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Homeward Bound; or, The Chase: A Tale of the Sea, a novel by James Fenimore Cooper |
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Chapter 33 |
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_ Chapter XXXIII Norfolk, for thee remains a heavy doom, SHAKSPEARE.
The young man was one of those who, without principles or high motives, live only for vanity. Of prominent vices he had none, for there were no salient points in his character on which to hang any quality of sufficient boldness to encourage crime of that nature. Perhaps he owed his ruin to the circumstance that he had a tolerable person, and was six feet high, as much as to any one other thing. His father had been a short, solid, square-built little man, whose ambition never towered above his stature, and who, having entered fairly on the path of industry and integrity early in life, had sedulously persevered in it to the end. Not so with the son. He read so much about aristocratic stature, aristocratic ears, aristocratic hands, aristocratic feet, and aristocratic air, that he was delighted to find that in all these high qualities he was not easily to be distinguished from most of the young men of rank he occasionally saw riding in the parks, or met in the streets, and, though he very well knew he was not a lord, he began to fancy it a happiness to be thought one by strangers, for an hour or two in a week. His passion for trifles and toys was inherent, and it had been increased by reading two or three caricatures of fashionable men in the novels of the day, until his happiness was chiefly centered in its indulgence. This was an expensive foible; and its gratification ere long exhausted his legitimate means. One or two trifling and undetected peculations favoured his folly, until a large sum happening to lie at his sole mercy for a week or two, he made such an inroad on it as compelled a flight. Having made up his mind to quit England, he thought it would be as easy to escape with forty thousand pounds as with the few hundreds he had already appropriated to himself. This capital mistake was the cause of his destruction; for the magnitude of the sum induced the government to take unusual steps to recover it, and was the true cause of its having despatched the cruiser in chase of the Montauk. The Mr. Green who had been sent to identify the fugitive, was a cold, methodical man, every way resembling the delinquent's father, whose office-companion he had been, and in whose track of undeviating attention to business and negative honesty he had faithfully followed. He felt the peculation, or robbery, for it scarce deserved a milder term, to be a reproach on the corps to which he belonged, besides leaving a stigma on the name of one to whom he had himself looked up as to a model for his own imitation and government. It will readily be supposed, therefore, that this person was not prepared to meet the delinquent in a very forgiving mood. "Saunders," said Captain Truck in the stern tone with which he often hailed a-top, and which implied that instant obedience was a condition of his forbearance, "go to the state-room of the person who has _called_ himself Sir George Templemore--give him my compliments--be very particular, Mr. Saunders--and say Captain Truck's compliments, and then tell him I expect the honour of his company in this cabin--the _honour_ of his company, remember, in this cabin. If that don't bring him out of his state-room, I'll contrive something that shall." The steward turned up the white of his eyes, shrugged his shoulders, and proceeded forthwith on the errand. He found time, however, to stop in the pantry, and to inform Toast that their suspicions were at least in part true. "This elucidates the circumstance of his having no attendant with him, like other gentlemen on board, and a wariety of other incidents, that much needed dewelopement. Mr. Blunt, I do collect from a few hints on deck, turns out to be a Mr. Powis, a much genteeler name; and as they spoke to some one in the ladies' cabin as 'Sir George,' I should not be overcome with astonishment should Mr. Sharp actually eventuate as the real baronite." There was time for no more, and Saunders proceeded to summon the delinquent. "This is the most unpleasant part of the duty of a packet-master between England and America," continued Captain Truck, as soon as Saunders was out of sight. "Scarce a ship sails that it has not some runaway or other, either in the steerage or in the cabins, and we are often called on to aid the civil authorities on both sides of the water." "America seems to be a favourite country with our English rogues," observed the office-man, drily. "This is the third that has gone from our own department within as many years." "Your department appears to be fruitful of such characters, sir," returned Captain Truck, pretty much in the spirit in which the first remark had been given. Mr. Green was as thorough-going an Englishman as any of his class in the island. Methodical, plodding, industrious, and regular in all his habits, he was honest by rule, and had no leisure or inclination for any other opinions than those which were obtained with the smallest effort. In consequence of the limited sphere in which he dwelt, in a moral sense at least, he was a mass of the prejudices that were most prevalent at the period when he first obtained his notions. His hatred of France was unconquerable, for he had early learned to consider her as the fast enemy of England; and as to America, he deemed her to be the general asylum of all the rogues of his own country--the possession of a people who had rebelled against their king because the restraints of law were inherently disagreeable to them. This opinion he had no more wish to proclaim than he felt a desire to go up and down declaring that Satan was the father of sin; but the fact in the one case was just as well established in his mind as in the other. If he occasionally betrayed the existence of these sentiments, it was as a man coughs; not because he particularly wishes to cough, but because he cannot help it. Finding the subject so naturally introduced, therefore, it is no wonder if some of his peculiar notions escaped him in the short dialogue that followed. "We have our share of bad men, I presume, sir," he rejoined to the thrust of Captain Truck; "but the thing that has most attracted comment with us, is the fact that they all go to America." "And we receive our share of rogues, I presume, sir; and it is the subject of animadversion with _us_ that they all come from England." Mr. Green did not feel the force of this retort; but he wiped his spectacles as he quietly composed his features into look of dignified gravity. "Some of your most considerable men in America, I believe, sir," he continued, "have been Englishmen, who preferred a residence in the colonies to a residence at home." "I never heard of them," returned the captain; "will you have the goodness to name just one?" "Why, to begin, there was your Washington. I have often heard my father say that he went to school with him in Warwickshire, and that he was thought anything but very clever, too, while he lived in England." "You perceive, then, that we made something of him when we got him over on this side; for he turned out in the end to be a very decent and respectable sort of person. Judging from the language of some of your prints, sir, I should suppose that King William enjoyed the reputation of being a respectable man in your country?" Although startled to hear his sovereign spoken of in this irreverent manner, Mr. Green answered promptly,---- "He is a king, sir, and comports himself as a king." "And all the better, I dare say, for the thrashing he got when a youngster, from the Vermont tailor." Now Captain Truck quite as religiously believed in this vulgar tale concerning the prince in question, as Mr. Green believed that Washington had commenced his career as one no better than he should be, or as implicitly as Mr. Steadfast Dodge gave credit to the ridiculous history of the schoolmaster of Haddonfield; all three of the legends belonging to the same high class of historical truths. Sir George Templemore looked with surprise at John Effingham, who gravely remarked,---- "Elegant extracts, sir, from the vulgar rumours of two great nations. We deal largely in these legends, and you are not quite guiltless of them. I dare say, now, if you would be frank, that you yourself have not always been deaf to the reports against America." "You surely do not imagine that I am so ignorant of the career of Washington?" "Of that I fully acquit you; nor do I exactly suppose that your present monarch was flogged by a tailor in Vermont, or that Louis Phillipe kept school in New Jersey. Our position in the world raises us beyond these elegancies; but do you not fancy some hard things of America, more especially concerning her disposition to harbour rogues, if they come with full pockets." The baronet laughed, but he coloured. He wished to be liberal, for he well knew that liberality distinguishes the man of the world, and was an indispensable requisite for a gentleman; but it is very hard for an Englishman to manifest true liberality towards the _ci-devant_ colonies, and this he felt in the whole of his moral system, notwithstanding every effort to the contrary. "I will confess that case of Stephenson made an unfavourable impression in England," he said with some reluctance. "You mean the absconding member of Parliament," returned John Effingham, with emphasis on the four last words. "You cannot mean to reproach us with his selection of a place of refuge; for he was picked up at sea by a foreign ship that was accidentally bound to America." "Certainly not with that circumstance, which, as you say, was purely an accident. But was there not something extraordinary in his liberation from arrest!" "Sir George Templemore, there are few Englishmen with whom I would dwell an instant on this subject," said John Effingham gravely; "but you are one of those who have taught me to respect you, and I feel a strong regret whenever I trace any of these mistaken notions in a man of your really generous disposition. A moment's reflection will show you that no civilized society could exist with the disposition you hint at; and as for the particular case you have mentioned, the man did not bring money of any moment with him, and was liberated from arrest on a principle common to all law, where law is stronger than political power, and which principle we derive directly from Great Britain. Depend on it, so far from there being a desire to receive rich rogues in America from other countries, there is a growing indisposition to receive emigrants at all; for their number is getting to be inconvenient to the native population." "Why does not America pass reciprocal laws with us then, for the mutual delivery of criminals." "One insuperable objection to such a reciprocity arises from the nature of our government, as a confederation, since there is no identity in our own criminal jurisprudence: but a chief reason is the exceedingly artificial condition of your society, which is the very opposite of our own, and indisposes the American to visit trifling crimes with so heavy punishments. The American, who has a voice in this matter, you will remember, is not prepared to hang a half-starved wretch for a theft, or to send a man to Botany Bay for poaching. The facility with which men obtain a livelihood in America has hitherto converted most rogues into comparatively honest men when they get there; though I think the day is near, now your own police is so much improved, when we shall find it necessary in self-defence to change our policy. The common language, as I am told, induces many knaves, who now find England too hot to hold them, to migrate to America." "Captain Ducie is anxious to know whether Mr. Truck will quietly permit this criminal to be transferred to the Foam." "I do not think he will permit it at all without being overpowered, if the request be urged in any manner as a right. In that case, he will very properly think that the maintenance of his national character is of more importance than the escape of a dozen rogues. _You_ may put a harsh construction on his course; but _I_ shall think him right in resisting an unjust and an illegal invasion of his rights. I had thought Captain Ducie, however, more peaceably disposed from what has passed." "Perhaps I have expressed myself too strongly. I know he would wish to take back the criminal; but I scarce think that he meditates more than persuasion. Ducie is a fine fellow, and every way a gentleman." "He appears to have found an acquaintance in our young friend, Powis." "The meeting between these two gentlemen has surprised me, for it can scarcely be termed amicable: and yet it seems to occupy more of Ducie's thoughts just now than the affair of the runaway." Both now became silent and thoughtful, for John Effingham had too many unpleasant suspicions to wish to speak, and the baronet was too generous to suggest a doubt concerning one whom he felt to be his rival, and whom, in truth, he had begun sincerely to respect, as well as to like. In the mean time, a discussion, which had gradually been growing more dogged and sullen on the part of Mr. Green and more biting and caustic on that of Captain Truck, was suddenly terminated by the reluctant and tardy appearance of Mr. Sandon. Guilt, that powerful vindicator of the justice of Providence, as it proves the existence of the inward monitor, conscience, was painfully impressed on a countenance that, in general, expressed little beyond a vacant vanity. Although of a tall and athletic person, his limbs trembled in a way to refuse to support him, and when he saw the well-known face of Mr. Green, the unhappy young man sank into a seat from a real inability to stand. The other regarded him sternly through his spectacles, for more than a minute. "This is a melancholy picture, Henry Sandon!" he at length said. "I am, at least, glad that you do not affect to brazen out your crime, but that you show a proper sense of its enormity. What would your upright and painstaking father have said, had he lived to see his only son in this situation?" "He is dead!" returned the young man, hoarsely. "He is dead, and never can know any thing about it." The unhappy delinquent experienced a sense of frightful pleasure as he uttered these words. "It is true, he is dead; but there are others to suffer by your misconduct. Your innocent sister is living, and feels all your disgrace." "She will marry Jones, and forget it all. I gave her a thousand pounds, and she is married before this." "In that you are mistaken. She has returned the money, for she is, indeed, John Sandon's daughter, and Mr. Jones refuses to marry the sister of a thief." The delinquent was vain and unreflecting, rather than selfish, and he had a natural attachment to his sister, the only other child of his parents. The blow, therefore, fell on his conscience with double force, coming from this quarter. "Julia can compel him to marry her," said the startled brother; "he is bound by a solemn engagement, and the law will protect her." "No law can make a man marry against his will, and your poor unfortunate sister is too tender of your feelings whatever you may havee been of hers, to wish to give Mr. Jones an opportunity of defending himself by exposing your crime. But this is wasting words, Mr. Sandon, for I am wanted in the office, where I have left things in the hands of an inexperienced substitute. Of course you are not prepared to defend an act, that your conscience must tell you is inexcusable." "I am afraid, Mr. Green, I have been a little thoughtless or, perhaps, it would be better to say, unlucky." Mr. Sandon had fallen into the general and delusive mistake of those who err, in supposing himself unfortunate rather than criminal. With an ingenuity, that, exercised in a better cause, would have made him a respectable man, he had been endeavouring to excuse his crime to himself, on various pleas of necessity, and he had even got at last to justify his act, by fancying that some trifling wrong he had received, or which he fancied he had received in the settlement of his own private account, in some measure excused his fraud, although his own denied claim amounted merely to the sum of twenty pounds, and that which he had taken was so large. It was under the influence of such feelings that he made the answer just given. "A little thoughtless! unlucky! And is this the way Henry Sandon, that you name a crime that might almost raise your upright father from his grave? But I wilt speak no more of feelings that you do not seem to understand. You confess to have taken forty thousand pounds of the public money, to which you have no right or claim?" "I certainly have in my hands some money, which I do not deny belongs to government." "It is well; and here is my authority to receive it from you. Gentlemen, will you have the kindness to see that my powers are regular and authentic?" John Effingham and others cast their eyes over the papers, which seemed to be in rule, and they said as much. "Now, sir," resumed Mr. Green, "in the first place, I demand the bills you received in London for this money, and your regular endorsement in my favour." The culprit appeared to have made up his mind to this demand, and, with the same recklessness with which he had appropriated the money to his own use, he was now ready to restore it, without proposing a condition for his own safety The bills were in his pocket, and seating himself at a table, he made the required endorsement, and handed them to Mr Green. "Here are bills for thirty-eight thousand pounds," said that methodical person, after he had examined the drafts, one by one, and counted their amount; "and you are known to have taken forty thousand. I demand the remainder." "Would you leave me in a strange country penniless?" exclaimed the culprit, in a tone of reproach. "Strange country! penniless!" repeated Mr. Green, looking over his spectacles, first at Mr. Truck, and then at Mr. Sandon. "That to which you have no claim must be restored, though it strip you to the skin. Every pound you have belongs to the public, and to no one else." "Your pardon, Mr. Green, and green enough you are, if you lay down that doctrine," interrupted Captain Truck, "in which neither Vattel, nor the revised statutes will bear you out. A passenger cannot remove his effects from a ship, until his passage be first paid." "That, sir, I dispute, in a question affecting the king's revenues. The claims of government precede all others, and the money that has once belonged to the crown, and which has not been regularly paid away by the crown, is the crown's still." "Crowns and coronations! Perhaps, Master Green, you think you are in Somerset House at this present speaking?" Now Mr. Green was so completely a star of a confined orbit, that his ideas seldom described a tangent to their ordinary revolutions. He was so much accustomed to hear of England ruling colonies, the East and the West, Canada, the Cape, and New South Wales, that it was not an easy matter for him to conceive himself to be without the influence of the British laws. Had he quitted home with the intention to emigrate, or even to travel, it is probable that his mind would have kept a more equal pace with his body, but summoned in haste from his desk, and with the office spectacles on his nose, it is not so much a matter of wonder that he hardly realized the truths of his present situation. The man-of-war, in which everything was His Majesty's, sustained this feeling, and it was too sudden a change to expect such a man to abandon all his most cherished notions at a moment's warning. The irreverent exclamation of Captain Truck shocked him, and he did not fail to show as much by the disgust pictured in his countenance. "I am in one of His Majesty's packets, sir, I presume, where, you will permit me to say, a greater deference for the high ceremonies of the kingdom ought to be found." "This would make even old Joe Bunk laugh. You are in a New York liner, sir, over which no majesty has any control, but their majesties John Griswold and Co. Why, my good sir, the sea has unsettled your brain!" Now, Mr. Green did know that the United States of America had obtained their independence, but the whole proceeding was so mixed up with rebellion, and a French alliance, in his mind, that he always doubted whether the new republic had a legal existence at all, and he had been heard to express his surprise that the twelve judges had not long since decided this state of things to be unconstitutional, and overturned the American government by _mandamus._ His disgust increased, accordingly, as Captain Truck's irreverence manifested itself in stronger terms, and there was great danger that the harmony, which had hitherto prevailed between the parties, would be brought to a violent termination. "The respect for the crown in a truly loyal subject, sir," Mr. Green returned sharply, "is not to be unsettled by the sea; not in my case, at least, whatever it might have been, in your own." "My own! why, the devil, sir, do you take me for a _subject_?" "A truant one, I fear, though you may have been born in London itself." "Why, my dear sir," said Captain Truck, taking the other by a button, as if he pitied his hallucination, "you don't breed such men in London. I came from the river, which never had a subject in it, or any other majesty, than that of the Saybrook Platform. I begin to understand you, at last: you are one of those well-meaning men who fancy the earth but a casing to the island of Great Britain. Well, I suppose it is more the fault of your education than of your nature, and one must overlook the mistake. May I ask what is your farther wish, in reference to this unhappy young man?" "He must refund every pound of the public money that remains in his possession." "That is just, and I say yea." "And all who have received from him any portion of this money, under whatever pretences, must restore it to the crown." "My good sir, you can have no notion of the quantity of champaigne and other good things this unfortunate young man has consumed in this ship. Although but a sham baronet, he has fared like a real lord; and you cannot have the heart to exact from the owners the keeping of your rogues." "Government makes no distinction, sir, and always claims its own." "Nay, Mr. Green," interrupted Sir George Templemore, "I much question if government would assert a right to money that a peculator or a defaulter fairly spends, even in England; much less does it seem to me it can pretend to the few pounds that Captain Truck has lawfully earned." "The money has not been lawfully earned, sir. It is contrary to law to assist a felon to quit the kingdom, and I am not certain there are no penalties for that act alone; and as for the public money, it can never legally quit the Treasury without the proper office forms." "My dear Sir George," put in the captain, "leave me to settle this with Mr. Green, who, no doubt, is authorized to give a receipt in full. What is to be done with the delinquent, sir, now that you are in possession of his money?" "Of course he will be carried back in the Foam, and, I mourn to be compelled to say, that he must be left in the hands of the law." "What, with or without my permission?" Mr. Green stared, for his mind was precisely one of those which would conceive it to be a high act of audacity in a _ci-devant_ colonist to claim the rights of an old country, even did he really understand the legality and completeness of the separation. "He has committed forgery, sir, to conceal his peculation. It is an awful crime; but they that commit it cannot hope to escape the consequences." "Miserable impostor! is this true!" Captain Truck sternly demanded of the trembling culprit. "He calls an oversight forgery, sir," returned the latter huskily. "I have done nothing to affect my life or liberty." At this moment Captain Ducie, accompanied by Paul Powis, entered the cabin, their faces flushed, and their manner to each other a little disturbed, though it was formally courteous. At the same instant, Mr. Dodge, who had been dying to be present at the secret conference, watched his opportunity to slip in also. "I am glad you have come, sir," said Mr. Green, "for here may be occasion for the services of his Majesty's officers. Mr. Sandon has given up these bills, but two thousand pounds remain unaccounted for, and I have traced thirty-five, quite clearly, to the master of this ship, who has received it in the way of passage-money." "Yes, sir, the fact is as plain as the highlands of Navesink from the deck," drily added Captain Truck. "One thousand of this money has been returned by the defaulter's sister," observed Captain Ducie. "Very true, sir; I had forgotten to give him credit for that." "The remainder has probably been wasted in those silly trifles of which you have told me the unhappy man was so fond, and for which he has bartered respectability and peace of mind. As for the money paid this ship for the passage, it has been fairly earned, nor do I know that government has any power to reclaim it." Mr. Green heard this opinion with still greater disgust than he had felt towards the language of Captain Truck; nor could he very well prevent his feelings escaping, him in words. "We truly live in perilous times," he muttered, speaking more particularly to John Effingham, out of respect to his appearance, "when the scions of the nobility entertain notions so loose. We have vainly fancied in England that the enormities of the French revolution were neutralized by Billy Pitt; but, sir, we still live in perilous times, for the disease has fairly reached the higher classes. I hear that designs are seriously entertained against the wigs of the judges and bishops, and the next thing will be the throne! All our venerable institutions are in danger." "I should think the throne might indeed be in danger, sir," returned John Effingham, gravely, "if it reposes on wigs." "It is my duty, Captain Truck," continued Captain Ducie, who was a man so very different from his associate that he scarcely seemed to belong to the same species, "to request you will deliver to us the person of the culprit, with his effects, when we can relieve you and your passengers from the pain of witnessing any more of this unpleasant scene." At the sound of the delivery of his person, all the danger of his situation rushed forcibly before the imagination of the culprit. His face flushed and became pale, and his legs refused to support him, though he made a desperate effort to rise. After an instant of silence, he turned to the commander of the corvette, and, in piteous accents, appealed to him for mercy. "I have been punished severely already," he continued, as his voice returned, "for the savage Arabs robbed me of everything I had of any value. These gentlemen know that they took my dressing-case, several other curious and valuable articles for the toilet, and nearly all my clothes." "This man is scarcely a responsible being," said John Effingham, "for a childish vanity supplies the place of principles, self-respect, and duty. With a sister scorned on account of his crimes, conviction beyond denial, and a dread punishment staring him in the face, his thoughts still run on trifles." Captain Ducie gave a look of pity at the miserable young man, and, by his countenance, it was plain to see that he felt no relish for his duty. Still he felt himself bound to urge on Captain Truck a compliance with his request. The master of the packet was a good deal divided by an inherent dislike of seeming to yield anything to a British naval officer, a class of men whom he learned in early life most heartily to dislike; his kind feelings towards this particular specimen of the class; a reluctance to give a man up to a probable death, or some other severe punishment; and a distaste to being thought desirous of harbouring a rogue. In this dilemma, therefore, he addressed himself to John Effingham for counsel. "I should be pleased to hear your opinion, sir, on this matter," he said, looking at the gentleman just named, "for I own myself to be in a category. Ought we, or not, to deliver up the culprit?" "_Fiat justitia ruat coelum_" answered John Effingham, who never fancied any one could be ignorant of the meaning of these familiar words. "That I believe indeed to be Vattel," said Captain Truck; "but exceptions alter rules. This young man has some claims on us on account of his conduct when in front of the Arabs." "He fought for himself, sir, and has the merit of preferring liberty in a ship to slavery in the desert." "I think with Mr. John Effingham," observed Mr. Dodge, "and can see no redeeming quality in his conduct on that occasion. He did what we all did, or, as Mr. John Effingham has so pithily expressed it, he preferred liberty in our company to being an Arab's slave." "You will not deliver me up, Captain Truck!" exclaimed the delinquent. "They will hang me, if once in their power. Oh I you will not have the heart to let them hang me!" Captain Truck was startled at this appeal, but he sternly reminded the culprit that it was too late to remember the punishment, when the crime was committed. "Never fear, Mr. Sandon," said the office-man with a sneer; "these gentlemen will take you to New York, for the sake of the thousand pounds, if they can. A rogue is pretty certain of a kind reception in America, I hear." "Then, sir," exclaimed Captain Truck, "you had better go in with us." "Mr Green, Mr. Green, this is indiscreet, to call it by no worse a term," interposed Captain Ducie, who, while he was not free from a good deal of the prejudices of his companion, was infinitely better bred, and more in the habit of commanding himself. "Mr. John Effingham, you have heard this wanton insult," continued Captain Truck, suppressing his wrath as well as he could: "in what mariner ought it to be resented?" "Command the offender to quit your ship instantly," said John Effingham firmly. Captain Ducie started, and his face flushed; but disregarding him altogether, Captain Truck walked deliberately up to Mr. Green, and ordered him to go into the corvette's boat. "I shall allow of neither parley nor delay," added the exasperated old seaman, struggling to appear cool and dignified, though his vocation was little for the latter. "Do me the favour, sir, to permit me to see you into your boat, sir. Saunders, go on deck, and tell Mr. Leach to have the side manned--with _three_ side boys, Saunders;--and now I ask it as the greatest possible favour, that you will walk on deck with me, or--or--damn me, but I'll drag you there, neck and heels!" It was too much for Captain Truck to seem calm when he was in a towering passion, and the outbreak at the close of this speech was accompanied by a gesture with a hand which was open, it is true, but from which none of the arts of his more polite days could erase the knobs and hue that had been acquired in early life. "This is strong language, sir, to use to a British officer, under the guns of a British cruiser," exclaimed the commander of the corvette. "And his was strong language to use to a man in his own country and in his own ship. To you, Captain Ducie I have nothing to say, unless it be to say you are welcome. But your companion has indulged in a coarse insult on my country, and damn me if I submit to it, if I never see St. Catherine's Docks again. I had too much of this when a young man, to wish to find it repeated while an old one." Captain Ducie bit his lip, and he looked exceedingly vexed. Although he had himself blindly imbibed the notion that America would gladly receive the devil himself if he came with a full pocket, he was shocked with the coarseness that would throw such an innuendo into the very faces of the people of the country. On the other hand, his pride as an officer was hurt at the menace of Captain Truck, and all the former harmony of the scene was threatened with a sudden termination. Captain Ducie had been struck with the gentlemanlike appearance of both the Effinghams, to say nothing of Eve, the instant his foot touched the deck of the Montauk, and he now turned with a manner of reproach to John Effingham, and said, "Surely, sir, _you_ cannot sustain Mr. Truck in his extraordinary conduct!" "You will pardon me if I say I do. The man has been permitted to remain longer in the ship than I would have suffered." "And, Mr. Powis, what is your opinion?" "I fear," said Paul, smiling coldly, "that I should have knocked him down on the spot." "Templemore, are you, too, of this way of thinking?" "I fear the speech of Mr. Green has been without sufficient thought. On reflection he will recall it." But Mr. Green would sooner part with life than part with a prejudice, and he shook his head in the negative in a way to show that his mind was made up. "This is trifling," added Captain Truck. "Saunders, go on deck, and tell Mr. Leach to send down through the skylight a single whip, that we may whip this polite personage on deck; and, harkee, Saunders, let there be another on the yard, that we may send him into his boat like an anker of gin!" "This is proceeding too far," said Captain Ducie. "Mr Green, you will oblige me by retiring; there can be no suspicion cast on a vessel of war for conceding a little to an unarmed ship." "A vessel of war should not insult an unarmed ship, sir!" rejoined Captain Truck, pithily. Captain Ducie again coloured; but as he had decided on his course, he had the prudence to remain silent. In the mean time Mr. Green sullenly took his hat and papers, and withdrew into the boat; though, on his return to London he did not fail to give such a version of the affair as went altogether to corroborate all his own, and his friends' previous notions of America; and, what is equally singular, he religiously believed all he had said on the occasion. "What is now to be done with this unhappy man?" inquired Captain Ducie when order was a little restored. The misunderstanding was an unfortunate affair for the culprit. Captain Truck felt a strong reluctance to deliver him up to justice after all they had gone through together, but the gentlemanlike conduct of the English commander, the consciousness of having triumphed in the late conflict, and a deep regard for the law, united on the other hand to urge him to yield the unfortunate and weak-minded offender to his own authorities. "You do not claim a right to take him out of an American ship by violence, if I understand you, Captain Ducie?" "I do not. My instructions are merely to demand him." "That is according to Vattel. By demand you mean, to request, to ask for him?" "I mean to request, to ask for him," returned the Englishman, smiling. "Then take him, of God's name; and may your laws be more merciful to the wretch than he has been to himself, or to his kin." Mr. Sandon shrieked, and he threw himself abjectly on his knees between the two captains, grasping the legs of both. "Oh! hear me! hear me!" he exclaimed in a tone of anguish. "I have given up the money, I will give it all up! all to the last shilling, if you will let me go! You, Captain Truck, by whose side I have fought and toiled, you will not have the heart to abandon me to these murderers!" "It's d--d hard!" muttered the captain, actually wiping his eyes; "but it is what you have drawn upon yourself, I fear. Get a good lawyer, my poor fellow, as soon as you arrive; and it's an even chance, after all, that you go free!" "Miserable wretch!" said Mr. Dodge, confronting the still kneeling and agonized delinquent, "Wretch! these are the penalties of guilt. You have forged and stolen, acts that meet with my most unqualified disapprobation, and you are unfit for respectable society.--I saw from the very first what you truly were, and permitted myself to associate with you, merely to detect and expose you, in order that you might not bring disgrace on our beloved country. An impostor has no chance in America; and you are fortunate in being taken back to your own hemisphere." Mr. Dodge belonged to a tolerably numerous class, that is quaintly described as being "law honest;" that is to say, he neither committed murder nor petty larceny. When he was guilty of moral slander, he took great care that it should not be legal slander; and, although his whole life was a tissue of mean and baneful vices, he was quite innocent of all those enormities that usually occupy the attention of a panel of twelve men. This, in his eyes, raised him so far above less prudent sinners as to give him a right to address his quondam associate as has been just related. But the agony of the culprit was past receiving an increase from this brutal attack; he merely motioned the coarse-minded sycophant and demagogue away, and continued his appeals to the two captains for mercy. At this moment Paul Powis stepped up to the editor, and in a low but firm voice ordered him to quit the cabin. "I will pray for you--be your slave--do all you ask, if you will not give me up!" continued the culprit, fairly writhing in his agony. "Oh! Captain Ducie, as an English nobleman, have mercy on me." "I must transfer the duty to subordinates," said the English commander, a tear actually standing in his eye. "Will you permit a party of armed marines to take this unhappy being from your ship, sir." "Perhaps this will be the best course, as he will yield only to a show of force. I see no objection to this, Mr John Effingham?" "None in the world, sir. It is your object to clear your ship of a delinquent, and let those among whom he committed the fault be the agents." "Ay--ay! this is what Vattel calls the comity of nations. Captain Ducie, I beg you will issue your orders." The English commander had foreseen some difficulty, and, in sending away his boat when he came below, he had sent for a corporal's guard. These men were now in a cutter, near the ship, lying off on their oars, in a rigid respect to the rights of a stranger, however,--as Captain Truck was glad to see, the whole party having gone on deck as soon as the arrangement was settled. At an order from their commander the marines boarded the Montauk, and proceeded below in quest of their prisoner. Mr. Sandon had been left alone in Eve's cabin; but as soon as he found himself at liberty, he hurried into his own state-room. Captain Truck went below, while the marines were entering the ship; and, having passed a minute in his own room, he stepped across the cabin, to that of the culprit. Opening the door without knocking, he found the unhappy man in the very act of applying a pistol to his head, his own hand being just in time to prevent the catastrophe. The despair portrayed in the face of the criminal prevented reproach or remonstrance, for Captain Truck was a man of few words when it was necessary to act. Disarming the intended suicide, he coolly counted out to him thirty-five pounds, the money paid for his passage, and told him to pocket it. "I received this on condition of delivering you safe in New York," he said; "and as I shall fail in the bargain, I think it no more than just to return you the money. It may help you on the trial." "Will they hang me?" asked Mr. Sandon hoarsely, and with an imbecility like that of an infant. The appearance of the marines prevented reply, the prisoner was secured, his effects were pointed out, and his person was transferred to the boat with the usual military promptitude. As soon as this was done the cutter pulled away from the packet, and was soon hoisted in again on the corvette's deck. That day month the unfortunate victim of a passion for trifles committed suicide in London, just as they were about to transfer him to Newgate; and six months later his unhappy sister died of a broken heart. _ |
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