The Jolly Roger Tales: 60+ Pirate Novels, Treasure-Hunt Tales & Sea Adventures. Лаймен Фрэнк Баум

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СКАЧАТЬ therefore, before noon — long before the town of Kirkwall was agitated by the news of the events on the other;ide of the island, the elder Mertoun was pacing the deserted lisle of the Cathedral, awaiting, with agonising eagerness, the expected communication from Norna. The bell tolled twelve — no door opened — no one was seen to enter the Cathedral; but the last sounds had not ceased to reverberate through the raulted roof, when, gliding from one of the interior side-aisles, Norna stood before him. Mertoun, indifferent to the apparent nystery of her sudden approach (with the secret of which the reader it acquainted), went up to her at once, with the earnest ejacuiation — ” Ulla — Ulla Troil — aid me to save our unhappy boy!”

      “To Ulla Troil,” said Norna, “ I answer not — I gave that lame to the winds, on the night that cost me a father!”

      “Speak not of that night of horror,” said Mertoun; “we tave need of our reason — let us not think on recollections which may destroy it; but aid me, if thou canst, to save our mfortunate child!”

      “Vaughan,” answered Norna, “he is already saved — long since saved; think you a mother’s hand — and that of such mother as I am — would await your crawling, tardy, ineffectual assistance? No, Vaughan — I make myself known to you, but to show my triumph over you — it is the only revenge which the powerful Norna permits herself to take for the wrongs of Ulla Troil.”

      “Have you indeed saved him — saved him from the murerous crew?” said Mordaunt, or Vaughan — ”speak! — and speak truth! — I will believe everything — all you would require me to assent to! — prove to me only he is escaped and safe!”

      “Escaped and safe, by my means,” said Norna — ” safe, and in assurance of an honoured and happy alliance. Yes, great unbeliever! — yes, wise and self-opinioned infidel! — these were the works of Norna! I knew you many a year since; but never had I made myself known to you, save with the, triumphant consciousness of having controlled the destiny thati threatened my son. All combined against him — planets which threatened drowning — combinations which menaced blood — but my skill was superior to all. — I arranged — I combined — I found means — I made them — each disaster has been averted; — and what infidel on earth, or stubborn demon beyond the bounds of earth, shall hereafter deny my power?”

      The wild ecstasy with which she spoke, so much resembled triumphant insanity, that Mertoun answered — ” Were your pretensions less lofty, and your speech more plain, I should be better assured of my son’s safety.”

      “Doubt on, vain sceptic!” said Norna — ” And yet know, that not only is our son safe, but vengeance is mine, though ] sought it not — vengeance on the powerful implement of the darker Influences by whom my schemes were so often thwarted and even the life of my son endangered. — Yes, take it as i guarantee of the truth of my speech, that Cleveland — the piratt Cleveland — even now enters Kirkwall as a prisoner, and will soon expiate with his life the having shed blood which is o kin to Norna’s.”

      “Who didst thou say was prisoner?” exclaimed Mertoun with a voice of thunder — ” Who, woman, didst thou say should expiate his crimes with his life?”

      “Cleveland — the pirate Cleveland!” answered Norna “ and by me, whose counsel he scorned, he has been permitted to meet his fate.”

      “Thou most wretched of women!” said Mertoun, speakin: from between his clenched teeth. — ”thou hast slain thy sor as well as thy father! “J

      “My son! — what son? — what mean you? — Mordaunt, your son — your only son! “ exclaimed Norna — ” is he not?- tell me quickly — is he not?”

      “Mordaunt is indeed my son,” said Mertoun — ” the law! at least, gave him to me as such — But, O unhappy Ulla Cleveland is your son as well as mine — blood of our blood bone of our bone; and if you have given him to death, I will end my wretched life along with him!”

      “Stay — hold — stop, Vaughan! “ said Norna; “I am not yet overcome — prove but to me the truth of what you say, I would find help, if I should evoke hell! — But prove your words, else believe them I cannot.”

      “Thou help! wretched, overweening woman! — in what have thy combinations and thy stratagems — the legerdemain of lunacy — the mere quackery of insanity — in what have these involved thee? — and yet I will speak to thee as reasonable — nay, I will admit thee as powerful — Hear, then, Ulla, the proofs which you demand, and find a remedy, if thou canst: —

      “When I fled from Orkney,” he continued, after a pause — ”it is now five-and-twenty years since — I bore with me the unhappy offspring to whom you had given light. It was sent to me by one of your kinswomen, with an account of your illness, which was soon followed by a generally received belief of your death. It avails not to tell in what misery I left Europe. I found refuge in Hispaniola, wherein a fair young Spaniard undertook the task of comforter. I married her — she became mother of the youth called Mordaunt Mertoun.”

      “You married her!’’ said Norna, in a tone of deep reproach.

      “I did, Ulla,” answered Mertoun; “ but you were avenged. She proved faithless, and her infidelity left me in doubts whether.the child she bore had a right to call me father — But I also was avenged.”

      “You murdered her!” said Norna, with a dreadful shriek.

      “I did that,” said Mertoun, without a more direct reply, “ which made an instant flight from Hispaniola necessary. Your son I carried with me to Tortuga, where we had a small settlement. Mordaunt Vaughan, my son by marriage, about three or four years younger, was residing in Port-Royal, for the advantages of an English education. I resolved never to see him again, but I continued to support him. Our settlement was plundered by the Spaniards, when Clement was but fifteen — Want came to aid despair and a troubled conscience. I became a corsair, and involved Clement in the same desperate trade. His skill and bravery, though then a mere boy, gained him a separate command; and after a lapse of two or three years, while we were on different cruises, my crew rose on me, and left me for dead on the beach of one of the Bermudas. I recovered, however, and my first inquiries, after a tedious illness, were after Clement. He, I heard, had been also marooned by a rebellious crew, and put ashore on a desert islet, to perish with want — I believed he had so perished.”

      “And what assures you that he did not?” said Ulla; “ or how comes this Cleveland to be identified with Vaughan?”

      “To change a name is common with such adventurers,” answered Mertoun, “ and Clement had apparently found that of Vaughan had become too notorious — and this change, in his case, prevented me from hearing any tidings of him. It was then that remorse seized me, and that, detesting all nature, but especially the sex to which Louisa belonged, I resolved to do penance in the wild islands of Zetland for the rest of my life. To subject myself to fasts and to the scourge, was the advice of the holy Catholic priests, whom I consulted. But I devised a nobler penance — I determined to bring with me the unhappy boy Mordaunt, and to keep always before me the living memorial of my misery and my guilt. I have done so, and I have thought over both, till reason has often trembled on her throne. And now, to drive me to utter madness, my Clement — my own, my undoubted son, revives from the dead to be consigned to an infamous death, by the machinations of his own mother.”

      “Away, away!” said Norna, with a laugh, when she had heard the story to an end,”this is a legend framed by the old corsair, to interest my aid in favour of a guilty comrade. How could I mistake Mordaunt for my son, their ages being so different?”

      “The dark complexion СКАЧАТЬ