Graham's Magazine, Vol. XL, No. 6, June 1852Various
General
Graham's Magazine, Vol. XL, No. 6, June 1852
Various
Literature -- Periodicals; Literature, Modern -- 19th century -- Periodicals
“It was a terrible passage—such as every man in that ship will remember
to his dying day—from the cape latitudes to Pernambuco, where I put in
to recruit.
“The very next morning after we anchored, an agent of Don Jose Maria
came on board to inquire after Captain Catherton. You may swear that he
departed, with his sallow visage considerably lengthened, when he heard
the news. I learned privately from the American consul, in the course of
his investigations, that Don Jose was a man of great wealth and
influence in the province—your very worthy and hospitable _Senhor de
Engenho_ in the country, and merchant, slave-dealer and broker in any
kind of business, in which a _mil reis_ was to be turned up in the city.
I never saw the old gentleman myself, as he did not do me the honor to
show his powdered head, and the long cue, which the carpenter
particularly instanced, in the ship while I commanded her, although the
second mate was careful that the counter-skipper whom he sent to ask
after his worthy associate, should take on shore with him the exact
value of the cargo on board, so far as we had advices respecting the
market at home. In fact, from some estimates which I found among
Catherton’s papers, I had no doubt that old Charley’s suspicions were
correct, and it had been settled, when the ship touched here on her
outward passage, that Don Jose should become the purchaser of the ship
and cargo. Upon questioning the carpenter in private, I found that years
before he had got hold of a portion of my history, from a shipmate of
his, who had known me in ——, and whom I recollected to have met in the
West Indies, on the very voyage, when he pointed me out at the door of a
cafe to Toppin. Singular as it may appear, too, it was not until we had
run up the S. E. Trades, that Parker showed me the letter which he had
found in his jacket in the Persian Gulf, and which I now discovered was
addressed to myself. The perusal of it had nearly driven me to share her
grave in the waters, victim as it clearly showed her to have been to
Catherton’s arts from the first, and, as I had supposed, murdered at
last by an infernal conspiracy of his mate’s, or rather of his wife’s,
as was discovered when we reached the States. It was shown that some
resemblance existed between Ellen and the woman-fiend; and, from her own
confession in the prison, to which she was consigned for the rest of her
life, that she had been played off on Catherton for his wife, by the
connivance of Jinney. The motive for the victim’s ruin did not appear so
clearly, the woman herself declaring that she knew not why she hated and
had sworn to destroy her. There was not a single creature in the
smallest degree acquainted with the facts, who doubted Ellen’s
innocence; and the tears which was shed over her unhappy fate, and the
execrations poured upon her destroyers, were the best evidences of this.
An undue intimacy between the ship’s owner and the mate’s wife was
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