_THE COMBAT._
Pomp, rifle in hand, bearing a torch, led the patriots on their rapid
return through the caverns.
"Lights down!" he said, as they approached the vicinity of the sink. "We
shall see them; but they must not see us."
They halted at the natural bridge; the torch was extinguished, and the
patriots placed their lanterns under a rock. They then advanced as
swiftly as possible in the obscurity, along the bank of the stream. In
the hall of the bats they met Carl, who had seen their lights and come
towards them.
"Hurry! hurry!" he said. "They are coming down the trees like the
devil's monkeys! a whole carawan proke loose!"
Captain Grudd commanded the patriots; but Pomp commanded Captain Grudd.
"Quick, and make no noise! We have every advantage; the darkness is on
our side--those loose rocks will shelter us."
They advanced until within a hundred yards of where the shaft of
daylight came down. There they could distinguish, in the shining cleft
under the brow of the cavern, and above the rocky embankment, the forms
of their assailants. Some had already gained a footing. Others were
descending the tree-trunks in a dark chain, each link the body of a
rebel.
"We must stop that!" said Pomp.
The men were deployed forward rapidly, and a halt ordered, each choosing
his position.
"Ready! Aim!"
At that moment, half a dozen men of the attacking party advanced,
feeling their way over the rocks down which Penn and his companions had
been seen to escape. The leader, shielding his eyes with his hand,
peered into the gloom of the cavern. Coming from the light, he could see
nothing distinctly. Suddenly he paused: had he heard the words of
command whispered? or was he impressed by the awful mystery and silence?
"Fire!" said Captain Grudd.
Instantly a jagged line of flashes leaped across the breast of the
darkness, accompanied by a detonation truly terrible. Each gun with its
echoes, in those cavernous solitudes, thundered like a whole park of
artillery: what, then, was the effect of the volley? The patriots were
themselves appalled by it. The mountain trembled, and a gusty roar swept
through its shuddering chambers, throbbing and pulsing long after the
smoke of the discharge had cleared away.
Pomp laughed quietly, while Withers exclaimed, "By the Etarnal! if I
didn't fancy the hull ruf of the mountain had caved in!"
"Load!" said Captain Grudd, sternly.
The rebels advancing over the rocks had suddenly disappeared, having
either fallen in the crevices or scrambled back up the bank while hidden
from view by the smoke. The chain descending the tree had broken; those
near the ground leaped down or slid, while those above seemed seized by
a wild impulse to climb back with all haste to the summit of the wall. A
few threw away their guns, which fell upon the heads of those below. At
the same time those below might have been seen scampering to places of
shelter behind rocks and trees.
If ever panic were excusable, this surely was. Since the patriots were
terrified by their own firing, we need not wonder at the alarm of the
rebels. Some had seen the flashes sever the darkness, and their comrades
fall; while all had felt the earthquake and the thundering. To those at
the entrance it had seemed that these were the jaws and throat of a
monster mountain-huge, which at their approach spat flame and bellowed.
"Now is our time! Clear them out!" said Grudd.
"Rush in and finish them with the bayonet!" said Stackridge. Six of the
guns had bayonets, and his was one of them.
"Not yet!" said Pomp. "They will fire on you from above. We must first
attend to that. Shall I show you? Then do as I do!"
Instinctively they accepted his lead. Loading his piece, he ran forward
until, himself concealed under the brow of the cavern, he could see the
rebels in the tree and on the cliff.
"Once more! All together!" he said, taking aim. "Give the word,
captain!"
The men knelt among the loosely tumbled rocks, which served at once as a
breastwork and as rests for their guns. The projecting roof of the cave
was over them; through the obscure opening they pointed their pieces.
Above them, in the full light, were the frightened confederates, some on
the tree, some on the cliff, some leaping from the tree to the cliff;
while their comrades in the sink lurked on the side opposite that where
the patriots were.
"Take the cusses on the top of the rocks!" said Stackridge. "The rest
are harmless."
"It's all them in the tree can do to take keer of themselves," added
Withers. "Reg'lar secesh! All they ax is to be let alone."
Grudd gave the word. Flame from a dozen muzzles shot upwards from the
edge of the pit. When the smoke rolled away, the cliff was cleared. Not
a rebel was to be seen, except those in the tree franticly scrambling to
get out, and two others. One of these had fallen on the cliff: his head
and one arm hung horribly over the brink. The other, in his too eager
haste to escape from the tree, had slipped from the limb, and been saved
from dashing to pieces on the rocks below only by a projection of the
wall, to which he had caught, and where he now clung, a dozen feet from
the top, and far above the river that rolled black and slow in its
channel beneath the cliff.
"Now with your bayonets!" said Pomp. "This way!"
There were six bayonets before; now there were eight.
"That Carl is worth his weight in gold!" said the enthusiastic
Stackridge.
While the patriots, preparing for their second volley, were getting
positions among the rocks on the left, Carl had crept up the embankment
in front, and brought away two muskets from two dead rebels. These were
they who had fallen at the first fire. Both guns had bayonets. Pomp took
one; Carl kept the other. Cudjo with his sword accompanied the charging
party; Grudd and the rest remaining at their post, ready to pick off any
rebel that should appear on the cliff.
Swift and stealthy as a panther, Pomp crept around still farther to the
left, under the projecting wall, raising his head cautiously now and
then to look for the fugitives.
"As I expected! They are over there, afraid to follow the stream into
the cave, and hesitating whether to make a rush for the tree. All
ready?"
He looked around on his little force and smiled. Instead of eight
bayonets, there were now nine. Penn had arrived.
"All ready!" answered Stackridge.
Pomp bounded upon the rocks and over them, with a yell which the rest
took up as they followed, charging headlong after him. Cudjo,
brandishing his sword, leaped and yelled with the foremost--a figure
fantastically terrible. Penn, with the fiery Stackridge on one side, and
his beloved Carl on the other, forgot that he had ever been a Quaker,
hating strife. Not that he loved it now; but, remembering that these
were the deadly foes of his country, and of those he loved, and feeling
it a righteous duty to exterminate them, he went to the work, not like
an apprentice, but a master,--without fear, self-possessed, impetuous,
kindled with fierce excitement.
The rebels in the sink, fifteen in number, had had time to rally from
their panic; and they now seemed inclined to make resistance. They were
behind a natural breastwork, similar to that which had sheltered the
patriots on the other side. They levelled their guns hastily and fired.
One of the patriots fell: it was Withers.
"Give it to them!" shouted Pomp.
"Every cussed scoundrel of 'em!" Stackridge cried.
"Kill! kill! kill!" shrieked Cudjo.
"Surrender! surrender!" thundered Penn.
With such cries they charged over the rocks, straight at the faces and
breasts of the confederates. Some turned to fly; but beyond them was the
unknown darkness into which the river flowed: they recoiled aghast from
that. A few stood their ground. The bayonet, which Penn had first made
acquaintance with when it was thrust at his own breast, he shoved
through the shoulder of a rebel whose clubbed musket was descending on
Carl's head. Three inches of the blade come out of his back; and,
bearing him downwards in his irresistible onset, Penn literally pinned
him to the ground. Cudjo slashed another hideously across the face with
the sword. Pomp took the first prisoner: it was Dan Pepperill. The rest
soon followed Dan's example, cried quarter, and threw down their arms.
"Quarter!" gasped the wretch Penn had pinned.
"You spoke too late--I am sorry!" said Penn, with austere pity, as,
placing his foot across the man's armpit to hold him while he pulled, he
put forth his strength, and drew out the steel. A gush of blood
followed, and, with a groan, the soldier swooned.
"It is one of them wagabonds that gave you the tar and fedders!" said
Carl.
"And assisted at my hanging afterwards!" added Penn, remembering the
ghastly face.
Thus retribution followed these men. Gad and Griffin he had seen dead.
Was it any satisfaction for him to feel that he was thus avenged? I
think, not much. The devil of revenge had no place in his soul; and
never for any personal wrong he had received would he have wished to see
bloody violence done.
The prisoners were disarmed, and ordered to remain where they were.
"Bring the wounded to me," said Pomp, hastening back to the spot where
Withers had fallen.
Stackridge and another were lifting the fallen patriot and bearing him
to the shelter of the cave. Pomp assisted, skilfully and tenderly. Then
followed those who bore away the wounded prisoners and the guns that had
been captured. Pepperill had been ordered to help. He and Carl carried
the man whose face Cudjo had slashed. This was the only rebel who had
fought obstinately: he had not given up until an arm was broken, and he
was blinded by his own blood. Penn and Devitt brought up the rear with
the swooning soldier. When half way over they were fired upon by the
rebels rallying to the edge of the cliff. Grudd and his men responded
sharply, covering their retreat. Penn felt a bullet graze his shoulder.
It made but a slight flesh wound there; but, passing down, it entered
the heart of the wounded man, whose swoon became the swoon of death.
This was the only serious result of the confederate fire.
"I am glad I did not kill him!" said Penn, as they laid the corpse
beside the stream.
Then out of the mask of blood which covered the face of the stout fellow
who had fought so well, there issued a voice that spoke, in a strange
tongue, these words:--
"_Was hat man mir gethan? Wo bin ich, mutter?_"
But the words were not strange to Carl; neither was the voice strange.
"Fritz! Fritz!" he answered, in the same language, "is it you?"
"I am Fritz Minnevich; that is true. And you, I think, are my cousin
Carl."
They laid the wounded man near the stream, where Pomp was examining
Withers's hurt.
"O, Fritz!" said Carl, "how came you here?"
"They said the Yankees were coming to take our farm. So Hans and I
enlisted to fight. I got in here because I was ordered. We do as we are
ordered. It was we who whipped the woman. We whipped her well. I hope my
good looks will not be spoiled; for that would grieve our mother."
Thus the soldier talked in his native tongue, while Carl, in sorrow and
silence, washed the blood from his face. He remembered he was his
father's brother's son; a good fellow, in his way; dull, but faithful;
and he had not always treated him cruelly. Indeed, Carl thought not of
his cruelty now at all, but only of the good times they had had
together, in days when they were friends, and Frau Minnevich had not
taught her boys to be as ill-natured as herself.
"What for do you do this, Carl?" said Fritz. "There is no cause that you
should be kind to me. I did you some ill turns. You did right to run
away. But our father swears you shall have your share of the property if
you ever come back for it, and the Yankees do not take it."
"It is all lies they tell you about the Yankees!" said Carl. "O Pomp!
this is my cousin--see what you can do for him."
Pomp had been reluctantly convinced that he could do nothing for
Withers: his wound was mortal. And Withers had said to him, in cheerful,
feeble tones, "I feel I'm about to the eend of my tether. So don't waste
yer time on me."
So Pomp turned his attention to the Minnevich. But Penn and Stackridge
remained with the dying patriot.
"Wish ye had a Union flag to wrap me in when I'm dead, boys! That's what
I've fit fur; that's what I meant to die fur, if 'twas so ordered. It's
all right, boys! Jest look arter my family a little, won't ye? And don't
give up old Tennessee!"
These were his last words.
Penn and Stackridge rejoined their comrades in the fight.
"Shoot him! shoot him! shoot him!" cried Cudjo, in a frenzy of
excitement, pointing at the rebel who had fallen from the tree upon the
projection of the chasm wall. "Him dar! Dat Sile Ropes!"
"Ropes?" said Penn, looking up through the opening. "That he!"--raising
his gun. "But he can do no harm there; and he can't get out."
"Don' ye see? Dey's got a rope to help him wif! Gib him a shot fust! O,
gib him a shot!"
The projection to which the lieutenant clung was a broken shelf less
than half a yard in breadth. There he cowered in abject terror betwixt
two dangers, that of falling if he attempted to move, and that of being
picked off if he remained stationary and in sight. To avoid both, he got
upon his hands and knees, and hid his face in the angle of the ledge,
leaving the posterior part of his person prominent, no doubt thinking,
like an ostrich, that if his head was in a hole, he was safe. The very
ludicrousness of his situation saved him. The patriots reserved him to
laugh at, and fired over him at the rebels on the cliff. At each shot,
Silas could be seen to root his nose still more industriously into the
rock. At length, however, as Cudjo had declared, a rope was brought and
let down to him.
"Take hold there!" shouted the rebels on the cliff. Ropes could feel the
cord dangling on his back. "Tie it around your waist!"
Silas, without daring to look up, put out his hand, which groped
awkwardly and blindly for the rope as it swung to and fro all around it.
Finally, he seized it, but ran imminent risk of falling as he drew it
under his body. At length he seemed to have it secured; but in his hurry
and trepidation he had fastened it considerably nearer his hips than his
arms. The result, when the rebels above began to haul, can be imagined.
Hips and heels were hoisted, while arms and head hung down, causing him
to resemble very strikingly a frog hooked on for bait at the end of a
fish-line. The affrighted face drawn out of its hole, looked down
ridiculously hideous into the rocky and bristling gulf over which he
swung.
"Fire!" said Captain Grudd.
The volley was aimed, not at Silas, but at those who were hauling him
up. Cudjo shrieked with frantic joy, expecting to see his old enemy
plunge head foremost among the stones on the bank of the stream. Such,
no doubt, would have been the result, but for one sturdy and brave
fellow at the rope. The rest, struck either with bullets or terror, fell
back, loosing their hold. But this man clung fast, imperturbable. Alone,
slowly, hand over hand, he hauled and hauled; grim, unterrified,
faithful. But it was a tedious and laborious task for one, even the
stoutest. The man had but a precarious foothold, and the rope rubbed
hard on the edge of the cliff. Cudjo shrieked again, this time with
despair at seeing his former overseer about to escape.
"That's a plucky fellow!" said Stackridge, with stern admiration of the
soldier's courage. "I like his grit; but he must stop that!"
He reached for a loaded gun. He took Carl's. The boy turned pale, but
said never a word, setting his lips firmly as he looked up at the cliff.
Silas was swinging. The soldier was pulling in the rope, hitch by hitch,
over the ledge. Stackridge took deliberate aim, and fired.
For a moment no very surprising effect was perceptible, only the man
stopped hauling. Then he went down on one knee, paying out several
inches of the rope, and letting the suspended Silas dip accordingly. It
became evident that he was hit; he still grasped the rope, but it began
to glide through his hands. Silas set up a howl.
"Hold me! hold me!"--at the same time extending all his fingers to grasp
the rocks.
The brave fellow made one last effort, and took a turn of the rope about
his wrist. It did not slip through his hands any more. But soon _he_
began to slip--forward--forward--on both knees now--his head reeling
like that of a drunken man, and at last pitching heavily over the cliff.
Some of the cowards who had deserted their post sprang to save him; but
too late: the man was gone.
It was fortunate for Silas that he had been let down several feet thus
gradually. He was near the ledge from which he had been lifted, and had
just time to grasp it again and crawl upon it, when the man fell,
turning a complete somerset over him, fearful to witness! revolving
slowly in his swift descent through the air; still holding with
tenacious grip the rope; plunging through the boughs like a mere log
tumbled from the cliff, and striking the rocks below--dead.
He had taken the rope with him; and Silas had been preserved from
sharing his fate only by a lucky accident. The knot at his hips loosened
itself as he clutched the ledge, and let the coil fly off as the man
shot down.
Not a gun was fired: rebels and patriots seemed struck dumb with horror
at the brave fellow's fate. Then Carl whispered,--
"That vas my other cousin! That vas Hans!"
"Cudjo! Cudjo! what are you about?" cried Penn.
The black did not answer. Beside himself with excitement, he ran to the
leaning tree and climbed it like an ape. The naked sword gleamed among
the twigs. Reaching the trunk of the tall tree he ascended that as
nimbly, never stopping until he had reached the upper limbs. There was
one that branched towards the ledge where Silas clung. At a glance
choosing that, Cudjo ran out upon it, until it bent beneath his weight.
There he tried in vain to reach his ancient enemy with the sword; the
distance was too great, even for his long arms.
"Sile Ropes! ye ol' oberseer! g'e know Cudjo? Me Cudjo!" he yelled,
slashing the end of the branch as if it had been his victim's flesh.
"'Member de lickins? 'Member my gal ye got away? Now ye git yer pay!"
While he was raving thus, one of the soldiers above, sheltering himself
from the fire of the patriots by lying almost flat on the ground,
levelled his gun at the half-crazed negro's breast, and pulled the
trigger.
A flash--a report--the sword fell, and went clattering down upon the
rocks. Cudjo turned one wild look upward, clapping his hand to his
breast. Then, with a terrible grimace, he cast his eyes down again at
Ropes,--crept still farther out on the branch,--and leaped.
Silas had his nose in the angle of the ledge again, and scarcely knew
what had happened until he felt the negro alight on his back and fling
his arms about him.
"Cudjo shot! Cudjo die! But you go too, Sile Ropes!"
As he gibbered forth these words, his long hands found the lieutenant's
throat, and tightened upon it. A fearfully quiet moment ensued; then
living and dying rolled together from the ledge, and dropped into the
chasm. They struck the body of the dead Hans; that broke the fall; and
Cudjo was beneath his victim. Ropes, stunned only, struggled to rise;
but, held in that deadly embrace, he only succeeded in rolling himself
down the embankment, Cudjo accompanying. The stream flowed beneath,
black, with scarce a murmur. Silas neither saw nor heard it; but,
continuing to struggle, and so continuing to roll, he reached the verge
of the rocks, and fell with a splash into the current.
Penn ran to the spot just in time to see the two bodies disappear
together; the dying Cudjo and the drowning Silas sinking as one, and
drifting away into the cavernous darkness of the subterranean river.