Cudjo's Cave Part 37

"Heaven grant they be safe somewhere!" said the old man. "And Pomp?"

"He is missing too."

There was a long, deep silence. A painful suspense seemed to hold every heart still, while they listened. Suddenly a strange noise was heard, as of a ghost walking. Louder and louder it sounded, hollow, faint, far-off. Was it on the rocks over their heads? or in caverns beneath their feet?

"Told ye so! told ye so!" said Cudjo, laughing with wild glee.

The fire had burnt low again, and he was in the act of kindling it, when a novel idea seemed to strike him, and, seizing a pan, he inverted it over the little remnant of a flame. In an instant the cave was dark. It was some seconds before the eyes of the inmates grew accustomed to the gloom, and perceived the glimmer of mingled daylight and firelight that shone in at the entrance.

"Luk a dar! luk a dar!" said Cudjo.

And turning their eyes in the opposite direction, they saw a faint golden glow in the recesses of the cave. The footsteps approached; the glow increased; then the superb dark form of Pomp advanced in the light of his own torch. Penn hastened to meet him, and to demand tidings of Stackridge's party.

Pomp first saluted Virginia, with somewhat lofty politeness, holding the torch above his head as he bowed. Then turning to Penn,--

"Your friends are all safe, I believe."

"All?" Penn eagerly asked, his thoughts on the luckless horseman. "None missing?"

"There were three absent when I reached their camp. They had gone on a foraging expedition. I found the rest waiting for them, standing their ground against the fire, which was roaring up towards them at a tremendous rate. Soon the foragers came in. They brought a basket of potatoes and a bag of meal, but no meat. Withers had caught a pig, but it had got away from him before he could kill it, and he lost it in the dark. The others were cursing the rascals who had set the woods afire, but Withers lamented the pig.

"'Gentlemen,' said I, 'you have not much time to mourn either for the woods or the pork. We must take care of ourselves.' And I offered to bring them here. But just then we heard a rus.h.i.+ng noise; it sounded like some animal coming up the course of the brook; and the next minute it was amongst us--a big black bear, frightened out of his wits, singed by the fire, and furious."

"Your acquaintance of the gorge, Virginia!" said Penn.

"You will readily believe that such an unexpected supply of fresh meat, sent by Providence within their reach, proved a temptation to the hungry. Withers, in his hurry to make up for the loss of the pig, ran to head the fellow off, and attempted to stop him with his musket after it had missed fire. In an instant the gun was lying on the ground several yards off, and Withers was sprawling. The bear had done the little business for him with a single stroke of his paw; then he pa.s.sed on, directly over Withers's body, which happened to be in his way, but which he minded no more than as if it had been a bundle of rags. All this time we couldn't fire a shot; there was the risk, you see, of hitting Withers instead of the bear. Even after he was knocked down, he seemed to think he had nothing more formidable than his stray pig to deal with, and tried to catch the bear by the tail as he ran over him."

"So ye lost de bar!" cried Cudjo, greatly excited. "Fool, tink o'

cotchin' on him by de tail!"

"Still we couldn't fire, for he was on his legs again in a second, chasing the bear's tail directly before our muzzles," said Pomp, quietly laughing. "But luckily a stick flew up under his feet. Down he went again. That gave two or three of us a chance to send some lead after the beast. He got a wound--we tracked him by his blood on the ground--we could see it plain as day by the glare of light--it led straight towards the fire that was running up through the leaves and thickets on the north. I expected that when he met that he would turn again; but he did not: we were just in time to see him plough through it, and hear him growl and snarl at the flames that maddened him, and which he was foolish enough to stop and fight. Then he went on again. We followed.

n.o.body minded the scorching. We kept him in sight till he met the fire again--for it was now all around us. This time his heart failed him; he turned back only to meet us and get a handful of bullets in his head.

That finished him, and he fell dead."

"Poor brute!" said Mr. Villars; "he found his human enemies more merciless than the fire!"

"That's so," said Pomp, with a smile. "But we had not much time to moralize on the subject then. The fire we had leaped through had become impa.s.sable behind us. The men hurried this way and that to find an outlet. They found only the fire--it was on every side of us like a sea--the spot where we were was only an island in the midst of it--that too would soon be covered. The bear was forgotten where he lay; the men grew wild with excitement, as again and again they attempted to break through different parts of the ring that was narrowing upon us, and failed. Brave men they are, but death by fire, you know, is too horrible!"

"How large was this spot, this island?" asked Penn.

"It might have comprised perhaps twenty acres when we first found ourselves enclosed in it. But every minute it was diminis.h.i.+ng; and the heat there was something terrific. The men were rather surprised, after trying in vain on every side to discover a break in the circle of fire, to come back and find me calm.

"'Gentlemen,' said I, 'keep cool. I understand this ground perhaps better than you do. Don't abandon your game; you have lost your meal and potatoes, and you will have need of the bear.'

"'But what is the use of roast meat, if we are to be roasted too?' said Withers, who will always be droll, whatever happens.

"Then Stackridge spoke. He proposed that they should place themselves under my command; for I knew the woods, and while they had been running to and fro in disorder, I had been carefully observing the ground, and forming my plans. I laughed within myself to see Deslow alone hang back; he was unwilling to owe his life to one of my complexion--one who had been a slave. For there are men, do you know," said Pomp, with a smile of mingled haughtiness and pity, "who would rather that even their country should perish than owe in any measure its salvation to the race they have always hated and wronged!"

"I trust," said Mr. Villars, "that you had the n.o.ble satisfaction of teaching these men the lesson which our country too must learn before it can be worthy to be saved."

"I showed them that even the despised black may, under G.o.d's providence, be of some use to white men, besides being their slave: I had that satisfaction!" said Pomp, proudly smiling. "Stackridge was right: I had observed: I saw what I could do. On one side was a chasm which you know, Mr. Hapgood."

"Yes! I had thought of it! But I knew it was in the midst of the burning forest, and never supposed you could get to it."

"The fire was beyond; and it also burned a little on the side nearest to us. But the vegetation there is thin, you remember. The chasm could be reached without difficulty.

"'Follow me who will!' said I. 'The rest are at liberty to s.h.i.+rk for themselves.'

"'Follow--where?' said Deslow. I couldn't help smiling at the man's distress. All the rest were prepared to obey my directions; and it was hard for him to separate himself from them. But it seemed harder still for him to trust in me. I was not a Moses; I could not take them through that Red Sea. What then?

"I made for the chasm. All followed, even Deslow,--dragging and lugging the bear. We came to the brink. The place, I must confess, had an awful look, in the light of the trees burning all around it! Deslow was not the only one who shrank back then; for though the spot was known to some of them, they had never explored it, and could not guess what it led to.

It was difficult, in the first place, to descend into it; it looked still more difficult ever to get out again; and there was nothing to prevent the burning limbs above from falling into it, or the trees that grew in it from catching fire. For this is the sink, Mr. Villars, which you have probably heard of,--where the woods have been undermined by the action of water in the limestone rocks, and an acre or more of the mountain has fallen in, with all its trees, so that what was once the roof of an immense cavern is now a little patch of the forest growing seventy feet below the surface of the earth. The sides are precipitous and projecting. Only one tree throws a strong branch upwards to the edge of the sink.

"'This way, gentlemen,' said I, 'and you are safe!'

"It was a trial of their faith; for I waited to explain nothing. First, I tumbled the bear off the brink. We heard him go cras.h.i.+ng down into the abyss, and strike the bottom with a sound full of awfulness to the uninitiated. Then, with my rifle swung on my back, I seized the limb, and threw myself into the tree.

"'Where he can go, we can!' I heard Stackridge say; and he followed me.

I took his gun, and handed it to him again when he was safe in the tree.

He did the same for another; and so all got into the branches, and climbed down after us. The trunk has no limbs within twenty feet of the bottom, but there is a smaller tree leaning into it which we got into, and so reached the ground.

"'Now, gentlemen,' said I, when all were down, 'I will show you where you are.' And opening the bushes, I discovered a path leading down the rocks into the caverns, of which this cave is only a branch. Then I made them all take an oath never to betray the secret of what I had shown them. Then I lighted one of the torches Cudjo and I keep for our convenience when we come in that way, and gave it to them; lighted another for my own use; invited them to make themselves quite at home in my absence; left them to their reflections;--and here I am."

Still the mystery with regard to the unknown horseman was in no wise explained. Pomp, informed of what had happened, arose hastily. Penn followed him from the cave. Pepperill accompanied them, to show the way.

It was raining steadily; but the thickets in which lay the dead horse and his rider were burning still.

"As I was going to Stackridge's camp," said Pomp, "I thought I saw a man crawling over the rocks above where the horse was tied. I ran up to find him, but he was gone. Peace to his ashes, if it was he!"

"Won't be much o' the cuss left but ashes!" remarked Pepperill.

Pomp ascended the ledges, and stood, silent and stern, gazing at the destruction of his beloved woods.

The winds had died. The fires had evidently ceased to spread. Portions of the forest that had been kindled and not consumed were burning now with slow, sullen combustion, like brands without flame. Stripped of their foliage, shorn of their boughs, and seen in the dull and smoky daylight, through the rain, they looked like a forest of skeletons, all of glowing coal, brightening, darkening, and ever crumbling away.

All at once Pomp seemed to rouse himself, and direct his attention more particularly at the part of the woods in which the patriots' camp had been.

"Come with me, Pepperill, if you would help do a good job!"

They started off, and were soon out of sight. As Penn turned from gazing after them, he heard a voice calling from the opposite side of the ravine. He looked, but could see no one. The figure to which the voice belonged was hidden by the bushes. The bushes moved, however; the figure was descending into the ravine. It arrived at the bottom, crossed, and began to ascend the steep side towards the cave. Penn concealed himself, and waited until it had nearly emerged from the thickets beneath him, and he could distinctly hear the breath of a man panting and blowing with the toil of climbing. Then a well-known voice said in a hoa.r.s.e whisper,--

"Ma.s.sa Hapgood! dat you?"

And peering over the bank, he saw, upturned in the rain and murky light, among the wet bushes, the black, grinning face of old Toby.

He responded by reaching down, grasping the negro's hand, and drawing him up.

The grin on the old man's face was a ghastly one, and his eyes rolled as he stammered forth,--

"Miss Jinny--ye seen Miss Jinny?"