Chapter 11

He snatched the bottle, and was drinking as before, when the guard above, hearing what passed, called for a taste.

"You shust vait a minute till Gad trinks it all up, then you shall pe velcome to vot ish left," said Carl. And, possessing himself of the bottle, he handed it up to his comrades.

All the soldiers above were asleep except the sentinels. They drank freely, and returned the bottle to Gad. He had not finished it before he began to be overcome by drowsiness, its contents having been drugged for the occasion.

He sat down on the stairs, and soon slid off upon the ground. Carl, who had not in reality swallowed a drop, followed his example. Their guns were then taken from them. Penn stole softly up the stairs, and reconnoitred while Grudd and his companions opened the passage in the wall.

"All asleep!" Penn whispered, descending. "Carl!"

Carl opened one eye, with a droll expression.

"Are you asleep?"

"Wery!" said Carl.

"Will you stay here, or go with us?"

"You vill take me prisoner?"

"If you wish it."

"Say you vill plow my brains out if I say vun vord, or make vun noise."

"Come, come! there's no time for fooling, Carl!"

"It ish no vooling!" And Carl insisted on Penn's making the threat. "Veil, then, I vill vake up and go 'long mit you."

Mr. Villars had been for some time sleeping soundly; for it was now long past midnight, and weariness had overcome him. Penn awoke him; but the old man refused to escape. "Go without me. I shall be too great a burden for you." But not one of his fellow-prisoners would consent to leave him behind; and, listening to their expostulations, he at length arose to accompany them.

Stackridge was in the passage, with the old man Ellerton, whom Penn had sent to warn him. They had brought a supply of ammunition for the guns, which they had loaded and placed ready for use. Penn, supporting and guiding the old minister, was the first to pass through into the cellar under Jim's shop. Stackridge, preceding them with a lantern, greeted their escape with silent and grim exultation. Carl came next. Then, one by one, the others followed, each grasping his gun; the rays of the lantern lighting up their determined faces, as they emerged from the low passage, and stood erect, an eager, whispering group, around Stackridge.

Brief the consultation. Their plans were soon formed. Leaving Gad asleep in the cellar behind them; the guard asleep, the soldiers all asleep, in the room above; the sentinels outside the old storehouse keeping watch, pacing to and fro around the cellar, in which not a prisoner remained,--Stackridge and his companions filed out noiselessly through Jim's closed and silent shop, upon the other street, and took their way swiftly through the town.

Having appointed a place of meeting with his friends, Penn left them, and hastened alone to Mr. Villars's house. The lights had long been out. But the sisters were awake; Virginia had not even gone to bed. She was sitting by her window, gazing out on the hushed, gloomy, breathless summer night,--waiting, waiting, she scarce knew for what,--when she was aware of a figure approaching, and knew Penn's light, quick tap at the door.

She ran down to admit him. His story was quickly told. Toby was roused up; blankets were rolled together, and all the available provisions that could be carried were thrust into baskets.

"How shall we get news to you? You will want to hear from your father." Penn hastily thought of a plan. "Send Toby to the round rock,--he knows where it is,--on the side of the mountain. Between nine and ten o'clock to-morrow night. I will try to communicate with him there." And Penn, bidding the young girl be of good cheer, departed as suddenly as he had arrived.

The old negro accompanied him, assisting to carry the burdens. They found Stackridge's horse where he had been fastened. Penn made Toby mount, take a basket in each hand, and hold the blankets before him on the neck of the horse; then, seizing the bridle, and running by his side, he trotted the beast away across the field in a manner that shook the old negro up in lively style.

"O, Massa Penn! I can't stan' dis yere! I's gwine all to pieces! I shall drap some o' dese yer tings, shore!"

"You must stand it! hold on to them!" said Penn. "And now keep still, for we are near the road."

The party had halted at the rendezvous. Mr. Villars, quite exhausted by his unusual exertions, was seated on the ground when Penn came up with Toby and the horse. Toby dismounted; the old minister mounted in his place, and the negro was sent back.

All this passed swiftly and silently; the fugitives were once more on the march, Penn walking by the old man's side. Scarce a word was spoken; the tramp of feet and the sound of the horse's hoofs alone broke the silence of the night. Suddenly a voice hailed them:--

"Who goes there?"

And they discovered some horsemen drawn up before them beside the road. It was the night-patrol.

"Friends," answered Stackridge, marching straight on.

"Halt, and give an account of yourselves!" shouted the patrol.

"We are peaceable citizens, if let alone," said Stackridge. "You'd better not meddle with us."

The horsemen waited for them to pass, then, firing their pistols at the fugitives, put spurs to their horses, and galloped away towards the village.

"Don't fire!" cried Stackridge, as half a dozen pieces were levelled in the darkness. "We've no ammunition to throw away, and no time to lose. They'll give the alarm. Take straight to the mountains!"

Nobody had been hit. Turning aside from the road, they took their way across the broad pasture lands that sloped upwards to the rocky hills. The dark valley spread beneath them; on the other side rose the dim outlines of the shadowy mountain range; over all spread a still, cloudless sky, thick-strewn with glittering star-dust.

In the village, the ringing of bells startled the night with a wild clamor. Stackridge laughed.

"They'll make noise enough now to wake Gad himself! But noise won't hurt anybody. Hear the drums!"

"They are coming this way," said Penn.

"Fools, to set out in pursuit of us with drums beating!" said Captain Grudd. "Very kind in them to give us notice! They should bring lighted torches, too."

"Once in the mountains," said Stackridge, "we are safe. There we can defend ourselves against a hundred. Other Union men will join us, or bring us supplies. We ought to have made this move before; and I'm glad we've been forced to it at last. If every Union man in the south had made a bold stand in the beginning, this cursed rebellion never would have got such a start."

Suddenly bells and drums were silent. "The less noise the more danger," said Stackridge. The way was growing difficult for the horse's feet. The cow-paths, which it had been easy to follow at first, disappeared among the thickets. At length, on the crest of a hill, the party halted to rest.

"Daylight!" said Stackridge, turning his face to the east.

The sky was brightening; the shadows in the valley melted slowly away; far off the cocks crew.

"Hark!" said the captain. "Do you hear anything?"

"I heard a woice!" said Carl.

"Hist!" said Penn. "Look yonder! there they come! around those bushes at the foot of the oak!"

"Sure as fate, there they are!" said the captain.

The fugitives crowded to his side, eager, grasping their gunstocks, and peering with intent eyes through the darkness in the direction in which he pointed.

"Take the horse," said Stackridge to Penn, "and lead him up through that gap out of the reach of the bullets. We'll stay and give these rascals a lesson. Go along with him, Carl, if you don't want to fight your friends."

There were not guns enough for all; and Grudd had Stackridge's revolver. There was nothing better, then, for Penn and Carl to do than to consent to this arrangement.

Penn went before, leading the horse up the dry bed of a brook. Carl followed, urging the animal from behind. Mr. Villars rode with the baggage, which had been lashed to the saddle. Only the clashing of the iron hoofs on the stones broke the stillness of the morning in that mountain solitude. Stackridge and his compatriots had suddenly become invisible, crouching among bushes and behind rocks.

The retreat of Penn and his companions was discovered by the pursuing party, who mistook it for a general flight of the fugitives. They rushed forward with a shout. They had a rugged and barren hill to ascend. Half way up the slope they saw flashes of fire burst from the rocks above, heard the rapid "crack--crackle--crack!" of a dozen pieces, and retreated in confusion down the hill again.

Stackridge and his companions coolly proceeded to reload their guns.

"They didn't know we had arms," said the farmer, with a grim smile. "They'll be more cautious now."

"We've done for two or three of 'em!" said Captain Grudd. "There they lie; one is crawling off."

"Let him crawl!" said Stackridge. "Sorry to kill any of 'em; but it's about time for 'em to know we're in 'arnest."

"They've gone to cover in the laurels," said Grudd. "Let's shift our ground, and watch their movements."

Penn and Carl in the mean time made haste to get the horse and his burden beyond the reach of bullets. They toiled up the bed of the brook until it was no longer passable. Huge bowlders lay jammed and crowded in clefts of the mountain before them. Penn remembered the spot. He had been there in spring, when down over the rocks, now covered with lichens and dry scum, poured an impetuous torrent.

"Now I know where I am," he said. "I don't believe it is possible to get the horse any farther. We will wait here for our friends. Mr. Villars, if you will dismount, we will try to get you up on the bank."

"I pity you, my children," said the old man. "You should never have encumbered yourselves with such a burden as I am. I can neither fight nor run. Is it sunrise yet?"

"It is sunrise, and a beautiful morning! The fresh rays come to us here, sifted through the dewy trees. Sit down on this rock. Find the luncheon, Carl. Ah, Carl!"--Penn regarded the boy affectionately,--"I am glad to have you with me again, but I can't forget that you are a rebel! and a deserter!"

"I a deserter? you mishtake," said Carl. "I am a prisoner."

"You disobeyed me, Carl! I told you not to enlist. You did wrong."

"Now shust listen," said Carl, "and I vill tell you. I did right. Cause vy. You are alive and vell now, ain't you?"

Penn smilingly admitted the fact.

"And that is petter as being hung?"

"I am not so very certain of that, Carl!"

"Vell, I am certain for you. Hanging ish no goot. Hunderts of vellers that don't like the rebels no more as you do, wolunteer rather than to be hung. Shows their goot sense."

"But you have taken an oath--you are under a solemn engagement, Carl, to fight against the government."

"You mishtake unce more--two times. I make a pargain. I say to that man, 'You let Mishter Hapgoot go free, and not let him be hurt, and I vill be a rebel.' Vell, he agrees. But he don't keep his vord. He lets 'em go for to hang you vunce more. Now, if he preaks his part of the pargain, vy shouldn't I preak mine?"

"Well, Carl," said Penn, laughing, while his eyes glistened, "I trust thy conscience is clear in the matter. I can only say that, though I don't approve of thy being a rebel, I love thee all the better for it. What do you think, Mr. Villars?"

"Sometimes people do wrong from a motive so pure and disinterested that it sanctifies the action. This is Carl's case, I think."

"Hello!" cried Carl, jumping up from the bank on which they were seated. "Guns! They are at it again! I vill go see!"

The boy disappeared, scrambling down the dry bed of the torrent.

The firing continued at irregular intervals for half an hour. Carl did not return. Penn grew anxious. He stood, intently listening, when he heard a noise behind him, and, turning quickly, saw the glimmer of musket-barrels over the rocks.

"Fire!" said a voice.

And Penn threw himself down under the bank just in time to avoid the discharge of half a dozen pieces aimed at his head.

"What is the trouble?" asked the old man, who was lying on some blankets spread for him there in the shade.

Before Penn could reply, Silas Ropes and six men came rushing down upon them. Stackridge had been out-generalled. Whilst he and his men were being diverted by a feigned attack in front, two different parties had been despatched by circuitous routes to get in his rear. In executing the part of the plan intrusted to him, Ropes had unexpectedly come upon the schoolmaster and his companion. A minute later both were seized and dragged up from the bed of the torrent.

"Ye don't escape me this time!" said Silas, with brutal exultation. "Tie him up to the tree thar; serve the old one the same. We can't be bothered with prisoners."

"What are you going to do to that helpless, blind old man?" cried Penn. "Do what you please with me; I expect no mercy,--I ask none. But I entreat you, respect his gray hair!"

The appeal seemed to have some effect even on the savage-hearted Silas. He glanced at his men: they were evidently of the opinion that the slaughter of the old clergyman was uncalled for.

"Wal, tie the old ranter, and leave him. Quick work, boys. Got the schoolmaster fast?"

"All right," said the men.

"Wal, now stand back here, and les' have a little bayonet practice."

Penn knew very well what that meant. His clothes were stripped from him, in order to present a fair mark for the murderous steel; and he was bound to a tree.

"One at a time," said Silas. "Try your hand, Griffin. _Charge--bayonet!_"

In vain the old minister endeavored to make himself heard in his friend's behalf. He could only pray for him.

Penn saw the ferocious soldier springing towards him, the deadly bayonet thrust straight at his heart. In an instant the murder would have been done. But when within two paces of his victim, the steel almost touching his breast, Griffin uttered a yell, dropped his gun, flung up his hands, and fell dead at Penn's feet.

At the same moment a light curl of smoke was wafted from the heaped bowlders in the chasm above, and the echoes of a rifle-crack reverberated among the rocks.

The assassins were terror-struck. They looked all around; not a human being was in sight. Distant firing proclaimed that Stackridge and his men were still engaged. The death that struck down Griffin seemed to have fallen from heaven. They waited but a moment, then fled precipitately, leaving Penn still bound, but uninjured, with the dead rebel at his feet.

Then two figures came gliding swiftly down over the rocks. Penn uttered a cry of joy. It was Pomp and Cudjo.

XXIV.

_THE DEAD REBEL'S MUSKET._

Pomp came reloading his rifle, while Cudjo, knife in hand, flew at the cords that confined the schoolmaster.

In his gratitude to Heaven and his deliverers, Penn could have hugged that grotesque, half-savage creature to his heart. But no time was to be lost. Snatching the knife, he hastened to release the bewildered clergyman.

"Pomp, my noble fellow!" The negro turned from looking after the retreating rebels, with a gleam of triumph on his proud and lofty features: Penn wrung his hand. "You have twice saved my life--now let me ask one more favor of you! Take Mr. Villars to your cave--do for him what you have done for me. He is a much better Christian, and far more deserving of your kindness, than I ever was."

"And you?" said Pomp, quietly.

"I will take my chance with the others." And Penn in few words explained the occurrences of the night and morning.

Pomp shrugged his shoulders frowningly. The time was at hand when he and Cudjo could no longer enjoy in freedom their wild mountain life; even they must soon be drawn into the great deadly struggle. This he foresaw, and his soul was darkened for a moment.

"Cudjo! Shall we take this old man to our den?"

"No, no! Don't ye take nobody dar! on'y Massa Hapgood."

"But he is blind!" said Penn.

"Others will come after who are not blind," said Pomp, his brow still stern and thoughtful.

"My friends," interposed the old clergyman, mildly, "do nothing for me that will bring danger to yourselves, I entreat you!"

These unselfish words, spoken with serious and benignant aspect, touched the generous chords in Pomp's breast.

"Why should we blacks have anything to do with this quarrel?" he said with earnest feeling. "Your friends down there"--meaning Stackridge and his party--"are all slaveholders or pro-slavery men. Why should we care which side destroys the other?"

"There is a God," answered Mr. Villars, with a beaming light in his unterrified countenance, "who is not prejudiced against color; who loves equally his black and his white children; and who, by means of this war that seems so needless and so cruel, is working out the redemption, not of the misguided white masters only, but also of the slave. Whether you will or not, this war concerns the black man, and he cannot long keep out of it. Then will you side with your avowed enemies, or with those who are already fighting in your cause without knowing it?"

These words probed the deep convictions of Pomp's breast. He had from the first believed that the war meant death to slavery; although of late the persistent and almost universal cry of Union men for the "Union as it was,"--the Union with the injustice of slavery at its core,--had somewhat wearied his patience and weakened his faith.

"Here, Cudjo! help get this horse up--we can find a path for him."

Reluctantly Cudjo obeyed; and almost by main strength the two athletic blacks lifted and pulled the animal up the bank, and out of the chasm.

Penn assisted his old friend to remount, then took leave of him.

"I will be with you again soon!" he cried, hopefully, as the negroes urged the horse forward into the thickets.

Then the young Quaker, left alone, turned to look at the dead rebel. For a moment horrible nausea and faintness made him lean against the tree for support. It was the first violent death of which he had ever been an eye-witness. He had known this man,--who was indeed the same Griffin, who had assisted the unwilling Pepperill to bring the tar-kettle to the wood-side on a certain memorable evening; ignorant, intemperate, too proud to work in a region where slavery made industry a disgrace, and yet a fierce champion of the system which was his greatest curse. Now there he lay, in his dirt, and rags, and blood, his neck shot through; the same expression of ferocious hate with which he had rushed to bayonet the schoolmaster still distorting his visage;--an object of horror and loathing. Was it not assuming a terrible responsibility to send this rampant sinner to his long account? Yet the choice was between his life and Penn's; and had not Pomp done well? Still Penn could not help feeling remorse and commiseration for the wretch.

"Poor Griffin! I have no murderous hatred for such as you! But if you come in the way of my country's safety, or of the welfare of my friends, you must take the penalty!"

He picked up the musket that had fallen at his feet where he stood bound. Then, stifling his disgust, he felt in the dead man's pockets for ammunition. Cartridges there were none; but in their place he found some bullets and a powder-flask. Then putting in practice the lessons he had learned of Pomp when they hunted together on the mountain, he loaded the gun, resolutely setting his teeth and drawing his breath hard when he thought of the different kind of game it might now be his duty to shoot.

While thus occupied he heard footsteps that gave him a sudden start. He turned quickly, catching up the gun. To his immense relief he saw Pomp, approaching with a smile.

"I thought you were with Mr. Villars!"

"Cudjo has gone with him. I am going with you."

"O Pomp!" cried Penn, with a joyful sense of reliance upon his powerful and sagacious black friend. "But is Mr. Villars safe?"

"Cudjo is faithful," said Pomp. "He believes the old man is your friend, and a friend of the slave. Besides, I promised, if he would take him to the cave, that my next shot, if I have a chance, should be at his old acquaintance, Sile Ropes."

Pomp took the lead, guiding Penn through hollows and among thickets to a ledge crowned with shrubs of savin, whose summit commanded a view of all that mountain-side.

They crept among the bushes to the edge of the cliff. There they paused. Neither friend nor foe was in sight. No sound of fire-arms was heard,--only the birds were singing.

Penn never forgot that scene. How fresh, and beautiful, and still the morning was! The sunlight flushed the craggy and wooded slopes. Far off, dim with early mist, lay the lovely hills and valleys of East Tennessee. On the north the peaks of the mountain range soared away, purple, rosy, glorious, in soft suffusing light. In the south-west other peaks receded, billowy and blue. And God's pure, deep sky was over all.

Touched by the divine beauty of the day, Penn lay thinking with shame of the scenes of human folly and violence with which it had been desecrated, when the negro drew him softly by the sleeve.

"Look yonder! down in the edge of that little grove!"

Peering through an opening in the savins through which Pomp had thrust his rifle, Penn saw, stealing cautiously out of the grove, a man.

"It is Stackridge! He is reconnoitring."

"It is a retreat," said Pomp. "See, there they all come!"

"Carl with the rest, showing them the way!" added Penn.

He was watching with intense interest the movements of his friends, and rejoicing that no foe was in sight, when suddenly Pomp uttered a warning whisper.

"Where? what?" said Penn, eagerly looking in the direction in which the negro pointed.

Down at their left was a long line of dark thickets which marked the edge of a ravine; out of which he now saw emerging, one by one, a file of armed men. They climbed up a narrow and difficult pass, and halted on the skirts of the thicket. Ten--twelve--fifteen, Penn counted. It was the other party that had been sent out simultaneously with that under Lieutenant Ropes, to get in the rear of the fugitives. And they had succeeded. Only a bushy ridge concealed them from Stackridge's men, who were coming up under the shelter of the same ridge on the other side.

Penn trembled with excitement as he saw the rebels cross swiftly forward, skulking among the bushes, to the summit of the ridge. The negro's eyes blazed, but he was perfectly cool. On one knee, his left foot advanced,--holding his rifle with one hand, and parting the bushes with the other,--he smiled as he observed the situation.

"Here," said he to Penn, "rest your gun in this little crotch. Now can you see to take aim?"

"Yes," said Penn, with his heart in his throat.

"Calm your nerves! Everything depends on our first shot. Wait till I give the word. See! they have discovered Stackridge!"

"We might shout, and warn him," said Penn, whose nature still shrank from using any more deadly means of saving his friends.

"And so discover ourselves! That never'll do. Have you sighted your man?"

"Yes--the one lying on his belly behind that cedar."

"Very well! I'll take the fellow next him. The moment you have fired, keep perfectly still, only draw your gun back and load. Now--fire!"

Just then Stackridge and his men, in full view of their hidden friends on the ledge, were appearing to the fifteen ambushed rebels also. Suddenly the loud bang of a musket, followed instantly by the sharp crack of a rifle, echoed down the mountain side. The rebel behind the cedar sprang to his feet, dropping his gun, and throwing up his hands, and rushed back down the ridge, screaming, "I'm hit! I'm hit!" while the man next him also attempted to rise, but fell again, Pomp having discreetly aimed at an exposed leg.

"I'm glad we've only wounded them!" whispered Penn, very pale, his lips compressed, his eyes gleaming.