CHAPTER V.

"He then would make the nearest isle, And go at night by stealth, To hide within the earth a while His last ill-gotten wealth."

H. F. GOULD.

Towards the approach of evening on the day following the events related in the last chapter, Kate Bellamont was walking beneath the n.o.ble oaks that shaded the lawn lying between the front of White Hall and the water. She had been for some time watching the slow progress of a brig into the harbour, which, on first discerning it from the balcony, her spygla.s.s told her was the "Ger-Falcon." Her impatience had drawn her to the water side, where the thin waves uncurled upon a silvery beach at her feet.

Slowly it advanced up towards the town, and the shouts of the citizens, and gun after gun from the Rondeel, welcomed her return. It was nearly night when, coming between Governor's Island and the city, she fired a gun without coming to; the British ensign was lowered at the same instant, and up in its place went the black flag of the bucanier. A loud wail seemed to fill the town.

"The Kyd! the Kyd!" rung through the streets and everywhere spread consternation. The battery on the Rondeel opened a heavy fire, which was returned by two broadsides from the brig, which then stood across towards Brooklyn, and anch.o.r.ed east of the town out of the range of the guns of the fort.

Kate had witnessed all this, at first, with surprise, which grew to terrible anxiety and alarm; and when the return of the fire confirmed the hostile character of the vessel, now too plainly captured by the corsair, a faintness came over her and she leaned against an oak for support. "Where was Fitzroy? A prisoner or slain!" were questions that she dared not ask herself. Overcome by her feelings, she was ready to sink at the foot of the tree in almost a state of insensibility, when she saw a skiff containing two men, which had been making its way from the direction of "The Kills," land not far from the "Rondeel." The twilight was sufficiently strong to enable her to see a fisherman step from it and approach her by the winding of the sh.o.r.e. She struggled against her feelings, for his manner seemed to betoken news; and with a quick step she advanced several paces to meet him.

"Do you bring news of Captain Fitzroy, or come you to confirm my suspicions?" she cried, as he came near her.

"Sweet lady," he said, wrapping his ample jacket closer about his person, "I am but a poor shipwrecked mariner. Yet I do bear sad news for thee."

"Of whom?" she asked, quickly, vainly endeavouring, in the dusk of evening, to read in his shaded features all he had not revealed.

"Captain Fitzroy!"

"Ha! speak! Words! words! why are you silent? I will hear thee."

"He has been captured by a pirate."

"I knew it."

"And is now prisoner to his captor in yonder brig."

"His own courage should have kept it."

"Nay, lady, he did all he could to save his vessel."

"What fate met he? What became of him, seaman? There is life and death in your answer! Lives he?"

"We were captured by Kyd, who now holds our vessel, and all were condemned to walk the plank."

"Ha! and he?"

"Nay, lady, he lives! He, besides myself, alone escaped the death designed for us."

"Lives, lives! 'Tis happiness to know it! How escaped you?"

"I took the leap into the sea. By floating and swimming I was half an hour afterward picked up by a fisherman, who brought me hither."

"And Edwin, his secretary?"

"Alas, I know not."

"Direful, dreadful news! Fitzroy, Fitzroy! oh that I had died ere this sad news of thy dishonour, perhaps thy death, had reached me! Merciful G.o.d! sustain me in this hour!"

She buried her face in her hands, and seemed overcome by grief.

"Nay, Kate, dearest Kate, I am here! Fitzroy is before you; it is your Rupert who clasps you to his heart. Speak! I am by you, and fold you in my arms!"

He cast off his fisherman's coat and bonnet as he spoke, and she looked up revived at his voice, and beheld, indeed, the face of him whom she had mourned as dead or lost to her for ever.

"Fitzroy!"

"Fitzroy, and none else, dearest Kate!"

"How could you put me to such a trial?" she cried, almost weeping on his shoulder.

"Nay, forgive me! I planned it not beforehand; but seeing, as I approached you, that you knew me not, the fisher's coat and cap I borrowed of him who fished me from the water having disguised me even to your keen-eyed love, I was tempted to try your affections."

"Nay, Rupert, did you doubt it?"

"I have no cause," he said, embracing her.

"And did you escape as you just now said?"

"Yes. My brig was taken by a strange fatality after I had sunk the pirate vessel. All my men were slain--none, save Edwin and myself, left alive. I, from some strange thirst for blood that possesses Kyd--for I can divine no other motive--was condemned by him to walk the plank. I succeeded in s.n.a.t.c.hing a cutla.s.s, for the purpose of selling my life dearly as might be, but at length was driven overboard. I had, before sunset, seen a fisher's skiff a mile off at anchor; and, rising far from the vessel towards her bows, struck out, when she had pa.s.sed me, towards it. It so chanced that he had seen the brig lying to, and pulled towards her to find a market for his fish, when I hailed him and was taken on board. Knowing that the pirate would steer directly to this port, I bribed the man to bring me hither through the Staten Island Sound: and here I am once more in your loved presence."

She mused while he spoke, and then, as if unconscious of his presence, said,

"Robert, poor Robert, to what height of crime has pa.s.sion led thee--to what abyss will it plunge thee! Thou wert my first, my only love! As some wild vine clings around a stately trunk, curling its tendrils about its topmost limbs, as if in one embrace 'twould clasp it all, so did I entwine my heart around thee, taking thy shape! But, at last, the tempest came and swept my stately oak away. Lonely and lost, I stretched my wounded tendrils on every side, seeking some branch to cling to; then fell down, and lay in ruins along the ground.--Ha, Fitzroy! Why is thy eye with such fierce scrutiny fixed upon me?"

The lover started, and then a moment or two hurriedly paced the sward ere, with hesitation and embarra.s.sment, he said,

"It has reached my ears--how, it matters not--that, since my departure, you and this freebooter Kyd have met in private. From his own lips there fell dark words of favours given or received! The thoughts (forgetful of my presence) you now gave tongue to put to this, together, the one strenghtened by the other, give--"

"Fitzroy, cease! why will you seek to cast a cloud over the heaven your presence makes so bright?"

"Forgive me, but some demon tortures me with suspicion, spite of my confidence in thy love!"

"Ha, dost thou know this Kyd?"

"Only as a pirate! There is meaning in your question," he said, earnestly. "Who is he other than he seems?"

"To keep the secret from thee would be doing injustice to my pride of spirit. I have pledged my father to marry thee; I look upon thee as my husband; I will keep nothing from thee."

"Do you not love me, Kate?"

"If I had never loved till now, I should love thee, Rupert, next to my life. I have told thee the secret of my former love, and thou didst say thou wouldst take the half of my heart if thou couldst get no more!"