University of Virginia Library

25. CHAPTER XXV.

The absence of Blonay occasioned no small annoyance
to all the leading parties at “Piney Grove.” Suspicious
of all things and persons, the tory captain, who
depended for the prosecution of his scheme upon Blonay's
ministry, began to fear that the Half-Breed was
playing him false. Not confiding to him at first, under a
doubt of his integrity, the suspicions of Janet and Mellichampe
were duly increased by his absence. Neither
of these parties seemed to think of the possibility of evil
having befallen him. It was more natural, he was so

low and destitute, to think of his evil nature rather than
of his human liability to mishap.

But Barsfield made his preparations, notwithstanding
the absence of his ally. He had already chosen a certain
number of his more resolute and ready men, to whom
certain stations were to be assigned, along where the
course of Mellichampe lay, under the guidance of the
Half-Breed. The tory, however, had not communicated
any thing calculated to arouse the suspicions of those
whom he employed. That communication was left over
for the last moment. He simply prescribed their places
of watch, and commanded the utmost vigilance.

There was another order given about this time by
Captain Barsfield, which had its annoyances for other
parties in our narrative. To Lieutenant Clayton was
assigned the duty, with a small escort, of conveying Mellichampe
for trial to Charleston, in the beginning of the
ensuing week. This order produced some little sensation.

“And you really leave `Piney Grove' so soon, Lieutenant
Clayton?” was the inquiry of Rose Duncan that
evening, shortly after tea was over, of the hitherto gay
gallant who sat beside her. The old gentleman, Mr.
Berkeley—as had been usual with him for some time
past—had retired early. His daughter, as a matter now
of course, was with her lover; and the two, Rose and
Clayton, as was much the case since the capture of Mellichampe,
were tête-à-tête. There was nothing in the
words themselves indicative of more than a common feeling
of curiosity—nothing, perhaps, in the manner of their
expression; and yet the lieutenant could not help the
fancy that persuaded him to think that there was a hesitating
thickness of voice in the utterance of the speaker,
that spoke of a present emotion. His eyes were at once
turned searchingly upon her face, as he listened to the
flattering inquiry, and her own sank to the ground beneath
his gaze. He replied after the pause of a single instant.

“If I could persuade myself, Miss Duncan, that you
shared in any degree the regret which I feel at leaving
`Piney Grove,' though it would greatly increase my reluctance
to do so, it would afford me no small consolation
during my absence.”

The lieutenant began to look serious and sentimental,
and the maiden recovered her caprice. Her answer
was full of girlish simplicity, while her manner was most
annoying, arch, and satirical.

“Well, I do, Mr. Clayton—I do regret your going—
that I do, from the bottom of my heart. Bless me, what
should I have done all this time but for you?—how monstrous
dull must have been these hours. I really shall
miss you very much.”

The lieutenant was disappointed. He had not looked
for a transition so sudden, in the voice, words, and manner
of his fair but capricious companion; and, for a moment,
he was something daunted. But, recovering himself
with an effort, as from frequent intercourse he had
discovered that the only way to contend with one of her
character was to assume some of its features, he proceeded
to reply in a manner which had the effect of compelling
her somewhat to resume that momentary gravity
of demeanour which had accompanied her first speech;
and which, as it was unfrequent, he had found, in her,
rather interesting.

“But I have a consolation in my exile, Miss Duncan,
since it is to a city full of the fair; and dances and flirtations
every night in Charleston, with the young, the
rich, and the beautiful, should compensate one amply for
the loss—ay, even for the loss—temporary though I hope
it may be—of the fair Miss Duncan herself.”

“Treason—treason—a most flagrant rebellion, and
worthy of condign punishment,” was the prompt reply of
the maiden; though it evidently called for no inconsiderable
effort on her part to respond so readily, and to dissipate
the cloudy expression just then coming over her

face again. She was about to continue her reply, and,
moved by some uncertain feeling, Lieutenant Clayton
had transferred himself from a neighbouring chair to a
seat on the sofa beside her, when Janet Berkeley entered
the room. Her appearance produced a visible constraint
upon both the parties, and she saw at a glance
that she was unnecessary to their conference. She did
not seem to remark them, however; and, though she perceived
that a new interest was awakened in their mutual
minds for each other, she had no time to give to reflection
on this subject: nor, indeed, have we. She left
the room after getting what she sought, and returned to
the apartment of Mellichampe. She had scarcely done
so, when Barsfield joined the two, and offered another
obstacle to a conversation which, to both parties, had
promised to become so interesting.

So much for the condition of things in the camp of the
tory. In that of the partisan, affairs were even more
promising. Witherspoon reached it in no long time after
his interview had taken place with Scipio. He immediately
sought out his superior. Major Singleton
was the individual to whom he made his communication;
and, through him, the paper sent by Mellichampe, and
the facts furnished by the scout, were duly put in Marion's
possession. The words of the chief were few—his
plans soon laid—his decision readily adopted.

“It will do, Singleton,” he said, with a lively air of
satisfaction. “The game is a good one, and only requires
to be played with spirit. The plan promises better
than that of Horry, since we shall now not only rescue
Mellichampe, I think, but strike a fatal blow at
Barsfield's position. What number of loyalists does
Thumbscrew report as in `Piney Grove' since the
27th?”

“Eighty-six have gone in to him since the 27th—
thirty-two before—and the troop which he brought, after
all its losses, could scarcely be less than twenty-five.”

“Making in all—”

“One hundred and forty-three, rank and file.”

“Not too many—not too many, major, if we employ
the scheme. What say you?”

“I think not, general. Barsfield will concentrate his
men, most probably, on the line over which Mellichampe
is to be conducted. That direction we know from this
paper. The advantage is important which it gives us,
since we have only to plan our enterprise so as to avoid
this—fall upon other points of his camp, and break in
upon his ambush, flank and rear, while avoiding his
front.”

“True, Singleton,—it will be to our advantage in beating
Barsfield, I grant you,—but not in serving Mellichampe.
If he keeps this line, it will be necessary that
we strike a moment before he approaches, and just when
he has left the house, or he must fall before our help
would avail him, coming in from flank and rear. We
must confound the ambush in part—we must keep the
whole camp of the tory alive by a concerted attack at
all points, in front not less than in rear, or we lose Mellichampe,
though we gain the fight.”

Singleton acknowledged the difficulty.

“If,” resumed Marion, “if Mellichampe would only
think to avoid the track prescribed by his confederate,
and force him to go aside upon another route—however
slight the variation—it would yet serve us, and we might
save him.”

“I doubt not, general, that he will think of this—he
is wonderfully shrewd in such matters, though rash and
thoughtless enough in others. I think we may rely upon
him that he will.”

“We must hope for it, at least,” said Marion. “The
affair looks promising enough in all other respects, and
we must drive our whole force to the adventure. We
have been cooped up long enough. Go, Singleton, order
in vour remote scouts. Get all your men in readiness,

and send your lieutenant, Humphries, to me. I
have some instructions for him. I will lead in this business
myself.”

Singleton proceeded to the spot where Humphries
usually slept, but he was not to be found. Let us account
for his absence.

Humphries, secure of his enemy, excited by the trying
scene through which he had passed, and scarcely
less so by the novel form of death to which circumstances
had prompted him to devote his victim, returned to the
camp in a state of the utmost mental agitation. It was
yet daylight, and sundry little duties in the camp called
for his attention. These he performed almost unconsciously.
His thoughts were elsewhere. An excitation
of feeling, which sometimes moved him like insanity, disturbed
his judgment, and affected the coherence and the
regularity of his movements. In this state of mind, with
just enough of consciousness to feel that he was wandering,
and that he needed repose, he made his way
about dusk from the observation of the camp, and seeking
out a little bank in the swamp, with which he was
familiar, where he might sleep in secrecy, he threw himself
under a tree, and strove to forget the past. Shutting
his eyes, he hoped in this way to shut out all the images
of strife and terror which yet continued to annoy him.
He succeeded in his desire, and at length slept. But
his sleep was more full of terrors than his waking
thoughts. He dreamed, and the horror of his dreams
aroused him. He heard the cries of the victim whom
he had buried while yet alive. His dreadful shrieks rang
in his ears; and, bursting from their sockets in blood, he
saw the goggle eyes looking down upon him, through
the crevice in the cypress where he had last seen them.
This was not long to be endured. He started from his
sleep—from his place of repose, and stood upon his
feet. Had he slept?—this was doubtful to him—so
vivid, so imposing and real had been the forms and fancies

of his vision. But the night had fairly set in, and
this convinced him that he had slept. A faint light from
the stars came scattered and tremblingly through the
leaves, that complained in the cool wind of evening that
fitfully stole among them. The moon was just rising,
and gave but feeble light. The heavy trees seemed to
dance before his eyes—huge shadows stalked gloomily
between them, and, shuddering with bitter thoughts and
terrifying fancies, the stout woodman for a few moments
was unmanned.

“I can bear it no longer,” he cried aloud, in his disquiet.
“I can bear it no longer.”

With the words he picked up his rifle, which lay upon
the spot where he had lain himself. He felt for the
knife in his belt, and, finding that his equipment was complete,
he moved away with the haste of one who has
fully resolved—saddled his horse, which he mounted
with all speed—and, barely replying to the several challenges
of the sentinels, he darted forth upon the well-known
road. The relentless spur left the steed no
breathing moment. The thoughts of the trooper flew
faster than he could drive his horse; and, though going
at the utmost extent of his powers, the impatient trooper
chafed that the animal went so slowly.

The well-known swamp entrance was in sight—the
cane-brake was passed—and there, rising up in dreadful
silence, white and ghostlike in its aspect under the increasing
brightness of the moonlight, stood the tall cypress
in which his victim was buried. The steed of the
trooper was stopped suddenly—so suddenly that he almost
fell back upon his haunches. His rider alighted—
but, for some moments, frozen to the spot, he dared not
approach the object before him. The awful stillness of
the scene appalled him. He strove to listen—he would
have given worlds to have heard a groan—a moan—a
sigh—however slight, from the cavernous body of that
tree! A curse—ay, though the wretch within had again

cursed his mother—would have been grateful to the
senses and the heart of him who now stood gazing upon
it in horror and in silence, but with the motionlessness
of a statue.

He recovered strength at last sufficient to advance.
He reached the tree. The wedges which secured his
prisoner had been undisturbed. He put his ear to the
rough bark of its sides, but he heard no sounds from
within. He drew with desperate hand the pegs from the
upper crevice, and fancied that a slight breathing followed
it; or it might be the soughing of the wind, suddenly
penetrating the aperture. He called aloud to the inmate
—he shouted with his mouth pressed to the opening—he
implored—he cursed his victim—but he got no answer.

What were his emotions as he pulled, with a giant's
muscle, the hard wedges from the hollow of the tree below?
He had slain his foe in battle—he had killed,
without remorse, the man who, personally, had never
done him wrong:—why should he suffer thus from the
just punishment of a vindictive and a sleepless enemy?
He felt, but did not stop to analyze, this subtlety. He
tore away the chunks which had fastened the opening,
and thrust his hands into the hollow. The legs of the
Half-Breed had sunk down from the knobs upon which
they had rested, while he was capable of exertion, and
they were now a foot deep in the water which filled the
hollow. With both hands, and the exercise of all his
strength, Humphries succeeded in pulling him out by
them. The body was limber, and made no effort and
opposed no resistance. Dragging him through the water,
which he could not avoid, the partisan bore him to
the bank, upon which he laid him. As yet he showed
no signs of life; and the labour which his enemy had
taken seemed to have been taken in vain; but the fresh
air, and the immersion which he had unavoidably undergone
in passing through the water, seemed to revive him
—so Humphries thought, as, bending over him, he

watched his ghastly features in the moonlight. He tore
open the jacket and shirt from his bosom, and felt a
slight pulsation at his heart. Never was joy more perfect
than, at this moment, in the bosom of the partisan.
He laughed with the first conviction that his enemy still
lived. He laughed first, loudly and wildly, and then
the tears, an unrestrainable current, flowed freely from
his eyes. The Half-Breed continued to revive; and
Humphries prayed by his side, as fervently as if praying,
in the last moment of his existence, for the mercy of an
offended God.

He strove in every known way to assist the workings
of nature in the resuscitation of his enemy. He fanned
him with his cap—he sprinkled him freely with water,
and spared no means, supposed in his mind to be beneficial,
to bring about the perfect restoration of his victim.

At length he succeeded. The legs of the Half-Breed
were, one after the other, suddenly drawn up, then relaxed
—he sighed deeply—and, finally, the light stole into his
glazed orbs, as if it had been some blessed charity from
the moon, that now glistened over them.

As he continued to improve, and with the first show
of consciousness, Humphries lifted him higher up the
bank, and laid him at the foot of a shrub tree which grew
at hand. He then receded from him to a little distance—placed
himself directly before his eyes—resumed
his rifle, which he prepared and presented, and
thus, squat upon one knee in front of him, he awaited
the moment of perfect recovery, which should again, in
the consciousness of new life, inform him, at the same
time, of the presence of an ancient enemy.

Thus stationed, he watched the slowly recovering
Blonay, for the space of half an hour, in silence and in
doubt. The scene was a strange one; and to his mind,
not yet relieved from the previously active terrors of his
imagination, an awful and imposing one. In the deep
habitual gloom of that swamp region, among its flickering

shadows—girdled by its thick and oppressive silence,
and watching its skeleton trees until they seemed imbued
with life, and, in the ghostly and increasing moonlight,
appeared to advance upon, and then to recede away from
him—he felt, at every moment of his watch, an increasing
and superstitious dread of all things and thoughts—
all sounds and objects, that assailed his senses, however
remotely, and roused his emotions, however slight. And
as the slow consciousness grew, like a shadow itself, in
the cheek and eye of the man whom he had so lately beheld
as lifeless, he half doubted whether it was human,
and not spectral life, that he now beheld. He half believed
that an evil spirit had possessed the mangled and deformed
frame of the man before him, and was now beginning,
with an aspect of anxious malignity, once more
to glare forth upon him from the starting eyes of the
Half-Breed.

He shuddered with the thought, and he felt that his
grasp upon his rifle grew more and more unsteady, until
at length he almost doubted his own capacity to
secure a certain aim upon his enemy, in the event of
strife. With this fear, determined, as he was, to have a
perfect control over the life of Blonay, whatever might
be the movement of the latter, he rose from the spot
where he watched, and approached so nigh to the slowly
recovering man, that the extended rifle nearly touched his
breast. At that moment Blonay started, raised his head,
and, half sitting up, gazed wildly upon the scene around
him. His eye caught that of Humphries in the next instant,
and he acknowledged the presence of his enemy
by an involuntary start, rising, at the same moment, to
a full sitting posture, and answering the watchful glance
of the partisan by one of inquiry and astonishment, not
less intense in its character than that which he encountered.
His eye next rested upon his own rifle, which
Humphries had thrown upon the bank, in the full glare of
the moonlight, and his body involuntarily inclined towards

it. With the movement came the corresponding one of
the partisan. The muzzle of his weapon almost reached
Blonay's breast, and the lock clicked with singular
emphasis, in the general silence of the scene, as Humphries
cocked it.

“Stir not, Goggle—move a foot, and I'll put the lead
through you. It's a mercy I don't do it now.”

Without a word, Blonay kept his position, and his eye
met that of his foe without fear, though with the utmost
passiveness of expression. Humphries continued—

“You've hunted me like a varmint—you've pulled
trigger upon me—I have your mark, and will carry it, I
reckon, to my grave. There's no reason why I should
let you run.”

He paused, as if awaiting an answer; but the stare of
his enemy alone responded to his speech.

“What do you say now, Blonay, why I shouldn't put
the bullet into you? Speak now—it's only civility.”

“Adrat it, nothing,” said the other, drawing up his
legs.

“You're from my own parish, and that's one reason,”
said Humphries, “that's one reason why I want to
give you fair play, and it's reason enough why I don't
want to spill your blood. Answer me now, Goggle,
like a man—do you want mine?”

He paused, but received no answer. He thus proceeded—

“I had you safe enough, but I couldn't find it in my
heart to take your life after that fashion, so I let you out.
Tell me, now, if you can go without taking tracks after
me again? Suppose I let you run—suppose I leave you,
without troubling you now with this lead, that only waits
till I lift this finger to go through your scull—will you
follow me again?—will you come hunting for my blood?
Speak! for your life depends on it.”

“Adrat it, Bill Humphries, you've got the gun, and
you say there's a bullet in it. I'm here afore you, and

I don't dodge. I ain't afeard,” was the reckless and
seemingly impatient response.

“That's as much as to say that you won't promise,
and it's enough to satisfy me to my own conscience for
pulling trigger upon you at once. But I won't. I'll
give you a chance for your life. There shall be fair play
between us. Take your rifle—there it lies—get yourself
ready, and take your stand on the edge of the bank,
and then be as quick as you think proper, for the first
one to cut away will have the best chance for life.”

A visible change came over the features of the Half-Breed
as he listened to this address. His head dropped
—his chin rested upon his breast—and, without any
other answer, he simply raised the hand which Humphries
had mashed so remorselessly with the pine-knot,
when its owner had thrust it through the crevice of the
tree. He raised it, and in the action showed to his enemy
how utterly impracticable it was for him to hold the
rifle with any hope of its successful use. Humphries was
silenced, and his own feelings were strongly affected
when he actually beheld a tear in the blear eye of the
Half-Breed, as he looked upon the maimed and utterly
helpless member. The privation must have been terrible
indeed, to extort such an acknowledgment from one
so inflexible. It certainly was the greatest evil that
could have befallen him, to lose the use of the weapon
on which so much depended; and then, what was his
mortification to submit to a challenge from a hated enemy—his
weapon and his foe alike at hand—unable to
employ the one or to punish the other?

The rifle of Humphries was lowered as he felt the
full force of Blonay's answer. He turned away to conceal
his own emotion.

“Go!” he cried, “go, Blonay—you are free this
time. I must take my chance, and run my risk of your
taking tracks after me again. Go now,—but better not
let me meet you. My blood is hotter at other times

than now. I'm sad and sorry now—and there's something
to-night in the woods that softens me, and I can't
be angry—I can't spill your blood. But 'twon't always
be so—and, if you're wise, you'll take the back tracks
and go down quietly to Dorchester.”

Without waiting for any answer, the partisan hurried
through the cane-brake; and, with a motion less rapid
than that which brought him, took his way back to the
camp of Marion, where he arrived not a moment too
soon for the most active preparation and employment.

Bruised, enfeebled, almost helpless, the Half-Breed
slowly returned to the tory encampment at “Piney
Grove.” He appeared before Barsfield at early morning
on the day following that, the circumstances of which
we have recorded. His presence quieted the anxieties,
as it met the desires, of all parties.

“Your hand—what is the matter with it?—why is it
bound up?” demanded Barsfield.

“Mashed it with a piece of timber in the swamp,”
was the unscrupulous answer of the Half-Breed, who
suppressed all the particulars of his affair with Humphries.

“Any luck?—met with your man?” was the farther
question.

“No,” was the ready answer.

“You are ready for mine, however?”

“To-night—yes.”

“At midnight. But you must see Miss Berkeley,—
have every thing well understood, so that there will be
no confusion—no delay. She does not suspect—she
seems satisfied?”

“Mighty well pleased.”

“'Tis well. Thus, then, you will proceed. The
sentinel will be withdrawn from the gallery, and you
shall have, at the hour, another key to the padlock.
Guide him forth as soon as possible after the withdrawal
of the sentinel,—you know the course?”

“Yes—by the railing, and so on to the avenue.”

“Be particular, and do not leave the track for an instant.
Go now—I shall be out of the way—seek Miss
Berkeley, and conclude your arrangements with her for
to-night.”

The Half-Breed left him.

“To-night!” were the only words uttered by the tory
as he went towards the outposts, but they were full of
import, and his face looked every thing which his lips
forbore to utter.