University of Virginia Library

30. CHAPTER XXX.
HOW LOVERS MAY FORGET THEMSELVES.

The cool, sarcastic, contemptuous tyranny of Inglehardt,
was momently strengthening the resolution of resistance and
rebellion in the heart of Travis; and preparing him to second
the desires — whatever they might be — of Willie Sinclair and
his associates.

“Curse him to his marrow!” he muttered as he left the village.
“He shall pay for all this insolence before I'm done
with him. Let this arrangement but ripen — let me but blind
him for the present, and I shall have my revenge out of him.”

He rode briskly until he had nearly reached the spot where
he expected to meet Willie Sinclair, when he subdued his paces,
and was, after a little while, joined by the person he expected.
Then he dismounted and led his horse into the woods.

“Well, major,” said he impatiently — “have you heard? Is
all right? Shall I have the meeting.”

“Yes: to-morrow, at three in the afternoon, at Holly-Dale.
Abram will bring him across in the dug-out.”

“You will be present.”

“Not at your conference, of course, which I suppose you
desire should be private; but I will be in the neighborhood.
I must keep good watch to see that he suffers no harm.”

“You do not doubt my good faith, major. By Heaven, sir,
you will find me true. My feelings and policy go together
here.”

“I trust so; I believe you: but you can only assure me of
yourself. I must make sure against all others. This man
Inglehardt has increased his troop. He may be suspicious.
He could be troublesome.”

“He has no suspicion of you — none of our project — he may
have of me. But I flatter myself I have shut up his eyes, or
diverted them to another quarter. I have told him that Coulter
is in the river swamp below, and this offers him a new subject
for anxiety.”

“But why tell him that?”

“It can do no harm to Coulter, and I told Inglehardt just
enough of the truth to lead him into a snare. Instead of
twenty-five troopers which is the least force of Coulter, I said he
had only ten or a dozen; and instead of Chevillette's and
Barton's, I represented him as harboring considerably beyond.”

“I suspect he knows better. He has his own scouts below.
There were two of them scouting down the Charleston road
to-day.”

“He has no scouts worth a copper.”

“Still, it is something of an error with politicians to refine
too much. I hope you did not intrude your intelligence urgently.
He had probably heard of Coulter from other quarters.”

“So I thought; and hence my information. That it was
already known to him, was not a fact to be known to me. That
I told him what I did know, and what he would be likely to
suppose that I knew, was calculated to do away with all doubt
that I was dealing honestly with him. No harm can come of
it, I think.”

“Perhaps not — I hope not! Still, I would stake nothing
unnecessarily, nothing for which the game does not absolutely
call. But I must leave you. All is sufficiently understood between
us. You will look for us at three to-morrow.”

We need not report more of their dialogue. The parties
separated; Sinclair riding below, in the direction of Orangeburg;
Travis speeding homeward at a smart canter.

The conference had taken place in the thicket just below
the “Four-mile Branch,” a place that seemed to promise perfect
secrecy. Everything was quiet when they reached the spot,

which might have been a hundred yards distant from the
road. On one side of them ran the branch. Between them
and the road spread a thick bay, on the edge of which, seated
on a log, and holding the bridle of their horses, they communed
together. Here not a murmur was to be heard saving
their own voices. The air was hushed. The bay was the
abiding place only of the reptile and the wild cat. We have
heard what was said between them, of interest to this progress.
Unfortunately, amid all this silence and seeming security, it
was heard by other ears. Scarcely had they ridden out of
sight when a wild and savage-looking being, huge of limb,
brutal of aspect, in ragged garments, but armed with pistols
and knife, started out of the bushes, not ten steps from the spot
where they had been seated. He had heard every syllable.
It had been easy for him to have shot them both down with a
single bullet; but this was by no means his policy. Their secret
was of much more importance to his interests than their lives.
Then, too, there was some peril in any more demonstrative
course. Had his pistol missed fire, his own fate was certain.

The savage being thus emerging from the thicket, was no
less a personage than “Hell-fire Dick” — a cognomen which he
had learned to prize as of more value, and more distinction
than the innocent name of Joel Andrews received from his
parents.

“Ho! ho! ho! hain't I got you now, Cappin Travis. Won't
it be nuts for Dick Inglehardt, what I has to tell him. And
you, too, Willie Sinclair!— I reckon I has you, too, under the
saddle! I reckon I'll hev' a ride on both o' your necks by
three o'clock to-morrow. Well! if this news don't set me all
right with Cappin Inglehardt, for the matter of that desartion,
and git me some good gould guineas besides, I'm never no
more to be in the way of good luck, and I may as well give up
trying.

“Now, who'd a thought I'd ha' cotched Willie Sinclair hyar,
when he's throw'd me off his trail everywhar else? Jest when
I was a sleeping too. Well, it's a sign that I'm to hev' a
chaince of good fortin again; and I'll be at her like a man
that knows she's worth a tussle.

“And how shill it be?”

And he mused awhile, sitting upon the same tree which Sinclair
and Travis had so lately occupied.

“It's no use to let Rafe Brunson know about this diskivery.
Dick Inglehardt never pays too freely, and the diskivery is all
my own. Why should I give the `Trailer' any of my own
hard airnings? And whar's he jist now, even ef I was to look
a'ter him. May be some five miles off, and whar? Ef I goes
about making signals in these woods, who knows but I may start
up a dozen of Sinclair's scouts. Tain't reasonable for me to do
that. I could have shot him and Travis both — always supposing
that the we'pon didn't miss fire, but there mought be a
dozen troopers closing in upon me from the road. Oh! ef I
could find out where Sinclair has hid away that hundred guineas
that he tuk from Pete Blodgit. In course, he aint a-riding
about with it now. That chaince is done and gone, clear.
And what's the chaince now? Why to catch them two conspirating
rebels in the same net. That's the how; and the
way to do it is to see Cappin Inglehardt.

“But what if he axes me about that desartion, and is wanting
to be hard upon me. I must make tarms with him first. Yes,
that's the way with him. He'd be mighty smooth with me till
he'd sucked out my secrets, and then he'd put on a grand look,
and talk of example, and how decent and proper 'twas to hang
a man for desarting, jist to encourage other desarters. I must
hev' tarms with our ily tongue cappin.

“Ha! and thar's that matter about Coulter. So he's about
again — and I suppose harboring in `Bear Castle.' He ought
to build and settle thar, now that they call him the hero of
`Bear Castle.' He kin fight and he will, and ef he's got
thirty men with him, I reckon he's a-preparing now to make
a dash at Inglehardt. And our cappin wants all the men he
kin git. He'll be glad enough to hev' me and the Trailer back
agin in his ranks. He knows what I am for an orderly, and he
knows what the Trailer is for a scout. We air as good as any
other six fellows he could pick up, and stout fellows air a gitting
scarce in these parts. I see my way pretty cl'ar now.”

Suffice it that our Dick of Tophet deliberately arranged all
the argument, with which to win his way back to the favor of
Captain Inglehardt, before rising from his seat. When he had

fully conned his part he got up, moved to the opposite side of
the bay and brought out the little hackney of a horse, of which
he had dispossessed Blodgit so unscrupulously. He mounted,
and took his way down for Orangeburg, avoiding the public
road as much as possible, and proceeding so slowly as to have
the cloak of night about him before penetrating the village.

Sinclair, meanwhile, never once apprehending this new danger,
sped downward, also, until he reached the forks of the
road near Pen Branch, when he turned to the right, and sped
in a northwest direction for a mile. Here he turned into the
woods, found a hollow tree, which delivered him a letter, possessed
himself of its contents, and having destroyed it, wheeled
about, and returned upon his own steps till he gained the point
where he had been accustomed to ford the river. By this time
it was dark, and objects were discerned indistinctly. He, however,
rode on through the woods, which he thoroughly knew,
at a trot, and was just descending the hill-slope to the swamp,
when a pistol bullet whistled by his ears, the dull report, without
echoes, following a moment after.

His blood was roused. To dash into the thicket, on his right,
whence the shot issued, was his first instinct, but he felt, the
next moment, how absurd would be any attempt to discover
the assassin in such a thicket, and amidst the increasing darkness.
He gave but a single frowning glance at the dense harborage,
and congratulating himself upon his escape, he sped
forward with as much haste as the forest would permit, and was
soon beyond the reach of any similar salutation from the same
hands.

“Missed him, by jingo!” quoth the Trailer, rising from his
perch some twenty steps from the spot where Sinclair had passed.

“Dern the puppies! I don't believe in pistols no how. But
I thought I had him dead. I never was good at no kind of
shooting we'pon, and I don't think it's the business of a trailer
to fight. He's only got to trail, and scent, and scout. Now if
Hell-fire Dick had been hyar, we'd ha' fixed him. But we've
got his track agin, and that's something. I wander ef he's got
them guineas in his pouch yit?”

Our major bore a charmed life. He crossed the river in
safety, and was soon in the camp with Abram.

“No tidings yet of Ballou, 'Bram?”

“Nebber yar not'ing 'bout 'em, maussa. I feard, ef he ain't
drunk someway in de woods, dem tory ob Ingl'art got em.”

Sinclair mused.

“'Bram!” said he, “there are enemies on our track. I have
just escaped a pistol-shot.”

“De Lawd be praise! Whay, maussa?”

Sinclair described the spot. 'Bram knew instantly what was
to be done, and girded himself up accordingly for the trail.
“Fight fire with fire,” is the forest maxim. Let the scout track
the scout. Though not equal to Ballou, not equal to “the
Trailer,” 'Bram had a good nose, was untiring, sagacious, vigilant,
quick to follow, and keen to find.

“I mus' look a'ter dis pistol-pusson,” said he quietly.

“Yes, 'Bram, that is what you are now to do; but the
course for you is down to Holly-Dale. You must cross with
me. I shall be about the bluff till midnight, and if you can get
up to me by that hour, we shall recross together. We have
got too much work to-morrow not to need all the sleep we can
get to-night, and my eyes are even now drawing straws.”

The canoe was put out with the two in it, passed rapidly over
to the other side, and fastened out of sight among the swamp
willows at the foot of the bluff. Sinclair gave full directions to
the negro, and the stout and faithful fellow had soon buried
himself in the thickets below Holly-Dale, and was working his
way downward, sly as a fox, stealthy as a serpent, and keen-eyed
as a lynx. He had some two miles to go before he could
reach the spot where Sinclair had escaped his peril. We need
not follow him. His master had ascended the bluff meanwhile,
and stolen off to a little grove of cedars, where he was wont to
meet with Bertha Travis and her brother. Here he laid himself
down to wait. He looked up through the green foliage, at
the stars, out upon the river, gliding downward with a pleasant
murmur, softly bright, darkly clear, and with a wing of cooling
speeding over its surface from the east. That breeze was
full of the inspiring sense of life. He threw his bosom wide
to its penetrating freshness. His day had been one of toil, beneath
a sky that seemed all one sun. He had scarcely rested
from motion one hour in the twelve; and the present respite,

in that cool breeze, was something more than relief. It won
him from musing into dreaming, in which all the images were
delicious.

After a while two figures emerged from the grove, and came
out upon the bluff. They were Bertha and Henry Travis.

“He is not here,” said the boy.

“He is among the cedars,” answered the girl, and they turned
to the left, and moved down the slope leading to the swamp,
where the cedars grew most thickly, the boy leading the way,
the girl following slowly. In a few moments he hurried to her
and said in a whisper: —

“Oh! Bertha, would you believe it, he is asleep under the
cedars, sound asleep! Who would believe it. I thought a
trooper never slept.”

And he laughed merrily at his own notion. The girl hesitated
for a moment. But why? Ask that inscrutable little
deity who occupies so gladly the vacant places in a virgin's
heart, to unfold to you the mystery of his rule, and the caprice
which marks his impulse. There was some little strange conceit
of maidenhood which made Bertha Travis reluctant to look
upon her lover sleeping. It was a new situation in which to
see him.

But Henry pulled her forward.

“Only think, a great dragoon officer asleep on his post.”

“He must be very tired, Henry. Besides, he is not now on
duty.”

“Indeed!” said the boy pertly — “but you know nothing
about it. He told me himself that he was never on severer
duty than now.”

“And it has exhausted him.”

“We must wake him up.”

“No! Let him sleep. He must be very much tired to sink
down and sleep here.”

The girl might well say that. Sinclair had never dreamed
that he should be so surprised by the velvet-footed god, on the
very threshold of his sweetheart's dwelling, and when he came
especially to see her.

“But suppose he should be surprised, Bertha, by some of
these scouters? Who knows? They're all about.”

“We'll watch for him, Henry,” said the girl. “He must be
very tired to fall asleep here.”

Surely, Bertha, no conclusion could be more logical.

“Very well! I'll keep sentry along that wood. You watch
here, Bertha, and when I give the alarm, and fire off my piece,
do you prepare to rouse him and run. Take right down the
slope for the swamp; you'll find the dug-out down among the
willows, and push right out into the stream.”

The boy was anxious to feel his responsibilities, and to prove
that he was equal to them. The damsel laughed.

“Where's your piece, Henry?”

“Oh! never mind. I only used the military phrase. When
I give tongue and shout, you may know that the enemy is
upon us.”

And the boy marched away full of dignity, and took post
along the edge of the wood. Bertha walked around her lover,
looked down upon him, stole nearer, looked out to see if Henry's
eyes could watch her as well as the wood, and, seemingly satisfied
of the impossibility of his doing the feat, she suffered herself
to sink down near the head of our sleeping dragoon.

Sinclair slept profoundly, breathing easily and gently, as if
no load lay upon his chest or conscience. Bertha watched the
noble ingenuous face as it lay revealed beneath the starlight,
and she thought — ah! that is beyond us — we really know not
what she thought. But unquestionably thought was busy in her
little brain, and feeling in her heart. The picture made her
think. The feminine mind thinks through pictures, precisely
as does that of genius; hence the delicacy of genius — its exquisite
sensibilities which can appreciate the most delicate
sympathies in humanity. It is because of the feminine element,
which distinguishes the true genius always. It is the soul informing
the sensuous.

We have no right to pry into Bertha's thoughts, but we may
watch her conduct. She gazed, for long, upon the face of the
sleeper, seeming never weary of the gaze; after awhile her
hands lifted his hair — he had made a pillow of his cap — and
drew out the long masses, which had grown in the busy excitements
of war, which left no time for the toilet, almost as long
as those of Absalom or Samson; and, playing with his hair, and

looking in his face — Bertha finally — slept also! — her head
being quietly suffered to rest beside her lover's — while one of
her arms — of course without her consciousness — stretched over
and rested upon his bosom. Was ever such a situation!

Let us leave them for a space — leave Henry Travis diligently
playing sentinel, and look after the scouting negro 'Bram.

He was not successful. “The Trailer,” after the escape of
Sinclair, had contented himself with marking the trail, and then
changed his ground. As a good scout, he knew too well the
danger of lingering too long in the old form. He had mounted
and made off within a quarter of an hour after.

But 'Bram snaked the precinct for a couple of tedious hours.
He had just resolved to give up the search, and return to his
master, when, stretching out his body, for relief from the contracted
position, he felt a heavy hand laid upon his shoulder
from behind. The heart of the negro was in his mouth in an
instant. He knew that the enemy, if such he were, had him at
great advantage, and with a grunt, he muttered in low tones: —

“Who dat?”

He was relieved by a good-humored but subdued laugh, in
the well-known voice of Jim Ballou.

“And I say, nigger, is that the way you do your scouting,
grunting as you go — as you go — just like a lazy hog in scarce
acorn time? I know'd you by the grunt, twenty yards off. I
did — twenty yards off.”

“Ha! I so glad. I bin 'feard, Ballou, when you put you'
paw 'pon my shoulder, 'twa some ob dem d—m' Ingl'art tory.
I so glad 'tis you. And whay de debble you bin all dis time?”

“That's what we may talk about, old fellow, when we get to
camp — get to camp! Where's the major now?”

“I leff him on de Bluff at Holly-Dale.”

“Well, let's go there — go!”

And thither they went.

Our young self-appointed sentinel, Henry Travis, was at his
post, pacing to and fro along the edge of the wood, satisfied
that he was doing great things, and doing them excellently
well. His imagination was picturing to his eyes, a future
career in arms, in which he was to become the observed of
all observers. He was achieving brilliant enterprises; passing

rapidly through all grades of promotion; he was already
a colonel of cavalry, and calculating a quick passage over
the interval separating him still from the command of a brigade.
That was certain, however. Oh! the dream of youth!
how pleasantly it persuades the hope over that dreary Zahara,
which teaches us the sternness of truth, in its naked
simplicity, at such perilous cost — that experience which young
men too little value, and old men are apt to value too much!

Just then, the boy was made a prisoner — clasped tenaciously
in a pair of rough arms, against which his struggles were of as
much avail as those of a butterfly in the vice of a blacksmith.

What an empire of dream was upset in a moment. The
colonel was a prisoner — the hope of the brigadiership was gone
— gone — gone! So complete was the surprise that the poor
sentinel totally forgot to discharge his piece — that is, forgot
that he had need to shout his loudest, to apprize the sleeping
dragoon of his enemy. Before he quite recovered himself to
halloo — he kicked and struggled lustily, however, in silence —
the merry chuckle of 'Bram relieved him, and he was released.
His captor was Jim Ballou, who said to him:—

“It takes a good deal, Master Henry, to make a sodger; and
to be a good sentinel a man ought to be a good sodger. It's mighty
hard to keep down thinking when a man's a watching, and yet
to be thinking at such a time is apt to turn out mighty poor
watching — poor watching. You see how easy it was to captivate
you.”

“But how could you come up and I not hear you, Mr. Ballou?”

“That's an art in scouting, Master Henry, and if Jim Ballou
is good for anything it is scouting. I'm a sort of born scout —
a born scout — it comes from natur, mostly, though one has a
great deal to larn to make natur perfect — perfect. But where's
the major?”

“He's sleeping yonder down among the cedars. He was so
tired. We found him asleep, and sister said she'd watch by
him, and I was to watch the wood, and I did think I was watching
closely, and to be so caught!”

The boy was mortified. It was, indeed, something of a fall
from the brilliant progress to a colonelcy, with a brigadiership
in the vista, into sudden and unexpected captivity.

“Never you mind, Master Henry,” said the scout consoling
him. “No man can be made a sodger in a day, or a year. It's
a business for a good long life. It's easier a great deal for a
young man to fight than to watch. You must keep his blood on
a boil if you want good work out of him. On a boil, I say. If
you don't — if you let the fire burn down, he'll be looking out
for the stars, and walk into the pit — into the pit. Five years
sodgering is needful to make a fellow even a good sentinel, and
it takes more than that a great deal to make a scout. You'll
do better on a charge than on a post, Master Henry, and you
needn't get vexed with yourself, or feel ashamed that you ain't
a perfect sodger at the beginning of the war. I ain't afeard
that you won't make a good one in time — good in time. You'll
do! you will! But let's look up the major now. He's got to
open his eyes — yes, open his eyes, now.”

The three walked together across the bluff toward the cedars,
and Sinclair and Bertha still lay sleeping side by side, her
slender arm across his herculean breast.

“Why, they're both asleep!” cried Henry.

“Yes, who'd believe it!” responded Ballou. “It's a pictur'
of the babies in the wood — babies in the wood.”

“How dat, Jim Ballou!” quoth 'Bram, indignant. “You call
big man like dat baby?”

“Man or baby, he must up and be a-doing. Hello, major!
Hello! and heave up!”

With a fling that shook the arm of Bertha from his bosom,
Sinclair leaped to his feet, and drew his pistols.

“Friends, major,” said Ballou, “friends.”

“How! what's this, Ballou?” Then seeing Bertha, now
starting up and rising, bewildered rather than ashamed at her
situation. “Ha! you too, Bertha?” And he clasped her in his
arms.

“When did you come?”

She could tell him nothing. They had both slept three hours
at least, and merrily did Henry Travis laugh, and pleasant were
the mutual chucklings of Ballou and 'Bram, as they thought of
the discovery.

Poor Bertha knew not what to say. Of course she tried to
explain and to understand. She had watched, she knew not

how long, and still he slept. And everything was so quiet, and
Henry was on the watch — and — and —

“Say no more, dear heart,” said Sinclair, taking her long
tresses into his hands — they had escaped the comb while she
slept —“Say no more! I am only vexed with myself that I
should sleep like a dullard, without once dreaming what a dear
companion was at my side. And what news, Ballou? Where
have you harbored so long?”

I reckon, major, you begun to think I had fallen back upon
the Jamaica.”

“I confess, Ballou, such were my fears!”

“I know'd it! I know'd it! But you were wrong. Hadn't
I made an eternal oath, and didn't I call upon the Lord himself
to be a witness? When I break that oath, major, I'm a lost
sinner! No! I hain't had a drop to drink, and not always a
mouthful to eat. I've had hard work, and was so bewildered
between the two rapscallions, Devil Dick and the Trailer, that
I couldn't get to you. I wished a thousand times that I could
split myself into three — into three — split myself into three
parts — and each of them a good Jim Ballou scout — that I
might do the thing clean. 'Twas work, sir — work! And we've
all got to work, sir. There's trouble in the wind, sir — in the
wind.”

And the party seated themselves while Jim Ballou told the
story of his progress from the moment of his start, on the trail
of the two outlaws. We shall have to abridge this narrative to
our limits, though Sinclair found it an interesting one, as did
Bertha and Henry Travis.