CHAPTER
VI.
KIDNAPPED.
The events just narrated occurred in the prime of my life, and are partly
matters of publicity. My attempted breach of faith in the way of disclosing
their secrets was naturally infamous in the eyes of my society brethren, who
endeavored to prevail upon me to relent of my design which, after writing my
" Confession," I made no endeavor to conceal. Their importunities and
threatenings had generally been resisted, however, and with an obliquity that
can not be easily explained, I persisted in my unreasonable design. I was
blessed as a husband 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 in the subject in which I was absorbed, I
preserved my mental equipoise, and knowingly followed a course that finally
brought me into the deepest slough of trouble, and lost to me forever all that
man loves most dearly. An overruling spirit, perhaps the shade of one of the old
alchemists, possessed me, and in the face of obstacles that would have caused
most men to reflect, and retrace their steps, I madly rushed onward. The
influence that impelled me, whatever it may have been, was irresistible. I
apparently acted the part of agent, subject to an ever-present master essence,
and under this dominating spirit or demon my mind was powerless in its
subjection. My soul was driven imperiously by that impelling and rode cribable
something, and was as passive and irresponsible as lycopodium that is borne
onward in a steady current of air. Methods were vainly sought by those who loved
me, brethren of the lodge, and others who endeavored to induce me to change my
headstrong purpose, but I could neither accept their counsels nor heed their
forebodings. Summons by law were served on me in order to disconcert me, and my
numerous small debts became the pretext for legal warrants, until at last all my
papers ( excepting my " Confession " ), and my person also, were
seized, upon an execution served by a constable. Minor claims were quickly
satisfied, but when I regained my liberty, the aggression continued. Even arson
was resorted to, and the printing office that held my manuscript was fired one
night, that the obnoxious revelation which I persisted in putting into print,
might be destroyed. Finally I found myself separated by process of law from home
and friends, an inmate of a jail. My opponents, as I now came to consider 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 been at first asserted that I had stolen a shirt, but
I was not afraid of any penalty that could be laid on me for this trumped-up
charge, believing that the imputation and the arrest would be shown to be
designed as willful oppression. Therefore it was, that when this contemptible
arraignment had been swept aside, and I was freed before a justice of the Peace,
I experienced more than a little surprise at a rearrest, and at finding myself
again thrown into jail. I knew that it had been decreed 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 coarse. On the evening of August 12th, 1826, my jailer's wife informed me
that the debt for which I had been incarcerated had been paid by unknown "
friends," and that I could depart; and I accepted the statement without
question. Upon my stepping from the door of the jail, however, my arms were
firmly grasped by two persons, one on each side of me, and before I could
realize the fact that I was being kidnapped, I was thrust into a closed coach,
which immediately rolled away, but not until I made an outcry which, if heard by
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 a dungeon. My spirit rebelled; I felt that I was on the brink of a remarkable,
perhaps perilous experience, and I indignantly replied by asking:
" What have I done that you should presume forcibly to imprison me? Am I
not a freeman of America?"
" What have you done?" he answered. " Have you not bound yourself
by a series of vows that are sacred and should be inviolable, and have you not
broken them as no other man has done before you? Have you not betrayed your
trust, and merited a severe judgment? Did you not voluntarily ask admission into
our ancient brotherhood, and in good faith were you not initiated into our
sacred mysteries? Did you not obligate yourself before man, and on your sacred
honor promise to preserve our secrets?"
" I did," I replied; " but previously I had sworn before a higher
tribunal to scatter this precious wisdom to the world."
" Yes," he said, " and you know full well the depth of the
self-sought solemn oath that you took with us- more solemn than that prescribed
by any open court on earth."
" This I do not deny," I said, " and yet I am glad that I
accomplished my object, even though you have now, as is evident, the power to
pronounce my sentence."
" You should look for the death sentence," was the reply, " but
it has been ordained instead that you are to be given a lengthened life. You
should expect bodily destruction; but on the contrary, you will pass on in
consciousness of earth and earthly concerns when we are gone. Your name will be
known to all lands, and yet from this time you will be unknown. For the welfare
of future humanity, you will be thrust to a height in our order that will
annihilate you as a mortal being, and yet you will exist, suspended between life
and death, and in that intermediate state will know that you exist. You have, as
you confess, merited a severe punishment, but we can only punish in accordance
with an unwritten law, that instructs the person punished, and elevates the
human race in consequence. You stand alone among mortals in that you have 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 been handed from man to man from before the
time of Solomon, and which belongs to no one man, and will continue to pass in
this way from one to another, 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
will learn many of the mysteries of life, the undeveloped mysteries that are
withheld from your fellows, but which you, who have been so presumptuous and
anxious for knowledge, are destined to possess and solve. You will find 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 have sowed, so shall you reap.
You wished to become a distributor of knowledge; you shall now by bodily trial
and mental suffering obtain unsought knowledge to distribute, and in time to
come you will be commanded to make your discoveries known. As your pathway is
surely laid out, 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 the
past, and clasps hands with the antediluvians; the flood scattered the races of
earth, but did not disturb our secrets. The great love of wisdom has from
generation to generation led selected members of our organization to depths of
study that our open work does not touch upon, and behind our highest officers
there stand, in the occult shades between the here and the hereafter, unknown
and unseen agents who are initiated into secrets above and beyond those known to
the ordinary craft. Those who are introduced into these inner recesses acquire
superhuman conceptions, and do not give an open sign of fellowship; they need no
talisman. They walk our streets possessed of powers unknown to men, they concern
themselves as mortals in the affairs of men, and even their brethren of the
initiated, open order are unaware of their exalted condition. The means by which
they have been instructed, their several individualities as well, have been
concealed, because publicity would destroy their value, and injure humanity's
cause."
Silence followed these vague disclosures, and the carriage rolled on. I was
mystified and alarmed, and yet I knew that, whatever might be the end of this
nocturnal ride, I had invited
it- yes, merited it- and I steeled myself to hear the sentence of my judges, in
whose hands I was powerless. The persons on the seat opposite me continued their
conversation in low tones, audible only to themselves. An individual by my 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 was unbearable. Friend or
enemy though he might be, anything rather than this 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? When shall
we reach our destination?"
Silence only.
Putting out my hand, I ventured to touch my mate, and found that he was tightly
strapped,-bound upright to the seat and the back of the carriage. Leather thongs
held him firmly in position; and as I pondered over the mystery, I thought to
myself, if I make a disturbance, they will not hesitate to manacle me as
securely. My custodians seemed, however, not to exercise a guard over me, and
yet I felt that they were certain of my inability to escape. If the man on the
seat was a prisoner, why was he so reticent? Why did he not answer my questions?
I came to the conclusion that he must be gagged as well as bound. Then I
determined to find out if this were so. I began to realize more forcibly that a
terrible sentence must have keen meted me, and I half hoped that I could get
from my partner in captivity some information regarding our destination. Sliding
my hand cautiously along his chest, and under his chin, I intended to remove the
gag from his mouth, when I felt my flesh creep, 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 severe mental
strain, partly induced by the recent imprisonment and extended previous
persecution, and partly by the mysterious significance of the language in which
I had recently been addressed. The sentence, " You will now go into the
Valley of the Shadow of Death, and learn the mysteries of life," kept
ringing through my head, and even then I sat beside a corpse. After this
discovery I remained for a time in a semistupor, in a state of profound
dejection,- how long I can not say. Then I experienced an inexplicable change,
such as I imagine comes over a condemned man without hope of reprieve, and I
became unconcerned as a man might who had accepted his destiny, and stoically
determined to await it. Perhaps moments passed, it may have been hours, and then
indifference gave place to reviving curiosity. I realized that I could die only
once, and I cooly and complacently revolved the matter, speculating over my
possible fate. As I look back on the night in which I rode beside that dead man,
facing the mysterious agents of an all-powerful judge, I marvel over a mental
condition that permitted me finally 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, I awoke, and soon thereafter the carriage stopped, and our horses were
changed, after which our journey was resumed, to continue hour after hour, and
at last I slept again, leaning back in the corner. Suddenly I was violently
shaken from slumber, and commanded to alight. It was in the gray of morning, and
before I could realize what was happening, I was transferred by my captors to
another carriage, and the dead man also was rudely hustled along and thrust
beside me, my companions speaking to him 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 believe that this dead man was an obstinate prisoner, and myself one of his
official guards. The drivers of the carriages seemed to give us no attention,
but they sat upright and unconcerned, and certainly neither of them interested
himself in our transfer. The second carriage, like that other previously
described, was securely closed, and our journey was 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 mere handed in,
but my captors held to their course, and at last I was taken from the vehicle,
and transferred to a block-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 were effectually lost to
outsiders. I was in the hands of men who implicitly obeyed 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 had violated every sacred pledge voluntarily made
to the craft, and now that they held me powerless, I well knew that, whatever
the punishment assigned, I had invited it, and could not prevent its fulfillment.
That it would be severe, I realized; that it would not be in accordance with
ordinary human law, I accepted.
Had I not in secret, in my little room in that obscure Stone Tavern, engrossed
on paper the mystic sentences that never before had been penned and were unknown
excepting to persons initiated into our sacred mysteries? Had I not previously,
in the most solemn manner, before these words had been imparted to my keeping,
sworn to keep them inviolate and secret? And had I not deliberately broken that
sacred vow, and scattered the hoarded sentences broadcast? My part as a brother
in this fraternal organization was that of the holder only of property that
belonged to no man, that had been handed from one to
another through the ages, sacredly cherished, and faithfully protected by men of
many tongues, always considered a trust, a charge of honor, and never before
betrayed. My crime was deep and dark. I shuddered.
" Come what may," I mused, reflecting over my perfidy, " I am
ready for the penalty, and my fate is deserved; it can not but be a righteous
one."
The words of the occupant of the carriage occurred to me again and again; that
one sentence kept ringing in my brain; I could not dismiss it: " You have
been tried, convicted, and we are of those appointed to carry out the sentence
of the judges."
The black silence of my lonely cell beat against me; I could feel the absence of
sound, I could feel the dismal weight of nothingness, and in my solitude and
distraction I cried out in anguish to the invisible judge: " I am ready for
my sentence, whether it be death or imprisonment for life"; and still the
further words of the occupant of the carriage passed through my mind: " You
will now go into the Valley of the Shadow of Death, and will learn the mysteries
of Life."
Then I slept, to awake and sleep again. I kept no note of time; it may have been
days or weeks, so far as my record could determine. An attendant came at
intervals to minister to my wants, always masked completely, ever silent.
That I was not entirely separated from mankind, however, I felt assured, for
occasionally sounds of voices came to me front without. Once I ventured to shout
aloud, hoping to attract attention; but the persons whom I felt assured
overheard me, paid no attention to my lonely cry. At last 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 in vain;
and I was conducted to a boat, which I found contained a corpse- the one I had
journeyed with, I suppose- and embarking, we were silently rowed to the middle
of the river, our course being diagonally from the shore, and the dead man was
thrown overboard. Then our boat returned to the desolate bank.
Thrusting me into a carriage, that, on our return to the river bank we found
awaiting us, my captors gave a signal, and I was driven away in the darkness, as
silently as before, and our journey was continued I believe 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, nor did they give me the least information on any subject,
until at last I abandoned all hope of ever regaining my liberty.