CHAPTER XI.

Te Aroha News, Volume V, Issue 210, 9 July 1887, Page 7

CHAPTER XI.

Till: BLACK MA(UC. What could lie 'gainst the shock of hell ? Sm Wal-uui Scott. " Thk scene that followed ! Oh, Heaven ! scene that followed ! " When I s;tw the inhuman savage clutch j my Lily w ith sucli ruthless violence that the bhrank and moaned under his talon?, with a desperate bound 1 threw oil' the two men who held me, sprang upon the beast, hut led him from hi- prey, and gathered her to my bosom. •' Ah, poor, fluttering dove ! She had but an infant's respite. " With hue and cry they sot upon me— Hiram Slaughter, the constables, and the men of the hou«e, whom they loudly called to tlieir aid. Lily was torn f1 om me. I was beaten down, overpowered and handcuffed as if I had been a convicted felon, " One of the women of the house was sent bo our room to fetch Lily's hat and hack. Then the^e were bi ought, and put on the pale, tiombling child by one of the girl-*. Hiram Slaughter strode forward, seized hivictim, and ierked her hand within his arm to lead her .iway. " Then -he turned upon me such a look | oh ! such a look of heavenly love and trust, as, using above all weakness, she said : j " ' Take courage, dear husband. In ten cloys I shall be ot age. and then no one will have a ri^ht. to stay me, and 1 w ill come to you • for let them '•ay what they will, 1 know that I am your own wedded wife.' " ' Taku thvt, you impudent jade !' roared Hirnm Slaughter, striking her full upon the month with his open hand, and with such foiee th<it her blood followed the blow. "I -was maddened by the sight. I struggled with my captor^, like the maniac thatl was I railed on Hiram Slaughter like any drinkard. Ah! how futile weie j all my dibit-; ! ! "She kid a white handkerchief to lici wounded h[<s, to absorb the blood, and looked at me w ith eye- full of com pa '-.-ion. " Oh, how mi-eiable and contemptible I J seemed to myself, in my utter helplessness to help her. When I realised tin.-, I shamed my manhood and wept. " Then her sweet voice spoke again : j "'Yet still be patient, dear (JabiM. ' What can they do to us after all ? They can but tortme or kill the body, and ' after that they have no more that they can do.' ( They cannot separate our spirits e\en in this world : they can never i tally pait us who are one forever.' " A- .-he e-poke, from moment to moment she had to ymi-e to put the white handkerchief to her bleeding lips. " ' Lily ! Oh, Mould Heaven I could die to save you. my love ! my love !' 1 cried out, in the extremity of my anguish. " 'Lh c to bless me, dear Gabriel, as I shall live to love you," she earnestly answered. " Hiram Slaughter jerked her forward, shook her v. ith Aiolence, and pushed her into the eaniage. "I struggled frantically to loose my ■hands-, to throw oil the men that held me and go to h?v rescue, but all in vain. " 'Why don't you arrest that savage monster for assault and battciy upon than delicate girl ?' I thundered into the ears of my captor-. " She is a minor in the hands of her guardian. She ha.s rebelled against his "authonty,and he has a lawful right to ehasti-e her. If she was a daughter of mine 1 would give her a good w hipping, said one of the olUcois " ' You so? we can't interfere Be-ides, we, have enough to do to take caie ot you,' added the other, who -eemed to be a ' milder-mannered ' man. "Meanwhile Hiram Slaughter had followed his white -slave into the carnage, which wa.T immediately driven off up the river road tow aid Alexandria. " Between the two constable I was led away unresistingly now, in the very col-l\p=-e of despair. A sort of prison \an awaited us on the load. We entered it, and followed the first carriage. "Oh, my dear Gertiude, let mo hurry over this black page in my book of life. ■Guiltless as I was then, wi-er as I h-i\e become now, 1 cannot look back upon it without -ha me and horror. "1 wa* taken before a magistrate in Alexandria, where I met my accuser and the fair bride, whom I was accused of having abducted from the township of Wildeville, and illegally nucrried in Alexandria. " Fortunately for my delicate Lily, it was at an hour of the forenoon when all the morning 'cases 'had been disposed of, and the magistrate was alone in his oflice, except for the attendance of his clerk and tone or two constables-. "Our heaung was, therefore, compaiatively private. " iliiam Slaughter was as wily as he was ferocious. All hi.-, violence disappeared in the presence of the magistrate. He sat on a bide bench mar the official table, with Lily deeply veiled beside him. 14 is arm was around her waist. He seemed to hold her more a- a pet than a prisoner. He told his story with the greatest exaggeration, yet with the utmost coolness. By his statement I was made to appeal the most unprincipled knave, and my wife the most infatuated fool on the face of the earth. From that start the magistrate was biassed against me. " When my turn came, I told my own story and Lily's in our justification, but without effect . If justice and humanity wei c on our side, law and the magistrate seemed clearly on our antagonist's. "After a brief examination, Lily, my bride, was given into the custody of her guardian, and I was committed to gaol to await the action of the Sheriff of Wildeville. " Lily fainted and was borne away ai an unconscious condition by her grandfather. " I was taken off to prison, and for the first time in all my life I saw the inside of a gaol, and as a prisoner. " I keenly ielt the degradation that had fallen upon me ; but oh ! how much more keenly the horrors that awaited my helpless wife. I was utterly overwhelmed and prostrated by anguish and despair. I supposed that Hiram Slaughter had taken Lily back to Wildeville. With a desperate effort I aroused myself at length to write to my poor mother inclosing a letter to Lily, which I begged her to try to forward .secretly, and to get an answer if she could. " I sent off this double letter, but before there was time to get a reply the sheriff V> officers came from Wildeville with warrants .and carried me back thither to answer to the charge of having abducted a minor. Gertrude ! when I was committed to the Alexandria gaol my hair and beard were golden red. A week later, when I was taken out to be conveyed to Wilder ille, they were silver white." "And that was the black magic that turned the gold to silver V said the young girl, compassionately.

C( It was, my child. Togo on : The day, after 1 was committed to the Wildevillo i prison, my poor mother came to see me. She looked pale and worn with sorrow and anxiety. - She evidenty controlled her feeling for the sake of comforting me ; but when she saw, from the change that had ' passed over me, what a terrible ordeal I had gone through even already, she was quito overcome with emotion for a time ; after which she rallied sufficiently to tell me that ?.he had received my letter, but had failed in her eilbrts to have its inclosed note conveyed to Lily. " Lily, she told me, was ill at Hill Top House, and that Dr Wedderburn was attending nor. I was not at all surprised to hear this ; but I was not the less afflicted at the tale. My mother had brought some comfort in the form of clean linen-clothing:, to help to render my imprisonment a little moie endurable. She told me further, for my encouragement, that she would take care of our place, and the hired man, John Young, could manage the ferry very well until my releaso ; for she seemed to ha\ c no doubt that ] should bo acquitted. " My mother stayed until it was time to close the prison doors for tire night, and th^n she commended me to tho care of Heaven, and departed. She visited mo every d.iy tor tho few days that I remained m the Wildoville gaol. " Tho court was sitting, and there were but few cases on the docket. I was thercfoie, f-oon brought to trial. I had the bot counsel I could produce, but it a\ ailed mo little ; for though justice and humanity were clearly on my side, the law of the land ami i 'io prejudices of rank seemed against me. The tiial was very short. 1 was aiiainscd on tho Monday following my aiin.il at Wildoville, and I was convicted arid sentenced on Tuesday. The penalty of my so-called felony was two years' impvUonment, with hard labour, in the State Penitentiary at Richmond. 1 was can led down the next day. My heartbroken mother stayed with me as much as '.he could, accompanying me down to the < icy, and never leaving me until the doors of the piison had closed upon me. Even then hho took a room in the neighbourhood, that she might be near me, and visit me as often a* she might be permitted to do so, \\ hich was only once a month, " I wa=s not put to \ery hard labour, for I happened to be the only educated prisoner in the penitentiary at the time ; to I waaligned to duty in the warden's office, v.ho»e I did nine-tenths of the woik for which he icceivcd the salary; but it was light for me in comparison with other prison labour. Neveithele&s, I did not rejoice at it, neither should I have complained if I had been put to the severest toil, for I was pa«t complaining, as I was past enjojing then. My wife, my liberty, my £oo- 1 name had all been wrested from me, and all minor conditions of good or evil weie unfelt. "The term of my imprisonment commenced on my thirtieth birthday, the fatal fifteenth of July, just fifteen years after I had hr.-t mot the child Lily ; the day, also, upon v. hich she became of age, when she had vowed to come to me and be my wife a- sure as she t.hould live. She lived ! but, alas ! she was at the point of death with a low feser, and much more likely to cross the daik river than to take any other journey. I had no means of hearing from hei , since no letters of mine could reach her in her guarded seclusion, even if 1 had been permitted to write before the end of j the month, which, of course, I was not. "On the first of August, the regular visiting day, my poor mother came to see me. I then intrusted a letter to her, and begged her to journey back to Wildc\ ille and inquire about my Lily, tind out v hether she were living or dead, and try, if she were living, to get that letter conveyed to her hands*. '• My dear mother started on her miss'on. What would she not have done for her imprisoned son ? She- was gone a week ; and at the end of that time she returned. She could not visit me until the next regular vUiting day, on the first of September ; but she sought an. interview with the prison-chaplain, through whose kindness I at length received news of Lily — bitter .sweet. '• She had recovered from her dangerous illnc^, thank Heaven ! but she had been taken away fiom Hill Top House, by General Slaughter, and no one knew, or even hunru.-ed, whither they had gone. This ■naithe sum and substance of the intelligence brought from Wildeville by my mother, and given me by the kind-hearted chaplain. "My poor mother never ceased in her efforts to get me pardoned out ; but we had a stern martinet for a governor, and he had lately entered upon his office ; so there was no hope for me but in outliving my term of imprisonment. One weary month followed another and brought the winter. " Christmas is a time when all travellers like to be at home. 1 thought General Slaughter would be no exception to the rule,"" fco in Christmas week I sent my mother up to Wildeville again to inquire concerning Lily. She returned in time to visit me on the first of January, with tho perplexing news that General Slaughter and hi-> ward were still absent, in what part no o;ie knew. "The winter passed away. My mother visited me eA-ery month, and bi ought me also <-uch comforts as the prison rules or the warden's indulgence would allow me to icceive. i "Early in the spring my mother went again on a pilgi image to Wildeville ; bub i eturned, as before, with the disappointing information that General Slaughter and his ward had not returned, and had not been heard from by anybody but Oxman, his overseer, who declined to reveal his whereabout-!. While my mother was. at the ferry, :«he arranged with our assistant ferry -man, John, to glean all the information concern ! ing the ' Slaughter House,' as Hill Top Hall now began to be called, and to get the village schoolmaster to write a lotter at John's dictation, once a month to convey the intelligence to us. This was to savo the trouble and expense of her quarterly visits to Wildeville, as well as to obtain more frequent news. " Our ferry-man did his duty, and kept j us posted as to tho existence of ' no news ' whatever. "So the spring ripened into summer, and brought the fourteenth of July, the day before the anniversary of my entrance into tho penitentiary, half the term of my . imprisonment ; and every day would make the coming year shorter, and bring me nearer to the day of release. "But where was my Lily? How was she ? What was she doing ? She know of course that I was a prisonor ; but / knew that if she were tree, she would hasten to Richmond, share the humble home of my mother, and with her visit me every month during the term of my confinement. Her failure to do this kept me on the rack of anxiety, and my greatest longing for liberty was for her sake, that I might constitute myself a detective for the discovery of her abode, and a deliverer for the emancipation of herself. " On the evening of this fourteenth of July the warden brought me a great piece of news - an unexpected stroke of good fortune. He told me that I was to be pardoned ' out ; that the pardon was to take effect tho j next morning, whon, after some formalities,

I should be set at liberty. Oh, the joy that filled my heart ! For the moment every ill was forgotten but that I should bo free in the morning. My poor mother's exertions, petitions, nnd representations, like seed sown and forgotten, had produced a harvest of success when we" ( least expected it. It seems that even the storn martinot, Governor , had perceived the injustice and tyranny of my incarceration, and released me as soon as he prudently could— at tho close of my first year of imprisonment. With the warden's permission 1 sent for my mother, and saw her alone in tho warden's parlour and told her the joyous news,and wo rejoiced together. '"We made arrangements for our departuro for Wildevillo the noxfc day. She undortook to pack up all her own effects and such of mine as romained in her possession ; and also to bring me a new suit of clothes and a wig, for I had not escaped the convict's degradation of tho shaved head. I had nothing of my own in the prison but a few religious books, and these I pioferrecl to donate to the prison library. "U was late whon my mother took le.ivo of me, tho happiest leave-taking wo had enjoyed for many a month. "I retired to my cell, and was locked in as usual foi Die night. I w ent to bed, or lather 1 stretched myself upon my hard cot pullet, but I could not sleep. Although in a prison cell, I ftiis too happy and too much excited to sleep ; for the next morning I should be free— irceto go forth into the woild ag.iin —free to seek my Lily. Did I doubt that I should find her ? Oh, no ! I wa^ too full of delight to doubt anything. [ believed in all ble^s-'d possibilities. I should find my Lily, would lot the ferry, and 1 w ould take her and my dear mother, and we would go away to some distant pleasant land, where our tioublcs had never been heard of by other people, and where our .sorrows would bo forgotten by ourselves. In my exaltation of hope I 101 l just as sure that all this would happen as that to-morrow's sun would riao. Full of tho chappy thoughts, I could not sleep. I lay in a deliyhttul reverie, ga/ing tlnough tho little grated window of my cell, gazing outupmi ihe starlit sky abo\c and its reflection in the clear bo^om of the Jameo below. I heard the pri-on clock strike every hour until midnight. When it bbruck tueho I exclaimed aloud : 1(4 This is tho day - the blessed day— that give* me liberty.' <f It ically seemed to mo then as if I had been in prison nearly all my life, and this was the first day of freedom. I lay in a happy half-trance until I heard the clock strike one. "Now, my dearest Gertrude, -what next follow cd was so strange, so mysterious po incredible, indeed, that if it had not been corroborated by subsequent circumstances I could not ha\c believed it then, nor could I ask you to believe it now." The fciry-man dropped his head upon his chest, and fell into a deep, trance-like reverie, that Listed until Gertrude, v hose intense cm iosity tendered her impatient of delay, roused him by asking : •'Dear giandpa, what \vao it. that happened to you on tho night of the fourteenth of July ?"