The Death Shot. Майн Рид

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СКАЧАТЬ for colonisation. His son Charles sent thither, as said, on a trip of exploration, had spent some months in the Lone Star State, prospecting for the new home; and brought back a report in every way favourable.

      But the ear, to which it was to have been spoken, could no more hear. On his return, he found himself fatherless; and to the only son there remains only a mother; whose grief, pressing heavily, has almost brought her to the grave. It is one of a long series of reverses which have sorely taxed her fortitude. Another of like heaviness, and the tomb may close over her.

      Some such presentiment is in the mother’s mind, on this very day, as the sun goes down, and she sits in her chamber beside a dim candle, with ear keenly bent to catch the returning footsteps of her son.

      He has been absent since noon, having gone deer-stalking, as frequently before. She can spare him for this, and pardon his prolonged absence. She knows how fond he is of the chase; has been so from a boy.

      But, on the present occasion, he is staying beyond his usual time. It is now night; the deer have sought their coverts; and he is not “torch-hunting.”

      Only one thing can she think of to explain the tardiness of his return. The eyes of the widowed mother have been of late more watchful than wont. She has noticed her son’s abstracted air, and heard sighs that seemed to come from his inner heart. Who can mistake the signs of love, either in man or woman? Mrs. Clancy does not. She sees that Charles has lapsed into this condition.

      Rumours that seem wafted on the air—signs slight, but significant—perhaps the whisper of a confidential servant—these have given her assurance of the fact: telling her, at the same time, who has won his affections.

      Mrs. Clancy is neither dissatisfied nor displeased. In all the neighbourhood there is no one she would more wish to have for a daughter-in-law than Helen Armstrong. Not from any thought of the girl’s great beauty, or high social standing. Caroline Clancy is herself too well descended to make much of the latter circumstance. It is the reputed noble character of the lady that influences her approval of her son’s choice.

      Thinking of this—remembering her own youth, and the stolen interviews with Charles Clancy’s father—oft under the shadow of night—she could not, does not, reflect harshly on the absence of that father’s son from home, however long, or late the hour.

      It is only as the clock strikes twelve, she begins to think seriously about it. Then creeps over her a feeling of uneasiness, soon changing to apprehension. Why should he be staying out so late—after midnight? The same little bird, that brought her tidings of his love-affair, has also told her it is clandestine. Mrs. Clancy may not like this. It has the semblance of a slight to her son, as herself—more keenly felt by her in their reduced circumstances. But then, as compensation, arises the retrospect of her own days of courtship carried on in the same way.

      Still, at that hour the young lady cannot—dares not—be abroad. All the more unlikely, that the Armstrongs are moving off—as all the neighbourhood knows—and intend starting next day, at an early hour.

      The plantation people will long since have retired to rest; therefore an interview with his sweetheart can scarce be the cause of her son’s detention. Something else must be keeping him. What? So run the reflections of the fond mother.

      At intervals she starts up from her seat, as some sound reaches her; each time gliding to the door, and gazing out—again to go back disappointed.

      For long periods she remains in the porch, her eye interrogating the road that runs past the cottage-gate; her ear acutely listening for footsteps.

      Early in the night it has been dark; now there is a brilliant moonlight. But no man, no form moving underneath it. No sound of coming feet; nothing that resembles a footfall.

      One o’clock, and still silence; to the mother of Charles Clancy become oppressive, as with increased anxiety she watches and waits.

      At intervals she glances at the little “Connecticut” clock that ticks over the mantel. A pedlar’s thing, it may be false, as the men who come south selling “sech.” It is the reflection of a Southern woman, hoping her conjecture may be true.

      But, as she lingers in the porch, and looks at the moving moon, she knows the hour must be late.

      Certain sounds coming from the forest, and the farther swamp, tell her so. As a backwoods woman she can interpret them. She hears the call of the turkey “gobbler.” She knows it means morning.

      The clock strikes two; still she hears no fall of footstep—sees no son returning!

      “Where is my Charles? What can be detaining him?”

      Phrases almost identical with those that fell from the lips of Helen Armstrong, but a few hours before, in a different place, and prompted by a different sentiment—a passion equally strong, equally pure!

      Both doomed to disappointment, alike bitter and hard to bear. The same in cause, but dissimilar in the impression produced. The sweetheart believing herself slighted, forsaken, left without a lover; the mother tortured with the presentiment, she no longer has a son!

      When, at a yet later hour—or rather earlier, since it is nigh daybreak—a dog, his coat disordered, comes gliding through the gate, and Mrs. Clancy recognises her son’s favourite hunting hound, she has still only a presentiment of the terrible truth. But one which to the maternal heart, already filled with foreboding, feels too like certainty.

      And too much for her strength. Wearied with watching, prostrated by the intensity of her vigil, when the hound crawls up the steps, and under the dim light she sees his bedraggled body—blood as well as mud upon it—the sight produces a climax—a shock apparently fatal.

      She swoons upon the spot, and is carried inside the house by a female slave—the last left to her.

Chapter Fifteen.

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      A moonlight moving.

      While the widowed mother, now doubly bereft—stricken down by the blow—is still in a state of syncope, the faithful negress doing what she can to restore her, there are sounds outside unheard by either. A dull rumble of wheels, as of some heavy vehicle coming along the main road, with the occasional crack of a whip, and the sonorous “wo-ha” of a teamster.

      Presently, a large “Conestoga” wagon passes the cottage-gate, full freighted with what looks like house furniture, screened under canvas. The vehicle is drawn by a team of four strong mules, driven by a negro; while at the wagon’s tail, three or four other darkeys follow afoot.

      The cortege, of purely southern character, has scarce passed out of sight, and not yet beyond hearing, when another vehicle comes rolling along the road. This, of lighter build, and proceeding at a more rapid rate, is a barouche, drawn by a pair of large Kentucky horses. As the night is warm, and there is no need to spring up the leathern hood—its occupants can all be seen, and their individuality made out. On the box-seat is a black coachman; and by his side a young girl whose tawny complexion, visible in the whiter moonbeams, tells her to be a mulatto. Her face has been seen before, under a certain forest tree—a magnolia—its owner depositing a letter in the cavity of the trunk. She who sits alongside the driver is “Jule.”

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