The Red Rover Part 45

"And elsewhere."

"Elsewhere!" repeated the other, in a tone of disappointment. "Ay, the st.u.r.dy despot is to be found in every sea; and hundreds of s.h.i.+ps, and s.h.i.+ps of size too, are to be seen scorching in the calms of the equator.

It was idle to give the subject a second thought."

"You have been pleased to observe something that has escaped my ear."

The Rover started; for he had rather muttered than spoken the preceding sentence aloud. Casting a swift and searching glance around him, as it might be to a.s.sure himself that no impertinent listener had found means to pry into the mysteries of a mind he seldom saw fit to lay open to the free examination of his a.s.sociates, he regained his self-possession on the instant, and resumed the discourse with a manner as undisturbed as if it had received no interruption.

"Yes, I had forgotten that your s.e.x is often as timorous as it is fair,"

he added, with a smile so insinuating and gentle, that the governess cast an involuntary and uneasy glance towards her charge, "or I might have been earlier with my a.s.surance of safety."

"It is welcome even now."

"And your young and gentle friend," he continued, bowing openly to Gertrude, though he still addressed his words to the governess; "her slumbers will not be the heavier for what has pa.s.sed."

"The innocent seldom find an uneasy pillow."

"There is a holy and unsearchable mystery in that truth: The innocent pillow their heads in quiet! Would to G.o.d the guilty might find some refuge, too, against the sting of thought! But we live in a world, and a time, when men cannot be sure even of themselves."

He then paused, and looked about him, with a smile so haggard, that the anxious governess unconsciously drew nigher to her pupil, like one who sought, and was willing to yield, protection against the uncertain designs of a maniac. Her visiter, however, remained in a silence so long and deep, that she felt the necessity of removing the awkward embarra.s.sment of their situation, by speaking herself.

"Do you find Mr Wilder as much inclined to mercy as yourself?" she asked.

"There would be merit in his forbearance, since he appeared to be the particular object of the anger of the mutineers."

"And yet you saw he was not without his friends. You witnessed the devotion of the men who stood forth in his behalf?"

"I did: and find it remarkable that he should have been able, in so short a time, to conquer thus completely two so stubborn natures."

"Four-and-twenty years make not an acquaintance of a day!"

"And does their friends.h.i.+p bear so old a date?"

"I have heard that time counted between them. It is very certain the youth is bound to those uncouth companions of his by some extraordinary tie.

Perhaps this is not the first of their services."

Mrs Wyllys looked grieved. Although prepared to believe that Wilder was a secret agent of the Rover, she had endeavoured to hope his connexion with the freebooters was susceptible of some explanation more favourable to his character. However he might be implicated in the common guilt of those who pursued the hazards of the reckless fortunes of that proscribed s.h.i.+p, it was evident he bore a heart too generous to wish to see her, and her young and guileless charge, the victims of the licentiousness of his a.s.sociates.

His repeated and mysterious warnings no longer needed explanation. Indeed, all that had been dark and inexplicable, both in the previous and unaccountable glimmerings of her own mind, and in the extraordinary conduct of the inmates of the s.h.i.+p, was at each instant becoming capable of solution. She now remembered, in the person and countenance of the Rover, the form and features of the individual who had spoken the pa.s.sing Bristol trader, from the rigging of the slaver--a form which had unaccountably haunted her imagination, during her residence in his s.h.i.+p, like an image recalled from some dim and distant period. Then she saw at once the difficulty that Wilder might prove in laying open a secret in which not only his life was involved, but which, to a mind that was not hardened in vice, involved a penalty not less severe--that of the loss of their esteem. In short, a good deal of that which the reader has found no difficulty in comprehending was also becoming clear to the faculties of the governess though much still remained obscured in doubts, that she could neither solve nor yet entirely banish from her thoughts. On all these several points she had leisure to cast a rapid glance; for her guest, or host, whichever he might be called, seemed in nowise disposed to interrupt her short and melancholy reverie.

"It is wonderful," Mrs Wyllys at length resumed, "that beings so uncouth should be influenced by the same attachments as those which unite the educated and the refined."

"It is wonderful, as you say," returned the other like one awakening from a dream. "I would give a thousand of the brightest guineas that ever came from the mint of George II. to know the private history of that youth."

"Is he then a stranger to you?" demanded Gertrude with the quickness of thought.

The Rover turned an eye on her, that was vacant for the moment, but into which consciousness and expression began to steal as he gazed, until the foot of the governess was visibly trembling with the nervous excitement that pervaded her entire frame.

"Who shall pretend to know the heart of man!" he answered, again inclining his head as it might be in acknowledgment of her perfect right to far deeper homage. "All are strangers, till we can read their most secret thoughts."

"To pry into the mysteries of the human mind, is a privilege which few possess," coldly remarked the governess. "The world must be often tried, and thoroughly known, before we may pretend to judge of the motives of any around us."

"And yet it is a pleasant world to those who have the heart to make it merry," cried the Rover, with one of those startling transitions which marked his manner. "To him who is stout enough to follow the bent of his humour, all is easy. Do you know, that the true secret of the philosopher is not in living for ever, but in living while you may. He who dies at fifty, after a fill of pleasure, has had more of life than he who drags his feet through a century, bearing the burden of the world's caprices, and afraid to speak above his breath, lest, forsooth, his neighbour should find that his words were evil."

"And yet are there some who find their pleasure in pursuing the practices of virtue."

"'Tis lovely in your s.e.x to say it," he answered with an air that the sensitive governess fancied was gleaming with the growing licentiousness of a free booter. She would now gladly have, dismissed her visiter; but a certain flas.h.i.+ng of the eye, and a manner that was becoming gay by a species of unnatural effort, admonished her of the danger of offending one who acknowledged no law but his own will. a.s.suming a tone and a manner that were kind, while they upheld the dignity of her s.e.x, and pointing to sundry instruments of music that formed part of the heterogeneous furniture of the cabin, she adroitly turned the discourse, by saying,--

"One whose mind can be softened by harmony and whose feelings are so evidently alive to the in fluence of sweet sounds, should not decry the pleasures of virtue. This flute, and yon guitar, both call you master."

"And, because of these flimsy evidences about my person, you are willing to give me credit for the accomplishments you mention! Here is another mistake of miserable mortality! Seeming is the everyday robe of honesty.

Why not give me credit for kneeling, morning and night, before yon glittering bauble?" he added, pointing to the diamond crucifix which hung, as usual, near the door of his own apartment.

"I hope, at least, that the Being, whose memory is intended to be revived by that image, is not without your homage. In the pride of his strength and prosperity, man may think lightly of the consolations that can flow from a power superior to humanity: but those who have oftenest proved their value feel deepest the reverence which is their due."

The look of the governess had been averted from her companion; but, filled with the profound sentiment she uttered, her mild reflecting eye turned to him again, as, in a tone that was subdued, in respect for the mighty Being whose attributes filled her mind, she uttered the above simple sentiment.

The gaze she met was earnest and thoughtful as her own. Lifting a finger he laid it on her arm, with a motion so light as to be scarcely perceptible, while he asked,--

"Think you we are to blame, if our temperaments incline more to evil than power is given to resist?"

"It is only those who attempt to walk the path of life alone that stumble.

I shall not offend your manhood if I ask, do you never commune with your G.o.d?"

"It is long since that name has been heard in this vessel, Lady, except to aid in that miserable scoffing and profanity which simpler language made too dull, But what is He, that unknown Deity, more than what man, in his ingenuity, has seen fit to make him?"

"'The fool hath said in his heart, there is no G.o.d,'" she answered, in a voice so firm, that it startled even the ears of one so long accustomed to the turbulence and grandeur of his wild profession. "'Gird up now thy loins like a man; for I will demand of thee, and answer thou me. Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? Declare if thou hast understanding.'"

The Rover gazed long and silently on the flushed countenance of the speaker. Bending his face in an unconscious manner aside, he said aloud, evidently rather giving utterance to his thoughts than pursuing the discourse,--

"Now, is there nothing more in this than what I have often heard, and yet does it come over my feelings with the freshness of native air!" Then rising, he approached his mild and dignified companion, adding, in tones but little above a whisper, "Lady repeat those words; change not a syllable, nor vary the slightest intonation of the voice, I pray thee."

Though amazed, and secretly alarmed at the request, Mrs Wyllys complied; delivering the holy language of the inspired writers with a fervour that found its support in the strength of her own emotions. Her auditor listened like a being enthralled. For near a minute, neither eye nor att.i.tude was changed, but he stood at the feet of her who had so simply and so powerfully a.s.serted the majesty of G.o.d, as motionless as the mast that rose behind him through the decks of that vessel which he had so long devoted to the purposes of his lawless life. It was long after her accents had ceased to fall on his ear, that he drew a deep respiration, and once again opened his lips to speak.

"This is re-treading the path of life at a stride." he said, suffering his hand to fall upon that of his companion. "I know not why pulses, which in common are like iron, beat so wildly and irregularly now. Lady, this little and feeble hand might check a temper that has so often braved the power of"--

His words suddenly ceased; for, as his eye unconsciously followed his hand, it rested on the still delicate, but no longer youthful, member of the governess Drawing a sigh, like one who felt himself awakened from an agreeable though complete illusion he turned away, leaving his sentence unfinished.

"You would have music!" he recklessly exclaimed aloud. "Then music shall be heard, though its symphony be rung upon a gong!"

As he spoke, the wayward and vacillating being we have been attempting to describe struck the instrument he named three blows, so quick and powerfully, as to drown all other sensations in the confusion produced by the echoing din. Though deeply mortified that he had so quickly escaped from the influence she had partially acquired, and secretly displeased at the unceremonious manner in which he had seen fit to announce his independence again, the governess was aware of the necessity of concealing her sentiments.

"This is certainly not the harmony I invited," she said, so soon as the overwhelming sounds had ceased to fill the s.h.i.+p; "nor do I think it of a quality to favour the slumbers of those who seek their rest."

"Fear nothing for them. The seaman sleeps with his ear near the port whence the cannon bellows, and awakes at the call of the boatswain's whistle. He is too deeply schooled in habit, to think he has heard more than a note of the flute; stronger and fuller than common, if you will, but still a sound that has no interest for him. Another tap would have sounded the alarm of fire; but these three touches say no more than music.

It was the signal for the band. The night is still, and favourable for their art, and we will listen to sweet sounds awhile."

His words were scarcely uttered before the low chords of wind instruments were heard without, where the men had probably stationed themselves by some previous order of their Captain. The Rover smiled, as if he exulted in this prompt proof of the sort of despotic or rather magical power he wielded; and, throwing his form on the divan, he sat listening to the sounds which followed.

The strains which now rose upon the night, and which spread themselves soft and melodiously abroad upon the water, would in truth have done credit to far more regular artists. The air was wild and melancholy and perhaps it was the more in accordance with the present humour of the man for whose ear it was created. Then, losing the former character the whole power of the music was concentrated in softer and still gentler sounds, as if the genius who had given birth to the melody had been pouring out the feelings of his soul in pathos. The temper of the Rover's mind answered to the changing expression of the music; and, when the strains were sweetest and most touching, he even bowed his head like one who wept.