Carl Russell Fish - "The Path of Empire,"

Charles A. Ellwood - "Sociology and Modern Social Problems"

Stephen Palfrey Webb - "A Sketch of the Causes, Operations and Results of the San Francisco Vigilance Committee of 1856"

Shinran Shonin - "Buddhist Psalms"

Wacousta (Volume III)

J >> John Richardson >> Wacousta (Volume III)



This etext was produced by Gardner Buchanan with help from
Charles Franks and the distributed proofers.





WACOUSTA;
or
THE PROPHECY.

Volume Three of Three




CHAPTER I.

The night passed away without further event on board the
schooner, yet in all the anxiety that might be supposed
incident to men so perilously situated. Habits of long-since
acquired superstition, too powerful to be easily shaken
off, moreover contributed to the dejection of the mariners,
among whom there were not wanting those who believed the
silent steersman was in reality what their comrade had
represented,--an immaterial being, sent from the world
of spirits to warn them of some impending evil. What
principally gave weight to this impression were the
repeated asseverations of Fuller, during the sleepless
night passed by all on deck, that what he had seen was
no other, could be no other, than a ghost! exhibiting in
its hueless, fleshless cheek, the well-known lineaments
of one who was supposed to be no more: and, if the story
of their comrade had needed confirmation among men in
whom faith in, rather than love for, the marvellous was
a constitutional ingredient, the terrible effect that
seemed to have been produced on Captain de Haldimar by
the same mysterious visitation would have been more than
conclusive. The very appearance of the night, too,
favoured the delusion. The heavens, comparatively clear
at the moment when the canoe approached the vessel, became
suddenly enveloped in the deepest gloom at its departure,
as if to enshroud the course of those who, having so
mysteriously approached, had also so unaccountably
disappeared. Nor had this threatening state of the
atmosphere the counterbalancing advantage of storm and
tempest to drive them onward through the narrow waters
of the Sinclair, and enable them, by anticipating the
pursuit of their enemies, to shun the Scylla and Charybdis
that awaited their more leisure advance. The wind increased
not; and the disappointed seamen remarked, with dismay,
that their craft scarcely made more progress than at the
moment when she first quitted her anchorage.

It was now near the first hours of day; and although,
perhaps, none slept, there were few who were not apparently
at rest, and plunged in the most painful reflections.
Still occupying her humble couch, and shielded from the
night air merely by the cloak that covered her own
blood-stained garments, lay the unhappy Clara, her deep
groans and stifled sobs bursting occasionally from her
pent-up heart, and falling on the ears of the mariners
like sounds of fearful import, produced by the mysterious
agency that already bore such undivided power over their
thoughts. On the bare deck, at her side, lay her brother,
his face turned upon the planks, as if to shut out all
objects from eyes he had not the power to close; and,
with one arm supporting his heavy brow, while the other,
cast around the restless form of his beloved sister,
seemed to offer protection and to impart confidence, even
while his lips denied the accents of consolation. Seated
on an empty hen-coop at their head, was Sir Everard
Valletort, his back reposing against the bulwarks of the
vessel, his arms folded across his chest, and his eyes
bent mechanically on the man at the helm, who stood within
a few paces of him,--an attitude of absorption, which
he, ever and anon, changed to one of anxious and enquiring
interest, whenever the agitation of Clara was manifested
in the manner already shown.

The main deck and forecastle of the vessel presented a
similar picture of mingled unquietness and repose. Many
of the seamen might be seen seated on the gun-carriages,
with their cheeks pressing the rude metal that served
them for a pillow. Others lay along the decks, with their
heads resting on the elevated hatches; while not a few,
squatted on their haunches with their knees doubled up
to their very chins, supported in that position the aching
head that rested between their rough and horny palms.
A first glance might have induced the belief that all
were buried in the most profound slumber; but the quick
jerking of a limb,--the fitful, sudden shifting of a
position,--the utter absence of that deep breathing which
indicates the unconsciousness of repose, and the occasional
spirting of tobacco juice upon the deck,--all these
symptoms only required to be noticed, to prove the living
silence that reigned throughout was not born either of
apathy or sleep.

At the gangway at which the canoe had approached now
stood the individual already introduced to our readers
as Jack Fuller. The same superstitious terror that caused
his flight had once more attracted him to the spot where
the subject of his alarm first appeared to him; and,
without seeming to reflect that the vessel, in her slow
but certain progress, had left all vestige of the mysterious
visitant behind, he continued gazing over the bulwarks
on the dark waters, as if he expected at each moment to
find his sight stricken by the same appalling vision. It
was at the moment when he had worked up his naturally
dull imagination to its highest perception of the
supernatural, that he was joined by the rugged boatswain,
who had passed the greater part of the night in pacing
up and down the decks, watching the aspect of the heavens,
and occasionally tauting a rope or squaring a light yard,
unassisted, as the fluttering of the canvass in the wind
rendered the alteration necessary.

"Well, Jack!" bluntly observed the latter in a gruff
whisper that resembled the suppressed growling of a
mastiff, "what the hell are ye thinking of now?--Not got
over your flumbustification yet, that ye stand here,
looking as sanctified as an old parson!"

"I'll tell ye what it is, Mr. Mullins," returned the
sailor, in the same key; "you may make as much game on
me as you like; but these here strange sort of doings
are somehow quizzical; and, though I fears nothing in
the shape of flesh and blood, still, when it comes to
having to do with those as is gone to Davy Jones's locker
like, it gives a fellow an all-overishness as isn't quite
the thing. You understand me?"

"I'm damned if I do!" was the brief but energetic rejoinder.

"Well, then," continued Fuller, "if I must out with it,
I must. I think that 'ere Ingian must have been the devil,
or how could he come so sudden and unbeknownst upon me,
with the head of a 'possum: and then, agin, how could he
get away from the craft without our seeing him? and how
came the ghost on board of the canoe?"

"Avast there, old fellow; you means not the head of a
'possum, but a beaver: but that 'ere's all nat'r'l enough,
and easily 'counted for; but you hav'n't told us whose
ghost it was, after all."

"No; the captain made such a spring to the gunwale, as
frighted it all out of my head: but come closer, Mr.
Mullins, and I'll whisper it in your ear.--Hark! what
was that?"

"I hears nothing," said the boatswain, after a pause.

"It's very odd," continued Fuller; "but I thought as how
I heard it several times afore you came."

"There's something wrong, I take it, in your upper story,
Jack Fuller," coolly observed his companion; "that 'ere
ghost has quite capsized you."

"Hark, again!" repeated the sailor. "Didn't you hear it
then? A sort of a groan like."

"Where, in what part?" calmly demanded the boatswain,
though in the same suppressed tone in which the dialogue
had been, carried on.

"Why, from the canoe that lies alongside there. I heard
it several times afore."

"Well, damn my eyes, if you a'rn't turned a real coward
at last," politely remarked Mr. Mullins. "Can't the poor
fat devil of a Canadian snooze a bit in his hammock,
without putting you so completely out of your reckoning?"

"The Canadian--the Canadian!" hurriedly returned Fuller:
"why, don't you see him there, leaning with his back to
the main-mast, and as fast asleep as if the devil himself
couldn't wake him?"

"Then it was the devil, you heard, if you like," quaintly
retorted Mullins: "but bear a hand, and tell us all about
this here ghost."

"Hark, again! what was that?" once more enquired the
excited sailor.

"Only a gust of wind passing through the dried boughs of
the canoe," said the boatswain: "but since we can get
nothing out of that crazed noddle of yours, see if you
can't do something with your hands. That 'ere canoe
running alongside, takes half a knot off the ship's way.
Bear a hand then, and cast off the painter, and let her
drop astarn, that she may follow in our wake. Hilloa!
what the hell's the matter with the man now?"

And well might he ask. With his eyeballs staring, his
teeth chattering, his body half bent, and his arms thrown
forward, yet pendent as if suddenly arrested in that
position while in the act of reaching the rope, the
terrified sailor stood gazing on the stern of the canoe;
in which, by the faint light of the dawning day, was to
be seen an object well calculated to fill the least
superstitious heart with terror and dismay. Through an
opening in the foliage peered the pale and spectral face
of a human being, with its dull eyes bent fixedly and
mechanically upon the vessel. In the centre of the wan
forehead was a dark incrustation, as of blood covering
the superficies of a newly closed wound. The pallid mouth
was partially unclosed, so as to display a row of white
and apparently lipless teeth; and the features were
otherwise set and drawn, as those of one who is no longer
of earth. Around the head was bound a covering so close,
as to conceal every part save the face; and once or twice
a hand was slowly raised, and pressed upon the blood spot
that dimmed the passing fairness of the brow. Every other
portion of the form was invisible.

"Lord have mercy upon us!" exclaimed the boatswain, in
a voice that, now elevated to more than its natural tone,
sounded startlingly on the stillness of the scene; "sure
enough it is, indeed, a ghost!"

"Ha! do you believe me now?" returned Fuller, gaining
confidence from the admission of his companion, and in
the same elevated key. "It is, as I hope to be saved,
the ghost I see'd afore."

The commotion on deck was now every where universal. The
sailors started to their feet, and, with horror and alarm
visibly imprinted on their countenances, rushed tumultuously
towards the dreaded gangway.

"Make way--room, fellows!" exclaimed a hurried voice;
and presently Captain de Haldimar, who had bounded like
lightning from the deck, appeared with eager eye and
excited cheek among them. To leap into the bows of the
canoe, and disappear under the foliage, was the work of
a single instant. All listened breathlessly for the
slightest sound; and then every heart throbbed with the
most undefinable emotions, as his lips were heard giving
utterance to the deep emotion of his own spirit,--

"Madeline, oh, my own lost Madeline!" he exclaimed with
almost frantic energy of passion: "do I then press you
once more in madness to my doting heart? Speak, speak to
me--for God's sake speak, or I shall go mad! Air, air,
--she wants air only--she cannot be dead."

These last words were succeeded by the furious rending
asunder of the fastenings that secured the boughs, and
presently the whole went overboard, leaving revealed the
tall and picturesque figure of the officer; whose left
arm encircled while it supported the reclining and
powerless form of one who well resembled, indeed, the
spectre for which she had been mistaken, while his right
hand was busied in detaching the string that secured a
portion of the covering round her throat. At length it
fell from her shoulders; and the well known form of
Madeline de Haldimar, clad even in the vestments in which
they had been wont to see her, met the astonished gaze
of the excited seamen. Still there were some who doubted
it was the corporeal woman whom they beheld; and several
of the crew who were catholics even made the sign of the
cross as the supposed spirit was now borne up the gangway
in the arms of the pained yet gratified De Haldimar: nor
was it until her feet were seen finally resting on the
deck, that Jack Fuller could persuade himself it was
indeed Miss de Haldimar, and not her ghost, that lay
clasped to the heart of the officer.

With the keen rush of the morning air upon her brow
returned the suspended consciousness of the bewildered
Madeline. The blood came slowly and imperceptibly to her
cheek; and her eyes, hitherto glazed, fixed, and
inexpressive, looked enquiringly, yet with stupid
wonderment, around. She started from the embrace of her
lover, gazed alternately at his disguise, at himself,
and at Clara; and then passing her hand several times
rapidly across her brow, uttered an hysteric scream, and
threw herself impetuously forward on the bosom of the
sobbing girl; who, with extended arms, parted lips, and
heaving bosom, sat breathlessly awaiting the first dawn
of the returning reason of her more than sister.

We should vainly attempt to paint all the heart-rending
misery of the scene exhibited in the gradual restoration
of Miss de Haldimar to her senses. From a state of torpor,
produced by the freezing of every faculty into almost
idiocy, she was suddenly awakened to all the terrors of
the past and the deep intonations of her rich voice were
heard only in expressions of agony, that entered into
the most iron-hearted of the assembled seamen; while they
drew from the bosom of her gentle and sympathising cousin
fresh bursts of desolating grief. Imagination itself
would find difficulty in supplying the harrowing effect
upon all, when, with upraised hands, and on her bended
knees, her large eyes turned wildly up to heaven, she
invoked in deep and startling accents the terrible
retribution of a just God on the inhuman murderers of
her father, with whose life-blood her garments were
profusely saturated; and then, with hysteric laughter,
demanded why she alone had been singled out to survive
the bloody tragedy. Love and affection, hitherto the
first principles of her existence, then found no entrance
into her mind. Stricken, broken-hearted, stultified to
all feeling save that of her immediate wretchedness, she
thought only of the horrible scenes through which she
had passed; and even he, whom at another moment she could
have clasped in an agony of fond tenderness to her beating
bosom,--he to whom she had pledged her virgin faith, and
was bound by the dearest of human ties,--he whom she had
so often longed to behold once more, and had thought of,
the preceding day, with all the tenderness of her
impassioned and devoted soul,--even he did not, in the
first hours of her terrible consciousness, so much as
command a single passing regard. All the affections were
for a period blighted in her bosom. She seemed as one
devoted, without the power of resistance, to a grief
which calcined and preyed upon all other feelings of the
mind. One stunning and annihilating reflection seemed to
engross every principle of her being; nor was it for
hours after she had been restored to life and recollection
that a deluge of burning tears, giving relief to her
heart and a new direction to her feelings, enabled her
at length to separate the past from, and in some degree
devote herself to, the present. Then, indeed, for the
first time did she perceive and take pleasure in the
presence of her lover; and clasping her beloved and
weeping Clara to her heart, thank her God, in all the
fervour of true piety, that she at least had been spared
to shed a ray of comfort on her distracted spirit. But
we will not pain the reader by dwelling on a scene that
drew tears even from the rugged and flint-nerved boatswain
himself; for, although we should linger on it with minute
anatomical detail, no powers of language we possess could
convey the transcript as it should be. Pass we on,
therefore, to the more immediate incidents of our narrative.

The day now rapidly developing, full opportunity was
afforded the mariners to survey the strict nature of
their position. To all appearance they were yet in the
middle of the lake, for around them lay the belting sweep
of forest that bounded the perspective of the equidistant
circle, of which their bark was the focus or immediate
centre. The wind was dying gradually away, and when at
length the sun rose, in all his splendour, there was
scarce air enough in the heavens to keep the sails from
flapping against the masts, or to enable the vessel to
obey her helm. In vain was the low and peculiar whistle
of the seamen heard, ever and anon, in invocation of the
departing breeze. Another day, calm and breathless as
the preceding, had been chartered from the world of light;
and their hearts failed them, as they foresaw the difficulty
of their position, and the almost certainty of their
retreat being cut off. It was while labouring under the
disheartening consciousness of danger, peculiar to all,
that the anxious boatswain summoned Captain de Haldimar
and Sir Everard Valletort, by a significant beck of the
finger, to the side of the deck opposite to that on which
still lay the suffering and nearly broken-hearted girls.

"Well, Mullins, what now?" enquired the former, as he
narrowly scanned the expression of the old man's features:
"that clouded brow of yours, I fear me, bodes no agreeable
information."

"Why, your honour, I scarcely knows what to say about
it; but seeing as I'm the only officer in the ship, now
our poor captain is killed, God bless him! I thought I
might take the liberty to consult with your honours as
to the best way of getting out of the jaws of them sharks
of Ingians; and two heads, as the saying is, is always
better than one."

"And now you have the advantage of three," observed the
officer, with a sickly smile; "but I fear, Mullins, that
if your own be not sufficient for the purpose, ours will
be of little service. You must take counsel from your
own experience and knowledge of nautical matters."

"Why, to be sure, your honour," and the sailor rolled
his quid from one cheek to the other, "I think I may say
as how I'll venture to steer the craft with any man on
the Canada lakes, and bring her safe into port too; but
seeing as how I'm only a petty officer, and not yet
recommended by his worship the governor for the full
command, I thought it but right to consult with my
superiors, not as to the management of the craft, but
the best as is to be done. What does your honour think
of making for the high land over the larboard bow yonder,
and waiting for the chance of the night-breeze to take
us through the Sinclair?"

"Do whatever you think best," returned the officer. "For
my part, I scarcely can give an opinion. Yet how are we
to get there? There does not appear to be a breath of
wind."

"Oh, that's easily managed; we have only to brail and
furl up a little, to hide our cloth from the Ingians,
and then send the boats a-head to tow the craft, while
some of us lend a hand at her own sweeps. We shall get
close under the lee of the land afore night, and then we
must pull up agin along shore, until we get within a mile
or so of the head of the river."

"But shall we not be seen by our enemies?" asked Sir
Everard; "and will they not be on the watch for our
movements, and intercept our retreat?"

"Now that's just the thing, your honour, as they're not
likely to do, if so be as we bears away for yon headlands.
I knows every nook and sounding round the lake; and odd
enough if I didn't, seeing as how the craft circumnavigated
it, at least, a dozen times since we have been cooped up
here. Poor Captain Danvers! (may the devil damn his
murderers, I say, though it does make a commander of me
for once;) he used always to make for that 'ere point,
whenever he wished to lie quiet; for never once did we
see so much as a single Ingian on the headland. No, your
honour, they keeps all at t'other side of the lake, seeing
as how that is the main road from Mackina' to Detroit."

"Then, by all means, do so," eagerly returned Captain de
Haldimar. "Oh, Mullins! take us but safely through, and
if the interest of my father can procure you a king's
commission, you shall not want it, believe me."

"And if half my fortune can give additional stimulus to
exertion, it shall be shared, with pleasure, between
yourself and crew," observed Sir Everard.

"Thank your honours,--thank your honours," said the
boatswain, somewhat electrified by these brilliant offers.
"The lads may take the money, if they like; all I cares
about is the king's commission. Give me but a swab on my
shoulder, and the money will come fast enough of itself.
But, still, shiver my topsails, if I wants any bribery
to make me do my duty; besides, if 'twas only for them
poor girls alone, I would go through fire and water to
sarve them. I'm not very chicken-hearted in my old age,
your honours, but I don't recollect the time when I
blubbered so much as I did when Miss Madeline come aboard.
But I can't bear to think of it; and now let us see and
get all ready for towing."

Every thing now became bustle and activity on board the
schooner. The matches, no longer required for the moment,
were extinguished, and the heavy cutlasses and pistols
unbuckled from the loins of the men, and deposited near
their respective guns. Light forms flew aloft, and,
standing out upon the yards, loosely furled the sails
that had previously been hauled and clewed up; but, as
this was an operation requiring little time in so small
a vessel, those who were engaged in it speedily glided
to the deck again, ready for a more arduous service.
The boats had, meanwhile, been got forward, and into
these the sailors sprang, with an alacrity that could
scarcely have been expected from men who had passed not
only the preceding night, but many before it, in utter
sleeplessness and despair. But the imminence of the
danger, and the evident necessity existing for exertion,
aroused them to new energy; and the hitherto motionless
vessel was now made to obey the impulse given by the tow
ropes of the boats, in a manner that proved their crews
to have entered on their toil with the determination of
men, resolved to devote themselves in earnest to their
task. Nor was the spirit of action confined to these.
The long sweeps of the schooner had been shipped, and
such of the crew as remained on board laboured effectually
at them,--a service, in which they were essentially aided,
not only by mine host of the Fleur de lis, but by the
young officers themselves.

At mid-day the headlands were seen looming largely in
the distance, while the immediate shores of the ill-fated
fortress were momentarily, and in the same proportion,
disappearing under the dim line of horizon in the rear.
More than half their course, from the spot whence they
commenced towing, had been completed, when the harassed
men were made to quit their oars, in order to partake of
the scanty fare of the vessel, consisting chiefly of
dried bear's meat and venison. Spirit of any description
they had none; but, unlike their brethren of the Atlantic,
when driven to extremities in food, they knew not what
it was to poison the nutritious properties of the latter
by sipping the putrid dregs of the water-cask, in quantities
scarce sufficient to quench the fire of their parched
palates. Unslaked thirst was a misery unknown to the
mariners of these lakes: it was but to cast their buckets
deep into the tempting element, and water, pure, sweet,
and grateful as any that ever bubbled from the moss-clad
fountain of sylvan deity, came cool and refreshing to
their lips, neutralising, in a measure, the crudities of
the coarsest food. It was to this inestimable advantage
the crew of the schooner had been principally indebted
for their health, during the long series of privation,
as far as related to fresh provisions and rest, to which
they had been subjected. All appeared as vigorous in
frame, and robust in health, as at the moment when they
had last quitted the waters of the Detroit; and but for
the inward sinking of the spirit, reflected in many a
bronzed and furrowed brow, there was little to show they
had been exposed to any very extraordinary trials.

Their meal having been hastily dispatched, and sweetened
by a draught from the depths of the Huron, the seamen
once more sprang into their boats, and devoted themselves,
heart and soul, to the completion of their task, pulling
with a vigour that operated on each and all with a tendency
to encouragement and hope. At length the vessel, still
impelled by her own sweeps, gradually approached the
land; and at rather more than an hour before sunset was
so near that the moment was deemed arrived when, without
danger of being perceived, she might be run up along the
shore to the point alluded to by the boatswain. Little
more than another hour was occupied in bringing her to
her station; and the red tints of departing day were
still visible in the direction of the ill-fated fortress
of Michilimackinac, when the sullen rumbling of the cable,
following the heavy splash of the anchor, announced the
place of momentary concealment had been gained.

Copyright (c) 2007. topbookz.net. All rights reserved.