Cudjo's Cave Part 23

"A young feller, rather slim, brown hair, blue eyes, with a half-hung look, a perfect specimen of a sneaking abolition schoolmaster."

"I--I don't remember meeting any such a person," said Penn, as if consulting his memory. "I met _two_ men, though, this side of old Bald.

One of them was a rather gentlemanly-looking fellow; but I think his hair was black and curly."

"The schoolmaster's har is wavy, and purty dark, I call it," said one of Sprowl's companions.

"He must have been the man!" said Lysander, suddenly stopping his horse.

"What sort of a chap was with him? Did he look like a Union-shrieker?"

"Now I think of it," said Penn, "if that man wasn't a Unionist at heart, I am greatly mistaken. His sympathies are with the Lincolnites, I know by his looks!" He neglected to add, however, that the man was black.

Sprowl was excited.

"It was some tory, piloting the schoolmaster! Boys, we must wheel about!

It never'll do for us to go home as long as we can hear of him alive in the state. Remember the pay promised, if we catch him."

"Luck to you!" cried Penn, riding on, while Sprowl turned back in ludicrous pursuit of his own worthy friend, Mr. Augustus Bythewood, and his negro man Sam.

Penn lost no time laughing at the joke. His heart was too full of trouble for that. It had seemed to him, at each moment of delay, that the blind old minister was even then being torn from his home--that he could hear Virginia's sobs of distress and cries for help. He urged his horse into a gallop once more, and struck into a path across the fields.

He rode to the edge of the orchard, dismounted, tied the horse, and hastened on foot to the house.

The guard was gone from the piazza, and all seemed quiet about the premises. The kitchen was dark. He advanced quickly, but noiselessly, to the door. It was open. He went in.

"Toby!" No answer. "Carl! Carl!" he called in a louder voice. No Carl replied. Then he remembered--what it seemed so strange that he could even for an instant forget--that Carl was in the rebel ranks, for his sake.

He had seen a light in the sitting-room. He found the door, and knocked.

No answer came. He opened it softly, and entered. There burned the lamp on the table--there stood the vacant chairs--he was alone in the deserted room.

"Virginia!"

He started at his own voice, which sounded, in the hollow apartment, like the whisper of a ghost.

He was proceeding still farther, wondering at the stillness, terrified by his own forebodings, feeling in his appalled heart the contrast between this night, and this strange, furtive visit, and the happy nights, and the many happy visits, he had made to his dear friends there only a few short months before,--pausing to a.s.sure himself that he was not walking in a dream,--when he heard a footstep, a flutter, and saw, spring towards him through the door, pale as an apparition, Virginia.

Speechless with emotion, she could not utter his name, but she testified the joy with which she welcomed him by throwing herself, not into his arms, but upon them, as he extended his hands to greet her.

"What has happened?" said Penn.

"O, my father!" said the girl. And she bowed her face upon his arm, clinging to him as if he were her brother, her only support.

"Where is he?" asked Penn, alarmed, and trembling with sympathy for that delicate, agitated, fair young creature, whom sorrow had so changed since he saw her last.

"They have taken him--the soldiers!" she said.

And by these words Penn knew that he had come too late.

XXII.

_STACKRIDGE'S COAT AND HAT GET ARRESTED._

The outrage had been committed not more than twenty minutes before. Toby had followed his old master, to see what was to be done with him, and Virginia and her sister were in the street before the house, awaiting the negro's return, when Penn arrived.

"You could have done no good, even if you had come sooner," said Virginia. "There is but one man who could have prevented this cruelty."

"Why not send for him?"

"Alas! he left town this very day. He is a secessionist; but he has great influence, and appears very friendly to us."

Penn started, and looked at her keenly.

"His name?"

"Augustus Bythewood."

Penn recoiled.

"What's the matter?"

"Virginia, that man is thy worst enemy? I did not tell thee how I learned that the arrests were to be made. But I will!" And he told her all.

"O," said she, "if I had only believed what my heart has always said of that man, and trusted less to my eyes and ears, he would never have deceived me! If he, then, is an enemy, what hope is there? O, my father!"

"Do not despair!" answered Penn, as cheerfully as he could. "Something may be done. Stackridge and his friends may have escaped. I will go and see if I can hear any thing of them. Have faith in our heavenly Father, my poor girl! be patient! be strong! All, I am sure, will yet be well."

"But you too are in danger! You must not go!" she exclaimed, instinctively detaining him.

"I am in greater danger here, perhaps, than elsewhere."

"True, true! Go to your negro friends in the mountain--there is yet time! go!" and she hurriedly pushed him from her.

"When I find that nothing can be done for thy father, then I will return to Pomp and Cudjo--not before."

And he glided out of the back door just as Salina entered from the street.

He left the horse where he had tied him, and hastened on foot to Stackridge's house.

He approached with great caution. There was a light burning in the house, as on other summer evenings at that hour. The negroes--for Stackridge was a slaveholder--had retired to their quarters. There were no indications of any disturbance having taken place. Penn reconnoitred carefully, and, perceiving no one astir about the premises, advanced towards the door.

"Halt!" shouted a voice of authority.

And immediately two men jumped out from the well-curb, within which they had been concealed. Others at the same time rushed to the spot from dark corners, where they had lain in wait. Almost in an instant, and before he could recover from his astonishment, Penn found himself surrounded.

"You are our prisoner, Mr. Stackridge!" And half a dozen bayonets converged at the focus of his breast.

The young man comprehended the situation in a moment. Stackridge had not been arrested; he was absent from home; these ambushed soldiers had been awaiting his return; and they had mistaken the schoolmaster for the farmer.