University of Virginia Library

8. CHAPTER VIII.

That night, as soon as he deemed it prudent, Barsfield,
punctual to his engagement with the Half-Breed,
left the camp, and, without observation, proceeded to
the place of meeting which had been determined upon
between them. He was not long in finding the person
he sought. Blonay was no less punctual than his employer,
and the shrill whistle of the latter, thrice repeated
through his folded hands, soon brought him from his
cover. The Half-Breed answered the signal readily,
and in a few moments after emerged from the hummock
in which, with a taste of his own, he had taken up his
abode. A dim light was shining from the sky, only
sufficient to enable the tory to recognise the outline, but
not the several features, of his companion's person.
Blonay freely extended his hand, and the fleshless, bony
fingers took in their grasp those of Barsfield, who did
not hesitate to follow his guidance, though he somewhat
loathed the gripe of his conductor.

“Why go farther,—why not remain and talk here?”
was his demand.

“There's no telling, cappin, who's a listening. Singleton's
men's watching me now; and Colonel Tarleton,
he doesn't trust me, and there's two of the dragoons
that's kept close on my heels ever since I seed him last.
It's true I dodged 'em when the sun went down, but
they're on the look-out yet, I reckon.”

“And why did you dodge them—you didn't mean to
run?” demanded the other.

“No, but I'd rather a man shoot me than peep over
my shoulder; it's like a log round the neck, to be
always looked after.”

“And wny do you think that Singleton's men are also
looking out for you?”

“'Cause one of them knows I'm in these parts, and
he knows I'm dangerous.”

“But can he find you?”

“He's a born swamp-sucker like myself, and he's
dangerous too. He know's I'm hereabouts, and I
reckon he can't sleep easy till he finds me—or I find
him.”

Barsfield no longer objected, and together they penetrated
the covert until they reached a dry spot, where,
with a fancy as natural as it was peculiar, the Half-Breed
had chosen his temporary dwelling, in preference
to that of the camp or plantation. A few brands of
the resinous pine, in which commodity the country
around was abundantly supplied, were huddled together
and in a blaze, which, though bright enough to illumine
all objects around them, was imperceptible on the outer
edge of the hummock, from the exceeding density of its
foliage. A huge gum-tree, that stood upon the bank,
sent up bulgingly above the surface a monstrous series
of roots, which, covered with fresh moss, had made the
pillow of the inhabitant. A thick coat of clustering oak-leaves,
the tribute of a tree that had made such a deposite,
probably, for a hundred winters, composed the sylvan
couch of the outlier, while the folding and thicklyleaved
branches overhead afforded him quite as gracious
a cover from the unfriendly dews as it was in the nature
of a form so callous to need or to desire. But the
place seemed cheerless to Barsfield, in spite of the genial
temperature of the season, and the bright flame
burning before him.

“And you sleep here, Mr. Blonay?” was his involuntary
question.

“Yes, cappin, here or further in the bush. If I hear
strange noises that I don't like, I slips down further into
the bay, and then I'm sure to be safe, for it's a mighty

troublesome way to take, and very few people like to
hunt in such bottoms; it's all sloppy, and full of holes,
and the water's as black as pitch.”

“What noise is that?” said Barsfield.

“Oh, that!—that's only my big alligator: I can tell
his voice from all the rest, for it sounds hoarse, as if he
had cotched a cold from coming out too soon last May.
He's a mighty big fellow, and keeps in a deep dirty
pond jist to the back of you. I shouldn't be supprised
to see him crawling out this way directly; he sometimes
does when I'm lying here in the daytime.”

Barsfield started and looked round him, as an evident
rustling in the rear seemed to confirm the promise of
Blonay. The latter smiled as he proceeded—

“Don't be scared, cappin, for if a body ain't scared
he can't do no harm with 'em. When he comes out and
looks at me, I jist laughs at him, and claps my hands,
and he takes to his heels directly. They won't trouble
you much only when they're mighty hungry, and ain't
seed hog-meat for a long time, and then they won't
trouble you if you make a great noise and splash the
water at 'em.”

“Why don't you shoot him?”

“Adrat it! I didn't load for him: it's no use,—if I
had been to shoot alligators, I needn't have come up
from Goose Creek. I could have had my pick there,
at any time, of a dozen, jist as big and not so hoarse as
this fellow: I picked my bullet for quite another sort of
varmint.”

“And what of him—have you seen him?”

“Yes,” was the single and almost stern reply.

“Within rifle shot?”

“Not twenty yards off,” was the immediate answer.

“And why did you spare him?”

“Other people was with him: I would have shot him
by himself.”

“I see; you had no wish to be cut up immediately

after. Your hatred to your enemy, Blonay, does not
blind you to the wisdom of escaping after you have murdered
him?”

The Half-Breed did not seem to understand what
Barsfield said; but his own meaning was so obvious to
himself, that he did not appear to think it necessary to
repeat his words, or undertake more effectually to explain
them. His, indeed, was the true Indian warfare,
as, in great part, his was the Indian blood and temper.
To win every advantage—to secure success and triumph
without risk and with impunity, are the principles
of the savage nature always; and to obtain revenge
without corresponding disadvantage, makes the virtue
of such an achievement. These, indeed, may be held
the principles of every people conscious of inferiority
to those whom they oppose and hate.

So far the dialogue between Barsfield and his comrade
had been carried on without any reference to the
particular subject of interest which filled the bosom of
the former. He seemed reluctant to speak farther upon
this topic; and, when he did speak, his reluctance, still
preserved, produced a halting and partial utterance only
of his feelings and desires, as if he somewhat repented
of the degree of confidence which he had already reposed
in the person to whom he spoke. But the desire
to avail himself of the services of this man, and the
consciousness of having already gone so far as to make
any future risk of this sort comparatively unimportant,
at length impelled him to a full expression of his desire to
get Mellichampe out of his way, and, with this object,
to hear from Blonay, and to suggest himself sundry
plans for this purpose. The great difficulty consisted
in the position of Barsfield himself, in relation to the
prisoner so particularly intrusted to his charge by Tarleton,
and with orders so imperative and especial. This
was the grand difficulty, which it required all the ingenuity
of Barsfield to surmount. Had Mellichampe been

the prisoner of Tarleton, or of any other person than
Barsfield himself, the murder of the youth would most
probably have been effected that very night, such was
the unscrupulous hatred of the tory, if not of Blonay.
For the present we may say, that the Half-Breed might
not so readily have fallen into any plan of Barsfield
which would have made him the agent in the commission
of the deed.

“You go with Tarleton to-morrow: you will not keep
with him, for he goes down to Baynton's Meadow.
When do you return?”

“Well, now, there's no telling, cappin, seeing as how
the colonel may want me to go 'long with him.”

“He will not, when you have shown him to the camp
of Marion.”

“Well, if so be he don't, I'll be back mighty soon
after I leaves him. I don't want to go with him, 'cause
I knows there's no finding a man's enemy in pertic'lar,
when there's a big company 'long.”

“It is well. You will be back, then, by to-morrow
night, and I will then put you upon a plan which will
enalbe you to get this boy out of the way for me.”

“Well, but, cappin, ha'nt you got him now? It's
mighty easy now, as I tell'd you before, to do for him
yourself.”

“You do not seem to understand, Blonay. I am
prevented from doing any thing, as Tarleton has made
me directly responsible for the appearance of the prisoner.”

“Adrat it, who's to know when the colonel's gone?
The chap's hurt and sick. Reckon he can die by natur.”

Barsfield understood him, and replied—

“Yes, and nature might be helped in his case, but
that Tarleton's own surgeon and assistants remain, and
none but the Berkeley family are to be admitted to the
prisoner. If I could report at my pleasure on his condition,

it might easily be done; but I cannot. It must
be done by another, if done at all, and in such a way as
will show that I could have had no hand in it. I have
a plan in my mind for this purpose, which you shall execute
on your return, by which means I shall avoid
these difficulties. You are willing?”

“Well, yes, I reckon. It don't take much to finish
a chap that's half dead already; but—I say, cappin—
does you really think now that that 'ere gal has a notion
for him?”

The question seemed to Barsfield exceedingly impertinent,
and he replied with a manner sufficiently
haughty.

“What matters it to you, sirrah, whether she has
such a notion or not? How does it concern you?—
and what should you know of love?”

“No harm, cappin—I doesn't mean any harm; it
don't consarn me, that's true. But, adrat it, cappin,
she's mighty fine gal: and she does look so sweet and
so sorry all the time, jist as if she wouldn't hurt a
mean crawling black spider that was agin the wall.”

Barsfield looked with some surprise at the speaker,
as he heard him utter a language so like that of genuine
feeling, and in tones that seemed to say that he felt
it; and he was about to make some remark when Blonay,
who had stood during this dialogue leaning with his
shoulder against a tree, and his head down in a listless
manner upon his bosom, now started into an attitude
and expression of the most watchful consciousness.
A pause of a few moments ensued, when, hearing nothing,
Barsfield was about to go on with the speech which
the manner of his companion had interrupted, when the
Half-Breed again stopped him with a whisper, while
his finger rested upon the arm of the tory in cautious
warning.

“Hist; I hear them—there are no less than three
feet in that swamp—don't you hear them walking in the

water? There, now. You hear when the flat of the
foot comes down upon the water.”

“I hear nothing,” said Barsfield.

Without a word, the Half-Breed stooped to the single
brand that was now blazing near them, and gathering
a double handful of dirt from the little hillock, he
threw it upon the flame and extinguished it in an instant.
The next moment they heard the distant crackling
of dry sticks and a rustling among the leaves.

“It may be your great alligator,” said Barsfield.

“No—it's men—Marion's men, I reckon—and
there's three of them, at least. They are spying on
the camp. Lie close.”

Barsfield did not immediately stoop, and the Half-Breed
did not scruple to grasp his arm with an urgency
and force which brought the tory captain forward. He
trod heavily as he did so upon a cluster of the dried leaves
which had formed the couch of Blonay, and a slight whistle
reached their ears a moment after, and then all was
silence. The tory and his companion crouched together
behind the huge gum under which the latter had been
accustomed to sleep, and thus they remained without a
word for several minutes. No sound in all that time
came to their senses; and Barsfield, rather more adventurous
than Blonay, or less taught in the subtleties of
swamp warfare, tired of his position, arose slowly from
the ground and thrust his head from behind the tree, endeavouring,
in the dim light that occasionally stole from
the heavens into those deep recesses, to gather what he
could of the noises which had disturbed them. The
hand of the Half-Breed, grasping the skirts of his coat,
had scarcely drawn him back into the shelter of the
tree, when the whizzing of the bullet through the
leaves, and the sharp crack of the rifle, warned him of
his own narrow escape, and of the close proximity of
danger.

“I knows where they are now,” said Blonay, in a

whisper, changing his position; “we are safe enough if
you can stick close to me, cappin.”

“Lead on—I'll follow,” was the reply, in the same low
whisper which conveyed the words of Blonay. The
Half-Breed instantly hurled a huge half-burnt chunk
of wood through the bushes before him, the noise of
which he necessarily knew would call the eyes of the
scouts in that direction; then, in the next instant,
bounding to the opposite side, he took his way between
two clumps of bays which grew in the miry places
along the edge of the tussock on which they had been
standing. Barsfield followed closely and without hesitation,
though far from escaping so well the assaults of
the briers and bushes upon his cheeks. His guide,
with a sort of instinct, escaped all these smaller assailants,
and, though he heard the footsteps behind of his
pursuers, he did not now apprehend any danger, either
for himself or his companion, having thrown the thick
growth of bays between them.

The party which so nearly effected the surprise of the
two conspirators came out of their lurking-place an instant
after their flight. The conjecture of the Half-Breed
had been correct. They were the men of Marion.

“You fired too soon, Lance,” were the words of
Humphries, “and the skunk is off. Had you waited
but a little longer we should have had him safe enough.
Now there's no getting him, for he has too greatly the
start of us.”

“I couldn't help it, Mr. Humphries. I saw the shiny
buttons, and I thought I had dead aim upon him.”

“But how comes he with shiny buttons, John Davis?”
said Humphries, quickly. “When you saw him to-day
he had on a blue homespun, did he not?”

“Yes—I seed him plain enough,” said Davis, “and I
could swear to the homespun—but didn't you hear as if
two was walking together?”

“No.

“Well, I did; and 'twas reasonable I should hear
before you, seeing I was ahead. I heard them clear
enough—first one and then t'other—and one walked in
the water while t'other was on the brush.”

“D—n the skunk—that I should lose him—it's all
your fault, Lance. You're too quick and hot-headed
nowadays, and it'll be a long time before you can
be a good swamp fox, unless you go more slowly, and
learn to love less the sound of your rifle. But it's
useless to stay here now, and we've got other work
to do. Our sport's spoiled for this time, and all we
can do is to take off as quick as we can; for it won't
be long before the scouts of Tarleton will be poking
here after us. That shot must bring them in this direction,
so we'll push round to the opposite side of the
bay, where the rest of the red-coats are in camp.”

“But, Mr. Humphries, can't I go now and pick off
that sentry we passed by the avenue?” demanded
Lance Frampton, with much earnestness.

“No—d—n the sentry; if you had picked off this
skunk of a Half-Breed, it would have been something
now I should have thanked you for—that's what I mostly
come after. As for the other—there's too much risk
now. We must take a cross track, and get round to
the river by the gum-flats. Come, push—away.”

They had scarcely moved off when a stir and hum
in the direction of Tarleton's camp announced to them
that the alarm had been given, and hurried the preparations
of Humphries for their departure. The scouts of
Barsfield, led by the tory himself, and guided by Blonay,
after a while, scoured narrowly the recesses of the
bay: but the men of Marion had melted away like
spectres in the distant woods; and, chafed and chagrined,
the tory went back to his quarters, fatigued with
the unprofitable pursuit, and irritated into sleeplessness,
as he found himself in the close neighbourhood of a
foe so wary and so venturesome.