THE FLIGHT
Human senses could not withstand such an onslaught. It startled the
three to instant action. The tide of self-preservation ebbed back into
their bodies; with one accord they reared their arms upward across their
faces to ward off the shock of that accursed sound, as though its very
effluvium scorched its scar into their flesh. There was an utterance of
mingled gasps. There was a sudden rush of jumbled, panic-stricken
footsteps. A tumbling, scrapping, frantic confusion. A groan--a half
scream--a sob and the door banged.
The church was empty, save for the mumbling, croaking, mad lazar.
In getting out Lem had stumbled in the door and fallen heavily over his
rifle. When he scrambled to his feet again, he beheld Belle-Ann and
Buddy fleeing across the moonlit clearing. He started to follow, but
checked himself and stopped short; he stood combating the superstitious
fear that had dropped into his senses and sapped away his equanimity.
"Gawd'll Moughty," he muttered audibly, "air this ole Cap Lutts' boy
runnin' away. Not by a dern sight--I'll go back an' finish em." Then he
hallooed lustily after Buddy.
"Hey, Buddy--Buddy--Buddy--cum back heah--cum back heah, I tell yo'--cum
back!"
Buddy came back reluctantly, his thin countenance still grim with pallor
and an inquiring look in his wild eyes.
"Whut ails yo', Lem?" he panted.
Lem regarded him a second with an admonishing stare, forgetful of his
own conduct.
"I'm ashamed o' yo'," he said.
"Whut, Lem?"
"Whut yo'-all a runnin' fo'--eh?" demanded Lem.
Bud jammed one hand into his pocket, abashed, and cast a fearful glance
toward the church door.
"Don't yo' know hit's the revenoor?"
"Yes, course I do, Lem--but--but they's a hant in em."
"Hant er no hant, we'uns air agoin' in, an' ef he hain't daid----"
"Yo' darsn't, Lem--no--no," protested Buddy in alarm. "Yo' darsn't kill
hit, Lem--yo' darsn't kill a hant--th' witches 'll spell-tuk we'uns an'
foller we'uns alers, alers. Slab says so--Slab knows."
"Well," returned Lem, "leastways we'uns 'll go back an' see."
Whereupon he strode to the church door resolutely and pushed it half
open. Buddy still hung back undecided.
"Hain't yo' ole Cap Lutts' boy?" rebuked his brother severely. "An'
hain't that the revenuer?"
"Sho'," agreed Buddy, now plainly embarrassed, and followed with
determined alacrity. Howbeit, the same ghostly dread hung at Lem's
elbow, but his mighty will whipped his body into subservience and he
boldly re-entered the church, and made his way toward the lantern that
shrouded the altar with its yellow glow. Buddy followed closely and
tremblingly at his heels.
The soft, irregular, rapid pad of bare feet met their ears, punctuated
by a prodigious breathing that might have issued from the bellows of a
blown horse. They caught alternate glimpses of the bestial thing, as its
lengthy, starved shadow hove around the near corner of the altar and
struck the far rim of light. It flitted past like a gesticulating, dying
toad, glued to the tire of a wagon wheel. It was galloping madly in a
circle--milling around and around and around the platform as if ridden
and spurred by an incubus, bent on the reward of a trophy hell-cup.
And each time it came round to the dark blood-picture on the floor, it
cleared this with a mighty leap into the air, as a horse makes a wide,
dangerous ditch. The rustling wings of the eery creatures amidst the
rafters aloft were hushed. The lance of moonlight had faded from the
window casement and the owl was gone. The Lutts boys halted; gripped and
raised their rifles mechanically for a shot. Each time the tattered
apparition flashed into the light on its desperate circuit around, their
fingers would curve spasmodically about the triggers for the pull, but
each time that opportune fraction of a second eluded them and the
ghastly spectre sped onward.
The astounding manner in which this careening, wavering scarehead held
the narrow limits of its course without plunging off the stage was
acutely awesome, and little short of a phenomenon. Every downward lunge
was checked as if jerked by an invisible cord. Verily, it seemed to be
held to its path by the influence of a powerful magnet. As the boys
stood thus agap, in firing attitude, undoubtedly the subtle agency of a
deep-seated plenipotent superstition which so thoroughly saturates the
mountain-born had now risen up and cast its obfuscating shade between
the quarry and their intent to kill.
With mutual glances they peered at each other irresolutely. At this
juncture, the pattering of naked feet suddenly ceased. Again they fixed
their eyes on the pulpit and its gloomed blasphemy. It tottered on the
brink of the platform a second; inclined perilously forward; started on
its headlong plunge outward, then miraculously checked its descent and
straightened. Then, backing away, it paused, stiffened and fell backward
with the rigidity of a board.
Lem and Buddy, collecting their befuddled senses, made their way
forward. The hideous mass of bones and blood and rags now lay quite
still on the altar. Through a short interval the two watched it for
signs of life. Presently, Lem prodded it with his rifle. It gave way,
yielding and inert, and now Lem took the lantern down from the hook at
the rope's end and, advancing dubiously, he held the lantern over the
awful spectacle and dared a look. That look sufficed. What had once been
the revenuer lay sprawled athwart the bloody cross--dead.
Outside the church door Lem halted and wiped his face absently. A look
of deep perturbation was plainly perceptible on his countenance. A
gulch-scented wind rode the plaintive sobs of the she-panther up from
the darksome thicket below, and Lem harkened attentively, as though he
had never heard these faltering, familiar notes before.
"Leastways," he projected presently, "he got part o' what's due him,
Buddy."
"But he'll cum back, Lem--he will," predicted Bud stoutly. "They's a
hant in em--he'll cum back sho'--yo' see--hants alers ac's like
thet--then they sneaks back agin."
Lem had started dejectedly across the clearing and did not appear to
hear his brother's apprehensions.
"Yo' go ahead, Buddy," advised Lem, "an' catch up with Belle-Ann--I'll
be 'long directly."
Buddy's thin, colt-like legs struck a trot, and Lem followed slowly up
the mountain side, deeply absorbed in thought and obviously disgruntled.
Altogether, the whole untoward events of the night had conspired to
cheat him out of his revenge. This was the strangest night he had ever
known, the happenings of which seemingly, derided his own reality. A
night divided into ecstasy and torture, and above the chaos of his soul,
the voice of Belle-Ann ever rippled with the monotone and insistency of
running water.
When finally Lem reached the cabin he found Belle-Ann huddled on the
horse-block, her face pallid and distressed from the effects of the
terrible, revolting scene she had witnessed in the church. Buddy sat
beside her saying things, which she heard vaguely and to which she made
distrait response.
Lem put his rifle and the lantern down and stood before her.
"I air sorry, Belle-Ann, thet yo'-all had t' see sich a sight," he said
slowly. "He's daid."
She arose quickly to her feet and looked searchingly into his face.
"You--you--you didn't----"
"No, Belle-Ann--I didin't kill em. We'uns went back after yo'-all left
an' he were up on th' altar daid."
"Oh--how awful--how terrible it all is! Oh, I wish it were morning--that
I could ride away from heah! Even a day of this awful life is more than
I can bear. Are you satisfied now, Lem?" she ended sadly.
"No, I hain't," he returned hotly. "I wus cheated out'n his blood. Pap
an' maw wanted em t' die at my hands--they ded. Belle-Ann, air yo'
'lowin' t' go way in th' mornin' an' never cum back?" he finished, with
a look of despair settling on his features.
"I am going in the morning, Lem," she answered decisively, though a note
of utter sorrow crept into her gentle tones. "You have had your
opportunity. You told me Johnse Hatfteld offered you five hundred
dollars for your interests heah. Surely you could have gone down to
Blue-grass with my grandpa and taken Buddy and Slab along,
and--I--I--could then--but you want to stay here and feed your soul on
blood. Could you ask a more bitter punishment for the revenuer than what
you saw to-night? I implore for the last time, Lem--put that evil life
behind you, Lem. Ask God to help you, and take my heart and hand on it
that He will not forsake you. You will come through as I did. Will you
try, Lem?" she pleaded softly, with a toss of curls and a tender,
compelling light in her sweet, sad eyes. "Let me lead you, Lem," she
whispered.
The boy's face paled suddenly. It was the advent of a terrible upheaval
coming upon him. Belle-Ann saw and divined his intent.
With no backward word, only a look that embraced an untold, profound
meaning, he hurried from her, spiritless and disconsolate and
tumultuous. Her eyes followed him, enthralled. She knew where he was
bound! She prayed devoutly that the web, traced by destiny, wrapping
their two lives into a unit, would not now, at this crisis, burst its
ligatures asunder. She prayed with all the fervent strength of her young
heart that Lem would come down from Eagle Crown and take her in his
arms,--take her willing life to him irrevocably, with a new precept
written in his heart.