The Pilot (53 page)

"The boat waits,"

"Well, Miss Alice," said Borroughcliffe, in bitter irony, "you are
entrusted by our excellent host with a message to his agent; will you do
a similar service to me, and write a report to the commander of the
district, and just tell him what a dolt—ay, use the plainest terms, and
say what an ass one Captain Borroughcliffe has proved himself in this
affair? You may throw in, by way of episode, that he has been playing
bo-peep with a rebellious young lady from the Colonies, and, like a
great boy, has had his head broken for his pains! Come, my worthy host,
or rather fellow-prisoner, I follow you, as in duty bound."

"Stay," cried Griffith; "Captain Borroughcliffe does not embark in that
boat."

"Ha! sir; am I to be herded with the common men? Forget you that I have
the honor to bear the commission of his Britannic Majesty, and that—"

"I forget nothing that a gentleman is bound to remember, Captain
Borroughcliffe; among other things, I recollect the liberality of your
treatment to myself, when a prisoner. The instant the safety of my
command will justify such a step, not only you, but your men, shall be
set at liberty."

Borroughcliffe started in surprise, but his feelings were too much
soured by the destruction of those visions of glory, in which he had
been luxuriously indulging for the last day or two, to admit of his
answering as became a man. He swallowed his emotions, therefore, by a
violent effort, and walked along the beach, affecting to whistle a low
but lively air.

"Well, then," cried Barnstable, "all our captives are seated. The boat
waits only for its officers!"

In his turn, Griffith walked away, in haughty silence, as if disdaining
to hold communion with his former friend. Barnstable paused a moment,
from a deference that long habit had created for his superior officer,
and which was not to be shaken off by every burst of angry passion; but
perceiving that the other had no intention to return, he ordered the
seamen to raise the boat from the sand, and bear it bodily into the
water. The command was instantly obeyed; and, by the time the young
lieutenant was in his seat, the barge was floating in the still heavy
though no longer dangerous surf, and the crew sprang into their places.

"Bear her off, boys!" he cried; "never mind a wet jacket. I've seen many
a worthy fellow tumbling on this beach in a worse time than this! Now
you have her head to sea; give way, my souls, give way."

The seamen rose simultaneously at their oars, and by an united effort
obtained the command of their boat; which, after making a few sudden
ascents, and as many heavy pitches in the breakers, gained the smoother
seas of the swelling ocean, and stemmed the waters in a direction for
the place where the Alacrity was supposed to be in waiting.

"His only plot was this—that, much provoked.
He raised his vengeful arm against his country."
Thomson
.

Alice Duncombe remained on the sands, watching the dark spot that was
soon hid amid the waves in the obscurity of night, and listening, with
melancholy interest, to the regulated sounds of the oars, which were
audible long after the boat had been blended with the gloomy outline of
the eastern horizon. When all traces of her departed friends were to be
found only in her own recollections, she slowly turned from the sea, and
hastening to quit the bustling throng that were preparing for the
embarkation of the rest of the party, she ascended the path that
conducted her once more to the summit of those cliffs along which she
had so often roved, gazing at the boundless element that washed their
base, with sensations that might have been peculiar to her own
situation.

The soldiers of Borroughcliffe, who were stationed at the head of the
pass, respectfully made way; nor did any of the sentinels of Manual heed
her retiring figure, until she approached the rear guard of the marines,
who were commanded by their vigilant captain in person.

"Who goes there?" cried Manual, advancing without the dusky group of
soldiers, as she approached them.

"One who possesses neither the power nor the inclination to do ye harm,"
answered the solitary female; "'tis Alice Dunscombe, returning, by
permission of your leader, to the place of her birth."

"Ay," muttered Manual, "this is one of Griffith's unmilitary exhibitions
of his politeness! Does the man think that there was ever a woman who
had no tongue! Have you the countersign, madam, that I may know you bear
a sufficient warrant to pass?"

"I have no other warrant besides my sex and weakness, unless Mr.
Griffith's knowledge that I have left him can be so considered."

"The two former are enough," said a voice, that proceeded from a figure
which had hitherto stood unseen, shaded by the trunk of an oak that
spread its wide but naked arms above the spot where the guard was
paraded.

"Who have we here!" Manual again cried; "come in; yield, or you will be
fired at."

"What, will the gallant Captain Manual fire on his own rescuer!" said
the Pilot, with cool disdain, as he advanced from the shadow of the
tree. "He had better reserve his bullets for his enemies, than waste
them on his friends."

"You have done a dangerous deed, sir, in approaching, clandestinely, a
guard of marines! I wonder that a man who has already discovered, to-
night, that he has some knowledge of tactics, by so ably conducting a
surprise, should betray so much ignorance in the forms of approaching a
picket!"

"'Tis now of no moment," returned the Pilot; "my knowledge and my
ignorance are alike immaterial, as the command of the party is
surrendered to other and perhaps more proper hands. But I would talk to
this lady alone, sir; she is an acquaintance of my youth, and I will see
her on her way to the abbey."

"The step would be unmilitary, Mr. Pilot, and you will excuse me if I do
not consent to any of our expedition straggling without the sentries. If
you choose to remain here to hold your discourse, I will march the
picket out of hearing; though I must acknowledge I see no ground so
favorable as this we are on, to keep you within range of our eyes. You
perceive that I have a ravine to retreat into in case of surprise, with
this line of wall on my left flank and the trunk of that tree to cover
my right. A very pretty stand might be made here, on emergency; for even
the oldest troops fight the best when their flanks are properly covered,
and a way to make a regular retreat is open in their rear."

"Say no more, sir; I would not break up such a position on any account,"
returned the Pilot; "the lady will consent to retrace her path for a
short distance."

Alice followed his steps, in compliance with this request, until he had
led her to a place, at some little distance from the marines, where a
tree had been prostrated by the late gale. She seated herself quietly on
its trunk, and appeared to wait with patience his own time for the
explanation of his motives in seeking the interview. The pilot paced for
several minutes back and forth, in front of the place where she was
seated, in profound silence, as if communing with himself; when suddenly
throwing off his air of absence, he came to her side, and assumed a
position similar to the one which she herself had taken.

"The hour is at hand, Alice, when we must part," he at length commenced;
"it rests with yourself whether it shall be forever."

"Let it then be forever, John," she returned, with a slight tremor in
her voice.

"That word would have been less appalling had this accidental meeting
never occurred. And yet your choice may have been determined by
prudence—for what is there in my fate that can tempt a woman to wish
that she might share it?"

"If ye mean your lot is that of one who can find but few, or even none,
to partake of his joys, or to share in his sorrows—whose life is a
continual scene of dangers and calamities, of disappointments and
mishaps—then do ye know but little of the heart of woman, if ye doubt
of either her ability or her willingness to meet them with the man of
her choice."

"Say you thus, Alice? then have I misunderstood your meaning or
misinterpreted your acts. My lot is not altogether that of a neglected
man, unless the favor of princes and the smiles of queens are allowed to
go for nothing. My life is, however, one of many and fearful dangers;
and yet it is not filled altogether with calamities and mishaps; is it,
Alice?" He paused a moment, but in vain, for her answer. "Nay, then, I
have been deceived in the estimation that the world has affixed to my
combats and enterprises! I am not, Alice, the man I would be, or even
the man I had deemed myself."

"You have gained a name, John, among the warriors of the age," she
answered, in a subdued voice; "and it is a name that may be said to be
written in blood!"

"The blood of my enemies, Alice!"

"The blood of the subjects of your natural prince! The blood of those
who breathe the air you first breathed, and who were taught the same
holy lessons of instruction that you were first taught; but, which, I
fear, you have too soon forgotten!"

"The blood of the slaves of despotism!" he sternly interrupted her; "the
blood of the enemies of freedom! You have dwelt so long in this dull
retirement, and you have cherished so blindly the prejudices of your
youth, that the promise of those noble sentiments I once thought I could
see budding in Alice Dunscombe has not been fulfilled."

"I have lived and thought only as a woman, as become my sex and
station," Alice meekly replied; "and when it shall be necessary for me
to live and think otherwise, I should wish to die."

"Ay, there lie the first seeds of slavery! A dependent woman is sure to
make the mother of craven and abject wretches, who dishonor the name of
man!"

"I shall never be the mother of children, good or bad," said Alice, with
that resignation in her tones that showed she had abandoned the natural
hopes of her sex. "Singly and unsupported have I lived; alone and
unlamented must I be carried to my grave."

The exquisite pathos of her voice, as she uttered this placid speech,
blended as it was with the sweet and calm dignity of virgin pride,
touched the heart of her listener, and he continued silent many moments,
as if in reverence of her determination. Her sentiments awakened in his
own breast those feelings of generosity and disinterestedness which had
nearly been smothered in restless ambition and the pride of success. He
resumed the discourse, therefore, more mildly, and with a much greater
exhibition of deep feeling, and less of passion, in his manner.

"I know not, Alice, that I ought, situated as I am, and contented, if
not happy, as you are, even to attempt to revive in your bosom those
sentiments which I was once led to think existed there. It cannot, after
all, be a desirable fate, to share the lot of a rover like myself; one
who may be termed a Quixote in the behalf of liberal principles, and who
may be hourly called to seal the truth of those principles with his
life."

"There never existed any sentiment in my breast, in which you are
concerned, that does not exist there still, and unchanged," returned
Alice, with her single-hearted sincerity.

"Do I hear you right? or have I misconceived your resolution to abide in
England? or have I not rather mistaken your early feelings?"

"You have fallen into no error now nor then, The weakness may still
exist, John; but the strength to struggle with it has, by the goodness
of God, grown with my years. It is not, however, of myself, but of you,
that I would speak. I have lived like one of our simple daisies, which
in the budding may have caught your eye; and I shall also wilt like the
humble flower, when the winter of my time arrives, without being missed
from the fields that have known me for a season. But your fall, John,
will be like that of the oak that now supports us, and men shall
pronounce on the beauty and grandeur of the noble stem while standing,
as well as of its usefulness when felled."

"Let them pronounce as they will!" returned the proud stranger. "The
truth must be finally known: and when, that hour shall come, they will
say, he was a faithful and gallant warrior in his day; and a worthy
lesson for all who are born in slavery, but would live in freedom, shall
be found in his example."

"Such may be the language of that distant people, whom ye have adopted
in the place of those that once formed home and kin to ye," said Alice,
glancing her eye timidly at his countenance, as if to discern how far
she might venture, without awakening his resentment; "but what will the
men of the land of your birth transmit to their children, who will be
the children of those that are of your own blood?"

"They will say, Alice, whatever their crooked policy may suggest, or
their disappointed vanity can urge. But the picture must be drawn by the
friends of the hero, as well as by his enemies! Think you, that there
are not pens as well as swords in America?"

"I have heard that America called a land, John, where God has lavished
his favors with an unsparing hand; where he has bestowed many climes
with their several fruits, and where his power is exhibited no less than
his mercy. It is said her rivers are without any known end, and that
lakes are found in her bosom which would put our German Ocean to shame!
The plains, teeming with verdure, are spread over wide degrees; and yet
those sweet valleys, which a single heart can hold, are not wanting. In
short, John, I hear it is a broad land, that can furnish food for each
passion, and contain objects for every affection."

"Ay, you have found those, Alice, in your solitude, who have been
willing to do her justice! It is a country that can form a world of
itself; and why should they who inherit it look to other nations for
their laws?"