Cudjo's Cave

by J. T. Trowbridge

She clung fast, hope and gladness thrilling her soul, and giving her new strength.

To reach her, Penn had a precipitous descent of near thirty feet to make. He did not pause to consider the difficulty of getting up again, or the peril of encountering the bear. He jumped down over a perpendicular ledge upon a projection ten feet below. Beyond that was a rapid slope covered with moss and thin patches of soil, with here and there a shrub, and here and there a tree. Striking his heels into the soil, and catching at whatever branch or stem presented itself, he took the plunge. Clinging, sliding, falling, he arrived at the bottom. In a posture half sitting, half standing, and considerably jarred, he found himself face to face with Bruin. The animal had settled down on all fours, and now, with his surly, depressed head turned sullenly to one side, he looked at Penn, and growled. Penn looked at him, and said nothing. He had heard of staring wild beasts out of countenance—an experiment that could be conducted strictly on peace principles, if the bear would only prove as good a Quaker as himself. He resolved to try it: indeed, all unarmed as he was, what else could he do? He might at least, by diverting the brute's attention, give Virginia time to get into a position of safety. So he stood up, and fixed his eyes on the red-blinking eyes of the ferocious beast. Something Bruin did not like: it might have been the youth's company and valiant bearing, but more probably his observation of the fire had satisfied him that he was out of his place. With another growl, that seemed to say, "All I ask is to be let alone," he seceded,—turning his head still more, twisting his body around, after it, and retreating up the gorge.

In an instant Penn was at the young girl's side: his hand clasped hers; he drew her up over the rock.

Not a word was uttered. He was too agitated to speak; and she, after the terror and the strain to which her nerves had been subjected so long, felt all her strength give way. But as he lifted her in his arms, a faint smile of happiness flitted over her white face, and her lips moved with a whisper of gratitude he did not hear.

In spite of all the dangers behind them, and of the dangers still before, both felt, in that moment, a shock of mutual bliss. Neither had ever known till then how dear the other was.

Pepperill had by this time leaped down upon the bulge of the bank. There he waited for them, shouting,—

"Hurry up! the bar'll meet the fire up thar, and be comin' down agin!"

Penn required no spur to his exertions: he knew too well the necessity of getting speedily beyond the reach, not of the bear only, but also of the fire, which threatened them now on three sides—below, above, and on the farther bank of the gorge.

Clasping the burden more precious to him than life, resolved in his soul to part with it only with life, he toiled heavily up the bank, down which he had descended with such tremendous swiftness a few minutes before.

But it was not in Virginia's nature to remain long a helpless encumbrance. Seeing the labor and peril still before them, her will returned, and with it her strength. She grasped a branch by which he was trying in vain with one hand, holding her with the other, to draw them both up a steep place. Her prompt action enabled him to seize the trunk of a young tree: she assisted still, and slipping from his hands, clung to it until he had reached the next tree above. He pulled her up after him, and then pushed her on still farther, until Pepperill could reach her from where he stood. A minute later the three were together on the summit of the slope.