THE BLOODHOUND
But I, in none of these,
Find place or refuge. —Milton.
What miracle
Can work me into hope! —Lee.
Then, as the headmost foes appeared,
With one brave bound the copse he cleared. —Scott.
Suddenly the distant cry of a hound seemed borne upon the air. Often
before, during the morning, as we have said, Kate had fancied she heard
such a noise; and as often had she been happily disappointed. But this
time there was no mistaking it. No sighing of the wind among the pines,
no murmur of distant water, could produce that peculiar cry, which was
plainly the hoarse, deep bay of a bloodhound heated with the chase.
Kate gazed in terror around, vainly seeking a hiding-place. If the earth
had opened, at that moment, and swallowed her up, she would have
welcomed it as a relief. The worst that she had feared, that recapture
which was more horrible than death, was now about to befall her. Help
there was none. The nearest human creature, possessed of the sympathies
of our common nature, was probably miles away; and as for pleading for
mercy at the hands of the outlaws, she knew she might as well petition
to the winds.
Meantime the bay of the hound sounded louder and louder, fiercer and
fiercer, nearer and nearer. Occasionally he would appear to lose the
scent for a moment or two, for the deep cry would die away through the
wilderness; and Kate, at such times, would listen breathlessly,
fluctuating between hope and despair. But the hoarse bay broke forth
invariably again, at intervals greater or less; and always with a
startling ferocity that sent the blood back in torrents to her heart.
After thus recovering the scent, the cry of the hound would be heard
almost incessantly, till the forest resounded with a hundred echoes, and
the very heavens seemed to give back the sound. Though the pursuers now
drew near, and then receded a space, as if following a somewhat
circuitous path, the terrible bay of the hound plainly approached
closer, with the lapse of every quarter of an hour.
There was but one hope now left for our heroine, which was that death
would put an end to her miseries, before she could be dragged back to
the outlaw’s hut. Her efforts to escape had so completely exhausted
her, that her heroic spirit would have been unable to force the weary
limbs onward much further, even though the refugees had failed to track
her. She felt satisfied that she could not retrace her steps to the
cabin, and that she would perish on the way if the attempt was made to
compel her.
But, hopeless as was her condition, Kate still remained true to herself.
The fate which she could not avert, she resolved should be met with
dignity at least. She abandoned, therefore, all further thought of
flight, determining to face her inevitable destiny where she then stood.
Like a Roman virgin, stout-hearted to the last, as became the daughter
of illustrious heroes, she drew her garments decorously and proudly
about her, and stood up to face the foe.
It was not only on herself that she relied, however, in this most
terrible of all extremities. The reader is already familiar with the
fact that Kate was sincere and earnest in her piety; and now, when she
considered death as imminent, she looked up to the Almighty for support
in that dreadful hour. She had been educated in the liturgy of the
Established Church, as her fathers had been since the days of the
saintly Latimer, and though she worshiped with other sects as fervently
as with her own, when the ministry of her church was impossible, her
thoughts naturally turned, in this extremity, to the solemn words of
that litany which she had learned first at her mother’s knee.
As she stood, therefore, facing the foe, and bravely supporting her weak
frame by leaning against a tree, her eyes were raised to heaven, and her
lips moved in earnest supplications. We have seen somewhere a picture of
a Christian virgin, bound to an oak by Pagan enemies, and about to
suffer martyrdom by being transfixed with arrows as a target. So Kate
looked now. Her hands were clasped downwards before her; and her
uplifted countenance glowed with a fervent enthusiasm that proved the
mortal part above the fear of death. Thus she stood, while the bay of
the ferocious hound drew nearer, and shouts, mingling with the hoarse
cry, showed that her pitiless hunters were now close at hand; yet not an
eyelid quivered, not a muscle about her mouth twitched, not a shade of
color rose into her composed, though pallid face.
“Remember not, Lord, our offences,” she prayed, “nor the offences
of our forefathers; neither take thou vengeance of our sins; spare us,
good Lord, spare thy people, whom thou hast redeemed with thy most
precious blood.”
Again the hoarse cries of the bloodhound, nearer at hand than ever, woke
the echoes of the wilderness, mingled with the exulting shouts of the
outlaws; for the pursuers knew, from the rapidity and power of the
dog’s cries, that they were now almost up with their prey.
“By the mystery of thy holy Incarnation, by thy holy Nativity and
Circumcision; by thy Baptism, Fasting and Temptation.”
Again the ferocious bay of the bloodhound rose to the sky, and
reverberated through the forests.
“By thine Agony and Bloody Sweat; by thy Cross and Passion; by thy
precious Death and Burial; by thy glorious Resurrection and Ascension;
and by the coming of the Holy Ghost.”
Still a third time the cry of the excited hound rung across the silence.
“In all time of our tribulation; in all time of our prosperity; in the
hour of death, and in the day of judgment.”
Still rose, as if in answer, that deep, hoarse bay of the bloodhound,
which seemed almost to deny the justice of heaven.
But now the victim began to pray for others, and for her enemies even,
as the litany of the Church teaches.
“That it may please thee to have mercy upon all men.”
The bay of the hound replied almost beside her.
“That it may please thee to forgive our enemies, persecutors and
slanderers, and to turn their hearts.”
A burst from the bloodhound, at her very side, was the answer; and
immediately the terrible animal broke from the undergrowth.
His reddish coat seemed more inflamed in color than ever; his open
mouth, with its blood-colored tongue, was white with foam; and his eyes
blazed with such fury, that they seemed to emit phosphoric light. He
paused an instant, erecting his tall form, his hairs bristling with
rage, for he did not immediately perceive his prey. His glance soon
rested on her, however, when, with a yell that rung far and near through
the forest, and startled the beasts of the chase from the noon-day
coverts they had sought, he sprang at the throat of our heroine.
But, at that very instant, just as the hound was half way towards his
victim, darting through the air with distended jaws and eager fangs, a
quick, sharp report was heard, a whizzing sound smote on Kate’s
unnaturally excited ear, and the dog, as if struck suddenly by a bolt
from heaven, rolled over on the ground, nearly at the feet of his
intended prey, his head shattered to pieces by a double load of
buckshot.
For a moment, our heroine knew not whether to hail this as a welcome
relief, or only as a respite to a more miserable doom. Her first thought
was that Arrison, finding that the hound had outrun him, had fired to
save her from the fangs of the excited animal. This impression was
fortified, by seeing the refugee himself dash upon the scene, almost
before the single convulsive movement of the dog was over, after he had
fallen.
But this belief was removed by the very first words of the outlaw.
Without even looking at Kate, he rushed up to the hound, and first
gazing hurriedly on his mutilated form, glanced angrily around the
little open space where these scenes were being enacted. Discovering
nobody, however, he seemed for a moment perplexed; but instantly
suspecting it was some one who had outstripped him, he cried, with every
feature working with passion,
“Who fired that shot? Who dared kill my dog?” And he concluded with
a blasphemous oath.
An answer came sooner than he expected, for while he still scowled
around, the bushes parted directly in front of him, and Uncle Lawrence
appeared, his finger on the trigger of his gun, and the piece held ready
for instant service.
“I fired it, you villain,” coolly replied the veteran, placing
himself before Kate, but without looking at her, while all the time he
watched the outlaw as warily as one would eye a panther about to spring.
“Keep still—don’t touch me,” he whispered to our heroine
immediately, in a tone so low as to be heard only by Kate. “Help is
near, if we can gain time. I’ll die with you, my child, if I can’t
save you.”
As he spoke, he still kept his eyes on Arrison, his finger on the
trigger, his piece ready for instant use.