The pirate : or, Lafitte of the Gulf of Mexico

Preface

The leading incidents upon which -the present work is ''founded are chiefly historical. With the pages of history, how- -ever, we have had to -do only so far as they could be made . subservient to oar tale, which does not profess to be exclusively a tale, or history, of the times to which it is referred, bat of an individual in some degree connected with them ; nor with the faithfulness of a biographer have we portrayed the life of the personage whom we have taken for our hero. We have woven for our purpose a web of fact and fiction, unsolicitous to dye each thread with its own peculiar hue, to enable the curious reader thereby the more readily to say which is which ; but if he chooses to draw out either thread, to inspect it by itself, thinking thereby to judge better of the texture of the whole, we have only to say, the web is his own ; and that if his humour prompts him to break up the watch, the pieces may perhaps ^reward bis curiosity, if they do not demonstrate his wisdom.

Book I. V

CrO

BOYHOOD.

Childe Harold was he bight— hut whence his name And lineage long, it suits me not to say ;

Suffice it, that perchance they were of fame.

And had been glorious in another day :

But one sad losel soils a name for aye,

However mighty in the olden time ;

Nor all that heralds rake from coffin'd clay.

Nor florid prose, nor honied lines of rhyme,

Can blazon evil deeds, or consecrate a crime.

* * *

Oh, love ! what is it in this world of ours Which makes it fatal to be loved !

The Childe departed from his father’s halls.

Byron.

Chapter 1

) Fame sometimes gives her votaries visions of their future destiny while yet in early life. There is then a sort of sympathy created between their youthful aspirations and coming deeds -a reflection of the future upon the present.

Edgeworth.

An Exile's Home — River Scenery — Ambitious Musing s.

In a secluded and r'.chly-wcoded amphitheatre, formed by a crescent of green-clad hills, among which the romantic Kenne» beck wanders to the ocean, there stood, until within a recent period, the ruins of a stately mansion. Its blackened walls were enamelled with dark green velvet moss, and mantled with creeping vines, as if Nature, with a gentle hand, had striven to conceal the devastations of ruthless Time.

Huge chimneys, terminating in fantastic turrets, heavy cornices, deep mouldings, and panel-work, combined with the costly and elaborate architecture of the whole venerable structure, indicated a relic of that substantial age immediately subsequent to the revolutionary war — an age, although then in its decline, as eminently characterised by moral and physical stability as the present by their opposites. That was an age of iron — This, of tinsel.

At the period with which our tale is more intimately connected, the handsome edifice of which these melancholy ruins were both the monument and mausoleum, reared its lofty walls amid a grove of oaks, whose hoary bodies, and the majestic spread of their gnarled and giant limbs, while they told of their great age — numbered by centuries, not years — bore testimony to the dignity and grandeur of the primeval forest, of which they were alone the representatives. Here and' there, among these sylvan patriarchs, glisteued the silvery trunk cf the classic beech, intermingled with the dark cone of the gloomy pine, and the tall spiral poplar, swaying its graceful head in the breeze.

Beneath the thickly interlaced branches of these trees, and sloping gently to the pebbly shore of the river, lay, out-rolled, a lawn of the thickest verdure. Its green and quiet beauty was relieved and enlivened by half a score of ruminating and wellconditioned cows, standing or reclining in those luxurious attitudes indicative of comfort and repose ; and a small flock of long-fleeced sheep, of a rare and valued breed, was dispersed in picturesque groups under the more venerable trees. A gracefully-formed jennet, conjuring np visions of lovely woman, in velvet hat, nodding plumes, and generous robes sweeping the earth, which the spirited animal beneath her disdains with his delicate hoofs— a beautiful slender- limbed saddle-horse — and a brace of coal black ponies, with long tails and flowing manes, which are at once associated with boys and holidays — stood together in a social group beside a small but romantic lake in the midst of the wood. They were mutually reclining their heads upon one another’s necks, each manifesting his sportive feelings, by occasionally fixing his large white teeth into the glossy hide of his neighbour. ,

This pellucid sheet of water was spanned by a fantastic bridge of tressel-work, suspended, with the lightness of a spider's web, from one green bank to the other. It connected a broad gravelled avenue, which, commencing at the river, wound among the trees, yielding to the natural undulations of the grounds, and terminated at a spacious flight of steps leading to the piazza of the mansion, the two fronts of which were ornamented by a light colonnade of eight slender Ionic columns. Tall windows, lmng with rich curtains of orange-coloured damask and snowy muslin, costly " ith deep broideries of oak leaves, large as the life, and curiously wrought with silken floss, in their autumn hues of green and yellow, extended quite to the floor of the piazza, and, defended by Venetian blinds, served as the only entrances to the interior from the front.

The house faced to the west, and commanded an extensive prospect of the river, sweeping boldly round the peninsula upon which it was situated, and forming, at the distance of half a mile, and directly in front, a noble bend, remarkable for the extreme beauty of its curvature. Beyond, ascending te the

THE NOVEL NEWSPAPER.

horizon, as they retreated from the eye, spread cultivated farms, studded with low black farmhouses and huge barns; more remotely, dense black forests blended with the bases of a chain of low blue mountains, known as the Monmouth Hills, which, while they confined the prospect, constituted a magnificent background to the picture.

i At the north and south the view was shut in by alternately cultivated or thickly-wooded hills and rocky eminences, retreating on either hand from the river in a semicircular form, to a little less than a mile in the rear, and enclosing the dwelling and grounds in a spacious vale or glen, which, also embraced on the western side by the curve of the river, presented an area nearly circular in its shape.

Political events in sunny France — that great political index of this revolutionising age — iD which the proprietor of this lovely domain bore no ordinary share, compelled him to seek a land where he could cherish his liberal principles with safety, and educate his twin-sons to act their part honourably and with distinction on the theatre of life. Aud where should the expatriated old soldier bend his footsteps but to the shores of America? Daughter of Europe! Yet she opens her arms to receive her exiled children with the affection of a young mother. Noble and glorious land ! the errors of the old world shall be redeemed in tbee ; and although the continents of the east have been enrolled, century after century, upon the scroll of history, yet their history is ended — thine only begun; and. dark and guilty as are its pages, shall thine be bright and pure!

Orphans from their birth, his sons never knew their mother. The hour which ushered them into existence ushered her spirit into heaven. Strangers to maternal love, and educated, since the exile of their stern parent, in almost monastic seclusion, they earlv attained an uncommon maturity of mind and firmness of character, combined with manly sentiments and a habit of thinking independently, early taught them by their father’s example, and inculcated, cultivated, and wrought out to maturity by him, with untiring assiduity.

Their fifteenth birth day arrived, and although in years they numbered equally, both in mind, and person, and habits, they were wholly dissimilar. Achille, the eldest of the twins, had attained dignity of mind and manly beauty of person far in advance of his years. Tall and finely proportioned, he was the youthful image of his noble father. Proud, aspiring, and ambitious, with a spirit that spurned severity, but yielded to gentleness, he acted from impulse rather than from reflection or a sense of duty, while a mine of passions, never yet sprung, existed, like a slumbering volcano, in his bosom. It required but a spark to produce a conflagration that should feed upon and torture him like another Prometheus, or burn on, extinguishable only with life.

That spark was at length elicited by his brother, an amiable boy of a gentler nature, retiring in his habits, mild and quiet in disposition. The reverse of Achille, he was apparently as meek as his brother was spirited. The former resembled his father ; but Henri represented his mother, and all her gentler virtues. Not only did he represent the excellences of her heart and mind, but her lovely image was revived in his beautiful countenance ; and, as year after year unfolded in his youthful face the more striking and perfect resemblance his graceful features bore to those of bis deceased mother, the father recognised the features of the fair girl who had won his early affections, and whom, during the few short months he had owned her as a bride, he had worshipped with religious devotion.

Notwithstanding the contrarieties of character exhibited by the brothers, they grew up together, mutually interchanging all those amiable kindnesses which are the oft spring of fraternal affection. Achille was the stronger, physically and intellectually, and unconsciously to the subject, exerted that wonderful influence over Henri which mind often asserts over mind He was hi 5 guide in his studies, his leader in sports, his enticer into dangers, and his assistant in the thousand petty difficulties of childhood. He loved him with a sincere and devoted attachment, fervently reciprocated bv his warm-hearted and unsophisticated brother. But their mutual affection was the principle which unites the vine and the oak His brother's love was to Henri sufficient happiness, the stay of his clinging affections; and on the other hand, his kind and endearing attachment, by drawing out the kindlier feelings of his brother’s sterner nature, xendeied him better and happier.

The m»rning which ushered in their fifteenth birth-day was bright and cloudless — a more beautiful never dawned upon the ^arth. Gould the tempter have chosen such a day to enter paradise ? Yet on this day his presence was first felt in their peaceful home.

Achille was standing in the south window of his father’s library, which opened upon the piazza, his person half concealed by the rich drapery, gazing out upon the limpid river as it glided gently past, bearing upon its waveless bosom the single-masted sloop with its huge mainsail, the more graceful and bird-like schooner, her white canvass extended on either side like wings, the lofty square rigged merchantman, and swan-like sail boat, their sails flashing back the morning sun, or changing to a dark liuo as they moved in the black shadows thrown from overhanging cliffs.

The green meadows beyond the river, sprinkled with flocks, faded into the blue haze which floated around the distant hills. The air was alive with melody from a myriad of glad birds, climbing the rosy skies, and emulating the poised lark thrilling forth his matin song to the rising sun. There was a charm of beauty, peace, and rural happiness thrown over nature. Her works breathed inspiration, and spoke that morning in the sweetest accents to his heart. But he heeded not her language. A voice softer-toned and more eloquent pleaded to his soul. It was the voice of ambition, of boyish ambition, it is true, but still ambition in her loftiest mood. In years but a boy, the sterner spirit of a man dwelt in the swelling bosom of the youthful aspirant. Visions of the unveiled future, wherein appeared pageants of conquering armies, thrones, and scenes of vast dominion, floated before his youthful imagination ; and in the leader of the armies, the occupant of the thrones, the controller of empires, he recognised himself !

Chapter II

The love or hatred of brothers and sisters is more intense than the love or hatred existing between any otht r persons of the same sexes. Probably, nothing so frequently causes divisions between those whom nature has blessed with the holy relationship of brother and sister, perhaps that it may be the depositary of pure affection, as an equal distribution of the affection of parents.

H. More.

An Interview between Father ml Son — a Catastrophe — Remorse.

“Achille!”

The young aspirant started from the contemplation of scenes of triumph and empire, carnage and blood — the last too soon to be realised — and beheld his father standing by his side, who had entered the library, and approached him unperceived. Seating himself in the recess of the window, he motioned his son to a chair placed opposite to his own. The bearing of the veteran exile was at all times in the highest degree dignified and imposing : his was the brow, eye, and presence to command respect and receive homage.

The affection of Achille towards his father was not unmingled with sentiments of fear ; hut hewas the only being before whom the proud eye of the boy quailed.

That his father loved him he had never doubted. He knew that he was proud of him, “ his noble fearless boy,’’ as be would term him, while parting the dark clustering locks from his handsome forehead, after he had performed some daring feat of boyhood. But when he spoko to Ho»n, the gratified and proud expression of his eye softened under the influence of a milder feeling, and his smile would fade into a sweet but melancholy expression ; nor would Achille have exchanged his inspiring language to him, “ his daring hoy/' for the kind tone and manner he involuntarily assumed when he would say, “ Henri, my beloved child, come and amuse me with your prattle!’’ — nor would the tearful eye, as he gazed down into the upturned face of the amiable boy, have pleased his wild spirit like the enkindling glance of that adipiring eye, when turned upon him in paternal pride. Achille translated iiis glance of pride into an expression of love, and sympathised with one so evidently regarded with an air of sorrow, if not pity, as his brother. If he gave the subject a moment's reflection, it resulted in the flattering conviction, that he himself was the favourite son.

THE

But on the morning which introduces him to our notice, he had to learn too painfully that Henri was the favourite child of jhe old soldier’s affection, and that so far from loving him but a little less, he loved him not. That look of affection which he had translated as an expression of compassion for the gentler nature of his brother, he had to learn was an expression of the intensest parental affection. In his brother, his father worshipped i the image of his departed wife, and all his aflection for her, which the cold hand of death had withered in its beauty and bloom, was renewed in his beloved Henri. He was doubly loved — for his mother and for himself ; and there remained for Aehille, so the sensitive and high-spirited boy learned that day, no place in the affections of his sole surviving parent.

His father being seated, addressed him : — “ Aehille, you are now of an age to enter the university, for admission to which the nature and extent of your studies eminently qualify you. In a few days the annual examination of candidates will take place, and in the interval you can select and arrange a library for your room, and collect what other conveniences you may require. You will leave in the first packet that passes down the river.”

This was a delightful announcement to the subject of it, and not wholly unexpected. To the university, that world in miniature, he had long looked forward with pleasurable anticipations. It was a field of action, at least, and he panted to enter upon it.

The two brothers had both prepared for admission into the same class, and he inquired if Henri was to accompany him.

“ He is not,” replied the father, coldly and firmly.

“He is certainly prepared, sir.”

“ Undoubtedly ! But I have decided that he is to be my j companion to Europe this season, as I fear his delicate constitution will not admit of his confining himself at present to isedentary pursuits.”

“I was anticipating that happiness for myself,” replied Aehille, chagrined at his father’s preference for his brother, so unexpectedly manifested, not only by the words he uttered, but by his tone and manner. He had long kuown his intention to visit his native land, and expected to accompany him, although his expectations were founded rather on his own wishes than any encouragement he had received from his parent.

Now that he had learned his intention of taking Henri instead of himself, he felt keenly the preference : and the coldness, if not severity, of the manner he assumed in communicating his determination, offended his pride, whilst his decided partiality for his brother wounded his self-love. The old soldier was a man of few words, and his son was well aware that, his resolution once formed, he was unbending. He knew that his brother was to go, and that he was to remain ; and with a bitter and wounded spirit he turned his darkening brow from the penetrating gaze of his father, and looked forth upon the beautiful scene which lay outspread beneath the windows of the library.

A closing door roused him from his gloomy and sinful reverie, and turning, he found himself once more alone — no — not quite alone; an evil spirit — Jealousy! pregnant with dark thoughts and evil imaginings, was his companion. A long hour passed aw'ay, during which his first fierce conflict with his hithertoslumbering passions took place. The first suspicion that his brother was best loved then entered his thoughts. Once admitted, it undermined, by its subtle logic, the better feelings of his heart. Doubts w ere strengthened to confirmations, suspicions magnified to certainties, in the rapid and prejudiced retrospect he took of his father’s bearing towards his brother and himself, from the earliest period of his recollection.

But an hour— one short but momentous hour — for then was fixed the lever which moved the world of passions within him, with all their evil consequences — had expired, and the cankerworm of hatred, with its venemous fangs, was gnawing at the last slender fibre that bound him to his brother, when the hall door was thrown open, and the unsuspecting and innocent subject of his dark meditations bounded into the room, holding in his extended hand a gemmed locket.

“ See, brother, see!” he exclaimed, in a loud and delighted tone, “ see what my dear father has presented me as a birthday’s gift-!’'

Aehille raised his eyes and fixed them upon the sparkling locket, which enclosed the miniature of an exceedingly beautiful female, with a form, cheek, and eye radiant with feminine loveliness.

He recognised the portrait of their mother, which till that moment had ever been worn, as the holy pilgrim wears the sacred cross, next to the heart of his father. So dearly treasured had that sacred memento of his departed wife ever been, that he never was permitted to remove it from the

Pl'RATEi 5

mourning ribbon by which it was dependent from his neck : now he saw the cherished relic in the possession of his brother, a gift from him. His lip curled, and his dark eye became darker still at this stronger confirmation of his father’s partiality ; yet he neither spoke nor betrayed his feelings by any visible emotion ? but the fires within his breast raged deeper still. Like pent- up flames, his passions gained vigour by the efforts made to smother them.

For the first time in his life he looked upon Henri coldly,, and without a smile of tenderness. He felt, indeed, although his lips moved not with the biting words that rose to them, that the poison of his heart must have been communicated to his eyes, for, as his brother caught their unwonted expression, he suddenly checked himself, and the gay tones cf his voice sunk subdued to a strange whisper, as he faintly inquired, at the same time placing his delicate hand upon his shoulder, if he were ill.”

“No!” he replied, with an involuntary sternness that startled even himself.

The next moment he would have given worlds to recal that fatal monosyllable, and pronounce it over again more gently ; but it was too late. The sensitive boy recoiled as though he had encountered the eye of a basilisk ; his forehead changed to a deadly hue, the blood fled from his cheeks, and he seemed about to sink upon the floor ; but suddeuly recovering himself, he laughed, and the rich blood came back again, and his eye glanced brightly as he exclaimed, but halfassured— “ Brother, you did but try to frighten me— you were not in earnest angry with me ?”

His heart melted for a moment at this affectionate appeal, hut- with a strange perverseness he steeled it to insensibility.

“ Leave me to myself,” he roughly replied. “ I am not in the humour to be trifled with.”

Mysterious inconsistency of will and action ! He would have given his right hand or plucked out his right eye, to have recalled the first angry word he uttered. In his own mind he did not will to speak thus harshly ; yet, by a singular yet frequent anomaly, his words and manner were directly in opposition to his will. The first word spoken in an angry mood hewed out a broad pathway for legions.

As he uttered his last words, the tears gushed into Henri’s eyes, and yielding to the influence of affection, he sprang forward, and threw himself into his elder and beloved brother’s arms, wept aloud, and sobbed out amisl »iis tears — “ Brother! Aehille ! wherein has Henri offended you?”

An evil spirit now seemed indeed to have taken possession of him. With angry violence he thrust Henri from his embrace, while a curse sprung to his lips. The pcor youth tottered and reeled, fell forward, striking his forehead as he fell violently against a marble -pedestal upon which stood an alabaster statue of the Madonna, and the warm blood spouted from his gashed temples over the cold white robesof the image.

It was a spectacle of horror ; and the guilty being gazed wildly upon his prostrate brother, and thought of Abel and his murdei*er — upon the rod- sprinkled image, and laughed, “Ha! ha! ha;” as maniacs laugh, at the fitness of his first offering — a mangled brother — at the shrine of the virgin mother.

hue momentary hut terrific spell upon his reason passed away; and throwing himself upon the senseless boy, he attempted to stop the ebbing current of life as it trickled in a small red stream down his pale forehead, steeping his auburn curls in gore, at the same time calling loudly and madly for assistance.

His father, followed by the servants, rushed into the library.

“ Help, sir, my brother is dying !” he cried wildly.

The old man sprang forward and caught his bleeding child in his arms. His practised eye at once comprehended the extent of the injury he had sustained. He had received a deep cut iu the shape of a crescent over the left eyebrow, yet not severe enough to endanger life. The free flow of the blood soon restored him to his senses, and opening his eye?, as his father, with a tender hand, staunched the bubbling blood, he fixed them upon his brother, with an. expression that eloquently spoke forgiveness.

“God pity me!” exclaimed the repentant and now broken -spirited boy, for that look went to his heart; an burying his face in his hands, he precipitately left the room>

The long and bitter hours of grief, remorse, and shame he suffered in the solitude of his own room, no tongue but his who has felt like him can utter. Be experienced sentiments of hatred for himself, a loathing and detestation, that tempted him to put a period at once to his own existence. When he recalled the reproving yet forgiving look of his suffering and magnanimous brother, he felt degraded in his own eyes, falleD, lowly fallen, in his own self-esteem. That he must be in his brother’s he was painfully aware ; and for the first time he felt that the gentle- matured Henri was 'his superior.

Chapter III

Place the lever of Archimedes in the hands of love, and he will find the point on which to rest it. Perhaps love has caused more evil than ambition. Let us search from the cot of the humblest villager to the tent of Mark Antony, and we shall find it lias been the pivot upon which some of the roost affecting domestic, and many of the greatest historical events, have turned. Doubtless, that love which is elicited at the first sight of the object is the tmost legitimate, the purest, and the most enduring. Anonymous.

A Student — the Return — Gertrude Langueville — Love.

Duy closed in night, and night opened into morning, for many long and tedious weeks, and still the old soldier sat by the bedside of his wounded child.

The generous boy, too honourable to prevaricate, yet too forgiving and fond of his brother to expose all the truth, had told him that he had fallen against the pedestal, but not that Achille had thrust him against it.

Their father never knew the agency of Achille in the accident ; yet, bearing testimony to the truth of the maxim, that suspicion is tiie handmaiden of guilt, Achille suspected that he was informed of all the circumstances connected w ith the act. This suspicion giving its own tinge to the medium through which he viewed and commented upon his father’s deportment towards him after the accident, led him to conclusions as unjust as they were unmerited by his parent. Acting from these conclusions, he shunned -his society, and never entered his presence but with a sullen air of defiance.

Occasionally he visited the chamber of his brother, when, in answer to his frequent inquiries of the nurse, he learned that he slept ; and pressing the fevered hand, or kissing the cheek of the sleeping sufferer, he would watch over him with the tenderness of a mother, till the restless motions of the invalid, indicating the termination of his slumbers, or the heavy footsteps of bis father, ascending the stairway in the hall, warned him to return to the seclusion of his own room, or the deeper solitudes of the forests.

A few months passed away, during which Achille became a student within the walls of a university not far from his paternal home ; while his brother, entirely recovered, accompanied his parent on his transatlantic voyage.

The period of Achille’s residence at the university afforded no incidents which exerted any influence over his subsequent years. It glided away pleasantly and rapidly. He was known by the professors as one who, never in his study, or a consumer of midnight oil, yet always prepared for the recitation-room ; and by bis fellows, as a young man of violent passions, honourable feelings, chivalrous in points of honour, a warm friend, and magnanimous enemy. Often violent and headstrong in bis actions, be was just and equitable in his intercourse with those around him. "With a love for hilarity and Tuscan pleasures, be never descended to mingle in the low debauches and nightly sallies w hich, from time immemorial, have characterised the varieties of college life.

At the early age of nineteen he received its honours : and bidding adieu to the classic v. alls within which he had passed so many happy hours — the happiest of his life — he proceeded to an adjacent port, where he expected his father to disembark on bis return from his long residence abroad.

Tbe little grpen coasting packet — in that early day, when sleal-n navigation had not superseded those teachers of patience to domestic voyagers, the sloop- and schooner. — had passed up the river the previous evening. He crossed to tire apposite shore in a broad flat wherry, whose representative, in the shape of \ a neatly-painted horse-boat, propelled by the Ixion-like labour of a blind Rosinante, may still be seen plying frequently between the opposite shores.

The sun had just set in a sea of gold and crimson, and a rich mellow light hung like a veil of transparent gauze over laud and water, when, after winding round one of the graceful bends of the roman tic Kennebeck, and ascending an ab .up tan d rocky eminence np which the road wound, tne beuuliiul and wooded glen, with the turretted chimneys of his paternal roof, appeared, lifting themselves above the oaks, in the midst of which it stood. Reining in his horse upon the brow of the hill, he gazed down upon the lovely scene, with its sweeping river, relieved by a little vessel atanchrr upon its black glassy flood, its surrounding hills its venerable oaks, and serpentine walks, with a thoughtful eye.

Gradually as he gazed, the scene before him faded into - indistinctness in the approaching twilight, and the young moon had launched her silver bark upon the western sky — a timid - sailor, venturing each night farther and- farther up into theheavens, and spreading her shining sail broader and broader as she gains confidence from temerity — before the young horseman shook off the spell which had rendered him indifferent to externalobjects — a spell whose workings to judge- from the knitted blow-,, compressed lips, and pale cheeks, were of no pleasant nature.