As he spoke in bitterness he approached his horse, and flinging the bridle over his neck, was in a little while a good distance on his way from the scene of blood; over which Silence now folded her wings, brooding undisturbed, as if nothing had taken place below; so little is the sympathy which the transient and inanimate nature appears, at any time, to exhibit, with that to the enjoyment of which it yields the bloom and odor of leaf and flower, soft zephyrs and refreshing waters.
[CHAPTER XXIV.]
THE FATES FAVOR THE FUGITIVE.
Let us now return to our young traveller, whose escape we have already narrated.
Utterly unconscious of the melancholy circumstance which had diverted his enemies from the pursuit of himself, he had followed studiously the parting directions of the young maiden, to whose noble feeling and fearless courage he was indebted for his present safety; and taken the almost blind path which she had hastily described to him. On this route he had for some time gone, with a motion not extravagantly free, but sufficiently so, having the start, and with the several delays to which his pursuers had been subjected, to have escaped the danger—while the vigor of his steed lasted—even had they fallen on the proper route. He had proceeded in this way for several miles, when, at length, he came upon a place whence several roads diverged into opposite sections of the country. Ignorant of the localities, he reined in his horse, and deliberated with himself for a few moments as to the path he should pursue. While thus engaged, a broad glare of flame suddenly illumined the woods on his left hand, followed with the shrieks, equally sudden, seemingly of a woman.
There was no hesitation in the action of the youth. With unscrupulous and fearless precipitation, he gave his horse the necessary direction, and with a smart application of the rowel, plunged down the narrow path toward the spot from whence the alarm had arisen. As he approached, the light grew more intense, and he at length discovered a little cottage-like dwelling, completely embowered in thick foliage, through the crevices of which the flame proceeded, revealing the cause of terror, and illuminating for some distance the dense woods around. The shrieks still continued; and throwing himself from his horse, Ralph darted forward, and with a single and sudden application of his foot, struck the door from its hinges, and entered the dwelling just in time to save its inmates from the worst of all kinds of death.
The apartment was in a light blaze—the drapery of a couch which stood in one corner partially consumed, and, at the first glance, the whole prospect afforded but little hope of a successful struggle with the conflagration. There was no time to be lost, yet the scene was enough to have paralyzed the nerves of the most heroic action.
On the couch thus circumstanced lay an elderly lady, seemingly in the very last stages of disease. She seemed only at intervals conscious of the fire. At her side, in a situation almost as helpless as her own, was the young female whose screams had first awakened the attention of the traveller. She lay moaning beside the couch, shrieking at intervals, and though in momentary danger from the flames, which continued to increase, taking no steps for their arrest. Her only efforts were taken to raise the old woman from the couch, and to this, the strength of the young one was wholly unequal. Ralph went manfully to work, and had the satisfaction of finding success in his efforts. With a fearless hand he tore down the burning drapery which curtained the windows and couch; and which, made of light cotton stuffs, presented a ready auxiliar to the progress of the destructive element. Striking down the burning shutter with a single blow, he admitted the fresh air, without which suffocation must soon have followed, and throwing from the apartment such of the furniture as had been seized upon by the flames, he succeeded in arresting their farther advance.
All this was the work of a few moments. There had been no word of intercourse between the parties, and the youth now surveyed them with looks of curious inquiry, for the first time. The invalid, as we have said, was apparently struggling with the last stages of natural decay. Her companion was evidently youthful, in spite of those marks which even the unstudied eye might have discerned in her features, of a temper and a spirit subdued and put to rest by the world's strife and trial, and by afflictions which are not often found to crowd and to make up the history and being of the young. Their position was peculiarly insulated, and Ralph wondered much at the singularity of a scene to which his own experience could furnish no parallel. Here were two lone women—living on the borders of a savage nation, and forming the frontier of a class of whites little less savage, without any protection, and, to his mind, without any motive for making such their abiding-place. His wonder might possibly have taken the shape of inquiry, but that there was something of oppressive reserve and shrinking timidity in the air of the young woman, who alone could have replied to his inquiries. At this time an old female negro entered, now for the first time alarmed by the outcry, who assisted in removing such traces of the fire as still remained about the room. She seemed to occupy a neighboring outhouse; to which, having done what seemed absolutely necessary, she immediately retired.