The Water-Witch; Or, the Skimmer of the Seas Part 54

"One dear to both," rejoined the free-trader "His father was my nearest friend, and his mother long watched the youth of Eudora. Until this moment, he has, been our mutual care,--he must now choose between us."

"He will not quit me!" hastily interrupted the alarmed Eudora--"Thou art my adopted son, and none can guide thy young mind like me. Thou hast need of woman's tenderness, Zephyr, and wilt not quit me?"

"Let the child be the arbiter of his own fate. I am credulous on the point of fortune, which is, at least, a happy belief for the contraband."

"Then let him speak. Wilt remain here, amid these smiling fields, to ramble among yonder gay and sweetly-scented flowers?--or wilt thou back to the water, where all is vacant and without change?"

The boy looked wistfully into her anxious eye, and then he bent his own hesitating glance on the calm features of the free-trader.

"We can put to sea," he said; "and when we make the homeward pa.s.sage again, there will be many curious things for thee, Eudora!"

"But this may be the last opportunity to know the land of thy ancestors.

Remember how terrible is the ocean in its anger, and how often the brigantine has been in danger of shipwreck!"

"Nay, that is womanish!--I have been on the royal-yard in the squalls, and it never seemed to me that there was danger."

"Thou hast the unconsciousness and reliance of a ship-boy! But those who are older, know that the life of a sailor is one of constant and imminent hazard.--Thou hast been among the islands in the hurricane, and hast seen the power of the elements!"

"I was in the hurricane, and so was the brigantine; and there you see how taut and neat she is aloft, as if nothing had happened!"

"And you saw us yesterday floating on the open sea, while a few ill-fastened spars kept us from going into its depths!"

"The spars floated, and you were not drowned; else, I should have wept bitterly, Eudora."

"But thou wilt go deeper into the country, and see more of its beauties--its rivers, and its mountains--its caverns, and its woods. Here all is change, while the water is ever the same."

"Surely, Eudora, you forget strangely!--Here it is all America. This mountain is America; yonder land across the bay is America, and the anchorage of yesterday was America. When we shall run off the coast, the next land-fall will be England, or Holland, or Africa; and with a good wind, we may run down the sh.o.r.es of two or three countries in a day."

"And on them, too, thoughtless boy! If you lose this occasion, thy life will be wedded to hazard!"

"Farewell, Eudora!" said the urchin, raising his mouth to give and receive the parting kiss.

"Eudora, adieu!" added a deep and melancholy voice, at her elbow. "I can delay no longer, for my people show symptoms of impatience. Should this be the last of my voyages to the coast, thou wilt not forget those with whom thou hast so long shared good and evil!"

"Not yet--not yet--you will not quit us yet! Leave me the boy--leave me some other memorial of the past, besides this pain!"

"My hour has come. The wind is freshening, and I trifle with its favor.

'Twill be better for thy happiness that none know the history of the brigantine; and a few hours will draw a hundred curious eyes, from the town, upon us."

"What care I for their opinions?--thou wilt not--cannot--leave me, yet!"

"Gladly would I stay, Eudora, but a seaman's home is his ship. Too much precious time is already wasted. Once more, adieu!"

The dark eye of the girl glanced wildly about her. It seemed, as if in that one quick and hurried look, it drank in all that belonged to the land and its enjoyments.

"Whither go you?" she asked, scarce suffering her voice to rise above a whisper. "Whither do you sail, and when do you return?"

"I follow fortune. My return may be distant--never!--Adieu then, Eudora--be happy with the friends that Providence hath given thee!"

The wandering eyes of the girl of the sea became still more unsettled. She grasped the offered hand of the free-trader in both her own, and wrung it in an impa.s.sioned and unconscious manner. Then releasing her hold, she opened wide her arms, and cast them convulsively about his unmoved and unyielding form.

"We will go together!--I am thine, and thine only!"

"Thou knowest not what thou sayest, Eudora!" gasped the Skimmer--"Thou hast a father--friend--husband--"

"Away, away!" cried the frantic girl, waving her hand wildly towards Alida and the Patroon, who advanced as if hurrying to rescue her from a precipice--"Thine, and thine only!"

The smuggler released himself from her frenzied grasp, and, with the strength of a giant, he held the struggling girl at the length of his arm, while he endeavored to control the tempest of pa.s.sion that struggled within him.

"Think, for one moment, think!" he said. "Thou wouldst follow an outcast--an outlaw--one hunted and condemned of men!"

"Thine, and thine only!"

"With a ship for a dwelling--the tempestuous ocean for a world!--"

"Thy world is my world!--thy home, my home!--thy danger, mine!"

The shout which burst out of the chest of the 'Skimmer of the Seas' was one of uncontrollable exultation.

"Thou art mine!" he cried. "Before a tie like this, the claim of such a father is forgotten! Burgher, adieu!--I will deal by thy daughter more honestly than thou didst deal by my benefactor's child!"

Eudora was lifted from the ground as if her weight had been that of a feather; and, spite of a sudden and impetuous movement of Ludlow and the Patroon, she was borne to the boat. In a moment, the bark was afloat, with the gallant boy tossing his sea-cap upward in triumph. The brigantine, as if conscious of what had pa.s.sed, wore round like a whirling chariot; and, ere the spectators had recovered from their confusion and wonder, the boat was hanging at the tackles. The free-trader was seen on the p.o.o.p, with an arm cast about the form of Eudora, waving a hand to the motionless group on the sh.o.r.e, while the still half-unconscious girl of the ocean signed her faint adieus to Alida and her father. The vessel glided through the inlet, and was immediately rocking on the billows of the surf. Then, taking the full weight of the southern breeze, the fine and attenuated spars bent to its force, and the progress of the swift-moving craft was apparent by the bubbling line of its wake.

The day had begun to decline, before Alida and Ludlow quitted the lawn of the l.u.s.t in Rust. For the first hour, the dark hull of the brigantine was seen supporting the moving cloud of canvas. Then the low structure vanished, and sail after sail settled into the water, until nothing was visible but a speck of glittering white. It lingered for a minute, and was swallowed in the void.

The nuptials of Ludlow and Alida were touched with a shade of melancholy.

Natural affection in one, and professional sympathy in the other, had given them a deep and lasting interest in the fate of the adventurers.

Years pa.s.sed away, and months were spent at the villa, in which a thousand anxious looks were cast upon the ocean. Each morning, during the early months of summer, did Alida hasten to the windows of her pavilion, in the hope of seeing the vessel of the contraband anch.o.r.ed in the Cove:--but always without success. It never returned;--and though the rebuked and disappointed Alderman caused many secret inquiries to be made along the whole extent of the American coast, he never again heard of the renowned 'SKIMMER OF THE SEAS' or of his matchless WATER-WITCH.

The End