Mayne Reid - The Fatal Cord, and The Falcon Rover

But another might be on it. Some one with a human heart. Oh, if it were only Lena!

“Hilloa!” he cries, again and again; “help, help! For the love of God, give help!”

His words are repeated, every one of them, and with distinctness. But, alas, not in answer, only in echo. The giant trunks are but taunting him. A fiend seems to mock him far off in the forest!

He shouts till he is hoarse – till despair causes him to desist. Once more he hangs silent. A wonder he has hung so long. There are few boys, and perhaps fewer men, who could for such a time have sustained the terrible strain, under which even the professional gymnast might have sunk. It is explained by his training, and partly by the Indian blood coursing through his veins. A true child of the forest – a hunter from earliest boyhood – to scale the tall tree, and hang lightly from its limbs, was part of his education. To such as he the hand has a grasp prehensile as the tail of the American monkey, the arm a tension not known to the sons of civilisation.

Fortunate for him it is thus, or perhaps the opposite, since it has only added to his misery by delaying the fate that seems certainly in store for him.

He makes this reflection as he utters his last cry, and once more suffers himself to droop despairingly. So strongly does it shape itself, that he thinks of letting go his hold, and at once and for ever putting an end to his agony.

Death is a terrible alternative. There are few who do not fear to look it in the face – few who will hasten to meet it, so long as the slightest spark of hope glimmers in the distance. Men have been known to spring into the sea, to be swallowed by the tumultuous waves; but it was only when the ship was on fire, or certainly sinking beneath them. This is but fleeing from death to death, when all hope of life is extinguished. Perhaps it is only madness.

But Pierre Robideau – for such is the name of the young hunter – is not mad, and not yet ready to rush to the last terrible alternative.

It is not hope that induces him to hold on – it is only the dread horror of death.

His arm is stretched almost to dislocation of its joints – the sinews drawn tight as a bow-string, and still his fingers clutch firmly to the branch, lapped like iron round it.

His cheeks are colourless; his jaws have dropped till the lips are agape, displaying his white teeth; his eyes protrude as if about to start forth from their sockets.

And yet out of these wild eyes one more glance is given to the glade – one more sweep among the trunks standing around it.

What was seen in that last glaring look?

Was it the form of a fair girl dimly outlined under the shadow of the trees? or was it only that same form conjured up by a fancy flickering on the edge of eternity?

No matter now. It is too late. Even if Lena were there she would not be in time to save him. Nature, tortured to the last throe, can hold out no longer. She relaxes the grasp of Pierre Robideau’s hand, and the next moment he is seen hanging under the branch, with the tightened noose around his neck, and his tongue protruding between his lips, livid with the dark mantling of death!

“Bound for Kaliforny, air ye?”

“Yes; that’s the country for me.”

“If what you say’s true, it oughter be the country for more’n you. Air ye sure ’beout it?”

“Seems believing. Look at this.”

The man who gave utterance to the old saw pulled from his pocket a small packet done up in fawn skin, and untying the string, exhibited some glistening nodules of a yellowish colour.

“True; seein’ air believin’, they do say, an’ feelin’ air second nater. Let’s lay my claw on’t.”

The packet was passed into his hands.

“Hang me eft don’t look like gold! an’ it feel like it, too; an’, durn me, ef’t don’t taste like it.”

This after he had put one of the nodules in his mouth, and rolled it over his tongue, as if testing it.

“It is gold,” was the positive rejoinder.

“An’ ye tell me, Dick Tarleton, they find these sort o’ nuts in Kaliforny lyin’ right on the surface o’ the groun’?”

“Almost the same. They dig them out of the bed of a river, and then wash the mud off them. The thing’s been just found out by a man named Captain Sutter while they were clearing out a mill-race. The fellow I got these from’s come direct from there with his bullet-pouch chock full of them, besides several pounds weight of dust in a canvas bag. He was in New Orleans to get it changed into dollars; an’ he did it, too, five thousand in all, picked up, he says, in a spell of three months’ washing. He’s going right back.”

“Burn me ef I oughten’t to go too. Huntin’ ain’t much o’ a bizness hyar any longer. Bar’s gettin’ pretty scace, an’ deer’s most run off altogither from the settlements springin’ up too thick. Besides, these young planters an’ the fellers from the towns air allers ’beout wi’ thar blasted horns, scarin’ everything out of creashun. Thar’s a ruck o’ them kine clost by hyar ’beout a hour ago, full tare arter a bar. Burn ’em! What hev they got to do wi’ bar-huntin’ – a parcel o’ brats o’ boys? Jess as much as this chile kin do’ to keep his ole karkidge from starvin’; and thar’s the gurl, too, growin’ up, an’ nothin’ provided for her but this ole shanty, an’ the patch o’ gurden groun’. I’d pull up sticks and go wi’ ye, only for one thing.”

“What is that, Rook?”

“Wal, wal; I don’t mind tellin’ you, Dick. The gurl’s good-lookin’, an’ thar’s a rich young feller ’pears a bit sweet on her. I don’t much like him myself; but he air rich, or’s boun’ to be when the old ’un goes under. He’s an only son, an’ they’ve got one o’ the slickest cotton plantations in all Arkansaw.”

“Ah, well; if you think he means marrying your girl, you had, perhaps, better stay where you are.”

“Marryin’ her! Burn him, I’ll take care o’ thet. Poor as I am myself, an’ as you know, Dick Tarleton, no better than I mout be, she hain’t no knowin’ beout that. My little gurl, Lena, air as innocent as a young doe. I’ll take precious care nobody don’t come the humbugging game over her. In coorse you’re gwine to take your young ’un along wi’ ye?”

“Of course.”

“Wal, he’ll be better out o’ hyar, any how. Thar a wild lot, the young fellars ’beout these parts; an’ I don’t think over friendly wi’ him. ’Tall events, he don’t sort wi’ them . They twit him ’beout his Injun blood, and that sort o’ thing.”

“Damn them! he’s got my blood.”

“True enuf, true enuf; an’ ef they knew thet, it wudn’t be like to git much favour for him. You dud well in makin’ him grass under the name o’ the mother. Ef the folks ’beout hyar only knowed he war the son o’ Dick Tarleton – Dick Tarleton thet – ”

“Hush! shut up, Jerry Rook! Enough that you know it. I hope you never said a word of that to the boy. I trusted you.”

“An’ ye trusted to a true man. Wi’ all my back-slidin’s I’ve been, true to you, Dick. The boy knows nothin’ ’beout what you’re been, nor me neyther. He air as innocent as my own gurl Lena, tho’ of a diffrent natur altogither. Tho’ he be three parts white, he’s got the Injun in him as much as ef he’d been the colour o’ copper. Le’s see; it air now nigh on six year gone since ye seed him. Wal, he’s wonderful growed up an’ good-lookin’; and thar arn’t anythin’ ’beout these parts kud tackle on to him fur strenth. He kin back a squirrel wi’ the pea-rifle, tho’ thet won’t count for much now ef ye’re gwine to set him gatherin’ these hyar donicks an’ dusts. Arter all, thet may be the best for him. Huntin’ ain’t no account any more. I’d gi’e it up myself ef I ked get some eezier way o’ keepin’ my wants serplied.”