The Pilot: A Tale of the Sea by James Fenimore Cooper (reading diary txt) 📖

perhaps, you come now as the bearer of some message or letter from that gentleman.”

The sound of his commander's name suddenly revived the recollection of Coffin, and with it all the fierce sternness of his manner returned. Bending his eyes keenly on the cowering form of Dillon, he said, in those deep, harsh tones, that seem peculiar to men who have braved the elements, until they appear to have imbided some of their roughest qualities:

“Liar! how now? what brought old Tom Coffin into these shoals and narrow channels? was it a letter? Ha! but by the Lord that maketh the winds to blow, and teacheth the lost mariner how to steer over the wide waters, you shall sleep this night, villain, on the planks of the Ariel; and if it be the will of God that beautiful piece of handicraft is to sink at her moorings, like a worthless hulk, ye shall still sleep in her; ay, and a sleep that shall not end, till they call all hands, to foot up the day's work of this life, at the close of man's longest voyage.”

The extraordinary vehemence, the language, the attitude of the old seaman, commanding in its energy, and the honest indignation that shone in every look of his keen eyes, together with the nature of the address, and its paralyzing effect on Dillon, who quailed before it like the stricken deer, united to keep the female listeners, for many moments, silent through amazement. During this brief period, Tom advanced upon his nerveless victim, and lashing his arms together behind his back, he fastened him, by a strong cord, to the broad canvas belt that he constantly wore around his own body, leaving to himself, by this arrangement, the free use of his arms and weapons of offence, while he secured his captive.

“Surely,” said Cecilia, recovering her recollection the first of the astonished group, “Mr. Barnstable has not commissioned you to offer this violence to my uncle's kinsman, under the roof of Colonel Howard?—Miss Plowden, your friend has strangely forgotten himself in this transaction, if this man acts in obedience to his order!”

“My friend, my cousin Howard,” returned Katherine, “would never commission his cockswain, or any one, to do an unworthy deed. Speak, honest sailor; why do you commit this outrage on the worthy Mr. Dillon, Colonel Howard's kinsman, and a cupboard cousin of St. Ruth's Abbey?”

“Nay, Katherine—”

“Nay, Cecilia, be patient, and let the stranger have utterance; he may solve the difficulty altogether.”

The cockswain, understanding that an explanation was expected from his lips, addressed himself to the task with an energy suitable both to the subject and to his own feelings. In a very few words, though a little obscured by his peculiar diction, he made his listeners understand the confidence that Barnstable had reposed in Dillon, and the treachery of the latter. They heard him with increased astonishment, and Cecilia hardly allowed him time to conclude, before she exclaimed:

“And did Colonel Howard, could Colonel Howard listen to this treacherous project!”

“Ay, they spliced it together among them,” returned Tom; “though one part of this cruise will turn out but badly.”

“Even Borroughcliffe, cold and hardened as he appears to be by habit, would spurn at such dishonor,” added Miss Howard.

“But Mr. Barnstable?” at length Katherine succeeded in saying, when her feelings permitted her utterance, “said you not that soldiers were in quest of him?”

“Ay, ay, young madam,” the cockswain replied, smiling with grim ferocity, “they are in chase, but he has shifted his anchorage, and even if they should find him, his long pikes would make short work of a dozen redcoats. The Lord of tempests and calms have mercy, though, on the schooner! Ah, young madam she, is as lovely to the eyes of an old seafaring man as any of your kind can be to human nature!”

“But why this delay?—away then, honest Tom, and reveal the treachery to your commander; you may not yet be too late—why delay a moment?”

“The ship tarries for want of a pilot.—I could carry three fathom over the shoals of Nantucket, the darkest night that ever shut the windows of heaven, but I should be likely to run upon breakers in this navigation. As it was, I was near getting into company that I should have had to fight my way out of.”

“If that be all, follow me,” cried the ardent Katherine; “I will conduct you to a path that leads to the ocean, without approaching the sentinels.”

Until this moment, Dillon had entertained a secret expectation of a rescue, but when he heard this proposal he felt his blood retreating to his heart, from every part of his agitated frame, and his last hope seemed wrested from him. Raising himself from the abject shrinking attitude, in which both shame and dread had conspired to keep him as though he had been fettered to the spot, he approached Cecilia, and cried, in tones of horror:

“Do not, do not consent, Miss Howard, to abandon me to the fury of this man! Your uncle, your honorable uncle, even now applauded and united with me in my enterprise, which is no more than a common artifice in war.”

“My uncle would unite, Mr. Dillon, in no project of deliberate treachery like this,” said Cecilia, coldly.

“He did, I swear by——”

“Liar!” interrupted the deep tones of the cockswain.

Dillon shivered with agony and terror, while the sounds of this appalling voice sunk into his inmost soul; but as the gloom of the night, the secret ravines of the cliffs, and the turbulence of the ocean flashed across his imagination, he again yielded to a dread of the horrors to which he should be exposed, in encountering them at the mercy of his powerful enemy, and he continued his solicitations:

“Hear me, once more hear me—Miss Howard, I beseech you, hear me! Am I not of your own blood and country? will you see me abandoned to the wild, merciless, malignant fury of this man, who will transfix me with that—oh, God! if you had but seen the sight I beheld in the Alacrity!—hear me. Miss Howard; for the love you bear your Maker, intercede for me! Mr. Griffith shall be released——”

“Liar!” again interrupted the cockswain.

“What promises he?” asked Cecilia, turning her averted face once more at the miserable captive.

“Nothing at all that will be fulfilled,” said Katherine; “follow, honest Tom, and I, at least, will conduct you in good faith.”

“Cruel, obdurate Miss Plowden; gentle, kind Miss Alice, you will not refuse to raise your voice in my favor; your heart is not hardened by any imaginary dangers to those you love.”

“Nay, address not me,” said Alice, bending her meek eyes to the floor; “I trust your life is in no danger; and I pray that he who has the power will have the mercy to see you unharmed.”

“Away,” said Tom, grasping the collar of the helpless Dillon, and rather carrying than leading him into the gallery: “if a sound, one-quarter as loud as a young porpoise makes when he draws his first breath, comes from you, villain, you shall see the