_THE TRAITOR._
The news of the disaster at the sink, and of the loss of prisoners, had
reached Colonel Derring, and he was preparing to forward reenforcements,
when Bythewood's letter arrived.
Of the colonel's reflections on the receipt of that singular missive
little is known. He was unwontedly cross and abstracted for an hour. At
the end of that time he asked for the renegade Deslow.
At the end of another hour Deslow had been found and brought to
head-quarters. The colonel, having now quite recovered his equanimity of
temper, received him with the most flattering attentions.
"You have done an honorable and patriotic work, Mr. Deslow. Your friends
are coming to terms. Bythewood is at this moment engaged in an amicable
conference with them. Your example has had a most salutary effect. They
all desire to give themselves up on similar terms. But they will not
believe as yet that you have been pardoned and received into favor."
The dark brow of the traitor brightened.
"And they have no suspicions?"
"None whatever. They do not imagine you had anything to do with the
discovery of their retreat. Now, I've been thinking you might help along
matters immensely, if you would go up and join Bythewood, and represent
to your friends the folly of holding out any longer, and show them the
advantage of following your example."
Deslow felt strong misgivings about undertaking this delicate business.
But persuasions, flatteries, and promises prevailed upon him at last.
And at sundown he set out, accompanied by the man who had brought
Bythewood's letter.
In consequence of the messenger's long absence, it was beginning to be
feared, by those who had sent him, that he had gone on a fruitless
errand. Evening came. There was sadness on the faces of Penn and
Virginia, as they sat by the corpse of Salina. Pomp was gloomy and
silent. Bythewood, bound to Lysander's rock, sat waiting, with feelings
we will not seek to penetrate, for the answer to his letter. In that
letter he had mentioned, among other things, a certain pair of horses
that were in his stable. Had he known that the colonel, during his hour
of moroseness, had gone over to look at these horses, and that he was
now driving them about the village, well satisfied with the munificent
bribe, he would, no doubt, have felt easier in his mind.
"You will not go to your father to-night," said Penn, having looked out
into the gathering darkness, and returned to Virginia's side. "We have
one night more together. May be it is the last."
Carl was comforting his wounded cousin, who had been brought and placed
on some skins on the floor. The patriots were holding a consultation.
Suddenly the sentinel at the door announced an arrival; and to the
amazement of all, the messenger entered, followed by Deslow.
The traitor came in, smiling in most friendly fashion upon his late
companions, even offering his hand to Pomp, who did not accept it. Then
he saw in the faces that looked upon him a stern and terrible triumph.
By the rock he beheld Bythewood bound. And his heart sank.
The messenger brought a letter for Augustus. Pomp took it.
"This interests us!" he said, breaking the seal. "Excuse me, sir!"--to
Bythewood.--"I was once your servant; and I had forgotten that
circumstances have slightly changed! As your hands are confined, I will
read it for you."
He read aloud.
"Dear Gus: This is an awful bad scrape you have got into; but I
suppose I must get you out of it. Villars shall have passports, and
an escort, if he likes. I'll keep the soldiers from the mountains.
The hardest thing to arrange is the Deslow affair. I don't care a
curse for the fellow but I don't want the name of giving him up.
So, if I succeed in sending him, keep mum. Probably _he_ never will
come away to tell a tale."
"Yours, etc., Derring."
"P. S. Thank you for the horses."
Then Pomp turned and looked upon the traitor, who had been himself
betrayed. His ghastly face was of the color of grayish yellow parchment.
His hat was in his hand, and his short, stiff hair stood erect with
terror. If up to this moment there had been any doubt of his guilt in
Pomp's mind, it vanished. The wretch had not the power to proclaim his
innocence, or to plead for mercy. No explanations were needed: he
understood all: with that vivid perception of truth which often comes
with the approach of death, he knew that he was there to die.
"Have you anything to confess?" Pomp said to him, with the solemnity of
a priest preparing a sacrifice. "If so, speak, for your time is short."
Deslow said nothing: indeed, his organs of speech were paralyzed.
"Very well: then I will tell you, we know all. We trusted you. You have
betrayed us. Withers is dead: you killed him. Cudjo is dead: his blood
is upon your soul. For this you are now to die."
There was another besides Deslow whom these calm and terrible words
appalled. It was Bythewood, who feared lest, after all he had
accomplished, his turn might come next.
It was some time before the fear-stricken culprit could recover the
power of speech. Then, in a sudden, hoarse, and scarcely articulate
shriek, his voice burst forth:--
"Save me! save me!"
He rushed to where the patriots stood. But they thrust him back sternly.
"This is Pomp's business. Deal with him!"
"Will no one save me? Will no one speak for my life?" These words were
ejaculated with the ghastly accent and volubility of terror.
"Your life is forfeited. Pomp saved it once; now he takes it. It is
just," said Stackridge.
"My God! my God! my God!" Thrice the doomed man uttered that sacred name
with wild despair, and with intervals of strange and silent horror
between. "Then I must die!"
"_I_ will speak for you," said a voice of solemn compassion. And Penn
stepped forward.
"You? you? you will?"
"Do not hope too much. Pomp is inexorable as he is just. But I will
plead for you."
"O, do! do! There is something in his face--I cannot bear it--but you
can move him!"
Pomp was leaning thoughtfully by one of the giant's stools. Penn drew
near to him. Deslow crouched behind, his whole frame shaking visibly.
"Pomp, if you love me, grant me this one favor. Leave this wretch to his
God. What satisfaction can there be in taking the life of so degraded
and abject a creature?"
"There is satisfaction in justice," replied Pomp, quietly smiling.
"O, but the satisfaction there is in mercy is infinitely sweeter!
Forgiveness is a holy thing, Pomp! It brings the blessing of Heaven with
it, and it is more effective than vengeance. This man has a wife; he has
children; think of them!"
These words, and many more to the same purpose, Penn poured forth with
all the earnestness of his soul. He pleaded; he argued; he left no means
untried to melt that adamantine will. In vain all. When he finished,
Pomp took his hand in one of his, and laying the other kindly on his
shoulder, said in his deepest, tenderest tones,--
"I have heard you because I love you. What you say is just. But another
thing is just--that this man should die. Ask anything but this of me,
and you will see how gladly I will grant all you desire."
"I have done."--Penn turned sadly away.--"It is as I feared. Deslow, I
will not flatter you. There is no hope."
Then Deslow, regaining somewhat of his manhood, drew himself up, and
prepared to meet his fate.
"Soon?" he asked, more firmly than he had yet spoken.
"Now," said Pomp. He lighted a lantern. "You must go with me. There are
eyes here that would not look upon your death." He took his rifle. "Go
before." And he conducted his victim into the recesses in the cave.
They came to the well, into the unfathomable mystery of which Carl had
dropped the stone. There Pomp stopped.
"This is your grave. Would you take a look at it?" He held the lantern
over the fearful place. The falling waters made in those unimaginable
depths the noise of far-off thunders. Half dead with fear already, the
wretch looked down into the hideous pit.
"Must I die?" he uttered in a ghastly whisper.
"You must! I will shoot you first in mercy to you; for I am not cruel.
Have you prayers to make? I will wait."
Deslow sank upon his knees. He tried to confess himself to God, to
commit his soul with decency into His hands. But the words of his
petition stuck in his throat: the dread of immediate death absorbed all
feeling else.
Pomp, who had retired a short distance, supposed he had made an end.
"Are you ready?" he asked, placing his lantern on the rock, and poising
his rifle.
"I cannot pray!" said Deslow. "Send for a minister--for Mr. Villars!--I
cannot die so."
"It is too late," answered Pomp, sorrowful, yet stern. "Mr. Villars has
been carried away by the soldiers you sent. If you cannot pray for
yourself, then there is none to pray for you."
Scarce had he spoken, when out of the darkness behind him came a voice,
saying with solemn sweetness, as if an angel responded from the
invisible profound,--
"I will pray for him!"
He turned, and saw in the lantern's misty glimmer a spectral form
advancing. It drew near. It was a female figure, shadowy, noiseless; the
right hand raised with piteous entreaty; the countenance pale to
whiteness,--its fresh and youthful beauty clothed with sadness and
compassion as with a veil.
It was Virginia. All the way through the dismal galleries of the cave,
and down Cudjo's stairs, she had followed the executioner and his
victim, in order to plead at the last moment for that mercy for which
Penn had pleaded in vain.
Struck with amazement, Pomp gazed at her for a moment as if she had been
really a spirit.
"How came you here?"
She laid one hand upon his arm; with the other she pointed upwards; her
eyes all the while shining upon him with a wondrous brilliancy, which
was of the spirit indeed, and not of the flesh.
"Heaven sent me to pray for him--and for you."
"For me, Miss Villars?"
"For you, Pomp!"--Her voice also had that strange melting quality which
comes only from the soul. It was low, and full of love and sorrow. "For
if you slay this man, then you will have more need of prayers than he."
Pomp was shaken. The touch on his arm, the tones of that voice, the
electric light of those inspired eyes, moved him with a power that
penetrated to his inmost soul. Yet he retained his haughty firmness, and
said coldly,--
"If there had been mercy for this man, Penn would have obtained it. The
hardest thing I ever did was to deny him. What is there to be said which
he did not say?"
"O, he spoke earnestly and well!" replied Virginia. "I wondered how you
could listen to him and not yield. But he is a man; and as a man he gave
up all hope when reason failed, and he saw you so implacable. But I
would never have given up. I would have clung to your knees, and
pleaded with you so long as there was breath in me to ask or heart
to feel. I would not have let you go till you had shown mercy to
this poor man!"--(Deslow had crawled to her feet: there he knelt
grovelling),--"and to yourself, Pomp! If he dies repenting, and you kill
him unrelenting, I would rather be he than you. When we shut the gate of
mercy on others we shut it on ourselves. For all that you have done for
my father and friends, and for me, I am filled with gratitude and
friendship. Your manly traits have inspired me with an admiration that
was almost hero-worship. For this reason I would save you from a great
crime. O, Pomp, if only for my sake, do not annihilate the noble and
grand image of you which has built itself up in my heart, and leave only
the memory of a strange horror and dread in its place!"
Pomp had turned his eyes away from hers, knowing that if he continued to
be fascinated by them, he must end by yielding. He drooped his head,
leaning on his rifle, and looking down upon the wretch at their feet. A
strong convulsion shook his whole frame, as she ceased speaking. There
was silence for some seconds. Then he spoke, still without raising his
eyes, in a deep, subdued voice.
"This man is the hater of my race. He is of those who rob us of our
labor, our lives, our wives, and children, and happiness. They enslave
both body and soul. They damn us with ignorance and vice. To take from
us the profits of our toil is little; but they take from us our manhood
also. Yet here he came, and accepted life and safety at my hands. He
made an oath, and I made an oath. His oath was never to betray my poor
Cudjo's secret. The oath I made was to kill him as I would a dog if his
should be broken. It has been broken. My poor Cudjo is dead. Withers is
dead. Your sister is dead. I see it to be just that this traitor too
should now die!"
Again he poised his rifle. But Virginia threw herself upon the victim,
covering with her own pure bosom his miserable, guilty breast.