with both of you. You yourself—you can't stir a hand but at my orders; and look there-that's your wife and daughter and what can you do for 'em, if I only gives the word to the boys to do their likes to them?" "Villain !-monster!" cried the prisoner, vainly struggling with his bonds. But he writhed in them in vain. The tyrant looked down upon him from his horse with a grin of delight which completed the fury of the victim, until he rushed, though with a fruitless vengeance, against the sides of the animal, idly expending his strength in an innoxious and purposeless effort against his persecutor. A blow from the back of his sabre drove him back, while, as he reeled among the troop, a shriek and a rush from the wife and daughter in the rear, at the same moment, announced their consciousness of the proceeding. "Two minutes you shall have, my boy-two minutes, as you asked for them," said Gaskens to the prisoner, as they now approached the spring. "Two minutes for what?" he inquired. "For prayer-and quite long enough for one that's passed so good a life as you," was the sneering reply. "What mean you?" was the farther inquiry of the prisoner. He pointed to the huge oak that surmounted the spring, and at the same moment a corporal approached with a rope, the running noose of which, as this agent was frequently in requisition, was already made, and now swung ostentatiously in his hands. "Great God! Amos Gaskens, wretch as you are, you do not mean to do this murder?" 66 May I be totally d―d if I do not. You shall hang to that tree in two minutes after I say the word, or there are no snakes." "You dare not, ruffian. I claim to be a prisoner of war-I appeal to the troop." 66 Appeal and be d-d. My troop know better than to disobey the orders of a lawful officer in commission of his majesty; and as for your being a prisoner of war, that's a lie. You are a murderer, and I have proof enough of it. But that's neither here nor there. I will answer for all I have done to the commander of the Dorchester post, and if you can make him hear your voice at this distance, you have a better pipe than my rope has touched yet--that's all. So, to your prayers, while I take a sup of this water. Here, boy, hold the bridle." The wretch descended, and the boy reined up the steed, while the former moved onward to the spring. The corporal approached the doomed victim, and was about to pass the loop over his head; but he resisted by every effort in his power. "Great God!--but this is not in earnest? Hear me, Amos Gaskens--hear me, man! Monster! are you not ashamed to sport in this way with the feelings of my poor wife and child?" "Do your duty, corporal, or blast me but I run you up, though I have to do it myself. You shall know whether I am not good enough for your d-d log-cabin now, or not. Two minutes, corporal-only two minutes, and a short cord-remember-two minutes, I say -no more." With the assistance of two of the tory squad, Griffin was thrown upon his back, and lay struggling upon the ground, while the rope was adjusted to his neck. 66 My wife! my child!-let them come to me, Amos Gaskens-let them see me, Gaskens-man or devil! Will you not suffer them to come to me?-let me see and speak to them, I pray you!" One "They will see you better when you are lifted. Be quick-say your prayers, man, and lose no time. minute is almost gone already. Make the most of the other." The ruffian spoke with the coolest indifference, while mixing a gourd of spirits and water at the spring. This done, he ascended the hill, bearing the liquor in his hand, and bade the execution proceed. They hauled the victim by the rope up the little rising, and towards the tree, almost strangling him before he reached the spot. In the mean while the air was rent with the shrieks of his wife and daughter in the hollow, where they were pressed with the other prisoners, whom the guard still kept back from any approach to the doomed man, then about to be separated from them for ever. He cried to them by name, in a thick, choking voice, for the rope was now drawn, by the party hauling him along, with a suffocating tightness. "Ellen!-Ellen, my wife! Oh, Ellen, my poor child! Amos Gaskens-God remember you for this! Oh, Ellen! God help me! Have you no mercy, monster-none?" he screamed to his murderer, in agony. 66 Father, dear father!" cried the girl. The mother had simply stretched forth her hands as she beheld the threatened movement, and overpowered by her emotions, had fallen senseless in the effort to speak. The daughter strove to rush forward, but the strong-armed sentinel rudely thrust her back with a heavy hand, and pressed her down with the rest of the prisoners, who had been made to file into the grove of tallow bushes, which the prescience of Singleton had prudently assigned them. Gasping, but struggling to the last, the victim had been already drawn up by his executioner, within a few feet of the broad limb stretching over the spring, which was to serve the purpose of a gallows; and the brutal leader of the party, standing upon the little eminence the liquor in hand, which he was stirring, yet untasted-had already declared the time to be elapsed which he allowed to the prisoner for the purposes of prayer, when, distinctly and clear, the voice of Singleton was heard above the shrieks of the daughter-above the hoarse cries of the prisoner in parting to his wife— above all the bustle of the transaction. The single word, as given to the boy Frampton, was uttered; and, in the next instant, came the sharp, thrilling crack of the rifle, fatally aimed, and striking the legitimate victim. The body of Gaskens, between whose eyes the bullet had passed-the word unspoken-the draught in his hand untasted-tumbled forward, prostrate, immoveable, upon the form of his reprieved victim, whom, still struggling, but half strangled, the corporal had just dragged beneath the fatal tree. CHAPTER XV. 66 Too long a laggard, he hath stood, All reckless, in his bloody game; THE young partisan, Frampton, to whom Singleton had intrusted so leading a part in the enterprise, had well fulfilled the duty assigned him. He had put himself in readiness, with the first appearance of the marauders; and, with a heart throbbing with anxiety all the while, had witnessed impatiently the progress of the preceding scene, until broken by the emphatic utterance of the signal, and his own prompt obedience to its dictates. Then, with an instinct, which, in that moment, silenced and stilled the quick pulsation of his breast, had he raised the deadly weapon to his shoulder; and with a determined coolness that arose, as it were, from a desire to convince himself, not less than his commander, that he could be firm, he had twice varied his aim, until perfectly assured, he had drawn the trigger, and most opportunely singled out a different victim from that which Gaskens had contemplated for the fatal sisters, in the person of that foul murderer himself. There was a moment of dreadful pause after this event. The rope fell from the hands of the executioner, and his eyes, and the eyes of all, were turned in doubt and astonishment upon the quarter from whence the deadly messenger had proceeded. The con demned man seized the opportunity to throw from his body the lifeless carcass of the slain tory; and not doubting that farther aid was at hand, and looking for a close struggle, he crawled along the hill for shelter to the neighbouring tree. His effort was interrupted; for, in the next moment, another and another shot selected their victims; then came the full volley; and then the loud voice of Singleton, as, plunging through the copse, he led the way for his men, who charged the confused and terrified tories on every side. They scarcely showed sign of fight. One or two offered resistance boldly, and with as much skill as resolution; but they were soon overpowered, as they received no support from their comrades, who were now scampering in the bushes in every direction. The surprise had been complete; not a man was seriously hurt among the whigs, while every rifle, fired in the first of the fray, had told fatally upon its victim. Seven were slain outright, a few more sabred, and some few were made prisoners-the rest took the back track into the woods, and though pursued, contrived, with few exceptions, to make their escape. The boy, meanwhile, had well performed the other duty which had been given to his charge. The conflict, pellmell, had scarcely begun, when, slipping noiselessly round to the hollow where the prisoners were confined, so as not to arouse the notice of the two sentinels having them in custody, and whose eyes were now turned in surprise upon the unlooked-for contest, he cut the cords which bound them; and, prompt as himself, they were no sooner free, than they seized upon their guards and disarmed them. The ropes were transferred to other hands than their own. This was all the work of an instant; so, indeed, was the affray itself; and the first object that met the eyes of Singleton as he returned from the charge to the spot where it first began, was the person of the boy bending over the man he had shot, and curiously inspecting the bullet hole which he had made through and through his forehead. 66 Ha, boy!" said Singleton; "you have done wellyou have behaved like a man.' |