Chapter VII: In the Banquet-Room Once More

Meanwhile in the banquet-room, the Legate of the Pope, with the form of his daughter, in her male attire, nestling on his breast, raised his head, and surveyed the faces of the spectators, who had not yet recovered from their surprise. His face pale and worn, as with years of consuming thought, his eyes bright as with the fire of a soul never at rest, held every gaze enchained as he spoke,--

"Rise Martin Fulmer!" he extended his hand to the kneeling man, "rise, and let me look upon the face of--an honest man."

As though disturbed in the midst of a dream, Martin Fulmer rose, his head with his snow-white hair and protuberant brow, presenting a strong contrast to the pallid face, dark hair and beard of the Legate.

"Look upon me, Martin Fulmer, and steadily. Do you recognize me."

"Gulian Van Huyden!" ejaculated the old man.

The Legate surveyed Randolph, Godlike, Yorke, who formed a group behind the Doctor, while in the background, the lights burned faintly around the iron chest and coffin. Even as the Legate looked around, Randolph turned aside, and leaning against frame of yonder window, pushed the curtains aside, and looked forth upon the cold, dark night. Not so cold and dark as his own bitter fate! Well was it for him, that his face was turned from the light! That face, terribly distorted, now revealed the hell which was raging in his breast. His soul stained with crime, his last hope blotted out, whither should he turn? Grandson of ---- ---- it had been better for you, had you never been born!

After his silent survey, the Legate spoke:

"Another place and another hour, will be needed, to repeat the full details of my life, since twenty-one years ago, I left this house,--to die," in an attitude of calm dignity, and with a voice and look, that held every soul, the Legate spoke these words,--"I was rescued from the waves, by a boat that chanced to be passing from the shore to a ship in the bay. Upon that ship, I again unclosed my eyes to life, and watched through the cabin windows, the last glimpse of the American shore, growing faint and fainter over the waves. Thus called back to life,--my name in my native land, only known as the name of the Suicide, my estates in the hands of Martin Fulmer, left to the chances or the providence of twenty-one years,--I resolved to live. The ship (the captain and crew were foreigners,) bore me to an Italian port. I sold the jewels which were about my person when I plunged into the river, and found myself in possession of a competence. Then, in search of peace, anxious to drown the past, and still every emotion of other days, by a life of self-denial, I went to Rome, I entered the Propaganda. In the course of time I became a priest, and then,----well! twenty-one years passed in the service of the church have left me as I am. Your hand, brave Martin Fulmer! Think not that your course has been unknown to me! You have been watched,--your every step marked,--your very thoughts recorded,--and now it is the Legate of the Pope, who takes you by the hand, and calls you by a title, which it is beyond the power of Pope or King to create,--_an honest man!_ Twenty times I have been near you in the course of twenty-one years,--once in Paris, when you were there on business of the estate,--once in Mexico,--once in China,--once on the Ocean,--once in Rome! How my heart yearned to disclose myself to you! But I left you go your way, and now at the end of twenty-one years, we stand face to face. And thou, my child,--" he gazed tenderly into the face of the girl, whose eyes were upraised to meet his own,--"my beautiful! my own! Think not that the garment of the priest, chills the heart of the father!"

"Father!" she whispered, putting her hands upon his shoulder,--"how my heart yearned to you, when I first met you, in the dark streets,--when friendless and homeless, I was flying to the river, as my only friend!"

It was a touching picture,--the priest, who for twenty-one years, had never permitted his heart to throb with one pulse that would remind him of the word "Home," and the daughter, who, educated to serve the dark purposes of Tarleton, had never before felt her heart bound at the sight of her _Father's_ face.

Martin Fulmer's face grew sad,--

"Do you regret my return?" said the Legate with a smile.

"I was thinking," said Martin, and his soul was in his eyes as he spoke,--"I was thinking of--ROME!"

Godlike stepped forward, with a smile on his somber visage,--"Rome!" he echoed,--"of course, now that the dead has returned to life, the heirs need not think of dividing the estate. And you as priest of the Roman Church, as one of her lords, can think of but one disposition of your immense property It will go to the church,--to Rome!"

"To Rome!" echoed Israel Yorke. Randolph, with his face from the light, did not seem to hear a word that was spoken. And Martin Fulmer, with his finger on his lips, awaited in evident suspense, the answer of the Legate.

"To Rome!" echoed the Legate and disengaging himself from the arms of his daughter, he stood erect. His entire face changed. His nostrils quivered, his lips curled, there was a glow on his pale cheek, and an intenser fire in his eyes. He passed his hand over his forehead, and brushing back his dark hair, stood for a moment, motionless as a statue, his eyes fixed, as though he saw passing before his soul, a panorama of the future.

"Within that brutal Rome which plants its power upon human skulls, there is a higher, mightier Rome! Within that order which uses and profanes the name of Jesus, as the instrument of its frauds, there is a higher, mightier Order of Jesus! I see this mightier church,--I see this mightier Order moving onward, through the paths of the future, combating the false Rome, and trampling under foot the false Order of Jesus! Yes, in the future, I see armed for the last battle, those friends of humanity, who have sworn to use the Roman Church as the instrument of Human Progress, or to drive forward the movement over her ruins."

The effect of these words, coupled with the look and the attitude of the Legate, was electric. They were followed by a dead stillness. The spectators gazed into each other's faces, but no one ventured to break the silence.

The silence was interrupted, however, by a strange voice,--

"Lor bress you, massa, de nigga hab arribe!" It was Old Royal, who emerged from the curtains, with a broad grin on his black face,--"You know dis nigga war on de ribber in a boat, fetchin ober from Jarsey shore, a brack gemman who didn' like to trabel by de ferry boat--yah--whah! Well de nigga did it,--"

He advanced a step,--passed his hand through his white wool,--surveyed his giant-like form clad in sleek broadcloth,--showed his white teeth, and continued, with an accent and a gesticulation that words cannot describe--

"Well, as we come across,--lor-a-massy how de storm did storm, and de snow did snow! As we come across, dis nigga cotched by de har ob his head, a young white gemman, who war a-drownin'. An' dis same young white gemman, Massa Fulmer,--" he pointed over his shoulder, "am out dar!"

"What mean you, Royal?" cried Martin Fulmer, and he shook with the conflict of hope and suspense,--"whom did you rescue?"

"Dar's de white _pusson_," said Old Royal.

Leaning on the arm of Mary Berman, whose face was rosy with joy, whose bonnet had fallen on her neck, while her hair, glittering with snow-drops, strayed over her shoulders,--leaning on the arm of his wife, Nameless, or Carl Raphael, came through the doorway, and advanced toward the group.

He was clad in black, which threw his pale face, shaded by brown hair, boldly into view. His eyes were clear and brilliant; his lip firm. As he advanced, every eye remarked the resemblance between him and the Legate; and also between him, and the disguised girl, who stood by the Legate's side.

"Rescued from death by the hands of this good friend,--" his voice was clear and bold, "I returned home, and found the note which you,--" he looked at Martin Fulmer, "caused to be left there. And in obedience to the request contained in that note, I am here."

At first completely thunderstruck, the venerable man had not power to frame a word.

"Fatality!" he cried at last, "but a blessed fatality! I knew that Providence would not desert us! Come to my heart, my child! Carl,--" trembling with emotion, he took Nameless by the hand, "Carl, behold your father, who, after a lapse of twenty-one years, has appeared among us, like one risen from the grave! Behold your sister, born like you, in your mother's death-agony,--separated from you for twenty-one years,--she now rejoins you, in presence of your father!"

It was now the turn of Nameless to stand spell-bound and thunderstruck. He stood like one in a dream, until the voices of the Legate and the young girl broke on his ear, voices so like his own.

"My son!"

"Brother!"

He was gathered to the Legate's breast, who kissed him on the brow, and surveying every line of his face, felt his bosom swell with pride as he called him, "my son!" Then his sister's arms were upon his neck, and Nameless, as he saw her face, so touching, in its quiet loveliness, felt his heart swell with a rapture, never felt before, as he found himself encircled in that atmosphere which is most like heaven,--the atmosphere of a sister's love.

"Listen to me, my son," said the Legate, as he took Nameless by the hand, and his eyes lit up with a new fire, while in abrupt and broken sentences, he poured forth the story of his life. His tone was impassioned, his words electric. Carl Raphael listened, while the emotions of his soul, were written in his changing features.

"And now, my son," concluded the Legate, as he put his arm about the neck of Nameless, "twenty-one years are gone, and I appear again. The estate, from two millions, has swelled into one hundred millions. You will inherit it, and you and I, and this good man, will join together, in applying the awful power embodied in this wealth, to the best interests of the human race."

To the surprise of the Legate, Nameless unwound his arm from his neck, and stepped back from him. His face suddenly became cold and rigid as stone. Rising in every inch of his stature, he surveyed the entire scene at a rapid glance.

On his right, his father and sister. Near him the venerable old man, with Mary by his side. Somewhat apart, stood the somber Godlike, and the weazel-faced Yorke. In the background, the table, with the candles burning dimly round over chest and coffin. Around him that hall, thick on every panel with the memories of the past; and far in the shadows, the white image of the master.

And by yonder window, his form half concealed in the curtains, Randolph looks out upon the black night.

Dilating with an emotion which was incomprehensible to the spectators, Nameless said.

"No, father, I will not touch one dollar of this wealth. It is accursed. Look at the passion it has evoked; look at the calamities which it has wrought! It is accursed,--thrice accursed. It was this wealth which impelled your own brother to attempt to corrupt my mother. It was this wealth which made that brother follow me with remorseless hatred, and to-night, for the sake of this, he planned my death. It was this wealth which drove you from your native land, there to bury all feeling in a church, which makes marriage a sacrament, and, at the same time, prevents her priests from ever enjoying that sacrament, from ever being hailed by the all-holy names of 'husband!' 'father!' There you buried twenty-one years of your life, leaving your children to breast the storm of life alone. It was this wealth which cast me, in childhood, into the streets, without friend or home,--and do you know the life I've lived? While you were saying mass at Rome, I was committing murder, father,--I was being sentenced to death,--I was buried alive in your family vault,--I was passing two years in a madman's cell! Look at the work of your wealth! Let these gentlemen (who, I doubt not, have been heirs of this estate in anticipation,) let them speak, and tell what passions, like fiends evoked from nethermost hell, this wealth has summoned into life! Speak, Martin Fulmer, you, who for twenty-one years, have denied yourself the blessing of wife, home, children; while in sleepless anguish you watched over this wealth,--speak! What evil thought is there in earth or hell which it has not called into deeds? No,--father,--lifting this hand to heaven, I swear by that mother, whom you left to writhe alone upon her dying bed, that I will not touch one dollar of the Van Huyden estate!"

The Legate, that is to say, Gulian Van Huyden, was crushed by these words; they fell upon him like a sentence of death.

"My son! my son!" he gasped, "spare me!"

"'Son' and 'father,' are words easily spoken," continued Nameless. "Have you been a father to me? It would be very striking, and altogether like the fifth act of a melodrama, no doubt, for me to overlook your twenty-one years of silence, and with love and tears consent to be your heir. But you have not been my father. My father,--the father of my soul,--Cornelius Berman, lies a corpse to-night. I forgive you, father, but I cannot _forget_, for I am not the Savior; I am simply a man--"

"Have you no mercy?" faltered the Legate, who stood in the presence of his son like a criminal before his judge. "Do you not know your words are killing me?"

But Carl Raphael, as though all that was dark in his own life, all that was dark in his mother's death-hour, held possession of his soul, would not give his father one chance of justification.

"A man, father, who has known so much suffering, that he now only desires to forget the real world, in the ideal world created by his own pencil; who only desires to turn his back upon wealth and all its hatreds, and win his bread humbly, and away from the world, by the toil of his hand. Mary!--thou who wast true to me, when I slept in the coffin,--thou who wast true to me when I was the tenant of a madman's cell,--Mary! come, let us go."

While the spectators stood like statues,--all, save Randolph, who, with his face from the light, took no notice of the scene,--he took Mary by the hand, and moved toward the door.

With one voice, his father, his sister, Martin Fulmer, called him back.

"Carl! Carl! you must not go!"

"My son! my son!"

"Brother!"

He lingered on the threshold, holding his beautiful wife by the hand.

"Father! sister! brave Martin Fulmer! come and see me in my poor man's home, and I will bless you from my heart for your presence. Come! come,--but not to tempt me with the offer of wealth; that word spoken, and we are strangers forever. For my oath is sworn, by the name of my mother, never to touch one dollar of the Van Huyden estate, and that oath is written up yonder!"

With these words, Carl Raphael, son of Gulian Van Huyden, and heir of One Hundred Million Dollars, took Mary by the hand, and passed from the banquet-hall, and from the house in which, twenty-one years before, his mother died.