University of Virginia Library

20. CHAPTER XX.
SCOURING THE WOODS.

But where, while these events were passing, was the fierce
and brutal outlaw, Dick of Tophet? One would think that, in
an affair which he had begun, the leaguer of the Barony, and in
which he was so deeply interested, his presence would not be
wanting, nor would he have been but for the necessity of the
case, and because of the exercise of that degree of prudence,
essential to his own progress, which the old soldier is seldom
persuaded to forget.

We have seen by what arts and what endurance of torture
he contrived to make his escape from his bonds. When he
emerged from the passage-way of the basement, the coast was
clear. Congaree Polly, who had been passing to and fro, was
now up-stairs busy spreading the table-cloth and setting plates.
He could hear the clatter of these below, as she severally laid
them on the board. In the court nobody was to be seen but a
little group of negroes, and they saw him as he moved away
and shouted aloud, not in alarm, but with curiosity as at the
sight of any stranger; but little negroes are for ever shouting
and squalling, and neither master nor cook gives much heed to
their clamors. Dick was more heedful and watched the urchins
for awhile before moving — watched the whole court, and that
with very dissatisfied expression. He could nowhere see his
horse which he had fastened to a neighboring tree. Good Benny
Bowlegs, old soldier that he was, had duly cared for the beast —
governed by two reasons, first, the good feeling of sympathy which
he always entertained for a stout, well-built dragoon horse, and
next, as he was one of the trophies of war, a part of the spolia
opima, which somehow usually occupies no small share of the
regards of all old soldiers. Dick of Tophet naturally conjectured

that the beast was safely sheltered in the stables of the
barony, and, no doubt, totally heedless of his master's condition,
munching comfortably upon his corn and fodder. Dick
groaned as he reflected upon his Ioss, but there was no present
remedy.

“Let me only git clear out of this fix,” he muttered to himself,
“and I'll find the pay for him somehow out of this same
harrystocratic Sinclair.”

He wasted no long time in idle lamentations. The horse was
gone, and if he desired to go also in safety, he must needs tramp
quickly and on his own legs. He looked out east and west,
north and south, shaped out his course in his mind, noted the
cover at which he was to strike, and darted forth upon his progress.
Again the little negroes yelled and shouted, and clapped
their hands and pointed with all their fingers, and rolled about
and threw up clouds of dust over their heads; but they failed
to attract the attention of anybody whose policy it might be to
arrest the flight of the outlaw — and he pushed forward accordingly,
without giving them the slightest heed, but with the
savage mental determination to knock half a score of them on
the head should they happen to cross his path for a moment.
He had snatched up a carving-knife from the pile which Congaree
Polly had laid down on a table in the lower passage preparatory
to laying them out for dinner, and thus armed, he was
in the mood to do desperate things, whether with necessity or
not.

His course lay along the wood that skirted the lower line of
the avenue, but it required a progress of fully a hundred yards
over the open court before he could reach this shelter. To
strike a route directly below, would be to risk exposure to the
negroes whom he now felt sure were traversing the edges of the
forest, and along the fence which ran all along the lower line of
the settlement. The circuit which he proposed to make was
considerable, but it was the only one which promised him a retreat
without interruption, and such a retreat was essential in
his condition — sore, scorched, suffering, and with scarcely a
weapon in his grasp.

Very painful was his progress. In the first moment of his
excitement, after getting loose from his bonds, he did not feel

so greatly the torture that he had undergone, and which he had
endured with a patient fortitude which would not have discredited
the ancient martyrology. In a better cause and nobler
career, it would have lifted the ruffian into heroism. But when
he began to walk, and had fairly succeeded in obtaining the
partial woodland cover along the avenue, his sufferings began
to make themselves felt with no ordinary degree of acuteness.
By this time, his back was one entire blister — his hands and
wrists; his feet and ankles — all shared in the same sort of burning
torment, and he writhed at every step over the hot sands,
and shrunk from every ray of the direct sun. He realized in
degree the pains of the march such as Milton's Satan was forced
to take when first recovering from the terrible conflict which
precipitated him from the celestial empire. He too walked —

But still, like the fallen angel he endured and strode away,
writhing the while, and groaning — nay sometimes swearing
most blasphemously, like the evil one to whom his followers
compared him. Still he went forward. A thousand
times he felt like casting himself down upon the leaves and
grass — this was after he had got into the woods — but then his
courage revived — perhaps his fears — and, suffering scalding
sensations at every step he plunged forward, slowly but certainly
increasing the distance between himself and his late
prison-house. He was unpursued — that was something; had
it been otherwise, he would have given up the thought of flight,
and, in his desperation, would have welcomed the deadliest
struggle, only seeking to do as much mischief as he could and
not in any way to defend himself. He gained finally the entrance
of the avenue — looked up and down the highway to see
that he was not pursued, then took the downward route, still in
the thicket, but still close beside the public road, not yet venturing
to penetrate the deeper thickets where he felt sure that
his comrades harbored.

Thus moving, he had made a progress which was considerable

for one in his state of suffering, when he heard or fancied that
he heard a distant shot. He stooped his ear to the ground and
listened. Again he heard a shot — two, three, or more. But
they seemed to be still below him, though greatly to the left,
and he thought it not improbable that Sinclair and the two armed
negroes had boldly penetrated the forests in pursuit of his comrades.
To get certainly in the rear of both parties, it was required
that he should still press directly downward, and not venture
in more deeply until the sounds of alarm should certainly arise
between himself and the Barony. With this policy, and stimulated
by the intimations of strife to an eager desire to be at
work in the fray himself, he flourished his carving-knife, set his
teeth firmly, and hurried on as rapidly as his sufferings would
admit. He had gone perhaps a quarter of a mile further, or
more, when his ear caught other sounds which compelled a
halt and counselled concealment.

“A troop of horse!” he muttered, with an oath. “Who can
it be?”

He was at a loss to conjecture.

“Marion's men's tother side of the river. Inglehardt is up
the country. Harden, they say, has gone south. Who, in the
name of all the black devils, can it be? It may be some of the
`Yahoos.'”

The Yahoos were another tory banditti; their name, with a
strange taste, self-chosen; and not inappropriate, unless too innocently
unmeaning.

But the doubt of Dick of Tophet did not interfere to retard
his own action. He hurried into a close thicket, sufficiently far
from the road to escape any glancing eye, yet near enough himself
to distinguish the approaching troopers. They came on at
a trot, and went by handsomely, a neat and trim array of forty-five
dragoons.

“Marion's men, by the powers! St. Julien's squad. Now,
ef I kaint draw off them fellows in season, won't they catch it!”

Thus muttered the outlaw, as he gathered himself up, with
many growls and groans, and once more resumed his upright
position. He now struck diagonally across the wood, pushing
directly for the heart of the thicket where he supposed his comrades
to be, and whence the sound of the firearms had arisen

But hardly had he gone fifty yards, when he encountered a
horseman directly in his track. He threw himself behind a
tree as the new-comer approached, and when the latter, who
seemed to be in a brown study, drew nigh, the outlaw stretched
out his arm suddenly and grasped the bridle of the steed.

“Hello! thar! Lord! who's that? Oh! Fire Dick, is that
you?”

The horseman was no less a person than our old acquaintance,
worthy Pete Blodgit. He had promptly adopted the
counsels of Willie Sinclair, at their last interview, and had
seized the first chance to withdraw from his connection with
the outlaws, which he did, without beat of drum, at the moment
when the band was preparing for the first assault upon the
house. They had not noticed his departure; had they done so,
it is probable that they would have prevented it; for, though
they made no sort of calculations upon him, in respect to the
fight, they knew how to use him in affairs which involved no
necessity for heroism. Pete knew perfectly well, that, in mere
wilfulness of power, they would have detained him, if once they
suspected him of any intention to depart. He modestly kept
his purpose secret, and stole off while they were pressing forward
to their severally-assigned posts for the assault. He was
taken all aback — confounded, by the way — by an encounter
so totally unexpected with the outlaw, whom, all the while, he
supposed to be safely boxed up in the basement or the attic
of Sinclair's house. The ordinary terrors which this man's
presence inspired in his mind, were duly increased by the sudden
and unanticipated meeting with him, but still more by his
fierce, wild, and ghastly aspect. His face seemed blotched and
bloated, his eyes were bloodshot, and there was a wolfish fierceness
in his expression that denoted a great increase of his usual
savage ferocity of will.

“Lord ha' mercy! how you skear'd me.”

The other grinned horribly as he said:—

“Git down, Pete.”

“Git down, leftenant! What must I get down for — what's
you guine to do to me?”

“Git down! I ain't a guine to hurt you. I only wants the
horse”

“But it's my horse, Dick.”

“Never mind! I wants him.”

“But you ain't a guine to take my critter?”

“Yes! I must hev' him, Pete. Git down.”

“But, Dick, how kin I, when you knows I'm a lame man,
and kain't git on, no how, without a critter. I kain't do eny
much travelling a-foot.”

“And who the h—l's more lame than me?” was the fierce
answer of the other. “Don't you see I'm burnt and scalded and
blistered up from head to foot, and all a-fighting your battles?”

“Not any battles of mine, Dick,” replied the other. “'Twas
your own battles all the time, and I wasn't to have eny of the
good of it, I know.”

“Well, it don't much matter eny how. Thar's not much
good of it come to enybody, and ef I don't overhaul our fellows
and bring 'em off at once, they won't make the smallest sort of
mouthful for St. Julien's dragoons. So git down, Pete, and
give me your horse.”

“Well, but leftenant—”

“Git down, I tell you.”

“But how kin I give up my horse? I'm sure, leftenant, ef
you takes him I'll never see him again. Let me go home quiet,
Dick.”

“Look you, Blodgit, I kain't be a trifling with you one minute
of waste of time. Why, to be sure, ef I takes him, you stand
a mighty fair chance of never seeing him agin. But what of
that. Do you think I cares what your loss may be, when the
needcessity is to save them good fellows that's in danger now
from St. Julien's troopers! Git down, I say.”

“I kain't give up my critter, Dick — I kain't!” was the reply
of Blodgit, with an unusual show of determination, for him, and
he jerked the bridle of his beast as he spoke, and struck his heels
into his flanks, and would have been off without further parley
but for the firm grasp which the outlaw had laid upon the bridle.

“You white livered lizard!” roared the outlaw; “and while
I'm a wasting time with your provications and prevarications,
them good fellows is a gitting themselves chopped up by the
dragoons!”

The words were seconded by the most decided action. The

beast was reined back upon his haunches in the twinkling of
an eye, and Pete Blodgit, pulled from his back with a gripe of
iron, fell prone upon the earth, heavily as a bag of sand. For
a moment the carving-knife of Devil Dick was flourished over
his head.

“Marcy, Dick! hev' marcy!

“You mean-sperritted skunk, I've hafe a mind to sculp you
where you lies: but I ain't got time for it. But jist you wait
for it, tell I gits back, and ef I don't take off sculp and ears, it's
bekaise I've got religion as I goes. Give me your blasted
horn! Quick as lightning.”

The horn was delivered to the outlaw; he wound it thrice, a
lively strain of alarm, then mounted the beast — an effort that
made him groan pitifully, as it seemed to renew all the agonies
of the blazing fire at his back and ankles — but he was capable
of the effort, though he groaned under it; was soon in the saddle,
and away — back at full speed over the ground which Blodgit
had just before slowly overcome. At intervals, he wound his
horn as he rode; a signal meant to awaken the apprehensions
of his associates, and draw them back in season for escape from
the troopers of St. Julien. We need not say that, nowise encouraged
by the promises held out to him, Blodgit resolved not
to wait one moment for the outlaw's return; but, in some degree
forgetting his own lameness, he gathered himself up as soon as
the other had ridden off, and took his way down the wood with a
degree of rapidity which would have been highly creditable to
an ordinary man in the full possession of all his limbs and sinews.

Let us return to the Barony. We have seen that Sinclair
received his friend St. Julien at the entrance of the mansion;
but he did not then suffer him to alight.

“Don't dismount, St. Julien. There's work for us yet.
Keep your saddle and put your men on the alert. Ho! there;
my horse! We have been beleaguered. Didn't you hear the
firing?”

“No! The wind was from us. How beleaguered? By
whom?”

“I'll tell you as we ride. Meanwhile, send down some
twenty men through the avenue, to make a circuit of a mile
below, and dash in upon yonder wood. The outlaws, some

half a dozen or more were there half an hour ago. They
are well mounted, but we may overhaul them. We will take
a short cut over the fences, and strike at them directly in front.
My horse! my horse, there!”

“Our beasts are pretty well knocked up, Willie,” was the
answer.

“Oh! they will do — they will do! But whether knocked
up or not, we must brush that wood before dark. We have
had Hell-fire Dick and his gang upon us.”

“Ha! I thought that scoundrel was in Inglehardt's troop, and
up the country.”

“No! no! and Inglehardt's troop is not up the country, I
fancy — at least, I have pretty good intelligence that he himself
is somewhere about Orangeburg. Have you had any adventure
to-day?”

“Slashed to piece a body of the Yahoos, some fourteen in
number, near the mill, on the Four-Holes, only a few miles
below 'Bram's Castle.”

“Ha! but they had not found him out?”

“Not that we know; but they were coming out of the swamp
when we surprised them.”

“And where's 'Bram?”

“He will be here to-night with your luggage, under the
charge of Corporal Grayson, with half a-dozen troopers.”

“You got all the papers.”

“All!”

There was some other conversation, until the horse of Sinclair
was brought out, all properly caparisoned by Benny Bowlegs.
That faithful fellow also appeared, soon after his master
was mounted, astride the steed which had been taken from
“Devil Dick.” St. Julien looked at the negro doubtfully, but
Sinclair said, “Let him ride with us. He knows the wood, and
may be useful.” The little squad, meanwhile, had been detached,
according to Sinclair's orders, and had already passed
through the avenue, into the main road, for the purpose of making
a circuit and taking the outlaws in the rear. In a few moments
more, the troop of St. Julien, under the two chiefs, were breaking
through the fence behind the garden, and dashing freely
into the woods in which the outlaws harbored.

The time allowed Dick of Tophet in warning his comrades
of their danger would not have been adequate to the purpose,
if they had not themselves taken the alarm, long before the arrival
of St. Julien. He met them on the retreat, and a few moments
sufficed for explanation.”

“We draw'd off,” said Sam Brydone, who, in the absence of
Dick, had taken the command, “bekaise we seed there was no
sort of use trying to do anything before night.”

“And where's all your men. You got Zeke Rodgers, didn't
you. I heerd his dogs.”

“Yes, we got him, to his misfortin'. Thar's his dogs; but
he aint fit for nothing better than dog's meat now. He got a
hurt in the first rush we made to git behind the kitchen, and he
aint so much as hollered since. Bill Toland, too, he came up
with Zeke, and he's got more lead in his swallow than he could
quite force down. Here's Jack, too, got scraped by a handful
of buckshot, I'm a-thinking, but tain't much. It's jest barked
him about the shoulders.”

“And whar's Joe Best?”

“He's coming on behind — slow enough. He's got to walk
his critter all the way, since he's pretty much doubled up with
a load somewhere about his hips, and has to lie down pretty
much on his horse. Ef he tries to trot or canter he falls into a
faint.”

“Then they 'll take him, by thunder, and that's next to
roping him, I'm thinking.”

“'Twon't take much to finish him.”

“Well, you kain't stop for him or anybody,” cried Dick
of Tophet. “Ef I know Willie Sinclair, he'll hev' that troop
of St. Julien's scattered about these woods before you kin say
Jack Robinson! We must put out as fast as any four legs can
go it. We've got the heels of them, and can keep ahead of St.
Julien, ef we choose, for though he did put his troop into a trot,
when he got in sight of the Barony — jist, I suppose to show off
— yet I could see there was no heart in the legs of any of his
beasts to make 'em willing. We must ride now, ef we would
be able to have a feeling for a hot supper anywhere to-night.”

“But I promised to go slow for poor Joe Best.”

“We kain't afford it, though he was a better man than Best,”

growled the savage Dick, with a sort of humor that spontaneously
presents itself where a person's name is naturally so suggestive.
“Joe must take his chance, and we must use ours. I
tell you we've got nothing to spare. We must go at a gallop,
ef we would make the river fur enough below, before night
comes. The night and the river swamp is our hope just now.
Joe must take his chainces. It's a part of the contract in a
scrimmage.”

Scoundrels are always selfish of necessity — since it is in selfishness
that scoundrelism always has its birth; and the reluctance
of the party to leave their wounded comrade was quickly
overcome.

“But whar's Nelson?” demanded Brydone, looking round
the party. No one could answer.

“He's missing!”

“That's a sufficient report just now. Ef he kaint find himself,
he kaint blame us for not finding him. Spur up, boys —
no stop for thinking.”

“Are you wounded yourself, Dick? You rides as ef you
was hurt.”

“Ax my back? Look at it, and then drive the spur harder
than ever, sence that ought to warn you what may happen to
you all, ef you're taken.”

“H-ll! you don't say they roasted you?” cried Brydone, as
he saw the condition of the other's back at a glance.

“On rid-hot coals, bars of red iron, and a blazing fire at
hands and feet! Won't I hev' my revenge for it all! Spur
up, fellows. I mustn't be cotched jest yit. I've got to live
long enough to roast every critter in that Sinclair Bairony —
the cursed infernal harrystocrats!”

Let us leave them as they fly down the country at full speed,
and obliquing in the direction of the Santee swamp. The pursuit
was hotly commenced by Sinclair and St. Julien. They
divided the squadron, and scattered themselves over the wood.
Fast they rode, and far they rode — that is to say, as fast and as
far as was consistent with a close search, and the jaded condition
of their horses. The squad of St. Julien, after awhile, fell
in with the wounded outlaw, Joe Best. As he heard their approach,
he put the spurs to his horse in the hope to make off,

but the first plunge forward of the steed subjected him to so
much agony, that he drew up and checked the beast as suddenly.
The ruffian felt his danger — he knew his fate. He
was well known to all the men of Marion, and he had been long
since outlawed. He drew a pistol from his holsters, and prepared
himself for the coming up of his pursuers. When they
drew nigh, he fired, and the sword-arm of a common trooper fell
powerless at his side, just as he was about to cut the ruffian
down. But he could not escape. Half a-score of men were
within call of the wounded man, and the report of the pistol
brought them up, with St. Julien at their head. At this moment,
whether because of his pains or his policy, Joe Best dropped
from his horse. The animal was caught in a moment — horses
being in even greater demand than men, among the southern
partisans—and Best himself was secured in the twinkling of an
eye. A couple of dragoons dismounted, and laid hands on him.
He lifted the emptied pistol with a feeble arm, and his eyes
glared savagely upon his assailants. It was evident that the
loss of strength implied no loss of sense or intelligence.

“Who is he? Do you know him?” asked St. Julien.

“An old scamp,” was the reply — “no other than Joe
Best, who burnt Mother Baldrick's house, and carried off Holman's
horses.”

“Cloud!” called St. Julien — and as the trooper so called
rode up, the captain said: — “search him, Cloud, and bring to
me what he may have about him. You know what to do with
him.”

And thus speaking, St. Julien rode away, followed by all
but Cloud and another. These remained with the wounded
outlaw. Cloud had dismounted. He now uncoiled a dozen
yards of the rope from his saddle, and approached the wounded
man.

“What are you guine to do?” demanded Best, “needn't tie
a wounded man like me. I'm your prisoner.”

“We don't want prisoners,” was the reply. “Search him,
Parler!”

The pockets of the outlaw were soon emptied, but they revealed
little.

“Have you anything to say?” asked Cloud.

“To say! What shonld I say?” replied the outlaw, looking
dubiously.

“I thought you might have some confession to make; but if
you haven't, better say your prayers, quickly.”

“My prayers! Why, do you mean to kill me without any
trial?” The prisoner's voice grew husky.

“You have been tried long ago, and condemned. Be quick.
You're to die now. If you have any prayers to say, the sooner
you set about it the better.”

“You're in airnest, air you?” demanded the outlaw.

“Yes! Have to be! Say your prayers.”

“I kaint, and I wont! Ef I'm to hang, why I kaint help
it. Do your d—dest!”

In five minutes after, the miserable wretch was convulsively
shivering from a swinging limb of the forest, and Cloud and his
companion were riding briskly off to join their comrades.