Edgar Huntly; or, Memoirs of a Sleep-Walker Part 24

"The flying enemy was pursued with fresh diligence. They were found, by various tokens, to have crossed the river, and to have ascended the mountain. We trod closely on their heels. When we arrived at the promontory described by you, the fatigues of the night and day rendered me unqualified to proceed. I determined that this should be the bound of my excursions. I was anxious to obtain an interview with you, and, unless I paused here, should not be able to gain Inglefield's as early in the morning as I wished. Two others concurred with me in this resolution, and prepared to return to this house, which had been deserted by its tenants till the danger was past, and which had been selected as the place of rendezvous.

"At this moment, dejected and weary, I approached the ledge which severed the headland from the mountain. I marked the appearance of some one stretched upon the ground where you lay. No domestic animal would wander hither and place himself upon this spot. There was something likewise in the appearance of the object that bespoke it to be man; but, if it were man, it was incontrovertibly a savage and a foe. I determined, therefore, to rouse you by a bullet.

"My decision was perhaps absurd. I ought to have gained more certainty before I hazarded your destruction. Be that as it will, a moment's lingering on your part would have probably been fatal. You started on your feet, and fired. See the hole which your random shot made through my sleeve! This surely was a day destined to be signalized by hairbreadth escapes.

"Your action seemed incontestably to confirm my prognostics. Every one hurried to the spot and was eager to destroy an enemy. No one hesitated to believe that some of the shots aimed at you had reached their mark, and that you had sunk to rise no more.

"The gun which was fired and thrown down was taken and examined. It had been my companion in many a toilsome expedition. It had rescued me and my friends from a thousand deaths. In order to recognise it, I needed only to touch and handle it. I instantly discovered that I held in my hand the fusil which I had left with you on parting, with which your uncle had equipped himself, and which had been ravished from him by a savage. What was I hence to infer respecting the person of the last possessor?

"My inquiries respecting you, of the woman whose milk and bread you had eaten, were minute. You entered, she said, with a hatchet and gun in your hand. While you ate, the gun was laid upon the table. She sat near, and the piece became the object of inquisitive attention. The stock and barrels were described by her in such terms as left no doubt that this was the _fusil_.

"A comparison of incidents enabled me to trace the manner in which you came into possession of this instrument. One of those whom you found in the cavern was the a.s.sa.s.sin of your uncle. According to the girl's report, on issuing from your hiding-place you seized a gun that was unoccupied, and this gun chanced to be your own.

"Its two barrels were probably the cause of your success in that unequal contest at Mab's hut. On recovering from _deliquium_, you found it where it had been dropped by you, out of sight and unsuspected by the party that had afterwards arrived. In your pa.s.sage to the river, had it once more fallen into hostile hands? or had you missed the way, wandered to this promontory, and mistaken a troop of friends for a band of Indian marauders?

"Either supposition was dreadful. The latter was the most plausible. No motives were conceivable by which one of the fugitives could be induced to post himself here, in this conspicuous station; whereas, the road which led you to the summit of the hill, to that spot where descent to the river-road was practicable, could not be found but by those who were accustomed to traverse it. The directions which you had exacted from your hostess proved your previous unacquaintance with these tracts.

"I acquiesced in this opinion with a heavy and desponding heart. Fate had led us into a maze which could only terminate in the destruction of one or of the other. By the breadth of a hair had I escaped death from your hand. The same fortune had not befriended you. After my tedious search, I had lighted on you, forlorn, bewildered, perishing with cold and hunger. Instead of recognising and affording you relief, I compelled you to leap into the river, from a perilous height, and had desisted from my persecution only when I had bereaved you of life and plunged you to the bottom of the gulf.

"My motives in coming to America were numerous and mixed. Among these was the parental affection with which you had inspired me. I came with fortune, and a better gift than fortune, in my hand. I intended to bestow both upon you, not only to give you competence, but one who would endear to you that competence, who would enhance, by partic.i.p.ating, every gratification.

"My schemes were now at an end. You were gone, beyond the reach of my benevolence and justice. I had robbed your two sisters of a friend and guardian. It was some consolation to think that it was in my power to stand, with regard to them, in your place; that I could s.n.a.t.c.h them from the poverty, dependence, and humiliation, to which your death and that of your uncle had reduced them.

"I was now doubly weary of the enterprise in which I was engaged, and returned with speed to this rendezvous. My companions have gone to know the state of the family who resided under this roof, and left me to beguile the tedious moments in whatever manner I pleased.

"I have omitted mentioning one incident that happened between the detection of your flight and our expedition to Chetasco. Having formed a plausible conjecture as to him who walked in the long room, it was obvious to conclude that he who purloined your ma.n.u.script, and the walker, was the same personage. It was likewise easily inferred that the letters were secreted in the cedar chest or in some other part of the room. Instances similar to this have heretofore occurred. Men have employed anxious months in search of that which, in a freak of noctambulation, was hidden by their own hands.

"A search was immediately commenced, and your letters were found, carefully concealed between the rafters and shingles of the roof, in a spot where, if suspicion had not been previously excited, they would have remained till the vernal rains and the summer heats had insensibly destroyed them. This packet I carried with me, knowing the value which you set upon it, and there being no receptacle equally safe but your own cabinet, which was locked.

"Having, as I said, reached this house, and being left alone, I bethought me of the treasure I possessed. I was unacquainted with the reasons for which these papers were so precious. They probably had some momentous and intimate connection with your own history. As such, they could not be of little value to me, and this moment of inoccupation and regrets was as suitable as any other to the task of perusing them. I drew them forth, therefore, and laid them on the table in this chamber.

"The rest is known to you. During a momentary absence you entered.

Surely no interview of ancient friends ever took place in so unexpected and abrupt a manner. You were dead. I mourned for you, as one whom I loved, and whom fate had s.n.a.t.c.hed forever from my sight. Now, in a blissful hour, you had risen, and my happiness in thus embracing you is tenfold greater than would have been experienced if no uncertainties and perils had protracted our meeting."

Chapter XXVI.

Here ended the tale of Sa.r.s.efield. Humiliation and joy were mingled in my heart. The events that preceded my awakening in the cave were now luminous and plain. What explication was more obvious? What but this solution ought to have been suggested by the conduct I had witnessed in c.l.i.thero?

c.l.i.thero? Was not this the man whom c.l.i.thero had robbed of his friend?

Was not this the lover of Mrs. Lorimer, the object of the persecutions of Wiatte? Was it not now given me to investigate the truth of that stupendous tale? To dissipate the doubts which obstinately clung to my imagination respecting it?

But soft! Had not Sa.r.s.efield said that he was married? Was Mrs. Lorimer so speedily forgotten by him, or was the narrative of c.l.i.thero the web of imposture or the raving of insanity?

These new ideas banished all personal considerations from my mind. I looked eagerly into the face of my friend, and exclaimed, in a dubious accent, "How say you? Married? When? To whom?"

"Yes, Huntly, I am wedded to the most excellent of women. To her am I indebted for happiness, and wealth, and dignity, and honour. To her do I owe the power of being the benefactor and protector of you and your sisters. She longs to embrace you as a son. To become truly her son will depend upon your own choice, and that of one who was the companion of our voyage."

"Heavens!" cried I, in a transport of exultation and astonishment. "Of whom do you speak? Of the mother of Clarice? The sister of Wiatte? The sister of the ruffian who laid snares for her life? Who pursued you and the unhappy c.l.i.thero with the bitterest animosity?"

My friend started at these sounds as if the earth had yawned at his feet. His countenance was equally significant of terror and rage. As soon as he regained the power of utterance, he spoke:--"c.l.i.thero! Curses light upon thy lips for having uttered that detested name! Thousands of miles have I flown to shun the hearing of it. Is the madman here? Have you set eyes upon him? Does he yet crawl upon the face of the earth?

Unhappy? Unparalleled, unheard-of, thankless miscreant! Has he told his execrable falsehoods here? Has he dared to utter names so sacred as those of Euphemia Lorimer and Clarice?"

"He has; he has told a tale that had all the appearances of truth----"

Out upon the villain! The truth! Truth would prove him to be unnatural, devilish; a thing for which no language has yet provided a name! He has called himself unhappy? No doubt, a victim to injustice! Overtaken by unmerited calamity. Say! Has he fooled thee with such tales?"

"No. His tale was a catalogue of crimes and miseries of which he was the author and sufferer. You know not his motives, his horrors------"

"His deeds were monstrous and infernal. His motives were sordid and flagitious. To display all their ugliness and infamy was not his province. No; he did not tell you that he stole at midnight to the chamber of his mistress; a woman who astonished the world by her loftiness and magnanimity, by indefatigable beneficence and unswerving equity; who had lavished on this wretch, whom she s.n.a.t.c.hed from the dirt, all the goods of fortune, all the benefits of education; all the treasures of love; every provocation to grat.i.tude; every stimulant to justice.

"He did not tell you that, in recompense for every benefit, he stole upon her sleep and aimed a dagger at her breast. There was no room for flight, or ambiguity, or prevarication. She whom he meant to murder stood near, saw the lifted weapon, and heard him confess and glory in his purposes.

"No wonder that the shock bereft her, for a time, of life. The interval was seized by the ruffian to effect his escape. The rebukes of justice were shunned by a wretch conscious of his inexpiable guilt. These things he has hidden from you, and has supplied their place by a tale specious as false."

"No. Among the number of his crimes, hypocrisy is not to be numbered.

These things are already known to me: he spared himself too little in the narrative. The excellencies of his lady, her claims to grat.i.tude and veneration, were urged beyond their true bounds. His attempts upon her life were related. It is true that he desired and endeavoured to destroy her."

"How? Has he told you this?"

"He has told me all. Alas! the criminal intention has been amply expiated."

"What mean you? Whence and how came he hither? Where is he now? I will not occupy the same land, the same world, with him. Have this woman and her daughter lighted on the sh.o.r.e haunted by this infernal and implacable enemy?"

"Alas! It is doubtful whether he exists. If he lives, he is no longer to be feared; but he lives not. Famine and remorse have utterly consumed him."

"Famine? Remorse? You talk in riddles."

"He has immured himself in the desert. He has abjured the intercourse of mankind. He has shut himself in caverns where famine must inevitably expedite that death for which he longs as the only solace of his woes.

To no imagination are his offences blacker and more odious than to his own. I had hopes of rescuing him from this fate, but my own infirmities and errors have afforded me sufficient occupation."

Sa.r.s.efield renewed his imprecations on the memory of that unfortunate man, and his inquiries as to the circ.u.mstances that led him into this remote district. His inquiries were not to be answered by one in my present condition. My languors and fatigues had now gained a pitch that was insupportable. The wound in my face had been chafed and inflamed by the cold water and the bleak air; and the pain attending it would no longer suffer my attention to stray. I sunk upon the floor, and entreated him to afford me the respite of a few hours' repose.

He was sensible of the deplorableness of my condition, and chid himself for the negligence of which he had already been guilty. He lifted me to the bed, and deliberated on the mode he should pursue for my relief.

Some mollifying application to my wound was immediately necessary; but, in our present lonely condition, it was not at hand. It could only be procured from a distance. It was proper therefore to hasten to the nearest inhabited dwelling, which belonged to one by name Walton, and supply himself with such medicines as could be found.

Meanwhile, there was no danger of molestation and intrusion. There was reason to expect the speedy return of those who had gone in pursuit of the savages. This was their place of rendezvous, and hither they appointed to rea.s.semble before the morrow's dawn. The distance of the neighbouring farm was small, and Sa.r.s.efield promised to be expeditious.

He left me to myself and my own ruminations.

Hara.s.sed by fatigue and pain, I had yet power to ruminate on that series of unparalleled events that had lately happened. I wept, but my tears flowed from a double source: from sorrow, on account of the untimely fate of my uncle, and from joy, that my sisters were preserved, that Sa.r.s.efield had returned and was not unhappy.

I reflected on the untoward destiny of c.l.i.thero. Part of his calamity consisted in the consciousness of having killed his patroness; but it now appeared, though by some infatuation I had not previously suspected, that the first impulse of sorrow in the lady had been weakened by reflection and by time; that the prejudice persuading her that her life and that of her brother were to endure and to terminate together was conquered by experience or by argument. She had come, in company with Sa.r.s.efield and Clarice, to America. What influence might these events have upon the gloomy meditations of c.l.i.thero? Was it possible to bring them together; to win the maniac from his solitude, wrest from him his fatal purposes, and restore him to communion with the beings whose imagined indignation is the torment of his life?

These musings were interrupted by a sound from below, which was easily interpreted into tokens of the return of those with whom Sa.r.s.efield had parted at the promontory. Voices were confused and busy, but not turbulent. They entered the lower room, and the motion of chairs and tables showed that they were preparing to rest themselves after their toils.

Few of them were unacquainted with me, since they probably were residents in this district. No inconvenience, therefore, would follow from an interview, though, on their part, wholly unexpected. Besides, Sa.r.s.efield would speedily return, and none of the present visitants would be likely to withdraw to this apartment.