Cudjo's Cave Part 31

The moon had now set, and it was dark. The frightened girl could not distinguish the features of him who bent over her; but through the trance of horror that was upon her, she recognized a voice.

"Wirginie! I tought it vas you! Don't you know me, Wirginie?"

No voice had ever before brought such joy to her soul.

"O Carl! why didn't I know you?"

"Vy not? Pecause maybe you vas looking for somepody else. Mishter Hapgoot came part vay mit me, but he vas so used up I made him shtop till I came to pring Toby up vere he is."

Then Virginia, recovering from her agitation, had a score of questions to ask about her father, about the fight, and about Penn.

"If you vill only go up, he vill tell you so much more as I can. Then you vill go and see your fahder. That vill be petter as going back to-night, vere there is no goot shtout fellow in the house to prewail on them willains to keep their dishtance."

Even at the outset of her adventurous journey Virginia had felt a vague hope that she should visit her father before she returned. What the boy said inspired her with courage to proceed. She would go up as far as where Penn was waiting, at all events: then she would be guided by his advice.

The two set out, Carl leading her by the hand, and a.s.sisting her. It grew darker and darker. The stars were hidden: the sky was almost completely overcast by black clouds. Slowly and with great difficulty they made their way among trees and bushes, through abrupt hollows, and over rocks. Virginia felt that she could have done nothing without Carl; and the thought of returning alone, in such darkness, down the mountain, made her shudder.

But at length even Carl began to sweat with something besides the physical exertion required in making the ascent. His mind had grown exceedingly perturbed, and Virginia perceived that his course was wavering and uncertain.

He stopped, blowing and wiping his face.

"Dish ish de all confoundedesht, meanesht, mosht dishgusting road for a dark night the prince of darkness himself ever inwented!" he exclaimed, speaking unusually thick in his heat and excitement. "I shouldn't be wery much surprised if I vas a leetle out of the right vay. You shtay right here till I look."

She sat down and waited. Intense darkness surrounded her; not a star was visible; she could not see her own hand. For a little while Carl's footsteps could be heard feeling for more familiar ground; and then, occasionally, the crackling of a dry twig, as he trod upon it, showed that he was not far off. Then he whistled; then he softly called, "h.e.l.lo!" in the woods; moving all the time farther and farther away.

Carl believed that Penn could not be far distant, and, in order to get an answering signal, he kept whistling and calling louder and louder. At length came a response--a low warning whistle. So he plodded on, and had nearly reached the spot where he was confident Penn was searching for him, when there came a rush of feet, and he was suddenly and violently seized by invisible a.s.sailants.

"Got him?"

"Yes! all right!"

"Hang on to him! It's the Dutchman, ain't it? I thought I knew the brogue!"

The last speaker was Lieutenant Silas Ropes; and Carl perceived that he had fallen into the hands of a squad of confederate soldiers. That he was vastly astonished and altogether disconcerted at first, we may well suppose. But Carl was not a lad to remain long bereft of his wits when they were so necessary to him.

"Ho! vot for you choke a fellow so?" he indignantly demanded. "I vas treated petter as that ven I vas a prisoner."

"What do you mean, you d--d deserter?"

"Haven't I just got avay from Stackridge? and vasn't I running to find you as vast as ever a vellow could? And now you call me a deserter!"

retorted Carl, aggrieved.

"Running to find _us_!"

"To be sure! Didn't I say, 'Is it you?' For they said you vas on the mountain. Though I did not think I should find you so easy!" which was indeed the truth.

Carl persisted so earnestly in regarding the affair from this point of view, that his captors began to think it worth while to question him.

"Vun of them vellows just says to me, he says, 'Shpeak vun vord, or make vun noise, and I vill plow your prains out!' I vasn't wery much in favor to have my prains plowed out, so I complied mit his wery urgent request.

That's the vay they took me prisoner."

"Wal," remarked Silas, "what he says may be true, but I don't believe nary word on't. Got his hands tied? Now lock arms with him, and bring him along."

Carl was in despair at this mode of treatment, for it rendered escape impossible,--and what would become of Virginia? His anxiety for her safety became absolute terror when he discovered the errand on which these men were bound.

By the light of a dark lantern they led him through the grove, across a brook that came tumbling down out of a wild black gorge, and up the mountain slope into the edge of the great forest above. Here they stopped.

"This yer's a good place, boys, to begin. Kick the leaves together.

That's the talk."

They were in a leafy hollow of the dry woods. A blaze was soon kindled, which shot up in the darkness, and threw its ruddy glare upon the trunks and overhanging canopy of foliage, and upon the malignant, gleaming faces of the soldiers. Little effort was needed to insure the spreading of the flames. They ran over the ground, licking up the dry leaves, crackling the twigs, catching at the bark of trees, and filling the forest, late so silent and black, with their glow and roar.

"That's to smoke out your d--d Union friends!" said Silas to Carl, with a hideous grin.

Yes, Carl understood that well enough. In this same forest, on the banks of the brook above where it fell into the gorge, the patriots were encamped. And Virginia? Still believing that the worst that could happen to her would be to fall into the hands of these ruffians, the lad sweated in silent agony over the secret he was bound to keep.

"What makes ye look so down-in-the-mouth, Dutchy? 'Fraid your friends will get scorched?"

"I vas thinking the fire vill be apt to scorch us as much as it vill them. And I have my hands tied so I can't run."

"Don't be afraid; we'll look out for you. I swear, boys! the fire looks as though 'twas dying down! Get out o' this yer holler and there ain't no leaves to feed it; and I be hanged if the wind ain't gitting contrary!"

Carl witnessed these effects with a gleam of hope. The soldiers fell to gathering bark and sticks, which they piled at the roots of trees. The lad was left almost alone. Had his hands been free, he would have run. A soldier pa.s.sed near him, dragging a dead bush.

"Dan Pepperill! cut the cord!" Dan shook his head, with a look of terror. "Drop your knife, then!"

"O Lord!" said Dan. "They'd hang me! I be durned if they wouldn't!"

"Dan, you must! I don't care vun cent for myself. But Wirginie Willars--she is just beyond vere you took me. Vill you leave her to die?

And Mishter Hapgoot is just a little vay up the mountain, and there is nopody to let him know!"

A look of ghastly intelligence came into Dan's face as he stopped to listen to this explanation. He seemed half inclined to set the boy's limbs free, and risk the consequences. But just then Ropes shouted at him,--

"What ye at thar, Pepperill? Why don't ye bring along that ar brush?"

So the brief conference ended, and the cords remained uncut. And a great, dangerous fire was kindling in the woods. And now Carl's only hope for Virginia was, that she would take advantage of its light to make good her retreat from the mountain.

XXVIII.

_BEAUTY AND THE BEAST._

Unfortunately the poor girl had no suspicion of the mischance that had overtaken her guide. She heard voices, and believed that he had fallen in with some friends. Thus she waited, expecting momently that he would return to her. She saw a single gleam of light that vanished in the darkness. Then the voices grew fainter and fainter, and at length died in the distance. And she was once more utterly alone.

Fearful doubt and uncertainty agitated her. In a moment of despair, yielding to the terrors of her situation, she wrung her hands and called on Carl imploringly not to abandon her, but to come back--"O, dear, dear Carl, come back!"