"Surely Charl Clancy!" exclaims the mulatto as soon as setting eyes on
the face. "Dead--shot--murdered!"
For a time he stands aghast, with arms upraised, and eyes staring
wildly.
Then, as if struck by something in the appearance of the corpse, he
mutteringly interrogates: "Is he sure gone dead?"
To convince himself he kneels down beside the body, having cleared away
the loose coverlet still partially shrouding it.
He sees the blood, and the wound from which it is yet welling. He
places his hand over the heart with a hope it may still be beating.
Surely it is! Or is he mistaken?
The pulse should be a better test; and he proceeds to feel it, taking
the smooth white wrist between his rough brown fingers.
"It beats! I do believe it does!" are his words, spoken hopefully.
For some time he retains his grasp of the wrist. To make more sure, he
tries the artery at different points, with a touch as tender, as if
holding in his hand the life of an infant.
He becomes certain that the heart throbs; that there is yet breath in
the body.
What next? What is he to do?
Hasten to the settlement, and summon a doctor?
He dares not do this; nor seek assistance of any kind. To show himself
to a white man would be to go back into hated bondage--to the slavery
from which he has so lately, and at risk of life, escaped. It would be
an act of grand generosity--a self-sacrifice--more than man, more than
human being is capable of. Could a poor runaway slave be expected to
make it?
Some sacrifice he intends making, as may be gathered from his muttered
words:
"Breath in his body, or no breath, it won't do to leave it lyin' here.
Poor young gen'leman! The best of them all about these parts. What
would Miss Helen say if she see him now? What will she say when she
hear o' it? I wonder who's done it? No, I don't--not a bit. There's
only one likely. From what Jule told me, I thought 't would come to
this, some day. Wish I could a been about to warn him. Well, it's too
late now. The Devil has got the upper hand, as seem always the way.
Ah! what 'll become o' Miss Armstrong? She loved him, sure as I love
Jule, or Jule me."
For a time he stands considering what he ought to do. The dread
spectacle has driven out of his mind all thoughts of his appointment
with Blue Bell; just as what preceded hindered the coon-hunter from
keeping it with him. For the latter, terrified, has taken departure
from the dangerous place, and is now hastening homeward.
Only for a short while does the mulatto remain hesitating. His eyes are
upon the form at his feet. He sees warm blood still oozing from the
wound, and knows, or hopes, Clancy is not dead. Something must be done
immediately.
"Dead or alive," he mutters. "I mustn't, shan't leave him here. The
wolves would soon make bare bones of him, and the carrion crows peck
that handsome face of his. They shan't either get at him. No. He's
did me a kindness more'n once, it's my turn now. Slave, mulatto,
nigger, as they call me, I'll show them that under a coloured skin there
can be gratitude, as much as under a white one--may be more. Show them!
What am I talkin' 'bout? There's nobody to see. Good thing for me
there isn't. But there might be, if I stand shilly-shallying here. I
mustn't a minute longer."
Bracing himself for an effort, he opens his arms, and stoops as to take
up the body. Just then the hound, for some time silent, again gives out
its mournful monotone--continuing the dirge the runaway had interrupted.
Suddenly he rises erect, and glances around, a new fear showing upon his
face. For he perceives a new danger in the presence of the dog.
"What's to be done with it?" he asks himself. "I daren't take it along.
'Twould be sure some day make a noise, and guide the nigger-hunters to
my nest--I mustn't risk that. To leave the dog here may be worse still.
It'll sure follow me toatin away its master, an' if it didn't take to
the water an' swim after 'twould know where the dug-out lay, an' might
show them the place. I shan't make any tracks; for all that they'd
suspect somethin', down the creek, an' come that way sarchin'. 'Twont
do take the dog--'twont do to leave it--what _will_ do?"
The series of reflections, and questions, runs rapidly as thought
itself. And to the last, quick as thought, comes an answer--a plan
which promises a solution of the difficulty. He thinks of killing the
dog--cutting its throat with his knife.
Only for an instant is the murderous intent in his mind. In the next he
changes it, saying:
"I can't do that--no; the poor brute so 'fectionate an' faithful!
'Twould be downright cruel. A'most the same as murderin' a man. I wont
do it."
Another pause spent in considering; another plan soon suggesting itself.
"Ah!" he exclaims, with air showing satisfied, "I have it now. That'll
be just the thing."
The "thing" thus approved of, is to tie the hound to a tree, and so
leave it.
First to get hold of it. For this he turns towards the animal, and
commences coaxing it nearer. "Come up, ole fella. You aint afeerd o'
me. I'm Jupe, your master's friend, ye know. There's a good dog! Come
now; come!"
The deer-hound, not afraid, does not flee him; and soon he has his hands
upon it.
Pulling a piece of cord out of his pocket, he continues to apostrophise
it, saying:
"Stand still, good dog! Steady, and let me slip this round your neck.
Don't be skeeart. I'm not goin' to hang you--only to keep you quiet a
bit."
The animal makes no resistance; but yields to the manipulation,
believing it to be by a friendly hand, and for its good.
In a trice the cord is knotted around its neck; and the mulatto looks
out for a tree to which he may attach it.
A thought now strikes him, another step calling for caution. It will
not do to let the dog see him go off, or know the direction he takes;
for some one will be sure to come in search of Clancy, and set the hound
loose. Still, time will likely elapse; the scent will be cold, as far
as the creek's edge, and cannot be lifted. With the water beyond there
will be no danger.
The runaway, glancing around, espies a palmetto brake; these forming a
sort of underwood in the cypress forest, their fan-shaped leaves growing
on stalks that rise directly out of the earth to a height of three or
four feet, covering the ground with a _chevaux de frise_ of deepest
green, but hirsute and spinous as hedgehogs.
The very place for his purpose. So mutters he to himself, as he
conducts the dog towards it. Still thinking the same, after he has tied
the animal to a palmetto shank near the middle of the brake, and there
left it. He goes off, regardless of its convulsive struggles to set
itself free, with accompanying yelps, by which the betrayed quadruped
seems to protest against such unexpected as ill-deserved, captivity.
Not five minutes time has all this action occupied. In less than five
more a second chapter is complete, by the carrying of Clancy's body--it
may be his corpse--to the creek, and laying it along the bottom of the
canoe.
Notwithstanding the weight of his burden, the mulatto, a man of uncommon
strength, takes care to make no footmarks along the forest path, or at
the point of embarkation. The ground, thickly strewn with the leaves of
the deciduous _taxodium_, does not betray a trace, any more than if he
were treading on thrashed straw.
Undoing the slip-knot of his painter, he shoves the canoe clear of its
entanglement among the roots of the tree. Then plying his paddle,
directs its course down stream, silently as he ascended, but with look
more troubled, and air intensely solemnal. This continuing, while he
again shoulders the insensible form, and carries it along the causeway
of logs, until he has laid it upon soft moss within the cavity of the
cypress--his own couch. Then, once more taking Clancy's wrist between
his fingers, and placing his ear opposite the heart, he feels the pulse
of the first, and listens for the beatings of the last.
A ray of joy illuminates his countenance, as both respond to his
examination. It grows brighter, on perceiving a muscular movement of
the limbs, late rigid and seemingly inanimate, a light in the eyes
looking like life; above all, words from the lips so long mute. Words
low-murmured, but still distinguishable; telling him a tale, at the same
time giving its interpretation. That in this hour of his
unconsciousness Clancy should in his speech couple the names of Richard
Darke and Helen Armstrong is a fact strangely significant, he does the
same for many days, in his delirious ravings; amid which the mulatto,
tenderly nursing him, gets the clue to most of what has happened.
Clearer when his patient, at length restored to consciousness, confides
everything to the faithful fellow who has so befriended him. Every
circumstance he ought to know, at the same time imparting secrecy.
This, so closely kept, that even Blue Bill, while himself disclosing
many an item, of news exciting the settlement, is not entrusted with one
the most interesting, and which would have answered the questions on
every tongue:--"What has become of Charles Clancy?" and "Where is his
body?"
Clancy still in it, living and breathing, has his reasons for keeping
the fact concealed. He has succeeded in doing so till this night; till
encountering Simeon Woodley by the side of his mother's tomb.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
And now on Woodley's own hearth, after all has been explained, Clancy
once more returns to speak of the purpose he has but half communicated
to the hunter.
"You say, Sime, I can depend upon you to stand by me?"
"Ye may stake yur life on that. Had you iver reezun to misdoubt me?"
"No--never."
"But, Charley, ye hain't tolt me why ye appeared a bit displeezed at
meetin' me the night. That war a mystery to me."
"There was nothing in it, Sime. Only that I didn't care to meet, or be
seen by, any one till I should be strong enough to carry out my purpose.
It would, in all probability, be defeated were the world to know I am
still alive. That secret I shall expect you to keep."
"You kin trust to me for that; an' yur plans too. Don't be afeerd to
confide them to Sime Woodley. Maybe he may help ye to gettin' 'em
ship-shape."
Clancy is gratified at this offer of aid. For he knows that in the
backwoodsman he will find his best ally; that besides his friendship
tested and proved, he is the very man to be with him in the work he has
cut out for himself--a purpose which has engrossed his thoughts ever
since consciousness came back after his long dream of delirium. It is
that so solemnly proclaimed, as he stood in the cemetery, with no
thought of any one overhearing him.
He had then three distinct passions impelling him to the stern threat--
three reasons, any of them sufficient to ensure his keeping it. First,
his own wrongs. True the attempt at assassinating him had failed; still
the criminality remained the same. But the second had succeeded. His
mother's corpse was under the cold sod at his feet, her blood calling to
him for vengeance. And still another passion prompted him to seek it--
perhaps the darkest of all, jealousy in its direst shape, the sting from
a love promised but unbestowed. For the coon-hunter had never told Jupe
of Helen Armstrong's letter. Perhaps, engrossed with other cares, he
had forgotten it; or, supposing the circumstance known to all, had not
thought it worth communicating. Clancy, therefore, up to that hour,
believed his sweetheart not only false to himself, but having favoured
his rival.
The bitter delusion, now removed, does not in any way alter his
determination. That is fixed beyond change, as he tells Simeon Woodley
while declaring it. He will proceed to Texas in quest of the assassin--
there kill him.
"The poor old place!" he says, pointing to the cottage as he passes it
on return to the swamp. "No more mine! Empty--every stick sold out of
it, I've heard. Well, let them go! I go to Texas."
"An' I with ye. To Texas, or anywhars, in a cause like your'n, Clancy.
Sime Woodley wouldn't desarve the name o' man, to hang back on a trail
like that. But, say! don't ye think we'd be more likely o' findin' the
game by stayin' hyar? Ef ye make it known that you're still alive, then
thar ain't been no murder done, an' Dick Darke 'll be sure to kum home
agin."
"If he came what could I do? Shoot him down like a dog, as he thought
he had me? That would make _me_ a murderer, with good chance of being
hanged for it. In Texas it is different. There, if I can meet him--.
But we only lose time in talking. You say, Woodley, you'll go with me?"
"In course I've said it, and I'll do as I've sayed. There's no backin'
out in this child. Besides, I war jest thinkin' o' a return to Texas,
afore I seed you. An' thar's another 'll go along wi' us; that's young
Ned Heywood, a friend o' your'n most as much as myself. Ned's wantin'
bad to steer torst the Lone Star State. So, thar'll be three o' us on
the trail o' Dick Darke."
"There will be _four_ of us."
"Four! Who's the t'other, may I axe?"
"A man I've sworn to take to Texas along with me. A brave, noble man,
though his skin be--. But never mind now. I'll tell you all about it
by-and-by. Meanwhile we must get ready. There's not a moment to lose.
A single day wasted, and I may be too late to settle scores with Richard
Darke. There's some one else in danger from him--"
Here Clancy's utterance becomes indistinct, as if his voice were stifled
by strong emotion.
"Some one else!" echoes Sime, interrupting; "who mout ye mean, Clancy?"
"Her."
"That air's Helen Armstrong. I don't see how she kin be in any danger
from Dick Darke. Thet ere gurl hev courage enuf to take care o'
herself, an' the spirit too. Besides, she'll hev about her purtectors a
plenty."
"There can be no safety against an assassin. Who should know that
better than I? Woodley, that man's wicked enough for anything."
"Then, let's straight to Texas!"