University of Virginia Library

41. CHAPTER XLI.
THE CAPTIVES MEET — FATHER AND DAUGHTER.

While these events are in progress, determining the fates of
some of the minor personages in our drama, what of those who
claim a higher place in our regards? What of the loving and
beautiful Bertha Travis?

We have heard of her abduction by the brutal ruffian with
the horrid nom de nique. We are also aware of the motives, by
which he was governed, in this audacious procedure. He was
too coarse a scoundrel, to suppose that any very serious grievance
would result to his victim, by her enforced marriage with
a person of good figure and agreeable deportment. It is true,
he gave Captain Inglehardt, whom he knew quite as well as
anybody else, but little credit for qualities of heart, or sensibilities
of any kind. But this deficiency he counted as of far less
importance to women, than to men; for, it must be confessed,
that, like thousands of people much more polished, Dick of
Tophet regarded woman as a creature designed only to minister
to the more lordly sex, when the moods of the latter required
her attendance. His philosophy was very much that of the
young French princess, who, when asked by the reverend abbé
— a question of the catechism, no doubt — “What were women
made for?” — answered, with equal naivété and humility — “To
please the gentlemen, sir.” This was precisely the notion of
our Dick in contemplating the uses of the sex. Dick was something
of a Turk in his religion and a savage in his philosophy.

Now, as it was his own desire, just then, to please Captain
Inglehardt, he was not prepared to suppose it any great hardship
— inflicted on Bertha Travis — if she were required to do

likewise. But, we have already noted all his self-conceived
arguments on this subject. We must do him the justice to insist,
however, that his chief motive lay in the idea which he entertained,
that the capture of the sister would lead directly to
the release of the brother from captivity. Even as he rode, the
reflection occurred to his mind, and escaped his lips, in a murmur
of self complacency.

“I'll git the young sodger out of the harness. I likes that
fellow mightily.”

When we consider Dick's peculiar philosophy, we are prepared
to make some allowances for his violations of law; which
the world is very apt to do, you are aware, in the case of persons
in better condition, for whom less allowance ought to be
made.

Bertha was treated with all possible tenderness consistent
with the outrage of which she was the subject. Dick of Tophet
was as deferential as he could well be, to a lady who was destined
to be the wife of his superior. He used, heedfully, only
that degree of violence which was necessary to secure and carry
off his captive. She was treated with much more tenderness
than Carrie Sinclair. But she was made to ride. Lifted upon
the steed that was to bear her away, and maintained upon the
saddle by the iron gripe of Dick himself, she was kept some
hours in as rapid motion as the difficulties of the forests, during
a night journey, and through blind roads, would allow; and
was finally lifted from her horse, at midnight, in a state of partial
insensibility, carried into one of the log-cabins of Muddicoat
Castle, and was laid gently down upon a rude mattress of moss,
while Dick of Tophet went forth, we may suppose, in search of
assistance. Before he returned, the damsel recovered her consciousness
and found herself alone and in utter darkness. We
may conceive the horrors and apprehensions which filled her
mind. She was left to brood with these for more than an hour.
When Dick reappeared, he brought with him a lighted tallow
candle, stuck in a bottle, which he set down upon the floor.
The apartment had neither chair nor table, nor was there window
or chimney in it. It was, in so many words, a strong dungeon
of heavy logs, with but a single door which might be barred
within, and locked upon the outside. There was a trap in the

floor, leaving a means of escape below; but, of course, this was
a secret, kept closely by those who possessed the fortress.

Bertha's courage came to her promptly enough with the return
of her consciousness; and this she had only lost for a short
time, and through sheer fatigue and exhaustion and not from
fright. She demanded of the ruffian in calm, resolute language,
what was designed by this deprival of her liberty. His answer
— no doubt designed to be very civil and encouraging — was,
however, very little consoling or satisfactory.

“Oh! don't you be skeared now, young madam; 'tain't no
harm that we're a-guine to do to you. We don't mean to do
anything to you, but jest to make you a happy woman, as young
ladies likes to be made happy, and thar's but one way for that,
you know!”

To other demands of the young girl, the answers were equally
vague and unsatisfactory. Dick again disappeared, and, after
the lapse of half an hour more, he returned with a bowl of coffee
and a hoe-cake.

“You hain't had your supper to-night, young madam, and I
reckon you'd like a bite of something.”

“I wish nothing but my freedom,” was the answer.

“Well, that you kaint hev just now, and freedom's but a
poor sort of feeding, onless you kin find something more solid
to send down along with it — and ef you're sensible, you'll do a
leetle eating jest now, and whenever you kin git it, ef it's only
to keep up your strength agin the coming of the freedom, you
knows!”

In this particular Dick's philosophy is not wanting in good
sense. Our poor Bertha was not disposed to deny it; but she
could not then have swallowed a mouthful on any account. She
forbore, and, in silence, beheld her captor set down the coffee
and the hoe-cake beside the lamp upon the floor. Giving her
another urgent counsel to eat, drink, and be strong — if not
merry, Dick left her again to her melancholy meditations.
She heard him carefully lock the door without; and he appeared
to her no more that night.

But he visited her brother. He soon found his way to the
den of the Trailer, on whom had devolved the entire government
of Muddicoat Castle during the absence of Inglehardt;

and found no difficulty in persuading the former — who had
gone to bed after a carouse which left him exceedingly oblivious
of duty — to a surrender of his keys. Poor Henry Travis
started up with a sense of pleasure and society, when he beheld
the grim visage of our Dick peering into his dungeon.

“Well, little sodger, how does you git on here in the dark?”

“Oh! I'm so weary!”

“And hungry too, I reckon.”

“Yes, yes; I never get a quarter as much as I can eat.”

“I reckoned so! I've brought you a few bites, young
sodger,” continued the ruffian taking a small bag from under
his arm, and displaying the browned corn biscuits — half a peck
at least — which he required the boy to put away in his hiding-place
— limiting him, at the moment, to a single biscuit, which
the boy devoured greedily.

“Now, look you, my lad, you mustn't be too free in your eating.
You must make these go jest as fur as possible; 'caise,
you see, I'm off to-morrow, and I don't know when I shill git
back. Thar's hot work before us soon, I reckon; and it mout
be that I'll never git back agin! It's a chaince I may git a
taste of what's a-guine, when thar's a thousand bullets at one
time a-brushing through the air.”

“Is it a battle?” demanded Henry eagerly.

“Yes, I reckon it's a-coming, from what I sees and hyars; a
right r'yal battle; big armies o' both sides and cannon a-thundering!”

“Oh! can't you get me out?”

“Well, not jest yet: but the chainces for you are a-gitting
better, sence to-night; and I reckon 'twon't be long before I
gits you a discharge.”

“In time to see the battle?”

“May be! kaint say! we'll see to-morrow. I've got a sarcumvention
a-foot, that, I reckon, will help you out of the timbers.
So don't be down in the mouth; but pick up, and hev a
good heart, and you may see sights of fine fighting before many
days. Ef things go, jest now, as I wants 'em — and I've got
'em fair upon the right track — I reckon I'll bring you good
news afore long. So, be spry, and keep cheery, and ready

for a spring, and a hop, skip, and jump. The time's a-coming
to give you a chaince agin.”

“Oh! I shall be so glad! and I'll never forget you! never!
Shall I read to you, Mr. Dick?”

“Not to-night. You wants all the night you kin hev for
sleeping.'

“No! Day and night are all one to me here! I sleep all
the time, I believe.”

“Well, young sodger, I reckon you doesn't see much light
any time, only when I comes. I'd like to hyar a leetle of the
book to-night, but I'm a-wanting a leetle sleep myself. My
eyes are a-drawing straws mighty fast.”

“But won't you leave the book with me, Mr. Dick, to read
when I'm by myself?”

“Leave the book? No! I kaint do that. Ef you knowed
how I come by this book, you'd understand that I'm never to
part with it. It's come to me, I may say, from the dead. It's
out of the fingers of a dead man that it's come into mine; and
thyar's bad luck to me ef I let's it go out of my hands. I keeps
it always in my buzzom, young sodger, to keep off the bullets.”

“And you think 'twill do that?”

“I knows it! Oh! ef you knowed the history of this book!
But I kaint tell you! And so good night, young sodger, and
don't git out o' heart! I shain't forgit you!”

The next day brought Inglehardt. His visits to Muddicoat
Castle, though at intervals in his foraging duties, were always
timed; so that Dick of Tophet knew pretty well at what periods
to find him. Indeed, there was a concert in their arrangements
which enabled our captain of loyalists frequently to compare
notes with his striker, the better to carry on the complicated
business in which they were engaged. Dick of Tophet awaited
his coming.

Inglehardt was not in the best of humors. His fortunes had
felt some reverses. His disappointments had been frequent of
late. He had been roughly handled by Lee's cavalry, and had
made a narrow escape with his own life, losing a fifth of his
squad, and certain wagons in which there had been stored away
some valuable little pickings of his own, the fruit of a raid in
which a suspected whig had lost his plate, and stock, and a few

negroes. The stock had found their way to the British commissary
at Orangeburg; the negroes had been safely yielded
to the hands of Griffith; the silver plate had been in that unlucky
wagon which the dragoons of Lee had picked up by the
way. Inglehardt had reason to be dissatisfied with Fortune on
many accounts.

He now began also to conceive very awkward misgivings as
to the result of the war. If this should terminate favorably for
the Americans, death or exile stared him in the face. These
dangers he could only escape by going over, in season, to the
patriots; a practice now becoming rather frequent, since the
same sign that oppressed Inglehardt's imagination, had appeared
equally impressive to that of other loyalists; and, since the
policy of Rutledge, which welcomed every prodigal's return,
had shown them an easy process for reconciling themselves to
the power which they had offended.

But Inglehardt could not attempt this policy with safety, so
long as he remained unreconciled with the Travis's; and for
this reconciliation there was but one process — the marriage, no
matter how brought about, with Bertha. Once united with her,
by whatever process, the father was almost necessarily silenced;
and the rest was comparatively easy. Inglehardt was growing
desperate, and resolved to stick at no measures which would
secure him his desired objects. The first grand necessity, therefore,
was to obtain the hand of Bertha Travis. What was his
triumph, therefore — the exultation of his mood — when his
brutal emissary apprized him that the victim was already in his
power.

In a few brief words the facts of her abduction were all communicated;
and, in the first eager impulse of his satisfaction, he
hurried away to the cabin where Bertha was confined, to gloat
upon the beauties of his captive, and to make her feel the extent
of his triumph.

Bertha had passed a dreary night. She had snatched a few
hours of broken slumber; nature having asserted her necessities,
in defiance of the brooding, sleepless, and troubling thought.
But it was only in snatches that she slept. Her candle had
burnt out. She lay in utter darkness — no ray from without
ever penetrating that dungeon, unless in the bright sunshine of

day, when small faint gleams might, here and there, be caught,
as they trickled through the crevices of the cabin. Whenever
she waked, during the night, she could hear the chant of frogs;
and, at intervals, the hoarse bellow of the cayman. By these
she knew that she was buried in some dismal swamp; but where,
in what quarter, she could not conjecture. She awoke, finally,
conscious of the daylight. There were certain little fine
streaks of sunlight that trembled through seams between the
logs, and glided timidly about the dusky chamber. These enabled
her to see, at least, that it was daylight.

There is no describing the horror and suffering of her soul.
When she thought of her mother — of the grateful circle from
which she had been torn away — she could have wept bitterly,
but that the agony was too deep for tears. She never doubted,
for a moment, that she was in the power of Inglehardt; and it
was, accordingly, no surprise to her, when he presented himself
before her. She received him with all the calm of soul which
she could command. Her scorn of him, the sense of wrong and
brutal usage, all contributed to increase and strengthen the
natural dignity of her bearing and manner.

“I am rejoiced,” said Inglehardt, not able to conceal his exultation,
but still speaking in the cool, slow, indifferent manner
which was natural to him. “I am rejoiced to welcome Miss
Travis to my humble refuge in the swamp.”

“I am then your prisoner!”

“Oh, no! not a prisoner — why prisoner? say guest, my dear
Miss Travis, an honored guest.”

“An unwilling one, sir, as you know. As a guest, I am free
to depart?”

“What! would you go without seeing your father — your
brother?”

“My father! — my brother! It is here, then, that you also
keep them prisoners.”

“They are here, and I confess they enjoy less freedom than
I can accord to you, and for sufficient reasons. They are prisoners
of state, under heavy charges.”

Bertha smiled, but with some effort. But she felt all the
scorn which her smile expressed.

“Captain Inglehardt,” she said, with as much of quiet dignity

and calm as she could command, “you have a pretext for holding
my father and my brother in captivity. Have you any for
detaining me?”

“Yes,” he said, promptly, “you are here to fulfil a solemn
contract which your father has made in your behalf.”

“Proceed, sir, the nature of this contract?”

“Your hand in marriage.”

“With yourself, is it not?”

“Yes.”

“Then, sir, as my father could not justly dispose of my hand
in any such contract, and as I have no inclination to do so, you
will see that I am brought here to no end. I beg to assure you
that, under no circumstances, shall you ever have my hand.”

“You are precipitate. You are, perhaps, quite ignorant of
the vital necessity which exists for your compliance with that
contract. Let me put you in possession of the good and sufficient
reasons why you should adopt another resolution.”

Here he gave a rapid summary of her father's offences against
the crown — his treacheries and defalcations — sparing nothing,
suppressing nothing, and making the picture as odious as he
could. He concluded:—

“You have heard. For either of these offences, once in the
hands of Colonel Balfour, your father would perish on the gallows.
I have, in my keeping, the proof of all his crimes. It
is by my forbearance that he lives; it is through me, only, that
he can escape; and I am only to be moved to favor his escape,
and to the suppression of these proofs, by your compliance with
the tenor of his contract.”

The maiden heard him patiently throughout. When he had
finished, she said:—

“Now, sir, hear me. Not a word of all this do I believe!
Not a word that you can say, calculated to lessen my self-respect,
my respect for my parents, or my scorn for you, will
avail you anything! I am armed against all your representations
by a thorough knowledge of your character.”

Inglehardt reddened. Her coolness confounded him no less
than her scorn. She was quite as deliberate as himself; showed
no sort of impatience, no eagerness, no excitement, but delivered
herself precisely as if engaged in the least important interests

in the world — precisely, indeed, as if she were, as she said, quite
insensible and invulnerable to every utterance from his lips.

“You may believe my words or not, Miss Travis, but you
can not resist the proofs which I shall offer.”

“Captain Inglehardt, the proofs which you may offer will no
more affect me than your words. I believe that you are a person
who can find it as easy to manufacture the one as to pronounce
the other.”

The cool, phlegmatic, snuff-taking deliberative felt himself
growing angry. It was with some effort that he kept his temper
in subjection. He said:—

“But your father's confessions?—”

“He has made none to me. Received through you, I hold
them to be no less false than your words and manufactured
proofs. It will be time enough for me to hear his confession
from his own lips.”

The girl spoke promptly, but she evidently so bridled herself
as to say not a syllable more in response than the speech
of her enemy seemed to require. Inglehardt looked at her
with almost demoniac aspect. His artifice was baffled. His
own phlegm seemed for once to become accessary to his defeat.
In his roused and angry mood, he seized her by the wrist.
She flung him off with revulsion. He approached her — he
hissed in her ears:—

“You believe me unscrupulous! You believe that I would
invent a lie, and manufacture proofs to sustain it!”

“Yes!” was the fearless answer.

“Then, if you believe this, do you not feel that here, in my
power — in this swamp-fastness — with no help within, and no
succor from without — the same unscrupulous power can subject
you to trials even more fearful than the sacrifice of father
and brother? I am prepared for these and other extremities —
prepared for any use of my power — to secure my object; and
I will use the worst, before I suffer myself to be baffled in the
one purpose upon which I have set my will! Do you understand
me? Do you feel the full force of all I say? Do you
see that you are at my mercy — that you have no hope but in
my mercy — and that, if you are unmoved by fears for the
safety of your father and your brother, there are penalties still

more terrible, which the young virgin may well tremble to
incur! Do you comprehend me now, Miss Travis?”

“Ay, as I comprehend the snake that hisses, the wolf that
howls, the vulture that shrieks in air! I comprehend, but I
fear you not. I believe in God! It is with his permission
only that you can harm me; and, if he wills, be it so! But
with no will of mine shall you obtain one triumph over my feelings,
my fears, my honor, or my hate! Reptile! I spurn you
with equal scorn and loathing.”

And he left her — stung and maddened — and proceeded instantly
to the dungeon of her father. Whence had she that
strength which she exhibited — that fearlessness of soul, which
contemned the obvious force of all his threats and arguments?
God! He sneered at the piety — weakness rather — which
professed such a source of reliance!

When he had gone from sight, Bertha sank upon her knees, and,
even while she prayed for succor, her hand unconsciously found its
way into her bosom, and made sure grasp upon the little ivory-hilted
dagger which she had worn from the moment when she
began her journey, and so well concealed, that her captors
never once suspected her possession of it.

On his way from the dungeon of Bertha to that of her father,
Inglehardt summoned Dick of Tophet to his side, and gave him
some instructions.

“At once,” said the superior, “she shall be made to see with
her own eyes — hear with her own ears! They shall make
music for one another with their mutual groans!” And, so
speaking, he went forward.

In the dungeon of Travis, he found the father not a whit
more tractable than he had left the daughter. In fact, Travis,
from exhaustion, excitement, bad fare, darkness, and his own
gloomy thoughts, had reached a desperate sort of mood, which
seemed to render him wholly reckless of all that might happen.
It was hardly politic to appeal any longer to his fears. He
seemed to have survived them all. When Inglehardt threatened
him with the terrors of the British authorities, and the
death of a traitor, he almost shouted in reply:—

“The sooner the better! Any fate is preferable to this.”

Now, he said sharply, seeing his enemy enter:—

“Well, what have you to say now? Any change in the
burden of the old song?”

“Yes!” answered the other, with some elevation of his voice,
and less deliberation than usual — “yes, I am happy to tell you
that your deliverance is at hand.”

“It is enough that you tell it, to assure me that it is a lie!
But I care not for deliverance. Unless you come to carry me
out to execution, get away and leave me to myself. Your presence
is disagreeable to me.”

A week before, he would have said loathsome, horrible, frightful
— anything but disagreeable!

“Well, I make some sacrifices of taste myself when I look
upon yours!” answered the other, with a sneer. “You are
scarcely as considerate of your toilet, at Muddicoat Castle, as
you were at Holly-Dale.”

And, in truth, Travis had become frightful to behold. His
hair and beard, long and grizzly, had not felt comb or brush for
weeks. His dress was ragged, and hung loosely upon his emaciated
person. His cheeks were pale, thin, bloodless; while
his protruding teeth, from lips that seemed to be all the time
parted, gave a frightful, wolfish look to the expression of his
face, which, to other eyes, would have made him seem terrible
rather than ridiculous.

“Get away — get hence! Do not trouble me, I tell you!”
was the answer of Travis to the sneer of Inglehardt. It was a
sort of reply to surprise him. It betrayed a considerable change
of mood and moral from the time of their last interview, not a
week before.

“Get hence! You bore me.”

“Have you seen your son lately, Captain Travis?”

“Yes, to be sure! They bring him here every day.”

“Well, does he improve?”

“Why do you ask? How the d—l should either of us improve
in your hands, and upon your lean diet!”

“You are satisfied, however, with his appearance?”

“Get hence, I say! If you propose to torture, you have
done enough. You have passed your true bounds for policy.
I see your object. You can move me no longer by this process.
Try some other.”

“I agree with you. I have made arrangements for another
process. How would you like to see your daughter?”

“Ha! my daughter? — Well!—”

“She is here!”

“Here? no! impossible! Ha! ha! do you suppose I am
any longer to be deluded by your falsehoods?”

“You shall see her! She is here, I tell you — in my power!
Mark that. You know what that means, I fancy, something
better than your daughter! Verily, she is a beautiful virgin —
young, tender, more beautiful than ever. And she is here —
here — alone — and in my power!”

“Another of your lies! But you can no longer terrify me
by your stale inventions. Nothing that you can say can now
disturb my fears. I scorn you, I defy you, I spit upon you! —
and — I sing — sing in your ears:—

“Off with you, brother fox — you find no more prey in my
fowlyard!”

The wild, savage merriment of the prisoner, as he sung this
fragment of an old ballad in the very ears of his captor, absolutely
astounded our captain of loyalists for a moment, though
for a moment only.

“Really,” said he, “I am delighted to find you in such excellent
voice. Your musical powers have increased in the solitude.
Deprived of the exercise of your peculiar moral powers, you are
developing fresh resources of art in your old age. This is wonderful.
I never heard you warble a stave before, during the long
period of our interesting intimacy. You must have been inspired
by the nightly chant among the frogs. But I still venture
to think, my dear captain, that, when you come to a
knowledge of the facts in my possession, you will sing quite
another tune.”

“Perhaps so — perhaps so! Meanwhile, I sing according to
my present humor. Will you have another ditty, eh?”

“Well, really, as I have need to wile away a few moments
more before I shall be prepared for your better enlightenment, I
don't care if you do exercise your vocal powers for my benefit.”

“For your especial use.

[Sings — in very natural frog-fashion:]—

And Travis chuckled incontinently with his humor after thus
delivering himself.

“Well, Captain Travis,” said the other, “now that you have
enjoyed your wit and your music, suppose we give a few moments
to business?”

“Oh, the d—l take the business! He has need to, and right
too, for all your business is so much devil's business! But, speak
out and begin; for I know you too well to suppose I shall have
any rest until you have fairly discharged all the venom in your
sack!”

The other proceeded:—

“I have said that your daughter is in my possession. You
do not believe it, but you shall see her. When you have seen
her here — alone — in my power — your hands fettered, and mine
free — you will then conceive readily to what uses I may put
my power. My wish is to marry your daughter, and release
you and your son; not to harm, or discredit, or dishonor either!
I give to you, and to herself, the last opportunity for enabling
me to do this. But have her I will! When I next return, I
will bring with me a regular clergyman; and she becomes mine
under the most solemn sanctions of religion, or—”

He did not finish the sentence. A door in the adjoining room
was heard to open, and persons to move in it.

“Now, Captain Travis, I will satisfy your own eyes of your
daughter's presence here — in this swamp — in this very building
— in my absolute power! When you have communed together,
and compared notes — which you shall have full time

for doing — I shall return, to find you both, I trust, in better
mood for complying with my demands.”

Saying these words, Inglehardt approached the partition
which separated the two rooms. This was built of solid logs,
like the outer walls of the building — a dead wall, without door
or window. But there was a trick of mechanism, by which a
small section of one of the poles, about eighteen inches long, had
been sawed out and replaced, and was held in its station by
pegs from below, which, in the usual darkness of the apartment,
naturally escaped notice. To draw these pegs away was but
the work of a moment; and the section, thus cut off from the
rest, was taken out by Inglehardt, revealing an oblong opening
eight by eighteen inches, sufficiently large to enable the parties
to see from one apartment into the other.

“Now, Captain Travis, you may see your daughter. Summon
her with your own voice.”

“My daughter!” cried the father, evidently staggered by the
procedure of Inglehardt. “No, no — impossible! Bertha! —
Bertha Travis, if you be, indeed, in this monster's power, say
so — show me — speak, and let me go mad at once!”

“My father! oh, my father!” was the instantaneous answer
from within. At the sound of her voice, Travis rushed to the
opening. Bertha, meanwhile, unobstructed, and conducted by
the sounds, had darted, at the same moment, to the same spot.
Their faces nearly met! At the sight of his, so haggard, wild,
shaggy with beard and hair — more like that of a wild beast of
the woods than a human being — the poor girl gave a piercing
shriek.

“God have mercy upon me! Is it, indeed, my father?”

“No, my child! It is a wolf, a wild beast, whom you see;
a monster, the worst of monsters — a wolf without teeth, a vulture
without claws, a madman without the power to rend the
devil who has made him so!”

“I leave you to your communion, which begins too eloquently
for my taste!” said Inglehardt, in his old, slow tones. “You
both hear me; both know my resolution, and your own danger.
When I next return, I return with a clergyman. Bertha Travis
then becomes my wife — hark ye! — or — what I please!”