The Pirate
"How is it possible for me to be your enemy?" said Cleveland.--"Common
gratitude"----
"Common gratitude," said Norna, interrupting him, "is a common word--and
words are the common pay which fools accept at the hands of knaves; but
Norna must be requited by actions--by sacrifices."
"Well, mother, name your request."
"That you never seek to see Minna Troil again, and that you leave this
coast in twenty-four hours," answered Norna.
"It is impossible," said the outlaw; "I cannot be soon enough found in
the sea-stores which the sloop must have."
"You can. I will take care you are fully supplied; and Caithness and the
Hebrides are not far distant--you can depart if you will."
"And why should I," said Cleveland, "if I will not?"
"Because your stay endangers others," said Norna, "and will prove your
own destruction. Hear me with attention. From the first moment I saw you
lying senseless on the sand beneath the cliffs of Sumburgh, I read that
in your countenance which linked you with me, and those who were dear to
me; but whether for good or evil, was hidden from mine eyes. I aided in
saving your life, in preserving your property. I aided in doing so, the
very youth whom you have crossed in his dearest affections--crossed by
tale-bearing and slander."
"_I_ slander Mertoun!" exclaimed Cleveland. "By heaven, I scarce
mentioned his name at Burgh-Westra, if it is that which you mean. The
peddling fellow Bryce, meaning, I believe, to be my friend, because he
found something could be made by me, did, I have since heard, carry
tattle, or truth, I know not which, to the old man, which was confirmed
by the report of the whole island. But, for me, I scarce thought of him
as a rival; else, I had taken a more honourable way to rid myself of
him."
"Was the point of your double-edged knife, directed to the bosom of an
unarmed man, intended to carve out that more honourable way?" said
Norna, sternly.
Cleveland was conscience-struck, and remained silent for an instant, ere
he replied, "There, indeed, I was wrong; but he is, I thank Heaven,
recovered, and welcome to an honourable satisfaction."
"Cleveland," said the Pythoness, "No! The fiend who employs you as his
implement is powerful; but with me he shall not strive. You are of that
temperament which the dark Influences desire as the tools of their
agency; bold, haughty, and undaunted, unrestrained by principle, and
having only in its room a wild sense of indomitable pride, which such
men call honour. Such you are, and as such your course through life has
been--onward and unrestrained, bloody and tempestuous. By me, however,
it shall be controlled," she concluded, stretching out her staff, as if
in the attitude of determined authority--"ay, even although the demon
who presides over it should now arise in his terrors."
Cleveland laughed scornfully. "Good mother," he said, "reserve such
language for the rude sailor that implores you to bestow him fair wind,
or the poor fisherman that asks success to his nets and lines. I have
been long inaccessible both to fear and to superstition. Call forth your
demon, if you command one, and place him before me. The man that has
spent years in company with incarnate devils, can scarce dread the
presence of a disembodied fiend."
This was said with a careless and desperate bitterness of spirit, which
proved too powerfully energetic even for the delusions of Norna's
insanity; and it was with a hollow and tremulous voice that she asked
Cleveland--"For what, then, do you hold me, if you deny the power I have
bought so dearly?"
"You have wisdom, mother," said Cleveland; "at least you have art, and
art is power. I hold you for one who knows how to steer upon the current
of events, but I deny your power to change its course. Do not,
therefore, waste words in quoting terrors for which I have no feeling,
but tell me at once, wherefore you would have me depart?"
"Because I will have you see Minna no more," answered Norna--"Because
Minna is the destined bride of him whom men call Mordaunt
Mertoun--Because if you depart not within twenty-four hours, utter
destruction awaits you. In these plain words there is no metaphysical
delusion--Answer me as plainly."
"In as plain words, then," answered Cleveland, "I will _not_ leave these
islands--not, at least, till I have seen Minna Troil; and never shall
your Mordaunt possess her while I live."
"Hear him!" said Norna--"hear a mortal man spurn at the means of
prolonging his life!--hear a sinful--a most sinful being, refuse the
time which fate yet affords for repentance, and for the salvation of an
immortal soul!--Behold him how he stands erect, bold and confident in
his youthful strength and courage! My eyes, unused to tears--even my
eyes, which have so little cause to weep for him, are blinded with
sorrow, to think what so fair a form will be ere the second sun set!"
"Mother," said Cleveland, firmly, yet with some touch of sorrow in his
voice, "I in part understand your threats. You know more than we do of
the course of the Halcyon--perhaps have the means (for I acknowledge you
have shown wonderful skill of combination in such affairs) of directing
her cruise our way. Be it so,--I will not depart from my purpose for
that risk. If the frigate comes hither, we have still our shoal water to
trust to; and I think they will scarce cut us out with boats, as if we
were a Spanish xebeck. I am therefore resolved I will hoist once more
the flag under which I have cruised, avail ourselves of the thousand
chances which have helped us in greater odds, and, at the worst, fight
the vessel to the very last; and, when mortal man can do no more, it is
but snapping a pistol in the powder-room, and, as we have lived, so
will we die."
There was a dead pause as Cleveland ended; and it was broken by his
resuming, in a softer tone--"You have heard my answer, mother; let us
debate it no further, but part in peace. I would willingly leave you a
remembrance, that you may not forget a poor fellow to whom your services
have been useful, and who parts with you in no unkindness, however
unfriendly you are to his dearest interests.--Nay, do not shun to accept
such a trifle," he said, forcing upon Norna the little silver enchased
box which had been once the subject of strife betwixt Mertoun and him;
"it is not for the sake of the metal, which I know you value not, but
simply as a memorial that you have met him of whom many a strange tale
will hereafter be told in the seas which he has traversed."
"I accept your gift," said Norna, "in token that, if I have in aught
been accessary to your fate, it was as the involuntary and grieving
agent of other powers. Well did you say we direct not the current of the
events which hurry us forward, and render our utmost efforts unavailing;
even as the wells of Tuftiloe[39] can wheel the stoutest vessel round
and round, in despite of either sail or steerage.--Pacolet!" she
exclaimed, in a louder voice, "what, ho! Pacolet!"
A large stone, which lay at the side of the wall of the hovel, fell as
she spoke, and to Cleveland's surprise, if not somewhat to his fear, the
misshapen form of the dwarf was seen, like some overgrown reptile,
extricating himself out of a subterranean passage, the entrance to which
the stone had covered.
Norna, as if impressed by what Cleveland had said on the subject of her
supernatural pretensions, was so far from endeavouring to avail herself
of this opportunity to enforce them, that she hastened to explain the
phenomenon he had witnessed.
"Such passages," she said, "to which the entrances are carefully
concealed, are frequently found in these islands--the places of retreat
of the ancient inhabitants, where they sought refuge from the rage of
the Normans, the pirates of that day. It was that you might avail
yourself of this, in case of need, that I brought you hither. Should you
observe signs of pursuit, you may either lurk in the bowels of the earth
until it has passed by, or escape, if you will, through the farther
entrance near the lake, by which Pacolet entered but now.--And now
farewell! Think on what I have said; for as sure as you now move and
breathe a living man, so surely is your doom fixed and sealed, unless,
within four-and-twenty hours, you have doubled the Burgh-head."
"Farewell, mother!" said Cleveland, as she departed, bending a look upon
him, in which, as he could perceive by the lamp, sorrow was mingled with
displeasure.
The interview, which thus concluded, left a strong effect even upon the
mind of Cleveland, accustomed as he was to imminent dangers and to
hair-breadth escapes. He in vain attempted to shake off the impression
left by the words of Norna, which he felt the more powerful, because
they were in a great measure divested of her wonted mystical tone, which
he contemned. A thousand times he regretted that he had from time to
time delayed the resolution, which he had long adopted, to quit his
dreadful and dangerous trade; and as often he firmly determined, that,
could he but see Minna Troil once more, were it but for a last farewell,
he would leave the sloop, as soon as his comrades were extricated from
their perilous situation, endeavour to obtain the benefit of the King's
pardon, and distinguish himself, if possible, in some more honourable
course of warfare.
This resolution, to which he again and again pledged himself, had at
length a sedative effect on his mental perturbation, and, wrapt in his
cloak, he enjoyed, for a time, that imperfect repose which exhausted
nature demands as her tribute, even from those who are situated on the
verge of the most imminent danger. But how far soever the guilty may
satisfy his own mind, and stupify the feelings of remorse, by such a
conditional repentance, we may well question whether it is not, in the
sight of Heaven, rather a presumptuous aggravation, than an expiation of
his sins.
When Cleveland awoke, the grey dawn was already mingling with the
twilight of an Orcadian night. He found himself on the verge of a
beautiful sheet of water, which, close by the place where he had rested,
was nearly divided by two tongues of land that approach each other from
the opposing sides of the lake, and are in some degree united by the
Bridge of Broisgar, a long causeway, containing openings to permit the
flow and reflux of the tide. Behind him, and fronting to the bridge,
stood that remarkable semicircle of huge upright stones, which has no
rival in Britain, excepting the inimitable monument at Stonehenge. These
immense blocks of stone, all of them above twelve feet, and several
being even fourteen or fifteen feet in height, stood around the pirate
in the grey light of the dawning, like the phantom forms of antediluvian
giants, who, shrouded in the habiliments of the dead, came to revisit,
by this pale light, the earth which they had plagued by their oppression
and polluted by their sins, till they brought down upon it the vengeance
of long-suffering Heaven.[40]
Cleveland was less interested by this singular monument of antiquity
than by the distant view of Stromness, which he could as yet scarce
discover. He lost no time in striking a light, by the assistance of one
of his pistols, and some wet fern supplied him with fuel sufficient to
make the appointed signal. It had been earnestly watched for on board
the sloop; for Goffe's incapacity became daily more apparent; and even
his most steady adherents agreed it would be best to submit to
Cleveland's command till they got back to the West Indies.
Bunce, who came with the boat to bring off his favourite commander,
danced, cursed, shouted, and spouted for joy, when he saw him once more
at freedom. "They had already," he said, "made some progress in
victualling the sloop, and they might have made more, but for that