CAIN.
I pray thee take thy fingers from my throat:
For though I am not splenetive and rash,
Yet have I in me something dangerous,
Which let thy wisdom fear. Hold off thy hand!—Shakespeare.
One morning, near the last of August—yet, stay! Such mornings dawn unheralded by any sign to warn us what the fated day shall bring forth ere its close. Such mornings dawn as other mornings do—the doomed men and women rise as other people do—as you or I arose this morning, upon the dread day that unpremeditated crime or sudden death shall fix their mortal doom forever.
That morning Mr. Waring arose, feeling rather unwell and irritable, which was no unusual circumstance of late, for he was chafing between two conflicting interests, one of which called him away, while the other bound him at home. He was very anxious, with his wife, to leave the neighborhood of the infected city; but, in the present condition of affairs he hesitated to trust the plantation and negroes to the care of the overseer.
Valentine arose with the same heavy heart that had marked his waking hours for many days, yet dressed himself and combed his raven black curls with the habitual regard to neatness and beauty that had become a second nature. And it was curious to see how this habit of neatness and elegance lasted through all the darkest hours of his life.
Phædra got up and attended to the arrangement of the house and the preparation of breakfast with her usual exactness.
Mrs. Waring, suffering from the debilitating effects of the weather, indulged herself in the morning, and breakfasted in bed.
No foreboding was felt by any one; no token in sky or air, or circumstances without, of presentiment within their hearts, warned them of calamity, crime and sudden death at hand. That morning, after breakfast, Valentine strolled listlessly out toward the public road leading to the town. It was his daily habit. It had been commenced in the hope of meeting some one from the city who might be able to give him news of Fannie and her little child. And though he never met with success, he still rambled thither every day, as well from force of habit as from the faint hope that he might yet hear of them. He strolled to the highway, met his usual ill-success, and, after lingering an hour or two, sauntered dejectedly toward home.
When he reached a lane that separated his master's plantation on the right from Mr. Hewitt's on the left, his attention was arrested by the sound of a low voice. He listened.
"Hish-sh! Walley, come here—here to the gap."
The voice proceeded from behind the hedge, formed by a thick growth of Spanish daggers, that completely covered the fence on the left of the lane. There was a small broken place in it, toward which Valentine sauntered indifferently. He saw on the other side the huge head of a gigantic negro, a jet-black, lumbering, awkward, good-natured monster enough, who belonged to Mr. Hewitt, and who sported the imposing cognomen of "governor."
"Well, Governor, is that you? What do you want with me?"
"Hish-sh, Walley, don't talk so loud! our oberseer ain't far off. Brudder 'Lisha, he bin out from town."
"Well!" exclaimed Valentine, with breathless interest, bending forward.
"W'en you hear from Fannie las'?"
"Not for two weeks. Why do you ask? Have you heard from her? Speak! oh, for Heaven's sake, speak!" exclaimed Valentine, breathlessly.
"Fannie done got de feber."
"Oh, God!"
"Brudder 'Lisha, he done bin 'ere dis mornin' and tell we-dem."
"Oh, Heaven! oh, when was she taken? Who is with her? Is she——"
"Dunno nuffin 'tall 'bout it, 'cept 'tis she's got de feber. Brudder 'Lisha, he done bin dere to her place, an' heern it."
"Where is Elisha?"
"Done gone right straight back to town."
"And that is all the satisfaction you can give me," cried Valentine, beside himself with distress.
"Yaw, yaw! I trought how I'd watch arter you, and tell you—'long as you'd like to hear it. Hish-sh-sh! Walley, stoop down here close, till I whisper to you."
"What now!" exclaimed Valentine, in new alarm, bending his ear to the huge negro's lips.
"Hish-sh-sh! Walley, I wish how it wur my 'ooman as had de yaller feber!"
"Wretch!"
"An' wish we-dem's white nigger oberseer had it too!"
"What do you mean?"
"And I wish dey bofe might die long of it."
"Wretch! I say again!"
"Trufe, brudder! dat's me jes'! I'se de wretch! an' I wish how dis same wretch might hab de feber long o' de oder two, an' how I might die long of 'em, and how we might all go up to Marster's trone, and have de case 'cided whose wife dis 'ooman is for to be."
"Governor! What! do you mean to say that the new overseer is tampering with your wife's fidelity to you?"
"Hish-sh! he ain't fur off. Dunno what de debbil you mean wid your big words. But she lub fine dress, an' he gib it to her; she berry putty, mos' white, you know, an' he sen' me way off to de furres' fiel' to work."
"Why don't you talk to her?"
"'Taint no use; she 'ny eberyting."
"Why don't you speak to your master?"
"'Tain't no use; he won't nebber hear no 'plaints gin de oberseer."
"I am very sorry for you, poor fellow; and I would like to give you comfort and counsel, but I must hurry away from you, and try to get leave to go to town, and see poor dear Fannie. If I were you, Governor, I would speak to Major Hewitt upon this subject. He never would permit such a wrong done you."
"'Taint no use, I tell yer! But nebber min', Walley, listen yer; some ob dese yere days I fixes him!"
Valentine started at the demoniac look that, in a man usually so mild, accompanied these vague words; and, bidding the negro a hasty good-morning, he ran along the lane until he reached the house.
His own heart and brain were wild with grief and alarm as he hastened to the presence of his master, whom he did not doubt would now, in this extremity, permit him to go to the city.
Mr. Waring, in an irritable frame of mind, was walking up and down the front piazza, as Valentine stepped upon the floor.
"Well, what now?" he exclaimed, testily, at the sight of the young man's agitated countenance.
"My wife, sir; she has got the fever."
"Sorry to hear it, but—how did you hear it, sir? I hope no one from that place has had the temerity to set foot upon these premises, in face of the prohibition?"
"No, sir; I happened to meet with Governor, Major Hewitt's man, and he had seen an acquaintance of ours from the city, who came from Fannie's house this morning and brought the news."
"I wonder Major Hewitt does not take better care of his own interests than to permit stragglers from the city to infest his place. He will bring the pestilence among us before we know where we are," said Mr. Waring, angrily.
"But, Fannie, sir—my poor wife——"
"Well, what of her? I am sorry, of course—really sorry, Valentine. It is a pity you ever got married; if you had not, neither you nor Fannie would have had so much trouble. It was a very foolish piece of business!"
"Perhaps it was, sir; but people who love each other have a sort of propensity to get married. It can't be helped, I suppose; it's a way they've got."
"And a bad way—very bad way—that I ought never to have sanctioned."
"Nor imitated, sir!"
"You are an impertinent fellow! But I overlook that. There is some difference, I should judge, between you and me, and I certainly ought never to have consented to your taking that girl."
"It is too late to say that now, sir!" said Valentine, with a sigh so heavy that Mr. Waring inquired, quickly:
"So you repent it, do you?"
"No; God Almighty knows I do not!" replied Valentine, with sorrowful earnestness; adding, "but, oh, sir, I am losing precious time. I came here to ask you for a permit to go to town and see my wife."
"A permit! A permit to go to town, and to visit a woman ill with the very pestilence we are all doing our best to guard against? A permit to go there, and take the fever just as sure as you go, and bring back and spread the contagion among hundreds, whom we are all doing our best to guard from the pestilence! Impossible, Valentine! I wonder you could be so unreasonable as to ask it!"
"Unreasonable that I should want to go and see my suffering wife?"
"Yes—under the circumstances. Yes, I am sorry for her, Valentine, and sorry for you, though I cannot say that your manner is very respectful. Still, I am very sorry for you; and if it were possible for me to do anything for your relief, I would do it—as it is, I regret that I can do nothing."
"Oh, sir! Master Oswald, you could let me go to town," pleaded Valentine.
"At the imminent hazard of your own life, and the all but certainty of bringing the pestilence upon this plantation."
"All do not get the fever who are exposed to its influence; neither do they always spread contagion into the healthy places they chance to visit," reasoned the young man.
"The risk is too great," replied the master, curtly.
"Would you think it too great if your own wife were the one concerned, sir?" argued Valentine.
"Be more respectful, sirrah! There is some difference, I should say!" retorted the master, angrily.
"Yes, there is a difference!" cried Valentine; "and when I see anything to respect——" Suddenly he stopped. Swift as lightning came the thought that if he refrained from provoking his master now and came to him an hour hence, when he should be in a better humor, the prayer that he now denied he might then grant. Controlling his rising indignation, he bowed, turned abruptly, and went off.
"Impudent rascal! he was just about to say something that I should have had to knock him down for; and then he thought better of it, and stopped—it's well he did! Poor fellow, I am sorry for him, too; but it is all his own fault! If he were not so presumptuous, he would not feel so badly. That is the very deuce of it; for that prevents him from seeing that there is a difference." Such were the reflections of Mr. Waring as he continued to pace up and down the front piazza.
Valentine has mastered his anger, but he could not control the terrible anxiety that preyed upon his heart; Fannie suffering, Fannie dying, deserted, alone; little Coralie perishing from neglect—these were the torturing visions that maddened his brain.
He went and told Phædra, who wept bitterly at the sad story; but yet sought to comfort her son, and inspire hope, by promising to go herself and tell Mrs. Waring, and get her to intercede with her husband for Valentine.
This was done, but with little success; for, though Mrs. Waring was moved to compassion, and went to her husband and besought him to take compassion upon Valentine and send him to seek his sick wife and trust in Providence to avert all evil consequences, Mr. Waring was not only firm in his refusal, but also exhibited no small degree of impatience at her interference. Unwilling to inflict a hopeless disappointment upon the poor fellow, Mrs. Waring tempered the report of her ill-success by saying that, though Mr. Waring had now refused her petition, she still hoped that he would think better of it and grant the permit.
Yet all this time Fannie might be dying, and her child perishing for want—every moment was precious beyond price!
Phædra sought her master's presence, and pleaded with him—pleaded by her long years of faithful service; by her devoted care of him in his feeble infancy; by the days of his childhood, when he and Valentine were playmates; by all the long years, as boys and as men, those two had passed together, inseparable companions, until the marriage of each; by her own devoted attachment to them; by his love for his own wife; by every sweet affection and holy thought, to have compassion on her son, his own foster-brother, and let him go and minister to his sick—probably his dying wife. Phædra pleaded with more eloquence, but with not more success, than the others.
Some substances melt under the action of water—others, in the same element, turn to stone. Instead of melting Mr. Waring's obduracy seemed to ossify under the effects of tears and entreaties. He told Phædra, firmly, that he did not mean to gratify one man at the hazard of exposing many to contagion. And at the dinner-table, speaking partly in justification of his own line of conduct, and partly in apology for the manner in which he had met Mrs. Waring's intercession of the morning, he said:
"You emphasize this matter too much, madam; this Fannie is, after all, but one sufferer among thousands; you also mistake in endowing these creatures with the same acuteness of feelings that we possess; there is a difference, madam! there is a difference! I wish I could make people understand that there is a difference; neither Valentine nor Phædra seem to have the slightest conception of this difference."
"I must confess that in that respect I share their obtusity," remarked madam, while Mr. Waring, in apparent self-satisfaction, went on with his dinner.
But was he really satisfied with himself? Who shall answer?
Meantime, Valentine wandered about, consumed with sorrow and anxiety. Doubtless, he would have run away and endeavored to reach the town, but he knew how carefully the avenues thither were guarded, and how desperate was the attempt that he had already thrice before made to elude the police. It would involve a loss of several hours to make the attempt, which, if it should fail, as it was altogether likely to do, would entirely preclude him from all possible chance of seeing Fannie; therefore he thought best to make another appeal to his master before taking the last desperate step. He knew by experience that the hour after dinner always found Oswald Waring in his best humor.
It was then that he sought him.
He found him—not, as before, walking in the front piazza, where the afternoon sun was now shining, but reclining on a settee on the back piazza that was now in the shade. He lay languidly fanning himself with one hand, while he held a pamphlet that he was reading in the other. Valentine had resolved not to provoke him by any hasty words, as he had used in the morning. He resolved to govern his own spirit, to approach his master respectfully, humbly. He did so.
"Master Oswald!"
Mr. Waring looked up, seemed annoyed, and hastened to exclaim:
"Now, Valentine, if you have come again about going to see your sick wife, and all that humbug, I tell you it is no manner of use. I have been wearied nearly to death already with fruitless importunity, and I want to hear no more of it."
"Oh, sir!"
"I tell you it is of no use to talk to me!"
"Ah, but Master Oswald, only listen, even if you do no more!" pleaded Valentine, in the fond hope of an ardent nature, that, judging from the earnestness of his feelings, believes that if he gains a hearing, he gains his cause.
"Well, well! but I warn you it will be wasted breath."
"Ah, sir, do not say so! I am nearly crazy with trouble, sir, when I think of Fannie and poor little Coralie. She was very poor, sir, and the child was very sick, even before the pestilence appeared. Now she has the fever in that horrible place, with no one to help her or to take care of the poor child. She may be dying, sir, even while I speak! she may be dying, as many of the poor in that doomed city die, deserted—alone—but for the famishing infant, whose cries add to her own sufferings; she may have, as many of the poor have, famine and burning thirst added to her fever, with no one near to place to her lips a morsel of food or a drop of water! Think of it, sir! My God! do you wonder that I am almost frantic?" cried the young man, earnestly, beseechingly clasping his hands.
"An imaginary picture altogether, Valentine," coolly remarked Mr. Waring.
"A common reality among the poor of the city, this dreadful season, sir. You know it. You have heard it and read it. And she is very poor, sir. She and the child often suffered, even before the pestilence came and stopped her work with all the rest. Judge what her condition must be now. Oh, my God!" cried the young man, in a voice of agony.
"Your fears exaggerate the case, Valentine. There are almshouses and hospitals, and sisters of charity and relief funds, and all those sort of contrivances for the very poor."
"Yet you know, for I heard you read it, that all these places are full, that the relief fund failed to meet all the demands made upon it; and you know, besides, that all the poor white people have to be taken care of, before the colored people are thought of."
"Of course, there is a difference, you know. I wish, once for all, you would understand that fact," said Mr. Waring, replying only to the latter proposition. Then he added: "Your fears magnify the danger; the yellow fever cannot last forever, and she may get well."
"Not one in ten do—I heard you say it."
"Well, she may be that one."
"What, sir, with all the privations of her lot?"
"Yes, why not? You are out of sorts, Valentine. Go into the house and take a drink; it will set you up—in the dining-room—sideboard—left-hand corner—some fine old Otard brandy—help yourself; it will make a man of you."
"Thank you, Master Oswald; but that is not what I came for."
"What the devil did you come for, then, you troublesome fellow; tell me, and let me go to sleep," exclaimed the master, impatiently turning on his settee.
"I came to beg and to pray you, Master Oswald, for a permit to go to town."
"And you cannot have it, Valentine; so you may save your prayers. Once for all, if you and your mother, and madam, your mistress, to back you, were to pray from now till doomsday, you—cannot—have—it. Do you understand?" said his master, stolidly.
Valentine governed his own rising anger; it was as much as he could possibly do; he could not suppress his grief, but broke forth in a voice of agony:
"Oh! Fannie, Fannie, Fannie, and her little child!"
"D——n it, sir, stop your howling, or go somewhere else to howl. What the devil is Fannie or her brat to me? If they are suffering, it is her own fault; she had no business to marry a slave, whom she could never expect to help her. And if their sufferings afflict you, it serves you right; it is a just punishment for your cursed folly in marrying a free woman, with no master to look after her or her children."
"I will be silent! I will be silent!" thought Valentine, as he turned from his master.
A storm was raging in his breast; all the fierce passions of his nature were aroused; rage, grief, terror and despair, made a hell of his bosom. In passing through the hall, he suddenly dived into the dining-room, poured out and drained a half tumbler of the strong brandy; then he hurried through and out of the front door, to make ready for his flight.
These preparations were soon made, and Valentine commenced his journey.
The highway leading to M—— was bordered on one side by the hedge of Spanish daggers that skirted the lower cotton-fields of Major Hewitt's plantation, and on the other side by a causeway, that shut off an extensive cypress swamp that formed a portion of Mr. Waring's estate. Avoiding the middle of the road, Valentine leaped over the causeway, and, though he waded half a leg deep in water, he made his way safely under the shelter of the wall and the shadows of the trees.
He had waded thus a mile, on his way toward the city, when the sound of a voice, singing a Methodist hymn, and approaching from the opposite direction, arrested his attention. He knew the hymn, and the voice, that, in turn, sang and intoned it, and, by them, recognized, before seeing, Elisha, the colored class-leader of his own congregation, the man who had that morning brought the first news of Fannie's illness. A new, intense anxiety seized him. Elisha came from the direction of the city. "Might he not bring some later intelligence of Fannie?" he inquired of himself, as he hastened to climb the wall of the causeway, and peered through the parasitical vines that clung to the top, to survey the scene.
Lying between the dark-hued cypress swamp and the high hedge that shut off the cotton-fields, the road stretched westward, one long, irregular vista of yellow light shining in the last rays of the setting sun; and solitary, except for the lonely figure of the old negro preacher, who, stick and bundle slung across his shoulder, came trudging onward, and beguiling his way with chanting the refrain of a wild, weird revival hymn, in strange keeping with the time and circumstances:
"Go, wake him! Go, wake him!
Judgment day is coming!
Go, wake him! Go, wake him!
Before it is too late!"
"Hist! Elisha! Elisha!" called Valentine, in a hushed, eager voice.
"Who dar?" exclaimed the old negro, starting back so forcibly that the stick and bundle vibrated on his shoulder.
"It is I, Elisha! Come here, quickly. How is Fannie, my dear, suffering Fannie? Quickly! You have seen her since morning?" cried Valentine, in a low, vehement tone.
"Brudder Walley! I 'clar'; de werry man I lookin' arter!" said the old creature, approaching the causeway.
"Tell me! tell me! how is Fannie?" cried Valentine, impatiently.
"Ah, chile! we-dem mus' 'mit to de will o' Marster," sighed the old preacher.
"For Heaven's sake, be plain! Is she—is she still living?" questioned the youth, in an agony of anxiety.
"Wur, when I lef' dar, chile! wur, when I lef' dar! Dat all I can say for sartin 'bout libbin'."
Valentine groaned deeply, asking:
"When did you see her? Tell me everything—everything you know about her."
"I happen in dar, to 'quire arter her, 'bout noon. I fin' her all alone, berry low, berry low, 'deed. Flies, like a cloud, settled on her face; she onable to lif' her han', drive 'em 'way; lip bake wid thurst; and she onable han' herse'f a drap o' water."
"Oh, God! and the child—the child!"
"'Prawlin' on de floor, kivered with flies an' dirt, cryin' low an' weak, like, for hunder."
"Elisha, I must hurry; I must fly! Turn back, and walk a little way with me, while you tell me more; but if you see any one coming or going on the road, whistle, to warn me, for I have no permit," said Valentine, dropping behind the causeway, and plunging along through the water toward the city.
They could no longer see each other, and their conway.
"How you gwine cross bridge widout 'mit, Brudder Walley?"
"I don't know; I must try. Tell me more about Fannie."
"Well, you know, 'out my tellin' you, how I tuk up de chile offen de flure, an' wash it, an' dress it, and git milk, and feed it. An' how I go for water, and wash her face, and give her drink, an' fan de flies offen her, till she come to her min', like; an' how I'd stay 'long o' her till dis time, ony when she come to herself, she put her two hans togedder, so she did, de chile, and begged an' prayed me to come arter you, her 'dear Walley,' to come an' see her once more 'fore she died, an' take de poor baby home long o' you. An' so, dough I done travel dis yer yode once afore to-day, I takes my staff in my han' an' I sets off; an', franks be to de Lor', dey can't sturve me from trav'lin' de highway, dough I daren't now-a-day put my fut offin it, or onto one o' der plantashunes. So, now, bress de Lor', here I is; an' long as I wur so hoped up as to fall in 'long o' you, all I got to do now is, to 'company of you back to de city."
In a few earnest, fervent words, Valentine thanked his friend, and then, saving all his breath, and concentrating all his energies, in silence he toiled on, knee-deep in water and ankle-deep in mud, through the cypress swamp toward the city.
Old Daddy Elisha took up the burden of his hymn, and sang or intoned various portions of that weird melody as he walked.
Valentine, behind the causeway, in the shadow and the silence, passed unquestioned; but Elisha was frequently hailed by some vigilant member of the voluntary police. If personally known to the questioner, he was allowed to pass; if not, he was required to show his papers; a light had to be struck to examine them, and all this took up so much time, that although Elisha had the high road to walk upon, and Valentine the swamp to wade through, the latter far outstripped the former, and arrived first at the bridge over the A—— River.
To cross this bridge was the only means from this direction of reaching the city; but the bridge was guarded at both ends by the patrol, or voluntary police; to elude their vigilance was the only desperate part of Valentine's undertaking.
The river was broad, deep and strong in current; no one had ever dreamed of the feat of swimming across it. It was bordered on this side by a marsh so deep that, in the attempt to pass it, a man of moderate size and strength must have been swallowed up.
The bridge was a continuation of the road and causeway, flanked by parapets extending across the river, and joining the road on the opposite side.
Valentine never thought of the impossible feat of wading the marsh and swimming the river, neither did he dream of attempting to cross the bridge in the very face of the patrol guard that twice before had arrested him; but he projected a scheme almost equally wild and hopeless. This plan was to cross the river by clambering along the water side of this parapet—a plan involving less risk of discovery by the patrol, certainly—but undertaken at the most imminent peril of death, by losing hold and dropping into the river below.
Valentine waded on through the cypress swamp, until the trees grew more sparsely, and the mud under the water became deeper and more treacherous as it merged into the marsh nearest the river.
The poor fellow then clambered along, now on the broken causeway, his eyes all on fire with vigilance, and now dropping down into the swamp, and so in more peril and difficulty he went on, until he reached the place where the marsh merged into the river, and the road and causeway into the bridge and parapet.
Here he heard the patrol guard in their little guard-house laughing and talking over their drink, for they, too, had to keep the pestilence at bay with alcohol.
Here he attempted to gain the parapet, and in doing so, set in motion some alarm bell, at whose first peals he found himself suddenly surrounded, and in the hands of the patrol.
"My good fellow, that feat has been tried once before, so we prepared for the second, you understand," said one of his captors.
They all knew Valentine; with most of them he was a great favorite, though to others he was, for the sole reason of his natural superiority, very obnoxious.
While Valentine stood overwhelmed with despair, he discerned Major Hewitt among the party; and gathering some hope from the presence of that gentleman, he clasped his hands and appealing to him, said:
"Oh, Major Hewitt, you know me, sir! You have known me from childhood! Your dear lady knew me, too, and was very kind to the poor quadroon boy, when he was a child. And you know my poor little Fannie, too! Sir, my heart is breaking—that is nothing, but she is dying! Sir, my wife is dying, alone—not of the fever only, but of starvation, of thirst, of neglect, of bereavement of all aid; and she sends to me, sir—sends to pray me to come and see her poor face for the last time, and take her orphan baby from her dead arms, lest it die, too! You are powerful, Major Hewitt! Speak the word, and these gentlemen will let me pass!"
"Valentine, my poor boy, if your sorrow had not crazed you, you would understand at once that I cannot do so! But I tell you what I can do for you; I can persuade these gentlemen from detaining you in the guard-house, and I can write a note of intercession to your master. Return to him, Valentine—take my horse! There he stands; go to Mr. Waring; tell him what you have told me! Give him my note; he will not refuse you the permit, and when you have it, ride back hither as fast as you please," said the major.
He scribbled a note in haste. Valentine mounted the horse, received the missive, and, thanking the major from the depths of his heart, rode off. He met and hailed Elisha, told him in a few words what had passed, and added:
"Go on to the city, Elisha! Go to my dear Fannie! Tell her, if she can still hear your words, that I shall be with her in two hours, or die in the effort. No! do not tell her a word to alarm her! Say I will certainly be with her in two hours! For I will! despite of earth and h—ll, I will!"
Valentine galloped swiftly toward home, reached the lawn gate, sprang from his horse, secured the bridle, and hastened up to the house. There was no one in front; he entered the hall, looked into the dining-room; it was empty; he ran in, poured out a glass of brandy, drank it at a draught, and passed through the house to the back piazza, where he found his master, pacing up and down the floor. Mr. Waring had grown heated and angry between the frequent potations and the irritations of the day.
"Well, sir!" he said, turning abruptly to Valentine, "what now? How dare you enter my presence again, after your insolent conduct of this afternoon?"
"Master Oswald, I am very sorry if, in my great trouble, I was surprised into saying anything wrong. Will you read this note, sir?" said Valentine, trying, for Fannie's dear sake, to quell the raging storm in his bosom.
Oswald Waring took the note with a jerk, tore it open impatiently, and, casting his eyes over it with a scornful curl of his lip, tossed it away, exclaiming:
"Tush! Major Hewitt is a fool! Where did you get that, sir?"
Valentine hesitated.
"I ask you where you got that note, sir?"
"From Major Hewitt's own hand, Master Oswald," replied Valentine, at last.
"By ——! don't prevaricate with me, sir! Where did you see Major Hewitt, then? That is the question!"
Again Valentine was silent.
"What the demon do you mean, sir, by treating my questions with this contemptuous silence?" demanded Mr. Waring, angrily.
"Master Oswald!" began Valentine, seriously, impressively; "I will answer your question truly; but, first, let me beg you, let me pray you, by all your hopes of salvation, to listen to me favorably; for I swear to you by all my faith in Heaven, that it is the very last time I will make the appeal!"
"I am glad to hear it, you troublesome, confoundedly spoiled rascal! For it is the very last minute that I will bear to be trifled with!"
"I met Major Hewitt on the bridge——"
"On the bridge! On the bridge! Why, you insolent scoundrel; do you dare to stand there and tell me to my face that, in direct violation of my command, you attempted to go to town?"
"Sir! sir! listen to me! my worst fears are confirmed! My poor Fannie is dying, as I feared she might die—alone! deserted! dying not only of pestilence, but of famine and thirst, and every extremity of wretchedness! She sent a faithful messenger, praying me to come and see her once more, but once more, to close her eyes and receive the orphan child. Oh! could I disregard such an appeal as that? would not any man, or, I was about to say, any beast, risk life, and more than life, if possible, to obey such a sacred call? I would have periled my soul! Can you blame me?"
"They turned you back! They did right! Thank Heaven that I am disposed to consider that sufficient punishment under the circumstances and am ready to forget your fault. Go, leave me, sir—stop! into the house! not out of it! you're not to be trusted, sir."
A volcano seemed burning and raging in the young man's breast; nevertheless, he controlled himself with wonderful strength, while he still pleaded his cause.
"Major Hewitt felt my position, sir! He had compassion on me, and wrote that note. Give heed to it, sir! The time may come when, on your own deathbed, or by the sickbed of one you love, and fear to lose, and pray for, it may console and bless you to remember the mercy you may now show me; the Good Being has said, 'Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.' Give me the permit, sir! let me go and comfort my dying Fannie! Oh! I do beseech you!"
"Will you have done worrying me? Major Hewitt is an old dotard! The mercy you selfishly crave for yourself would be cruelty to all the other negroes! Once more, and for the last time, I tell you, and I swear it by all the demons, I will not give you the permit!"
"Then, by the justice of Heaven, I will go without it!"
"What?"
"I will go without it! If I cannot pass the bridge, I will swim the river! Aye, if it were a river of fire!" exclaimed Valentine, losing all self-control, and breaking into fury.
"Why, you audacious villain! You shall not stir from this house!"
"Neither man on earth nor demon from h—ll shall stop me!" broke forth the man, in a voice of thunder, striding off.
In an instant Mr. Waring had intercepted him, holding up a light cane, and exclaiming:
"Stand back, you villain!"
Valentine came on with the evident intention of attempting to pass.
Mr. Waring met him with a sudden, sharp blow with his cane across the face.
And as Valentine, giddy and blinded for an instant with the blood that streamed from the cut, staggered backward, Mr. Waring, by another heavy stroke with the loaded end of the cane, felled him to the floor, and proceeded to follow up his victory with several other severe blows.
But Valentine was struggling to his feet, and at last sprang up—reeled, righted himself, cleared the blood from his eyes, glared around; and just as Mr. Waring had broken his cane with a final stroke over his shoulder, Valentine saw and seized a heavy oaken stool, and, aiming one fatal blow with all his force, struck his master in the face! The heavy leg of the oaken stool, aimed with all the strength of madness, crushed the eye—entered the brain, and Oswald Waring fell, never to rise again!
But Valentine was maddened! frenzied! and showered blows upon the dying man like one unconscious of his acts, until the agonized screams of women brought him slightly to his senses, when he found himself seized between Mrs. Waring, who was, amid her frantic shrieks, trying to pull him away, and Phædra, who was crying, distractedly: "Oh! Valentine, you've murdered him!"
He glared from one to the other, in the amazed, bewildered manner of one half wakened from a horrible dream; looked at the mutilated form before him; looked at the strange weapon in his hand—the foot-stool, with its legs clotted with blood and hair; and then, with a violent start, and an awful change of aspect, as if, for the first time the reality, the horror and the magnitude of his crime had burst upon his consciousness, he stood an instant, and casting the weapon from him, broke from the hands of the women, cleared the porch at a bound, rushed across the yard, leaped the fence, crossed the road and plunged into the shadows of the cypress swamp beyond.
That night, as Fannie lay on the wretched bed of her poor room, in darkness and solitude, and in the semi-delirium of fever, suddenly an apparition, like some ghastly phantom of her husband, gleamed out from the surrounding shadows, stooped over, raised her in its ghostly arms, chattered, raved wildly, incoherently, and—was lost; whether really from the room, or only from her failing consciousness, is not certain—and, indeed, how much of this scene was an actual occurrence, and how much of it was the mere phantasmagoria of frenzy, the sufferer never knew!