Ellen Walton | Page 9

resolute look of
the excited girl.
"Now, vile, degraded, polluted thing! you go from my presence never
to return. Hold! not just yet, I have a parting word to say before you
leave. I confess, with self-abasement, that I once loved you, and with
deep humiliation, amounting to agony, that that love was the cause of
my ruin. The vail is now torn from my eyes, and I behold you as you
are, a corrupted, debased, unfeeling demon, in the human form; and I
would not even touch you with my finger's end, so deep is my
detestation and abhorrence of your depravity! Aye, sir, even for me
your very touch is defiling! But if ever you whisper a word concerning
the relation you once sustained toward me, be it but so loud as your
breath, I will as surely destroy you as I now stand before you!
Remember and beware! for I call God, and angels, and earth to witness
this my vow! One so lost as you, shall not couple my name with his!"
She paused a moment, as if to collect her energies for a last effort, and
then continued:
"Into the darkness of this moonless, starless, sky-beclouded night, you
shall soon be driven. May it faintly prefigure the unending blackness of
that eternal night you have chosen as your future portion. As you have
willfully, voluntarily, and most wickedly called it down upon your own
head, may the 'curse of God rest upon you in this world and the world
to come!' May evils betide you in this life, every cherished hope be
blasted; every plot of villainy thwarted, and you become a reproach
among men, an outcast and a vagabond on the face of the earth! And
when, at last, your sinful race is run, and your guilty soul has been
ushered into that dreaded eternity you have plucked upon it, may your
polluted carcass become the prey of the carrion-crow and the buzzard,
and the wild beasts of the desert wilderness howl a requiem over your
bones! Go now, and meet your doom! Go with the curse of wretched
innocence ever abiding upon you! Go with the canker-worm of

festering corruption ever hanging, like an incubus, upon your
prostituted heart, and may its fangs, charged with burning poison,
pierce the very vitals of existence, till life itself shall become a burden
and a curse! Go!"
And he went, with the awful curse ever burning as a flaming fire on the
tablet of his memory.
* * * * *
The reader must bear with us for being compelled to introduce in our
pages some exceptional characters. Had we consulted our own taste, or
painted the characters ourself, it would not have been so. In this
particular, we had no choice, as the actors were furnished to our hand in
the light we have represented them, as we shall presently show by
authenticated history. For the present, however, we pass to other
scenes.--AUTHOR.
CHAPTER IV.
MORE VILLAINY.
From the presence of Miss Fleming, Durant went to an obscure old
cabin near the river, where he met an accomplice in villainy, a tool of
his, by the name of Ramsey, whom he often employed to do hazardous
and dirty work, he himself was too cowardly or too aristocratic to
perform. The object of the present interview was to learn on what boat
the Waltons had taken passage. He was scheming again.
"Ramsey," said he, "what boats have left in the last two weeks to go
down the river?"
"Only three, sir."
"Three! Did you see them all?"
"I did."

"Did you know any of the passengers?"
"I did. Colonel Thomas Marshall commanded one of the boats, with
whom there were a number of Virginians, several of them personally
known to me."
"Was there a family by the name of Walton among them?"
"Walton--Walton? I don't know them."
"A father, mother and daughter; the girl eighteen, and uncommonly
good looking--present a much richer appearance than is usual with
emigrants."
"I remember them; they went in another boat."
"Do you think they have reached Maysville yet?"
"If unusually lucky, they have; but most probably not."
"Then there is a possibility of their being overtaken, you think?"
"There may be; particularly if any bad luck has attended them."
"Quick, then, quick! away!--Have the boat decoyed to the shore, and
captured by the Indians! You understand, _captured_: the girl must on
no account be killed."
"You don't mean that I shall start out to-night in this storm and
darkness?"
"Yes, and without a moment's delay. Set the red dogs on the
scent--capture the girl, and you shall be rewarded on your own terms.
Go, or it will be too late!"
With some hesitation Ramsey obeyed, and when once in for the
business,