XXIII.—ARNOLD IN VIRGINIA.
In the history of the present Mexican war, it is stated, that fifteen women
were driven by the bombardment of Vera Cruz, to take refuge in a church,
near the altar, their pale faces illumined by the same red glare, that revealed
the sculptured image of Jesus and the sad, mild face of the Virgin
Mother.
While they knelt there, a lighted bomb—a globe of iron, containing at
least three hundred balls—crashed through the roof of the church, descended
in the midst of the women, and exploded—
There is not a Fiend, but whose heart would fail him, when surveying
the result of that explosion.
So, upon the homes of Virginia, in December, 1781, burst the Traitor,
Benedict Arnold.
As his ship glided up James River, aided by wind and tide—a leaden
sky above, a dreary winter scene around, the other vessels following in the
wake—he stood on its deck, and drew his sword, repeating his oath, to
avenge the death of John Andre!
How did he keep that Oath?
He was always excited to madness in the hour of conflict, always fighting
like a tigress robbed of her young, but now he concealed the heart of a
Devil, beneath a British uniform. The homes that he burnt, the men that
he stabbed, the murders that dripped from his sword, could not be told in a
volume.
At midnight, over the ice-bound river and frozen snow, a red column of
flame flashed far and wide, rising in terrible grandeur into the star-lit sky.—
It was only Arnold and his Men, laying an American home in ashes and
blood.
When morning came, there was a dense black smoke darkening over
yonder woods. The first light of the winter's day shone over the maddened
visage of Arnold, cheering on his men to scenes of murder.
The very men who fought under him, despised him. As the officers
received his orders, they could not disguise the contempt of the curved lip
and averted eye. The phantom of Andre never left him. If before he had
been desperate, he was now infernal—if Quebec had beheld him a brave
soldier, the shores of James River, the streets of Richmond saw in his form
the image of an Assassin.
Tortured by Remorse, hated, doubted, despised by the men who had
purchased his sword, his honor, Arnold seemed at this time, to become the
Foe of the whole human race.
When not engaged in works of carnage, he would sit alone in his tent,
resting his head in his clenched hand and shading from the light, a face
distorted by demoniac passions.
The memory of Andre was to him, what the cord, sunken in the lacerated
flesh, is to the Hindoo devotee, a dull, gnawing, ever-present pain.
One day he sent a flag of truce, with a letter to La Fayette. The heroic
Boy-General returned the letter without a word. Arnold took the unanswered
letter, sought the shadow of his tent, and did not speak for some
hours. That calm derision cut him to the soul.
There was brought before him, on a calm winter's day, an American
Captain who had been taken prisoner. Arnold surveyed the hardy soldier,
clad in that glorious blue uniform, which he himself had worn with honor,
and after a pause of silent thought, asked with a careless smile—
“What will the Americans do with me, in case they take me prisoner?”
“Hang your body on a gibbet, but bury your leg with the honors of war.
Not the leg that first planted a footstep on the British ship, but the leg that
was broken at Quebec and Saratoga!”
Arnold's countenance fell. He asked no more questions of that soldier.
One dark and cheerless winter's evening, as the sun shining from a blue
ridge of clouds, lighted up the recesses of a wood, near the James River, a
solitary horseman was pursuing his way along a path that led from the
forest into a wild morass.
On either side of the path were dangerous bogs, before the traveller a
dreary prospect of ice and reeds, at his back, the unknown wood which he
had just left. He had wandered far from the road, and lost his way.
He covered his face and neck with the cloak, which, drooping over his
erect form, fell in large folds on the back of his horse. The sky was dark
and lowering, the wind sweeping over the swamp, bitter cold. From an
aperture in the clouds, the last gush of sunlight streamed over the ice of the
morass, with that solitary horsemen darkly delineated in the centre.
Suffering the horse to choose his way, the traveller, with his face concealed
in the cloak, seemed absorbed in his thoughts, while the sun went
down; the night came on; the snow fell in large flakes.
The instinct of the horse guided him through many devious paths, at
last, however, he halted in evident distress, while the falling snow whitened
his dark flanks. The traveller looked around: all had grown suddenly
dark. He could not distinguish the path. Suddenly, however, a light
blazed in his face, and he beheld but a few paces before him, the glow of a
fireside, streaming through an opened door. A miserable hut stood there,
on an island of the swamp, with the immense trunks of leafless trees rising
above its narrow roof.
As the traveller, by that sudden light hurried forward, he beheld standing
in the doorway, the figure of an old man, clad after the Indian style, in
hunting shirt, leggings and moccasins, with a fur cap on his brow.
“Who comes thar?” the challenge echoed and a rifle was raised.
“A friend, who will thank you to direct him to the path which leads into
the high road!”
“On sich a night as this, I'd reether not!” answered the old hunter—
“How'sever, if you choose to share my fire and Johnny cake, you're welcome!
That's all an old soldier can say!”
—In a few moments, looking into the solitary room of that secluded hut,
you might see the traveller seated on one side of a cheerful fire, built on the
hard clay, while opposite, resting on a log, the old man turned the cake in
the ashes, and passed the whiskey flask.
A lighted pine knot, attached to a huge oaken post which formed the main
support of the roof, threw its vivid glare into the wrinkled face of the hunter.
The traveller, still wrapped in his cloak, seemed to avoid the light, for while
he eagerly partook of the cake and shared the contents of the flask, he
shaded his eyes with his broad chapeau.
Around these two figures were many testimonials of the old man's skill,
and some records of his courage. The antlers of a deer nailed to a post,
the skin of a panther extended along the logs, five or six scalps suspended
from the roof, bore testimony to a life of desperate deeds. By his side,
his powder horn and hunting pouch, and an old rifle, glowed redly in the
light.
The rude meal was finished; the traveller raised his head and glanced
covertly around the place.
“You seem comfortable here? A somewhat lonely spot, however, in
the middle of the swamp, with nothing but ice and reeds around you?”
The old hunter smiled until his veteran face resembled a piece of intricate
net work.
“If you'd a-been some five years cap-tive among the Ingins as I have
been, you'd think this here log hut reether comfortable place!”
“You—a captive?” muttered the traveller.
“Look thar!” and raising his cap he laid bare his skull, which was at
once divested of the hair and skin. The hideous traces of a savage outrage,
were clearly perceptible.
“Thar's whar the Ingins scalped me! But old Bingimin did n't die
jest then!”
“Where were you, at the time the Indians captured you?”
“In Canada—”
“Canada?” echoed the traveller.
“Does that seem pecooliar?” chuckled the old man—“Taken captive in
Canada, I was kept among 'em five years, and did n't get near a white settlement,
until a month back. I haint lived here more nor three weeks.
You see I've had a dev'lish tough time of it!”
“You are not a Canadian?”
“Old Virginny to the back-bone! You see I went to jine the army near
Boston, with Dan'el Morgan—You mought a-happened to heard o' that
man, stranger? A parfict hoss to fight, mind I tell 'ee!”
“Morgan?” whispered the traveller, and his head sunk lower in his cloak.
“Yes, you see Morgan and his men jined Arnold—you've heered of
him?”
The traveller removed his seat, or log, from the fire. It was getting uncomfortably
warm.
“Arnold—yes, I think I have heard of that man?”
“Heer'd of him? Why I reckon, if livin', by this time he's the greatest
man a-goin'! Yes, stranger, I was with him, with Arnold on his v'yge
over land to Quebec! What a parfict devil he was, be sure!”
“You knew Arnold?”
“Wer n't I with him all the way, for two months? Die n't I see him
every hour of the day? Nothin' could daunt that fellow—his face was
always the same—and when there was danger, you need n't ask where he
was. Arnold was always in the front!”
“He was a rash, high-tempered man?”
“A beaver to work and a wild cat to fight! Hot-tempered as old Sattin,
but mind I tell 'ee, his heart was in the right place. I recollect one day,
we brought to a halt on the banks of a river. Our provisions were gone.
There were n't a morsel left. E'en the dogs an' sarpints had run out. Our
men set about in squads, talkin' the matter over. We were the worst
starved men, that had ever been seen in them parts. Well, in midst of it
all, Arnold calls me aside—I see his face yet, with an eye like one of them
fire-coals—ses he, “Bingimin, you're a little older than the rest of us!
Take this crust!” And he gives me a bit of bread, that he took from the
breast of his coat. Yes, the Colonel—sufferin' himself for bread—give me
the last he had, out of his own mouth!”
The old man brushed his eyes with the back of his hand. The traveller
seemed asleep, for his head had fallen on his breast, while his elbows rested
on his knees. The hunter, however, continued his story.
“Then you should a-seen him, at the Stormin' o' Quebec! Laws help
us! Why, even when his leg was broke, he cheered his men, and fought,
sword in hand, until he fell in a puddle of his own blood! I tell you, that
Arnold was a born devil to fight!”
“You said you were captured by the Indians?” hastily interrupted the
stranger, keeping his face within the folds of his cloak.
“I carried Arnold from the Rock at Quebec, and was with him when the
Americans were retreating toward Lake Champlain. One night, wandering
on the shore, the red skins come upon me—but it's a long story. You
seem to be from civilized parts, stranger. Can you tell me, what's become
of Benedict Arnold? Is he alive?”
“He is,” sullenly responded the traveller.
“At the head of the heap, too, I'll be bound! A Continental to the
backbone? Hey? Next to Washington himself?”
The traveller was silent.
“Maybe, stranger, you can tell me somethin' about the war? You
seem to come from the big cities? What's been doin' lately? The Continental
Congress still in operation? I did heer, while captive among the
Ingins, that our folks had cut loose altogether from King George?”
The strange gentlemen did not answer. His face still shrounded in his
cloak, he folded his arms over his knees, while the old man gazed upon
him with a look of some interest.
“So you knew Benedict Arnold?” a deep, hoarse voice echoed from the
folds of the cloak.
“That I did!—And a braver man never—”
“He was brave? Was he?”
“Like his iron sword, his character was full of dents and notches, but
his heart was always true, and his hand struck home in the hour of battle!”
“The soldiers liked him?”
“Reether so! You should have seen 'em follow his voice and eye on
the ramparts of Quebec! They fairly warshipped him—”
“Do you think he loved his country?”
“Do I think! I don't think about it—I know it!—But you don't seem
well—eh? Got a chill? You trimble so. Wait a moment, and I'll put
more wood on the fire.”
The stranger rose. Still keeping his cloak about his neck and face, he
moved toward the narrow door.
“I must go!” he said, in that hoarse voice, which for some unknown
reason, struck on the old man's ear with a peculiar sound.
“Go: On sich a night as this? It taint possible!”
“I must go! You can tell me, the best path from this accursed swamp,
and I will leave without a moment's delay!”
The old man was conscious that no persuasion on his part, could change
the iron resolve of the stranger's tone.
In a moment standing in the door, a lighted pine knot in his hand, he
gazed upon the sight revealed by its glare—That cloaked figure mounted on
the dark steed, who with mane and tail waving to the gust, neck arched
and eye rolling, stood ready for the march.
It was a terrible night. The snow had changed to sleet, the wind swelling
to a hurricane, roared like the voices of ten thousand men clamoring in
battle, over the wilds of the swamp. Although it was in the depth of
winter, the sound of distant thunder was heard, and a pale lurid lightning
flashed from the verge of that dreary horizon.
The old man, with the light flaring now over his withered face, now over
the stranger and his steed, stood in the doorway of his rude home.
“Take the track to the right—turn the big oak about a quarter of a mile
from this place, and then you must follow the windin's of the path, as best
you may!—But hold, it's a terrible night: I'll not see a fellow bein's life in
peril. Wait a minute, until I get my cap and rifle; I'll go with you to the
edge of the swamp —”
“So you would like to know—” interrupted the deep voice of the Stranger—“So
you would like to know what has become of Benedict Arnold?”
That voice held the old man's eye and ear like a spell. He started forward,
holding the torch in his hand, and grasped the stirrup of the traveller.
Then occurred a sudden, yet vivid and impressive scene!
You hear the winter thunder roll, you see the pale lightning glow. That
torch spreads a circle of glaring light around the old man and the horseman,
while all beyond is intensely dark. You behold the brown visage of the
aged soldier, seamed with wrinkles, battered with scars, its keen grey eyes
upraised, the white hairs streaming in the wind.
And then, like some wild creation of that desert waste, you see the impatient
horse, and the cloaked figure, breaking into the vivid light, and distinctly
relieved by the universe of darkness beyond.
The old man gazed intently for a moment, and then fell back against the
door-post of his hut, appalled, frightened, thunderstricken. The mingled
despair, wonder, fear, stamped upon his battle-worn face, was frightful to
behold.
—The cloak had fallen from the Stranger's shoulders. The old man beheld
a massive form clad in scarlet, a bronzed visage disturbed by a hideous
emotion, two dark eyes that flashed through the gloom, as with the light of
eternal despair.
“Now, do you know me?” thundered that hoarse voice, and a mist came
over the old man's eyes.
When he recovered his consciousness again, the tufted sward before his
hut was vacant. There was the sound of horse's hoofs, crashing through
the swamp, there was the vision of a horse and rider, seen far over the
waste, by the glare of the winter lightning.
The space before the hut was vacant, yet still that old man with his paralyzed
hand clenching the torch, beheld a hideous vision rising against the
dark sky—a red uniform, a bronzed visage, two burning eyes!
“To-night,” he faltered—this brave old man, now transformed into a
very coward, by that sight—“To-night, I have seen the Fiend of Darkness—for
it was not—no! It was not Benedict Arnold!”
And the old man until the hour of his death, firmly believed that the
vision of that night, was a horrible delusion, created by the fiend of darkness,
to frighten a brave old soldier. He died, believing still in the Patriot
Arnold.
Arnold was afterwards heard to say, that all the shames and scorns,
which had been showered upon his head, never cut him so thoroughly to
the soul, as the fervent admiration of that Soldier of the Wilderness, who
in his lonely wanderings still cherished in his heart, the memory of the
Patriot Arnold.
