WOLF'S NECK--CAPTURE.
The cupidity of his captors had been considerably stimulated by the
dying words of Munro. They were all of them familiar with the atrocious
murder which, putting a price upon his head, had driven Creighton, then
a distinguished member of the bar in one of the more civilized portions
of the state, from the pale and consideration of society; and their
anxieties were now entirely addressed to the new object which the
recital they had just heard had suggested to them. They had gathered
from the narrative of the dying man some idea of the place in which
they would most probably find the outlaw; and, though without a guide
to the spot, and altogether ignorant of its localities, they
determined--without reference to others, who might only subtract from
their own share of the promised reward, without contributing much, if
any, aid, which they might not easily dispense with--at once to attempt
his capture. This was the joint understanding of the whole party, Ralph
Colleton excepted.
In substance, the youth was now free. The evidence furnished by Munro
only needed the recognition of the proper authorities to make him so;
yet, until this had been effected, he remained in a sort of understood
restraint, but without any actual limitations. Pledging himself that
they should suffer nothing from the indulgence given him, he mounted the
horse of Munro, whose body was cared for, and took his course back to
the village; while, following the directions given them, the guard and
jailer pursued their way to the Wolf's Neck in their search after Guy
Rivers.
The outlaw had been deserted by nearly all his followers. The note of
preparation and pursuit, sounded by the state authorities, had inspired
the depredators with a degree of terror, which the near approximation of
the guard, in strong numbers, to their most secluded places, had not a
little tended to increase; and accordingly, at the period of which we
now speak, the outlaw, deserted by all but one or two of the most daring
of his followers--who were, however, careful enough of themselves to
keep in no one place long, and cautiously to avoid their accustomed
haunts--remained in his rock, in a state of gloomy despondency, not
usually his characteristic. Had he been less stubborn, less ready to
defy all chances and all persons, it is not improbable that Rivers would
have taken counsel by their flight, and removed himself, for a time at
least, from the scene of danger. But his native obstinacy, and that
madness of heart which, as we are told, seizes first upon him whom God
seeks to destroy, determined him, against the judgment of others, and in
part against his own, to remain where he was; probably in the fallacious
hope that the storm would pass over, as on so many previous occasions it
had already done, and leave him again free to his old practices in the
same region. A feeling of pride, which made him unwilling to take a
suggestion of fear and flight from the course of others, had some share
in this decision; and, if we add the vague hungering of his heart toward
the lovely Edith, and possibly the influence of other pledges, and the
imposing consideration of other duties, we shall not be greatly at a
loss in understanding the injudicious indifference to the threatening
dangers which appears to have distinguished the conduct of the otherwise
politic and circumspect ruffian.
That night, after his return from the village, and the brief dialogue
with Chub Williams, as we have already narrated it he retired to the
deepest cell of his den, and, throwing himself into a seat, covering his
face with his hands, he gave himself up to a meditation as true in its
philosophy as it was humiliating throughout in its application to
himself. Dillon, his lieutenant--if such a title may be permitted in
such a place, and for such a person--came to him shortly after his
arrival, and in brief terms, with a blunt readiness--which, coming
directly to the point, did not offend the person to whom it was
addressed--demanded to know what he meant to do with himself.
"We can't stay here any longer," said he; "the troops are gathering all
round us. The country's alive with them, and in a few days we shouldn't
be able to stir from the hollow of a tree without popping into the gripe
of some of our hunters. In the Wolf's Neck they will surely seek us;
for, though a very fine place for us while the country's thin, yet even
its old owners, the wolves, would fly from it when the horn of the
hunter rings through the wood. It won't be very long before they pierce
to the very 'nation,' and then we should have but small chance of a long
grace. Jack Ketch would make mighty small work of our necks, in his
hurry to go to dinner."
"And what of all this--what is all this to me?" was the strange and
rather phlegmatic response of the outlaw, who did not seem to take in
the full meaning of his officer's speech, and whose mind, indeed, was at
that moment wandering to far other considerations. Dillon seemed not a
little surprised by this reply, and looked inquiringly into the face of
the speaker, doubting for a moment his accustomed sanity. The stern look
which his glance encountered directed its expression elsewhere, and,
after a moment's pause, he replied--
"Why, captain, you can't have thought of what I've been saying, or you
wouldn't speak as you do. I think it's a great deal to both you and me,
what I've been telling you; and the sooner you come to think so too, the
better. It's only yesterday afternoon that I narrowly missed being seen
at the forks by two of the guard, well mounted, and with rifles. I had
but the crook of the fork in my favor, and the hollow of the creek at
the old ford where it's been washed away. They're all round us, and I
don't think we're safe here another day. Indeed, I only come to see if
you wouldn't be off with me, at once, into the 'nation.'"
"You are considerate, but must go alone. I have no apprehensions where I
am, and shall not stir for the present. For yourself, you must determine
as you think proper. I have no further hold on your service. I release
you from the oath. Make the best of your way into the 'nation'--ay, go
yet farther; and, hear me, Dillon, go where you are unknown--go where
you can enter society; seek for the fireside, where you can have those
who, in the dark hour, will have no wish to desert you. I have no claim
now upon you, and the sooner you 'take the range' the better."
"And why not go along with me, captain? I hate to go alone, and hate to
leave you where you are. I shan't think you out of danger while you stay
here, and don't see any reason for you to do so."
"Perhaps not, Dillon; but there is reason, or I should not stay. We may
not go together, even if I were to fly--our paths lie asunder. They may
never more be one. Go you, therefore, and heed me not; and think of me
no more. Make yourself a home in the Mississippi, or on the Red river,
and get yourself a fireside and family of your own. These are the things
that will keep your heart warm within you, cheering you in hours that
are dark, like this."
"And why, captain," replied the lieutenant, much affected--"why should
you not take the course which you advise for me? Why not, in the
Arkansas, make yourself a home, and with a wife--"
"Silence, sir!--not a word of that! Why come you to chafe me here in my
den? Am I to be haunted for ever with such as you, and with words like
these?" and the brow of the outlaw blackened as he spoke, and his white
teeth knit together, fiercely gnashing for an instant, while the foam
worked its way through the occasional aperture between them. The
ebullition of passion, however, lasted not long, and the outlaw himself,
a moment after, seemed conscious of its injustice.
"I do you wrong, Dillon; but on this subject I will have no one speak. I
can not be the man you would have me; I have been schooled otherwise. My
mother has taught me a different lesson; her teachings have doomed me,
and these enjoyments are now all beyond my hope."
"Your mother?" was the response of Dillon, in unaffected astonishment.
"Ay, man--my mother! Is there anything wonderful in that? She taught me
the love of evil with her milk--she sang it in lullabies over my
cradle--she gave it me in the playthings of my boyhood; her schoolings
have made me the morbid, the fierce criminal, the wilful, vexing spirit,
from whose association all the gentler virtues must always desire to
fly. If, in the doom which may finish my life of doom, I have any one
person to accuse of all, that person is--my mother!"
"Is this possible? Can it be true? It is strange--very strange!"
"It is not strange; we see it every day--in almost every family. She,
did not _tell_ me to lie, or to swindle, or to stab--no! oh, no! she
would have told me that all these things were bad; but she _taught_ me
to perform them all. She roused my passions, and not my _principles_,
into activity. She provoked the one, and suppressed the other. Did my
father reprove my improprieties, she petted me, and denounced him. She
crossed his better purposes, and defeated all his designs, until, at
last, she made my passions too strong for my government, not less than
hers; and left me, knowing the true, yet the victim of the false. Thus
it was that, while my intellect, in its calmer hours, taught me that
virtue is the only source of true felicity, my ungovernable passions set
the otherwise sovereign reason at defiance, and trampled it under foot.
Yes, in that last hour of eternal retribution, if called upon to
denounce or to accuse, I can point but to one as the author of all--the
weakly-fond, misjudging, misguiding woman who gave me birth!
"Within the last hour I have been thinking over all these things. I have
been thinking how I had been cursed in childhood by one who surely loved
me beyond all other things besides. I can remember how sedulously she
encouraged and prompted my infant passions, uncontrolled by her
authority and reason, and since utterly unrestrainable by my own. How
she stimulated me to artifices, and set me the example herself, by
frequently deceiving my father, and teaching me to disobey and deceive
him! She told me not to lie; and she lied all day to him, on my account,
and to screen me from his anger. She taught me the catechism, to say on
Sunday, while during the week she schooled me in almost every possible
form of ingenuity to violate all its precepts. She bribed me to do my
duty, and hence my duty could only be done under the stimulating promise
of a reward; and, without the reward, I went counter to the duty. She
taught me that God was superior to all, and that he required obedience
to certain laws; yet, as she hourly violated those laws herself in my
behalf, I was taught to regard myself as far superior to him! Had she
not done all this, I had not been here and thus: I had been what now I
dare not think on. It is all her work. The greatest enemy my life has
ever known has been my mother!"
"This is a horrible thought, captain; yet I can not but think it true."
"It is true! I have analyzed my own history, and the causes of my
character and fortunes now, and I charge it all upon her. From one
influence I have traced another, and another, until I have the sweeping
amount of twenty years of crime and sorrow, and a life of hate, and
probably a death of ignominy--all owing to the first ten years of my
infant education, where the only teacher that I knew was the woman who
gave me birth!--But this concerns not you. In my calm mood, Dillon, you
have the fruit of my reason: to abide its dictate, I should fly with
you; but I suffer from my mother's teachings even in this. My passions,
my pride, my fierce hope--the creature of a maddening passion--will not
let me fly; and I stay, though I stay alone, with a throat bare for the
knife of the butcher, or the halter of the hangman. I will not fly!"
"And I will stay with you. I can dare something, too, captain; and you
shall not say, when the worst comes to the worst, that Tom Dillon was
the man to back out. I will not go either, and, whatever is the chance,
you shall not be alone."
Rivers, for a moment, seemed touched by the devotion, of his follower,
and was silent for a brief interval; but suddenly the expression of his
eye was changed, and he spoke briefly and sternly:--
"You shall not stay with me, sir! What! am I so low as this, that I may
not be permitted to be alone when I will? Will my subordinates fly in my
face, and presume to disobey my commands? Go, Dillon--have I not said
that you _must_ fly--that I no longer need your services? Why linger,
then, where you are no longer needed? I have that to perform which
requires me to be alone, and I have no further time to spare you.
Go--away!"
"Do you really speak in earnest, captain?" inquired the lieutenant,
doubtingly, and with a look of much concern.
"Am I so fond of trifling, that my officer asks me such a question?" was
the stern response.
"Then I am your officer still--you will go with me, or I shall remain."
"Neither, Dillon. The time is past for such an arrangement. You are
discharged from my service, and from your oath. The club has no further
existence. Go--be a happy, a better man, in another part of the world.
You have some of the weaknesses of your better nature still in you. You
had no mother to change them into scorn, and strife, and bitterness.
Go--you may be a better man, and have something, therefore, for which to
live. I have not--my heart can know no change. It is no longer under the
guidance of reason. It is quite ungovernable now. There was a time
when--but why prate of this?--it is too late to think of, and only
maddens me the more. Besides, it makes not anything with you, and would
detain you without a purpose. Linger no longer, Dillon--speed to the
west, and, at some future day, perhaps you shall see me when you least
expect, and perhaps least desire it."
The manner of the outlaw was firm and commanding, and Dillon no longer
had any reason to doubt his desires, and no motive to disobey his
wishes. The parting was brief, though the subordinate was truly
affected. He would have lingered still, but Rivers waved him off with a
farewell, whose emphasis was effectual, and, in a few moments, the
latter sat once more alone.
His mood was that of one disappointed in all things, and, consequently,
displeased and discontented with all things--querulously so. In addition
to this temper, which was common to him, his spirit, at this time,
labored under a heavy feeling of despondency, and its gloomy sullenness
was perhaps something lighter to himself while Dillon remained with him.
We have seen the manner in which he had hurried that personage off. He
had scarcely been gone, however, when the inconsistent and variable
temper of the outlaw found utterance in the following soliloquy:--
"Ay, thus it is--they all desert me; and this is human feeling. They all
fly the darkness, and this is human courage. They love themselves only,
or you only while you need no love; and this is human sympathy. I need
all of these, yet I get none; and when I most need, and most desire, and
most seek to obtain, I am the least provided. These are the fruits which
I have sown, however; should I shrink to gather them?
"Yet, there is one--but one of all--whom no reproach of mine could drive
away, or make indifferent to my fate. But I will see her no more.
Strange madness! The creature, who, of all the world, most loves me, and
is most deserving of my love, I banish from my soul as from my sight.
And this is another fruit of my education--another curse that came with
a mother--this wilful love of the perilous and the passionate--this
scorn of the gentle and the soft--this fondness for the fierce
contradiction--this indifference to the thing easily won--this thirst
after the forbidden. Poor Ellen--so gentle, so resigned, and so fond of
her destroyer; but I will not see her again. I must not; she must not
stand in the way of my anxiety to conquer that pride which had ventured
to hate or to despise me. I shall see Munro, and he shall lose no time
in this matter. Yet, what can he be after--he should have been here
before this; it now wants but little to the morning, and--ah! I have not
slept. Shall I ever sleep again!"
Thus, striding to and fro in his apartment, the outlaw soliloquized at
intervals. Throwing himself at length upon a rude couch that stood in
the corner, he had disposed himself as it were for slumber, when the
noise, as of a falling rock, attracted his attention, and without
pausing, he cautiously took his way to the entrance, with a view to
ascertain the cause. He was not easily surprised, and the knowledge of
surrounding danger made him doubly observant, and more than ever
watchful.
Let us now return to the party which had pursued the fugitives, and
which, after the death of the landlord, had, as we have already
narrated, adopting the design suggested by his dying words, immediately
set forth in search of the notorious outlaw, eager for the reward put
upon his head. Having already some general idea of the whereabouts of
the fugitive, and the directions given by Munro having been of the most
specific character, they found little difficulty, after a moderate ride
of some four or five miles, in striking upon the path directly leading
to the Wolf's Neck.
At this time, fortunately for their object, they were encountered
suddenly by--our old acquaintance, Chub Williams, whom, but little
before, we have seen separating from the individual in whose pursuit
they were now engaged. The deformed quietly rode along with the party,
but without seeming to recognise their existence--singing all the while
a strange woodland melody of the time and region--probably the
production of some village wit:--
"Her frock it was a _yaller_,
And she was _mighty sprigh_
And she bounced at many a _feller_
Who came _a-fighting shy_.
"Her eye was like a _sarpent's eye_.
Her cheek was like a flower,
But her tongue was like a pedler's clock,
'Twas a-striking every hour.
"And wasn't she the gal for me,
And wasn't she, I pray, sir,
And I'll be _drot_, if you say not,
We'll fight this very day, sir.
We'll fight this very day, sir."
Having delivered himself of this choice morsel of song, the half-witted
fellow conceitedly challenged the attention of the group whom he had not
hitherto been disposed to see.
"'Spose you reckon I don't see you, riding 'longside of me, and saying
nothing, but listening to my song. I'm singing for my own self, and you
oughtn't to listen--I didn't ax you, and I'd like to know what you're
doing so nigh Chub's house."
"Why, where's your house, Chub?" asked one of the party.
"You ain't looking for it, is you? 'cause you can't think to find it
a-looking down. I lives in the tree-top when weather's good like
to-night, and when it ain't, I go into the hollow. I've a better house
than Guy Rivers--he don't take the tree at all, no how."
"And where is his house, Chub?" was the common inquiry of all the party.
The dwarf looked at them for a few moments without speech, then with a
whisper and a gesture significant of caution, replied--
"If you're looking for Guy, 'tain't so easy to find him if he don't want
to be found, and you must speak softly if you hunt him, whether or no.
He's a dark man, that Guy Rivers--mother always said so--and he lives a
long way under the ground."
"And can't you show us where, Chub? We will give you money for your
service."
"Hain't you got 'tatoes? Chub's hungry--hain't eat nothing to-night. Guy
Rivers has plenty to eat, but he cursed Chub's mother."
"Well, show us where he is, and we'll give you plenty to eat. Plenty of
potatoes and corn," was the promise of the party.
"And build up Chub's house that the fire burnt? Chub lives in the tree
now. Guy Rivers' man burnt Chub's house, 'cause he said Chub was sassy."
"Yes, my boy, we'll build up your house, and give you a plenty to go
upon for a year. You shall have potatoes enough for your lifetime, if
you will show us how to come upon Guy Rivers to-night. He _is_ a bad
fellow, as you say; and we won't let him trouble you any more, if you'll
only show us where he is to be found."
"Well--I reckon I can," was the response, uttered in a confidential
whisper, and much more readily given than was the wont of the speaker.
"Chub and Guy talked together to-night, and Guy wanted Chub to go with
him into his house in Wolf's Neck. But Chub don't love the wolf, and he
don't love the Wolf's Neck, now that Miss Lucy's gone away from it. It's
a mighty dark place, the Wolf's Neck, and Chub's afear'd in the dark
places, where the moon and stars won't shine down."
"But you needn't be afraid now, little Chub. You're a good little
fellow, and we'll keep with you and follow close, and there shall be no
danger to you. We'll fight Guy Rivers for you, so that he can't hurt you
any more."
"You'll fight Guy! You! Guy kin fight to kill!"
"Yes, but we'll kill _him;_ only you show us where he is, so that we can
catch him and tie him, and he'll never trouble Chub any more."
"What! you'll tie Guy? How I'd like to see anybody tie Guy! You kain't
tie Guy. He'd break through the ropes, he would, if he on'y stretched
out his arms."
"You'll see! only show us how to find him, and we'll tie him, and we'll
build you a new house, and you shall have more potatoes and corn than
you can shake a stick at, and we'll give you a great jug of whiskey into
the bargain."
"Now will you! And a jug of whiskey too, and build a new house for
Chub's mother--and the corn, and the 'tatoes."
"All! you shall have all we promise."
"Come! come! saftly! put your feet down saftly, for Guy's got great
white owls that watch for him, and they hoot from the old tree when the
horses are coming. Saftly! saftly!"
There is an idiocy that does not lack the vulgar faculty of mere
shrewdness--that can calculate selfishly, and plan coolly--in short, can
show itself cunning, whenever it has a motive. Find the motive for the
insane and the idiotic, always, if you would see them exercise the full
extent of their little remaining wits.
Chub Williams had a sagacity of this sort. His selfishness was appealed
to, and all his faculties were on the alert. He gave directions for the
progress of the party--after his own manner, it is true--but with
sufficient promptness and intelligence to satisfy them that they might
rely upon him. Having reached a certain lonely spot among the hills,
contiguous to the crag, or series of crags, called the Wolf's Neck, Chub
made the party all dismount, and hide their horses in a thicket into
which they found it no easy matter to penetrate. This done, he led them
out again, cautiously moving along under cover, but near the margin of
the road. He stept as lightly himself as a squirrel, taking care, before
throwing his weight upon his foot, to feel that there was no rotting
branch or bough beneath, the breaking of which might occasion noise.
"Saftly! saftly!" he would say in a whisper, turning back to the party,
when he found them treading hurriedly and heavily upon the brush.
Sometimes, again, he ran ahead of all of them, and for a few moments
would be lost to sight; but he usually returned, as quickly and quietly
as he went, and would either lead them forward on the same route with
confidence, or alter it according to his discoveries. He was literally
feeling his way; the instincts and experience of the practised scout
finding no sort of obstacle in the deficiency of his reasoning powers.
His processes did not argue any doubts of his course; only a choice of
direction--such as would promise more ease and equal security. Some of
his changes of movement, he tried to explain, in his own fashion, when
he came back to guide them on other paths.
"Saftly back--saftly now, this way. Guy's in his dark house in the rock,
but there's a many rooms, and 't mout be, we're a walking jest now, over
his head. Then he mout hear, you see, and Guy's got ears like the great
owl. He kin hear mighty far in the night, and see too; and you mustn't
step into his holes. There's heap of holes in Guy's dark house. Saftly,
now--and here away."
Briefly, the rocky avenues were numerous in the Wolf's Neck, and some of
them ran near the surface. There were sinks upon the surface also,
covered with brush and clay, into which the unthinking wayfarer might
stumble, perhaps into the very cavern where the outlaw at that moment
housed himself. The group around the idiot did not fail to comprehend
the reasons for all his caution. They confided to his skill implicitly;
having, of themselves, but small knowledge of the wild precincts into
which they desired to penetrate.
Having, at length, brought them to points and places, which afforded
them the command of the avenues to the rock, the next object of their
guide was to ascertain where the outlaw was at that moment secreted. It
was highly important to know _where_ to enter--where to look--and not
waste time in fruitless search of places in which a single man might
have a dozen blind seekers at his mercy. The cunning of the idiot
conceived this necessity himself.
His policy made each of the party hide himself out of sight, though in a
position whence each might see.
All arranged as he desired, the urchin armed himself with a rock, not
quite as large as his own head, but making a most respectable approach
to it. This, with the aid of coat and kerchief he secured upon his back,
between his shoulders; and thus laden, he yet, with the agility of the
opossum, her young ones in her pouch, climbed up a tree which stood a
little above that inner chamber which Guy Rivers had appropriated for
himself, and where, on more occasions than one, our idiot had peeped in
upon him. Perched in his tree securely, and shrouded from sight among
its boughs, the urchin disengaged the rock from his shoulders, took it
in both his hands, and carefully selecting its route, he pitched it,
with all his might, out from the tree, and in such a direction, that,
after it had fairly struck the earth, it continued a rolling course down
the declivity of the rocks, making a heavy clatter all the way it went.
The _ruse_ answered its purpose. The keen senses of the outlaw caught
the sound. His vigilance, now doubly keen, awakened to its watch. We
have seen, in previous pages, the effect that the rolling stone had upon
the musing and vexed spirit of Guy Rivers, after the departure of
Dillon. He came forth, as we have seen, to look about for the cause of
alarm; and, as if satisfied that the disturbance was purely accidental,
had retired once more to the recesses of his den.
Here, throwing himself upon his couch, he seemed disposed to sleep.
Sleep, indeed! He himself denied that he ever slept. His followers were
all agreed that when he did sleep, it was only with half his faculties
shut up. One eye, they contended, was always open!
Chub Williams, and one of the hunters had seen the figure of the outlaw
as he emerged from the cavern. The former instantly identified him. The
other was too remote to distinguish anything but a slight human outline,
which he could only determine to be such, as he beheld its movements. He
was too far to assault, the light was too imperfect to suffer him to
shoot with any reasonable certainty of success, and the half of the
reward sought by his pursuers, depended upon the outlaw being taken
alive!
But, there was no disappointment among the hunters. Allowing the outlaw
sufficient time to return to his retreats, Chub Williams slipped down
his tree--the rest of the party slowly emerged from their several places
of watch, and drew together for consultation.
In this matter, the idiot could give them little help. He could, and
did, describe, in some particulars, such of the interior as he had been
enabled to see on former occasions, but beyond this he could do nothing;
and he was resolute not to hazard himself entering the dominion of a
personage, so fearful as Guy Rivers, in such companionship as would
surely compel the wolf to turn at bay. Alone, his confidence in his own
stealth and secresy, would encourage him to penetrate; but, _now!_--he
only grinned at the suggestion of the hunters saying shrewdly: "No!
thank you! I'll stay out here and keep Chub's company."
Accordingly, he remained without, closely gathered up into a lump,
behind a tree, while the more determined Georgians penetrated with
cautious pace into the dark avenue, known in the earlier days of the
settlement as a retreat for the wolves when they infested that portion
of the country, and hence distinguished by the appellation of the Wolf's
Neck.
For some time they groped onward in great uncertainty as to their
course; but a crevice in the wall, at one point, gave them a glimmer of
the moonlight, which, falling obliquely upon the sides of the cavern,
enabled them to discern the mouth of another gorge diverging from that
in which they were. They entered, and followed this new route, until
their farther progress was arrested by a solid wall which seemed to
close them in, hollowly caved from all quarters, except the one narrow
point from which they had entered it.
Here, then, they were at a stand; but, according to Chub's directions,
there must be a mode of ingress to still another chamber from this; and
they prepared to seek it in the only possible way; namely, by feeling
along the wall for the opening which their eye had failed to detect.
They had to do this on hands and knees, so low was the rock along the
edges of the cavern.
The search was finally successful. One of the party found the wall to
give beneath his hands. There was an aperture, a mere passage-way for
wolf or bear, lying low in the wall, and only closed by a heavy curtain
of woollen.
This was an important discovery. The opening led directly into the
chamber of the outlaw. How easily it could be defended, the hunters
perceived at a glance. The inmate of the cavern, if wakeful and
courageous, standing above the gorge with a single hatchet, could brain
every assailant on the first appearance of his head. How serious, then,
the necessity of being able to know that the occupant of the chamber
slept--that occupant being Guy Rivers. The pursuers well knew what they
might expect at his hands, driven to his last fastness, with the spear
of the hunter at his throat. Did he sleep, then--the man who never
slept, according to the notion of his followers, or with one eye always
open!
He did sleep, and never more soundly than now, when safety required that
he should be most on the alert. But there is a limit to the endurance of
the most iron natures, and the outlaw had overpassed his bounds of
strength. He was exhausted by trying and prolonged excitements, and
completely broken down by physical efforts which would have destroyed
most other men outright. His subdued demeanor--his melancholy--were all
due to this condition of absolute exhaustion. He slept, not a refreshing
sleep, but one in which the excited spirit kept up its exercises, so as
totally to neutralize what nature designed as compensation in his
slumbers. His sleep was the drowse of incapacity, not the wholesome
respite of elastic faculties. It was actual physical imbecility, rather
than sleep; and, while the mere animal man, lay incapable, like a log,
the diseased imagination was at work, conjuring up its spectres as
wildly and as changingly, as the wizard of the magic-lanthorn evokes his
monsters against the wall.
His limbs writhed while he slept. His tongue was busy in audible speech.
He had no secrets, in that mysterious hour, from night, and silence, and
his dreary rocks. His dreams told him of no other auditors.
The hunter, who had found and raised the curtain that separated his
chamber from the gloomy gorges of the crag, paused, and motioned his
comrades back, while he listened. At first there was nothing but a deep
and painful breathing. The outlaw breathed with effort, and the sigh
became a groan, and he writhed upon the bed of moss which formed his
usual couch in the cavern. Had the spectator been able to see, the lamp
suspended from a ring in the roof of the cavern, though burning very
dimly, would have shown him the big-beaded drops of sweat that now
started from the brows of the sleeper. But he could hear; and now a
word, a name, falls from the outlaw's lips--it is followed by murmured
imprecations. The feverish frame, tortured by the restless and
guilt-goading spirit, writhed as he delivered the curses in broken
accents. These, finally, grew into perfect sentences.
"Dying like a dog, in her sight! Ay, she shall see it! I will hiss in
her ears as she gazes--'It is _my_ work! this is _my_ revenge!' Ha! ha!
where her pride then?--her high birth and station?--wealth, family?
Dust, shame, agony, and death!"
Such were the murmured accents of the sleeping man, when they were
distinguishable by the hunter, who, crouching, beneath the curtain,
listened to his sleeping speech. But all was not exultation. The change
from the voice of triumph to that of woe was instantaneous; and the
curse and the cry, as of one in mortal agony, pain or terror, followed
the exulting speech.
The Georgian, now apprehensive that the outlaw would awaken, crept
forward, and, still upon his hands and knees, was now fairly within the
vaulted chamber. He was closely followed by one of his companions.
Hitherto, they had proceeded with great caution, and with a stealth and
silence that were almost perfect. But the third of the party to
enter--who was Brooks, the jailer--more eager, or more unfortunate, less
prudent certainly--not sufficiently stooping, as the other two had done,
or rising too soon--contrived to strike with his head the pole which
bore the curtain, and which, morticed in the sides of the cavern, ran
completely across the awkward entrance. A ringing noise was the
consequence, while Brooks himself was precipitated back into the
passage, with a smart cut over his brows.
The noise was not great, but quite sufficient to dissipate the slumbers
of the outlaw, whose sleep was never sound. With that decision and
fierce courage which marked his character, he sprang to his feet in an
instant, grasped the dirk which he always carried in his bosom, and
leaped forward, like a tiger, in the direction of the narrow entrance.
Familiar with all the sinuosities of his den, as well in daylight as in
darkness, the chances might have favored him even with two powerful
enemies within it. Certainly, had there been but one, he could have
dealt with him, and kept out others. But the very precipitation of the
jailer, while it occasioned the alarm, had the effect, in one
particular, of neutralizing its evil consequences. The two who had
already penetrated the apartment, had net yet risen from their knees--in
the dim light of the lamp, they remained unseen--they were crouching,
indeed, directly under the lamp, the rays of which lighted dimly the
extremes, rather than the centre of the cell. They lay in the way of the
outlaw, as he sprang, and, as he dashed forward from his couch toward
the passage-way, his feet were caught by the Georgian who had first
entered, and so great was the impetus of his first awakening effort,
that he was precipitated with a severe fall over the second of the
party; and, half stunned, yet still striking furiously, the dirk of
Rivers found a bloodless sheath in the earthen floor of the cell. In a
moment, the two were upon him, and by the mere weight of their bodies
alone, they kept him down.
"Surrender, Guy! we're too much for you, old fellow!"
There was a short struggle. Meanwhile, Brooks, the jailer, joined the
party.
"We're _three_ on you, and there's more without."
The outlaw was fixed to the ground, beneath their united weight, as
firmly as if the mountain itself was on him. As soon as he became
conscious of the inutility of further struggle--and he could now move
neither hand nor foot--he ceased all further effort; like a wise man
economizing his strength for future occasions. Without difficulty the
captors bound him fast, then dragged him through the narrow entrance,
the long rocky gorges which they had traversed, until they all emerged
into the serene light of heaven, at the entrance of the cavern.
Here the idiot boy encountered them, now coming forward boldly, and
staring in the face of the captive with a confidence which he had never
known before. He felt that his fangs were drawn; and his survey of the
person his mother had taught him so to dread, was as curious as that
which he would have taken of some foreign monster. As he continued this
survey, Rivers, with a singular degree of calmness for such a time, and
such circumstances, addressed him thus:--
"So, Chub, this is your work;--you have brought enemies to my home, boy!
Why have you done this? What have I done to you, but good? I gave bread
to your mother and yourself!"
"Psho! Chub is to have his own bread, his own corn, and 'taters, too,
and a whole jug of whiskey."
"Ah! you have sold yourself for these, then, to my enemies. You are a
bad fellow, Chub--a worse fellow than I thought you. As an idiot, I
fancied you might be honest and grateful."
"You're bad yourself, Mr. Guy. You cursed Chub, and you cursed Chub's
mother; and your man burnt down Chub's house, and you wanted to shoot
Chub on the tree."
"But I didn't shoot, Chub; and I kept the men from shooting you when you
ran away from the cave."
"You can't shoot now," answered the idiot, with an exulting chuckle;
"and they'll keep you in the ropes, Mr. Guy; they've got you on your
back, Mr. Guy; and I'm going to laugh at you all the way as you go. Ho!
ho! ho! See if I don't laugh, till I scares away all your white owls
from the roost."
The outlaw looked steadily in the face of the wretched urchin, with a
curious interest, as he half murmured to himself:--
"And that I should fall a victim to such a thing as this! The only
creature, perhaps, whom I spared or pitied--so wretched, yet so
ungrateful. But there is an instinct in it. It is surely in consequence
of a law of nature. He hates in proportion as he fears. Yet he has had
nothing but protection from me, and kindness. Nothing! I spared him,
when--but--" as if suddenly recollecting himself, and speaking aloud and
with recovered dignity:--
"I am your prisoner, gentlemen. Do with me as you please."
"Hurrah!" cried the urchin, as he beheld the troopers lifting and
securing the outlaw upon the horse, while one of the party leaped up
behind him--one of his hands managing the bridle, and the other grasping
firmly the rope which secured the captive; "hurrah! Guy's in the rope!
Guy's in the rope!"
Thus cried the urchin, following close behind the party, upon his
mountain-tacky. That cry, from such a quarter, more sensibly than
anything besides, mocked the outlaw with the fullest sense of his
present impotence. With a bitter feeling of humiliation, his head
dropped upon his breast, and he seemed to lose all regard to his
progress. Daylight found him safely locked up in the jail of Chestatee,
the occupant of the very cell from which Colleton had escaped.
But no such prospect of escape was before him. He could command none of
the sympathies that had worked for his rival. He had no friends left.
Munro was slain, Dillon gone, and even the miserable idiot had turned
his fangs upon the hand that fed him. Warned, too, by the easy escape of
Colleton, Brooks attended no more whiskey-parties, nor took his
brother-in-law Tongs again into his friendly counsels. More--he doubly
ironed his prisoner, whose wiles and resources he had more reason to
fear than those which his former captive could command. To cut off more
fully every hope which the outlaw might entertain of escape from his
bonds and durance, a detachment of the Georgia guard, marching into the
village that very day, was put in requisition, by the orders of the
judge, for the better security of the prisoner, and of public order.