13. CHAPTER XIII.
THE MAGIC RIFLE.
Vrail did not dare to emerge from his hiding-place, but he
ventured to draw near enough to its outer edge to reconnoitre the
formidable enemy who had seemed to think two trembling fugitives
upon the beach a proper subject for his prowess. Great
was his alarm on discovering a small boat, containing six or seven
men, putting off from the steamer and approaching the shore,
very evidently for the purpose of effecting their capture. Both
himself and the negro were armed, having preserved their guns,
while Vrail had also his pistols, and his resolution was instantly
and coolly taken.
“This way, Brom,” he said, raising his rifle; “they are after us
now, half a dozen of them. If they land, there is no help for us.
Stand ready now, to load as fast as I fire.”
Vrail was a practiced marksman, and he felt so certain of the
fatality of his aim that he hesitated a moment with a natural
reluctance, but a random volley from his approaching foe, designed
to keep them within their cover, determined him, and he pulled
the trigger.
An oarsman sprung from his seat, and fell over the edge of the
boat which was nearly capsized by the hasty rush of his comrades
to his assistance.
“I am sorry for him,” said Harry, coolly exchanging guns with
Brom, and raising the second weapon to his eye.
“Golly! I ain't,” replied the negro, ramming down another
cartridge; “hav'n't the cowardly rapscallions been cannonading
us?”
Again the hurtling lead went upon its mission, and another man
was seen to fall, but the oars were again speedily manned, and the
increased speed with which the boat approached the shore showed
a courageous design to effect a landing before the weapons could
again be loaded and brought to bear.
“Fool!” exclaimed Harry; “I meant to have spared him,”
bringing the weapon which Brom now handed him to bear upon
the leader of the party, who sat in the stern of the skiff, and who
at the next instant was added to the list of victims.
“Golly! there goes the cap'n,” shouted Brom with great glee.
“Now for another!” he continued, handing up the ready gun.
“Wait a little! I rather think they have enough. I believe
they are going back.”
“Then it's jes the time to pepper 'em, massa; quick, now, give
it to them! Golly! didn't they cannonade us?”
Vrail was correct in his conjectures. The progressive motion
of the skiff had been stopped, and after a moment's pause, it was
turned about and moved rapidly toward the steamboat, to which
it was still much nearer than to the shore. Whether this was
by order of the wounded officer, or whether he had given his last
orders, it was impossible to tell, but nothing was more certain
than that the foe were in full flight. Again the African conjured
his master to fire upon them, and the speed with which they fled
showed that they expected another discharge, but no urging would
induce Vrail to take a human life needlessly.
“We have defended ourselves so far,” he said, “but it would
not benefit us in the least to take another life. I am really very
sorry for those poor fellows, Brom.”
“Jingo! massa, I ain't. Didn't they cannonade us?” repeated
the negro, who could not forget his fright at being fired upon by
a cannon from a vessel of war, and who did not seem disposed to
forgive the offence.
That the steamer approached no nearer the shore during this
singular contest, was doubtless owing to some very effective shots
which she had recently received from one of the patriot forts, a
repetition of which might be apprehended, for the result of the
several engagements on shore, if, indeed they had yet fully terminated,
was unknown to the commandant on the boat. His remaining
forces, however, were not idle spectators of this engagement
with the “band of marauders on the beach,” as in a subsequent
dispatch he styled the two fugitives: but they kept up some
random firing toward them, especially during the retreat of their
comrades in the boat.
Although temporarily elated by his extraordinary victory, the
young lieutenant was far from expecting to make good his escape.
He might be considered even to have increased the peril of his
position, for his capture, which seemed still almost unavoidable,
could scarcely result in anything short of his immediate death
from his enraged foe. While daylight lasted, there was no possibility
of emerging from his narrow shelter without the certainty
of detection and successful pursuit, and scarcely three minutes
elapsed after the return of the small boat to the steamer, before it
was again sent out by a circuitous route, to gain a distant part of
the beach, farther up the stream, and beyond the reach of the
magical weapon which had proved so disastrous to its recent occupants.
There were but three individuals in it this time, and the design
was very evidently to give notice to some party of the enemy on
shore of the lurking place of the fugitives, and to draw down upon
them an immediate force which no strength of theirs could resist
or evade. It was late in the afternoon, but the sun was yet twice
the breadth of his disc above the horizon.
Vrail watched anxiously its tardy movements down the declivity
of the sky, hoping against hope for the speedy arrival of that
darkness which might afford them one more chance of escape.
Never, seemingly, had the great luminary been so slow in its descent,
and it almost seemed to him that some miraculous interposition
had taken place to arrest the orb of day, like that which
stayed its progress down the heights of Gibeon at the bidding of
the prophet of God. From the sky to the water and to the flying
boat, and back again to the sky, his impatient eye wandered,
and he calculated closely the time which might elapse before the
sound of pursuit would be heard. Fly he must, but darkness alone
could give him even a faint chance of escape. The village adjacent
was by no means large, but all its inhabitants, as well as the
scattered population of the country for many miles around, had
been aroused by the exciting events of the day, and on every
road which led into the interior, people were passing to and from
the seat of war.
The shore of the river alone remained nearly deserted, but this
there was, of course, no safety in traversing under the guns of the
steamboat, which had already so nearly proved fatal to them.
While Harry watched in momentarily increasing anxiety, the
skiff had passed far up the stream, and began rapidly to approach
the shore, and yet the sun had not touched the horizon; but the
breeze which so often springs up at the day's decline was rising with
unusual strength, and soon the summits of some ascending clouds
became visible in the west.
They rose too, with such a breath of base, so “volumed and vast,”
as to promise an effectual extinguishment of the remaining daylight,
from the moment they should receive the descending luminary
within their capacious folds. Such, too, was their effect.
The night drew suddenly on, unpreceded by the usual twilight,
and the still rising clouds promised to make it one of unusual
darkness. Of course the fugitives lost no time in emerging from
their place of concealment, although with no well-defined idea of the
route they were to pursue; but Vrail resolved to leave the river
shore, which would be sure to be the first place of search by
their pursuers. Being nearly exhausted by fatigue, and suffering
with cold and hunger, he knew that he might be compelled to
trust himself temporarily to the mercy of some Canadian family,
yet he was unwilling to wander far from that stream, which afforded
the only means of return to his native land.
There was little time, however, to choose roads, for he had
scarcely gone forth from the bushes before he heard the clamor
of pursuit, and he hurried forward, attended by his sable friend, not
knowing whither he went, excepting that he was leaving the lights
of the village behind him.
