The Iron Game - Henry Francis Keenan
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The boy stood irresolute. Both listened intently. The firing had
stopped. A great sough of rising storm came from the northwest, carrying
a hot, blinding mass of smoke and flame into the little retreat. They
flung themselves on the damp ferns to keep their breath. Still the
breeze rose, until it became a wind--a spasm of hurricane. It was
madness to linger, for the flames now licked the ground, driven down
anew by the blast. Then Jones spoke decisively: "Strap a pine torch to
your body. I will do the same. Take all you can carry and follow in my
wake." Jones, as he spoke, seized a torch, extinguished it, and handed
it to Dick. Equipped as he had directed, they set out, half crawling,
half swimming, to avoid the volumes of smoke hovering in the thick,
cactus-like leaves of the wild laurel. Presently they emerged, after
toil and misery, that excitement alone enabled the boy to support, into
what seemed a cleared space. But as soon as their eyes could distinguish
clearly, they found themselves on the edge of a wide pond. The fire was
now behind them. They could stand erect and breathe the pure, cool air.
"Ah, now we are in luck!" Jones whispered. "We will walk to the right,
on the edge of this lake, and keep it between us and the fire. We have
got out of that purgatory; now if we could only signal our friends."
"Hist!" whispered Dick, "I hear some one moving behind us."
They crouched down in the thick reeds and waited. The sky above was
darkly overcast; an occasional burst of lightning revealed the
dimensions of the pond, and they could see high ground on the eastern
shore, covered by enormous pines.
"If we can only reach the pines we shall be all right. There the ground
will be dry and soft and you can get some rest. I'm afraid, my boy, it
will go hard with you if you don't."
"I don't mind what happens if we can only come up with Jack. There, do
you hear that?"
Yes, both could plainly hear voices ahead of them on the margin of the
pond. They were talking in low tones, and the words were
undistinguishable.
"We must crawl back toward the bush, and get as near those folks as we
can," Jones whispered. They made their way easily into the high bushes
and stole forward in the direction of the voices. But as they had to
guard against breaking twigs or hurtling branches, which would have
betrayed them, their advance was slow. When they reached the vicinity
where they had fancied the voices to be, all was silent.
"Sound the call; perhaps that will lead to something," Jones whispered
in Dick's ear.
But, unnerved by the trying experience of the night, or worn out by
fatigue, Dick's call was far from the significant signal he had
practiced with Jack. He repeated it several times, but there was no
response. There was, however, something more startling. A few rods
beyond them a flame suddenly shot up, lighting a group of cavalry
patrols standing beside a fire just kindled.
"Rebels!" Jones whispered. "Now we must be slippery as snakes. If they
have no dogs, we are all right. If you hear the whimper of a hound,
follow me like lightning and plunge into the water. That'll break the
trail. Stay here and let me reconnoitre a bit. Have no fear. I'll go in
no danger."
Jones crept away, leaving Dick by no means easy in his mind, but he no
longer felt the terror that numbed him in the deep wood. Here there was
companionship. By pushing the branches aside he could see the figures
lounging about the fire; he could see the dark vault of the sky, and was
not oppressed by the hideous shapes and shadows of the dense jungle.
Jones meanwhile had pushed within earshot of the group. He flattened his
body against a friendly pine and listened.
"I reckon they ain't the Westover niggers, for they were traced to the
Pamunkey; these rascals are most likely from the south side--"
"If Jim gets here with the dogs in an hour, we can be back to the
barracks for breakfast."
"Ef it hadn't been for that blamed fire in the swamp, we should have had
them before this. The rascal that fired at Tom wasn't a musket-shot from
me when the smoke poured out and hid him."
"They've gone into the swamp. The dogs'll soon tree them. I'm going to
turn in till the dogs come. One of you stay awake and keep a sharp eye
toward the creek."
"All right, sergeant. You won't have more'n a cat-nap. Bilcox's dogs are
over at the ford, I know, for they were brought there's soon as the news
of the Yankee escape came."
"I hope they are; but I'm afraid they are not. If they are, we shall
soon hear them."
Jones had heard enough. Hastening back to Dick, he asked:
"Can you swim?"
"Yes, I'm a good swimmer."
"Very well; throw away everything--no, stay--that would betray us. When
we reach the water bury all you can't carry in the sand and then
follow me."
They were forced to retrace their painful way through the bushes to
reach a place as distant from the point of pursuit as possible. A
half-mile or more from their starting-place they found themselves in a
running stream. Jones examined it in both directions, and bade Dick
enter it and follow in the water, pushing upward in the bed, waist-deep,
a hundred yards. Then, climbing to the bank, he groped about until he
found a slender white oak. Climbing this as high as he could get, he
slowly swung off, and, the tree bending down to the very stream, he
dropped back into the water and rejoined Dick. Both waded in the middle
of the stream until they reached the pond, and then struck out toward
the pine clump the lightning had revealed a little while before. There
was no need of swimming, and, finding it possible to wade, Jones decided
to retain the pistols and ammunition which he had at first resolved to
bury as impeding the flight. The bottom appeared to be hard sand, a
condition often found in Southern ponds near the inflow of the sea. They
had gone a mile or more, keeping just far enough from the bank to remain
undistinguishable, when the appalling baying of a hound sounded from the
farther end of the pond, where the patrol fire gleamed faintly among
the trees.
"Now, youngster, we must keep all our wits at work. The dogs will push
on to where we hid. They will follow to the stream, and I think I have
given them the slip there. Then they will beat about and follow our
trail into the cypress swamp. There the horses will mislead them, and if
you can only hold out, so soon as daylight comes we can strike into the
pines and make for the Union lines."
"I--I--think I can--ah!--"
Dick reeled helplessly and would have sunk under the water, if Jones had
not caught him.
"Courage, my boy, courage! Don't give up now, just as we are near
rescue!"
But Dick was unconscious, the strain of the early part of the night, the
desperate fight through the brakes, all had told on the slight frame,
and Jones stood up to his middle in the dark water, holding the
fainting boy.
CHAPTER XXVI.
IN THE UNION LINES.
If there is reason as well as rhyme in the old song that danger's a
soldier's delight and a storm the sailor's joy, Jack and his comrade
were in for all the delights that ever gladdened soldier or sailor boy.
When they left Dick and Jones, the eager couriers tore through the
marshy lowlands, the stubbly thickets and treacherous quagmires, poor
Barney, panting and groaning in his docile desire to keep up with his
leader, as he had done often in boyish bravado.
"There'll not be a rag on me body nor a whole bone in me skin when we
get out of this!" he gasped, as they reached high ground between two
spreading deeps of mingled weeds and water. "The sight of us'd frighten
the whole rebel army, if we don't come on them aisy loike, as the fox
said when he whisked into the hen-house."
"He was a very considerate fox, Barney. Most of the personages you
select to illustrate your notions seem to me to be gifted with little
touches of thoughtfulness. Barney, you ought to write a sequel to Aesop.
There never was out of his list of animal friends such wise beasts,
birds, and what not as you seem to have known."
"Jack, dear, if a man lived on roses would the bees feed on him? If he
ate honeysuckle instead of hard-tack would he be squeezed for his scents
to fill ladies' smelling-bottles?"
"I don't know that sense is always a recommendation to women," Jack
shifts his burden to say tentatively, as Barney, involved in a more than
commonly obstinate brier, loses the thread of this jocose induction.
"Ah, Jack, dear, ye're weak in ye're mind when you fall to play on words
like that."
"You mean my sense is small?"
"Not that at all. Sure, it's a hero's mind ye show when you can find
heart to make merry at a time like this!"
"Yes--'he jests at love who never felt a throb.'"
"Then you've a hard heart--and I know I lie when I say it, as Father
Mike McCune said to himself when he tuk the oath to King George in
'98--if ye're heart never throbbed in Acredale beyant, for there's many
a merry one cast down entirely that handsome Jack's gone."
"Come, come, Barney; it's dark, and I can't see the grin that saves this
from fulsome blarney."
"Indeed, then--"
"Hark!"
Through the monotonous noises of the night the clanking of steel and the
neighing of horses could be heard just ahead.
"We must move cautiously now, Barney. Try to put a curb on your tongue,
and let your reflections mature in your busy brain."
"Put me tongue in bonds to keep the peace, as Lawyer Donigan cautioned
Biddy Gavan when the doctor said she was driving the parish mad with
her prate."
"Sh!--sh!--you noisy brawl; we shall have a platoon of cavalry upon us.
Even the birds have stopped crooning to catch your delicate brogue!"
"'Tis only the ill-mannered owl that makes game of me--if--"
"Sh! Come on. Bend low. Do as I do--if you can see me. If not, keep
touch on my arm."
"As the wolf said to the lamb when he bid him take a walk in the
wather."
They had now emerged on the reedy margin of the dark pool discovered by
Dick and Jones later. All was silent. The sky was full of stars--so full
that, even in the absence of the moon, there was a transparent clarity
in the air that enabled Jack to take definite bearings.
"This must be an outlet of the York River, the stream we saw this
afternoon. If it be, then we are not far from our own outposts. The
troopers we heard just now may be Union soldiers. We must wait patiently
to let them discover themselves. Keep abreast of me, and don't, as you
value your life, speak above a whisper--better not to speak at all."
"That's what the priest said to Randy Maloney's third wife when she
complained that he bate her."
"Barney, I'll throttle you if you don't keep that mill you call your
tongue still."
"Ah, I'll hold it in me fist, as Mag Gleason held her jaw, for fear her
tooth would lep out to get more room to ache."
Jack laughed. "If we're caught it will be through your jokes, for bad as
they are I must laugh at some of them."
"Dear, oh dear no; you may save the laugh till a convenient time, as
Hugh McGowen kept his penances, until his head was clear, and there was
no whisky in the jar."
They had been pushing on rapidly--noiselessly, during this whispered
dispute, and now found themselves at the reedy margin of a wide inlet,
where, from the swift motion of the water and the musical gurgling, they
could tell they were by the side of a main channel.
"We must push on southward, and see if there is a crossing. If we come
to one, that will tell us where we are, for it will be guarded, you may
be sure," said Jack, buoyantly.
"Yes, but I'd rather find a hill of potatoes and a drop than all the
soldiers in the two armies."
"You are not logical, Barney. If we find soldiers, we'll find rations;
though I have my doubts about the sort of 'drop' you'll be apt to find
down here."
"There was enough corn in the field beyant to keep a still at work for a
winter," Barney lamented with a sigh, recalling fields of grain they had
passed near Williamsburg, which he vaguely alluded to as "beyant."
"I wish some of the 'still' were on the end of your tongue at this
moment."
"With all me heart--'twould do yer sowl good to see the work it'd give
me tongue to do to hould itself," Barney gasped, trying to keep abreast
of his reviler. "Be the dark eyes of Pharaoh's daughter there's a field
beyant--yes, and a shebeen; d'ye see that?"
They had suddenly emerged in a cleared place. Against the horizon they
could distinctly distinguish the outlines of a cabin, the "shebeen"
Barney alluded to.
"Yes, we're in luck. It's a negro shanty. We shall find friends there,
if we find anybody. Now, do be silent."
"If the field was full of girruls, with ears as big as sunflowers, they
wouldn't hear me breathe, so have no fear. A hill of potatoes all eyes
couldn't see us in such darkness as this."
For dense clouds had swiftly come up from the west, covering the
horizon. After careful reconnoitring, requiring a circuit of the
clearing, Jack ventured to make directly for the dark outlines of the
cabin. War had obviously not visited the place, for as they passed a low
outhouse the startled cackle of chickens sounded toothsomely, and Barney
came to a delighted halt.
"Sure we'd better get a bite to ate while we may, as th' ass said when
he passed th' market car, for who knows what'll happen if we stop to ask
by your lave?"
For answer Jack gave him a sharp push, and the discomfited plunderer
hurried on with a good-humored grunt. All was silent in the cabin. The
windows were slatted, without glass, and the door was unfastened. Jack
pushed in boldly, leaving Barney to guard the rear. Peaceful snoring
came from one corner, and Jack, shading a lighted match with his hand,
looked about him. In the hurried glimpse he caught sight of an old negro
on a husk mattress, and the heads of young boys just beyond. They were
sleeping so soundly that the striking of the match never aroused them.
Jack had to shake the man violently before the profound sleep
was broken.
"I say, wake up! or can you wake?"
"What dat? Who's dar--you, Gabe? What you 'bout?"
The old man shuffled to a sitting posture, and Jack, renewing his match,
held it in the negro's blinking eyes.
"Have you any food? We are Yankees, and want something for companions in
the swamp. Are we in danger here? We heard cavalry-men on the other side
of the pond; are they rebel or Yankee?"
At this volley of questions the bewildered man turned piteously to the
sleepers, and then stared at Jack in perplexity.
"'Deed, marsa captain, I don no noffin 'tall, I--I hain't been to de
crick fo' a monf. I'se fo'bid to go da--I--"
"Well, well, have you any food? Get that first, and then talk," Jack
cried, impatiently.
But now the boys were awake, and Jack had to give them warning to make
no noise. Yes, there was food, plenty. Cooked bacon, hoe-cake, and cold
chicken, boiled eggs, and, to Barney's immeasurable joy, sorghum whisky.
The hunger of the invaders satisfied, each provided himself with a sack
to feed the waiting comrades; and while this was going on they extracted
from the now reassured negroes that the spot was just behind Warick
Creek, near Lee's Mills; that parties of rebels from the fort at
Yorktown had been at work building lines of earthworks, and that every
now and then Yankees came across and skirmished in the woods a mile or
two up in the direction whence Jack had come. The cabin was only a step
from the main road, upon which the rebels were encamped--a regiment or
more. Some Yankee prisoners had been captured early in the morning, and
were in the block-house, a short distance up the road.
"Can you lead us near the block-house?" Jack asked.
"I reckon I can; but ef I do they'll shu' ah' find it out, and den I'se
don, 'cos Marsa Hinton--he's in de cavalry--he'll guess dat it was me
dat tuk you 'uns dar."
"Do you want to be free? Do you want to go into the Union lines?"
"Free! oh, de Lor', free! O marsa captain, don't fool a ole man. Free!
I'd rudder be free dan--dan go to Jesus--almost."
"Have you a wife--are these your children?"
"My ole woman is up at Marsa Hinton's; she's de nuss gal. Dese is my
boys; yes, sah."
"Very well; we're going into the Union lines. You know the country
hereabouts. Help us to find our friends in the swamp, and we will take
you all with us," Jack said; but feeling a good deal of compunction, as
he was not so sure that the freedom bestowed upon these guileless
friends might not, for a time at least, be more of a hardship than their
happy-go-lucky servitude. Meanwhile, in the expansion of renewed hopes
and full stomachs, no watch had been kept on the outside; a tallow dip
had been lighted, and the whole party busied in getting together such
necessaries as could be carried. One of the boys, passing the door,
uttered a stifled cry:
"Somebody comin' from de road."
"Where can we hide? Don't put out the light; that will look suspicions!"
Jack whispered, making for the window in the rear, "Is there a cellar,
or can we get on the roof?" But the dark group were too terrified to
speak. They ran in a mob to the doorway, luckily the most adroit
manoeuvre they could hit upon, for with the dip flaring in the current
of air, the room was left in darkness. Jack and Barney slipped through
the low lattice, and by means of a narrow shed reached the low roof.
They could hear the tramp of horses, how many they could not judge, and
then a gruff voice demanding:
"You, Rafe, what ye up to? What ye got a light burnin' this time o'
night fo'?"
"'Deed, marsa, it's nuffin'--fo' God, marsa! I was gittin' de stomach
bottle fo' Gabe--he eat some jelly root fo' supper and he's been
powerful sick--frow his insides out--I--"
"Leave your horses, boys. Rafe's got some of Hinton's best sorghum
whisky--you, there, nigger, get us a jug and some cups."
How many dismounted Jack couldn't make out, but presently there was a
heavy tramping in the cabin and then a ferocious oath.
"What does this mean; why have you got all these traps packed? Going to
cut to the Yankees! Don't lie, now--you'll get more lashes for it."
Jack listened breathlessly. Would the quavering slaves have presence of
mind to divert suspicion? There was a pause, and then the old man cried,
pleadingly:
"We'se gwine to lebe dis place; we's gwine up to de house in de mornin'.
My ole woman can't come down heah now, case de sojers is always firm',
and Mars' Hinton told us to come to de quarters, sah."
"I don't believe a word of it, you old rascal. I'll see whether Hinton
has ordered you to leave here. Likely story, indeed; leave one of his
best fields with no one to care for it. Git the whisky and stop your
mumbling. You, there, you young imps, step about lively--do you heah?"
There was the sound of a sharp stroke, then a howl of pain and a
boisterous laugh.
"You keep an eye on the rear and I will see how many horses there are,"
Jack's lips murmured in Barney's ear. He slid cautiously down the
slanting roof until he came to the corner where he saw the dark group of
horses. There were three--tied to the peach-trees. He made his way back
to Barney and whispered:
"There are but three horses. If you are up to an adventure I think we
can make this turn to our profit."
"I'm up to anything, as the cat said when Biddy Hiks's plug ran her up
the crab-tree."
"Very well. Come after me."
The sorghum, meanwhile, had been handed to the raiders in the cabin, and
the men could be heard making merry.
"You, Gabe, go out and mind the horses; see that they don't twist the
bridles about their legs."
Gabe sallied out and one of his brothers with him. As they neared the
horses Jack came upon them, and taking the elder, Gabe, in the shadow of
the house, he whispered:
"Have the soldiers' pistols?"
"Yes, sah."
"Where are they?"
"De put dem on de stool, neah de doah."
"Good. How many?"
"Free."
"Have they swords?"
"Yes, sah."
"Where are they?"
"On de stool, too."
"That will do; keep with the horses, and don't be frightened if you hear
anything. We'll give you freedom yet, if you'll be prudent."
He could hear the men grumbling because the food was not enough to go
around. The liquor had begun to work in their systems, drinking so
lavishly, and without nourishment to absorb its fiery quality. Jack let
enough time pass to give this ally full play in disabling the troopers,
then taking Barney to the rear of the cabin, whispered:
"I will dash in at the door, seize the weapons, and demand surrender.
You make a great ado here; give command, as if there were a squad. The
boys will make a loud clatter with the horses, and we shall bag the game
without a blow. Now, be prudent. Barney, and we will go into the Union
lines in triumph."
Inside the men were laughing uproariously, mingling accounts of love and
war in a confused medley--how a sweetheart in Petersburg was only
waiting for the stars on her lover's collar to make him happy; how the
Yankees would be wiped out of the Peninsula as soon as Jack Magruder got
his nails pared for fight; how three Yankees had been gobbled that day,
and how others were in the net to be taken in the morning. The bacchanal
was at its highest when Jack, dashing into the open doorway, placed
himself between the drinkers and their arms, and cried, sternly, as he
pointed his pistol at the group:
"Surrender, men! You are surrounded!"
"Close up, there! Keep your guns on a line with the windows; don't fire
till I give the order!" Barney could be heard at the window in
suppressed tones, as he, too, covered the maudlin company. Gabe and his
brother added to the effect of numbers by clattering the stirrups of the
horses, so that the clearing seemed alive with armed men.
The troopers, sobered and astonished, half rose, and then as these
sounds of superior force emphasized the menace of Jack's pistol in front
and Barney's in the rear, they sank back in their seats, the spokesman
saying, tipsily:
"I don't see as we've much choice."
"No, you have no choice.--Sergeant, bring in the cords," Jack ordered.
Barney at this came in with a clothes-line Jack had prepared from the
negroes' posts. The arms of the three men were bound behind them, and
then Jack retired with his aide to hold a council of war. Without the
negro they could never retrace their way to Dick. But how could they
carry the prisoners with them? Manifestly it could not be done. It was
then agreed that Barney should take the prisoners, the horses, and the
old man, with the younger boys, and make for the Union lines, not a mile
distant. Jack, meanwhile, with little Gabe, would go to the rescue of
Dick. If firing were heard later, Barney would understand that his
friends were in peril, and, if the Union outposts were in sufficient
strength, they could come to the rescue, and, perhaps, add to the
captures of the night. Barney was now serious enough. He was reminded of
no joke by the present dilemma, and remained very solemn, as Jack
enlarged on the glories of the proposed campaign. How all Acredale would
applaud the intrepidity of its townsmen snatching glory from peril!
Barney consented to leave him with reluctance, suggesting that the "ould
nagur" could take the prisoners "beyant."
"Gabe has shown sense and courage, and I shall be much more likely to
reach Dick and extricate him and Jones, alone, than if I had this
cavalcade at my heels."
Jack and Barney were forced to laugh at the big-eyed wonder in old
Rafe's eyes when he was informed of the imposing part he was to play in
the warlike comedy. To be guard over "white folks," to dare to look them
in the face without fear of a blow, in all his sixty years Rafael Hinton
had never dreamed such a mission for a man of color. The troopers, too
tipsy and subdued to remark the sudden paucity of the force that had
overcome them, were tied upon their own steeds, Barney in front of the
leader, and Rafe and his son in charge of the two others.
Rafe led the way in trembling triumph. He knew the ford, indeed, every
foot of the country, and had no misgivings about reaching the Union
lines. Jack watched the squad until it disappeared in the fringe of
trees, and then, turning to the tearful Gabe, said, encouragingly:
"Now, we must do as well when we go among the Union soldiers. You know
the point in the swamp I have told about. How long will it take us to
reach that the shortest way?"
"Ef we had dad's dugout we could save right smart."
"You mean we could get there by water?"
"Yes, sah. We ken go all froo de swamp in a boat."
"Then I'm afraid it is not the place I mean, for we found as much land
as water."
"Dey ain't no odder swamp neah heah, sah."
"Well, we'll try my route first. If that misleads us, we shall try the
boat. Can you find it?"
"Suah."
"Where is it?"
"Ober neah the blockhouse. De sogers done tuk it to fish."
"Ah, yes, the blockhouse! I must look into that! Now, we must hurry.
Skirt the edge of the water and make no noise."
This was a needless warning to the boy, who, barefooted and scantily
clad, gave Jack as much as he could do to keep up with him. They had
left the cabin a mile or more behind them to the southeastward, and were
somewhere near the spot Jack had emerged from the cypress swamp, when
both were brought to a halt by shifting clouds of smoke pouring out from
the underwood.