Chapter X: The Man-Hunt

Every man in Tickfall who had any sort of animal to ride bestrode the beast and joined the procession, which moved out of town in the wake of Diada. Hundreds of negroes who had ridden in from the plantations the night before galloped down the road behind the whites. And every canine of any size or color attached himself to the posse and went plunging along with the men.

They came to a straight stretch of road where they could see for over two miles. At the far end of that stretch they beheld Diada, her head and shoulders stooped far over, trotting with gigantic strides, traveling with the tireless persistence of a desert camel.

To their surprise, Diada did not run into the swamp, but continued upon the main road, which led to the Tickfall landing on the Mississippi River. Seeing this, the men did not attempt to run her down, but remained content to keep her in sight. At the end of an hour she was still trotting easily with no signs of fatigue.

Finally Diada turned and ran into the forest. With a mighty clamor the men raced after her, floundering through the underbrush, and galloping far over into the woods. When the posse had passed out of sight among the trees, Diada quietly climbed down from the branches of a big tree, where she had concealed herself, and started down the road again.

The dogs discovered her first.

Yelping furiously they drove her from the main road across the prairie marsh which skirted Lake Basteneau, and penned her upon a narrow point which projected like a peninsula into the lake and was thickly overgrown with cypress saplings about as large around as a man’s wrist.

The marsh between the road and the lake was too soft for the men to venture on with their horses, and it was even dangerous for a man to walk upon because of the quicksands. But the men could look from the road, across a part of the lake, and easily see Diada and the dogs.

“Don’t go after her, men!” Flournoy called. “Let the dogs run her away from there! We’ll get her when she comes off that point!”

With the large butcher-knife which she had procured from Mrs. Gaitskill’s kitchen she had begun to cut down the cypress-saplings, trimming off the leaves and the branches. She piled them up, dozens of them, working swiftly.

The dogs did not advance to attack Diada. They merely stood and barked at her. But they were in possession of the only exit from the narrow point on which Diada had been trapped.

“Dat gal must be gittin’ ready to beat dem dogs off wid dem poles,” Hitch Diamond remarked to the other negroes. “She’s shore put a job up on herse’f.”

But Diada had a surprise in store for them all.

Balancing one of the long saplings on the top of her hand she hurled it like a javelin with the speed and accuracy of an arrow. A hound-dog gave a yelp which seemed to break in two in the middle--then he died. The javelin had pinned him to the ground like an entomologist’s specimen on a cardboard.

Then the javelins flew thick and fast into that bunch of dogs, and every flying weapon found a mark and brought forth a yelp of death. In a few moments the dogs turned tail and came whining back to their masters.

Diada snatched up a number of the javelins, ran off the point of land, and trotted down the edge of the lake toward the river.

“Leave your horses and follow her, men!” Flournoy ordered.

Four hundred men sprang to the ground, spread out in a long line like a fish-seine and went plunging across the marsh in pursuit of the fleeing woman. The grass was waist high, dead and dry as dust, but it offered no places for concealment, and Diada’s tall form was easily kept in sight.

At intervals the woman turned and hurled a javelin at the posse, but they were careful to stay out of danger.

In a little while the men noticed that Diada had begun to show signs of exhaustion. She was traveling more slowly, stopping now and then to catch her breath, and moving forward with a more pronounced stoop to her mighty shoulders.

She had eaten nothing for two days, had had no rest or sleep, and was now on the last lap of a twelve-mile run at full-speed!

Finally she slowed down to a walk, and the walk became a sort of stumble. She still carried a few of her javelins, and it was evident that she was now dependent upon them to keep her pursuers at a distance, while both she and they realized that she was now in the center of a prairie of marsh grass where she could not supply herself with new weapons when those she possessed were exhausted.

Something of the pathos of the situation dawned upon the men, both white and black, and they became silent, eyes strained toward the weakening, staggering quarry, so soon to fall into their hands.

For twenty minutes the silence was unbroken except for the swish of the marsh grass as the men waded through it. Far across the prairie could be seen the levee of the Mississippi River.

Suddenly the silence was broken by the long, dear, musical whistle of a boat upon the river.

Diada stopped. Again that long, clear whistle came belling across the sun-scorched prairie.

Diada raised her hands straight up above her head like a sun-worshiper, emitted a long, plaintive, howling scream, which ended with that word which was branded upon the memories of Tickfall forever: “Whoosh! Whoo-ash!”

So dramatic was her action that the hair stood up on every man’s head, and a cold chill swept across every sweat-drenched body.

The woman trotted slowly onward, moving now in a straight line toward the river. She had nearly a mile to travel to reach the levee, and she saw that she could not make the distance before she was captured.

Then she sprung another surprise--one which came very near being the death of her pursuers.

Kneeling in the grass she picked up two tiny splinters of bark and rubbed them rapidly together. A small blue flame curled around her fingers and caught in the dry marsh grass. Running to another point she dropped the flame there.

Then a wild yell of horror swept across the prairie and she beheld four hundred men in a panic, fleeing for their lives.

Diada was safe from the fire because what little breeze there was blew landward from the lake. In an incredible time that prairie had become a furnace of fire, the racing flames pursuing the screaming men, making a scene resembling nothing so much as the picture of that hell so vividly described “where the smoke of torment ascendeth and there is weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth!”

The fire was checked when it reached the wide sandy road which led to the Tickfall landing.

By the mercy of Heaven the men reached that road unscorched by the flames! Mounting their horses, they looked across the charred grass of the prairie and beheld Diada trotting slowly onward toward the Mississippi levee.

With a wild shout they sent their steeds pounding down the road after her.

Then around the bend of the river came a beautiful sea-going yacht--an exquisite queen of the waters. Her whistle emitted four long, clear signals for the Tickfall landing.

“By George!” Colonel Gaitskill exclaimed, “that is Captain Lemuel Manse’s yacht. My telegram caught him at Vicksburg, and he turned around and came back!”

In a moment the yacht came opposite to where Diada stood upon the bank of the river. The watching men saw her lift her hands high toward the heavens. Then they heard a long, clear shout, ending with the familiar: “Whoosh! Whoo-ash!”

The yacht answered with two short, sharp whistle signals.

Diada ran swiftly down the levee, and then leaped high and plunged far over into the muddy waters of the Mississippi!

The wondering, watching men saw her head emerge from the waves, saw her swim like a fish to the yacht, saw her seize a rope which was tossed over the side, and climb hand over hand to safety and rest and peace and the care and protection of her friends!

“That’s all, men!” Gaitskill said in a voice which choked in his throat. “You may all go back home now. Diada is gone from Tickfall forever!”