The little party of Richard Coulter consisted of four persons beside
himself. It was, perhaps, an hour before this that he sat apart from the
rest conversing with one of his companions. This was no other than
Elijah Fields, the Methodist preacher. He had become a volunteer
chaplain among the patriots of his own precinct, and one who, like the
Bishop of Beauvais, did not scruple to wield the weapons of mortal
warfare as well as those of the church. It is true he was not
ostentatious in the manner of the performance; and this, perhaps,
somewhat increases its merit. He was the man for an emergency,
forgetting his prayer when the necessity for blows was pressing, and
duly remembering his prayers when the struggle was no longer doubtful.
Yet Elijah Fields was no hypocrite. He was a true, strong-souled man,
with blood, will, energies, and courage, as well as devotion, and a
strong passion for the soil which gave him birth. In plain terms he was
the patriot as well as the preacher, and his manhood was required for
both vocations.
To him Richard Coulter, now a captain among the partisans of Sumter, had
unfolded the narrative of his escape from Dunbar. They had taken their
evening meal; their three companions were busy with their arms and
horses, grouped together in the centre of the camp. Our two principal
persons occupied a little headland on the edge of the river, looking up
the stream. They were engaged in certain estimates with regard to the
number of recruits expected daily, by means of which Coulter was in
hopes to turn the tables on his rival; becoming the hunter instead of
the fugitive. We need not go over the grounds of their discussion, and
refer to the general progress of events throughout the state. Enough to
say that the Continental army, defeated under Gates, was in course of
re-organization, and re-approaching under Greene; that Marion had been
recently active and successful below; and that Sumter, defeated by
Tarleton at Fishing Creek, was rapidly recruiting his force at the foot
of the mountains. Richard Coulter had not been utterly unsuccessful in
the same business along the Edisto. A rendezvous of his recruits was
appointed to take place on the ensuing Saturday; and, at this
rendezvous, it was hoped that he would find at least thirty stout
fellows in attendance. But we anticipate. It was while in the discussion
of these subjects that the eyes of Coulter, still looking in the
direction of his heart, were attracted by the sudden blaze which swept
the forests, and dyed in lurid splendor the very face of heaven. It had
been the purpose of Frederica Sabb, in setting fire to the undergrowth,
not only to shelter her own progress, but in this way to warn her lover
of his danger. But the effect was to alarm him for _her_ safety rather
than his own.
“That fire is at Sabb’s place,” was his first remark.
“It looks like it,” was the reply of the preacher.
“Can it be that Dunbar has burnt the old man’s dwelling?”
“Hardly!”
“He is not too good for it, or for any thing monstrous. He has burnt
others—old Rumph’s—Ferguson’s, and many more.”
“Yes! but he prefers to own, and not destroy old Sabb’s. As long as he
has a hope of getting Frederica, he will scarcely commit such an
outrage.”
“But if she has refused him—if she answers him, as she feels,
scornfully—”
“Even then he will prefer to punish in a different way. He will rather
choose to take the place by confiscation than burn it. He has never put
that fire, or it is not at Sabb’s, but this side of, or beyond it.”
“It may be the act of some drunken trooper. At all events, it requires
that we should be on the look-out. I will scout it for a while and see
what the mischief is. Do you, meanwhile, keep every thing ready for a
start.”
“That fire will never reach us.”
“Not with this wind, perhaps; but the enemy may. He evidently beat the
woods after my heels this evening, and may be here to-morrow, on my
track. We must be prepared. Keep the horses saddled and bitted, and your
ears open for any summons. Ha! by heavens, that is Brough’s signal now.”
“Is it Brough’s? If so, it is scarcely from Brough in a healthy state.
The old fellow must have caught cold going to and fro at all hours in
the service of Cupid.”
Our preacher was disposed to be merry at the expense of our lover.
“Yes, it is Brough’s signal, but feeble, as if the old fellow was really
sick. He has probably passed through this fire, and has been choked with
the smoke. But he must have an answer.”
And, eager to hear from his beloved one, our hero gave his whistle in
reply, and moved forward in the direction of the isthmus. The preacher,
meanwhile, went toward the camp, quite prompt in the performance of the
duties assigned him.
“He answers,” muttered the tory captain; “the rebels are delivered to
our hands!” And his preparations were sternly prosecuted to make a
satisfactory finish to the adventure of the night. He, too, it must be
remarked, though somewhat wondering at the blazing forest behind him,
never for a moment divined the real original of the conflagration. He
ascribed it to accident, and, possibly, to the carelessness of one of
the troopers whom he left as sentinels. With an internal resolution to
make the fellow, if offending, familiar with the halberds, he pushed
forward, as we have seen, till reaching the swamp; while the fire,
obeying the course of the wind, swept away to the right of the path kept
by the pursuing party, leaving them entirely without cause of
apprehension from this quarter.
The plans of Dunbar for penetrating the place of Coulter’s refuge were
as judicious as they could be made under the circumstances. Having
brought the troopers to the verge of the encampment, the negro was
fastened to a tree by the same rope which had so frequently threatened
his neck. The tories pushed forward, each with pistol cocked and ready
in the grasp. They had scattered themselves abroad, so as to form a
front sufficient to cover, at moderate intervals, the space across the
isthmus. But, with the withdrawal of the immediate danger, Brough’s
courage returned to him, and, to the furious rage and discomfiture of
Dunbar, the old negro set up on a sudden a most boisterous African
howl—such a song as the Ebo cheers himself with when in the doubtful
neighborhood of a jungle which may hide the lion or the tiger. The
sounds re-echoed through the swamp, and startled, with a keen suspicion,
not only our captain of patriots, but the preacher and his associates.
Brough’s voice was well known to them all; but that Brough should use it
after such a fashion was quite as unexpected to them as to Dunbar and
his tories. One of the latter immediately dropped back, intending to
knock the negro regularly on the head; and, doubtless, such would have
been the fate of the fellow, had it not been for the progress of events
which called him elsewhere. Richard Coulter had pressed forward at
double quick time as he heard the wild chant of the African, and, being
familiar with the region, it occupied but little space to enable him to
reach the line across which the party of Dunbar was slowly making its
way. Hearing but a single footfall, and obtaining a glimpse of a single
figure only, Coulter repeated his whistle. He was answered with a pistol
shot—another and another followed; and he had time only to wind his
bugle, giving the signal of flight to his comrades, when he felt a
sudden sickness at the heart, and a faintness which only did not affect
his senses. He could still feel his danger, and his strength sufficed to
enable him to roll himself close beside the massive trunk of the
cypress, upon which he had unhappily been perched when his whistle drew
the fire upon him of several of the approaching party. Scarcely had he
thus covered himself from a random search when he sunk into
insensibility.
Meanwhile, “Bear Castle” rang with the signals of alarm and assault. At
the first sound of danger, Elijah Fields dashed forward in the direction
which Coulter had taken. But the private signal which he sounded for the
other was unanswered, and the assailants were now breaking through the
swamp, and were to be heard on every hand. To retreat, to rally his
comrades, to mount their steeds, dash into the river and take the stream
was all the work of an instant. From the middle of the sweeping current
the shouts of hate and defiance came to the ears of the tories as they
broke from the copse and appeared on the banks of the river. A momentary
glimpse of the dark bulk of one or more steeds as they whirled round an
interposing headland, drew from them the remaining bullets in their
pistols, but without success; and, ignorant of the effect of a random
bullet upon the very person whom, of all, he most desired to destroy,
Mat Dunbar felt himself once more foiled in a pursuit which he had this
time undertaken with every earnest of success.
“That d—d African!” was his exclamation. “But he shall hang for it now,
though he never hung before!”
With this pious resolution, having, with torches, made such an
exploration of Bear Castle as left them in no doubt that all the
fugitives had escaped, our tory captain called his squad together, and
commenced their return. The fatigue of passing through the dry swamp on
their backward route was much greater than when they entered it. They
were then full of excitement, full of that rapture of the strife which
needs not even the feeling of hate and revenge to make it grateful to an
eager and impulsive temper. Now, they were baffled—the excitement was
at an end—and with the feeling of perfect disappointment came the full
feeling of all the toils and exertions they had undergone. They had but
one immediate consolation in reserve, and that was the hanging of
Brough, which Dunbar promised them. The howl of the African had defeated
their enterprise. The African must howl no longer. Bent on murder, they
hastened to the tree where they had left him bound, only to meet with a
new disappointment. The African was there no longer!