CATASTROPHE--COLLETON'S DISCOVERY.
It is time to return to Ralph Colleton, who has quite too long escaped
our consideration. The reader will doubtless remember, with little
difficulty, where and under what circumstances we left him. Provoked by
the sneer and sarcasm of the man whom at the same moment he most
cordially despised, we have seen him taking a position in the
controversy, in which his person, though not actually within the
immediate sphere of action, was nevertheless not a little exposed to
some of its risks. This position, with fearless indifference, he
continued to maintain, unshrinkingly and without interruption,
throughout the whole period and amid all the circumstances of the
conflict. There was something of a boyish determination in this way to
assert his courage, which his own sense inwardly rebuked; yet such is
the nature of those peculiarities in southern habits and opinions, to
which we have already referred, on all matters which relate to personal
prowess and a masculine defiance of danger, that, even while
entertaining the most profound contempt for those in whose eye the
exhibition was made, he was not sufficiently independent of popular
opinion to brave its current when he himself was its subject. He may
have had an additional motive for this proceeding, which most probably
enforced its necessity. He well knew that fearless courage, among this
people, was that quality which most certainly won and secured their
respect; and the policy was not unwise, perhaps which represented this
as a good opportunity for a display which might have the effect of
protecting him from wanton insult or aggression hereafter. To a certain
extent he was at their mercy; and conscious, from what he had seen, of
the unscrupulous character of their minds, every exhibition of the kind
had some weight in his favor.
It was with a lively and excited spirit that he surveyed, from the
moderate eminence on which he stood, the events going on around him.
Though not sufficiently near the parties (and scrupulous not to expose
himself to the chance of being for a moment supposed to be connected
with either of them) to ascertain their various arrangements, from what
had met his observation, he had been enabled to form a very correct
inference as to the general progress of affairs. He had beheld the
proceedings of each array while under cover, and contending with one
another, to much the same advantage as the spectator who surveys the
game in which two persons are at play. He could have pointed out the
mistakes of both in the encounter he had witnessed, and felt assured
that he could have ably and easily amended them. His frame quivered with
the "rapture of the strife," as Attila is said to have called the
excitation of battle; and his blood, with a genuine southern fervor,
rushed to and from his heart with a bounding impulse, as some new
achievement of one side or the other added a fresh interest to, and in
some measure altered the face of, the affair. But when he beheld the new
array, so unexpectedly, yet auspiciously for Munro, make its appearance
upon the field, the excitement of his spirit underwent proportionate
increase; and with deep anxiety, and a sympathy now legitimate with the
assailants, he surveyed the progress of an affray for which his judgment
prepared him to anticipate a most unhappy termination. As the strife
proceeded, he half forgot his precaution, and unconsciously continued,
at every moment, to approach more nearly to the scene of strife. His
heart was now all impulse, his spirit all enthusiasm; and with an
unquiet eye and restless frame, he beheld the silent passage of the
little detachment under the gallant Georgian, up the narrow gorge. At
some distance from the hill, and on an eminence, his position enabled
him to perceive, when the party had made good their advance nearly to
the summit, the impending danger. He saw the threatening cliff, hanging
as it were in mid air above them; and all his sympathies, warmly excited
at length by the fearfulness of the peril into a degree of active
partisanship which, at the beginning, a proper prudence had well
counselled him to avoid, he put spurs to his steed, and rushing forward
to the foot of the hill, shouted out to the advancing party the nature
of the danger which awaited them. He shouted strenuously, but in
vain--and with a feeling almost amounting to agony, he beheld the little
troop resolutely advance beneath the ponderous rock, which, held in its
place by the slightest purchase, needed but the most moderate effort to
upheave and unfix it for ever.
It was fortunate for the youth that the situation in which he stood was
concealed entirely from the view of those in the encampment. It had been
no object with him to place himself in safety, for the consideration of
his own chance of exposure had never been looked to in his mind, when,
under the noble impulse of humanity, he had rushed forward, if possible,
to recall the little party, who either did not or were unwilling to hear
his voice of warning and prevention. Had he been beheld, there would
have been few of the squatters unable, and still fewer unwilling, to
pick him off with their rifles; and, as the event will show, the good
Providence alone which had hitherto kept with him, rather than the
forbearance of his quondam acquaintance, continued to preserve his life.
Apprized of the ascent of the pass, and not disposed to permit of the
escape of those whom the defenders of it above might spare, unobserved
by his assailants in front, Dexter, with a small detachment, sallying
through a loophole of his fortress, took an oblique course toward the
foot of the gorge, by which to arrest the flight of the fugitives. This
course brought him directly upon, and in contact with, Ralph, who stood
immediately at its entrance, with uplifted eye, and busily engaged in
shouting, at intervals, to the yet advancing assailants. The squatters
approached cautiously and unperceived; for so deeply was the youth
interested in the fate of those for whom his voice and hands were alike
uplifted, that he was conscious of nothing else at that moment of
despair and doubt. The very silence which at that time hung over all
things, seemed of itself to cloud and obstruct, while they lulled the
senses into a corresponding slumber.
It was well for the youth, and unlucky for the assassin, that, as
Dexter, with his uplifted hatchet--for fire-arms at that period he dared
not use, for fear of attracting the attention of his foes--struck at his
head, his advanced foot became entangled in the root of a tree which ran
above the surface, and the impetus of his action occurring at the very
instant in which he encountered the obstruction, the stroke fell short
of his victim, and grazed the side of his horse; while the ruffian
himself, stumbling forward and at length, fell headlong upon the ground.
The youth was awakened to consciousness. His mind was one of that cast
with which to know, to think, and to act, are simultaneous. Of ready
decision, he was never at a loss, and seldom surprised into even
momentary incertitude. With the first intimation of the attack upon
himself, his pistol had been drawn, and while the prostrate ruffian was
endeavoring to rise, and before he had well regained his feet, the
unerring ball was driven through his head, and without word or effort he
fell back among his fellows, the blood gushing from his mouth and
nostrils in unrestrained torrents.
The whole transaction was the work of a single instant; and before the
squatters, who came with their slain leader, could sufficiently recover
from the panic produced by the event to revenge his death, the youth was
beyond their reach; and the assailing party of the guard, in front of
the post, apprized of the sally by the discharge of the pistol, made
fearful work among them by a general fire, while obliquing to the
entrance of the pass just in time to behold the catastrophe, now
somewhat precipitated by the event which had occurred below. Ralph,
greatly excited, regained his original stand of survey, and with
feelings of unrepressed horror beheld the catastrophe. The Georgian had
almost reached the top of the hill--another turn of the road gave him a
glimpse of the table upon which rested the hanging and disjointed cliff
of which we have spoken, when a voice was heard--a single voice--in
inquiry:--
"All ready?"
The reply was immediate--
"Ay, ay; now prize away, boys, and let go."
The advancing troop looked up, and were permitted a momentary glance of
the terrible fate which awaited them before it fell. That moment was
enough for horror. A general cry burst from the lips of those in front,
the only notice which those in the rear ever received of the danger
before it was upon them. An effort, half paralyzed by the awful emotion
which came over them, was made to avoid the down-coming ruin; but with
only partial success; for, in an instant after, the ponderous mass,
which hung for a moment like a cloud above them, upheaved from its bed
of ages, and now freed from all stays, with a sudden, hurricane-like and
whirling impetus, making the solid rock tremble over which it rushed,
came thundering down, swinging over one half of the narrow trace,
bounding from one side to the other along the gorge, and with the
headlong fury of a cataract sweeping everything from before its path
until it reached the dead level of the plain below. The involuntary
shriek from those who beheld the mass, when, for an instant impending
above them, it seemed to hesitate in its progress down, was more full of
human terror than any utterance which followed the event. With the
exception of a groan, wrung forth here and there from the half-crushed
victim, in nature's agony, the deep silence which ensued was painful and
appalling; and even when the dust had dissipated, and the eye was
enabled to take in the entire amount of the evil deed, the prospect
failed in impressing the senses of the survivors with so distinct a
sentiment of horror, as when the doubt and death, suspended in air, were
yet only threatened.
Though prepared for the event, in one sense of the word, the great body
of the squatters were not prepared for the unusual emotions which
succeeded it in their bosoms. The arms dropped from the hands of many of
them--a speechless horror was the prevailing feature of all, and all
fight was over, while the scene of bloody execution was now one of
indiscriminate examination and remark with friend and foe. Ralph was the
first to rush up the fatal pass, and to survey the horrible prospect.
One half of the brave little corps had been swept to instant death by
the unpitying rock, without having afforded the slightest obstacle to
its fearful progress. In one place lay a disembowelled steed panting its
last; mangled in a confused and unintelligible mass lay beside him
another, the limbs of his rider in many places undistinguishable from
his own. One poor wretch, whom he assisted to extricate from beneath the
body of his struggling horse, cried to him for water, and died in the
prayer. Fortunately for the few who survived the catastrophe--among whom
was their gallant but unfortunate young leader--they had, at the first
glimpse of the danger, urged on their horses with redoubled effort, and
by a close approach to the surface or the rock, taking an oblique
direction wide of its probable course, had, at the time of its
precipitation, reached a line almost parallel with the place upon which
it stood, and in this way achieved their escape without injury. Their
number was few, however; and not one half of the fifteen, who commenced
the ascent, ever reached or survived its attainment.
Ralph gained the summit just in time to prevent the completion of the
foul tragedy by its most appropriate climax. As if enough had not yet
been done in the way of crime, the malignant and merciless Rivers, of
whom we have seen little in this affair, but by whose black and devilish
spirit the means of destruction had been hit upon, which had so well
succeeded, now stood over the body of the Georgian, with uplifted hand,
about to complete the deed already begun. There was not a moment for
delay, and the youth sprung forward in time to seize and wrest the
weapon from his grasp. With a feeling of undisguised indignation, he
exclaimed, as the outlaw turned furiously upon him--
"Wretch--what would you? Have you not done enough? would you strike the
unresisting man?"
Rivers, with undisguised effort, now turned his rage upon the intruder.
His words, choked by passion, could scarce find utterance; but he spoke
with furious effort at length, as he directed a wild blow with a
battle-axe at the head of the youth.
"You come for your death, and you shall have it!".
"Not yet," replied Ralph, adroitly avoiding the stroke and closing with
the ruffian--"you will find that I an not unequal to the struggle,
though it be with such a monster as yourself."
What might have been the event of this combat may not be said. The
parties were separated in a moment by the interposition of Forrester,
but not till our hero, tearing off in the scuffle the handkerchief which
had hitherto encircled the cheeks of his opponent, discovered the
friendly outlaw who collected toll for the Pony Club, and upon whose
face the hoof of his horse was most visibly engraven--who had so boldly
avowed his design upon his life and purse, and whom he had so
fortunately and successfully foiled on his first approach to the
village.
The fight was over after this catastrophe; the survivors of the guard,
who were unhurt, had fled; and the parties with little stir were all now
assembled around the scene of it. There was little said upon the
occasion. The wounded were taken such care of as circumstances would
permit; and wagons having been provided, were all removed to the
village. Begun with too much impulse, and conducted with too little
consideration, the struggle between the military and the outlaws had now
terminated in a manner that left perhaps but little satisfaction in the
minds of either party. The latter, though generally an unlicensed
tribe--an Ishmaelitish race--whose hands were against all men, were not
so sure that they had not been guilty of a crime, not merely against the
laws of man and human society, but against the self-evident decrees and
dictates of God; and with this doubt, at least, if not its conviction,
in their thoughts, their victory, such as it was, afforded a source of
very qualified rejoicing.