CHAPTER IX.

DEATH BED AND BRIDAL SCENES.

Neither Capt.  Helm nor his wife made any religious pretensions.  I hardly know whether or not they were avowed infidels; but they alike ridiculed all religious professions and possessed some very singular notions regarding life and death.

I have often heard the Captain say, that no person need die unless they choose to do so; and his wife was of the same belief.  I have frequently heard her remark that if mankind would firmly resist death it would flee from them.

An opportunity, however, was soon after given to test the truth of this strange dogma.  Mrs. Helm’s health began to decline, but she would pay no attention to it, following her usual course and regular routine of household duties; but all in vain; she was taken down, alarmingly ill, and it became apparent to all, that the “king of terrors” had chosen his victim.  She tried with all her natural energy of character, to baffle his pursuit and escape his steady approach, but all to no purpose.  “The valley and the shadow of death” were before her, and she had no assurance that the “rod and staff” of the Almighty would sustain and comfort her through the dark passage.  She shrank with perfect horror from the untried scenes of the future.

If any one had ever envied Mrs. Helm in her drawing-room, richly attired and sparkling with jewels, or as she moved with the stately step of a queen among her trembling slaves, they should have beheld her on her death bed!  They should have listened to her groans and cries for help, while one piercing shriek after another rang through the princely mansion of which she had been the absolute mistress!

[Illustration:  “If any one had ever envied Mrs. Helm in her drawing-room, richly attired and sparkling with jewels, or as she moved with the stately step of a queen among her trembling slaves, they should have beheld her on her death-bed!”]

Surrounded as she was with every elegance and luxury that wealth could procure, she lay shrieking out her prayers for a short respite, a short lengthening out of the life she had spent so unprofitably; her eyes wandering restlessly about the apartment, and her hands continually clinching the air, as if to grasp something that would prevent her from sinking into the embrace of death!  There was not a slave present, who would have exchanged places with her.  Not one of those over whom she had ruled so arbitrarily would have exchanged their rough, lowly cabin and quiet conscience, for all the wealth and power she had ever possessed.

Nothing of all she had enjoyed in life, nor all that she yet called her own, could give her one hour of life or one peaceful moment in death!

Oh! what a scene was that!  The wind blew, and great drops of rain fell on the casements.  The room lighted only with a single taper; the wretched wife mingles her dying groans with the howling of the storm, until, as the clock struck the hour of midnight she fell back upon her pillow and expired, amid the tears and cries of her family and friends, who not only deplored the loss of a wife and mother, but were grieved by the manner in which she died.