"It was a rash and b.l.o.o.d.y deed, and I would we had made sure of your man before blindly rushing into these unnecessary risks. It is owing to your insane love of blood, that you so frequently blunder in your object"

"Your scruples and complainings, Wat, remind me of that farmyard philosopher, who always locked the door of his stable after the steed had been stolen. You have your sermon ready in time for the funeral, but not during the life for whose benefit you make it. But whose fault was it that we followed the wrong game? Did you not make certain of the fresh track at the fork, so that there was no doubting you?"

"I did--there was a fresh track, and our coming upon Forrester proves it. There may have been another on the other p.r.o.ng of the fork, and doubtless the youth we pursue has taken that; but you were in such an infernal hurry that I had scarce time to find out what I did."

"Well, you will preach no more on the subject. We have failed, and accounting for won't mend the failure. As for this bull-headed fellow, he deserves his fate for his old insolence. He was for ever putting himself in my way, and may not complain that I have at last put him out of it. But come, we have no further need to remain here, though just as little to pursue further in the present condition of our horses."

"What shall we do with the body? we can not leave it here."

"Why not?--What should we do with it, I pray? The wolves may want a dinner to-morrow, and I would be charitable. Yet stay--where is the dirk which you found at the stable? Give it me."

"What would you do?"

"You shall see. Forrester's horse is off--fairly frightened, and will take the route back to the old range. He will doubtless go to old Allen's clearing, and carry the first news. There will be a search, and when they find the body, they will not overlook the weapon, which I shall place beside it. There will then be other pursuers than me; and if it bring the boy to the gallows, I shall not regret our mistake to night."

As he spoke, he took the dagger, the sheath of which he threw at some distance in advance upon the road, then smeared the blade with the blood of the murdered man, and thrust the weapon into his garments, near the wound.

"You are well taught in the profession, Guy, and, if you would let me, I would leave it off, if for no other reason than the very shame of being so much outdone in it. But we may as well strip him. If his gold is in his pouch, it will be a spoil worth the taking, for he has been melting and running for several days past at Murkey's furnace."

Rivers turned away, and the feeling which his countenance exhibited might have been that of disdainful contempt as he replied,

"Take it, if you please--I am in no want of his money. _My_ object was not his robbery."

The scorn was seemingly understood; for, without proceeding to do as he proposed, Munro retained his position for a few moments, appearing to busy himself with the bridle of his horse, having adjusted which he returned to his companion.

"Well, are you ready for a start? We have a good piece to ride, and should be in motion. We have both of us much to do in the next three days, or rather nights; and need not hesitate what to take hold of first. The court will sit on Monday, and if you are determined to stand and see it out--a plan which I don't altogether like--why, we must prepare to get rid of such witnesses as we may think likely to become troublesome."

"That matter will be seen to. I have ordered Dillon to have ten men in readiness, if need be for so many, to carry off Pippin, and a few others, till the adjournment. It will be a dear jest to the lawyer, and one not less novel than terrifying to him, to miss a court under such circ.u.mstances. I take it, he has never been absent from a session for twenty years; for, if sick before, he is certain to get well in time for business, spite of his physician."

The grim smile which disfigured still more the visage of Rivers at the ludicrous a.s.sociation which the proposed abduction of the lawyer awakened in his mind, was reflected fully back from that of his companion, whose habit of face, however, in this respect, was more notorious for gravity than any other less stable expression. He carried out, in words, the fancied occurrence; described the lawyer as raving over his undocketed and unargued cases, and the numberless embryos lying composedly in his pigeonholes, awaiting, with praiseworthy patience, the moment when they should take upon them a local habitation and a name; while he, upon whom they so much depended, was fretting with una.s.suaged fury in the constraints of his prison, and the absence from that scene of his repeated triumphs which before had never been at a loss for his presence.

"But come--let us mount," said the landlord, who did not feel disposed to lose much time for a jest. "There is more than this to be done yet in the village; and, I take it, you feel in no disposition to waste more time to-night. Let us be off"

"So say I, but I go not back with you, Wat. I strike across the woods into the other road, where I have much to see to; besides going down the branch to Dixon's Ford, and Wolf's Neck, where I must look up our men and have them ready. I shall not be in the village, therefore, until late to-morrow night--if then."

"What--you are for the crossroads, again," said Munro. "I tell you what, Guy, you must have done with that girl before Lucy shall be yours. It's bad enough--bad enough that she should be compelled to look to you for love. It were a sad thing if the little she might expect to find were to be divided between two or more."

"Pshaw--you are growing Puritan because of the dark. I tell you I have done with _her_. I can not altogether forget what she was, nor what I have made her; and just at this time she is in need of my a.s.sistance.

Good-night! I shall see Dillon and the rest of them by morning, and prepare for the difficulty. My disguise shall be complete, and if you are wise you will see to your own. I would not think of flight, for much may be made out of the country, and I know of none better for our purposes. Good-night!"

Thus saying, the outlaw struck into the forest, and Munro, lingering until he was fairly out of sight, proceeded to rifle the person of Forrester--an act which the disdainful manner and language of his companion had made him hitherto forbear. The speech of Rivers on this subject had been felt; and, taken in connection with the air of authority which the mental superiority of the latter had necessarily imparted to his address, there was much in it highly offensive to the less adventurous ruffian. A few moments sufficed to effect the lightening of the woodman's purse of the earnings which had been so essential a feature in his dreams of cottage happiness; and while engaged in this transfer, the discontent of the landlord with his colleague in crime, occasionally broke out into words--

"He carries himself highly, indeed; and I must stand reproved whenever it pleases his humor. Well, I am in for it now, and there is no chance of my getting safely out of the sc.r.a.pe just at this moment; but the day will come, and, by G-d! I will have a settlement that'll go near draining his heart of all the blood in it."

As he spoke in bitterness he approached his horse, and flinging the bridle over his neck, was in a little while a good distance on his way from the scene of blood; over which Silence now folded her wings, brooding undisturbed, as if nothing had taken place below; so little is the sympathy which the transient and inanimate nature appears, at any time, to exhibit, with that to the enjoyment of which it yields the bloom and odor of leaf and flower, soft zephyrs and refreshing waters.

CHAPTER XXIV.

THE FATES FAVOR THE FUGITIVE.

Let us now return to our young traveller, whose escape we have already narrated.

Utterly unconscious of the melancholy circ.u.mstance which had diverted his enemies from the pursuit of himself, he had followed studiously the parting directions of the young maiden, to whose n.o.ble feeling and fearless courage he was indebted for his present safety; and taken the almost _blind_ path which she had hastily described to him. On this route he had for some time gone, with a motion not extravagantly free, but sufficiently so, having the start, and with the several delays to which his pursuers had been subjected, to have escaped the danger--while the vigor of his steed lasted--even had they fallen on the proper route.

He had proceeded in this way for several miles, when, at length, he came upon a place whence several roads diverged into opposite sections of the country. Ignorant of the localities, he reined in his horse, and deliberated with himself for a few moments as to the path he should pursue. While thus engaged, a broad glare of flame suddenly illumined the woods on his left hand, followed with the shrieks, equally sudden, seemingly of a woman.

There was no hesitation in the action of the youth. With unscrupulous and fearless precipitation, he gave his horse the necessary direction, and with a smart application of the rowel, plunged down the narrow path toward the spot from whence the alarm had arisen. As he approached, the light grew more intense, and he at length discovered a little cottage-like dwelling, completely embowered in thick foliage, through the crevices of which the flame proceeded, revealing the cause of terror, and illuminating for some distance the dense woods around. The shrieks still continued; and throwing himself from his horse, Ralph darted forward, and with a single and sudden application of his foot, struck the door from its hinges, and entered the dwelling just in time to save its inmates from the worst of all kinds of death.

The apartment was in a light blaze--the drapery of a couch which stood in one corner partially consumed, and, at the first glance, the whole prospect afforded but little hope of a successful struggle with the conflagration. There was no time to be lost, yet the scene was enough to have paralyzed the nerves of the most heroic action.

On the couch thus circ.u.mstanced lay an elderly lady, seemingly in the very last stages of disease. She seemed only at intervals conscious of the fire. At her side, in a situation almost as helpless as her own, was the young female whose screams had first awakened the attention of the traveller. She lay moaning beside the couch, shrieking at intervals, and though in momentary danger from the flames, which continued to increase, taking no steps for their arrest. Her only efforts were taken to raise the old woman from the couch, and to this, the strength of the young one was wholly unequal. Ralph went manfully to work, and had the satisfaction of finding success in his efforts. With a fearless hand he tore down the burning drapery which curtained the windows and couch; and which, made of light cotton stuffs, presented a ready auxiliar to the progress of the destructive element. Striking down the burning shutter with a single blow, he admitted the fresh air, without which suffocation must soon have followed, and throwing from the apartment such of the furniture as had been seized upon by the flames, he succeeded in arresting their farther advance.

All this was the work of a few moments. There had been no word of intercourse between the parties, and the youth now surveyed them with looks of curious inquiry, for the first time. The invalid, as we have said, was apparently struggling with the last stages of natural decay.

Her companion was evidently youthful, in spite of those marks which even the unstudied eye might have discerned in her features, of a temper and a spirit subdued and put to rest by the world's strife and trial, and by afflictions which are not often found to crowd and to make up the history and being of the young. Their position was peculiarly insulated, and Ralph wondered much at the singularity of a scene to which his own experience could furnish no parallel. Here were two lone women--living on the borders of a savage nation, and forming the frontier of a cla.s.s of whites little less savage, without any protection, and, to his mind, without any motive for making such their abiding-place. His wonder might possibly have taken the shape of inquiry, but that there was something of oppressive reserve and shrinking timidity in the air of the young woman, who alone could have replied to his inquiries. At this time an old female negro entered, now for the first time alarmed by the outcry, who a.s.sisted in removing such traces of the fire as still remained about the room. She seemed to occupy a neighboring outhouse; to which, having done what seemed absolutely necessary, she immediately retired.

Colleton, with a sentiment of the deepest commiseration, proceeded to reinstate things as they might have been before the conflagration, and having done so, and having soothed, as far as he well might, the excited apprehensions of the young girl, who made her acknowledgments in a not unbecoming style, he ventured to ask a few questions as to the condition of the old lady and of herself; but, finding from the answers that the subject was not an agreeable one, and having no pretence for further delay, he prepared to depart. He inquired, however, his proper route to the Chestatee river, and thus obtained a solution of the difficulty which beset him in the choice of roads at the fork.

While thus employed, however, and just at the conclusion of his labors, there came another personage upon the scene, to whom it is necessary that we should direct our attention.

It will be remembered that Rivers and Munro, after the murder of Forrester, had separated--the latter on his return to the village--the other in a direction which seemed to occasion some little dissatisfaction in the mind of his companion. After thus separating, Rivers, to whom the whole country was familiar, taking a shorter route across the forest, by which the sinuosities of the main road were generally avoided, entered, after the progress of a few miles, into the very path pursued by Colleton, and which, had it been chosen by his pursuers in the first instance, might have entirely changed the result of the pursuit. In taking this course it was not the thought of the outlaw to overtake the individual whose blood he so much desired; but, with an object which will have its development as we continue, he came to the cottage at the very time when, having succeeded in overcoming the flames, Ralph was employed in a task almost as difficult--that of rea.s.suring the affrighted inmates, and soothing them against the apprehension of farther danger.

With a caution which old custom had made almost natural in such cases, Rivers, as he approached the cross-roads, concealed his horse in the cover of the woods, advanced noiselessly, and with not a little surprise, to the cottage, whose externals had undergone no little alteration from the loss of the shutter, the blackened marks, visible enough in the moonlight, around the window-frame, and the general look of confusion which hung about it. A second glance made out the steed of our traveller, which he approached and examined. The survey awakened all those emotions which operated upon his spirit when referring to his successful rival; and, approaching the cottage with extreme caution, he took post for a while at one of the windows, the shutter of which, partially unclosed, enabled him to take in at a glance the entire apartment.

He saw, at once, the occasion which had induced the presence, in this situation, of his most hateful enemy; and the thoughts were strangely discordant which thronged and possessed his bosom. At one moment he had drawn his pistol to his eye--his finger rested upon the trigger, and the doubt which interposed between the youth and eternity, though it sufficed for his safety then, was of the most slight and shadowy description. A second time did the mood of murder savagely possess his soul, and the weapon's muzzle fell pointblank upon the devoted bosom of Ralph; when the slight figure of the young woman pa.s.sing between, again arrested the design of the outlaw, who, with muttered curses, unc.o.c.king, returned the weapon to his belt.

Whatever might have been the relationship between himself and these females, there was an evident reluctance on the part of Rivers to exhibit his ferocious hatred of the youth before those to whom he had just rendered a great and unquestioned service; and, though untroubled by any feeling of grat.i.tude on their behalf, or on his own, he was yet unwilling, believing, as he did, that his victim was now perfectly secure, that they should undergo any further shock, at a moment too of such severe suffering and trial as must follow in the case of the younger, from those fatal pangs which were destroying the other.

Ralph now prepared to depart; and taking leave of the young woman, who alone seemed conscious of his services, and warmly acknowledged them, he proceeded to the door. Rivers, who had watched his motions attentively, and heard the directions given him by the girl for his progress, at the same moment left the window, and placed himself under the shelter of a huge tree, at a little distance on the path which his enemy was directed to pursue. Here he waited like the tiger, ready to take the fatal leap, and plunge his fangs into the bosom of his victim. Nor did he wait long.

Ralph was soon upon his steed, and on the road; but the Providence that watches over and protects the innocent was with him, and it happened, most fortunately, that just before he reached the point at which his enemy stood in watch, the badness of the road had compelled those who travelled it to diverge aside for a few paces into a little by-path, which, at a little distance beyond, and when the bad places had been rounded, brought the traveller again into the proper path. Into this by-path, the horse of Colleton took his way; the rider neither saw the embarra.s.sments of the common path, nor that his steed had turned aside from them. It was simply providential that the instincts of the horse were more heedful than the eyes of the horseman.

It was just a few paces ahead, and on the edge of a boggy hollow that Guy Rivers had planted himself in waiting. The tread of the young traveller's steed, diverging from the route which he watched, taught the outlaw the change which it was required that he should also make in his position.

"Curse him!" he muttered. "Shall there be always something in the way of my revenge?"

Such was his temper, that everything which baffled him in his object heightened his ferocity to a sort of madness. But this did not prevent his prompt exertion to retrieve the lost ground. The "turn-out" did not continue fifty yards, before it again wound into the common road, and remembering this, the outlaw hurried across the little copse which separated the two routes for a s.p.a.ce. The slow gait at which Colleton now rode, unsuspicious of danger, enabled his enemy to gain the position which he sought, close crouching on the edge of the thicket, just where the roads again united. Here he waited--not many seconds.

The pace of our traveller, we have said, was slow. We may add that his mood was also inattentive. He was not only unapprehensive of present danger, but his thoughts were naturally yielded to the condition of the two poor women, in that lonely abode of forest, whom he had just rescued, in all probability, from a fearful death. Happy with the pleasant consciousness of a good action well performed, and with spirits naturally rising into animation, freed as they were from a late heavy sense of danger--he was as completely at the mercy of the outlaw who awaited him, pistol in hand, as if he lay, as his poor friend, Forrester, so recently had done, directly beneath his knife.

And so thought Rivers, who heard the approaching footsteps, and now caught a glimpse of his approaching shadow.

The outlaw deliberately lifted his pistol. It was already c.o.c.ked. His form was sheltered by a huge tree, and as man and horse gradually drew nigh, the breathing of the a.s.sa.s.sin seemed almost suspended in his ferocious anxiety for blood.

The dark shadow moved slowly along the path. The head of the horse is beside the outlaw. In a moment the rider will occupy the same spot--and then! The finger of the outlaw is upon the trigger--the deadly aim is taken!--what arrests the deed? Ah! surely there is a Providence--a special arm to save--to interpose between the criminal and his victim--to stay the wilful hands of the murderer, when the deed seems already done, as it has been already determined upon.

Even in that moment, when but a touch is necessary to destroy the unconscious traveller--a sudden rush is heard above the robber. Great wings sweep away, with sudden clatter, and the dismal hootings of an owl, scared from his perch on a low shrub-tree, startles the cold-blooded murderer from his propriety. With the nervous excitement of his mind, and his whole nature keenly interested in the deed, to break suddenly the awful silence, the brooding hush of the forest, with unexpected sounds, and those so near, and so startling--for once the outlaw ceased to be the master of his own powers!