Homeward Bound - James Fenimore Cooper (free e books to read .txt) 📗

on deck as soon as the arrangement was settled. At an order from their commander the marines boarded the Montauk, and proceeded below in quest of their prisoner.

Mr. Sandon had been left alone in Eve's cabin; but as soon as he found himself at liberty, he hurried into his own state-room. Captain Truck went below, while the marines were entering the ship; and, having passed a minute in his own room, he stepped across the cabin, to that of the culprit. Opening the door without knocking, he found the unhappy man in the very act of applying a pistol to his head, his own hand being just in time to prevent the catastrophe. The despair portrayed in the face of the criminal prevented reproach or remonstrance, for Captain Truck was a man of few words when it was necessary to act. Disarming the intended suicide, he coolly counted out to him thirty-five pounds, the money paid for his passage, and told him to pocket it.

"I received this on condition of delivering you safe in New York," he said; "and as I shall fail in the bargain, I think it no more than just to return you the money. It may help you on the trial."

"Will they hang me?" asked Mr. Sandon hoarsely, and with an imbecility like that of an infant.

The appearance of the marines prevented reply, the prisoner was secured, his effects were pointed out, and his person was transferred to the boat with the usual military promptitude. As soon as this was done the cutter pulled away from the packet, and was soon hoisted in again on the corvette's deck. That day month the unfortunate victim of a passion for trifles committed suicide in London, just as they were about to transfer him to Newgate; and six months later his unhappy sister died of a broken heart.


Chapter XXXIV.


We'll attend you there:
Where, if you bring not Marcius, we'll proceed
In our first way.

CORIOLANUS.


Eve and Mademoiselle Viefville had been unwilling spectators of a portion of the foregoing scene, and Captain Ducie felt a desire to apologise for the part he had been obliged to act in it. For this purpose he had begged his friend the baronet to solicit a more regular introduction than that received through Captain Truck.

"My friend Ducie is solicitous to be introduced, Miss Effingham, that he may urge something in his own behalf concerning the commotion he has raised among us."

A graceful assent brought the young commander forward, and as soon as he was named he made a very suitable expression of his regret to the ladies, who received it as a matter of course, favourably.

"This is a new duty to me, the arrest of criminals," added Captain Ducie.

The word criminals sounded harsh to the ear of Eve, and she felt her cheek becoming pale.

"Much as we regret the cause," observed the father "we can spare the person you are about to take from us without much pain; for we have known him for an impostor from the moment he appeared.--Is there not some mistake? That is the third trunk that I have seen passed into the boat marked P. P."

Captain Ducie smiled, and answered,--

"You will call it a bad pun if I say P. P. see," pointing to Paul, who was coming from the cabin attended by Captain Truck. The latter was conversing warmly, gesticulating towards the corvette, and squeezing his companion's hand.

"Am I to understand," said Mr. Effingham earnestly, "that Mr. Powis, too, is to quit us?"

"He does me the favour, also,"--Captain Ducie's lip curled a little at the word favour ,--"to accompany me to England."

Good breeding and intense feeling caused a profound suspense, until the young man himself approached the party. Paul endeavoured to be calm, and he even forced a smile as he addressed his friends.

"Although I escape the honours of a marine guard," he said,--and Eve thought he said it bitterly, "I am also to be taken out of the ship. Chance has several times thrown me into your society, Mr. Effingham--- Miss Effingham--and, should the same good fortune ever again occur, I hope I may be permitted to address you at once as an old acquaintance."

"We shall always entertain a most grateful recollection of your important services, Mr. Powis," returned the father, "and I shall not cease to wish that the day may soon arrive when I can have the pleasure of receiving you under my own roof."

Paul now offered to take the hand of Mademoiselle Viefville, which he kissed gallantly. He did the same with Eve's, though she felt him tremble in the attempt. As these ladies had lived much in countries in which this graceful mode of salutation prevails among intimates, the act passed as a matter of course.

With Sir George Templemore, Paul parted with every sign of good-will. The people, to whom he had caused a liberal donation to be made, gave him three cheers, for they understood his professional merits at least; and Saunders, who had not been forgotten, attended him assiduously to the side of the ship. Here Mr. Leach called, "the Foam's away!" and Captain Ducie's gig was manned. At the gangway Captain Truck again shook Paul cordially by the hand, and whispered something in his ear.

Every thing being now ready, the two gentlemen prepared to go into the boat. As Eve watched all that passed with an almost breathless anxiety, a little ceremonial that now took place caused her much pain. Hitherto the manner of Captain Ducie, as respected his companion, had struck her as equivocal. At times it was haughty and distant, while at others it had appeared more conciliatory and kind. All these little changes she had noted with a jealous interest, and the slightest appearance of respect or of disrespect was remarked, as if it could furnish a clew to the mystery of the whole procedure.

"Your boat is ready, sir," said Mr. Leach, stepping out of the gangway to give way to Paul, who stood nearest to the ladder.

The latter was about to proceed, when he was touched lightly on the shoulder by Captain Ducie, who smiled, Eve thought haughtily, and intimated a desire to precede him. Paul coloured, bowed, and falling back, permitted the English officer to enter his own boat first.

" Apparemment ce captaine Anglais est un pen sans façon--Voilà qui est poli! " whispered Mademoiselle Viefville.

"These commanders of vessels of war are little kings," quietly observed Mr. Effingham, who had unavoidably noticed the whole procedure.

The gig was soon clear of the ship, and both the gentlemen repeated their adieus to those on deck. To reach the corvette, to enter her, and to have the gig swinging on her quarter occupied but five minutes.

Both ships now filled away, and the corvette began to throw out one sheet of cloth after another until she was under a cloud of canvas, again standing to the eastward with studding-sails alow and aloft. On the other hand, the Montauk laid her yards square, and ran down to the Hook. The pilot from the corvette had been sent on board the packet, and, the wind standing, by eleven o'clock the latter had crossed the bar. At this moment the low dark stern of the Foam resembled a small black spot on the sea sustaining a pyramid of cloud.

"You were not on deck, John, to take leave of our young friend Powis," said Mr. Effingham, reproachfully.

"I do not wish to witness a ceremony of this extraordinary nature. And yet it might have been better if I had."

"Better, cousin Jack!"

"Better. Poor Monday committed to my care certain papers that, I fancy, are of moment to some one, and these I intrusted to Mr. Powis, with a view to examine them together when we should get in. In the hurry of parting, he has carried them off."

"They may be reclaimed by writing to London," said Mr. Effingham quietly. "Have you his address?"

"I asked him for it; but the question appeared to embarrass him."

"Embarrass, cousin Jack!"

"Embarrass, Miss Effingham."

The subject was now dropped by common consent. A few moments of awkward silence succeeded, when the interest inseparable from a return home, after an absence of years, began to resume its influence, and objects on the land were noticed. The sudden departure of Paul was not forgotten, however; for it continued the subject of wonder with all for weeks, though little more was said on the subject.

The ship was soon abreast of the Hook, which Eve compared, to the disadvantage of the celebrated American haven with the rocky promontories and picturesque towers of the Mediterranean.

"This portion of our bay, at least, is not very admirable," she said, "though there is a promise of something better above."

"Some New-York cockney, who has wandered from the crackling heat of his Nott stove, has taken it into his poetical imagination to liken this bay to that of Naples," said John Effingham; "and his fellow-citizens greedily swallow the absurdity, although there is scarcely a single feature in common to give the foolish opinion value."

"But the bay above is beautiful!"

"Barely pretty: when one has seen it alone, for many years, and has forgotten the features of other bays, it does not appear amiss; but you , fresh from the bolder landscapes of Southern Europe, will be disappointed."

Eve, an ardent admirer of nature, heard this with regret, for she had as much confidence in the taste of her kinsman as in his love of truth. She knew he was superior to the vulgar vanity of giving an undue merit to a thing because he had a right of property in it; was a man of the world, and knew what he uttered on all such matters; had not a particle of provincial admiration or of provincial weakness MI his composition; and, although as ready as another, and far more able than most, to defend his country and her institutions from the rude assault of her revilers, that he seldom made the capital mistake of attempting to defend a weak point.

The scenery greatly improved, in fact, however, as the ship advanced; and while she went through the pass called the Narrows, Eve expressed her delight. Mademoiselle Viefville was in ecstasies, not so much with the beauties of the place as with the change from the monotony of the ocean to the movement and liveliness of the shore.

"You think this noble scenery?" said John Effingham.

"As far from it as possible, cousin Jack. I see much meanness and poverty in the view, but at the same time it has fine parts. The islands are not Italian, certainly; nor these hills, nor yet that line of distant rocks; but, together, they form a pretty bay, and a noble one in extent and uses at least."

"All this is true. Perhaps the earth does not contain another port with so many advantages for commerce. In this respect I think it positively unequalled; but I know a hundred bays that surpass it in beauty. Indeed in the Mediterranean it is not easy to find a natural haven that does not."

Eve was too fresh from the gorgeous coast of Italy to be in ecstasies with the meagre villages and villas that, more or less, lined the bay