“Dead!” said Pet, turning pale.
“Yes; the smuggler-chief there sent a bullet through him the first thing; and served him right, too, for peaching as he did, the mean cuss! Hurry up, boys! Oh! you’ve got through, I see. Lift him on it, now—gently, gently, there; you have stopped the blood, I see, Germaine; that’s right. Ha! whom have we here?” he exclaimed, as his eyes fell on the woman Marguerite, who, white and cold as he by whose side she knelt, held the head of the wounded chief on her breast, and gently wiped the cold sweat off his face. “Who is the woman?”
“His wife,” said Ray, in a low tone. “Let her accompany him. Miss Lawless, will you accept my escort from this den of horrors?”
“Oh, Ray! what a night this has been! And oh, I am so sorry Captain Reginald is wounded. Do you know, I liked him real well!”
Ray made no reply. In silence he drew Pet’s arm through his, and she looking at him was almost startled to see, his face so stern, so set, so fearfully white.
The men bearing the wounded form of Captain Reginald had already started from the cave. Marguerite, who had uttered but one passionate exclamation, followed, still and silent, and then came Ray and Pet, with a few of the revenue officers bringing up the rear. The melancholy procession passed from the gloomy cave, now indeed a cave of horrors, with its bloody and unburied dead; and Pet drew a long, deep breath of intense relief and thankfulness as she stood once more in the open air.
“Let me run on first and tell Erminie,” said Pet. “It may startle her if she is not forewarned; and then, if you like, I will ride to Judestown for the doctor. There can be no danger now.”
Ray, who would not leave his father, consented; and Pet darted off over the slippery shingle and up the rocks like a young mountain deer. The men proceeded slowly with their burden, who lay with his white face upturned in the sad, solemn starlight; and who may tell the bitter, bitter, remorseful thoughts of the dark, sorrowful past, swelling in his proud heart there. Ray and Marguerite, one on each side, were mute, too. He, with his eyes alternately fixed on the ground, and on the wounded man’s face, trying to realize the astounding revelations of the night; she looking straight before her into the darkness, with her customary look of fierce, sullen despair, looking what she was—a wretched, broken-hearted woman.
There were lights and a subdued bustle in the cottage when they reached it. Erminie, white and trembling, met them at the door. Pet had told her all so breathlessly, and then had mounted Ray’s horse and darted off for Judestown so quickly, that Erminie even yet only half comprehended what had taken place.
There was no time now for explanation, however. The wounded man was laid on the large, soft lounge in the parlor; and then Chesny, leaving one of his men as guard, more for form’s sake than anything else, took his departure.