Hatchie, the Guardian Slave; or, The Heiress of Bellevue. Warren T. Ashton
sobbing convulsively.
"Nay, be calm; do not give way to such bitter thoughts. This may be a deception, though, to be candid, I can scarcely see any reason to think so."
Emily caught at the slight hope thus extended to her; her eyes brightened, and a little color returned to her pallid cheek.
"Heaven send that it may prove so!" said she; "for I cannot believe that he who taught me to call him by the endearing name of father; who watched so tenderly over my infancy, and guided my youthful heart so faithfully; who, an hour before he died, called me daughter, and blessed me with his dying breath—I cannot believe he has been so cruel to me!"
"It seems scarcely possible; but, my child, the ways of Providence are inscrutable. Whatever afflictions visit us, they are ordered for our good. Trust in God, my dear one, and all will yet be well."
"I will, I will! My father's and your good instructions shall not be lost upon me, slave though I am. Dear father," said she, and the tears blinded her—"I love his memory still, though every word of this hated will were true. I ought not to repine, whatever be my future lot. That he loved me as a daughter, I can never doubt; that he never told me I am a slave, I will forgive, for he meant it well."
"I am glad to witness your Christian faith and patience in this painful event. But, Emily, had you no intimation or suspicion of this trial before?"
"No, never, not the slightest," said Emily, wiping away the tears which had gathered on her cheeks.
"See if you cannot call to mind some slight circumstance, which you can now recognize as such."
Emily reflected a few moments, and then replied that she could not.
"And your house-servants are all too young to remember as long ago as your birth?"
"All but Hatchie."
"Perhaps you had better send for him, and I will question him.
"I will, and I pray that his knowledge may favor me."
Emily sent one of the maids for Hatchie; but she returned in a few moments, accompanied by Jaspar, who, hearing her inquiries for the man his rifle-ball had sent to the other world, had come to prevent any injurious surmises.
This man, Hatchie, had not escaped Jaspar's attention, in the maturing of his plot; but, as in some other of the particulars, he had trusted to the facilities of the moment for the means of silencing him. Being a man, it was not probable he could know much of the events attending the birth of Emily to his prejudice. If it should prove that he did, why, it was an easy thing to get rid of him. His rifle-ball or the slave-market were always available. But Jaspar's good fortune had smiled upon him, and he felt peculiarly happy, at this moment, in the reflection that he was out of the way, for he doubted not the object of Emily in sending for him.
"Miss Emily," said Jaspar, in a tone of unwonted softness, "I am sorry to say that your father's favorite servant met with a sad mishap last night, of which I intended to have informed you before, but have not had an opportunity."
Emily's cheek again blanched, as she saw all hope in this quarter cut off.
"Poor Hatchie!" said she, as calmly as her excited feelings would permit. "What was it, Uncle Jaspar?"
Jaspar's lip curled a little at the weakness which could feel for a slave, and he commenced the narrative he had concocted to account for the disappearance of Hatchie.
"About eleven o'clock last night," said he, "as I was about to retire, I heard a slight noise, which appeared to proceed from the library. Knowing that you would not be there at that hour, I at once suspected that the river-thieves, who have grown so bold of late, had broken into the house. I seized my rifle, and when I opened the door the thief sprung out at the open window. I pursued him down the shell-road to the river; upon reaching which I perceived him paddling a canoe towards the opposite shore. I fired. A splash in the water followed the discharge. The canoe came ashore a short distance below, but the man was either killed by the ball or drowned. In the canoe I found a bundle of valuables, which had been stolen from the library—among them your father's watch."
"But was this Hatchie? Are you quite sure it was Hatchie?" asked Emily, with much anxiety; for she felt keenly the loss of her slave-friend.
"My investigations this morning proved it to be so. He is missing, and the appearance of the thief corresponded to his size and form. I am now satisfied, though I did not suspect it at the time, that he was the man upon whom I fired."
"But Hatchie was always honest and faithful," said Emily.
"So he was, and I must share your surprise," returned Jaspar.
"There is a possibility that it was not he," suggested Mr. Faxon.
"There can be no doubt," said Jaspar, sharply. "The evidence is conclusive."
"No doubt!" repeated Mr. Faxon, with a penetrating glance into the eye of Jaspar, whose apparent anxiety to settle the question had roused his first suspicion. "He was, if I mistake not, the only servant of your household who was on the estate at the time of Miss Dumont's birth?"
"He was, I believe," replied Jaspar, with a coolness that belied the anxiety within him.
"Were you alone when you shot him, Mr. Dumont?" asked the clergyman, sternly.
"I was alone. But allow me to ask, sir, by what right you question me. I am not your pupil or your servant," replied Jaspar, rather warmly, his natural testiness getting the better of his discretion.
"Pardon me, sir," replied the minister, in a tone of mock humility. "Do not let my curiosity affront you."
"But it does affront me," said Jaspar, losing his temper at the sarcastic manner of the other. "Now, allow me to inquire your business with this girl."
"I came in the discharge of my duty as a Christian minister, to impart the consolations of religion to this afflicted child of the church. Of course, my business could not be with you in that capacity."
"You seem to have departed very widely from your object," replied Jaspar, with a sneer which he always bestowed upon religious topics.
"True, I have. This last blow upon poor Emily was so sudden and so severe as to call forth a remark, and even a question of the validity of the will."
"Indeed!" replied Jaspar, with a nervous start; "you have the will as her father left it."
"Uncle, you said my father's watch was stolen? Was it not in the iron safe, with the other articles?" asked Emily, timidly.
"It was," replied Jaspar, coldly.
"How did he open it?" interrogated Mr. Faxon, taking up the suggestion of Emily.
"Did Hatchie return the keys to you last night?" asked Jaspar of Emily, promptly.
"He did not," replied she.
"I sent for them to put a note in its place, and sent them back by him immediately. The fellow stood by when I opened the safe, and must have witnessed its contents. You can judge how he opened it now," returned Jaspar, with a sneer, well pleased that he had foiled their inquiries.
"You say that the canoe in which he was making his escape came ashore. Where is it now? No canoe belongs to the estate."
"There is not," said Jaspar, uneasily.
"Perhaps an examination of it will disclose something of the robber, if not of the will."
"So I thought this morning, and for this purpose went to the river, but the canoe was not to be found. I did not secure it last night, and probably it broke adrift and went down," replied Jaspar, whose ingenuity never deserted him.
"Very likely," said the minister, with a kind of solemn sarcasm. "This whole affair seems more like romance than reality."
"I cannot believe my father was so cruel," cried Emily, the tears again coming to the relief of her full heart.
"Do