Alvin Addison

“ Was Hadley indeed dead? she thought—and then the circumstantial narrative of the two accomplices of her captor arose fresh in her mind.
"Oh, my God!" she exclaimed, "can it be that ravenous beasts fed upon his flesh? that those arms upon which I have leaned, and which I hoped would protect me, were torn from his body? that those lips which have smiled so sweetly and spoken so hopefully and tenderly, and that noble face and brow were gloated over by howling and bloody jaws! No, no; it cannot be! God is just! and the wicked shall not triumph." ”

“ As he was carried along the current of thought again changed, and he cast a retrospect over the years of crime, which had made him an outlaw, and brought him down to the gate of death. The dark picture shut out the light of more pleasant memories, and his soul sunk back into the night of darkness which the blackness of his crime had cast around it! Again he groaned in anguish of spirit and closed his eyes, as if by so doing he would shut out the phantoms of his evil deeds from his soul's vision. ”

“ A deep, stifled, half sigh, half groan escaped from her lips, and she murmured in a hoarse whisper:
"Father, father! you will kill your child. Oh, God! this is too much! Turned from our door! without a word of comfort! How deadly pale he is! My own parent to call him 'unworthy!' and then forbid him to speak!"
At this point a shriek from her lips would lift the father to his feet, the cold drops of agony on his brow. That soul-rending cry he had heard before, but it lost none of its horrors by being repeated. ”

“ I am sure that if you only knew how my heart yearns for a gentle and hopeful word from your adored lips, how it bleeds and recoils within my bosom when your cold words pierce it as with an arrow, you would certainly relent."
"The heart, Mr. Duffel, is not master of its own emotions; they come unbidden often, and not unfrequently remain when we would gladly have them depart." ”

“ I must crave your pardon, as I would the forgiveness of Eveline, were she present, for having entertained so unjust a thought toward her for a single moment. Be assured, if she cannot be won by gentleness and love, I shall never consent to make her my wife, though she is dearer to me than life itself."
"Very well; I still feel that all will come out right, and that a peaceful calm of sunshine will succeed the season of storm and clouds; but we must not hurry matters; time will do more for us than we can for ourselves, whereas haste might defeat all our hopes. ”

“ Sir—villain, rather, every word you have uttered is as false as the pit of night, and you know it! Yes, sir, you know that as you stood there and spoke, unmitigated falsehoods fell from your lips while every declaration! And knowing this, and knowing that I know it, also, you have the audacity and the insolent impudence to say that you have offered me an honorable position in life! Is it possible that you are so fallen as not to know that in a truthful, virtuous, and noble soul there can be nothing so abhorrent as lying, villainy, and cowardice? Talk of honor! ”

“ Hadley felt the unkindness and injustice of Mandeville's remarks, and had he merely consulted his own feelings, he would have retired at once, and never again intruded himself upon the society of one who could show himself so destitute of the characteristics of a gentleman. But there was another than himself that must suffer should he go, as his feelings prompted, from the premises of her father forever. Love was all-powerful in his breast at that hour, and choking down the rising emotions of anger and excitement, he attempted to reason with the stern man before him. ”

“ I cannot bear to think of her leaving the world in ignorance of her father's good will; better a thousand times that Hadley should be with her for a few hours. He may not be guilty after all. Why ought I to believe Duffel's word before his? Yes, and before that of my own daughter, too? and that without a word of explanation! No, it is unnatural. I wonder I have been blinded so long! Yes, Hadley shall be heard, and if he can show a clean hand, Eveline shall no longer mourn over his absence and my rashness. ”

“ But the horrors of the sick room were not yet over. Eveline kept sleeping and waking, or rather, she lay in a state of stupor or raved in a delirium of fever, with occasional intervals of quiet, which sometimes lasted for hours, and excited delusive hopes in the heart of the father, that she was better, only to plunge him again into doubt and fear when the fever fit returned. He arose from his knees, and bending over his child, imprinted kiss after kiss, "with all a mother's tenderness," upon her brow and lips. ”

“ This name and inquiry were often repeated by Miss Mandeville as she still lay "between life and death," on her couch of fever, pain and unconsciousness, and the tones of her voice were so full of sorrow, the father's heart melted at last, and he began to relent. And when, after a pause, his daughter would continue:
"He is gone! gone!—gone forever!—ah, my poor heart!"—in accents more sadly plaintive than any words that had over fallen upon the parent's ear, he said to himself:
"It must not be! Hadley shall be, sent for; she loves him, and his voice may call her back to consciousness. ”

“ CHAPTER XVI. EVELINE—THE ANTI-LEAGUE.
Eveline did not sit down in supine idleness, and mourn over her sad fate. True, at times she gave way to her feelings, when the hopelessness of her situation came upon her, as she strove to penetrate the future, in all its crushing force; and she would then weep for a time. But there was a firmness about her character and a strength of determined resolution in her purposes, which braced her spirit and filled her bosom with feelings such as only have birth and nourishment in heroic souls. ”

“ At the same instant a piercing shriek from Eveline's room told that she was alive to all that was passing.
Bill immediately drew a pistol and fired at Hadley, but the latter made a quick movement to one side and avoided the bullet. Then the two sprang at each other and closed in for a life struggle.
It was man to man with them, but Bill had the advantage of much practice, and his strength being equal, his skill must finally gain him the victory, unless fortune should greatly favor Hadley. Life was the prize at stake, and every nerve and muscle was taxed to its utmost capacity. ”

“ He grew stronger under the excitement, and ejaculated in a louder tone:
"Oh, my God! that I should come to this! I fear the intelligence will kill her!"
He covered his face with his hands and groaned in agony. Every eye in that solemn group around him was moist with tears.
"Take me on!" said the sufferer, after a pause. "Possibly I may be able to hold out till I reach home. If I do not, Mr. Mandeville, and you should ever see Eveline again tell her that almost with my dying words I craved her forgiveness."
Duffel the man and villain was subdued, and Duffel the boy was again come to life. ”

“ Hadley; that you pointed the knife and the pistol at his heart, and then mendaciously represented him as the thief and kidnapper who is found in your own person; then, sir, would you vail your face and go out no more among men, but upon your forehead, as now upon your soul, would be the brand of thief, robber, murderer! Ay, well may you cower! well may the cold sweat force itself out upon your brow! Did it never enter into your debased mind that the villain who is degraded enough to sell himself to crime for a little sordid dust, will, for a larger sum, betray his employer? ”

“ I may not live long, or I may linger for years; but whether I go soon or remain long, be a friend to Ida and her mother when I am taken from them."
"I could not be otherwise, my dear uncle; it will be truly a pleasure to serve and protect them. But now let me thank you from the bottom of my heart, for your kindness. I am unworthy to become your heir, but if it so please Providence and you to permit me to become the recipient of your bounty, I shall make it my endeavor to use and not abuse your wealth."
"God help you there, my boy! It is a difficult thing to make good use of riches." ”

“ Sir, if after forcing a conversation upon me on your own terms, and at an advantage of your own choosing, you are too cowardly to hear what I please to say, you must talk to yourself. When I speak at all I select my own words. I do not belong to that class of contemptible poltroons, who slink behind others to hide themselves and their crimes, basely exposing the innocent to the censures and punishment that should fall upon their own guilty heads. No, sir; woman as I am I would scorn to stoop to such a low depth of infamy to screen myself from any position, even from death itself ”

“ Poor man! For all this there was no repentance in his soul; it was only regret and remorse—but oh, remorse how bitter! Not that his belief was changed as to the guilt and innocence of the parties, for he still had confidence in Duffel, and was fully persuaded of Hadley's evil intentions. He was glad that the designs of the latter had been frustrated, but blamed himself for the manner in which it had been done.
But the reflections of the unhappy man, whether of reproach, sorrow, or regret, were ended for the time by another phase in the ever-changing condition of the invalid. ”

“ Dick is true as steel. He will not take an active part in the affair, because he does not like my taking the girl, on one side, and for the reason that Hadley has never wronged him, on the other, but he will be as far from betraying us as we ourselves; I will answer for him there."
Dick! Hadley! In the quickness of the lightning's flash, the whole truth beamed into Eveline's soul. Her pretended guides were none other than Duffel's accomplices, and the plotters, afterward, of her own destruction, and she was now on her way to that cave in Virginia! ”

“ No sooner was this conviction fixed in her mind, than she flew rather than ran, tearing her clothes and lacerating her flesh against the brush and thorns which beset her way. She scarcely felt the wounds and thought as little of the destruction of her garments, but kept on, on, on, she knew not whither, and cared not, so that she escaped from her dreaded pursuers. All would not do. Ever and increasing, nearer and nearer, came the dismal sound! How her heart died within her, as the increased loudness of the baying of the wolves told her they were fast overtaking her! ”

“ Yes, when the last ray of hope is gone, and the night of despair settles upon the soul. But, oh, must I go out into that unillumed darkness, forever shut out from light and hope? Is there no hope that I may some day call you more than friend? that in time, even though it be years in the future, I may be able to awaken emotions of tenderness in your heart? ”

“ Let not their gray hairs go down to the chambers of the dead in sorrow, nor their failing strength be suddenly brought low by the anguish you have inflicted upon their spirits; but spare them as you would be spared!
Several minutes elapsed before Mr. Mandeville could collect his scattered and stunned thoughts together. The blow was so sudden, the shock so terrible, they almost prostrated him. He walked up and down the room, with paleness on his cheeks, and a load in his bosom. ”

“ These paroxysms, upon the horrors of which we have no wish to dwell, lasted all the night, but subsided about the dawn of morning. The last image conjured up by his distempered fancy seemed to be one of Hadley:
"Oh, Hadley," he pleaded in piteous tones, "do not look upon me in that way! Take from me those mournful eyes, oh, take them away! for that look burns into my heart! Hadley! Hadley! have pity on me! and spare me! Am I not tormented enough already?" ”

“ Why Duffel was so obscurely careful in selecting his way, will presently be seen. In the direction last taken, he traveled on until the sun was bending to the western horizon, when he came to a thicket of bushes and vines, so compact in growth it seemed an impossibility to enter it, even in a crawling position, without the aid of an ax and pruning-knife. Glancing this way and that, as if to assure himself that no one was near, a precaution that might almost be set down as a useless exhibition of timidity in that wild out-of-the-way place, so far from the habitation of civilised man. ”

“ Mandeville, when once his eyes were opened, would pursue him with unflagging energy and tireless perseverance, until his crimes were duly expiated to the full extent of the law. With such knowledge and reflections for companions, well might the guilty wretch quake with fear. If "conscience makes cowards of us all," how much more so him, reeking as he was with blood and crime! ”

“ At the first, Eveline felt like weeping, and for a moment buried her face in her hands; but then she felt it would not do to give way to feelings of tenderness and sorrow in her present situation, and choking down the great grief that swelled up in her bosom on her father's account, she suddenly assumed a commanding attitude, and addressed the calculating human fiend as follows:
"Inhuman monster! how long do you expect thus to dare the vengeance of heaven? You have stained your soul with crimes that would darken the pit of night; you have committed robberies, and thefts, and murder! ”

“ I wish I had not sent them after Hadley; I might have accomplished all without that; and it is not the pleasantest thing in the world to have a murder laying on one's conscience. But then, I thought other means would succeed: I had no idea that old Mandeville was becoming so tender-hearted. The old devil himself must have been playing mischief with my calculations. Well, let him play away; once Bill and Dick return, and I'll try my hand at heading his sulphurous majesty, and all others that oppose me. ”

“ How he blamed himself for being so rash and precipitate; and, as Eveline sunk back in exhaustion, the awful thought kept forcing itself into his mind:
"If she dies, I am her murderer!" What a reflection for a parent over an almost dying child! Who can measure the anguish it created in his breast? ”