Cudjo's Cave Part 13

"No, no! I'll be killed if I'm found here!"

But Carl, st.u.r.dy and resolute, had no idea of permitting him to deliver so hasty and alarming a message without subjecting him to a cross-examination. He had already got him by the collar, and now he dragged him into the house, the man not daring to resist for fear of outcry and exposure.

"What is it?" asked Mr. Villars.

"A wisitor!" said Carl. And he repeated Dan's statement, while Dan was recovering his breath.

"Is this true, Mr. Pepperill?" asked the old man, deeply concerned.

"Yes, I be durned if it ain't!" said Dan.

Virginia clung to her father's chair, white with apprehension. Toby was also present, having left his patient an instant to run down stairs, and learn what was the cause of this fresh disturbance.

"He's a lyin' to ye, Ma.s.s' Villars; he's a lyin' to ye! White trash can't tell de troof if dey tries! Don't ye breeve a word he says, ma.s.sa."

Yet it was evident from the consternation the old negro's face betrayed that he believed Dan's story,--or at least feared it would prove true if he did not make haste and deny it stoutly; for Toby, like many persons with whiter skins, always felt on such occasions a vague faith that if he could get the bad news sufficiently denounced and discredited in season, all would be well. As if simply setting our minds against the truth would defeat it!

"But they spoke of fittin' yer neck to a noose too!"

"Mine? Ah, if n.o.body but myself was in danger, I should be well content!

What do you think we ought to do, Mr. Pepperill?"

"The master has done me a good turn, and I'll do him one, if I swing fur't!" said Dan, straightening himself with sudden courage. "Get him out 'fore they suspect what you're at, and I'll take him to my house and hide him, I be durned if I won't!"

"It is a kind offer, and I thank you," said the old man. "But how can I resolve to send a guest from my house in this way? Not to save my own life would I do it!"

"But to save his, father!"

"It is only of him I am thinking, my child. Would it be safe to move him, Toby?"

"Safe to move Ma.s.sa Penn!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the old negro, choking with wrath and grief. "Neber tink o' sech a ting, ma.s.sa! He'd die, sh.o.r.e, widout I should go 'long wid him, and tote him in my ol' arms on a fedder-bed jes' like I would a leetle baby, and den stay and nuss him arter I got him dar. For dem 'ar white trash, what ye s'pose day knows 'bout takin'

keer ob a sick gemman like him? It's a bery 'tic'lar case. He's got de delirimum a comin' on him now, and I can't be away from him a minute. I mus' go back to him dis bery minute!"

And Toby departed, having suddenly conceived an idea of his own for hiding Penn in the barn until the danger was over.

He had been absent from the room but a moment, however, when those remaining in it heard a wild outcry, and presently the old negro reappeared, inspired with superst.i.tious terror, his eyes starting from their sockets, his tongue paralyzed.

"What's the matter, Toby?" cried Virginia, perceiving that something really alarming had happened.

The negro tried to speak, but his throat only gurgled incoherently, while the whites of his eyes kept rolling up like saucers.

"Penn--has anything happened to Penn?" said Mr. Villars.

"O, debil, debil, Lord bress us!" gibbered Toby.

"Dead?" cried Virginia.

"Gone! gone, missis!"

Struck with consternation, but refusing to believe the words of the bewildered black, Virginia flew to the sick man's chamber.

Then she understood the full meaning of Toby's words. Penn was not in his bed, nor in the room, nor anywhere in the house. He had disappeared suddenly, strangely, totally.

XII.

_CHIVALROUS PROCEEDINGS._

Thus the question of what should be done with his guest, which Mr.

Villars knew not how to decide, had been decided for him.

Great was the mystery. There was the bed precisely as Penn had left it a minute since. There was the candle dimly burning. The medicines remained just where Toby had placed them, on the table under the mirror. But the patient had vanished.

What had become of him? It was believed that he was too ill to leave his bed without a.s.sistance. And, even though he had been strong, it was by no means probable that one so uniformly discreet in his conduct, and ever so regardful of the feelings of others, would have quitted the house in this abrupt and inexplicable manner.

In vain the premises were searched. Not a trace of him could be anywhere discovered. Neither were there any indications of a struggle. Yet it was Toby's firm conviction that the ruffians had entered the house, and seized him; that Pepperill was in the plot, the object of whose visit was merely a diversion, while Ropes and the rest accomplished the abduction. This could not, of course, have been done without the aid of magic and the devil; but Toby believed in magic and the devil. The fact that Dan had taken advantage of the confusion to escape, appeared to the Ethiopian mind conclusive.

Nor was the negro alone in his bewilderment. Carl was utterly confounded. The old clergyman, usually so calm, was deeply troubled; while Virginia herself, pierced with the keenest solicitude, could scarce keep her mind free from horrible and superst.i.tious doubts. The doors between the sitting-room and back stairs were all wide open, and it seemed impossible that any one could have come in or gone out that way without being observed. On the other hand, to have reached the front stairs Penn must have pa.s.sed through Salina's room. But Salina, who was in her room at the time, averred that she had not been disturbed, even by a sound.

"He has got out the vinder," said Carl. But the window was fifteen feet from the ground.

Thus all reasonable conjecture failed, and it seemed necessary to accept Toby's theory of the ruffians, magic, and the devil. Only one thing was certain: Penn was gone. And, as if to add to the extreme and painful perplexity of his friends, the clothes, which had been stripped from him by the lynchers, which he had brought away in his hands, and which had been hung up in his room by Toby, were left hanging there still, untouched.

The family had not recovered from the dismay his disappearance occasioned, when they had cause to rejoice that he was gone. Ropes and his crew returned, as Pepperill had predicted. They were intoxicated and bloodthirsty. They had brought a rope, with which to hang their victim before the old clergyman's door. They were furious on finding he had eluded them, and searched the house with oaths and uproar. Virginia, on her knees, clung to her father, praying that he might not be harmed, and that Penn, whom all had been so anxious just now to find, might be safe from discovery.

Exasperated by their unsuccessful search, the villains hesitated about laying violent hands on the blind old man, and concluded to wreak their vengeance on Toby. That he was a freed negro, was alone a sufficient offence in their eyes to merit a whipping. But he had done more; he had been devoted to the schoolmaster, and they believed he had concealed him. So they seized him, dragged him from the house, bared his back, and tied him to a tree.

As long as the mob had confined itself to searching the premises, Mr.

Villars had held his peace. But the moment his faithful old servant was in danger, he roused himself. He rushed to the door, bareheaded, his white hair flowing, his staff in his hand. Both his children accompanied him,--Salina, who was really not void of affection, appearing scarcely less anxious and indignant than her sister.

There, in the light of a wood-pile to which fire had been set, stood the old negro, naked to the waist, lashed fast to the trunk, writhing with pain and terror; his brutal tormentors grouped around him in the glare of the flames, preparing, with laughter, oaths, and much loose, leisurely swaggering, to flay his flesh with rods.

"My friends!" cried the old clergyman, with an energy that startled them, "what are you about to do?"

"We're gwine to sarve this n.i.g.g.e.r," said the man Gad, "jest as every free n.i.g.g.e.r'll git sarved that's found in the state three months from now."

"Free n.i.g.g.e.rs is a nuisance," added Ropes, now very drunk, and very much inclined to make a speech on a barrel which his friends rolled out for him. "A nuisance!" he repeated, with a hiccough, steadying himself on his rostrum by holding a branch of the tree. "And let me say to you, feller-patriots, that one of the glorious fruits of secession is, that every free n.i.g.g.e.r in the state will either be sold for a slave, or druv out, or hung up. I tell you, gentlemen, we're a goin' to have our own way in these matters, spite of all the ministers in creation!"

The men cheered, and one of them struck Toby a couple of preliminary blows, just to try his hand, and to add the poor old negro's howls to the chorus.

"No doubt,"--the old clergyman's voice rose above the tumult,--"you will have your way for a season. You will commit injustice with a high hand.

You will glut your cruelty upon the defenceless and oppressed. But, as there is a G.o.d in heaven,"--he lifted up his blind white face, and with his trembling hands shook his staff on high, like a prophet foretelling woe,--"as there is a G.o.d of justice and mercy who beholds this wickedness,--just so sure the hour of your retribution will come! so sure the treason you are breathing, and the despotism you are inaugurating, will prove a snare and a destruction to yourselves! Unbind that man! leave my house in peace! go home, and learn to practise a little of the mercy of which you will yourselves soon stand in need."

His venerable aspect, and the power and authority of his words, awed even that drunken crew. But Silas, vain of his oratorical powers, was enraged that anybody should dispute his influence with the crowd.

Holding the branch with one hand, and gesticulating violently with the other, he exclaimed,--