While their chief has been interrogating his prisoner, the robbers
around the fire have gone on with their poker-playing, and whisky
drinking.
Borlasse joining in the debauch, orders brandy to be brought out of his
tent, and distributed freely around. He drinks deeply himself; in part
to celebrate the occasion of such a grand stroke of business done, but
as much to drown his disappointment at the captives not yet having come
in.--The alcohol has its effect; and ere long rekindles a hope, which
Chisholm strengthens, saying, all will yet be well, and the missing ones
turn up, if not that night, on the morrow.
Somewhat relieved by this expectation, Borlasse enters into the spirit
of the hour, and becomes jovial and boisterous as any of his
subordinates. The cards are tossed aside, the play abandoned; instead,
coarse stories are told, and songs sung, fit only for the ears of such a
God-forsaken crew.
The saturnalia is brought to a close, when all become so intoxicated
they can neither tell story nor sing song. Then some stagger to their
tents, others dropping over where they sit, and falling fast asleep.
By midnight there is not a man of them awake, and the camp is silent,
save here and there a drunken snore disturbing its stillness.
The great central fire, around which some remain lying astretch, burns
on, but no longer blazes. There is no one to tend it with the pitchy
pine-knots. Inside the tents also, the lights are extinguished--all
except one. This, the rude skin sheiling which shelters the mestizo and
mulatto. The two half-bloods, of different strain, are yet awake, and
sitting up. They are also drinking, hobnobbing with one another.
Fernand has supplied the liquor freely and without stint. Pretending to
fraternise with the new confederate, he has filled the latter's glass at
least a half-score of times, doing the same with his own. Both have
emptied them with like rapidity, and yet neither seems at all overcome.
Each thinks the other the hardest case at a drinking bout he has ever
come across; wondering he is not dead drunk, though knowing why he is
himself sober. The Spanish moss plucked from the adjacent trees, and
littering the tent floor, could tell--if it had the power of speech.
Jupiter has had many a whiskey spree in the woods of Mississippi, but
never has he encountered a _convive_ who could stand so much of it, and
still keep his tongue and seat. What can it mean? Is the mestizo's
stomach made of steel?
While perplexed, and despairing of being able to get Fernand
intoxicated, an explanation suggests itself. His fellow tippler may be
shamming, as himself?
Pretending to look out of the tent, he twists his eyes away so far,
that, from the front, little else than their whites can be seen. But
enough of the retina is uncovered to receive an impression from behind;
this showing the mestizo tilting his cup, and spilling its contents
among the moss!
He now knows he is being watched, as well as guarded. And of his
vigilant sentinel there seems but one way to disembarrass himself.
As the thought of it flits across his brain, his eyes flash with a
feverish light, such as when one intends attacking by stealth, and with
the determination to kill. For he must either kill the man by his side,
or give up what is to himself worth more than such a life--his own
liberty.
It may be his beloved master yet lives, and there is a chance to succour
him. If dead, he will find his body, and give it burial. He remembers
the promise that morning mutually declared between them--to stand and
fall together--he will keep his part of it. If Clancy has fallen,
others will go down too; in the end, if need be, himself. But not till
he has taken, or tried to take, a terrible and bloody vengeance. To
this he has bound himself, by an oath sworn in the secret recesses of
his heart.
Its prelude is nigh, and the death of the Indian half-breed is to
initiate it. For the fugitive slave knows the part this vile caitiff
has played, and will not scruple to kill him; the less that it is now an
inexorable necessity. He but waits for the opportunity--has been
seeking it for some time.
It offers at length. Turning suddenly, and detecting the mestizo in his
act of deception, he asks laughingly why he should practice such a
trick. Then stooping forward, as if to verify it, his right arm is seen
to lunge out with something that glitters in his hand. It is the blade
of a bowie-knife.
In an instant the arm is drawn back, the glittering gone off the blade,
obliterated by blood! For it has been between the ribs, and through the
heart of the mestizo; who, slipping from his seat, falls to the floor,
without even a groan!
Grasping Clancy's gun, which chances to be in the tent, and then blowing
out the light, the mulatto moves off, leaving but a dead body behind
him.
Once outside, he looks cautiously around the encampment, scanning the
tents and the ground adjacent to them. He sees the big fire still red,
but not flaming. He can make out the forms of men lying around it--all
of them, for him fortunately, asleep.
Stepping, as if on eggs, and keeping as much as possible in shadow, he
threads his way through the tents until he is quite clear of the
encampment. But he does not go directly off. Instead, he makes a
circuit to the other side, where Brasfort is tied to a tree. A cut of
his red blade releases the hound, that follows him in silence, as if
knowing it necessary.
Then on to the corral where the horses are penned up.
Arriving at the fence he finds the bars, and there stopping, speaks some
words in undertone, but loud enough to be heard by the animals inside.
As if it were a cabalistic speech, one separates from the rest, and
comes towards him. It is the steed of Clancy. Protruding its soft
muzzle over the rail, it is stroked by the mulatto's hand, which soon
after has hold of the forelock. Fortunately the saddles are close by,
astride the fence, with the bridles hanging to the branches of a tree.
Jupiter easily recognises those he is in search of, and soon has the
horse caparisoned.
At length he leads the animal not mounting till he is well away from the
camp. Then, climbing cautiously into the saddle, he continues on,
Brasfort after; man, horse, and hound, making no more noise, than if all
three were but shadows.