Gaut Gurley; Or, the Trappers of Umbagog Part 28

"He has not asked me yet," she quickly replied, with a look in which maiden pride, archness, and unuttered happiness, were charmingly blended. "If he should, and _you_ should command me"--

"Command? _command_! Now, that is a good one, Fluella," returned the laughing foster-father. "Well, well, a woman will be a woman still, any way you can fix it. All right, however, I presume. But, chief," he added, turning to the natural father, who stood with the hunter a little in the background, "what has been going on here cannot have escaped your keen observation; and you ought to have a voice in this matter. What do _you_ say?"

"The chief," replied the other, with his usual dignity, "the chief has had one staff, one light of his lodge; he will now have two. Wenongonet is content."

"It is settled, then," rejoined the former, whose usually pa.s.sionless countenance was now beaming with pleasure; "all right, all round. Now, sister Alice, let us all adjourn to your house, where you and Fluella, from some of those splendid lake trout which I and Mr. Phillips, who, as well as the chief, must be of the party, will first go out and catch for you,--you and Fluella, I say, must cook us up a nice family dinner, over which we will discuss matters at large, and have a good time generally."

In a few minutes more the happy group were on their way to the Elwood cottage.

The princ.i.p.al interest of our story is at an end; and with it, also, the story itself should speedily terminate. A few words more, however, seem necessary, to antic.i.p.ate the inquiries which will very naturally arise in the mind of the reader, respecting what might be expected soon to follow the _eclairciss.e.m.e.nt_ of the few last pages; and, accordingly, as far as can be done without marring the unity of time, we will proceed, briefly, to answer the inquiries thus arising.

The body of the fated Mark Elwood, perforated through the breast by the bullet of his cold-blooded murderer, having broken from the sinking weights attached to it, and risen to the surface of the lake, was found in about a fortnight, brought home, and buried on his farm.

Not far from the same time the faithful hunter received, from the hands of a gentleman pa.s.sing through the settlement, a deed of gift of three hundred acres of valuable timber-land, adjoining his own little patch of a lot, all duly drawn, signed, and executed by Arthur Elwood; who, after a pleasant sojourn of a week at the Elwood cottage, apprising its inmates of what he had in store for them, in the line of property, had departed for his home, a happier man than he had been, since, for secret griefs, he had dissolved partners.h.i.+p with his brother Mark, and left the little interior village where the pair first made their humble beginning in life.

Codman, the trapper, continued to trap it still, and, as all the settlers within a circuit of many miles around them were often unmistakably made aware, to crow as usual on all extra occasions.

Tomah, the college-learned Indian, immediately left, with the escort of the prisoner, and, kept away by the force of some a.s.sociations connected with the settlement as disagreeable to him as they were conjecturable to others, was never again seen in the settlement; against which, on leaving, he seemed to have kicked off the dust of his feet behind him.

Carvil, the cultivated amateur hunter, had also immediately departed, with the court party, on his way to his pleasant home in the Green Mountains; not wholly to relinquish, however, his yearly sojourns in the forests, to regain health impaired for the want of a more full supply of his coveted, life-giving oxygen.

And, lastly, Gaut Gurley, whose infernal scheming and revolting atrocities have been so inseparably interwoven with the main incidents of our story, broke jail, on the night preceding the day set for his final trial, by digging through the thick stone wall of his prison, with implements evidently furnished from without, leaving b.l.o.o.d.y traces of his difficult egress through the hardly sufficient hole he had effected for the purpose; and, though instant search was everywhere made for him, he was not, to the sad disappointment of the thousands intending to be in at the hanging, anywhere to be found or heard of in the country. And the mystery of his retreat, and the still unexplained mystery of his strange and ruinous influence over the man whom he at last so flagitiously murdered, were not cleared up until years afterwards.

SEQUEL.

It was a terrible storm. The wind, with all the awful accompaniments of rain, hail, rattling thunders, and fiercely glaring lightnings, had burst down upon the liquid plains of the startled deep, in all the fury of a tropical tornado. The black heavens were in terrific commotion above; and the smitten and resilient waters, as if to escape the impending wrath of the aroused sister elements, were fleeing in galloping mountains athwart the surface of the boiling ocean, beneath.

Could aught human, or aught of human construction, be here, now, and survive? It would seem an utter impossibility; and yet it was so. Amidst all this deafening din of battling elements, that were filling the heavens with their uproar and las.h.i.+ng the darkened ocean into wild fury and commotion, a staunch-built West India merchant-s.h.i.+p was seen, now madly plunging into the troughs of the sea, and now quivering like a feather on the towering waves, or scudding through the flying spray with fearful velocity before the howling blast.

On her flush deck, and lashed to the helm, with the breaking waves das.h.i.+ng around his feet, and the water dripping from the close cap and tightly-b.u.t.toned pea-jacket in which he was garbed, stood her gallant master, in the performance of a duty which he, true to his responsibility, would intrust to no other, in such an hour as this,--that of guiding his storm-tossed bark among the frightful billows that were threatening every instant, to engulf her. Thus swiftly onward drove the seemingly devoted s.h.i.+p, strained, s.h.i.+vering, and groaning beneath the terrible power of the gale, like an over-ridden steed, as she dashed, yet unharmed, through the mist and spray and constantly-breaking white caps of the wildly-rolling deep; thus onward sped she, for the full s.p.a.ce of two hours, when the wind gradually lulled, and with it the deafening uproar subsided. Presently a young, well-dressed gentleman made his appearance on deck, amids.h.i.+ps, and, having noted a while the now evident subsidence of the tempest, slowly and carefully, from one grasped rope to another, made his way to the side of the captain, at the wheel.

"A frightful blow, Mr. Elwood," said the latter; "for the twenty years I have been a seaman, I have never seen the like."

"It certainly has exceeded all my conceptions of a sea-storm," said the other. "But do you know where we are, and where driving at this tremendous speed?"

"Yes, I think I do, both. When we were struck by the gale, which I saw was going to be a terrible norther, and saw it, too, very luckily, at a distance that enabled me to become well prepared for it, look at my reckoning, and make all my calculations,--when we were struck, we were three hundred and fifty miles out of Havana, north'ard, and about forty from the American coast. I at once put the s.h.i.+p before the wind, and set her course southeast, which, being perfectly familiar with these seas, I knew would give her a safe run, and, in about sixty miles, carry her by the southern point of the Little Bahama Bank, where, rounding this great breakwater against northers, we should be in a comparatively smooth sea, that would admit of either laying to or anchoring. It is now over two hours since we started on this fearful race, which has kept my heart in my mouth the whole time; and I am expecting, every minute, to get sight of that rocky headland."

"But that," rejoined Elwood (for the gentleman was no other than Claud Elwood, as the reader has doubtless already inferred), "that will bring us, according to the late rumor, into one of the princ.i.p.al haunts of the pirates, will it not?"

"Yes, partly, perhaps," replied the captain; "but I hear that Commodore Porter has arrived, with the American squadron, in these seas, to break up these pests, and I presume _has_ done it, or frightened them away, so that we sha'n't be molested. At any rate, I saw no safer course to outlive such a tempest. You are the owner of s.h.i.+p and cargo, to be sure; but you put on me the responsibility of her safety."

"Certainly," rejoined the other, "for my guidance would be a poor one; and, instead of any disposition to criticise your course, Captain Golding, I feel but too grateful, with the life of a beloved wife at stake, to say nothing of my own, and so much property, that your skill has enabled us to outride the storm--now nearly over, I think--so unexpectedly well. But what is that, a little to the left of the s.h.i.+p's course, in the distance ahead?"

"Ah, that is it!" cheerily exclaimed the captain, casting an eager look in the indicated direction. "Why, how like a race-horse the s.h.i.+p must be driving ahead! I looked not ten minutes ago, and nothing was to be seen; and now there is the headland, in full view, but two or three leagues distant! And stay,--what is that dark object around and a little beyond the point? A s.h.i.+p? Yes, it grows distinct now,--a large, black s.h.i.+p. That, sir, is an American frigate. Hurra to you, Elwood! We will now soon be safe, and in safe company."

It was about sunset. The merchantman, having pa.s.sed the protecting promontory, and swept around the tall s.h.i.+p of war, had gained an offing, about a half mile beyond, under the lee of a thickly-wooded, long, narrow island; and was now lying snugly at anchor, riding out the heavy ground-swell occasioned by the abated storm; while all on board, unsuspicious of molestation, were making preparations to turn in for the night.

"A sail to the leeward!" shouted a sailor, just sent aloft to make some alteration in the rigging.

The word was pa.s.sed below; and the captain, mates, and Elwood, were instantly on deck, and on the lookout. They at once descried a large black schooner, creeping out from behind the farther end of the island against which they were anch.o.r.ed, about a mile distant, and tacking and beating her way towards them. She carried no colors by which her character could be determined; but the very absence of all such insignia, together with the sinister appearance of her long, low sides, which exhibited the aspect of masked port-holes, and also the peculiar stir of her evidently large and strange-looking crew, at once marked her as an object of suspicion.

"Elwood, your fears were prophetic," said the captain, lowering his gla.s.s from a long, intent observation. "That craft is a pirate, with scarce a shadow of doubt. But don't the mad creature see the frigate, and the frigate her?"

With this, they all turned towards the s.h.i.+p of war; but she was no longer visible. A narrow vein of land fog, put in motion by some local current in sh.o.r.e, had been wafted out on to the water, and completely enshrouded her from their view.

"I see it all," exclaimed Elwood. "That pirate has been lying, all the afternoon, concealed behind this island; and his spies, sent into the woods on the island, and to this end of it, probably, saw both our s.h.i.+p and the frigate take their positions, and this intervening fog coming on, and reported all to their master; who at once conceived the bold design which he has now started out to execute,--that of s.n.a.t.c.hing us, as its prize, from under the very guns of the frigate!"

A brief, earnest consultation was then held; when, knowing the uselessness of trying to signalize the frigate, they first thought to weigh anchor and try to escape to her protection; but a little reflection told them the enemy would be down upon them before this could be effected, and they would be taken, unprepared for defence. The only other alternative left them was, therefore, quickly adopted; and, in pursuance, the second mate and two seamen were lowered in the life-boat, with orders to keep the s.h.i.+p between themselves and the schooner till they got into the screening fog, and then make their way, with all speed, to the frigate, to invoke her aid and protection; while all the rest should arm themselves with the muskets, swords, and pistols on board, and, if possible, hold the enemy at bay till succor arrived. And scarcely had these hasty preparations been made, before the piratical schooner, which had made a wide tack outward to catch the wind, came swiftly sweeping round to their side, like a towering falcon on his prey. But, by some miscalculation of her helmsman, she went twenty yards wide of them--not, however, without betraying the full extent of her b.l.o.o.d.y purposes; for as, under the impulse of a speed she found herself unable instantly to check, she swept by on the long, rolling billows, a score or two of desperate ruffians, headed by their burly and still more fierce-looking captain, stood on her deck, armed to the teeth, and holding their hooks and hawsers, ready to grapple and board their intended prey.

But, still forbearing to unmask their batteries or fire a gun, lest they should thus bring down the frigate upon them, her grim and silent crew sprang to their posts, to tack s.h.i.+p and come round again, with the narrowest sweep, to repair their former mischance. And, with surprising quickness, their well-worked craft was again, and this time with no uncertain guidance, shooting alongside of the devoted merchantman. Still the crew of the latter quailed not; but, well knowing there was no longer any hope of escaping a struggle in which death or victory were the only alternatives, stood, with knitted brows and fire-arms c.o.c.ked and levelled, silently awaiting the onset. It came. With the shock of the partial collision as the a.s.sailing craft raked along the sides of their s.h.i.+p, and the sudden jerk as she was brought up by the quickly-thrown grapples, the pirate captain, with a fierce shout of defiance, cleared, at a single bound, the intervening rails, and landed, with brandished sword, upon their fore-deck. A dozen more, with a wild yell, were in the act of following, when they were met by a full volley from the guns of the defenders, poured into their very faces. There was a pause,--a lurch,--a crack of breaking fixtures; and the next moment the schooner, torn away from her fastenings by the force of a monstrous upheaving wave, and thrown around at right angles to the unharmed prey so nearly within her clutches, was seen rolling and reeling on the top of a billow, fifty yards distant. At that instant, twenty jets of blinding flame fiercely burst from the edge of the fog-cloud, almost within pistol-shot to the windward, and, with the startling flash, rent sky and ocean leaped as with the concussion of a closely-breaking volley of linked thunder-peals. There was another and still more awful pause; when, through the cloud of sulphurous smoke that was rolling over them, the astounded defenders heard the gurgling rush, as of waters breaking into newly opened chasms, in the direction of the enemy; and they comprehended all. The frigate, unperceived by the eager pirates, had dropped down, rounded to, and sent a whole broadside directly into the uprolled hull of the devoted craft, which had been reduced to a sinking wreck by that one tremendously heavy discharge of terrible missiles. Within two minutes the lifting smoke disclosed her, reeling and lurching for the final plunge. Within one more, she rose upright, like some mortally-smitten giant, quivered an instant, and, with all her grim and hideously-screeching crew, went down, stern foremost, amid the parting waves of the boiling deep.

These startling scenes had transpired so rapidly that the amazed crew of the merchantman had taken no thought of the pirate captain whom they had seen leaping on their deck; but they now turned to look for him, and, whether dead or alive, to take charge of him, to crown the fortunate result of this fearful encounter. There he stood at bay, with back turned to the foremast, facing his virtual captors, with a brandished sword in one hand and a pistol in the other, as if daring them to approach or fire on him.

But they were spared the necessity of attempting either. A boat's crew of armed men from the frigate were already mounting the deck, to claim whoever of the pirates they found alive, as their trophies. The formidable desperado was pointed out to them; when, firing a volley over his head, to confuse without killing him, they rushed forward in the smoke, disarmed, bound, and dragged him along, to pa.s.s him down to their boat. As he was being urged across the deck, his eyes met those of Elwood. The recognition was mutual. It was Gaut Gurley!

It was morning, and the bright sun was looking down upon an ocean as calm and peaceful as if its pa.s.sive bosom had never been disturbed by the ensanguined tumults of warring men, or the commotions of battling elements.

A youthful couple were standing by the rail, on the deck of the still anch.o.r.ed merchantman, and glancing up admiringly at the towering masts of the s.h.i.+p-of-war, which had also anch.o.r.ed for the night on the very spot from which she had dealt such destruction to the pirates, whose awful fate and the connected circ.u.mstances had been with them the topic of conversation.

"This has been such a fearful ordeal to you, dear Fluella," said the young man, smilingly, "that I shall probably never be able again to induce you to leave home to cross the ocean, either for health or pleasure, shall I?"

"For pleasure, no, my dear husband," affectionately responded the other; "no, with my happy New England home, never, for pleasure, Claud."

"But this was for _health_," rejoined Elwood. "I have never told you how much I was concerned about you last summer, or that your physician warned me, as cold weather approached, he could not answer for your life through another winter at the North. It was this only that led me to urge you to accompany me to Cuba, to remain there till I came back for you in the spring, as I have now done. And, to say nothing of the gains which my two trips will add to the estate of which I am heir in expectation,--or rather, as my good uncle will have it, in possession with him,--to say nothing of this, I shall always be thankful for your coming, for it has so evidently restored you, I had almost said, to more of health and beauty than I have seen you exhibiting for the whole two and a half happy years of our married life."

"Thank you, Claud, for the beautiful part of it," said the happy wife, snapping her handkerchief in his face, with an air of mock resentment; "but I am thinking of home. When shall we reach there?"

"Well, let us calculate," replied the husband, beginning to catch the affectionate animation of the other: "this is the 22d of April; and I think I can promise you the enjoyment of a May-day in New England."

"I hold you to that, sir," playfully rejoined the wife, "for I wish to be preparing for our summer residence at your cottage on my native lakes. My illness deprived me of that pleasure last summer, you know, husband mine."

"Yes," said he, with kindling enthusiasm, "we will go, Fluella. I want to see the good old chief; I want to enjoy the visit I have promised me from my friend Carvil; I want to hear Phillips discourse on woodcraft, and Chanticleer Codman wake the echoes of the lakes by his marvellous crowing.

Yes, yes, we will go, and make uncle and mother go with us, this time."

"Uncle and mother!" cried Fluella, laughingly; "how odd that is getting to sound, Suppose I call your mother aunt? Have they not now been married long enough to be both ent.i.tled to the more endearing names of father and mother? and are they not happy enough and good enough to merit the dearest names?"

"Yes," answered Elwood, "I will correct the habit, if you really wish it.

Yes, yes; the once-styled crusty old bachelor, Arthur Elwood, and my mother, are indeed a happy couple. Did you ever know a happier?"

"Yes, one," replied the hesitating, blus.h.i.+ng wife, drawing down her husband's head, and slyly imprinting a kiss on his cheek.

The conversation between the happy pair was here interrupted by the appearance of a boat putting off from the frigate, under the charge of a mids.h.i.+pman; who, having come on board and inquired out Elwood, now approached and presented him a letter, saying, as he departed, it was from the pirate prisoner, and would doubtless require no answer.

The greatly surprised young man tore open the letter, and, in company with his wife, read, with mingled emotions of pain and indignation, the following singular but characteristic compound of malicious vaunt and shameless confession:

"To CLAUD ELWOOD:--My career is ended, at last. Well, I have the satisfaction of knowing that I have been n.o.body's fool nor n.o.body's tool.