Eveline Mandeville The Horse Thief Rival

CHAPTER XXII.

THE DIS­GUISED VIL­LAINS MEET HADLEY--THE RE­SULT--CON­CLU­SION.

As al­ready stat­ed, Bill and Dick had dis­guised them­selves in the garb of gen­tle­men, and with cer­tain dis­fig­ure­ments of coun­te­nance which com­plete­ly hid their fea­tures and ren­dered it im­pos­si­ble to iden­ti­fy them, ei­ther in their char­ac­ter of vil­lain­ous mur­der­ers, or as the ab­duc­tors, on a for­mer oc­ca­sion, of their present cap­tive. When Bill first dis­cov­ered Eve­line in the woods, he was about to make known to her that he and Dick were the friends who had promised to lib­er­ate her, but on sec­ond thought he deemed it best to keep up the dis­guise, and learn, if pos­si­ble, whether she had any knowl­edge of his re­al in­ten­tions and their ul­ti­mate des­ti­na­tion. Hence her in­abil­ity to trace the voice, which sound­ed so fa­mil­iar, to the wily vil­lain who had en­ticed her to meet Hadley for the pur­pose of plac­ing her in Duf­fel's pow­er.

Bill en­deav­ored by ev­ery in­di­rect means, not cal­cu­lat­ed to ex­cite sus­pi­cion, to draw from Eve­line the facts of her sit­ua­tion, with the view of in­form­ing him­self of her sen­ti­ments to­ward the friends who had promised her free­dom; but she kept her own coun­sels, and com­plete­ly baf­fled him in his ob­ject. He knew that the present course of de­cep­tion could not long be per­sist­ed in, as, at fur­thest, on the mor­row a de­vel­op­ment of facts must take place, or, at least, a con­tin­ued per­sis­tence in the dis­guise as to des­ti­na­tion would be im­pos­si­ble. How to make him­self known in his re­al char­ac­ter was a mat­ter which puz­zled him not a lit­tle; for he well knew from her man­ners and from the re­sis­tance she had made to Duf­fel, that it would be no easy task to force her all the way to Vir­ginia. If he could on­ly man­age to keep up ap­pear­ances un­til a cer­tain point was gained, which he hoped to reach by night on the sec­ond day, he felt pret­ty sure of fi­nal suc­cess; for he would then be on a route along which friends were nu­mer­ous, and he knew where to stop for re­fresh­ments and at what places to put up for the night. But how to reach that point was the dif­fi­cul­ty.

Af­ter be­stow­ing much thought on the sub­ject, he at last hit up­on the plan which he con­clud­ed would en­able him to ac­com­plish his ends with­out be­ing mis­trust­ed by Eve­line. His plan was sim­ply this: To give Eve­line to un­der­stand that it would be im­pos­si­ble for them to reach C---- that day; and when, on the mor­row, it should ap­pear to be time for the ter­mi­na­tion of their jour­ney, he would, in seem­ing­ly well dis­guised un­easi­ness, in­form her that they were lost in the wilder­ness! and as the day wore away, that it might be pos­si­ble they would have to re­main in the for­est all night, if they did not hap­pen to stum­ble on some set­tle­ment or lone cab­in. In this way he could gain the time de­sired; and he well knew _what_ soli­tary cab­in he would reach at night!

Poor Eve­line was again in the toils of an en­emy, and it would seem now that noth­ing but death could re­lease her from the snare in which she had un­con­scious­ly fall­en. In her sit­ua­tion, “ig­no­rance was cer­tain­ly bliss;” for while the web of fate was weav­ing so sure­ly around her, she was think­ing of home and friends with joy at heart, that soon she would re­turn to the one and be greet­ed by the oth­ers. Alas! how lit­tle knew she of the dark pur­pos­es of the vile wretch­es who were con­fid­ed in as friends!

With­out lin­ger­ing to de­scribe the par­tic­ulars of the day and night, ex­cept to men­tion that the lat­ter was spent at a first class pub­lic house, and with­out the oc­cur­rence of any note wor­thy of in­ci­dent, we will sim­ply state that Bill, who let Dick in­to his se­cret, car­ried out his plans to the let­ter; and on the sec­ond day, about noon, com­mu­ni­cat­ed to Eve­line the un­wel­come and, to her, startling in­tel­li­gence that they had missed their way and were some­what be­wil­dered, but still hoped all would come out right. All the hor­rors of her for­mer night's ad­ven­ture in the wilder­ness came up in her mind, and she shud­dered at the thought that a rep­eti­tion of its dread­ful ex­pe­ri­ence might be be­fore her, but con­cealed her feel­ings as well as she could, though Bill saw that a sud­den pal­lor over­spread her face, and that she was re­al­ly alarmed.

Bill pro­duced a pock­et com­pass, and pre­tend­ed to take di­rec­tions and shape their course from it. To­ward evening, he an­nounced the fact, that he was quite con­fi­dent they were near a se­clud­ed dwelling oc­cu­pied by an old half-​her­mit sort of a fel­low and his fam­ily, which, though af­ford­ing but poor ac­com­mo­da­tions, would be prefer­able to the for­est as a shel­ter for the night. As pre­de­ter­mined by him, they reached this des­olate look­ing habi­ta­tion, and put up for the night. See­ing that Eve­line was ill at ease, he found means to whis­per in her ear:

“Do not be alarmed at ap­pear­ances; these peo­ple are rough, but hon­est; and in any emer­gen­cy, be as­sured we will de­fend you with our lives!”

But this whis­pered as­sur­ance of de­fense had the con­trary ef­fect from what was in­tend­ed, for Eve­line at once had her fears con­firmed that there _was_ dan­ger to be ap­pre­hend­ed. She did not, how­ev­er, man­ifest her in­creased ap­pre­hen­sions of evil, but seemed as calm as pos­si­ble un­til she was shown her sleep­ing apart­ment for the night, which was a room on the first floor, with a bolt to the rude door on the in­side. She fas­tened her­self in; but in­stead of sleep­ing, put out her light, and lis­tened with sharp­ened ears to ev­ery noise that dis­turbed the still­ness of the night. She had been in her room but a lit­tle while when she was star­tled by a call from with­out:

“Hal­loo, the house!”

She wait­ed a mo­ment, and then heard the own­er go to the door and de­mand:

“Who's there?”

“A be­night­ed trav­el­er, who has lost his way, and wish­es to ob­tain shel­ter for the night.”

“The house is al­ready full of guests, and I can­not take any more.”

“Let him in;” said Bill, whose voice Eve­line rec­og­nized. “He may be worth tak­ing in, you know.”

The man then called out:

“My guests think you can be ac­com­mo­dat­ed; so you may come in, I reck­on, and share such fare and lodg­ing as we can give, which are none the best.”

“If you will show me the way to the sta­ble, I will first see to my horse,” said the trav­el­er.

The host point­ed out a shed where the beast could stand, and soon the two re­turned to the house.

The mo­ment the new-​com­er en­tered the door, Bill and Dick cast in­quir­ing glances at each oth­er; pale­ness as of death was on their cheeks, and su­per­sti­tious alarm at their hearts; for in the stranger they be­held CHARLES HADLEY! Was it his ghost come to tor­ment them in the hour of their tri­umph and se­cu­ri­ty? Sev­er­al min­utes passed be­fore they could be as­sured of his iden­ti­ty, that he was ver­ita­bly flesh and blood, and not a spir­it. It was well for them that the ob­scure light of the room cast their fea­tures in shad­ow, or their blanched cheeks and dis­qui­et looks might have be­trayed them. In a very short time they found it con­ve­nient, as on a for­mer oc­ca­sion, when seek­ing the life of the same man, to go out to see af­ter their hors­es.

“Well, Dick!” said Bill, when they were alone, “What now?”

“D----n me, ef I didn't think the dead had come to life, when I first seen that feller! He must be bul­let proof, for I placed my pis­tol plumb ag'in' him when I fired. I'm half a mind to be­lieve yet that it's his ghost.”

“But it is not his ghost, that's cer­tain, though I could have sworn that he was dead; and we must get rid of him, some way, or he'll play the d----l with us.”

“I think the best thing we can do is, to leave the gal in his care, and cut stick for Vir­gin­ny as straight as we can shoot.”

“Non­sense! We can eas­ily get old Samp­son to kill him for his mon­ey, and that will save us from any fur­ther fear of his re­veal­ing our se­cret.”

“I don't like this biz­ness of killin'; 'taint hu­man, no way you can fix it.”

“Come, Dick, don't make a fool of your­self. I want you to stand by me now, like a man.”

“I shall have noth­ing to do with killin' Hadley; you may jist put a peg there, and say no more about it.”

“Well, let me alone, then, and don't in­ter­fere with my plans, and I'll do it my­self.”

“Ef it's to be done at all, bet­ter let old Samp­son do it. I'd a good deal rather his hands should be made red with Hadley's blood than mine. The truth is, Hadley is a first rate chap, and it's a mean, cow­ard­ly act to take his life.” “Come, come! no more of that sort of talk. If you don't want to help me, just let me alone; with old Samp­son's aid, I can get along with­out you; but I don't see what has come over you, of late.”

“Well, I ken soon tell you that I'm down on this wimen biz­ness, and allers have been; and it is mean, low, dirty work--this steel­in' poor things--any way you ken fix it, and I've told you so of­ten. I don't be­lieve any good will come of it in the end, ei­ther; ef I could have my way, there shouldn't, that's cer­tain. Ef you _will_ go ahead, why, go; but I tell you no good will come of it at last. I would be glad ef you would quit now; but I'll not stand in your way, be­coz I've agreed to stand by you al­ready.”

With this un­der­stand­ing, the ras­cals re­turned to the house--if house it could be called--and very soon af­ter­ward in­ti­mat­ed that they would re­tire.

“As the stranger seems very tired,” said Bill to the host, “we will will­ing­ly re­main un­til you show him his room,” and he gave the pro­pri­etor of the premis­es a know­ing wink.

As Hadley rose to fol­low the host, he thanked the men for their kind­ness, and Dick turned away to con­ceal his feel­ings, for he was re­al­ly sick at heart, bad as he was, at the thought that so no­ble a fel­low should fall a sac­ri­fice for such a base pur­pose; and he half re­solved to give him warn­ing of his dan­ger, and save his life. While his thoughts were thus oc­cu­pied, the host re­turned, and he and Bill very soon went out to­geth­er, Dick too well knew for what pur­pose.

“Ef I could on­ly let them out and get them off safe­ly, I'd do it,” mused Dick; “but there it is, I can't do it, and it's no use tryin'.”

But notwith­stand­ing he came to this hope­less con­clu­sion, he con­tin­ued to think about the mat­ter. At last he con­clud­ed:

“Well, ef I can't do any­thing else, I ken give the feller a friend­ly word of ad­vice, jist to kinder put him on his guard, like.”

So he stepped to the door of Hadley's room, and gen­tly tap­ping it un­til he gained the oc­cu­pant's at­ten­tion, whis­pered in his lis­ten­ing ear:

“There is dan­ger about, stranger, and ef you take the ad­vice of a friend, you'll not sleep over heavy to-​night. Bet­ter have your arms ready for any­thing that may hap­pen.”

“Thank you! my friend,” whis­pered Hadley, in re­sponse.

“No thanks, stranger; I'd help you more, if I could; but my hands are kinder tied like, and if they were free, sar­cum­stances would pre­vent me from givin' you any aid.”

Hav­ing thus com­pro­mised the mat­ter with his con­science, Dick walked away, re­solved to have noth­ing to do with the af­fair. In­deed, his sick­ness of the “wimen biz­ness” was hourly in­creas­ing, and he was half tempt­ed to leave Bill, un­less he would re­lin­quish Eve­line.

While these events were tran­spir­ing, Eve­line, wide awake and ex­cit­ed by fear, con­tin­ued to lis­ten to ev­ery sound with­out, re­main­ing per­fect­ly still her­self, so that the in­mates of the house sup­posed she was sleep­ing.

We will here re­mark, that the house was a dou­ble-​cab­in, with a kitchen at­tached to one of the ends, and a sleep­ing-​room to the oth­er. The fam­ily were in the kitchen, and Eve­line was in the room op­po­site to it on the same side, but at the oth­er end of the house. The part of the cab­in lead­ing to and from the kitchen, was in one large room; but the part lead­ing to and from Eve­line's room, was di­vid­ed in­to three apart­ments, two small sleep­ing-​rooms, and one large hall-​shaped one, ex­tend­ing the full length of the house, which was a kind of sit­ting-​room, and in­to it opened all three of the bed-​rooms, two at the side and one at the end. There was a rude cham­ber above these rooms, fur­nished with beds; for old Samp­son's was a ren­dezvous for thieves and pick­pock­ets, who of­ten as­sem­bled there in con­sid­er­able num­bers, ren­der­ing it nec­es­sary for him to have these var­ious ac­com­mo­da­tions for their ben­efit. Old Samp­son him­self was an out­law, and many a mur­der had been com­mit­ted in his house, and al­ways in the room oc­cu­pied by Hadley, with which there was a se­cret com­mu­ni­ca­tion, and be­neath it a vault for the re­cep­tion of the dead bod­ies of his vic­tims, un­til such time as they could be re­moved with­out de­tec­tion.

With this brief ex­pla­na­tion, we re­turn to the thread of the nar­ra­tive.

When Eve­line heard the voice of the stranger, she was struck with its pe­cu­liar­ity, but, as it was loud­er than she had been used to hear Hadley speak, she did not rec­og­nize it, and the few brief words she af­ter­ward heard him ut­ter, were too in­dis­tinct­ly heard by her to elic­it the truth. When, how­ev­er, she heard that well-​known voice thank­ing the men for their kind­ness, she rec­og­nized it in a mo­ment, and but for the fact that he was just re­tir­ing, she would have rushed out and thrown her­self in his arms.

Hadley had not long been gone, when she heard a low mur­mur­ing of voic­es back of her room, and noise­less­ly ap­proach­ing the side of her apart­ment near­est the speak­ers, she placed her ear to a crevice in the logs, and lis­tened.

“I don't want to go to ex­tremes un­less there is good rea­son to be­lieve he has con­sid­er­able mon­ey about him.”

These words, spo­ken by the host, were the first she heard dis­tinct­ly.

“I think there is no doubt on that point,” was the re­ply, “for to my cer­tain knowl­edge he has just in­her­it­ed an es­tate from a rich un­cle.”

“Has he in­deed? Then he may be worth pluck­ing. But can we re­ly on your com­pan­ion?”

“Oh yes; Dick is true as steel. He will not take an ac­tive part in the af­fair, be­cause he does not like my tak­ing the girl, on one side, and for the rea­son that Hadley has nev­er wronged him, on the oth­er, but he will be as far from be­tray­ing us as we our­selves; I will an­swer for him there.”

Dick! Hadley! In the quick­ness of the light­ning's flash, the whole truth beamed in­to Eve­line's soul. Her pre­tend­ed guides were none oth­er than Duf­fel's ac­com­plices, and the plot­ters, af­ter­ward, of her own de­struc­tion, and she was now on her way to that cave in Vir­ginia!

But the hor­rors of her own sit­ua­tion were lost sight of in con­tem­plat­ing the fate that was hang­ing over Hadley, who was to be killed for his mon­ey! As the light of these great truths broke in up­on her mind, she came very near scream­ing out in af­fright, but for­tu­nate­ly did not. She still lis­tened to see if she could learn how the dark deed of blood was to be con­sum­mat­ed, but the mode of dis­patch­ing vic­tims seemed to be un­der­stood by both and was on­ly al­lud­ed to and not ex­plained, and the vil­lains soon left the spot and re-​en­tered the house.

What a world of con­flict­ing emo­tions and thoughts now con­tend­ed in the bo­som of the long and deeply tried girl! She knew Hadley lived; but oh, what a fate hung over him! Could she save him? Alas! it seemed an im­pos­si­bil­ity. Should she make the ef­fort, it might on­ly has­ten the catas­tro­phe she would pre­vent. If she could on­ly put him on his guard; but that was out of her pow­er, for she could hear Dick walk­ing to and fro across the large room, and she be­lieved he was a sen­try on guard.

In this dilem­ma she sat down on the on­ly chair in the room, and leaned her head up­on her hand. She then found that her brow was cov­ered with large drops of cold per­spi­ra­tion, which the in­ten­si­ty of her feel­ings had forced out. What to do she knew not; and so she sat, in an agony of sus­pense, while the slow mo­ments passed away. At length she thought of her arms, which she still re­tained, and as she did so, re­solved to use them in case of emer­gen­cy, ei­ther for the preser­va­tion of her lover, or to pre­serve her­self from the fate in store for her if Hadley should be mur­dered and she car­ried off.

From the first, Hadley did not like the ap­pear­ance of things about the house, nor the looks of his host, who was not on­ly rough in fea­tures and man­ners, but car­ried with him a coun­te­nance with a very sin­is­ter ex­pres­sion up­on it, and an eye that spoke of crime and a guilty soul; but when Dick gave the warn­ing, he was dou­bly con­firmed in his first im­pres­sions, and re­solved to prof­it by the ad­vice so sin­gu­lar­ly vol­un­teered. He did not un­dress, but be­fore ex­tin­guish­ing his light ex­am­ined his pis­tols, a brace of which he had pro­cured for de­fense, to see that they were in prop­er or­der for im­me­di­ate use. Af­ter mak­ing all need­ful prepa­ra­tions, he put out his can­dle, and re­mained in per­fect qui­et. Soon he heard the two men re­turn, and then Dick went above to rest, and the oth­ers were left alone.

For a long time all was still; not a sound was heard; not a whis­per broke the pro­found si­lence; yet there were four pairs of sleep­less eyes in that house, whose own­ers were all with­in a few feet of each oth­er!

At length Hadley, who had tak­en a po­si­tion by the door, heard the soft­est tread of feet, then a sup­pressed breath­ing close by his ear, and he knew that some one was lis­ten­ing. He turned his face away that his own breath­ing might not be­tray him, and await­ed the re­sult of the oth­er's ob­ser­va­tion. It was but a lit­tle while till a low whis­pered con­ver­sa­tion fell up­on his at­ten­tive ear!

“Does he sleep?”

“Yes, ap­par­ent­ly very sound­ly.”

“Then the soon­er it is done the bet­ter.”

“Yes; bring me the lantern. Now when I go in, close the door and stand near, but do not open it till I call; I don't want the bird to es­cape.”

“All right. Be care­ful to make sure work of it.”

“Trust me for that; he'll nev­er know who struck him.”

Hadley knew the de­ci­sive mo­ment had come, and he pre­pared him­self for the cri­sis; but he felt that the odds was fear­ful­ly against him, and his hope of es­cape was small; still he was re­solved to make a des­per­ate ef­fort for his life.

As al­ready re­marked, the room was small, and the head of the bed came with­in a few feet of the door, so near, that by tak­ing one step, Hadley could touch it with his hand. Around the bed were long cur­tains reach­ing to the floor. It was but the work of a mo­ment for him to se­crete him­self be­hind these in such a po­si­tion as to face the mur­der­er when he turned to look af­ter him in the bed. He had just se­cured his sit­ua­tion when the door gen­tly opened, and the man of the house en­tered with the noise­less tread of a cat, bear­ing a dark lantern in one hand and a mon­strous knife in the oth­er. Stealthi­ly he ap­proached the bed, and then grad­ual­ly lift­ed the shade and threw the light around the room to be sure his vic­tim was not out on the watch; then he gen­tly part­ed the cur­tains and slow­ly brought the light to bear up­on the pil­lows.

Now! thought Hadley; and as the sur­prised as­sas­sin raised him­self up to take a clos­er scruti­ny of the po­si­tion in which he had ex­pect­ed to find his vic­tim, he lev­eled his pis­tol with­in two feet of his breast and fired! With a heavy groan the old man fell to the floor. Bill rushed in­to the room, and as he did so, Hadley fired his oth­er pis­tol, but the un­cer­tain light and Bill's rapid mo­tion caused the shot to be thrown away.

At the same in­stant a pierc­ing shriek from Eve­line's room told that she was alive to all that was pass­ing.

Bill im­me­di­ate­ly drew a pis­tol and fired at Hadley, but the lat­ter made a quick move­ment to one side and avoid­ed the bul­let. Then the two sprang at each oth­er and closed in for a life strug­gle.

It was man to man with them, but Bill had the ad­van­tage of much prac­tice, and his strength be­ing equal, his skill must fi­nal­ly gain him the vic­to­ry, un­less for­tune should great­ly fa­vor Hadley. Life was the prize at stake, and ev­ery nerve and mus­cle was taxed to its ut­most ca­pac­ity. At length they fell, Hadley be­ing up­per­most. The knife which had fall­en from old Samp­son's hand, lay with­in reach, and Hadley stretched forth his hand to grasp it, but as he did so, Bill, who was watch­ing his op­por­tu­ni­ty, by a sud­den and tremen­dous ef­fort, turned his an­tag­onist, and seiz­ing the knife, the mo­ment he felt his en­emy safe­ly be­neath him, raised it for the fa­tal plunge at his heart, and with an oath ex­claimed:

“Die, now, like a dog! and be out of my way!”

But the words were scarce­ly ut­tered, when his up­lift­ed hand re­laxed its grasp of the dead­ly weapon, and at the same pre­cise point of time, a flash and re­port told that a third par­ty had tak­en part in the dead­ly con­flict. Bill fell over up­on his dead com­pan­ion a corpse, and spring­ing to his feet, Hadley stood face to face with Eve­line! Each spoke the oth­er's name, fell in­to the oth­er's arms, and Eve­line faint­ed away! At this junc­ture Dick made his ap­pear­ance, and tak­ing in the whole scene at a glance, has­tened out and soon re­turned with a ves­sel of wa­ter. Hadley took a hand­ful of the flu­id and sprin­kled Eve­line's face, who soon re­vived.

We shall not at­tempt to de­scribe the joy of the trans­port­ed lovers. But the fam­ily had been aroused by the un­usu­al noise, and soon the wife and her two daugh­ters stood with the dead. In their hor­ror and dis­tress, Hadley and Eve­line for­got their hap­pi­ness.

There was no more sleep for the in­mates of that lone­ly dwelling that night, and with the ear­ly dawn, the lovers, guid­ed by Dick to a pub­lic road, left the scene of death and wretched­ness for home, where they ar­rived in safe­ty, the next evening, to the un­speak­able joy of Mr. Man­dev­ille, who had just re­turned from a fruit­less search af­ter his daugh­ter, in de­spair.

Dick went back and buried his dead com­pan­ion, and old Samp­son, af­ter do­ing which he left the coun­try, and was nev­er af­ter­ward heard of.

The League was nev­er re­vived in that sec­tion of the coun­try af­ter the de­struc­tion of the cave, though many of the mem­bers went to the south-​west to join their cap­tain, and the Or­der is still in ex­is­tence in a lit­tle dif­fer­ent form.

We have lit­tle more to add. Charles and Eve­line were mar­ried with the full and free ap­pro­ba­tion of Mr. Man­dev­ille, who ev­er af­ter loved Hadley as his own child, and ac­knowl­edged that for once the daugh­ter's was bet­ter than the FA­THER'S CHOICE, and of­ten shud­dered as he con­tem­plat­ed how nar­row­ly his beloved daugh­ter had es­caped be­com­ing the wife, first, and af­ter­ward, the vic­tim, of THE HORSE THIEF RI­VAL.

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