Vassall Morton Part 36

Wentworth leaped up, and grasped both his guest's hands.

"Forgotten! No; I shall never forget the morning when you came over to us with that tall, half-breed fellow, in a Canadian capote."

"Yes,--Antoine Le Rouge."

"We should have starved if you had not found us, and perhaps lost our scalps into the bargain."

"The Rickarees had made a clean sweep of your horses."

"Not a hoof was left to us. Our four Canadians were scared to death; I was ill; not one of us was fit for service but Ireton; and we had not three days' provision. If you had not given us your spare mules and horses, and seen us safe to Fort Ca.s.s, the wolves would have made a supper of some of us."

"And do you remember," said Morton, "after we broke up camp that morning, how the Rickaree devils came galloping at us down the hill, and thought they could ride over us, and how we fought them all the forenoon, lying on our faces behind the pack saddles and baggage?"

"I remember it as if it were yesterday. I can hear the crack of the rifles now, and the yelling of those bloodthirsty vagabonds."

"It is strange," pursued Wentworth, "that I did not recognize you at once. I have thought of you a thousand times; but it is eight years since we met, and you are very much changed. Besides we were together only two days. And yet I can hardly forgive myself."

"Any wandering trapper would have done as much for you as I did; or, if he had not, he would have deserved a cudgelling. What has become of the young man, or boy, rather, who was with you?"

"You mean Ireton. Dead, poor fellow--dead."

"I am very sorry. He was the coolest of us all in the fight. He had a singular face, but a very handsome one. I can recall it distinctly at this moment."

Wentworth took a miniature from a desk, opened it, and placed it before Morton.

"These are his features," said the latter, "but this is the portrait of a lady."

"His sister--his twin sister. Dead too!"

There was a change, as he spoke, in his voice and manner, so marked that Morton forbore to pursue the subject farther. He studied the picture in silence. It was a young and beautiful face, delicate, yet full of fire; and by some subtilty of his craft, the artist had given to the eyes an expression which reminded him of the restless glances which he had seen a caged falcon at the Garden of Plants cast upwards at the sky, into which he was debarred from soaring.

In a few moments, Wentworth spoke in his accustomed tone.

"The point first to be thought of, is to get you out of this predicament. I have a man who took to his bed this morning, and is at present shaking in an ague fit. He is of about your age, height, and complexion; and by wearing his dress, you could travel under his pa.s.sport. I am not at all a suspected person, and if my friend will pa.s.s for a few days as my servant, I do not doubt that we shall reach Genoa without interruption."

Morton warmly expressed his grat.i.tude, but protested against Wentworth's undertaking the journey on his account.

"O, I am going to Genoa for my pleasure, and shall be glad of your company. The steamer for Como touches here this afternoon. 'Dull not device by coldness and delay;' we will go on board, and be in Milan to-morrow."

They conversed for an hour, when Morton withdrew to adjust his new disguise. Wentworth followed him with his eye as he disappeared; then sank into the musing mood which had grown habitual to him.

"When I saw him last,"--so his thoughts shaped themselves,--"my drama was opening; and now it is played out--light and darkness, smiles and tears--and the curtain is dropped forever. When I saw him last, I was gathering the prairie flowers and dedicating them to her,--though she did not suspect it,--and dreaming of her by camp fires and in night watches."

The miniature still lay on the table. He drew it towards him and gazed on it fixedly:--

"Mine for a s.p.a.ce, and now--gone--vanished like a dream. You were a meteor between earth and sky, with a light that flickered and blazed and darkened, but a warmth constant and unchanged. Of all who admired the brightness of that erratic star, how few could know what gladness it shed around it, what desolation it has left behind!"

He gazed on the picture till his eyes grew dim; then sat for a few moments, listless and abstracted; then rose, with an effort, and bent his mind to the task before him.

CHAPTER XLVII.

O that a man might know The end of this day's business ere it come.--_Julius Caesar_.

The diligence rolled into Genoa. Wentworth was in the _coupe_, and on the top sat Morton, as his servant. They had made the journey without interruption.

Morton reported himself to the American consul, and told his story.

The wrath and astonishment of that official were great; but they were as nothing to the patriotic fury of three New York dry goods importers, who, mingling pleasure with business, were just arrived from Paris. Nothing was talked of but an immediate bombardment of Trieste, and a probable a.s.sault of Vienna.

Escaping as soon as he could from this demonstration, Morton bade his fervid countrymen good morning, and went out with Wentworth, who introduced him to his banker. He learned from the consul that a merchant brig was in port, nearly ready to sail for home, and gladly took pa.s.sage in her.

And now at last he was safe; and safety should have brought with it a lightening of the spirits, a sense of relief. In fact, however, it brought little or nothing of the kind. The human mind, happily, cannot well hold more than one crowning evil at a time. One black thought, firmly lodged, will commonly keep the rest at bay. The fear of famine and a prison had left him no leisure to plague himself with less imminent mischiefs; but now, this fear being ousted, a new devil leaped into its empty seat. At the first moment when he could find himself alone, he wrote to Edith Leslie, telling her how he had been imprisoned, how, for almost five wretched years, her image had been his constant friend, how he had escaped, and how he was hastening homeward to claim the fulfilment of her word. He hinted nothing of his conviction that Vinal had been instrumental to his detention. He began divided between hope and fear, but as he wrote, a foreboding grew upon him that she was no longer living, or, at least, no longer living for him. The letter, despatched post haste, would reach home a full fortnight before his own arrival.

Having seen his friend in safety, Wentworth set out on his return; and, as they shook hands at parting, their eyes met with a look that showed how clearly the two men understood each other.

Wentworth smiled as Morton tried to express his grat.i.tude.

"You have cleared that score. I do not mean now the old affair on the Big Horn. I have been dreaming, lately, and you have waked me."

"I should never have imagined that you were dozing."

"Call it what you will. The truth is," added Wentworth, with some hesitation, "an old memory has been hanging about me, and I believe has made a girl of me. But that is past and done. I shall leave the Lake of Como. There is a career for me at home, and a good one, if I will but take it. Come to England, and you will find me there."

Morton went with him past the gates, and, with a heavy heart, watched him on his way northward.

CHAPTER XLVIII.

His restless eye Glanced forward frequently, as if some ill He dared not meet were there.--_Willis_.

After some days' delay, the brig put to sea, Morton on board. The cliffs behind Gibraltar came in sight at last, and a fresh levanter blew her out like an arrow upon the Atlantic. They were becalmed off the Azores. The sea was like gla.s.s; the turtles came up to sleep at the top; the tar melted out of the seams; and as the vessel moved on the long, lazy swells, the masts kept up their weary creaking from morning till night, and from night till morning. Morton walked the deck in a fever of impatience.

At length an east wind sprang up, and with studding sails spread like wings, the brig ran before it, reeling like a drunken sea-gull.

On the forty-first day, the Neversink heights rose on the horizon.

Vessels innumerable pa.s.sed--steamers, merchantmen, war s.h.i.+ps. The highlands of Staten Island, with its villages and villas, lay close on their left, and the Bay of New York opened before them, sparkling in the morning sun, and alive with moving sails. On the right lay a forest of masts; in front, the Castle lifted its ugly familiar front; and farther on, the spire of Trinity towered over the wilderness of brick.

Morton called a boat alongside, embarked his luggage, and went on sh.o.r.e. And, in spite of that depression which follows long and deep excitement, in spite of the anxieties that engrossed him, he felt a thrill of delight as his foot pressed American soil.

This pleasure, however, was short. The thought of Edith Leslie had been so long the solace of his confinement, that it seemed to have grown into a part of himself; at all events, now that his doubts were on the verge of decision, for good or evil, it drove every other thought from his mind. Reaching his hotel, he found that he could not set out for Boston till the afternoon; and to get rid of the interval, he turned over the Boston newspapers in the reading room, searching for the mention of any familiar names. Here he was more successful than he cared to be; for he presently discovered the name of Horace Vinal, figuring in the list of directors of a joint stock company.

"The hound!" muttered Morton; "so he is alive yet!"