The Pilot (22 page)

"Have you calculated your power justly, John?" said Alice, unconsciously
betraying her deep interest in his safety. "Have you reckoned the
probability of Mr. Dillon's arriving, accompanied by an armed band of
horsemen, with the morning's sun? for it's no secret in the abbey that
he is gone in quest of such assistance."

"Dillon!" exclaimed the Pilot, starting; "who is he? and on what
suspicion does he seek this addition to your guard?"

"Nay, John, look not at me, as if you would know the secrets of my
heart. It was not I who prompted him to such a step; you cannot for a
moment think that I would betray you! But too surely he has gone; and,
as the night wears rapidly away, you should be using the hour of grace
to effect our own security."

"Fear not for me, Alice," returned the Pilot proudly, while a faint
smile struggled around his compressed lip: "and yet I like not this
movement either. How call you his name? Dillon! is he a minion of King
George?"

"He is, John, what you are not, a loyal subject of his sovereign lord
the king; and, though a native of the revolted colonies, he has
preserved his virtue uncontaminated amid the corruptions and temptations
of the times."

"An American! and disloyal to the liberties of the human race! By
Heaven, he had better not cross me; for if my arm reach him, it shall
hold him forth as a spectacle of treason to the world."

"And has not the world enough of such a spectacle in yourself? Are ye
not, even now, breathing your native air, though lurking through the
mists of the island, with desperate intent against its peace and
happiness?"

A dark and fierce expression of angry resentment flashed from the eyes
of the Pilot, and even his iron frame seemed to shake with emotion, as
he answered:

"Call you his dastardly and selfish treason, aiming, as it does, to
aggrandize a few, at the expense of millions, a parallel case to the
generous ardor that impels a man to fight in the defence of sacred
liberty? I might tell you that I am armed in the common cause of my
fellow-subjects and countrymen; that though an ocean divided us in
distance, yet are we a people of the same blood, and children of the
same parents, and that the hand which oppresses one inflicts an injury
on the other. But I disdain all such narrow apologies. I was born on
this orb, and I claim to be a citizen of it. A man with a soul not to be
limited by the arbitrary boundaries of tyrants and hirelings, but one
who has the right as well as the inclination to grapple with oppression,
in whose name so ever it is exercised, or in whatever hollow and
specious shape it founds its claim to abuse our race."

"Ah! John, John, though this may sound like reason to rebellious ears,
to mine it seemeth only as the ravings of insanity. It is in vain ye
build up your new and disorganizing systems of rule, or rather misrule,
which are opposed to all that the world has ever yet done, or ever will
see done in peace and happiness. What avail your subtleties and false
reasonings against the heart? It is the heart which tells us where our
home is, and how to love it."

"You talk like a weak and prejudiced woman, Alice," said the Pilot, more
composedly; "and one who would shackle nations with the ties that bind
the young and feeble of your own sex together."

"And by what holier or better bond can they be united?" said Alice. "Are
not the relations of domestic life of God's establishing, and have not
the nations grown from families, as branches spread from the stem, till
the tree overshadows the land? 'Tis an ancient and sacred tie that binds
man to his nation; neither can it be severed without infamy."

The Pilot smiled disdainfully, and throwing open the rough exterior of
his dress, he drew forth, in succession, several articles, while a
glowing pride lighted his countenance, as he offered them singly to her
notice.

"See, Alice!" he said, "call you this infamy! This broad sheet of
parchment is stamped with a seal of no mean importance, and it bears the
royal name of the princely Louis also! And view this cross! decorated as
it is with jewels, the gift of the same illustrious hand; it is not apt
to be given to the children of infamy, neither is it wise or decorous to
stigmatize a man who has not been thought unworthy to consort with
princes and nobles by the opprobrious name of the 'Scotch Pirate.'"

"And have ye not earned the title, John, by ruthless deeds and bitter
animosity? I could kiss the baubles ye show me, if they were a thousand
times less splendid, had they been laid upon your breast by the hands of
your lawful prince; but now they appear to my eyes as indelible blots
upon your attainted name. As for your associates, I have heard of them;
and it seemeth that a queen might be better employed than encouraging by
her smiles the disloyal subjects of other monarchs, though even her
enemies. God only knows when His pleasure may suffer a spirit of
disaffection to rise up among the people of her own nation, and then the
thought that she has encouraged rebellion may prove both bitter and
unwelcome."

"That the royal and lovely Antoinette has deigned to repay my services
with a small portion of her gracious approbation is not among the least
of my boasts," returned the Pilot, in affected humility, while secret
pride was manifested even in his lofty attitude. "But venture not a
syllable in her dispraise, for you know not whom you censure. She is
less distinguished by her illustrious birth and elevated station, than
by her virtues and loveliness. She lives the first of her sex in Europe
—the daughter of an emperor, the consort of the most powerful king, and
the smiling and beloved patroness of a nation who worship at her feet.
Her life is above all reproach, as it is above all earthly punishment,
were she so lost as to merit it; and it has been the will of Providence
to place her far beyond the reach of all human misfortunes."

"Has it placed her above human errors, John? Punishment is the natural
and inevitable consequence of sin; and unless she can say more than has
ever fallen to the lot of humanity to say truly, she may yet be made to
feel the chastening arm of One, to whose eyes all her pageantry and
power are as vacant as the air she breathes—so insignificant must it
seem when compared to his own just rule! But if you vaunt that you have
been permitted to kiss the hem of the robes of the French queen, and
have been the companion of high-born and flaunting ladies, clad in their
richest array, can ye yet say to yourself, that amid them all ye have
found one whose tongue has been bold to tell you the truth, or whose
heart has sincerely joined in her false professions?"

"Certainly none have met me with the reproaches that I have this night
received from Alice Dunscombe, after a separation of six long years,"
returned the Pilot.

"If I have spoken to you the words of holy truth, John, let them not be
the less welcome, because they are strangers to your ears. Oh! think
that she who has thus dared to use the language of reproach to one whose
name is terrible to all who live on the border of this island, is led to
the rash act by no other motive than interest in your eternal welfare."

"Alice! Alice! you madden me with these foolish speeches! Am I a monster
to frighten unprotected women and helpless children? What mean these
epithets, as coupled with my name? Have you, too, lent a credulous ear
to the vile calumnies with which the policy of your rulers has ever
attempted to destroy the fair fame of those who oppose them, and those
chiefly who oppose them with success? My name may be terrible to the
officers of the royal fleet, but where and how have I earned a claim to
be considered formidable to the helpless and unoffending?"

Alice Dunscombe cast a furtive and timid glance at the Pilot, which
spoke even stronger than her words, as she replied:

"I know not that all which is said of you and your deeds is true. I have
often prayed, in bitterness and sorrow, that a tenth part of that which
is laid to your charge may not be heaped on your devoted head at the
great and final account. But, John, I have known you long and well, and
Heaven forbid, that on this solemn occasion, which may be the last, the
last of our earthly interviews, I should be found wanting in Christian
duty, through a woman's weakness. I have often thought, when I have
heard the gall of bitter reproach and envenomed language hurled against
your name, that they who spoke so rashly, little understood the man they
vituperated. But, though ye are at times, and I may say almost always,
as mild and even as the smoothest sea over which ye have ever sailed,
yet God has mingled in your nature a fearful mixture of fierce passions,
which, roused, are more like the southern waters when troubled with the
tornado. It is difficult for me to say how far this evil spirit may lead
a man, who has been goaded by fancied wrongs to forget his country and
home, and who is suddenly clothed with power to show his resentments."

The Pilot listened with rooted attention, and his piercing eye seemed to
reach the seat of those thoughts which she but half expressed; still he
retained the entire command of himself, and answered, more in sorrow
than in anger:

"If anything could convert me to your own peaceful and unresisting
opinions, Alice, it would be the reflections that offer themselves at
this conviction, that even you have been led by the base tongues of my
dastardly enemies, to doubt my honor and conduct. What is fame, when a
man can be thus traduced to his nearest friends? But no more of these
childish reflections! they are unworthy of myself, my office, and the
sacred cause in which I have enlisted!"

"Nay, John, shake them not off," said Alice, unconsciously laying her
hand on his arm; "they are as the dew to the parched herbage, and may
freshen the feelings of your youth, and soften the heart that has grown
hard, if hard it be, more by unnatural indulgence than its own base
inclinations."

"Alice Dunscombe," said the Pilot, approaching her with solemn
earnestness, "I have learnt much this night, though I came not in quest
of such knowledge. You have taught me how powerful is the breath of the
slanderer, and how frail is the tenure by which we hold our good names.
Full twenty times have I met the hirelings of your prince in open
battle, fighting ever manfully under that flag which was first raised to
the breeze by my own hands, and which, I thank my God, I have never yet
seen lowered an inch; but with no one act of cowardice or private wrong
in all that service can I reproach myself; and yet, how am I rewarded!
The tongue of the vile calumniator is keener than the sword of the
warrior, and leaves a more indelible scar!"

"Never have ye uttered a truer sentiment, John, and God send that ye may
encourage such thoughts to your own eternal advantage," said Alice, with
engaging interest "You say that you have risked your precious life in
twenty combats, and observe how little of Heaven's favor is bestowed on
the abettors of rebellion! They tell me that the world has never
witnessed a more desperate and bloody struggle than this last, for which
your name has been made to sound to the furthermost ends of the isle."

"'Twill be known wherever naval combats are spoken of!" interrupted the
Pilot, the melancholy which had begun to lower in his countenance giving
place to a look of proud exultation.

"And yet its fancied glory cannot shield your name from wrong, nor are
the rewards of the victor equal, in a temporal sense, to those which the
vanquished has received. Know you that our gracious monarch, deeming
your adversary's cause so sacred, has extended to him his royal favor?"

"Ay! he has dubbed him knight!" exclaimed the Pilot. with a scornful and
bitter laugh: "let him be again furnished with a ship, and me with
another opportunity, and I promise him an earldom, if being again
vanquished can constitute a claim!"

"Speak not so rashly, nor vaunt yourself of possessing a protecting
power that may desert you, John, when you most need it, and least expect
the change," returned his companion; "the battle is not always to the
strong, neither is the race to the swift."

"Forget you, my good Alice, that your words will admit of a double
meaning? Has the battle been to the strong! Though you say not well in
denying the race to the swift. Yes, yes, often and again have the
dastards escaped me by their prudent speed! Alice Dunscombe, you know
not a thousandth part of the torture that I have been made to feel, by
high-born miscreants, who envy the merit they cannot equal, and detract
from the glory of deeds that they dare not attempt to emulate. How have
I been cast upon the ocean, like some unworthy vessel that is
commissioned to do a desperate deed, and then to bury itself in the ruin
it has made! How many malignant hearts have triumphed as they beheld my
canvas open, thinking that it was spread to hasten me to a gibbet, or to
a tomb in the bosom of the ocean! but I have disappointed them!"

The eyes of the Pilot no longer gazed with their piercing and settled
meaning; but they flashed with a fierce and wild pleasure, as he
continued, in a louder voice:

"Yes, bitterly have I disappointed them! Oh! the triumph over my fallen
enemies has been tame to this heartfelt exultation which places me
immeasurably above those false and craven hypocrites! I begged, I
implored, the Frenchmen, for the meanest of their craft, which possessed
but the common qualities of a ship of war; I urged the policy and
necessity of giving me such a force, for even then I promised to be
found in harm's way; but envy and jealousy robbed me of my just dues,
and of more than half my glory. They call me pirate! If I have claim to
the name, it was furnished more by the paltry outfit of my friends, than
by any act towards my enemies!"

"And do not these recollections prompt you to return to your allegiance,
to your prince and native land, John?" said Alice, in a subdued voice.