 | CHAPTER VIII. Richard Hurdis, or, The avenger of blood : a tale of Alabama |  |
8. CHAPTER VIII.
And thou hast liberty to unload the burden
Which thou groan'st under.
Massinger.
There is no fascination in the snake, true or fabled,
of more tenacious hold upon the nature of the
victim, than was that of the emissary of the Mystic
Brotherhood, upon the miserable creature, Pickett.
A wretch born in degradation, living as it were by
stealth, and in constant dread of penal atonement,
life was torture, of itself, enough when it came
coupled with the constant fear of justice. But when
to this danger was added, that of an accountability to
a power, no less arbitrary than the laws, and wholly
illegitimate, the misery of the wretch was complete.
But if such was the influence of such a condition
over Pickett's mind, what must it be over the no less
dishonourable, and far more base offender who employed
him. Though a murderer, a cold blooded
calculating murderer, who could skulk behind a
bush, and shoot down his victim from a covert
he was yet hardy enough, if he had the sensibility
for hate, to avenge his wrong by his own
hand, and not by that of an agent. John Hurdis had
proved himself deficient even in this doubtful sort
of courage. He could smile and be the villain—
could desire and devise the murder of his enemy;—
but wanted even the poor valour of the murderer.
What must be the feeling—the fear—of his leprous
heart, when he is taught his true condition. When
he finds his secret known—when he feels himself in
the power of a clan having a thousand tongues, and
hourly exposing themselves to a thousand risks of
general detection. It would have been a sight for
study, to behold those three villains gathered together
in that nocturnal interview. Hurdis—his soul
divided between triumph and horror—eager to
learn the particulars of the horrid crime which his
agent had horribly executed, yet dreading the very
recital to which he gave all ears;—Pickett—burdened
with the consciousness of unprofitable guilt, and of its
exposure to the dogging blood hound at his heels;—
and he, the emissary—like a keen hunter—hanging
upon the flanks of both, pricking them forward
when they faltered, and now by sarcasm, and now
by threats, quelling their spirits, and commanding all
their secrets. Secure of his game, he smiled in his
security at the feeble efforts which he beheld them
of being able to baffle his pursuit, and
throw out his unerring nostril from the scent which
he had so fortunately followed. The struggle was,
indeed, no less pitiful than painful, and well might
the utter villain smile with contempt at the partial
character, which the two brought to bear upon their
designs of evil. Without virtue and radically vicious,
they were alike deficient in that bold and daring insolence,
which can defy the laws which it offends,
and by a courage, of however doubtful merit, at least
elevate its offences above the level of sneaking and
insidious vice. His game was that of the cunning
angler, who knows that his hook is keenly fixed in
the jaws of his prey, and who plays with his hopes
only to make his fears more oppressive, and his compliance
the more unreserved and unqualified.
Hurdis was awaiting his companion in the place
appointed.
“What have we here—who is this?” he exclaimed
in surprise, as he beheld the stranger with
Pickett.
“It is a friend?” replied the latter with a subdued
and discouraging voice.
“A friend!” said Hurdis. “What friend? who?
we want no friend—why have you brought him?”
“You mistake,” said the stranger boldly. “You
I am the very man for you. But go aside with
Pickett—he'll tell you all about it.”
Having thus spoken, the emissary coolly seated
himself upon a log, and John Hurdis completely confounded
by his impudence, turned, as he was bidden,
for explanation to his agent. They went aside together,
and in a confused and awkward manner,
Pickett went through the bitter narration, which it
almost paralysed the other to hear.
“Great God, Ben Pickett—what have you done?
we are ruined—lost forever!”
The cold sweat rolled from the forehead of Hurdis,
and his knees trembled beneath him. His companion
tried to console him.
“No—there's no sort of danger. Hear his story
of his business, and we know much more against
him, than he knows against us.”
“And what is that to us? What is it to me that
I can prove him a villain or a murderer, Ben Pickett?
Will it help our defence to prove another as worthy
of punishment, as ourselves? Will it give us security?”
“We must make the best of it now. It's too late
to grieve about it,” said the other.
“Ay, we must make the best of it,” said Hurdis,
becoming suddenly bold, yet speaking in tones
one way. Hear me, Ben Pickett—does this fellow
come alone?”
“He does!”
“Ha! That is fortunate—then we have him. His
companions are—where, did you say?”
“All about—on the high roads—every where—
from Augusta to Montgomery, to Mobile, to Tuscaloosa—from
the Muscle Shoals to Jackson—from
Tuscaloosa to Chochuma. Every where, according
to his account of it.”
“Which is probably exaggerated. They may be
every where, but they certainly are not here—not
in this neighbourhood.”
“We don't know that, 'Squire. God! there's no
telling. To think that the fellow should track me
so, makes me afraid of every thing.”
“You were careless, Pickett—frightened, perhaps—”
“No, I wasn't. I was just as cool as I wished to
be, and I cleared every step in the road afore I
jumped it.”
“It needs not to talk of this. We must be more
careful in future. We must match his cunning with
greater cunning, or we are undone forever. We are
in his power, and who knows that he is one of a gang
such as you describe? Who knows that he is not an
to find out our secrets?”
“No, no, 'Squire—how should he be able to tell
me all that he did? How should he know that I shot
Dick Hurdis from the hill that hangs over the road?”
“You remember you told me that yourself, Ben
Pickett, and you say he overheard our conversation,”
cried Hurdis eagerly.
“Yes, 'Squire, but how should he know that I hid
my nag in a thicket of poplars—how should he be
able to tell me the very sort of stump I fastened
him to?”
“And did he do that, Ben?”
“That he did—every bit of it. No, no, 'Squire—
he saw all that he says he saw, or he got it from
somebody that did see it.”
“Great Heavens! what are we to do!” exclaimed
Hurdis, as he folded his hands together, and looked
with eyes of supplication upwards. But his answer
and the counsel which it conveyed, came from an entirely
opposite region.
“Do! well that's the question,” replied Pickett,
“and I don't know what to tell you, 'Squire.”
“We must do something—we cannot remain
thus at the mercy of this fellow. The thought is
horrible. the rope is round our necks, Ben, and he
has the end in his hands.”
“It's too true.”
“Hear me!” said Hurdis in a whisper, and drawing
his companion still farther from the spot where
the emissary had been left in waiting—“There is but
one way. He comes alone. We must silence him.
You must do it, Ben.”
“Do what, Squire?”
“Do what!” exclaimed the other impatiently,
though still in a whisper. “Would you have me
utter every word? Do with him as you have done
with Dick Hurdis.”
“I've thought of that, 'Squire, but—”
“But what?”
“There's a mighty risk.”
“There's risk in every thing. But there's no risk
greater than that of being at the mercy of such a
blood hound.”
“That's true enough, 'Squire; but he's too much
for me single handed. You must help me.”
“What's the need? You don't think to do it now?”
demanded Hurdis in some alarm.
“If it's to be done at all, why not now? The
sooner, the better, 'Squire. This is the very time.
He has poked his nose into our pot, and he can't
complain, if he gets it scorched. Together, we could
put it to him, so that there could be no mistake.”
But this counsel did not suit the less courageous
nature of John Hurdis.
“No, Ben, that would be a risk, indeed. We
man, might also tumble one or both of us.”
“That's true.”
“We must think of something else—some safer
course, which will be equally certain. He sleeps at
your house.”
“Yes,”—said the other quickly, “but I will do nothing
of that sort, within smell of Betsy. It's bad
enough to draw blood on the high road, but it must
not run on one's own hearth.”
“Pshaw! where's the difference. Murder is murder
wherever it is done.”
“That's true, 'Squire, but there's a feeling in it,
that makes the difference. Besides, I won't have
the old woman worried with any of this business.
I've kept every thing of this sort from her that I
could; and the thing that I most hated Dick Hurdis
for, was his making such a blaze of that whipping
business, as to bring it to her sight. There's Jane,
too! No, 'Squire, my wife and child, must not know
all the dirty matters that stick to my fingers.”
“Well! as you please, on that score. But something
must be done. You must fix a trap for him.
When does he leave you?”
“There's no knowing. He wants to fix you as
as he's fixed me—to make us both members of his
clan—Mystic Brotherhood—as he calls it, and when
that's done, I suppose he'll be off.”
“But why should he desire this? What motive
can he have in it? Why a society so extensive.”
“There's no telling; only you'll have to consent.”
“What! to this accursed Brotherhood? Never!”
“How can you help it, 'Squire? If you don't he'll
expose you. He swears to hang you, if you do not.”
“But he cannot. How can he prove his charge?
Besides, I struck no blow—I never left my home.”
“You forget, 'Squire, he heard our talk together.”
“But who'll believe him, Ben? You can swear
him down that you never had such a conversation.”
“No!—I dare not, for then he'd prove me to be
the man that shot. We must submit,
'Squire, I'm afraid, or he'd convict us both; and to
save myself, I'd swear against you. I'd have to
do it, 'Squire.”
This declaration completed the misery of Hurdis,
as it showed him how insecure was the tenure, by
which the slaves of vice are held together. the bitterness
of fear—the very worst bitterness of human
passion—was in his heart, in all its force and fulness,
and he had to drink deeper draughts of its humiliating
waters even than this.
“What! Ben Pickett, can it be that you would give
evidence against me—after all I have done for you?
You do not tell me so.”
“To save life only, 'Squire: To save life only—
for no other necessity. But life is sweet, 'Squire—
can save it by giving every thing up beside. It
wouldn't be at the first jump neither, 'Squire, that I
would let out the secrets of an old friend. It is only
when I see there's no other hope to save myself, and
then, I should be mighty sorry.”
“Sorry!” exclaimed Hurdis, bitterly. “Thus it
is,” he thought, “to use base instruments for unworthy
ends. The slave becomes the arbiter—the master—and
to silence and subdue our fears, we add to
our secret consciousness of shame.”
In anxiousness, but without expression, he mused
thus with his own thoughts.
“Well, Ben, since it can be no better,” he spoke
to his companion; “we must even hold together,
and do as well as we can to work ourselves out of
this difficulty. You are resolved to do nothing with
the fellow at your own house.”
Pickett replied in words and a tone, which made
his negative conclusive.
“We must see his hand, then, and know the game
he intends to play,” continued Hurdis. “You are
agreed that we must get him out of the way for our
own safety. To say when and how is all the difficulty.
Am I right?”
“That's it, 'Squire; though, somehow, if we could
clinch him now, it seems to me it would be better
than leaving it over for another day.”
“That's not to be thought on, Ben. It's too
great a risk.”
“I don't know, 'Squire. I could give him a dig
while you're talking with him; and if, when I made
the motion, you could take him by the throat, or only
dash your hat in his face to confuse him, I think it
might be done easily enough.”
Pickett showed his Bowie knife as he spoke,
which he had carefully hidden in his bosom, unperceived
by his guest, before he went abroad. But this
plan, though, perhaps, the best, met with no encouragement
from his more politic, or, to speak plainly,
more timid companion. He shook his head, and the
voice of the emissary at a little distance, was heard,
as he sang some rude ditty to cheer the solitude of
his situation, or perhaps to notify the twain that he
was becoming impatient.
“Hark! he approaches us,” said Hurdis. “Let
us say no more now. Enough that we understand
each other. We must watch his game, in order to determine
upon our own; and, though, I would not we
should do any thing to night; yet, what we do, must
not only be done without risk, but must be done
quickly. Let us go to him now.”
| CHAPTER VIII. Richard Hurdis, or, The avenger of blood : a tale of Alabama | |