University of Virginia Library

14. CHAPTER XIV.

It is now high time to return to Ralph Colleton,
who has quite too long escaped our consideration.
The reader will doubtless remember, with little
difficulty, where and under what circumstances
we left him. Provoked by the sneer and sarcasm
of the man whom at the same moment he most
cordially despised, we have seen him taking a position
in the controversy, in which his person,
though not actually within the immediate sphere of
action, was nevertheless not a little exposed to
some of its risks. This position, with fearless indifference,
he continued to maintain, unshrinkingly
and without interruption, throughout the whole
period and amid all the circumstances of the conflict.
There was something of a boyish determination
in this way to assert his courage, which
his own sense inwardly rebuked; yet such is the
nature of those peculiarities in southern habits and
opinions, to which we have already referred, on all
matters which relate to personal prowess and a masculine
defiance of danger, that, even while entertaining
the most profound contempt for those in
whose eye the exhibition was made, he was not
sufficiently independent of popular opinion to brave
its current when he himself was its subject. He
may have had an additional motive for this proceeding,
which most probably enforced its necessity.

He well knew that fearless courage, among
this people, was that quality which most certainly
won and secured their respect; and the policy
was not unwise, perhaps, which represented this
as a good opportunity for a display, which might
have the effect of protecting him from wanton insult
or aggression hereafter. To a certain extent
he was at their mercy, and conscious, from what he
had seen, of the unscrupulous character of their
minds, every exhibition of the kind had some
weight in his favour.

It was with a lively and excited spirit that he
surveyed, from the moderate eminence on which
he stood, the events going on around him. Though
not sufficiently near the parties (and scrupulous not
to expose himself to the chance of being for a moment
supposed to be connected with either of them)
to ascertain their various arrangements, from what
had met his observation, he had been enabled to
form a very correct inference as to the general progress
of affairs. He had beheld the proceedings
of each array while under cover, and contending
with one another, to much the same advantage as
the spectator who surveys the game in which two
persons are at play. He could have pointed out
the mistakes of both in the encounter he had witnessed,
and felt assured that he could have ably and
easily amended them. His frame quivered with
the “rapture of the strife,” as Attila is said to have
called the excitation of battle; and his blood, with
a genuine southern fervour, rushed to and from his
heart with a bounding impulse, as some new
achievement of either side added a fresh interest
to, and in some measure altered the face of, the
affair. But when he beheld the new array, so unexpectedly,
yet auspiciously for Munro, make its appearance
upon the field, the excitement of his spirit

underwent proportionate increase; and with deep
anxiety, and a sympathy now legitimate with the
assailants, he surveyed the progress of an affray
for which his judgment prepared him to anticipate
a most unhappy termination. As the strife proceeded,
he forgot half of his precaution, and unconsciously
continued, at every moment, to approach
more nearly to the scene of strife. His heart was
now all impulse, his spirit all enthusiasm; and with
an unquiet eye and restless frame, he beheld the
silent passage of the little detachment under the
gallant Georgian, up into the narrow gorge. At
some distance from the hill, and on an eminence,
his position enabled him to perceive, when the
party had made good their advance nearly to
the summit, the impending danger. He saw the
threatening cliff hanging as it were in mid air
above them; and all his sympathies, warmly excited
and roused at length by the fearfulness of the
peril into a degree of active partisanship which, at
the beginning, a proper prudence had well-counselled
and determined him to avoid, he put spurs
to his steed, and rushing forward to the foot of the
hill, shouted out to the advancing party the nature
of the danger which awaited them. He shouted
strenuously, but in vain—and with a feeling almost
amounting to agony, he beheld the little troop resolutely
advance beneath the ponderous rock, which,
held in its place by the slightest purchases, needed
but the most moderate effort to upheave and unfix
it for ever.

It was fortunate for the youth that the situation
in which he was now placed was concealed entirely
from the view of those in the encampment.
It had been no object with him to place himself in
safety, for the consideration of his own chance of
exposure had never been looked to in his mind;

when, under the noble impulse of humanity, he had
rushed forward, if possible to recall the little party,
who either did not or were unwilling to hear his
voice of warning and prevention. Had he been
beheld, there would have been few of the squatters
unable, and still fewer unwilling, to pick him off
with their rifles; and, as the event will show,
the good providence alone which had hitherto
kept with him, rather than the forbearance of his
quondam acquaintance, continued to preserve his
life.

Apprized of the ascent of the pass, and not disposed
to permit of the escape of those whom the
defenders of it above might spare, unobserved by
his assailants in front, Dexter, with a small detachment,
sallying through a loop-hole of his fortress,
took an oblique course towards the foot of the
gorge, by which to arrest the flight of the fugitives.
This course brought him directly upon and in
contact with Ralph, who stood immediately at its
entrance, with uplifted eye, and busily engaged in
shouting, at intervals, to the yet advancing assailants.
The squatters approached cautiously and
unperceived; for so deeply was the youth interested
in the fate of those for whom his voice and
hands were alike uplifted, that he was conscious
of nothing else at that moment of despair and doubt.
The very silence which at that time hung over
all things, seemed of itself to cloud and obstruct,
while they lulled the senses into a corresponding
slumber. It was well for the youth, and unlucky
for the assassin, that, as Dexter, with his uplifted
hatchet—for firearms in that place and at that
period he dared not use for fear of attracting the
attention of his foes—struck at his head, his advanced
foot became entangled in the root of a tree
which ran above the surface, and the impetus of

his action occurring at the very instant in which
he encountered the obstruction, the stroke fell
short of his victim, and grazed the side of his horse;
while the ruffian himself, stumbling forward and
at length, fell headlong upon the ground. The
youth was awakened to consciousness. His mind
was one of that cast with which to know, to think,
and to act, are simultaneous. Of ready decision,
he was never at a loss, and seldom surprised into
even momentary incertitude. With the first intimation
of the attack upon himself, his pistol had
been drawn, and while the prostrate ruffian was
endeavouring to rise, and before he had well regained
his feet, the unerring ball was driven
through his head, and without word or effort he fell
back among his fellows, the blood gushing from his
mouth and nostrils in unrestrained torrents. The
whole transaction was the work of a single instant;
and before the squatters who came with their slain
leader could sufficiently recover from the panic
produced by the event to revenge his death, the
youth was beyond their reach; and the assailing
party of the guard, in front of the post, apprized of
the sally by the discharge of the pistol, made fearful
work among them by a general fire, while obliquing
to the entrance of the pass just in time to
behold the catastrophe, now somewhat precipitated
by the event which had occurred below. Ralph,
greatly excited, regained his original stand of survey,
and with feelings of unrepressed horror beheld
the event. The Georgian had now almost
reached the top of the hill—another turn of the
road gave him a glimpse of the table upon which
rested the hanging and disjointed cliff of which
we have spoken, when a voice was heard—a single
voice—in inquiry:—

“All ready?”

The reply was immediate—

“Ay, ay, now prize away, boys, and let go.”

The advancing troop looked up, and were permitted
a momentary glance of the terrible fate which
awaited them before it fell. That moment was
enough for horror. A general cry burst from the
lips of those in front, the only notice which those in
the rear ever received of the terror before it was
upon them. An effort, half paralyzed by the awful
emotion which came over them, was made to avoid
the down-coming ruin; but with only partial success,
for in an instant after the uttered response which
called their attention, the ponderous mass, which
hung for a moment like a cloud above them, upheaved
from its bed of ages, and now freed from all
stays, with a sudden, hurricane-like and whirling impetus,
making the solid rock tremble over which it
rushed, came thundering down, swinging over one
half of the narrow trace, bounding from one side to
the other along the gorge, and with the headlong fury
of a cataract sweeping every thing from before its
path until it reached the dead level of the plain below.
The instinctive shriek from those who beheld
the mass (when, for an instant impended above them,
it seemed to hesitate in its progress down) was
more full of human terror and trial than any
utterance which followed the event. With the exception
of a groan, wrung forth here and there
from the half crushed victim, in nature's agony,
the deep silence which ensued was painful and
appalling; and even when the dust had dissipated,
and the eye was enabled to take in the entire
amount of the evil deed, the prospect failed in
impressing the senses of the survivors with so distinct
a sentiment of horror, as when the doubt and
death, suspended in air, were yet only threatening
and impending. Though prepared for the event,

in one sense of the word, the great body of the
squatters were not prepared for the unusual emotions
which succeeded it in their bosoms. The arms
dropped from the hands of many of them—a
speechless horror was the prevailing feature of all,
and all fight was over, while the scene of bloody
execution was now one of indiscriminate examination
and remark with friend and foe. Ralph
was the first to rush up the fatal pass, and to survey
the horrible prospect. One half of the brave
little corps had been swept to instant death by
the unpitying rock, without having afforded the
slightest obstacle to its fearful progress. In one
place lay a disembowelled steed panting its last;
mangled in a confused and unintelligible mass lay
beside him another, the limbs of his rider in many
places undistinguishable from his own. One poor
wretch, whom he assisted to extricate from beneath
the body of his dying and struggling horse,
cried to him for water, and died in the prayer.
Fortunately for the few who survived the catastrophe,
among whom was their gallant but unfortunate
young leader, they had, at the first glimpse
of the danger, urged on their horses with redoubled
effort and animation, and by a close approach
to the surface of the rock, and taking an
oblique direction wide of its probable course, had,
at the time of its precipitation, reached a line almost
parallel with the place upon which it stood,
and in this way achieved their escape without
serious injury. Their number was few, however;
and not one half of the fifteen who commenced
the ascent ever reached or survived its attainment.
Ralph gained the summit just in time to prevent
the completion of the foul tragedy by its most
appropriate climax. As if enough had not yet
been done in the way of crime, the malignant and
merciless Rivers, of whom we have seen little in
this affair, but to whose black and devilish spirit
the mean of destruction had been hit upon, which
had so well succeeded, now stood over the body
of the groaning and struggling Georgian, with uplifted
hand, about to complete the deed already
begun. There was not a moment for delay, and
the youth sprung forward in time to seize and to
wrest the weapon from his grasp. With a feeling
of horror and undisguised indignation, he exclaimed,
as the outlaw turned furiously upon him,
“Wretch—what would you? Have you not done
enough? would you strike the unresisting man?”

Rivers sprang to his feet, and with undisguised
effort, now turned his rage upon the intruder. His
words, choked by passion, could scarce find utterance—but
he spoke with furious effort at length, as
he directed a wild blow with a battle axe at his
new opponent,—

“You come for your death, and you shall have
it!”

“Not yet,” replied Ralph, adroitly avoiding the
stroke and closing with the ruffian—“you will
find that I am not unequal to the struggle, though
it be with such a monstrous enormity as yourself.”

What might have been the event of this combat
may not be said. The parties were separated in
a moment by the interposition of Forrester, but
not till our hero, tearing off in the scuffle the handkerchief
which, as we have seen, had hitherto encircled
the cheeks of his opponent, had discovered
the friendly outlaw who collected toll for the
Pony Club, and upon whose face the hoof of his
horse, in part, was most visibly engraven—who
had so boldly avowed his design upon his life and

purse, and whom he had so fortunately and successfully
foiled on his first approach to the village.

The fight, as the reader may readily imagine,
was over after this catastrophe; the survivors
of the guard, those who were unhurt, had fled—
and the parties with little stir were all now assembled
around the scene of it. There was little said
upon the occasion. The wounded were taken
such care of as the nature of the circumstances
would permit; and wagons having been provided,
were all removed to the village. Begun with too
much impulse, and conducted with too little consideration
or reflection, the struggle between the
military and the outlaws had now terminated in a
manner that left perhaps but little quiet or satisfaction
in the minds of either party. The latter,
though generally an unlicensed tribe—an Ishmaelitish
race—whose hands were against all men, and
the hands of all men, in return, being against them—
were not so sure that they had not been guilty
of a crime, not merely against the laws of man
and human society, but against the self-evident
decrees and dictates of God; and with this doubt,
at least, if not its conviction, upon their minds
and in their thoughts, their victory, such as it was,
afforded a source of very qualified rejoicing.