--You wrong me every way; you wrong me, Brutus!"
SHAKSPEARE.
Jaspar Dumont, on the morning after the abstraction of the papers by Dalhousie, rose from his inebriated slumbers; but his rest was a misnomer. The strong excitement, which a few weeks before had served to keep his mind occupied, had now pa.s.sed away. His villany was accomplished; but it had not purchased the satisfaction he coveted--it had cost too much sacrifice of soul. Brandy was his only solace; and even this only conjured up demons of torture in his fevered imagination.
He was conscious that on the previous night he had drank too much. There seemed to be a chasm in his recollection which all his efforts could not fill. He might, while in a measure unconscious of his actions, have betrayed some of his momentous secrets. The overseer, of whose presence he had an indistinct remembrance, might have obtained some further clue to the great mystery. These were annoying reflections, and while he resolved to be more temperate in future, how fervently he adjured his patron demon to ward off any danger he might have courted in his inebriation!
After his accustomed ride through the cane-fields, he retired to the library. The decanter had been replenished with brandy, and his late resolutions did not deter him from freely imbibing of its contents. The equilibrium was restored. His mind, stimulated by the fumes of the liquor, resumed its usual buoyancy. He paced the room, and drank frequent draughts of the fiery beverage.
Suddenly he stopped in his perambulation, as a faint recollection of the lost key came to his mind. He searched his pockets; but it could not be found. The drawer was locked. Suspicious as he was fearful, he trembled lest in his oblivious moments he had compromised his secret. He sent for the overseer, determined to know and provide for the worst.
After the messenger left, his reflections a.s.sumed a new direction. He tried to laugh away his suspicions, applied epithets to himself which it would not have been safe for another to have applied, and in good round oaths cursed his own stupidity. In his privacy he was a pattern of candor, and bestowed upon himself such a rating as, to another, would have given fair promise of good results.
He satisfied himself that the drawer could contain nothing to implicate him; and, even if it did, why, he was safe enough in the hands of Dalhousie. The overseer he regarded as a kind of _thing_, who, while he retained him in his service, would never injure him. Jaspar, for some reason or other, had formed no very elevated opinion of Dalhousie"s acuteness. He had bought him off cheaply once, and could do so again. If he refused to be bought off cheaply,--and Jaspar grated his teeth at the reflection,--why, a method could be devised to get rid of him.
While engaged in these musings, a knock at the door startled him to his feet. It was not the overseer"s knock.
A servant announced a strange gentleman, who declined to give his name.
"Show him in," said Jaspar, re-seating himself, and striving to a.s.sume a tranquillity which did not pervade his mind. Since the consummation of his base scheme he had been a prey to nervous starts, and the announcement of a stranger stirred the blood in its channels, and sent his heart into his throat. This nervous excitement had been increasing upon him every day, and his devotion to the bottle by no means tended to allay it. Such are the consequences of guilt. If the victim, before he yields to temptation, could antic.i.p.ate the terrible state of suspense into which his guilt would plunge him,--if he could see only a faint reflection of himself, starting at every sound in nervous terror, as before the appearance of some grim spirit of darkness,--he would never have the courage to commit a crime.
The stranger entered the library. It was De Guy. At his appearance Jaspar"s fears gave way to a most uncontrollable fit of pa.s.sion.
"Villain!" exclaimed he, "how dare you enter my house, after what has pa.s.sed?"
"Gently, my dear sir! You forget that we have been friends, and that our mutual safety requires us to remain so still," said De Guy, in his silky tone and compromising manner.
Jaspar compressed his lips, and grated his teeth, while a smothered oath escaped him. But his rage soon found a more audible expression.
"Friends!" By ----, I should think we had been _friends!_" said he, fiercely.
"Certainly, my dear sir,--_friends_."
"Then save me from my friends!"
"Better say your enemies! I fear you have a great many."
"Save me from both! May I ask to what fortunate circ.u.mstance I am indebted for the honor of this visit?" said Jaspar, sarcastically mimicking the silky tones, of the attorney.
"I came to forward our mutual interest."
"Then, by ----, you can take yourself off! You and I will part company."
"Indeed, sir, this is ungenerous, after I have a.s.sisted you into your present position, to treat me in this manner," replied the attorney, smilingly shaking his head.
"I am _not_ indebted to you for my life, or my position! You have been a traitor, sir!--a traitor! and, tear out my heart, but I will swing, before I have anything further to do with you!" roared Jaspar, with compound emphasis, as he rose from his chair, and advanced to the brandy-bottle.
"Gently, Mr. Dumont, gently! Do not get into a pa.s.sion! May I ask what you mean by traitor? Have I not served you faithfully?" interrogated the attorney, with a smile of a.s.surance.
"Served me faithfully!" sneered Jaspar. "You served me a cursed shabby trick above Baton Rouge, at the wood-yard."
"My _dear_ sir, you wrong me! I did not injure you bodily, I trust?"
"No, sir! You have not that satisfaction."
"I rejoice to hear it. All that I did was for your benefit," returned the attorney, complacently.
"Do you take me for an idiot?"
"By no means! You have shown your shrewdness too often to permit such a supposition."
"What do you mean, then?" said Jaspar, a little mollified, in spite of himself, by the conciliatory a.s.surance of De Guy.
"Simply that your interest demanded your absence. I had not the time, then, to convince you of the fact; and, I trust, you will pardon the little subterfuge I adopted to promote your own views."
Jaspar opened his eyes, and fixed them in a broad stare upon big companion.
"Explain yourself," said he.
"Everything has come out right,--has it not?"
"Yes."
"You are in quiet possession?"
"Yes."
"Then, sir, you may thank me for that little plan of mine at the wood-yard. If I had not prevented you from continuing your journey, all your hopes would have been blasted."
"I do not understand you."
"Where is your niece now?" asked the attorney, as a shade of anxiety beclouded his brow.
"She was lost in the explosion," replied Jaspar, with a calmness with which few persons can speak of the loss of near friends.
The attorney was particularly glad at this particular moment to ascertain that this, as he had before suspected, was Jaspar"s belief, and that this belief had lulled him into security. He was not, however, so candid as to give expression to his sentiments on the subject.
"Precisely so!" exclaimed the attorney, as though no shade of doubt or anxiety had crossed him. "The Chalmetta exploded her boiler."
"Well!"
"Both Miss Dumont and her troublesome lover were lost,--were they not?"
"Yes."
"And, if you had continued on board, you would probably have shared their fate."
"Yes; but do you mean to say you blowed the steamer up? asked Jaspar, with a sneer.