Eveline Mandeville The Horse Thief Rival

CHAPTER XVI.

EVE­LINE--THE AN­TI-​LEAGUE.

Eve­line did not sit down in supine idle­ness, and mourn over her sad fate. True, at times she gave way to her feel­ings, when the hope­less­ness of her sit­ua­tion came up­on her, as she strove to pen­etrate the fu­ture, in all its crush­ing force; and she would then weep for a time. But there was a firm­ness about her char­ac­ter and a strength of de­ter­mined res­olu­tion in her pur­pos­es, which braced her spir­it and filled her bo­som with feel­ings such as on­ly have birth and nour­ish­ment in hero­ic souls. She looked her in­tend­ed fate in the face, with the fixed pur­pose to meet and con­quer it, or per­ish in the at­tempt.

In Duf­fel's ab­sence, she had, on sev­er­al oc­ca­sions, searched the rooms of the cave in which she was con­fined, to see if there was no se­cret pas­sage which com­mu­ni­cat­ed with the out­er world. Her search had proved un­avail­ing; but in­stead of the out­let she was seek­ing, she found a small, jew­el-​hilt­ed dag­ger in a rich and cost­ly case. It struck her at once that this weapon might prove of great val­ue to her, and with much care she con­cealed it in the folds of her dress, where it was made fast. It was this dag­ger that served her so ex­cel­lent­ly in the in­ter­view with Duf­fel, record­ed in a pre­ced­ing chap­ter.

Dur­ing the in­ter­view just re­ferred to, it will be re­mem­bered how ad­mirably she sus­tained her part, and how tri­umphant­ly she thwart­ed Duf­fel in all his vil­lain­ous cal­cu­la­tions, and es­pe­cial­ly in his at­tack up­on her per­son. Af­ter the wretch was gone, and she found her­self alone, a train of sad re­flec­tions came crowd­ing in up­on her mind. Was Hadley in­deed dead? she thought--and then the cir­cum­stan­tial nar­ra­tive of the two ac­com­plices of her cap­tor arose fresh in her mind.

“Oh, my God!” she ex­claimed, “can it be that ravenous beasts fed up­on his flesh? that those arms up­on which I have leaned, and which I hoped would pro­tect me, were torn from his body? that those lips which have smiled so sweet­ly and spo­ken so hope­ful­ly and ten­der­ly, and that no­ble face and brow were gloat­ed over by howl­ing and bloody jaws! No, no; it can­not be! God is just! and the wicked shall not tri­umph.”

She tried to drive the hor­ri­ble pic­ture from her thoughts, and af­ter a time suc­ceed­ed; for she felt the ne­ces­si­ty of self-​con­trol in her try­ing sit­ua­tion, and bent all her en­er­gies to that point. Then she re­flect­ed up­on all that had tran­spired that day, and she felt that with Duf­fel there was no mer­cy. But she was not over­come by the thought. If worst come to worst, she re­solved that death should save her from the spoil­er.

As these re­flec­tions oc­cu­pied her mind, she re­mem­bered the dec­la­ra­tion of the vil­lain con­cern­ing the se­cret com­mu­ni­ca­tion be­tween the two apart­ments in which she was im­pris­oned. Un­til now it had been a source of no small con­so­la­tion to her, that, in case of an emer­gen­cy, she could re­treat to her own room, and there abide in safe­ty. But now this small com­fort was tak­en from her, and she felt how com­plete­ly she was in the pow­er of her ad­ver­sary. This feel­ing, how­ev­er, did not crush her spir­it; for she had al­ready brought her­self to the sub­lime point of mar­tyr­dom, and was pre­pared to die for virtue, rather than yield, _in any case_, to be­come the vic­tim of sin, or to the wish­es of the base wretch who hoped to con­quer her.

Life is sweet, and it will nev­er be sur­ren­dered by one who has a cor­rect ap­pre­ci­ation of its Au­thor, un­til ev­ery con­sis­tent ef­fort has been made to pre­serve it. Hence, Eve­line de­ter­mined to use ev­ery means to save her­self be­fore hav­ing re­course to this last re­sort.

As she was re­flect­ing up­on this mat­ter, the sug­ges­tion came, that, per­haps, she might find this se­cret pas­sage be­tween the two rooms, and pos­si­bly be able to fas­ten the en­trance way to her apart­ment on the in­side, and thus bar the mis­cre­ant out, who would dare in­trude up­on her pri­va­cy. Act­ing up­on the sup­po­si­tion that this idea was not be­yond the pale of pos­si­bil­ity, she com­menced a dili­gent ex­am­ina­tion of all that part of the wall of the out­er room which ex­tend­ed as far as the in­ner one; but she could find no re­sem­blance to a door, no crack in the sol­id rocks, no spot on the floor which gave the least in­di­ca­tion of what she sought. All was ap­par­ent­ly an un­bro­ken mass, through which no mor­tal or liv­ing thing had ev­er passed. She be­gan to think that, af­ter all, Duf­fel might pos­si­bly be de­ceived him­self, or else was on­ly try­ing to fright­en her. De­ter­mined, how­ev­er, if there was such a com­mu­ni­ca­tion as he spoke of, to find it, if it could be found, she went in­to the oth­er room, and com­menced the same minute search, hav­ing first locked and bolt­ed the door, so as to make cer­tain of not be­ing dis­cov­ered or in­ter­rupt­ed, un­less the in­trud­er should come by the se­cret way. Af­ter the clos­est ex­am­ina­tion of the wall, with her eyes, to no pur­pose, she com­menced try­ing the ef­fi­ca­cy of touch, press­ing her fin­gers over ev­ery por­tion of the sur­face of the room; but, as no ap­pear­ance of what she was la­bor­ing to find re­ward­ed her search, she be­gan to de­spair of suc­cess.

“If there is such a pas­sage,” she thought with­in her­self, “it is so guard­ed that none may find it, save the pos­ses­sors of the se­cret: and my on­ly hope is in sleep­less watch­ful­ness. How long I shall be able to live with­out sleep, God knows.”

In this man­ner the night was passed--night in the out­er world; for to her the night and day were alike, and she could on­ly guess as to which pre­vailed above her. She sat down to col­lect her thoughts and form, if pos­si­ble, some plan of ac­tion by which to be gov­erned. While thus en­gaged, she rec­ol­lect­ed the note she had giv­en to Bill, the mem­ory of which had been crowd­ed from her mind for the past few hours by the pres­sure of oth­er things.

“Oh, if I but knew how it would af­fect them!” she said, as she suf­fered her thoughts to dwell up­on the sub­ject. “They will cer­tain­ly see the fol­ly of trust­ing in Duf­fel, and the im­mi­nent dan­ger they are ex­posed to in his ser­vice; but will they, can they help me? I will hope even if it is vain to do so. It is a fear­ful thing to be com­pelled to throw one's self in­to the hands and up­on the mer­cy of such bad men; but God can over­rule the evil in­ten­tions of the wicked, and very bad men some­times per­form no­ble and gen­er­ous deeds.”

Ah! had she known that at the very mo­ment she was thus en­deav­or­ing to con­sole her­self, Bill was tak­ing an im­pres­sion of the lock to the door of the out­er room, for the pur­pose of tak­ing her to an­oth­er prison, far­ther from home and hope than the one she was now con­fined in, how the lit­tle hope from that source would have died in her bo­som!

Af­ter re­main­ing for some length of time in a state of at­tempt­ed re­pose, her mind, the while, com­plete­ly ab­sorbed in con­tem­plat­ing her own sit­ua­tion, she fi­nal­ly con­clud­ed to go out in­to the oth­er apart­ment, and make an­oth­er ef­fort there, to find the en­trance, if such there was, to her own room.

She had not been thus em­ployed long, when a knock­ing at the out­er door at­tract­ed her at­ten­tion. She lis­tened a mo­ment, and then, sup­pos­ing it to be Duf­fel, was about to re­tire to the in­ner cav­ity and bar him out; but just as she start­ed to put this re­solve in ex­ecu­tion, her steps were ar­rest­ed by hear­ing her own name called in a voice not like Duf­fel's. She in­stant­ly paused, and the call was re­peat­ed:

“Miss Man­dev­ille! If you are present and hear me, please step to this door and look in­to the key­hole. It is a friend, who will aid you, that is now ad­dress­ing you.”

With a beat­ing heart, she quick­ly reached the door, and from the place des­ig­nat­ed drew a small, com­pact roll of pa­per. On it were traced some lines by one who was ev­ident­ly a high­ly ac­com­plished pen­man. She has­tened to ex­am­ine the pur­port of the bil­let, which read as fol­lows:

“Your ap­peal to us for as­sis­tance was not made in vain. We are ful­ly sat­is­fied of Duf­fel's wicked and base in­ten­tions to­ward us, and are re­solved to thwart them. You shall be brought out of this den, and be­hold again the sun­light of heav­en. By the day af­ter to-​mor­row we will have our ar­range­ments com­plet­ed, when you may ex­pect to hear from us again. Hold your­self in readi­ness to leave this place at any mo­ment. Is this sat­is­fac­to­ry to you, fair la­dy?”

There was no name to this; but it need­ed none to tell Eve­line from whom it came. She knew it was from Duf­fel's ac­com­plices, and re­joic­ing in the suc­cess of her plan, she replied to the in­quiry at the close with alacrity:

“Yes, my good friends, this is em­inent­ly sat­is­fac­to­ry. May God bless you, as you help me.”

“Thank you for the con­fi­dence you place in us! we will en­deav­or to re­ward your ex­pec­ta­tions by de­liv­er­ing you from this dis­mal prison, at the very ear­li­est mo­ment pos­si­ble. Will you now be so good as to burn the lit­tle strip of pa­per, lest by some un­for­tu­nate ac­ci­dent it might be­tray us to our mu­tu­al en­emy, and there­by frus­trate our plans?”

“Yes, sir, I will burn it im­me­di­ate­ly.”

“Thank you. Keep up your courage, and be of good cheer.”

“Ac­cept my warmest grat­itude for your gen­er­ous aid, gen­tle­men; and be as­sured you shall not go un­re­ward­ed for the great ser­vice you ren­der me.”

“We ask no pay. The ser­vice you speak of will be most cheer­ful­ly and glad­ly ren­dered; and in your en­large­ment and the de­feat of Duf­fel, we shall be more than a thou­sand times re­ward­ed for the small ef­forts we shall be com­pelled to put forth in your be­half. And now adieu!”

“Adieu, gen­tle­men, and may Heav­en bless you, in your ef­forts on my be­half.”

It would be im­pos­si­ble to de­scribe the feel­ings of Eve­line at the close of this in­ter­view, sep­arat­ed though she was from her ex­pect­ed de­liv­er­ers by a door of adamant. She did not take time to think in­to whose hands she was about to fall; in her grat­itude and en­thu­si­asm she for­got that they were ruf­fi­ans, and clothed them in gar­ments and with the glo­ry of heroes, who for her sake risked their lives! Oh had she seen the black­ness of heart which lay at the bot­tom of their seem­ing hero­ism and no­ble deeds, how her poor heart would have grown sick, and her bright hopes gone out in mid­night dark­ness!

She re­tired to her room, bolt­ed her­self in, again read the note, then burned it, and gave her­self up to the en­joy­ment of the first de­li­cious hope that had sent joy to her trou­bled heart since the sad hour of her cap­ture. On­ly two more days, and she would be at lib­er­ty! What a joy to her de­spond­ing spir­it! Two more days, and she would be free from her fiendish per­se­cu­tor, and could fly to her par­ent, to pour the balm of con­so­la­tion in­to his rent breast, and bind up his lac­er­at­ed heart! On­ly two more days! How the thought swelled her bo­som! Alas! that from this high pin­na­cle of hope she must so soon be hurled!

From the in­ter­view Bill went out to meet Dick, whom he had left on guard, to give warn­ing if Duf­fel or oth­ers should be com­ing to the cave.

We may as well re­mark here as at any oth­er point, that the ar­range­ments of the or­der with re­gard to the cave were these: One of the num­ber was al­ways ex­pect­ed to be with­in its precincts, to ad­mit mem­bers who wished to ob­tain en­trance, ei­ther to es­cape the pur­suit of of­fi­cers of jus­tice, or to de­posit booty. If by any pos­si­ble chance this guard­ing sen­tinel should be called away, with­out be­ing able to give warn­ing of his de­par­ture from the post as­signed him, he was to leave the key in a des­ig­nat­ed spot, where any mem­ber might find it in case of need. As Bill did not wish any one to know what he was do­ing at the door, he very gen­er­ous­ly of­fered to take the sen­tinel's place for a half-​day, and per­mit him to go out and breathe the fresh air. The of­fer was glad­ly ac­cept­ed; and Bill suc­ceed­ed, to his en­tire sat­is­fac­tion, in get­ting an im­pres­sion of the lock, while on du­ty in the sen­tinel's stead.

There was, al­so, in a far cor­ner of the out­er cave, or rather, in an apart­ment by it­self, a kind of kitchen, where food was pre­pared. It was from this place that Duf­fel sup­plied Eve­line with nour­ish­ment, tak­ing her meals to her him­self, which, by the way, though am­ple and of good qual­ity, were gen­er­al­ly served up cold, or, to speak plain­ly, were left in the cap­tain's room for her to par­take of when and as she saw prop­er; for she would touch noth­ing that he brought, in his pres­ence, nor would she have done so at any oth­er time, could she have lived with­out food; it was on­ly to be pre­served from star­va­tion, that she forced her­self to eat in that cheer­less abode.

In an­oth­er part of the cave, sep­arat­ed from the main room part­ly by nat­ural and part­ly by ar­ti­fi­cial means, was a kind of mag­azine, where pow­der, lead and arms were kept. To this the men had ac­cess at any time, and al­ways re­sort­ed when in need of weapons or am­mu­ni­tion. With this brief ex­pla­na­tion, the read­er will be able to un­der­stand how things were man­aged by this band of free­boot­ers, as, al­so, some of the suc­ceed­ing por­tions of this sto­ry.

As we said, Bill left the cave and went out to see Dick, who was sta­tioned along the pas­sage-​way in the bank of the stream, to im­part to him the suc­cess of their op­er­ations thus far, and to fin­ish the de­tails of some of their ar­range­ments for the fu­ture. The two wor­thies re­mained in con­ver­sa­tion some two or three hours await­ing the re­turn of the sen­tinel; and then Bill, be­com­ing im­pa­tient, left the cave in Dick's care, and has­tened away to get his key made. A por­tion of their con­ver­sa­tion while to­geth­er will be giv­en here­after, when a third par­ty will be in­tro­duced as a lis­ten­er; a par­ty who at _once_ be­came most deeply in­ter­est­ed in their plans, and caught ev­ery word with the great­est ea­ger­ness, and with such emo­tions as may be sup­posed to ag­itate a hu­man bo­som on­ly in cas­es where life and death are pend­ing in the bal­ances.

Will the con­test be vil­lain for vil­lain? and life against life? We shall see! What, in the mean­time, will be­come of the so re­cent­ly hope­ful Eve­line? Will she be lost in the strife where mur­der­er wages war against his broth­er mur­der­er? Let us not an­tic­ipate.

Be­fore pro­ceed­ing with the di­rect thread of our nar­ra­tive, we will again glance at the ac­tion of the “An­ti-​Horse-​Thief League,” or­ga­nized, as al­ready in­ti­mat­ed, to put down the bold land-​pi­rates, whose depre­da­tions up­on prop­er­ty had be­come so un­bear­able the hon­est por­tion of com­mu­ni­ty had no al­ter­na­tive left but to “be­come a law un­to them­selves,” and by di­rect and com­bined ac­tion clear the coun­try of the host of des­per­adoes with which it had be­come in­fest­ed and over­run. Many of our aged read­ers will re­mem­ber those ex­cit­ing times; per­haps some of them can call to mind the very hour when _they_ were forced to take their ri­fles in hand and go forth to de­fend their prop­er­ty.

On the very night that Bill and Dick made their in­ef­fec­tu­al at­tempt on 'Squire Williams' hors­es, two oth­ers of the “Horse Thief League,” as the gang of thieves were chris­tened by the hon­est por­tion of com­mu­ni­ty, went on a sim­ilar ex­cur­sion in­to a dif­fer­ent neigh­bor­hood, some five or six miles away, and met with a still warmer re­cep­tion from the farmer whose stock they en­deav­ored to re­move with­out his con­sent, than did Bill and Dick in their at­tempt; for one of them was so bad­ly wound­ed as to be scarce­ly able, with the as­sis­tance of his com­pan­ion, to get away from the field and to his own home. Next day it was ru­mored that such a neigh­bor was bad­ly wound­ed, and it was very doubt­ful if he re­cov­ered. Of course the wound was ac­count­ed for on strict­ly hon­or­able grounds; but peo­ple un­der­stood the mat­ter; and when, the sec­ond day, his re­mains were borne to the tomb, peo­ple shook their heads, but kept their lips com­pressed. If his chil­dren could grow up hon­est men, the crime for which their fa­ther died should nev­er be im­put­ed to them, or cast re­proach up­on their af­ter lives. Then, too, it would not do to speak too plain­ly about a man's be­ing killed, as it might lead to un­pleas­ant con­se­quences in af­ter years, per­haps; for men were act­ing un­law­ful­ly in thus de­fend­ing their prop­er­ty with arms.

These things caused still more ac­tive and en­er­get­ic mea­sures to be adopt­ed by the An­ti-​League. A vig­ilance com­mit­tee was ap­point­ed, con­sist­ing at first of three, and af­ter­ward of five men, who were to serve one month, and then be re­lieved by oth­er five, each mem­ber tak­ing his turn, un­til all had served. The du­ty of this com­mit­tee was to keep a con­stant watch up­on the move­ments of all sus­pect­ed char­ac­ters; and when a horse was stolen, to fol­low up the thief un­til, if pos­si­ble, the of­fend­er was tak­en and the horse re­cov­ered. 'Squire Williams vol­un­teered to serve on this com­mit­tee as one of the first five, and four oth­ers joined them­selves with him. For him­self, with­out nam­ing his sus­pi­cions to any one, he kept an eye up­on Duf­fel's move­ments, re­solved, if he was guilty, to prove him so, by the col­lec­tion of such facts as would con­vict him in a court of jus­tice. The neigh­bor who was with him on the night of the at­tack be­came his com­pan­ion on the com­mit­tee, and took up­on him­self the task of watch­ing Bill and Dick. This ar­range­ment was made the day af­ter the thieves had been shot at; so that while Duf­fel was busy mak­ing his ar­range­ments with the mem­bers of the Thief League, in an­tic­ipa­tion of a speedy re­moval of the head quar­ters of op­er­ations to an­oth­er part of the coun­try, and while Bill and Dick were busy with their plans of vil­lainy, hav­ing in view the de­feat of Duf­fel and the pos­ses­sion of Eve­line, the com­mit­tee were al­so busy, en­deav­or­ing by the most ac­tive and vig­ilant ef­forts, con­duct­ed at the same time with great celer­ity, to cir­cum­vent the vil­lains; not that they knew the par­tic­ular plots and counter-​plots that were go­ing on among the com­mon en­emy, for of these they were ig­no­rant; but they were de­ter­mined to hunt them up and stop their depre­da­tions.

Thus it will be seen that the el­ements are at work; and from the de­ter­mined char­ac­ter of all the op­er­ators and their great de­sire to have things done speed­ily, we may ex­pect stir­ring times.