The Buccaneer Part 35

Sir Willmott, thus run down on all sides, had now recourse to stratagem.

After a brief pause, during which both Zillah and the preacher, as if having come to the same determination, kept silence, he said,--

"Well; perhaps it is best. Will you, Zillah, go with me to Cecil Place?"

"No!" was her reply. "I will meet you there; but I frankly tell you, I will not trust myself in your company under any roof, unless it be with many persons."

"Then come there at seven o' the clock this evening--and I swear----"

"I have no faith in your oaths--but I will trust to this man; and if he a.s.sures me that the accursed marriage shall not take place until I hold commune with the woman you would wed--safe, and undisturbed commune--I will leave you until night."

"Then I a.s.sure you of it," replied Fleetword; "and let this convince you of my truth, that I love the sweet lady, Constance Cecil, too well, to see her shadowed even by such dishonour as your words treat of.--Sir Willmott, Sir Willmott! you have shown the cloven foot!"

"Look out on the waters, Sir Willmott Burrell," shouted the Jewess, in her wild voice: "look out on the waters, and see the sail and the signal of the brave Buccaneer!"

Burrell looked anxiously, and earnestly; but he could perceive nothing of which she spoke. When he turned towards the spot where Zillah had stood--she was gone!

"All this is of the evil one," said Fleetword, after peering among the old walls, and approaching his nose so closely to the larger stones, that it might be imagined he was smelling, not looking at them.--"Whither has the creature escaped?"

"Verily, I know not," was Burrell's reply. "Best come with me into the Gull's Nest; I would speak with Robin."

The unsuspicious preacher did as he was desired.

Sir Willmott inquired for the Ranger. His mother said, truly, "He was gone a journey."

"For Hugh Dalton?"

"He had joined his ship."

He then managed privately to ask for the secret key of a place called "the Cage," where contraband goods, not wanted for ready sale, were generally deposited. It had no communication with any of the private chambers, except by a narrow pa.s.sage, which, leading to no other place, was seldom traversed. Into this cage he managed to get Fleetword, saying, "It was one of the ways out;" and while the preacher was looking round with much curiosity, he turned the key, placed it safely in his vest, and, without saying a word to Mother Hays, who, at such an early hour was just beginning to be very busy, left the Gull's Nest with much self-congratulation.

"Stay safely there but till another morning, poor meddling fool!" he murmured; "and then, for your sweet Constantia's sake, you'll keep my secret, and resign these cursed papers."

It is not to be imagined that Sir Willmott Burrell would, upon any account, have suffered Zillah to make her appearance at Cecil Place. His existence seemed now to hang upon her destruction; but instruments were wanting: Roupall had been sent out of the way by Hugh Dalton, and tidings were in vain expected of or from Jeromio. The slight relief afforded by the imprisonment of Fleetword was speedily succeeded by a state of mind bordering on madness.

Stopping for a few moments at the lodge of Cecil Place, he warned the old porter not to admit, but to detain, any person, man or woman, who might inquire for him, no matter under what pretext entrance might be demanded; for he a.s.sured the old man there was a deranged youth, who pretended to have known him abroad, and who, he was informed, had used unaccountable threats against him. Sir Willmott, moreover, enforced his instructions by a handsome present, and was proceeding to the house, when the gate-bell rang, and a man, habited as a travelling merchant, presented a parcel, directed "For Sir Willmott Burrell. These----"

Burrell commanded the messenger into the lodge room; the stranger, after some hesitation, entered. Sir Willmott briefly dismissed the old porter, and undid the packet; when, lo! the matted and gory head of the Italian, Jeromio, rolled at his feet. There it lay, in all the hideous deformity of sudden and violent death! the severed throat, thickened with gouts of blood! the dimmed spectral eyes starting from their sockets! the lips shrinking from the teeth of glaring whiteness--there it lay, looking up, as it were, into the face of the base but horrified a.s.sociate. His utterance was impeded, and a thick mist came over him, as he sank into the old porter's chair.

"What does this mean?" he said at length to the man, whom he now recognised as one of the sailors of the Fire-fly.--"What means it?"

"A wedding present from Hugh Dalton, is all I heard about the matter,"

returned the fellow, quietly turning a morsel of tobacco in his mouth, and eyeing the knight with ineffable contempt.

"You must give information of this most horrible murder--you witnessed it--it will make your fortune," continued Sir Willmott, springing from the seat, and, like a drowning man, seizing even at a straw. "I can take your deposition--this most foul murder may make your fortune--think of that.--What ho!" he would have called the porter, but the man prevented him, and then burst into a laugh, wild as a wild sea-wave.

"Lodge informations! You a law-maker! May I never spin another yarn, but ye are precious timber! Shiver and blazes! haven't ye with your palaver and devilry worked harm enou' aboard our ship, but ye want me to be pickled up, or swing from the yard-arm! No, no, master; I'll keep off such a lee-sh.o.r.e. I've no objections in life to a--any thing--but ye'r informations. Ah! ah! ah! what sinnifies a hundred such as that," and he kicked at the b.l.o.o.d.y head, "or such as you," pointing to Sir Willmott, "in comparison to the bold Buccaneer! Look here, master--whatever ye'r name be--they say the law and the pirates often sail under false colours; and blow me but I believe it now, when sich as you have to do with one of 'em. Bah! I'd cry for the figure-head of our ship, if she had sich a bridegroom."

"You shall not escape me, villain!" exclaimed Sir Willmott, rendered desperate by his adverse fortunes, and springing towards the seaman.--"But stay," he added, drawing back, "you," hesitatingly, "you are honest to your captain: well, there is something you could do for me, that----" He paused--and the sailor took advantage of the pause to say,--

"A farewell and foul weather to ye, master! Look, if you could make ye'r whole head into one great diamond, and lay it at my feet, as that carrion lies at yours, may I die on a sandbank like a dry herring, if I'd take it to do one of the dirty jobs ye're for ever plotting!"

Oh, what a degrading thing it is to be scoffed at by our superiors! How p.r.o.ne we are to resent it when our equals meet us with a sneer! But when the offscouring of society, the reptiles that we could have trodden under foot, may rail at and scorn us with impunity, how doubly bitter, how perfectly insupportable must it be! The very ministers of evil scouted him, and sin and misery thought him too contemptible to deal with! Burrell gnashed his teeth and struck his temples with his clenched fist--the room turned round--the b.l.o.o.d.y head of Jeromio uplifted itself to his imaginings, and gibbered, and cursed, and muttered, and laughed at him in fiendish merriment! If Zillah could have seen Burrell at that moment, she would have pitied and prayed for him: the strong man trembled as a weak girl in the shiverings of a mortal fever--his heart shuddered within his bosom--he lost all power of reasoning, and it was not until huge drops of perspiration had forced their way along his burning brow, that he at all recovered his faculties. He gazed around the small apartment; but the man was gone. The lodge window that looked on the road was open, and the knight's first effort was to reach it. The pure air of heaven, breathing so sweetly upon his pale and agonised countenance, revived him for the moment, and his energetic mind in a short s.p.a.ce was restrung and wound up to fresh exertion. He resolved to set some of his own people to watch about the grounds, in case Zillah should attempt to obtain entrance; and though he felt a.s.sured they would do but little for him, yet he knew they would do much for gold, and that he resolved they should have in abundance. The marriage once over, he fancied himself safe--safe from all but the Buccaneer. Hope is strong at all times, but never more so than when we are roused from despair. He turned from the window, and his eye fell on the b.l.o.o.d.y head of the traitor Jeromio. He knew that, if the porter saw it, there would be an outcry and an investigation, which it was absolutely necessary, under existing circ.u.mstances, to avoid; for old Saul was one of those honest creatures who hold it a duty to tell all truth, and nothing but truth, to their employers. He therefore wrapped it carefully in the napkin in which it had been originally enveloped, and then covered it over with his own kerchief. After another moment of deliberation, he summoned the old man, and directed him to bear it to the house.

"But where is the stranger, sir?" inquired Saul.

"Oh, he pa.s.sed from the window, to save you the trouble of unclosing the gate."

It was fortunate for Sir Willmott Burrell that age had deprived Saul of more faculties than one.

CHAPTER XI.

Where though prison'd, he doth finde, Hee's still free, that's free in minde; And in trouble, no defence Is so firm as innocence.

WITHER.

When the poor preacher found that Burrell was really gone, and had left him a prisoner, without the remotest prospect of escape, he felt (to use his own expression) "rather mazed," and forthwith applied his hand to the lock, with the vain hope of extricating himself as speedily as possible: he found, however, the entrance closed firm and fast, and, moreover, of so solid a construction, that, with all his effort, he was unable to move it in the slightest degree. He would have welcomed the idea that the Master of Burrell did but jest; yet there had been that about his demeanour which excluded all thought of merriment, and Fleetword felt his limbs tremble beneath him when he reflected on the desperate character of the man with whom he had to deal. "The Lord can make a way for safety even from this den," he muttered, "yea, even from this fastness, which, of a truth, is most curiously fashioned, and of evil intention, doubtless." The little light that was admitted into the cell came through an aperture in the cliff at so great a height from the floor that it could hardly be observed, even if it had been left unprotected by a ledge of stone that projected a considerable distance under the opening, which was scarcely large enough to permit the entrance of a sufficient quant.i.ty of air. The atmosphere was therefore dense and heavy, and the preacher drew his breath with difficulty. The chamber, we should observe, was directly over that in which we have heretofore encountered the Buccaneer; for the interior of the cliff was excavated in various parts, so as more nearly to resemble the formation of a bee-hive than any other structure. It was filled, as we have stated, with a variety of matters, for which either there was no immediate demand, or that time had rendered useless. Of these, Fleetword piled a quant.i.ty one over the other, and standing tiptoe on the topmost parcel, succeeded in peeping through the aperture, but could perceive nothing except the broad sea stretching away in the distance until it was bounded by the horizon. As he was about to descend, one of the packages rolled from under the rest, and the hapless preacher came to the ground amidst a mult.i.tude of bales of cloth, logs of ebony, cramps, and spoiled martin-skins, and found himself half in and half out of a box of mildewed oranges, into which he had plumped, and which repaid the intrusion by splashing him all over with their pulpy and unpleasant remains. It was some time before he could extricate himself from this disagreeable ma.s.s, and still longer before he could cleanse off the filthy fragments from his garments. When he had done so, however, his next care was to bestow the papers he had rescued from Burrell into some safe place. "The Lord," he thought, "hath, at his own good pleasure, given Satan or his high priest dominion over me, and it may be that I shall be offered up upon the altar of Baal or Dagon as a sacrifice; but it shall be one of sweet-smelling savour, untainted by falsehood or dissimulation. Verily, he may destroy my body--and I will leave these doc.u.ments, which by an almost miraculous interposition of Providence have been committed to my charge, so that one time or other they may be found of those by whom they may be needed."

He carefully sought and ransacked every parcel he could find in search of pencil, ink, or any thing by which he could direct a letter; but in vain. He discovered, however, some parchments, whereon the words "Oliver Lord Protector" were frequently inscribed: he cut off a slip containing this sentence, and having encased the papers he had seized, in many folds, pinned it upon the parcel, so that it might serve as a direction.

He then corded it so firmly that it would require both industry and patience to dissever the several knots and twistings. Having performed so much of his task, he set himself to consider what possible means he could devise to secure its safe delivery. He had previously shouted and called with all his strength; but when he remembered the length of the pa.s.sage he had traversed with his subtle guide, and the little appearance there was of any apartment near the one in which he was confined, he desisted, wisely determining not to waste, in such useless efforts, the breath that, perhaps, he would be suffered to retain only for a few short hours. Greatly he lamented his want of caution in accompanying Burrell; and bitterly wept at the fate that awaited his favourite, Constantia. At length, after much deliberation, he determined on building a more secure standing-place, mounting once again to the window, fastening the longest string he could find to the parcel, and merely confining it to the inside of the cave in so slight a manner, that it might be detached by the least pull. He would have thrown it down at once, trusting that some one on the beach would find it; but he was aware that the tide at high water washed up the cliffs, so that there was but small chance of its not being borne away upon the waters.

He also remembered that there were sundry little pathways winding up the chalky rocks, where he had seen people walk; and that, by G.o.d's good blessing, the packet might be found by some one wandering there. Having accomplished this object, he took his seat on a pile of moth-eaten clothes, and drawing forth his little pocket Bible, set himself to read the Holy Scripture, with as much diligence as if he had never before opened the blessed and consoling volume.

Two cla.s.ses of persons peruse the Sacred Book; one from pure love of, and entire dependence on, the words and precepts contained therein; the other from habit--"their mothers, grandmothers, and great-grandmothers did so before them--always on a Sunday--and sometimes (when they had time) during the week--and G.o.d forbid that they should ever be worse than their ancestors!" The Reverend Jonas Fleetword belonged partly to the one cla.s.s, partly to the other: his progenitors, for upwards of a century, had been foremost in forwarding the religion of the Gospel; they had fought for it both with carnal and spiritual weapons, and he had followed in their footsteps without swerving either to the right hand or the left; but, to do him justice, he was stimulated to activity in his vocation by a better motive than that which arises either from custom or an estimate of hereditary right--he was at heart, as well as in word, a Christian, and the promises contained in, together with the prospects held out by, the book he perused so eagerly, had been, from the moment when reason dawned, the ruling principle by which his life was governed. We pause not to inquire whether he had duly weighed or correctly interpreted all its precepts--whether the hastiness of his nature was not at times opposed to the meek and unupbraiding example of his Divine Master--whether he did not now and then mistake bitterness for sincerity, and persecution for zeal; such errors were but too common to the age in which he lived, and with the church of which he was a member. Never did Gospel hope and Gospel consolation visit him with greater welcome than at the moment of which we write. He entertained little doubt but that his enemy meditated towards him some evil that placed his life in danger: such, however, was not the case; Burrell had agreed to defer the marriage until six of the clock that evening; and, after the ceremony had been concluded, he entertained no doubt that the preacher would retain the secret now in his possession for Constantia's sake.

At Cecil Place all was confusion, for the mind of its afflicted mistress was scarcely able to bear up against the weight of misery that pressed upon it; and Lady Frances Cromwell felt happy and relieved when, about eight in the morning, she fell into an apparently sound sleep. The preparations for the wedding devolved entirely upon her; but, like most persons of an exalted rank, although she knew when things were properly done, she was ignorant how to do them: she, therefore, contented herself with directing her women to make all matters in order; while they, proud and pleased at the commission, gave every body as much trouble as possible. Sir Robert wandered about the house like a troubled spirit, anxious, yet dreading, to see his child; while Sir Willmott, after using every precaution within his power against Zillah's appearance, endeavoured to find occupation by inspecting the carriages that were to convey them to his aunt's house in Surrey, where he had previously determined that they should pa.s.s many of the succeeding days--an object not only of convenience, but of necessity, inasmuch as he could thus gain time to arrange with his servants and tenantry at his own dwelling.

Mrs. Claypole had written to Lady Frances, stating that the Protector did not wish his daughter to accompany her friend to the abode of Sir Willmott's aunt, and would, therefore, send a suitable escort to conduct her to Whitehall immediately after the ceremony was concluded. Mrs.

Claypole also added that she had left Hampton Court for the purpose of meeting her dear sister Frances in London, as her mother had been indisposed, and could not conveniently do so. The letter prayed for many blessings on the head of their sweet friend Constantia, adding that, from what she heard of her decision on the subject, she could hardly believe contradictory reports--as to her heart being given elsewhere, inasmuch as she must know it to be less evil to break a contract made in youth, with which the mind and feelings had no connection, than to register a solemn pledge of affection and faithfulness before the Lord, where in fact there could be no affection, and faithfulness must be a plant of forced and not of natural growth.

"Yet would they all wax marvellously wroth," said Lady Frances, "if I were to draw my own conclusions from this opinion, and act thereupon. I wonder, does my being the daughter of his Highness the Lord Protector make it less necessary for me to be true and upright? and can a woman be either, yet pledge her hand and faith to one for whom she cares not?---- Yet--" She paused, for she had perused the letter within the chamber, and beside the couch on which Constance was still sleeping, and as her eyes fell upon her friend, she could p.r.o.nounce no harsh judgment upon an act performed by one she loved so dearly, and of whose truth and uprightness there could be no doubt.

While the note was yet open before her, the door opened, and Sir Robert Cecil entered. Lady Frances motioned him that Miss Cecil slept, and the old man stooped over her bed with clasped hands, scarcely breathing, lest he should disturb her rest.

"Has she slept thus all the night?" he whispered.--"Has she slept thus soundly all the night, Lady Frances?"

"No, sir," was the reply; and it was delivered in a tone of unusual sternness; for it must be remembered that she entertained much anger against Sir Robert, for permitting the marriage to take place so manifestly against the inclination of his daughter. "No, sir, it is many nights since she has slept soundly."

"But, lady, see how sweet, how gentle her repose! Surely, she could not sleep thus with a heavy heart?"

"Sir Robert," replied Lady Frances, "the heart's heaviness will make heavy the eyelids; nay, with greater certainty, when they are swollen with weeping."

The baronet stooped down, as if to ascertain the correctness of what the lady had said, and at the instant a tear forced its way through the long fringes that rested on his daughter's pallid cheek. He groaned audibly, and left the apartment with the stealthy step and subdued deportment of a proclaimed criminal.

"They are all mystery, one and all, mystery from beginning to end,"

thought Lady Frances, as with a heavy heart she went in search of her women to ascertain how they were fulfilling her directions.