I AWOKE COLD AND ALONE. AN UGLY GREY LIGHT FILTERED THROUGH the curtains, and the clock on the mantel showed a few minutes before ten. Were it not for the strands of golden hair on my pillow, I would have sworn I had dreamed the night’s encounter. Though even then, memory of the dream alone would have been enough to dispel the morning gloom.
As thoughts of the previous evening crowded in on one another, I dismounted my bed and rummaged in my coat pocket. The letters were still there and, to my relief, my uncle’s signature had been no more a dream than Miss Lyell’s attentions. There it was at the foot of the cipher sheet, stark and ordinary in the daylight. Using my penknife, I unpicked the threads of my coat and thrust the sheets deep in the lining. Spaniards and Americans had proved willing to kill to obtain the letter; to their number I might sensibly add Lyell and Tyler if they guessed it was not destroyed.
Breakfast was long since cleared from the dining room, but Mrs Blennerhassett was still there instructing one of the servants in some task. With her ringed hair and imperious carriage, she had the air of a latter-day Agrippina, all unbending purpose and virtue. She smiled generously as I entered.
‘Good morning, Lieutenant. I am glad to find you risen at last. Did you sleep poorly? I felt quite sure I heard you cry out in the night.’
‘I slept delightfully,’ I assured her. ‘If there were bad dreams about last night, they did not trouble me.’
‘I am so pleased to hear it. You will need all your strength for the days ahead, you know. Mr Tyler is convinced that we cannot wait here any longer. He insists that we must make ready to leave tomorrow.’
‘We?’ I echoed. ‘Are you to accompany us, Mrs Blennerhassett?’
She frowned. ‘Of course. Harman and I are quite inseparable. He led me from Ireland to London, and from London to Philadelphia, and thence to this island; now I will follow him into the west. Harman is quite brilliant, you know, but he needs a companion to ensure that others do not take advantage of his generous nature. And of course, it will be a thrilling adventure. The colonel is a man of extraordinary vision.’
I would have liked to ask her more about this Colonel Burr, whom everybody spoke of in such awe, but she was a great deal shrewder than her husband. I had already sailed too close to the wind the night before; I did not wish to find myself in irons. Instead, I excused myself and continued in search of breakfast.
I found the kitchen in one of the outbuildings, the pair of Blennerhassett’s study at the end of the other colonnade. Thick smoke rose from the chimney, and my stomach began to warm at the thought of bacon and eggs, or perhaps a slice of gammon. Far from sating me, the feast the night before had only spurred my appetite. In happy anticipation, I opened the door.
Like every other room in the Blennerhassett mansion, the kitchen was clean, spacious and well ordered. Black pots and ladles hung from the ceiling, while dried herbs and jars of preserves lined its walls. Yet the wholesome industry had been disturbed: there was no haunch of venison or side of pork turning on the spit, and no white-aproned cook with her arms elbow-deep in flour. Instead, two young men in fringed shirts and tricorn hats knelt by the fire. One held a small pan in which a lead ingot was quickly melting over the flames; the other an iron mould, laid open on its hinge. As I watched, the one with the pan pulled it clear of the flames and tipped it over, so that the molten lead trickled through the spout into the mould. His companion snapped it shut, then plunged it into the open water-butt beside him. A gout of steam hissed into the air.
The motion brought me into their sight, and they paused in their work. Far from the veteran desperadoes I had expected, they looked not dissimilar to the students we had encountered at Princeton, smooth-cheeked and disarmingly guileless.
I touched my hat. ‘I beg your pardon. I was seeking breakfast.’
The elder of the two, the one who held the mould, gestured to a shelf in the corner. ‘There’s a loaf there.’ Without further conversation he turned back to running his bullets.
I took the bread and departed. Looking around the grounds, I could see there were in fact few corners where martial preparations were not afoot. On the front lawn, men were stowing tents and dragging them down to the boats, while hammers knocked iron hoops around staves to assemble new casks for provisions. Near the water, half a dozen men appeared to be exercising their muskets, though by the way they flailed their ramrods and dropped their ammunition pouches they would have made any sergeant weep.
Yet what struck me most was not their inefficiency, but their numbers. Tyler had spoken of a thousand and a half men, which had seemed paltry enough to invade a colony the size of France, but here I could see not even half so many. I leaned against a pillar of the colonnade, chewing my bread, and counted them. Even making allowance for the two in the kitchen, I could only make them forty-nine. Unless Tyler had a reserve battalion secreted somewhere deep on the island, the Spanish would be able to halt the invasion with half a company of militia.
I threw the bread away, and watched a flock of blackbirds swoop down from the trees to peck at it. Were these men lunatics? I did not think so. Blennerhassett was a trifle odd, granted, but Tyler seemed sharp enough. As for Lyell, I doubted there was a more calculating, ruthless investor in all London. Surely he would not put his funds behind fifty men and an eccentric Irishman? There must be something more I had not comprehended.
For the moment, I gave up the struggle. Thoughts of Lyell had taken my mind in altogether happier directions. I did not fully understand what had brought his daughter to my bed, but I was desperate to believe she did not regret it. Certainly the passion she had shown, the fervour with which she had embraced me, suggested a more lasting attachment. I shivered with the memory and longed for the evening to hasten on.
‘Would you care to take a turn, Lieutenant?’
Miss Lyell’s face was peering around the pillar, almost swallowed up by the fur stole wrapped around her neck. Her lips were red as berries in the cold, and parted slightly in a mischievous smile.
‘That would be delightful.’
‘Mrs Blennerhassett insists that her pleasure-garden has no equal on this continent.’
‘I would be happy to see it.’ Though in truth I was more interested in pleasure than gardens.
Miss Lyell allowed me to take her arm, then led me around the back of the house to a second lawn bordered by neat white fences. On one side lay the kitchen garden, and a long hothouse whose clammy panes admitted views of exotic foliage; opposite lay the meandering gravel walks and well-tended beds of the flower garden. For all Mrs Blennerhassett’s enthusiasm, in this season it displayed little more than bare earth and grey branches.
We slipped through a low gate and walked companionably between rows of dormant roses. In the distance I could see a rounded summerhouse standing solitary at the end of the path.
‘What a curious place this is,’ said Miss Lyell. ‘I wonder that the Blennerhassetts can bear it, so very far from civilization.’
‘They must have a great fondness for solitude.’
‘Or a need of it.’ Miss Lyell’s eyes were sharp as icicles. ‘I had it from one of the servants that they were driven here by scandal. Mrs Blennerhassett was Harman’s niece and ward; he seduced her while she was in his care.’
It was hard to imagine the genial, ineffectual Harman seducing anyone. ‘Perhaps he mistook her for someone else.’
Miss Lyell laughed. ‘Very like. And now they intend to abandon this island altogether, and start anew in an even deeper wilderness.’ She looked up at me with narrowed eyes. ‘I hear they are bound for Mexico.’
Evidently, I had misspent my efforts. Instead of risking discovery and death with Lyell and Tyler, I should merely have enquired of the servants to learn the Blennerhassetts’ scheme.
Miss Lyell still waited on me expectantly. Wary of admitting too much to Lyell’s daughter, however willing she might be in bed, I judged my answer carefully. ‘I believe that may be true.’
She pulled away, and slapped a reproving hand against my arm. ‘You are too cruel, Lieutenant. You know very well that Mexico belongs to Spain.’
‘At present.’
‘You have seen all those men camped on the front lawn. What do you suppose they purpose?’
‘What do the servants say?’
She pouted. ‘They say that Mr Blennerhassett is to lead an army down the river to invade Mexico, that he will found a new empire and that Mrs Blennerhassett will be his queen. Can you imagine anything half so fanciful? These negroes are too, too imaginative.’
We had reached the summerhouse. Behind us, the lines and curves of the flowerbeds stretched back towards the main mansion; ahead, a hawthorn hedge ran across the garden.
‘The maze,’ said Miss Lyell. ‘Shall we go in?’
We passed through a gap in the hedge. High walls, green even in winter, rose around us, broken only by a gravel walk too narrow for two to walk abreast. I followed Miss Lyell further in and around two turns, until we had lost sight of the entrance, when suddenly she turned on her heel and threw her arms around me. Her lips were cold and firm, but her mouth was warm and her embrace unyielding.
‘I hope you do not think less of me for last night,’ she whispered in my ear.
‘I hold you in the highest esteem,’ I assured her. I slipped a hand beneath her stole, feeling the tightness of her dress, and gave a little pinch. She shivered.
‘My life is so dreary, Lieutenant. Papa insists I accompany him everywhere, that I pack his chest when he travels and act his hostess when he entertains his boring associates. Yet he does not admit me to his confidence. Even when he brings me so far on this adventure, you might think he had only come to admire the landscape for all he tells me.’ She kissed me again. ‘Are you bound for Mexico with the Blennerhassetts?’
‘I believe so.’ Though not if I could find any way to avert it. For once, Nevell’s concern with thwarting the conspiracy, and my own need to escape as quickly as possible, were in perfect accord.
‘You are so brave – and fortunate. Papa has no intention of travelling any further. We will trudge back to London through this horrid country, and you will earn fame and glory.’
I started. ‘You cannot leave us here!’ Catherine’s attentions had been my one solace on this misguided ordeal. To lose her now, just as I had won her, seemed miserable even by my usual lot. I had hoped the previous night’s encounter would augur a new, lasting attachment; instead, it must have been her farewell.
She moved closer. ‘What I would not give to accompany you. But Papa insists …’
‘Come with me,’ I pleaded. ‘Come with me, Miss Lyell—’
‘Call me Catherine. We have been intimate enough, I think.’
Her fingers traced a line down the back of my breeches, then squeezed me in towards her. I responded with zeal – too much so, for my thrust unbalanced her and she fell back against the hedge with a great snapping of twigs. As she extracted herself, I heard footsteps on the gravel walk on the far side of the hawthorn, and voices.
She put a finger to her lips. ‘Papa. He will not be pleased if he discovers us together. He thinks you are something of a rogue.’
She stuck out her tongue, but I was suddenly in no mood for her flirting. The footsteps had left the gravel, thudded up the summer-house’s wooden stairs, and halted a few feet from where we stood. One voice was Lyell’s, as Catherine had recognized; the other Tyler’s. Neither sounded amiable.
‘We’ve a further three dozen men coming from Pittsburgh tomorrow,’ Tyler was saying. ‘Maybe more. And the colonel’s been recruiting down in Tennessee and Kentucky – he’s another five boats in Nashville, enough for three hundred men at least.’
‘If he can find them. I do not doubt your ability to come by boats and muskets. I am more disturbed that you do not have the men to man them.’
‘With the volunteers from Pittsburgh—’
‘You will still have fewer than a hundred men on the island. I could raise a bigger army by handing out shillings at Vauxhall. Have you dragged me four thousand miles into this forsaken place for this? Do you truly think my associates and I will risk our lives, our reputations and our fortunes on your rabble?’ There was something dangerous in his voice now, and I imagined him leaning over Tyler in fury.
The American, for his part, sounded suitably cowed. ‘Come down river with us,’ he pleaded. ‘The colonel will figure it out, you’ll see. He’ll find the men. And as word gets about what we’re planning, others’ll join us down in the territories. Then there’s Wilkinson’s men – half the United States army with us. You can’t argue that.’
A lethal condescension overtook Lyell’s tone. ‘Mr Tyler, I am a man of business. If an indebted man comes to me seeking a loan, I may well consider his case, but not if he has defaulted on what he already owes no matter how much he may promise in future. If you cannot raise the thousand men you assured me would be here, am I to believe you will subsequently raise twice their number? I think not.’
‘At least come far enough to meet the colonel,’ Tyler insisted. ‘He’ll know how to mend it. This war’s going to happen whatever you say.’
‘Unless you can conjure another thousand men, it will happen without my fifty thousand dollars. I will not sit here waiting for some bumpkin magistrate to arrest me, and I most assuredly will not travel any further on this fool’s errand on Colonel Burr’s promise. If he wishes to find me, he may follow me across the mountains to New York, where I shall await the next packet to London.’
‘What about the Lieutenant? Will you take him with you?’
I strained closer to hear, almost overbalancing again into the hedge. Miss Lyell’s hand held me back.
‘Lieutenant Jerrold will doubtless do as his duty and his orders dictate. Seeing that his superiors stand to lose as much as I do, I cannot think he will look favourably on the project as it currently stands.’
For once, Lyell had guessed my sentiments exactly.
There was a pause, and a few flat footsteps as someone paced the deck of the summerhouse. Then I heard Tyler’s voice. ‘At least stay with us until we find the colonel.’
‘He will need a strong case to persuade me.’
Tyler sounded brighter, though his voice was fading as they left the summerhouse. ‘He will, Mr Lyell, you can be assured of that. The colonel’s never without a strong case.’
Catherine and I did not linger in the maze. One could not be outside on that day and keep still for long, and a hawthorn hedge was no place for the exertions I had in mind. She left as soon as Tyler and her father were gone; I waited a few moments by the kitchen garden, admiring the glasshouse in a vacant way. I had many secrets to keep from Lyell, and my courtship of his daughter was not least dangerous among them.
‘Are you a horticultural man, Mr Jerrold?’
I turned, quicker than a guiltless man should have. Harman Blennerhassett was beside me staring proudly at the hothouse. It seemed no small miracle he had recognized me.
‘There’s little opportunity to plant at sea,’ I answered, trying to fend off his question.
He chuckled. ‘True enough, true enough. Then allow me to show you what I have accomplished in more fertile soil.’
He took me by the arm and steered me through the kitchen garden to the glasshouse door. Winter fell away as we stepped inside, as though we had walked into an Italian garden in summer. Fruit trees stood in regimented lines along the length of the room, budding even in December, and the air was thick with damp soil and foliage. Harman led me past each tree in turn, introducing them almost like children. ‘This here’s the fig, you see the leaves? And this is the citron – hasn’t flowered yet, but I have hopes, you know. Last summer we were almost drowning in juice from the orange trees; Mrs B. declared she would pour it in the river and turn it orange all the way to New Orleans. The olive trees are particularly fine.’
‘Most impressive,’ I said. ‘A true garden in the wilderness.’
Blennerhassett nodded intently. ‘Of course, this is merely a humble beginning. Once we are in Mexico, the climate will be more agreeable, and I will have quite an orchard.’ A rare shaft of sunlight reflected off a waxy leaf onto his face, giving him a beatific glow of contentment. ‘Though of course I will miss them until we are settled.’
‘Do you think that will be long?’
He shrugged, and began polishing his glasses on his neck-cloth. ‘I cannot say, of course. Colonel Burr is our military expert; I put myself in his hands absolutely. A Crassus to his Caesar, or Harpalus to his Alexander, so to speak.’
I picked up a trowel which lay on the bench, hefting it idly in my hand. ‘I have heard so much of Colonel Burr, yet I feel I know so little of him.’
‘You will meet him presently – he will insist on it, I know. I had hoped he would be here to greet you, but …’ Blennerhassett’s voice drifted off.
I looked around. We were four thousand miles from anywhere I would have chosen to live, even with a scandal to escape, but for Blennerhassett it seemed a self-made Eden. ‘I marvel that you would choose to leave this idyll.’
‘But here I am only a squire. In Colonel Burr’s new empire I will be a duke, or somesuch. The details are a little vague.’
‘You would risk all you have achieved here against Colonel Burr’s promises?’
Blennerhassett gave the resigned smile of a man who recognized the absurdity of his decision but was powerless to change it. ‘It is the colonel, you know. He can be a very persuasive man.’
Wary of over-playing my ignorance, I almost let this comment pass. But the knowledge of my uncle’s intimate involvement in the scheme had spurred my need to know more, and I trusted Blennerhassett’s innocent nature to overlook my suspicious curiosity.
‘You know that I was late coming to this venture,’ I began carefully. ‘In all our haste, no-one has told me anything of Colonel Burr. Who is he?’
‘Colonel Burr? But surely you have heard of him, no?’ In the heat of the glasshouse, a fine mist had condensed on Blennerhassett’s spectacles. He removed them, rubbing the lenses on the corner of his waistcoat. ‘I should have thought his fame – some would say notoriety, mark, but I do not – would have reached England’s shores by now.’
‘You forget that I have too rarely set foot on England’s shores,’ I said, every inch the honest sailor.
‘Even so …’ Blennerhassett replaced the spectacles on his nose. Instantly, the mist was blossoming on them again. ‘Colonel Burr, Aaron Burr, is one of the most eminent men in the nation. Until two years since, he was Vice-President of the United States.’
He smiled at me, pleased at the visible impact of his news. For my part, I did not know what to say. First my uncle, now the recently second-most-powerful man in America. Lyell’s riches had evidently attracted conspirators of the first rank.
‘But why should he …’ I paused, trying to frame my question with sufficient delicacy. Fortunately, Blennerhassett anticipated me.
‘Why is he now embarked on this hazardous enterprise?’
I nodded.
Blennerhassett sighed. ‘Colonel Burr was unfortunate. There was something of a scandal, and President Jefferson did not choose him for re-election to a second term.’
I remembered a fragment of gossip from a midnight churchyard. ‘He shot a man in a duel. The Treasury Secretary, Mr Hamilton.’ The STATESMAN of consummate WISDOM, as I recalled.
Blennerhassett stiffened. ‘He was sorely provoked, I’m sure. But Colonel Burr is a visionary, and not easily cowed by reverse. He determined that if this nation would not have him, why, then he would establish his own.’
With Lyell’s money and my uncle’s ships behind him, I presumed.
‘How did you come to meet him?’
Blennerhassett stroked a finger over a leaf which had drawn too much dust. ‘It was eighteen months ago. He was making down the river, drawing up his plans, and landed on our island quite by chance. Naturally, we were honoured to receive him.’
‘Naturally,’ I murmured.
‘And when he vouchsafed us his intentions, we offered him unstinting aid. He recognized us as kindred spirits, I think.’
Even Blennerhassett sounded a little doubtful at this. From what I had seen of the colonel’s plan, it seemed more likely he had recognized the potential of Blennerhassett’s wealth. Unless he planned to invade Mexico with an orchard.
Blennerhassett straightened. ‘Of course, the plan is fraught with dangers. But Margaret and I are hardy souls. And if we succeed, why, I will have a garden that will make Versailles seem a mere allotment.’
Whereas if he failed, I thought, he would have a rather smaller plot of earth to inhabit.
We dined early that afternoon. After the sumptuous feast the night before this was a drab and humble meal: the candles seemed incapable of dispelling the wintry gloom which seeped through the windows, and the food was cold. Perhaps the kitchens were still given over to running bullets. Lyell stayed in his room, pleading fatigue, and Tyler was forever wandering out to oversee the preparations at the landing, so we were a reduced company. Conversation was scarce, and the scrape of cutlery on china was too often the only accompaniment.
After dinner we retired to the parlour. I doubt any of us much wanted it, but with a ragged army making ready for war on the front lawn and an unsettled expectancy hanging over the house, there seemed a greater need to assert the rule of habit. Mrs Blennerhassett played her pianoforte, and Harman his violin, while Catherine and I sat beside each other on the couch and twined our ankles when no-one was watching.
Outside, the sky was darkening and the wind rising, yet in that parlour with its rose wallpaper and French furnishings, we remained a sealed world of polite order. Servants came to light the lamps and draw the curtains, isolating us still further from the winter beyond, and the Blennerhassetts played on. Each time they finished a song, Catherine and I would applaud and compliment their playing, and each time I would pray for release. Every creak and bang and muffled voice outside offered promises of motion, of action and excitement from which I was excluded, yet manners and protocol rooted me stiff to my seat. My applause grew cooler, then positively desultory, yet it only seemed to inspire the Blennerhassetts to redouble their efforts.
Just when I thought I could bear it no more, that I would tear the violin from Harman’s hands and snap its neck off, I heard running feet in the hall. They neared the door; without a knock, it flew open. The shroud which had been smothering the room was blown away; the fire flared up, and suddenly we were all standing. Tyler was in the doorway, white-faced and breathing heavily.
‘We’ve just had news from up river. The governor’s issued orders for our arrest, and for the seizing of our boats and stores. General Tupper and the militia are expected any hour to serve the warrants. Our plans are betrayed, and we are all dead men.’
To my surprise, it was Mrs Blennerhassett who kept her composure best. Turning on her bench, poised in mind and carriage, she addressed her husband, Tyler and me.
‘There is nothing else to be done. You must take the boats at once and find Colonel Burr. He is your only hope now.’
Blennerhassett avoided her gaze. He looked to be entirely stricken with panic. Tyler, by contrast, had recovered some of his wits.
‘You are right, of course, Mrs Blennerhassett. We are too far gone to turn back now. Victory and the river are our only escape.’
‘There are six boats here, enough for all your men, and a dozen more waiting upstream at Marietta. The colonel will likely need them for his recruits: do you have time to fetch them?’
‘I fear the militia will already have them impounded, but I will send some of the men to see what can be done.’ Tyler was already calmed into a state of purpose by Mrs Blennerhassett’s resolve. ‘Will you lead the expedition, Lieutenant? What do you say?’
Much of what I had to say could barely be expressed, save in meaningless syllables of gibbering terror. The invasion of Mexico had seemed an unlikely hope in the best of circumstances; now that the weight of the American law had swung against us, a prison seemed the least we could expect. I did not know precisely what crime we had committed, but I was certain we were guilty. And if the American authorities found a foreign naval officer in this den of conspiracy, armed with coded assurances of a British fleet to aid the illicit design, they would take little time in hanging me from the nearest tree. My only choice, it seemed, was whether I would be hanged there in Virginia or in some other state down river. Or perhaps they would return me to Pennsylvania to swing for Harris’s murder.
‘I will oversee the loading of the boats,’ I said. It would afford me some time to consider my predicament, perhaps an opportunity to slip across to the shore in the dark, now that the conspiracy seemed on the brink of ruin. Though how I could escape from the wintry depths of the American wilderness with half an army hunting me, I did not know.
‘Good enough.’ Tyler snatched a glass of wine from the salver and drained it. ‘We must be away by midnight. I hope the taste of cannon fire does not disagree with you, Lieutenant.’
*
If there was one mercy, it was that my fears were concealed in the commotion which ensued. As I stepped out of the front door it seemed that the feeble army must have multiplied itself tenfold, so many were the men running in every direction. An enormous bonfire had been lit down by the shore, and by its angry light I could see orange figures scurrying about with their burdens of sacks, casks and muskets. Anxious to avoid company, I retreated to my room to pack my chest.
It did not take long. A clean shirt and pair of breeches, two pairs of stockings, a pair of shoes which I abandoned in favour of my boots, my razor and a comb were the bulk of my possessions. I squeezed the hem of my coat, and wondered whether I ought to destroy the incriminating papers sewn inside, but there still lingered a hope that I might survive to confront my uncle.
‘Lieutenant?’
I crossed to the door and flung it open. Miss Lyell was standing there, her cheeks flushed and her eyes bright.
‘Is it not exciting?’ she said, advancing into the room. ‘The enemy almost upon us, and our gallant heroes ready to sail forth on their quest.’
Exciting was not the word I would have preferred, but I did not contradict her. She stretched her arms around me and kissed me hard on the lips.
‘You will have all the adventure, and I will have to mope back to England with Papa,’ she complained, when I allowed her to draw breath.
‘Your father is adamant he will not go down river with the men?’
She scowled. ‘He dismisses it as a futile misadventure. He has no valour, no romance. He would rather be safe in his counting house than in the front line of battle. You will go, of course.’
It came so naturally, so smoothly, that words of agreement were falling out of my mouth before I heard what she had said. Which might not have mattered – I’ve acquiesced to all manner of lunacy for the sake of appearance, and never made good on it – if at that moment the door had not opened again to admit Tyler.
‘All’s stowed and ready. Are you with us, Mr Jerrold?’
Well, with Catherine standing there, her adoring eyes held rapt by the hero at her side, what else could I say? Nor did I think Nevell would forgive me if I abandoned my mission here and waved the conspirators on their way. I picked up Lyell’s pistol in a vague attempt at bravado, then leaned over and kissed Catherine on the forehead.
‘Pray for us, my dear.’
Scarcely more than twenty-four hours had passed since I landed on the island. Then, it had seemed a fantastical place of music and light. Now I found myself striding across the lawn with Tyler, past the ashes of hastily doused fires and square impressions where tents had squatted in the grass. A pair of negroes hurried behind us carrying my chest – even in the face of prison and disgrace, there was never an American to do something for himself if there was a blackie to do it instead.
The bonfire still blazed into the night, with the lamps on the boats like sparks beyond. A small knot of men were gathered beside it, and the rifles in their hands jerked anxiously at each darting shadow or ripple in the water. I could see the Blennerhassetts with them, and Lyell’s black bulk, and another man I did not recognize. He seemed to be remonstrating with Blennerhassett.
‘For God’s sake, Harman, give up this madness. If you’re innocent, you’ve nothing to fear, and if you’re guilty you’ll make nothing better by flying. Where will you go? The governor’s posted militia all along the river, some with cannon. They’ll shoot you down like a pirate, and not find your corpse until it washes up in New Orleans.’
You may imagine the effect his speech had on me. As for Blennerhassett, he began to squirm and look longingly back towards his house. Once again, it was his wife who showed her mettle.
‘That’s lies and nonsense, as well you should know, General Tupper. This is the United States, is it not? We are not in France here – we do not turn cannon on our own citizens, gentle souls who have been charged with no crime or wrong. If any man has a complaint against us, let him bring the magistrate down and charge us honestly.’
If the new arrival was a general, then I feared the time for magistrates and the law was long past. I looked about, but could see no evidence of any soldiers save our own.
‘If you are as innocent as you maintain, then stay and let justice take its course,’ said the general. ‘I have come here as a friend, Harman. Tomorrow, I shall come at the head of the militia and it will look a bad business if you are not here. I urge you, for your family’s sake, desist from this course.’
Mrs Blennerhassett stiffened. ‘Harman’s family are with him utterly. Now, you’ve said your piece, General, and we’ve heard you out, so you’ll oblige by leaving our island.’
Whether from concern for his friend or fear for the mischief they would work, the general ignored her. He lunged forward and clasped a stout hand around Harman’s arm, which hung limp as a dead rabbit. ‘If you are deaf to reason, so be it. You are in my hands now. I arrest you in the name of the Commonwealth of Ohio.’
It was a brave attempt, but foolhardy. Even as he spoke, a dozen loaded rifles were lifted and trained towards his breast. Carefully letting Harman go, he stepped away and raised his hands.
‘I hope you will not act rashly, gentlemen.’
‘I’d as soon shoot you as not,’ one of the men answered coolly.
‘I’d sooner you did not.’ The general bowed his head in surrender. ‘This is lunacy, Harman, perhaps even suicide, but I see you will not be swayed from it. Good luck.’
He set his back to us – bravely, for the rifles were still on him – and walked across the lawn to the far landing stage.
Tyler turned to Lyell. ‘So, what is it to be? Are you with us?’
Lyell snorted. Behind him, the fire seemed to flare up. ‘With whom? A disorderly rabble fleeing into the night? You have deceived me, Mr Tyler. You have made a fool of me, and, worse, wasted my time. I shall not play your dupe any longer.’
‘The colonel will be mighty upset.’
‘Colonel Burr is a fantasist. If he even lasts a hundred miles from here I will be surprised. If he reaches New Orleans I will be astounded. But he will not get one penny more of my credit, saving he finds himself atop the walls of Vera Cruz wearing the gold crown of Mexico.’
Tyler looked as though he might like to argue further, but there was no time. Briefly, he said, ‘Be sure they do not catch you here. If the militia learn that there were Englishmen with us there’ll be hell to pay.’
‘My daughter and I will be away by morning,’ Lyell assured him.
Leaving Lyell by the fire, we ran down the sandy embankment and across the boarding planks. Even then I hesitated, but Tyler’s firm hand on my back pushed me forwards and onto the boat. As my feet touched the deck, the men aboard were already casting off the mooring ropes and leaning on their poles to push us out into the stream. On the boat beside me, Blennerhassett called miserable farewells to his wife, who had chosen to stay behind with their children.
I looked back. Lyell was still standing by the fire, a great black silhouette against the leaping flames. They burned so high that their reflection licked far out onto the water, slowly fading behind us as the current took us and propelled us downstream.
In all the confusion, Nevell’s words in the tavern in Falmouth again came back to me. Learn what you can of Mr Tyler and his scheme, then stop it. I had accomplished the first part of my charge. But as to thwarting the conspiracy, I could no more see how I might stop it than I could stem the inexorable flow of the river which carried us.
We passed around a bend and the fire on Blennerhassett Island vanished from our sight. Then we were in darkness.