Border beagles a tale of Mississippi |
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| 22. | CHAPTER XXII. |
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 | CHAPTER XXII. Border beagles |  |
22. CHAPTER XXII.
Methinks, had metal in it to survive
An age of men.”
George Chapman.
The solemn accents, the deliberate, resolved tone
of the maiden, not less than the energetic language
which she used, would have impressed a much
bolder person than Gideon Badger with the danger
of trifling with such a spirit. It was evident that
all was serious and composed earnestness in her
mind; and her words derived no emphasis, or very
little, from the exhibition of the pistol, and the click
of the lock as it distinctly sounded under her fingers.
To the dastard soul of Gideon Badger it struck a
sentiment of fear which at once disarmed him of
his insolence and arrested his approach. But a moment
before he had persuaded himself that he should
be able to carry her in safety to the swamp. He
had no sort of doubt that the beagles would escape
the pursuit of Rawlins' party, even if they remained
uncounselled by himself; for, well apprised of the
numberless ramifications and resources of the fraternity,
he did not fear but they would be advised
of the approach of the enemy by at least a dozen
out-sentries. How easy to find shelter with them
for Rachel Morrison; and there, secure from pursuit,
his mercy, what should hinder the consummation of
any, even of his worst purposes? Such was the precious
scheme which his mind conceived from the
first moment that night when Rachel appeared upon
the scene. Such was the scheme which her masculine
resolution and her foresight so easily defeated.
Gideon Badger was not calculated to be a magnificent
villain. He was a petty rascal only. In a city
like New York he would have made an excellent
auction-dealer—one of those cunning gentry, that
sell baubles by the lot, and bluster when you refuse
to keep your hasty purchases. Still, base as was
his nature, he felt the meanness of his present position.
Incapable of pressing his villany to the utmost,
he would have ascribed his abortive attempt
to merriment only. With a laugh, which did not
altogether disguise the tremulous tone of his voice,
he said:
“Why, Rachel, you seem to think that I was
serious—at least you are grown serious yourself.
And so you actually go armed? That, of all things,
is the strangest! Why should you go armed? What
would you do with a loaded pistol, I should like to
know?”
“Use it for my protection, Gideon, if I found
any one seriously bent to assail me,” was the cool
reply.
“But you could not have supposed that I would
do such a thing, Rachel!”
“I do—indeed, I know that you would if you
dared. It is well for both of us, Gideon, that you
are not quite so resolute as you are wicked.”
“You speak plainly, Rachel,” was the hoarse
reply.
“It is best,” answered the maiden; “it is for
your safety that I have spoken thus plainly. Hear
save you from a great peril, I have ventured into
these woods at this hour of the night, in spite of the
fears and scruples which are so natural to my
sex—”
“And of which your own share seems unaccountably
small,” was the sneering interruption of
her companion.
“That is as you think,” was the composed reply.
“Small or great, they were sufficient to have kept
me back from this interview, but that I was resolved
to add one more effort to those I have already made,
to save you from the dangers into which you are yet
resolved to fall.”
“You are very kind—very benignant.”
She did not heed the impertinence of this speech,
or its equally impertinent manner, as she proceeded—
“Yet, not because I had care or interest in you,
Gideon Badger, did I take these pains, or incur a
risk, which your own conduct has just assured me
was no small one—but for that good old man, your
father, who has been more than a father to me, and
whose gray hairs would go down to the grave in
wretchedness, did any mishap or dishonour reach
his son. I do not seek to save you from the danger
so much as I seek to spare him the sorrow and the
shame. You have shown yourself too little careful
of my feelings, Gideon, during our long acquaintance,
to deserve much at my hands either of respect
or kindness. On the contrary, since we have
reached maturity, I have known you by your persecutions—by
your ungenerous persecutions—rather
than by any more commendable qualities or conduct.
Still, I would save you—from your comrades,
from yourself, from the laws which you have outraged,
and which you are now about to outrage. I
have kept your secret from your father, from Rawlins,
difficulty, another from declaring it. I now tell you,
Gideon, solemnly here and seriously, that if you go
this night into the swamp, you go into unnecessary
danger. I have a presentiment, Gideon, that you
go never to return.”
He would have ridiculed her counsels and her
fears. He made an attempt to laugh at her solemnity,
but the effort degenerated into a lugubrious
chuckle, that died away in a hoarse whisper in his
throat.
“Tell me what you know,” he at length exclaimed,
in a tone of emphatic utterance which sufficiently declared
his apprehensions—“speak not to me of your
presentiments, and all that sort of superstitious nonsense,
but tell me what you have heard—what you
know. Come,—you have it all from your man,
Rawlins;—if you really desire to serve my father,
and to save me, his dutiful son, to his embraces, let
me know what the plan is for the catching of the
beagles. A word, Rachel Morrison, a single word
of positive assurance will do more than all your
conjectures, superstitions, and fancies. Speak that
word, and I remain at Zion's Hill—I remain with
you.”
“With me!—But no! I will speak no bitterness,
Gideon, in this moment, when your life and my hope
may equally rest upon the verge of a dreadful precipice.”
“Your hope and my life! What mean you? I
do not understand the connexion.”
“Nor will I explain it, Gideon. The only warning
which I am willing that you shall understand is
one that I am willing to repeat. Your insolent
words, tone, and manner, shall not make me less
desirous of your safety; since nothing that you can
your venerable father.”
“Oh, this is all talk, Rachel. Can you, or will
you tell me nothing of these handsome fellows that
are so valiantly resolved to pursue my comrades into
the swamp? You see, I admit them to be comrades.
You have proved yourself so close a keeper
of the secret heretofore, that I cannot hesitate in
confiding to you my admission of the truth. I tell
you, therefore, that I am sworn to go to the swamp
to-night—sworn to myself and them—to convey the
intelligence of the danger which is supposed to threaten
them. I am bound to them for this. My safety
—my very life depends upon it. If I fail them, they
have their laws and penalties, to which those of society
are but toys—the merest trifles that ever yet
assumed the features of danger to the eyes of man.
Now, Rachel, let me but clearly see that there is an
occasion for your caution, and I will not go. I will
have an excuse which shall secure me from the
penalties of any violated oath.”
“Father in Heaven! and can it be, Gideon
Badger, that you are so fearfully related to these
men?”
“Pshaw! Rachel—you waste time with these interjections,”
replied the youth with tones of dogged
impatience. “To the point—to the point. Is there
present danger to me, and what is its form—whence
comes it—from whom—where? To that—to that,
Rachel. Speak to that.”
“Have I not said—have you not heard? Surely
you do not despise the attempts which Walter Rawlins
and Mr. Vernon are now making? You have
heard the men that brought in the prisoners?”
“Surely I know all this, Rachel Morrison, but I
thought you knew more. Knowing this, I yet resolve
on that subject. By the dawn, when your gallant is
in motion for the swamp, I shall be at Zion's Hill
again, or so near it, as to smell the breakfast; and
the beagles will be so far on their way from the
place of danger, that their nests will be cold enough
when the hunters arrive. So, Rachel, if you will
not think better of it, and go with me—I renew my
offer—the best counsel I can give you is, to get to
bed as soon as you may, and dream of more evil
for Gideon Badger. It will be easy to dream of that
which we sincerely wish.”
“I wish you nothing but good, Gideon, and once
more warn you not to go into the swamp to-night.
There is blood upon the path. Something tells me
it will be fatal to you if you go.”
“Unless you go with me, Rachel. Nay, why
will you be so stubborn? You know not what you
lose, Rachel. Joys of which you never dreamed,
and—”
“Go! evil son of a worthy father—go!” was the
stern interruption of the maiden, as she turned from
the reprobate. “You obey a written destiny. God
will not suffer you to be saved by so feeble an instrument
as I.”
The solemnity of these tones sounded like a trumpet
in the ears of the dissolute youth, and the feeling
of awful conviction which lay at the heart of
Rachel Morrison, and which impressed her with
the faith that no farther effort could help him who
had been delivered over to his doom by the fiat of
Heaven, for a moment impressed itself also upon
the soul of the person whom it chiefly interested.
But this feeling was not suffered to obtain more
than a moment's ascendency. The coward is
frequently rash through a consciousness of his
own cowardice, and the conviction that he really
should convince the spectator that he was never more
courageous in his life. He laughed at the omens
which made him shudder, and mocked at the warning
which terrified him. He strove to shroud his
apprehensions in his ribaldry, and his last words to
the maiden consisted in a renewal of his proposition
to share with him the licentious life of the swamp;
the freedom from all restraint, which, to his mind,
seemed the very acme of human freedom and felicity.
She answered his proposition by a prayer
contained in a single sentence, which increased the
awe that dwelt within his heart.
“Cut him not off in his sins. Oh, God! smite him
not suddenly in thy anger.”
He disappeared in that instant. He had not the
spirit to respond to this.
Meanwhile, the reader must not suppose that the
business in the swamp remained at a stand. On
the contrary, never were men more alert to do execution
in an enemy's country, than the worthy fellows
under their several leaders, Rawlins, Jamison,
and the amateur. The latter, however, resolute as
any of the rest, when he reached the spot where he
had lost his every-day habiliments, could not resist
the temptation of giving to his little band, a brief
narrative of those afflicting events and the other circumstances
that followed his arrival in the swamp,
and his connexion with that arch-beagle, Jones. At
another moment it might amuse the reader, who is
already familiar with these circumstances, to hear
Horsey relate them. His story would seem a very
different one from ours. Nay, the two would scarce
seem identical in any one respect, so completely
did he suppress those proofs of mental flexibility—not
to say gullibility—on his part, which rendered
it so easy a matter for the cunning outlaw to
and he the best man to cut it. As he told the tale,
it seemed to his hearers, that he had traced the outlaws
to their haunts designedly—that he had cheated
the dull dogs into the belief that he was a simple
citizen, ambitious of no fortune more lofty than that
of bringing the house down in applauses of his
superior merits as an actor—beyond Kemble and
Forrest, Kean and Cooper. How he had concealed
his real purposes, and fathomed theirs; how he had
traversed their haunts, traced their secrets, learned
their signs and read all their mysteries, is a history
to itself which might deserve its own volume.
Yet, such was the fellow's ingenuity, he told no lie
—no actual lie—and certainly meant none. His was
one of those active and flexible imaginations that
grow ductile at the slightest pressure and catch the
slightest change of colour from the most casual
cloud. His bricks soon became marble, and his
fancy never went without its wings.
On the present occasion it almost involved him
in a worse difficulty than he had ever been in before.
While he related his experience among the
beagles, who should he encounter but his old acquaintance,
Mr. Bull—Aristophanes Bull—whose
headstrong opposition had already been a source of
such infinite discomfiture to him; and who, if time
had been given him, might very soon have corrected
the little mistakes so naturally made in
Horsey's narration. Fortunately, Bull had been at
his usual potations, and our actor was no less
prompt in action than in speech. When Bull
struggled forward, with a skin full, thoroughly
soaked, and only half conscious of the globe's motion,
asking in hoarse tones, and with a hiccough:
“What the hell's the matter here, boys?”—he
received, in reply, a blow over the skull from
that it would have tasked the powers of all the Bull
breed to have kept him well-balanced under it.
Down he went, with a thump that fully assured the
actor of his intention to await him there. This
occurrence took place not twenty steps from the
sleeping-place of Jones; and Horsey—little prudent
as he was—began to entertain some misgivings
that this cunning outlaw might be alarmed by the
noise, and would give him trouble. A clump of
shrub trees and one sturdy pine, stood between
them and the victim; and here he commanded his
men to pause until he should survey the ground
alone. He advanced cautiously, keeping himself
under cover of the shrubbery as he went forward,
and soon had the satisfaction to find that all was
quiet in the sylvan wigwam. He then motioned
his fellows to advance; and two at the entrance,
and three others conveniently stationed to yield assistance
to the active assailants, entirely cut off the
outlaw's hope of escape. Still he might give the
alarm, and this it was important to prevent. Handkerchiefs
were brought forward and got in readiness,
while Horsey led the way and boldly penetrated
the tent of poles and bushes under which the
enemy slept. A stout fellow followed and seconded
him, and the deep breathing of the outlaw guided
them to the particular place of his repose. Still
they could see nothing. They had to be guided
entirely by the sense of feeling and the ear. At
length, after much cautious management and some
delay, they placed themselves on each side of his
head. This ascertained, a whisper gave the signal,
and while the stout companion of Horsey threw
himself on the body, the latter adroitly passed a slipnoose
around his neck, and awakened the sleeper
to consciousness by a pressure of no moderate
meanwhile secured by the rest of their comrades,
and the power of further harm was taken from him
with a promptness and completeness, that would
have been creditable to greater proficients. Still,
with all their precautions, they could not altogether
prevent his giving some alarm. With the readiness
of a veteran, the outlaw at the first consciousness
which he had of the danger, endeavoured to shout
the signal of the band—a whoop, borrowed from
the Indians, which, with better lungs, they had
learned to endow with a somewhat more terrific
energy—but the unrelenting fingers of Horsey were
as prompt as the beagle's tongue, and the pressure
of the ligature around the jugular, suddenly cut
short the sounds before they had acquired sufficient
vigour to pass beyond the gorge of his throat. A
guard was set over him, with orders to shoot him at
the first movement or show of rescue, while the rest
of the captors proceeded in search of other foes.
It will not need that we follow them. It may be
necessary, however, to note one adventure of the
party under Jamison. The worthy Alabamian was
a second time fortunate in meeting with his quondam
friend, the Irishman, Dennis O'Dougherty.
His knee was upon the fellow's chest in the dark,
when the brogue of the struggling prisoner declared
who he was.
“Ha! Dennis, my boy—is it you?”
“By Jasus, honey, but you're a bit mistaken in
the parson. I'm a very different jontleman, to your
liking.”
An effort to rise succeeded this speech, which the
Alabamian effectually arrested by tickling the throat
of his prisoner with the point of his bowie.
“Be asy now, will you?—and don't be afther
think I understand plain spaking, my honey?”
“You're no fool, Dennis,” said the Alabamian, as
he found the Irishman lying quiet. “Had you
twisted the littlest inch of your animal, Dennis,
after the hint I gave you, I'd ha' been through you
with more steel than Dick Smith ever swallowed.
I will but run a ploughline under your arms, Dennis,
to keep you comfortable, and you may thank me
that I don't put it about your gullet. Is it easy to
your elbows, Dennis?”
“Asy! Jasus, Mr. Jamison, are you a jontleman?”
“Well, any thing to make you comfortable; and
so I'll let out a little; but, look you, Dennis, be quiet.
I'm going from you a bit, and if you're not quiet, the
man that watches you won't leave the skin to your
teeth. He's a raal Ingin at sculping, and your head
will be at his skirts, while your tongue's chattering
about it.”
But the smaller villains are not our object, and it
will suffice to say, that it was not a difficult task, so
complete had been the surprise, to capture nearly all
the inmates of the swamp. The number at Cane
Castle was usually small—the great body of the
fraternity, as detailed in our former work, being
engaged in active operations while traversing the
country. Vernon knew that every thing depended
on the capture or death of the chief—the masterspirit
who had conceived a plan of operations so
extensive, so bold, so well detailed, and so sternly
carried out. To this labour, as we have seen, he
devoted himself. A livelier interest served to stimulate
his zeal, and to make him no less anxious and
eager than resolute for the conflict. He knew that
if he found Saxon awake, the struggle that would
energies of mind and body were braced to the utmost,
and the image of Virginia Maitland, in the
power of the ruffian and suffering from his violence,
gave a terrible earnestness to his deportment, from
the first moment when he embarked upon the adventure.
He did find the outlaw awake, and under circumstances
to keep alive the indignation and resolution
of his heart. Conducted by the dwarf, Stillyards,
to the wigwam, known among the beagles as the
squatter's cabin at Little Bend, he beheld at a single
glance, the object of his affections and the object of
his hate. Virginia Maitland was before him, and
before her was Saxon. The circumstances under
which they stood, made the blood boil within
the veins of the inflamed beholder, and he found
it difficult so to restrain his passion, as to look
around him with deliberation, and determine calmly
what course to pursue. The house in which they
were was a common fabric of logs such as is
universal in the new countries of the southwest. It
stood upon pine blocks, about four feet from the
ground. It consisted of two rooms, separated from
each other by a thin partition, the door of which
opened in the centre. Each room had an entrance
from without, independent of the other, and a
single window in each sufficed to give it light. On
the present occasion the doors and windows were
closed, and the observation of Vernon was made
through crevices between the logs of the building,
of which the number was sufficient for all the purposes
of espionage. Conducted by the dwarf, Stillyards,
to one of these crevices, which the urchin
seemed to find very readily, the objects that met the
eyes of Vernon increased his emotions. Virginia
Maitland was seated on a rude chair, at the doorway
which happened to be the sleeping apartment, and
her face to Saxon, who strode the room before
her. Her hands were clasped and resting upon her
knees. Her neck and head were bent forward,
while her eyes, with a tearless anxiety, watched
every movement of the outlaw, as keenly as one
would watch the form of the panther crouching in
the tree above him, and in the attitude to spring. It
was evident that as yet no outrage, other than that
of her abduction, had been attempted by the ruffian;
but her looks amply testified her fears, while his as
clearly manifested his desires. That the outlaw
had been striving to persuade her to his purposes
was evident enough, and that his persuasions only
awakened her apprehensions, might be inferred from
her attitude of mixed prayer, watchfulness, and terror.
Such was the picture that first met the eye of
Vernon. The words of Saxon, a moment after,
that met his ears, confirmed all the first impressions
which it made upon his mind; and he placed the
muzzle of his pistol, which was already cocked and
in his hand, at the opening, which was sufficiently
large to admit of his certain aim at the ruffian. But
his cheek glowed a moment after with a feeling akin
to shame. Vernon was not familiar with the shedding
of blood, and no man who is not—unless he be
equally cowardly and malignant—can possibly take
life, except in the whirl and excitement of actual
conflict. He felt that there was something base,
from his concealment, to shoot down the unconscious
man, however deserving he might be of his doom.
To fling down from its erect place and posture an
image so noble, made after the form of God, and
filled with such godlike attributes and endowments,
is, at best, and under its most justifiable circumstances,
a melancholy performance; and with something
wisest of men rash at seasons, he determined upon
the bolder and more generous measure of giving the
outlaw the benefit of an equal struggle. Such a
prize as Virginia Maitland, seemed to justify every
hazard, and Vernon resolved upon the very last. He
rose from his recumbent position, and was about to
proceed towards the doorway, when he felt a hand
laid lightly upon his shoulder. Stillyards, meanwhile,
had disappeared. He turned at the interruption—
fancying another enemy at his elbow—and met the
eyes of a woman—one so youthful and so beautiful
as to strike him with wonder at seeing her in so
wild a place. She met his gaze seemingly without
emotion. There was a calm solemnity in her aspect,
seen by the serious starlight, which riveted his attention,
commanded his respect, and would have
subdued, even in a far less reverent mind than his,
any ribald thoughts or suspicions.
“Stay!—But a single instant,” she whispered, and
her uplifted finger gave him like warning. Before
he could answer her, or imagine the object of her
intrusion, she was gone from sight—literally vanished
behind an angle of the building.
But her warning was forgotten with her disappearance.
Vernon was too much aroused for unnecessary
delay, particularly too, as he saw not
the reason of the woman's injunctions; and, just
then, the pleading tones of Virginia's voice reached
his ears in supplication and alarm. Breathless, he
darted upon the steps of massive pine that led to
the door of the building, and with a single blow of
his heel, sent it from its hinges. Another moment
found him within the apartment, and face to face
with the outlaw.
The proceeding was the work of an instant, but
it found the outlaw prepared. He seized his pistols,
them. Vernon had not seen them before;
and had he but waited, as he had been counselled
by Florence Marbois, this danger would have been
spared him. In the same moment when Saxon
grasped the weapons, the hand of Florence was
stretched out from the inner apartment to which
she had penetrated with noiseless footsteps, for the
purpose of securing them. But, though Saxon
grasped and cocked the pistols at his enemy, he
did not dare to use them. With the first appearance
of Vernon, Virginia had started to her feet, and at
the sight of his danger, she rushed between the parties,
alternately turning an imploring face and an
uplifted hand to each. She no longer exhibited the
passive attitude of fear. All apprehension for herself
departed when she feared for her lover; and that
living grace of form and movement, which speaks
out when the mother-mood prevails, riveted, at the
same moment, with a sense of equal admiration, the
souls of Vernon and the outlaw. And there, on
each side of her the hostile parties stood—she, the
angel between them, preventing strife, if not securing
peace. Her words, wild, incoherent, impetuous,
addressed the one and then the other; but failed of
much effect upon either. Her position alone controlled
the warfare which her presence was yet calculated
to inspire. Suddenly, the arms of Saxon were
grasped by Florence from behind; a deep imprecation
burst from the outlaw's lips as he distinguished
her. Vainly did he strive to shake her off; and
the moment lost in this effort enabled Vernon to
grapple with him at advantage. While they struggled,
the dwarf, Stillyards, dropped upon the shoulders
of the outlaw from the scantling above; and
before he could be shaken off or removed, he had
thrust his nails, which had been suffered to grow to
his late leader. This was one of the forms of retribution
which consoled him for the similar indignity
to which Saxon had subjected himself. By this
time the house was filled; and the outlaw chief,
who had struggled manfully while any hope remained
to him, now yielded quietly to numbers.
“This, then, is your work, Florence!” he murmured,
as the woman he had wronged, confronted
him.
“Ay! mine! I glory in it—I rejoice too that you
feel it to be mine. You could scorn my love!—perhaps,
that was not so great an error as to scorn my
power. It glads me to the soul to think that you
can feel it and acknowledge it at last.”
“If that will give you pleasure, Florence, be
happy. If it can atone for the wrongs which I have
done you, to know that you have compassed my
doom, you have ample vengeance. I owe my death
to your hands.”
“Your death atone, Edward Saxon, for my
misery!—for the wrong done to my honour—to
my hope—to my pride—to my affections—to all
things, and thoughts, and feelings which are dear to
woman—which ennoble her to herself and endear
her to society. Monstrous vanity! Your death,
Edward Saxon, were you thrice to die, could never
atone for the wrongs you have inflicted on the frail,
fond, foolish heart of Florence Marbois. You have
taken from her all that made life precious—and the
life which seems so desirable to you, is her scorn.
Look, and see what is her value of life, Edward
Saxon; and, if you be not utterly base, you will
yet learn from her example how to baffle the hangman.
She to whom you ascribe your fate, will
show you how completely indifferent you have made
her to her own.”
She advanced closely as she spoke to her betrayer.
Her majestic form seemed to tower far
above its usual height; and no language could describe
the bitter scorn which looked from all her
features, as she mocked him with that love of life
which she professed to feel no longer. While yet
the last words trembled on her lips, she drove a
dagger, which till then was concealed within her
garments, deep down into her breast. The deed was
done before eye could see or hand interpose to prevent
it. She was caught, while falling, by Vernon.
Her last words, clear and emphatic, though broken,
were addressed to the outlaw—
“Live, Edward Saxon—if life be so precious to
you—live! It has nothing precious now for me.
To you I owe it, at least, that death is also without
pain. Live!—live!”
Her eyes followed him even in death. He strove,
but vainly, to avert his own. He could not—he
dared not. She had conquered, and the spell of
her power was upon him in her dying moments.
Unconsciously, the long breath escaped from him
like a convulsive groan, when the thick glaze passing
over her eyes, rescued him from the fascinating
intensity of their glance. Thick drops stood upon
his brow, as if he underwent a fearful agony; and
his limbs tottered like one feeble with a long sickness,
as they led him from the apartment under
guard.
| CHAPTER XXII. Border beagles | |