"To Planter Brandin, Esquare.
"Sir,--I guess as how ye recollex a man, by name, Dick Tarleton; an'
maybe ye mout be desireous o' seein' him. Ef ye be, ye kin gratify yur
desire. He air now, at this present moment, in the town o' Helena, tho'
what part o' it I don't know. But I know whar he will be afore mornin'.
That air upon the road leadin' from the town t'ward the settlements on
White River. He arn't a gwine fur out, as he's travellin' afoot, and
he's sartin to keep the trace through the bit o' clearin' not fur from
Caney Crik. Ef you or anybody else wants ter see him, that wud be as
good a place as thar is on the road.
"Y'urs at command,
"A Strenger but a Fren'."
Jerry Rook has no fear of his handwriting beings recognised. So long
since he has seen it, he would scarce know it himself.
Folding up the sheet, and sealing it with some drops of resin, melted in
the dull flame of the dip, he directs it as inside--"To Planter Brandin,
Esquare."
Then handing it to his daughter, and instructing the young girl how to
deliver it _incog_, he despatches her upon her errand.
Lena, with her cloak folded closely around her fairy form, and hooded
over her head, proceeds along the path leading to the Brandon
plantation. Poor, simple child, herself innocent as the forest fawn,
she knows not that she is carrying in her hand the death-warrant of
one,--who, although but little known, should yet be dear to her--Dick
Tarleton, the father of Pierre Robideau.
She succeeds in delivering the letter, though failing to preserve her
incognito. The hooded head proved but a poor disguise. The domestic
who takes the epistle out of her hand recognises, by the white
out-stretched arm and slender symmetrical fingers, the daughter of "old
Rook, de hunter dat live 'pon Caney Crik." So reports he to his master,
when questioned about the messenger who brought the anonymous epistle.
Known or unknown, the name is of slight significance; the withholding of
it does not affect the action intended by the writer, nor frustrate the
cruel scheme. As the morning sun strikes into the "bit o' clearing"
described in Jerry Rook's letter, it throws light upon a terrible
tableau--the body of a man suspended from the branch of a tree. It is
upon the same branch where late hung the young hunter Robideau. _It is
the body of his father_.
There is no one near--no sign of life, save the buzzards still lingering
around the bones of the bear, and the quaint, grey wolf that has shared
with them their repast. But there are footmarks of many men--long
scores across the turf, that tell of violent struggling, and a patch of
grass more smoothly trampled down beneath the gallows tree. There stood
Judge Lynch, surrounded by his jury and staff of executioners, while
above him swung the victim of their vengeance.
Once more had the travestie of a trial been enacted; once more
condemnation pronounced; and that tragedy, long postponed, was now
played to the closing scene, the _denouement_ of death!