CHAPTER XI.

A WELCOME VISITOR.

Hand in hand Vinnie and her father hurried on through the storm and darkness. The way was intricate and difficult to travel; but a good half-hour’s walk brought them to the edge of the clearing, and the weary girl greeted the sight of the cabin, which looked like a large square patch of blackness, through the gloom, with feelings of grateful satisfaction.

It was the work of but a few moments for Darke, while Vinnie lighted a candle, to rekindle the fire that had burned out during their absence. The girl set the light on the table, and almost exhausted with the vicissitudes of the past few hours, threw herself upon a seat. The fire was now crackling merrily on the hearth, sending showers of sparks up the wide chimney, and Darke, divesting himself of his hunting-shirt and belt, stood before its genial blaze to dry the water that adhered to his deer-skin apparel. When he took off his wide-rimmed hat and, after shaking off the rain, tossed it into a corner, Vinnie noticed for the first time that his head was bandaged about with a white cloth. The hat had concealed it before, and he had not spoken of it, or asked her any questions as they came home; his mind being filled with the mystery of the oaken chest and its horrible contents and the strange words of the giant hunter in regard to his discovery of their “secret.” He had made no reply to these words. He could make none except to regret the accident that had brought to his notice any thing that the twin avengers did not wish him to see; and thanking them again for the kindness they had extended to him, he came away.

Vinnie arose and coming over to where he was standing put her hand on his arm, saying, anxiously:

“You are hurt, papa! I knew something had happened to you, or Death would never have acted so strangely. Tell me about it, won’t you? Does it pain you much? What can I do for you?”

“Nothing, little one. It is well enough now. The pain is very slight, and it is well cared for already. I don’t think of any thing that would make it any better. But where is the dog? I don’t see him here. I know he came here after I was hurt. Did he go out with you into the forest?”

“Yes,” she replied with a smile. “Or I went with him, rather. I would not have gone if it had not been for him.”

“Tell me about it, child,” said the woodman, eagerly. Then noticing for the first time, the electric machine on the table which Vinnie had left open just as she had used it that afternoon, and the magic slippers still attached to the battery and lying on the floor near by, he went on. “Have you been taking a private shock or enjoying an electric jig all by yourself?”

“No,” she replied, coolly enough, as though it was the most trivial of incidents she was speaking of, instead of a struggle for more than life with a bloodthirsty savage. “I have not been electrizing myself; but Ku-nan-gu-no-nah called here this afternoon while you were gone and I guess I shocked him considerably. He seemed to be not a little affected by the experiments of which he was the subject. I think he entertains quite an exalted idea of my attainments as an electrician.”

“What do you mean, girl?” he asked, excitedly, placing a hand on either shoulder and looking down into her face in a curious, half-startled way. “I don’t understand you. Has that bloody-hearted devil been here to-day? Explain yourself! Tell me what you mean!”

Seating herself before the fire, while her father listened eagerly, interrupting her often with exclamations of surprise and anger, she told him the story of the afternoon’s adventures from the time of his departure from the cabin to the moment when he came to her deliverance in the forest as she recoiled in terror before the approach of that pair of lurid eyes, not omitting the mysterious disappearance of the white horse and its rider, and the limp, helpless burden that, rolled in the pall-like cloth, he carried before him across his saddle, and her subsequent unaccountable desertion by the blood-hound.

Darke was convinced from her description of the place, that she had witnessed this strange scene somewhere in the vicinity of the twin avengers’ cavern lodge; and he recalled to mind the words that he had overheard the big hunter speak in the small, closely-curtained apartment of the cave.

He seemed to hear them again, so vividly were they impressed on his mind:

“Does he show any signs of life yet? Can’t be he’s dead!”

Was there any connection between these unexplained words and the mystery of the white horse and its rider? Were they in any way identified?

Darke thought so.

He stood leaning against the rude mantelpiece over the fireplace for several minutes, his mind busy with conjectures. But no satisfactory explanation came to the relief of his mystified mind; and the mystery of the oaken chest, the secret of the Maybob twins, the strange words of the giant hunter, and the disappearing horse and man, persisted in remaining as deep a mystery as ever.

Vinnie, who was naturally anxious to learn the particulars of her father’s accident and subsequent protracted absence and fortunate though unlooked-for appearance in the forest at the very moment when he could be instrumental in saving her life, had been regarding him attentively for a while, waiting for him to speak and not wishing to break in on his musings.

“Strange!” he said, at last, looking up suddenly. “What can have become of the dog? I never knew him to behave so before! It must be that—”

He was interrupted by a slight noise at the door. He listened intently; and a moment later the blood-hound’s well-known appeal for admittance greeted his ear.

“It is Death!” said Vinnie, hastening to open the door. “He’s come back!”

The next moment he sprung into the room, shaking the water in a little shower from his dripping coat, and leaping gladly against his master, who returned his tokens of regard with a pat on the head.

“You deserve a good whipping, you ungallant fellow,” Vinnie said, half in earnest and half playfully, “for running off and leaving me to get lost in the woods!” The dog paid little heed to her rebuke, and she continued, addressing her father: “Maybe if Death could only talk, he would have a story to tell, too. Perhaps he has discovered the mystery of the disappearing horseman! But you have not told your story yet. I am very anxious to hear about your accident, and every thing else that has happened to you since you went away. You’ll tell me all about it now, won’t you?”

And she unclosed his lips with a kiss; and he began at the beginning, and related his adventures to her, leaving out only that portion which bore directly on the mysterious secret of which the big hunter had spoken. He had blundered into a partial knowledge of the private affairs of his newly-found friends and entertainers, and his rigid ideas of honor forbade him to make so questionable a return for their disinterested hospitality as the disclosure of their privacy even to Vinnie, whom he would not have hesitated to intrust with the keeping of a life-and-death secret, had it been his own.

“It has been an eventful afternoon to us both,” said Vinnie, after she had heard him through, “and as far as I am concerned, I do not know that I am very much the worse for my share of its trials. If you are not severely injured, I think we may thank our stars for having escaped as well as we have.”

“I think so too,” replied her father. “But, my child, you look upon the perils through which you have passed too lightly. It is no trivial matter. I shudder when I think of what might have been the ending of either of your adventures. I believe, of the two, the ravenous, half-famished panther and that fiend incarnate, Ku-nan-gu-no-nah, the latter was much more to be dreaded. To the ferocity and blood-thirstiness of the beast of prey, is added the treachery and vindictiveness of a devil, and the reasoning powers of the human mind; and, in his hellishness and subtlety, the chief falls but little short of Lucifer himself! Do you realize what you have escaped, Vinnie? What should I have done, little one, if I had lost you to-day? And, Vinnie, there is another who, I am sure, would find life very void and destitute of joy did he not dream that some day you might consent to share it with him. I allude to Clancy Vere. He is a true man in every sense of the word, and I know of no one to whose loving care I would rather resign you than his.”

He had no need to ask her if Clancy Vere’s suit would be successful. He could read it in her blushes.

It was growing late now, and as they were somewhat rested, Vinnie set about the preparation of the evening meal, singing in a low voice, and building rosy air-castles as she worked, while her father busied himself with cleaning and reloading his trusty rifle, of which he felt justly proud; for a truer or more unerring weapon was not to be found for many a long mile, travel which way soever one might.

After they had partaken of the supper which Vinnie’s deft hands had spread neatly upon the table in an incredibly short space of time, Darke fastened the cabin doors and windows securely for the night. As he barred the rear door he noticed that it was even darker than when they came home, and the chill rain was falling yet in a slow, persistent drizzle. The wind had died down.

The next morning the storm had ceased, but the sky was overcast, and every thing as far as the eye could reach bore witness to the fury of the tempest of the night before.

Nothing unusual transpired at the cabin during the day; and its inmates seemed very little worse for having endured the vicissitudes of the previous afternoon. Vinnie had got up in the morning completely refreshed by her night’s sleep, and the pain was entirely gone from her father’s head, leaving nothing to remind him of the injury it had sustained but a slight bruise on his temple that would go away in a day or two.

Toward the middle of the afternoon, as they were seated cosily by their fire of hickory wood, recounting little incidents of their adventures that had escaped them the night before, they were startled by a loud rap on the cabin door. Darke hastened to open it, and was no less surprised than gratified to meet Clancy Vere.

“Welcome, boy!” he exclaimed, giving the youth a handshake and a greeting smile in which there was no conventionality, and which was as heartily returned by Clancy, whose eye wandered over the old man’s shoulder in quest of Vinnie.

The vivid blush that mantled cheek and brow, as her eyes met his, in no way deteriorated from the prettiness of her face, Clancy thought; and when she stepped forward half-shyly and put her trembling little hand in his for a moment, I think he may be pardoned for allowing his heart to look out of his eyes and wishing, as he choked back words that struggled for utterance now harder than they had ever done before, that just a little while his old friend Darke was in China, or Jericho, or anywhere but there, witnessing and, in his quiet way, enjoying the young people’s happy confusion. I am sure any of my readers who may ever have been placed in a similar situation will exonerate him from all blame.

The young hunter looked pale and worn, and Darke noticed that when he came forward to take the seat Vinnie had placed for him before the fire he walked with considerable difficulty.

In reply to the woodman’s inquiries in regard to his jaded appearance and the manifest trouble he experienced in walking, Clancy told the story of his capture by the Indians the day before very substantially as it has already been told the reader in the preceding pages of our story.

It is not necessary that we should weary the reader with a recapitulation of what has already been stated; but taking up Clancy’s narrative at the point where consciousness returned, we will follow it to its close.

“When my senses came back,” said he, “I found myself reclining on a couch of skins and blankets in what appeared to be a very small apartment of a cave. I was watched over by a dwarf, who was not much more than four feet high and as dumb as a door nail. This diminutive watcher strengthened me by a liberal use of spirits, and as soon as I was able to speak, summoned his giant brother, who, unlike himself, was gifted with a ready tongue and introduced himself to me as Leander Maybob, of Maybob Center down in old Massachusetts. He said he was a ‘natural talker,’ and proceeded to substantiate the statement by a very wordy account of the sayings and doings of his uncle Peter and an old Massachusetts minister named Tugwoller, interspersed with snatches of an old love affair between Elder Tugwoller’s niece, Sally Niver, and himself. It seems that the young couple, who were, of a verity, true lovers, were separated for life in consequence of a ludicrous blunder on the part of my giant host.

“After awhile I gathered from his voluble flow of words that he had rescued me from my perilous situation and brought me to his cavern lodge. When I had sufficiently recovered from the effects of my swing, I partook of some strengthening food that my new-found friends prepared for me. That was early this morning. As the day advanced, I found myself rapidly gaining strength; and an hour or more ago I felt myself strong enough to come on here, and, thanking my strange entertainers for their kindness, I took my departure. As I passed out through the cavern I saw that it was also divided into two larger apartments, one of which was used as a sort of home by the two strangely contrasted twin brothers, and the other was fitted up as a kind of store-room for trophies of the chase, for it was well supplied with arms and ammunition, while the skins and pelts of various animals were deposited in piles about the place.”

“How much the latter part of Clancy’s story is like yours!” exclaimed Vinnie to Darke when he had finished. “He was rescued by the same strange person and taken to the same place and nursed back to life in the same manner!”

“Yes,” assented Darke, “it is a singular coincidence.” Then turning quickly toward the young hunter he said, “You must have lain insensible in the smallest part of the place while I was there—I think you did. They did not tell you that I had been there before you came away, did they?”

“No,” said Clancy, who had been wondering all along at the strange words of the woodman, “they did not tell any thing of the kind. I never knew it till now.”

“Strange!” replied the other. “And although I am sure I was there for quite a length of time while you lay unconscious in the little place curtained off at the back end of the cavern, the giant did not tell me of your presence. It can not be that there was any cause for this concealment; and concealment does not seem to be a predominant trait of the big hunter’s.”

“I do not understand you,” said Vere wonderingly. “Do you mean to say that we were both at the cave at the same time? Please explain yourself.”

And Darke told Clancy the story of his accident the day before, and how Leander Maybob had carried him to the cavern lodge of his brother Alonphilus and himself, cared for him till he was able to come home, carefully guarding against any allusion to the oaken chest and its ghastly contents, but telling him of the strange episode of the little apartment, and repeating the mysterious words of the giant hunter, whose meaning he had until now vainly tried to discover. They held no hidden portent now. He knew instinctively that the words he had so vainly wondered at, “Does he show any signs of life yet? Can’t be he is dead!” referred to Clancy Vere.

One mystery was solved!

For several minutes both men remained silent. Darke was ruminating over the discovery he had just made and Clancy was thinking what a lovely picture Vinnie made as she leaned carelessly against the mantle, looking intently into the dancing blaze of the fire, whose red glow lit up her fair face till it seemed fairly radiant in its fresh young beauty.

Was she building air-castles again?

Clancy was!

Raising her long lashes suddenly, she met his ardent, passionate, yet respectful gaze.

Both pair of eyes sought the floor simultaneously; and it would have been no easy task for one to have determined which face flushed the deepest—the maiden’s or her lover’s; for Clancy Vere knew he did love Vinnie Darke with all his heart.

Darke had not noticed this little by-play, and he asked, suddenly, as the pretty air-castles both had been rearing up vanished as air castles are wont to do when they are rudely jarred:

“How long do you think you were at the cavern before your consciousness returned?”

“I am not quite certain—two or three hours I guess.”

“And it was Leander Maybob that rescued you?”

“Yes; but he did not himself carry me to the cave. It was more than a mile away that he found me; and although he is very strong, he could not lug me on his back all that distance. When consciousness returned he told me about it. Alonphilus the dwarf conveyed me to the cave.”

“How?” asked Darke.

“Oh, Leander told me all about that, too. I was brought on a horse—”

“What color was the horse?” interrupted Vinnie.

“On a white horse!” pursued the woodman.

“Yes.”

“You were rolled up from head to foot in a heavy black cloth, were you not?” Darke went on, eagerly.

“I do not know,” said Clancy, surprised at so many questions. “But he carried me before him across the saddle.”

Father and daughter uttered simultaneous cries of surprise.

Another mystery was solved!