The Pilot: A Tale of the Sea by James Fenimore Cooper (best e books to read txt) 📗

flag of a frigate that is now waiting for them in the offing.”

“You talk of a frigate!” said Alice, with sudden interest in the subject. “Is she your only means of escaping from your enemies?”

“Alice Dunscombe has taken but little heed of passing events, to ask such a question of me!” returned the haughty Pilot. “The question would have sounded more discreetly had it been, 'Is she the only vessel with you that your enemies will have to escape from?'”

“Nay, I cannot measure my language at such a moment,” continued Alice, with a still stronger exhibition of anxiety. “It was my fortune to overhear a part of a plan that was intended to destroy, by sudden means, those vessels of America that were in our seas.”

“That might be a plan more suddenly adopted than easily executed, my good Alice. And who were these redoubtable schemers?”

“I know not but my duty to the king should cause me to suppress this information,” said Alice, hesitating.

“Well, be it so,” returned the Pilot, coolly; “it may prove the means of saving the persons of some of the royal officers from death or captivity. I have already said, this may be the last of my visits to this island, and consequently, Alice, the last of our interviews—”

“And yet,” said Alice, still pursuing the train of her own thoughts, “there can be but little harm in sparing human blood; and least of all in serving those whom we have long known and regarded!”

“Ay, that is a simple doctrine, and one that is easily maintained,” he added, with much apparent indifference; “and yet King George might well spare some of his servants—the list of his abject minions is so long!”

“There was a man named Dillon, who lately dwelt in the abbey, but who has mysteriously disappeared,” continued Alice; “or rather, who was captured by your companions: know you aught of him, John?”

“I have heard there was a miscreant of that name, but we have never met. Alice, if it please Heaven that this should be the last—”

“He was a captive in the schooner called the Ariel,” she added, still unheeding his affected indifference to her communication; “and when permitted to return to St. Ruth, he lost sight of his solemn promise, and of his plighted honor, to wreak his malice. Instead of effecting the exchange that he had conditioned to see made, he plotted treason against his captors. Yes, it was most foul treason! for his treatment was generous and kind, and his liberation certain.”

“He was a most unworthy scoundrel! But, Alice——”

“Nay, listen, John,” she continued, urged to even a keener interest in his behalf by his apparent inattention; “and yet I should speak tenderly of his failings, for he is already numbered with the dead! One part of his scheme must have been frustrated; for he intended to destroy that schooner which you call the Ariel, and to have taken the person of the young Barnstable.”

“In both of which he has failed! The person of Barnstable I have rescued, and the Ariel has been stricken by a hand far mightier than any of this world!—she is wrecked.”

“Then is the frigate your only means of escape! Hasten, John, and seem not so proud and heedless; for the hour may come when all your daring will not profit ye against the machinations of secret enemies. This Dillon had also planned that expresses should journey to a seaport at the south, with the intelligence that your vessels were in these seas, in order that ships might be dispatched to intercept your retreat.”

The Pilot lost his affected indifference as she proceeded; and before she ceased speaking, his eye was endeavoring to anticipate her words, by reading her countenance through the dusky medium of the starlight.

“How know you this, Alice?” he asked quickly—“and what vessel did he name?”

“Chance made me an unseen listener to their plan, and—I know not but I forget my duty to my prince! but, John, 'tis asking too much of a weak woman, to require that she shall see the man whom she once viewed with eyes of favor sacrificed, when a word of caution, given in season, might enable him to avoid the danger!”

“Once viewed with an eye of favor! Is it then so?” said the Pilot, speaking in a vacant manner. “But, Alice, heard ye the force of the ships, or their names? Give me their names, and the first lord of your British admiralty shall not give so true an account of their force as I will furnish from this list of my own.”

“Their names were certainly mentioned,” said Alice, with tender melancholy; “but the name of one far nearer to me was ringing in my ears, and has driven them from my mind.”

“You are the same good Alice I once knew! And my name was mentioned? What said they of the Pirate? Had his arm stricken a blow that made them tremble in their abbey? Did they call him coward, girl?”

“It was mentioned in terms that pained my heart as I listened; for it is never too easy a task to forget the lapse of years, nor are the feelings of youth to be easily eradicated.”

“Ay, there is luxury in knowing that, with all their affected abuse, the slaves dread me in their secret holds!” exclaimed the Pilot, pacing in front of his listener with quick steps. “This it is to be marked, among men, above all others in your calling! I hope yet to see the day when the third George shall start at the sound of that name, even within the walls of his palace.”

Alice Dunscombe heard him in deep and mortified silence. It was too evident that a link in the chain of their sympathies was broken, and that the weakness in which she had been unconsciously indulging was met by no correspondent emotions in him. After sinking her head for a moment on her bosom, she arose with a little more than her usual air of meekness, and recalled the Pilot to a sense of her presence, by saying, in a yet milder voice:

“I have now communicated all that it can profit you to know, and it is meet that we separate.”

“What, thus soon?” he cried, starting and taking her hand. “This is but a short interview, Alice, to precede so long a separation.”

“Be it short, or be it long, it must now end,” she replied. “Your companions are on the eve of departure, and I trust you would be one of the last who would wish to be deserted. If ye do visit England again, I hope it may be with altered sentiments, so far as regards her interests. I wish ye peace, John, and the blessings of God, as ye may be found to deserve them.”

“I ask no farther, unless it may be the aid of your gentle prayers! But the night is gloomy, and I will see you in safety to the abbey.”

“It is unnecessary,” she returned, with womanly reserve. “The innocent can be as fearless, on occasion, as the most valiant among your warriors. But here is no