It would be difficult to describe the rage and fury of our captain of
loyalists when he made this discovery. The reader will imagine it all.
But what was to be done? Was the prey to be entirely lost? And by what
agency had Brough made his escape? He had been securely fastened, it was
thought, and in such a way as seemed to render it impossible that he
should have been extricated from his bonds without the assistance of
another. This conjecture led to a renewal of the search. The rope which
fastened the negro lay upon the ground, severed, as by a knife, in
several places. Now, Brough could not use his hands. If he could, there
would have been no sort of necessity for using his knife. Clearly, he
had found succor from another agency than his own. Once more our
loyalists darted into the recesses of Bear Castle, their torches were to
be seen flaring in every part of that dense patch of swamp forest, as
they waved them over every spot which seemed to promise concealment to
the fugitive.
“Hark!” cried Dunbar, whose ears were quickened by eager and baffled
passions. “Hark! I hear the dip of a paddle.”
He was right. They darted forth from the woods, and when they reached
the river’s edge, they had a glimpse of a small dark object, which they
readily conceived to be a canoe, just rounding one of the projections of
the shore and going out of sight, a full hundred yards below. Here was
another mystery. The ramifications of Bear Castle seemed numerous; and,
mystified as well as mortified, Dunbar, after a tedious delay, and a
search fruitlessly renewed, took up the line of march back for old
Sabb’s cottage, inly resolved to bring the fair Frederica to terms, or,
in some way, to make her pay the penalty for his disappointments of the
night. He little dreamed how much she had to do with them, nor that her
hand had fired the forest grasses, whose wild and terrific blaze had
first excited the apprehensions and compelled the caution of the
fugitives. It is for us to show what further agency she exercised in
this nocturnal history.
We left her, alone, in her little dug-out, paddling or drifting down the
river with the stream. She pursued this progress with proper caution. In
approaching the headlands around which the river swept, on that side
which was occupied by Dunbar, she suspended the strokes of her paddle,
leaving her silent boat to the direction of the currents. The night was
clear and beautiful, and the river undefaced by shadow, except when the
current bore her beneath the overhanging willows which grew numerously
along the margin, or when the winds flung great masses of smoke from the
burning woods across its bright, smooth surface. With these exceptions,
the river shone in a light not less clear and beautiful because vague
and capricious. Moonlight and starlight seem to make a special
atmosphere for youth, and the heart which loves, even when most troubled
with anxieties for the beloved one, never, at such a season, proves
wholly insensible to the soft, seductive influences of such an
atmosphere. Our Frederica was not the heroine of convention. She had
never imbibed romance from books; but she had affections out of which
books might be written, filled with all those qualities, at once strong
and tender, which make the heroine in the moment of emergency. Her heart
softened, as, seated in the centre of her little vessel, she watched the
soft light upon the wave, or beheld it dripping, in bright, light
droplets, like fairy glimmers, through the over-hanging foliage. Of
fear—fear for herself—she had no feeling. Her apprehensions were all
for Richard Coulter, and her anxieties increased as she approached the
celebrated promontory and swamp forest, known to this day upon the river
as “Bear Castle.” She might be too late. The captain of the loyalists
had the start of her, and her only hope lay in the difficulties by which
he must be delayed, going through a _blind_ forest and under imperfect
guidance—for she still had large hopes of Brough’s fidelity. She _was_
too late—too late for her purpose, which had been to forewarn her lover
in season for his escape. She was drifting toward the spot where the
river, at full seasons, made across the low neck by which the promontory
of “Bear Castle” was united with the main land. Her paddle no longer
dipt the water, but was employed solely to protect her from the
overhanging branches beneath which she now prepared to steer. It was at
her approach to this point, that she was suddenly roused to apprehension
by the ominous warning chant set up by the African.
“Poor Brough! what can they be doing with him?” was her question to
herself. But the next moment she discovered that his howl was meant to
be a hymn; and the peculiar volume which the negro gave to his
utterance, led her to divine its import. There was little time allowed
her for reflection. A moment after, and just when her boat was abreast
of the bayou which Dunbar and his men were required to cross in
penetrating the place of refuge, she heard the sudden pistol shooting
under which Coulter had fallen. With a heart full of terror, trembling
with anxiety and fear, Frederica had the strength of will to remain
quiet for the present. Seizing upon an overhanging bough, she lay
concealed within the shadow of the copse until the loyalists had rushed
across the bayou, and were busy, with lighted torches, exploring the
thickets. She had heard the bugle of Coulter sounded as he was about to
fall, after being wounded, and her quick consciousness readily enabled
her to recognize it as her lover’s. But she had heard no movement
afterward in the quarter from which came the blast, and could not
conceive that he should have made his way to join his comrades in the
space of time allowed between that and the moment when she heard them
taking to the river with their horses. This difficulty led to new fears,
which were agonizing enough, but not of a sort to make her forgetful of
what was due to the person whom she came to save. She waited only until
the torrent had passed the straits—until the bayou was silent—when she
fastened her little boat to the willows which completely enveloped her,
and boldly stepped upon the land. With a rare instinct which proved how
deeply her heart had interested itself in the operations of her senses,
she moved directly to the spot whence she had heard the bugle-note of
her lover. The place was not far distant from the point where she had
been in lurking. Her progress was arrested by the prostrate trunk of a
great cypress, which the hurricane might have cast down some fifty years
before. It was with some difficulty that she scrambled over it; but
while crossing it she heard a faint murmur, like the voice of one in
pain, laboring to speak or cry aloud. Her heart misgave her. She hurried
to the spot. Again the murmur—now certainly a moan. It is at her feet,
but on the opposite side of the cypress, which she again crosses. The
place was very dark, and in the moment when, from loss of blood, he was
losing consciousness, Richard Coulter had carefully crawled close to the
cypress, whose bulk, in this way, effectually covered him from passing
footsteps. She found him, still warm, the flow of blood arrested, and
his consciousness returning.
“Richard! it is me—Frederica!”
He only sighed. It required but an instant for reflection on the part of
the damsel; and rising from the place where she had crouched beside him,
she darted away to the upper grounds where Brough still continued to
pour out his dismal ejaculations—now of psalms and song, and now of
mere whoop, halloo, and imprecation. A full heart and a light foot make
quick progress when they go together. It was necessary that Frederica
should lose no time. She had every reason to suppose that, failing to
secure their prey, the tories would suffer no delay in the thicket.
Fortunately, the continued cries of Brough left her at no time doubtful
of his whereabouts. She soon found him, fastened to his tree, in a state
sufficiently uncomfortable for one whose ambition did not at all incline
him to martyrdom of any sort. Yet martyrdom was now his fear. His first
impulses, which had given the alarm to the patriots, were succeeded by
feelings of no pleasant character. He had already had a taste of
Dunbar’s punishments, and he dreaded still worse at his hands. The
feeling which had changed his howl of warning into one of lament—his
whoop into a psalm—was one accordingly of preparation. He was preparing
himself, as well as he could, after his African fashion, for the short
cord and the sudden shrift, from which he had already so narrowly
escaped.
Nothing could exceed the fellow’s rejoicing as he became aware of the
character of his new visiter.
“Oh, Misses! Da’s you? Loose ’em! Cut you’ nigger loose! Let ’em run!
Sich a run! you nebber see de like! I take dese woods, dis yer night,
Mat Dunbar nebber see me ’gen long as he lib! Ha! ha! Cut! cut, misses!
cut quick! de rope is work into my berry bones!”
“But I have no knife, Brough.”
“No knife! Da’s wha’ woman good for! No hab knife! Take you teet’,
misses—gnaw de rope. Psho! wha’ I tell you? Stop! Put you’ han’ in dis
yer pocket—you fin’ knife, if I no loss ’em in de run.”
The knife was found, the rope cut, the negro free, all in much less time
than we have taken for the narration; and hurrying the African with her,
Frederica was soon again beside the person of her lover. To assist
Brough in taking him upon his back, to help sustain the still partially
insensible man in this position until he could be carried to the boat,
was a work of quick resolve, which required, however, considerable time
for performance. But patience and courage, when sustained by love,
become wonderful powers; and Richard Coulter, whose moans increased with
his increasing sensibility, was finally laid down in the bottom of the
dug-out, his head resting in the lap of Frederica. The boat could hold
no more. The faithful Brough, pushing her out into the stream, with his
hand still resting on stern or gunwale, swam along with her, as she
quietly floated with the currents. We have seen the narrow escape which
the little vessel had as she rounded the headland below, just as Dunbar
came down upon the beach. Had he been there when the canoe first began
to round the point, it would have been easy to have captured the whole
party, since the stream, somewhat narrow at this place, set in for the
shore which the tories occupied, and a stout swimmer might have easily
drawn the little argosy upon the banks.