LIBRARY ANNEX 2 CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY Cornell University Library PS 2848.C3 The Casslque of Klawaha colonial romanc 3 1924 022 164 820 Cornell University Library The original of tliis book is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/cletails/cu31924022164820 WORKS OF WlLLIi\M GILMORE SIMMS. Uniform Edition, 12mo. Illustrated by Barley. PRICE $1.35 EACH. REVOLUTIONARY TALES. 1.— THE PAETISAN. A ROWtANCE OF THE REVOLUTION II.— MELLICHAMPE ; A LEGEND OF THE SANTEE. m.— KATHARINE "WALTON, or, THE REBEL OF DOR CHESTER. IV.— THE SCOUT; or, THE BLACK RIDERS OF THE CON GAEEE. v.— WOODCRAFT; ok, THE HAWKS ABOUT THE DOVE COTE. VI.— THE FOEAYERS; oe, THE RAID OF THE DOG-DATS. VII.— EUTAW. A SEQUEL TO THE FORAYERS. BORDER ROMANCES OF THE SOUTH. Vni.— GUY RIVERS. A TALE OF GEORGIA. IX.— RICHARD HURDIS. A TALE OF ALABAMA. X.— BORDER BEAGLES. A TALE OF MISSISSIPPI. XI.— CHARLEMONT. A TALE OF KENTUCKY. XII.— BEAUCHAMPE; or, THE KENTUCKY TRAGEDY. XIII.— CONFESSION; or, THE BLIND HEART. XIV.— THE CASSIQUE OF KIAWAH. A COLONIAL TALE. XV.— THE YEMASSEE. A ROMANCE OF SOUTH CAROLINA XVI.— SOUTHWARD, HO ! A SPELL OF SUNSHINE. XVII.— THE WIGWAM AND CABIN. XVIII.— VASCONSELOS. A ROMANCE OF THE NEW WORLD XIX.-XX.— POEMS — DESCRIPTIVE, DRAMATIC, LEGENDARY AND CONTEMPLATIVE. With a Portrait on Steel. 2 volumes 12mo. cloth. Price $2 50. ^^.ii^^r^^-:Sos> THE CASSIQUE OF KIAWAH COLONIAL ROMANCE By WILLIAM GILMORE SIMMS, Esq. ADTHOK OF " THE TEMASSEE" — " THE PARTISAN" — " GUY EIVERs" " scout" — " CHAKLEMONT" — " TASCONSELOS" — ETC., ETC. ^I pray you let us satisfy our eyes, With the memorials, and the things of fains That do renown rmr city." SnAKMPiABK REDFIBLD 34BEEKMAN STREET, NEW YORK Entered, according to Act of Cnngn-ss, in th'^ year 1859, IJv J. ri. REDFJELD. in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the Uiiiti'd States, for the Southern Districf. of Knw Votit. 5 ^3 >AVAGK &. MOCKKA, S T KREOTYPERS, 13 Clinniliers Street. N Y. TO HON. W. POECHER MILES, M. G. FRIEND ! who satt'st beside me in the hour When Death was at mj' hearth ; and in my home The mother's cry of wailing for {hat doom, Long hovering, which, at last, with fatal power Descended, like the vulture on his prey. And in his talons bore away our young ! — Thou know'st how terribly this heart was wrung : Thou cam'st with watch and soothing, night and day. No brother more devoted ! — More than friend, Belov6d evermore, — behold me thine ! — Yet have I little worthy that is mine. Save love, and this poor tribute; which must blend With memories of thy watch, and of our pain, And of those precious boys, we both have watched in vain I W. GiLMOKE SiMMS. Woodlands, S. C, April 2, 1859. THE CASSIQUE OF KIAWAH. CHAPTER I. SCENE OP ACTION. " Away ! away 1 Once more his eyes shall hail the welcome day ; Once more the happy shores without a law." — ^Bteon. Suppose the day to be a fine one — calm, placid, and without a cloud — even such a day as frequently comes to cheer us in the benign and bud-compelling month of April ; — suppose the seas to be smooth ; at rest, and slumbering without emotion ; with a fair bosom gently heaving, and sending up only happy murmurs, like an infant's after a late passion of tears ; suppose the hour to be a little after the turn of noon, when, in April, the sun, only gently soliciting, forbears all ardency ; sweetly smiles and softly embraces ; and, though loving enough for comfort, is not so op- pressive in his. attachments as to prompt the prayer for an iceberg upon which to couch ourselves for his future communion ; sup- posing all these supposes, dear reader, then the voyager, running close in for the land — whose fortune it is to traverse that portion of the Atlantic which breaks along the shores of Georgia and the Carolinas — beholds a scene of beauty in repose, such as will be very apt to make him forgetful of all the dangers he has passed ! We shall say nothing of the same region, defaced by strifes of 1* 10 THK CASSIQDE OF KIAWAH. Storm arid billow, and blackened by the deluging vans of the equinox. " Wherefore tax the past, For memories of sorrow ? wherefore askjy Of the dark Future, what she grimly keeps Of terrors in reserve 1" Enough for us that the Present holds for us delicious compensa- tion ; that the moment is our own, exclusively for beauty ; — that the charm of the prospect before us is beyond question ; at once prompting the desire to describe, yet baffling all powers of description. Yet why describe ? — since, as Byron deplores — " Every fool describes in these bright days.'' And yet, the ' scene is so peculiar, so individual, so utterly unlike that kind of scenery from which the traveller usually extorts his inspiration, that something need be said to make us understand the sources of beauty in a region which so completely lacks in saliency, in elevated outlines, in grand mountainous masses, rug- ged defiles, and headlong cataracts. Here are none of these. All that you behold — sea, and forest-waste, and shore — all lies level before you. As you see, the very waters do not heave themselves into giant forms, wear no angry crests, leap up with no threatening voices, how'l forth nothing of their secret rages ! We reject, at this moment, all the usual adjuncts which make ocean awful and sublime ; those only excepted which harbor in its magnitude, its solemn sterility of waste, its deep mysterious murmurs, that speak to us ever of eternity, even when they speak in the lowest and most musical of their tones. In what, then, consists the beauty of the scene? Let us ex- plain, and catalogue, at least, where we may not be able to de- scribe. You are aware, dear readers, that you may set forth, on a periagua, or, if you like it better, a sloop, a schooner, or a trim little steamer; and, leaving the shores of Virginia, make your way along those of the Carolinas and Georgia, to Florida, almost entirely landlocked the whole voyage ; all along these shores, the billows of the sea, meeting with the descending rivers, have thrown up barrier islands and islets, that fence in the main from its own invasions. Here are guardian terraces of green, cov- SCJKNK OK AC:TU)N. H ered with dense forests, that rise like marshalled legions along the very margins of the deep. Here are naked sand-dunes, closing avenues between, upon which you may easily fancy that the fairies gamb(i in the moonlight. Some are sprinkled with our southern palm-tree, the palmetto ; others completely covered with this modest growth ; others again with oak, and pine, and cypress ; and there ax-e still others, whose deep, dense, capacious forests harbor the red deer in abundance; and, skirting many of these islets, are others in process of formation ; long stripes of marsh, whose perpetual green, contrasting, yet assimilating beau- tifully with the glare of sunlight on the sea, so relieves the eye with a sense of sweetness, beauty, freshness, and repose, that you never ask yourself the idle question, of what profit this marsh — its green that bears neither fruits nor flowers — its plumage that brings uo grateful odor — its growth without market value ? Enough, you say or feel, that, in the regions where you find it, it is a beauty and delight. And so, you navigate your bark through avenues of sea be- tween these islets and the main ; through winding channels where the seas lie subdued, their crests under curb, and resting in beds of green and solitude, only tenanted by simple herds of deer, or by -wandering pilgrims of the crane, the curlew, the pelican and duck. Beyond, the great ocean plain stretches wide and far ; and even when it rolls in storm, and its billows break in fury along the islet shores, not half a mile away — all here 'is safe ! On either hand, the sheltering nook* invites your prow ; quiet harbors open for your reception, and ofiTer security. Here, the creek that creeps like a shining serpent through banks of green ; here, the bay that has been scooped out in a half circle, as if purposely to persuade you to harborage — are both present, affording ref- uge ; the great oaks grow close down by the ocean's side, and hang over with such massive shadows, that you see the bath and the boudoir together. You have but to plunge in, and no Naiad takes offence ; and, lifting yourself to the shores by the help of that great branch that stretches above the water, there you may resume your fig-leaves with impunity, assured that no prudish eyes have been shocked by your eccentric exhibitions of a nude Apollo ! 1:2 THE CASSIQDE OF KIAWAH. •■ There is a wondrous charm in this exquisite blending of land and water scape. It appeals very sweetly to the sympathies, and ■does not the less excite the imagination because lacking in irreg- ular fonns and stupendous elevations. Nay, vlt are inclined to think that it touches more sweetly the simply human sensibil- ities. It does not overawe. It solicits, it soothes, beguiles ; wins upon us the more we see ; fascinates the more we entertain ; and more fully compensates than the study of the bald, the wild, the abrupt and stern, which constitute so largely the elements in that scenery upon which we expend most of our superlatives. Glide through these mysterious avenues of islet, and marsh, and ocean, at early morning, or at evening, when the summer sun is about to subdue himself in the western waters ; or at midnight, when the moon wins her slow way, with wan, sweet smile, hallowing the hour ; and the charm is complete. It is then that the elements all seem to harmonize for beauty. The plain of ocean is spread out, far as the eye can range, circumscribed only by the blue walls of Heaven, and watched by starry eyes, its little billows breaking with loving murmur upon the islet shores — these, silvery light, as swept for fairy footsteps, or, glowing in green, as if roofed for loving hearts ; trees, flowers, fragrance, smiling waters, and deli- cious breezes, that have hurried from the rugged shores of the Cuban, or the gradual slopes of Texas ; or farther yet, from still more beautiful gardens of the South, where Death himself never comes but wrapped in fragrance and loveliness : — ^look where yon will, 01- as you will, and they unite for your conquest ; and you grow meek, yet hopeful ; excited, yet satisfied ; forgetful of com- mon cares ; lifted above ordinary emotions ; and, if your heart be still a young one, easily persuaded to believe that the world is as full of bliss as of beauty, and that Love may readily find a covert, in thousands of sweet places of refuge, which God's blessing shall convert into happiest homes. Go through these sweet, silent, mysterious avenues of sea and islet, green plain, and shelterino- thicket, under the prescribed conditions, at early morninf or toward the sunset, or the midnight hour, and the holy sweetness of the scene will sink into your very soul, and soften it to love and blessing, even as the dews of heaven steal, in the night time, to the bosom of the thirsting plant, and animate it to new develop- ments of fruitfulness and beauty. SCENE OP ACTION. 13 And the scenery of the main partakes of the same character, with but the difference of foliage. It spreads upward into the interior, for near a hundred miles, a vast plain, with few inequal- ities of surface, but wondrously wooded. If, on the one hand, the islets, marshes, and savannahs, make an empire of sweetness and beauty; not less winning are the evergreen varieties that checker the face of the country on the other. Here are tracts of the noble live oak, of the gigantic pine, of the ghostly cypress ; groves of each that occupy their several provinces, indicating as many vari- eties of soil. Amid these are the crowned laurel, stately as a forest monarch, the bay, the beech, the poplar, and the mulberiy, not to speak of thousands besides, distinguished either from their use or beauty ; and in the shade of these the dogwood flaunts in virgin white ; and the lascivious jessamine wantons over their tops in sensuous twines, filling the air with fragrance ; and the grape hangs aloft her purple clusters, which she trains over branches not her own, making the oak and the hickory sustain those fruits which they never bear ! And so, in brief transition, you pass from mighty colonnades of open woods to dense thickets which the black bear may scarcely penetrate. At the time of which we propose to write, he is one of the denizens of these regions ; here, too, the panther still lurks, watching the sheepfold or the deer ! Here the beaver builds his formidable dams in the solitude of the swamp, and the wolf and the fox find their habitations safe. The streams are full of fish, the forests of prey, the whole region a wild empire in which the redman still winds his way, hardly conscious of his white superior, though he already begins to feel the cruel moral presence, in the instinctive apprehensions of his progress. And birds, in vast vari- eties, and reptiles of the ground, " startlingly beautiful," are ten- ants still of these virgin solitudes. The great sea-eagle, the fal- con, the vulture ; these brood in the mighty tree-tops, and soar as masters of the air; the wild goose and duck lead their young along the sedgy basins ; the cormorant and the gull scream across the waters from the marshy islets ; and are answered, with cooing murmurs, from myriads of doves that brood at noon in the deep covert of bristly pines. The mock-bird, with his various melodies, a feathered satirist, who can, however, forget his sarcasm in his passion ; the red-bird and the nonpareil, with softer and simplfr 14 THE CASSrgUE OP KIAWAH. notes, which may be merry as well as tender, but are never scorn- ful; the humming-bird, that rare sucker of sweets — himself a flower of the air, — pioneer of the fairies — that finds out the best flowers ere they come, and rifles them in advance ; and — but enough. Very beautiful, dear friends, to the eye that can see, the susceptible heart, and the thoughtful, meditative mind, is the beautiful but peculiar province to which we now invite your footsteps. But, as we can not behold all this various world at once, let us . persuade you to one fair locality, which you will find to contain, in little, all that we have shown you in sweeping generalities. You will suppose yourselves upon a well-wooded headland, crowned with live oaks, which looks out upon a quiet bay, at nearly equal distances between the waters of the Edisto and the Ashley, in the province of South Carolina. The islets spread between you and the sea, ev€n as we have described them. There are winding ways through which you may stretch your sail, without impediment, into the great Atlantic. There are lovely isles upon which you may pitch your tents, and take your prey, while the great billows roll in at your very feet, and the great green tree shelters you, all the while, from the sharp arrows of the sun. You look directly down upon what, at the first glance, would seem a lake : the lands appear to enclose it on every hand ; but there is a difference, you see, in the shade of yonder trees, from those on the islet just before us, which is due to the fact that an arm of the sea is thrust between ; and here, on the other hand, there are similar differences which denote a similar cause. But our lake, or bay, is none the less sheltered or secure, because it maintains such close connection with the mighty deeps. Faintly afar, you may note, on the south and west, that there are still other islets, keeping up a linked line with that which spreads in front, and helping to form that unbroken chain, which, as 1 have told you, spreads along the coast from the capes of Virginia to those of the Floridian. The territory of the Floridiau is under its old Spanish master still ; an ugly neighbor of our amiable English, who tenant, in feeble colonies, these sylvan realms upon the verge of which we stand. The period, I may mention here, is the year of Grace (Grace be with us !) one thousand, six hun- dred and eighty-four. Our English colonies of Carolina are less SCKNK UK ACTION. 16 than thirty years old, and their growth has been a slow one. The country is still, in great degree, a solitude ! The day — an April day — is one of those which good old Herbert so happily describes, by its moral aspect, as " A bridal of the earth and sky.'' In truth, it is very sweet and beautiful, repose its prevailing fea- ture — repose upon land and sea ; a smiling Peace, sitting in sun- shine in the heavens ; a healthy, life-giving breeze gushing up from the ocean, in the southwest, and making all the trees along the shore nod welcome and satisfaction to the river ; and new blossoms everywhere upon the land; all significant of that virgin birth which the maternal summer is about to receive from a prohflc spring, which God has hallowed for the uses of Humanity. We muse as we look, and say, with the poet — " Here all but the spirit of man is divine." And, as yet, we may venture to say that the spirit of man is hardly so corrupt here — hardly so incongenial with earth's vege- table offspring — as greatly to shock by the contrast. Man — the white man at all events — is hardly here in sufficient numbers, massed and in perpetual conflict, to be wholly/ insensible to the modest moral which is taught by nature. No doubt we sliall have enough of him in time. No doubt we shall be forced to behold him in all his most dark and damning colors, such as shadow the fairest aspects of his superior civilization. But he is not yet here in sufficient force or security to become insolent in his vice or passion. " But the red man," say you. " He is here." Ay, there are his scattered tribes — they are everywhere ; but feeble in all their numbers. , He is a savage, true ; but savage, let me tell you — and the distinction is an important one, arguing ignorance, not will — savage rather in his simplicity than in his corruptions. His brutality is rather that of barbarism than vice. He wanders through these woods at seasons; here fishing to-day — to-morrow, gone, leaving no trace ; gone in pursuit of herds which he has probably routed from old pasturages along these very waters. For a hundred miles above, there rove the tribes of the Stono and the Isundiga, the Edisto and the Seewee, the Kiawah, and the 16 THE CASSIQUE OP KIAWAH. Ashepoo, all tributaries of the great nation of the Yemassee. You ■will wander for weeks, yet meet not a man of them ; yet, in the twinkling of an eye, when you least fancy them, when you dream yourself in possession of an unbroken solitude, they will spring up beside the path, and challenge your attention by a guttural, which may seem to you a welcome ; or by a cri de guerre, which shall certainly appear to you the whoop of death ! But, at this moment, the solitude seems intact. There are no red men here. The very silence — so deepi is the solitude — seems to have a sound ; and, brooding long on these headlands without a companion, you will surely hear some voice speaking to all your senses — perhaps many voices ; especially if you do not use your own. Your ears, that hunger naturally for human sounds, will finally make them for themselves. Nay, you will shout aloud, in your desperation, if only in search of echoes. And, as if the better to satisfy us of the wondrous means of shelter and security in this world of thicket and seclusion — add- ing to the natural picturesque that of the moral — even as we fancy this realm of solitude to be unbroken, there is a sound ! There are strokes of the paddle ; there are human voices. A canoe shoots out from the thickets to the east. It emerges from a creek, which opens so modestly upon the bay that the entrance to it remains unseen. The vessel is of cypress, one of those little " dug-outs," which the red men scooped for themselves with shells, after having first charred with fire those portions of the timber which they designed to remove. It skims over the waters like an eggshell, carrying three persons as lightly as if it had no freight. Two of them, one a man, the other a boy, work at the paddles — not oars ; the instrument is a short one, working close at the side of the boat, even as the sea-fowl uses her feet. The third, a man also, gray with years, sits at the stern, his head hang- ing forward, his eyes brooding on the bottom of the canoe. They are all red men. He at the stem is evidently a chief. He wears a sort of coronal of feathers, and a gay crimson coat, hunting-shirt fashion, with yellow fringes, evidently the manufacture of the white man. There is a belt across his shoulders, from which hangs the tomahawk ; another about his waist, which secures his knife ; his right hand grasps bow and arrows, though the former remains nnbont. and the latter lie bundled tocrether innocuous in SCENE OF ACTION. 17 their rattlesnake quiver. The man who paddles is a common Indian, one of the vileins, of poor costume and mean aspect. The boy is habited somewhat like the chief, with crimson hunting-shirt, and belt about the waist, but he carries neither knife nor toma- hawk. A bow and ai-rows suited to his youth lie behind him at the bottom of the boat. He may use them at yonder turn of the bay, where you see a little flock of English ducks plying their beaks along the sedgy shallows. The canoe passes out of sight, winding through the sinuous passages of yonder marsh ; and for a moment the silence resumes its sway along the shores. But, almost as soon as they disappear, another party comes upon the scene. And he is a white man. He glides down to the headlands, looking out upon the bay, from the deep shelter of the thicket on our left. From this covert he has watched the progress of the canoe ; and there were moments when it swept so closely to bis place of watch, that it would have been easy, in the case of one so litbe and vigorous of frame, to have leaped into it at a single bound. The stranger might be thirty-five or forty ; a hale, fresh-look- ing Saxon, with a frank, manly face, bronzed rather darkly by our southern sun, but distinguished only by traits of health. His face is somewhat spoiled for beauty by an ugly scar upon one cheek. He is armed with knife and pistols, which he carries in his girdle. His dress is that of the sailor, loose duck trowsers, a round-jacket, a hat of coarse straw with broad blue ribbons round it, in which sticks an earthen pipe of some bulk, with a stem of Carolina cane. In his hand he carries a ship's spyglass, which seems to have done service. Following the " dug-out' of the red men with keen eyes as they sped, he continued to trace their progress with the glass until they were wholly covered from sight by the dense marshes of the creek. Then, thrusting his glass beneath his arm, he turned away, making a sort of moody march along the shore. " Blast the red rascals," quoth he musingly, " I can make noth- ing of them. That creek leads out to the sea. But there are islands they can stop at, and I suppose mean to do so. There is Kiawah, and a dozen more, that they may work up to in such a light-going craft. Well, we may look for a plenty of 'em soon, 18 THE CASSiyUE OF KIAWAH, now that fish begin to bite. But I want to be off before they come. I've no belief in the redskins anyhow, and want to keep my own skin sound. Don't want to be stuck full of arrows; don't want to be fried alive in pitch-pine. A Spanish dance rather, with a score of pikes at the rear, to keep one in motion where there 's no music !" And the sturdy Englishman, for he was a genuine John Bull and of a good order, took the pipe from his hat-band, replenished the mill from his pocket, kindled his tinder, and throwing himself down in a thicket, proceeded to smoke, taking out his pipe occa- sionally to soliloquize. We gather up some of his random talks, as they may help us in our own progress in this veracious history. "No, I've no faith in these redskins. They're at peace, they Say. Oh yes ! and will smoke any quantity of tobacco in their calumets, making their treaties and putting away their presents. But it's a sort of peace that don't pay for the parchment. Just so long as the colony's strong enough to lick 'em, and no longer, will they keep the promise. It's only when they see that they can 't outnumber you — when they can count a bagnet for every bow — that they've any Christian bowels for peace. I wonder what chance I'd have here, in this lonesome spot, if these three redskins now had come upon me napping. Wouldn't they have been working in my wool, without saying ' By your leave, brother" ? The red devils! call them human? I'd as soon trust a monkey, or a sucking tiger, in the matter of human bowels and affec- tion !" And the soliloquist lapsed away, after this speech, into that dreamy sort of condition, which tobacco is so well calculated to inspire, in which the mind is rather disposed to play than work, or, at all events, in which it rather broods than cogitates. His pipe exhausted, he rose, emptied the bowl of its ashes, stuck the stem into his hat-band, braced his leather girdle closer to his waist by a notch, and, after a long gaze out upon the sea, saun- tered away slowly into thicker woods. As we follow him, we see that he makes his way through a sort of labyrinth. Such thickets afford at all times a temporary cover ; but he so wound about in the present instance, took up so many clues, and made such circuits, that, did we not follow him so SCENE OP ACTION. 19 closely, we should never, of ourselves, be able to track his prog- ress to his fastness. Tkis lies in a still deeper thicket which stretches down to a creek. Here he has a den which a bear might select, fenced in by a close shrubbery, overshadowed by great trees, vines inter- lacing them, and, as it were, wrapping them up into a mass which never allowed a sunbeam to penetrate. Art has done something to make the place snug enough for shelter from the weather. There is a rude hut of poles, covered with bark ; within it, there is a box, an iron pot, a gridiron, and a jug. An old tarpaulin hat and coat hang from the same branches. There is a light "shot- gun in a cypress hollow ; and, from all you see, you conclude that our solitary has arranged for an abode that seems destined for continuance awhile, and has been in use perhaps a month or two already. From this cabin he detaches hooks, line, and tackle, for fishing, and takes his way down to the creek. There, snug in close har- bor, lies a skiff, of European build, light enough for a damsel to manage. He embarks, glides down the stream, finds his way into the bay already described, and, crossing toward a recess made by the projection of two arms of the marsh, proceeds to anchor and to cast his line. The position he has chosen is one to render him safe from any shaft or shot from the shore ; and we must not for- get to mention that his light gun lies convenient across the thwarts of the boat. Satisfied that he has taken all due precautions, he yields himself eagerly to the sport before him. He may have been thus engaged for more than an hour, when he started up suddenly, and his whole countenance assumed an expression of intense interest. A dull, heavy sound was heard reverberating along the waters. " A shot !" he cries, " and from a brazen muzzle.'' His line is instantly drawn in — his anchor. He no longer heeds the fish. He has had some sport. There are twenty shining sides that glisten at the bottom of the boat. There are sundry innocent victims that seem very much out of their proper depths of water and security. But, now, he gives them neither eye nor thought. His lines are in, his paddles out ; his lusty sin- ews are braced to eager exertion. He speeds once more across the bay, passes up his creek of harborage, fastens his skiff to the 20 THE CASSIQUB OP KIAWAH. shore under close cover, leaps out, leaves his fish behind him, and, catching up glass and gun, hastens once more to the headland where we first encountered him. , "'Tis she!" he exclaims, after sweeping the southwest passage with his glass. "'Tis the ' Happy-go-Lucky' at last. Thank God ! I'm sick enough of this waiting. Following his glance, we see the object which occasions his de- light. A small vessel glides through the distant channels. Now we catch a glimpse of her whole figure ; a low long brigantine, that seems to carry admirable heels. The next moment, her white sails and slender masts only gleam above the sand dunes and the marsh. Now she disappears behind a forest ; and anon emerge?, running by a sand dune. Our solitary runs up a tree that' juts out appropriately on the headland. He seems to have used it before for such a purpose. He climbs like a cat ; is evidently a sailor ; is up, aloft ; and, in a moment, a white streamer is seen waving from the tree ! The scene grows animated with a new life. There is no longer solitude. That one brave vessel, " walking the waters," is " a thing of life." How beautifully she comes on ! — seems rather to fly than to swim ; darts through the narrow channels, as if certain of her route ; and breaks into the bay, with all her canvass belly- ing out under the embraces of the western breeze, as if Cleopatra herself were on deck. And one, not unlike, and not less beautiful than Cleopatra, was on her deck at that moment. But of her hereafter. Our solitary shouts joyous from his tree. Well may he shout. It is with love that he shouts. She is his pet, his favorite ; he loves the gallant vessel, as if she were a bride. And she is a beautiful creature. Even in the sight of us sim- ple landsmen, who know nothing of her peculiar virtues, how she sails ; how she can eat into the very eye of the wind ; how clean are her heels ; how easy her motion ; what storms she has borne and baffled; what seas she has traversed; over what foes tri- umphed ; what wondrous ventures made ; — even to us she comes on as a beautiful creature, all ethereal — a thing of light, and life, and flight, and perpetual motion ! Her hull, long and nar- row; her tall, rakish masts; the vast spread of canvass which she c;iri-ie?. and the elaborate grace of her spars and motion thece SCENE OP ACTION. 21 Strike even the inexperienced eye, as in proof of her speed and beauty. She has a grace of her own ; but you see, too, that there are ,soul and skill in her management. You feel that there are courage and conduct ; that there is a master-spirit on board, who wills, and she walks ; who shouts, and she flies ; who will carry her forward when the seas are wildest, and train her on to the fearful- lest encounter with superior bulk, even as the swordfish darts to the encounter with the whale ! Even we simple landsmen can see and conceive all these things as we gaze on the beautiful creature, while she flings the feathery spray from her bows. But the eyes of the seaman glitter as he beholds, and there is a tear from those of the rough old salt, while ours do but smile. His heart is in it. She is the creature of his aifections. How he envies the happy chieftain who sways the movements of his painted' beauty. His glance follows every plunge which she makes through the pliant waters ;, and as she comes round upon the breeze, without a word or voice, and darts forward, as an arrow from the bow, straight for her harborage, he shouts — he can not help but shout. He can no longer keep silent : he shouts iis he glides down the tree, and rather drops from it than descends. " Hurrah ! God bless the Happy-go-Lucky ! hurrah ! hurrah !" The vessel makes her port. Our solitary is on the edge of the cove to which her prow is bent. He is there to catch the rope ere it touches earth, and hurry with it to the tree where he makes her fast. The bolts rattle, the sails descend, and, with scarce a ripple, she glides into the mouth of a little creek which has grate- fully felt her form before. Her masts mingle with the tall pines that brood over on either side, so that it shall take very keen and curious eyes to detect her presence. A voice, clear, sharp, and musical, is heard from her decks : — " Well, Jack Belcher, you see we have not forgotten you." The tones were affectionate. " God bless your honor, and your honor's honor ! May you live for ever, and die at last in the ' Happy-go-Lucky* ! All's well, your honor." 22 THE CASSIQUE OP KIAWAH. CHAPTER II. THE HAPPT-60-LUCKIES. ^'Touchstone. And whither with you now? What loose action are you bound fori Come! what comrades are you to meet withal ? Where's the supper 1 where 's the rendezvous V ■'■'■ Eastward Hoe. ^ " Quoth he" — the ancient Marinere — " quoth he, there ivas a ship !" But a more famous ship, in her day, than ever floated muse of Coleridge, was she, the " Happy-go-Lucky" of the Spanish seas and tlie year of graoe 1684. Of a remote period to ours, she was yet not very unlike in build, nor perhaps inferior in per- formance, to the famous Baltimore clippers of the present time. " Long, low, rakish," in her structure, she carries a clcrad of canvass, under which we have her seen leaping forward with an impulse which, in a heavier sea and under a livelier breeze, would have buried her bowsprit in a continual crush of foam. In the smooth waters of the bay beneath her, she glides like some graceful sear bird, exulting in the consciousness only of a pleasurable excite- ment. Yet, docile in her sports, she has only heai-d a shrill whistle, and almost silentl)' her white wings fol^ themselves up to her sides, and with scarce a ripple of the wave, and without far- ther effort of her own, she passes to her covert among the pines, and her masts are lost among their shady tops of green. She is a cruiser. You may guess that from her build, her world of canvass, her speed, her size, if not from the long brass cannon working upon a pivot amidships, and the six brass muz- zles that grin significantly with open jaws on either side. She has the capacity for mischief, clearly, whatever be her character. Gently rocking in the narrow lagune where she seeks her rest, it is permitted us to behold something more than her simple outlines. Her inhabitants now tumble into sight on every hand ; a goodly THK HAPPY-GO-LUCKIIOS. 23 number of vigorous sea-dogs — somewhat more numerous, it would >eem, than are absolutely necessary to the working of so small a craft. They constitute a crew, which, we may see at a glance, are to be relied upon when blows are heavy. There are scarred veterans among these fellows, motley enough — Enghsh, Irish, Dutch, French — an amalgam of nations, which, elsewhere, are rarely to be found working amicably together. Yet here, they seem fused, as by one strong presiding will, into a congruous com- munity. The most casual eye may detect each nationalr>haracter- istic, in shape, look, tone, gesture ; .yet here they blend together har- moniously, under a common authority.* They are docile enough, most of them — nay submissive ; yet there is a sort of freedom, too, amounting to a social license, which forbids the idea that either of these has sunk his individuality in his obedience to au- thority. You hear them laugh and jest together ; there are some who sing out aloud, as if to test the healthy capacity of voice and lungs ; and, not unfrequently, a broad, corpulent, aggressive Brit- ish oath breaks upon the ear, like the roar of a bulldog, from the lips of some surly islander, who fancies that unless he swears, and can hear himself and make others hear, he forfeits something of the natural independence of his breed. You see, next, that these fellows are all picked men. They are rough sea-dogs, no doubt, but sturdy, cool, hardy, stubborn ; ca- pable of good knocks ; giving and receiving ; who have been al- ready trained and tried in a severe apprenticeship. They are fit fellows for a cruiser with a roving commission. And such is that borne by the " Happy-go-Lucky." As we traverse the decks, we find proofs of a late visit to re- gions farther south. There are piles of West India fruits strewn about; pyramirls of orange, guava^and pine, secured in the net- tings around the guns, showing a more innocent species of artillery than belongs altogether to the other aspects of the ship. The " Happy-go-Lucky" has probably looked very lately into Jamaica and Barbadoes ; has had a squint at Porto Bello, a bird's-eye view of Havana; and may have enjoyed a loving wrestle with some of the good brigantines of these latter places, in which they have found more fruits than those which lie carelessly strewn on deck. Quien sahe ? But these piles of fruit implied, in the present case, neither 24 THE OASSIQUE OF KIAWAH. want of cleanliness nor confusion. In a twink, our cruiser will be cleared for action ; and, in the matter of cleanliness, never were decks kept under " Holy Stone" regimen more rigidly than hers. Her captain, be sure, is something of a martinet ; and the nice, trim condition of his ship would, we fancy,' have seemed a very idle object to the bluff, less fastidious sailors of the previous gen^ eration — the days of Van Tromp, and Drake, and Cavendish. It needs but a glance to assure yourself that our cruiser is under the management of one who is no mere sailor ; who brings some taste into exercise along with his duties ; who has grace as well as valor ; and can, doubtless, dance a galliard with courtly ease, in the very next hour after making the dons of Mexico foot it to the most vexatious sort of music. But let us see him more nearly. He is the same person who first welcomed our solitary, Jack Belcher, at the moment of their mutual recognition. The latter personage has bounded on board the vessel, the moment her sides grazed the shores, and we see that the hand of his superior is extended him, with a frank and hearty freedom that speaks quite as much for friendship as author- ity. Our solitary wrings it with warm affection. There is some love between the two, be sure. .The superior speaks good hu- moredly : " Well ! tired out. Jack, eh ?" " Tired enough, your honor — but only of the waiting, not of the work." "What! you'd rather be dancing fandangoes with the Cuban barefoots, eh?" And there was a momentary flash of merriment in the blue eyes of the speaker — but momentary only, for the next instant a cloud seemed to pass across his face. , This was a handsome one, of the genuine English mould ; per- haps, for manhood, the most beautiful of all living models. His features were all noble, decided, and symmetrical. The tout en- semble exhibited boldness, freedom, sensibility ; a prompt courage ; an eager temper ; a generous, though perhaps irritable mood. It was full of blood as Well as character ; big veins swelling on his forehead, while the sanguine temperament declared itself, in warm flushes, fhrough a skin somewhat deeply bronzed with the intense fervor of the tropical sun. He had the- light brown hair and blue eyes of the Saxon ; the great frame, large as well as vigorous ; THE HAPPY-GO-LUCKIES. 25 the erect carriage, the fearless look and demeanor of the Norman ; and just enough of tliought and care in the general expression of his face, as to lift the merely physical manhood into the dignity of intellect and authority. Some care sate upon his cheek, and might be guessed from the gradually growing lines about the mouth ; which was nevertheless distinguished equally by its youth and beauty. The broad and elevated brow, large but not massive ; the quick, intelligent, and frequent kindling of the eye, looMng out blue and lively ; but, like an April sky, subject to very sudden changes ; the prominent lioman nose ; the full, round chin ; sweetly expressive, yet very decisive mouth ; — all declared for characteristics, which, whether we regard the opinions of Lavater or Gall, impress us, through the features, with the conviction that we stand in the presence of a brave, manly soul, having truthful sympathies, and a will that must everywhere assert command. His person, as we have intimated, was framed in the very prod- igality of nature — tall of height, broad of shoulder, and equally athletic and symmetrical. He was probably thirty years old, may have been thirty-five ; but, if we make due allowance for the effects of care, strife, and authority, in situations of great responsi- bility, we shall be "more safe in assuming him to be no more than thirty. He was clad very simply in loose duck trowsers, and w^ore a sailor's jacket, but these were of very fine materials. His bosom was ruffled in fine linen, curiously embroidered ; a scarf of blue, worn loosely, and secured by the sailor-knot, was wrapped about his neck. A white Panama hat of ample rim and high conical crown, of the time of Charles the First, covered his head, and was encircled with a light-blue sash. He wore boots of 3'el- low tanned Spanish leather. A baldric of blue silk, hanging over his shoulders, contained a brace of pistols, of rather long barrel, wide mouth, and richly-wrought stocks, inlaid with silver. He carried, at this moment, no other weapons. Tou have the man before you, as he appears to us, shaking the hands of one whose approach, address, tone of voice, and general manner, show him to be a personal retainer, a faithful follower, an old long-tried friend, no less than a subordinate. " And so, Jack, you have had a taste of Ihe maroon ? How long have you been here waiting ?" 2 26 THE CASSIQDE OF KIAWAH. ■'But thirteen days, your honor; but it seems an age — more than a month, certainly. I left Charleston " " Not yet, Jack — wait a little longer." And, as he spoke, the face of the superior was overcast with a graver expression. He was approached, at that moment, by another person, who will demand our special attention, even as she coerced his. " She ! a woman !" Yes. Our rover, the " Happy-go-Lucky," is richly freighted. ' Feast your palate upon the choice fruits of summer and the sun, which you see about you ; your cupidity upon the choice bales of silk and merchandises of East and West, which are hoarded in the hold below ; but let your eyes feed upon the beautiful creature who now challenges our attention. Very beautiful, indeed, is she, after the Spanish fashion. We said something of Cleopatra in the preceding chapter. That name is suggestive of but one ideal ; and she who glides before us, and lays her hand intimately upon the captain's shoulder, and looks up with such a brilliant tenderness into his eyes, embodies that model in perfection. She is not a large creature as Cleopatra may have been — naj, petite rather — but full bosomed, with every look speaking passion — music's passion ; the sun's passion; the passion of storm and fire upon occasion, ready to burst forth without warning and spoil the sky's face, and rage among the flowers. She is brown with a summer's sun ; her beauty is of the dark ; like a night without a cloud, far up in the sky, flecked with sol- itary stars. Her features are not regular, but, in their very caprice, they harmonize. Her large black eye dilates at every glance, reveals every emotion; however slight, and passes, with the rapidity of lightning, from smiles to tears ; from tenderness to a passion, which may easily be rage as well as love ! It is keen restless, jealously watchful, intense in every phase. The nose is small, but capable of sudden dilation ; the lips voluptuous pale and soon shaken with a tremulous quiver, whenever the feelings are touched. The brow, whiter than the rest of the face is marked by two blue veins above the eyes, that become swollen at a moment's warning. It is not high, nor massive, nor yet narrow • the eyebrows are thick and black, the lashes long ; and when the orbs droop, in the languor of satisfied emotions, they form » beau- THE HAPPY-GO-LUCKIES. 27 tiful and glossy fringe fit for hiding the fiery jewels that bum beneath. An easy susceptibility to all emotions ; a sleepless intensity of mood, whatever the direction of the will ; great energy of passion ; an ever-watchful jealousy ; feelings that have never learned to brook control or denial; a temper not often accustomed to re- straint ; these are traits, all visible at a glance, to him who can look through the features, in partial repose at present, to their nat- ural susceptibilities, and the moral atmosphere in which the owner has grown to womanhood. Her person, though small, is perfect, well rounded, neither too full nor slender ; a model, in short, for that style of beauty which was hers. And every movement was graceful. She swam rather than walked. Her little feet were never heard, in the thin, open slippers which she wore. Her costume was of a light, gay green silk ; her bodice of the finest texture, embroidered openly in front, and leaving the large, well-formed bosom to its own free swell, under the pressure of perpetually striving emotions. Her dress, though embroidered, and decorated besides with little cords of gold and purple, that crossed the white openings in the silken dress, was worn loosely, rather after a Grecian than an Italian or Spanish fashion ; sufficiently showing the perfection of the form, without absolutely defining it ; certainly without embarrassing, or tending in the slightest degree to curb its movements. Hair — such a mass, all raven black, which, loosed, would sweep the earth behind her as she went — eyes, mouth, form, complexion, — all seemed to carry you back to the gay season when, in the halls of Zegri and Abencerrage, the maidens of Gra- nada borrowed lustre from the sun to light up the darkness, and made the moon and stars tributary to passions which could tol- erate no stronger light, but which luxuriated in such as theirs. Verily, she was of Moresco, quite as much as Spanish blood ; and you are sure of this when you hear her called " Zulieme." A little poniard in a sheath of green embossed leather, with richly- jewelled hilt, worn in her girdle, seems to help the faith in her Moorish origin. She is dai'k, but comely, like the beauty sung by Solomon ; and that wise person was understood to have quite an eye for a fine woman. She was evidently of the order which he preferred to crown with flowers and music. 28 THE CASSIQUB OP KIAWAH. But — but ! ah ! — hut hereafter. There will be a time for the qualifications — to-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow! Now! We see nothing but the beautiful ; a sensuous beauty — a thing solely for the eye : such as Canova makes of that exquisite idiot whom he calls " The Venus." And, in all her beauty, costumed as we have shown her, Zulieme approaches her lord, and, with one hand on his shoulder, and her great black eyes peering into his, she exclaims, in tolerable En- glish, just sufficiently broken and imperfect to show that she is of another nation, and to occasion a pleasant interest by the discov- ery — she exclaims: — " "Why, Harry, how is this ? Molyneaux tells me that this is not Charleston !' " I should say not, Zulieme. This is a wild region, uninhab- ited almost, except by savages." " But why have you put in here, Harry ?" " It is neces^ry, " he answered, somewhat coldly. " But why necessary ? What is to be done here ? Molyneaux says that there is nothing to be done here ; that there is nobody to see, nobody to trade with, and I want to go to Charleston. I wouldn't have come this voyage had you not promised me I should go to Charleston. Molyneaux tells me " " Tell me no more, if you please, of what Mr. Molyneaux has told you ; and if you are wise, Zulieme, you will take your future information, as to my purposes and conduct, from no other lips than my own." "But I am not wise, Harry, and you sha'n't make me wise; and how, if nobody tells me anything but you, and you never tell me anything !" " I tell you all, in respect to myself and my proceedings, Zu- lieme, which I deem it proper for you to know. Who undertakes to tell you more, in this ship, assumes a privilege which I shall certainly arrest at the earliest moment." The gravity had become severity. " Oh ! do n't blame Mr. Molyneaux, now ; if anybody is at fault, it's me. 1 asked Mr. Molyneaux, and he answered; and there's no harm in that, Harry.'' "I don't know that!" was the answer, slowly spoken, and with the air of one who muses upon some other subject. THE HAPPY-60-LUCKIKS, 29 " Yes, but you do know, Harry ; and when / want to know something, I tviU ask, and somebody must answer." " Ask of me, then, Zulieme." " Well, but you won't answer me always." ''Then, it is not proper that you should seek from another the information that I refuse. You ought to kno^, in such cases, that the knowledge you seek is withheld for some good reason." "But why — what reason? And why should Mr. Molyneaux know things that I mustn't know? I'm your wife, Harry, am I not?" "You are my wife, Zulieme," was the gravely-spoken answer; and the manner did not show that there was any satisfaction felt in making the acknowledgment ; " and as my wife, Zulieme, you must content yourself with what /am pleased to tell you of the affairs of this ship. Mr. Molyneaux is an otficer of this ship ; and my wife must learn to know, if he does not, that his duty is to keep its secrets. If your business were the management of the vessel, then it would be your right to know ; but " " Oh ! I don't care about the ship's affairs, Harry ; it's my own affairs ; and I ask you why you put in here, in this wild place, when we were to go to Charleston ? It was to go to Charleston that I agreed to leave New Providence. You told me that we would go there ; and you promised to stop at Cuba, yet you never stopped, 01- only for a moment, and I never had a sight of Havana, and you know what I wanted to see there. Ah, the dear Cuba ! the sights, and the bullfights, and the dances ! And now, it seems, we are not to go to Charleston " "Who says that, Zulieme ?" " Why, Mr. Molyneaux said " A stem, impatient look and gesture cut short the communica- tion; and the eyes of the captain glanced quickly and angrily from the lady, in the direction of a person who stood near the companion-way, and who seemed, at that moment, to have the ship in charge. This was Mr. or rather Lieutenant Molyneaux, so often referred to by the lady. He was a young man, probably the youngest in the vessel, of middle size, slight build, but apparently of great activity. His face, which was turned toward the parties at the moment, was effeminate, smooth, even boyish ; but its expression 30 THE CASSIQUE OP KIAWAH. was that of careless daring, amounting to effrontery. He be- longed to the proverbial " order of the. Bashful Irishmen." There was a half smile upon his countenance, as his eye met the glance of his superior, which seemed significant with a peculiar meaning. " Did you call, sir ?" he asked, somewhat indifferently, as his eye caught the expression in that of his superior. " No, sir — no ! — and yet I did caU, Mr. Molyneaux. One word, sir." The other approached at a moderate pace, though without any apparent interest. As he drew nigh, the captain said : — " Mr. Molyneaux, you will please understand that it is not by any means necessary that you should communicate to anybody but myself the courses and direction of this ship. She may steer east, west, north, or south, and all on board must submit without question, or expectation of answer, to the orders which I give on this and all other subjects. No answer, sir, if you please. I have no purpose to converse now ; only to inform, that we may pre- vent mistakes in future." The slightest possible smile might be seen upon the lips of the lieutenant as he touched his hat and receded. But a fierce, pas- sionate stare on the part of the lady betrayed equal astonishment and indignation, and threatened a sudden outbreak. " How, Harry, do you mean that Mr. Molyneaux is not to answer my questions ?" " Exactly ! He is to answer no questions, of anybody, in rela- tion to the working of this ship, its course, objects, or interests. These are sacred even from you, and do you not attempt to per- suade any ofiicer to a neglect or breach of duty. Ask me what you want to know, and if it be proper that you should know, /will answer you." " Look you, Harry, none of your hUughty, ways with me. I won't stand it. You sha'n't treat me as if I were'only a child. I must and will know, Harry. You said positively we were to come to Charleston, and if you hadn't said that, T never should have consented to leave Providence. You pi-omised me, Harry, to carry me to Havana and Charleston both, and now you bring me here to this wild heathen country, where there are wolves and tigers, and the red savages. I say, I will know, Harry, whether you mean to keep your word, and carry m*) to Charleston." THE HAPPY-GO-LUCKIES. 31 A very angry expression crossed for a moment the face of the superior. You could see that it needed little for a storm — a sudden burst of thunder; but he subdued the tempest with a severe exertion of will, and in tones not merely sober, but even gentle, though firm, he answered : — " Zulieme, no more of this at present ; whether I shall go to Charleston or not, depends upon intelligence which I am to find here." " And from whom, Harry, in this savage place ? You are only cheating me, I know." " You saw the person who met me from this shore ? But, it does not matter. It should not. It should be enough for you, Zulieme, that I have answered you. I do not relish this too close questioning. You must learn to believe what I tell you, and submit." The lady pouted, and stamped her little feet impatiently ; her companion scarcely heeded it, as he went on : — " No more of this impatience, Zulieme. Be content with the assurance that I have duties to others, in fulfilling which, I am obliged to put in here — which mat/ carry me to Charleston — probably will ; but which may require that I shall steer in any other direction. And, as my wife, you must understand that my duties involve yours, and must learn to submit, without complaint or question, to the necessities which I have to recognize. Go below now, or amuse yourself on deck — do what you wish — while I see Jack Belcher, and procure the information which shall decide my course." "And I say again, Harry Calvert, that you treat me like a child !" exclaimed the spoiled beauty, passionately. " Ay, and you are a child, Zulieme ! What else ! what else !" This was said very gravely and sadly, but gently, even tenderly. — " But go below, and beware how you make me appear ridiculous in the sight of these rude men. There are eyes upon us, which must see in me nothing but the master. Do not let your folly undo my authority I" " But why may I not go on shore, Harry ?" changing her tone in an instant. " Why not have supper under those great trees, and fruits, and music ? Oh ! it will be so pretty, and so nice, Harry." 32 THF CASSIQUE OF KIAWAH. " Yes, to be sure ! — why not ? Do so, Zulieme. Give the or- ders, and set your maid to work. Call Phipps to help. Phipps ! Phipps !" Phipps was the cabin-boy. And, so speaking. Captain Calvert was moving away, when the lady caught his arm : "But is there no danger of the red savages, Harry? They say your savages of Carolina are a fiercer race than ours. They eat Christians, don't they?" " I have already got a scouting party in the wood, Zulieme, under Lieutenant Eekles. There is no danger. Belcher has been hercj alone, for more than a week.'' "Oh! how frightful! and nobody with him! Oh! I should prefer the savages to the silence of these lonely woods. But, go 'long, Harry. Go 'long, now ; while I set Sylvia and Phipps to work. We shall have such a nice supper, and music, and a dance." And she lilted and warbled as she spoke. Then calling, " Sylvia, Sylvia !" to the maid below, and clapping her hands, with a shrill scream for Phipps, the lady, in a moment after, darted down the companion-way, seeming altogether to forget, in her new fancies, that she was the unhappy proprietor of one of those wretched husbands who refuse to answer impertinent questions. Mr. Molyneaux glanced at her retiring figure ; his eyes then followed that of the captain. The latter joined Jack Belcher on the headlands, and proceeded with him into the thicket and out of sight. Upon the lips of Mr. Molyneaux there sat the same smile with which he had met the sudden and stem glance of his principal. It was cool, quiet, full of efirontery and self-esteem. Yet, how feminine were all his features. And how should he — so seemingly effeminate, and evidently the youngest person in the ship — how should he have risen to the rank of second oflBcer ? That smile told the whole story. Girlish though he seemed, he had that degree of audacity and resolution which could carry him through scenes from which greater frames and tougher sin- ews, and more hardy-looking persons, would have shrunk in dis- may. And he would go into the meUe as to a feast. And the very effeminacy of his person deceived his enemies. Under that girlish and delicate exterior, he concealed powerful muscles and THE HAPPY-.GO-LUCKIES. 33 well-knit limbs, and a lithe activity, which, in the moment of danger, left nearly all others behind ! But why did he smile as his captain went from sight ? What is the secret in that sinister expression ? And did his superior feel, or fancy, the occult meaning which it seemed to cover ? It did not please him, evidently. There was an instinct at work, no doubt, which made Captain Calvert feel that there was something unpleasant in that smile of his second officer. But he is not the man to brood over the occult. And he has other cares on hand at this moment ; and, forgetting the whole scene just over, it was with some eagerness that he joined Jack Belcher on the shore, and bade him lead into the thick cover of the forest. 2* 34 THE CABSIQUE OP KIAWAH. CHAPTER III. AGONIES OP A LOST HOPE. " Tidings have come to me that on my house a bolt hath fallen at mid- night, and left ashes, where I had left delights, in precious babes, and one that watched them." Jack Belchek led the way for his superior into that close covert where we have followed the former once before. Here the captain threw himself down upon the little sea-chest which carried all Jack's stores, while the latter leaned against one of the great trees that helped to pillar and roof his sylvan habitation. " Well, Jack,'' said Calvert, impatiently, " you have seen the governor ? Does he write ?" " No indeed, sir ; I think he's a little afraid of putting things to paper. He's scary! — says ' the devil's to pay !' that the king's been bullied by the Spaniard, and our business is to be stopped altogether. There's to be no more winking at our work in the West Indies. The Spanish embassador demands that when an English sailor shouts out, 'No peace beyond the line,' he's to be tucked up, out of sight, in a jiffy, and made to swing, just where you find him, whether on sea or land. There's to be no more fair trading on any account, and the governor seems half disposed to close accounts with you for ever." The fellow paused. "Well — well! go on." " Well, sir, there's little more to tell you. I had some work to get to a private talk with the governor. But when I showed him jour ring, and gave him the letter, he let out free enough. Only, I could n'^ get him to write. He says the council watches him. But he'll wink, I'm a-thinking, and not look too closely where he shouldn't. That is; if your honor takes care to give him the right kind of eye-water." AGONIES OF A LOST HOPK. 35 "Yes! yes! I understand him! But how are the citizens? You went ainong them ? You saw Stillwater and Franks ?" " All right in that quarter. Stillwater says the governol"'s a cross between a fool and rogue. He has the conscience for the trade, but wants the pluck. Frank says: "Come on; there's just as good custom now as when the king had Christian bowels. As for the people, I see no difference. They don't see the harm or the wrong in riddling a Spanish galleon, or, for that matter, a Frenchman ; they hate 'em both, and look upon 'em, sensibly, as natural enemies. They will buy whatever you've got to sell, and ask no question about the sort of flag you pulled down to get at the goods. I don't see that you'll have any trouble from them." "Then we've nothing to fear from the governor. If such be the temper of the people. Quarry will give us no trouble. As for Charles Stuart, he's a fool. As if the Spaniard and Frenchman were not the natural enemies of England. As if every captured galleon was not gain of strength as well as wealth to us. Fool ! fool ! like his father ; and, like him, bought and sold, to the shame and loss of England. But what said the governor to my coming into port ?" " He hemmed and hawed — said it was very dangerous ; he couldn't say ; you might take the risk if you pleased, but 'twas your own risk. He could n't say what would be the upshot of it ; he said council was monstrous prying into the business." " Any armed vessel on the station? — king's ship, I mean?" " I know, sir. No, not that I could hear. The Lime, Pearl, and Shoreham, were all on the Virginia coast ; the Phoenix and Squirrel at New York ; the Rose at Boston ; the Winchelsea — " " At Jamaica, we know — and so is the Adventure ; did you hear nothing of the Scarborough ?" " She's a thirty-gun ship ? There was a report of one that had been'tin the coast, but I didn't get her name. It's certain there was no king's ship on the Carolina coast when I left ; but the governor said one might be expected soon. He was scary enough, and talked a good deal about character, and responsibility, and dignity, and his office, as if he hadn't buttoned 'em up long ago, and covered 'em out of sight with Spanish doubloons. I reckon there's some change in the council, sir, that makes him so scary ; there's one perj^on in the council now, sir, that wa' n't in it before ; 36 THE CASSIQUE OF KIAWAH. and the name is one, sir, that'll raise your hair a little. It's a Major Berkeley. "Major Berkeley:" cried the captain, starting up and ap- proaching the subordinate. "Yes, sir; but what Berkeley I couldn't find out. I could n't get to see him, and the governor never told me of him at all. Of course, I thought directly of your own brother, and how cu- rious 'twould be if he was removed to Carolina. But I could find out nothing but this, that he's an Edward Berkeley too; they call him Sir Edward, seeing that he's made a cassique, or lord, in this country, and he's got a family — wife and children!" '•Edward Berkeley! and wife! and — did you say children?" " Yes, sir, he 's got children — or a child — one or more. They told me wife and children." " Children ! and by her ! O God ! and I have lived for this ! and Olive is a mother ! a mother ! and her children are not mine ! And what am I, and where am I ! after all these struggles, this toil and danger in a doubtful service ; denounced by the laws ; deserted by my sovereign ; an exile — perhaps an outlaw ! Ah ! God ! But this, this might have been spared me !" And our cruiser strode the wood as he thus passionately spoke, and his fingers were thrust into his hair and clenched with \i- olence, while his whole frame shook with the convulsions of his soul. " Don't, sir; don't, your honor; don't take on so, dear master. It may not be your brother, after all." " 'Tis he ! I feel it ! They were wedded, I know. That an- cifent Jezebel, her mother ! She ha^ done it all. She has torn us asunder for ever. Olive's heart was mine — mine only. But what are hearts to selfish mothers ? What a woman's heart to a mother's ambition ? What a younger brother's heart, when he who claims the birthright requires its sacrifice ? It is he -^ it is Edward Berkeley; and he is come hither now, having robbed ine of all that made life precious, perhaps to rob me of life also — to bring me to an ignominious death ! Poor Olive ! with thy depth of soul, with thy singleness of passion, to be thus bar- tered. And — children too ! His children ! his children ! Oh ! Edward Berkeley, thou hast robbed me of something more than life !" AGONIES OP A LOST HOPE. 87 " Master, dear master, remember — you have now a wife of your own." "Ah! do I not know it, Belcher? Great Heavens! and such a wife ! a doll ! a painted baby ! a poor child-creature, whose very smile mocks me with a cruel memory of all that is lost to me for ever. True, Olive was lost ere I wedded her. Yet why should I have wedded her ? Better to have made the heart live on the bitter memory. Yet, there was excuse. I owed much to this child's cai-e of me. And in what madness of soul did I seek in another the recompense for that most miserable loss !" " Alas, your honor, is n't it too late now to — " '■ Ah ! as if that were not the worst agony of all ! There is the venom in the w6und. It is too late. No more. Jack ! no more ! Olive Masterton has children, and they are not mine ; and these children will beget that love which did not beget themselves. I must not think. Poor, poor Olive ! But I will see her ! I will see her once more !" " Oh ! sir, better not !" " I wiU see her, if I die for it ! I can not help it. The Fates, if she is indeed in Charleston, have thrown her in my way. They decree that we shall meet Once more. I Tvill gaze upon her face, though she may not see mine. I will startle her soul with my voice, though I may not listen to hers. I will look upon the face of her child — her child ! Oh ! Olive Masterton, hadst thou been firm, strong, devoted — hadst thou kept thy faith, and had faith in mine — this had never been ! The cruel arts of thy cruel mother had never prevailed to tear our hearts asunder, to blight hope and heart, and yield thee, and yield me, to embraces which are loath- some to both. Ay, loathsome to thee, I swear it ; unless, indeed, thou wert all a lie, like that artful fiend, thy mother !" " Master, dear master !" " Oh ! Jack, I am weak — weak unto death !" cried the strong man, throwing himself upon the ground, while a deep groan issued from his chest. The faithful follower hung over him. " Dear master, give not way." " I will not. Jack. I will be strong. It is too late. Ay, some- thing is too late. But, I must and will see her. Do not fear me. Jack, I will be calm — calm as the grave when it closes its heavy jaws over the wreck of best affections. Olive ! Olive Masterton ! 38 THE CASSIQUE OP KIAWAH. thou hast crushed me to the earth, in thy own wretched lack of love.'' " Oh ! Master, she lacked not that ! But what could she do ? You gone — lost, perhaps — and that old one at her from morning till night. A mother too ! and so cunning. You don't think what the poor girl had to suffer. I know something of it, master. I heard — I saw ! and it is n't for a young girl to stand a mother's prayers and pleadings long. And they were very poor : and you don't know how they were made to feel it — and they who had been used to live in such grandeur." " Ay ! she was sold ; and that Edward Berkeley should be the man to take advantage of her poverty, her dependency, her mother's arts, and my absence." " Oh, sir, as I'm a living man, I don't believe your brother ever knew of your love for her." '' He must have known — must have heard !" " He might suspect, but I don't think he knew, and that old hag never let him know. She kept the truth from him. I 'm sure of it. You recollect, he was on the continent all the while when you were with her. You were gone before he came home." "But my letter?" " Ten to one he never got it. You never got any answer. Oh ! sir, do not suspect your brother." " Why was the marriage so hurried, before I could return ?" "'Twas his passion, sir, and the mother's arts. Besides, 'twa'n't so much hurry, either, since you remember, we were eleven months getting across from Panama, owing to your dread- fuftickness." " Ah ! that horrid time ! and its more horrid consequences ! 'Twas the terrible news from England that broke me down, and made me deplore the cares that saved me in spite of that pesti- lential fever. And then it was, that, in a fatal hour — in my de- spair and vexation on the one hand, and in a false notion of grati- tude on the other — I committed the worst of all my errors: gave my hand to this foolish child ; married a woman who could move passion, but not love — a toy, not a woman ; a mere trifler with the heart >that would like to honor — if nothing more — like to believe her worthy of some sympathy, if not of mine.'' " But she loves you, sir. Believe me, sir, she loves you !" AGONIES OP A LOST HOPE. 39 " Ay, perhaps, as far as she can know to love ; but what a child — how weak, how vain, liow frivolous ! a continual caprice, that vexes even in its fondness ; that makes you revolt, even when passion most persuades to tenderness. Ah ! Jack, I have sacrificed a solace in a freni^y. I might have cherished pride even in disappointment. I have shut myself out from the conso- lations which a cherished faith might have brought me even in moments of despair. What had I to do with a child passion, when I was sure of a noble woman's love .'"' " But that was lost and gone, my dear master." " No ! I had lost a hope, but not the life in which the hope had birth. I had lost the woman I had loved — not her affections. Her heart was mine — never less mine than when she was wrapt in the embraces of another. And upon this I might have lived. To brood upon the precious memory would have been a solace, when passion could proffer none. And that I should be so led by passion — I that had suffered in such a school of suffering ! — that a mere whim, a caprice, a fancy, should have led me thus into a bondage whose galling chains eat into the very soul, and make every thought a torture." "'Twas gratitude, sir — 'twas a good feeling that made you marry the seiiora.'' " Tell me nothing of gratitude, Jack Belcher ; as if any grat- itude should justify such a sacrifice — justify vows which neither can keep or value." " Oh, sir, I do think the senora loves you. She's true to you, sir." "Ah, yes! to be sure she's true!" " How she did watch your sick-bed ! how she did nurse you when your life hung upon a thread — when even I gave up — when nobody had a thought you could live, and only thought how to save you pain in your dying hours ! How she watched and hoped through all, and was never wearied ; and kept bathing your head and hands in the vinegar ; and kept the cooling plantain-leaf upon your forehead ; and, when her mother said you would die, who wept and swore you shouldn't die ; and who made all others bend to her — and she still nothing 'but a child. Oh! sir, that was love — and it saved you; and though she hasn't the ways of our English, yet, sir, I do think her heart is full of love for you. 40 THE CAS8IQUE OF KIAWAH. and she's as true to you, though she does vex you so much, as any woman of England could be.'' J' No doubt! no doubt! But oh! Jack Belcher, though I feel and believe all that you say, yet it brings no relief. There is no consolation in it. Better were she wholly the idle butterfly crea- ture that she seems ; better false, hollow, heartless, as she is vain, vexing, weak, and capricious. Then, I could fling her off — whistle her down the wind with scorn — and surrender myself wholly to the bitter memory of that early passion, which was a truth, a faith, a sweet reaUty of love, no matter what the denial and the loss, instead of fruit and blossom ! But leave me for a while, Jack. I must be alone. Let me lie here in the solitude. I would think — think until I forget, if that be now possible." "Will you take some of the Jamaica, sir? It's a good thing for a solitary man." Jack's ideas of solace had soiiietbing in them very decidedly English. He honestly believed that the seat of the soul is the abdomen, and that Jamaica was the divining power which could reach it. "No, thank you. Jack. Nothing. Leave me for a while. Join me in an hour, when I shall be better able to talk with you of ship's affairs." The subordinate said no more, but, with a look that still lin- gered, the faithful fellow made his way out of the thicket, leaving his superior to brood, with what philosophy he -might, over the rash impulses which, in a moment of weakness, had led him to voluntary fetters, which now, to use his own strong phraseology, were eating into his very soul. He had simply done what is done by thousands daily — ■ " Had embraced The shadow for the substance, in his passion ; And been requited, for the wretched folly. By thorn in pillow, which forbade all sleep To thought — all waking into Hope at dawn." iOVE AFrER A FOREIGN FASHION. 41 CHAPTER IV. LOYE AFTEK A FOKEIGN FASHION. " Call you this love 1 This phantasy, this sighing, these sad looks ! Oh fie ! Love 's like the zephyr to the roses, That comes with happiest wing, and sings at meeting ; Meeting and parting sings, and so dreams joyous Of still fresh meetings with as happy flowers." It is part of youth's business to sport and play, dance and sing, just as certainly as to work and grow. The work and growth depend quite as much upon the play as the food and nurture. And we must not look too severely upon exuberances which be- long to the instincts. We must let youth rollick at due seasons, just as we suffer young colts to kick up their heels upon a com- mon ; and we must not see too austerely that this kicking up of the heels, whether of the human animal or the young horse, is calculated to exhibit them in uncouth or ridiculous attitudes. Don't TBX yourself, or others, about their attitudes. It is the kicking up which is the essential performance ; the grace will grow afterward, as a due consequence of the familiar exercise. To us who are no longer in the gristle, whose limbs are solidly set, and grow daily more and more uncompromising, there is, no doubt, something quite as impertinent as awkward in this rollick- ing of young creatures. But, dear brother, now growing grisly, if not ungraceful, be sure, while you rebuke the absurd antics of boyhood, that you are not governed quite as much by a secret envy, which deceives- yourself, as by a fastidious feeling of the proprieties. Be sure, before you sermonize, that you would really refuse these antics, even if you could practise them ; that it would be no satisfaction to you to leap backward forty years or more, and rejoice in the hop-skip-and-jump, the somersault, or even the 42 THE CASSIQUE OP KIAWAH. • bruising-match and buffet of yonder urchins, whom you now re- gard with such solemn gravity, as emulous only of the doings of apes and monkeys. Boys have to go through a certain portion of ape-and-monkey practice and experience before they can be men ; and we have only to take care that they are duly exercised in man-practice also, so that they do not finally grow into the exclusive fashion of the beast ! And girls are boys, withi a certain difference, and women men ! And they too must pass through a certain amount of rollicking ; and our only solicitude in their case is that they should not show quite so much of their heels as the tougher gender. Just see that their figleaves are a fraction longer ; and if you make some dif- fei-ence in the cut and fashion of skirt and small-clothes, you will probably put as much curb on the young creatures as they need in the rollicking season through which they have to pass. And if the silly monkeys insist, for their part, on flinging up their heels to the sound of music, don't fancy, for the life of you, that the disparagement is to the heels, however much it may be to the music. If the fiddle can time the paces of these wild colts ; if heels can be made to work together harmoniously ; be sure that there is much less chance of their being cast up in each other's faces. And, one thing let me tell you — the more you encourage the shaking of the legs,*the more you discourage that incessant wagging of the tongue, which is apt to become a scandal to the sex, in teaching all the arts of scandal. In brief, innocent sports are absolutely necessary to the preservation of innocence ; and the heart depends quite as much, for its continued purity, upon an occasional flinging out of legs and arms, as upon your stale saws and owl-like maxims. All that we have need to do, to guard against danger, is that the sports shall be simply those of young limbs needing exercise, stripped of all conventional adjuncts, by which we teach something more profound than exercise, and more mischievous than the contredanse and pugilism. To the pure all things are pure, even the heels of colts and the claws of kittens ; and we have only to see and keep them to the mere rollicking, without suffering this to become tributary to the sensualism at once of thought and blood. And so you shall see that dancing does not mean simply hugging and squeezing ; and that you are not reconciled, by a foreign fashionable name, into those practices, LOVE AFTER A FOREIGN FASHION. 43 which, in the plain vernacular, mean anything but dancing ! Of course, this is doctrine meant only for animals of EngUsh breed — that stern, intense, savage Anglo-Norman nature, which goes to its very sports with a sense of morals, and justifies its pursuit of happiness by a reference to duty. It is otherwise with light flex- ible natures like the Italian and the French. To these, sport is its own justification, and sufficiently satisfies of itself. But when we, of rough British origin, undertake tlieir habitual exercise, we are apt to get drunk upon them. The fire rages in the blood, and rushes to the brain, in our intensity of temperament, and the game which we have begun in play is but too apt to end in passion. We have said all this, dear reader, in order that you should be properly prepared to look upon a little child's play — a colt rol- licking — without feeling your sense of dignity too much outraged. Remember, too, we are in a wild land, where European law scarcely touches us with a feeling of reserve or caution. Our dramatis personce, also, though of all European stocks, are of rather irregular practice, and will, no doubt, show you many rules not to be found in Gunter. Don't let these things cause any mis- givings. It is your policy to see something of all the world's vari- eties — to see how Humanity demeans itself in different situations ; and you are wise in just that degree in which you recognise all human practices, irrespective of the laws laid down by your little parish conventionalities. Thus warned, if you blunder, sagely or savagely, in your meditations, the fault is none of ours. Our Zulieme has no sooner heard that she is in a place of safety, where she can rollick upon dry land without dreading the loss of skin and scalp, than she begins to fling out her heels. She lilts, she sings, she screams, claps her little hands, and dances, and forgets that she has a master. " Sylvia ! Sylvia !" she half shouts, half warbles, as she darts down into the cabin. " Phipps ! Phipps !" — and Sylvia appears, a thick-lipped ne- gress, mulatto rather, with a turbid current running through veins and skin, great eyes, a flat nose, and glossy black hair of that wiry and frizzled character which, to some eyes, may possess a peculiar beauty. In the hands of some modern novelists, who are ambi- tious equally of taste and eccentricity, she might become a hero- ine, calculated to provoke the raptures of a Prince Djalma. To 44 THE CASSIQUE OF KIAWAH. Others, of more philanthropy than taste, she would appear the ideal of a much-wronged race of hybrids, who would be more es- teemed for their charms could an eccentric philosophy succeed in disturbing the natural instincts -of a superior civilization. But poor Sylvia lives at a period when taste was more proper and natural, and philanthropy more sane, and so we describe her as she appears to all about her — an Abigail of very vulgar attrac- tions, with all the cunning of her class, sly, deceitful, somewhat clever, and ugly enough for trust, as the waiting-maid of " mi- lady." Phipps is a brisk cabin-boy, of British bulk and character, six- teen years old, sprightly enough in bis province as a knife-cleaner and actor of all work in a cruiser's cabin, without any very salient features, moral or physical, his nasal prominence excepted. This is a nose, an unquestionable proboscis ; an ample rudder to a round, fair Saxon face of good fleshy rotundity. They both show themselves at the summons of the lady. They are both pleased to obey a call which promises pleasure. There is to be a supper and a dance on shore. Phipps plays the fiddle: Sylvia feeds with appetite ; has as great a passion for dancing as her mistress, though scarcely so graceful of movement ; and both are particularly delighted with the idea of a rollicking on shore. And they go to work with an impulse which makes preparation easy. Fruits, and sweetmeats, and solids; plates, knives and forks ; flasks of ruddy wines of Canary and Madeira, are trans- ferred in a twink from hold and cabin to the shelter of green trees. Blankets, nay cloaks, and rich couvrelits, are spread upon the turf, and hung from the branches ; and soon you behold the fair Zulieme seated in state under a natural canopy of oaks and ce- dars. And anon you behold the sailors, in clean toggery, begin- ning to group themselves about the area, though at a respectful distance from the queen of the fete. They are never indifferent to sports which relieve duty ; and they are not superior to the vanity which for ever feels conscious that other eyes are looking on. So you note that their duck trowsers are of the whitest ; and some of them sport red sashes about the waist, in which their pis- tols and knives shine with recent furbishing. And they wear jaunty jackets of blue, and green, and crimson ; and their hats of straw are wound about with shawls or handkerchiefs of quite as LOVE AFTER A FOREIGN FASHION. 45 many colors ; and these are of silken stuffs, such as would have been held rare and rich enough in the days of old Queen Bess. And you need but look into the eyes of these several parties, to see, as Phipps tunes his fiddle in a recess of the wood, and the notes come faintly to their senses, that they meditate shaking legs themselves, presuming, no doubt, on indulgences which have not been denied before. And at the feet of the beautiful Zulieme you see the Spanish guitar, thickly inlaid with pearl, and ebony, and silver, in vines and flowers, while a broad scarf of crimson floats around it in the breeze, which said scarf will anon encircle the neck and shoul- ders — white and bare enough in her present costume — of the beauty of the feast. She has made her toilet for the occasion. She has an eye, with all her childish simplicity, to what belongs to such an occasion. She knows that all these rough sailors ad- mire ; that they too have .eyes ; and failing to figure, as she de- signed, in the festas of the Cuban, she is not unwilling to receive the homage of a ruder class of worshippers. And so she glows in green and crimson, and her hair wantons free, only sprinkled with pearls, which contrast exquisitely with her raven tresses ; while, wrapping her neck in frequent folds, and dropping down upoii her bosom in a gorgeous amulet, with pendant diamond cross, they serve to show how much whiter is the delicate skin which they do not so much adorn as illustrate. Her dress, open enough for the display of a very admirable bust,^ is loose enough in skirt for the perfect freedom of an exquisite figure. A cincture of green and gold, with diamond clasp, encir- cles her waist, and her jewelled poniard secures the clasp, the lit- tle sheath forming the rivet which brings the opposing eyes of the clasp together. Zulieme has not forgotten the first of her lessons, — the one taught most easily — the one always taught by a fond, foolish, adoring mother, — that she is, in truth, very beautiful ; and that the sole object of dress is not, as vulgar people think, to conceal, but to adorn and properly develop the person ; and, as she now sits before us, we are again reminded of Cleopatra — " Cleopatra, lussui'iosn," swelling with all the consciousness, not only of a most voluptuous 46 THE CASSIQUB OP KIAWAH. beauty, but of the masculine eyes looking on, that drink in provo- cation at every glance, and grow momently more and more bewil- dered with the intoxications of passion. To the class of beauties which Zulieme represents, the posses- sion of the fascination is nothing compared with its exercise upon the victim. It loses half of its charm in their own eyes, unless they feel that others grow blind beneath its spells. And when vanity and voluptuousness grow together, who shall measure the extent of insanity to which their proprietor will speed ? It was fabled of Circe, that she transformed her worshippers into brutes. But the fable properly implies that they were brutified by the fascination, which, in its own growth of passion, had lost all power to discriminate in the choice of its worshippers, and Jiad ceased to consider the difference in the quality of the homage, or whether it was accorded by brutes or men. Circe was willing enough to exhibit herself to beast as well as man ; and, like her, our Zulieme was perhaps quite as well pleased with the admiration of Jack Tar as that of her own liege lord, his superior and hers — the stern, half outlaw, but noble Captain Calvert. " But where is my lord, the while ?" We could answer. We have seen where and how. But of his griefs, or of any griefs, our lady asks no questions. The feast is spread. The viands are about to be served, and Lieutenant Moly- neaux sits at the feet of the lady, hands up the cates, and serves her with hands and eyes. He too, always studious of his per- sonal appearance, is habited with care and taste for the occasion. His figure, though. not massive, is a good one. He prides himself equally on the having, and the making, of a leg. Charles Molyneaux is something of a courtier. He has dressed himself, making as near an approach to the court costume of that dajf as possible. For example, his neat figure is clad in silk stockings and small-clothes. He wears a diamond buckle at knee and instep. He has on a richly-flowered vest of silk ; and the frills of his shirt protrude six inches from his bosom. His silken cravat is of dimensions which suit rather a levee at St. James, or St. Cloud, than warm weather and the woods of Kiawah. His coat is of brocade, such as Bolingbroke wore at the court of France. It is of Paris cut and so, a sufficient model, of course, for all the courts of Europe. Mr. Molyneaux is a person of conventional tastes. He does not LOVE AFTER A FOREIGN FASHION. 47 suffer himself sufficient freedom, to consult that better propriety, which makes good taste superior to all convention. In one re- spect, however, he left Nature to her own decencies. He wore no pomatum or powder in his hair ; but this forbearance was not his merit. These commodities were neither among the ship's stores nor his own. He possessed a naturally fine shock, which, let go free, had grown into very copious love-locks, which did not misbeseem the days of Rochester and the effeminate style of his own face. His complacency is such' as not to suffer him to sup- pose that any costume would misbeseem his person ! And, sitting at the feet of the gay lady, he played the courtier in speech, and look, and action, no less than in costume. He taught his eyes to languish, looking deathly things into hers. His tones were subdued sweetly to those murmuring accents which lovers suppose to be fitly adapted to honeyed sentiments ; and the compliments whispered to her now, and at other periods, were of that equivocal sort — half serious and sentimental, and half play- ful — which the young coquette hears with a thrill, and responds to with a sigh ; and which the fashionable world considers a very natural, proper, and wholly unobjectionable method of conversa- tion : Passion feeling his way ; gradually insinuating ; not offend- ing all at once, but so preparing his advance that the mind is gradually corrupted, and not apt, when final offence is given, to show itself offended at all. It is, indeed, wonderful how rapid is this progress of safe insinuation in such cases : she who drinks, tasting none of the poison, so infinitesimal is the dose, and so sweet the draught ; but, drinking so frequently that all the veins are filled in brief season, and the poison finally makes perfect lodgment in the heart. Of course, where there are many lovers, there is a corresponding growth of obtuseness ; passion itself no longer finding stimulus, from too great a familiarity with this sort of provocation, and flirtation serving then to gratify the vanity of that passion which has no other appetite. It is curious, indeed, how cold and sterile vanity contrives to render all other passions. Poor Zulieme ! she was a flirt from mere vanity and vacuity of thought. It was easy for her to smile and play ; very pleasant to be played with ; very grateful to be taught that she had her own fascinations, and that wisdom, in her case, might veiy well be dispensed with. She had been made beautiful — made to appear 48 THE CASSIQUE OF KIAWlH. beautiful — and so, to appear beautiful was her great duty in life ; and to receive the continued assurance that she was the beauty that she had been taught to think herself, and was doing the proper business for which she was made, was, of course, calculated to put her mind at rest on all disquieting subjects. That her hus- band did not seem to care whether she was beautiful or not, was not so much a cause of sohcitude as of vexation. It only showed him a wrong-headed, inappreciative person, who really did not know what the uses of a husband are ! But Lieutenant Molyneaux gave no such offence. He was shrewd, quick, selfish ; had those arts in perfection which teach how to take advantage of another's weakness. He soon sounded the shallows of poor Zulieme's little heart and head : thought so, at least ; but waa mistaken partly. She was a pretty idiot, vain and capricious ; a spoiled child, insolent as lovely,; charming with- out an art, but charming only as a plaything. But, as Molyneaux was wont to say — " It's a plaything, after all, that a man most wants. Let a man take a wife who will ; a plaything for me ! and why not another man's wife.'"' There was no good reason, as the world goes, why not ! His comrade. Lieutenant Eckles, whom you see also in attendance, not far from the beautiful Zulieme, but not at her feet; a young man of inferior intellectual calibre to Molyneaux, but more certainly moral ; a good-looking fellow, too, but by no means beau or cour- tier ; he had some misgivings in regard to the policy, if not the propriety, of his comrade's practice. More than once, on the present voyage, he had shaken his head gravely at the presump- tion of Molyneaux in respect to the captain's wife : not, however, committing the absurdity of reproaching his morals, but only warning him against the dangers of his course. " Look you, Molyneaux," he was wont to say, " for all that Captain Calvert seems so indifferent about these liberties you take with his wife, I'm sure he don't like it." Likely not, Eckles — but she does." "I think that likely, too; but don't you see that you're in shoal water all the time, and can't say when j-ou'll be among the breakers." " Pooh, Eckles ! shall one drink his can the less because of LOVE AFTER A FOREIGN FASHION. , 49 that ? Shall I refuse fruit lest I be sick to-morrow ? I am not such an ascetic ; no, nor such a fool. I am for taking the pleas- ure when and where I find it, without asking myself whether there be a thorn lurking for the fingers." " You will feel it prick when you least expect it ; and the wound will, some day, make you feel that the pleasure was a little too dearly paid for. The captain 's a terrible fellow when he rouses up !" "What do I care, so long as I do my duty? The world's a sort of feast, where men gather to get food which they relish. I find mine here and there, and do not ask who is the gardener. Enough if, when I pluck and eat, my appetite smacks its lips. As for the captain's rages, none know them better than myself; but I fear no man that ever stepped a quarter-deck, and he knows it ! But you are mistaken : I take no liberties with his wife that are not the custom of the Spaniard. We dance together, and before his eyes. "Ay, but he's an Englishman; and what the Spaniard sees no harm in, the Englishman winces at. And dancing's one thing, but regular hugging another. There 's that fandango, for instance, which you and she are so fond of. Would you like to see your wife carrying on such a game with another man ?" " When /marry, my wife may carry it on if she pleases. But, so long as I have my senses, and know what other men's wives ai'e, you will not catch me putting my neck into the halter. I am quite satisfied with another man's wife at a fandango.'' "Very well, perhaps, so long as he's satisfied; but if it's the captain, be sure to keep your heels in running order, if he hap- pens to break loose. He's not suspicious, not jealous; he's got too much pride for that, I'm thinking; but if ever he thinks you grow saucy, and go too far, he'll make no more bones of breaking your bones than he would of cleaving a Spaniard to the chine.^ I can tell you there's not a man in the ship but sees and says you go too far, and will be brought up some day by a taut rope and a short turn. It's one thing to dance with the lady ; but to do it as you do, with so much unction — to bring her up to your bosom, and squeeze her so closely, and keep at it so long — it neither agrees with the captain's bile nor with the music. You don't keep proper time, Molyneaux ; and devils seize me, if any hus- band will keep proper temper long, if the thing goes on. For my 3 ^0 THE CASSIQ0E OP KIAWAH. part, if 'twas my wife, I'd soon have you ashore, broadsword toi broadsword." " And get your skull split in the performance." " That might be. But, in a case of that kind, you 'd find even me an ugly customer ; and as for the captain, let me tell you, clever as you are at fence, you wouldn't stand" three minutes before him. He 'd beat down all your guards before you could say ' Jack Rob- inson,' and slice off head or arm, making clean work of it, not leaving you chance for a single prayer. Now, do you look to it. The captain begins to grow a little restiff; the wife's a silly crea- ture, who can 't see ; and yoijr very impudence will help to shut your eyes and open his, where a wiser fellow would never be suspected, by keeping wide awake himself." " My dear Eckles, do you never suspect yourself of being te- dious. Other men would only think you envious ; but the envy is forgivable ; the dullness never." " You are the most conceited ass, Molyneaux ; and your ears will bring you to the pillory. I envious ! and ,of you, I suppose ? Oh, that a man's calf should turn his brains so completely !" The young men were both dressing for the festa when this dia- logue took place : Molyneaux was drawing on his silken stocking, and stroking the limb with evident complacency. Hence the ref- erence of his companion to the particular member. The sarcasm of the junior member fell innocuous on the ears of his senior ; in fact, provoked his laughter only. He was too well fortified by self-esteem. It was an additional tribute to the merits of his legs. But this must suffice for clues in this progress. Meanwhile, return we to the/esto. Molyneaux served the cates and viands. Zulieme shared with him, helping him in turn. Eckles, more respectfully apart, was rather a spectator than participator in the scene. He ate and drank, it is true. He had a genuine English appetite. The sail- ors were dispersed in the woods, making merry after their fash- ion, little groups of them forming under so many trees, and drink- ing, eating, and gambolling, like young donkeys in a pleasant pasturage. Very soon, finding her mistress absorbed in his o-al- lantries with Molyneaux, Sylvia took herself off to a social circle of more freedom, among hef favorites of the crew. Phipps was not so modest as to suppose that he could draw off with safety ; LOVE APTEB A FOREIGN FASHION. 51 and Lieutenant Eckles, though feeling himseh' de irop, was yet, for this very reason, unwilling to withdraw. He sat; looked on uneasily ; rose and stood about ; was sometimes spoken to, and sometimes spoke ; but formed no essential member of the tableau. And the rich wines of Sicily and Madeira were soon put in circulation ; and the joyous Zulieme seemed to yield herself wholly to the intoxication of the scene. Her bright eyes sparkled back to those of her cavalier. Her lively tones answered to his subdued and sentimental ones. But it was somewhat disquieting to him that she should talk merrily, in answer to his saddest murmur ; that there should be nothing sad either in her looks or words. She was a little too much the child, at play, for him. He could better prefer a little more of that Anglo-Norman intensity which conducts so readily from play to passion. But where should Zulieme learn that sentiment which is the due medium for such transition ? It was neither in heart nor head ; and the hopes of any progress on the part of our roue could be predicated only of her exuberance ; the loose, familiar habits of her race ; her ignorance of all concentrative passion ; her butterfly caprice and infantile restlessness. Such a character naturally baflled the usual arts of the courtly gallant. He relies upon the use of a conventional sentiment of which she had never learned the ABC. That sort of eloquence — a compound, in which fancy relieves, yet reconciles us to passion ; which is en- forced by sadly-searching glances ; soft, low tones, melting into murmurs — all these, the more common agencies in such a game, were wanting in their wonted potency, dealing with so light a crea- ture. She was willing enough to sport on the edge of the preci- pice, but only because she was so totally ignorant of any precipice in existence. Sin is usually a thing of great intensities, by which one is hurried onward in repeated provocation ; the merely loiter- ing nature is as frequently diverted from sin — that is, the sin of passion — as it is from positive virtues, by its mere caprices ; and Zulieme Calvert, nee Montano, was one whom the sound of a fiddle could divert from a death-bed — whom the grateful occupation of costuming herself for a festa, where she was to be seen of many lovers, would suffice to win from the embraces of the most ardent whom she herself preferred over all the rest. 52 THE CASSIQUB OP KIAWAH. How shall Lieutenant Molyneaux beguile such a nature to a moment of serious thought of love ? for he can only prevail by inspiring her with some such mood. "Well, he spoke of love, of hearts naturally twinned by Heaven, denied by man ; afflicted with mutual yearnings, but with gi-eat barriers of convention between: not insurmountable, however, thank Heaven ! Love will find out a way — why not? Is love, decreed of Heaven, to be denied of man? Shall. these mutual hearts be defrauded of their mutual rights ? And what are these barriers that rise up to conflict with the purposes of Heaven ? Are they not pretexts and impediments of merely human artifice ? And shall those who have Heaven's sanction upon their affec- tions — shall they submit to these human artifices ? Such was the s(5rt of stuflT, of an ancient fashion, which the roue finds stereotyped to his hands in the old romances, with which our amorous lieutenant regaled the ears of Zulieme Calvert, in the effort to arouse her fancies. The case was, of course, put abstractly. And he looked so languid and sad, so wretchedly interesting, while he said it, that poor Zulieme sighed too, and looked very wretched herself for a moment, and said : " 'T was, indeed, very sad and very cruel, Mr. Molyneaux ; and I wonder why people do submit to such denial. I'm sure I wouldn't. If I loved a gentleman I'd have him, and he should have me, and I'd no more mind what mamma said than I'd mind Sylvia. But I don't think such things happen often, lieutenant. I don't think love makes one so wretched. If it did, 'twould be no better than grief or melancholy. Now, when I was in love, I was always the gayest creature in the world. I told every- body. I had a hundred friends, and we talked of it all the time ; and we made songs about it, and dances " " Dances !" " Yes ! we made dances about it ; and one played the gentle- man, and the other the lady. And oh ! you should have seen us : how we bowed to each other, and sidled hy each other, and smiled and looked up, and sighed and looked down ; and then, on a sud- den, the gentleman seized the lady in his arms, and drew her up to him, and gave her such a kiss. Oh ! I vow, when I was in love, or only playing love, it was the most joyous time of my life. LOVE AFTER A FOKEIGN FASHION. 53 and I was never so gay — so happy. Love never made me wretched." " But was this when you married the captain ? He did not court you in that way, did he ?" " Oh ! no ! — poor fellow, he could n't do much courting, any way. "When I first saw him, he was half dead. Father brought him home. He was wrecked, you know, and cast away ; and he and Belcher "travelled over the isthmus, till he was taken sick, and brought to our hacienda. And he was so sick ! He hardly knew anybody ; was out of his head ; could see nothing ; and talked all sorts of things about England, and fighting, and a lady whom he called Olive. It was always Olive — Olive, Olive ! And he spoke so softly and sweetly, and I could see that he was a handsome man, and a brave, though he was so feeble. And so, when he called me ' Olive,' I answered him ; and I nursed him ; and he was so pleased, and I was so pleased to nurse him. He was like a doll, and I washed his face and bathed his head, and I combed his hair, and all that did him good ; and when he was raving, he kissed my hands, and called me his dear Olive, and I let him call me so, and answered him, and never told him that I was not Olive, but Zulieme. And I sang and played to him on the guitar, and when he got better we played together. Oh ! he was a great doll for me, and it was in playing together that we made love and cai-ried on our courtship. It was very funny. Such plays as we had — such rompings ! And I taught him how to dance our Spanish dances ; and he sang with me — he's got a beautiful voice for singing ; and I chased him through the orange- groves, and found him out where he used to hide himself; for he loved too much to hide himself among the thick groves ; and he looked so sad when I found him ; but I cheered him up, and he would smile, and sing and dance with me, all so good ; - till, one day, he started up in a sort of passion, and looked very grand, and^ said I should be his little wife ; and I said, ' Yes, why not ? it will be so funny to become a wife.' And so the priest married us. But he's changed since then — he is not funny now. He's so serious, and so cross \ — all you English are so cross and quarrelsome." "But /am not." " Oh ! yes, you are, though you do try to please me and make me happy." 64 THE CASSIQUf; OP KIAWAH. " Ah, Zulieme, what you call love is very different from what I mean. I could teach you a better sort of love — more sweet, more precious — which would fill your soul rather than your eyes ; for which you would be willing to die ; for which, alone, one who knows what it is would be willing to live !" " Do teach me, then. I 'd like to know every sort of love. I suppose it's different in all countries ; but I don't think yea Enghsh know much about it; at least, I don't like your rough, hard, quarrelsome sort of love. It seems to me as if you are always angry when you love. There's Harry, now — why, when he made love to me, it was like a tiger. I didn't know but he wanted to eat me. And when he ^poke of love, even before we were married, it was as if he spoke of some great soitow and trouble ; for he groaned, and clasped his head in his hands, and then he would start, and dash out into the groves, and almost run, till he got into the thickest part, where the sun never shines." " I would teach you another sort of love from his," responded the courtier in low tones, looking sadly sweet, with that intense stare of the eyes, which, with a slight dash of melancholy in the gaze, makes the usual ideal of devoted and inveterate passion, among professed artists. " Oh ! don't look so wretched !" cried the lady, flinging a hand- ful of Brazil nutshells into his face. "It's enough to scare love out of the country to look so while you talk about it. Don't you — you hurt me." He had seized her hand, and would have carried it to his lip, when a guttural sound, rather a grunt than groan, aroused him to the consciousness that there were other parties on the ground. With a fierce glance he looked around, and met the ominous vis- age of his brother lieutenant, who, fearing lest the scene should too greatly shock his own, or the modesty of some other party, sent forth the doleful ejaculation, which had arrested the gallant- ries of our cavalier. Molyneanx could have taken him by the throat. " Oh ! you had reason to groan, Mr. Eckles," said the laughing lady ; " for such a doleful picture as Mr. Molyneaux made of himself was absolutely distressing. Now hear me tell of love: when you love, you must look sweet, and bright, and happy ; you must sing, and you must dance; and go together into the LOVE AFTER A FOREIGN FASHION. 55 groves, and get oranges, and bananas, and figs, and nuts ; and then have a chase, and pelt one another as you run, till you're ready to drop with laughter, and only shake it off to dance. For you mustn't laugh out when you're dancing — only smile; you need all your breath, you know, if you want to dance beautifully. But, hark ! Phipps has gone off with his fiddle, and the sailors are at it. Hear what a shouting and shuffling : and that Sylvia, she's gone, I vow, and I suppose she's footing it with the best of them. How funny ! Come, let's go and see." And she sprang up, gathered up -her skirts with one hand, grasped the arm of Molyneaux with the other, and crying to Eckles, " Come, Mr. Eckles, won't you ?" she lilted away in a capering motion, which required that Molyneaux should adopt a new step, somewhat difficult to his execution, in . order to keep time with hers. Eckles slowly following, with uplifted hands and eyes, the three soon buried themselves in the deeper woods, where a more inspiriting and less pathetic action was in progress. 56 THE CASSIQUE OF KIAWAH. CHAPTER V. SIMPLY, LEGS AT OUTLAWET. " The piper loud and louder blew ; The dancers quick and quicker flew ; They reeled, they set, they crossed, they cleekit, Till ilka carlin swat and reekit," &c. — Tarn O'Shanter. Sailors ashore have a proverbial character for rollicking. So, too, is High Life Below Stairs matter for the proverbialist. Colts on a common, boys in the holidays, girls at a match or merry-making : fools all, you say. Oh, ridiculous moralist ! throw off your cloak of wisdom for a while, as Prospero does his magic garment, and relieve your shoulders of the dignity which should break any camel's back. Do not require us to apologize for these silly ones, because you claim to be wise or virtuous. " Shall there be no more cakes and ale," because you have come to your inher- itance from Solomon ? Sessa ! let these children slide ; and stop your ears at the uproar, but do not complain, lest Apollo stretches them for you to the dimensions which he gave to those of Midas. Great is the uproar, wondrous the antics, measureless the fun, among our roUickers on shore ! Is it Bo-peep, Hide and Seek, Hunt the Slipper, or only a new fashion of the fandango ? The apes — the urchins — the grimalkins — the donkeys ! what are they after ? What a charivari ! Jack Tar, Ben Bobstay, Jim Bowline, Bill Bowsprit, Mike Mainsail, and a score besides, are all busy in a merry contest for the hand of Sylvia, that model among mulattresses. And all this to the perpetual clang of Phipps's fiddle ; and the yell and laugh chase each other through the woods, till every sleeping echo, starting up in terror, screams it out again from swamp and thicket ! SIMPLY, LEGS AS OUTLAWRY. 57 And Sylvia, how she runs, and skips, and bounces! "What legs she shows ! They toss her about, the Jack Tars, from hand to hand, like a bird from the shuttle; yet, with catlike agility, she keeps upon the wing, and out of all clutches. There ! Ben Bob- stay has her — no ! she slips through his fingers. At the very moment when he shouts, " Shiver my timbers, but I've got her," she breaks loose and skips away, with a joyous yell of her own, that sufficiently testifies her sense of freedom, and her own fun in the chase. She rather likes this rough usage ; is evidently nowise disin- clined to " the situation ;" and takes good care not so far to dis- tance the pursuer as to discourage his pursuit. Sylvia, poor thing, is neither fun nor man hater ; and, in the absence of other people, held the tarry breeches folks to be quite passable, and by no means to be despised. She is sufficiently removed from her own set to have no dread of vulgarity. And this humble self-esti- mate is always a commendable virtue among our colored Chris- tian brethren. We (jommend her example to her- race, especially at this philanthropic era. Let them not despise the whites too greatly because they have so especially won the admiration of the Caucasian world. Let them sometimes condescend to a dance and fling with their ancient master, if only to show that they do not pride themselves upon their elevation beyond the usual scale of humanity ! ■* Sylvia is just now a model, not only of modesty, but agility. But the odds are against her. Sailors have great virtues in their legs also, and there are twenty pair now busy to circumvent her one. Ah, poor Sylvia ! Jim Bowline, this time, has got the Weather-gauge of her ; Bill Bowsprit, with great arms stretched wide, is ready to cut her off from port ; and that famous reefer^ Jack Tar, has taken her amidships ; i. e., around the body. Ha! no! Bravo! Bravissimo! She eludes the pack. " "Well done, Cutty Sark !" What a leap was that, involving prodigious muscle, and a lib- eral display of legs ! But it is a last effort. She flags. They surround her. She can no more escape ; and, encircled by their outstretched forms and arms, she is constrained to join in the fandango. Never was there such a scene. It is at its height when the 3* 58 THE CASSIQUE OF KIAWAH, Senora Znlieme, attended by her cavaliers, comes upon the ground. Zulieme is ready to die of laughter. She cheers,. claps her lit- tle hands, and finally, in a very convulsion of merriment, flings herself fairly upon the shoulders of the more courtly of the two lieutenants, and screams her laughter. And, taking advantage of her " situation," perhaps misconstruing the action, Molyneaux wraps her in close embrace, and snatches a kiss from her mouth ! The act is requited, quick as lightning, with a slap, laid on his cheek soundly, and with all the breadth, and weight, and muscle, of her little hand. And she tears herself away from his clutch, and says, very coolly — as if the girl simply resented the imper- tinence of the forward boy — " Look you, Molyneaux, don't you try that again, or you shall have it harder. I don't like such play. I won't have it." Play ? Molyneaux looks confounded. He never meant it for play. He can not well understand her. Molyneaux, you are to remember, is only a cavalier, not a philosopher. He was trying to teach her serious things, however, and she takes it all for fun ; but for a sort of fun for which she simply has not a bit of taste. What a strange sort of education she has had ! The kiss was seen, was heard; and so — much more cer- tainly — was the slap ! And the hdPSe-laugh of Eckles, followed by that of all the sailors, echoed throughout the circle, and somewhat diverted the merry crew from the humors of Madame Sylvia. Molyneaux, with red face, shot a thunderbolt from his eyes at Eckles, which only made him laugh the more. But the sports went on. Phipps's fiddle was working wonders ; and, as if wholly forgetting kiss, slap, and all ofifence, Zulieme, laughing all over, threw herself into an attitude, winning, volup- tuous, graceful, stretched out her arms to Molyneaux, and chal- lenged him into the charmed circle ; and, not slow, the lieutenant leaped forward, wondering still at her capricious temper — ice and fire by turns — and joined in the passion-feeding movements of the fandango. This was Zulieme's great accomplishment. In this she excelled all her sex. Her whole person was suited to it. Exquisitely modelled, lithe, graceful ; her tastes harmonized wondrously with 69 lier person, to e:)clnbit all its charms, in the most capricious and voluptuous movement. Every limb consorted with the action. The whole contour of her figure was developed, in all its sym- metry, roundness, beauty, ease, and freedom. And the expression of face, eyes, mouth, speaking to and with each several gesture, combined to make the successive movements so many studies for the artist; each constituting a scene to itself, but all happily blended, so as to form a story of eager passion, with all the fluctu- ations of love, in the usual caprices of young and amorous hearts. Looking at her, you are reminded of what Ulysses says of Cressida : — " Fie, fie upon her ! There 's language in her eye, her cheek, her lip ; Nay, her foot speaks. Her wanton spirits look out, At every joint and motive of her body. Oh, these encounterers, so glib of tongue, That give a coasting welcome ere it comes, And wide unclasp the tables of their thoughts To every ticklish reader ! — set them down, For sluttish spoils of opportunity, And daughters of the game." But we should be doing Zulierae injustice were we to apply this language to her. She deserves it in appearance only. Were she a Greek, or an English woman, it might be true. But it is not in her heart or her passions that her oifence lies. It is because she possesses " wanton spirits," not wanton desires, that she plays the voluptuous one. It is with her just so much play — nothing more. She is an actor, and in her part of the play. In our pres- ent sense of the word, she is not voluptuous. She is, in fact, rather cold than passionate. Her blood dances to the intoxication of music — not her head or heart. The dances suflBce her — are sufficiently compensative in themselves, conduct to nothing, and rather relieve passion than provoke it. The character of such a woman is not an uncommon one, even with the sterner Anglo- Norman nature. She will suffer the passionate embraces of Lieutenant Molyneaux in the dance, but not otherwise. She will float with him in the languor of soft music, or dart and bound to his persuasions, when the violin discourses with enthusiasm ; but if he ventures to kiss her, she will slap his face ! There is some- 60 THE CASSIQUE OP KIAWAH. thing serious in kissing which she will not suffer ; none in dancing, waltzing — though these sometimes demand pretty close hug- ging — none in fandango, or castanets ; none, in brief, in the fash- ions of her country, which train the sexes to familiarities, through these media, which, in the case of other nations, more intense and of colder climates, would inevitably awaken all the storms of passion. And thus it is, that, while the blood of Lieutenant Molyneaux courses through his veins like a lava flood, the bosom of Zulieme Calvert beats as temperately as if she lay at ease in her veran- dah, while the sweet breezes of the southwest swept over with an ever-fanning wing, waiting upon the drowsiest empress that ever sate on the cushions of apathy. Lieutenant Molyneaux broke down in the dance. But there was no breaking down in Zulieme. She challenged Eckles to the encounter ; caught him by the arm, forced him into the ring, and soon laughed merrily, as, after a series of horrible leaps, bounds, and " cavortings," he succumbed also, throwing himself down upon the sward, and declaring himself " all a jelly !" Zulieme leaped into a grapevine ; swang ; called for her guitar ; played awhile ; and, while she played, Molyneaux placed himself behind her, and with officious hands upon her person, kept lady and swing in gentle motion ; and with all this, she took no sort of offence. But, anon, she tired of the guitar and swing ; leaped dovra, turned to Molyneaux, forced him anew into the waltz, and be- trayed as much grace, elasticity, and vigor, as before. We are free to state, that, however grateful to our lieutenant, to be able to grasp hand, and arm, and waist, and to feel her warm breath upon his cheek, he w^s hijqiself troubled with a shortness of breath, and a heaviness of ]\fah, which made his movements almost as awkward as those ftf his junior officer, Eckles. And even while they fhus swam and danced together, in that wild, warm, fantastical movement of the American Spaniards an exaggeration of all that is wild and voluptuous in tlie dances of the Spaniards in the old world — in the regions Biscayan or Andalusian — there came other spectators to behold the scene. On the edge pf the litfje ^ifiphi theatre, thijs ftcpupied, suddenly stood Harry C^lyprt ^.nd jjjs faithfu} fgllower. Jack Belcher. The SIMPLY, LEGS AT OUTLAWRY. 61 former leaned against a tree, with folded arms, and watched the scene for a while with a gloomy but vacant aspect. He had emerged from the sylvan recess of the latter, ere he had ap- proached him, and found Belcher in waiting. The more violent emotions of the captain were then subdued, but a deeper tint of sadness had overspread his countenance ; and, as now he gazes upon the voluptuous and fantastic sports of his wife with his young and amorous lieutenant, it is, perhaps, quite pardonable in his faithful follovrer to assume that some portion of the fero- cious sadness of his features may be caused by the lady's levity, to call it by no harsher name. And, almost unconsciously, Belcher says to him — as it were apologetically — " It 's the custom of the people, sir ; she means no harm." " Surely, she means no harm ! It is all child's play. Songs and dances — fools and fiddles. Surely, no harm. Surely not, Jack." And, speaking thus, Harry Calvert turned away, almost con- temptuously, and moved slowly out of the w^oods. Was it pride, was it indifference, that rendered the captain heedless of this loose indulgence of festivity on the part of his wife — these freedoms of her sex, so unfamiliar to English eyes, which, in spite of his apologies, revolted those of Jack Belcher? or was it obtuseness ? Had the sensibilities of his master become so callous, or brutified, that he neither saw, nor eared to see, how eager was the embrace of Molyncaux, how heedlessly Zulieme yielded herself to his embraces ? He could see the satyr in the eyes of the former — what was it in those of the latter which made him indifferent ? Perhaps he knew her sufficiently. Perhaps — but wherefore farther supposes ? Enough, that he says, moving off, with Belcher close following :— "A child, Jack — a mere child. Child's play all. Happy that there is neither thought nor memory to ' stir up passion, or make it bitter ! Zulieme is simply a happy child." And the two walked together along the shores ; and their far- ther talk was of the ship, cargo — anything but love or woman. And, as they went, the darkness came down, and the moon shot up into the heavens, and the stars stole out ; and fires were lighted in the woods where the revellers still lingered; and while Zulieme strummed the guitar, and sang some of those wild ballads. Moor- G2 THE CASSIQUE OF KIAWAH. ish or Castilian, in which the latter language is so prolific, the merry Jack Tars turned their dancing into a drinking party, and the clink of the cannikin served to soherize their antics, in gradu- ally bringing them into the province of drunkenness ! We have no homily for the occasion. They vi'ere less virtuous in those days than we in ours. Meanwhile, not an ear heard the dip of that paddle which slowly traced the windings of the marsh on the other side of the bay — not an eye beheld that "dugout" of the redman, as it slowly swept along under cover of its green fringes, a mere speck in the moonlight, across the bay, and into the very creek where our cruiser lay at her moorings. But a little while had elapsed, when the sharp, snakelike eyes of the Indian warrior watched the revellers as they lay, or sate, or danced, or slept, around their fires ; never fancying that, even then, there was one near who made nice calculations of the number of white scalps which might be taken, were there with him, instead of one, but a score of his lithe and active warriors ! And the two redmen stole away from their place of espionage in the gorge of the forest, and behind its thickets ; and soon the little dugout, which had been simply attracted by the shouts of the revellers to see, stole once more quietly out of the creek, and took its course for the open bay. But, this time, not without observation. Calvert and Belcher were upon the headland as it went. The keen ears of the former heard a sound of paddles ; the keen eyes of the latter detected the slight dark speck, as it rounded the opposite point into the full blaze of moon and star- light ; and the summons : — " Who goes there !" was only a moment quicker than the pistol- shot which aimed to punish the insolent refusal to answer. That pistol-shot, ringing clear over the creek and forest, brought the revellers from the thicket. There was prompt pursuit. But the canoe of the redman was nowhere to be found. Belcher then reported that which he had before discovered, and rightly divined this to be the same canoe which he had seen several hours before, steering for the unknown island of Kiawah. "The Indians are not here yet in any numbers, sir, but it's well to look out for them, now that fish have begun to bite." " Nay, 'i will not need. We shall be gone to-morrow." SIMPLY, LEGS AT OUTLAWRY. 63 At this moment, our captain and his follower were joined by Zulieme and Molyneaux, closely accompanied by Eckles, Sylvia, and the rest. The pistol-shot had served to end the revel. Of course there were a thousand agitating queries, which were soon answered, but without satisfying anybody. When Zulieme found that nothing could be known, she was all reproaches to her lord. " To break up the dance just when it was so delicious. I was so happy. And why, Harry, didn't you come and dance with me, instead of this Molyneaux ? He 's so slow, and he wears such tight breeches, that he can do nothing in them. Now, Harry, you can do so much better, and you wear such loose breeches, and you can stand it so much longer !" Calvert smiled sadly, as he chucked her silently under the chin. Belcher noted that when Molyneaux presented himself, his master smiled again ; but he fancied, this time, that it was quite another sort of smile — that there was something sinister in it — which, had he been the object, he should not have wished to see. And Belcher had his own cogitations in respect to this difference of smile. " It's one thing for the senora to be free in them Spanish fandangoes; but it's a very different thing for such a person as Lieutenant Molyneaux to have the freedom too. Oh, yes, indeed ! That's a difference! She's not thinking at all: but what's he thinking about all the time? Oh! I know him — and I reckon the captain knows him too. His thinking, indeed ! The goat ! the monkey! But let him look to it. I remember that sharp smile of Harry Berkeley — Calvert, I should say — from the time when he was only knee-high to a cocksparrow ; and when he smiled so through them half-shut eyes, there was mischief in it ; and he 's one to work with a word and a blow ; and the word is just so^ much thunder, always after the flash." Like all favorite body-servants, Jack Belcher had his omens and memories together. 64 THE CA8SIQUE OF KIAWAH. CHAPTER VI. CLEOPATEA IMPATIENT. " Oh, we are children all. That vex the elements with idle cries. For playthings, that we throw away anon, Seeking still others ; which not satisfy. But mock us like the rest. We would he wise, And are but wanton." Peomft in execution as resolve, the captain of the " Happy- go-Lucky" had ordered that, with the dawning, that clever little cruiser should be got ready for sea. Zulieme was awakened ere the dawn by the rattling of bolts and chains, and the weighing of anchors. She started up from, no doubt, very pleasant slumbers in that luxurious cabin, and found herself alone. That cabin ! Cruisers, privateers, pirates, are all understood to have Juxurious cabins. This is the conventional understanding, among your writers of prose fiction. And there is reason in it. Such snuggeries as they must be, in such long, low, dark-looking craft as these generally are, must necessarily imply boxes for cabins, such as would better suit the physical dimensions of elf and fairy than stalwart men of Saxon brood. And, being thus small and snug, why not lavish upon them the nice tastes which commend the cottage, and reconcile us, through beauty and neatness, to the absence of vastness and mag- nificence? Beside.^, having the wealth, why should not privateer, or cruiser, have a taste ? and these being their homes, why not make them as cheerful and attractive as we are all apt to render our cabins when dwelling on dry land? Something, too, of the compensative must be sought, in this respect, for the absence of many of the comforts, to say nothing of the ease and freedom CLEOPATRA IMPATIENT. 65 which we can only seek upon the shores. There will, accordingly, be found huddled together in the cabins of the merest seadogs a variety of treasures, such as we rarely find, in any similar space, in other situations. There will be luxuries at waste, gauds and gems, toys of art and fancy, and appliances of enjoyment and ostentation, such as will be apt to confound the sight of the lands- man, even when he shall happen to be born in the purple. The privateers, quasi pirates, of the days of good Queen Bess were famous for their ostentatious habits and indulgences. There was Cavendish, for example, who entered the British ports with silken sails, as well as streamers, and got himself knighted, just as he showed himself a man of taste and splendor, as well as a man of blood. Stars shine famously on a crimson ground, and the blend- ing, or with ffules, has never mortified the pride of any nobility, ancient or modern. There is no difficulty in reconciling these anomalies of taste and mood in the character of those who trace back to the northern vikings. Enough, that most cruisers of the good old times, when " there was no peace beyond the line," found it easy to discover a propriety in such combinations of voluptuous glitter with the most savage outlawry. And the taste has hardly died out in the present day. At all events, our cruiser of the " Happy-go-Lucky" was sufficiently familiar with the practice of the preceding generation, and suffi- ciently approved it to continue its exercise : though, by the way, we are to admit that much of his present display was due to the simple fact that the fair Zulieme was his passenger. (Query — ■why passenger? why not passager?) The magnificence was rather hers than his. His cabin, hardly more than twelve feet square — an empire to himself alone — was necessarily so decorated as to be specially pleasant in the sight of his wife. He did not stop as to the necessary expenditure. Everything, exquisitely little, in that little domain, was exquisitely nice. The furniture, the fix- tures, were all of fine mahogany. There were two trim sleeping places, panoplied with gilding and purple. Rich curtains of crimson silk draped the chamber. There was a most exquisitely nice divan, covered also, back and cushion, with silken draperies. There was a pier-table of pearl-inlaid ebony, upon which, in a wicker-work of gilt wire, stood vases filled with flowers, that were 66 THE CASSIQUE OF KIAWAH. now no longer fresh. Bijouterie — chains, and clasps, and medal- lions — lay confusedly on this table ; and, something of a contrast, poniards and pistols — enough for two — were oddishly among them. And rich shawls of silk, and fine workmanship, were scat- tered over couch and sofa in rare confusion, mocking taste with mere exuberance and splendor. And there were gay shining weapons, cimeters and pistols, that hung in racks against the wall ; and a lamp, feebly striving to give forth its fires, swung suspended from the ceiling, the glasses that environed it being of thick cut crystal. Altogether, the snuggery, if small enough for the fair- ies, was richly enough garnished and decorated for the more vo- luptuous genii of Eastern fable — the djinns of Gog and Magog dimensions. And there, starting from sleep as the heavy chain falls upon the deck, Zulieme found herself alone. She did not conjecture that the cabin had, that night, enter- tained no other inmate than herself. Her lord had strode the decks, or slept upon them, through all the watches of the night. But you are not to suppose that this occasioned her any concern. To wrap a morning-gown of silk about her shoulders ; to fling a silken turban over her head ; and thus in diskabille, with black hair dishevelled, to dart up the steps of the companion-way, and hurry to the quarter-deck, was the work of but a moment, calling for no single interval of reflection, with any creature so child- ishly impulsive. Harry Calvert, with arms folded, eyes half shut, and looking inward rather than outward, sombre as a thunder-cloud — hardly conscious of anything but that he was obeyed — did not see her approach, till he felt her arm on his shoulder. He acknowledged her presence with a start, then turned away, and strode to the opposite side of the vessel. She followed him. "Why, what's the matter, Harry?" "Matter! what matter! Nothing's the matter! Don't you Fee we're at sea?" " Yes : but where bound for, Harry ?" " Charleston." "Oh! I'm so glad. So you were only plaguing me all the while." " Plaguing you ! / plague you ? Why should I plague you, CLEOPATEA IMPATIENT. 67 Zulieme? Why plague anybody? Do I look like a man to engage in monkey-tricks ?" And verily, none might reasonably think so, judging from his brows at that moment. " Oh, don't think to scare me, Harry, with such a face." " Scare you ?" "To be sure — scare me. If you don't want to scare me, why do you look so? Boo! There 's for your sulky faces. I'm sure I don't mind 'em, Harry; and now that we're really to go to Charleston, you may blow yourself up into a thunder-storm as soon as you please." And she hummed and lilted as usual, swept across the quarter- deck on light fantastic toe, then darted back to him, and with hand again on his shoulder, asked — " But how long, Harry, before we get there ?" " It may be half a day, Zulieme — it may be never ! " Now, that 's too sulky. Why will you talk so ? Half a day? I must go and begin to get my things ready." And she disappeared under a new impulse. He gave her but a single glance, then turned away, and looked out upon the dim waste of sea, now growing white in the increasing light of morn- ing, as, shooting out between the green islets that guard the mouth of the Edisto, our cruiser made her way into blue water. With a fair wind, indeed, it needed but a few hours to bring the ship to the Charleston entrance, and, in the case of one of such light draft, into port. But, for the present, our cruiser kept the offing, and hung off and on, under cover of the shores, her masts hidden behind stripes of pine forest. And so she kept till twilight. Meanwhile the eager and giddy-souled Zulieme, with all the impatience of a child bent upon its day of pleasure, had roused up Sylvia, and set Phipps in motion, preparing to go on shore. The cabin was soon a scene of wild confusion. Trunks were rummaged and emptied. Silks and satins, gowns and garments, skirts and laces, covered couch and cushion. She made her toilet with care ; sat in deliberation on each article of costume ; chose and rejected each in turn, until Phipps was beside himself, and Sylvia in despair. More than two hours were thus consumed ; and when she ran again upon deck, to ask more questions, she left 68 THE CASSIQUE OF KIAWAH. to her Abigail the task of restoring to order a wardrobe, ample enough for a princess of the blood, which, had she tried, could scarcely have been thrown into a condition of more admirable confusion. But Sylvia was more patient than her mistress ; and in two hours more she had contrived to render the little chamber once more habitable. It was not long before our captain drove her headlong from it ; flying himself from the perpetual question- ing of the fair Zulieme on deck. The restless seiiora had utterly failed to extract any satisfaction from her lord. She next had recourse to Molyneaux. But, whether he really knew nothing of the purposes of his superior, as he alleged; or whether he had taken counsel of prudence from the warning remonstrances of Eckles ; or whether, as is more probable, his impudence le,d him to adopt the policy of piquing the lady into a better recognition of his own importance ; he had suddenly become exceedingly shy of his communications. She could get nothing from Mm ! And so she petted and pouted through half the day ; would eat no dinner — a circumstance, we are constrained to say, that had no sort of influence upon the appetites of either of the lieutenants. Zulieme was somewhat consoled as she. saw that her lord ate as little as herself. She was soon again upon deck, especially as she heard the ship in motion. But the prospect was as little grateful as before. The " Happy-go-Lucky"^ seemed to be exer- cising herself, simply in a purposeless progress; to and fro;, in the precincts of the port which she seemed coy to enter, yet wist- ful of the approach. It lay inviting enough before her. Sulli- van's island, then well wooded, lay on one hand, and her eye could trace, in the clear atmosphere, the white houses in the city, some six miles ofi^ in the west. It needed not an hour to reach the goal. And that hour — that six miles — were these to be the* barriers between her impatience and its object ? And why, if riot to enter, had they come hither, and thus far? "Who will answer? The captain kept his cabin. He had already been employed through certain w6ary hours, writing, reading, examining, and preparing papers, with^a wilderness of them spread upon the table before him. A savage silence, save for the sounds made by his pen, and the rustle of unfolding sheets, prevailed throughout the chamber. He seemed vexed, wearied, uneasy, striving, it would CLEOPATRA IMPATIENT. 69 seem, to concentrate upon inferior objects those thoughts which were marvellously willed to wander. While thus engaged, Zu- lieme had sought him repeatedly, but in vain ; failing to secure his attention, and only provoking him to signs of impatience which, with some effort — a fact she scarcely perceived — forbore to express itself with harshness and seventy. She failed entirely to wear or worry him into a revelation of his objects. '' Tell me, Harry Calvert," said she, after repeated intrusions, "what's the use of all these foolish papers? And why can't you wait to do them till you get to Charleston ? And why, now that we 've got here, why do you wait at the door, as if wanting per- mission to go in ? What's to prevent? Molyneaux says there's water a plenty and wind in the right quarter, and that it only needs an hour to be at the docks. And don't you see I'm all dressed and ready to go ashore ? I shall die if you keep me another night at sea. And I won't be kept. Do you hear me, Harry ?" He had hardly heard a syllable ; but he answered, " Yes, I hear," — but without once looking up. " Harry Calvert, you are a great sulky cayman ; and I 'm only sorry that I ever saw you." He seemed to hear that, and answered, very soberly, while still continuing to write — " So am I, Zulieme, very sorry." " What do you mean by that ? you great alligator man ! I tell you, Harry, I 'm sorry I ever nursed you, and made you well ; for you don't care if I die here, in your vile vessel. Oh ! you've cheated, and deceived me, and made a fool of me, Harry Calvert, and I hate you ! — I do, Harry, and I never did care about you ; and if I told you so, I lied. You hear me — I tell you, I never loved you, and I lied when I said so." It is charity to suppose that the person thus addressed never heard a syllable of this grateful assurance. He simply nodded his head approvingly, and went on writing. She looked at him a moment with a stronger expression of indigaation than she had yet shown, then rushed again on deck to the courtly lieutenant. " Look you, Mr. Molyneaux, didn't you tell me there was noth- ing to prevent our going to Charleston ?" " No, senora, I did not." 70 THE CASSIQUE OF KIAWAH. "But I say you did!" " You misunderstood me, seiiora. I said that neither wind nor tide prevented." "Well, that's the same thing." " No, ask the captain." " Ask the great bear and the grand cayman. He's a brute and monster, and won't hear a word I say. Now, I ask you, if the wind and water serve, what's to keep us here — what prevents our going in ?" " Nothing, but the captain. He says ' no,' ?ind the wind and water must wait on him." " But /won't." " Ah, Zulieme, a beautiful woman like yourself may do what she pleases." And the lieutenant smiled very dutifully, as he looked up and said these words in very subdued accents. " You can will and others must wait." " How 's that, when here I can 't get any of you to stir and carry me to Charleston? Don't tell me such things, and don't you call me beautiful, when you don't mind a word I say. Ah ! before I was married, everybody minded me. Now they all treat me just as if I were a troublesome child. I wonder what I ever got married for. I'm sure I'm sick of it." " You have reason," said the courtly lieutenant, with tones of sympathy, and looking into her face with the utmost tender- ness. " That I have ; and I'll never come with Harry again, though he begs me on his bended knees. I'd have died here, if I hadn't had you to amuse me. But tell me, Molyneaux, why don't Harry go up to Charleston ? What's the reason? Don't you know ?" He answered her only with a very annoying, provoking smile, which seemed to say, plainly enough — " Well, yes, J do know, but you are not to know." So she understood the smile. " But I will know, Mr. Molyneaux." He smiled still more knowingly, and shrugged his shoulders. "Now don't you make that impudent motion again. I won't have it. You mustn't treat me so, I tell you." Molyneaux was suddenly seized with a feeling of profound CLEOPATRA IMPATIENT. 71 duty, and grew busied with certain charts of the old Spanish geographers. Just as suddenly, she pulled the great sheets from his hands, and scattered them about the deck. " Now, I say, listen to me and answer." Stooping and picking up the charts, with great placidity, Molyneaux looked up and said, in subdued tones, softly and insinuatingly — " Ah, senora, would you treat the captain so ?" " And why not, if he will not answer ?" The courtly lieutenant shook his head in denial. " Better not try it, Zulieme, while he is in his present humor." " But I will try it ! What do I care for his humors ?" " Nay, seiiora, I do not suppose that you do care much ; but, I know you would never dare do to him what you have just 'done to the poor lieutenant of this ship.'' The wilful creature darted below on the instant. Looking after her, with a cunning smile upon his countenance, Molyneaux caught the eyes of Jack Belcher fixed steadily upon him. " Did that fellow hear me ?" quoth he to himself. Then, a moment after, with a reckless air, and half aloud, " If he did, I care not." He was not quite so indifferent as he said. Still less was he indifferent to the events which were probably, even then, going on in the captain's cabin ; but he concentrated his whole regards now upon the charts which he had gathered up from the deck, and seemed heedless of everything besides. Meanwhile, all below was silent to the ears of those above ; and yet, to those who had witnessed the scene, the feeUng was one of suspense and anxiety. The ears of Molyneaux, however seem- ingly indiiferent, were watchful. So were those of Jack Belcher. He had heard every syllable. Though of coarser clay, and infe- rior education, yet his instincts, improved by love for his master, were just and sagacious. He could see — he suspected — the mischievous purposes of Molyneaux. He could also suspect their source. He would have given much to be able to go below, and interpose, if necessary, in the scene which he anticipated. But he dared not. He pitied the silly child, who, in a false relation- ship to his and her superior, was thus made a tool for mischief in 72 THE CASSIQDE OP KIAWAH. the hands of one who could easily make it appear that his whole course was natural enough, if not absolutely proper. We may readily understand how he should be uneasy — how Molyneaux himself should be anxious — about the result of this ridiculous proceeding. But no sounds reached them from below. Yet had Zulieme kept the silly purpose for whicl^she had darted down. She had approached her lord without a word of premonition. With one fell swoop she had swept the papers from the table to the floor, exclaimmg — " You sha'n't bother with these papers any more, Harry. You shall come on deck and talk with me, and answer me all my questions." SHADOWS ON THE SEA. 73 CHAPTER VII. SHADOWS ON THE SEA. " Know that the fates, frail creature, have decreed Thy bondage to a power that broods in gloom, While thou wouldst sing in fancy : that will mar Thy music, which hath taken an April chirp From nature, and in place of pleasant carol. Make it a boding omen, still of evil !" The act was like a flash — quick as lightning — one for which not a syllable had prepared our cruiser. He had not heard or seen her approach — was deeply busied in the work before him, which seemed to tax all his attention, and to absorb his whole existence. But with the act he started into terrible consciousness — started to his feet, thrust the table from before him, and confronted her with uplifted hand and clenched fingers. His brow was' dark like a thunder-storm ; there was a lurid fire in his glance that seemed to smite ; and the veins grew suddenly corded across his forehead. The change was instantaneous. Never had Zulieme beheld such a countenance in man — never such a look from him, the power- ful man before her. She recoiled from it, as with all the instinct of imbecility, cowered, crouched ; and the broken murmur from her lips, speaking which she was hardly conscious, attested her first sense of her own folly and of his rage. "Oh, Harry! don't — don't strike me." " Strike you !" was the hoarsely-spoken answer. "Strike you!" and he drew himself up to his fullest height, and threw his arms behind him, as if fearing to trust his own emotions. And it was admirable to behold the wonderful effort which the strong man made — in his pride, in all the conscious- ness of power — to subdue himself, as Strength ever should in the conflict with Imbecility. In a moment his countenance had be- come composed. There was still a quiver of the muscles which 4 7-1 _ THE CASSIQUB OF KIAWAH. the woman did not see. And then he stooped down deliberately and began picking up the scattered papers, as quietly as Moly- neaux had done on a similar occasion overhead. The woman little dreamed that he thus employed himself only to gain time in the struggle with his own passions. She said something, and laughed hysterically, seeing him so employed ; then, with sudden impulse, she sprang to assist in gathering up the sheets of paper. And he suffered her, but continued himself, until all the documents were restored to the table. This done, he said — and with a tone so sad, accents so subdued, an emphasis so melancholy, that the simple words had in them a significance which even she could feel, and which no language could define — " It is you, Zulieme." He did not say so, but we may, that, had the offender been a man — any other person, indeed — he would have brained him where he stood. There would not have been a word spoken. He took her hand. He led her to the divan, seated her, and stood before her. She was now submissive enough to all his movements. " Zulieme Calvert, you once saved my life ; and — you are my wife. God forbid that aught should ever make me forget what you are, what I owe you, and what I am ! But, sit here. I must speak with you. It is necessary that 1 should try, at least, to lift you into some sense of what you are, what I am, and what is abso- lutely necessary between us." " Oh, Harry, it was all fun." " Life, Zulieme, is not a funny thing. Men and women are not made for fun. Life is a sad, serious thing, in which fun is very apt to be impertinence. If I were dying on that couch before you, would you think the affair funny? Would it make you funny ? "Would you laugh, sing, dance, while I lay struggUng with the last enemy of man? There are women — wives, it is said — who would rejoice at such a spectacle ; but even they would deem it proper to conceal their delight. They, at least, would not con- fess that it was funny in their eyes, or try to make it appear so to the eyes of others." " Oh, Harry, how can you speak so — and to me — when you know " " Do I not tell you that I believe yoii saved my life ? do I not SHADOWS ON THE SEA. 75 avow that I am your husband ? Let this assure you that I will not forget, in what I say, what are the relations between us." " But oh ! Harry, to speak of your dying — and that I should be funny !" " I did not say tliat, Zulieme. Hear what I do say : when, in your fun, you tore the papers from my table, I was writing my last will and dying testament." " Ah — Dios ! O, Harry ! why should you write such things ?" " Because, the very hour that takes you into Charleston, for which you long so much, may take me to the gallows." She answered with a scream of horror. He soothed her. " Let this secure me your attention. If you will be funny, Zulieme, pray be attentive also." " You stab me to the soul, Harry." "And I must so stab you to the soul, Zulieme, if only to make you feel that you have one. If, in the pursuit of your merest pleasures, your soul becomes insensible to the anxieties and suffer- ings of those whom you profess to love, of what use to have a soul at all? It is sometimes necessary to bruise the plant to make it give forth its precious virtues ; so, to the cold or sleeping soul it needs that we should sometimes give an almost mortal stab, in order that we may make it feel that life, of which otherwise it makes no sign. You have seen that I suffer, yet you heed not ; you have been told that I have cares, yet you despise them ; I have, shown you that I command a turbulent people, who would soon cease to obey if I failed in proper authority, yet you wan- tonly put that authority in danger. But of these things I have already spoken, and always in vain. I will speak of them no longer. I fear, from what I know of you, that the impressions, even of a great terror, will possess your soul only for an instant ; that a gleam of sunshine, a bird song,, the sound of music, the laughter of a child, the voice of a gallant in compliment — or his hand in the dance — will make you forget that Danger stands waiting at the door, and that Death lurks, looking over your- shoulder, as over mine." " Oh ! Harry, what a fool you must think me !" " A child, Zulieme ; but one that can never ^froi^. Your whole people are children. You have no voice in the soul, no urgent thought, which compels growth. Happy only, if the world's cares 76 THE CASSIQUE OP KIAWAH. and your own resources will let you remain a child — let you sing, dance, sleep." He paused, strode away, then turned and resumed. She would have spoken, but, with uplifted hand, he silenced her. " No, Zulieme, you must hear me now. You force me to speak. In marrying me, you married a care — la child. We were both in error. I have brought you into an atmosphere for which you are unaccustomed. You should have married a man who was willing to dream away life, among the plains or hills of the isth- mus, between dance and siesta. I am one whom care and thought do not pcnnit to sleep. You are a bird, that, even in sleep, must sing. You are not asked to do battle in the storm. My whole hfe is a battle. Mine. is a life of passion. You know not what passion is. You sob and sleep, sing and sleep, prattle and sleep, and sleep comes to you, rounding life with dream, and rousing it only to new dreams with the morning. What had you, poor Zulieme, to do with a stern, dark, careful man like me ? I have brought you to ' an experience of care,' to a life of thought, for which you have no sympathy. It was my fault, perhaps, Zulieme, and your misfortune. And so, we live in different worlds, Zu- lieme, and though we do not part, we never meet. When we meet, your song is spoiled. I make for you a sky in which no bird can sing, unless the hawk, the vulture, the cormorant. Is it not so, Zulieme ?" "I don't know, Harry; only I feel you are saying terrible things to me. I don't want to hear you !" " But you must hear now. The time has come when you must be made to see clearly how vast a space divides us — makes for us different worlds and fates. Your world changes every day, sometimes every hour. Of the fates, you take no more care than the bird. To-day, you would find your sufficient world in Charles- ton. In that little town of twelve hundred people, you would dance and sing, quite satisfied, so long as there came a crowd to admire, and a good waltzer to be your partner. And so would it be in Havana. To me these are all childish things." "Harry, don't talk to me any more. I won't dance again. I will never " "Nay, that will be to give up your life, Zulieme. Do not be impatient. You have forced me to speak, and you must hear. SHADOWS ON THE SEA. 77 and I promise you that I will not again speak to you, in this man- ner, till you shall again force me. Now, you must let me finish. I shall never, Zulieme, cease to repent the selfishness and weak- ness that made me marry you. I should have known the dangers and the sufferings to .which such an alliance would expose you. I should have known you well enough to see that you were unfitted for the encounter. And I did know it. But I was weak after long sickness, and you were very beautiful, Zulieme, and very tender, and you had saved my life by your nursing, Zulieme." " Ah, Harry, but didn't I nurse you well?" " No one could have done it better." " Yet, you are so cross to me." " Cross ! alas, Zulieme, I try in vain to teach you. Cross ! Child — woman ! were you any other than you are, I would have toon you limb from limb, and thrown you, without remorse or scruple, to the sharks of yonder deep sea." " Harry ! — you horrid Harry." " Ay, I am tender to you, Zulieme — tender for my nature ; considerate of yours. But I must try and make clear to you the absolute truths in my situation, however impossible to make you comprehend the necessities of ray nature, or of the character of yours. When we married, I was weak, and sick, and sore, and mortified. I had suffered a great disappointment." " Ah ! I know — there was a lady, Harry. And I know her name, too. You called her often enough when you were out of your head. And you married me, a poor child you say, because she wouldn't have you. That's it, Harry." " That's not it, Zulieme. The woman of whom you speak was mine, all mine — heart, soul, voice — all ! all !" " And why did you not marry her, then ?" " I was' an outcast, an exile ; but seeking fortune that I might do so ; and in this search I was wrecked, narrowly escaped drowning, found my way to your father's hacienda, and narrowlj escaped dying; and, after seventeen dreary months of absencu from home, she was made to many another. But, do not force me upon this, Zulieme. Rather hear what I would say in regard^ to the present, and ourselves ; let the past bury its own dead. Enough for me — sad solace that it is — I knew her to be faithful ; feel that she has been betrayed by those who should have been 78 THP CASSIQUE OP KIAWAH. true; feel that she has suffered like myself; that never pang went to ' my heart that did not find its way to hers. Let there be no more of this. Let it suffice you that I am your husband — that she is now the wife of another." Here he paused, strode aside with averted face, and hastily swallowed a cup of water. " Your father found me a dying man, almost glad to die. Had I been conscious when he took me into his dwelling, I had cer- tainly died. Insensibility, however, came to the relief of nature, and in the very aberration of intellect the animal recovered. It was with pain only that I grew to consciousness, and your fond nursing, Zulieme, gave me the first pleasant impression of return- ing life and health. I do not reproach you ; I am grateful. Yet, a thousand times better had it been, for you as well as me, had your sire and self suffered me to perish on the burning highways, ere you took me to the shelter of your hacienda." "No! no! Harry — no!" " Ah ! you know not yet the end. And how it all must end. The sting is yet to come. You are of light heart, a bird nature, and you will not feel it long. There is consolation in that." " But, Harry — do n't " " Stay, Zulieme, hear ! " Your father's protection, your cares, a vigorous constitution, and, perhaps, my utter mental unconsciousness for the time, saved my life. Your father helped me with his means. I bought a share in this vessel. I finally became sole proprietor. I made her famous. She became the terror of the Spaniard on the seas. And here, in this and other ports of the English, she was ever welcome as a Spanish terror. The Spaniards had been their ter- ror. They knew them only as enemies ; could know them only as enemies ; and he who strove with the Spaniard was to them an ally and a friend. I was one of these. The English people knew me as a friend, and when I tore down a Spanish flag I was hailed by the plaudits of my people. To do this very, work I had the commission of my king ; yet, he now abandons me. Bribed by the Frenchman, bullied by the Spaniard, faithless to himself and people, my own king sacrifices me to the foes of both. He disavows my commission ; he denounces me as a pirate of the seas, whom it is permitted to all men to destroy." SHADOWS ON THE SEA. 79 "Oh! Harry, I wouldn't fight for him again. Leave these English; they're a hoggish sort of people — leave them and Uve with our people. And why should you follow the seas, Harry ? What's the use? It isn't money that you want. You have enough, and I have enough, and we'll go back to the Isthmus, where no English can ever find us out; and there, O Harry, there we can be so happy. No troubles, Harry ; no cares ; noth- ing but dancing and delight, and fruits and pleasures. Let us go, Harry ; let us leave this place ; and leave the seas ; and have no more trouble, safe, high up in the mountains of the Isthmus." He shook his head mournfully. " Eather a single year of life, all storm and battle, than the stagnation of such a life. No peace, d0 calm for me, Zulieme. I can now live only in the storm. This is what I fail to make you understand. My lot is cast on reefs of danger, through seas of storm, with rocks on either hand, and the hurricane for ever on the wing. It requires all my manhood to steer amid these dan- gers. It is not for me to skulk them. But, though I do not fear them, and will meet them as becomes a proper manhood, I do not find it easy to win merriment from, or seek it while I am in the death-struggle with, these warring elements. And when I am thus wrestling for life, it is not easy to endure the jest, or the peevish humors, of one even who has saved my life ! — even a woman — . even a wife ! a being whom, in moments of thought, we regard as a thing to cherish close to the heart, and not to gaze on with look of less than kindness. Do you see now why it is that I go to Charleston with mood so diiferent from yours ?" " Do not go, Harry — do not! I did not know that there was danger. I'm sure, Harry, I don't care to go there. Why should I care ? I can be seen by quite as many people in Havana, and then we have a thousand times better dancing, I'm sure! No! no ! Do n't go there, Harry. Eather go home, to our old home on the isthmus." " I must go, Zulieme, though the gallows waits me at the dock ! But I will do nothing rashly, Zulieme, unless goaded to it by your passion for the dance, and by the passions of others not so inno- cent." ■ " What passions — what others?" " Enough, that they are unknown to you. In that ignorance is 80 THE CASSIQUE OF KIAWAH. my security — and yours ! You know, now, why I avoid Charleston by daylight — why I hide my vessel among these headlands, and under cover of these pines. With midnight we will run into port ; we will run up Ashley river, and harbor there in a well-known place of security. I will go ashore in disguise. You will remain on board till I tell you that you may come forth in safety. You must be content with this. If not — if stimulated by any foolibh love of show or amusement you allow yourself to be discovered — it may lead to my ruin. You must rely on me so as to believe that the restraint I put upon you for awhile, is absolutely neces- sary for my safety." " Oh, Harry, I will mind all that you say." " One word more : be\»re, Zulieme, how you mind anybody else." "Who else should I mind, Harry, but you ? And if I don't mind you always, Harry, it's because you are such a great Eng- lish bear sometimes ; showing such great teeth and such big paws, and not letting a body laugh as much." And she thi'ew her arras about his neck and kissed him. He loosed himself tenderly from her hold, took her to the cabin-en- trance, and put her out — even as one gently puts out of the win- dow the little bird which has flown into his chamber unadvisedly, and which, ignorant of his purpose, is throbbing with terror under- neath his hands. But he had scarce done so, when she returned : " Harry, let me stay here awhile. I can 't go up there now." " Very well. Lie down, Zulieme." " Yes, yes ! That 's what I want !" And throwing herself down upon the divan behind him, while he went on writing, her great black eyes suddenly gushed out with tears. But she suppressed the sobs. After awhile, she started up and cried out : — " O Harry ! there was no truth in what you said about the gal- lows. You only meant to scare me." " What my danger may be, Zulieme, I know not. It may not be the gallows. It may not even be death. But there is danger." He now distinctly heard the sobbing. She could no longer sub- due it. He rose, went to her, and, bending over her, kissed her tenderly, while he said : — SHADOWS ON THE SEA. 81 " Zulieme, I don't think my neck will ever be defiled by a hal- ter. But it is certain that I am threatened with it by my king. By yours I am threatened with the garote. But I am in danger from neither shame, Zulieme, while I have my strength and senses about me, and carry such a friend as this convenient to my grasp.'' And he touched the pistols in his belt, and pointed to certain daggers that hung within reach against the wall. She started up, and drew the poniard from her own girdle, as she cried — " And I would kill myself, Harry, if harm should ever come to you." " Zulieme, if ever you hear of me in prison, come to me if you can, and bring with you that pretty toy ! But let them not see it when you come. Weave it up in the masses of your hair, and. silence all speech of eyes or tongue, that might declare for what you carry." Enough of this scene. Zulieme in half an hour was asleep, and laughing merrily in her sleep, with those fancies which, in the dialogue, she had been compelled to stifle. Calvert looked round, half confounded, half amused. " What a contradiction," he muttered to himself. " An April creature. In play a very hurricane — in passion a child that sobs itself to slumber only to dream of play ! Yet, though feeble as an infant, she is faithful. If wanting in force and concentration of soul, she is not wanting in truth ; and if her love be of the sun- shine only, it is pure — a shallow brooklet that can satisfy no thirst, but limpid as the light, and gliding openly, always in the sunshine." And he resumed his writing for awhile ; finished, folded up his papers, and hurried on deck, leaving Zulieme sleeping. She only M'oke, roused by the vessel's motion, to be told that they were al- ready within the harbor and pressing up toward the infant city. Then she sprang upon her feet and joined her lord on deck. 4* 82 THE CASSIQUE OP KIAWAH. CHAPTER VIII. SNUG HAEBOK. "Now we're in port and safety, let me ask, What is your farther purpose ? Spare me nothing. In a false pity that still mocks at sorrow : What fate do you design for her who follows Such a capricious Fortune 1" The moon had gone down, but the night was one of many stars. The seas were rising, with the winds fresh from the south. The mists of evening had all lifted from the ocean. The land lay de- fined on each hand with perfect distinctness. The little city which rose between the twin rivers of Kiawah and Etiwan, or as the English called them, the Ashley and Cooper, grew mo- mently more and more plain to the spectator in the foreground. On the right, silent as stars and midnight, the narrow islet lay which we now call Sullivan. Then, it was a well-wooded strip, almost to the beach ; but, then, it had but a single dwelling, where a watch was maintained of four men, under a corporal, in a petty blockhouse, defended by an ancient sixpounder of iron. It stood not far from the present fortress. The forests were sub- sequently cut down, for the very reason that they served to con- ceal, from the eyes of the city, such cruisers as the " Happy-go- Lucky" — a little less innocent in fact — a pirate craft, which, at one period, lay in wait for ever at the entrance of the port, ready to dart forth on the unsuspecting merchantman. Equally bare of inhabitants, and even more dense in forest, was the opposite shore, now known as James island. Not a sound of human life came from either side. The guard at the blockhouse slept, no doubt. It was midnight. The city lay buried in deep sleep ; and so the progress of the " Happy-go- Lucky" was unnoticed. She clung as clos'ely as possible to the SNUG HAEBOU. 83 southern side of the harbor, sheltered in some degree by the shadows of the forests. And thus ran the cruiser when Zulieme Calvert made her appearance on deck. Calvert was already there ; had, indeed, navigated the craft into the harbor ; and was still engaged, knowing thoroughly the route, in steering her for Ashley river. Every officer and seaman was at his post, and a like silence with that of sea and shore, and midnight, prevailed throughout the vessel. Zulieme crept to the side of her husband with some timidity. She had not quite recovered her confidence in herself — certainly, was not yet prepared to resume her wilfulness after the scene of the previous evening. Besides, she was impressed by the novelty of her present progress, and the new objects which employed her thoughts : thus entering, at midnight, by stealth, the harbor of a foreign state and people, among whom, as she had been told, lurked some angry terrors for her husband. The very silence which prevailed in the vessel, still pressing on her course, was calculated to awe the glib spirits of the thoughtless creature into reverence. And so, creeping quietly to the side of her husband, she watched his progress, as, with a single word, " larboard" or "starboard," or "port" — or a mere waving of the finger — he directed the movements of the helmsman. " Oh ! what is that, Harry ?" She pointed at the mud reef, on which, at this day, stands Cas- tle Pinckney. It lay immediately upon their right. Then, it was but a mud-reef, having on it a single cabin, near which stood a heavy framework of timber, the uses of which Zulieme could not conjecture. It stood out clearly defined in the starlight, as the eye ranged up the Etiwan, a well-known object to the eyes of our English — not so familiar to those of the Spaniard. Little did poor Zulieme dream of the answer she was to receive. Calvert looked as she bade him, and quietly putting his hand upon her shoulder, said, in impressive but low tones, scarcely above iw whisper : — " That, Zulieme, is the gallows — that is where they hang the pirates !" And such, in that early day, was the only use of the reef. " Ah, Dies ! Oh, horrid ! And just at the entrance of the city ! Oh, what a horrid people !" 84 THE CASSIQUE OP KIAWAH. What Zulieme- ascribed to the popular taste, was, in that day, supposed to be the public policy. They hung men then, ''pour les encourager les autres ;'' and the more conspicuous the place, the greater the elevation — the larger the crowd of spectators — the more horrible the writhings of the victim — the more beneficial the example to society. Whether we are justified in hanging a man as a warning and example, is a question which we do not care to discuss. There are so many crimes which are justified by law and society, that one feels it a mere waste of time, if not of temper, to endeavor to prove their absurdity. We will, accordingly, suffer the poor Zulieme to suppose that the whole practice was the result of pure British taste ; a taste by the way, which, however sanguinary, was not a whit more so than that of her own people, whether under the rule of old Spain, or of its Creole progressistas who succeeded the Castilian. " But the garote," says our refined Spaniard, " is surely not the gallows." But the " Happy-go-Lucky" has left the gallows islet. She is rounding Oyster point — not a fine stone parapet as we now be- hold, girdling a famous drive, but a mere strip of sandy beach, over which the waves are breaking with the gentlest murmur. We are now in Ashley river — the Kiawah of the redmen, a fine broad, poetical stream, an arm of the sea rather than river — here a mile wide, and of sufficient depth to float a seventy-four. The green marshes bound us on either hand. To the left you see the open- ing of Wappoo. At high-water, our low, light-draught cruiser might pass through it, and make her way, by a back door, again into the Atlantic. But a couple of miles above, and we pass the primitive settlement of Sayle, where the first settlers of Charleston drove their original stakes, little more than twenty years before. But we stop not here. Our vessel presses on, several miles be- )ond, where the stream narrows, where the marshes grow less vigorously ; where the oaks bend down and kiss the waters ; and the marl crcips out, seeming, in the moonlight, like a marble mar, gin for some green islet in the Adriatic. We glide into the mouth of a creek on the western bank of the stream, which is thickly fringed with oaks and cedars. Here we shall lie snug, secure from any passing scrutiny. Our sails are quietly furled, and the masts of our cruiser are almost hidden among sheUering pines. SNUG HARBOR. 85 By the time that all this was effected, the day had dawned upon river and forest. Watches were set upon the vessel, and the larger proportion of the crew disappeared from sight, seeking sleep either in their bunks, or in the shelter of the woods. Mean- while, a small scouting party had been sent out, under Lieutenant Eckles, whose business it was to explore the thickets for a circuit, of a mile or two all about. It was important to assure themselves that no encampment of the redmen was within the immediate pre- cinct. They might prove as mischievous as a gipsy band in the neighborhood of a hen-roost. Another small party crossed the river, in order to scour the woods along the opposite shores. These precautions taken, Calvert, who had not closed his eyes for thirty-six hours, threw himself down in his berth, leaving Moly- neaux in charge of the cruiser. It was fortunate for our captain that custom had trained him to sleep promptly, as soon as the exigency had passed which kept him wakeful. Habit had made it easy for nature thus to recu- perate after excessive toils. He slept, even as the honest labor- ing man does, as soon as he touched his pillow. But we do not venture to affirm that he slept so peacefully — that he had no dreams. For, even as he slept, Zulieme stole into the cabin and looked steadily into the face of the sleeper. He was murmuring in his sleep ; and again did the ears of the watcher catch from his lips, as she had done more than once before, the name of one, to hear which always brought a flush upon her cheeks. She had too often heard it ; and that, too, mingled with language of such fen- der interest, such fond reproach or entreaty, as to awaken in her heart, so far as that could be roused by such feelings, those of dis- trust, jealousy, and a vexing suspicion, not only of the past, but of the future. She little dreamed that the occasion was rapidly ripen- ing which would mature suspicion into conviction, and convert a vague jealousy into a source of absolute fear, if not hate and loathing. But we will not anticipate. Enough, that the lips of the sleeper moaned and murmured — that his sleep was troubled ^ — that he writhed upon his couch, under emotions which were now those of tenderness and grief, and anon, by quick transition, of anger and threatening violence. And over his sleeping hours — not many — that erring but beautiful child of the sun brooded with changing moods, drinking in the 86 THE CASSIQUE OF lOAWAH. while a bitter aliment, which served to strengthen those feelings which work for the enfeebling of the better nature. Sometimes, too, you might note that what she heard served to impel her to like exhibitions of her own secret nature. Her cheeks flushed, her eyes flashed, her lips muttered, also, in broken speech, of vex- ation, or hate, or mortified vanity, and, more than once, you might see her grip, with nervous hand, the jewelled toy of a poniard, which she almost always wore at her girdle. It was only when her lord subsided into deep slumbers, which naturally fell upon him in consequence of his long exhaustion, and ceased to writhe with torturing thoughts, or to moan with mortified affections, that her muscles grew composed, and that she stole away from the cabin, not satisfied, but in silence. She stooped over him, down toward him, as about to kiss him ere she went, but suddenly drew back, muttering — " No, I won't ! He cares nothing for my kisses. He shall seek them before he gets them." And she ascended to the deck. There she joined Molyneaux ; and, after awhile, under his assurance that there was no danger from the redmen, strolled out into a grove of great live-oaks, at- tended only by Sylvia. Three hours might have elapsed, when she returned to the vessel, re-entered the cabin, and found Cal- vert not only awake, but busily engaged with papers at the table "You don't ask where I've been, Harry." He nodded his head, and showed himself incurious. She was piqued. "You might ask. You might go with me, Harry, and see these beautiful woods ; such great trees, all green, with such mighty arms ! I 've been climbing trees, Harry. You should have seen me. To all this there was only a vacant shake of the head. She looked at him with vexation. " How long, Harry, are you to keep at these papers ? and when will you go ashore with me ?" " If you wish it, now, Zulieme." "Oh, I'm tired now! but if you'll promise me after dinner." " After dinner be it, Zulieme : I shall have to leave you to-night.'' " Leave me, and to-night ? and what for, pray ?" " To go to Charleston." SNUG HAHBOR. 87 " But if you can go there, why can 't T, Harry ?" " It is necessary, as I thought I had already told you, that / should go thither, if only to see if I can do so with safety." " Well, that seems to me very foolish, Harry." " Perhaps so, Zulieme ; yet it is the best wisdom that I can command under the circumstances. You will suffer me to judge of it, however, in my own way, as it is my neck, and not yours, that is mostly in danger." " Pooh ! I don't believe your neck's in any danger at all. You gave me one fright about that matter, Harry, last night, but sha'n't give me another. I know something, I tell you ; and I can see that you don't want me to go to Charleston. / know. I'm not so de.if that I can't hear; and I'm not so blind that I can't see." "What do you know?" said he, gravely. "What new discov- eries have you made in the last three hours? What have you seen? what heard? What fool, or scoundrel, has been filling your ears, in this little time, with nonsense ?" " Oh ! no fool, and no scoundrel — unless you call yourself by these pretty names. But I know what I know, and you get no more out of me." This was said with a childish sort of triumph, mingled with a look of suspicion and a meaning shake of the head. He surveyed her, for a moment, with a glance of impatience, which had in it something of contempt ; but the expression soon changed to one of sadness, as he said, resuming his papers — " It is hopeless, Zulieme, to keep you in one settled impression of mind. You will not rest till you do the very mischief that I fear. You are warned — God knows how solemnly warned ; but the warning passes off, like a bird's song in a drowsy ear, and all exhortation is hopeless. Before I depart to-night, I will give you all the information I can as to what I intend for you and myself. Leave me now, if you please." " Ah ha ! I've vexed you again — and you don't want to know what I know. That's because you're afraid, Harry." " Perhaps so ; but go now." " Yes, you may well drive me away ; for I know you hate me. There's one you love better, Harry. There's that Olive, that you talk of in your sleep.'' He looked up. 88 THE CASSIQ0E OF KIAWAH. " So, you have again- " Yes, indeed, and you again blabbed all about her." " I have told you more in my waking moments, Zulieme, than I ever uttered in my sleep." " Ah ! but you don't know that." " I think so. I meant to do so. But it matters not how you hear, Zulieme. It is impossible that you should grow wiser from any communication." " Oh ! I 'm a fool, of course." He resumed his labors. She walked round him ; he never looked up. Suddenly she clapped her hands over his eyes, and laughed out, though with some effort. "You sha'n't write any more, Harry." He offered no resistance, uttered no complaint; but, quietly laying down the pen, seemed resolved to wait patiently her movements. She released him, and, looking over his shoulder, said : — " Now you could eat me up, Harry, and without salt. Are you not in a fury now ?" He did not answer. She looked into his eyes. The sad, resigned air which he wore seemed to say — "This foolish crea- ture saved my life ; her father's fortunes have repaired mine ; I owe her everything ; I must bear with everj'thing." She seemed to read this in his expression. "Don't look so, Harry, as if you had to take it from me, whether you would or no." " And I have, Zulieme." " Why ? If you hate me, Harry, say so." " But I do not hate you, Zulieme." " But you do n't love me, Harry, any more !" He was silent. " Yes, I understand it. Well, if you tell me go from you, I 'II go." " Whither would you go ?" " Anywhere ; but I would n't stay with one who wants to be rid of me." " If you desire to leave me, Zulieme, you are free. But you must take the ship. She is rightly yours. She was bought with your father's money." "Oh! Harry, don't fling that money into my face. I'd ratlier SNUG HARBOR. 89 you'd beat me at once. I don't want the money, Harry. I only want you to love me as you should." " Love ! Alas, Zulieme, love is not for me now. But if you desire my love, why do you not submit to my wishes 'i why thwart and strive against me always ?" " Do I ?" •' Even now " " And when I 'm trying to be fond with you, Harry, you call it striving against you. If you had any love for me, Harry, you would n't call it so. What am I to do ? You do n't give me any- thing to do ; and I want to go with you wherever you go. Let me go with you to Charleston, and I won't vex you any more. But if you go and leave me here, what will I be thinking all the time? That they've put you into the calaboose, and are going to garote you — gallows yon, I mean." " Your presence might help me to it, Zulieme." ''How? I would fight for you!" And she griped her little poniard with a sudden hand. " Go, go, Zulieme — I believe what you tell me — believe that you would fight for me with your feeble strength, and perhaps not shrink to die for me ; but your presence would only embarrass me in Charleston, and might lead to the very danger that we fear. At all events, I must first see how the land lies. I have friends there. I must communicate with them. If they report favorably, I will take you to the town. Let that content you." "We need not pursue this dialogue. It was resumed at evening, just before Calvert's departure. Zulieme was still very trouble- some. It was to his credit that he was still as patient as before. Again she reproached him with want of love ; and, without con- tradicting, he sought to soothe her. In a fit of childish anger she beheld him leave the vessel. Lieutenant Molyneaux entertained a very different feeling ; but he concealed it under an appearance of great demureness, and a profound attention to the instructions given by his superior. Under cover of the night, Calvert dropped down the river in one of the small boats of the cruiser. He was accompanied by four men as rowers. To Jack Belcher, whoj expected to accompany him, he said, briefly, but in significant, tones, which reached only the ears of that faithful fellow : — " No, Jack, your place is hei-e. You will need to watch. I 90 THE CASSIQUE OF KIAWAH. will be back in forty hours at most. Should I not, then, remember my commands. You know where to seek the boat — the old creek, the shell bluff landing : the three pines, and the hedge of myrtle'. In our next trip, I shall need you with me j but not now. Good-by, old fellow." The oarsman put out with a will. In a few strokes the boat was out of sight of the vessel, and Calvert surrendered himself up to his own dark musings, which did not need to receive their color from the night. "After all," he thought to himself, "what need I chafe ? Were she less a child, less foolish, what would it better my condition ? Even were I in no bonds — were I as free as air — of what avail now, since she, for whom I could wish to be free, is in bonds no less heavy than mine ? Look which way I will, the cloud rests upon the prospect ; and such a cloud ! I am so deep in despair that I am above anger." BEN BACKSTAY AT BOGGY QUARTER. 91 CHAPTER IX. BEN BACKSTAY AT BOG.GT QUAETEB. " This is an honest comrade ; One you may trust when danger grows most pressing, And foes are thickest ; loyal, who will follow, With courage, horn of faith that never fiilters.'' The tide, which affects the Ashley nearly to its sources, was falling, and it required but moderate effort of the oarsmen to send the boat down the river. It reached the precincts of the little town, an hour after midnight ; ran into one of the numerous creeks which perforated the land on every side ; and we may mention, in order to more precision, that she took shelter in one of those little arms of the river, which, pursuing a sinuous prog- ress, finally terminated in the neighborhood of the spot now occu- pied by the statehouse, on Meeting street. At that early day, this region was skirted by a marsh along the water, and by a dense shrubbery upon the higher lands. This afforded ample covering for so small a craft ; and as the station chosen was out of the ordi- nary routes of the citizen, and, by reason of strips of marsh and beds of ooze, was not easy of approach, the chances were that, except to a casual eye, she might He in the snug basin which she occupied for days, or even weeks, without discovery. We must take for granted, at all events, not only that such was the opinion of our cruiser, but that it was one well justified by his experience. He had found this harborage a safe one on previous occasions, and the boatmen seemed to know what was requisite to make it so. They took care that the cover should be as complete as possible. The tall marshes of the creek sufiiced for this; while the channel had always suflicient depth of water to enable them to emerge into the river without waiting for the tide. 92 THE CASSIQUE OP KIAWAH. The English settlements of South Carolina were, as we have said, begun only some twenty years before ; at first, at Port Royal, upon a noble port, famous in colonial chronicle, but where the very facility of access, and the excellence of the harborage, proved at that period, because of these very advantages, the greatest dis- couragements to the colony. These characteristics, which would commend such a region now to a commercial people, were then obstacles to the success of a commercial settlement, planted in such close propinquity to such powerful maritime enemies as French and Spaniard. Easily assailed, they were difficult of de- fence ; and some early experience of harm, very soon after his arrival at Port Eoyal, prompted Sayle to remove his infant col- ony to the western side of Ashley river. Here Sayle died. In the hands of his successors the settlement pined in feeble condition. If, here, they found themselves more safe from invasion of French or Spaniard, they were yet even more liable to danger from the redmen by whom they were every- where surrounded. The obstacles in the way of their maritime enemies were, also, obstacles to the approach of their European friends ; and gradually, between 1 670 and 1 680, the settlers, indi- viduals first, and groups afterward, passed from the west bank of the Ashley, or Kiawah, to the west bank of the Cooper, or Etiwan ; until the government, nearly left alone on the west side of the Ashley, was compelled to follow its people to the east. After this remove, the colonists received a considerable addition to their numbers from various sources, and accordingly a new impulse to their energies, There was, for a time, some such rush toward the new establishment, as we note daily in present times, when, under the arts of the speculator, the wanderers from the old states crowd to the competition for lots, in fancy cities of the west- ern territories. People came in from North Carolina, and from other colonies still more remote, to the Ashley river establish- ment ; and the mother-state, taking an interest in a settlement which was founded under the patronge of its chief nobility, con- tributed the help of government to this new impulse. The prot- estant French were sent out, at the cost of the crown, to manufac- ture wines, and cultivate the mulberry, and rear the silkworm. Already the foreign visiter to Carolina had reported " five kinds of grape as already distinguished," making good wine, which has BEN BACKSTAY AT BOGGY QUARTER. 98 met with British approval at home ; — approved by the " best palates" — by " mouths of wisest censure," even at this very eai'ly period ; leading to the prediction, even then, that " Carolina will, in a little time, prove a magazine and a staple for wines to the whole West Indies" — a prediction which we are now dis- posed to carry to still farther height of fortune, by substituting Britain herself for the West Indies. In no very distant time, she will probably receive her very best wines from the same and con- tiguous regions. But our purpose now affords little time for prophecy. Enough that we show what was the promise in 1684. Not only does the vine grow here in a native and peculiarly ap- propriate soil, but the olive, brought from Fayal, has been planted, and is flourishing also, to the great delight of the prophetic settlers and pi'oprietors. These prophecies and prospects, with actual exports of furs and hides, of lumber, tar, pitch, turpentine, &c., to England, and these same commodities, as well as pickled beef and other marketable productions, to the West India islands, suf- fice to show that the track has been blazed out sufficiently to be- guile the discontents and fugitives of Europe, and that they have begun their march, from various quarters, to the new port of promise in the west. But the colony, in spite of sudden influx of people, and pro- phetic gleams of promise, is still in its merest infancy. Instead of twelve hundred people (as Calvert estimates) in Charleston, then newly christened — being, nearly up to this period, " Oyster- Point town"' — the whole colony scarcely numbers twelve hundred whites, distributed sparsely about the Ashley and Cooper, the Edistow, Winyah, Santee, and Savannah ; and these, thus scat- tered, are enforted in block-houses, having mortal dread of their red neighbors, who are too powerful still not to inspire fear. Charleston has its fort also, mounting two big guns ; and you may note in its precincts certain convenient block-houses, designed as places of refuge. We have shown, besides, that the island, at the entrance of the harbor, mounts its block-house and its big gun also. This is meant simply as an alarm gun, to be fired when mousing pirates, or Frenchmen, or Spaniards, show their whiskered visages along the coast. As a thing of course, there is no city. Charleston is but a scat- tered hamlet of probably eight hundred inhabitants, all told — 94 THE CASSIQUE OP KIAWAH. white, black, and equivocal. The grand plan of a city has just been received from the lord's proprietors, but not yet put in exe- cution. The town, as far as settled, possesses avenues and paths, rather than streets. It occupies but a small cantlet of the present city, lying pretty much within the limits comprehended by Tradd and Church streets on the south and west, and Bay and Market streets on the east and north ; and these streets have, as yet, re- ceived no names. Above, and in the redr — that is, north and west — the land is perforated by creeks, ponds, and marshes ; an occasional wigwam marks one of the ridges between, and the abode of some one of the surliest or poorest of the settlers. There are, properly, no churches, no marketplaces, no places of amuse- ment, religion, pleasure, trade ; all being individual, though but little of it, as yet, has been the fruit of individual enterprise. The community has scarcely begun yet to work together as a whole. Of course, there are lusts, and vanities, and human passions ; many vices, and perhaps some goodly virtues, scattered broad- cast among the goodly people of the town, even as at the present day. And of this stuff, we must even make what we can in our present history. But, also, almost of course, there was a strug- gling upward of individuals and circles, just as now ; striving fee- bly, according to a poor idiotic fashion, after wisdom, virtue, reli- gion, and money. And these, too, will have their uses in our sober narrative. These are just the very elements, mixed and warring, of which all worlds are made ; and, whatever moralists and philosophers may think, it is not for the artist to quarrel with the very material out of which his proper wares are to be fabri- cated ; and he surely is not to challenge that wisdom which has provided him with his proper means of manufacture. From this, rude sketch of the first beginnings of the Palmetto city, you may easily conjecture many things; — that the dwel- lings generally, for example, are very rude ; that there is little real wealth accumulated, whatever the promise in the future ; that the avenues from place to place are not always in travelling con- dition ; that piles of lumber obstruct the pathways ; that you sometimes get from point to point by means of trees thrown sprawling over creeks ; that " corduroyed" causeways help you over mudflats ; that, on dark nights, and after heavy rains, the s.treeLs are literally impassable, unless with the aid of guides and lanterns ; BEN BACKSTAY AT BOGGY QUARTER. 95 that a large proportion of the people are quite as rude as street and dwelling ; and that the assortment of character among them is such as will afford you any vaiiety for selection. Though not yet infested with drones, the town has a few specimens of the idle gentleman ; chevaliers d' Industrie are to be met at certain well- known reunions ; there are two or more proverbial places where you will meet " white gizzards" and " blacklegs" — sots and gamesters ; already the precincts of Elliott street, then the " Bog- gy Quarter," are known as a sort of Snug-Harbor for. sailors ; and among these you will find whiskered bandits who have wrung the noses of the Spanish dons, and levied heavy assessments upon the galleons of Panama and Vera Cruz ; and lost no credit with the British world by the exercise of the peculiar virtues of the flibus- tier. Well, it is to this very precinct, called " Boggy Quarter," that our hero made his way, stepping out from his boat at the head of a creek which continued its progress sinuously up through portions of Queen and Broad streets^ till it spread out in ooze just in the wake of Courthouse and Mill's House. Supposing St. Michael's to have been existing in that day, you might almost have hurled a pebble from its galleries into the pinnace of our cruiser, where she lay concealed in marsh and myrtle. And could you now dig down some twenty feet, you might gather any quantity of this ooze from beneath the foundations of the Koper hospital, on one hand, and the Cathirfic cathedral on the other. Whether church and hospital are better fortified on a muddy than a sandy foundation, is a question in morals and masonry which we leave to the dealers in such precious commodities as souls and stone. Well, stepping out of his boat on a cypress trunk that spanned a hundred feet of bog, our captain of the " Happy-go-Lucky" made his way" into the town, pursuing an eastwardly course, a point or two to the south, which took him, after no long period, to that Boggy Quarter, Snug-Harbor, Pirate-Hold, which, in more civilized times, and within the recollection of decent people had scarcely a higher reputation, under the more innocent appellation .of Elliott street. There may have been twenty dwellings of all sorts and sizes in and about this precinct, chiefly in that part of it where Elliott enters Church street. The latter was the more choice and courtly region. Here dwelt the governor ; here, Land- 96 THE CASSIQUE OF KIAWAH. graves Morton and Marshall, Middleton, and other prominent men of the colony, maintained a sort of state in their mansions, and were comfortably lodged according to the standards of the place. It was the court end of the town, and almost its west end also. A block-house stood very near the spot occupied by St, Philip's, and closed up the street in that northern quarter. An- other might be seen at the opposite or southern extremity, which fell a long ways short of its present handsome terminus in " the Battery." And — but we must not suflfer details of this sort fur- ther to interfere with the progress of Captain Calvert. We may have to conduct him and the reader to others before we have done, but sufficient for the scene should be the action thereof, and the approach to the event will necessarily imply such description of the locality as will serve for its proper comprehension. It contents us now to accompany Captain Calvert to one of the hab- itations of Boggy Quarter, Elliott street, a nest of rookeries ; two or three frame houses huddled together around a square fabric of logs, which in process of time ceased altogether to appear upon the street, and formed a sort of donjon, or keep, to an otherwise innocent-looking habitation, of very rude and ungainty structure. It lay now in perfect silence and utter darkness ; doors shut, win- dows fast ; everything secure without, as becomes the caution of a householder who well knows that night-hawks range about new settlements as impudently as about those which have been made venerable by the knaveries of a thousand years. Calvert, armed with an oyster-shell, made himself heard against an upper window. A head, covered with a red flannel nightcap, was thrust forth. " Happy" was the single word spoken by the cruiser. " Go-Lucky" was the countersign, promptly answered, and the head was instantly withdrawn. In a few moments after the door was opened, no word was spoken, the captain entered, and the house was made fast as before. "We must follow the two into the log-house, which was original- ly built as a block-house, commanding a creek, and was, by the way, the very first dwelling raised in the Palmetto city, by that race whose generations have reared it to its present goodly dimensions. Following our guide and companion, we find ourselves in a rude BEN BACKSTAY AT BOGGY QUARTER. 97 chamber twenty feet square. A lantern burns dimly upon a pine table in the centre of the room. There are shelves around the apartment, on which you see kegs, boxes, jugs ; these may contain pipes, tobacco, bacon, sugar, and Jamaica rum. We need not in- quire more particularly. You see weapons, too, such as were familiar to the brawny muscles of that day. There are a few cut- lasses which hang against the walls ; a blunderbuss rests upon yonder shelf; you see a pair of huge pistol-butts protruding from a corner in the same quarter, and a couple of long fowling-pieces lean up below them. Evidently, a clever squad of flibustiers might equip themselves for sudden action from this rude armory in Boggy Quarter. The host who has welcomed our captain, is clearly one who has been upon the high seas in some professional capacity. He yaws about with the natural motion of a sea-dog. He wears the hard, sun-browned cheeks of Jack Tar ; you see that his hair is twisted all over into " pigtails," such as constituted, at an early day, a sort of proper style of marine headdress. A coarse flannel shirt, red as his nightcap, makes his only upper garment, which a riband secures at the throat. The bosom is open, the muscular breast seeming to have burst all such small obstacles as a score of buttons might present ; and his arms are bare, the sleeves rolled up, showing the maritime tokens, ships, anchors, and other caba- listic insignia, deeply ingrained with gunpowder, from elbow down to wrist. Jack is clearly one who, if he has left the profession, is not ashamed of it. He is probably on furlough only. He receives the captain with some warmth, but quite as much reverence, as he draws out a chair of wicker-work from the cor- ner, brushes it carefully with some garment hastily snatched up, and places it before the captain. " Glad to see your honor. Been looking for you now three weeks. Glad you didn't come before, though; you might have missed stays getting out or in ; we Ve had a smart showing of king's ships on the station. But Belcher told your honor all !" "Yes; but king's cruisers haven't troubled us much, Ben, up to this time. What makes you all so scary about them now ?" "Why, for that matter, sir, so long as you're in the ' Happy-go- Lucky,' I don't see as how kings' ships could do you hurt at any time. She's got the heels of the best of them ; and I know you 98 THE CASSIQUE OF KIAWAH. can fling a shot just as close as the best gunner that ever sighted a Long Tom. But it's here, when you git into port, that the break- ers git worst. That's the say now. There's new orders come out from council that do n't suffer any more fair trading." " Well, Ben, we've been used to orders from council for a long time already : and these gave us no great concern, so long as we had staunch British hearts, here and about, to give cheer at the smashing of a Spaniard's deadlights." " That's true, your honor; but they say, now, there's a change in the great folks here. There's to be better pay to keep 'em vartuous." " Not such good pay as ours, I fancy." "Well, I should think not, your honor; but there's no telling, when men begin to git vartuous, what pay will satisfy them ; and when they're a-gitting religious, as well as vartuous, they're mon- strous strong in their ixpectations." " But are there any among our friends who are thus raising their prices to the virtuous and religious standard ?" "Why, yes, sir; it's a sort of fight now twixt the puritans and the cavaliers, I 'm a thinking, which shall git the first places in heaven. The cavaliers didn't always make a business of it; didn't set up for it; wa'n't no ways ambitious; but now that they see that the puritans are a-gitting on so well, they sort o' begrudges them the advantage ; and tho' they drinks the Jamaica out of a silver mug, jist as they always did afore, yet they 've learned to look over the cup, into heaven, as I may say, jist to see, at least, if they can't make a reckoning for the promised land. The puritans, they sticks to the pewter mug, and they says just as long a prayer over their sinnings as they ever did ; but there 's signs enough in the land that they only wants a chance to snatch the silver mug from the hands of the cavaliers, and go to hell, by the way of heaven if it's only to get a look at the country passing. Landgrave Mor- ton's a getting religious, and Landgrave Bill Owen, he's working hard for it ; and Colonel Rafe Marshall, and a few more of our big men in authority ; but whether it's a working for hell or heaven, there 's no telling, in the short reckoning we 're allowed here. Your man here, Joe Sylvester, that's been such a fast trader, and if you believes him, sich a friend of youm, he's a sort of pil- lar of fire ; he calls himself so — a pillar of fire by night, and of BEN BACKSTAY AT BOGGY QUARTER. 99 cloud by day ; and it 's amazing to see how he fattens on his var- tues and religion. He weighs, I'm thinking, a full forty pounds more than he did when you was here afore, and he 's thriving worse than ever in worldly goods." " Does he preach ?" This was spoken with a sort of holy horror. " He hardly does nothing else. He's at the conventicles, who but he, as proud as the proudest for humility. But the preaching brings in the profit." " Then I must beware of him." " Better," said the other, dryly; "for though he's willing, no doubt, to carry on the bad business, jist as before, yet he'll be always asking himself what speculation he can make out of God, jist by giving up all the secrets of the devil. You'll jist have to calculate for him beforeKand, as to the time when he can drive a trade for your neck in the halter, with the saints and Pharisees." " Why, Ben, you speak in such goodly phrase, that I am half inclined to suspect you of a part in the service of the puritans." "And you've got reason, your honor. Soon as I found out that Joe Sylvester had got religion and was turned preacher, I regilarly attended sarvice, p'rticlarly if I knowed he was gwine to preach ; for when a man 's a rogue, or I thinks him so, to find out, I jist wants to see the white of his eye, and to hear how he brings out his sentiments. Ef he's slow, 1 knows he's calkilating and a rogue ; for a new convart, in his old age, is bound to be fast, if he's honest ; and he won't think of rolling up his eyes when, all the time, he 's thinking of s'arching you to the very soul, through your daylights." " Why, Ben, you're a philosopher." " No, your honor, only a sailor, and a great rogue of a sinner ; but I can 't h'ist false colors, your honor — except in the lawful sarvice of religion and aginst the Spaniards ; and that's a part of good seamanship in privateer life. When I'm gwine to turn against your honor, I'll show you a flag, and give you fair warn- ing to stand off." " What you tell me of Sylvester certainly needs some watch- fulness ; but you say nothing of the governor. Has he been imbibing religion also ? Is he really disposed to show himself zealous under these new orders of council ?" 100 THE CASSIQ0E OP KIAWAH. " Not ^ bit of it, your honor, only as he 's watched by them that 's got it in charge to see after him." " Ah ! is he suspected ?" " I'm a thinking that's his difficulty, sir. There's a new coun- cil, there 's new men, and you know what the song says — " ' Git a new master, be a new man.' There 's new masters come out for the governor as well as smaller people. As I tell ye, there 's Landgrave Morton, who 's got ac- tive agin of late, and talks strong agin piracy, as he calls it ; though, when you will make a British sailor, or British folk gen- erally, believe that there is any law agin licking the Spaniards when you kin, and emptying their galleons, I shall think the day of judgment is mighty close upon our quarters. It 's all lee-shore and no water. Then there 's Mr. Arthur Middleton, he sings to the same tune with Morton ; and worse than all, there 's a new cassique one Major Edward Berkeley " "Ah! Well?" "He's got something of a special commission, they say, for overhauling all cargoes, whether silks or silver of the Spaniards, or Injin slaves for the West Indies. He 's to wind up both them trades if he kin do it, and they say he carries a pretty high hand with the governor. It's the watch they keeps on him, these three, that's making him squeamish; otherwise, I reckon, he'd show jist as blind an eye, now, to the running of a cargo as we knows he did last September, when you brought in that fine cargo of the Santa Maria — and a better chance of prett}'^ things never come to this market, and a pretty trade we drove of it." " Well, I must see the governor and Sylvester both, Ben." " 'SXmust is the word, captain, then you'll keep close hauled on the wind, ready for any weather. Sylvester 's a rogue — about the worst, since he's h'isted the flag of religion. He'll do the thing secret, but you'll jist be sure never to let him guess when all the cargo's out. Keep him to the guess that there's a good deal more to come. In the matter of Governor Quarry, you'll have to see him to himself. You can 't walk the town with him now, arm-in-arm, as you did a year ago. But I kin git you into his quarters, and nobody the wiser ; and if we can blink the moon we kin run the cargo, and nobody to take offence. As for the BEN BACKSTAY AT BOGGY QUARTER. 101 officers, they might as well be owls for what they see, and crows for all the fighting they'll do. But you must fight shy of the landgraves and cassiques — Morton and Berkeley, and Middle- ton; they're a most too scrup'lous for safety, 'less we manage with blankets." " That we can do. The ship 's up the river." " There 's the danger, ef a king's ship should be coming round. Don't for the whole cargo let Joe Sylvester know where the beauty lies." " No ! surely not ; or the governor either.' "Should they find out, they'd have a king's cruiser upon you before you could say ' Jack Robinson ;' and where would you be, should she run up the river after you ?" " They'd find us prepared, Ben. They can hardly find a king's ship strong enough, single-handed, to cripple the ' Happy-go- Lucky ;' and I shall take care they do not catch us napping. How many men can you get together at the signal ?" '• Enough for camels." (Burden-bearers.) " The boat will be at Shell bluff when they come. You shall have the signals beforehand. If we have reason to change the ground, you shall know. I will see you again by daylight, when we must get into the governor's quarters without stirring his sen- tries. I must go now and see Sylvester." " Why should he have a hand in the job at all ?" " Only to shut his mouth. He would be sure to get from some of your people that you had camels at work " " Maybe so, but " " I shall assign him the Hobcaw landing, bringing the boat round. He shall be taught to believe that the vessel lies below, behind the island." " He'll put a watch on you.'' " First, you shall put a watch on him, and so muzzle his watch, if you have to ship him. But we must venture something." " Well, I reckon so." "This Major Berkeley, Ben — this new-comer, cassique or what d'ye call him — have you seen him? What sort of person is he?" " Well, sir, yes ; and he's a much of a man, I tell you', judging by his looks. He 's about your height and heft ; a leetle fuller 102 THE CASSIQDE OF KIAWAH. round about the girdle ; a leetle fuller in the face, I think, and he wears no sign of a brush. I should think him about thirty-five or thereabouts. He 's got grayish eyes, and a good roof to his head, and he carries himself rather grand and stiff; and you kin see he means something, and is somebody. I don't reckon him a person to be free and familiar, but you see he's quite a gentleman born. And so they say he is ; some of the talk makes him out to be a nevy or cousin to Sir John Barkeley, one of the lords propri- etors, you know." Calvert heard this description in silence. When it was finished he rose and walked the apartment for a few minutes without speaking. Ben Backstay rose at the same time, drew forth a jug, placed pitcher and tumbler upon the table, and got out a silver bowl heaped with loaf sugar. " Something after the talk, your honor ?" Without answering, Calvert drew nigh the table, poured out a moderate stoup of the Jamaica, and, dashing it with water, drank it ofi^, resuming his silent progress around the apartment. Ben Backstay just as silently followed his example in the matter of the Jamaica. Then, after a brief pause, seemingly accorded to his superior's humor, Ben Backstay ventured to intrude upon it : — " I 've been thinking, your honor, that, considering the squeam- ishness of the governor, and the strict watch of the council, and the vartuous inclinations of Sylvester, that 'twould be better if we didn't use my camels or hisn at all in running the cargo." " How can we do it otherwise .'" " Let the crew shoulder the cargo, and nobody else, and then one man kin receive it. Governor and council, and camels, and the vartuous Joe, needn't know nothing about it, or even guess that sich a witch as the ' Happy-go-Lucky' had ever been within soundings for a month of Sundays. You 've got a full comple- men of men for fighting, as well as working the vessel ; and when they've neither fighting nor working, why shouldn't they take a take a hand at camelling ?" " I 've thought of it, Ben, but dare not trust 'em. We've got some doubtful fellows aboardship this cruise, and I 've reason to suspect mischief a-brewing even now, on the part of those whom, for the present, I am yet compelled to trust. If I bring the doubt- ful fellows down to this work, they would be surrounded here by BEN BACKSTAY AT BOGGY Q0ARTER. 103 temptations to betray me. If I brought the trustworthy, I should leave the ship to the mercy of the rest, who would be then en- coui-aged to attempts wliich they will hiirdly venture on as yet. The case is one of embarrassments all round, and I see no process but the one that we have agreed upon. Wind serving, I may may make midnight runs, down and up, of the vessel herself, and so empty cargo the sooner. But, if there should seem to be any skylarking along our lines of watch, you have only to make the old signal, and we can cache in the woods, find a storehouse in the thickets of Accabee, as we did once before ; you remember ?" " You know, captain, it's a'most time for the Injins to be coming down to the salts. Parties were in town yesterday, and there 's a report that they're gwine to be troublesome. Them Westos, and Stonos, and Savannas, that gin us such trouble in Governor West's time, they 're a- waking up agin. You may look to find painted faces about Accabee pretty soon now, any how, as the fishing sea- son is begun." " We must risk the redmen, keeping our watch as close as pos- sible. If we meet with any, we must only bribe and send 'em off." " Jamaica '11 do it, sir. Ef you kin only show 'em a pipe of that good stuff somewhere along the Santee, they '11 be off at the long trot before daylight. But, if you mean to see Joe Sylvester and the governor both to-night, captain, it's time to be moving." " No !" said the other, abruptly. " I have thought better of it. I will see neither of them to-night. We will run a boat-load, at least, before they shall know of my presence. And, whether I suffer Sylvester to know at all, will depend upon the conclusion I come to after I sleep on it. We have some very valuable articles in the cargo, upon which there need be no black mail paid to any- body but yourself, Ben. These I will have at the long cypress at midnight, to-morrow. For these I can bring a sufiicient force of my own sea-dogs — the most trusty — for camelling.'' " Best way that, sir." " We '11 see how it works. After that I can see the governor or Sylvester — one, both, or neither, as I please.'' And so they parted. 104 THE CASSIQ0B OF KIAWAH. CHAPTEE X. bied's-ete view of the prospect. " We must ravel up These tangled threads, nor stop to sort them now ; But huddle them together in our wallets For future uses." Let us now, dear reader, suppose a few things rapidly, in order that we may spare each other some unnecessary detail. You will please believe that some three days and nights have elapsed since our last chapter. You are not to suppose that these have been left unemployed by the several parties to our narrative. You will take for granted, for example, that the " Happy-go-Lucky" still ke^ps close in her snug harbor, some ten miles up the Ash- ley. You will conceive, for yourselves, that Lieutenant Moiy- neaux has been vigilant in his watch, assisted by his junior officer ; that he has his scouts busy about in the woods, keeping a sharp look-out for intruders, red or white ; that there is no reproach of lachesse at his doors. Whatever his demerits as a peacock, he knows what are his duties, and performs them, perhaps quite as much in compliance with habit as will. And we must suppose this also of Eckles, and the rest. They work, too, amazingly well, in the hours in which special tasks are assigned them, whether in their scouting duties, or in those more laborious of breaking bulk and transhipping cargo. Several boats, well stuffed with contraband commodities, have dropped down the river, and have been disposed of by Calvert, through familiar channels. These things will seem to you matters of course. You are also to take for granted, that the life of the " Happy- go-Luckies" up the river, in their then almost virgin solitude, has not been one of unmitigated drudgery. Our captain of the cruiser bird's-kye view of the prospect. 105 is an indulgent master. He knows the nature and the needs of man, especially of sailors ; and his maxim, in regard to their man- agement, follows scrupulously the rule laid down in the ancient doggrel : — " All work, and no joy, Makes Jack a dull boy ; But all joy, and no toil. Is sure the best of Jacks to spoil ;" — and so he pleasantly varies the exercise from work to play ; from tasks, regularly exacted, to amusements in which every freedom, even to a decree of license, is allowed, consistently with the prose- cution of duty, and the safety of the ship. So you will please understand that our Jack Tars have had and are having their fun ; frequent enough, in the shade of those great old oaks np Ashley river. They have planted quite a gymnasium in one of those mighty amphitheatres of forest, which no grandeur of art could ever emulate. You see that swings of grapevine are even now bearing the forms of the fair Zulieme and the brown Sylvia ; that our lieutenants are doing the agreeable, alternately, in setting the swing in motion which bears the fairy-like figure of the former ; that the sailors amuse themselves in like fashion at . a moderate distance, or in other ways equally rustic. Some of them play the tomahawk exercise at twenty feet against the trees, others hurl the bar or pitch the quoit ; and you ■will see not a few of them using Spanish pieces of eight, vulgarly called " milled dol- lars," in a like manner, the innocent coin being the forfeit to the most skilful or most fucky of the players. And there are sturdy fellows stripped to the buff and squaring off, after the excellent fashion of John Bull, in quarter-staff or pugilism. Crowns are cracked for a consideration, and " facers" are put in with such emphasis as to spoil mazzards, purely for fun. Then there are practical jokes incessantly plied, such as tickle the fancies of Jack Tar, whether on sea or shore. Lubbers (and there are marines on board the " Happy-go- Lucky") are tied in the rigging — that is, taken with a noose — while the jiarties straddle upon great branches, in search of birds'-nests, for curious specimens of which they have been persuaded to go aloft. Our ambitious lieutenant refines something upon these antics of Jack Tar. He calls up the violin of Phipps : he excites the pas- 106 THE CASSIQUE OF KIAWAH. sion of the fair Zulieme for her national dances ; he shares with her, as before, in the fandango ; and he makes her temporarily forget- ful that her levity has brought the cloud upon her husband's vis- age, and over her own fortunes. She can not free herself of lev- ity. With a nature so light as hers, a mind so utterly incapable of care and thought, forgetfulness is as inevitable as the feel- ing of existence ; and the natural demands of her gay summer life require that she should play, and sing, and flit about, and fly, just so soon as the shower is over, and the sun comes out. It is the mis- take of our lieutenant to suppose that she can be serious enough, a sufficiently long time, for the purposes of passion. With her, it is quite enough that she feels lonesome, to begin play." Tell her that the world is about to tumble to pieces, and she cries out with a start of terror ; but if the world lingers in the process of dissolu- tion, and she begins to feel dully from the " hope defarred," she takes refuge in the free use of legs and arms, and, in the convul- sions of her own merriment, straightway forgets all those which are to make " chaos come again." And while she sings and dances, and wanders off into the woods, seeking new scenes for sport, gathering flowers as thought- lessly as Dis, ere she was herself gathered by the grim lord of Erebus and Night — with Molyneaux ever watchful of her ways^ and meditating, perhaps, as wickedly as Pluto — we are to sup- pose that the eyes of Jack Belcher, solicitous for his master, main- tain as keen a watch over all the parties. Nor these two merely. There are others on board the " Hap- py-go-Lucky" who do not wholly surrender themselves to sport and play; who have mousing moods, and brood, like political spiders, in dark corners to themselves, spreading their subtle webs on every hand, the better to entrap the unwary. These, too, seek close harbors in the thickets, " michin malico,'' even as Antonio and Sebastian work together in conspiracy, while their monarch sleeps on the Enchanted island. And upon these, too, the faith- ful Jack Bekher has set the keen eyes of suspicion, at least, if not discovery ; and he waits only to be sure, before he undertakes to help their councils. How far these discontents are encouraged by MoljTieaux, is yet to be seen. But it is known that they are his favorites, and not in much favor with their captain. For all of which there are probably good reasons. Enough, in this place, bird's-eye view of the prospect. 107 that Calvert is very far from blind, though it is a part of his pol- icy not to see a moment too soon. He is quite satisfied, for the present, that he has a faithful hound upon their tracks, whom he holds to be quite able to scent them out in all their sinuosities of progress. We have shown you that all our parties have been busied, each in his department, during the three days which have elapsed since our last chapter. You are to understand that, in this space of time, no less than four boat-loads of very miscellaneous commodi- ties have been " run" into the virtuous bosom of the young city. You will please believe that the commodities so " run" are of very precious texture and quality ; that they comprise bales of silk, and other stuffs precious to luxury, fashion, and the fair sex ; that there are besides certain bales of cochineal, certain casks of indigo, larger quantities of naval stores, clothing, provisions, goods and wares, which we need not enumerate ; then, the more bulky arti- cles are yet to be landed — those only " run" which are most por- table and most precious. Of some ten thousand pieces of eight (dollars), the fruits of the same prosperous voyage, and the pro- ceeds of a gallant passage at arms, at close quarters, with a Span- ish galleon of very superior force, bound from Porto Bello to Havana, we gather no official report as yet. We may hear some- thing of them hereafter ; but we doubt if captain or crew will feel it necessary to report this particular item either to Governor Quarry, or even the virtuous agent, Ben Backstay. It is very certain that Joe Sylvester, the puritan, will never hear a syllable of it. The arrangements made by our cruiser, and his factotum, Ben Backstay, whose own claims to virtue have been so modest, have all been successful. Our cruiser has done his own " camelling," and the goods are stored in cell and chamber, in the immediate keeping of Backstay. He will distribute them in due season, and through proper agencies. And thus far, that doubtful puritan, Joe Sylvester, has been kept in profound ignorance (at least, it is supposed so) of all that has been done. The first intelligence he will get of the " run" will be the gradual appearance of fine silks and satins, and shawls and stuffs of rich, unwonted patterns, along the fashionable purlieus, which range from north to south, along the avenue, no longer fashionable, which we now call Church street. The fair women of the infant city '^fill dp the first work 108 THE CASSIQUE OP KIAWAH. in publishing the transaction to the little world in which they wan- der. What to them the fact that the stuffs are contraband? nay, that they are won by the strong hand, upon the high seas, in spite of law and gospel; and, while England and Spain professedly keep the peace in European seas, they are here, in this wild hemi- sphere, as deadlily hostile as in the days of the Armada ; while the sentiment, feeling, opinion, among their respective peoples, jus- tify the hostility which their respective governments ignore ? The dear creatures see no treason, or piracy, or blood, or violation of law, in the color, the quahty, the texture, or the beauty, in the fine manufactures in which they flaunt. Enough that they are fine and fanciful, make them look fine, and come to theift at prices which would cause the eyes of British dames, could they hear, to gleam with envy. The best of them see no hai-m in this mode of acquisition. They all approve of smuggling in practice ; and the contrabandist is only immoral in a very vague and remote sort of abstraction, which disturbs no social piety or propriety. And they are not to be counted any worse, you are to under- stand, than the admirable portions of their sex who remain in the mother-country. You are to know that the Palmetto city, even at this early day, has its fair proportion of fair women, represent- ing almost every class in the British empire. No small propor- tion of its population has recently come hither from Barbadoes and other islands, from Virginia, and the Dutch colony of Nova Belgia (New York). They had lived in most of these places in rather flourishing fashion ; had acquired means, and are emulous of the state, dignity, and fashions of the old world. And there are dashing cavaliers among them, with wives and daughters, who can claim kindred with the old families of Europe — with the noblesse ; who could already boast of that genuine azul sangrei which is almost as much the pride of the British as of the Cas- tilian race. And so, already, Charleston (then Charles town) had its castes and classes, its cliques and aristocracies ; in which, people, insist- ing upon their rights of rank, grew rank in doing so, and were guilty of offences against humanity and good sense, such as cried to Heaven : at all events, made them cry ridiculously loud to earth. There were people who were " in society" then as now ; who turned up their noses so high, that their eyes failed to recog- bird's-eye view of the prospect. 109 nise the existence of their nearest neighbors. And there were very excellent people, ■who, in spite of virtues and talents, were dismissed from all rejrard, even the human, for the simple but sufficient reason that they were not " in society.'' Those talis- manie words, " in society," signifying a sort of virtues which are not contained in any catalogue of the virtues which entitle a poor Christian to any place in the kingdom of heaven. And so, Charleston had its Lady Loftyhead and Lady High- heels, Lady Flirtabout and Lady Fluster, and no small number of a class besides, whom these good ladies universally voted to be no ladies at all. But not one of them, high or low, in or out of society, ever found the moral gorge to rise at the idea of smug^ gled silks, or even pirate traffic. Nay, the dashing rovers them- selves, men well kno^m to sail under the " Jolly Roger" — so the flag of piracy was always called — were made welcome, and might be seen at certain periods to walk the streets of the young city, arm-in-arm with substantial citizens — nay, to figure in court cos- tume at the balls of the Ladies Loftyhead, Highheels, Flirtabout, and Fluster, all satisfied to enjoy the gallantries of the rover with- out asking to see too closely the color of his hands. And they had their reward for this tolerance of the Jolly Rogers, who could accord none to the classes not "in society." Many a smuggled or stolen shawl, scarf, ay, jewel, decorated the person of a noble dame, the gift of the dashing flibustier ; won by the strong hand, at tie price of blood, in the purple waters of the gulf. And soci- ety nowhere, at that period, attached much censure to this mode of acquisition. Robbery on a large scale has been, among all nations, considered only a legitimate mode for the acquisition of wealth ; and the natural human sentiment, " in society" at least, has usually been persuaded to find the justifying moral, in the degree of peril in which the game of plunder is carried on. He who risks his life in the spoliation, seems to lift his criminal occu- pation into a sort of dignity, which eifectually strips it of the igno- ble traits which belong to simple robbery. But our purpose is not sarcasm. We doubt if the world im- proves one jot from all the truths which are told it, especially of itself; and we doubt if it can improve under any existing condition ; and we half doubt whether it was designed that it should improve, beyond a certain point ; and so we do not so much believe in a 110 THE CASSIQCE OF KIAWAH. millenium as in a regeneration. We are but the germs for a new creation, under a new dispensation, and development goes just so far — and there an end for the present. But, before we leave the subject of the ladies, especially those of Charleston, let it be understood that our captain of the " Happy- go-Lucky" is by no means unknown to fashionable society in that quarter. He has been " in society" in more natural, that is, less legal periods. He has figured in the ballrooms of Lady Lofty- head, and Lady Golightly, and other great people. He has paid for his privileges. Lady Loftyhead wears his diamond ring on her finger — Lady Golightly as glorious a pearl necklace, which he threw over her snowy neck, when she was quite willing that he should see, to its utmost depths, how feir and white it was ; and it was with Lady Anderson that he contemplated putting the fair Zulieme in the event of his bringing her to Charleston. He has yet to ascertain, in what degree of security he stands in the com- munity — saying nothing of society — before he can venture upon the hospitality of so magnificent a dame. And he is now in the process of investigation. He has " run" his fourth boat-load in safety. This comprises all the compact and choice articles in his cargo. This rest will need more force; a greater number of " camels;" a greater de- gree of peril. He may now allow himself to see Mr. Joe Sylves- ter, formerly one of his most able agents. He will now venture upon an interview with Governor Robert Quarry, whose virtues as a politician have saved him from the sin of pharisaism. The governor does not eschew the society of publicans and sinners. How Captain Calvert found his way into the private apart- ments of his excellency, through what agency of Ben Backstay and others, we might make a long story. It will suffice that we find him there, safely ensconced in the chair of Bermuda cane and manufacture, in which his excellency himself ordinarily sits when dealing with vulgar people. But Calvert is none of your vulgar people ; and, seen with Quarry, you would say the cruiser is the lord ; the governor, a clever adventurer to whom a roving com- mission has been confided by a master. The two are together. We have seen something of Calvert already. Of Quarry — but, dealing with a politician now, we must begin with a new chapter. SOMETHING OP THE POLITICIAN. Ill CHAPTER XL SOMETHING OF THE POLITICIAN. Bm-net. Speak to the card, I say. Say. And I say, rather, let the cards have speech, While you say nothing He is but a dolt. That lets his game to lie on any card ! Clare. Nay, brother Say, an it but lie on the card. The speech is well enough for such a game ! GovEKNOE EoBEET QuARRY, of whoHi our Carolina chronicles speak in very meagre phraseology, was a courtier ; had a fine person — one of the necessities of the courtier — a good face, a graceful, insinuating manner, and certain accomplishments of mind and training, which had conducted him to a certain degree of success in worldly acquisitions. It was through his merits, as a courtier, that he had reached the governorship of the infant colony of South Carolina, a remote and feeble settlement on the borders of a heathen country, and in near proximity to the Spaniards of Florida, always the relentless enemies of the English. Such a position required other abilities than those of the simple cour- tier ; but competence to office was ho more the requisite in those days than in ours ; and the chief merit in office then, as the chief object in its pursuit, was the capacity to fatten fast upon fortune, and to make as rapid stretches as possible toward its attainment. No long time was allowed to anybody ; the tenure of office being usually too short, in those periods, to suffer the politician to dilly- dally with opportunity. He had to feather his nest as rapidly as any other bird of passage. Whether the courtier before us was properly doing his duty to himself, we shall perhaps see as we proceed. In what concerns his character, we prefer to let Gov- ernor Quarry speak for himself. 112 THE CARSIQUE OP KIAWAH. His person, we have said, was good ; his manners those of a cour- tier ; easy, deliberate ; rather staid, perhaps — rather too courtly, as was the etiquette in those days — too nice and mincing, but ever according to the rules. As you see him now, in a private chamber pi his own dwelling (low down in Church street), hab- ited '^ point device," with a pleasant half smile upon his lips, and that partly stooping attitude which is so natural to a tall man, and so proper in a courtier ; he shows well enough. We see that he would show well in the ballroom ; at a royal levee ; in any situa- tion which makes ease of deportment, and flexibility of movement, and a gentle self-complaisance, essential elements of the morale in society. But, showing well as a courtier, he shows at disadvantage in contrast with the Herculean proportions, and the lofty freedom, the manly, almost brusque carriage, the brave simplicity and dig- nity, of the rover, Calvert, captain of the " Happy-go-Lucky," whom we find closeted with him at this moment. The costume of" our rover has undergone some changes since we made his acquaintance. He, too, recognises the necessity of a more courtier-like, a more pacific appearance. Accordingly, he figures in a rich black suit, such as was worn by the gentlemen of the day. He has great ruffles at his shirt bosom and wrists. He wears knee-breeches and silk stockings. He carries a rapier at his side. His hat is steeple-crowned, but of felt or beaver, no longer of straw or Panama. And, though it may lessen his free- dom of carriage, we are constrained to admit that the costume of " King Charles's cavaliers," sets off his fine figure to advantage. He has, we may mention here, been accustomed to appear in it, and in high places. How he has found his way into the private apartments of the governor of Carolina, we may easily conjecture from previous portions of this history. He has probably been conducted thither by Backstay, and in secresy, under cover of the night. He is now, at all events, an inmate of the governor's mansion ; and that gov- ernor holds in his escritoire an order from the English lords in council for his arrest and execution — " short shrift and sudden cord" — as a pirate of the high seas! Calvert has reason to suspect the fact. The governor has not yet permitted him to know it. But he knows the governor, and SOMETHING Of THE POLITICIAN. 113 finds his securities in the character of the man, rather than the commission of the official. That he suspects, has the effect of lifting his proportions. There is a lofty superiority in his manner. His eye searches keenly into that of the governor for the secret of his soul. You are not to suppose our rover a pirate, in our ordinary sense of the character, because the British government has declared him so. The British government has been more of a pirate than its offi- cials. He has had a British commission for his authority, issued at a time when such commissions were frequent enough ; when the British people welcomed every injury done to Spain, or France, as good service to the nation ; and the then monarch of England, himself, has knighted the most brutal of all the pirati- cal captains who ever preyed upon Spanish property, life, and commerce. " You do not tell me all, Governor Quarry," said our captain, quite abruptly ; " but I can conjecture what you conceal. You hold a commission for arresting me. Speak out, sir, like a man, and let us understand each other at the outset." " The fact is, my dear captain, that affair of the ' Donna Maria del Occidente' has caused a precious stir at court. It was a ter- rible affair, you will admit. A Spanish man-of-war sunk, her captain slain, her crew cut to pieces !" " It was a fair fight ; she was of superior size and mettle, and fired the first gun, the flag of England all the while flying at our masthead. There was no slaughter .save what took place in actual battle." " Very true. I believe it all. But it happened, unfortunately, that Don Jose de — something " " Salvador," interposed the captain. " Yes, Salvador, her commander, who fell under your own cut- lass, proves to have been the nephew to the Spanish embassador at our court, and he has been kicking up the very devil on the subject J and, just at this time, it is the policy of our sovereign to maintain a good understanding with the court of Spain.'' "Policy! — Ay '.policy! The rogue's argument always. But no policy can be proper to the English nation, at the expense of English honor." '" Ah ! my friend" — with a shrug of the shoulder, which would 114 THE CASSIQUE OF KIAWAH. have been recognised as quite courtly even at Versailles — " this national honor is very good capital in a speech at the opening of parliament, but must not be allowed to interfere with those nice little arrangements which are found to be essential to individual interests. The king, like the lords, and even such poor common- ers and courtiers as ourselves; needs sometimes to make a waiver of the national credit for the better keeping of his own." "Ay, he would sell the nation, as he sold Dunkirk. Oh, for a year of old Oliver once more !" " Fie ! fie ! my dear fellow — this is rank heresy and treason ! This will never do. Remember, if only in regard to my honor, that I am the king's official, though under the creation only of the lords-proprietors. I do not object to your treasonable sentiments at all. Indulge them if you please. But, spare my ears ! 1 must not hear. We are good friends to-day, but what we shall be to-morrow is another matter ; and I will not suffer my neck to be perilled with a halter because you have a loose sort of eloquence in respect to the rights of the crown.'' The rover uttered an exclamation of impatience, and strode the floor, as if to subdue a still further expression of offence. Then turning quickly about, he said : — " But you do not answer my question. Governor Quarry.'' " Which of them, captain ? If I remember rightly, you have done me the honor to propound several." " Pshaw! there was but one. Have you. any authority for my arrest ?" The governor smiled pleasantly, went to his escritoir, opened it, and handed our rover a heavy piece of parchment. He read the title as he handed the instrument to the rover — " For the better putting down of piracy in the colonies, &c." Seals and signatures attested the vahdity of the document. Captain Calvert gave it but a glance, then threw it back to the official. "Well, you have your order, Governor Quarry; and — I am here !" And Calvert folded his arms upon his bosom, and planted hiSi- self before the governor. " May be so, captain. But, unless you proclaim it from the housetops, I am not to know that you are here. To me you do SOMETHING OP THE POLITICIAN. 115 not appear a pirate. I do not know you as the person mentioned in this instrument." " You know that I am no pirate ; that, for all that I have done, I have a commission under the very sanction of those by whom that paper has been signed. I am willing to be tried for the offences alleged against me. I will confront kings, lords, and com- mons, equally, in the assertion of my honor." " My dear captain, hear to reason. Such a proceeding would involve a very great scandal. The treaty with Spain, which we are all bound to respect as the law of the land, is of date anterior to your commission. That treaty declares all those to be pirates who prey upon Spanish commerce or dominion in America.'' " Of that treaty," replied our sturdy rover, " I knew not a syl- lable. I only knew that the people of England regarded the power and the people of Spain as enemies of man and God — of all things and objects which are held sacred and becoming. They were the enemies of nations. They were outlawed by our nation. If that treaty was on record when my commission was given to me, then kings, and lords-proprietors, and governors, were the criminals. I am none. Shall I passively submit to be the scapegoat for snch rogues as these ?" " Patiently, my dear captain, and hear me for a moment. Do you not see that the same pohcy which conferred your commis- sion, while that treaty was in existence, is still present to main- tain you in your course, provided you do not force yourself upon the notice of your judges. Tho governor, who is not made to see you, while the world is looking on, has no motive for your arrest. He need not suppose for a moment that you are within his jurisdiction." " But this will not suit me, Governor Quarry. I have no wish to violate law or treaty ; have no desire to screen my deeds from the world's examination. I have fought with Frenchman and Spaniard — would fight with them to the crack of doom — even as Drake and Cavendish did, and glory in the danger ; but only while my country claps hands and looks on apglaudingly. If we are to be sold to Frenchman or Spaniard, I wash my hands of the business. I have no wish to fight merely on sufferance, and to be seized and hung at the caprice of a treacherous court." " Do not be rash, my dear captain. The treacheries of court 116 THF CASSIQUE OP KIAWAH. If are lilje those of love and lovers. They are supposed to plead their own excuse, by reason of their pleasantries. And yours is a very pretty business, captain, that somewhat compensates for all its risks. A very pretty business, I assure you." " You have some reason to say so, Governor Quarry. By the way, there are a thousand pieces of eight [dollars] in yonder can- vass-sack, which I brought hither for you." " Of course, my dear captain, I can not accept them ! That would be bribery. You are entirely too direct in your approaches, sapping human virtue : as direct as if assaulting the Spaniard. You are no courtier, captain." "Thank God for it!" " That is as you please. It is, after all, a mere matter of taste. Now, were I, by simple accident, unassisted, to happen upon that sack, with a thousand pieces of eight — nay, were it two thou- sand — it would hardly occasion any difference ; were I to find it, I say, in a corner of my chamber, I should possibly, at first, won- der whence it came ; but, having no information on the subject, I should, after a while, come to the conclusion that it was some odd sum that I had set aside for a special purpose, and forgotten in the press of other affairs. The novelty of such a discovery would not diminish the satisfaction that I should feel on the occasion. It would only provoke certain reflections upon the singular indif- ference which courtiers, particularly when in official station, feel in respect to money ! How little do we value, how we waste, spend, consume it, utterly regardless of the source of supply ! It is, certainly, a very profligate life, this of the courtier and official." " As you please. Find it when you please. Enough that the sack lies in your chamber. You will be so good as to appropriate it{ suppose that you are fortunate in unexpected supplies and that I have not spoken !" ., " Exactly. You are quick in idea. It is refreshing to think that one is always in the way of discovery ; that there are guar- dian genii, ever watchful, with lamp and ring, so that we shall happen, every now and then, upon unsunned treasures. And now, let me tell you,;piy dear captain, that , you will simply need to pursue your waiks, while in Carolina, with the same circura- spection which you have thus far practised. You need not show SOMETHING OF THE POLITICIAN. 117 yourself unnecessarily about town. You will not expect our rec- ognition, unless you specially force jourself upon our oflRcial mem- ories. Our people do not so far sympathize with French or Spaniard as to approve of treaties which cut off a profitable trade; and Heaven forbid that I should quarrel with a fortune that lays a sack of Spanish dollars occasionally in a corner of my chamber." " We understand each other, governor. So far, so good ! But, under existing conditions, it will be hardly wise or proper for me to pursue a vocation which has been put under the ban of law. It is quite enough of peri} to face death at the mouth of Spanish cannon. To confront him again at the hands of my own people, and through the agency of a public executioner, is a prospect which the bravest man may well refuse to contemplate. This is probably the last of the cruises that the ' Happy-go-Lucky' will make — at least under her present commander." " What ! the gallant Captain Calvert, the terror of the Spanish seas and dons, frightened by false fires ? Why, my dear fellow, do you not see that this treaty is all a sham — a pretence — dust in the eyes of Europe? Here, I tell you, that patriotism which takes the Spaniard by the beard is the very first of virtues !" " Yet, you caution me how I show myself in the streets." " Oh ! we have to keep up appearances. But this means noth- ing ; all we insist upon is modesty. No one is required to publish his virtues unnecessarily. With this forbearance on your part, no one asks whence the broad gold pieces come which finally find their way into the pockets of the citizen. We hate the Spaniards, ,but take their onzas to our pockets, and him who brings them to our hearts ; and neither see the red blood on their faces nor on his hands ! All we ask of you is caution, my dear captain ; and suffer your friends to see you onlj' in private, as at present." " But is it so sure that there is no prying curiosity, which will be at some pains to pluck the mask from the face of secrecy ? They tell me of fresh counsellors among you who have been seized with a sudden fit of zeal, under an overwhelming flood of piety, and jvho are for searching out all the sore places of society — all its tender places, at least." " And you have bgen told the truth. The council is changed, and such is the fervor of certain of its members. Middleton and Morton have had a new impulse, in this direction, in consequence 118 THE CASSIQUE OP KIAWAH. of the presence of Colonel Edward Berkeley, a nephew of one of our lords-proprietors, who has lately moved out to Carolina. He has bought his twenty-four thousand acres of land on the Kiawah, and has been made a cassique of that precinct. As a nephew of Sir William, he is understood to be more in the confidence of the lords-proprietors than any of the rest; and the good lords, spe- cially enlivened, if not enlightened, on the subject themselves, have been at pains to egg him on to a degree of activity which keeps the whole council in a fidget. The king, it seems, has sought to excuse the crown to the Spaniard, by insisting upon the quasi independent character of the proprietary governments. He flings from his own shoulders the imputation of sheltering the cruisers against Spanish property, by fastening the offence upon the colonies. And the proprietors have had to undergo the re- buke, in the very presence of the Spanish embassador — and bear it in silence — though they knew, all the while, that nobody had ever given so much sanction to the practice as the crown itself. But that wouldn't do to say, you know; and so our good lords had to curse in secret — had to writhe in passion, with their dumb mouths — while our gracious master read them a very proper les- son touching the laws of nations, the singular love and sympathy which England should entertain for Spain especially, the peculiiir vice of piracy, the peculiar beauty of holiness, and the great ne- cessity which existed for compelling the loose and licentious society of the colonies to emulate, in all respects, the virtues of the court and the piety of king and people. Nobody laughed but the Span- iard at this homily, and he only in his court-sleeves, which are made capacious, for the due concealment of honest sentiments. And thereafter his most sacred majesty was to be seen on all- fours, with Louise de Querouaillc and the other dames of the seraglio in the same comely attitude, hunting a poor butterfly, who might have been pirating'on bosoms that were sufltciently open to all sorts of invaders. But, ridiculous as was the sei-mon to all those who knew the king, our worthy lords-proprietors were not permit^ ted to defend themselves. It is not allowed at court that truth shall save the subject, to the scandal of the crown or the cour- tiers ; and the rule is a good one. So you see what stimulates the sudden zeal of our council, in this matter of piracy, just at this moment. You also see, I doubt not, that no one need give it fur- SOMETHING OF THE POLITICIAN. 119 ther heed than simply to forhear all unnecessary publicity in what is properly a very private practice." The captain shook his head. " This will hardly suit me, Governor Quarry." " Pooh ! pooh ! why not ? What need of further scruples ? See this commission. It instructs me to seize, and try, and hang you — nay, to hang you without trial, as soon as I can catch you ; but I fling it into my drawer, and there it lies harmless ! While no one sees that 1 see you, and knows that / know you, and can as- sert that I have had you in my pbwer, I feel no necessity for looking up the commission, nor need you feel any apprehension because you happen to know that there is any such document' in existence." Calvert was about to answer, but arrested himself, and walked slowly for awhile up and down the chamber. His meditations, during this interval, we shall deliver hereafter. When he did speak again, it was with an abrupt change of subject. " What sort of man is this Colonel Berkeley ? I fancy I have seen him." " Very hkely. He was a man of fashion about London for a few seasons. He is a man of wealth — has bought, as I told you, twenty-four thousand acres on the Kiawah, some fifteen miles up on the western banks, and is preparing to put up a baronial estab- lishment. He is a handsome fellow, but cold and stern — not exactly repelling, but standing much upon his dignity ; affects state and authority, but seems a discontent. Something has soured him. He is, accordingly — probably — ambitious.'' "Has he a family — wife, and — children?" " Wife and one child, I think.'' "Are they — here?" " Not in town. He has built log-cabins, for temporary use ; and, except when business calls him herfe, or on council-meetings, we seldom see him. He lives well, though in seclusion ; is perpet- ually doing something, will make his establishment a grand one, and, if he carries out his plans, the barony of Kiawah will be a model family-seat." Calvert asked, seemingly without caring for the answer, in re- spect to the actual locality of the contemplated barony, and other matters relating to the habits of the proprietor, and the character 120 THE CASSIQUE OP KIAWAH. and condition of the family ; to all of which the governor replied, without supposing that the querist had any interest in the answer. The questions of the rover were put with an abrupt carelessness, as if for the satisfaction of a mere momentary curiosity. Had the interest of Quarry been greater in the subject-matter, he would have seen that this abrupt manner of the questioner covered deeper emotions than belonged to simple curiosity. He would have detected, in the slight tremor of his voice, in the utterances of his last words, and in its deeper tones — always deep and sono- rous, but more so now, as if with effort at suppression — that the subject stirred some of his sensibiUties more thoroughly than any other which had been discussed between them, not excepting that which would seem to be the most important of all — that which threatened his safety. They were yet speaking, when a carriage was heard at the entrance. Quarry peeped through the window, and said : — " It is Berkeley now ! We must put you out of sight for awhile, my dear fellow. This way. You will be snug here, and in safety." And he led him to the adjoining chamber, and closed the door upon him. " I am in a trap now, should that man prove treacherous," was the soliloquy of Calvert. " But he will hardly prove so, so long as it is profitable to keep faith. No ! I must only not suffer him to know that my occupation ends with the present cruise. He must still be kept in expectation of other canvass-bags, to be found unexpectedly in the corner of his chamber." His soliloquy was interrupted by the sudden reappearance of the governor, dragging after him the sack of dollars. With a pleasant chuckle, he said : — " Suffer this to remain with you a space. It is a waif — some- thing I have found ; I should not wonder if it turns out to be Spanish pieces of eight — possibly something still more precious! It is right pleasant, certainly, to be in the way of fortune ! But the world need not know that one is lucky ; nothing so much offends it. The ' happy' are those only who ' go lucky,' my dear fellow; and the world envies the happy man, as if he were per- petually in the way of other people. — But Berkeley enters. You may listen, and hear all that is said. Pray, do so. It may some- SOMETHING OP THK POLITICIAN. 121 what concern your own fortunes. Listen for another reason. He is something of a curiosity ; is antiquated in his notions of virtue ; believes in human perfectibility, and speaks of humanizing the Indians, and putting them in the small-clothes of civilization, as if it were any concern of his, yours, or mine, whether men go to the devil or not ! We are wiser, and know that the best way to take care of a race is to see that one does not himself go bare !" 6 122 THE CA88IQUE OP KIAWAH. CHAPTEE XII. GLIMPSES OF THE CASSIQUE. " A man of earnest puiiioses, he bends His head with speechless prayer ; and In his toils, Lives in becoming sense of what is self." Caltekt answered the politician only with a look of indiffer- ence that might as well have been contempt. " Ay," thought he, as the other went, " such is, no doubt, the moral by which you live. But, unless Edward Berkeley be wonderfully changed since I last knew him, he is as much superior to you in wisdom as he is in virtue. Alas ! how I loved him ! How great, I fancied, » was his love for me ! Yet has he stepped between me and hope — thrown his larger fortunes between me and happiness, and cut me off from all that was precious in the heart's sunlight. Oh, Edward Berkeley ! there is but one thing that shall move me truly to forgiveness. 1 must know that you have sinned against me in ignorance ; that you knew not, when you passed between me and the object of my first fond affections, that she was so pre- cious in my sight. And I would fain believe it ; and it may be so! Jack Belcher is shrewd and sagacious — honest as well as shrewd. He will have it that you were ignorant. You knew not of the ties that bound her to me — to me only — that woman whom you now proudly call your own ! Be it so ; and I can for- give you ! But for her ? What plea, what excuse can she make for her cruel abandonment of the younger for the elder son ! " Yes, it is he !" he murmured, as the voice of the visiter, reached him from the adjoining chamber — "the same clear, manly tones. Surely there can not be meanness, or falsehood, or fraud, under such a tongue.'' He stepped to the door which opened into the other chamber. An irresistible curiosity to behold the visiter — to employ sight as ULIMPSES OF THE CASSIQUK. 128 well as hearing — moved him to explore the crannies of the door, in the hope to gratify this feeling ; but the door had been made fast by Quarry as lie went out. ^Our captain could see nothing. But every syllable spoken within c;une dtetinctly to his ears. There was no reserve on the part of either speaker. The governor was all civility. His role was evidently that of conciliation. The cassique of Kiawah — a rich landed proprietor, one of the newly-constituted Carohna nobility, under a system which only made bald recognition of the crown rather as an ab- straction than an absolute power — and the nephew of one of the landed proprietors, supposed not only to represent his will but to be his favorite — such a person was to be conciliated. The gov- ernor was very courtly, accordingly — quite solicitous; his smooth accents, and polished speech, and adroit compliment, all being judiciously employed — just saving sycophancy and servility — to persuade his visiter into a pleasant frame of self-complacency, which is the process when dealing with all effeminate minds. This was Quairy's mistake. The cassique was by no means a man of effeminate mind. He was no courtier, and disdained the petty vanities of society; had no artifices himself; was a person of direct, manly character, grasping at power and performance, and nowise accessible to shams and shows, and the mere tricks and trappings of convention. He endured the courtly prelimina- ries of Governor Quarry, though with some unexpressed impatience. " Yes, I am settled, after a fashion — hutting it, for the summer, in log-cabins. These we have made tolerably comfortable. I would have found them so, under the naked poles ; but Lady Berkeley and her mother have been used to a different life, and, with all my pains-taking, the contrast must still be a prodigious one, their present with their past. I had to combine the house with the fortress, as you know, and the enclosures require to be a sort of court of guard, rather than simple fences. They will give us temporary refuge, and may be covered by musketry from the block-houses which occupy the four corners of some fifteen acres. The dwelling in the centre is itsdf a ' block ;' and, with the neigh- boring oflSces, all at hand, the fences, the palisades all complete, and the gates up, twenty men may keep them against five hun- dred of the savages." " That reminds me, iny dear cassique, to ask if the redskins 124 THE CASSIQUE OP KIAWAH. have been seen in your neighborhood lately. I have advices from the frontier that they are moving down in our direction in rather large divisions. The hunting-sjason is temporarily over, and the fishing begun. Thi* necessarily brings them to the watercourses and the seaboard, out of the interior. And I know not that this should occasion any anxiety. But they are reported to be more numerous than usual. It is suspected that they bring with them tribes which hitherto have lived wholly in the interior, and there is also said to be some discontent among them — some complaints about lands and trespassers — to say nothing of that common sub- ject of complaint, that the English do not make their presents sufficiently frequent or sufficiently large for the wants of the chil- dren of the wilderness. They are, by-the-way, as greedy in their desires as a — " " As a courtier," replied the other, completing the sentence just as Quarry halted for a proper comparison. "Thank you, yes — exactly. A good hit, my dear colonel. Ha ! ha ! ha ! But we, who have sunned ourselves in royal favor, must not quarrel with the world's sneer. But to return to our red men ? — " " Thus far," said the cassique, " I see nothing to apprehend. I see very few of the tribes as yet. Some stragglers have shown themselves at the barony, and been fed. They gave no trouble. I am in treaty with one of the chiefs of the Stonos and Sevvees for his son, whom I propose to employ as a hunter to sOpply me with venison. He is a mere boy of sixteen, upon whom. I design an experiment. I wish to see if I can not detach him gradually from the life of the woods. My purpose is ultimately a more ex- tensive one — the gradual diversion of the tribes from barbarism to the civilizing tasks of culture." " Ah, my dear cassique, you are nursing philanthropy in defi- ance of all experience. Ycu might as well warm the frozen snake at your fireside, and hope that its gratitude will take the venom out of its fajigs. There is but one safe course with these savages. It is that which the New-Englanders employed. Buy up the scalps of the warriors, and sell the women and children to the West Indies. This is our proper policy." " But this, you are aware, is positively forbidden by the lords-p proprietors." GLIMPSES OF THE CASSIQUE. 125 " The Lord send them a better wisdom ! Here are these tribes about us, pretending peace, yet your laborers have to carry the shovel or axe in one hand and the musket in the other." " Ay, because they have been much more free with musket than ■with axe or shovel. Had they been content to clear and culti- vate, we should have had little trouble with the red man. I, at least, shall try the pacific and humane policy, and see what will come of it." " May you live to see ! But take my counsel : in taking up the spade, do not put down the musket." "Oh, I shall adopt all proper precautions. My fortress shall be well garrisoned. I am now looking out for laborers, who shall be gunmen also. Should you hear of any, who will answer in this twofold capacity, pray secure them for me. What advices lately from England ?" " None : we may look for the ' Swallow' packet daily." " Is it not strange neglect of us, that there are no war-ships on our station ? Here we have the most stringent orders for putting down piracy, yet not a vessel-of-war sent us. They seem, all of them, to crowd about New York and Boston, where they are quite out of the track of the pirates of the gulf. This should be the station of one or more, if we are to do anything efficiently. We have no land-forc,e here for resistance to a single cruiser, which, if insolent, or defied, might boldly enter our harbor, and batter the town about our ears, and we scarce able to bring a gun to bear upon her, or to marshal the smallest battalion in our defence.'' " Ah ! luckily, most of these pirates are of good English breed. They devour the dons only, and this is so much good service done to the colony.'' " We must not say that, Governor Quarry, regarding the ex- isting treaty with Spain, and our orders from the proprietors. This last affair of the rover Calvert — the destruction of the 'Maria del Occidente,' a royal vessel — has made the matter a very serious one, and compels us to adopt a much more strict and national policy. By-the-way, should you not make prpclamation of the tenor of your last instructions against piracy, and offer a reward for the apprehension of this rover Calvert ?" " There were no policy in that. With neither ships-of-war nor 126 THE CASSIQUE OP KIAWAH. troops in hand, we could only hope to effect his apprehension by stratagem, in the event of his putting into our port again, as he has boldly done before. To make public proclamation of what he may expect, if he returns, will be most effectually to defeat our own object, and keep him off. Our true poHcy is to lie low, keep dark, and close upon him when he least expects it." " You are right. That, in our present condition of weakness, is the only course we can adopt. We must have one or more men-of-war cruising on this station. And yet this rover will be more than a match, I fear, for any of our ships single-handed. He is a good seaman and a fearless scoundrel. The circumstances of that savage fight, were it in a good cause, would suffice to make him a hero. I confess that I share in all our British antipathy to the Spaniard, and in all our admiration of the hardy valor of our Norman breed ; and when I heard the particulars of that affair, though out of the sanction of law, I rejoiced that the an- cient spirit of the Drakes, the Kaleighs, the Sandwiches, and Cav- endishes, was not extinct among our seamen. Had we in our king's ships such brave fellows to command as this rover Calvert, Britain would never be made ashamed before Spaniard, or French- man, or Hollander. But it is your courtiers, sir, who play the devil with our marine. Here are they, men of the land alto- gether, too frequently taken from the command of cavalry, sent on board to manage ships and fleets — men of silk and filagree, who do not know a ship's stern from her taffrail, and are just as likely to go into action stern foremost as head. I scarce know one of them now in command in America whom I should not dread to see, yard-arm to yard-arm, in a sea-fight with this ' Happy-go-Lucky.' Our brave seardogs have given place to court-monkeys and the powdered popinjays whose only merit seems to be in their ready adoption of all the frills and furbelows of France." " My dear cassique, you are quite too severe upon our maca- ronies. These powdered monkeys will fight." " So they will. But we need conduct as well as valor, and we can have no conduct without the capacity, and this depends upon the hard school, the apprenticeship of seven years, which trains them to the use of every faculty and every art, so that they shall in action work rather by will and intuition than by thought. It is GLIMPSES OF THE CASSIQUE. 127 the lack of these that has made us succumb to Dutcli, French, and Spaniard, in turn ; and but for these unlicensed rovers, who assert the manhood of the nation in spite of its laws, the honor of Britain would too frequently lie upon a puppy's sleeve, for every daw to pluck at. I would it were that the British crown were honestly at war with France and Spain, so that we could legiti- mate the valor of these cruisers, and appropriate their gallantry to the country's honor. As it is, I should grieve to see this fellow Calvert strung up to the gallows, when, as a mere deed of valor, his crime would rather merit star and garter. But we must beware how we mock at law. Law is the most sacred thing known to society. The moment we hold it in irreverence, that moment we open all the floodgates of license, and Anarchy pours in her conflicting torrents to the breaking down of all the securi- ties that keep the race from ruin." " Ah ! true, and very eloquently spoken, my dear cassique," answered the governor languidly, with difliculty suppressing a yawn. " Law is a very important matter in society. - We, who hold oflnces of such high function, ought never to forget the laws — no ! Of course, we must bring these pirates to the gallows — this fellow Calvert especially ; though, I confess with you I should much rather see him commissioned in a king's cruiser, and doing a still larger business among the Spanish galleons." Enough. There was more said ; there was some business done between the parties. Papers were exchanged and signed. Money was confided to his excellency by the cassique. There were notes taken touching the Westo and other tribes of red men in the im- mediate precinct, who had already given the colony some trouble. But we do no* care to- state more than absolutely concerns our narrative. The cassique of Kiawah took his departure, and the governor suffered Calvert to emerge from his retreat. 128 THE CASSIQUE OP KIAWAH, CHAPTER XIII. SHOWING PROGRESS BUT KO ACTION. " We mast bait awhile, For a new journey — pause and look around, Ere we depart anew through unknown patha." " Well, my dear fellow, you hear what the cassique of Kiawah has to say in regard to your case. You see that, but for the Span- ish influence at court, we should have no trouble at the hands of public opinion, either here or at home. You have the popular sympathies. Here, were the citizens alone concerned, you might walk the streets in broad dayhght. As the matter stands, you must needs be cautious. Our honor, my dear captain, requires that we should hang you up, without benefit of the clergy, should you force upon us the knowledge of your presence ! And there is no need that you should do this. You are not one of those macaronies who insist upon their proportions being seen — who are never satisfied unless they can spread broad tails, peacock- fashion, and scream aloud, in advance of their approach, the claims that they possess upon public admiration. In short, my dear cap- tain, the business is a good one — to be continued -0- with only that degree of modesty which forbears to trumpet to the world the extent of our profits." " I see — I see !" was all the answer Calvert made to this speech. He proceeded abruptly : — " I should like to have seen this cassique of Kiawah. There was son'iething in his voice that persuades me that I have seen him before. What's his age — ^iippearance — seeming?" " Some thirty-five — a fine-looking fellow ; not unlike yourself in build, though not quite so tall — say five feet ten; and, by-the- way, it struck me, when we spoke of him before, that there was a SHOWING PROGRESS HUT NO ACTION. 129 sometliiiig of likeness between you — a something, I know not ex- actly what, in the cut of the jib — pardon me the nautical compari- son — a something in nose, and eyes, and mouth, very like between you. No disparagement in the comparison, let me tell you, for our cassique has quite a nobleman look and bearing." " His voice is peculiar." " Deep, sonorous, something sad. The fact is, his voice makes me think that he has a thorn somewhere in his side that pricks keenly. He's one of those restless men, for ever engaging in something new, whom I always suspect of some secret grief. He is feverishly active; works at all sorts of schemes — never stops work — and is somewhat wild in his choice of labor. Why the devil should he work, and so restlessly, if there be not some irking barb in his vitals? He is rich, does not seem to value money — certainly does not work with regard to the money profits ; could live at ease, enjoy himself, and let us enjoy ourselves, if he pleased. Why should he bother himself with the reform of Indians, new experiments in culture, introduction of large stocks into the coun- try, and fine varieties, \ihich these very savages will be sure to slaughter nightly in his ranges ?" " Nay, I see not why he should not be moved by philanthropy." The governor lifted his eyebrows with a ludicrous stare. " Do you believe in that sort of stuff as a motive ?" " Yes, with insane people." " But he's none of your insane ones, I tell you. He's devilish shrewd, methodical, calculating, in spite of all his nonsense of philanthropy." " He has a wife, you say ?" " Yes, and c^ild." " You have seen her ?" " Yes — but once, on her first arrival : a pale, sad, silent looking woman." " But that might have been the effects of the sea-voyage.'' '• Hardly. No ! her looks are habitually sad, they tell me, who have seen more of her than I have. Middleton, who has lands near them, and sees them often, made the same remark to me. My own notion is, that our cassique is something of a domestic tyrant. He is certainly the man to make himself the law to his own household. There is a mother along with them — mother of" C* 130 THE CASSIQUE OF KIAWAH. the laJy — who looks as if she had a tongue in her head ; carries an eye as sharp as a fiery arrow ; and wears just the look of onei to whom rule comes naturally, and who would bear no tongue- music not of her own making. Between the two, the wife seems destined to the fate of the tender grain between the upper and nether millstone.'' " Does she ever come to the town ?" " Rarely." "Yet lives at so small a distance — not twenty miles, I think you said ?" " Not fifteen ! Oh, be sure, Major Berkeley is lord as well as cassique. He keeps the rein tightly within his own hands, and, so far as his wife is concerned, needs no effort to do so. It is otherwise, I fancy, with the old lady, who, I suspect, frequently catches up the ribands, and puts a barb into the leader. But we need waste no more words upon our cassique. He's shrewd, and sensible, and authoritative, but I can manage him. You heard how cleverly I threw him off, when he would have had me make proclamation of the reward for your capture ?" "Yes! — you were prompt, and the reason given was a good one.'' " Hushed him directly ! But I must leave you now. I have to see some of our Indian traders, who are about setting out for the Cherokees. You will lie perdu for awhile." " Till night, when I must go forth to receive a cargo. You shall have a supply of fruits to-night for the table of your lady." "And she will have the honor of receiving you at supper. Unfortunately, with this vigilant committee on the watch, she will not be able to find you better company. You must be as little seen as possible." " There could be no company more grateful than herself." " Ah ! you might have been a courtier, captain." " Impossible !" " Not a whit of it ! But I do not say you have mistaken your vocation. I only wish we were able to put you in a position to combine the two — yours and mine ! But we are in ^llianpp, and that is next to it, Now, tajce ca^e pf yourself. There's your retreat, should any fine pfl,ll, And jou will find good liquors in yonder recess Jamaica fpr ypuy fiery pioments, Madeira for SHOWING PROGRESS BUT NO ACTION. 131 your courtly moods, and good sedative brown stout if you hap to be contemplative. As our Saxons were wont to say, ' Drink ■wael, drink hael,' which I take to mean, ' Drink well, and long life to you,' or something like it. Au revoir !" It was a long morning to Calvert, unemployed and almost un- companioned, in the solitude of the governor's private chamber. But he had his excellency to himself over a bottle of Madeira after dinner — the latter being served to him secretly by miladi herself, who, however, could give the rover but few moments of her presence. We need not report the further dialogues that day with his excellency. Soon as night set in fairly, our cruiser sal- lied forth, found his way to Franks' quarters, had a long business talk with that burly personage, and the two went forth together in the direction of the well-shadowed lagune where the boat was expected. But as our captain did not Knger here very long, and as he is expected elsewhere, let us turn our steps in a new quar- ter, where we shall see that due preparation has been made for his reception. 132 THE CASSIQUB OF KIAWAH. CHAPTER, XIV. MBS. PERKINS ANDERSON. " There 's still a place at the board for all of us : Go forward ! — all are masked." We are wont to say, with no great sagacity, that the world is made up of all sorts of people. "We know that it takes a mon- strous variety of all sorts to make up the commonest sort of world. Even our new communities, planted in the wilderness, on the edge of heathen lands, must have their castes, their classes, their shades, degrees, and inequalities. Blackguards, for example, are a neces- sary element, one of the most necessary. We could not well do without them. There is a great deal of dirty work to be done in new communities — not so much, perhaps, as in old ones — which requires this very sort of agency. In the new communities, we need even a greater degree of ruffianism than mere blackguardism, and are always sure to have it. Your pioneer population are of this latter order in large proportion ; and it does not work amiss, and is very far from out of place, when you reflect upon the ?ort of work which requires to be done. Your fine, nice, polished, smooth gentry, never become pioneers, never explore, never have enterprise, never found new empires, or exhibit those masculine traits which alone grapple with lions and hydras, and cleanse Augean stables ! It needs for this a rough, unlicked sort of manhood, the muscle of which is never restrainable by morocco slippers and soft kid gloves. Your ancient Hellenes, Pelasgians, Etrurians, and what not, were blackguards and ruflians at the beginning, just like ours — though they fined down so beautifully, at last, into model poets, jjhiloso- phers, and statesmen. Your sturdy old Eomans, who first drove their stakes into the Seven hills, were admirable scamps, every man of them, to whom robbery was a glorious sort of manly exer- MRS. PERKINS ANDERSON. 133 cise, and rape only a pleasant step upward — the first great stride made — to a most wonderful civilization ! Smith's people, when he founded Jamestown, were great rapscallions ; and the puritans, shod with holiness, though covered with hypocrisy, were the most atrocious barbarians that ever cut throats, bought scalps, burned witches, pilloried quakers, and sold the women and children of the red princes into slavery, after they had butchered their papas and husbands ! And all these bold ruffians and blackguards, if you believe them, do their dirty work for the glory of some God or other — Jupiter or Jehovah — it matters not much which to them ! This is a necessary fiction of all society at its first begin- nings. And, even as you see, Mhere the tiger rages, and the snake crawls, and the frog hops, and the obscene birds prey on garbage, the lacquered butterfly flickering in air, and hear the plaintive cooing of innocent doves, and forget yourselves in the spontaneous gushes of song from gay, glad birds of the sunshine — so, in soci- ety, even where the ruffians and the blackguards most congre- gate, you happen upon choice and generous spirits, brave master- minds of men, gentle as well as brave ; and sweet ministers of love in the guise of innocent women ; and gaudy butterflies of fashion ; macaronies, dandies, flirts, and harlots ; all breathing one physical atmosphere, though all at odds ; removed from commun- ion of moral by thousand leagues of gulf and desert in society ! And as new society, when a mere offshoot from an old, seeks always to emulate the mother-circle, so you may take for granted that, however new, the infant community will show you the same moral aspects precisely which are most apparent in the old. The fashion of the garments may be more stale, but the soul of the wearer will be of the same ancient type. There will be less pol- ish among the would-be fine ; less learning among the would-be wise ; less grace among the fashionable ; and less scruple, exteri- orly, among the rufiianly and scampish. A course of training, in a growing community, will, however, gradually bring up the stand- ards of the ambitious ; the fashionables will refine ; and the scamps and outlaws will adopt garments of greater cleanliness and more pacific appearance — disguising with hypocrisy the vicious quali- ties which it is tiot yet their profit to abandon, or in their power to overcome. This is the tribute which they will pay to the grow- 134 THE CASSIQUE OP KIAWAH. ing virtues of the social sphere, which they still in some degree pollute. Now, we have already hinted to you that, in our humble little colony on the banks of the Cooper and the Ashley, even at this early period, in less than thirty years from its first foundation, we have our castes and classes — our orders of nobility — our aristoc- racies — our fashionables — and what nots ! The patent nobility — palatines, landgraves, cassiques, barons r^ are such, of course, by law. They are the legitimates. Nobody questions their right to place. The landgrave's or cassique's carriage stops the way, but no plebeian tongue cries aloud ! The fashionables follow close upon the heels of these — wealthy parvenues — who, if they can keep and transmit their wealth to another generation, raise them to a prescriptive class also ; and these are your noble commoners. This is a history. It is the history in Carolina. Now, dear friends, do not be surprised when we tell you that, next to our patent nobility, the highest order was that of the In- dian traders. The Indian traders of 1684, and down thence to 1770, ranked second to the local noblesse. They did a flourish- ing business ; they ushered in the first merchants. They were bold adventurers, chiefly of the class called Scotch-Irish, who pos- sessed a hardy enterprise, great personal courage ; were shrewd, intelhgent, and cautious ; not learned, but possessed of mother- wit ; were greedy of gain, and ready to risk hfe upon it ; but am- bitious of social position, and not unwilling to peril for it that which was more precious than life, money ! They aimed at some- thing (and this is a right ambition) of social position for themselves and their descendants^ They preceded and paved the way for a bold and liberal commercial enterprise, for which they made the forests furnish the materiel. The Indian trade, which had already begun to extend to the remote regions of the Choctaws and Chick- asaws, seven hundred miles from Charleston, as well as to the nearer country of the Muscoghees, Oherokees, and Floridians — in other words, on every hand — was a greatly profitable one. The simple red man could be won by a knife, a hatchet, a bell, a medal, a tin pan, or a copper kettle, to exchange the choicest furs and skins with his white brother from the East. So profitable was the business, that the governors of the colony, and the chief people, were fain to participate in the trade ; and it was rather MRS. PERIvINS ANDERSON. 135 with the view to this trade that treaties were made with the red men, followed by nominal purchases of that territory, for which the red men themselves could make no title, and which they dared not attempt to occupy. The whites bought immunity, rather than land. Now, while our hands are in for it, let us tell you, though it be episodical, that these Indian traders, from a very early period, exercised a large influence, not only over the Indians, but in bringing about those events which affected the European strug- gles for ascendency in America. Could the court of England have cast (jflT, as so many worthless old slippers, their worthless courtiers to whom they confided most of the colonial governments in America, and given their trusts chiefly to these Scotch or Scoto-Irish adventurers, thousands of lives would have been saved from butchery, millions of dollars kept in the treasury, and the miseries which belong to the caprices of an uncertain Indian war upon a wild frontier would have been escaped. The F'rench would, moreover, have been beaten out of the country almost as soon as they appeared in it. It -was in vain that these bold, red-headed adventurers wrote, and memorialized, and undertook to teach, the silken courtiers to ■whom the colonies were confided, the true state of the case — the true nature of the red men — the processes by which to win their hearts or to subdue their arms. It was in vain that these traders .■showed them, by frequent examples, how peace was to be made, and war carried on ; for they traversed the Indian country with little danger to themselves — avowed that they knew no danger, and never suffered harm, till the blunders of the governors made the white race absolutely contemptible in the eyes of the savage. These white adventurers were found ready a,nd capable to raise an Indian force, in the heart of Choctaw and Chickasaw settle- ments — to lead the red men successfully against the French on the Alabama, the Tombeckbe, and the Meschacebe — capable of a patriotism which could prompt them to use their stock in trade as presents to subsidize the savages and reconcile them, when their blood was boiling for war, and when the young warriors had al- ready struck the tomahawk in the painted tree. Neither example nor exhortation availed ; and most of the bloodshed along the fron- tiers was due to the gross incompetence of the white authorities — to 136 THE CASSIQUE OF KIAWAH. their vanity, love of show, insolence, and ignorance, which led them to outrage the red men with scorn and insult, and then to recoil, like timid children, at the warwhoop and the painted warrior whom they had aroused, without preparing for the presence which»they conjured — incapable of wisdom, strength, or courage, when they had themselves provoked the strife ! This much for the Indian traders, whom we must not suffer to be disparaged by a presenta- tion of the simple idea of trade in their connection. On this trade they perilled life, and in its prosecution they exercised a firm will, a noble courage, an energy, vigilance, caution, and shrewd inge- nuity, which endowed them finally with a capital of character such as few educational institutions of the civilized"^ world could possibly impart ; and they thus raised trade to the dignity of war and statesmanship — to a moral status which, per se, it never could assert. Such were these traders from the beginning. In 1684, their* number was comparatively small. It grew rapidly, however, far in proportion beyond the growth of the colonies. Between 1700 and 1770, they constituted something like a small army. But their profits were less than in the early period of which we write. Perkins Anderson was one of the most prosperous of these In- dian traders at this time (1684). The governors of Carolina had, severally, a sort of secret partnership with Perkins Anderson for the profits of this trade. They conciliated Perkins Anderson. He, Perkins, was not unwilling to be conciliated. The governor got his profits. The furs and skins came down from the interior, consigned to him or to his agent ; and, in the benevolence of his heart, thus softened by certain quarterly profits, the governor low- ered his social dignity, and Mrs. Perkins Anderson was graciously welcomed in the parlor and at the parties of Lady Quarry, wife of his excellency the governor. Of course, Perkins was not dis- pleased with this recognition of his wife; but, if the truth were known, he would not have cared a button though a lady of quality never once looked on the lady of the Indian trader. He was too sedulous in pursuit of the main chance, to give much heed to the butterfly enjoyments of your tripping, gay citizens. Par otherwise with Mrs. Perkins Anderson. She was just the creature for it — to whom such a life had become a sort of neces- MRS. PERKINS ANDERSON. 137 sity. She had graduated for society as an Edinburgh mantua- maker, or milliner, and in this capacity Perkins had picked her up. She was the very person to know something about dress, and to love it. Her costume always came from London. She had the first advices of the last fashions. She set the mode on Ashley river, just one hundred and seventy years ago ! We should surely venerate her memory. She had a laudable ambition to shine in society. She visited the governor's lady; and, though not exactly acknowledged by the Mortons, the Middletons, the Berkeleys, and other folks who claimed to have been born in the shadow of the purple, if not absolutely within its folds, they were yet coinpelled to hear of her as a sort of rival for the social rule in Charleston. She was at home everywhere in the immediate precincts of the town. It was only at the baronial seats that she had no entree. Whether she cared for it or not is hardly a matter of concern. She made the most of her own province. She gave balls and parties, and had her evenings, just as such people have them now. She knew, too, the value of a supper in conciliating aifections and melting granitic pride and moral, and her suppers were a model "and a proverb all over town. Mrs. Perkins Anderson was herself a model. Poor thing ! we must not blame her. Perkins was absent some ten months every year, and, when at home, was not exigent as a husband. He had his consolations, and why should she not have hers? He had a wife in each of the tribes — one at Euchee, an- other at Echotee, another at Tuckabatphie, another at Highwas- see, and he acknowledged to half a dozen more — lamenting, to his Caucasian dame, the painful necessity which required that, for his safety, he should take a wife in every tribe with which he traded. And there may have been some truth in his story. It is very certain that, among the red chiefs, sooner than a white brother should go without a wife, each would give his own; and that, too, with a cheerful resignation which was., almost Christian ! And it was beautiful to see the cheerful resignation with which Mrs. Perkins Anderson submitted to these dispensations of love, made on behalf of her husband; beautiful the meekness with which she bore his annual ten months' absence ; delightful to 138 THE CASSIQUB OP KIAWAH. note how readily she received all his pleas, excuses, and pre- tences; admirable to see how happily she contrived to console herself under her privation, by cheerfully yielding herself to the claims of society on every side. Verily, she was a model woman. And now let us show the uses we have for Mrs. Perkins An- derson. She has just returned from a drive that afternoon — " up the path" — that being the' fashionable route in those primitive days, when we had no " Battery." But it was a glorious drive, notwithstanding that it lay very much within the original grace of Nature. The road had been simply cut through a forest of live oaks and other noble trees, counting their lives by centuries. Their branches met and interweaved across the road, festooned with moss, and spanned the space between, making a grand Gothic archway, shutting out the sun. As old Archdale (himself a land- grave) wrote, at a later period — " No prince in Europe hath such an avenue in all his dominions." Well, Mrs. Perkins Anderson had just returned from her even- ing drive, in her stately, lumbering English carriage of that date, drawll by two noble*'grays. Her carriage bore a lion for its crest, though what Perkins or herself had ever to do with lions nobody could say. Her livery was green and gold. Her style was ad- mitted to be exactly the thing. The whole establishment was what the English flne-vulgar would call " a dem'd elegant turn- out !" Well, she had returned from her drive, had left the carriage — was entering her dwelling — one of the best in town, somewhere near the corner of Church and Tradd streets, as we have them now — when she found our "ancient mariner," Franks, awaiting her at the door. At a signal, he followed her into the house, and might have said a dozen words — scarcely more — when he might have been seen backing out of the dwelling, making most formal bows until he was fairly in the street, and the door shut upon him. These dozen words were of peculiar potency. Mrs. Perkins Anderson remained at home that night — yet received no com- pany. Externally, the house was in utter darkness. The ser- vants were allowed to depart, having a holyday from the mistress in her amiable mood ; and, at a certain hour, the door has MBS. PERKINS ANDERSON. 189 been opened by the fair lady herself, to admit two sturdy seamen, bearing a basket of such dimensions, that we can recall no fellow ■ to it, save that which enabled FalstafF to escape the keen scrutiny and cudgel of good Master Ford. This was filled with fruits of Cuba, then rare in the market. It may have been an hour later, when the door opened again, and this time to admit our rover, the gallant Captain Calvert. 140 THE CASSIQUE OF KIAWAH. CHAPTER XV. TENDEK SYMPATHIES AND SITUATIONS. " To sigh, yet feel no pain ; To weep, yet scarce linow why ; To sport an hour with Beauty's chain, Then fling it idly by" — This is love, according to Moore, Over which nobody needs to cry ! Mks. Pekkins Anderson herself, clad in her happiest style — bracelets on her arms, brilHants on bosom and finger — received our rover at the entrance, and hastily drew him into the dwelling. They walked together through a dark passage, her hands grasping his affectionately, and leading him on to an apartment in the rear of the building, which, the shutters all being carefully closed, wa^ brilliantly lighted with wax-candles. The room was, for that day and region, a handsomely-furnished one. London had supplied some of its best styles of furniture in the Elizabethan fashion — great-backed mahogany chairs, massive, such as might befit a cor- onation ; and massive tables ; and a tall clock in the corner, large enough for the halls of Gog and Magog ; and great oval mirrors against the walls, environed with richly-gilded frames, beautifully carved with leaves of oak, interspersed with golden acorns. From these samples, suppose the rest of the catalogue. A luxurious chair received the lady, and another of the same pattern, wheeled in front of her, was occupied by our captain of the " Happy-go- Lucky." The lady was frank and joyous, and glowed apparently jwith the happiness she felt at the presence of her visiter. " I am so glad to see you again, my dear captain ! This is a real pleasure. You have been so long absent ! But let me thank you at once for that beautiful present of fruits. They are deli- TENDER SYMPATHIES AND SITUATIONS. 141 cious. But, to see you again, and looking so well, makes me at once forget the long time of expectation — the weariness of wait- ing. You know I count you as among my clearest friends, and will believe me when I assure you that I have looked and longed often for the pleasure of this meeting." And the lady again took the hands of our captain, and smiled most sweetly in his very eyes. " You are kind," he said, " kind as ever. And I am rejoiced to find that a gay life, constant society, and increase of wealth, ■have not made you forgetful of old friends." " How should they ? It is they who make life precious ; show the uses of wealth ; give the charm to society. Now that you are come, we shall have a merry time of it. We have, indeed, a gay circle here — many very clever and interesting people ; we con- stantly meet, and there is quite a struggle already as to who shall give the gayest parties." " You are aware that I am forbidden to go into society — par- ties especially ?" " Forbidden ! how — why ?" "My health!" " Pshaw ! what nonsense ! You were never looking better — never more handsome !" * " Thank you. Perhaps I should say my life, rather than health, depends upon my not being seen in public." " Ah ! I understand you. Franks warned me to be cautious, and to send the servants off. But, my dear captain, are not these precautions very ridiculous ? What have you to fear ? what have you been doing ?" " Nothing worse than I have done before. But the court of England has suddenly grown virtuous, and sensitive to the royal pledges ; and the crown has taught the proprietary lords to tmns- late ' privateer' into ' pirate,' and especially to consider one Cap- tain Calvert a particular offender of the latter class — simply for not pulling down the British jack in obedience to the shot of a royal packet of Castile." " And why should you ? What ! the British flag go down be- fore a Spaniard ? I hope you sunk her !" " The very thing I did. But our royal sovereign does not share 'the spii-it of his people, and the Spanish embassador has had influ- 142 THE CASSIQTJE OP KIAWAH. ence enough to get me outlawed. So that, my dear Mrs. An- derson, I am in your power : you see how much I rely upon your friendship ! You have only to report nly presence here to any of the council, and you win a purse of five hundred pounds, and consign me to dungeon and scaffold." " Ah ! with my help, you shall have no worse dungeon than my dwelling — its most sacred chamber. But what fools ! Well, one thing is certain : our people will never quarrel with you for knocking the Spaniard on the head. You are quite safe~with us— " " Only so long as I keep unseen. I must make a cloak of the night while in Charleston, and lie close by day. I might be safe with your people ; but I am warned, by those who know, that it will not do any longer to appear publicly among them. Your privy council are already on the watch to snare and take me ; and, did they suspect my presence here now, you would soon hear of the proclamation, and this would be followed by the search." " I am so sorry ! I should so delight to have you at my party on Thursday night ! What are we to do ] I can hardly give you up." " I must forego the pleasure. But I '11 tell you what I can do." "Well?" " I have my wife with me." " What ! that little Mexican creature ?" " Yes, I have but one." This was said with the faintest effort at a smile. The speech reminded Mrs. Perkins Anderson of the superior advantages pos- sessed by her own husband as an Indian trader. And she sighed, as if in sympathy with the sad fortunes of the rover. But, in a moment after, she said — "And she is here, with you?" " With your consent, she will be with you to-morrow night. On the strength of your frequent invitations, I have brought her with me this voyage. She begs your acceptance of these trifles." He handed the lady a packet and a case. She opened both with eagerness. The first contained a shawl — one of those ex- quisite fabrics of the East which might be spread over a chamber as a carpet, yet could be crushed into the compass of a walnut- shell ; the case, as it was opened, flashed out in a blaze from a TENDER SYMPATHIES AND SITUATIONS. 143 cluster of precious gems — their spiritual brightness, so glowing and ethereal, seeming to need, for confinement, that beautiful set- ting, in golden fila;gree, with which Mexican art, always wonder- ful in the execution of such works, had contrived to secure and illustrate the gems ; the setting itself ingeniously devising that a golden serpent, with mosaics on his back, should "wear a precious jewel in its head" — should gleam with two precious jewels for its eyes — and, twined about the fair neck of beauty, should rest its gorgeous though monstrous head upon the heaving breast of white below. So were those jewelled birds, that were meant to sparkle on her brow^, to float above her hair, or to perch as a Crest upon the bracelets of her arm. Mrs. Perkins Anderson, though rich and accustomed to show, was absolutely silenced by the astonishing beauty and evident value of the gift. "When she did speak her raptures, it was only to find all superlatives wanting : — " Superb ! wonderful ! magnificent ! Oh, how beautiful ! T never thought that there could be such exquisite fabrics. And wouglit by these Mexicans and Spaniards ! It is wonderful." Like a sagacious woman, she never once asked our rover how he got them — by what invasion of Spanish towns ; by what fierce fight with galleons or frigates of Castile and Leon. But she made some modest hesitation about accepting a gift so costly. " Consider it only valuable as a gift of love, and then, the more priceless, the more it becomes us to welcome and to wear it. It is such, believe me. You have cheered many hours of my soli- tude, Charlotte, and you will no doubt contribute to make happy the young creature, my wife, while she stays with you. Suffer us to assure you in this manner — for I deal, you are aware, but Uttle in professions — that we have found your kindness much more precious to us than these toys can ever be to any human heart." He pushed the jewels back to her as he spoke, and she silently gathered them into the case and laid them with the shawl behind her. Abruptly then, and with a greater degree of earnestness, she said : — " Your tones are very sad, Harry. , Is it ever to be thus ?" '■' I suppose so !" "No content?" 144 THE CASSIQUE OF KIAWAH. " Save in the unrest which, so long as life lasts, must afford me my only refuge from thought and disappointment." " I would I could do something, Harry Calvert, to make you more cheerful. Can I do nothing ? Is the heart utterly sealed ? Is there to be no freedom for it ? And such a heart as yours ! Oh, this hfe ! what a thing of contradictions ; of ill-assorted asso- ciations ; of ties that are bonds, not links ; and connections that only chafe, and do not cheer ! Ah, Harry, what a life is mine ! I am compelled to be frivolous, to escape the snares of feeling. I could love ! I could surrender myself wholly to the one affec- tion, could I be sure of its faith ; but as I am — " " Charlotte, we have nothing to do with happiness. It comes, or it does not come. It obeys no regulation. It is secured by no plan, no wisdom, no fine scheme' of thought, no human policy or persuasion. The very caprices of life forbid the idea of happi- ness. We are to undergo an ordeal — to work out a certain re- sult — about which we ourselves have no certainty. We are in the hands of a power in which our hands are powerless — which heeds little how we hope, or sigh, or dream, or suffer. We must keep our hearts silent ; stifle what we can ; resign, as readily as possible, what we can ; indulge in few expectations ; leave all that we can to the Power whose will is absolute, and before which all our purposes shrink into nothingness. I am not a fatalist, when I believe in the Providence . -.t ' That shapes our ends, rough hew them how we will.' I have erred like the rest, but I am not getting obdurate. I have simply survived hope — at least in all things in this miserable state of ordeal which we call life." " Alas ! what a confession ! Silrvived hope! Why, Harry, even I, who claim to be disappointed also, have not survived hope." " Have you weighed it ?" " No, Heaven forbid ! I simply let myself alone, and employ tlie day as profitably for pleasure as I can." " Why, so do I, and so does every man, woman, and child. But who can see far enough ahead to resolve that the pleasure of to-day will not be the pain of to-morrow ? Besides, we are .be- ings of different grades. Some swim and sing through life, touch- TENDER SYMPATHIES AND SITUATIONS. ~ 145 ing the sands lightly, as some little bird or insect ; others, with sterner will, or heavier wing, dive deep, soar high, move rapidly, and with too muoh earnestness, not to bruise themselves perpetu- ally in the superior violence of their effort. I am of this nature. It is an enviable condition, that of a lightness which takes nothing seriously — which may be bird or butterfly, satisfied with a day's exertion, and singing or soaring only for its little hour.'' " And you hold me one of these creatures, Harry ?" "No—" " You do, Harry Calvert — you do ! But you know me not. I live in the world — I must live in it — since I have hardly a home. What is here? Beauty, you will say — grandeur even, for such a region — and wealth. I have luxuries — food — trap- pings — servants — in abundance. But, Harry, need I say to you that I am here in a solitude ? I am alone — no home — for I have no companionship." Our cruiser showed himself a little uneasy. He rose and paced the room. The lady was growing sentimental. Tears were in her eyes as she drew this melancholy picture of human desolation in the case of one who flourished at all the balls of the season. And there was that empressement in her manner which seemed likely to compel his sympathies to a participation in her griefs. He did not answer her, but silently strode the apartment to and fro, never looking up. She rose and followed him, laid her hands upon his shoulder, and continued, even more earnestly — " You do not believe me, Harry !" "Why not? Who can know where the serpent coils — under what flower ? who say how the heart writhes with secret tortures, wearing yet a face wreathed in smiles ? I must not judge of your case, having a sufficient knowledge of my own. But why speak of either ? Can they be amended ?" " Alas ! I know not. O Harry Calvert, I so long for sympa- thy! This terrible isolation — this waste of feeling — this con- sciousness that our hearts give forth their waters, as fountains in the desert, with none to see, or seek, or taste !" " But the very fact that they flow proves life — not unprofitable life. In their own fullness they find content." " Ah 1 but they finally cease to flow, finding that they flow in vain. The fountain chokes at last." 7 146 THE CASSIQUE OP KIAWAH. " Unless an angel comes down at night to trouble it." " Ah, would the angel come ! But why should this waste be ? "Why should the heart long in vain for the very nourishmsnt which is its only need and craving ? Why, of all these myriads whom we could love, and whose love one might deserve and re- quite, should we still sigh in loneliness, thirsting for living waters of love in vain ?" It must not be denied that Mrs. Perkins Anderson was a very interesting woman. Not exactly handsome — scarcely pretty — she was yet interesting. She had a face which sparklfed with ani- mation and inteUigence ; she was short, but not bulky of figure, and she dressed, as may be conjectured, to a marvel. And now, as she indulges in the pathetic mood, she may reasonably imagine that she must be irresistible. Certainly nothing can be more un- natural, in the case of a brave and gallant gentleman, than to refuse his sympathies when Beauty weeps — and when that Beauty still keeps her youth, and when those tears are' enforced by elo- quent pleadings of a warm fancy and a somewhat copious thought ! For, though an ignorant woman, so far as early education is con- cerned — ignorant of letters and science, and scarcely awakened to the deep truths that lie in art — Mrs. Perkins Anderson had so lived, and was so susceptible of education, could so rapidly absorb from life and society, and had such natural gifts, that, upon occa- sion, she could rise to eloquence. She was destined to waste it on the present occasion. The eyes of Harry Calvert settled upon her with a keen and searching glance. He was no sentimentalist. His deep, earnest tones were in unison with the stern, cold, troublesome query which he put. " Of what, really, do you complain,' Mrs. Anderson ?" " Oh, do not, Harry, use an address so formal. We have known each other too long — have been tried friends too long — for thiss call me, I entreat you, as before — call me Charlotte." " "Well, Charlotte, of what do you complain ?" " Of bonds— of fetters !" He was dull of comprehension. " Of what nature ?" " I am the wife of one who loves me not." The question that followed was a somewhat annoying one : " Do' you love him ?" TENDER SYMPATHIES AND SITUATIONS. 147 " No !" cried the lady, grasping the arm of the inquirer, and looking intently into his face — " no, Harry, how should I ? In what should he interest me? How should such as he control affections such as mine? He, bent only on the acquisition of money — cold, selfish, indifferent — leaving me lonely — " " Does he interest you when here ?" " No !» " Then you are quits ; for it is clear, Charlotte, that you do not interest him, or he would remain, in compliance with your wishes." The lady's cheeks flushed up to her eyes. " But, Harry, do you hold me incapable of interest in the eyes of a gentleman ?" " Far from it ! At all events, you always interest me, and never more than when I think you erring and unreasonable, as I hold you now." " Ah, Harry, that speech should only be made by a lover." How very sweetly and tenderly the lady smiled as she uttered this courteous reproach ! But there was no answering smile on the face of our cruiser. He had long before sounded the lady's shallows. She belongs to a well-known school, who use senti- ment, perhaps unconsciously to themselves, only as a cover for passion. She probably deceived herself. We will suppose so, ■ through charity. Many do, no doubt, deceive themselves through some such medium as sentinjent. The class is somewhat increas- ing in modern times, since gradually society has begun to shake off very generally the sense of duty. All idle women, having a certain amount of smartness, and no children to attend to, and no household duties to perforifl, or devolving all these upon servants, are necessarily in this very danger. There is a gradual, growth of morbid sentimentality, which deals freely in this sort of sophis- tication, but which has its real root only in passion. Our rover is himself a man of passion, but not a rover in this respect. His passion is true, and therefore concenti ative. All passions which lack in concentrativeness are morbid, diseased, unresting, and ca- pricious, as those of a ground-sparrow. You may console the broken heart in an hour, by giving exercise to the blood. Cap- tain Calvert was not pleased to echo the lady's sentimentalities — nay, he was rather disposed to probe them. 148 THE CASSIQUB OP KIAWAH. " Charlotte," he said coolly, but in the deepest tones of his sono- rous voice, "I repeat the question — of what do you complain?" " Have I not said of isolation, abandonment, indifference, neg- lect, on the part of him who ought to love me ?" " But yott have just as distinctly admitted that you do not love him." " Because he neglects me." " But, Charlotte, did you ever love him ? Think, now, before y'ou speak. You knew him before you married. He was always the same person — a person nowise attractive, externally, to a woman j shrewd and persevering, but not intellectual ; nowise re- fined; totally inelegant; coarse of manner as of structure, and just as cold, no doubt, and indifferent always. All this, Charlotte, I have from your own report. Did you ever love this man ? What was he, or had he, to win a woman's love — your love ?" " Alas ! I was a mere girl, Harry." " A pretty old one," was Harry's secret "suggestion, but he did not say it. " You mean, by that, that you deceived yourself in the belief that you did love him ?" " Yes," very faintly. " But, by the same process, you deceived Mm as well as your- self. May not the secret of his indiflTerence be found in the fact that he has discovered your secret? Now, Charlotte, he was much more likely to have loved you|;han you him. You had at- tractions for the eyes of men. You had grace, vivacity, delicacy, and intelligeince. You had — and have — such charms as might satisfy any man of proper taste and feelings. I think it probable that Perkins Anderson had always a tenderer regard for you than you for him. Nay, I think he still has. What does his life show you ? He goes' off into the wilderness, leaving you to lonehness and isolation. Yet he leaves you in abundance ; he provides for you sumptuously before he departs ; he raises you to a social state which affords Mm individually no pleasure ; he is pleased to know that you shine in society — :is pleased so to crown your home with delights, and your person with ornaments, as that you shall neces- sarily shine in society. He, on the other hand, while he denies himself your society, denies himself all these pleasures which he leaves to you ; he penetrates the wilderness ; he perils his life TENDER SYMPATHIES AND SITUATIONS. 149i among the savages ; his life is one of daily toil and nightly anxie- ties : and these toils are taken, and these anxieties borne, you say, in the pursuit of gain — but the gain enures to you! He sends his ti-easures home to you ; and, should he perish to-morrow, he has already put you in possession of independence. Do you doubt that this has been an object of his care — knowing that his life is at perpetual hazard — that he yet finds his consolation in the fact that he has made ample provision for you ? — " " As if money constituted the ample provisions of life !" the lady said, somewhat scornfully and impatiently — " as if life had noth- ing else for which to live ! — as if mere bread, and meat, and fine linen, could console a starving heart, nourish a withering affection, requite and refresh the thirsting soul that seeks for love or noth- ing ! O Harry Calvert, is it from your lips that I^ hear such approval of the most mercenary aims of life ?" " Charlotte,'' said our rover, " I like you too well, am too much your friend, to suffef you to fall into any delusions, either as re- gards yourself or me. In respect to myself, it will be safe to sup- pose that I have no sane purposfe in life., I peril it for gain, you suppose ; but I fling away all the -v^innings of the game. My hfe is profligate ; yet there is no passion which I pursue with hope or expectation. If you will know it, the only passion which I ever entertained, with all my heart, all my soul, all my strength, has foiled and mocked me ; its arrow has» shot into my soul, and left nothing but a harrowing venom, that keeps me from sleep as it keeps me from enjoyment. My energies are watchful and restless ever, simply because my hurts allow me no repose. I toil and adventure, not for gain — for nothing, briefly — but because I idare not hope for rest !" ' " And is it so, Harry Calvert ?" " It is so ! And you ?" " Ay, what of me ?" " Your unhappiness is more the result of the absence of a true care, than the presence of any earnest anxieties." " Oh, Harry !" "It is so with thousands. You must not talk of disappointed passions, unless you can assure me that you have had an object, precious to all your affections ; the first and only always in your thoughts ; a being for whom you could die ; for whom only you 150 THE CASSIQUB OF KIAWAH. would care to live — before I can suppose you to be .the suflferer which you persuade yourself you are. There are very few per- sons who ever meet with such an object. A blind passion, eagen for satisfaction, will make — does make — this object for itself; and hence the disappointments of life — which is never to be satis- fied with life, simply as it is ! Men and women marry, half the time, through restlessness — impatience of their actual condition ; not through a desire for happiness — for this is an object which few persons seek. They seek rather the gratification of a desire — seek gold — seek one another — and, would seek more wisely, were they governed -in their search always by some honest passion, having an object in its aim which had been already commended to their sympathies and confidence. They too frequently seek in marriage for the object, not for the object in marriage. Some marry for bread and meat, which, having them, and not doubting that they will continue to have them, they persuade themselves that they despise ; others seek show, wealth, an establishment ; oth- ers the gratification of a wanton vanity, or a still more wanton lust !" " Hush, Captain Calvert — hush ! You are quite too free." " You must not quarrel with truth. It is so seldom you can get it. "Well ! disappointment waits on most, and all that remains to us is to economize the wreck of our afiections ; to make the most of our mistakes ; to resign ourselves, as patiently as possible, to the fates which we have made. Believe me, you have as yet suffered no disappointment of the heart, having not yet fastened aU its hopes upon some ideal creature, who has first warmed your imagination and controlled your sympathies through your own conception of a model husband." " Ah, but I have, Harry !" with a deep sigh, and a look of the tenderest interest — " ah, but I have !" " It is too late, now, Charlotte, either for that being or yourself, supposing him to be still in existence." " He is ! he is !" " Better, then, for your sake, that he were dead !" "Oh! why — why? Dead!" " You can never be the same to him as at the time when you were unmarried to another." " Ah, but I did not know him then. It was only when I came to know Mm, that I found my present bonds were fetters." TENDER SYMPATHIES AND SI'JUATIONS. 151 " Still too late for both, since you can no longer bring him the tribute of a virgin heart. How should he believe you ? how per- suade himself that the same fancies which deluded you to wed another, will not, in their caprice, beguile you from him ?" " Never, never, Harry Calvert ! I could die for him .'" " Better live for yourself," he answered, gloomily. " Charlotte Anderson, let us not be children. Let us be friends. Suffer me to be yours. As a friend, I should be faithful to you to the last. As a lover — nay, were I even that particular person whom you had made your ideal — which is, of course, impossible — I should fly your presence as I would the pestilence !" A deep sigh from the lady, who sank back in her chair at the same moment, responded to his speech. Her eyes were gushing with tears. He took her hand, and in softer accents said, touching his own breast : — "Judge of the wreck here, Chariotte, when I tell you that this young wife, whom I propose to bring to you, is one of the love- liest creatures whom your eyes ever beheld. She brought me wealth, and such devotion as it was possible for such a child-soul as hers to bring: yet would I now, a thousand times, cheerfully give up life itself, to restore her to 'the condition — the child- place, and peace of mind, in which I found her, and whence, in one of the phases of my insanity, I won her to my arms. But I can neither stab her with this truth, nor do the cowardice of sui- cide. It is no reproach to her charms when I say that I have no joy in them — as, at the same time, I tell you there are no charms for me in life." " Yet she is a beauty 1" * " Yes ! You will say so when you see her." "^ A Mexican beauty ?" " A Spanish beauty, of the purest blood." " And loves you ?" '' I think so — as far as so infantile a nature is capable of love. But to our conception of that master-passion it is scarcely in her power to rise. She is a creature all levity. Give her crowds : she \*ill live in a ballroom ; will dance without resting, nightly — all the night ; loves ghtter, music, show ; loves admiration, gal- lantry — " " And you fear not to trust her with me ?" 152 THE CASSIQUE OF KIAWAH. "Why should I fear?" " Here, such a being as you describe her will have admiration enough, and be liable to a thousand temptations. There are younger sons of courtiers about town — gallants who have taken their lessons at the court of Charles, and boast of the patronage of the duchess of Portsmouth. They are handsome fellows — macaronies — dandies; as unscrupulous as handsome; bold and audacious as gallant ; and possessed of all the arts which are so apt to ensnare the unsophisticated female heart. Do you not fear them ?" " No ! In the very unsophisticatioh of Zulieme, I am secure : she is secure. Her faith in me assures my faith in her. The very sports of her people, in which she has been trained, are an additional security. She will not comprehend the language of gallantry, except in the ear of her vanity. It will go no deeper. Her heart can not be touched." " She speaks our language ?" "After a fashion — brokenly, but prettily." "Well, Harry, I will do for her all I can — though I am not suffered to do anything for her husband !" " You will do for me, Charlotte, when you do for her. Franks will bring her to you to-morrow night. And now, Charlotte, God bless you, and send you relief from this unrest ! It is the unrest that properly haunts all that lack an object — that lack cares and necessities. If you had children, now — " " Children ! Heaven forbid — and by him ! Go, Harry Cal- vert — go ! You are a man without a heart." " Would it were so, Charlotte ! — But God bless you, and make you wise enough to lose all memories which are trouble- some !" The cavalier was gone. The lady sank back with a sigh, cov- ering her face with her hands. We must not ask what are the thoughts and sorrows of one who has no cares. But, lest the reader should suffer too much anxiety, from what he has seen of her present state of feeling, we beg to mention that, in ten minutes after, she was busily engaged -locking the gorgeous neck- lace which Calvert had brought her, about her fair, white neck ; trying the bracelets upon her arms ; weaving the diamonded bird- TENDER SYMPATHIES AND SITUATIONS. 153 crests in her hair ; and, finally, folding the delicate shawl tastefully about her shoulders, while she walked before the great oval mir- rors, watching with delight the beautiful effects produced by these fine gifts. " It is the loveliest shawl !" she exclaimed, as she reluctantly folded it away in its original case. 7* 154 THE CASSIQUE OP KIAWAH. CHAPTER XVI. THE CUP THE KISS ! " It is the heart that consecrates ! No lite Is sacred, or makes sacred, save in that Where the affections minister, and Lore With whole heart hallows as the rite enjoins." "When Calvert left Mrs. Perkins Anderson, he proceeded to a meeting with Franks ; and the two together took their way to the lagune in which the boats of the " Happy-go-Lucky'' were wont to seek safe harborage. Two of them had arrived, with full car- goes, which were transferred, in Uttle time, on the shoulders of the seamen, to the secret warehouse of Master Franks. Among those who came this time with the boats was Jack Belcher, with whom, while the boats were unlading, our rover had a long pri- vate conference. That faithful retainer had a minute and inter- esting report to make. There were circumstances that made him uneasy. He reported Lieutenant Molyneaux as still desperately attentive to the fair Zulieme ; but this was not so much the cause of his uneasiness. They had their dances, as usual, and the rough Anglo-Saxon was not by any means reconciled, by the frequency of the fandango, to the familiarities which it allowed. But, as his superior saw nothing in this to cause apprehension or displeasure, Belcher forebore reporting fuUy the measure of his indignation. But there were more serious matters of suspicion, if not of mis- conduct, which had rendered him uneasy. He discovered, or fancied that he discovered, that the said lieutenant discriminated, with singular partiality, in the treatment of the crew. Some of the sailors had no favor shown them. To others he was specially indulgent ; and, with certain of these others, Jack Belcher discov- ered that the lieutenant was in frequent conference, privately, in the woods. Some of these men were occasionally missing, and, THE CUP THE KISS ! 165- on one of these occasions, one of the boats of the ship was missing also. Belcher reported the lieutenant as arbitrary in a degree amount- ing to tyranny, giving great offence to the sailors whom he did not favor. He himself (Belcher), though not strictly under the authority of the lieutenant, as the private attendant and body- servant of the captain, had been made to understand that he was no favorite, and would be subjected to his regimen as soon as ever he dared indulge in authority as fully as he evidently desired. It was time, according to Belcher's opinion, that Captain Calvert should resume the command of the ship. This talUed well with the captain's purpose. "I shall go up to-night, Jack. You will remain here with Franks, lying close, and submitting to all his precautions." To what Belcher said of Molyneaux, Calvert only responded with contemptuous indignation in regard to the course of that individual. " The vain blockhead ! Now will he not be content till he gets knocked upon the head. It is a pity, too, for the fellow is as brave as he is impudent, and as good a seaman as he is a puppy in his uniform. But, I have sounded him, and know just where his oars catch crabs. Never you trouble yourself about him. Jack ; but give me the names of the fellows with whom he con- sorts. Some of them I suspect already. Where do you suppose the missing boat went, when she was taken off?" " To town, sir — where else ?" " Ah ! was she so long gone ?" " Eighteen hours at the least." " Indeed ! "We must fathom that. Such visits might seriously endanger us. But enough now. Let us rejoin Franks." When they had returned to the lagune, they found that the landing of the goods had all been effected. "Franks," said Calvert, drawing him aside, "have you that stout hackney that I used to ride when I was here last ?" ' Yes, sir, and as stout a beast as ever." ' You must get him across the Ashley for me by to-morrow, sometime. Who have you now at Oldtown ?" "Gowdey. You remember him — a queer fellow. He lives on the creek, above the town," 156 THE CASSIQUE OP KIAWAH. "Is he trusty?" " True as steel." " Anybody else at Oldtown now ?" " Not a soul besides, that I know of. The Indians have burnt down most of the houses, and the few left are in ruins. Gowdey has a log-cabin : it was one of the old blocks just on the outskirts. Fort Sayle, they called it." " I remember. Have the horse in Gowdey's hands to-morrow. Do not spare any money. Be sure of it ! I must not be disap- pointed." " It shall be done, sir."' " Jack Belcher will remain with you, and help to sort and dis- tribute the goods. He knows all about it, better than either of us. I leave you, for the present. To-morrow night, you will receive my wife, and convey her carefillly to Mrs. Perkins Ander- son. She is prepared to welcome her. It is barely possible that I shall come myself. But let it matter nothing if I do not. You and Jack can manage everything now." And the captain of the cruiser stepped into one of the boats, and gave the word for both to move. They rowed out of the creek, but hoisted sail when they reached the river — the wind being favorable for its ascent — going half the way "wing-and- wing." It was about two in the morning when the cry was heard from the watchman of the ship, " Boat, ahoy !" And the answer was made in the deep voice of the captain, who soon scrambled up on deck, and was welcomed by the ofHcer of the watch. This happened to be Lieutenant Eckles, whose welcome, by- the-way, appeared to be a somewhat confused one, arising from a certain fact which he chanced to know, and from which he appre- hended evil to his colleague, the first lieutenant. But, as Calvert did not seem to notice the confusion of Eckles, we must not antici- pate. The latter, however, showed some eagerness to hurry be- low, when he had spoken with the captain ; but our rover arrested him promptly, " Keep your post, sir : you do not propose that I shall take the watch off your hands !" Thus speaking, he passed below himself, and, entering his cabin suddenly, was confounded, not only to find the lights burning, but to discover the fair Zulieme sitting up, and eiigaged, with Lieur THE OUP THE KISS ! 167 tenant Molyneaux, at a Spanish game of cards, which the beaute- ous lady was teaching the ambitious Briton. They had heard nothing of his arrival — too much absorbed, we may suppose, and the vessel being head out from the creek where she lay, and the captain entering from forward. A decanter of Spanish wine stood upon the table, and it was evident that Molyneaux had been im- bibing pleasure, if not instruction, in more ways than one. It was a natural impulse of guilt that made him s(art to his feet, in some confusion, at the sight of his superior. He was otherwise bold enough to face the devil. " What do you here, sir," demanded the captain, " in my private cabin?" Zulieme answered, with equal coolness and simplicity — " I asked him in, Harry, to play with me." " He should have known better than to have accepted your in- vitation. This is no place for him, and he knows it. But that I know you so well, Zulieme, I had cut his throat and yours too. Away, sir, to your own quarters, and see that you do not repeat this offence at any invitation !" The lieutenant glared savagely upon the speaker as he passed out, but prudence prevailed with him for once, and he was silent. Calvert saw the expression of his face, and simply muttered to himself— " The time is not yet come !" Meanwhile, Zulieme had sprung up also, her black eyes flash- ing with indignation, and her little figure trembling with the same feeling. "And you come, Harry, only to be a brute ! Pray, what's the harm of Molyneaux coming to play with me — and when I asked him, too ?" " Harm ! — But what's the use ? She can never understand !" "What's that I can't understand, Harry?" " That among our brute English, my lieutenant has no business, at midnight, in the chamber of my wife. And I repeat to you that, were you any but the woman that you are, I should have not only cut Mr. Molyneaux' throat, but probably yours also.'' "You horrid wretch ! And why don't you do it? And why am I different from other women, I want to know ?" " I am afraid that I can 't teach you, Zulieme. But, you are. 168 THE CASSIQUE OP KIAWAH. This person, Molyneaux, knew that he was doing wrong, though you did not. Does* it not strike you as possible, Zulieme, that there are men who would like to persuade you to do wrong ?" " And for what ? But that 's always the way ! Everything 's wrong with you savage English. But what made you stay away so long ? You 've been gone more than five days." " It might as well have been five months. You have spent the time happily enough.'' " No ! I 've only danced and sung, and run in the woods till I was tired, and scared too, for Mr. Molyneaux said that the red Indians were all about." " You were niiore safe in their hands than in his, silly one ! But I am about to remove you from the danger of the red Indians, and possibly from other dangers. Do you still wish to go to Charleston ?" " Oh, dear Harry, is it true ? Will you carry me ?" " Or send you ! You shall go to-morrow night, if you please." " Oh, why not to-night ?" And she leaped up and threw her arms round the neck of the sombre man, and kissed him ; then whirled about, and pirouetted, and threw herself into the intoxica- ting raptures of her most voluptuous Mexican dances, vainly en- treating him, in dumb show, to take the floor. He looked at her with a countenance that saddened as he gazed. The savage severity of face had passed off, and his look was now of a subdued melancholy. It finally melted into a faint smile, which her quick eyes eagerly detected. " Ah, Harry, now you look good-natured again. You will re- ally take me with you to Charleston ?" " Either take you or send you. I have made arrangements for your reception there. Mrs. Perkins Anderson, an old acquaint- ance of mine, has invited you. She is quite a fine, fashionable lady, who sees a great deal of company, and lives in the best style. Under her chaperonage, you will enjoy the best opportunity of seeing life in Charleston." "And is she young, and gay, and pretty, and rich, Harry? Does she give balls and dancing-parties ?" " Ay, she does little else, and you will be in your element. But I must warn you that, in Charleston, you are not to be known as Zulieme Calvert — not to be known as my wife — better THE CUP — THE KISS ! 159, not be known as a wife at all. My name is under ban in Charles- ton. A price is set upon my head." " I won't go, Harry — I won't ! Those brute English ! Oh, no! Let's go anywhere else. Let's go from 'em — go to Ha- vana, Harry — that's a good Harry !" " Alas ! Zulieme, a still greater price is set upon my head in Havana. Here, they will pay for it but in pounds and dollars ; there, in doubloons and joes." " Why, Harry, what's to be done ? Better go back to Darien," she answered, in temporary consternation. " Nay, Zulieme, you will do as I counsel. I told you repeat- edly, before, what were the dangers of my life, everywhere ; but you are a bad listener. You were angry with, me because I did not give you an opportunity at the festas of Havana, though you saw how our vessel had to skulk along the coast, and only peep into some of the Cuban harbors. And, though I showed you the garote at Havana, and told you that five hundred ounces would be paid by the governor to any one who would help him to adjust its collar to my neck, you heard of nothing but the bull-fights of ' holy week' — the processions and the fandangos which were to follow. As we entered the harbor of Charleston, I showed you the gallows, and you were then told that here the governor was prepared to give five hundred pounds to him who should help him to rope me by the throat to its accursed beams ; yet you had pre- viously heard of the gay people of Charleston, and you gave no heed to the hanging of your husband. Well, I have arranged for your enjoying yourself in Charleston without respect to me." " But we will not go there, Harry, or to Havana either, or any- where, if they hate you, Harry. We'll go back to the isthmus, Harry, where we can dance as we please, and no garote and no gallows for either you or me. O Harry, you talk as if I wished you were dead ! You brute, Harry !" " Nay, Zulieme, let it relieve you when I tell you that, in going to Charleston, you do not increase my embarrassments in any- way. We shall not be seen together, or known in connection. You shall be introduced, not as my wife, nor as any wife, but as a young lady of Mexican family, friends to Mr. Perkins Anderson, the famous Indian trader ; and you are to become the protege of his wife. Now, Mrs, Perkins Anderson is a very fine woman, ><"160 THE CASSIQUB OP KIAWAH. gay as a lark and frisky as a kitten, who has only one weakness against which I would warn you. She fancies, all the while, that she is wretched as a ground-inole, and gloomy as an owl that knows not where to find a supper. If she tells you that she is ready to die — to commit suicide — -you have only to execute some of your most dashing dances in her sight, or to admire her new dresses, and she will forget all her sorrows. Bating this weakness, she is a fine woman enougli. Some think her very pretty. She is very showy, very smart as well as showy, and sometimes converses very brilliantly." " Ah, Harry ! have you long known her ?" " Yes, several years." " Ah ! she is your ' Olive,' then \" He started up, gazed at the infantile speaker very sternly for a moment, and then said : — " Zulieme, I have begged you never more to name to me that name. Do not, if you would not vex as well as pain me." " But, Harry — " " Not a word more !" "Oh, you savage, Harry ! — " " Enough, Zulieme, that I try to content you with those things which satisfy your heart. In Charleston you wUl enjoy yourself, especially under the patronage of Mrs. Perkins Anderson. For her sake, as well as mine, my name must be suppressed. She will find you another. I shall see you occasionally. Now, get you to bed, and beware how you again invite other men into the privacies of my chamber. Remember that there are things, purely domestic, which the Englishman, differing from almost all other people, holds to be sacred. You, of all your race, will be the last to understand this ; but let it suffice you that Z" tell you it is so ! An Englishman's chamber is sacred, Zulieme ; his weapons are sacred ; the cup from which he drinks is sacred ! See — this was to me an especially consecrated cup \" — taking up one which stood upon the table, half-filled- with wine — a silver cup, richly chased — just such a cup as loving godmothers give to children. ..." It was the gift of a grandmother to a mother, of a mother to me. Yet has it been polluted this night by the lips of one who, even while he drank, meditated ill to you and me. It shall never pollute my lips again !" THE CUP THE KISS ! 161 And he crushed the delicate vessel, with all its grouped vines and fanciful figures, out of all shape, into a mass, by a single nervous grasp of his powerful hand ! " Why, Harry, are you mad ? What harm has the cup done, and it was so pretty ?" " It is pretty in my eyes no more — it is no more sweet ! Now understand, Zulieme, that we English hold domestic things to be sacred ; we hold our chambers sacred — our wives ; but if they become polluted by other hands or lips, we crush them, however beautiful or sweet once — we crush them into nothingness, even as I crush this cup ! Go — now ! Sleep, dream, and wake, if you please, to song and dance ; but, remember, that the most sa- cred thing, once polluted, becomes hateful to the sight and feelings of the Englishman." "You spiteful, awful Harry!" she cried, half-laughing, half- sobbing, as she threw her arms about his neck. She would have kissed him, but he put her away, and hurriedly left the cabin — murmuring, sotto voce, as he did so : — "I know not — I. have half a doubt — no matter how innocent she is — that this impudent fellow has polluted her lips, even as he has polluted my cup. I could suffer her kiss as a thoughtless and innocent child ; but no — not after his !" Zulieme called after him, but he did not heed, perhaps did not hear her. For a moment she appeared disposed to follow him ; but — " No, no !" she said, half-aloud ; " he is in his cross fit now." And, undressing herself, she went to bed, and in a little while had sobbed herself to sleep. 162 f THE CASSIQUE OF KIAWAH. CHAPTER XVII. SETTLING ACCOUNTS. " Gassius. — Must I endure all this '! Brutus. — Ay ! more ! Fret till your proud heart break !" Shakbspeabb. "But there shall come an hour, When Vengeance shall repay the wrongs of Power !" " Anb now," muttered Calvert, " for Lieutenant Molyneaux !" That officer was on deck. He had relieved Eckles, and the latter had just turned in ; but not before he had expressed his misgivings to his colleague touching the discovery that the captain had so recently made, and the consequences that would probably follow. " I warned you, my dear fellow," said the good-natured Eckles, "but you are such a d d conceited blockhead, and so impu- dent, that you will listen to nothing till your head's off." " Pooh !" answered the other, " who cares 1 I am as good as any man that ever stood on quarter-deck." " Say, as great a monkey ! But you haven't heard the whole of it. There '11 be more words to that tune." "I'm not afraid to trust my ears. Get to your hammock, Eckles, and shut your own ears." And Molyneaux lighted a cigar, and began his ordinary paces. Eckles, yawning, disappeared below. Spite of his expressed confidence, spite of his effrontery, Moly- neaux was not without his own misgivings. His conscience did not sustain him. But the same conceit and impudence which moved him so frequently to offend, sufficed to strengthen him usu- ally in the encounter with the consequences of his effrontery ; and he nerved himself, with all his resources of blood and vanity, when he beheld the tall person of his superior emerge from the cabin. Thus armed and strengthened, he could not help the fancy that SETTLING ACCOUNTS. 163 Calvert had grown a foot since he had last seen him. His person now seemed absolutely gigantic. He himself (Molyneaux) was a trim, neatly-built, compact young fellow, active in great degree, and vigorous for his gristle ; but, with all his vanity, he did not deceive himself with the notion that he could, for a single instant, maintain his ground in a grapple with our rover. He felt that he was good at his weapon ; but he knew that so was Calvert — good at any weapon — and so powerful, that, whether armed with rapier or quarter-staff, he was likely to prove a dangerous enemy, no matter with whom he fought. These things were all thought over, in a moment, by our lieu- tenant. In truth, he had an awkward consciousness of guilt and ofience, irrespective of his presumption in regard to his superior's wife, which compelled a continually-recurring reference to his re- sources, in the event of collision with that superior. His vanity, his desire of power, his greed of gain, had all combined to involve him in practices which, he well knew, if discovered, would justify his principal in resorting to the most summary punishment. But, as yet, these are secrets. He believes them to be so, at all events, and in great degree they are. Calvert, however, was growing suspicious ; but, with sufficient gi'ounds for suspicion, he had yet no pi'oper clues for inquiry, and no such evidence as would enable him to form a judgment; It was his present policy to look for these clues. And Calvert, proud, passionate, resolute, was yet cool enough, and a sufficiently- trained man, to pursue the search with equal acuteness and dis- cretion. As yet, his purpose was by no means to push the young offender to extremity. He was first to ascertain to what extent the treachery of Molyneaux had been carried, and how many of th« crew had been corrupted. He did not doubt that there was treachery, but whether it contemplated mere peculation, or an in- sane passion after the supreme power, was a question. The for- mer offence might be winked at in a service so indulgent — the latter never ! For the former, there were mild rebukes, and res- titution would suffice. The penalty of the superior offence lay at the end of a rope, the swing of a^ yard-arm, or, in the event of resistance, a sudden shot from a pistol, or the heavy stroke of a cutlass. But just now, Calvert contemplated no such necessities. He had first to make discoveries. 164 ^ THE CASSIQUE OP KIAWAH. He joined the young man where he stood, on one side of the quarter-deck looking out upon the shore. Molyneaux flung away his cigar at his superior's approach, and braced himself for the encounter, not exactly conceiving in what way it would come. He was not left in doubt long. The voice of Calvert was mild in tone, though firm and serious : — " Lieutenant Molyneaux, I had occasion to use some sharp lan- guage to you in my cabin. You will oblige me by giving me no occasion in future to repeat the language. My cabin is sacred ; but you are sufficiently well informed, as one of British blood, to know what Englishmen hold sacred. Tour offence consists, here, in the knowledge that you do and must offend. I should pay but a sorry compliment to your intelligence to suppose you ignorant of this." " I was invited, sir, by your lady, into the cabin. She — " " My wife, Mr. Molyneaux, is one of another nation than ours, and ignorant of our customs. To respond, as you did, to her invi- tation, when you knew better, was as great an outrage as if, ask- ing you for education in the English language, you had taught her only words of English obscenity. You owed it to her as a lady, and to me as your superior ofiicer, as well as gentleman, not to second, her in any mistake which sh» might make, as a foreigner, by a studious observance yourself of the nicest proprieties upon which our people so tenaciously insist." " But, sir, as a lady, she had a right, sir — " " Stop, Mr. Molyneaux : it is one of your mistakes that you are too eager to urge the argument of vanity, rather than to justify your conscientious convictions of the right. Let me state clearly my cause of complaint. You knew my wife's ignorance of those English customs which we hold to be requisite for propriety, and you encouraged her in her violation of them, in order to take ad- vantage of her ignorance." " What advantage, sir ?" " It is for you to answer. Suppose you do answer me ? Why did you err, sir, violating the rules of the service, as well as our English proprieties — why do a wrong, which you knew to be such — ^ then meanly plead the invitation of a woman ignorant of our laws, ignorant of English customs, to excuse you in your know- ing violation of both, unless that you proposed some selfish object to yourself? SETTLING ACCOUNTS. 166 " I had no object, Captain Calvert." " Mr. Molyneaux, I give you credit for vices, but would not willingly have to reproach you for meannesses also. Suffer your- self to be silent rather .than resort to evasion. But I intend to deal with you more frankly. Now, sir, had my wife been an Englishwoman, do you doubt that I had slain both of you, finding you in my chamber with her as I did to-night ? I had as surely pistolled you both as I now speak to you ! I should have listened to nothing — said nothing — knowing that both of you must have been aware of the natural impropriety of your being found to- gether in such a situation, at such an hour, in such circumstances, during my absence. She erred through ignorance : you can make no such plea. But that I know her, sir, and know that your arts can no more affect her natural purity and simplicity than they can deceive me, I should count you equally guilty. I know that you employ these arts in vain — " " I employ no arts, Captain Calvert ! I deny, sir — " " Then you are playing a fool's game, indeed ! But, Mr. Moly- neaux, though I feel sure of the purity of my wife — know that she is superior to any arts such as yours — yet, sir, it is not the less displeasing to me that any man should so presume as to ap- proach her with licentiou* purpose. That she is ignorant of offence, does not lessen your offence; and I now caution you against any repetition of it. I have hitherto been a little too heedless of this thing, rather through a feeling of scorn than indif- ference. Now, however, that it has come to be matter of talk in the ship, among the common crew, I feel it due to my wife's honor, if not my own, to arrest your further practice of this sort. You will observe a different course from this moment. Do not, I beg you, fall into an error, natural enough to young men of large self- estefim, of supposing-that I fear what you might do. There are many occasions of offence which are not necessarily causes of fear. With my wife, I could afford you any opportunities, and still laugh to scorn all your idle efforts, as she would do were she once made to comprehend them. It will surprise you to know, after all your labors, that she has no sort of notion of what you mean, and holds you simply as a playmate, who amuses her. But my own proper pride, and natural sense of dignity and honor, forbid that /should tolerate approaches which contemplate an insulting purpose, how- 166 THE CASSIQUE OF KIAWAH. ever little likely to succeed ; and, once for all, I repeat the warn- ing, that, another such offence, and I shall as certainly put you to death as that I now speak to you !" "You have entirely mistaken me. Captain Calvert. I have had no such purposes as you suppose. I — " " Not another word, Mr. Molyneaux ! — you do not help the matter. I know young men — I know man — I know you ! Our business connection is such as to render me quite satisfied with you as a good seaman, as a clever officer, as a brave young man, who knows his duty and has the courage to perform it. For these qualities I need you and respect you. That I have done you full justice for these qualities, your employment from the beginning — your elevation, as second officer of this ship — will sufficiently prove. You owe this promotion wholly to me. I have advanced you, not waiting entreaty, seeing your abilities with my own eyes. I have still other services for you, and there is still further pro- motion if you continue faithful. My purpose, in rebuking, is not to pain or to degrade, but to save you. I understand, of course, that, in what I have said to you this night, I have somewhat moi'- tifled your vanity ; and this was also a part of my purpose. It is upon this rock, Mr. Molyneaux — this rock of vanity — that your ship is destined to founder. It is Ahis rock upon which most young men sink their fortunes. I have noted this your chief weak- ness, and lamented it for a long time. I have seen through all the little arts by which you have fed your own weakness, and it is time to open your eyes to your self-delusion. If you are warned in season, you may cure yourself of this infirmity. If, on the con- trary, you feel counsel only as offence ; if your vanity still pre- vails over wisdom ; if you too impatiently seek your ends ; if these ends really contemplate only the temporary enjoyment and the gratification of self-esteem — your career will be short, and the end shameful ! I have now sufficiently warned you. It is for me an effort to do so, and should argue to you a degree of interest in your behalf which should rather awaken pride than offend van- ity. It would be easier for me, I assure you, to brush off an offender than seek to cure him. And now, sir, to the business of the ship." We have forborne the various interpositions made by Lieuten- ant Molyneaux, in which he sought to excuse his offences, or to SETTLING ACCOUNTS. 167 evade the conclusions of his superior, or to assert his self-esteem. We pass them by, very much as Calvert himself did, and for the same reason, as discreditable pleas and evasions, put in at the ex- pense of his manhood. He was not prepared to join final issue with his superior ; and a sense of guilt is, in a young mind, a necessary source of weakness. But his vanity stimulated him to replies which were only to be urged at the cost of character and pride ; and to all these Calvert refused to listen, and so may we. We need not report them, at all events. Nor did Calvert wholly mistake the nature of his lieutenant, so far as to suppose that the same vanity would suifer him to grow wiser after the rebuke. He knew the man too well to believe that anything short of severe penalties, actually enforced, could do any effectual service in bringing him back to a right consciousness e£ his true relations with the world about him. He rightly con- ceived that all which he said would be wasted upon blind ears ; but he had his own policy in his exhortations, and their very severity on one subject was calculated to render the young man obtuse to those more searching inquiries which his superior had to make in other directions. Had Calvert said nothing to him touching his presence in the cabin, Molyneaux must either have supposed him grossly insensible to his honor — which he could hardly be — or too deeply interested in other matters, in which the guilty man was a participator, to suffer him to attach a proper weight to this. Briefly, to forbear in the present instance, might have led Molyneaux to suppose that his forbearance was a blind, concealing hie scrutiny into other offences, quite as flagjant, and much more dangerous in their consequences. To dwell on this, as the captain had done, and with so much severity, was, in short, equivalent to saying to him, " This is my only cause oS quarrel or complaint." So Molyneaux construed it ; and, conscious of so much more offence, yet undeveloped and apparently unconjectured, he was quite willing for the present to escape so easily. But the language, tone, and manner, of his superior, stung him to the quick ; and, though he endeavored so to compose his muscles, and regulate his tones and words, and subdue his passion, as to answer with mod- eration and almost with humiUty, the hate all the while was growing in his heart, in due degree with his efforts to suppress its exhibition. 168 THE CASSIQUE OF KIAWAH. Calvert read him through ; understood all the workings of his mind ; smiled a hitter scorn as he listened to his replies ; and said to himself, at the close : — " He will not be saved ! But my time is not yet come — nor his. We can both wait !" And so he proceeded to talk, as it were indifferently, of the affairs of the ship ; taking a minute report of everything that had been done in his absence, even to a list of the names of parties engaged in the several tasks of scouting the woods, fishing, load- ing and unloading, and of the crews employed in conveying the boats to toWn. " Any signs of Indians ?" he asked. " Yes, sir, but not within five miles. They do not seem to have found us out yet. There is a new plantation settling, about five miles below where they have been in considerable numbers." « " Keep your scouts busy still — your best men — and have a squad of three or four of them on the other side of the river, with a boat in cover, directly opposite, night and day. Let them report to you nightly. Have you had any men missing — any off with- out leave ?" " No, sir. This was said boldly. " Keep your eye upon the boats, so that none shall be missing without your knowing it. The danger is, that some of these block- heads will be running down to Charleston, where a reward is offered for every mother's son of them ! We may, in fact, very soon hare to change our quarters. You have an inventory of all the goods sent down, the number of loads, and a receipt from Franks for all delivered?" " Here it is, sir.'' " Very well. I will examine it by daylight. The light arti- cles are nearly all gone, I suppose ?" " Two more boats will carry them, sir." " We shall then have to devise a plan for discharging the heavy, so as to avoid this tedious process, which would consume weeks for us. In fact, the boats can hardly be used for the purpose. But of this to-morrow. Good-night, Mr. Molyneaux." " Good-night, sir." And the captain went below without lingering. SETTLING ACCOUNTS. 169 " Now, d — n his blood !" broke from the lieutenant, as he shook his clenched fist toward the cabin when the rover had disappeared. " But I will have it out of his heart yet ! Oh ! she is too pure, is she ? — too virtuous, eh ? Of course, I can not succeed ! He feels quite safe, does he, on that score ? Ha ! ha ! ha ! This is the way in which these d d silly husbands deceive themselves. "Well, we shall see ! It is a defiance — a challenge ! We shall see ! If I am to be taunted on that score, by I will see if I can not revenge the taunt ! Too pure — too immaculate ! Ha ! ha ! As if there was ever yet painted daughter of Eve who could resist the right persuader ! "We shall see ! She shall make me sweet atonement for all this ; and he ! — ay, if I do not have it out of his heart's blood, then curse me for a coward who has no red blood in his own !" 8 170 THE CASSIQUE OF KIAWAfl. CHAPTER XVIII. LOTE-POWDEK. " Make me a potent filter that shall work Upon his passionate senses, till I grow His moon of fandy, and with queenly power, Such as pale Hecate holds upon the sea, Eouse all the fervid billows of his heart, Till they flow up to mine." Scarcely had Cklvert shut himself within his cabin, when, Sylvia, the mulattress, crawled out from a cupboard which had concealed her under the stairs of the companion-way, and stole up to the deck, where she joined Molyneaux. He had corrupted her. This was one of the discoveries which Belcher had made, leading him to suspect Molyneaux of other treacheries ; but he had failed to communicate the fact to his supe- rior, for the reason, probably, that Calvert had given rather indif- ferent attention to all the reports which had been made him in respect to his lieutenant's intimacy with Zulieme. But unques- tionably, now, the mulattress was in the pay of the lieutenant. She approached him without preliminaries, he being ready to welcome her communications ; showing that the understanding be- tween them had been sufficiently well matured. In her negfo patois, which we do not care to adopt, she began thus : — " We are to go to Charleston. He told her so to-night. They had a long talk ; and she's to change her name, and live 'with a Mrs. Anderson ; and she 's to go to balls and parties every night • and there's to be fine times ; and who but she?" And so the Abigail rambled on, in a loose manner ; contriving, however, to report very fully all that Calvert had said to his wife in respect to her abode in town. " But had they no quarrel ?" " Oh, yes ! but he smoothed it all overy easy enough, as soon as LOVE-PUWBEK. 171 be let her know that she was to go to Charleston. That's what she's been dying for. She so loves to be dancing in a crowd of people !" . " But what said he about my being in the cabin ?" " Oh, he told her he 'd kOl her if she was another woman. But I don't see the sense of that. And she was spunky, and told him to kill her, and she did n't care how soon ; and she called him a brute-beast of an Englishman ; she did ! She didn't pick the words, but said 'em just as they come up. She ain't afear'd of him, to be sure. When he says ' dog,' she says 'cat ;' and if he shows his teeth, she 's ready for a scratch, any day. Lord, how she does give it to him sometimes !" " It was a pretty bit of a quarrel, then ?'' " It did me good to hear it, for he 's such a dog-in-the-manger, and he 'd put his foot on her if she had n't the spunk. And I do n't see why she should n't -say what she pleases, when she brought him all the fortune." " To be sure — why not ? That 's right ! So you think there 's no love lost between them ?" " As for the love, there 's no saying. If there 's any between 'em, she 's got it. He do n't love nothing ! But, somehow, she has a sort of liking for him, though she does scratch." " But liking can 't last long, if it 's ' cat and dog' between them." " No, indeed ; and she 'd rather be dancing with you, a thou- sand times, than sitting down at ' dumby and doggy' with him." " But what was the upshot of it all ? How did it end ?" " Oh, she hugged him and kissed him after he told her she was to go to town ; but there was a good deal of sobbing and crying, and cross words,' first." " Did she weep?" * " Yes, a little. It was a sort of scream and sob. Then she hushed up, and laughed out ; and he told her she was a baby, and maybe kissed her ; and so he told her to go to bed, and then he came up to you." " Did he say anything of me ?" " Not much ; only that he would kill you and kill her, if he •ever caught you in his cabin again. 'T was then she called him a brute-beast of an Englishman." " Rough words, Sylvia." 172 THE CASSIQUE OF KIAW4H. " "Was n't they ? But he made all smooth when he told her that she was to go to town." " But if she likes me, Sylvia, what makes her so eager to get away with him ?" "It's the balls and dances, I tell you. It's not to go with him. He 's not to go with us. He 's to send us to Mrs. Anderson, in the boat." "Ah! he's not to go with her? What's he to do with him- self]" " Stay here, I reckon.'' "I don't like that! What would he stay for? He's not wanted here. I can see to the ship." " I do n't know. That 's what he told her." " What more ? Did you pick up any more ?" The mulattress simply repeated what had been said already. " Well," said Molyneaux, " when you get to town, I shall proba- bly send some one to you : if I can, will come myself. You must find out all you can ; keep an eye on both of them ; let me know all you hear ; and keep talking to her about me. Yon know how to do it." " Do n't I ! Oh, she thinks you a mighty fine man — a hand- some man — " "Ah! she does? Well?" " She says you have a most beautiful figure." " Ah ! she sees that — she says that ?" "Yes, indeed; though she says 't ain't so mighty as the cap- tain's." " No — thank God, I 'm not an elephant !" " No, indeed, you 're not so big. Now, she says, if you only knew how to dance — " " What ! I do n't know how to dance ?" " That 's what she says of all you English, except the captain. Now, he can dance Spanish, and so lightly, though he 's so large and heavy. But he learned among our people — and he's so active !" " Not more so than I am." "You think not?" " Certainly not ! I 'm as light and active as any man in the British islands." LOVE-POWDER. 173 " Ah ! is it possible ?" " I can run as fast, bound as high, jump as far, hop as long, as any man of my size in Britain." "I'm so glad to hear it! She likes to see men doing these things. But you don't dance so well as the captain. She says so." " I don't know how that can be. I've never seen him dance." " Oh, he never will dance now. That's one thing she quarrels about. He won't play with her now as he used to. If he would, I'm sure you'd stand no chance. But, because you play with her, she likes you." " "Well, if she likes me, I don't care much whether it's because of my heels or my head. Liking can grow to loving." « That it can !" " And I'm sworn to have her." " And so you can !" " You must do your best, Sylvia. There 's a dollar for you. Tell me everything, and you shall have more. Do all that you can to make her love me, and I 'U pay you well. And if I get her, my girl, I'll make you rich." " If we could only give her a powder, now — " " A powder ! what 's that ? what for V " A powder to make her love you." "I've heard of such ; but that 's all nonsense." "Nonsense! I tell you it's true. We've got powders at Da- rien that '11 make ihe eyes of a man or woman fasten upon a per- son as if they could see nothing else ; make 'era dream of 'em every night, and always such sweet dreams ; make 'em hunt after 'em, as a dog hunts after the deer ; oh, make their hearts feel for nothing else but them !" "Why don't you give her one of these powders, then, on my account? I don't much believe in what you tell me, but you must try everything." " So I would if I had the powders. If I was at Darien, now, I could soon get 'em. But they 're made out of roots that grow only in our mountains. And you have to look for 'em at night, and when there's no moon, and that's dangerous. But when you have only the roots about you, in your pocket, and walk side-by- side with the person you want to love you, they '11 almost grow to 174 THE CASSIQUE OF KIAWAH. you. They can't leave you for a moment, without pain; and they're happy as soon as they can get to you again. I do think that the captain had some of those roots in his pocket, when they first brought him to our hacienda ; and that 's the reason that my young mistress took to him so mad as she did." " There's reason in that. I wonder if he has any of them about him still ! — But it's all nonsense. No use to talk about it. You must do what you can, Sylvia, without the love-powder. Now, I'm a good-looking fellow — a handsome fellow: you can say that, surely; and don't let her forget it. Look at that leg." And he stuck his foot upon the gunwale, and stroked his calf complacently. " There 's a leg for you, Sylvia !" " Yes, indeed ; if you could only shake it Spanish fashion.'' " Oh, d — n the Spanish fashion ! I can shake it Irish fashion, you fool, and that never failed to please a woman yet. Don't forget that. Do you hear ?" " No, indeed." " Well, what can you say against my face — my figure?" " Say against 'em, sir ? Oh, bless your eyes, who can say any- thing against 'em ?" "Well, but what can you say /or them, Sylvia? That's the true question." " Well, sir, every woman sees a man with just her own pair of eyes. Now, if 'twas for myself, I like your face and figure so well, that, if you was to ask me, I'd have you to-morrow, and jump at you too. And so, I reckon, would my mistress, if she was only a free woman ; for she says you 're a handsome fellow, only you can't dance Spanish." " I '11 make her a free woman, by all the holies I Remember that ! Tell her that ! Let her but say that she loves me, and I '11 go through blazes to set her free from this infernal bondage ! As for the dancing Spanish, let her know that my legs — and you see them — were made for dancing Irish. Let her find a pair of Spanish calves to match with these, and I '11 admit that there 's some virtue in these d d Spanish dances ; but, till then, an Irish jig for me, whenever good legs are to be shaken. Go, now, Syl- via. There 's another dollar for you, my girl. Keep it up — do you hear ? The drop of water will wear away the stone ; and LOTE-POWDBB. 17.5 the right word, said at the right time, and at all times when you get a chance, will wear down a flinty heart. Keep your ears open, and your tongue only, for me." While this scene was in progress, ignorant if not indifferent, Harry Calvert was keeping painful vigil below. He did not sleep — did not seek for sleep — was busy with books and papers. He read and wrote alternately for two hours. Then rising, put- ting away books and papers, he approached the berth where Zu- lieme slept — slept like a child — just as heedless of the morning as if it were never to dawn again. The strong man gazed on her sleeping features, in a stern and meditative silence. What was she to him? Were she lying there in the absolute embrace of Death — as she was in that of its twin-sister, Sleep — he would probably have been as sadly calm a spectator. What was she to him ? We have heard already. But, though indifferent, he would not have had one breath of heaven too roughly to beteem her cheeks. Not a harsh thought, not an ungenerous feeling, not a hostile fancy, filled his heart or mind toward her. True, she was but a child in his sight — erring, weak, silly — a creature quite unsuited to his needs as to his nature ; but whose was the fault that she was here ? " That is the grief," he murmured, as he gazed. " Did I not, from the first, know that she was only the feeble, thoughtless crea- ture that I have found her? Knowing this, what had I to do with her ? Why did I pluck her from her proper home — from the simple bed of security in which she had grown — beloved, watched, nurtured tenderly, and honored — when I could not love or honor, could hardly watch, and certainly not tenderly nurture ? I must not cast her off, nor scorn her, nor rate heavily her offences, nor treat her with indifference ! She must not feel, at my hands, meaner measure of care and kindness than I have had at hers — than she herself has always got from those of fond, foolish mother, and idolizing, doting father. Love is impossible. That I feel ! But, for the rest — the care, the kindness, the protection, the in- dulgence — these she must never lack ! Were she guilty, now ! — But, no ! Who that looks upon that sleep so placid, childlike, satisfied — the lips slightly parted, the brow unruffled, the breath- ing regular and soft like that of an infant, and the bosom so sweetly 176 THE CASSIQUE OF KIAWAH. heaving — shall doubt that he looks upon the sleep of innocence ? Ah ! she is sobbing in her sleep — a half-stifled sob — a slight convulsion of feeling, spite of sleep, as if the memory were busy recalling those sharp words of mine to-night. Sleep on, poor girl, sleep on ! I will not question your purity, though I may your prudence. Shall I chafe because you are ignorant of vice — of those passions that make vice a necessity — that make jealousy . and suspicion the necessary guardians in a world consciously cor- rupt ? No, no ! Sleep on : I will endure it as I may !" She woke, and threw out her arms. " Harry — is it you, Harry ? Ah ! you dear brute Englishman, why do n't you come to bell ? You know we are to go to Charles- ton in the morning. Ha ! ha ! Harry." And she sighed, and lapsed away again in sleep. ZULIBME IN CHARLESTON. 17' CHAPTER XIX. ZULIEME IN CHARLESTON. " Put on oar state, Our bravest ; we are here among the best, And we must bear us as becomes the beauty That ignorant wonder still has made us known : We're here but to be worshipped." ZuLiEME was awake by daylight, but only to be disappointed. She did not start for the city quite so soon as she expected. Morning came, and no departure. And Calvert was absent, no one knew in what quarter ; in the woods somewhere ; but whether with or without an object, who could say ? Zulierae was in despair! But by noon he came — unexpect- edly as he went ; and it was then understood that it was only after night, availing himself of the tide, that he meant that the boats should drop down the river. To wait for hours ! Oh, what a trial to the eager heart of youth ! But the night, with grateful cover, came at last. The boats were manned, and Zulieme summoned. Her trunks were already on board ; and she herself had been ready, as we have seen, some twelve hours before. She, too, passed on board. She gave her hand cordially to Molyneaux, and Eckles too, as she left the vessel — though the don, her husband, was at hand — and spoke her farewell with all the freedom of a child. " Good-by, Mr. Molyneaux — good-by, Mr. Eckles," she cried to them, with naive accents — " good-by ! Don't you forget me ! I'm going to town, you know, where we shall have dances a plenty, but I sha'n't soon forget those funny ones we have had in the woods." "That's not very sentimental, Molyneaux," muttered Eckles in 8* 178 THE CASSIQUE OP KIAWAH. the ears of his brother-lieutenant. " She don't break her heart at parting with us, my boy !" And Molyneaux seemed to be of the same opinion, for he an- swered very churlishly to his brother-officer, and in rather saddish accents to the senora. But there was still a scene in reserve, not in the programme. Sylvia was about to step on board after her mistress, when Calvert arrested her. " Back, girl ! we want none of you. You will remain here." " Oh, missis, they won't let me come !" " Harry," cried ZuUeme, hearing the anguished cry of the Abi- gail, " I must have Sylvia." "Impossible, Zulieme." "But I can't do without her, Harry. Don't tell me impos- sible !" " You must try, Zulieme. I would n't have her long tongue among the townspeople for half our cargo. Do you forget that we have secrets there, Zulieme ?" " I can 't help it : Sylvia must go. Who is to dress me and tend me ?" " She can not go, Zulieme." " Then I won't go ! for I can't do without her, Harry." " I 'm sorry for it ; for you must stay, then ! — Back the boats, fellows." " But, Harry, why can 't Sylvia go ? You are so cross always !" " I have given you the reason already, Zulieme. The secrets of the ship must not be blabbed about the town." " But she won't blab, Harry. I promise you !" " You promise ! Answer for yourself, Zulieme. You will have enough to do ! As for trusting anything to such a parrot, I can 't think of it. Come, Zulieme, decide ! Will you go, or stay ?" " And Sylvia is not to go ?" " No, as I'm a living man !" " You 're a monster ! Never mind, Sylvia : I '11 bring you fine things." " You are content to go without her ?" " I suppose I must be. You try all you can to make me mis- erable. You're such a brute Englishman, I wonder why I ever married you !" " So do I, Zulieme — very much, and very often. But, speak ZULIEMK IN CHARLESTON. 179 quickly. The tide is i-iinning down fiast. I do not compel you to go, Zulieme. If you can't do without Sylvia, don't go — don't leave her." In a subdued, sobbing voice, Zulieme cried out : — " Good-by, Sylvia ! You see how it is I He won't let you come.'' " my missis ! what I going to do without you ?" " Take your amusements, Sylvia. Dance all you can." " Oh ! oh ! oh !" sobbed the disconsolate Abigail, as the boats swept away down-stream ; while Zulieme repeated for the twen- tieth time : — " You try all you can to cross me, Harry Calvert, and make me miserable. I 'm sure I wish I had never seen you !" " It was, indeed, a great misfortune," he responded, in very so- ber, serious tones, and not reproachfully, only painfully. " To me it was, Harry Calvert — to me, to me only !" " Surely : who else ? It was to you, Zulieme, I repeat, a very great misfortune." " But it need not be, if you were not the great bear of an Eng- lishman that you are ! If you 'd try, I 'm sure you could make me happy." '• I 'm afraid not, Zulieme. But, indeed, I do try as well as I can, and as far as I think it proper. But how could you suppose that I would suffer that wench to go with you to the city, where you are to bear another name than mine, when you know that she has the tongue of a jay, and the wriggling propensities of an eel ? She would never rest till she had blabbed everything. Be con- tent ! You will have better 'tendance with Mrs. Anderson than Sylvia could ever give you. She will find you half a dozen bet- ter maid-servants, each worth a dozen of Sylvia." But we need not hearken further to this (however interesting) domestic difficulty. Enough, that the decision of Calvert deranged some of the plans of Molyneaux — for the moment. Of these, hereafter. The boats swept quietly down the placid, poetical river, now veering to one and now to the other bank — each side presenting, with pleasing alternations, some fairy-like glimpses of the shore, crowned everywhere with green umbrage, and the headlands spmetimes overshadowing half the stream with the great branches 180 THE CASSIQUE OF KIAWAH. of their aneient oaks. At lengj:h, a blazing pile of pine-fagots, raised upon a knoll of earth, drew the eyes of the party to the western banks. In the rear of this pyre stood a dark, square mass, which Calvert instantly recognised as the ancient " Block- house'' commanding the creek at " Oldtown." This pyre was his signal. He knew that Gowdey was on the watch, and that his horse was in readiness. Franks had punctually fulfilled his orders. Without a word, having the tiller in his grasp, our rover turned the head of the boat directly for the ancient landing, with which he was quite familiar. As the boat darted into the little creek, Zulieme cried out : — " Why, Harry, what's this ? Why do you come here ?" " Here I leave the boat, Zulieme." " But you mustn't leave me. You must carry me yourself to Mrs. Anderson, Harry." " Impossible ! But ] have arranged everything. Have no fear." " Oh ! don't you tell me to have no fear. I will have fear; I will be afraid. You send me among strange people, Harry Cal- vert, and who ought to introduce me but you ?" " My dear Zulieme, you are already introduced, and Mrs. Per- kins Anderson awaits you. She knows you, and I have tried my best to make you know her. I have told you that she's a fine, fashionable woman, and gives balls and parties, the very finest in Charleston; that she's sentimental, and flirts with perfect grace; that she's very sweet-tempered, being young,' rich, and surrounded by admirers. So much for her. You will find that all I've told you is true, and that she eagerly expects you, and will know you at a glance. I 've told her that you dance to perfection ; that you like nothing so well in the world as dancing ; that you will dance all night ; dream all day of dancing all night ; awaken only to work out your dreams ; and that you would not give a fig for life itselfi unless with the privilege of using your legs to the sound of the tambourine ; that you are disappointed in your husband only as he is not content to be a dancing-machine for your exercise.'' "That's as ^uch as to say you've told her I'm a fool, you great English cayman! But I'll not go to her house — I won't go a sfepzr— jmfess yqii go ^Ipng with roe ; thfit's flat!" '■ 4-S you please, Zulieme. It is impossible that I should "o with you to-night. That, too, is flat 1 You will at least accom- ZULIEME IN CHARLESTON. 181 pany the boat, and either land in Charleston, and go to Mrs. An- derson, or keep quiet in the boat till its return, when you can go back to the ship." 'No! I'll do neither, since you won't go with me. I'll go with you. I '11 see where you go to-night. I 'm too great a fool to go to Mrs. Anderson's ! I '11 show you that I can do without dancing. I love dancing ! when I care nothing about it in the world, except when I've got nothing else to amuse me." To this determined speech Calvert gave no attention. It prob- ably entered his ears and passed through them. With the tiller in his grasp, he kept the boat in the narrow passage up the creek, through green tracts of marsh on either hand ; and, as she reached the landing, he adroitly brought her round, so that he leaped with an easy spring upon the shore, sending the vessel off fully ten feet with the effort. "Why, Harry — Harry, I say! — do you really mean to leave me, you brute monster ? Oh, I wish I had never, never, never seen you !" " Good-night, Zulieme," he cried, as he disappeared in the thick- ets ; " go to Mrs. Anderson's, and fear nothing. Do n't be foolish. Good-night !" She screamed after him, but he made no answer. He was gone. She fairly sobbed out her afflictions. But the case was past remedy, and she was soon reconciled. Before the boat had quite emerged from the creek into the river, she had got up her guitar, and, what with tuning and tinkling, for the benefit of the oarsmen — one of whom had taken the tiller on the captain's de- parture — she contrived to forget her trials long before the little vessel reached her destination. Calvert knew her resources. In little more than an hour after he had left the boat, she had entered the lagune, and passed on to the obscure landing-place, in the rear of the courthouse of the present city. Here Franks and Jack Belcher were both in waiting. They both received the fair Zulieme with the deference becoming the wife of their superior. Franks she had never seen before. They escorted her promptly to the dwelling of the fashionable lady, who was in waiting to wel- come her. This she did with the ease, grace, and gayety, of a woman of fashion. "I'm so happy to see you !" and she embraced and kissed her, 18f2 THE CASSIQUE OF KIAWAH. and drew her into the brilliantly-lighted parlor, and hurriedly devoured her with all her eyes. " Bless me, Zulieme,'' she cried, in a sort of rapture, " you are the prettiest little creature — quite a fairy ! Why, you look like a mere girl — a child : nobody would ever take you to be a wife.'' " Oh, do n't call me a child !" said Zulieme impatiently. " Harry calls me a child and a baby, and treats me just as if I was a doll. Don't you do so. I don't like it." "Oh, I speak only of your size and looks, my dear. It's no discredit to be thought j'oung, my dear. Everybody knows that we grow older as we grow, fast enough ; and, fot a woman, it's a great thing to keep young as long as possible. For my part, you could not please me better than by fancying and calling me a girl." ZuUeme's eyes opened wide. " The great, fat chunk of a creature !" was her unuttered medi- tation. But Mrs. Perkins Anderson, with the natural facility of a fashionable woman, allowed her companion no chance to speak. " What a sweet face is this of yours, Zulieme — so very delicate and feminine ! And those eyes — how black, and how they dilate ! And your hands how small, and your feet ! You are, I insist, a little fairy, and look nothing like a wife. And, by-the-way, you are not a wife here. Remember that ! Of course, Calvert has told you ? You are to be the Senorita Zulieme de Montano, of Florida. You will make a great sensation. Our young dandies and macaronies are very fond of Spanish beauties ; and you will be a belle, and they will suppose you a fortune ! Nobody can think you a married woman. How long have you been married, my dear ?" " Oh, a long time — more than a year !" " That is a very long time. Alas ! Zulieme, I have been mar- ried ten ; and ten years of married life is an eternity. But, come ; we must have supper, and then to sleep. You must be tired." And she wrapped her arms around the unresisting stranger, and drew her into the supper-room, exclaiming as she went : — " What a fairy ! what a creature for the dance ! Oh, what dances we shall have !" " And I so love dancing !" murmured Zulieme. OLD GOWDEY. 183 CHAPTER XX. OLD GOWDEY. " How much of wisdom lies in a good heart ! And so we work by nature up to thought, If' we are honest, tmthful, to ourselves Steadfast in virtuous action, to the laws Obedient, and to God resigned in all !" Or '' Oldtown" — "old Charlestown,'' the nest-egg of the pres- ent opulent state of South Carolina, there is now scarcely a single vestige. All is level. Even when visited by our rover Calvert, it was a place of ruins. The old block-house excepted, hardly a house remained. What time and neglect had spared, the red men destroyed. They had applied the torch to all that the white set- tlers had abandoned — not much, it is true — and our rover trod among beds of cinders overgrown with weeds. At the present day, we have hardly a trace of the locality. The whole space is occupied by fertile plantations, in which cotton is eloquent in be- half of civilization ; even if civilization, forgetting its wisdom in its philanthropy, forbears all argument in behalf of cotton. The future compensates, though it does- not restore ; and we have no reason, surveying the present fertility, to deplore the overthrow of the old experiment. Calvert is not philosopher enough to an- ticipate the wondrous future ; and may be allowed to feel some saddening sensations as he passes over the ruined site of the infant colony. We, too, even at this day, with the virgin blooms of the cotton in our eyes even as we write, are not wholly superior to that sentiment which deplores that the nest of the eagle should be abandoned without some memorial to declare whence she took her flight ! We recall with interest the feeble colony of Sayle, seek- ing safer harborage in this seclusion from provoking foes than Port Royal, where he first sought to plant, could possibly afford. 184 • THE CASSIQUE OF KIAWAH. And here, for several years, the little settlement grew ; having charge of that small nest-egg of a future civilization, -which was finally to develop into a proud and potent state ! Here, from this frail hamlet, we have seen great patriots, and sagacious statesmen, and mighty warriors emerge, doing great things in various sea- sons, and rising into ndblest heroism in the hour of storm and danger. And we can not forget, and should not, how this infant heart heat, in this lone region, with all those pulses of courage, and self-denial, and faith, and virtue, which men were decreed to honor in coming times — to love and honor, without once asking where these beautiful virtues were first cradled for renown ! But the hour passes. Calvert has little time for reflection upon the vicissitudes of place ; and we, who are his biographers, must not suffer him to go from sight. He ghdes through the thicket, he winds about the creek, he reaches the knoll where the pyre still blazes to guide his course, behind which looms up the block-house, no longer surrounded by its guardian pickets. These are all gone. The square fabric, of hewn and mortised logs, well put together, and crenelled for mus- ketry, stands alone upon the knoll. Time has begun to work upon it also, though the hand of man has striven to neutralize the rapid progress of decay. Were it daylight, you could see where new timbers have been let in, replacing the rotten ; where certain rents have been patched up with plank ; showing human caution to be stiQ at work. There still peeps out, as you see, the muzzle of an iron cannon, which covers the whole range between the fortress and the creek. Governor Quarry has deemed it politic to set this outpost in some little order. It serves to admonish the red men in the neighbor- hood, and, in the event of their proving troublesome, it will give due notice to the townspeople of their hostilities. One bellow of that old six-pounder will rouse the citizens, and make them buckle on their armor ; and though the post be occupied, at present, only by a single man, he wiU suffice for the purpose of alarm. He is an old soldier in Indian warfare — a picked frontier-man, with a passion for solitude which makes him prefer the encounter, single-handed, with the savage, rather than lack in the proper elbow-room which he loves. But he shall tell us all about him- self. OLD GOWDBY. 185 There were no signs of life within the log-house as Calvert ap- proached it. It was, as we have said, a square tower of logs, some forty feet on every hand. On the side facing the river, at an elevation of ten feet, the gun, raised upon a platform within, thrust out its muzzle through a porthole, which looked down upon the creek. Holes were pierced, on a line parallel with this embra- sure, for the use of musketry. The entrance was upon the south, overshadowed by a sort of barbacan, from which the garrison might shoot down upon assailants at the gate below. This gate was of heavy slabs of oak, plated crosswise with other slabs, and almost covered with the spikes which were used to bind the two faces of the door together. The tower, for such we may call it, was some twenty-four feet high ; it was roofed and terraced, a cement of tar and sand having been employed as a coating. Within, the building consisted of two stories. In the lower, occu- pied by the six-pounder, Gowdey did his cooking on the ground ; never troubling himself as to the escape of the smoke, which found its way through the porthole, or the crenelling, or slowly floated into the upper story, which was his sleeping-place. There was no chimney. But Calvert had not yet found his way in. AH was still as death as he approached the entrance. Here he drew a silver whistle from his pocket, and sounded. A voice from the barba- can called out, immediately after, the single word " Happy !" to which our rover answered,_ " Go Lucky !" Then, assured, Gow- dey descended, and the heavy gate of the fortress swung wide to admit its visiter. It was carefully closed behind him. Uncover- ing a dark-lantern, which served only to make the darkness visible, Gowdey seized with one hand the wrist of Calvert, and conducted him to the foot of the ladder by which they were to mount to the upper story. This, when they attained, they found more fully lighted by another lantern, the rays of which were wholly unseen from without. A scuttle in the roof, open always in clear weather, afforded the inmate light and air ; for, though apertures had been pierced around the room for the use of firearms, these had all been covered — for what reason we know not — with a strip of planking. This could be easily torn oflP, and the place restored wholly to its original purposes. Our solitary had seemingly few comforts. His bed was spread. 186 THE CASSIQUE OF KIAWAH. upon the floor, a simple mattress. There were boxes about the room, and kegs, and odds and ends of simple furniture, stools and benches. A rifle and long ducking-gun, pistols, and a couple of grains for fishing, with rods, andrfiets, and lines, and tackle, were to be seen standing in the corners or suspended from the walls. There was one great oaken table, upon which stood pewter plates, knives, forks, and coffee-pot. But we have no need for further catalogue. Enough that the chamber of Gowdey was not ill fur- nished in the eyes of one who had been hunter, fisherman, trapper, and Indian trader by turns, and who still continued the two former employments with all the zest of his early manhood. " You have forgotten me, Gowdey, I suppose," said Calvert, as be shook the hand of the garrison. " Forgit your honor ? That's impossible ! Certainly not, when Franks sends me a jug of Jamaica every now and then, and a trit of tobacco, and tells me that they come from you." " I told him to supply you." "And many thanks, your honor. The Jamaica's a great help to a vartuous memory; and, with my pipe a-going, it's won'erful how much a man's shet eyes kin see, deep down in long-gone sea- sons. Iiord love you, sir, I don't think I kin forgit anything, so long as there 's any Jamaica in my jug and tobacco in my pipe ! Tobacco 's a most blessed, heavenly invintion, your honor, for re- freshing a bad memory. It's so quieting to the heart, and brings such sweet, orderly thinking to tbe head ! It's the next thing, sir, to a famous sleep, with a dream all the time of being jist where you wants to be." " Well, Gowdey, so long as I can provide it, you shall have -your tobacco and Jamaica. But it's so long since we had met — " " Going on three years only," interposed the other. /' And three years are an eternity in this world of strife and change." " It's nothing to an old man of seventy." " Are you seventy, Gowdey ?" " And one over, your honor.'' " You hardly look more than fifty." " No — perhaps ! And I haven't the feel of more ; and I kin follow a buck all day, and be spry for a turkey by dawn, jest as well now as if I wasn't quite fifty. And ef 'twant for this stiff- OLD GOWDEY. 187 ness of the arm" — lifting his left — "and that's another sign to- make me remember you — " " What about your arm, and what had I to do with it, Gow- dey ?" "Why, Lorcl, sir, 'thas never been the same arm to me sence that famous shirk -fight — don't you remember, sir, in Port-Royal harbor ? Why, sir, your honor, ef I never supped your Jamaica, and never snuffed your tobacco, that arm is always ready to 'mind me of that fight, and how you saved me from the jaws of that de- vouring sea-divil. I would have been but a'mouthful in his jaws, ef it hadn't been for you! And it's not every man — no, sir, your honor ! not more than one man in a thousand — that would jump overboard into the deep sea, to help a poor fellow out of sich a jaw. When I thinks over that time, and how you dived under the beast, and cut into his lights and liver with your knife, jist when I was a-gasping and looking for my death every minute, on my back, and onder his double row of saws, I forgits tobacco and Jamaica, and thinks of you ! I 've got his skin presarved, there in the corner, as a bit of good luck to fishermen." " I remember, now — I remember." " I reckon you do ! How kin you forgit ? That, I say, your honor, is about the most valiantest thing that ever you did, though they do cry up your fights with the Spaniards. I hear you licked a great don out of his breeches, and sunk his ship ; but that fight with the shirk was, to my thinking, the most desperatest thing that a human mortal ever did do in his sober senses. And you jumped overboard to do it when not a man stirred a peg ; and, but for you, I was clean gone, for I could do nothing my one self, and the one gripe of the shoulder that the brute beast give me was a taste of the etarnity of swallow that he had in that maw of his'n ! I wouldn't have been more than a morsel in his jaws after that, ef 'twant for you. Oh, I sha'n't forgit it, captain, so long as I have a feeling of crawling flesh about me !" " Well, Gowdey, we '11 say no more of that escape, which was certainly a lucky as it was a narrow one ; and I rejoice at my agency in the matter, as at one of the few good actions of my life. I prefer, now, that we should talk of other matters, more agreea- j)le to yourself." " Lord love your honor ! as ef anything could be more grateful 188 THE CASSIQUE OP KIAWAH. than getting out of the shirk's mouth, though by the skin of the teeth." " Yes, in one sense, it was certainly most grateful to you, as in another sense it was to me." " In all senses, your honor." " But you are on dry land now ; and, though I do not see many signs of prosperity about you, yet I prefer to think of you, and should like to hear that you are as prosperous on dry land as you are safe." "Well, your honor, that's soon said. I'm as pi-osperous as I cares io be, and perhaps more so than I desarve. I have enough and to spare; and that reminds me, your honor, that I've got a little cold supper here for you — some pretty fine fish and a can of Jamaica — " " Not just yet, Gowdey. Go on with what you were saying. You have enough — " " And to spare ! And that, I may say, is pretty much all that a man needs in this world, and perhaps in any other. I gfet a trifle of five pounds a year, which keeps me in powder and shot, for keeping up this old block ; and I airn a trifle more by fishing for the townspeople ; and sometimes I pick up a buck or a turkey in the swamp, or a brace of ducks in the ponds, and that's all grist to my mill ; and then I do a little job, at times, for Franks and other people, and they pays me well : and altogether, sir, I 'm as well fed, and clothed, and liquored, as a single man wants to be in this country, where the cold do n't bite too keenly, and where the warm comes to me natural, like the sun to the corn." " But you have to work for all this, Gowdey, and pretty hard work too ; and, at your age, my good fellow, the heart, head, and body, all equally ask for rest and ease.'' " Lord, your honor forgits I passes for only fifty. But work, sir, is a great sweetener of bread and meat ; and to aim one's money, makes money a more decent and respectable thing than ef I got it and gave no sweat for it! And so, you see, I don't feel the age, and I don't fear the work ; and I find myself so well as I am, that ef I was to be better oiF, I 'm afeard I'd be worse ! I'd be gitting sick; and, ef anything could scare a poor sinner like myself, it's the idee of being sick — to lie on one's back and to want water, when every j'int in my body would prefer Jamaica ; OLD GOWDEY. 189 to swallow doctors' stuff, when the venison-ham, hanging from the wall, seems to cry, ' Come make a steak of me, and be young agin !' And to think that, maybe, I should git sick with nobody to give me water, or physic either, and then. Lord knows what ! That's the consideration, your honor, that sometimes pops into my head, and sets it all over aching with the thinking of what's to happen." " Ay, and sickness will come, Gowdey." "When sickness comes to me, your honor, I'll make up my bed, and wrap up, and lie down for the last sleep ! I sha'n't take physic, and I kin do without the water for awhile, and no venison- steak will do me good." " Nay, my good fellow, that will be next door to suicide.'' " I do n't think so, your honor. For you see, living th,e sort of life I live, there's nothing but old age to make me sick, and, for thut disease, Death is the only doctor. I'm an active man, and does well in the open air ; work strengthens me after a good sweat, and my food is, always sweet, and I'never over-eat and never over- drink myself; and what's to make me sick but old age? I never was sick an hour in my life, and I've kept moving always. It's this moving always and moving fast, your honor, that keeps a man hearty. Sickness kaint catch him. It's your slow people that the fever catches and the agy shakes ; and it only shakes 'em to ^how how they ought to shake themselves ! That's my doctrine, your honor, and, ef it's true, you see that, when I takes to my bed, I '11 need no doctoring. Pay-daj' 's come, and Lord send me the feeling to believe that I kin square accounts with my eternal Creditor, and git an honorable discharge from all my debts !" "Yet, Gowdey, there must be something melancholy in this solitary way of life. Have you no people — no kindred ?" " Not a living human as I knows on ; not a chick nor a child. Ef 1 -had, your honor, they should be here, and I 'd work the mus- cles harder, but they should lie on a softer bed than mine. But I haint got 'em, and I don't miss 'em. When I was a younger man, I did ; arid then I felt how hard it was lo be alone. But I 'm usen to it now. Men who live, like me, all their lives in the woods, gits out of liking for what you call society. They I'arn to love woods, and thicks, and trees, and rivers, and lakes ; and they gits a quick ear for the cries of biids and beasts ; and they some- 190 THE CASSIQUE OF KIAWAH. bow finds company in very small and sometimes strange matters. The woods and''tt-ees, and even the waters, git to be friends after awhile ; and you talks to them, and you think and believe that they talksback to you. A cast-away sailor on adesarted island will git to an acquaintance with every rock and tree that he sees daily, and I'arn to love 'em, and want no better company. And so, an old woodman like myself — why, sir, here in this old log- castle, I'm a-convarsing all day, at the lookout, with sdmething or other, and studying the set of a tree, and the shape of a filoud, and the shades of green in the woods as the sun and winds pass over 'em, so that I make out a sort of argyment for them, and myself too. But there's more than that, your honor. There 's the com- pany of blessed spirits, that are always about us, night and day, doing something — we do n't know what or how — to help us on, and keep our hearts up, and make our road easy." " Spirits ? Did you ever see a spirit ?" " Yes, your honor ; I 'm sure of it, though I do n't know for sartain that one ever did cross my sight. But I've felt it. I feels very sure that they keep my company. There 's something tells me so. It's in my heart or head; it's in all my veins; it's my holy belief. And sometimes I think I hear voices ; and there are sounds that stir me up till my heart beats like a strong watch ; and my hair rises naturally, without any thinking of mine — with- out any warning : so that I know that they are about me." " But you have seen nothing ?" " Well, I kaint say yes, your honor, but I kaint say no. I 've never had a spirit to stand before me, and face me outright ; but I 've felt 'em flash beside me, when I 've been in the deep thick, jest" like a flash of a wing — jest like a bird passing." " 'T was a bird, no doubt." " No, your honor ! My gun p'ints naturally at the flash of a bird's wing, right or left ; and you know I 'm an old hunter, and ought to know what 's a bird and what 's not. There 's not a red- skin in the woods but will tell you Ben Gowdey kgows every bird that flies. But I hear sounds and I see shapes, when it 's grow- ing dusk ; and at night, in this old log-castle, I kin hear whispers in the very room, when its deep midnight ; and — but, Lord love your honor, it 's easier to believe than to prove ; and ef ^ou were to ask me all day, I could only tell you that I believe for myself, OLD GOWDEY. 191 but kaint make the thing dear to you. But it stands to reason. I had a father and a mother, like every other man ; and I had brothers and sisters, but it so happened that I hardly ever know'd one of 'em ; they all died oif when I was not knee-high. - And I have reason to believe that they were goodish people enough — poor, and sinning now and then, as is the natural case with poor folks, put to it pretty hard by a hard world ; but, as the world goes, I reckon they were goodish people. And the little brothers and sisters, not six years old, what was to make them bad ? Well, they all naturally feels a feehng to help me on smoothly, and to make me journey safely ; and so, I reckon, they are about me. And I 'm. glad to think so, for it does me good, and keeps me as good as human flesh will let me be ! And I 'm sure it 's they that flash across my sight ; and they whisper in my room ; and, I tell you, I 've had, more than a hundred times, a something whisper- ing in my ear, 'Don't!' — and sometimes, jest as often, another whispering that said, ' Do !' — and I know it that, jest as I listened to them voices, I got on smooth and safe, and felt the better for it." " I can 't quarrel with your faith, Gowdey, and still less am I disposed to find fault with your philosophy." " Oh ! 't aint philosophy, your honor. I 'm not conceited enough for that. It's only the reason, and the common sense, and the natural truth." " Perhaps so. Certainly, if such are the fruits of their interfe- rence with you, the spirits deserve this privilege of visit. But, are you not disturbed by other sounds ? Do not the Indians sometimes rouse you up at midnight?" " Not they ! They 'd feel it in all their bones, and they know it. They 're mortally afear'd of the six-pounder ; and they all know what a nice rifle-bead I kin draw upon red skin or white, ef they come too close to the garrison. But they'd like to do it. ef they could, and so I 'm good at watch, and knows my time ; and am jest as good a scout in the woods as the best of them." " Are any of them in the neighborhood ?" " They 're beginning to come, and some are never gone. Some of them, the Stonos and the Sewees, live almost altogether on the salts. The Yamasees keeps a-moving up and down in the winter, but gits back to the Ashepoo and Pocotaligo, and all along the salts, in fish-time. All these people a'most belongs to the great 192 THE CASSIQUE OP KIAWAH. Katahbah nation, and the tribes come and go, according. to the season, from the seacoast to the mountain-country and back agin., There 's a sort of trade between them. The seashore Injuns carry tip shells, and clay pots and pans, and cane-reeds for arrows, and gits flintstones for hatchets aud arrow-heads, and war-clubs, from the up-country people, in the way of barter." " Have you seen many this season ?" " Not many. But they 're about, I hear, and coming along daily. In a month's time or so, the woods will be thick with 'em, all along the rivers. And I 'm sorry to see it." " What ! they lessen your chances at the game — thin the game — " " It 's not that, your honor ; there's a plenty for all of us. But I 'm afear'd the Injuns are guine to be troublesome agin. They have not been whipped bad enough yet, and never was there any people so apt to forget a whipping soon. They were pretty sassy before they went off last autumn, and, from what I then seed, I was dubous of what was to come. From what I hear, I reckon there '11 be some of the mountain-tribes coming down along with 'em this season ; and ef they do, we may calculate to hear the warwhoop somewhere about the settlements this summer. Well, now you see, jest at this time, when they 're most sassy, comes a new council, and they 've got the. notion in their heads that all these redskins are a sort of natural Christians that only wants a leetle sprinkling to become convarts to our religion, and grow into hon- est, sober, home-keeping Christians. But water aint going to do it, your honor — no, nor soap and water, nor all the preaching from London down to Vera Cruz. It's whipping, and hard work, and I'arning how to eat good bread and meat well cooked, and git- ting a taste for vegetables as well as venison : this is the way to teach a savage how to git religion. The cook-pot is a great con- varter of the heathen — that and the whipping-post." " Eather novel doctrines, Gowdey." " Oh ! I knows the beast, your honor, and kin count every spot on his hide. These council-men, they knows nothing. Here's a new man, a Colonel Berkeley, a nevey of the Lord Berkeley, they say, and he's bought ever so much land, jest above us, some seven or eight miles up ; and they 've made him a lord, too — a 'cassique,' they call it, which is Injun for a 'lord;' and he's one OLD GOWDBY. 193 of the council-men ; and be says they 've been too hard upon the Injuns; and he's brought out orders that we're to captivate and sell no more of them, but to have treaties with 'em, and trade with 'em, and treat 'em like brothers. And pretty brothers he'll find them! He's having them at his plantation that he's a-settling, and he's feeding them ; and he'll have enough of 'em before he's done with 'em. They '11 feed on him all they can, and he '11 never content 'em so long as he's got anything left; and when he won't give any more, they '11 take ; and the first fine chance, when they sees that his barony 's full of good things, they '11 make a midnight dash at 'em, and he'll never know his danger till he feels their fingers in his hair. They'll raise his scalp for him before they're done with him. But you know the varments as well as I do." " And has he no notion of all this ?" "No more than a child ! I've talked over the whole thing to him, and told him what he may expect. But he says it 's all our fault; that we treated the Injuns badly, and made 'em what they are; that they're 'Nature's noblemen,' and only need good treat- ment to be good fellows and good Christians. He's sat here with me by the hour, talking over the matter — and jest, as I may say, talking like a man in a dream. His head is full of projects. He's always at something new. Now he's for draining all these swamps — he says they '11 make the best meadows in the world ; then he 's for great cattle-ranges and sheepwalks ; and for making wine out of the grapes, and says he kin supply all England with wine better than they git from France. Well, the upshot of all will be, that he'll break, and go to smash, and the Injuns will take his scalp and burn his barony. They'll first begin upon his sheep and cattle, and he's got a smart chance of both already from Eng- land; and then they'll finish with his family. They'll eat and burn him up." " But does he maintain no watch — no garrison ?" " Yes : he 's got some raw English laborers with him ; and the carpenters are at work, and he 's got his block-houses and we'pons- of-war ; but he don't know the savages how they work a traverse, and they '11 all be surprised and cut off. And it 's a mighty sad thing to think upon, your honor ; for this Colonel Berkeley seems a mighty fine sort of person — honorable, and smart enough, and full of work ; he 's got a hand for a-most anything, and is jest 9 194 IHE CASSIQUE OF KIAWAH. about as eager at a new beginning as any boy tbat ever broke loose out of school. I'm to git him an Injun lad for a hunter; and I 've agreed for one, the son of an old chief of the Sewees — old Mingo, as we call him, but the Injuns call him Cussoboe. He 's the chief of that tribe. I expect him every day. The colo- nel wanted to hire me to do his hunting ; but, at my time, your honor, I won't go into any new contracts. I 'm for paddling my own canoe." " It is to this barony of Colonel Berkeley that I 'm to go to- night, Gowdey, and you must direct me how to find it." " I 'U guide your honor, if you please. It 's easier to do that than to direct you." " Have you a horse ?" " As sleek a marsh tacky as you ever crossed." " Franks sent you a horse for me ?" " He 's here and safe — hid and hoppled in the thick, alongside of my own." " Well, Gowdey, I shall be glad to have your guidance. How long will it take us to get there ?" "A short two hours." " Then, if we start three hours before day, it will answer. Now, understand me. This is a secret expedition. I am not going to see Colonel Berkeley, and do not wish to be seen by him or any of his people. I wish to hover about for awhile, concealed closely, seeing everything if possiblej myself unseen. He is, you are aware, a member of the privy council,-and exercases a large influ- ence upon the deliberations of that body. I need not tell you that I am compelled to keep dark." " Yes, I 've heard ! — that bloody fight with the Spanish don ! Well, for my part, I only wish you had sunk a hundred of 'em. Those bloody Spaniards are the natural enemies of all true Eng- lishmen ; and the king and lords-proprietors do n't know what mischief they're a-doing, when they tie up the hands of our val- iant cruisers. But they hain't ruled you out of law altogether, captain." * " You may earn five hundred pounds, Gowdey, by showing t0| the governor, or this Colonel Berkeley, where to lay hands upon me!" " And I 'd airn hell and damnation along with the money, youii OLD GOWUEY. 195 honor ! Surely, sir, your honor believes in the honor of Ben Gowdey ?" "As in my own — and thus it is that you see me here to- night." " God bless you, sir,'' grasping and squeezing his guest's hand, " and your visits and honor to this poor old hunter ! "We must drink together on that, your honor; and now for that bite of supper !" 196 THE CASSIQUB OP KIAWAH. CHAPTEK XXI. NIGHT-KIDE TO KIAWAH. " Thou dark grove, That has been called the seat of melancholy, And shelter for the discontented spirit — Sure thou art wronged ; thou seem 'st to me a place Of solace and content." — Thomas Mat — The Heir. We shall say nothing of the supper. It was clean, of course, and simple ; the Jamaica was employed, and its virtues acknowl- edged — though neither Calvert nor the hunter professed to be bottle-holders. While they ate, they talked ; that is to say, Gow- dey talked : and when did you ever meet old hunter yet, or old fisherman, that was not fond of his own music, except when on duty ? At such a time, the hunter and fisherman are as sacredly silent as if in waiting for the delivery of an oracle. They re- venge themselves, subsequently, for this reverential abstinence, when, having no game, they only seek a victim ! But, now, Calvert encourages Gowdey to speak. He wiles him, gently and gradually, to the subject of Colonel Berkeley, the cassique, who, by-the-way, is something of a curiosity to our hunter. He admires his energy, his courage, the boldness of his projects, the dignity of his bearing, and, so far as he knows it, the worth of his character. His manliness and unaffected simplicity are especially themes for his admiration. He has no vulgar pride. " He will sit, jest as you do, captain, for hours, with an old hunter like myself, and ask questions, and listen quietly, and never take pains, every now and then, to let you see that he thinks himself the better man! And, though I think he's quite wild in some of his calculations, and rather more likely to do NIGHT-EIDE TO KIAWAH. 197 harm than good — as when he thinks to tame these red savages, and convart these marshes into grand pasturages, and make wine out of these grapes to beat all France — yet he's so manful and courageous in it all, that I can 't help liking him. And, another reason, he's all the time trying to do! It is n't to make money. Ef you believe me, your honor, I do n 't think this cassique, as they call him, cares a copper whether he gits anything out of all his workings for himself. But he looks out upon the marsh, and says, 'If I could conquer it from the sea, and make it green with grass 1' And he says, ' Think of all these forests, Gowdey, sup- porting their thousands of sheep !' And then he looks at the grapevines everywhere, and cries out, 'All Europe shall drink of the wine of Carolina !' Them 's grand idees, your honor, and them 's the idees of Colonel Berkeley. He 's got no sort of little meanness in all his nature. He 's for taking the rough world, jest as you see it, and making it smooth for man ! He 's "a-blun- dering, it 's true ; for you see he comes to Carolina, not knowing much about it, with all his grand English idees ; and he kain't git quite right till he I'arns all about the actual sarcumstances of the country. But give him time, and he '11 do. Now, what do you think ? Here he 's imported thousands of English brick, to build his houses and chimneys, and his tiles of clay, into a clay-country, where there 's the best clay in the world, and more firewood, so I 've hearn himself say, in this single county, than in all Great Britain ! When he'd seen the Injun clay pans and pots, he kicked the piles of brick at the landing with his feet, and said, ' What a fool I was to bring these things here !' He '11 1'arn, but what's the expense? I'm afraid it'll be no less than his scalp." " But have you not warned him of the treachery of the In- dians ?" " Till I'm tired ; but he'll have to I'arn them, jest as he I'arned the clay and bricks. And they 'II soon teach him. Nothing but downright war with the redskins will save him. And who knows but they may begin on him? They're jest as apt to begin with the man they feed on, as on any other person." " He is making a great place of his barony, then ?" " Give him five years, and it '11 be famous." " Have you seen his family ?" "Yes, sir — his wife, and one child. They've had but one. 198 THE CASSIQUB OP KIAWAH. But her mother *s a-living with him, and there 's a girl about thirteen — " " Her sister — I suppose." " I reckon ; but I do n't know. They call her Grace." Calvert involuntarily nodded his head in the affirmative. And here, for awhile, the conversation flagged. It was resumed, some- what abruptly, by the hunter : — " You 're asking me, your honor, 'bout the cassique. Now, there 's one thing that 's struck me ever sence I first sot eyes on him ; and that is, tiiat he looks mighty much like you. I thought of you the moment I seed him. He 's not so tall as you, and I reckon he 's five years older ; but you 've got the same complex- ion, the same sort of eyes and face generally ; and you 're both quick as a breeze, and always a-doing! And when you walk, there's the same sort of lift in the shoulders ; but it's mostly when you're a-setting that I sees the likeness. You sort o' square off broadly when you set ; and your hands rest on your thighs ; and you set your head pra'd ; and your eyes look through the man you're a-talking to; and your mouth is shut close — pressed tight, I may say, as if you was a-thinking, 'I may have to fight this man yet ;' and you are apt to speak sudden, quick, onexpectedly ; and then the speech comes short, and the voice is deep, as if it come from the chest, deep down, and it sounds like a bell ! There's a great deal, mighty like, that you've got atween you; and ef he 's got the heart that you 've got, then, ef ever you git into a quarrel, I would n't want to be the looker-on, for I loves you and I likes him : for, as sure as a gun, there 'd be one death, and prehaps two, from the fight. . He'll fight like blazes, I reckon, for he gathers himself up all the time, as ef he was going into battle. Everything 's in airnest that he does. I reckon ef he was to go into push-pin, he'd made a real life-sort of business out of it." " I shall be curious to see and know him, Gowdey ; but that 's impossible, just now, when he 's of the council, and I am under ban of law as a pirate." " Does they give you that name, captain ? And only for licking the Spaniards ! Blast 'em, for the bloodiest fools ! as ef every Spanish ship that we blowed out of water was n't a help to us in these poor colonies. NIGHT-RIDE TO KIAWAH. 199 "A nation only goes to ruin, Gowdey, under the management of coivardice, ignorance, and treachery ; and when a king himself betrays his own people, Gowdey, to say nothing of his own dig- nity, then the disaster enures to the whole race, and to the most distant times.'' " And is it the king, your honor ?" " Ay, the king ! who, corrupt himself, corrupts justice, corrupts his chief men, corrupts the people ; makes ofRce a fraud ; makes nobility a shame ; makes a people bankrupt of honor as of fortune. But England is too much the care of Heaven to suffer this rule of imbecility very long ; and, I tell you, this king will be removed — will die by the hands of God or the hands of man, or there will be another bloody revolution, such as brought his father to the block, to relieve his people from the dangers of his misrule. God will interpose before it be too late ! I am sure of this as if I had seen it ; for England is too important to the world's safety and progress, not to find a special Providence interposing for her be- half, in a condition of so much doubt and danger. I could feel tempted to prophesy that the hand of Fate is upon him even now !" "And I'm sure I sha'n't care how soon ! The fact is, captain, when a man gits to rambling over a great forest-country like this, he begins to think, ' How's it that we're to have a furrin sover- eign ?' and then he gits a step further, and axes, ' What 's the use of having a king at all ?' It 's mighty sartain that a king of Eng- land, living cl'ar away over that great breadth of ocean, ain't of no sort of use to us here ; and the use of a king, I reckon, or of any sort of officer, is jest about the first question that a reasonable white man ought to ax anywhere. It's the question that we puts, you know, when we ax after the man: 'What's he good for — what kin he do? Kin he fight, or counsel, or plan, or build, or work, or trap, hunt, fish — work in some way — doing for himself and other people ?' Oh, a new country, like ours, is jest the sort of school where we gits, rid of ridiculous notions about governors and men. It 's not what the man wears, but what he does. And no crown upon his head, and no gold stick in his hand, no epau- lette on his shoulder or star upon his breast, or beautiful ribands and buttons, can save a poor skunk of a fellow from disgrace, that ain't got the right sort of stuff of manhood in him. But I 'm a 200 THE CASSIQDE OF KIAWAH. poor old fellow, that ain't nobody but a hunter and fisherman — that prehaps ought not to talk about such mighty idees." " Mighty ideas you may well call them, Gowdey, and such as are destined to shake the world some day. But the time is not yet. They are ideas which will grow here, in this wild country; are the natural ideas of such a country, and can hardly take root anywhere else. — But, is it not almost time for a start? I would have you conduct me within sight of this cassique's barony, and then leave me. I shall find the way back to-morrow night, and shall expect you to carry me over to the town in your boat. Of course, everything must be secret — to ourselves." " I know, sir — all right ! Say the word, and I will git the horses. But ef you are to be out there all day, lying close, and seeing nobody, how will you git provision ?" The cruiser showed a snug wallet which he carried under his hunting-shirt. His costume, by-the-way, had been changed to that of the American woodsman. " All right, your honor ! I see you don't forgit the commissa- riat." Gowdey went out, and, soon returning, reported the horses to be in readiness. A stoup of Jamaica concluded the session, after the usage of the country ; and some three hours before the dawn, the two were upon the road. You are to understand, however, that, letting out Calvert first, then bolting securely the massive oaken door upon him, Gowdey, with rope and tackle, let himself down from the upper story. By a mysterious process, the secret of which he never suifered out of his own keeping, the rope was concealed from sight immediately after, and not available to any one who might wish for it in his absence. Gowdey prided him- self very much upon his machinery. And thus making his house secure, he mounted his marsh tackey, and led the way through the forests. The trail was a Uind one, affording " a short cut" to a point which might have been reached by a more open but more circuitous route. The one chosen was at once shorter and more secret. They rode in silence ; policy dictating forbearance to the inveterate tongue of the old hunter, while our cruiser preferred to indulge in medita- tions of a nature too delicate to share even with the most trust- worthy comrade* - NIGHT-EIDE TO KIAWAH. 201 And while Gowdey rode on before, as guide, Calvert discussed in his own mind the subjects of their recent conversation. His thought naturally reverted to the account given of his brother. '' This was not the wont," he mused, " of Edward Berkeley ! His habit was wont to be calm, quiet, subdued ; grave rather than earnest ; thoughtful rather than intense ; fond of revery rather than action. How could this change be wrought in him so suddenly, in the short space of three years ? Can he be the same person ? Can it be my brother whom all these men describe to me? — so like, yet so unlike ? I can not doubt that it is he ! But how unlike the man he was, ere this dark cloud passed between us ; ere we were separated by this terrible chasm which we may not leap, even in eternity ! Just so long are we separated. For, if the affections are to survive the grave ; if the precious sentiments — those which bring- life and ve«dure to the soul — pass with it into the spheres of the future ; if, there, the beloved ones remain to us, still loving and beloved — what must be the future to us — to him,^ to me — but separation for ever ? And she ! — shall I behold her in other worlds, nor claim her as my own, even as in this ? Shall the wrongs done us here, not be righted there ? Shall he there find a law, and exercise a power, wliich shall still work for us denial and bitterness, as here ? — the forfeiture of all that precious hope on which both of us fed so fondly? — that hope which was never to bear its fruit ! Shall there be no atonement, no redress, for this wrong, this -robbery, this wo ?" And the strong man groaned aloud unconsciously, as the bitter flood of memory and thought rolled its deep waters over his soul. " Anything the matter, captain ?" Calvert roused himself at the question, and shook himself free of his revery. " No, Gowdey — only such matter as makes a sad thought too strong for a sad heart !" " Ah ! well, your honor, there's no medicine in one's pocket for the heart of another. It's only to be a man, and that means one who knows how to carry a camel's load on a poor pair of human shoulders. A great secret, I reckon, ef one could I'arn it ! But ^psho! piho!" — lowering his voice — "I see a light yonder in the woods. It looks like a camp-fire. Ef you'll let me, cap- tain, I'll jest git down, hitch ' Hop-o'-my-Thumb' 'to this sapling, 202 THE CASSIQUE OF KJAWAH. and take a peep at that fire. You know I 'm a sort of scout of the garrison when I 'm on this kind of night-riding." He had alighted and hitched his nag ere he had done speaking. " Ef you '11 jest wait a bit here, captain, I won't keep you long ; but it's needful to you as well as me that we should see about this 'campment here. We may have to lead our horses for a bit, or turn out of the track into the bushes t' other side, so as not to make the ears of bad-tempered outliers open too big as we go." The consent of the rover was anticipated by his guide, who soon disappeared in the bushes; and, while he "scouted," gradu- ally nearing the fire which had excited his curiosity, if not alarm, the thoughts of Calvert carried him back to the subject upon which he had been musing a few minutes before. " "What has caused this change in Edward Berkeley ? What but guilt ! It is the demon tha* has fastened upon his soul. It is conscience which is busy. He knows that he has done me wrong. He has basely taken advantage of my absence, to usurp my rights. His passions have got the better of his truth, of broth- erly love, of justice and honor ; and, these gratified, he begins to feel the stings and arrows which are to avenge my wrongs ! Hence these labors, these wild speculations, this incessant, restless excite- ment, which make the wonder of all who see ! He shall feel more, ere his experience ends. He shall feel life pall upon him, and excitement wear away, and hope lost, and love a fiend, and passion finally a hell !" Something correct, but not all correct, Calvert. It may be that Edward Berkeley shall thus suflTer, but not so much from the goad of conscience. At present, his true tormentor is the demon of unrest — born, certainly, of hopes unsatisfied; of torments felt; of doubts and anxieties ; of a dream unrealized ; but not of the sense of a wrong done to a brother ! No ! no ! — he knows not that yet. Let us acquit him of that ! He is not so much sinning as sinned against ; he has been deceived ; is not willingly a de- ceiver. But let us not anticipate. Harry Calvert sat moodily upon his horse, waiting the return of Gowdey, but hardly conscious that he waited. His chin rested upon his breast; his eyes were closed; his thoughts striving in chaotic provinces in which he could as yet find no light. He was roused by the voice of Gowdey : — NIGHT-RIDE TO KIAWAH. 203 " As I thought, captain ! Injuns — a few Sewees, or Cusso- boes — a small party. I made 'em all out, and they never guessed it. Ha ! ha ! Give me a white man, after all, for good scouting. It's curious, captain, one of this party is the chief of the Kiawahs — old Cussoboe; and ef anybody had a raal, natural right to be called ' Cassique of Kiawah,' it's him ; for he's been, to my knowl- edge, high chief of all the river, and this part of the country, which is the Kiawah country, for a matter of ten years, and it may be twenty. Well, here 's Colonel Berkeley, that comes here under English authority, and buys the land from under the red king's foot, and takes away his very title ! The two chiefs will meet to- morrow, I reckon, on a sort of treaty, and I know something about • it. Old Micco Cussoboe — that is. King Cussoboe — is on his way to the barony now, I reckon. He 's jest stopped, like a cun- ning savage as he is, to eat and drink up all he's got, and get a new supply out of the white men. They're all sound asleep now, but you'll find 'em all wide awake by daylight, painting them- selves up, and putting on their bravest coats, and hats, and feath- ers, to make a show when they come before the white chief. 'T would be a fine thing ef you could see it all; and maybe you will, for it 's jest as like as not that the white cassique will receive his red brother in the open air ; though that 's not the court way among the Injuns, as long as they 've got a house to hold council in. And now, your honor, if you say so, we '11 make another start to be jogging." " Go on, Gowdey." And they rode as before, Gowdey now silent, and Calvert medi- tative, and still on the same subject: — " Yes, we are alike — and Heaven spare us the meeting as enemies ! It is as this keen-sighted hunter says : such a meeting will be the death of one Or both ! Let us not think of it. No, Edward Berkeley, though you have done me this wrong — though you have made me, as yourself, the victim of a never-ceasing ago- ny of unrest — let there be no strife between us ! I, at least, must grow madder than I feel now, before I lift fratricidal hand at your bosom !" We sum up thus a long, wandering train of thought and feeling, in which our rover's fancy conjured up nothing but spectres of wo and evil. 204 THE CASSIQUE OP KIAWAH. The precincts of the barony of Kiawah were at length reached. There were the openings of the forest ; there the settlements — there the forest, black in its density and depth of green. Gowdey pointed out the several localities in detail, as far as they could be noted in the imperfect starlight. Some twelve or fifteen acres had been cleared, an occasional group of oaks alone excepted. At right angles stood four block-houses, cornering the clearing. These were to be points of defence, made of squared logs, pierced for musketry, yet designed as lodgings for the workmen. In the cen- tre was the mansion, a framed house on brick pillars, with wings of logs, in which the family resided. The rest was rapidly ad- vancing to completion. The whole square was to be picketed ; the outhouses and offices, occupying a line between the several < corners, to be pierced in like manner for musketry, yet susceptible of use for ordinary domestic purposes ; the doors and windows looking into the court, which was a sort of place de la garde, a plaza d'armas, but answering for the purposes of court, and grounds, and garden. Here and there a very fine old oak, or pine, or cedar, sometimes clumps of each, had been suffered to remain. Everything as yet was rude, and in a perfectly chaotic state. Log-heaps, piles of brush, remained unburnt ; piles of brick and lumber obstructed the pathways. Everything denoted progress and performance, but in just that state when the eye looks dissatisfied over the whole disordered spectacle. The region chosen for the settlement was a long, narrow ridge, running down to the river, where it terminated, some three miles distant, in a bluff. ' The front of the estate, upon the river, occupied little more than a mile ; but it gradually stretched on either hand, as the sur- vey ran inland — as may be supposed, when we know that tile barony comprised twenty-four thousand acres. " Enough, now, Gowdey. I see the ground, and know where I shall harbor. To-morrow night, if nothing happens, look to see me some two hours after nightfall, when I shall expect you to paddle me across the river. You need remain no longer. Good- night !" " Eather, good-morning, your honor, for the day will soon be upon us. Well, sir, as you say so, I'll leave you. I'll look for you, and be ready. You ve got a good hiding-place, and I know that you 've the experience to make use of it. I do n't fear that NIGHT-RIDE TO KTAWAH. 205 anything will happen. As for me, I mean to j'ine that Injun camp. I know 'em all, and I reckon the cassique here will want my help to-morrow as an intarpretei-. I 'ni good at their lingo ; and I'm a leetle curious to know what's going on. I reckon it's about an Injun hunter. The cassique wanted me to do his hunt- ing, but I 've got too old to follow any man's whistle. This old chief, Cussoboe, wants his son to I'arn English ways ; and lie agreed, some time ago, that, when they came back from the hills, the boy should hunt for the cassique. It's gitting quite common for the big men to have Injun hunters. But the idee's not a good one. I see trouble in it. But that's not my lookout. After I've given good warning, a shut mouth is the sensible notion. And so, your honor, I leave you ; and God prosper your s'arch, whatever it may be !" And so they parted — Calvert seeking the forest, where he hid his horse, and Gowdey the camp of Cussoboe. 206 THE CASSIQOE OP KIAWAH. CHAPTEE XXII. MOTHER AND DAUGHTEK. " The grace of fortune still must have its foil : The bliss may come in showers : but there shall be Ever a bitter poison in the cup Shall qualify the working to delight ! We shall have palaces too, and goodly ones ; But there still sits a mocker at the board, To shake a skinny finger at our pomp, And give our proud mortality to shame." In-doors or out of doors ? Which way shall we look ? "With- out, the cassique is busy with the workmen. You hear the griding of the saw, the clink of the hammer, the heavy, dull stroke of the axe. And every sound declares for life — the life of civiliza- tion usurping the domain of the savage. Within ! Ah, within ! Is it life here ? It is the peculiar prov- ince of the woman. And why not life, even though there be no strife, no bustle ? Life asserts itself no less sensibly and keenly through pain and silent suffering than through the clamorous voices that speak for human performance. Wealth is here, no douflbt. But the realm is a simple one. All the appliances and appurtenances are rude. Compared with the European houses of our settlers, the contrast is almost ludicrous. Log-houses — squared logs, it is true — a great waste of timber — massive enough — looking like rude castles — show, nevertheless, but uncouthly in European eyes, reared as our cassique and his family have been, in the grand old homes of England. And this central fabric, which is designed to be especially well finished — in which our Carolina nobleman means that his family shall dwell — what is it but a plain structure of pine and cypress? Large enough, certainly — four rooms on a floor ; a great hall of racep- . MOTHER AND DAUGHTER. 207 tion, thirty by twenty-four ; dining-room, of the same dimensions ; a grand passage through the centre ; a parlor for tiic ladies, some- what smaller than hall and dining-room ; and a library opposite ! Chambers above, in a second story ; wings contemplated, giving otlier chambers. Well, yes, from a distance, you will say this is a stately mansion, of good dimensions for comfort; and, if you have seen none but the American world, it will be a big fabric, rather grand of size and ample of accommodation, and supposed to represent very superior wealth. The enclosure which is staked off, partly fenced — picketed, rather — confirms this idea. And there is wealth, the standards of the country only considered ; and our cassique has prepared to lodge his family Well, with equal dignity and comfort. We are to suppose a certain portion of the dwelling-house to be habitable, if not finished. Some of the rooms are lined and panelled with cypress-plank ; the chimneys are all built ; the furniture is there, all fresh from England, of a rich, massy character — hardly in keeping, however, with the otherwise naked simplicity of the dwelling. Clearly, the dwellers here have need to congratulate themselves that their lot has fallen upon pleasant places. But, are they happy ? Even this question may be thought an impertinent one. "We are of those who think that we have got very little to do with happiness. We have a certain destiny to fulfil, certain duties to perform, certain laws to obey, and vicissitudes to encounter, with such resources of courage as we have — -energy, industry, and pa- tient submission, with working ; and, these laws complied with, we are to trouble ourselves no further about the compensative in our lot. This is a matter which must be left to God. He will settle our accounts, and make his award ; and, whether this be happiness or suffering, is not a concern of ours, though it makes a wonderful difference in the degree in which we may relish life. Indeed, so certainly is all this true, that our instincts all recog- nise it ; and though we are told that the pursuit of happiness, in our own way, is an inalienable right, yet nobody actually proposes it to himself, at any time, as the object of his endeavor. Men do not deliberately seek happiness at any time. They seek money, seek power, seek indulgence, the gratification of one passion or another ; but no one proposes to himself any scheme by which he 208 THE CASSTQDE OF KIAWAH. contemplates the realization of Eden or Arcady. We all aim at very inferior objects, and perhaps rightly. And how should we pursue an object, in the possession of which we have no guaranty ? Can there be any happiness in ill health, in perpetual toil and anxiety, under the caprice of fortune ; the caprice of wind and weather ; the knowledge that the most precious hopes and affections lie everywhere, at every moment, exposed to the spoiler — to death, disease, loss, pain, denial, defeat — those hungry wolves that prey upon humanity — those mocking phantoms that delude it to despair ! No ! we have nothing to do with happiness. He who pursues it pursues a phantom. He who finds it becomes a coward, per- petually dreading death and disaster. A certain object — lawful, proper to our sympathies, natural to our condition, our strength, and resources — this is what we may and should reasonably pur- sue ; and this is attainable by all those who bring honest purpose, and judicious aim, and manly working, to bear upon the object of desire. Even Love must be moderate in its aims, and we must not expect too much from marriage. Men are not heroes all, nor women angels ; and if the parties will only bear themselves toward each other like honest men and women ; be faithful and fond, with reasonable expectations of care and reverence, honor and respect ; gentle solicitude on the one hand and manly protection on the other — we shall perhaps find it a goodly, comfortable world enough : nor need we then trouble ourselves about the ideal con- dition which we figure under the word " happiness." The vulgar mortal finds this to resolve itself into mutton one day, and roast beef and plum-pudding another ; in the exhibition of new toggery and trinkets ; or, as Zulierae Calvert was apt to do, in the fanciful twirling of very flexible limbs to the inspiriting entreaties of tam- bourine and fiddle ! But were our cassique and his women-folk as happy as they might be, in the circumstances of their condition, find under the qualifying definitions of happiness which we have'given ? That is the question ! Well, you have heard of the cassique, and what people think of him. You have seen him already in one brief interview. Look at him now, among yonder workmen. We show him to you a week in advance of Calvert's visit. See the energy with which MOTHER AND DAUGHTER. 209 he throws himself into labor : see the frightful intensity with which he concentrates will, and thought, and muscle, upon the tasks be-k fore him ; watch the eager impulse, the stirring mind, the restless impatience ; hear the sharp, stern voice of authority, angry be- cause dull labor is slow to comprehend, and a sullen mood stub- bornly resists instruction. Note him, as he hurries to and fro — now on foot, now mounted — hurrying this way, straining that ; and now busy with the builders, now with the hewers ; and anon with the ploughmen, as they drive their shares through the newly- cleared lands — striving, by dint of extra exertion, to repair the loss of previous time — the business of " breaking up" having been begun rather late in the season. And now observe him, as, in a state of physical exhaustion, he flings himself down upon the na- ked earth, trying to rest the animal man, while the mental, with keen eye and impatient thought, chafes at the demands of the poor body for needful hours of repose ! " Well," you will be apt to say, " at least this man's nature is satisfied. He is working in his vocation, con amore ; he is one of those men who can not help but work — who derives his enjoy- ments from his employments — the greatest mortal secret." And, to a certain degree, you will resolve correctly. But, follow him now, as he starts up and passes into the dwel- ling. Note his countenance as he enters the house. See how it alters in aspect. You have seen it wear, just now, a variety of changes in a brief space of time. There was authority asserting itself ; there was thought engaged in a problem ; there was eager zeal growing angry at some vulgar retardation ; there were quali- ties of mind and temperament, all declaring themselves by sudden and startling transitions. But these disappear the moment he penetrates the dwelling. We now see that a sudden cloud has passed over his brow, which declares for some deeper working of the more secret nature. There is sadness as well as solemnity in that cloud. There is a gloomy shadow upon that spirit which the intellect does not offer to disperse. It is a settled expression of anxiety, verging on ap- prehension, for which the mind prepares no medicine. And you note that, when out of doors, and in contact with his workmen, his carriage was rapid, eager, and without that reserve, that staid dignity and measured movement, which vain men usu- 210 THE CASSIQUE OF KIAWAH. ally maintain when dealing with the vulgar ; yet, the moment he approaches his dwelling, his movements become slow, his carriage more erect ; he seems to brace himself, with eU'ort, as for an en- counter. He has put on his armor of pride and dignity as if for the meeting with a foe. Can this be the case ? And what are the relations of this lord with his family ? Let us look within. Let us see how these women carry them- selves, ere the cassique appears. There is a tell-tale look or action, a tone, a word, which, where there is a lurking sorrow, will declare something of the secret ; and women are better tell- tales of the heart than men. They occupy, mother and daughter, the parlor in the rear of the dining-room, which has been assigned especially to their use. The Honorable Mrs. Constance Masterton is about fifty years of age, and, though carefully dressed, is not remarkably well pre- served. She may have been a pretty woman in her youth. She has few traces of beauty now. The skin is sallow and wrinkled, the cheeks sunken ; she is lean and tall, and, but for a piercing black eye, still full of fire, keen and searching, the sharpness and severity of her visage and the turbid yellow of her skin would make her absolutely revolting. She is a woman of dignity. She is stately in her air and man- ner, and, as we have said, studious of her dress. She carries herself haughtily. She has a hard, hard heart; her training has been that of a convention which gave the heart no chance; her manners have all been formed artificially. She knows no na- ture inconsistent with the rules of her circle. She has had no life but that of society. She was one of those ridiculous people who claim always to be '-in society" — to be "the society" — and who affect to despise all other classes — who do not, in fact, ac- knowledge any other as in existence. She believes only in her own "charmed circle" — one which the natural man would never esteem a charming one. Books are not among her objects. She never read one in her life. Music she recognises only as essen- tial to the proprieties of the household, even as cushions and sofa are regarded as a material part of the furniture. She knows no more of music than a mule. Her tastes were hmited to cos- tume simply, and this was prescribed by a French artiste. Such MOTHER AND DAUGHTER. 211 was she in her English home. There, she was poor withal, in spite of all this social pretension ; and in that melancholy situation in which the social vanity is ever at a painful conflict with the conventional necessity. She was a schemer, accordingly ; and never did poor demagogue, with large appetite and small wits, la- bor, with more vulgar agents of trickery, for office, than did she to maintain the social position from which poverty had compelled her to descend. In the exercise of this faculty, she had shown herself sufficiently dexterous. She had shuffled off a younger son with nothing, and contrived to secure the elder, with a fortune, for her eldest daughter. She had large practical wisdom ; was a woman of shrewdest policy. And that daughter ? — Olive Berkeley ! As a general rule, dear reader, we should expect the children to inherit the aspect, the habits, tastes, and characteristics, of those from whom they descend — those, at least, by whom they were trained and educated. But the contradictions between children and parents sometimes confound us. We might reconcile them, possibly, were we in possession of all the facts. But, in the pres- ent case, one portion of our criteria escapes us. Olive Masterton had a father, but of him we know nothing. Was she like him ? Perhaps ! She was certainly very unlike her mother. But her mother had educated her, and the poet tells us — "Just as the twig is bent, the tree's inclined." Another, more certainly inspired, says : " Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it." And so, too, we may say, generally, of those who are trained up in the way in which they should not go. But there are cases — individual and rare exceptions, we admit — in which Nature shows herself paramount to all other influences, whether of training, or tyranny, or simple education. We suspect that Olive Masterton was one of this description. Nature certainly had done not a little to neutralize the misteachings of the mother. Physically, the daughter was quite unlike her mother. She was tall, it is true, but in this respect father and mother may have been alike. In all other respects, they had little in common. The mother was a brunette — dark of complexion and of eye. And, though called " Olive" — why we know not — the daughter 212 THE CASSIQUE OF KIAWAH. was a blonde, perfectly fair, of transparent skin ; light, lively blue eye ; and the most delicate auburn hair, that floated wild, in free ringlets, over head and bosom. She was, as is natural to this temperament, inclined to be full and plump ; but there were good reasons why she was not so at the date of our history. Something of care and thought, of anxiety and disappointment — the heart, briefly, had been at conflict with the temperament; and she is now thin, pale — very pale — and spiritless. The change had been very great in eighteen months. Before that time, there had been few creatures of the same class who could be described as more perfectly beautiful — more round, and plump, and fair, bright, and blessing, and elastic — a thing of joy and beauty. There were certainly fewer still whom we can conceive more loving or loveahle in character. Gentle, generous, ingenuous — frank and impulsive — graceful and accomplished — fair and beautiful — Olive Masterton was as unpresuming as if she had not a single one of these excellences — as if her mother had never taught her one lesson of her own. Convention, and her proud, ridiculous mother, had equally failed to spoil the liberal handiwork of Na- ture, however much they may have succeeded in perverting it from its sweet and proper destination. Olive was one of those who could and did pass through the infected district with a tahs- manic power, carrying away no single taint upon her pure, white garments. But you see that something has gone wrong with Olive. She is a wife and a mother — young wife, younger mother — yet, as you see her there before you, not eighteen months a wife, you doubt if she be a bride ; you do not doubt that she is not, in any sense, a happy one ! She sits at the tambour-frame — at one of those pretty, trifling, slight sorts of work, so grateful to the feminine nature, so graceful in feminine fingers, which, under a pretext of employment, affords opportunity for reveries — which may, or may not, be pleasant! She seems unconscious of her occupation. Her eyes are half- closed ; her whole air is listless and indifferent ; it is very evident that her thought is far away, and not satisfied with what it finds in its wanderings. Her face is not merely pale — it is marked by a deadly marble whiteness ; her cheek is colorless ; her form thin to leanness. When she looks up, at the voice of h;r mother MOTHER AND DAUGHTER. 213 her large blue eyes dilate with a vacancy of gaze which pains you to behold. Young wife, young mother, but with no young heart, or hope, or fancy. Her glance tells you, if not her cheek, that she has survived all those sweet treasures of her youth. Her mother watches her with an eager, sharp, dissatisfied sort of interest. She, too, is engaged in needlework ; but she lays it down frequently in her lap, and fixes her eyes upon her daughter. Her tall, spare figure, sitting erect in the old Elizabethan chair of massive mahogany, is a good study of pride, antiquity, and self- complacency, assured dignity and satisfied importance. In some respects she is not entirely assured. She is no longer the ruler of her daughter, though she still maintains the natural ascendency of a mother ; but she has a fancy that, were hers the only author- ity, she could very soon cure Olive of that brooding melancholy, of which she begins to be exceedingly distrustful. The attempts which she makes to this end are of a kind rather to annoy than to reUeve the mind of the sufferer. How should she — the vain, weak, ridiculous old creature — " minister to a mind diseased, Pluck from tlie memory a rooted sorrow, Baze out the written troubles of the brain ; And with some sweet, oblivious antidote, Cleanse the side bosom of that perilous stuff That weighs upon the heart !" Alas ! like too many of our poor, vain family of man, she can better make sick than well ; more certainly pain than cure ; rather poison than find the antidote : and, so far as her callous conscience works, that old woman begins to doubt whether she has not done this very thing ! It is surely some cruel poison which has made that young creature, once so happy, now so perfectly " a creature of the wo that never moans ; dies, but complains not !" " Olive, my child, is there to be no end of this ?" said the moth- er, rising and approaching the daughter. The tones were re- proachful, not conciliatory. ^ " What is it you wish, mother ?" answered the young wife, hardly conscious of the question, and looking up with eyes of great hu- mility ; that is, if the utter absence of all animation can be well signified by such a word. 214 THE CASSIQUE OF KIAWAH. " What do I wish ? I wish you to shake off these melancholy humors ; to be yourself, my child ; as you were of old, when your spirits were gay as any bird's, and your face as smiling as any sunshine." "Ah ! mother, if 'twere as easy to do as to wish — " "And why not? 'T would be quite easy, if you'd only try — only make an effort." " And why should I make an effort, mother?" " Why ? Why have you not everything in the world to per- suade y ou ? There 's your child — your husband — " " No more, mother, I implore you ! All this pains me — does no good." " But there must be more, Olive. You owe it to the cassique to wear a more smiling, a more pleasant, a more grateful aspect. What has he not done for you ? what is he not doing ? Here you have every prospect of a beautiful, a splendid home — " " Would to God, mother, that he had left us to the enjoyment of our poor cottage and our simplicity !" " Indeed ! In other words, to poverty and obscurity — '' " Welcome obscurity !" " And I say, ' No,' my child ; and I shall ever congratulate my- self that you had the wisdom to choose so wisely as you did." " I choose !" " Surely, you chose !" " No, mother, spare me that accusation. It was your choice, none of mine; and my hourly thought is one of the deepest self- reproach that I was submissive when I should have been resolved ; weak — oh, most pitiably weak — where I should have been strong! But, please you, say no more of this. You have done your work, irrevocably done it, and I am — what I am ! Is it not enough that I have submitted to your will ?" " My wish, my child, not any will of mine. Your own wiU, you know — " " It matters nothing now." " But, m^dear, it matters everything. Do you suppose it pleas- ant to the cassique, who is doing everything for us, that you should meet him with such lack-lustre eyes always, such pallid cheeks, such a spiritless air, such a wobegone countenance ?" "Can I help it, mother?" MOTHER AND DAUGHTER. 215 " To be sure you can, if you will try. It only needs that you pluck up resolution.'' " I do — to keep from drowning ! I should sink quite, but that I do try, and pluck up a sort of resolution. But I can do no more. I do this only because I would, if it were possible for me, make my husband happy. I do not reproach him." " You reproach me, then — me !" The young wife was silent. The mother confronted her. " Yes, Olive, you reproach me ; and that is, I say it, the height of ingratitude 1 You reproach me because I saved you from the embraces of a beggar — " " Mother you promised me ! — " " Yes, I did promise you never again to speak of that poverty- stricken reprobate; but you also promised me that you would try to show yourself grateful for the blessings — " " Blessings ! Ah, mother, do I not seem to enjoy them ?" "It's your own fault if you do not. Here's plenty; here's wealth; here's servants, any number. Is it money you would have ^ dress, luxury, splendor ? You may have them all." " All for peace, mother ! I would give all for peace — for sleep." " And whose fault is it that you have not peace? What's to trouble you ? You have nothing to apprehend. You have only to will, and have — command, and be obeyed ; and, I do say it, your husband is one of the best of men." " He is, and that is enough to rob me of peace ! — that he de- serves so much, and I can give so little — nothing, in fact, of what he deserves and desires most." " You do n't try, Olive ! You prefer to sit, and ■ mope, and weep, when your duty ia to stir about, and be cheerful and smiling. Trying will do it — only try !" " I have tried. Oh, do not ask me for further effort !" " Olive, it's all perversity ! And when I consider the poverty out of which he brought us ; the plenty which we now enjoy ; the dignity to which he has raised you — " " Oh, mocks, mocks, mocks ! — mocks all, and frauds, mother — where the poor heart sits naked and disconsolate in the solitude, scorning the pomp which is wasted upon the wasting frame. Mother, no more of this. You only make it worse !" 216 THE CASSIQDB OF KIAWAH. " Make it worse? As if I did not know what was best for my own child !" The daughter shook her head mournfully, but said nothing. How much might she not have said upon the theme ? The mother was not so forbearing. " Yes," she continued, " I ought to know, who Ve reared you from the cradle. I say it's mere perversity that makes you go on so ; makes you prefer to be miserable when you might be so happy.'' " Strange perversity indeed, mother, preferring misery to hap- piness ! Have you found it so easy to procure happiness ?" "That's nothing to the purpose. Here are you, I say, with everything to make you happy — plenty, every way ; wealth and sei-vants ; and a good husband, a nobleman of rank ; one of the first men in this country ; who is as kind to you as man can be to woman, and one of the most loving, if you 'd only suffer him ; and with one dear, beautiful child : and yet you sit here, pining and trying to be wretched, when you should have a smile for every- thing, and be singing your happiness from morning to night and from night to morning. And what's the pretence for all this? Why, that once, when you were a foolish, inexperienced child, you made a ridiculous engagement — " " Which you then approved, mother." " Well, I did n't know, then, what I knew afterward — that you might have a far better man." " No, mother : a richer, perhaps, but never a better !" " And I say that makes a mighty difference. It's one thing to have a husband that can keep you in state and comfort, but quite another to be married to poverty, and want, and shame — " " Not shame, mother !" '• I say shame, Olive Berkeley — shame : for what is Poverty, always, but a thing that must hold down its head, and walk hum- bly through dark passages, and feel all the time that the world is running over its neck? That's shame; and that would have been your portion if you had married Harry Berkeley. And if, as you say, it is / that have done it — well, I say it's something of which I might well be proud, and for which you ought to be thankful. And what's the difference between the men, if you come to that? Isn't the cassique as fine a looking man as his younger brother ?" MOTHER AND DAUGHTEB. 217 Olive answered nothing to this. "Isn't he almost as young; quite as handsome; quite as wise and learned ; as brave and graceful ; is n't he as noble and gener- ous ; and does n't he, in fact, look almost as much like him as if they had been twinned together ?" " Alas ! mother, he looks too like him. He reminds me of him for ever !" " Well !— " " "Well — but I know that he is not Harry !" And a gush of tears followed ; and the young wife, hearing her husband's footstep in the passage, rose hastily and left the room — but not before the cassique, entering, discovered that she was in tears. She did not look up — hardly noted his appearance ; but he, quickened to keenest scrutiny by his own anxieties of heart, detected all her emotions in the one passing glance which he caught of her convulsed features as she went. In the face and manner of the mother he distinguished the proofs of recent con- troversy ; of vulgar authority ; of a harsh, ungenial censure ; of a temper too little ruled by thought or sensibility to permit her to become a consoler or counsellor for a bruised and suffering spirit. " Madam," said he sternly, " I could wish that you would say nothing to Olive on the subject of her sorrows, whatever they may be. I know not what they are. I can not decipher this mystery i nor, it appears, according to your admission, is it in your power to do so. You allege to me that you know nothing of her present cause of grief." " To be sure not, my son ; but — " " To attempt to cure the disease of which we know nothing, must be to hurt, not to help ; and we may kill the patient in the fond attempt to save. You will permit me once more to insist that you make no such attempt. Do not pry into her mystery. You will only aggravate her suifering, as, I am sorry to tell you, is invariably the case, after your conversations with her. As her mother, you are naturally solicitous ; but solicitude here requires forbearance. We must be content to wait upon her moods, to watch their changes ; and leave it to herself to suggest the means by which we may bring succor to hi r mind or body. Once more, madam, I repeat the wish, the injunction, that you will not again 10 218 THE CASSIQUE OP KIAWAH. trouble her on the subject of her aflSictions. Leave them to time — leave them to me, madam, if you please." And, saying these words, not waiting for any answer, he with- drew from the apartment ; and, hurriedly moving now, left the house, to rejoin the workmen without. The mother shot an angry glance after the son-in-law. Had she but dared, she would have given him a precious tongue-volley as he went. But the virago was always subdued in the presence of this stern man, who never addressed her one gratuitous word ; whose words were always direct, even as fiery arrows sent head- long to the mark; whom she felt 'twould be dangerous to trifle with. She well knew that the slightest disposition to pass between him and his wife, or his will, would insure her immediate dismissal from his house. " Leave it to you, indeed !" she muttered ; " as if you could better know than me what is my child's trouble, and how to cure it ! Well I never let him know of that engagement ! He shall never know ! No, no ; that would be terrible ! He 'd never for- give me that! But I WMSi make Olive sensible to reason. She's just throwing away happiness and fortune. I know this man so well, that, sooner than stand this sort of life another yeai-, he 'd break loose from everything. And if, in his fury, he was to de- mand the truth from Olive, she'd be just as like as not to tell him every syllable. She hasn't the sense to keep her own secrets or mine. And if she was to do that, what would become of her — and me? He'd swear that we deceived him! No, no! — I must bring Olive to her proper senses, before it's too late. He's becoming sterner and more keen every day. He must not be driven too far. She must be driven rather." We shall see something yet of this driving process on the part of our loving mother ! THE SHADOW ON THE HOUSE. 213 CHAPTER XXIII. THE SHADOW ON THE HOUSE. " Doct. Not so sick, my lord, As she is troubled with thick-coming fancies, That keep her from her rest. Macb. Cure her of that !" Shakespeare. The cassique had gone back to the work without. It was with spasmodic energy that he sought relief in employment. The ref- uge of his soul lay only in throwing off all his nervous energies, by the exercise of all his physical faculties, in the most desultory occupations. But the mind — how did that employ itself the while ? It is surely not difficult to conceive his suffering. A proud man, noble, disinterested, generous, impulsive, has set his heart upon an object ; fancies that he has won it ; and, in Jiis moment of greatest exultation, finds the fancy a delusion ! He has somehow been the victim of a deception. Was it his own, or whose ? Has he deceived himself by his own vanities and desires, or has he been the subject of management ? An Eng- lishman is very apt to suspect the latter. All the Old-World convention teaches intrigue and management in the affairs of the heart. But whose has been the management? Not the wife's, surely. Of that he is satisfied. He knows not her secret — is too noble lo pry into it : enough that his wife has a secret, which troubles her, and which she does not communicate to him. It is enough for him to know that. He cares to know nothing more. His knowledge is already niost mournfully sufficient. That proves to him estrangement — want of sympathy. "We are not one," he mournfully utters to himself. " But is she guilty 1 220 THE CASSIQUE OP KIAWAH. Has she deliberately lent herself to a fraud upon my affections ? No ! It is only to look at her. She, too, has been the victim. If, in evil hour, she has lied to me, she is paying for it now the dreadful penalty. The pang has struck home to the heart. There is no doubt that she is quite as wretched as she has made me " How is it that I saw nothing, suspected nothing ?. . . Now, that I look back upon our courtship, was there anything to encourage me ? She was ever shy and shrinking ; ever denying me oppor- tunity. And, fool that I was, I construed even her reluctance into modest favor ! Should I not have known better ? Was it favor ? Does it now seem like favor ? "Was it not rather cold- ness, indifference, aversion? Oh, how blind I have been in all this affair ! . . . . " Was she not heart-whole then ? Her mother assured me — never were assurances more solemn. But — she is her mother; and — I know her now, if I do not yet know Olive ! . . . And she was reared in that accursed set of the Olives and Saxbys — all hollow, corrupt, selfish, and artificial ; and all poor and preten- tious ! Ah, I have been a rash and headlong fool ! . . . . " But did I not, even then, separate Olive from them ? Did I not then see, and assure myself — I thought I did — that she had suffered no contaminations — had escaped their corruptions ? She was pure, simple, unaffected ; had no ambition to shine ; preferred solitude to gay society ; went not with the dancing fools and mon- keys ; seemed always most frank, most ingenuous, and delicately honorable " And — I have not been deceived in her. She is such now. I doubt her in nothing — save that she has a secret, which she keeps from me — in the core of which lies all her care ! Could I ask — demand — this secret ? Ay — she would declare it. I doubt not but she would declare it, as truly, fully, fairly, devoutly, as if in the presence of her God ! She might dread to do so ! — But I must not seek to know. It were base to seek, despotic to demand it. " Nay, dare I seek ? How could I bear to learn that secret ? Whither would it lead ? There lies the danger ! Olive is not only ray wife, but the mother of my child — my son — he who must bear the name of my fathers ! . . . . " On every side the cloud hangs heavily. I must not seek to THE SHADOW ON THE HOUSE. 221 pierce it ; but there 's a terrible presentiment that racks my soul. I shall know the truth ere long ; and then — God give me the needful strength to endure it ! God preserve my manhood !" And, tearing himself away from thought, as from his direst enemy, he darted with desperate zeal to toil. He himself grasped axe ^d hammer ; seized upon the implements, in the very hands of the workmen, and exhibited to their confounded senses the spec- tacle of a gentleman who could plan and execute at once — could exhibit such skill and strength as we are wont to consider unsuit- able and anomalous when united in the same person, and he a gentleman. But we must turn from him again to Olive. That day, she decHned appearing at dinner. The cassique took his seat silently, ate little, listened patiently to the harangues of his mother-in-law, and, without answering, rose and disappeared. The mother fol- lowed soon from table, but took her way to the daughter's cham- ber. Another lecture, the avowed purpose of which was love. " You must take exercise, Olive. You must go out and walk with nurse and baby. Come, get ready. I will go along with you." Olive thanked her, but declined. " Olive, my child, you are killing yourself." To this the daughter made no answer, save with a smile — a smile of such a sort as seemed to say, clearer than any words — " And that were scarce a sorrow, mother !" It was the luckless nature of this woman, which never suffered her to rest herself, or permit rest to her victim. Under the pre- text of soothing, she pursued (he daughter. Soothing, indeed ! When did a cold heart cheer a sorrowing one ? She only wor- ried her ; and when the grieving woman pressed her temples with her hands, with a sudden expression of physical pain, then the good mother knew that there was headache to soothe, and other vexing ministries to be performed, when all that the sufferer prayed for was to be at peace — to be let alone. It was a positive gain to the excellent mother, when, at supper-table, she could report to- the cassique that his wife's sufferings were now certainly physical. The husband rose immediately, went to the chamber, looked in only, and said, in the gentlest and most solicitous accents : — 222 THE CASS'lQUE OF KIAWAH. " You are unwell, Olive — can I do anything for you ?" " No, thank you. I simply need repose." " You shall have it, Ohve." He returned to the table,, and said quietly: "Olive would sleep. You will oblige me not to seek her again to-night." And this was all. If the mother made any answer, the casSque did not hear it. In a few minutes after, he retired to the library, where he sat reading half the night — reading, or lost in those meditations which left Thought stranded on a desert shore ! The next morning there was a change in Olive, but hardly for the better. There was an increase of nervous energy, but it seemed to lack direction. The mind, though elevated a little, seemed to wander in object. The eyes were bright, but it was with a flickering sort of light, that seemed to argue confused and excited fancies. She was restless throughout the day, and this restlessness was construed by the mother into improvement. The judgment of the cassique was more true. He regarded her with an increased earnestness, but said little, and not a syllable on the subject which distressed him. In the afternoon, Olive walked out with nurse and baby. The mother and younger sister followed in search of them. They were found in a great live-oak wood, which stretched away more than a mile and a half in the direction of the river. It was a noble grove, shady, cathedral-like, the an- cestral trees of which might have been growing five hundred years — a glorious avenue for contemplation. Olive wandered in this wood with vacant look and manner. She simply answered when addressed ; then fitfully, and with the air of one whom her own voice startled. Even the mother began to think there was something wrong ; and this made her some- what more cautious than usual in her communications. The next morning the same symptoms, with decided increase. There was as much wildness of air and manner, with more of a spasmodic energy. Olive was still singularly Testless — passing from chamber to chamber — engaging momently in some new oc- cupation, and abandoning each in turn almost as soon as taken up. It was noted by the cassique that there was at times a fever- ish quiver of her lips ; a sudden start, upon occasions ; an anxious looking round her, as if in obedience to some call, or in expecta- tion of some approach. But, when spoken to, her replies were THE SHADOW UN THE HOUSE. 223 simple, artless, unaffected, to the point, and, if possible, still more subdued in tone than usual. The mother observed that she not unfrequently essayed to speak with her when they were alone together ; would begin a sentence abruptly, as if under some un- governable impulse, yet as suddenly arrest herself in the utter- ance ; her eyes cast down, on the instant, with a sort of dogged resolution, upon the work in her hands. Several attempts which the cassique made to speak with her — always in the gentlest tones — were met by an absolute recoil of manner, amounting to repulsion, on the part of the sufferer. She seemed especially to shrink from his approach. He consulted with the mother. " She is either about to be very ill, or she has some oppressive weight upon her mind." " Oh ! there can be no weight upon her mind ; and I hardly think that she is ill. Sir Edward. In fact, for the last two days, I think she has been gaining in life and strength." " Losing in both, / think, and during this very space." " Oh, no, sir ! She has twice the energy and animation now that she had three days ago." " Twice the restlessness, madam. There is a strange, hurried wildness in her eyes, which alarms me ; and, if you perceive, she shrinks from me with something very like aversion." " Dear me. Sir Edward, this is a most absurd notion ! — pardon me for saying so. Olive is a creature of _great sensibility — too much sensibility — and she's liable to sudden changes of mood." " I have frequently heard you say, madam, that she was always very equable, cheerful, animated, full of natural gayety — " " And so she always was — " " Till I married her, madam !" " Oh ! your marriage, I 'm sure, had nothing to do with any change, Sir Edward." " Yet it seems strange that it should take place at that very time." " No, indeed, Sir Edward, you are quite mistaken there. It was a full six or eight months before that, when she began to be less cheerful, and to looksaddish and melancholy." " Yet you say there 's nothing on her mind ?" "I'm sure I know of nothing ! I don't see what there should be. Olive has always been tenderly nurtured, and the good for- 224 THE CASSIQUE OF KIAWAH. tune which has attended her, Sir Edward — the fact that she is the honored wife of a person of your wealth and nobleness — " " Enough, madam, on that score. The only question now is, as to her ailment. What is her cause of suiFering ? Is it of the mind or body ? Not that I care to know, Mrs. Masterton, except with the single desire to help and cure. I have listened to you with deference, but I can not resist the beUef which assures me that she labors under some painful burden of the mind or heart — " " The heart, indeed ! No, no ! all's right in that quarter. Olive is a loving, true, devoted wife." " I confess, madain, 1 have not found her a loving one. I have no reason to doubt that she is a true one. But I am forced pain- fully to feel that I have never had from her any such proofs of sympathy as could persuade me of her love ; and latterly, the pain of this conviction has been greatly increased by what seem to me evident signs of aversion.'' " What an idea !" "It is one, madam, which forces itself upon me, at all hours, and with no encouragement from me. I do not welcome it, madam !" This was bitterly spoken. " Oh ! dismiss it, sir ; it does Olive great injustice. She loves you, sir ; yes — " " I wish I could believe it ; but do you know, madam, that I can not help the further thought that she exhibits a similar aver- sion to our child — her child and mine ; that the little innocent wins nothing of a mother's love ; that she puts him from her, if not with aversion, at least with indifference ; never dandles him in her arms, never sings the mother's lullaby in his ears, never puts his little mouth to hers with a mother's heartfelt fondness." " Lord bless me, Sir Edward, how blind you seem to have been ! Why, I have seen her do it a thousand times — kiss him, and hug him, and dandle him, and sing to him, by the hour." " You have been more fortunate than myself, madam. She has never done these things in my presence ; and I fancy you must deceive yourself, at all events, in the frequency of these endear- ments. Seeing as I have done, madam — and I have been a keen becapse a grieving watcher — I infer the worst from this unnatu- ral condition of mind and heart. I confess to you it moves me THE SHADOW ON THE HOUSE. 225 sometimes to the terrible tliought tliat it is because Olive Berke- ley loathes the father, she denies her love to the child — she loathes him as loathing me ; or, if not this — " " Oh, Sir Edward, I am astonished at you ! It is really too monstrous ! How can you, sir — " " Hear me, madam. There is but one other alternative ; and that is — " " What, sir, what ?" finding that he hesitated. "Another suspicion, scarcely less terrible" — and here his voice sank into a whisper — "that my wife is on the verge of insanity !" The mother began to cry aloud, when he seized her wrist with an iron gripe : — '■ Not a word, madam, for your life ? Not a whisper of this to mortal ! It is in your ears only that I breathe it. To suffer her to hear either of these terrible conjectures of mine, would be fatal — would be her death, madam — her death!" " O my God ! Oh, Sir Edward, these are most horrible suspi- cions !" " Horrible, madam ! Ay, hell is at the core of either — hell ! hell ! Enough, madam : be silent ! No officiousness now. I com- mand that you forbear my wife. I shall send to town for a phyn sician. Doctor Lining is said to be a man of skill, though God knows I look for little succor at any hands !" 10* 226 THE CASSIQUE OP KIAWAH. CHAPTER XXIV. ESPIONAGE OF THE BROKEN HEAET. "Bring me the joy in secret — let me drink The little lonely rapture that earth yields me, "Where none can see ! Oh ! thousand times more precious , As secret ! none can envy me the store, The little store of love, which makes the substance Of any life for broken hearts like mine !" The despatch was prepared and sent off for Doctor Lining ; and the brave cassique, suffering but strong, hurried out again to his workmen — and grasped their tools, and smote, and hewed, and sawed, and planed, to the surprise of all — and as all, no doubt, thought, in a fond pursuit of happiness ! Ah, that pursuit of hap- piness ! Certainly, if that had been his object, he has pursued it with shut eyes. And what sort of happiness, for herself or daugh- ter, has the Honorable Mrs. Masterton aimed at? And poor Olive, she had pursued nothing : she had only leen pursued, and surely not by Happiness ! With evening, Doctor Lining came. The cassique's carriage had met him at the landing, and brought him on, post-haste. He was an excellent gentleman, knowing his profession thoroughly as it was at that day known. He was naturally intelligent, and well read — a fair sample of the average home-education of professional people. Of his skill, nothing need be said here. Learning is one thing, skill another ; and medicine, like religion, poetry, and most of the liberal arts and professions, demands a special gift from Heaven. Olive had retired when the doctor came. The mother presided at the supper-table. But nothing was said of Olive's case. The cassique very prudently resolved that Lining was not to appear as a physician ; only as a friend, about to revisit the mother-country, ESPIONAGE OP THK BUOKION HEART. 227 and seeking the cassique simply to receive his commissions. Such was the pious fraud as agreed upon between them. That night, when the Honorable Mrs. Masterton had retired, the cassique and the doctor conferred together in the library. Colonel Berkeley — or, as the courtesy of the country styled him, because of his cassiqueship, Sir Edward — was one of those down- right, direct, resolute sort of men, who allowed himself no circuit- ous processes in his objects. Heedless of the pain, he laid his own and the case of Olive fully before the physician. " I do not deceive myself, Doctor Lining, and must not deceive you, in respect to the condition of my wife. I regard her as in danger of becoming a lunatic." "Good God! I hope not, 'What are your reasons for this fear?" Berkeley made a full report of all the suspicious circumstances. " She does not nurse her child ?" " No, sir : her health affected her milk ; and, by the advice of Arbuthnot, we employed a healthy wet-nurse, and she has been relieved of this duty. No evil consequences have happened to the child." " The necessity, however, was an unfortunate one. The ma- ternal duty might have been a means, and — but go on, sir: I would first hear your particulars. , We can think over them after- ward." " It is perhaps necessary, doctor, that I should go into details that do not seem immediately to bear upon the case. But, I am uneasy in respect to this very point, because doubtful of the cause of my wife's sufferings ; and one way to mislead a physician is to suppress facts which may be important.'' The doctor nodded affirmatively. " It becomes necessary, then, that I should reveal a small family history, beginning with my first acquaintance and marriage with Miss Masterton." " If you think it necessary," said Lining. " Surely : on no other account. I saw Miss Masterton, then a young lady, after my return from the continent. Our families had been intimate, and I had seen her in childhood, but not to remark her particularly. When I came back from the continent, she was a blooming girl of eighteen. I was charmed with her manners, 228 THE CASSIQUE OF KIAWAH. her person, her intelligence. I sought her, saw her frequently, and my visits and attentions were encouraged by her mother. Olive herself was reserved toward me. At first, she received me with frank and cordial welcome ; with pleasure, as I fancied ; but, as my attentions increased, she became shy. I persevered, how- ever ; and, to make a long story as short as possible, my proposals were made, through her mother, and, after some delay, were ac- cepted. Some further delays, urged by herself, as I have reason to believe, prevented our immediate ma-rriage. That finally took place ; and, after the birth of our son, we removed to Carolina.'' " There is nothing in all this. Colonel Berkeley." " No, sir : but I soon discovered that my wife, though submis- sive, was not genial ; though gentle, not fond ; not, seemingly, sus- ceptible- of fondness ; reluctant in my presence ; silent; finally sad; and, with every -day, growing more and more taciturn, more fond of solitude, more reluctant to respond to me in any way. I was not harsh, not imperative ; never said a hasty word to her ; tried to soothe and conciliate ; strove to please. I was always met with coldness — a measured coldness — which was sadness also — and which has recently become, as it seems to me, aversion." "That is a strong word ! May you not deceive yourself?" " No, sir ! I have weighed all the facts with the utmost cau- tion and deliberation. That ^she is wretched, I see ; that ^ she makes me wretched, I know ! That she grows more wretched, more estranged daUy, more insensible to my cares, more listless, heedless, indifferent in everything, is apparent to every eye. When I first knew her, she was plump and round ; she is now reduced to a skeleton. She was young, bright, blooming, when I first came from the continent ; she has lost bloom, and flesh, and brightness, almost from the moment of our marriage. Once she was cheerful ; now she wears the look of one to whom life can offer nothing ; who has no hope. Appetite, spirits, animation, all are gone. Latterly, from being utterly passive — sad, to such in- difference, that I verily believe had I smitten her, she would never haye lifted fi^nd to protect her face — nay, would have gmiled gently at the inflictipp-^now, she has become restless, wandejiipg, capj-icious ; easily startled, nervous; with a restless light in her eyes, which is painful to behold — to me the most startling of the signs that trouble me.'" ESPIONAGE OP THE BROKEN HEART. 229l And so he proceeded, till he had concluded the details which he conceived important; not omitting that statement — in which he differed with Mrs. Masterton — that Olive appeared entirely- regardless of her child, and gave it no proofs of her affection. " That, certainly, is a most singular circumstance. But I will not say anything of the case, colonel, till I have seen the pa- tient. It is understood that I am not to be known as her physi- cian. She must simply be watched and studied. I will devote myself to that to-morrow." " It may require several days, doctor.'' " Fortunately, the town is just now so healthy, that I can spare the necessary time. The conversation flagged, even over a bottle of Madeira, and the parties then retired for the night. With morning, began the watch and study. Olive little knew the surveillance to which she was to be subjected. She had arisen as usual. Her face, air, manner, tones, all exhibited the aspects which we have already reported as characteristic of the three pre- ceding days. There was the same flushed impulse, the same rest- lessness, caprice, incertitude ; the same wild, spiritual brightness of eye ; and certainly a great increase of general excitement But the physician, introduced as Mr. Lining, a friend of her husband, about to revisit Europe, did not occasion any emotion after the first introduction. She scarcely seemed to heed him. And this afforded the doctor a good opportunity for studying her. He did so with a silent inquisitiveness which she had no reason to suspect. The cassique contrived frequent occasions for him. You must see our boy. Lining ! My Lord John will expect you to make a full report. Bring in ' Young Harry.' " At the words, the wife started, and looked about her wildly. " Young Harry, with his cuisses on !" continued the cassique, in the proud tones of the father. " He is a bi-ave-looking fellow, is he not ? See what a brow he has ! From the first, he looked like a dear brother whom I lost — a wild, manly, noble fellow — and he bears his name ; and every day seems to strengthen the likeness. I shall be satisfied if he grow like Harry Berkeley." A deep sigh closed the speech, but it issued from the lips of Olive Berkeley. Every eye was turned toward her. She lay back in her chair. Her own eyes were shut. She had fainted. 230 THE CASSIQUE OP KIAWAH. The cassique darted to her, and raised her in his arms tenderly. The mother was officious, till pushed away by the doctor. He sprinkled some water upon the face of the unconscious woman — called for hartshorn, which was luckily at hand, and soon wit- nessed her revival. " Take her now to her chamber." When mother and daughter were withdrawn, and the cassique and physician remained alone, the latter said musingly — " Of what were we speaking, colonel ?" "I know not! I have forgotten everything. Her suffering, doctor, her most inscrutable suffering, takes from me all power of thought and observation." " Nay, not so bad as that. This fainting-fit is probably not a bad symptom. It would be terrible were she without emotion ; and that was what I feared from your statement. But what were we talking about ?" The cassique did not answer. Lining resumed : — "The child — ah! yes; and the name. You have a brother named Harry, Sir Edward?" "Had, doctor." "Ah!" "A noble fellow — bold, brave, daring, full of soul and spirit; but the waves are over him." " Ah ! he was lost ! How long, may I ask, since the event ?" " We know not. He was nearly three years gone from Eng- land when I was on the continent. He had a passion for the sea ; became captain of a West Indiaman ; afterward took out a private commission against the French and Spaniards, and made so many captures, that he came to own a privateer. She was lost, some- where along the Spanish main. This must have been about the time of my return from the continent. We received advices, soon after the event, which left no doubt of his fate.'' The doctor mused, but made no further inquiries on this head. Scarcely had the dialogue ceased between them, when, to the sur- prise of all, Ohve reappeared, followed closely by her mother." " She would come, sir." Olive interrupted the mother with a smile, and with such seem- ing composure and strength as to increase the general surprise. " I felt so much ashamed of my temporary weakness, and so much better, that I resolved not to play the invalid." ESPIONAfiE OP THE BROKEN HEART. 231 The husband smiled ; the doctor mused. The latter saw, what the former did not — so much was he pleased with the unwonted event, a smile from Olive — that her presence, smile, and speech, were due to an extreme effort — a will rising into utmost earnest- ness, in obedience to some exigent motive. And what was that motive ? " Quien sale T' says the Span- iard. What the cassique said need not be repeated ; the doctor said nothing, but meditated much. And throughout the day, Olive continued to sustain herself, in a somewhat more cheerful strain than usual, but by what the doc- tor rightly conceived to be an extraordinary effort of will. There was excitement as before ; great unrest ; frequent uneasiness ; a nervous sensibihty to sounds, especially of the human voice ; and an anxiety that prompted a frequent looking around her, as if for some expected approach. And there was now to be seen occa- sionally a sudden crimson flush* over the marble whiteness of the cheeks, which passed away, as with a flicker, almost the moment it appeared. And there was still a glazed fixedness of the eye, which was intensely and spiritually bright. ' Lining noted all these symptoms. He had every opportunity. The cassique devised as many methods ss possible for leaving her in his presence. He showed him over the whole house, not ex- cepting the chambers, and required her to assist. " My uncle will inquire about everything, and you must be able to answer. I hope, when it is shown how easily I can transfer the comforts of an English to a Carolina-home, to beguile him out here also, where he can properly fill the dignity of the palatinate. He will be our lord-palatine, if he will come out. — By-the-way, Olive, do let Lining see your collection of Indian curiosities." They were shown. " And now, Olive, can 't you give Lining some music ? Nay, for that matter, give me some. I have had none for a long season. The fact is. Lining, we have had such an infernal clangor of ham- mer and saw, that music would have been only so many ' sweet bells, jangled, harsh, and out of tune,' enveloped in the perpetual din ! But now — what say you, Olive, my dear?" And she rose passively, without a word, and went to the harp- sichord, of which she had once been the mistress. 232 THE CASSIQUE OP KUWAH. " Will you sing, Lady Berkeley ?" asked Lining. " Excuse me, sir ; but I can not trust my voice to-day — scarcely my fingers." The chords were struck : the hands swept the keys — slowly at first, then with rapidly-increasing fervor as the symphonies rose, following out the caprices and gradual swelling of the human pas- sion which made the burden of the piece. It might have been a battle-piece, though it expressed only the conflicts of one poor, suffering human heart. Did she play from memory, or was it a fantasia of her own ? None of the hearers knew ; and, playing on, she said nothing ; while the instrument, from a sad complaining — a merely plaintive sighing forth of a secret sorrow — rose to a wail, a wild burst and outbreak of a mortal agony, which at length set its prison restraints all at defiance. And they could see the breast^f the player' heave in concert with the strain, while her head gradually uplifted, and her dilating eye seemed to rest upon a far corner of the ceiling — rapt, as it were, with some unexpected vision. She no longer watched the keys of the instrument. She no longer seemed conscious of the persons present. But, suddenly, the music changed ; the notes fell ; the high, passionate tones gave way to vague, faint, faltering pulsations, rather than beats, varied with occasional capriccios, in which a mocking spirit seemed to be at conflict with a broken one: and so the strain fell — no longer gush, and burst, and wild flight of music, but its tear, its sigh, its broken, faltering accent, in which you read the history of defeated love, departed hope, the wreck of a beautiful dream of stars and flowers, and the thick night closing over all ! Then suddenly it stopped, and nothing was heard but a low, ringing echo through the apartment, as if the escaped soul only lingered, moaning ere it went, from the once-beloved abode ! And there was a strange thrill that passed over the frames of the two strong men. They felt the unnatural power of the strain. "Was it simply art? Was it not rather the inspiration of a pas- sionate wo, which gladly seizes upon the stricken one, as the only mode of expression and relief? And Olive — her brow is still uplifted. Her eye rests still upon the remote ceiling. Her fingers fall suddenly with weight ESPIONAGE OP THE BROKEN HEART. 233 upon the keys, and the crash which follows startles her out of her fancies. Her eyes sink down. She sees the cassique and the doctor gazing wistfully upon her ; and, with a slight flush upon her cheek, she rises, bows, and leaves the room. " It is a curious case, colonel, and not to be judged rashly. "We must see all that we can, yet our watch must be unsuspected. You must warn her mother on this point." Of course, the scrutiny was difficult, but it was pursued with in- dustry, and was sufficiently cautious. Olive did not seem suspicious, but she was shy ; and, though her general deportment continued pretty much the same throughout the day, as we have already described it, she seemed to be somewhat more than usually in- clined to obey her mother's injunction " to make an effisrt." Whether it was because of the presence of a visiter, it was evident that she was disposed " to try," and behave with a closer regard to conventional requisitions. There was nothing remarkable in her conduct; only in her appearance, the tones of her voice, ex- pression of her eye, and the frequent wanderings of her thought, as exhibited in her general manner. So dinner passed. In the afternoon, Olive had disappeared. The nurse had taken out the child, " Young Harry," into the great avenue of oaks of which we have already spoken ; and, whether she knew the fact or not, thither Olive had also gone. Her movements were con- ducted slyly. She had left the gentlemen, as she thought, too deeply engaged in the library to be conscious of her absence. So, too, she believed her mother to be in her chamber, when, slipping out of the back door, she stole off to the thicket. But they were all on the alert. It was in the deepest and shadiest part of the grove, that, watch- ing from a thick covert, the Honorable Mrs. Masterton beheld the young mother busied with the child. She had taken him from the nurse, who had wandered a few hundred yards farther on. Olive tossed the child in her arms, sat with him upon the ground, kissed him repeatedly, and hung over his shiny round face with the deepest interest, perusing every line and feature. And be- tween the kisses and this study, big tears fell from her eyes upon the blooming, red cheeks of the infant, while broken murmurs — " My Harry ! my Harry !" escaped her unconscious lips. 234 IHE ClSSIQUE OF KIAWAH. Mrs. Masterton, as she saw this, could not help saying, very audibly — " How I wish Sir Edward could only see this !" A low voice behind her said : — " Hush, madam ! — not a word ! He does see ! Now, madam, steal away, as I shall do, and do not, for the world, suffer yourself to be seen." The cassique, accompanied by the physician, stole back to the house, with a heart even lighter than his steps. He was dis- abused at least of one of his most cruel apprehensions. The doc- tor encouraged him. " She weeps ; she loves the child ; has emotions ; is not indif- ferent. But it is evident that these joys of the mother are sought only in secrecy. There is some secret anxiety — there is some suspicion ; and this argues — " " A want of sympathy with those about her !" answered the cas- sique, and in rather gloomy tones, completing the sentence which Lining seemed reluctant to finish. " Precisely so !" " But, whether the discovery of the cause of this will enable us to do anything by which to relieve her mind from this tension ? — " " If she could be disabused of the cause of suspicion — " " Yes, and that depends upon a knowledge of the suspicion itself." " You must beware how you question her, Colonel Berkeley.'' "Yes! — you are right. That should never be done by me. It would be something worse than bad policy. It would be an abuse of the relationship between us. The confidence of man and wife must be involuntary. To attempt to force it, on his part, would be a base and unmanly despotism. That it is not given here. Doctor Lining, is the most humiliating annoyance which I have been called on to bear. I must endure it as I may !" " Time, my dear colonel, is the best medicine. Give her that, and she will do you justice. "What sort of woman is her mother, and how can she aid you ?" The cassique answered with a gravity and sternness that looked a little like ferocity. Laying his hand on the wrist of Lining, he said : — " She is a fool, sir, with an empty head and a cold, selfish heart ! ESPIONAGE OP THE BROKEN HEART. 235 She is, I fancy, at the bottom of all this mischief; but in what way I can not conceive. I have had to check her in a frequent at- tempt to exercise an authority in my house, and in regard to my wife, which is at variance with mine. I have had also to warn her in regard to a system of annoyance, practised on Olive, since she has been in this condition ; the silly mother having no real conception of the daughter's danger, and perhaps contributing to it all the while by the perpetual prying, and questioning, and counselling, of a very restless and ridiculous tongue. She is one of those fools of society with whom hearts are nothing ; who would sacrifice all the best sympathies — ay, virtues — to the empty pomps and miserable exhibitions of social vanity, and what is called ' high life' ! You know the animal as it exists in English society : she is one of its most absurd specimens." When the unconscious Olive came in from her ramble, her •mother was safely in her chamber, and the gentlemen still con- versing in the library. She met them at supper, where nothing remarkable occurred ; Lining still keeping a vigilant watch, while Berkeley was at pains to maintain the deception which proclaimed the former to be a simple guest, on his return to Europe. The next day the doctor took his departure. He encouraged the cassique to hope everything from time. He could do no more. He could only counsel equal forbearance and solicitude. The symptoms of Olive, that day, were the same. They seemed to increase after the doctor left, but not in any degree to produce apprehension. It was a sufficient source of anxiety to the cas- sique that they continued. At all events, something had been gained. He had seen her caressing " Young Harry" as only a loving mother could caress ; and he was so far satisfied. 236 THE CASSIQUE OP KIAWAH. CHAPTER XXV. LURID GLEAMS THROUGH THE DARE. ' There is a something haunts me, most like madness, As reason comprehends it. But the presence Is not the less a presence to the spirit, As it 'scapes human touch ! The immortal vision Makes itself evident to the immortal nature, When the coarse fingers stiffen into palsy. And can grasp nothing !" But, that night ! Alas for her,.the suffering woman, the victim to a false system and a falser heart ! Alas for him, the brave, noble man, lied to, and defrauded of his peace and hope — of all that is precious to the soul and sympathies — by the same base, pernicious system, the same false, vain, worthless agency ! Alas for the world which never sets out honestly in the pursuit of happiness ; which only seeks for shams ; which ignores the affections, in behalf of the vanities ; and sacrifices the soul, that was designed for heaven, in the chase after things of earth — and oh, so earthy ! Alas ! alas ! we may well wring hands, and weep over these terrible sacrifices, made daily, ay, hourly, on the altars of false gods — frogs, and toads, and apes, and monkeys — baser things even than ever were those set up by African and Egyptian ! Lining gone, and the cassique alone, he busied himself, as usual, with his workmen during the day, and at night gave himself up to solitary reading and reflection in the library. His family gave him no succor, no companionship. Those blissful evenings of which he had dreamed, of rural happiness and sweet content in the primitive forest ; cheered with the smiles and songs of love ; a calm of heaven over the household, and a brooding peace, like a dove in its happy cote, sitting beside his hearth and nmking it LURID GLEAMS THROUGH THE DARK. 237 glad with serenest joys — tliese were dreams which he no longer hoped to realize. His wife evidently shrank from his companion- ship. She was never at ease when alone with him. She would sing if he required it, but not speak ; would answer meekly to his questions and demands — listen with seemingly attentive ear to all he said — but make no responsive remark. She had no voice echoing to that frank one, speaking from his heart, ■which had ever striven, but how vainly, to find the answering chord in hers ! Yes, he knew that she could speak — well, gracefully, thought- fully, and with equal truth of sentiment and sweetness of expres- sion. He knew that she had taste and fancy, which are in them- selves always suggestive. He knew that, in addition to a good natural intellect, she had gathered stores from books, which, if her mind were allowed free play, would make her a charming com- panion. He remembered that she was so considered by all ere she became his wife ; and was painfully reminded by this fact that he, too, had found her so, in the days of his first intimacy with her, and before any suspicion was entertained that he sought her for his wife. The cruel inference forced itself upon him irre- sistibly — " It is I who have changed her thus !" Yet how had he changed her? Not, surely, by harshness of usage ; not by lack of sympathy ; not because of any failure of his own heart to bring out the secrets of hers. He had no self- reproaches on this score. He felt that he had always been gentle, soothing, solicitously heedful of her needs, her possible wishes, her happiness and comfort. The further conclusion was inevitable :— " It is only because of a lack of sympathy with me. She never loved me. She must have loved another ! . . . . But why did she consent to become my wife ?" Here, thought brought him again to the probable conclusion : — "It was submission to a mother's will. That cunning, cold, selfish, calculating woman has done it all ! And there is no rem- edy ! God ! what a prospect lies before us both ! What a waste of life, of aifections, of soul, and thought, and feeling! — a gloomy waste, over which we must travel together, without speech or hearing between us — all in silence ; not a flower by the wayside ; not a fountain in the desert; nothing to refresh — death in the privation through which we live, and death the final goal ! And she will die ! she will die ! Whatever this secret struggle in her 338 THE CASSIQUE OF KIAWAH. soul, and however caused, she can not endure it long ! She will die !" T Such were his musings in the library till the deep hours of mid- night closed in upon him. Then, with a sense of wearmess rather than sleep, he retired to his chamber. It was hers also. The simple world in which our cassique lived had not yet reached that degree of graceful domesticity which allows husband and wife separate apartments ; and, with gentle footsteps, Colonel Berkeley proceeded to Ohve's chamber without waking a single echo. A dim light was burning in the chimney-place as he entered. He approached the couch where she was sleeping. She slept, but not profoundly ; at least, she showed herself restless. Her arms were occasionally tossed about her head, and sighs and faintly- murmured accents escaped her lips. He watched her for awhile, then undressed himself quietly, and with the most cautious move- ment, so as not to disturb her repose, laid himself down beside her. But not to sleep. An hour passes ; her sleep seems to deepen, but she is even more restless than before. He hears the occasional murmur from her lips, accompanied sometimes by a wild movement of her hand. At lengh he distinguishes her broken syllables. No ! no ! do not, dear mother — do not ! I pray you, no more — no more of this !" This was all. "What could it mean ? "What did that mother propose to do, which was so painful to her child ? The cassique closes his eyes. He would not hear. At least, he will not listen. . But the accents reach him still, more earnestly expressed, with keener feeling, and a still sadder pleading. They are rendered distinct now by reason of their increasing intensity: " You will kill me, mother ! I do not believe it ! I tell you he lives ; "and 1 must live for him — for him only ! I can never be another's. I will die first 1" A cold sweat covered the brow of the cassique. He raised himself on one arm. He could not help but listen now. The matter was too full of significance, as involving his own peace quite as much as hers : — " Tell me nothing of these things, mother. "Why should they LURID GLEAMS THROUGH THE DARK. 239 affect us ? To be sure, we are poor. But why should you make me poorer ? Why rob me of that faith which malses me smile at poverty ? I care for nothing beyond. His wealth is nothing in my sight. Society! — But what to me is the crowd and noise which you call 'society'? Peace, rather — let me be at peace, dear mother, if you would not drive me mad !" The cassique groaned audibly ; but the sound did not disturb the sleeper. Her voice became freer — her language more im- pressive : — " Well, he is dead ! You have rung it in my ears so often, that the sense deadens. I do not see now so much meaning in what you tell me. He is dead — dead — dead! In the deep sea — wrecked, drowned; and I shall never be his wife — shall never see him more ! Well, you see I understand it all ! You need not tell me that again. I can say it to myself, and it does not pain me. But it sounds horribly from your lips. It makes you look hateful in my sight. Don't you say it again, mother — do you hear? — if you would not have me hate you ! / will say it for you. He is dead — Harry is dead — and I shall never be his wife ! There ! are you satisfied ? . . . . "But" — after a short pause — "is that any reason why you should force me to be the wife of another ? Is there any sense in that ? Let him die, too ; tell him to drown ! Yes, let us both die and drown in the deep sea! It's just as well- we should. It can 't be so dreadful, since he was drowned in it. And the song tells us the same thing. No, it can not be dreadful." Here she sang, without effort, in the lowest but sweetest and clearest. tones, the ballad from " The Tempest:" — " ' Full fathom five thy father lies, Of his bones are coral made; These are pearls that were his eyes : Nothing of him that doth fade, But doth suffer a sea change •Into something rich and strange !' " Ah ! " A deep sigh ended the ballad — a long-drawn sigh — and the lips closed for a space. There was silence for awhile in the cham- ber ; but not for long. Her lips again began to murmur. Then there was a sort of cry, something between a laugh and sob, and she ^I;oke out audibly: — 240 THE CASSIQDE OF KIAWAH. " Said 1 not it was all false ? I knew it all the while. He is not dead ! There was no drowning ! He lives ! He comes for me ! I shall see him again ! I shall be his wife — Ms wife — no other's ! Ah, Harry, dear Harry, you are come ! They told me you were dead, Harry — that you were dead and buried in the deep sea. But you are come at last. They shall never part us again !" And she rose in the bed, in a sitting posture, threw out her arms, clasped the cassique about his neck, and their eyes met, and she stared fixedly into his, and, throwing herself upon his bosom, murmured fondly — " Dear Harry, you are come at last !" Her eyes were open wide, full — looking with dazed stare into those of her husband. But their sense was shut. At all events, the illusion was complete ; and she suffered him to lay her back upon the pillow, which he did very gently ; while, still looking into his eyes, or seeming to look, she murmured repeatedly :— "You are come — you are come at last, my Harry! I knew that you would come !" The cassique could bear it no longer. He rose, dressed him- self deliberately, and went forth. She was again asleep — con- tentedly, it would seem — for her lips were closed: her murmurs for the time had ceased. The unhappy husband had heard enough. There was no longer any mystery. His own thoughts had led him to a right conjecture ; and her unconscious lips had confirmed it in the in- tensity of her dreams. Nature had compelled the utterance of those agonies of thought and feeling, in her sleep, which in her waking moments she would have died sooner than he should hear. All was confirmed to him of despair. He walked the woods during the weary hours of that night. At morning he ordered his horse. He summoned the mother to the woods as soon as she had risen — led her to a deep part of the thicket, and, confronting her with a brow of too much sorrow for anger, he said to her: — " Madam, you have betrayed your daughter to her ruin ! You have deceived me to mine ! You have been false to both ! You assured me that there was no other preferred suitor to Olive Mas- terton. You solemnly afiirmed her entire freedom from all ties ; that she was heart-whole, until she had been sought by mine ! And you knew that all this was false." LURID GLEAMS THROUGH THE DARK. 241 " False, Sir Edward ?" " Ay, madam, false as hell ! Nay, madam, do not assume that look of virtuous indignation. It does not suit you to wear it ! It would become me better, whom you have so terribly deceived, but that indignation is too feeble a sentiment to him who has begun the lesson of despair. You have crushed that poor child's heart, madam ; you have trampled upon mine ! She will die, and you will have murdered her ! She has death now in her heart ! For- tunate only, thrice fortunate, if madness shall so usurp the func- tions of the brain as to make her insensible to the agonies of a prolonged dying !" " Really, Sir Edward, these are monstrous charges. I should almost doubt your own sanity. Pray, sir, what are your discov- eries, that you venture to charge such heinous crimes to my account ?" " Ask your own conscience, madam ! You assured me of Olive's freedom !" " Well, she was free ! There was a person, with whom she had formed some childish engagements ; but he died before you returned from the continent. I think, sir, you will admit that the tie, slight as it was, between them, was fully broken by that event." " Even that, madam, I am not prepared to admit. It would have made some difference to me, at least, to have known the fact. This you withheld- from me. Nay, madam, more : you denied that her heart had ever been committed." ' " Well, sir, even in that I see no reason why you should ques- tion my truth. A childish entanglement, such as Olive's, does not necessarily imply the committal of the heart." " Perhaps not necessarily, perhaps not at all, in that convention in which you have had your training, madam." " My training, sir ! And what should be my training ? My family. Sir Edward Berkeley, I take leave to say, is quite as old, and as fortunate in its connections and society, as were ever those of the houses of Berkeley and Craven." " Perhaps so, madam ; it is a subject upon which I do not care to waste a syllable. Enough that you assured me solemnly that your daughter had committed her affections neither in fact nor in language ; that she was totally free, and had always been so." " I certainly never attached any importance to the childish en- 11 242 THE CASSIQUE OF KIAWAH. tangletnent of which I have spoken ; especially when it had been ruptured by the death of one of the parties — " " Stay, madam. This engagement, which you describe as child- ish, had continued up to the moment when I addressed your daughter. She was then eighteen — an age when we are apt to suspect that the affections may be quite as tenacious of their ob- ject as they are fond and warm in their conception of it. You may remember, madam, that I was especially anxious on this point, and shaped my questions to you emphatically in respect to any committal whatsoever of your daughter's heart." " So you did, Sir Edward," the lady answered, querulously ; "but these are questions of course with all young men — all of whom have a notion that if they have not been a first object in a girl's fancy, they are robbed of some of their natural rights. But people of experience know the absurdity of such a noti