Chapter 20

He threw up a little dirt, then gave the shovel to one of the soldiers. The moon shone full upon the place. The man dug a few minutes, and came to something which was neither rock nor soil. He pulled it up. It was a man's arm.

"You didn't guess fur from right this time, Dan! Scrape off a little more dirt, and we'll haul up the carcass. Needn't be partic'lar 'bout scrapin' very keerful, nuther. He's a mean shoat, whoever he is; one o' them cussed Union-shriekers. Wish they was all planted like he is! Hope we shall find five or six more. Ketch holt, Dan!"

Dan caught hold. The body was dragged from the lonely resting-place to which it had been consigned. Parts of it, which had not been protected by the superincumbent bulk of the horse, were hideously burned. Ropes rolled it over on the back, and kicked it, to knock off the dirt. He turned up the face in the moonlight--a frightful face! One side was roasted; and what was left of the hair and beard was full of sand.

"Damn him!" said Ropes, giving it a wipe with the spade.

The eyes were open, and they too were full of sand.

But the features were still recognizable. The men started back with horror. They knew their comrade. It was the spy who had been sent out to watch the fugitives. It was "the sleeper," whom nought could waken more. It was Gad.

"Wal, if I ain't beat!" said Silas, with a ghastly look. "Fool! how did he come hyar?"

This question has never been satisfactorily answered. The fatal leap of the terrified horse with his rider is known; but how came Gad on the horse? Those who knew the character of the man account for it in this way: He had been something of a horse-thief in his day; and it is supposed that, finding Stackridge's horse on the mountain, he fell once more into temptation. He was probably a little drunk at the time; and he was a man who would never walk if he could ride, especially when he was tipsy. So he mounted. But he had no sooner commenced the descent of the mountain, than the fire, which had been previously concealed from the animal by the clump of trees behind which he was hampered, burst upon his sight, and filled him with uncontrollable frenzy.

Dan, who had witnessed the flight and plunge, could have contributed an item towards the solution of the mystery. But he opened not his mouth.

"Them cussed traitors shall pay fur this!" said Ropes. This was the only consolatory thought that occurred to him. Having uttered it, he looked remorsefully at the spade with which he had rudely wiped the face of his dead friend. "I thought 'twas one o' them rotten scoundrels, or I--But never mind! Kiver him up agin, boys! We can't take him with us, and we've no time to lose."

So they laid the corpse once more in the grave, and heaped the sand upon it.

XXXVI.

_CARL FINDS A GEOLOGICAL SPECIMEN._

In the mean time Carl ascended the moonlit slope, with Sprowl's pistol on one side of him, and the corporal's bayonet on the other. Between the two he felt that he had little chance. But he did not despair. He reasoned thus with himself:--

"These two men vill not think to take the cave alone. They must go back for reënforcements. That shall make a diwersion in my favor. If I show them some dark place, and make them think it is there, they vill not go wery near to examine." And he arrived at this conclusion: "I suppose I shall inwent a cave."

They were advancing cautiously towards the summit of a bushy ridge. Suddenly Carl stopped.

"Anything?" said Sprowl. Carl nodded, with a pleased and confident smile. "What?"

"You shall see wery soon. Shtoop low." He himself crouched close to the ground. The men followed his example. "Come a little more on. Now you see that rock?" Lysander saw it. "Vell, it is not there."

They crept forward a little farther. Then Carl stopped again, and said,--

"You see that tree?"

"Which?"

"All alone in the moonshine." Lysander perceived it.

"Vell," said Carl, "it is not there."

Again they advanced, and again he paused and pointed.

"You see them little saplings?" Lysander distinguished them revealed against the sky.

"Vell," said Carl, "it is not there neither."

He was crawling on again, when Sprowl seized his collar.

"What the devil do you mean?--if I see these things!"

Carl turned on his side, smiled intelligently, and, beckoning the captain to bring his ear close, put his lips to it, covered them with his hand, with an air of secrecy, and whispered hoarsely,--

"Landmarks!"

"Ah! well!" said Lysander, suffering him to proceed.

Carl crept slowly, raising his head at every moment to observe. The bayonet came behind; the captain continued at his side. "The further I take these willains from the others, the petter," thought he. At length he came in view of the high ledge upon which Penn had discovered Cudjo at his idolatrous devotions, on the night of the fire. The moon was getting behind the mountain, and there were dark shadows beneath this ledge. Though he should travel a mile, he might not find a more suitable spot to locate his fictitious cave. He hesitated; considered well; then gently tapped Lysander's arm.

"You see vair the rock comes down? And some pushes just under it? Vell, the cave is pehind the pushes, ven you find it!" Which was indeed true.

Lysander crept a few paces nearer, stealthily, flat on his belly, with his head slightly elevated, like a dark reptile gliding over the moonlit ground.

"Now is my time!" thought Carl. His heart beat violently. He raised himself on his knees, preparing to spring. Lysander was at least ten feet in advance of him, and he thought he would risk the pistol. "I run--he fires--he vill miss me--I shall get avay." But the corporal? Just then he felt a piercing pressure in his side. It was the corporal, nudging him with the bayonet to make him lie down.

"I vas shust going a little nearer."

The corporal seemed satisfied with the explanation; but, as the boy advanced on his hands and knees, he advanced close behind him,--holding the bayoneted gun ready for a thrust.

So Carl succeeded only in getting a little nearer Lysander, without increasing at all the distance between him and the corporal. It was a state of affairs that required serious consideration. He lay dawn again, and pretended to be anxiously looking for the mouth of the cave, whilst watching and reflecting.

Just then occurred a circumstance which seemed almost providentially designed to favor the boy's strategy. Upon the ledge appeared two human figures, male and female, touched by the moonlight, and defined against the sky. They remained but a moment on the summit, then began to descend in the shadow of the ledge. Their movements were slow, uncertain, mysterious. Below the base of the rock they stood once more in the moonlight, and after appearing to consult together for a few seconds, disappeared behind the bushes where Carl had placed his imaginary cave.

If Sprowl had any doubts on the subject before, he was now entirely satisfied. He believed the forms to be those of Virginia and the schoolmaster; they had been out to enjoy solitude and sentiment in the moonlight; and now they were returning reluctantly to the cave.

"Wouldn't Gus be edified if he was in my place!" Lysander little thought that _he_ was the one to be edified,--as he would certainly have been, to an amazing degree, had he known the truth. "But we'll spoil their fun in a few minutes!" he said to himself, as he crept back towards his former position.

As for Carl, it was he who had been most astonished by the phenomenon. No sooner had he invented a cave, than two phantoms made their appearance, and walked into it! The illusion was so perfect, that he himself was almost deceived by it. Only for an instant, however. Continuing to gaze, he had another glimpse of the apparitions, when, having merely passed behind the bushes, they came out beyond them, in the direction of the real cave, and were lost once more in shadow. Lysander, engaged in making his retrograde movement, did not notice this very important circumstance; and the corporal was too intently occupied in watching Carl to observe anything else.

The captain got behind the shelter of a cluster of thistles, and beckoned for the two to approach.

"Corporal," said he, "hurry back and tell Ropes to bring up his men. I'll wait here."

The corporal crawled off.

Carl heard the order, saw the movement, and felt thrilled to the heart's core with joy. He was now alone with the captain. And he was no longer unarmed. In creeping towards the thistles, he had laid his hand on a wonderful little stone. Somehow, his fingers had closed upon it. It was about the size of an apple, slightly flattened, rough, and heavy. "I thought," he said afterwards, "if anything vas to happen, that stone might be waluable." And so it proved. Lysander, considering that the cave was found, had become less suspicious. "These Dutch are stupid, and that's all," he thought.

"You vas going to shoot me," said Carl, with an honest laugh at the ludicrousness of the idea.

"And so I would," said Sprowl, with an oath, "if you hadn't brought us to the cave."

"That means," thought Carl, "he vill kill me yet if he can, ven he finds out." He observed, also, that Sprowl, lying on his left side, had his right hand free, and near the pocket where his pistol was. It was not yet too late for him to be shot if he attempted an escape without first attempting something else. The violent beating of his heart recommenced. He felt a strange tremor of excitement thrilling through every nerve. His hand still held the pebble, covering and concealing it as he leaned forward on the ground. He crept a little nearer Lysander.

"The vay they go into the cave," he said, "is wery queer."

"How so?" asked the captain.

They were facing each other. Carl drew still a little nearer, and raised himself slightly on the hand that grasped the geological specimen.

"I promised to take you in. I vill take you in on vun condition."

"Condition?" repeated Lysander.

"That is vat I said. Vun leetle condition. Let me whishper."

Carl put up his left hand as if to cover the communication he was about to breathe into Lysander's ear.

"The condition--IS THIS!"

As he uttered the last words, he seized Lysander's wrist with his left hand, and at the same instant, with a stroke rapid as lightning, smote him on the temple with the stone.

All this, being interpreted, meant, "I take you to the cave on condition that you go as my prisoner." Thus Carl designed to keep his promise.

As he struck he sprang up, to be ready for any emergency. He had expected a struggle, an outcry. He never dreamed that he could strike a man dead with a single blow!

Without a shriek, without even a moan, Lysander merely sunk back upon the ground, gasped, shuddered, and lay still.

Carl was stupefied. He looked at the prostrate man. Then he cast his eye all around him on the moonlit mountain slope. No one was in sight. Was this murder he had committed? He knelt down, bending over the horribly motionless form. He gazed on the ghastly-pale face, and saw issuing from the nostrils a dark stream. It was blood.

Was it not all a dream? He still held the stone in his hand. He looked at it, and mechanically placed it in his pocket. Nothing now seemed left for him but to escape to the cave; and yet he remained fixed with horror to the spot, regarding what he had done.

XXXVII.

_CARL KEEPS HIS ENGAGEMENT._

Of the two forms that had been seen on the ledge, the female was not Virginia, and the other was not Penn. A word of explanation is necessary.

Filled with hatred for her husband,--filled with shame and disgust, too, on hearing how he had caused his own mother to be whipped (for the secret was out, thanks to Aunt Deb at the stove-pipe hole),--resolved in her soul never to forgive him, never even to see him again if she could help it, yet intolerably wretched in her loneliness,--Salina had that afternoon taken Toby into her counsel.

"Toby, what are we to do?"

"Dat's what I do'no' myself!" the sore old fellow confessed; even his superior wisdom, usually sufficient (in his own estimation) for the whole family, failing him now. "When it comes to lickin' white women and 'spec'able servants, ain't nobody safe. I's glad ol' massa and Miss Jinny's safe up dar in de cave; and I on'y wish we war safe up dar too."

"Toby," said Salina, "we will go there. Can you find the way?"

"Reckon I kin," said Toby, delighted at the proposal.

They set out early. They succeeded in reaching the woods without exciting suspicion. They kept well to the south, in order to approach the cave on the same side of the ravine from which Toby had discovered it, or rather Penn near the entrance of it, before. He thought he would be more sure to find it by that route. At the same time he avoided the burned woods, and, without knowing it, the soldiers.

But, the best they could do, the daylight was gone when they came to the ravine; and Toby could not find the place where he had previously crossed. He passed beyond it. Then they crossed at random in the easiest place. Once on the side where the cave was, Toby decided that they were above it; and, owing to the steepness of the banks, it was necessary to go around over the rocks, at a short distance from the ravine, in order to reach the shelf behind the thickets. It was in making this movement that they had been seen to descend the ledge and pass behind the bushes at its base.

"Now," said Toby, "you jes' wait while I makes a reckonoyster!"

Salina, weary, sat down in the shadow of a juniper-tree.

Toby made his reconnoissance, discovered nothing, and returned. She, sitting still there, had been more successful. She pointed.

"What dar?" whispered Toby, frightened.

"There is somebody. Don't you see? By those shrub-like things."

"Dey ain't nobody dar!"--with a shiver.

"Yes there is. I saw a man jump up. He is bending over something now, trying to lift it. It must be Penn, or some of his friends. Go softly, and see."

Toby, imaginative, superstitious, did not like to move. But Salina urged him; and something must be done.

"I--I's mos' afeard to! But dar's somebody, shore!"

He advanced, with eyes strained wide and cold chills creeping over him. What was the man doing there? What was he trying to lift and drag along the ground? It was the body of another man.

"Who dar?" said Toby.

"Be quiet. Come here!" was the answer.

"What! Carl! Carl! dat you? What you doin' dar? massy sakes!" said Toby.

"I've got a prisoner," said Carl.

"Dead! O de debil!" said Toby.

"I've knocked him on the head a little, but he is not dead," said Carl. "Be still, for there's forty more vithin hearing!"

Toby, with mouth agape, and hands on knees, crouching, looked in the face of the lifeless man. That jaunty mustache, with the blood from the nostrils trickling into it, was unmistakable.

"Dat Sprowl!" ejaculated the old negro, with horrified recoil.

"He won't hurt you! Take holt! I pelief Ropes is coming, mit his men, now!"

"Le' 'm drap, den. Wha' ye totin' on him fur?"

Carl had quite recovered from his stupefaction. His wits were clear again. Why did he not leave the body? His reasons against such a course were too many to be enumerated on the spot to Toby. In the first place, he had promised to take the captain to the cave; and he felt a stubborn pride in keeping his engagement. Secondly, the man might die if he abandoned him. Moreover, the troops arriving, and finding him, would know at once what had happened; while, on the contrary, if both Carl and the captain should be missing, it would be supposed that they had gone to make observations in another quarter; they would be waited for, and thus much time would be gained.

Carl had all these arguments in his brain. But instead of stopping to explain anything, he once more, and alone, lifted the head and shoulders of the limp man, and recommenced bearing him along.

"Toby, who is that?"

"Dat am Miss Salina."

Carl asked no explanations. "Vimmen scream sometimes. Tell her she is not to scream. You get her handkersheaf. And do not say it is Shprowl."

"Who--what is it?" Salina inquired.

"Our Carl! don't ye know?" said Toby. "He's got one ob dem secesh he's knocked on de head."

"Has he killed him?"

"Part killed him, and part took him prisoner,--about six o' one and half a dozen o' tudder. He say you's specfully 'quested not to scream; and he wants your hank'cher."

"What does he want of it?"--giving it.

"Dat he best know hisself; but if my 'pinion am axed, I should say, to wipe de fellah's nose wiv."

Having delivered this profound judgment, Toby carried the handkerchief to Carl, who spread it over the wounded man's face.

"That prewents her seeing him, and prewents his seeing the vay to the cave."

"Who eber knowed you's sech a powerful smart chil'?" said old Toby, amazed.

A new perception of Carl's character had burst suddenly, with a wonderful light, upon his dazzled understanding. In the terror of their first encounter, in this strange place, he had comprehended nothing of the situation. He had not even remembered that he last saw Carl in the guard-house, with irons on his wrists. It was like a fragment of some dream to find him here, holding the lifeless Lysander in his arms. But now he remembered; now he comprehended. Carl had saved him from torture by engaging to bring this man to the cave; whom by some miracle of courage and valor, he had overcome and captured, and brought thus far over the lonely rocks. All was yet vague to the old negro's mind; but it was nevertheless strange, great, prodigious. And this lad, this Carl, whom Penn had brought, a sort of vagabond, a little hungry beggar, to Mr. Villars's house--that is to say, Toby's; whom the vain, tender, pompous, affectionate old servant had had the immense satisfaction of adopting into the family, patronizing, scolding, tyrannizing over, and tenderly loving; who had always been to him "Dat chil'!" "dat good-for-nuffin'!" "dat mis'ble Carl!"--the same now loomed before his imagination a hero. The simple spreading of the handkerchief over the face appeared to him a master-stroke of cool sagacity. He himself, with all that stupendous wisdom of his, would not have thought of that! He actually found himself on the point of saying "Massa Carl!"

Ah, this foolish old negro is not the only person who, in these times of national trouble, has been thus astonished! Carl is not the only hero who has suddenly emerged, to thrilled and wondering eyes, from the disguises of common life. How many a beloved "good-for-nothing" has gone from our streets and firesides, to reappear far off in a vision of glory! The school-fellows know not their comrade; the mother knows not her own son. The stripling, whose outgoing and incoming were so familiar to us,--impulsive, fun-loving, a little vain, a little selfish, apt to be cross when the supper was not ready, apt to come late and make you cross when the supper was ready and waiting,--who ever guessed what nobleness was in him! His country called, and he rose up a patriot. The fatigue of marches, the hardships of camp and bivouac, the hard fare, the injustice that must be submitted to, all the terrible trials of the body's strength and the soul's patient endurance,--these he bore with the superb buoyancy of spirit which denotes the hero. Who was it that caught up the colors, and rushed forward with them into the thick of the battle, after the fifth man who attempted it had been shot down? Not that village loafer, who used to go about the streets dressed so shabbily? Yes, the same. He fell, covered with wounds and glory. The rusty, and seemingly useless instrument we saw hang so long idle on the walls of society, none dreamed to be a trumpet of sonorous note until the Soul came and blew a blast. And what has become of that white-gloved, perfumed, handsome cousin of yours, devoted to his pleasures, weary even of those,--to whom life, with all its luxuries, had become a bore? He fell in the trenches at Wagner. He had distinguished himself by his daring, his hardihood, his fiery love of liberty. When the nation's alarum beat, his manhood stood erect; he shook himself; all his past frivolities were no more than dust to the mane of this young lion. The war has proved useful if only in this, that it has developed the latent heroism in our young men, and taught us what is in humanity, in our fellows, in ourselves. Because it has called into action all this generosity and courage, if for no other cause, let us forgive its cruelty, though the chair of the beloved one be vacant, the bed unslept in, and the hand cold that penned the letters in that sacred drawer, which cannot even now be opened without grief.

As Toby had never been conscious what stuff there was in Carl, so he had never known how much he really loved, admired, and relied upon him. He stood staring at him there in the moonlight as if he then for the first time perceived what a little prodigy he was.

"Take holt, why don't you?" said Carl.

And this time Toby obeyed: he secretly acknowledged the authority of a master.

"Sartin, sah!"

He had checked himself when on the point of saying "Massa Carl;" but the respectful "sah" slipped from his tongue before he was aware of it.

Among the bushes, and in the shadows of the rocks, they bore the body in swiftness and silence. Salina followed.

In the cave the usual fire was burning; by the light of which only Virginia and her father were to be seen. The sisters fell into each other's arms. Salina was softened: here, after all her sufferings, was refuge at last: here, in the warmth of a father's and a sister's affection, was the only comfort she could hope for now, in the world she had found so bitter.

"Who is with you?" said the old man. "Toby? and Carl? What is the matter?"

"I vants Mr. Hapgood, or Pomp, or Cudjo!" said Carl, laying down his burden.

"They have gone to bury the man in the rawine," said Virginia.

Carl opened great eyes. "The man in the rawine? That's vair Ropes and the soldiers have gone."

"What soldiers?--Who is this?"

"This is their waliant captain! I am wery sorry, ladies, but I have given him a leetle nose-pleed. Some vater, Toby! Your handkersheaf, ma'am, and wery much obliged."

Salina stooped to take the handkerchief. A flash of the fire shone upon the uncovered face. The eyes opened; they looked up, and met hers looking down.

"Lysander!"

"Sal, is it you? Where am I, anyhow?" And the husband tried to raise himself. "Carl, what's this?"

"Don't be wiolent!" said Carl, gently laying him down again, "and I vill tell you. I vas your prisoner, and I vas showing you the cave. Veil, this is the cave; but things is a little inwerted. You are my prisoner."

"Is that so?" said the astonished Lysander.

"Wery much so," replied Carl.

"Didn't somebody knock me on the head?"

"I shouldn't be wastly surprised if somepody _did_ knock you on the head."

"Was it you?"

"I rather sushpect it vas me."

Lysander rubbed his bruised temple feebly, looking amazed.

"But how came _she_ here?"

"It vas she and Toby we saw going into the cave."

"What's that?"--to Toby, bringing a gourd.

"It is vater; it vill improve your wysiognomy. You can trink a little. You feel pretty sound in your witals, don't you? I vas careful not to hurt your witals," said Carl, kindly, raising Sprowl's head and holding the water for him to drink.

Lysander, ungrateful, instead of drinking, started up with sudden fury, struck the gourd from him with one hand, and thrust the other into the pocket where his pistol was, at last accounts.

"Vat is vanting?" Carl inquired, complacently.

Lysander, fumbling in vain for his weapon, muttered, "Vengeance!"

"Wery good," said Carl. "Ve vill discuss the question of wengeance, if you like."' And drawing the pistol from _his_ pocket, he coolly presented it at Sprowl's head. "Vat for you dodge? You think, maybe, the discussion vould not be greatly to your adwantage?"