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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, Aaron Trow, by Anthony Trollope
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most
+other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
+whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of
+the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
+www.gutenberg.org.  If you are not located in the United States, you'll have
+to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook.
+
+
+
+
+Title: Aaron Trow
+
+
+Author: Anthony Trollope
+
+
+
+Release Date: January 16, 2015  [eBook #3713]
+[This file was first posted on July 31, 2001]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AARON TROW***
+
+
+Transcribed from the 1864 Chapman and Hall “Tales of All Countries”
+edition by David Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org
+
+
+
+
+
+                               AARON TROW.
+
+
+I WOULD wish to declare, at the beginning of this story, that I shall
+never regard that cluster of islets which we call Bermuda as the
+Fortunate Islands of the ancients.  Do not let professional geographers
+take me up, and say that no one has so accounted them, and that the
+ancients have never been supposed to have gotten themselves so far
+westwards.  What I mean to assert is this—that, had any ancient been
+carried thither by enterprise or stress of weather, he would not have
+given those islands so good a name.  That the Neapolitan sailors of King
+Alonzo should have been wrecked here, I consider to be more likely.  The
+vexed Bermoothes is a good name for them.  There is no getting in or out
+of them without the greatest difficulty, and a patient, slow navigation,
+which is very heart-rending.  That Caliban should have lived here I can
+imagine; that Ariel would have been sick of the place is certain; and
+that Governor Prospero should have been willing to abandon his
+governorship, I conceive to have been only natural.  When one regards the
+present state of the place, one is tempted to doubt whether any of the
+governors have been conjurors since his days.
+
+Bermuda, as all the world knows, is a British colony at which we maintain
+a convict establishment.  Most of our outlying convict establishments
+have been sent back upon our hands from our colonies, but here one is
+still maintained.  There is also in the islands a strong military
+fortress, though not a fortress looking magnificent to the eyes of
+civilians, as do Malta and Gibraltar.  There are also here some six
+thousand white people and some six thousand black people, eating,
+drinking, sleeping, and dying.
+
+The convict establishment is the most notable feature of Bermuda to a
+stranger, but it does not seem to attract much attention from the regular
+inhabitants of the place.  There is no intercourse between the prisoners
+and the Bermudians.  The convicts are rarely seen by them, and the
+convict islands are rarely visited.  As to the prisoners themselves, of
+course it is not open to them—or should not be open to them—to have
+intercourse with any but the prison authorities.
+
+There have, however, been instances in which convicts have escaped from
+their confinement, and made their way out among the islands.  Poor
+wretches!  As a rule, there is but little chance for any that can so
+escape.  The whole length of the cluster is but twenty miles, and the
+breadth is under four.  The prisoners are, of course, white men, and the
+lower orders of Bermuda, among whom alone could a runagate have any
+chance of hiding himself, are all negroes; so that such a one would be
+known at once.  Their clothes are all marked.  Their only chance of a
+permanent escape would be in the hold of an American ship; but what
+captain of an American or other ship would willingly encumber himself
+with an escaped convict?  But, nevertheless, men have escaped; and in one
+instance, I believe, a convict got away, so that of him no farther
+tidings were ever heard.
+
+For the truth of the following tale I will not by any means vouch.  If
+one were to inquire on the spot one might probably find that the ladies
+all believe it, and the old men; that all the young men know exactly how
+much of it is false and how much true; and that the steady, middle-aged,
+well-to-do islanders are quite convinced that it is romance from
+beginning to end.  My readers may range themselves with the ladies, the
+young men, or the steady, well-to-do, middle-aged islanders, as they
+please.
+
+Some years ago, soon after the prison was first established on its
+present footing, three men did escape from it, and among them a certain
+notorious prisoner named Aaron Trow.  Trow’s antecedents in England had
+not been so villanously bad as those of many of his fellow-convicts,
+though the one offence for which he was punished had been of a deep dye:
+he had shed man’s blood.  At a period of great distress in a
+manufacturing town he had led men on to riot, and with his own hand had
+slain the first constable who had endeavoured to do his duty against him.
+There had been courage in the doing of the deed, and probably no malice;
+but the deed, let its moral blackness have been what it might, had sent
+him to Bermuda, with a sentence against him of penal servitude for life.
+Had he been then amenable to prison discipline,—even then, with such a
+sentence against him as that,—he might have won his way back, after the
+lapse of years, to the children, and perhaps, to the wife, that he had
+left behind him; but he was amenable to no rules—to no discipline.  His
+heart was sore to death with an idea of injury, and he lashed himself
+against the bars of his cage with a feeling that it would be well if he
+could so lash himself till he might perish in his fury.
+
+And then a day came in which an attempt was made by a large body of
+convicts, under his leadership, to get the better of the officers of the
+prison.  It is hardly necessary to say that the attempt failed.  Such
+attempts always fail.  It failed on this occasion signally, and Trow,
+with two other men, were condemned to be scourged terribly, and then kept
+in solitary confinement for some lengthened term of months.  Before,
+however, the day of scourging came, Trow and his two associates had
+escaped.
+
+I have not the space to tell how this was effected, nor the power to
+describe the manner.  They did escape from the establishment into the
+islands, and though two of them were taken after a single day’s run at
+liberty, Aaron Trow had not been yet retaken even when a week was over.
+When a month was over he had not been retaken, and the officers of the
+prison began to say that he had got away from them in a vessel to the
+States.  It was impossible, they said, that he should have remained in
+the islands and not been discovered.  It was not impossible that he might
+have destroyed himself, leaving his body where it had not yet been found.
+But he could not have lived on in Bermuda during that month’s search.
+So, at least, said the officers of the prison.  There was, however, a
+report through the islands that he had been seen from time to time; that
+he had gotten bread from the negroes at night, threatening them with
+death if they told of his whereabouts; and that all the clothes of the
+mate of a vessel had been stolen while the man was bathing, including a
+suit of dark blue cloth, in which suit of clothes, or in one of such a
+nature, a stranger had been seen skulking about the rocks near St.
+George.  All this the governor of the prison affected to disbelieve, but
+the opinion was becoming very rife in the islands that Aaron Trow was
+still there.
+
+A vigilant search, however, is a task of great labour, and cannot be kept
+up for ever.  By degrees it was relaxed.  The warders and gaolers ceased
+to patrol the island roads by night, and it was agreed that Aaron Trow
+was gone, or that he would be starved to death, or that he would in time
+be driven to leave such traces of his whereabouts as must lead to his
+discovery; and this at last did turn out to be the fact.
+
+There is a sort of prettiness about these islands which, though it never
+rises to the loveliness of romantic scenery, is nevertheless attractive
+in its way.  The land breaks itself into little knolls, and the sea runs
+up, hither and thither, in a thousand creeks and inlets; and then, too,
+when the oleanders are in bloom, they give a wonderfully bright colour to
+the landscape.  Oleanders seem to be the roses of Bermuda, and are
+cultivated round all the villages of the better class through the
+islands.  There are two towns, St. George and Hamilton, and one main
+high-road, which connects them; but even this high-road is broken by a
+ferry, over which every vehicle going from St. George to Hamilton must be
+conveyed.  Most of the locomotion in these parts is done by boats, and
+the residents look to the sea, with its narrow creeks, as their best
+highway from their farms to their best market.  In those days—and those
+days were not very long since—the building of small ships was their chief
+trade, and they valued their land mostly for the small scrubby
+cedar-trees with which this trade was carried on.
+
+As one goes from St. George to Hamilton the road runs between two seas;
+that to the right is the ocean; that on the left is an inland creek,
+which runs up through a large portion of the islands, so that the land on
+the other side of it is near to the traveller.  For a considerable
+portion of the way there are no houses lying near the road, and, there is
+one residence, some way from the road, so secluded that no other house
+lies within a mile of it by land.  By water it might probably be reached
+within half a mile.  This place was called Crump Island, and here lived,
+and had lived for many years, an old gentleman, a native of Bermuda,
+whose business it had been to buy up cedar wood and sell it to the
+ship-builders at Hamilton.  In our story we shall not have very much to
+do with old Mr. Bergen, but it will be necessary to say a word or two
+about his house.
+
+It stood upon what would have been an island in the creek, had not a
+narrow causeway, barely broad enough for a road, joined it to that larger
+island on which stands the town of St. George.  As the main road
+approaches the ferry it runs through some rough, hilly, open ground,
+which on the right side towards the ocean has never been cultivated.  The
+distance from the ocean here may, perhaps, be a quarter of a mile, and
+the ground is for the most part covered with low furze.  On the left of
+the road the land is cultivated in patches, and here, some half mile or
+more from the ferry, a path turns away to Crump Island.  The house cannot
+be seen from the road, and, indeed, can hardly be seen at all, except
+from the sea.  It lies, perhaps, three furlongs from the high road, and
+the path to it is but little used, as the passage to and from it is
+chiefly made by water.
+
+Here, at the time of our story, lived Mr. Bergen, and here lived Mr.
+Bergen’s daughter.  Miss Bergen was well known at St. George’s as a
+steady, good girl, who spent her time in looking after her father’s
+household matters, in managing his two black maid-servants and the black
+gardener, and who did her duty in that sphere of life to which she had
+been called.  She was a comely, well-shaped young woman, with a sweet
+countenance, rather large in size, and very quiet in demeanour.  In her
+earlier years, when young girls usually first bud forth into womanly
+beauty, the neighbours had not thought much of Anastasia Bergen, nor had
+the young men of St. George been wont to stay their boats under the
+window of Crump Cottage in order that they might listen to her voice or
+feel the light of her eye; but slowly, as years went by, Anastasia Bergen
+became a woman that a man might well love; and a man learned to love her
+who was well worthy of a woman’s heart.  This was Caleb Morton, the
+Presbyterian minister of St. George; and Caleb Morton had been engaged to
+marry Miss Bergen for the last two years past, at the period of Aaron
+Trow’s escape from prison.
+
+Caleb Morton was not a native of Bermuda, but had been sent thither by
+the synod of his church from Nova Scotia.  He was a tall, handsome man,
+at this time of some thirty years of age, of a presence which might
+almost have been called commanding.  He was very strong, but of a
+temperament which did not often give him opportunity to put forth his
+strength; and his life had been such that neither he nor others knew of
+what nature might be his courage.  The greater part of his life was spent
+in preaching to some few of the white people around him, and in teaching
+as many of the blacks as he could get to hear him.  His days were very
+quiet, and had been altogether without excitement until he had met with
+Anastasia Bergen.  It will suffice for us to say that he did meet her,
+and that now, for two years past, they had been engaged as man and wife.
+
+Old Mr. Bergen, when he heard of the engagement, was not well pleased at
+the information.  In the first place, his daughter was very necessary to
+him, and the idea of her marrying and going away had hardly as yet
+occurred to him; and then he was by no means inclined to part with any of
+his money.  It must not be presumed that he had amassed a fortune by his
+trade in cedar wood.  Few tradesmen in Bermuda do, as I imagine, amass
+fortunes.  Of some few hundred pounds he was possessed, and these, in the
+course of nature, would go to his daughter when he died; but he had no
+inclination to hand any portion of them over to his daughter before they
+did go to her in the course of nature.  Now, the income which Caleb
+Morton earned as a Presbyterian clergyman was not large, and, therefore,
+no day had been fixed as yet for his marriage with Anastasia.
+
+But, though the old man had been from the first averse to the match, his
+hostility had not been active.  He had not forbidden Mr. Morton his
+house, or affected to be in any degree angry because his daughter had a
+lover.  He had merely grumbled forth an intimation that those who marry
+in haste repent at leisure,—that love kept nobody warm if the pot did not
+boil; and that, as for him, it was as much as he could do to keep his own
+pot boiling at Crump Cottage.  In answer to this Anastasia said nothing.
+She asked him for no money, but still kept his accounts, managed his
+household, and looked patiently forward for better days.
+
+Old Mr. Bergen himself spent much of his time at Hamilton, where he had a
+woodyard with a couple of rooms attached to it.  It was his custom to
+remain here three nights of the week, during which Anastasia was left
+alone at the cottage; and it happened by no means seldom that she was
+altogether alone, for the negro whom they called the gardener would go to
+her father’s place at Hamilton, and the two black girls would crawl away
+up to the road, tired with the monotony of the sea at the cottage.  Caleb
+had more than once told her that she was too much alone, but she had
+laughed at him, saying that solitude in Bermuda was not dangerous.  Nor,
+indeed, was it; for the people are quiet and well-mannered, lacking much
+energy, but being, in the same degree, free from any propensity to
+violence.
+
+“So you are going,” she said to her lover, one evening, as he rose from
+the chair on which he had been swinging himself at the door of the
+cottage which looks down over the creek of the sea.  He had sat there for
+an hour talking to her as she worked, or watching her as she moved about
+the place.  It was a beautiful evening, and the sun had been falling to
+rest with almost tropical glory before his feet.  The bright oleanders
+were red with their blossoms all around him, and he had thoroughly
+enjoyed his hour of easy rest.  “So you are going,” she said to him, not
+putting her work out of her hand as he rose to depart.
+
+“Yes; and it is time for me to go.  I have still work to do before I can
+get to bed.  Ah, well; I suppose the day will come at last when I need
+not leave you as soon as my hour of rest is over.”
+
+“Come; of course it will come.  That is, if your reverence should choose
+to wait for it another ten years or so.”
+
+“I believe you would not mind waiting twenty years.”
+
+“Not if a certain friend of mine would come down and see me of evenings
+when I’m alone after the day.  It seems to me that I shouldn’t mind
+waiting as long as I had that to look for.”
+
+“You are right not to be impatient,” he said to her, after a pause, as he
+held her hand before he went.  “Quite right.  I only wish I could school
+myself to be as easy about it.”
+
+“I did not say I was easy,” said Anastasia.  “People are seldom easy in
+this world, I take it.  I said I could be patient.  Do not look in that
+way, as though you pretended that you were dissatisfied with me.  You
+know that I am true to you, and you ought to be very proud of me.”
+
+“I am proud of you, Anastasia—” on hearing which she got up and
+courtesied to him.  “I am proud of you; so proud of you that I feel you
+should not be left here all alone, with no one to help you if you were in
+trouble.”
+
+“Women don’t get into trouble as men do, and do not want any one to help
+them.  If you were alone in the house you would have to go to bed without
+your supper, because you could not make a basin of boiled milk ready for
+your own meal.  Now, when your reverence has gone, I shall go to work and
+have my tea comfortably.”  And then he did go, bidding God bless her as
+he left her.  Three hours after that he was disturbed in his own lodgings
+by one of the negro girls from the cottage rushing to his door, and
+begging him in Heaven’s name to come down to the assistance of her
+mistress.
+
+When Morton left her, Anastasia did not proceed to do as she had said,
+and seemed to have forgotten her evening meal.  She had been working
+sedulously with her needle during all that last conversation; but when
+her lover was gone, she allowed the work to fall from her hands, and sat
+motionless for awhile, gazing at the last streak of colour left by the
+setting sun; but there was no longer a sign of its glory to be traced in
+the heavens around her.  The twilight in Bermuda is not long and enduring
+as it is with us, though the daylight does not depart suddenly, leaving
+the darkness of night behind it without any intermediate time of warning,
+as is the case farther south, down among the islands of the tropics.  But
+the soft, sweet light of the evening had waned and gone, and night had
+absolutely come upon her, while Anastasia was still seated before the
+cottage with her eyes fixed upon the white streak of motionless sea which
+was still visible through the gloom.  She was thinking of him, of his
+ways of life, of his happiness, and of her duty towards him.  She had
+told him, with her pretty feminine falseness, that she could wait without
+impatience; but now she said to herself that it would not be good for him
+to wait longer.  He lived alone and without comfort, working very hard
+for his poor pittance, and she could see, and feel, and understand that a
+companion in his life was to him almost a necessity.  She would tell her
+father that all this must be brought to an end.  She would not ask him
+for money, but she would make him understand that her services must, at
+any rate in part, be transferred.  Why should not she and Morton still
+live at the cottage when they were married?  And so thinking, and at last
+resolving, she sat there till the dark night fell upon her.
+
+She was at last disturbed by feeling a man’s hand upon her shoulder.  She
+jumped from her chair and faced him,—not screaming, for it was especially
+within her power to control herself, and to make no utterance except with
+forethought.  Perhaps it might have been better for her had she screamed,
+and sent a shrill shriek down the shore of that inland sea.  She was
+silent, however, and with awe-struck face and outstretched hands gazed
+into the face of him who still held her by the shoulder.  The night was
+dark; but her eyes were now accustomed to the darkness, and she could see
+indistinctly something of his features.  He was a low-sized man, dressed
+in a suit of sailor’s blue clothing, with a rough cap of hair on his
+head, and a beard that had not been clipped for many weeks.  His eyes
+were large, and hollow, and frightfully bright, so that she seemed to see
+nothing else of him; but she felt the strength of his fingers as he
+grasped her tighter and more tightly by the arm.
+
+“Who are you?” she said, after a moment’s pause.
+
+“Do you know me?” he asked.
+
+“Know you!  No.”  But the words were hardly out of her mouth before it
+struck her that the man was Aaron Trow, of whom every one in Bermuda had
+been talking.
+
+“Come into the house,” he said, “and give me food.”  And he still held
+her with his hand as though he would compel her to follow him.
+
+She stood for a moment thinking what she would say to him; for even then,
+with that terrible man standing close to her in the darkness, her
+presence of mind did not desert her.  “Surely,” she said, “I will give
+you food if you are hungry.  But take your hand from me.  No man would
+lay his hands on a woman.”
+
+“A woman!” said the stranger.  “What does the starved wolf care for that?
+A woman’s blood is as sweet to him as that of a man.  Come into the
+house, I tell you.”  And then she preceded him through the open door into
+the narrow passage, and thence to the kitchen.  There she saw that the
+back door, leading out on the other side of the house, was open, and she
+knew that he had come down from the road and entered on that side.  She
+threw her eyes around, looking for the negro girls; but they were away,
+and she remembered that there was no human being within sound of her
+voice but this man who had told her that he was as a wolf thirsty after
+her blood!
+
+“Give me food at once,” he said.
+
+“And will you go if I give it you?” she asked.
+
+“I will knock out your brains if you do not,” he replied, lifting from
+the grate a short, thick poker which lay there.  “Do as I bid you at
+once.  You also would be like a tiger if you had fasted for two days, as
+I have done.”
+
+She could see, as she moved across the kitchen, that he had already
+searched there for something that he might eat, but that he had searched
+in vain.  With the close economy common among his class in the islands,
+all comestibles were kept under close lock and key in the house of Mr.
+Bergen.  Their daily allowance was given day by day to the negro
+servants, and even the fragments were then gathered up and locked away in
+safety.  She moved across the kitchen to the accustomed cupboard, taking
+the keys from her pocket, and he followed close upon her.  There was a
+small oil lamp hanging from the low ceiling which just gave them light to
+see each other.  She lifted her hand to this to take it from its hook,
+but he prevented her.  “No, by Heaven!” he said, “you don’t touch that
+till I’ve done with it.  There’s light enough for you to drag out your
+scraps.”
+
+She did drag out her scraps and a bowl of milk, which might hold perhaps
+a quart.  There was a fragment of bread, a morsel of cold potato-cake,
+and the bone of a leg of kid.  “And is that all?” said he.  But as he
+spoke he fleshed his teeth against the bone as a dog would have done.
+
+“It is the best I have,” she said; “I wish it were better, and you should
+have had it without violence, as you have suffered so long from hunger.”
+
+“Bah!  Better; yes!  You would give the best no doubt, and set the hell
+hounds on my track the moment I am gone.  I know how much I might expect
+from your charity.”
+
+“I would have fed you for pity’s sake,” she answered.
+
+“Pity!  Who are you, that you should dare to pity me!  By —, my young
+woman, it is I that pity you.  I must cut your throat unless you give me
+money.  Do you know that?”
+
+“Money!  I have got no money.”
+
+“I’ll make you have some before I go.  Come; don’t move till I have
+done.”  And as he spoke to her he went on tugging at the bone, and
+swallowing the lumps of stale bread.  He had already finished the bowl of
+milk.  “And, now,” said he, “tell me who I am.”
+
+“I suppose you are Aaron Trow,” she answered, very slowly.  He said
+nothing on hearing this, but continued his meal, standing close to her so
+that she might not possibly escape from him out into the darkness.  Twice
+or thrice in those few minutes she made up her mind to make such an
+attempt, feeling that it would be better to leave him in possession of
+the house, and make sure, if possible, of her own life.  There was no
+money there; not a dollar!  What money her father kept in his possession
+was locked up in his safe at Hamilton.  And might he not keep to his
+threat, and murder her, when he found that she could give him nothing?
+She did not tremble outwardly, as she stood there watching him as he ate,
+but she thought how probable it might be that her last moments were very
+near.  And yet she could scrutinise his features, form, and garments, so
+as to carry away in her mind a perfect picture of them.  Aaron Trow—for
+of course it was the escaped convict—was not a man of frightful, hideous
+aspect.  Had the world used him well, giving him when he was young ample
+wages and separating him from turbulent spirits, he also might have used
+the world well; and then women would have praised the brightness of his
+eye and the manly vigour of his brow.  But things had not gone well with
+him.  He had been separated from the wife he had loved, and the children
+who had been raised at his knee,—separated by his own violence; and now,
+as he had said of himself, he was a wolf rather than a man.  As he stood
+there satisfying the craving of his appetite, breaking up the large
+morsels of food, he was an object very sad to be seen.  Hunger had made
+him gaunt and yellow, he was squalid with the dirt of his hidden lair,
+and he had the look of a beast;—that look to which men fall when they
+live like the brutes of prey, as outcasts from their brethren.  But still
+there was that about his brow which might have redeemed him,—which might
+have turned her horror into pity, had he been willing that it should be
+so.
+
+“And now give me some brandy,” he said.
+
+There was brandy in the house,—in the sitting-room which was close at
+their hand, and the key of the little press which held it was in her
+pocket.  It was useless, she thought, to refuse him; and so she told him
+that there was a bottle partly full, but that she must go to the next
+room to fetch it him.
+
+“We’ll go together, my darling,” he said.  “There’s nothing like good
+company.”  And he again put his hand upon her arm as they passed into the
+family sitting-room.
+
+“I must take the light,” she said.  But he unhooked it himself, and
+carried it in his own hand.
+
+Again she went to work without trembling.  She found the key of the side
+cupboard, and unlocking the door, handed him a bottle which might contain
+about half-a-pint of spirits.  “And is that all?” he said.
+
+“There is a full bottle here,” she answered, handing him another; “but if
+you drink it, you will be drunk, and they will catch you.”
+
+“By Heavens, yes; and you would be the first to help them; would you
+not?”
+
+“Look here,” she answered.  “If you will go now, I will not say a word to
+any one of your coming, nor set them on your track to follow you.  There,
+take the full bottle with you.  If you will go, you shall be safe from
+me.”
+
+“What, and go without money!”
+
+“I have none to give you.  You may believe me when I say so.  I have not
+a dollar in the house.”
+
+Before he spoke again he raised the half empty bottle to his mouth, and
+drank as long as there was a drop to drink.  “There,” said he, putting
+the bottle down, “I am better after that.  As to the other, you are
+right, and I will take it with me.  And now, young woman, about the
+money?”
+
+“I tell you that I have not a dollar.”
+
+“Look here,” said he, and he spoke now in a softer voice, as though he
+would be on friendly terms with her.  “Give me ten sovereigns, and I will
+go.  I know you have it, and with ten sovereigns it is possible that I
+may save my life.  You are good, and would not wish that a man should die
+so horrid a death.  I know you are good.  Come, give me the money.”  And
+he put his hands up, beseeching her, and looked into her face with
+imploring eyes.
+
+“On the word of a Christian woman I have not got money to give you,” she
+replied.
+
+“Nonsense!”  And as he spoke he took her by the arm and shook her.  He
+shook her violently so that he hurt her, and her breath for a moment was
+all but gone from her.  “I tell you you must make dollars before I leave
+you, or I will so handle you that it would have been better for you to
+coin your very blood.”
+
+“May God help me at my need,” she said, “as I have not above a few penny
+pieces in the house.”
+
+“And you expect me to believe that!  Look here!  I will shake the teeth
+out of your head, but I will have it from you.”  And he did shake her
+again, using both his hands and striking her against the wall.
+
+“Would you—murder me?” she said, hardly able now to utter the words.
+
+“Murder you, yes; why not?  I cannot be worse than I am, were I to murder
+you ten times over.  But with money I may possibly be better.”
+
+“I have it not.”
+
+“Then I will do worse than murder you.  I will make you such an object
+that all the world shall loathe to look on you.”  And so saying he took
+her by the arm and dragged her forth from the wall against which she had
+stood.
+
+Then there came from her a shriek that was heard far down the shore of
+that silent sea, and away across to the solitary houses of those living
+on the other side,—a shriek, very sad, sharp, and prolonged,—which told
+plainly to those who heard it of woman’s woe when in her extremest peril.
+That sound was spoken of in Bermuda for many a day after that, as
+something which had been terrible to hear.  But then, at that moment, as
+it came wailing through the dark, it sounded as though it were not human.
+Of those who heard it, not one guessed from whence it came, nor was the
+hand of any brother put forward to help that woman at her need.
+
+“Did you hear that?” said the young wife to her husband, from the far
+side of the arm of the sea.
+
+“Hear it!  Oh Heaven, yes!  Whence did it come?”  The young wife could
+not say from whence it came, but clung close to her husband’s breast,
+comforting herself with the knowledge that that terrible sorrow was not
+hers.
+
+But aid did come at last, or rather that which seemed as aid.  Long and
+terrible was the fight between that human beast of prey and the poor
+victim which had fallen into his talons.  Anastasia Bergen was a strong,
+well-built woman, and now that the time had come to her when a struggle
+was necessary, a struggle for life, for honour, for the happiness of him
+who was more to her than herself, she fought like a tigress attacked in
+her own lair.  At such a moment as this she also could become wild and
+savage as the beast of the forest.  When he pinioned her arms with one of
+his, as he pressed her down upon the floor, she caught the first joint of
+the forefinger of his other hand between her teeth till he yelled in
+agony, and another sound was heard across the silent water.  And then,
+when one hand was loosed in the struggle, she twisted it through his long
+hair, and dragged back his head till his eyes were nearly starting from
+their sockets.  Anastasia Bergen had hitherto been a sheer woman, all
+feminine in her nature.  But now the foam came to her mouth, and fire
+sprang from her eyes, and the muscles of her body worked as though she
+had been trained to deeds of violence.  Of violence, Aaron Trow had known
+much in his rough life, but never had he combated with harder antagonist
+than her whom he now held beneath his breast.
+
+“By—I will put an end to you,” he exclaimed, in his wrath, as he struck
+her violently across the face with his elbow.  His hand was occupied, and
+he could not use it for a blow, but, nevertheless, the violence was so
+great that the blood gushed from her nostrils, while the back of her head
+was driven with violence against the floor.  But she did not lose her
+hold of him.  Her hand was still twined closely through his thick hair,
+and in every move he made she clung to him with all her might.  “Leave go
+my hair,” he shouted at her, but she still kept her hold, though he again
+dashed her head against the floor.
+
+There was still light in the room, for when he first grasped her with
+both his hands, he had put the lamp down on a small table.  Now they were
+rolling on the floor together, and twice he had essayed to kneel on her
+that he might thus crush the breath from her body, and deprive her
+altogether of her strength; but she had been too active for him, moving
+herself along the ground, though in doing so she dragged him with her.
+But by degrees he got one hand at liberty, and with that he pulled a
+clasp knife out of his pocket and opened it.  “I will cut your head off
+if you do not let go my hair,” he said.  But still she held fast by him.
+He then stabbed at her arm, using his left hand and making short,
+ineffectual blows.  Her dress partly saved her, and partly also the
+continual movement of all her limbs; but, nevertheless, the knife wounded
+her.  It wounded her in several places about the arm, covering them both
+with blood;—but still she hung on.  So close was her grasp in her agony,
+that, as she afterwards found, she cut the skin of her own hands with her
+own nails.  Had the man’s hair been less thick or strong, or her own
+tenacity less steadfast, he would have murdered her before any
+interruption could have saved her.
+
+And yet he had not purposed to murder her, or even, in the first
+instance, to inflict on her any bodily harm.  But he had been determined
+to get money.  With such a sum of money as he had named, it might, he
+thought, be possible for him to win his way across to America.  He might
+bribe men to hide him in the hold of a ship, and thus there might be for
+him, at any rate, a possibility of escape.  That there must be money in
+the house he had still thought when first he laid hands on the poor
+woman; and then, when the struggle had once begun, when he had felt her
+muscles contending with his, the passion of the beast was aroused within
+him, and he strove against her as he would have striven against a dog.
+But yet, when the knife was in his hand, he had not driven it against her
+heart.
+
+Then suddenly, while they were yet rolling on the floor, there was a
+sound of footsteps in the passage.  Aaron Trow instantly leaped to his
+feet, leaving his victim on the ground, with huge lumps of his thick
+clotted hair in her hand.  Thus, and thus only, could he have liberated
+himself from her grasp.  He rushed at the door, and there he came against
+the two negro servant-girls who had returned down to their kitchen from
+the road on which they had been straying.  Trow, as he half saw them in
+the dark, not knowing how many there might be, or whether there was a man
+among them, rushed through them, upsetting one scared girl in his
+passage.  With the instinct and with the timidity of a beast, his impulse
+now was to escape, and he hurried away back to the road and to his lair,
+leaving the three women together in the cottage.  Poor wretch!  As he
+crossed the road, not skulking in his impotent haste, but running at his
+best, another pair of eyes saw him, and when the search became hot after
+him, it was known that his hiding-place was not distant.
+
+It was some time before any of the women were able to act, and when some
+step was taken, Anastasia was the first to take it.  She had not
+absolutely swooned, but the reaction, after the violence of her efforts,
+was so great, that for some minutes she had been unable to speak.  She
+had risen from the floor when Trow left her, and had even followed him to
+the door; but since that she had fallen back into her father’s old
+arm-chair, and there sat gasping not only for words, but for breath also.
+
+At last she bade one of the girls to run into St. George, and beg Mr.
+Morton to come to her aid.  The girl would not stir without her
+companion; and even then, Anastasia, covered as she was with blood, with
+dishevelled hair, and her clothes half torn from her body, accompanied
+them as far as the road.  There they found a negro lad still hanging
+about the place, and he told them that he had seen the man cross the
+road, and run down over the open ground towards the rocks of the
+sea-coast.  “He must be there,” said the lad, pointing in the direction
+of a corner of the rocks; “unless he swim across the mouth of the ferry.”
+But the mouth of that ferry is an arm of the sea, and it was not probable
+that a man would do that when he might have taken the narrow water by
+keeping on the other side of the road.
+
+At about one that night Caleb Morton reached the cottage breathless with
+running, and before a word was spoken between them, Anastasia had fallen
+on his shoulder and had fainted.  As soon as she was in the arms of her
+lover, all her power had gone from her.  The spirit and passion of the
+tiger had gone, and she was again a weak woman shuddering at the thought
+of what she had suffered.  She remembered that she had had the man’s hand
+between her teeth, and by degrees she found his hair still clinging to
+her fingers; but even then she could hardly call to mind the nature of
+the struggle she had undergone.  His hot breath close to her own cheek
+she did remember, and his glaring eyes, and even the roughness of his
+beard as he pressed his face against her own; but she could not say
+whence had come the blood, nor till her arm became stiff and motionless
+did she know that she had been wounded.
+
+It was all joy with her now, as she sat motionless without speaking,
+while he administered to her wants and spoke words of love into her ears.
+She remembered the man’s horrid threat, and knew that by God’s mercy she
+had been saved.  And he was there caressing her, loving her, comforting
+her!  As she thought of the fate that had threatened her, of the evil
+that had been so imminent, she fell forward on her knees, and with
+incoherent sobs uttered her thanksgivings, while her head was still
+supported on his arms.
+
+It was almost morning before she could induce herself to leave him and
+lie down.  With him she seemed to be so perfectly safe; but the moment he
+was away she could see Aaron Trow’s eyes gleaming at her across the room.
+At last, however, she slept; and when he saw that she was at rest, he
+told himself that his work must then begin.  Hitherto Caleb Morton had
+lived in all respects the life of a man of peace; but now, asking himself
+no questions as to the propriety of what he would do, using no inward
+arguments as to this or that line of conduct, he girded the sword on his
+loins, and prepared himself for war.  The wretch who had thus treated the
+woman whom he loved should be hunted down like a wild beast, as long as
+he had arms and legs with which to carry on the hunt.  He would pursue
+the miscreant with any weapons that might come to his hands; and might
+Heaven help him at his need as he dealt forth punishment to that man, if
+he caught him within his grasp.  Those who had hitherto known Morton in
+the island, could not recognise the man as he came forth on that day,
+thirsty after blood, and desirous to thrust himself into personal
+conflict with the wild ruffian who had injured him.  The meek
+Presbyterian minister had been a preacher, preaching ways of peace, and
+living in accordance with his own doctrines.  The world had been very
+quiet for him, and he had walked quietly in his appointed path.  But now
+the world was quiet no longer, nor was there any preaching of peace.  His
+cry was for blood; for the blood of the untamed savage brute who had come
+upon his young doe in her solitude, and striven with such brutal violence
+to tear her heart from her bosom.
+
+He got to his assistance early in the morning some of the constables from
+St. George, and before the day was over, he was joined by two or three of
+the warders from the convict establishment.  There was with him also a
+friend or two, and thus a party was formed, numbering together ten or
+twelve persons.  They were of course all armed, and therefore it might be
+thought that there would be but small chance for the wretched man if they
+should come upon his track.  At first they all searched together,
+thinking from the tidings which had reached them that he must be near to
+them; but gradually they spread themselves along the rocks between St.
+George and the ferry, keeping watchman on the road, so that he should not
+escape unnoticed into the island.
+
+Ten times during the day did Anastasia send from the cottage up to
+Morton, begging him to leave the search to others, and come down to her.
+But not for a moment would he lose the scent of his prey.  What! should
+it be said that she had been so treated, and that others had avenged her?
+He sent back to say that her father was with her now, and that he would
+come when his work was over.  And in that job of work the life-blood of
+Aaron Trow was counted up.
+
+Towards evening they were all congregated on the road near to the spot at
+which the path turns off towards the cottage, when a voice was heard
+hallooing to them from the summit of a little hill which lies between the
+road and the sea on the side towards the ferry, and presently a boy came
+running down to them full of news.  “Danny Lund has seen him,” said the
+boy, “he has seen him plainly in among the rocks.”  And then came Danny
+Lund himself, a small negro lad about fourteen years of age, who was
+known in those parts as the idlest, most dishonest, and most useless of
+his race.  On this occasion, however, Danny Lund became important, and
+every one listened to him.  He had seen, he said, a pair of eyes moving
+down in a cave of the rocks which he well knew.  He had been in the cave
+often, he said, and could get there again.  But not now; not while that
+pair of eyes was moving at the bottom of it.  And so they all went up
+over the hill, Morton leading the way with hot haste.  In his waist-band
+he held a pistol, and his hand grasped a short iron bar with which he had
+armed himself.  They ascended the top of the hill, and when there, the
+open sea was before them on two sides, and on the third was the narrow
+creek over which the ferry passed.  Immediately beneath their feet were
+the broken rocks; for on that side, towards the sea, the earth and grass
+of the hill descended but a little way towards the water.  Down among the
+rocks they all went, silently, Caleb Morton leading the way, and Danny
+Lund directing him from behind.
+
+“Mr. Morton,” said an elderly man from St. George, “had you not better
+let the warders of the gaol go first; he is a desperate man, and they
+will best understand his ways?”
+
+In answer to this Morton said nothing, but he would let no one put a foot
+before him.  He still pressed forward among the rocks, and at last came
+to a spot from whence he might have sprung at one leap into the ocean.
+It was a broken cranny on the sea-shore into which the sea beat, and
+surrounded on every side but the one by huge broken fragments of stone,
+which at first sight seemed as though they would have admitted of a path
+down among them to the water’s edge; but which, when scanned more
+closely, were seen to be so large in size, that no man could climb from
+one to another.  It was a singularly romantic spot, but now well known to
+them all there, for they had visited it over and over again that morning.
+
+“In there,” said Danny Lund, keeping well behind Morton’s body, and
+pointing at the same time to a cavern high up among the rocks, but quite
+on the opposite side of the little inlet of the sea.  The mouth of the
+cavern was not twenty yards from where they stood, but at the first sight
+it seemed as though it must be impossible to reach it.  The precipice on
+the brink of which they all now stood, ran down sheer into the sea, and
+the fall from the mouth of the cavern on the other side was as steep.
+But Danny solved the mystery by pointing upwards, and showing them how he
+had been used to climb to a projecting rock over their heads, and from
+thence creep round by certain vantages of the stone till he was able to
+let himself down into the aperture.  But now, at the present moment, he
+was unwilling to make essay of his prowess as a cragsman.  He had, he
+said, been up on that projecting rock thrice, and there had seen the eyes
+moving in the cavern.  He was quite sure of that fact of the pair of
+eyes, and declined to ascend the rock again.
+
+Traces soon became visible to them by which they knew that some one had
+passed in and out of the cavern recently.  The stone, when examined, bore
+those marks of friction which passage and repassage over it will always
+give.  At the spot from whence the climber left the platform and
+commenced his ascent, the side of the stone had been rubbed by the close
+friction of a man’s body.  A light boy like Danny Lund might find his way
+in and out without leaving such marks behind him, but no heavy man could
+do so.  Thus before long they all were satisfied that Aaron Trow was in
+the cavern before them.
+
+Then there was a long consultation as to what they would do to carry on
+the hunt, and how they would drive the tiger from his lair.  That he
+should not again come out, except to fall into their hands, was to all of
+them a matter of course.  They would keep watch and ward there, though it
+might be for days and nights.  But that was a process which did not
+satisfy Morton, and did not indeed well satisfy any of them.  It was not
+only that they desired to inflict punishment on the miscreant in
+accordance with the law, but also that they did not desire that the
+miserable man should die in a hole like a starved dog, and that then they
+should go after him to take out his wretched skeleton.  There was
+something in that idea so horrid in every way, that all agreed that
+active steps must be taken.  The warders of the prison felt that they
+would all be disgraced if they could not take their prisoner alive.  Yet
+who would get round that perilous ledge in the face of such an adversary?
+A touch to any man while climbing there would send him headlong down
+among the wave!  And then his fancy told to each what might be the nature
+of an embrace with such an animal as that, driven to despair, hopeless of
+life, armed, as they knew, at any rate, with a knife!  If the first
+adventurous spirit should succeed in crawling round that ledge, what
+would be the reception which he might expect in the terrible depth of
+that cavern?
+
+They called to their prisoner, bidding him come out, and telling him that
+they would fire in upon him if he did not show himself; but not a sound
+was heard.  It was indeed possible that they should send their bullets
+to, perhaps, every corner of the cavern; and if so, in that way they
+might slaughter him; but even of this they were not sure.  Who could tell
+that there might not be some protected nook in which he could lay secure?
+And who could tell when the man was struck, or whether he were wounded?
+
+“I will get to him,” said Morton, speaking with a low dogged voice, and
+so saying he clambered up to the rock to which Danny Lund had pointed.
+Many voices at once attempted to restrain him, and one or two put their
+hands upon him to keep him back, but he was too quick for them, and now
+stood upon the ledge of rock.  “Can you see him?” they asked below.
+
+“I can see nothing within the cavern,” said Morton.
+
+“Look down very hard, Massa,” said Danny, “very hard indeed, down in deep
+dark hole, and then see him big eyes moving!”
+
+Morton now crept along the ledge, or rather he was beginning to do so,
+having put forward his shoulders and arms to make a first step in advance
+from the spot on which he was resting, when a hand was put forth from one
+corner of the cavern’s mouth,—a hand armed with a pistol;—and a shot was
+fired.  There could be no doubt now but that Danny Lund was right, and no
+doubt now as to the whereabouts of Aaron Trow.
+
+A hand was put forth, a pistol was fired, and Caleb Morton still clinging
+to a corner of the rock with both his arms was seen to falter.  “He is
+wounded,” said one of the voices from below; and then they all expected
+to see him fall into the sea.  But he did not fall, and after a moment or
+two, he proceeded carefully to pick his steps along the ledge.  The ball
+had touched him, grazing his cheek, and cutting through the light
+whiskers that he wore; but he had not felt it, though the blow had nearly
+knocked him from his perch.  And then four or five shots were fired from
+the rocks into the mouth of the cavern.  The man’s arm had been seen, and
+indeed one or two declared that they had traced the dim outline of his
+figure.  But no sound was heard to come from the cavern, except the sharp
+crack of the bullets against the rock, and the echo of the gunpowder.
+There had been no groan as of a man wounded, no sound of a body falling,
+no voice wailing in despair.  For a few seconds all was dark with the
+smoke of the gunpowder, and then the empty mouth of the cave was again
+yawning before their eyes.  Morton was now near it, still cautiously
+creeping.  The first danger to which he was exposed was this; that his
+enemy within the recess might push him down from the rocks with a touch.
+But on the other hand, there were three or four men ready to fire, the
+moment that a hand should be put forth; and then Morton could swim,—was
+known to be a strong swimmer;—whereas of Aaron Trow it was already
+declared by the prison gaolers that he could not swim.  Two of the
+warders had now followed Morton on the rocks, so that in the event of his
+making good his entrance into the cavern, and holding his enemy at bay
+for a minute, he would be joined by aid.
+
+It was strange to see how those different men conducted themselves as
+they stood on the opposite platform watching the attack.  The officers
+from the prison had no other thought but of their prisoner, and were
+intent on taking him alive or dead.  To them it was little or nothing
+what became of Morton.  It was their business to encounter peril, and
+they were ready to do so;—feeling, however, by no means sorry to have
+such a man as Morton in advance of them.  Very little was said by them.
+They had their wits about them, and remembered that every word spoken for
+the guidance of their ally would be heard also by the escaped convict.
+Their prey was sure, sooner or later, and had not Morton been so eager in
+his pursuit, they would have waited till some plan had been devised of
+trapping him without danger.  But the townsmen from St. George, of whom
+some dozen were now standing there, were quick and eager and loud in
+their counsels.  “Stay where you are, Mr. Morton,—stay awhile for the
+love of God—or he’ll have you down.”  “Now’s your time, Caleb; in on him
+now, and you’ll have him.”  “Close with him, Morton, close with him at
+once; it’s your only chance.”  “There’s four of us here; we’ll fire on
+him if he as much as shows a limb.”  All of which words as they were
+heard by that poor wretch within, must have sounded to him as the barking
+of a pack of hounds thirsting for his blood.  For him at any rate there
+was no longer any hope in this world.
+
+My reader, when chance has taken you into the hunting-field, has it ever
+been your lot to sit by on horseback, and watch the digging out of a fox?
+The operation is not an uncommon one, and in some countries it is held to
+be in accordance with the rules of fair sport.  For myself, I think that
+when the brute has so far saved himself, he should be entitled to the
+benefit of his cunning; but I will not now discuss the propriety or
+impropriety of that practice in venery.  I can never, however, watch the
+doing of that work without thinking much of the agonising struggles of
+the poor beast whose last refuge is being torn from over his head.  There
+he lies within a few yards of his arch enemy, the huntsman.  The thick
+breath of the hounds make hot the air within his hole.  The sound of
+their voices is close upon his ears.  His breast is nearly bursting with
+the violence of that effort which at last has brought him to his retreat.
+And then pickaxe and mattock are plied above his head, and nearer and
+more near to him press his foes,—his double foes, human and canine,—till
+at last a huge hand grasps him, and he is dragged forth among his
+enemies.  Almost as soon as his eyes have seen the light the eager noses
+of a dozen hounds have moistened themselves in his entrails.  Ah me!  I
+know that he is vermin, the vermin after whom I have been risking my
+neck, with a bold ambition that I might ultimately witness his
+death-struggles; but, nevertheless, I would fain have saved him that last
+half hour of gradually diminished hope.
+
+And Aaron Trow was now like a hunted fox, doomed to be dug out from his
+last refuge, with this addition to his misery, that these hounds when
+they caught their prey, would not put him at once out of his misery.
+When first he saw that throng of men coming down from the hill top and
+resting on the platform; he knew that his fate was come.  When they
+called to him to surrender himself he was silent, but he knew that his
+silence was of no avail.  To them who were so eager to be his captors the
+matter seemed to be still one of considerable difficulty; but, to his
+thinking, there was no difficulty.  There were there some score of men,
+fully armed, within twenty yards of him.  If he but showed a trace of his
+limbs he would become a mark for their bullets.  And then if he were
+wounded, and no one would come to him!  If they allowed him to lie there
+without food till he perished!  Would it not be well for him to yield
+himself?  Then they called again and he was still silent.  That idea of
+yielding is very terrible to the heart of a man.  And when the worst had
+come to the worst, did not the ocean run deep beneath his cavern’s month?
+
+But as they yelled at him and hallooed, making their preparations for his
+death, his presence of mind deserted the poor wretch.  He had stolen an
+old pistol on one of his marauding expeditions, of which one barrel had
+been loaded.  That in his mad despair he had fired; and now, as he lay
+near the mouth of the cavern, under the cover of the projecting stone, he
+had no weapon with him but his hands.  He had had a knife, but that had
+dropped from him during the struggle on the floor of the cottage.  He had
+now nothing but his hands, and was considering how he might best use them
+in ridding himself of the first of his pursuers.  The man was near him,
+armed, with all the power and majesty of right on his side; whereas on
+his side, Aaron Trow had nothing,—not a hope.  He raised his head that he
+might look forth, and a dozen voices shouted as his face appeared above
+the aperture.  A dozen weapons were levelled at him, and he could see the
+gleaming of the muzzles of the guns.  And then the foot of his pursuer
+was already on the corner stone at the cavern’s mouth.  “Now, Caleb, on
+him at once!” shouted a voice.  Ah me! it was a moment in which to pity
+even such a man as Aaron Trow.
+
+“Now, Caleb, at him at once!” shouted the voice.  No, by heavens; not so,
+even yet!  The sound of triumph in those words raised the last burst of
+energy in the breast of that wretched man; and he sprang forth, head
+foremost, from his prison house.  Forth he came, manifest enough before
+the eyes of them all, and with head well down, and hands outstretched,
+but with his wide glaring eyes still turned towards his pursuers as he
+fell, he plunged down into the waves beneath him.  Two of those who stood
+by, almost unconscious of what they did, fired at his body as it made its
+rapid way to the water; but, as they afterwards found, neither of the
+bullets struck him.  Morton, when his prey thus leaped forth, escaping
+him for awhile, was already on the verge of the cavern,—had even then
+prepared his foot for that onward spring which should bring him to the
+throat of his foe.  But he arrested himself, and for a moment stood there
+watching the body as it struck the water, and hid itself at once beneath
+the ripple.  He stood there for a moment watching the deed and its
+effect, and then leaving his hold upon the rock, he once again followed
+his quarry.  Down he went, head foremost, right on to the track in the
+waves which the other had made; and when the two rose to the surface
+together, each was struggling in the grasp of the other.
+
+It was a foolish, nay, a mad deed to do.  The poor wretch who had first
+fallen could not have escaped.  He could not even swim, and had therefore
+flung himself to certain destruction when he took that leap from out of
+the cavern’s mouth.  It would have been sad to see him perish beneath the
+waves,—to watch him as he rose, gasping for breath, and then to see to
+him sinking again, to rise again, and then to go for ever.  But his life
+had been fairly forfeit,—and why should one so much more precious have
+been flung after it?  It was surely with no view of saving that pitiful
+life that Caleb Morton had leaped after his enemy.  But the hound, hot
+with the chase, will follow the stag over the precipice and dash himself
+to pieces against the rocks.  The beast thirsting for blood will rush in
+even among the weapons of men.  Morton in his fury had felt but one
+desire, burned with but one passion.  If the Fates would but grant him to
+fix his clutches in the throat of the man who had ill-used his love; for
+the rest it might all go as it would.
+
+In the earlier part of the morning, while they were all searching for
+their victim, they had brought a boat up into this very inlet among the
+rocks; and the same boat had been at hand during the whole day.
+Unluckily, before they had come hither, it had been taken round the
+headland to a place among the rocks at which a government skiff is always
+moored.  The sea was still so quiet that there was hardly a ripple on it,
+and the boat had been again sent for when first it was supposed that they
+had at last traced Aaron Trow to his hiding-place.  Anxiously now were
+all eyes turned to the headland, but as yet no boat was there.
+
+The two men rose to the surface, each struggling in the arms of the
+other.  Trow, though he was in an element to which he was not used,
+though he had sprung thither as another suicide might spring to certain
+death beneath a railway engine, did not altogether lose his presence of
+mind.  Prompted by a double instinct, he had clutched hold of Morton’s
+body when he encountered it beneath the waters.  He held on to it, as to
+his only protection, and he held on to him also as to his only enemy.  If
+there was a chance for a life struggle, they would share that chance
+together; and if not, then together would they meet that other fate.
+
+Caleb Morton was a very strong man, and though one of his arms was
+altogether encumbered by his antagonist, his other arm and his legs were
+free.  With these he seemed to succeed in keeping his head above the
+water, weighted as he was with the body of his foe.  But Trow’s efforts
+were also used with the view of keeping himself above the water.  Though
+he had purposed to destroy himself in taking that leap, and now hoped for
+nothing better than that they might both perish together, he yet
+struggled to keep his head above the waves.  Bodily power he had none
+left to him, except that of holding on to Morton’s arm and plunging with
+his legs; but he did hold on, and thus both their heads remained above
+the surface.
+
+But this could not last long.  It was easy to see that Trow’s strength
+was nearly spent, and that when he went down Morton must go with him.  If
+indeed they could be separated,—if Morton could once make himself free
+from that embrace into which he had been so anxious to leap,—then indeed
+there might be a hope.  All round that little inlet the rock fell sheer
+down into the deep sea, so that there was no resting-place for a foot; it
+but round the headlands on either side, even within forty or fifty yards
+of that spot, Morton might rest on the rocks, till a boat should come to
+his assistance.  To him that distance would have been nothing, if only
+his limbs had been at liberty.
+
+Upon the platform of rocks they were all at their wits’ ends.  Many were
+anxious to fire at Trow; but even if they hit him, would Morton’s
+position have been better?  Would not the wounded man have still clung to
+him who was not wounded?  And then there could be no certainty that any
+one of them would hit the right man.  The ripple of the waves, though it
+was very slight, nevertheless sufficed to keep the bodies in motion; and
+then, too, there was not among them any marksman peculiar for his skill.
+
+Morton’s efforts in the water were too severe to admit of his speaking,
+but he could hear and understand the words which were addressed to him.
+“Shake him off, Caleb.”  “Strike him from you with your foot.”  “Swim to
+the right shore; swim for it, even if you take him with you.”  Yes; he
+could hear them all; but hearing and obeying were very different.  It was
+not easy to shake off that dying man; and as for swimming with him, that
+was clearly impossible.  It was as much as he could do to keep his head
+above water, let alone any attempt to move in one settled direction.
+
+For some four or five minutes they lay thus battling on the waves before
+the head of either of them went down.  Trow had been twice below the
+surface, but it was before he had succeeded in supporting himself by
+Morton’s arm.  Now it seemed as though he must sink again,—as though both
+must sink.  His mouth was barely kept above the water, and as Morton
+shook him with his arm, the tide would pass over him.  It was horrid to
+watch from the shore the glaring upturned eyes of the dying wretch, as
+his long streaming hair lay back upon the wave.  “Now, Caleb, hold him
+down.  Hold him under,” was shouted in the voice of some eager friend.
+Rising up on the water, Morton made a last effort to do as he was bid.
+He did press the man’s head down,—well down below the surface,—but still
+the hand clung to him, and as he struck out against the water, he was
+powerless against that grasp.
+
+Then there came a loud shout along the shore, and all those on the
+platform, whose eyes had been fixed so closely on that terrible struggle
+beneath them, rushed towards the rocks on the other coast.  The sound of
+oars was heard close to them,—an eager pressing stroke, as of men who
+knew well that they were rowing for the salvation of a life.  On they
+came, close under the rocks, obeying with every muscle of their bodies
+the behests of those who called to them from the shore.  The boat came
+with such rapidity,—was so recklessly urged, that it was driven somewhat
+beyond the inlet; but in passing, a blow was struck which made Caleb
+Morton once more the master of his own life.  The two men had been
+carried out in their struggle towards the open sea; and as the boat
+curved in, so as to be as close as the rocks would allow, the bodies of
+the men were brought within the sweep of the oars.  He in the bow—for
+there were four pulling in the boat—had raised his oar as he neared the
+rocks,—had raised it high above the water; and now, as they passed close
+by the struggling men, he let it fall with all its force on the upturned
+face of the wretched convict.  It was a terrible, frightful thing to
+do,—thus striking one who was so stricken; but who shall say that the
+blow was not good and just?  Methinks, however, that the eyes and face of
+that dying man will haunt for ever the dreams of him who carried that
+oar!
+
+Trow never rose again to the surface.  Three days afterwards his body was
+found at the ferry, and then they carried him to the convict island and
+buried him.  Morton was picked up and taken into the boat.  His life was
+saved; but it may be a question how the battle might have gone had not
+that friendly oar been raised in his behalf.  As it was, he lay at the
+cottage for days before he was able to be moved, so as to receive the
+congratulations of those who had watched that terrible conflict from the
+shore.  Nor did he feel that there had been anything in that day’s work
+of which he could be proud;—much rather of which it behoved him to be
+thoroughly ashamed.  Some six months after that he obtained the hand of
+Anastasia Bergen, but they did not remain long in Bermuda.  “He went
+away, back to his own country,” my informant told me; “because he could
+not endure to meet the ghost of Aaron Trow, at that point of the road
+which passes near the cottage.”  That the ghost of Aaron Trow may be seen
+there and round the little rocky inlet of the sea, is part of the creed
+of every young woman in Bermuda.
+
+
+
+
+***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AARON TROW***
+
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+
+The Project Gutenberg eBook, Aaron Trow, by Anthony Trollope
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most
+other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
+whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of
+the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
+www.gutenberg.org.  If you are not located in the United States, you'll have
+to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook.
+
+
+
+
+Title: Aaron Trow
+
+
+Author: Anthony Trollope
+
+
+
+Release Date: January 16, 2015  [eBook #3713]
+[This file was first posted on July 31, 2001]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AARON TROW***
+</pre>
+<p>Transcribed from the 1864 Chapman and Hall &ldquo;Tales of All
+Countries&rdquo; edition by David Price, email
+ccx074@pglaf.org</p>
+<h1>AARON TROW.</h1>
+<p>I <span class="smcap">would</span> wish to declare, at the
+beginning of this story, that I shall never regard that cluster
+of islets which we call Bermuda as the Fortunate Islands of the
+ancients.&nbsp; Do not let professional geographers take me up,
+and say that no one has so accounted them, and that the ancients
+have never been supposed to have gotten themselves so far
+westwards.&nbsp; What I mean to assert is this&mdash;that, had
+any ancient been carried thither by enterprise or stress of
+weather, he would not have given those islands so good a
+name.&nbsp; That the Neapolitan sailors of King Alonzo should
+have been wrecked here, I consider to be more likely.&nbsp; The
+vexed Bermoothes is a good name for them.&nbsp; There is no
+getting in or out of them without the greatest difficulty, and a
+patient, slow navigation, which is very heart-rending.&nbsp; That
+Caliban should have lived here I can imagine; that Ariel would
+have been sick of the place is certain; and that Governor
+Prospero should have been willing to abandon his governorship, I
+conceive to have been only natural.&nbsp; When one regards the
+present state of the place, one is tempted to doubt whether any
+of the governors have been conjurors since his days.</p>
+<p>Bermuda, as all the world knows, is a British colony at which
+we maintain a convict establishment.&nbsp; Most of our outlying
+convict establishments have been sent back upon our hands from
+our colonies, but here one is still maintained.&nbsp; There is
+also in the islands a strong military fortress, though not a
+fortress looking magnificent to the eyes of civilians, as do
+Malta and Gibraltar.&nbsp; There are also here some six thousand
+white people and some six thousand black people, eating,
+drinking, sleeping, and dying.</p>
+<p>The convict establishment is the most notable feature of
+Bermuda to a stranger, but it does not seem to attract much
+attention from the regular inhabitants of the place.&nbsp; There
+is no intercourse between the prisoners and the Bermudians.&nbsp;
+The convicts are rarely seen by them, and the convict islands are
+rarely visited.&nbsp; As to the prisoners themselves, of course
+it is not open to them&mdash;or should not be open to
+them&mdash;to have intercourse with any but the prison
+authorities.</p>
+<p>There have, however, been instances in which convicts have
+escaped from their confinement, and made their way out among the
+islands.&nbsp; Poor wretches!&nbsp; As a rule, there is but
+little chance for any that can so escape.&nbsp; The whole length
+of the cluster is but twenty miles, and the breadth is under
+four.&nbsp; The prisoners are, of course, white men, and the
+lower orders of Bermuda, among whom alone could a runagate have
+any chance of hiding himself, are all negroes; so that such a one
+would be known at once.&nbsp; Their clothes are all marked.&nbsp;
+Their only chance of a permanent escape would be in the hold of
+an American ship; but what captain of an American or other ship
+would willingly encumber himself with an escaped convict?&nbsp;
+But, nevertheless, men have escaped; and in one instance, I
+believe, a convict got away, so that of him no farther tidings
+were ever heard.</p>
+<p>For the truth of the following tale I will not by any means
+vouch.&nbsp; If one were to inquire on the spot one might
+probably find that the ladies all believe it, and the old men;
+that all the young men know exactly how much of it is false and
+how much true; and that the steady, middle-aged, well-to-do
+islanders are quite convinced that it is romance from beginning
+to end.&nbsp; My readers may range themselves with the ladies,
+the young men, or the steady, well-to-do, middle-aged islanders,
+as they please.</p>
+<p>Some years ago, soon after the prison was first established on
+its present footing, three men did escape from it, and among them
+a certain notorious prisoner named Aaron Trow.&nbsp; Trow&rsquo;s
+antecedents in England had not been so villanously bad as those
+of many of his fellow-convicts, though the one offence for which
+he was punished had been of a deep dye: he had shed man&rsquo;s
+blood.&nbsp; At a period of great distress in a manufacturing
+town he had led men on to riot, and with his own hand had slain
+the first constable who had endeavoured to do his duty against
+him.&nbsp; There had been courage in the doing of the deed, and
+probably no malice; but the deed, let its moral blackness have
+been what it might, had sent him to Bermuda, with a sentence
+against him of penal servitude for life.&nbsp; Had he been then
+amenable to prison discipline,&mdash;even then, with such a
+sentence against him as that,&mdash;he might have won his way
+back, after the lapse of years, to the children, and perhaps, to
+the wife, that he had left behind him; but he was amenable to no
+rules&mdash;to no discipline.&nbsp; His heart was sore to death
+with an idea of injury, and he lashed himself against the bars of
+his cage with a feeling that it would be well if he could so lash
+himself till he might perish in his fury.</p>
+<p>And then a day came in which an attempt was made by a large
+body of convicts, under his leadership, to get the better of the
+officers of the prison.&nbsp; It is hardly necessary to say that
+the attempt failed.&nbsp; Such attempts always fail.&nbsp; It
+failed on this occasion signally, and Trow, with two other men,
+were condemned to be scourged terribly, and then kept in solitary
+confinement for some lengthened term of months.&nbsp; Before,
+however, the day of scourging came, Trow and his two associates
+had escaped.</p>
+<p>I have not the space to tell how this was effected, nor the
+power to describe the manner.&nbsp; They did escape from the
+establishment into the islands, and though two of them were taken
+after a single day&rsquo;s run at liberty, Aaron Trow had not
+been yet retaken even when a week was over.&nbsp; When a month
+was over he had not been retaken, and the officers of the prison
+began to say that he had got away from them in a vessel to the
+States.&nbsp; It was impossible, they said, that he should have
+remained in the islands and not been discovered.&nbsp; It was not
+impossible that he might have destroyed himself, leaving his body
+where it had not yet been found.&nbsp; But he could not have
+lived on in Bermuda during that month&rsquo;s search.&nbsp; So,
+at least, said the officers of the prison.&nbsp; There was,
+however, a report through the islands that he had been seen from
+time to time; that he had gotten bread from the negroes at night,
+threatening them with death if they told of his whereabouts; and
+that all the clothes of the mate of a vessel had been stolen
+while the man was bathing, including a suit of dark blue cloth,
+in which suit of clothes, or in one of such a nature, a stranger
+had been seen skulking about the rocks near St. George.&nbsp; All
+this the governor of the prison affected to disbelieve, but the
+opinion was becoming very rife in the islands that Aaron Trow was
+still there.</p>
+<p>A vigilant search, however, is a task of great labour, and
+cannot be kept up for ever.&nbsp; By degrees it was
+relaxed.&nbsp; The warders and gaolers ceased to patrol the
+island roads by night, and it was agreed that Aaron Trow was
+gone, or that he would be starved to death, or that he would in
+time be driven to leave such traces of his whereabouts as must
+lead to his discovery; and this at last did turn out to be the
+fact.</p>
+<p>There is a sort of prettiness about these islands which,
+though it never rises to the loveliness of romantic scenery, is
+nevertheless attractive in its way.&nbsp; The land breaks itself
+into little knolls, and the sea runs up, hither and thither, in a
+thousand creeks and inlets; and then, too, when the oleanders are
+in bloom, they give a wonderfully bright colour to the
+landscape.&nbsp; Oleanders seem to be the roses of Bermuda, and
+are cultivated round all the villages of the better class through
+the islands.&nbsp; There are two towns, St. George and Hamilton,
+and one main high-road, which connects them; but even this
+high-road is broken by a ferry, over which every vehicle going
+from St. George to Hamilton must be conveyed.&nbsp; Most of the
+locomotion in these parts is done by boats, and the residents
+look to the sea, with its narrow creeks, as their best highway
+from their farms to their best market.&nbsp; In those
+days&mdash;and those days were not very long since&mdash;the
+building of small ships was their chief trade, and they valued
+their land mostly for the small scrubby cedar-trees with which
+this trade was carried on.</p>
+<p>As one goes from St. George to Hamilton the road runs between
+two seas; that to the right is the ocean; that on the left is an
+inland creek, which runs up through a large portion of the
+islands, so that the land on the other side of it is near to the
+traveller.&nbsp; For a considerable portion of the way there are
+no houses lying near the road, and, there is one residence, some
+way from the road, so secluded that no other house lies within a
+mile of it by land.&nbsp; By water it might probably be reached
+within half a mile.&nbsp; This place was called Crump Island, and
+here lived, and had lived for many years, an old gentleman, a
+native of Bermuda, whose business it had been to buy up cedar
+wood and sell it to the ship-builders at Hamilton.&nbsp; In our
+story we shall not have very much to do with old Mr. Bergen, but
+it will be necessary to say a word or two about his house.</p>
+<p>It stood upon what would have been an island in the creek, had
+not a narrow causeway, barely broad enough for a road, joined it
+to that larger island on which stands the town of St.
+George.&nbsp; As the main road approaches the ferry it runs
+through some rough, hilly, open ground, which on the right side
+towards the ocean has never been cultivated.&nbsp; The distance
+from the ocean here may, perhaps, be a quarter of a mile, and the
+ground is for the most part covered with low furze.&nbsp; On the
+left of the road the land is cultivated in patches, and here,
+some half mile or more from the ferry, a path turns away to Crump
+Island.&nbsp; The house cannot be seen from the road, and,
+indeed, can hardly be seen at all, except from the sea.&nbsp; It
+lies, perhaps, three furlongs from the high road, and the path to
+it is but little used, as the passage to and from it is chiefly
+made by water.</p>
+<p>Here, at the time of our story, lived Mr. Bergen, and here
+lived Mr. Bergen&rsquo;s daughter.&nbsp; Miss Bergen was well
+known at St. George&rsquo;s as a steady, good girl, who spent her
+time in looking after her father&rsquo;s household matters, in
+managing his two black maid-servants and the black gardener, and
+who did her duty in that sphere of life to which she had been
+called.&nbsp; She was a comely, well-shaped young woman, with a
+sweet countenance, rather large in size, and very quiet in
+demeanour.&nbsp; In her earlier years, when young girls usually
+first bud forth into womanly beauty, the neighbours had not
+thought much of Anastasia Bergen, nor had the young men of St.
+George been wont to stay their boats under the window of Crump
+Cottage in order that they might listen to her voice or feel the
+light of her eye; but slowly, as years went by, Anastasia Bergen
+became a woman that a man might well love; and a man learned to
+love her who was well worthy of a woman&rsquo;s heart.&nbsp; This
+was Caleb Morton, the Presbyterian minister of St. George; and
+Caleb Morton had been engaged to marry Miss Bergen for the last
+two years past, at the period of Aaron Trow&rsquo;s escape from
+prison.</p>
+<p>Caleb Morton was not a native of Bermuda, but had been sent
+thither by the synod of his church from Nova Scotia.&nbsp; He was
+a tall, handsome man, at this time of some thirty years of age,
+of a presence which might almost have been called
+commanding.&nbsp; He was very strong, but of a temperament which
+did not often give him opportunity to put forth his strength; and
+his life had been such that neither he nor others knew of what
+nature might be his courage.&nbsp; The greater part of his life
+was spent in preaching to some few of the white people around
+him, and in teaching as many of the blacks as he could get to
+hear him.&nbsp; His days were very quiet, and had been altogether
+without excitement until he had met with Anastasia Bergen.&nbsp;
+It will suffice for us to say that he did meet her, and that now,
+for two years past, they had been engaged as man and wife.</p>
+<p>Old Mr. Bergen, when he heard of the engagement, was not well
+pleased at the information.&nbsp; In the first place, his
+daughter was very necessary to him, and the idea of her marrying
+and going away had hardly as yet occurred to him; and then he was
+by no means inclined to part with any of his money.&nbsp; It must
+not be presumed that he had amassed a fortune by his trade in
+cedar wood.&nbsp; Few tradesmen in Bermuda do, as I imagine,
+amass fortunes.&nbsp; Of some few hundred pounds he was
+possessed, and these, in the course of nature, would go to his
+daughter when he died; but he had no inclination to hand any
+portion of them over to his daughter before they did go to her in
+the course of nature.&nbsp; Now, the income which Caleb Morton
+earned as a Presbyterian clergyman was not large, and, therefore,
+no day had been fixed as yet for his marriage with Anastasia.</p>
+<p>But, though the old man had been from the first averse to the
+match, his hostility had not been active.&nbsp; He had not
+forbidden Mr. Morton his house, or affected to be in any degree
+angry because his daughter had a lover.&nbsp; He had merely
+grumbled forth an intimation that those who marry in haste repent
+at leisure,&mdash;that love kept nobody warm if the pot did not
+boil; and that, as for him, it was as much as he could do to keep
+his own pot boiling at Crump Cottage.&nbsp; In answer to this
+Anastasia said nothing.&nbsp; She asked him for no money, but
+still kept his accounts, managed his household, and looked
+patiently forward for better days.</p>
+<p>Old Mr. Bergen himself spent much of his time at Hamilton,
+where he had a woodyard with a couple of rooms attached to
+it.&nbsp; It was his custom to remain here three nights of the
+week, during which Anastasia was left alone at the cottage; and
+it happened by no means seldom that she was altogether alone, for
+the negro whom they called the gardener would go to her
+father&rsquo;s place at Hamilton, and the two black girls would
+crawl away up to the road, tired with the monotony of the sea at
+the cottage.&nbsp; Caleb had more than once told her that she was
+too much alone, but she had laughed at him, saying that solitude
+in Bermuda was not dangerous.&nbsp; Nor, indeed, was it; for the
+people are quiet and well-mannered, lacking much energy, but
+being, in the same degree, free from any propensity to
+violence.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;So you are going,&rdquo; she said to her lover, one
+evening, as he rose from the chair on which he had been swinging
+himself at the door of the cottage which looks down over the
+creek of the sea.&nbsp; He had sat there for an hour talking to
+her as she worked, or watching her as she moved about the
+place.&nbsp; It was a beautiful evening, and the sun had been
+falling to rest with almost tropical glory before his feet.&nbsp;
+The bright oleanders were red with their blossoms all around him,
+and he had thoroughly enjoyed his hour of easy rest.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;So you are going,&rdquo; she said to him, not putting her
+work out of her hand as he rose to depart.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yes; and it is time for me to go.&nbsp; I have still
+work to do before I can get to bed.&nbsp; Ah, well; I suppose the
+day will come at last when I need not leave you as soon as my
+hour of rest is over.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Come; of course it will come.&nbsp; That is, if your
+reverence should choose to wait for it another ten years or
+so.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I believe you would not mind waiting twenty
+years.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Not if a certain friend of mine would come down and see
+me of evenings when I&rsquo;m alone after the day.&nbsp; It seems
+to me that I shouldn&rsquo;t mind waiting as long as I had that
+to look for.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You are right not to be impatient,&rdquo; he said to
+her, after a pause, as he held her hand before he went.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;Quite right.&nbsp; I only wish I could school myself to be
+as easy about it.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I did not say I was easy,&rdquo; said Anastasia.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;People are seldom easy in this world, I take it.&nbsp; I
+said I could be patient.&nbsp; Do not look in that way, as though
+you pretended that you were dissatisfied with me.&nbsp; You know
+that I am true to you, and you ought to be very proud of
+me.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I am proud of you, Anastasia&mdash;&rdquo; on hearing
+which she got up and courtesied to him.&nbsp; &ldquo;I am proud
+of you; so proud of you that I feel you should not be left here
+all alone, with no one to help you if you were in
+trouble.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Women don&rsquo;t get into trouble as men do, and do
+not want any one to help them.&nbsp; If you were alone in the
+house you would have to go to bed without your supper, because
+you could not make a basin of boiled milk ready for your own
+meal.&nbsp; Now, when your reverence has gone, I shall go to work
+and have my tea comfortably.&rdquo;&nbsp; And then he did go,
+bidding God bless her as he left her.&nbsp; Three hours after
+that he was disturbed in his own lodgings by one of the negro
+girls from the cottage rushing to his door, and begging him in
+Heaven&rsquo;s name to come down to the assistance of her
+mistress.</p>
+<p>When Morton left her, Anastasia did not proceed to do as she
+had said, and seemed to have forgotten her evening meal.&nbsp;
+She had been working sedulously with her needle during all that
+last conversation; but when her lover was gone, she allowed the
+work to fall from her hands, and sat motionless for awhile,
+gazing at the last streak of colour left by the setting sun; but
+there was no longer a sign of its glory to be traced in the
+heavens around her.&nbsp; The twilight in Bermuda is not long and
+enduring as it is with us, though the daylight does not depart
+suddenly, leaving the darkness of night behind it without any
+intermediate time of warning, as is the case farther south, down
+among the islands of the tropics.&nbsp; But the soft, sweet light
+of the evening had waned and gone, and night had absolutely come
+upon her, while Anastasia was still seated before the cottage
+with her eyes fixed upon the white streak of motionless sea which
+was still visible through the gloom.&nbsp; She was thinking of
+him, of his ways of life, of his happiness, and of her duty
+towards him.&nbsp; She had told him, with her pretty feminine
+falseness, that she could wait without impatience; but now she
+said to herself that it would not be good for him to wait
+longer.&nbsp; He lived alone and without comfort, working very
+hard for his poor pittance, and she could see, and feel, and
+understand that a companion in his life was to him almost a
+necessity.&nbsp; She would tell her father that all this must be
+brought to an end.&nbsp; She would not ask him for money, but she
+would make him understand that her services must, at any rate in
+part, be transferred.&nbsp; Why should not she and Morton still
+live at the cottage when they were married?&nbsp; And so
+thinking, and at last resolving, she sat there till the dark
+night fell upon her.</p>
+<p>She was at last disturbed by feeling a man&rsquo;s hand upon
+her shoulder.&nbsp; She jumped from her chair and faced
+him,&mdash;not screaming, for it was especially within her power
+to control herself, and to make no utterance except with
+forethought.&nbsp; Perhaps it might have been better for her had
+she screamed, and sent a shrill shriek down the shore of that
+inland sea.&nbsp; She was silent, however, and with awe-struck
+face and outstretched hands gazed into the face of him who still
+held her by the shoulder.&nbsp; The night was dark; but her eyes
+were now accustomed to the darkness, and she could see
+indistinctly something of his features.&nbsp; He was a low-sized
+man, dressed in a suit of sailor&rsquo;s blue clothing, with a
+rough cap of hair on his head, and a beard that had not been
+clipped for many weeks.&nbsp; His eyes were large, and hollow,
+and frightfully bright, so that she seemed to see nothing else of
+him; but she felt the strength of his fingers as he grasped her
+tighter and more tightly by the arm.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Who are you?&rdquo; she said, after a moment&rsquo;s
+pause.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Do you know me?&rdquo; he asked.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Know you!&nbsp; No.&rdquo;&nbsp; But the words were
+hardly out of her mouth before it struck her that the man was
+Aaron Trow, of whom every one in Bermuda had been talking.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Come into the house,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;and give me
+food.&rdquo;&nbsp; And he still held her with his hand as though
+he would compel her to follow him.</p>
+<p>She stood for a moment thinking what she would say to him; for
+even then, with that terrible man standing close to her in the
+darkness, her presence of mind did not desert her.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;Surely,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;I will give you food if
+you are hungry.&nbsp; But take your hand from me.&nbsp; No man
+would lay his hands on a woman.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;A woman!&rdquo; said the stranger.&nbsp; &ldquo;What
+does the starved wolf care for that?&nbsp; A woman&rsquo;s blood
+is as sweet to him as that of a man.&nbsp; Come into the house, I
+tell you.&rdquo;&nbsp; And then she preceded him through the open
+door into the narrow passage, and thence to the kitchen.&nbsp;
+There she saw that the back door, leading out on the other side
+of the house, was open, and she knew that he had come down from
+the road and entered on that side.&nbsp; She threw her eyes
+around, looking for the negro girls; but they were away, and she
+remembered that there was no human being within sound of her
+voice but this man who had told her that he was as a wolf thirsty
+after her blood!</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Give me food at once,&rdquo; he said.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;And will you go if I give it you?&rdquo; she asked.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I will knock out your brains if you do not,&rdquo; he
+replied, lifting from the grate a short, thick poker which lay
+there.&nbsp; &ldquo;Do as I bid you at once.&nbsp; You also would
+be like a tiger if you had fasted for two days, as I have
+done.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>She could see, as she moved across the kitchen, that he had
+already searched there for something that he might eat, but that
+he had searched in vain.&nbsp; With the close economy common
+among his class in the islands, all comestibles were kept under
+close lock and key in the house of Mr. Bergen.&nbsp; Their daily
+allowance was given day by day to the negro servants, and even
+the fragments were then gathered up and locked away in
+safety.&nbsp; She moved across the kitchen to the accustomed
+cupboard, taking the keys from her pocket, and he followed close
+upon her.&nbsp; There was a small oil lamp hanging from the low
+ceiling which just gave them light to see each other.&nbsp; She
+lifted her hand to this to take it from its hook, but he
+prevented her.&nbsp; &ldquo;No, by Heaven!&rdquo; he said,
+&ldquo;you don&rsquo;t touch that till I&rsquo;ve done with
+it.&nbsp; There&rsquo;s light enough for you to drag out your
+scraps.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>She did drag out her scraps and a bowl of milk, which might
+hold perhaps a quart.&nbsp; There was a fragment of bread, a
+morsel of cold potato-cake, and the bone of a leg of kid.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;And is that all?&rdquo; said he.&nbsp; But as he spoke he
+fleshed his teeth against the bone as a dog would have done.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;It is the best I have,&rdquo; she said; &ldquo;I wish
+it were better, and you should have had it without violence, as
+you have suffered so long from hunger.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Bah!&nbsp; Better; yes!&nbsp; You would give the best
+no doubt, and set the hell hounds on my track the moment I am
+gone.&nbsp; I know how much I might expect from your
+charity.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I would have fed you for pity&rsquo;s sake,&rdquo; she
+answered.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Pity!&nbsp; Who are you, that you should dare to pity
+me!&nbsp; By &mdash;, my young woman, it is I that pity
+you.&nbsp; I must cut your throat unless you give me money.&nbsp;
+Do you know that?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Money!&nbsp; I have got no money.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;ll make you have some before I go.&nbsp; Come;
+don&rsquo;t move till I have done.&rdquo;&nbsp; And as he spoke
+to her he went on tugging at the bone, and swallowing the lumps
+of stale bread.&nbsp; He had already finished the bowl of
+milk.&nbsp; &ldquo;And, now,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;tell me who I
+am.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I suppose you are Aaron Trow,&rdquo; she answered, very
+slowly.&nbsp; He said nothing on hearing this, but continued his
+meal, standing close to her so that she might not possibly escape
+from him out into the darkness.&nbsp; Twice or thrice in those
+few minutes she made up her mind to make such an attempt, feeling
+that it would be better to leave him in possession of the house,
+and make sure, if possible, of her own life.&nbsp; There was no
+money there; not a dollar!&nbsp; What money her father kept in
+his possession was locked up in his safe at Hamilton.&nbsp; And
+might he not keep to his threat, and murder her, when he found
+that she could give him nothing?&nbsp; She did not tremble
+outwardly, as she stood there watching him as he ate, but she
+thought how probable it might be that her last moments were very
+near.&nbsp; And yet she could scrutinise his features, form, and
+garments, so as to carry away in her mind a perfect picture of
+them.&nbsp; Aaron Trow&mdash;for of course it was the escaped
+convict&mdash;was not a man of frightful, hideous aspect.&nbsp;
+Had the world used him well, giving him when he was young ample
+wages and separating him from turbulent spirits, he also might
+have used the world well; and then women would have praised the
+brightness of his eye and the manly vigour of his brow.&nbsp; But
+things had not gone well with him.&nbsp; He had been separated
+from the wife he had loved, and the children who had been raised
+at his knee,&mdash;separated by his own violence; and now, as he
+had said of himself, he was a wolf rather than a man.&nbsp; As he
+stood there satisfying the craving of his appetite, breaking up
+the large morsels of food, he was an object very sad to be
+seen.&nbsp; Hunger had made him gaunt and yellow, he was squalid
+with the dirt of his hidden lair, and he had the look of a
+beast;&mdash;that look to which men fall when they live like the
+brutes of prey, as outcasts from their brethren.&nbsp; But still
+there was that about his brow which might have redeemed
+him,&mdash;which might have turned her horror into pity, had he
+been willing that it should be so.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;And now give me some brandy,&rdquo; he said.</p>
+<p>There was brandy in the house,&mdash;in the sitting-room which
+was close at their hand, and the key of the little press which
+held it was in her pocket.&nbsp; It was useless, she thought, to
+refuse him; and so she told him that there was a bottle partly
+full, but that she must go to the next room to fetch it him.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;We&rsquo;ll go together, my darling,&rdquo; he
+said.&nbsp; &ldquo;There&rsquo;s nothing like good
+company.&rdquo;&nbsp; And he again put his hand upon her arm as
+they passed into the family sitting-room.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I must take the light,&rdquo; she said.&nbsp; But he
+unhooked it himself, and carried it in his own hand.</p>
+<p>Again she went to work without trembling.&nbsp; She found the
+key of the side cupboard, and unlocking the door, handed him a
+bottle which might contain about half-a-pint of spirits.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;And is that all?&rdquo; he said.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;There is a full bottle here,&rdquo; she answered,
+handing him another; &ldquo;but if you drink it, you will be
+drunk, and they will catch you.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;By Heavens, yes; and you would be the first to help
+them; would you not?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Look here,&rdquo; she answered.&nbsp; &ldquo;If you
+will go now, I will not say a word to any one of your coming, nor
+set them on your track to follow you.&nbsp; There, take the full
+bottle with you.&nbsp; If you will go, you shall be safe from
+me.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;What, and go without money!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I have none to give you.&nbsp; You may believe me when
+I say so.&nbsp; I have not a dollar in the house.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Before he spoke again he raised the half empty bottle to his
+mouth, and drank as long as there was a drop to drink.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;There,&rdquo; said he, putting the bottle down, &ldquo;I
+am better after that.&nbsp; As to the other, you are right, and I
+will take it with me.&nbsp; And now, young woman, about the
+money?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I tell you that I have not a dollar.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Look here,&rdquo; said he, and he spoke now in a softer
+voice, as though he would be on friendly terms with her.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;Give me ten sovereigns, and I will go.&nbsp; I know you
+have it, and with ten sovereigns it is possible that I may save
+my life.&nbsp; You are good, and would not wish that a man should
+die so horrid a death.&nbsp; I know you are good.&nbsp; Come,
+give me the money.&rdquo;&nbsp; And he put his hands up,
+beseeching her, and looked into her face with imploring eyes.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;On the word of a Christian woman I have not got money
+to give you,&rdquo; she replied.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Nonsense!&rdquo;&nbsp; And as he spoke he took her by
+the arm and shook her.&nbsp; He shook her violently so that he
+hurt her, and her breath for a moment was all but gone from
+her.&nbsp; &ldquo;I tell you you must make dollars before I leave
+you, or I will so handle you that it would have been better for
+you to coin your very blood.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;May God help me at my need,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;as
+I have not above a few penny pieces in the house.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;And you expect me to believe that!&nbsp; Look
+here!&nbsp; I will shake the teeth out of your head, but I will
+have it from you.&rdquo;&nbsp; And he did shake her again, using
+both his hands and striking her against the wall.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Would you&mdash;murder me?&rdquo; she said, hardly able
+now to utter the words.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Murder you, yes; why not?&nbsp; I cannot be worse than
+I am, were I to murder you ten times over.&nbsp; But with money I
+may possibly be better.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I have it not.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Then I will do worse than murder you.&nbsp; I will make
+you such an object that all the world shall loathe to look on
+you.&rdquo;&nbsp; And so saying he took her by the arm and
+dragged her forth from the wall against which she had stood.</p>
+<p>Then there came from her a shriek that was heard far down the
+shore of that silent sea, and away across to the solitary houses
+of those living on the other side,&mdash;a shriek, very sad,
+sharp, and prolonged,&mdash;which told plainly to those who heard
+it of woman&rsquo;s woe when in her extremest peril.&nbsp; That
+sound was spoken of in Bermuda for many a day after that, as
+something which had been terrible to hear.&nbsp; But then, at
+that moment, as it came wailing through the dark, it sounded as
+though it were not human.&nbsp; Of those who heard it, not one
+guessed from whence it came, nor was the hand of any brother put
+forward to help that woman at her need.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Did you hear that?&rdquo; said the young wife to her
+husband, from the far side of the arm of the sea.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Hear it!&nbsp; Oh Heaven, yes!&nbsp; Whence did it
+come?&rdquo;&nbsp; The young wife could not say from whence it
+came, but clung close to her husband&rsquo;s breast, comforting
+herself with the knowledge that that terrible sorrow was not
+hers.</p>
+<p>But aid did come at last, or rather that which seemed as
+aid.&nbsp; Long and terrible was the fight between that human
+beast of prey and the poor victim which had fallen into his
+talons.&nbsp; Anastasia Bergen was a strong, well-built woman,
+and now that the time had come to her when a struggle was
+necessary, a struggle for life, for honour, for the happiness of
+him who was more to her than herself, she fought like a tigress
+attacked in her own lair.&nbsp; At such a moment as this she also
+could become wild and savage as the beast of the forest.&nbsp;
+When he pinioned her arms with one of his, as he pressed her down
+upon the floor, she caught the first joint of the forefinger of
+his other hand between her teeth till he yelled in agony, and
+another sound was heard across the silent water.&nbsp; And then,
+when one hand was loosed in the struggle, she twisted it through
+his long hair, and dragged back his head till his eyes were
+nearly starting from their sockets.&nbsp; Anastasia Bergen had
+hitherto been a sheer woman, all feminine in her nature.&nbsp;
+But now the foam came to her mouth, and fire sprang from her
+eyes, and the muscles of her body worked as though she had been
+trained to deeds of violence.&nbsp; Of violence, Aaron Trow had
+known much in his rough life, but never had he combated with
+harder antagonist than her whom he now held beneath his
+breast.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;By&mdash;I will put an end to you,&rdquo; he exclaimed,
+in his wrath, as he struck her violently across the face with his
+elbow.&nbsp; His hand was occupied, and he could not use it for a
+blow, but, nevertheless, the violence was so great that the blood
+gushed from her nostrils, while the back of her head was driven
+with violence against the floor.&nbsp; But she did not lose her
+hold of him.&nbsp; Her hand was still twined closely through his
+thick hair, and in every move he made she clung to him with all
+her might.&nbsp; &ldquo;Leave go my hair,&rdquo; he shouted at
+her, but she still kept her hold, though he again dashed her head
+against the floor.</p>
+<p>There was still light in the room, for when he first grasped
+her with both his hands, he had put the lamp down on a small
+table.&nbsp; Now they were rolling on the floor together, and
+twice he had essayed to kneel on her that he might thus crush the
+breath from her body, and deprive her altogether of her strength;
+but she had been too active for him, moving herself along the
+ground, though in doing so she dragged him with her.&nbsp; But by
+degrees he got one hand at liberty, and with that he pulled a
+clasp knife out of his pocket and opened it.&nbsp; &ldquo;I will
+cut your head off if you do not let go my hair,&rdquo; he
+said.&nbsp; But still she held fast by him.&nbsp; He then stabbed
+at her arm, using his left hand and making short, ineffectual
+blows.&nbsp; Her dress partly saved her, and partly also the
+continual movement of all her limbs; but, nevertheless, the knife
+wounded her.&nbsp; It wounded her in several places about the
+arm, covering them both with blood;&mdash;but still she hung
+on.&nbsp; So close was her grasp in her agony, that, as she
+afterwards found, she cut the skin of her own hands with her own
+nails.&nbsp; Had the man&rsquo;s hair been less thick or strong,
+or her own tenacity less steadfast, he would have murdered her
+before any interruption could have saved her.</p>
+<p>And yet he had not purposed to murder her, or even, in the
+first instance, to inflict on her any bodily harm.&nbsp; But he
+had been determined to get money.&nbsp; With such a sum of money
+as he had named, it might, he thought, be possible for him to win
+his way across to America.&nbsp; He might bribe men to hide him
+in the hold of a ship, and thus there might be for him, at any
+rate, a possibility of escape.&nbsp; That there must be money in
+the house he had still thought when first he laid hands on the
+poor woman; and then, when the struggle had once begun, when he
+had felt her muscles contending with his, the passion of the
+beast was aroused within him, and he strove against her as he
+would have striven against a dog.&nbsp; But yet, when the knife
+was in his hand, he had not driven it against her heart.</p>
+<p>Then suddenly, while they were yet rolling on the floor, there
+was a sound of footsteps in the passage.&nbsp; Aaron Trow
+instantly leaped to his feet, leaving his victim on the ground,
+with huge lumps of his thick clotted hair in her hand.&nbsp;
+Thus, and thus only, could he have liberated himself from her
+grasp.&nbsp; He rushed at the door, and there he came against the
+two negro servant-girls who had returned down to their kitchen
+from the road on which they had been straying.&nbsp; Trow, as he
+half saw them in the dark, not knowing how many there might be,
+or whether there was a man among them, rushed through them,
+upsetting one scared girl in his passage.&nbsp; With the instinct
+and with the timidity of a beast, his impulse now was to escape,
+and he hurried away back to the road and to his lair, leaving the
+three women together in the cottage.&nbsp; Poor wretch!&nbsp; As
+he crossed the road, not skulking in his impotent haste, but
+running at his best, another pair of eyes saw him, and when the
+search became hot after him, it was known that his hiding-place
+was not distant.</p>
+<p>It was some time before any of the women were able to act, and
+when some step was taken, Anastasia was the first to take
+it.&nbsp; She had not absolutely swooned, but the reaction, after
+the violence of her efforts, was so great, that for some minutes
+she had been unable to speak.&nbsp; She had risen from the floor
+when Trow left her, and had even followed him to the door; but
+since that she had fallen back into her father&rsquo;s old
+arm-chair, and there sat gasping not only for words, but for
+breath also.</p>
+<p>At last she bade one of the girls to run into St. George, and
+beg Mr. Morton to come to her aid.&nbsp; The girl would not stir
+without her companion; and even then, Anastasia, covered as she
+was with blood, with dishevelled hair, and her clothes half torn
+from her body, accompanied them as far as the road.&nbsp; There
+they found a negro lad still hanging about the place, and he told
+them that he had seen the man cross the road, and run down over
+the open ground towards the rocks of the sea-coast.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;He must be there,&rdquo; said the lad, pointing in the
+direction of a corner of the rocks; &ldquo;unless he swim across
+the mouth of the ferry.&rdquo;&nbsp; But the mouth of that ferry
+is an arm of the sea, and it was not probable that a man would do
+that when he might have taken the narrow water by keeping on the
+other side of the road.</p>
+<p>At about one that night Caleb Morton reached the cottage
+breathless with running, and before a word was spoken between
+them, Anastasia had fallen on his shoulder and had fainted.&nbsp;
+As soon as she was in the arms of her lover, all her power had
+gone from her.&nbsp; The spirit and passion of the tiger had
+gone, and she was again a weak woman shuddering at the thought of
+what she had suffered.&nbsp; She remembered that she had had the
+man&rsquo;s hand between her teeth, and by degrees she found his
+hair still clinging to her fingers; but even then she could
+hardly call to mind the nature of the struggle she had
+undergone.&nbsp; His hot breath close to her own cheek she did
+remember, and his glaring eyes, and even the roughness of his
+beard as he pressed his face against her own; but she could not
+say whence had come the blood, nor till her arm became stiff and
+motionless did she know that she had been wounded.</p>
+<p>It was all joy with her now, as she sat motionless without
+speaking, while he administered to her wants and spoke words of
+love into her ears.&nbsp; She remembered the man&rsquo;s horrid
+threat, and knew that by God&rsquo;s mercy she had been
+saved.&nbsp; And he was there caressing her, loving her,
+comforting her!&nbsp; As she thought of the fate that had
+threatened her, of the evil that had been so imminent, she fell
+forward on her knees, and with incoherent sobs uttered her
+thanksgivings, while her head was still supported on his
+arms.</p>
+<p>It was almost morning before she could induce herself to leave
+him and lie down.&nbsp; With him she seemed to be so perfectly
+safe; but the moment he was away she could see Aaron Trow&rsquo;s
+eyes gleaming at her across the room.&nbsp; At last, however, she
+slept; and when he saw that she was at rest, he told himself that
+his work must then begin.&nbsp; Hitherto Caleb Morton had lived
+in all respects the life of a man of peace; but now, asking
+himself no questions as to the propriety of what he would do,
+using no inward arguments as to this or that line of conduct, he
+girded the sword on his loins, and prepared himself for
+war.&nbsp; The wretch who had thus treated the woman whom he
+loved should be hunted down like a wild beast, as long as he had
+arms and legs with which to carry on the hunt.&nbsp; He would
+pursue the miscreant with any weapons that might come to his
+hands; and might Heaven help him at his need as he dealt forth
+punishment to that man, if he caught him within his grasp.&nbsp;
+Those who had hitherto known Morton in the island, could not
+recognise the man as he came forth on that day, thirsty after
+blood, and desirous to thrust himself into personal conflict with
+the wild ruffian who had injured him.&nbsp; The meek Presbyterian
+minister had been a preacher, preaching ways of peace, and living
+in accordance with his own doctrines.&nbsp; The world had been
+very quiet for him, and he had walked quietly in his appointed
+path.&nbsp; But now the world was quiet no longer, nor was there
+any preaching of peace.&nbsp; His cry was for blood; for the
+blood of the untamed savage brute who had come upon his young doe
+in her solitude, and striven with such brutal violence to tear
+her heart from her bosom.</p>
+<p>He got to his assistance early in the morning some of the
+constables from St. George, and before the day was over, he was
+joined by two or three of the warders from the convict
+establishment.&nbsp; There was with him also a friend or two, and
+thus a party was formed, numbering together ten or twelve
+persons.&nbsp; They were of course all armed, and therefore it
+might be thought that there would be but small chance for the
+wretched man if they should come upon his track.&nbsp; At first
+they all searched together, thinking from the tidings which had
+reached them that he must be near to them; but gradually they
+spread themselves along the rocks between St. George and the
+ferry, keeping watchman on the road, so that he should not escape
+unnoticed into the island.</p>
+<p>Ten times during the day did Anastasia send from the cottage
+up to Morton, begging him to leave the search to others, and come
+down to her.&nbsp; But not for a moment would he lose the scent
+of his prey.&nbsp; What! should it be said that she had been so
+treated, and that others had avenged her?&nbsp; He sent back to
+say that her father was with her now, and that he would come when
+his work was over.&nbsp; And in that job of work the life-blood
+of Aaron Trow was counted up.</p>
+<p>Towards evening they were all congregated on the road near to
+the spot at which the path turns off towards the cottage, when a
+voice was heard hallooing to them from the summit of a little
+hill which lies between the road and the sea on the side towards
+the ferry, and presently a boy came running down to them full of
+news.&nbsp; &ldquo;Danny Lund has seen him,&rdquo; said the boy,
+&ldquo;he has seen him plainly in among the rocks.&rdquo;&nbsp;
+And then came Danny Lund himself, a small negro lad about
+fourteen years of age, who was known in those parts as the
+idlest, most dishonest, and most useless of his race.&nbsp; On
+this occasion, however, Danny Lund became important, and every
+one listened to him.&nbsp; He had seen, he said, a pair of eyes
+moving down in a cave of the rocks which he well knew.&nbsp; He
+had been in the cave often, he said, and could get there
+again.&nbsp; But not now; not while that pair of eyes was moving
+at the bottom of it.&nbsp; And so they all went up over the hill,
+Morton leading the way with hot haste.&nbsp; In his waist-band he
+held a pistol, and his hand grasped a short iron bar with which
+he had armed himself.&nbsp; They ascended the top of the hill,
+and when there, the open sea was before them on two sides, and on
+the third was the narrow creek over which the ferry passed.&nbsp;
+Immediately beneath their feet were the broken rocks; for on that
+side, towards the sea, the earth and grass of the hill descended
+but a little way towards the water.&nbsp; Down among the rocks
+they all went, silently, Caleb Morton leading the way, and Danny
+Lund directing him from behind.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Mr. Morton,&rdquo; said an elderly man from St. George,
+&ldquo;had you not better let the warders of the gaol go first;
+he is a desperate man, and they will best understand his
+ways?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>In answer to this Morton said nothing, but he would let no one
+put a foot before him.&nbsp; He still pressed forward among the
+rocks, and at last came to a spot from whence he might have
+sprung at one leap into the ocean.&nbsp; It was a broken cranny
+on the sea-shore into which the sea beat, and surrounded on every
+side but the one by huge broken fragments of stone, which at
+first sight seemed as though they would have admitted of a path
+down among them to the water&rsquo;s edge; but which, when
+scanned more closely, were seen to be so large in size, that no
+man could climb from one to another.&nbsp; It was a singularly
+romantic spot, but now well known to them all there, for they had
+visited it over and over again that morning.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;In there,&rdquo; said Danny Lund, keeping well behind
+Morton&rsquo;s body, and pointing at the same time to a cavern
+high up among the rocks, but quite on the opposite side of the
+little inlet of the sea.&nbsp; The mouth of the cavern was not
+twenty yards from where they stood, but at the first sight it
+seemed as though it must be impossible to reach it.&nbsp; The
+precipice on the brink of which they all now stood, ran down
+sheer into the sea, and the fall from the mouth of the cavern on
+the other side was as steep.&nbsp; But Danny solved the mystery
+by pointing upwards, and showing them how he had been used to
+climb to a projecting rock over their heads, and from thence
+creep round by certain vantages of the stone till he was able to
+let himself down into the aperture.&nbsp; But now, at the present
+moment, he was unwilling to make essay of his prowess as a
+cragsman.&nbsp; He had, he said, been up on that projecting rock
+thrice, and there had seen the eyes moving in the cavern.&nbsp;
+He was quite sure of that fact of the pair of eyes, and declined
+to ascend the rock again.</p>
+<p>Traces soon became visible to them by which they knew that
+some one had passed in and out of the cavern recently.&nbsp; The
+stone, when examined, bore those marks of friction which passage
+and repassage over it will always give.&nbsp; At the spot from
+whence the climber left the platform and commenced his ascent,
+the side of the stone had been rubbed by the close friction of a
+man&rsquo;s body.&nbsp; A light boy like Danny Lund might find
+his way in and out without leaving such marks behind him, but no
+heavy man could do so.&nbsp; Thus before long they all were
+satisfied that Aaron Trow was in the cavern before them.</p>
+<p>Then there was a long consultation as to what they would do to
+carry on the hunt, and how they would drive the tiger from his
+lair.&nbsp; That he should not again come out, except to fall
+into their hands, was to all of them a matter of course.&nbsp;
+They would keep watch and ward there, though it might be for days
+and nights.&nbsp; But that was a process which did not satisfy
+Morton, and did not indeed well satisfy any of them.&nbsp; It was
+not only that they desired to inflict punishment on the miscreant
+in accordance with the law, but also that they did not desire
+that the miserable man should die in a hole like a starved dog,
+and that then they should go after him to take out his wretched
+skeleton.&nbsp; There was something in that idea so horrid in
+every way, that all agreed that active steps must be taken.&nbsp;
+The warders of the prison felt that they would all be disgraced
+if they could not take their prisoner alive.&nbsp; Yet who would
+get round that perilous ledge in the face of such an
+adversary?&nbsp; A touch to any man while climbing there would
+send him headlong down among the wave!&nbsp; And then his fancy
+told to each what might be the nature of an embrace with such an
+animal as that, driven to despair, hopeless of life, armed, as
+they knew, at any rate, with a knife!&nbsp; If the first
+adventurous spirit should succeed in crawling round that ledge,
+what would be the reception which he might expect in the terrible
+depth of that cavern?</p>
+<p>They called to their prisoner, bidding him come out, and
+telling him that they would fire in upon him if he did not show
+himself; but not a sound was heard.&nbsp; It was indeed possible
+that they should send their bullets to, perhaps, every corner of
+the cavern; and if so, in that way they might slaughter him; but
+even of this they were not sure.&nbsp; Who could tell that there
+might not be some protected nook in which he could lay
+secure?&nbsp; And who could tell when the man was struck, or
+whether he were wounded?</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I will get to him,&rdquo; said Morton, speaking with a
+low dogged voice, and so saying he clambered up to the rock to
+which Danny Lund had pointed.&nbsp; Many voices at once attempted
+to restrain him, and one or two put their hands upon him to keep
+him back, but he was too quick for them, and now stood upon the
+ledge of rock.&nbsp; &ldquo;Can you see him?&rdquo; they asked
+below.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I can see nothing within the cavern,&rdquo; said
+Morton.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Look down very hard, Massa,&rdquo; said Danny,
+&ldquo;very hard indeed, down in deep dark hole, and then see him
+big eyes moving!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Morton now crept along the ledge, or rather he was beginning
+to do so, having put forward his shoulders and arms to make a
+first step in advance from the spot on which he was resting, when
+a hand was put forth from one corner of the cavern&rsquo;s
+mouth,&mdash;a hand armed with a pistol;&mdash;and a shot was
+fired.&nbsp; There could be no doubt now but that Danny Lund was
+right, and no doubt now as to the whereabouts of Aaron Trow.</p>
+<p>A hand was put forth, a pistol was fired, and Caleb Morton
+still clinging to a corner of the rock with both his arms was
+seen to falter.&nbsp; &ldquo;He is wounded,&rdquo; said one of
+the voices from below; and then they all expected to see him fall
+into the sea.&nbsp; But he did not fall, and after a moment or
+two, he proceeded carefully to pick his steps along the
+ledge.&nbsp; The ball had touched him, grazing his cheek, and
+cutting through the light whiskers that he wore; but he had not
+felt it, though the blow had nearly knocked him from his
+perch.&nbsp; And then four or five shots were fired from the
+rocks into the mouth of the cavern.&nbsp; The man&rsquo;s arm had
+been seen, and indeed one or two declared that they had traced
+the dim outline of his figure.&nbsp; But no sound was heard to
+come from the cavern, except the sharp crack of the bullets
+against the rock, and the echo of the gunpowder.&nbsp; There had
+been no groan as of a man wounded, no sound of a body falling, no
+voice wailing in despair.&nbsp; For a few seconds all was dark
+with the smoke of the gunpowder, and then the empty mouth of the
+cave was again yawning before their eyes.&nbsp; Morton was now
+near it, still cautiously creeping.&nbsp; The first danger to
+which he was exposed was this; that his enemy within the recess
+might push him down from the rocks with a touch.&nbsp; But on the
+other hand, there were three or four men ready to fire, the
+moment that a hand should be put forth; and then Morton could
+swim,&mdash;was known to be a strong swimmer;&mdash;whereas of
+Aaron Trow it was already declared by the prison gaolers that he
+could not swim.&nbsp; Two of the warders had now followed Morton
+on the rocks, so that in the event of his making good his
+entrance into the cavern, and holding his enemy at bay for a
+minute, he would be joined by aid.</p>
+<p>It was strange to see how those different men conducted
+themselves as they stood on the opposite platform watching the
+attack.&nbsp; The officers from the prison had no other thought
+but of their prisoner, and were intent on taking him alive or
+dead.&nbsp; To them it was little or nothing what became of
+Morton.&nbsp; It was their business to encounter peril, and they
+were ready to do so;&mdash;feeling, however, by no means sorry to
+have such a man as Morton in advance of them.&nbsp; Very little
+was said by them.&nbsp; They had their wits about them, and
+remembered that every word spoken for the guidance of their ally
+would be heard also by the escaped convict.&nbsp; Their prey was
+sure, sooner or later, and had not Morton been so eager in his
+pursuit, they would have waited till some plan had been devised
+of trapping him without danger.&nbsp; But the townsmen from St.
+George, of whom some dozen were now standing there, were quick
+and eager and loud in their counsels.&nbsp; &ldquo;Stay where you
+are, Mr. Morton,&mdash;stay awhile for the love of God&mdash;or
+he&rsquo;ll have you down.&rdquo;&nbsp; &ldquo;Now&rsquo;s your
+time, Caleb; in on him now, and you&rsquo;ll have
+him.&rdquo;&nbsp; &ldquo;Close with him, Morton, close with him
+at once; it&rsquo;s your only chance.&rdquo;&nbsp;
+&ldquo;There&rsquo;s four of us here; we&rsquo;ll fire on him if
+he as much as shows a limb.&rdquo;&nbsp; All of which words as
+they were heard by that poor wretch within, must have sounded to
+him as the barking of a pack of hounds thirsting for his
+blood.&nbsp; For him at any rate there was no longer any hope in
+this world.</p>
+<p>My reader, when chance has taken you into the hunting-field,
+has it ever been your lot to sit by on horseback, and watch the
+digging out of a fox?&nbsp; The operation is not an uncommon one,
+and in some countries it is held to be in accordance with the
+rules of fair sport.&nbsp; For myself, I think that when the
+brute has so far saved himself, he should be entitled to the
+benefit of his cunning; but I will not now discuss the propriety
+or impropriety of that practice in venery.&nbsp; I can never,
+however, watch the doing of that work without thinking much of
+the agonising struggles of the poor beast whose last refuge is
+being torn from over his head.&nbsp; There he lies within a few
+yards of his arch enemy, the huntsman.&nbsp; The thick breath of
+the hounds make hot the air within his hole.&nbsp; The sound of
+their voices is close upon his ears.&nbsp; His breast is nearly
+bursting with the violence of that effort which at last has
+brought him to his retreat.&nbsp; And then pickaxe and mattock
+are plied above his head, and nearer and more near to him press
+his foes,&mdash;his double foes, human and canine,&mdash;till at
+last a huge hand grasps him, and he is dragged forth among his
+enemies.&nbsp; Almost as soon as his eyes have seen the light the
+eager noses of a dozen hounds have moistened themselves in his
+entrails.&nbsp; Ah me!&nbsp; I know that he is vermin, the vermin
+after whom I have been risking my neck, with a bold ambition that
+I might ultimately witness his death-struggles; but,
+nevertheless, I would fain have saved him that last half hour of
+gradually diminished hope.</p>
+<p>And Aaron Trow was now like a hunted fox, doomed to be dug out
+from his last refuge, with this addition to his misery, that
+these hounds when they caught their prey, would not put him at
+once out of his misery.&nbsp; When first he saw that throng of
+men coming down from the hill top and resting on the platform; he
+knew that his fate was come.&nbsp; When they called to him to
+surrender himself he was silent, but he knew that his silence was
+of no avail.&nbsp; To them who were so eager to be his captors
+the matter seemed to be still one of considerable difficulty;
+but, to his thinking, there was no difficulty.&nbsp; There were
+there some score of men, fully armed, within twenty yards of
+him.&nbsp; If he but showed a trace of his limbs he would become
+a mark for their bullets.&nbsp; And then if he were wounded, and
+no one would come to him!&nbsp; If they allowed him to lie there
+without food till he perished!&nbsp; Would it not be well for him
+to yield himself?&nbsp; Then they called again and he was still
+silent.&nbsp; That idea of yielding is very terrible to the heart
+of a man.&nbsp; And when the worst had come to the worst, did not
+the ocean run deep beneath his cavern&rsquo;s month?</p>
+<p>But as they yelled at him and hallooed, making their
+preparations for his death, his presence of mind deserted the
+poor wretch.&nbsp; He had stolen an old pistol on one of his
+marauding expeditions, of which one barrel had been loaded.&nbsp;
+That in his mad despair he had fired; and now, as he lay near the
+mouth of the cavern, under the cover of the projecting stone, he
+had no weapon with him but his hands.&nbsp; He had had a knife,
+but that had dropped from him during the struggle on the floor of
+the cottage.&nbsp; He had now nothing but his hands, and was
+considering how he might best use them in ridding himself of the
+first of his pursuers.&nbsp; The man was near him, armed, with
+all the power and majesty of right on his side; whereas on his
+side, Aaron Trow had nothing,&mdash;not a hope.&nbsp; He raised
+his head that he might look forth, and a dozen voices shouted as
+his face appeared above the aperture.&nbsp; A dozen weapons were
+levelled at him, and he could see the gleaming of the muzzles of
+the guns.&nbsp; And then the foot of his pursuer was already on
+the corner stone at the cavern&rsquo;s mouth.&nbsp; &ldquo;Now,
+Caleb, on him at once!&rdquo; shouted a voice.&nbsp; Ah me! it
+was a moment in which to pity even such a man as Aaron Trow.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Now, Caleb, at him at once!&rdquo; shouted the
+voice.&nbsp; No, by heavens; not so, even yet!&nbsp; The sound of
+triumph in those words raised the last burst of energy in the
+breast of that wretched man; and he sprang forth, head foremost,
+from his prison house.&nbsp; Forth he came, manifest enough
+before the eyes of them all, and with head well down, and hands
+outstretched, but with his wide glaring eyes still turned towards
+his pursuers as he fell, he plunged down into the waves beneath
+him.&nbsp; Two of those who stood by, almost unconscious of what
+they did, fired at his body as it made its rapid way to the
+water; but, as they afterwards found, neither of the bullets
+struck him.&nbsp; Morton, when his prey thus leaped forth,
+escaping him for awhile, was already on the verge of the
+cavern,&mdash;had even then prepared his foot for that onward
+spring which should bring him to the throat of his foe.&nbsp; But
+he arrested himself, and for a moment stood there watching the
+body as it struck the water, and hid itself at once beneath the
+ripple.&nbsp; He stood there for a moment watching the deed and
+its effect, and then leaving his hold upon the rock, he once
+again followed his quarry.&nbsp; Down he went, head foremost,
+right on to the track in the waves which the other had made; and
+when the two rose to the surface together, each was struggling in
+the grasp of the other.</p>
+<p>It was a foolish, nay, a mad deed to do.&nbsp; The poor wretch
+who had first fallen could not have escaped.&nbsp; He could not
+even swim, and had therefore flung himself to certain destruction
+when he took that leap from out of the cavern&rsquo;s
+mouth.&nbsp; It would have been sad to see him perish beneath the
+waves,&mdash;to watch him as he rose, gasping for breath, and
+then to see to him sinking again, to rise again, and then to go
+for ever.&nbsp; But his life had been fairly forfeit,&mdash;and
+why should one so much more precious have been flung after
+it?&nbsp; It was surely with no view of saving that pitiful life
+that Caleb Morton had leaped after his enemy.&nbsp; But the
+hound, hot with the chase, will follow the stag over the
+precipice and dash himself to pieces against the rocks.&nbsp; The
+beast thirsting for blood will rush in even among the weapons of
+men.&nbsp; Morton in his fury had felt but one desire, burned
+with but one passion.&nbsp; If the Fates would but grant him to
+fix his clutches in the throat of the man who had ill-used his
+love; for the rest it might all go as it would.</p>
+<p>In the earlier part of the morning, while they were all
+searching for their victim, they had brought a boat up into this
+very inlet among the rocks; and the same boat had been at hand
+during the whole day.&nbsp; Unluckily, before they had come
+hither, it had been taken round the headland to a place among the
+rocks at which a government skiff is always moored.&nbsp; The sea
+was still so quiet that there was hardly a ripple on it, and the
+boat had been again sent for when first it was supposed that they
+had at last traced Aaron Trow to his hiding-place.&nbsp;
+Anxiously now were all eyes turned to the headland, but as yet no
+boat was there.</p>
+<p>The two men rose to the surface, each struggling in the arms
+of the other.&nbsp; Trow, though he was in an element to which he
+was not used, though he had sprung thither as another suicide
+might spring to certain death beneath a railway engine, did not
+altogether lose his presence of mind.&nbsp; Prompted by a double
+instinct, he had clutched hold of Morton&rsquo;s body when he
+encountered it beneath the waters.&nbsp; He held on to it, as to
+his only protection, and he held on to him also as to his only
+enemy.&nbsp; If there was a chance for a life struggle, they
+would share that chance together; and if not, then together would
+they meet that other fate.</p>
+<p>Caleb Morton was a very strong man, and though one of his arms
+was altogether encumbered by his antagonist, his other arm and
+his legs were free.&nbsp; With these he seemed to succeed in
+keeping his head above the water, weighted as he was with the
+body of his foe.&nbsp; But Trow&rsquo;s efforts were also used
+with the view of keeping himself above the water.&nbsp; Though he
+had purposed to destroy himself in taking that leap, and now
+hoped for nothing better than that they might both perish
+together, he yet struggled to keep his head above the
+waves.&nbsp; Bodily power he had none left to him, except that of
+holding on to Morton&rsquo;s arm and plunging with his legs; but
+he did hold on, and thus both their heads remained above the
+surface.</p>
+<p>But this could not last long.&nbsp; It was easy to see that
+Trow&rsquo;s strength was nearly spent, and that when he went
+down Morton must go with him.&nbsp; If indeed they could be
+separated,&mdash;if Morton could once make himself free from that
+embrace into which he had been so anxious to leap,&mdash;then
+indeed there might be a hope.&nbsp; All round that little inlet
+the rock fell sheer down into the deep sea, so that there was no
+resting-place for a foot; it but round the headlands on either
+side, even within forty or fifty yards of that spot, Morton might
+rest on the rocks, till a boat should come to his
+assistance.&nbsp; To him that distance would have been nothing,
+if only his limbs had been at liberty.</p>
+<p>Upon the platform of rocks they were all at their wits&rsquo;
+ends.&nbsp; Many were anxious to fire at Trow; but even if they
+hit him, would Morton&rsquo;s position have been better?&nbsp;
+Would not the wounded man have still clung to him who was not
+wounded?&nbsp; And then there could be no certainty that any one
+of them would hit the right man.&nbsp; The ripple of the waves,
+though it was very slight, nevertheless sufficed to keep the
+bodies in motion; and then, too, there was not among them any
+marksman peculiar for his skill.</p>
+<p>Morton&rsquo;s efforts in the water were too severe to admit
+of his speaking, but he could hear and understand the words which
+were addressed to him.&nbsp; &ldquo;Shake him off,
+Caleb.&rdquo;&nbsp; &ldquo;Strike him from you with your
+foot.&rdquo;&nbsp; &ldquo;Swim to the right shore; swim for it,
+even if you take him with you.&rdquo;&nbsp; Yes; he could hear
+them all; but hearing and obeying were very different.&nbsp; It
+was not easy to shake off that dying man; and as for swimming
+with him, that was clearly impossible.&nbsp; It was as much as he
+could do to keep his head above water, let alone any attempt to
+move in one settled direction.</p>
+<p>For some four or five minutes they lay thus battling on the
+waves before the head of either of them went down.&nbsp; Trow had
+been twice below the surface, but it was before he had succeeded
+in supporting himself by Morton&rsquo;s arm.&nbsp; Now it seemed
+as though he must sink again,&mdash;as though both must
+sink.&nbsp; His mouth was barely kept above the water, and as
+Morton shook him with his arm, the tide would pass over
+him.&nbsp; It was horrid to watch from the shore the glaring
+upturned eyes of the dying wretch, as his long streaming hair lay
+back upon the wave.&nbsp; &ldquo;Now, Caleb, hold him down.&nbsp;
+Hold him under,&rdquo; was shouted in the voice of some eager
+friend.&nbsp; Rising up on the water, Morton made a last effort
+to do as he was bid.&nbsp; He did press the man&rsquo;s head
+down,&mdash;well down below the surface,&mdash;but still the hand
+clung to him, and as he struck out against the water, he was
+powerless against that grasp.</p>
+<p>Then there came a loud shout along the shore, and all those on
+the platform, whose eyes had been fixed so closely on that
+terrible struggle beneath them, rushed towards the rocks on the
+other coast.&nbsp; The sound of oars was heard close to
+them,&mdash;an eager pressing stroke, as of men who knew well
+that they were rowing for the salvation of a life.&nbsp; On they
+came, close under the rocks, obeying with every muscle of their
+bodies the behests of those who called to them from the
+shore.&nbsp; The boat came with such rapidity,&mdash;was so
+recklessly urged, that it was driven somewhat beyond the inlet;
+but in passing, a blow was struck which made Caleb Morton once
+more the master of his own life.&nbsp; The two men had been
+carried out in their struggle towards the open sea; and as the
+boat curved in, so as to be as close as the rocks would allow,
+the bodies of the men were brought within the sweep of the
+oars.&nbsp; He in the bow&mdash;for there were four pulling in
+the boat&mdash;had raised his oar as he neared the
+rocks,&mdash;had raised it high above the water; and now, as they
+passed close by the struggling men, he let it fall with all its
+force on the upturned face of the wretched convict.&nbsp; It was
+a terrible, frightful thing to do,&mdash;thus striking one who
+was so stricken; but who shall say that the blow was not good and
+just?&nbsp; Methinks, however, that the eyes and face of that
+dying man will haunt for ever the dreams of him who carried that
+oar!</p>
+<p>Trow never rose again to the surface.&nbsp; Three days
+afterwards his body was found at the ferry, and then they carried
+him to the convict island and buried him.&nbsp; Morton was picked
+up and taken into the boat.&nbsp; His life was saved; but it may
+be a question how the battle might have gone had not that
+friendly oar been raised in his behalf.&nbsp; As it was, he lay
+at the cottage for days before he was able to be moved, so as to
+receive the congratulations of those who had watched that
+terrible conflict from the shore.&nbsp; Nor did he feel that
+there had been anything in that day&rsquo;s work of which he
+could be proud;&mdash;much rather of which it behoved him to be
+thoroughly ashamed.&nbsp; Some six months after that he obtained
+the hand of Anastasia Bergen, but they did not remain long in
+Bermuda.&nbsp; &ldquo;He went away, back to his own
+country,&rdquo; my informant told me; &ldquo;because he could not
+endure to meet the ghost of Aaron Trow, at that point of the road
+which passes near the cottage.&rdquo;&nbsp; That the ghost of
+Aaron Trow may be seen there and round the little rocky inlet of
+the sea, is part of the creed of every young woman in
+Bermuda.</p>
+<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AARON TROW***</p>
+<pre>
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+This etext was produced by David Price, email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk,
+from the 1864 Chapman & Hall "Tales of all Countries" edition.
+
+
+
+
+
+AARON TROW
+
+by Anthony Trollope
+
+
+
+
+I would wish to declare, at the beginning of this story, that I
+shall never regard that cluster of islets which we call Bermuda as
+the Fortunate Islands of the ancients.  Do not let professional
+geographers take me up, and say that no one has so accounted them,
+and that the ancients have never been supposed to have gotten
+themselves so far westwards.  What I mean to assert is this--that,
+had any ancient been carried thither by enterprise or stress of
+weather, he would not have given those islands so good a name.  That
+the Neapolitan sailors of King Alonzo should have been wrecked here,
+I consider to be more likely.  The vexed Bermoothes is a good name
+for them.  There is no getting in or out of them without the
+greatest difficulty, and a patient, slow navigation, which is very
+heart-rending.  That Caliban should have lived here I can imagine;
+that Ariel would have been sick of the place is certain; and that
+Governor Prospero should have been willing to abandon his
+governorship, I conceive to have been only natural.  When one
+regards the present state of the place, one is tempted to doubt
+whether any of the governors have been conjurors since his days.
+
+Bermuda, as all the world knows, is a British colony at which we
+maintain a convict establishment.  Most of our outlying convict
+establishments have been sent back upon our hands from our colonies,
+but here one is still maintained.  There is also in the islands a
+strong military fortress, though not a fortress looking magnificent
+to the eyes of civilians, as do Malta and Gibraltar.  There are also
+here some six thousand white people and some six thousand black
+people, eating, drinking, sleeping, and dying.
+
+The convict establishment is the most notable feature of Bermuda to
+a stranger, but it does not seem to attract much attention from the
+regular inhabitants of the place.  There is no intercourse between
+the prisoners and the Bermudians.  The convicts are rarely seen by
+them, and the convict islands are rarely visited.  As to the
+prisoners themselves, of course it is not open to them--or should
+not be open to them--to have intercourse with any but the prison
+authorities.
+
+There have, however, been instances in which convicts have escaped
+from their confinement, and made their way out among the islands.
+Poor wretches!  As a rule, there is but little chance for any that
+can so escape.  The whole length of the cluster is but twenty miles,
+and the breadth is under four.  The prisoners are, of course, white
+men, and the lower orders of Bermuda, among whom alone could a
+runagate have any chance of hiding himself, are all negroes; so that
+such a one would be known at once.  Their clothes are all marked.
+Their only chance of a permanent escape would be in the hold of an
+American ship; but what captain of an American or other ship would
+willingly encumber himself with an escaped convict?  But,
+nevertheless, men have escaped; and in one instance, I believe, a
+convict got away, so that of him no farther tidings were ever heard.
+
+For the truth of the following tale I will not by any means vouch.
+If one were to inquire on the spot one might probably find that the
+ladies all believe it, and the old men; that all the young men know
+exactly how much of it is false and how much true; and that the
+steady, middle-aged, well-to-do islanders are quite convinced that
+it is romance from beginning to end.  My readers may range
+themselves with the ladies, the young men, or the steady, well-to-
+do, middle-aged islanders, as they please.
+
+Some years ago, soon after the prison was first established on its
+present footing, three men did escape from it, and among them a
+certain notorious prisoner named Aaron Trow.  Trow's antecedents in
+England had not been so villanously bad as those of many of his
+fellow-convicts, though the one offence for which he was punished
+had been of a deep dye:  he had shed man's blood.  At a period of
+great distress in a manufacturing town he had led men on to riot,
+and with his own hand had slain the first constable who had
+endeavoured to do his duty against him.  There had been courage in
+the doing of the deed, and probably no malice; but the deed, let its
+moral blackness have been what it might, had sent him to Bermuda,
+with a sentence against him of penal servitude for life.  Had he
+been then amenable to prison discipline,--even then, with such a
+sentence against him as that,--he might have won his way back, after
+the lapse of years, to the children, and perhaps, to the wife, that
+he had left behind him; but he was amenable to no rules--to no
+discipline.  His heart was sore to death with an idea of injury, and
+he lashed himself against the bars of his cage with a feeling that
+it would be well if he could so lash himself till he might perish in
+his fury.
+
+And then a day came in which an attempt was made by a large body of
+convicts, under his leadership, to get the better of the officers of
+the prison.  It is hardly necessary to say that the attempt failed.
+Such attempts always fail.  It failed on this occasion signally, and
+Trow, with two other men, were condemned to be scourged terribly,
+and then kept in solitary confinement for some lengthened term of
+months.  Before, however, the day of scourging came, Trow and his
+two associates had escaped.
+
+I have not the space to tell how this was effected, nor the power to
+describe the manner.  They did escape from the establishment into
+the islands, and though two of them were taken after a single day's
+run at liberty, Aaron Trow had not been yet retaken even when a week
+was over.  When a month was over he had not been retaken, and the
+officers of the prison began to say that he had got away from them
+in a vessel to the States.  It was impossible, they said, that he
+should have remained in the islands and not been discovered.  It was
+not impossible that he might have destroyed himself, leaving his
+body where it had not yet been found.  But he could not have lived
+on in Bermuda during that month's search.  So, at least, said the
+officers of the prison.  There was, however, a report through the
+islands that he had been seen from time to time; that he had gotten
+bread from the negroes at night, threatening them with death if they
+told of his whereabouts; and that all the clothes of the mate of a
+vessel had been stolen while the man was bathing, including a suit
+of dark blue cloth, in which suit of clothes, or in one of such a
+nature, a stranger had been seen skulking about the rocks near St.
+George.  All this the governor of the prison affected to disbelieve,
+but the opinion was becoming very rife in the islands that Aaron
+Trow was still there.
+
+A vigilant search, however, is a task of great labour, and cannot be
+kept up for ever.  By degrees it was relaxed.  The warders and
+gaolers ceased to patrol the island roads by night, and it was
+agreed that Aaron Trow was gone, or that he would be starved to
+death, or that he would in time be driven to leave such traces of
+his whereabouts as must lead to his discovery; and this at last did
+turn out to be the fact.
+
+There is a sort of prettiness about these islands which, though it
+never rises to the loveliness of romantic scenery, is nevertheless
+attractive in its way.  The land breaks itself into little knolls,
+and the sea runs up, hither and thither, in a thousand creeks and
+inlets; and then, too, when the oleanders are in bloom, they give a
+wonderfully bright colour to the landscape.  Oleanders seem to be
+the roses of Bermuda, and are cultivated round all the villages of
+the better class through the islands.  There are two towns, St.
+George and Hamilton, and one main high-road, which connects them;
+but even this high-road is broken by a ferry, over which every
+vehicle going from St. George to Hamilton must be conveyed.  Most of
+the locomotion in these parts is done by boats, and the residents
+look to the sea, with its narrow creeks, as their best highway from
+their farms to their best market.  In those days--and those days
+were not very long since--the building of small ships was their
+chief trade, and they valued their land mostly for the small scrubby
+cedar-trees with which this trade was carried on.
+
+As one goes from St. George to Hamilton the road runs between two
+seas; that to the right is the ocean; that on the left is an inland
+creek, which runs up through a large portion of the islands, so that
+the land on the other side of it is near to the traveller.  For a
+considerable portion of the way there are no houses lying near the
+road, and, there is one residence, some way from the road, so
+secluded that no other house lies within a mile of it by land.  By
+water it might probably be reached within half a mile.  This place
+was called Crump Island, and here lived, and had lived for many
+years, an old gentleman, a native of Bermuda, whose business it had
+been to buy up cedar wood and sell it to the ship-builders at
+Hamilton.  In our story we shall not have very much to do with old
+Mr. Bergen, but it will be necessary to say a word or two about his
+house.
+
+It stood upon what would have been an island in the creek, had not a
+narrow causeway, barely broad enough for a road, joined it to that
+larger island on which stands the town of St. George.  As the main
+road approaches the ferry it runs through some rough, hilly, open
+ground, which on the right side towards the ocean has never been
+cultivated.  The distance from the ocean here may, perhaps, be a
+quarter of a mile, and the ground is for the most part covered with
+low furze.  On the left of the road the land is cultivated in
+patches, and here, some half mile or more from the ferry, a path
+turns away to Crump Island.  The house cannot be seen from the road,
+and, indeed, can hardly be seen at all, except from the sea.  It
+lies, perhaps, three furlongs from the high road, and the path to it
+is but little used, as the passage to and from it is chiefly made by
+water.
+
+Here, at the time of our story, lived Mr. Bergen, and here lived Mr.
+Bergen's daughter.  Miss Bergen was well known at St. George's as a
+steady, good girl, who spent her time in looking after her father's
+household matters, in managing his two black maid-servants and the
+black gardener, and who did her duty in that sphere of life to which
+she had been called.  She was a comely, well-shaped young woman,
+with a sweet countenance, rather large in size, and very quiet in
+demeanour.  In her earlier years, when young girls usually first bud
+forth into womanly beauty, the neighbours had not thought much of
+Anastasia Bergen, nor had the young men of St. George been wont to
+stay their boats under the window of Crump Cottage in order that
+they might listen to her voice or feel the light of her eye; but
+slowly, as years went by, Anastasia Bergen became a woman that a man
+might well love; and a man learned to love her who was well worthy
+of a woman's heart.  This was Caleb Morton, the Presbyterian
+minister of St. George; and Caleb Morton had been engaged to marry
+Miss Bergen for the last two years past, at the period of Aaron
+Trow's escape from prison.
+
+Caleb Morton was not a native of Bermuda, but had been sent thither
+by the synod of his church from Nova Scotia.  He was a tall,
+handsome man, at this time of some thirty years of age, of a
+presence which might almost have been called commanding.  He was
+very strong, but of a temperament which did not often give him
+opportunity to put forth his strength; and his life had been such
+that neither he nor others knew of what nature might be his courage.
+The greater part of his life was spent in preaching to some few of
+the white people around him, and in teaching as many of the blacks
+as he could get to hear him.  His days were very quiet, and had been
+altogether without excitement until he had met with Anastasia
+Bergen.  It will suffice for us to say that he did meet her, and
+that now, for two years past, they had been engaged as man and wife.
+
+Old Mr. Bergen, when he heard of the engagement, was not well
+pleased at the information.  In the first place, his daughter was
+very necessary to him, and the idea of her marrying and going away
+had hardly as yet occurred to him; and then he was by no means
+inclined to part with any of his money.  It must not be presumed
+that he had amassed a fortune by his trade in cedar wood.  Few
+tradesmen in Bermuda do, as I imagine, amass fortunes.  Of some few
+hundred pounds he was possessed, and these, in the course of nature,
+would go to his daughter when he died; but he had no inclination to
+hand any portion of them over to his daughter before they did go to
+her in the course of nature.  Now, the income which Caleb Morton
+earned as a Presbyterian clergyman was not large, and, therefore, no
+day had been fixed as yet for his marriage with Anastasia.
+
+But, though the old man had been from the first averse to the match,
+his hostility had not been active.  He had not forbidden Mr. Morton
+his house, or affected to be in any degree angry because his
+daughter had a lover.  He had merely grumbled forth an intimation
+that those who marry in haste repent at leisure,--that love kept
+nobody warm if the pot did not boil; and that, as for him, it was as
+much as he could do to keep his own pot boiling at Crump Cottage.
+In answer to this Anastasia said nothing.  She asked him for no
+money, but still kept his accounts, managed his household, and
+looked patiently forward for better days.
+
+Old Mr. Bergen himself spent much of his time at Hamilton, where he
+had a woodyard with a couple of rooms attached to it.  It was his
+custom to remain here three nights of the week, during which
+Anastasia was left alone at the cottage; and it happened by no means
+seldom that she was altogether alone, for the negro whom they called
+the gardener would go to her father's place at Hamilton, and the two
+black girls would crawl away up to the road, tired with the monotony
+of the sea at the cottage.  Caleb had more than once told her that
+she was too much alone, but she had laughed at him, saying that
+solitude in Bermuda was not dangerous.  Nor, indeed, was it; for the
+people are quiet and well-mannered, lacking much energy, but being,
+in the same degree, free from any propensity to violence.
+
+"So you are going," she said to her lover, one evening, as he rose
+from the chair on which he had been swinging himself at the door of
+the cottage which looks down over the creek of the sea.  He had sat
+there for an hour talking to her as she worked, or watching her as
+she moved about the place.  It was a beautiful evening, and the sun
+had been falling to rest with almost tropical glory before his feet.
+The bright oleanders were red with their blossoms all around him,
+and he had thoroughly enjoyed his hour of easy rest.  "So you are
+going," she said to him, not putting her work out of her hand as he
+rose to depart.
+
+"Yes; and it is time for me to go.  I have still work to do before I
+can get to bed.  Ah, well; I suppose the day will come at last when
+I need not leave you as soon as my hour of rest is over."
+
+"Come; of course it will come.  That is, if your reverence should
+choose to wait for it another ten years or so."
+
+"I believe you would not mind waiting twenty years."
+
+"Not if a certain friend of mine would come down and see me of
+evenings when I'm alone after the day.  It seems to me that I
+shouldn't mind waiting as long as I had that to look for."
+
+"You are right not to be impatient," he said to her, after a pause,
+as he held her hand before he went.  "Quite right.  I only wish I
+could school myself to be as easy about it."
+
+"I did not say I was easy," said Anastasia.  "People are seldom easy
+in this world, I take it.  I said I could be patient.  Do not look
+in that way, as though you pretended that you were dissatisfied with
+me.  You know that I am true to you, and you ought to be very proud
+of me."
+
+"I am proud of you, Anastasia--" on hearing which she got up and
+courtesied to him.  "I am proud of you; so proud of you that I feel
+you should not be left here all alone, with no one to help you if
+you were in trouble."
+
+"Women don't get into trouble as men do, and do not want any one to
+help them.  If you were alone in the house you would have to go to
+bed without your supper, because you could not make a basin of
+boiled milk ready for your own meal.  Now, when your reverence has
+gone, I shall go to work and have my tea comfortably."  And then he
+did go, bidding God bless her as he left her.  Three hours after
+that he was disturbed in his own lodgings by one of the negro girls
+from the cottage rushing to his door, and begging him in Heaven's
+name to come down to the assistance of her mistress.
+
+When Morton left her, Anastasia did not proceed to do as she had
+said, and seemed to have forgotten her evening meal.  She had been
+working sedulously with her needle during all that last
+conversation; but when her lover was gone, she allowed the work to
+fall from her hands, and sat motionless for awhile, gazing at the
+last streak of colour left by the setting sun; but there was no
+longer a sign of its glory to be traced in the heavens around her.
+The twilight in Bermuda is not long and enduring as it is with us,
+though the daylight does not depart suddenly, leaving the darkness
+of night behind it without any intermediate time of warning, as is
+the case farther south, down among the islands of the tropics.  But
+the soft, sweet light of the evening had waned and gone, and night
+had absolutely come upon her, while Anastasia was still seated
+before the cottage with her eyes fixed upon the white streak of
+motionless sea which was still visible through the gloom.  She was
+thinking of him, of his ways of life, of his happiness, and of her
+duty towards him.  She had told him, with her pretty feminine
+falseness, that she could wait without impatience; but now she said
+to herself that it would not be good for him to wait longer.  He
+lived alone and without comfort, working very hard for his poor
+pittance, and she could see, and feel, and understand that a
+companion in his life was to him almost a necessity.  She would tell
+her father that all this must be brought to an end.  She would not
+ask him for money, but she would make him understand that her
+services must, at any rate in part, be transferred.  Why should not
+she and Morton still live at the cottage when they were married?
+And so thinking, and at last resolving, she sat there till the dark
+night fell upon her.
+
+She was at last disturbed by feeling a man's hand upon her shoulder.
+She jumped from her chair and faced him,--not screaming, for it was
+especially within her power to control herself, and to make no
+utterance except with forethought.  Perhaps it might have been
+better for her had she screamed, and sent a shrill shriek down the
+shore of that inland sea.  She was silent, however, and with awe-
+struck face and outstretched hands gazed into the face of him who
+still held her by the shoulder.  The night was dark; but her eyes
+were now accustomed to the darkness, and she could see indistinctly
+something of his features.  He was a low-sized man, dressed in a
+suit of sailor's blue clothing, with a rough cap of hair on his
+head, and a beard that had not been clipped for many weeks.  His
+eyes were large, and hollow, and frightfully bright, so that she
+seemed to see nothing else of him; but she felt the strength of his
+fingers as he grasped her tighter and more tightly by the arm.
+
+"Who are you?" she said, after a moment's pause.
+
+"Do you know me?" he asked.
+
+"Know you!  No."  But the words were hardly out of her mouth before
+it struck her that the man was Aaron Trow, of whom every one in
+Bermuda had been talking.
+
+"Come into the house," he said, "and give me food."  And he still
+held her with his hand as though he would compel her to follow him.
+
+She stood for a moment thinking what she would say to him; for even
+then, with that terrible man standing close to her in the darkness,
+her presence of mind did not desert her.  "Surely," she said, "I
+will give you food if you are hungry.  But take your hand from me.
+No man would lay his hands on a woman."
+
+"A woman!" said the stranger.  "What does the starved wolf care for
+that?  A woman's blood is as sweet to him as that of a man.  Come
+into the house, I tell you."  And then she preceded him through the
+open door into the narrow passage, and thence to the kitchen.  There
+she saw that the back door, leading out on the other side of the
+house, was open, and she knew that he had come down from the road
+and entered on that side.  She threw her eyes around, looking for
+the negro girls; but they were away, and she remembered that there
+was no human being within sound of her voice but this man who had
+told her that he was as a wolf thirsty after her blood!
+
+"Give me food at once," he said.
+
+"And will you go if I give it you?" she asked.
+
+"I will knock out your brains if you do not," he replied, lifting
+from the grate a short, thick poker which lay there.  "Do as I bid
+you at once.  You also would be like a tiger if you had fasted for
+two days, as I have done."
+
+She could see, as she moved across the kitchen, that he had already
+searched there for something that he might eat, but that he had
+searched in vain.  With the close economy common among his class in
+the islands, all comestibles were kept under close lock and key in
+the house of Mr. Bergen.  Their daily allowance was given day by day
+to the negro servants, and even the fragments were then gathered up
+and locked away in safety.  She moved across the kitchen to the
+accustomed cupboard, taking the keys from her pocket, and he
+followed close upon her.  There was a small oil lamp hanging from
+the low ceiling which just gave them light to see each other.  She
+lifted her hand to this to tare it from its hook, but he prevented
+her.  "No, by Heaven!" he said, "you don't touch that till I've done
+with it.  There's light enough for you to drag out your scraps."
+
+She did drag out her scraps and a bowl of milk, which might hold
+perhaps a quart.  There was a fragment of bread, a morsel of cold
+potato-cake, and the bone of a leg of kid.  "And is that all?" said
+he.  But as he spoke he fleshed his teeth against the bone as a dog
+would have done.
+
+"It is the best I have," she said; "I wish it were better, and you
+should have had it without violence, as you have suffered so long
+from hunger."
+
+"Bah!  Better; yes!  You would give the best no doubt, and set the
+hell hounds on my track the moment I am gone.  I know how much I
+might expect from your charity."
+
+"I would have fed you for pity's sake," she answered.
+
+"Pity!  Who are you, that you should dare to pity me!  By -, my
+young woman, it is I that pity you.  I must cut your throat unless
+you give me money.  Do you know that?"
+
+"Money!  I have got no money."
+
+"I'll make you have some before I go.  Come; don't move till I have
+done."  And as he spoke to her he went on tugging at the bone, and
+swallowing the lumps of stale bread.  He had already finished the
+bowl of milk.  "And, now," said he, "tell me who I am."
+
+"I suppose you are Aaron Trow," she answered, very slowly.  He said
+nothing on hearing this, but continued his meal, standing close to
+her so that she might not possibly escape from him out into the
+darkness.  Twice or thrice in those few minutes she made up her mind
+to make such an attempt, feeling that it would be better to leave
+him in possession of the house, and make sure, if possible, of her
+own life.  There was no money there; not a dollar!  What money her
+father kept in his possession was locked up in his safe at Hamilton.
+And might he not keep to his threat, and murder her, when he found
+that she could give him nothing?  She did not tremble outwardly, as
+she stood there watching him as he ate, but she thought how probable
+it might be that her last moments were very near.  And yet she could
+scrutinise his features, form, and garments, so as to carry away in
+her mind a perfect picture of them.  Aaron Trow--for of course it
+was the escaped convict--was not a man of frightful, hideous aspect.
+Had the world used him well, giving him when he was young ample
+wages and separating him from turbulent spirits, he also might have
+used the world well; and then women would have praised the
+brightness of his eye and the manly vigour of his brow.  But things
+had not gone well with him.  He had been separated from the wife he
+had loved, and the children who had been raised at his knee,--
+separated by his own violence; and now, as he had said of himself,
+he was a wolf rather than a man.  As he stood there satisfying the
+craving of his appetite, breaking up the large morsels of food, he
+was an object very sad to be seen.  Hunger had made him gaunt and
+yellow, he was squalid with the dirt of his hidden lair, and he had
+the look of a beast;--that look to which men fall when they live
+like the brutes of prey, as outcasts from their brethren.  But still
+there was that about his brow which might have redeemed him,--which
+might have turned her horror into pity, had he been willing that it
+should be so.
+
+"And now give me some brandy," he said.
+
+There was brandy in the house,--in the sitting-room which was close
+at their hand, and the key of the little press which held it was in
+her pocket.  It was useless, she thought, to refuse him; and so she
+told him that there was a bottle partly full, but that she must go
+to the next room to fetch it him.
+
+"We'll go together, my darling," he said.  "There's nothing like
+good company."  And he again put his hand upon her arm as they
+passed into the family sitting-room.
+
+"I must take the light," she said.  But he unhooked it himself, and
+carried it in his own hand.
+
+Again she went to work without trembling.  She found the key of the
+side cupboard, and unlocking the door, handed him a bottle which
+might contain about half-a-pint of spirits.  "And is that all?" he
+said.
+
+"There is a full bottle here," she answered, handing him another;
+"but if you drink it, you will be drunk, and they will catch you."
+
+"By Heavens, yes; and you would be the first to help them; would you
+not?"
+
+"Look here," she answered.  "If you will go now, I will not say a
+word to any one of your coming, nor set them on your track to follow
+you.  There, take the full bottle with you.  If you will go, you
+shall be safe from me."
+
+"What, and go without money!"
+
+"I have none to give you.  You may believe me when I say so.  I have
+not a dollar in the house."
+
+Before he spoke again he raised the half empty bottle to his mouth,
+and drank as long as there was a drop to drink.  "There," said he,
+putting the bottle down, "I am better after that.  As to the other,
+you are right, and I will take it with me.  And now, young woman,
+about the money?"
+
+"I tell you that I have not a dollar."
+
+"Look here," said he, and he spoke now in a softer voice, as though
+he would be on friendly terms with her.  "Give me ten sovereigns,
+and I will go.  I know you have it, and with ten sovereigns it is
+possible that I may save my life.  You are good, and would not wish
+that a man should die so horrid a death.  I know you are good.
+Come, give me the money."  And he put his hands up, beseeching her,
+and looked into her face with imploring eyes.
+
+"On the word of a Christian woman I have not got money to give you,"
+she replied.
+
+"Nonsense?"  And as he spoke he took her by the arm and shook her.
+He shook her violently so that he hurt her, and her breath for a
+moment was all but gone from her.  "I tell you you must make dollars
+before I leave you, or I will so handle you that it would have been
+better for you to coin your very blood."
+
+"May God help me at my need," she said, "as I have not above a few
+penny pieces in the house."
+
+"And you expect me to believe that!  Look here!  I will shake the
+teeth out of your head, but I will have it from you."  And he did
+shake her again, using both his hands and striking her against the
+wall.
+
+"Would you--murder me?" she said, hardly able now to utter the
+words.
+
+"Murder you, yes; why not?  I cannot be worse than I am, were I to
+murder you ten times over.  But with money I may possibly be
+better."
+
+"I have it not."
+
+"Then I will do worse than murder you.  I will make you such an
+object that all the world shall loathe to look on you."  And so
+saying he took her by the arm and dragged her forth from the wall
+against which she had stood.
+
+Then there came from her a shriek that was heard far down the shore
+of that silent sea, and away across to the solitary houses of those
+living on the other side,--a shriek, very sad, sharp, and
+prolonged,--which told plainly to those who heard it of woman's woe
+when in her extremest peril.  That sound was spoken of in Bermuda
+for many a day after that, as something which had been terrible to
+hear.  But then, at that moment, as it came wailing through the
+dark, it sounded as though it were not human.  Of those who heard
+it, not one guessed from whence it came, nor was the hand of any
+brother put forward to help that woman at her need.
+
+"Did you hear that?" said the young wife to her husband, from the
+far side of the arm of the sea.
+
+"Hear it!  Oh Heaven, yes!  Whence did it come?"  The young wife
+could not say from whence it came, but clung close to her husband's
+breast, comforting herself with the knowledge that that terrible
+sorrow was not hers.
+
+But aid did come at last, or rather that which seemed as aid.  Long
+and terrible was the fight between that human beast of prey and the
+poor victim which had fallen into his talons.  Anastasia Bergen was
+a strong, well-built woman, and now that the time had come to her
+when a struggle was necessary, a struggle for life, for honour, for
+the happiness of him who was more to her than herself, she fought
+like a tigress attacked in her own lair.  At such a moment as this
+she also could become wild and savage as the beast of the forest.
+When he pinioned her arms with one of his, as he pressed her down
+upon the floor, she caught the first joint of the forefinger of his
+other hand between her teeth till he yelled in agony, and another
+sound was heard across the silent water.  And then, when one hand
+was loosed in the struggle, she twisted it through his long hair,
+and dragged back his head till his eyes were nearly starting from
+their sockets.  Anastasia Bergen had hitherto been a sheer woman,
+all feminine in her nature.  But now the foam came to her mouth, and
+fire sprang from her eyes, and the muscles of her body worked as
+though she had been trained to deeds of violence.  Of violence,
+Aaron Trow had known much in his rough life, but never had he
+combated with harder antagonist than her whom he now held beneath
+his breast.
+
+"By--I will put an end to you," he exclaimed, in his wrath, as he
+struck her violently across the face with his elbow.  His hand was
+occupied, and he could not use it for a blow, but, nevertheless, the
+violence was so great that the blood gushed from her nostrils, while
+the back of her head was driven with violence against the floor.
+But she did not lose her hold of him.  Her hand was still twined
+closely through his thick hair, and in every move he made she clung
+to him with all her might.  "Leave go my hair," he shouted at her,
+but she still kept her hold, though he again dashed her head against
+the floor.
+
+There was still light in the room, for when he first grasped her
+with both his hands, he had put the lamp down on a small table.  Now
+they were rolling on the floor together, and twice he had essayed to
+kneel on her that he might thus crush the breath from her body, and
+deprive her altogether of her strength; but she had been too active
+for him, moving herself along the ground, though in doing so she
+dragged him with her.  But by degrees he got one hand at liberty,
+and with that he pulled a clasp knife out of his pocket and opened
+it.  "I will cut your head off if you do not let go my hair," he
+said.  But still she held fast by him.  He then stabbed at her arm,
+using his left hand and making short, ineffectual blows.  Her dress
+partly saved her, and partly also the continual movement of all her
+limbs; but, nevertheless, the knife wounded her.  It wounded her in
+several places about the arm, covering them both with blood;--but
+still she hung on.  So close was her grasp in her agony, that, as
+she afterwards found, she cut the skin of her own hands with her own
+nails.  Had the man's hair been less thick or strong, or her own
+tenacity less steadfast, he would have murdered her before any
+interruption could have saved her.
+
+And yet he had not purposed to murder her, or even, in the first
+instance, to inflict on her any bodily harm.  But he had been
+determined to get money.  With such a sum of money as he had named,
+it might, he thought, be possible for him to win his way across to
+America.  He might bribe men to hide him in the hold of a ship, and
+thus there might be for him, at any rate, a possibility of escape.
+That there must be money in the house he had still thought when
+first he laid hands on the poor woman; and then, when the struggle
+had once begun, when he had felt her muscles contending with his,
+the passion of the beast was aroused within him, and he strove
+against her as he would have striven against a dog.  But yet, when
+the knife was in his hand, he had not driven it against her heart.
+
+Then suddenly, while they were yet rolling on the floor, there was a
+sound of footsteps in the passage.  Aaron Trow instantly leaped to
+his feet, leaving his victim on the ground, with huge lumps of his
+thick clotted hair in her hand.  Thus, and thus only, could he have
+liberated himself from her grasp.  He rushed at the door, and there
+he came against the two negro servant-girls who had returned down to
+their kitchen from the road on which they had been straying.  Trow,
+as he half saw them in the dark, not knowing how many there might
+be, or whether there was a man among them, rushed through them,
+upsetting one scared girl in his passage.  With the instinct and
+with the timidity of a beast, his impulse now was to escape, and he
+hurried away back to the road and to his lair, leaving the three
+women together in the cottage.  Poor wretch!  As he crossed the
+road, not skulking in his impotent haste, but running at his best,
+another pair of eyes saw him, and when the search became hot after
+him, it was known that his hiding-place was not distant.
+
+It was some time before any of the women were able to act, and when
+some step was taken, Anastasia was the first to take it.  She had
+not absolutely swooned, but the reaction, after the violence of her
+efforts, was so great, that for some minutes she had been unable to
+speak.  She had risen from the floor when Trow left her, and had
+even followed him to the door; but since that she had fallen back
+into her father's old arm-chair, and there sat gasping not only for
+words, but for breath also.
+
+At last she bade one of the girls to run into St. George, and beg
+Mr. Morton to come to her aid.  The girl would not stir without her
+companion; and even then, Anastasia, covered as she was with blood,
+with dishevelled hair, and her clothes half torn from her body,
+accompanied them as far as the road.  There they found a negro lad
+still hanging about the place, and he told them that he had seen the
+man cross the road, and run down over the open ground towards the
+rocks of the sea-coast.  "He must be there," said the lad, pointing
+in the direction of a corner of the rocks; "unless he swim across
+the mouth of the ferry."  But the mouth of that ferry is an arm of
+the sea, and it was not probable that a man would do that when he
+might have taken the narrow water by keeping on the other side of
+the road.
+
+At about one that night Caleb Morton reached the cottage breathless
+with running, and before a word was spoken between them, Anastasia
+had fallen on his shoulder and had fainted.  As soon as she was in
+the arms of her lover, all her power had gone from her.  The spirit
+and passion of the tiger had gone, and she was again a weak woman
+shuddering at the thought of what she had suffered.  She remembered
+that she had had the man's hand between her teeth, and by degrees
+she found his hair still clinging to her fingers; but even then she
+could hardly call to mind the nature of the struggle she had
+undergone.  His hot breath close to her own cheek she did remember,
+and his glaring eyes, and even the roughness of his beard as he
+pressed his face against her own; but she could not say whence had
+come the blood, nor till her arm became stiff and motionless did she
+know that she had been wounded.
+
+It was all joy with her now, as she sat motionless without speaking,
+while he administered to her wants and spoke words of love into her
+ears.  She remembered the man's horrid threat, and knew that by
+God's mercy she had been saved.  And he was there caressing her,
+loving her, comforting her!  As she thought of the fate that had
+threatened her, of the evil that had been so imminent, she fell
+forward on her knees, and with incoherent sobs uttered her
+thanksgivings, while her head was still supported on his arms.
+
+It was almost morning before she could induce herself to leave him
+and lie down.  With him she seemed to be so perfectly safe; but the
+moment he was away she could see Aaron Trow's eyes gleaming at her
+across the room.  At last, however, she slept; and when he saw that
+she was at rest, he told himself that his work must then begin.
+Hitherto Caleb Morton had lived in all respects the life of a man of
+peace; but now, asking himself no questions as to the propriety of
+what he would do, using no inward arguments as to this or that line
+of conduct, he girded the sword on his loins, and prepared himself
+for war.  The wretch who had thus treated the woman whom he loved
+should be hunted down like a wild beast, as long as he had arms and
+legs with which to carry on the hunt.  He would pursue the miscreant
+with any weapons that might come to his hands; and might Heaven help
+him at his need as he dealt forth punishment to that man, if he
+caught him within his grasp.  Those who had hitherto known Morton in
+the island, could not recognise the man as he came forth on that
+day, thirsty after blood, and desirous to thrust himself into
+personal conflict with the wild ruffian who had injured him.  The
+meek Presbyterian minister had been a preacher, preaching ways of
+peace, and living in accordance with his own doctrines.  The world
+had been very quiet for him, and he had walked quietly in his
+appointed path.  But now the world was quiet no longer, nor was
+there any preaching of peace.  His cry was for blood; for the blood
+of the untamed savage brute who had come upon his young doe in her
+solitude, and striven with such brutal violence to tear her heart
+from her bosom.
+
+He got to his assistance early in the morning some of the constables
+from St. George, and before the day was over, he was joined by two
+or three of the warders from the convict establishment.  There was
+with him also a friend or two, and thus a party was formed,
+numbering together ten or twelve persons.  They were of course all
+armed, and therefore it might be thought that there would be but
+small chance for the wretched man if they should come upon his
+track.  At first they all searched together, thinking from the
+tidings which had reached them that he must be near to them; but
+gradually they spread themselves along the rocks between St. George
+and the ferry, keeping watchman on the road, so that he should not
+escape unnoticed into the island.
+
+Ten times during the day did Anastasia send from the cottage up to
+Morton, begging him to leave the search to others, and come down to
+her.  But not for a moment would he lose the scent of his prey.
+What! should it be said that she had been so treated, and that
+others had avenged her?  He sent back to say that her father was
+with her now, and that he would come when his work was over.  And in
+that job of work the life-blood of Aaron Trow was counted up.
+
+Towards evening they were all congregated on the road near to the
+spot at which the path turns off towards the cottage, when a voice
+was heard hallooing to them from the summit of a little hill which
+lies between the road and the sea on the side towards the ferry, and
+presently a boy came running down to them full of news.  "Danny Lund
+has seen him," said the boy, "he has seen him plainly in among the
+rocks."  And then came Danny Lund himself, a small negro lad about
+fourteen years of age, who was known in those parts as the idlest,
+most dishonest, and most useless of his race.  On this occasion,
+however, Danny Lund became important, and every one listened to him.
+He had seen, he said, a pair of eyes moving down in a cave of the
+rocks which he well knew.  He had been in the cave often, he said,
+and could get there again.  But not now; not while that pair of eyes
+was moving at the bottom of it.  And so they all went up over the
+hill, Morton leading the way with hot haste.  In his waist-band he
+held a pistol, and his hand grasped a short iron bar with which he
+had armed himself.  They ascended the top of the hill, and when
+there, the open sea was before them on two sides, and on the third
+was the narrow creek over which the ferry passed.  Immediately
+beneath their feet were the broken rocks; for on that side, towards
+the sea, the earth and grass of the hill descended but a little way
+towards the water.  Down among the rocks they all went, silently,
+Caleb Morton leading the way, and Danny Lund directing him from
+behind.
+
+"Mr. Morton," said an elderly man from St. George, "had you not
+better let the warders of the gaol go first; he is a desperate man,
+and they will best understand his ways?"
+
+In answer to this Morton said nothing, but he would let no one put a
+foot before him.  He still pressed forward among the rocks, and at
+last came to a spot from whence he might have sprung at one leap
+into the ocean.  It was a broken cranny on the sea-shore into which
+the sea beat, and surrounded on every side but the one by huge
+broken fragments of stone, which at first sight seemed as though
+they would have admitted of a path down among them to the water's
+edge; but which, when scanned more closely, were seen to be so large
+in size, that no man could climb from one to another.  It was a
+singularly romantic spot, but now well known to them all there, for
+they had visited it over and over again that morning.
+
+"In there," said Danny Lund, keeping well behind Morton's body, and
+pointing at the same time to a cavern high up among the rocks, but
+quite on the opposite side of the little inlet of the sea.  The
+mouth of the cavern was not twenty yards from where they stood, but
+at the first sight it seemed as though it must be impossible to
+reach it.  The precipice on the brink of which they all now stood,
+ran down sheer into the sea, and the fall from the mouth of the
+cavern on the other side was as steep.  But Danny solved the mystery
+by pointing upwards, and showing them how he had been used to climb
+to a projecting rock over their heads, and from thence creep round
+by certain vantages of the stone till he was able to let himself
+down into the aperture.  But now, at the present moment, he was
+unwilling to make essay of his prowess as a cragsman.  He had, he
+said, been up on that projecting rock thrice, and there had seen the
+eyes moving in the cavern.  He was quite sure of that fact of the
+pair of eyes, and declined to ascend the rock again.
+
+Traces soon became visible to them by which they knew that some one
+had passed in and out of the cavern recently.  The stone, when
+examined, bore those marks of friction which passage and repassage
+over it will always give.  At the spot from whence the climber left
+the platform and commenced his ascent, the side of the stone had
+been rubbed by the close friction of a man's body.  A light boy like
+Danny Lund might find his way in and out without leaving such marks
+behind him, but no heavy man could do so.  Thus before long they all
+were satisfied that Aaron Trow was in the cavern before them.
+
+Then there was a long consultation as to what they would do to carry
+on the hunt, and how they would drive the tiger from his lair.  That
+he should not again come out, except to fall into their hands, was
+to all of them a matter of course.  They would keep watch and ward
+there, though it might be for days and nights.  But that was a
+process which did not satisfy Morton, and did not indeed well
+satisfy any of them.  It was not only that they desired to inflict
+punishment on the miscreant in accordance with the law, but also
+that they did not desire that the miserable man should die in a hole
+like a starved dog, and that then they should go after him to take
+out his wretched skeleton.  There was something in that idea so
+horrid in every way, that all agreed that active steps must be
+taken.  The warders of the prison felt that they would all be
+disgraced if they could not take their prisoner alive.  Yet who
+would get round that perilous ledge in the face of such an
+adversary?  A touch to any man while climbing there would send him
+headlong down among the wave!  And then his fancy told to each what
+might be the nature of an embrace with such an animal as that,
+driven to despair, hopeless of life, armed, as they knew, at any
+rate, with a knife!  If the first adventurous spirit should succeed
+in crawling round that ledge, what would be the reception which he
+might expect in the terrible depth of that cavern?
+
+They called to their prisoner, bidding him come out, and telling him
+that they would fire in upon him if he did not show himself; but not
+a sound was heard.  It was indeed possible that they should send
+their bullets to, perhaps, every corner of the cavern; and if so, in
+that way they might slaughter him; but even of this they were not
+sure.  Who could tell that there might not be some protected nook in
+which he could lay secure?  And who could tell when the man was
+struck, or whether he were wounded?
+
+"I will get to him," said Morton, speaking with a low dogged voice,
+and so saying he clambered up to the rock to which Danny Lund had
+pointed.  Many voices at once attempted to restrain him, and one or
+two put their hands upon him to keep him back, but he was too quick
+for them, and now stood upon the ledge of rock.  "Can you see him?"
+they asked below.
+
+"I can see nothing within the cavern," said Morton.
+
+"Look down very hard, Massa," said Danny, "very hard indeed, down in
+deep dark hole, and then see him big eyes moving!"
+
+Morton now crept along the ledge, or rather he was beginning to do
+so, having put forward his shoulders and arms to make a first step
+in advance from the spot on which he was resting, when a hand was
+put forth from one corner of the cavern's mouth,--a hand armed with
+a pistol;--and a shot was fired.  There could be no doubt now but
+that Danny Lund was right, and no doubt now as to the whereabouts of
+Aaron Trow.
+
+A hand was put forth, a pistol was fired, and Caleb Morton still
+clinging to a corner of the rock with both his arms was seen to
+falter.  "He is wounded," said one of the voices from below; and
+then they all expected to see him fall into the sea.  But he did not
+fall, and after a moment or two, he proceeded carefully to pick his
+steps along the ledge.  The ball had touched him, grazing his cheek,
+and cutting through the light whiskers that he wore; but he had not
+felt it, though the blow had nearly knocked him from his perch.  And
+then four or five shots were fired from the rocks into the mouth of
+the cavern.  The man's arm had been seen, and indeed one or two
+declared that they had traced the dim outline of his figure.  But no
+sound was heard to come from the cavern, except the sharp crack of
+the bullets against the rock, and the echo of the gunpowder.  There
+had been no groan as of a man wounded, no sound of a body falling,
+no voice wailing in despair.  For a few seconds all was dark with
+the smoke of the gunpowder, and then the empty mouth of the cave was
+again yawning before their eyes.  Morton was now near it, still
+cautiously creeping.  The first danger to which he was exposed was
+this; that his enemy within the recess might push him down from the
+rocks with a touch.  But on the other hand, there were three or four
+men ready to fire, the moment that a hand should be put forth; and
+then Morton could swim,--was known to be a strong swimmer;--whereas
+of Aaron Trow it was already declared by the prison gaolers that he
+could not swim.  Two of the warders had now followed Morton on the
+rocks, so that in the event of his making good his entrance into the
+cavern, and holding his enemy at bay for a minute, he would be
+joined by aid.
+
+It was strange to see how those different men conducted themselves
+as they stood on the opposite platform watching the attack.  The
+officers from the prison had no other thought but of their prisoner,
+and were intent on taking him alive or dead.  To them it was little
+or nothing what became of Morton.  It was their business to
+encounter peril, and they were ready to do so;--feeling, however, by
+no means sorry to have such a man as Morton in advance of them.
+Very little was said by them.  They had their wits about them, and
+remembered that every word spoken for the guidance of their ally
+would be heard also by the escaped convict.  Their prey was sure,
+sooner or later, and had not Morton been so eager in his pursuit,
+they would have waited till some plan had been devised of trapping
+him without danger.  But the townsmen from St. George, of whom some
+dozen were now standing there, were quick and eager and loud in
+their counsels.  "Stay where you are, Mr. Morton,--stay awhile for
+the love of God--or he'll have you down."  "Now's your time, Caleb;
+in on him now, and you'll have him."  "Close with him, Morton, close
+with him at once; it's your only chance."  "There's four of us here;
+we'll fire on him if he as much as shows a limb."  All of which
+words as they were heard by that poor wretch within, must have
+sounded to him as the barking of a pack of hounds thirsting for his
+blood.  For him at any rate there was no longer any hope in this
+world.
+
+My reader, when chance has taken you into the hunting-field, has it
+ever been your lot to sit by on horseback, and watch the digging out
+of a fox?  The operation is not an uncommon one, and in some
+countries it is held to be in accordance with the rules of fair
+sport.  For myself, I think that when the brute has so far saved
+himself, he should be entitled to the benefit of his cunning; but I
+will not now discuss the propriety or impropriety of that practice
+in venery.  I can never, however, watch the doing of that work
+without thinking much of the agonising struggles of the poor beast
+whose last refuge is being torn from over his head.  There he lies
+within a few yards of his arch enemy, the huntsman.  The thick
+breath of the hounds make hot the air within his hole.  The sound of
+their voices is close upon his ears.  His breast is nearly bursting
+with the violence of that effort which at last has brought him to
+his retreat.  And then pickaxe and mattock are plied above his head,
+and nearer and more near to him press his foes,--his double foes,
+human and canine,--till at last a huge hand grasps him, and he is
+dragged forth among his enemies.  Almost as soon as his eyes have
+seen the light the eager noses of a dozen hounds have moistened
+themselves in his entrails.  Ah me!  I know that he is vermin, the
+vermin after whom I have been risking my neck, with a bold ambition
+that I might ultimately witness his death-struggles; but,
+nevertheless, I would fain have saved him that last half hour of
+gradually diminished hope.
+
+And Aaron Trow was now like a hunted fox, doomed to be dug out from
+his last refuge, with this addition to his misery, that these hounds
+when they caught their prey, would not put him at once out of his
+misery.  When first he saw that throng of men coming down from the
+hill top and resting on the platform; he knew that his fate was
+come.  When they called to him to surrender himself he was silent,
+but he knew that his silence was of no avail.  To them who were so
+eager to be his captors the matter seemed to be still one of
+considerable difficulty; but, to his thinking, there was no
+difficulty.  There were there some score of men, fully armed, within
+twenty yards of him.  If he but showed a trace of his limbs he would
+become a mark for their bullets.  And then if he were wounded, and
+no one would come to him!  If they allowed him to lie there without
+food till he perished!  Would it not be well for him to yield
+himself?  Then they called again and he was still silent.  That idea
+of yielding is very terrible to the heart of a man.  And when the
+worst had come to the worst, did not the ocean run deep beneath his
+cavern's month?
+
+But as they yelled at him and hallooed, making their preparations
+for his death, his presence of mind deserted the poor wretch.  He
+had stolen an old pistol on one of his marauding expeditions, of
+which one barrel had been loaded.  That in his mad despair he had
+fired; and now, as he lay near the mouth of the cavern, under the
+cover of the projecting stone, he had no weapon with him but his
+hands.  He had had a knife, but that had dropped from him during the
+struggle on the floor of the cottage.  He had now nothing but his
+hands, and was considering how he might best use them in ridding
+himself of the first of his pursuers.  The man was near him, armed,
+with all the power and majesty of right on his side; whereas on his
+side, Aaron Trow had nothing,--not a hope.  He raised his head that
+he might look forth, and a dozen voices shouted as his face appeared
+above the aperture.  A dozen weapons were levelled at him, and he
+could see the gleaming of the muzzles of the guns.  And then the
+foot of his pursuer was already on the corner stone at the cavern's
+mouth.  "Now, Caleb, on him at once!" shouted a voice.  Ah me! it
+was a moment in which to pity even such a man as Aaron Trow.
+
+"Now, Caleb, at him at once!" shouted the voice.  No, by heavens;
+not so, even yet!  The sound of triumph in those words raised the
+last burst of energy in the breast of that wretched man; and he
+sprang forth, head foremost, from his prison house.  Forth he came,
+manifest enough before the eyes of them all, and with head well
+down, and hands outstretched, but with his wide glaring eyes still
+turned towards his pursuers as he fell, he plunged down into the
+waves beneath him.  Two of those who stood by, almost unconscious of
+what they did, fired at his body as it made its rapid way to the
+water; but, as they afterwards found, neither of the bullets struck
+him.  Morton, when his prey thus leaped forth, escaping him for
+awhile, was already on the verge of the cavern,--had even then
+prepared his foot for that onward spring which should bring him to
+the throat of his foe.  But he arrested himself, and for a moment
+stood there watching the body as it struck the water, and hid itself
+at once beneath the ripple.  He stood there for a moment watching
+the deed and its effect, and then leaving his hold upon the rock, he
+once again followed his quarry.  Down he went, head foremost, right
+on to the track in the waves which the other had made; and when the
+two rose to the surface together, each was struggling in the grasp
+of the other.
+
+It was a foolish, nay, a mad deed to do.  The poor wretch who had
+first fallen could not have escaped.  He could not even swim, and
+had therefore flung himself to certain destruction when he took that
+leap from out of the cavern's mouth.  It would have been sad to see
+him perish beneath the waves,--to watch him as he rose, gasping for
+breath, and then to see to him sinking again, to rise again, and
+then to go for ever.  But his life had been fairly forfeit,--and why
+should one so much more precious have been flung after it?  It was
+surely with no view of saving that pitiful life that Caleb Morton
+had leaped after his enemy.  But the hound, hot with the chase, will
+follow the stag over the precipice and dash himself to pieces
+against the rocks.  The beast thirsting for blood will rush in even
+among the weapons of men.  Morton in his fury had felt but one
+desire, burned with but one passion.  If the Fates would but grant
+him to fix his clutches in the throat of the man who had ill-used
+his love; for the rest it might all go as it would.
+
+In the earlier part of the morning, while they were all searching
+for their victim, they had brought a boat up into this very inlet
+among the rocks; and the same boat had been at hand during the whole
+day.  Unluckily, before they had come hither, it had been taken
+round the headland to a place among the rocks at which a government
+skiff is always moored.  The sea was still so quiet that there was
+hardly a ripple on it, and the boat had been again sent for when
+first it was supposed that they had at last traced Aaron Trow to his
+hiding-place.  Anxiously now were all eyes turned to the headland,
+but as yet no boat was there.
+
+The two men rose to the surface, each struggling in the arms of the
+other.  Trow, though he was in an element to which he was not used,
+though he had sprung thither as another suicide might spring to
+certain death beneath a railway engine, did not altogether lose his
+presence of mind.  Prompted by a double instinct, he had clutched
+hold of Morton's body when he encountered it beneath the waters.  He
+held on to it, as to his only protection, and he held on to him also
+as to his only enemy.  If there was a chance for a life struggle,
+they would share that chance together; and if not, then together
+would they meet that other fate.
+
+Caleb Morton was a very strong man, and though one of his arms was
+altogether encumbered by his antagonist, his other arm and his legs
+were free.  With these he seemed to succeed in keeping his head
+above the water, weighted as he was with the body of his foe.  But
+Trow's efforts were also used with the view of keeping himself above
+the water.  Though he had purposed to destroy himself in taking that
+leap, and now hoped for nothing better than that they might both
+perish together, he yet struggled to keep his head above the waves.
+Bodily power he had none left to him, except that of holding on to
+Morton's arm and plunging with his legs; but he did hold on, and
+thus both their heads remained above the surface.
+
+But this could not last long.  It was easy to see that Trow's
+strength was nearly spent, and that when he went down Morton must go
+with him.  If indeed they could be separated,--if Morton could once
+make himself free from that embrace into which he had been so
+anxious to leap,--then indeed there might be a hope.  All round that
+little inlet the rock fell sheer down into the deep sea, so that
+there was no resting-place for a foot; it but round the headlands on
+either side, even within forty or fifty yards of that spot, Morton
+might rest on the rocks, till a boat should come to his assistance.
+To him that distance would have been nothing, if only his limbs had
+been at liberty.
+
+Upon the platform of rocks they were all at their wits' ends.  Many
+were anxious to fire at Trow; but even if they hit him, would
+Morton's position have been better?  Would not the wounded man have
+still clung to him who was not wounded?  And then there could be no
+certainty that any one of them would hit the right man.  The ripple
+of the waves, though it was very slight, nevertheless sufficed to
+keep the bodies in motion; and then, too, there was not among them
+any marksman peculiar for his skill.
+
+Morton's efforts in the water were too severe to admit of his
+speaking, but he could hear and understand the words which were
+addressed to him.  "Shake him off, Caleb."  "Strike him from you
+with your foot."  "Swim to the right shore; swim for it, even if you
+take him with you."  Yes; he could hear them all; but hearing and
+obeying were very different.  It was not easy to shake off that
+dying man; and as for swimming with him, that was clearly
+impossible.  It was as much as he could do to keep his head above
+water, let alone any attempt to move in one settled direction.
+
+For some four or five minutes they lay thus battling on the waves
+before the head of either of them went down.  Trow had been twice
+below the surface, but it was before he had succeeded in supporting
+himself by Morton's arm.  Now it seemed as though he must sink
+again,--as though both must sink.  His mouth was barely kept above
+the water, and as Morton shook him with his arm, the tide would pass
+over him.  It was horrid to watch from the shore the glaring
+upturned eyes of the dying wretch, as his long streaming hair lay
+back upon the wave.  "Now, Caleb, hold him down.  Hold him under,"
+was shouted in the voice of some eager friend.  Rising up on the
+water, Morton made a last effort to do as he was bid.  He did press
+the man's head down,--well down below the surface,--but still the
+hand clung to him, and as he struck out against the water, he was
+powerless against that grasp.
+
+Then there came a loud shout along the shore, and all those on the
+platform, whose eyes had been fixed so closely on that terrible
+struggle beneath them, rushed towards the rocks on the other coast.
+The sound of oars was heard close to them,--an eager pressing
+stroke, as of men who knew well that they were rowing for the
+salvation of a life.  On they came, close under the rocks, obeying
+with every muscle of their bodies the behests of those who called to
+them from the shore.  The boat came with such rapidity,--was so
+recklessly urged, that it was driven somewhat beyond the inlet; but
+in passing, a blow was struck which made Caleb Morton once more the
+master of his own life.  The two men had been carried out in their
+struggle towards the open sea; and as the boat curved in, so as to
+be as close as the rocks would allow, the bodies of the men were
+brought within the sweep of the oars.  He in the bow--for there were
+four pulling in the boat--had raised his oar as he neared the
+rocks,--had raised it high above the water; and now, as they passed
+close by the struggling men, he let it fall with all its force on
+the upturned face of the wretched convict.  It was a terrible,
+frightful thing to do,--thus striking one who was so stricken; but
+who shall say that the blow was not good and just?  Methinks,
+however, that the eyes and face of that dying man will haunt for
+ever the dreams of him who carried that oar!
+
+Trow never rose again to the surface.  Three days afterwards his
+body was found at the ferry, and then they carried him to the
+convict island and buried him.  Morton was picked up and taken into
+the boat.  His life was saved; but it may be a question how the
+battle might have gone had not that friendly oar been raised in his
+behalf.  As it was, he lay at the cottage for days before he was
+able to be moved, so as to receive the congratulations of those who
+had watched that terrible conflict from the shore.  Nor did he feel
+that there had been anything in that day's work of which he could be
+proud;--much rather of which it behoved him to be thoroughly
+ashamed.  Some six months after that he obtained the hand of
+Anastasia Bergen, but they did not remain long in Bermuda.  "He went
+away, back to his own country," my informant told me; "because he
+could not endure to meet the ghost of Aaron Trow, at that point of
+the road which passes near the cottage."  That the ghost of Aaron
+Trow may be seen there and round the little rocky inlet of the sea,
+is part of the creed of every young woman in Bermuda.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of The Project Gutenberg Etext of Aaron Trow, by Anthony Trollope
+
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