The Pilot

by James Fenimore Cooper

  "Certainly none have met me with the reproaches that I have this night received from Alice Dunscombe, after a separation of six long years," returned the Pilot.

  "If I have spoken to you the words of holy truth, John, let them not be the less welcome, because they are strangers to your ears. Oh! think that she who has thus dared to use the language of reproach to one whose name is terrible to all who live on the border of this island, is led to the rash act by no other motive than interest in your eternal welfare."

  "Alice! Alice! you madden me with these foolish speeches! Am I a monster to frighten unprotected women and helpless children? What mean these epithets, as coupled with my name? Have you, too, lent a credulous ear to the vile calumnies with which the policy of your rulers has ever attempted to destroy the fair fame of those who oppose them, and those chiefly who oppose them with success? My name may be terrible to the officers of the royal fleet, but where and how have I earned a claim to be considered formidable to the helpless and unoffending?"

  Alice Dunscombe cast a furtive and timid glance at the Pilot, which spoke even stronger than her words, as she replied:

  "I know not that all which is said of you and your deeds is true. I have often prayed, in bitterness and sorrow, that a tenth part of that which is laid to your charge may not be heaped on your devoted head at the great and final account. But, John, I have known you long and well, and Heaven forbid, that on this solemn occasion, which may be the last, the last of our earthly interviews, I should be found wanting in Christian duty, through a woman's weakness. I have often thought, when I have heard the gall of bitter reproach and envenomed language hurled against your name, that they who spoke so rashly, little understood the man they vituperated. But, though ye are at times, and I may say almost always, as mild and even as the smoothest sea over which ye have ever sailed, yet God has mingled in your nature a fearful mixture of fierce passions, which, roused, are more like the southern waters when troubled with the tornado. It is difficult for me to say how far this evil spirit may lead a man, who has been goaded by fancied wrongs to forget his country and home, and who is suddenly clothed with power to show his resentments."

  The Pilot listened with rooted attention, and his piercing eye seemed to reach the seat of those thoughts which she but half expressed; still he retained the entire command of himself, and answered, more in sorrow than in anger:

  "If anything could convert me to your own peaceful and unresisting opinions, Alice, it would be the reflections that offer themselves at this conviction, that even you have been led by the base tongues of my dastardly enemies, to doubt my honor and conduct. What is fame, when a man can be thus traduced to his nearest friends? But no more of these childish reflections! they are unworthy of myself, my office, and the sacred cause in which I have enlisted!"

  "Nay, John, shake them not off," said Alice, unconsciously laying her hand on his arm; "they are as the dew to the parched herbage, and may freshen the feelings of your youth, and soften the heart that has grown hard, if hard it be, more by unnatural indulgence than its own base inclinations."

  "Alice Dunscombe," said the Pilot, approaching her with solemn earnestness, "I have learnt much this night, though I came not in quest of such knowledge. You have taught me how powerful is the breath of the slanderer, and how frail is the tenure by which we hold our good names. Full twenty times have I met the hirelings of your prince in open battle, fighting ever manfully under that flag which was first raised to the breeze by my own hands, and which, I thank my God, I have never yet seen lowered an inch; but with no one act of cowardice or private wrong in all that service can I reproach myself; and yet, how am I rewarded! The tongue of the vile calumniator is keener than the sword of the warrior, and leaves a more indelible scar!"

  "Never have ye uttered a truer sentiment, John, and God send that ye may encourage such thoughts to your own eternal advantage," said Alice, with engaging interest "You say that you have risked your precious life in twenty combats, and observe how little of Heaven's favor is bestowed on the abettors of rebellion! They tell me that the world has never witnessed a more desperate and bloody struggle than this last, for which your name has been made to sound to the furthermost ends of the isle."

  "'Twill be known wherever naval combats are spoken of!" interrupted the Pilot, the melancholy which had begun to lower in his countenance giving place to a look of proud exultation.

  "And yet its fancied glory cannot shield your name from wrong, nor are the rewards of the victor equal, in a temporal sense, to those which the vanquished has received. Know you that our gracious monarch, deeming your adversary's cause so sacred, has extended to him his royal favor?"

  "Ay! he has dubbed him knight!" exclaimed the Pilot. with a scornful and bitter laugh: "let him be again furnished with a ship, and me with another opportunity, and I promise him an earldom, if being again vanquished can constitute a claim!"

  "Speak not so rashly, nor vaunt yourself of possessing a protecting power that may desert you, John, when you most need it, and least expect the change," returned his companion; "the battle is not always to the strong, neither is the race to the swift."

  "Forget you, my good Alice, that your words will admit of a double meaning? Has the battle been to the strong! Though you say not well in denying the race to the swift. Yes, yes, often and again have the dastards escaped me by their prudent speed! Alice Dunscombe, you know not a thousandth part of the torture that I have been made to feel, by high-born miscreants, who envy the merit they cannot equal, and detract from the glory of deeds that they dare not attempt to emulate. How have I been cast upon the ocean, like some unworthy vessel that is commissioned to do a desperate deed, and then to bury itself in the ruin it has made! How many malignant hearts have triumphed as they beheld my canvas open, thinking that it was spread to hasten me to a gibbet, or to a tomb in the bosom of the ocean! but I have disappointed them!"

  The eyes of the Pilot no longer gazed with their piercing and settled meaning; but they flashed with a fierce and wild pleasure, as he continued, in a louder voice:

  "Yes, bitterly have I disappointed them! Oh! the triumph over my fallen enemies has been tame to this heartfelt exultation which places me immeasurably above those false and craven hypocrites! I begged, I implored, the Frenchmen, for the meanest of their craft, which possessed but the common qualities of a ship of war; I urged the policy and necessity of giving me such a force, for even then I promised to be found in harm's way; but envy and jealousy robbed me of my just dues, and of more than half my glory. They call me pirate! If I have claim to the name, it was furnished more by the paltry outfit of my friends, than by any act towards my enemies!"

  "And do not these recollections prompt you to return to your allegiance, to your prince and native land, John?" said Alice, in a subdued voice.

  "Away with the silly thought!" interrupted the Pilot, recalled to himself as if by a sudden conviction of the weakness he had betrayed; "it is ever thus where men are made conspicuous by their works—but to your visit—I have the power to rescue myself and companions from this paltry confinement, and yet I would not have it done with violence, for your sake. Bring you the means of doing it in quiet?"

  "When the morning arrives, you will all be conducted to the apartment where we first met.—This will be done at the solicitation of Miss Howard, under the plea of compassion and justice, and with the professed object of inquiring into your situations. Her request will not be refused; and while your guard is stationed at the door, you will be shown, by another entrance, through the private apartments of the wing, to a window, whence you can easily leap to the ground, where a thicket is at hand; afterwards we shall trust your safety to your own discretion."

  "And if this Dillon, of whom you have spoken, should suspect the truth, how will you answer to the law for aiding our escape?"

  "I believe he little dreams who is among the prisoners," said Alice, musing, "though he may have detected the character of one of your companions. But it is priv
ate feeling, rather than public spirit, that urges him on."

  "I have suspected something of this," returned the Pilot, with a smile, that crossed those features where ungovernable passions that had so lately been exhibited, with an effect that might be likened to the last glimmering of an expiring conflagration, serving to render the surrounding ruin more obvious. "This young Griffith has led me from my direct path with his idle imprudence, and it is right that his mistress should incur some risk. But with you, Alice, the case is different; here you are only a guest, and it is unnecessary that you should be known in the unfortunate affair. Should my name get abroad, this recreant American, this Colonel Howard, will find all the favor he has purchased by advocating the cause of tyranny necessary to protect him from the displeasure of the ministry."

  "I fear to trust so delicate a measure to the young discretion of my amiable friend," said Alice, shaking her head.

  "Remember, that she has her attachment to plead in her excuse; but dare you say to the world that you still remember, with gentle feelings, the man whom you stigmatize with such opprobrious epithets?"

  A slight color gleamed over the brow of Alice Dunscombe, as she uttered, in a voice that was barely audible:

  "There is no longer a reason why the world should know of such a weakness, though it did exist." And, as the faint glow passed away, leaving her face pale nearly as the hue of death, her eyes kindled with unusual fire, and she added: "They can but take my life, John; and that I am ready to lay down in your service!"

  "Alice!" exclaimed the softened Pilot, "my kind, my gentle Alice—"

  The knock of the sentinel at the door was heard at this critical moment. Without waiting for a reply to his summons, the man entered the apartment; and, in hurried language, declared the urgent necessity that existed for the lady to retire. A few brief remonstrances were uttered by both Alice and the Pilot, who wished to comprehend more clearly each other's intentions relative to the intended escape: but the fear of personal punishment rendered the soldier obdurate, and a dread of exposure at length induced the lady to comply. She arose, and was leaving the apartment with lingering steps, when the Pilot, touching her hand, whispered to her impressively:

  "Alice, we meet again before I leave this island forever?"

  "We meet in the morning, John," she returned in the same tone of voice, "in the apartments of Miss Howard."

  He dropped her hand, and she glided from the room, when the impatient sentinel closed the door, and silently turned the key on his prisoner. The Pilot remained in a listening attitude, until the light footsteps of the retiring pair were no longer audible, when he paced his confined apartment with perturbed steps, occasionally pausing to look out at the driving clouds and the groaning oaks that were trembling and rocking their broad arms in the fitful gusts of the gale. In a few minutes the tempest in his own passions had gradually subsided to the desperate and still calmness that made him the man he was; when he again seated himself where Alice had found him, and began to muse on the events of the times, from which the transition to projecting schemes of daring enterprise and mighty consequences was but the usual employment of his active and restless mind.

  Chapter XV

  *

  "Sir And.. I have no exquisite reason for't, but I've reason good enough."

  Twelfth Night.

  The countenance of Captain Borroughcliffe, when the sentinel admitted him to the apartment he had selected, was in that state of doubtful illumination, when looks of peculiar cunning blend so nicely with the stare of vacancy, that the human face is rendered not unlike an April day, now smiling and inviting, and at the next moment clouded and dreary. It was quite apparent that the soldier had an object for his unexpected visit, by the importance of his air and the solemnity of the manner with which he entered on the business. He waved his hand for the sentinel to retire, with lofty dignity, and continued balancing his body, during the closing of the door, and while a sound continued audible to his confused faculties, with his eyes fixed in the direction of the noise, with that certain sort of wise look that in many men supplies the place of something better. When the captain felt himself secure from interruption, he moved round with quick military precision, in order to face the man of whom he was in quest. Griffith had been sleeping, though uneasily and with watchfulness; and the Pilot had been calmly awaiting the visit which it seemed he had anticipated; but their associate, who was no other than Captain Manual, of the marines, was discovered in a very different condition from either. Though the weather was cool and the night tempestuous, he had thrown aside his pea-jacket, with most of his disguise, and was sitting ruefully on his blanket, wiping, with one hand, the large drops of sweat from his forehead, and occasionally grasping his throat with the other, with a kind of convulsed mechanical movement. He stared wildly at his visitor, though his entrance produced no other alteration in these pursuits than a more diligent application of his handkerchief and a more frequent grasping of his naked neck, as if he were willing to ascertain, by actual experiment, what degree of pressure the part was able to sustain, without exceeding a given quantity of inconvenience.

  "Comrade, I greet ye!" said Borroughcliffe, staggering to the side of his prisoner, where he seated himself with an entire absence of ceremony: "Comrade, I greet ye! Is the kingdom in danger, that gentlemen traverse the island in the uniform of the regiment of incognitus, incognitii, 'torum—damme, how I forget my Latin! Say, my fine fellow, are you one of these 'torums?"

  Manual breathed a little hard, which, considering the manner he had been using his throat, was a thing to be expected; but, swallowing his apprehensions, he answered with more spirit than his situation rendered prudent or the occasion demanded.

  "Say what you will of me, and treat me as you please, I defy any man to call me Tory with truth."

  "You are no 'torum! Well, then, the war-office has got up a new dress! Your regiment must have earned their facings in storming some water battery, or perhaps it has done duty as marines. Am I right?"

  "I'll not deny it," said Manual, more stoutly; "I have served as a marine for two years, though taken from the line of—"

  "The army," said Borroughcliffe, interrupting a most damning confession of which "state line" the other had belonged to. "I kept a dog-watch, myself, once, on board the fleet of my Lord Howe; but it is a service that I do not envy any man. Our afternoon parades were dreadfully unsteady, for it's a time, you know, when a man wants solid ground to stand on. However, I purchased my company with some prize-money that fell in my way, and I always remember the marine service with gratitude. But this is dry work. I have put a bottle of sparkling Madeira in my pocket, with a couple of glasses, which we will discuss while we talk over more important matters. Thrust your hand into my right pocket; I have been used to dress to the front so long, that it comes mighty awkward to me to make this backward motion, as if it were into a cartridge-box."

  Manual, who had been at a loss how to construe the manner of the other, perceived at once a good deal of plain English in this request, and he dislodged one of Colonel Howard's dusty bottles, with a dexterity that denoted the earnestness of his purpose. Borroughcliffe had made a suitable provision of glasses; and extracting the cork in a certain scientific manner, he tendered to his companion a bumper of the liquor, before another syllable was uttered by either of the expectants. The gentlemen concluded their draughts with a couple of smacks, that sounded not unlike the pistols of two practised duellists, though certainly a much less alarming noise, when the entertainer renewed the discourse.

  "I like one of your musty-looking bottles, that is covered with dust and cobwebs, with a good southern tan on it," he said. "Such liquor does not abide in the stomach, but it gets into the heart at once, and becomes blood in the beating of a pulse. But how soon I knew you! That sort of knowledge is the freemasonry of our craft. I knew you to be the man you are, the moment I laid eyes on you in what we call our guard-room; but I thought I would humor the old soldier who lives here, by letting him
have the formula of an examination, as a sort of deference to his age and former rank. But I knew you the instant I saw you. I have seen you before!"

  The theory of Borroughcliffe, in relation to the incorporation of wine with the blood, might have been true in the case of the marine, whose whole frame appeared to undergo a kind of magical change by the experiment of drinking, which, the reader will understand, was diligently persevered in while a drop remained in the bottle. The perspiration no longer rolled from his brow, neither did his throat manifest that uneasiness which had rendered such constant external applications necessary; but he settled down into an air of cool but curious interest, which, in some measure, was the necessary concomitant of his situation.

  "We may have met before, as I have been much in service, and yet I know not where you could have seen me," said Manual. "Were you ever a prisoner of war?"

  "Hum! not exactly such an unfortunate devil; but a sort of conventional non-combatant. I shared the hardships, the glory, the equivocal victories (where we killed and drove countless numbers of rebels—who were not), and, woe is me! the capitulation of Burgoyne. But let that pass-which was more than the Yankees would allow us to do. You know not where I could have seen you? I have seen you on parade, in the field, in battle and out of battle, in camp, in barracks; in short, everywhere but in a drawing-room. No, no; I have never seen you before this night in a drawing-room!"

  Manual stared in a good deal of wonder and some uneasiness at these confident assertions, which promised to put his life in no little jeopardy; and it is to be supposed that the peculiar sensation about the throat was revived, as he made a heavy draught, before he said:

  "You will swear to this—Can you call me by name?"

  "I will swear to it in any court in Christendom," said the dogmatical soldier; "and your name is—is—Fugleman!"