[figure description] Page 223.[end figure description]

An injury may be forgiven by a proud spirit, but
an insult never. And what human being is without
his share of pride? That miserable deformed
half-breed; that crooked mongrel of a man; that
dumb and uncomplaining slave of the gloomy mine
of Waneonda, had yet his human feelings, had still
his modicum of inward self-esteem, which brutal
words could wound and outrage. His vocation in
those tomb-like cells, though toilsome and humble,
was still one of the greatest trust; for he was alike
warder and seneschal of that subterranean castle,
whose moat and drawbridge were the black stream
and tottering skiff of the hunchback ferryman.

With these defences the renegade garrison had
always held themselves safe from hostile intrusion.
They might be starved out of their stronghold, but
it could never be carried by assault. For, however
the secret of the cave might become known, its recesses
could never be penetrated by a stranger,
save through the treachery of the ferryman.

That poor wretch, whom we have only known by
the sobriquet of Charon, as Bradshawe had nick-named
him, had always enjoyed his confidence,
and hitherto not undeservedly; though, while Bradshawe
regarded himself as the patron of the

[figure description] Page 224.[end figure description]

half-breed, and entitled to his gratitude, the other, perhaps,
had merely viewed their relations toward each
other as a mutual affair of give and take, which left
neither party under special obligations to the other.
The half-breed, who had originally been a fisherman
by occupation, had, in former years, pointed
out the cave to Bradshawe when acting as his guide
to the trout-streams among the hills. Bradshawe,
learning that the spot had been hitherto known only
to the Indians, and, for some motive best known to
himself, wishing that a knowledge of it should be
extended to those white men only to whom he chose
to intrust it, determined instantly to take the half-breed
into his service, upon condition of his keeping
the secret of the place.

Time passed on; the half-breed, carried to another
part of the country, became a useless hanger-on
of Bradshawe's establishment; nominally a provider
for, but really a pensioner upon, Bradshawe's
kitchen; in short, one of that lounging, eel-catching
degenerates of the aborigines that may still be found
near some of the old families on Long Island, incident,
as it were, rather than belonging to the establishment.
The abduction of Miss De Roos, which
made it necessary for Valtmeyer, who played the
part of scapegoat in that affair, to disappear from
among men for a time, was the first thing that called
the half-breed and his secret into actual use.
Since that time he had silently almost passed into
Valtmeyer's service, who sometimes for a month
together retained him in the cavern, of which he
was a perfectly contented tenant, and which grew
more and more like a home to him. Idle by nature,
yet always to be relied upon when any duty was
required of him, this inoffensive, taciturn creature
was one of the few human beings who had never
provoked the imperious insolence of Bradshawe's

[figure description] Page 225.[end figure description]

nature when brought in familiar contact with him.
But his brutality did break out at last in the hour
that, foaming with rage and vexation, he called for
the service of the ferryman when returning from his
fruitless interview with Alida. The jeer at his deformity
was resented by the half-breed even in the
moment it was uttered; for the means of vengeance
were at hand, and, as we shall soon see, he did not
hesitate to embrace them.

The goodly company to which Bradshawe was
now about to introduce himself in the Outlaws' Hall
might, in the slight glimpse we have had of them
in these deep cavern shades, have passed well
enough as a redoubtable crew of desperadoes, a real
melodramatic set of brigands. But the truth is,
that, though felon-loving old Salvator might have
picked out a head or two among them for his savage
pencil, a majority of these worthies would have
formed a more suitable study for some American
Wilkie—our own Richard Mount, perhaps—whose
canvass, borrowing for the nonce some broader and
bolder shadows, might delight in preserving the grotesque
array of characters.

Among Valtmeyer's immediate crew there were,
indeed, some as hideous-looking gentlemen as ever
said stand and deliver upon the highway. Faces
stolid yet ferocious; looks blended of sinister malice
and sensual audacity; wild, rude, and reckless-featured
men, with that dash of the genuine savage
in their aspect which is only acquired by pursuing
a career of crime upon the extreme borders of society,
where the practitioner incessantly vibrates
between civilized and barbarian life; a variety of
the robber species, in short, such as is only found
upon our Indian frontiers; such as the curious may
occasionally there light upon even at this day; but

[figure description] Page 226.[end figure description]

such as only existed in perfection when the name
of Red Wolfert Valtmeyer was terrible in the land.

But, though these ill-omened visages glowered
here and there from beneath the wolfskin cap or
checkered handkerchief which swathed around the
brows, and, with some tawdry plume or Indian medal
stuck in its folds, generally formed the headgear
in this portrait-gallery of infernals, yet there was
that both in the guise and features of many which
was hardly in keeping with their present associations.
The complexions and appointments of a few
betrayed them as city-bred and of luxurious nurture;
they were ill-disciplined youths, whom the
mad spirit of loyalty, or some home disgust, or
some silly boyish escapado, had driven from a parent's
roof to the stormy border, where, in the whirl
of events, they had been hurled, with the black-bearded
men around them, into this place of bad
spirits, where so many had huddled together for
safety.

Of others, the faces were coarse, but not weather-beaten,
and bloated in some instances, as if by
the loose debauch of the roadside tippling-house,
from which, perhaps, their swaggering air was likewise
borrowed.

Here a red flannel shirt, breeches of corduroy,
and thick-soled brogans betrayed the quondam village
tradesman; while there the coat of foxy black,
or tattered blue with tarnished metal buttons, and
shrunken underclothes of threadbare gray, might
have bespoken some bankrupt pedler (or travelling
merchant, as the country folk would more reverentially
call him), save that the rusty-hilted smallsword
by his side, bespeaking his oldfashioned claim
to gentility, might induce one to set him down as
an absconding attorney.

All of the motley group, however,

[figure description] Page 227.[end figure description]

notwithstanding these little discrepances, seemed to be close
confreres, who were upon the choicest terms of fellowship
together; and though Syl Stickney's contribution
of new-comers had been received at first
rather coolly by some members of the company,
they had all, doubtless, in other scenes and places,
often consorted in brotherhood of some kind to establish
the harmonious sympathy which reigned
among them.

The tie of that brotherhood was political faith!
They were all possessed by that spirit which, next
to the old democrat Death, is your only true leveller,
bringing all men on whom it seizes, save only
kings and demagogues, upon the same platform.
Party spirit had made them at first co-labourers,
and then co-mates together. But what mattered the
temporary inconvenience of so incongruous an association?
The disagreeableness and evils of their
state affected only themselves; and what mattered
such transient exposure when the well-being of
countless generations was concerned? Were they
not loyal subjects, banded together to sustain, not
merely the right of a crowned king, but to preserve
and fix the blessed precedence of rank, with all its
orderly succession of prerogative, by which alone
civilization can be sustained?

Thus reasoned some four or five small landed
proprietors or gentlemen farmers of undoubted respectability,
who, having compromised their safety
in the plots of their party by being seen riding home
from more than one Tory rendezvous, were now
compelled “to take earth” for a season, and share
this den with the lowest dregs of the faction to
which they belonged. These suffering partisans of
the royal cause had been now for so many weeks
crowded together in familiar contact with their
present comrades, that there was really little in their

[figure description] Page 228.[end figure description]

bearing to distinguish them from the rest, though a
gray riding-frock and broad-leafed beaver, with a
feather in it of the same colour, or the uniform of
the royal Greens, in which some of them, who bore
a commission in the yeomanry militia, were dressed,
might have marked them as being better apparalled
than their comrades.

“Ah! Bradshawe,” cried one of these worthies,
“Bradshawe, my ace of trumps, I am rejoiced to
see you; for there are so few faced cards in our pack
here, that some of us would throw up our hands
in very disgust were it not for the royal game we're
playing. But by what devilish legerdemain are we
all shuffled here together?”

“Yes, Bradshawe,” exclaimed another, “tell us,
is there no chance of our breaking away from this
cursed hole till the rebels come to unearth us?”

“If you know of any better hole to creep into,
gentlemen, there is nothing to prevent our parting
company at any moment that suits your pleasure,”
dryly replied Bradshawe, at the same time saluting
the company with a formal courtesy.

His personal retainers, crowding tumultuously
around him the moment they heard the sound of his
voice, prevented any farther parley with the group
of gentlemen who had first accosted him, and with
whom, indeed, Bradshawe seemed disposed to converse
as little as possible. The truth is, that, though
he had been more than once indebted to the hospitality
of some of them, and would on no account
have been so impolitic as to treat any of them with
positive rudeness, yet the presence of these royalists
of the more respectable class put a check upon
his conduct that filled him with chagrin and vexation.

More than one of these gentlemen had, in less
troublous times, been personally acquainted with

[figure description] Page 229.[end figure description]

the family of the unfortunate Alida; and all of them
were men of that stamp who would not hesitate to
embroil themselves in deadly quarrel to succour a
lady so iniquitously dealt with as Miss De Roos had
been. Nor would his political faith or loyal services
have been any shield to Bradshawe had these country
gentlemen dreamed of the villany he was practising
against the daughter of an old neighbour well
known, and once universally beloved in the county.

Their wrath, had it been once really awakened,
Bradshawe would have laughed to scorn, and would
soon have made them feel, in their present situation,
the folly of chiding the lion when their heads
were in his mouth. But while, for very natural reasons,
not wishing that anything should create disunion
between himself and his brother partisans, he
felt that, however idly their indignation might explode
where they could be so easily overmastered
by his immediate crew, yet, to bring his affair with
Alida to a successful termination, the secret of the
cavern must not be extended to more than were
at present intrusted with it. It was therefore not
without an inward feeling of satisfaction that he listened
to a proposition which one of the Tory gentlemen,
coming forward in behalf of the rest, made
him as soon as he was disengaged from receiving
the boisterous welcome that others gave him in the
Outlaws' Hall.

“We pardon the coldness of your greeting, Captain
Bradshawe,” said this gentleman, “in consideration
of the kindness we have already received
from some of your servants; and because our some
days' experience of the difficulty of providing for
so many months in this place suggests that there
must be limits to your hospitality, and—”

“Nay, my dear Fenton,” said Bradshawe, seizing

[figure description] Page 230.[end figure description]

both hands of the speaker, “I beg you would not
mention—”

“Pardon me, Captain Bradshawe,” said the Refugee,
bowing somewhat stiffly as he withdrew his
hands from the familiar grasp of the other, “there
are four or five of us here who have made up our
minds where to dispose of ourselves; and all that
we ask is a couple of your retainers, to act as guides
and packmen till we can make our way within the
borders of Ulster county, where we are sure of a
cordial reception at the house of a royalist gentleman
of our acquaintance.”

“The men, Mr. Fenton, are entirely at your service,
if you insist upon thus abruptly taking leave
of the poor entertainment I have to offer you. But
why not, gentlemen, at the least, put off your departure
till the morrow?”

“We had no idea of starting till to-morrow,” rejoined
one of the older royalists, bluntly.

“Not at all, not at all,” said Fenton, rather hurriedly,
and colouring at the same time as he appreciated
Bradshawe's readiness to get rid of himself
and his friends; “we'll be off within the hour if
your men can get ready.”

“Within the hour be it, since you will go,” replied
Bradshawe, turning at once upon his heel to
give the necessary order.

“The churl!” muttered Fenton.

“What can you expect from a hog but a grunt?”
echoed Sylla.

“If you sit down with dogs, you must look for
fleas,” rejoined his brother Marius, as the classic
pair stood listening to this colloquy of their betters.

“I say, Squire Fenton,” pursued Syl, “I mistrust
Marius and I'll make tracks with you out of this
darned hole. A fellow'll turn into a woodchuck if
he burrows here much longer.”

[figure description] Page 231.[end figure description]

This accession to his party was gladly welcomed
by Fenton at the time, though, as it included several
of Syl's immediate friends and cronies, it proved
subsequently disastrous from the undue confidence
it gave Fenton in his numbers, as will appear in the
sequel.

The arrangements for their departure were soon
completed. But the final exit of Fenton and his
followers was attended by circumstances which can
scarcely be understood unless we recur to other actors
in the scene, athwart whose shadows a new and
strange form is but now flitting to mingle mysteriously
with the rest.

We have already spoken of the feeling of bitter
exasperation which had been excited in the bosom
of the hunchback ferryman by the brutal language
of his master, but we have not told that the hour
which Bradshawe consumed in the Lady's Chapel
had seen a trial of the half-breed's fidelity which,
considering his Indian origin, was of the severest
kind.

Scarcely, indeed, had the Tory captain passed
through the opening in the rock and launched in his
boat upon the river beyond, before the Hunchback
found himself in contact with another authority than
that which had posted him there as sentinel. Hearing
the fall of a pebble on the bottom of the cavern,
he stepped quickly forward, and threw the light of
his torch against the walls of the pit by which you
first descend into the cave. He could discover nothing.
Presently another pebble rolled to his feet.
It seemed to bound from a ledge of rock near him.
Still he could not fix the direction whence it came;
and he climbs half way up the zigzag shaft of the pit
to see if it can have been precipitated from without.
He lifts his torch aloft, so as to throw its light where
the rope ladder is wont to be suspended from the

[figure description] Page 232.[end figure description]

crossed trees above. But all looks quiet there and
safe. The ladder has been, as usual, drawn in and
secured, a thin tendril of grapevine, passing over a
cross timber above, being left hanging to raise it
from within to its former place, when necessary.
Suddenly he sees the grapevine vibrate. The ladder
begins slowly to uncoil, and rise before his eyes.
He leaps forward, and with one blow of his hunting-knife
severs the vine, and the rope falls by his
side.

“Ugh!” exclaims an Indian voice without, as the
swinging sliver comes burdenless to his hand.

The swart features of the Hunchback become radiant
at the sound as he tosses his torch above his
head, and hails the stranger in the Mohawk tongue.
The vine is again let down. The Hunchback quickly
attaches it anew to the ladder of rope. It is
drawn up from above. A towering figure darkens
the opening for a moment, and then Brant stands
beside the deformed outcast of his tribe.

“My child, how fares he here with his white
father?” said the chief, kindly.

“`The Broken Tomahawk,”' said the man, calling
himself by his Indian name, “has no father.
The Mohawk owns not him, he owns not the white
man. He is here on his own bidding, but will do
the will of Thayendanagea.” And, speaking thus,
he was about to usher the chief farther into the cavern;
for Brant was known to him as the companion
in arms of Bradshawe, and, as such, the Hunchback
had no hesitation in farthering his ingress. The
Sachem, however, was by no means desirous of the
interview which the half-breed thought he was seeking,
and his errand here must be a brief one, if he
would despatch it at all. He ascertained that
Bradshawe had already arrived at Waneonda, and
assumed the personal charge of his captive, Brant's

[figure description] Page 233.[end figure description]

only chance, then, of rescuing her, depended upon
the aid and connivance of the half-breed; and that
aid could only be secured by awakening the fellow's
Indian sympathies so strongly in favour of the Mohawk
that they should overpower his fidelity to the
white man.

But the Hunchback, though evidently flattered by
the frank confidence which the chief seemed to repose
in him, and listening with mute respect to the
claims which he urged upon his services, was unflinching
in his trust. Brant could wring nothing
from him save a promise not to reveal this secret
visit to Bradshawe; and even this promise was accompanied
with a condition which seemed something
like a threat upon the part of the Hunchback.

“Let the chief go,” said he. “Let Thayendanagea
depart in secret as he has come. No bird shall
whisper that he has been here, and Thayendanagea
will come no more.”

There was nothing, therefore, to be done with
this stanch seneschal, unless Brant had chosen to
strangle him where he stood, or hurl him deathward
down the black pit whose entrance he guarded.
But it was not in the heart of Brant to crush in cold
blood a creature always so inoffensive, and now so
firm when he stood most exposed and defenceless.
Had he debated such a thing in his own mind, however,
there was now hardly time to effect it successfully;
for at this moment the enraged voice of
Bradshawe was heard shouting to the half-breed,
who waved his hand to Brant, as if motioning him
to ascend and leave the cave at once, and then hurried
to wait upon the Tory captain.

Brant seized the opportunity to descend farther
into the cavern, with whose peculiarities he was perfectly
familiar, and gained a recess of the rock not
far from the fallen tree just as Bradshawe brushed

[figure description] Page 234.[end figure description]

by it in traversing the passage. The hand of the
Mohawk clutched the belt-knife, which was half
drawn from its sheath as the glare of the Hunchback's
torch shone full upon him for a moment.
The life of Bradshawe turned upon a cast. But,
haply, he passed by unheeding the peril at hand;
and the person of Brant being thrown the next instant
into deep shadow, the knife was shot back
into its sheath as he saw the danger of discovery
had passed away. That momentary gleam of light,
however, had revealed to Brant the features of the
Hunchback, and the feelings which agitated them;
for he had overheard the contumelious epithets
which Bradshawe applied to the unfortunate. Brant
scarcely doubted what their effect would be upon
the half-Indian nature of the Hunchback. If not a
provocation to revenge, they would at least cancel
all ties of kindness which bound him as a retainer
of Bradshawe.

Nor did the sagacious Mohawk err in his judgment;
for, following shortly afterward to the spot
where the others embarked upon the black lake to
cross to the threshold of the Outlaws' Hall, the
plashing of the ferryman's paddle had hardly died
away upon his ear before he again heard its faint
dip approach once more the shore from which he
had just parted. The Hunchback, neither by look
nor word, expressed his surprise at finding the chief
awaiting him, but mutely drew up his boat, marshalled
Brant forward to the opening in the curtain
of rock, and aided him in launching upon the River
of Ghosts.

Previous section

Next section