AFTER THE EXPLOSION.
Horror wide extends
Her desolate domain!--THOMPSON.
The thunder of the explosion, when the old Haunted Chapel was blown up,
was heard for many miles around.
It burst upon the unsheltered wayfarers like the crack of doom!
It stunned the plantation negroes gathered around their cabin fires!
It startled the planters' families at their elegant tea-tables!
Travellers paused panic-stricken on the road!
Home-dwellers, high and low, rushed with one accord to doors and windows
to see what the dreadful matter might be!
Was it an earthquake?
Had some unsuspected volcano suddenly burst forth in the mountain?
Indeed it seemed so!
Volumes of black smoke ascended from a certain point of rocks, filling
all the evening air with the suffocating smell of sulphur.
There was a pause of astonishment among the people for about one minute
only; and then commenced a general stampede of all the able-bodied men
and boys from a circle of several miles in circumference to the centre
of attraction; while the women and girls waited at home in dread
suspense!
But the very first on the scene of the catastrophe was a lamed negro.
Poor Joe! Just as his master had surmised, he had met with an accident.
He had, indeed, reached Black Hall in safety, near the dawn of that
day; but being quite exhausted with twenty-four hours of watching,
working, and fasting, he succumbed to drowsiness, fatigue, and famine.
In short, he ate and drank and slept.
He did not mean, poor faithful creature, to do more than just recruit
sufficient strength to take him back, with the tools, to his master.
But when one, under such circumstances, surrenders to sleep, he loses
all control over himself for an indefinite period of time. Joe slept
fast and long, and never waked until he was rudely kicked up by a
fellow-servant, who demanded to know how he came to be sleeping on the
hay in the barn, and if he meant to sleep forever.
Joe started up, at first confused and delirious, but afterwards, when he
came to his senses and found that it was past noon, he was utterly
wretched and inconsolable. He did not even resent the rudeness of his
comrade, in kicking him up; but, on the contrary, meekly thanked him for
his kindness in arousing him.
And then he went and gathered his tools together, and saddled his horse,
and without waiting for bite or sup, he told his mate that he had work
to do at a distance, and mounted and rode off towards the ferry, which
he had to cross to reach the river road on the other side, because,
with, the weight of iron tools he carried, he could not possibly get
over the ford.
All this contributed so to delay Joe's journey, that the sun set while
he was still upon the river road, and "the shades of night were falling
fast" when he reached the entrance of the thicket path leading to the
Haunted Chapel.
He had not ridden more than a hundred yards up this path, before the
thunder of the explosion burst upon his appalled ears. And at the same
instant his affrighted horse, with a violent bound, threw him to the
earth, jumped forward and fled away.
Amazed, stunned, bewildered as he was, Joe did not entirely lose his
senses. When recovered a little from the shock, he felt himself all over
to see what bones were broken; and found to his great relief that all
were sound.
Then he got upon his feet, and looked about him; but a dense, heavy,
black vapor was settling down upon the thicket, hiding all things from
his view, while the stifling fumes of brimstone took his breath away.
"I'm----!"--Joe in his consternation swore a very profane oath, which it
is not necessary here to repeat--"ef I don't b'leibe as de Debbil has
blowed de old Haunted Chapel! And oh! my Hebbenly Marster! _ef so_, what
have become o' Miss Sybil and Marse Lyon, and Nelly?" he cried in a
sudden pang of terror and sorrow, as he tried to hurry towards the scene
of the tragedy. He set off in a run, but was brought up short by a sharp
severe pain in his right ancle.
"It's sprained! Bress de Lord, ef it an't sprained!" he cried, drawing
up and caressing his injured limb.
"It an't no use! I can't put it to the ground no more!" he groaned.
Then standing upon his left foot and holding the other in his hand, he
looked around and saw the pick lying among the scattered tools, that had
fallen from his hold when the horse threw him. He cautiously bent down
and took up the pick, and reversed it, and using it as a crutch, he
hobbled on through the thicket towards the ruins of the old chapel. But
his progress was so slow and painful that it took him nearly an hour to
reach the place.
When at length he emerged from the thicket and entered the old
churchyard, a scene of devastation met his view that appalled his soul.
"Oh, my Lord!" he said, stopping and leaning upon his pick-crutch, as he
gazed around, "what an awful sight! Joe, you are like--somebody among
the ruins of something," he added, as a vague classic similitude about
Scipio and Carthage flitted through his half-dazed brain.
It was indeed a scene of horror deep enough to dismay the stoutest
heart! Nor was that horror less overwhelming for the obscurity that
enveloped it. The Haunted Chapel was gone; and in its place was a heap
of blackened, burning, and smoking ruins, with here and there the arm or
leg of some crushed and mutilated victim protruding from the mass. And
in strange contrast to this appalling scene, was a poor little Skye
terrier, preserved from destruction, Heaven only knows how, that ran
snuffing and whining piteously around and around the wreck.
"Come, Nelly! pretty Nelly! good Nelly!" called Joe.
The Skye terrier left off circling around the smouldering ruins, and
bounded towards her dusky friend, and leaped upon him with a yelp of
welcome and a whine of sorrow.
"Oh, Nelly! Nelly! what has happened?" cried Joe.
The little dog howled dismally in answer.
"Yes, I know what you would say. I understand. The devil has blown up
the Haunted Chapel," said Joe.
She lifted up her nose and her voice in a woe-begone howl of assent.
"Just so; but oh! Nelly! Nelly Brown! where is the master and the
mistress?"
She answered by a cry of agony, and ran back to the ruins, and
re-commenced her pawing and whining.
"Ah, yes! just so; buried under all that there," groaned Joe.
But Nelly ran back to him, barking emphatically, and then forward to the
ruins, and then, seeing that he still stood there, back to him again,
with the most eloquent barks, that seemed to assure him that her master
and mistress were under the mass, and at length to ask him what was the
use of his being a man, if he could not dig them out.
Never did man and dog understand each other better. Joe replied to Nelly
as if she had spoken in the best approved English.
"I know it, honey! I know they are; they are there!" he sobbed, "but you
see I'm crippled, and can't do nothing."
But the little Skye terrier could not comprehend such incompetency in a
human creature, and so she very irrationally and irritatingly continued
her appeals and her reproaches, until Joe hobbled up to the heap of
smoking ruins to take a nearer view.
The first thing that met his sight was the sole of a man's boot,
belonging to a leg protruding from the mass.
"If it should be hizzen! Oh, good gracious! if it should be marster's!
But no," he continued, on a closer examination of the limb. "No! there
is a spur on the heel. It isn't hizzen. No! thank goodness, it is Master
Sheriff Benthwick's, and sarve him right too."
While Joe was exulting, either wickedly over the destruction of the
sheriff, or piously over the possible preservation of his master, there
was a sound of crackling footsteps through the thicket, and the
forerunners of the approaching crowd appeared upon the scene.
Among them was Captain Pendleton, who, recognizing the figure of Joe
even in the obscure light, strode towards him, eagerly demanding:
"What is all this? How did it happen? Do you know?"
"Oh, marse Capping Pendulum, sir, I's so glad you'se come!" cried Joe,
on the verge of tears.
"But how did this happen?" impatiently repeated the captain.
"Oh, sir, don't you see as the debbil has blowed up the Haunted Chapel
and my young mistess and marster into it all this time," sobbed the man.
"Good Heaven! You don't mean that, Joe!" exclaimed Captain Pendleton.
"Yes, I do, sir; worse luck! which you can see for yourself, as even
poor little ignorant Nelly knows it," wept Joe.
And the little Skye terrier, as if to confirm the negro's words, ran and
leaped upon the captain, whining pathetically, and then ran backward and
forward between him and the heap of ruins, as if to impress upon his
mind that her dear master and mistress were really buried there, and to
implore him to come to their assistance.
But other people were now pouring rapidly in upon the scene of the
catastrophe.
Exclamations of horror and dismay were uttered; then pine knots were
sought and lighted, and everybody crowded around the ruins.
"There are human beings buried beneath this pile; for Heaven's sake,
friends, lose no time; but disperse and find tools to dig this away!"
exclaimed Captain Pendleton, energetically.
Several of the by-standers started at once for the nearest farm-houses
to procure the needful tools.
Captain Pendleton turned to Joe.
"Tell me now," he said; "how came Mr. and Mrs. Berners in this place?"
Joe related all that he knew of their escape from the sheriff's
officers, their accidental meeting with him, their arrival at the
Haunted Chapel, the mysterious disappearance of Sybil, the visit of the
constables and militia-men in search of the burglars; the means that his
master and himself took to discover traces of Sybil through the instinct
of her little dog; the reasons they had, through the behavior of the
little Skye terrier, to believe that the lady had been taken down into
the vault and robbed and murdered; his own departure in search of tools
to take up the flagstones over the vault, and finally his return to the
scene of action to find the Haunted Chapel one mass of ruins.
"When I left marster he was sitting at the door of the vault, where we
thought the dead body of my poor murdered young mistess was hid; and
when I comed back I found this here!" sobbed Joe, pointing to the wreck.
"Good heaven! my man, this is a frightful story that you tell me! Sit
yourself down on the ground, and give me that pick which you are using
for a crutch! I must go to work here," exclaimed Captain Pendleton,
taking the pick from the negro and beginning to dig vigorously at the
mass of fallen stone and mortar.
The men and boys who had gone after implements now came hurrying back,
with picks, spades, hoes, rakes, etc., over their shoulders.
They immediately fell to work with a zeal and energy inspired by
curiosity and terror; and while the boys held the lighted pine knots
high above their heads, the men dug away at the mass with all their
might and main.
It was a wild scene, that deep glen; the heap of smoking ruins in the
midst, the affrighted crowd of workers around it, the flaming torches
held on high, the spectral gravestones gleaming here and there; the
whole encircled by dark, towering mountains, and canopied by a murky,
midnight sky!
In almost dead silence the fearful work went on.
The first body exhumed was that of the unfortunate Sheriff Benthwick,
quite dead. It was borne tenderly off to some distance, and laid down on
a bed of dried leaves beneath the shelter of an oak-tree.
Then four other bodies were dug out from the mass, among them that of
the bailiff Purley. And these were carried and laid beside that of the
sheriff.
And now, though the workmen dug away at the ruins as vigorously as ever,
they found nothing but broken timbers, stone, and mortar. No sign of
Lyon or Sybil Berners was to be seen. A wild hope sprang up in the heart
of Joe--a hope that in some miraculous manner his young master and
mistress had escaped this terrible destruction--a hope that the little
Skye terrier would by no means encourage, for she continued to run
around the ruins, and in and out among the legs of the workmen, to the
serious danger of her own life and limbs, and to bark and whine and paw,
and assert in every emphatic manner a little brute could use, that her
master and mistress were really under there and nowhere else.
"You'll drive me to despair, you little devil of a dog! You'd make 'em
there, whether they're there or not, and I tell you they an't there!"
cried Joe in desperation.
But Nelly held to her own opinion, and clamorously maintained it.
She was soon justified. The workmen, in course of their digging, removed
quite a hill of plaster, stone, and broken timbers, and came upon a
leaning fragment of the back wall, inclined at an angle of about
forty-five degrees, and supported in its place by a portion of the altar
and the iron door of the vault, which had stood the shock of the
explosion.
Under this leaning wall, and completely protected by it, lay two men,
scorched, bruised, stunned, insensible, but still living.
They were Lyon Berners and Robert Munson. Amid the surprise and
satisfaction of the crowd, they were carefully lifted out and laid upon
the ground, while every simple means at hand were used for their
restoration, while the little Skye terrier ran round and round with
yelps of joy and triumph, which seemed to say:
"I told you so! and next time you'll believe me!"
"Friends," said Captain Pendleton, addressing some of the men who were
still working away at the ruins, "there is no use in your digging
longer! You may see from the very position of that wall and the aspect
of everything else here, that there can be no more bodies among the
ruins. You can do nothing to bring the dead to life; but you can do
much to save the living from death. Hurry some of you to the nearest
house and bring a couple of shutters, and narrow mattresses also, if
possible! These men must be taken to my house, which is nearest, to
receive medical attention."
As the captain spoke, a dozen workmen threw down their tools and started
on the errand.
Old Joe hobbled up to the spot, where Captain Pendleton sat supporting
the head of Mr. Berners on his knee, while little Nelly jumped around,
now in a hysterical state between joy and fear; for she saw at last,
that though her master was rescued, he was not yet safe. On seeing Joe
come up, she jumped upon him with an eager bark which seemed to say:
"You see I was right! Here he is, sure enough!"
"Yes, Nelly, that's all very well as far as it goes. But where's the
young mistess, Nelly; where's Miss Sybil?" sorrowfully inquired Joe.
The little dog looked up in his face with a bark of intelligence and
distress, and then broke away and ran in among the ruins.
"There still is she!" exclaimed Joe, and he hobbled after the little
Skye terrier to the place where the leaning fragment of the wall was
supported by the iron door of the vault.
"They must dig into that vault. I'll never be contented until they dig
into that vault; and I'll speak to Capping Pendulum about it," said Joe,
and he hobbled back to the spot where that gentleman still sat
supporting the head of his wounded friend.
"Sir, Marse Capping," said Joe, respectfully taking off his hat, "you
heerd what I tell you 'bout marster and me having of good reasons to
s'pose as my young mistress was robbed and murdered and hid into that
vault?"
"Yes," gravely assented the captain.
"Well, sir, Marse Capping, Nelly do stick to it as she _is_ down there.
And, sir, I shall neber feel satisfied into my own mind, till the men
dig away all the rubbish and lay open 'the secrets of that there prisin
house.'"
"Joe, it shall be done, if only for the satisfaction of your faithful
heart," said the captain.
"And for Nelly's too, sir. See how she stands and looks up into your
face, waiting for you to 'cide, just as if she understood all that I was
a axing of you, which of course she do."
"Not a doubt of it," assented the captain.
At that moment the messengers who had been dispatched for shutters and
mattresses, returned with the articles, and set them down before Captain
Pendleton.
"Now, my men," said the captain, "arrange one of the mattresses upon the
shutter, and assist me to lay my wounded friend upon it."
Ready hands obeyed this direction, and the faintly breathing body of
Lyon Berners was laid down in comparative ease.
The same service was performed for poor young Munson, who was badly
injured, and also quite unconscious.
"Now, my men, this poor negro has reason to believe that the body of his
mistress may be found in the bottom of that vault; I want you therefore
to go to work as fast as you can, and remove all the rubbish that has
fallen into it, even down to the floor," was the next order given by the
captain.
And the men seized their picks and resumed their digging with renewed
energy.
"Joe, stay here by your master and this poor fellow; and occasionally
wet their lips with this brandy and water, while I go and see to the
clearing out of the vault," said Captain Pendleton; and leaving Joe in
charge of the wounded men, he followed the workmen to the ruins to urge
them to the greatest expedition, adding as a reason for haste:
"It is time that Mr. Berners and Munson should be taken to my house, and
placed in bed, to receive proper medical attention. But I cannot consent
to leave this spot even to attend to them, until I find out whether the
body of Mrs. Berners is really under the ruins."
Thus exhorted, the men worked with tremendous energy, and soon dug away
all the pile of rubbish, and laid the depths of the vault open to the
torch light. But there was nothing to be seen but the damp and slimy
walls and floor, and the little heaps of broken stones and fallen
plaster in the corners.
"Not there! Well, then, I didn't know whether I was a-hoping or a
fearing to find her there, or whether I'm glad or sorry now at not
finding her there," said Joe, who in his excessive anxiety had at length
deserted his post beside the wounded men, and hobbled up to the opened
vault.
"You should be glad, for now you have no evidence of her death; but, on
the other hand, good reason to hope that she is somewhere alive and
well," said Captain Pendleton.
"That's so too, Marster Capping. But only see what a little story-teller
Nelly is!"
"It was her master she scented, and she found him."
"Yes, but she tried to make me believe as her mistess was down there
also. And look how she sticks to the story! There she is down there
still running round and round like she was crazy, and a snuffing at all
the corners!"
"Never mind Nelly, Joe. Come along now. We must take your master and the
other poor fellow on to my house. It should have been done before this.
I am sorry for this delay, which has been so fruitless," said Captain
Pendleton, as he led the way back to the spot where he had left the
injured victims of the explosion.
"Marster Capping," said Joe, as he hobbled after Pendleton, "I have got
two horses tied up there into the woods, ef they haven't been frighted
at the blowing up, and done broke loose; and I have got a wagon down by
the roadside, if so be as you would like to convey my wounded marster
and the t'other gemplan that a way."
"No, Joe; the jolting of a wagon might be fatal to them in their present
condition. They must be carried carefully on shutters. But the wagon
will be just the thing to convey the dead bodies to Blackville, where an
inquest must be held upon them," answered the captain.
And he requested some of the men present to go in search of the horses,
and to harness them to the wagon for the required services to the dead,
while others he detained to help in care of the wounded.
When the shutters upon which Lyon Berners and Robert Munson lay were
each carefully lifted by the hands of four men, and the little
procession was about to start, Captain Pendleton called to Joe, saying:
"You must go with me to have your limb looked to, and also to be with
your master, who will need familiar faces near him when he comes to
himself."
"Yes, sir; Marse Capping Pendulum, I will go. But oh, my Hebbenly Lord,
what will I have to tell my poor marster, when he opens his eyes and
looks at me?" cried Joe, bursting into tears.
"Come, come, be a man! Stop howling, and do your duty--which is now to
follow your master," expostulated the captain.
"Yes, sir, I'll do it; but I must get Nelly fust. I couldn't leave her,
poor little dog, here to pine away and die in the vault," sighed Joe,
who then lifting his voice, cried, "Nelly! Nelly!"
But no dog answered. So Joe hobbled his way back to the opening of the
vault, and looking down into it, exclaimed:
"Bless my two eyes! ef there she an't a-whinin and a-pawin' and
a-sarchin' as persemoniously as ever!--Nelly! Nelly!"
At the sound of his voice the little terrier ran up from the vault, and
leaped upon him.
Joe stooped and picked her up in his arms, and hugged her affectionately
to his bosom, as he said:
"You see it's no use stayin' here, my poor little dog. Our mistess an't
nowheres about here."
Nelly was however of a different opinion, and she whined and struggled
to be released; and when Joe held her faster, she growled and threatened
him with her teeth.
"Can't help it, my little darling. Our mistess an't nowhere round, and
it an't no use your staying here to grieve yourself to death among the
ruins. You've got to go along with me--OWTCH! you little devil, you!"
exclaimed Joe, suddenly breaking off in his discourse, and dropping the
dog; who, having found that all her efforts to release herself had been
in vain, had made her little teeth meet in the fleshy part of the
negro's hand.
"Was there ever sich a vicious little beast?" cried Joe, as he hobbled
away, sucking the blood from his wounded member. "Now she may stay there
for me. I don't care ef she do pine herself to death, agrawatin' little
brute!"
And so, grumbling and growling, he hobbled after the little procession
that was now well on its way through the thicket.
Meanwhile little Nelly ran back into the vault, and re-commenced her
irrational investigations.
The hours of the night wore on. The men who had been sent in search of
the horses, with great difficulty found and caught them, and brought
them back to the scene of the explosion. The dead bodies were bound upon
their backs, and they were led through the thicket to the road, where
the empty wagon was waiting. As there were five bodies and but two
horses, and as only one body could be bound upon one horse at a time,
it was necessary to make three trips through the thicket, before they
could all be got upon the wagon. So it was a work of time and trouble to
remove all the dead from the scene of the catastrophe. At length,
however, the last body was bound upon the last horse and led away by the
last man that left the spot.
And of all the living crowd that had filled the churchyard and
surrounded the ruin, none was left but the little Skye terrier Nelly,
who was still at work in the vault.
What was she doing?
She had concentrated her attention and her energies upon one spot--a
moderate sized heap of densely packed rubbish in one corner. She was
scratching away at this heap; she had already burrowed a hole of some
depth; and still she scratched away, with all her might and main, until
her strength failed; and then she sat down on her hind quarters and
panted until she recovered her breath; and then she re-commenced and
scratched away for dear life until something fell on the other side, and
with a bark and bound of joy, she leaped through the aperture and ran
snuffing along the damp ground.
EUREKA!! the little Skye terrier had discovered what human intelligence
had failed to do! She had found the secret subterranean passage, and now
be sure she will find her mistress.