THE CAPTURE.
The sun had set about an hour on the evening of the same day, when Mr.
Lambert, with two stout attendants, set out from his residence on the
outskirts of the village, and took his way through the intervening wood
towards the sea shore. The two men with him were London officers, adepts
at thief catching, resolute and determined; they were well armed, but
bore no badge of their occupation outside. The agent had screwed his
courage to the point of accompanying them, with some difficulty, but he
was well aware that if they failed in capturing their man, he would have
to encounter the nobleman's rage, and he feared the loss of his favor
more than the chance of being shot or stabbed by Hunter; but he knew
well it was an errand of no small danger he was upon; yet they were
three to one, and he counted much upon the instructions he had given to
Curly Tom; much also on Hunter's habit of drink, still he felt by no
means easy and would have given much then to have been quietly in his
bed; not so the officers; they were in high glee, the prospect of a
desperate encounter being by men inured to deal with ruffians as they
were, but small in comparison with the hope of a large reward.
They proceeded in silence, however--the agent, who was perfectly
familiar with the way, leading. They soon emerged into the open country,
and after a few miles began to ascend, and felt the keen air from the
sea blow upon their faces--the path soon became rugged and uneven, but
sloping towards the sea. In a short time they reached the beach. Here
they dismounted and tied their beasts up under a shed, placed there for
the purpose of drying fish. There was no moon, but it was a bright
starlight night, and the tide was out. Creeping cautiously along, they
skirted the base of a large cliff which projected far beyond low water
mark, and against which the sea beat in fury when the tide was in; and
keeping on its inner side; crept along until they reached the entrance
of a cave. Not a word was spoken. Their instructions had been
precise--for Lambert, who was born and had spent his earliest years
there, knew every spot of the ground. They took their shoes off, and
walking upon the hard sand which formed the ground, entered the pitchy
darkness. Lambert going first, and knowing that a sound would be
fatal--for they would have little chance in that narrow passage--he
turned every angle as accurately as if it had been daylight, and the
officers holding, one behind the other, followed stealthily along. Soon
their path widened, and a glimmering light allowed them that the cavern
was tenanted, or had been so. A few paces more, and they stopped. Some
large masses of fallen rock here almost blocked up the path, leaving an
opening so narrow as to require stooping to enter. Cautiously peeping
through some spaces between the rocks, the agent and his myrmidons gazed
upon a scene Salvator would have loved to paint. The cavern here
expanded into a semicircular hall, stalactites hanging from its roof
nearly to the ground. Here and there a niche and recess which seemed
done by human art, but which in fact was Nature's handiwork, was seen,
and every point of spar, from the lofty roof to the stalagmites below,
was glittering in the light of a huge fire of brushwood fed by Curly
Tom. A small rill of water trickled from a fissure in the rock above,
and wound its way through the sand towards the sea. It was the very
beau-ideal of a robber's cave. Its existence was known to few: only
accessible at low water, the entrance had escaped notice, and the few
that did find it were discouraged on entering by the long and tortuous
way which led to this chamber, and did not track it far. The smoke found
vent above, as the fire burnt clear and bright, and did not incommode
the watchers.
Horace Hunter was pacing the cave with unsteady step, and with delight
the officers saw that he was more than half intoxicated. No one could
have recognized in the bloated countenance and reckless air of the
hunted man, the gay and handsome young farmer of seven years before.
There was still the same manly form and intelligent features, but the
rich brown hair that then curled round his open brow, now wild and
matted, only added to the desperate appearance of his sunken eyes and
overhanging brows. Drink did not make him merry. On the contrary he was
more bitter then than ever. Gloomy and ferocious as he had become since
his sister's shame had been known to him, when he drank he only brooded
heavier upon it; and the hope of a more complete revenge only restrained
him then from some desperate act of violence. As he walked to and fro,
chafing with inward passion, he might have been compared to a caged wild
beast, hungry and with food in sight, yet unattainable.
'A curse upon you, Tom!' said he. 'Would you roast us alive, this hot
night? Leave the fire alone and bring your hang-dog face here!'
He treated his associate with the most bitter contempt.
'I doant fancy biding here with narra light!' said the fellow. 'There be
a mort of ugly things here!'
'There's nothing uglier than your own carcase. Drink and get courage. If
your heart is cold with fear, warm it with brandy.'
So saying he took a deep draught himself and handed the bottle to his
companion.
'I hate the stuff!' said he. 'Bah! it's poison--but it rouses me. Fire
this infernal cave! What's that?' A bat, disturbed by the smoke, flitted
close before his face. 'I have had nothing but evil omens to-day. What
is the day of the month?'
'I heern lawyer say the 26th, yesterday.'
'The 27th of August, then. By twelve o'clock to-night my time will be
up--then I shall be free to act. If that old seaman should play me false
now! I promised him to wait three years, and I have kept my word!' He
was speaking more to himself than to his companion. 'Three long
years--too long for vengeance for wrongs like mine to wait. But that he
swore, I should tame his pride--but that he spoke of hurling him from
his high estate, ere this I would have had the heart's blood of that
proud man. But to-night I shall be free, and then--'
He took from his vest a miniature, and gazed upon it long and earnestly.
Gradually his features softened, and burying his face in his hands, he
wept. There was yet one green spot in the desert of his heart--love for
the fair girl he had been betrothed to. Reader, it was a terrible thing
to see that man weep--it would have made your heart sicken and your
blood boil, while every scalding tear that fell would cry aloud in your
thoughts, 'Vengeance, vengeance!'
A strange proceeding now took place. Curly Tom took from his pocket a
small phial, and previously filling his own cup with brandy, poured the
contents into the bottle. He watched his companion intently during this
process, but his terrible emotion too completely mastered him for the
moment. It was but momentary. He arose and commenced to pace the floor
again. 'My Mary! you too sacrificed! O, fiend! fiend! But my vengeance
shall be terrible! To-night I shall be free from my oath!' He walked up
to the table and drank. Curly Tom watched him intently as he resumed his
unsteady walk.
'He little dreams that I can enter his very chamber at any hour. Oh!
coward, fool, dolt, that I have been, to delay my just revenge on the
word of that old pirate. I believe him,--some paid minion of this proud
man; for he has them in every guise, perhaps the very appointment made
three years ago in the West Indies, was a trap, perhaps,--even this clod
is a spy and accomplice;' he took a pistol from an inner pocket and
cocking it, pressed it to the ear of his companion. 'Tom,' said he, 'if
I thought you would betray me.' The ruffian possessed that brute
indifference to danger too often mistaken for true courage,--he did not
tremble, though a slight paleness was visible on his repulsive
countenance as he felt the touch of the iron barrel. 'Whoy! Measter
Horace,' said he, 'didn't you save moy old mawther from being drowned by
the boys vor a witch, noa, noa,--I be true, and hate yearl and lawyer,
and all the great volk.'
'I believe you,' said the other, replacing the pistol, 'but' he began to
mutter indistinctly, took a few steps in a wild, uncertain way;--'I feel
dizzy,--d----nation,' he staggered to a seat and dropped his head upon
the piece of rock that served them for a table;--the opiate had done its
work.
Curly Tom cautiously arose, and walking up to him, looked upon him long
and steadily, listening to the heavy breathing,--he wished to remove his
arms, but the position Hunter was lying in, prevented his doing so. The
ruffian felt no remorse; it was true that Hunter had saved the wretch's
mother from being abused and ill-treated, perhaps murdered, by the
superstitious villagers: true that he had regularly allowed the poor old
woman support till her death,--while her ruffian son was pursuing his
career of crime,--but the villain knew his own neck was in danger, and
being conscious of perfidy, now hated Hunter for his momentary
suspicion. As he leaned over the insensible man, his light, bleary eyes
gleaming with ferocious satisfaction, his lank, shambling figure, and
yellow, matted hair hanging in elf locks round his sharp visage, he
looked like an unclean bird of prey hovering over a carcase. And a
carcase it was over which he bent his head; dead now to every honorable
hope, worse than useless to his kind, a hunted outcast, a mass of
decaying matter, kept alive only by the fiery hope of vengeance that
burnt within. The ruffian had hitherto been faithful, and procured
Hunter those necessaries that he could not venture in quest of himself,
for he was a deserter from that service, which kidnaps men to do its
work, and hunts down the poor slaves when they escape, even in the land
whose inhabitants are singing, 'Britons ever will be free.' Bitter,
mockery of freedom. Curly Tom now held up his hand, and cautiously the
officers emerged from their hiding place, slowly they came forward,
anticipating an easy capture; they were mistaken. The opiate, as it
frequently does on excitable natures, had only partially stupefied him,
and the first effect wearing off, it now began to act as a
stimulant;--the officers had traversed about half the distance to the
rock on which Hunter's head reclined, when he started up and looked
wildly around him,--for a moment he seemed stupefied, and passed his
hand before his face as if to assure himself he was not dreaming--the
officers rushed forward. He saw it all now,--he drew a pistol, but Curly
Tom threw his long arms round him,--too late to prevent the explosion,
however. The ball whizzed by the side of the foremost officer, and
struck the agent in the leg--he fell. Curly Tom possessed more strength
than his lank figure promised,--but Hunter, thoroughly sobered by his
danger; tore his hold away, and striking the ruffian a tremendous blow
with the butt end of the discharged pistol, felled him to the
ground,--and snatching a knife from the rock close at hand, stabbed the
foremost officer to the heart,--he fell with a heavy groan, and the next
moment the remaining officer, a man of herculean strength had closed
upon him. Terrible was now the struggle--the officer had dexterously
struck the knife from his hand as he closed with him, but he could not
draw his pistols. Locked in each other's grasp they wrestled together
for life: each one well knew that death would be the lot of the
vanquished,--the officer burning to revenge his comrade's death:--Hunter
struggling for life and his cherished vengeance. Gradually they
approached the spot where the agent sat watching the conflict with
terrible anxiety, so absorbing as to make him forgetful of the pain of
his wound; here, by a tremendous effort the officer succeeded in
throwing his antagonist; falling, however, with him. Hunter made
desperate efforts to rise, but getting within reach of the agent in the
struggle, Lambert seized his hair, and held his head firmly down; to
master his hands now, and slip a pair of handcuffs over his wrists, was,
to the powerful and practised officer, the work of a moment,--and
furious with passion, but exhausted by the struggle, Hunter lay upon the
earth, a captive.
'A game fellow,' said the officer, wiping the perspiration from his
brow, 'and strong as a bear, but I've tackled as tough hands as him in
my day, and so has poor Bill Maddox there. I hope the Earl will settle a
good pension on his widow--it will be sad news for her and her four poor
children:--stone dead. He took the famous highwayman, Jack Blount summut
in this way, five years ago. Well, he's gone, and as the tide is coming
in, we had best be smart. That shot was unlucky for you, Mr. Lambert,
but such accidents will happen. You behaved beautifully. I'm blowed if I
thought you so fly to these things. Poor Bill--we can't move him until
next tide, but sea-water can't hurt him now. I must rouse this
chuckle-headed yokel and get him to help me.' So saying, the veteran
thief-catcher lighted a dark lantern, and taking some water sprinkled it
freely over the head and face of Curly Tom. The fellow returned to
consciousness, and gazed around him--a look of ferocious joy animated
his eyes, as he saw that Hunter was taken, and drinking the brandy he
had reserved unmixed in the cup, he professed his readiness to help
them.
Leaving him to guard the prisoner, first, however, removing Hunter's
remaining pistol, and even securing the discharged one, the sturdy
official took the wounded agent on his back, and crept out of the
cavern. He soon returned, and with Tom's assistance removed Hunter also,
who now from the combined effects of exhaustion, liquor and the opiate,
was fast becoming insensible. Leaving one of his pistols with the agent,
in case of treachery on the part of Tom, he once more returned, and
taking off the outer clothing of the dead man, fastened a cord to his
feet, and tied it firmly round a piece of rock near by. He was too used
to scenes of blood to shed a tear, but he shook the dead man's hand and
said, 'Poor Bill,' as he quitted the cave. His precautions with regard
to Tom were unneeded. The ruffian's hatred had been aroused by Hunter's
suspicion, and confirmed by the blow. Nor did he refuse to start to
Erith for assistance to convey the prisoner and the wounded man there.
He had been assured by the agent that no harm should come to him,
protected by the powerful influence of the nobleman; and to allow
himself to be captured had been part of the plan from the first. He had
not sense enough to know that the heavier crime of murder, now laying
upon the soul of the unfortunate man, did away with the necessity of his
appearing as a witness, as it had been done in the presence of Mr.
Lambert and the officer, and they were both too wise to undeceive him.
Indeed the wily agent had determined, now that the service was rendered,
to sacrifice his ruffianly tool, as his presence might be troublesome.
Tom soon returned with a posse of police officers and a cart, to convey
the prisoner and the wounded. A surgeon was with them, who dressed Mr.
Lambert's wound temporarily, and pronounced it trifling, and the party
departed--Tom going with them as a voluntary prisoner.
Great were the encomiums bestowed upon the officer by his brother
official, for his conduct and bravery, and the agent also came in for
his share of praise--and the whole party were in high glee at the
result, which brought one poor hunted human being under the dread ban of
the law, while he whose lust had driven him to crime revelled in luxury,
and mingled with the fair and good, courted and caressed by those who
would have shrunk from expressing any sympathy for the poor victims of
his pride. Weep, angels, weep! and devils, shout for joy! Hell has no
minister so powerful as the proud man's lust.
It may be as well to mention here at once, that the agent, pursuing his
plan of getting rid of Curly Tom, much to that worthy's astonishment,
pressed the charge of highway robbery against him, before the trial of
Hunter, which was postponed through the influence of the Earl, which was
indirectly exerted also to procure the condemnation of his base tool;
and so it came to pass, that after a trial, which was a mere form--for
the seaman's bare deposition, which Mr. Lambert had taken, was admitted
as evidence--the good citizens of Canterbury being in want of a little
excitement, that interesting individual performed a dance upon nothing,
in company with a sheep-stealer and a forger, for their especial behoof,
one fine day in September, under the personal superintendence of that
accomplished artist, Mr. John Ketch, in the presence of a highly
respectable and numerous audience, who all retired to their homes in
peace, much gratified with the exhibition, and duly impressed with a
deep sense of the blessing of being permitted to vegetate under the
protection of a government so wise in its councils, so strong in
_execution_, and so paternal in its care for the morals of the people.
So said the newspapers next day; and thus ended the career of a
heartless ruffian, it is true, but who had ever sought to make him
otherwise?
To proceed with our tale. Day was now fast breaking; and as the cortege
moved away with their prisoner, two horsemen appeared on the cliffs
above, and dismounting, watched the party with eager but disappointed
looks. They were the old seaman and Edward Barnett, the village
landlady's eccentric nephew.
'A plague upon my awkward riding,' said the seaman, 'we are too late!
They have taken him, and that rascal too with him! Fool that he was to
place any confidence in such a hound.'
'He had been kind to Tom's mother,' said Edward, 'and he supposed that
gratitude.'
'Bah!' said the sailor; 'when you have buffeted as many of the storms of
life as I have, you will learn that gratitude is rarely found on
earth--least of all in such a brutified nature as that fellow's. But why
do I blame him? He was but what the law made him. Punished for a venial
fault--sent to herd with hardened malefactors, is it wonderful that he
should become schooled in crime? And now the law will punish the
criminal it made. We can do no good here--we had best proceed to Erith.
I have much to say to you, and much to do. But fear not; Hunter shall
not perish without an effort, even if I tear him from the gallows.' So
saying, he remounted, and the two slowly pursued their way towards
Erith.