50. CHAPTER L.
THE FUGITIVE.
The two friends made the circuit of the lawn, and had
reached the broad gate, when a man, riding at full speed,
drew up suddenly before them and inclined his head.
“Will you be good enough to inform me, sir,” he said,
addressing the captain who was foremost, “whether this is
the road to the town of Richmond?”
“It is, sir,” replied the soldier; “and you have only to
follow it and you'll soon arrive at that place.”
“And that other road branching off?” asked the horseman,
extending his hand, and at the same moment looking
over his shoulder.
“That leads to New Kent Court House, to Hanover, or
King William, and so, west.”
“Thanks, sir,” said the stranger, hurriedly, and with another
glance over his shoulder, he struck spurs into his
horse, and departed at a rapid gallop.
The eyes of the two men followed him, and they saw him
turn into the road to New Kent, disappearing in an instant
in the pines.
The captain shook his head.
“There's something wrong about this gentleman, mon
ami,” he said; “something lies beneath this, take my word
for it! But I could n't refuse to reply to a civil question.”
“No—and I agree with you. Who could it be, captain?”
“Faith, I can't imagine! If, now, it had occurred on the
continent—”
“What?”
“Why, I should have set our rapid cavalier down for a
king's messenger. But, you know, we do n't have kings on
the western continent, a circumstance for which I do n't
mind saying I'm grateful, comrade.
“They're a poor set of fellows,” added the soldier; “I've
seen many and never admired one. You see, my dear fellow,
they are shams, and they know it; from his gracious
Majesty George III., defender of the faith, et cetera, down
to his royal highness of Poland, a post which my friends,
General Littlepage, and Captain Charles Lee, very nearly
occupied. I'm glad they did n't lower themselves; and
these are my views! Who the devil could this horseman
have been?”
“I can't tell you.”
“Well, well, let him go on; I care nothing, morbleu!
As Effingham says, my friend Champ, you know, ` 't is all in
the game,' and so he may go on!”
Having reached this extremely philosophical conclusion,
the captain twirled his moustache, and led the way back to
the mansion, which he and his companion entered.
They had scarcely disappeared when three horsemen, riding
at full speed, shot by the gate on the track of the fugitive.
They bent in their saddles as they rode, and evidently
examined the highway for the marks of hoofs, by which they
seemed to follow and track their game.
Coming, in a moment, to the cross road leading to New
Kent, which the fugitive had taken, they suddenly drew up,
and one of them dismounted.
It was the stranger, the friend of St. John.
“Friends,” he said, in his calm, deep voice, “he has not
followed the high road further. Here are his footprints;
he has turned off toward the court house. Come!”
And getting into his saddle again, he took the lead, and
the whole troop disappeared in the foliage.
Let us follow them.
They darted on, at full speed, for more than a mile, and
then, reaching the summit of a hill, distinctly perceived the
fugitive ascending another hill, at full gallop, half a mile in
advance of them.
“Look!” cried the stranger; “there! see! we shall arrest
him!”
And digging the spur into his horse's side, he darted onward,
taking the lead of his companions.
The solitary horseman had turned in his saddle and seen
them, and a gesture of rage and despair, visible even at the
great distance, showed how much he feared the encounter.
The pursuers rode furiously for another mile, and entered
the somber woodland of pines, whose summits were now
gilded by the last rays of the setting sun.
With bent heads, as they rode at full gallop, the stranger
and his companions scanned the road, to convince themselves
that the fugitive had not turned aside into the woodland.
The tracks continued in the center of the road, and they
pushed on at full speed.
Nearly five miles thus ran from beneath the rapid feet of
their horses, and still the tracks held the center of the highway.
Suddenly one of the riders stretched out his hand, and
said, “Look!”
Two hundred yards before them, a horse without a rider
was flying onward, and panting heavily as he ran.
The stranger uttered a growl, as it were, of disappointment,
and drew rein suddenly.
“He has dismounted and escaped into the woods!” he
said, calmly; “we need not further follow the highway.”
The three horsemen drew up, and with the heads of their
animals thus touching, held a rapid consultation with the
stranger.
It was quickly decided that each should take different
directions, and beat the whole country for traces of the
fugitive.
“Be alert, friends! do not stop! do not sleep!” said the
stranger, whose fiery eyes plunged into the woodland, upon
which the shades of night were rapidly descending; “it is
of the first importance, as you know, that this man's dispatches
shall be secured! It will be for us a powerful engine!
Come! to work! forward! We may still arrest
him on his way.”
And the three horsemen separated, each taking different
ways.
The dark pines received them, and they disappeared like
shadows, the sound of their hoofs dying away in the somber
depths, from which nothing was heard but the cries of night
birds, and the harsh murmur of frogs in the swampy, low
grounds.
As they disappeared, a pile of brushwood, deep in the
woodland, stirred slightly, a man's head rose, and seeing
that the coast was clear, the man emerged from the brush,
and listened.
“Well gentlemen,” he said, with a sinister smile which
made his eyes glitter in the starlight, “I have escaped your
toils, I think, and you will probably have an agreeable time
of it beating the bushes of the country-side here. I have
my papers all safe here in my breast, most worthy patriots,
and there they will remain for the present. I shall only arrive
at Fort Pitt a little later, and our affairs will not suffer.
It's odds if I do not pay you, and the people of Virginia
generally, for this little night ride!”
He paused a moment and listened.
“All is still,” he said, “and now it only remains to
get another horse. That's easy, as my pockets are well
lined by his lordship! Come! let us not despair; I trust
in the doctrine of chances, and they've seldom failed
me!”
Having thus spoken, the fugitive turned, resolutely,
deeper into the woodland, and was soon lost in the darkness.
The man who thus escaped with his papers of such great
importance, was Major Conolly, secret agent of Lord Dunmore
in embroiling the border and arousing the Indian tribes
against the people of the Virginia frontier.[1]
