The Iron Game Part 30

"Well, that dog won't trouble any one now," Jack heard, and the voice made his hair rise into bristling quills.

"Barney!" he cried; "Barney Moore, is that you?"

"It is; no one else. If I'm not drunk or dreaming, that's my own Jack.

G.o.d be praised!"

"How in Heaven's name did you get here?"

"I might ask you the same question, but you have priority of query, as they say in court. I came here first to help rescue Captain Wesley Boone, and second to capture his rebel Excellency Jeff Davis."

"O my G.o.d! my G.o.d! Barney, Barney, tell me all, and tell me quickly!"

Barney told all he knew, and told it rapidly, Jack catching his arm almost fiercely, as the miserable truth began to define itself in his whirling senses. Then the meaning of the two marauders in the ladies'

apartments became plain. Jack and Barney were hurrying toward the chamber as the latter talked, Jack filled with an awful fear.

CHAPTER XXI.

THE STORY OF THE NIGHT.

Now, the timely--or untimely--appearance of Jack and d.i.c.k in the crisis of the plot came about in this way: d.i.c.k, on returning from Jack's room, had remarked, with quickening suspicion, a gleam of light under Wesley's door. Perhaps he is ill, the boy thought, compunctiously; if he were, he (d.i.c.k) ought to offer his services. He started to carry this kind thought into effect, when he heard suspicious sounds in the room. Some one was moving. He waited, now in alert antic.i.p.ation. The plaintive signal of the whippoorwill--bringing pa.s.sionate energy to Wesley--reached d.i.c.k's ears; he heard the opening of the window; then silence. Could Wesley be descending thence to the ground? He blew out his candle, drew the curtain, and cautiously raised the window. No; Wesley was not getting out. Then the sound of the Pizarro episode came dimly through the walls. He thought the dog's expostulatory growls a voice. There was someone in the room with Wesley. Perhaps it was Kate.

It wouldn't do to act until he was sure that his suspicions were a certainty. Besides, Jack had warned him not to interfere, with a mere escape on Wesley's part, unless it seemed to involve depredations upon the Atterburys. Then he heard the faint sound of the scuffle, when Wesley throttled the compromising mastiff. Should he slip over and warn Jack? He was moving toward the door, when, through the stillness of the night, a sound came up from the direction of the quarters. He ran lightly to the window again. His eyes, now accustomed to the darkness in his room, distinguished clearly in the pale starlight. He thrilled with a sudden sensation of choking. Yonder, stealing houseward from the rose-gardens, he could plainly discern two--four--six--moving figures.

Heavens, the slaves were out! There was to be a servile uprising. Now he must go and warn Jack; but he must note first whither the a.s.sa.s.sins were directing their attack. Perhaps, with the aid of Jack's pistols, they could be frightened away by a few shots from the windows. He ran noiselessly to Jack's room, to his bed, and whispered in his sleeping ear:

"Jack, make no noise; dress yourself and come. The negroes are surrounding the house, and Wesley is in mischief."

Jack was awake and in his clothes in a few seconds. He handed d.i.c.k one of the pistols, and, armed with the other, hastened toward Wesley's room. The door was open and all was silent. d.i.c.k looked in hastily, marked the open window, and exclaimed:

"He is gone! Come to my room. I know exactly where to locate them from my window; it is nearer the point they halted at than Wesley's."

Yes; figures were moving swiftly against the trellised walls that led to the kitchen. They moved, too, with the precision of people thoroughly acquainted with the place. Then some one appeared swiftly from under the shadow of the house; then three came toward it and pa.s.sed under the veranda near Wesley's window. Jack leaned far out to discover what this diversion meant. At the same instant the sounding gallopade of hoofs came from the tranquil roadway leading to the stables. The shrill whinny of horses broke on the air.

"They are mounted. There are a score of them!" Jack cried, desperately.

"We can at least keep them out of the house."

"We can, if Wesley hasn't opened the doors to them," d.i.c.k said, shrewdly.

"That's a fact. But is it sure Wesley is not in his room? Bring matches and let us examine it."

There was no sign of Wesley in the room. The cool night air poured in from the open window.

"Draw the curtain before you strike the match," Jack whispered. "We must not let a light be seen from the outside."

"But the curtains are thin, the light will shine through."

"Sh! Come here. By Heaven, it is Wesley, and he is dead! No--the devil!--it is Pizarro--dead! Kneel down and strike a match, keeping between the light and the window. One glance will be enough."

One glimpse revealed the dog with distended tongue and half-glazed eyes, but still alive. Jack loosed the band from the neck. The dog gave a convulsive thrill and uttered a plaintive moan.

"Set a basin of water down here. He may recover. Poor fellow! This was a cruel return for his kindness to Wesley," Jack said, forcing the dog's nose into the basin. He began to lap the cool water greedily. But now d.i.c.k, in the doorway, littered a cry.

"They are in the house. I hear them moving in the vestibule. Come, for G.o.d's sake, Jack! They are making for Mrs. Atterbury's apartment.

Evidently some one who knows that the family jewels are there, for what else can they want?"

The dog staggered to his feet as the two stole softly from the room.

They followed with high-wrought, loudly-beating hearts and tingling nerves. The marauders in front of them moved on like men accustomed to the house. They made, as the light footfalls indicated, straight for Mrs. Atterbury's door, which, unlike the others, fronted the length of the hall in a small vestibule sunk into the lateral wall. The invaders were thus screened from Jack and d.i.c.k when they had turned the corner, and the latter were forced to move with painful caution to get the advantage of surprise to offset superior numbers. But now a new peril menaces them. A shuffling in the long corridor behind them freezes the current of their blood. They have been caught in a trap. There are two forces in the house. They both turn and halt, silent and trembling, against the south wall and wait. The steps still advance, the sc.r.a.ping of the nailed boots tears the light matting.

"We will wait until the new-comer or new-comers are abreast," Jack breathes in d.i.c.k's ear, "and then fire a volley into them point blank."

At the instant Rosa's shriek, blood-curdling and electric, breaks from the corner. d.i.c.k is over the intervening steps in two mighty bounds, Jack at his heels and the foe in the rear following. Against the open window d.i.c.k catches the outlines of his darling in the brawny arms of Tarquin. He has the advantage of the light, and, as the ruffian retreats to the window, d.i.c.k is at his side, and in an instant deals him a stunning blow on the head. Jack, in the dim light, sees the dark figure dashing at him with the gleam of steel in his hand. He levels his weapon, three reports ring out at once, and the miserable Wesley falls with a dreadful gurgling gasp on the floor.

But there are interlopers in the rear as well! Jack turned to confront them. He realized vaguely hearing a struggle as he confronted the robbers. Ah! yes, the dog; the dog has come upon the scene. There is sound of low, fierce, growling, flying footsteps on the floor, and Jack, a.s.suring himself by a quick glance that there were no more marauders in the room, hurried to see that the front door was closed before re-enforcements could come to the invaders. But Pizarro's l.u.s.ty growls, denoting recovered strength, attracted him kitchenward, and he encountered Barney, and with Barney something of a clew to the hideous attempt. One prayer was in his heart--one hope--that Wesley had escaped; but with shuddering horror he hastened with Barney back to the scene of blood and death. The great candelabra on the mantel had been lighted, and the room was visible as in daylight. Jack halted, transfixed, horror-stricken, in the doorway. The women in hastily s.n.a.t.c.hed robes were all there, and on the floor, wailing over the dead body of Wesley, Kate sat, p.r.o.ne and disheveled, calling to him to look at her, to speak to her, as she kissed the cold lips in incredulous despair. She paid no heed to Mrs. Atterbury, to Olympia, kneeling beside her--all her heart, all her senses benumbed in the agony of the cruel blow. Jack moved to the piteous group, and, dropping on his knees, felt the lifeless pulse, and sank back, pale and shrinking, with the feeling that he was a murderer. Mrs. Atterbury turned to him, crying convulsively:

"Oh, what does it mean, Mr. Sprague? what does it mean?"

"It is a dreadful game of cross-purposes. These unhappy men believed Mr.

Davis to be in this room when they entered. They meant to capture him and carry him North."

"Ah, thank G.o.d! thank G.o.d! who carried our President away in time," and the matron clasped her hands fervently as she sank in a chair. But the sight of Kate, woe-begone, feverishly caressing the dead brother, brought the tenderer instincts back. She rose again, and, clasping her arms about the poor girl, said pleadingly:

"Let him be carried to his room; you are covered with blood."

"Ah, it is his blood, his innocent blood! Murdered, when he should have found merry."

Jack found tongue now. He was hideously calm--the frightful calm of great-hearted men, who use mirth, levity, and indolency to hide emotion.

"Miss Boone--Kate it was perhaps the shot from my pistol that killed Wesley. I did it in defense of women in peril, in defense of my own life. It was an accident in one sense. Had I known the circ.u.mstances I certainly shouldn't have fired, but you must put the blame on me, not upon this guiltless household."

She looked up at him--looked with a wild, despairing, unbelieving gaze, pressing the handsome dead face to her bosom, and then, with a wild, wailing sob, bent her head until the shining dark ma.s.s of hair fell like a funeral veil over her own and the dead face. Rosa, who had disappeared in the dressing-room, now entered the chamber. Turning from the woful group on the floor, she glanced hastily about, as if in search of some one. Her eyes fell upon d.i.c.k, dazed and bleeding, on the couch. She ran to him with a tender cry.

"O Richard! are you hurt? Great heavens! your face is all blood. You are wounded. O mamma, come--come--Richard is dying!"

The boy tried his best to smile, holding his hand over his left side, as if stifling pain. He smiled--a bright, contented happy smile--as Rosa knelt, sobbing, by his side, and, opening his jacket, baring the blood-stained shirt, plucked a purplish rose from the bleeding bosom.

"The white rose is red now, Rosa."

"Oh, my darling! my darling!" Rosa sobbed; and the boy, smiling in the joy of it, tried to raise himself to fold her in his arms. But the long tension had been too much--he fell back unconscious.

Olympia saw that Mrs. Atterbury, the natural head of the house, was unequal to the dismal burden of control. She took the painful duty of order upon herself, sent Jack to summon the servants, called Barney to her aid in removing d.i.c.k to his room, and, when the terrified housemaids came, distributed the rest to the nearest apartments. Morning had dawned when the work was done, and then Jack set out to investigate the condition of the quarters. Twenty or more of the negroes had disappeared. It was easy to trace them to the swamp, but Jack made no attempt to organize a pursuit. Blood could be traced on the white sh.e.l.l path leading to the rose-fields, and the pond gate was wide open. He reported the state of affairs to Mrs. Atterbury. She begged him to take horse to Williamsburg, bring the surgeon, and deliver a note to the commanding officer. He returned in two hours with the surgeon, and a half-hour later a cavalry troop clattered into the grounds.

d.i.c.k's wound was first examined. The ball had entered the fleshy part of his chest, just under the armpit. It was readily extracted, and, if so much blood had not been lost, the boy would not be in serious danger.

Wesley had died almost instantly. The ball entered his breast just above the heart. He had pa.s.sed away painlessly. Jones was shot through the right shoulder, the ball pa.s.sing clear across the breast, grazing the upper ribs, and lodging just above the left lung. He was, by Mrs.

Atterbury's command, removed to the quarters and delivered to the commander of the cavalry troop as a spy, an inciter of servile insurrection. By order of the department commander, civilians were refused all communication with him, as the Davis cabinet meant to make a stern example so soon as he was able to bear trial. Mrs. Atterbury announced to Jack and Olympia that so soon as d.i.c.k could bear removal the house would be closed and the family return to Richmond. They heard this with relief, for the place had become hideous to all now. To Jack it was a reminder of his misfortune, and to every one of the group it was a.s.sociated with crime, treason, and blood. The hardest part of poor Jack's burden was the seizure of Barney, who was marched off by the cavalry commander. Vincent gone, Jack had no one to reach the ear of authority, and he shrank from asking the intervention of the mistress whose home had been invaded by the guiltless culprit. The case was stated with all the eloquence Jack was master of to the captain in command.

"You are a soldier, sir," the officer replied. "You know I have no lat.i.tude in the matter. This Moore has no status as a regular prisoner of war; he is found on the premises of a non-combatant aiding servile insurrection. Even President Davis himself could not intervene. The Southern people are deeply agitated by Butler's attempts to arouse the negroes. We have been weakened, robbed by the abduction of hundreds right here on the Peninsula. The gang that Moore came here with was led by this scoundrel Jones, who is Butler's agent. A very vigorous example must be made of these wretches, or the country-side will be deserted and the government will be without produce. We must inspire confidence in the owners of plantations, or the soldiers in the army will have to come back to guard their homes."