CATASTROPHE—COLLETON'S DISCOVERY.
It is time to return to Ralph Colleton, who has quite too long escaped our consideration. The reader will doubtless remember, with little difficulty, where and under what circumstances we left him. Provoked by the sneer and sarcasm of the man whom at the same moment he most cordially despised, we have seen him taking a position in the controversy, in which his person, though not actually within the immediate sphere of action, was nevertheless not a little exposed to some of its risks. This position, with fearless indifference, he continued to maintain, unshrinkingly and without interruption, throughout the whole period and amid all the circumstances of the conflict. There was something of a boyish determination in this way to assert his courage, which his own sense inwardly rebuked; yet such is the nature of those peculiarities in southern habits and opinions, to which we have already referred, on all matters which relate to personal prowess and a masculine defiance of danger, that, even while entertaining the most profound contempt for those in whose eye the exhibition was made, he was not sufficiently independent of popular opinion to brave its current when he himself was its subject. He may have had an additional motive for this proceeding, which most probably enforced its necessity. He well knew that fearless courage, among this people, was that quality which most certainly won and secured their respect; and the policy was not unwise, perhaps which represented this as a good opportunity for a display which might have the effect of protecting him from wanton insult or aggression hereafter. To a certain extent he was at their mercy; and conscious, from what he had seen, of the unscrupulous character of their minds, every exhibition of the kind had some weight in his favor.
It was with a lively and excited spirit that he surveyed, from the moderate eminence on which he stood, the events going on around him. Though not sufficiently near the parties (and scrupulous not to expose himself to the chance of being for a moment supposed to be connected with either of them) to ascertain their various arrangements, from what had met his observation, he had been enabled to form a very correct inference as to the general progress of affairs. He had beheld the proceedings of each array while under cover, and contending with one another, to much the same advantage as the spectator who surveys the game in which two persons are at play. He could have pointed out the mistakes of both in the encounter he had witnessed, and felt assured that he could have ably and easily amended them. His frame quivered with the "rapture of the strife," as Attila is said to have called the excitation of battle; and his blood, with a genuine southern fervor, rushed to and from his heart with a bounding impulse, as some new achievement of one side or the other added a fresh interest to, and in some measure altered the face of, the affair. But when he beheld the new array, so unexpectedly, yet auspiciously for Munro, make its appearance upon the field, the excitement of his spirit underwent proportionate increase; and with deep anxiety, and a sympathy now legitimate with the assailants, he surveyed the progress of an affray for which his judgment prepared him to anticipate a most unhappy termination. As the strife proceeded, he half forgot his precaution, and unconsciously continued, at every moment, to approach more nearly to the scene of strife. His heart was now all impulse, his spirit all enthusiasm; and with an unquiet eye and restless frame, he beheld the silent passage of the little detachment under the gallant Georgian, up the narrow gorge. At some distance from the hill, and on an eminence, his position enabled him to perceive, when the party had made good their advance nearly to the summit, the impending danger. He saw the threatening cliff, hanging as it were in mid air above them; and all his sympathies, warmly excited at length by the fearfulness of the peril into a degree of active partisanship which, at the beginning, a proper prudence had well counselled him to avoid, he put spurs to his steed, and rushing forward to the foot of the hill, shouted out to the advancing party the nature of the danger which awaited them. He shouted strenuously, but in vain—and with a feeling almost amounting to agony, he beheld the little troop resolutely advance beneath the ponderous rock, which, held in its place by the slightest purchase, needed but the most moderate effort to upheave and unfix it for ever.
It was fortunate for the youth that the situation in which he stood was concealed entirely from the view of those in the encampment. It had been no object with him to place himself in safety, for the consideration of his own chance of exposure had never been looked to in his mind, when, under the noble impulse of humanity, he had rushed forward, if possible, to recall the little party, who either did not or were unwilling to hear his voice of warning and prevention. Had he been beheld, there would have been few of the squatters unable, and still fewer unwilling, to pick him off with their rifles; and, as the event will show, the good Providence alone which had hitherto kept with him, rather than the forbearance of his quondam acquaintance, continued to preserve his life.
Apprized of the ascent of the pass, and not disposed to permit of the escape of those whom the defenders of it above might spare, unobserved by his assailants in front, Dexter, with a small detachment, sallying through a loophole of his fortress, took an oblique course toward the foot of the gorge, by which to arrest the flight of the fugitives. This course brought him directly upon, and in contact with, Ralph, who stood immediately at its entrance, with uplifted eye, and busily engaged in shouting, at intervals, to the yet advancing assailants. The squatters approached cautiously and unperceived; for so deeply was the youth interested in the fate of those for whom his voice and hands were alike uplifted, that he was conscious of nothing else at that moment of despair and doubt. The very silence which at that time hung over all things, seemed of itself to cloud and obstruct, while they lulled the senses into a corresponding slumber.
It was well for the youth, and unlucky for the assassin, that, as Dexter, with his uplifted hatchet—for fire-arms at that period he dared not use, for fear of attracting the attention of his foes—struck at his head, his advanced foot became entangled in the root of a tree which ran above the surface, and the impetus of his action occurring at the very instant in which he encountered the obstruction, the stroke fell short of his victim, and grazed the side of his horse; while the ruffian himself, stumbling forward and at length, fell headlong upon the ground.
The youth was awakened to consciousness. His mind was one of that cast with which to know, to think, and to act, are simultaneous. Of ready decision, he was never at a loss, and seldom surprised into even momentary incertitude. With the first intimation of the attack upon himself, his pistol had been drawn, and while the prostrate ruffian was endeavoring to rise, and before he had well regained his feet, the unerring ball was driven through his head, and without word or effort he fell back among his fellows, the blood gushing from his mouth and nostrils in unrestrained torrents.
The whole transaction was the work of a single instant; and before the squatters, who came with their slain leader, could sufficiently recover from the panic produced by the event to revenge his death, the youth was beyond their reach; and the assailing party of the guard, in front of the post, apprized of the sally by the discharge of the pistol, made fearful work among them by a general fire, while obliquing to the entrance of the pass just in time to behold the catastrophe, now somewhat precipitated by the event which had occurred below. Ralph, greatly excited, regained his original stand of survey, and with feelings of unrepressed horror beheld the catastrophe. The Georgian had almost reached the top of the hill—another turn of the road gave him a glimpse of the table upon which rested the hanging and disjointed cliff of which we have spoken, when a voice was heard—a single voice—in inquiry:—
"All ready?"
The reply was immediate—
"Ay, ay; now prize away, boys, and let go."
The advancing troop looked up, and were permitted a momentary glance of the terrible fate which awaited them before it fell. That moment was enough for horror. A general cry burst from the lips of those in front, the only notice which those in the rear ever received of the danger before it was upon them. An effort, half paralyzed by the awful emotion which came over them, was made to avoid the down-coming ruin; but with only partial success; for, in an instant after, the ponderous mass, which hung for a moment like a cloud above them, upheaved from its bed of ages, and now freed from all stays, with a sudden, hurricane-like and whirling impetus, making the solid rock tremble over which it rushed, came thundering down, swinging over one half of the narrow trace, bounding from one side to the other along the gorge, and with the headlong fury of a cataract sweeping everything from before its path until it reached the dead level of the plain below. The involuntary shriek from those who beheld the mass, when, for an instant impending above them, it seemed to hesitate in its progress down, was more full of human terror than any utterance which followed the event. With the exception of a groan, wrung forth here and there from the half-crushed victim, in nature's agony, the deep silence which ensued was painful and appalling; and even when the dust had dissipated, and the eye was enabled to take in the entire amount of the evil deed, the prospect failed in impressing the senses of the survivors with so distinct a sentiment of horror, as when the doubt and death, suspended in air, were yet only threatened.
Though prepared for the event, in one sense of the word, the great body of the squatters were not prepared for the unusual emotions which succeeded it in their bosoms. The arms dropped from the hands of many of them—a speechless horror was the prevailing feature of all, and all fight was over, while the scene of bloody execution was now one of indiscriminate examination and remark with friend and foe. Ralph was the first to rush up the fatal pass, and to survey the horrible prospect.
One half of the brave little corps had been swept to instant death by the unpitying rock, without having afforded the slightest obstacle to its fearful progress. In one place lay a disembowelled steed panting its last; mangled in a confused and unintelligible mass lay beside him another, the limbs of his rider in many places undistinguishable from his own. One poor wretch, whom he assisted to extricate from beneath the body of his struggling horse, cried to him for water, and died in the prayer. Fortunately for the few who survived the catastrophe—among whom was their gallant but unfortunate young leader—they had, at the first glimpse of the danger, urged on their horses with redoubled effort, and by a close approach to the surface or the rock, taking an oblique direction wide of its probable course, had, at the time of its precipitation, reached a line almost parallel with the place upon which it stood, and in this way achieved their escape without injury. Their number was few, however; and not one half of the fifteen, who commenced the ascent, ever reached or survived its attainment.
Ralph gained the summit just in time to prevent the completion of the foul tragedy by its most appropriate climax. As if enough had not yet been done in the way of crime, the malignant and merciless Rivers, of whom we have seen little in this affair, but by whose black and devilish spirit the means of destruction had been hit upon, which had so well succeeded, now stood over the body of the Georgian, with uplifted hand, about to complete the deed already begun. There was not a moment for delay, and the youth sprung forward in time to seize and wrest the weapon from his grasp. With a feeling of undisguised indignation, he exclaimed, as the outlaw turned furiously upon him—
"Wretch—what would you? Have you not done enough? would you strike the unresisting man?"
Rivers, with undisguised effort, now turned his rage upon the intruder. His words, choked by passion, could scarce find utterance; but he spoke with furious effort at length, as he directed a wild blow with a battle-axe at the head of the youth.
"You come for your death, and you shall have it!".
"Not yet," replied Ralph, adroitly avoiding the stroke and closing with the ruffian—"you will find that I an not unequal to the struggle, though it be with such a monster as yourself."
What might have been the event of this combat may not be said. The parties were separated in a moment by the interposition of Forrester, but not till our hero, tearing off in the scuffle the handkerchief which had hitherto encircled the cheeks of his opponent, discovered the friendly outlaw who collected toll for the Pony Club, and upon whose face the hoof of his horse was most visibly engraven—who had so boldly avowed his design upon his life and purse, and whom he had so fortunately and successfully foiled on his first approach to the village.
The fight was over after this catastrophe; the survivors of the guard, who were unhurt, had fled; and the parties with little stir were all now assembled around the scene of it. There was little said upon the occasion. The wounded were taken such care of as circumstances would permit; and wagons having been provided, were all removed to the village. Begun with too much impulse, and conducted with too little consideration, the struggle between the military and the outlaws had now terminated in a manner that left perhaps but little satisfaction in the minds of either party. The latter, though generally an unlicensed tribe—an Ishmaelitish race—whose hands were against all men, were not so sure that they had not been guilty of a crime, not merely against the laws of man and human society, but against the self-evident decrees and dictates of God; and with this doubt, at least, if not its conviction, in their thoughts, their victory, such as it was, afforded a source of very qualified rejoicing.