CHAPTER XXXV.
GARDE OBTAINS THE JAIL KEYS.
UNBEKNOWN to his retinue, Adam was accommodated in the same jail where Pike and Halberd had been landed while the evening was still comparatively young. The body of the little Narragansett, brutally snatched from Adam’s arms, had likewise been brought into Boston.
Randolph had lost no time in having Rust examined and declared a prisoner of the state, charged with a whole category of crimes against the peace and dignity of the King. To all of this, and to nearly all of their questions, Rust had made no reply whatsoever. He realized the uselessness of pitting his one voice against those of half a dozen perjured rascals, who came about him the moment it was known he had finally been taken, ready to swear to anything which would be likeliest to jeopardize his life.
Thus, before half-past eight that night, the whole of Boston was wagging its tongue over an astonishing story, instigated at once by Edward Randolph. This dangerous, blood-thirsty rascal, Rust, had been taken in the forest, whither he had fled to join his Indian wife, and in his struggles to avoid arrest he had slain his half-Indian child.
This was the indictment, mildly expressed, that reached the ears of Garde Merrill concerning her lover. She was simply appalled. It was unbelievable, it was monstrous. She scorned to think it could possibly be true. And yet, if he had been in Boston several days before, as the story had it, why had she known nothing about it? The whole thing had been a gross fabrication. He could not have been in the town and going to a tavern to mix in a horrid brawl. He would certainly have come to see her immediately on his arrival. He had promised to return in about a week from a visit to the beef-eaters.
When she got as far as that, she suddenly tried to stop thinking. He had been gone many weeks instead of the one; the beef-eaters had not been with him when he had the alleged fight, nor when he was captured, and he had mentioned to her, on their walk from Plymouth, that he had once stopped at the Crow and Arrow, where the brawl was reported to have taken place.
Nearly frantic with the terrible thoughts in her head, Garde hastened to John Soam’s to get what she could of sober truth, which John would have as no one else might in the town.
She was mentally distraught when she came to her uncle’s. She had carried a dish belonging to her aunt Gertrude, to make an excuse for her late evening visit. She was more glad than she could have said that Prudence was away, for her cousin knew something of her feeling for Adam.
Garde, having been made welcome, had no need to ask questions. John Soam was telling the story of the night with countless repetitions. His wife cross-examined him in every direction which her womanly ingenuity could suggest.
Thus Garde discovered that it was undeniably true that Adam had been in town several days before; that he had been engaged in a terrible fight, in which he had inflicted grave injuries on Randolph and one of his “peaceable officers”; that he had then escaped back to the woods, from which, it was alleged, he had emerged solely for this fighting, and that, when captured, he had a half-Indian child in his possession.
John Soam had seen the body of the child himself. He had heard the examination, in his capacity of clerk to the court and magistrates. Rust was lame, he said, and he was a sullen man, who had returned no answers but such as cut wittily. He had not denied that the child was his own. He had absolutely refused to say whose it was and how he came to have it. He had come to the farmer’s house, at the edge of the woods, for purposes of robbery. There was every reason to believe that he had consorted with the Indians, and that the child was his. It was a pretty child, but many thought it looked as if it had been shockingly abused. There could be no doubt that, when he had found himself being taken, he had profited by the confusion to slay the little half-Indian boy.
Garde’s horror grew as she listened. She remembered terrible things that Adam had told her when he believed her a youth. He had excused Randolph’s conduct with Hester Hodder, hinting broadly that, in a case he had in mind, he thought another young woman—in this instance Garde herself—ought to forgive such a treachery to honor. He had even mentioned that she, when dressed as a boy and browned, reminded him of a young Indian woman whom he had known and liked. He had lived with the Indians as a boy; he had gone back to them as a man.
All those other dreadful half-confessions, in this new light, looked no longer innocent—the French damsel, the Countess, and the others. He had deceived her about going to New York to see the beef-eaters, she told herself, in agony. He had gone to the forest instead. And God only knew what things he had done in those silent woods! Had he abandoned the mother of his child, as Randolph had done——or had he committed something worse? for Hester, in the similar instance, had died so strangely.
At least it was plain that before Adam could marry again he would be obliged to abandon that Indian woman. And what if she were Indian? Was she less a woman? Would she suffer less agony? Garde thought of Hester, and of how the wild young thing had begged her not to take away the man who had so cruelly wronged her. The picture was almost more than she could bear. The whole affair fell upon her heart with a weight that crushed her happiness into a shapeless, dying thing. In whatsoever direction she turned, Adam’s own actions and words confronted her with the blank wall of hideous truth.
She knew now why, after he had walked all the way to Boston at her side, he had failed to appear at Grandther Donner’s, for days and days. She saw it all, plainly—horribly plainly. It was so absolutely unescapable. And yet, he had seemed so honest; he had spoken so of love; he had so convinced her heart and her soul of his purity, nobility and worth! She loved him still. She could not avoid this. It had grown up with her; it had become a part of her very being. She would love him always, but—she could not become his wife—not after this—never! The thought of such a thing made her shiver. His perfidy was almost greater than Randolph’s—as an Indian woman would have been so much more innocent and trustful than even Hester.
Her heart cried. “Oh!” and yet again, “Oh!” in its anguish. If he had only left some little loophole for doubt—if he had only denied their accusations—if only he had not said those terrible things to her, upon the highway, perhaps——“No, no, no, no,” she cried, in her soul; this was compromising with loathsome dishonor. Far better it was that the awful truth was so indisputably established! It left her no ground for excusing his deeds, at the dictates of her unreasoning love! Yet, oh, it had been so sweet to believe in him, to love him without reserve, to trust her very soul in his keeping! She wrung her hands under the table, as she listened, with ears that seemed traitors to her love, to all that her uncle could add to the story.
She soon learned that Adam was Randolph’s particular prisoner; that there had been some old-time grudge between them, and that the crafty man of power would undoubtedly make an effort to hang his captive.
At this her womanly inconsequence was suddenly aroused. He might be guilty, but she had always thought him noble and good. She would never marry him, after this, but she would love him forever. He had been her idol, her king. He must live, for at least she had a right to keep enshrined in her heart the thought of him, pulsating heart to heart with her, as once he had. No! He must not be permitted to die—not like this—not in infamy—not at the hands of this monster of iniquity—this Randolph!
It was not that she had the slightest hope that he could ever be the same to her again, or that she should ever wish to see him again, but at least he had a right to live, to redeem himself, partially, perhaps to suffer and to sorrow for his deeds. Indeed he must so live—he must so redeem himself for her sake—to justify the love and the trust she had given him out of her heart!
She felt that she should choke if she did not soon get out in the air. She wanted to run to the prison, hammer with her fist on the gate, demand admittance and set him free—free from Randolph’s clutches. But she knew this was madness. Her mouth grew parched and dry with her excitement, so tremendously held in control. How could she manage to get him free? Oh, if only she dared to tell her uncle John and get him to help her!
He had the duplicate keys to every door in the jail. He brought them home night after night and hung them up on—There they were, now! They hung there within reach of her hand! Her heart knocked and beat in her bosom, as if it were hammering down the barriers to Adam’s cell. She weaved dizzily, with the possibilities of the moment. Just to take those keys and run—that was all, and the trick would be done. He could go—and their love would be a thing of living death!
She meant to take those keys. The impulse swayed her whole being. She felt she would die rather than miss her opportunity. With clenched hands and with set jaws she arose to her feet.
“I must be going home,” she said, with apparent calm. “Oh, what was that?”
“What was what?” said her aunt and uncle together.
“Why—some noise, in the other room,” she said with a tremor easily simulated, in her excited state. “I am sure I heard something in there, moving!”
“Hum—let’s see,” said John.
“It might be that I left the window open,” said Goodwife Soam.
The man took the lamp, opened the door to the adjoining apartment, and went in, followed by his wife. Garde, with a gasp, and a clutching at her heart, lifted the keys from their nail and dropped them into her pocket with a barely audible jingle. She followed her aunt a second later.
“Why, it was—nothing, after all,” she said, weaving a trifle in her stress of emotion and nervousness. “But the window was up, as you said. I’m glad that was all. Good night.”
“Good night,” said John Soam and his wife, from the window which John was pushing down, and without waiting another minute, Garde let herself out and sped away in the darkness.