Mohun; Or, the Last Days of Lee and His Paladins Part 74

What was still more unfortunate to me, personally, was the fact that having followed the old soldier, I was surrounded, and made a prisoner in the same manner.

x.x.xV.

FACE TO FACE.

We had scarcely time to realize the truly disgusting fact, that we were captured at the very instant that the enemy were being driven, when the charge of the Federal cavalry was met by a hail-storm of bullets which drove them back in disorder.

For some moments the woods presented a singular spectacle. Hors.e.m.e.n flying in wild confusion; riderless animals darting madly toward the rear; the groans of wounded men tottering in the saddle as they rushed by--all this made up a wild scene of excitement, and confusion worse confounded.

General Davenant, his son, and myself had been ordered to the rear, under escort; and the old cavalier had turned his horse's head in that direction, boiling with rage at his capture, when the repulse ensued, and the Federal cavalry streamed by us toward the rear.

All at once a loud voice was heard shouting in the half darkness:--

"Halt! halt! you cursed cowards! Halt! and form column!"

The speaker rushed toward us as he spoke, mounted upon a huge black horse, and I heard the noise made by his sabre, as with the flat of it, he struck blows upon the brawny shoulders of the fugitives.

At his summons, and the blows of his sabre, the men halted, and again fell into column. Under the shadowy boughs of the woods, and in the gathering darkness, the long line of hors.e.m.e.n resembled phantoms rather than men. Near them glimmered some bivouac fires; and the flickering light illumined their persons, gleamed on their scabbards, and lit up the rough bearded faces.

"Cowardly scoundrels!" exclaimed their leader, in fierce accents, "where are the prisoners that ran into us?"

"Here, colonel. One is a general!" said a man.

"Let me see them!"

General Davenant struck the spur violently into his horse, and rode close to the Federal officer, in whom I had recognized Colonel Darke.

"Here I am, wretch!--look at me!" exclaimed General Davenant, foaming with rage. "Accursed be the day when I begat a murderer and a renegade!"

x.x.xVI.

THE CURSE.

Darke's hand unconsciously drew the rein, and man and horse both seemed to stagger back before the furious old soldier.

"General--Davenant!" muttered Darke, turning pale.

"Yes, General Davenant!--a gentleman, an honest man; not a traitor and a murderer!"

"Good G.o.d!" muttered Darke, "it is my father, truly--and my little brother! The proud face, the eyes, the mouth--and yet they told me you were killed."

"Ah! 'Killed!' Killing is a favorite topic with you!" exclaimed General Davenant, furiously; "well, kill _me_, now!--Strike your dastardly sword, or _your knife_ if you have one, straight into my breast! Murder me, I say, as you murdered George Conway!--I have a purse in my pocket, and you can rob me when I am dead. Strike! strike!--but not with the sword! That is the weapon of a gentleman. Draw your knife, and stab me in the back--the knife is the weapon of the a.s.sa.s.sin!"

And crossing his arms upon his breast, the fiery old cavalier confronted his son, with eyes full of bitter wrath and disdain--eyes which I shall never forget; for their fire burnt them into my memory.

Darke did not dare to meet them. I had listened with amazement to those words, which indicated that the Federal officer was General Davenant's son; then this sentiment of astonishment, profound as it was, had yielded to one of expectation, if I may so express myself. What I expected was a furious outbreak from the man of fierce and violent pa.s.sions, thus taunted and driven to bay by the repeated insults of the general. No outburst came, however. On the contrary, the Federal officer bowed his head, and listened in silence, while a mortal pallor diffused itself over his swarthy face. His gaze was bent upon the ground, and his brows so closely knit that they extended in an unbroken ridge of black and s.h.a.ggy hair above his bloodshot eyes. He sat his horse, in the light of the camp-fire,--a huge cavalier upon an animal as powerful and forbidding in appearance as himself,--and for more than a minute after the scornful outburst from General Davenant, Darke remained silent and motionless, with his eyes still fixed upon the ground:

Then he raised his head, made a sign with his hand to an officer, and said, briefly:--

"Move back with the column--leave these prisoners here."

At the word, the column moved back slowly; the shadowy figures were lost sight of in the darkness; General Davenant, his son Charles, Darke, and myself, were left alone beside the camp-fire.

Then the Federal officer, with a face over which seemed to pa.s.s "the shadow of unutterable things," looked first with a long, wistful, absorbed glance toward the boy Charles, his brother--lastly, toward his father.

"Why do you taunt me?" he said, in a low tone. "Will that result in any good now? Yes, I committed murder. I intended, if I did not commit, robbery. I killed--yes, I killed!--with a knife--as a murderer kills.

But I do not wish to kill you--or Charley--or this officer--or rob you.

Keep your life and your money. There is the road before you, open. Go; you are free!"

General Davenant had sat his horse--the boy Charley beside him--listening in sullen wrath. As Darke ended, the general's hand went to the hilt of his sword, and he half drew it, by an instinctive movement, from the scabbard. "Well!" added the Federal officer, in the same low tone, with a deeper flush in his cheeks, "draw your sword, sir--strike me if you think proper. For myself, I am done with murder, and shrink from it, so that, if my father wishes to kill me, I will open my breast, to give him a fair opportunity. You see I am not altogether the murderous wretch you take me for. I am a murderer, it is true, and soiled with every vice--you see I am frank--but I will not resist, if you plunge your sword into my heart. Strike! strike! While I am dying I will have time to say the few words I have to say to you!"

General Davenant shuddered with wrath still, but a strange emotion was mingled with the sentiment now--an emotion which I could not fathom.

Before he could open his lips, however, Darke resumed, in the same tone:--

"You hesitate--you are not ready to become my executioner. Well, listen, and I will utter that which may deprive you of all self-control. Yes, once more, I killed a man, and killed him for money; but _you_ made me what I was! You petted, and spoiled, and made me selfish. In addition, you hated--that man. You had hated him for twenty years. When I grew up, I found out that. If you did not strike him, you had the desire to do so--and, like a good son, I shared my 'father's loves and hatreds.' I heard you speak of--him--harshly; I knew that an old grudge was between you; what matter if I met this enemy of the family on the high-road, and, with the dagger at his throat, said: 'Yield me a portion of your ill-gotten gains!' for that money was the proceeds of a forced sale for cash, by which the father of a family was turned out of house and home! Well, I did that--and did it under the effect of drink. I learned the habit at _your_ table; wine was placed in my hands, in my very childhood, by you; you indulged all my vile selfishness; made me a miserable, arrogant wretch; I came to hang about the village tavern, and gamble, and fuddle myself, until I was made worthless! Then, when one day the devil tempted me, I committed a crime--and that crime was committed by _you_! for _you_ cultivated in me the vile habits which led me on to murder!"

Darke's eyes were gloomy, and full of a strange fire. As he uttered the last words, he spurred close to his father, tore open his uniform until his bare breast was visible, and added in accents full of vehement and sullen pa.s.sion:--

"Strike me! Bury your sword's point in my heart! I am your son. You are as n.o.ble a gentleman as Brutus was! Kill me, then! I am a murderer: but I am a Davenant, and no coward!"

From the fierce and swollen face, in which the dark eyes burned like firebrands, my glance pa.s.sed to the countenance of General Davenant. A startling change had taken place in the expression of the old cavalier.

He was no longer erect, fiery, defiant. His glance no longer darted scorn and anger. His chin had fallen upon his breast; his frame drooped; his cheeks, but now so flushed, were covered with a deep pallor.

For a moment he remained silent. The hand which had clutched at the sword hilt hung listless at his side. All at once his breast heaved, and with a sound which resembled a groan, he said, in low tones:--

"I am punished! Yes, my hatred has brought forth fruit, and the fruit is bitter! It was I who warped this life, and the tree has grown as I inclined it."

"Yes," said Darke, in his deep voice, "first warped--then, when cut down, cast off and forgotten!"

General Davenant looked at the speaker with bitter melancholy.

"Ah! you charge me with that, do you, sir?" he said, "You do not remember, then, that I have suffered for you--you do not know, perhaps, that for ten years I have labored under the imputation of that crime, and have preserved silence that I might shield your memory--for I thought you dead! You do not know that I never breathed a syllable of that letter which you sent to me on the day of my trial--that I have allowed the world to believe I was saved by a legal technicality! You have not heard, perhaps, that a daughter of Judge Conway is beloved by your brother, and that her father rejects with scorn the very idea of forming an alliance with _my_ son--the son of one whom he regards as the murderer of his brother! Oh! yes, sir! truly I have cast off and forgotten you and your memory! I have not wept tears of blood over the crime you committed--over the dishonor that rested on the name of Davenant! I have not writhed beneath the cold and scornful eye of Judge Conway and his friends! I have not seen your brother's heart breaking for love of that girl; and suppressed all, concealed every thing, borne the brand on my proud forehead, and _his_ young life, that _your_ tombstone might at least not have 'murderer' cut on it! And now you taunt me with my faults!--with my injudicious course toward you when your character was forming. You sneer and say that I first hated George Conway, and that the son only inherited the family feud, and struck the enemy of the family! Yes, I acknowledge those sins; I pray daily to be forgiven for them. I have borne for ten years this bitter load of dishonor. But there is something more maddening even than my faults, and the stain on my name--it is to be taunted to my face, here, with the charge that I struck that blow! that I made you the criminal, and then threw you off, and drove you to become a renegade in the ranks of our enemies!"

The last words of the speaker were nearly drowned in a heavy fusillade which issued from the woods close by.

"Listen!" exclaimed General Davenant, "that is the fire of your hirelings, sir, directed at the hearts of your brethren! _You_ are leading that sc.u.m against the gentlemen of Virginia! Well join them!

Point _me_, and my son, and companion out to them! Tear us to pieces with your bullets! Trample us beneath your hireling heels! That will not prevent me from branding you again in your dishonored forehead!--from cursing you as renegade, debauchee, and murderer!"