Cudjo's Cave Part 50

Carl put up his left hand as if to cover the communication he was about to breathe into Lysander's ear.

"The condition--IS THIS!"

As he uttered the last words, he seized Lysander's wrist with his left hand, and at the same instant, with a stroke rapid as lightning, smote him on the temple with the stone.

All this, being interpreted, meant, "I take you to the cave on condition that you go as my prisoner." Thus Carl designed to keep his promise.

As he struck he sprang up, to be ready for any emergency. He had expected a struggle, an outcry. He never dreamed that he could strike a man dead with a single blow!

Without a shriek, without even a moan, Lysander merely sunk back upon the ground, gasped, shuddered, and lay still.

Carl was stupefied. He looked at the prostrate man. Then he cast his eye all around him on the moonlit mountain slope. No one was in sight. Was this murder he had committed? He knelt down, bending over the horribly motionless form. He gazed on the ghastly-pale face, and saw issuing from the nostrils a dark stream. It was blood.

Was it not all a dream? He still held the stone in his hand. He looked at it, and mechanically placed it in his pocket. Nothing now seemed left for him but to escape to the cave; and yet he remained fixed with horror to the spot, regarding what he had done.

x.x.xVII.

_CARL KEEPS HIS ENGAGEMENT._

Of the two forms that had been seen on the ledge, the female was not Virginia, and the other was not Penn. A word of explanation is necessary.

Filled with hatred for her husband,--filled with shame and disgust, too, on hearing how he had caused his own mother to be whipped (for the secret was out, thanks to Aunt Deb at the stove-pipe hole),--resolved in her soul never to forgive him, never even to see him again if she could help it, yet intolerably wretched in her loneliness,--Salina had that afternoon taken Toby into her counsel.

"Toby, what are we to do?"

"Dat's what I do'no' myself!" the sore old fellow confessed; even his superior wisdom, usually sufficient (in his own estimation) for the whole family, failing him now. "When it comes to lickin' white women and 'spec'able servants, ain't n.o.body safe. I's glad ol' ma.s.sa and Miss Jinny's safe up dar in de cave; and I on'y wish we war safe up dar too."

"Toby," said Salina, "we will go there. Can you find the way?"

"Reckon I kin," said Toby, delighted at the proposal.

They set out early. They succeeded in reaching the woods without exciting suspicion. They kept well to the south, in order to approach the cave on the same side of the ravine from which Toby had discovered it, or rather Penn near the entrance of it, before. He thought he would be more sure to find it by that route. At the same time he avoided the burned woods, and, without knowing it, the soldiers.

But, the best they could do, the daylight was gone when they came to the ravine; and Toby could not find the place where he had previously crossed. He pa.s.sed beyond it. Then they crossed at random in the easiest place. Once on the side where the cave was, Toby decided that they were above it; and, owing to the steepness of the banks, it was necessary to go around over the rocks, at a short distance from the ravine, in order to reach the shelf behind the thickets. It was in making this movement that they had been seen to descend the ledge and pa.s.s behind the bushes at its base.

"Now," said Toby, "you jes' wait while I makes a reckonoyster!"

Salina, weary, sat down in the shadow of a juniper-tree.

Toby made his reconnoissance, discovered nothing, and returned. She, sitting still there, had been more successful. She pointed.

"What dar?" whispered Toby, frightened.

"There is somebody. Don't you see? By those shrub-like things."

"Dey ain't n.o.body dar!"--with a s.h.i.+ver.

"Yes there is. I saw a man jump up. He is bending over something now, trying to lift it. It must be Penn, or some of his friends. Go softly, and see."

Toby, imaginative, superst.i.tious, did not like to move. But Salina urged him; and something must be done.

"I--I's mos' afeard to! But dar's somebody, sh.o.r.e!"

He advanced, with eyes strained wide and cold chills creeping over him.

What was the man doing there? What was he trying to lift and drag along the ground? It was the body of another man.

"Who dar?" said Toby.

"Be quiet. Come here!" was the answer.

"What! Carl! Carl! dat you? What you doin' dar? ma.s.sy sakes!" said Toby.

"I've got a prisoner," said Carl.

"Dead! O de debil!" said Toby.

"I've knocked him on the head a little, but he is not dead," said Carl.

"Be still, for there's forty more vithin hearing!"

Toby, with mouth agape, and hands on knees, crouching, looked in the face of the lifeless man. That jaunty mustache, with the blood from the nostrils trickling into it, was unmistakable.

"Dat Sprowl!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the old negro, with horrified recoil.

"He won't hurt you! Take holt! I pelief Ropes is coming, mit his men, now!"

"Le' 'm drap, den. Wha' ye totin' on him fur?"

Carl had quite recovered from his stupefaction. His wits were clear again. Why did he not leave the body? His reasons against such a course were too many to be enumerated on the spot to Toby. In the first place, he had promised to take the captain to the cave; and he felt a stubborn pride in keeping his engagement. Secondly, the man might die if he abandoned him. Moreover, the troops arriving, and finding him, would know at once what had happened; while, on the contrary, if both Carl and the captain should be missing, it would be supposed that they had gone to make observations in another quarter; they would be waited for, and thus much time would be gained.

Carl had all these arguments in his brain. But instead of stopping to explain anything, he once more, and alone, lifted the head and shoulders of the limp man, and recommenced bearing him along.

"Toby, who is that?"

"Dat am Miss Salina."

Carl asked no explanations. "Vimmen scream sometimes. Tell her she is not to scream. You get her handkersheaf. And do not say it is Shprowl."

"Who--what is it?" Salina inquired.

"Our Carl! don't ye know?" said Toby. "He's got one ob dem secesh he's knocked on de head."

"Has he killed him?"

"Part killed him, and part took him prisoner,--about six o' one and half a dozen o' tudder. He say you's specfully 'quested not to scream; and he wants your hank'cher."