Gerald was deeply affected by what he had just heard. It was evident that Colonel Forrester had, with a generosity to which no gratitude of his own could render adequate justice, sought to exonerate him from all suspicion of participation in the guilty design upon his life, and as he glanced his eye again for a moment upon the lifeless form of his companion, he was at once sensible that the only being who could defeat the benevolent object of his benefactor had now no longer the power to do so.
"She sleeps sound enough now," said Jackson, again pointing to the ill-fated and motionless girl, "but she'll sleep sounder yet before long, I take it."
"She will never sleep sounder than at this moment, Captain Jackson,"
said Gerald, with solemn emphasis.
"Why, you don't mean to say she has cheated the hangman, Liftenant."
As he spoke, Jackson approached the sofa, and turning the light full upon the face, saw indeed that she was dead. Gerald shuddered as the rays from the lamp revealed for the first time the appalling change which had been wrought upon that once beautiful countenance. The open and finely formed brow was deeply knit, and the features distorted by the acute agony which had wrung the shriek from her heart at the very moment of dissolution, were set in a stern expression of despair. The parted lips were drawn up at the corners in a manner to convey the idea of the severest internal pain, and there was already a general discoloration about the mouth, betraying the subtle influences of the poison which had effected her death.
Gerald after the first glance, turned away his head in horror from the view, but the Aide-de-camp remained for some moments calmly regarding the remains of all that had once been most beautiful in nature.
"She certainly is not like what she was when Colonel Forrester first knew her," he said, in the abstracted tone of one talking without reference to any other auditor than himself; "but this comes of preferring a nigger to a white man. Such unnatural courses never can prosper, I take it."
"Captain Jackson," said Gerald, aroused by his remark, and with great emphasis of tone, while he laid his hand impressively on the shoulder of the other, "you do her wrong. Guilty as she has been, fearfully guilty, but not in the sense you would imply."
"How do you know this?" asked the Aide-de-camp.
"From her own solemn declaration at a moment when deception could avail her not. Even before she swallowed the fatal poison, her horror at the imputation, which drove her to the perpetration of murder, was expressed in terms of indignant warmth that belong to truth alone."
"If this be so," said Jackson, musingly, "she is indeed a much injured woman, and deep I know will be the regret of Colonel Forrester when he hears it, for he himself has ever believed her guilty. But come, Liftenant Grantham, we have no time to lose. The day will soon break, and I expect you must be a considerable way from Frankfort before sunrise."
"I--from Frankfort--before sunrise!" exclaimed Gerald, in perfect astonishment.
"Why, it's rather short warning to be sure; but the Colonel thinks you'd better start before the thing gets wind in the morning; for so many of the niggers say you wore a sort of a disguise as well as the poor girl, he fears the citizens may suspect you of something more than an intrigue, and insult you desperately."
"Generous, excellent man!" exclaimed Gerald, "how can I ever repay this most unmerited service?"
"Why, the best way I take it, is to profit by the offer that is made you of getting back to Canada as fast as you can."
"But how is this to be done, and will not the very fact of my flight confirm the suspicion it is intended to remove?"
"As for the matter of how it is to be done, Liftenant, I have as slick a horse waiting outside for you as man ever crossed--one of the fleetest in Colonel Forrester's stud. Then as for suspicion, he means to set that at rest, by saying that he has taken upon himself to give you leave to return on parole to your friends, who wish to see you on a case of life and death, and now let's be moving."
Oppressed with the weight of contending feelings, which this generous conduct had inspired, Gerald waited but to cast a last look upon the ill-fated Matilda; and then with a slow step and a heavy heart for ever quitted a scene fraught with the most exciting and the most painful occurrences of his life. The first rays of early dawn beginning to develope themselves as they issued from the temple, Jackson extinguished his lamp, and leading through the narrow pass that conducted to the town, made the circuit of the ridge of hills until they arrived at a point where a negro (the same who had led the party that bore Matilda and himself to the temple) was in waiting, with a horse ready saddled and the arms and accoutrements of a rifleman.
The equipment of Gerald was soon completed, and with the shot-bag and powder-horn slung over his shoulder, and the long rifle in his hand, he soon presented the appearance of a backwoodsman hastening to the theatre of war.
When he had seated himself in the saddle, Jackson drew forth a well filled purse, which he said he had been directed by Colonel Forrester to present him with to defray the expenses of his journey to the frontier.
Deeply affected by this new proof of the favor of the generous American, Gerald received the purse, saying, as he confided them to the breast of his hunting frock--
"Captain Jackson, tell Colonel Forrester from me, that I accept his present merely because in doing so I give the best evidences of my appreciation of _all_ he has done for me on this trying occasion. In his own heart, however, he must look for the only reward to which this most noble of actions justly entitles him."
The frank-hearted Aide-de-camp promised compliance with this parting message, and after pointing out the route it would be necessary to follow, warmly pressed the hand of his charge in a final grasp, that told how little he deemed the man before him capable of the foul intention with which his soul had been so recently sullied.
How often during those hours of mad infatuation, when his weakened mind had been balancing between the possession of Matilda at the price of crime, and his abandonment of her at that of happiness, had the observation of the Aide-de-camp, on a former occasion, that he "was never born to be an assassin," occurred to his mind, suffusing his cheek with shame and his soul with remorse. Now, too, that conscious of having fallen in all but the positive commission of the deed, he saw that the unsuspecting American regarded him merely as one whom accident or intrigue had made an unwilling witness of the deadly act of a desperate woman, his feelings were those of profound abasement and self-contempt.
There was a moment, when urged by an involuntary impulse, he would have undeceived Captain Jackson as to his positive share in the transaction; but pride suddenly interposed and saved him from the degradation of the confession. He returned the pressure of the American's hand with emphasis, and then turning his horse in the direction which he had been recommended to take, quitted Frankfort for ever.
CHAPTER XXXI.
In October of the same year, a numerous body of Americans, principally troops of the line, had been collected under the orders of General Van Rensselaer, and advantage was taken of an extremely dark night to push them across the river, with a view to the occupation of the commanding heights above the village of Queenston. In this, favored by circumstances, the enemy were eminently successful. They carried the batteries, and at day-break the heights were to be seen covered with their battalions, before whom were thrown out a considerable body of riflemen. At the first alarm, the little detachment stationed at Queenston marched out to dislodge them; but such was the impatient gallantry of General Brock, who had succeeded to the command on this line of frontier, that without waiting for the main body from Fort George to come up, he threw himself at the head of the flank companies of the Forty-Ninth, and moving forward in double quick time, soon came within sight of the enemy.
Among the General's aides-de-camp, was Henry Grantham, who, having succeeded in making his escape at the fatal defeat of the Moravian Village, with a few men of his company, had in the absence of his regiment (then prisoners of war), and from considerations of personal esteem, been attached as a supernumerary to his staff. With him at this moment was the light-hearted De Courcy, and as the young men rode a little in rear of their Chief, they were so rapt in admiration of his fine form and noble daring (as he still kept dashing onward, far in advance even of the handful of troops who followed eagerly and rapidly in his rear), that they utterly forgot the danger to which he was exposed.
On arriving at the ascent, the General for a moment reined in his charger, in order to give time to the rear to close in, then removing and waving his plumed hat.
"Hurrah, Forty-Ninth!" he exclaimed, in language suited to those he addressed. "Up these heights lies our road--on ourselves depends the victory. Not a shot till we gain the summit--then three cheers for old England--a volley--and the bayonet must do the rest!"
So saying, he resumed his hat; and wheeling his horse, once more led his gallant little band up the hill.
But it was not likely that the Americans would suffer the approach of so determined an enemy without attempting to check their progress in the most efficient manner. Distinguished from those around him by his commanding air, not less than by the military insignia that adorned him, the person of the General was at once recognised for one bearing high rank, and as such became an object of especial attention to the dispersed riflemen. Shot after shot flew past the undaunted officer, carrying death into the close ranks that followed noiselessly in his rear, yet without harming him. At length he was seen by his aides-de-camp, both of whom had kept their eyes upon him, to reel in his saddle. An instant brought the young men to his side, De Courcy on his right and Grantham on his left hand. They looked up into his face. It was suffused with the hues of death. A moment afterwards and he fell from his horse, with his head reclining upon the chest of Henry Grantham. There was a momentary halt in the advancing column; all were dismayed at the dreadful event.
De Courcy and Grantham, having abandoned their horses, now bore their beloved leader to the side of the road, and sought some spot out of reach of the enemy's fire, where he might breathe his last moments in peace.
As Henry Grantham glanced his eye towards an old untenanted building, that lay some fifty yards off the road, and which he conceived fully adapted to the purpose, he saw the form of a rifleman partly exposed at a corner of the building, whose action at the moment was evidently that of one loading his piece. The idea that this skulking enemy might have been the same who had given the fatal death-wound to his beloved Chief, added to the conviction that he was preparing to renew the shot, filled him with the deepest desire of vengeance. As the bodies of several men, picked off by the riflemen, lay along the road (one at no great distance from the spot on which he stood), he hastened to secure the nearest musket, which, as no shot had been fired by the English, he knew to be loaded.
Leaving De Courcy to support the head of the General, the young Aid-de-camp moved with due caution towards the building; but ere he had gone ten paces, he beheld the object of his pursuit issue altogether from the cover of the building, and advance towards him with his rifle on the trail. More and more convinced that his design was to obtain a near approach, with a view to a more certain aim, he suddenly halted and raised the musket to his shoulder. In vain was a shout to desist uttered by the advancing man--in vain was his rifle thrown aside, as if in token of the absence of all hostile purposes. The excited Henry Grantham heeded not the words--saw not the action. He thought only of the danger of his General, and of his desire to avenge his fall. He fired--the rifleman staggered, and putting his hand to his breast--
"My brother! oh, my unhappy brother!" he exclaimed, and sank senseless to the earth.
Who shall tell the horror of the unfortunate young Aide-de-camp, at recognising in the supposed enemy his long mourned and much loved Gerald! Motion, sense, life, seemed for the instant annihilated by the astounding consciousness of the fratricidal act: the musket fell from his hands, and he who had never known sorrow before, save through those most closely linked to his warm affections, was now overwhelmed, crushed by the mountain of despair that fell upon his heart. It was some moments before he could so far recover from the stupor into which that dear and well-remembered voice had plunged him, as to perceive the possibility of the wound not being mortal. The thought acted like electricity upon each stupified sense and palsied limb; and eager with the renewed hope, he bounded forward to the spot where lay the unfortunate Gerald, writhing in his agony. He had fallen on his face, but as Henry approached him, he raised himself with one hand, and with the other beckoned to his brother to draw near.
"Great God, what have I done!" exclaimed the unhappy Henry, throwing himself, in a paroxysm of despair, upon the body of his bleeding brother. "Gerald, my own beloved Gerald, is it thus we meet again? Oh!
if you would not kill me, tell me that your wound is not mortal. Assure me that I am not a fratricide. Oh, Gerald, Gerald! my brother, tell me that you are not dying."
A faint smile passed over the pale, haggard features of Gerald: he grasped the hand of his brother and pressed it fervently, saying:
"Henry, the hand of fate is visible in all this; therefore condemn not yourself for that which was inevitable. I knew of the attempt of the Americans to possess themselves of the heights, and I crossed over with them under favor of this disguise, determined to find death, combatting at the side of our gallant General. Detaching myself from the ranks, I but waited the advance of the British column to remove from my concealment--you know the rest. But oh, Henry! if you could divine what a relief it is to me to part with existence, you would not wish the act undone. This was all I asked: to see you once more--to embrace you--and to die! Life offered me no hope but this."
Gerald expressed himself with the effort of one laboring under strong bodily pain; and as he spoke he again sank exhausted upon the ground.
"This packet," he continued, taking one from the breast of the hunting-frock he wore, and handing it to his brother, who, silent and full of agony, had again raised his head from the ground and supported it on his shoulder--"this packet, Henry, written at various times during the last fortnight, will explain all that has passed since we last parted in the Miami. When I am no more, read it; and while you mourn over his dishonor, pity the weakness and the sufferings of the unhappy Gerald."
Henry was nearly frantic. The hot tears fell from his burning eyes upon the pale emaciated cheek of his brother, and he groaned in agony.
"Oh God!" he exclaimed, "how shall I ever survive this blow?--my brother! oh, my brother! tell me that you forgive me."
"Most willingly; yet what is there to be forgiven? You took me for an enemy, and hence alone your error. It was fate, Henry. A dreadful doom has long been prophesied to the last of our race. We are the last--and this is the consummation. Let it however console you to think, that though your hand had not slain me another's would. In the ranks of the enemy I should have found--Henry, my kind, my affectionate brother--your hand--there--there--what dreadful faintness at my heart--Matilda, it is my turn now--Oh, God have mercy, oh----"
While this scene was passing by the roadside between the unfortunate brothers, the main body of the British force had come up to the spot where the General still lay expiring in the arms of De Courcy, and surrounded by the principal of the medical staff. The majority of these were of the regiment previously named--veterans who had known and loved their gallant leader during the whole course of his spotless career, and more than one rude hand might be seen dashing the tear that started involuntarily to the eye. As the colors of the Forty-ninth passed before him, the General made an effort to address some language of encouragement to his old corps, but the words died away in indistinct murmurs, and, waving his hand in the direction of the heights, he sank back exhausted with the effort, and resigned his gallant spirit for ever.
For some minutes after life had departed, Henry Grantham continued to hang over the body of his ill-fated brother, with an intenseness of absorption that rendered him heedless even of the rapid fire of musketry in the advance. The sound of De Courcy's voice was the first thing that seemed to call him to consciousness. De Courcy had heard the cry uttered by the latter on receiving the fatal shot, and his imagination had too faithfully portrayed the painful scene that had ensued. A friend of both brothers, and particularly attached of late to the younger from the similar nature of their service, he was inexpressibly shocked, but still cherishing a hope that the wound might not be attended with loss of life, he expected to find his anticipations realized by some communication from his friend. Finding however that the one rose not, and remarking that the demeanor of the other was that of profound despair, he began at length to draw the most unfavorable conclusion, and causing the body of his commander to be borne under cover of the building, until proper means of transport could be found, he hastened to ascertain the full extent of the tragedy.