Joscelyn Cheshire Part 14

Wallabout Bay, where the prison-ships were anch.o.r.ed, cut into the Long Island sh.o.r.e on the north, and was protected from the storms that rocked the outer deep. Most of the prisoners were seamen, but now and then a squad of land captives, for lack of some other place in which to confine them, were sent thither to starve and suffer and wait their turn to die.

The wound in Richard's head had healed, thanks to Colborn's salve; but the confinement, together with the scant and rancid food and the foul air in the ship's hold where the nights were pa.s.sed, was slowly undermining his strength of body and of will. Each morning the inhuman order, "Rebels, turn out your dead!" which the guard called down through the opened hatches, sent a shiver of horror to his very soul; and the feeling was not lessened as he aided in selecting the poor fellows who had died in the night, and saw them sewed into their blankets and rowed away to shallow graves upon the sh.o.r.e. Two of the prisoners were made to act as grave-diggers on these occasions, the guard going merely to superintend.

Twice in the past weeks Richard and Peter had gone in the funeral-boat, and on each occasion thoughts of making a break for liberty had haunted them. But the futility of such an attempt was made apparent by the proximity of the sh.o.r.e patrol, within range of whose guns the graves were dug. The nearest cover was a line of sand-dunes and stunted brush-growth fifty yards up the level beach, before reaching which a man could be pierced by twenty bullets. Regretfully and angrily the two men noted this; and later on had it all doubly impressed upon them by the shooting of a prisoner who, one day, when the grave was half-filled, made the mad attempt to get away. Only one of the two impressed grave-diggers came back in the boat that day, for the other was buried where he fell; and the harshness of the ship-jailers increased toward those who remained.

"Look," said Richard, shuddering, the second time he and Peter were detailed to take a corpse to the sandy burying-ground; "already the waves have opened some of the graves and left the poor fellows but the scantest covering. Before long their bones will whiten to the sun."

"It is a sickening certainty! And all of this you and I might escape if so we would but go back yonder to the warden and take the oath of allegiance to the king, and change these tattered coats for gay uniforms of scarlet," answered Peter.

"True; but like those who have gone before us, we will die in the ship yonder and fester here in the sand first. Between death and English slavery there is a quick choice, and we made it long ago. But promise me, Peter, that if I die first you will ask to come as my s.e.xton, and dig me a grave deep enough to keep me from the sea for at least a little while."

"I will; and you will do a like thing for me. But as I told you the other day, you will go before me, and soon at that, if so you keep up this dreary moping."

But Richard could not bring himself to hope. The absolute helplessness of their position, the powerlessness of action of any sort took from him the ability to reason normally. Everything twisted itself backward to the wretched and relentless present, turn where he would for consolation. And so after the morning tasks of airing blankets and scrubbing decks were performed, he sat all day looking sullenly out over the water, studying the changing moods of the sea, watching the gulls as they flapped past or went soaring upward with the glancing sunlight on their wings. And all this while there was but one clear thought in his mind--Joscelyn. Plainer than the faces about him he saw her features, and above the ship noises and the restless wash of the waves, he heard the sweet accents of her voice. Incessantly he brooded over each memory of her, recalling the chestnut tints of her hair, the blue lights in her eyes, and the rose hues of cheeks and lips. Her beauty had never before appeared to him so great or so much to be desired as now.

"Even behind prison bars I am her lover;" often he said the words to himself, wondering morbidly if Billy carried her the message, and what she said in answer. He would never know, of course, for his career must end yonder in the sand with his unfortunate fellows; but liberty itself would not be sweeter than some token, it mattered not how small, of her sorrow and her favour. How he longed for her, body and soul! Always in fancy he kissed her good night, holding the sweet face between his palms and watching to see the eyes droop under his ardent gaze, and the delicate lips quiver with the pa.s.sion of his caress. He told himself it was only such fleeting fancies as these that kept him sane. For in these moments she was tender and loving, and she was all his; and the unknown husband--he who would one day claim her in reality when he himself, with his idle dreams, should be dead and gone--he hated with a jealous rage as vital as though the man stood before him in the flesh; and he looked at his fingers with a dull sense of their strangling powers, and longed to feel them tighten over a purpling throat. Peter talked of heaven, of its rest and peace; but how could there be for him either joy or peace, even in Paradise, while another man held Joscelyn in his arms? Often in his cloying misery he tried to make out who this other lover would be; but no one, not even Eustace Singleton, seemed to fill the place. Once, and his heart had been hot with jealousy at the thought, he had imagined that under hers and Eustace's frank friendship there lingered a warmer feeling; but this fancy stood no test of observation, for in no act of Joscelyn's was there a trace of that air, indescribable yet unmistakable, that marks the beginnings of love; and of late months Eustace had a way of looking at Betty that put strange fancies into Richard's head. No, Joscelyn and Eustace were not lovers; it would be some one else, some stranger who would claim all the sweetness of her love. And at the thought the murderous fingers writhed upon each other, and the sweat of agony was on his brow. Then his fancy would take another turn. There was no other lover, there never would be any other; by strength of his love she belonged to him here and would be his through all eternity. In heaven there is no marrying nor giving in marriage, so the Bible said; but surely G.o.d would be merciful to him, knowing how he had missed his happiness here.

This was the dream-palace in which he dwelt, while he gazed vacantly over the sunlit sea and waited to be sewed into his blanket and carried across to the white sands by those who, in their turn, one after another, should follow to the same end.

And then, one morning when August was well on the wane, something happened that broke the spell of deadening despair that held him in its grasp.

CHAPTER XIV.

NEWS OF LOVE AND WAR.

"Hidden perfumes and secret loves betray themselves."

--JOUBERT.

"Joscelyn, from my upper window I have seen a rider turn into the next street and make for the tavern. Perchance he brings news or letters.

Will you come with me and see?" It was Betty's voice under her window, and Joscelyn put her head out a moment to say she would go; then ran downstairs. And go she did in spite of her mother's vehement protest.

"'Tis scarce three weeks gone since you were reviled in the streets as a Tory, and now you will go thrust yourself in place to receive the same treatment again. 'Tis folly--ay, worse than folly!"

But Joscelyn scarcely heard, for in the street Betty was pulling her along at such a pace.

"Methought you would be glad to get a letter from--well, from--It is something over three weeks since you last heard from--" a shy little laugh finished the sentence, and she gave Joscelyn an extra pull which set them into a run.

"How glad somebody would be to see you in such haste to get a letter written to me," panted Joscelyn, laughing.

"Whither away so fast?" cried Mistress Strudwick from her door; but they did not stop to answer, only calling back merrily that a man, grown, yet not old, nor crippled, nor blind, had ridden into the square, and they were going to have a look at so wonderful a curiosity.

As they turned into the open s.p.a.ce before the court-house, the town-bell struck a few resonant notes, a signal from the decrepit old ringer that there was news for somebody. In a few minutes the place was thronged with eager wives and mothers and sweethearts crying out for tidings of their loved ones. Did the man bring any? Yes, he was but now out of the north; whither he went mattered not to them, a man's mission was his own secret, but in his pouch were letters for towns along the route, and he brought, besides, news of the dreadful ma.s.sacre in Pennsylvania. And when the few letters were distributed he stood upon the steps and told the pitiful story of Wyoming Valley.

"The able-bodied men were away fighting with Washington; only the old men and women and children remained. Upon this helpless band hundreds of British and Indians, led by Butler, fell, driving them to the fort.

Thence the men, shaking with age, but not with fear, sallied to the attack, were defeated and captured, and in sight of those within were tortured with every fiendish device the savages could invent. Then the fort surrendered, and in spite of Butler's efforts tomahawk and scalping-knife did their deadly work among the helpless captives.

Outraged women, spitted upon rails, saw their tender babes brained against rocks and trees. The yells of the captors were mingled with the cries for mercy and the shrieks of the dying, and night was turned into day by the light of burning villages. In all the beautiful valley not a house was spared; and where had been prosperity is now but a desolate wilderness strewn with graves and ruins."

When he finished, women were weeping upon each other's necks, thinking of their own little ones and those other murdered babies. And fierce was the denunciation of Butler for enlisting in his army savages whose brutality could not be controlled. This was not war; it was a.s.sa.s.sination, as cowardly as it was cruel.

So bitter was the feeling aroused, that for a while the fact that the courier had brought some letters was quite overlooked, until Mistress Nash and Janet Cameron came forward with epistles which contained messages for many of those present. Then it was remembered that the other two letters had both been for Joscelyn Cheshire, and immediately a dozen voices demanded her. But she was already well down the street, her arm linked in Betty Clevering's.

"Come away, Aunt Cheshire will be wretched about you," the latter had whispered to her, remembering the scene in this very place a few weeks before and dreading a repet.i.tion of it, and in her secret heart wishing that at least one of the letters in Joscelyn's hand should not be read aloud to the public, knowing well that in it was some love-message for herself, for was not that why Eustace wrote so often to Joscelyn? And so she dragged her companion back the way they had come; but as they walked Joscelyn tore open the letter with the familiar seal, exclaiming gayly:--

"Paper is not scarce with Eustace, since he sends me three whole sheets.

Let me see--Betty--Betty--Betty--just in a fleeting glance I see your name some eight times. What a fondness he hath for writing the word!"

"Let me read with you, Joscelyn," cried Betty, her cheeks very bright; and drawing close together the two girls held the sheet between them and slackened their pace. But they were not left long to their privacy, for by the time they reached the Cheshire door a dozen neighbours were upon them.

"So, so, Joscelyn, be not running away with your tidings. Tell us what Clinton is doing in New York," exclaimed Mistress Strudwick, who had come with the others to give the girl countenance, if so she should need it.

"Ay, do not be playing the selfish, but give us the news," cried several voices.

"I am as ignorant as you of General Clinton's doings," the girl said, smiling at the first speaker; "for, as far as I have got, the letter is full of questions about somebody here at home."

"Yes, a spying letter for information, no doubt," sneered Amanda Bryce.

"The courier said they were both from some one in New York. Who writes to you from Clinton's army?"

"Eustace Singleton, a handsome lad whom you know right well, Mistress Bryce."

"He sends you two letters by the same hand? Faith! he is an ardent correspondent."

"Nay, this other letter is in a strange writing. I know not yet who hath sent it."

"Break the wafer and read it to us."

"I do not choose, Mistress Bryce, to give my letters to the public."

"Do not choose, because you do not dare."

"Do not dare?"

"Hush, Joscelyn, she does not mean what she says," put in Mistress Strudwick.

"Yes, I do mean it, Martha, every word of it. She dare not read it, because it is a spying letter,--asking information, mayhap, which may give us over to a ma.s.sacre like to that of Wyoming: that's why she dare not."

A chorus of cries and hisses arose, but the girl on the step did not quail. Her delicate lip curled with scorn. "'Tis false! You do all know I would be incapable of such wickedness."

"Then read us the letter and prove it."

"I will not."

She thrust the letter into her bosom and faced them with flashing eyes, the very picture of defiance. But a touch from Mistress Strudwick quelled the storm within her. Turning swiftly, she put her arm around the old woman's neck. "There, I am going to be good. I would not distress you and mother again for the world. But you know I have the right of it."

"Yes," echoed Janet Cameron, taking her place on the other side of Joscelyn. "We all know that though you are a Tory, you are no traitor; and I say, Out upon Mistress Bryce for hinting such a thing! I am a Continental, and my father is in Charleston fighting for the cause, but I would trust Joscelyn Cheshire to the end of the world!"