University of Virginia Library

15. CHAPTER XV.

During the momentary absence of Mellichampe, his
trusty associate had been equally busy with himself.
He had completely gagged his prisoner with a handkerchief
of no common dimensions, and not remarkable
for the delicacy of its texture. He had finished this
labour with a facility that was marvellous, and seemed
to speak loudly for his frequent practice in such matters.
This done, he took his seat composedly enough upon
the body of the tory, and in this manner awaited the
return of Mellichampe. Barsfield, meanwhile, though

at first a little uneasy and obstreperous, soon found it
necessary to muster all his philosophy in the endurance
of an evil that seemed unavoidable for the present. The
huge, keen knife of the woodman glared threateningly
in his eyes, and he saw that his efforts to escape, in
more than one instance already, had provoked an expression
of anger from his captor, who at other moments
seemed good-natured and indulgent enough. The tory
consoled himself, however, with the thought that Blonay
could not be far off; and that, having made the circuit
of the garden, as it had been appointed to him to do, he
would soon come to his assistance and release. With
this reflection, though burning for vengeance all the
while, he was content to keep as quiet as was consistent
with a position so very uneasy and unusual.

The fierce mood of Mellichampe was in action on his
return: there was a terrible strife going on within his
heart. A sanguinary thirst was striving there for mastery,
opposed strongly, it is true, but not efficiently, by a
just sense of human feeling not less than of propriety.
But there was no calm deliberation, and his passions
triumphed. All his more violent and vexing impulses
were active and in dictation. His eye was full of desperate
intention: his hand grasped his bared dagger, and
his movement was hurried towards the prisoner, whose
eye turned appealingly to that of Witherspoon. The latter
had his own apprehensions, but he had his decision
also. He saw the manner of Mellichampe's approach;
he understood directly the dreadful language which was
uttered from his eye, though sleeping upon his lips; and
he prepared himself accordingly to encounter and resist
the movement which the glance of his comrade evidently
meditated.

He was scarcely quick enough for this. A sudden
and fierce bound, like that which the catamount makes
from his tree upon the shoulders of his approaching victim,
carried the form of Mellichampe full upon the breast

of the tory, who strove, but vainly, to shrink away from
beneath. The impetuous movement half displaced
the woodman. In another moment the weapon must
have been in the throat of the tory, but for the ready effort
and athletic arms of Witherspoon. He grasped
the youth from behind. His embrace encircled completely,
while securing him from the commission of the
deed.

“Release me, Witherspoon,” cried Mellichampe to
his companion, while the thick foam gathered about his
lips and half choked his utterance.

“I'll be God darned if I do, Airnest,” was the decisive
reply. The youth insisted,—the woodman was inflexible.

“You will repent it, Witherspoon.”

“Can't be helped, Airnest, but I can't think to let you
go to do murder. 'Taint right, Airnest; and dang my
buttons if any man that I calls my friend shall do wrong
when I'm standing by, if so be I can keep his hands off.”

“Shall this wretch always cross my path, John Witherspoon?—shall
he always go unpunished? Does he
not even now seek my life—his hands not yet clean
from the blood of my father? Release me, Witherspoon—it
will be worse if you do not.”

“That's my look-out, Airnest, I know; it's the risk
I runs always, and it's no new thing. But, Airnest, I
can't let you go, onless you'll promise not to use your
knife. The fellow desarves the knife, I reckon; but,
you see, he's a prisoner, and can't do nothing for himself.
It ain't the business of a sodger and a decent man
to hurt a critter that can't fend off.”

“A reptile—a viper, who will sting your heel the
moment you take it from his head!”

“Maybe; but he's my prisoner, Airnest.”

“Why, what can you do with him?—you can't carry
him with you?”

“No, Airnest; but that's no reason that I should kill
him.”

“What will you do with him, then?” inquired the
youth.

“Leave him here—jist where he is, on the flat of his
back, and mighty oncomfortable.”

“Indeed!—to pursue us, and, by his cries, direct his
hounds upon our heels? Let him rise, rather,—give
him his sword, and let him fight it out with me in the
neighbouring wood.”

“Not so fast, Airnest—that'll be a scheme that would
only hobble both of us; and I'm not going to risk any
such contrivance. I have a much better notion than
that, if you'll only hear to reason; and all I axes of you
is, jist to keep your knife ready at the chap's throat, but
not to use it, onless he moves and gits obstropolous.
Say you'll do that now, while I takes a turn or two upon
my shadow, and I'll let you loose.”

The youth hesitated. The woodman went on—

“You mought as well, Airnest, for I'm not guine to
loose you onless you says you won't hurt the critter.
Say so, Airnest, and I'll fix him so he can't follow us
or make any fuss.”

Finding that his companion was inflexible, and most
probably somewhat subdued by this time, and conscious
of the crime he had striven to commit, Mellichampe consented,
though still reluctantly, and the moment after he
was released. The woodman rose and began to make
some farther preparations for the securing of his prisoner.
Meanwhile, with his knee firmly fastened upon the
breast of the tory, and his dagger uplifted and in readiness,
the eyes of the youth were fastened with all the
demon glare of hatred and revenge upon those of the
man below him. The feelings of Barsfield under such
circumstances were any thing but enviable. Accustomed
to judge of men by his own nature, he saw no
reason to feel satisfied that Mellichampe would keep
the promise of forbearance which he had made to his
companion; and yet he dreaded to exhibit emotion or

anxiety, for fear of giving him sufficient excuse for not
doing so. His emotions may well be inferred from the
natural apprehensions of such a situation; and his base
soul sunk into yet deeper shame, as he lay trembling
beneath his enemy, dreading the death which was above
him, and which he well knew he so richly deserved.

But Thumbscrew was considerate, and did not long
keep the tory in suspense. In the few moments in
which he had withdrawn himself from the person of the
prisoner, he had made sundry arrangements for better securing
him; and, with a cord of moderate length, which
he had drawn from a capacious pocket, he constructed
a running noose, or slip-knot, with which he now approached
the prisoner; speaking in a low tone of soliloquy
all the while, as much, seemingly, for Barsfield's
edification as for his own.

“I will jist make bold, Cappin Barsfield, to give you
a hitch or two in the way of friendship. You shall have
as fast binding a title to this little bit of a bed as time
and present sarcumstances will permit. It's only for
your safe keeping and our safe running, you see, that I
does it. I'll hitch up your legs—there, don't be scared,
they shall go together—to this same bench here: and
that, you see, will keep them from coming too close
after ours. And as for the little bandage over your arms,
why, you'll have to wear it a little longer, though it's too
good a rag for me to leave behind. There—don't jerk
or jump now, for it will soon be done. I'm mighty
quick fixing such matters as these, and it takes me no
time to hitch up a full-blooded tory when once I gits my
thumb and forefinger upon him. There.”

Thus muttering, he lashed the legs of the prisoner to
one of the rude seats under the magnolias; and, freeing
his companion from the farther restraints of his watch,
the two prepared to start—Witherspoon, unseen by
Mellichampe, having first possessed himself of the
sword of the tory, which he appropriated with all the

composure of a veteran scout. They soon found their
way out of the garden, through the darkest of its alleys,
and they could not have gone far into the forest when
Blonay, who seemed to have timed his movements with
admirable accuracy, approached the spot where Barsfield
lay struggling. The tory was completely in the
toils—his feet and hands tied securely, and his mouth
so bandaged that but a slight moaning was suffered at
intervals to escape him in his efforts at speech. With
well-acted zeal and a highly becoming indignation, Blonay,
as soon as he discerned the situation of his employer,
busied himself at his release. Enraged at the
humiliation to which he had been subjected, and at the
escape of his enemy, Barsfield demanded why he had
not come sooner. But to this the other had his answer.
He had followed the tory's directions, and had kept the
lower fence of the garden winding into the woods, and
had crossed it at a point which had been designated for
him; by which it had been Barsfield's hope, that, flying
from him, the fugitive must be encountered by his coadjutor.

“You went too far round,” said the commander, sullenly;
“and yet they are but a few moments gone. You
say you have not seen them?”

The answer was negative.

“It is strange: but, by G—d, it shall not always be
thus. Come with me, sir; I will talk with you in my
chamber.”

And they retired to confer upon the scheme which
the tory had proposed to Blonay just before the adventure
of the garden.

We will now leave them and return to the fugitives,
who were already far away upon their flight to the spot
where their horses had been hidden. The first words
of Mellichampe to his companion were those of reproach—

“Why did you follow me when I forbade it, John
Witherspoon?”

“Well, now, Airnest, I think that's no sort of a question,
seeing the good that's come of my following.”

“True, you have served me, and perhaps saved me;
but what will Janet think of me when she recovers from
her fright? She will think I brought you there, and that
you overheard what passed between us.”

“Well, she'll think wrong, Airnest, if she does. It's
true, I did hear a good deal, but that was owing to the
needcessity of being close upon the haunches of that
other chap. As a true man, Airnest, I never wanted to
hear, and I did not get close enough to hear, till that
skunk come out from behind the pear-tree, and I saw
him sneaking round to the magnolias. Then it was I
came out too, and only then it was I heard the talk between
you.”

“It matters not now, Witherspoon; my fear is that it
may pain Janet to suppose that my friends are brought
to overhear that language which a young lady should
only think to herself, and can only utter to one; and no
motive of regard for my safety, though so far warranted
by circumstances as upon the present occasion, should
have prompted you to do so.”

“But I had another reason, Airnest, that is a good
reason, I know. Just after I left you came one of Marion's
road-riders, Humphries, you know, calling in
the scouts; and you're wanted, and I'm wanted, and
we're all of us wanted, for there's to be a power of the
tories gathering in two days at Baynton's Meadow, and
the `fox' is mighty hungry to git at 'em. I have the
marks and the signals, and we must push on directly.
It'll take us three good hours more to work our way into
the swamp.”

“Ah! then we have little time to waste,” was the
prompt reply; and, scouring down the road, they came
to the broken branch which lay across the path, and indicated

by its own the position of its fellow. Following
the directions given by Humphries, they were soon
met by the line of sentinels, and the path grew cheery
after a while, when the occasional challenge, and the
distant hum and stir of an encampment, announced the
proximity of Marion in his wild swamp dwelling.