He paused before entering. A thought of Alice arrested him--the thought of the hopelessness of saving her, and tottering forward, half-blinded by his own blood, he descended the steps of the cellar, at the bottom of which he fell insensible to the floor.
The yells of the victorious Indians, the glare of the burning mansion, the shrieks of the wounded, and the agonising wail of defenceless women and children as they committed their souls to Heaven, Elias Rody, though the cause of all this, heard nothing.
Beneath his own burning house, miraculously sheltered by some huge timbers which had fallen over the excavation, he lay for a long time insensible to thought as to feeling.
When he at length recovered consciousness, and crawled forth from his concealment, the sun had risen, lighting up the ruined pile.
He shuddered at the sight.
He suffered a thousand deaths in the contemplation of the horrors his mad selfishness had caused.
Bitter remorse, stronger than his shattered physical frame could endure, gnawed at his heart. But it was selfish remorse for all that.
Here was vengeance for Oluski, had the chief only been alive to witness it.
Too weak to get away from the spot, Rody groaned in the bitterness of his spirit.
"Ten thousand times may I be accursed for all this! Fool--blind, infatuated fool--that I have been. Every aspiration might have been gratified, every hope fulfilled, had not my impatience blinded me against caution. May the fiend of darkness overtake these red--"
How long this tirade of blasphemous repentance of his villainy might have lasted it is impossible to say. It was stopped, however, by a physical pain, and with a faint voice, he cried--
"Water! water!"
Blood there was in plenty around him, but not one drop of water.
Others had yelled for it through the long, dreadful night, as agonisingly as he, but had been answered by the same solemn silence.
_They_ had died in their agony. Why should not he?
"Well, then, let death come! The full acc.u.mulation of mortal torment has fallen on myself; it cannot be greater?"
Wrong in this, as in everything else.
See! Skulking along the brow of the hill, stooping over and examining corpse after corpse, with a look of demoniac joy upon his hideous features, something in human shape, and yet scarce a man, appears.
Horror of horrors! he is robbing the dead.
Rody saw him not, for he had again fainted.
With a harsh voice, rivalling the vulture"s croak, the skulker continued his hideous task.
"Ha! ha! ha!" chuckled he to himself, "there am nice pickings after all for dis chile, boaf from de bodies of white man and de red. Bress de chances what set "em agin" each oder! Oh, but de ole n.i.g.g.e.r am glad--so glad! But where am he?--where am he? If dis chile don"t find him, why den his work ain"t more den half done!"
Diligently did Crookleg, for it was he, continue to search, turning over dead bodies, s.n.a.t.c.hing some bauble from their b.r.e.a.s.t.s, and so pa.s.sing to others, as if still unsatisfied.
For whom was he seeking?
As he proceeded in his work, a voice that came from among a heap of ruins, was heard feebly calling for "water!"
The negro started on hearing it, sending forth a shout of triumph.
He had recognised it as the voice of Elias Rody, the man for whom he had been searching.
As the latter recovered consciousness, he saw a hideous face close to his own, that caused him to start up, at the same time uttering a cry of horror.
CHAPTER TWENTY NINE.
AN EXULTING FIEND.
"I has found you, has I?"
"Crookleg!"
"Yes, it am Crookleg."
"A drop of water, for the love of G.o.d; a drop of water!"
"If de whole place war a lake, dis chile wouldn"t sprinkle you parched lips with a drop out ob it."
"What do you mean, Crookleg?"
"Ha! the time I been waitin" for has come at last. It hab been long, but it am come! Do you know war you son Warren am?"
"Thank heaven! away from this, and in safety."
"Ha! ha! ha! Safe; yes, he am safe enough wid a big bullet through his brain!"
Elias Rody, with an effort, raised himself into a sitting posture, and glared upon the speaker.
"Dead!"
"Yes, dead; and it war me dat bro"t him to it. Ha! ha! ha!"
"Who are you? Has h.e.l.l let loose its fiends to mock me?"
"Perhaps it have. Who am I? Don"t you know me yet, Rody--_Ma.s.sa_ Rody?"
"No, devil! I know you not. My son dead--oh, G.o.d! what have I done to deserve all this?"
"What hab you done? What hab you not done? You had done ebery ting that de black heart ob a white man do, and de day of recknin" am come at last. So you don"t know me, don"t you?"
"Away, fiend, and let me die in peace!"
"In peace--no; you shall die as you hab made oders live--in pain! When you can"t hear dis n.i.g.g.a"s voice plainly, he"ll hiss it in at your ear, so it may reach your infernal soul, in de last minutes of you life!"
"Who--who are you?"