Democratic Sentinel, Volume 7, Number 24, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 July 1883 — THE WRECKER’S DAUGHTER. [ARTICLE]

THE WRECKER’S DAUGHTER.

BY M. CROSSE FARLEY.

“You hear that, do you, madam!'” asked the guard in alow tone, as the fitful sound stole over the rolling water. “It is arf*oinen of evil, and we must heed it, we must return at once.” “Pshaw!” I exclaimed, carelessly. “How superstitious you coast people are. I w ould not miss this sunset for anything. It is only the simple tolling of a bell somewhere near us that you hear.” The old man glanced uneasily off over the glittering waves. Far away, small clouds began to pile themselves up in a long blapk line against the horizon, and a flock of gulls, that had been idly floating in the a r, now went circling and wheeling and screaming over the broad expai se of troubled sea around us. “For sixty years, madam,” he retorted, with a sort of nervous determination, “I’ve lived on this coast, and I know by this time that, when the toll es that bell is heard, there is sure to be trouble on the sea. ” “Nonsense!” said I, laughing heartily, “I’ll risk it if you will. ” He shook his head. “No, rid. God forbid it!” he said, turning the boat about and making for the shore. “Terrible things have happened here, and if there was not a cloud in sight nor the ghost of a sigh in the breeze, yet if that bell tolled I should make for a safe haven. It means trouble, storm and shipwreck.” And the obstinate old man shook his grizzled head with a gravity that impressed me, in spite of my disappointment. The wind, which had been gradually rising as lie spoke, now came in • uneasy gusts upon the waters, piling the waves up higher and higher and making ’our frail boat rock as if it were bewitched, while above the tremulous roar of the sea and the shrill scream of the gulls, as they swept in eddying circles over our heads, came the measured stroke of the mysterious bell. “It is St. Quentyn’s,” said the old man, in an awed tone, ait if in reply to my mute query. “Not St. Quentyn’s-on-the-Point,” exclaimed I, in astonishment. “Why, man, you’re crazy. St. Quentyn’s is only an old ruin. I saw it yesterday, and nothing much is left of it shve the tower, and even that is crumbling down. The bell itself is covered with rust and looks as if it hadn’t been rung in a century.” “It is the same, however,” he persisted, as he sent the boat forward with long strokes. “It is that which warns us. No man pulls the rope, indeed, there is no rope to pull; no one is ever seen about the ruin, yet, surely as a great storm comes up, you may hear that bell toll. It has been so through my time, and my father’s time before me, and for years before that. St. Quentyn’s bell is haunted, ma’am, and has been, so the story goes, since the tine of Wolfgang, the wrecker, a hundred years ago..” I laughed at this piece of news. Haunted things, I did not believe in, much less, a reputed “haunted bell.” Still, I could not deny, that it was very singular of the old rust-covered bell at St. Quentyn’s, which I had seen the day before swinging, high up in the ruined belfry of what once had been a monastery, should sound a note of warning to mariners upon the sea. “You shall tell me the story,” I said, “if we ever reach the shore again.. It must-be worth hearing, even if I do not quite believe its genu nentss.” As the frail bark leaped on the crest of a wave to safe landing on the graveled beach, a flash of lightning, followed by a peal of thunder, told that the storm was indeed upon us.

A little later, with the thunder of the sea ringing in my ears, I listened to the story of St. Quentyn’s-on-the-Point. It was here, on this coast, more than a hundred years ago, if our dates are correct, began the old ex-coast guard, that Wyndert Wolfgang and his band Qf rovers established themselves and engaged in the wicked business of alluring ships to this beach, for the sake qf plundering them. Many is the strong vessel that, attracted by the beacon fires lighted on St. Quentyn’s Point, has gone to pieces on the hidden rocks, and Wolfgang and his freebooters, grew rich and powerful on the spoils. Well, after a time, there came along a Spanish galleon, driven out of ! her course by adverse winds, and with the doubloons and bars of gold, and chests of silks, with which she was loaded, was a greater treasure to the mind of the wrecker chief, than all else put together. The daughter of a rich old Spanish Don, was a passenger on the luckless ship, and fell a prey to the rapacious freebooter. For the first time, he felt his bosom filled with the torturing fires of love, and he conducted his wooing in the bold, tempestuous fashion, natural to him. At St. Quentyn’s, then, lived a pious priest, and when the unhappy donna discovered the fate in store for her, she fell upon her knees and prayed Wolfgang to send for him and have the marriage solemnized according to the terms c£ her church. Nothing loth, he complied with her request; and so, clothed in costly apparel and sparkling with jewels, one fine morning the Spanish girl found herself honorably married to the robber king. In little more than a year, however, the lady died; leaving a little daughter, and exacting with her last breath a vow from tfee clpef the little one should

be sent to a convent and reared in ignorance of her father’s occupation. Wolfgang passionately loved his wife, and the promise Was faithfully carried out. The infant was taken to France, and there was carefully nurtured and reared in one of the most celebrated convents. She grew to maidenhood in that favored land endowed with a glorious beauty and a gentle, loving disposition that was at the same time the wonder and admiration of her associates. At the age of 17 she was taken from the convent, and, through the influence of a friend of hot father, a home was secured tor her, for a time, in the family of a wealthy noblemSh in her native county. She was a reputed heiress, and suitors flocked about her, attracted by her wonderful beauty, her guileless manners and her fabulous riches. At stated intervals, clothed in sp Tended attire, Wolfgang visited his child, lavishing upon her all the love of his barbarous nature. For his child nothing was too good, and he poured out his gold in unstinted measure. And she deserved it all. Though clothed in magnificent array and endowed by heaven with an almost unearthly loveliness of face and form, her heart was kept unspotted from the world. She succored the poor and the needy, and the fame of her goodness went through the land. The stern old robber chief, hearing the laudations lavished upon his child, grew still more proud and fond of her, and guarded from her knowledge with sedulous care the secret of his dreadful occupation. And she worshiped him. Seeing her father only at long intervals, and encouraged by him in the dispensation of her charities, enjoying his society only when he was in' his best and gentlest moods, the Lady Christobel gyew to womanhood, believing him to be the best and greatest of men. She went about doing good. Emulat* ing the example of the gentle Nazarene, she left the crowded city and went into the byways and forgotten places. In this manner, quite unknown to Wolfgang, she unconsciously made her way to St. Quentyn’s. The hamlet then, as now, was- but a collection of rude huts—the abode of a still ruder people. None knew her to be the daughter of their terrible chief, and she labored among them, teaching them and otherwise endeavoring .to alleviate the distress she saw on every side. Wolfgang himself, with some, of his most valued followers, was away on a journey, when his daughter came to St. Quentyn’s. So there was none to oppose her in her work for the salvation of souls. It was at this time that she caused the bell to be rung in the old monastry; the bell which, since the awful tragedy enacted there a little later, has never ceased to send out its solemn warning whenever there is to be any severe storm upon the sea. It was there, high upon that rocky* headland, in the very shadow of the ruined monastery —a ruin almost as great then as now, that the beacon fires were lighted by the wreckers to entice the ships upon the sunken rocks. The Lady Christobel saw with horror what the real occupation of the people was, by the frantic hurrying too and fro, the many anxious eyes turned seaward, and, above all, the low half-mut-tered words which inadvertantly escaped their lips whenever a ship’s sails showed themselves in sight. To turn them from the wickedness of their ways, she strove with mind and soul; but it was with a sick heart that she discovered the lawless wreckers acknowledged a superior authority in the commands of their ferocious chief, a being to her, terrible and dread. There came, at this time, one of those sudden, unaccountable hurricanes, which, sweeping the sea, hurl ships and people into nothingness in the twinkling of an eye.

She saw preparations going on on the shore that boded no good for any vessel left afloat by the storm, and she determined that so far as lay in her power she would succor the helpless. Night settled sullenly over the troubled waters. The wreckers begun to more quickly to and fro on the beach, and, f adder than all, there pealed out over the sea the sound of the minute gun—the signal of a ship in distress. Once, twice, thrice, the thunderous gun sent its message upon the air. From her small retreat the Lady Christobel peered dimly over thie broad expanse of shore, and saw the glancing torches of the wreckers as they engaged in council on the beach. “Light up the beacon fires,” roared a strangely-familiar voice, in the commanding tone of one accustomed to authority. “Light the great fire on St. Quentyn’s Point. ” The girl shook as if with an ague fit. “It cannot—cannot be,” she cried with white lips. A wrecker’s wife stood staring out through the darkness, every muscle strained to its utmost tension with the excitement of the moment. “It is alone,” she laughed, clasping her hands tightly together. “Look, my lady, how beautifully they are burning-”

Christobel shook her arm roughly. “For the love cf God, woman,” she gxclaimed, in a voice of agony, “go you among those wretched men, and ,tell them I forbid it. ’ It is murder they are trying to do.” The wrecker’s wife cowered before the blazing eyes of the girl. “I dare not,” she said, “it would avail nothing, for they have higher orders thap yours.” “Oh, pitying heaven!” cried Christobel, “then will we go, and scatter the burning brands ourselves? Away—away, there is no time to lose in idle words. ” “I cannot, I cannot!” Christobel threw hastily a long black wrap about hey figure, and seized a wooden vessel, used among the humble people, for carrying water, “But I command you, ” she cried, “hear me, woman, the daughter of Wolfgang, must be obeyed.” The woman shuddered. “But I must not go, my life would be the forfeit. Do you not know, my lAdy, that it is the great Wolfgang himself, who orders the lighting of the beacon fires. To extinguish them, is to be guilty of treason.” At the mention of her father’s name, the girl sank, as if she had been struck to the heart. “There is but one Wolfgang, woman,” she said, in a hollow voice. “It cannot be Wyndert Wolfgang—my father.” The wrecker’s jvife bowed low before her. “He is our chief, my Lady, ” she said simply. Then, suddenly, with a loud wail, she sank upon her knees. “But my tongue hath lost me my head, my‘ Lady, ” she wept. “I have told the chiefs secret, and my children will be motherless if you betray me to your father. Have pity —oh, have mercy upon, me I” , ,

But Chrisfotei did hbt BeM BeL She sat motionless—< dumb, frozen honor seeming to chain her to her seat. “My father, Wolfgang, the chief of the wreckers at St Quentyn’s Point,’ she said over hind over'again, in a terrible monotone; more dreadful to her hearer than the wildest shrieks could have been. “My father a robber—a wrecker—a murderer! Oh, Thou God of my mother! who lettest me hear this thing and live I” “Pardoii me, my Lady,” sobbed the still kneeling woman, as she clutched the hem of CbrisbobeTs x>be. “It is a terrible mistake; I did not mean to tell.” The young girl shook the woman’s hand from her garments. Her large blue eyes shone with an unearthly luster, and her white face gleamed like a star from the masses of yellow hair that floated unconfined about her head. “I go to the sacrifice,” she breathed, in an almost inaudible tone. “Oh; mother in heaven/h© thofi niy guide and my stay !” A minute later and she had stepped over the threshold, and disappeared in the fast-increasing darkness. * Hastily making her way to St. Qnentyn’s Point, She reached that place just in time to see the faggots ignited by one of the torchlights. The men only stopped long enough to see that it would burn, and then went on their way to execute some further order of their chief. Wolfgang himself was now upon the beach, doling out liquor to ‘his chosen followers, and watching with a prae* ticed eye the long, lance-like tongues of flame that now began to leap up in the darkness of the night. “Pile on more fuel, my men/’ he Cried, as another roar from th© ship’s gun came rolling over the Water. “Pile Up those faggots higher. Oh, but it is a brave light those sailors shall have to go to bed by!” he shouted, as the streaming fires soon threw in plain relief the strange fantastic shadows of the wreckers on the shore.

He threw a glance in the direction of the old monastery. Again he roared; this time in anger: “Light the great fire on St. Quentyn’s Point I” “It was done, my chief,” said a voice at his side. “I myself lit the faggots with my torch. ” “Then, by my beard!” cried Wolfgang, haughtily, “it was not well done. There is not the ghost of a spark there, as you can see for yourself.” “Strange!” muttered his lieutenant, hurrying away. “I never saw a better prospect for a fire than when I was there, a few minutes ago.” Taking a comrade, he hurried to the point. What was his sin-prise to find the embers extinguished, and the fag* gots carefully scattered, far and wide. Hastily rearranging them, he again ignited, the dry wood, and watching it until it burned up clear and bright, he returned and reported the circumstance to his chief. Wolfgang listened with a lowei-ing brow. While they were still watching the flames that had now begun to start up from St. Quintyn’s Point, they were both astonished to see them go out. Wolfgang swore a terrible oath, as he beheld the extinguishment of the most prominent beacon fire. “Ho, there!” he shouted, hoarsely; “a traitor tampers with the signal lights. Go, you, my faithful men, and mete him out the doom he has courted and which he richly deserves.” At different points the fires were as suddenly and mysteriously quenched. Wolfgang strode along the beach, exciting the wreckers to immediate action. Four of his most trusty “followers were secretly to steal up to St. Quentyn’s Point, and after replenishing 4he fire, was to retire cautiously into the thickets, and upon the first motion of the .unknown enemy to destroy the flames, they were to rush upon him and kill him with their cutlasses. Foaming with rage and vexation the chief paced the sands, waiting for the cry which he knew would herald the success of his lieutenant in carrying out the scheme. He had not long to wait. They had purposely used a large bundle of pine knots the third time, and a blazing pile soon threw its fiery tongues far up in the inky sky, lighting the old monostery with a weired effect. Retiring into the dense shadows, they watched for their prey. Soon a slim, dark figure, with a large wooden vessel in its hands, approached, and, throwing the contents of the same quickly on the blazing mass, proceeded to scatter the smoking brands. Then there was a rush, a single, awful shriek, and the cry of “Oh, my father!” pealed out on the night air, high above the roar of the sea and the jgund of the breakers beating on the shore.

The wretched father recognized that terrible death-cry. In the traitor slain by the waning fire he found his child, the Lady Christobel. Limp, motionless and white, she lay upon the wet earth, the blood oozing from a gaping wound Tn the neck in streams that congealed beside her. “My child, my child!” groaned Wolfgang, in an agony of frenzied grief, lifting the lifeless form in his strong arms. “What have I done, wretchftihat I am?” While he stood lavishing his insane caresses upon the dead face of his daughter, the great bell at St. Quentyn’s commenced to toll. As its measured stroke fell slowly and mournfully on his ear, it seemed to him that it was he accusing voice of his murdered daughter. With a mad cry, he smote his breast with his hands. “Let me die,” he said, in a vojee so hoarse and choked that his followers did not recognize it. “I have killed an angel; let me die!” and, with a terrible bound, he leaped from the headland into the sea. Through all that night, and for days and nights to come, St. Quentyn’s bell tolled slowly, sadly solemnly—tolled the funeral knell of the fair young Christobel The wreckers, listening to its awful sound, grew saperstitsous and afraid, and gradually abandoned their hamlet, seeking other haunts, and it was only when wrecking, as a business, was given up,, that the bell ceased tolling continuously. But, regularly, on the approach of a great storm, it still sends out its warning voice. For sixty years, I have heard it as you did this aftermfcm, and my father, who lived to the very great age of 90 years, said he had been guarded by its warnings through his time, and it was generally believed in*by his people before him. t Though covered with rust, and with no opportunity for lawless hands to reach it, providing there were persons who cared to do it, sp, St, Quentyn’s

still tolls, as in the days when I heard the tale for the first time from the lips - of my grand sire. A long silence followed the conclusion of the old coast-guard’s story. The sea still thundered its mighty voice in my ears, and the wind tore madly around the di’apidated town, making its time-worn wa’ls ti enable in the blast It seemed as if I again beheld thßrafcty, wbathef-worn bell swinging slbwly to and fro in the ruined tower at St Quentyn’s, sending out its solemn, unearthly protest to the winds—the waves and the storms.— Chicago Ledger. ’ _■ t