Joscelyn Cheshire Part 18

Peter paused a moment and crossed himself reverently, saying in a loud voice, "Your bodies to the earth, your souls to G.o.d's care; and may you pa.s.s to liberty in the folds of the in-rolling fog."

"Pa.s.s to h.e.l.l and the devil! Get on, I say!" cried the guard, angrily, as he struck Peter across the shoulders with his bayonet. And Peter, having said his say, ran nimbly to the boat; and pushing it off, they leaped in, and were soon toiling amid the breakers to reach the ship's side.

It seemed to Richard that long months pa.s.sed while he lay motionless under that weight of sand, breathing spasmodically through the bit of reed. The drift-boards kept the pressure partially from his chest so that he suffered very little. The guard's bayonet had grazed his leg without piercing it, but the thirst in his throat was something terrible. Peter's voice had penetrated through the boards and their thin covering of sand, so that he knew the fog was following the wind from the sea. It was for this he had hoped, and it was this Peter meant to tell him in those last words. Dear old Peter; how he had tried to dissuade him from this mad plan, and when that was impossible, how he had risked his own safety to aid him. Richard felt the tears on his face as he recalled his friend's unselfish offices. Several times during the wait for a stormy day he had been on the point of giving up the whole plan, lest it work a mischief for Peter; but the latter had said it would mean only a day in irons for him, and that he was willing to risk that much for his friend's liberty; it was for Richard himself that he feared. But even death had a smiling face for Richard, compared to a winter spent in the vile ship; and so the plan had gone on, and by Peter's care he was lying here in his grave, accounted of the world as dead.

By and by his limbs began to cramp and ache. Through strong will power he had kept them rigid during those terrible moments of examination and removal from the ship. He would not have dared a.s.say the plan had he not known how superficial, through repet.i.tion, had become the warden's inspection of the corpses--just a few questions and that savage kick.

Each time there had been a death during the past fortnight, he had studied the details of the preparation and burial, until he was convinced that he could carry his scheme to a successful close if only Peter was allowed to be one of his s.e.xtons.

As the minutes now pa.s.sed, the ache in his limbs increased, for the pressure of the sand was stopping the circulation. Then the dryness in his throat grew and grew, until he could bear it no longer. Had he lain there a year, or only a day? Slowly and cautiously he drew his hands up to his breast, then higher, and finally placed the palms against the board over his head. The first movement brought the sand in a shower upon his shoulders; but after a while he worked it far enough back to leave a crack between it and its fellow. This he could only feel, for knowing the sand would strangle and blind him, he had not as yet taken the blanket from his face, since moving it ever so little to receive the reed into his mouth. Next, he slowly pushed the other board downward until a rush of cold air told him he was once more in the world of humanity, not forever sealed in the haunt of ghouls. Cautiously he shoved the blanket from his face and looked up into the storm-hung heavens. It was mid-afternoon, and he had thought it must be midnight.

Eagerly he drew in the air, cool and laden with moisture, and tried to forget his aching limbs. He dared not stir yet lest the patrol should see him. He must wait; and while he waited, how the moments lagged!

The wind had fallen, but the waves still thundered on the sh.o.r.e, and the lightning now and then raced along the clouds. Afraid to raise his head, he could only lie still and stare straight above him into the square of mist and clouds. With a great throb of joy he watched the gloom deepen.

He had not heard the sunset gun from the station down the beach, but the fog would befriend him; so when he could no longer bear the straitened position, he lifted his head and shoulders and looked around. The fog was everywhere; scarcely could he see the tumultuous waves that shattered themselves along the sand. He need wait no longer, no one could see him now; and painfully and carefully he finally drew his stiff limbs from under the sand. To stand at full length was not to be thought of, but he rolled over and rubbed and stretched himself until the cramp was relieved. Then he set himself to fill in and round up his vacated grave; for Peter's sake he must do this, that no suspicion might be aroused when the funeral boat brought its next cargo ash.o.r.e. Swiftly he worked, using a piece of the drift-board for a shovel, and crawling from head to foot to be sure that all was right. His heart was full of grat.i.tude when at last it was finished, and, with a sigh of relief, he threw the board aside and stood up straight,--a free man.

But at this moment something came out of the fog from the sh.o.r.e side, and as he steadied himself upon his feet, he found himself face to face with a man.

CHAPTER XVII.

OUT OF THE SHADOW AND INTO THE SUN.

"O G.o.d, it is a fearful thing To see the human soul take wing In any shape, in any mood."

--BYRON.

For one awful minute neither man moved; then the patrol, with the horror in his face as of one who looks upon a thing of another world, gave a hoa.r.s.e scream which was swallowed up in the roar of the sea. Richard did not know what an uncanny sight he made rising up from that grave with his hair unkempt, his face like ashes, and a burial cloth still bound about his jaws. He comprehended only that detection threatened, and detection meant death. With one bound he cleared the grave between them, and grappled with the guard. Under other circ.u.mstances he would have been no match for the man, starved and weak as he was; but desperation--that fierce, mad desire to live--gave him strength. It was not so much he as that aroused demon within him that gave back the patrol's blows, struck the gun from his hands, and finally gripped him about the throat. Not a word was said, not a cry was uttered, as they tossed and swayed backward and forward, to the right or left, sank on one knee and rose again to stagger and struggle anew. If Richard could keep that strangling hold, the fight was his, and with it the liberty for which he longed; if the other man could break it, then life would pay the forfeit. Doggedly he hung on, though his fingers strained and his head reeled, while the other beat him about the body and shoulders with blows that began to lose their force, for that iron grip upon his windpipe was telling at last. Richard was literally choking the life out of him. Backward he went--backward--until the muscles in his chest swelled, and the joints of his back and shoulders cracked--still backward, with everything dark before him. Then suddenly his knees collapsed, and he went down to the sand in a shapeless huddle. But even then Richard did not let go his hold; deeper, and yet deeper his fingers sank into the flesh under them, until not a quiver was left in the insensible limbs. Then finally he stood up and looked upon his work.

G.o.d! he had committed murder.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "FOR A LONG MINUTE HE STOOD THERE, TREMBLING, HORROR-STRICKEN."]

For a long minute he stood there, trembling, horror-stricken; then the self within him cried out, and he roused up to thought and action. That dead body would tell its own disastrous tale when the relief watch came; should he bury it here in his own grave? Yes, that cheated sepulchre should have its inmate; and he reached for the board. But no; there would not be time; it would take hours to hide it, trembling and weak as he was, something else must be done, something quick. Should he run for the dunes and leave it where it lay? If found thus, search would be made for the slayer; he would be setting the watch upon his own track.

He pressed his hands helplessly to his temples, staring meanwhile upon the horror there at his feet. Then suddenly the explanation came: the man's beat ended on a rock that dropped sharply into the water; he knew, for he had noticed when he came ash.o.r.e before with the funeral boat.

If he could throw the body down there, it would be thought the man had walked off in the fog and gloom; no suspicion would be aroused, and he would be free from pursuit.

Shivering at the contact, he seized the body and dragged it along over the sh.e.l.ls and pebbles. Once or twice he lost his bearings in the short journey, but a rising wind blew out trailing lengths of fog before him and, aided thus, in a little while he reached his goal. But he could not see the body enter the water; it would be like a second murder, and so with eyes close shut he pushed it off and groaned in his soul to hear the splash that came from below.

"G.o.d bear witness that I did not want his blood upon my hands!"

Then he looked away to the dunes and took one step toward them. But the gun--it lay yonder by the graves; he might as well have left the body itself there. Hastily he returned, smoothed over the sand where the struggle had fallen, and seizing the man's gun and hat, he sped again to the rock, placing them near the ledge, that they might seem to have been dropped there in an attempt at self-preservation. Then he was free to go. Into the fog he plunged, making for where the sand-dunes rose; and as he tottered down into the underbrush beyond, he heard the sunset gun from the station boom out through the mist. He had lived a whole lifetime in the last half hour.

It had been his plan to cross the island and seek some means of escaping to the Jersey coast from the south-side villages, but the fog hid everything, and he seemed walking in a circle. He was weak from excitement and lack of food, and after stumbling blindly onward for a while, he turned to the left and kept on a parallel with the coast, the boom of the surf being his guide; but always he kept the sound far enough away to avoid the sentinels from the patrol. The fog had turned into a rain, cold and depressing, and so after walking an hour or two he was willing to risk something of danger for food and rest. He had pa.s.sed several houses but had kept aloof through fear; now, however, he bent his steps to a tiny light burning ahead.

It was a fisherman's cottage close to an inlet that jutted in from the bay, and as good fortune would have it the old man, detained by the storm, was just getting home. Even in the little harbour the swell was unusually strong, and the man was having much difficulty in beaching his boat, so that Richard's aid was most timely.

"Who are you, my friend?" the fisherman asked, when everything was snug and taut.

"A traveller who has lost his way."

The old fellow squinted his eyes for a closer look. "A traveller? Well, 'tis enough; we never ask names, my old woman and I, for in such days as these a man's name is ofttimes his most secret possession. We know not the rights of this war, and so we take no sides, but pray that justice may conquer. Now, how can I pay you for your help?"

"By giving me food and shelter."

"That will I, for without you I should have lost my whole day's take and that had been a terrible mishap. Fry an extra fish, mother," he called into the cottage.

"Ay, two of them, good mother. I pray you; for I am as a ravening wolf seeking what I may devour," Richard said, putting his head in at the door; and his voice was so bonny that the old woman filled the skillet with a lavish hand. And in that firelit hut he ate the first palatable meal he had had since Monmouth day. Then he set himself artfully to persuade the fisherman to take him down the Sound in his boat.

"Nay, I never go now, the journey is too much for me; and besides I must go to-morrow to the camp to sell my fish. But the soldiers go and come between here and New York every day; if you will come with me to the camp, I will get you company."

But Richard evaded the invitation. After a while the old woman said: "There is Dame Grant who lives just over the inlet, she goes down the Sound day after to-morrow to see her people,--she hath recently heard that her niece hath a new baby (a fine girl weighing ten pounds in its skin and to be named for the dame), mayhap you could find pa.s.sage with her."

But again Richard shook his head, shuddering inwardly at the thought that the old woman might recognize him and be tempted by the standing reward for escaped prisoners to give him again into captivity. He would find some other way, he said, and talked of the fishing in the Sound.

When the old man's pipe was smoked out they went to bed, and in spite of that haunting scene beside the wind-swept graves, Richard slept profoundly through the night hours. Waking before the old couple in the gray morning, he crept down from the loft, and raking together the coals upon the hearth, he breakfasted on the remains of last night's supper, then stole out into the wet and sombre world.

How sweet it was to breathe the early air and feel the earth beneath his feet, and have the weeds and underbrush rap him about the knees as he pushed away to the interior! The fisherman's hut was a league behind him when he saw the east redden with the rising sun, for the besom of the storm had swept the heavens clear. What a wonderful light threaded the woods and glorified the tree-tops, sparkling and changing with every motion of the boughs! Often he had seen it among his native Carolina hills, this opaline opening of the morn, but never before with such a thrill of appreciation, such a rush of exquisite joy.

"Good morning, Joscelyn; I am a free man to-day." And he bowed as though he had been in a ball-room, and picking a bit of blossom that nodded at him, he stuck it jauntily in his ragged coat.

If it had not been for that dead face playing hide-and-seek always among the bushes about him, he could have whistled as he walked. Now and then he sighted houses and cultivated fields, but he kept to the woods; not until he reached the sea on the other side of the island would he venture to show his face at a door. There were wild grapes in the thickets and sweet beach ma.s.s to eat; and a little past noon he found a late melon in the weeds of a fence corner, and feasted like a lord.

But half a mile farther on, his pleasure was forgotten in a keen excitement, for from a slight eminence, he saw the plain stretching to the right and left white with the tents of soldiery; and not ten paces from him a sentinel, with his back this way, sat on a fallen tree and read a letter. A few more steps, and he would have been in the hornets'

nest,--a helpless captive. Instantly he dropped upon his knees, and crawled into the brush as stealthily as a creature of the jungle. He had evidently come too far west in his flight, for this was a part of Clinton's army, quartered here within easy reach of New York. Far away to either side the tents reached, dotting the whole expanse of country.

To turn either wing looked like an impossibility; it would take him days to skirt those picket posts to the east; and on the west, he knew from what the fisherman had said that they must reach even to the hamlet whence the boats went daily to New York. To take that route meant a sure and swift destruction, since he would be thrusting himself into the very toils he longed to avoid. His one chance seemed to be a retreat the way he came, and then to beat his way to the northeast along the coast of the Sound, and get over to the Connecticut side on some fishing-boat. He would be weeks--perhaps months--longer in reaching Washington or home, but better that a thousand times than certain capture. He reasoned it all out carefully, lying under the thicket, and then lingered a few minutes to envy the unconscious sentinel his letter, for of course it was from home. How long it had been since he had heard aught of his loved ones--three weary months!

Downcast and disheartened, he returned along his own trail, and in the early twilight heard the boom of the surf ahead of him. But he had missed his way somewhat, and came out of the brush on the side of the inlet across from the fisherman's hut. He found he would have to walk an extra mile or two to get back to that shelter for the night. He sighed and turned, but just at that moment there flashed upon his sight a light from a window some fifty yards down the inlet, and on the same side with himself.

Stay; this was Dame Grant's hut, and she went to-morrow to the Jersey sh.o.r.e to visit her kin.

He did not go back around the head of the cove, but turned instead into the field before this other hut, whose friendly light was winking at him through the dusk. His resolution was taken, for good or ill.

Evidently the dame had company, for there was the sound of voices and laughter on the water front of the little house; and Richard stood still with a tingling sense of pleasure,--it had been so long since he had heard people laugh joyously and heartily, that the sound came like the echo of something loved but almost forgotten. Between a hayrick and the fence he finally lay down to wait; and while he waited he slept, for when he awoke the hut was silent, although the light still burned at the window. The chill of autumn was in the air, and he shivered as he crossed the enclosure and stood looking into the lighted room. It was a pleasant scene: the two boys slept upon a wooden bench, but the dame sat by the table, busy with a piece of bright-hued patchwork, and Richard took heart of grace that she smiled as she sewed. From his ragged boot-leg he had taken Colborn's gold piece, and now he used it to tap lightly on the small, diamond-shaped pane. The dame looked up in surprise to see a hatless man at her window; but he smiled cheerily and beckoned, holding the gold piece against the gla.s.s that she might see it. For a moment she looked at him frowningly, then the glitter of the gold won her, and she got up and opened the door.

"What want you at this hour of the night at an honest woman's house?"

"I want an honest conversation with an honest woman, therefore came I to your door, knowing where to find both. In all true faith and respect I am here; so come, good mother, ask me in. Without your bidding I will not enter, for I would not wilfully intrude upon the privacy of a lady."

He bowed low, clicking his heels as neatly as though he were her partner in a minuet.

"Go along with your fine ways," she said, but she laughed.

"No ways can be too fine for a lady." And he took her hand and kissed it with the air of a prince, clicking his heels again in that military salute.

"You young impudence! leave go my hand--you'll find it heavy enough on your ear presently. I'll warrant you have it in mind to fleece me out of something, so say your say and be done with it," but there was no real anger in her voice.

"Nay, I am no highwayman nor money beggar; for that which you do for me I will pay you well," he answered, again holding up the gold piece. "But would you not be more comfortable sitting?" He waved his hand toward the chair she had quitted, and the fine courtesy of his tone again called forth her laugh; but she took the hint and, turning, bade him enter.

"Well, where do we begin?" she said, when they were seated.