Yes. The young hunter is left hanging alone; hanging by hand and arm;
soon to be suspended by the neck.
Good God! is there no alternative? No hope of his being rescued from
his perilous situation?
He sees none for himself. He feels that he is powerless; his left hand
is fastened to his thigh with a cord that cannot be stretched or broken.
He tries wrenching the wrist with all his strength, and in every
direction. The effort is idle, and ends only in the laceration of his
skin.
With the right hand he can do nothing. He dare not remove it from the
limb; he dare not even change its hold. To unclasp it would be certain
strangulation.
Can he not throw up his feet, and by them elevate himself upon the
branch? The idea at once suggests itself; and he at once attempts its
execution. He tries once, twice, thrice, until he proves it impossible.
With both arms it would have been easy; or with one at an earlier
period. But the strain has been too long continued, and he sees that
the effort is only bringing him nearer to his end. He desists, and once
more hangs vertically, from the limb.
Is there no hope from hearing? He listens. There is no lack of sounds.
There is the baying of dogs at intervals, culminating in grand chorus,
or breaking into short, sharp barks, as the bear gives battle; there is
the bellowing of bruin himself, mingled with the crackling of cane, as
he makes his way through the thick-set culms; and, above all, the shouts
and wild yelling of his human pursuers.
"Are they human?" asks he whom they have left behind. "Can it be that
they have abandoned me to this cruel death?"
"It can--they have," is the agonised answer, as the sounds of the chase
come fainter from the forest. "They have--they have," he repeats, and
then, as the tide of vengeance surges up in his heart, he cries, through
clenched teeth, "O God; give me escape--if but to avenge myself on those
villains who have outraged your own image. O God! look down in mercy!
Send some one to deliver me!"
Some one to deliver him! He has no hope that any of his late tormentors
will return to do it. He had but little from the first. He knows them
all, except Spence, the son of the clergyman; and from the late
behaviour of this youth, he has seen that he is like the rest. All six
are of the same stamp and character, the most dissolute scamps in the
country. No hope now; for the bear hunt has borne them far away, and
even their yells are no longer heard by him.
Hitherto he has remained silent. It seemed idle to do otherwise. Who
was there to hear him, save those who would not have heeded. And his
shouts would not have been heard among the howling of hounds, the
trampling of horses, and the shrill screeching of six fiends in human
form.
Now that silence is around him--deep, solemn silence--a new hope springs
up within his breast. Some one _might_ be near, straying through the
forest or travelling along the trace. He knows there is a trace.
Better he had never trodden it!
But another might be on it. Some one with a human heart. Oh, if it
were only Lena!
"Hilloa!" he cries, again and again; "help, help! For the love of God,
give help!"
His words are repeated, every one of them, and with distinctness. But,
alas, not in answer, only in echo. The giant trunks are but taunting
him. A fiend seems to mock him far off in the forest!
He shouts till he is hoarse--till despair causes him to desist. Once
more he hangs silent. A wonder he has hung so long. There are few
boys, and perhaps fewer men, who could for such a time have sustained
the terrible strain, under which even the professional gymnast might
have sunk. It is explained by his training, and partly by the Indian
blood coursing through his veins. A true child of the forest--a hunter
from earliest boyhood--to scale the tall tree, and hang lightly from its
limbs, was part of his education. To such as he the hand has a grasp
prehensile as the tail of the American monkey, the arm a tension not
known to the sons of civilisation.
Fortunate for him it is thus, or perhaps the opposite, since it has only
added to his misery by delaying the fate that seems certainly in store
for him.
He makes this reflection as he utters his last cry, and once more
suffers himself to droop despairingly. So strongly does it shape
itself, that he thinks of letting go his hold, and at once and for ever
putting an end to his agony.
Death is a terrible alternative. There are few who do not fear to look
it in the face--few who will hasten to meet it, so long as the slightest
spark of hope glimmers in the distance. Men have been known to spring
into the sea, to be swallowed by the tumultuous waves; but it was only
when the ship was on fire, or certainly sinking beneath them. This is
but fleeing from death to death, when all hope of life is extinguished.
Perhaps it is only madness.
But Pierre Robideau--for such is the name of the young hunter--is not
mad, and not yet ready to rush to the last terrible alternative.
It is not hope that induces him to hold on--it is only the dread horror
of death.
His arm is stretched almost to dislocation of its joints--the sinews
drawn tight as a bow-string, and still his fingers clutch firmly to the
branch, lapped like iron round it.
His cheeks are colourless; his jaws have dropped till the lips are
agape, displaying his white teeth; his eyes protrude as if about to
start forth from their sockets.
And yet out of these wild eyes one more glance is given to the glade--
one more sweep among the trunks standing around it.
What was seen in that last glaring look?
Was it the form of a fair girl dimly outlined under the shadow of the
trees? or was it only that same form conjured up by a fancy flickering
on the edge of eternity?
No matter now. It is too late. Even if Lena were there she would not
be in time to save him. Nature, tortured to the last throe, can hold
out no longer. She relaxes the grasp of Pierre Robideau's hand, and the
next moment he is seen hanging under the branch, with the tightened
noose around his neck, and his tongue protruding between his lips, livid
with the dark mantling of death!