Cudjo's Cave Part 45

"We whip her once. We give her ten lash. She not tell."

"Very well. Give her ten more."

The widow struggled and screamed. Had she recognized her son's voice?

m.u.f.fled as she was, he did not recognize hers. Nor was it surprising that, in the unusual posture in which he found her, he did not know her from Mrs. Stackridge.

He stood in the door and smiled while the soldier laid on.

"Make it a dozen," he quietly remarked. "And smart ones, to wind up with!"

So it happened that, thanks to her son's presence, the screeching victim got two "smart ones" additional.

"Now uncover her face. Ease away on her thumbs a little. I'll question her mys--Good Lucifer!" exclaimed the captain, finding himself face to face with his own mother.

Twenty-two lashes and the torture of the strung-up thumbs had proved too much even for the strong nerves of Widow Sprowl. She fell down in a swoon.

Lysander, furious, whipped out his sword, and turned upon the soldiers.

They quietly stepped back, and took their guns from the corner. He would certainly have killed one of them on the spot had he not seen by the glance of their eyes that the other would, at the same instant, as certainly have killed him.

"You scoundrels! you have whipped my own mother!"

"Captain," they calmly answered, "we opey orders."

"Fools!"--and Lysander ground his teeth,--"you should have known!"

"Captain," they replied, "if you not know, how should we know? We never see dis woman pefore. We come. We find her taking prowisions from de house. We say, 'She take dem to her husband in de mountains.' We say, 'You Mrs. Stackridge?' She say yes to everyting. We not know she lie. We not know she steal. We not say, 'You somepody else.' We opey orders. We take and we whip her. You come in and say, 'Whip more.' We whip more.

Now you say to us, 'Scoundrels!' You say, 'Fools!' We say, 'Captain, it was your orders; we opey.'"

Having by a joint effort at sententious English p.r.o.nounced this speech, the brothers stood stolidly awaiting the result; while the captain, still gnas.h.i.+ng his teeth, bent over the prostrate form of his mother.

"Bring some water and throw on her! you idiots!" he yelled at them.

"Would you see her die?"

They looked at each other. "Water?" Yes, that was what was wanted. They remembered their practice of the previous evening. One found a wooden pail. The other emptied upon the floor the contents of the tin pail the widow had "borrowed." They went to the well. They brought water. "To throw on her?" Yes, that was what he said. And together they dashed a sudden drenching flood over the poor woman, as if the swoon were another fire to be extinguished.

These fellows obeyed orders literally--a merit which Lysander now failed to appreciate. He swore at them terribly. But he did not countermand his last order. Accordingly they proceeded stoically to bring more water.

Lysander had got his mothers head on his knee, and she had just opened her eyes to look and her mouth to gasp, when there came another double ice-cold wave, blinding, stifling, drowning her. Too much of water hadst thou, poor lone widow!

Lysander let fall the maternal head, and bounded to his feet, roaring with wrath. The brothers, imperturbable, with the empty pails at their sides, stared at him with mute wonder.

"Captain, dat was your orders. You say, 'Pring va.s.ser and trow on.' We pring va.s.ser and trow on. Dat is all."

"But I didn't tell you to fetch pailfuls!"

This sentence rushed out of Lysander's soul like a rocket, culminated in a loud, explosive oath, and was followed by a shower of fiery curses falling harmless on the heads of the unmoved Teutons.

They waited patiently until the pyrotechnic rain ceased, then answered, speaking alternately, each a sentence, as if with one mind, but with two organs.

"Captain, you hear. Last night vas de house afire. You say, 'Pring va.s.ser.' We pring a little. Den you say to us, 'Tarn you! why in h.e.l.l you shtop?' And you say, 'Von I tell you pring va.s.ser, pring till I say shtop.' Vun time more to-day you say, 'Pring va.s.ser,' and you never say shtop. You say, 'Trow on.' We trow on. Vat you say we do. You not say vat you mean, dat is mishtake for you."

It is not to be supposed that Lysander listened meekly to the end of this speech. He had caught the sound of voices without that interested him more; and, looking, he saw Mrs. Stackridge returning, with her children.

The Pepperill young-one had faithfully done her errand; and the farmer's wife, believing something important was meant by it, had hastened to accept the singular and urgent invitation. But, arrived at the poor man's shanty, she was astonished to find Mrs. Pepperill astonished to see her. They talked the matter over, questioned the child, and finally concluded that Daniel had said something quite different, which the child had misunderstood.

"Well," said Mrs. Stackridge, after sitting a-while, "I reckon I may as well be going back, for I've left only old Aunt Deb to home, and she's scar't to death to be left alone these times; thinks the secesh soldiers'll kill her. But I tell her not to be afeared of 'em. I ain't!"

So this woman, little knowing how much real cause she had to be afraid, returned home with her family. When near the house she met Gaff and Jake, negroes belonging to the farm, who had been in the field at work, running towards her, in great terror, declaring that they heard somebody killing Aunt Deb.

"Nonsense!" said she; and in spite of their a.s.surances and entreaties, she marched straight towards the door through which the captain saw her coming.

"Clear out!" said Lysander to the soldiers. "Go to your quarters. I'll have your case attended to!" This was spoken very threateningly. Then, as soon as they were out of hearing, he said to Mrs. Stackridge, "I'm sorry to say a couple of my men have been plundering your house. Them Dutchmen you just saw go out. Worse, than that, my mother was going by, and she came in to save your stuff, and they, it seems, took her for you, and beat her. You see, they have beat her most to death," said Lysander.

"Lordy ma.s.sy!" said Mrs. Stackridge.

"Do help me! do take off my clo'es! a poor lone widder!" faintly moaned Mrs. Sprowl.

"When I got here," added the captain, "she had fainted, and they had used her basket to pack things in, as you see, and filled this pail, which they emptied afterwards, so as to bring water and fetch her to.

Scoundrels! I'm glad they ain't native-born southerners!"

"And where is Aunt Deb?" said Mrs. Stackridge, hastening to raise the widow up.

"I dono'; I hain't seen her. O, dear, them villains!" groaned Mrs.

Sprowl. "I was just comin' over to borry a few things, you know."

"Going by; she wasn't coming here," said Lysander.

"Going by," repeated the widow. "O, shall I ever git over it! O, dear me, I'm all cut to pieces! A poor forlorn widder, and my only son--O, dear!"

"Her only son," cried Lysander in a loud voice, "couldn't get here in time to prevent the outrage. That's what she wants to say. I leave her in your care, Mrs. Stackridge. She was doing a neighborly thing for you when she came in to stop the pillaging, and I'm sure you'll do as much for her."

And the captain retired, his appet.i.te for woman-whipping cloyed for the present.

"Where is Aunt Deb?" repeated Mrs. Stackridge. "Aunt Deb!" she called, "where are you? I want you this minute!"

"Here I is!" answered a voice from heaven, or at least from that direction.

It was the voice of the old negress, who had hid herself in the chambers, and now spoke through a stove-pipe hole from which she had observed all that was pa.s.sing from the time when the widow entered with her empty basket.

x.x.xV.

_THE MOONLIGHT EXPEDITION._

Toby had been released. Mrs. Stackridge had been whipped by proxy, and had kept her husband's secret. Gad, the spy, was still unaccountably absent. These three sources of information were, therefore, for the time, considered closed; and it was determined to have recourse to the fourth, namely, Carl.