The Water-Witch, James Fenimore Cooper [good ebook reader TXT] 📗

"Lord Viscount, no. What we have to hope or what we have to fear from your successor, is to me a secret."

"Ply him with promises, Master Skimmer—set golden hopes before his imagination; set gold itself before his eyes, and you will prosper. I will pledge my expected earldom that he yields! Sir, these distant situations are like so many half-authorized mints, in which money is to be coined; and the only counterfeit is your mimic representative of Majesty. Ply him with golden hopes; if mortal, he will yield!"

"And yet, my lord, I have met men who preferred poverty and their opinions, to gold and the wishes of others."

"The dolts were lusus naturæ!" exclaimed the dissolute Cornbury, losing all his reserve in a manner that better suited his known and confirmed character. "You should have caged them, Skimmer, and profited by their dullness, to lay the curious under contribution. Don't mistake me, Sir, if I speak a little in confidence. I hope I know the difference between a gentleman and a leveller, as well as another; but trust me, this Mr. Hunter is human, and he will yield if proper appliances are used;—and you expect from me——?"

"The exercise of that influence which cannot fail of success; since there is a courtesy between men of a certain station, which causes them to overlook rivalry, in the spirit of their caste. The cousin of Queen Anne can yet obtain the liberty of one whose heaviest crime is a free trade, though he may not be able to keep his own seat in the chair of the government."

"Thus far, indeed, my poor influence may yet extend, provided the fellow be not named in any act of outlawry. I would gladly enough Mr. Skimmer end my deeds in this hemisphere, with some act of graceful mercy, if—indeed—I saw—the means——"

"They shall not be wanting. I know the law is like any other article of great price; some think that Justice holds the balance, in order to weigh her fees. Though the profits of this hazardous and sleepless trade of mine be much overrated, I would gladly line her scales with two hundred broad pieces, to have that youth again safe in the cabin of the brigantine."

As the 'Skimmer of the Seas' thus spoke, he drew, with the calmness of a man who saw no use in circumlocution, a heavy bag of gold from beneath his frock, and deposited it, without a second look at the treasure, on the table. When this offering was made, he turned aside, less by design than by a careless movement of the body, and, when he faced his companion again, the bag had vanished.

"Your affection for the lad is touching, Master Skimmer," returned the corrupt Cornbury; "it were a pity such friendship should be wasted. Will there be proof to insure his condemnation?"

"It may be doubted. His dealings have only been with the higher class of my customers, and with but few of them. The care I now take is more in tenderness to the youth, than with any great doubts of the result. I shall count you, my lord, among his protectors, in the event that the affair is noised?"

"I owe it to your frankness—but will Mr. Ludlow content himself with the possession of an inferior, when the principal is so near? and shall we not have a confiscation of the brigantine on our hands?"

"I charge myself with the care of all else. There was indeed a lucky escape, only the last night, as we lay at a light kedge, waiting for the return of him who has been arrested. Profiting by the possession of our skiff; the commander of the Coquette, himself, got within the sweep of my hawse—nay, he was in the act of cutting the very fastenings, when the dangerous design was discovered. 'Twould have been a fate unworthy of the Water-Witch, to be cast on shore like a drifting log, and to check her noble career by some such a seizure as that of a stranded waif!"

"You avoided the mischance?"

"My eyes are seldom shut, lord Viscount, when danger is nigh. The skiff was seen in time, and watched; for I knew that one in whom I trusted was abroad.—When the movement grew suspicious, we had our means of frightening this Mr. Ludlow from his enterprise, without recourse to violence."

"I had not thought him one to be scared from following up a business like this."

"You judged him rightly—I may say we judged him rightly. But when his boats sought us at our anchorage, the bird had flown."

"You got the brigantine to sea, in season?" observed Cornbury, not sorry to believe that the vessel was already off the coast.

"I had other business. My agent could not be thus deserted, and there were affairs to finish in the city. Our course lay up the bay."

"Ha! Master Skimmer, 'twas a bold step, and one that says little for your discretion!"

"Lord Viscount, there is safety in courage," calmly and perhaps ironically returned the other. "While the Queen's captain closed all the outlets, my little craft was floating quietly under the hills of Staten. Before the morning watch was set, she passed these wharves; and she now awaits her captain, in the broad basin that lies beyond the bend of yonder head-land."

"This is a hardiness to be condemned! A failure of wind, a change of tide, or any of the mishaps common to the sea, may throw you on the mercy of the law, and will greatly embarrass all who feel an interest in your safety."

"So far as this apprehension is connected with my welfare, I thank you much, my lord; but, trust me, many hazards have left me but little to learn in this particular. We shall run the Hell-Gate, and gain the open sea by the Connecticut Sound."

"Truly, Master Skimmer, one has need of nerves to be your confidant! Faith in a compact constitutes the beauty of social order; without it, there is no security for interests, nor any repose for character. But faith may be implied, as well as expressed; and when men in certain situations place their dependence on others who should have motives for being wary, the first are bound to respect, even to the details of a most scrupulous construction, the conditions of the covenant. Sir, I wash my hands of this transaction, if it be understood that testimony is to be accumulated against us, by thus putting your Water-Witch in danger of trial before the Admiralty."

"I am sorry that this is your decision," returned the Skimmer. "What is done, cannot be recalled, though I still hope it may be remedied. My brigantine now lies within a league of this, and 'twould be treachery to deny it. Since it is your opinion, my lord, that our contract is not valid, there is little use in its seal—the broad pieces may still be serviceable, in shielding that youth from harm."

"You are as literal in constructions, Master Skimmer, as a school-boy's version of his Virgil. There is an idiom in diplomacy, as well as in language, and one who treats so sensibly should not be ignorant of its phrases. Bless me, Sir; an hypothesis is not a conclusion, any more than a promise is a performance. That which is advanced by way of supposition, is but the ornament of reasoning, while your gold has the more solid character of demonstration. Our bargain is made."

The unsophisticated mariner regarded the noble casuist a moment, in doubt whether to acquiesce in this conclusion, or not; but ere he had decided on his course, the windows of the room were shaken violently, and then came the heavy roar of a piece of ordnance.

"The morning gun!" exclaimed Cornbury, who started at the explosion, with the sensitiveness of one unworthily employed.—"No! 'tis an hour past the rising of the sun!"

The Skimmer showed no yielding of the nerves though it was evident, by his attitude of thought and the momentary fixedness of his eye, that he foresaw danger was near. Moving to the window, he looked out on the water, and instantly drew back, like one who wanted no further evidence.

"Our bargain then is made," he said, hastily approaching the Viscount, whose hand he seized and wrung in spite of the other's obvious reluctance to allow the familiarity; "our bargain then is made. Deal fairly by the youth, and the deed will be remembered—deal treacherously, and it shall be revenged!"

For one instant longer, the Skimmer held the member of the effeminate Cornbury imprisoned; and then, raising his cap with a courtesy that appeared more in deference to himself than his companion, he turned on his heel, and with a firm but quick step he left the house.

Carnaby, who entered on the instant, found his guest in a state between resentment, surprise, and alarm. But habitual levity soon conquered other feelings, and, finding himself freed from the presence of a man who had treated him with so little ceremony, the ex-governor shook his head, like one accustomed to submit to evils he could not obviate, and assumed the ease and insolent superiority he was accustomed to maintain in the presence of the obsequious grocer.

"This may be a coral or a pearl, or any other lion—ha! do I not see the masts of a ship, moving above the roofs of yonder line of stores?"

"Well, your lordship has the quickest eye!--and the happiest way of seeing things, of any nobleman in England! Now I should have stared a quarter of an hour, before I thought of looking over the roofs of those stores, at all; and yet your lordship looks there at the very first glance."

"Is it a ship or a brig, Master Carnaby—you have the advantage of position, for I would not willingly be seen—speak quickly, dolt;—is it ship, or brig?"

"My lord—'tis a brig—or a ship—really I must ask your lordship, for I know so little of these things——"

"Nay, complaisant Master Carnaby—have an opinion of your own for one moment, if you please—there is smoke curling upward, behind those masts——"

Another rattling of windows, and a second report, removed all doubts on the subject of the firing. At the next instant, the bows of a vessel of war appeared at the opening of a ship-yard, and then came gun after gun in view, until the whole broadside and frowning battery of the Coquette were visible.

The Viscount sought no further solution of the reason why the Skimmer had left him so hurriedly. Fumbling a moment in a pocket, he drew forth a hand filled with broad pieces of gold. These he appeared about to lay upon the table; but, as it were by forgetfulness, he kept the member closed, and bidding the grocer adieu, he left the house, with as firm a resolution as was ever made by any man, conscious of having done both a weak and a wicked action, of never again putting himself in familial contact with so truckling a miscreant.