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Dơnload The King Black Dagger Brotherhood 12 J R Ward Full Chapter
Dơnload The King Black Dagger Brotherhood 12 J R Ward Full Chapter
Dơnload The King Black Dagger Brotherhood 12 J R Ward Full Chapter
J R Ward
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“And can wind a whole hank of cotton in three hours,” interjected
Archie, laughing.
“—am not permitted to serve my country because I am too old! I wish
you would say to Gratiot for me that I should be very pleased to
renew my acquaintance with him, and perhaps he may be able to
come down and spend a day and night with me, the infernal Yankees
permitting.”
When supper was over the family sat, according to the Southern
custom, on the long porch which faced the river. Angela found
herself sitting next Isabey and listening to his smooth, musical voice
as he and Colonel Tremaine and Lyddon talked together. His
speaking voice had as much charm as his singing voice and to
Angela’s sensitive ear it had a note of sadness in it.
She had been accustomed to the conversation of men of sense, and
realized with a secret and shamefaced pride that Isabey’s
conversation did not fall short of the talk of any man she had ever
heard, not excepting Lyddon’s.
The night had fallen and only a few stars shone dimly in a troubled
and moonless sky. The river ran black and phosphorescent; a faint
wind stirred the great clumps of crape-myrtle on the lawn.
About nine o’clock Archie, after listening for a minute, rose silently
and, opening the glass doors leading into the dining room, had a
clear view through the hall to the open front door.
Colonel Tremaine was saying, “I opine that the first campaign of
Hannibal——”
“The Yankees are coming,” said Archie, coolly and quietly. “I see
hundreds of them galloping down the lane.”
Isabey sprang to his feet. He knew the topography of Harrowby well,
and his horse, already saddled, was fastened to the block close to
the back porch; but it was vain to think of escape that way.
“Run,” he said quietly to Archie, “and take the saddle and bridle off
my horse, and throw them under the porch, and turn the horse loose.
I shall make for the marsh back of the garden.”
“Archie’s boat with oars is tied on the river shore behind the garden,”
whispered Angela, all her wits coming to her at once. “I can show
you, and we can’t be seen from the front if we fly now.”
Isabey’s cap was in his hand and Angela’s red mantle lay over the
back of her chair. She threw it around her, hiding her white dress,
and together they ran swiftly down the steps and across the lawn.
Isabey suffered agonies in his still unhealed leg, but nevertheless
made great speed. Not a word was spoken as they rushed through
the darkness around the corner of the old brick wall of the garden
and to the marshy river edge.
Tied to a stake lay a small boat with two oars in it. Angela stepped
into the boat, assisted by Isabey with cool politeness, who lost not a
second in following her.
“I can pull with my left hand,” he said, taking up an oar.
“And I,” replied Angela, “can pull the other oar. I know how to
manage a boat. We must make for the big willow tree which dips
down into the water across the marsh.”
By that time they could hear the trampling of many hoofs, the sound
of voices, and the whinny of a horse.
“That’s my horse,” remarked Isabey, as the boat shot across the still,
black water. “I hope Archie succeeded in hiding the saddle and
bridle.”
“You may trust Archie to think and act quickly,” replied Angela.
“Hadn’t you better lie down in the boat?” she continued anxiously,
her voice sounding strange to herself in the darkness.
“No use; if the Federals see the boat at all they will certainly stop it,
and I would rather be caught sitting up than lying down.”
Angela said no more, but bent to her oar to keep up with Isabey’s
steady stroke. Ten minutes brought the boat to the farther edge of
the marsh, where a huge willow, storm-beaten, bent toward the
water which lapped its branches. It was in luxuriant leaf, and when,
Isabey putting the branches aside, the boat glided in, they found
themselves within a tent of branches and leaves, secure even at
midday from observation. The oars were laid in the bottom of the
boat but close at hand, and Angela and Isabey were alone in a world
of their own under a murky night sky. The air had grown warm and
sultry, and heat lightning played upon the mass of black clouds on
the western horizon. Every moment the darkness increased and the
night, like a great black bat, seemed to press with huge and stifling
wings upon the earth. In the stillness of the darkness they could hear
the trampling of hundreds of iron hoofs and the shouts and cries of
men searching the house and grounds and garden. Through the
overhanging willow branches lights could be seen flashing from
window to window of the Harrowby house as the search for Isabey
proceeded. It was so dark under the willow tree that they could not
see each other’s face. The tide was high, but the pungent odor of the
salt marsh filled the heavy night air. Afar off a night bird uttered an
occasional melancholy note, but that alone broke the silence which
encompassed them.
“Are you frightened?” asked Isabey, in a low voice.
“Not in the least,” replied Angela, in the same subdued tone. “Oh!”
As she spoke there was a phosphorescent gleam close to the boat
and a water-snake’s body was seen to writhe quickly past. Angela,
who could face real danger unflinchingly, was full of feminine fears.
She clasped her hands and shrank, panting, toward Isabey. He
restrained the impulse to put his arm around her, but he involuntarily
laid his hand on hers and said:
“It is nothing. I can keep all ugly things away from you to-night.”
“I know you can,” answered Angela. “I am not in the least afraid of
Yankee bullets or anything like that, but hideous creepy things
frighten me horribly;” and she shuddered as she spoke, allowing her
hand to remain in Isabey’s. Then came a long silence. Isabey could
feel her hand trembling in his. She was not thinking about him, but
about the water-snake and the slimy things which terrified her
woman’s soul. Isabey had no qualms of conscience in thus holding
her hand in his; she was, after all, only a frightened child, and to
soothe her fears by a reassuring touch was no defilement of her.
Angela, however, could not remain insensible to that touch, and after
a while she withdrew her hand, saying, with a long breath: “I will try
and not be afraid any more. Isn’t it ridiculous? I have not the least
fear of dying or of scarlet fever or runaway horses or anything like
that, but I have paroxysms of terror from caterpillars and daddy
longlegs and a snake—” She covered her face with her hands as
she spoke.
“Come, now,” said Isabey, reassuringly, “there is nothing for either of
us to be afraid of; may I smoke?”
“Never,” said Angela, aghast. “You will be seen from the other
shore.”
“Oh, no; I can hold my cap before my cigarette, and the distance is
too great anyhow for the tip of a cigarette to be seen.” He lighted his
cigarette and smoked placidly, holding his cap up meanwhile. The
sounds of voices, of rattling sabers, of armed men searching the
garden increased. It was evident that a thorough hunt of the garden
was being made.
“They are trampling all over your flower beds,” whispered Isabey.
“They seem to be looking in the violet bed for me, but as a sleeping
place it is not as desirable as the poets have represented.”
“How can you make jokes at this time?” said Angela reproachfully.
“My dearest lady, every soldier has been in far worse places than
this. A fighting man must learn to look danger in the eye and
advance upon it with a smile. You should see your Stonewall
Jackson when the Yankees begin to give us grape in earnest. It is
the only time Stonewall ever looks really gay and debonair.”
Isabey went on talking gayly for a time, but Angela, he soon saw,
was throbbing with nervous excitement and in no mood to heed his
airy conversation. Then he fell silent; the sweet consciousness that
she was agitated, palpitating, miserable for him, gave him a feeling
of rapture. She was the wife of his friend and sacred to him, but that
had not prevented his falling in love with her. And she, the soul of
truth and loyalty, was too unsophisticated, too ignorant of the world
and of herself, to conceal from him that he was, at least to her
imagination, the first man in the world. Her instinctive dignity and
good sense made her secret safe from all except Isabey, but he with
the prescience of love saw it. He foresaw with calm courage that the
time would come when she would learn to love Neville Tremaine—
when children would be laid in her arms, and when this dream of her
youth would seem only the shadow of a dream. But Isabey felt that it
would be among the unforgotten things which sleep but never die in
women’s hearts.
An hour passed as they sat together, as much alone as if the world
held none other than themselves. Isabey, although conscious of the
delicate intoxication of Angela’s nearness, was yet thoroughly alert,
while Angela, with every nerve at its utmost tension, was silent and
apparently composed. Isabey felt rather than saw that she was
profoundly moved. As they listened and watched the opposite shore
they could see that the troopers had withdrawn from the garden and
that the search for Isabey, which had included the stables and the
negro quarters, had been abandoned.
Presently the sound of retreating hoofs was heard, and the
detachment, which numbered several hundred, rode off. The hot, still
air had grown more inky black, and a dead silence took the place of
the commotion in and around the Harrowby house. The negroes had
gone off to their quarters, and lights shone only from a single window
of the library. Presently the sound of a horse carefully picking his
way around the marsh and advancing toward the willow tree was
heard, and a step which Angela at once recognized.
“That’s Archie,” she said. “I think he is bringing you your horse.” The
next minute Archie had slid down the bank and into the boat.
“Wasn’t it great?” he cried. “You ought to have seen those Yankees
—three hundred of ’em, commanded by a major. They were
cocksure they had you, Captain Isabey. They surrounded the whole
place, garden and all, and then searched the house. Father
harangued them, and a private soldier told him to shut up, which
made father very angry. Then the soldier was cuffed by another
soldier, who said to father: ‘Go on, old cock; I like to hear you talk—
just as if you had two hundred niggers to jump when you spoke.’
‘Niggers!’ roared father. ‘That word, sir, is not admissible in polite
society. Negro is the name of the black race, and any diminutive of it
is a term of contempt of which I strongly disapprove.’ ‘By Jiminy!’
said the soldier, perfectly delighted. ‘Give us some instructions in
manners, my old Roman gent, and if you would throw in a few
dancing lessons we would be a thousand times obliged.’ Then
mother, quite angry, said to him, ‘How dare you speak so irreverently
to my husband? He is seventy-two years old, and this is the first
disrespectful word that was ever uttered to him.’”
As neither of his auditors spoke, the boy went on:
“All the soldiers around were laughing, but they quieted down as
soon as mother spoke. Then an old sergeant came up and touched
his cap and said very respectfully to mother, ‘Don’t be frightened,
marm; we ain’t a-going to do you or this gentleman here any harm.
We’re jest looking for that Rebel captain that we know came this way
before twelve o’clock to-day, but we wouldn’t alarm you for nothing,
marm.’ ‘Alarm me,’ said mother, smiling. ‘I can’t imagine myself
alarmed by you.’ Then a young rough-looking fellow, a lieutenant,
came up, and my mother’s words seemed to make him mad. ‘Very
well, madam,’ he hollered, ‘I’ll show you something to alarm you.’ He
picked up a newspaper, twisted it up into a torch, and lighted it at the
candle on the hall table. ‘Now,’ he said, ‘if you don’t tell me within
one minute by the clock where that Rebel rascal is, I’ll set fire to this
house and burn up everything in it.’ ‘Just as you please,’ replied
mother, exactly in the tone when she says, ‘Archibald, my son, come
in to prayers.’ The soldiers around her all stood and looked at her
and my father while the lieutenant kept his eyes on the clock. ‘My
dearest Sophie,’ said father, ‘this is most annoying, and it is
peculiarly humiliating to me that it is not in my power to demand
satisfaction from these villains for their discourtesy to you.’ ‘Pray,
don’t let it trouble you, my dear,’ replied mother. ‘The only thing that
distresses me is that you should be subject at your time of life to
such insults.’
“Then the sergeant went up and, taking the newspaper out of the
lieutenant’s hand, threw it into the fireplace. ‘Look here,’ he said, ‘I
have been thirty years in the United States army and I never heard
an officer say anything like that before to a woman. You have been in
the army about three months. You got your commission because
your father made a lot of money in a pawnbroking shop. The major’s
just outside, and if you say another impudent word to this lady I’ll
prefer charges against you as soon as we get back to camp.’ You
should have seen the lieutenant wilt then.
“The major was a big, oldish sort of man, very polite, but bent on
finding Captain Isabey if he could. He had every hole and corner
searched, and asked all the negroes what had become of you. They
all owned up that you had been at Harrowby at supper-time, but
none of them had seen you since. Mammy Tulip defied them and
called them ‘po’ white trash.’ Uncle Hector went and hid in the garret
closet and was hauled out by the heels when that place was
searched. While they were looking about the grounds and stables
the soldiers wrung the necks of all the fowls they could lay their
hands on; but the horses were all out in the field and they didn’t
trouble the cattle or sheep. The worst thing they did was when they
found all father’s bottles of hair dye and caught my white pointer and
poured the dye all over him. He’s as black as a crow. That made
father furious.
“Mr. Lyddon was very cool through it all. He told the Yankees he was
a British subject, but they were perfectly welcome to search his
room, only if they laid their hands on anything he would report it to
the British Minister at Washington. At last they seemed to give up
finding Captain Isabey, and then the major sent for me. I made out I
was scared to death, and when the major talked very threateningly to
me, to make me tell what had become of Captain Isabey, I
whispered in his ear that Captain Isabey had gone to spend the night
at the rectory, seven miles off; and so I have sent them off after Mr.
Brand. They will get there about midnight, and I don’t believe Mr.
Brand will be alive to-morrow morning. They will frighten the old
fellow to death.” And Archie chuckled, gloating over Mr. Brand’s
prospective sufferings. “Then they all rode down the road. As soon
as the last one had ridden off I took your saddle and bridle and
slipped into the field and got your horse, and here he is, and if you
will follow the road through the woods to Greenhill you can strike the
main road in an hour, and there will be at least ten miles between
you and the Yankees. They will be going lickety-split in the wrong
direction.”
Isabey grasped Archie’s hand, while Angela, throwing her arms
around his neck, kissed him, whispering: “Oh, what a clever boy you
are, and how proud Neville and Richard will be of you!”
There was a brief farewell. Isabey pressed Angela’s hand, saying, “I
thank you more than anyone else for my escape,” and then,
mounting his horse, melted away in the darkness. Archie got in the
boat and, taking both oars, pulled swiftly back to the wharf at
Harrowby. Angela’s heart was full of thankfulness. Then, suddenly
and strangely to herself, she found tears upon her cheeks.
CHAPTER XIX
“I CAN’T GET OUT!” SAID THE STARLING