Yes. The young hunter is left hanging alone; hanging by hand and arm; soon to be suspended by the neck.
Good God! is there no alternative? No hope of his being rescued from his perilous situation?
He sees none for himself. He feels that he is powerless; his left hand is fastened to his thigh with a cord that cannot be stretched or broken. He tries wrenching the wrist with all his strength, and in every direction. The effort is idle, and ends only in the laceration of his skin.
With the right hand he can do nothing. He dare not remove it from the limb; he dare not even change its hold. To unclasp it would be certain strangulation.
Can he not throw up his feet, and by them elevate himself upon the branch? The idea at once suggests itself; and he at once attempts its execution. He tries once, twice, thrice, until he proves it impossible. With both arms it would have been easy; or with one at an earlier period. But the strain has been too long continued, and he sees that the effort is only bringing him nearer to his end. He desists, and once more hangs vertically, from the limb.
Is there no hope from hearing? He listens. There is no lack of sounds. There is the baying of dogs at intervals, culminating in grand chorus, or breaking into short, sharp barks, as the bear gives battle; there is the bellowing of bruin himself, mingled with the crackling of cane, as he makes his way through the thick-set culms; and, above all, the shouts and wild yelling of his human pursuers.
“Are they human?” asks he whom they have left behind. “Can it be that they have abandoned me to this cruel death?”
“It can—they have,” is the agonised answer, as the sounds of the chase come fainter from the forest. “They have—they have,” he repeats, and then, as the tide of vengeance surges up in his heart, he cries, through clenched teeth, “O God; give me escape—if but to avenge myself on those villains who have outraged your own image. O God! look down in mercy! Send some one to deliver me!”
Some one to deliver him! He has no hope that any of his late tormentors will return to do it. He had but little from the first. He knows them all, except Spence, the son of the clergyman; and from the late behaviour of this youth, he has seen that he is like the rest. All six are of the same stamp and character, the most dissolute scamps in the country. No hope now; for the bear hunt has borne them far away, and even their yells are no longer heard by him.
Hitherto he has remained silent. It seemed idle to do otherwise. Who was there to hear him, save those who would not have heeded. And his shouts would not have been heard among the howling of hounds, the trampling of horses, and the shrill screeching of six fiends in human form.