It is followed by a peal of loud laughter, in which all six take part.
The young gymnast, still clinging to the branch, wonders what is making them so merry. Heir speeches have suggested something sinister, and glancing upward he discovers the trick played upon him. There is a rope around his neck, with a running nose, its other end attached to a branch above. It has been adjusted in such manner that were he to let go his hold the noose would close around his throat, with his feet still dangling in the air.
"Hang on!" cried Slaughter, in a mocking tone. "Hang on, I advise you.
If you let go you"ll find your neck in a noose."
"You"ll keep the time, Slaughter," directs Brandon, "Five minutes more.
If he drops within that time, let him do so. Well, then, see how long the n.i.g.g.e.r can hang _by his neck_."
Another loud laugh rings through the glade, echoed by all except him who is the subject of it.
The young hunter is furious--almost to frenzy. His cheek has turned ashy pale--his lips too. Fire flashes in his coal-black eyes. Could he but descend safely from the tree, at least one of his torturers would have reason to repent the trick they have put upon him.
He dare not let go his hold; he sees the set snare, and knows the danger of falling into it. He can only await till they may please to release him from his perilous position.
But if patient, he is not silent.
"Cowards!" he cries, "cowards every one of you; and I"ll make every one of you answer for it: you"ll see if I don"t."
"Come, come, n.i.g.g.e.r," retorts Brandon, "don"t talk that way, or we"ll not let you down at all. As good as you have been hanged in these woods for too much talking. Ain"t he a nice looking gallows bird just now?
Say, boys! Suppose we call back the girl, and let her have a look at him? Perhaps she"d help him out of his fix. Ha! ha! ha!"
"You"ll repent these speeches, Alfred Brandon," gasps the young man, beginning to feel his strength failing him.
"You be hanged--yes, hanged, ha! ha! ha!"
Simultaneous with the laugh a deer-hound, straying by the edge of the glade, gave out a short, sharp growl, which is instantly taken up by those lying around the camp fire. At the same instant is heard a snort, perfectly intelligible to the ears of the amateur hunters.
"A bear! a bear!" is the cry uttered by all, as the animal itself is seen dashing back into the cane-brake, out of which it had come to reconnoitre.
In an instant the hounds are after it, some of them already hanging to its hams, while the six hunters suddenly rush to their guns, and flinging themselves into their saddles, oblivious of all else, spur excitedly after.
In less than twenty seconds from the first howl of the hound there is not a soul in the glade, save that now in real danger of parting from the body that contains it.
The young hunter is left hanging--alone!
STORY ONE, CHAPTER FOUR.
A FORCED FREEDOM.
Yes. The young hunter is left hanging alone; hanging by hand and arm; soon to be suspended by the neck.
Good G.o.d! is there no alternative? No hope of his being rescued from his perilous situation?
He sees none for himself. He feels that he is powerless; his left hand is fastened to his thigh with a cord that cannot be stretched or broken.
He tries wrenching the wrist with all his strength, and in every direction. The effort is idle, and ends only in the laceration of his skin.
With the right hand he can do nothing. He dare not remove it from the limb; he dare not even change its hold. To unclasp it would be certain strangulation.
Can he not throw up his feet, and by them elevate himself upon the branch? The idea at once suggests itself; and he at once attempts its execution. He tries once, twice, thrice, until he proves it impossible.
With both arms it would have been easy; or with one at an earlier period. But the strain has been too long continued, and he sees that the effort is only bringing him nearer to his end. He desists, and once more hangs vertically, from the limb.
Is there no hope from hearing? He listens. There is no lack of sounds.
There is the baying of dogs at intervals, culminating in grand chorus, or breaking into short, sharp barks, as the bear gives battle; there is the bellowing of bruin himself, mingled with the crackling of cane, as he makes his way through the thick-set culms; and, above all, the shouts and wild yelling of his human pursuers.
"Are they human?" asks he whom they have left behind. "Can it be that they have abandoned me to this cruel death?"
"It can--they have," is the agonised answer, as the sounds of the chase come fainter from the forest. "They have--they have," he repeats, and then, as the tide of vengeance surges up in his heart, he cries, through clenched teeth, "O G.o.d; give me escape--if but to avenge myself on those villains who have outraged your own image. O G.o.d! look down in mercy!
Send some one to deliver me!"
Some one to deliver him! He has no hope that any of his late tormentors will return to do it. He had but little from the first. He knows them all, except Spence, the son of the clergyman; and from the late behaviour of this youth, he has seen that he is like the rest. All six are of the same stamp and character, the most dissolute scamps in the country. No hope now; for the bear hunt has borne them far away, and even their yells are no longer heard by him.
Hitherto he has remained silent. It seemed idle to do otherwise. Who was there to hear him, save those who would not have heeded. And his shouts would not have been heard among the howling of hounds, the trampling of horses, and the shrill screeching of six fiends in human form.
Now that silence is around him--deep, solemn silence--a new hope springs up within his breast. Some one _might_ be near, straying through the forest or travelling along the trace. He knows there is a trace.
Better he had never trodden it!
But another might be on it. Some one with a human heart. Oh, if it were only Lena!
"Hilloa!" he cries, again and again; "help, help! For the love of G.o.d, give help!"
His words are repeated, every one of them, and with distinctness. But, alas, not in answer, only in echo. The giant trunks are but taunting him. A fiend seems to mock him far off in the forest!
He shouts till he is hoa.r.s.e--till despair causes him to desist. Once more he hangs silent. A wonder he has hung so long. There are few boys, and perhaps fewer men, who could for such a time have sustained the terrible strain, under which even the professional gymnast might have sunk. It is explained by his training, and partly by the Indian blood coursing through his veins. A true child of the forest--a hunter from earliest boyhood--to scale the tall tree, and hang lightly from its limbs, was part of his education. To such as he the hand has a grasp prehensile as the tail of the American monkey, the arm a tension not known to the sons of civilisation.
Fortunate for him it is thus, or perhaps the opposite, since it has only added to his misery by delaying the fate that seems certainly in store for him.
He makes this reflection as he utters his last cry, and once more suffers himself to droop despairingly. So strongly does it shape itself, that he thinks of letting go his hold, and at once and for ever putting an end to his agony.
Death is a terrible alternative. There are few who do not fear to look it in the face--few who will hasten to meet it, so long as the slightest spark of hope glimmers in the distance. Men have been known to spring into the sea, to be swallowed by the tumultuous waves; but it was only when the ship was on fire, or certainly sinking beneath them. This is but fleeing from death to death, when all hope of life is extinguished.
Perhaps it is only madness.
But Pierre Robideau--for such is the name of the young hunter--is not mad, and not yet ready to rush to the last terrible alternative.
It is not hope that induces him to hold on--it is only the dread horror of death.
His arm is stretched almost to dislocation of its joints--the sinews drawn tight as a bow-string, and still his fingers clutch firmly to the branch, lapped like iron round it.
His cheeks are colourless; his jaws have dropped till the lips are agape, displaying his white teeth; his eyes protrude as if about to start forth from their sockets.
And yet out of these wild eyes one more glance is given to the glade-- one more sweep among the trunks standing around it.
What was seen in that last glaring look?
Was it the form of a fair girl dimly outlined under the shadow of the trees? or was it only that same form conjured up by a fancy flickering on the edge of eternity?
No matter now. It is too late. Even if Lena were there she would not be in time to save him. Nature, tortured to the last throe, can hold out no longer. She relaxes the grasp of Pierre Robideau"s hand, and the next moment he is seen hanging under the branch, with the tightened noose around his neck, and his tongue protruding between his lips, livid with the dark mantling of death!