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Updated: May 27, 2025
But like many heroes of misfortune, Benyowsky could not stand success. It turned his head. He entered Macao with the airs of an emperor, that at once discredited him with the solid people.
Without a moment's wavering, Benyowsky sent the messenger with a flask of poisoned brandy back to meet the man. The Pole had scarcely returned to his hut in the exile village, when the governor's daughter came to him in tears.
The leading spirit among them was a young Pole, twenty-eight years or thereabouts, of noble rank, Mauritius Benyowsky, very lame from a battle wound, but plainly a soldier of fortune who could trump every trick fate played him, and give as good knocks as he got. Four others were officers of the army in St. Petersburg, exiled for political reasons.
In this village dwelt the exiles, earning their living by hunting or acting as servants for the officers of the Cossacks. Here, then, came Benyowsky and his companions, well received because of forged letters sent on, but with no time to lose; for the first spring packet overland might reveal their conspiracy. The raftsmen, who had welcomed them, now turned hosts and housed the newcomers.
He retired with some few Europeans and natives into the fort, where he attempted to defend himself. The French advanced, he was shot through the body, and being ignominiously dragged out, directly afterwards expired. Poor Count Benyowsky! I could not help feeling sorrow when I heard of his sad fate.
In the morning came a maid from the governor's daughter with a red thread of warning, and none too soon, for at ten o'clock, a Cossack sergeant brought a polite invitation from the governor for the pleasure of M. Benyowsky's company at breakfast. M. Benyowsky returns polite regrets that he is slightly indisposed, but hopes to give himself the pleasure later.
June saw Benyowsky far eastward at Kadiak on the south shore of Alaska, gathering in a cargo of furs; and from the sea-otter fields of Kadiak and Oonalaska, Benyowsky sailed southwest, past the smoking volcanoes of the Aleutians, vaguely heading for some of those South Sea islands of which he used to read in the exile village of Kamchatka.
There seemed no other course but to seize a vessel by force and escape, but Benyowsky again played for time. The governor's daughter discovered his plot through her servant planning to follow one of the exiles to sea; but instead of betraying him to her Russian father, she promised to send him red clippings of thread as danger signals if the governor or his chancellor got wind of the treason.
In Paris he met and interested Benjamin Franklin. Hyacinth de Magellan, a descendant of the great discoverer, advanced Benyowsky money for the Madagascar filibustering expedition. So did certain merchants of Baltimore in 1785.
Word was secretly carried from man to man that, when a light was hoisted on the end of a flagstaff above the Benyowsky hut, all were to rally for the settlement across the ravine from the fort. The crisis came before the harbor had opened.
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