Eveline Mandeville The Horse Thief Rival

CHAPTER VIII.

THE “DARK PAS­SAGE”--THE THEFT.

On the ap­point­ed night, the two ruf­fi­ans, Bill and Dick, re­paired to the “dark pas­sage,” ac­cord­ing to ar­range­ment, and with dag­gers and pis­tols (the lat­ter on­ly to be used in case of ne­ces­si­ty, as the re­port of firearms might lead to de­tec­tion,) await­ed the ar­rival of their vic­tim. About nine o'clock, the sound of hors­es' feet, ap­proach­ing at a rapid gait, gave them to un­der­stand the hour of their dead­ly work was at hand. Tak­ing their stand, one on ei­ther side of the road, they silent­ly await­ed the horse­man's com­ing.

It was a dis­mal place, a low, wet val­ley, dense­ly shad­ed and over­grown by trees, whose thick fo­liage scarce­ly ad­mit­ted a sin­gle sun­beam to pen­etrate to the earth be­neath. This gloomy pas­sage was about half a mile in ex­tent, and at its dark cen­ter the vil­lains had post­ed them­selves. Their plans were all ful­ly ma­tured, even down to the minute de­tails. They were both to spring out and seize the horse by the bri­dle; then, while Bill held the an­imal, Dick was to strike the fa­tal blow to the heart of the rid­er. Not a word was to be spo­ken. As the man en­tered the pas­sage, his pace was slack­ened, and he kept his eye about him, as if in fear of an at­tack. When with­in about a hun­dred yards of the con­cealed as­sas­sins, Bill whis­pered to his com­pan­ion across the road:

“Now, Dick, make sure work of it; let the first blow tell the tale, while it si­lences his tongue!”

“Nev­er fear for me; take care of your own part, and I'll do the same by mine,” was Dick's re­ply.

In a few sec­onds, the horse­man came abreast of the am­bus­caders, both of whom sprang out at the same mo­ment, and seiz­ing the bri­dle-​reins, checked the horse so sud­den­ly as to throw him back on his haunch­es, to the im­mi­nent per­il of the rid­er, who was near­ly thrown from his seat. In a mo­ment, the glit­ter­ing blade of steel was at his breast. Just then, the moon broke through a rift in the clouds, and be­ing di­rect­ly in a line with the road, shone ful­ly on the group and in­to the face of the trav­el­er.

“By Jove! it's the wrong man!” ex­claimed Dick, as he low­ered his blade and looked at Bill in­quir­ing­ly.

“So it is!” said Bill; and then, ad­dress­ing the stranger, con­tin­ued: “Beg par­don, sir, for our in­ter­rup­tion. We have mis­tak­en you for a no­to­ri­ous vil­lain, thief, and rob­ber, who was to pass this way to-​night, and who, as the laws are too weak to pro­tect us, we have de­ter­mined to pun­ish our­selves. The fact is, these, horse-​thieves must be dealt with, and that speed­ily, too, or there will be no such thing as safe­ty for our stock. For our parts, we have re­solved to de­fend our prop­er­ty at all haz­ards, and oth­ers will have to do the same thing, or keep noth­ing of their own, for these thieves are band­ed to­geth­er, and they are so nu­mer­ous, and some of them so re­spectable, it is im­pos­si­ble to con­vict them be­fore a ju­ry; they swear each oth­er off. Hope you will not think evil of our plans.”

“To tell the truth, gen­tle­men, (for I take you to be gen­tle­men in dis­guise,) there is too much re­al­ity in what you say. I fear we shall have to take the law in­to our own hands, for these depreda­tors are be­com­ing so nu­mer­ous and bold, there is no telling to what length their wicked­ness may run. These thiev­ing op­er­ations _must_ be stopped, cost what it may; but it seems to me this is a bad place to com­mence the work; it looks too much like se­cret mur­der. When I have re­course to the last re­sort in de­fense of my prop­er­ty it will be up­on my own promis­es, and while the vil­lains are in the act of crime.”

“That is doubt­less the best method in all or­di­nary cas­es; but the ras­cal whom we were ex­pect­ing to pass this way to-​night is too cun­ning to be caught at his work. He is well known to be guilty, and has more than once been ar­rest­ed and tried; but al­ways with the same re­sult; his friends have sworn him clear; and now, we've sworn he shall go free no longer.”

“Well, be care­ful, and don't kill the wrong man.”

“We'll take care. Ex­cuse the man­ner in which our in­tro­duc­tion was made.”

“Cer­tain­ly, gen­tle­men, cer­tain­ly; but don't miss your man again.”

“We'll not.”

“Good night.”

“Good night, and a pleas­ant jour­ney for you.”

The man rode on and was soon out of hear­ing. He was the more eas­ily de­ceived as to the char­ac­ter of his as­sailants, be­cause he knew that the sen­ti­ments they ex­pressed were held al­most uni­ver­sal­ly by the hon­est por­tion of the com­mu­ni­ty, and al­ready sev­er­al thieves had been shot at, some of whom were known to have been wound­ed, though not fa­tal­ly. The mis­cre­ants knew this state of pub­lic feel­ing, and hence their ruse. When the man was be­yond hear­ing, Bill said, ex­ult­ing­ly:

“Didn't I wool the fel­low's eyes beau­ti­ful­ly?”

“It was well done, Bill, well done--the best job you ev­er bossed. But say, do you know the man?”

“No, not from the dev­il.”

“Well, sir, it's 'Squire Williams, sure's I'm a liv­ing son of my moth­er!”

“'Squire Williams?”

“Yes, it is. I've known him ev­er since I had such hard work to get off from him; I tell you, when I thought of the tri­al, I felt might­ily like payin' him off for his ad­vice on that oc­ca­sion, af­ter I was cleared; but, think's I, it won't do.”

“It's well you come to that con­clu­sion; we don't want over one dead man on our hands at once. But say, what shall we do?”

“Wait a while longer for that Hadley, and if he don't come, then go to meet Duf­fel.”

This sug­ges­tion was ac­cord­ing­ly act­ed up­on. Af­ter re­main­ing near­ly three hours longer for their vic­tim, who came not, they re­paired to the place of ren­dezvous, to re­port to their em­ploy­er and su­pe­ri­or, and fin­ish up the oth­er branch of the night's busi­ness.

Ar­rived at the spot, they found Duf­fel pac­ing up and down in a state of im­pa­tience and dis­qui­etude. So soon as he was cog­nizant of their pres­ence, he in­quired:

“How now? What has kept you so late? Is all right?”

“If your hon­or will take breath a mo­ment be­tween the ques­tions, we will en­deav­or to an­swer them,” replied Bill.

“Well, pro­ceed. Did you do the job?”

“No, not ex­act­ly as laid down in the bill, but--”

“What! did you let him go?”

“Why, no, your hon­or, we didn't let him go, for the very good rea­son that he didn't give us a chance to show him so much mer­cy.”

“How?”

“You see the fel­low didn't come him­self, but sent a sub­sti­tute!”

“The deuce, he did! How's that?”

“That's what we can't tell; we on­ly know, that in­stead of young Hadley, we came with­in an ace of killing 'Squire Williams!”

“'Squire Williams!”

“Yes, sir. He came along at the pre­cise hour that should have brought the oth­er, and it be­ing too dark to dis­tin­guish one man from an­oth­er, or from old Nick for that mat­ter, we fell on to him, and but for the mer­est chance would have fin­ished him.”

Here the en­act­ment of the ear­ly part of the evening was re­hearsed in full.

“It is well you got off so eas­ily, and I must give you cred­it for your in­ge­nu­ity; but I am ex­ceed­ing­ly sor­ry the bird we were af­ter has es­caped. How­ev­er, as that can­not be helped or amend­ed just now, we will pro­ceed with the rest of our work.”

“What hour of the night is it?”

“About one o'clock; and that re­minds me of the fact that we will not have time to take all the stock to-​night; we shall, there­fore, con­fine our op­er­ations to a sin­gle item--the tak­ing of Man­dev­ille's horse.”

“Man­dev­ille's?”

“Yes; why not?”

“I thought your hon­or was play­ing for an­oth­er stake in that quar­ter?”

“And if I am?”

“Why, I just thought it was a queer way of gain­ing the old gen­tle­man's good will--that thing of tak­ing his horse.”

“Not so queer as you might think for.”

“Oh! I re­mem­ber now; ex­cuse me; this Hadley was to be made the scape­goat; you were to get a horse and have the blame of the theft thrown on a ri­val, whose non-​ap­pear­ance should con­demn him. I see it all now, though I did not per­ceive this del­icate un­der­cur­rent in the plan of af­fairs. Lieu­tenant Duf­fel against the world, I say!”

“Si­lence! Dick, you are fa­mil­iar with Mr. Man­dev­ille's premis­es, I be­lieve?”

“Yes, tol­er­ably so.”

“Well, I want you to bring Tom here in about half an hour; and do the job up nice­ly, too.”

“I'll try, sir.”

“You must _do_ it. Be quick; it is go­ing to rain soon, and we must get him away be­fore the tracks will show; but don't so much as dis­turb the sleep­ing grasshop­pers by your noise.”

“All right.”

“Go now, and be here again in the short­est pos­si­ble time. Bill and I will ar­range mat­ters for fu­ture op­er­ations while you are gone.”

Dick has­tened away to do the bid­ding of his mas­ter, and Duf­fel com­mu­ni­cat­ed to Bill the fol­low­ing piece of in­tel­li­gence:

“I was very much in hopes the whole of our plan for to-​night would suc­ceed, though I heard that in the evening which caused me to have mis­giv­ings on the sub­ject. I learned that Hadley re­ceived in­tel­li­gence that his moth­er and un­cle were both sick and not ex­pect­ed to re­cov­er.--They live in Philadel­phia: the un­cle, his moth­er's broth­er, a bach­elor, by the way, with whom she is liv­ing, is re­put­ed wealthy, and, it is said, has willed his prop­er­ty to young Hadley. The news of these events was brought to him yes­ter­day, and he made im­me­di­ate prepa­ra­tions to go east, but did not ex­pect to get off un­til this morn­ing. I pre­sume, how­ev­er, he must have start­ed yes­ter­day in the af­ter part of the day; but be this as it may, I wish you and Dick to fol­low af­ter him, and don't fail to fin­ish him some­how and some­where. If you could on­ly man­age to get ahead of him and way­lay him at some point in the moun­tains, it would be the best place for you to do the deed and con­ceal the com­mis­sion of the act.”

“Yes, if he should be alone.”

“Which will most like­ly be the case, at least a por­tion of the time. But should no such op­por­tu­ni­ty oc­cur, or should you fail to get be­yond him on the way, you must watch for him in the city; fol­low him as close­ly as his shad­ow, and in some dark al­ley, or at some un­sea­son­able hour, put him out of the way.”

“Ex­act­ly.”

“You un­der­stand that this _must_ be done, do you?”

“If Lieu­tenant Duf­fel says so.”

“Well, I do say so, most em­phat­ical­ly. I am more anx­ious than ev­er to have him set­tled, since this new phase of af­fairs has come up.”

“I un­der­stand; but when are we to start?”

“Ear­ly in the morn­ing. We will find out as soon as pos­si­ble whether he start­ed yes­ter­day; then you must show your­selves for a lit­tle while, as was be­fore de­ter­mined; and as soon af­ter­ward as pos­si­ble be off. Be sure to get on the right track, and don't lose it.”

“Nev­er fear on that head. We will fol­low him as the li­on does his prey.”

“Well, I leave the mat­ter with you; see that you ac­quit your­self as a good sol­dier. Give Dick such in­struc­tion as may be need­ed.--Here he comes.”

Dick rode up on the horse he had stolen, and they all im­me­di­ate­ly re­paired to the swamp, where the scheme of vil­lainy had been planned, in the mid­dle of which the horse was con­cealed for the present, as they were un­able to take him fur­ther then with­out in­cur­ring great risk of de­tec­tion.

The next morn­ing af­ter min­gling awhile with the in­dig­nant crowd of cit­izens, who were col­lect­ed to­geth­er on hear­ing of the theft, and pour­ing out in­vec­tives on the “vil­lain of a thief” in no mea­sured quan­ti­ty, the two ruf­fi­ans, Bill and Dick, set out on their er­rand of death? Learn­ing that Hadley had start­ed the pre­vi­ous af­ter­noon, they fol­lowed af­ter him on two of the fleetest hors­es in the pos­ses­sion of the clan.

It might be well enough to re­mark, that in those ear­ly days most of the trav­el­ing was done on foot or on horse­back.