"THOU SHALT DO NO MURDER!"
Even at this moment, Munro entered the apartment. He came not a moment too soon. Rivers had abused his opportunity thus far; and it is not to be doubted that he would have forborne none of the advantages which his brute strength afforded him over the feeble innocent, were it not for the interposition of the uncle. He had lied, when he had asserted to the girl the sanction of the uncle for his threatened crime. Munro was willing that his niece should become the wife of the outlaw, and barely willing to consent even to this; but for anything less than this—base as he was—he would sooner have braved every issue with the ruffian, and perished himself in defence of the girl's virtue. He had his pride of family, strange to say, though nursed and nestled in a bosom which could boast no other virtue.
The moment he saw the condition of Lucy, with the grasp of Rivers still upon her, he tore her away with the strength of a giant.
"What have you been doing, Guy?"
His keen and suspicious glance of eye conveyed the question more significantly.
"Nothing! she is a fool only!"
"And you have been a brute! Beware! I tell you, Guy Rivers, if you but ruffle the hair of this child in violence, I will knife you, as soon as I would my worst enemy."
"Pshaw! I only threatened her to make her confess where she had sent Colleton or hidden him."
"Ay, but there are some threats, Guy, that call for throat-cutting. Look to it. We know each other; and you know that, though I'm willing you should marry Lucy, I'll not stand by and see you harm her; and, with my permission you lay no hands on her, until you are married."
"Very well!" answered the ruffian sullenly, and turning away, "see that you get the priest soon ready. I'll wait upon neither man nor woman over long! You sha'n't trifle with me much longer."
To this speech Munro made no answer. He devoted himself to his still insensible niece, whom he raised carefully from the floor, and laid her upon a rude settee that stood in the apartment. She meanwhile remained unconscious of his care, which was limited to fanning her face and sprinkling water upon it.
"Why not carry her to her chamber—put her in bed, and let us be off?" said Rivers.
"Wait awhile!" was the answer.
The girl had evidently received a severe shock. Munro shook his head, and looked at Rivers angrily.
"See to it, Guy, if any harm comes to her."
"Pshaw!" said the other, "she is recovering now."
He was right. The eyes of the sufferer unclosed, but they were vacant—they lacked all intelligence. Munro pulled a flask of spirits from his pocket, and poured some into her lips. They were livid, and her cheeks of ashy paleness.
"She recovers—see!"
The teeth opened and shut together again with a sudden spasmodic energy. The eyes began to receive light. Her breathing increased.
"She will do now," muttered Munro. "She will recover directly. Get yourself ready, Guy, and prepare to mount, while I see that she is put to bed. It's now a necessity that we should push this stranger to the wall, and silence him altogether. I don't oppose you now, seeing that we've got to do it."
"Ay," quoth Rivers, somewhat abstractedly—for he was a person of changing and capricious moods—"ay! ay! it has to be done! Well! we will do it!—as for her!"
Here he drew nigh and grasped the hand of the only half-conscious damsel, and stared earnestly in her face. Her eyes opened largely and wildly upon him, then closed again; a shudder passed over her form, and her hand was convulsively withdrawn from his grasp.
"Come, come, let her alone, and be off," said Munro. "As long as you are here, she'll be in a fit! See to the horses. There's no use to wait. You little know Lucy Munro if you reckon to get anything out of her. You may strike till doomsday at her bosom, but, where she's fixed in principle, she'll perish before she yields. Nothing can move her when she's resolved. In that she's the very likeness of her father, who was like a rock when he had sworn a thing."
"Ha! but the rock may be split, and the woman's will must be made to yield to a superior. I could soon—"
He took her hand once more in his iron grasp.
"Let her go, Guy!" said Munro sternly. "She shall have no rough usage while I'm standing by. Remember that! It's true, she's meddled in matters that didn't concern her, but there is an excuse. It was womanlike to do so, and I can't blame her. She's a true woman, Guy—all heart and soul—as noble a young thing as ever broke the world's bread—too noble to live with such as we, Guy; and I only wish I had so much man's strength as to be worthy of living with such as she."
"A plague on her nobility! It will cut all our throats, or halter us; and your methodistical jargon only encourages her. Noble or not, she has been cunning enough to listen to our private conversation; has found out all our designs; has blabbed everything to this young fellow, and made him master of our lives. Yes! would you believe it of her nobleness and delicacy, that she has this night visited him in his very chamber?"
"What!"
"Yes! indeed! and she avows it boldly."
"Ah! if she avows it, there's no harm!"
"What! no harm?"
"I mean to her. She's had no bad purpose in going to his chamber. I see it all!"
"Well, and is it not quite enough to drive a man mad, to think that the best designs of a man are to be thwarted, and his neck put in danger, by the meddling of a thing like this? She has blabbed all our secrets—nay, made him listen to them—for, even while we ascended the stairs to his chamber, they were concealed in the closet above the stairway, watched all our movements, and heard every word we had to say."
"And you would be talking," retorted the landlord. The other glared at him ferociously, but proceeded:—
"I heard the sound—their breathing—I told you at the time that I heard something stirring in the closet. But you had your answer. For an experienced man, Munro, you are duller than an owl by daylight."
"I'm afraid so," answered the other coolly. "But it's too late now for talk. We must be off and active, if we would be doing anything. I've been out to the stable, and find that the young fellow has taken off his horse. He has been cool enough about it, for saddle and bridle are both gone. He's had time enough to gear up in proper style, while you were so eloquent along the stairs. I reckon there was something to scare him off at last, however, for here's his dirk—I suppose it's his—which I found at the stable-door. He must have dropped it when about to mount."
"'Tis his!" said Rivers, seizing and examining it. "It is the weapon he drew on me at the diggings."
"He has the start of us—"
"But knows nothing of the woods. It is not too late. Let us be off. Lucy is recovering, and you can now leave her in safety. She will find the way to her chamber—or to some chamber. It seems that she has no scruples in going to any."
"Stop that, Guy! Don't slander the girl."
"Pooh! are you going to set up for a sentimentalist?"
"No: but if you can't learn to stop talking, I shall set you down as a fool! For a man of action, you use more of an unnecessary tongue than any living man I ever met. For God's sake, sink the lawyer when you're out of court! It will be high time to brush up for a speech when you are in the dock, and pleading with the halter dangling in your eyes. Oh, don't glare upon me! He who flings about his arrows by the handful mustn't be angry if some of them are flung back."
"Are you ready?"
"Ay, ready!—She's opening her eyes. We can leave her now.—What's the course?"
"We can determine in the open air. He will probably go west, and will take one or other of the two traces at the fork, and his hoofs will soon tell us which. Our horses are refreshed by this, and are in readiness. You have pistols: see to the flints and priming. There must be no scruples now. The matter has gone quite too far for quiet, and though the affair was all mine at first, it is now as perfectly yours."
As Rivers spoke, Munro drew forth his pistols and looked carefully at the priming. The sharp click of the springing steel, as the pan was thrown open, now fully aroused Lucy to that consciousness which had been only partial in the greater part of this dialogue. Springing to her feet with an eagerness and energy that was quite astonishing after her late prostration, she rushed forward to her uncle, and looked appealingly into his face, though she did not speak, while her hand grasped tenaciously his arm.
"What means the girl?" exclaimed Munro, now apprehensive of some mental derangement. She spoke, with a deep emphasis, but a single sentence:—
"It is written—thou shalt do no murder!"
The solemn tone—the sudden, the almost fierce action—the peculiar abruptness of the apostrophe—the whitely-robed, the almost spiritual elevation of figure—all so dramatic—combined necessarily to startle and surprise; and, for a few moments, no answer was returned to the unlooked-for speech. But the effect could not be permanent upon minds made familiar with the thousand forms of human and strong energies. Munro, after a brief pause, replied—
"Who speaks of murder, girl? Why this wild, this uncalled-for exhortation?"
"Not wild, not uncalled-for, uncle, but most necessary. Wherefore would you pursue the youth, arms in your hands, hatred in your heart, and horrible threatenings upon your lips? Why put yourself into the hands of this fierce monster, as the sharp instrument to do his vengeance and gratify his savage malignity against the young and the gentle? If you would do no murder, not so he. He will do it—he will make you do it, but he will have it done. Approach me not—approach me not—let me perish, rather! O God—my uncle, let him come not near me, if you would not see me die upon the spot!" she exclaimed, in the most terrified manner, and with a shuddering horror, as Rivers, toward the conclusion of her speech, had approached her with the, view to an answer. To her uncle she again addressed herself, with an energy which gave additional emphasis to her language:—
"Uncle—you are my father now—you will not forget the dying prayer of a brother! My prayer is his. Keep that man from me—let me not see him—let him come not near me with his polluted and polluting breath! You know not what he is—you know him but as a stabber—as a hater—as a thief! But were my knowledge yours—could I utter in your ears the foul language, the fiend-threatenings which his accursed lips uttered in mine!—but no—save me from him is all I ask—protect the poor orphan—the feeble, the trampled child of your brother! Keep me from the presence of that bad man!"
As she spoke, she sank at the feet of the person she addressed, her hands were clasped about his knees, and she lay there shuddering and shrinking, until he lifted her up in his arms. Somewhat softened by his kindness of manner, the pressure upon her brain of that agony was immediately relieved, and a succession of tears and sobs marked the diminished influence of her terrors. But, as Rivers attempted something in reply, she started—
"Let me go—let me not hear him speak! His breath is pollution—his words are full of foul threats and dreadful thoughts. If you knew all that I know—if you feared what I fear, uncle—you would nigh slay him on the spot."
This mental suffering of his niece was not without its influence upon her uncle, who, as we have said before, had a certain kind and degree of pride—pride of character we may almost call it—not inconsistent with pursuits and a condition of life wild and wicked even as his. His eye sternly settled upon that of his companion, as, without a word, he bore the almost lifeless girl into the chamber of his wife, who, aroused by the clamor, had now and then looked forth upon the scene, but was too much the creature of timidity to venture entirely amid the disputants. Placing her under the charge of the old lady, Munro uttered a few consolatory words in Lucy's ear, but she heard him not. Her thoughts evidently wandered to other than selfish considerations at that moment, and, as he left the chamber, she raised her finger impressively:—
"Do no murder, uncle! let him not persuade you into crime; break off from a league which compels you to brook a foul insult to those you are bound in duty to protect."
"Would I could!" was his muttered sentence as he left the chamber. He felt the justice of the counsel, but wore the bewildered expression of countenance of one conscious of what is right, but wanting courage for its adoption.
"She has told you no foolish story of me?" was the somewhat anxious speech of Rivers upon the reappearance of the landlord.
"She has said nothing in plain words, Guy Rivers—but yet quite enough to make me doubt whether you, and not this boy we pursue, should not have my weapon in your throat. But beware! The honor of that child of Edgar Munro is to me what would have been my own; and let me find that you have gone a tittle beyond the permitted point, in speech or action, and we cut asunder. I shall then make as little bones of putting a bullet through your ribs as into those of the wild bullock of the hills. I am what I am: my hope is that she may always be the pure creature which she now is, if it were only that she might pray for me."
"She has mistaken me, Munro—"
"Say no more, Guy. She has not much mistaken you, or I have. Let us speak no more on this subject; you know my mind, and will be advised.—Let us now be off. The horses are in readiness, and waiting, and a good spur will bring us up with the game. The youth, you say, has money about him, a gold watch, and—"
The more savage ruffian grinned as he listened to these words. They betrayed the meaner motives of action in the case of the companion, who could acknowledge the argument of cupidity, while insensible to that of revenge.
"Ay! enough to pay you for your share in the performance Do your part well, and you shall have all that he carries—gold, watch, trinkets, horse, everything. I shall be quite content to take—his life! Are you satisfied? Are there any scruples now?"
"No! none! I have no scruples! But to cut a throat, or blow out a man's liver with a brace of bullets, is a work that should be well paid for. The performance is by no means so agreeable that one should seek to do it for nothing."
Guy Rivers fancied himself a nobler animal than his companion, as he felt that he needed not the mercenary motive for the performance of the murderous action.
They were mounted, the horses being ready for them in the rear of the building.
"Round the hollow. We'll skirt the village, and not go through it," said Munro. "We may gain something on the route to the fork of the roads by taking the blind track by the red hill."
"As you will. Go ahead!"
A few more words sufficed to arrange the route, and regulate their pursuit, and a few moments sufficed to send them off in full speed over the stony road, both with a common and desperate purpose, but each moved by arguments and a passion of his own.
In her lonely chamber, Lucy Munro, now recovered to acutest consciousness, heard the tread of their departing hoofs; and, clasping her hands, she sank upon her knees, yielding up her whole soul to silent prayer. The poor girl never slept that night.