Chapter XXXIX: A Council of War (12)

"My children," said the old man, "come near to me! I would I could look upon you once; for I feel that a separation is near. Dear daughters!"--he took a hand of each,--"if I am to leave you, grieve not for me; but love one another. Love one another. To you, Salina, more especially, I say this; for though I know that deep down in your heart there is a fountain of affection, you are apt to repress your best feelings, and to cherish uncharitable thoughts. For your own good, O, do not do so any more! Believe in God. Be a child of God. Then no misfortune can happen to you. My children, there is no great misfortune, other than this--to lose our faith in God, and our love for one another. I do not fear bodily harm, for that is comparatively nothing. For many years I have been blind; yet have I been blest with sight; for night and day I have seen God. And as there is a more precious sight than that of the eyes, so there is a more precious life than this of the body. The life of the spirit is love and faith. Let me know that you have this, and I shall no longer fear for you. You will be happy, wherever you are. Why is it I feel such trust that Virginia will be provided for? Salina, let your heart be like hers, and I shall no longer fear for you!"

"I wish it was! I wish it was!" said Salina, pouring out the anguish of her heart in those words. "But I cannot make it so. I cannot be good! I am--Salina! Is there fatality in a name?"

"I know the infirmity of your natural disposition, my child. I know, too, what circumstances have done to embitter it. Our heavenly Father will take all that into account. Yet there is no one who has not within himself faults and temptations to contend with. Many have far greater than yours to combat, and yet they conquer gloriously. I cannot say more. My children, the hour has come which is to decide much for us all. Remember my legacy to you,--Have Faith and Love."

They knelt before him. He laid his hands upon their heads, and in a brief and fervent prayer blessed them. Both were sobbing. Tears ran down his cheeks also; but his countenance was bright in its uplifted serenity, wearing a strange expression of grandeur and of joy.

XLIII.

_THE COMBAT._

Pomp, rifle in hand, bearing a torch, led the patriots on their rapid return through the caverns.

"Lights down!" he said, as they approached the vicinity of the sink. "We shall see them; but they must not see us."

They halted at the natural bridge; the torch was extinguished, and the patriots placed their lanterns under a rock. They then advanced as swiftly as possible in the obscurity, along the bank of the stream. In the hall of the bats they met Carl, who had seen their lights and come towards them.

"Hurry! hurry!" he said. "They are coming down the trees like the devil's monkeys! a whole carawan proke loose!"

Captain Grudd commanded the patriots; but Pomp commanded Captain Grudd.

"Quick, and make no noise! We have every advantage; the darkness is on our side--those loose rocks will shelter us."

They advanced until within a hundred yards of where the shaft of daylight came down. There they could distinguish, in the shining cleft under the brow of the cavern, and above the rocky embankment, the forms of their assailants. Some had already gained a footing. Others were descending the tree-trunks in a dark chain, each link the body of a rebel.

"We must stop that!" said Pomp.

The men were deployed forward rapidly, and a halt ordered, each choosing his position.

"Ready! Aim!"

At that moment, half a dozen men of the attacking party advanced, feeling their way over the rocks down which Penn and his companions had been seen to escape. The leader, shielding his eyes with his hand, peered into the gloom of the cavern. Coming from the light, he could see nothing distinctly. Suddenly he paused: had he heard the words of command whispered? or was he impressed by the awful mystery and silence?

"Fire!" said Captain Grudd.

Instantly a jagged line of flashes leaped across the breast of the darkness, accompanied by a detonation truly terrible. Each gun with its echoes, in those cavernous solitudes, thundered like a whole park of artillery: what, then, was the effect of the volley? The patriots were themselves appalled by it. The mountain trembled, and a gusty roar swept through its shuddering chambers, throbbing and pulsing long after the smoke of the discharge had cleared away.

Pomp laughed quietly, while Withers exclaimed, "By the Etarnal! if I didn't fancy the hull ruf of the mountain had caved in!"

"Load!" said Captain Grudd, sternly.

The rebels advancing over the rocks had suddenly disappeared, having either fallen in the crevices or scrambled back up the bank while hidden from view by the smoke. The chain descending the tree had broken; those near the ground leaped down or slid, while those above seemed seized by a wild impulse to climb back with all haste to the summit of the wall. A few threw away their guns, which fell upon the heads of those below. At the same time those below might have been seen scampering to places of shelter behind rocks and trees.

If ever panic were excusable, this surely was. Since the patriots were terrified by their own firing, we need not wonder at the alarm of the rebels. Some had seen the flashes sever the darkness, and their comrades fall; while all had felt the earthquake and the thundering. To those at the entrance it had seemed that these were the jaws and throat of a monster mountain-huge, which at their approach spat flame and bellowed.

"Now is our time! Clear them out!" said Grudd.

"Rush in and finish them with the bayonet!" said Stackridge. Six of the guns had bayonets, and his was one of them.

"Not yet!" said Pomp. "They will fire on you from above. We must first attend to that. Shall I show you? Then do as I do!"

Instinctively they accepted his lead. Loading his piece, he ran forward until, himself concealed under the brow of the cavern, he could see the rebels in the tree and on the cliff.

"Once more! All together!" he said, taking aim. "Give the word, captain!"

The men knelt among the loosely tumbled rocks, which served at once as a breastwork and as rests for their guns. The projecting roof of the cave was over them; through the obscure opening they pointed their pieces. Above them, in the full light, were the frightened confederates, some on the tree, some on the cliff, some leaping from the tree to the cliff; while their comrades in the sink lurked on the side opposite that where the patriots were.

"Take the cusses on the top of the rocks!" said Stackridge. "The rest are harmless."

"It's all them in the tree can do to take keer of themselves," added Withers. "Reg'lar secesh! All they ax is to be let alone."

Grudd gave the word. Flame from a dozen muzzles shot upwards from the edge of the pit. When the smoke rolled away, the cliff was cleared. Not a rebel was to be seen, except those in the tree franticly scrambling to get out, and two others. One of these had fallen on the cliff: his head and one arm hung horribly over the brink. The other, in his too eager haste to escape from the tree, had slipped from the limb, and been saved from dashing to pieces on the rocks below only by a projection of the wall, to which he had caught, and where he now clung, a dozen feet from the top, and far above the river that rolled black and slow in its channel beneath the cliff.

"Now with your bayonets!" said Pomp. "This way!"

There were six bayonets before; now there were eight.

"That Carl is worth his weight in gold!" said the enthusiastic Stackridge.

While the patriots, preparing for their second volley, were getting positions among the rocks on the left, Carl had crept up the embankment in front, and brought away two muskets from two dead rebels. These were they who had fallen at the first fire. Both guns had bayonets. Pomp took one; Carl kept the other. Cudjo with his sword accompanied the charging party; Grudd and the rest remaining at their post, ready to pick off any rebel that should appear on the cliff.

Swift and stealthy as a panther, Pomp crept around still farther to the left, under the projecting wall, raising his head cautiously now and then to look for the fugitives.

"As I expected! They are over there, afraid to follow the stream into the cave, and hesitating whether to make a rush for the tree. All ready?"

He looked around on his little force and smiled. Instead of eight bayonets, there were now nine. Penn had arrived.

"All ready!" answered Stackridge.

Pomp bounded upon the rocks and over them, with a yell which the rest took up as they followed, charging headlong after him. Cudjo, brandishing his sword, leaped and yelled with the foremost--a figure fantastically terrible. Penn, with the fiery Stackridge on one side, and his beloved Carl on the other, forgot that he had ever been a Quaker, hating strife. Not that he loved it now; but, remembering that these were the deadly foes of his country, and of those he loved, and feeling it a righteous duty to exterminate them, he went to the work, not like an apprentice, but a master,--without fear, self-possessed, impetuous, kindled with fierce excitement.

The rebels in the sink, fifteen in number, had had time to rally from their panic; and they now seemed inclined to make resistance. They were behind a natural breastwork, similar to that which had sheltered the patriots on the other side. They levelled their guns hastily and fired. One of the patriots fell: it was Withers.

"Give it to them!" shouted Pomp.

"Every cussed scoundrel of 'em!" Stackridge cried.

"Kill! kill! kill!" shrieked Cudjo.

"Surrender! surrender!" thundered Penn.

With such cries they charged over the rocks, straight at the faces and breasts of the confederates. Some turned to fly; but beyond them was the unknown darkness into which the river flowed: they recoiled aghast from that. A few stood their ground. The bayonet, which Penn had first made acquaintance with when it was thrust at his own breast, he shoved through the shoulder of a rebel whose clubbed musket was descending on Carl's head. Three inches of the blade come out of his back; and, bearing him downwards in his irresistible onset, Penn literally pinned him to the ground. Cudjo slashed another hideously across the face with the sword. Pomp took the first prisoner: it was Dan Pepperill. The rest soon followed Dan's example, cried quarter, and threw down their arms.

"Quarter!" gasped the wretch Penn had pinned.

"You spoke too late--I am sorry!" said Penn, with austere pity, as, placing his foot across the man's armpit to hold him while he pulled, he put forth his strength, and drew out the steel. A gush of blood followed, and, with a groan, the soldier swooned.

"It is one of them wagabonds that gave you the tar and fedders!" said Carl.

"And assisted at my hanging afterwards!" added Penn, remembering the ghastly face.

Thus retribution followed these men. Gad and Griffin he had seen dead. Was it any satisfaction for him to feel that he was thus avenged? I think, not much. The devil of revenge had no place in his soul; and never for any personal wrong he had received would he have wished to see bloody violence done.

The prisoners were disarmed, and ordered to remain where they were.

"Bring the wounded to me," said Pomp, hastening back to the spot where Withers had fallen.

Stackridge and another were lifting the fallen patriot and bearing him to the shelter of the cave. Pomp assisted, skilfully and tenderly. Then followed those who bore away the wounded prisoners and the guns that had been captured. Pepperill had been ordered to help. He and Carl carried the man whose face Cudjo had slashed. This was the only rebel who had fought obstinately: he had not given up until an arm was broken, and he was blinded by his own blood. Penn and Devitt brought up the rear with the swooning soldier. When half way over they were fired upon by the rebels rallying to the edge of the cliff. Grudd and his men responded sharply, covering their retreat. Penn felt a bullet graze his shoulder. It made but a slight flesh wound there; but, passing down, it entered the heart of the wounded man, whose swoon became the swoon of death. This was the only serious result of the confederate fire.

"I am glad I did not kill him!" said Penn, as they laid the corpse beside the stream.

Then out of the mask of blood which covered the face of the stout fellow who had fought so well, there issued a voice that spoke, in a strange tongue, these words:--

"_Was hat man mir gethan? Wo bin ich, mutter?_"

But the words were not strange to Carl; neither was the voice strange.

"Fritz! Fritz!" he answered, in the same language, "is it you?"

"I am Fritz Minnevich; that is true. And you, I think, are my cousin Carl."

They laid the wounded man near the stream, where Pomp was examining Withers's hurt.

"O, Fritz!" said Carl, "how came you here?"

"They said the Yankees were coming to take our farm. So Hans and I enlisted to fight. I got in here because I was ordered. We do as we are ordered. It was we who whipped the woman. We whipped her well. I hope my good looks will not be spoiled; for that would grieve our mother."

Thus the soldier talked in his native tongue, while Carl, in sorrow and silence, washed the blood from his face. He remembered he was his father's brother's son; a good fellow, in his way; dull, but faithful; and he had not always treated him cruelly. Indeed, Carl thought not of his cruelty now at all, but only of the good times they had had together, in days when they were friends, and Frau Minnevich had not taught her boys to be as ill-natured as herself.

"What for do you do this, Carl?" said Fritz. "There is no cause that you should be kind to me. I did you some ill turns. You did right to run away. But our father swears you shall have your share of the property if you ever come back for it, and the Yankees do not take it."

"It is all lies they tell you about the Yankees!" said Carl. "O Pomp! this is my cousin--see what you can do for him."

Pomp had been reluctantly convinced that he could do nothing for Withers: his wound was mortal. And Withers had said to him, in cheerful, feeble tones, "I feel I'm about to the eend of my tether. So don't waste yer time on me."

So Pomp turned his attention to the Minnevich. But Penn and Stackridge remained with the dying patriot.

"Wish ye had a Union flag to wrap me in when I'm dead, boys! That's what I've fit fur; that's what I meant to die fur, if 'twas so ordered. It's all right, boys! Jest look arter my family a little, won't ye? And don't give up old Tennessee!"

These were his last words.

Penn and Stackridge rejoined their comrades in the fight.

"Shoot him! shoot him! shoot him!" cried Cudjo, in a frenzy of excitement, pointing at the rebel who had fallen from the tree upon the projection of the chasm wall. "Him dar! Dat Sile Ropes!"

"Ropes?" said Penn, looking up through the opening. "That he!"--raising his gun. "But he can do no harm there; and he can't get out."

"Don' ye see? Dey's got a rope to help him wif! Gib him a shot fust! O, gib him a shot!"

The projection to which the lieutenant clung was a broken shelf less than half a yard in breadth. There he cowered in abject terror betwixt two dangers, that of falling if he attempted to move, and that of being picked off if he remained stationary and in sight. To avoid both, he got upon his hands and knees, and hid his face in the angle of the ledge, leaving the posterior part of his person prominent, no doubt thinking, like an ostrich, that if his head was in a hole, he was safe. The very ludicrousness of his situation saved him. The patriots reserved him to laugh at, and fired over him at the rebels on the cliff. At each shot, Silas could be seen to root his nose still more industriously into the rock. At length, however, as Cudjo had declared, a rope was brought and let down to him.

"Take hold there!" shouted the rebels on the cliff. Ropes could feel the cord dangling on his back. "Tie it around your waist!"

Silas, without daring to look up, put out his hand, which groped awkwardly and blindly for the rope as it swung to and fro all around it. Finally, he seized it, but ran imminent risk of falling as he drew it under his body. At length he seemed to have it secured; but in his hurry and trepidation he had fastened it considerably nearer his hips than his arms. The result, when the rebels above began to haul, can be imagined. Hips and heels were hoisted, while arms and head hung down, causing him to resemble very strikingly a frog hooked on for bait at the end of a fish-line. The affrighted face drawn out of its hole, looked down ridiculously hideous into the rocky and bristling gulf over which he swung.

"Fire!" said Captain Grudd.

The volley was aimed, not at Silas, but at those who were hauling him up. Cudjo shrieked with frantic joy, expecting to see his old enemy plunge head foremost among the stones on the bank of the stream. Such, no doubt, would have been the result, but for one sturdy and brave fellow at the rope. The rest, struck either with bullets or terror, fell back, loosing their hold. But this man clung fast, imperturbable. Alone, slowly, hand over hand, he hauled and hauled; grim, unterrified, faithful. But it was a tedious and laborious task for one, even the stoutest. The man had but a precarious foothold, and the rope rubbed hard on the edge of the cliff. Cudjo shrieked again, this time with despair at seeing his former overseer about to escape.

"That's a plucky fellow!" said Stackridge, with stern admiration of the soldier's courage. "I like his grit; but he must stop that!"

He reached for a loaded gun. He took Carl's. The boy turned pale, but said never a word, setting his lips firmly as he looked up at the cliff. Silas was swinging. The soldier was pulling in the rope, hitch by hitch, over the ledge. Stackridge took deliberate aim, and fired.

For a moment no very surprising effect was perceptible, only the man stopped hauling. Then he went down on one knee, paying out several inches of the rope, and letting the suspended Silas dip accordingly. It became evident that he was hit; he still grasped the rope, but it began to glide through his hands. Silas set up a howl.

"Hold me! hold me!"--at the same time extending all his fingers to grasp the rocks.

The brave fellow made one last effort, and took a turn of the rope about his wrist. It did not slip through his hands any more. But soon _he_ began to slip--forward--forward--on both knees now--his head reeling like that of a drunken man, and at last pitching heavily over the cliff.

Some of the cowards who had deserted their post sprang to save him; but too late: the man was gone.

It was fortunate for Silas that he had been let down several feet thus gradually. He was near the ledge from which he had been lifted, and had just time to grasp it again and crawl upon it, when the man fell, turning a complete somerset over him, fearful to witness! revolving slowly in his swift descent through the air; still holding with tenacious grip the rope; plunging through the boughs like a mere log tumbled from the cliff, and striking the rocks below--dead.

He had taken the rope with him; and Silas had been preserved from sharing his fate only by a lucky accident. The knot at his hips loosened itself as he clutched the ledge, and let the coil fly off as the man shot down.

Not a gun was fired: rebels and patriots seemed struck dumb with horror at the brave fellow's fate. Then Carl whispered,--

"That vas my other cousin! That vas Hans!"

"Cudjo! Cudjo! what are you about?" cried Penn.

The black did not answer. Beside himself with excitement, he ran to the leaning tree and climbed it like an ape. The naked sword gleamed among the twigs. Reaching the trunk of the tall tree he ascended that as nimbly, never stopping until he had reached the upper limbs. There was one that branched towards the ledge where Silas clung. At a glance choosing that, Cudjo ran out upon it, until it bent beneath his weight. There he tried in vain to reach his ancient enemy with the sword; the distance was too great, even for his long arms.

"Sile Ropes! ye ol' oberseer! g'e know Cudjo? Me Cudjo!" he yelled, slashing the end of the branch as if it had been his victim's flesh. "'Member de lickins? 'Member my gal ye got away? Now ye git yer pay!"

While he was raving thus, one of the soldiers above, sheltering himself from the fire of the patriots by lying almost flat on the ground, levelled his gun at the half-crazed negro's breast, and pulled the trigger.

A flash--a report--the sword fell, and went clattering down upon the rocks. Cudjo turned one wild look upward, clapping his hand to his breast. Then, with a terrible grimace, he cast his eyes down again at Ropes,--crept still farther out on the branch,--and leaped.

Silas had his nose in the angle of the ledge again, and scarcely knew what had happened until he felt the negro alight on his back and fling his arms about him.

"Cudjo shot! Cudjo die! But you go too, Sile Ropes!"

As he gibbered forth these words, his long hands found the lieutenant's throat, and tightened upon it. A fearfully quiet moment ensued; then living and dying rolled together from the ledge, and dropped into the chasm. They struck the body of the dead Hans; that broke the fall; and Cudjo was beneath his victim. Ropes, stunned only, struggled to rise; but, held in that deadly embrace, he only succeeded in rolling himself down the embankment, Cudjo accompanying. The stream flowed beneath, black, with scarce a murmur. Silas neither saw nor heard it; but, continuing to struggle, and so continuing to roll, he reached the verge of the rocks, and fell with a splash into the current.

Penn ran to the spot just in time to see the two bodies disappear together; the dying Cudjo and the drowning Silas sinking as one, and drifting away into the cavernous darkness of the subterranean river.

XLIV.

_HOW AUGUSTUS FINALLY PROPOSED._

After this there was a lull; and Penn, who had forgotten every thing else whilst the conflict was raging, remembered that he had seen Bythewood at the ravine, and hastened to inform Pomp of the circumstance.

The death of Cudjo had plunged Pomp into a fit of stern, sad reverie. His surgical task performed, he stood leaning on his rifle, gazing abstractedly at the darkly gliding waves, when Penn's communication roused him.

"Ha!" said he, with a slight start. "We must look to that! The danger here is over for the present, and two or three of us can be spared."

"Shall I go, too?" said Carl. "It is time I vas seeing to my prisoner."

"Come," said Pomp. And the three set out to return.

Having but slight anticipations of trouble from the side of the ravine, they came suddenly, wholly unprepared, upon a scene which filled them with horror and amazement.

The prisoner, as we know, had fled. We left him on his way back to the cave with a squad of men. Since which time, this is what had occurred.

The assailants had approached so stealthily over the ledges, below which Toby was stationed, looking intently for them in another direction, that he had no suspicions of their coming until they suddenly dropped upon him as from the clouds. He had no time to run for his axe; and he had scarcely given the alarm when he was overpowered, knocked down, and rolled out of the way off the rocks.

The assailants then, with Lysander at their head, rushed to the entrance of the cave. But there they encountered unexpected resistance: the two sisters--Salina with the pistol, Virginia with the axe.

"Hello! Sal!" cried Lysander, recoiling into the arms of his men; "what the devil do you mean?"

"I mean to kill you, or any man that sets foot in this place! That is what I mean!"

There could be no doubt about it: her eyes, her attitude, her whole form, from head to foot, looked what she said. She was flushed; a smile of wild and reckless scorn curved her mouth, and her countenance gleamed with a wicked light.

By her side was Virginia, with the uplifted axe, expressing no less determination by her posture and looks, though she did not speak, though there was no smile on her pale lips, and though her features were as white as death.

"It's no use, gals!" said Sprowl. "Don't make fools of yourselves! You won't be hurt; but I'm bound to come in!"'

"Do not attempt it! You have broken your oath to me. But I have made an oath I shall not break!"

What that oath was Salina did not say; but Lysander's changing color betrayed that he guessed it pretty well.

"I don't care a d--n for you! Virginia, drop that axe, and come out here with your father, and I pledge my sacred honor that neither of you shall receive the least harm."

"Your sacred honor!" sneered Salina.

But Virginia said nothing. She stood like a clothed statue; only the eyes through which the fire of the excited spirit shone were not those of a statue; and the advanced white arm, beautiful and bare, from which the loose sleeve fell as it reared the axe, was of God's sculpture, not man's.

She seemed not to hear Lysander; for the promise of safety for herself was as nothing to her: she felt that she was there to defend, with her life, if needs were, the friends whom he had betrayed. Only a holy and great purpose like this could have nerved that gentle nature for such work, and made those tender sinews firm as steel.

There was something slightly devilish in the aspect of Salina; but Virginia was all the angel; yet it was the angel roused to strife.

"Call off your gals, Mr. Villars!" said Sprowl.

"Lysander!" said the solemn voice of the old minister from within, "hear me! We are but three here, as you see: a blind and helpless old man and two girls. Why do you follow to persecute us? Go your way, and learn to be a man. The business you are engaged in is unworthy of a man. My daughters do right to defend this place, which you, false and ungrateful, have betrayed. Attempt nothing farther; for we are not afraid to die!"

"Go in, boys!" shouted Lysander, himself shrinking aside to let the soldiers pass.

Salina fired the pistol--not at the soldiers.

"She has shot me!" said Lysander, staggering back. "Kill the fiend! kill her!"

Instantly two bayonets darted at her breast. One of them was struck down by Virginia's axe, which half severed the soldier's wrist. But before the axe could rise and descend again, the other bayonet had done its work; and the soldiers rushed in.

It was all over in a minute. The axe was seized and wrenched violently away. Toby lay senseless on the rocks without. Lysander was leaning dizzily, clutching at the ledge, a ghastly whiteness settling about the gay mustache, and a strange glassiness dimming his eyes. The soldiers had possession. Virginia was a prisoner, and her father; but not Salina. There was the body which had been hers, transfixed by the bayonet, and fallen upon the ground: that was palpable: but who shall capture the escaping soul?

When Penn and his companions arrived, not a living person was there; but alone, stretched upon the cold stone floor, where the gray light from the entrance fell,--pulseless, pallid, with pale hands crossed peacefully on her breast, hiding the wound, and features faintly smiling in their stony calm,--lay the corpse of her that was Salina. The fair cup that had brimmed with the bitterness of life was shattered. The soul that drank thereat had fled away in haughtiness and scorn.

Toby, groaning on the stones outside, felt somebody shaking him, and heard the voice of Carl asking how he was.

"Dunno'; sort o' common," said the old negro, trying to rise.

He knew nothing of what had happened, except that he had been fallen upon and beaten down: for the rest, it was useless to question him: not even Penn's agonies of doubt and fear could rouse his recollection.

* * * * *

Lieutenant-colonel Bythewood had committed the error of an officer green in his profession. The cave surprised, and the prisoners taken, the men retired in all haste, simply because they had received no orders to the contrary. Thus no advantage whatever was taken of the very important position which had been gained.

Leaving the dead behind, and carrying off the wounded and the prisoners, the sergeant, upon whom the command devolved after his captain was disabled, lost no time in reporting to the lieutenant-colonel.

Augustus stood up to receive the report and the prisoners,--extremely pale, but appearing preternaturally courteous and composed. He bowed very low to the old clergyman (who, he forgot, could not witness and appreciate that graceful act of homage), and expressed infinite regret that "his duty had rendered it necessary," and so forth. Then turning to Virginia, whose look was scarcely less stony than that of her dead sister in the cave, he bowed low to her also, but without speaking, and without raising his eyes to her face.

"Have this old gentleman carried to his own house, and see that every attention is paid to him."

"And my daughter?" said the blind old man, meekly.

"She shall follow you. I will myself accompany her."

"And my dead child up yonder?"

"She shall be brought to you at the earliest possible moment."

"And my faithful servant?"

"He shall be cared for."

"Thank you." And Mr. Villars bowed his white head upon his breast.

"Take the captain immediately to the hospital! And you fellow with the hacked wrist, go with him."

The number of men required to execute these orders (since both the old clergyman and the wounded captain had to be carried) left Augustus almost alone with Virginia. Having previously sent off all his available force to Ropes at the sink, in answer to a pressing call for reenforcements, he had now only the sergeant and two men at his beck. But perhaps this was as he wished it to be. He approached Virginia, and, bowing formally, still without speaking, offered her his arm.

"Thank you. I can walk without assistance." Like marble still, but with the same wild fire in her eyes. "The only favor I ask of you is to be permitted to leave you."

Bythewood made a motion to the sergeant, who removed his men farther off.

"I wish to have a few words of conversation with you, Miss Villars. I beg you to be seated here in the shade."

Virginia remained standing, regarding him with features pale and firm as when she held the axe. It was evident to her that here was another struggle before her, scarcely less to be dreaded than the first. Augustus looked at her, and smiled pallidly.

"If eyes could kill, Miss Villars, I think yours would kill me!"

"If polite cruelty can kill, YOU HAVE killed my sister!"

"O, I beg your pardon, dear Miss Villars, but it was not I!"

"I beg no pardon, but I say it WAS you! And now you will murder my father--perhaps me."

"O, my excellent young lady, how you have misunderstood me! By Heaven, I swear!"--his voice shook with sincere emotion,--"if I have committed a fault, it has been for the love of you! Such faults surely may be pardoned. Virginia! will you accept my life as an atonement for all I have done amiss? You shall bear my name, possess my wealth, and, if you do not like the cause I am engaged in, I will throw up my commission to-morrow. I will take you to France--Italy--Switzerland--wherever you wish to go. Nor do I forget your father. Whatever you ask for him shall be granted. I have money--influence--position--every thing that can make you happy."

There was a minute's pause, the intense glances of the girl piercing through and through that pale, polite mask to his soul. A selfish, chivalrous man; not a great villain, by any means; moved by a genuine, eager, unscrupulous passion for her--sincere at least in that; one who might be influenced to good, and made a most convenient and devoted husband: this she saw.

"Well, what more?"

"What more? Ah, you are thinking of your friends--I should say, of your friend! It is natural. I have no ill will against him. Whatever you ask for him shall be granted. At a word from me, the fighting up there ceases; and he and the rest shall be permitted to go wherever they choose, unharmed."

"Well, and if I reject your generous offer?"

Augustus smiled as he answered, with a hard, inexorable purpose in his tones,--

"Then, much as I love you, I can do nothing!"

"Nothing for my father?"

"Nothing!"

"Nor for me?"

"Not even for you!"

"Why, then, God pity us all!" said Virginia, calmly.

"Truly you may say, God pity you! For do you know what will happen? Your father will die in prison: you will never see him again. Your friends will be massacred to a man. I will be frank with you: to a man they will be given to the sword. They are but a dozen; we are fifty--a hundred--a thousand, if necessary. The sink has already been taken, and a force is on its way to occupy this end of the cave. If your friends hold out, they will be starved. If they fight, they will be bayoneted and shot. If they surrender, every living man of them shall be hung. There is no help for them. Lincoln's army, that has been coming so long, is a chimera; it will never come. The power is all in our hands; and not even God can help them. That sounds blasphemous, I know; but it is true. They are doomed. But I can save them--and you can save them."

"And what is to become of me?" asked Virginia, calmly as before.

"Your future is entirely in your own hands. On the one side, what I have promised. On the other----" Augustus thought he heard a crackling of sticks, and looked around.

"On the other,"--Virginia took up the unfinished speech,--"the fate of a friendless, fatherless, Union-loving woman in this chivalrous south! I know how you treat such women. I know what awaits me on that side. And I accept it. My friends can die. My father can die; and I can. All this I accept; all the rest, you and your offers, I reject. I would not be your wife to save the world. Because I not only do not love you, but because I detest you. You have my answer."

With swelling breast and set teeth Augustus kept his eyes upon her for full a minute, then replied, in a low voice shaken by passion,--

"I hoped your decision would be different. But it is spoken. I cannot hope to change it?"

"Can you change these rocks under our feet with empty words?" she said, with a white smile.

"All is over, then! Without cause you hate me, Miss Villars. Hitherto, in all that has happened to you and your friends, I have been blameless. If in the future I am not so, remember it is your own fault."

Then the fire flashed into Virginia's cheeks, and indignation rang in her tones as she denounced the falsehood.

"Hitherto, in the wrong that has happened to me and my friends, you have NOT been blameless! In the future you cannot do more to injure us than you have already done, or meant to do. Look at me, and listen while I prove what I say."

Again there was a slight noise in the thicket behind them, and he would have been glad to make that an excuse for leaving her a moment; but her spirit held him.

"I listen," he said, inwardly quaking at he knew not what.

"Do you remember the night my father was arrested?"

"I do."

"And how you that day took a journey to be away from us in our trouble?"

"I certainly took a short journey that day, but--" his eyes flickering with the uneasiness of guilt.

"And do you remember a conversation you had with Lysander under a bridge?"

His face suddenly flushed purple. "The villain has betrayed me!" he thought. Then he stammered, "I hope you have not been listening to any of that fellow's slanders!"

"You talked with Lysander under the bridge. Your conversation was heard, every word of it, by a third person, who lay concealed under the planks, behind you."

"A villanous spy!" articulated Augustus.

"No spy--but the man you two were at that moment seeking to kill: Penn Hapgood, the Schoolmaster."

It was a blow. Poor Bythewood, too luxurious and inert to be a great villain, was only a weak one; and, wounded in his most sensitive point, his pride, he writhed for a space with unutterable chagrin and rage. Then he recovered himself. He had heard the worst; and now there was nothing left for him but to cast down and trample with his feet (so to speak) the mask that had been torn from his face.

"Very well! You think you know me, then!"--He seized her wrists.--"Now hear me! I am not to be spurned like a dog, even by the foot of the woman I love. You reject, despise, insult me. As for me, I say this: all shall be as I have pronounced. Your father, your lover,--not Fate itself shall intervene to save them! And as for you----"

Again he heard a rustling by the ravine; this time so near that it startled him. He looked quickly around, and saw, slowly peering through the bushes, a dark human face. Had it been the terrible front of the Fate he had just defied, the soul of Augustus Bythewood could not have shrunk with a more sudden and appalling fear. It was the face of Pomp.

XLV.

_MASTER AND SLAVE CHANGE PLACES._

The sergeant and his men were several rods distant: the bush through which that menacing visage peered was within as many feet. Augustus reached for his revolver.

"Make a single move--speak a single word--and you are food for the buzzards!" came a whisper from the bush that well might chill his blood. "You know this rifle--and you know me!" And in the negro's face shone a persuasive glitter of the old, untamable, torrid ferocity of his tribe--not pleasing to Augustus.

"What do you want?"

"Give your revolver to that girl--instantly!"

"I have men within call!"

"So have I."

Through the bush, advancing noiselessly, came the straight steel barrel of a rifle that had never missed fire but once: that was when it had been aimed by Augustus at the head of Pomp. Now it was aimed by Pomp at the head of Augustus; and it was hardly to be expected that it would be so obliging as to remember that one fault, and, for the sake of fairness, repeat it, now that positions were reversed. Bythewood hesitated, in mortal fear.

"Obey me! I shall not speak again!"

And there was heard in the bush another slight noise, too short, quick, and clicking, to be the crackle of a twig. Neither was that pleasing to the mind of Augustus. He turned, and with trembling hand made Virginia a present of the revolver.

"Do you know how to use it?" Pomp asked. She nodded, breathless. "And you will use it if necessary?" She nodded again, and held the weapon prepared. "Now,"--to Bythewood,--"send those men away."

"What do you mean to do?"

"I mean to spare their lives and yours, if you obey me. To kill you without much delay if you do not."

"If you shoot,"--Bythewood was beginning to regain his dignity,--"they will rush to the spot before you can escape, and avenge me well!"

A superb, masterful smile mounted to the ebon visage, and the answer came from the bush,--

"Look where the bowlder lies, up there by the ravine. You will see a twinkle of steel among the leaves. There are guns aimed at your men. You understand."

Perhaps Augustus did not distinguish the guns; but he understood. At a signal, his men would be shot down.

"I would prefer not to shed blood. So decide and that quickly!" said Pomp.

"And if I comply?"

"Comply readily with all I shall demand of you, and not a hair of your head shall be harmed. Now I count ten. At the word ten, I send a bullet through your heart if those men are still there." He commenced, like one telling the strokes of a tolling bell: "One----two----three----four----five----"

"Sergeant," called Augustus, "take your men and report to Lieutenant Ropes at the sink."

"A fine time to be taken up with a love affair!" growled the sergeant, as he obeyed.

"Now what?" said Bythewood, under an air of bravado concealing the despair of his heart.

"Come!" said Pomp, with savage impatience,--for he knew well that, if Bythewood had not yet learned of Ropes's death, messengers must be on the way to him, and therefore not a moment was to be lost. He opened the bushes. Augustus crept into them: Virginia followed. But then suddenly the negro seemed to change his plans, the spirit and firmness of the girl inspiring him with a fresh idea.

"Miss Villars, we are going to the cave. Look down the ravine there;--you see this path is rough."

"O, I can go anywhere, you know!"

"But haste is necessary. You shall return the way you came. Take this man with you. If you are seen by his soldiers, they will think all is well. Make him go before. Shoot him if he turns his head. Dare you?"

"I will!" said Virginia.

"Keep near the ravine. My rifle will be there. If you have any difficulty, I will end it. Now march!"--thrusting Bythewood out of the thicket.--"Straight on!--Carry your pistol cocked, young lady!"

Bitterly then did the noble Augustus repent him of having sent his guard away: "I ought to have died first!" But it was too late to recall them; and there was no way left him but to yield--or appear to yield--implicit obedience.

What a situation for a son of the chivalrous south! He had reviled Lysander for having been made prisoner by a boy; and here was he, the haughty, the proud, the ambitious, overawed by a negro's threats, and carried away captive by a girl! However, he had a hope--a desperate one, indeed. He would watch for an opportunity, wheel suddenly upon Virginia, seize the pistol, and escape,--risking a shot from it, which he knew she was firmly determined to deliver in case of need (for had he not seen the soldier's gashed wrist?)--and risking also (what was more serious still) a shot from the rifle in the ravine.

But when they came to the bowlder, there the resolution he had taken fell back leaden and dead upon his heart. He had, on reflection, concluded that the twinkle of guns in the leaves there was but a fiction of the wily African brain. As he passed, however, he perceived two guns peeping through. He knew not what exultant hearts were behind them,--what eager eyes beneath the boughs were watching him, led thus tamely into captivity; but he was impressed with a wholesome respect for them, and from that moment thought no more of escape.

As Virginia approached the cave with her prisoner, the two guns, having followed them closely all the way, came up out of the ravine. They were accompanied by Penn and Carl. In the gladness of that sight Virginia almost forgot her dead sister and her captive father. Those two dear familiar faces beamed upon her with joy and triumph. But there was one who was not so glad. This Quaker schoolmaster, turned fighting man, was the last person Augustus (who was unpleasantly reminded of the conversation under the bridge) would have wished to see under such embarrassing circumstances.

In the cave was Toby, wailing over the dead body of Salina. But at sight of the living sister he rose up and was comforted.

Pomp had remained to cover the retreat. When all were safely arrived, he came bounding into the cave, jubilant. His bold and sagacious plans were thus far successful; and it only remained to carry them out with the same inexorable energy.

"Sit here." Augustus took one of the giant's stools. "I have a few words to say to this man: in the mean while, one of you"--turning to Penn and Carl--"hasten to the sink, and ask Stackridge to send me as many men as he can spare. Bring a couple of the prisoners--we shall need them."

"I'll go!" Carl cried with alacrity.

"And," added Pomp, "if there are any wounded needing my assistance, have them brought here. I shall not, probably, be able to go to them."

While he was giving these directions, with the air of one who felt that he had a momentous task before him, Bythewood sat on the rock, his head heavy and hot, his feet like clods of ice, and his heart collapsing with intolerable suspense. The gloom of the cave, and the strangeness of all things in it; the sight of the corpse near the entrance,--of Toby, at Virginia's suggestion, wiping up the pools of blood,--Virginia herself perfectly calm; Penn carefully untying and straightening the pieces of rope that had served to bind Lysander,--all this impressed him powerfully.

"I suppose," said he, "I am to be treated as a prisoner of war."

Pomp smiled. "Answer me a question. If you had caught me, would you have treated me as a prisoner of war?--Yes or no; we have no time for parley."

"No," said Augustus, frankly.

"Very well! I have caught you!"

Fearfully significant words to the prisoner, who remembered all his injustice to this man, and the tortures he had prepared for him when he should be taken! But he had not been taken. On the contrary, he, the slave, could stand there, calm and smiling, before him, the master, and say, with peculiar and compressed emphasis, "_Very well! I have caught you!_"

"You promised that not a hair of my head should be injured."

"The hair of your head is not the flesh of your body. No, I will not injure _the hair_!"--Pomp waited for his prisoner to take in all the horrible suggestiveness of this equivocation; then resumed. "Is not that what you would have said to me if you had found me in your power after making me such a promise? The black man has no rights which the white man is bound to respect! The most solemn pledges made by one of your race to one of mine are to be heeded only so long as suits your convenience. Did you not promise your dying brother in your presence to give me my freedom? Answer,--yes or no."

"Yes," faltered Augustus.

"And did you give it me?"

"No." And Augustus felt that out of his own mouth he was condemned.

"Well, I shall keep my promise better than you kept yours. Comply with all I demand of you (this is what I said), and no part of you, neither flesh nor hair, shall be harmed."

"What do you demand of me?"

"This. Here are pen and ink. Write as I dictate."

"What?"

"An order to have the fighting on your side discontinued, and your forces withdrawn."

Augustus hesitated to take the pen.

"I have no words to waste. If you do not comply readily with what I require, it is no object for me that you should comply at all."

Penn came and stood by Pomp, looking calm and determined as he. Virginia came also, and looked upon the prisoner, without a smile, without a frown, but strangely serious and still. These were the three against whom he had sinned in the days of his power and pride; and now his shame was bare before them. He took the quill, bit the feather-end of it in supreme perplexity of soul, then wrote.

"Very well," said Pomp, reading the order. "But you have forgotten to sign it." Augustus signed. "Now write again. A letter to your colonel. Mr. Hapgood, please dictate the terms."

Penn understood the whole scheme; he had consulted with Virginia, and he was prepared.

"A safe conduct for Mr. Villars, his daughter and servants, beyond the confederate lines. This is all I have to insist upon."

"I," said Pomp, "ask more. The man who betrayed us must be sent here."

"If you mean Sprowl," said Bythewood, "his wife has no doubt saved the trouble."

"Not Sprowl, but Deslow."

Bythewood was terrified. Pomp had spoken with the positiveness of clear knowledge and unalterable determination. But how was it possible to comply with his demand? Deslow had been promised not only pardon, but protection from the very men he betrayed! Therefore he could not be given up to them without the most cowardly and shameful perfidy.

"I have no influence whatever with the military authorities," the prisoner said, after taking ample time for consideration.

"You forget what you boasted to Sprowl, under the bridge," said Penn.

"You forget what you just now boasted to me," said Virginia.

"Call it boasting," said Bythewood, doggedly. "Absolutely, I have not the power to effect what you require."

"It is your misfortune, then," said Pomp. "To have boasted so, and now to fail to perform, will simply cost you your life. Will you write? or not?"

The prisoner remained sullen, abject, silent, for some seconds. Then, with a deep breath which shook all his frame, and an expression of the most agonizing despair on his face, he took the pen.

"I will write; but I assure you it will do no good."

"So much the worse for you," was the grim response.

Mechanically and briefly Bythewood drew up a paper, signed his name, and shoved it across the table.

"Does that suit you?"

Pomp did not offer to take it.

"If it suits you, well. I shall not read it. It is not the letter that interests us; it is the result."

Bythewood suddenly drew back the paper, pondered its contents a moment, and cast it into the fire.

"I think I had better write another."

"I think so too. I fear you have not done what you might to impress upon the colonel's mind the importance of these simple terms--a safe conduct for Mr. Villars and family, the troops withdrawn entirely from the mountains, and Deslow delivered here to-night. This is plain enough; and you see the rest of us ask nothing for ourselves. I advise you to write freely. Open your mind to your friend. And beware,"--Pomp perceived by a strange expression which had come into the prisoner's face that this counsel was necessary,--"beware that he does not misunderstand you, and send a force to rescue you from our hands. If such a thing is attempted, this cave will be found barricaded. With what, you wonder? With those stones? With your dead body, my friend!"

After that hint, it was evident Augustus did not choose to write what had first entered his mind on learning that his address to the colonel was not to be examined. Penn handed him a fresh sheet, and he filled it--a long and confidential letter, of which we regret that no copy now exists.

Before it was finished, Carl returned, accompanied by four of the patriots and two of the prisoners. One of these last was Pepperill. He was immediately paroled, and sent off to the sink with the order that had been previously written. The letter completed, it was folded, sealed, and despatched by the other prisoner to Colonel Derring's head-quarters.