Nick of the Woods Part 7

CHAPTER VIII.

These symptoms of anxiety and alarm affected Edith's own spirits; they did more,--they shook her faith in the justice of her kinsman's conclusions. His arguments in relation to the road were, indeed, unanswerable, and Telie had offered none to weaken them. Yet why should she betray such distress, if they were upon the right one? and why, in fact, should she not be supposed to know both the right and the wrong, since she had, as she said, so frequently travelled both?

These questions Edith could not refrain asking of Roland, who professed himself unable to answer them, unless by supposing the girl had become confused, as he thought was not improbable, or had, in reality, been so long absent from the forest as to have forgotten its paths altogether: which was likely enough, as she seemed a very simple-minded, inexperienced creature. "But why need we," he said, "trouble ourselves to find reasons for the poor girl's opposition? Here are the tracks of our friends, broader and deeper than ever: here they wind down into the hollow; and there, you may see where they have floundered through that vile pool, that is still turbid, where they crossed it. A horrible quagmire! But courage, my fair cousin: it is only such difficulties as these which the road can lead us into."

Such were the expressions with which the young soldier endeavoured to rea.s.sure his kinswoman's courage, his own confidence remaining still unmoved; although in secret he felt somewhat surprised at the coincidence between the girl's recommendations of the by-road and the injunctions of his morning dream. But while pondering over the wonder, he had arrived at the quagmire alluded to, through which the difficulties of conducting his cousin were sufficiently great to banish other matters for a moment from his mind. Having crossed it at last in safety, he paused to give such instructions or a.s.sistance as might be needed by his two followers; when Edith, who had halted at his side, suddenly laid her hand on his arm, and exclaimed, with a visage of terror,--"Hark, Roland! do you hear? What is that?"

"Heard him, ma.s.sa!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Emperor from the middle of the bog, with voice still more quavering than the maiden's, and lips rapidly changing from Spanish-brown to clayey-yellow; "heard him, ma.s.sa! Reckon it's an Injun! lorra-ma.s.sy!"

"Peace, fool," cried Forrester, bending his looks from the alarmed countenance of his kinswoman to the quarter whence had proceeded the sound which had so suddenly struck terror into her bosom.

"Hark, Roland! it rises again!" she exclaimed; and Roland now distinctly heard a sound in the depth of the forest to the right hand, as of the yell of a human being, but at a great distance off. At the place which they had reached, the canes and undergrowth of other kinds had disappeared, and a wide glade, stretching over hill and hollow, swept away from both sides of the road further than the eye could see. The trees, standing wider apart than usual, were, if possible, of a more majestic stature; their wide and ma.s.sive tops were so thickly interlaced, that not a single sunbeam found its way among the gloomy arcades below. A wilder, more solitary, and more awe-inspiring spot Roland had not before seen; and it was peculiarly fitted to add double effect to sights and sounds of a melancholy or fearful character. Accordingly, when the cry was repeated, as it soon was, though at the same distance as before, it came echoing among the hollow arches of the woods with a wild and almost unearthly cadence, the utterance, as it-seemed, of mortal agony and despair, that breathed a secret horror through the b.r.e.a.s.t.s of all.

"It is the Jibbenainosay!" muttered the s.h.i.+vering Telie: "these are the woods he used to range in most; and they say he screams after his prey!

It is not too late:--let us go back!"

"An Injun, ma.s.sa!" said Emperor, stuttering with fright, and yet proceeding both to handle his arms and to give encouragement to his young mistress, which his age and privileged character, as well as the urgency of the occasion, ent.i.tled him to do: "don't be afraid, missie Edie; nebber mind;--ole Emperor will fight and die for missie, old ma.s.sa John's daughter!"

"Hist!" said Roland, as another scream rose on the air, louder and more thrilling than before.

"It is the cry of a human being!" said Edith,--"of a man in distress!"

"It is, indeed," replied the soldier,--"of a man in great peril, or suffering. Remain here on the road; and if anything--Nay, if you will follow me, it may be better; but let it be at a distance. If anything happens to me, set spurs to your horses:--Telie here can at least lead you back to the fort."

With these words, and without waiting to hear the remonstrances, or remove the terrors of his companions, the young man turned his horse into the wood, and guided by the cries, which were almost incessant, soon found himself in the vicinity of the place from which they proceeded. It was a thick grove of beeches of the colossal growth of the west, their stems as tall and straight as the pines of the Alleghanies, and their boughs, arched and pendulous like those of the elm, almost sweeping the earth below, over which they cast shadows so dark that scarce anything was visible beneath them, save their h.o.a.ry and spectral trunks.

As Roland, followed by his little party, approached this spot, the cries of the unknown, and as yet unseen, sufferer, fearful even at a distance, grew into the wildest shrieks of fear, mingled with groans, howls, broken prayers and execrations, and half-inarticulate expressions, now of fondling entreaty, now of fierce and frantic command, that seemed addressed to a second person hard by.

A thousand strange and appalling conceits had crept into Roland's mind, when he first heard the cries. One while he almost fancied he had stumbled upon a gang of savages, who were torturing a prisoner to death; another moment, he thought the yells must proceed from some unlucky hunter, peris.h.i.+ng by inches in the grasp of a wild beast, perhaps a bear or panther, with which animals it was easy to believe the forest might abound. With such horrible fancies oppressing his mind, his surprise may be imagined, when, having c.o.c.ked his rifle and thrown open his holsters, to be prepared for the worst, he rushed into the grove and beheld a spectacle no more formidable than was presented by a single individual,--a man in a s.h.a.ggy blanket-coat,--sitting on horseback under one of the most venerable of the beeches, and uttering those diabolical outcries that had alarmed the party, for no imaginable purpose, as Roland was at first inclined to suspect, unless for his own private diversion.

A second look, however, convinced the soldier that the wretched being had sufficient cause for his clamour, being, in truth, in a situation almost as dreadful as any Roland had imagined. His arms were pinioned behind his back, and his neck secured in a halter (taken, as it appeared, from his steed), by which he was fastened to a large bough immediately above his head, with nothing betwixt him and death, save the horse on which he sat,--a young and terrified beast, at whose slightest start or motion, he must have swung off and perished, while he possessed no means of restraining the animal whatever, except such as lay in strength of leg and virtue of voice.

In this terrible situation, it was plain, he had remained for a considerable period, his clothes and hair (for his hat had fallen to the ground) being saturated with rain; while his face purple with blood, his eyes swollen and protruding from their orbits with a most ghastly look of agony and fear, showed how often the uneasiness of his horse, round whose body his legs were wrapped with the convulsive energy of despair, had brought him to the very verge of strangulation.

The yells of mortal terror, for such they had been, with which he had so long filled the forest, were changed to shrieks of rapture, as soon as he beheld help approach in the person of the astonished soldier. "Praised be the Etarnal!" he roared; "cut me loose, strannger!--Praised be the Etarnal, and this here dumb beast!--Cut me loose, strannger, for the love of G.o.d!"

Such was Roland's intention; for which purpose he had already clapped his hand to his sabre, to employ it in a service more humane than any it had previously known; when, unfortunately, the voice of the fellow did what his distorted countenance had failed to do, and revealed to Roland's indignant eyes the author of all his present difficulties, the thief of the pinfold, the robber of Brown Briareus,--in a word, the redoubtable Captain Ralph Stackpole.

In a moment, Roland understood the mystery which he had been before too excited to inquire into. He remembered the hints of Bruce, and he had learned enough of border customs and principles to perceive that the justice of the woods had at last overtaken the horse-thief. The pursuing party had captured him,--taken him in the very manner, while still in possession of the 'two-year-old pony,' and at once adjudged him to the penalty prescribed by the border code,--tied his arms, noosed him with the halter of the stolen horse, and left him to swing, as soon as the animal should be tired of supporting him. There was a kind of dreadful poetical justice in thus making the stolen horse the thief's executioner; it gave the animal himself an opportunity to wreak vengeance for all wrongs received, and at the same time allowed his captor the rare privilege of galloping on his back into eternity.

Such was the mode of settling such offences against the peace and dignity of the settlements; such was the way in which Stackpole had been reduced to his unenviable situation; and, that all pa.s.sers-by might take note that the execution had not been done without authority, there was painted upon the smooth white bark of the tree, in large black letters, traced by a finger well charged with moistened gunpowder, the ominous name--JUDGE LYNCH,--the Rhadamanthus of the forest, whose decisions are yet respected in the land, and whose authority sometimes bids fair to supersede that of all erring human tribunals.

Thus tied up, his rifle, knife, and ammunition laid under a tree hard by, that he might have the satisfaction, if satisfaction it could be, of knowing they were in safety, the executioners had left him to his fate, and ridden away long since, to attend to other important affairs of the colony.

The moment that Roland understood in whose service he was drawing his sword, a change came over the spirit of his thoughts and feelings, and he returned it very composedly to its sheath,--much to the satisfaction of the negro, Emperor, who, recognising the unfortunate Ralph at the same instant, cried aloud, "'Top ma.s.sa! 't ar Captain Stackpole, what stole Brown Briery! Reckon I'll touch the pony on the rib, hah! Hanging too good for him, white n.i.g.g.ah t'ief, hah!"

With that, the incensed negro made as if he would have driven the pony from under the luckless Ralph; but was prevented by his master, who, taking a second survey of the spectacle, motioned to the horror-struck females to retire, and prepared himself to follow them.

"'Tarnal death to you, captain! you won't leave me?" cried Ralph, in terror. "Honour bright! Help him that needs help--that's the rule for a Christian!"

"Villain!" said Roland, sternly, "I have no help to give you. You are strung up according to the laws of the settlements, with which I have no desire to interfere. I am the last man you should ask for pity."

"I don't ax your pity, 'tarnal death to me,--I ax your _help_.'" roared Ralph; "Cut me loose is the word, and then sw'ar at me atter! I stole your hoss thar:--well, whar's the harm? Didn't he fling me, and kick me, and bite me into the bargain, the cursed savage? and ar'n't you got him ag'in as good as ever? And besides, didn't that etarnal old Bruce fob me off with a beast good for nothing, and talk big to me besides? and warn't that all fa'r provocation? An didn't you yourself sw'ar ag'in shaking paws with me, and treat me as if I war no gentleman? 'Tarnal death to me, cut me loose, or I'll haunt you, when I'm a ghost, I will, 'tarnal death to me!"

"Cut him down, Roland, for Heaven's sake!" said Edith, whom the surprise and terror of the spectacle at first rendered speechless: "you surely,--no, Roland, you surely can't mean to leave him to perish?"

"Upon my soul," said the soldier, and we are sorry to record a speech representing him in a light so unamiable, "I don't see what right I have to release him; and I really have not the least inclination to do so. The rascal is the cause of all our difficulties; and, if evil should happen us, he will be the cause of that too. But for him, we should be now safe with our party. And besides, as I said before, he is hanged according to Kentucky law; a very good law, as far as it regards horse-thieves, for whom hanging is too light a punishment."

"Nevertheless, release him,--save the poor wretch's life," reiterated Edith, to whom Stackpole, perceiving in her his only friend, now addressed the most piteous cries and supplications: "the law is murderous, its makers and executioners barbarians. Save him, Roland, I charge you, I entreat you!"

"He owes his life to your intercession," said the soldier; and drawing his sabre again, but with no apparent good will, he divided the halter by which Ralph was suspended, and the wretch was free.

"Cut the tug, the buffalo-tug!" shouted the culprit, thrusting his arms as far from his back as he could, and displaying the thong of bison-skin, which his struggles had almost buried in his flesh. A single touch of the steel, rewarded by such a yell of transport as was never before heard in those savage retreats, sufficed to sever the bond; and Stackpole, leaping on the earth, began to testify his joy in modes as novel as they were frantic. His first act was to fling his arms round the neck of his steed, which he hugged and kissed with the most rapturous affection, doubtless in requital of the docility it had shown when docility was so necessary to its rider's life; his second, to leap half a dozen times into the air, feeling his neck all the time, and uttering the most singular and vociferous cries, as if to make double trial of the condition of his windpipe; his third, to bawl aloud, directing the important question to the soldier, "How many days has it been since they hanged me? War it to-day, or yesterday, or the day before? or war it a whole year ago? for may I be next hung to the horn of a buffalo, instead of the limb of a beech tree, if I didn't feel as if I had been squeaking thar ever since the beginning of creation! c.o.c.k-a-doodle-doo! him that ar'nt born to be hanged, won't be hanged, no-how!" Then running to Edith, who sat watching his proceedings with silent amazement, he flung himself on his knees, seized the hem of her riding-habit, which he kissed with the fervour of an adorer, exclaiming with a vehement sincerity, that made the whole action still more strangely ludicrous, "Oh! you splendiferous creatur'! you angeliferous anngel! here am I, Ralph Stackpole the Screamer, that can whip all Kentucky, white, black, mixed, and Injun; and I'm the man to go with you to the ends of the 'arth, to fight, die, work, beg, and steal bosses for you! I am, and you may make a little dog of me; you may, or a niggur, or a boss, or a door-post, or a back-log, or a dinner,--'tarnal death to me, but you may _eat_ me! I'm the man to feel a favour, partickelarly when it comes to helping me out of a halter; and so jist say the word who I shall lick, to begin on; for I'm your slave jist as much as that niggur, to go with you, as I said afore, to the ends of the 'arth, and the length of Kentucky over?"

"Away with you, you scoundrel and jackanapes," said Roland, for to this ardent expression of grat.i.tude Edith was herself too much frightened to reply.

"Strannger!" cried the offended horse-thief, "you cut the tug, and you cut the halter; and so, though you did it only on hard axing, I'd take as many hard words of you as you can pick out of a dictionary,--I will, 'tarnal death to me. But as for madam thar, the anngel, she saved my life, and I go my death in her sarvice; and now's the time to show sarvice, for thar's danger abroad in the forest."

"Danger!" echoed Roland, his anxiety banis.h.i.+ng the disgust with which he was so much inclined to regard the worthy horse-thief; "what makes you say that?"

"Strannger," replied Ralph, with a lengthened visage and a gravity somewhat surprising for him, "I seed the Jibbenainosay! 'tarnal death to me, but I seed him as plain as ever I seed old Salt! I war a-hanging thar, and squeaking and cussing, and talking soft nonsense to the pony, to keep him out of his tantrums, when what should I see but a great crittur come tramping through the forest, right off yander by the fallen oak, with a big b'ar before him--"

"Pis.h.!.+" said the soldier, "what has this to do with danger?"

"Beca'se and because," said Ralph, "when you see the Jibbenainosay, thar's always abbregynes[4] in the cover. I never seed the crittur before, but I reckon it war he, for thar's nothing like him in natur'.

And so I'm for cutting out of the forest jist on the track of a streak of lightning,--now hy'yar, now thar, but on a full run without stopping. And so, if anngeliferous madam is willing, thump me round the 'arth with a crab-apple, if I don't holp her out of the bushes, and do all her fighting into the bargain,--I will, 'tarnal death to me!"

[Footnote 4: _Abbregynes_--aborigines.]

"You may go about your business," said Roland, with as much sternness as contempt. "We will have none of your base company."

"Whoop! whoo, whoo, whoo! don't rifle[5] me, for I'm danngerous!" yelled the demibarbarian, springing on his stolen horse, and riding up to Edith.

"Say the word, marm," he cried; "for I'll fight for you, or run for you, take scalp or cut stick, shake fist or show leg, anything in reason or out of reason. Strannger thar's as brash[6] as a new hound in a b'ar fight, or a young boss in a corn-field, and no safe friend in a forest.

Say the word, marm,--or if you think it ar'nt manners to speak to a strannger, jist shake your little finger, and I'll follow like a dog, and do you dog's sarvice. Or, if you don't like me, say the word, or shake t'other finger, and 'tarnal death to me, but I'll be off like an elk of the prairies!"

[Footnote 5: To _rifle_--to ruffle.]

[Footnote 6: _Brash_--rash, head-strong, over-valiant.]

"You may go," said Edith, not at all solicitous to retain a follower of Mr. Stackpole's character and conversation: "we have no occasion for your a.s.sistance."

"Farewell!" said Ralph; and turning, and giving his pony a thump with his fist and a kick with each heel, and uttering a shrill whoop, he darted away through the forest, and was soon out of sight.