By daylight next morning the country for miles around was aroused and in
arms. The members of Captain Leigh’s company had assembled at Newberg
and started out in parties under lieutenants and sergeants in search of
the trail of the marauders.
For the first time since the fall of Sumter the quiet hamlets of
northern Ohio were thrilled with patriotic zeal as if their very
hearthstones were assailed by the rebel horde. The Cleveland papers
contained a full account of the affair, which Mark reported, and a
glowing telegram was dispatched by the Associated Press to all parts of
the country. It seemed impossible that the band of Delmy would be able
to elude their pursuers. But as days went by without any tidings, though
the State and National authorities were exerting every influence at
their command, hope waned, and in the heart of Captain Leigh’s young
wife became transmuted to despair. Ten days after the abduction, Mark
Kilbourne was in Cincinnati, having ridden on horse-back the entire
distance. He and his party had crossed the trail of the fugitives at two
different points; but wherever there was a telegraph line by which
information might have been sent ahead, Delmy took care to cut it, and
had finally vanished like a phantom.
Mark was haggard, pale and dejected. The excitement of the chase had
sustained him and his band without the help of due nourishment or sleep;
but when they were obliged to accept the conviction that Delmy had made
good his escape and carried his prisoner with him, the reaction was
extreme. After a few hours’ rest and a fruitless inquiry of the
authorities at Cincinnati, Mark decided to write a full account to Mrs.
Leigh, of the pursuit, and of the probable situation and fate of Philip.
That same day Captain Leigh was sitting on a log near a campfire, bound
fast, and reading a Cincinnati newspaper. It was dated two days after
his abduction and contained a narrative of that event as given to a
special correspondent, in an interview, by Mr. Smiles. The despatch was
dated “Newberg,” and began with flaming headlines.
The details given were tolerably accurate up to the time that Philip was
dragged from the house; but what followed had a pressing interest for
the prisoner as it contained news of subsequent events. The substance of
this was a description of Mr. Smiles’s injuries received in defence of
Captain Leigh, the report said, and the startling information that Mrs.
Leigh had insisted upon caring for the injured minister at her own
house, where Mrs. and Miss Taine were staying with her.
Mr. Smiles related his conviction that the attack was made by burglars.
He said he had resisted until stunned and left for dead, and was
astonished on his return to consciousness to hear the cry of ‘Where is
Captain Leigh?’ He had not heard of the warning received by Philip, and
had no occasion for apprehending danger; but he had a firm conviction
that if the negro Dan, Mrs. Taine’s coachman, had not gone to sleep in
the hayloft, he might have warned them in time to have prevented the
attack.
“However,” the injured minister remarked towards the close of the
interview, “while I shall be the last person in the world to implicate
Captain Leigh in the plot, it certainly seems very strange that the
details should have been so well concerted, and that I, unarmed and
defenceless as I was, should have been nearly murdered while defending
him, and he, to all appearances, carried away unhurt.”
The correspondent could not close without making a feeling reference to
the courtesy and cultured bearing of Mr. Smiles, and to the great
kindness and hospitality of Mrs. Leigh who spared no pains to give her
husband’s gallant defender every comfort of a pleasant home. Philip
smiled bitterly at the sentimental gush with which the despatch
concluded, but was really amused with other portions of it.
“They evidently have a report that I am my own abductor, and my friend,
the Boston parson, seems to favor its plausibility,” he mused, as he
turned over the limp and faded sheet, which had been brought into camp
that morning wrapped around some provender from a cross-roads store.
Part of the gang were lying a short distance from him wrapped in
blankets and fast asleep. Delmy was sitting on a log in front of him
cleaning a carbine that had got wet in fording a stream the previous
day, and another man, a small fellow of plebeian Creole type, sat a few
feet further off repairing a saddle girth. The camp was in a small
clearing in the midst of an almost primeval forest, and the only sound
which broke the stillness of the warm cloudy afternoon, was the
intermittent roar of a river they had crossed the previous night.
The carbine in Delmy’s hands was accidentally discharged, the huge
bullet striking the ground near Philip’s feet and hissing away among the
foliage of the trees behind him. In an instant every man sprang to his
feet and grasped his gun to repel an attack. Philip, whose face was
pelted with the sand thrown up by the bullet as it passed him, looked up
from his paper, and broke the most rigid rule of his captors by
exclaiming angrily:
“What’s the matter, Captain, do you mean to murder me!”
“No—it’s nothing—hold your tongue,” growled Delmy.
Philip had been ordered not to speak above a whisper under pain of being
gagged. But Delmy motioned the men back as they rushed towards him, and
flinging the carbine into the thicket, said it was no good. He then
ordered the men to resume their rest as he knew they must need it.
“As to yerself, Mr. Leigh, sense ye’v bin so well behaved so fur, I
don’t mind ef ye do talk a little bit in a low voice. I don’t like to be
too hard on no man,” said Delmy in a voice of unwonted generosity.
“Thank you very much,” replied Philip, “I feel so thoroughly lost that
I’d like to ask you where we are, Captain?”
“Well, we’re gittin’ on, gittin’ on slowly, but we ain’t thar yit, not
by a long shot.”
“Was not that the Ohio River we crossed last night?”
“It mout a bin, and then agin it moutn’t: Leastways, I can’t tell ye,
fur I don’t know geography very well, and I’m preoccupied with my
reflections.”
Delmy had shown the most astonishing acquaintance with the country
between Cleveland and the Kentucky frontier, and had succeeded in
bringing his prisoner triumphantly into the borders of a friendly state.
His present stopping place was on the Kentucky shore of the Ohio, a few
miles above Maysville, at which point he had arrived without horses,
having sunk the jaded nags that brought him the last stage, in the
turgid stream before he crossed. But one wretched beast could be found
in the neighborhood, and this one had carried “No. 9” to Maysville that
morning to procure the mounts for the party which had been arranged for.
Delmy knew that there was too much Northern sympathy at Maysville for
him to pass that way, but he had plenty of friends there, and felt that
one more night’s travel would bring him to a point on the railroad from
which he could proceed openly and as a hero, to his destination.
Having finished supper in a few minutes, the men proceeded to pack up
their meagre belongings, and Delmy, approaching Philip and addressing
him in a low and deferential tone, said:
“It goes right hard with me, Mr. Leigh, to see a Southern gentleman o’
your standin’ in this here kind of a fix. But, ye see I can’t very well
ask one of the boys to tote two saddles so we’ll all have to pack our
own traps. I hope you don’t object.”
“Not at all,” said Philip, cheerfully—“I shall try to do my part to
assure the success of this noble expedition.”
His hands were again tied behind him, and Delmy smiled grimly as he
strapped the heavy Mexican saddle over the prisoner’s shoulders.
It was almost dark, and the pale light of the stars was beginning to
show through the twilight as one by one the men took up their burdens,
Delmy being the last to fling a saddle over his back. As he did so, he
said: “Come on boys, it’s not over three miles to Simpson’s Bend.”
They started towards the path that led through the thicket on the
Maysville side of the clearing, but at that moment a clear voice called
out from the rear of the camp the one word:
“Surrender!”
Delmy wheeled about and clutched his carbine fiercely, but before he
could bring it to his shoulder he staggered and fell to the earth,
mortally wounded by a bullet from the underbrush. None of his men were
ready for a sudden attack; and they were so appalled at the sight of
their fallen chief, and of the armed men who now surrounded them, that
they halted and flung down their arms in despair.
Again the voice of the attacking leader was heard:
“If you will all surrender unconditionally we will not fire another
shot, but not one of you must move on pain of death.”
“As we’ve been betrayed, boys, and they’re two to one, there’s nothing
for it but surrender,” said one of the men, doggedly.
“Fall into line, then, and face this way,” said James Taine, whom Philip
now recognized as the commander of the surprise party.
Delmy’s men promptly obeyed the order, and while part of the rescuers
stood guard with fixed bayonets others proceeded to put handcuffs on the
prisoners, who, for further safety, were all made fast to a strong
trace-chain so that they could march single file. All this was done with
remarkable expedition. Philip’s thongs and burden were removed, and
James congratulated him upon his good luck.
The order was given to march, and the Ohio boys proceeded with their
captives along the river bank for about a mile. At that point James
fired two shots in quick succession from his revolver, and two good
sized boats were rowed quickly from the opposite shore. During the walk
from the camp and while crossing in the boat, James and Philip were
talking apart.
“By what miracle have you been healed of your injuries, and enabled to
effect this long journey, and my rescue?” asked Philip, as soon as James
was at leisure to converse.
“It has all been more simple, Phil, than it appears at first sight,”
James replied. “As days elapsed without any news of you, I felt an
irresistible longing to take part in the chase. It was on the fourth day
after your disappearance that I told Dr. Warren of my resolve to start
out in search of you. That day the doctor said I should incur great risk
to my life, and advised me not to think of such an act. I promised to
postpone my decision until the following day, and to ask his opinion
again. Meanwhile I mentioned the matter to some of the boys, and they
were perfectly willing to join me. When the doctor arrived next day, I
was walking about the room feeling like a well man; my strength seemed
to build up rapidly as my determination became indomitable. The doctor
thought this an interesting circumstance, and finally gave his consent
to go forward with my project. That night we took the train to
Cincinnati, and as good luck would have it struck the trail of your
captors in Brown County two days later.”