Suddenly they heard a voice far off, singing; then two, then three voices; then a chorus filling the heart of the mountain with a strange spiritual melody. Virginia was enraptured, and Carl amazed.
Penn, who had known what was coming, looked upon them with pride and delight. At length the music, growing faint and fainter, melted and was lost in the mysterious vaults through which it had seemed to wander and soar away.
It was a minute after all was still before either spoke.
"Certainly," Virginia exclaimed, "if I had not heard of a similar effect produced in the Mammoth Cave, I should never have believed that marvellous chorus was sung by a single voice!"
"A single woice!" repeated Carl, incredulous. "There vas more as a dozen woices!"
"Right, Carl!" laughed Penn. "The first was Cudjo's; and all the rest were those, of the nymph Echo and her companions."
They continued their course through the halls of the echoes, and soon came to an arched passage, at the entrance of which Penn paused and placed the torch in a niche. A projection of the rock prevented the light from shining before them, yet their way was softly illumined from beyond, as by a dim phosphorescence. They advanced, and in a moment their eyes, grown accustomed to the obscurity, came upon a scene of surprising and magical beauty.
"The Grotto of Undine," said Penn.
It was, to all appearances, a nearly spherical concavity, some thirty yards in length, and perhaps twenty in perpendicular diameter. Carl's torch was concealed in the niche, and Cudjo's was nowhere visible; yet the whole interior was luminous with a dim and silvery halo. A narrow corridor ran round the sides, and resembled a dark ring swimming in nebulous light, midway between the upper and nether hemispheres of the wondrous hollow globe. Within this horizontal rim, floor there was none; and they stood upon its brink; and, looking up, they saw the marvellous vault all sparkling with stars and beaming with pale, pendent, taper, crystalline flames, noiseless and still; and, looking down, beheld beneath their feet, and shining with a yet more soft and dreamy lustre, the perfect counterpart of the vault above.
Penn held Virginia upon the verge. A bewildering ecstasy captivated her reason as she gazed. They seemed to be really in the grotto of some nymph who had fled the instant she saw her privacy invaded, or veiled the immortal mystery and loveliness of her charms in some mesh of the glimmering nimbus that baffled and entangled the sight. Save one or two stifled cries of rapture from Virginia and Carl, not a syllable was uttered: perfect stillness prevailed, until Penn said, in a whisper,—
"Wouldst thou like to see the face of Undine? Bend forward. Do not fear: I hold thee!"
By gentle compulsion he induced her to comply. She bent over the brink, and looked down, when, lo! out of the hazy effulgence beneath, emerged a face looking up at her—a face dimly seen, yet full of vague wonder and surprise—a face of unrivalled sweetness and beauty, Penn thought. What did Virginia think?—for it was the reflection of her own.
"O, Penn! how it startled me!"
"But isn't she a Grace? Isn't she loveliness itself?"
"I hope you think so!" she whispered, with arch frankness, a sweet coquettish confidence ravishing to his soul.
"I do!" And in the privacy of telling her so, his lips just brushed her ear. Did you ever, in whispering some secret trifle, some all-important, heavenly nothing, just brush the dearest little ear in the world with your lips? or, in listening to the syllables of divine nonsense, feel the warm breath and light touch of the magnetic thrilling mouth? Then you know something of what Penn and Virginia experienced for a brief moment in the Grotto of Undine.
Just then a duplicate glow, like a double sunrise, one part above and the other below the horizon, appeared at the farther end of the grotto. It increased, until they saw come forth from behind an upright rock an upright torch; and at the same time, from behind a suspended rock beneath, an inverted torch. Immediately after two Cudjoes came in sight; one standing erect on the rock above, and the other standing upside down on—or rather under—the rock below.
"Take your torch, Carl," said Penn, "and go around and meet him."
The boy returned to the niche; and presently two Carls, with two torches, were seen moving around the rim of the corridor, one upright above, the other walking miraculously, head downwards, below.
The two Carls had not reached the rock, when the two Cudjoes stooped, and took up each a stone and threw them. One fellupward(so to speak), as the other fell downward: they met in the centre: there was a strange clash, which echoed through the hollow halls; and in a moment the entire nether hemisphere of the enchanted grotto was shattered into numberless flashing and undulating fragments.
Virginia had already perceived that the appearance of a concave sphere was an illusion produced by the ceiling lighted by Cudjo's hidden torch, and mirrored in a floor of glassy water. Yet she was entirely unprepared for this astonishing result; and at sight of the Cudjo beneath instantaneously annihilated by the plashing of a stone, she started back with a scream. Fortunately, Penn still held her close, no doubt in a fit of abstraction, forgetting that his arms were no longer necessary to prevent her falling, as when she leaned to look at the shadowy Undine.
"All those stalactites," said he, as the two torches were held towards the roof, "are of the most beautiful crystalline structure; and the spaces between are all studded with brilliant spars. The first time I was here, it was April; the mountain springs were full, and every one of thesestone icicleswas dripping with water that percolated through the strata above. The effect was almost as surprising as what we saw before Cudjo cast the stone. The surface of the pool seemed all leaping and alive with perpetual showers of dancing pearls. But now the springs are low, or the water has found another channel. Yet this basin is always full."
"Why, so it is! I had no idea the water was so near!" And Virginia, stooping, dipped her hand.
The mirrored crystals were still coruscating and waving in the ripples, as they passed around the rim of rock, and followed Cudjo into a scarcely less beautiful chamber beyond.
Here was no water; but in its place was a floor of alabaster, from which arose a great variety of pure white stalagmites, to meet each its twin stalactite pendent from above. In some cases they did actually meet and grow together in perfect pillars, reaching from floor to roof.
"The stalagmites are very beautiful," said Virginia; "but the stalactites are still more beautiful."
"I think," said Penn, "there is a moral truth symbolized by them. As the rock above gives forth its streaming life, it benefits and beautifies the rock below, while at the same time it adorns still more richly its own beautiful breast. So it always is with Charity: it blesses him that receives, but it blesses far more richly him that gives."
"O, must we pass on?" said Virginia, casting longing eyes towards all those lovely forms.
"We are to return the same way," replied Penn. "But now Cudjo seems to be in a hurry."
"Dat's de last ob de sticktights," cried the black, standing at the end of the colonnade, and waving his torch above his head. "Now we's comin' to de run."
"Come," said Penn, "and I will show thee what Hood must have meant by the 'dark arch of the black flowing river.'"
A stupendous cavern of seemingly endless extent opened before them. Cudjo ran on ahead, shouting wildly under the hollow, reverberating dome, and waving his torch, which soon appeared far off, like a flaming star amid a night of darkness. Then there were two stars, which separated, and, standing one above the other, remained stationary.
"Listen!" said Penn. And they heard the liquid murmur of flowing water.
He took the torch from Carl, and advancing towards the right wall of the cavern, showed, flowing out of it, through a black, arched opening, a river of inky blackness. It rolled, with scarce a ripple, slow, and solemn, and still, out of that impenetrable mystery, and swept along between the wall on one side and a rocky bank on the other. By this bank they followed it, until they came to a natural bridge, formed by a limestone cliff, through which it had worn its channel, and under which it disappeared. On this bridge they found Cudjo perched above the water with his torch.
They passed the bridge without crossing,—for the farther end abutted high upon the cavern wall,—and found the river again flowing out on the lower side. Few words were spoken. The vastness of the cave, the darkness, the mystery, the inky and solemn stream pursuing its noiseless course, impressed them all. Suddenly Virginia exclaimed,—
"Light ahead!" though Carl was with her, and Cudjo now walked behind.
It was a gray glimmer, which rapidly grew to daylight as they advanced.
"It is the chasm, or sink, where the roof of the cave has fallen in," said Penn.
While he spoke, a muffled rustling of wings was heard above their heads. They looked up, and saw numbers of large black bats, startled by the torches, darting hither and thither under the dismal vault. Birds, too, flew out from their hiding-places as they advanced, and flapped and screamed in the awful gloom.
To save the torches for their return, Cudjo now extinguished them. They walked in the brightening twilight along the bank of the stream, and found, to the surprise and delight of Virginia, some delicate ferns and pale green shrubs growing in the crevices of the rock. Vegetation increased as they proceeded, until they arrived at the sink, and saw before them steep banks covered with vines, thickets, and forest trees.
The river, whose former course had evidently been stopped by the falling in of the forest, here made a curve to the right around the banks, and half disappeared in a channel it had hollowed for itself under the cliff. Here they left it, and climbed to the open day.
"How strangely yellow the sunshine looks!" said Virginia. "It seems as though I had colored glasses on. And how sultry the air!"
She looked up at the towering rocks that walled the chasm, and at the trees upon whose roots she stood, and whose tops waved in the summer breeze and sunshine, at the level of the mountain slope so far above. She could also see, on the summit of the cliffs, the charred skeletons of trees the late fire had destroyed.
"It was here," said Penn, "that Stackridge and his friends escaped. This leaning tree with its low branches forms a sort of ladder to the limbs of that larger one; and by these it is easy to climb——"
As he was speaking, all eyes were turned upwards; when suddenly Cudjo uttered a warning whistle, and dropped flat upon the ground.
"A man!" said Carl, crouching at the foot of the tree.
Penn did not fall or crouch, nor did Virginia scream, although, looking up through the scant leafage, they saw, standing on the cliff, and looking down straight at them, at the same time waving his hand exultantly, one whom they well knew—their enemy,Silas Ropes.
At the wave of the lieutenant's hand, a squad of soldiers rushed to the spot. In a minute their muskets were pointed downwards, and aimed. "Fly!" said Penn, thrusting Virginia from him. "Carl, take her away!"
The boy drew her back down the rocks, following Cudjo, who was descending on all fours, like an ape. She turned her face in terror to look after Penn. There he stood, where she had left him, intrepid, his fine head uncovered, looking steadfastly up at the men on the cliff, and waving his hat, defiantly. At once she recognized his noble self-sacrifice. It was his object to attract their fire, and so shield her from the bullets as she fled.
She struggled from Carl's grasp. "O, Penn," she cried, extending her hands beseechingly, and starting to return to him.
"Fire!" shouted Silas Ropes.
Crack! went a gun, immediately succeeded by an irregular volley, like a string of exploding fire-crackers. Penn, expecting death, saw first the rapid flashes, then the soldiers half concealed by the smoke of their own guns. The smoke cleared, and there he still stood, smiling—for Virginia was unhurt.
"Your practice is very poor!" he shouted up at the soldiers; and, putting on his hat, he walked calmly away.
The bullets had struck the trees and flattened on the stones all around him; but he was untouched. And before the rebels could reload their pieces, he was safe with his companions in the cavern.
He found Cudjo hastily relighting his torch. Virginia was sitting on a stone where Carl had placed her; powerless with the reaction of fear; her countenance, white as that of a snow-image in the gloom, turned upon Penn as if she knew not whether it was really he, or his apparition. She did not rise to meet him. She could not speak. Her eyes were as the eyes of one that beholds a miracle of God's mercy.
"Is no guns here?" cried Carl.
"De men hab all urn's guns,"' said Cudjo, over his kindlings. "Me gwine fotch 'em!" And, his torch lighted, he darted away. In a minute he was out of sight and hearing; only the flame he bore could be seen dancing like an ignis fatuus in the darkness of the cavern.
"O, if I had only that pistol, Carl!" said Penn. "I could manage to defend the chasm with it until they come. But wishes won't help us. Virginia, Deslow has turned traitor! He must have known his friends were going this morning to visit thy father, or else he could not so well have chosen his time for betraying them." He lighted his torch, and lifted Virginia to her feet. "Have no fear. Even if the rebels get possession here, the subterranean passages can be held by a dozen men against a hundred."
"I am not afraid now; I am quite strong."
"That is well. Carl, take the light and go with her."
"And vat shall you do?"
"I will stay and watch the movements of the soldiers."
"Wery goot. But I have vun little obshection."
"What is it?"
"You know the vay petter, and you vill take her safer as I can. But my eyes is wery wigorous, and I vill engage to vatch the cusses myself."
"Thou art right, my Carl!" said Penn, who indeed felt that it was for him, and for no other, to convey Virginia back to her father and safety.
He crept upon the rocks, and took a last observation of the cliffs. Not a soldier was in sight. But that fact did not delight him much.
"They fear a possible shot or two. No doubt they are making preparations, and when all is ready they will descend. I only hope they will delay long enough! Farewell, Carl!"
"Goot pie, Penn! Goot pie, Wirginie!" cried Carl, with stout heart and cheery voice. And as he saw them depart,—Penn's arm supporting her,—listened for the last murmur of their voices, and watched for the last glimmer of the torch as it was swallowed by the darkness, and he was left alone, he continued to smile grimly; but his eyes were dim.
"They are wery happy together! And I susphect the time vill come ven he vill marry her; and then they vill neither of 'em care much for me. Veil, I shall love 'em, and wish 'em happy all the same!"
With which thought he smiled still more resolutely than before, and squeezed the tears from his eyes very tenderly, in order, probably, to keep those useful organs as "wigorous" as possible for the work before him.
Handcuffed and securely bound to the rock, that modern Prometheus, Captain Lysander Sprowl, like his mythical prototype, felt the vulture's beak in his vitals. Chagrin devoured his liver. An overflow of southern bile was the result, and he turned yellow to the whites of his eyes.
Old Toby noticed the phenomenon. Poor old Toby, with that foolish head and large tropical heart of his, knew no better than to feel a movement of compassion.
"Kin uh do any ting fur ye, sar?"
The unfeigned sympathy of the question gave the wily Prometheus his cue. He uttered a feeble moan, and studied to look as much sicker than he was as possible.
Pity at the sight made the old negro forget much which a white man would have been apt to remember—the disgrace this wretch had brought upon "the family;" and the recent cruel whipping, from which his own back was still sore.
"Ye pooty sick, sar?"
"Water!" gasped Lysander.
The patriots had finished their coffee and taken their guns. Toby ran to them.
"Some on ye be so good as keep an eye skinned on de prisoner, while I's gittin' him a drink!"
He hastened with the gourd to a dark interior niche where a little trickling spring dripped, drop by drop, into a basin hollowed in the rocky floor. As he bore it, cool and brimming, to his captive-patient, Withers said,—
"I don't keer! it's a sight to make most white folks ashamed of their Christianity, to see that old nigger waiting on that rascal, 'fore his own back has done smarting!"
"If, as I believe," said Mr. Villars, "men stand approved before God, not for their pride of intellect or of birth, but for the love that is in their hearts, who can doubt but there will be higher seats in heaven for many a poor black man than for their haughty masters?"
"According to that," replied Withers, "maybe some besides the haughty masters will be a little astonished if they ever git into heaven—nigger-haters that won't set in a car, or a meeting-house, or to see a theatre-play, if there's a nigger allowed the same privilege! Now I never was any thing of an emancipationist; but by George! if there's anything I detest, it's this etarnal and unreasonable prejudice agin' niggers! How do you account for it, Mr. Villars?"
"Prejudice," said the old man, "is always a mark of narrowness and ignorance. You might almost, I think, decide the question of a man's Christianity by his answer to this: 'What is your feeling towards the negro?' The larger his heart and mind, the more compassionate and generous will be his views. But where you find most bigotry and ignorance, there you will find the negro hated most violently. I think there are men in the free states whose sins of prejudice and blind passion against the unhappy race are greater than those of the slaveholders themselves."
"Our interest is in our property—that's nat'ral; but what possesses them to want to see the nigger's face held tight to the grindstone, and never let up?" said Withers. "Their howl now is, 'Put down the rebellion! but don't tech slavery, and don't bring in the nigger!' As if, arter dogs had been killing my sheep, you should preach to me, 'Save your sheep, neighbor, but don't agitate the dog question! You mustn't tech the dogs!' I say, if the dogs begin the trouble, they must take the consequences, even if my dog's one."
"They maintain," said Grudd, "that, no matter what slavery may have done, there is no power in the constitution to destroy it."
"I am reminded of a story my daughter Virginia was reading to me not long ago,—how the great polar bear is sometimes killed. The hunter has a spear, near the pointed end of which is securely fastened a strong cross-piece. The bear, you know, is aggressive; he advances, meets the levelled shaft, seizes the cross-piece with his powerful arms, and with a growl of rage hugs the spear-head into his heart. Now, slavery is just such another great, stupid, ferocious monster. The constitution is the spear of Liberty. The cross-piece, if you like, is the republican policy which has been nailed to it, and which has given the bear a hold upon it. He is hugging it into his heart. He is destroying himself."
The story was scarcely ended when Cudjo leaped into the circle, crying,—
"De sogers! de sogers!"
"Where?" said Pomp, instinctively springing to his rifle.
"In de sink! Dey fire onto we and de young lady!"
"Any one hurt?"
"No. Massa Hapgood cotch de bullets in him's hat!" for this was the impression the negro had brought away with him. "Hull passel sogers! Sile Ropes,—seed him fust ob all!"
It was some moments before the patriots fully comprehended this alarming intelligence. But Pomp understood it instantly.
"Gentlemen, will you fight? Your side of the house is attacked!"
There was a moment's confusion. Then those who had not already taken their guns, sprang to them. They had brought lanterns, which were now burning. They plunged into the gallery, following Pomp. Cudjo ran for his sword, drew it from the scabbard, and ran yelling after them.
The sudden tumult died in the depths of the cavern; and all was still again before those left behind had recovered from their astonishment.
There was one whose astonishment was largely mixed with joy. A moment since he was lying like a man near the last gasp; but now he started up, singularly forgetful of his dying condition, until reminded of it by feeling the restraint of the rope and seeing Toby. Lysander sank back with a groan.
"'Pears like you's a little more chirk," said Toby.
"My head! my head!" said Lysander. "My skull is fractured. Can't you loose the rope a little? The strain on my wrists is—" ending the sentence with a faint moan.
Had Toby forgotten the strain onhiswrists, and the anguish of the thumbs, when this same cruel Lysander had him strung up?
"Bery sorry, 'deed, sar! But I can't unloosen de rope fur ye."
And, full of pity as he was, the old negro resolutely remained faithful to his charge. Sprowl tried complaints, coaxing, promises, but in vain.
"Well, then," said he, "I have only one request to make. Let me see my wife, and ask her forgiveness before I die."
"Dat am bery reason'ble; I'll speak to her, sar." And, without losing sight of his prisoner, Toby went to Cudjo's pantry, now Virginia's dressing-room, into which Salina had retreated, and notified her of the dying request.
Salina was in one of her most discontented moods. What had she fled to the mountain for? she angrily asked herself. After the first gush of grateful emotion on meeting her father and sister, she had begun quickly to see that she was not wanted there. Then she looked around despairingly on the dismal accommodations of the cave. She had not that sustaining affection, that nobleness of purpose, which enabled her father and sister to endure so cheerfully all the hardships of their present situation. The rude, coarse life up there, the inconveniences, the miseries, which provoked only smiles of patience from them, filled her with disgust and spleen.
But there was one sorer sight to those irritated eyes than all else they saw—her captive husband. She could not forget that hewasher husband; and, whether she loved or hated him, she could not bear to witness his degradation. Yet she could not keep her eyes off of him; and so she had shut herself up.
"He wishes to speak with me? To ask my forgiveness? Well! he shall have a chance!"
She went and stood over the prisoner, looking down upon him coldly, but with compressed lips.
"Well, what do you want of me?"
Sprowl made a motion for Toby to retire. Humbly the old negro obeyed, feeling that he ought not to intrude upon the interview; yet keeping his eye still on the prisoner, and his hand on the pistol.
"Sal,"—in a low voice, looking up at her, and showing his manacled hands,—"are you pleased to see me in this condition?"
"I'd rather see you dead! If I were you, I'd kill myself!"
"There's a knife on the table behind you. Give it to me, free my hands, and you won't have to repeat your advice."
She merely glanced over her shoulder at the knife, then bent her scowling looks once more on him.
"A captain in the confederate army! outwitted and taken prisoner by a boy! kept a prisoner by an old negro! This, then, is the military glory you bragged of in advance! And I was going to be so proud of being your wife! Well, I am proud!"
There was gall in her words. They made Lysander writhe.
"Bad luck will happen, you know. Once out of this scrape, you'll see what I'll do! Come, Sal, now be good to me."
"Good to you! I've tried that, and what did I get for it?"
"I own I've given you good cause to hate me. I'm sorry for it. The truth is, we never understood each other, Sal. You was always quick and sharp yourself; you'll confess that. You know how easy it is to irritate me; and I'm a devil when in a passion. But all that's past. Hate me, if you will—I deserve it. But you don't want to see me eternally disgraced, I know."
She laughed disdainfully. "If you will disgrace yourself, how can I help it?"
"The other end of the cave is attacked, and it is sure to be carried. I shall soon be in the hands of my own men. If I don't succeed in doing something for myself first, it'll be impossible for me to regain the position I've lost."
"Well, do something for yourself! What hinders you?"
"This cursed rope! I wouldn't mind the handcuffs if the rope was away. Just a touch with that knife—that's all, Sal."
"Yes! and then what would you do?"
"Run."
"And lose no time in sending your men to attack this end of the cave, too! O, I know you!"
"I swear to you, Sal! I never will take advantage of it in that way, if you will do me just this little favor. It will be worth my life to me; and it shall cost you nothing, nor your friends."
"Hush! I know too well what your promises amount to. How can I depend even upon your oath? There's no truth or honor in you!"
"Well?" said Lysander, despairingly.
"Well, I am going to help you, for all that. Only it must not appear as if I did it. And you shall keep your oath,—or one of us shall die for it! Now be still!"
She walked back past the block that served as a table, and, when between it and Toby, quietly took the knife from it, concealing it in her sleeve.
"Don't come for me to hear any more dying requests," she said to the old negro, with a sneer. "Your prisoner will survive. Only give him a little coffee, if there is any. Here is some: I will wait upon him."
And, carrying the coffee, she dropped the knife at Lysander's side.
Five minutes later Penn and Virginia arrived. Penn ran eagerly for his musket. At the same time, looking about the cave, he was surprised to see only the old clergyman sitting by the fire, and Prometheus reclining by his rock.
"Where is Salina? Where is Toby?"
"Toby has just left his charge to see what discovery Salina has made outside. She went out previously and thought she saw soldiers."
At that moment Toby came running in.
"Dar's some men way down by the ravine! O, sar! I's bery glad you's come, sar!"
Having announced the discovery, and greeted Penn and Virginia, he went to look at his prisoner. He had been absent from him but a minute: he found him lying as he had left him, and did not reflect, simple old soul, how much may be secretly accomplished by a desperate villain in that brief space of time.
Penn took Pomp's glass, climbed along the rocky shelf, peered over the thickets, and saw on the bank of the ravine, where Salina pointed them out to him, several men. They were some distance below Gad's Leap (as he named the place where the spy met his death), and seemed to be occupied in extinguishing a fire. He levelled the glass. The recent burning of the trees and undergrowth had cleared the field for its operation. His eye sparkled as he lowered it.
"I recognize one of our friends in a new uniform!"—handing the glass to Salina.
Returning to the cave, he added, in Virginia's ear,—
"Augustus Bythewood!"
The bright young brow contracted: "Not coming here?"
"I trust not. Yet his proximity means mischief. Pomp will be interested!"
He took his torch and gun. There was no time for adieus. In a moment he was gone. There was one who had been waiting with anxious eyes and handcuffed hands to see him go.
Meanwhile Mr. Villars had called Toby to him, and said, in a low voice,—
"Is all right with your prisoner?"
"O, yes; he am bery quiet, 'pears like."
"You must look out for him. He is crafty. I feel that all is not right. When you were out, I thought I heard something like the sawing or tearing of a cord. Look to him, Toby."
"O, yes, sar, I shall!" And the confident old negro approached the rock.
There lay the rope about the base of it, still firmly tied on the side opposite the prisoner. And there crouched he, in the same posture of durance as before, except that now he had his legs well under him. His handcuffed hands lay on the rope.
"Right glad ter see ye convanescent, sar!"
Toby was bending over, examining his captive with a grin of satisfaction; when the latter, in a weak voice, made a humble request.
"I wish you would put on my cap."
"Wiv all de pleasure in de wuld, sar."
The cap had been thrown off purposely. Unsuspecting old Toby! The pistol was in his pocket. He stooped to pick up the cap and place it on Sprowl's head; when, like a jumping devil in a box when the cover is touched, up leaped Lysander on his legs, knocking him down with the handcuffs, and springing over him.
Before the old man was fully aware of what had happened, and long before he had regained his feet, Lysander was in the thickets. In his hurry he thrust his wife remorselessly from the ledge before him, and flung her rudely down upon the sharp boughs and stones, as he sped by her. There Toby found her, when he came too late with his pistol. Her hands were cut; but she did not care for her hands. Ingratitude wounds more cruelly than sharp-edged rocks.
Penn had judged correctly in two particulars. Deslow had turned traitor. And the personage in the new uniform down by the ravine was Lieutenant-Colonel Bythewood.
Deslow had gone straight to head-quarters after quitting Withers the previous night, given himself up, taken the oath of allegiance to the confederacy, and engaged to join the army or provide a substitute. As if this were not enough, he had also been required to expose the secret retreat of his late companions. To this, we know not whether reluctantly, he had consented; and it was this act of treachery that had brought Silas Ropes to the sink, and Bythewood to the ravine.
Advantage had been taken of the fog in the morning to march back again, up the mountain, the men who had marched down, baffled and inglorious, after the wild-goose chase Carl led them the night before. Bythewood commanded the expedition at his own request, being particularly interested in two persons it was designed to capture—Virginia and Pomp. It is supposed that he took a sinister interest in Penn also.
But Bythewood was not anxious to deprive Ropes of his laurels; and perhaps he felt himself to be too fine a gentleman to mix in a vulgar fight. He accordingly sent Ropes forward to surprise the patriots at the sink, while he moved with a small force cautiously up towards Gad's Leap, with two objects in view. One was, to make some discovery, if possible, with regard to the missing Lysander; the other, to intercept the retreat of the fugitives, should they be driven from the cave through the opening unknown to Deslow, but which he believed to be in this direction.
The firing on the right apprised Augustus that the attack had commenced. This was the signal for him to advance boldly up from the ravine, and establish himself on an elevation commanding a view of the slopes. Here he had been discovered very opportunely by Salina, who was seeking some pretext for calling Toby from his prisoner. In the shade of some bushes that had escaped the fire, he sat comfortably smoking his cigar on one end of a log, which was smoking on its own account at the other end.
"Put out that fire, some of you," said Augustus.
This was scarcely done, when suddenly a man came leaping down the slope, holding his hands together in a very singular manner. Bythewood started to his feet.
"Deuce take me!" said he, "if it ain't Lysander! But what's the matter with his hands, sergeant?"
"Looks to me as though he had bracelets on," replied the experienced sergeant.
Some men were despatched to meet and bring the captain in. The sergeant found a key in his pocket to unlock the handcuffs. Then Lysander told the story of his capture, which, though modified to suit himself, excited Bythewood's derision. This stung the proud captain, who, to wash the stain from his honor, proposed to take a squad of men and surprise the cave.
Fired by the prospect of seeing Virginia in his power, Augustus had but one important order to give: "Bring your prisoners to me here!"
Instead of proceeding directly to the cave, Lysander used strategy. He knew that if his movements were observed, and their object suspected, Virginia would have ample time to escape with her father and old Toby into the interior caverns, where it might be extremely difficult to discover them. He accordingly started in the direction of the sink, as if with intent to reënforce the soldiers fighting there; then, dropping suddenly into a hollow, he made a short turn to the left, and advanced swiftly, under cover of rocks and bushes, towards the ledge that concealed the cave.
"Howcouldyou let him go, Toby!" cried Virginia, filled with consternation at the prisoner's escape. For she saw all the mischievous consequences that were likely to follow in the track of that fatal error: Cudjo's secret, so long faithfully kept, now in evil hour betrayed; the cave attacked and captured, and the brave men fighting at the sink, believing their retreat secure, taken suddenly in the rear; and so disaster, if not death, resulting to her father, to Penn, to all.
The anguish of her tones pierced the poor old negro's soul.
"Dunno', missis, no more'n you do! 'Pears like he done gnawed off de rope wiv his teef!" For Lysander, having used the knife, had hidden it under the skins on which he sat.
Then Salina spoke, and denounced herself. After all the pains she had taken to conceal her agency in Sprowl's escape,—inconsistent, impetuous, filled with rage against herself and him,—she exclaimed,—
"I did it! Here is the knife I gave him!"
Virginia stood white and dumb, looking at her sister. Toby could only tear his old white wool and groan.
"Salina," said her father, solemnly, "you have done a very treacherous and wicked thing! I pity you!"
Severest reproaches could not have stung her as these words, and the terrified look of her sister, stung the proud and sensitive Salina.
"I have done a damnable thing! I know it. Do you ask what made me? The devil made me. I knew it was the devil at the time; but I did it."
"O, what shall we do, father?" said Virginia.
"There is nothing you can do, my daughter, unless you can reach our friends and warn them."
"O," she said, in despair, "there is not a lamp or a torch! All have been taken!"
"And it is well! It would take you at least an hour to go and return; and that man—" Mr. Villars would never, if he could help it, speak Lysander's name—"will be here again before that time, if he is coming."
"He is not coming," said Salina. "He swore to me that he would not take advantage of his escape to betray or injure any of you. He will keep his oath. If he does not——"
She paused. There was a long, painful silence; the old man musing, Virginia wringing her hands, Toby keeping watch outside.
"Listen!" said Salina. "I am a woman. But I will defend this place. I will stand there, and not a man shall enter till I am dead. As for you, Jinny, takehim, and go. You can hide somewhere in the caves. Leave me and Toby. I will not ask you to forgive me; but perhaps some time you will think differently of me from what you do now."
"Sister!" said Virginia, with emotion, "I do forgive you! God will forgive you too; for he knows better than we do how unhappy you have been, and that you could not, perhaps, have done differently from what you have done."
Salina was touched. She threw her arms about Virginia's neck.
"O, I have been a bad, selfish girl! I have made both you and father very unhappy; and you have been only too kind to me always! Now leave me alone—go! I hope I shall not trouble you much longer."
She brushed back her hair from her large white forehead, and smiled a strange and vacant smile. Virginia saw that her wish was to die.
"Sister," she said gently, "we will all stay together, if you stay. We must not give up this place! Our friends are lost—we are lost—if we give it up! Perhaps we can do something. Indeed, I think we can! If we only had arms! Women have used arms before now!"
Toby entered. "Dey ain't comin' dis yer way, nohow! Dey's gwine off to de norf, hull passel on 'em."
"Give me that pistol, Toby," said Salina. "You can use Cudjo's axe, if we are attacked. Place it where you can reach it, and then return to your lookout. Don't be deceived; but warn us at once if there is danger."
"My children," said the old man, "come near to me! I would I could look upon you once; for I feel that a separation is near. Dear daughters!"—he took a hand of each,—"if I am to leave you, grieve not for me; but love one another.Love one another.To you, Salina, more especially, I say this; for though I know that deep down in your heart there is a fountain of affection, you are apt to repress your best feelings, and to cherish uncharitable thoughts. For your own good, O, do not do so any more! Believe in God. Be a child of God. Then no misfortune can happen to you. My children, there is no great misfortune, other than this—to lose our faith in God, and our love for one another. I do not fear bodily harm, for that is comparatively nothing. For many years I have been blind; yet have I been blest with sight; for night and day I have seen God. And as there is a more precious sight than that of the eyes, so there is a more precious life than this of the body. The life of the spirit is love and faith. Let me know that you have this, and I shall no longer fear for you. You will be happy, wherever you are. Why is it I feel such trust that Virginia will be provided for? Salina, let your heart be like hers, and I shall no longer fear for you!"
"I wish it was! I wish it was!" said Salina, pouring out the anguish of her heart in those words. "But I cannot make it so. I cannot be good! I am—Salina! Is there fatality in a name?"
"I know the infirmity of your natural disposition, my child. I know, too, what circumstances have done to embitter it. Our heavenly Father will take all that into account. Yet there is no one who has not within himself faults and temptations to contend with. Many have far greater than yours to combat, and yet they conquer gloriously. I cannot say more. My children, the hour has come which is to decide much for us all. Remember my legacy to you,—Have Faith and Love."
They knelt before him. He laid his hands upon their heads, and in a brief and fervent prayer blessed them. Both were sobbing. Tears ran down his cheeks also; but his countenance was bright in its uplifted serenity, wearing a strange expression of grandeur and of joy.
Pomp, rifle in hand, bearing a torch, led the patriots on their rapid return through the caverns.
"Lights down!" he said, as they approached the vicinity of the sink. "We shall see them; but they must not see us."
They halted at the natural bridge; the torch was extinguished, and the patriots placed their lanterns under a rock. They then advanced as swiftly as possible in the obscurity, along the bank of the stream. In the hall of the bats they met Carl, who had seen their lights and come towards them.
"Hurry! hurry!" he said. "They are coming down the trees like the devil's monkeys! a whole carawan proke loose!"
Captain Grudd commanded the patriots; but Pomp commanded Captain Grudd.
"Quick, and make no noise! We have every advantage; the darkness is on our side—those loose rocks will shelter us."
They advanced until within a hundred yards of where the shaft of daylight came down. There they could distinguish, in the shining cleft under the brow of the cavern, and above the rocky embankment, the forms of their assailants. Some had already gained a footing. Others were descending the tree-trunks in a dark chain, each link the body of a rebel.
"We must stop that!" said Pomp.
The men were deployed forward rapidly, and a halt ordered, each choosing his position.
"Ready! Aim!"
At that moment, half a dozen men of the attacking party advanced, feeling their way over the rocks down which Penn and his companions had been seen to escape. The leader, shielding his eyes with his hand, peered into the gloom of the cavern. Coming from the light, he could see nothing distinctly. Suddenly he paused: had he heard the words of command whispered? or was he impressed by the awful mystery and silence?
"Fire!" said Captain Grudd.
Instantly a jagged line of flashes leaped across the breast of the darkness, accompanied by a detonation truly terrible. Each gun with its echoes, in those cavernous solitudes, thundered like a whole park of artillery: what, then, was the effect of the volley? The patriots were themselves appalled by it. The mountain trembled, and a gusty roar swept through its shuddering chambers, throbbing and pulsing long after the smoke of the discharge had cleared away.
Pomp laughed quietly, while Withers exclaimed, "By the Etarnal! if I didn't fancy the hull ruf of the mountain had caved in!"
"Load!" said Captain Grudd, sternly.
The rebels advancing over the rocks had suddenly disappeared, having either fallen in the crevices or scrambled back up the bank while hidden from view by the smoke. The chain descending the tree had broken; those near the ground leaped down or slid, while those above seemed seized by a wild impulse to climb back with all haste to the summit of the wall. A few threw away their guns, which fell upon the heads of those below. At the same time those below might have been seen scampering to places of shelter behind rocks and trees.
If ever panic were excusable, this surely was. Since the patriots were terrified by their own firing, we need not wonder at the alarm of the rebels. Some had seen the flashes sever the darkness, and their comrades fall; while all had felt the earthquake and the thundering. To those at the entrance it had seemed that these were the jaws and throat of a monster mountain-huge, which at their approach spat flame and bellowed.
"Now is our time! Clear them out!" said Grudd.
"Rush in and finish them with the bayonet!" said Stackridge. Six of the guns had bayonets, and his was one of them.
"Not yet!" said Pomp. "They will fire on you from above. We must first attend to that. Shall I show you? Then do as I do!"
Instinctively they accepted his lead. Loading his piece, he ran forward until, himself concealed under the brow of the cavern, he could see the rebels in the tree and on the cliff.
"Once more! All together!" he said, taking aim. "Give the word, captain!"
The men knelt among the loosely tumbled rocks, which served at once as a breastwork and as rests for their guns. The projecting roof of the cave was over them; through the obscure opening they pointed their pieces. Above them, in the full light, were the frightened confederates, some on the tree, some on the cliff, some leaping from the tree to the cliff; while their comrades in the sink lurked on the side opposite that where the patriots were.
"Take the cusses on the top of the rocks!" said Stackridge. "The rest are harmless."
"It's all them in the tree can do to take keer of themselves," added Withers. "Reg'lar secesh! All they ax is to be let alone."
Grudd gave the word. Flame from a dozen muzzles shot upwards from the edge of the pit. When the smoke rolled away, the cliff was cleared. Not a rebel was to be seen, except those in the tree franticly scrambling to get out, and two others. One of these had fallen on the cliff: his head and one arm hung horribly over the brink. The other, in his too eager haste to escape from the tree, had slipped from the limb, and been saved from dashing to pieces on the rocks below only by a projection of the wall, to which he had caught, and where he now clung, a dozen feet from the top, and far above the river that rolled black and slow in its channel beneath the cliff.
"Now with your bayonets!" said Pomp. "This way!"
There were six bayonets before; now there were eight.
"That Carl is worth his weight in gold!" said the enthusiastic Stackridge.
While the patriots, preparing for their second volley, were getting positions among the rocks on the left, Carl had crept up the embankment in front, and brought away two muskets from two dead rebels. These were they who had fallen at the first fire. Both guns had bayonets. Pomp took one; Carl kept the other. Cudjo with his sword accompanied the charging party; Grudd and the rest remaining at their post, ready to pick off any rebel that should appear on the cliff.
Swift and stealthy as a panther, Pomp crept around still farther to the left, under the projecting wall, raising his head cautiously now and then to look for the fugitives.
"As I expected! They are over there, afraid to follow the stream into the cave, and hesitating whether to make a rush for the tree. All ready?"
He looked around on his little force and smiled. Instead of eight bayonets, there were now nine. Penn had arrived.
"All ready!" answered Stackridge.
Pomp bounded upon the rocks and over them, with a yell which the rest took up as they followed, charging headlong after him. Cudjo, brandishing his sword, leaped and yelled with the foremost—a figure fantastically terrible. Penn, with the fiery Stackridge on one side, and his beloved Carl on the other, forgot that he had ever been a Quaker, hating strife. Not that he loved it now; but, remembering that these were the deadly foes of his country, and of those he loved, and feeling it a righteous duty to exterminate them, he went to the work, not like an apprentice, but a master,—without fear, self-possessed, impetuous, kindled with fierce excitement.
The rebels in the sink, fifteen in number, had had time to rally from their panic; and they now seemed inclined to make resistance. They were behind a natural breastwork, similar to that which had sheltered the patriots on the other side. They levelled their guns hastily and fired. One of the patriots fell: it was Withers.
"Give it to them!" shouted Pomp.
"Every cussed scoundrel of 'em!" Stackridge cried.
"Kill! kill! kill!" shrieked Cudjo.
"Surrender! surrender!" thundered Penn.
With such cries they charged over the rocks, straight at the faces and breasts of the confederates. Some turned to fly; but beyond them was the unknown darkness into which the river flowed: they recoiled aghast from that. A few stood their ground. The bayonet, which Penn had first made acquaintance with when it was thrust at his own breast, he shoved through the shoulder of a rebel whose clubbed musket was descending on Carl's head. Three inches of the blade come out of his back; and, bearing him downwards in his irresistible onset, Penn literally pinned him to the ground. Cudjo slashed another hideously across the face with the sword. Pomp took the first prisoner: it was Dan Pepperill. The rest soon followed Dan's example, cried quarter, and threw down their arms.
"Quarter!" gasped the wretch Penn had pinned.
"You spoke too late—I am sorry!" said Penn, with austere pity, as, placing his foot across the man's armpit to hold him while he pulled, he put forth his strength, and drew out the steel. A gush of blood followed, and, with a groan, the soldier swooned.
"It is one of them wagabonds that gave you the tar and fedders!" said Carl.
"And assisted at my hanging afterwards!" added Penn, remembering the ghastly face.
Thus retribution followed these men. Gad and Griffin he had seen dead. Was it any satisfaction for him to feel that he was thus avenged? I think, not much. The devil of revenge had no place in his soul; and never for any personal wrong he had received would he have wished to see bloody violence done.
The prisoners were disarmed, and ordered to remain where they were.
"Bring the wounded to me," said Pomp, hastening back to the spot where Withers had fallen.
Stackridge and another were lifting the fallen patriot and bearing him to the shelter of the cave. Pomp assisted, skilfully and tenderly. Then followed those who bore away the wounded prisoners and the guns that had been captured. Pepperill had been ordered to help. He and Carl carried the man whose face Cudjo had slashed. This was the only rebel who had fought obstinately: he had not given up until an arm was broken, and he was blinded by his own blood. Penn and Devitt brought up the rear with the swooning soldier. When half way over they were fired upon by the rebels rallying to the edge of the cliff. Grudd and his men responded sharply, covering their retreat. Penn felt a bullet graze his shoulder. It made but a slight flesh wound there; but, passing down, it entered the heart of the wounded man, whose swoon became the swoon of death. This was the only serious result of the confederate fire.
"I am glad I did not kill him!" said Penn, as they laid the corpse beside the stream.
Then out of the mask of blood which covered the face of the stout fellow who had fought so well, there issued a voice that spoke, in a strange tongue, these words:—
"Was hat man mir gethan? Wo bin ich, mutter?"
But the words were not strange to Carl; neither was the voice strange.
"Fritz! Fritz!" he answered, in the same language, "is it you?"
"I am Fritz Minnevich; that is true. And you, I think, are my cousin Carl."
They laid the wounded man near the stream, where Pomp was examining Withers's hurt.
"O, Fritz!" said Carl, "how came you here?"
"They said the Yankees were coming to take our farm. So Hans and I enlisted to fight. I got in here because I was ordered. We do as we are ordered. It was we who whipped the woman. We whipped her well. I hope my good looks will not be spoiled; for that would grieve our mother."
Thus the soldier talked in his native tongue, while Carl, in sorrow and silence, washed the blood from his face. He remembered he was his father's brother's son; a good fellow, in his way; dull, but faithful; and he had not always treated him cruelly. Indeed, Carl thought not of his cruelty now at all, but only of the good times they had had together, in days when they were friends, and Frau Minnevich had not taught her boys to be as ill-natured as herself.
"What for do you do this, Carl?" said Fritz. "There is no cause that you should be kind to me. I did you some ill turns. You did right to run away. But our father swears you shall have your share of the property if you ever come back for it, and the Yankees do not take it."
"It is all lies they tell you about the Yankees!" said Carl. "O Pomp! this is my cousin—see what you can do for him."
Pomp had been reluctantly convinced that he could do nothing for Withers: his wound was mortal. And Withers had said to him, in cheerful, feeble tones, "I feel I'm about to the eend of my tether. So don't waste yer time on me."
So Pomp turned his attention to the Minnevich. But Penn and Stackridge remained with the dying patriot.
"Wish ye had a Union flag to wrap me in when I'm dead, boys! That's what I've fit fur; that's what I meant to die fur, if 'twas so ordered. It's all right, boys! Jest look arter my family a little, won't ye? And don't give up old Tennessee!"
These were his last words.
Penn and Stackridge rejoined their comrades in the fight.
"Shoot him! shoot him! shoot him!" cried Cudjo, in a frenzy of excitement, pointing at the rebel who had fallen from the tree upon the projection of the chasm wall. "Him dar! Dat Sile Ropes!"
"Ropes?" said Penn, looking up through the opening. "That he!"—raising his gun. "But he can do no harm there; and he can't get out."
"Don' ye see? Dey's got a rope to help him wif! Gib him a shot fust! O, gib him a shot!"
The projection to which the lieutenant clung was a broken shelf less than half a yard in breadth. There he cowered in abject terror betwixt two dangers, that of falling if he attempted to move, and that of being picked off if he remained stationary and in sight. To avoid both, he got upon his hands and knees, and hid his face in the angle of the ledge, leaving the posterior part of his person prominent, no doubt thinking, like an ostrich, that if his head was in a hole, he was safe. The very ludicrousness of his situation saved him. The patriots reserved him to laugh at, and fired over him at the rebels on the cliff. At each shot, Silas could be seen to root his nose still more industriously into the rock. At length, however, as Cudjo had declared, a rope was brought and let down to him.
"Take hold there!" shouted the rebels on the cliff. Ropes could feel the cord dangling on his back. "Tie it around your waist!"
Silas, without daring to look up, put out his hand, which groped awkwardly and blindly for the rope as it swung to and fro all around it. Finally, he seized it, but ran imminent risk of falling as he drew it under his body. At length he seemed to have it secured; but in his hurry and trepidation he had fastened it considerably nearer his hips than his arms. The result, when the rebels above began to haul, can be imagined. Hips and heels were hoisted, while arms and head hung down, causing him to resemble very strikingly a frog hooked on for bait at the end of a fish-line. The affrighted face drawn out of its hole, looked down ridiculously hideous into the rocky and bristling gulf over which he swung.
"Fire!" said Captain Grudd.
The volley was aimed, not at Silas, but at those who were hauling him up. Cudjo shrieked with frantic joy, expecting to see his old enemy plunge head foremost among the stones on the bank of the stream. Such, no doubt, would have been the result, but for one sturdy and brave fellow at the rope. The rest, struck either with bullets or terror, fell back, loosing their hold. But this man clung fast, imperturbable. Alone, slowly, hand over hand, he hauled and hauled; grim, unterrified, faithful. But it was a tedious and laborious task for one, even the stoutest. The man had but a precarious foothold, and the rope rubbed hard on the edge of the cliff. Cudjo shrieked again, this time with despair at seeing his former overseer about to escape.
"That's a plucky fellow!" said Stackridge, with stern admiration of the soldier's courage. "I like his grit; but he must stop that!"
He reached for a loaded gun. He took Carl's. The boy turned pale, but said never a word, setting his lips firmly as he looked up at the cliff. Silas was swinging. The soldier was pulling in the rope, hitch by hitch, over the ledge. Stackridge took deliberate aim, and fired.
For a moment no very surprising effect was perceptible, only the man stopped hauling. Then he went down on one knee, paying out several inches of the rope, and letting the suspended Silas dip accordingly. It became evident that he was hit; he still grasped the rope, but it began to glide through his hands. Silas set up a howl.
"Hold me! hold me!"—at the same time extending all his fingers to grasp the rocks.
The brave fellow made one last effort, and took a turn of the rope about his wrist. It did not slip through his hands any more. But soonhebegan to slip—forward—forward—on both knees now—his head reeling like that of a drunken man, and at last pitching heavily over the cliff.
Some of the cowards who had deserted their post sprang to save him; but too late: the man was gone.
It was fortunate for Silas that he had been let down several feet thus gradually. He was near the ledge from which he had been lifted, and had just time to grasp it again and crawl upon it, when the man fell, turning a complete somerset over him, fearful to witness! revolving slowly in his swift descent through the air; still holding with tenacious grip the rope; plunging through the boughs like a mere log tumbled from the cliff, and striking the rocks below—dead.
He had taken the rope with him; and Silas had been preserved from sharing his fate only by a lucky accident. The knot at his hips loosened itself as he clutched the ledge, and let the coil fly off as the man shot down.
Not a gun was fired: rebels and patriots seemed struck dumb with horror at the brave fellow's fate. Then Carl whispered,—
"That vas my other cousin! That vas Hans!"
"Cudjo! Cudjo! what are you about?" cried Penn.
The black did not answer. Beside himself with excitement, he ran to the leaning tree and climbed it like an ape. The naked sword gleamed among the twigs. Reaching the trunk of the tall tree he ascended that as nimbly, never stopping until he had reached the upper limbs. There was one that branched towards the ledge where Silas clung. At a glance choosing that, Cudjo ran out upon it, until it bent beneath his weight. There he tried in vain to reach his ancient enemy with the sword; the distance was too great, even for his long arms.
"Sile Ropes! ye ol' oberseer! g'e know Cudjo? Me Cudjo!" he yelled, slashing the end of the branch as if it had been his victim's flesh. "'Member de lickins? 'Member my gal ye got away? Now ye git yer pay!"
While he was raving thus, one of the soldiers above, sheltering himself from the fire of the patriots by lying almost flat on the ground, levelled his gun at the half-crazed negro's breast, and pulled the trigger.
A flash—a report—the sword fell, and went clattering down upon the rocks. Cudjo turned one wild look upward, clapping his hand to his breast. Then, with a terrible grimace, he cast his eyes down again at Ropes,—crept still farther out on the branch,—and leaped.
Silas had his nose in the angle of the ledge again, and scarcely knew what had happened until he felt the negro alight on his back and fling his arms about him.
"Cudjo shot! Cudjo die! But you go too, Sile Ropes!"
As he gibbered forth these words, his long hands found the lieutenant's throat, and tightened upon it. A fearfully quiet moment ensued; then living and dying rolled together from the ledge, and dropped into the chasm. They struck the body of the dead Hans; that broke the fall; and Cudjo was beneath his victim. Ropes, stunned only, struggled to rise; but, held in that deadly embrace, he only succeeded in rolling himself down the embankment, Cudjo accompanying. The stream flowed beneath, black, with scarce a murmur. Silas neither saw nor heard it; but, continuing to struggle, and so continuing to roll, he reached the verge of the rocks, and fell with a splash into the current.
Penn ran to the spot just in time to see the two bodies disappear together; the dying Cudjo and the drowning Silas sinking as one, and drifting away into the cavernous darkness of the subterranean river.