 | CHAPTER IX. The King of the Hurons |  |
9. CHAPTER IX.
“What masking stuff is here?
What's this?—a sleeve? 'tis like a demi-cannon.”
—Taming of the Shrew.
If consternation had paralysed the faculties of Miss Montaigne, it
gave new energies to the slave. With the celerity and nearly the
fierceness of an imprisoned wild-cat, she flew from window to window,
seeking to catch sight of some casual passer, to whom she might
shriek for help; but no one was visible, and every hope of succor
from without was abandoned. Yet her resources did not seem to
be exhausted. Pausing a moment for thought, she suddenly darted
up the kitchen stairway, and before Blanche could conjecture her
designs, she re-appeared with various articles of apparel, both of her
own and Miss Montaigne, including the bonnet and veil of the latter
and an ample hood of her own.
“Be quick,” she said, signifying her meaning more by motions
than words, “let us change clothes—dey will chase Jule, Miss
Blanche will run away.”
Miss Montaigne startled at the strange proposition, having no
confidence in its success, and unwilling to subject the slave to the
increased peril which success would involve, hesitated to assent; but
Jule, disposing summarily of her objections, proceeded to partly
disrobe her young mistress and to substitute her own coarse and
clumsy garments for the elegant apparel of the other. The dimensions
of the negress were, fortunately, not materially different from
those of Miss Montaigne, but there were some awkward discrepancies
of shape, which it required ingenious expedients to overcome. An
the graceful outline of Blanche's form, but at the same time threw
into more apparent disproportion the tiny feet and ancles which it
left revealed. This, however, did not escape the eye of Jule, who
chuckled as she produced three pairs of coarse hose, with which she
proceeded to indue the dangerous members; and when a pair of
thick, heavy shoes, tied with leathern strings, was added to the equipment,
she declared that the effect was grand, and that the feet were
exactly like her own. The wide, dark hood was next thrown over
Blanche's head and neck, and drawn close in front, care being taken
that no stray ringlet should peep from beneath its edges.
The work of disguising thus far had proceeded rapidly, although
with but little diminution of terror on the part of Miss Montaigne,
who expected momentarily that the return of Grover would terminate
her hopes of flight. They had but a few minutes at the furthest to
complete their task, and yet the most difficult part of the labor
remained to be done. It was, indeed, no easy matter to array the
coarse and crooked frame of the negress in a lady's dress; yet,
inasmuch as the fortunate correspondence in height obviated what
might have proved the most insuperable difficulty, much was hoped
from the trial. No ingenuity, indeed, could diminish the ample
shoulders of Jule, or close the wide-gaping dress of silk around her
waist; yet a light shawl, judiciously arranged, partly concealed the
defect. The feet and ancles, of dimensions hopelessly large, defied
every attempt at compression, and when viewed in connexion with
the backward extension of the heel, threatened a quick betrayal of
the deceit. Although clad in stockings of fine texture, and in shoes
slitted at heel and toe to increase their width, little could be hoped
in regard to them, excepting that in the confusion of flight they
might escape observation. Not that Jule herself perceived the difficulty;
however sagacious on other points she saw no ground for
apprehension here, and eyed the arrangement with much complacency.
“'Em looks berry well, Missa Blanche,” she said; “daze a little
larger dan yours, a berry leetle, but nuffin to signify.”
Miss Montaigne's bonnet and veil were next carefully adjusted
upon the girl; and to perfect as far as possible the disguise, Blanche
quickly severed a few of her glossy ringlets, and securing them to
the crisped hair of the negress, suffered the ends to fall a little
below the edge of the bonnet upon every side. The sable throat
was carefully concealed by a collar, the veil drawn closely over the
face, and the hands enclosed in gloves of black, which, although
bursting in every part, revealed no contrasting color from within,
and still seemed whole. The adjustment of the curls was a happy
thought, and did more to complete the illusion than almost everything
beside; for, hanging around the poor slave's neck with a
graceful and tremulous motion, nothing could be less suggestive of
the woolly treasures to which they were appended; they hinted
rather of the snowy cheeks and neck of their true proprietress, which,
with many other charms, might well be supposed to lie hidden
beneath the flowing veil.
Such as they were, the disguises were at length completed, and
Blanche began to indulge a faint hope of success. Imitating, as
best she could, the attitude and gait of the slave, she hastily tutored
the latter to mimic her own; and enjoining short steps, and as
economic a display of feet as was practicable, the parties prepared
for flight. The building fronted the river, at the distance of about
thirty rods from the shore, and the intermediate space was an ope
field, sparsely studded with trees, which on the side nearest to the
settled part of the city drew more closely together, and screened the
landscape from any distant observation. The garden which has
been named was situated behind the house, and extended back to
an unfrequented lane, which, at the distance of some twenty rods
southward, communicated with one of the suburban streets of the
city.
It was arranged that the negress in her assumed character should
attracted the attention of the two men who had before challenged
her, should dart around the house, and run towards the river, while
Blanche, as soon as the sailors had started in pursuit, was to make
her escape through the garden and the lane. The approach of the
critical moment at first unnerved Miss Montaigne, and seemed to
paralyse her powers; but sinking for a moment to her knees to
implore the Divine protection, she rose with renewed courage, and
followed her companion to the door.
Jule set out with good courage, and at a nimble pace; and,
turning the corner of the house, was at once followed, as had been
anticipated, by the two bandits from the garden. Scarcely, however,
had she proceeded a dozen yards across the common, when she
found herself running into the very arms of a third pursuer, who
was proceeding to meet her, and whom her blinding veil had
prevented her from discovering at a distance. There was no
evading the contact, and the negress, raising her bronzed and
mallet-like fist, fairly knocked her expecting captor to the ground,
and again darted off in a lateral direction. A shout of derision
arose from the other conspirators at the discomfiture of their
colleague, and, with a single exception, they all joined in the pursuit.
Bluff, the leader of the band, was a huge fierce man, who,
foreseeing as he thought the inevitable capture of the fugitive, and
remembering that there was a slave in the house, who was also to
be secured, hastened to execute this part of his fiendish errand.
Blanche, in the meantime, had attempted to escape, but her
extreme terror, her awkward dress, and especially her heavy, loose
shoes, had been so many impediments to rapid flight. She reached
the rear of the garden, but lost some seconds, which seemed like
hours, in finding the gate that opened into the lane; and when it
was found, the simple latch became intricate to her confused faculties,
and she again lost time in finding her way out, which she had
only succeeded in doing, when a ferocious shout from the house told
thunder peal upon her excited nerves: for a moment she moved
slowly, and seemed, like the victim of a nightmare, to struggle
against invisible fetters, but at the next, she darted forward, not
towards the thoroughfare, as she had intended, but, unconscious of
her course, in an opposite direction.
The lane extended northward to a field, in which, at a considerable
distance west, a farm-house was visible, and towards this refuge
Blanche now directed her steps. Despair gave her energy, and
when once fairly in progress, she fled almost with the fleetness of the
deer; but Bluff had reached the lane at a few bounds, and she
heard his clattering feet behind her, and the hoarse imprecations
and threats with which he called upon her to stop, seemed uttered
almost in her ear. Every instant she expected to feel his grasp
upon her shoulder, yet still her fate was suspended. The farm-house
was no longer distant, but she felt her strength departing, and
her senses failing; fences and trees were flying indistinctly past her,
the sky grew dark, the earth was in motion on every side, and now
it rose up before her like a wall, and smote her hot forehead, and
she lay stretched at length upon its surface, with mingled voices
ringing in her ear. How long she thus lay she could not tell; she
had not fainted, but was in that half swooning state in which the
senses receive but imperfect impressions from the outer world, and
give to realities all the wildness of a dream. She did not forget
her peculiar peril, but still expected momentarily to feel the clutching
hand of her pursuer upon her person, and to be dragged
forcibly away.
But a better fate was in reserve. The house towards which she
had thus inadvertently fled, proved to be the dwelling of Jacobus
Waldron. Huntington, from the window of his study, had perceived
the chase, and suspecting something wrong, had snatched his
gun, and hastened out to meet the fugitive. A glance at the foremost
figure told him it was Jule, the slave of his neighbor Sniff, and
the rude sailor whom he had encountered in the forest. The
recognition was mutual; and the pirate, uttering a triple volley of
oaths, abandoned the chase, and proceeded to retrace his steps.
Though baffled, he thought, in obtaining the negress, the main
object of his expedition was secured; and although Grover would be
sorely disappointed at a mischance which might reveal his outrage
to the public, the slave could not be a witness against him in any
criminal prosecution, nor did she personally know anything that
connected him with the transaction. Thus consoling himself for his
defeat, he hastened to rejoin his companions.
Huntington had seen Mrs. Sniff and Emily driving out of town a
few hours before in company with Shiel, and had not doubted that
Blanche was also with them; his first decided impression, therefore,
was that some piratical fellow had seized so favorable an opportunity
to kidnap the slave for the purpose of transporting her on his next
cruise, to some neighboring market. Such an event would not be
without precedent in those early days of the commonwealth when
crime stalked abroad in every shape, and by reason of its frequency
and familiarity to the view seemed shorn of half its hideous
proportions. Anxious, however, to solve the mystery, although
unalarmed about Blanche, Henrich turned quickly to the prostrate
figure before him, and touching it not lightly with his gun, bade the
slave arise and tell him what had happened.
“Get up, Jule, get up!” he said, “you are safe enough now;
stand up quickly, and tell me what is the matter; the poor thing!”
he continued, stooping and shaking her roughly by the arm, “thinks
she is half way to Virginia by this; stand up, I say, you simpleton,
I don't think your delicate nerves are quite shattered yet—stand up!”
Blanche still bewildered, rose with difficulty, half conscious that
she was saved, yet ignorant of her preserver, and vainly trying to
comprehend the singular language in which she was addressed.
“There, don't show off any more airs now—you are more
frightened than hurt, I assure you,” said Henrich, somewhat
harshly.
“Why do you speak to me thus?” exclaimed Blanche imploringly
and with tears—at the same time throwing back her hood: “do
you not see that I am in distress?”
It was an exceedingly fortunate thing for Henrich that he was
not standing at that moment upon some precipice, or beside some
terrestrial chasm, into which he could have leaped and buried the
burning shame and grief which overwhelmed him, as he saw to
whom his coarse reproachful language had been directed.
“Is it indeed you, Miss Roselle?” he said at length, speaking
with difficulty; “how,—why do I find you in this disguise? You
cannot believe I would have spoken thus to you; tell me what has
happened, and let me first secure you a refuge, and then avenge
your wrongs.”
Blanche, now fully restored to memory, glanced at her servile
dress, and smiled faintly as she replied: “I understand it all now;
but poor Jule is in danger; she has risked her life for me, and is
doubtless at this moment in the hands of the pirates; you look
surprised, but I cannot explain now; Heaven has preserved my life
by her means—and yours; and something must be done to save
her.”
Huntington promised to make every effort to accomplish this
object, and hastened to conduct Blanche to his own home for
safety, while he should proceed to alarm the authorities, little hoping,
however, that so slight an offence as stealing a slave would arouse
them to any very vigorous action.
“Do not think me ungrateful to you,” Blanche continued, as they
walked hastily along; “my thoughts are still in a tumult of excitement,
and if you knew from what a fate the poor African has saved
me, you would not wonder that I am anxious for her safety.”
“You give me the best proof that you are incapable of ingratitude,
interest in an humble slave; but do not be alarmed for the girl—
they can scarcely meditate any harm against her, and I hope it will
be an easy matter to procure her release.”
Blanche was soon under the steep roof of old Jacobus, and in the
especial charge of that worthy, who welcomed her very heartily, and
made some violent efforts to comprehend the affair, but without any
corresponding success. That the stranger was really the serving girl
of his neighbor Sniff, turned white with excessive fear, was among
the most prominent of his conjectures, but one that seemed open to
doubt. Henrich departed on his errand, but not without being
reminded by Blanche, with the slightest perceptible change of color,
that she was not unreasonable enough to expect him to incur any
personal peril in his mission: indeed, that she considered it her duty
to protest against his doing so.
| CHAPTER IX. The King of the Hurons | |