Chapter 12

"I was talking to that other jay, Mr. B. But I'd ruther talk to you. I'm hearty. How's all your kith an' kin? I thought of coming down to the island, to see you, but now you're here, I'll put off the trip a week or so. Jist say to the boys I'm making a crossgun for 'em. Give my regards to your better half, and I wish you'd tell Scipio that the melon he sent me was luscious. I'm here on a kind o' important business; came clear up from town to inquire about this expedition. You're managing the colony matters, and you're the codger to give me the real facts."

Blennerhassett, who had undertaken to use every means in his power to induce men to join the proposed colony, suffered Byle's fraternal confidences with as good a grace as possible, hoping to enlist a useful factotum.

"I will gladly give any information you desire in regard to the Wachita settlement, and our plans for the winter."

"I knowed you would. I told what-ye-call-him--the boss carpenter so. He allowed I'd best ask you for the particulars, and it's fair to you that I should. You pay for all this lumber and hammering and sawing, out of your own pocket; you have a right to answer questions. How much is the whole caboodle going to cost you?"

"Perhaps that question is not pertinent to our present interview. I presume you wish to learn the conditions of our agreement with volunteers?"

"That's so; you don't presume a speck; I wish to learn all about everything. What are the conditions?"

"We pledge ourselves to pay every man who goes with us fair wages, and to give every one a hundred acres of the Bastrop land. Each man is to provide himself with a blanket, a good rifle and a supply of ammunition."

"What do you want with rifles? Do you expect to have to fight?"

"Not necessarily; all pioneers need guns. Did not the forty men who settled Marietta bring rifles and ammunition?"

"I swow you've got me, Mr. B. No man can keep house without a gun, I admit that. I'd as soon go without my head. I've got a gun, all right, and a blanket. What else?"

"That is all. Be ready on the first of December with your blanket and rifle, and we'll provide for your other wants."

"Well, that looks fair. But let me give you a bit of advice before you start. Don't you go at all. As sure as my name is Byle, you'll be sorry for yourself and Maggy, as you call her, if you do go. You mustn't git mad at me, Harman, for speaking out plain. I'm friendly to you and your folks; don't like to see you put upon; and I consider it my goshdurned duty to tell you that this here Colonel Beelzebub is making a cussed fool of you. I'd have no hobnobbing with a hoop snake. Don't trust ary shape of a sarpent in your apple-tree. You know your eyes are not as long-ranged as some. This is God's truth with the bark off. He don't talk to Adam in the Garden in our days, but I sh'd think you'd hear what mortal men are saying. You're a readin' man--haven't you come across what the press wrote about that scorpion in your bozom?

'Oh, Aaron Burr, what have you done? You've shot our General Hamilton! You stood behind a bunch of thistles, And murdered him with two horse-pistols!'

Excuse my interest in you; a full kittle will bile over. I've lots and slithers of United States information that ain't to be found in your green emerald Erin, no more than snakes is."

Blennerhassett was in doubt whether to consider himself insulted or befriended. He had misgivings concerning Burr and the colony. Common sense told him that Byle might be more than half right.

"Do you know anything of the far West?" he asked. "Report gives out that it is a marvellous region."

Byle had a spice of mischief in his composition. He could not resist a humorous impulse to gull a credulous foreigner.

"Maybe I can give you some curious facts not generally known. I'm a sort of bookworm myself. I've nosed the Coon Skin Library. Did anybody ever tell you of the Missouri salt mountain? a mountain of real salt one hundred and eighty miles long, and forty-five broad, white as snow, and glittering in the sun? No vegetation grows near it, but a river of brine runs from its base. I have a chunk of the salt."

"Wonderful, wonderful!" ejaculated Blennerhassett.

"Isn't it wonderful? But not so contrary to nature as the shoe-and-stocking trees that grow at the headwaters of this Muskingum River."

"That seems impossible--shoe-and-stocking trees, did you say?"

"It does sound improbable, I admit, but seeing is believing. I've pulled half-grown shoes off one of those trees with these hands. I don't expect you to take my word. I didn't believe the story myself at first, and can't bring my mind to believe what my own brother Virgil told me he had seen and tasted--the Whiskey Lake in Southern Kentucky."

Gullible as he was, Blennerhassett looked incredulous. Byle's expression was serious to solemnity. His big blue eyes vouched for his perfect sanity.

"Now, I _must_ go," said he, turning away; "I've a heap of things to do and folks to see before sunset. Good-bye."

Genuine kindness had prompted Plutarch to blurt out unsought counsel, and he hurried away, congratulating himself on having discharged an obligation to his conscience. His long, swinging strides propelled him to Marietta in half an hour. Near the court-house he met a gentleman, whom he accosted, taking him cordially by the hand and inquiring, "Isn't this Squire George Hale?"

"George Hale is my name," returned the gentleman, reservedly, and disengaging his fingers from the strong grip of the tall man.

"Yes, you are the individual I took you to be, and no mistake. I seldom forget faces, though I get names crooked now and then. Your name and your corporosity go together; you look hale and hearty! I never was picked up but once, in shaking hands with a stranger, but that once was enough. Before I knew what I was about I shook hands, last May was a year ago, with--I vow I'm ashamed to tell you who with. Are you going home, Mr. Hale? Is Miss Evaleen in town now? The first time I met your daughter she was down at Blennerhassett's! The last time was here in Marietta, out by the big mound. Is she as well as usual?"

Mr. Hale stared in blank bewilderment. He first surmised that an escaped lunatic was face to face with him. Yet there was coherence in the strange man's speech, and nothing wild in his looks. In fact, Mr. Hale had frequently seen the gaunt, gigantic figure of Plutarch dodging about the town, and had heard his name spoken as that of a very eccentric person. Like everybody else who was brought within speaking distance of the oddity, the sedate New Englander was at a loss how to behave toward him. Plutarch was never at a loss. Detecting a hair lodged on the squire's shoulder, he picked it off, and winked.

"A pretty long hair, old man, to be found on your collar. I hope it came from one of your own women-folks. What's the last word from Captain Danvers? When is that knot to be tied, anyhow? If you'll give me an invite, I'll be there, sure. I told young Burlington--no, I mean Arlington--all the facts just as they are."

"You did? What facts? Who is Arlington?"

"Don't you know Arlington, Squire Hale? Is it possible? Well, well, well! Now that explains a good deal. These young folks are as sly as a gallinipper. You have to keep your eye skinned to see all that goes on, by land and river, and especially on islands. There's not a bit of criticism to be made on Evaleen's conduct, nor on Arlington's. He couldn't help himself, no more than a fly in a honey-pot. The minute he saw your gal, he fell slap dab in love with her. The poor feller was nigh about dead for love the day we sot on the summit."

"What rigmarole is this? You sot on the summit? Arlington? My daughter? Tell me simply and briefly what you mean."

"I mean briefly and simply, Mr. Chester Arlington, of Virginia, came here to spark Evaleen; he as good as told me so; that is, I am satisfied he did; it stands to reason and the nature of a gentleman! Secondly, I told him it was no go. I said to Chester, 'You must hunt up another sweetheart, for Leeny Hale is engaged. She is going to be married,' says I, 'to Captain Warren P. Danvers.'"

"You told this Mr. Arlington that my daughter was engaged to marry Captain Danvers?"

"Yes; that's what I told him. Isn't that so? Of course, she couldn't marry 'em both at once, and I wanted to put Chester out of misery. That's why I broke it to him. You may tell the betrothed, as you call it, I mean your daughter, as much or as little as you please; but if that young woman had saw how that young man looked when I told him he couldn't have her, I do believe she might have shook Danvers and took Arlington. That's what I had to say to you, Squire Hale, and now I've said it, I feel easier. I must be going. Mighty fine weather, this! Good-bye! Gals will fool their daddies."

Away went Byle, about everybody's business, and home hastened George Hale, not so much to tell Evaleen what he had heard concerning herself, as to learn from her the solution of the mystery of Arlington, Danvers and "the summit."

Day after day, and week after week, the shipwrights plied their tasks with saw and hammer, with adz and mallet, constructing the vessels to convey men and goods down the river in the Winter. A large purchase of provisions, ham, bacon, flour, whiskey, was made in advance, and various accoutrements were secretly collected in anticipation of Burr's enterprise.

New gods had been set up in the sequestered home of the Blennerhassetts. The Lares and Penates there honored were not now the images of Emmett and Agnew, not the names of dead ancestors, but the living spirit and example of Napoleon and the magic word Empire. No longer could the harpsichord charm or the strings of the viol allure. The music-books gathered dust in the alcove, and the "Iliad" stood unopened on the shelf. Instead of rambling in the woods, or strolling on the banks of the Ohio, or galloping to Marietta clad in a crimson cloak, or giving banquets or balls to entertain the admiring gentry of Belpre, Madam Blennerhassett spent busy days and anxious nights working and planning for a potential greatness, a prospective high emprise. A change had come over the spirit of her dream. She had ceased to feel an interest in domestic duties and pleasures; she neglected the simple cares of the plantation, took no satisfaction in binding up the bruises of her slaves, or curing their ailments with medicine and kindness; the talk of Peter Taylor about flowers and fruit, or of Thomas Neal, concerning pet heifers, and new milk and butter and cheese, became tedious; the jokes and laughter of the farm-hands and dairymaids she heard with irritation; nor could the prattle and play of her romping boys divert her mind from the one absorbing theme--the descent of the Mississippi, the conquest of Mexico, the creation of a New World. In close daily communion with Theodosia, she dwelt not in a white frame house on a woody island of the Ohio River, not in the present; but in the future, and in a marble palace in the splendid domain of Aaron I. The two enthusiastic women, allied in a common cause, inspired alike by the experience of wifehood and maternity, similarly ambitious, passionate and imaginative, reciprocated each other's sentiments and strengthened each other's resolution.

The summer flew away. In October, Governor Alston visited the island. Many consultations were held in the gilded parlor and in the hushed library; more plans were divulged, more pledges given--and Burr departed never again to cross the threshold of the house on the island. Theodosia and her husband and child went to Lexington, Kentucky, whither they were accompanied by Blennerhassett.

Left alone in the great ghost-white house, its mistress wandered from room to room, restless and melancholy. The boys were at play on the lawn; she could hear their mirthful shouts. She felt a vague longing, like homesickness, and yet she was at home. Wearily she sat down in her husband's study chair in the quiet library. She glanced round at the books, the apparatus, the musical instruments. Everything presented an unnatural aspect. Startled by the snapping of a string on the untouched violincello, she uttered an involuntary exclamation, rose, and went up close to the portrait of her husband. But owing to the dimness of the light or the sadness of her mood, the features, instead of smiling, seemed to regard her with a mournful gaze. A sense of desolation overwhelmed her. Endeavoring once more to fly from herself, she called her children. They came, and she kissed them, putting an arm around each.

"Dominick, do you want to go away, away to Mexico, and become rich and great?"

"No, no, mamma; I want to live here forever with you and papa."

"We both do," iterated Harman. "We both do."

"Colonel Burr will be there to take care of us all. He saved your life, Harman, and he loves you, I am sure."

"Mamma, he loves _you_, but he don't love papa."

The mother blushed, and a big tear rolled down her cheek.

XVIII. THE VOYAGE OF THE BUCKEYE.

George Hale, yielding to the importuning letters of his brother Richard, consented that Evaleen should risk the peril of a voyage to New Orleans. Luckily the young lady was to have travelling companions. One of her uncle's letters contained this passage: "Ask your father to hunt up my old-time friend, Dr. Eloy Deville, to whose care and medical skill I owe my life. He still lives, I believe, in Gallipolis. Tell dear old Frenchy and little Lucrèce--I suppose she is now almost grown--that I have unearthed family facts much to their worldly advantage. They must come to this city, to the French quarter. My discoveries are astounding, but credible. Eloy may inherit a fortune. I will see that he loses nothing. My advice is, come at once. The doctor and his daughter will be good company for you on your voyage."

Eloy was easily induced to do as his friend and former patient advised.

"Oui, monsieur, certainment shall we depart most glad from ze log hut. Lucrèce, ma chère fille, dance for ze delight! We shall, on ze to-morrow, us depart, on ze joli bateau with ze mademoiselle; quick shall run ze stream, row ze oar, fly ze sail--we come right away to ze excellent long friend of your father. Ze honor and ze felicity shall be to me to serve mademoiselle for ze sake of her divine uncle, for ze own beautiful sake of ze fair angel."

The Buckeye, on which Evaleen and her friends took passage, carried a cargo for the Southern market. The crew numbered eight picked men, commanded by Eli Winslow, a talkative Vermonter, with none too much experience on the Mississippi, but overstocked with self-confidence.

Such clothing and household goods as he thought essential to take along for himself and daughter, Doctor Deville packed in old trunks, or tied up in bundles, all of which were deposited on the river bank, six hours ahead of time. The luggage included a basket of Bordeaux, a surgeon's case, a chest of medicine, and a violin in a green bag. At last the barge hove in sight, announced by the echoing of the boat horn. The fidgety Frenchman gave Lucrèce a kiss and almost dislocated her arm by pulling her after him to the landing. A long half hour he had yet to wait before The Buckeye was made fast to the posts on the bank and Eloy was helped on board, still holding fast to his _chère fille_. It would require a volume to report the conversation which enlivened the many days' journey down the Ohio and the Mississippi. The doctor chirruped constantly. He knew a little of everything, and talked much of nothing, very amusingly. Often he sang French songs, often played dance tunes on the violin, now and then took an enlivening taste of wine.

Past Cincinnati, past Louisville and the Falls of the Ohio, past Shawnee Town, past Fort Massac, and Diamond Island and Battery Rock, the vessel moved slowly and steadily along. The voyagers were told that the lower river was infested still by wreckers, one scene of whose frequent depredations was Wolf Island. Captain Winslow discoursed much on the state of Western commerce, and the dangers which menaced travel.

"A great part," said he, "of the Territory of Mississippi, stretching from Tennessee to Natchez, is unbroken forest, inhabited by Indians, and infested with wolves and panthers. We shall see no sign of civilization on the eastern shore until after we have skirted six hundred miles of waste, howling wilderness."

At length they came to where the Ohio is merged and lost in the Mississippi. The turbid onhurrying volume of mighty waters heaved and foamed, as if troubled by furious, disturbing forces working below. The boat shuddered and its strong joints groaned in the strenuous hug of the river.

"Hereafter we can proceed only by daylight," said Winslow. "We shall have many dangers to contend with--a succession of chutes, races, chains, and cypress bends. You will see no end of this gloomy forest. There are plenty of rattlesnakes, bears, and catamounts in those jungles, doctor."

"Par bleu! Ze catamount shall stay in ze jungle and delight heself with her family amiable. We not shall invite heem to tea. Are no inhabitants in this wilderness?"

"A few whites and some Indians. See those squaws digging wild potatoes for food."

"Do many boats go to New Orleans?" asked Miss Hale.

"Yes, ma'am; all sorts from a birch canoe to a full-rigged ship. Hundreds are lost. We are now coming to a wreck-heap."

The passengers saw an immense huddle of drifted logs, and the broken timbers of shattered boats, and entire scows, rotting, half-submerged, or warping high and dry on top of the hill of confused ruin. The sight of these hulks, abandoned to the grinding eddies, added a sense of dread to the weary anxiety already felt by the girls. The progress down the Ohio had been tedious; how much more so the interminable windings on the Mississippi, and the long, lonesome nights, made sleepless by the cries of birds that flit in darkness, and by the howls of wild beasts. Evaleen's nocturnal fears, when the barge lay moored, were not so well founded as were the apprehensions which daylight renewed, of disaster on the treacherous flood. The more she learned of the river, the more she realized the risks of each day's navigation.

"Young ladies, see! That is a sawyer; an ugly one, sticking its sharp horn up to hook us. I don't mind a danger which shows above water; but your sleeping sawyer is the mischief to be dreaded."

"What's a sleeping sawyer?"

"If I could point out the nasty thing, I wouldn't dread it; a sleeping sawyer does its sawing under the surface. We are liable to run on to the point of one any second."

"Mercy! Do you think we are coming on a sleeping sawyer now?" asked Evaleen.

The captain hoped not, and directed attention to another phenomenon not of a nature to induce feelings of security.

"What do you see away down the river?"

"Do you mean that low island?"

"Yes, an island and not an island. Wait until we drift nearer. You will see river moss and rank water plants growing over the surface, but it is not part of the firm land; it is a wooden island."

"How? A wooden island?"

"Just so. We shall see many such. Logs and all kinds of drift lodge against the upper part of a stable island or peninsula, and the accumulated mass grows into a great raft matted together by roots and vines. The whole thing, driven by winds or currents, sometimes swings free from its anchorage and drifts away. Then it is called a floating, or wandering island."

Lucrèce, who had been sweeping the circle of the horizon with the seaman's glass, caught far to the northward, the glimpse of a sail.

"I see away up the river what looks like a leetle black house, with a white thing on the roof."

"That boat," said Winslow, "is miles and miles behind us; it is above the second bend. Let me look.--She carries a square sail, amidships, as we do, but she is not a barge. Stop, I know what she is--there's a flag at the top of the mast--she must be a government transport, coming with troops for Fort Adams or the Natchitoches country."

Lucrèce caught a quick breath and asked eagerly:

"Troops from St. Louis, think you?"

"Most likely, miss."

Evaleen's interest was also excited, but she kept silent, and soon slipped away alone into her cabin. The French maiden remained on deck a long time, watching the transport, whenever she could bring it within the field of vision.

"The soldiers, will they perhaps overtake us?" she inquired, turning her brilliant big eyes to Winslow.

"Like enough; but you needn't be afraid of the reg'lars; they won't molest us."

"I haf no fear; I haf curiositee."

At last Lucrèce returned the glass to the captain, thanked him, and slowly sought her companion, keeping a small, brown hand just over her heart to make sure that a precious letter which she carried there was still safe and in its right place.

Lucrèce and Evaleen had readily fallen into sympathetic relations. Days of chattering on deck, and nights of prattle before falling asleep on the same couch, left few girlish secrets unexchanged. The scant experience of Lucrèce's isolated life had brought her only a small stock of personal doings or feelings to disclose. Yet, up to the hour of her coming into the private cabin, after seeing the government transport, she had not told the very thing which she knew would most surely enlist the sympathy of Evaleen or of any other woman.

Now, Lucrèce was moved to pour out her simple heart in maiden confidence to Miss Hale, her only female friend.

"Ah, ma sweet Evaleen, I no more shall be able to hide my feeling--I tell you, right as it happen, the beginning and the end of my story, that no person shall know.

"One day, at Gallipolis, a young soldier there stopped. He came in the mail-boat, and the reason he entered our cottage was one of the boatmen had been hurt by accident--his arm crushed, poor man--and as papa is known by all as a surgeon, the young officer--he was capitaine--he run up the hill to our log cabin. I tell him mon père, alas, was not at home--mon père had gone that day to Belpie. The very handsome face--how shall I say?--was upset by disappointment--teach me if I use the wrong word. I saw the sad regret and was grieved also. He looked in my eyes with a kind pity for the hurt boatman, and quickly I spoke. 'Monsieur, I, also, can use the instruments of mon père, and wrap the bandages. Always I assist. Mon père names me his aide. I will go and dress the hurt arm.' The young man did not say no, but his eyes were full of doubt, very much in doubt of me. I took the surgeon's case, and we made haste to the mail-boat. How they all did stare and stare! I had handled the sharp knives, and my father had taught me perfection. Instantly I did the operation nécessaire, the brave captain much helping. Then the gallant soldier brought me home, carrying the case, and, oh, my Evaleen, how shall I say, he kissed my lips, say 'Forgive,' and went away. I have see him no more."

As Evaleen listened to these naive sentences, her expression grew more and more troubled.

"Kissed you!"

Lucrèce nodded.

"At Gallipolis? A captain? Do you know his name?"

"His name--oh, yes, I know his name--Warren Danvers."

Evaleen's lip quivered. A shade of anxiety and pain saddened her countenance.

"I should resent the insult," she said coldly. "Have you told me all?"

"No, my sweetest sister; I confess to you now my great, precious secret. Alas, I give my heart that day. I love that only man."

"You _love_ him? This is the silliest tale I ever heard. Let us go out and breathe the fresh air. Absurd! Do you fancy he loves you?"

"He has written me one letter of love--here it is."

Lucrèce drew a tiny note from her bosom and went with Evaleen near the prow of the barge to take the evening breeze. The first pale stars were barely visible in the clear sky.