The Death Shot. Майн Рид

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СКАЧАТЬ The coon-hunter is a pure-blooded African, with features immobile as those of the Sphinx. And from his colour nought can be deduced. As already said, it is the depth of its ebon blackness, producing a purplish iridescence over the epidermis, that has gained for him the sobriquet “Blue Bill.”

      Unflinchingly he stands the inquisitorial glance, and for the time Phoebe is foiled.

      Only until after supper, when the frugality of the meal—made so by the barren chase—has perhaps something to do in melting his heart, and relaxing his tongue. Whether this, or whatever the cause, certain it is, that before going to bed, he unburdens himself to the partner of his joys, by making full confession of what he has heard and seen by the side of the cypress swamp.

      He tells her, also, of the letter picked up; which, cautiously pulling out of his pocket, he submits to her inspection.

      Phoebe has once been a family servant—an indoor domestic, and handmaiden to a white mistress. This in the days of youth—the halcyon days of her girlhood, in “Ole Varginny”—before she was transported west, sold to Ephraim Darke, and by him degraded to the lot of an ordinary outdoor slave. But her original owner taught her to read, and her memory still retains a trace of this early education—sufficient for her to decipher the script put into her hands.

      She first looks at the photograph; as it is the first to come out of the envelope. There can be no mistaking whose likeness it is. A lady too conspicuously beautiful to have escaped notice from the humblest slave in the settlement.

      The negress spends some seconds gazing upon the portrait, as she does so remarking—

      “How bewful dat young lady!”

      “You am right ’bout dat, Phoebe. She bewful as any white gal dis nigga ebber sot eyes on. And she good as bewful. I’se sorry she gwine leab dis hya place. Dar’s many a darkie ’ll miss de dear young lady. An’ won’t Mass Charl Clancy miss her too! Lor! I most forgot; maybe he no trouble ’bout her now; maybe he’s gone dead! Ef dat so, she miss him, a no mistake. She cry her eyes out.”

      “You tink dar war something ’tween dem two?”

      “Tink! I’se shoo ob it, Phoebe. Didn’t I see dem boaf down dar in de woodland, when I war out a-coonin. More’n once I seed em togedder. A young white lady an’ genl’m don’t meet dat way unless dar’s a feelin’ atween em, any more dan we brack folks. Besides, dis nigga know dey lub one noder—he know fo sartin. Jule, she tell Jupe; and Jupe hab trussed dat same seecret to me. Dey been in lub long time; afore Mass Charl went ’way to Texas. But de great Kurnel Armstrong, he don’t know nuffin’ ’bout it. Golly! ef he did, he shoo kill Charl Clancy; dat is, if de poor young man ain’t dead arready. Le’s hope ’tain’t so. But, Phoebe, gal, open dat letter, an’ see what de lady say. Satin it’s been wrote by her. Maybe it trow some light on dis dark subjeck.”

      Phoebe, thus solicited, takes the letter from the envelope. Then spreading it out, and holding it close to the flare of the tallow dip, reads it from beginning to end.

      It is a task that occupies her some considerable time; for her scholastic acquirements, not very bright at the best, have become dimmed by long disuse. For all, she succeeds in deciphering its contents and interpreting them to Bill; who listens with ears wide open and eyes in staring wonderment.

      When the reading is at length finished, the two remain for some time silent—pondering upon the strange circumstances thus revealed to them.

      Blue Bill is the first to resume speech. He says:—

      “Dar’s a good deal in dat letter I know’d afore, and dar’s odder points as ’pear new to me; but whether de old or de new, ’twon’t do for us folk declar a single word o’ what de young lady hab wrote in dat ere ’pistle. No, Phoebe, neery word must ’scape de lips ob eider o’ us. We muss hide de letter, an’ nebba let nob’dy know dar’s sich a dockyment in our posseshun. And dar must be nuffin’ know’d ’bout dis nigga findin’ it. Ef dat sakumstance war to leak out, I needn’t warn you what ’ud happen to me. Blue Bill ’ud catch de cowhide—maybe de punishment ob de pump. So, Phoebe, gal, gi’e me yar word to keep dark, for de case am a dangersome, an a desprit one.”

      The wife can well comprehend the husband’s caution, with the necessity of compliance; and the two retire to rest, in the midst of their black olive branches, with a mutual promise to be “mum.”

Chapter Fourteen.

       Table of Contents

      Why comes he not?

      Helen Armstrong goes to bed, with spiteful thoughts about Charles Clancy. So rancorous she cannot sleep, but turns distractedly on her couch, from time to time changing cheek upon the pillow.

      At little more than a mile’s distance from this chamber of unrest, another woman is also awake, thinking of the same man—not spitefully, but anxiously. It is his mother.

      As already said, the road running north from Natchez leads past Colonel Armstrong’s gate. A traveller, going in the opposite direction—that is towards the city—on clearing the skirts of the plantation, would see, near the road side, a dwelling of very different kind; of humble unpretentious aspect, compared with the grand mansion of the planter. It would be called a cottage, were this name known in the State of Mississippi—which it is not. Still it is not a log-cabin; but a “frame-house,” its walls of “weather-boarding,” planed and painted, its roof cedar-shingled; a style of architecture occasionally seen in the Southern States, though not so frequently as in the Northern—inhabited by men in moderate circumstances, poorer than planters, but richer, or more gentle, than the “white trash,” who live in log-cabins.

      Planters they are in social rank, though poor; perhaps owning a half-dozen slaves, and cultivating a small tract of cleared ground, from twenty to fifty acres. The frame-house vouches for their respectability; while two or three log structures at back—representing barn, stable, and other outbuildings—tell of land attached.

      Of this class is the habitation referred to—the home of the widow Clancy.

      As already known, her widowhood is of recent date. She still wears its emblems upon her person, and carries its sorrow in her heart.

      Her husband, of good Irish lineage, had found his way to Nashville, the capital city of Tennessee; where, in times long past, many Irish families made settlements. There he had married her, she herself being a native Tennesseean—sprung from the old Carolina pioneer stock, that colonised the state near the end of the eighteenth century—the Robertsons, Hyneses, Hardings, and Bradfords—leaving to their descendants a patent of nobility, or at least a family name deserving respect, and generally obtaining it.

      In America, as elsewhere, it is not the rule for Irishmen to grow rich; and still more exceptional in the case of Irish gentlemen. When these have wealth their hospitality is too apt to take the place of a spendthrift profuseness, ending in pecuniary embarrassment.

      So was it with Captain Jack Clancy; who got wealth with his wife, but soon squandered it entertaining his own and his wife’s friends. The result, a move to Mississippi, where land was cheaper, and his attenuated fortune would enable him to hold out a little longer.

      Still, the property he had purchased in Mississippi State was but a poor one; leading him to СКАЧАТЬ