“These are points on which our difference of opinion is likely to be lasting;” said Ludlow, assuming the severe air of one who had the world on his side. “We will defer the discussion to a moment of greater leisure, Sir. Am I to learn more of Mr. Van Staats, or is the question of his fate to become the subject of a serious official inquiry?”
“The Patroon of Kinderhook is a bold boarder!” returned the free-trader, laughing. “He has carried the residence of the lady of the brigantine by a coup-de-main; and he reposes on his laurels! We of the contraband are merrier in our privacy than is thought, and those who join our mess seldom wish to quit it.”
“There may be occasion to look further into its mysteries–until when, I wish you adieu.”
“Hold!” gaily cried the other, observing that Ludlow was about to quit the room–“Let the time of our uncertainty be short, I pray thee. Our mistress is like the insect, which takes the color of the leaf on which it dwells. You have seen her in her sea-green robe, which she never fails to wear when roving over the soundings of your American coast; but in the deep waters, her mantle vies with the blue of the ocean’s depths. Symptoms of a change, which always denote an intended excursion far beyond the influence of the land, have been seen!”
“Harkee, Master Seadrift! This foolery may do, while you possess the power to maintain it. But remember, that though the law only punishes the illegal trader by confiscation of his goods when taken, it punishes the kidnapper with personal pains, and sometimes with–death!–And, more–remember that the line which divides smuggling from piracy is easily past, while the return becomes impossible.”
“For this generous counsel, in my mistress’s name, I thank thee;” the gay mariner replied, bowing with a gravity that rather heightened than concealed his irony–“Your Coquette is broad in the reach of her booms, and swift on the water, Captain Ludlow; but let her be capricious, wilful, deceitful, nay powerful, as she may, she shall find a woman in the brigantine equal to all her arts, and far superior to all her threats!”
With this prophetic warning on the part of the Queen’s officer, and cool reply on that of the dealer in contraband, the two sailors separated. The latter took a book, and threw himself into a chair, with a well-maintained indifference; while the other left the house, in a haste that was not disguised.
In the mean time, the interview between Alderman Van Beverout and his niece still continued. Minute passed after minute, and yet there was no summons to the pavilion. The gay young seaman of the brigantine had continued his studies for some time after the disappearance of Ludlow, and he now evidently a waited an intimation that his presence was required in la Cour des Fées. During these moments of anxiety, the air of the free-trader was sorrowful rather than impatient; and when a footstep was heard at the door of the room, he betrayed symptoms of strong and uncontrollable agitation. It was the female attendant of Alida, who entered, presented a slip of paper, and retired. The eager expectant read the following words, hastily written in pencil:–
“I have evaded all his questions, and he is more than half-disposed to believe in necromancy. This is not the moment to confess the truth, for he is not in a condition to hear it, being already much disturbed by the uncertainty of what may follow the appearance of the brigantine on the coast, and so near his own villa. But, be assured, he shall and will acknowledge claims that I know how to support, and which, should I fail of establishing, he would not dare to refuse to the redoubtable ‘Skimmer of the Seas.’ Come hither, the moment you hear his foot in the passage.”
The last injunction was soon obeyed. The Alderman entered by one door, as the active fugitive retreated by another; and where the weary burgher expected to see his guests, he found an empty apartment. This last circumstance, however, gave Myndert Van Beverout but little surprise and no concern, as would appear by the indifference with which he noted the circumstance.
“Vagaries and womanhood!” thought, rather than muttered, the Alderman. “The jade turns like a fox in his tracks, and it would be easier to convict a merchant who values his reputation, of a false invoice, than this minx of nineteen of an indiscretion! There is so much of old Etienne and his Norman blood in her eye, that one does not like to provoke extremities; but here, when I expected Van Staats had profited by his opportunity, the girl looks like a nun, at the mention of his name. The Patroon is no Cupid, we must allow; or, in a week at sea, he would have won the heart of a mermaid!–Ay–and here are more perplexities, by the return of the Skimmer and his brig, and the notions that young Ludlow has of his duty. Life and mortality! One must quit trade, at some time or other, and begin to close the books of life. I must seriously think of striking a final balance. If the sum-total was a little more in my favor, it should be gladly done to-morrow!”
CHAPTER VII.
“–Thou, Julia, thou hast metamorphosed me;
Made me neglect my studies, lose my time,
War with good counsel, set the world at nought.”
Two Gentlemen of Verona
Ludlow quitting the Lust in Rust with a wavering purpose. Throughout the whole of the preceding interview, he had jealously watched the eye and features of la belle Barbérie; and he had not failed to draw his conclusions from a mien that too plainly expressed a deep interest in the free-trader. For a time, only, had he been induced, by the calmness and self-possession with which she received her uncle and himself, to believe that she had not visited the Water-Witch at all; but when the gay and reckless being who governed the movements of that extraordinary vessel, appeared, he could no longer flatter himself with this hope. He now believed that her choice for life had been made; and while he deplored the infatuation which could induce so gifted a woman to forget her station and character, he was himself too frank not to see that the individual who had in so short a time gained this ascendency over the feelings of Alida, was, in many respects, fitted to exercise a powerful influence over the imagination of a youthful and secluded female.
There was a struggle in the mind of the young commander, between his duty and his feelings. Remembering the artifice by which he had formerly fallen into the power of the smugglers, he had taken his precautions so well in the present visit to the villa, that he firmly believed he had the person of his lawless rival at his mercy. To avail himself of this advantage, or to retire and leave him in possession of his mistress and his liberty, was the point mooted in his thoughts Though direct and simple in his habits, like most of the seamen of that age, Ludlow had all the loftier sentiments that become a gentleman. He felt keenly for Alida, and he shrunk, with sensitive pride, from incurring the imputation of having acted under the impulses of disappointment. To these motives of forbearance, was also to be added the inherent reluctance which, as an officer of rank, he felt to the degradation of being employed in a duty that more properly belongs to men of less elevated ambition. He looked on himself as a defender of the rights and glory of his sovereign, and not as a mercenary instrument of those who collected her customs; and though he would not have hesitated to incur any rational hazard, in capturing the vessel of the smuggler, or in making captives of all or any of her crew on their proper element, he disliked the appearance of seeking a solitary individual on the land. In addition to this feeling, there was his own pledge that he met the proscribed dealer in contraband on neutral ground. Still the officer of the Queen had his orders, and he could not shut his eyes to the general obligations of duty. The brigantine was known to inflict so much loss on the revenue of the crown, more particularly in the other hemisphere, that an especial order had been issued by the Admiral of the station, for her capture. Here then was an opportunity of depriving the vessel of that master-spirit which, notwithstanding the excellence of its construction, had alone so long enabled it to run the gauntlet of a hundred cruisers with impunity. Agitated by these contending feelings and reflections, the young sailor left the door of the villa, and came upon its little lawn, in order to reflect with less interruption, and, indeed, to breathe more freely.