 | CHAPTER XXII.
THE SIEGE AND STORM. The kinsmen, or, The black riders of Congaree |  |
22. CHAPTER XXII.
THE SIEGE AND STORM.
A smile of mixed bitterness and derision passed over
the lips of the outlaw as he hearkened to the rude but
mighty uproar.
“Dogs!” he muttered, “there was a time when I
would have made you crouch beneath the lash to your
proper attitude!—and I may do so yet. I am not wholly
powerless even now!”
As they shouted, an involuntary movement was
made by several among them. They rushed towards
him, as if their purpose had been to approach him with
determined violence. Several of these were dismounted,
and these, waving their pistols aloft, were evidently
disposed to bring themselves within the necessary distance
which should permit of the certain use of their
weapon. But Morton, in the intervals of their clamour,
suffered them to hear his brief, stern command to the
musketeers, whom they might behold at the windows,
in readiness and watchful.
“Shoot down the first scoundrel that advances with
arms. Take good aim and spare none, unless I bid ye!”
This order produced a pause in their career. Some
incertitude seemed to prevail among them, and, at
length, Morton distinguished, beneath a tree in the distance,
the persons of Stockton, Darcy, and two others,
who were evidently busy in the work of consultation.
He, himself, quietly took his seat upon one of the
benches in the balcony, and patiently waited the result
of this deliberation. His pistols, broad-mouthed and
long, of the heaviest calibre, were ready in his hand
and belt, and all well loaded with a brace of balls.
Meanwhile, his resolute appearance, placid manner,
and the indifference which his position displayed, were
all provocative of increased clamours and commotion
among the crowd. They were evidently lashing themselves
into fury, as does the bull when he desires the
conflict for which he is not yet sufficiently blinded and
maddened. Cries of various kinds, but all intended to
stimulate their hostility to him, were studiously repeated
by the emissaries of his successor. Not the less influential
were those which dilated upon the spoils to be
gathered from the contemplated sack of the barony—
an argument which had most probably been more
potent than any other in seducing them away from
their fealty to the insubordinate desires of Stockton.
though not without anxiety; and when he turned,
and gave a glance to his few followers within the house
—drilled men, stubborn and inflexible, who could easier
die, under the command to do so, than obey the impulse
to flight, without hearing the “retreat” sounded—but
who had no other resources of mind and character beyond
the dogged resolution taught by their military life
—his heart misgave him. He felt what he himself
might do in command of the Black Riders against such
defenders as he then possessed; and he did not deceive
himself as to the probable result. One hope yet remained.
It was that Watson Gray was somewhere
busy in his behalf. His eyes often stretched beyond
the park, in the direction of the high road, in the vain
hope to see his confederate, with some hastily gathered
recruits, marching to his rescue. At that very moment
Gray was quivering in the few brief agonies of death,
which he endured under the sabre of Clarence Conway.
The deliberations of Stockton and his confederates
were soon at an end, and, with them, the doubts of the
outlaw. Stockton himself made his appearance in the
foreground, bearing a white handkerchief fastened to a
sapling. His offensive weapons he ostentatiously spread
out upon the earth—at some distance from the mansion
—when he came fairly into sight. His course, which
was intended to inspire confidence in himself, among
his followers, had been dictated by Darcy.
“They must see that you're as bold as Ned Morton.
He comes out full in front and you must do no less.
You must go to meet him. It will look well among
the men.”
There were some misgivings in Stockton's mind as
to the probable risk which he incurred; nor was Darcy
himself entirely without them. Morton, they knew to
be desperate; and if he could conjecture their intentions
toward him, they could very well understand how
gladly he would avail himself of the appearance of
Stockton to extinguish the feud in his blood. The idea,
in fact, crossed the mind of Morton himself.
“That scoundrel!”—he muttered as Stockton approached
the way—and a single shot does it!—but, no! no!—he
has put down his arms; and then there's that base
scoundrel Darcy in the background. Were I to shoot
Stockton, he would bring out another of these bloodhounds
to fill his place. I should gain nothing by it.
Patience! Patience! I must bide my time, and wait
for the turn of the die.”
Meanwhile, Stockton advanced, waving aloft his
symbol of peace. Morton rose at his approach, and
went forward to the railing of the balcony.
“Well,”—he demanded—“for what purpose does
Lieutenant Stockton come?”
“Captain Stockton, if you please. He comes to know
if you are ready to deliver yourself up for trial by the
troop, as was agreed upon by Watson Gray yesterday.”
“Let Watson Gray answer for himself, Captain or
Lieutenant Stockton. He will probably be upon your
backs with Coffin's cavalry in twenty minutes. For
me, sirrah—hear the only answer I make. I bid you
defiance; and warn you now to get back to your covert
with all expedition. You shall have five minutes to
return to your confederates; if you linger after that
time—ay, or any of your crew—you shall die like
dogs. Away!”
The retort of Stockton was that of unmeasured abuse.
A volume of oaths and execrations burst from his lips;
but Morton, resuming his seat, cried to the musketeers—
“Attention—make ready—take aim!”
Enough was effected, without making necessary the
final command, to “fire.” Stockton took to his heels,
in most undignified retreat; and, stumbling before he
quite regained the shelter of the wood, fell, head foremost,
and was stretched at full length along the earth,
to the merriment of some and the vexation of others
among his comrades. The fury of the conspirator was
increased by this event; and he proceeded, with due
diligence, to commence the leaguer. His corps were suddenly
commanded to disappear from the open ground;
and when Edward Morton saw them again, they were
could, along the edges of the park, the avenue, a small
thicket of sassafras and cedar that lay along the northern
skirts of the mansion-house, and such of the outhouses
and domestic offices, as could bring them near
enough to act upon the defenders without exposure of
themselves. The body thus distributed was formidably
numerous when compared with that of Morton. His
estimate made them little less than sixty men. Immediately
in front, though beyond the sure reach of musketry,
Stockton, himself, prepared to take his stand,
surrounded by some half dozen of his troop; and among
these, to the increased annoyance of Morton, he saw
one who unslung a rifle from his shoulder. At this
sight he at once withdrew from the balcony, secured
the door, and commanded his musketeers to sink from
sight, and avoid unnecessary exposure. The warning
was just in season. In the very instant while he spoke
the glass was shattered above his own head, and the
sharp, clear sound which accompanied the event attested
the peculiar utterance of the rifle.
“A little too much powder, or a young hand,” said
Morton coolly. “Give me your musket, one of you?”
He took his place at the window, detached the bayonet
from the muzzle of the gun, and handed it back to
the soldier.
“But for the steel”—meaning the bayonet—“the
smooth bore would be a child's plaything against that
rifle. But I have made a musket tell at a hundred
yards, and may again. We must muzzle that rifle if
we can.”
The gun was scarcely lifted to the eyes of the speaker
before its dull, heavy roar was heard, awakening all the
echoes of the surrounding woods. The men rushed to
the window, and as the smoke lifted, they perceived
that the party of Stockton was dispersed, while one
man stood, leaning, as if in an attitude of suffering,
against a tree. The rifle, however, appeared in another
hand at some little distance off. Morton shook his head
with dissatisfaction, as he recollected that while there
were fifty men in the ranks of the enemy, to whom the
was to do little or nothing for his own and for the safety
of his party. In a few moments after sudden cries and
a discharge of firearms from the opposite quarter of
the building betrayed the beginning of the strife where
Mr. Hillhouse commanded.
“Keep as well covered as you can, men; but watch
well that they do not close in with you. You are but
twelve feet above them, and at that distance a pistol is
quite as dangerous as a musket. I leave you for an
instant, only, to look at the rear.”
There, he found Hillhouse, doing his duty as bravely
as if he had no fine uniform at hazard.
“You take a needless risk,” said Morton, as he beheld
him flashing one of his pretty, but trifling weapons,
at the invaders, and exposing, the while, his entire person
to their aim. “There will be time enough for that
when they are pressing through the breach.”
“They are at it now,” said the other, with a momentary
forgetfulness of all his circuitous phraseologies.
“They've got ladders, and are trying to mount.”
“Indeed!” cried the outlaw, drawing his sabre from
the sheath, and pushing Hillhouse aside, with a seeming
forgetfulness of his own wounds and infirmities. He
approached the window, and saw the truth of the surgeon's
representations. A squad of the Black Riders
had, indeed, pressed forward to the wall sufficiently
nigh to plant against it, the rack, which they had taken
from the stables; and which furnished them a solid and
sufficient ladder to carry up two men abreast. Hillhouse,
in his haste, had suffered the four musketeers
who had been allowed him, for the defence of the rear,
to fire simultaneously, and, in the interval required by
them to reload their pieces, the ladder had been planted,
and half a dozen sable forms were already darting
upward, upon its rungs.
“Reload, instantly!” Morton cried to the musketeers.
“Keep your small pistols for close conflict, Mr. Hillhouse—they
are fit for nothing better.”
The now cool, observing outlaw, receded a moment
without, shivered the glass. He awaited this discharge,
only, to advance, and with better aim, to level
a brace of pistols at the same moment, among his foes,
just when the ladder was most darkened, and trembling,
with their forms. Of the foremost assailants, when the
broad muzzles met their glance, one dashed resolutely
forward up the ladder, but received the bullet through
his brain and tumbled headlong backwards; while the
other, with less audacity, endeavouring to retreat,
was forced onward by those behind him. He had the
alternative only, of throwing himself over, which he
did at the risk of a broken neck; and the bullets of the
remaining pistol, which Morton had drawn from his
belt, were expended upon the rest of the scaling party,
by whom they were utterly unexpected. This discharge
had the effect of clearing the ladder for an
instant; and Morton, commanding two of the musketeers,
who had now reloaded, to keep the enemy at
a distance, by a close watch from an adjoining window,
endeavoured, with the aid of the remaining two, to
draw the ladder up, and into the window, against which
it rested. But the weight of the massive frame was
infinitely beyond their strength; and the outlaw contented
himself with cutting away the rungs, which
formed its steps, with his sabre, as far as his arm could
reach. He had not finished this labour ere he was
summoned to the front. There, the enemy had also
succeeded in drawing the fire of the musketeers; and
then, closing in, had effected a permanent lodgment
beneath the porch below. This was a disaster. Under
the porch they were most effectually sheltered from
any assault from above, and could remain entirely out
of sight, unless they themselves determined otherwise.
How many of them had succeeded in obtaining this
cover, could not be said by the soldiers. Their conjecture,
however, represented it at ten at least—a force
fully equal to that which was engaged in the defence.
The brow of Morton grew darker as he discovered
this circumstance. The net of the fates was evidently
closing around him fast; and, for a moment, he gazed
fond hope to see Watson Gray riding in to his succour.
But he turned away in hopelessness at last. His
despondency did not, however, lead to any relaxation
of his courage, or of that desperate determination,
which he entertained, to make the fight as terrible to
his foes as their hostility threatened to be terrible to
him. A momentary cessation of the strife appeared to
have taken place. The outlaws, who were beneath the
balcony, remained perfectly quiescent.
“They can do nothing there, unless we let them.
Now, men, do you keep your arms ready. Throw
away no shot at the cracking of a pistol. What should
it matter to you if the fools snap their puppies at you
all day at a distance of fifty yards. Let no more of
them join these below the porch, if you can help it—let
none of these get away if bullets can stop their flight;
but do not all of you fire at once. Keep one half of
your muskets always in reserve for the worst.”
While giving these instructions, Morton was prepared
in getting his own weapons in readiness. The
strife once begun, with the loss of men to the assailants,
could not, he well knew, come to an indefinite or sudden
conclusion. There was to be more of it, and his chief
apprehensions now arose from the party which had
found lodgment under the portico below. To the lower
story he despatched one of his soldiers, whom he instructed
to remain quiet, in the under passages of the
house, in order to make an early report of any movements
which might take place in that quarter. He had
scarcely adopted this precaution before the clamours of
battle were again renewed in the part where Hillhouse
was stationed. Twenty shots were fired on both sides,
without intermission, in as many seconds, and, in the
midst of all, a deep groan and the fall of a heavy body
in the adjoining room, struck cold to the heart of
Morton. He could ill afford to lose any one of his
small array. He hurried to the scene of operations,
and found that one of the soldiers had fallen. He still
lived, but the wound was in his bosom; and a hurried
inspection showed it to be from the fatal rifle. The
the deadly twist, was large enough to have received a
small fowl egg. The dying man looked up to the outlaw,
as if to ask if there was any hope. So Morton
understood the appealing inquiry in his eyes, and he
answered it with soldierly frankness.
“Make your peace with God, my good fellow; it's
all over with you. You'll be dead in five minutes.”
The man groaned once, shivered fearfully, then turned
upon his face. His arms were once stretched out—his
fingers endeavoured to grasp the floor, then relaxed,
then stiffened, and he lay unconscious of the rest. He
was dead. Morton stepped over his body and took a
hurried glance at the window.
“We have shot three of them,” said Hillhouse.
“Would it were thirty! But all will not do. Are
you loaded, men, and ready?”
“Yes!” was the answer of all.
“Then keep ready, but keep out of sight. Wait till
they mount the ladder, expend no more shot, but rely
on the push of the bayonet. There are four of you, and
they have but the one ladder. The rifle cannot be used
while they are on it, and at no other time need you
show yourselves.”
Such were the hurried directions of the outlaw, which
were interrupted by the renewal of the conflict. Once
more they were upon the ladder, but this time the
clamours arose also in front.
“Oh, for twenty muskets, but twenty”—cried the
now thoroughly aroused Morton, as he made his way
once more to the little squad which he had left in
front—“and dearly should they pay for this audacity!
Nay, if I only had my own strength!”—he murmured,
as he leaned, half fainting, against the door lintel in the
passage. A new assault from another quarter, aroused
him to the consciousness of his increasing dangers, and
stimulated him anew with the strength to meet it. The
thunders of an axe were heard against the lower door
of the entrance, and from the portico where the party
had previously found a lodgment.
“This was what I feared! The trial, the danger, is
may do mischief. I must be there to meet them.
Heaven send that Stockton may be the first to find
entrance!”
The soldier now appeared from below giving him the
information, which he no longer needed, of the dangers
that threatened from that quarter. The cheering reply
of Morton sent him down again.
“Ay, ay, back to your post! You shall have help
enough before they get in—before you need it.”
From the upper part of the house he drew all the
soldiers with the exception of three. One of these kept
his place in the front, the other two in the rear, where
the attempt had been made to force an entrance by
means of the ladder. These stations were left under
the direction of the surgeon. The greater danger was
now below. He regarded the efforts of those above to
be feints simply.
“Mr. Hillhouse, you have only to be wary. Your
two bayonets, with your own pistols, will keep down
all your enemies. But, should you apprehend otherwise,
draw the musket from the front of the house to
your assistance. There is perhaps less likelihood of
assault from that quarter. Below, the struggle must be
made hand to hand. The passage is narrow, and six
stout men may be able to keep it against twenty.
Farewell, sir—be firm—I may never see you again.”
The surgeon had some tender philosophy, gleaned
from his usual vocabulary of common-places, to spend,
even at such a moment, and Morton left him speaking
it. He hurried down stairs with the six soldiers, whom
he stationed in the passage-way, but a little in the background,
in order that they should not only escape any
hurt from the flying fragments of the open door as it
should be hewn asunder, but that a sufficient number
of the banditti might be allowed to penetrate and crowd
the opening. Meanwhile the strokes of the axe continued
with little interval. The door was one of those
ancient, solid structures of oak, doubled and plated
with ribs which, in our day, might almost be employed
some reference to a siege from foes who used no artillery;
and its strength, though it did not baffle, yet
breathed not a few of the assailants, before it yielded to
the final application of the axe. As the splinters flew
around them, Morton wiped the heavy and clammy
dews from his forehead. Cold chills were upon him,
and yet he felt that there was a burning fever in his
brain. The excitement was too great;—the transition
from the bed of wounds and sickness, he felt, must
work the most fatal effects even if he survived the
struggle. But the solemn conviction had at length
reached his soul that he was not to survive. The awful
truth had touched his innate mind, that in a few hours
he must be a portion of the vast, the infinite, the strange
eternity.
“Surely! I shall not find it hard!” was the audible
speech which this conviction forced from him. He
started at the sound of his own voice. Thought was
painful and torturing. The pause which had been
allowed him, left him only to agony; and he longed for
the coming on of the strife, and the reckless conflict, to
relieve him, by their terrible excitements, from thoughts
and feelings still more terrible. This relief, dreadful as
it threatened to be, was now at hand. The massive
bolts which secured the frame-work of the door were
yielding. Some of the panels were driven in—and the
soldiers were preparing to lunge away, through the
openings, at the hearts of the assailants. But this
Morton positively forbid. In a whisper, he commanded
them to keep silent and in the background. Their
muskets were levelled, under his direction, rather under
breast height, and presented at the entrance;—and, in
this position, he awaited, with a stillness like that which
precedes the storm, for that moment when he might
command all his bolts to be discharged with the unerring
certainty of fate. Moments now bore with them
the awful weight of hours; the impatient murmurs
deepened from without; the strokes of the axe became
redoubled; and the groaning timbers, yielding at every
stroke, were already a wreck. Another blow, and the
upon them—ere the chasm was quite complete—a wild
chorus of yells above stairs—the rush of hurrying
footsteps—the shrieks and the shot—announced to the
gloomy outlaw, below, the occurrence of some new
disaster. His defences were driven in above!
A troop of the outlaws had, in fact, already effected
their entrance. They had literally clambered up the
slender columns of the portico in front,—the sentinel
placed in that quarter having been just before withdrawn
to the rear by Hillhouse, who deemed that he would be
more useful there, and under his command, which he
wished, with natural vanity, to make as respectable as
possible. Lifting one of the sashes, without being heard
in the din which prevailed below, they had found their
way silently into the apartment. Stealing cautiously
along the passage, they had come upon the surgeon,
while himself and little squad were most busy with the
assailants from without. The skirmish between them
had been short. The first notice that Hillhouse had of
his danger, was from the pistol-shot by which he was
stricken down. His men turned to meet their new
enemies, and in the brief interval that ensued, other foes
dashed up the ladder, through the window, into the
apartment, and put the finishing stroke to the conflict
there. Hillhouse was not so much hurt as not to be
conscious, before sinking into insensibility, that the outlaws
were already stripping him of his gorgeous apparel.
His scarlet coat had already passed into the hands of a
new owner.
Meanwhile the work was going on below. Morton,
when he heard the uproar above, readily divined the
extent of his misfortune. But he was not suffered to
muse upon it long. His own trial was at hand. The
door was finally driven from all its fastenings, there was
no longer any obstruction, and the living tide poured in,
as Morton fancied they would, in tumultuous masses.
Then came the awful order from his lips to “fire!” It
was obeyed by the first file of three men, kneeling; the
remaining three followed the example a moment after;
and yells of anguish ensued, and mingled with the first
of mixed pain and terror! Perhaps, if they could
have recoiled, they would have done so. But this was
now a physical impossibility. The crowd in the rear
pressed forward and wedged their comrades who were
in the foreground; while the bayonet plied busily among
them. But what could be done, in that way, by six
men in a hand to hand conflict with six times their
number. The strife was dreadful, but short. Man after
man of the outlaws, was spiked upon the dripping steel;
but the mass, unable to retreat, were driven forward,
mad and foaming, under the feeling of desperation which
now filled their hearts, they ceased to think or fear, and
they rushed like the wild bull upon the ready bayonets.
The soldiers went down under the sheer pressure of
their crowding bodies. The Black Riders darted among
and over them, searching each heart separately with
their knives; and the only strife which now remained
was from the unavoidable conflict among themselves of
their jostling and conflicting forms. The hoarse accents
of Stockton were now heard, pre-eminent above the
uproar, giving his final orders.
“Take Ned Morton alive, my merry fellows. He
owes a life to the tree and timber. Save him for it if
you can.”
Morton had reserved himself for this moment.
“Ye have tracked the tiger to his den!” he muttered,
in the shadow of the stairway, where he had taken his
position, partly concealed in the obscurity of the passage.
The crisis of his fate was at hand. The party from
above were now heard hurrying downwards, to mingle in
the melée below; and he levelled his pistols among the
crowd in the direction of Stockton's voice, and fired
—not without effect. He was now too deliberate to
throw away his bullets. One of them passed through
the fleshy part of the shoulder of his inveterate enemy,
who was in the advance; while the other prostrated in
death one of his most forward followers. Stockton
screamed with mingled pain and fury, and with sabre
lifted, darted upon his foe. Feebly shouting his hate
and defiance, Morton also lifted his sword, which he had
and advanced gallantly to meet the ruffian.
They met, and the whole remaining strength of Morton,
treasured up for this very crisis, was thrown into his
arm. But the tasks through which he had already gone
had exhausted him. The limb fell nerveless by his side,
and ere the blow of Stockton descended, he had sunk
down in utter insensibility, at the feet of his opponent.
The conflict was ended. The pledge made to the ladies
of the mansion had been amply redeemed by its defenders.
Not one of them remained unhurt; and the
greater number were already stiffened in the unrelaxing
grasp of death. The outlaws had paid dearly for their
victory. No less than sixteen of their number had been
slain; and the arts of Stockton, which had originally
won them over to his designs, and made them hostile
to their ancient leader, now derived additional support
from the sanguinary feeling which had been induced
by the bloody struggle in their minds. They were now
reconciled to that decree which determined that Morton
should be their victim. They needed no more persuasion
to resolve that he should die upon the gallows.
The first impulse of Stockton, as he straddled the
inanimate body of the man whom he so much feared
and hated, was to spurn it with his foot,—the next to
make his fate certain by a free use of his sword upon it;
but the cold malignity of his character prevailed to prolong
the life and the trial of his enemy. The utter impotence
of Morton to do further harm, suggested to
Stockton the forbearance which he would not otherwise
have displayed. It was with some pains only, and a
show of resolution, such as Morton had usually employed
to hold them in subjection, that he was enabled to keep
back his followers, who, in their blind rage, were pressing
forward with the same murderous purpose which
he had temporarily arrested in his own bosom. With
a more decided malignity of word, he gave a new direction
to their bloody impulses.
“Away,” he cried, “get a hurdle, or something that
will take him out without much shaking! He has life
enough in him yet for the gallows!”
A shout seconded with approbation the dark suggestion,
and the crowd rushed away to procure the necessary
conveyance. A door, torn from an outhouse,
answered this purpose; and the still breathing, but motionless
form of Edward Morton, was lifted upon it.
Unhappily, he wakened to consciousness in a few moments
after leaving the threshold of the dwelling. The
purer atmosphere without revived him; and his eyes
opened to encounter the biting scorn, and the insulting
triumph, everywhere apparent. His ears were filled
with the gross mockeries of those whom his bloody resistance
had stimulated to new hate and a deeper ferocity
of temper. A bitter pang went keenly through his
heart; but he had still a hope. He had kept one hope
in reserve for some such occasion. Long before, when
he first commenced that dark career of crime, the cruel
fruits of which he was about to reap, he had provided
himself with a dagger—a small, stout, but short instrument—which
he hid within his bosom. This instrument
he devoted to the one particular purpose of taking
his own life. He had decreed that it should be sacred—
not to employ language illegitimately—to the one work
of suicide only! But once, indeed, he had almost violated
his resolve. The same instrument he had proffered to
poor Mary Clarkson, in a mood, and at a moment of
mockery, scarcely less bitter than had fallen to his own
lot. The remembrance of the circumstance touched him
at this instant; and humbled, in some degree, the exulting
feeling which was rising in his breast, at the recollection
of his resource. But he did exult, nevertheless.
He felt that the dagger was still about him, hidden
within the folds of his vest; and, with this knowledge,
he was better able to meet the vindictive glance of his
foe, who walked beside the litter on which the outlaws
were bearing him to the wood.
“Bring him to the Park!” commanded Stockton.
“He will hang there more conspicuously, as a warning
for other traitors.”
“No! No!—not there,” said Darcy, interposing,
“the ladies can see him from the house.”
“Well, and a very good sight it is too;” replied the
on the earth, I fancy; it may be an agreeable change to
behold him dancing in air awhile.”
A few serious words, however, whispered in his ears
by Darcy, prevailed with Stockton to effect a change in
his brutal resolution; and the cavalcade took its way in
the direction of the woods where the encampment of the
Black Riders for the night had been made. It was intended
that there the crowning scene of hate and punishment
should take place.
| CHAPTER XXII.
THE SIEGE AND STORM. The kinsmen, or, The black riders of Congaree | |