The Sea-Witch; Or, The African Quadroon Part 13

"You forget that even Robert did not recognize me."

"And that, too, seemed funny to me. Why, sir, I seemed to know you the instant I set eyes on you in the court, and when I got close I soon settled the doubt in my mind."

"Well, my good fellow, it seems that but for you I might have been hanged, and that, too, by my own bother; but I trust all is set right now."

"I hope so, sir, only you must not let master Robert know that I liberated you from these ruffles, sir, will you, master Charles?"

"Never fear me, Leonard, I shall not do as you were about to do towards me, give testimony that will in any way criminate you."

"But I wasn't, sir, of my own free will, only master Robert had told me what I must say, and stick to it, and swear to it through thick and thin, and I'm afraid not to obey him."

"Poor fellow, I see you are, indeed, his tool; but if I find myself in any sort of a position ere long, I will take care to make your situation more comfortable."

"Thank ye, sir," said Leonard Hust, just as the last shackle dropped from the prisoner's wrists.

In the mean time, let us turn for a moment to the bedside of Captain Robert Bramble, for it is long past midnight, and, weary in mind and body, he had retired to that rest which he most certainly needed. But sleep is hardly repose to the guilty, and he was trebly so. Phantoms of all imaginable shapes flitted across his brain, pictures of suffering, of misery and of danger, to all of which he seemed to be exposed, and from which he had no power to flee. Alas, how fearful the shadows that haunt a bad man's pillow. He writhed like one in physical pain, tossed from side to side, while the cold perspiration stood in big drops upon his brow and temples.

Now his dreams carry him back, far back a score of years, to his childhood at Bramble Park, when all was innocence, and then, with leaping strides, he finds himself, years after, even as to-day, bearing deadly witness against his brother. His dead father seems standing by his bedside, pointing at him a warning finger, and sadly chiding his fearful want of feeling. He tosses and turns and writhes again, then leaping from the uneasy bed, looks bewildered around, and half grows alarmed. Quickly he wraps a dressing-gown about him, and hastily walks back and forth to still the agony of feeling and the bitter phantoms of his dreams. How haggard and wild he looks by that dim candle-light.

Once more he throws himself upon his bed, and, after a while, is again asleep, if such unconsciousness can be called sleep. Again he tosses, and turns, and sighs like one in a nightmare until at last, towards the breaking of day, the quick, startling breathing ceases, and subsides into a regular and equal respiration, and he lies still. Nature overcomes all else, and he now sleeps, indeed, but not until he has pa.s.sed through a fearful purgatory of dreams, all too real, too trying.--His brother, with soon the prospect of a disgraceful death on the gallows, had not suffered thus. No, he was repentant for the wrong he had done, and had already resolved to completely reform if the opportunity were offered to him; but Robert Bramble was outraging the laws of nature and of G.o.d.

CHAPTER XV.

THE ESCAPE.

CHARLES BRAMBLE found himself playing a dangerous part. It was true that Leonard Hust had freed his hands from those shackles that had confined them so long, and had pointed out to him the way to retreat and escape; but he must run the gauntlet of dangers in order to do so. This, however, he was prepared to do; as to fear, it was a sensation he knew not; but prudence was much more requisite in this instance than any especial degree of courage. As is always the case on board a man-of-war, especially when lying in port, where the escape to the sh.o.r.e is easy, sentinels were placed at stem, stern and waist of the English ship, at all hours, pacing their allotted round of the deck, and keeping watchful guard over every avenue of exit from the vessel.

The only possible plan of escape that suggested itself to Charles Bramble, under the circ.u.mstances, was to place a few necessary articles of clothing in a small package, and confine it to the back of his neck, while he should divest himself of all garments, slip quietly into the water on the seaward side of the ship, where none of the sentries were immediately placed, the object being to guard the access to the sh.o.r.e more especially. Once in the water he had only to strike out quietly for the sh.o.r.e, trusting the dullness of the sentries and the favoring darkness of the night to enable him to reach the land un.o.bserved.

He had the most to fear from the sentry placed on the top-gallant forecastle of the ship, as that post was so near to his line of pa.s.sage.

He would have to swim around the bows far enough out to clear the land tackle, and when he got on an even line with the ship's bows, this sentry, if he happened to be on the lookout at the moment, could hardly fail to see him on the surface of the water. To obviate this difficulty, Leonard Hust, who was a sort of privileged person on board, being the captain's confidential servant and man of all work, undertook to engage the sentry's attention by sonic device, for a few moments, just at the opportune period, while the prisoner should get fairly clear of the ship.

"See here, Bill," said Leonard Hust, carelessly, as he emerged from the fore hatch; "look ye, old boy, I have had such a dream, hang me if I can sleep a wink."

"What's that to me?" growled the sentry, morosely, and not much more than half awake.

"Why, if you knew what it was I dreamed, you would think it was something to you," continued the other, with a.s.sumed mystery and seriousness.

"Look ye, Leonard Hust," said the marine, "do you know you arc talking to a sentry on duty, and that it's clearly against the rules of the ship to do so?"

"Why, as to the matter of that, I don't see hut that you are as much to blame as I am," continued the other; "but who is there to peach on either of us?"

"That's true," added the marine, bringing the b.u.t.t of his musket lightly to the deck; "but for all that, Leonard, it's dangerous business, for you see if--hallo! what's that?"

"Nothing; nothing but me drawing this cork," said the other, quickly producing a small bottle of brandy from his pocket, and urging the marine to drink.

The temptation was too great, and the sleepy and tired sentinel drank a heavy draught of the liquor, smacking his lips, and forgetting the sound he had just heard, and which Leonard Hust very well knew was caused by the prisoner's descent a little too quickly into the water, alongside the ship.

"Now, Bill, what do you think I did dream?" continued the captain's man.

"Bother it, how can I tell?" answered the marine. "Let it out if it's worth telling."

"Why, do you see, Bill, I kept tossing and turning uncomfortable-like for an hour or so, until finally I thought I saw you, with your face as black as the ace of spades, and your body dangling by the neck from the main yard-arm of the ship, a dead man!"

"Well, that's comfortable at any rate," said the marine, "and you needn't trouble yourself in future, Leonard Hust, to repeat your dreams to me, especially if they are personal."

"Never mind, man, it was all a dream, no truth in it, you know. Come, old boy, take another drink for companionship, and then good night to you, and I'll turn in."

The marine greedily drained the rest of the bottle, and with swimming eyes thanked Leonard for his kindness, bade him good night, and with an unsteady step resumed his musket and his walk upon the forecastle. In the meantime, Charles Bramble, who was an expert swimmer, had got out of gunshot and even sight of the ship, or rather where his head could not be discovered from the ship's deck, and was nearing the sh.o.r.e very fast.

He had secured, as he proposed, sufficient clothing upon the back of his neck, and in an oil cloth covering, so as to keep it dry, to equip himself quite comfortably on landing, and in these garments he was soon dressed again, and making his way through the town to the mission house, where he knew Helen Huntington and her mother to be, and where he knew, also, that he could find at last temporary lodgings.

He had no longer any fear that his brother would resume the charge concerning him before the court--bad as he knew him to be, he did not believe that he would do this, though he doubted not that he would have managed to have kept him in confinement, and perhaps to have carried him thus to England, partly from revengeful feelings towards him, and partly to keep him out of the presence of her whom he so tenderly loved. But, lest his brother should be betrayed by his feelings into any extremity of action concerning him, he resolved at once to write him a note, declaring that their relationship was known, and that should any further persecution be offered, the same should at once be made public to the oppressor's disgrace.

With this purpose, he hardly awaited the breaking of day before he possessed himself of writing materials, and wrote and despatched the following to his brother:

"CAPTAIN ROBERT BRAMBLE,--About the same time you receive this note, you will also be made aware, doubtless, of my escape from durance vile in your ship. The purpose of my sending yon this is not to ask any favors at the hand of one who was never actuated towards me even in childhood by a brother's regard, but whose sole desire and purpose have been to oppress and injure one related to him by the nearest ties of relationship. My object is rather to let you know that any further attempt to arraign me before the court will lead at once to a public declaration of the fact that your are my brother, a relationship which necessity alone will compel me to publish to the people of Sierra Leone.

CHARLES BRAMBLE, "Alias CAPTAIN WILL RATLIN."

Charles Bramble felt that he was safe from further immediate oppression on his brother's part, and that it was only necessary for him to keep quietly within doors until some chance for shipping from the port should occur, to enable him to disentangle himself from the singular web of circ.u.mstances which chance had woven so net-like about him. In spite of the sad accomplishments of the realization of his condition as it regarded his brother, and the partial danger of his present position, yet there was a lightness to his heart, a buoyancy in his breast, which he had not known for nearly a score of years, for he now felt that all shame of birth was removed from him, that he was respectably and even highly born, and that in point of blood was even the equal, full equal of that fair and lovely girl he regarded so devotedly.

Of course there was no disguise between Charles Bramble and Helen, and her mother, as to the charge brought against him. They knew very well that he had been engaged in the evil trade of the coast, but they knew also that he had conducted his part of the business upon the most humane principles which the traffic would admit, and that he was not a princ.i.p.al, but an agent in the business, sailing his ship as rich owners had directed, and also that besides the fact of his having utterly renounced the trade altogether since he became acquainted with Helen Huntington, his heart and feelings had never been engaged in its necessary requirements. Realizing these facts, we say, neither Helen nor her mother regarded Captain Ratlin (the only character in which they yet knew him) to be actually and seriously culpable as to at charge of inhumanity.

The gratification which Helen evinced on meeting him the next morning after his escape from the ship, was too honest, too unmistakable in its import not to raise up fresh hopes in his heart, that, in spite of his seeming disgrace, his confinement as a prisoner, his trial as an outlaw, and his fallen fortunes generally, still there was one heart that beat purely and tenderly with at least a sister's affection for him, and even Mrs. Huntington, who had not for one moment suspected the true state of her daughter's sentiments towards the young commander, did not hesitate to salute him tenderly, and a.s.sure him of her gratification at his release from bondage. She was a generous hearted woman, frank and honorable in her sentiments, and she secretly rejoiced that they had, herself and daughter unitedly, been able to exert a refining influence over so chivalric and n.o.ble a character, as she fully realized Captain Ratlin to be at heart, and in all his inward promptings.

Charles Bramble still hesitated as to revealing his relationship to Captain Robert Bramble, from real feelings of delicacy, even to Mrs.

Huntington, whom he felt he could trust, partly because he had reason to know that the mother had favored the suit of his brother whom Helen had rejected in India, and partly because at present of his own equivocal situation. But to Helen herself he felt that he might, indeed that he must reveal the important truth, and that very evening as they sat together in one of the s.p.a.cious apartments of the mission house, he took her hand within his own, and asked her if he might confide in her as he would have done with a dear sister.

"You know, Captain Ratlin, that I feel so much indebted to you, in so many ways, that any little service I am capable of doing for you would be but a grateful pleasure," was the instant and frank reply of the beautiful girl, while a heightened glow mantled her cheek.

"Then, Helen, listen to me, and if I am too excited in speaking of a subject so immensely important to me, I trust you will forgive me.

Already I have given you a rough outline of my story, rough and uncouth indeed, since I could give it no commencement. You will remember that previous to the fall I got on ship-board, while a boy in the 'Sea Lion,'

I could recall no event. It was all a blank to me, and my parentage and my childhood were to me a sealed book. Strange as it may seem that book has been opened, and the story is now complete. I know all!"

"Indeed! indeed I am rejoiced to hear you say so," was the earnest reply, while the countenance of the fair creature by his side was lighted up by tenderness and hope.

"You look pleased, Helen," he continued; "but supposing the gap in my story, which is now filled up, had better for my own credit have remained blank!"

"That cannot be--I feel that it cannot be," she said, almost eagerly.

"Supposing that it is now ascertained that the parents of the sailor boy, whose story you have heard, deserted him because of necessity; supposing they were poor, very humble, but not dishonest, would such facts rob me of your continued kind feelings?"