[figure description] Page 045.[end figure description]

The boat, under the adroit management of Supple Jack,
soon reached the shore where Clarence Conway awaited
them. Standing side by side, there was little obvious difference
between the persons of the kinsmen. They were
both equally tall, strongly made, and symmetrical—each
had the same general cast of countenance—the hair was
not unlike; the complexion of Edward was darker than
that of Clarence. The difference between them, physically,
if not so obvious, was yet singularly marked and
substantial. There was that in the expression of their
several faces, which, to the nice physiognomical critic,
did not inaptly illustrate the vital differences in the two
characters as they will be found to display themselves in
the progress of this narrative. The forehead and chin of
the former were much smaller than those of the younger.
The cheek-bones were higher; the lips, which in Clarence
Conway were usually compressed, giving an air of
decision to his mouth which approached severity, were, in
the case of Edward, parted into smiles, which were only
too readily and too easily evoked, not, sometimes, to
awaken doubts of their sincerity in the mind of the spectator.
Some well-defined lines about the upper lip and
corners of the mouth, which signified cares and anxieties,
tended still more to make doubtful the prompt smile of the
wearer. The difference of five years—for that period of
time lay between their several ages—had added a few
wrinkles to the cheeks and brow of the elder, which no
where appeared upon the face of the younger. A conscience
free from reproach, had probably saved him from
tokens which are quite as frequently the proofs of an

[figure description] Page 046.[end figure description]

illordered life as of age and suffering. Some other leading
differences between the two might be traced out by a close
observer, and not the least prominent of these, exhibited
itself at the moment of their present meeting in the over-acted
kindness and extreme courtesy of the fugitive kinsman.
His sweet soft tones of conciliation, his studied gentleness
of accent, and the extreme humility of his gesture—
all appeared in large contrast with the simple, unaffected
demeanour of the younger. His feelings were all too
earnest for mannerism of any sort; and motioning Jack
Bannister aside, he met his half-brother with an air full of
direct purpose, and a keenly awakened consciousness of
the dark doubts renewed in his mind upon that mystery
which rose up like a wall between them. It was difficult
to say, while Edward Conway was approaching him,
whether sorrow or anger predominated in his countenance.
The face of the fugitive beamed with smiles, and his hand
was extended. His hand remained untaken, however, and
his eye shrunk from the encounter with that searching
glance which awaited him in the eye of Clarence. A
slight suffusion passed over his cheek, and there was a
tremor in his voice as he spoke, which might be natural to
the resentment which he must have felt, but which he
showed no other disposition to declare.

“So cold to me, Clarence? What now should awaken
your displeasure? You have behaved nobly in this business—
do not send me from you in anger!”

“I have behaved only as a brother, Edward Conway.
Would that you could feel like one! You have again deceived
me!” was the stern, accusing answer.

“Deceived you!” was the reply, and the eye of the
speaker wandered from the strong glance of his kinsman,
and his lips whitened as he spoke; “how, Clarence—how
have I deceived you?”

“But this day you assured me, on your honour, that
you had not sought Flora Middleton since my last conference
with you on the subject. I now know that you
have been at Briar Park within the last three weeks.”

The practised cunning of the worldling came to the
relief of the accused, and Edward Conway availed himself
of one of those petty evasions to which none but the mean
spirit is ever willing to resort.

[figure description] Page 047.[end figure description]

“Very true, Clarence, but I did not seek Flora in going
there. I happened to be in the neighbourhood at nightfall,
and saw no good reason for avoiding a good supper and a
comfortable bed, which I knew the hospitalities of Briar
Park would always afford me. I did go there—that is
true—saw Flora and all the family—but it is nevertheless
equally true, that in going there I did not seek her.”

“But you withheld the fact of your being there, Edward
Conway, and left the impression on my mind that you had
not seen her.”

“I did not seek to convey such an impression, Clarence;
I simply spoke to the point, and spoke with literal exactitude.”

“You have a legal proficiency in language;” was the
sarcastic comment. “But for this I should probably have
heard the whole truth. What good reason was there why
you should be so partial in your revelations? Why did
you not tell me all?”

“To answer you frankly, Clarence,” replied the other
with the air of a man unbuttoning his bosom to the examination
of the world—“I found you jealous and suspicious
on this subject—in just the mood to convert the least important
circumstance into a cause of doubt and dissatisfaction;
and, therefore, I withheld from you a fact which,
however innocent in itself, and unworthy of consideration,
I was yet well aware, in your tone of mind, would assume
an importance and character which justly it could not
merit. Besides, Clarence, there were so many subjects of
far more interest to my mind, of which we had no speech,
that I did not care to dwell upon the matter longer than
was necessary. You forget, Clarence, that I had not seen
you for months before this meeting.”

The suspicions of the younger were in no respect disarmed
or lessened by this explanation. Edward Conway
had somewhat overshot his mark when he spoke so slightingly
of a subject to which Clarence attached so high an
importance. The latter could not believe in the indifference
which the other expressed in reference to one so
dear to himself as Flora Middleton; and, in due degree as
he felt the probability that so much merit as he esteemed
that maiden to possess, could not fail to awaken the tender
passion in all who beheld her, so was he now inclined to

[figure description] Page 048.[end figure description]

consider the declaration of his kinsman as an hypocrisy
equally gross and shallow. He resolved, internally, that
he should neither deceive his judgment nor disarm his
watchfulness; that, while he himself forbore reproaches
of every sort, which, indeed, at that moment would have
seemed ungenerous and ungracious, he would endeavour
to maintain a surveillance over his rival's movements,
which would at least defeat such of his machinations as
might otherwise tend to beguile from himself the affections
of the beloved object. The closing words of Edward
Conway suggested a natural change of the subject, of
which Clarence quickly availed himself.

“You remind me, Edward Conway, that though we
have spoken of various and interesting subjects, you have
not yet given me the information which I sought, on any.
The one most important to both of us, Edward Conway—
to our father's family, to the name we bear, and the position
we should equally sustain, as well to the past as to the
future, in the eye of our country—is that of your present
public course. On that subject you have told me nothing.
Of your position in this conflict I know nothing; and
what little reaches my ears from the lips of others, is
painfully unfavourable. Nay, more, Edward Conway, I
am constrained to think, and I say it in bitterness and sadness,
that what you have said, in reply to my frequent and
earnest inquiries, on this point, has seemed to me intended
rather to evade than to answer my demands. I cannot
divest myself of the conviction that you have spoken on
this subject with as careful a suppression of the whole
truth, as this morning when you gave me the assurance
with regard to Flora Middleton.”

A heavy cloud darkened, though for a moment only, the
face of the elder Conway.

“There are some very strong prejudices against me
in your mind, Clarence, or it would not be difficult for
you to understand, how I might very naturally have secrets
which should not be revealed, and yet be engaged
in no practices which would either hurt my own, or the
honour of my family.”

“This I do not deny, Edward, however suspicious it
may seem that such secrets should be withheld from an
only brother, whose faith you have never yet found reason

[figure description] Page 049.[end figure description]

to suspect; whose prudence you have never found occasion
to distrust. But I do not ask for any of your
secrets. I should scorn myself for ever did I feel a
single desire to know that which you have any good
reason to withhold from me. It is only that I may
defend you from injustice—from slander—from the suspicions
of the true and the worthy,—that I would be
fortified by a just knowledge of your objects and pursuits.
Surely, there can be no good reason to withhold
this knowledge, if what you do is sanctioned by propriety
and the cause for which we are all in arms.”

“It is sanctioned by the cause for which we are in
arms;” replied the other, hastily. “Have I not assured
you that I am no traitor—that my fidelity to my country
is not less pure and perfect than your own? The slanderer
will defame and the credulous will believe, let us
labour as we may. I take no heed of these—I waste no
thought on such profitless matters; and you, Clarence,
will save yourself much pain, and me much annoying
conjecture, if you will resolve to scorn their consideration
with myself, and cast them from your mind. Give
them no concern. Believe me to be strangely and
awkwardly placed; but not criminal—not wilfully and
perversely bent on evil. Is not this enough? What
more shall I say? Would you have me—your elder
brother—bearing the same name with yourself—declare
to you, in words, that I am not the black-hearted, blood-thirsty,
reckless monster, which these wide-mouthed
creatures, these blind mouths and bitter enemies, proclaim
me?”

“But why are these men of Butler your enemies?
They are not the enemies of your country.”

“I know not that,” said the other hastily.

“Your doubt does them gross injustice;” replied
Clarence Conway, with increased earnestness; “they
are known men—tried and true—and whatever may be
their excesses and violence, these are owing entirely to
the monstrous provocation they have received. How
can it be, Edward, that you have roused these men to
such a degree of hostility against yourself. They bear

[figure description] Page 050.[end figure description]

to you no ordinary hate—they speak of you in no ordinary
language of denunciation—”

“My dear Clarence,” said the other, “you seem to
forget all the while, that they never spoke of me at all—
certainly not by name. They know me not—they have
most assuredly confounded me with another. Even if I
were indeed the person whom they hate, to answer your
questions would be no easy matter. As well might I
undertake to show why there are crime and injustice in
the world, as why there are slander and suspicion.
These are plants that will grow, like joint-grass, in every
soil, weed and work at them as you may.”

“It is nevertheless exceedingly strange, Edward,” was
the musing answer of the still unsatisfied Clarence; “it
is strange how any set of men should make such a mistake.”

“The strangest thing of all is, that my own brother
should think it so. Why should you?”

“Should I not?”

“Wherefore?—You cannot believe that I am, indeed,
what they allege me to be—the chief of the Black
Riders—that dreaded monster—half man, half dragon—
who slays the men, swallows the children, and flies off
with the damsels. Ha! ha! ha! Really, Clarence, I
am afraid you are as credulous now at twenty-five as
you were at five.”

“It is not that I believe, Edward Conway. If I did,
the name of my father, which you bear, had not saved
your life. But, why, again, are you suspected? Suspicion
follows no actions that are not doubtful—it dogs
no footsteps which are straightforward—it haunts no
character, the course of which has been direct and unequivocal?
My unhappiness is that you have made
yourself liable to be confounded with the criminal,
because you have not been seen with the innocent.
You are not with us, and the natural presumption is that
you are with our enemies.”

“I should not care much for the idle gabble of these
country geese, Clarence, but that you should echo their
slanders—that you should join in the hiss.”

[figure description] Page 051.[end figure description]

“I do not—all I demand of you is that confidence
which would enable me to silence it.”

“As well attempt to silence the storm. The attempt
would be idle; and, if made, where should we begin?
What suspicion must I first dissipate? Whose poisonous
breath must I first encounter? This story of the
Black Riders, for example—do you really believe,
Clarence, in the alleged existence of this banditti?”

“I do!—I cannot believe otherwise.”

“Impossible! I doubt it wholly. These dastardly
fellows of Butler, have fancied half the terrors they describe.
Their fears have magnified their foes, and I
make no question they have slandered as civil a set of
enemies as ever had a professional sanction for throat-cutting.
Really, Clarence, the very extravagance of
these stories should save you from belief; and I must
say, if you do believe, that a little more of the brotherly
love which you profess, should keep you from supposing
me to be the savage monster of whom they give such
horrid traits in the chief of this Black banditti. My very
appearance—in our youth, Clarence, considered not very
much unlike your own—should save me from these suspicions.
See!—my skin is rather fair than dark; and as
for the mass of hair which is said to decorate the chin,
and the black shock which surrounds the face of the
formidable outlaw—none who looks at my visage will
fancy that Esau could ever claim me for his kinsman.
My vanity, indeed, is somewhat touched, Clarence, that
my smooth visage should suffer such cruel misrepresentation.”

And as the speaker concluded this rhapsody, his eye
suddenly wandered from that of the person he addressed,
and rested upon the belt which encircled his own body—
a belt of plain black leather, secured by an ordinary iron
buckle, painted of the same colour, and freshly varnished.
An uneasy upward glance, at this moment, encountered
that of his kinsman, whose eyes had evidently followed
his own, to the examination of the same object. In this
single glance and instant, it seemed that the moral chasm
which had always existed between their souls, had

[figure description] Page 052.[end figure description]

yawed wider and spread farther than before. There was a
mutual instinct where there was no mutual sympathy.
The disquiet of the one, and the doubts of the other, were
re-awakened; and though neither spoke, yet both understood
the sudden difficulties of farther speech between
them. Another voice, at this moment, broke the silence,
which it did not however relieve of any of that painful
pressure which the interview possessed over both the
interested parties. The impatience of the worthy woodman
had brought him sufficiently nigh to hear some of
the last words of the elder kinsman.

“Well,” said he, bluntly, “if long talking can make
any case cl'ar, then it's pretty sartin, Edward Conway,
that they've mightily belied you. What you say is very
true about skin, and face, and complexion, and all that.
Naterally, you han't no great deal of beard, and your
shock, as it stands, wouldn't be a sarcumstance alongside
of the colonel's or my own. But I've hearn of contrivances
to help natur in sich a matter. I've hearn of
livin' men, and livin' women too, that dressed themselves
up in the sculps of dead persons, and made a mighty
pretty figure of hair for themselves, when, naterally, they
had none. Now, they do say, that the Black Riders
does the same thing. Nobody that I've ever hearn speak
of them, ever said that the sculps was nateral that they
had on; and the beards, too, would come and go, jist
according to the company they want to keep. It's only
a matter of ten days ago—the time you may remember
by a mighty ugly run you had of it from these same boys
of Butler—that I was a-going over the same ground,
when, what should I happen to see in the broad track
but one of these same movable sculps—the sculp for
the head and the sculp for the chin, and another sculp
that don't look altogether so nateral, that must ha' gone
somewhere about the mouth, though it must ha' been
mighty onpleasant a-tickling of the nostrils; for you see,
if I knows any thing of human natur, or beast natur, this
sculp come, at first, from the upper side of a five year old
fox-squirrel, one of the rankest in all the Santee country.
I know by the feel somewhat, and a little more by the

[figure description] Page 053.[end figure description]

smell. Now, Mr. Edward Conway, if you'll jist look at
these here fixin's, you won't find it so hard to believe
that a fair skinned man mout wear a black sculp and a
mighty dark complexion underneath, if so be the notion
takes him. Seein's believing. I used to think, before
we went out, that it was all an old woman's story, but as
sure as a gun, I found these sarcumstances, jist as you
see 'em, on the broad path down to the Wateree; and I
reckon that's a strong sarcumstance in itself, to make me
think they was made for something, and for somebody
to wear. But that's only my notion. I reckon it's easy
enough, in these times, for every man to find a different
way of thinking when he likes to.”

The articles described by the woodman were drawn
from his bosom as he spoke, and displayed before the
kinsmen. The keen eyes of Clarence, now doubly
sharpened by suspicion, seemed disposed to pierce into
the very soul of Edward Conway. He, however, withstood
the analysis with all the calm fortitude of a martyr.
He examined the several articles with the manner of
one to whom they were entirely new and strange; and
when he had done, he quietly remarked to the deliberate
woodman, that he had certainly produced sufficient evidence
to satisfy him, if indeed he were not satisfied
before, “that a man, disposed to adopt a plan of concealment
and disguise, could readily find, or make, the materials
to do so.”

“But this, Clarence,” said he, turning to his kinsman,
“this has nothing to do with what I was saying of myself.
It does not impair the assurance which I made
you—”

Clarence Conway, who had been closely examining
the articles, without heeding his brother, demanded of
the woodman why he had not shown them to him
before.

“Well, colonel, you see I didn't find them ontil the
second day after the chase, when you sent me on the
scout along the hills.”

“Enough!—Bring up the horses.”

“Both?” asked the woodman, with some anxiety.

[figure description] Page 054.[end figure description]

“Yes! I will ride a little way with my brother.”

The horses were brought in a few moments from the
mouth of a gorge which ran between the hills at the foot
of which they stood. The promptness of the woodman's
movements prevented any conversation, meanwhile,
between the kinsmen; nor did either of them
appear to desire it. The soul of Clarence was full of a
new source of disquiet and dread; while the apprehensions
of Edward Conway, if entirely of another sort,
were yet too active to permit of his very ready speech.
As the kinsmen were preparing to mount, Supple Jack
interposed, and drew his superior aside.

“Well, what's the matter now?” demanded Clarence
impatiently. “Speak quickly, Jack—the storm is at
hand—the rain is already falling.”

“Yes, and that's another reason for your taking to
the swamp ag'in. In three hours the hills will tell a
story of every step that your horse is taking.”

“Well, what of that?”

“Why, matter enough, if the tories are on the look
out for us, which I'm dub'ous is pretty much the case.
I didn't altogether like the signs I fell in with on the
last scout, and if so be that Edward Conway is one of
these Black Riders, then it's good reason to believe
they'll be looking after him where they lost him.”

“Pshaw, no more of this;” said the other angrily.

“Well, Clarence, you may `pshaw' it to me as much
as you please, only I'm mighty sartain, in your secret
heart, you don't `pshaw' it to yourself. It's a strange
business enough, and it's not onreasonable in me to
think so—seeing what I have seen, and knowing what
I know. Now that Butler's boys are gone upwards,
these fellows will swarm thick as grasshoppers in all
this country; and it's my notion, if you will go, that
you should keep a sharp eye in your head, and let your
dogs bark at the first wink of danger. I'm dub'ous
you're running a mighty great risk on this side of the
Wateree. There's no telling where Marion is jist at
this time; and there's a rumour that Watson's on the
road to j'in Rawdon. Some say that Rawdon's going

[figure description] Page 055.[end figure description]

to leave Camden, and call in his people from Ninety-Six
and Augusta; and if so, this is the very part of the
country where there's the best chance of meeting him
and all of them. I wouldn't ride far, Clarence; and I'd
ride fast; and I'd git back as soon as horseflesh could
bring me. Sorrel is in full blood now, and he'll show
the cleanest heels in the country, at the civillest axing of
the spur.”

“You are getting as timid, Jack, as you are suspicious,”
said the youth kindly, and with an effort at
composure, which was not successful. “Age is coming
upon you, and I fear, before the campaign is over, you'll
be expecting to be counted among the non-combatants.
Don't fear for me, Jack; I will return before midnight.
Keep up your scout, and get a stouter heart at work—
you couldn't have a better one.”

“That's to say, Clarry, that I'm a darn'd good-natered
fool for my pains. I understand you—” The rest was
lost to the ears of Clarence Conway, in the rush of his
own and the steed of his companion. “But, fool or not,
I'll look after you, as many a fool before has looked
after a wiser man, and been in time to save him
when he couldn't save himself. As for you, Ned Conway,”
he continued in brief soliloquy, and with a lifted
finger, “you may draw your skirts over the eyes of
Clarence, but it'll take thicker skirts than yourn to blind
Jack Bannister. You couldn't do it altogether when I
was a boy—it'll be a mighty onbecoming thing to me,
now that I'm a man, if I should let you be any more
successful. Well, here we stand. The thing's to be
done; the game's to be played out; and the stakes.
Ned Conway, must be my head agin yourn. The
game's a fair one enough, and the head desarves to lose
it, that can't keep its place on the shoulders where God
put it.”

With this conclusive philosophy, the scout tightened
his belt about his waist, threw up his rifle, the flint and
priming of which he carefully examined, then, disappearing
among the stunted bushes that grew beside the
swamp thicket, he soon after emerged, leading a stout

[figure description] Page 056.[end figure description]

Choctaw pony, which had been contentedly ruminating
among the cane-tops. Mounting this animal, which was
active and sure-footed, he set off in a smart canter in the
track pursued by his late companions, just as the rainstorm,
which had been for some time threatening, began
to discharge the hoarded torrents of several weeks upon
the parched and thirsting earth.

Previous section

Next section