"FIGHTING GALLAGHER."
The prisoner was confined in a strong, windowless blockhouse. Access to
him would be easy enough, especially to those who wore epaulets. It was
my design to visit him; but, for certain reasons, I forbore putting it
in execution, so long as daylight lasted. I was desirous that my
interview should be as private as possible and therefore waited for the
night.
I was influenced by other reasons; my hands were full of business; I had
not yet done with Arens Ringgold.
I had a difficulty in deciding how to act. My mind was a chaos of
emotions; hatred for the conspirators--indignation at the unjust
behaviour of the agent towards Osceola--love for Maumee--now fond and
trusting--anon doubting and jealous. Amid such confusion, how could I
think with clearness?
Withal, one of these emotions had precedence--anger against the villain
who intended to take my life was at that moment the strongest passion in
my breast.
Hostility so heartless, so causeless, so deadly, had not failed to imbue
me with a keen desire for vengeance; and I resolved to punish my enemy
at all hazards.
He only, whose life has been aimed at by an assassin, can understand the
deadly antipathy I felt towards Arens Ringgold. An open enemy, who acts
under the impulse of anger, jealousy, or fancied wrong, you may respect.
Even the two white wretches, and the yellow runaway, I regarded only
with contempt, as tools pliant for any purpose; but the arch-conspirator
himself I now both hated and despised. So acute was my sense of injury,
that I could not permit it to pass without some act of retaliation, some
effort to punish my wronger.
But how? Therein lay the uncertainty! How? A duel?
I could think of no other way. The criminal was still inside the law.
I could not reach him, otherwise than by my own arm.
I well weighed the words of my sable counsellor; but the faithful fellow
had spoken in vain, and I resolved to act contrary to his advice, let
the hazard fall as it might. I made up my mind to the challenge.
One consideration still caused me to hesitate: _I must give Ringgold my
reasons_.
He should have been welcome to them as a dying souvenir; but if I
succeeded in only _half-killing_ him, or he in half-killing me, how
about the future? I should be showing my hand to him, by which he would
profit; whereas, unknown to him, I now knew his, and might easily foil
his designs.
Such calculations ran rapidly through my mind, though I considered them
with a coolness that in after-thought surprises me. The incidents that
I had lately encountered--combined with angry hatred of this plausible
villain--had made me fierce, cold and cruel. I was no longer myself;
and, wicked as it may appear, I could not control my longings for
vengeance.
I needed a friend to advise me. Who could I make the confidant of my
terrible secret?
Surely my ears were not deceiving me? No; it was the voice of my old
school-fellow, Charley Gallagher. I heard it outside, and recognised
the ring of his merry laugh. A detachment of rifles had just entered
the fort with Charley at their head. In another instant we had
"embraced."
What could have been more opportune? Charley had been my "chum" at
college--my bosom companion. He deserved my confidence, and almost upon
the instant, I made known to him the situation of affairs.
It required much explanation to remove his incredulity; he was disposed
to treat the whole thing as a joke--that is, the conspiracy against my
life. But the rifle shot was real, and Black Jake was by to confirm my
account of it: so that my friend was at length induced to take a serious
view of the matter.
"Bad luck to me!" said he, in Irish accent: "it's the quarest case that
ever came accrast your humble frind's experience. Mother o' Moses! the
fellow must be the divil incarnate. Geordie, my boy, have ye looked
under his instip?"
Despite the name and "brogue," Charley was not a Hibernian--only the son
of one. He was a New-Yorker by birth, and could speak good English when
he pleased; but from some freak of eccentricity or affectation, he had
taken to the brogue, and used it habitually, when among friends, with
all the rich garniture of a true Milesian, fresh from the "sod."
He was altogether an odd fellow, but with a soul of honour, and a heart
true as steel. He was no dunce either, and the man above all others
upon whose coat tail it would not have been safe to "trid." He was
already notorious for having been engaged in two or three "affairs," in
which he had played both principal and second, and had earned the
bellicose appellation of "Fighting Gallagher." I knew what _his_ advice
would be before asking it--"Call the schoundrel out by all manes."