Rutledge

by Miriam Coles Harris

"You may tell it! You may proclaim it the length and breadth of the land! Who will believe you, low villain and known knave as you are, against the word and credit of a gentleman? Who will believe your paltry version of the delirium of a fever, that none but you heard—none but you interpreted? They will ask you for proofs—what then?"

"I will give them proofs. I will tell them more than you know yourself of the story of your birth, and prove it by more damning proofs than you have dreamed existed. You doubt me? You defy and mock the threat? Listen! At this moment I hold that about me that would prove the tale I tell to be as true as heaven, and would send you branded to lower depths of shame than you have ever known. I hold it but till you shall dare to thwart me, till you shall dare to set a foot on foreign shores, and then the world—the woman that you love—the friends you trust—your gloating enemies—shall have the story, and shall see its proof!"

The words hissed through the dead, dull, twilight of the still night, and smote like livid fire on the brain of him who heard them—on his overwrought and maddened brain—and shot through every pulse, and tingled like wild-fire in his veins. The whispers of hell crept into his tempted soul; there was no light in the heavens above—there was none on the dark earth; the still night had no voice to breathe the things that should be done; hell had no torments worse than these, and these he might be free from with one blow! one cunning, short, sharp blow—one quick, well-aimed, unerring blow! It would revenge him—free him—restore him to peace—give him back his love.

If there is joy in heaven over one sinner that repents, what must there be of demoniac triumph in the vaults of hell, when another yields to sin—a fresh soul is lost! What mad exultation and unholy joy must have echoed in the regions of the damned, as the last cry of the murdered man died away among the whispering tree-tops and gloomy depths of Hemlock Hollow! and Victor Viennet pressed his blood-stained hand before his eyes to blot out the image that now neither time, nor sleep, nor anything save death could efface from his guilty vision.

A horror, of such fear as none but murderers know, fell upon him as he bent over that ghastly corpse, hardly still from the death-struggle yet—hardly cold in the life-blood that his hand had spilled. He had not feared his foe in life with such palpitating fear as now, when, with eager, trembling hands, he searched, unresisted, for the fatal proof that he had threatened him with. That found, he no longer strove to resist the impulse of flight, and through the blackness and stillness of that night, chased by such terror and such remorse as God suffers the dead to avenge themselves with, he fled from the sight of the dead and the justice of the living.

But the morning found him a baffled and a desperate man. The news had spread far and wide, the country was alive with it. A large reward had been offered for the apprehension of the murderer, and no boor within miles around but tried his best to earn it, and sharpened up his sluggish wits, and stood his watch, and scoured the woods, with incredible activity. It soon became apparent, though, to the wretched fugitive, that there was one on his track who brought more knowledge of the facts to the chase than his compeers, or, indeed, than he chose to own. One there was, who night and day dogged and hunted him with unflagging energy and terrible certainty, and from whom he knew he had no chance of escape if once he left the woods and high lands and took to the open country. There was only one hope, that of eluding and wearing him out, and back he plunged into the woods again, and night and day fought desperately against his fate. He had seen his pursuer pass almost within pistol-shot of him, and had recognized in him one who added the spur of malice to the sordid love of gold that animated the others. It was the dread of losing his game, and putting others on the track, that kept him from divulging what he knew, which was enough to fasten the murder upon the man to meet whom, to his knowledge, the doctor had started on the evening of his murder. And much more he might have told, of concerted plans to dog and waylay the young stranger, and to keep him in their power—of malicious watching, and intriguing, and vindictive hatred and cunning, and cruel purposes. But this he kept in his own vile breast, and, inspired by thirst for blood and love of gold, he pursued with deadly vigilance the murderer of the man whose tool and accomplice he had been.

The third night of this unequal warfare was waning; the fugitive, worn out and hopeless, had resolved to end it; he had lost all privilege to hope, all right to love, and without these what was life worth?

The breaking dawn showed him that he was in the pine-grove that bordered Rutledge lake. He felt no fear at the danger of his nearness to detection; he had done with fear now; what malice his enemies had to wreak must be wreaked on his dead body; and God have pity on the only one of all the world who would suffer pain or shame from his disgrace!

Parting the thick branches, he made his way down to the water's-edge. In the dim light of dawn, the lake spread calm and unruffled before him, but what was this that lay so dark and motionless among the reeds and lily-pads, not a stone's throw from the shore? Dark and motionless as the haunting memory of that corpse in the black Hollow; nothing but flesh and blood ever showed so dumb and horrible through the grey light—nothing but death ever lay so still as that. It was the stark and lifeless form of his enemy that he looked upon, and dying hope started up and whispered of reprieve; all might not be over yet, and suicide and temptation drew back chagrined. It looked almost like a mercy from the Heaven he had outraged that the only tongue that could have betrayed him had been stilled in death, and that not by his hand, and a dumb feeling of gratitude warmed his heart and melted him into something like repentance toward the Father and the Heaven he had sinned against.

Now flight was clear and almost easy; once safely beyond the neighborhood of Rutledge, there would be nothing to prevent his escaping to Canada; no suspicion as yet had been attached to his name, and no one need know that he had not fulfilled his intention of sailing at the time he had mentioned, till he was safely embarked from Halifax.