Let us return to the village. The situation of the jailer, Brooks, and of his companions, as the landlord left them, will be readily remembered by the reader. It was not until the fugitives were fairly on the road, that the former, who had been pretty well stunned by the severe blow given him by Munro, recovered from his stupor; and he then laboured under the difficulty of freeing himself from the bag about his head and shoulders, and his incarceration in the dwelling of the pedler.
The blow had come nigh to sobering him, and his efforts, accordingly, were not without success. He looked round in astonishment upon the condition of all things around him, ignorant of the individual who had wrested from him his charge, besides subjecting his scull to the heavy test which it had been so little able to resist or he to repel; and, almost ready to believe, from the equally prostrate condition of the pedler and his brother, that, in reality, the a.s.sailant by which he himself was overthrown was no other than the potent bottle-G.o.d of his brother"s familiar worship.
Such certainly would have been his impression but for the sack in which he had been enveloped, and the absence of his keys. The blow, which he had not ceased to feel, might have been got by a drunken man in a thousand ways, and was no argument to show the presence of an enemy; but the sack, and the missing keys--they brought instant conviction, and a rapidly increasing sobriety, which, as it duly increased his capacity for reflection, was only so much more unpleasant than his drunkenness.
But no time was to be lost, and the first movement--having essayed, though ineffectually, to kick his stupid host and snoring brother-in-law into similar consciousness with himself--was to rush headlong to the jail, where he soon realized all the apprehensions which a.s.sailed him when discovering the loss of his keys. The prisoner was gone, and the riotous search which he soon commenced about the village collected a crowd whose clamors, not less than his own, had occasioned the uproar, which concluded the conference between Miss Colleton and Guy Rivers, as narrated in a previous chapter.
The mob, approaching the residence of Colonel Colleton, as a place which might probably have been resorted to by the fugitive, brought the noise more imperiously to the ears of Rivers, and compelled his departure. He sallied forth, and in a little while ascertained the cause of the disorder. By this time the dwelling of Colonel Colleton had undergone the closest scrutiny. It was evident to the crowd, that, so far from harboring the youth, they were not conscious of the escape; but of this Rivers was not so certain. He was satisfied in his own mind that the stern refusal of Edith to accept his overtures for the rescue, arose only from the belief that they could do without him. More than ever irritated by this idea, the outlaw was bold enough, relying upon his disguise, to come forward, and while all was indecisive in the mult.i.tude, to lay plans for a pursuit. He did not scruple to instruct the jailer as to what course should be taken for the recovery of the fugitive; and by his cool, strong sense and confidence of expression, he infused new hope into that much-bewildered person. n.o.body knew who he was, but as the village was full of strangers, who had never been seen there before, this fact occasioned neither surprise nor inquiry.
His advice was taken, and a couple of the Georgia guard, who were on station in the village, now making their appearance, he suggested the course which they should pursue, and in few words gave the reasons which induced the choice. Familiar himself with all the various routes of the surrounding country, he did not doubt that the fugitive, under whatever guidance, for as yet he knew nothing of Munro"s agency in the business, would take the most direct course to the Indian nation.
All this was done, on his part, with an excited spirit, the result of that malignant mood which now began to apprehend the chance of being deprived of all its victims. Had this not been the case--had he not been present--the probability is, that, in the variety of counsel, there would have been a far greater delay in the pursuit; but such must always be the influence of a strong and leading mind in a time of trial and popular excitement. Such a mind concentrates and makes effective the power which otherwise would be wasted in air. His superiority of character was immediately manifest--his suggestions were adopted without dissent; and, in a few moments the two troopers, accompanied by the jailer, were in pursuit upon the very road taken by the fugitives.
Rivers, in the meanwhile, though excessively anxious about the result of the pursuit, was yet too sensible of his own risk to remain much longer in the village. Annoyed not a little by the apprehended loss of that revenge which he had described as so delicious in contemplation to his mind, he could not venture to linger where he was, at a time of such general excitement and activity. With a prudent caution, therefore, more the result of an obvious necessity than of any accustomed habit of his life, he withdrew himself as soon as possible from the crowd, at the moment when Pippin--who never lost a good opportunity--had mounted upon a stump in order to address them. Breaking away just as the lawyer was swelling with some old truism, and perhaps no truth, about the rights of man and so forth, he mounted his horse, which he had concealed in the neighborhood, and rode off to the solitude and the shelter of his den.
There was one thing that troubled his mind along with its other troubles, and that was to find out who were the active parties in the escape of Colleton. In all this time, he had not for a moment suspected Munro of connection with the affair--he had too much overrated his own influence with the landlord to permit of a thought in his mind detrimental to his conscious superiority. He had no clue, the guidance of which might bring him to the trail; for the jailer, conscious of his own irregularity, was cautious enough in suppressing everything like a detail of the particular circ.u.mstances attending the escape; contenting himself, simply, with representing himself as having been knocked down by some persons unknown, and rifled of the keys while lying insensible.
Rivers could only think of the pedler, and yet, such was his habitual contempt for that person, that he dismissed the thought the moment it came into his mind. Troubled thus in spirit, and filled with a thousand conflicting notions, he had almost reached the rocks, when he was surprised to perceive, on a sudden, close at his elbow, the dwarfish figure of our old friend Chub Williams. Without exhibiting the slightest show of apprehension, the urchin resolutely continued his course along with the outlaw, unmoved by his presence, and with a degree of cavalier indifference which he had never ventured to manifest to that dangerous personage before.
"Why, how now, Chub--do you not see me?" was the first inquiry of Rivers.
"Can the owl see?--Chub is an owl--he can"t see in the moonlight."
"Well, but, Chub--why do you call yourself an owl? You don"t want to see me, boy, do you?"
"Chub wants to see n.o.body but his mother--there"s Miss Lucy now--why don"t you let me see her? she talks jest like Chub"s mother."
"Why, you dog, didn"t you help to steal her away? Have you forgotten how you pulled away the stones? I should have you whipped for it, sir--do you know that I can whip--don"t the hickories grow here?"
"Yes, so Chub"s mother said--but you can"t whip Chub. Chub laughs--he laughs at all your whips. _That_ for your hickories. Ha! ha! ha! Chub don"t mind the hickories--you can"t catch Chub, to whip him with your hickories. Try now, if you can. Try--" and as he spoke he darted along with a rickety, waddling motion, half earnest in his flight, yet seemingly, partly with the desire to provoke pursuit. Something irritated with what was so unusual in the habit of the boy, and what he conceived only so much impertinence, the outlaw turned the horse"s head down the hill after him, but, as he soon perceived, without any chance of overtaking him in so broken a region. The urchin all the while, as if encouraged by the evident hopelessness of the chase on the part of the pursuer, screeched out volley after volley of defiance and laughter--breaking out at intervals into speeches which he thought most like to annoy and irritate.
"Ha, ha, ha! Chub don"t mind your hickories--Chub"s fingers are long--he will pull away all the stones of your house, and then you will have to live in the tree-top."
But on a sudden his tune was changed, as Rivers, half-irritated by the pertinacity of the dwarf, pull out a pistol, and directed it at his head. In a moment, the old influence was predominant, and in undisguised terror he cried out--
"Now don"t--don"t, Mr. Guy--don"t you shoot Chub--Chub won"t laugh again--he won"t pull away the stones--he won"t."
The outlaw now laughed himself at the terror which he had inspired, and beckoning the boy near him, he proceeded, if possible, to persuade him into a feeling of amity. There was a strange temper in him with reference to this outcast. His deformity--his desolate condition--his deficient intellect, inspired, in the breast of the fierce man, a feeling of sympathy, which he had not entertained for the whole world of humanity beside.
Such is the contradictory character of the misled and the erring spirit.
Warped to enjoy crime--to love the deformities of all moral things--to seek after and to surrender itself up to all manner of perversions, yet now and then, in the long tissue, returning, for some moments, to the original temper of that first nature not yet utterly departed; and few and feeble though the fibres be which still bind the heart to her worship, still strong enough at times to remind it of the _true_, however it may be insufficient to restrain it in its wanderings after the _false_.
But the language and effort of the outlaw, though singularly kind, failed to have any of the desired effect upon the dwarf. With an unhesitating refusal to enter the outlaw"s dwelling-place in the rocks, he bounded away into a hollow of the hills, and in a moment was out of sight of his companion. Fatigued with his recent exertions, and somewhat more sullen than usual, Rivers entered the gloomy abode, into which it is not our present design to follow him.
CHAPTER x.x.xIX.
PURSUIT--DEATH.
The fugitives, meanwhile, pursued their way with the speed of men conscious that life and death hung upon their progress. There needed no exhortations from his companion to Ralph Colleton. More than life, with him, depended upon his speed. The shame of such a death as that to which he had been destined was for ever before his eyes, and with a heart nerved to its utmost by a reference to the awful alternative of flight, he grew reckless in the audacity with which he drove his horse forward in defiance of all obstacle and over every impediment. Nor were the present apprehensions of Munro much less than those of his companion. To be overtaken, as the partic.i.p.ant of the flight of one whose life was forfeit, would necessarily invite such an examination of himself as must result in the development of his true character, and such a discovery must only terminate in his conviction and sentence to the same doom. His previously-uttered presentiment grew more than ever strong with the growing consciousness of his danger; and with an animation, the fruit of an anxiety little short of absolute fear, he stimulated the progress of Colleton, while himself driving the rowel ruthlessly into the smoking sides of the animal he bestrode.
"On, sir--on, Mr. Colleton--this is no moment for graceful att.i.tude.
Bend forward--free rein--rashing spur. We ride for life--for life. They must not take us alive--remember _that_. Let them shoot--strike, if they please--but they must put no hands on us as living men. If we must die, why--any death but a dog"s. Are you prepared for such a finish to your ride?"
"I am--but I trust it has not come to that. How much have we yet to the river?"
"Two miles at the least, and a tough road. They gain upon us--do you not hear them--we are slow--very slow. These horses--on, Syphax, dull devil--on--on!"
And at every incoherent and unconnected syllable, the landlord struck his spurs into his animal, and incited the youth to do the same.
"There is an old mill upon the branch to our left, where for a few hours we might lie in secret, but daylight would find us out. Shall we try a birth there, or push on for the river?" inquired Munro.
"Push on, by all means--let us stop nowhere--we shall be safe if we make the nation," was the reply.
"Ay, safe enough but that"s the rub. If we could stretch a mile or two between us, so as to cross before they heave in sight, I could take you to a place where the whole United States would never find us out--but they gain on us--I hear them every moment more and more near. The sounds are very clear to-night--a sign of rain, perhaps to-morrow. On, sir!
Push! The pursuers must hear us, as we hear them."
"But I hear them not--I hear no sounds but our own--" replied the youth.
"Ah, that"s because you have not the ears of an outlaw. There"s a necessity for using our ears, one of the first that we acquire, and I can hear sounds farther, I believe, than any man I ever met, unless it be Guy Rivers. He has the ears of the devil, when his blood"s up. Then he hears further than I can, though I"m not much behind him even then.
Hark! they are now winding the hill not more than half a mile off, and we hear nothing of them now until they get round--the hill throws the echo to the rear, as it is more abrupt on that side than on this. At this time, if they heard us before, they can not hear us. We could now make the old mill with some hope of their losing our track, as we strike into a blind path to do so. What say you, Master Colleton--shall we turn aside or go forward?"
"Forward, I say. If we are to suffer, I would suffer on the high road, in full motion, and not be caught in a crevice like a lurking thief.
Better be shot down--far better--I think with you--than risk recapture."
"Well, it"s the right spirit you have, and we may beat them yet! We cease again to hear them. They are driving through the close grove where the trees hang so much over. G.o.d--it is but a few moments since we went through it ourselves--they gain on us--but the river is not far--speed on--bend forward, and use the spur--a few minutes more close pushing, and the river is in sight. Kill the beasts--no matter--but make the river."
"How do we cross?" inquired the youth, hurriedly, though with a confidence something increased by the manner of his companion.
"Drive in--drive in--there are two fords, each within twenty yards of the other, and the river is not high. You take the path and ford to the right, as you come in sight of the water, and I"ll keep the left. Your horse swims well--so don"t mind the risk; and if there"s any difficulty, leave him, and take to the water yourself. The side I give you is the easiest; though it don"t matter which side I take. I"ve gone through worse chances than this, and, if we hold on for a few moments, we are safe. The next turn, and we are on the banks."
"The river--the river," exclaimed the youth, involuntarily, as the broad and quiet stream wound before his eyes, glittering like a polished mirror in the moonlight.
"Ay, there it is--now to the right--to the right! Look not behind you.
Let them shoot--let them shoot! but lose not an instant to look. Plunge forward and drive in. They are close upon us, and the flat is on the other side. They can"t pursue, unless they do as we, and they have no such reason for so desperate a course. It is swimming and full of snags!
They will stop--they will not follow. In--in--not a moment is to be lost--" and speaking, as they pursued their several ways, he to the left, and Ralph Colleton to the right ford, the obedient steeds plunged forward under the application of the rowel, and were fairly in the bosom of the stream, as the pursuing party rode headlong up the bank.
Struggling onward, in the very centre of the stream, with the steed, which, to do him all manner of justice, swam n.o.bly, Ralph Colleton could not resist the temptation to look round upon his pursuers. Writhing his body in the saddle, therefore, a single glance was sufficient and, in the full glare of the moonlight unimpeded by any interposing foliage, the prospect before his eyes was imposing and terrible enough. The pursuers were four in number--the jailer, two of the Georgia guard, and another person unknown to him.
As Munro had predicted, they did not venture to plunge in as the fugitives had done--they had no such fearful motive for the risk; and the few moments which they consumed in deliberation as to what they should do, contributed not a little to the successful experiment of the swimmers.
But the youth at length caught a fearful signal of preparation; his ear noted the sharp click of the lock, as the rifle was referred to in the final resort; and his ready sense conceived but of one, and the only mode of evading the danger so immediately at hand. Too conspicuous in his present situation to hope for escape, short of a miracle, so long as he remained upon the back of the swimming horse, he relaxed his hold, carefully drew his feet from the stirrups, resigned his seat, and only a second before the discharge of the rifle, was deeply buried in the bosom of the Chestatee.
The steed received the bullet in his head, plunged forward madly, to the no small danger of Ralph, who had now got a little before him, but in a few moments lay supine upon the stream, and was borne down by its current. The youth, practised in such exercises, pressed forward under the surface for a sufficient time to enable him to avoid the present glance of the enemy, and at length, in safety, rounding a jutting point of the sh.o.r.e, which effectually concealed him from their eyes, he gained the dry land, at the very moment in which Munro, with more success, was clambering, still mounted, up the steep sides of a neighboring and slippery bank.
Familiar with such scenes, the landlord had duly estimated the doubtful chances of his life in swimming the river directly in sight of the pursuers. He had, therefore, taken the precaution to oblique considerably to the left from the direct course, and did not, in consequence, appear in sight, owing to the sinuous windings of the stream, until he had actually gained the sh.o.r.e.