7. CHAPTER VII.
AT THE FORD OF THE BLACKWATER.
The Blackwater is a tributary of the Nottoway river, and its turbid
and sullen waters flow in the direction of that tract, full of weird
and mysterious interest, which has received the appropriate name
of the Dismal Swamp. Both the Nottoway and the Blackwater
have a character of their own. The latter flows here and there
between high banks, densely wooded, which the dark waters often
hollow out, exposing the gnarled and fantastic roots of the trees
above. Then the banks trend away into low grounds, the current
running deep and strong in the narrow channel spreads out, and a
swamp appears. These huge tracts are overgrown with cypress,
juniper, and black gum; they are silent, dreary, forbidding; the
foot at every step sinks in the treacherous ooze; and the hiss of the
moccasin in the slime is echoed by the weird hoot of the owl, or
the cry of the whip-poor-will in the depths of the jungle.
Justin Harley, riding homeward from Oakhill, entered the skirts
of one of the largest of these morasses, called, par excellence, the
“Blackwater Swamp,” before he was aware of the fact. It is a misuse
of terms, perhaps, to say that he entered the swamp. The county
road which he pursued sought carefully to avoid the undesirable
locality, but finding it necessary to pass through its skirts, he did
so on a bed of logs and heaped up earth, leaping deep holes, full of
black ooze, here and there, on rude log bridges, and hastening on
to firmer ground.
Harley looked over his shoulder as he followed this rude highway,
overshadowed by cypresses.
“Not a time to explore the swamp to any great advantage,” he
said, “and yet I have nothing to do to-day, and the storm will soon
be over.”
He went on, looking for an opening. There was none through
which it seemed possible to force his horse. He was still searching,
when a distant shot came from the swamp, the noise of something
forcing its way through the swamp was heard, and five minutes
afterward a fallow deer broke through the vines shrouding a clump
of laurel, and, clearing the causeway at a bound, disappeared
beyond.
“A deer-hunter,” Harley muttered. “He takes bad weather for
his sport. If he can pass through I can; but decidedly I will put
it off. The storm is coming.”
He looked up, and saw the sky filled with black clouds, traversed
from moment to moment by the fiery zigzags of the lightning.
“I'll go back,” he said.
And pushing his horse to a gallop, he emerged from the swamp,
and entered on a firm road, which ran along the left bank of the
Blackwater, between high banks, opening here and there to give
access to the deep, narrow fords of the river. A glance toward
the stream, as he passed, showed him that the waters were greatly
swollen, no doubt by heavy rains toward the sources of the river,
which had the peculiarity of rising and falling with great rapidity.
The waters were now galloping through its high banks, with that
hoarse and threatening roar which accompanies a freshet. The
fords seemed impassable.
In approaching one of these fords, Harley exhibited a very singular
emotion. The ford was reached by a cut in the bank on each
side, and the current at the spot was strong, breaking, just below,
upon a mass of earth and rock, scarcely large enough to call an
island. Harley looked only once in the direction of the ford, and
turned his head abruptly from it, as if it suggested some unpleasant
recollection.
“What made me forget that I would pass this spot?” he said,
half-aloud.
His head turned completely from it, and he went on at greater
speed, with the evident desire to avoid all sight of it. He had just
passed the cut in the bank leading down to the ford when a cry was
heard.
This cry was—“Help!”
