CHAPTER TEN. · Part 1

CHAPTER TEN.

THE EVE OF DEPARTURE.

The evil day has arrived; the ruin, foreseen, has fallen.

The mortgage deed, so long held in menace over the head of Archibald Armstrong--suspended, as it were, by a thread, like the sword of Damocles--is to be put into execution. Darke has demanded immediate payment of the debt, coupled with threat of foreclosure.

The demand is a month old, the threat has been carried out, and the foreclosure effected. The thread having been cut, the keen blade of adversity has come down, severing the tie which attached Colonel Armstrong to his property, as it to him. Yesterday, he was owner, reputedly, of one of the finest plantations along the line of the Mississippi river, an hundred able-bodied negroes hoeing cotton in his fields, with fifty more picking it from the pod, and "ginning" the staple clear of seed; to-day, he is but their owner in seeming, Ephraim Darke being this in reality. And in another day the apparent ownership will end: for Darke has given his debtor notice to yield up houses, lands, slaves, plantation-stock--in short, everything he possesses.

In vain has Armstrong striven against this adverse fate; in vain made endeavours to avert it. When men are falling, false friends grow falser; even true ones becoming cold. Sinister chance also against him; a time of panic--a crisis in the money-market--as it always is on such occasions, when interest runs high, and _second_ mortgages are sneered at by those who grant loans.

As no one--neither friend nor financial speculator--comes to Armstrong's rescue, he has no alternative but submit.

Too proud, to make appeal to his inexorable creditor--indeed deeming it idle--he vouchsafes no answer to the notice of foreclosure, beyond saying: "Let it be done."

At a later period he gives ear to a proposal, coming from the mortgagee: to put a valuation upon the property, and save the expenses of a public sale, by disposing of it privately to Darke himself.

To this he consents; less with a view to the convenience of the last, than because his sensitive nature recoils from the vulgarism of the first. Tell me a more trying test to the delicate sensibilities of a gentleman, or his equanimity, than to see his gate piers pasted over with the black and white show bills of the auctioneer; a strip of stair carpet dangling down from one of his bedroom windows, and a crowd of hungry harpies clustered around his door-stoop; some entering with eyes that express keen concupiscence; others coming out with countenances more beatified, bearing away his Penates--jeering and swearing over them--insulting the Household Gods he has so long held in adoration. Ugh! A hideous, horrid sight--a spectacle of Pandemonium!

With a vision of such domestic iconoclasm flitting before his mind--not a dream, but a reality, that will surely arise by letting his estate go to the hammer--Colonel Armstrong accepts Darke's offer to deliver everything over in a lump, and for a lamp sum. The conditions have been some time settled; and Armstrong now knows the worst. Some half-score slaves he reserves; the better terms secured to his creditor by private bargain enabling him to obtain this concession.

Several days have elapsed since the settlement came to a conclusion--the interval spent in preparation for the change. A grand one, too; which contemplates, not alone leaving the old home, but the State in which it stands. The fallen man shrinks from further association with those who have witnessed his fall. Not but that he will leave behind many friends, faithful and true. Still to begin life again in their midst-- to be seen humbly struggling at the bottom of the ladder on whose top he once proudly reposed--that would indeed be unendurable.

He prefers to carry out the design, he once thought only a dreamy prediction--migrating to Texas. There, he may recommence life with more hopeful energy, and lesser sense of humiliation.

The moving day has arrived, or rather the eve preceding it. On the morrow, Colonel Archibald Armstrong is called upon by the exigency of human laws,--oft more cruel, if not more inexorable, than those of Nature--to vacate the home long his.

'Tis night. Darkness has spread its sable pall over forest and field, and broods upon the brighter surface of the stream gliding between--the mighty Mississippi. All are equally obscured--from a thick veil of lead-coloured cloud, at the sun's setting, drawn over the canopy of the sky. Any light seen is that of the fire-flies, engaged in their nocturnal cotillon; while the sounds heard are nightly noises in a Southern States forest, semi-tropical, as the wild creatures who have their home in it. The green _cicada_ chirps continuously, "Katy did-- Katy did;" the _hyladae_, though reptiles, send forth an insect note; while the sonorous "gluck-gluck" of the huge _rana pipiens_ mingles with the melancholy "whoo-whooa" of the great horned owl; which, unseen, sweeps on silent wing through the shadowy aisles of the forest, leading the lone traveller to fancy them peopled by departed spirits in torment from the pains of Purgatory.

Not more cheerful are the sounds aloft: for there are such, far above the tops of the tallest trees. There, the nightjar plies its calling, not so blind but that it can see in deepest darkness the smallest moth or midge, that, tired of perching on the heated leaves essays to soar higher. Two sorts of these goatsuckers, utter cries quite distinct; though both expressing aversion to "William." One speaks of him as still alive, mingling pity with its hostile demand: "Whippoor-Will!" The other appears to regard him as dead, and goes against his marital relict, at intervals calling out: "Chuck Will's widow!"

Other noises interrupt the stillness of a Mississippian night. High up in heaven the "honk" of a wild gander leading his flock in the shape of an inverted V; at times the more melodious note of a trumpeter swan; or from the top of a tall cottonwood, or cypress, the sharp saw-filing shriek of the white-headed eagle, angered by some stray creature coming too close, and startling it from its slumbers. Below, out of the swamp sedge, rises the mournful cry of the quabird--the American bittern--and from the same, the deep sonorous bellow of that ugliest animal on earth--the alligator.

Where fields adjoin the forest--plantation clearings--oft few and far between--there are sounds more cheerful. The song of the slave, his day's work done, sure to be preceded, or followed, by peals of loud jocund laughter; the barking of the house-dog, indicative of a well-watched home; with the lowing of cattle, and other domestic calls that proclaim it worth watching. A galaxy of little lights, in rows like street lamps, indicate the "negro quarter;" while in the foreground a half-dozen windows of larger size, and brighter sheen, show where stands the "big house"--the planter's own dwelling.

To that of Colonel Armstrong has come a night of exceptional character, when its lights are seen burning later than usual. The plantation clock has tolled nine, nearly an hour ago. Still light shines through the little windows of the negro cabins, while the larger ones of the "big house" are all aflame. And there are candles being carried to and fro, lighting up a scene of bustling activity: while the clack of voices-- none of them in laughter--is heard commingled with the rattling of chains, and the occasional stroke of a hammer. The forms of men and women, are seen to flit athwart the shining windows, all busy about something.

There is no mystery in the matter. It is simply the planter, with his people, occupied in preparation for the morrow's moving. Openly, and without restraint: for, although so near the mid hour of night, it is no midnight flitting.

The only individual, who appears to act surreptitiously, is a young girl; who, coming out by the back door of the dwelling, makes away from its walls in gliding gait--at intervals glancing back over her shoulder, as if in fear of being followed, or observed.

Her style of dress also indicates a desire to shun observation; for she is cloaked and close hooded. Not enough to ensure disguise, though she may think so. The most stolid slave on all Colonel Armstrong's plantation, could tell at a glance whose figure is enfolded in the shapeless garment, giving it shape. He would at once identify it as that of his master's daughter. For no wrap however loosely flung over it, could hide the queenly form of Helen Armstrong, or conceal the splendid symmetry of her person. Arrayed in the garb of a laundress, she would still look the lady.

Perhaps, for the first time in her life she is walking with stealthy step, crouched form, and countenance showing fear. Daughter of a large slave-owner--mistress over many slaves--she is accustomed to an upright attitude, and aristocratic bearing. But she is now on an errand that calls for more than ordinary caution, and would dread being recognised by the humblest slave on her father's estate.

Fortunately for her, none see; therefore no one takes note of her movements, or the mode of her apparel. If one did, the last might cause remark. A woman cloaked, with head hooded in a warm summer night, the thermometer at ninety!

Notwithstanding the numerous lights, she is not observed as she glides through their crossing coruscations. And beyond, there is but little danger--while passing through the peach orchard, that stretches rearward from the dwelling. Still less, after getting out through a wicket-gate, which communicates with a tract of woodland. For then she is among trees whose trunks stand close, the spaces between buried in deep obscurity--deeper from the night being a dark one. It is not likely so to continue: for, before entering into the timber, she glances up to the sky, and sees that the cloud canopy has broken; here and there stars scintillating in the blue spaces between. While, on the farther edge of the plantation clearing, a brighter belt along the horizon foretells the uprising of the moon.

She does not wait for this; but plunges into the shadowy forest, daring its darkness, regardless of its dangers.

CHAPTER ELEVEN.

UNDER THE TRYSTING TREE.

Still stooping in her gait, casting furtive glances to right, to left, before and behind--at intervals stopping to listen--Helen Armstrong continues her nocturnal excursion. Notwithstanding the obscurity, she keeps in a direct course, as if to reach some particular point, and for a particular reason.

What this is needs not be told. Only love could lure a young lady out at that late hour, and carry her along a forest path, dark, and not without dangers. And love unsanctioned, unallowed--perhaps forbidden, by some one who has ascendancy over her.

Just the first it is which has tempted her forth; while the last, not the cold, has caused her to cloak herself, and go close hooded. If her father but knew of the errand she is on, it could not be executed. And well is she aware of this. For the proud planter is still proud, despite his reverses, still clings to the phantom of social superiority; and if he saw her now, wandering through the woods at an hour near midnight, alone; if he could divine her purpose: to meet a man, who in time past has been rather coldly received at his house--because scarce ranking with his own select circle--had Colonel Armstrong but the gift of clairvoyance, in all probability he would at once suspend the preparations for departure, rush to his rifle, then off through the woods on the track of his erring daughter, with the intent to do a deed sanguinary as that recorded, if not so repulsive.

The girl has not far to go--only half a mile or so, from the house, and less than a quarter beyond the zigzag rail fence, which forms a boundary line between the maize fields and primeval forest. Her journey, when completed, will bring her under a tree--a grand magnolia, monarch of the forest surrounding. Well does she know it, as the way thither.

Arriving at the tree, she pauses beneath its far-stretching boughs. At the same time tossing back her hood, she shows her face unveiled.

She has no fear now. The place is beyond the range of night-strolling negroes. Only one in pursuit of 'possum, or 'coon, would be likely to come that way; a contingency too rare to give her uneasiness.

With features set in expectation, she stands. The fire-flies illuminate her countenance--deserving a better light. But seen, even under their pale fitful coruscation, its beauty is beyond question. Her features of gipsy cast--to which the cloak's hood adds characteristic expression-- produce a picture appropriate to its framing--the forest.

Only for a few short moments does she remain motionless. Just long enough to get back her breath, spent by some exertion in making her way through the wood--more difficult in the darkness. Strong emotions, too, contribute to the pulsations of her heart.

She does not wait for them to be stilled. Facing towards the tree, and standing on tiptoe, she raises her hand aloft, and commences groping against the trunk. The fire-flies flicker over her snow-white fingers, as these stray along the bark, at length resting upon the edge of a dark disc--the knot-hole in the tree.

Into this her hand is plunged; then drawn out--empty!

At first there is no appearance of disappointment. On the contrary, the phosphoric gleam dimly disclosing her features, rather shows satisfaction--still further evinced by the phrase falling from her lips, with the tone of its utterance. She says, contentedly:--"_He has got it_!"

But by the same fitful light, soon after is perceived a change--the slightest expression of chagrin, as she adds, in murmured interrogatory, "Why hasn't he left an answer?"

Is she sure he has not? No. But she soon will be.

With this determination, she again faces towards the tree; once more inserts her slender fingers; plunges in her white hand up to the wrist-- to the elbow; gropes the cavity all round; then draws out again, this time with an exclamation which tells of something more than disappointment. It is discontent--almost anger. So too a speech succeeding, thus:--

"He might at least have let me know, whether he was coming or not--a word to say, I might expect him. He should have been here before me. It's the hour--past it!"

She is not certain--only guessing. She may be mistaken about the time-- perhaps wronging the man. She draws the watch from her waistbelt, and holds the dial up. By the moon, just risen, she can read it. Reflecting the rays, the watch crystal, the gold rings on her fingers, and the jewels gleam joyfully. But there is no joy on her countenance. On the contrary, a mixed expression of sadness and chagrin. For the hands indicate ten minutes after the hour of appointment.

There can be no mistake about the time--she herself fixed it. And none in the timepiece. Her watch is not a cheap one. No fabric of Germany, or Geneva; no pedlar's thing from Yankeeland, which as a Southron she would despise; but an article of solid English manufacture, _sun-sure_, like the machine-made watches of "Streeter."

In confidence she consults it; saying vexatiously:

"Ten minutes after, and he not here! No answer to my note! He must have received it: Surely Jule put it into the tree? Who but he could have taken it out? Oh, this is cruel! He comes not--I shall go home."

The cloak is once more closed, the hood drawn over her head. Still she lingers--lingers, and listens.

No footstep--no sound to break the solemn stillness--only the chirrup of tree-crickets, and the shrieking of owls.

She takes a last look at the dial, sadly, despairingly. The hands indicate full fifteen minutes after the hour she had named--going on to twenty.

She restores the watch to its place, beneath her belt, her demeanour assuming a sudden change. Some chagrin still, but no sign of sadness. This is replaced by an air of determination, fixed and stern. The moon's light, with that of the fire-flies, have both a response in flashes brighter than either--sparks from the eyes of an angry woman. For Helen Armstrong is this, now.

Drawing her cloak closer around, she commences moving off from the tree.

She is not got beyond the canopy of its branches, ere her steps are stayed. A rustling among the dead leaves--a swishing against those that live--a footstep with tread solid and heavy--the footfall of a man!

A figure is seen approaching; as yet only indistinctly, but surely that of a man. As surely the man expected?

"He's been detained--no doubt by some good cause," she reflects, her spite and sadness departing as he draws near.

They are gone, before he can get to her side. But woman-like, she resolves to make a grace of forgiveness, and begins by upbraiding him.

"So you're here at last. A wonder you condescended coming at all! There's an old adage `Better late than never.' Perhaps, you think it befits present time and company? And, perhaps, you may be mistaken. Indeed you are, so far as I'm concerned. I've been here long enough, and won't be any longer. Good-night, sir! Good-night!"

Her speech is taunting in tone, and bitter in sense. She intends it to be both--only in seeming. But to still further impress a lesson on the lover who has slighted her, she draws closer the mantle, and makes as if moving away.

Mistaking her pretence for earnest, the man flings himself across her path--intercepting her. Despite the darkness she can see that his arms are in the air, and stretched towards her, as if appealingly. The attitude speaks apology, regret, contrition--everything to make her relent.

She relents; is ready to fling herself upon his breast, and there lie lovingly, forgivingly.

But again woman-like, not without a last word of reproach, to make more esteemed her concession, she says:--

"'Tis cruel thus to have tried me. Charles! Charles! why have you done it?"

As she utters the interrogatory a cloud comes over her countenance, quicker than ever shadow over sun. Its cause--the countenance of him standing _vis-a-vis_. A change in their relative positions has brought his face full under the moonlight. He is _not_ the man she intended meeting!

Who he really is can be gathered from his rejoinder:--

"You are mistaken, Miss Armstrong. My name is not Charles, but Richard. I am _Richard Darke_."

CHAPTER TWELVE.

THE WRONG MAN.

Richard Darke instead of Charles Clancy!

Disappointment were far too weak a word to express the pang that shoots through the heart of Helen Armstrong, on discovering the mistake she has made. It is bitter vexation, commingled with a sense of shame. I or her speeches, in feigned reproach, have terribly compromised her.

She does not drop to the earth, nor show any sign of it. She is not a woman of the weak fainting sort. No cry comes from her lips--nothing to betray surprise, or even the most ordinary emotion.

As Darke stands before her with arms upraised, she simply says,--

"Well, sir; if you _are_ Richard Darke, what then? Your being so matters not to me; and certainly gives you no right thus to intrude upon me. I wish to be alone, and must beg of you to leave me so."

The cool firm tone causes him to quail. He had hoped that the surprise of his unexpected appearance--coupled with his knowledge of her clandestine appointment--would do something to subdue, perhaps make her submissive.

On the contrary, the thought of the last but stings her to resentment, as he soon perceives.

His raised arms drop down, and he is about to step aside, leaving her free to pass. Though not before making an attempt to justify himself; instinct supplying a reason, with hope appended. He does so, saying,--

"If I've intruded, Miss Armstrong, permit me to apologise for it. I assure you it's been altogether an accident. Having heard you are about to leave the neighbourhood--indeed, that you start to-morrow morning--I was on the way to your father's house to say farewell. I'm sorry my coming along here, and chancing to meet you, should lay me open to the charge of intrusion. I shall still more regret, if my presence has spoiled any plans, or interfered with an appointment. Some one else expected, I presume?"

For a time she is silent--abashed, while angered, by the impudent interrogatory.

Recovering herself, she rejoins,--

"Even were it as you say, sir, by what authority do you question me? I've said I wish to be alone."

"Oh, if that's your wish, I must obey, and relieve you of my presence, apparently so disagreeable."

Saying this he steps to one side. Then continues,--

"As I've told you, I was on the way to your father's house to take leave of the family. If you're not going immediately home, perhaps I may be the bearer of a message for you?"

The irony is evident; but Helen Armstrong is not sensible of it. She does not even think of it. Her only thought is how to get disembarrassed of this man who has appeared at a moment so _mal apropos_. Charles Clancy--for he was the expected one--may have been detained by some cause unknown, a delay still possible of justification. She has a lingering thought he may yet come; and, so thinking, her eye turns towards the forest with a quick, subtle glance.

Notwithstanding its subtlety, and the obscurity surrounding them, Darke observes, comprehends it.

Without waiting for her rejoinder, he proceeds to say,--

"From the mistake you've just made, Miss Armstrong, I presume you took me for some one bearing the baptismal name of Charles. In these parts I know only one person who carries that cognomen--one Charles Clancy. If it be he you are expecting, I think I can save you the necessity of stopping out in the night air any longer. If you're staying for him you'll be disappointed; he will certainly not come."

"What mean you, Mr Darke? Why do you say that?"

His words carry weighty significance, and throw the proud girl off her guard. She speaks confusedly, and without reflection.

His rejoinder, cunningly conceived, designed with the subtlety of the devil, still further affects her, and painfully.

He answers, with assumed nonchalance,--

"Because I know it."

"How?" comes the quick, unguarded interrogatory.

"Well; I chanced to meet Charley Clancy this morning, and he told me he was going off on a journey. He was just starting when I saw him. Some affair of the heart, I believe; a little love-scrape he's got into with a pretty Creole girl, who lives t'other side of Natchez. By the way, he showed me a photograph of yourself, which he said you had sent him. A very excellent likeness, indeed. Excuse me for telling you, that he and I came near quarrelling about it. He had another photograph--that of his Creole _chere amie_--and would insist that she is more beautiful than you. I may own, Miss Armstrong, you've given me no great reason for standing forth as your champion. Still, I couldn't stand that; and, after questioning Clancy's taste, I plainly told him he was mistaken. I'm ready to repeat the same to him, or any one, who says you are not the most beautiful woman in the State of Mississippi."

At the conclusion of his fulsome speech Helen Armstrong cares but little for the proffered championship, and not much for aught else.

Her heart is nigh to breaking. She has given her affections to Clancy-- in that last letter written, lavished them. And they have been trifled with--scorned! She, daughter of the erst proudest planter in all Mississippi State, has been slighted for a Creole girl; possibly, one of the "poor white trash" living along the bayous' edge. Full proof she has of his perfidy, or how should Darke know of it? More maddening still, the man so slighting her, has been making boast of it, proclaiming her suppliance and shame, showing her photograph, exulting in the triumph obtained! "O God!"

Not in prayer, but angry ejaculation, does the name of the Almighty proceed from her lips. Along with it a scarce-suppressed scream, as, despairingly, she turns her face towards home.

Darke sees his opportunity, or thinks so; and again flings himself before her--this time on his knees.

"Helen Armstrong!" he exclaims, in an earnestness of passion--if not pure, at least heartfelt and strong--"why should you care for a man who thus mocks you? Here am I, who love you, truly--madly--more than my own life! 'Tis not too late to withdraw the answer you have given me. Gainsay it, and there need be no change--no going to Texas. Your father's home may still be his, and yours. Say you'll be my wife, and everything shall be restored to him--all will yet be well."

She is patient to the conclusion of his appeal. Its apparent sincerity stays her; though she cannot tell, or does not think, why. It is a moment of mechanical irresolution.

But, soon as ended, again returns the bitterness that has just swept through her soul--torturing her afresh.

There is no balm in the words spoken by Dick Darke; on the contrary, they but cause increased rankling.

To his appeal she makes answer, as once before she has answered him-- with a single word. But now repeated three times, and in a tone not to be mistaken.

On speaking it, she parts from the spot with proud haughty step, and a denying disdainful gesture, which tells him, she is not to be further stayed.

Spited, chagrined, angry, in his craven heart he feels also cowed, subdued, crestfallen. So much, he dares not follow her, but remains under the magnolia; from whose hollow trunk seems to reverberate the echo of her last word, in its treble repetition: "_never_--_never_--_never_!"

CHAPTER THIRTEEN.

THE COON-HUNTER AT HOME.

Over the fields of Ephraim Darke's plantation a lingering ray of daylight still flickers, as Blue Bill, returning from his abandoned coon-hunt, gets back to the negro quarter. He enters it, with stealthy tread, and looking cautiously around.

For he knows that some of his fellow-slaves are aware of his having gone out "a-cooning," and will wonder at his soon return--too soon to pass without observation. If seen by them he may be asked for an explanation, which he is not prepared to give.

To avoid being called upon for it, he skulks in among the cabins; still carrying the dog under his arm, lest the latter may take a fancy to go smelling among the utensils of some other darkey's kitchen, and betray his presence in the "quarter."

Fortunately for the coon-hunter, the little "shanty" that claims him as its tenant stands at the outward extremity of the row of cabins--nearest the path leading to the plantation woodland. He is therefore enabled to reach, and re-enter it, without any great danger of attracting observation.

And as it chances, he is not observed; but gets back into the bosom of his family, no one being a bit the wiser.

Blue Bill's domestic circle consists of his wife, Phoebe, and several half-naked little "niggers," who, at his return, tackle on to his legs, and, soon as he sits down, clamber confusedly over his knees. So circumstanced, one would think he should now feel safe, and relieved from further anxiety. Far from it: he has yet a gauntlet to run.

His re-appearance so early, unexpected; his empty gamebag; the coon-dog carried under his arm; all have their effect upon Phoebe. She cannot help feeling surprise, accompanied by a keen curiosity.

She is not the woman to submit to it in silence.

Confronting her dark-skinned lord and master, with arms set akimbo, she says,--

"Bress de Lor', Bill! Wha' for you so soon home? Neider coon nor possum! An' de dog toated arter dat trange fashun! You ain't been gone more'n a hour! Who'd speck see you come back dat a way, empty-handed; nuffin, 'cep your own ole dog! 'Splain it, sah?"

Thus confronted, the coon-hunter lets fall his canine companion; which drops with a dump upon the floor. Then seats himself on a stool, but without entering upon the demanded explanation. He only says:--

"Nebba mind, Phoebe, gal; nebba you mind why I'se got home so soon. Dat's nuffin 'trange. I seed de night warn't a gwine to be fav'ble fo' trackin' de coon; so dis nigga konklood he'd leab ole cooney 'lone."

"Lookee hya, Bill!" rejoins the sable spouse, laying her hand upon his shoulder, and gazing earnestly into his eyes. "Dat ere ain't de correck explicashun. You's not tellin' me de troof!"

The coon-hunter quails under the searching glance, as if in reality a criminal; but still holds back the demanded explanation. He is at a loss what to say.

"Da's somethin' mysteerus 'bout dis," continues his better half. "You'se got a seecrit, nigga; I kin tell it by de glint ob yer eye. I nebba see dat look on ye, but I know you ain't yaseff; jess as ye use deseeve me, when you war in sich a way 'bout brown Bet."

"Wha you talkin 'bout, Phoebe? Dar's no brown Bet in de case. I swar dar ain't."

"Who sayed dar war? No, Bill, dat's all pass. I only spoked ob her 'kase ya look jess now like ye did when Bet used bamboozle ye. What I say now am dat you ain't yaseff. Dar's a cat in de bag, somewha; you better let her out, and confess de whole troof."

As Phoebe makes this appeal, her glance rests inquiringly on her husband's countenance, and keenly scrutinises the play of his features.

There is not much play to be observed. The coon-hunter is a pure-blooded African, with features immobile as those of the Sphinx. And from his colour nought can be deduced. As already said, it is the depth of its ebon blackness, producing a purplish iridescence over the epidermis, that has gained for him the sobriquet "Blue Bill."

Unflinchingly he stands the inquisitorial glance, and for the time Phoebe is foiled.

Only until after supper, when the frugality of the meal--made so by the barren chase--has perhaps something to do in melting his heart, and relaxing his tongue. Whether this, or whatever the cause, certain it is, that before going to bed, he unburdens himself to the partner of his joys, by making full confession of what he has heard and seen by the side of the cypress swamp.

He tells her, also, of the letter picked up; which, cautiously pulling out of his pocket, he submits to her inspection.

Phoebe has once been a family servant--an indoor domestic, and handmaiden to a white mistress. This in the days of youth--the halcyon days of her girlhood, in "Ole Varginny"--before she was transported west, sold to Ephraim Darke, and by him degraded to the lot of an ordinary outdoor slave. But her original owner taught her to read, and her memory still retains a trace of this early education--sufficient for her to decipher the script put into her hands.

She first looks at the photograph; as it is the first to come out of the envelope. There can be no mistaking whose likeness it is. A lady too conspicuously beautiful to have escaped notice from the humblest slave in the settlement.

The negress spends some seconds gazing upon the portrait, as she does so remarking,--

"How bewful dat young lady!"

"You am right 'bout dat, Phoebe. She bewful as any white gal dis nigga ebber sot eyes on. And she good as bewful. I'se sorry she gwine leab dis hya place. Dar's many a darkie 'll miss de dear young lady. An' won't Mass Charl Clancy miss her too! Lor! I most forgot; maybe he no trouble 'bout her now; maybe he's gone dead! Ef dat so, she miss _him_, a no mistake. She cry her eyes out."

"You tink dar war something 'tween dem two?"

"Tink! I'se shoo ob it, Phoebe. Didn't I see dem boaf down dar in de woodland, when I war out a-coonin. More'n once I seed em togedder. A young white lady an' genl'm don't meet dat way unless dar's a feelin' atween em, any more dan we brack folks. Besides, dis nigga know dey lub one noder--he know fo sartin. Jule, she tell Jupe; and Jupe hab trussed dat same seecret to me. Dey been in lub long time; afore Mass Charl went 'way to Texas. But de great Kurnel Armstrong, he don't know nuffin' 'bout it. Golly! ef he did, he shoo kill Charl Clancy; dat is, if de poor young man ain't dead arready. Le's hope 'tain't so. But, Phoebe, gal, open dat letter, an' see what de lady say. Satin it's been wrote by her. Maybe it trow some light on dis dark subjeck."

Phoebe, thus solicited, takes the letter from the envelope. Then spreading it out, and holding it close to the flare of the tallow dip, reads it from beginning to end.

It is a task that occupies her some considerable time; for her scholastic acquirements, not very bright at the best, have become dimmed by long disuse. For all, she succeeds in deciphering its contents and interpreting them to Bill; who listens with ears wide open and eyes in staring wonderment.

When the reading is at length finished, the two remain for some time silent,--pondering upon the strange circumstances thus revealed to them.

Blue Bill is the first to resume speech. He says:--

"Dar's a good deal in dat letter I know'd afore, and dar's odder points as 'pear new to me; but whether de old or de new, 'twon't do for us folk declar a single word o' what de young lady hab wrote in dat ere 'pistle. No, Phoebe, neery word must 'scape de lips ob eider o' us. We muss hide de letter, an' nebba let nob'dy know dar's sich a dockyment in our posseshun. And dar must be nuffin' know'd 'bout dis nigga findin' it. Ef dat sakumstance war to leak out, I needn't warn you what 'ud happen to me. Blue Bill 'ud catch de cowhide,--maybe de punishment ob de pump. So, Phoebe, gal, gi'e me yar word to keep dark, for de case am a dangersome, an a desprit one."

The wife can well comprehend the husband's caution, with the necessity of compliance; and the two retire to rest, in the midst of their black olive branches, with a mutual promise to be "mum."

CHAPTER FOURTEEN.

WHY COMES HE NOT?

Helen Armstrong goes to bed, with spiteful thoughts about Charles Clancy. So rancorous she cannot sleep, but turns distractedly on her couch, from time to time changing cheek upon the pillow.

At little more than a mile's distance from this chamber of unrest, another woman is also awake, thinking of the same man--not spitefully, but anxiously. It is his mother.

As already said, the road running north from Natchez leads past Colonel Armstrong's gate. A traveller, going in the opposite direction--that is towards the city--on clearing the skirts of the plantation, would see, near the road side, a dwelling of very different kind; of humble unpretentious aspect, compared with the grand mansion of the planter. It would be called a cottage, were this name known in the State of Mississippi--which it is not. Still it is not a log-cabin; but a "frame-house," its walls of "weather-boarding," planed and painted, its roof cedar-shingled; a style of architecture occasionally seen in the Southern States, though not so frequently as in the Northern--inhabited by men in moderate circumstances, poorer than planters, but richer, or more gentle, than the "white trash," who live in log-cabins.

Planters they are in social rank, though poor; perhaps owning a half-dozen slaves, and cultivating a small tract of cleared ground, from twenty to fifty acres. The frame-house vouches for their respectability; while two or three log structures at back--representing barn, stable, and other outbuildings--tell of land attached.

Of this class is the habitation referred to--the home of the widow Clancy.

As already known, her widowhood is of recent date. She still wears its emblems upon her person, and carries its sorrow in her heart.

Her husband, of good Irish lineage, had found his way to Nashville, the capital city of Tennessee; where, in times long past, many Irish families made settlements. There he had married her, she herself being a native Tennesseean--sprung from the old Carolina pioneer stock, that colonised the state near the end of the eighteenth century--the Robertsons, Hyneses, Hardings, and Bradfords--leaving to their descendants a patent of nobility, or at least a family name deserving respect, and generally obtaining it.

In America, as elsewhere, it is not the rule for Irishmen to grow rich; and still more exceptional in the case of Irish gentlemen. When these have wealth their hospitality is too apt to take the place of a spendthrift profuseness, ending in pecuniary embarrassment.

So was it with Captain Jack Clancy; who got wealth with his wife, but soon squandered it entertaining his own and his wife's friends. The result, a move to Mississippi, where land was cheaper, and his attenuated fortune would enable him to hold out a little longer.

Still, the property he had purchased in Mississippi State was but a poor one; leading him to contemplate a further flit into the rich red lands of North-Eastern Texas, just becoming famous as a field for colonisation. His son Charles sent thither, as said, on a trip of exploration, had spent some months in the Lone Star State, prospecting for the new home; and brought back a report in every way favourable.

But the ear, to which it was to have been spoken, could no more hear. On his return, he found himself fatherless; and to the only son there remains only a mother; whose grief, pressing heavily, has almost brought her to the grave. It is one of a long series of reverses which have sorely taxed her fortitude. Another of like heaviness, and the tomb may close over her.

Some such presentiment is in the mother's mind, on this very day, as the sun goes down, and she sits in her chamber beside a dim candle, with ear keenly bent to catch the returning footsteps of her son.

He has been absent since noon, having gone deer-stalking, as frequently before. She can spare him for this, and pardon his prolonged absence. She knows how fond he is of the chase; has been so from a boy.

But, on the present occasion, he is staying beyond his usual time. It is now night; the deer have sought their coverts; and he is not "torch-hunting."

Only one thing can she think of to explain the tardiness of his return. The eyes of the widowed mother have been of late more watchful than wont. She has noticed her son's abstracted air, and heard sighs that seemed to come from his inner heart. Who can mistake the signs of love, either in man or woman? Mrs Clancy does not. She sees that Charles has lapsed into this condition.

Rumours that seem wafted on the air--signs slight, but significant-- perhaps the whisper of a confidential servant--these have given her assurance of the fact: telling her, at the same time, who has won his affections.

Mrs Clancy is neither dissatisfied nor displeased. In all the neighbourhood there is no one she would more wish to have for a daughter-in-law than Helen Armstrong. Not from any thought of the girl's great beauty, or high social standing. Caroline Clancy is herself too well descended to make much of the latter circumstance. It is the reputed noble character of the lady that influences her approval of her son's choice.

Thinking of this--remembering her own youth, and the stolen interviews with Charles Clancy's father--oft under the shadow of night--she could not, does not, reflect harshly on the absence of that father's son from home, however long, or late the hour.

It is only as the clock strikes twelve, she begins to think seriously about it. Then creeps over her a feeling of uneasiness, soon changing to apprehension. Why should he be staying out so late--after midnight? The same little bird, that brought her tidings of his love-affair, has also told her it is clandestine. Mrs Clancy may not like this. It has the semblance of a slight to her son, as herself--more keenly felt by her in their reduced circumstances. But then, as compensation, arises the retrospect of her own days of courtship carried on in the same way.

Still, at that hour the young lady cannot--dares not--be abroad. All the more unlikely, that the Armstrongs are moving off--as all the neighbourhood knows--and intend starting next day, at an early hour.

The plantation people will long since have retired to rest; therefore an interview with his sweetheart can scarce be the cause of her son's detention. Something else must be keeping him. What? So run the reflections of the fond mother.

At intervals she starts up from her seat, as some sound reaches her; each time gliding to the door, and gazing out--again to go back disappointed.

For long periods she remains in the porch, her eye interrogating the road that runs past the cottage-gate; her ear acutely listening for footsteps.

Early in the night it has been dark; now there is a brilliant moonlight. But no man, no form moving underneath it. No sound of coming feet; nothing that resembles a footfall.

One o'clock, and still silence; to the mother of Charles Clancy become oppressive, as with increased anxiety she watches and waits.

At intervals she glances at the little "Connecticut" clock that ticks over the mantel. A pedlar's thing, it may be false, as the men who come south selling "sech." It is the reflection of a Southern woman, hoping her conjecture may be true.

But, as she lingers in the porch, and looks at the moving moon, she knows the hour must be late.

Certain sounds coming from the forest, and the farther swamp, tell her so. As a backwoods woman she can interpret them. She hears the call of the turkey "gobbler." She knows it means morning.

The clock strikes two; still she hears no fall of footstep--sees no son returning!

"Where is my Charles? What can be detaining him?"

Phrases almost identical with those that fell from the lips of Helen Armstrong, but a few hours before, in a different place, and prompted by a different sentiment--a passion equally strong, equally pure!

Both doomed to disappointment, alike bitter and hard to bear. The same in cause, but dissimilar in the impression produced. The sweetheart believing herself slighted, forsaken, left without a lover; the mother tortured with the presentiment, she no longer has a son!

When, at a yet later hour--or rather earlier, since it is nigh daybreak--a dog, his coat disordered, comes gliding through the gate, and Mrs Clancy recognises her son's favourite hunting hound, she has still only a presentiment of the terrible truth. But one which to the maternal heart, already filled with foreboding, feels too like certainty.

And too much for her strength. Wearied with watching, prostrated by the intensity of her vigil, when the hound crawls up the steps, and under the dim light she sees his bedraggled body--blood as well as mud upon it--the sight produces a climax--a shock apparently fatal.

She swoons upon the spot, and is carried inside the house by a female slave--the last left to her.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN.

A MOONLIGHT MOVING.

While the widowed mother, now doubly bereft--stricken down by the blow-- is still in a state of syncope, the faithful negress doing what she can to restore her, there are sounds outside unheard by either. A dull rumble of wheels, as of some heavy vehicle coming along the main road, with the occasional crack of a whip, and the sonorous "wo-ha" of a teamster.

Presently, a large "Conestoga" wagon passes the cottage-gate, full freighted with what looks like house furniture, screened under canvas. The vehicle is drawn by a team of four strong mules, driven by a negro; while at the wagon's tail, three or four other darkeys follow afoot.

The cortege, of purely southern character, has scarce passed out of sight, and not yet beyond hearing, when another vehicle comes rolling along the road. This, of lighter build, and proceeding at a more rapid rate, is a barouche, drawn by a pair of large Kentucky horses. As the night is warm, and there is no need to spring up the leathern hood--its occupants can all be seen, and their individuality made out. On the box-seat is a black coachman; and by his side a young girl whose tawny complexion, visible in the whiter moonbeams, tells her to be a mulatto. Her face has been seen before, under a certain forest tree--a magnolia-- its owner depositing a letter in the cavity of the trunk. She who sits alongside the driver is "Jule."

In the barouche, behind, is a second face that has been seen under the same tree, but with an expression upon it sadder and more disturbed. For of the three who occupy the inside seats one is Helen Armstrong; the others her father, and sister. They are _en route_ for the city of Natchez, the port of departure for their journey south-westward into Texas; just starting away from their old long-loved dwelling, whose gates they have left ajar, its walls desolate behind thorn.

The wagon, before, carries the remnant of the planter's property,--all his inexorable creditor allows him to take along. No wonder he sits in the barouche, with bowed head, and chin between his knees, not caring to look back. For the first time in his life he feels truly, terribly humiliated.

This, and no flight from creditors, no writ, nor pursuing sheriff, will account for his commencing the journey at so early an hour. To be seen going off in the open daylight would attract spectators around; it may be many sympathisers. But in the hour of adversity his sensitive nature shrinks from the glance of sympathy, as he would dread the stare of exultation, were any disposed to indulge in it.

But besides the sentiment, there is another cause for their night moving--an inexorable necessity as to time. The steamboat, which is to take them up Red River, leaves Natchez at sunrise. He must be aboard by daybreak.

If the bankrupt planter be thus broken-spirited, his eldest daughter is as much cast down as he, and far more unhappily reflecting.

Throughout all that night Helen Armstrong has had no sleep; and now, in the pale moonlight of the morning, her cheeks show white and wan, while a dark shadow broods upon her brow, and her eyes glisten with wild unnatural light, as one in a raging fever. Absorbed in thought, she takes no heed of anything along the road; and scarce makes answer to an occasional observation addressed to her by her sifter, evidently with the intention to cheer her. It has less chance of success, because of Jessie herself being somewhat out of sorts. Even she, habitually merry, is for the time sobered; indeed saddened at the thought of that they are leaving behind, and what may be before them. Possibly, as she looks back at the gate of their grand old home, through which they will never again go, she may be reflecting on the change from their late luxurious life, to the log-cabin and coarse fare, of which her father had forewarned them.

If so, the reflection is hers--not Helen's. Different with the latter, and far more bitter the emotion that stirs within her person, scalding her heart. Little cares she what sort of house she is hitherto to dwell in, what she will have to wear, or eat. The scantiest raiment, or coarsest food, can give no discomfort now. She could bear the thought of sheltering under the humblest roof in Texas--ay, think of it with cheerfulness--had Charles Clancy been but true, to share its shelter along with her. He has not, and that is an end of it.

Is it? No; not for her, though it may be for him. In the company of his Creole girl he will soon cease to think of her--forget the solemn vows made, and the sweet words spoken, beneath the magnolia--tree, in her retrospect seeming sadder than yew, or cypress.

Will she ever forget him? Can she? No; unless in that land, whither her face is set, she find the fabled Lethean stream. Oh! it is bitter-- keenly bitter!

It reaches the climax of its bitterness, when the barouche rolling along opens out a vista between the trees, disclosing a cottage--Clancy's. Inside it sleeps the man, who has made her life a misery! Can he sleep, after what he has done?

While making this reflection she herself feels, as if never caring to close her eyelids more--except in death!

Her emotions are terribly intense, her anguish so overpowering, she can scarce conceal it--indeed does not try, so long as the house is in sight. Perhaps fortunate that her father is absorbed in his own particular sadness. But her sister observes all, guessing--nay, knowing the cause. She says nothing. Such sorrow is too sacred to be intruded on. There are times, when even a sister may not attempt consolation.

Jessie is glad when the carriage, gliding on, again enters among trees, and the little cottage of the Clancys, like their own great house, is forever lost to view.

Could the eyes of Helen Armstrong, in passing, have penetrated through the walls of that white painted dwelling--could she have rested them upon a bed with a woman laid astretch upon it, apparently dead, or dying--could she have looked on another bed, unoccupied, untouched, and been told how he, its usual occupant, was at that moment lying in the middle of a chill marsh, under the sombre canopy of cypresses--it would have caused a revulsion in her feelings, sudden, painful, and powerful as the shock already received.

There would still be sadness in her breast, but no bitterness. The former far easier to endure; she would sooner believe Clancy dead, than think of his traitorous defection.

But she is ignorant of all that has occurred; of the sanguinary scene enacted--played out complete--on the edge of the cypress swamp, and the sad one inside the house--still continuing. Aware of the one, or witness of the other, while passing that lone cottage, as with wet eyes she takes a last look at its walls, she would still be shedding tears-- not of spite, but sorrow.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN.

WHAT HAS BECOME OF CLANCY?

The sun is up--the hour ten o'clock, morning. Around the residence of the widow Clancy a crowd of people has collected. They are her nearest neighbours; while those who dwell at a distance are still in the act of assembling. Every few minutes two or three horsemen ride up, carrying long rifles over their shoulders, with powder-horns and bullet-pouches strapped across their breasts. Those already on the ground are similarly armed, and accoutred.

The cause of this warlike muster is understood by all. Some hours before, a report has spread throughout the plantations that Charles Clancy is missing from his home, under circumstances to justify suspicion of foul play having befallen him. His mother has sent messengers to and fro; hence the gathering around her house.

In the South-Western States, on occasions of this kind, it does not do for any one to show indifference, whatever his station in life. The wealthiest, as well as the poorest, is expected to take part in the administration of backwoods' justice--at times not strictly _en regle_ with the laws of the land.

For this reason Mrs Clancy's neighbours, far and near, summoned or not summoned, come to her cottage. Among them Ephraim Darke, and his son Richard.

Archibald Armstrong is not there, nor looked for. Most know of his having moved away that same morning. The track of his waggon wheels has been seen upon the road; and, if the boat he is to take passage by, start at the advertised hour, he should now be nigh fifty miles from the spot, and still further departing. No one is thinking of him, or his; since no one dreams of the deposed planter, or his family, having ought to do with the business that brings them together.

This is to search for Charles Clancy, still absent from his home. The mother's story has been already told, and only the late comers have to hear it again.

In detail she narrates what occurred on the preceding night; how the hound came home wet, and wounded. Confirmatory of her speech, the animal is before their eyes, still in the condition spoken of. They can all see it has been shot--the tear of the bullet being visible on its back, having just cut through the skin. Coupled with its master's absence, this circumstance strengthens the suspicion of something amiss.

Another, of less serious suggestion, is a piece of cord knotted around the dog's neck--the loose end looking as though gnawed by teeth, and then broken off with a pluck; as if the animal had been tied up, and succeeded in setting itself free.

But why tied? And why has it been shot? These are questions that not anybody can answer.

Strange, too, in the hound having reached home at the hour it did. As Clancy went out about the middle of the day, he could not have gone to such a distance for his dog to have been nearly all night getting back.

Could he himself have fired the bullet, whose effect is before their eyes?

A question almost instantly answered in the negative; by old backwoodsmen among the mustered crowd--hunters who know how to interpret "sign" as surely as Champollion an Egyptian hieroglyph. These having examined the mark on the hound's skin, pronounce the ball that made it to have come from a _smooth-bore, and not a rifle_. It is notorious, that Charles Clancy never carried a smooth-bore, but always a rifled gun. His own dog has not been shot by him.

After some time spent in discussing the probabilities and possibilities of the case, it is at length resolved to drop conjecturing, and commence search for the missing man. In the presence of his mother no one speaks of searching for his _dead body_; though there is a general apprehension, that this will be the thing found.

She, the mother, most interested of all, has a too true foreboding of it. When the searchers, starting off, in kindly sympathy tell her to be of good cheer, her heart more truly says, she will never see her son again.

On leaving the house, the horsemen separate into two distinct parties, and proceed in different directions.

With one and the larger, goes Clancy's hound; an old hunter, named Woodley, taking the animal along. He has an idea it may prove serviceable, when thrown on its master's track--supposing this can be discovered.

Just as conjectured, the hound does prove of service. Once inside the woods, without even setting nose to the ground, it starts off in a straight run--going so swiftly, the horsemen find it difficult to keep pace with it.

It sets them all into a gallop; this continued for quite a couple of miles through timber thick and thin, at length ending upon the edge of the swamp.

Only a few have followed the hound thus far, keeping close. The others, straggling behind, come up by twos and threes.

The hunter, Woodley, is among the foremost to be in at the death; for _death_ all expect it to prove. They are sure of it, on seeing the stag-hound stop beside something, as it does so loudly baying.

Spurring on towards the spot, they expect to behold the dead body of Charles Clancy. They are disappointed.

There is no body there--dead or alive. Only a pile of Spanish moss, which appears recently dragged from the trees; then thrown into a heap, and afterwards scattered.

The hound has taken stand beside it; and there stays, giving tongue. As the horsemen dismount, and get their eyes closer to the ground, they see something red; which proves to be blood. It is dark crimson, almost black, and coagulated. Still is it blood.

From under the edge of the moss-heap protrudes the barrel of a gun. On kicking the loose cover aside, they see it is a rifle--not of the kind common among backwoodsmen. But they have no need to waste conjecture on the gun. Many present identify it as the yager usually carried by Clancy.

More of the moss being removed, a hat is uncovered--also Clancy's. Several know it as his--can swear to it.

A gun upon the ground, abandoned, discharged as they see; a hat alongside it; blood beside both--there must have been shooting on the spot--some one wounded, if not actually killed? And who but Charles Clancy? The gun is his, the hat too, and his must be the blood.

They have no doubt of its being his, no more of his being dead; the only question asked is "Where's his body?"

While those first up are mutually exchanging this interrogatory, others, later arriving, also put it in turn. All equally unable to give a satisfactory answer--alike surprised by what they see, and puzzled to explain it.

There is one man present who could enlighten them in part, though not altogether--one who comes lagging up with the last. It is Richard Darke.

Strange he should be among the stragglers. At starting out he appeared the most zealous of all!

Then he was not thinking of the dog; had no idea how direct, and soon, the instinct of the animal would lead them to the spot where he had given Clancy his death shot.

The foremost of the searchers have dismounted and are standing grouped around it. He sees them, and would gladly go back, but dares not. Defection now would be damning evidence against him. After all, what has he to fear? They will find a dead body--Clancy's--a corpse with a bullet-hole in the breast. They can't tell who fired the fatal shot-- how could they? There were no witnesses save the trunks of the cypresses, and the dumb brute of a dog--not so dumb but that it now makes the woods resound with its long-drawn continuous whining. If it could but shape this into articulate speech, then he might have to fear. As it is, he need not.

Fortified with these reflections, he approaches the spot, by himself made bloody. Trembling, nevertheless, and with cheeks pale. _Not_ strange. He is about being brought face to face with the man he has murdered--with his corpse!

Nothing of the kind. There is no murdered man there, no corpse! Only a gun, a hat, and some blotches of crimson!

Does Darke rejoice at seeing only this? Judging by his looks, the reverse. Before, he only trembled slightly, with a hue of pallor on his cheeks. Now his lips show white, his eyes sunken in their sockets, while his teeth chatter and his whole frame shivers as if under an ague chill!

Luckily for the assassin this tale-telling exhibition occurs under the shadow of the great cypress, whose gloomy obscurity guards against its being observed. But to counteract this little bit of good luck there chances to be present a detective that trusts less to sight, than scent. This is Clancy's dog. As Darke presents himself in the circle of searchers collected around it, the animal perceiving, suddenly springs towards him with the shrill cry of an enraged cat, and the elastic leap of a tiger!

But for Simeon Woodley seizing the hound, and holding it back, the throat of Richard Darke would be in danger.

It is so, notwithstanding.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Around the blood-stained spot there is a pause; the searchers forming a tableau strikingly significant. They have come up, to the very last lagger; and stand in attitudes expressing astonishment, with glances that speak inquiry. These, not directed to the ground, nor straying through the trees, but fixed upon Dick Darke.

Strange the antipathy of the dog, which all observe! For the animal, soon as let loose, repeats its hostile demonstrations, and has to be held off again. Surely it signifies something, and this bearing upon the object of their search? The inference is unavoidable.

Darke is well aware their eyes are upon him, as also their thoughts. Fortunate for him, that night-like shadow surrounding. But for it, his blanched lips, and craven cast of countenance, would tell a tale to condemn him at once--perhaps to punishment on the spot.

As it if, his scared condition is not unnoticed. It is heard, if not clearly seen. Two or three, standing close to him, can hear his teeth clacking like castanets!

His terror is trebly intensified--from a threefold cause. Seeing no body first gave him a shock of surprise; soon followed by superstitious awe; this succeeded by apprehension of another kind. But he had no time to dwell upon it before being set upon by the dog, which drove the more distant danger out of his head.

Delivered also from this, his present fear is about those glances regarding him. In the obscurity he cannot read them, but for all that can tell they are sternly inquisitorial. _En revanche_, neither can they read his; and, from this drawing confidence, he recovers his habitual coolness--knowing how much he now needs it.

The behaviour of the hound must not pass unspoken of. With a forced laugh, and in a tone of assumed nonchalance, he says:

"I can't tell how many scores of times that dog of Clancy's has made at me in the same way. It's never forgiven me since the day I chastised it, when it came after one of our sluts. I'd have killed the cur long ago, but spared it through friendship for its master."

An explanation plausible, and cunningly conceived; though not satisfactory to some. Only the unsuspicious are beguiled by it. However, it holds good for the time; and, so regarded, the searchers resume their quest.

It is no use for them to remain longer by the moss-heap. There they but see blood; they are looking for a body. To find this they must go farther.

One taking up the hat, another the abandoned gun, they scatter off, proceeding in diverse directions.

For several hours they go tramping among the trees, peering under the broad fan-like fronds of the saw-palmettoes, groping around the buttressed trunks of the cypresses, sending glances into the shadowed spaces between--in short, searching everywhere.

For more than a mile around they quarter the forest, giving it thorough examination. The swamp also, far as the treacherous ooze will allow them to penetrate within its _gloomy_ portals--fit abode of death--place appropriate for the concealment of darkest crime.

Notwithstanding their zeal, prompted by sympathising hearts, as by a sense of outraged justice, the day's search proves fruitless--bootless. No body can be found, dead or living; no trace of the missing man. Nothing beyond what they have already obtained--his hat and gun.

Dispirited, tired out, hungry, hankering after dinners delayed, as eve approaches they again congregate around the gory spot; and, with a mutual understanding to resume search on the morrow, separate, and set off--each to his own home.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN.

A BULLET EXTRACTED.

Not all of the searching party leave the place. Two remain, staying as by stealth. Some time before the departure of the others, these had slipped aside, and sauntered off several hundred yards, taking their horses along with them.

Halting in an out-of-the-way spot, under deepest shadow, and then dismounting, they wait till the crowd shall disperse. To all appearance impatiently, as if they wanted to have the range of the forest to themselves, and for some particular reason. Just this do they, or at least one of them does; making his design known to the other, soon as he believes himself beyond earshot of those from whom they separated.

It is the elder that instructs; who, in addition to the horse he is holding, has another animal by his side--a dog. For it is the hunter, Woodley, still in charge of Clancy's hound.

The man remaining with him is one of his own kind and calling; younger in years, but, like himself, a professional follower of the chase--by name, Heywood.

Giving his reason for the step he is taking, Woodley says, "We kin do nothin' till them greenhorns air gone. Old Dan Boone hisself kedn't take up trail, wi' sich a noisy clanjamfry aroun him. For myself I hain't hardly tried, seein' 'twar no use till they'd clar off out o' the way. And now the darned fools hev' made the thing more diffeequilt, trampin about, an' blottin' out every shadder o' sign, an everything as looks like a futmark. For all, I've tuk notice to somethin' none o' them seed. Soon's the coast is clar we kin go thar, an' gie it a more pertikler examinashun."

The younger hunter nods assent, adding a word, signifying readiness to follow his older confrere.

For some minutes they remain; until silence restored throughout the forest tells them it is forsaken. Then, leaving their horses behind, with bridles looped around branches--the hound also attached to one of the stirrups--they go back to the place, where the hat and gun were found.

They do not stay there; but continue a little farther on, Woodley leading.

At some twenty paces distance, the old hunter comes to a halt, stopping by the side of a cypress "knee"; one of those vegetable monstrosities that perplex the botanist--to this hour scientifically unexplained. In shape resembling a ham, with the shank end upwards; indeed so like to this, that the Yankee bacon-curers have been accused, by their southern customers, of covering them with canvas, and selling them for the real article!

It may be that the Mississippian backwoodsman, Woodley, could give a better account of these singular excrescences than all the closet scientists in the world.

He is not thinking of either science, or his own superior knowledge, while conducting his companion to the side of that "cypress knee." His only thought is to show Heywood something he had espied while passing it in the search; but of which he did not then appear to take notice, and said nothing, so long as surrounded by the other searchers.

The time has come to scrutinise it more closely, and ascertain if it be what he suspects it.

The "knee" in question is one which could not be palmed off for a porker's ham. Its superior dimensions forbid the counterfeit. As the two hunters halt beside it, its bulk shows bigger than either of their own bodies, while its top is at the height of their heads.

Standing in front of it, Woodley points to a break in the bark--a round hole, with edge slightly ragged. The fibre appears freshly cut, and more than cut--encrimsoned! Twenty-four hours may have elapsed, but not many more, since that hole was made. So believe the backwoodsmen, soon as setting their eyes on it.

Speaking first, Woodley asks,--

"What d'ye think o' it, Ned?"

Heywood, of taciturn habit, does not make immediate answer, but stands silently regarding the perforated spot. His comrade continues:--

"Thar's a blue pill goed in thar', which jedgin' by the size and shape o' the hole must a kum out a biggish gun barrel. An', lookin' at the red stain 'roun' its edge, that pill must a been blood-coated."

"Looks like blood, certainly."

"_It air blood_--the real red thing itself; the blood o' Charley Clancy. The ball inside thar' has first goed through his body. It's been deadened by something and don't appear to hev penetrated a great way into the timmer, for all o' that bein' soft as sapwood."

Drawing out his knife, the old hunter inserts the point of its blade into the hole, probing it.

"Jest as I sayed. Hain't entered the hul o' an inch. I kin feel the lead ludged thar'."

"Suppose you cut it out, Sime?"

"Precisely what I intend doin'. But not in a careless way. I want the surroundin' wood along wi' it. The two thegither will best answer our purpiss. So hyar goes to git 'em thegither."

Saying this, he inserts his knife-blade into the bark, and first makes a circular incision around the bullet-hole. Then deepens it, taking care not to touch the ensanguined edge of the orifice, or come near it.

The soft vegetable substance yields to his keen steel, almost as easily as if he were slicing a Swedish turnip; and soon he detaches a pear-shaped piece, but bigger than the largest prize "Jargonelle."

Holding it in his hand, and apparently testing its ponderosity, he says:

"Ned; this chunk o' timmer encloses a bit o' lead as niver kim out o' a rifle. Thar's big eends o' an ounce weight o' metal inside. Only a smooth-bore barrel ked a tuk it; an' from sech it's been dischurged."

"You're right about that," responds Heywood, taking hold of the piece of wood, and also trying its weight. "It's a smooth-bore ball--no doubt of it."

"Well, then, who carries a smooth-bore through these hyar woods? Who, Ned Heywood?"

"I know only one man that does."

"Name him! Name the damned rascal!"

"Dick Darke."

"Ye kin drink afore me, Ned. That's the skunk I war a-thinkin' 'bout, an' hev been all the day. I've seed other sign beside this--the which escaped the eyes o' the others. An' I'm gled it did: for I didn't want Dick Darke to be about when I war follerin' it up. For that reezun I drawed the rest aside--so as none o' 'em shed notice it. By good luck they didn't."

"You saw other sign! What, Sime?"

"Tracks in the mud, clost in by the edge o' the swamp. They're a good bit from the place whar the poor young fellur's blood's been spilt, an' makin' away from it. I got only a glimp at 'em, but ked see they'd been made by a man runnin'. You bet yur life on't they war made by a pair o' boots I've seen on Dick Darke's feet. It's too gloomsome now to make any thin' out o' them. So let's you an' me come back here by ourselves, at the earliest o' daybreak, afore the people git about. Then we kin gie them tracks a thorrer scrutination. If they don't prove to be Dick Darke's, ye may call Sime Woodley a thick-headed woodchuck."

"If we only had one of his boots, so that we might compare it with the tracks."

"_If_! Thar's no if. We _shall_ hev one o' his boots--ay, both--I'm boun' to hev 'em."

"But how?"

"Leave that to me. I've thought o' a plan to git purssession o' the scoundrel's futwear, an' everythin' else belongin' to him that kin throw a ray o' daylight unto this darksome bizness. Come, Ned! Le's go to the widder's house, an' see if we kin say a word to comfort the poor lady--for a lady she air. Belike enough this thing'll be the death o' her. She warn't strong at best, an' she's been a deal weaker since the husban' died. Now the son's goed too--ah! Come along, an' le's show her, she ain't forsook by everybody."

With the alacrity of a loyal heart, alike leaning to pity, the young hunter promptly responds to the appeal, saying:--

"I'm with you, Woodley!"

The Death Shot--by Captain Mayne Reid

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN.

"TO THE SHERIFF!"

A day of dread, pitiless suspense to the mother of Charles Clancy, while they are abroad searching for her son.

Still more terrible the night after their return--not without tidings of the missing man. Such tidings! The too certain assurance of his death--of his murder--with the added mystery of their not having been able to find his body. Only his hat, his gun, his blood!

Her grief, hitherto held in check by a still lingering hope, now escapes all trammels, and becomes truly agonising. Her heart seems broken, or breaking.

Although without wealth, and therefore with but few friends, in her hour of lamentation she is not left alone. It is never so in the backwoods of the Far West; where, under rough home-wove coats, throb hearts gentle and sympathetic, as ever beat under the finest broadcloth.

Among Mrs Clancy's neighbours are many of this kind; chiefly "poor whites,"--as scornfully styled by the prouder planters. Some half-score of them determine to stay by her throughout the night; with a belief their presence may do something to solace her, and a presentiment that ere morning they may be needed for a service yet more solemn. She has retired to her chamber--taken to her bed; she may never leave either alive.

As the night chances to be a warm one--indeed stifling hot, the men stay outside, smoking their pipes in the porch, or reclining upon the little grass plot in front of the dwelling, while within, by the bedside of the bereaved widow, are their wives, sisters, and daughters.

Needless to say, that the conversation of those without relates exclusively to the occurrences of the day, and the mystery of the murder. For this, they all believe it to have been; though utterly unable to make out, or conjecture a motive.

They are equally perplexed about the disappearance of the body; though this adds not much to the mystery.

They deem it simply a corollary, and consequence, of the other. He, who did the foul deed, has taken steps to conceal it, and so far succeeded. It remains to be seen whether his astuteness will serve against the search to be resumed on the morrow.

Two questions in chief, correlative, occupy them: "Who killed Clancy?" and "What has been the motive for killing him?"

To the former, none of them would have thought of answering "Dick Darke,"--that is when starting out on the search near noon.

Now that night is on, and they have returned from it, his name is on every lip. At first only in whispers, and guarded insinuations; but gradually pronounced in louder tone, and bolder speech--this approaching accusation.

Still the second question remains unanswered:--

"Why should Dick Darke have killed Charley Clancy?"

Even put in this familiar form it receives no reply. It is an enigma to which no one present holds the key. For none know aught of a rivalry having existed between the two men--much less a love-jealousy, than which no motive more inciting to murder ever beat in human breast.

Darke's partiality for Colonel Armstrong's eldest daughter has been no secret throughout the settlement. He himself, childishly, in his cups, long since made all scandal-mongers acquainted with that. But Clancy, of higher tone, if not more secretive habit, has kept his love-affair to himself; influenced by the additional reason of its being clandestine.

Therefore, those, sitting up as company to his afflicted parent, have no knowledge of the tender relations that existed between him and Helen Armstrong, any more than of their being the cause of that disaster for which the widow now weeps.

She herself alone knows of them; but, in the first moment of her misfortune, completely prostrated by it, she has not yet communicated aught of this to the sympathetic ears around her. It is a family secret, too sacred for their sympathy; and, with some last lingering pride of superior birth, she keeps it to herself. The time has not come for disclosing it.

But it soon will--she knows that. All must needs be told. For, after the first throes of the overwhelming calamity, in which her thoughts alone dwelt on the slain son, they turned towards him suspected as the slayer. In her case with something stronger than suspicion--indeed almost belief, based on her foreknowledge of the circumstances; these not only accounting for the crime, but pointing to the man who must have committed it.

As she lies upon her couch, with tears streaming down her cheeks, and sighs heaved from the very bottom of her breast--as she listens to the kind voices vainly essaying to console her--she herself says not a word. Her sorrow is too deep, too absorbing, to find expression in speech. But in her thoughts are two men--before, her distracted fancy two faces--one of a murdered man, the other his murderer--the first her own son, the second that of Ephraim Darke.

Notwithstanding ignorance of all these circumstances, the thoughts of her sympathising neighbours--those in council outside--dwell upon Dick Darke; while his name is continuously upon their tongues. His unaccountable conduct during the day--as also the strange behaviour of the hound--is now called up, and commented upon.

Why should the dog have made such demonstration? Why bark at him above all the others--selecting him out of the crowd--so resolutely and angrily assailing him?

His own explanation, given at the time, appeared lame and unsatisfactory.

It looks lamer now, as they sit smoking their pipes, more coolly and closely considering it.

While they are thus occupied, the wicket-gate, in front of the cottage, is heard turning upon its hinges, and two men are seen entering the enclosure.

As these draw near to the porch, where a tallow dip dimly burns, its light is reflected from the features of Simeon Woodley and Edward Heywood.

The hunters are both well-known to all upon the ground; and welcomed, as men likely to make a little less irksome that melancholy midnight watch.

If the new-comers cannot contribute cheerfulness, they may something else, as predicted by the expression observed upon their faces, at stepping into the porch. Their demeanour shows them possessed of some knowledge pertinent to the subject under discussion, as also important.

Going close to the candle, and summoning the rest around, Woodley draws from the ample pocket of his large, loose coat a bit of wood, bearing resemblance to a pine-apple, or turnip roughly peeled.

Holding it to the light, he says: "Come hyar, fellurs! fix yar eyes on this."

All do as desired.

"Kin any o' ye tell what it air?" the hunter asks.

"A bit of tree timber, I take it," answers one.

"Looks like a chunk carved out of a cypress knee," adds a second.

"It ought," assents Sime, "since that's jest what it air; an' this child air he who curved it out. Ye kin see thar's a hole in the skin-front; which any greenhorn may tell's been made by a bullet: an' he'd be still greener in the horn as kedn't obsarve a tinge o' red roun' thet hole, the which air nothin' more nor less than blood. Now, boys! the bullet's yit inside the wud, for me an' Heywood here tuk care not to extract it till the proper time shed come."