A Dream of Empire Part 4

The boat had reached a point a few miles above Marietta, when an incident occurred to interrupt the resumed dialogue on the Spanish question. A skiff was seen to push off from the Ohio sh.o.r.e, and move rapidly in the direction of the flatboat, urged on by the long, powerful oar-strokes of a man who, even in distant perspective, appeared larger than life-size. Instead of hailing the crew of the pa.s.sing vessel, as was customary, the man gave no sign that he was conscious of the existence of any other craft than his own fast-gliding skiff. However, he steered straight for the boat, hove alongside, sprang on board with surprising agility, and, having fastened his light boat by a chain to a timber of the flat, stalked deliberately to the stern where Captain Pierce was stationed with steering-oar.

"I saw you coming down and I thought maybe you'd like to buy some fresh fish. I've got a thirty-pound cat in the boat; I caught one last week that weighed one hundred and three pound."

"Don't want any fish. Wouldn't take 'um as a gift."

"You're welcome not to, captain. I suppose a man has a right to hop on board and ask a civil question. Whose boat is this, anyhow, and where bound?"

No attention being paid to the question, the nonchalant intruder went on: "What plunder are you loaded with? Salt or whiskey, or pork or b.u.t.ter, I reckon? Or maybe you carry pa.s.sengers? Is it a family of emigrants? I see two chaps on the upper deck; who are they? What might your name be, captain?"

The helmsman relieved his irritation by delivering a volley of oaths.

"You 'pear to be out of sorts, captain. Sour stomach, likely. Better take a dose of saleratus."

Hearing a strange voice, the cook, who was the captain's trusted confidant, came out. He was recognized by the ubiquitous Byle.

"Abe Sheldrake! as sure as ham is hog's flesh! Abe, if there's an onrier man than you on earth, the bottomless pit is shaller."

The cook stood speechless, and the tall man sauntered leisurely through the several apartments of the boat, calculating their dimensions and inspecting the furniture, and pausing occasionally to handle such articles as appealed to his curiosity. He pa.s.sed through the kitchen into the dining-room, and thence through both the sleeping-chambers, finally emerging from a door at the bow of the boat, after which he ascended to the roof, where he accosted Burr and Arlington.

"How d'ye do? My name is Byle; Plutarch Byle--B-y-l-e. I can't call your names, gents, but no matter. We all belong to the same human race. I thought you might be a little bored-like with your own talk--so long together you know--and I hopped on to cheer you up.

George Washington used to say to his nephew, 'Be courteous to all, but intimate with few,' and George was half right. I admire a mannerly man. How goes it?"

The familiarity of this overture puzzled, but did not offend the travellers, who conceived that chance had thrown into their presence an original whose company might afford them an hour's entertainment.

Arlington politely offered the visitor a chair.

"No, thank you, stranger. I've been setting in the skiff all day, fishing, and I'd rather stand up and stretch my bones."

The gentlemen thought, when they saw Mr. Byle throw back his arms, and gradually straighten up his towering body, that the length and thickness of bone he had to stretch were extraordinary.

"I've got a lot of mussel sh.e.l.ls in my boat for Mr. Blennerhatchet.

Would you like to see 'em? '_Union-idea_,' he says they are. He's a queer customer, that Blennerhatchet."

"You know him then?" asked Burr.

"Know him! I know him like a book. I know him better than I do you. He is not so good-looking as either of us, by ginger. I can't make out why the Rose of Sharon ever took to a near-sighted United Irishman."

"The Rose of Sharon?"

"I mean his old woman--Mrs. B. She's a perfect lady. Pretty! Pretty as a sa.s.safras tree in October! I didn't just catch your names, gentlemen. I like to call a man by his Christian name. It seems more sociable. That's one thing I like about the French--sociability. They go in for liberty, equality and brotherhood. But I don't take any stock in their skeptical notions. I'd as soon eat poke-root and sleep on pizen-vine as read Voltaire and Rousseau. Tom Payne is no better.

What's the latest news from Washington? Is Tom Jefferson going to make war on Spain? It ain't war we want; it ain't more territory we want; we need a closer union, and a strong tariff."

"You appear to be a politician, Mr. Pyle."

"Byle--B-y-l-e--Plutarch Byle, if you please. Yes, it's my notion that every citizen ought to be a politician. I'm a John Jay Federalist--a centralizer. Which side are you on?"

"I'm not concerned in politics at present. We are lawyers, not politicians, Mr. Arlington and I."

"Arlington? That's not a bad name. Where do you hail from, Arlington?"

"From Richmond, Virginia," said the young man good humoredly. "This gentleman is a citizen of New York."

"New York City? Porcupines and wildcats! You don't say! There's where Alexander Hamilton lived--the greatest man that ever lived in these United States, except Washington. I suppose there was a heap of excitement in New York when Alexander Hamilton was killed--murdered, I might say. Did you ever see Alexander Hamilton?"

Burr looked steadily into the eyes of the Great Inquisitive. "Yes," he replied, "I was very well acquainted with Mr. Hamilton. He was a fine man."

"You're right there, stranger! Give us your hand on that! I'm proud to shake with a man who has seen Alexander Hamilton."

The enthusiastic Byle extended his prodigious palm and grasped the delicate hand politely proffered him. Arlington looked on in astonishment.

Burr, wincing at the vice-like grip of his new acquaintance, placidly responded: "Yes, there are few men more worthy of esteem than was my admirable friend Mr. Hamilton--whom I shot."

Byle was struck dumb. He could only open his cavernous mouth, and gasp. His heavy hand relaxed its hold, and dropped as if paralyzed.

For a moment he stared at Arlington. Then he recovered his powers sufficiently to articulate.

"You shot him? You--you aren't--?"

"Yes, I am Aaron Burr."

Plutarch Byle turned on his heel and with three strides carried his leaning tower of a body to the edge of the deck. Scrambling precipitately down the boat's side, he stumbled into his skiff, undid the chain, grabbed his oars and fairly shot away, as if pursued by flying pestilence. He directed his course northward and quickly ran the bow of his skiff against the river bank. Then plunging his right hand into the water, he rubbed and scrubbed it vigorously, using sand for soap.

"Dog-fennel and skunk-cabbage! I don't believe there's water enough in the Ohio River to take out the wicked smell of that murderer's hand!"

V. IN THE LADIES' BOWER.

The Byle episode put Burr in a merry mood, quite diverting his thoughts from Mexico and the future to the happenings of the hour. A reckless spirit of frivolity took possession of him, and he astonished his fellow traveller by the ebullience of his humor and the play of his extravagant fancy. He mimicked the speech and grotesque gestures of Plutarch, and laughed over the ludicrous _finale_ of the encounter with that free-spoken genius.

"Mr. B-y-l-e, Byle, is exquisite! It is worth coming a thousand miles by stage coach and flatboat, to meet so droll an adventure with such a nondescript amphibian. He has a prodigious gift of gab, plain and ornamental. Did you take note of his metaphors? 'Rose of Sharon' is good.--By the way, we can't be far from the Bower of Bliss. We must tie up our Argo there as Brackenridge recommended, and go in quest of those exotic and visionary Blennerha.s.setts."

"What do you know of them, colonel, further than we learned in Pittsburg?"

"But little. They stopped in New York for a few months, after arriving in this country, ten or twelve years ago. The man is a barrister, educated in Dublin. He claims to be a descendant of King John. The lady is a daughter of the governor of the Isle of Wight, and a granddaughter of the late Brigadier-General Agnew, who was killed in the battle of Germantown."

"A British general, you say?"

"Oh, certainly--a violent royalist."

While the gentlemen were thus chatting, the boat drifted lazily on, following the windings of the current. The broad Ohio glowed like liquid gold, in the slant sunshine of mid-afternoon, and the interplay of shade and color, shifting from object to object along the sh.o.r.es, gave the varied scenery an ethereal beauty almost supernatural. The distant, forest-crowned uplands, seen dimly in the direction toward which the ark floated, looked as unsubstantial as clouds. A delightful, spicy fragrance exhaled from the blossomy thickets which fringed the river margin.

Burr took a deep breath, and began to hum a half-remembered verse advising youth to "gather the rose whiles yet is prime."

"Yonder is Bacchus Island," said Arlington, pointing down stream.

"I suppose you are right. The _Western Navigator_ locates the spot somewhere about here. But beware of illusions, my friend. I begin to doubt the testimony of my senses. Perhaps yonder prospect is a mirage, and Byle was only a goblin of the mind. This interminable river is enchanted. I sympathize with La Salle's conviction that the Ohio runs to Cathay. Maybe we have sailed round the globe and are now in sight of the Indies. Or we have come to Arabia. Does not the vision resemble some Mohammedan Isle of the Blest--one of the happy seats reserved for blameless souls such as yours and mine? I shall expect to discover the rivers of clarified honey, the couches adorned with gold, and the damsels having complexions like rubies and pearls, as the Koran promises."

Arlington laughingly replied in the same extravagant vein.