Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 20, Number 60, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 31 March 1899 — The Convict’s Daughter [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

The Convict’s Daughter

CHAPTER I. The gentlemen of the jury retired to consider their verdict. The foreman took his place at the head of the table. His colleagues seated themselves on either side of him. Then, there fell upon that assembly of men a silence, never known among an assembly of women—the silence which proceeds from a general reluctance to be the person who speaks first. “Gentlemen,” he began, “have you formed any decided opinion on the case — thus far? The prisoner waiting our verdict is the Honorable Roderick Westerfield, younger brother of the present Lord Le Basque. He is charged with fully casting away the British bark John Jerminan for the purpose of fraudulently obtaining a share of the insurance money; and further, of possessing himself of certain Brazilian diamonds, which formed part of the cargo. In plain words, here is a gentleman born in the higher ranks of life accused of being a thief. He further appears to have outraged the feelings of his family by marrying a barmaid at a public house. From that moment his parents turned their backs on him, with the one merciful exception of the head of the family. Lord Le Basque exerted his influence with the Admiralty and obtained for his brother an appointment to a ship. All the witnesses agree that Mr. Westerfield thoroughly understood his profession. If he could have controlled himself, he might have risen to very high rank in the navy. He quarreled with one of his superior officers ” “Under strong provocation,” said a member of the jury. “Under strong provocation,” the foreman admitted. “The prisoner challenged the officer on duty to fight a duel, and, receiving a contemptuous refusal, struck him on the quarter deck. As a matter of course, Mr. Westerfield was tried by court martial and was dismissed from the service. At my lord’s earnest request the owners of the John Jerminan, trading between Liverpool and Rio, took Mr. Westerfield on trial as first mate. In a tempest off the coast of Africa the captain was washed overboard, and the first mate succeeded to the command. His seamanship and courage saved the vessel, under circumstances of danger which paralyzed the efforts of the other officers. He was confirmed in the command of the ship.” There the foreman paused to collect his Ideas. “After a certain term of service, gentlemen,” he finally resumed, “the prisoner’s merits appear to have received their reward. He was presented with a share in the ship. With improved prospects he sailed from Liverpool on his last voyage to Brazil; and no one, his wife included, had thb faintest suspicion that he left England under circumstances of serious pecuniary embarrassment, the result of betting on horse racing. When he left Rio on the homeward voyage, there is no sort of doubt that he was returning to England to face creditors whom he was unable to pay.” “In plain English,” said a juryman, “you are for finding the prisoner guilty.” "In plain English,” the foreman rejoined, “I refuse to answer that question.” “Why?” "Because it is no part of my duty to attempt to influence the verdict.” “You have been trying to influence the verdict, sir, ever since you entered this room. I appeal to all the gentlemen present.” The patience of the long-suffering foreman failed him at last. “Not another word shall pass my lips,” he said, “until you find the prisoner guilty or not guilty among yourselves—and then I’ll tell you if I agree to your verdict.” He folded his arms and looked like the image of a man who intended to keep his word. In the meantime nothing was said or done. Helpless silence prevailed in every part of the room. “Why doesn’t somebody begin?” cried an impatient juryman. “Have you all forgotten the evidence?” This startling question roused the jury to a sense of what was due to their oaths, If not to themselves. Some of them recollected the evidence in one way and some of them recollected it in another. The first man who spoke began at the middle of the story told by the witnesses in court. "I am for acquitting the captain, gentlemen; he ordered out the boats and saved the lives of the crew.” “And I am for finding him guilty, because the ship struck a rock in broad daylight, and in moderate weather.” “I agree with you, sir. The evidence shows that the vessel was stebred dangerously near to the land, by direction of the captain who gave the coarse.” “Come, come, gentlemen! let us do the captain justice. The defense declares that he gave the customary course, and that it was not followed when he left the deck. As for his leaving the ship in moderate weather, the evidence proves that he believed he saw signs of a storm brewing.” “Yes, yes, all very well; but what were the facts? When the loss of the ship was reported, the Brazilian authorities sent me to the wreck, on the chance of saving the cargo; and, days afterward, there the ship was found, just as the captain and crew had left her.” “Don’t forget, sir, that the diamonds were missing when the salvors examined the wreck.” “All right, but that’s no proof that the captain stole the diamonds; and, before they had saved half the cargo, a storm did come on, and break the vessel up, so the poor man was only wrong in the matter of time after ail.” "Allow me to remind you, gentlemen, that the prisoner was deeply in debt, and, therefore, had an interest in stealing the diamonds.” “Wait a little, sir. Fair play’s a jewel. Who was in charge of the deck when the ship struck? The second mate. And what did the second mate do, when he heard that his owners had decided to prosecute? He committed suicide! Is there no proof of guilt in that act?" “You are going a little too fast, sir. The coroner’s jury declared that the second mate killed himself in a state of temporary of

BY WILKIE COLLINS.

Votes were at once registered, including the vote of the foreman. One incomprehensible man abstained from expressing his sentiments even by a sign. He sat immovable, with closed eyes. The quickwitted foreman had long since suspected him of being simply the stupidest person present—with just cunning enough to conceal his own dullness by holding his tongue. After a heated conference among themselves they decided on securing unanimity of opinion by submitting to the arbitration of this one independent member present. “Which way does your view of the verdict incline, sir? Guilty or not guilty?” The eyes of the silent juryman opened with the slow and solemn dilation of the eyes of an owl. “Guilty,” he answered, and shut his eyes again. An unutterable sense of relief pervaded the meeting. Enmities were forgotten; and friendly looks were exchanged. With one accord, the jury rose to return to court. The prisoner’s fate was sealed. The verdict was guilty. The low hum of talk among the persons in court ceased when the jury returned to their places. Curiosity now found its center of attraction in the prisoner’s wife —who had been present throughout the trial. Mrs. Westerfield was a showy woman. Her commanding figure was finely robed in dark colors; her profuse light hair hung oyer her forehead in little clusters of ringlets; her features, firmly but not delicately shaped, were on a large scale. No outward betrayal of the wife’s emotion rewarded the public curiosity; her bold light gray eyes sustained the general gaze without flinching. To the surprise of the women present, she had brought her two young children with her to the trial. The eldest was a pretty little girl of ten years old; the second child, a boy, sat on his mother’s knee. It was generally observed that Mrs. Westerfield took no notice of her eldest child. The judge took his seat, and the order was given to bring the prisoner up for judgment. The surgeon of the prison entered the witness box, and, being duly sworn, made his medical statement. The prisoner’s heart had been diseased for some time past, and the malady had been neglected. He had fainted, under the prolonged suspense of waiting for the verdict. The swoon had proved to be of such a serious nature that the witness refused to answer for consequences if a second fainting fit was produced by the excitement of facing the court and the jury. Under these circumstances the verdict was formally recorded. Once more the spectators looked at the prisoner’s wife. She had risen to leave the court. It was observed, when she retired, that she held her boy by the hand, and left the girl to follow. A compassionate lady near her offered to take care, of the children while she was absent. Mrs. Westerfield answered quietly and coldly: “Thank you—their father wishes to see them.” The prisoner was dying; nobody could look at him and doubt it. His eyes opened wearily when his wife and children approached the bed on which he lay helpless —the wreck of a grandly made man. The girl stood nearest to him; he looked at her with a faint smile. The poor child understood him. Crying piteously, she put her arms round his neck and kissed him. “Dear papa,” she said, “come home and let me nurse you.” The surgeon, watching the father’s face, saw a change in him which the other persons present had not observed. As his wife brought the.child to him, the surgeon whispered to her, “If you have anything to say to him, be quick about it!” She shuddered; she took his cold hand. Her touch seemed to nerve him with new strength; he asked her to stoop over him. “They won’t let me write here,” he whispered, “unless they see my letter. Lift up my left arm. Open the wristband.” She detached the stud which closed the wristband of the shirt. On the inner side of the linen was a line written in red letters—red of the color of blood. She saw these words: “Look in the lining of my trunk.” “What for?" she asked. The fading light in his eyes flashed on her a dreadful look of doubt. His lips fell apart in the vain effort to answer. His last sigh fluttered the light ringlets of her hair as she bent over him. The surgeon pointed to her children. “Take the poor things home,” he said; “they have seen the last of their father.” Mrs. Westerfield obeyed in silence. She had her own reasons for being in a hurry to get home. Leaving the children under the servant’s care she locked herself up in the dead man’s room, and emptied his trunk of the few clothes that had been left in it. The lining which she was now to examine was of the customary material, and of the/ usual striped pattern in blue and white. Her fingers were not sufficiently sensitive to feel anything under the surface, when she tried it with her hand. Turning the empty trunk with the inner side of the lid toward the light, she discovered on one of the blue stripes of the lining a thin little shining stain which looked like a stain of dried gum. After n moment’s consideration, she cut the gummed line with a penknife. Something of a white color appeared through the aperture. She drew out a folded sheet of paper. It proved to be a letter in her husband’s handwriting. An inclosure dropped to the floor when she opened it, in the shape of a small slip of paper. She picked it up. The morsel of paper presented letters, figures and crosses arranged in lines, and mingled together in what looked like hopeless confusion. CHAPTER H. Mrs. Westerfield laid the incomprehensible slip of paper aside, and, in search of an explanation, returned to the letter. Here again she found herself in a state of without the custom ary form of address. I I S • < st w. . . I

“I write to you before my trial takes place. If the verdict goes in my favor, I shall destroy what I have written. If l am found guilty, I must leave it for you to do what I should otherwise have done for myself. ’ “The undeserved misfortune that has overtaken me began with the arrival of my ship in the port of Rib. Our second mate asked leave to go on shore —and never returned. What motive determined him on deserting lam not able to say. It was my own wish to supply his place by promoting the best seaman on board. My owpers’ agents overruled me, and appointed a man of their own choosing. “What nation he’d belonged to I don’t know. The name he gave was Beljames, and he was reported to be a broken-down gentleman. Whoever he might be, his manner and his talk were captivating. Everybody liked him. “After the two calamities of the loss of the ship and the disappearance of the diamonds—these last being valued at five thousand pounds—l returned to England by the first opportunity that offered, having Beljames for a companion. “Shortly after getting back to my house in London, I was privately warned by a good friend that my owners had decided to prosecute me for willfully casting away the ship, and for having stolen the missing diamonds. The second mate, who had been in command of the vessel when she struck on the rock, was similarly charged along with me. Knowing myself to be innocent, I determined, of course, to stand my trial. My wonder was, what Beljames would do. We had separated in Cornwall, and had not met since. “On the voyage home Beljames told me that a legacy had been left to him; being a small freehold house and garden in St. John’s Wood, London. While my mind was running on this recollection I was told that a decent elderly woman wanted to see me. She proved to be the landlady of the house in which Beljames lodged; and she brought an alarming message. The man was dying, and desired to see me. I went to him immediately. “Beljames had heard of the intended prosecution. How he had been made aware of it death left him no time to tell me. The miserable wretch had poisoned himself—whether in terror of standing his trial or in remorse of conscience, it is not any business of mine to decide. Most unluckily for me, he first ordered the doctor and the landlady out of the Kroom—and then, when we two were alone, owned that he had purposely altered the course of the ship, and had stolen the diamonds. “Having eased his mind by confession, he gave me the slip of paper which you will find inclosed in this. ‘There is my note of the place where the diamonds are hidden,’ he said. Among the many ignorant people who know nothing of ciphers, lam one, and I told him so. ‘That’s how I keep my secret,’ he said; ‘write from my dictation, and you shall know what it means. Lift me up first.’ As I did it he rolled his head to and fro, evidently in pain. But he managed to point to pen, ink and paper on a table hard by, on which his doctor had been writing. I left him for a moment to pull the table nearer to the bed, and in that moment he groaned and cried out for help. I ran to'the room downstairs where the doctor was waiting. When we got back to him he was in convulsions. It was all over with Beljames. “The lawyers who are to defend me have tried to get experts, as they call them, to interpret the cipher. The experts have all failed. They will declare, if they are called as witnesses, that the signs on the paper are not according to any known rule, and are marks made at random meaning nothing. “As for any statement on my part of the confession made to me, the law refuses to hear it except from the mouth witness. I might prove that the ship’scourse was changed, contrary to my directions, after I had gone below to rest, if I could find the man who was steering at the time. Heaven knows where that man is. “On the other hand, the errors of my past life, and my being in debt, are circumstances dead against me. The lawyers seem to trust almost entirely in a famous counsel, whom they have engaged to defend me. For my own part, Igo to my trial with little or no hope. “If you are now my widow, and if you may have any love left for my memory, never rest until you have found somebody who can interpret these curious signs. Do for me, I say, what I cannot do for myself. Recover the diamonds; and, when you restore them, show my owners this letter. “Kiss the children for me. I wish them, when they are old enough, to read this defense of myself and to know that their father, who loved them dearly, died an innocent man. My good brother will take care of you, for my sake. I have done.” Mrs. Westerfield took up the cipher once more. She looked at it as if it was a living thing that defied her. “If lam ever able to read this gibberish,” she decided, “I know what I’ll do with the diamonds!” CHAPTER 111. One year exactly after the fatal day of the trial, Mrs. Westerfield celebrated her release from the obligation of wearing widow’s weeds. The conventional gradations in the outward expression of grief which led from black to gray, formed no part of this afflicted lady’s system of mourning. She laid her best blue walking dress and her new bonnet to match on the bed, and admired them to her heart’s content. Her discarded garments were left on the floor. “Thank heaven, I’ve done with you!” she said, and kicked her rusty mourning out of the way as she advanced to the fireplace to ring the bell. .“Where is my little boy?” she asked, when the landlady entered the room. “He’s down with me in the kitchen, ma’am; I’m teaching him to make a plum cake for himself.” “I want you to take care of him while I am away. By the bye, where’s Syd?” The eldest child had been christened Sydney, in compliment to one of her father’s remale relatives. With a look at Mrs. Westerfield which expressed ill-con-cealed aversion, the landlady answered: “She’s up in the lumber room, poor child. She says you sent her there to be out of the way.” “Alf, to be sure, so I did.” "There’s no fireplace in the garret, ma’am. Um afraid the little girl must be cold and lonely.” It was useless to plead tor Syd—Mrs. Westerfield was not listening. Her habitual neglect of her eldest child was known to every person in the house. Mrs. Westerfield’s destination was the public house, in which she had been once earn to tne landlord. He opened the parlor door himself, and invited her to walk m. i

"You wear well,” he said, admiring her. “Have you come here to be my barmaid again?” “Do you think I am reduced to that?" she answered. “Well, my dear, more unlikely things have happened. They tell me you depend for your income on Lord Le Basque—and his lordship’s death was in the newspapers last week.” “And his lordship's lawyers continue my allowance.” Having, smartly set the landlord right in those words, she had not thought it necessary to add that Lady Le Basque, continuing the allowance at her husband’s request, had also notified that it would cease if Mrs. Westerfield married again. “You’re a lucky woman,” the landlord remarked. “Well, I’m glad to see you. What will you take to drink?” "Nothing, thank you. I want to know if you have heard anything lately of James Bellbridge.” The landlord was a popular person in his own circle; not accustomed to restrain himself when he saw his way to a joke. “Here’s constancy!” he said. “She’s sweet on James after having jilted him twelve years ago!” Mrs. Westerfield rose with dignity. "I am accustomed to be treated respectfully,” she replied. “I wish you good-morn-ing.” The easy landlord pressed her back into her chair. “Don’t be a fool,” he said. “James is in London; James is staying in my house.” Mrs. Westerfield’s bold gray eyes expressed eager curiosity and interest. “You don’t mean that he is going to be barman here again?” “No such luck, my dear; he is a gentleman at large, who patronizes my house.” Mrs. Westerfield went on with her questions. “Has he left America for good?” “Not he! James Bellbridge is going back to New York, to open a saloon. Ha’s in England, he says, on business. It’s my belief that he wants money for this new venture, on bad security. His only chance of getting his bills discounted is to humbug his relations down in the country.” “When does he come back?” “He comes back to-morrow.” “Will you give a message to James?” “I’ll do anything for a lady of fortune.” “Tell him to come and drink tea with his old sweetheart to-morrow at six o’clock.” “He won’t do it.” “He will. With that difference of opinion they parted. (To be continued.)