“She’s gone!” shrieked Dunmore. “Gone in a chaise! That black slut of hers did it! Let me out! Let me out! I’ll claw them raw! I’ll pinch them to death! I won’t stay here, d’ye hear?”
His voice soared into a falsetto screech, and he tore at his gums with his nails and stamped his feet.
“Give place there!” said Butler, brutally elbowing the frantic man aside. “Let me through that window, you doddering fool! You’re done for; it’s my turn now.”
“What!” gasped Dunmore. Then terror blanched his face, and he began to scream: “That was your chaise! You mean to cheat me! You mean to steal her! That was your chaise, 307 and it’s gone! No! No! Damme, you shall not catch them at the gates!” And he flung himself on Butler to drag him from the open window.
“Drive on!” shouted Butler, leaning out and calling to the people in the chaise.
Startled, I turned and stared through the window behind me. To my horror the horses started and the chaise began to move off. Even yet I did not comprehend that the chaise was not my own, but to see it slowly rolling away in the night terrified me, and I bounded out into the room — barely in time, for Butler had already forced Dunmore from the open window and had laid his hand on the wall to hoist himself out. Quick as the thought, I balanced my heavy knife, hilt to palm, swung forward and let it fly like lightning. The blade whistled true and struck, pinning Butler’s arm to the wall. God! how he shrieked and shrank, twisting and turning to tear the blade loose. Dunmore ran around like a crazed rat, but I knocked him senseless with a chair, and sprang at Butler, who, writhing and ghastly pale, had just freed his left hand of the knife. He ran at me with his sword, but I shattered my heavy chair across his face, and seized him, meaning to cut his throat. Twist and tear and clutch as he would, he could not escape or hurt me; the coolness of murder was in my heart; I strangled him with one hand and hunted around the floor for my knife. It was gone, I could not find it. Then a wave of fury blazed in my brain; I lifted the struggling wretch with both hands above my head and brought him down on the floor, where he crashed as though every bone in him were shattered to the marrow.
As I reeled, panting, towards the window, the key turned in the locked door and Lady Shelton’s frightened face appeared. When she saw me she rushed at me and screamed, but I thrust the harridan out of my path, vaulted through the open window, and ran down the orchard slope. Then, as I sprang into the lane, I almost dropped, for there, where I had left it, stood my post-chaise, awaiting me.
“Mount!” I shouted in terror. “Is she here?”
“Here?” he cried. “You are mad! Have you lost her?”
Through my whirling senses the awful truth broke like a living ray of fire.
“Out o’ the saddle!” I shouted. “She has taken another chaise. It’s Butler’s men! Ride for her! Ride!”
“Gone?” thundered Mount, leaping to the seat, while I sprang to his vacant saddle. But I only lashed at the horses, and set my teeth while the dust flew and the pebbles showered through the flying wheels.
It seemed hours, yet it was scarcely five minutes, ere the gate-house lights broke out ahead, dots of dim yellow dancing through the dust. Now we were galloping straight into the eye of the great brass lanthorn set above the guard-house; there came a far call in the darkness, a shadow crossed the lamplit glare, then I turned in my saddle and shouted: “Draw bridle!” — and our four horses came clashing in a huddle with a hollow volley of hoof-beats.
“Road closed for the night!” said a sentinel, walking towards us from the darkness ahead, cap, buckle, and buttons glittering in the lamplight.
“A post-chaise passed five minutes ahead of us,” began Mount, angrily.
“Tut! tut! my good fellow,” said the sentry; “that’s none o’ your business. Back up there!”
“I wish to see Mr. Bevan,” said I, scarce able to speak.
“Mr. Bevan’s gone home to bed,” said the soldier, impatiently. “He passed that other post-chaise at a gallop, or it would have been here yet, I warrant you. Come, come, now! You know the law. Clear the road, now! — turn your leaders, post-boy — back up, d’ye hear!”
“I tell you I’ve got to pass!” I persisted.
“Oh, you have, have you? And who are you, my important friend?” he sneered, barring our way with firelock balanced.
“I am deputy of Sir William Johnson!” I roared, losing all self-control. “Stand clear, there!”
“If you move I’ll shoot!” he retorted; then without turning his head he bawled out: “Ho, sergeant o’ the quarter-guard! Post number seven!—”
“Drive over him!” I shouted, lashing at the horses. There was a jolt, an uproar, a rush of frantic horses, a bright flash and report. Then a wheel caught the soldier and pitched him reeling into the darkness. I turned in my stirrups, glancing 309 fearfully at Renard, who was recovering his balance in the saddle behind me and lifting a firelock to the pommel.
“Shot?” I asked, breathlessly.
“No; I caught his firelock; it exploded in my hand.”
“Look out!” called Mount, from his front seat on the chaise. “The toll-gate’s right ahead! There’s a camp-guard due there at midnight! Out with your coach-lamps!”
Shemuel jerked open each lanthorn and blew out the lights; darkness hid even the horses from our sight.
A camp-guard! Suppose the gate was closed! Thirty men and a drummer ahead of us!
“Cut the pike!” cried Mount, suddenly. “We save six miles by the old Williamsburg post-road! Turn out! Turn out!”
Far ahead the toll-gate lamp twinkled through the dust; I signalled to Renard and dragged the horses into a trot, straining my eyes for the branch road we had seen that morning. I could see nothing.
“By Heaven! the guard is gone; there’s only a sentry there!” said Mount, suddenly.
“Pst!” muttered Renard. “We are the grand rounds, mind you. Answer, Jack!”
“Halt!” cried a distant sentry. “Who goes there?”
“Grand rounds!” sang out Mount.
“Stand, grand rounds! Advance, sergeant, with the countersign!” came the distant challenge again.
“Now,” muttered Mount, leaping softly to the turf, “when I call, ride up to me. Hark for a whippoorwill!”
He vanished in the darkness. I waited, scarcely breathing.
“He won’t kill him,” whispered the Weasel; “you will see, Mr. Cardigan, how it’s done. He’ll get behind him — patience, patience — pst! — there!”
A stifled cry, suddenly choked, came out of the night; the lanthorn at the toll-gate went out and the toll-house door slammed.
“It’s the keeper barricading himself,” whispered Renard; “he thinks the sentry has been surprised and scalped. Hush! Mount is calling.”
“Whippoorwill! Whippoorwill!” throbbed the whimpering, breathless call across the meadow; the Weasel answered 310 it, and we trotted on until a dark shape rose up in the road and caught at the leaders, drawing them to a stand-still.
“‘Nother firelock,” said Mount, shoving the weapon into the chaise and going back to the horses. “Here’s the post-road; I’ll guide you into it.” And he started east through a wall of shadow.
“Where’s the sentry?” whispered Renard.
“In the ditch with his coat tied over his head and my new hanker in his mouth. The frightened fool bit me so I scalped him—”
“What!” cried the Weasel.
“Oh, only his wig. Here it is!” And he flung the wig at Renard, who caught it and tossed it into the chaise for Shemuel.
Mount halted the horses; Shemuel struck flint to tinder, and came around to light the coach-lamps. Under their kindling radiance a dusty road spread away in front of us. Mount unlocked a lighted coach-lamp and went forward, holding the light close to the road surface. Several times he squatted to look close into the dust.
Presently he turned and ran back to us, set the lamp in its socket, locked the clamp, and sprang into his seat. Shemuel hastil
y scrambled into the chaise, stuffing the wig into his pocket.
“They’ve taken the turnpike!” cried Mount, cheerily. “Now, lads! Whip and spur and axle-grease! Ride, Cade! Look sharp, Shemmy, you weasel-bellied rascal! We’ve got them by half an hour, or I’ll eat my coon-skin cap!”
“Freshen all primings!” I called out to Shemuel, and sent my whip whistling among the horses.
Away we bolted, chaise swaying, lamps sweeping the dusty roadside bushes, and the gallop increased to a dead run as we whirled down an incline and out along a broad, flat, marshy road, where the jolting lamps flashed on the surface of a swift stream keeping pace with us through the night.
“We catch them where the pike swings south into this road,” called Mount; but through the whistling wind I could barely hear him. Louder and louder blew the wind across the flats, shrieking in my ears; wetter and wetter grew the road, until the splash of the horses grew to a churning, trampling 311 roar. Like a flash the stream turned across the road; the shallow water boiled under our rush — a moment only — then into the wet road again, with the stream scurrying on our right.
Through the pelting storm of mud I clutched bridle and whip with one hand and pushed my pistol under my shirt with the other, calling out to Renard to do the same.
“Get my axe loose from the boot, Shemmy!” cried Mount. “Draw rein, Cade! Now, Mr. Cardigan!” And he leaped to the ground and ran splashing through the road, calling out for us to follow at a walk.
Suddenly our horses’ hoofs sounded hollow on a wooden bridge; the muddy planks glimmered under the coach-lamps, and, as he walked the horses over, far below us we heard the dull roar of water pouring through the solid rock. Now came the echoing cracks of Mount’s axe, biting the supports of the bridge, and presently Shemuel joined him, chopping like a demon.
“We lose time!” I groaned, turning to the Weasel. “Call Mount to let the bridge go.”
“We’ll lose time if the bridge stands,” said Renard, coolly. “Dunmore’s horse will take our trail sooner or later, and we may have to wait an hour for the chaise we are chasing.”
Minute after minute dragged, timed by the interminable axe-strokes. Presently the Weasel wriggled out of his saddle, ran to the boot, and hurried away, axe on shoulder, and I sat there alone in the lamplight, gnawing my lips and groaning.
But now, above the sharp axe-strokes and the deep roar of the torrent, I caught the sound of creaking timbers. Crack! Crack! Then a long-drawn crackle of settling beams, ending in a crash which set the blowing horses on their hind legs. Ere I could pull them down, Mount came running back, followed by Renard and Shemuel.
“No need to gallop now,” observed Mount, shoving the axes into the boot and brushing the mud from his face. He climbed into his seat; Shemuel sought the body of the chaise, and Renard mounted the horse behind me.
“Walk the horses,” said Mount; “we are an hour ahead yet. The roads cross just below here. Cheer up, Mr. Cardigan; 312 we’ll sight them over our rifles yet. And when Dunmore’s horsemen come to the bridge yonder, they’ll have some twenty miles to wander ere they can cross the Monongahela to-night.”
“The river is in flood; you can hear it,” added Renard. “There’s no ford for twenty miles where a horse could live to-night.”
“Lord! Won’t Dunmore rage!” muttered Mount.
I had not thought of pursuit, but there was probably no doubt that Dunmore’s horse were already hunting our trail somewhere between the stockade and the toll-gate. If that were so our plans must be changed, for we could not traverse Virginia with the Governor’s dragoons at our heels.
Distracted with anxiety, cold and feverish by turns, I strove to regain self-command, and in a measure succeeded. Mount was of my opinion that we must take a forest road over the mountains and make straight for Philadelphia — on foot, if our chaise could not take us. He asked me about the Indians we might encounter, and I told him we had nothing as yet to fear from the Lenape, who could not be bound by clan ties to take up the Cayugas’ quarrel until the Mohawks rose.
“Well,” said Mount, “curse them all, I say. One moccasin looks like another, and all redskins smell like foxes. I take your word for it that the Lenape are afraid to breathe unless the Mohawks give them leave, so I hope we get through without a war-yelp in our ears.”
“There’s the Tuscaroras,” said Renard, gloomily.
It was true. In my misery and torturing fear for Silver Heels, I had forgotten the Sixth Nation, bands of whom roamed the forests north of the Virginia line. But reflection quieted apprehensions concerning the Tuscaroras, who also must first take council with our Mohawks before drawing their hatchets in a Cayuga quarrel.
I explained this to Mount, who swore a great deal and shrugged his shoulders, but nevertheless I knew he was greatly relieved.
“There’s a wood road over the mountains,” he said. “Cade knows it. He came that way hunting his wife at Annapolis when the British fleet put in. Didn’t you, Cade?”
The Weasel turned in his saddle.
“Jack,” he said, gently, “I know my wife is dead. We will never speak of her any more.”
Mount was silent. Presently he jumped to the ground and came walking along beside my horse, one hand on my stirrup.
“I don’t know,” he muttered, under his breath— “I don’t know whether that’s a healthy sign or not. Ever since Cade saw your lady — Miss Warren — he keeps telling me that his wife is dead, and that God has forgiven her and has told him to do so, too. Somehow he has changed. Do you note it? His voice, now, is different — like a gentleman’s. Somehow, he makes me feel lonely.”
I was scarcely listening, for, just ahead, I fancied I could see a signpost which must mark cross-roads. After a moment I called excitedly to Mount, pointing out to him the tall post in the middle of the road. Behind it the moon was setting.
“Ay,” he said, coolly, “that’s our runway. The game will cross here in an hour or so. Sit your saddle, Mr. Cardigan; there’s time to whistle the devil’s jig to an end yet.”
But I was out of my saddle and priming my rifle afresh before he could finish.
“Poor lad,” he said, pityingly. “Lord, but you’re white as a cross-roads ghost. Shemmy, take the chaise south till you come to a spring brook that crosses the road; it’s a hundred yards or so. Cover the coach-lamps with blankets and look to the horses a bit. Cade, I guess you had better take this side of the road with me. We want to be sure o’ the post-boys. Mr. Cardigan, try to shoot the driver through the head. There’s too much risk in a low shot.”
“For God’s sake, be careful!” I begged them. “Remember the lady is in the chaise. Can’t you kill the leading horses — wouldn’t that be safer?”
They were silent for a while. Presently Mount looked guiltily at me, muttering something about “highwayman style,” but Renard shook his head.
“Well,” began Mount, combatively, “it’s the safest. I can stop the chaise all alone without a shot fired if you wish.”
He looked at me; there was a joyously evil light in his sparkling eyes.
“This is familiar ground to me,” he said, impudently. “Cade and I stopped Sir Timerson Chank by that signpost.”
After a moment he added: “Coach and six; post-boys, coachman, footmen, and guards — all armed — eh, Cade, old spark? Lord, how they gaped when I took off my hat and invited Sir Timerson to a stroll! Do you mind that fat coachman, Cade? — and all the post-boys agape and cross-eyed with looking into your rifle-barrel?”
“Jack,” I groaned, “I cannot endure delay. Post us, for Heaven’s sake. I’m nigh spent with fright and grief.”
“There, there!” said Mount, affectionately clapping me on the shoulder. “You will see your dear lady in half an hour, lad. No fear that we will miss — eh, Cade? We shoot straighter for our friends’ than for our own lives.”
Then he bade the Weasel take his stand to the left, and posted me to the right; he himself sat down cross-legged under the signpost �
� a strange, monstrous shape squatting in the light of the setting moon.
I heard the click, click, of the closing rifle-pans in the darkness, and for the twentieth time I renewed my priming, fearing the night air might flash the powder in the pan.
The silence weighed me down; awful fear shot through and through me, stabbing my swelling heart till I quivered from head to toe. Try as I might I could scarcely crush back the dread which sometimes chained my limbs, sometimes set them trembling. Suppose that after all they had gone north, risking the war-belt for a dash through to Crown Gap? This was foolish, and I knew it, for they were bound for Williamsburg. Yet the dreadful chance of their mistaking the route and plunging into a Cayuga ambuscade drove me almost frantic.
I thought of Silver Heels, while straining my ears for the sound of the chaise that bore her. Strange, but in my excitement I found myself utterly unable to recall her face to mind. Other faces crowded it out, and I could see them plainly, God wot! — Dunmore, falling under my heavy blow; Butler, his ghastly visage shattered, writhing with my clutch at his throat; Greathouse, as he lay in the alley with the lanthorn’s light on his bloated face — enough! Ay, enough now, for in my ears I seemed to hear the crash of Butler’s 315 bones as I had dashed his accursed body to the floor, and I trembled and wondered what God did to punish those who had slain.
Punish? Perhaps this was my punishment now — perhaps I was never to see Silver Heels again! Terrible thoughts gathered like devils and clamoured at my ears for a hearing, and I lay on the wet grass, listening and staring into the night, while my dry lips burnt with the fever that consumed me. Around me the darkness seemed to be rocking like water; my head swam as if invisible tides were ebbing through it. Again and again I seemed to be falling, and I started to find my eyes wide open and burning like fire.
Suddenly a faint, far sound in the night stilled every pulse. I saw Mount slowly rise to his feet and step into the shadow of the signpost. The whispering call of a whippoorwill broke out from the bushes where Renard lurked, and I stood up, icy cold but calm, eyes fixed on the darkness which engulfed the road ahead.
Works of Robert W Chambers Page 114