Part 5 (1/2)
He led the little boy up to a tallow dip blazing on the head of a barrel, that he might have light to examine the token. It was a small bit of the cavernous efflorescence, which, growing on subterranean walls, takes occasionally definite form, some specimens resembling a lily, others being like a rose; the child tried feebly to be grateful, and put it with care into one of the pockets of his little red coat--his pockets in which he had once felt such plethora of pride!
VI.
When next he saw the river the lunar l.u.s.tre had dulled on the currents.
No more the long lines of s.h.i.+mmering light trailing off into the deep shadow of the wooded banks, no more the tremulous reflection of the moon, swinging like some supernal craft in the great lacustrine sweep where the stream broadens in rounding the point. Now a filmy veil was over all, yet the night was so fine that the light filtered through the mist, and objects were still discernible, though only vaguely visible, like the furnis.h.i.+ngs of a dream. A rowboat was rocking on the ripples among the boulders at the water's edge. As the child made the perilous descent in the practised clasp of the grandfatherly Clenk, he could look up and see the jagged portal of the cave he had left, high above the river, though not so high as the great, tall deciduous trees waving their lofty boughs on the summit of the cliffs. Certain grim, silent, gaunt figures, grotesquely contorted in the mist, the child's wide blue eyes traced out, as the other moons.h.i.+ners climbed too down the rugged face of the crag, all burdened with bundles of varying size and unimaginable contents--food, clothing, or such appliances of their craft as the hurried revenue raiders had chanced to overlook. The little boy must have contended with fear in this awesome environment, the child of gentlest nurture, but he thought he was going to his mother, or perchance he could not have submitted with such docility, so uncomplainingly. Only when they had reached the rocky marge of the water and he had been uncoiled from the rug and set upon his feet did he lift his voice in protest.
Clenk had stepped into the boat and seated himself, the oars rattling smartly in the rowlocks, the sound sharp on the misty air, as he laid hold on them. ”So far, so good,” he exclaimed cheerily.
”Won't they be fur trackin' of _him_?” One of the moons.h.i.+ners, whom the child had not seen before, seemed disposed to rebuke this easy optimism.
”What fur? They will think Bubby went over the bluff too,” Clenk declared definitely.
”There's nuthin' ter show fur it, though,” Copenny joined the opposite opinion.
”Nuthin' needed in that mixtry of horseflesh an' human carca.s.s an'
splintered wood and leather,” argued Clenk.
”Yes, they will hev ter gather up them remains in a shovel,” acquiesced Holvey.
The shadowy form of the doubter who had introduced the subject, thick-set, stoop-shouldered, showed in its att.i.tude that he was lowering and ill at ease. ”Waal, you-uns hev made a powerful botch of the simple little trick of drawing a bead on a revenuer anyhow. Takin' one man fur another--I never dreamed o' the beat! Copenny war so sure o' the man an' the mare!
_I_ never purtended to know either. Seems ter me ye oughter be willin'
ter lis'n ter reason now.”
”Waal, let's hear reason, then,” Copenny's sardonic falsetto tones rasped on the air, and the little head under the broad white, gayly beribboned hat turned up attentively, as the child stood so low down among the big booted feet of the armed moons.h.i.+ners.
”Why, how easy it would hev been ter throw su'thin' over the bluff----”
the counsellor began.
”Good Lord!” Clenk exclaimed angrily, from his seat in the boat, ”ain't ye got _no_ human feelin's, Jack Drann? We-uns never went ter shed the innercent blood nohow. We-uns war loaded fur that tricky revenuer, an'
Edward Briscoe war kilt by mistake. An' now ye ter be talkin' 'bout heavin' the leetle, harmless deedie over the bluff!”
”What ails yer hearin'?” retorted Drann angrily. ”I said _su'thin'_--his coat, his hat--throw _su'thin'_ over, ter make folks think he war in the accident, too--mare run away and the whole consarn flopped bodaciously over the bluff! They will scour the kentry fur Bubby ef thar ain't su'thin' positive ter make them _sure_ ez he be dead, too.”
Jubal Clenk, so readily cast down, meditated dolorously, as he sat still in the boat, on this signal omission in the chain of evidence. ”It would sure hev made it all 'pear a heap mo' like an accident,” he said disconsolately. Then, with suddenly renewing hopefulness, ”But 't ain't too late yet--good many hours 'fore daylight. We kin send the coat an'
hat back an' toss them over the bluff long before it is light good.”
Thus it was that the moons.h.i.+ners laid hold on the boy's simple possessions, and thus it was that Archie fought and contended for his own. He clutched at the cuffs as Copenny dragged the sleeves over his wrists; he held on to his hat with both hands, despite the grip of the elastic under his chin, and he stamped and screamed in a manner that he had heretofore known to inspire awe and respect in the nursery and disarm authority. Alack, it had lost its efficacy now! Most of the men took no notice whatever of his callow demonstrations of wrath, though old Clenk, with a curious duality of mental process, laughed indulgently at his antics of infantile rage, despite his own absorptions, his sense of danger, his smart of loss and wreck of prospects.
It was Copenny who undertook to carry the coat and rug back to the spot, and they willingly agreed to this on the score that he knew best the precise locality where the catastrophe had befallen. Secretly, however, he had resolved not to rejoin his companions at a named rendezvous, for he had bethought himself that if all fled but him, remaining in his accustomed home, he would necessarily avoid implication in the crime with them. The boat had been provisioned with a view to their escape by water when the ambush of the revenue officer had been planned, and they were now congratulating themselves on their foresight as they prepared to embark. Clenk had an ill-savored story to tell of the apprehension of a malefactor through the coercion of hunger, constrained to stop and beg a meal as he fled from justice, and Drann had known a man whose neck was forfeited by the necessity of robbing a hen-roost, the cackling poultry in this instance as efficient in the cause of law and order as the geese that saved Rome. Copenny, listening sardonically, could not be thankful for such small favors. His venture as a moons.h.i.+ner at all events was, so to speak, a side line of employ. He was trained a blacksmith, and had a pretty fair stake in the world, according to the rating of a working-man of this region, now in jeopardy of total loss. The rest had nothing to lose, and as ever and anon they fell to canva.s.sing the opportunities of beginning anew in a fresh place the dubious struggle for bare subsistence, his determination to slip free of them was confirmed. The morrow would see him in his appointed place--nay, he perceived a sure means of hoodwinking any possible suspicion of the authorities by finding a conspicuous position in the searching parties who would go out, he knew, as the night wore on and the alarm was given that the owner of the bungalow had not returned.
The boat with the others embarked was far up the river before the child had ceased to sob and plain for his precious gear. He began to listen curiously to the splash of the oars as they marked time and the boat rode the waves elastically. There was no other sound in all the night-bound world, save once the crisp, sharp bark of a fox came across the water from the dense, dark riparian forests. The mists possessed all the upper atmosphere, but following the boat were white undiscriminated presentments on the sombre surface of the river, elusive in the vapor and suggestive of something swimming in pursuit. Once Archie pointed his mittened hand at this foaming wake, but the question died on his lips as the dank autumnal air buffeted his chill cheek. He s.h.i.+vered in his thin little white linen dress, meant for indoor wear only, with its smart red leather belt clasped low and loose about it, and the hards.h.i.+p of cold and hunger tamed him. He was glad to nestle close to the pasty-faced Holvey, who had not yet recovered the normal glow of complexion, and to stick his yellow head under the moons.h.i.+ner's arm for warmth while he steered the craft. Indeed, when the boat was at length run into one of the small, untenanted islands and the party disembarked, the little boy began to chirp genially and to laugh for joy as a fire was kindled amidst the rocks and brush of the interior, invisible from the sh.o.r.es. He basked in the blaze and grew pink and gay, and even sought to initiate a game of peek-a-boo from behind his white mittens with one of the ruffians; and although a bit dashed when the surly, absorbed eyes stared unresponsively at him, he plucked up spirit to ask if they were going to have supper, and to say that he wanted some, and that he was a very good boy.
”Breakfast, Bub--this is the 'tother end of the day,” Clenk explained, preparing to broil slices of meat on the coals. There was soon a johnny-cake baked on a board set up before the flames, but the pork was evidently a new proposition to the small captive, and although he eyed it greedily he could make no compact with it. Now and again he licked with a grimace of distaste the unsavory chunk given him, and desisted, to watch with averse curiosity the working jaws of the men and the motion of the muscles in their temples as they hastily gobbled the coa.r.s.e fare which they cut with their clasp-knives. The fire duplicated their number with their shadows, and occasionally he eyed these semblances speculatively as they stretched on the sandy ground or skulked in the underbrush behind their unconscious princ.i.p.als. Once or twice he lifted his own arm with an alert gesture in imitative energy, and looked over his shoulder at his squat little image, to note its obedience to his behest. One might have thought he had put the greater part of the fat meat in smears about his rosy cheeks and fresh baby lips, and certainly the pleated bosom of his immaculate linen suit had received a generous remembrance. The remnant was still in his hand when he began to nod in the drowsy influences of the heat of the fire; he had collapsed into insensibility long before the coals were raked apart to dull and die. He had no knowledge of the fact when he was borne away by Holvey, who had been delegated to a.s.sume charge of him, and who sulked in disaffection under the responsibility and his doubts of the success of their plan.
Once more in the boat, the chill of the dank river atmosphere awakened little Archie. He sent forth a peevish, imperative call, ”Mamma!” so shrill and constraining, reaching so far across the dark water, that a hand before his lips smothered its iteration in his throat. ”Bee-have!”