The Prodigal Judge Part 64

Suddenly he bent and roused Slosson, who had fallen asleep. The tavern-keeper sprang to his feet and Bunker pointed without speaking.

"Mebby you can tell me what that light back yonder means?" cried Slosson, addressing himself to Carrington; as he spoke he s.n.a.t.c.hed up his rifle.

"That's what I'm trying to make out," answered Carrington.

"h.e.l.l!" cried Slosson, and tossed his gun to his shoulder.

What seemed to be a breath of wind lifted a stray lock of Carrington's hair, but his pistol answered Slosson in the same second. He fired at the huddle of men in the bow of the boat and one of them pitched forward with his arms outspread.

"Keep back, you!" he said, and dropped off the cabin roof.

His promptness had bred a momentary panic, then Slosson's bull-like voice began to roar commands; but in that brief instant of surprise and shock Carrington had found and withdrawn the wooden peg that fastened the cabin door. He had scarcely done this when Slosson came tramping aft supported by the three men.

Calling to Betty and Hannibal to escape in the skiff which was towing astern the Kentuckian rushed toward the bow. At his back he heard the door creak on its hinges as it was pushed open by Betty and the boy, and again he called to them to escape by the skiff. The fret of the current had grown steadily and from beneath the wide-flung branches of the trees which here met above his head, Carrington caught sight of the starspecked arch of the heavens beyond. They were issuing from the bayou. He felt the river s.n.a.t.c.h at the keel boat, the buffeting of some swift eddy, and saw the blunt bow swing off to the south as they were plunged into the black sh.o.r.e shadows.

But what he did not see was a big muscular hand which had thrust itself out of the impenetrable gloom and clutched the side of the keel boat.

Coincident with this there arose a perfect babel of voices, high-pitched and shrill.

"Sho--I bet it's him! Sho'--it's Uncle Bob's nevvy! Sho', you can hear 'em! Sho', they're shootin' guns! Sho'!"

Carrington cast a hurried glance in the direction of these sounds. There between the boat and the sh.o.r.e the dim outline of a raft was taking shape. It was now canopied by a wealth of pale gray smoke that faded from before his eyes as the darkness lifted. Turning, he saw Slosson and his men clearly. Surprise and consternation was depicted on each face.

The light increased. From the flat stone hearth of the raft ascended a tall column of flame which rendered visible six pygmy figures, tow-headed and wonderfully vocal, who were toiling like mad at the huge sweeps. The light showed more than this. It showed a lady of plump and pleasing presence smoking a cobpipe while she fed the fire from a tick stuffed with straw. It showed two bark shanties, a line between them decorated with the never-ending Cavendish wash. It showed a rooster perched on the ridge-pole of one of these shanties in the very act of crowing l.u.s.tily.

Hannibal, who had climbed to the roof of the cabin, shrieked for help, and Betty added her voice to his.

"All right, Nevvy!" came the cheerful reply, as Yancy threw himself over the side of the boat and grappled with Slosson.

"Uncle Bob! Uncle Bob!" cried Hannibal.

Slosson uttered a cry of terror. He had a simple but sincere faith in the supernatural, and even with the Scratch Hiller's big hands gripping his throat, he could not rid himself of the belief that this was the ghost of a murdered man.

"You'll take a dog's licking from me, neighbor?" said Yancy grimly. "I been saving it fo' you!"

Meanwhile Mr. Cavendish, whose proud spirit never greatly inclined him to the practice of peace, had prepared for battle; Springing aloft he knocked his heels together.

"Whoop! I'm a man as can slide down a th.o.r.n.y locust and never get scratched!" he shouted. This was equivalent to setting his triggers; then he launched himself nimbly and with enthusiasm into the thick of the fight. It was Mr. Bunker's unfortunate privilege to sustain the onslaught of the Earl of Lambeth.

The light from the Cavendish hearth continued to brighten the scene, for Polly was recklessly sacrificing her best straw tick. Indeed her behavior was in every way worthy of the n.o.ble alliance she had formed.

Her cob-pipe was not suffered to go out and with Connie's help she kept the six small Cavendishes from risking life and limb in the keel boat, toward which they were powerfully drawn. Despite these activities she found time to call to Betty and Hannibal on the cabin roof.

"Jump down here; that ain't no fittin' place for you-all to stop in with them gentlemen fightin'!"

An instant later Betty and Hannibal stood on the raft with the little Cavendishes flocking about them. Mr. Yancy's quest of his nevvy had taken an enduring hold on their imagination. For weeks it had const.i.tuted their one vital topic, and the fight became merely a satisfying background for this interesting restoration.

"Sho', they'd got him! Sho'--he wa'n't no bigger than Richard! Sho'!"

"Oh!" cried Betty, with a fearful glance toward the keel boat. "Can't you stop them?"

"What fo'?" asked Polly, opening her black eyes very wide.

"Bless yo' tender heart!-you don't need to worry none, we got them strange gentlemen licked like they was a pa.s.sel of children! Connie, you-all mind that fire!"

She accurately judged the outcome of the fight. The boat was little better than a shambles with the havoc that had been wrought there when Yancy and Carrington dropped over its side to the raft. Cavendish followed them, whooping his triumph as he came.

CHAPTER x.x.xII. THE RAFT AGAIN

Yancy and Cavendish threw themselves on the sweeps and worked the raft clear of the keel boat, then the turbulent current seized the smaller craft and whirled it away into the night; as its black bulk receded from before his eyes the Earl of Lambeth spoke with the voice of authority and experience.

"It was a good fight and them fellows done well, but not near well enough." A conclusion that could not be gainsaid. He added, "No one ain't hurt but them that had ought to have got hurt. Mr. Yancy's all right, and so's Mr. Carrington--who's mighty welcome here." The earl's shock of red hair was bristling like the mane of some angry animal and his eyes still flashed with the light of battle, but he managed to summon up an expression of winning friendliness.

"Mr. Carrington's kin to me, Polly," explained Yancy to Mrs. Cavendish.

His voice was far from steady, for Hannibal had been gathered into his arms and had all but wrecked the stoic calm with which the Scratch Hiller was seeking to guard his emotions.

Polly smiled and dimpled at the Kentuckian. Trained to a romantic point of view she had a frank liking for handsome stalwart men. Cavendish was neither, but none knew better than Polly that where he was most lacking in appearance he was richest in substance. He carried scars honorably earned in those differences he had been p.r.o.ne to cultivate with less generous natures; for his scheme of life did not embrace the millennium.

"Thank G.o.d, you got here when you did!" said Carrington.

"We was some pushed fo' time, but we done it," responded the earl modestly. He added, "What now?--do we make a landing?"

"No--unless it interferes with your plans not to. I 'want to get around the next bend before we tie up. Later we'll all go back. Can I count on you?"

"You sh.o.r.ely can. I consider this here as sociable a neighborhood as I ever struck. It pleases me well. Folks are up and doing hereabout."

Carrington looked eagerly around in search of Betty. She was sitting on an upturned tub, a pathetic enough figure as she drooped against the wall of one of the shanties with all her courage quite gone from her. He made his way quickly to her side.

"La!" whispered Polly in Chills and Fever's ear. "If that pore young thing yonder keeps a widow it won't be because of any encouragement she gets from Mr. Carrington. If I ever seen marriage in a man's eye I seen it in his this minute!"

"Bruce!" cried Betty, starting up as Carrington approached. "Oh, Bruce, I am so glad you have come--you are not hurt?" She accepted his presence without question. She had needed him and he had not failed her.

"We are none of us hurt, Betty," he said gently, as he took her hand.

He saw that the suffering she had undergone during the preceding twenty-four hours had left its record on her tired face and in her heavy eyes. She retained a shuddering consciousness of the unchecked savagery of those last moments on the keel boat; she was still hearing the oaths of the men as they struggled together, the sound of blows, and the dreadful silences that had followed them. She turned from him, and there came the relief of tears.

"There, Betty, the danger is over now and you were so brave while it lasted. I can't bear to have you cry!"

"I was wild with fear--all that time on the boat, Bruce--" she faltered between her sobs. "I didn't know but they would find you out. I could only wait and hope--and pray!"

"I was in no danger, dear. Didn't the girl tell you I was to take the place of a man Slosson was expecting? He never doubted that I was that man until a light--a signal it must have been--on the sh.o.r.e at the head of the bayou betrayed me."

"Where are we going now, Bruce? Not the way they went--" and Betty glanced out into the black void where the keel boat had merged into the gloom.

"No, no--but we can't get the raft back up-stream against the current, so the best thing is to land at the Bates' plantation below here; then as soon as you are able we can return to Belle Plain," said Carrington.

There was an interval broken only by the occasional sweep of the great steering oar as Cavendish coaxed the raft out toward the channel. The thought of Charley Norton's murder rested on Carrington like a pall.