Stolen Treasure

These elegant festivities were at their height, when there suddenly arose a considerable disputation in the hallway beyond, and before any one could inquire as to what was occurring, Captain Obadiah Belford came stumping into the room, swinging his ivory-headed cane, and with an expression of the most malicious triumph impressed upon his countenance. Directing his address to the bridegroom, and paying no attention to any other one of the company, he cried out: "Though not bidden to this entertainment, I have come to pay you a debt I owe. Here is twenty pounds I promised to pay you for marrying my niece."

Therewith he drew a silk purse full of gold pieces from his pocket, which he hung over the ferrule of his cane and reached across the table to the bridegroom. That gentleman, upon his part (having expected some such episode as this), arose, and with a most polite and elaborate bow accepted the same and thrust it into his pocket.

"And now, my young gentleman," cried Captain Obadiah, folding his arms and tucking his cane under his armpit, looking the while from under his brows upon the company with a most malevolent and extravagant grin – "and now, my young gentleman, perhaps you will favor the ladies and gentlemen here present with an account of what services they are I thus pay for."

"To be sure I will," cried out our hero, "and that with the utmost willingness in the world."

During all this while the elegant company had sat as with suspended animation, overwhelmed with wonder at the singular address of the intruder. Even the servants stood still with the dishes in their hands the better to hear the outcome of the affair. The bride, overwhelmed by a sudden and inexplicable anxiety, felt the color quit her face, and reaching out, seized her lover's hand, who took hers very readily, holding it tight within his grasp. As for Colonel and Madam Belford, not knowing what this remarkable address portended, they sat as though turned to stone, the one gone as white as ashes, and the other as red in the face as a cherry. Our young gentleman, however, maintained the utmost coolness and composure of demeanor. Pointing his finger towards the intruder, he exclaimed: "In Captain Obadiah Belford, ladies and gentlemen, you behold the most unmitigated villain that ever I met in all of my life. With an incredible spite and vindictiveness he not only pursued my honored father-in-law, Colonel Belford, but has sought to wreak an unwarranted revenge upon the innocent and virtuous young lady whom I have now the honor to call my wife. But how has he overreached himself in his machinations! How has he entangled his feet in the net which he himself has spread! I will tell you my history, as he bids me to do, and you may then judge for yourselves!"

At this unexpected address Captain Obadiah's face fell from its expression of malicious triumph, growing longer and longer, until at last it was overclouded with so much doubt and anxiety that, had he been threatened by the loss of a thousand pounds, he could not have assumed a greater appearance of mortification and dejection. Meantime, regarding him with a mischievous smile, our young gentleman began the history of all those adventures that had befallen him from the time he embarked upon the memorable expedition with his two companions in dissipation from York Stairs. As his account proceeded Captain Obadiah's face altered by degrees from its natural brown to a sickly yellow, and then to so leaden a hue that it could not have assumed a more ghastly appearance were he about to swoon dead away. Great beads of sweat gathered upon his forehead and trickled down his cheeks. At last he could endure no more, but with a great and strident voice, such as might burst forth from a devil tormented, he cried out: "'Tis a lie! 'Tis all a monstrous lie! He is a beggarly runaway servant whom I took in out of the rain and fed and housed – to have him turn thus against me and strike the hand that has benefited him!"

"Sir," replied our young gentleman, with a moderate and easy voice, "what I tell you is no lie, but the truth. If any here misdoubts my veracity, see, here is a letter received by the last packet from my honored father. You, Colonel Belford, know his handwriting perfectly well. Look at this and tell me if I am deceiving you."

At these words Colonel Belford took the letter with a hand that trembled as though with palsy. He cast his eyes over it, but it is to be doubted whether he read a single word therein contained. Nevertheless, he saw enough to satisfy his doubts, and he could have wept, so great was the relief from the miserable and overwhelming anxiety that had taken possession of him since the beginning of his brother's discourse.

Meantime our young gentleman, turning to Captain Obadiah, cried out, "Sir, I am indeed an instrument of Providence sent hither to call your wickedness to account," and this he spoke with so virtuous an air as to command the admiration of all who heard him. "I have," he continued, "lived with you now for nearly three odious months, and I know every particular of your habits and such circumstances of your life as you are aware of. I now proclaim how you have wickedly and sacrilegiously turned the Old Free Grace Meeting-House into a slave-pen, whence for above a year you have conducted a nefarious and most inhuman commerce with the West Indies."

At these words Captain Obadiah, being thrown so suddenly upon his defence, forced himself to give forth a huge and boisterous laugh. "What then?" he cried. "What wickedness is there in that? What if I have provided a few sugar plantations with negro slaves? Are there not those here present who would do no better if the opportunity offered? The place is mine, and I break no law by a bit of quiet slave-trading."

"I marvel," cried our young gentleman, still in the same virtuous strain – "I marvel that you can pass over so wicked a thing thus easily. I myself have counted above fifty graves of your victims on Pig and Sow Point. Repent, sir, while there is yet time."

But to this adjuration Captain Obadiah returned no other reply than to burst into a most wicked, impudent laugh.

"Is it so?" cried our young gentleman. "Do you dare me to further exposures? Then I have here another evidence to confront you that may move you to a more serious consideration." With these words he drew forth from his pocket a packet wrapped in soft white paper. This he unfolded, holding up to the gaze of all a bright and shining object. "This," he exclaimed, "I found in Captain Obadiah's writing-desk while I was hunting for some wax with which to seal a letter." It was the gold snuffbox of the late Collector Goodhouse. "What," he cried, "have you, sir, to offer in explanation of the manner in which this came into your possession? See, here engraved upon the lid is the owner's name and the circumstance of his having saved my own poor life. It was that first called my attention to it, for I well recollect how my father compelled me to present it to my savior. How came it into your possession, and why have you hidden it away so carefully for all this while? Sir, in the death of Lieutenant Goodhouse I suspect you of a more sinister fault than that of converting yonder poor sanctuary into a slave-pen. So soon as Captain Morris of your slave-ship returns from Jamaica I shall have him arrested, and shall compel him to explain what he knows of the circumstances of the Lieutenant's unfortunate murder."

At the sight of so unexpected an object in the young gentleman's hand Captain Obadiah's jaw fell, and his cavernous mouth gaped as though he had suddenly been stricken with a palsy. He lifted a trembling hand and slowly and mechanically passed it along that cheek which was so discolored with gunpowder stain. Then, suddenly gathering himself together and regaining those powers that appeared for a moment to have fled from him, he cried out, aloud: "I swear to God 'twas all an accident! I pushed him down the steps, and he fell and broke his neck!"

Our young gentleman regarded him with a cold and collected smile. "That, sir," said he, "you shall have the opportunity to explain to the proper authorities – unless," he added, "you choose to take yourself away from these parts, and to escape the just resentment of those laws to which you may be responsible for your misdemeanors."

"I shall," roared Captain Obadiah, "stand my trial in spite of you all! I shall live to see you in torments yet! I shall – " He gaped and stuttered, but could find no further words with which to convey his infinite rage and disappointed spite. Then turning, and with a furious gesture, he rushed forth and out of the house, thrusting those aside who stood in his way, and leaving behind him a string of curses fit to set the whole world into a blaze.

He had destroyed all the gaiety of the wedding-breakfast, but the relief from the prodigious doubts and anxieties that had at first overwhelmed those whom he had intended to ruin was of so great a nature that they thought nothing of so inconsiderable a circumstance.

As for our young gentleman, he had come forth from the adventure with such dignity of deportment and with so exalted an air of generous rectitude that those present could not sufficiently admire at the continent discretion of one so young. The young lady whom he had married, if she had before regarded him as a Paris and an Achilles incorporated into one person, now added the wisdom of a Nestor to the category of his accomplishments.

Captain Obadiah, in spite of the defiance he had fulminated against his enemies, and in spite of the determination he had expressed to remain and to stand his trial, was within a few days known to have suddenly and mysteriously departed from New Hope. Whether or not he misdoubted his own rectitude too greatly to put it to the test of a trial, or whether the mortification incident upon the failure of his plot was too great for him to support, it was clearly his purpose never to return again. For within a month the more valuable of his belongings were removed from his great house upon Pig and Sow Point and were loaded upon a bark that came into the harbor for that purpose. Thence they were transported no one knew whither, for Captain Obadiah was never afterwards observed in those parts.

Nor was the old meeting-house ever again disturbed by such manifestations as had terrified the community for so long a time. Nevertheless, though the Devil was thus exorcised from his abiding-place, the old church never lost its evil reputation, until it was finally destroyed by fire about ten years after the incidents herein narrated.

In conclusion it is only necessary to say that when the Honorable Frederick Dunburne presented his wife to his noble family at home, he was easily forgiven his mésalliance in view of her extreme beauty and vivacity. Within a year or two Lord Carrickford, his elder brother, died of excessive dissipation in Florence, where he was then attached to the English Embassy, so that our young gentleman thus became the heir-apparent to his father's title, and so both branches of the family were united into one.

THE END

notes

1

A two-masted square-rigged vessel.