Beadle's Dime Library No. 316 — page 5: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

Lafitte’s Licutenant. = the deep breathing of some sufferer and the sighing of the winds among the foliage of the evergreens, Waving their branches with melan- choly music. At the extremity of the ball stood the couch of the chief, above which a narrow window opened upon the court-yard adjoining the edifice. The wind blew in refreshingly upon his temples, and the melody of a distant mocking-bird, which loves to wake the echoes of night, fell soothingly, as he listened to its varied notes, upon bis ear. Under these soothing influences the wounded chief insensibly slept, but his slumbers were soon disturbed by a scarcely-heard foot-fall at the extremity of the passage. He opened bis eyes, and by the dim light of a lamp suspended from the ceiling of the corridor, he discovered near him the graceful form of one of the nuns, who bad often bent above him in his feverish moments, and whose presence had exerted a strange power over his thoughts, and even the pulsations of his heart, which became irregular and wild when she was near. He felt there was a mystery around her, in some way connected with himself; but how, or why, after long hours given to thought and im- agination, be could not conjecture. Her voice he had never yet heard, but ber slight fingers placed upon his pulse or throbbing temples, strangely thrilled the blood in bis veins, But all his speculations respecting her were futile, and at last, wearied with pursuing the vague associations her presence, air and manner call- ed up, he would close his eyes, articulating, “Strange! strange—very strange!” and fall into a disturbed sleep, in which visions of his boybood and its scenes of love and strife, passed with wonderful distinctness before him; yet still, in all his dreams, the form of the nun was mysteriously mingled with other characte which memory, with her magic wand, calle up from the vm of the past. Giving no evidence of being conscious of her presence, he waited with a palpitating heart and with eyes closed, the apprvach of his mid- night visitant. She came within a few feet of him and stopped, and a yy her brow with her hand, froin the light of the lamp above her, she gazed fixedly at the apparent sleeper, as if to be assured that he slept, Her figure, as she bent forward in an attitude of natural grace, displayed faultless propor- tions. She was a little above the middle hight of women, and ber brow, exposed by ber part- jy-drawn black vail, which, with a long robe of the same funereal hue, encircled her person, was calm and pale—paler, perbaps, from the contrast, Her features rivaled, in their Grecian accuracy of outline, the most perfect models from the chisel of Praxiteles; the color of her eye was deep blue—not the cold biue of north- ern skies, but the warm azure of sunny Italy. There dwelt within them a shade of melan- choly, cast also over her whole face, Piety and devotion were written upon her seraphic face from which care and sorrow, not illness, had faded the roses and freshness of youth. Yet she was not a youthful maiden! Per- haps seven and twenty summers and winters had passed, with their changes and vicissitudes, over her head. Her general air and manner was that of humble resignation to some great and deep-settled sorrow. No one could *gaze upon her witbout interest; no one without re- spect. Among her sister nuns she was regarded as but little lower than a saintin heaven; by the devotees of ber church, ber blessing and rayers were sought next to that of their tute- ar divinities, Among the sisterhood she was called St. Marie. Her real name, for which had been assumed this religious one, was concealed from all but the superior, during the twelve or thirteen years she bad been an inmate of the my th 1 tisfied that h tient slept, rently satis at her patient sle the nee apnesantied him, and uttered a pious ejaculation, while she raised her fine eyes hea- venward, and laid a finger lightly upon his tem- le. ee He is better! thank thee, Heaven, and sweet Mary, Mother! His sleep is calm, and be is much—much better!” and ber voice, (as she spoke low,) was saddened in its tones. Its effect upon the chief was extraordinary; and although he did not raise his eyes, nor move, his heart beat wildly, and the veins upon his temple lea to her touch. Yet, with a strong effort, desirous of knowing more of bis mvsterious visitor,and wondering at the strange effect of her voice upon him, he remained ap- parently asleep. Still retaining her band upon bis temple, she continued: “ His oa is yet unquiet. Our blessed Savior elec him life for repentance!” she added, fer- re be knows me!” bt he. “Strange, that she should take such interest in me, then, Those silvery accents! ere have I heard them before Why do they move me? I must solve this myetery. ‘*T thank thee, sweet Mother of Heaven, for this favor!” she continued; “I may yet be the instrument in thy hands for good to this wan- derer! Forgive me, Holy Mary! I thought I had bid adieu to all worldly emotion—and yet I should bave betrayed my feelings to all around me in the hall, when I recognized his features, so like his father’s, had I not hastened to my cell to give vent to my feelings in tears. Sinful! sinful, I have been! Alas, resent- ment and pity have been struggling the past hour within this bosom, that should have been dead to all earthly excitement, Pity me, Hea- ven! I will err no more! What a history of buried recollections bas the sight of him re- vived! I thought I bad shut out the world for- ever; but no, no! with him before me, I live again in it! Its scenes are present with me; and when I gaze on this working brow—these features, which many years haye changed, but whose familiar expression still lives—how can I be all at once, the calm, unimpassioned nun! I know I am sinning to speak and feel thus! Pity my weakness, Mary! Thou hast been hu- man, and a woman! Thou canst sympatbize with—but, oh! censure me not! Indulge mein this moment of human failing, and I will give back my whole heart and soul to thee!” As she spoke, she lifted ber angelic counte- nance upward, clasped the cross she wore, and pressed it to her mh At this moment Lafitte opened his eyes, and, while every word she uttered glowed in his bosom like a pleasant memory of half-forgotten things—of mingled bliss and woe—he for the first time bad a glimpse of her features. “Great God! Gertrude!” he exclaimed, spring- ing from the couch and clasping her uplifted hands in his own, ‘‘Gertrude, speak! Is it ou—my cousin?” ‘*It is, Achille. Gertrude, and none other,” she said, while the rich blood mounted to her pale cheeks at the sudden movement and ardent manner of her cousin. “Can I believe it?’ he said, gazing fixedly upon her, while he still beld ber hands, ‘* Yet, still it must be—and why here in this garb? - Were you not the bride of —” | ““Of Heaven alone, cousin,” she said, inter- rupting his impetuous interrogations, ‘Where then is—but how came you here? Alas! I know—I know it all—all!” he added bitterly, striking bis forehead with his clinched band and falling back upon the pillow, as she covered her pale face with her hands in tearful silence. “‘I knowall, This hand has made you thus!” and burying his face in the curtain of his couch, his chest heaved, and he sobbed audibly. Gertrude was deeply affected by his emotion. The discovery of her cousin among the wound- ed had broken up a life of repose which she had chosen after his crime and flight. Even when giving preference to his brother, who had won her by those gentle means which, ratber than ssionate appeals—when the female heart is he p ssure victory, there existed in her bosom a partiality for, or rather friendly feel- ing toward Achille, his own impetuosity of character rendered him shee eng of profiting by. He desired to be loved at once, and for himself, scorning to seek by assiduous attention smiles and favors which could not become his own at the mere expression of his wish to pos- sess them. In love, as well as in other pursuits which en- age men, it is labor which must ever conquer. o the contempt by the one, and the adoption by the other, of this maxim, in relation to a young heart as yet neutral in its partialities, is, perhaps, to be attributed the success of Henri and the failure of Achille, ‘Calm your emotion, cousin; I forgive you all that, through Heaven, you have caused me to suffer,” she said, taking his unresisting band. Lafitte spoke not, and for a few moments seemed to be suffering under the acutest mental torments, “You have—indeed you have—my forgive- ness!” she repeated with earnestness; ‘ but it is not to me you must look for forgiveness Achille, Itis nut me you have injured or sinne Me My b brother!” y brother; my poor—poor brother! ‘Not Henri alone. Heaven,” she said, with fervor, ‘‘ awaits your contrition and repentance, Achille,” ‘“‘ Heaven!” he repeated, as if he knew not that he spoke aloud. ‘I know it. I do repent and sue its mercy. But my brother—my inno- cent, murdered brother?” he interrogated, rising and grasping her arm. ‘* Nay, Achille, you are not so gui!ty in act as you imagine. Henri survived the wound,” ‘Survives! Henri lives? Lives, did you say? Speak, tell me quickly! Oh, beavenly tidings! Angel of mercy! Speak, tell me—tell me my brother lives!” he reiterated, with almost in- sane animation; while a strange fire filled bis eyes as, sitting upright with both hands grasp- ing her shoulders, he wildly fixed them upon her face, “Say that he lives! that he lives! raves!” he shouted, with increasing energy in the tones of bis voice. | | “He does, Achille; calm yourself, he lives, and you may yet meet him.” “Oh! —lives—meet again!” he faintly articulated. “‘Oh! I could die, with those sweet words dwelling on my ear!” ‘*He recovered, and went to France,” she 5 said, after a few moments’ mutual silence, ‘‘ the day after my arrival in this city to seclude my- self, the ill-fated cause of all your quarrel, for- ever from the world.” ‘* Heaven is good—too kind! You say he died not?” he hastily inquired, as if still incredulous. ‘*Oh, speak it again!—once more let me hear the sweet assurance,” ** He died not by your hand!” “It is snoses enough /” he said, and sunk back like a cb d, overpowered and weakened as he still was, by the strong excitement through which he had passed, In a few moments be resumed his self-posses- sion, and addressed Gertrude more caimly, ‘* Where went he, cousin?” “To France, Since then, shut out from the world, I have sought to forget him, and have not beard from him.” ‘* Why married you him not?” ** Asan atonement—the only one I could make for the mischief of which I was the unintention- al cause—I renounced a)l worldly hopes, and be- came the bride of the church.” ** And I have made you thus!” he said sadly; “but I thank you, thank you for these tidings. This is too much happiness for me! I will seek my brother out, and at his feet atone for the wrongs I have done him. Poor, gentle boy! I loved him, Gertrude, and would not bave slain bim.—No, no!” he added, quickly, yt co wildly—*‘ ha! ha! hal—You tell me he d aot die—that he lives! God of heaven! I thank thee! I am not my brother’s murderer!” With his spirit subdued, and bis heart full of gratitude, he hid bis face in the folds of his cousin’s mantilla, and wept aloud. Sbe would not interrupt him, but silently kneeled beside his couch, and with all the de- votion of a woman’s piety, put up a prayer to heaven, for the spiritual welfare of the softened being before her. With holy fervor, like a seraph supplicating, she sougbt pardon for bis errors, and prayed that the spirit of penitence would embrace that moment to act upon his heart, and renew him with a right spirit. Every word of the lovely and devout petitioner fell soothingly, like the pleading of an angel, upon his soul, and before she concluded her holy petition, bis heart was melted, and with the quiet Lumility of a child, he joined his voice with hers, in responding ‘* Amen!” Gertrude then rose from her kneeling posture, and taking the hand of her cousin, said, with as calm a manner as she could assume: ‘Cousin, I must leave you now. I have too long held stolen intercourse with you; but Heaven, I hope, will forgive me if I have erred. We wust now part. ‘You leave our convent to- morrow, and from this time we meet no more— till—we meet, I hope, in heaven!” and her soft blue eyes beamed with celestial intelligence, as she raised them to ber future home, **God forbid we should part thus! Gertrude! cousin! bid not adieu! leave me not. Ob, God! ered a and utterly lost I shall be without you “Nay, cousin, I cannot stay; I must go!” she added firmly—‘‘I must go now! May God, who isever ready to meet the returning peni- tent, forgive your past life, and guide you in the new path you have chosen, and for which you bave already shed your blood.” “You know me and my life, then?’ he in- quired eagerly. “Il know you now, as my cousin Achille, a reclaimed, penitent son of the church. You have borne a name I wish not to utter!” “* Lafitte?’ ‘** The same,” she replied, mournfully. * Why, then, cared you for me?” That | might do you good.” “No one in the convent bas r iden ified me as Lafitte; how did you “The youth—” **Theodore?” | ve ‘That is his name, I believe. He bas told me ized or ‘And yet as can come and see, and talk with me!” Ab kind, good Gertrude! how much I have injured you! and yet you can forget and forgive it all. Sweet woman! thou art indeed an angel!” * Now, farewell, Achille, Christianity teaches us both to forgive and forget,” she said, with humility. “lt is ovr religion, not me, you should admire. Farewell! We will meet in heaven!” “Oh! go not vet—stay but for a moment!” he said, rising, and following her. “ May I not see you again?” **Not on earth, Acbille. I am betrothed to Heaven!” she said, with dignity united with humility, in her voice and manner. Lafitte held ber band for a moment in silence, while his features were agitated by many con- Tenadodly he spoke; 4nd ale with cues enly he e¢, an with e $ “Gertrude: listen to me! this interview hos decided my fate. I bave wron you, and I would cheerfully lay down my life to atone for it; but with the will of beaven, I will work out a more befitting expiation, en, see God, he lives—I have injured deeply! I will seek him out, if he is vet.a living man jan tain bis ““ECOmMmicboo CS" (@) m