CHAPTER I.

"THE OTHER CHILD."

Baffled schemer!

In the dim hour which comes before the break of day, Colonel Tarleton was hurrying rapidly along the silent and deserted street.

Broadway, a few hours since, all light, and life, and motion, was now lonely as a desert. Gathering his cloak over his white coat, and drawing his cap lower upon his brows, Tarleton hurried along with a rapid and impetuous step, now and then suffering the thoughts which filled him, to find vent in broken ejaculations.

"Baffled schemer!" he exclaimed aloud, and then his thoughts arranged themselves into words:--"Why do those words ring in my ears? They do not apply to me; let me but live twenty-four hours, and all the schemes which I have worked and woven for twenty-one long years, will find their end in a grand, a final triumph. Baffled schemer! No,--not yet, nor never! This boy who was to marry Frank, will _fade away_ in a few hours, and make no sign; and now for the other child. I must hasten to the house of old Somers,--his 'private secretary' must be mine before daybreak. The hour is unusual, the son lies dead in one room,--the father in the other; but I must enter the house at all hazards, for,--for,--the _only remaining child_ of Gulian Van Huyden, must be in my power before daybreak."

And he hurried along toward the head of Broadway, through the silent city. Even in the gloom, the agitation which possessed him, was plainly discernible. The hand which held the cloak upon his breast was tightly clenched, and, as he passed through the light of a lamp, you might note his compressed lip, his colorless cheek, and eyes burning with intense thought. His whole life swept before him like a panorama. The day when the wife and mother lay dead in her palace home, while Gulian, his brother, clutched him with a death-grip as he plunged into the river,--the years which he had gayly passed in Paris, and the horrible years which he had endured in the felon's cell,--the happy childhood, and the irrevocable shame of his daughter, sold by her own mother into the arms of lust and gold,--his duel with young Somers, whom he had first murdered, and then smuggled his corpse into his father's home,--the scenes which he had this night witnessed in the Temple, beginning with his interview with Ninety-One, and ending in the marriage of Frank and Nameless, and the apparition of Mary Berman,--all flitted before him like the phantoms of a spectral panorama.

"And the next twenty-four hours will decide all! Courage, brain, you have never yet despaired,--" he struck his clenched hand against his forehead,--"do not fail me now!"

Turning from Broadway, as the night grew darker, he entered the street in which the house of Evelyn Somers, Sr., was situated. He was rapidly approaching that house,--cogitating what manner of excuse he should make to the servants for his call at such an unusual hour,--when he was startled by the sound of footsteps. He paused, where a street lamp flung its light over the pavement. Shading his eyes, he beheld two figures approaching through the gloom. He glided from the light, and stationed himself against the wall, so that he could see the figures as they passed, himself unseen. The steps drew near and nearer, and presently from the gloom the figures passed into the light. A man, wrapped in a cloak, with a broad _sombrero_ drooping over his face, supported on his arm the form of a youth, who, clad in a closely buttoned frock-coat, trembled from weakness, or from the winter's cold. The face of the man was in shadow, but the light shone fully on the face of the youth as he passed by.

Tarleton, with great difficulty, suppressed an ejaculation and an oath.

For in that boy who leaned tremblingly upon the arm of the cloaked man, he recognized the _Private Secretary_ of the merchant prince!

"Courage, my poor boy,"--Tarleton heard the cloaked man utter these words, as he passed by,--"it was a happy impulse which led me to leave my carriage, and walk along this street. I arrived just in time to save you; it is but a step to my carriage, and once in my carriage you will tell me all."

"O, sir, you will protect me,"--the voice of the youth was tremulous and broken,--"you will protect me from this man----"

And with these words they passed from the light into the gloom again.

Tarleton stood for a moment, as though nailed to the wall against which he leaned. He could not believe the evidence of his senses. That the boy, Gulian Van Huyden, the private secretary had left the mansion of the merchant prince, at this strange hour, and was now in the care of a man whom he, Tarleton, did not know; this fact was plain enough, but Tarleton could not believe it. He stood as though nailed to the wall, while the footsteps of the retreating figures resounded through the stillness. At length, with a violent effort, he recovered his presence of mind.

"I will follow them and reclaim _my child_!" he ejaculated, and gathering his cloak across the lower part of his face, hurried once more toward Broadway.

But as he discovered the distance between himself and the figures of the cloaked man and the youth, his purpose failed him, he knew not why,--he dared not address the man, much less seize the boy, Gulian,--but he still hung upon their back, watching their every movement, himself unobserved.

Meanwhile, a thousand vague suspicions and fears flitted through his mind.

At the head of Broadway, in the light of a lamp, stood a carriage, with a coachman in dark livery on the box. The horses, black as jet, stood, beating the pavement with their hoofs, and champing their bits impatiently.

The unknown paused beside this carriage, still supporting the boy, Gulian, on his arm.

"Felix," he said, in a low voice, addressing the coachman, who started up at the sound of his voice, "drive at once, and with all speed, to _the house yonder_,"--he pointed to the north.

"Yes, my lord," was the answer of the coachman.

"And you, poor boy," continued the unknown, thus addressed as "my lord," turning to young Gulian,--"enter, and be safe hereafter from all fear of persecution." He opened the carriage door, and Gulian entered, followed by the unknown.

And the next moment the sound of the wheels was heard, and the carriage passing Union Square and rolling away toward the north.

Tarleton, who had, unobserved, beheld this scene, started from the shadows and approached the lamp. He clenched his teeth in helpless rage.

"I saw his face for an instant, ere he entered the carriage, and as his cloak fell aside, I noticed the golden cross on his breast; and I neither like his cadaverous face, nor the golden cross. Why,--" he stamped angrily upon the pavement,--"why do I hate and fear this man whom I have never seen before?--'my lord!'--the cross on his breast,--perchance a dignitary of the Catholic Church! Ah! he will wring the secret from this weak and superstitious boy. All, all is lost!"

He was roused from this fit of despair and rage by the sound of carriage wheels. It was a hackney coach, returning homeward, the horses weary, and the driver lolling sleepily on the box.

Tarleton darted forward and stopped the horses.

"Do you want to earn five dollars for an hour's ride?" he said, "if so, strike up Broadway, and follow a dark carriage drawn by two black horses," and he mounted the box, and took his seat beside the coachman.

The latter gentleman waking up from his half slumber, and very wroth at the manner in which his horses had been stopped, and his box invaded, forthwith consigned Tarleton to a place which it is not needful to name, adding significantly,--

"An' if yer don't git down, I'll mash yer head,--if I don't,--" etc., etc.

"Pshaw! don't you know me?" cried Tarleton, lifting his cap,--"follow the carriage yonder, and I'll make it ten dollars for half an hour's ride."

"Why, it _is_ the colonel!" responded the mollified hackman.--"My team is blowed, colonel, but you're a brick, and here goes! Up Broadway did you say?--let her rip!"

He applied the whip to his wearied horses, and away they dashed, passing Union Square, and entering upper Broadway.

"That the carriage, colonel?" asked the driver, as they heard the sound of wheels in front of them, "that concern as looks blacker than a stack of black cats?"

"It is. Follow it. Do not let the coachman know that we are in pursuit. Follow it carefully, and at a proper distance."

And the hackney coach followed the carriage of the unknown, until they passed from the shadows of the houses into the open country. Some four miles at least from the city hall, the carriage turned from one of the avenues, into a narrow lane, leading among the rocks, over a hill and down toward the North River.

The colonel jumped from the box.

"Wait for me here,--I'll not be long. Drive a little piece up the avenue, so that you will not be noticed, in case this carriage should return. Wait for me, I say,--for every hour I will give you ten dollars."

With these words he hurried up the hill, in pursuit of the retreating carriage. The ground was frosted and broken,--huge rocks blocked up the path on either hand, and on the hill-top stood a clump of leafless trees. Pausing beneath these trees, the colonel endeavored to discern the carriage through the darkness, but in vain. But he heard the sound of the wheels as they rolled over the hard ground in the valley below.

"It cannot go far. This lane terminates at the river, only two or three hundred yards away. Ah! I remember,--half-way between the hill and the river there is an old mansion which I noticed last summer, and which has not been occupied for years."

The sound of the wheels suddenly ceased. The colonel drew the cord of his cloak about his neck, so as to permit his arms full play. Then from one pocket of his overcoat he drew forth a revolver, and from the other a bowie-knife. Grasping a weapon firmly in each hand, he stealthily descended the hill, and on tip-toe approached the carriage, which had indeed halted in front of the old mansion.

The mansion, a strange and incongruous structure, built of stone, and brick, and wood, and enlarged from the original block house, which it had been two hundred years before, by the additions made by five or six generations, stood in a garden, apart from the road, its roofs swept by the leafless branches of gigantic forest-trees. In summer, quaint and incongruous as were the outlines of the huge edifice, it put on a beautiful look, for it was embowered in foliage, and its many roofs and walls of brick, and wood and stone, were hidden in a garment of vines and flowers. But now, in the blackness of this drear winter daybreak, it was black and desolate enough. Not a single light shed a cheerful ray, from any of the windows.

Gliding behind the trunk of a sycamore, the colonel heard the voice of the unknown man, as he conducted the boy, Gulian, from the carriage along the garden walk toward the hall door.

"Here you will be safe from all intrusion. I must return to the city at once, but I will be back early in the morning. Meanwhile, you can take a quiet sleep. You are not afraid to sleep in the old house, are you?"

"Oh, no, no,--afraid of nothing but _his_ persecution," was the answer.

The colonel heard these words, and watched the figures of the unknown and Gulian, as they passed from the garden walk under the shadow of the porch, and into the hall door.

And then he waited,--O how earnestly and with what a tide of hopes, suspicions, fears!--for the re-appearance of the unknown!

Five minutes passed.

"The boy has not had time to confess _the secret_,"--the thought almost rose to the colonel's lips.--"If this unknown man returns to town, leaving Gulian here, all will yet be well."

The hall-door opened again, was locked, and the form of the unknown, in cloak and sombrero, once more appeared upon the garden walk.

"To town, Felix, as fast as you can drive. I must be back within two hours."

"Yes, my lord."

He entered the carriage,--it turned,--and the horses dashed up the narrow road at full speed.

"Two hours!" ejaculated Tarleton, as the sound of the wheels died away. "In two hours, 'my lord!' you will find the nest robbed of its bird."

Determined at all hazards to rescue the person of the boy, Gulian, and bear him from the old mansion, he opened the wicket gate, and, passing along the garden walk, approached the silent mansion. The wind sighed mournfully among the leafless branches, and not a single ray of light illumined the front of the gloomy pile.

The colonel passed under the porch, and tried the hall door; it was locked. With a half-muttered curse, he again emerged from the porch, and from the garden walk, once more surveyed the mansion.

Could he believe his eyes? From a narrow window, in the second story of the western wing, a ray of light stole out upon the gloom--stole out from an aperture in the window curtains--and trembled like a golden thread along the garden walk.

"The window is low,--the room is a part of the olden portion of the mansion,--that lattice work, intended for the vines, will bear my weight; one blow at the window-sash, and I am in the chamber!"

Thus reflecting, the colonel, ere he began to mount the lattice work, looked cautiously around and listened. All was dark; no sound was heard, save the low moan of the wind among the trees. Tarleton placed the revolver in one pocket, and buried the bowie-knife in its sheath. Then he began cautiously to ascend the lattice work, along which, in summer time, crept a green and flowering vine; it creaked beneath his weight, but did not break,--in a moment he was on a level with the narrow window. Resting his arms upon the deep window-sill, he placed his eye to the aperture in the curtains, and looked within.

He beheld a small room, with low ceiling, and wainscoted walls; a door, which evidently opened upon the corridor leading to the body of the mansion; a couch, with a canopy of faded tapestry; the floor of dark wood, uncarpeted, and its once polished surface thick with dust; a bureau of ebony, surmounted by an oval mirror in a frame of tarnished gilt. The light stood upon the bureau; and, in front of the light, an alabaster image of the crucified.

Before this image, with head bowed upon his clasped hands, knelt the boy, Gulian. The light shone upon his glossy hair, which fell to his shoulders, and over the outlines of his graceful shape. He was evidently absorbed in voiceless prayer.

Altogether, it was a singular--yes, a beautiful picture. But the Colonel had no time to waste on pictures, however beautiful.

He placed his arm against the sash--it yielded--and the colonel sprang through the window into the room.

Gulian heard the crash, and started up, and beheld the colonel standing near him, his arms folded on his breast, and his face stamped with a look of fiendish triumph.

"Oh, my God!" he ejaculated, and stood as if spell-bound by terror.

"You see it is all in vain," said the Colonel, showing his white teeth in a smile. "You cannot escape from me. You must do my will. Come, my child, we must be moving."

He placed Gulian's cap upon his chesnut curls, and pointed to the door.

The eyes of the poor youth were wild with affright. He evidently stood in mortal terror of Tarleton. His glance roved from side to side, and he ejaculated--

"In his power again; just as I thought myself forever safe from his persecution!"

"Answer me--where did you meet the man who brought you to this house?"

As he spoke, Tarleton seized the boy by the wrist.

"In the street; I had fainted on the sidewalk," was the answer, in a tremulous voice.

"And how came you in the street at such an unusual hour?"

"When you left Mr. Somers' house, you threatened to return to-morrow," answered Gulian, clasping his hands over his breast. "I was determined to avoid seeing you again, at all hazards. I left the house, and wandered forth, uncertain whither to direct my steps. Yes--oh yes! I had one purpose plainly in my mind,"--he smiled, and his eyes brightened up with a strange light,--"I resolved to bend my steps to the river."

"To the river?"

"Yes, to the river," answered the boy, with a singular smile: "for you know that if I was drowned, I would be safe from you forever."

"And you would become a--suicide!" said Tarleton, with a sneer; "you, so finely brought up! Have you no fear of the hereafter?"

Gulian's pale face lighted with a faint glow.--"There are some deeds which are worse than suicide," he answered quietly, yet with a significant glance. "It was to avoid the commission of one of these deeds, that, scarcely an hour ago, I left the house of Mr. Somers and bent my steps to the river."

"And you fainted, and this man came across you while you were insensible--eh? Who is he? and what was it that led him from his carriage, along the street where he found you?"

"An impulse, or presentiment, as he told me, which he could not resist, and which impressed him that he might save the life of a fellow-being. He left his carriage; he arrived before it was too late. In a little while I should have been frozen to death."

Again Tarleton seized the boy by the wrist; and his brow grew dark, his eyes fierce and threatening.

"And you confessed _the secret_ to this man?" he exclaimed. "Nay, deny it not!" He tightened his grasp. "You did confess--did you not?"

"Oh, pity!--do not harm me!" and Gulian shrunk before Tarleton's gaze. "I did not confess _the secret_--indeed I did not."

"Swear you did not!"

"I swear I did not!"

"I will not believe you, unless you will place your hand upon this crucifix, and swear by the Savior, that you did not reveal _the secret_."

The boy placed his hand upon the alabaster image, and said solemnly, "By the name of the Savior, I swear that I did not reveal _the secret_ of which you speak."

Tarleton burst into a laugh.

"I breathe freer!" he cried. "You are superstitious; and, with your hand upon an image like that, I know you cannot lie. _The secret_ is safe, and all will yet be well. Come, we must go."

"Oh, you do not want me now!" cried Gulian, shrinking away from his grasp--"now that you are assured of the security of _the secret_?"

"Worse than ever, my boy," cried Tarleton, with a tone of mocking gayety. "I am positively starving to death for your company. To-day and to-morrow you must be with me all the time, and never for an instant quit my sight. After that you are free!"

The countenance of Gulian, in which a masculine vigor of thought was tempered by an almost woman-like roundness of outline and softness of expression, underwent a sudden and peculiar change.

"I will not go with you," he said, slowly and firmly, his eyes shining vividly, while his face was unnaturally pale.

"You will not go with me?" and Tarleton advanced with a scowling brow--"We'll see, we'll see,--"

"I will not go with you," repeated Gulian. "You call me superstitious. It may be superstition which makes my blood run cold with loathing, when you are near me; or it may be some voiceless warning from the dead, who, while in this life, were deeply injured by you. But it is not superstition which induces me to place my hand upon this crucifix, and tell you, that you cannot drag me from it, save at peril of your life. Ah, you sneer! The house is deserted:--true. The crucifix of frail alabaster:--true. But you are fairly warned. The moment that crucifix breaks, to you is one of peril."

Tarleton knew not what to make of the expression and words of the boy. At first there was something in the look of Gulian which touched him, against his will; but, as the closing words fell on his car, he burst into a laugh. "Come, child, we'll leave the house by the hall door," he said; and, as he passed an arm around Gulian's waist, he placed the other hand upon the door which led into the passage: "Nay, you need not cling to that bauble! Come! I'll endure this nonsense no longer--"

The alabaster image was crushed in the grasp of Gulian, as he was torn from it; and at the same instant the colonel opened the door.

Gulian, struggling in the grasp of Tarleton, clapped his hands twice, and cried aloud: "Cain! Cain!"

The next moment it seemed as though a crushing weight had bounded, or been hurled, against the colonel's back; he was dashed to the floor; he found himself struggling in the fangs of a huge dog, with short, shaggy hair, black as jet, short ears, and formidable jaws. As the dog uttered a low growl, his teeth sank deep into the back of Tarleton's neck, and Tarleton uttered a groan of intolerable agony. Tarleton was dragged along the floor, by the ferocious beast, which raised him by the neck, and then dashed him to the floor again; treating him as the tiger treats the prey which he is about to strangle and kill.

Cain was indeed a ferocious beast. He had accompanied the unknown over half the globe; and was obedient to his slightest sign; defending those whom he wished defended, and attacking those whom he wished attacked. Before leaving the mansion, the unknown had placed Cain before the door of Gulian's room, and given Gulian into its charge. "Guard him, Cain! obey him, Cain!" And, as Tarleton opened the door, at a sign and a word from Gulian, the dog proved faithful to his master's bidding. In the grasp of this formidable animal, Tarleton now found himself writhing--his blood spurting over the floor, as he was dragged along.

As Gulian beheld this scene, and heard the cries of Tarleton mingling with the low growl of the dog, his heart relented. He forgot all that Tarleton had made him suffer.

"Cain! Cain!--here, Cain!--here!" he cried; but in vain. Cain had tasted blood. His teeth twined deep in his victim's neck; and his jaws reddened with Tarleton's blood; he did not hear the voice of Gulian.

It was a terrible moment for Tarleton. Uttering frightful imprecations between his howls of pain, he made a last and desperate effort--an effort strengthened by despair and by pain, which seemed as the pang of death,--he turned, even as the teeth of the dog were in his neck; he clenched the infuriated animal by the throat. Then took place a brief but horrible contest, in which the dog and the man rolled over each other, the man clutching, as with a death-grasp, the throat of the dog, and the dog burying his teeth in the man's shoulder.

Gulian could bear the sight no longer; he sank, half fainting, against the bureau, and hid his eyes from the light.

Presently, the uproar of the combat--the growl of the dog, and the cries of Tarleton--were succeeded by a dead stillness.

Gulian raised his eyes.

Tarleton stood in the center of the room, his face and white coat bathed in blood--his bowie-knife, also dripping with blood, held aloft in his right hand. He presented a frightful spectacle. His coat was rent over the right shoulder, and his mangled flesh was discernible. And that face, whose death-like pallor was streaked with blood, bore an expression of anguish and of madness, which chilled Gulian's heart but to behold.

At his feet was stretched the huge carcass of the dog. The gash across his throat, from which the blood was streaming over the floor, had been inflicted by the hand of the colonel, in the extremest moment of his despair. Cain had fought his last battle. As Tarleton shook the bloody knife over his head, the brave old dog uttered his last moan and died.

"It will not do, my child--it will not do," and Tarleton burst into a loud and unnatural laugh. "You must go with me! With me; alive or dead." He rushed towards Gulian, brandishing the knife. "Oh, you d----d wretch! do you know that I've a notion to cut you into pieces, limb by limb?"

"Mercy! mercy!" shrieked the boy, falling on his knees, as that face, dabbled in blood, and writhing, as with madness, in every feature, _glowered_ over him.

But Tarleton did not strike. He placed his hand upon his forehead, and made a desperate effort to recall his shattered senses. Suffering intolerable physical agony, he was yet firm in the purpose which had led him to the old mansion.

"If I can get this boy to the carriage, all will yet be well!" he muttered. "I'll faint soon from loss of blood; but not until this boy is in my power. Brain, do not fail me now!"

He dropped the bloody knife upon the carcass of the dog; and, taking a handkerchief from his pocket, he bound it tightly around his throat. Then, lifting his cloak from the floor, he wound it about him, and writhed with pain, as it touched the wound on his shoulder.

"Now will you go with me alive, or dead?" He lifted the knife again, and advanced to Gulian. "Take your choice. If your choice is life,"--he could not refrain a cry of pain--"take the light and go on before me!"

Trembling in every limb, his gaze riveted to the face of Tarleton, Gulian took the light, and crossed the threshold of the room. Tarleton followed him with measured step, still clutching the knife in his right hand.

"On--on!" muttered Tarleton; "attempt to escape, and I strike,--on--," and he reeled like a drunken man, and fell insensible at Gulian's feet.