“This then is la belle Barbérie!” repeated the young sailor, for such his dress denoted him to be, studying her features with an expression of face, in which pleasure vied with evident and touching melancholy. “Fame hath done no injustice, for here is all that might justify the folly or madness of man!”
“This is familiar dialogue for an utter stranger,” returned Alida, blushing, though the quick dark eye that seemed to fathom all her thoughts, saw it was not in anger. “I do not deny that the partiality of friends, coupled with my origin, have obtained the appellation, which is given, however, more in playfulness than in any serious opinion of its being merited–and now, as the hour is getting late, and this visit is at least unusual, you will permit me to seek my uncle.”
“Stay!” interrupted the stranger–“it is long– very long, since so soothing, so gentle a pleasure has been mine! This is a life of mysteries, beautiful Alida, though its incidents seem so vulgar, and of every-day occurrence. There is mystery in its beginning and its end; in its impulses; its sympathies, and all its discordant passions. No, do not quit me. I am from off the sea, where none but coarse and vulgar-minded men have long been my associates; and thy presence is a balm to a bruised and wounded spirit.”
Interested, if possible, more by the touching and melancholy tones of the speaker, than by his extraordinary language, Alida hesitated. Her reason told her that propriety, and even prudence, required she should apprize her uncle of the stranger’s presence; but propriety and prudence lose much of their influence, when female curiosity is sustained by a secret and powerful sympathy. Her own eloquent eye met the open and imploring look of organs, that seemed endowed with the fabled power to charm; and while her judgment told her there was so much to alarm, her senses pleaded powerfully in behalf of the gentle mariner.
“An expected guest of my uncle will have leisure to repose, after the privations and hardships of so weary a voyage,” she said. “This is a house whose door is never closed against the rites of hospitality.”
“If there is aught about my person or attire, to alarm you,” returned the stranger, earnestly, “speak, that it may be cast away–These arms–these foolish arms, had better not have been here,” he added, casting the pistols and dagger indignantly, through a window, into the shrubbery; “Ah! if you knew how unwillingly I would harm any–and, least of all, a woman–you would not fear me!”
“I fear you not,” returned la Belle, firmly. “I dread the misconceptions of the world.”
“What world is here to disturb us? Thou livest in thy pavilion, beautiful Alida, remote from towns and envy, like some favored damsel, over whose happy and charmed life presides a benignant genius. See, here are all the pretty materials, with which thy sex seeks innocent and happy amusement. Thou touchest this lute, when melancholy renders thought pleasing; here are colors to mock, or to eclipse, the beauties of the fields and the mountain, the flower, and the tree; and from these pages are culled thoughts, pure and rich in imagery, as thy spirit is spotless, and thy person lovely!”
Alida listened in amazement; for, while he spoke, the young mariner touched the different articles he named, with a melancholy interest, which seemed to say how deeply he regretted that fortune had placed him in a profession, in which their use was nearly denied.
“It is not common for those who live on the sea, to feel this interest in the trifles which constitute a woman’s pleasure,” she said, lingering, spite of her better resolution to depart.
“The spirit of our rude and boisterous trade is then known to you?”
“It were not possible for the relation of a merchant, so extensively known as my uncle, to be ignorant altogether of mariners.”
“Ay, here is proof of it,” returned the stranger, speaking so quick as again to betray how sensitively his mind was constructed. “The History of the American Buccaneers is a rare book to be found in a lady’s library! What pleasure can a mind like that of la belle Barbérie find in these recitals of bloody violence?”
“What pleasure, truly!” returned Alida, half tempted, by the wild and excited eye of her companion, notwithstanding all the contradictory evidence which surrounded him, to believe she was addressing one of the very rovers in question. “The book was lent me by a brave seaman, who holds himself in readiness to repress their depredations; and while reading of so much wickedness, I endeavor to recall the devotion of those who risk their lives, in order to protect the weak and innocent–My uncle will be angered, should I longer delay to apprize him of your presence.”
“A single moment! It is long–very long, since I have entered a sanctuary like this! Here is music! and there the frame for the gaudy tambour–these windows look on a landscape, soft as thine own nature; and yonder ocean can be admired without dreading its terrific power, or feeling disgust at its coarser scenes. Thou shouldst be happy, here!”
The stranger turned, and perceived that he was alone. Disappointment was strongly painted on his handsome face; but, ere there was time for second thought, another voice was heard grumbling at the door of the saloon.
“Compacts and treaties! What, in the name of good faith, hath brought thee hither? Is this the way to keep a cloak on our movements? or dost suppose that the Queen will knight me, for being known as thy correspondent?”
“Lanterns and false-beacons!” returned the other, mimicking the voice of the disconcerted burgher, and pointing to the lights that still stood where last described. “Can the port be entered without respecting the land-marks and signals?”
“This comes of moonlight and sentiment! When the girl should have been asleep, she is up, gazing at the stars, and disconcerting a burgher’s speculations. –But fear thee not, Master Seadrift; my niece has discretion, and if we have no better pledge for her silence, there is that of necessity; since there is no one here for a confidant, but her old Norman valet, and the Patroon of Kinderhook, both of whom are dreaming of other matter than a little gainful traffic.”
“Fear thee not, Alderman;” returned the other, still maintaining his air of mockery. “We have the pledge of character, if no other; since the uncle cannot part with reputation, without the niece sharing in the loss.”
“What sin is there in pushing commerce a step beyond the limits of the law? These English are a nation of monopolists; and they make no scruple of tying us of the colonies, hand and foot, heart and soul, with their acts of Parliament, saying ‘with us shalt thou trade, or not at all.’ By the character of the best burgomaster of Amsterdam, and they came by the province, too, in no such honesty, that we should lie down and obey!”
“Wherein there is much comfort to a dealer in the contraband. Justly reasoned, my worthy Alderman. Thy logic will, at any time, make a smooth pillow, especially if the adventure be not without its profit. And now, having so commendably disposed of the moral of our bargain, let us approach its legitimate, if not its lawful, conclusion. There,” he added, drawing a small bag from an inner pocket of his frock, and tossing it carelessly on a table; “there is thy gold. Eighty broad Johannes is no bad return for a few packages of furs; and even avarice itself will own, that six months is no long investment for the usury.”
“That boat of thine, most lively Seadrift, is a marine humming-bird!” returned Myndert, with a joyful tremor of the voice, that betrayed his deep and entire satisfaction. “Didst say just eighty? But spare thyself the trouble of looking for the memorandum; I will tell the gold myself, to save thee the trouble. Truly, the adventure hath not been bad! A few kegs of Jamaica, with a little powder and lead, and a blanket or two, with now and then a penny bauble for a chief, are knowingly, ay! and speedily transmuted into the yellow metal, by thy good aid.–This affair was managed on the French coast?”
“More northward, where the frost helped the bargain. Thy beavers and martens, honest burgher, will be flaunting in the presence of the Emperor, at the next holidays. What is there in the face of the Braganza, that thou studiest it so hard?”
“The piece seems none of the heaviest–but, luckily, I have scales at hand,–”
“Hold!” said the stranger, laying his hand, which, according to a fashion of that day, was clad in a delicate and scented glove, lightly on the arm of the other: “No scales between us, Sir! That was taken in return for thy adventure; heavy or light, it must go down. We deal in confidence, and this hesitation offends me. Another such doubt of my integrity, and our connexion is at an end.”