Cudjo's Cave Part 33

"O Pomp! what a fire that is!"

"What a fire it is going to be!" answered Pomp, with a lurid smile. "Our new neighbors have brought us bad luck. All those woods are gone. The fire is sweeping up directly towards us--it will pa.s.s over all the mountain--nothing will be left." Yet he spoke with a lofty calmness that astonished Penn.

"And our friends!--Carl!--have you heard from them?"

"I have not seen Carl since he left the cave with you, nor any of Stackridge's people to-night."

"Then they are in the woods yet!"

"Yes; unless they have been wise enough to get out of them! I was just starting out to look for them.--Who comes there?"--poising his rifle.

"It's Carl!" exclaimed Penn, recognizing the confederate coat. But in an instant he saw his mistake.

"It is one of Ropes's men!" said Pomp. "He has discovered us--he shall die for setting my mountains on fire!"

"Hold!" Penn grasped his arm. "He is beckoning and calling!"

Pomp frowned as he lowered his rifle, and waited for the soldier to come up.

"What! is it you? I didn't know you in that dress, and came near shooting you, as you deserve, for wearing it!" And Pomp turned scornfully away.

The comer was Dan Pepperill, breathless with haste, horror-struck, haggard. It was some time before he could reply to Penn's impetuous demand--what had brought him up thither?

"Carl!" he gasped.

"What has happened to Carl?"

"Ben tuck! durned if he hain't! But that ar ain't the wust!"

"What, then, is the worst?" for that seemed bad enough.

"Virginny--Miss Villars!"

"Virginia! what of her?"

"She's down thar! in the fire!"

"Virginia in the fire!"

"She ar,--durned if she ain't! Carl said she war on the mountain, and wanted me to hurry up and help her or find you; and I'd a done it, but I couldn't git off till we was runnin' from the fires we'd sot; then I kinder got scattered a puppus; t'other ones hung on to Carl, though, so I had to come alone."

Penn interrupted the loose and confused narrative--Virginia: had he _seen_ her?

"Wal, I reckon I hev! Ye see I war huntin' fur her thar, above the round rock; fur Carl said,----"

A short, sharp groan broke from the lips of Penn. At first the idea of Virginia being on the mountain had appeared to him incredible. But at the mention of the place of rendezvous the truth smote him: she had come up there with Toby, or in his stead. With spasmodic grip he wrung Pepperill's arm as if he would have wrung the truth out of him that way.

"You saw her!--where?"

His hoa.r.s.e voice, his terrible look, bewildered the poor man more and more.

"I war a tellin' ye! Don't break my arm, and don't look so durned f'erce at me, and I'll out with the hull story. Ye see, I warn't to blame, now, no how. They sot the fires; they sot the grove on our way back; and if I helped any, 'twas cause I had ter. But about _her_. Wal, I begun to the big rock, and war a-huntin' up along, till the grove got all in a blaze, and the red limbs begun ter fall, and I see 'twas high time for me to put. Says I ter myself, 'She hain't hyar; she ar off the mountain and safe ter hum afore this time, sh.o.r.e!' But jest then I heern a screech; it sounded right inter the grove, and I run up as cl.u.s.t ter the fire's I could, and looked, and thar I seen right in the middle on't, amongst the burnin' trees, a woman's gownd, and then a face: 'twas her face, I knowed it, fur she hadn't nary bunnit on, and the fire shone on it bright as lightnin'! But thar war half a acre o' blazin' timber atween her and me; and besides, I was so struck up all of a heap, I couldn't do nary thing fur nigh about a minute--I couldn't even holler ter let her know I war thar. And 'fore I knowed what I war about, durned if she hadn't gone!"

Penn afterwards understood that Dan had actually had a glimpse of Virginia when she ran out to the entrance of the gorge, and stood there a moment in the terrible heat and glare.

"Where--show me where!" he exclaimed with fierce vehemence, dragging Pepperill after him down the rocks.

"It war a considerable piece this side the round rock, nigh the upper eend o' the grove," said Dan, in a jarred voice, clattering after him, as fast as he could. "I reckon I kin find it, if 'tain't too late."

Too late? It must not be too late! Penn leaps down the ledges, and rushes through the thickets, as if he would overtake time itself. They reach the burning grove. Pepperill points out as nearly as he can the spot where he stood when he saw Virginia. Great G.o.d! if she was in there, what a frightful end was hers!

"Daniel! are you sure?"--for Penn cannot, will not believe--it is too terrible!

Daniel is very sure; and he withdraws from the insufferable heat, to which his companion appears insensible.

"There is a gorge just above there; perhaps she escaped into the gorge.

O, if I had known!" groans the half-distracted youth, thinking how near he must have been to her when the fire awoke him.

He still hopes that Dan's vision of her in the fire was but the hallucination of a bewildered brain. Yet no effort will he spare, no danger will he shun. The entrance to the gorge is all a gulf of flame; and the woods are blazing upwards along the cliffs, and all the forest beyond is turning to a sea of fire. Yet the gorge must be reached. Back again up the steep slope they climb. Penn flies to the verge of the cliff. He looks down: the chasm is all a glare of light. There runs the red-gleaming brook. He sees the logs, the stones, the mosses, all the wild entanglement, deep below. But no Virginia. He runs almost into the crackling flames, in order to peer farther down the gorge. Then he darts away in the opposite direction, along the very brink of the precipice, among the fire-lit trees,--Pepperill stupidly following. He seizes hold of a sapling, and, with his foot braced against its root, swings his body forward over the chasm, the better to gaze into its depths. From that position he casts his eye up the gorge. He sees the cascade falling over the ledge in a sheet of ruddy foam. He discovers the upper gorge; sees a monster of the forest come plunging and plas.h.i.+ng down to the fall, and there lift himself on his haunches to look;--and what is that other object, half hidden by a drooping bough? It is Virginia clinging to the rocks.

A moment before, had Penn made the discovery of the young girl still unharmed by fire, his happiness would have been supreme. But now joy was checked by an appalling fear. The bear might seize her, or with a stroke of his paw hurl her from his path.

Penn caught hold of the bough that impeded his view, and saw how precarious was her hold. He dared not so much as call to her, or shout to frighten the monster away, lest, her attention being for an instant distracted, she might turn her head, lose her balance, and fall backwards from the rocks.

"Durned if she ain't thar!" said Dan, excitedly. "But she's got a powerful slim chance with the bar!"

"Come with me!" said Penn.

He ran to the upper gorge, showed himself on the bank above the cascade, and shouted. The bear, as he antic.i.p.ated, turned and looked up at him.

Virginia at the same time saw her deliverer.

"Hold on! I'll be with you in a minute!" he cried in a voice heard above the noise of the waterfall and the roar of the conflagration.

She clung fast, hope and gladness thrilling her soul, and giving her new strength.

To reach her, Penn had a precipitous descent of near thirty feet to make. He did not pause to consider the difficulty of getting up again, or the peril of encountering the bear. He jumped down over a perpendicular ledge upon a projection ten feet below. Beyond that was a rapid slope covered with moss and thin patches of soil, with here and there a shrub, and here and there a tree. Striking his heels into the soil, and catching at whatever branch or stem presented itself, he took the plunge. Clinging, sliding, falling, he arrived at the bottom. In a posture half sitting, half standing, and considerably jarred, he found himself face to face with Bruin. The animal had settled down on all fours, and now, with his surly, depressed head turned sullenly to one side, he looked at Penn, and growled. Penn looked at him, and said nothing. He had heard of staring wild beasts out of countenance--an experiment that could be conducted strictly on peace principles, if the bear would only prove as good a Quaker as himself. He resolved to try it: indeed, all unarmed as he was, what else could he do? He might at least, by diverting the brute's attention, give Virginia time to get into a position of safety. So he stood up, and fixed his eyes on the red-blinking eyes of the ferocious beast. Something Bruin did not like: it might have been the youth's company and valiant bearing, but more probably his observation of the fire had satisfied him that he was out of his place. With another growl, that seemed to say, "All I ask is to be let alone," he seceded,--turning his head still more, twisting his body around, after it, and retreating up the gorge.

In an instant Penn was at the young girl's side: his hand clasped hers; he drew her up over the rock.

Not a word was uttered. He was too agitated to speak; and she, after the terror and the strain to which her nerves had been subjected so long, felt all her strength give way. But as he lifted her in his arms, a faint smile of happiness flitted over her white face, and her lips moved with a whisper of grat.i.tude he did not hear.

In spite of all the dangers behind them, and of the dangers still before, both felt, in that moment, a shock of mutual bliss. Neither had ever known till then how dear the other was.

Pepperill had by this time leaped down upon the bulge of the bank. There he waited for them, shouting,--

"Hurry up! the bar'll meet the fire up thar, and be comin' down agin!"

Penn required no spur to his exertions: he knew too well the necessity of getting speedily beyond the reach, not of the bear only, but also of the fire, which threatened them now on three sides--below, above, and on the farther bank of the gorge.