University of Virginia Library

10. CHAPTER X.

The prospect of his revenge before him, Davis hurried
away with the view to its accomplishment. The
rough countryman had too deeply embarked his feelings
in the frail vessel which his more audacious and
imposing rival had, to his eyes, so completely carried
away, not to desire this object at all the hazards

which he was about to incur. He was violating his
duty, and about to risk his life for this object; yet he
did not regret the risks, so that he could be sure of the
strife which they brought him. For this strife, regardless
of all inequality of strength and skill, he was
burningly anxious; and, under the exciting impulse of
his desire, he sped across the narrow point of the
island, making his way to the spot where the horses
were all in shelter. To remove one of them, without
disturbing the sleepers, required no little caution; and
the extreme slowness of movement which this necessity
imposed upon him was a subject of some annoyance
to the partisan. Before he reached the place,
he came rather suddenly upon the spot where Porgy,
with rifle in hand, had been stationed to do the duty of
a sentinel. The gourmand was in a state of abstraction—the
butt of his rifle rested upon the ground, and
his fixed and settled gaze was quite different from the
habitual expression of his eyes. He started, as the
footstep of Davis reached his ears, and was evidently
disquieted by the interruption. His demand was querulously
quick and loud—

“Who goes there?”

The answer was given by the partisan; and the
tones of Porgy's voice changed instantly to those of
pleasant recognition.

“Ah, Prickly Ash! my good fellow, you are just
in time to do me, and yourself, and the whole camp,
an eminent piece of service. But speak low, my dear
fellow, speak low, and make as little noise as possible.”

“What now, Porgy?” was the question of Davis,
wondering at the anxiety of the speaker. “What do
you see?”

“See!—what do I not see? oh, blessed Jupiter! what
do I not see!” and he threw out his tongue as he
spoke, rolled up his eyeballs till nothing but the whites
were perceptible, and letting the muzzle of his rifle
rest upon the hollow of his arm, rubbed his hands together
with an air of delight which was perfectly irresistible.

Davis began to doubt his sanity, when the
other recovered himself.

“What do I not see, my boy?—look for yourself—
here—come beside me—follow my finger—see—to the
little pond just beyond that old cypress—see the log
half rolled into the pond—look at the end of the log,
there, just where the starlight falls upon it—look and
see, and understand why it is that I rejoice. Look,
my boy, but speak not—make no noise, lest you disturb
the comely creatures—the fascinating dainties—the
dear—hush—hush.” Stopping himself in the utterance
of his own raptures, which were growing rather louder
than prudence called for, he guided the eye of Davis
to the designated spot, and at once conveyed to the
mind of his companion a sufficient reason for all his
transports. A little bayou from the creek stretched
away for some twenty yards beyond it, and there, on a
fallen tree which was thrust half into the water, and
up from which they had crawled, lay three fine terrapins,
basking quietly in the starlight; their glossy
backs yet trickling with the water, and giving back a
glistening light to the scattering rays which fell
through the opening of the trees upon them.

“That's a sight, John Davis, to lift a man from a
sick-bed. That's a sight to make him whole and
happy again. Look how quietly they lie; that farthest
one—I would he were nigher—is a superb fellow,
fat as butter, and sticking full of eggs. There's soup
enough in the three for a regiment; and—here, my
good fellow, take the rifle, and do the watch, while I
circumvent the enemy. You shall see me come upon
them like an Indian. I will only throw off this outer
and most unnecessary covering, and put on the character
of a social grunter. Ah, the hog is a noble animal—what
would we do without him? It's almost a
sin to mock him—but in making mock turtle, John
Davis, the offence is excusable: a good dinner, I say,
will sanctify a dozen sins, and here goes for one.”

Forcing the weapon into the hands of Davis, the
corpulent sentinel, with a degree of earnestness and

elasticity which greatly belied his personal appearance,
soon threw off his coat and vest, and prepared
to undertake the conquest of the three unconscious terrapins
that were taking their nightly nap so pleasantly
above their oozy dwelling-place. Crawling upon
hands and knees, while Davis looked on and watched
for him, he made his way over the tussock, and soon
reached the log, on the end of which his threatened
victims were reposing. Here he commenced that independent
and occasional grunt which marks the progress
usually of the aristocratic hog, going where he
pleases, and grumbling as he goes. His imitation was
excellent; and Porgy was an adept at imitation: but
he had scruples at its exercise, as unbecoming in a
gentleman, unless where the object in view, like the
present, promoted the prospects and the pleasures of a
dinner. At the first sound, the largest of the three terrapins
betrayed a degree of wakefulness, duly commensurate
with the importance and safety of the bulk
of which he had the charge. He thrust out his long
neck and bullet head from his glossy shell, and, like an
old soldier, appeared to listen. His eye took in the
forms of his sleeping companions only, and he saw no
cause of danger in the dark, unruffled water of the pond
below him. A second grunt from the supposed hog
reassured the suspicious terrapin; and, familiar with
the animal whose part, so far, Porgy had so well enacted,
he drew in his circumspect countenance, and
prepared to knit up once more his unravelled slumbers.
In the mean while the persevering gourmand continued
to make his way; and, striding the very tree, at length,
which the game occupied, on hands and feet, he began
to adopt that mode of conveyance entitled in the southwest
“cooning the log,” which is so frequently practised
in that region, where a fallen tree, made slippery
by driving rains, is usually the only substitute which
the traveller finds for the solid bridge, or the less stable
canoe.

Davis now watched his progress with some anxiety.
But, though himself anxious, Porgy felt too deeply the

value of his victims to risk their loss by any precipitation.
He moved along at a snail's pace, and whenever
the huge tree would vibrate beneath his prodigious
weight, the cautious trapper would pause in his
journey, and send forth as good a grunt as ever echoed
in Westphalian forests. The poor terrapins were completely
taken in by the imitation, and lay there enjoying
those insidious slumbers, which were now to be their
ruin. Nigher and nigher came the enemy. A few
feet only separated the parties, and, with an extended
hand, Porgy could have easily turned over the one
which was nighest. But the eyes of the gourmand
had singled out the most remote of that sweet company.
He had taken in at a glance its entire dimensions,
and already, in his mind, estimated, not only the
quantity of rich reeking soup which could be made
out of it, but the very number of eggs which it contained.
Nothing short, therefore, of this particular
prize would have satisfied him; and, thus extravagant
in his desires, he scarcely deigned a glance to the
others. At length he sat squat almost alongside of
the two—the third, as they lay close together, being
almost in his grasp, he had actually put out his
hands for its seizure, when the long neck of his victim
was again thrust forth, and, with arms still extended,
Porgy remained for a while quiet. Again the
terrapin drew in its suspicious head, and the hands descended
with a clutch from which there was no escaping.
One after another the victims were turned upon
their backs; and, with a triumphant chuckle, the captor
carried off his prey, one by one, to the solid tussock.

“I cannot talk to you for an hour, Prickly, my
boy—not for an hour—here's food for thought in all
that time. Food for thought did I say! Ay, for how
much thought—I am thoughtful. The body craves food,
indeed, only that the mind may think, and half our
earthly cares are for this material. It is falsehood
and folly to speak of eating as an animal necessity,
the love of which is vulgarly designated an animal

appetite. It is not so with me. The mere feast is
nothing to the pleasure of its preparation—its attainment.
Am I not willing—do I not love to share it with
all? What is it prompts me in the pursuit of game like
this? That love of ingenuity, of adventure, which is
man's true nature, which is continually changing its
forms and features, and exhibiting itself in aspects perpetually
new, and continually adventuring in new provinces.
Our nature is never so legitimately employed,
my dear Prickly, as when it is inventing, contriving,
multiplying images and offices, the purposes and pleasures
of which are to keep us from stagnation. Now I
shall give you all a surprise to-morrow. I shall dress
all these terrapins differently. You shall have enough
of the old steaks and the soup to satisfy; but there
shall be some experiments. I thought of one as I
approached the log, and when the cunning of that big
fellow there nearly discovered me. The grunt saved
me, and with the grunt came the idea of a new dish, as
it were, like lightning, to my mind. That terrapin, I said
to myself, shall be compounded with hog, in memory
of this event. There shall be a union of forces between
them, and you shall see the glorious dish that
I shall make of it. But, where do you go?”

Returning the rifle to its owner, whose prizes lay
on their backs at his feet, Davis was now hurrying
away upon the business which this incident had so
far suspended. He replied by telling Porgy that he
was bent for the skirts of the swamp, and should probably
be gone all night.

“But not longer, my dear fellow—don't think of
staying longer—I would not you should miss mess
home to-morrow for the world. There's too much at
stake, quite, and I beg that you will think of it. A
dinner once lost is never recovered. The stomach
loses a day, and regrets are not only idle to recall it,
but substract largely from the appetite the day ensuing.
Tears can only fall from a member that lacks teeth;
the mouth, now, is never seen weeping. It is the eye
only; and, as it lacks tongue, teeth, and taste alike,

by Jupiter, it seems to me that tears should be its
proper business. The mouth has no sorrows.”

Davis hurried away from the doughty and good-natured
speaker, who would willingly have detained
him all night; and successfully detaching his own horse
from the rest of the group, he carefully chose two
stout weapons, and carried them off with all secrecy,
and without farther interruption, to the spot which he
had determined upon for the place of meeting.

It was a quiet spot, and well calculated for a mortal
struggle. The area was sufficiently large for that,
and the trees completely encircled it. The ground
itself was a sandhill, such as, in that neighbourhood,
will sometimes rise suddenly out from a swamp, and
drink up the still trickling waters of a streamlet running
beside it. The starlight gave a sufficiently strong
light for the combat, and the moon was now about to
rise. Davis surveyed the ground in silence, and with
something of grave reflection crowding upon his mind
as he did so. His desire for revenge had made him
almost entirely unmindful of the possible results to
himself of the contemplated struggle; and now that
he looked upon the sands, so soon, as he thought, to
soak up the blood of himself or his enemy, or both,
his reflections were neither so calm nor so pleasant
as he could have wished them. Not that he feared
death; but its idea is one of terrible contemplation.
We should always esteem the danger, however boldly
we may advance to meet it.

But the die was cast, and no useful result could
possibly arise from his reflections now, as it was out
of the question to suppose that his determination
could be changed. That was forbidden by the general
sense of society in the quarter in which he lived; and
striving heartily to dismiss all consideration from his
mind, save that which told him of the injuries he was
to avenge, he fastened to a neighbouring tree the horse
which was destined for the survivor, and plunging
back into the swamp, took his way towards the place
where the partisans lay sheltered.

The time which he had lost in the watch for Porgy,
and in the removal of the horse and weapons to the
place of appointment, had not, however, been left unemployed
by others. Suffering a brief half-hour to
elapse, with that method which is at periods the feature
of most forms of madness, the maniac Frampton
emerged from the swamp, and came to the hut where
Hastings was imprisoned. The prisoner looked up
as the huge form darkened the imperfect light at the
entrance, and wondered at the increased size of his
enemy.

“Come,” said the maniac—“come!”

“But I am tied hand and foot, Master Davis, and
can't budge a peg, unless you cut the cords,” was the
reply. Without a word, the maniac did as he was required.
He separated the cords with his knife, which
he straight restored to his belt, while the freed sergeant,
stiff and sore from his fatiguing constraints,
rose slowly, and stretched himself painfully in the air.

“A d—d hard bed I've had of it, Master Davis, and
my limbs work as if they wanted greasing. A sup of
Jamaica now were not bad.”

“Come!” cried the maniac, impatiently.

Half wondering at the sullenness and unsociability
of one whom he was about to indulge with a fight after
his own desire, Hastings, nevertheless, thought it prudent
to forbear farther speech while such was the
mood of his companion, and simply obeying his command,
followed him forth from the hut. Madness is
fond of schemes, else it is most probable that Frampton
would have used his knife upon Hastings, summarily,
as he had already done upon Clough. But
the lingering reason still strives at authority even in
the head of the insane man; and though disordered,
weakened, and deprived of some one or more of its
auxiliaries, it still seeks, by a method of its own, to
establish its supremacy. It still plans, contrives, and
creates; and the cunning of the madman is a singular
feature of his sometime disorder. It was so with the
individual before us. He had taken his way, in the

first instance, to the hut of the prisoner, intending for
him the same fate as that which befell Clough in the
same situation. The approach of Davis had made
him pause. In that pause, he heard the proposed plan
of the Goose Creeker to his enemy, and the quick
imagination of the maniac readily adopted it as his
own. He had watched, accordingly, till the partisan
had gone to effect his preparations, and had then
chosen his time, as we have seen, to complete for
him what he had so well begun. We have seen how
far he has succeeded. Still unknown by the prisoner—
for he avoided all unnecessary speech, and the dim
obscurity of the place did not allow of his detection—
the maniac led the way at once through the creek,
taking a route different from that which would have
been pursued by Davis.

“Come!” he cried impatiently to Hastings, as the
latter floundered slowly and with difficulty through the
mire and water. “Come!”

The sergeant did his best to keep up with his conductor,
but he found it no easy matter. Familiar with
the swamps—a wild dweller in their depths—Frampton
strode away almost as easily as if upon the solid
land. He picked no path—he availed himself of no
friendly log, offering sure footing and an unimpeded path
through the slough; but dashing in, through bad and good
alike, he led the luckless sergeant over a territory the
worst he had ever in his life travelled. Occasionally,
the maniac would pause, as the other lingered behind,
to utter the expressive monosyllable—“Come!” a
thrilling, half-suppressed sound, which, from his lips,
had a singularly imposing accent in the ears of his
victim. The fatigue of his progress made the apprehensions
of Hastings exceedingly active; and as occasional
glimpses of starlight came through the trees,
giving him a more distinct view of his conductor, he
could not avoid a feeling of disquietude, as he remarked
a singular expansion which had taken place in his size.
He half wished the adventure had not been undertaken;
but then again he thought of Humphries. The

thought gave him new energy to pursue his way, and
he toiled on with most praiseworthy perseverance,
until he came to a broad, high tussock—a solemn looking
place, closely imbowered with the hugest pines,
and almost insulated by the long miry pond which
half encircled it. His conductor had already gone
through it, and stood on the edge of the tussock, as it
were, in waiting for his advance. The prospect gave
additional disquiet to the sergeant. “Surely,” thought
he, “he will give a body time to rest a while; he will
not be for the fight off-hand.”

“Come!” cried his enemy to him across the pond,
and, with something like desperation, Hastings plunged
into it. The mire closed oozingly around him, almost
to his middle, and he toiled through it, unable to
lift his legs free from its embrace, by the sheer onward
pressure of his body. Drenched and dripping,
he arose upon the bank, and stood before the man who
had conducted him. A terrible laugh—a shrill demoniac
screech—filled his ears, and he shivered as he
heard it with unmitigated terror.

“Who—what are you?” he cried to the maniac.
“Where is Davis?”

“He waits for you,” was the response of the madman—“Come!”

“Oh, you are to conduct me to him, is it?” said the
other, somewhat more reassured; “but he told me he
would come himself.”

“Come!” and, like a fierce spirit of wrath, the maniac
waved his arms forward to the deep recesses of
the woods that lay dark and dense before them.
Awed by the action, and more so by the terrible sound
of that voice which was deep-toned like an organ, the
sergeant went forward without hesitation. They entered
the thick wood, passed through the intervening
foliage, which continued dense and thick for some
thirty paces, and then suddenly opened upon a space,
and into a degree of light that almost dazzled the prisoner.
The tussock, in this part, was bald almost like
the “door-prairie;” indeed, it was the door-prairie,

though on too small a scale to warrant the application
of the term familiarly. The deep vault of heaven,
clear, blue, and perfectly unclouded, was flowered with
its profuse myriads, and the bright eyes looked down
upon the two as if they had no dread of crime, and
had never been the silent watchers of human suffering.
The moon, too, had sent up in the east a faint glory,
the harbinger of her own coming, which spread itself
afar like a transparent colour, clearly distinguishable
from the starlight immediately around, which it now
began to supersede. The wild man paused, looked
briefly upon the rich assemblage above him, turned
back to beckon his companion, and once more, with a
waving hand, led the way over the prairie. In a few
moments they had gained a tree—a huge cypress
which stood on the opposite side of the tussock—and
there the maniac paused. Acquiring confidence as he
came up, Hastings approached his conductor, and was
about to speak to him, when, with a finger upon his
lips, he silenced the forthcoming speech by a look,
while he pointed to his feet. The sergeant gazed
down upon the spot, and started back with something
like astonishment, if not terror, in his countenance.
They stood before a new-made grave—the clay freshly
piled above it, and the whole appearance of the spot
indicating a recent burial. The maniac did not heed
the expression of the sergeant's face; but after a moment,
seemingly of deliberation, he prostrated himself
before the grave. Much wondering at what he saw, Hastings
awaited in silence the farther progress of the scene.
Nor did he wait long. The maniac prayed—and such
a prayer—such an appeal to a spirit supposed to be
then wandering by, and hearing him, was never before
uttered. Incoherent sometimes, and utterly wild, it
was nevertheless full of those touches of sublimated
human feeling which characterize the holiest aspirations
of love, and which, while they warm and kindle, purify
at the same time, and nobly elevate. His prayer was
to his departed wife. He prayed her forgiveness for
a thousand unkindnesses,—a thousand instances of
neglect—of querulous rebuke—of positive injustice,
with which he bitterly reproached himself. Then followed
a tender and really exquisite description of the
humble and secret pleasures which they had known
together. The joys of their childhood and youth, and
the enumeration of many little incidents of domestic
occurrence, of which he now reminded the hovering
spirit. Tears poured from him freely as he repeated
them, and for a few moments the wild man was absolutely
softened into calm; but the change was terrific
which described her cruel murder; how, stricken down
by the brutal soldiery, she lay trampled upon the floor,
dying at last in torture, with her infant, yet unborn, adding
its prayer to that of its mother for the vengeance
to which he had devoted himself. This brought him
to the point when the trial must come on with his victim.
He started to his feet, and rushed madly towards
Hastings. The sergeant, to whom the latter part of
the prayer had taught his danger, prepared to fly in
terror. But the swift foot of the maniac was after
him, and his strong arm hurled him backward to the
grave, over which he reeled and fell, heavily and
overborne. He cried out aloud in his desperation, as
he beheld the maniac bounding towards him. He cried
aloud, and the echoes only replied; and a white owl
that hooted from the cypress over the grave, moaned
mockingly to his cry. The fierce executioner seized
him with a grasp which defied and disdained all resistance.
He dragged him to the grave—he stretched
him out upon it, placed his knee upon his breast, and
with that dreadful screech, which well accompanied his
movements, he drew the already bared knife from the
belt which contained it.

“Mercy! mercy!” implored the sergeant, while his
shout of terror, a voice beyond his own, rang wildly
through the swamp and forest, craving mercy, and
craving it in vain.

“You showed her none!—none! You struck her
down—your foot was upon her, and she died under it.
Come—come!”

The maniac was impatient for his prey, and he
yelled scornfully at the impotent struggles of his victim.
At that moment a loud voice was heard calling to them
from the swamp. The wild man, with all the caprice
of insanity, sprang to his feet as he heard it; and
seizing that moment of release, the sergeant also rising
rushed away to the wood in the direction of the voice.
The maniac looked at the fugitive scornfully, and for
a brief space did not offer to pursue; but the delay
was only momentary. In another instant, Hastings
heard the bounding tramp of the heavy feet—he heard
the ominous screech of his enemy, speaking death to
his imagination; and a fresh speed came to him from his
renewed terrors. He shouted ever, as he flew, to the
approaching person, and had the satisfaction to find
that his cry was responded to by the voice nearer at
hand. He now entered the little wood which separated
him from the mire, through which he had groped his
way before with so much difficulty. The wretch
prayed as he ran—probably for the first time in his
life—and the cold sweat trickled over his face as he
uttered his first fervent appeal to his God. The prayer
was unheard—certainly unheeded. The maniac was
upon him, and the first bound which the fugitive made
into the mire of the swamp, was precipitated by the
hand of the avenger. Rushing into the mud after him,
the maniac grappled with him there. Though hopeless
of his own strength in the contest with one so far superior,
and only desirous of saving himself unhurt until
Davis—for it was he who now approached them—
should come up to his relief, Hastings presented a stout
front, and resolutely engaged in the conflict. He shouted
all the while the struggle was going on, and his shouts
were chorused by the dreadful yells of his murderer.

“Come to me quickly, John Davis—quickly—
quickly—for God's sake, come!—come!”

“Come! come!” cried the murderer, in mockery;
and the sound of his victim's voice died away in a
hoarse gurgle, as the strong arm of the maniac thrust
the head of the pleader down, deep into the mire, where

he held it so long as the body continued to show signs
of life above. Davis came up at this moment.

“Where is the prisoner, Frampton?—where is
Hastings?”

“Ho! ho! ho! See you not—see you not?—he is
here—look!” And he pointed him to the legs of the
victim, still jerking convulsively above the mire.

“Great God! man, pull him out—pull him out, for
Heaven's sake, Frampton!” And, as he spoke, the
Goose Creeker, horrified by what he saw, bounded
into the mire himself for the extrication of the dying
man. But, at his approach, the wild savage thrust the
wretch still more deeply into the ooze, until it was
evident, from the quiet of the body, long before Davis
could extricate him, that all life had departed.

“Why have you done this, man?” cried the aroused
and disappointed partisan to the murderer; but the
maniac only replied by another of his terrible screeches,
as, bounding out of the mire, he took his way back to
the grave where his wife lay buried. The feelings of
Davis were melancholy and reproachful enough, as he
returned to the encampment.