She seized his hand appealingly as she spoke, and her moist but untearful eyes were fixed pleadingly upon his own. The outlaw hesitated for a moment before he replied.

"I propose, Ellen, to do for you all that may be necessary--to provide you with additional comforts, and carry you to a place of additional security, where you shall live to yourself, and have good attendance."

"This is kind--this is much, Guy; but not much more than you have been accustomed to do for me. That which I seek from you now is something more than this; promise me that it shall be as I say."

"If it breaks not into my arrangements--if it makes me not go aside from my path, I will certainly do it, Ellen. Speak, therefore; what is it I can do for you?"

"It will interfere with none of your arrangements, Guy, I am sure; it can not take you from your path, for you could not have provided for that of which you knew not. I have your pledge, therefore--have I not?"

"You have," was the reply, while the manner of Rivers was tinctured with something like curiosity.

"That is kind--that is as you ought to be. Hear me now, then," and her voice sunk into a whisper, as if she feared the utterance of her own words; "take your knife, Guy--pause not, do it quickly, lest I fear and tremble--strike it deep into the bosom of the poor Ellen, and lay her beside the cold parent, whose counsels she despised, and all of whose predictions are now come true. Strike--strike quickly, Guy Rivers; I have your promise--you can not recede; if you have honor, if you have truth, you must do as I ask. Give me death--give me peace."

"Foolish girl, would you trifle with me--would you have me spurn and hate you? Beware!"

The outlaw well knew the yielding and sensitive material out of which his victim had been made. His stern rebuke was well calculated to effect in her bosom that revulsion of feeling which he knew would follow any threat of a withdrawal, even of the lingering and frail fibres of that affection, few and feeble as they were, which he might have once persuaded her to believe had bound him to her. The consequence was immediate, and her subdued tone and resigned action evinced the now entire supremacy of her natural temperament.

"Oh, forgive me, Guy, I know not what I ask or what I do. I am so worn and weary, and my head is so heavy, that I think it were far better if I were in my grave with the cold frame whom we shall soon put there. Heed not what I say--I am sad and sick, and have not the spirit of reason, or a healthy will to direct me. Do with me as you will--I will obey you--go anywhere, and, worst of all, behold you wed another; ay, stand by, if you desire it, and look on the ceremony, and try to forget that you once promised me that I should be yours, and yours only."

"You speak more wisely, Ellen; and you will think more calmly upon it when the present grief of your grandmother's death pa.s.ses off."

"Oh, that is no grief, now, Guy," was the rather hasty reply. "That is no grief now: should I regret that she has escaped these tidings--should I regret that she has ceased to feel trouble, and to see and shed tears--should I mourn, Guy, that she who loved me to the last, in spite of my follies and vices, has ceased now to mourn over them? Oh, no! this is no grief, now; it was grief but a little while ago, but now you have made it matter of rejoicing."

"Think not of it,--speak no more in this strain, Ellen, lest you anger me."

"I will not--chide me not--I have no farther reproaches. Yet, Guy, is she, the lady you are about to wed--is she beautiful, is she young--has she long raven tresses, as I had once, when your fingers used to play in them?" and with a sickly smile, which had in it something of an old vanity, she unbound the string which confined her own hair, and let it roll down upon her back in thick and beautiful volumes, still black, glossy and delicately soft as silk.

The outlaw was moved. For a moment his iron muscles relaxed--a gentler expression overspread his countenance, and he took her in his arms. That single, half-reluctant embrace was a boon not much bestowed in the latter days of his victim, and it awakened a thousand tender recollections in her heart, and unsealed a warm spring of gushing waters. An infantile smile was in her eyes, while the tears were flowing down her cheeks.

But, shrinking or yielding, at least to any great extent, made up very little of the character of the dark man on whom she depended; and the more than feminine weakness of the young girl who hung upon his bosom like a dying flower, received its rebuke, after a few moments of unwonted tenderness, when, coldly resuming his stern habit, he put her from his arms, and announced to her his intention of immediately taking his departure.

"What," she asked, "will you not stay with me through the night, and situated as I am?"

"It is impossible; even now I am waited for, and should have been some hours on my way to an appointment which I must not break. It is not with me as with you; I have obligations to others who depend on me, and who might suffer injury were I to deceive them."

"But this night, Guy--there is little of it left, and I am sure you will not be expected before the daylight. I feel a new terror when I think I shall be left by all, and here, too, alone with the dead."

"You will not be alone, and if you were, Ellen, you have been thus lonely for many months past, and should be now accustomed to it."

"Why, so I should, for it has been a fearful and a weary time, and I went not to my bed one night without dreading that I should never behold another day."

"Why, what had you to alarm you? you suffered no affright--no injury? I had taken care that throughout the forest your cottage should be respected."

"So I had your a.s.surance, and when I thought, I believed it. I knew you had the power to do as you a.s.sured me you would, but still there were moments when our own desolation came across my mind; and what with my sorrows and my fears, I was sometimes persuaded, in my madness, to pray that I might be relieved of them, were it even by the hands of death."

"You were ever thus foolish, Ellen, and you have as little reason now to apprehend as then. Besides, it is only for the one night, and in the morning I shall send those to you who will attend to your own removal to another spot, and to the interment of the body."

"And where am I to go?"

"What matters it where, Ellen? You have my a.s.surance that it shall be a place of security and good attendance to which I shall send you."

"True, what matters it where I go--whether among the savage or the civilized? They are to me all alike, since I may not look them in the face, or take them by the hand, or hold communion with them, either at the house of G.o.d or at the family fireside."

The gloomy despondence of her spirit was uppermost; and she went on, in a series of bitter musings, denouncing herself as an outcast, a worthless something, and, in the language of the sacred text, calling on the rocks and mountains to cover her. The outlaw, who had none of those fine feelings which permitted of even momentary sympathy with that desolation of heart, the sublime agonies of which are so well calculated to enlist and awaken it, cut short the strain of sorrow and complaint by a fierce exclamation, which seemed to stun every sense of her spirit.

"Will you never have done?" he demanded. "Am I for ever to listen to this weakness--this unavailing reproach of yourself and everything around you? Do I not know that all your complaints and reproaches, though you address them in so many words to yourself, are intended only for my use and ear? Can I not see through the poor hypocrisy of such a lamentation? Know I not that when you curse and deplore the sin you only withhold the malediction from him who tempted and partook of it, in the hope that his own spirit will apply it all to himself? Away, girl; I thought you had a n.o.bler spirit--I thought you felt the love that I now find existed only in expression."

"I do feel that love; I would, Guy that I felt it not--that it did exist only in my words. I were then far happier than I am now, since stern look or language from you would then utterly fail to vex and wound as it does now. I can not bear your reproaches; look not thus upon me, and speak not in those harsh sentences--not now--not now, at least, and in this melancholy presence."

Her looks turned upon the dead body of her parent as she spoke, and with convulsive effort she rushed toward and clasped it round. She threw herself beside the corpse and remained inanimate, while the outlaw, leaving the house for an instant, called the negro servant and commanded her attendance. He now approached the girl, and taking up her hand, which lay supine upon the bosom of the dead body, would have soothed her grief; but though she did not repulse, she yet did not regard him.

"Be calm, Ellen," he said, "recover and be firm. In the morning you shall have early and good attention, and with this object, in part, am I disposed to hurry now. Think not, girl, that I forget you. Whatever may be my fortune, I shall always have an eye to yours. I leave you now, but shall see you before long, when I shall settle you permanently and comfortably. Farewell."

He left her in seeming unconsciousness of the words whispered in her ears, yet she heard them all, and duly estimated their value. To her, to whom he had once pledged himself entirely, the cold boon of his attention and sometime care was painfully mortifying. She exhibited nothing, however, beyond what we have already seen, of the effect of this consolation upon her heart. There is a period in human emotions, when feeling itself becomes imperceptible--when the heart (as it were) receives the _coup de grace_, and days, and months, and years, before the body expires, shows nothing of the fire which is consuming it.

We would not have it understood to be altogether the case with the young dest.i.tute before us; but, at least, if she still continued to feel these still-occurring influences, there was little or no outward indication of their power upon the hidden spirit. She said nothing to him on his departure, but with a half-wandering sense, that may perhaps have described something of the ruling pa.s.sion of an earlier day, she rose shortly after he had left the house, and placing herself before the small mirror which surmounted the toilet in the apartment, rearranged with studious care, and with an eye to its most attractive appearance, the long and flowing tresses of that hair, which, as we have already remarked, was of the most silky and raven-like description. Every ringlet was adjusted to its place, as if nothing of sorrow was about her--none of the badges and evidences of death and decay in her thought.

She next proceeded to the readjustment of the dress she wore, taking care that a string of pearl, probably the gift of her now indifferent lover, should leave its place in the little cabinet, where, with other trinkets of the kind, it had been locked up carefully for a long season, and once more adorned with it the neck which it failed utterly to surpa.s.s in delicacy or in whiteness. Having done this, she again took her place on the couch, along with the corpse; and with a manner which did not appear to indicate a doubt of the still lingering spirit, she raised the lifeless head, with the gentlest effort placing her arm beneath, then laid her own quietly on the pillow beside it.

CHAPTER XXVI.

THE CAMP.

Ignorant, as we have already said, of his late most providential escape from the weapon of his implacable enemy, Ralph Colleton was borne forward by his affrighted steed with a degree of rapidity which entirely prevented his rider from remarking any of the objects around him, or, indeed, as the moon began to wane amid a cl.u.s.tering body of clouds, of determining positively whether he were still in the road or not. The _trace_ (as public roads are called in that region) had been rudely cut out by some of the earlier travellers through the Indian country, merely _traced_ out--and hence, perhaps, the term--by a _blaze_, or white spot, made upon the trees by hewing from them the bark; which badge, repeated in succession upon those growing immediately upon the line chosen for the destined road, indicated its route to the wayfarer. It had never been much travelled, and from the free use at the present time of other and more direct courses, it was left almost totally unemployed, save by those living immediately in its neighborhood. It had, therefore, become, at the time of which we speak, what, in backwood phrase, is known as a _blind-path_.

Such being the case, it is not difficult to imagine that, when able to restrain his horse, Ralph, as he feared, found himself entirely out of its guidance--wandering without direction among the old trees of the forest. Still, as for the night, now nearly over, he could have no distinct point in view, and saw just as little reason to go back as forward, he gave himself but little time for scruple or hesitation.

Resolutely, though with a cautious motion, he p.r.i.c.ked his steed forward through the woods, accommodating his philosophy, as well as he could, to the various interruptions which the future, as if to rival the past, seemed to have treasured up in store for him.

He had not proceeded far in this manner when he caught the dim rays of a distant fire, flickering and ascending among the trees to the left of the direction he was taking. The blaze had something in it excessively cheering, and, changing his course, he went forward under its guidance.

In this effort, he stumbled upon something like a path, which, pursuing, brought him at length to a small and turbid creek, into which he plunged fearlessly, and soon found himself in swimming water. The ford had been little used, and the banks were steep, so that he got out with difficulty upon the opposite side. Having done so, his eye was enabled to take a full view of the friendly fire which had just attracted his regard, and which he soon made out to proceed from the encampment of a wagoner, such as may be seen every day, or every night, in the wild woods of the southern country.

He was emigrating, with all his goods and G.o.ds, to that wonderfully winning region, in the estimation of this people, the valley of the Mississippi. The emigrant was a stout, burly, bluff old fellow, with full round cheeks, a quick, twinkling eye, and limbs rather Herculean than human. He might have been fifty-five years or so; and his two sons, one of them a man grown, the other a tall and goodly youth of eighteen, promised well to be just such vigorous and healthy-looking personages as their father. The old woman, by whom we mean--in the manner of speech common to the same cla.s.s and region--to indicate the spouse of the wayfarer, and mother of the two youths, was busied about the fire, boiling a pot of coffee, and preparing the family repast for the night.

A somewhat late hour for supper and such employment, thought our wanderer; but the difficulty soon explained itself in the condition of their wagon, and the conversation which ensued among the travellers.

There was yet another personage in the a.s.sembly, who must be left to introduce himself to the reader.

The _force_ of the traveller--for such is the term by which the number of his slaves are understood--was small, consisting of some six _workers_, and three or four little negro children asleep under the wagon. The workers were occupied at a little distance, in replacing boxes, beds, and some household trumpery, which had been taken out of the wagon, to enable them to effect its release from the slough in which it had cast one of its wheels, and broken its axle, and the restoration of which had made their supper so late in the night. The heavier difficulties of their labor had been got over, and with limbs warmed and chafed by the extra exercise they had undergone, the whites had thrown themselves under a tree, at a little distance from the fire at which the supper was in preparation, while a few pine torches, thrown together, gave them sufficient light to read and remark the several countenances of their group.

"Well, by dogs, we've had a tough 'bout of it, boys; and, hark'ye, strannger, gi' us your hand. I don't know what we should have done without you, for I never seed man handle a little poleaxe as you did that same affair of your'n. You must have spent, I reckon, a pretty smart time at the use of it, now, didn't ye?"

To this speech of the farmer, a ready reply was given by the stranger, in the identical voice and language of our old acquaintance, the pedler, Jared Bunce, of whom, and of whose stock in trade, the reader will probably have some recollection.

"Well, now, I guess, friend, you an't far wide of your reckoning. I've been a matter of some fifteen or twenty years knocking about, off and on, in one way or another, with this same instrument, and pretty's the service now, I tell ye, that it's done me in that bit of time."

"No doubt, no doubt; but what's your trade, if I may be so bold, that made you larn the use of it so nicely?"

"Oh, what--my trade? Why, to say the truth, I never was brought up to any trade in particular, but I am a pretty slick hand, now, I tell you, at all of them. I've been in my time a little of a farmer, a little of a merchant, a little of a sailor, and, somehow or other, a little of everything, and all sort of things. My father was jest like myself, and swore, before I was born, that I should be born jest like him--and so I was. Never were two black peas more alike. He was a 'cute old fellow, and swore he'd make me so too--and so he did. You know how he did that?--now, I'll go a York shilling against a Louisiana bit, that you can't tell to save you."