Chapter XXXIX: A Council of War (7)

Comfortless, yet calm, she explored the ground for a resting-place. She cleared the twigs away from the roots of a tree, and laid herself down there on the moss and old leaves. Everything seemed dank with the never-failing dews of the deep and sheltered gorge; but she did not mind the dampness of her couch. A strong wind was rising, and the great trees above her swayed and moaned. She was vexed by mosquitoes that bit as if they then for the first time tasted blood, and never expected to taste it again; but she was too weary to care much for them either. She rested her arm on the mossy root; she rested her head on her arm; she drew her handkerchief over her face; she shut out from her soul all the miseries and dangers of her situation, and quietly said her prayers.

There is nothing that calms the perturbations of the mind like that inward looking for the light of God's peace which descends upon us when in silence and sweet trust we pray to him. A delicious sense of repose ensued, and her thoughts floated off in dreams.

She dreamed she was flying with her father from the fury of armed men. She led him into a wilderness; and it was night; and great rocks rose up suddenly before them in the gloom, and awful chasms yawned. Then she was wandering alone; she had lost her father, and was seeking him up and down. Then it seemed that Penn was by her side; and when she asked for her father he smilingly pointed upward at a wondrously beautiful light that shone from the summit of a hill. She sought to go up thither, but grew weary, and sat down to rest in a deep grove, with an ice-cold mountain stream dashing at her feet. Then the light on the hill became a lake of fire, and it poured its waves into the stream, and the stream flowed past her a roaring river of flame. Lightnings crackled in the air above her. Thunderbolts fell. The heat was intolerable. The river had overflowed, and set the world on fire. And she could not fly, for terror chained her limbs. She struggled, screamed, awoke. She started up. Her dream was a reality.

Either the fire set by the soldiers had spread, driven by the wind over the dry leaves, into the grove below her, or else they had fired the grove itself on their retreat. Her eyes opened upon a vision of appalling brightness. For a moment she stood utterly dazzled and bewildered, not knowing where she was. Memory and reason were paralyzed: she could not remember, she could not think: amazement and terror possessed her.

Instinctively shielding her eyes, she looked down. The ground where she had lain, the log, the sticks, the moss, and her handkerchief fallen upon it, were illumined with a glare brighter than noonday. At sight of the handkerchief came recollection. Her terrible adventure, the glow she had seen in the woods, her bed on the earth,--she remembered everything. And now the actual perils of her position became apparent to her returning faculties.

Where all was blackness when she lay down, now all was preternatural light. Every bush and jutting rock of the wild overhanging cliffs stood out in fearful distinctness. The saplings and trees on their summits, fifty feet above her head, seemed huddling together, and leaning forward terror-stricken, in an atmosphere of whirling flame and smoke. Climb those cliffs she could not, though she were to die.

She must then flee farther up into the deep and narrow gorge, or endeavor to escape by the way she had come. But the way she had come was fire.

The conflagration already enveloped the mouth of the gorge, shutting her in. The trunks of near trees stood like the bars of a stupendous cage, through which she looked at the raging demons beyond. Burning limbs fell, shooting through the air with trails of flame. Every tree was a pillar of fire. Here a bough, still untouched, hung, dark and impassive, against the lurid, surging chaos. Then the whirlwind of heated air struck it, and you could see it writhe and twist, until its darkness burst into flame. There stood what was late a lordly maple, but now,--trunk, and limb, and branch,--a tree of living coal. And down under this gulf of fire flowed the brook, into which showers of sparks fell hissing, while over all, fearfully illumined clouds of smoke and cinders and leaves went rolling up into the sky.

Virginia approached near enough to be impressed with the dreadful certainty that there was no outlet whatever, for any mortal foot, in that direction. Tortured by the heat, and pursued by lighted twigs, that fell like fiery darts around her, she fled back into the gorge.

The conflagration was still spreading rapidly. The timber along both sides of the gorge, at its opening, began to burn upwards towards the summits of the cliffs. Soon the very spot where she had slept, and where she now paused once more in her terrible perplexity and fear, would be an abyss of flame.

Again she took to flight, hasting along the edge of the stream, up into the heart of the gorge. Over roots of trees, over old decaying trunks, over barricades of dead limbs brought down by freshets and left lodged, she climbed, she sprang, she ran. All too brightly her way was lighted now. A ghastly yellow radiance was on every object. The waters sparkled and gleamed as they poured over the dark brown stones. Every slender, delicate fern, every poor little startled wild flower nestled in cool, dim nooks, was glaringly revealed. Little the frightened girl heeded these darlings of the forest now.

All the way she looked eagerly for some slant or cleft in the mountain walls where she might hope to ascend. Here, over the accumulated soil of centuries, fastened by interwoven roots to the base of the cliff, she might have climbed a dozen feet or more. Yonder, by the aid of shrubs and boughs, she might have drawn herself up a few feet farther. But, wherever her eye ranged along the ledges above, she beheld them dizzy-steep and unscalable. And so she kept on until even the way before her was closed up.

On the brink of a rock-rimmed, flashing basin she stopped. Down into this, from a shelf twenty feet in height, fell the brook in a bright, fire-tinted cascade. Fear-inspired as she was, she could not but pause and wonder at the strange beauty of the scene,--the plashy pool before her, the flame-color on the veil of silver foam dropped from the brow of the ledge, and--for a wild background to the picture--the wooded, fire-lit, shadowy gorge, opening on a higher level above.

During the moment that she stood there, a great bird, like an owl, that had probably been driven from his hollow tree or fissure in the rocks by the conflagration, flapped past her face, almost touching her with his wings, and dashed blindly against the waterfall. He was swept down into the pool. After some violent fluttering and floundering in the water, he extricated himself, perched on a stone at its edge, shook out his wet feathers, and stared at her with large cat-like eyes, without fear. She was near enough to reach him with her hand; but either he was so dazzled and stunned that he took no notice of her, or else the greater terror had rendered him tame to human approach. She believed the latter was the case, and saw something exceedingly awful in the incident. When even the wild winged creatures of the forest were stricken down with fear, what cause had she to apprehend danger to herself!

On reaching the waterfall she had felt for a moment that all was over--that certain death awaited her. Then, out of her very despair, came a gleam of hope. She might creep under the cascade, or behind it, and that would protect her. But when she looked up, and saw, around and above her, the forest trees with the frightful and ever-increasing glow upon them, and knew that they too soon must kindle, and thought of firebrands rained down upon her, and falling columns of fire filling the gorge with burning rubbish,--then her soul sickened: what protection would a little sheet of water prove against such furnace heat?

No: she must escape, or perish. Beside the cascade there was a broken angle of the rocks, by which, if she could reach it, she might at least, she thought, climb to the upper part of the gorge. But the nearest foothold she could discover was ten feet above the basin, in sheer ascent. The ledge was dank and slippery with the dashing spray. Gain the top of it, however, she must. She ran up the embankment under the cliff. Here a sapling gave her support; she clung to a crevice or projection there; a drooping bough saved her from falling when the soft earth slid from beneath her feet farther on. So she climbed along the side of the precipice, until the broken corner of the cliff was hardly two yards off before her. Yes, a secure foothold was there, and above it rose irregular pointed stairs, leading steeply to the top of the cascade. O, to reach that shattered ledge! A space of perpendicular wall intervened. No shrub, no drooping bough, was there. Here was only a slight projection, just enough to rest the edge of a foot upon. She placed her foot upon it. She found a crevice above, and thrust her fingers into it as if there was no such thing as pain. She clung, she took a step--she was half a yard nearer the angle. But what next could she do? She was hanging in the air above the basin, into which the slightest slip would precipitate her. To change hands--relieve the one advanced and insert the fingers of the other in its place,--was a perilous undertaking. But she did it. Then she reached forward again with hand and foot, found another spot to cling to, and took another step. She was thankful for the great light that lighted the rocks before her. Close by now was the fractured angle of the cliff: one more step, and she could set her foot upon the nethermost stair. Her strength was almost gone; her hands, though insensible to pain, were conscious of slipping. To fall would be to lose all she had gained, and all the strength she had exhausted in the effort. Her feet now--or rather one of them--had a tolerably secure hold on the rib of the ledge. She made one last effort with her hands, and, just as she was falling, gave a spring. She knew that all was staked upon that one dizzy instant of time. But for that knowledge she could never have accomplished what she did. She fell forwards towards the angle, caught a point of the rock with her hands, and clung there until she had safely placed her feet.

This done, it was absolutely necessary to stop a moment to rest. She looked downwards and behind her, to see what she had done. The sight made her dizzy--it seemed such a miracle that she could ever have scaled that wall!

Nearer and louder roared the conflagration, and she had little time to delay. Her labor was not ended, neither was the danger past. She cast a hurried glance upwards over the ridge she was to climb, and advanced cautiously, step by step. Her soul kept saying within her, "I will not fall; I will not fall;" but she dared not look backwards again, lest even then she should grow giddy and miss her hold.

As she ascended, the ridge inclined nearer and nearer to the side of the cascade, until she found the stones slimy and dripping. This was an unforeseen peril. Still she resolutely advanced, taking the utmost precaution at each step against slipping. At length she was at the top of the waterfall. She could look up into the upper gorge, and see the water come rushing down. There was space beside the brook for her to continue her flight; and the sides of the gorge above were far less steep and rugged than below. She was thrilled with hope. She had but one steep, high stair to surmount. She was getting her knee upon it, when a crashing sound in the underbrush arrested her attention. The crashing was followed by a commotion in the water, and she saw a huge black object plunge into the stream, and come sweeping down towards her.

On it came, straight at the rock on which she clung, and from which a motion, a touch, might suffice to hurl her back into the lower gorge. She saw what it was; and for a moment she was frozen with terror. She was directly in its path: it would not stop for her. The sight of the blazing woods below, however, brought it to a sudden halt. And there, close by the brink of the waterfall, facing her, not a yard distant, in the full glare of the fire, it rose slowly on its hind feet to look--a monster of the forest, an immense black bear.

And now, but for the nightmare of horror that was upon her, Virginia might have perceived that the forest _above_ the cascade was likewise wrapped in flames. The bear had been driven by the terror of them down the stream; and here, between the two fires, on the verge of the waterfall, the slight young girl and the great shaggy wild beast had met. She would have shrieked, but she had no voice. The bear also was silent; with his huge hairy bulk reared up before her, his paws pendant, and his jaws half open in a sort of stupid amazement, he stood and gazed, uttering never a growl.

XXIX.

_IN THE BURNING WOODS._

The incessant excitement and fatigue of the past few days had caused Penn to fall asleep almost immediately after Carl left him. The rude ground on which he stretched himself proved a blissful couch of repose. Virginia climbed the mountain to meet him, and no fine intuitive sense of her approach thrilled him with wakeful expectancy. Carl was captured, and still he slept. The lost young girl wandered within fifty yards of where he lay steeped in forgetfulness, dreaming, perhaps, of her; and all the time they were as unconscious of each other's presence as were Evangeline and her lover when they passed each other at night on the great river.

Penn was the first to wake; and still his stupid heart whispered to him no syllable of the strange secret of the beautiful sleeper whom he might have looked down upon from the edge of the cliff so near.

The grove had been but recently fired, and it would have been easy enough then for him to rush into the gorge and rescue her. From what terrors, from what perils would she have been saved! But he wasted the precious moments in staring amazement; then, thinking of his own safety, he commenced running _away_ from her,--his escape lighted by the same fatal flames that were enclosing her within the gorge.

She never knew whether, on awaking, she cried for help or remained dumb; nor did it matter much then: he was already too far off to hear.

The glow on the clouds lighted all the broad mountain side. Under the ruddy canopy he ran,--now through dimly illumined woods, and now over bare rocks faintly flushed by the glare of the sky.

As he drew near the cave, he saw, on a rock high above him, a wild human figure making fantastic gestures, and prostrating itself towards the burning forests. He ran up to it, and, all out of breath, stood on the ledge.

"Cudjo! Cudjo! what are you doing here?"

The negro made no reply, but, folding his arms above his head, spread them forth towards the fire, bowing himself again and again, until his forehead touched the stone.

Penn shuddered with awe. For the first time in his life he found himself in the presence of an idolater. Cudjo belonged to a tribe of African fire-worshippers, from whom he had been stolen in his youth; and, although the sentiment of the old barbarous religion had smouldered for years forgotten in his breast, this night it had burst forth again, kindled by the terrible splendors of the burning mountain.

Penn waited for him to rise, then grasped his arm. The negro, startled into a consciousness of his presence, stared at him wildly.

"That is not God, Cudjo!"

"No, no, not your God, massa! My God!" and the African smote his breast. "Me mos' forgit him; now me 'members! Him comin' fur burn up de white folks, and set de brack man free!"

Penn stood silent, thinking the negro might not be altogether wrong. No doubt the dim, dark soul of him saw vaguely, with that prophetic sense which is in all races of men, a great truth. A fire was indeed coming--was already kindled--which was to set the bondman free: and God was in the fire. But of that mightier conflagration, the combustion of the forests was but a feeble type.

Penn turned from Cudjo to watch the burning, and became aware of its threatening and rapidly increasing magnitude. The woods had been set in several places, but the different fires were fast growing into one, swept by a strong wind diagonally across and up the mountain. It seemed then as if nothing could prevent all the forest growths that lay to the southward and westward along the range from being consumed.

As he gazed, he became extremely alarmed for the safety of Stackridge and his friends: and where all this time was Carl? In vain he questioned Cudjo. He turned, and was hastening to the cave when he met Pomp coming towards him. Tall, majestic, naked to the waist, wearing a garment of panther-skins, with the red gleam of the fire on his dusky face and limbs, the negro looked like a native monarch of the hills.

"O Pomp! what a fire that is!"

"What a fire it is going to be!" answered Pomp, with a lurid smile. "Our new neighbors have brought us bad luck. All those woods are gone. The fire is sweeping up directly towards us--it will pass over all the mountain--nothing will be left." Yet he spoke with a lofty calmness that astonished Penn.

"And our friends!--Carl!--have you heard from them?"

"I have not seen Carl since he left the cave with you, nor any of Stackridge's people to-night."

"Then they are in the woods yet!"

"Yes; unless they have been wise enough to get out of them! I was just starting out to look for them.--Who comes there?"--poising his rifle.

"It's Carl!" exclaimed Penn, recognizing the confederate coat. But in an instant he saw his mistake.

"It is one of Ropes's men!" said Pomp. "He has discovered us--he shall die for setting my mountains on fire!"

"Hold!" Penn grasped his arm. "He is beckoning and calling!"

Pomp frowned as he lowered his rifle, and waited for the soldier to come up.

"What! is it you? I didn't know you in that dress, and came near shooting you, as you deserve, for wearing it!" And Pomp turned scornfully away.

The comer was Dan Pepperill, breathless with haste, horror-struck, haggard. It was some time before he could reply to Penn's impetuous demand--what had brought him up thither?

"Carl!" he gasped.

"What has happened to Carl?"

"Ben tuck! durned if he hain't! But that ar ain't the wust!"

"What, then, is the worst?" for that seemed bad enough.

"Virginny--Miss Villars!"

"Virginia! what of her?"

"She's down thar! in the fire!"

"Virginia in the fire!"

"She ar,--durned if she ain't! Carl said she war on the mountain, and wanted me to hurry up and help her or find you; and I'd a done it, but I couldn't git off till we was runnin' from the fires we'd sot; then I kinder got scattered a puppus; t'other ones hung on to Carl, though, so I had to come alone."

Penn interrupted the loose and confused narrative--Virginia: had he _seen_ her?

"Wal, I reckon I hev! Ye see I war huntin' fur her thar, above the round rock; fur Carl said,----"

A short, sharp groan broke from the lips of Penn. At first the idea of Virginia being on the mountain had appeared to him incredible. But at the mention of the place of rendezvous the truth smote him: she had come up there with Toby, or in his stead. With spasmodic grip he wrung Pepperill's arm as if he would have wrung the truth out of him that way.

"You saw her!--where?"

His hoarse voice, his terrible look, bewildered the poor man more and more.

"I war a tellin' ye! Don't break my arm, and don't look so durned f'erce at me, and I'll out with the hull story. Ye see, I warn't to blame, now, no how. They sot the fires; they sot the grove on our way back; and if I helped any, 'twas cause I had ter. But about _her_. Wal, I begun to the big rock, and war a-huntin' up along, till the grove got all in a blaze, and the red limbs begun ter fall, and I see 'twas high time for me to put. Says I ter myself, 'She hain't hyar; she ar off the mountain and safe ter hum afore this time, shore!' But jest then I heern a screech; it sounded right inter the grove, and I run up as clust ter the fire's I could, and looked, and thar I seen right in the middle on't, amongst the burnin' trees, a woman's gownd, and then a face: 'twas her face, I knowed it, fur she hadn't nary bunnit on, and the fire shone on it bright as lightnin'! But thar war half a acre o' blazin' timber atween her and me; and besides, I was so struck up all of a heap, I couldn't do nary thing fur nigh about a minute--I couldn't even holler ter let her know I war thar. And 'fore I knowed what I war about, durned if she hadn't gone!"

Penn afterwards understood that Dan had actually had a glimpse of Virginia when she ran out to the entrance of the gorge, and stood there a moment in the terrible heat and glare.

"Where--show me where!" he exclaimed with fierce vehemence, dragging Pepperill after him down the rocks.

"It war a considerable piece this side the round rock, nigh the upper eend o' the grove," said Dan, in a jarred voice, clattering after him, as fast as he could. "I reckon I kin find it, if 'tain't too late."

Too late? It must not be too late! Penn leaps down the ledges, and rushes through the thickets, as if he would overtake time itself. They reach the burning grove. Pepperill points out as nearly as he can the spot where he stood when he saw Virginia. Great God! if she was in there, what a frightful end was hers!

"Daniel! are you sure?"--for Penn cannot, will not believe--it is too terrible!

Daniel is very sure; and he withdraws from the insufferable heat, to which his companion appears insensible.

"There is a gorge just above there; perhaps she escaped into the gorge. O, if I had known!" groans the half-distracted youth, thinking how near he must have been to her when the fire awoke him.

He still hopes that Dan's vision of her in the fire was but the hallucination of a bewildered brain. Yet no effort will he spare, no danger will he shun. The entrance to the gorge is all a gulf of flame; and the woods are blazing upwards along the cliffs, and all the forest beyond is turning to a sea of fire. Yet the gorge must be reached. Back again up the steep slope they climb. Penn flies to the verge of the cliff. He looks down: the chasm is all a glare of light. There runs the red-gleaming brook. He sees the logs, the stones, the mosses, all the wild entanglement, deep below. But no Virginia. He runs almost into the crackling flames, in order to peer farther down the gorge. Then he darts away in the opposite direction, along the very brink of the precipice, among the fire-lit trees,--Pepperill stupidly following. He seizes hold of a sapling, and, with his foot braced against its root, swings his body forward over the chasm, the better to gaze into its depths. From that position he casts his eye up the gorge. He sees the cascade falling over the ledge in a sheet of ruddy foam. He discovers the upper gorge; sees a monster of the forest come plunging and plashing down to the fall, and there lift himself on his haunches to look;--and what is that other object, half hidden by a drooping bough? It is Virginia clinging to the rocks.

A moment before, had Penn made the discovery of the young girl still unharmed by fire, his happiness would have been supreme. But now joy was checked by an appalling fear. The bear might seize her, or with a stroke of his paw hurl her from his path.

Penn caught hold of the bough that impeded his view, and saw how precarious was her hold. He dared not so much as call to her, or shout to frighten the monster away, lest, her attention being for an instant distracted, she might turn her head, lose her balance, and fall backwards from the rocks.

"Durned if she ain't thar!" said Dan, excitedly. "But she's got a powerful slim chance with the bar!"

"Come with me!" said Penn.

He ran to the upper gorge, showed himself on the bank above the cascade, and shouted. The bear, as he anticipated, turned and looked up at him. Virginia at the same time saw her deliverer.

"Hold on! I'll be with you in a minute!" he cried in a voice heard above the noise of the waterfall and the roar of the conflagration.

She clung fast, hope and gladness thrilling her soul, and giving her new strength.

To reach her, Penn had a precipitous descent of near thirty feet to make. He did not pause to consider the difficulty of getting up again, or the peril of encountering the bear. He jumped down over a perpendicular ledge upon a projection ten feet below. Beyond that was a rapid slope covered with moss and thin patches of soil, with here and there a shrub, and here and there a tree. Striking his heels into the soil, and catching at whatever branch or stem presented itself, he took the plunge. Clinging, sliding, falling, he arrived at the bottom. In a posture half sitting, half standing, and considerably jarred, he found himself face to face with Bruin. The animal had settled down on all fours, and now, with his surly, depressed head turned sullenly to one side, he looked at Penn, and growled. Penn looked at him, and said nothing. He had heard of staring wild beasts out of countenance--an experiment that could be conducted strictly on peace principles, if the bear would only prove as good a Quaker as himself. He resolved to try it: indeed, all unarmed as he was, what else could he do? He might at least, by diverting the brute's attention, give Virginia time to get into a position of safety. So he stood up, and fixed his eyes on the red-blinking eyes of the ferocious beast. Something Bruin did not like: it might have been the youth's company and valiant bearing, but more probably his observation of the fire had satisfied him that he was out of his place. With another growl, that seemed to say, "All I ask is to be let alone," he seceded,--turning his head still more, twisting his body around, after it, and retreating up the gorge.

In an instant Penn was at the young girl's side: his hand clasped hers; he drew her up over the rock.

Not a word was uttered. He was too agitated to speak; and she, after the terror and the strain to which her nerves had been subjected so long, felt all her strength give way. But as he lifted her in his arms, a faint smile of happiness flitted over her white face, and her lips moved with a whisper of gratitude he did not hear.

In spite of all the dangers behind them, and of the dangers still before, both felt, in that moment, a shock of mutual bliss. Neither had ever known till then how dear the other was.

Pepperill had by this time leaped down upon the bulge of the bank. There he waited for them, shouting,--

"Hurry up! the bar'll meet the fire up thar, and be comin' down agin!"

Penn required no spur to his exertions: he knew too well the necessity of getting speedily beyond the reach, not of the bear only, but also of the fire, which threatened them now on three sides--below, above, and on the farther bank of the gorge.

Clasping the burden more precious to him than life, resolved in his soul to part with it only with life, he toiled heavily up the bank, down which he had descended with such tremendous swiftness a few minutes before.

But it was not in Virginia's nature to remain long a helpless encumbrance. Seeing the labor and peril still before them, her will returned, and with it her strength. She grasped a branch by which he was trying in vain with one hand, holding her with the other, to draw them both up a steep place. Her prompt action enabled him to seize the trunk of a young tree: she assisted still, and slipping from his hands, clung to it until he had reached the next tree above. He pulled her up after him, and then pushed her on still farther, until Pepperill could reach her from where he stood. A minute later the three were together on the summit of the slope.

But now they had above them the ten feet of sheer perpendicularity down which Dan had indiscreetly jumped, following Penn's lead. A single hand above them would now be worth several hands below.

"What a fool I war! durned if I warn't!" said Dan, endeavoring unsuccessfully to find a place by which he could reascend.

"Get on my shoulders!" And Penn braced himself against the ledge.

Dan made the attempt, but fell, and rolled down the bank.

Just then a grinning black face appeared above.

"Gib me de gal! gib me de gal!" and a prodigiously long arm reached down.

"O Cudjo! you are an angel!" cried Penn, "Daniel! Here!"

Pepperill was up the bank again in a minute, at Penn's side. They lifted Virginia above their heads. Holding on by a sapling with one hand, the negro extended the other far down over the ledge. Those miraculous arms of his seemed to have been made expressly for this service. He grasped a wrist of the girl; with the other hand she clung to his arm until he had drawn her up to the sapling; this she seized, and helped herself out. Then once more Penn gave Daniel his shoulder, while Cudjo gave him a hand from above; and Daniel was safe. Last of all, Penn remained.

"Cotch holt hyar!" said Cudjo, extending towards him the end of a branch he had broken from a tree.

To this Penn held fast, assisting himself with his feet against the ledge, while Cudjo and Dan hauled him up.

"Good Cudjo! how came you here?"

"Me see you and Pepperill a gwine inter de fire. So me foller."

"This is the old man's daughter, Cudjo."

Cudjo regarded the beautiful young girl with a look of vague wonder and admiration.

"He remembers me," said Virginia. "I saw him the night he climbed in at Toby's window." She gave him her hand; it trembled with emotion. "I thank you, Cudjo, for what you have done for my father--and for me."

"Now, Cudjo! show us the nearest and easiest path. We must take her to the cave--there is no other way."

"You must be right spry, den!" said Cudjo. "De fire am a runnin' ober dat way powerful!"

Indeed, it had already crossed the upper end of the gorge, where the forest brook fell into it; and, getting into some beds of leaves, and thence into dense and inflammable thickets, it was now blazing directly across their line of retreat.

Penn would have carried Virginia in his arms, but she would not suffer him.

"I can go where you can!" she cried, once more full of spirit and daring. "Just give me your hand--you shall see!"

Penn took one of her hands, Pepperill the other, and with their aid, supporting her, lifting her, she sprang lightly up the ledges, and from rock to rock.

Cudjo, carrying Dan's gun, ran on before, leading the way through hollows and among bushes, by a route known only to himself. So they reached a piece of woods, by the thin skirts of which he hoped to head off the fire. Too late--it was there before them. It ran swiftly among the fallen leaves and twigs, and spread far into the woods.

The negro turned back. There was a wild grimace in his face, and a glitter in his eyes, as he threw up his hand, by way of signal that their flight in that direction was cut off.

"Cudjo! what is to be done!" And Penn drew Virginia towards him with a look that showed his fears were all for her.

"We can't git off down the mountain, nuther!" said Dan. "It's gittin' into the woods down thar. It'll be all around us in no time!"

"You let Cudjo do what him pleases?" said the black.

"I can trust you! Can you, Virginia?"

"He should know what is best. Yes, I will trust him."

"Take dat 'ar!" Pepperill received his gun. "Now you look out fur youselves. Me tote de gal."

And catching up Virginia, before Penn could stop him, or question him, he rushed with her into the fire.

Penn ran after him, perceiving at once the meaning of this bold act. The woods were not yet fairly kindled; only now and then the loose bark of a dry trunk was beginning to blaze. Cudjo leaped over the line of flame that was running along the ground, and bore Virginia high above it to the other side. Penn followed, and Dan came close behind. They then had before them a tract of blackened ground which the flames had swept, leaving here and there a dead limb or mat of leaves still burning.

These little fires were easily avoided. But they soon came to another line of flame raging on the upper side of the burnt tract. They were almost out of the woods: only that red, crackling hedge fenced them in; but that they could not pass: the underbrush all along the forest edge was burning. And there they were, brought to a halt, half-stifled with smoke, in the midst of woods kindling and blazing all around them.

"May as well pull up hyar, and take a bref," remarked Cudjo, grimly, placing Virginia on a log too dank with decay and moss to catch fire easily. "Den we's try 'em agin."

A horrible suspicion crossed Penn's mind; the fanatical fire-worshipper had brought them there to destroy them--to sacrifice them to his god!

"Virginia!"--eagerly laying hold of her arm,--"we must retreat! It will soon be too late! We can get out of the woods where we came in, if we go at once!"

"Beg pardon, sar," said Cudjo, stamping out fire in the leaves by the end of the log,--and he looked up through the smoke at Penn, with the old malignant grin on his apish face.

"What do you mean, Cudjo?" said Penn, in an agony of doubt.

"Can't get back dat way, sar!"

"Then you have led us here to destroy us!"

"You's no longer trust Cudjo!" was the negro's only reply.

"Didn't we trust you? Haven't we come through fire, following you? O Cudjo! more than once you have helped to save my life! You have helped to save this life, dearer than mine! Why do you desert us now?"

"'Sert you? Cudjo no 'sert you." But the negro spoke sullenly, and there was still a sparkle of malignancy in his look.

"Then why do you stop here?"

"Hugh! tink we's go trough dat fire like we done trough tudder?"

"What then are we to do?"

"You's no longer trust Cudjo!" was once more the sullen response.

Virginia, with her quick perceptions, saw at once what Penn was either too dull or too much excited to see. Cudjo felt himself aggrieved; but he was not unfaithful.

"_I_ trust you, Cudjo!"--and she laid her hand frankly and confidingly on his shoulder. "Did I tremble, did I shrink when you carried me through the fire? I shall never forget how brave, how good you are! He trusts you too,--only he is so afraid for me! You can forgive that, Cudjo."

"She is right," said Penn, though still in doubt. "If you know a way to save her, don't lose a moment!"

"He knows; on'y let him take his time," said Pepperill, whose firm faith in the negro's good will shamed Penn for his distrust. And yet Pepperill did not love, as Penn loved, the girl whose life was in danger; and he had not seen the evidences of Cudjo's fire-worshipping fanaticism which Penn had seen.

Under the influence of Virginia's gentle and soothing words, the glitter of resentment died out of the negro's face. But his aspect was still morose.

"De fire take his time to burn out; so we's take our time too," said he. "You try your chance wid Cudjo agin, miss?"

"Certainly! for I am sure you will take us safely through yet!" said Virginia, without a shadow of doubt or hesitation on her face, however dark may have been the shadow on her heart.

The negro was evidently well pleased. He examined carefully the line of fire in the undergrowth. And now Penn discovered, what Cudjo had known very well from the first, that there were barren ledges above, and that the fire was rapidly burning itself out along their base. An opening through which a courageous and active man might dash unscathed soon presented itself. Then Cudjo waited no longer to "take bref." He caught Virginia in his arms, and bore her through the second line of fire, as he had borne her through the first, and placed her in safety on the rocks above.

"Cudjo, my brave, my noble fellow!" said Penn, deeply affected, "I have wronged you; I confess it with shame. Forgive me!"

"Cudjo hab nuffin to forgib," replied the negro, with a laugh of pleasure "Neber mention um, massa! All right now! Reckon we's better be gitt'n out o' dis yer smudge!"

He showed the way, and Penn and Daniel helped Virginia up the rocks as before.

They had reached a smooth and unsheltered ledge near the ravine, a little below the mouth of the cave, when a hideous and inhuman shriek rent the air.

"What dat?" cried Cudjo, stopping short; and his visage in the smoky and lurid light looked wild with superstitious alarm.

The sound was repeated, louder, nearer, more hideous than before, seeming to make the very atmosphere shudder above their heads.

"Go on, Cudjo! go on!" Penn commanded.

The terrified black crouched and gibbered, but would not stir. Then straightway a sharp clatter, as of iron hoofs flying at a furious gallop, resounded along the mountain-side. By a simultaneous impulse the little party huddled together, and turned their faces towards the fire, and saw coming down towards them a horse with the speed of the wind.

"Stand close!" said Penn; and he threw himself before Virginia, to shield her, shouting and swinging his hat to frighten the animal from his course.

"Stackridge's hoss!" exclaimed Cudjo, recovering from his fright, leaping up, and flinging abroad his long arms in the air. "Wiv some poor debil onter him's back!"

It was so. The little group stood motionless, chilled with horror. The beast came thundering on, with lips of terror parted, nostrils wide and snorting, mane and tail flying in the wild air, hoofs striking fire from the rocks. A human being--a man--was lying close to his neck, and clinging fast: the face hidden by the tossing and streaming mane: a fearful ride! the mystery surrounding him, and the awful glare and smoke, enhancing the horror of it.

Approaching the group on the ledge, the animal veered, and shot past them like a thunderbolt; clearing rocks, hollows, bushes, with incredible bounds; nearing the ravine, but halting not; dashing into the thickets there, missing suddenly the ground beneath his feet, striking only the air and yielding boughs with frantic hoofs; then plunging down with a dull, reverberant crash,--horse and unknown rider rolling together over rocks and spiked limbs to the bottom of the ravine.

Then all was still again: it had passed like a vision of fear.

XXX.

_REFUGE._

For a moment the little group stood dumb and motionless on the ledge, in the flare of the vast flame-curtains. They looked at each other. Penn was the first to speak.

"Which of us goes down into the ravine?"

"Wha' fur?" said Cudjo.

"To find him!" And Penn gazed anxiously towards the thickets into which the horse and horseman had gone down.

"Dat no good! Deader 'n de debil, shore!"

"O, may be he is not!" exclaimed Virginia, full of compassion for the unfortunate unknown. "Do go and see, Cudjo!"

"Fire'll be dar in less'n no time. Him nuffin to Cudjo. We's best be gwine." And the negro started off, doggedly, towards the cave.

Then Penn took the resolution which he would have taken at once but for Virginia. "Stay with her, Daniel! I will go!"

Virginia turned pale; she had not thought of that. But immediately she controlled her fears: she would not be selfish: if he was brave and generous enough to descend into the ravine for one he did not know, she would be equally brave and generous, and let him go. She clasped her hands together so that they should not hold him back, and forced her lips to say,--

"I will wait for you here."

"No, I be durned if ye shall! Hapgood, you stick to her: take this yer gun, and I'll slip down inter the holler, and see whuther the cuss's alive or dead, any how."

"O, Mr. Pepperill, if you will!" said Virginia, overjoyed.

Penn remonstrated,--rather feebly, it must be confessed, for the determination to part from her had cost him a struggle, and the privilege of keeping by her side till all danger was past, seemed too sweet to refuse.

"I'll take her to her father, and hurry back, and meet you."

"All right!" came the response from Dan, already far down the rocks.

"The cave is close by," said Penn. "There is Cudjo, waiting for us!"

Coming up with the black, and once more following his lead, they descended along the shelf of rocks, between the thickets and the overhanging ledge. So they came to the still dark jaws of the cavern. A grateful coolness breathed in their faces from within. But how dismal the entrance seemed to eyes lately dazzled by the blazing woods! Virginia clung tightly to Penn's hand, as they groped their way in.

At first nothing was visible but a few smouldering embers, winking their sleepy eyes in the dark. Out of these Cudjo soon blew a little blaze, which he fed with sticks and bits of bark until it lighted up fitfully the dim interior and shadowy walls of his abode.

Penn hushed Virginia with a finger on his lips, and restrained her from throwing herself forward upon the rude bed, where the blind old man was just awaking from a sound sleep.

In that profound subterranean solitude the roar of the fiery breakers, dashing on the mountain side, was subdued to a faint murmur, less distinct than the dripping of water from roof to floor in the farther recesses of the cave. There, left alone, lulled by the dull, monotonous trickle,--thinking, if he heard the roar at all, that it was the mountain wind blowing among the pines,--Mr. Villars had slept tranquilly through all the horrors of that night.

"Is it you, Penn? Safe again!" And sitting up, he grasped the young man's hand. "What news from my dear girl?--from my two dear girls?" he added, remembering Virginia was not his only child.

"Toby did not come to the rock," said Penn, still holding Virginia back.

"O! did he not?" It seemed a heavy disappointment; but the patient old man rallied straightway, saying, with his accustomed cheerfulness, "No doubt something hindered him; no doubt he would have come if he could. My poor, dear girl, how I wish I could have got word to her that I am safe! But I thank you all the same; it was kind in you to give yourself all that trouble."

"I believe all is for the best," said Penn, his voice trembling.

"No doubt, no doubt. It will be some time before I can have the consolation of my dear girl's presence again; I, who never knew till now how necessary she is to my happiness,--I may say, to my very life!" Mr. Villars wiped a tear he could not repress, and smiled. "Yes, Penn, God knows what is best for us all. His will be done!"

But now Virginia could restrain herself no longer; her sobs would burst forth.

"Father! father!"--throwing herself upon his neck. "O, my dear, dear father!"

Penn had feared the effect of the sudden surprise upon the old and feeble man, and had meant to break the good news to him softly. But human nature was too strong; his own emotions had baffled him, and the pious little artifice proved a complete failure. So now he could do nothing but stand by and make grim faces, struggling to keep down what was mastering him, and turning away blindly from the bed.

Even Cudjo appeared deeply affected, staring stupidly, and winking something like a tear from the whites of his eyes at sight of the father embracing his child, and the white locks mingling with the wet, tangled curls on her cheek. He was a ludicrous, pathetic object, winking and staring thus; and Penn laughed and cried too, at sight of him.

"Luk dar!" said Cudjo, coming up to him, and pointing at the little walled chamber that served as his pantry. "She hab dat fur her dressum room. Sleep dar, too, if she likes."

"Thank you, Cudjo! it will be very acceptable, I am sure."

"Me clar it up fur her all scrumptious!" added the negro, with a grin.

Penn had thought of that. But now he had other business on his hands: he must hasten to find Pepperill: nor could he keep anxious thoughts of Stackridge and his friends out of his mind. And Pomp--where all this time was Pomp? He had hoped to find him and the patriots all safely arrived in the cave.

Virginia was seated on the bed by her father's side. Penn threw a blanket over the dear young shoulders, to shield her from the sudden cold of the cave; then left her relating her adventures,--beckoning to Cudjo, who followed him out.

"Cudjo!"--the black glided to his side as they emerged from the ravine,--"you must go and find Pomp."

Cudjo laughed and shrugged.

"No use't! Reckon Pomp take keer o' hisself heap better'n we's take keer on him!"

True. Pomp knew the woods. He was athletic, cautious, brave. But he had gone to extricate from peril others, in whose fate he himself might become involved. Cudjo refused to take this view of the matter; and it was evident that, while he comforted himself with his deep convictions of Pomp's ability to look out for his own safety, he was, to say the least, quite indifferent as to the welfare of the patriots.

Forgetting Dan and the unknown horseman in his great solicitude for his absent friends, Penn climbed the ledges, and gazed away in the direction of the camp, and beheld the forest there a raging gulf of fire.

Assuredly, they must have fled from it before this time; but whither had they gone? Had Pomp been able to find them? Or might they not all have become entangled in the intricacies of the wilderness until encompassed by the fire and destroyed?

Penn watched in vain for their coming--in vain for some signal of their safety on the crags above the forest. Had they reached the crags, he thought he might discover them somewhere with a glass, so vividly were those grim rock-foreheads of the hills lighted up beneath the red sky.

He sent Cudjo to find Dan, ran to the cave for Pomp's glass, and returned to the ledge. There he waited; there he watched; still in vain. Wider and wider, spread the destroying sea; fiercer and fiercer leaped the billows of flame--the billows that did not fall again, but broke away in rent sheets, in red-rolling scrolls, and vanished upward in their own smoke.

And now Penn, lowering the glass, perceived what he must long since have been made aware of, had not the greater light concealed the less. It was morning; a dull and sunless dawn; the despairing daylight, filtered of all warmth and color, spreading dim and gray on the misty valleys, and on the sombre, far-off hills, under an interminable canopy of cloud.

Pepperill came clambering up the rocks. Penn turned eagerly to meet and question him.

"Find him?"

"Wal, a piece on him."

"Killed?"

"I reckon he ar that!"

"Who is it?"

"Durned if I kin tell! He's jammed in thar 'twixt two gre't stuns, and the hoss is piled on top, and you can't see nary featur' of his face, only the legs,--but durned if I know the legs!"

"Couldn't you move the horse?"

"Nary a bit. His neck is broke, and he lays wedged so clust, right on top o' the poor cuss, 'twould take a yoke o' oxen to drag him out."

"Are you sure the man is dead?"

"Shore? I reckon! He had one arm loose. I jest lifted it, and it drapped jest like a club when I let go; then I see 'twas broke square off jest above the elbow, about where the backbone o' the hoss comes. Made me durned sick!"

"What have you got in your hand?"

"A boot--one o' his'n--thought I'd pull it off, his leg stuck up so kind o' handy; didn't know but some on ye might know the boot." And Dan held it up for Penn's inspection.

"What is this on it? Blood?"

"It ar so! Mebby it's the hoss's, and then agin mebby it's his'n; I hadn't noticed it afore."

"I'll go back with you, Daniel. Together perhaps we can move the horse."

"Ye're behind time for that! The fire's thar. I hadn't only jest time to git cl'ar on't myself. The poor cuss is a br'ilin'!"

"K-r-r-r! hi! don't ye har me callin'!" Cudjo sprang up the ledge. "Fire's a comin' to de cave! All in de brush dar! Can't get in widout ye go now!"

"And Pomp and the rest! They will be shut out, if they are not lost already!"

"Pomp know well 'nuff what him 'bout, tell ye! Gorry, massa! ye got to come, if Cudjo hab to tote ye!"

Yielding to his importunity, Penn quitted the ledge. On the shelf of rock Cudjo paused to gnash his teeth at the flames sweeping up towards them. He had long since recovered from his fit of superstitious frenzy. He had seen the fire burning the woods that sheltered him in his mountain retreat, instead of going intelligently to work to destroy the dwellings of the whites; and he no longer regarded it as a deity worthy of his worship.

"All dis yer brush be burnt up! Den nuffin' to hide Cudjo's house!"

"Don't despair, Cudjo. We will trust in Him who is God even of the fire."

Even as Penn spoke, he felt a cool spatter on his hand. He looked up; sudden, plashy drops smote his face.

"Rain! It is coming! Thank Heaven for the rain!"

At the same time, the wind shifted, and blew fitful gusts down the mountain. Then it lulled; and the rain poured.

"Cudjo, your thickets are saved!" said Penn, exultantly. Then immediately he thought of the absent ones, for whom the rain might be too late; of the beautiful forests, whose burning not cataracts could quench; of the unknown corpse far below in the ravine there, and the swift soul gone to God.

"What news?" asked the old man as he entered the cave.

"It is morning, and it rains; but your friends are still away.--The man is dead," aside to Virginia.

"Heaven grant they be safe somewhere!" said the old man. "And Pomp?"

"He is missing too."