CHAPTER VI.
KIDNAPPED.
The events just narrated occurred in the prime of my life, and arepartly matters of publicity. My attempted breach of faith in the way ofdisclosing their secrets was naturally infamous in the eyes of mysociety brethren, who endeavored to prevail upon me to relent of mydesign which, after writing my "Confession," I made no endeavor toconceal. Their importunities and threatenings had generally beenresisted, however, and with an obliquity that can not be easilyexplained, I persisted in my unreasonable design. I was blessed as ahusband and father, but neither the thought of home, wife, nor child,checked me in my inexplicable course. I was certainly irresponsible,perhaps a monomaniac, and yet on the subject in which I was absorbed, Ipreserved my mental equipoise, and knowingly followed a course thatfinally brought me into the deepest slough of trouble, and lost to meforever all that man loves most dearly. An overruling spirit, perhapsthe shade of one of the old alchemists, possessed me, and in the face ofobstacles that would have caused most men to reflect, and retrace theirsteps, I madly rushed onward. The influence that impelled me, whateverit may have been, was irresistible. I apparently acted the part ofagent, subject to an ever-present master essence, and under thisdominating spirit or demon my mind was powerless in its subjection. Mysoul was driven imperiously by that impelling and indescribablesomething, and was as passive and irresponsible as lycopodium that isborne onward in a steady current of air. Methods were vainly sought bythose who loved me, brethren of the lodge, and others who endeavored toinduce me to change my headstrong purpose, but I could neither accepttheir counsels nor heed their forebodings. Summons by law were served onme in order to disconcert me, and my numerous small debts became thepretext for legal warrants, until at last all my papers (excepting my"Confession"), and my person also, were seized, upon an execution servedby a constable. Minor claims were quickly satisfied, but when I regainedmy liberty, the aggression continued. Even arson was resorted to, andthe printing office that held my manuscript was fired one night, thatthe obnoxious revelation which I persisted in putting into print, mightbe destroyed. Finally I found myself separated by process of law fromhome and friends, an inmate of a jail. My opponents, as I now came toconsider them, had confined me in prison for a debt of only two dollars,a sufficient amount at that time, in that state, for my incarceration.Smarting under the humiliation, my spirit became still more rebellious,and I now, perhaps justly, came to view myself as a martyr. It had beenat first asserted that I had stolen a shirt, but I was not afraid of anypenalty that could be laid on me for this trumped-up charge, believingthat the imputation and the arrest would be shown to be designed aswillful oppression. Therefore it was, that when this contemptiblearraignment had been swept aside, and I was freed before a Justice ofthe Peace, I experienced more than a little surprise at a rearrest, andat finding myself again thrown into jail. I knew that it had beendecreed by my brethren that I must retract and destroy my "Confession,"and this fact made me the more determined to prevent its destruction,and I persisted sullenly in pursuing my course. On the evening of August12th, 1826, my jailer's wife informed me that the debt for which I hadbeen incarcerated had been paid by unknown "friends," and that I coulddepart; and I accepted the statement without question. Upon my steppingfrom the door of the jail, however, my arms were firmly grasped by twopersons, one on each side of me, and before I could realize the factthat I was being kidnapped, I was thrust into a closed coach, whichimmediately rolled away, but not until I made an outcry which, if heardby anyone, was unheeded.
"For your own sake, be quiet," said one of my companions in confinement,for the carriage was draped to exclude the light, and was as dark as adungeon. My spirit rebelled; I felt that I was on the brink of aremarkable, perhaps perilous experience, and I indignantly replied byasking:
"What have I done that you should presume forcibly to imprison me? Am Inot a freeman of America?"
"What have you done?" he answered. "Have you not bound yourself by aseries of vows that are sacred and should be inviolable, and have younot broken them as no other man has done before you? Have you notbetrayed your trust, and merited a severe judgment? Did you notvoluntarily ask admission into our ancient brotherhood, and in goodfaith were you not initiated into our sacred mysteries? Did you notobligate yourself before man, and on your sacred honor promise topreserve our secrets?"
"I did," I replied; "but previously I had sworn before a higher tribunalto scatter this precious wisdom to the world."
"Yes," he said, "and you know full well the depth of the self-soughtsolemn oath that you took with us--more solemn than that prescribed byany open court on earth."
"This I do not deny," I said, "and yet I am glad that I accomplished myobject, even though you have now, as is evident, the power to pronouncemy sentence."
"You should look for the death sentence," was the reply, "but it hasbeen ordained instead that you are to be given a lengthened life. Youshould expect bodily destruction; but on the contrary, you will pass onin consciousness of earth and earthly concerns when we are gone. Yourname will be known to all lands, and yet from this time you will beunknown. For the welfare of future humanity, you will be thrust to aheight in our order that will annihilate you as a mortal being, and yetyou will exist, suspended between life and death, and in thatintermediate state will know that you exist. You have, as you confess,merited a severe punishment, but we can only punish in accordance withan unwritten law, that instructs the person punished, and elevates thehuman race in consequence. You stand alone among mortals in that youhave openly attempted to give broadly to those who have not earned it,our most sacred property, a property that did not belong to you,property that you have only been permitted to handle, that has beenhanded from man to man from before the time of Solomon, and whichbelongs to no one man, and will continue to pass in this way from one toanother, as a hallowed trust, until there are no men, as men now exist,to receive it. You will soon go into the shadows of darkness, and willlearn many of the mysteries of life, the undeveloped mysteries that arewithheld from your fellows, but which you, who have been so presumptuousand anxious for knowledge, are destined to possess and solve. You willfind secrets that man, as man is now constituted, can not yet discover,and yet which the future man must gain and be instructed in. As you havesowed, so shall you reap. You wished to become a distributor ofknowledge; you shall now by bodily trial and mental suffering obtainunsought knowledge to distribute, and in time to come you will becommanded to make your discoveries known. As your pathway is surely laidout, so must you walk. It is ordained; to rebel is useless."
"Who has pronounced this sentence?" I asked.
"A judge, neither of heaven nor of earth."
"You speak in enigmas."
"No; I speak openly, and the truth. Our brotherhood is linked with thepast, and clasps hands with the antediluvians; the flood scattered theraces of earth, but did not disturb our secrets. The great love ofwisdom has from generation to generation led selected members of ourorganization to depths of study that our open work does not touch upon,and behind our highest officers there stand, in the occult shadesbetween the here and the hereafter, unknown and unseen agents who areinitiated into secrets above and beyond those known to the ordinarycraft. Those who are introduced into these inner recesses acquiresuperhuman conceptions, and do not give an open sign of fellowship; theyneed no talisman. They walk our streets possessed of powers unknown tomen, they concern themselves as mortals in the affairs of men, and eventheir brethren of the initiated, open order are unaware of their exaltedcondition. The means by which they have been instructed, their severalindividualities as well, have been concealed, because publicity woulddestroy their value, and injure humanity's cause."
Silence followed these vague disclosures, and the carriage rolled on. Iwas mystified and alarmed, and yet I knew that, whatever might be theend of this nocturnal ride, I had invited it--yes, merited it--and Isteeled myself to hear the sentence of my judges, in whose hands I waspowerless. The persons on the sea
t opposite me continued theirconversation in low tones, audible only to themselves. An individual bymy side neither moved nor spoke. There were four of us in the carriage,as I learned intuitively, although we were surrounded by utter darkness.At length I addressed the companion beside me, for the silence wasunbearable. Friend or enemy though he might be, anything rather thanthis long silence. "How long shall we continue in this carriage?"
He made no reply.
After a time I again spoke.
"Can you not tell me, comrade, how long our journey will last? Whenshall we reach our destination?"
Silence only.
Putting out my hand, I ventured to touch my mate, and found that he wastightly strapped,--bound upright to the seat and the back of thecarriage. Leather thongs held him firmly in position; and as I ponderedover the mystery, I thought to myself, if I make a disturbance, theywill not hesitate to manacle me as securely. My custodians seemed,however, not to exercise a guard over me, and yet I felt that they werecertain of my inability to escape. If the man on the seat was aprisoner, why was he so reticent? Why did he not answer my questions? Icame to the conclusion that he must be gagged as well as bound. Then Idetermined to find out if this were so. I began to realize more forciblythat a terrible sentence must have been meted me, and I half hoped thatI could get from my partner in captivity some information regarding ourdestination. Sliding my hand cautiously along his chest, and under hischin, I intended to remove the gag from his mouth, when I felt my fleshcreep, for it came in contact with the cold, rigid flesh of a corpse.The man was dead, and stiff.
The shock unnerved me. I had begun to experience the results of a severemental strain, partly induced by the recent imprisonment and extendedprevious persecution, and partly by the mysterious significance of thelanguage in which I had recently been addressed. The sentence, "You willnow go into the Valley of the Shadow of Death, and learn the mysteriesof life," kept ringing through my head, and even then I sat beside acorpse. After this discovery I remained for a time in a semi-stupor, ina state of profound dejection,--how long I can not say. Then Iexperienced an inexplicable change, such as I imagine comes over acondemned man without hope of reprieve, and I became unconcerned as aman might who had accepted his destiny, and stoically determined toawait it. Perhaps moments passed, it may have been hours, and thenindifference gave place to reviving curiosity. I realized that I coulddie only once, and I coolly and complacently revolved the matter,speculating over my possible fate. As I look back on the night in whichI rode beside that dead man, facing the mysterious agents of anall-powerful judge, I marvel over a mental condition that permitted mefinally to rest in peace, and slumber in unconcern. So I did, however,and after a period, the length of which I am not able to estimate, Iawoke, and soon thereafter the carriage stopped, and our horses werechanged, after which our journey was resumed, to continue hour afterhour, and at last I slept again, leaning back in the corner. Suddenly Iwas violently shaken from slumber, and commanded to alight. It was inthe gray of morning, and before I could realize what was happening, Iwas transferred by my captors to another carriage, and the dead man alsowas rudely hustled along and thrust beside me, my companions speaking tohim as though he were alive. Indeed, as I look back on these maneuvers,I perceive that, to all appearances, I was one of the abducting party,and our actions were really such as to induce an observer to believethat this dead man was an obstinate prisoner, and myself one of hisofficial guards. The drivers of the carriages seemed to give us noattention, but they sat upright and unconcerned, and certainly neitherof them interested himself in our transfer. The second carriage, likethat other previously described, was securely closed, and our journeywas continued. The darkness was as of a dungeon. It may have been days,I could not tell anything about the passage of time; on and on we rode.Occasionally food and drink were handed in, but my captors held to theircourse, and at last I was taken from the vehicle, and transferred to ablock-house.
I had been carried rapidly and in secret a hundred or more miles,perhaps into another state, and probably all traces of my journey wereeffectually lost to outsiders. I was in the hands of men who implicitlyobeyed the orders of their superiors, masters whom they had never seen,and probably did not know. I needed no reminder of the fact that I hadviolated every sacred pledge voluntarily made to the craft, and nowthat they held me powerless, I well knew that, whatever the punishmentassigned, I had invited it, and could not prevent its fulfillment. Thatit would be severe, I realized; that it would not be in accordance withordinary human law, I accepted.
"I WAS TAKEN FROM THE VEHICLE, AND TRANSFERRED TO ABLOCK-HOUSE."]
Had I not in secret, in my little room in that obscure Stone Tavern,engrossed on paper the mystic sentences that never before had beenpenned, and were unknown excepting to persons initiated into our sacredmysteries? Had I not previously, in the most solemn manner, before thesewords had been imparted to my keeping, sworn to keep them inviolate andsecret? and had I not deliberately broken that sacred vow, and scatteredthe hoarded sentences broadcast? My part as a brother in this fraternalorganization was that of the holder only of property that belonged to noman, that had been handed from one to another through the ages, sacredlycherished, and faithfully protected by men of many tongues, alwaysconsidered a trust, a charge of honor, and never before betrayed. Mycrime was deep and dark. I shuddered.
"Come what may," I mused, reflecting over my perfidy, "I am ready forthe penalty, and my fate is deserved; it can not but be a righteousone."
The words of the occupant of the carriage occurred to me again andagain; that one sentence kept ringing in my brain; I could not dismissit: "You have been tried, convicted, and we are of those appointed tocarry out the sentence of the judges."
The black silence of my lonely cell beat against me; I could feel theabsence of sound, I could feel the dismal weight of nothingness, and inmy solitude and distraction I cried out in anguish to the invisiblejudge: "I am ready for my sentence, whether it be death or imprisonmentfor life"; and still the further words of the occupant of the carriagepassed through my mind: "You will now go into the Valley of the Shadowof Death, and will learn the mysteries of Life."
Then I slept, to awake and sleep again. I kept no note of time; it mayhave been days or weeks, so far as my record could determine. Anattendant came at intervals to minister to my wants, always maskedcompletely, ever silent.
That I was not entirely separated from mankind, however, I felt assured,for occasionally sounds of voices came to me from without. Once Iventured to shout aloud, hoping to attract attention; but the personswhom I felt assured overheard me, paid no attention to my lonely cry. Atlast one night, my door opened abruptly, and three men entered.
"Do not fear," said their spokesman, "we aim to protect you; keep still,and soon you will be a free man."
I consented quietly to accompany them, for to refuse would have been invain; and I was conducted to a boat, which I found contained acorpse--the one I had journeyed with, I suppose--and embarking, we weresilently rowed to the middle of the river, our course being diagonallyfrom the shore, and the dead man was thrown overboard. Then our boatreturned to the desolate bank.
Thrusting me into a carriage, that, on our return to the river bank wefound awaiting us, my captors gave a signal, and I was driven away inthe darkness, as silently as before, and our journey was continued Ibelieve for fully two days. I was again confined in another log cabin,with but one door, and destitute of windows. My attendants were masked,they neither spoke to me as they day after day supplied my wants, nordid they give me the least information on any subject, until at last Iabandoned all hope of ever regaining my liberty.
"THE DEAD MAN WAS THROWN OVERBOARD."]