Her jibes were powerless against the coarse-fibered brute. He grinned malevolently as he jeered at her.
“Thar, now! Hain’t it a pity to have a sweetheart what hain’t brave ’nuf to stand ’is ground, an’ runs off, an’ leaves ’is gal to fit fer ’im.” Then, abruptly, the moonshiner’s expression changed to one meant to be ingratiating. “Wall, now, Miss Plutiny, I shore likes the way ye stan’s up fer the pore cuss. But, arter all, hes’ done up and left ye. An’ he hain’t comin’ back. Hit wouldn’t be healthy fer him to come back,” he added, savagely. “An’ what’s more, ye hain’t a-gwine to jine ’im whar he’s at. The Hodges’ crowd won’t stan’ fer no sech! He’s been writ, Zeke Higgins has, with the sign o’ the skull an’ the cross—the hull thing. Ye know what thet means, I reckon.”
Plutina blenched, and seated herself again, weakly. It was true, she knew the fantastic rigmarole, which made absurd the secret dictates of these illiterate desperadoes. But that absurdity meant death, none the less—death for the one she loved. In her misery, she listened almost apathetically as Hodges went on talking in his heavy, grating voice.
“Zeke Higgins knows as how the Allens give us 137 the word ’bout ’is crossin’ Bull Head with the spy. He knows thet, if ’e shows up in this-hyar kentry ag’in, the Devil’s Pot’ll have ’im fer a b’ilin’. An’ thet’s ’nuf fer Zeke’s case. Now, we’ll jest chin a mite ’bout your’n.”
There was a little interval of silence, in which the girl stared unseeingly toward the splendors of the blossoming rhododendrons that fringed the clearing. The apathy had passed now, and she listened intently, with self-control to mask the despair that welled in her heart. It seemed to her that here was the need for that dissimulation she had promised herself—need of it for life’s sake, however hateful it might be, however revolting to her every instinct. So she listened in a seeming of white calm, while the flames shriveled her soul.
The man straightened his great bulk a little, and regarded the girl with new earnestness. Into his speech crept a rude eloquence, for he voiced a sincere passion, though debased by his inherent bestiality.
“Plutiny Siddon, I’ve knowed ye, an’ I’ve craved ye, this many year. Some way, hit just seemed as how I couldn’t he’p hit. The more ye mistreated me, the more I wanted ye. Hit shames me, but hit’s true as preachin’. An’ hit’s true yit—even arter seein’ yer bare futprint tracks thar on the Branch, alongside them of a man with shoes—the 138 damned revenuer what got us. Ye showed ’im the place, Plutiny Siddon—cuss ye, fer a spy!... An’ I craves ye jest the same.... An’ I’ll have ye—right soon!”
At this saying, terror mounted high in the girl. The thing she so dreaded was come to pass. She forgot, for a few moments, the threats against her lover. Despair crushed her in the realization of discovery. Her treachery was known to the man she feared. The peril she had voluntarily risked was fallen upon her. She was helpless, at the mercy of the criminal she had betrayed—and she knew that there was no mercy in him. She shrank physically, as under a blow, and sat huddled a little, in a sudden weakness of body under the soul’s torment. Yet she listened with desperate intentness, as Hodges went on speaking. She cast one timid glance toward him, then dropped her gaze, revolted at the grotesque grimaces writhen by the man’s emotions.
“Harkin to me, Miss Plutiny!” he pleaded, huskily. “Harkin to me! I knows what I’m a-doin’ of. They hain’t nothin’ ye kin do to stop me. Kase why? Wall, if ye love yer gran’pap, ye’ll hold yer tongue ’bout all my talk. Yep! He’s done pledged his land to keep me an’ Ben out o’ the jail-house till cote. If ye tells ’im I’m a-misusin’ o’ ye, he’d cancel the bond, an’ try to deliver me up. I knows all thet. But he wouldn’t cancel no bond, an’ no more 139 he wouldn’t do any deliverin’ o’ me up. Kase why? Kase he’d jest nacherly die fust. Thet’s why. The land’d be good fer the bond jest the same till Fall. Thet’d give me an’ Ben a heap o’ time to git ready to light out o’ this-hyar kentry. They hain’t nary pusson a-goin’ to bother us none. They knows hit’s healthier a-mindin’ their own business. I been dodgin’ revenuers fifteen year, an’ I’ll dodge ag’in, an’ take my savin’s along, too. An’ they’s quite some savin’s, Plutiny.”
Hodges paused, as if to give greater impressiveness to the conclusion of his harangue. His voice as he continued held a note of savage finality.