LIONNE AND THE INDIAN WITCH.
Be it what it may—or bliss, or torment,
Annihilation dark, and endless rest,
Or some dread thing man’s wildest range of thought
Hath never yet conceived, that change I’ll dare
Which makes me—any thing but what I am.—_Joanna Baillie._
One morning as usual Lionne stole off to her grotto.
Throwing herself down upon the rugged floor, she sat with her elbows on
her knees and her forehead bowed upon the palms of her hands. Her long
black hair escaping from its bands, fell all around her shoulders and
bosom, half veiling her bent form.
Unmindful of the passage of time, she gave herself up to bitter
thoughts.
While thus she sat, like another forsaken Ariadne or despairing Dido, a
shadow came between the mouth of the grotto and the glimmering light of
the river beyond, and at the same moment, a rough, kindly, respectful
voice called out:
“Mistress!”
Lionne put aside her blinding hair and looked up to behold the dwarfed
giant Vulcan, accompanied by the Indian squaw, the “great medicine”
Kalougoora.
They were a strange, startling, almost terrifying pair to rise so
suddenly before a spectator—the dwarfed giant with his huge, square
form, clad in a rude suit of coarse, gray cloth, and his great round
head and hard brown face surrounded by a thatch of iron-gray hair and
beard—and by his side the tall, thin, dark figure of the Indian crone,
wrapped in her long, red blanket, down which streamed her stiff black
hair, bound and platted with gay vipers’ skins.
She advanced into the grotto and stood muttering weird incantations, and
performing strange gestures.
Lionne arose, bound up her long, black hair, and stood with somewhat of
her old native dignity to receive her singular visitor.
“Mistress,” said Vulcan, in a tone and with a manner of deep respect,
intended to inspire the squaw with a proper reverence for the
lady—“Mistress, this is Kalougoora, the ‘great medicine’ of the
Shenandoahs, come to offer her services to your ladyship.”
Lionne looked with a shudder of repulsion towards the old creature, who
stood, still moving her lips and slowly wheeling her arms, as in solemn
conjuration.
“Take that seat,” said Lionne, pointing to one formed by a rock raised
above the floor.
The “great medicine,” with more incantations and conjurations, sat down.
“You may leave us now; but do not go out of call,” said Lionne, turning
to the dwarf.
“Mistress, I will pace up and down before the opening of the grotto, to
be within the sound of your voice,” answered Vulcan, with as good a bow
as a square block could make, as he retreated from the grotto, leaving
Lionne alone with her formidable looking visitor.
“Midnight Star!” began the old crone, addressing Lionne in the
picturesque language of her tribe—“Midnight Star, my dark, bright
daughter, does not trust her red mother.”
Lionne looked wistfully at the speaker and remained silent.
“The Midnight Star fears the ‘great medicine’ of the Shenandoahs,” said
the crone, in a key half affirmative, half interrogative.
“I fear nothing in the heavens, earth or Hades; but my footsteps go down
the deep valley where the powers of sleep and death mingle, and my face
grows dark in their shadows,” said Lionne, falling into the picturesque
style of the squaw’s language.
“My dark, bright daughter need not stay for that. Her red mother has a
firm foot and a strong hand, and will lead her safely through the valley
of black vapors, to the sunny hills beyond.”
“Do you know why I summoned you hither, and what I need?”
“The great medicine of the Shenandoahs knows all things!”
With a shrug of her shoulders, Lionne next asked: “Can you supply me
with what I need?”
“The great medicine of the Shenandoahs can do all things,” she answered,
with an egotism half way between the sublime and the ridiculous.
“What is it, then, that I need?” asked Lionne, with an almost
imperceptible curl of her lip.
“My pale daughter needs a medicine that shall lay her out so still that
none but the Great Spirit shall know that _her_ spirit has not followed
her pale warrior to the Happy Hunting Grounds.”
“She believes me to be a widow!” thought Lionne, with a secret sneer at
the professed omniscience of the “great medicine;” but aloud she
said—“And you have such a drug?—a drug that shall _simulate_ without
_causing_ death?”
“I have an herb so potent, that when my dark, bright daughter swallows
it and lies down to sleep, not all the plants that grow above ground,
nor all the minerals that lurk below in the bowels of the earth, nor all
the skill of man shall be able to rouse her from her death-like sleep
until two suns have passed—when she will of herself awake! Does my pale
daughter still doubt?”
“No! I do not care enough about it to doubt! Even if the ‘death-like
sleep’ should be the sleep of death, perhaps it were as well!” said
Lionne, in a despairing tone.
Then after a pause of some moments, she suddenly said—
“Our interview is closed for to-day. Come to me to-morrow at this place,
and at this hour, that we may confer further.”
And placing her finger to her lips, she blew a clear, high, shrill call,
that summoned the dwarf to her presence.
The “great medicine” then arose, and with a repetition of her
incantations, accompanied by Vulcan, she retired from the grotto. Lionne
returned home, and entered the sitting-room, where she found her father
busy in packing up his books and papers.
When he saw her, he looked up and smiled, saying—“Ten years’ practice
has enabled me to perform the duties of my own valet with some skill, my
dear. And you, my child, find the functions of _lady’s maid to yourself_
very easy.”
“Quite so,” replied Lionne,—“any successor to _me_ as _attendant_ upon
me, might prove awkward and embarrassing.”
The earl laughed. How strange that laugh upon “lips of life-long
sadness.” Did it bode good?
It was a fortnight after her first meeting with the “Great Medicine of
the Shenandoahs,” that Lionne, in the seclusion of her grotto, and
attended only by Kalougoora, became the mother of a female infant, only
in its unconsciousness of its misery, less wretched than its parent.
Her father, in the habitual abstraction of his mind, in the absorption
of business, and in his full acquaintance with her wandering habits,
scarcely, for a day or two, missed the presence of his daughter. But
when three days passed, and she had not made her appearance, he inquired
on the fourth morning at breakfast—
“Where is Lionne?”
“Oh, your honor, she went out, before you were up!” answered Vulcan.
(And so she had—_three days before_.)
But unconscious of the prevarication practised upon him, the recluse
merely answered to himself—
“That girl grows more eccentric every day—well! well! let her have her
run of the wilderness while she remains! it will not be for long.”
Immediately after breakfast, Vulcan hurried to the grotto, where Lionne,
exhausted more by despair than by illness, reposed upon her rude pallet.
“Lionne, my child, the master has at last inquired for you.”
“And—how did you answer for me?” exclaimed the wretched girl, starting
up and leaning upon her elbow.
“I said that you had gone out before he was up.”
“_Oh_, this necessity of lying!” exclaimed Lionne, falling back upon her
pillow, in intense disgust.
“Nay, but it wasn’t lying—_didn’t_ you leave home on Monday before he
was up?—I say it _wasn’t_ lying.”
“It was as bad!”
“Very well, then I take the sin on myself! But now, dear mistress, you
must try to come home to satisfy the master,—that is, if you can come,
without hurting yourself.”
“Nothing can _hurt_ me now,” said the miserable girl, in a hopeless
tone.
“And then you will be so much more comfortable at home.”
“Nothing can _comfort_ me now!” exclaimed the lost one, with a look of
deep despair.
“Don’t say so, Lionne! You are but sixteen, and a long life full of
changes is before you!”
“A long life! that is the very worst of it!—Well, but I must think of my
father, and how to keep from him the knowledge of this blasting
dishonor, the very suspicion of which would kill him. Kalougoora has
left me for an hour; when she returns, I will leave this hapless infant
in her charge and go home.”
“Dear mistress, let me suggest something. Do not go home until late in
the afternoon, and see your father about twilight. Then——”
“Oh, I understand! he will not be startled by my changed face.”
“No; and if in the morning he notices it, you can just tell him that you
had a bad night’s rest.”
“Which would be no falsehood, Vulcan, since I never have a good one!”
“And you will stay until the evening?”
“Yes! and now do _you_ return, lest my father should want you.”
Vulcan obeyed, and Lionne was again left alone.
When evening came, Lionne dressed herself, and leaving her child in the
care of the old Indian woman, she set out from the grotto for her home.
Walking feebly and resting frequently, she succeeded in passing the
rapids, at the foot of which Vulcan waited with a boat to row her down
the stream.
She reached her home at early twilight.
“Now, dear mistress, the master is still in his room; come away into the
kitchen and sit down and rest. I left the kettle on the stove, and I
will make you a cup of tea in less than no time. And then you’ll be able
to meet him.”
With a grateful look, Lionne followed her old servant’s advice.
And then, refreshed by her rest and her tea, she entered the
sitting-room, where she found her father engaged in strapping trunks,
etc.
She entered, as usual, so softly, that he continued his employment
unconscious of her presence, until she had seated herself in the
shadiest corner of the room, and had spoken to him, saying:
“Cannot Vulcan do that for you, my father?”
“Ah, are you there, Lionne?” said the recluse, looking up at the same
time that he was tightening a strap, with his knee upon the trunk. “It
seems to me that I seldom see you, Lionne.”
“I have been very much engaged, my father.”
“Ah, preparing for your new life in the old world. You have been to
Winchester, making more purchases to-day, I suppose. But, Lionne, in the
country to which we are going, when a young lady leaves home for a day,
she apprizes her parents or guardians. However, I will not blame you, my
child. I know that you have not been brought up as other girls. But now,
are you quite ready? This is Thursday—we start on Monday.”
“So soon!” exclaimed Lionne, involuntarily.
“‘So soon!’ you say that as if you hated to leave your forest home. When
you have seen your English one, you will not regret this.”
It was no thought of her forest home—which she knew she was not about to
leave—it was the thought of the dreadful deception she was about to
practise upon her confiding father.
“I shall not regret my home in the wilderness,” she said.
“If you are not quite prepared to go, you have no time to lose.”
“No, I have no time to lose,” responded Lionne, in a tone that all her
self-command could not steady.
But in his busy occupation her father failed to notice this.
Pleading fatigue, Lionne bade her father good-night, and retired to her
chamber, where she laid down to repose for a few hours. This rest was
absolutely needed to enable her to reach the grotto.
At ten o’clock she heard her father ascend the stairs and enter his
room. She waited half an hour longer, and then, feeling sure that he had
gone to bed and probably to sleep, she softly and silently arose, and
stole down the stairs, and out of the house, to the river’s shore, where
Vulcan awaited her with the boat.
The starlight was bright upon the water as they rowed up the stream.
They reached the grotto, at the mouth of which they found the old Indian
woman sitting, crooning a wild song. She arose, and stood aside to let
them pass; but Lionne called her in, and said:
“When you come to me to-morrow, _bring the drug_.”
With a nod of assent the old woman retired.
Vulcan also left the grotto, and Lionne was left, as usual, to pass the
night alone with her infant.
Early the next morning, the Indian woman presented herself to her
employer.
“You have brought the medicine?”
“My pale daughter may look with her eyes,” said the squaw, displaying a
bunch of noxious-smelling dried herbs.
“And my mother is sure that this will produce the effect she says?”
“My daughter shall steep this in the fire-water of the pale-faces, and
drink of it, and lie down. And for two days her people shall wail the
Midnight Star set in death! Nevertheless, on the third morning shall the
Star of the Wilderness rise again!”
“Kalougoora, look at this handful of gold! Take it now for your herbs,
and for your care of me. Take care of my child; and when I awake from
that death-like sleep, bring her to me in good condition, and you shall
have twice as much more.”
“The little New Moon shall be safe.”
The entrance of Vulcan put a stop to the conversation.
“I have the boat below the rapids. Will you not come home, so that the
master may find you at the breakfast-table when he comes down?
Kalougoora will stay here until you return,” said Vulcan.
Lionne arose, and leaving her infant sleeping, went down to the rapids,
entered the boat, and was rowed to the house, where she arrived in time
to meet her father at their morning-meal.
As soon as she could escape from his observation she returned to the
grotto, and passed the day with her babe and with the old Indian woman,
whom she urged, by every argument and persuasion of self-interest and of
compassion, to guard her child well for a few days, until she should be
able to reclaim it.
Then at length she left the grotto, and for the last time returned to
her home.
She met her father at tea, and afterwards accompanied him to his
sitting-room, where she remained, assisting him, until he himself, worn
out with work, proposed their retiring.
Lionne was even more exhausted than her father; yet on this night she
was very loth to leave him, for this she knew to be the last hour they
could ever spend together. And when at length the moment came when they
were to separate, as he believed, for the night—but as she knew for all
time—she could scarcely command herself, or resist the impulse to fall
at his feet and confess every thing! Only fears for him prevented her.
“Good-night, my father,” she said; and oh! how she longed, but dared
not, to throw herself into his arms in a parting embrace.
“God bless you, my child!” was his calm reply. And so they separated.
Lionne, utterly prostrated by the fatigues and anxieties of the day,
crept slowly up-stairs to her room. Waiting on the outside of the door,
she found Vulcan, with a glass containing her sleeping-potion.
He put it in her hands with the words—
“Courage, dear mistress.”
“When I have drank this, come in some time before morning, and take away
the glass, that no clue may remain to the cause of my state.”
“I will, dear mistress; I will do all things right,” answered the old
servant.
“And be sure to look after old Kalougoora and her poor little charge,
and——”
Before Lionne could add another word, she heard her father’s step upon
the stairs and hurried into her room.
Vulcan slipped up into his own cockloft.
The next moment the master of the house reached the top of the stairs,
and unsuspicious of wrong passed into his own chamber.
Early the next morning Mr. Delaforêt was astir. A the usual
breakfast-hour Vulcan appeared at the sitting-room door and announced
the morning meal ready.
Mr. Delaforêt, as we prefer still to call him, went out into the kitchen
and took his seat at the table. Looking around and missing Lionne, he
said—
“I hope my daughter has not gone out to-day! I particularly desired her
to remain at home as this is the last day we have to complete our
arrangements. Do you know, Vulcan, if your young lady has left the
house?”
“No, sir; I haven’t seen any thing of my young lady this morning, and
the hall door is still locked on the inside; so I am certain she has not
gone out.”
“Then she must be in her room, and as she is an early riser, if she is
well she must be up. Go, Vulcan, and tell her that I am waiting for
her.”
Vulcan left the kitchen apparently to obey orders.
He was gone a few minutes, and when he returned his countenance wore an
aspect of unassumed terror that alarmed his master, who started up,
exclaiming:
“Why, Vulcan, what is the matter?”
“N-nothing much I hope, sir!”
“Speak more plainly! What do you mean?”
“Why, sir, as this is an hour when the young lady is usually up, and as
her door was partly open, I looked in when I rapped, and—and—
“And _what?_ speak, in the name of heaven, man!”
“And she was lying on the bed like one in a dead faint!”
Almost before the last word was uttered Mr. Delaforêt had left the
kitchen.
He hurried up the stairs and into the chamber of his daughter, whom he
found extended on the bed with her chin fallen upon her bosom and her
arms thrown up over the pillow.
“My child! my child! Lionne! Oh, what is this!” exclaimed the alarmed
father as he rushed to the bedside and tried to raise her head and
shoulders in his arms.
Her body was cold, stiff and senseless. Her condition seemed that of a
corpse an hour dead!
He laid her head back upon the pillow and hurried to the head of the
stairs, calling—
“Vulcan! Vulcan! mount the strongest and fastest horse and ride for life
to Winchester and bring out a physician!”
Then he hastened into his own chamber and snatched from his
medicine-chest the most potent restoratives, which he brought and
applied for his daughter’s relief.
In vain! The rigid lips might be forced open, but the clenched teeth
would not be unclasped to admit the passing of one drop of cordial. And
the strongest stimulants applied with force and briskness to the surface
of her neck and brow failed to bring the faintest shade of life-color
thither.
With the utmost solicitude he continued to work over her or to watch by
her. Fruitless all his hopes! He might as well have sought to restore
consciousness to a corpse twelve hours abandoned by the soul!
Early in the afternoon the doctor from Winchester arrived, and was
received by Mr. Delaforêt and shown immediately to the bedside of
Lionne.
Then followed a close questioning of her father, who could only speak of
his daughter’s fatigued and haggard looks, which she always, he said,
ascribed to sleeplessness.
All the time the doctor was questioning the father, he was gazing upon
the face or feeling the wrist, the jugular vein and the carotid artery
of the patient, to ascertain if any pulsation remained. And at the end
of the examination he said—
“Mr. Delaforêt, you are probably prepared for what I have to tell you!
Your daughter has ceased to exist. Her malady was very obscure and one
that usually gives but little evidence of its fatal presence until its
work, as now, is done!”
“What was it then, sir?”
“Organic disease of the heart,” answered the doctor, making not the
first nor the last mistake ever made, or to be made, by physicians.
The bereaved father drew up the sheet over the face of his young and
beautiful dead, and turned to accompany the physician from the chamber.
As the doctor was about to take his leave, the master of the house said—
“We are alone here, myself and my man servant. Send me out some women
from Winchester to prepare my girl for her last resting-place.”
“If you will give me authority I will have every thing that is proper
done in the best manner, as if for my own brother and niece.”
In silent assent, Mr. Delaforêt pressed the hand of the kind physician,
who immediately afterwards departed on his melancholy errand.
The afflicted father then turned to enter his desolate house, and seek
the solitude of his chamber, to give full sway to that bitter grief
which he had only been able to suppress in the presence of others.
As his hand was on the lock of his door, he heard a step at his side,
and suddenly turning saw the dwarf Vulcan standing there.
“Pardon me master, for coming to you now; but—it will be very late at
night before the women can come from Winchester, and—my young lady ought
to be attended to immediately.”
“Well,” said Mr. Delaforêt, “what do you propose?”
“Dear master, as there is no Christian women at hand, will you not
permit me to fetch the old Indian squaw, Kalougoora? She is skillful
enough for the business, and she is very faithful.”
Mr. Delaforêt hesitated for a moment, and then, with his brow contracted
with almost agonizing thought, he said:
“There is no other course—Yes! bring the Indian woman!”
And so saying, he passed into the solitude of his room and his sorrow.
An hour later Kalougoora arrived, and entered the chamber of Lionne,
whom she prepared as a corpse for burial. Then, as silently as she had
come, she departed to her other charge at the grotto.
Early on Sunday morning, Mr. Delaforêt entered the chamber of his
daughter, whom he found dressed and laid out upon her bed. She had on
the only white muslin gown she possessed—its folds neatly drawn down and
arranged around her perfect form; the white and gloveless hands were
folded upon the rounded bosom, and her shining dark hair was plaited in
a thick braid and wound around her head, a natural crown upon her
queenly brow.
“The poor pagan has done her work well!” was the thought of the bereaved
father, even in the midst of the grief with which he looked upon this
beautiful ruin.
He was interrupted by the voice of Vulcan at the door announcing to him
the arrival of the undertaker and his wife, sent by the physician from
Winchester. He went out to receive the new-comers.
Upon account of the heat of the weather, it was deemed expedient to
hasten the interment. By using great diligence, the undertaker went back
to Winchester and returned with the coffin early in the afternoon. And
the body of Lionne, the living dead, was placed in this last receptacle,
and brought down and laid upon a table in the middle of the front
parlor.
When the room was closed and darkened and left in solitude, Vulcan and
the old Indian woman stole into it, and stood each side the body.
“They have opened a grave, under the shadow of the mountain, where they
intend to bury her at sunset, when the clergyman is expected to arrive.
It is a dreadful danger! I am afraid she may suffocate before we can
deliver her!” said Vulcan.
“The Great Rock (for thus the Indian woman called the dwarf giant) need
not be shaken! Lungs that do not breathe, need no air.”
“But if she should awake in that coffin!”
“The Great Rock must be still. The Midnight Star will not shine again
until the hour. If the Great Rock remains firm and unshaken, all will be
well!”
The slow and heavy step of the master of the house, approaching the
connecting door between his sitting-room and the parlor, warned them to
flee. Opening the side door into the hall, as Mr. Delaforêt entered,
they passed out of the apartment.
At sunset the clergyman, the family physician and another friend from
Winchester, arrived and together with the bereaved father and his old
servant, the Indian woman, the undertaker and his assistants, stood
around the coffin while the solemn burial services of the Episcopal
Church were performed.
At their close, the undertaker approached and reverently raised the lid
of the coffin, that all might take a last look at the face of the
supposed dead, before it was closed down forever.
With mute agony written upon his corrugated brow, the desolate father
drew near and gazed upon his daughter’s still face, pressed his lips to
her cold forehead, and turned away.
Other friends approached and gave their farewell glance, and gravely
withdrew.
And then the undertaker came up and began to screw down the lid.
Vulcan shuddered, and convulsively grasped the arm of the Indian woman,
who whispered under her breath—
“The Great Rock is shaken as by a storm! He must be still. The Great
Medicine of the Shenandoahs knows what she does. The Midnight Star will
shine again!”
They bore the coffin out, placed it on the bier, and carried it
reverently to the green and shaded spot under the shelter of the
everlasting rocks, where the earth was opened to receive it. As the
concluding services were finished, they lowered it into the grave, which
they immediately begun to fill up.
As the clods rattled heavily upon the coffin-lid, again Vulcan trembled
as an oak-tree tossed by the whirlwind. And again the Indian doctress
muttered in his ear—
“The Great Rock need not shake to his base! The Great Medicine of the
Shenandoahs is sure of her power. The Midnight Star will rise when other
stars wane.”
All then turned away. The clergyman drew the arm of the stricken father
within his own, and led him back to the house. The others followed. The
clergyman and physician had determined to remain with their afflicted
friend through the night.
Vulcan and the Indian woman concealed themselves in the thicket at the
foot of the mountain, whence they watched the grave-diggers until they
had completed their work, taken up their tools and departed, leaving the
grave of the living in solitude.
It was now quite dark, but for the light of the stars that just served
to show the dim outline of the new-made grave.
Bringing the pick with which he had provided himself, Vulcan, with the
Indian woman, emerged from his concealment.
And not the renowned Dousterswivel, digging for hidden treasure in the
grave of Misticott, in the hope of boundless wealth, worked with more
zeal and energy than did this poor servant, in mortal terror, lest he
should be interrupted before his task should be complete, or that his
young mistress should awake in that horrible pit!
The earth flew from the grave in a reversed shower of clods. Before it
seemed possible, he had laid bare the outside of the coffin.
Gathering the cords by which it had been lowered, he climbed up to the
surface of the ground, handed half of them to Kalougoora, and with her
assistance drew the coffin from the grave. Snatching up the chisel that
he had brought, he began to force the lid. That, with his immense
strength, was the work of a minute, and the buried form of Lionne lay
revealed!
Throwing aside the coffin-lid, he stooped and placed his hand upon the
face of his mistress.
“Good heaven!” he cried, starting in horror—“we had not a moment to
lose! Feel! there is a moisture upon her brow! She would have awakened
in that appalling pit, had we left her there another hour!”
“Nay—she will not awake until the time I have said! Now, lift the young
woman out and hide her in the thicket here, while you put back the
coffin and fill up the grave, lest some one should come to discover us.”
This counsel Vulcan felt to be so wise that he immediately followed it.
Raising the body of Lionne, he bore her to a nook in the thicket and
laid her down upon a buffalo-skin, spread by the squaw to receive her.
Then he returned, replaced the coffin, filled up the grave, and
carefully obliterated every mark of his late work.
It was well that he had toiled so diligently! for just as he turned from
the grave and entered the thicket, he heard the sound of a slow and
heavy footstep that he knew too well, and the next moment the dim
outline of Mr. Delaforêt emerged into view.
Believing himself to be unobserved the poor father fell upon the grave
and gave way to the bitterness of his grief in groans and sobs, that
rent not his own heart only, but even the rugged bosom of Vulcan, who,
from his lurking-place, silently gave groan for groan and sob for sob.
“Better so,” said Vulcan to himself, “for if he suffers so severely for
her supposed death, how terrible would be his agony in knowing how much
worse than death is her real fate! He will be consoled for her loss. He
never, never could survive the knowledge of her true condition!”
He watched from his concealment, until Mr. Delaforêt had risen from the
ground, turned sorrowing away from the grave and disappeared down the
thickly shaded path leading to his desolate home.
Then Vulcan and the Indian woman carefully lifted Lionne and tenderly
bore her to the boat waiting at the edge of the creek, made a bed of the
buffalo skin, laid her down and rowed swiftly for the grotto.
In fifteen minutes they reached the mouth of the cavern, bore their
charge in and laid her upon her rude pallet.
Then Vulcan struck a light and looked around with a solicitude that rose
rapidly to amazement and anxiety.
“Where is the child?” he inquired, suddenly turning to the squaw.
“Where?—the New Moon beams on the bearskin there, in the corner, where I
left her two hours ago!” replied Kalougoora.
“She is not there!” cried the dwarf.
The squaw sprang upon her feet and looked around.
The babe was gone!
“_Where is the child?_” repeated Vulcan, in gathering suspicion and
wrath.
Kalougoora slowly shook her head.
“WHERE IS THE CHILD?” vociferated the dwarf, approaching the squaw with
a threatening gesture.
“Some one has carried her off,” said the latter.
“Hag of Tartarus, _you_ are the ‘some one who has carried her off!’ You
have spirited her away to your thrice accursed tribe!”
“And what should the Great Medicine of the Shenandoahs do with a
pale-faced baby? The Great Rock talks foolishly! Let him rather watch
over the sleeping mother, while the Great Medicine goes forth to seek
the child!”
Vulcan looked fixedly at the old woman while she spoke. Something of
calm dignity in her manner, and of sincerity and truth in her expression
and tone, put his worst suspicions to flight, and made him feel ashamed
of his violence. Believing, too, that the best chance of recovering the
child lay in trusting or in bribing the squaw, he complied with her
proposition, saying—
“You were paid a large sum for the care of the child; you were promised
a still larger sum upon restoring it to its mother. Bring back the child
of Lionne in safety, and the promised sum shall be doubled! I speak in
her name who will make good my words!”
“The Great Medicine will do what she can,” replied the old woman, who,
then turning, left the grotto.
Vulcan kneeled down by the side of his insensible mistress, and gazed
with the deepest commiseration upon her pallid but beautiful
countenance, as it lay there, looking still whiter between the long
black hair that, escaped from its fastenings, hung down on each side of
her face and floated on the pillow.
“Oh, Lionne, my child! is this sorrow also in reserve for you? Having
lost husband, father, home, and all else must you now lose this babe—the
innocent offspring of treachery that has cost you so dearly, and that
yet you love! When you awake who shall have courage to tell you of this
awful bereavement? Who shall say to you that this babe—this all that was
left you on earth—has been carried off by some cruel beast of prey, or
some scarcely less cruel savage? Who shall dare to slay you with such
tidings? For oh, wonderful heart of a mother! the child whose birth has
wrecked your peace is dearer to you than life! since, but for the sake
of that child, you would have escaped all your mortal troubles by a
voluntary death. Oh, Lionne, unless that child is recovered, may you
never wake!”
So moaning over the miseries he could in no wise relieve, watching for
the least change in the aspect of his mistress, and looking anxiously
for the coming of the old squaw, Vulcan passed the first half of the
night.
It was near midnight when the squaw returned. She entered the grotto
alone.
“Have you found the babe?” exclaimed Vulcan, starting up.
Kalougoora shook her head.
“You are an Indian woman. You can trace the recent passage of man or
beast where no white person could possibly discover signs of either! You
must have found some clue, with your dog-like instinct, of the manner in
which the child was taken off!”
“The Great Medicine knows all things!” exclaimed the squaw.
“That means you _have_ found the clue! What is it? The babe has not—no!
she has not been devoured by a beast of prey?” cried the dwarf, in an
agony of excitement.
“No wild beast has approached the grotto.”
“Thank God for that! She has been carried off, then, by some of your
tribe. Oh, Kalougoora, we will ransom her with all the gold we can
collect! Go after her, and the sooner she is restored the higher we will
pay! Hasten, Kalougoora, and bring her back!”
“No red man has been near the grotto.”
“Speak plainly then! Where is she? Who has car-her off?”
“A party of hunters of your own race have passed this way. They have
stolen the babe!”
“How do you know that?”
“The Great Medicine of the Shenandoahs knows the presence of the white
man by a hundred signs. She followed their trail three hours’ journey
down the borders of the Singing Stream, and then lost it on the water’s
edge. The Singing Stream tells no tales! The Great Medicine has returned
and spoken to her brown brother, the Great Rock!”
And so saying the old Indian woman squatted down beside the unconscious
sleeper, and commenced crooning a wild and mournful melody.
Vulcan was in despair. Now, indeed, his best hope for Lionne was that
her death-like sleep might end indeed in death. He did not believe the
whole of the squaw’s story. He credited indeed the statement that a
party of hunters had passed that way; but that they had stolen the child
was an inference so improbable that he could not give it a moment’s
serious attention. He believed that the babe had been devoured by a wild
beast, and he prayed that the mother might never awake to the knowledge
of her awful bereavement.
But this was not to be granted!
At the turn of the night Lionne began to exhibit signs of returning
consciousness. Her bosom heaved with sighs, at first feeble and
fluttering, and then deeper and stronger. Warmth came to the surface of
her body; a faint color dawned upon her cheeks and lips; finally her
long eyelashes quivered, and her beautiful dark eyes opened with a
quiet, unconscious gaze.
With a half-suppressed groan, Vulcan placed at her lips the wine with
which he had provided himself for that purpose. Unconsciously she sipped
it, and afterwards mechanically she swallowed the offered morsel of
bread. And then, under the stimulus of these refreshments, she lifted
herself up into a sitting posture and looked around with a vague,
perplexed gaze. Evidently her faculties were not as yet restored. Vulcan
and Kalougoora watched her with deep anxiety.
After a few more wandering looks she placed her hand to her forehead and
seemed to reflect intently, or strive for self-recollection. Then, with
a sudden start, she dropped her hand and gazed wildly from one to the
other of her companions. Then memory rushed back in a torrent.
“_Is it—is it all over?_” she inquired, in a tone so hollow that it
would never have been recognized as her own.
“Dear mistress, yes! it is over!” answered her faithful servant.
“And my father—how did he bear it?”
“He grieved, of course.”
“_Oh, my father! Oh, my father!_” exclaimed the wretched girl, in a
paroxysm of bitter remorse and grief.
“Remember, dear mistress, that the sacrifice was necessary to save him
from a worse sorrow,” said Vulcan, gently essaying to comfort the
mourner. In vain!
“_Oh, my father! Oh, my father!_ Shall I never see your kind face again!
Your face bowed down in bitter grief for your dead daughter—worse than
dead! Oh, my father! how easily I might go to you now, and how the sight
of my poor form would raise your stricken head and rejoice your
sorrowful heart, but I must not! I must not! I must not! I must continue
this cruel deception! I, your cherished, only daughter, must deceive you
so! I must let you depart, mourning and alone, on your desolate way! Oh,
heaven, that I who must not _live_ for you, might _die_ for you, my
father!” So, bitterly lamenting, Lionne dropped her head upon her knees,
and gave herself up to a perfect storm of grief. It passed at length, as
all storms, moral as well as material, must; and when her convulsive
sobbing had somewhat subsided, she raised her head and said, softly:
“Bring me my child.”
This was what they most dreaded to hear. In order to gain a little more
time, they affected not to have heard it.
The ruse failed.
“Did you hear me?—Bring me my little daughter—(Ah! who will restore to
_him_ _his_ daughter!)—Vulcan, are you deaf?—Bring me my child!” she
said, in a more peremptory tone.
“Dear mistress, compose yourself! You are not yet calm enough to take
your babe,” pleaded the dwarf.
“Bring me my child! I need her! I need her!”
“Mistress! dear, dear mistress, be patient!”
“Bring me my child, or my heart will break!” prayed Lionne, in a voice
that sounded like a wail.
“Mistress! my lady—”
“_My child!_” wailed Lionne, pressing both hands upon her heart.
“Lady—Lady Lionne—I am your poor old servant! I pray you to be quiet a
little while. Your babe is—is asleep!”
“Bring her to me, then! I will not wake her.”
“Mistress—listen to me——”
“Oh, something is wrong here!” exclaimed Lionne, starting up and gazing
wildly around. “I do not see her on her pallet! Where is she? Something
has happened to my babe! Speak, why don’t you tell me?”
It was utterly impossible any longer to conceal her calamity from her,
or in any measure to soften its intolerable harshness.
Vulcan approached and dropped at her feet, and in sobbing, broken,
almost inarticulate language, informed her of the awful fate of her
child.
And Lionne!—no, I cannot!—I cannot! accustomed as I have been to see and
describe suffering, my mind now shrinks from detailing the particulars
of that wild wild woe! that unutterable anguish which formed the climax
of her sorrows, and which drove her mad that night!
Yes; the sun that had set upon Lionne in her living grave arose upon
Lionne—a MANIAC!
Vulcan took care of her through the night, nor left her until from the
violence of her frenzy she had sunk at last into a stupor. Then
believing her safe in the helplessness of her prostration, he returned
home to prepare breakfast for his master.
He found Mr. Delaforêt and his friends who were to accompany him to
Winchester, impatient to be gone.
He quickly prepared their morning-meal, and brought up their horses.
“Where is your own mule, Vulcan?” inquired the master.
“Your honor will forgive me, but I am too old to travel I cannot leave
the wilderness.”
“Why, Vulcan? Why this change? I thought you were to accompany me
abroad?”
“My master will pardon his poor old servant.”
“Oh, if you really wish to remain, I will not urge you to go. This house
is left in charge of our doctor to sell. You can stay here until a
purchaser is found, and then, from the purchase money, you shall be
provided for.”
Deeply Vulcan bowed his thanks; he had no strength to speak.
Mr. Delaforêt and his friends departed.
One incident of his journey should be noticed. At the hotel at
Winchester he picked up the morning paper and listlessly looked over it
until his eye fell upon this obituary:
“Died suddenly of organic disease of the heart, at the country-house of
her father in Alleghany County, Lenora, only daughter of Arthur
Delaforêt, Esq.”
Mr. Delaforêt gazed in trouble upon this paragraph.
“This should not have been. The assumed name should not have survived
her; but it was well meant and ignorantly written by the doctor; so I
will say nothing about it.”
In another fortnight Mr. Delaforêt sailed for Liverpool, where, on
landing, he dropped his assumed name and appeared upon the books of the
hotel as—the Earl of Glen Lennark.
Vulcan, left behind in the old house, hastened to the grotto for the
purpose of bringing Lionne to her old home, where he thought she could
live for a time in concealment.
He reached the grotto; but—
LIONNE THE LUNATIC HAD FLED!