The Pilot (23 page)

"Away with the silly thought!" interrupted the Pilot, recalled to
himself as if by a sudden conviction of the weakness he had betrayed;
"it is ever thus where men are made conspicuous by their works—but to
your visit—I have the power to rescue myself and companions from this
paltry confinement, and yet I would not have it done with violence, for
your sake. Bring you the means of doing it in quiet?"

"When the morning arrives, you will all be conducted to the apartment
where we first met.—This will be done at the solicitation of Miss
Howard, under the plea of compassion and justice, and with the professed
object of inquiring into your situations. Her request will not be
refused; and while your guard is stationed at the door, you will be
shown, by another entrance, through the private apartments of the wing,
to a window, whence you can easily leap to the ground, where a thicket
is at hand; afterwards we shall trust your safety to your own
discretion."

"And if this Dillon, of whom you have spoken, should suspect the truth,
how will you answer to the law for aiding our escape?"

"I believe he little dreams who is among the prisoners," said Alice,
musing, "though he may have detected the character of one of your
companions. But it is private feeling, rather than public spirit, that
urges him on."

"I have suspected something of this," returned the Pilot, with a smile,
that crossed those features where ungovernable passions that had so
lately been exhibited, with an effect that might be likened to the last
glimmering of an expiring conflagration, serving to render the
surrounding ruin more obvious. "This young Griffith has led me from my
direct path with his idle imprudence, and it is right that his mistress
should incur some risk. But with you, Alice, the case is different; here
you are only a guest, and it is unnecessary that you should be known in
the unfortunate affair. Should my name get abroad, this recreant
American, this Colonel Howard, will find all the favor he has purchased
by advocating the cause of tyranny necessary to protect him from the
displeasure of the ministry."

"I fear to trust so delicate a measure to the young discretion of my
amiable friend," said Alice, shaking her head.

"Remember, that she has her attachment to plead in her excuse; but dare
you say to the world that you still remember, with gentle feelings, the
man whom you stigmatize with such opprobrious epithets?"

A slight color gleamed over the brow of Alice Dunscombe, as she uttered,
in a voice that was barely audible:

"There is no longer a reason why the world should know of such a
weakness, though it did exist." And, as the faint glow passed away,
leaving her face pale nearly as the hue of death, her eyes kindled with
unusual fire, and she added: "They can but take my life, John; and that
I am ready to lay down in your service!"

"Alice!" exclaimed the softened Pilot, "my kind, my gentle Alice—"

The knock of the sentinel at the door was heard at this critical moment.
Without waiting for a reply to his summons, the man entered the
apartment; and, in hurried language, declared the urgent necessity that
existed for the lady to retire. A few brief remonstrances were uttered
by both Alice and the Pilot, who wished to comprehend more clearly each
other's intentions relative to the intended escape: but the fear of
personal punishment rendered the soldier obdurate, and a dread of
exposure at length induced the lady to comply. She arose, and was
leaving the apartment with lingering steps, when the Pilot, touching her
hand, whispered to her impressively:

"Alice, we meet again before I leave this island forever?"

"We meet in the morning, John," she returned in the same tone of voice,
"in the apartments of Miss Howard."

He dropped her hand, and she glided from the room, when the impatient
sentinel closed the door, and silently turned the key on his prisoner.
The Pilot remained in a listening attitude, until the light footsteps of
the retiring pair were no longer audible, when he paced his confined
apartment with perturbed steps, occasionally pausing to look out at the
driving clouds and the groaning oaks that were trembling and rocking
their broad arms in the fitful gusts of the gale. In a few minutes the
tempest in his own passions had gradually subsided to the desperate and
still calmness that made him the man he was; when he again seated
himself where Alice had found him, and began to muse on the events of
the times, from which the transition to projecting schemes of daring
enterprise and mighty consequences was but the usual employment of his
active and restless mind.

"
Sir And.
. I have no exquisite reason for't, but I've reason
good enough."
Twelfth Night.

The countenance of Captain Borroughcliffe, when the sentinel admitted
him to the apartment he had selected, was in that state of doubtful
illumination, when looks of peculiar cunning blend so nicely with the
stare of vacancy, that the human face is rendered not unlike an April
day, now smiling and inviting, and at the next moment clouded and
dreary. It was quite apparent that the soldier had an object for his
unexpected visit, by the importance of his air and the solemnity of the
manner with which he entered on the business. He waved his hand for the
sentinel to retire, with lofty dignity, and continued balancing his
body, during the closing of the door, and while a sound continued
audible to his confused faculties, with his eyes fixed in the direction
of the noise, with that certain sort of wise look that in many men
supplies the place of something better. When the captain felt himself
secure from interruption, he moved round with quick military precision,
in order to face the man of whom he was in quest. Griffith had been
sleeping, though uneasily and with watchfulness; and the Pilot had been
calmly awaiting the visit which it seemed he had anticipated; but their
associate, who was no other than Captain Manual, of the marines, was
discovered in a very different condition from either. Though the weather
was cool and the night tempestuous, he had thrown aside his pea-jacket,
with most of his disguise, and was sitting ruefully on his blanket,
wiping, with one hand, the large drops of sweat from his forehead, and
occasionally grasping his throat with the other, with a kind of
convulsed mechanical movement. He stared wildly at his visitor, though
his entrance produced no other alteration in these pursuits than a more
diligent application of his handkerchief and a more frequent grasping of
his naked neck, as if he were willing to ascertain, by actual
experiment, what degree of pressure the part was able to sustain,
without exceeding a given quantity of inconvenience.

"Comrade, I greet ye!" said Borroughcliffe, staggering to the side of
his prisoner, where he seated himself with an entire absence of
ceremony: "Comrade, I greet ye! Is the kingdom in danger, that gentlemen
traverse the island in the uniform of the regiment of incognitus,
incognitii, 'torum—damme, how I forget my Latin! Say, my fine fellow,
are you one of these 'torums?"

Manual breathed a little hard, which, considering the manner he had been
using his throat, was a thing to be expected; but, swallowing his
apprehensions, he answered with more spirit than his situation rendered
prudent or the occasion demanded.

"Say what you will of me, and treat me as you please, I defy any man to
call me Tory with truth."

"You are no 'torum! Well, then, the war-office has got up a new dress!
Your regiment must have earned their facings in storming some water
battery, or perhaps it has done duty as marines. Am I right?"

"I'll not deny it," said Manual, more stoutly; "I have served as a
marine for two years, though taken from the line of—"

"The army," said Borroughcliffe, interrupting a most damning confession
of which "state line" the other had belonged to. "I kept a dog-watch,
myself, once, on board the fleet of my Lord Howe; but it is a service
that I do not envy any man. Our afternoon parades were dreadfully
unsteady, for it's a time, you know, when a man wants solid ground to
stand on. However, I purchased my company with some prize-money that
fell in my way, and I always remember the marine service with gratitude.
But this is dry work. I have put a bottle of sparkling Madeira in my
pocket, with a couple of glasses, which we will discuss while we talk
over more important matters. Thrust your hand into my right pocket; I
have been used to dress to the front so long, that it comes mighty
awkward to me to make this backward motion, as if it were into a
cartridge-box."

Manual, who had been at a loss how to construe the manner of the other,
perceived at once a good deal of plain English in this request, and he
dislodged one of Colonel Howard's dusty bottles, with a dexterity that
denoted the earnestness of his purpose. Borroughcliffe had made a
suitable provision of glasses; and extracting the cork in a certain
scientific manner, he tendered to his companion a bumper of the liquor,
before another syllable was uttered by either of the expectants. The
gentlemen concluded their draughts with a couple of smacks, that sounded
not unlike the pistols of two practised duellists, though certainly a
much less alarming noise, when the entertainer renewed the discourse.

"I like one of your musty-looking bottles, that is covered with dust and
cobwebs, with a good southern tan on it," he said. "Such liquor does not
abide in the stomach, but it gets into the heart at once, and becomes
blood in the beating of a pulse. But how soon I knew you! That sort of
knowledge is the freemasonry of our craft. I knew you to be the man you
are, the moment I laid eyes on you in what we call our guard-room; but I
thought I would humor the old soldier who lives here, by letting him
have the formula of an examination, as a sort of deference to his age
and former rank. But I knew you the instant I saw you. I have seen you
before!"

The theory of Borroughcliffe, in relation to the incorporation of wine
with the blood, might have been true in the case of the marine, whose
whole frame appeared to undergo a kind of magical change by the
experiment of drinking, which, the reader will understand, was
diligently persevered in while a drop remained in the bottle. The
perspiration no longer rolled from his brow, neither did his throat
manifest that uneasiness which had rendered such constant external
applications necessary; but he settled down into an air of cool but
curious interest, which, in some measure, was the necessary concomitant
of his situation.

"We may have met before, as I have been much in service, and yet I know
not where you could have seen me," said Manual. "Were you ever a
prisoner of war?"

"Hum! not exactly such an unfortunate devil; but a sort of conventional
non-combatant. I shared the hardships, the glory, the equivocal
victories (where we killed and drove countless numbers of rebels—who
were not), and, woe is me! the capitulation of Burgoyne. But let that
pass-which was more than the Yankees would allow us to do. You know not
where I could have seen you? I have seen you on parade, in the field, in
battle and out of battle, in camp, in barracks; in short, everywhere but
in a drawing-room. No, no; I have never seen you before this night in a
drawing-room!"

Manual stared in a good deal of wonder and some uneasiness at these
confident assertions, which promised to put his life in no little
jeopardy; and it is to be supposed that the peculiar sensation about the
throat was revived, as he made a heavy draught, before he said:

"You will swear to this—Can you call me by name?"

"I will swear to it in any court in Christendom," said the dogmatical
soldier; "and your name is—is—Fugleman!"

"If it is, I'll be damn'd!" exclaimed the other, with exulting
precipitation.

"Swear not!" said Borroughcliffe, with a solemn air; "for what mattereth
an empty name! Call thyself by what appellation thou wilt, I know thee.
Soldier is written on thy martial front; thy knee bendeth not; nay, I
even doubt if the rebellious member bow in prayer—"

"Come, sir," interrupted Manual, a little sternly; "no more of this
trifling, but declare your will at once. Rebellious member, indeed!
These fellows will call the skies of America rebellious heavens
shortly!"

"I like thy spirit, lad," returned the undisturbed Borroughcliffe; "it
sits as gracefully on a soldier as his sash and gorget; but it is lost
on an old campaigner. I marvel, however, that thou takest such umbrage
at my slight attack on thy orthodoxy. I fear the fortress must be weak,
where the outworks are defended with such a waste of unnecessary
courage!"

"I know not why or wherefore you have paid me this visit, Captain
Borroughcliffe," said Manual, with a laudable discretion, which prompted
him to reconnoitre the other's views a little, before he laid himself
more open; "if captain be your rank, and Borroughcliffe be your name.
But this I do know, that if it be only to mock me in my present
situation, it is neither soldier like nor manly; and it is what, in
other circumstances, might be attended by some hazard."

"Hum!" said the other, with his immovable coolness; "I see you set the
wine down as nothing, though the king drinks not as good; for the plain
reason that the sun of England cannot find its way through the walls of
Windsor Castle as easily as the sun of Carolina can warm a garret
covered with cedar shingles. But I like your spirit more and more. So
draw yourself up in battle array, and let us have another charge at this
black bottle, when I shall lay before your military eyes a plan of the
whole campaign."

Manual first bestowed an inquiring glance on his companion; when,
discovering no other expression than foolish cunning, which was fast
yielding before the encroaching footsteps of stupid inebriety, he
quietly placed himself in the desired position. The wine was drunk, when
Borroughcliffe proceeded to open his communications more unreservedly.