_HOW AUGUSTUS FINALLY PROPOSED._
After this there was a lull; and Penn, who had forgotten every thing
else whilst the conflict was raging, remembered that he had seen
Bythewood at the ravine, and hastened to inform Pomp of the
circumstance.
The death of Cudjo had plunged Pomp into a fit of stern, sad reverie.
His surgical task performed, he stood leaning on his rifle, gazing
abstractedly at the darkly gliding waves, when Penn's communication
roused him.
"Ha!" said he, with a slight start. "We must look to that! The danger
here is over for the present, and two or three of us can be spared."
"Shall I go, too?" said Carl. "It is time I vas seeing to my prisoner."
"Come," said Pomp. And the three set out to return.
Having but slight anticipations of trouble from the side of the ravine,
they came suddenly, wholly unprepared, upon a scene which filled them
with horror and amazement.
The prisoner, as we know, had fled. We left him on his way back to the
cave with a squad of men. Since which time, this is what had occurred.
The assailants had approached so stealthily over the ledges, below which
Toby was stationed, looking intently for them in another direction, that
he had no suspicions of their coming until they suddenly dropped upon
him as from the clouds. He had no time to run for his axe; and he had
scarcely given the alarm when he was overpowered, knocked down, and
rolled out of the way off the rocks.
The assailants then, with Lysander at their head, rushed to the entrance
of the cave. But there they encountered unexpected resistance: the two
sisters--Salina with the pistol, Virginia with the axe.
"Hello! Sal!" cried Lysander, recoiling into the arms of his men; "what
the devil do you mean?"
"I mean to kill you, or any man that sets foot in this place! That is
what I mean!"
There could be no doubt about it: her eyes, her attitude, her whole
form, from head to foot, looked what she said. She was flushed; a smile
of wild and reckless scorn curved her mouth, and her countenance gleamed
with a wicked light.
By her side was Virginia, with the uplifted axe, expressing no less
determination by her posture and looks, though she did not speak, though
there was no smile on her pale lips, and though her features were as
white as death.
"It's no use, gals!" said Sprowl. "Don't make fools of yourselves! You
won't be hurt; but I'm bound to come in!"'
"Do not attempt it! You have broken your oath to me. But I have made an
oath I shall not break!"
What that oath was Salina did not say; but Lysander's changing color
betrayed that he guessed it pretty well.
"I don't care a d--n for you! Virginia, drop that axe, and come out here
with your father, and I pledge my sacred honor that neither of you shall
receive the least harm."
"Your sacred honor!" sneered Salina.
But Virginia said nothing. She stood like a clothed statue; only the
eyes through which the fire of the excited spirit shone were not those
of a statue; and the advanced white arm, beautiful and bare, from which
the loose sleeve fell as it reared the axe, was of God's sculpture, not
man's.
She seemed not to hear Lysander; for the promise of safety for herself
was as nothing to her: she felt that she was there to defend, with her
life, if needs were, the friends whom he had betrayed. Only a holy and
great purpose like this could have nerved that gentle nature for such
work, and made those tender sinews firm as steel.
There was something slightly devilish in the aspect of Salina; but
Virginia was all the angel; yet it was the angel roused to strife.
"Call off your gals, Mr. Villars!" said Sprowl.
"Lysander!" said the solemn voice of the old minister from within, "hear
me! We are but three here, as you see: a blind and helpless old man and
two girls. Why do you follow to persecute us? Go your way, and learn to
be a man. The business you are engaged in is unworthy of a man. My
daughters do right to defend this place, which you, false and
ungrateful, have betrayed. Attempt nothing farther; for we are not
afraid to die!"
"Go in, boys!" shouted Lysander, himself shrinking aside to let the
soldiers pass.
Salina fired the pistol--not at the soldiers.
"She has shot me!" said Lysander, staggering back. "Kill the fiend! kill
her!"
Instantly two bayonets darted at her breast. One of them was struck down
by Virginia's axe, which half severed the soldier's wrist. But before
the axe could rise and descend again, the other bayonet had done its
work; and the soldiers rushed in.
It was all over in a minute. The axe was seized and wrenched violently
away. Toby lay senseless on the rocks without. Lysander was leaning
dizzily, clutching at the ledge, a ghastly whiteness settling about the
gay mustache, and a strange glassiness dimming his eyes. The soldiers
had possession. Virginia was a prisoner, and her father; but not Salina.
There was the body which had been hers, transfixed by the bayonet, and
fallen upon the ground: that was palpable: but who shall capture the
escaping soul?
When Penn and his companions arrived, not a living person was there; but
alone, stretched upon the cold stone floor, where the gray light from
the entrance fell,--pulseless, pallid, with pale hands crossed
peacefully on her breast, hiding the wound, and features faintly smiling
in their stony calm,--lay the corpse of her that was Salina. The fair
cup that had brimmed with the bitterness of life was shattered. The soul
that drank thereat had fled away in haughtiness and scorn.
Toby, groaning on the stones outside, felt somebody shaking him, and
heard the voice of Carl asking how he was.
"Dunno'; sort o' common," said the old negro, trying to rise.
He knew nothing of what had happened, except that he had been fallen
upon and beaten down: for the rest, it was useless to question him: not
even Penn's agonies of doubt and fear could rouse his recollection.
* * * * *
Lieutenant-colonel Bythewood had committed the error of an officer green
in his profession. The cave surprised, and the prisoners taken, the men
retired in all haste, simply because they had received no orders to the
contrary. Thus no advantage whatever was taken of the very important
position which had been gained.
Leaving the dead behind, and carrying off the wounded and the prisoners,
the sergeant, upon whom the command devolved after his captain was
disabled, lost no time in reporting to the lieutenant-colonel.
Augustus stood up to receive the report and the prisoners,--extremely
pale, but appearing preternaturally courteous and composed. He bowed
very low to the old clergyman (who, he forgot, could not witness and
appreciate that graceful act of homage), and expressed infinite regret
that "his duty had rendered it necessary," and so forth. Then turning to
Virginia, whose look was scarcely less stony than that of her dead
sister in the cave, he bowed low to her also, but without speaking, and
without raising his eyes to her face.
"Have this old gentleman carried to his own house, and see that every
attention is paid to him."
"And my daughter?" said the blind old man, meekly.
"She shall follow you. I will myself accompany her."
"And my dead child up yonder?"
"She shall be brought to you at the earliest possible moment."
"And my faithful servant?"
"He shall be cared for."
"Thank you." And Mr. Villars bowed his white head upon his breast.
"Take the captain immediately to the hospital! And you fellow with the
hacked wrist, go with him."
The number of men required to execute these orders (since both the old
clergyman and the wounded captain had to be carried) left Augustus
almost alone with Virginia. Having previously sent off all his available
force to Ropes at the sink, in answer to a pressing call for
reenforcements, he had now only the sergeant and two men at his beck.
But perhaps this was as he wished it to be. He approached Virginia, and,
bowing formally, still without speaking, offered her his arm.
"Thank you. I can walk without assistance." Like marble still, but with
the same wild fire in her eyes. "The only favor I ask of you is to be
permitted to leave you."
Bythewood made a motion to the sergeant, who removed his men farther
off.
"I wish to have a few words of conversation with you, Miss Villars. I
beg you to be seated here in the shade."
Virginia remained standing, regarding him with features pale and firm as
when she held the axe. It was evident to her that here was another
struggle before her, scarcely less to be dreaded than the first.
Augustus looked at her, and smiled pallidly.
"If eyes could kill, Miss Villars, I think yours would kill me!"
"If polite cruelty can kill, YOU HAVE killed my sister!"
"O, I beg your pardon, dear Miss Villars, but it was not I!"
"I beg no pardon, but I say it WAS you! And now you will murder my
father--perhaps me."
"O, my excellent young lady, how you have misunderstood me! By Heaven, I
swear!"--his voice shook with sincere emotion,--"if I have committed a
fault, it has been for the love of you! Such faults surely may be
pardoned. Virginia! will you accept my life as an atonement for all I
have done amiss? You shall bear my name, possess my wealth, and, if you
do not like the cause I am engaged in, I will throw up my commission
to-morrow. I will take you to France--Italy--Switzerland--wherever you
wish to go. Nor do I forget your father. Whatever you ask for him shall
be granted. I have money--influence--position--every thing that can make
you happy."
There was a minute's pause, the intense glances of the girl piercing
through and through that pale, polite mask to his soul. A selfish,
chivalrous man; not a great villain, by any means; moved by a genuine,
eager, unscrupulous passion for her--sincere at least in that; one who
might be influenced to good, and made a most convenient and devoted
husband: this she saw.
"Well, what more?"
"What more? Ah, you are thinking of your friends--I should say, of your
friend! It is natural. I have no ill will against him. Whatever you ask
for him shall be granted. At a word from me, the fighting up there
ceases; and he and the rest shall be permitted to go wherever they
choose, unharmed."
"Well, and if I reject your generous offer?"
Augustus smiled as he answered, with a hard, inexorable purpose in his
tones,--
"Then, much as I love you, I can do nothing!"
"Nothing for my father?"
"Nothing!"
"Nor for me?"
"Not even for you!"
"Why, then, God pity us all!" said Virginia, calmly.
"Truly you may say, God pity you! For do you know what will happen? Your
father will die in prison: you will never see him again. Your friends
will be massacred to a man. I will be frank with you: to a man they will
be given to the sword. They are but a dozen; we are fifty--a hundred--a
thousand, if necessary. The sink has already been taken, and a force is
on its way to occupy this end of the cave. If your friends hold out,
they will be starved. If they fight, they will be bayoneted and shot. If
they surrender, every living man of them shall be hung. There is no help
for them. Lincoln's army, that has been coming so long, is a chimera; it
will never come. The power is all in our hands; and not even God can
help them. That sounds blasphemous, I know; but it is true. They are
doomed. But I can save them--and you can save them."
"And what is to become of me?" asked Virginia, calmly as before.
"Your future is entirely in your own hands. On the one side, what I have
promised. On the other----" Augustus thought he heard a crackling of
sticks, and looked around.
"On the other,"--Virginia took up the unfinished speech,--"the fate of a
friendless, fatherless, Union-loving woman in this chivalrous south! I
know how you treat such women. I know what awaits me on that side. And I
accept it. My friends can die. My father can die; and I can. All this I
accept; all the rest, you and your offers, I reject. I would not be your
wife to save the world. Because I not only do not love you, but because
I detest you. You have my answer."
With swelling breast and set teeth Augustus kept his eyes upon her for
full a minute, then replied, in a low voice shaken by passion,--
"I hoped your decision would be different. But it is spoken. I cannot
hope to change it?"
"Can you change these rocks under our feet with empty words?" she said,
with a white smile.
"All is over, then! Without cause you hate me, Miss Villars. Hitherto,
in all that has happened to you and your friends, I have been blameless.
If in the future I am not so, remember it is your own fault."
Then the fire flashed into Virginia's cheeks, and indignation rang in
her tones as she denounced the falsehood.
"Hitherto, in the wrong that has happened to me and my friends, you have
NOT been blameless! In the future you cannot do more to injure us than
you have already done, or meant to do. Look at me, and listen while I
prove what I say."
Again there was a slight noise in the thicket behind them, and he would
have been glad to make that an excuse for leaving her a moment; but her
spirit held him.
"I listen," he said, inwardly quaking at he knew not what.
"Do you remember the night my father was arrested?"
"I do."
"And how you that day took a journey to be away from us in our trouble?"
"I certainly took a short journey that day, but--" his eyes flickering
with the uneasiness of guilt.
"And do you remember a conversation you had with Lysander under a
bridge?"
His face suddenly flushed purple. "The villain has betrayed me!" he
thought. Then he stammered, "I hope you have not been listening to any
of that fellow's slanders!"
"You talked with Lysander under the bridge. Your conversation was heard,
every word of it, by a third person, who lay concealed under the planks,
behind you."
"A villanous spy!" articulated Augustus.
"No spy--but the man you two were at that moment seeking to kill: Penn
Hapgood, the Schoolmaster."
It was a blow. Poor Bythewood, too luxurious and inert to be a great
villain, was only a weak one; and, wounded in his most sensitive point,
his pride, he writhed for a space with unutterable chagrin and rage.
Then he recovered himself. He had heard the worst; and now there was
nothing left for him but to cast down and trample with his feet (so to
speak) the mask that had been torn from his face.
"Very well! You think you know me, then!"--He seized her wrists.--"Now
hear me! I am not to be spurned like a dog, even by the foot of the
woman I love. You reject, despise, insult me. As for me, I say this: all
shall be as I have pronounced. Your father, your lover,--not Fate itself
shall intervene to save them! And as for you----"
Again he heard a rustling by the ravine; this time so near that it
startled him. He looked quickly around, and saw, slowly peering through
the bushes, a dark human face. Had it been the terrible front of the
Fate he had just defied, the soul of Augustus Bythewood could not have
shrunk with a more sudden and appalling fear. It was the face of Pomp.