Eveline Mandeville The Horse Thief Rival

CHAPTER V.

CON­SPIR­ACIES.

Af­ter the ad­journ­ment of the clan, the mem­bers col­lect­ed to­geth­er in var­ious lit­tle squads about the cave, and en­gaged in con­ver­sa­tion, some in a loud, brag­gado­cio, swag­ger­ing tone, oth­ers in low, mur­mur­ing voic­es, au­di­ble on­ly to them­selves, and still oth­ers in con­fi­den­tial whis­pers. Of those who have fig­ured hereto­fore in the in­ci­dents of this sto­ry, we may men­tion the hard-​fea­tured, des­per­ado-​look­ing fel­lows who had con­ceived a dis­like to Du­val, as be­ing very earnest­ly en­gaged in some mat­ter among them­selves, doubt­less of a vile char­ac­ter; it would seem, too, from their man­ner, that oth­ers than them­selves were not to be ad­mit­ted in­to their coun­sels, or to know the na­ture of their scheme, be it what it might, for they kept cast­ing wary glances about on all sides, as if with the in­ten­tion of guard­ing their cir­cle from in­tru­sion, and their words from be­ing heard by ears for which they were not in­tend­ed. All the clan, how­ev­er, were too busi­ly en­gaged in con­cerns of their own, to no­tice oth­ers. This fact was ob­served by the ruf­fi­ans, and they be­came less re­served and cau­tious in their move­ments. Had one been near them at the clos­ing of their con­fab, he would have heard this frag­ment of a con­ver­sa­tion among them:

“League or no League he's got to die!”

“Bet­ter be care­ful, or you'll have the cap'n down on you.”

“---- the cap'n!”

“Be­ware what you say! that is trea­son!”

“Trea­son be it then! When Bill Mitchel says he'll do a thing he does it, and all the Leagues and cap­tains in or out of h----l can't stop him!”

“Come, come! be cool and don't make a fool of your­self; it can all be done with­out so much blus­ter.”

But, as we are not so deeply in­ter­est­ed in the pro­ceed­ings of these fel­lows as in some oth­er of our char­ac­ters, we will pass from them and their vil­lain­ous plot, what­ev­er it may be, and look af­ter Duf­fel and the cap­tain.

These two wor­thies had drawn aside, and were deeply ab­sorbed in con­fi­den­tial in­ter­course. As their con­ver­sa­tion is of con­sid­er­able in­ter­est, we give a part of it:

“Well, Duf­fel, how is that af­fair with Miss Man­dev­ille pros­per­ing?”

“Not so well as I could wish. The truth is I shall have a pret­ty hard time, if my suit wins at all.”

“In­deed! I am sor­ry for that; for I was strong­ly in hopes of re­ceiv­ing a lit­tle as­sis­tance from you in the way of cash. I have been at great ex­pense the past few months, and need a lit­tle aid just now, to fin­ish the nec­es­sary fix­tures for our south-​west­ern branch. You know it takes a mine to fit up a cave such as that was and is to be.”

“I am re­al­ly sor­ry that things have turned out as they have. I ex­pect­ed, when I men­tioned this mat­ter be­fore, that ere this time I should have con­sum­mat­ed the af­fair; but I am far less san­guine of suc­cess now than at any pre­vi­ous time. Mr. Man­dev­ille fa­vors my suit, but the daugh­ter has tak­en a dis­like to me and--”

“Ho, ho! I thought you were al­ways vic­to­ri­ous with the wom­en.”

“So I have been un­til now, and I am by no means van­quished yet, in this in­stance; but I have a ri­val in the way, one, too, that had pos­ses­sion of the citadel of her heart, ere I be­came a can­di­date for her hand; that makes a great dif­fer­ence, you know; then, to make the mat­ter worse, I knew noth­ing about the state of the case un­til I had spent a length of time in woo­ing, all to no pur­pose, be­cause of my ig­no­rance. But enough of this. If worst comes to worst, ri­vals must be got out of the way.”

“Be guard­ed there, Duf­fel; a re­sort to foul means must nev­er be had un­til ev­ery oth­er method has been 'tried and found want­ing.' Re­mem­ber that. One mur­der will do more against us than fifty thefts or rob­beries.”

“I know all that, cap­tain, and shall not per­il the ex­is­tence of our or­ga­ni­za­tion, or even the safe­ty of one of its mem­bers, ex­cept ne­ces­si­ty com­pels to the act; but I think there will be no need of adopt­ing ex­treme mea­sures in the present case. I have a dif­fer­ent plan of op­er­ations marked out, which, with your as­sis­tance and ap­proval, I will first act up­on, and if _it_ fails, then some­thing else af­ter­ward.”

“Well, pro­ceed; I am all at­ten­tion, and will not fail to ren­der such as­sis­tance as shall be in my pow­er, though you know my time is lim­it­ed.”

“I shall not draw up­on you for much aid; an hour is all the time it will re­quire for your part of the per­for­mance. But be­fore you can ap­pre­ci­ate the mer­its of my scheme, it is nec­es­sary that I should make some ex­pla­na­tions. You re­mem­ber the con­ver­sa­tion we held in old Mar­shall's gar­den?”

“Yes.”

“Well, it turned out that Miss Man­dev­ille was in the ar­bor and over­heard a part of what passed be­tween us.”

“The dev­il she did!”

“Yes, but on­ly enough to ex­cite her sus­pi­cions that there was some­thing in the wind--noth­ing def­inite or sat­is­fac­to­ry, so that we may con­sid­er our­selves safe on that score.”

“But, be­tween you and me, Duf­fel, I don't like these sus­pi­cions; they are apt to lead to some­thing worse.”

“True; but in this in­stance I think such will not be the re­sult. How­ev­er, I must be frank with you, and I hope, if I have gone too far in any point, you will par­don me, for I did the very best that could be done un­der the cir­cum­stances, I think. As I said, Miss Man­dev­ille heard a few words that passed be­tween us at the time re­ferred to, and when, a short time af­ter­ward, her fa­ther urged up­on her the pro­pri­ety of ac­cept­ing me as a suit­or for her hand, she must needs tell him of this lit­tle in­ci­dent!”

“Worse and worse!”

“Not so fast. I know it is bad, and I knew then that some­thing of a de­ci­sive kind must be done in or­der to re­lieve my­self from the dilem­ma in­to which this lit­tle un­to­ward cir­cum­stance had placed me. I re­mem­bered that on that oc­ca­sion you were some­what dis­guised, so that in your nat­ural state, or in any oth­er dis­guise you might wish to as­sume, it would be im­pos­si­ble to iden­ti­fy you as the same in­di­vid­ual. Well, af­ter long de­lib­er­ation, and the for­ma­tion and aban­don­ment of many projects, I fi­nal­ly had to set­tle up­on one, which, in your then ap­pear­ance, com­pro­mised your char­ac­ter to some de­gree; but I hope the course I pur­sued, notwith­stand­ing this un­pleas­ant part con­nect­ed with it, will meet your en­tire and cor­dial ap­pro­ba­tion. In­deed, had I not felt cer­tain of this, I should not have adopt­ed the mea­sures I did.”

Here Duf­fel gave the cap­tain a his­to­ry of the events nar­rat­ed in chap­ter sec­ond. When he fin­ished his recital, the cap­tain said:

“Why, Duf­fel, you are the very dev­il at a plot! I had no idea you could act the part so well--I shall cer­tain­ly use you here­after. But now for the rest of your scheme; if it is half as well ma­tured as the first part, I shall cer­tain­ly join you in it with all my heart.”

“Well, you see, I have al­ready de­ceived the old gen­tle­man, but he must be kept de­ceived; it will not do to let first im­pres­sions wear off, or all will be lost. From all that I can learn, he is very ten­der to­ward his daugh­ter since her ill­ness, and it is not un­like­ly will yield to her wish­es, if she re­cov­ers, more than he has done hereto­fore; but in or­der to keep his sus­pi­cions of Hadley ex­cit­ed, while he still re­tains his good opin­ion of your hum­ble ser­vant, his mind must be plied and his prej­udices kept alive, so as to coun­ter­act the ef­fect like­ly to be pro­duced by a fa­ther's feel­ings for a suf­fer­ing child. In oth­er words, the grow­ing sym­pa­thy for his daugh­ter, must be met by a coun­ter­vail­ing dis­trust and aver­sion to­ward Hadley. To ac­com­plish this I have hit up­on the fol­low­ing plan.”

Here he drew the cap­tain still fur­ther from the oth­ers, and, in low and smoth­ered tones, im­part­ed to him his scheme, which was no doubt a vil­lain­ous one, as it drew from his au­di­tor and con­fi­dant an ex­cla­ma­tion to this ef­fect:

“By my soul, Duf­fel, you are an adept in these mat­ters! I nev­er dreamed of your be­ing so deep a plot­ter! The world and your friends, al­so, have done you in­jus­tice by not giv­ing you cred­it for so am­ple a de­vel­op­ment of such rare abil­ity to de­ceive. Suc­cess to your plans. I will glad­ly sec­ond them, as far as the part al­lot­ted to me is con­cerned, with a hearty good will. But what think you I had best do?”

“Tak­ing ev­ery­thing in­to con­sid­er­ation, I think the best thing you can do for us all is to go down south, or to St. Louis, and re­main for a length of time, per­haps till I send you word of what is tran­spir­ing in this part of the world.”

“What will be done about our next meet­ing? You know we have an ap­pli­ca­tion on hand.”

“Let the meet­ing be post­poned; or, if you see fit, I will at­tend to the ini­ti­ation in your ab­sence. Choose your­self be­tween the two mea­sures.”

“I will let you pre­side at the meet­ing, then; we have need of a few ad­di­tions to our num­ber, when we can find the right kind of fel­lows; and from all I can learn, this Hurd is made of the right stuff. See that ev­ery­thing is done strict­ly in or­der.”

“I will at­tend to that. But had you not bet­ter an­nounce this ar­range­ment to the mem­bers present? They are all here yet, I be­lieve.”

In ac­cor­dance with this sug­ges­tion, those of the clan present were no­ti­fied of the cap­tain's prob­able ab­sence at their next meet­ing, and that Lieu­tenant Duf­fel would act in his place in the in­ter­im, to whom all re­ports must be made, and from whom all or­ders must em­anate and be obeyed. Af­ter this was ar­ranged, Duf­fel, who was high­ly pleased at the work­ing of things, again drew his su­pe­ri­or aside, and said:

“I have now a re­quest to make of you, cap­tain, which, if com­pat­ible with your wish­es and con­ve­nience, I hope you will see fit to grant.”

“I shall be most hap­py to grant any­thing in my pow­er, be as­sured of that fact.”

“I know your good will and gen­eros­ity are great, or I should not ask the fa­vor I am about to crave, which is, that you will al­low me the use of your pri­vate room here dur­ing your ab­sence. I have a par­tic­ular rea­son for de­sir­ing this fa­vor.”

“I per­ceive so by your earnest­ness. I hard­ly know how to grant your re­quest, with­out de­lay­ing my de­par­ture.”

“Oh, nev­er mind, then, I can man­age to get along with­out it.”

“No, you shall have it. I mind now of a method by which all nec­es­sary ar­range­ments can be made to-​night; and you may find it a very con­ve­nient place to tame some ob­sti­nate fair one. Oh, not a word; I un­der­stand these mat­ters. Ex­cuse me for a cou­ple of hours, and I will bring you the key.”

With these words, the cap­tain went to his room, in­to which he had no soon­er en­tered, than Duf­fel sought the pres­ence of the des­per­adoes, two of whom--the ones that had tak­en a dis­like to Du­val--he en­gaged in con­ver­sa­tion. When as­sured that no one was suf­fi­cient­ly near or at­ten­tive to hear what passed be­tween them, he said:

“My good fel­lows, I see we are alone, and I should be pleased to have a lit­tle pri­vate and con­fi­den­tial con­ver­sa­tion with you.”

“We shall be hap­py to hear any­thing Lieu­tenant Duf­fel may be pleased to com­mu­ni­cate, and feel high­ly flat­tered by his con­fi­dence,” replied one of them, speak­ing for both.

“Thank you. I pre­sume it is not nec­es­sary for me to pledge you to se­cre­cy in re­gard to any trans­ac­tions that may take place, ei­ther in word or deed, as you will feel bound by hon­or to look up­on all con­fi­den­tial com­mu­ni­ca­tions and pro­ceed­ings as sa­cred­ly and faith­ful­ly to be kept in your own bo­soms.”

“You but do us jus­tice in en­ter­tain­ing such opin­ions, and, with­out the ask­ing on your part, we most solemn­ly pledge our word, even un­to death, that what your hon­or may please to say to us shall be kept a most in­vi­olable se­cret, which noth­ing shall ex­tort from us.”

“I have al­ways found you faith­ful, and have no hes­ita­tion in trust­ing you again; but this time I have a pe­cu­liar re­quest to make of you, one that may lead to busi­ness out of the or­di­nary line of op­er­ations to which you have been ac­cus­tomed. Can I re­ly on you in any emer­gen­cy?”

“Yes, to the very death.”

“Are you eas­ily moved by the tears and prayers of per­sons in dis­tress?”

“Do we _look_ ten­der-​heart­ed, your hon­or?”

“Well, no; I can't say that you do; but then the looks are not al­ways a true cri­te­ri­on by which to judge of the heart. A smooth face and a hard heart may go to­geth­er, so may a rough vis­age and warm sym­pa­thies.”

“You may re­ly on us in that par­tic­ular.”

“Even if the sup­pli­ant be a help­less and beau­ti­ful wom­an?”

“Well, I must con­fess, I don't fan­cy med­dling with fem­inines much. What do you say to it, Dick; shall we pledge?”

“Dang the wom­en! It allers looked kinder cow­ard­ly to me to see men turn agin' the weak things and abuse 'em; it don't seem nat­er­al, but 'pears like a feller didn't re­mem­ber his moth­er, or his sis­ters, if he had any. But if the lieu­tenant has any work to do, we'll do it, wom­en or no wom­en. Them's my sen­ti­ments, Bill, ex­act­ly.”

“Give us your hand on it, then,” said Bill. “And now, give us yours, lieu­tenant, and the thing's set­tled.”

With this, they all shook hands in to­ken of agree­ment, and thus their faith was pledged. But what a re­buke Dick in­ad­ver­tent­ly ad­min­is­tered to Duf­fel in his quaint re­marks! How his vi­cious heart, bad as it was, must have felt the blow, and all the more severe­ly that it came from such a source! How­ev­er, the vil­lain was not to be turned from his pur­pose, and so, pock­et­ing the un­in­ten­tion­al af­front, he pro­ceed­ed:

“As you have al­ready heard, our most wor­thy cap­tain will be ab­sent on im­por­tant busi­ness for some time to come, and dur­ing the pe­ri­od of his ab­sence the du­ties of com­mand will de­volve on me. I have long been con­tem­plat­ing a mea­sure, which, if car­ried out, will be of great and last­ing ben­efit to our or­der. In or­der to con­duct the af­fair to a suc­cess­ful ter­mi­na­tion, it may be­come nec­es­sary to im­prison a fe­male, a young la­dy of great beau­ty and ac­com­plish­ments, in this cave. I do not know that it will re­quire such ex­treme mea­sures as this, I hope it will not, but should it be­come need­ful to go to this ex­treme, I shall de­sire your aid in car­ry­ing her off.”

“We'll be with you, as we have al­ready pledged our­selves; but we must ask, as a fa­vor in re­turn, that you al­low us to set­tle a per­son­al af­fair with Amos Du­val.”

“Of what na­ture? You know he is a mem­ber of the _League_, and that it is a crime to lift a hand against him.”

“We know all about that; but Du­val is a traitor at heart, and we can prove him such.”

“Then pro­ceed against him in the or­der, and I will stand by you.”

“That's just what we want; first to prove him wor­thy of death by our laws, and sec­ond­ly, to be al­lowed to ex­ecute the sen­tence pro­nounced against him.”

Duf­fel could not but see that there was a dis­crep­an­cy be­tween the first and last re­quest of these fel­lows, though they tried to make them ap­pear as one, and he knew there was per­son­al en­mi­ty at the bot­tom of the whole af­fair. His du­ty, as a mem­ber of the or­der, made it oblig­atory for him to dis­cour­age any ill feel­ing among the mem­bers; but he need­ed the ser­vices of these two ras­cals, and so for­bore to re­prove them.

“I will aid you as far as my du­ty to the League will per­mit, pro­vid­ed you will do me still an­oth­er ser­vice.”

“Name it.”

“There is a fel­low stand­ing in my way in the pros­ecu­tion of a scheme for the ben­efit of our or­der, and I would like to have him re­moved. I un­der­stand you with re­gard to Du­val; you wish to be re­venged up­on him for some in­jury or in­sult, and that re­venge looks to his death. You need not say, yea or nay; well, we will stand by each oth­er all around. I will give you fur­ther in­struc­tions at an­oth­er time. Hold your­selves in readi­ness at any mo­ment to aid me. Meet me in the for­est by the old oak, on the path to the 'Swamp,' ev­ery day, and be al­ways pre­pared for ei­ther of the ser­vices I may re­quire at your hands.”

“You may re­ly on us.”

Thus these wor­thies part­ed. What a se­ries of vil­lain­ous con­spir­acies had been de­vel­oped in this one night, in that se­cret den of in­iq­ui­ty! Will these mur­der­ers suc­ceed in all their plans? Alas! the wicked of­ten tri­umph.

The cap­tain soon re­turned, and placed the key of his room in Duf­fel's pos­ses­sion--and then the clan dis­persed.