Our preacher was disposed to be merry at the expense of our lover.
“Yes, it is Brough’s signal, but feeble, as if the old fellow was really sick. He has probably passed through this fire, and has been choked with the smoke. But he must have an answer.”
And, eager to hear from his beloved one, our hero gave his whistle in reply, and moved forward in the direction of the isthmus. The preacher, meanwhile, went toward the camp, quite prompt in the performance of the duties assigned him.
“He answers,” muttered the tory captain; “the rebels are delivered to our hands!” And his preparations were sternly prosecuted to make a satisfactory finish to the adventure of the night. He, too, it must be remarked, though somewhat wondering at the blazing forest behind him, never for a moment divined the real original of the conflagration. He ascribed it to accident, and, possibly, to the carelessness of one of the troopers whom he left as sentinels. With an internal resolution to make the fellow, if offending, familiar with the halberds, he pushed forward, as we have seen, till reaching the swamp; while the fire, obeying the course of the wind, swept away to the right of the path kept by the pursuing party, leaving them entirely without cause of apprehension from this quarter.
The plans of Dunbar for penetrating the place of Coulter’s refuge were as judicious as they could be made under the circumstances. Having brought the troopers to the verge of the encampment, the negro was fastened to a tree by the same rope which had so frequently threatened his neck. The tories pushed forward, each with pistol cocked and ready in the grasp. They had scattered themselves abroad, so as to form a front sufficient to cover, at moderate intervals, the space across the isthmus. But, with the withdrawal of the immediate danger, Brough’s courage returned to him, and, to the furious rage and discomfiture of Dunbar, the old negro set up on a sudden a most boisterous African howl—such a song as the Ebo cheers himself with when in the doubtful neighborhood of a jungle which may hide the lion or the tiger. The sounds re-echoed through the swamp, and startled, with a keen suspicion, not only our captain of patriots, but the preacher and his associates. Brough’s voice was well known to them all; but that Brough should use it after such a fashion was quite as unexpected to them as to Dunbar and his tories. One of the latter immediately dropped back, intending to knock the negro regularly on the head; and, doubtless, such would have been the fate of the fellow, had it not been for the progress of events which called him elsewhere. Richard Coulter had pressed forward at double quick time as he heard the wild chant of the African, and, being familiar with the region, it occupied but little space to enable him to reach the line across which the party of Dunbar was slowly making its way. Hearing but a single footfall, and obtaining a glimpse of a single figure only, Coulter repeated his whistle. He was answered with a pistol shot—another and another followed; and he had time only to wind his bugle, giving the signal of flight to his comrades, when he felt a sudden sickness at the heart, and a faintness which only did not affect his senses. He could still feel his danger, and his strength sufficed to enable him to roll himself close beside the massive trunk of the cypress, upon which he had unhappily been perched when his whistle drew the fire upon him of several of the approaching party. Scarcely had he thus covered himself from a random search when he sunk into insensibility.
Meanwhile, “Bear Castle” rang with the signals of alarm and assault. At the first sound of danger, Elijah Fields dashed forward in the direction which Coulter had taken. But the private signal which he sounded for the other was unanswered, and the assailants were now breaking through the swamp, and were to be heard on every hand. To retreat, to rally his comrades, to mount their steeds, dash into the river and take the stream was all the work of an instant. From the middle of the sweeping current the shouts of hate and defiance came to the ears of the tories as they broke from the copse and appeared on the banks of the river. A momentary glimpse of the dark bulk of one or more steeds as they whirled round an interposing headland, drew from them the remaining bullets in their pistols, but without success; and, ignorant of the effect of a random bullet upon the very person whom, of all, he most desired to destroy, Mat Dunbar felt himself once more foiled in a pursuit which he had this time undertaken with every earnest of success.
“That d—d African!” was his exclamation. “But he shall hang for it now, though he never hung before!”
With this pious resolution, having, with torches, made such an exploration of Bear Castle as left them in no doubt that all the fugitives had escaped, our tory captain called his squad together, and commenced their return. The fatigue of passing through the dry swamp on their backward route was much greater than when they entered it. They were then full of excitement, full of that rapture of the strife which needs not even the feeling of hate and revenge to make it grateful to an eager and impulsive temper. Now, they were baffled—the excitement was at an end—and with the feeling of perfect disappointment came the full feeling of all the toils and exertions they had undergone. They had but one immediate consolation in reserve, and that was the hanging of Brough, which Dunbar promised them. The howl of the African had defeated their enterprise. The African must howl no longer. Bent on murder, they hastened to the tree where they had left him bound, only to meet with a new disappointment. The African was there no longer!
——