Chapter XXXIX: A Council of War (8)

There was a long, deep silence. A painful suspense seemed to hold every heart still, while they listened. Suddenly a strange noise was heard, as of a ghost walking. Louder and louder it sounded, hollow, faint, far-off. Was it on the rocks over their heads? or in caverns beneath their feet?

"Told ye so! told ye so!" said Cudjo, laughing with wild glee.

The fire had burnt low again, and he was in the act of kindling it, when a novel idea seemed to strike him, and, seizing a pan, he inverted it over the little remnant of a flame. In an instant the cave was dark. It was some seconds before the eyes of the inmates grew accustomed to the gloom, and perceived the glimmer of mingled daylight and firelight that shone in at the entrance.

"Luk a dar! luk a dar!" said Cudjo.

And turning their eyes in the opposite direction, they saw a faint golden glow in the recesses of the cave. The footsteps approached; the glow increased; then the superb dark form of Pomp advanced in the light of his own torch. Penn hastened to meet him, and to demand tidings of Stackridge's party.

Pomp first saluted Virginia, with somewhat lofty politeness, holding the torch above his head as he bowed. Then turning to Penn,--

"Your friends are all safe, I believe."

"All?" Penn eagerly asked, his thoughts on the luckless horseman. "None missing?"

"There were three absent when I reached their camp. They had gone on a foraging expedition. I found the rest waiting for them, standing their ground against the fire, which was roaring up towards them at a tremendous rate. Soon the foragers came in. They brought a basket of potatoes and a bag of meal, but no meat. Withers had caught a pig, but it had got away from him before he could kill it, and he lost it in the dark. The others were cursing the rascals who had set the woods afire, but Withers lamented the pig.

"'Gentlemen,' said I, 'you have not much time to mourn either for the woods or the pork. We must take care of ourselves.' And I offered to bring them here. But just then we heard a rushing noise; it sounded like some animal coming up the course of the brook; and the next minute it was amongst us--a big black bear, frightened out of his wits, singed by the fire, and furious."

"Your acquaintance of the gorge, Virginia!" said Penn.

"You will readily believe that such an unexpected supply of fresh meat, sent by Providence within their reach, proved a temptation to the hungry. Withers, in his hurry to make up for the loss of the pig, ran to head the fellow off, and attempted to stop him with his musket after it had missed fire. In an instant the gun was lying on the ground several yards off, and Withers was sprawling. The bear had done the little business for him with a single stroke of his paw; then he passed on, directly over Withers's body, which happened to be in his way, but which he minded no more than as if it had been a bundle of rags. All this time we couldn't fire a shot; there was the risk, you see, of hitting Withers instead of the bear. Even after he was knocked down, he seemed to think he had nothing more formidable than his stray pig to deal with, and tried to catch the bear by the tail as he ran over him."

"So ye lost de bar!" cried Cudjo, greatly excited. "Fool, tink o' cotchin' on him by de tail!"

"Still we couldn't fire, for he was on his legs again in a second, chasing the bear's tail directly before our muzzles," said Pomp, quietly laughing. "But luckily a stick flew up under his feet. Down he went again. That gave two or three of us a chance to send some lead after the beast. He got a wound--we tracked him by his blood on the ground--we could see it plain as day by the glare of light--it led straight towards the fire that was running up through the leaves and thickets on the north. I expected that when he met that he would turn again; but he did not: we were just in time to see him plough through it, and hear him growl and snarl at the flames that maddened him, and which he was foolish enough to stop and fight. Then he went on again. We followed. Nobody minded the scorching. We kept him in sight till he met the fire again--for it was now all around us. This time his heart failed him; he turned back only to meet us and get a handful of bullets in his head. That finished him, and he fell dead."

"Poor brute!" said Mr. Villars; "he found his human enemies more merciless than the fire!"

"That's so," said Pomp, with a smile. "But we had not much time to moralize on the subject then. The fire we had leaped through had become impassable behind us. The men hurried this way and that to find an outlet. They found only the fire--it was on every side of us like a sea--the spot where we were was only an island in the midst of it--that too would soon be covered. The bear was forgotten where he lay; the men grew wild with excitement, as again and again they attempted to break through different parts of the ring that was narrowing upon us, and failed. Brave men they are, but death by fire, you know, is too horrible!"

"How large was this spot, this island?" asked Penn.

"It might have comprised perhaps twenty acres when we first found ourselves enclosed in it. But every minute it was diminishing; and the heat there was something terrific. The men were rather surprised, after trying in vain on every side to discover a break in the circle of fire, to come back and find me calm.

"'Gentlemen,' said I, 'keep cool. I understand this ground perhaps better than you do. Don't abandon your game; you have lost your meal and potatoes, and you will have need of the bear.'

"'But what is the use of roast meat, if we are to be roasted too?' said Withers, who will always be droll, whatever happens.

"Then Stackridge spoke. He proposed that they should place themselves under my command; for I knew the woods, and while they had been running to and fro in disorder, I had been carefully observing the ground, and forming my plans. I laughed within myself to see Deslow alone hang back; he was unwilling to owe his life to one of my complexion--one who had been a slave. For there are men, do you know," said Pomp, with a smile of mingled haughtiness and pity, "who would rather that even their country should perish than owe in any measure its salvation to the race they have always hated and wronged!"

"I trust," said Mr. Villars, "that you had the noble satisfaction of teaching these men the lesson which our country too must learn before it can be worthy to be saved."

"I showed them that even the despised black may, under God's providence, be of some use to white men, besides being their slave: I had that satisfaction!" said Pomp, proudly smiling. "Stackridge was right: I had observed: I saw what I could do. On one side was a chasm which you know, Mr. Hapgood."

"Yes! I had thought of it! But I knew it was in the midst of the burning forest, and never supposed you could get to it."

"The fire was beyond; and it also burned a little on the side nearest to us. But the vegetation there is thin, you remember. The chasm could be reached without difficulty.

"'Follow me who will!' said I. 'The rest are at liberty to shirk for themselves.'

"'Follow--where?' said Deslow. I couldn't help smiling at the man's distress. All the rest were prepared to obey my directions; and it was hard for him to separate himself from them. But it seemed harder still for him to trust in me. I was not a Moses; I could not take them through that Red Sea. What then?

"I made for the chasm. All followed, even Deslow,--dragging and lugging the bear. We came to the brink. The place, I must confess, had an awful look, in the light of the trees burning all around it! Deslow was not the only one who shrank back then; for though the spot was known to some of them, they had never explored it, and could not guess what it led to. It was difficult, in the first place, to descend into it; it looked still more difficult ever to get out again; and there was nothing to prevent the burning limbs above from falling into it, or the trees that grew in it from catching fire. For this is the sink, Mr. Villars, which you have probably heard of,--where the woods have been undermined by the action of water in the limestone rocks, and an acre or more of the mountain has fallen in, with all its trees, so that what was once the roof of an immense cavern is now a little patch of the forest growing seventy feet below the surface of the earth. The sides are precipitous and projecting. Only one tree throws a strong branch upwards to the edge of the sink.

"'This way, gentlemen,' said I, 'and you are safe!'

"It was a trial of their faith; for I waited to explain nothing. First, I tumbled the bear off the brink. We heard him go crashing down into the abyss, and strike the bottom with a sound full of awfulness to the uninitiated. Then, with my rifle swung on my back, I seized the limb, and threw myself into the tree.

"'Where he can go, we can!' I heard Stackridge say; and he followed me. I took his gun, and handed it to him again when he was safe in the tree. He did the same for another; and so all got into the branches, and climbed down after us. The trunk has no limbs within twenty feet of the bottom, but there is a smaller tree leaning into it which we got into, and so reached the ground.

"'Now, gentlemen,' said I, when all were down, 'I will show you where you are.' And opening the bushes, I discovered a path leading down the rocks into the caverns, of which this cave is only a branch. Then I made them all take an oath never to betray the secret of what I had shown them. Then I lighted one of the torches Cudjo and I keep for our convenience when we come in that way, and gave it to them; lighted another for my own use; invited them to make themselves quite at home in my absence; left them to their reflections;--and here I am."

Still the mystery with regard to the unknown horseman was in no wise explained. Pomp, informed of what had happened, arose hastily. Penn followed him from the cave. Pepperill accompanied them, to show the way. It was raining steadily; but the thickets in which lay the dead horse and his rider were burning still.

"As I was going to Stackridge's camp," said Pomp, "I thought I saw a man crawling over the rocks above where the horse was tied. I ran up to find him, but he was gone. Peace to his ashes, if it was he!"

"Won't be much o' the cuss left but ashes!" remarked Pepperill.

Pomp ascended the ledges, and stood, silent and stern, gazing at the destruction of his beloved woods.

The winds had died. The fires had evidently ceased to spread. Portions of the forest that had been kindled and not consumed were burning now with slow, sullen combustion, like brands without flame. Stripped of their foliage, shorn of their boughs, and seen in the dull and smoky daylight, through the rain, they looked like a forest of skeletons, all of glowing coal, brightening, darkening, and ever crumbling away.

All at once Pomp seemed to rouse himself, and direct his attention more particularly at the part of the woods in which the patriots' camp had been.

"Come with me, Pepperill, if you would help do a good job!"

They started off, and were soon out of sight. As Penn turned from gazing after them, he heard a voice calling from the opposite side of the ravine. He looked, but could see no one. The figure to which the voice belonged was hidden by the bushes. The bushes moved, however; the figure was descending into the ravine. It arrived at the bottom, crossed, and began to ascend the steep side towards the cave. Penn concealed himself, and waited until it had nearly emerged from the thickets beneath him, and he could distinctly hear the breath of a man panting and blowing with the toil of climbing. Then a well-known voice said in a hoarse whisper,--

"Massa Hapgood! dat you?"

And peering over the bank, he saw, upturned in the rain and murky light, among the wet bushes, the black, grinning face of old Toby.

He responded by reaching down, grasping the negro's hand, and drawing him up.

The grin on the old man's face was a ghastly one, and his eyes rolled as he stammered forth,--

"Miss Jinny--ye seen Miss Jinny?"

Penn did not answer immediately; he was considering whether it would be safe to conduct Toby into the cave. Toby grew terrified.

"Don't say ye hain't seen her, Massa Penn! ye kill ol' Toby if ye do! I done lost her!" And the poor old faithful fellow sobbed out his story,--how Virginia had disappeared, and how, on discovering the woods to be on fire, he had set out in search of her, and been wandering he scarcely knew where ever since. "Now don't say ye don't know nuffin' about her! don't say dat!" falling on his knees, and reaching up his hands beseechingly, as if he had only to prevail on Penn to _say_ that all was well with "Miss Jinny," and that would make it so. Such faith is in simple souls.

"I'll say anything you wish me to, good old Toby! only give me a chance."

"Den say you _has_ seen her."

"I _has seen her_," repeated Penn.

"O, bress you, Massa Penn! And she ar safe--say dat too!"

"_She ar safe_," said Penn, laughing.

"Bress ye for dat!" And Toby, weeping with joy, kissed the young man's hand again and again. "And ye knows whar she ar?"

"Yes, Toby! So now get up: don't be kneeling on the rocks here in the rain!"

"Jes' one word more! Say ye got her and ol' Massa Villars safe stowed away, and ye'll take me to see 'em; den dis ol' nigger'll bress you and de Lord and dem, and be willin' fur to die! only say dat, massa!"

"Ah! did I promise to say all you wished?"

"Yes, you did, you did so, Massa Penn!" cried Toby, triumphantly.

"Then I suppose I must say that, too. So come, you dear old simpleton! Cudjo!" to the proprietor of the cave, who just then put out his head to reconnoitre, "Cudjo! Here is your friend Toby, come to pay his master and mistress a visit!"

"What business he got hyar?" said Cudjo, crossly. "We's hab all de wuld, and creation besides, comin' bime-by!"

"Cudjo! You knows ol' Toby, Cudjo!" said Toby, in the softest and most conciliatory tone imaginable.

"Nose ye!" Cudjo snuffed disdainfully. "Yes! and wish you'd keep fudder off!"

"Why, Cudjo! don't you 'member Toby? Las' time I seed you! ye 'member dat, Cudjo!"

"Don't 'member nuffin'!"

"'Twan't you, den, got inter my winder, and done skeert me mos' t' def 'fore I found out 'twas my ol' 'quaintance Cudjo, come fur Massa Penn's clo'es! Dat ar wan't you, hey?" And Toby's honest indignation cropped out through the thin crust of deprecating obsequiousness which he still thought it politic to maintain.

Penn got under the shelter of the ledge, and waited for the dispute to end. It was evident to him that Cudjo was not half so ill-natured as he appeared; but, feeling himself in a position of something like official importance, he had the human weakness to wish to make the most of it.

"Your massa and missis bery well off. Dey in my house. No room dar for you. Ain't wanted hyar, nohow!" turning his back very much like a personage of lighter complexion, clad in brief authority.

"Ain't wanted, Cudjo? You don't know what you's sayin' now. Whar my ol' massa and young missis is, dar ol' Toby's wanted. Can't lib widout me, dey can't! Ol' massa wants me to nuss him. Ye don't tink--you's a nigger widout no kind ob 'sideration, Cudjo."

"Talk o' you nussin' him when him's got Pomp!"

"Pomp! what can Pomp do? Wouldn't trust him to nuss a chick sicken!" Toby talked backwards in his excitement.

"Ki! didn't him take Massa Hapgood and make him well? Don't ye know nuffin'?"

Toby seemed staggered for a moment. But he rallied quickly, and said,--

"He cure Massa Hapgood? He done jes' nuffin' 't all fur him. De fac's is, I had de nussin' on him for a spell at fust, and gib him a start. Dar's ebery ting in a start, Cudjo."

"O, what a stupid nigger!" said Cudjo. "Hyar's Massa Hapgood hisself! leab it to him now!"

"You are both right," said Penn. "Toby did nurse me, and give me a good start; for which I shall always thank him."

"Dar! tol' ye so, tol' ye so!" said Toby.

"But it was Pomp who afterwards cured me," added Penn.

"Dar! tol' you so!" cried Cudjo, while Toby's countenance fell.

"For while Toby is a capital nurse" (Toby brightened), "Pomp is a first-rate doctor" (Cudjo grinned). "So don't dispute any more. Shake hands with your old friend, Cudjo, and show him into your house."

Cudjo was still reluctant; but just then occurred a pleasing incident, which made him feel good-natured towards everybody. Pomp and Pepperill arrived, bringing the bag of meal and the basket of potatoes which the bear-hunters had forsaken in the woods, and which the rain had preserved from the fire.

XXXI.

_LYSANDER TAKES POSSESSION._

Gad the "Sleeper" (he had earned that title) had been himself placed under guard for drinking too much of the prisoners' liquor, and suffering them to escape. Miserable, sullen, thirsty, he languished in confinement.

"Let 'em shoot me, and done with it, if that's the penalty," said this chivalrous son of the south; "only give a feller suthin' to drink!"

But that policy of the confederates, which opened the jails of the country, and put arms in the hands of the convicts, and pardoned every felon that would fight, might be expected to find a better use for an able-bodied fellow, like Gad, than to shoot him.

The use they found for him was this: He had been a mighty hunter before the Lord, ere he became too besotted and lazy for such sport; and he professed to know the mountains better than any other man. Accordingly, on the recommendation of his friend Lieutenant Ropes, it was resolved to send him to spy out the position of the patriots. It was an enterprise of some danger, and, to encourage him in it, he was promised two things--pardon for his offence, and, what was of more importance to him, a bottle of old whiskey.

"I'll see that you have light enough," said Ropes, significantly.

It was the evening of the firing of the forests. How well the lieutenant fulfilled his part of the engagement, we have seen.

Gad put the bottle in his pocket, and set off at dark by routes obscure and circuitous to get upon the trail of the patriots. How well _he_ succeeded will appear by and by.

The burning of the forests caused a great excitement in the valley, especially among those families whose husbands and fathers were known to have taken refuge in them. Who had committed the barbarous act? The confederates denounced it with virtuous indignation, charging the patriots with it, of course. There was in the village but one witness who could have disputed this charge, and he now occupied Gad's place in the guard-house. It was the deserter Carl.

All the morning Gad's return was anxiously awaited. No doubt there were good reasons why he did not come. So said his friend Silas; and his friend Silas was right: there were good reasons.

"Anyhow, I kep' my word--I giv him light enough, I reckon!" chuckled Silas.

That was true: Gad had had light enough, and to spare.

The rain continued all the morning. Perhaps that was what detained the scout; for it was known that he had a great aversion to water.

In the afternoon came one with tidings from the mountain. It was not Gad. It was old Toby.

He was seized by some soldiers and taken before Captain Sprowl, at the school-house.

"Toby, you black devil, where have you been?" This was Lysander's chivalrous way of addressing an inferior whom he wished to terrify.

Now, if there was a person in the world whom Toby detested, it was this roving Lysander, who had disgraced the Villars family by marrying into it. However, he concealed his contempt with a politic hypocrisy worthy of a whiter skin.

"Please, sar," said the old negro, cap in hand, "I'se been lookin' for my ol' massa and my young missis."

"Well, what luck, you lying scoundrel?"

"O, no luck 't all, I 'sure you, sar!"

"What! couldn't you find 'em? Don't you lie, you ----." (We may as well omit the captain's energetic epithets.)

"O, sar!"--Toby looked up earnestly with counterfeit grief in his wrinkled old face,--"dey ain't nowhars on de face ob de 'arth!"

"Not on the face of the earth!"

"If dey is, den de fire's done burnt 'em all up. I seen, down in a big holler, a place whar somebody's been burnt, shore! Dar's a man, and a hoss on top on him, and de hoss's har am all burnt off, and de man's trouse's-legs am all burnt off too, and one foot's got a fried boot onto it, and tudder han't got nuffin' on, but jes' de skin and bone all roasted to a crisp; and I 'specs dar's 'nuff sight more dead folks down in dar, on'y I didn't da's to look, it make me feel so skeerylike!"

All which, and much more, Toby related so circumstantially, that Captain Sprowl was strongly impressed with the truth of the story. Great, therefore, was the joy of the captain. Perhaps the patriots had been destroyed: he hoped so! Still more ardently he hoped that Virginia had perished with her father. For was he not the husband of Salina? and the snug little Villars property, did he not covet it?

"Can you show me that spot, Toby?"

"'Don'o', sar: I specs I could, sar."

"Don't you forget about it! Now, Toby, go home to your mistress,--my wife's your mistress, you know,--and wait till you are wanted."

"Yes, sar,"--bowing, and pulling his foretop.

Captain Sprowl did not overhear the irrepressible chuckle of satisfaction in which the old negro indulged as he retired, or he would have perceived that he had been trifled with. We are apt to be extremely credulous when listening to what we wish to believe; and Lysander's delight left no room in his heart for suspicion. All he desired now was that Gad should appear and confirm Toby's report; for surely Gad must know something about the dead horse and the dead man under him; and why did not the fellow return?

As for Toby, he hastened home as fast as his tired old legs could carry him, chuckling all the way over his lucky escape, and the cunning answers by which he had mystified the captain without telling a downright falsehood. "Ob course, dey ain't on de face ob de 'arth, long as dey's inside on't! Hi, hi, hi!"

He did not greatly relish reporting himself to Salina: nevertheless, he had been ordered to do so, not only by the captain, but by those whose authority he respected more.

Salina, though so bitter, was not without natural affection, and she had suffered much and waited anxiously ever since Toby, terrified into the avowal of his belief that Virginia was in the burning woods, had set out in search of her. She was not patient; she was wanting in religious trust. She had not slept. All night and all day she had tortured herself with terrible fancies. Instead of calming her spirit with prayer, she had kept it irritated with spiteful thoughts against what she deemed her evil destiny.

There are certain natures to which every misfortune brings a blessing; for, whatever it may take away, it is sure to leave that divine influence which comes from resignation and a deepened sense of reliance upon God. Such a nature was the old clergyman's. Every blow his heart had received had softened it; and a softened heart is a well of interior happiness; it is more precious to its possessor than all outward gifts of friends and fortune. Such a nature, too, was Virginia's. She too, through all things, kept warm in her bosom that holy instinct of faith, that blessed babe named Love, ever humbly born, whose life within is a light that transfigures the world. To such, despair cannot come; for when the worst arrives, when all they cherished is gone, heaven is still left to them; and they look up and smile. To them sorrow is but a preparation for a diviner joy. All things indeed work together for their good; since, whether fair fortune comes, or ill, they possess the spiritual alchemy that transmutes it into blessing.

This love, this faith, Salina lacked. She fostered in their place that selfishness and discontent which sour the soul. Every blow upon her heart had hardened it. Every trial embittered and angered her. Hence the swollen and flaming eyes, the impatient and scowling looks, with which she met the returning Toby.

"Where is Virginia?"

"Dat I can't bery well say, Miss Salina," replied Toby, scratching his woolly head. He would never sacrifice his family pride so far as to call her Mrs. Sprowl.

"How dare you come back without her?" And she heaped upon him the bitterest reproaches. It was he who, through his cowardice, had been the cause of Virginia's night adventure. It was he who had ruined everything by concealing her departure until it was too late. Then he might have found her, if he had so resolved. But if he could not, why had he remained absent all day?

Under this sharp fire of accusations Toby stood with ludicrous indifference, grinning, and scratching his head. At length he scratched out of it a little roll of paper that had been confided to his wool for safe keeping, in case he should be seized and searched. It fell upon the floor. He hastily snatched it up, and gave it, with obsequious alacrity, to Mrs. Sprowl. She took, unrolled it, and read. It was a pencilled note in the handwriting of Virginia.

* * * * *

"Dear Sister: Thanks to a kind Providence and to kind friends, we are safe. I was rescued last night from the most frightful dangers in the burning woods. I had come, without your knowledge, to get news of our dear father. I am now with him. He has excellent shelter, and devoted attendants; but the comforts of his home are wanting, and I have learned how much he is dependent upon us for his happiness. For this reason I shall remain with him as long as I can. To relieve your mind we send Toby back to you. V."

* * * * *

That evening Captain Sprowl entered the house of the absent Mr. Villars with the air of one who had just come into possession of that little piece of property. He nodded with satisfaction at the walls, glanced approvingly at the furniture, curved his lip rather contemptuously at the books (as much as to say, "I'll sell off all that sort of rubbish"), and expressed decided pleasure at sight of old Toby. "Worth eight hundred dollars, that nigger is!" He had either forgotten that Mr. Villars had given Toby his freedom, or he believed that, under the new order of things, in a confederacy founded on slavery, such gifts would not be held valid.

"Well, Sallie, my girl,"--throwing himself into the old clergyman's easy chair,--"here we are at home! Bring me the bootjack, Toby."

"I don't know about your being at home!" said Salina, indignantly.

And it was evident that Toby did not know about bringing the bootjack. He looked as if he would have preferred to jerk the chair from beneath the sprawling Lysander, and break it over him.

"I suppose Toby has told you the news? Awful news! a fearful dispensation of Providence! Pepperill came in this afternoon and confirmed it. We thought he had deserted, but it appears he had only got lost in the woods. He reports some dead bodies in a ravine, and his account tallies very well with Toby's. We'll wear mourning, of course, Sallie."

Lysander stroked his chin. Mrs. Lysander tapped the floor with her impatient foot, gnawed her lip, and scowled.

"Come, my dear!" said the captain, coaxingly; "we may as well understand each other. Times is changed. I tell ye, I'm going to be one of the big men under the new government. Now, Sal, see here. I'm your husband, and there's no getting away from it. And what's the use of getting away from it, even if we could? Let's settle down, and be respectable. We've had quarrels enough, and I've got tired of 'em. Toby, why don't you bring that bootjack?"

Lysander swung his chair around towards Salina. She turned hers away from him, still knitting her brows and gnawing that disdainful lip.

"Now what's the use, Sal? Since the way is opened for us to live together again, why can't you make up your mind to it, let bygones be bygones, and begin life over again? When I was a poor devil, dodging the officers, and never daring to see you except in the dark, I couldn't blame you for feeling cross with me; for it was a cursed miserable state of things. But you're a captain's wife now. You'll be a general's wife by and by. I shall be off fighting the battles of my country, and you'll be proud to hear of my exploits."

Salina was touched. Weary of the life she led, morbidly eager for change, she was a secessionist from the first, and had welcomed the war. Moreover, strange as it may seem, she loved this worthless Lysander. She hated him for the misery he had caused her; she was exceedingly bitter against him; yet love lurked under all. She was secretly proud to see him a captain. It was hard to forgive him for all the wrongs she had suffered; but her heart was lonely, and it yearned for reconciliation. Her scornful lip quivered, and there was a convulsive movement in her throat.

"Go away!" she exclaimed, violently, as he approached to caress her. "I am as unhappy as I can be! O, if I had never seen you! Why do you come to torture me now?"

This passion pleased Lysander: it was a sign that her spirit was breaking. He caught her in his arms, called her pet names, laughed, and kissed her. And this woman, after all, loved to be called pet names, and kissed.

"Toby! you devil!" roared Lysander, "why don't you bring that bootjack?"

The old negro stood behind the door, with the bootjack in his hand, furious, ready to hurl it at the captain's head. He hesitated a moment, then turned, discreetly, and flung it out of the kitchen window.

"Ain't a bootjack nowars in de house, sar!"

"Then come here yourself!"

And the gay captain made a bootjack of the old negro.

"Now shut up the house and go to bed!" he said, dismissing him with a kick.

After Toby had retired, and Salina had wiped her eyes, and Lysander had got his feet comfortably installed in the old clergyman's slippers, the long-estranged couple grew affectionate and confidential.

"Law, Sallie!" said the captain, caressingly, "we can be as happy as two pigs in clover!" And he proceeded to interpret, in plain prosaic detail, those blissful possibilities expressed by the choice poetic figure.

It was evident to Salina that all his domestic plans were founded on the supposition that the slippers he had on were the dead man's shoes he had been waiting for. Was she shocked by this cold, atrocious spirit of calculation? At first she was; but since she had begun to pardon his faults, she could easily overlook that. She, who had lately been so spiteful and bitter, was now all charity towards this man. Even the image of her blind and aged father faded from her mind; even the pure and beautiful image of her sister grew dim; and the old, revivified attachment became supreme. Shall we condemn the weakness? Or shall we pity it, rather? So long her affections had been thwarted! So long she had carried that lonely and hungry heart! So long, like a starved, sick child, it had fretted and cried, till now, at last, nurture and warmth made it grateful and glad! A babe is a sacred thing; and so is love. But if you starve and beat them? Perhaps Salina's unhappiness of temper owed its development chiefly to this cause. No wonder, then, that we find her melancholy, morbid, unreasonable, and now so ready to cling again to this wretch, this scamp, her husband, forgiving all, forgetting all (for the moment at least), in the wild flood of love and tears that drowned the past.

"O, yes! I do think we can be happy!" she said--"if you will only be kind and good to me! If not here, why, then, somewhere else; for place is of no consequence; all I want is love."

"Ah!" said Lysander, knocking the ashes from his cigar, "but I have a fancy for this place! And what should we leave it for?"

"Because--you know--there is no certainty--I believe father is alive yet, and well."

"Not unless Toby lied to me!--Did he?"

"Pshaw! you can't place any reliance on what Toby says!"--evasively.

"But I tell you Pepperill confirms his report about the dead bodies in the ravine! Now, what do you know to the contrary?" Lysander appeared very much excited, and a quarrel was imminent. Salina dreaded a quarrel. She broke into a laugh.

"The truth is, Toby did fool you. He couldn't help bragging to me about it."

O Toby, Toby! that little innocent vanity of yours is destined to cost you, and others besides you, very dear! Lysander sprang upon his feet; his eyes sparkled with rage. Salina saw that it was now too late to keep the secret from him; there was no way but to tell him all. She showed Virginia's note. Virginia and her father alive and safe--that was what maddened Lysander!

But where were they?

Salina could not answer that question; for the most she had been able to get out of Toby was only a vague hint that they were hidden somewhere in a cave.

"No matter!" said Lysander, with a diabolical laugh showing his clinched and tobacco-stained teeth. "I'll have the nigger licked! I'll have the truth out of him, or I'll have his life?"

XXXII.

_TOBY'S REWARD._

Filled with disgust and wrath, Toby had obeyed the man who assumed to be his master, and gone to bed. But he was scarcely asleep, when he felt somebody shaking him, and awoke to see bending over him, with smiling countenance, lamp in hand, Captain Lysander.

"What's wantin', sar?"

"I want you to do an errand for me, Toby," Lysander kindly replied.

"Wal, sar, I don'o', sar," said Toby, reluctant, sitting up in bed and rubbing his elbows. "You know I had a right smart tramp. I's a tuckered-out nigger, sar; dat's de troof."

"Yes, you had a hard time, Toby. But you'll just run over to the school-house for me, I know. That's a good fellow!"

Toby hardly knew what to make of Lysander's extraordinarily persuasive and indulgent manner. He didn't know before that a Sprowl could smile so pleasantly, and behave so much like a gentleman. Then, the captain had called him a good fellow, and his African soul was not above flattery. Weary, sleepy as he was, he felt strongly inclined to get up out of his delicious bed, and go and do Lysander's errand.

"You've only to hand this note to Lieutenant Ropes. And I'll give you something when you come back--something you don't get every day, Toby! Something you've deserved, and ought to have had long ago!" And Lysander, all smiles, patted the old servant's shoulder.

This was too much for Toby. He laughed with pleasure, got up, pulled on his clothes, took the note, and started off with alacrity, to convince the captain that he merited all the good that was said of him, and that indefinite "something" besides.

What could that something be? He thought of many things by the way: a dollar; a knife; a new pair of boots with red tops, such as Lysander himself wore;--which last item reminded him of the bootjack he had been used for, and the kick he had received.

He stopped in the street, his wrath rising up again at the recollection. "Good mind ter go back, and not do his old arrant." But then he thought of the smiles and compliments, and the promised reward. "Somefin' kinder decent 'bout dat mis'ble Sprowl, 'long wid a heap o' mean tings, arter all!" And he started on again.

Lysander's note was in these words:--

"Leiutent Ropes Send me with the bearrer of This 2 strappin felloes capble of doin a touhgh Job."

This letter was duly signed, and duly delivered, and it brought the "2 strappin felloes." The internal evidence it bore, that Lysander had not pursued his studies at school half as earnestly as he had of late pursued the schoolmaster, made no difference with the result.

The two strapping fellows returned with Toby. They were raw recruits, who had travelled a long distance on foot in order to enlist in the confederate ranks. They had an unmistakable foreign air. They called themselves Germans. They were brothers.

"All right, Toby!" said Lysander, well pleased. "What are you bowing and grinning at me for? O, I was to give you something!"

"If you please, sar," said Toby--wretched, deceived, cajoled, devoted Toby.

"Well, you go to the woodshed and bring the clothes line for these fellows--to make a swing for the ladies, you know--then I'll tell you what you're to have."

"Sartin, sar." And Toby ran for the clothes line.

"Good old Toby! Now, what you have deserved so long, and what these stout Dutchmen will proceed to give you, is the damnedest licking you ever had in your life!"

Toby almost fainted; falling upon his knees, and rolling up his eyes in consternation. Sprowl smiled. The "Dutchmen" grinned. Just then Salina darted into the room.

"Lysander! what are you going to do with that old man?"

She put the demand sharply, her short upper lip quivering, cheeks flushed, eyes flaming.

"I'm going to have him whipped."

"No, you are not. You promised me you wouldn't. You told me that if he would go to the Academy for you, and be respectful, you would forgive him. If I had known what you were sending for, he should never have left this house. Now send those men back, and let him go."

"Not exactly, my lady. I am master in this house, whatever turns up. I am this nigger's master, too."

"You are not; you never were. Toby has his freedom. He shall not be whipped!" And with a gesture of authority, and with a stamp of her foot, Salina placed herself between the kneeling old servant and the grinning brothers.

Alas! this woman's dream of love and happiness had been brief, as all such dreams, false in their very nature, must ever be. She loved him well enough to concede much. She was not going to quarrel with him any more. To avoid a threatened quarrel, she betrayed Toby. But she was not heartless: she had a sense of justice, pride, temper, an impetuous will, not yet given over in perpetuity to the keeping of her husband.

The captain laughed devilishly, and threw his arms about his wife (this time in no loving embrace), and seizing her wrists, held them, and nodded to the soldiers to begin their work.

They laid hold of Toby, still kneeling and pleading, bound his arms behind him with the cord, and then looked calmly at Lysander for instructions.

"Take him to the shed," said the captain. "One of you carry this light. You can string him up to a crossbeam. If you don't understand how that's done, I'll go and show you. He's to have twenty lashes to begin with, for lying to me. Then he's to be whipped till he tells where our escaped prisoners are hid in the mountains. You understand?"

"Ve unterstan," said the brothers, coldly.

Toby groaned. They took hold of him, and dragged him away.

"Now will you behave, my girl? A pretty row you're making! Ye see it's no use. I am master. The nigger'll only get it the worse for your interference."

Lysander looked insolently in his wife's face. It was livid.

"Hey?" he said. "One of your tantrums?"

He placed her on a chair. She was rigid; she did not speak; he would have thought she was in a fit but for the eyes which she never took off of him--eyes fixed with deep, unutterable, deadly, despairing hate.

"I reckon you'll behave--you'd better!" he said, shaking his finger warningly at her as he retired backwards from the room.

She saw the door close behind him. She did not move: her eyes were still fixed on that door: heavy and cold as stone, she sat there, and gazed, with that same look of unutterable hate. Perhaps five minutes. Then she heard blows and shrieks. Toby's shrieks: he had no Carl now to rush in and cut his bands.

The twenty lashes for lying had been administered on the negro's bare back. Then Lysander put the question: Was he prepared to tell all he knew about the fugitives and the cave?

"O, pardon, sar! pardon, sar!" the old man implored; "I can't tell nuffin', dat am de troof!"

"Work away, boys," said Lysander.

Was it supposed that the good old practice of applying torture to enforce confession had long since been done away with? A great mistake, my friend. Driven from that ancient stronghold of conservatism, the Spanish Inquisition, it found refuge in this modern stronghold of conservatism, American Slavery. Here the records of its deeds are written on many a back.

But Toby was not a slave. No matter for that. For in the school of slavery, this is the lesson that soon or late is learned: Not simply that there are two castes, freeman and slave; two races, white and black; but that there are two great classes, the rich and the poor, the strong and the weak, the lord and the laborer, one born to rule, and the other to be ruled. All, who are not masters, are, or ought to be, slaves: black or white, it makes no difference; and the slave has no rights. This is the first principle of human slavery. This every slave society tends directly to develop. It may be kept carefully out of sight, but there it lurks, in the hardened hearts of men, like water within rocks. It is forever gushing up in little springs of despotism. Once it burst forth in a vast convulsive flood, and that was the Rebellion.

Although Lysander had never owned a slave, he had all his life breathed the atmosphere of the institution, and imbibed its spirit. He hated labor. He was ambitious. But he was poor. Like a flying fish, he had forced himself out of the lower element of society, to which he naturally belonged, and had long desperately endeavored to soar. The struggle it had cost him to attain his present position rendered him all the more violent in his hatred of the inferior class, and all the more eager to enjoy the privileges of the aristocracy. Do not blame this man too much. The injustice, the cruelty, the atrocious selfishness he displays, do not belong so much to the individual as to the institution. The milk of this wolf makes the child it nourishes wolfish.

Torture to the extent of ten lashes was applied; then once more the question was put. Gashed, bleeding, strung up by his thumbs to the crossbeam; every blow of the extemporized whips extorting from him a howl of agony; no rescue at hand; Lysander looking on with a merciless smile; the brothers doing their assigned work with merciless nonchalance; well might poor Toby cry out, in the wild insanity of pain,--

"Yes, sar! I'll tell, I'll tell, sar!"

"Very good," said Lysander. "Let him breathe a minute, boys."

But in that minute Toby gathered up his soul again, dismissed the traitor, Cowardice, and took counsel of his fidelity. Betray his good old master to these ruffians? Break his promise to Virginia, his oath to Cudjo and Pomp? No, he couldn't do that. He thought of Penn, who would certainly be hung if captured; and hung through his treachery!

"Now, out with it," said Lysander. "All about the cave. And don't ye lie, for you'll have to go and show it to us when we're ready."'

"I can't tell!" said Toby. "Dar ain't no cave! none't I knows about--dat's shore!" This was of course a downright lie; but it was told to save from ruin those he loved; and I do not think it stands charged against his soul on the books of the recording angel.

"Ten more, boys," said Lysander.

"O, wait, wait, sar!" shrieked Toby. "Des guv me time to tink!"

He thought of ten lashes; ten more afterwards; and still another ten; for he knew that the whipping would not cease until either he betrayed the fugitives or died; and every lash was to him an agony.

"Think quick," said Captain Sprowl.

Just then the door, of the kitchen opened. Toby grasped wildly at that straw of hope. It broke instantly. The comer was Salina. She had had the power to betray him, but not the power to save. She stood with folded arms, and smiled.

"I can't help you, Toby, but I can be revenged."

"Hello!" cried Lysander, with a start. "What smoke is that?"

She had left the door open, and a draught of air wafted a strange smell of burning cloth and pine wood to his nostrils.

"Nothing," replied Salina, "only the house is afire."

XXXIII.

_CARL MAKES AN ENGAGEMENT._

Lysander looked in through the doors and saw flames. She had touched the lamp to the sitting-room curtains, and they had ignited the wood-work.

"Your own house," he said, furiously. "What a fiend!"

"It was my father's house until you took possession of it," she answered. "Now it shall burn."

If he had not already considered that he had an interest at stake, that gentle remark reminded him.

"Boys! come quick! By----! we must put out the fire!"

He rushed into the kitchen. The German brothers had come to execute his commands: whether to flay a negro or extinguish a fire, was to them a matter of indifference; and they followed him, seizing pails.

Salina was prepared for the emergency. She held a butcher-knife concealed under her folded arms. With this she cut the cords above Toby's thumbs. It was done in an instant.

"Now, take this and run! If they go to take you, kill them!"

She thrust the handle of the knife into his hand, and pushed him from the shed. Terrified, bewildered, weak, he seemed moving in a kind of nightmare. But somehow he got around the corner of the shed, and disappeared in the darkness.

The brothers saw him go. They were drawing water at the well, and handing it to Lysander in the house. But they had been told to hand water, not to catch the negro. So they looked placidly at each other, and said nothing.

The fire was soon extinguished; and Lysander, with his coat off, pail in hand, excited, turned and saw his "fiend" of a wife seated composedly in a chair, regarding him with a smile sarcastic and triumphant. He uttered a frightful oath.

"Any more of your tantrums, and I'll kill you!"

"Any more of yours," she replied, "and I'll burn you up. I can set fires faster than you can put them out. I don't care for the house any more than I care for my life, and that's precious little."

By the tone in which she said these words, level, determined, distinct, with that spice which compressed fury lends, Captain Lysander Sprowl knew perfectly well that she meant them.

The brothers looked at each other intelligently. One said something in German, which we may translate by the words "Incompatibility of temper;" and he smiled with dry humor. The other responded in the same tongue, and with a sleepy nod, glancing phlegmatically at Sprowl. What he said may be rendered by the phrase--"Caught a Tartar."

Although Lysander did not understand the idiom, he seemed to be quite of the Teutonic opinion. He regarded Mrs. Sprowl with a sort of impotent rage. If he was reckless, she had shown herself more reckless. Though he was so desperate, she had outdone him in desperation. He saw plainly that if he touched her now, that touch must be kindness, or it must be death.

"Have you let Toby go?"

"Yes," replied Salina.

"We can catch him," said Lysander.

"If you do you will be sorry. I warn you in season."

Since she said so, Lysander did not doubt but that it would be so. He concluded, therefore, not to catch Toby--that night. Moreover, he resolved to go back to his quarters and sleep. He was afraid of that wildcat; he dreaded the thought of trusting himself in the house with her. He durst not kill her, and he durst not go to sleep, leaving her alive. The Germans, perceiving his fear, looked at each other and grunted. That grunt was the German for "mean cuss." They saw through Lysander.

After all were gone, Salina went out and called Toby. The old negro had fled for his life, and did not hear. She returned into the house, the aspect of which was rendered all the more desolate and drear by the marks of fire, the water that drenched the floor, the smoky atmosphere, and the dim and bluish lamp-light. The unhappy woman sat down in the lonely apartment, and thought of her brief dream of happiness, of this last quarrel which could never be made up, and of the hopeless, loveless, miserable future, until it seemed that the last drop of womanly blood in her veins was turned to gall.

At the same hour, not many miles away, on a rude couch in a mountain cave, by her father's side, Virginia was tranquilly sleeping, and dreaming of angel visits. Across the entrance of the cavern, like an ogre keeping guard, Cudjo was stretched on a bed of skins. The fire, which rarely went out, illumined faintly the subterranean gloom. By its light came one, and looked at the old man and his child sleeping there, so peacefully, so innocently, side by side. The face of the father was solemn, white, and calm; that of the maiden, smiling and sweet. The heart of the young man yearned within him; his eyes, as they gazed, filled with tears; and his lips murmured with pure emotion,--

"O Lord, I thank thee for their sakes! O Lord, preserve them and bless them!"

And he moved softly away, his whole soul suffused with ineffable tenderness towards that good old man and the dear, beautiful girl. He had stolen thither to see that all was well. All was indeed well. And now he retired once more to a recess in the rock, where he and Pomp had made their bed of blankets and dry moss.

The footsteps on the solid floor of stone had not awakened her. And what was more remarkable, the lover's beating heart and worshipping gaze had not disturbed her slumber. But now the slightest movement on the part of her blind parent banishes sleep in an instant.

"Daughter, are you here?"

"I am here, father!"

"Are you well, my child?"

"O, very well! I have had such a sweet sleep! Can I do anything for you?"

"Yes. Let me feel that you are near me. That is all." She kissed him. "Heaven is good to me!" he said.

She watched him until he slept again. Then, her soul filled with thankfulness and peace, she closed her eyes once more, and happy thoughts became happy dreams.