Yancy and Cavendish threw themselves on the sweeps and worked the raft
clear of the keel boat, then the turbulent current seized the smaller
craft and whirled it away into the night; as its black bulk receded from
before his eyes the Earl of Lambeth spoke with the voice of authority
and experience.
“It was a good fight and them fellows done well, but not near well
enough.” A conclusion that could not be gainsaid. He added, “No one
ain't hurt but them that had ought to have got hurt. Mr. Yancy's all
right, and so's Mr. Carrington--who's mighty welcome here.” The earl's
shock of red hair was bristling like the mane of some angry animal
and his eyes still flashed with the light of battle, but he managed to
summon up an expression of winning friendliness.
“Mr. Carrington's kin to me, Polly,” explained Yancy to Mrs. Cavendish.
His voice was far from steady, for Hannibal had been gathered into
his arms and had all but wrecked the stoic calm with which the Scratch
Hiller was seeking to guard his emotions.
Polly smiled and dimpled at the Kentuckian. Trained to a romantic point
of view she had a frank liking for handsome stalwart men. Cavendish was
neither, but none knew better than Polly that where he was most lacking
in appearance he was richest in substance. He carried scars honorably
earned in those differences he had been prone to cultivate with less
generous natures; for his scheme of life did not embrace the millennium.
“Thank God, you got here when you did!” said Carrington.
“We was some pushed fo' time, but we done it,” responded the earl
modestly. He added, “What now?--do we make a landing?”
“No--unless it interferes with your plans not to. I 'want to get around
the next bend before we tie up. Later we'll all go back. Can I count on
you?”
“You shorely can. I consider this here as sociable a neighborhood as I
ever struck. It pleases me well. Folks are up and doing hereabout.”
Carrington looked eagerly around in search of Betty. She was sitting
on an upturned tub, a pathetic enough figure as she drooped against the
wall of one of the shanties with all her courage quite gone from her. He
made his way quickly to her side.
“La!” whispered Polly in Chills and Fever's ear. “If that pore young
thing yonder keeps a widow it won't be because of any encouragement she
gets from Mr. Carrington. If I ever seen marriage in a man's eye I seen
it in his this minute!”
“Bruce!” cried Betty, starting up as Carrington approached. “Oh, Bruce,
I am so glad you have come--you are not hurt?” She accepted his presence
without question. She had needed him and he had not failed her.
“We are none of us hurt, Betty,” he said gently, as he took her hand.
He saw that the suffering she had undergone during the preceding
twenty-four hours had left its record on her tired face and in her heavy
eyes. She retained a shuddering consciousness of the unchecked savagery
of those last moments on the keel boat; she was still hearing the oaths
of the men as they struggled together, the sound of blows, and the
dreadful silences that had followed them. She turned from him, and there
came the relief of tears.
“There, Betty, the danger is over now and you were so brave while it
lasted. I can't bear to have you cry!”
“I was wild with fear--all that time on the boat, Bruce--” she faltered
between her sobs. “I didn't know but they would find you out. I could
only wait and hope--and pray!”
“I was in no danger, dear. Didn't the girl tell you I was to take the
place of a man Slosson was expecting? He never doubted that I was that
man until a light--a signal it must have been--on the shore at the head
of the bayou betrayed me.”
“Where are we going now, Bruce? Not the way they went--” and Betty
glanced out into the black void where the keel boat had merged into the
gloom.
“No, no--but we can't get the raft back up-stream against the current,
so the best thing is to land at the Bates' plantation below here; then
as soon as you are able we can return to Belle Plain,” said Carrington.
There was an interval broken only by the occasional sweep of the great
steering oar as Cavendish coaxed the raft out toward the channel. The
thought of Charley Norton's murder rested on Carrington like a pall.
Scarcely a week had elapsed since he quitted Thicket Point and in that
week the hand of death had dealt with them impartially, and to what
end? Then the miles he had traversed in his hopeless journey up-river
translated themselves into a division of time as well as space. They
were just so much further removed from the past with its blight of
tragic terror. He turned and glanced at Betty. He saw that her eyes
held their steady look of wistful pity that was for the dead man; yet in
spite of this, and in spite of the bounds beyond which he would not
let his imagination carry him, the future enriched with sudden promise
unfolded itself. The deep sense of recovered hope stirred within him. He
knew there must come a day when he would dare to speak of his love, and
she would listen.
“It's best we should land at Bates' place--we can get teams there,” he
went on to explain. “And, Betty, wherever we go we'll go together, dear.
Cavendish doesn't look as if he had any very urgent business of his own,
and I reckon the same is true of Yancy, so I am going to keep them
with us. There are some points to be cleared up when we reach Belle
Plain--some folks who'll have a lot to explain or else quit this part of
the state! And I intend to see that you are not left alone until--until
I have the right to take care of you for good and all--that's what
you want me to do one of these days, isn't it, darling?” and his eyes,
glowing and infinitely tender, dwelt on her upturned face.
But Betty shrank from him in involuntary agitation.
“Oh, not now, Bruce--not now--we mustn't speak of that--it's wrong--it's
wicked--you mustn't make me forget him!” she cried brokenly, in protest.
“Forgive me, Betty, I'll not speak of it again,” he said.
“Wait, Bruce, and some time--Oh, don't make me say it,” she gasped, “or
I shall hate myself!” for in his presence she was feeling the horror
of her past experience grow strangely remote, only the dull ache of
her memories remained, and to these she clung. They were silent for a
moment, then Carrington said:
“After I'm sure you'll be safe here perhaps I'll go south into the
Choctaw Purchase. I've been thinking of that recently; but I'll find my
way back here--don't misunderstand me--I'll not come too soon for even
you, Betty. I loved Norton. He was one of my best friends, too,” he
continued gently. “But you know--and I know--dear, the day will come
when no matter where you are I shall find you again--find you and not
lose you!”
Betty made no answer in words, but a soft and eloquent little hand was
slipped into his and allowed to rest there.
Presently a light wind stirred the dead dense atmosphere, the mist
lifted and enveloped the shore, showing them the river between piled-up
masses of vapor. Apparently it ran for their raft alone. It was just
twenty-four hours since Carrington had looked upon such another night
but this was a different world the gray fog was unmasking--a world of
hopes, and dreams, and rich content. Then the thought of Norton--poor
Norton who had had his world, too, of hopes and dreams and rich
content--
The calm of a highly domestic existence had resumed its interrupted sway
on the raft. Mr. Cavendish, associated in Betty's memory with certain
earsplitting manifestations of ferocious rage, became in the bosom of
his family low-voiced and genial and hopelessly impotent to deal with
his five small sons; while Yancy was again the Bob Yancy of Scratch
Hill, violence of any sort apparently had no place in his nature. He was
deeply absorbed in Hannibal's account of those vicissitudes which had
befallen him during their separation. They were now seated before a
cheerful fire that blazed on the hearth, the boy very close to Yancy
with one hand clasped in the Scratch Hiller's, while about them were
ranged the six small Cavendishes sedately sharing in the reunion of
uncle and nevvy, toward which they felt they had honorably labored.
“And you wa'n't dead, Uncle Bob?” said Hannibal with a deep breath,
viewing Yancy unmistakably in the flesh.
“Never once. I been floating peacefully along with these here titled
friends of mine; but I was some anxious about you, son.”
“And Mr. Slosson, Uncle Bob--did you smack him like you smacked Dave
Blount that day when he tried to steal me?” asked Hannibal, whose
childish sense of justice demanded reparation for the wrongs they had
suffered.
Mr. Yancy extended a big right hand, the knuckle of which was skinned
and bruised.
“He were the meanest man I ever felt obliged fo' to hit with my fist,
Nevvy; it appeared like he had teeth all over his face.”
“Sho--where's his hide, Uncle Bob?” cried the little Cavendishes in
an excited chorus. “Sho--did you forget that?” They themselves had
forgotten the unique enterprise to which Mr. Yancy was committed, but
the allusion to Slosson had revived their memory of it.
“Well, he begged so piteous to be allowed fo' to keep his hide, I hadn't
the heart to strip it off,” explained Mr. Yancy pleasantly. “And the
winter's comin' onat this moment I can feel a chill in the air--don't
you-all reckon he's goin' to need it fo' to keep the cold out,' Sho',
you mustn't be bloody-minded!”
“What was it about Mr. Slosson's hide, Uncle Bob?” demanded Hannibal.
“What was you a-goin' to do to that?”
“Why, Nevvy, after he beat me up and throwed me in the river, I was some
peevish fo' a spell in my feelings fo' him,” said Yancy, in a tone of
gentle regret. He glanced at his bruised hand. “But I'm right pleased
to be able to say that I've got over all them oncharitable thoughts of
mine.”
“And you seen the judge, Uncle Bob?” questioned Hannibal.
“Yes, I've seen the judge. We was together fo' part of a day. Me and him
gets on fine.”
“Where is he now, Uncle Bob?”
“I reckon he's back at Belle Plain by this time. You see we left him
in Raleigh along after noon to 'tend to some business he had on hand. I
never seen a gentleman of his weight so truly spry on his legs--and all
about you, Nevvy; while as to mind! Sho--why, words flowed out of him as
naturally as water out of a branch.”
Of Hannibal's relationship to the judge he said nothing. He felt that
was a secret to be revealed by the judge himself when he should see fit.
“Uncle Bob, who'm I going to live with now?” questioned Hannibal
anxiously.
“That p'int's already come up, Nevvy--him and me's decided that there
won't be no friction. You-all will just go on living with him.”
“But what about you, Uncle Bob?” cried Hannibal, lifting a wistful
little face to Yancy's.
“Oh, me?--well, you-all will go right on living with me.”
“And what will come of Mr. Mahaffy?”
“I reckon you-all will go right on living with him, too.”
“Uncle Bob, you mean you reckon we are all going to live in one house?”
“I 'low it will have to be fixed that-a-ways,” agreed Yancy.