University of Virginia Library

32. CHAPTER XXXII.
THE MYSTERY SOLVED.

He who stands upon the mountain top, commands
a view a thousand times greater than he who plods
along in the valley; and we, who are far above the
actors playing their parts in our drama of life, have
the power of looking over and beyond their limited
vision and seeing the whole as they see a portion.

While, therefore, the despairing lover is groaning
along in the deep Valley of Gloom—groping forward
even blindly—unconscious whither his steps
are tending—we rejoice to see he is steadily advancing
toward the goal he would willingly give his life
to reach.

Isaline Holcombe had indeed been borne away
by the Phantom of the Forest—carried off in a state
of utter unconsciousness—and since then many days
and nights had passed, through which she had lived
as in a wild and troubled dream—a dream in which
she had appeared to be revolving in darkness, and
now and then being thrown up from some abyss to
a strange, fantastic glimmer of light, only to be suddenly
hurled back again to a seemingly deeper depth
of gloom and night.

The long series of fatigues, excitements, anxieties,

sufferings, perils and terrors to which she had been
subjected—the long, fearful strain upon her delicate
nerves and fine mental faculties—had at last proved
too much for an organism as sweetly attuned as the
æolian harp; and when she had finally, overpowered
with horror, sunk swooning at the feet of the dread
Unknown of the Forest, there was then no longer
sufficient vitality to restore the mental powers to
their natural state, and fever and delirium had followed.
Long days and nights and passed since then,
of which she had no consciousness, except the wild,
fever-dream.

And where was she all this time?

In a cave, among the rocks of the cliff over which
she had fallen, and scarcely more than a hundred
yards from the fatal spot where Methoto's bones still
lay bleaching.

Oh! if Henry had but known, while groaning
forth his despair, that she was living and within the
reach of his voice!

And how came she to be there in the cave?

She had been borne thither by the Phantom of the
Forest.

And who had been with her since?

The Phantom of the Forest.

And what was this dread Phantom of the Forest?

Ah! now we come to the unraveling of the mystery!

When the wasting fever had spent its force, and
consciousness had once more returned to Isaline,

she found herself, weak and emaciated, lying upon
a bed of leaves and grass, in some dim, gloomy
place, surrounded by rocks. She was barely able
to lift her head, and she looked up and around in
wonder and fear. No living thing was apparently
near her.

“Where am I?” she murmured; “and how came
I here?”

Almost as she spoke the words, and as if in response
to her question, the narrow passage-way,
leading outward to the world of light, was darkened
by some moving object, and immediately after the
strange and startling figure of the Phantom of the
Forest stood before her.

The sight of this Apparition recalled the memory
of Isaline so suddenly and clearly, that the wonder
is, under the circumstances, it did not prove fatal.
She instantly remembered how and where she had
looked upon this dread Mystery before, and for a
few moments her breath ceased, her heart appeared
to stand still, and her eyes glared. She felt she
was in the power of this fearful Something, and was
far from certain to which world she now belonged.
Then came the thought, like a light from Heaven:

“What is life to me now that I should fear? or
death that I should cower before the demons of God's
creation? One Great Being made all that live, and
His power is over all!”

Then summoning all her will and strength and
nerve, she raised her head, and fixing her eyes upon

the eyes of the strange Object, that had now advanced
to her side, she said, with deep solemnity:

“In the name of God, what are you?”

For a few moments the fearful Object stood
passively and silently by her side; and then, what
proved to be a hairy mask (but which, in the gloom
of night, when seen before, appeared to be another
head) was quietly lifted off and put aside, and a
bright, girlish face bent over her, and a soft, melodious
voice said, gently:

“Sweet sister, have you come back to me?”

“Merciful God!” gasped Isaline; “what does all
this mystery mean?”

“For they murdered you, sweet sister,” pursued
the strange being, “and I have been sorrowing so
long!”

“Who are you, poor girl?” queried Isaline, beginning
to comprehend something of the truth.

“I have had such a long, horrid dream, sweet
sister!” continued the strange Creature, without
heeding the question; “and I am so glad you have
come back to wake me! You have been in the
land of spirits, I know, for I have seen you so often
there; they murdered and sent you there; but you
have come back to me now, and woke me from my
horrid, horrid dream, and now we will part no more.
Our dear mamma—is she well? I do not often see
her. She did not come with you, I think?”

“Poor girl! God help her! she has lost her
reason!” murmured Isaline. “And this, after all, is

the fearful Phantom of the Forest, that has frightened
so many brave but superstitious men!”

“We will not part again, sweet sister, will we?”
said the poor lunatic, with a fond look.

“No, you shall go with me, poor girl, when I go
away from here!” answered Isaline, in a gentle tone,
resolved to humor the other's fancy, whatever it
might be. “What is your name?”

“Don't you know?”

“I cannot speak it at this moment; you know we
have been long away from each other!”

“Oh, yes—so long! so long!” sighed the other

“But you have not told me your name!”

“Helen. And you are my sweet sister Ellen, you
know!”

“Oh, yes—I understand you now, Helen!” said
Isaline. “But tell me where I am now? and how I
came here?”

“I brought you here—I was afraid I should lose
you.”

“Where did you find me?”

“Among the wolves, I think. You came down
among the wolves, didn't you, sweet sister?”

“Oh, yes, I remember—the horrid wolves were all
around me.”

“Why did you stay with such beasts?” asked
Helen.

“I was trying to get away from them!” answered
Isaline.

“Yes, I came and drove them away.”

“How far are we now from the place where you
found me?”

Helen did not seem to comprehend this question,
and Isaline repeated it. She received no answer,
however. The poor lunatic stared vacantly, for a
minute or so, and then asked abruptly:

“What creature was that with you in the water?”

“That was a man who had been carrying me off.
What became of him?”

“I think he rode away on a whirlwind!” said
Helen. “But why have you not talked to me before
as you do now, sweet sister?”

“Have I not?”

“And you would not eat anything! Do you never
eat where you have been, sweet sister? I brought
you meat and corn and berries, but you would not
eat.”

“I have been ill, I suppose,” said Isaline, “and I
feel very weak and faint now. Where am I?”

“But you drank—oh, you were so thirsty! and I
brought you water, water, water, in that little cup,
made of leaves. There it is by your side—I made it.
And you wouldn't get up after I put you down, and
so I made you that nice bed. Isn't it a nice bed,
sweet sister? And there you have been so long—
so long—so many days and nights!”

“Days and nights?” repeated Isaline, wonderingly.

She was disposed to doubt the correctness of this
statement, thinking it might be, like much of the
rest which the poor girl said, an insane fancy; but

when she cast her eyes on her thin, wasted hands and
arms, she feared it might be true. Where was she?
and how would she ever get away? She could not
long live there, she was too weak to stand, and the
little exertion she had already made in speaking had
quite exhausted her. She thought of Henry, who
had been carried off to meet a cruel doom, and a
keen pang pierced her heart.

“Oh, God,” she groaned, “have mercy on me and
take me to Thyself!”

Soon after this she felt a heavy drowsiness stealing
over her, and, yielding to it, she fell into a gentle
sleep.

Fortunately the returning light of reason was beginning
to dawn upon the long darkened mind of
the poor maniac, and she was now beginning to
comprehend something, but could not pursue a consecutive
train of thought. Since the dreadful event
which had driven her forth, a wild and unconscious
wanderer through the wilderness, she had never
spoken a rational word to any human being till she
had met Isaline; but had roamed up and down the
wild forest, sometimes in the day and sometimes in
the night, with just enough of instinct to clothe herself
in skins and provide herself with food, ever and
anon shrieking out her terrible woe. Her history,
what is known of it, may be briefly told.

About three years before the date of our story, a
gentleman, named Mervine—who had once been
blessed with a competence, but, through a series of

misfortunes, had become reduced to comparative
poverty—removed his family to the wilds of Kentucky,
and there sought to make a new home. The
struggle was a short one. He fell sick and died,
leaving a widow and two twin daughters, Helen and
Ellen, and a blind negro boy (who had been brought
up in the family and taken along with them as an
act of charity) to mourn his loss. In less than a
year after the death of the husband and father, three
Indians and a white man one night attacked the
widow's dwelling, burst in the door, and murdered
all except Helen, who, escaping through a back
window, fled shrieking to the forest. These savages
were the Indian father and brothers of Methoto, and
he was the white man alluded to; and it will be remembered
he gave an account of this very tragedy,
in reply to the questions of Henry, on the night that
he and Isaline lodged under his roof on the bank
of the Licking. And what may seem strange and
curious, as showing the mysterious workings of
Providence, Methoto owed his death to the very
girl whose mother and sister he had helped to
murder; for it was her wild shriek that had so
startled him and his beast and led to the fall over
the cliff; and subsequently, by parrying the thrust
he made at her with his knife, that weapon had, it
may be said by her hand, been driven into his
bowels, inflicting a mortal wound. Thus had fearful
retribution come upon him from the right source of
justice.

How poor Helen had lived in the forest for so
long a period, through summer's heat and winter's
cold, clothing and feeding and protecting herself
from wild beasts, must in the main be left to conjecture.
It is known that, shortly after the tragedy
which turned her poor brain, she had so frightened
a couple of hunters that they had fled, leaving a
pack of skins behind them, and it is supposed she
had carried these off and used them afterward as
she required in her own singular way. With the
sinews of deer she had fastened these skins so
closely around her body and limbs and hands that,
with a mask of the same over her head and face,
her appearance, when seen in a dim, uncertain light,
as Isaline had beheld her, was rather that of some
hideous animal than a human being; and when
merely glanced at by the superstitious borderers,
their excited fancies had changed her into an apparition
of terrible form. It is supposed that a sort
of glimmering of reason, or instinct, such as most
maniacs possess, had led her to protect herself from
the wild beasts of the forest by lodging in the
branches of trees; and thus it had happened, on
several occasions, that her shriek had sounded high
in air, and she had suddenly appeared in a manner
calculated to increase the fears of the superstitious,
who had readily accorded her the form and power
of something from the world of spirits. And this
was the whole of the mystery, which appears simple

enough when explained by natural causes, as all
mysteries generally do.

For that matter everything is a mystery, from the
mighty worlds that swing and roll in space, down
to the animated creatures that exist beyond the
reach of human vision, though a familiarity with
the manifestations of God's thought leads us to
regard them with indifference. We cannot explain
anything, not even the simplest, except by attributing
it to the result of the harmonious working of
the law of the Great First Cause, which is itself a
still greater Mystery. We know not why we are
here ourselves—a wonderful, thinking and acting
manifestation—how we came here—how we take
on life or lose it! The most we can know is, that
certain effects result from certain causes; and all
the learning and wisdom of man give him not even
the faintest glimmer of conception of cause. Two
simple little words, It Is, sum up the whole knowledge
of mankind in this respect; and the clown
and the savant alike stand confessed in ignorance
before the great, dark vail which shuts in the
wonderful Mysteries of Jehovah.

Helen Mervine had a pretty face and figure, and
so much resembled Isaline that they might have
been taken for sisters; and this perhaps was the
reason why the poor lunatic believed her to be her
sister; and as the murdered girl, being a twin, had
probably resembled the living one very closely, and
as Methoto had been so attracted to the one he saw

dead as to renounce his Indian life, it may be this
resemblance had had something to do with the wild,
rude passion he had felt for Isaline. Helen naturally
had a sweet and gentle disposition; and having, as
she believed, recovered the dear sister she had so
fearfully mourned, she was now in a fair way to
regain her reason also. As we have shown, she
could partially comprehend what was said to her,
though her mental perception was a good deal
mixed up with the strange, wild fancies of a disordered
brain.

While Isaline slept, therefore, she sat quietly by
her side, and watched her with the gentle fondness
of a mother overlooking the slumbers of her tender
offspring; and when Isaline again opened her eyes
and looked curiously around, Helen smiled, and said
very sweetly:

“I am so glad I see your dear bright eyes again!”

“Helen,” said Isaline, with an anxious look, “do
you know where we are?”

“Oh, yes—we are here together, sweet sister!”

“But we must get away from here, and go where
there are others!”

“Who are they?”

“We must go to some station. Do you not know
of any near this place?”

“We must not let the wicked Indians catch us!”
returned Helen, with a shudder.

“Oh, no—Heaven knows I do not wish to be in
their power again!” rejoined Isaline. “Here, give

me your hand, and I will see if I can get upon my
feet and stand.”

Assisted by Helen, Isaline succeeded, after a great
effort, in rising to her feet; and then she saw how
utterly incapable she was of performing a long
journey through the forest—an unknown journey
at that.

“Oh, what will become of me?” she groaned: “I
am too weak to go away, and I shall certainly perish
here!”

Oh, no, not again!” cried poor Helen. “You
have died once, you know, sweet sister—murdered
you were by the cruel Indians—and if you were
to die again and leave me, I believe I should go
mad!”

“Oh, this will drive me mad!” thought Isaline;
“to remain here, in this wretched condition, along
with a poor girl who has lost her reason! And then
how can I live? I must have food! and where am I
to get it? at least such as my weak system can
bear?”

“Helen,” she said to the poor girl, “have you anything
that I can eat?”

Helen ran to a little hollow among the rocks,
which she called her pantry, and brought forth a
few berries and some corn.

“I did have meat,” she said, “but you would not
touch it, and so I ate it to keep it from spoiling.”

“Where did you get it, Helen?”

“Oh, the good angels brought it to me, as they

often do. I dream sometimes of being very hungry,
and think I am going to starve, and then somebody
comes and whispers in my ear where I can get food,
and I go and find it.”

“And how do you manage to cook it?”

“I always eat it as they send it, sweet sister.”

“I fear these berries and this corn would do me
more harm than good, Helen!” said Isaline. “If I
only had some broth!”

“Broth? yes!” said Helen, brightening; “that was
what we made for poor dear papa when he was so
sick.”

“But we have no meat to make it of, and no way
to cook it if we had!” said Isaline, despairingly.
“Oh, what will become of me? what, what will
become of me? Helen, do you know where we
are?”

“Why, here!” returned the other, simply.

“What place is this?”

“Your home, sweet sister: you know we live here
together now!”

“But is there no fort or station near us? no place
where we can find human beings like ourselves?”

“I thought we were angels!” replied Helen, staring.

“Oh, it is enough to drive me mad!” groaned
Isaline. “Here, lend me your arm to lean on, and
I will try and see if I can leave this place, for surely
I shall die here!”

With the assistance of the poor maniac, Isaline
managed to walk a few steps.

“Oh, I am too weak!” she groaned; “and it is
folly to strive against fate! Take me back to my
rude bed, and let me die here!”

“Oh, no, you must not die again!” cried Helen, in
alarm.

“There is only one thing that can save my life,
my poor girl!” sighed Isaline, as she once more laid
herself down on her rude couch.

“What is that?” asked Helen.

“You must go and find somebody to come to my
assistance.”

Helen looked sad and troubled, and wrung her
hands.

“Won't the angels do?” she asked.

“No, the angels will not do in this case, Helen—
I must have human assistance.”

“Is it Henry you want?” asked Helen.

“Henry?” cried Isaline, in startled surprise; “what
do you know of Henry?”

“You have been talking of Henry for so long, and
would not call me Helen once!”

“Ah! that is all then!” groaned Isaline, her sudden
hope as suddenly overthrown. “God help me!”

“I wish I could think right!” pursued Helen,
with a perplexed and troubled look. “I have had
so many dark dreams, that I don't know how to
think. Are you sick?” she inquired, with great
tenderness.

“Yes!” answered Isaline, mechanically, feeling it
was no longer any use to continue a conversation
with one who could not comprehend what she
required.

“Our dear papa was sick, you know, and he died!”

“Yes!” replied Isaline.

“But you and dear mamma were murdered by
the Indians!”

“Yes!” assented Isaline.

“I will go for a doctor—shall I?”

“Yes!” said Isaline, feeling a heavy drowsiness
coming over her again, and now desiring only to be
left in peaceful quiet.

She was conscious that Helen arose and moved
away, and then she fell into a pleasant slumber.

Suddenly she was awakened and startled by the
report of a rifle, followed by a wild shriek, not unlike
that she had heard so many times before; and,
a minute after, poor Helen, with the mask on her
face, came flying into the little cave from without.
She ran up to Isaline and crouched down in terror,
and our heroine saw with alarm that she was partially
covered with blood, which was still flowing
freely from a wound in her arm.

“In Heaven's name, what is it? what has happened?”
cried Isaline.

“Oh, don't speak! don't stir!” gasped Helen, in a
wild, startled whisper; “for the cruel Indians are
coming to murder us both!”

“Indians?” returned Isaline, with a shudder.

“Well,” she added, a moment after, quite calmly,
“let them come: as well die one way as another!”

Presently she heard voices, and held her breath
to listen. At first she could not distinguish the
words, and then her very soul was thrilled with a
wild joy and hope.

“Whar's the use?” said the unmistakable voice of
Rough Tom Sturgess. “I tell you, younker, you
mought as wall shoot at chain lightning! fur no bullet
won't do no good thar! and ef you goes in, you'll
never come out alive, 'cept you does it in a blaze of
brimstone! Wagh!”

Then there was another voice in reply, and poor
Isaline felt as if her soul was leaving her in a wild
transport of joy.

“What is life to me now, Tom,” said the other
voice, “that I should fear to risk it here or elsewhere?
I will solve this mystery now, or die in
the attempt!”

For a few moments Isaline struggled to speak, and
then she fairly shrieked forth:

“Henry! dear, dear Henry!”

“Gracious God!” was the wild response.

Then there was a rush of steps through the passage-way,
and the next moment Henry Colburn
stood in the presence of Isaline Holcombe.

Heaven had been merciful, and the lovers had met
beyond the hour of peril.