CHAPTER XXXI.

THE REFUGEE REVEL

“Beyond the infinite and boundless reach Of mercy, if thou didst this deed of death, Art thou damned.” —Shakespeare.

“I’ll lay a scene of blood, Shall make this dwelling horrible to nature.” — Otway.

Our heroine was so completely prostrated by physical fatigue and mental excitement, that she sank into the first chair which presented itself, when the door closed; and covering her face with her hands, remained in a sort of stupor, till she was aroused by some person endeavoring to effect an entrance. Starting to her feet, she was only in time to see Arrison enter, bearing some food, which having deposited he was about to address her, when voices were heard calling him from without, on which he abruptly departed.

Those few minutes of rest had, however, partially refreshed Kate, and, alive now to her unprotected situation, she looked about her to see if there was any prospect of escape, and failing in this, if she could preserve her apartment from intrusion. Though she had eaten nothing since breakfast, the instinct of safety predominated over that of hunger, and therefore she left the coarse, and by no means tempting food, untasted for the present.

Her chamber was comparatively small, quite one half of it being taken up by the bed, which, to her surprise, was neatly arranged, as if female hands had been occupied about it. Opposite its foot, and where the light from the solitary window fell strongest, stood a dressing-table, made of common pine, but cushioned on top, and covered with spotless dimity, another proof that some person of her own sex, and one not without germs of refinement at least, occupied the apartment generally. This discovery cheered Kate’s spirits wonderfully. Her naturally sanguine character whispered to her that, with a woman by, she could not be foully wronged.

But this bright coloring to her thoughts was not destined to be of long duration. An examination of the room satisfied her that escape was impossible. There were no outlets but the window and the door, and while the former was secured without, the latter led, as we have seen, into the common apartment. There was but one consolatory feature, which was that the door opened inwards, so that by barricading it, ingress would be effectually prevented, except with considerable difficulty.

The refugees, meantime, appeared to be preparing for a debauch. They had called for something to eat, as soon as they arrived, and Kate now thought that she heard a woman’s step, moving about as if preparing a meal. She listened in vain, however, to detect a female voice amid the increasing din of jokes, laughter, snatches of coarse songs, and noisy conversation. The uproar, however, served her purpose, since in consequence of it, she was enabled to move the bedstead unheard, and barricade the door with that comparatively heavy article of furniture. After this, reflecting that she would need all her strength, she forced herself to partake of some of the food which had been brought by Arrison.

The clink of glasses, and the increasing boisterousness of the mirth, showed that the refugees, in the contiguous apartment, had now finished their meal and were beginning their debauch in earnest. It was impossible for Kate, in such close vicinity to the revellers, not to hear much that was said. Her attention was soon arrested by her own name being mentioned in connexion with that of her cousin: and listening with awakened curiosity, she gradually made out that she had been betrayed into the hands of her captors by Aylesford himself. She had not dreamed that such baseness and perfidy could exist in the world. With ashen lips she asked herself, “if this was the conduct of her own relative, who was a gentleman by birth and education, what had she to expect from a ruffian like Arrison?”

Breathless with interest she listened to what should come next. At last, after much had passed, but little of which, however, she could distinguish, in the uproar, though that little confirmed the connexion of Aylesford with the murderers, the conversation took a new turn, and now consisted principally of boasts of their exploits, on the part of the ruffians, alternated with jests at each other’s courage. The narratives of their several butcheries, though loathsome to Kate as a woman, were yet terribly fascinating to her as a prisoner in the unrestrained power of such villains. On their own showing her captors had nothing of human mercy left in their hearts. The gratification of all unbridled passions was the acknowledged object of their lives; and they appeared to have been collected together from all parts of the state, lured to this comparatively remote quarter, by the prospect of increased booty under the leadership of Arrison.

“You should have seen how Steve Ball prayed and begged for his life,” said one, with a mocking laugh, alluding to one of his exploits, “when we hung him at Bergen Point. He wouldn’t believe we were in earnest for a good while; for he had brought provisions to sell under a promise of a safe return, but when the time was up, and he saw the tree and cord, he bellowed like a bull. If we’d only give him an hour, he cried, or a half, or a quarter. Ha! ha! ‘twas better than a play. But we told him we’d no time to lose, and that if he wanted a parson, one of us was ready to serve him in that line. When we turned him off, I put a pistol into his hand, telling him it should never be said we sent him into the other world without arms.”

There was a roar of general laughter, at the end of which Arrison said, “why didn’t you tell him, that when he met the devil, he might cry to Old Nick to stand and deliver.”

“Be Jabers,” cried another, whose brogue betrayed his birth-place, “you’d have seen the rare sport, if you’d been with me, and some other of the boys, when we picked Major Dennis’ feathers for him, down here jist, by Manasquan river. The Major wasn’t at home, the more’s the pity, for we’d have strung him up in no time, and done the job nately too; but the old woman was, and though one cried out to let the rebel go, the rest of us determined that she should hang, bad cess to her. And we took her own dirty old bed cord, and tied her up by the neck to a cedar; och! you should have seen dancing there, as merry as at a fair!”

“But I’ve heard she got off after all,” interposed the lieutenant. “You were so busy filling your pockets you forgot her; the rope slipped, and she made off to the swamp with only a fright.”

“It’s the true word you say,” answered the narrator, not a whit abashed. “But now we’ll have the fun of hanging her agin, which couldn’t have been if she hadn’t got off.”

Another burst of laughter followed this. Then one of the company said,

“What’s become of Jack Stetson? as jolly a blade as ever lived. I thought, captain, I’d meet him here, sure. He went over to Maurice river with you, didn’t he?”

“Yes,” answered Arrison, “but he was in that affair with Riggins. If I’d been there it would have ended differently.”

“With Riggins? I haven’t heard of it.”

“Why, Jack and a lot of others, without my knowledge, made up their minds to attack a shallop belonging to a whig named Riggins. Now I’d have let Riggins alone, if he had let’ me alone in turn, for he’s as big as an ox and as strong. But Jack thought he’d frighten the whigs by making a bold dash, so he attempts to board the shallop, as she was going down the river. Gad! though all of Riggins’ men jumped overboard, or skulked into the cabin, except one man, the old pine-knot stood to it; fired twice, and then clubbing his gun, knocked our lads in the head as fast as they attempted to board. He settled poor Jack with one blow. They say too that he thinks more of having smashed his gun than of cracking so many skulls. Some of these days I’d like to draw a sight on him.”

“Well, if Jack is gone,” was the answer, “and here’s to him, I’m glad to say that Parson Caldwell, the canting scoundrel, went to the devil before him.” And he proceeded, amid shouts of approving laughter, to recapitulate a tragedy, with which the whole country was ringing, of which the Rev. James Caldwell, one of the best patriots, purest clergymen, and most upright men of his day, was the victim.

“He was always preachin’ agin the King, and agin us in particular,” said another. “He act’lly used his meetin’ house for a hospital. He oughter ha’ been shot when his wife was.”

“Gad,” said Arrison, his eye gleaming with tiger-like ferocity, “I’d liked to have been the fellow that finished her. She was as bad as him, if not worse. She was praying, wasn’t she?” he added, laughing sardonically. “Praying with her young whelp, Smith, when she was shot by one of your fellows through a window.”

“Yes,” replied the outlaw appealed to, “and arterwards we threw her body into the road, where it lay all day in the sun, before we’d allow ‘em to take it away. If a few more were sarved in the same fashion, it would be better for all of us, as well as for the King.”

“They ought to have their throats cut, the whole spawn of them, women and children too,” said another savagely, striking the table with his clenched fist. “There’ll never be peace till there is.”

“Nor booty for us,” cried another, with a laugh.

With a shudder of horror, Kate reflected that the men who applauded these atrocities, had her now in their power; and that to their natural ferocity the stimulus of intoxication was rapidly being added. Involuntarily she began to grope about the room, hoping to find a knife, or other weapon of defence. “But you haven’t told us,” said the lieutenant, after awhile, addressing Arrison, “what you’re going to do, to make up the plunder we were to get by taking this gal down the river. Will you put her to ransom?”

“Better than that,” was the answer. “I intend to marry her.”

“Marry her? But where’s the parson?”

“I’m parson enough.”

“Whew! that will be playing, high, low, Jack and the game. But you ought to double the pay,” he continued, “if we help you to such an heiress.”

“And such a devilish fine bit of woman flesh,” put in another. “What an ankle she has! If the captain hadn’t began the affair, I’d say we ought to toss up for her; and maybe we ought as it is.”

“Hold your tongue,” said Arrison, with a frown that knit his forbidding brows into dark, red knots. “She’s mine, and there’s an end of it. But I’ll come down handsomely, lads” he added, seeing signs of discontent. “I was a fool ever to think of carrying her off for Aylesford. In my country, many’s the rich heiress that’s married in this way by gentlemen; and gad! as I too was born a gentleman, I mean to do the same.”

“The captain’s a broth of a boy,” interrupted the Milesian. “I’ll help to do the thing nately, and play praist if he says it.”

“You’ll find her a restive filly, though,” laughed the lieutenant, brutally, “if she is often like she was in the boat.”

“I know a way to tame her,” was Arrison’s reply. “I’m used to breaking in her sex; and have bitted and spurred worse fillies than she is. She’ll be glad enough to marry me, before I’ve done with her.” And he burst into a roar of drunken derision, in which his hearers joined.

The reader can but faintly imagine the feelings of our heroine as she listened to this conversation. More than once she started to her feet in wild alarm, as the uproar occasionally deepened, thinking for the moment, that the imbruted wretch was about to force his way into her chamber.

“Oh, God!” she cried, clasping her hands and raising her eyes above, “is there no help?”