Chapter 6 No.6

"Guiltless am I, but bear the penalty!"

"Wild was the place, but wilder his despair:

Low shaggy rocks that o'er deep caverns scowl

Echo his groans: the tigress in her lair

Starts at the sound, and answers with a growl."

Zóphi?l.

"Hurl'd

From the topmost height of his ambition,

It became his ambition to mate him

With the lowest."

The night was fast approaching as the desolate outcast entered the forest. He hailed the gathering darkness with joy, for it was in unison with the gloom of his soul. The howl of the wildest storm would have been music to his ears! He could have mocked with shouts of gladness the rattling thunder, and played with the shafts of the glittering lightning.

He rode deep into the wood-whither he cared not so that he left behind him all that he had lost. For half an hour he thought of nothing but urging his horse forward at the top of his speed. He banished thought, reflection, sensation. He dared not think. He found relief only in animal action and rapid motion, and rode furiously onward without knowing or regarding the course taken by his horse, who instinctively followed the dark windings of the forest paths.

At length the moon rose and shone down upon him through the tree tops. Its light seemed to restore him to himself. He checked his rapid course, and gazed at her pale orb; as he looked, reflection returned, and he began to realise his situation, and to taste the full bitterness of the cup of which he had drunken. The past, the present, the future, flashed with all their naked colours upon his mind. The picture his imagination painted with the hues they lent was too appalling to contemplate; and, as if the fabled influence of the planet, the soft light of which had restored him to reflection, had acted upon his fevered brain, he was suddenly converted into a maniac. He rose upright in his stirrups, and shouted, shrieked, till the forests rang again. He shook his clinched fists at the placid moon, that seemed smilingly to mock his woes. He spurred on his horse till the animal groaned with pain, and plunged madly forward with his phrensied rider! He would then rein him up, and, gnashing his teeth, lift his hands above his head, and curse God and man. Then he would again shout with phrensy, and gore his steed till he became furious and snorted with rage, and ride once more forward with the speed of the wind.

These passions were too violent to last. His wild excitement gradually subsided; his horse was suffered to move at his own pace; and, with his arms folded moodily, and his chin drooping on his breast, he gave himself up to the stern and gloomy thoughts of his situation, and, for a time, buried in the depths of his own meditations, seemed to be wholly unconscious of external objects. He rode on in this way for more than an hour, when he was aroused by the sudden stopping of his horse. He looked up and saw before him a dilapidated gate, which barred his farther progress. Beyond, visible by the full flood of moonlight, was a lonely square tower, flanked by a single wing, topped with a battlement. He listened, and thought he heard the dashing of waves upon the beach. The whole scene was new to him! Where could his faithful steed have borne him? From the moment he had left Castle More behind all had seemed like a blank to him. How far, and whither, could he have ridden? He looked up at the moon. It had not risen when he left Castle More, yet it now rode high in the heavens! By her position it was near midnight.

Indifferent where he wandered, he leaped the sunken gate, and rode up to the tower. It was not in ruins, yet wore an aspect of desolation and neglect. Its loneliness harmonized with his own situation, and was grateful to him. He rode round the angle of a buttress, when the sea suddenly opened before him, and he saw that the tower stood on a rock thirty or forty feet above it, and that where it overhung the water projected a small balcony. A sudden thought flashed upon his mind as he discovered this.

"It must be!" he exclaimed, with animation; "'tis the tower of Hurtel of the Red-Hand! This moat, yonder ruined drawbridge, its situation, and, above all, that balcony, one and all, identify it with Elpsy's description. By the bones of my red-handed sire! thou knewest what thou wert about to bring me hither, sagacious animal!" he added, sarcastically, patting the noble horse on the neck; "'tis fitting I should take possession of my father's towers with the inheritance of his name. Ha, ha! I am not quite a vagabond!" and he laughed scornfully.

He started with surprise, for the laugh seemed to be echoed from the tower.

"'Twas a human voice, or else a spirit mocking! If demons do rejoice over the miseries of mankind, they may well hold a jubilee in honour of mine. Laugh on, imps! I am a fit subject for your merriment!" and he laughed with nervous derision.

Again he started, for he was answered by a laugh so wild that it chilled his blood. The sound seemed to proceed from an upper room in the wing of the building.

"Fiend or flesh, it shall rue this merriment!" he cried, leaping to the ground and hastening to the door of the tower.

It was ajar; he dashed it open with his heel, and found himself in a long, low hall, at the extremity of which was the window that opened on the balcony, through which he caught a glimpse of the glimmering sea. By the light it afforded he crossed the hall, and, standing on the balcony, glanced an instant over the vast moonlit expanse of water, and then, with a strange interest, the whole of Elpsy's story rushing vividly to his mind, he shudderingly cast his eyes down the rock which stood in deep shadow. Even by the indistinct light he could discern the sharp projection on which the garments of the infant had caught in its descent, and not four feet distant from him, on a level with the window, was the rock on which the fisher's daughter-his mother-was in the act of springing, when hurled into the sea by-his father. On that very balcony had he stood to do the deed! Strange, wonderful, overpowering were his sensations. He held his breath with the intensity of his thoughts.

"Here," said he, mentally, placing his hand on the balustrade, "has lain my unknown mother's hand; it warmed this senseless iron, which can give me back no warmth in return. Here pressed the foot of my father! Here they parted! How! ah, how? Where are they now? Where is he? does he live? Where is she? A fearful thought forces itself upon me that I dare not dwell upon! This strange tale of the sorceress; her wonderful and minute knowledge, that could be only known to the actor; her emotion at different portions of the story; a hundred things, light as air, that have insinuated themselves into my mind, have made me think she might be-fiends! it will out!-my mother! But, then, she told me that she was dead. Well, be it so, yet I can fall no lower! Were my mother living, could her lot be better than this fearful weird woman's? Ha, ha, ha! I have no pride now!" he added, with a hollow laugh of mingled despair and phrensy.

"Ha, ha, ha!" he heard repeated, in tones so unearthly that his heart ceased to beat, and a thrill like ice shot through his veins.

The next moment he was at the top of a flight of steps leading from one side of the hall to an upper room, from which the voice seemed to proceed. A stream of moonlight, falling through a window, showed him a door on the landing-place, which he threw open. He found himself in a small room, lighted by a lattice of crimson-stained glass looking south towards the sea: into it the moon, in its western circle, had just began to shine, its red-died beams tinting the twilight of the chamber with the hue of blood. Seated high in the recess of the window, he discovered the dark figure of a female; her knees drawn up to her chin, and her hands clasped together around them. As he opened the door she leaped down like a cat and sprang towards him. The sanguinary light of the room had affected his imagination, not untinged with the superstitious fears of his time; but this sudden apparition, though he had prepared himself to see something either human or supernatural, caused him to start back with an exclamation of surprise.

"Come in, Robert of Lester! I welcome you to the room which first welcomed you to the light," said she, in a voice which he at once recognised as that of the sorceress.

The singular information her words conveyed suspended for the moment all other emotions in his mind save curiosity at finding himself so unexpectedly in the chamber where he was born. He gazed about him for a few moments under the influence of the strange thoughts and emotions the circumstance called up, and then turning towards her, said,

"Why art thou here, wicked woman? Didst thou anticipate my presence, and art thou come to mock the misery thou hast wrought?"

"I fled lest thou shouldst do a deed of blood thy hand might rue. I fled not for myself, but for thee."

"You need not fear me now. There exists no longer any motive for secrecy," he said, gloomily.

"How mean you?" she eagerly asked.

"Ere to-morrow's sun, 'twill be in every boor's mouth, from Castle Cor to Kinsale, that I am no longer Lord of Lester!"

"Speak-explain!" she said, hoarsely, grasping his arm with both hands, and breathing quick and hard.

"I have told the Lady Lester that he whom she thought her son was not her son," he firmly replied.

"Ha! thou-thou hast told thy shame? Speak, Robert More-have you breathed to mortal ear what I have told thee of thy birth?" she demanded, with fearful energy of speech and manner.

"I have. 'Tis known to every servitor from hall to stable!"

"Didst give thy name?"

"Robert, son of Hurtel of the Red-Hand."

"And this did thine own lips, of thine own free will?"

"Never man spoke freer!"

"Then hell be thy portion! Accursed be ye, Robert Hurtel! Had I thought thou wouldst have become the trumpeter of thy shame-had I believed thou wouldst have breathed to mortal ear thine infamy, I would have seared my tongue with hot iron ere I would have told thee the secret of thy birth. The infernal demon has prompted thee to do this! Didst thou not seek to slay me, that thou shouldst be the sole keeper of the foul secret?"

"I did, at the moment, but thought better of it!"

"Base! lowborn! miserable that thou art! Why was not my tongue withered ere I told thee this?"

"Would to God it had been, woman. What was thy motive in ever letting it go from thy own breast?"

"Love of mischief-hatred of mankind; and to lower thy pride, knowing from what dunghill thou wert sprung. But I did not think thou wouldst use my secret thus; and wreck the gifts that-that thy mother's stratagem had purchased, and after secured to thee by years of absence, privation, and misery."

"How?"

"Did she not, for thy sake, keep the secret of thy birth-coming not even near thee-when, on the ninth day, Hurtel of the Red-Hand being gone over the sea, she might safely have claimed thee of Lady Lester, and given her back her own!" she said, vehemently.

"Rather for her own sake-from maternal pride at having her son sit among nobles," was the stern reply. "And if these were her motives, as I doubt not they were, at what price did she purchase this honour for her child? The price of the deepest guilt, by keeping the true heir from his birthright. I did not view it in this light before. By the cross! I am a well-born! a guilty mother, too! 'Tis well you told me she was no more; I should care little to meet her in my present mood."

As he spoke, the woman sunk her head upon her bosom, and deep groans escaped her, whether of defeated hopes, of sorrow, of shame, or of remorse, he knew not. Suddenly he laid his hand upon her arm, and looked impressively in her face, and said,

"Woman! who is my mother?"

"Thou wilt never know!"

"Art thou?"

"Ha, ha, ha! I? Do I look like the gentle maiden that won the love of Hurtel of the Red-Hand? Are these matted locks tresses of gold? Is this complexion like the blended ivory and rose? Is my voice soft and full of love? Are my eyes like the gazelle's, and gentle as the dove's in their expression? Is this hideous form such as would lure youth to embrace it? Wilt thou acknowledge thyself the son of 'the witch'-'the sorceress'-'the beldame Elpsy' (such were thy gentle terms)-the beleagued with demons-the familiar of the evil one-the-"

"No, no! Avaunt!" he shouted, with a furious gesture; "thank God! I am not sunk so low as that!"

"Ha, ha! Thy pride is fallen far indeed when it can enter thy thoughts, and even go from thy lips, that Elpsy of the Tower gave thee birth. Oh, ho! I am well avenged in this for thy mad folly in throwing away thy earldom. Oh, how I do hate thee for that act! for it thou shalt never know peace in body or soul!"

"I defy thee, woman, and all thy arts!"

"Yet the tales of my deeds have made thy human soul to shrink! Beware how thou speakest lightly of what thou knowest naught, and which is hid from mortal ken!" she added, with mysterious and solemn earnestness. "Whither turn thy footsteps now, Lord of Lester?" she asked, with chilling irony. "Doubtless thou hast come to take possession of thy fair lands here. They are not so broad, indeed, as the domains of Castle More, and thy castle needs some furnishing and repair. Doubtless thou wouldst like to fit it up ere thou bringest home to be its mistress the fair Kate of Bellamont!"

"Breathe that name again, woman, and I will take thy life!"

"Thou art now thy very father's image!" she said, with derision. "Even in this moonlight I can see that devilish shape of the eyes that his were wont to assume when he meditated murder! Ho! I dare to say thou wilt be like him in more than the glance of the eye. Dost mean to follow in his footsteps, and head a band of lawless insurgents; or wilt thou, as 'tis said his brother did-"

"His brother?"

"Thou didst not know before thou hadst once an uncle? So: thou shalt no longer be kept in ignorance. He was a bold, bad man, and therein true to his race; was called Black Hurtel, and roved the Danish seas a daring bucanier. 'Twas said he could float his ship in the blood of the men he had slain! He was killed on the French coast in a fierce fight; but his vessel was captured, and his dead body, with his living crew (for the captors would not leave one alive to blacken the face of the earth), were sunk in the deep sea. Perhaps, like him, thou wilt take to the wave, and carve thy fortune in blood! Blood is sweet, and there is music to the ear in its gurgle where it is shed with a free hand! Look you," she said, pointing through the window; "the sea is spread wide before you, and seems to invite thee with its glancing waves. It knows not of thy disgrace, nor has it voices to whisper thy infamy; while every bird, tree, and stone will nod and gossip to one another as thou passest by-

"'There goes he who was the Lord of Lester!'"

"Woman, you madden me!"

"Perhaps," she continued, in the same cutting tone, while he paced the little chamber with a phrensied step, "thou wilt rather come and share my tower i'the ruin, if the new Lord of Lester will give thee leave; doubtless he will honour thee by asking thee to hold his stirrup on occasion. But, if thou wilt rather habit in this tower, I will be thy seneschal. I love its old gray walls! many is the moonlight night I've sat in the window and looked on the sea, as it danced, and glimmered, and seemed to beck and nod, and laugh when I laughed. Ha, ha! I have had brave times here, gossipping with the sea!"

As she said this she looked from the window, and suddenly her eye seemed to be arrested by some unexpected sight. She gazed for a moment eagerly, and then said, in the enthusiastic tone and manner of a sibyl, skilfully assumed with the tact of one accustomed to turn to her own purpose every passing circumstance,

"Look thou, Robert Hurtel! I have had pity on thy state, and have, by the art thou hast dared to scorn, brought from many a far league away, to thy tower's foot, a ship to waft thee and thy fortunes! See how proudly it stands in towards the land, looking like a great white spirit, with the moon glancing on its canvass wings. Oh, 'tis a brave bark!"

The young man (her words taunting, malicious, and hateful as they were, not having been without some effect in influencing him in determining on his future course) sprang alertly to the window and gazed with interest on the approaching vessel. It was about a third of a mile from the land, standing directly towards the tower before a light breeze. It was apparently about seventy tons burden, short and heavily built, rising very high out of the water, with a very lofty stern. It had three masts, each consisting of one entire stick, tapering to a slender point, and terminated by a little triangular flag. On each mast was hoisted a huge, square lugger's sail, which, with a short jib, stretched from the head of the foremast to a stunted bowsprit, and a sort of tri-sail or spanker aft worked without a boom, was all the canvass she carried or that belonged to her peculiar class of craft.

He watched it with eager attention as it came bounding landward, flinging the glittering spray from its round bows, its wet sides shining in the moonlight as if sheathed with plates of silver. A chaos of hopes, wishes, and conflicting resolutions agitated his mind as it approached; after a short struggle, he resolved to throw himself on board if her master would receive him, and depart with her wherever the winds should waft her. Having come to this determination, he watched her motions with additional interest; and when, after coming in so close to the shore that he could discern that her decks were crowded with men, she wore round and stood northward, his heart sank within him; and, dashing his hand through the crimson glass, he was about to hail, when Elpsy checked him:

"Hold! see you not they are only coming up to wind to lie to! Look! they are already swinging round their clumsy sails."

The vessel came up slowly and heavily to the wind, and, by means of her mainsail, lay as still as if at anchor. In a few moments afterward, as they eagerly watched, they saw a boat let down, and several men descend over the side into it. He uttered a joyful exclamation when he saw this movement; and, without reflecting upon the character of the vessel, or the object it could have in view in landing on so retired a coast at such a time, he only thought of it as a means of bearing him from the hateful shore, and perhaps opening for him some path to action and mental excitement.

"See that flash of light on her deck! There is another gleam!" exclaimed Elpsy.

"'Tis the glancing of the moonbeams on steel!" he replied, in a gratified tone.

"There is a sound a man should know!" she said again.

"'Tis the ringing of arms!" he replied, in the same animated manner.

"What think you they are, young man?" asked she, with a peculiar smile, laying her hand impressively on his arm.

"I know not, nor care, so I may cast my fortune with them!"

"Thou art, of a truth, thy father's son!"

"And, by the cross, he shall not be ashamed to own me!" he replied, in a desperate and determined tone.

"I will tell thee what they are-for I have passed my life by the seaside, and know the nature, and have learned to know the occupation and nation of each ship by its fashion, as I would tell a tradesman's by his garb."

"What, then, is the nation of this barque?"

"He is a Dane."

"Its nature?"

"To sail in shallow waters, and run before the wind."

"Its business on the sea?"

"To rob, pillage, and slay!"

"Ha, a bucanier?"

"A Dane."

"'Tis but another name for pirate in these waters. By the cross! when I saw the glitter of steel in the hands of its crew, I half guessed it."

"Wilt thou now link thy fate with theirs?"

"Am I not fit to be their comrade? Are they outcasts; what am I? Are they branded with shame; who am I? Has society cast them from its bosom; was I not born in bastardy? Am I not fallen lower than the lowest he among them who hath been born in wedlock? Why should I hesitate to mate with my fellows? What has the honourable world to invite me to? What if I could bury in oblivion from the reach of my own thoughts the black stain upon my birth and hitherto noble name, and, under a new one, with a strong heart and virtuous resolves, throw myself into the arena of honourable contest, and should succeed in winning a name that men would do homage to-should I not wear it, feeling that a sword was suspended by a hair above my head?"

"How mean you?" she asked, struck with the impassioned and despairing tones of his voice.

"I mean that, if, after carrying the secret like a living serpent coiled in my heart for years, I should, without suspicion, chance to win a fair name, the time at length would come when some one, with a too faithful memory, would recognise the bastard Hurtel-the quondam Lester-in the successful adventurer; and then-No, no!" he said, bitterly, "no, no! It may not be! The presence of this ship points me to the course I should pursue. I obey the fate that has directed it hither!"

"Wilt thou become a pirate?" she said, with a natural and feeling manner, as if prompted by some suddenly-awakened interest in him. "Yesterday Lord of Lester-to-day a pirate!"

"Yes."

"Curse the tongue that told thee of thy birth! But," she continued, muttering with her usual quick tones and nervousness of manner, "it was so pleasant to tell him, for his father's sake, he looked so like him! And then it was a pleasure to humble his pride, which he made even me the victim of: and so, as my master would have it, I could not, for the life o' me, longer help telling him the love-story I had kept so many years in my heart for him. Ho! ho! ha! ha! and a pleasant tale it was, too!" she added in that phrensied strain which seemed to be most natural to her.

While she was speaking the boat, which appeared to be full of men, put off from the vessel, and they could distinctly hear the command to "let fall," followed by the splash of the falling sweeps.

"Give way!" in a stern, deep tone, came directly afterward distinctly to their ears; and, shooting out from the vessel's side, the boat moved in towards the cliff.

As it neared the shore, one of the men stood up in the stern, and was heard to command them to cease pulling; and, for a few seconds afterward, he seemed to be reconnoitring the beach. Apparently satisfied with his scrutiny, he ordered them to give way again, steered directly to the foot of the tower, and skilfully run the boat alongside of the rock almost beneath the window.

"Now lay off an oar's length from the shore, and wait for me," said the one who had steered the boat, and who appeared to be the leader. "Be on the alert against surprise, though there's little fear of any one being within a league of the old tower. Carl, you and Evan take the coil of rigging and come with me."

As he spoke he leaped on the projection of the rock; then measuring the cliff with his eye, he placed his cutlass between his teeth and began to ascend. By the aid of numerous fissures and bold spurs jutting out from the sides he reached the top, closely followed by his men. Here he paused a moment, resting on his cutlass, and looked about him. He stood directly beneath the window from which Elpsy and the young man were looking, and was plainly visible to them. He was a short, stout-built man, with a ruddy complexion, browned by the winds and suns of every clime. His hair was gray, and hung in straight locks about his ears; and, judging by the deeply-indented lines of his weather-worn visage, his age was about fifty; yet his compactly-built figure, his light motions, and athletic appearance, gave indications of many years less. His countenance, turned upward to their full gaze in his survey of the tower, wore an expression of careless jovialty, united with desperate hardihood. The most striking characteristic of his face was a thick red mustache covering his upper lip. He had on his head an immense fur cap, and wore a short, full frock of a dark shade, secured at the waist by a broad belt, stuck with large, heavy pistols of the kind known, at the period, as the hand-harquebuss. He wore, also, voluminous breeches of buff leather, buckled at the knee, red cloth gaiters, and high-quartered shoes with pointed toes, and garnished with sparkling buckles of immense size. By his side hung the empty sheath of the sabre on which he leaned. His men, save the fur cap, for which they substituted red woollen ones of a conical form, and the frock, instead of which they wore long jackets, were-breeches, buckler, shoes, and gaiters-his counterpart in apparel.

"'Tis the very spot I once knew it! The unchanged sea-the rock-this gray tower! It seems as if but a day, and not eighteen years, had passed since I banqueted here with Hurtel of the Red-Hand," he said to himself, gazing round with revived recollections at each object. "Well, strange things have happened since! He is dead, or an exile with a price on his head; all our brave band scattered; and I, only, am left to stand once more on this familiar spot. The old rookery looks desolate enough, and seems to sympathize with its master's fortunes! Open your lantern, Carl, and let us enter! This moon will scarce afford light where I wish to penetrate! Heaven grant no evil spirit haunts here to keep guard over the treasure I have come to carry off! But, if it still remains, I will e'en cross blades with the devil for it, and win it, will he, nil he."

He passed as he spoke round the tower, and the next moment the listeners heard the heavy footsteps of the three men echoing through the hall. The young man was about to spring from the room to meet them, when Elpsy held him back.

"Would you run upon death! They would sheathe their cutlasses in your body ere you could open your lips. Hold, and hush! There is time enough. We will see what their purpose is. I have half a guess, from his words, at their business here."

"What!"

"Hurtel of the Red-Hand, the story goes, had secreted in some part of the tower large sums of silver and gold, with which to aid the conspiracy he headed. He had neither time nor means to take it away with him, and doubtless it still remains here, and this bucanier is acquainted with the secret."

"Ha!" he exclaimed, with surprise, "who told thee this?"

"Rumour, said I not!" she replied, after a moment's hesitation.

"And how should these know where to look for what has been concealed for years?"

"Hark!" she cried, as a heavy noise reached them from a distant part of the building, "they have opened the trap of the tower, and will descend into the vaults. He is one that knows well the place."

"Doubtless, from his language, some one of my hospitable parent's fellow-chiefs, who used to revel here in the days you tell of. I will see what they do, and take opportunity of forming good fellowship with my father's friend. Nay-but let me go, woman!"

He broke from her as she attempted to detain him, and, cautiously opening the door, descended with a cautious and rapid step into the hall. At its opposite extremity he saw, by the glimmer of a lamp held by one of them, the two men standing over an opening in the floor, and their leader just in the act of letting himself down into the subterranean chamber beneath.

"Hold the ladder steady, Evan!" he said. "Thrust your lantern down at arm's length, Carl, so that I can see where to place my foot. Ha! there, I find bottom," he added, his voice sounding hollow from the depth; "'tis dark and damp as a Calcutta blackhole! Faith, it's more like a tomb than an honest underground apartment. I hope I shall not see Hurtel's ghost guarding his box. Tumble down here, boys, and be ready to hand above decks as soon as I find out where it's stowed away!"

The others, leaving their cutlasses behind, followed him into the vault. Their heads had no sooner disappeared than the young man crossed the hall with a free step to the trapdoor, and looked fearlessly after them. He had from the first, when the vessel came in sight, deliberately resolved to attach himself to the party; and now the frank, blunt manner of the old sea-rover struck his fancy, and confirmed him in his resolution. But he was at a loss how to make his intentions known-how first to address men ready to shed blood on the instant without question, and among whom, at such a time, the very discovery of his presence might be fatal ere he could make known to the chief his intentions. While watching them as they groped about through the vast vault, an idea, characteristic of his now reckless disposition, suggested by the ghostly apprehensions of the leader, entered his mind. He paused for an instant, and then, favoured by the darkness, dropped noiselessly into the chamber. With a step that gave back no sound, he approached them as they moved in an opposite direction from him, throwing the light all forward, and waited the opportunity he had chosen for discovering himself.

"'Tis twelve paces to the south, eight paces to the east, and six paces to the west again-which will bring me to the wall, and on the very stone Red Hurtel and I placed over the gold," said the captain; "here are twelve paces, well told!" he added, placing his foot immediately afterward emphatically on the stone floor.

These words at once gave the youth a key to the course he should adopt. His quick eye, as the leader turned to pace east, comprehended the remaining angle at a glance, and, gliding away by the wall, he moved cautiously and noiselessly along till he felt his foot press upon a loose slab. He knew he must be on or near the spot; and drawing himself to his full height, and unconsciously assuming a stern and resolute look, called up by the novelty and danger of his situation, he waited the angular advance of the captain, who, with his men, was too intent on accurately marking his steps to look up even for a moment.

"Now west!" said the leader; and, turning as he spoke, he had counted on to four, five, and was about to take the last step to the wall, when, pronounced in a deep tone, that rung hollow through the vault, he heard the word,

"Forbear!"

He lifted his eyes and fell back upon his men as the lantern shone full upon the object, exclaiming,

"The ghost of Hurtel, by all that's good! Evan, come back here, you villain! Carl, give me that lantern, coward!" he shouted to his men, who turned and fled with affright.

He caught the light from the hand of the terrified Dane, and turned upon this apparition, which, notwithstanding his coolness, had not a little disconcerted him. He held the lamp, though standing off at a chosen distance, to the face of the supposed ghost, and said, with an odd mixture of natural boldness and superstitious fear,

"'Fore Heaven, comrade, you have grown full young in the other world! But there is no mistaking the cut of your eye. Faith, but you can smile, I see," he added, more freely. "There's no more mistaking your smile than your black, ugly frown! So, suppose we shake hands, and, after we get the chest aboard-for they say you don't want this sort of ballast in the seas down below-why, we'll empty a can together, and spin a yarn about old times before the cock crows!"

As the intrepid old sea-rover spoke, he extended his rough hand to grasp that of the other. The young man hesitated to take it, for he was scarce sure of his reception when it should be discovered that he was flesh and blood.

"Never mind if your fingers be a little cold or so, 'tis the nature o' ghosts. I can give you a grasp that'll put warmth into 'em, and last you till you get back where you hail from. Come, old friend, give us your digits, just to say you ain't offended at the liberty I am about to take with your chest o' sparklers; and afterward I will just thank you to step one side a bit!"

The young man smiled at the intrepidity of the seaman, and took the proffered hand.

"Warm! by the bones of St. Nick! The old fellow below has been keeping you over a hot fire, messmate. Well, you must confess, you lived a wonderfully wicked life; and so, as the priests say, the devil will fry it out of you. Sorry for you, on my word! Will lay by fifty of these guilders in prayers for your soul! So take heart. Now just step aside off that slab, which you stick to as if 'twas a tombstone, and we'll bear a hand and bouse this old box out in the snapping of a bolt-rope."

"I am no spirit, but a habitant of this world, like thyself!" he said, with firmness, and a straight-forward frankness that he wisely calculated would have its effect; "I am a young adventurer, without name or family, weal or wealth. I would take service with thee, and follow thy fortunes on the sea!"

The bucanier listened with surprise; and as he became convinced, from his words and manner, that he was no shade from the land of spirits, which shadowy beings he seemed to fear no more than mortal substance, his countenance instantly changed, and he surveyed him with a puzzled look of surprise and doubt.

"So! this alters the case! Who art thou, then? what art thou doing here-and on this particular stone? 'Tis mysterious, i'faith! Guarding this treasure, which no man save Hurtel and I saw laid here; so like him, and not be he! Yet thou canst not be Red Hurtel in the flesh, for his hair would be as gray as mine by this time. Thou sayest thou art not his spirit. Who, and what, then, in the name of St. Barnabas, may you be?"

"His son."

"Ha! ho! There it is, as plain as my hand!" he said, slapping the flat of his cutlass into his left palm. "Priest never had aught to do with thy begetting or thy christening, I'll be sworn! I now remember he had a leman-lady in the tower when I knew him. A proper youth," he added, looking at him with interest, "and as like your father as one marlin-spike is like another! So you inherit the old tower, I dare say, and follow in his steps. St. Claus and the apostles! I would not be surprised if you laid claim to the gold here!"

"I care neither for tower nor gold, good captain. To follow your fortunes I alone ask."

"Do you know what fortunes I follow?" inquired the other, significantly.

"I care not, so there is work for the free hand and ready spirit."

"A chip of the old block! There's my hand to it. You shall have your will, my brave one! Your father and I were comrades in that cursed affair that made the country too hot to hold us. I have been a rover since, and, trusting to my gray head, have ventured back to carry off what gold I heard he had not time to remove. Thou shalt go with me for thy father's sake, boy."

He grasped the old man's offered hand, and, for the moment, felt that he was less alone in the world. What a change had one brief day made in the feelings and destinies of this haughty young man!

"Bear a hand, you pale runaways!" cried the captain to the men, who, seeing that their spirit had proved of flesh and blood, returned, scowling darkly on the cause of their discomfiture. "Take hold of the edge of that stone, and lift it from its bed. Place your hands on the right spot, and it will come up like a cork."

The men made several ineffectual efforts to lift it, though even assisted in their last attempt by their captain.

"How is this?" he said; "it should move with a finger's touch. Ha, I have it! I had forgot. You might heave till you were gray, boys, and it wouldn't stir a hair. Look at some of my magic."

He stooped as he spoke, and pressing the stone horizontally towards the wall, it moved from its bed, and slid away slowly, as if on wheels, beneath it exposing a cavity two feet square and about three feet deep, containing an oaken box, bound with strong bands of rusted steel.

"Here it lies, like a biscuit in a bucket! Let us see if the gold has got rusty."

He searched a few moments, and at length bore hard upon a corner of the box, but without producing any effect.

"The spring is as tight as if Old Nick had his foot on it. Let us try what this good steel, that has served me so often at a push, will do now."

He pressed the point of his cutlass with steady force against one corner, when suddenly the lid flew up, and a glittering pile of silver and gold, and a remarkably shaped dagger, a foot in length, wider at the point than the handle, and exceedingly rich with precious stones, met their eyes.

There was a general exclamation of surprise at this display of treasure. The young man took up the weapon and examined it with curiosity.

"That belonged to Hurtel of the Red-Hand, and he prized it, too!" said the old pirate. "It shall be thine, young man! Holding it with that grasp as you do, and your kindling eye, I would swear my old comrade stood before me. If nature put the father's looks on all children as she has on thee, it would be a blind father that wouldn't know his own child. But it's only bas-hoit! I mean to say that children honestly come by seldom show the breed they hail from as some other sort o' craft do-I'faith, I haven't bettered it much! But, no harm meant, my brave fellow! Keep that yataghan for your father's sake. He knew its use, and, if you are long under me-"

"Under you?" repeated the youth, his natural spirit breaking out.

"Ha! I like that! Better men than I will soon be under you, I see-'tis in you born and bred! So! let us heave out this precious metal. Six thousand told pounds, if my memory serves me. Heave heartily, boys. There she moves! Now she rises on her toes! Steady strain. Hearty, hearty. There you are!"

"Hafey golt 'tish dat dere, Evan," said one, straightening his bent loins.

"Ap carnach! ant yer may will say tat, poy!" responded Evan, breathing himself and passing the back of his hand across his brow, from which started big drops of perspiration.

They now laid hold of it and dragged it beneath the trapdoor: with the united efforts of the men, the captain, and even Lester-or Hurtel, as for the present he should be called-they got it to the floor above, reascended, and closed the scuttle.

"You will want fresh hands, captain," said the youthful novitiate, at once readily entering into the spirit of his new vocation, and thirsting for excitement as a foil to reflection; "shall I call two of your men from the boat?"

"Ay, ay! do so!" said the captain; adding, as he darted away, "True as steel, by St. Claus! I would rather lose the gold than lose him. He is worth his weight of it!"

While he was speaking his protegé reached the balcony, and, bending over, ordered, in an authoritative tone, two of the men to ascend to relieve their mates. There was a general exclamation of surprise from the party below at the sound of the strange voice.

"Treason!"

"We are betrayed!"

"To the rescue of our captain!" were the various exclamations, in as many different languages, followed by glancing of steel and clicking of pistols, several of which were levelled at the window.

"Ho, fellows! will you not obey?" said he, sternly; "up, up-with you! By the cross! if I were your captain, knaves, I would teach you to linger after an order was given."

"Who in the devil have we there?" said one, in a gruff voice. "Shall I pink him, mates?"

"Who talks of pinking? What, ho, ye villains!" shouted the captain, who now appeared at the window. "This youth is my lieutenant, and see that you obey him, or I will make a pair of earrings of a brace of you for the main-yard-arms."

"That's another thing," said several voices. "Orders is orders, if they come from the devil, so as he is got the commission in his pocket!"

"Two of the strongest of you lubberly oxen, clamber up here. Spring! be nimble! nimble! Back the boat directly under, and keep her steady."

A moment afterward two of the men reached the top of the rock and sprung into the balcony. It took but a short time to get the chest upon the balustrade, lash it with the rope they had brought, rig a fall with a brace of oars, and swing it off.

"Stand ready below there!" cried the captain.

"All ready."

"Handle it as if it was a baby. Gently, gently, or you will knock the boat's bottom out! Swing it more aft! There, now, let her drop amidships! Easy-not too fast! There she lies between the thwarts like a pig in a pillory!"

The box was safely lowered into the launch, and followed with alacrity by the men: the captain and his new lieutenant were also preparing to go down, when each, at the same instant, felt himself touched from behind, and, turning round, Elpsy confronted them.

"Who art thou, in the name of Beelzebub's mother?" demanded the captain, staring with astonishment, not unmingled with superstitious dread, on the deformed and hideous being who had so suddenly and mysteriously appeared to him.

"I would speak with thee, Edmund Turill!"

"Then thou art Sathanas!" he cried, with astonishment; "how knowest thou me?"

"It matters not. I know thee," she replied, in a tone of mystery. "That youth goes with thee?" she added, inquiringly.

"He does!"

"See, then, that he is well treated, and receives not ill at thy hands. Remember, once thou hadst a son!"

"Who art thou, i'the name of all the saints, woman?"

"It matters not. When thou thinkest of thy poor boy's bones, gibbeted for sharing thy guilt o'er the gate of Cork, the winds whistling through them with a sad wail, look kindly on this youth, and take him to thy heart, as if he were thine own flesh and blood!"

"I will do it," he said, with emotion.

"Swear it."

"I swear it!"

"'Tis well. One question I have to ask thee, and truly answer it."

"Name it, woman!"

"Where wanders Hurtel of the Red-Hand?"

"'Tis said he died in the Indies!"

"'Tis false!" she cried, with energy. "He can never die unaccursed by her he has wronged. No, no! he will have one to watch his pillow in his dying throes he would rather burn in hell, to which he is doomed, than see. No, no! his time has not yet come! his master will not let him slip out o' life so easily. Oh, it will be a glory to see him die; and mock his groans; and laugh, laugh at his terrors! Ha, ha, ha! Oh, will it not be a jubilee to see him struggle with the death!"

"I'God's name, woman, tell me who thou art?"

"Dost not behold what I am? Wouldst have fair winds, I will raise thee foul: wouldst have a smooth sea, I will make it boil and hiss: wilt say a prayer, I will turn it into a curse ere it can leave thy lips."

"Avaunt, sorceress!" he cried, crossing himself with horror.

"Ha, ha! so you can feel my power! Oh, well! it is a-pleasant to make men's stout hearts quake. Dost know me?" she asked, impressively, approaching her face close to his.

"No!" he said, retreating and preparing to descend the rock. "Avoid thee, Sathanas!"

"Listen!" she said, approaching and laying her hand on his arm, and whispering low in his ear.

"Thou!" he exclaimed, instantly starting back, and surveying her with mingled surprise, curiosity, and disgust.

"Wouldst care to leave thy revels and their lord, and, stealing to her lone room, offer thy drunken love to her now! Ha, ha, ha! Does she not look a comely leman for thy licentious love?" she added, with malicious irony.

He gazed on her a few seconds by the light of the moon, and seemed too much overpowered by surprise to speak. At length he said, in a tone of horror,

"Hideous as thou art, it must be as thou sayest, for only thus could I be known to thee! But, holy St. Claus!" he added, in a tone, "this lad-is he-"

"No matter who he is! see thou harm him not!"

"I will be a father to him, woman! 'Fore Heaven," he exclaimed afresh, gazing upon her with mingled curiosity and pity, "was there ever such a-"

"Mind me not! spare your sympathy! Go!-Stay!" she cried, earnestly recalling him; "if you ever meet him, breathe not into his ears what and whom you have this night seen. I have made myself known to thee for this youth's sake. Farewell, young man," she said, approaching Lester as he stood on the rock, to which he had bounded from the balcony at the beginning of their conference. She extended her hand as she spoke. He took it, and grasped it warmly saying, in a soothing tone,

"Good-by, Elpsy. I have no ill-will against thee in my heart. Thou hast done but thy duty!"

The sorceress seemed to be moved, turned away from him without speaking, as if her feelings choked utterance, and stalked away through the hall, and left the tower.

"Come, my lad," said the captain, turning away and speaking with feeling, after following with his eyes her retreating form till it disappeared in the forest, "she is a poor, unhappy creature, and it'll come hard, I'm thinking, on him that made her so. But this is no time for sentiment. Let us aboard and make an offing ere the dawn; for, if we are spied lying here, we shall have the king's bulldog down upon us from windward I saw lying in Cor Bay, who will bark to some purpose if he should catch us here on a lee shore."

Thus speaking, the old seaman lightly descended the rock to the boat, followed by his youthful lieutenant, and in a few minutes they reached the vessel.

The moment his foot touched the deck the captain gave orders to make sail: the long, crooked tiller was put hard up to windward; the heavy mainsail swung back to its place; the vessel's head turned slowly off, and, feeling the wind on her quarter, she stood in landward for a few seconds to gain headway, and then came gracefully round with her starboard bow to the wind. With each broad sail drawn nearly fore and aft, she lay as near it as her short blunt build would permit, and stretched away from the shore on a long tack towards the south.

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