimore, armed with authority to arrest John Sims, alias Valdimir Desparde, as a fugitive slave, and convey him back to Louisiana. Oh! but there was a desperate scene!”

“It must have been,” assented Desparde.

“Why, Mr. Adams, he utterly denied that he was John Sims, or a slave, or a native of Louisiana; claimed that he was a gentleman, descended from Polish princes and English nobles, an officer in the British army and then on his travels through the United States; said that he had never heard of John Sims or of Mr. Eugene Millerue in his life! He threatened the officers with prosecution for false arrest; threatened the authorities with the interference of the British minister; threatened the country with a war with England for the audacity of attempting to enslave a British subject! Talked like an outraged prince!”

“All of which was to be expected,” said Valdimir.

“But all of which was in vain,” continued La Motte. “Mr. Millerue had sent men who were able to identify Sims to the satisfaction of the State authorities, and he was delivered over to the officers. Then a very cruel scene ensued. Feeble as the man was from his long illness, he made a desperate resistance and was only overpowered by main force, and then handcuffed like a criminal and taken away.”

“Sims was a lawless adventurer, no doubt; but it was not upon _that_ account he was taken, but on account of his being a fugitive slave, which makes all this seem very terrible to me—an Englishman,” said Valdimir.

“No doubt it does, sir.”

“Excuse me for interrupting you. Pray proceed.”

“Well, Mr. Adams, they took Sims back to Louisiana and lodged him in jail in New Orleans, where—he being more dead than alive—they took off his handcuffs, and they sent for his master, Mr. Eugene Millerue. And now, sir, comes the most revolting part of the story.”

“The murder,” muttered Valdimir.

“Yes, sir, the murder. It happened in this way: Mr. Eugene Millerue came up from the plantation to take his slave, whom he found ill on a pallet in the prison-cell at New Orleans. He stood over him, pitiless, cruel, sneering. He taunted him with his assumed position and his real one; asked him how a fine gentleman of his epicurean habits could reconcile himself to labor in the cotton fields under a slave-driver. Now, Mr. Adams, I should explain here that the turnkey who had opened the cell, and who stood within the door, was the eye and ear witness to this interview.”

“Yes, go on.”

“Well, sir, Sims was silent, sullen, and immovable. Then the master asked other taunting and exasperating questions of the fallen and humiliated wretch, whose only refuge was in continued silence. Eugene Millerue, I must say it, had the temper of a demon! He was determined to make Sims speak, and finally he threatened the man with the _lash_! Then Sims suddenly raised himself from his pallet in a sitting position, and looked around as if in search of some weapon, but saw none. Millerue, who seemed to divine his thoughts, laughed scornfully as he repeated that the overseer’s whip should soon reduce him to submission. Then it was that Sims spoke for the first time and said:

“‘Who dares to degrade me with a blow shall die for it!’

“‘Ah, indeed! Is it so?’ Millerue retorted, and raising the riding-whip he carried in his hand, he brought it down across the face of Sims with a sharp force that laid the flesh open.

“Then, with the strength and swiftness of frenzy, Sims sprang from his pallet, seized the heavy stone pitcher of water that stood by his side and struck it down upon his master’s head with a mighty force that crushed in the skull and laid him lifeless on the floor! It was the spasmodic effort of a man goaded to madness! When the sudden deed was done, the murderer reeled back and fell upon his pallet in a swoon. All this was the work of an instant, done and over before the turnkey could spring into the cell and cock his pistol!”

“_Oh, horrible!_” muttered Valdimir Desparde, covering his eyes as if to shut out the vision.

“Well, sir, the alarm was given! The whole place was in arms! The still swooning quadroon was handcuffed and carried to a stronger cell in the ‘murderers’ row.’ The body of Millerue was conveyed to the warden’s office and the coroner was summoned. You know what followed! Sims was brought to trial, convicted and executed for the murder of his master.”

“And—the unfortunate wife and children?” inquired Valdimir.

“I thought I had told you of their fate, sir. Soon after they were left destitute by the attempted flight of Sims, they were turned out of their hotel, and their luggage seized for arrears of board. By the sale of her few remaining jewels the unhappy wife sustained herself and children for a little while in cheap lodgings; but the news of her husband’s real position and tragic fate reached her through the newspapers and gave her her death-blow. She fell into extreme illness and utter destitution. Then it was that her attending physician, I think at her request, wrote over to old Mr. Coyle of Caveland, who within a month after came in person to the rescue of his niece, made her comfortable while she lived, and after her death, took her boy and girl back with him to England.”