The Land of Bondage: A Romance

by John Bloundelle-Burton

The villain scowled at him as he spoke these bitter words, but answered him no more; then, glancing down at some of the prostrate bodies lying at his feet, he exclaimed, "I trust all these carrion are still alive. They will be wanted for the rejoicings. Let's see for myself," while, kicking O'Rourke's body with his foot, he turned it over until it was face upwards. Then, for a moment, even he seemed appalled, recoiling from it--yet an instant afterwards bending down to gaze into the features of the unhappy adventurer.

"What!" he exclaimed, "what, O'Rourke here? O'Rourke, the clumsy fool who, when he should have shipped off my beggarly cousin shipped me in his place? O'Rourke. O'Rourke! Oh! if he but lives, how I will repay him for his folly. What a dainty dish he shall make for the torturers! How his fat body shall feed the flames! For, even though his mistake has made me a greater man than ever I could have been at home--ay, one before whom these credulous red fools bow as to a god--there is much suffering to be atoned for; the awful suffering of the passage in the Dove; your father's insults, my dearest Joice, and his blows; and also much else. But for that latter, you, my dear one, will repay me when you are mine and mine alone, with no rival in my heart but our haughty Mary, who shall be my dark love as you shall be my fair one."

As the wretch spoke, however, there were two things happened that he saw not, in spite of the all-seeing eyes with which he was credited by the tribe he dwelt with. He did not see that, as he turned to insult Mary and me, O'Rourke first opened his own eyes and gazed on him and then raised his head to stare at him; he did not see that, from where the window had been, the Indian chief heard all he said, and stared in amazement and looked strangely at him as he spoke of the "credulous red fools."

But Mary and Mr. Kinchella and I saw it all, as well as did Buck and Lamb. Nay, we saw more; we saw the Indian's hand feel for the hilt of his dagger and half draw it from his wampum belt, and then return it to its place while he smoothed his features to the usual impenetrable Indian calm.

"And," went on Roderick St. Amande, as he drew near to my beloved one, who still lay as I had placed him, "who is this spruce and well-dressed gentleman who was to have been the husband of my Joice. Some Virginian dandy, I presume, who, not good enough for England, is yet a provincial magnate here. Ay, it must be so"--stooping down to gaze into my lord's face--"it must be so, for I have seen those very features when in a more boyish form. Possibly he is one of the young Pringles, or Byrds, or Clibornes, whom I knew five years ago. Is't not so, Joice, my beloved Joice, my future queen of squaws?"

That he should not recognise Gerald for his own cousin, for the man who held the rank he had once falsely said would some day be his, was the first moment of happiness I had known through this dreadful night, since the fact of his not so recognising him might, I thought, save my lover from instant death, if he were not dead already. For, if that villain could but guess who he really was, I did not doubt but that he would sheath his knife in the other's heart, all helpless as he lay. This being so, I answered:

"He is a gentleman and, I fear, is dead. Is that not enough for you?"

"Nay, too much. I would not have one Virginian dead; yet, I would not have one die so easily as he is dying now, for he is not at present dead. No, no; the dead are no good to us when we return from a successful attack such as this of Pomfret; it is the living we want; the quick not the dead. For see, my Joice, and you, too, my black but bonny Mary, the dead cannot feel! Their nerves and sinews have no longer the power of suffering, their flesh is cold, their tongues paralysed, so that they can neither shriek with pain nor cry for mercy--but, with the living, how different it is! They can feel all that is done upon them, they can feel limbs twisted off, and burnings, and loppings off of--of--of, why, say of ears," and here he grinned so demoniacally while he fingered the clusters of human ears that hung on his own breast, that all of white blood in the room shuddered but himself. "Yes, all these things they can feel. And, my sweethearts," he went on, gloatingly over our horror and his own foul and devilish picturings, "shall I tell you what the Indian tortures are, what you will see--when you sit by my side, my best beloved of wives--done upon these men here. On him," pointing to Mr. Kinchella, "and him," with his finger directed to my lord, "and this old blunderer," indicating O'Rourke, "and these scum and rakings of the London gutters?" sweeping his arm round so as to denominate all the convicts and bondsmen who had fought so well for us this night, though without avail. "Shall I tell you that? 'Twill be pretty hearing."

For myself I could but sob and moan and say, "No, no. Tell us no more! Spare them, oh, spare them!" But Mary, whose spirit was of so much firmer mould than mine, and who was no more cowed by him than was Buck himself--who, indeed, had interrupted his remarks with many contemptuous and disdainful snorts and "pishes" and "pahs" and with, once, a scornful laugh--answered him in very different fashion.

"Tell us nothing, you murderous, cowardly wolf," she said, while she extended her hand defiantly at him as though she forbade him to dare to speak again, "tell us nothing, since we should not believe you. We know--God help us! we all in Virginia know--that the Indian exacts a fearful reckoning from all who have once wronged him, but we know, too, that that exactment is made upon the actual persons who have done the wrong, and not on those who have never raised hand against him, as none in this house to-night have done except in their own defence. As for you, you cowardly, crawling dog, who think you can egg on the Indians to gratify your petty spite and cruelty, what, what, think you, will they do for the gratification of your thirst for innocent blood when I, tell them who and what their great wonderworking, miracle-making medicine chief is?" and I saw her dark eyes steal into the obscurity of the ruined window frame to observe if the chief out there heard her words. But he only drew a little more in the shadow as she did so.