CHAPTER XXXVII.
THE ATTACK
“ – Then more fierce
The conflict grew: the din of arms; the yell
Of savage rage; the shriek of agony;
The groans of death, commingled with one sound
Of undistinguished horrors.”
– Southey.
Silent, motionless, speechless, with surprise and many contending emotions, Ray stood gazing on his new-found father, like one suddenly stricken dumb. And with one hand resting on the young man’s shoulders, the outlaw stood before him, looking in his pale, wild, excited face, with a strange, sad smile.
“My father!” repeated Ray, like one in a dream.
“Yes, even so; you have little cause, I fear, to be proud of the relationship. In the branded outlaw, smuggler, and pirate, Captain Reginald, you behold him who was once known as the Count Germaine, the husband of the beautiful, high-born Lady Maude Percy, and your father. Strange, strange, that we should meet thus.”
For some moments Ray paced up and down the floor rapidly and excitedly, with a face from which every trace of color had fled. His father stood watching him, one arm leaning on a sort of mantel, with a look half proud, half sad, half bitter, commingled on his still fine face.
“I see you are not disposed to acknowledge the relationship between us, sir,” he said, almost haughtily. “Well, I own you are not to blame for that. Let us part as we met first, as strangers; you go your way and I will continue mine! The world need never know that you are aught to the outlawed rover-chief. You are free, sir; free to go, and to take Miss Lawless with you, if you choose. I did wish to see my poor old mother before I left, but, perhaps, it is better as it is. I will leave this part of the world altogether, and return no more; the son of Maude Percy, the one love of my crime-darkened life, will never be compromised by me.”
There was something unspeakably sad in the proud, cold way this was said, compared with the deep melancholy, the bitter remorse in his dark eyes. There were tears that did honor to his manly heart in Ray’s eyes, as he came over and held out his hand.
“My father, you wrong me,” he said, earnestly; “it was from no such unworthy feeling I hesitated to reply. These revelations came so suddenly, so unexpectedly, that for the time being I was stunned, and unable to comprehend all clearly. Outlaw or not, you are my father still; and as such, we will leave the world and its scorn together. If your crimes have been great, so have your wrongs; and let him who is without sin cast the first stone.”
The hands of father and son met in a strong, earnest clasp; but the outlaw’s face was averted, and his strong chest rose and fell like the waves of a tempest-tossed sea.
At this moment the curtain was pushed aside, and the Frenchwoman Marguerite, stood before them.
“Well, Marguerite?” said the outlaw, looking up.
“Did you expect any of the men to return to-night?” she asked, looking with the same glance of sharp suspicion from one to the other.
“No. Why?”
“Some of them are without; they have given the signal.”
“Oh, well, tell Bart to await them. I did not expect them, but something may have brought them back. Admit them at once.”
The woman turned and left the room, and the outlaw, looking at Ray, said, with a sad smile:
“Poor Marguerite! she has been faithful through all, clinging to me with a love of which I am utterly unworthy. Poor Marguerite! she was deserving of a better fate.”
“I suppose she has now quite recovered from the loss of her child,” said Ray.
“Never! she has never been the same since. Dear Rita! sweet little angel! Oh! Raymond, I loved that child as – ”
The sentence was interrupted in a blood-chilling manner enough.
From the distant entrance of the cave came a wild shout of alarm, then an exulting cheer, lost in the sharp report of firearms and the trampling of many feet.
“Ha! what means this?” exclaimed the outlaw, as he dashed the curtain aside, and, closely followed by Ray, stood in the outer apartment.
The men were already on their feet, gazing in alarm in each other’s faces, and involuntarily grasping their weapons. In the midst of them stood Pet and the Frenchwoman, listening in surprise and vague alarm.
Still the noise continued. Shouts, cheers, the trampling of feet, and the report of firearms, all commingling together. At the same instant Black Bart and two others rushed in, all covered with blood, and shouting:
“Betrayed! betrayed! that devil’s whelp, Rozzel Garnet, has betrayed us, and the revenue officers are upon us red hot. Here they come with that cursed white-livered dog among them,” yelled Black Bart, as he rushed in.
“Come with me, this is no place for us,” said the woman Marguerite, as she seized Pet by the arm, and dragged her into the inner apartment.
In rushed the officers of the law, some twenty in all, three times the number of the smugglers; and their leader, in a loud, authoritative voice, commanded them to lay down their arms and surrender in the name of the law.
“Go to the devil!” was Black Bart’s civil reply, as he took deliberate aim, and sent a bullet whistling through the heart of the unfortunate man.
A shout of rage arose from the officers at the fall of their leader, and they rushed precipitately upon the outlaws. But their welcome was a warm one; for the pirates, well-knowing what would be their fate if captured alive, fought like demons, and soon the uproar in the vaults grew fearful.
“On, my brave fellows, on!” shouted Captain Reginald; “death here, if we must die, sooner than on the gallows. Ha! there goes Rozzel Garnet, the cursed infernal villain. He at least shall not escape.”
He raised his pistol, a sharp report followed, and a shriek of mortal agony; Rozzel Garnet bounded up in the air, and then fell heavily, shot through the brain.
The conflict now waxed fast and furious; but desperate as the smugglers were, they could not long hold out against three times their number, men better armed and prepared than themselves. The revenue officers closed on them; and in an incredibly short space of time three of the smugglers were securely bound, while three more lay stark and dead on the bloodstained, slippery floor of the cave.
Three times during the conflict had the arm of Ray Germaine interposed to save his father’s life, as he fought with the desperation of madness. But his single arm was unavailing to turn the fortune of war, and he saw his men falling helpless on every side of him. Still, he fought on with such desperate fierceness, that the revenue officers at last closed on him and bore him bleeding and wounded to the ground.
The conflict was ended, the revenue officers were victorious; but the victory was dearly bought, for more than half their number lay wounded or dead on the floor. They paused now, drew a long breath, and wiped the perspiration off their heated and inflamed faces.
Wounded and bleeding, the outlaw-chief lay on the ground. Half delirious with conflicting feelings, Ray knelt beside him, and strove to staunch the flowing blood.
“It is useless,” he said, with a faint smile; “I have received my death-wound. Call Marguerite; I would see her before I die, and tell my mother, my poor mother – would to God I could see her, too, once more,” he said, while a look of bitter sorrow and remorse passed over his pale face.
“You shall not die here!” exclaimed Ray, impetuously, starting up; “and you shall see her, in spite of them all. Mr. Chesny,” he added, turning to the present leader of the revenue officers, “will you permit some of your men to bear Captain Reginald up to Old Barrens Cottage immediately?”
The gentleman addressed, who knew Ray intimately, turned round in surprise. In the heat of the conflict he had not perceived him, and now he looked his astonishment at the unexpected rencontre.
“You here, Mr. Germaine!” he exclaimed. “Why, how comes this?”
“I was brought here a prisoner – never mind that,” said Ray, impatiently; “will you permit me to have this wounded man removed?”
“Impossible, my dear fellow. He is the notorious leader of this villainous gang – an outlaw with a price on his head. I am responsible for his safe delivery into the hands of justice.”
“And those hands he will never reach! Do you not see he is dying?” said Ray, passionately. “Look at him, Chesny, do you think you could bring him to Judestown in that state? Do you think he would ever reach it alive?”
“Mr. Germaine, I should like to oblige you – ”
“Do it, then. Let me take him to the cottage, and I will be responsible for his not escaping. Nonsense, Chesny! You see it is impossible for him to be taken further. You must have him taken there. Sure some of you may guard the house if you fear his escaping.”
“Be it so, then. Come, boys, construct something to carry this wounded man to Old Barrens Cottage on. Hallo! Miss Lawless, by all that’s glorious!” exclaimed the officers as Pet, with Marguerite, appeared from the inner room.
“How do you do, Mr. Chesny? Oh, what a dreadful night this has been!” said Pet, with a shudder. “Good Heavens! is Captain Reginald dead?” she exclaimed, in consternation.
“No; wounded only; he is to be conveyed to Old Barrens Cottage. How in the world did you get here, Miss Pet?”
“Oh, they carried me off. Rozzel Garnet did.”
“Well, you are the last he will carry off, I fancy. Here he lies!” said the man, touching the stark, ghastly form slightly with his foot.
“Dead!” said Pet, turning pale.
“Yes; the smuggler-chief there sent a bullet through him the first thing; and served him right, too, for peaching as he did, the mean cuss! Hurry up, boys! Oh! you’ve got through, I see. Lift him on it, now – gently, gently, there; you have stopped the blood, I see, Germaine; that’s right. Ha! whom have we here?” he exclaimed, as his eyes fell on the woman Marguerite, who, white and cold as he by whose side she knelt, held the head of the wounded chief on her breast, and gently wiped the cold sweat off his face. “Who is the woman?”
“His wife,” said Ray, in a low tone. “Let her accompany him. Miss Lawless, will you accept my escort from this den of horrors?”
“Oh, Ray! what a night this has been! And oh, I am so sorry Captain Reginald is wounded. Do you know, I liked him real well!”
Ray made no reply. In silence he drew Pet’s arm through his, and she looking at him was almost startled to see, his face so stern, so set, so fearfully white.
The men bearing the wounded form of Captain Reginald had already started from the cave. Marguerite, who had uttered but one passionate exclamation, followed, still and silent, and then came Ray and Pet, with a few of the revenue officers bringing up the rear. The melancholy procession passed from the gloomy cave, now indeed a cave of horrors, with its bloody and unburied dead; and Pet drew a long, deep breath of intense relief and thankfulness as she stood once more in the open air.
“Let me run on first and tell Erminie,” said Pet. “It may startle her if she is not forewarned; and then, if you like, I will ride to Judestown for the doctor. There can be no danger now.”
Ray, who would not leave his father, consented; and Pet darted off over the slippery shingle and up the rocks like a young mountain deer. The men proceeded slowly with their burden, who lay with his white face upturned in the sad, solemn starlight; and who may tell the bitter, bitter, remorseful thoughts of the dark, sorrowful past, swelling in his proud heart there. Ray and Marguerite, one on each side, were mute, too. He, with his eyes alternately fixed on the ground, and on the wounded man’s face, trying to realize the astounding revelations of the night; she looking straight before her into the darkness, with her customary look of fierce, sullen despair, looking what she was – a wretched, broken-hearted woman.
There were lights and a subdued bustle in the cottage when they reached it. Erminie, white and trembling, met them at the door. Pet had told her all so breathlessly, and then had mounted Ray’s horse and darted off for Judestown so quickly, that Erminie even yet only half comprehended what had taken place.
There was no time now for explanation, however. The wounded man was laid on the large, soft lounge in the parlor; and then Chesny, leaving one of his men as guard, more for form’s sake than anything else, took his departure.
“Where is my grandmother, Erminie?” asked Ray, whose white, stern face, had terrified her from the first.
“In bed.”
“Then go up and waken her.”
“Waken her at this hour! Why, Ray!”
“Yes; you must, I tell you. Go at once.”
Ray’s fiercely-impatient manner and strange excitement terrified Erminie more and more; but still she ventured to lift up her voice in feeble expostulation.
“What good will it do to arouse her? She can be of no service here.”
“Erminie, I tell you, you must!” passionately exclaimed Ray; “else I will go myself. Of no service here! Yonder dying man is her son – her long-lost son – supposed to have been drowned. Will you go, now?”
One moment’s astounded pause, and then Erminie flew up-stairs, and entered the aged gipsy’s room.
She was lying asleep, but she never slept soundly, and she opened her eyes and looked up as Erminie entered.
“Well, what is the matter?” she said, curtly.
“Oh, grandmother! you must get up!” cried Erminie, in strong agitation. “There is a man down-stairs wishes to see you.”
“A man wishing to see me? What do you mean?” asked the gipsy, knitting her dark brows.
“Oh, grandmother! there is news of – of – your son.”
“My son! are you going mad, girl?” cried Ketura, getting up on her elbows unassisted, for the first time in years; and glaring upon her with her hollow, lurid eyes.
“Oh, grandmother! grandmother! we were deceived – you were deceived – Ray says he was not drowned.”
“Not drowned!” She passed her hand over her face with a bewildered look.
“No; it was a false report. He lives!”
With a sharp, wild cry – a strange, eerie cry, breaking the dead silence of the night, the woman Ketura strove to rise. The effort was a failure. She fell back, while every feature was distorted with wildest agony.
“Girl! girl! what have you said?” she cried out. “Did you say my son – my Reginald – lives?”
“He does! he lives! He is here to see you once more before he dies,” said Ray, entering abruptly. “Hasten, Erminie! there is no time to lose.”
He quitted the room as abruptly as he had entered it, and Erminie approached the bed to assist Ketura to dress. The gipsy lay like one stunned, her wild, hollow eyes rolling vacantly, her hands so tightly clenched that the nails sunk into the skin. It was evident she could not yet fully realize or comprehend what she had heard; the words had stunned her, numbing all sense and feeling.
Erminie lost no time in talking. Swiftly she proceeded to array the gipsy in a large, wadded gown, something like a gentleman’s robe de chambre, of dark, soft woolen stuff. Ketura quietly submitted, breathing hard and fast, and glaring with her wild, unearthly eyes round the room, trying still to realize what she had heard – that her son still lived. This done, Erminie ran down-stairs and apprised Ray.
“Now, how is she to be taken down-stairs?” she asked. “Remember, she has not left her room for years.”
Ray was walking rapidly up and down the room, but paused when the low, sweet voice of Erminie fell on his ear. The Frenchwoman, Marguerite, who was kneeling beside her husband, gazing fixedly upon him, looked up for an instant, and then resumed her unwavering gaze as before.
“I will place her in her chair and carry her down,” said Ray, as he took the staircase almost at a bound.
There was little difficulty in doing this; for the gaunt, powerful frame of the once majestic gipsy queen, wasted and worn by illness and old age, was light and easily lifted, now. Ray took her in his strong arms and placed her gently in her large elbow-chair, and then proceeded to convey her below.
She laid her hand on his arm, and looked up in his face with a piteous look.
“Oh, Ray! what have you told me? Is Reginald living still?”
It was so strange and so sad to hear her – that haughty, fierce, passionate woman – speak in a tone like that, quick tears rushed to the gentle eyes of Erminie.
“Yes, he is living – he is down-stairs; but he has only come here to die!” answered Ray, hurriedly.
“Oh, Reginald! Reginald! Oh, my son! thank God for this!” she passionately cried out.
For many and many a year that sacred name had never crossed her lips. It sent a thrill, now, through the heart of Ray, as he bore her into the room where the wounded man lay.
Who shall describe that meeting? Long, long years of darkest crime and wildest woe had intervened since that lowering, lamentable day on which they had parted last. Years full of change, and sorrow, and sin, and remorse – years that had changed the powerful, passionate, majestic gipsy queen into the helpless, powerless paralytic she was now – years that had changed the handsome, high-spirited, gallant youth into the bronzed, hardened, guilty man lying there dying – passing slowly out into the dread unknown. Yet, despite time, and change, and years, they knew each other at the first glance.
“Mother,” said the smuggler, with a faint, strange smile.
“Oh, my son! my son! Oh, my Reginald! my only son!” was her passionate cry. “Has the great sea given up its dead, that I see you again?”
“You with all the world were deceived, mother. When I am gone, you will learn all. Mother, I have only come here to die.”
Her feeble arms were clasped around him; she did not seem to heed his words, as her devouring eyes were riveted on his face. He lay breathing quickly and laboriously, his face full of bitter sadness as he saw the wreck of what had once been his mother. The woman Marguerite had drawn back, and stood gazing on Ketura with a sort of still amaze. Ray was leaning against the mantel, his elbow resting on it, and his face shaded by his dark, falling hair; and Erminie, crouched on a low seat, white and trembling, sat watching all. So they remained for a long time, the dull, heavy ticking of the clock and a death watch on the wall alone breaking the dreamy silence. It was an eerie scene and an eerie hour, and a feeling of strange awe made Erminie hold her very breath, wondering how this strange, unnatural silence was to end.
The quick, sharp gallop of horses’ feet broke it, at last; and the next instant, Pet, flushed and excited, burst in, followed by the doctor and by Ranty. All paused in the door-way, and stood regarding with silent wonder, the scene before them.
Ray lifted his head, and going over, touched Ketura on the arm, saying, in a low voice:
“Leave him for a moment; here is the doctor come to examine his wounds.”
Her weak arms were easily unclasped, and she permitted herself to be borne away. Of all the strange things that had occurred that night none seemed stranger to Ray than this sudden and wonderful quietude that had come over his fierce, passionate grandmother.
The doctor approached his patient to examine his wounds, and Pet, going over, began conversing in a low tone with Erminie, telling her how she had encountered Ranty. Ray stood watching the doctor, with interest and anxiety; and as, after a prolonged examination, he arose, he approached him and said, hurriedly:
“Well, doctor?”
The doctor shook his head.
“He may linger two, three days, perhaps, but certainly not longer. Nothing can save him.”
Ray’s very breath seemed to stop as he listened, till it became painful for those around to listen for its return. The wounded man himself looked up and beckoned Ray to approach.
“I knew I was done for,” he said, with a feeble smile. “I was surgeon enough to know it was a mortal wound. How long does he say I may live?”
“Two or three days,” said Ray, in a choking voice.
“So long?” said the smuggler, a dark shade passing over his face. “I did not think to cumber the earth such a length of time. How does she bear it?” pointing to his mother.
“She has not heard it yet; she seems to have fallen into a kind of unnatural apathy. The shock has been too much for her.”
“Poor mother!” he said, in that same tone of bitter remorse Ray had heard him use before; “her worst crime was loving me too well. Bring her here; I have something to say to her which may as well be said now.”
Ray carried over the almost motionless form of the aged gipsy. The stricken lioness was a pitiable sight in her aged helplessness.
“Mother,” said the smuggler, taking the withered, blackened hand in his, and looking sadly in the vacant face, that seemed striving to comprehend what had stunned her and bewildered her so strangely.
His voice recalled her again, and she turned her hollow eyes upon him. Awful eyes they were – like red-hot coals in a bleached skull.
“Mother, listen to me. I have but a short time to live, and I cannot die till I learn if you have kept your vow of vengeance, made long ago against Lord De Courcy.”
“I have! I have!” she exclaimed, rousing to something like her old fierceness. “Oh, Reginald! you have been avenged. I have wrung drops of blood from their hearts, even as they wrung them from mine. Yes, yes! I have avenged you! They, too, know what it is to lose a child!”
“Mother! mother! what have you done?”
“I stole their child! their infant daughter the heiress of all the De Courcys, the last of her line! Yes, I stole her!” She fairly shrieked now, with blazing eyes. “I vowed to bring her up in sin and pollution, and I would have done so, too, if I had not been stricken with a living death. Oh, Reginald! your mother avenged you! A child for a child! They banished you, and I stole their heir!”
“Oh, mother! mother! what is this you have done – where is that child now?”
“Yonder!” cried the gipsy, with a sort of fierce, passionate cry, pointing one shaking finger toward the terrified Erminie; “there she stands; Erminie Seyton, the heiress of the Earl and Countess De Courcy. The daughter of an earl has toiled like a menial for your mother, Reginald, all her life. There she stands the lost daughter and heiress of Lord De Courcy!”
An awful silence fell for a moment on all, broken first by the impetuous Ranty Lawless.
“Lord and Lady De Courcy! why, they are here in America – in Baltimore, now. Good heavens! can our Erminie be anything to them? Oh, I knew she was; I saw the likeness the very first moment we met.”
“Who says Lord and Lady De Courcy are here?” cried the smuggler, half-rising himself in his excitement.
“I do!” said Ranty, stepping forward; “they came out in our ship, and I was with them as far as Washington city. Last night, I learned that they had arrived at Baltimore, where a friend of Lady De Courcy’s, an Englishman, is residing.”
All he had heard, all that had passed before, nothing had affected him like that. His chest rose and fell with his long, hard, labored breathing and his face, white before, was livid now as that of the dead.
“So near! so near! Can it be that I will see her once more? And her child here, too, where is she? I must see her!”
Ray, who had listened like one transfixed to his grandmother’s revelations, made a motion to Erminie to approach. Unable to comprehend or realize what she heard, she came over and sunk down on her knees beside him.
He took her hand in his, and pushed back the pale golden hair off her brow, and gazed long and earnestly in her pale but wondrous lovely young face.
“Her father’s eyes and hair, and features; her mother’s form and expression; the noble brow and regal bearing of her father’s race spiritualized and softened. Yes, a true De Courcy, and yet like her mother, too. Ray come here.”
He went over and took his place by Erminie.
“Do you know she is your sister, your mother’s child?” asked the wounded man.
“I know it now; I did not before,” was the awe-struck answer.
“You have heard she is in Baltimore?”
“I have.”
“Then go there, immediately; ride as you never before in your life, and tell them all. Bring her here; I would see her again before I die.”
Ray started to his feet.
“Tell her who you are, yourself – her son; it will be better so. When they learn their long-lost daughter is here they will need no incentive to have them haste. One act of justice must be rendered before I die.”
“Let me accompany you,” said Ranty, as Ray started from the house. “I know exactly where to find them. Saints and angels! where will the revelations of this night end?”
There was no reply from Ray; he could make none; his brains were whirling as if mad. He sprung on his horse; Ranty followed, and in another instant they were flying on like the wind toward Judestown.