University of Virginia Library

4. CHAPTER IV.

She was not long in finding the faithful Scipio. He
sprang with all the alacrity of a genuine zeal in obedience
to her commands. When he heard from her faltering
lips the melancholy occasion which called for his
attendance, his own emotion was unrestrainable, though
he affected to doubt the certainty of her information.

“Who—who da hurt, misses? You no say da Mass
Arnest? I no blieb it. Mass Arnest, he too strong,
and he too quick for let dem dam tory hurt a bone in
he body. He somebody else, misses. You no 'casion
for scare; he somebody else hab knock on he head—
no Mass Arnest, I berry sartin. But I go long wid
you all de same, dough I no guine tink da Mass Arnest
git hurt. He hab much hurt, I turn soger myself.
I run 'way from old mossa, and take de bush after dem
tory. I sway to God nothing guine 'top me I once in
de woods. But, come, young misses, show me de
place whay the person hurt, dough I know berry well
'taint Mass Arnest.”

Denying her assertion, yet fearing at every step that
he took—and, indeed, only denying that he might the
more readily impose upon himself with the unbelief
which he expressed, but with which he was yet not satisfied—the
sturdy Scipio followed his young mistress
towards the avenue. They had not reached the little
copse, however, by which it was girdled, before they

heard the rush of horses, and the shrill blast of the
bugle.

“'Top in dis bush, young misses—squat down here
under dis percimmon, whay day can't see you.”

“No, Scipio, let us go forward. I think we can get
to the avenue before they come up, and I would have
you lift him into the bushes out of the way of the
horsemen, before they have passed by. Do not fear,
Scipio; we shall have time—but you must go forward
quickly.”

The black looked into her face with astonishment,
as well he might. Her words were unbroken, and her
tones quick and unaffected, equable, even musical,
while his own, accustomed as he had been all his life
to utter and complete subordination, were tremulous
with timidity and fear.

“Gor-a-mighty, Miss Janet, you no scare? You
no frightened, and you only young gal? Scip member
you when you been only so high, and here you
tall—you 'tan' up traight—you look all round—you no
trouble, dough you hear de horn blow and de sogers
coming. Wha' for you no scare like Scipio?”

She could not smile at that moment, as at another she
could scarcely have refrained from doing; but her eye
was turned upon the half-unnerved negro, and her taper
finger rested on his sable wrist, as she said, in tones
which strengthened him, as he felt they came from one
who was herself supernaturally strengthened,

“Fear nothing, but come on quickly. I need all
your strength, Scipio; and, if you will mind what I say
to you, there will be no danger. Come on.”

He opposed nothing farther to her progress, but followed
in silence. They had reached an outer fence, the
rails of which had been let down in order to the free passage
of the cavalry before, when the increasing clamour
of the approaching detachment under Barsfield again
impelled Scipio to other suggestions of caution to his

youthful mistress. But she heeded him not, and continued
her progress. Nor did he shrink. He could
perish for her as readily as for Mellichampe; and, to
do the faithful slave all justice, his exhortations were
prompted not so much by his own danger or hers, as by
a natural sense of the delicacy of that position in which
she might involve herself, under that strong and passionate
fervour of devoted love, which blinded her to all
feeling of danger, and placed her infinitely beyond the
fear of death. Other fears she had not. Her maiden
innocence had never yet dreamed of a wrong to that purity
of soul and person, of which her whole life might
well have been considered the imbodied representative.

But the forbearance of the negro, and his ready compliance
hitherto, all disappeared when, on reaching the
copse, he beheld the bright sabres flashing in his eyes
immediately in the courtyard, as, rounding the yet
blazing fabric, the troopers of Barsfield were even then
making with all speed towards the avenue. He caught
the wrist of his mistress, and pointed out the advancing
enemy. She saw at a glance that, in another moment,
they would make their appearance in the avenue quite as
soon as herself. But a few paces divided her from Mellichampe;
and, as she hesitated whether to pause or proceed,
she trembled now, for the first time in her movement.
In that moment of doubt, the more ready physical
energy of the negro obtained the ascendency. With
something like fear he drew her to a part of the copse
which was thicker than the rest, and here she partially
crouched from sight, he taking a place humbly enough
immediately behind her. What were her feelings then,
in that position—what her fears! She bore them not
long. The anxiety and the suspense were infinitely beyond
all estimation of the danger in her mind; and,
with fearless hands, after a few moments of dreadful
pause and apprehension, she divided the crowding
bushes from before her, and looked down into the ditch

which separated her from the avenue. At that moment,
leading his squad and moving rapidly at their head,
Barsfield rode into the enclosure. Instinctively, as she
beheld his huge form and fiercely-excited, harsh features,
her hands sunk down at her side, and the slender
branches which she had opened in the copse before her,
with their crowding foliage, resumed in part their old position,
and would most completely have concealed her;
but when, in the next instant, she beheld the fierce tory
ride directly to the spot where Mellichampe lay—when
she saw him rein up his steed and leap with onward
haste to the ground—when her eye scanned the intense
malignity and mingled exultation and hatred of his
glance, and she saw that his bloody sabre was even
then uplifted—she had no farther fears—she had no farther
thoughts of herself. She tore the branches away
from before her, and, in defiance of all the efforts of the
faithful Scipio to restrain her, she leaped forward directly
into the path of the tory, and in the face of his uplifted
weapon. Her appearance was in the last degree
opportune. Another moment might have ended all her
cares for her lover. Barsfield was standing above
him, and Mellichampe had exhibited just life enough to
give the tory an excuse sufficient to drive the sword
which he held into the bosom of that enemy whom, of
all the world, he was most desirous to destroy. The
meditated blow was almost descending, and the feeble
youth, stimulated by the presence of his foe, was vainly
struggling to rise from the earth, which was all discoloured
with his blood. His dim eyes were opening in momentary
flashes, while his sinewless arm was feebly
striving to lift the sabre, which he had still retained tenaciously
in his grasp, in opposition to that of Barsfield.
The instinct rather than the reason of love prevailed.
Indeed, the instinct of love is woman's best reason.
With a shriek that rose more shrilly upon the air than
the bugle of the enemy, she threw herself under the
weapon—she lay prostrate upon the extended and fainting
form of her lover—she clasped his head with her
arms, and her bosom formed the sweet and all-powerful
barrier which, in that perilous moment, protected his.
The weapon of the tory was arrested. He had heard
her cry—he had seen the movement—and he did not,
he could not then, strike.

“Save him, spare him, Barsfield!—he is dying,—you
have already slain him! Strike no other blow; have
mercy, I pray you,—if not upon him, have mercy upon
me. I have never wronged you—I will not,—let us go
free. Why will you hate us so—why—why?”

“Fear not, Miss Berkeley—you mistake my purpose:
I mean not to destroy him. Leave him now,—
let one of my men attend you to the house; and Mr.
Mellichampe shall be taken care of.”

“I will not leave him,” she exclaimed; “I dare not
trust you, Barsfield,—I can take care of him myself.”

The fierce brow of the tory blackened as this reproachful
speech met his ears.

“What! not trust me, Miss Berkeley?”

“Why should I? Did I not behold you, even now,
about to strike his unguarded bosom?”

“He strove to fight—he offered resistance,” was the
somewhat hasty reply of the tory.

“He strove to fight!—he offered resistance!—oh,
shame, Captain Barsfield—shame to manhood—that you
should speak such language! What resistance could
he offer?—how could he fight, and the blood that could
only have given him strength for such a conflict soaking
up the earth about him? If that blood were now in his
heart, Mr. Barsfield, you would not now speak thus, nor
would I have occasion, sir, to plead for his life at any
hands, and, least of all, at yours.”

She had raised herself from the body, over which she
still continued to bend, under the indignation of her
spirit at the unmanly speech of the tory. Her eyes

flashed forth a fire as she spoke, 'neath which his own
grew humbled and ashamed. His muscles quivered
with rage and vexation, and his only resort for relief
was to that natural suggestion of the lowly mind which
seeks to conceal or fortify one base action by the commission
of another.

“Take her away, Beacham,” he said to one of the
troopers; “carry her to the house—tenderly, Beacham—tenderly;
hurt her not. Be careful, as you value
my favour.”

“Touch me not,” she cried aloud, “touch me not:
put no hand upon me. This is my home, Captain
Barsfield,—I am here of right, while you are but the
guest of our hospitality. Do not suffer these men to
lay hands upon me.”

“But you are here in danger, Miss Berkeley.”

“Only from you, sir—only from you and yours. I
am in no danger, sir, from him—none—none. I will
cling to him for safety to the last, though he hear me
not—though he never hear me again. He is mine, sir,
and I am his; but you knew this before. He is mine,
—you shall not tear me from my husband.”

“Husband!” cried Barsfield, in unmitigated surprise
and unconcealed vexation.

“Yes, husband, before God, if not in the eye of man!
Living or dead, Ernest, I am still yours—yours only.
I swear it by this unconscious form,—I swear it by all
that is good and holy—all that can hallow an innocent
love, and make sacred and strong so solemn and so
dear a pledge! You cannot now separate us,—you
dare not!”

“You know not, Miss Berkeley, how much I can
dare in the performance of my duty.”

“This is no duty of yours,—I need none of your
guardianship.”

“Ay, Miss Berkeley, you do not, perhaps, but he
does. He is my prisoner, under charge of a heavy

crime—of treason to his sovereign, and of being a spy
upon my camp.”

“What! he—Mellichampe! Oh, false, false—foolish
and false!” was her almost fierce exclamation.

“True as gospel, Miss Berkeley, as I shall prove to
his conviction, if not yours. But this is trifling, surely.
Beacham, remove the lady; treat her tenderly, but remove
her from the body of the prisoner: we must secure
him at all hazards—living or dead.”

The rugged soldier, in obedience to these commands,
approached the maiden, who now clung more firmly
than ever to the half-conscious form of her lover. Her
arms were wound about his neck, and, with convulsive
shrieks at intervals, she spoke alternately to Barsfield
and her lover. In the meantime, beholding the approach
of the soldier who had been instructed to bear
her away, the faithful Scipio, though entirely unarmed,
did not hesitate at once to leap forward to her assistance.
He made his way between her and the soldier
Beacham, and, though his arms hung without movement
at his side, there was yet enough in his manner to show
to the tory that he meditated all the resistance of which,
under the circumstances, he could be considered capable.
His teeth were set firmly; his eyes sought those
of the soldier, and were there fixed; and his head rested
upon one shoulder with an air of dogged determination
which, even before he spoke, conveyed all the eloquence
of his subsequent words.

“Say de wud, misses—only say de wud, and I hammer
dis poor buckrah till he hab noting leff but de white
ob he eye. He hab sword for stick, and Scip only hab
he hand and teet'; but I no 'fraid ob um; only you say
de wud—dat's all!”

But poor Scipio, as was natural enough at such a
moment, in the presence of his mistress, and his blood
mounting high at seeing the condition of Ernest Mellichampe,
had grievously miscalculated his own strength.

He had scarcely spoken when a stroke from the back
of a sabre across the head brought him to the ground,
like a stunned ox, and taught Janet how little commiseration
she was to expect from the fierce man who
stood before her, wielding at that instant her entire destiny.
The soldier advanced, though with some evident
reluctance, and he laid his hand upon her. She started,
on the instant, and rose immediately to her feet.

“If you are resolved upon violence towards me,
Captain Barsfield, I will spare myself, as much as possible,
the pain of suffering it. You have, sir, all the
shame of having commanded it. I know that you have
the strength to tear me away from him; you are wise,
perhaps, as you seem only to employ it when the difference
is so manifest. But I will not be separated from
him, though you declare him your prisoner: I will be a
prisoner also; I will cling to him wherever you may
decree that he shall be carried; for know, sir, that I
trust you not. The man who will employ violence to a
woman would murder his sleeping enemy!”

“Remove her to the house, Beacham,” was all that the
tory said; but his words were uttered with teeth closely
clinched together, and his whole frame seemed to quiver
with indignation. At that moment the sound of Tarleton's
returning bugle smote suddenly upon the ears of
all; and the quick sense of Janet immediately saw, in
the features of Barsfield, that the intelligence was not
pleasing to his mind. He hurried his commands for
the removal of Mellichampe's body, and was now doubly
anxious to convey her to the house. Without a definite
motive for refusing now to do that to which, but a
moment before, she had consented, she sprang again to
the person of her lover, again threw her arms about him,
and refused to be separated. While thus situated, the
tones of another voice were heard immediately behind
the group. The deep, subdued, but stern accents of
Tarleton himself were not to be mistaken; and Barsfield

started in obvious agitation, as he heard the question
which first announced to him the presence of his superior.