The Fatal Cord Part 39

And so his life was gently exhaled in peace.

_Anon_.

Hail, wedded love!

_Paradise Lost_.

That's the very moral on't.

_Nym_.

The gale continued blowing all that night, all the next day, and for two or three days following. The injured condition of the ship made it unsafe for her to contend against the force of so strong a wind; and she was, therefore, kept directly before it. While the _d.u.c.h.ess_ was thus running before the wind, two of the wounded pirates and three of the wounded of the ship's crew died, and were committed to the deep. The man whose arm had been broken by Ada's pistol-shot, and the other two of the wounded men belonging to the ship's company, recovered before the arrival of the vessel in port.

A consultation was held in Mr Durocher's state-room, on the day after the fight, between Mr Durocher himself, Captain Johnson, and John Coe, to which Billy Bowsprit was also admitted, and in which it was determined that as soon as the gale should abate, the ship should be steered for the nearest port in the United States. This determination was formed, that the ship might receive the necessary repairs, and that the captured pirates might be surrendered to the Government whose citizens they were.

On the fourth day after the fight the wind from the west had so abated that the course of the ship was changed, and she was headed towards the west. On the fifth day a fresh wind from the north arose; and, impelled by it, the _d.u.c.h.ess_ made good progress for the American coast.

Meanwhile, the gallant young Marylander had become intimately acquainted with Mr Durocher and his daughter. He told to them the singular history of his connection with the pirates, of which Ada had already given them some particulars. The warm-hearted old French gentleman became much attached to the brave fellow, upon whom he could not look, he said, without remembering the awful horror from which he had delivered his daughter and himself. Besides, he esteemed him as an impersonation of courage and genius, because, in circ.u.mstances in which, according to ordinary apprehension, it seemed impossible to avoid being forced to the commission of crime, he had not only overcome his enemies, saving the penitent, and destroying the hopelessly guilty, but had also escaped from all the difficulties which had surrounded him, with his own hands unstained by human blood.

The fair and gentle Louise, too, was not insensible to the merits of her deliverer; her fervid feelings recognised in him a personification of the knights of old; and, with the spirit of self-sacrifice which greatly influences the tender and amiable of her s.e.x, she longed to devote the services of her life to him in requital for her salvation from a horrible doom.

It must be confessed that "the deliverer" was not unimpressible nor unimpressed. Fixed for ever in his memory was the image of that young and loving girl, as he first beheld her when she lay pale, senseless, and perfectly helpless in the power of the pirate. And when he saw her afterwards, fully awakened to life, and her intelligent and enthusiastic mind and kind and loving heart expressing themselves in every glance of her soft blue eyes, in every flush that tinged her fair cheeks, in every expression of her beautiful lips, and in every musical sentence that issued from between them, he could scarcely realise that the bright form, clad in white robes, expressive of purity, and the shining face, surrounded by a halo of golden hair, belonged not to an angelic presence.

Indeed, these two young hearts required but an uttered word to cause the fountain of mutual love, like the waters of h.o.r.eb brought forth by the touch of the prophet's wand, to pour out for each other its treasures of tenderness. And that word was at length spoken, with the entire approbation of Mr Durocher, whose friendship and fatherly regard for the young man was almost as great as his daughter's love.

The merchant's health, already weak, had received a terrible shock from the agony which his heart experienced on the evening of the a.s.sault of the pirates, a shock from the effects of which he never recovered, and when the _d.u.c.h.ess_ entered Charleston Harbour, three weeks after that dreadful evening, he had to be carried on a bed from the boat to the rooms engaged for his party at the hotel. To this house, Ada Marston and John Coe accompanied him.

Immediately on arriving at Charleston, John wrote to his parents, informing them of all the remarkable adventures which had befallen him, and mentioning the state of affairs between Louise and himself. In due course he received letters from his father and mother, stating the great happiness of all the family at hearing of his safety, and expressing the full and joyous consent of Mr and Mrs Coe to the engagement of their son with Miss Durocher.

These letters gave great satisfaction to Mr Durocher. He learned from them that his child was about to enter a family by whom she would be received and cherished as indeed a daughter and sister. As his health was rapidly failing, and he felt that death was near at hand, he expressed an earnest desire that the marriage ceremony between John and Louise should not be postponed; he wished, before his departure, to see his daughter in the lawful care of a protector in whose honourable character and sincere love for her he himself had perfect faith. His will was law under the circ.u.mstances; and, on the second day after the receipt of the letters from Millmont, John Alvan Coe and Louise Durocher were united for life, at the bedside of the bride's dying father, by a minister of the church to which all the parties belonged.

Mr Durocher survived his daughter's marriage but two weeks. His sick-bed was waited on by two attentive and affectionate children, and his last days were soothed by the knowledge that he had done all that could be done to secure for his beloved child a happy life.

A few days after the death of Mr Durocher, John Coe and his wife left Charleston, and arrived in due course of time at the young husband's old home at Millmont--but a little more than two months after he had disappeared from the latter place in a manner apparently so mysterious.

In less than a year John realised the amount of his wife's fortune, with a part of which a large estate was purchased in one of the upper counties of Maryland. Upon this estate a handsome building was erected, to which he removed his family in the second year of his marriage. His descendants, distinguished, like their ancestors, for intellect and energy, still occupy that mansion.

A few words must be allowed with regard to our other characters.

Afton and the four pirates taken prisoners with him, were tried, a few months after their capture, before one of the United States Courts, in Baltimore, to which port their vessel had belonged. They were all found guilty and sentenced to be hanged. Two of them died in prison before the day appointed for their execution, the other three--of whom the ruffian Afton was one--suffered the extreme penalty of the law.

John Coe kept his promise to Billy Bowsprit and the five repentant pirates. His father's influence, and that of all his father's friends, was used to obtain their pardon; and when it was made clearly apparent that but for their help the result of the fight between the _d.u.c.h.ess_ and the _Falcon_ would have been entirely different, that pardon was readily granted.

Perhaps the reader has some desire to know what was the future fortune of Ada.

She accompanied Coe and his wife from Charleston to Maryland. Here a fresh grief awaited her. Her father, in alarm at hearing of the safety and early return of young Coe, and in dread of the consequences of the exposure which must ensue, had hastily and rashly taken his own life.

By the death of her father without a will, she became heir to one half of his wealth, there being but one other child of Mr Ashleigh, a grown son, to divide his property with her. She thus became an heiress; and several young gentlemen in the neighbourhood of Drum Point and elsewhere were quite willing, on account of her riches and her great beauty, to forget that she was the daughter of a receiver of smuggled goods and the widow of a pirate, and made her a tender of their hands. Ada, however, politely declined all these disinterested offers. About a year and a half after the death of her first husband she was married to Billy Bowsprit. Billy had been the only person on board the brig who had invariably treated her with kindness and respect; he had been her champion on all occasions, and she knew that he was devoted to her.

Moreover, he could not upbraid her for having been the wife of a pirate.

Mr and Mrs Brown (to give them their right t.i.tle) wished to be away from the neighbourhood of those who were acquainted with their antecedents. The lady's portion of her father's estate was, therefore, soon after her marriage, converted into funds, with which a large plantation was purchased in Mississippi. To this they removed, where they prospered, and some of their descendants still flourish in that State.

THE END.