University of Virginia Library

17. CHAPTER XVII.

Barsfield ordered a guard of ten men, and prepared
to ride over to the “Kaddipah” plantation—the reward of
his good services in the tory warfare. The distance
between the two places was but five miles; and, in the
present prostrate condition of Carolina affairs, ten men
were deemed quite adequate for his protection. They
might not have been, had the “swamp fox” been warned
of his riding soon enough to have prepared a reception.
Clayton was left in charge of the troop; and in no very
pleasant humour did the tory proceed to leave the mansion
of Mr. Berkeley. He had not, of late years, been
much accustomed to contradictions of any sort; and his
recent elevation, as an officer of the British army, tended
still more to make him restiff under restraint or
opposition. He was disappointed in the effect which
he had promised himself to produce upon the mind of
Janet Berkeley, from a dispaly of the power of which
he was possessed, and still more annoyed at the cool,
sarcastic temper which she had shown during their conference.
Her frank avowal of the interest which she
felt in Mellichampe,—the calm indifference with which
she listened to his remarks upon the nocturnal interview
with her lover,—and the consequences of that interview
to himself,—these were all matters calculated to vex
and imbitter his mood, as he rode forth from the spot
in which they had taken place. His manner was stern,
accordingly, to his lieutenant, Clayton, while giving him

his orders, and haughty, in the last degree, to the men
under him. Not so, however, was his treatment of
Blonay, whom he heard calling familiarly to his dog, and
who now stood ready, about to mount his tacky, as if
going forth with himself.

“You go with me, Mr. Blonay?” was his question to
the Half-Breed, uttered in the mildest language.

“Well, cappin, I reckon it's best that I should go
'long with you 'tell I can hear something of Marion's
men. When I hears where to look for 'em I reckon
I'll leave you, seeing it's no use for me to go scouting
with a dozen.”

“You are right,” was the response; “but fall behind
till I send the men forward; I would have some talk
with you.”

Blonay curbed his pony, called in his dog, and patiently
waited until, sending his men forward under a
sergeant, Barsfield motioned him to follow with himself.

“You were sadly at fault last night, Mr. Blonay,” was
the first remark which he made to the Half-Breed, as
they entered upon the avenue; “it is to be hoped that
you will soon do better.”

“'Tworn't my fault, cappin,—I did as you tell'd me,”
was the quiet answer.

“Well, perhaps so;—you are right, I believe. I did
send you too far round. That confounded garden holds
several acres.”

“Five, I reckon,” said the other. Barsfield did not
heed the remark, but abruptly addressed him on the subject
which was most active in his thoughts.

“You hold your mind, Mr. Blonay, I presume, for
this adventure? You will undertake the business which
I gave you in hand? You have no fears—no scruples?”

“Well, I reckon it's a bargin, cappin. I'll do your
business if so be I kin, and if so be it doesn't take me
from my own. I puts my own first, cappin, you see,
for 'twould be again natur if I didn't.”

“You are perfectly right to do so; but I am in hope,
and I believe, that you will soon find our business to lie
together. If the enemy you seek be one of Marion's
men, so is my enemy: should you find one, you will
most probably get some clew to the other; and the one
object, in this way, may help you to both.”

“And you think, cappin, that Marion's men is in
these parts?”

“Think!—I know it. The appearance of this youth
Mellichampe, with his cursed inseparable Witherspoon,
as good as proves it to me. Not that they are strong,
or in any force; on the contrary, my letters tell me that
the rebels have in a great many instances deserted their
leader, and gone into North Carolina. Indeed, they say
he himself has gone; but this I believe not: he still
lurks, I am convinced, in the swamp, with a small force,
which we shall quickly ferret out when we have got our
whole force together. To-morrow we go to meet our
volunteer loyalists at `Baynton's Meadow,' where they
assemble, and where I am to provide them with arms.”

“There's a-many of them to be there, cappin?” was
the inquiry of Blonay.

“Two hundred or more. The wagons which you
saw carry their supplies.”

The tory captain, in this way, civilly enough responded
to other questions of the Half-Breed, the object of
which he did not see; and in this manner they conversed
together until the guard had emerged from the avenue
into the main road, and was now fully out of sight.
Interested in giving to his companion as precise a description
as possible of the person, the habits, and character
of Mellichampe, which he did at intervals throughout
the dialogue, Barsfield had moved on slowly, and
had become rather regardless of the movement of his
men, until, reaching the entrance of the avenue, he grew
conscious of the distance between them, and immediately
increased his pace. But Blonay did otherwise; he

drew up his pony at this point, and seemed indisposed
to go forward.

“Why do you stop?” cried the tory, looking back
over his shoulder. The answer of Blonay satisfied him.

“I forgot something, cappin,—the knife and the pass.
I must go back, but I'll be after you mighty quick.”

Without waiting for the assent of his employer, he
started off on his return, pricking the sides of his pony
with a degree of earnestness to which the little animal
was not accustomed, and which he acknowledged by
setting off at a rate which seemed infinitely beyond his
capacities. Barsfield was satisfied to call to him to
follow soon; and, putting the rowel to his own steed, he
hurried forward to resume his place at the head of his
men.

But it was not the intention of Blonay to go back to the
dwelling which he had so lately left. He was practising
a very simple ruse upon his companion. He had forgotten
nothing—neither knife nor passport; and his object
was merely to be relieved from observation, and to pursue
his farther journey alone. He had a good motive
for this; and had resolved, with certain efficient reasons,
which had come to him at the moment of leaving the
avenue, to pursue a different route from that of the tory.
After riding a little way up the avenue he came to a halt;
and, giving the tory leader full time not only to reach
his men, but to get out of sight and hearing with them,
he coolly turned himself round and proceeded to the
spot where they had separated. Here he alighted, and
his keen eyes examined the road, and carefully inspected
those tracks upon it, a casual glance at which,
as he rode out with Barsfield, had determined him upon
the course which he had taken. He looked at all the
horse-tracks, and one freshly made in particular. The
identical outline of shoe, which he had so closely noticed
on the battle-ground of Dorchester, was obviously
before him; and, remounting his horse, he followed

it slowly and with certainty. Barsfield more than once
looked round for his ally, but he looked in vain; and
each step taken by both parties made the space greater
between them. The Half-Breed kept his way, or rather
that of his enemy, whom he followed with a spirit duly
enlivened by a consciousness that he was now upon the
direct track. In this pursuit the route of Blonay was
circuitous in the extreme. He had proceeded but a
mile or so along the main road, when the marks which
guided him turned off into an old field, and led him to
the very spot where we discovered Mellichampe and
Witherspoon the day before. The keen eye of the
Half-Breed soon discovered traces of a human haunt,
but nothing calculated to arrest his progress, as the
marks of the flying horseman were still onward. Obliquely
from this point, still farther to the right, he entered
a dense forest. Here he made his way with difficulty,
only now and then catching the indent of the shoe. He
soon emerged from the thick wood, and the path was
then open. Here, too, he discovered that there had
been an assemblage of persons, as the ground, in a little
spot, was much beaten by hoofs, and still prominent
among them was that which he sought in chief. This
encouraged him; and, as the whole body assembled at
the spot seemed to have kept together, he had little or
no difficulty in continuing the search. At length the
road grew somewhat miry and sloppy. Little bays at
intervals crossed his path, through which the horsemen
before him seemed to have gone without hesitation.
The forests were now broken into hummocks, which
were indented by small bodies of water. Here the cypress
began to send up its pyramidal shapes; and
groves of the tallest cane shot up in dense masses
around it. The cressets lay green upon the surface of
the dark pond, and the yellow and purple mosses of the
festering banks presented themselves to his eyes in sufficient
quantity to announce his proximity to the swamp.
But to Blonay, thoroughly taught in all the intricacies of
the “cypress,” its presence offered no discouragement
whatsoever to the pursuit. At length, reaching an extensive
pond, he lost all trace of the horses. He saw
at once that they had entered the water; but where had
they emerged? The opposite banks were crowded
close to the water's edge with the thickest undergrowth,
mingled with large trees, whose quiet seemed never to
have been disturbed with the axe of the woodman or
the horn of the hunter. The wild vine and the clustering
brier, the slender but numerous canes, the gumshoots,
cypress-knees or knobs, and the bay, seemed to
have been welded together into a solid wall, defying the
footsteps of any invader more bulky than the elastic
blacksnake, or less vigorous and well-coated than the
lusty bear. Blonay saw the impervious nature of the
copse; but he also felt assured that the pursuit must
lead him into and through it. He saw that through it
the men must have gone whose footsteps he had followed,
and he accordingly soon completed his resolves as
to what he should himself do. He slowly led his horse
back to a spot of land, the highest in the neighbourhood.
Having done this, he fastened him to a shrub;
then sought out one of the loftiest trees, which he ascended
with habitual and long-tried dexterity. His elevation
gave him a full and fine view of the expansive
swamp before him. He looked down upon the pale,
ghostly tops of the old cypresses, sprinkled with the
green cedar: and here and there, where the sand was
high enough to yield a bed sufficiently spacious for so
comprehensive a body, the huge and high shaft of the
colossal pine. These all lay before him—their tops
flat, gently waving under his eye beneath the slight
wind passing over them, making a prospect not less
novel than imposing. But Blonay had no eye for the
scene, and but little taste for the picturesque. He
had sought his giddy perch for another purpose; and he
was satisfied with the result of his labour when, at the
distance of six or eight hundred yards from the entrance
of the swamp, he detected a slight wreath of smoke
curling up from among the trees, and spreading around
like some giant tree itself, as if in protection over them.
He noticed well in what direction the smoke arose, and
quietly descended from his place of elevation.

Keeping this direction constantly in mind, he now
saw that the persons he pursued must have gone into
the pond, and kept in it for some distance afterward,
emerging at a point not at that moment within the scope
of his vision. He doubted not that, following the same
course, he should arrive once more upon their traces at
some point of outlet and entrance. To conjecture thus,
was, with him, to determine. He touched his pony
smartly with his whip, and, whistling his dog to follow,
plunged fearlessly into the pathless space, and his saddle-skirts
were soon dipping in the yellow water. He
kept forward, however, through the centre of the pond,
and was soon gratified to find some appearances of
an opening before him. On his right hand the pond
swept round a point of land, making into the copse, and
forming a way which was imperceptible at the place
from whence he had originally started. He did not
scruple to pursue it; and, passing through a narrow defile
of water, over which the vines ran and clambered,
thrusting their sharp points continually in his face, and
making his progress necessarily slow, he at length ascended
a little bank, and once more found the tracks
which he had followed so far. Giving his little pony a
few moments of rest, he again set forward; and, after
an arduous progress of an hour, he began to hear sounds
which imposed upon him the necessity of greater caution
in his progress. The hum of collected men—their
voices—the occasional neigh of the horse—the stroke
of the axe, and now and then a shout, announced his
proximity to the camp. He was within a few hundred

yards of one of the famous retreats of the “swamp
fox;” and, dismounting from his nag, which he carefully
fastened in a secure place of concealment, he went
forward on foot, only followed by his dog; moving slowly,
and scrutinizing, as he did so, every tree and bush
that might afford shelter to an enemy. He still advanced
until he came to a small creek, which wound sinuously
along before him, and which now formed the
only barrier between himself and the retreat of the partisans.
He saw their steeds in groups, fastened to the
overhanging branches of the trees—he saw the troopers
lying at length in similar places of shelter—some busied
in the duties of the camp and of preparation—some
taking their late breakfast, and others moving around as
sentinels, one of whom paced to and from within thirty
yards of the little copse from which he surveyed the
scene in safety.

It was while gazing intently on the personages constituting
these several groups, that Blonay discovered
his dog in rapid passage across a tree that lay partly
over the creek which separated him from the encampment.
Attracted, most probably, by the good savour
and rich steams that arose from a huge fire, over which
our old acquaintance, Tom, was providing the creature-comforts
of the day, the dog made his way without
looking behind him, and Blonay was quite too nigh the
sentinels to venture to call him back either by word or
whistle. Cursing the cur in muttered tones to himself,
he drew back to a safer distance, still keeping in sight,
however, of the entire circuit occupied by the partisans.
Here he watched a goodly hour, taking care that no single
movement escaped his eye; for, as he had now
found out one of the secret paths leading directly to the
haunt of an enemy so much dreaded as the “swamp
fox,” he determined that his knowledge of all its localities
should be complete, the better to enhance the value, and
necessarily increase the reward, which he hoped to realize

from its discovery to some one or other of the British
leaders. Let us now penetrate the encampment
itself.