The Pilot (39 page)

The extraordinary vehemence, the language, the attitude of the old
seaman, commanding in its energy, and the honest indignation that shone
in every look of his keen eyes, together with the nature of the address,
and its paralyzing effect on Dillon, who quailed before it like the
stricken deer, united to keep the female listeners, for many moments,
silent through amazement. During this brief period, Tom advanced upon
his nerveless victim, and lashing his arms together behind his back, he
fastened him, by a strong cord, to the broad canvas belt that he
constantly wore around his own body, leaving to himself, by this
arrangement, the free use of his arms and weapons of offence, while he
secured his captive.

"Surely," said Cecilia, recovering her recollection the first of the
astonished group, "Mr. Barnstable has not commissioned you to offer this
violence to my uncle's kinsman, under the roof of Colonel Howard?—Miss
Plowden, your friend has strangely forgotten himself in this
transaction, if this man acts in obedience to his order!"

"My friend, my cousin Howard," returned Katharine, "would never
commission his cockswain, or any one, to do an unworthy deed. Speak,
honest sailor; why do you commit this outrage on the worthy Mr. Dillon,
Colonel Howard's kinsman, and a cupboard cousin of St. Ruth's Abbey?"

"Nay, Katherine—"

"Nay, Cecilia, be patient, and let the stranger have utterance; he may
solve the difficulty altogether."

The cockswain, understanding that an explanation was expected from his
lips, addressed himself to the task with an energy suitable both to the
subject and to his own feelings. In a very few words, though a little
obscured by his peculiar diction, he made his listeners understand the
confidence that Barnstable had reposed in Dillon, and the treachery of
the latter. They heard him with increased astonishment, and Cecilia
hardly allowed him time to conclude, before she exclaimed:

"And did Colonel Howard, could Colonel Howard listen to this treacherous
project!"

"Ay, they spliced it together among them," returned Tom; "though one
part of this cruise will turn out but badly."

"Even Borroughcliffe, cold and hardened as he appears to be by habit,
would spurn at such dishonor," added Miss Howard.

"But Mr. Barnstable?" at length Katherine succeeded in saying, when her
feelings permitted her utterance, "said you not that soldiers were in
quest of him?"

"Ay, ay, young madam," the cockswain replied, smiling with grim
ferocity, "they are in chase, but he has shifted his anchorage, and even
if they should find him, his long pikes would make short work of a dozen
redcoats. The Lord of tempests and calms have mercy, though, on the
schooner! Ah, young madam she, is as lovely to the eyes of an old
seafaring man as any of your kind can be to human nature!"

"But why this delay?—away then, honest Tom, and reveal the treachery to
your commander; you may not yet be too late—why delay a moment?"

"The ship tarries for want of a pilot.—I could carry three fathom over
the shoals of Nantucket, the darkest night that ever shut the windows of
heaven, but I should be likely to run upon breakers in this navigation.
As it was, I was near getting into company that I should have had to
fight my way out of."

"If that be all, follow me," cried the ardent Katherine; "I will conduct
you to a path that leads to the ocean, without approaching the
sentinels."

Until this moment, Dillon had entertained a secret expectation of a
rescue, but when he heard this proposal he felt his blood retreating to
his heart, from every part of his agitated frame, and his last hope
seemed wrested from him. Raising himself from the abject shrinking
attitude, in which both shame and dread had conspired to keep him as
though he had been fettered to the spot, he approached Cecilia, and
cried, in tones of horror:

"Do not, do not consent, Miss Howard, to abandon me to the fury of this
man! Your uncle, your honorable uncle, even now applauded and united
with me in my enterprise, which is no more than a common artifice in
war."

"My uncle would unite, Mr. Dillon, in no project of deliberate treachery
like this," said Cecilia, coldly.

"He did, I swear by—"

"Liar!" interrupted the deep tones of the cockswain.

Dillon shivered with agony and terror, while the sounds of this
appalling voice sunk into his inmost soul; but as the gloom of the
night, the secret ravines of the cliffs, and the turbulence of the ocean
flashed across his imagination, he again yielded to a dread of the
horrors to which he should be exposed, in encountering them at the mercy
of his powerful enemy, and he continued his solicitations:

"Hear me, once more hear me—Miss Howard, I beseech you, hear me! Am I
not of your own blood and country? will you see me abandoned to the
wild, merciless, malignant fury of this man, who will transfix me with
that—oh, God! if you had but seen the sight I beheld in the Alacrity!
—hear me. Miss Howard; for the love you bear your Maker, intercede for
me! Mr. Griffith shall be released—"

"Liar!" again interrupted the cockswain.

"What promises he?" asked Cecilia, turning her averted face once more at
the miserable captive.

"Nothing at all that will be fulfilled," said Katherine; "follow, honest
Tom, and I, at least, will conduct you in good faith."

"Cruel, obdurate Miss Plowden; gentle, kind Miss Alice, you will not
refuse to raise your voice in my favor; your heart is not hardened by
any imaginary dangers to those you love."

"Nay, address not me," said Alice, bending her meek eyes to the floor;
"I trust your life is in no danger; and I pray that he who has the power
will have the mercy to see you unharmed."

"Away," said Tom, grasping the collar of the helpless Dillon, and rather
carrying than leading him into the gallery: "if a sound, one-quarter as
loud as a young porpoise makes when he draws his first breath, comes
from you, villain, you shall see the sight of the Alacrity over again.
My harpoon keeps its edge well, and the old arm can yet drive it to the
seizing."

This menace effectually silenced even the hard, perturbed breathings of
the captive, who, with his conductor, followed the light steps of
Katherine through some of the secret mazes of the building, until, in a
few minutes, they issued through a small door into the open air. Without
pausing to deliberate, Miss Plowden led the cockswain through the
grounds, to a different wicket from the one by which he had entered the
paddock, and pointing to the path, which might be dimly traced along the
faded herbage, she bade God bless him, in a voice that discovered her
interest in his safety, and vanished from his sight like an aerial
being.

Tom needed no incentive to his speed, now that his course lay so plainly
before him, but loosening his pistols in his belt, and poising his
harpoon, he crossed the fields at a gait that compelled his companion to
exert his utmost powers, in the way of walking, to equal. Once or twice,
Dillon ventured to utter a word or two; but a stern "silence" from the
cockswain warned him to cease, until perceiving that they were
approaching the cliffs, he made a final effort to obtain his liberty, by
hurriedly promising a large bribe. The cockswain made no reply, and the
captive was secretly hoping that his scheme was producing its wonted
effects, when he unexpectedly felt the keen cold edge of the barbed iron
of the harpoon pressing against his breast, through the opening of his
ruffles, and even raising the skin.

"Liar!" said Tom; "another word, and I'll drive it through your heart!"

From that moment, Dillon was as silent as the grave. They reached the
edge of the cliffs, without encountering the party that had been sent in
quest of Barnstable, and at a point near where they had landed. The old
seaman paused an instant on the verge of the precipice, and cast his
experienced eyes along the wide expanse of water that lay before him.
The sea was no longer sleeping, but already in heavy motion, and rolling
its surly waves against the base of the rocks on which he stood,
scattering their white crests high in foam. The cockswain, after bending
his looks along the whole line of the eastern horizon, gave utterance to
a low and stifled groan; and then, striking the staff of his harpoon
violently against the earth, he pursued his way along the very edge of
the cliffs, muttering certain dreadful denunciations, which the
conscience of his appalled listener did not fail to apply to himself. It
appeared to the latter, that his angry and excited leader sought the
giddy verge of the precipice with a sort of wanton recklessness, so
daring were the steps that he took along its brow, notwithstanding the
darkness of the hour, and the violence of the blasts that occasionally
rushed by them, leaving behind a kind of reaction, that more than once
brought the life of the manacled captive in imminent jeopardy. But it
would seem the wary cockswain had a motive for this apparently
inconsiderate desperation. When they had made good quite half the
distance between the point where Barnstable had landed and that where he
had appointed to meet his cockswain, the sounds of voices were brought
indistinctly to their ears, in one of the momentary pauses of the
rushing winds, and caused the cockswain to make a dead stand in his
progress. He listened intently for a single minute, when his resolution
appeared to be taken. He turned to Dillon and spoke; though his voice
was suppressed and low, it was deep and resolute.

"One word, and you die; over the cliffs! You must take a seaman's
ladder: there is footing on the rocks, and crags for your hands. Over
the cliff, I bid ye, or I'll cast ye into the sea, as I would a dead
enemy!"

"Mercy, mercy!" implored Dillon; "I could not do it in the day; by this
light I shall surely perish."

"Over with ye!" said Tom, "or—"

Dillon waited for no more, but descended, with trembling steps, the
dangerous precipice that lay before him. He was followed by the
cockswain, with a haste that unavoidably dislodged his captive from the
trembling stand he had taken on the shelf of a rock, who, to his
increased horror found himself dangling in the air, his body impending
over the sullen surf, that was tumbling in with violence upon the rocks
beneath him. An involuntary shriek burst from Dillon, as he felt his
person thrust from the narrow shelf; and his cry sounded amidst the
tempest, like the screechings of the spirit of the storm.

"Another such a call, and I cut your tow-line, villain," said the
determined seaman, "when nothing short of eternity will bring you up."

The sounds of footsteps and voices were now distinctly audible, and
presently a party of armed men appeared on the edges of the rocks,
directly above them.

"It was a human voice," said one of them, "and like a man in distress."

"It cannot be the men we are sent in search of," returned Sergeant
Drill; "for no watchword that I ever heard sounded like that cry."

"They say that such cries are often heard in storms along this coast,"
said a voice that was uttered with less of military confidence than the
two others: "and they are thought to come from drowned seamen."

A feeble laugh arose among the listeners, and one or two forced jokes
were made at the expense of their superstitious comrade; but the scene
did not fail to produce its effect on even the most sturdy among the
unbelievers in the marvelous; for, after a few more similar remarks, the
whole party retired from the cliffs, at a pace that might have been
accelerated by the nature of their discourse. The cockswain, who had
stood all this time, firm as the rock which supported him, bearing up
not only his own weight, but the person of Dillon also, raised his head
above the brow of the precipice, as they withdrew, to reconnoitre, and
then, drawing up the nearly insensible captive, and placing him in
safety on the bank, he followed himself. Not a moment was wasted in
unnecessary explanations, but Dillon found himself again urged forward,
with the same velocity as before. In a few minutes they gained the
desired ravine, down which Tom plunged with a seaman's nerve, dragging
his prisoner after him, and directly they stood where the waves rose to
their feet, as they flowed far and foaming across the sands.—The
cockswain stooped so low as to bring the crest of the billows in a line
with the horizon, when he discovered the dark boat, playing in the outer
edge of the surf.

"What hoa! Ariels there!" shouted Tom, in a voice that the growing
tempest carried to the ears of the retreating soldiers, who quickened
their footsteps, as they listened to sounds which their fears taught
them to believe supernatural.

"Who hails?" cried the well-known voice of Barnstable.

"Once your master, now your servant," answered the cockswain with a
watchword of his own invention.

"'Tis he," returned the lieutenant; "veer away, boys, veer away. You
must wade into the surf."

Tom caught Dillon in his arms; and throwing him, like a cork, across his
shoulder, he dashed into the streak of foam that was bearing the boat on
its crest, and before his companion had time for remonstrance or
entreaty, he found himself once more by the side of Barnstable.

"Who have we here?" asked the lieutenant; "this is not Griffith!"

"Haul out and weigh your grapnel," said the excited cockswain; "and
then, boys, if you love the Ariel, pull while the life and the will is
left in you."

Barnstable knew his man, and not another question was asked, until the
boat was without the breakers, now skimming the rounded summits of the
waves, or settling into the hollows of the seas, but always cutting the
waters asunder, as she urged her course, with amazing velocity, towards
the haven where the schooner had been left at anchor. Then, in a few but
bitter sentences, the cockswain explained to his commander the treachery
of Dillon, and the danger of the schooner.