Chapter 28

But, gasping, heaved the breath that Lara drew, And dull the film along his dim eye grew.

BYRON.

On the arrival of the party at the settlement, Lieutenant Venn divided it into two detachments; at the head of one of which he carried the Assistant to his own house, while the other, under the command of an inferior officer, was charged with the security of the prisoners. Only the sagamore was strictly confined, being ironed and placed in the same dungeon which Joy had occupied. Sassacus made no resistance, but submitted with a stoical impassivity as to an irresistible fate. The lady and Indian girl, as those from whom flight was less to be feared, and with whom it would be more difficult to effect, and also out of deference to the weakness of their sex, were committed to the care of Dame Bars, by whom they were to be closely watched. As for Arundel, he was permitted to depart, the lieutenant informing him that he had been arrested only to prevent the carrying of information to the Knight. It is doubtful, however, whether, if Spikeman had still been in command, he would have escaped on as easy terms.

The little community was thrown into some commotion by these events. The dangerous wound of so prominent a person as the Assistant, and the capture of the renowned Indian sachem--not to speak of the lady--could not fail to occasion a lively interest. As soon as the results of the night expedition were known, (and the news flew with wonted celerity,) every body was in the streets, giving and receiving information, or what purported to be such, and making and listening to comments thereupon. We cannot, however, remain to hear the conversation of the grave citizens at the corners, but must follow those whose particular fortunes we have undertaken to portray.

The unfortunate Spikeman, unable to suppress his groans at the pain occasioned by the motions of his bearers--his clothing saturated with blood, which kept oozing from the orifices of the wound--was borne to his dwelling, and delivered to the weeping household. It would be absurd to suppose that any great grief was felt by Dame Spikeman, and hers was partly the feeling arising from early associations and long familiarity; but it is impossible for the most stoical to contemplate, without emotion, one in the condition of the suffering man, and the tears of Eveline and of Prudence were mingled with those of the dame.

It happened that Dr. Samuel Fuller, of the Plymouth colony, who had come over with the first Pilgrims was in Boston at the time. He was immediately brought to the wounded man, and was soon followed by Governor Winthrop, Mr. Eliot, and other friends. The corselet had been removed, and a portion of the clothing cut away, and Spikeman lay on his side, spasmodically breathing. Yet had resolution not entirely deserted him. His strong character still spoke in his face, and he looked like one who, though conquered, was not subdued.

Doctor Puller approached the couch and gently touched the arrow, but it produced such a spasm that he did not repeat the experiment. The eyes of Spikeman were fastened on the countenance of the surgeon, and read therein his doom.

"There is no hope?" he gasped.

"I humbly trust," said the doctor, who was "not only useful in his faculty, but otherwise, as he was a godly man, and served Christ in the office of a deacon in the Church for many years, and forward to do good in his place" according to an old chronicle--"I humbly trust that a crown of glory awaits thee in the other world whither thou art hastening."

A groan, which shook the couch whereon he was lying, and gent the blood gushing from the wound, burst from Spikeman, as he heard the answer.

"Yea," said good and tender-hearted Mr. Eliot, let our brother anchor his mind on the promises which are very comfortable--For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear, but ye have received the spirit of adoption whereby we cry, Abba, Father.' For I reckon that the sufferings of the present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. 'Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord, and their works do follow them.'"

"Works?" interrupted Spikeman. "Who speaks of works? They are filthy rags."

"They are indeed but filthy rags," said Mr. Eliot, "to them who rely upon them for salvation; yet are they not unpleasing as being the fruits of saving faith."

"I will not hear of works," said Spikeman. "Moreover, whom he did predestinate--them"--a sudden pang prevented the conclusion of the sentence, but it was finished by Mr. Eliot.

"He also called; and whom he called, them he also justified; and whom he justified, them he also glorified."

A silence followed, which was interrupted only by the sobs of Dame Spikeman, until the wounded man inquired:

"How long shall I live?"

"It may be two hours; it may be only one," answered the physician.

"A short time." murmured the Assistant, "My soul doth travail with anguish," he said, fixing his burning eyes on Mr. Eliot.

"O, my brother!" exclaimed the divine, "the precious blood of Christ cleanseth from all sins, though they be as crimson. Faint not now, when thou art about to cross the river of Jordan, but think upon thy Redeemer."

"I strive," said Spikeman, "but there are thoughts which--which rise up, as a mist, between me and him."

"O, cleanse thy bosom of this perilous stuff," said Winthrop. "If there be a sin which persecutes thee, confess it and repent."

"Is that the voice of the Governor?" asked Spikeman, who seemed to have forgotten his entrance. "Repentance! Repentance! it is too late."

Those around the couch looked at one another with dismay.

"Our dear brother," said Mr. Eliot, "of what specially wouldst thou repent? Believe me--it is never too late to trust God's mercies. Think of the penitent thief upon the Cross."

"Do you dare to call me a thief?" said Spikeman, hoarsely. "Ah!" he added, "how I talk! These are strange feelings. What I have to do must be done quickly. Call Eveline Dunning."

"Who is in the room?" he inquired, after the young lady had entered.

The names of those present were enumerated. "Let them remain," he said. "They are of the congregation, but I would not that the world should know my shame. Look not thus at me," he exclaimed, as soon as he saw Eveline. "Thy face is like thy father's, the friend whom I wronged. Be nigh to hear, but let me not see thee. Eveline, the property which should be thine, I have misapplied, and it has melted from my grasp. It was that my misdeed might not be discovered that I denied thee to Miles Arundel, though thy father wished the nuptials. Yet, Eveline, marry him not; he is of the corrupt Church of England."

These words he uttered with many interruptions of pain, resuming when the paroxysm passed away.

"Would you see Miles?" inquired the weeping girl.

"To what end? I care not for him. He is not of the congregation. Go now. I have done."

"My spirit is lightened," he said, as she left the room. "Edmund Dunning," he added, as his mind temporarily wandered, "why do you fasten your accusing eyes on me? I have made all the reparation that I can. What more?"

"Alas!" said Mr. Eliot, aside, to Governor Winthrop, "who would have thought this of one so zealous for our Israel?"

Low as was the tone, the words struck the ear of Spikeman.

"Whatever be my sins," he said, "even though dark as those of David, I have been zealous unto slaying for the people of God. Is the enemy taken?" he inquired.

"Whom mean you?" asked Winthrop.

"Whom should I mean, but the man ye call the Knight of the Golden Melice?"

"He is not yet taken," answered the Governor.

"Let him be hunted, as a partridge on the mountains; let him be run down and seized; kill him, if he resists."

"This is no fitting frame of mind for a parting spirit," said Mr. Eliot. "Let me beseech you to turn your thoughts on the Saviour."

But delirium had now taken possession of the mind of the dying man, and made him insensible alike of all that was said and of pain.

"Away with him!" he cried, "who lays snares for the feet of my people. Hew him down, though he hugged the arms of the altar."

"Shall we not, beloved brother, unite our supplications to the throne of grace, for the last time on earth?" asked Mr. Eliot, bending over him.

"Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect? It is God who justifies," said Spikeman, turning on the minister his glazing eyes.

"It is in vain," said Winthrop. "He heeds not nor understands what you say."

"Papistical mummeries! Your croziers, your mitres, your mumbled prayers from the mass-book! I hate them! Forty years long they wandered in the wilderness, but they prevailed at last. Stay ye the hands of our Moses! Be strong! Quit ye like men."

"His mind, even in its wanderings, doth remember Israel," said Dr. Fuller.

"He hath, indeed," said Winthrop, "ever avouched himself a devoted servant of our cause. Unhappy is it--"

He looked at the weeping wife, and left the sentence unfinished.

"Let him who is without sin cast the first stone," said good Mr. Eliot.

"Where sin abounded, grace did much more abound!" exclaimed the dying man.

"Dear husband," said Dame Spikeman, sobbing, and taking his hand, "know you me?"

"What woman speaks?" said Spikeman. "It is the voice of Prudence--sweet Pru--"

His wife let the hand fall, and covering her face with her handkerchief, burst into a flood of tears. A severer spasm than any before shook the Assistant's frame; a more copious gush of blood poured from the wound; and in the effort to speak the name of the girl, the spirit passed to its account.

"Strange," said pure-minded Mr. Eliot, "that he should utter the name of the serving-maid."

A look of intelligence passed between the Governor and the physician, but neither spoke.

"He is silent," said the divine; "he is stiller, and feels less pain."

"He will never feel pain again in this world," said the doctor, approaching the bed, at a little distance from which he had been sitting, and gazing on the corpse.

Dame Spikeman screamed, and was borne, fainting, from the apartment in the arms of Eveline and Prudence, who hastened in at the sound.

"Behold," said Mr. Eliot, who, after the manner of clergymen, was anxious to "improve the solemn occasion," "another warning addressed to us all, to be ready, for we know not neither the day nor the hour. How suddenly hath our friend been forever removed from the scene of his labors and his hopes. 'As the cloud is consumed and vanisheth away, so he that goeth down to the grave shall come up no more; he shall return no more to his house, neither shall his place know him any more.' But, though the spirit be gone, its memory remains behind. Out of the good and the evil it hath done, shall be erected its monument on earth. O, let us hope that the former, sprinkled and cleansed by the blood that maketh all things pure, may be accepted, and the latter forgiven, for His sake who shed it. For He who made us knoweth whereof we are made; He remembereth that we are dust; He seeth not as man seeth. Only He knows all the secrets of the weak, trembling heart, its temptations, its trials, its struggles, its sorrows, its triumphs, its despairs. Our friend was a captain in Israel. He hath fallen with his armor on, and girded for the battle. He loved the suffering Church. Be that a remembrance to rise like a sweet-smelling incense before the congregation; and if Thou, whose pure eyes cannot behold iniquity, wilt not be extreme to mark what is done amiss, neither may we, the work of thy hands, dare to assume Thy prerogative; but as the sons of sinning Noah, with averted eyes, covered the nakedness of their father with their garments, so will we hide in forgetfulness each short-coming and each transgression."

As the good man, with a swelling heart and sad eyes, in which glittered the sacred drops of human feeling, uttered these words, he looked like a pitying angel from whose lips reproach could not fall, and whose blessed office was only to instruct and to forgive.

The death of one as important as the Assistant Spikeman could not but be sensibly felt in so small a community. He had been a man whose daring nature would not allow him to be at rest, and who was never contented, except in the exercise of all his faculties. Hence he had been not only active and scheming in private life, but also busy and bold in public, driven forward, as it were, by a sort of inborn necessity. Though not deeply regretted, he yet was missed. Those whom his adventurous spirit employed in the fisheries, and the just-commencing fur trade, missed him; his brethren of the congregation, wherein his voice, to the edification of his hearers, had often been lifted up in the "gift of prophecying," missed him; and his coadjutors in the government, to whom in more than one instance his keen natural sagacity had been a guide, and his zeal a stimulus and support, missed him; but it was only for a short time. How often has it been remarked, that few things are as capable of making us feel our insignificance, as the shortness of time in which we are forgotten. Active, prominent, influential as he had been, Spikeman was soon remembered only as yesterday is remembered. There were no loves twining around his memory, reaching beyond the grave, and bringing him back to earth; no tender recollections of benefits conferred, which the heart cherishes as an inestimable treasure. There was naught for the mind to dwell upon, save his public duties, which he, had indeed discharged respectably, but no more. Another Assistant could fill his place as well; another exercise the gift of prophecying to the use of edifying; and other merchants succeed to, his trade. Verily is the life of man as the track of an arrow in the air; as smoke lost in the clouds; as a flake of snow that falls upon the water; as a childish grief, or aught else that is most transient.

But the death of the wicked is a benefit to earth. A gloomy shadow hath passed away; the blight of its presence will fall no more on the innocent. The purpose for which he was sent into this world, that from its joys and its sorrows he might become a nobler being, seems to have been defeated. But I know not. Pass, then, dark spirit; my eyes seek not to follow thy track.

The relation which existed between Arundel and Eveline was, of course, affected by the disclosure of Spikeman on his death-bed--no opposition being henceforth made to the free intercourse of the two young people. There were, indeed, some who lamented that the daughter of precious Edmund Dunning should become the wife of one who had not cast in his lot with the saints; but then, again, Arundel was no enemy to their cause, no railing Rabsheka, but a well-behaved and modest youth, who paid, at least, an outward respect to the customs of the congregation, and might yet, from the influence of godly Edmund Dunning's child, be converted into a vessel of grace. Moreover, the story was pretty well known, and the romantic love which had attracted him from New-England, and the wrong the two had suffered from Spikeman, worked in their favor in the hearts of the Puritans. The marked attention which the generous Winthrop manifested now toward them, seeming as if anxious by present kindness to atone for former injustice, contributed also not a little to the feeling; and, honored and beloved, the young couple, with the sanguine anticipations of youth, looked forward to a cloudless future. Yet was their happiness, especially that of Arundel, damped by reflections upon the condition of the Pequot chief and the lady in the prison, and of the Knight wandering homeless in the forest, with no place of shelter for his defenseless head save the wigwams of the friendly savages. Knowing the severity of the government, the foreboding mind of the young man was harrassed with apprehensions for the fate which might befall them. Access to the Lady Geraldine was permitted to him and Eveline, and thus were they able to bestow upon the unhappy lady at least their sympathy, for of nothing else would she accept; but no one was allowed to see the Sagamore. In vain Arundel pleaded and intreated; in vain he recounted his personal obligations to the Chief; he was firmly repulsed, and told that though the feeling was honorable, it constituted no claim for the violation of a rule which their circumstances imposed.

Disappointed and somewhat incensed at the unnecessary harshness, as he conceived, wherewith the Chief was treated, and at the suspicion implied toward himself, he, one day on his return from an unsuccessful attempt to obtain an order for admission to the prison, from Winthrop, poured out his vexation and wounded pride to his mistress.

"Is it not," he said, "most extraordinary, this refusal to allow me to say to a man who saved my life, that I have not forgotten him? Is it because their treatment of the unfortunate Sagamore is so bad that they are unwilling it should be known? or do they think that in open day I would attempt to rescue him?"

"It is more likely," said Eveline, "to conceal the weakness of the prison."

"By heaven, Eveline, thy woman's wit hath discovered the cause. I have been thinking over his wrongous confinement, and my debt, till I can endure my inaction no longer, and I swear by St. George of England, that I will soon seek an opportunity to deliver the noble savage from the undeserved death, which sure am I, is his intended doom."

"I blame thee not, Miles," said Eveline. "One were craven to forget a benefit. Only show me how I can aid thee, and my assistance shall not be wanting."

"Nay," said her lover. "This is no matter wherein soft, small hands like thine must interfere."

"It is not so big as thine," she said, measuring the little hand on the palm of Arundel, "but such as it is, it shall ever be at the service of honor and justice. Were I a man I would strike a blow for the sake of the generous chief, even although sure of being prostrated to the earth by a hundred the next instant."

The color of Eveline was heightened, and her voice trembled a little, as she made the declaration.

"Thy language, dearest, is a spur to a determination already formed. Were Sassacus to lose his life, and I to leave this land, conscious of having omitted anything to save it, (at present so greatly imperilled,) the thought would cast a gloom over the remainder of my days, which, even thy love could not chase away."

"Yet run into no unnecessary danger--do not be rash. What have I done by my imprudent words?" said the young lady, tears swelling into her eyes, as the possible consequences of what she had said, occurred to her mind. "O Miles, heed me not. What do I know of such things!"

"To prudence and courage," said Arundel, "there is little danger in any enterprise; but sooner shall life desert me, than I the Pequot chief."

They parted, he to ponder means to accomplish his purpose, and she alternately to reproach and to forgive herself, for encouraging her lover in an undertaking full of peril, yet demanded by gratitude and honor.