Part 29 (1/2)

The native proposed we should separate--one go up, another down the stream, and the third, with the dog, follow the road; to which he thought Moye had finally returned. Those who should explore the run would easily detect the horse's tracks where he had left it, and then taking a straight course to the road, all might meet some five miles further on, at a place indicated.

I gave my adhesion to Sandy's plan, but the Colonel overruled it on the ground of the waste of time that would be incurred in thus recovering the overseer's trail.

”Why not,” he said, ”strike at once for the end of his route? Why follow the slow steps he took in order to throw us off the track? He has not come back to this road. Ten miles below there is another one leading also to the railway. He has taken that. We might as well send Sandy and the dog back and go on by ourselves.”

”But if bound for the Station, why should he wade through the creek here, ten miles out of his way? Why not go straight on by the road?” I asked.

”Because he knew the dog would track him, and he hoped by taking to the run to make me think he had crossed the country instead of striking for the railroad.”

I felt sure the Colonel was wrong, but knowing him to be tenacious of his own opinions, I made no further objection.

Directing Sandy to call on Madam P---- and acquaint her with our progress, he then dismissed the negro-hunter, and once more led the way up the road.

The next twenty miles, like our previous route, lay through an unbroken forest. As we left the watercourses, we saw only the gloomy pines, which there--the region being remote from the means of transportation--were seldom tapped, and presented few of the openings that invite the weary traveller to the dwelling of the hospitable planter.

After a time the sky, which had been bright and cloudless all the morning, grew overcast, and gave out tokens of a coming storm. A black cloud gathered in the west, and random flashes darted from it far off in the distance; then gradually it neared us; low mutterings sounded in the air, and the tops of the tall pines a few miles away, were lit up now and then with a fitful blaze, all the brighter for the deeper gloom that succeeded. Then a terrific flash and peal broke directly over us, and a great tree, struck by a red-hot bolt, fell with a deafening crash, half way across our path. Peal after peal followed, and then the rain--not filtered into drops as it falls from our colder sky, but in broad, blinding sheets--poured full and heavy on our shelterless heads.

”Ah! there it comes!” shouted the Colonel. ”G.o.d have mercy upon us!”

As he spoke, a cras.h.i.+ng, crackling, thundering roar rose above the storm, filling the air, and shaking the solid earth till it trembled beneath our horses' feet, as if upheaved by a volcano. Nearer and nearer the sound came, till it seemed that all the legions of darkness were unloosed in the forest, and were mowing down the great pines as the mower mows the gra.s.s with his scythe. Then an awful, sweeping crash thundered directly at our backs, and turning round, as if to face a foe, my horse, who had borne the roar and the blinding flash till then unmoved, paralyzed with dread, and panting for breath, sunk to the ground; while close at my side the Colonel, standing erect in his stirrups, his head uncovered to the pouring sky, cried out:

”THANK G.o.d, WE ARE SAVED!”

There--not three hundred yards in our rear, had pa.s.sed the TORNADO--uprooting trees, prostrating dwellings, and sending many a soul to its last account, but sparing _us_ for another day! For thirty miles through the forest it had mowed a swath of two hundred feet, and then moved on to stir the ocean to its briny depths.

With a full heart, I remounted, and turning my horse, pressed on in the rain. We said not a word till a friendly opening pointed the way to a planter's dwelling. Then calling to me to follow, the Colonel dashed up the by-path which led to the mansion, and in five minutes we were warming our chilled limbs before the cheerful fire that roared and crackled on its broad hearth-stone.

CHAPTER XII.

THE YANKEE-SCHOOL-MISTRESS.

The house was a large, old-fas.h.i.+oned frame building, square as a packing-box, and surrounded, as all country dwellings at the South are, by a broad, open piazza. Our summons was answered by its owner, a well-to-do, substantial, middle-aged planter, wearing the ordinary homespun of the district, but evidently of a station in life much above the common ”corn-crackers” I had seen at the country meeting-house. The Colonel was an acquaintance, and greeting us with great cordiality, our host led the way directly to the sitting-room. There we found a bright, blazing fire, and a pair of bright sparkling eyes, the latter belonging to a blithesome young woman of about twenty, with a cheery face, and a half-rustic, half-cultivated air, whom our new friend introduced to us as his wife.

”I regret not having had the pleasure of meeting Mrs. S---- before, but am very happy to meet her now,” said the Colonel, with all the well-bred, gentlemanly ease that distinguished him.

”The pleasure is mutual, Colonel J----,” replied the lady, ”but thirty miles in this wild country, should not have made a neighbor so distant as you have been.”

”Business, madam, is at fault, as your husband knows. I have much to do; and besides, all my connections are in the other direction--with Charleston.”

”It's a fact, Sally, the Colonel is the d---- busy man in these parts.

Not content with a big plantation and three hundred n.i.g.g.e.rs, he looks after all South Carolina, and the rest of creation to boot,” said our host.

”Tom will have his joke, Madam, but he's not far from the truth.”

Seeing we were dripping wet, the lady offered us a change of clothing, and retiring to a chamber, we each appropriated a suit belonging to our host, giving our own to a servant, to be dried.