The World's Greatest Books - Volume 7 Part 36

_IV.--My Trial and Happiness_

We had gone on a hunting party one day after my return, and Edmee and I were separated from the rest. Somehow the old unbridled pa.s.sions rose up within me and I succeeded in affronting Edmee with my fierce speech.

Then I hastened away, ashamed and fearful.

I had not gone more than thirty paces when I heard the report of a gun from the spot where I had left Edmee. I stopped, petrified with horror, and then retraced my steps. Edmee was lying on the ground, rigid and bathed in blood. Patience was standing by her side with his arms crossed on his breast, and his face livid. For myself, I could not understand what was taking place. I fancy that my brain, already bewildered by my previous emotions, must have been paralyzed. I sat down on the ground by Edmee's side. She had been shot in the breast in two places, and the Abbe Aubert was endeavouring to staunch the blood with his handkerchief.

"Dead, dead," said Patience, "and there is the murderer! She said so as she gave up her pure soul to G.o.d; and Patience will avenge her! It is very hard but it must be so! It is G.o.d's will, since I alone was here to learn the truth!"

"Horrible, horrible!" exclaimed the Abbe.

Edmee was carried away to the chateau, and I followed and for several days remained in a state of prostration. When strength and consciousness returned I learnt that she was not dead, but that everybody believed me guilty of attempted murder. Patience himself told me the only thing for me to do was to leave that part of the country. I swore I was innocent and would not be saddled with the crime.

Then, one evening, I saw mounted police in the courtyard.

"Good!" I said, "let my destiny take its course." But before quitting the house, perhaps forever, I wished to see Edmee again for the last time. I walked straight to her room, and there I found the Abbe and the doctor. I heard the latter declare that the wounds in themselves were not mortal, and the only danger was from a violent disturbance in the brain.

I approached the bed, and took Edmee's cold and lifeless hand. I kissed it a last time, and, without saying a single word to the others, went and gave myself up to the police.

I was immediately thrown into prison and in a few days my trial began at the a.s.sizes. I was convicted, but through the efforts of certain friends a revision of my sentence was granted, and I was allowed a new trial.

At this trial Patience appeared and declared that, while he had believed from what Edmee had said that I was guilty, it had come into his head that some other Mauprat might have fired the shot. It appeared that John Mauprat was now living in the neighbourhood, as a penitent Trappist monk, and he had been seen in company with another monk who was not to be found since the attack on Edmee. "So I put myself on the track of this wandering monk," Patience concluded, "and I have discovered who he is. He is the would-be murderer of Edmee de Mauprat, and his name is Antony Mauprat."

It then turned out that Antony's plot was to kill Edmee, get me hanged for the murder, and then, when the chevalier was dead, claim the estates. John Mauprat knew of his brother's intentions but denied all complicity and was eventually sent back to his monastery. Antony was subsequently convicted and broken on the wheel.

But before I was finally acquitted Edmee herself gave evidence for me.

She was still far from well but answered clearly all the irritating and maddening questions that were put to her. When she said to the president of the court, "Everything which to you seems inexplicable in my conduct finds its justification in one word: I love him!" I could not help crying out, "Let them take me to the scaffold now; I am king of all the earth."

But as I have said, it was proved that Antony Mauprat was the criminal; and no sooner was I acquitted and set at liberty, with my character completely cleared, than I hastened to Edmee.

I arrived in time to witness my great-uncle's last moments. He recognised me, clasped me to his breast, blessed me at the same time as Edmee, and put my hand into his daughter's.

After we had paid the last tribute of affection to our n.o.ble and excellent relative, we left the province for sometime and paid a visit to Switzerland, Patience and the Abbe Aubert bearing us company.

At the end of Edmee's mourning we returned. This was the time that had been fixed for our marriage, which was duly celebrated in the village chapel.

The years of happiness with my wife beggar description. She was the only woman I ever loved, and though she has now been dead ten years I feel her loss as keenly as on the first day, and seek only to make myself worthy of rejoining her in a better world after I have completed my probation here.

MICHAEL SCOTT

Tom Cringle's Log

Michael Scott was a merchant who turned an unquestioned literary faculty to excellent account. Born at Cowlairs, near Glasgow, Scotland, Oct. 30, 1789, at the age of seventeen Scott was sent to Jamaica to manage a small estate of his father's, and a few years later entered business at Kingstown.

Both of these occupations necessitated frequent journeys, by land and by sea, and the experiences gained thereby form the basis of "Tom Cringle's Log." The story appeared anonymously at intermittent intervals in "Blackwood's Magazine" (1829-33), being published in book form in 1834. Its authorship was attributed, among others, to Captain Marryatt, and so successfully did Scott himself conceal his ident.i.ty with it that the secret was not known until after his death, which occurred at Glasgow on November 7, 1835. Of its kind, "Tom Cringle's Log" is a veritable masterpiece. Humour and pathos and gorgeous descriptions are woven into a thrilling narrative. Scott wrote many other things beside "Tom Cringle,"

but only one story, "The Cruise of the Midge" (1836), is in any way comparable with his first and most famous romance.

_I.--The Quenching of the Torch_

The evening was closing in dark and rainy, with every appearance of a gale from the westward, and the red and level rays of the setting sun flashed on the black hull and tall spars of his Britannic Majesty's sloop Torch. At the distance of a mile or more lay a long, warlike-looking craft, rolling heavily and silently in the trough of the sea.

A flash was seen; the shot fell short, but close to us, evidently thrown from a heavy cannon.

Mr. Splinter, the first lieutenant, jumped from the gun he stood on, and dived into the cabin to make his report.

Captain Deadeye was a staid, wall-eyed veteran, with his coat of a regular Rodney cut, broad skirts, long waist, and stand-up collar, over which dangled either a queue, or marlinspike with a tuft of oak.u.m at the end of it--it would have puzzled old Nick to say which. His lower spars were cased in tight unmentionables of what had once been white kerseymere, and long boots, the coal-scuttle tops of which served as scuppers to carry off the drainings from his coat-flaps in bad weather; he was, in fact, the "last of the sea-monsters," but, like all his tribe, as brave as steel, and, when put to it, as alert as a cat.

He no sooner heard Splinter's report, than he sprang up the ladder.

"Clear away the larboard guns!" I absolutely jumped off the deck with astonishment--who could have spoken it? The enemy was a heavy American frigate, and it appeared such downright madness to show fight under the very muzzles of her guns, half a broadside from which was sufficient to sink us. It was the captain, however, and there was nothing for it but to obey.

"Now, men, mind your aim; our only chance is to wing him." The men--with cutla.s.ses buckled round their waists, and many with nothing but their trousers on--instinctively cheered. Blaze went our cannonades and long gun in succession, and down came the fore-topsail; the head of the topmast had been shot away. "That will do; now knock off, my boys, and let us run for it. Make all sail."

Jonathan was for an instant paralysed by our impudence; but he yawed and let drive his whole broadside; and fearfully did it transmogrify us.

Half an hour before we were as gay a little sloop as ever floated, with a crew of 120 as fine fellows as ever manned a British man-of-war. The iron-shower sped--ten of the 120 never saw the sun rise again; 17 more were wounded, three mortally; our hull and rigging were regularly cut to pieces.

But we had the start, crippled and be-devilled though we were; and as the night fell, we contrived to lose sight of our large friend, and pursue our voyage to Jamaica.

A week later, and the hurricane fell upon us. Our chainplates, strong fastenings, and clenched bolts, drew like pliant wires, shrouds and stays were torn away, and our masts and spars were blown clean out of the ship into the sea. Had we shown a shred of the strongest sail in the vessel, it would have been blown out of the bolt-rope in an instant.

With four men at the wheel, one watch at the pumps, and the other clearing the wreck, we had to get her before the wind.

Our spirits were soon dashed, when the old carpenter, one of the coolest and bravest men in the ship, rose through the forehatch pale as a ghost, with his white hairs streaming out in the wind. He did not speak to any of us, but clambered aft, towards the capstan, to which the captain had lashed himself.

"The water is rushing in forward like a mill-stream, sir; she is fast settling down by the head."

The brig, was, indeed, rapidly losing her buoyancy.

"Stand by, to heave the guns overboard."

Too late, too late! Oh, G.o.d, that cry! I was stunned and drowning, a chaos of wreck was beneath me and around me and above me, and blue, agonised, gasping faces and struggling arms, and colourless clutching hands, and despairing yells for help, where help was impossible; when I felt a sharp bite on the neck, and breathed again. My Newfoundland dog, Sneezer, had s.n.a.t.c.hed at me, and dragged me out of the eddy of the sinking vessel.

For life, dear life, nearly suffocated, amidst the hissing spray, we reached the cutter, the dog and his helpless master.

For three miserable days I had been exposed, half naked and bareheaded, in an open boat, without water, or food, or shade. The third fierce West Indian noon was long pa.s.sed, and once more the dry, burning sun sank in the west, like a red hot shield of iron. I glared on the n.o.ble dog as he lay at the bottom of the boat, and would have torn at his throat with my teeth, not for food, but that I might drink his hot blood; but as he turned his dull, gray, glazing eye on me, the pulses of my heart stopped, and I fell senseless.

When my recollection returned, I was stretched on some fresh plantain leaves, in a low, smoky hut, with my faithful dog lying beside me, whining and licking my hands and face. Underneath the joists, that bound the rafters of the roof together, lay a corpse, wrapped in a boatsail, on which was clumsily written with charcoal, "The body of John Deadeye, Esq., late commander of his Britannic Majesty's sloop Torch."

There was a fire on the floor, at which Lieutenant Splinter, in his shirt and trousers, drenched, unshorn, and death-like, was roasting a joint of meat, whilst a dwarfish Indian sat opposite to him fanning the flame with a palm-leaf. I had been nourished during my delirium; for the fierceness of my sufferings were a.s.suaged, and I was comparatively strong. I anxiously inquired of the lieutenant the fate of our shipmates.