XLIII.
_THE COMBAT._
Pomp, rifle in hand, bearing a torch, led the patriots on their rapidreturn through the caverns.
"Lights down!" he said, as they approached the vicinity of the sink. "Weshall see them; but they must not see us."
They halted at the natural bridge; the torch was extinguished, and thepatriots placed their lanterns under a rock. They then advanced asswiftly as possible in the obscurity, along the bank of the stream. Inthe hall of the bats they met Carl, who had seen their lights and cometowards them.
"Hurry! hurry!" he said. "They are coming down the trees like thedevil's monkeys! a whole carawan proke loose!"
Captain Grudd commanded the patriots; but Pomp commanded Captain Grudd.
"Quick, and make no noise! We have every advantage; the darkness is onour side--those loose rocks will shelter us."
They advanced until within a hundred yards of where the shaft ofdaylight came down. There they could distinguish, in the shining cleftunder the brow of the cavern, and above the rocky embankment, the formsof their assailants. Some had already gained a footing. Others weredescending the tree-trunks in a dark chain, each link the body of arebel.
"We must stop that!" said Pomp.
The men were deployed forward rapidly, and a halt ordered, each choosinghis position.
"Ready! Aim!"
At that moment, half a dozen men of the attacking party advanced,feeling their way over the rocks down which Penn and his companions hadbeen seen to escape. The leader, shielding his eyes with his hand,peered into the gloom of the cavern. Coming from the light, he could seenothing distinctly. Suddenly he paused: had he heard the words ofcommand whispered? or was he impressed by the awful mystery and silence?
"Fire!" said Captain Grudd.
Instantly a jagged line of flashes leaped across the breast of thedarkness, accompanied by a detonation truly terrible. Each gun with itsechoes, in those cavernous solitudes, thundered like a whole park ofartillery: what, then, was the effect of the volley? The patriots werethemselves appalled by it. The mountain trembled, and a gusty roar sweptthrough its shuddering chambers, throbbing and pulsing long after thesmoke of the discharge had cleared away.
Pomp laughed quietly, while Withers exclaimed, "By the Etarnal! if Ididn't fancy the hull ruf of the mountain had caved in!"
"Load!" said Captain Grudd, sternly.
The rebels advancing over the rocks had suddenly disappeared, havingeither fallen in the crevices or scrambled back up the bank while hiddenfrom view by the smoke. The chain descending the tree had broken; thosenear the ground leaped down or slid, while those above seemed seized bya wild impulse to climb back with all haste to the summit of the wall. Afew threw away their guns, which fell upon the heads of those below. Atthe same time those below might have been seen scampering to places ofshelter behind rocks and trees.
If ever panic were excusable, this surely was. Since the patriots wereterrified by their own firing, we need not wonder at the alarm of therebels. Some had seen the flashes sever the darkness, and their comradesfall; while all had felt the earthquake and the thundering. To those atthe entrance it had seemed that these were the jaws and throat of amonster mountain-huge, which at their approach spat flame and bellowed.
"Now is our time! Clear them out!" said Grudd.
"Rush in and finish them with the bayonet!" said Stackridge. Six of theguns had bayonets, and his was one of them.
"Not yet!" said Pomp. "They will fire on you from above. We must firstattend to that. Shall I show you? Then do as I do!"
Instinctively they accepted his lead. Loading his piece, he ran forwarduntil, himself concealed under the brow of the cavern, he could see therebels in the tree and on the cliff.
"Once more! All together!" he said, taking aim. "Give the word,captain!"
The men knelt among the loosely tumbled rocks, which served at once as abreastwork and as rests for their guns. The projecting roof of the cavewas over them; through the obscure opening they pointed their pieces.Above them, in the full light, were the frightened confederates, some onthe tree, some on the cliff, some leaping from the tree to the cliff;while their comrades in the sink lurked on the side opposite that wherethe patriots were.
"Take the cusses on the top of the rocks!" said Stackridge. "The restare harmless."
"It's all them in the tree can do to take keer of themselves," addedWithers. "Reg'lar secesh! All they ax is to be let alone."
Grudd gave the word. Flame from a dozen muzzles shot upwards from theedge of the pit. When the smoke rolled away, the cliff was cleared. Nota rebel was to be seen, except those in the tree franticly scrambling toget out, and two others. One of these had fallen on the cliff: his headand one arm hung horribly over the brink. The other, in his too eagerhaste to escape from the tree, had slipped from the limb, and been savedfrom dashing to pieces on the rocks below only by a projection of thewall, to which he had caught, and where he now clung, a dozen feet fromthe top, and far above the river that rolled black and slow in itschannel beneath the cliff.
"Now with your bayonets!" said Pomp. "This way!"
There were six bayonets before; now there were eight.
"That Carl is worth his weight in gold!" said the enthusiasticStackridge.
While the patriots, preparing for their second volley, were gettingpositions among the rocks on the left, Carl had crept up the embankmentin front, and brought away two muskets from two dead rebels. These werethey who had fallen at the first fire. Both guns had bayonets. Pomp tookone; Carl kept the other. Cudjo with his sword accompanied the chargingparty; Grudd and the rest remaining at their post, ready to pick off anyrebel that should appear on the cliff.
Swift and stealthy as a panther, Pomp crept around still farther to theleft, under the projecting wall, raising his head cautiously now andthen to look for the fugitives.
"As I expected! They are over there, afraid to follow the stream intothe cave, and hesitating whether to make a rush for the tree. Allready?"
He looked around on his little force and smiled. Instead of eightbayonets, there were now nine. Penn had arrived.
"All ready!" answered Stackridge.
Pomp bounded upon the rocks and over them, with a yell which the resttook up as they followed, charging headlong after him. Cudjo,brandishing his sword, leaped and yelled with the foremost--a figurefantastically terrible. Penn, with the fiery Stackridge on one side, andhis beloved Carl on the other, forgot that he had ever been a Quaker,hating strife. Not that he loved it now; but, remembering that thesewere the deadly foes of his country, and of those he loved, and feelingit a righteous duty to exterminate them, he went to the work, not likean apprentice, but a master,--without fear, self-possessed, impetuous,kindled with fierce excitement.
The rebels in the sink, fifteen in number, had had time to rally fromtheir panic; and they now seemed inclined to make resistance. They werebehind a natural breastwork, similar to that which had sheltered thepatriots on the other side. They levelled their guns hastily and fired.One of the patriots fell: it was Withers.
"Give it to them!" shouted Pomp.
"Every cussed scoundrel of 'em!" Stackridge cried.
"Kill! kill! kill!" shrieked Cudjo.
"Surrender! surrender!" thundered Penn.
With such cries they charged over the rocks, straight at the faces andbreasts of the confederates. Some turned to fly; but beyond them was theunknown darkness into which the river flowed: they recoiled aghast fromthat. A few stood their ground. The bayonet, which Penn had first madeacquaintance with when it was thrust at his own breast, he shovedthrough the shoulder of a rebel whose clubbed musket was descending onCarl's head. Three inches of the blade come out of his back; and,bearing him downwards in his irresistible onset, Penn literally pinnedhim to the ground. Cudjo slashed another hideously across the face withthe sword. Pomp took the first prisoner: it was Dan Pepperill. The restsoon followed Dan's example, cried quarter, and threw down their arms.
"Quarter!"
gasped the wretch Penn had pinned.
"You spoke too late--I am sorry!" said Penn, with austere pity, as,placing his foot across the man's armpit to hold him while he pulled, heput forth his strength, and drew out the steel. A gush of bloodfollowed, and, with a groan, the soldier swooned.
"It is one of them wagabonds that gave you the tar and fedders!" saidCarl.
"And assisted at my hanging afterwards!" added Penn, remembering theghastly face.
Thus retribution followed these men. Gad and Griffin he had seen dead.Was it any satisfaction for him to feel that he was thus avenged? Ithink, not much. The devil of revenge had no place in his soul; andnever for any personal wrong he had received would he have wished to seebloody violence done.
The prisoners were disarmed, and ordered to remain where they were.
"Bring the wounded to me," said Pomp, hastening back to the spot whereWithers had fallen.
Stackridge and another were lifting the fallen patriot and bearing himto the shelter of the cave. Pomp assisted, skilfully and tenderly. Thenfollowed those who bore away the wounded prisoners and the guns that hadbeen captured. Pepperill had been ordered to help. He and Carl carriedthe man whose face Cudjo had slashed. This was the only rebel who hadfought obstinately: he had not given up until an arm was broken, and hewas blinded by his own blood. Penn and Devitt brought up the rear withthe swooning soldier. When half way over they were fired upon by therebels rallying to the edge of the cliff. Grudd and his men respondedsharply, covering their retreat. Penn felt a bullet graze his shoulder.It made but a slight flesh wound there; but, passing down, it enteredthe heart of the wounded man, whose swoon became the swoon of death.This was the only serious result of the confederate fire.
"I am glad I did not kill him!" said Penn, as they laid the corpsebeside the stream.
Then out of the mask of blood which covered the face of the stout fellowwho had fought so well, there issued a voice that spoke, in a strangetongue, these words:--
"_Was hat man mir gethan? Wo bin ich, mutter?_"
But the words were not strange to Carl; neither was the voice strange.
"Fritz! Fritz!" he answered, in the same language, "is it you?"
"I am Fritz Minnevich; that is true. And you, I think, are my cousinCarl."
They laid the wounded man near the stream, where Pomp was examiningWithers's hurt.
"O, Fritz!" said Carl, "how came you here?"
"They said the Yankees were coming to take our farm. So Hans and Ienlisted to fight. I got in here because I was ordered. We do as we areordered. It was we who whipped the woman. We whipped her well. I hope mygood looks will not be spoiled; for that would grieve our mother."
Thus the soldier talked in his native tongue, while Carl, in sorrow andsilence, washed the blood from his face. He remembered he was hisfather's brother's son; a good fellow, in his way; dull, but faithful;and he had not always treated him cruelly. Indeed, Carl thought not ofhis cruelty now at all, but only of the good times they had hadtogether, in days when they were friends, and Frau Minnevich had nottaught her boys to be as ill-natured as herself.
"What for do you do this, Carl?" said Fritz. "There is no cause that youshould be kind to me. I did you some ill turns. You did right to runaway. But our father swears you shall have your share of the property ifyou ever come back for it, and the Yankees do not take it."
"It is all lies they tell you about the Yankees!" said Carl. "O Pomp!this is my cousin--see what you can do for him."
Pomp had been reluctantly convinced that he could do nothing forWithers: his wound was mortal. And Withers had said to him, in cheerful,feeble tones, "I feel I'm about to the eend of my tether. So don't wasteyer time on me."
So Pomp turned his attention to the Minnevich. But Penn and Stackridgeremained with the dying patriot.
"Wish ye had a Union flag to wrap me in when I'm dead, boys! That's whatI've fit fur; that's what I meant to die fur, if 'twas so ordered. It'sall right, boys! Jest look arter my family a little, won't ye? And don'tgive up old Tennessee!"
These were his last words.
Penn and Stackridge rejoined their comrades in the fight.
"Shoot him! shoot him! shoot him!" cried Cudjo, in a frenzy ofexcitement, pointing at the rebel who had fallen from the tree upon theprojection of the chasm wall. "Him dar! Dat Sile Ropes!"
"Ropes?" said Penn, looking up through the opening. "That he!"--raisinghis gun. "But he can do no harm there; and he can't get out."
"Don' ye see? Dey's got a rope to help him wif! Gib him a shot fust! O,gib him a shot!"
The projection to which the lieutenant clung was a broken shelf lessthan half a yard in breadth. There he cowered in abject terror betwixttwo dangers, that of falling if he attempted to move, and that of beingpicked off if he remained stationary and in sight. To avoid both, he gotupon his hands and knees, and hid his face in the angle of the ledge,leaving the posterior part of his person prominent, no doubt thinking,like an ostrich, that if his head was in a hole, he was safe. The veryludicrousness of his situation saved him. The patriots reserved him tolaugh at, and fired over him at the rebels on the cliff. At each shot,Silas could be seen to root his nose still more industriously into therock. At length, however, as Cudjo had declared, a rope was brought andlet down to him.
"Take hold there!" shouted the rebels on the cliff. Ropes could feel thecord dangling on his back. "Tie it around your waist!"
Silas, without daring to look up, put out his hand, which gropedawkwardly and blindly for the rope as it swung to and fro all around it.Finally, he seized it, but ran imminent risk of falling as he drew itunder his body. At length he seemed to have it secured; but in his hurryand trepidation he had fastened it considerably nearer his hips than hisarms. The result, when the rebels above began to haul, can be imagined.Hips and heels were hoisted, while arms and head hung down, causing himto resemble very strikingly a frog hooked on for bait at the end of afish-line. The affrighted face drawn out of its hole, looked downridiculously hideous into the rocky and bristling gulf over which heswung.
"Fire!" said Captain Grudd.
The volley was aimed, not at Silas, but at those who were hauling himup. Cudjo shrieked with frantic joy, expecting to see his old enemyplunge head foremost among the stones on the bank of the stream. Such,no doubt, would have been the result, but for one sturdy and bravefellow at the rope. The rest, struck either with bullets or terror, fellback, loosing their hold. But this man clung fast, imperturbable. Alone,slowly, hand over hand, he hauled and hauled; grim, unterrified,faithful. But it was a tedious and laborious task for one, even thestoutest. The man had but a precarious foothold, and the rope rubbedhard on the edge of the cliff. Cudjo shrieked again, this time withdespair at seeing his former overseer about to escape.
"That's a plucky fellow!" said Stackridge, with stern admiration of thesoldier's courage. "I like his grit; but he must stop that!"
He reached for a loaded gun. He took Carl's. The boy turned pale, butsaid never a word, setting his lips firmly as he looked up at the cliff.Silas was swinging. The soldier was pulling in the rope, hitch by hitch,over the ledge. Stackridge took deliberate aim, and fired.
For a moment no very surprising effect was perceptible, only the manstopped hauling. Then he went down on one knee, paying out severalinches of the rope, and letting the suspended Silas dip accordingly. Itbecame evident that he was hit; he still grasped the rope, but it beganto glide through his hands. Silas set up a howl.
"Hold me! hold me!"--at the same time extending all his fingers to graspthe rocks.
The brave fellow made one last effort, and took a turn of the rope abouthis wrist. It did not slip through his hands any more. But soon _he_began to slip--forward--forward--on both knees now--his head reelinglike that of a drunken man, and at last pitching heavily over the cliff.
Some of the cowards who had deserted their post sprang to save him; buttoo late: the man was gone.
It was fortunate for Silas that he had been let down several feet thusg
radually. He was near the ledge from which he had been lifted, and hadjust time to grasp it again and crawl upon it, when the man fell,turning a complete somerset over him, fearful to witness! revolvingslowly in his swift descent through the air; still holding withtenacious grip the rope; plunging through the boughs like a mere logtumbled from the cliff, and striking the rocks below--dead.
He had taken the rope with him; and Silas had been preserved fromsharing his fate only by a lucky accident. The knot at his hips looseneditself as he clutched the ledge, and let the coil fly off as the manshot down.
Not a gun was fired: rebels and patriots seemed struck dumb with horrorat the brave fellow's fate. Then Carl whispered,--
"That vas my other cousin! That vas Hans!"
"Cudjo! Cudjo! what are you about?" cried Penn.
The black did not answer. Beside himself with excitement, he ran to theleaning tree and climbed it like an ape. The naked sword gleamed amongthe twigs. Reaching the trunk of the tall tree he ascended that asnimbly, never stopping until he had reached the upper limbs. There wasone that branched towards the ledge where Silas clung. At a glancechoosing that, Cudjo ran out upon it, until it bent beneath his weight.There he tried in vain to reach his ancient enemy with the sword; thedistance was too great, even for his long arms.
"Sile Ropes! ye ol' oberseer! g'e know Cudjo? Me Cudjo!" he yelled,slashing the end of the branch as if it had been his victim's flesh."'Member de lickins? 'Member my gal ye got away? Now ye git yer pay!"
While he was raving thus, one of the soldiers above, sheltering himselffrom the fire of the patriots by lying almost flat on the ground,levelled his gun at the half-crazed negro's breast, and pulled thetrigger.
A flash--a report--the sword fell, and went clattering down upon therocks. Cudjo turned one wild look upward, clapping his hand to hisbreast. Then, with a terrible grimace, he cast his eyes down again atRopes,--crept still farther out on the branch,--and leaped.
Silas had his nose in the angle of the ledge again, and scarcely knewwhat had happened until he felt the negro alight on his back and flinghis arms about him.
"Cudjo shot! Cudjo die! But you go too, Sile Ropes!"
As he gibbered forth these words, his long hands found the lieutenant'sthroat, and tightened upon it. A fearfully quiet moment ensued; thenliving and dying rolled together from the ledge, and dropped into thechasm. They struck the body of the dead Hans; that broke the fall; andCudjo was beneath his victim. Ropes, stunned only, struggled to rise;but, held in that deadly embrace, he only succeeded in rolling himselfdown the embankment, Cudjo accompanying. The stream flowed beneath,black, with scarce a murmur. Silas neither saw nor heard it; but,continuing to struggle, and so continuing to roll, he reached the vergeof the rocks, and fell with a splash into the current.
Penn ran to the spot just in time to see the two bodies disappeartogether; the dying Cudjo and the drowning Silas sinking as one, anddrifting away into the cavernous darkness of the subterranean river.