"So! You have come back with all happiness, all success, for me and for others--but not for yourself! Such proving as you have had has fallen to the lot of but few men. I know now how great has been the cost--I see it in your face. The fifteen millions I paid for yonder lands was nothing. We have bought them with the happiness of a human soul! The transient grat.i.tude of this republic--the honor of that little paper--bah, they are nothing! But perhaps it may be something for you to know that at least one friend understands."
Lewis did not speak.
"What is lost is lost," the President began again after a time. "What is broken is broken. But see how clearly I look into your soul. You are not thinking now of what you can do for yourself. You are not thinking of your new rank, your honors. You are asking now, at this moment, what you can do for _her_! Is it not so?"
The smile that came upon the young man"s face was a beautiful, a wonderful thing to see. It made the wise old man sad to see it--but thoughtful, too.
"She is at Richmond, Merne?" said Mr. Jefferson a moment later.
The young man nodded.
"And the greatest boon she could ask would be her father"s freedom--the freedom of the man who sought to ruin this country--the man whom I scarcely dare release."
The thin lips compressed for a moment. It was not in implacable, vengeful zeal--it was but in thought.
"Now, then," said Thomas Jefferson sharply, "there comes a veil, a curtain, between you and me and all the world. No record must show that either of us raised a hand against the full action of the law, or planned that Colonel Burr should not suffer the full penalty of the code. Yes, for him that is true--but _not for his daughter_!"
"Mr. Jefferson!" The face of Meriwether Lewis was strangely moved. "I see the actual greatness of your soul; but I ask nothing."
"Why, in my heart I feel like flinging open every prison door in the world. If you have gained an empire for your country, and paid for it as you have, could not a great and rich country afford to pay to the extent of a woman"s happiness? When a king is crowned, he sets free the criminals. And this day I feel as proud and happy as if I were a king--and king of the greatest empire of all the world! I know well who a.s.sured that kingdom. Let me be, then"--he raised his long hand--"say nothing, do nothing. And let this end all talk between us of these matters. I know you can keep your own counsel."
Lewis bowed silently.
"Go to Richmond, Merne. You will find there a broken conspirator and his unhappy daughter. Both are ostracized. None is so poor as to do either of them reverence. She has no door opened to her now, though but lately she was daughter of the Vice-President, the rich Mrs.
Alston, wife of the Governor of her State. Go to them now. Tell Colonel Burr that the President will not ask mercy for him. John Marshall is on the bench there; but before him is a jury--John Randolph is foreman of that jury. It is there that case will be tried--in the jury room; and _politics will try it_! Go to Theodosia, Merne, in her desperate need."
"But what can I do, Mr. Jefferson?" broke out his listener.
"Do precisely what I tell you. Go to that social outcast. Take her on your arm before all the world--_and before that jury_! Sit there, before all Richmond--and that jury. An hour or so will do. Do that, and then, as I did when I trusted you, ask no questions, but leave it on the knees of the G.o.ds. If you can call me chief in other matters,"
the President concluded, "and can call me chief in that fashion of thought which men call religion as well, let me give you unction and absolution, my son. It is all that I have to give to one whom I have always loved as if he were my own son. This is all I can do for you.
It may fail; but I would rather trust that jury to be right than trust myself today; because, I repeat, I feel like flinging open every prison door in all the world, and telling every erring, stumbling man to try once more to do what his soul tells him he ought to do!"
CHAPTER XVI
THE QUALITY OF MERCY
In Richmond jail lay Aaron Burr, the great conspirator, the ruins of his ambition fallen about him. He had found a prison instead of a palace. He was eager no longer to gain a scepter, but only to escape a noose.
The great conspiracy was at an end. The only question was of the punishment the accused should have--for in the general belief he was certain of conviction. That he never was convicted has always been one of the most mysterious facts of a mysterious chapter in our national development.
So crowded were the hostelries of Richmond that a stranger would have had difficulty in finding lodging there during the six months of the Burr trial. Not so with Meriwether Lewis, now one of the country"s famous men. A score of homes opened their doors to him. The town buzzed over his appearance. He had once been the friend of Burr, always the friend of Jefferson. To which side now would he lean.
Luther Martin, chief of Burr"s counsel, was eager above all to have a word with Meriwether Lewis, so close to affairs in Washington, possibly so useful to himself. Washington Irving, too, a.s.sistant to Martin in the great trial, would gladly have had talk with him. All asked what his errand might be. What was the leaning of the Governor of the new Territory, a man closer to the administration at Washington than any other?
Meriwether Lewis kept his own counsel. He arranged first to see Burr himself. The meagerly furnished anteroom of the Federal prison in Richmond was the discredited adventurer"s reception-hall in those days.
Burr advanced to meet his visitor with something of his own old haughtiness of mien, a little of the former brilliance of his eye.
"Governor, I am delighted to see you, back safe and sound from your journey. My congratulations, sir!"
Meriwether Lewis made no reply, but gazed at him steadily, well aware of the stinging sarcasm of his words.
"I have few friends now," said Aaron Burr. "You have many. You are on the flood tide--it ebbs for me. When one loses, what mercy is shown to him? That scoundrel Merry--he promised everything and gave nothing!
Yrujo--he is worse yet in his treachery. Even the French minister, Turreau--who surely might listen to the wishes of the great French population of the Mississippi Valley--pays no attention to their pet.i.tions whatever, and none to mine. These were my former friends! I promised them a country."
"You promised them a country, Colonel Burr--from what?"
"From that great ownerless land yonder, the West. But they waited and waited, until your success was sure. Why, that scoundrel Merry is here this very day--the effrontery of him! He wants nothing more to do with me. No, he is here to undertake to recoup himself in his own losses by reasons of moneys he advanced to me some time ago. He is importuning my son-in-law, Mr. Alston, to pay him back those funds--which once he was so ready to furnish to us. But Mr. Alston is ruined--I am ruined--we are all ruined. No, they waited too long!"
"They waited until it was too late, yes," Lewis returned. "That country is American now, not British or Spanish or French. Our men are pa.s.sing across the river in thousands. They will never loose their hold on the West. It was treason to the future that you planned--but it was hopeless from the first!"
"It would seem, sir," said Aaron Burr, a cynical smile twisting his thin lip, "that I may not count upon your friendship!"
"That is a hard speech, Colonel Burr. I was your friend."
"More than your chief ever was! I fancy Mr. Jefferson would like to see me pilloried, drawn and quartered, after the old way."
"You are unjust to him. You struck at the greatest ambition of his life--struck at his heart and the heart of his country--when you undertook to separate the West from this republic."
"I am a plain man, and a busy man," said Aaron Burr coldly. "I must employ my time now to the betterment of my situation. I have failed, and you have won. But let me throw the cloak aside, since I know you can be of no service to me. I care not what punishment you may have--what suffering--because I recognize in you the one great cause of my failure. It was _you_, sir, with your cursed expedition, that defeated Aaron Burr!"
He turned, proud and defiant even in his failure, and when Meriwether Lewis looked up he was gone.
Even as Burr pa.s.sed, Meriwether Lewis heard a light step in the long corridor. Under guard of the turnkey, some one stood at the door. It was the figure of a woman--a figure which caused him to halt, caused his heart to leap!
She came toward him now, all in mourning black--hat, gown, and gloves.
Her face was pale, her eyes deep, her mouth drooping. Theodosia Alston was always thus on her daily visit to her father"s cell.
Herself the picture of failure and despair, she was used to avoiding the eyes of all; but she saw Meriwether Lewis standing before her, strong, tall, splendid in his manhood and vigor, in the full tide of his success. She was almost in touch of his hand when she raised her eyes to his.
These two had met at last, after what far wanderings apart! They had met as if each came from the Valley of the Shadows. Out of the vastness of the unknown, over all those long and devious trails, into what now seemed to him a world still more vast, more fraught with desperate peril, he had come back to her. And she--what had been her perils? What were her thoughts?
As his eye fell upon her, even as his keen ear had known her coming, the hand of Meriwether Lewis half unconsciously went to his breast. He felt under it the packet of faded letters which he had so long kept with him--which in some way he felt to be his talisman.
Yes, it was for this that he had had them! His love and hers--this had been his shield through all. What he saw in her grave face, her mournful eyes uplifted to his own--this was the solution of the riddle of his life, the reason for his moods of melancholy, the answer to a thousand unspoken prayers. He felt his heart thrill strong and full, felt his blood spring in strong current through his veins, until they strained, until he felt his nerves tingle as he stood, silent, endeavoring to still the tumult within him, now that he knew the great and satisfying truth of truths.
To her he was--what? A tall and handsome gentleman, immaculately clad, Governor of the newest of our Territories--the largest and richest realm ever laid under the rule of any viceroy. A bystander might have pondered on such things, but Meriwether Lewis had no thought of them, nor had the woman who looked up at him. No, to her eyes there stood only the man who made her blood leap, her soul cry out:
"Yea! Yea! Now I know!"
To her also, from the divine compa.s.sion, was given answer for her questionings. She knew that life for her, even though it ended now, had been no blind puzzle, after all, but was a glorious and perfect thing. She had called to him across the deep, and he had heard and come! From the very grave itself he had arisen and come again to her!
Even here under the shadow of the gallows--even if, as both knew in their supreme renunciation, they must part and never meet again--for them both there could be peaceful calm, with all life"s questions answered, beautifully and surely answered, never again to rise for conquering.
"Sir--Captain--that is to say, Governor Lewis," she corrected herself, "I was not expecting you."