Chapter 6

Great was the mystery. There was the bed precisely as Penn had left it a minute since. There was the candle dimly burning. The medicines remained just where Toby had placed them, on the table under the mirror. But the patient had vanished.

What had become of him? It was believed that he was too ill to leave his bed without assistance. And, even though he had been strong, it was by no means probable that one so uniformly discreet in his conduct, and ever so regardful of the feelings of others, would have quitted the house in this abrupt and inexplicable manner.

In vain the premises were searched. Not a trace of him could be anywhere discovered. Neither were there any indications of a struggle. Yet it was Toby's firm conviction that the ruffians had entered the house, and seized him; that Pepperill was in the plot, the object of whose visit was merely a diversion, while Ropes and the rest accomplished the abduction. This could not, of course, have been done without the aid of magic and the devil; but Toby believed in magic and the devil. The fact that Dan had taken advantage of the confusion to escape, appeared to the Ethiopian mind conclusive.

Nor was the negro alone in his bewilderment. Carl was utterly confounded. The old clergyman, usually so calm, was deeply troubled; while Virginia herself, pierced with the keenest solicitude, could scarce keep her mind free from horrible and superstitious doubts. The doors between the sitting-room and back stairs were all wide open, and it seemed impossible that any one could have come in or gone out that way without being observed. On the other hand, to have reached the front stairs Penn must have passed through Salina's room. But Salina, who was in her room at the time, averred that she had not been disturbed, even by a sound.

"He has got out the vinder," said Carl. But the window was fifteen feet from the ground.

Thus all reasonable conjecture failed, and it seemed necessary to accept Toby's theory of the ruffians, magic, and the devil. Only one thing was certain: Penn was gone. And, as if to add to the extreme and painful perplexity of his friends, the clothes, which had been stripped from him by the lynchers, which he had brought away in his hands, and which had been hung up in his room by Toby, were left hanging there still, untouched.

The family had not recovered from the dismay his disappearance occasioned, when they had cause to rejoice that he was gone. Ropes and his crew returned, as Pepperill had predicted. They were intoxicated and bloodthirsty. They had brought a rope, with which to hang their victim before the old clergyman's door. They were furious on finding he had eluded them, and searched the house with oaths and uproar. Virginia, on her knees, clung to her father, praying that he might not be harmed, and that Penn, whom all had been so anxious just now to find, might be safe from discovery.

Exasperated by their unsuccessful search, the villains hesitated about laying violent hands on the blind old man, and concluded to wreak their vengeance on Toby. That he was a freed negro, was alone a sufficient offence in their eyes to merit a whipping. But he had done more; he had been devoted to the schoolmaster, and they believed he had concealed him. So they seized him, dragged him from the house, bared his back, and tied him to a tree.

As long as the mob had confined itself to searching the premises, Mr. Villars had held his peace. But the moment his faithful old servant was in danger, he roused himself. He rushed to the door, bareheaded, his white hair flowing, his staff in his hand. Both his children accompanied him,--Salina, who was really not void of affection, appearing scarcely less anxious and indignant than her sister.

There, in the light of a wood-pile to which fire had been set, stood the old negro, naked to the waist, lashed fast to the trunk, writhing with pain and terror; his brutal tormentors grouped around him in the glare of the flames, preparing, with laughter, oaths, and much loose, leisurely swaggering, to flay his flesh with rods.

"My friends!" cried the old clergyman, with an energy that startled them, "what are you about to do?"

"We're gwine to sarve this nigger," said the man Gad, "jest as every free nigger'll git sarved that's found in the state three months from now."

"Free niggers is a nuisance," added Ropes, now very drunk, and very much inclined to make a speech on a barrel which his friends rolled out for him. "A nuisance!" he repeated, with a hiccough, steadying himself on his rostrum by holding a branch of the tree. "And let me say to you, feller-patriots, that one of the glorious fruits of secession is, that every free nigger in the state will either be sold for a slave, or druv out, or hung up. I tell you, gentlemen, we're a goin' to have our own way in these matters, spite of all the ministers in creation!"

The men cheered, and one of them struck Toby a couple of preliminary blows, just to try his hand, and to add the poor old negro's howls to the chorus.

"No doubt,"--the old clergyman's voice rose above the tumult,--"you will have your way for a season. You will commit injustice with a high hand. You will glut your cruelty upon the defenceless and oppressed. But, as there is a God in heaven,"--he lifted up his blind white face, and with his trembling hands shook his staff on high, like a prophet foretelling woe,--"as there is a God of justice and mercy who beholds this wickedness,--just so sure the hour of your retribution will come! so sure the treason you are breathing, and the despotism you are inaugurating, will prove a snare and a destruction to yourselves! Unbind that man! leave my house in peace! go home, and learn to practise a little of the mercy of which you will yourselves soon stand in need." His venerable aspect, and the power and authority of his words, awed even that drunken crew. But Silas, vain of his oratorical powers, was enraged that anybody should dispute his influence with the crowd. Holding the branch with one hand, and gesticulating violently with the other, he exclaimed,--

"Who is boss here? Who ye goin' to mind? that old traitor, or me? I say, lick the nigger! We're a goin' to have our way now, and we're a goin' to have our way to the end of the 'arth, sure as I am a gentleman standing on this yer barrel!"

To emphasize his declaration, he stamped with his foot; the head of the cask flew in, and down went orator, cask, and all, in a fashion rendered all the more ridiculous by the climax of oratory it illustrated.

"Just so sure will your hollow and inhuman schemes fail from under your feet!" exclaimed Mr. Villars, as soon as he learned what had happened. "So surely and so suddenly will you fall."

This incident occurred as Toby's flogging was about to begin in earnest. Virginia had instinctively covered her eyes to shut out the terrible sight, her ears to shut out the sounds of the beating and the poor old fellow's groans. Luckily, Silas had fallen partly in the barrel, and partly across the sharp edge of it, and being too tipsy to help himself, had been seriously hurt, and was now helpless. The ruffians hastened to extricate him, and raise him up. Carl, who, with an open knife concealed in his sleeve, had been waiting for an opportunity, darted at the tree, cut the negro's bonds in a twinkling, and set him free.

Both took to their heels without an instant's delay. But the trick was discovered. They were pursued immediately. Carl was lively on his legs, as we know; but poor old Toby, never a good runner, and now stiff and decrepit with age, was no match even for the slowest of their pursuers.

They ran straight into the orchard, hoping to lose themselves among the shadows. The glare of the burning wood-pile flickered but faintly and unsteadily among the trees. Carl might easily have escaped; but he thought only of Toby, and kept faithfully at his side, assisting him, urging him. A fence was near--if they could only reach that! But Toby was wheezing terribly, and the hand of the foremost ruffian was already extended to seize him.

"Jump the vence over!" was Carl's parting injunction to the old negro, who made a last desperate effort to accomplish the feat; while Carl, turning sharp about, tripped the foot of him of the extended hand, and sent him headlong. The second pursuer he grappled, and both rolled upon the ground together.

Favored by this diversion, Toby reached the fence, climbed it, and without looking how, he leaped, jumped down upon--a human figure, stretched there upon the ground!

Notwithstanding his own danger, Toby thought of his patient, and stopped.

"Is it you, massa?"

The man rose slowly to his feet. It was not Penn; it was, on the contrary, the worst of Penn's enemies, who had stationed himself here, in order to observe, unseen, and from a safe distance, the operations of Silas Ropes and his band of patriots.

"O, Massa Bythewood!" ejaculated Toby, inspired with sudden joy and hope; "help a poor old niggah! Help! De Villarses will remember it ob ye de longest day you live, if you on'y will."

"Why, what's the matter, Toby?" said Augustus, full of rage at having been thus discovered, yet assuming a gracious and patronizing manner.

Toby did not make a very coherent reply; but probably the young gentleman was already sufficiently aware of what was going on. He had no especial regard for Toby, yet his credit with Virginia and her father was to be sustained. And so Toby was saved.

Augustus met and rebuked his pursuers, released Carl, who was suffering at the hands of his antagonist, and led the way back to the house. There he expressed to Mr. Villars and his daughters the utmost regret and indignation for what had occurred, and took Mr. Ropes aside to remonstrate with him for such violent proceedings. His influence over that fallen orator was extraordinary. Ropes excused himself on the plea of his patriotic zeal, and called off his men.

"How fortunate," said Augustus, conducting the old man, with an excessive show of deference and politeness, back into the sitting-room,--"how extremely fortunate that I happened to be walking this way! I trust no serious harm has been done, my dear Virginia?"

Bythewood no doubt thought himself entitled to use this affectionate term, after the service he had rendered the family.

After he was gone, Toby, having recovered from his fright and the fatigue of running, and got his clothes on again, rushed into the presence of his master and the young ladies.

"I've seed Mass' Penn!" he said. "Arter Bythewood done got up from under de fence whar I jumped on him, I seed anoder man a crawlin' away on his hands and knees jest a little ways off. 'Twas Mass' Penn! I know 'twas Mass' Penn."

But Toby was mistaken. The second figure he had seen was Mr. Lysander Sprowl, now the confidential adviser and secret companion of Augustus.

XIII.

_THE OLD CLERGYMAN'S NIGHTGOWN HAS AN ADVENTURE._

Where, then, all this time, was Penn? He was himself almost as profoundly ignorant on that subject as anybody. For two or three hours he had been lost to himself no less than to his friends.

When he recovered his consciousness he found that he was lying on the ground, in the open air, in what seemed a barren field, covered with rocks and stunted shrubs.

How he came there he did not know. He had nothing on but his night-dress,--a loan from the old clergyman,--besides a blanket wrapped about him. His feet were bare, and he now perceived that they were painfully aching.

Almost too weak to lift a hand to his head, he yet tried to sit up and look around him. All was darkness; not a sign of human habitation, not a twinkling light was visible. The cold night wind swept over him, sighing drearily among the leafless bushes. Chilled, shivering, his temples throbbing, his brain sick and giddy, he sat down again upon the rocks, so ill and suffering that he could scarcely feel astonishment at his situation, or care whether he lived or died.

Where had he been during those hours of oblivion? He seemed to have slept, and to have had terrible dreams. Could he have remembered these dreams, it seemed to him that the whole mystery of his removal to this desolate spot would be explained. And he knew that it required but an effort of his will to remember them. But his soul was too weak: he could not make the effort.

To get upon his feet and walk was impossible. What, then, was left him but to perish here, alone, uncared for, unconsoled by a word of love from any human being? Death he would have welcomed as a relief from his sufferings. Yet when he thought of his home far away, in the peaceful community of Friends, of his parents and sisters now anxiously expecting his return,--and again when he remembered the hospitable roof under which he lay, so tenderly nursed, but a little while ago, and thought of the blind old clergyman, of Virginia fresh as a rose, of kind-hearted Carl, and the affectionate old negro,--he was stung with the desire to live, and he called feebly,--

"Toby! Toby!"

Was his cry heard? Surely, there were footsteps on the rocks! And was not that a human form moving dimly between him and the sky? It passed on, and was lost in the shadows of the pines. Was it some animal, or only a phantom of his feverish brain?

"Toby!" he called again, exerting all his force. But only the wailing wind answered him, and, overcome by the effort, he sunk into a swoon. In that swoon it seemed to him that Toby had heard his voice, and that he came to him. Hands, gentle human hands, groped on him, felt the blanket, felt his bare feet, and his head, pillowed on stones. Then there seemed to be two Tobys, one good and the other evil, holding a strange consultation over him, which he heard as in a dream.

"We can't leave him dying here!" said the good Toby.

"What dat to me, if him die, or whar him die?" said the other Toby. "Straight har!" He seemed to be feeling Penn's locks, in order to ascertain to which race he belonged. "Dat's nuff fur me! Lef him be, I tell ye, and come 'long!"

"Straight hair or curly, it's all the same," said Toby the Good. "Take hold here; we must save him!"

"Hyah-yah! ye don't cotch dis niggah!" chuckled Toby the Bad, maliciously. "Nuff more ob his kind, in all conscience! Reckon we kin spar' much as one! Hyah-yah!"

Something like a quarrel ensued, the result of which was, that Toby the Good finally prevailed upon Toby the Malevolent to assist him. Then Penn was dreamily aware of being lifted in the strong arms of this double individual, and borne away, over rocks, and among thickets, along the mountain side; until even this misty ray of consciousness deserted him, and he fell into a stupor like death.

And what was this he saw on awaking? Had he really died, and was this unearthly place a vestibule of the infernal regions? Days and nights of anguish, burning, and delirium, relieved at intervals by the same death-like stupor, had passed over him; and here he lay at length, exhausted, the terrible fever conquered, and his soul looking feebly forth and taking note of things.

And strange enough things appeared to him! He was in an apartment of prodigious and uncouth architecture, dimly lighted from one side by some opening invisible to him, and by a blazing fire in a little fireplace built on the broad stone floor. The fireplace was without chimney, but a steady draught of air, from the side where the opening seemed to be, swept the smoke away into sombre recesses, where it mingled with the shadows of the place, and was lost in gloom which even the glare of the flames failed to illumine.

Such a cavernous room Penn seemed to have seen in his dreams. The same irregular, rocky roof started up from the wall by his bed, and stretched away into vague and obscure distance. All was familiar to him, but all was somehow mixed up with frightful fantasies which had vanished with the fever that had so recently left him. The awful shapes, the struggles of demoniac men, the processions of strange and beautiful forms, which had visited him in his delirious visions,--all these were airy nothings; but the cave was real.

Here he lay, on a rude bed constructed of four logs, forming the ends and sides, with canvas stretched across them, and secured with nails. Under him was a mattress of moss, over him a blanket like that which he remembered to have had wrapped about him last night in the field.

Last night! Poor Penn was deeply perplexed when he endeavored to remember whether his mysterious awaking in the open air occurred last night, or many nights ago. He moved his head feebly to look for Toby. Which Toby? for all through his sufferings the same two Tobys, one good and the other evil, who had taken him from the field, had appeared still to attend him, and he now more than half expected to see the faithful old negro duplicated, and waiting upon him with two bodies and four hands.

But neither the better nor even the worse half of that double being was near him now. Penn was alone, in that subterranean solitude. There burned the fire, the shadows flickered, the smoke floated away into the depths of the dark cavern, in such loneliness and silence as he had never experienced before. He would have thought himself in some grotto of the gnomes, or some awful cell of enchantment, whose supernatural fire never went out, and whose smoke rolled away into darkness the same perpetually,--but for the sound of the crackling flames, and the sight of piles of wood on the floor, so strongly suggestive of human agency.

On one side was what appeared to be an artificial chamber built of stones, its door open towards the fire. Ranged about the cave, in something like regular order, were several massy blocks of different sizes, like the stools of a family of giants. But where were the giants?

Ah, here came Toby at last, or, at any rate, the twin of him. He approached from the side where the daylight shone, bearing an armful of sticks, and whistling a low tune. With his broad back turned towards Penn, he crouched before the fire, which he poked and scolded with malicious energy, his grotesque and gigantic shadow projected on the wall of the cave.

"Burn, ye debil! K-r-r-r! sputter! snap! git mad, why don't ye?"

Then throwing himself back upon a heap of skins, with his heels at the fire, and his long arms swinging over his head, in a savage and picturesque attitude, he burst into a shout, like the cry of a wild beast. This he repeated several times, appearing to take delight in hearing the echoes resound through the cavern. Then he began to sing, keeping time with his feet, and pausing after each strain of his wild melody to hear it die away in the hollow depths of the cave.

"De glory ob de Lord, it am comin', it am comin', De glory ob de Lord, let it come! De angel ob de Lord, hear his trumpet, hear his trumpet, De angel ob de Lord, he ar come!"

At the last words, "_He ar come!_" a shadow darkened the entrance, and Penn looked, almost expecting to see a literal fulfilment of the prophecy. A form of imposing stature appeared. It was that of a negro upwards of six feet in height, magnificently proportioned, straight as a pillar, and black as ebony. He wore a dress of skins, carried a gun in his hand, and had an opossum slung over his shoulder.

"Hush your noise!" he said to the singer, in a tone of authority. "Haven't I told you not to _wake him_?"

"No fear o' dat!" chuckled the other. "Him's past dat! Ki! how fat he ar!" seizing the opossum, and beginning to dress him on the spot.

"Past waking! I tell you he's asleep, and every thing depends on his waking up right. But you set up a howl that would disturb the dead!"

"Howl! dat's what ye call singin'; me singin', Pomp."

"Well, keep your singing to yourself till he is able to stand it, you unfeeling, ungrateful fellow!"

"What dat ye call dis nigger?" cried the singer, jumping up in a passion, with his blood-stained knife in his hand. "Ongrateful! Say dat ar agin, will ye?"

"Yes, Cudjo, as often as you please," said Pomp, calmly placing his gun in the artificial chamber. "You are an unfeeling, ungrateful fellow."

He turned, and stood regarding him with a proud, lofty, compassionating smile. Cudjo's anger cooled at once. Penn had already recognized in them the twin Tobys of his dreams. And what a contrast between the two! There was Toby the Good, otherwise called Pomp, dignified, erect, of noble features; while before him cringed and grimaced Toby the Malign, alias Cudjo, ugly, deformed, with immensely long arms, short bow legs resembling a parenthesis, a body like a frog's, and the countenance of an ape.

"You know," said Pomp, "you would have left this man to die there on the rocks, if it hadn't been for me."

"Gorry! why not?" said Cudjo. "What's use ob all dis trouble on his 'count?"

"He has had trouble enough on our account," said Pomp.

"On our 'count? Hiyah-yah!" laughed Cudjo, getting down on his knees over the opossum; "how ye make dat out, by?"

"Pay attention, Cudjo, while I tell ye," said Pomp, stooping, and laying his finger on the deformed shoulder. Cudjo looked up, with his hands and knife still in the opossum's flesh. "This is the way of it, as I heard last night from Pepperill himself, who got into trouble, as you know, by befriending old Pete after his licking. And you know, don't you, how Pete came by his licking?"

"Bein' out nights, totin' our meal and taters to de mountains,--dough I reckon de patrol didn't know nuffin' 'bout dat ar, or him wouldn't got off so easy!" said Cudjo.

"Well, it was by befriending Pepperill, who had befriended Pete, who brings us meal and potatoes, that this man got the ill will of those villains. Do you understand?"

"Say 'em over agin, Pomp. How, now? Lef me see! Dat ar's old Pete," sticking up a finger to represent him. "Dat ar's Pepperill," sticking up a thumb. "Now, yonder is dis yer man, and here am we. Now, how is it, Pomp?"

Pomp repeated his statement, and Cudjo, pointing to his long, black finger when Pete was alluded to, and tapping his thumb when Pepperill was mentioned, succeeded in understanding that it was indirectly in consequence of kindness shown to himself that Penn had come to grief.

"Dat so, Pomp?" he said, seriously, in a changed voice. "Den 'pears like dar's two white men me don't wish dead as dis yer possom! Pepperills one, and him's tudder."

Pomp, having made this explanation, walked softly to the bedside. He had not before perceived that Penn, lying so still there, was awake. His features lighted up with intelligence and sympathy on making the discovery, and finding him free from feverish symptoms.

"Well, how are you getting on, sir?" he said, feeling Penn's pulse, and seating himself on one of the giant's stools near the bedstead.

"Where am I?" was Penn's first anxious question.

"I fancy you don't know very well where you are, sir," said the negro, with a smile; "and you don't know me either, do you?"

"I think--you are my preserver--are you not?"

"That's a subject we will not talk about just now, sir; for you must keep very quiet."

"I know," said Penn, not to be put off so, "I owe my life to you!"

"Dat's so! dat ar am a fac'!" cried Cudjo, approaching, and wrapping the warm opossum skin about his naked arm as he spoke. "Gorry! me sech a brute, me war for leavin' ye dar in de lot. But, Pomp, him wouldn't; so we toted you hyar, and him's doctored you right smart eber sence. He ar a great doctor, Pomp ar! Yah!" And Cudjo laughed, showing two tremendous rows of ivory glittering from ear to ear; capering, swinging the opossum skin over his head, and, on the whole, looking far more like a demon of the cave than a human being.

"Go about your business, Cudjo!" said Pomp. "You mustn't mind his freaks, sir," turning to Penn. "You are a great deal better; and now, if you will only remain quiet and easy in your mind, there's no doubt but you will get along."