University of Virginia Library

12. CHAPTER XII.
THE GALLOWS-BIRD'S GLIMPSES OF THE GALLOWS.

Satisfied with what he had done — with the information
gained — and the encouraging hope which he had contrived to
whisper into the ears of the prisoner Travis, Ballou descended
from his perch above the chimney, and was about to go back
where he had left his steed, when the suggestion occurred to
him, that he might, by possibility, with skill, diligence, and
good luck, succeed in extricating the boy, Henry Travis, from
the clutches of his captors.

“He'll be kept, I reckon, in the camp of Devil-Dick and
the Trailer. Now, if they should only get drunk — eh?
What might be done! Monongahela or Jamaica — strong
drink's a power of great virtue — great virtue! I should monstrously
like, now, jest to smell at an empty bottle!”

And he snuffed with all his nostrils.

“But, it must be an empty one! 'Twould be too great a trial
of strength to have a full bottle put before me now. Hard
work, a long day's ride, and no supper! Not a bite! A full
bottle now would be, would be a most immortal temptation.”

And the scout sighed involuntarily, as his imagination regaled
his appetite and stimulated it. He continued his musings, with
a difference.

“Now, if I could find these two blackguards out and out
drunk, I could carry off that dear little fellow from between
'em, and never make an eyelid wink!”

The long experience of the scout, his great skill, his perfect
knowledge of the localities, and his ambition — to say nothing
of his sympathies with the boy — all prompted him to make the

suggested trial of his skill; and he at once proceeded on the
adventure. How he snaked, and moled, and cooned — going
through all the degrees essential to a scout's diploma — through
all varieties of swamp and thicket — we need not undertake to
narrate. Enough, that he found it impossible to make a sufficiently
near approach, under cover, to the camp where the
party lay. In every effort, he found the watchers on the alert.

“It's clear that they have only had a smart taste of the
whiskey. Neither the Trailer nor Devil-Dick's the man to
stop short of regular drunk, if the liquor is to be had. They've
had but a single bottle, and that's gone!”

He made the rounds of their encampment; saw Inglehardt
once more enter the cabin of 'Bram; and shrewdly conjectured
that it was his purpose to occupy one of its apartments that
night, while Travis held possession of the other. Having made
all his observations, Ballou quietly stole off through the swamp
below, until he reached the place where his horse had been
picketed. He saddled the beast, cantered off three miles upward,
and made his own bivouac in the forests, at that safe distance
from the camp of the enemy. By next day's dawn, he
was again upon the road, and pushing upward in the direction
of Orangeburg. Of course, he knew nothing of the events
which had taken place in that precinct, immediately after his
departure from Holly-Dale. He was now to find Sinclair and
report his progress; a matter of time and some little danger.

Leaving him to pursue his way, after his own fashion, it is
proper that we should renew our intercourse with some of the
other parties whom we have left upon the road.

Mat Floyd, we have seen persuaded to attempt an adventure
in which all the other followers of Jeff Rhodes had failed. Mat
was not more successful in the enterprise, though he fancied
that he deserved to be. His search had been more thorough,
as well at Holly-Dale as in Orangeburg itself. There, he had
an ancient acquaintance, a fellow named Dill, who was something
of a paralytic; had lost, in a great degree, the use of his
limbs, and remained, as an object of commiseration, free from
any disturbance by either party. But Dill was not less a
scamp because he was a paralytic; and his cupidity was an
invigorating passion which enabled him to use his limbs for his

own purposes, when no power of the church could have enabled
him to do so, even to bring wood to the altar. Dill carried on
a small business in contraband Jamaica, which was usually
smuggled up the Edisto by confederates. With this potent
beverage he contrived to make joyous the spirits of the runagate
drudges of all parties, as they severally occupied the village.
We are afraid, if the truth were known, that it sometimes
happened to Mat Floyd, to facilitate the operations of Israel
Dill. Jeff Rhodes, in his time, had brought the boy to a good
many strange experiences. Dill harbored Mat, on his present
visit; and Mat — could he do less? — assisted Dill in serving
out his beverages, to sundry scores of wild Irish, whom Rawdon's
orderlies were vainly endeavoring to subdue to the sober
paces of the drill. It was Dill versus Drill. The influences exercised
upon them, by Israel's Jamaica, were in conflict with
Rawdon's regulations. A riot ensued — a mutiny in which a
couple of the poor Hibernians were shot down, after bayoneting
one of their officers, and a third was hung up in front of
the jail, and looking to the river, by way of encouraging the
others in a better taste for innocent water.

Mat Floyd had a terrible fright in consequence. He witnessed
a portion of the fray, which, at one time, promised to
involve the whole army; made his escape to the river swamp,
with the spectacle of the hanging man continually passing before
the eyes of his mind; and was thus painfully reminded of
the predictions of Nelly Floyd in respect to his own fate. He
brought away with him, however, a bottle of Dill's Jamaica, the
gift of that liberal companion, whom he left in the swamp,
whither he had fled, also, with a reasonable fear that some of
the mutineers might be ungrateful enough to reveal, to the
British officers, the source from which they obtained the virtuous
liquor which had made them so vicious.

Mat Floyd, on separating from Israel Dill, which he did toward
midnight, naturally felt exceedingly lonesome. Besides,
in the hurry of their flight, the contrabandistas had been suffered
no time for supper. Alcohol was required to supply the
place of food; and Israel and Mat drank lovingly together at
the moment of separation. Having a bottle of his own, Mat
felt that he needed more food when alone. He drank by the

wayside, when, having gained a cover, some two miles east of
Orangeburg, he began to feel a little drowsy. It had been his
purpose to sleep with his friend Israel that night, and lodge
with him the next day, using Israel to make a search after
Travis through the tents and lounging-places of the military.
The riot, which had so alarmed and driven them forth, had forfeited
his contemplated sleeping-place. Fatigue, fright, and
the Jamaica he had drunk, now combined to render sleep an
absolute necessity, and picking out a spot of select obscurities
in the woods, Mat threw himself down utterly resigned to the
grateful drowse that was already fast taking possession of his
senses. A single shaft of the sun shooting obliquely through
the tree-tops, in the morning, penetrated one of his eyes, and
opened it to the day; and, somewhat stupidly, Mat Floyd
opened the other; and slowly, and rather stiffly, he raised
himself up from the earth. The first object that met his sight
was the bottle of Jamaica, which, though a spirit, had slept beside
him all night, as sluggishly as himself. Mat felt heavy,
and he knew that spirit was light. He felt too that the spirit
had rather bitten him the night before, and he remembered the
vulgar proverb — “The hair of the dog is good for his bite.”
So Mat renewed his potations, and felt better, but still sluggish.
He lay among the shadows, suffering the sun to make
rapid advances, and occasionally applying the hair of the animal
to his hurt, with the view to perfect healing. His draughts
increased the activity of his meditative powers. He recalled
the terrible scene of the previous day which had so much
alarmed him. Once more he beheld the hanging man struggling
in his death agonies; and he recalled the fearful prediction
of Nelly Floyd. His disquiet became so great that he
nervously swallowed another mouthful from the bottle, while
his reflections declared themselves in open soliloquy.

“I know'd there was danger. I told Jeff Rhodes so. I'll
not go no more. Let him go for himself. He's as fit to hang
as me. He'll hang easier, for he's heavier, and the first jirk of
the drop will be sure to crack his neck. But it would be a
cruel siffocating affair with me. Nelly said she seed me all
black in the face. That's a sign of siffocation — bloody siffocation.
H—l! and when I knows that's my danger, what for

should I go to Orangeburg, or any whar', to run my neck into
the noose with my eyes open all the time? Let Jeff Rhodes
try it for himself. He's jest for using my fingers to take his
groundnuts out of the fire. Let him pull out for himself and
feel the fire how it tastes.

“And I'm to hang, Nelly says!

“I don't believe it! I don't feel like it; and won't, so long as
I kin draw a sight or use a knife. It's only to skeer me off
from Rhodes that she tells that story. Skeer me, indeed! As
ef I was to be skeer'd by sich an owl as that!”

Here he took another taste of the Jamaica, by way of asserting
his courage, and confirming it.

“But I knows what Nelly's after. She has no love for Jeff
Rhodes. She wants to git me off from him. But it can't be
did, Nelly. No! no! my gal, I'm not guine to leave off a
business that pays me in sich pretty little yellow boys as
this.”

Here he pulled a leather purse from his pocket, jingled it,
and poured out the contents, some half dozen guineas, the fruit
of the recent spoliation of Mrs. Travis, into his hands.

“No! no! Nelly, the business pays too well. You needn't
try to skeer me from it. I'm not to be skeer'd. Hanging, do
you say? Siffocation! No! no! when it comes to that, knife
and pistol shall talk a bit first, and them that would hang Mat
Floyd must first be able to take him alive. They'll not find it
easy, I reckon, though they come twenty to one! Ef it's killing,
why, that's another question. The man that sets out to
be a sodger, must calkilate that there's some danger in the business.
Shot and bagnet are the nateral dangers of war-time, but
that don't mean siffocation by the rope. Dang the rope! What
did Nelly tell me about the rope for? To skeer me? Skeer
me! Ha! ha! ha! How these fool gals do talk; and
Nelly's mad — that's sartin. Poor Nelly — mad or not — she's
a good gal, and loves me. But she musn't try to skeer me,
that's all. I'm not so skeery, Nelly!”

And another sup of the Jamaica restored him to all his confidence,
and he stumbled up from the ground, caught his horse
which had been grazing contentedly along the grassy slopes,
and proceeded to mount, which he did with such an effort as

nearly to achieve that result of excessive ambition, which, as
Shakspere tells us —
It was fully ten o'clock when our young sinner, forgetting all
his fears of “siffocation,” proceeded on his way through the
woods at a short distance from the road.

Suddenly he heard the tramp of a horse just behind him, and
thrust his hand into his pocket for his pistol. Possessed of this,
he wheeled about and lifted the weapon. The laugh of Nelly
Floyd herself reassured him; and the next moment, riding up,
she exclaimed —

“Why, Mat, what sort of weapon is that which you carry?”

It was only when this question was asked him, that he became
conscious that, instead of a pistol, he had grasped by the
neck, and presented at the supposed enemy, the bulky butt of
his Jamaica bottle! The fellow was not too drunk or stupid
not to feel his face flush with shame at the revelation he had
made; and it didn't need his words —

“Why, Nelly, gal, how you skeer'd me!” — to make her
comprehend his half-besotted condition.

“Mat, Mat, you've been drinking! You are drunk.”

This was said with a sort of horror in her voice. She had
never seen him thus before.

“Drunk? By —, Nelly, ef any man had called me drunk,
I'd ha' been into him with a bloody spur!”

“And if any man had called you so, Mat, he'd have spoken
nothing but the truth. Oh, Mat, Mat, can it be possible that
Jeff Rhodes has brought you to this already?”

“Look you, Nelly, Jeff Rhodes ain't my master, to bring me
to anything I don't like.”

“I'm glad to hear that, Mat; but I'm sorry that you bring
yourself to do wrong, and that you like what is such an enemy
to your safety. But I'm sure you owe it all to your connection
with Rhodes. You never drank liquor when you lived with
Mother Ford.”

“Psho! you're talking of the time when I was a boy, Nelly.”

“When you were a good boy, Mat.”

“Well, it stands to reason when a man grows up, he kain't
be quite so good as when he was a boy. What's not right for
the boy to do, a man kin do when there's a needcessity for it.”

“But where's the necessity that you should get drunk, Mat?”

“Drunk? Don't say it agin, Nelly! I despise the word.”

“I would much rather that you should despise the thing.”

“I ain't drunk! I've jest been keeping my sperrits up, Nelly.
I've been pretty nigh to a fix. I've been in Orangeburg, gal,
and — hark ye — I seed a man hanging, gal — hanging by the
neck, ontil he was dead, dead, dead! and God ha' marcy on
his soul!”

This was spoken in a husky whisper — the speaker bending
toward her, his eyes dilating, and his whole face assuming an
expression of fearful interest in the event he described. The
girl started back in horror.

“Good Heavens, Mat! you've been in Orangeburg, where
the red-coats are — when you knew what I warned you of —
that they were the British whom I saw haling you to the gallows.
And you saw a man hung there!”

“Yes, but 'twa'n't me, Nelly, gal; 'twas a young Irishman.
The rope's not wove yet that's to make my cravat.”

“A man hung! and was it not rum that hung him? Had he
not been drinking, rioting, mutineering, murdering — and was he
not drunk — drunk — drunk?”

“Why, you're a witch! How could you know?” he exclaimed,
in half-stupid wonderment.

“And it will be the rum that will lead you to the gallows.
Fool, fool! besotted fool! The rope is weaving in your pocket
which shall hang you. Do you not see? But a moment ago,
when I came suddenly upon you, and you thought me an enemy,
instead of a weapon you presented the wretched bottle at
my head. What if I had been a soldier, an enemy, armed?
Could I not have cut you down, or shot you dead, before you
could have discovered your error, and drawn forth your pistol?”

“True, by blazes, Nelly!”

“Give me the bottle, Mat.”

“What, the bottle? Well, you shall have it, gal” — drawing
it forth — “but, first — jest one more sup left!” — and he thrust
the mouth of the bottle into his own, and swallowed the remaining

contents at a gulp. The girl caught the bottle from his
hand, and hurled it into the woods. With a hoarse, muddled
laugh, the poor wretch cried out:—

“Oh, you reckon you've done great things, Nelly, but there
ain't a drop left, not a drop! None's lost — none's lost!”

In tones of genuine anguish, the poor girl cried to him:—

“Matty, my dear brother, go home with me to Mother Ford's;
go with me, and be safe. Every step you take with Jeff Rhodes
is a step toward the halter.”

“Oh, none of that, no more, Nelly! That's an old song.
You kain't skeer me any more with that blear eye. Owls don't
hoot for much. I don't believe in owls:—

“And that reminds me, Nelly, of the swamp — old Cawcaw!
'Twas called so, I reckon, bekaise the crows had some famous
big settlement thar! Well, where's Lem Watkins, and them
Flurrida riffigees? I hear they're a-scouting about the Edisto
yet — somewhere below. I'm doing a better business now,
Nelly — gitting the real gould guineas by the handful, Nelly —
by the handful!”

“Ay, by highway robbery!”

“What! who says that?”

“I say it.”

“Look you, Nelly, don't go too fur, or I'll be apt to hit you
a clip. Don't provocate me. I'm no highway robber, I'll let
you know, but a preferable loyalist of his majesty's loyal rangers.
I'm a sergeant — hiccough!”

“Mat, you've helped to rob and to abduct two ladies, travelling
in a private carriage along the Cawcaw. Don't deny it,
Mat. Don't lie to your sister!”

Half fuddled as he was, the fellow looked aghast.

“How the h—l could you hear of that? It's the devil — the
old devil himself — that tells you everything, Nelly!”

“It is true, then — true, true, true! And you, Mat Floyd,

have suffered this wretched old villain Rhodes to lead you to
highway robbery! Oh, my brother, don't you see that, without
even a military sanction — without a captain's commission
even — you have done an act which only needs to be proven,
to insure you the very doom of the halter, which is the one danger,
above all, of which I have told you?”

“And who seed, and who's to prove it, I wants to know?”

“God saw — God will prove it.”

“Oh, git out, Nelly! Don't you 'member telling Jeff Rhodes
the same thing about God seeing, and God proving? And what
did old Jeff say? Why, he said, `I reckon they wouldn't take
his evidence in any court in the country.' Ha! ha! ha! Bible
law and God's evidence kain't stand in any Christian court in
this country.”

“Silence, blasphemer! Oh, blind fool that you are, why will
you listen to Jeff Rhodes and his blasphemies?”

“I tell you, Jeff's a lawyer by nater. He's a nateral lawyer.
Why, lying comes to him like a gift! He kin lie through
a millstone any day. Ha! ef Jeff had lawyer edication, he'd
be h—l on a trial.”

“He's your hell, Mat Floyd — he's devil enough to lead you
to destruction! Once more, my brother, hear to me, before
that vile wretch hurries you to the halter.”

“D—n the halter! Who's afeard of the halter? You talks,
Nelly, as ef I was a born and blasted coward. D—n the halter.
I ain't afeard! No siffocation for me. That's for the halter,”
and he snapped his fingers in her face.

“Mat, my brother, leave this villain Rhodes. He'll be your
ruin. If you break off from him now, and go home with me,
and keep quiet awhile, all will go right. But if you do not,
then God only knows what will be your doom. I tell you that
you are in danger. Marion's men are now in search after those
two poor ladies whom you and Jeff Rhodes have carried off.
Deliver up those ladies, show me where you have carried them,
and I will get you into the army of General Marion.”

“You! what do you know about the army of Marion? Psho,
gal! You don't know what you're a-talking about. Git out.
You're a woman, and kain't onderstand the business affairs of
men and sodgers. Git out. Go about your business. Git off

to Mother Ford, and — here — here's a gould guinea for you.
When you get out of that, let me know, and I'll give you more.
There now! Good-by, Nelly — you're a good gal, but mighty
foolish.”

And fancying that he gave it to her, he thrust the guinea
back into his pouch.

“Mat, dear Mat, won't you let those ladies go free? Tell
me where they are.”

He put his finger to his eye, with maudlin cunning — as he
said:—

“You're mighty smart, Nelly, but don't know nothing, no
how. Go long, gal, home to old Mother Ford. Give her the
guinea, and tell her to buy herself a coat and new breeches. I
reckon she wants 'em. Good-by, gal — God bless you — and
be off.”

“Mat, my brother —”

“'Nough now, Nelly.”

“Oh! Mat, let me save you from this danger, this doom, this
terrible and shameful death. Oh! my brother, it is for ever before
my sight — day and night — sleeping and waking, I behold
the horrid vision — I see you in bonds, your arms corded behind
you, and haled up to the shameful gallows—”

The drunken wretch seized her suddenly by the throat:—

“Look you, you crazy fool, ef ever you bother me agin about
that gallows, I'll choke the soul out of you. You'll never so
much as squeak agin.”

She shook him off — regarded him with a long mournful
glance, and drew up her bridle. Her eyes were riveted, large,
indignant, yet very sorrowful, upon the besotted fool, as her
horse receded from the side of his. The half-witted wretch
seemed a little ashamed, and cried:—

“I wouldn't hurt you, Nelly, you knows; but you musn't
provocate me, and no more, do you hear, about that bloody gallows.
Not a word. Good-by, gal, good-by, and git your
senses back as soon as you kin.”

And he rode off. Did she? — No. Giving him a fair start,
she rode after him, cautiously feeling her way along the track
of his horse — using her experiences in scouting — which were
not inconsiderable — and resolved, through him, to discover

where Jeff Rhodes had concealed his captives. Of course, Mat
Floyd was quite too drunk to conceive the purpose in his sister's
mind. He was tickled with the idea, at leaving her, that he
had asserted his manly independence, and had given her a new
idea as to the importance of those duties which usually occupied
the exclusive attention of the masculine gender, and with which
women had nothing in the world to do.

“Women,” quoth he, with a sort of maudlin scorn, “what
does they know about men's affairs? Kin they scout and fight,
and make prisoners, and git the gould guineas for 'em. And
now, jest when I'm in a sort of run of luck, for me to give up,
and stop because I've got a crazy fool of a sister. The gal's a
good loving gal enough, but she's too much given to meddling.”