John Bloundelle-Burton

“ The remains of my dear mother lie in the vaults of her own people, and there the sad and loving heart of Louise St. Amande knows at least the peace that was never accorded it in this world. Poor mother! Poor stricken wife, how sad was your existence! The love you gave your husband was doomed to slight and contumely; the love you gave your child could never induce Fate to let that child stay long by your side. And often as I meditate on her and on her strange life and ending, I see her again as I saw her on that last day; I hear her last whisper, "Thrust a sword through a man's body, Gerald." ”

“ This man, this robber--who when he first came among us we had deemed a courtly gentleman--stood there, tall and erect, with no muscle quivering, nay, almost with a look of scorn upon his face. In front of him, his sword still lowered, stood the other whom he invited to be his executioner, his eyes no longer flashing fire but dwelling upon his old enemy as though in wonder. Behind were Mary and myself trembling with apprehension and Mr. Kinchella whispering to his friend, "Gerald, forbear, forbear. Remember, vengeance is to the Lord. He will repay." ”

“ But then Lord St. Amande spoke, saying: "That I should slay you now is impossible. In this house your life is sacred--at her prayer," and he pointed to me. "And, Since you are so bold a man, why such a villain? O'Rourke, seeing you as you are to-night I do believe you might have been worthy of better things. What had I, a helpless child, ever done to you that you should have sought my death as you did?"
"You had done nothing," the other replied, still standing in the same position as when he last spoke, "but your father was always my enemy, while your uncle was my friend. ”

“ Happy, happy pair--happy Kinchella to love and be beloved, to love and dare to tell his love."
And my lord sighed as he spoke.
"All men may tell their love, surely," I said. "Why should they not?"
"All men may not tell their love, Mistress Joice," he replied; "all men may not ask for love in return. Over some men's lives there is so deep a shadow that it precludes them from asking any woman to share their lot--sometimes it is best that those men go through life alone, unloved and with no other's lot bound up with theirs. ”

“ One thing there was to be done ere we quitted the Indian encampment. It was to try and bring away with us those who, alas! poor souls, had come there as white prisoners and had remained of their own free will, becoming savages in all but complexion. We knew that it would be hard to tear them from those to whom they had attached themselves. We knew that girls, who should have grown up to become the wives of sturdy English colonists or trappers, had stayed willingly with the Indians to become their squaws and the mothers of their dusky children. ”

“ At present we have nothing but the word of Anuza, who has said I lie. But what if he has lied himself?"
"He has not lied," they called out. "He has not lied. Anuza never lies. And his words are proved. The other slave of the white woman can do more than he. He is no medicine priest. Give him to us that we may slay him."
"Not yet," answered Senamee. "Not yet. For ere I give him to you I am about to prove Anuza to be a liar in spite of your belief." ”

“ Now, Quin, give back my guineas to me."
"Nay," said Oliver, "that will never be. We have the guineas and we mean to keep them."
"I am armed," said O'Rourke, "and I will have them; yet, ere I take them from you or shoot you like a dog, let's see what creature, what scaramouch or scarecrow thou hast picked out of the gutter to send to Virginia in place of this boy, Gerald," and, stooping down, he bent on his knee and flung Oliver's cloak off my cousin's form till it lay there as it had fallen, and with a ray from the oil lamp of the archway glistening on his face. ”

“ It seemed, indeed, as though this man had, in his shrewdness, penetrated the innermost thoughts of the Bear, for ere we had been an hour on the march he, halting his horse so as to send the advance party of his warriors on ahead, drew alongside of us and, after a silence of some minutes, said:
"White people who have dwelt for so long on the lands that once were ours, know you why your village, which has been spared by us for now so many moons, has been once more attacked and put to the slaughter by the braves of my tribe?" ”

“ And now there came in Buck and Lamb and the other bondsmen and convicts--though no longer either bondsmen or convict-servants if they could live through this dreadful night--for they were useless upstairs any longer. With them came the mastiffs who had replaced those poisoned; fierce beasts, who seemed to scent the Indians they were trained to fight and whose eyes glared savagely at the windows to which they ran, while they stooped their great heads to the bodies of the dead ones lying inside the sill and sniffed at their already fast congealing blood. ”

“ And if we do die fighting," he went on, as coolly as though death was not within an ace of us all now, "why, dam'me, 'tis better than the cart and a merry dance in the chains afterwards on a breezy common. So cheer up, my noble, and let's at 'em. Ha, ha! here they come!"
As he spoke, with a crash the shutters came in at last and, through the open space they left in their fall, there swarmed the hideous foe, while with a scream Mary and I flung ourselves into each other's arms. ”

“ Around us in a vast circle sat the Indians, speaking never at all to each other, but smoking silently from the pipes they passed from one to the other, their faces still with the war-paint upon them and their bodies, now that the night was coming, wrapped in their blankets. Inside that circle we, the prisoners, were huddled together, Mary being at this time asleep with her head on her lover's shoulder and I lying with mine upon her lap, while the men, now no longer my servants, or, at least, my slaves, talked in whispers to each other. ”

“ The carpets and rugs for which my father had sent to London were torn and slit and drenched with blood, the spinet and the harpsichord were both ruined, ornaments were broken, and the pictures splashed with blood. Oh, what a scene of horror for the sun to rise upon!
"Let all the prisoners who are alive be taken to the woods at once," exclaimed Roderick to Anuza; "to-night we start back to the mountains. Our work is done. Pomfret is destroyed, or destroyed so much that years shall not see it again as it was." ”

“ Anuza, son of the Bear, what means this conduct? Has madness entered into your brain that thus you revolt against him whom the Sun God has sent to succour us and to give us power over all our enemies, or has your heart turned black with ingratitude towards the great medicine man who has so long ruled over our destinies, who has made our crops to thrive and our cattle to increase tenfold? ”

“ Kinchella and Mary who were within, she sitting at the spinet while he, bending over her, was humming the air of a song he had lately written preparatory to her singing it.
"One can see," went on my lord, "all that that future shall be. They have told their love to one another, soon that love will blossom into marriage, even as I have seen your daturas and your roses blossom forth since first I came amongst you--that marriage will bring happiness of days and years to them, in which in honour and peaceful joys they will go on until life's close. ”

“ And now you shall hear a strange thing, for, as the bier with its mean burden came close, so that the features of those who accompanied it might be plainly perceived through the fog, the butcher, turning to the lad dressed as a scarecrow, said, "My lord, stand forth and show thyself. Here come those who have put it about that you have been dead these two years, and who, if they had their will, would soon have you dead now. Show thyself therefore, I say, Lord St. Amande, and prove that thou art alive." ”

“ But it is the order of our great medicine chief, whose works are more wonderful than the works of any other man who dwells upon the earth, that you be kept prisoners until he comes; both you and this other with the dark eyes and skin."
"And who," exclaimed Mary, her eyes flashing angrily at the superbly handsome chief who stood before her, "who is your great medicine chief of whom we know nothing, yet who knows us?"
"He knows you as he knows everything that takes place from the rising of the sun until its setting, and who he is you soon will learn. ”

“ Amande, springing from his chair and reaching for his sword, which stood in a corner of the balcony. "That voice! Though I have not heard it for years I should know it in a thousand. 'Tis the villain, O'Rourke. Heaven hath delivered him into my hands at last. Now will I have a full revenge on him."
"Oh sir," I said, as he drew his blade, "Oh! sir, oh! my lord, take no revenge on him here, I beseech you. Stain not this house with his blood. No life has ever yet been taken in it since it was brought over. ”

“ But, when I whispered this news to Oliver as I bent over the bows of the boat, he whispered back to me, "No matter; fear nothing. Courage. Courage!"
"Well, fellow," said my uncle to Quin, as we approached them, I walking behind my companion and with my own hat drawn down as low as possible so as to evade observation if I could do so. "Well, fellow, so thou hast determined to change thy song and serve Lord St. Amande, instead of vomiting forth abuse on him and doing thy best to thwart him. Is't not so?" ”

“ I shrieked as he spoke, for I knew from tales and narratives told over many a winter's fire in Virginia what was the fate of those women who were borne away to be the squaws of these Indian chiefs; but, even as I did so, we heard shouts without as though those savages who had not entered the house were hailing some new arrival.
"Hark, hark!" exclaimed the chief. "He comes--he comes to claim you at last, as he has promised himself for many moons he would claim you. Hark, it is the great medicine man himself." ”

“ For what woman's heart, nay, what human heart, would not be touched by the description of that poor child torn from his mother's arms, living the life of a beggar in rags, and witnessing the funeral of his father conducted by charity? Oh! it was pitiful, we said to one another, pitiful; and when we knelt down to pray at night we besought a blessing on Mr. Kinchella and on that other good Christian, Quin, the butcher, for all that they had done for that unhappy young outcast. ”

“ The captain mused a moment, shaking his head meditatively and as though pondering sadly on all the wickedness that had been wrought against that poor youth, and then he said:
"'Tis hard to tell. I fear me his uncle is a bad man--he has, indeed, deceived me who trusted and believed in him, for he has over and over again sworn that Gerald was not his brother's child. And I trusted him, I say, tho' now I begin to doubt. Yet 'tis ever so in this world. We who are of an innocent and confiding nature are made the sport of the unscrupulous and designing." ”

“ O'Rourke, the clumsy fool who, when he should have shipped off my beggarly cousin shipped me in his place? O'Rourke. O'Rourke! Oh! if he but lives, how I will repay him for his folly. What a dainty dish he shall make for the torturers! How his fat body shall feed the flames! For, even though his mistake has made me a greater man than ever I could have been at home--ay, one before whom these credulous red fools bow as to a god--there is much suffering to be atoned for; the awful suffering of the passage in the Dove; your father's insults, my dearest Joice, and his blows ”

“ Thrust a sword through a man's body!' My sweet, such deeds ill befit a woman. Yet there are two men in this world through whose bodies I would willingly thrust a sword if they stood before me and I had one to my hand. I mean thy uncle Robert, the false-faced, black-avised villain, and that other and most despicable liar, his friend and creature, Wolfe Considine. ”

“ Henceforth, except for the wrong I did you, we are equal. Now, madam," he said, turning to me, "I am at your disposal and ready to help you defend your house should it be surrounded. You received me as a gentleman when I first came to you";--he put a bitter emphasis on the word "gentleman";--"as a gentleman I will do my best to repay your courtesy."
"If you are a villain you are a bold one," said Lord St. Amande. "Ill luck take you for not being a better man."
"It would be best," said O'Rourke to me, ignoring his lordship, "to go call up the convicts, I think. ”

“ The Indians!" If we looked forth on to our garden to observe its beauties as it lay in the moonlight, we deemed ourselves fortunate if we did not, some time or other, see the hideous painted face of a savage and his snake-like eyes gleaming at us from behind a tree or bush. Sometimes, also, floating down the river at night, when there was no moon, would be discerned by those who had sharp eyes the canoes of our dreaded foes bent on some awful errand, and full of painted, crouching savages. ”

“ What a narrative it was! What a story! To think of that vile Roderick being there in command of all the others; to think of that spiteful, crawling wretch having at last got those two innocent creatures into his power and able to do what he would with them! Oh! 'twas too horrible--too horrible to think upon. Nay, I dare not think, I could only prepare for immediate action.
"We must follow them," I said. "I must follow them at once, even if the Indians tear me to pieces as I enter their midst. And what matter if they do? 'Twill be best so if she, my own darling, has become their prey. ”

“ And, sir, with my greatest consideration to you, and a mother's fondest love to my child, whom I pray to see ere long, I remain your much obliged and grateful,
Louise St. Amande.
"Gerald," said Mr. Kinchella, when he had concluded reading this letter to me, over which, boy-like, I shed many tears, "her ladyship speaks well. Dublin is no place for thee. If in his lordship's lifetime you were not safe, how shall you be so when now you alone stand between your uncle and two peerages?" ”

“ But, sir, if the news which you give me of the grievous state in which my lord lies is enough to wring my heart, what comfort and joy shall not that heart also receive in learning that my beloved child, whom I thought dead and slain by his father's cruelty, is still alive, and that he, whom I have mourned as gone from me for ever, should live to be restored to his mother's arms? ”