The Sea-Witch - Maturin Murray Ballou (ereader android TXT) 📗

again for it, and a thousand other reminiscences, thread by thread, and link by link, filling up the space from earliest childhood to the hour when he had left his home at Bramble Park.

As he went on relating these things, in the same old natural voice that he had poured into the same ears from their infancy, until nearly ten years had passed, a long-closed vein of memory seemed gradually to open in the prisoner's brain; he covered his face with his hands, and for a few moments seemed lost in connecting the various threads of the past, until gradually it all came plainly and clearly back to him. His memory had again by these hints become completely restored, he was himself again!

"Leonard, Leonard, I see all, remember all," he said, while a tear, a man's tear, wet for a single moment his bronzed cheek.

"I am rejoiced, sir, to hear it, I am sure," said the other.

"But, Leonard, where is my brother, and why is it necessary to remove these badges of shame by stealth? Tell me, where is Robert?"

"Alas, sir, you must remember that he never held a brother's regard for you; it was that very thing which drove you from us when you were a wee bit of a boy."

"True, true; but he must see the hand of Providence in all this, and I know he will give me his hand, and we will forgive each other and forget the past."

"Alas! sir, I always befriended you at home, when master Robert had set both the old folk against you, and I would do so now; but as to him, sir, I am sorry to say it, but he's a bad man, and he makes all those who are with him bad men, and I have many a sad thing at heart that I have been guilty of by following his orders, sir. No, no, master Charles, take my advice, don't trust Robert,--make your escape, or you will be hanged at the yard-arm of this very ship ere another twenty-four hours have passed!"

"Is he capable of this?" asked the younger brother, in tones of amazement.

"Nobody should know better than I, sir, and I tell you yes."

"My blood, then, shall not be upon his hands," said Charles, musing, "I will escape. Come, good Leonard, relieve me of these shackles, and quickly."

"Slowly, slowly, master Charles, we must be cautious, there are watchful eyes on board the ship, and sentries who know their duty, so be wary."

The young commander seemed now to stand more erect, there was a freer glance to his eye, his lips were more compressed and firm, he felt that what had been to him heretofore an indelible stain, a stigma upon his character, was now effaced; he was not only respectably born, but even gently and highly so. His father was knighted by his king, his blood was as pure and ancient as any in England. He could now take Helen Huntington to his heart without shame; he could boldly plead a cause that he had not before dared to utter; he could refer her to the dear hours of their childhood, to the tender kiss she gave him when he left that distant home to become a wanderer over half the globe!

He no longer felt the irons that Leonard Hust was filing away. He seemed to feel a strength that would have snapped them like pack threap. He was a man now, a free man, and not a thing of accident; a thing for the world to point at in scorn, not an abandoned child of shame. No, he felt nerved at once by this singular, this almost miraculous discovery, and could hardly restrain his impatience. Yet a shadow for a moment crossed over his brow, as he thought of that brother, who could coldly look on and see him sacrificed, knowing what he must and surely did know. Could he have permitted such a result, had he been in Robert's place? Indeed, he felt he could not.

"Does not my brother know that you are here on this errand, Leonard?"

"If he did it would cost me my life," said the honest fellow.

Charles would have placed some favorable construction upon the case, but, alas, he could not; there was no possible way of disguising the matter. Robert was the same bitter, jealous-spirited soul that had rendered his childhood miserable. Time had not improved him,--it was his nature and could not be eradicated. Charles now realized this, and within a few further inquiries of Leonard, touching matters of vital interest to him, he resolved not to seek Robert, as he had at the outset intended, neither would he avoid him. He knew no other person save him could bring a continuance of the suit against him, but he hardly feared that even he would do that.

"Of course Helen Huntington knows nothing of this development yet, Leonard?"

"No, sir, and master Robert bid me be careful not to let her find it out, or to say one word about the matter to any one whatever. I wonder the lady didn't know you, sir."

"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 passed 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 God.


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 shore 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 circumstances, 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 shore more especially. Once in the water he had only to strike out quietly for the shore, trusting the dullness of the sentries and the favoring darkness of the night to enable him to reach the land unobserved.

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 passage. 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 assumed 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