The Sea-Witch; Or, The African Quadroon Part 11

"How would you like another?"

"Who?" she said, sternly.

"Me!" answered Captain Bramble.

"You!" she said, contemptuously, and with so much expression as to end the conversation.

No, he had not rightly understood the Quadroon; it was not wounded pride, that sentiment so easily healed when once bruised in the heart of a woman; it was not that which moved the laughter of the Spanish slaver--it was either love, or something very like it, turned to actual hate, and the native power of her bosom for revenge seemed to be now the food upon which she sustained life itself. Taking her lonely place in the cabin, after the conversation just referred to, she again hid her face in her hands, and remained with her head bowed in her lap for a long, long while, half dreaming, half waking. Poor, untutored, uncivilized child of nature! she was very, very unhappy now.

CHAPTER XIII.

THE TRIAL.

AT the immediate time of which we now write, there had been some very aggravated instances of open resistance to the English and American cruisers on the African station by the slavers who thronged the coast, and the home government had sent out orders embracing extraordinary powers, in order that the first cases that might thenceforth come under the cognizance of the court might lead to such summary treatment of the offenders, as to act as an example for the rest, and thus have a most salutary effect upon the people thus engaged. It was under these circ.u.mstances that Captain Will Ratlin found himself arraigned before the maritime commission at Sierra Leone, with a pretty hard case made out against him at the outset of affairs.

The truth was, he had not been taken resisting the attack of Captain Bramble and his men, but his accusers did not hesitate to represent that he was thus guilty, and several were prepared, Maud among the rest, to swear to this charge. Indeed, Captain Bramble found that he had people about him who would swear to anything, and he had little doubt in proving so strong a case as to jeopardize even the life of his prisoner, since many of his crew had died outright in the attack upon the "Sea Witch," to say nothing of the seriously wounded. All that could prejudice the court against the prisoner was duly paraded before the eyes and ears of the individual members ere yet the case was brought legally before them, and at last when Captain Ratlin was formally brought into court, he was little less than condemned already in the minds of nine-tenths of the marine court.

He was rather amazed to see and to hear the free way in which evidence was given against him, corroborating statements which amounted to the most unmitigated falsehoods, but above all to find Maud unblushingly declare that she saw him in the fight, and that he shot with a pistol one of the men whose name had been returned as among the dead, and that he had wounded another. The girl avoided his eyes while she uttered her well-fabricated story, but had she met the eyes of the young commander, she would have seen more of pity there than of anger, more of surprise than of reproach, even. But in the meantime, while these feelings were moving him, the case was steadily progressing, and began to wear a most serious aspect as it regarded the fate of Captain Will Ratlin.

There still remained one other witness to examine, whose illness had kept him on board ship up to the last moment, and who it was said could identify the prisoner as one of the party engaged in defending the deck of the slaver. He was a servant of Captain Bramble's, had attended his master in the attack, but having received a blow from a handspike upon the head, was rendered insensible at the first of the action, and had been carried on board his ship in that condition, from which state he had gradually recovered until it was thought he would be able to testify before the court at the present time. After a few moments of delay, the man made his appearance, evidently not yet recovered from the fearful blow he had received, but yet able to take his place at the witness's post, and to perform the part expected of him.

No sooner had the court, through its head, addressed the witness, than he answered promptly the preliminary queries put to him, while the effect upon Captain Ratlin seemed to be like magic. Was it guilt that made him start so, rub his eyes, look about him so vaguely, and then sitting down, to cover his face with his hands, only to go through the same pantomime again? We ask, was it guilt that made him act thus? The judges noted it, and even made memorandums of the same upon their record of evidence. It was observed as significant also by every one present.

Captain Bramble himself looked at the prisoner with surprise to see him thus effected by the presence of his servant.

"For the love of Heaven!" exclaimed the prisoner aloud, as though he could bear this intensity of feeling no longer, "who is this man?"

"It is my servant--an honest, faithful man, may it please the court.

Leonard Hust, by name, born in my father's service," said Captain Bramble.

"Leonard Hust," mused the young commander, thoughtfully; "Leonard Hust!"

"Ay, sir," added Captain Bramble, somewhat pertly, "do you find any objection to that name? If so, sir, I pray you will declare it to the court."

"Leonard Hust!" still mused the prisoner, without noticing this interruption. "There is a strange ring upon my ears in repeating that name!"

"Prisoner," said the judge, "do you recollect having done this man a severe and almost fatal harm in the late conflict?"

"I--I," said the young commander, somewhat confused in his mind from an evident effort to recall some long-forgotten a.s.sociation.

"You will be so good as to answer the question put by the court,"

repeated the judge.

"The court will please remember that I hurt no one, and that I was not even engaged in the action referred to. These good people are mistaken."

Now it was that the attention of all were drawn towards Leonard Hust, who in turn seemed as much surprised and as much moved by some secret cause as the prisoner had been. He hastily crossed the court room to where the prisoner sat, and looking full into his eyes, seemed to be for a moment entranced, while the court remained silent, observing these singular manifestations, which they could not understand.

"Leonard--Leonard, I say!" repeated Captain Bramble, "what trick is this?"

"Trick!" whispered the man; "trick, Captain Bramble! Tell me, sir, who is that man?"

"Why, they call him Captain Will Ratlin, and we know him to be a slaver."

The servant still hesitated, looking from the prisoner to his princ.i.p.al accuser, the English officer, then at the court, and finally drawing his master a little on one side, the man again went through the pantomime described, and placing his mouth to his master's ear whispered something which startled him as though a gun had been fired at his very ear. The shock was like electricity, and made him stagger for support. Two or three times he repeated "Impossible! impossible!" and finally begged the court to stay the proceedings, as he was taken suddenly ill, and should not be able to attend until to-morrow. Being the princ.i.p.al prosecutor and witness, of course his presence was requisite to the progress of the trial, and therefore as he made this request it was at once formally granted, and the court adjourned for the time, while the prisoner was remanded on ship-board for safe keeping until the next day.

That the reader may understand the singular conduct of both the young commander and Leonard Hust, he must follow the latter worthy into his master's private room in the government house, where they proceeded at once after the occurrences described.

"In Heaven's name, Leonard, what do you mean by such an a.s.sertion?"

asked Captain Bramble, throwing himself into a chair, and wiping the cold perspiration from his face.

"I mean, sir, that the man on trial to-day is no more nor less than your brother!"

"Charles Bramble?"

"Yes, sir."

"How strange is all this. How know you beyond all cavil, Leonard?"

"By the scar over the right eye. You gave it to him yourself. Don't you remember, sir, just previous to the dog affair, for which he ran away from home!"

"By Heaven! I believe you speak truly; and yet how strange, how more than strange it all is, that we should meet again in this way!"

"It quite nonplussed me, sir. I thought he was a ghost at first."

"Strange, strange!" mused the elder brother. "In those days, long ago in our childhood, he crossed my path constantly, and here he is again athwart my hawse. By Heaven! but it is strange--wonderful, that fate should have thrown him and Helen Huntington together again, and that neither should know the other; and yet not so very strange, for she was but eight years old when Charles ran away. Yes, he thwarted me then, for even in childhood the girl fancied him above me, and now she affects him even in his fallen fortunes."

"What shall we do, sir, now that master Charles has turned up again?"

asked Leonard Hust, in his simplicity. "We cannot testify against him now, sir."

"No, no, no!" said the elder brother, hastily, "he must not be further examined."

"How he has altered, sir, only to think," continued the servant; "why, when he went away from Bramble Park, sir, he wasn't much more than nine years old."

"Yes. I remember, I remember, Leonard," replied his master, hurriedly, while he walked the apartment with quick, irregular steps. "I remember only too well."

This was indeed that elder brother who had, when a boy, so oppressed, so worried, and rendered miserable his brother Charles, as to cause him in a fit of desperation to stray away from home, whither he knew not. His parents saw now--alas! too late--their fatal error; but the boy was gone, no tidings could be had of him, and they believed him dead. The honest tar, whose yarn the attentive reader will remember, as given on the deck of the "Sea Witch," spoke truly of his commander. He had, years before, strayed alongside a vessel, as has been related, from whence he hardly knew himself, or was afraid to say. Hunger and neglect even then had greatly changed him, and he shipped, as has been related. The fall he got at sea threw a cloud over his brain as to past recollections up to that time, and here if the wish ever possessed him as to returning to his early home, he knew naught of it.

When he heard the voice of Leonard Hust in the court, it seemed to strike upon some string in memory's harp, which vibrated to old familiar recollections, and the more he heard him speak the more the sensation came over him which led to the demonstrations which we have already witnessed. And yet he could not recall aught that would serve him as a clue--the early injury to his brain seemed to have obliterated the connecting links that memory could not supply. The reason, probably, why the servant's voice and not the brother's thus recalled him was, that the former had been kind, and his voice had ever sounded like music in the neglected boy's ears, but the brother's voice had never had that charm or happy a.s.sociation connected with it. As to little cousin Helen,--as she was then called,--it was not strange that Miss Huntington, after years of estrangement in India, meeting him under such circ.u.mstances, himself so changed, should not have recalled enough of the past to recognize him; and yet we have seen that at times she dwelt upon the tender accents of his voice like sleeping memories, herself quite ignorant of the cause of this peculiar influence.

She was now with her mother on sh.o.r.e at the mission house, in an agony of suspense as to the result of the trial which was taking place. She feared the worst, for Captain Bramble had taken measures to instruct those about her to their effect that the prisoner would be found guilty, and either strung cup by the neck at once, or be sent home to England for the same purpose. Mrs. Huntington felt sad and borne down by the position of affairs--for although she did not understand her daughter's sentiments towards Captain Ratlin, yet she recognized the fact of her and her child's indebtedness to him, and that he had evinced the characteristics of a gentleman.

"Mother, if they find Captain Ratlin guilty, what can they, what will they do with him?" asked Helen Huntington anxiously of her mother, on the day of the trial.

"Why, my dear, it is terrible to think of, but the penalty of such a crime as is charged to him, is death; but we must hope for the best, and--why Helen, how pale you look!"

"It was only a pa.s.sing spasm, mother. I am--I believe I am already better," said the daughter, in an agony of suffering that she dared not evince.