The Entailed Hat Part 87

"Three men, one old woman, and some little things, makes the present contents of Pangymonum," spoke up a rough, cheery voice, "an', by smoke!

it's jess enough."

"Is it the white man that talks?"

"He says he's white, but they think it's goin' to be easy hokey-pokey to pa.s.s him off for a n.i.g.g.e.r."

Her eyes soon recognized the speaker as he said, "By smoke! miss, you're not much like a Johnson. I reckon you're Huldy."

"Yes, and you, sir?"

"I was Jimmy Phoebus before I was a n.i.g.g.e.r."

The girl went rapidly up to him, and put her arms around him.

"Thank G.o.d!" she said, "you are not dead. Levin Dennis, my dear friend, wept to think you were at the river bottom. But, quick, sir; I may be caught here. Are you all true to each other?"

"Yes, the traitor's cut his wizzen. Speak out, Huldy!"

"I heard Patty Cannon mutter that she was going to set her black man free to kidnap for her. Hark! I must fly."

Hulda descended the ladder in time to surprise Cy James coming up. He bent his goose neck down as he leaned his hands upon his knees, and, looking up into her face, e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed,

"Hokey-pokey! By smoke! And Pangymonum, too."

"Samson," said Jimmy Phoebus, as soon as Hulda disappeared, "git ready to be a first-cla.s.s liar; I want you to take up Patty Cannon's offer."

"An' leave you yer alone, Jimmy? I can't do it."

"Don't be a fool, Samson. Ironed here, we can't help n.o.body. Make your way to Seaford and Georgetown, and go round the Cypress Swamp to Prencess Anne. Alarm the pungy captains; fur Johnson'll try to run us by sail, I reckon, down the bay to Norfolk. I've got a file that cymlin-headed feller give me, an' I reckon I'll git out of my irons about the time you git to Judge Custis's. There! ole Patty's coming."

"Go, Samson," spoke the Delaware colored man. "I'm younger than you, and I'll fight as heartily under Mr. Phoebus's orders."

Aunt Hominy's voice came in blank monologue out of the background:

"He tuk dat debbil's hat, chillen, an' measured us in wid little Vessy."

That evening there was a long, free conference between Samson and Patty Cannon, in her kitchen, next to the bar, where Hulda heard laughing and invitations to drink, and all the sounds of perfect equality, the negro's piquant sayings and _bonhommie_ seeming to disarm and please the designing woman, whose familiarity was at once her influence and her weakness, and she lavished her sociable nature on blacks and whites.

Samson was so fearless and observing that he betrayed no interest in escaping, and came slowly into the range of her temperament; but, as Hulda peeped, towards midnight, into the kitchen, she saw old Samson kindly patting juba, while Patty was executing a drunken dance.

As the latter dropped upon a pallet bed she had there, and fell into a doze, the colored man quietly raised the latch and walked off the tavern porch.

In the morning dawn horses and voices were heard by Hulda, and she recognized Joe Johnson's steps in the house. He shook Patty Cannon, but could not awaken her; then looked into Van Dorn's room, and found Hulda, apparently sound asleep, and heard his name called by Allan McLane across the hall:

"Joe! not so loud. Be conservative. Come in; I'm waiting for you. Is all done and fetched?"

"The bloke with the steeple felt will never snickle," spoke the ruffian.

"Good, good, Joe! Vengeance is mine, and it's a conservative saying. My dear sister is at peace."

"The two yaller pullets have slipped you; the abigail mizzled to the funeral with your niece, and t'other dell must have smelt us, and hopped the twig."

"Not tasteful language at all, Joe. I don't understand you. Where are the two bright wenches, Virgie and Roxy?"

"Roxie's in Baltimore; Virgie's run away."

"Run? Where? Don't trifle with me, Joe Johnson! Conservative as I am, I don't like it, sir. Where could she have run?"

"There's no way for her to slip us but by water or through the Cypress Swamp, Colonel. She ain't safe this side of Cantwell's bridge. Word has gone out, and every road is watched."

"But Van Dorn is beaten back; he hasn't made a single capture; the n.i.g.g.e.rs drove him out of Dover with firearms, and he is wounded somewhere."

The tall kidnapper turned pale, and then consigned Van Dorn's shade to eternal torment.

"Don't swear before me, sir!" McLane, also irritated, exclaimed. "It's not conservative, and I won't permit it. How do I know Meshach Milburn is dead? who did it?"

"Black Dave fired the barker, and saw him settled."

"Send him here!"

The negro came in, red-eyed, and hoa.r.s.e with diseased lungs, and stood, the wreck of a once gigantic and regular man.

"Gi' me a drink," he muttered; "I'm mos' dead wi' misery an cold."

"Tell this man what you did," Joe Johnson spoke; "you waited till you saw the hat at the window, and fired, and fetched hat an' man to the ground?"

Swallowing a thimbleful of McLane's brandy, the negro grunted "Blood!"

and looked tremblingly at his hands.

"What shape of hat was it?" McLane asked, shaking the negro savagely; "was it like this?" shaping his own soft slouched hat to a point.

Black Dave looked, and shook his head.

"Not like that? d.a.m.nation!"

"No swearing, Colonel, before us conservatives," ventured Joe Johnson; "what was the hat like, Dave? You're drunk."

"Like dis, I reckon." He modelled the crown into a bell form with his finger.

Joe Johnson and McLane looked at each other a minute with mutual accusation and confusion, and the former unceremoniously knocked the negro down with his great fist.

"No gold of mine for this job, Joe Johnson," said Allan McLane; "in your conservatism to save your own skin, you have let your tool kill an innocent man."

He waved his hand, with all his strong will, towards the door, and shut it in the kidnapper's face. Then, in haughty emotion, not like fear, but disappointed pride and revenge, McLane sat down, glanced around him as if to determine the next movement, and instinctively reached his hand towards his Bible, which he opened at a marked page, and softly read, till tears of baffled vindictiveness and counterfeited humility stopped his voice, as follows: