Joseph Howard

HARPER'S WEEKLY.

[JUNE 4, 1864.

366

(Previous Page) three formidable horns, designed to tickle the ribs of our wooden vessels so very unpleasantly. If they should undertake another such rampage the fleet is determined to capture or destroy them. They have three rams in all, but we have a heavy force to oppose them. Probably a few doses of 9-inch Union pills dropped down the smoke stack may operate rather disastrously, and afford a few months' employment to the mechanics of Wilmington—if they should ever get back there.

"We have at present on board this vessel(Badger) the officers, crew, and some passengers of the blockade-runner Tristram Shandy, captured by the U. S. steamer Kansas on Sunday, the 15th May, with a cargo of cotton from Wilmington. They say the ram is fast aground in the harbor, and efforts to pull her off have been unsuccessful."

JOSEPH HOWARD, JUN.

WE give on page 365 a portrait, from a photograph by Mr. CHARLES H. WILLIAMSON, Brooklyn, of JOSEPH HOWARD, Jun., whose name has been brought prominently before the country in connection with the forged Proclamation which was last week palmed upon the public through the columns of two New York daily papers. The history of the case is already known, and it is only necessary to say here that Mr. HOWARD'S action was in the last degree infamous and dishonorable. Mr. HOWARD is yet a young man, and has been connected for some years with the press, holding at the time he committed the forgery which sent him to Fort Lafayette the position of city editor on a Brooklyn journal.

WIDOWED IN THE WILDS.

IT is now many years since I accompanied my husband, a missionary, into the interior of Southern Africa. At length we reached our station in Namaqua Land. When I saw the wild savages among whom our lot was cast my heart was ready to sink ; but the goodness of our purpose upheld me ; moreover, there was little time for fears, for a house must be built ere we could live in one, and a chapel be erected before we could commence our duties ; and toiling with our own hands, aided by our guide and driver, who remained for a while to help us, we at length completed both.

It was a joyful day when we first heard the little bell ring out over the kraals, summoning their inmates to the chapel, at one end of which my husband was to instruct the men; while at the other I should try to instill into these rude wild women the womanly and wifely virtues ; and though for a time these efforts were met by peals of laughter, and my husband's services were more frequently sought as a rain-maker or witch-finder than in any other capacity, yet ultimately our endeavors prevailed, and we won their respect and confidence, and, as we hoped, in one or two cases, something more.

Thus passed nearly three years ; and though to the world our life at that remote mission-station might seem desolate and dreary, it was in reality full of interest, and cheered by the daily increasing hope that we had planted the germs both of a religion and civilization which would spread and bear much fruit.

Such were our prospects, when one day we learned that the great chief Luto, beneath whose protection we lived, was taken ill, and we resolved to visit him ; more especially as, like most missionaries, my husband possessed some medical skill. The chief's kraal was scarcely five miles from the station, and we started early, to avoid the heat of the tropical sun ; but we had hardly traversed half the distance when a faint sound, as of rushing water, broke the intense stillness of the wilderness, increasing as we advanced, until it swelled into a succession of wild cries and fearful shrieks. Ignorant whether this might not be the form of mourning for one so exalted as Luto, we hastened on, though, when we reached the spot; it was with difficulty we could force our way through the thick belt of terrified looking Caffres who were eagerly pressing forward to witness the scene within.

At length we reached the front ; but very different was the sight we looked on to what we had anticipated. On one side, stretched on a dingy mat, lay the mighty chief whose will was law over hundreds of miles and thousands of lives, his huge form writhing with neuralgic pains, and his stern countenance discolored by suffering. But his eyes glowed with rage as he exclaimed to us, with a doubly guttural intonation : "I am bewitched—an evil-eye has been cast upon me. However," he added, with set teeth, " I am punishing him."

Following the direction of the chief's outstretched finger, our horrified and astonished eyes fell on the form, of a Caffre bound hand and foot with withes, and pinioned to the ground ; while two others, wearing the dirty feather-decorations of magicians, were busily engaged in breaking and spreading over the uncovered chest of the wretched man nests of the fierce red ant—those favorite instruments of Caffre torture—each fresh application of which drew forth a new burst of agony from the sufferer, and elicited another flash of triumph from the sick chief's eyes.

But mingled with our horror at the scene was the feeling that the victim of this fearful superstition must at once be rescued. It was obviously a difficult task, for the prosecutor was likewise the judge, but it must nevertheless be achieved ; and with all respect, in consideration of his sovereignty, but eagerly, earnestly, entreatingly, as if we had been petitioning for our own lives, we besought the chief to release his tribesman. The answer was an abrupt negative. But in such a case, and with those frightful cries ringing in our ears, we were not to be deterred; and more zealously, more anxiously than ever, and with many assurances that health and sickness were in a Higher Hand, we preferred our suit.

At length, wearied of our importunity, the chief uttered the emphatic denial no Caffre ever rescinds. That door of hope was closed. But it was impossible for us, the servants of religion, civilization, and hu-

manity, to stand idly by and witness such a sacrifice; and though well knowing he incurred much peril by braving the despot's will, my husband sprang to his feet, and snatching an ostrich-feather fan from one of the chief's attendants, bounded with it across the area, and pushing aside the conjurors, swept with a rapid hand the ants from the tortured man ; then cutting the detaining withes, he assisted him to rise.

So sudden and unexpected was this act that Luto and his great men seemed almost paralyzed by its temerity, while my heart trembled with fear as to its consequences. Another moment, and the chief recovered himself, and catching up an assagai, which lay beside him, ere I could interpose, hurled it, with a fierce Caffre denunciation, full at the devoted missionary.

To this hour I seem to hear the whir of the swift weapon, as its long slender shaft quivered through the air ; to see the gleaming steel of the barbed head, as it entered the side of my beloved husband, and struck him down on the very spot from which he had just rescued an innocent victim.

With a cry of anguish I rushed to his side, while the entire Wire concourse was stirred by howls and deafening yells, whose meaning I did not seek to learn. My whole thoughts were with the husband moaning in, it might be, his death-agony, as I knelt beside him, and tore my dress in shreds to stanch the wounds through which his life seemed ebbing. Meanwhile, louder and higher swelled the tumult around me, until it broke on my sorrow with a terrible fear lest they were discussing the completion of their unfinished deed, which alone and friendless among that savage assembly I was impotent to resist. At length a step approached me, and involuntarily I clasped my beloved one closer, as if that could avert his fate.

But the voice which addressed me was a friendly one—that of Keemer, the most promising of our little flock ; and he came with a hard-wrung permission from the chief to beer my wounded husband back to the station, to which was added an imperative command to return without delay to our own country, and no longer trouble his. A few other friendly Caffres followed, and between them the missionary was borne carefully home. That night, how-ever, he died.

.. The Caffres raised a lofty cairn of stones, which formed at once my husband's tomb and his security from the wandering beasts of prey ; but ere it was finished a message reached me from the chief. "By the Caffre law," he sent word, " the widow and children of a slain man become the property of his conqueror, therefore my child and I were his. But he would be merciful to me ; and if I and mine left his territory at once we might go free."

I had neither wagon nor oxen for our transport, and at first it seemed that I must take my little one in my arms, and go forth alone to encounter the chances of the wilderness. But my faithful Keemer did not desert me in this strait. The only pack-ox he possessed was devoted to my service, and he him-self undertook to be my protector and guide, though, as he had never before traveled that way, he must shape his course by the passage of the sun across the heavens, and the flow of the rivers toward the sea. At early dawn we mounted our pack-ox, and hastened on our unknown way, over wild hills and down precipitous passes, where a single false step would have been destruction; through thick, thorny jungles, which tore us as we passed; and across vast plains of burning sand, where there was neither tree to shelter us from the fiery sun-rays, nor water to relieve our consuming thirst ; hurrying on, regard-less of hunger, and heat, and weariness, until darkness brought our arduous day's journey to a close.

We had crossed about half of Caffreland when, one night, the ox on which my child and I had hitherto ridden broke his halter, and wandering over the flat was killed by a hyena. This was a serious disaster, and Keemer was greatly troubled at the thought that, having no means of purchasing an-other, I must henceforth travel on foot. But I had suffered too many great afflictions to have much care for small ones ; and taking up the sheep-skin and blanket, which had formed alike our saddle and bed, I trod diligently on beside the faithful Caffre, who, in addition to his wallet and arms, bore my little son upon his shoulder.

But though I did my best, it soon appeared our progress was reduced one half; and so weary did I grow with this unusual exertion, that more than once we were compelled to halt for a half-day's rest. On one of these occasions we had camped beside a large vly, or pond. The day was intensely hot and breezeless, and we had retreated to the deepest shade ,of an aged mimosa, when suddenly we perceived an extended cloud-bank showing darkly against the bright-blue horizon. Something in the cloud's aspect made us watch its coming, as, advancing rapidly, as if borne on a strong wind, it swept along the brilliant sky, spreading and lowering as it proceeded, until it covered half the heavens with inky blackness, and seemed ready to burst upon the land in a furious tempest. When it reached the zenith it began rapidly to descend, emitting a strange crack-ling sound; and in another minute, to our infinite astonishment and consternation, like a great hail-storm, a vast swarm of locusts came rushing down —whirling, whizzing, and tumbling around us, in a blinding and bewildering mass, until they lay three or four thick upon the ground.

Not a spot remained uncovered by them. Far as the eye could reach across the level prairie no-thing was visible but the shimmering gleam of the russet brown and green armor of the aerial legions, as they battled fiercely, and ate voraciously every bud, and leaf, and blade of grass. Nothing escaped them. Even the arums on the borders of the pond, and the blue and white lotus flowers floating on its surface, were hidden beneath their struggling clisters, while the feathery foliage above our heads drooped and trembled under the universal foe.

Small as were the ravagers, it was a fearful sight; and yet more appalling was that which met our eyes scarcely an hour after, when the living cloud rose to seek fresh pastures, and we looked on the desolation it had left behind—the denuded shrubs, the

skeleton-like trees, and the long stretches of bare brown earth, which that morning had been green and glowing With verdure and flowers.

If any thing could have increased our horror at the scene it was the knowledge that our path lay through this new-made desert, and that, however far it might extend, we could in no way escape it, since the same dire destroyer had passed both east and west ; while at the same time we knew that its kraals would immediately be forsaken, and its game would flee where pasture could be found, and that consequently no food would be obtainable. The only course open to us was to press on indefatigably, and trust to Providence to bring us to the fertile country ere it should be too late.

Could we escape the desert there might be hope ; and making an almost superhuman effort, for my child's sake, I again struggled on, urged to the uttermost by the low wailing cries which now and then broke from my suffering treasure. At length even maternal love could strive no longer, and in utter exhaustion, and, as it seemed, sick unto death, I sank upon the ground, with scarcely strength left to entreat my sorrowful companion to leave me to my inevitable fate, and endeavor to save my child.

It seemed as if the little creature understood me, for he stretched out his wasted arms, and a few tears rolled down the infant cheeks, withered and aged by suffering ; and as Keemer laid him by my side I felt with a pang that his short race was run, and that he too was about to tread the dark journey. By an effort I gathered him in my feeble arms. My last tie to earth seemed broken ; and trying to forget the fierce pains of that miserable desert death, I prayerfully awaited its coming. At length my little one's moans and my own intolerable agony announced his hour and mine alike had come, and with, as I believed, my expiring breath, I murmured for him and me the same words of faith and hope I had so lately repeated beside the grave of the beloved husband we were now about to join.

For the hundred thousandth time was the axiom verified that man's extremity is God's opportunity; for when hope was past and life was almost gone help came. A trader northward bound into Caffreland, coming to the devastated district, had left his wagon on its edge some twenty miles distant, and traveling on with a Hottentot attendant to discover its extent, had providentially encountered us just in time to save our lives by the provisions he carried with him. Every kindness was lavished on us by this good Samaritan ; and as soon as we were equal to the journey his wagon returned with us to the colony, where Keemer accompanied us, and where he has ever since remained, valued by me as the friend of my greatest need, and generally respected as a most efficient teacher of the Caffres within the colony. But neither time nor resignation can soften the harrowing remembrance of the sorrows and sufferings attending my widowhood in the wilds.

MELTED.

"LOVE him ? Of course not. Marry him ? I should as soon think of marrying the King of the Cannibal Islands or any other grand seignior. No, my dear Dora Deane, your friend St. George End-low (I wonder where he got his name) hasn't any designs on me, nor I on him."

" Fie, Constance, to call St. George Endlow King of the Cannibal Islands ! He's the very handsomest man of my acquaintance."

"Precisely, and of mine—an exquisite of the first water—the prince of dandies."

" He's not a dandy, Constance. I don't believe you think so either. St. George a dandy ! He can't help being handsome any more than Con-stance Sutherland can. But dandy ! You'll find he is not that, Miss Constance."

" Shall I? I doubt it. I've no interest in the matter, I'm sure ; but I never saw a handsome man yet that wasn't a dandy to his very heart's core."

"Poor Endlow ! I see it is all over with him so far as you are concerned. You're a very prejudiced personage, Constance Sutherland."

Dora Deane whirled away in a waltz on some-body's arm, and Constance Sutherland remained, half hidden by the drooped curtains of the window at which she sat.

" Proud, unapproachable, and peerless!" was what the world said of Constance, queen in right of her beauty of all the gay circles which she frequented; but a somewhat scornful queen, since she seemed utterly careless of the homage she received, and rarely melted enough from her hauteur to be conversational, except with a select few. A beautiful proud girl, more prejudiced and vain than she suspected herself, a great deal ; but a woman with a heart and an intellect, a woman worth winning, a woman who only needed melting to make her half divine, if human creatures can be so, and in Love's vocabulary the possibility is certainly much talked of.

Just outside the window at which Constance sat, and hidden from her view by an immense flowering shrub that stood there, sat during the whole of the preceding conversation St. George Endlow. Accident had placed him there at first, and a very natural feeling had made him shrink from changing his position afterward, lest Constance should see him and know that he bad heard her ungracious comments upon himself. Besides, he said to him-self bitterly, being a dandy he had a right to know it, even under such questionable circumstances as these. He was sitting there still, unable to quit his post for fear of Constance seeing him, when a gentleman, Constance's brother, joined her, and he had the pleasure of hearing himself under discussion again, somewhat to this effect:

" Mr. Endlow turned soldier—it must be a mistake !"exclaimed Constance ; "depend upon it, you are misinformed, such pretty men as he is are not likely to risk spoiling their beauty by exposing it to bayonet or cannon-ball."

Constance's brother rose very soon and left her, half angry, half laughing at her prejudice against "Endlow." St. George sat a moment, the hot

blood rising to his very temples. If it had been a man who had spoken thus of him he would have known how to answer him in a manner to seal his lips forever after on that subject. Being a woman, and that woman Constance Sutherland, he rose presently, and passing from the shadow of the shrub, stood before her, his splendid eyes making vain endeavors to subdue their flash as he said,

"If Miss Constance will permit me I should like to thank her for her magnanimous expression of herself concerning one whom she supposed not present, and therefore unable to defend himself."

Constance rose—vivid color flooding her usually tranquil face. She blushed with shame to the very tips of her delicate fingers, and stood too confused to retort even a reproach for the part he had played of listener. Never had she looked so beautiful in the eyes of St. George ; but he only compressed his lips, and was turning on his heel when she lifted her hand with a gesture half haughty, half appealing, saying, in a low voice,

" I beg your pardon, Sir. Nothing could justify the language I have used concerning you." He did not speak at once or touch the hand she extended to him. But presently he took it in his and held it with a vicelike pressure, saying, in a rapid undertone,

"Give me a chance to possess this hand, to de-serve it as much as man can, and I—"

"That were impossible," retorted Constance, instantly growing white and standing haughtily erect.

" Which—to possess or deserve?" questioned St. George, calm again.

" Either." And she vanished from the window.

"Pity about St. George Endlow, isn't it, Con ?'' said young Sutherland, lounging in his sister's sitting-room one morning some months after. Oh, I forgot; you never liked him. Splendid fellow, though. Enlisted as private, fought his way up, and died at the head of the brave boys he was leading."

" Died !"

It was all Constance Sutherland's lips could utter ; and then, with her hand upon her side, she went slowly out of the room up to her chamber, and shut herself in. Later in the day Dora Deane came. She could not get admittance to Constance, but she called to her from the outside. She meant it a jest ; she was a thoughtless girl.

" They say St. George Endlow is badly wound-ed. Hadn't you better go down and nurse him, Constance?"

The door swung open, and Constance stood upon the threshold saying, " Wounded ? Fred said dead." "Oh! I believe that was the first report ; but it's contradicted," Dora, said, lightly.

The next train took Constance Sutherland toward the battle-field. I doubt if she knew herself, till that rumor of his death came, that she loved St. George Endlow.

She found him. It was long enough first—an agony of suspense—and there was a frightful gash across the broad white forehead that had been "too handsome."

He needed her long before she reached him, and did not know her when she came. But he lived to owe his life to her care ; to love her with a fond tenderness that in the old distance he had never dreamed of; and to receive at last from her trembling lips the acknowledgment that he was more to her than all the world besides.

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