88. CHAPTER LXXXVIII.
FIRE AND STORM.
They rapidly crossed the river, plunged into the forest,
and fled straight across the country in the direction of the
point which they wished to reach.
St. John was well acquainted with the district, and chose,
with unerring precision, the shortest roads.
Leaning forward in his saddle, the young man seemed
to be devoured by a terrible passion, and, at every bound,
he struck his horse furiously with the spur, and shouted
hoarsely to him, as though he were a human being.
Tallyho responded nobly to his master's will, and the man
and the animal fled onward like a single body.
The captain and Hamilton were at St. John's side. Riding
Selim, that noble Arabian who, in old days, had distanced
the best steeds of Virginia, and whose speed age had
not diminished, leaning over, as did St. John, and impelled
by the same passion which drove his friend on like a tempest,
the worthy soldier kept pace with the most furious
rush of his companion, and strained his eyes forward into
the distance.
“We'll kill our horses, if necessary,” said the young man,
hoarsely, “but we'll arrive!”
“We'll arrive!” repeated the soldier and Hamilton, and
they plunged their spurs into their animals.
The three horses ran neck and neck, and, passing now
like shadows over the soft, sandy road, they resembled
phantoms intent upon some weird enterprise of darkness.
It was not long before actual darkness came to add verisimilitude
to the idea. The west, which had been clear an
hour before, now filled with black clouds, and, from these
clouds, piled up in huge ebon masses, fringed by the crimson
of sunset, flashes of lightning began to gleam, illuminating
the whole heavens with their lurid splendor.
One of those brief but terrible storms which visit Virginia
at this season, was lowering, and the mutter of thunder,
every moment growing louder, showed that the tempest
was near at hand.
The cavaliers still pushed on at headlong speed, without
uttering a word. The hot mouths of the horses were nearly
touching, the clouds of foam, from their burning nostrils,
mingled and fled away in the gathering darkness.
“If they are married when we arrive, I'll make the new
wife a widow!” cried the young man, through his clenched
teeth, in a voice hoarse with passion. “I'll plunge my
sword into his heart, as I would into a dog's.”
“And I!” added Hamilton.
“Good!” said the captain.
“Faster! faster!” howled the young man; “every instant
is a lifetime!”
And he plunged his spur anew in “Tallyho,” who leaped
ten feet and quivered.
Hamilton and the captain were at the side of their friend
still.
“How far?” said Hamilton.
“Five miles only! Come!”
As the young man spoke, a dazzling flash darted from the
black clouds, and a roar of thunder, like the discharge of a
battery, shook the forest.
The startled animals snorted, and fled on beneath the
overshadowing boughs of the forest more rapidly.
For a quarter of an hour no word was spoken, no sound
was heard, but the rumbling of thunder, and the rapid hoof-strokes
of the horses.
Suddenly they issued forth into the open country, and St.
John stretched out his hand and said, hoarsely,
“There is the house!”
“Where?” said the captain.
“There, rising over the woods! Faster!”
And the young man struck his horse, with his clenched
hand, on the neck.
The captain looked in the direction indicated, and saw a
large edifice, embowered in foliage, and gilded now by the
lurid rays of the bloody sun flashing from beneath the
thunder cloud as it sunk from sight.
“Is that Lindon's?” he said.
“Yes! how's your horse?”
“Quite fresh yet!”
“And mine's nearly dead, but that's nothing.”
They fled on.
The storm, which had been long gathering, now seemed
about to burst. Vivid flashes of lightning succeeding each
other with rapidity, illuminated the darkness, and the very
earth seemed shaken by the warring thunder, which crashed
down like the rush of an ocean.
The frightened horses rather flew than ran, and their
coats, bathed in sweat and foam, showed the immense exertion
they had undergone.
Another woods was passed through, and just as darkness
and storm descended, the three men drew up before the
edifice.
A vivid blaze of lightning struck the great elm at the
door as they checked their foaming horses, and splintered it
from top to bottom.
At the same moment a blinding torrent of rain descended,
and the three men threw themselves from the saddle and
rushed forward.
In another moment they stood in the great hall of the
house, and their eyes penetrated into the large apartment.
Had not the captain laid a violent hand on the shoulder
of St. John, the young man would have burst into the room.
The sight was enough to arouse him.
With his back to the door, Lindon stood with one arm.
round Bounybel, who seemed nearly fainting—in front of
the couple, Tag, the miserable hedge-priest, with an open
prayer book in his hand, was reading the marriage service.
Two rough-looking men stood by as witnesses, and in a
corner, bowed down upon a chair, old Cato, the Vanely
coachman, was ringing his hands and crying like a child.
Suddenly the words resounded, “If any man can show
just cause why this couple may not lawfully be joined together,
let him now speak, or else hereafter for ever hold
his peace.”
A scream from the girl, so piercing and full of anguish
that it rose above the very roar of the storm, sent a shudder
through the frames of the auditors without, two of whom
held back the third, whose eyes glared like a madman's as
he looked.
“O, no! no!” cried the girl, struggling to disengage
herself from Lindon's arm; “he brought me here by force!
I was seized and dragged here! I will die before I become
his wife!”
The girl had scarcely uttered these words, and still
writhed to get free, when St. John broke from his companions
and threw himself, like a wild beast, upon Lindon.
So tremendous was the blind passion of the young man,
that, great as was the strength and bulk of his adversary,
he was hurled to the ground like a child—St. John falling
with his enemy, locked in a mortal embrace.
At the same instant the captain and his companion rushed
with drawn swords upon the accomplices, who, uttering
cries, retreated before them hastily and disappeared in the
darkness.
St. John's struggle with Lindon was not protracted. The
infuriated man caught a pistol from his belt, and placing the
muzzle on his enemy's breast, drew the trigger. The murderous
weapon hung fire, and a blow on the head, from the
sword hilt of St. John, made him relax his grasp, and fall
back stunned and senseless.
St. John rose to his feet, pale and bleeding from a wound
in his temple, and seeing the girl totter, at the moment, toward
a chair, he placed his arm round her, and prevented
her from falling.
She clung to him in an agony of terror, with the wild
agitation of a child who flies to a protector, and at the contact
of those arms, at that face again laid near his own, the
young man felt a thrill of bitter delight run through his
frame.
“O, take me away!” she sobbed; “take me from this
dreadful place! O, I shall die if I stay here longer!”
“That is true,” said a low voice; “truer than you think.
The house is on fire!”
And Miss Carne, standing on the threshold of the apartment,
pointed with her finger to the adjoining room. As
she did so, a sudden gust of smoke and flame invaded the
one which they occupied.
“In five minutes escape will be cut off!” cried the pale
woman, and she disappeared in the hall.
St. John raised the girl in his arms like a child, and just
as the flame rushed roaring upon them, bore her forth into
the storm, the whole broadside of the edifice bursting into
flame.
“'T is a horrible death” cried Hamilton; “he's senseless
and—”
“Look!” shouted Waters, “the dog's come to his wits!”
In truth, Lindon seemed to have recovered completely,
for in the midst of the brilliant space, upon which torrents
of rain descended, lit by lightning flashes, he appeared suddenly,
pale, furious and despairing.
Looking around him with the air of one who is demented,
he shook his clenched hand at his enemies, uttered a horrible
oath, grasped at his belt, where no sword hung, and leaping
upon one of the horses, disappeared at headlong speed, like
a fury, in the darkness.
The wild vision had scarcely vanished in the forest when
another spectacle attracted the attention of the shuddering
group.
It was a woman at one of the loftiest windows who half
threw herself out, driven, it seemed, by the scorching flame.
The cry which she uttered was awful in the intensity of its
terror. Suddenly, however, she disappeared, and returned
with a cord which she affixed rapidly to the sill. Then,
holding between her teeth a casket, she swung by this cord
safely to the top of the great portico, slid with incredible
agility along the moulding, and fell to the ground, from
which she rose and disappeared like Lindon in the storm.
It was Miss Carne, who had broken open the coffers of
her enemy and escaped.
As she disappeared, the whole house became one great
mass of hissing and crackling flame, and this flame roared
for hours without cessation, wall after wall falling with a
crash until the ruin was complete.
Bonnybel had long before been assisted into the Vanely
chariot, which old Cato got ready with nervous haste. Escorted
by the three gentlemen it was now proceeding rapidly
toward Prince George through the last mutterings of
the storm.
Faint and weak, scarcely realizing that the scene through
which she had just passed was not some hideous dream, the
young lady felt herself borne along, hour after hour, until,
at last, she saw the welcome walls of Vanely, which began
to loom out indistinctly in the first gray glimmer of dawn.
The gentlemen who escorted her resembled dusky shadows
as they assisted her from the chariot. She felt a letter
placed in her hand, heard some murmured words, and then
one shadow only remained at her side.
Captain Waters and St. John set out at once for Williamsburg
in pursuit of Lindon, who had bent his steps
thither.
“Time enough afterward for explanations,” said St. John,
as they departed at full gallop; “come, captain, and see me
excute my private vengeance!”
