Beadle's New York Dime Library No. 256 — page 8: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

4 the bottom-timber, where 8 es ‘ ss gt look of anguish and despair, scarcely recog- | headlong flight from the point where he had nigable. his was only for a moment. Then, as she realized that the boat was gliding from her, bearing away forever the corpse of the one and only man who had ever caused her heart to overflow with a flood of uncontrollable love—one whbo had, as sbe believed, been wafted to her on the tide to prove to her that she had not known berself, that it was in the power of human beings to enjoy an ecstatic, most heavenly love this side of the grave—as Rosa realized this, re- calling the severed rope and the fiendish face that she had seen waiching them from beyond the river, she sprung, with a half-stifled cry, that was a mingled moan and sbriek, to ber boat, tore loose the fastenings, and pointed the prow toward mid-channel, but in a quarteriug course down-stream. With all her heavy load of anguish and hor- ror, which almost crushed the poor girl into in- sensibility, her brain seeming about to burst from its casket of bone—with all this, the maiden recalled the fact that Roy had taken her oars, and acted accordingly, Standing erect for a moment, she closed her eyes, raised her clasped hands heavenward, and cried out, m prayerful, most earnest suppli- cation: “‘Oh, Father in beaven! give me strength in this hour of despair and horror! Look down upon and pity Thy stricken child!” The girl felt stronger. She quickly drew the stern of the boat close to the platform, and then with all her Lg ip shot the skiff forward, springing into it in such a manner as to give it more momentum. Then she stood gazing to- ward the corpse-laden craft ahead, stood as rigid and motionless as if carved from stone, and noticing not, as she bounded into her boat, that Hero sot through theair at the same instant, landing in the skiff at the same time that she did, Lut behind her. Out into the moonlight darted the little boat, the black dog standing on the siern seat, the pale and ghastly maiden in the middle of the eraft, the current striking and acting first upon the prow, turning her down the river ina course that would, should a very slight propelling power be used, meng the boats near to each other, gliding in parallel courses. It was a strange, most impressive and mys- teriously weird scene, the moonlight lending an unearthly appearance to the view. But the slow-moving tableau soon changed, for our heroine, rendered most desperate by the cread and torturing anxiety and anguish, wrenched one of the thwarts from its place, and y tddled first to one side and then to the other, Seng to be endued suddenly with great + rength and electric-like motion. Nearer and nearer the frail skiff approached tue drifting boat, that, with the blood-stained vod apparently dead body of its owner, glided tovard the Mexican Gulf, until at last but a yard intervened. One more favorable and vigorous stroke gave the desperate girl, and then, with a shriek like the despairing cry of a lost soul, she sprupg from her skiff into the boat, her movements causing the former to lose head- way and the latter to dart onward with increas- ed velocity. But no sooner did Rosa reach the boat than ber brain reeled, ber overstrained nerves relaxed and she fell forward, limp and senseless upon the body of Roy Randolph, her head resting upon his still breast, her face, like bis, turned in such a manner as to allow the moon’s rays to illumine it, showing the ghastly angelic features of the maiden and the blood-stained face of her lover—one arm of the latter trailing in the aaa as did the wild flowing tresses of R se AY. And just astern, followed the skiff, Hero standing with bis fore paws on the forward seat, his weird and pepgeclravtn howls sounding on the night air at frequent intervals, with an intonation that was almost human in its ex- pression of anguish and deep grief. Thus on glided the two boats, funeral-like and strange, the corpses uncoffined, and the only mourner a faithful dog, whose howl expressed more regret, sorrow, and suffering than many human beings manifest at the demise of their best-loved friends and relatives. Down the silvery bosom of the Rio Brazos they glided through the night, in a flood of silvery moonlight; the howl of the faithful dog _ sounding, requiem-like, over the still waters. CHAPTER VIII. A STRUGGLE FOR LIFE. As has been mentioned, Louis Le Grand sped away from the scene of his most destardly crime as fast as the nature of the ground would permit; indeed be could not have proceeded more rapidly, bad there been a bundred Co- manche warriors behind him in swift pursuit, and howling for his blood, The dark thickets seemed pewpled with hide- ous fiends, ready to bound from their coverts, aud clutch their claw-like fingers about bis throat, He soon gained a more open section of patches, bars, and arrows of moonlight added to the weirdness of the scene; but this served to guide him in his ~_——— ee ee eee eee eee ee CSO 0 c$0 nS osausa_j mm me ae ee ee shot at Roy Randolph, and shot to kill. The rush of ’coons and opossums through the bushes to gain their perches in some favorite tree, frightened by the bounding and snorting steed, se2med to the murderer to be huge ser- pents, squirming into coils, preparatory to springing upon him, and crushing out his life in their loathsome folds. The weird hoot of the owls overbead seemed like the ominous and exultant bowl of demons about to hurl themselves from the sbades above upon him; the swish and whirl of startled birds, he thought, were like the taunting whispers of fiends, who only wished to torture him by delay- ing the moment when they should pounce upon him, and fly with the speed of the wind, and their bot breath upon his cheeks, to the regions of torment. His form cowered, bowed closely to his steed, cringing to the right and to the left, as thus alarmed; his swarthy face became ghastly in its hue, his black, horror-stricken eyes shooting glanees of fear and apprehension on all sides. At times he would see the boat of his victim gliding over the bushes, or high in the branches, Roy Randolph, with his arms thrown up, and his bleeding face half-turned, striving to catch, while the mark of death was upon him, a glances of bis cowardly murderer, as he fell forward in the boat. Then the vision would melt away, the long fest.ons of Spanish moss, slowly swaying, seemed to be the funeral palls that marked the diss»lution and burial forever, from the sight of man, of poor Roy Randolph. Again the same waving moss decorations of the wild wood would appear to Le Grand’s dis- ordered brain to be the ghosts of murdered men; who, led by the avenging spirit of Roy, were now searching the earth for their slayers, seek- ing to avenge their own violent death. Quick following each other panorama-like, appeared these scenes and frights,and LaGrand’s teeth chattered, his strength left him, and he cowed in abject. terror, clinging in desperation to his saddle-horse. In this way, the miscreant allowed his horse free rein, for his terror had driven every thing else from his mind, and he knew not in what direction he was speeding. At length, however, he recognized a lightning: riven tree, as being near to the camping-place where he and his companions had halted in their bunt, and where he had discovered and set Roy Rando!ph adrift; an act which, he vow knew, had been the direct means of bringing Roy and Rosa together, and through his ungovernable jealousy and thirst for revenge, thrusting his own neck into the noose, He felt that, from the moment his eyes first fell upon the form of Roy, as he lay asleep in his boat at the cove—from that moment fortune bad deserted him, and the evil Fates had marked him for their own, He knew that the devil had a heavy mortgage upon him, which was liable to be foreclosed at any moment. But for all that, the dastardly wretch did not believe that he could be made to suffer any greater torments tban he now endured. But he was doomed to realize very soon, that his cup of bitter regret and self-condemnation— that the torture be had suffered since his cow- ard shot, could be increased, as will be shown presently, On, past the shattered tree, bounded the black horse, and its black-hearted rider, each intensely eager to join their kind; the horse scenting the two animals that bad been left in the camp, and pointing directly for the same, the rider recall- ing his inhuman treatment of his slave, but nevertheless insanely eager, in bis fright and horror, to be with, and converse with any hu- man being—even poor old black Dan, Crashing through the undergrowth, the horse, panting and quivering in every muscle, bounded directly into the clear space beneath the bottom timber, which was comparatively well lighted by the moon, The animal sprung to the middle of the camp, and then came to a sudden halt; so sudden, that its terrified rider was hurled violently to the earth. There he lay motionless, devoid of all sense; the horse, with a wild and terrified snort, plunging toward the pack-mule and the borse of eld Dan, both of whiea were lariated amid the wild rye, just clear of the camp, The fire bad long since gone out, and Le Grand bad been thrown directly over the ashes of the same, and upon the hard-tramped ground. He had been insanely eager to meet some hu- man being; even the company of his old slave, under the circumstances, would bea great sat- isfaction. It would relieve him, partially at least, from the dread terrors he was now ex- periencing; and his wish_was now gratified, although he knew it not. For he lay beside old Dan, bis face within a few inches of that of bis slave—the slave, whom he had stricken to the earth, in such a cowardly manner, for failing to inform him that be had discovered Roy Ran- dolph asleep in his boat in the cove, However, bad Louis Le Grand not been bereft of consciousness, the dread terror and fearful fright that tortured him would bave been doubled, instead of being decreased, by joining his slave; for the face of the latter was of ashen : Double Dan, the Dastard. ——_— — hue, and smeared with gore, as was also his gray wool, | The eyes that had oft been filled with appre- hension and terror, as the curses of his master met his ear, were wide open, siering, and fixed upon that master’s silent, senseless form—that form so near bis own—but those eyes were si:htless and soulless now! The aged slave's bondage was over; his spirit hac gone back to its God! Poor, faithful old Dan was dead. And there, beneath the towering trees of the Brez.s, lay master and servant, side by side; a bar of moonlight playing upon the murdered old man, whose hard, worn hands were now done with toil, whose spirit was at last at rest— at rest, and forever! The slave dead, and his master lying insen- sible by his side; the Jattcr coomed benceforth to living torture and misery, the former mur- dered by him, and most foully and brutally, Two murders, Louis Le Grand, in one night! Insensibility is indeed a mest merciful state for you to be plunged into; but it is only a brief respite. Such buman fiends are seldom oe to the extent of long-delayed punish- ment. The mills of the gods grind not slowly f such as you, Louis Le Grand; for Meine Bea) Retribution regulate the whirl of the stones at times, thank Heaven! Over the prostrate forms of master and slave slowly swayed the ghastly gray festoons of moss, casting slowly-mcving shadows on many a patch of moonlight in the weird open- ing. Beyond the camp could be heard the animals, as they grazed upon tie wild rye, and the vicious stamp of their hoofs and swish of their tails, as they sought to free themselves from the torturing flies. To the south the musical ripple of the waters of the Brazos through the reeds along shore, was broken in upon by the harsh, deep croak of huge frogs, and the buzzing of myriads of in- sects of the night. Above was the hooting of the owls, and in the distance the occasional short and sharp barks of the cowardly coyotes. These were the only sounds that broke in upon the solemn stillness of the night; naught was there to indicate that any human beings were near, Ane tous the scene remained for some time, as bas teen fuintly described; but finally a dee groan is. acd from the lips of Louis Le Grand, yet 10L a movement of his form was discern- 1Uie, The groan was followed by a low growl from the dark shades up the river, and near the bank of the same; and a moment after a hugs black bear waddled into the camp, its white teeth gleaming, its long red tongue lolling, and its toed blazing, for the beast had scented man and ood, As the bear approached the two men who lay outstretched, he thrust his niuzzle upward, suuffing the air, and then approached more eautiously, first reaching the corpse of old Dan over which it smelled, being evidently enraged because nv movement was perceptible, The beast growled fiercely, stepped over the body of the negro, and dragged its tongue over, and thrust its cold nose into the face of Le Grand, who was about recovering conscious- ness, The latter opened his eyes in the utmost be- wilderment, evidently at a loss to know where he was, what had brought him there, or how to account for the state he was in, - One look, however, caused him to realize that he was in danger of being torn in pieces and de- voured, this most appalling peril leaving him no time to recall the near past, cr to collect his bewildered mind. He knew, however, that he had been insensi- ble. But he knew that his life now Lung upon a hair, anu chat only by the most ligbtning-like movements could he hope to escape, situated as he was. Gathering, therefore, all bis strength, and bringing bis muscles into instantaneous action, he rolled over and over, away from the terrible brute, and then sprung to bis feet, bounding to a low-branched tree that was near at hand, Up this he clambered, the huge bear, with fierce, mad growls at his heels, and he just escaping the horrible jaws, Not until be was up the tree did Le Grand pereeive that the trunk of the same was at least three feet in diameter, and easily climbed by the bear, but upon quickly thrus ing his hand to bis belt he found that his revolver was there, and he fe}t that he. was saved, Quickly he jerked the weapon, and none too soon, for the wide open jaws, the red and re- pulsive tongue, and the fiery eves appeared im- mediately below his perch, be being unable through weakness, to proceed further up the tree alter his one herculean effort, Thrusting the barrel of his ‘‘ Colt” into the open jaws, Lo Grand pulled the tri ger, and, with a horrible bowl, the claws of the bear gone way. The brute fell to the earth, where t lay in the contortions of death. The report of the revolver on the night air was simply terrific, ringing ugh the tim- t EOmic JOOKS.c - 7 a a —s -— —