Bohemian Days Part 10

In an hour Mr. Pisgah was impotent from intoxication; his musket was flung down the stairway, the door was bolted upon him, and the prisoner was gone.

He gained the Planter's deck as the screw made its first revolution; they turned the channel-piles with a good-by gun; the motley crew cheered heartily as they cleared the mole.

The pirate was at sea on her mission of plunder--the murderer was free!

The engines stopped abreast the city; the steamer lay almost motionless, for there were lights upon the beach; a shrill "Ahoy!" broke over the intervening waters, and the dip of oars indicated some pursuit. The crew, half drunken, rallied to the edge of the vessel; knives glittered amid the confusion of oaths and the click of pistols, while Mr. Plade hastened to the skipper's side, and urged him for pity and mercy to hasten seaward.

The other motioned him back, coldly, and the boatswain piped all hands upon deck. Lafitte nor Kidd never looked down such desperate faces as this gristly privateer, when his buccaneers were around him.

"Seamen," he spoke aloud, "you are afloat! Gold and glory await you; you shall glut yourselves by the ruin of your enemy, and count your plunder by the light of his burning merchantmen."

The knives flickered in the torchlight, and a cheer, like the howl of the d.a.m.ned, went up.

"On the brink of such fortune, you find yourselves imperilled; treason is with you; this pursuit, which we attend, is a part of its programme!

There is, within the sound of my voice, a spy!--a Yankee!"

The weapons rang again; the desperadoes pressed forward, demanding with shrieks and imprecations that the man should be named.

"He is here," answered the captain, turning full upon the astonished fugitive. "He came to me with a story of distress. I pitied him, and gave him shelter; but I telegraphed to Paris to test his veracity, and I find that he lied. No man has been slain in a duel as he states. I believe him to be a Federal emissary, and he is in our power."

A dozen rough hands struck Plade to the deck; he staggered up, with blood upon his face, and called Heaven to witness that he was no traitor.

"Did you speak the truth to me to-day?" cried the accuser.

"I did not; had I done so, you would have refused me relief."

"What are you then? Speak!"

The murderer cowered, with a face so blanched that the blood ceased to flow at its gashes.

"I cannot, I dare not tell!" he muttered.

The skipper made a sign to an attendant. A rope from the yard-arm was flung about the felon's neck, and made fast in a twinkling. He struggled desperately, but the fierce buccaneers held him down; his clothing was rent, and his hairs dishevelled; he made three frantic struggles for speech; but the loud cheers mocked his words as they brandished their cutla.s.ses in his eyes.

Then began that strange lifetime of reminiscence; that trooping of sins and cruelties, in sure, unbroken continuity, through the reeling brain; that moment of years; that great day of judgment, in a thought; that last winkful of light, which flashes back upon time, and makes its frailties luminous. And, higher than all offences, rose that of the fair young wife deserted abroad, left to the alternatives of shame or starvation. Her wail came even now, from the bed of the crowded hospital, to follow him into the world of shadows.

"Monsieur the Commander," hailed the spokesman in the launch, "the government of his Imperial Majesty does not wish to interpose any obstacle to the departure of the Confederate cruiser. It is known, however, that a person guilty of an atrocious crime is concealed on board. In this paper, Monsieur the Capitaine will find all the specifications. The name of the person, Plade. The crime of the person, murder, with premeditation. The giving up of said person is essential to the departure of the cruiser from his Imperial Majesty's waters."

There was blank silence on the deck of the privateer; the torches in the launch threw a glare upon the water and sky. They lit up something struggling between both at the tip of the rocking yard-arm. It was the effigy of a man, bound and suspended, around which swept timidly the bats and gulls, and the sea wind beat it with a shrill, jubilant cry.

"I have done justice unconsciously," said the privateer; "may it be remembered for me when I shall do injustice consciously!"

X.

THE SURVIVING COLONISTS.

The catastrophe of the Colony and the episode having been attained, we have only to leave Mr. Pisgah in Algiers, whither court-martial consigned him, with the penalty of hard labor, and Mr. Risque on the stage route he was so eminently fitted to adorn. The unhappy Freckle continued in the prison of Clichy, and, having nothing else to do, commenced the novel process of thinking. The prison stood high up on Clichy Hill, walled and barred and guarded, like other jails, but within it a fair margin of liberty was allowed the bankrupts, just sufficient to make their fate terrible by temptation. Some good soul had endowed it with a library; newspapers came every day; a cafe was attached to it, where spirituous liquors were prohibited, to the wrath of the dry throats and raging thirsts of the captives; there was a garden behind it, and a billiard saloon, but these luxuries were not gratuitous; poor Freckle could not even pay his one sou per diem to cook his rations, so that the Prisoners' Relief a.s.sociation had to make him a present of it.

He spent his time between his bare, cheerless bedroom and the public hall. There were many Americans in the place; but none of them were friendly with him when he was found to have no cash. Yet he heard them speak together of their countrymen who had lain in the same jail years before. Yonder was the room of Horace Greeley, incarcerated for a debt which was not his own; here the blood-stains of the Pennsylvania youth who looked out of the window, heedless of warning, and was shot dead by the guard; there the ancient chair, in which Hallidore, the Creole, sat so often, possessor of a million francs, but too obstinate to pay his tailor's bill and go free. While Freckle thought of these, it was suggested to him that he was a very wicked man. The tuitions of his patriarchal father came to mind; he was seen on his knees, to the infinite amus.e.m.e.nt of the other debtors, who were, however, quite too polite to laugh in his face, and he no longer staked his ration of wine at cards, whereby he had commonly lost it, but held long conversations with an ardent old priest who visited the jail. The priest gave Freckle _breviaries_ and catechisms, and told him that there was no peace of mind outside of the apostolic fold.

So Freckle diligently embraced the ancient Romish faith, renounced the tenets of his plain old sire as false and heretical, and earnestly prepared himself to enter the priesthood.

In this frame of mind he was found by Mr. Simp, who had unexpectedly returned to Paris, and, finding himself again prosperous, came to release Freckle from the toils of Clichy.

The latter waved him away. "I wish to know none of you," he said. "I shall serve out this term, and never again speak to an American abroad."

He was firm, and achieved his purpose. Enthusiasm often answers for brains, and Freckle's religious zeal made him a changed man. He entered a Jesuits' school after his discharge, and in another fashion became as stern, severe, and self-denying as had been his father. He sometimes saw his old comrade, Simp, driving down the Champs Elysees as Freckle came from church in Paris, but the gallant did not recognize the young priest in his dark gown and hose, and wide-rimmed hat.

They followed their several directions, and in the end, with the lessening fortunes of the Confederacy, grew more moody, and yet more ruined by the consciousness that after once suffering the agony of expatriation, they had not improved the added chance to make of themselves men, not Colonists.

It is not the pleasantest phase of our human nature to depict, but since we have essayed it, let it close with its own surrounding shadow.

If we have given no light touch of womanhood to relieve its sombre career, we have failed to be artistic in order to be true.

But that which made the Colonists weak has pa.s.sed away. There are no longer slaves at home--may there be no exiles abroad!

LITTLE GRISETTE.

Little Grisette, you haunt me yet; My pa.s.sion for you was long ago, Before my head was heavy with snow, Or mine eye had lost its l.u.s.tre of jet.

In the dim old Quartier Latin we met; We made our vows one night in June, And all our life was honeymoon; We did not ask if it were sin, We did not go to kirk to know, We only loved and let the world Hum on its pelfish way below; Marked from our castle in the air, How pigmy its triumphal cars: Eight stories from the entry stair, But near the stars!

Little Grisette, rich or in debt, We were too fond to chide or sigh-- Never so poor that I could not buy A sweet, sweet kiss from my little Grisette.

If I could nothing gain or get, By hook, or crook, or song, or story, Along the starving road to glory, I marvelled how your nimble thimble, As to a tune, danced fast and fleeting, And stopped my pen to catch the music, But only heard my heart a-beating; The quaint old roofs and gables airy Flung down the light for you to wear it, And made my love a queen in faery, To haunt my garret.

Little Grisette, the meals you set Were sweeter to me than banquet feast; Your face was a blessing fit for a priest, At your smile the candle went out in a pet; The wonderful chops I shall never forget!

If the wine was a trifle too sharp or rank, We kissed each time before we drank.

The old gilt clock, aye wrong, was swinging The waxen floor your feet reflected; And dear Beranger's _chansons_ singing, You tricked at _picquet_ till detected.

You fill my pipe;--is it your eyes Whereat I light your cigarette?

On all but me the darkness lies And my Grisette!

Little Grisette, the soft sunset Lingered a long while, that we might stay To mark the Seine from the breezy quay Around the bridges foam and fret; How came it that your eyes were wet When I ambitiously would be A man renowned across the sea?

I told you I should come again-- It was but half way round the globe-- To bring you diamonds for your faith, And for your gray a silken robe: You were more wise than lovers are; I meant, sweetheart, to tell you true, I said a tearful "_Au revoir_;"

You said, "_Adieu!_"

Little Grisette, we both regret, For I am wedded more than wived; Those careless days in thought revived But teach me I cannot forget.

Perhaps old age must pay the debt Young sin contracted long ago-- I only know, I only know, That phantoms haunt me everywhere By busy day, in peopled gloam-- They rise between me and my prayer, They mar the holiness of home!

My wife is proud, my boy is cold, I dare not speak of what I fret: 'Tis my fond youth with thee I fold, Little Grisette!