University of Virginia Library

15. CHAPTER XV.

—****

—Byron.

—Shakspeare,

—Spenser.

—Somerville.

The account given by Danvers,
of the disappearance of Moody,
was correct; but his conjecture
that he had been wounded by the
last fire of Ichabod was not. At
the time when Moody rushed out of
the cave, followed by those who
sought his life, objects at a short
distance had become indistinct, in
the dark grey twilight which had
already settled over the earth. In
consequence of this, the gardener
missed his mark; but the report of
the rifle, and the whizzing of its
ball within an inch of his head,
caused Moody to start suddenly,
when his foot slipped, his balance
was lost, and he plunged down the
chasm, with a horrible yell, expecting
of course to be dashed to pieces
on the rocks below. A deep pool
of water, which had been hollowed
out by the fall of a cascade, saved
him. Into this he fell with a force

that for a moment stunned and
confused him; but quickly regaining
his senses, he struck out boldly,
and succeeded in crawling upon a
rock, that formed a partial barrier
to the outlet of the pool. This,
however, was not affected without
difficulty and repeated trials; for
the spray from the cascade, that
tumbled over a precipice a short
distance behind him, had coated
the rock with a slimy substance,
and made it slippery as an iceberg.

Seating himself at last upon the
rock, with as much composure as
he could assume, after having been
so signally thwarted in his dark
schme, he instantly set his head to
plotting the best means by which
he could yet retrieve what he had
lost, and revenge himself for the
new indignities that had been heaped
upon him.

“They think me dead of course,”
he muttered to himself; “and well
they may, after pitching me into
such a dark, dungeon-like thundering
hole as this; but I'll show them
I am not thus easily put out of the
way. It is well as it is, for now
they will think themselves safe,
and thus give me the better chance
to make sure plans and take them
unawares. A curse on that old
juggler, who has thwarted my designs
so often! By —! I'll soon
have his old scalp where it will not
trouble me again—that is if he is
mortal,” he added, in an under tone,
endeavoring to peer around him into
the darkness, as if fearful that
he of whom he spoke might somehow
mysteriously make his appearance,
as he had more than once
done before.

“Who and what can he be any
how?” he continued, after a moment's
pause. “There is something
wonderful about him, I must
own; and even the savages fear,
and respect him, and call him
Great Medicine. And what does
he know of me, and how did he obtain
his knowledge? By heavens!
the more I think and see of him,
the more mysterious he seems.
Can it be that what he said was
true? I would not believe it, but that
I saw, with my own eyes, the mark
under my left arm. There can be
no denying that, at all events—unless
(and Moody paused and mused,
as one who doubts and yet is inclined
to believe)—unless he by
some strange magic power made it
to appear there for the time. At
all events,” he added, fiercely, “it is
gone now, and the flesh with it, as
I can sorely feel; and man or devil,
by—! I'll have my revenge
on him yet, or die in the attempt.

“He says I am brother to Clifton—twin
brother,” resumed the
outcast, after another short pause.
“May be I am, or was—(on the last
word he laid particular emphasis)—
or was, I say—for now that the totem
is removed, we are brothers no
longer. Besides, he has done
enough to alienate me from him
without this. A curse on him,” he
fairly shouted, “brother or no brother,
for crossing me in my love!
For this—for this I would have revenge,
though his claim to the fraternal
tie were never so well proven,
and though I had called him
brother all my life. Ah! my shoulder—a
curse too, on that gardener!—but
I'll have all settled ere long.
Now to get out of this infernal
place; for infernal it seems, and
dark as the regions of the damned.
I am wet and chilly, and my wound
feels painful. Let me once get out
of this place, and I trust my dusky
brethren may be easily found, even
if they have moved their camp.”

Saying this, he slid down from
the rock into the water, on the side

opposite that which he had ascended
on emerging from the pool. It
was not deep—not more than five
inches at the most—but a rather
abrupt declivity gave it an impetus
that sent it foaming and roaring
over the rocks in its course to the
plain below, and rendered it highly
dangerous footing, even in daylight;
for a slip, or on unguarded step,
would in all probability plunge the
adventurer down its jagged path,
and dash him to pieces; and consequently
it was none the less perilons
now, when night and the overhanging
cliffs had shrouded it in
darkness, where nothing could be
seen save an occasional fire-like
flash from the angry, hissing, boiling,
frothy surges.

Moody at once comprehended his
danger, and his heart beat fast and
hard against his breast, and sometimes
seemed to rise in his very
throat; so much was he, who under
ordinary circumstances feared
not death, awed by the gloom and
peril of his present situation.

“I should not boast of my escape
yet,” he said to himself; “for death
assuredly stares me in the face,
and presents his most unwelcome
aspect.”

Carefully feeling his way, he now
moved to one side of the narrow
channel, and laid his hand upon the
rock, in hopes of finding some
means of ascending the cliff, or
keeping along upon its bank. None
was found. The cliff, as high as he
could reach, was perpendicular, and
slippery as glass. He crossed the
channel, and found the opposite
cliff the same. There was nothing
left for him but to go down the bed
of the stream, and accordingly he
began to do so, keeping hold of the
rock, to steady himself as best he
could over the slimy stones and
treacherous ground beneath his feet.

For some time he continued his
descent slowly, without meeting
any difficulty worthy of notice. He
had already advanced a hundred
yards, and was beginning to congratulate
himself on his second escape,
when his ears were saluted
with a faint, dull, roaring sound,
like the fall of a heavy body of water.
He paused in dismay, and listened.
He could hear it distinctly,
above the more shallow roaring,
if we may so express it, of the torrent
rushing past. He comprehended
the fearful truth, and again his
heart died within him, and he would
have sunk down in despair, had he
not feared the awful denouement
would be hastened by quitting his
hold of the rock. Ahead of him
was certainly another cascade, the
the brow of which he was nearing
at every step, and down which he
must assuredly plunge—or, what
was equally as terrifying, remain
imprisoned where he was.

For some moments he stood irresolute
what to do, during which
his extreme agony of mind caused
a cold perspiration to ooze from every
pore of his skin. For almost
the first time in his life of guilt he
tried to pray; but the words stuck
in his throat, and seemed to choke
him. Death, now that he had felt
so confident of escape, rose up before
him in all its terrors. Despair
at last took the place of hope and
foar, and he was on the point of
throwing himself flat-wise on the
current, and trusting the rest to
chance, when a new idea struck
him, and he suddenly exclaimed:

“What a fool I am to get frightened
at imaginary terrors! How
do I know there is not a way to
pass these falls without going down
with the water?”

Saying this, his courage revived,
and he again moved forward with

renewed hope. Nearer and nearer
he drew to the falls, and louder and
louder came up the sullen roar of
the waters. At last he stood upon
the verge of the precipice, and,
with the utmost difficulty, prevented
his feet from being drawn down
into the unknown chasm, by the
force of the rapids. He carefully
felt of the rock to which he clung,
but, to his disappointment, could
find no broken or craggy places to
aid him in his descent. All, as before,
was upright, smooth and solid,
save occasionally a little crag that
made a hold for his fingers. Again
hope died, and he secretly wished
for that great change which his
guilty soul shrunk to encounter.
What was to be done? He could
not long remain where he was, for
his efforts to keep himself there had
already tired his arms, and weakened
him not a little. At last he
decided to retrace his steps, until
he should come to an easier footing,
and there, if possible, hold out
till daylight should enable him to
devise some means of escape.

Accordingly, with great caution,
and at the risk of his life, he moved
up the stream some fifty yards,
when he came to a place where the
rock slightly jutted out, so that he
could place his body against it, and
rest somewhat comfortably. Here
he determined on remaining till
morning—or, at all events, until
the moon, which was a little past
her full, had arisen sufficiently to
light up his gloomy abode.

Terrible were the thoughts that
now crowded the mind of this dark
man. Alone, as it were in the
bowels of the earth, with dangers
on every hand, he was thus forced
to think and feel as he had never
done before; and as, unless under
similar circumstances, he might
never do again. It is one thing to
face death in the heat of strife,
when all the faculties of the mind
are turned into the channel of self-defense,
ambition, glory or revenge—
when thoughts of the great hereafter
are lost in the wild, frenzied
passions of the moment—and another
to contemplate it in silence,
alone, away from aught that can
distract the mind. Men talk of heroes—of
courage on the field of
battle—where everything is calculated
to excite, intoxicate, bewilder,
and draw them forward to they
know not what, nor have time nor
power to know; but this is no more
to be compared to that moral courage
which can meet death calmly
in solitude, than is the wild blustering
of a drunken man to what
one coolly and firmly asserts in sober
reason. The one is the bravery
of the animal merely, without
the action of the mind; the other,
the courage of the mind, without
the action of the body.

In proof of this, how often do we
hear of men, who, amid the carnage
of the ensanguined field, have rushed
up reckless, fearless of all danger,
to the belching cannon's mouth,
placing their lives as if by choice
in the greatest jeopardry, and thus
winning laurels of courage to bind
their brows forever, and make them
model heroes for future ages—
shrinking back in their calm,
sober moments, like some timid boy,
from the near approach of death.

Of this last class was Moody.
Under the influence of excitement
and passion, he was brave, so far
as animal courage goes, as the
bravest; but take these away, as
in the present instance, and he became
at once the veriest coward
on earth.

There is ever something awful
in contemplating death, when all
the energies and reasoning powers

of the mind are in full blast; when
we see and feel that we are slowly,
but surely, hastening to that dread
change which all must undergo,
but of which no one knoweth that
hath a being in the mortal state;
when we are throwing off this
earthly coil, bidding a last farewell
to scenes and friends of which we
have a knowledge, and, it may be,
“flying to other ills that we know
not of.”

Moody now had time for grave
contemplation; and, moreover, was
forced to it by surrounding circumstances.
Cold and wet, he leaned
against the rock and thought of the
past—of his life of sin and crime—
and something like remorse harrowed
up his guilty soul. How
much better, he felt, it would have
been, had his course been upright
and honest; had he lived a life of
virtue, and, with the talents he possessed,
and the advantages which
had been given him, been a shining
ornament to society, instead of a
disgrace and curse. He thought of
the awful fate which seemed to be
hanging over him, and the little
chance he had of escaping it; and
his soul fairly shrunk at the possibility
of what he might meet in the
dread Beyond. He had been
taught pious words in his youth—
he had read the Bible—and, in spite
of his reckless, awful career, he believed
there was a Heaven for the
good, and a Hell for the wicked;
and it needed no argument, he felt,
to prove to which he belonged.
Death now had terrors, that death
seemed never to have had before;
and he quaked and trembled where
he stood like the guilty thing he was.

Minute succeeded minute, and
hours had already elapsed, ere the
moon had sufficiently risen to throw
her silvery rays down the steep
rocks on to the foaming flood in
which Moody still remained. As
soon as her bright light fell upon
the waters, the outeast thought best
to make another trial for his life.
Accordingly, he changed his position,
and again descended toward
the cascade. When within ten
feet of the precipice, over which
the water tumbled, he fancied he
saw a ruggedness in the opposite
rock that might enable him to
climb to the summit, and thus avoid
the falls altogether. His heart
bounded at the thought; and, regardless
of the risk he ran, he at
once set out to ford the stream.
When about half way across, his
feet struck against a rock—he
stumbled—fell—and the next moment
the boiling surge had borne
him to the brow of the awful precipice.
There was no help now; all
hope of escape was cut off; and
throwing himself as much as possible
into an upright position, as
he passed the verge, he uttered one
prayer, “God save me!” and disappeared—down—down—into
the
hell of waters below.

That man has an appointed time
to die, might be strongly argued
from the fact, that we every day
witness, in a greater or less degree,
what men undergo and live; and
yet how little it requires, when
their time has come, to cut the brittle
thread of life, and launch them
into the incomprehensible eternity.
Had we time and space, we might
cite numerous instances that have
come to our own knowledge, where
men have undergone tenfold the agonies
of death have been given over
by skillful physicians—have been
wept as dead—who have recovered
and lived, as it were to show a
miracle to the world—and yet have
died at last, by the simplest of all
ailments, a cold, or a scratch of the
finger. That such cases are of common

occurrence, we all know; but
wherefore, is one of those great
mysteries by which the Creator designs
to work out his own ends; and
the best lesson we can draw from
them is, that we should at all times
be ready for the uncertainty of life.

By the common phrase, that “his
time had not come,” we must account
for the wonderful preservation
of Moody in the present instance.
His chance of escape, unharmed,
was in the ratio of one to
a million—and yet he escaped. In
the exact spot where he went
down, was an immense depth of
water—a pool, not unlike the one
above, though much smaller;
which, like that, too, had been hollowed
out by the eternal wear of
the cascade. It was small, as we
have said, and on every side surrounded
by rocks. The falls were
some thirty feet in height; and
there was only one spot which
presented the possibility of escape,
and but one means of reaching it.
This spot, by means of which he
was at the time unconscious, Moody
gained. It will be recollected,
as he went over the verge of the
precipice, he managed to take an
upright position. As luck would
have it, the exertion which he made
in doing so, sent him clear of the
main body of the stream, and he
went down just outside of the falling
sheet. Standing perpendicular,
his feet struck square upon the
surface of the pool, while the force
with which he descendod instantly
buried him far below. A re-action
took place, and his head soon rose
far above the water. With great
presence of mind he grappled a
rock, and the next moment was
safe, and had an opportunity of
perceiving how near he had been
to the jaws of death.

Had he gone down in the cur
rent instead of out of it—had he
fallen flatwise—had he varied a
foot—or, in fact, had he not passed
over the falls exactly in the place
and manner he did, he must assuredly
have been dashed to pieces
upon the surrounding rocks. A direct
Providence, it seemed, alone
save him; and, for a time, something
like a feeling of gratitude to
the Guardian of his destiny, held a
place in his breast; and he gazed
around him in silent awe. But, as
generally happens with those
whose hearts are hardened past
redemption, no sooner did he realize
that he was actually safe, than
his wild, vindictive feelings gained
the ascendancy, and he was fain to
attribute to his own presence of
mind, what should have been yielded
to a Higher Power.

“Ha, ha, ha!” he laughed, at
length, rather impiously; “why
should I fear death? Do I not always
escape, even where escape
seems impossible? I have nothing
to fear—my good fortune will carry
me though all extremes.”

With this he rose, and, ascending
the bank, which was here not
difficult to climb, descended to the
plain. Pausing a moment in an
open spot, where the moon shone
full upon his dark countenance, displaying
there a grim smile, he turned,
and was quickly buried in the
surrounding forest.

Presumptuous fool! How little
did he know of what the future had
in store for him!