Eveline Mandeville The Horse Thief Rival

CHAPTER XX.

THE TA­BLES TURN­ING.

When Duf­fel left the Cave, as shown in the pre­ced­ing chap­ter, he went im­me­di­ate­ly to the place where he had ap­point­ed to meet Bill and Dick, boil­ing over with rage all the way, and “breath­ing out vengeance” on the head of Eve­line. He had en­tered her room so con­fi­dent of tri­umph­ing, that the hu­mil­ia­tion of de­feat was ten­fold greater than if he had doubt­ed of suc­cess. And then the degra­da­tion to which he had been forced to abase him­self! The very re­mem­brance of it set his blood to boil­ing! He cursed him­self for his cow­ardice; he cursed Eve­line for her man­ifes­ta­tion of courage and for ev­ery­thing else she had done. To be forced to kneel and beg his life of a wom­an! and that wom­an his own pris­on­er, on his own terms, in his own dun­geon! The thought burned in­to his very soul! and the more he thought the fiercer be­came his wrath.

In this frame of mind he reached the ren­dezvous, and found his ac­com­plices await­ing his ar­rival, for they had work of their own on hand and did not wish to be de­tained too long by their old lead­er but now se­cret foe.

“I'm glad to find you here,” he said, as soon as he came up, and his tools saw in a mo­ment that some­thing un­usu­al had hap­pened or some ex­traor­di­nary work was to be done.

“We are al­ways punc­tu­al,” Bill replied.

“And it is well you are this time; for there is work to do im­me­di­ate­ly. I want you to col­lect to­geth­er as many of the mem­bers of the League as can be found, and as­sem­ble them in the cave by mid­night.”

“Why, what in the world has hap­pened?” in­quired Bill in some alarm, lest his own scheme should be frus­trat­ed by these demon­stra­tions on the part of Duf­fel.

“Not much of any­thing; in­deed I may as well tell you at once, that this move­ment has ref­er­ence to Miss Man­dev­ille. I have just re­turned from the cave where I called up­on her, and from her ob­sti­na­cy and a num­ber of hints thrown out, I am ful­ly per­suad­ed she ex­pects de­liv­er­ance from some quar­ter; and I am de­ter­mined to put an end to such an­tic­ipa­tions with­out fur­ther de­lay. I think the soon­er she is con­quered the bet­ter. I should have pro­ceed­ed to ex­tremes at once, but I wished to per­suade her in­to a vol­un­tary mar­riage, so that I might come in for the old man's mon­ey; but she has found some means of arm­ing her­self and is firm­ly bent on hav­ing her own way, while I am as ful­ly re­solved she shall not. But I must have a dip in­to the old gen­tle­man's purse; that's an­oth­er fixed fact; and so I am go­ing to mar­ry the girl whether she will or not; and I want you, Bill, to act the par­son. I know you can do it. Dis­guise your­self and--. But you know all the de­tails as well as any rev­erend pas­tor in the land. Do it up right, and give each of us a cer­tifi­cate in due form, so that it will stand in law; and you shall be lib­er­al­ly re­ward­ed; yes, and pro­mot­ed, too. You shall not serve me for noth­ing. Come, now, away as fast as pos­si­ble to get the men to­geth­er, and re­port to me at mid­night pre­cise­ly, in this place.”

Duf­fel had man­aged to smoth­er his wrath dur­ing the brief mo­ments he was giv­ing his or­ders; but no soon­er had the seem­ing­ly pli­ant tools of his will left, than he again foamed over, and pac­ing back and forth, con­tin­ued his curs­ing, as though he would spend his im­po­tent fury in blas­phe­my.

Bill and Dick start­ed off, as if in the most cheer­ful man­ner and with the great­est alacrity they would do their lead­er's bid­ding. But no soon­er had they reached a safe dis­tance than they be­gan to con­sult how they were to man­age this new and un­looked for phase of af­fairs, which seemed des­tined to un­der­mine all their for­mer ar­range­ments and to over­throw their en­tire cal­cu­la­tions and plans. But Duf­fel could not be more de­ter­mined to avoid de­feat than they were, and they set down the thwart­ing or over­reach­ing him as the first ob­ject to be ac­com­plished. Bill re­flect­ed awhile, and then said:

“I think we can man­age it. In­stead of go­ing af­ter the men, you must get three hors­es ready for our im­me­di­ate de­par­ture, while I go and pre­pare the la­dy for the jour­ney. We must en­deav­or to have ev­ery­thing ar­ranged by eleven o'clock, so as to be sure of suc­cess.”

“But how are we to man­age Duf­fel?”

“Leave him to me; I can do that part of the busi­ness ef­fec­tu­al­ly, I think.”

With this un­der­stand­ing, the ras­cals part­ed, each to car­ry out his part of the work for the evening and night; and they had but lit­tle time in which to work, for the af­ter­noon was far ad­vanced, and they had many miles to trav­el, in or­der to ac­com­plish their ends.

Be­fore pro­ceed­ing to the cave, Bill sat down and dat­ed and signed a note, al­ready writ­ten, which he fold­ed and ad­dressed to 'Squire Williams, and pro­cured the ser­vice of a lit­tle boy to car­ry it to him. We shall here­after learn its im­port and ob­ject.

When he reached the cave it was al­ready night. He found the sen­tinel in a very un­easy mood, and very anx­ious to get off till morn­ing, to car­ry out some de­sign of his own. He had en­gaged a mem­ber to take his place, but from some cause he had not ar­rived. Bill glad­ly as­sumed the post, and in a few min­utes was alone with his thoughts and plans.

When as­sured that the oth­er was far enough away, he closed the door to the cave and locked it. Then, go­ing to the ar­mory, he se­lect­ed sev­er­al braces of the best pis­tols, and se­cured them about his own per­son, for his and Dick's fu­ture use. He next opened the mon­ey-​chest, and took from it all the gold that had been col­lect­ed since the last di­vi­sion, some two thou­sand dol­lars in all. This he fas­tened in a belt worn next to his per­son. Af­ter mak­ing ev­ery oth­er ar­range­ment about the room ac­cord­ing to his wish­es, he went to the mag­azine and brought out all the pow­der it con­tained, and so placed the kegs and oth­er ves­sels con­tain­ing it, as to se­cure the great­est amount of de­struc­tive force from the whole. All these he then con­nect­ed by trains of the ex­plo­sive ma­te­ri­al, which were unit­ed in one wider one lead­ing out at the door of the cave.

These prepa­ra­tions made, he went to ap­prise Eve­line of their readi­ness for de­par­ture, in­tend­ing while she was mak­ing the few prepa­ra­tions nec­es­sary for start­ing, to go out and see af­ter Dick.

When he opened the door to the cap­tain's room, he was struck with the pro­found still­ness which ev­ery­where per­vad­ed the place. No Eve­line was there; but he re­mem­bered hav­ing seen the door to the small room open on a for­mer oc­ca­sion, and sup­pos­ing her to be with­in, went and rapped on the door, at first gen­tly. No an­swer. Then loud­er, and loud­er. All was still. He called her. No re­sponse came. Won­der­ing if she was asleep, or what could pre­vent or de­ter her from an­swer­ing his call, he pro­ceed­ed to break open the door. This he suc­ceed­ed in do­ing, af­ter con­sid­er­able ef­fort; but when he per­ceived she was not there, his sur­prise and as­ton­ish­ment were un­bound­ed. He knew not that while he was rob­bing rob­bers, and plac­ing pow­der for the de­mo­li­tion of the cave, she had left its dis­mal precincts by a way un­known to him or Duf­fel, and was now far away in the wilder­ness.

“Where is she? What does it mean?”

These ques­tions he put to him­self, but could not an­swer. A thou­sand con­jec­tures rushed through his brain; but no sat­is­fac­to­ry clue to the mys­tery was hit up­on. Had Duf­fel de­ceived them? No, his anger and earnest­ness were too re­al for that. Had she oth­er friends? Had not the sen­tinel turned traitor, and hav­ing lib­er­at­ed the pris­on­er, was anx­ious to get away, lest his per­fidy should be dis­cov­ered, or to gain a re­ward for his treach­ery? This, though hard­ly prob­able, was the most plau­si­ble sup­po­si­tion, and Bill con­clud­ed to act up­on it. He was re­solved to car­ry out his plans in, all their de­tails; ex­cept that Eve­line could not be tak­en with them; for he was not go­ing to yield up his stolen gold, nor forego his re­venge on Duf­fel.

Look­ing at his watch, in the midst of these per­plex­ing re­flec­tions and strength­ened re­solves, he saw that it was time for him to be off to see Duf­fel, as the place of meet­ing was some ten miles from the cave, and a part of the dis­tance had to be gone over on foot. He reached the spot about the hour ap­point­ed, and found the mis­cre­ant al­ready there, im­pa­tient­ly await­ing his ar­rival.

“What suc­cess?” in­quired Duf­fel, the mo­ment he came up.

“None at all, your hon­or.”

“How?”

“Bad news, _very_.”

“What?”

“I fear there is trea­son in the League. The doors of the cave are all open, even to the in­ner door of the in­ner room, and no liv­ing per­son is with­in its walls!”

Duf­fel was speech­less with sur­prise and ter­ror, the as­ton­ish­ing in­tel­li­gence seem­ing to par­alyze all his pow­ers; at last he made out to loosen his tongue and queried:

“She is gone, then?”

“Yes, and the sen­tinel, too!”

“Then we are be­trayed! What shall we do?”

The ter­ri­ble news Bill brought, com­plete­ly un­manned Duf­fel, and his pres­ence of mind en­tire­ly for­sook him; hence his last query, which was pro­pound­ed with all the im­be­cil­ity of help­less­ness.

“I'll tell you what I am go­ing to do,” said Bill; “and that is, leave this part of the coun­try as speed­ily as pos­si­ble.”

“But won't the of­fi­cers be up­on us im­me­di­ate­ly?”

“No; if at all, not be­fore to-​mor­row. We can make our ar­range­ments to-​night, lay in the swamp all day, and leave to-​mor­row night. You have a horse al­ready pre­pared in the swamp; I would ad­vise you to go home with­out a mo­ment's de­lay, and make all nec­es­sary prepa­ra­tions for your jour­ney, and be back in the vicin­ity of your horse be­fore day­light, or as soon af­ter as pos­si­ble; and to-​mor­row night we can set out for the cave in the south-​west.”

“I be­lieve your plan is a good one; but when shall we meet again?”

“Not un­til we get away from this sec­tion of coun­try; per­haps not un­til we reach our ul­ti­mate des­ti­na­tion. But we have no time to lose, all de­pends up­on dis­patch, and we had best be about our prepa­ra­tions. Good-​by, cap­tain.”

“Good-​by, my fine fel­low. I thank you for your ad­vice, and hope that when we meet again it will be un­der more cheer­ing skies, and with brighter prospects be­fore us. Good-​by.”

And thus they part­ed, to meet again--where?

Bill has­tened back to the cave, where he found Dick in wait­ing with the hors­es. In as few words as pos­si­ble, Bill ex­plained to his con­fed­er­ate how mat­ters stood, and what mea­sures he had tak­en; then send­ing Dick back some dis­tance with the an­imals, he laid a long train of pow­der from the cave out­ward, and at the far­thest ex­trem­ity placed a can of the ex­plo­sive com­pound, where­in he had ad­just­ed a slow match, to which he now set fire, and then has­tened away with Dick to a place of safe­ty.

Duf­fel, as we have seen, was thor­ough­ly alarmed by the in­tel­li­gence com­mu­ni­cat­ed by Bill; and like all who de­pend more on stratagem than on courage, he cow­ered be­fore the dan­ger which seemed to stare him in the face. The sud­den­ness of the an­nounce­ment had not a lit­tle to do in pro­duc­ing the re­sult; but when on his way home from the in­ter­view, af­ter hav­ing more time to con­tem­plate the calami­ty and his own sit­ua­tion, his fear did not abate. Ev­ery lit­tle noise star­tled him, and his mind was con­stant­ly ha­rassed with the idea that of­fi­cers of jus­tice were af­ter him. One cause of his trep­ida­tion may be traced to the fact of his many and fear­ful crimes; he knew how deeply he had in­volved him­self in guilt by the ab­duc­tion of Eve­line and the mur­der of her lover, as he be­lieved, at his own in­sti­ga­tion and com­mand; and he felt well as­sured, now that his in­tend­ed vic­tim was at large, she would not be slow to act with vig­or for his ap­pre­hen­sion and pun­ish­ment. He knew full well, too, that Mr. Man­dev­ille, when once his eyes were opened, would pur­sue him with un­flag­ging en­er­gy and tire­less per­se­ver­ance, un­til his crimes were du­ly ex­pi­at­ed to the full ex­tent of the law. With such knowl­edge and re­flec­tions for com­pan­ions, well might the guilty wretch quake with fear. If “con­science makes cow­ards of us all,” how much more so _him_, reek­ing as he was with blood and crime!

Notwith­stand­ing all his fears, he reached home in safe­ty, made a few hasty prepa­ra­tions for his jour­ney, placed his ef­fects left be­hind in as good or­der as the short­ness of the time would al­low, gave them in charge to his ser­vant, with such or­ders for their dis­pos­al as pleased him, and then start­ed for the swamp, which he reached about day­light, and in­to which he plunged with as much plea­sure as ev­er a hunt­ed fox en­tered its se­cure bur­row. Though still very un­easy, he breathed more freely than be­fore since re­ceiv­ing the un­wel­come tid­ings from Bill.

* * * * *

'Squire Williams was seat­ed in his easy chair af­ter the labors of the day, qui­et­ly en­joy­ing him­self in a train of dreamy re­flec­tions, when he was aroused from his state of lan­guor and but half wake­ful­ness by a knock at the door. Feel­ing tired, he did not get up to open for the vis­itor, but in the old fash­ioned style, re­quest­ed the knock­er to “come in.”

A neigh­bor­ing boy en­tered, and hand­ed him a let­ter, say­ing:

“The man who gave me the let­ter for you told me to tell you, you had bet­ter read it im­me­di­ate­ly.”

“In­deed! Then it must be of some im­por­tance,” said the 'Squire as he opened the doc­ument. It read as fol­lows:

"'SQUIRE WILLIAMS:--Hav­ing learned that you take a deep in­ter­est in the move­ments of young Mr. Duf­fel, who is sup­posed to be con­nect­ed with a body of out­laws and thieves by your­self and oth­ers, I take the lib­er­ty, though a stranger, to ad­dress a line rel­ative to the in­di­vid­ual named, which may be of some ser­vice to you in de­tect­ing him, and to com­mu­ni­ty, by pre­vent­ing his fur­ther op­er­ations.

"If you will go to the swamp, nine miles from C----, ear­ly to-​mor­row morn­ing, and watch close­ly all day and all the next night, should he not make his ap­pear­ance soon­er, you will de­tect him in the act of leav­ing the place on a horse which he has for­got­ten to pay for. I would ad­vise that you take a few con­fi­den­tial friends with you, and, if pos­si­ble, in­duce Mr. Man­dev­ille to be one of them; you will un­der­stand my rea­sons for mak­ing this re­quest in the end. Make all your ar­range­ments with great cau­tion and se­cre­cy, _and be sure to trust no one in whom you have not the most im­plic­it con­fi­dence, or you may be be­trayed_. I make this re­mark, on the sup­po­si­tion that you are not aware of the fact, that some of your neigh­bors are as­so­ci­at­ed with a class of men who do not live by law­ful av­oca­tions, but are mem­bers of an or­ga­ni­za­tion which has for its ob­ject union of strength and har­mo­ny of ac­tion among those who prey up­on com­mu­ni­ty. I would fur­ther ad­vise, that you do not go to the swamp be­fore day­light--_give him time to get in­to the trap_. I will cut the let­ter B on a beech-​tree at the south-​west­ern cor­ner of the swamp, which will be a sign and guide-​mark that you are in the right way; from that tree keep a di­rect north-​east course un­til you reach a large wal­nut tree, then turn at right an­gles with your for­mer course, and cross the marsh on the logs which you will find placed there for that pur­pose. Be­yond the marsh, or rather in the cen­ter of it, there is an is­land, which it is ex­treme­ly dif­fi­cult to reach by any oth­er route than the one point­ed out. On it you will find Duf­fel, _pro­vid­ed you are cau­tious and wary in your move­ments_. You will won­der how I am so fa­mil­iar­ly ac­quaint­ed with the op­er­ations of these bad men: with­out ful­ly sat­is­fy­ing your cu­rios­ity, let me say, that what­ev­er I may have been, I am now de­sirous of hand­ing over to jus­tice one who is deeply guilty--guilty of crimes of which even you, per­haps, have nev­er dreamed of ac­cus­ing him. On this point I have on­ly to say, you your­self came near los­ing your life in place of one of his vic­tims. I al­lude to the at­tack made up­on you by two per­sons in the 'dark pas­sage,' some weeks ago. You will re­mem­ber it! I know all, though re­veal­ing but lit­tle; and as it will be known that trea­son is in the camp of the League of Thieves, I shall leave the coun­try at once. Go to the swamp as di­rect­ed, and you will sat­is­fy your­self of all that I have told you; but let me ad­vise you to note strict­ly the di­rec­tions I give you, and be ex­treme­ly care­ful in your move­ments and choice of con­fi­dants. Yours, for law and jus­tice,

“EX LEAGUEIST.”

So soon as he fin­ished read­ing this sin­gu­lar com­mu­ni­ca­tion, the 'Squire asked the boy:

“What sort of a man was he, that gave you the let­ter?”

“He was large, with dark eyes, and sun-​burnt face.”

“You did not know him, then?”

“No, sir; he was a stranger.”

“That will do.”

The 'Squire was puz­zled to know what to do. The man might be act­ing in good faith, or he might be on­ly lead­ing him in­to a snare. Af­ter ma­ture de­lib­er­ation, he came to the con­clu­sion that his in­for­mant was not de­ceiv­ing him, and re­solved to act up­on the sug­ges­tions of the un­known writ­er, be he friend or foe.

He ac­cord­ing­ly set about mak­ing prepa­ra­tions for the ad­ven­tures of the morn­ing, with­out de­lay. By mid­night all his ar­range­ments were com­plet­ed, and he lay down to snatch a lit­tle rest be­fore set­ting out on the ex­pe­di­tion. At three o'clock in the morn­ing, the lit­tle com­pa­ny, num­ber­ing five in all, of whom Mr. Man­dev­ille was one, set out for the swamp.

Bill and Dick had scarce­ly reached a safe dis­tance from the cave, when a sound as of ten thou­sand thun­der­bolts rent the air, and the ground at the same time trem­bled as in a vi­olent earth­quake. The hors­es plunged and snort­ed, and then stood still in mute fear. The vil­lains, who were look­ing in the di­rec­tion of the cave, saw a col­umn of fire, smoke, earth, and rocks heaved up in the air--a huge mass like a moun­tain--some por­tions to the height of sev­er­al hun­dred feet, and then fall again with a heavy crash, mak­ing the earth vi­brate be­neath them. They knew then that the cave was in ru­ins, and its place oc­cu­pied by a shape­less mass of mat­ter.

The ex­plo­sion took place a lit­tle af­ter three o'clock in the morn­ing, and con­se­quent­ly but a few min­utes af­ter 'Squire Williams and his par­ty had set out for the swamp. They heard it, and felt the quiv­er­ing of the earth, though twen­ty-​five miles dis­tant, and for a mo­ment paused in alarm, ful­ly be­liev­ing it was an earth­quake. But as no rep­eti­tion of the sound or shock took place, they con­clud­ed the dan­ger was past, and pro­ceed­ed on their way.

Duf­fel al­so heard the re­port and felt the shak­ing, and it filled him with alarm. He was near­ing the swamp at the time, and for a lit­tle while hes­itat­ed to pro­ceed, but fi­nal­ly did so, ar­riv­ing at the same con­clu­sion as did the par­ty in his rear.

It be­came the gen­er­al be­lief in the neigh­bor­hood, and for forty miles around the cave, that the noise and its ac­com­pa­ni­ments were to be at­tribut­ed to a ver­ita­ble earth­quake; and we be­lieve a re­port to that ef­fect fi­nal­ly went the rounds of the press.