Cudjo's Cave

  XIII.

  _THE OLD CLERGYMAN'S NIGHTGOWN HAS AN ADVENTURE._

  Where, then, all this time, was Penn? He was himself almost asprofoundly ignorant on that subject as anybody. For two or three hourshe had been lost to himself no less than to his friends.

  When he recovered his consciousness he found that he was lying on theground, in the open air, in what seemed a barren field, covered withrocks and stunted shrubs.

  How he came there he did not know. He had nothing on but hisnight-dress,--a loan from the old clergyman,--besides a blanket wrappedabout him. His feet were bare, and he now perceived that they werepainfully aching.

  Almost too weak to lift a hand to his head, he yet tried to sit up andlook around him. All was darkness; not a sign of human habitation, not atwinkling light was visible. The cold night wind swept over him, sighingdrearily among the leafless bushes. Chilled, shivering, his templesthrobbing, his brain sick and giddy, he sat down again upon the rocks,so ill and suffering that he could scarcely feel astonishment at hissituation, or care whether he lived or died.

  Where had he been during those hours of oblivion? He seemed to haveslept, and to have had terrible dreams. Could he have remembered thesedreams, it seemed to him that the whole mystery of his removal to thisdesolate spot would be explained. And he knew that it required but aneffort of his will to remember them. But his soul was too weak: he couldnot make the effort.

  To get upon his feet and walk was impossible. What, then, was left himbut to perish here, alone, uncared for, unconsoled by a word of lovefrom any human being? Death he would have welcomed as a relief from hissufferings. Yet when he thought of his home far away, in the peacefulcommunity of Friends, of his parents and sisters now anxiously expectinghis return,--and again when he remembered the hospitable roof underwhich he lay, so tenderly nursed, but a little while ago, and thought ofthe blind old clergyman, of Virginia fresh as a rose, of kind-heartedCarl, and the affectionate old negro,--he was stung with the desire tolive, and he called feebly,--

  "Toby! Toby!"

  Was his cry heard? Surely, there were footsteps on the rocks! And wasnot that a human form moving dimly between him and the sky? It passedon, and was lost in the shadows of the pines. Was it some animal, oronly a phantom of his feverish brain?

  "Toby!" he called again, exerting all his force. But only the wailingwind answered him, and, overcome by the effort, he sunk into a swoon. Inthat swoon it seemed to him that Toby had heard his voice, and that hecame to him. Hands, gentle human hands, groped on him, felt the blanket,felt his bare feet, and his head, pillowed on stones. Then there seemedto be two Tobys, one good and the other evil, holding a strangeconsultation over him, which he heard as in a dream.

  "We can't leave him dying here!" said the good Toby.

  "What dat to me, if him die, or whar him die?" said the other Toby."Straight har!" He seemed to be feeling Penn's locks, in order toascertain to which race he belonged. "Dat's nuff fur me! Lef him be, Itell ye, and come 'long!"

  "Straight hair or curly, it's all the same," said Toby the Good. "Takehold here; we must save him!"

  "Hyah-yah! ye don't cotch dis niggah!" chuckled Toby the Bad,maliciously. "Nuff more ob his kind, in all conscience! Reckon we kinspar' much as one! Hyah-yah!"

  Something like a quarrel ensued, the result of which was, that Toby theGood finally prevailed upon Toby the Malevolent to assist him. Then Pennwas dreamily aware of being lifted in the strong arms of this doubleindividual, and borne away, over rocks, and among thickets, along themountain side; until even this misty ray of consciousness deserted him,and he fell into a stupor like death.

  And what was this he saw on awaking? Had he really died, and was thisunearthly place a vestibule of the infernal regions? Days and nights ofanguish, burning, and delirium, relieved at intervals by the samedeath-like stupor, had passed over him; and here he lay at length,exhausted, the terrible fever conquered, and his soul looking feeblyforth and taking note of things.

  And strange enough things appeared to him! He was in an apartment ofprodigious and uncouth architecture, dimly lighted from one side by someopening invisible to him, and by a blazing fire in a little fireplacebuilt on the broad stone floor. The fireplace was without chimney, but asteady draught of air, from the side where the opening seemed to be,swept the smoke away into sombre recesses, where it mingled with theshadows of the place, and was lost in gloom which even the glare of theflames failed to illumine.

  Such a cavernous room Penn seemed to have seen in his dreams. The sameirregular, rocky roof started up from the wall by his bed, and stretchedaway into vague and obscure distance. All was familiar to him, but allwas somehow mixed up with frightful fantasies which had vanished withthe fever that had so recently left him. The awful shapes, the strugglesof demoniac men, the processions of strange and beautiful forms, whichhad visited him in his delirious visions,--all these were airy nothings;but the cave was real.

  Here he lay, on a rude bed constructed of four logs, forming the endsand sides, with canvas stretched across them, and secured with nails.Under him was a mattress of moss, over him a blanket like that which heremembered to have had wrapped about him last night in the field.

  Last night! Poor Penn was deeply perplexed when he endeavored toremember whether his mysterious awaking in the open air occurred lastnight, or many nights ago. He moved his head feebly to look for Toby.Which Toby? for all through his sufferings the same two Tobys, one goodand the other evil, who had taken him from the field, had appeared stillto attend him, and he now more than half expected to see the faithfulold negro duplicated, and waiting upon him with two bodies and fourhands.

  But neither the better nor even the worse half of that double being wasnear him now. Penn was alone, in that subterranean solitude. Thereburned the fire, the shadows flickered, the smoke floated away into thedepths of the dark cavern, in such loneliness and silence as he hadnever experienced before. He would have thought himself in some grottoof the gnomes, or some awful cell of enchantment, whose supernaturalfire never went out, and whose smoke rolled away into darkness the sameperpetually,--but for the sound of the crackling flames, and the sightof piles of wood on the floor, so strongly suggestive of human agency.

  On one side was what appeared to be an artificial chamber built ofstones, its door open towards the fire. Ranged about the cave, insomething like regular order, were several massy blocks of differentsizes, like the stools of a family of giants. But where were the giants?

  Ah, here came Toby at last, or, at any rate, the twin of him. Heapproached from the side where the daylight shone, bearing an armful ofsticks, and whistling a low tune. With his broad back turned towardsPenn, he crouched before the fire, which he poked and scolded withmalicious energy, his grotesque and gigantic shadow projected on thewall of the cave.

  "Burn, ye debil! K-r-r-r! sputter! snap! git mad, why don't ye?"

  Then throwing himself back upon a heap of skins, with his heels at thefire, and his long arms swinging over his head, in a savage andpicturesque attitude, he burst into a shout, like the cry of a wildbeast. This he repeated several times, appearing to take delight inhearing the echoes resound through the cavern. Then he began to sing,keeping time with his feet, and pausing after each strain of his wildmelody to hear it die away in the hollow depths of the cave.

  "De glory ob de Lord, it am comin', it am comin', De glory ob de Lord, let it come! De angel ob de Lord, hear his trumpet, hear his trumpet, De angel ob de Lord, he ar come!"

  At the last words, "_He ar come!_" a shadow darkened the entrance, andPenn looked, almost expecting to see a literal fulfilment of theprophecy. A form of imposing stature appeared. It was that of a negroupwards of six feet in height, magnificently proportioned, straight as apillar, and black as ebony. He wore a dress of skins, carried a gun inhis hand, and had an opossum slung over his shoulder.

  "Hush your noise!" he said to the singer, in a tone of authority."Haven't I told you not to _wake him_?"

  "No fe
ar o' dat!" chuckled the other. "Him's past dat! Ki! how fat hear!" seizing the opossum, and beginning to dress him on the spot.

  "Past waking! I tell you he's asleep, and every thing depends on hiswaking up right. But you set up a howl that would disturb the dead!"

  "Howl! dat's what ye call singin'; me singin', Pomp."

  "Well, keep your singing to yourself till he is able to stand it, youunfeeling, ungrateful fellow!"

  "What dat ye call dis nigger?" cried the singer, jumping up in apassion, with his blood-stained knife in his hand. "Ongrateful! Say datar agin, will ye?"

  "Yes, Cudjo, as often as you please," said Pomp, calmly placing his gunin the artificial chamber. "You are an unfeeling, ungrateful fellow."

  He turned, and stood regarding him with a proud, lofty, compassionatingsmile. Cudjo's anger cooled at once. Penn had already recognized in themthe twin Tobys of his dreams. And what a contrast between the two! Therewas Toby the Good, otherwise called Pomp, dignified, erect, of noblefeatures; while before him cringed and grimaced Toby the Malign, aliasCudjo, ugly, deformed, with immensely long arms, short bow legsresembling a parenthesis, a body like a frog's, and the countenance ofan ape.

  "You know," said Pomp, "you would have left this man to die there on therocks, if it hadn't been for me."

  "Gorry! why not?" said Cudjo. "What's use ob all dis trouble on his'count?"

  "He has had trouble enough on our account," said Pomp.

  "On our 'count? Hiyah-yah!" laughed Cudjo, getting down on his kneesover the opossum; "how ye make dat out, by?"

  "Pay attention, Cudjo, while I tell ye," said Pomp, stooping, and layinghis finger on the deformed shoulder. Cudjo looked up, with his hands andknife still in the opossum's flesh. "This is the way of it, as I heardlast night from Pepperill himself, who got into trouble, as you know, bybefriending old Pete after his licking. And you know, don't you, howPete came by his licking?"

  "Bein' out nights, totin' our meal and taters to de mountains,--dough Ireckon de patrol didn't know nuffin' 'bout dat ar, or him wouldn't gotoff so easy!" said Cudjo.

  "Well, it was by befriending Pepperill, who had befriended Pete, whobrings us meal and potatoes, that this man got the ill will of thosevillains. Do you understand?"

  "Say 'em over agin, Pomp. How, now? Lef me see! Dat ar's old Pete,"sticking up a finger to represent him. "Dat ar's Pepperill," sticking upa thumb. "Now, yonder is dis yer man, and here am we. Now, how is it,Pomp?"

  Pomp repeated his statement, and Cudjo, pointing to his long, blackfinger when Pete was alluded to, and tapping his thumb when Pepperillwas mentioned, succeeded in understanding that it was indirectly inconsequence of kindness shown to himself that Penn had come to grief.

  "Dat so, Pomp?" he said, seriously, in a changed voice. "Den 'pears likedar's two white men me don't wish dead as dis yer possom! Pepperillsone, and him's tudder."

  Pomp, having made this explanation, walked softly to the bedside. He hadnot before perceived that Penn, lying so still there, was awake. Hisfeatures lighted up with intelligence and sympathy on making thediscovery, and finding him free from feverish symptoms.

  "Well, how are you getting on, sir?" he said, feeling Penn's pulse, andseating himself on one of the giant's stools near the bedstead.

  "Where am I?" was Penn's first anxious question.

  "I fancy you don't know very well where you are, sir," said the negro,with a smile; "and you don't know me either, do you?"

  "I think--you are my preserver--are you not?"

  "That's a subject we will not talk about just now, sir; for you mustkeep very quiet."

  "I know," said Penn, not to be put off so, "I owe my life to you!"

  "Dat's so! dat ar am a fac'!" cried Cudjo, approaching, and wrapping thewarm opossum skin about his naked arm as he spoke. "Gorry! me sech abrute, me war for leavin' ye dar in de lot. But, Pomp, him wouldn't; sowe toted you hyar, and him's doctored you right smart eber sence. He ara great doctor, Pomp ar! Yah!" And Cudjo laughed, showing two tremendousrows of ivory glittering from ear to ear; capering, swinging the opossumskin over his head, and, on the whole, looking far more like a demon ofthe cave than a human being.

  "Go about your business, Cudjo!" said Pomp. "You mustn't mind hisfreaks, sir," turning to Penn. "You are a great deal better; and now, ifyou will only remain quiet and easy in your mind, there's no doubt butyou will get along."

  Many questions concerning himself and his friends came crowding toPenn's lips; but the negro, with firm and gentle authority, silencedhim.

  "By and by, sir, I will tell you everything you wish to know. But youmust rest now, while I see to making you a suitable broth."

  And nothing was left for Penn but to obey.