"No, I dare not. I know how great must be your anxiety to learn the fate of Eveline, but I can a.s.sist you no further in prosecuting a search for her.
She is either safe, or her doom is sealed, and I know not which is the most probable, safety or destruction. In fact I am as much in the dark as you are in relation to her last disappearance; it is a mystery which I can only account for on the supposition already stated, that there is treason in the League."
All this was said with difficulty by Duffel, who suffered great pain from his wound, but would not allow himself to be disturbed until he had revealed what was on his mind. He now permitted himself to be placed on a rude litter, which was prepared by the men out of the branches of trees, and was carefully borne toward his home.
But before they had emerged from the swamp he motioned them to stop, and they did so.
"I am going!" he said, in a voice scarcely above a whisper. "I thank you for your kindness. Whoever bears the tidings of my death to my mother, please break the news to her as gently as possible."
The thought of his mother seemed to awaken the better part of his nature, and at the same time to quicken his pulses. He grew stronger under the excitement, and e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed in a louder tone:
"Oh, my G.o.d! that I should come to this! I fear the intelligence will kill her!"
He covered his face with his hands and groaned in agony. Every eye in that solemn group around him was moist with tears.
"Take me on!" said the sufferer, after a pause. "Possibly I may be able to hold out till I reach home. If I do not, Mr. Mandeville, and you should ever see Eveline again tell her that almost with my dying words I craved her forgiveness."
Duffel the man and villain was subdued, and Duffel the boy was again come to life. The memory of a mother"s love opened the long-sealed fountain of affection in his sin-encased heart, and he felt once more, in a little degree, as he had done in the days of his innocence.
As he was carried along the current of thought again changed, and he cast a retrospect over the years of crime, which had made him an outlaw, and brought him down to the gate of death. The dark picture shut out the light of more pleasant memories, and his soul sunk back into the night of darkness which the blackness of his crime had cast around it! Again he groaned in anguish of spirit and closed his eyes, as if by so doing he would shut out the phantoms of his evil deeds from his soul"s vision.
The excitement of conflicting emotions threw him into a fever, and before he reached his home, which was not till after night, he was delirious. A broken hearted mother laid her soft hand affectionately upon his head, and called his name in such endearing tones as only a mother"s lips can breathe; but he knew not that it was her, he felt only the touch of a horrid specter, and heard but the mocking of fiends!
Then he raved and bid the ghostly phantoms begone! Oh, it was terrible to witness his soul-disordered agony, and hear the awful words that fell from his fevered lips!
"Why, in Satan"s name," he said, "have you come to torment me with your jeers and scoffs, ye minions of h----? Away with you! Back! back! I say, to your black home in the pit!"
Then covering his eyes he lay and shuddered for a brief period, but soon screamed out:
"Keep your forked tongues out of my face, you hissing devils!"
These paroxysms, upon the horrors of which we have no wish to dwell, lasted all the night, but subsided about the dawn of morning. The last image conjured up by his distempered fancy seemed to be one of Hadley:
"Oh, Hadley," he pleaded in piteous tones, "do not look upon me in that way! Take from me those mournful eyes, oh, take them away! for that look burns into my heart! Hadley! Hadley! have pity on me! and spare me! Am I not tormented enough already?"
But we will not linger to depict this harrowing scene. When the fever subsided he was weak as an infant. His mother asked him if he knew her, and he whispered:
"Yes, oh, yes! G.o.d forgive me for bringing your "grey hairs in sorrow to the grave!" Oh, that I could die with your forgiveness graven upon my heart; but I dare not hope--I dare not pray for it!"
"G.o.d bless you, my son! and forgive you as I do!" pa.s.sionately exclaimed the parent; and her heart was writhing with agony!
What a fearful thing it is to bow a parent"s head with shame! to crush out the joy from a tender mother"s heart, and shut the light from her spirit forever! And, oh, what a fearful thing to die with this consciousness burning into the soul like the sting of scorpions!
None of the horrid visions that visited his fevered brain in the hours of delirium were half so painful as the anguished expression on that mother"s face. It sunk to the great deep of the guilty son"s soul; and, with that pale face bending over him, his last glimpse of earth, his sight paled and his spirit left its clay tenement for eternity. What a lesson in his life and death!
CHAPTER XXII.
THE DISGUISED VILLAINS MEET HADLEY--THE RESULT--CONCLUSION.
As already stated, Bill and d.i.c.k had disguised themselves in the garb of gentlemen, and with certain disfigurements of countenance which completely hid their features and rendered it impossible to identify them, either in their character of villainous murderers, or as the abductors, on a former occasion, of their present captive. When Bill first discovered Eveline in the woods, he was about to make known to her that he and d.i.c.k were the friends who had promised to liberate her, but on second thought he deemed it best to keep up the disguise, and learn, if possible, whether she had any knowledge of his real intentions and their ultimate destination. Hence her inability to trace the voice, which sounded so familiar, to the wily villain who had enticed her to meet Hadley for the purpose of placing her in Duffel"s power.
Bill endeavored by every indirect means, not calculated to excite suspicion, to draw from Eveline the facts of her situation, with the view of informing himself of her sentiments toward the friends who had promised her freedom; but she kept her own counsels, and completely baffled him in his object. He knew that the present course of deception could not long be persisted in, as, at furthest, on the morrow a development of facts must take place, or, at least, a continued persistence in the disguise as to destination would be impossible. How to make himself known in his real character was a matter which puzzled him not a little; for he well knew from her manners and from the resistance she had made to Duffel, that it would be no easy task to force her all the way to Virginia. If he could only manage to keep up appearances until a certain point was gained, which he hoped to reach by night on the second day, he felt pretty sure of final success; for he would then be on a route along which friends were numerous, and he knew where to stop for refreshments and at what places to put up for the night. But how to reach that point was the difficulty.
After bestowing much thought on the subject, he at last hit upon the plan which he concluded would enable him to accomplish his ends without being mistrusted by Eveline. His plan was simply this: To give Eveline to understand that it would be impossible for them to reach C---- that day; and when, on the morrow, it should appear to be time for the termination of their journey, he would, in seemingly well disguised uneasiness, inform her that they were lost in the wilderness! and as the day wore away, that it might be possible they would have to remain in the forest all night, if they did not happen to stumble on some settlement or lone cabin. In this way he could gain the time desired; and he well knew _what_ solitary cabin he would reach at night!
Poor Eveline was again in the toils of an enemy, and it would seem now that nothing but death could release her from the snare in which she had unconsciously fallen. In her situation, "ignorance was certainly bliss;"
for while the web of fate was weaving so surely around her, she was thinking of home and friends with joy at heart, that soon she would return to the one and be greeted by the others. Alas! how little knew she of the dark purposes of the vile wretches who were confided in as friends!
Without lingering to describe the particulars of the day and night, except to mention that the latter was spent at a first cla.s.s public house, and without the occurrence of any note worthy of incident, we will simply state that Bill, who let d.i.c.k into his secret, carried out his plans to the letter; and on the second day, about noon, communicated to Eveline the unwelcome and, to her, startling intelligence that they had missed their way and were somewhat bewildered, but still hoped all would come out right.
All the horrors of her former night"s adventure in the wilderness came up in her mind, and she shuddered at the thought that a repet.i.tion of its dreadful experience might be before her, but concealed her feelings as well as she could, though Bill saw that a sudden pallor overspread her face, and that she was really alarmed.
Bill produced a pocket compa.s.s, and pretended to take directions and shape their course from it. Toward evening, he announced the fact, that he was quite confident they were near a secluded dwelling occupied by an old half-hermit sort of a fellow and his family, which, though affording but poor accommodations, would be preferable to the forest as a shelter for the night. As predetermined by him, they reached this desolate looking habitation, and put up for the night. Seeing that Eveline was ill at ease, he found means to whisper in her ear:
"Do not be alarmed at appearances; these people are rough, but honest; and in any emergency, be a.s.sured we will defend you with our lives!"
But this whispered a.s.surance of defense had the contrary effect from what was intended, for Eveline at once had her fears confirmed that there _was_ danger to be apprehended. She did not, however, manifest her increased apprehensions of evil, but seemed as calm as possible until she was shown her sleeping apartment for the night, which was a room on the first floor, with a bolt to the rude door on the inside. She fastened herself in; but instead of sleeping, put out her light, and listened with sharpened ears to every noise that disturbed the stillness of the night. She had been in her room but a little while when she was startled by a call from without:
"Halloo, the house!"
She waited a moment, and then heard the owner go to the door and demand:
"Who"s there?"
"A benighted traveler, who has lost his way, and wishes to obtain shelter for the night."
"The house is already full of guests, and I cannot take any more."
"Let him in;" said Bill, whose voice Eveline recognized. "He may be worth taking in, you know."
The man then called out:
"My guests think you can be accommodated; so you may come in, I reckon, and share such fare and lodging as we can give, which are none the best."
"If you will show me the way to the stable, I will first see to my horse,"
said the traveler.
The host pointed out a shed where the beast could stand, and soon the two returned to the house.
The moment the new-comer entered the door, Bill and d.i.c.k cast inquiring glances at each other; paleness as of death was on their cheeks, and superst.i.tious alarm at their hearts; for in the stranger they beheld CHARLES HADLEY! Was it his ghost come to torment them in the hour of their triumph and security? Several minutes pa.s.sed before they could be a.s.sured of his ident.i.ty, that he was veritably flesh and blood, and not a spirit. It was well for them that the obscure light of the room cast their features in shadow, or their blanched cheeks and disquiet looks might have betrayed them. In a very short time they found it convenient, as on a former occasion, when seeking the life of the same man, to go out to see after their horses.
"Well, d.i.c.k!" said Bill, when they were alone, "What now?"
"D----n me, ef I didn"t think the dead had come to life, when I first seen that feller! He must be bullet proof, for I placed my pistol plumb ag"in"
him when I fired. I"m half a mind to believe yet that it"s his ghost."