Part 10

The moon, which was at its full, shed a softly brilliant silvery light over land and water. Away towards the west spread the beautiful lake-like expanse of the river--above five miles in length by two miles in width--which is bounded northward and southward respectively by the counties before referred to, eastward by Drum Point, and westward by the long, slender and curving, and still more lovely Point Patience. The waters of this fair expanse, softly stirred by a light breeze, gleamed with myriads of lights and shadows under the moonlight spell. The front of the low bluffs on the Saint Mary's side of the river, and the broad beach of sand beneath them, glowed softly white in the beautiful light.

It was impossible that one endowed with the temperament of John Alvan Coe could avoid, although constantly accustomed to scenes of natural beauty, allowing his gaze to rest for a moment upon the charming view before him. His attention was soon arrested, however, by something which was occurring in the harbour under the hill on which he stood. The only vessel remaining there was the beautiful brig which he had noticed at sunset. Three boats, apparently heavily laden, had left the brig and were coming towards the shore. Soon afterwards the young man saw a light shining out from one of the back windows of the storehouse on the beach.

There were some peculiarities in the character, or rather mental constitution, of young Coe, with which it is necessary that I should acquaint the reader, before we proceed farther in the narrative, of the remarkable series of occurrences which arose to him out of the incidents of this night. He not only loved danger for its own sake, but was endowed with great fondness for romantic and stirring adventures. He had a great and at times irresistible curiosity to investigate whatever presented the appearance of darkness and mystery. In childhood this peculiarity had mainly exhibited itself in a fondness for unravelling riddles and conundrums; in more advanced youth, by solving, with great patience and industry, the most difficult problems in mathematics. The penetration of the meaning of the movement of the boats from the brig at such an hour irresistibly called to mind, as it did, the mysterious reports of smugglers and pirates in connection with this place, presented an especial fascination to a mind constituted as was his. His resolution was immediately formed to discover, at all hazards, the meaning of what was taking place beneath him.

It should have been mentioned before, perhaps, that the hill-side above the harbour was covered, to a great extent, with a growth of bushes, with a tree here and there. It was under one of the latter, whose dense shadow hid them from the view of those in the boats, that the fishing-party stood, while young Coe was making the observations recorded above. As soon as he formed the resolution already mentioned, the young man addressed the two negro men--

"Boys," he said, "take up the basket"--they had put it down to rest themselves--"and go on. I shall follow you very soon. But do not wait for me, even though I should not overtake you before you get home."

The two negroes resumed their load and again started on their path. The young man waited until they had passed out of sight over the hill, and until the boats had landed and the men belonging to them had, after a number of trips between the boats and the storehouse, transferred all the lading to the latter, and themselves remained under its roof. He then cautiously descended the hill, concealing himself as much as possible by interposing, whenever he could do so, the bushes between himself and the shore. In a few minutes he arrived beneath the window of the store-room from which the light that he had before observed was still shining.

Guardedly he looked in. The counter had been entirely removed from its place, revealing a long and narrow opening in the floor, and steps leading downwards. Silks and other costly dry goods, and a number of boxes and other closed packages, were piled on the counter and floor. A lamp, casting a bright light, stood upon the counter, and another light shone from an opening in the floor; and men were seen carrying the merchandise into the cellar to which the steps below the floor led, and returning at short intervals for more. Two or three other men were standing on the floor of the store-room; one or the other of whom seemed, from time to time, to be giving directions to those who were removing the piles of goods to the apartment below.

There was a tall and handsome man on the side of the room opposite to the window at which young Coe was standing, who leaned against the closed door which looked, when opened, upon the river. This man wore a dark dress, and a black hat with a broad slouched brim, which threw a dense shadow over the upper part of his countenance. The long black beard from his unshaven face reached half way from his chin to his waist. This man did not speak, except to make a remark now and then to the two or three men who were not engaged in removing the goods.

Among all the men whom young Coe saw, there was not one whom he recognised as having been seen by him before. If Mr Ashleigh himself was engaged in what was taking place, he must have been in the cellar.

John Alvan Coe had barely time to make the observations recorded above, when the tall and quiet individual, who was leaning against the closed door, beckoned to a man near him, to whom he made some remarks in a low tone. This man immediately spoke to the others who were standing about on the floor of the store room. Instantly all in the room who were not engaged in removing the goods--except the long-bearded man who wore the slouched hat, and who, with a motion not at all hurried, opened for them the door against which he had been leaning--sallied forth upon the sands.

The young man waited for no further development. Supposing very naturally, what was the case, that he had been discovered, and that this party were sent in pursuit of him, he immediately turned away from the window and plunged into the pathway leading up the hill towards Mr Ashleigh's residence. No action, under the circumstances, could have shown the quick perception and ready decision of his mind to more advantage than his at once taking to this pathway; for, after he was once seen by his pursuers, his concealing himself amongst the few trees and scattered clumps of bushes along the hill-side would have been no safeguard under the almost daylight brightness of the clear moonlight.

Such a course would have given to his pursuers only a limited space of ground to search over at their leisure, with the absolute certainty of discovering his place of concealment and making him prisoner. His taking the plain pathway to the hill-top made his escape depend upon his fleetness of foot, but only for a short distance; the hill once surmounted, a dense forest spread for miles along the route which he had to pursue. He had no uneasiness or doubt in trusting to his speed; for, inured by daily exercise, he had long been considered the boldest leaper and fleetest runner in all the country side.

STORY TWO, CHAPTER TWO.

THE PURSUIT.

*Hahn*. My lord, he has escaped. *Otto*. Have thou no fear; he shall be prisoner. I know the bird, his ways, where he frequents; And I shall lime a twig, upon the which I'll easily entice him to alight.--_Oldenheim_.

The noise of the footsteps passing out of the door brought from the cellar a tall and slender elderly man, with black eyes, and dark hair thickly interspersed with grey. This individual seemed to be in a state of much excitement.

"What is the matter, Captain Vance?" he asked. "What has happened?"

"Nothing of much importance," answered the dark man with the black slouched hat, who was again leaning, as when first seen by John Alvan Coe, against the door, which opened upon the sands. "I caught sight of a man looking in upon us just now through the back window."

"Do you consider that fact as of not much importance?" said the elderly man from the cellar. "If you were in my position, I think that you would entertain a different opinion."

"Oh!" exclaimed the captain in a careless manner, "he was only `A chiel amang us takin' notes.' I am very sure that he will never `prent 'em.' I shall take especial pains that he shall never have a chance of doing so."

"The men who went out just now then," remarked the elderly man, in an interrogative manner, "were sent to catch him?"

"Yes," was the laconic reply.

"God grant that they may catch him!" exclaimed the grey-headed man, in an earnest tone.

"If I were you, I would not call upon God in such a case," said Captain Vance, whose coolness and self-possession afforded a complete contrast to the excitement and alarm conspicuous in the bearing of his elder companion. "You had better turn your face downward than upward when you call for help; for you are more likely to have sympathy, in the present business, from the powers below than from the powers above. If prayer is the longing of the heart rather than the speech of the lips--as I heard the man who was looking in at the window say a year or so ago--you would have more chance for help by praying to the devil, Mr Ashleigh; that is, if his infernal majesty should think that any more assistance to you is needed to buy you."

"It is evident, captain," retorted Mr Ashleigh, "that you are now in one of your philosophical moods, as Billy Bowsprit calls them. I cannot see, however, that, even in the view of our relative positions which you are now taking, you have any advantage of me. I have long been familiar with the saying that `the receiver is as bad as the thief;' but I have never heard, if my memory serves me rightly, that the receiver is worse than the thief."

"Nevertheless, I have the advantage of you," quietly answered Captain Vance. "I do not pretend to be any better than I am; I do not `wear the livery of heaven to serve the devil in.'"

"Not in `your vocation, Hal,'" said Mr Ashleigh; "that is, not here, on shipboard; but at home you are, I am sure, just as much a hypocrite as I am."

"There is some pith in that retort," replied Captain Vance, in a somewhat yielding tone. "Ah! we are all more or less hypocrites, Mr Ashleigh; as the poet says, `we are all shadows to each other.'"

"Besides," continued Mr Ashleigh, "nobody in this neighbourhood would recognise you in that disguise and by this light; whereas, this building is known to belong to me, and the discovery of the business which is carried on here would, therefore, ruin me."

"Pardon the lightness of my manner of speaking," said the young man, in an earnest tone of voice. "My real reason for speaking so was not on account of want of concern in your interests, but because there is, in fact, no danger to you, or to any one of us, in any discovery made by the individual who just now peeped in upon us."

"I think that you intimated, a few moments ago," remarked Ashleigh, "that you know the person who was reconnoitring us. Who is he?"

"John Alvan Coe," was the answer; "son of old Mr Coe, who owns a plantation at the head of Saint John's Creek, a few miles from this place."

"Then I am lost," exclaimed Ashleigh, in increased alarm. "No man in this county--I may say in this State--can surpass him in ferreting out a secret, when once he has obtained a hint of it."

"I am as familiar with that peculiarity in his character as you are," remarked Captain Vance. "But I have a plan partly formed in my head, which, I am almost sure, will not only render him harmless, but will also add a very brave and intelligent member to my ship's company. I have but little hope that those who have gone in pursuit of him will overtake him. He is the fleetest runner that I ever knew; and sailors make but poor comparative headway on land."

"What is your plan?" asked Ashleigh.

"It is not yet perfectly formed," answered Vance. "It is still in the crucible of the brain; and I cannot tell what shape it will take until it has come out complete."

"You had better be in a hurry then," said the elder speaker. "There is but little time to act; when he has once told what he has witnessed here to another, the information will spread and spread, and there will be no stopping it. And then the consequences--ah! `that way madness lies.'"

"Feel no uneasiness," said Captain Vance, in a tone of perfect confidence. "He shall take his breakfast on board of the _Falcon_ to-morrow morning."

"It is some relief to me to hear you speak so confidently," remarked Ashleigh. "Still I cannot help fearing that trouble will grow out of this thing. I wish that my advice in one respect had been followed, and that we had waited for a few days, until the moon will set before daylight, so that we might have had an hour or two of absolute darkness for our work."

"I have before represented to you," replied Captain Vance, "that we should have run still greater risk by such a course, perhaps have had the revenue officer down upon me, while I had all these men on board, and such a quantity of goods for which I have no bill of lading. What suspicions would have been aroused by my lingering round here for a week at least, with no excuse on account of stress of weather for the delay!"

"Well," observed Ashleigh, with an uneasy sigh, "there is some force in what you say; and it is too late now to discuss the matter."

"Oh!" said Vance, in a light and cheerful manner, "there is no need of sighing, I assure you. This affair of young Coe does not disturb me at all. It only determines me to do at once what I have often thought of undertaking. I have no doubt, as I said before, that it will only result in adding a new and unusually valuable member to our force. He is remarkably intelligent, and as brave as a lion."

"I hope that your impressions may prove correct," remarked Ashleigh, in a manner that still expressed uneasiness.

At this moment the door was opened from the outside, giving entrance to a male individual of a somewhat comical appearance. He was rather under five feet in height, and was what is called "square built," that is, his form and limbs were very stout, or rather, perhaps, thick; and his waist was nearly as wide as his shoulders or his hips. His hair was of a reddish-brown or tawny colour, of exuberant growth, and worn in long, clustering curls which swept his shoulders. His face was deeply tanned by sun and weather; and the scar of a sabre-cut above his left eye caused the eyebrow on that side to be below the line of its fellow. The eyes were of a reddish hazel colour, and their expression showed that their possessor had an appreciation of the humorous, but that there was also "a lurking devil" in his composition. He was dressed in the ordinary sailor costume of that as well as of the present period, of blue cloth roundabout, with many small brass buttons, coarse Osnaburg trowsers, considerably soiled, light pumps, and a tarpaulin hat.

"Well, Billy," said the captain, "what luck?"

"No luck at all, as far as I am concerned," was the answer. "A short, broad-beamed lugger like me has no more chance of overhauling a trim, well-rigged craft like that long-legged fellow, who has been taking liberties with our harmless secrets, than a Dutch drogger has to beat upon a wind a Baltimore clipper."

Baltimore was even then, the reader will recollect, famed for the fleetness of her vessels.

"Where are the other two?" asked Captain Vance.

"I don't know, indeed, captain," replied Billy. "When I got to the top of the hill they were all hull down; and I thought that I had better steer for port before I had lost all my bearings. So here I am. I think, by-the-bye, that that long-legged fellow will get the weather-guage of all of them. Do you know his name, captain?"

Billy was a privileged character with his captain, who, in fact, was generally more familiar with his men than is usual with officers in chief command.

"Yes," answered Captain Vance; "his name is Coe."

"That's just the very name for him," said the sailor. "I have often heard that, in the merchant-houses, `Co.' sometimes stands for more than one man; and I know that this fellow is fully equal to two. Indeed, I think that he'll prove himself too much for all of us to-night. He runs like a clipper before the wind."

The door again opened, and two seamen entered, both dressed in costumes similar to that of the last-comer before them. One was evidently a common sailor; the other was a stout, compactly-built man, about five feet six or seven inches in height, of a swarthy complexion, with dark and lowering eyes, and a generally stern and forbidding expression of countenance. His dark hair, somewhat mingled with grey, was, contrary to the usual sailor fashion, cut closely to his head; but he wore all of his grizzled, straight, and uncurling beard long. He seemed to be about forty years of age.

This man interlarded his talk with many oaths of the rudest character. I prefer to omit them in reporting his conversation.

"Well, Mr Afton," said Captain Vance, in a pleasant tone, addressing this individual, "where is your prisoner?"

"Prisoner?" was the rough answer, "I once was told of a man who was such a fool as to undertake to run a race with the moon; but he had a sight more chance of winning his race than we had of winning ours. We overtook, in the pursuit, two stupid negroes carrying a load of fish. I thought that they had probably seen him, and could, therefore, give us some information with regard to our chase; but though I cut some tough hickory rods, and they were both well thrashed, we could get nothing out of them."

"That was useless, to say the least of it," said the captain, with some sternness. "Of course, if they had seen him, they would have told you without having been cruelly beaten."

Mr Afton indulged himself in a few more oaths, and a heavy frown came upon his face. The captain seemed to take but little notice, however; and there was silence for a few moments. This silence was broken by Mr Afton.

"If I knew who that spying fellow is, and where he lives, captain," he said, with more respect in his tones and manner, "I would, with your consent, take a few of the men, storm the house, capture him, and bring him aboard."

"I know the man," replied Captain Vance, "and also where he is to be found. But there is no need of resorting to the violent means which you recommend--which, by-the-bye, would destroy our trade here, by making it unsafe for us to visit this harbour or its neighbourhood any more. I think that I have a better plan. I know well the character of the man who was watching us, and since you started in pursuit of him, have thought of a plan by which I shall have him peaceably on board of the brig early to-morrow morning, before he shall have an opportunity of communicating with any one. Trust the matter to me; I feel not the least doubt of my success. I will speak to you further on the subject presently."

From the time that Afton, Billy, and the other sailor had gone in pursuit of young Coe, the process of removing the bales and boxes of goods to the cellar had been unremittingly continued. Soon after Billy Bowsprit's return, Mr Ashleigh had gone down into the cellar again, to resume the superintendence of the storage of the merchandise. Shortly after the close of the conversation recorded above, between the captain and the first-mate, the merchant reascended to the store-room, and announced that the goods were all safely put away. He was followed by the sailors who had been engaged in carrying down the packages.

"Come, boys," said the store-keeper, addressing those who had come with him out of the cellar; "let us put the slide and the counter back into their places, and put the store-room again in order. Our night's work will then be finished. I, for one, shall be glad of it, for I am both tired and sleepy."

In a few moments afterwards, and while Captain Vance was holding a short, whispered conversation with Mr Afton, his first-mate, the doors and windows of the store-room were made fast. Then the merchant took his way up the hill to his house, and the seafaring people, all but one, returned to the brig.

STORY TWO, CHAPTER THREE.

THE EARLY VISITOR.

*Teler*. 'Tis a brave venture, our good master Jansen, And needs a man of pluck to carry it. *Jansen*. Danger, say you? and mystery to back it! Say no more, Teler--I'm the man for you.--_Old Drama_.

Millmont, the residence of Thomas Coe, Esq, on his plantation of the same name, near the head of Saint John's creek, was a large, two-storey frame building, with single-storey wings. Each of these wings contained one room, with an attic above, and was connected with the main building by a short and narrow passage or entry. In one of these wings was the chamber of John Alvan Coe. It was a large room, with windows sheltered by Venetian blinds, and opening almost to the floor. A large yard, shaded by several old trees, extended from the front of the house and from the gables of the wings; the garden, in the usual fashion when attached to plantation houses of that time, was on the fourth side, or in the rear of the buildings.

John Alvan Coe not only escaped from his pursuers, but arrived home before the two negro men who had accompanied him. He at once entered his room, and in a few moments--having first loaded his pistols and placed them on a table near the head of his bed, and having seen that the window-shutters were all made fast--sprung into bed, and was soon deep in that sound and refreshing sleep which fatigue always assures to healthy youth.

About four o'clock, or at the earliest "peep of day," the young man was aroused from his slumbers by a light, grating noise, made by running a stick or a finger down along the outside of the Venetian shutters of one of the windows of his room. He immediately started from his sleep.

"Who is there?" he exclaimed.

"Get up, John, and let me in, quickly," said a voice from the outside of the window. "I have something interesting to tell you."

"Is that you, Harry Marston?" asked John. "Wait a moment till I get on some of my clothes."

In a few minutes the early visitor was admitted into the chamber. It was, as John had supposed, Henry Marston, the son of a wealthy planter in the neighbourhood. Being of an adventurous and roving disposition, he had been unwillingly allowed by his parents, some years before, to enter upon a seafaring life. He had risen rapidly in his chosen profession, and was now captain of the _Sea-bird_, a merchant vessel in which his father owned an interest, and which was engaged in trading between Baltimore and certain ports in the West Indies and along the Spanish main.

Young Marston was tall and handsome. His hair and the slight moustache which shaded his upper lip were of dark brown hue. His dark, hazel eyes were expressive, at the first glance, of both gentleness and resolution; but a second, and more observant look, discovered something more in them--a something that created uneasiness and a want of trust. Every movement of his body seemed instinct with grace. His voice was soft and musical, but it did not at all remind you of the singing of birds or of the tones of other cheerful and innocent creatures. Still, there was a peculiar fascination in his speech and manner, which possessed a great influence over certain natures. The young man was on this occasion dressed in a handsome suit of black broadcloth.

"How _are_ you, Harry?" exclaimed John, as soon as his visitor entered the room. "This is, indeed, a surprise, and a delightful one. When did you get back home?"