Part 8

"Grieve not, sweet Lilya!" exclaimed Zabra, as he was endeavouring to console the afflicted mourner; "he for whom you mourn mourns not; why, therefore, should you be afflicted? His spirit is at peace with the world; he treads no more among the ruins and weeds of this deserted land; his home is where nature enjoys an unfading youth; where beauty breathes from an unclouded atmosphere, and love dwells around him like a perpetual blessing. Grieve not for the loss of the goodness which was enshrined in his nature, it has gone to join the First Great Cause of all good from which its goodness was derived. You see the wild flowers that are scattered at our feet; they gather from the air and the soil their fragrance and their loveliness, and these qualities they give back to the air and the soil, when the freshness of their leaves is dried up, and the soft hues in which we so much delight fade from their blossoms. Whatever exists, exists in a state of continual giving and receiving. It gains only to lose when what it has acquired can no longer be rendered profitable to its owner. As the rivers run into the sea, glides all humanity into the boundless ocean of the eternal; yet, fast as they empty themselves as rapidly they flow from their sources, just as the waters of life rush into the gulf of death, and though swallowed up with inconceivable velocity, rise from their innumerable springs in greater abundance. Grieve not, then, for grief is of no utility to either the living or the dead. Consider yourself: in you are deposited the materials of much happiness for yourself and others; endeavour to apply them to the most advantage. Some fond youth may soon be looking on your eyes, as gazes the devotee on the innermost sanctuary of his temple. In you he will concentrate all his ideas of what is most admirable; to you he will turn his thoughts; for you he will breathe his aspirations; his dreams he will gladden with your smiles; his hopes he will make brilliant in the lustre of your gaze. Are such things unworthy of your contemplation? Leave off these regrets; quit this senseless clay which answers not to your sympathy. Strive to become all, when living, he would have wished you to be. Virtue and truth and wisdom invite you to partake of their enjoyments, and if you attend to the better business of life, under their instructive auspices, you may be assured of becoming possessed of such happiness as it is felicitous even to imagine."

Lilya raised her eyes streaming with tears to the handsome countenance of the speaker, and her face was lit up with an expression that for the time obliterated all traces of sorrow. At this moment the body was carefully deposited in the grave, over which the seamen fired a volley of musketry, after which he was covered with the soil, and the party returned to their tents. Here, immediately on Zabra's arrival, he proceeded to his harp, and after a few chords full of melancholy and tender feeling, sang the following lines:--

"The last of his race now lies low, Lies low in the soil that gave bliss to his eyes, Though his country no joy could bestow, For in deserts he lived and 'mid ruin he dies; For him no dull trappings of woe, No dark hirelings of grief round his sepulchre rise, And he leaves not a friend or a foe, His merits to praise or his faults to despise.

"The last of his race to his rest, To his rest in the grave hath gone silently down; With his sword girded on o'er his vest, And arrayed as in life from the foot to the crown. But say not his tomb is unblest, Or the name he hath left be unknown to renown, For the wild flow'r shall bloom o'er his breast, And his fame shall be echoed through village and town.

"Though strangers his corse in the grave, In the grave they have chosen with honour shall place, Though the earth take the life which it gave, And the tooth of the worm shall the mortal efface, There shall dwell neither tyrant or slave, There shall live not a people so lost in disgrace, Who shall know not the land of the brave, And respect not the bones of the Last of his Race."

At the close of the song, Zabra felt a hand placed lightly on his shoulder, and, turning round, beheld Lilya gazing on him with a look so full of pleasure, that he felt almost inclined to doubt it was the same creature who a short time since was so overpowered with affliction. "I will go with you," said the timid girl, as a slight blush appeared on either cheek; "I will go with you to your own country--if--that is--I should like to go with you if you will take me."

The same evening they were all on board the Albatross, which immediately set sail, and retraced her way through the river into the wide ocean.

CHAP. VII.

LILYA.

"I am getting very anxious about my father!" said Oriel Porphyry to his young friend; "I am sure something must have happened, or I should have found a communication from him at one or other of the different ports I have touched at. Not a syllable of information have I been able to gain from any of my father's ships I have spoken with, for most of them had left Columbia about the same time as my last advices, and the others were not aware of any thing important having transpired."

"We are going homewards now, Oriel, and if any thing has happened shall soon be made aware of it;" observed Zabra. "Let us hope for the best. I should not imagine, from the immense influence that he possesses, that the government would attempt to injure him."

"They only want the power, I believe;" replied the young merchant. "I know these sort of people too well to put much confidence in an appearance of tranquillity that has been forced upon them. They must hate my father. As the prime mover in the revolution which exhibited their insignificance so palpably, they will look upon the merchant as a person particularly odious, and no doubt would gladly get rid of him at any cost or risk."

"I should think for their own interests they would let him alone;" remarked his companion. "Experience ought to have taught them the danger of meddling with so popular a character, and having suffered so severely it is not like that they will renew the hazardous experiment."

"It is because they have suffered that they will be desirous of revenging themselves upon one whom they consider as the cause of the infliction;" said Oriel. "It would have appeared bad enough to them if my father had been one of the most powerful of the aristocracy; but it wounds them to the quick when they reflect that he is a plebeian--in their ideas immeasurably beneath them--an individual of no ancient family, without rank or dignity. With the feelings which a knowledge of this fact must create it is impossible that they can rest satisfied with their limited privileges and curtailed power. They will be continually intriguing for his destruction."

"They dare not do it, Oriel," replied Zabra; "I feel assured they dare not."

"I wish I could think so," said his patron; "but I have a little more knowledge of the world than you, Zabra, and I know something more of the disposition of such men. As long as he lives they will consider themselves insecure. They can know no peace save in his death; and I am convinced that they will use every exertion to accomplish it. I hope I may be enabled to return in time to frustrate their intentions. I should like nothing better than to expose their machinations, and to punish them in an appropriate manner; and if the people exist in the same state of feeling as when my father last wrote, I will show them something they little expect to see. My father's friends are almost innumerable in Columbus, and are always ready with hand and heart to serve him whenever he will give the word, which he is always exceedingly loth to give; and I think I may say that my friends in the metropolis are neither despicable in number nor in influence, and are as eager to befriend me in time of need; and I shall be quite as eager to accept their services. I remember the times when I have been exercising my regiment, the devotion that was displayed by both officers and men; but this I am well aware was owing to their admiration of my father's virtues. Of them I am secure. My fondness for military exercises made me labour to perfect in discipline the troops I commanded, and they are now as effective a body of men as ever entered a field of battle. They will perform good service wherever they go. The national guard is another powerful engine to be employed on such an occasion. In the metropolis alone they amount in number to about twenty thousand; and they are devotedly attached to my father. If there exist but a sufficient cause I know that I have only to present myself amongst them, to induce them to follow me wherever I choose to lead."

"I trust you will have no occasion for their services," said his companion; "it is my belief that on our return we shall find every thing in the most comfortable state, and all parties satisfied with each other. Your military dreams will then be completely disappointed, and you will be under the painful necessity of making up your mind to share the well-earned honours of your father, and partake of a perfect state of happiness with Eureka."

"Ah, Eureka!" exclaimed the young merchant with passionate emphasis; "how rejoiced I shall be to return to her! I often find myself inquiring into the possibility of a change in her disposition towards me."

"That can never be, Oriel;" observed the other.

"I have the fullest confidence in her fidelity, but sometimes I find an apprehension intrude without knowing what produced it;" said his companion. "There are no such self-tormentors as your true lovers; and although I should be among the first to laugh at the suffering they give themselves, I must acknowledge that on more than one occasion I have endured a state of feeling which was any thing but satisfactory."

"By what was it occasioned?" inquired Zabra.

"Merely from my ignorance of the motives which have induced her to deny me any communication with her till my return;" answered Oriel.

"You would not condemn her if you knew what made such a denial necessary;" remarked his young friend.

"Very probably not: but the mischief of it is, I do _not_ know;" said Master Porphyry. "Any thing in the shape of a mystery annoys me amazingly, and this behaviour of hers appears to me most mysterious and unaccountable. I think between lovers the most perfect sincerity should exist. There should be no room left for doubt or suspicion. But in the generality of attachments you will find much more deception than sincerity. In the affections of youth there is an earnestness which is the most natural and convincing that can be conceived; but as the heart grows older, it gradually loses all this admirable freshness and purity, and in a few short years it has recourse to artifices and disguises without number. I detest deceit. I cannot imagine Eureka deceitful. I hope never to find her so. To the truly devoted--to one who finds no enjoyment like that which proceeds from honoring his adored as the truest, the purest, and the best, there can be nothing so revolting as the discovery that she whom he worships as one so pre-eminent in goodness is the habitual practiser of contemptible deceits, hides all her actions under a cloak of elaborate artifices, and lives in a spider-like existence, spinning a dirty web to hide herself and betray her victims."

"Eureka is of a very different character;" observed Zabra, who during the preceding observations had appeared exceedingly confused. "She has not deceived you in any thing which it was requisite for you to know. She detests artifice as much as you do. But there are always some things which the most sincere may find it necessary to conceal. The truth cannot be spoken at _all_ times."

"You might just as well say that good money ought not to be passed at all times;" said Oriel Porphyry. "That which is good ought to be good upon all occasions, and truth is the very best of things in social intercourse. It is the sterling coin of the affections; and she who uses base counterfeits deserves the ignominy with which such vile cheating should be punished. I have the very highest opinion of the female character, and I desire always to think highly of womankind; but taking the sex generally, I do sincerely think that they are amazingly fond of disguising the truth as much as possible. It is a crooked policy--a policy that in time poisons every better feeling a woman can possess. Deception and a love of general admiration are her prevailing vices. I am well aware that they are thought very innocent little foibles by those who practise them, but on that account they are not the less destructive to feminine excellence. Love is a passion of one for one only. It ought to be excited by one object, and conferred on one object alone. And thus exhibited, it is the purest, the most graceful, and the most natural of human emotions. If either party introduce another as a sharer in the affections, the whole feeling becomes tainted. What can be more unjust to the lover who concentrates all his hopes on the exclusive possession of the affections of the object of his fond idolatry, which hopes have been called into existence by fond avowals and delicious caresses, than for the woman whom he thus regards, to be just as affectionate in her manner to a second, a third, a fourth, a fifth, and a sixth? Some women seem to pride themselves on the number of their admirers. What a miserable vanity it is! It is exactly the same feeling with which an Eastern monarch used to regard the number of females in his seraglio. Imagine the state of mind produced in a man of refined intellect and delicacy of feeling at discovering that the lips he thought sacred to his caresses were defiled by the caresses of another! Or if she allow others merely to continue to profess to her their ardent admiration, she evinces a neglect of the unalterable law of the affections, which ought to be punished by contempt, scorn, and disgust."

"But no woman ought to be accountable for the admiration she may excite;" observed Zabra. "The most virtuous woman may without the slightest intention create an unhallowed passion in one of the opposite sex."

"Women are remarkably quick sighted in every thing connected with the affections;" replied the young merchant. "They can discover the earliest signs of admiration, and every truly virtuous woman, if her sympathies are pre-engaged, will endeavour to crush this feeling in the bud, and show, by her displeasure and avoidance of the object, that he has created no reciprocal emotion. If after such passion is declared she continue to tolerate the attentions of her admirer, although she be virtuous in other respects she has no conception of the nature of perfect virtue. She is fostering an illicit feeling; she is encouraging a passion she has no intention of indulging--a crime the most destructive in its effects upon the happiness of the individual whose passion she encourages; and as it is vicious in its tendency, because it aims at indulgence at the expense of virtue, and as she assisted in its developement instead of destroying it in its early growth, she is answerable for all the consequences that may arise from its existence, and has deserved the censure of being considered vicious in her disposition. Toleration creates hope, and hope will love through all difficulty; but no man, unless he be a fool or a knave, will love in utter hopelessness."

"Surely these observations can have no relation to Eureka!" exclaimed Zabra earnestly.

"Not the slightest;" replied his patron. "She is all I would wish her to be; and the only cause of uneasiness she has given me during our attachment is this mystery about the place of her concealment, and her avoidance of any communication with me for so long a time."

"Your uneasiness will soon be removed, then, and the mystery will be explained in a manner that will perfectly satisfy you;" said the youth.

"I hope so;" exclaimed his patron. "But I certainly do not like being mystified by those in whom I take an interest. Mysteries, however, seem most abundant around me just now. There is something very strange and unaccountable in you, Zabra."

"Me! in me, Oriel?" replied his companion, in evident confusion. "What can there be strange or unaccountable in me?"

"I have noticed many things in your behaviour exceedingly extraordinary;" said the young merchant. "Your superiority to the situation in which you were introduced to me has often made me imagine that you are not what you assume to be."

"Not what I assume to be!" exclaimed Zabra in increased embarrassment. "Is it possible I can be any thing else?"

"That is best known to yourself, and to her who sent you," replied Oriel Porphyry; "but there certainly is a mystery about your character."

"A mystery! how strange you should imagine such a thing;" responded his youthful companion, attempting to conceal his confusion.

"Then there's my father, he has _his_ mystery," continued his patron; "it is some secret connected with that wretched aristocrat Philadelphia, but what it is about he is not inclined to communicate."

"I have noticed it," said Zabra, recovering from his confusion; "and I imagined it to be a knowledge of some circumstances connected with my father's early life, the publication of which would do him very serious injury."

"I cannot say what it is, but these things are very perplexing," observed the young merchant; "however, I hope to make my way through them on my arrival at Columbia. How glad I shall be to see its glorious shores again! Nothing is so likely to excite patriotism as exile; and Columbia is a country worthy of one's patriotism; the first nation of the world; its citizens have reason to be proud. I have beheld during my voyage many lands and many people, but I have seen neither land or people to be compared to Columbia and its inhabitants. I rejoice that I am returning to them, and though I am glad that this voyage is nearly at an end, I hope that my father will be gratified with my proceedings during my absence; and then if Eureka's sentiments in my favour have not undergone any change I shall have nothing to fear."

"Of Eureka's constancy you will soon be convinced;" said Zabra, in a more subdued tone than he had previously used.

"I shall be delighted to find it so. But do you think that she would have no objection to protect the gentle Lilya?" asked Oriel.

"None whatever;" replied his companion. "I am sure she will be much gratified by your suggestion of such an arrangement. Lilya is timid and perfectly ignorant of the world, yet she is docile and affectionate, and with proper management I have no doubt she would become an amiable and accomplished woman, qualified to adorn any rank in society."

"The creature is so shy that I can scarcely ever get a glimpse of her," observed his patron.

"She is almost always with me," said the other; "every thing appears to be new to her on board the ship, and her pleasure at the novelties she beholds is so genuine that it is delightful to see her. She requires a companion, or she would feel quite alone amongst us; and I being about her own age, she naturally feels more at ease with me than with any other. Her diffidence is excessive; I cannot get her to associate with any one except myself; but I have no doubt that in time she will gain confidence, and join us in the cabin or on the quarter-deck with perfect self-possession. She seems remarkably fond of music, and appears to enjoy nothing so much as hearing me sing to her."

"Take care, Zabra;" said the young merchant, with a smile. "An ancient poet has said that music is the food of love. The harmony of sweet sounds, breathed around two such hearts as yours and Lilya's, will be sure to put them in unison. If you go on in this way, existing in a state of such intimate communion, it will be utterly impossible for either of you to resist the soft influence of the tender passion, and you have both of you arrived at a time of life when the disposition is peculiarly susceptible to its impressions."

"There is no fear of such feelings being created, I assure you;" replied Zabra.

"It seems to me very probable," observed Oriel; "your being so much together is sufficient to produce such an effect. Besides, she is so very pretty. What a depth of tenderness there exists in the soft blue of her beautiful eyes! and her smile is positively exquisite. The rich bloom of her complexion reminds me of some delicious fruit, it is so warm, and soft, and tempting; and then the expression,--so innocent, so artless, and so bashful, it is absolutely enchanting. I must not forget her graceful figure, it is worthy of the highest eulogium for being so delicately rounded. I am glad she has not thrown aside her dress of skins and feathers, for, in my opinion, its simplicity and picturesqueness would put fashion out of countenance. I never behold her, whenever she does venture into my presence, but I imagine her to be the Psyche of the heathen mythology, or some other amiable character in that system of dreams:--the object of devotion to the immortal youth, or the rosy cup-bearer to the gods. I assure you, I admire her very much."

"Indeed!" exclaimed Zabra, who had listened to these praises of Lilya in evident uneasiness.

"Yes, she has interested me very deeply;" replied Oriel. "I am charmed at the gentle being who has been so unexpectedly thrown on my protection. I feel delighted at being able to gratify her unambitious wishes; and when she comes shrinking into my presence, like a delicate flower before the breeze, nothing pleases me so much as endeavouring to assure her of her safety. And then the simple creature is so grateful, and thanks me with such looks, that there is no resisting them."

Zabra's eyes gleamed restlessly, his lips became pale, and his cheeks bloodless.

"I wish I could see her more frequently, and she would be somewhat less reserved;" continued his patron. "It is so difficult to get her to converse; yet her voice is so subdued and melodious that it is a pleasure to hear her. It is seldom any thing beyond a murmur. She never attempts to raise her voice into a more audible sound. She seems as if she was afraid of hearing herself speak. After having been used to the affectations and hypocrisies of female society, the artlessness of Lilya's conduct and the purity of her nature becomes exceedingly refreshing: I certainly do admire her very much."

Zabra, as if unable to conceal the emotions that were evidently producing a most powerful effect upon him, with a look of indescribable anguish hastily left the cabin.

"How strange!" exclaimed Oriel Porphyry, astonished at the sudden departure of his young friend. "He must love her. I am certain from his appearance while I was speaking in her praise, that he loves her, and is jealous of the admiration I have expressed. How very strange!"