Harper's New Monthly Magazine Vol. IV, No. 19, Dec 1851Various
History
Harper's New Monthly Magazine Vol. IV, No. 19, Dec 1851
Various
American literature -- Periodicals; Civilization -- Periodicals; Culture -- Periodicals
I promised to do so: the painful interview terminated; and in about two
hours the captain and surviving crew of _Les Trois Frères_, and Mr.
Samuel Sparkes, were safely on board the _Rose_. Hendrick had papers to
arrange; and as the security of his person was all I was responsible
for, he was accommodated in my cabin, where I left him to confer with
the Guernsey authorities, in whose bailiwick Jethon is situated. The
matter of jurisdiction--the offenses with which the prisoners were
charged having been committed in England--was soon arranged; and by five
o'clock in the evening the _Rose_ was on her way to England, under an
eight-knot breeze from the southwest.
As soon as we were fairly underweigh, I went below to have a last
conference with unfortunate Hendrick. There was a parcel on the table
directed to "Mrs. Hendrick, Lostwithiel, Cornwall, care of Lieutenant
Warneford." Placing it in my hands, he entreated me to see it securely
conveyed to its address unexamined and unopened. I assured him that I
would do so; and tears, roughly dashed away, sprang to his eyes as he
grasped and shook my hand. I felt half-choked; and when he again
solemnly adjured me, under no circumstances, to disclose the identity of
Captain Pickard and Lieutenant Hendrick, I could only reply by a
seaman's hand-grip, requiring no additional pledge of words.
We sat silently down, and I ordered some wine to be brought in. "You
promised to tell me," I said, "how all this unhappy business came
about."
"I am about to do so," he answered. "It is an old tale, of which the
last black chapter owes its color, let me frankly own, to my own hot and
impatient temper as much as to a complication of adverse circumstances."
He poured out a glass of wine, and proceeded at first slowly and calmly,
but gradually, as passion gathered strength and way upon him, with
flushed and impetuous eagerness to the close:
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