Aaron Trow
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Anthony Trollope >> Aaron Trow
"And now give me some brandy," he said.
There was brandy in the house,--in the sitting-room which was close
at their hand, and the key of the little press which held it was in
her pocket. It was useless, she thought, to refuse him; and so she
told him that there was a bottle partly full, but that she must go
to the next room to fetch it him.
"We'll go together, my darling," he said. "There's nothing like
good company." And he again put his hand upon her arm as they
passed into the family sitting-room.
"I must take the light," she said. But he unhooked it himself, and
carried it in his own hand.
Again she went to work without trembling. She found the key of the
side cupboard, and unlocking the door, handed him a bottle which
might contain about half-a-pint of spirits. "And is that all?" he
said.
"There is a full bottle here," she answered, handing him another;
"but if you drink it, you will be drunk, and they will catch you."
"By Heavens, yes; and you would be the first to help them; would you
not?"
"Look here," she answered. "If you will go now, I will not say a
word to any one of your coming, nor set them on your track to follow
you. There, take the full bottle with you. If you will go, you
shall be safe from me."
"What, and go without money!"
"I have none to give you. You may believe me when I say so. I have
not a dollar in the house."
Before he spoke again he raised the half empty bottle to his mouth,
and drank as long as there was a drop to drink. "There," said he,
putting the bottle down, "I am better after that. As to the other,
you are right, and I will take it with me. And now, young woman,
about the money?"
"I tell you that I have not a dollar."
"Look here," said he, and he spoke now in a softer voice, as though
he would be on friendly terms with her. "Give me ten sovereigns,
and I will go. I know you have it, and with ten sovereigns it is
possible that I may save my life. You are good, and would not wish
that a man should die so horrid a death. I know you are good.
Come, give me the money." And he put his hands up, beseeching her,
and looked into her face with imploring eyes.
"On the word of a Christian woman I have not got money to give you,"
she replied.
"Nonsense?" And as he spoke he took her by the arm and shook her.
He shook her violently so that he hurt her, and her breath for a
moment was all but gone from her. "I tell you you must make dollars
before I leave you, or I will so handle you that it would have been
better for you to coin your very blood."
"May God help me at my need," she said, "as I have not above a few
penny pieces in the house."
"And you expect me to believe that! Look here! I will shake the
teeth out of your head, but I will have it from you." And he did
shake her again, using both his hands and striking her against the
wall.
"Would you--murder me?" she said, hardly able now to utter the
words.
"Murder you, yes; why not? I cannot be worse than I am, were I to
murder you ten times over. But with money I may possibly be
better."
"I have it not."
"Then I will do worse than murder you. I will make you such an
object that all the world shall loathe to look on you." And so
saying he took her by the arm and dragged her forth from the wall
against which she had stood.
Then there came from her a shriek that was heard far down the shore
of that silent sea, and away across to the solitary houses of those
living on the other side,--a shriek, very sad, sharp, and
prolonged,--which told plainly to those who heard it of woman's woe
when in her extremest peril. That sound was spoken of in Bermuda
for many a day after that, as something which had been terrible to
hear. But then, at that moment, as it came wailing through the
dark, it sounded as though it were not human. Of those who heard
it, not one guessed from whence it came, nor was the hand of any
brother put forward to help that woman at her need.
"Did you hear that?" said the young wife to her husband, from the
far side of the arm of the sea.
"Hear it! Oh Heaven, yes! Whence did it come?" The young wife
could not say from whence it came, but clung close to her husband's
breast, comforting herself with the knowledge that that terrible
sorrow was not hers.
But aid did come at last, or rather that which seemed as aid. Long
and terrible was the fight between that human beast of prey and the
poor victim which had fallen into his talons. Anastasia Bergen was
a strong, well-built woman, and now that the time had come to her
when a struggle was necessary, a struggle for life, for honour, for
the happiness of him who was more to her than herself, she fought
like a tigress attacked in her own lair. At such a moment as this
she also could become wild and savage as the beast of the forest.
When he pinioned her arms with one of his, as he pressed her down
upon the floor, she caught the first joint of the forefinger of his
other hand between her teeth till he yelled in agony, and another
sound was heard across the silent water. And then, when one hand
was loosed in the struggle, she twisted it through his long hair,
and dragged back his head till his eyes were nearly starting from
their sockets. Anastasia Bergen had hitherto been a sheer woman,
all feminine in her nature. But now the foam came to her mouth, and
fire sprang from her eyes, and the muscles of her body worked as
though she had been trained to deeds of violence. Of violence,
Aaron Trow had known much in his rough life, but never had he
combated with harder antagonist than her whom he now held beneath
his breast.
"By--I will put an end to you," he exclaimed, in his wrath, as he
struck her violently across the face with his elbow. His hand was
occupied, and he could not use it for a blow, but, nevertheless, the
violence was so great that the blood gushed from her nostrils, while
the back of her head was driven with violence against the floor.
But she did not lose her hold of him. Her hand was still twined
closely through his thick hair, and in every move he made she clung
to him with all her might. "Leave go my hair," he shouted at her,
but she still kept her hold, though he again dashed her head against
the floor.
There was still light in the room, for when he first grasped her
with both his hands, he had put the lamp down on a small table. Now
they were rolling on the floor together, and twice he had essayed to
kneel on her that he might thus crush the breath from her body, and
deprive her altogether of her strength; but she had been too active
for him, moving herself along the ground, though in doing so she
dragged him with her. But by degrees he got one hand at liberty,
and with that he pulled a clasp knife out of his pocket and opened
it. "I will cut your head off if you do not let go my hair," he
said. But still she held fast by him. He then stabbed at her arm,
using his left hand and making short, ineffectual blows. Her dress
partly saved her, and partly also the continual movement of all her
limbs; but, nevertheless, the knife wounded her. It wounded her in
several places about the arm, covering them both with blood;--but
still she hung on. So close was her grasp in her agony, that, as
she afterwards found, she cut the skin of her own hands with her own
nails. Had the man's hair been less thick or strong, or her own
tenacity less steadfast, he would have murdered her before any
interruption could have saved her.
And yet he had not purposed to murder her, or even, in the first
instance, to inflict on her any bodily harm. But he had been
determined to get money. With such a sum of money as he had named,
it might, he thought, be possible for him to win his way across to
America. He might bribe men to hide him in the hold of a ship, and
thus there might be for him, at any rate, a possibility of escape.
That there must be money in the house he had still thought when
first he laid hands on the poor woman; and then, when the struggle
had once begun, when he had felt her muscles contending with his,
the passion of the beast was aroused within him, and he strove
against her as he would have striven against a dog. But yet, when
the knife was in his hand, he had not driven it against her heart.
Then suddenly, while they were yet rolling on the floor, there was a
sound of footsteps in the passage. Aaron Trow instantly leaped to
his feet, leaving his victim on the ground, with huge lumps of his
thick clotted hair in her hand. Thus, and thus only, could he have
liberated himself from her grasp. He rushed at the door, and there
he came against the two negro servant-girls who had returned down to
their kitchen from the road on which they had been straying. Trow,
as he half saw them in the dark, not knowing how many there might
be, or whether there was a man among them, rushed through them,
upsetting one scared girl in his passage. With the instinct and
with the timidity of a beast, his impulse now was to escape, and he
hurried away back to the road and to his lair, leaving the three
women together in the cottage. Poor wretch! As he crossed the
road, not skulking in his impotent haste, but running at his best,
another pair of eyes saw him, and when the search became hot after
him, it was known that his hiding-place was not distant.
It was some time before any of the women were able to act, and when
some step was taken, Anastasia was the first to take it. She had
not absolutely swooned, but the reaction, after the violence of her
efforts, was so great, that for some minutes she had been unable to
speak. She had risen from the floor when Trow left her, and had
even followed him to the door; but since that she had fallen back
into her father's old arm-chair, and there sat gasping not only for
words, but for breath also.
At last she bade one of the girls to run into St. George, and beg
Mr. Morton to come to her aid. The girl would not stir without her
companion; and even then, Anastasia, covered as she was with blood,
with dishevelled hair, and her clothes half torn from her body,
accompanied them as far as the road. There they found a negro lad
still hanging about the place, and he told them that he had seen the
man cross the road, and run down over the open ground towards the
rocks of the sea-coast. "He must be there," said the lad, pointing
in the direction of a corner of the rocks; "unless he swim across
the mouth of the ferry." But the mouth of that ferry is an arm of
the sea, and it was not probable that a man would do that when he
might have taken the narrow water by keeping on the other side of
the road.
At about one that night Caleb Morton reached the cottage breathless
with running, and before a word was spoken between them, Anastasia
had fallen on his shoulder and had fainted. As soon as she was in
the arms of her lover, all her power had gone from her. The spirit
and passion of the tiger had gone, and she was again a weak woman
shuddering at the thought of what she had suffered. She remembered
that she had had the man's hand between her teeth, and by degrees
she found his hair still clinging to her fingers; but even then she
could hardly call to mind the nature of the struggle she had
undergone. His hot breath close to her own cheek she did remember,
and his glaring eyes, and even the roughness of his beard as he
pressed his face against her own; but she could not say whence had
come the blood, nor till her arm became stiff and motionless did she
know that she had been wounded.
It was all joy with her now, as she sat motionless without speaking,
while he administered to her wants and spoke words of love into her
ears. She remembered the man's horrid threat, and knew that by
God's mercy she had been saved. And he was there caressing her,
loving her, comforting her! As she thought of the fate that had
threatened her, of the evil that had been so imminent, she fell
forward on her knees, and with incoherent sobs uttered her
thanksgivings, while her head was still supported on his arms.
It was almost morning before she could induce herself to leave him
and lie down. With him she seemed to be so perfectly safe; but the
moment he was away she could see Aaron Trow's eyes gleaming at her
across the room. At last, however, she slept; and when he saw that
she was at rest, he told himself that his work must then begin.
Hitherto Caleb Morton had lived in all respects the life of a man of
peace; but now, asking himself no questions as to the propriety of
what he would do, using no inward arguments as to this or that line
of conduct, he girded the sword on his loins, and prepared himself
for war. The wretch who had thus treated the woman whom he loved
should be hunted down like a wild beast, as long as he had arms and
legs with which to carry on the hunt. He would pursue the miscreant
with any weapons that might come to his hands; and might Heaven help
him at his need as he dealt forth punishment to that man, if he
caught him within his grasp. Those who had hitherto known Morton in
the island, could not recognise the man as he came forth on that
day, thirsty after blood, and desirous to thrust himself into
personal conflict with the wild ruffian who had injured him. The
meek Presbyterian minister had been a preacher, preaching ways of
peace, and living in accordance with his own doctrines. The world
had been very quiet for him, and he had walked quietly in his
appointed path. But now the world was quiet no longer, nor was
there any preaching of peace. His cry was for blood; for the blood
of the untamed savage brute who had come upon his young doe in her
solitude, and striven with such brutal violence to tear her heart
from her bosom.
He got to his assistance early in the morning some of the constables
from St. George, and before the day was over, he was joined by two
or three of the warders from the convict establishment. There was
with him also a friend or two, and thus a party was formed,
numbering together ten or twelve persons. They were of course all
armed, and therefore it might be thought that there would be but
small chance for the wretched man if they should come upon his
track. At first they all searched together, thinking from the
tidings which had reached them that he must be near to them; but
gradually they spread themselves along the rocks between St. George
and the ferry, keeping watchman on the road, so that he should not
escape unnoticed into the island.
Ten times during the day did Anastasia send from the cottage up to
Morton, begging him to leave the search to others, and come down to
her. But not for a moment would he lose the scent of his prey.
What! should it be said that she had been so treated, and that
others had avenged her? He sent back to say that her father was
with her now, and that he would come when his work was over. And in
that job of work the life-blood of Aaron Trow was counted up.
Towards evening they were all congregated on the road near to the
spot at which the path turns off towards the cottage, when a voice
was heard hallooing to them from the summit of a little hill which
lies between the road and the sea on the side towards the ferry, and
presently a boy came running down to them full of news. "Danny Lund
has seen him," said the boy, "he has seen him plainly in among the
rocks." And then came Danny Lund himself, a small negro lad about
fourteen years of age, who was known in those parts as the idlest,
most dishonest, and most useless of his race. On this occasion,
however, Danny Lund became important, and every one listened to him.
He had seen, he said, a pair of eyes moving down in a cave of the
rocks which he well knew. He had been in the cave often, he said,
and could get there again. But not now; not while that pair of eyes
was moving at the bottom of it. And so they all went up over the
hill, Morton leading the way with hot haste. In his waist-band he
held a pistol, and his hand grasped a short iron bar with which he
had armed himself. They ascended the top of the hill, and when
there, the open sea was before them on two sides, and on the third
was the narrow creek over which the ferry passed. Immediately
beneath their feet were the broken rocks; for on that side, towards
the sea, the earth and grass of the hill descended but a little way
towards the water. Down among the rocks they all went, silently,
Caleb Morton leading the way, and Danny Lund directing him from
behind.
"Mr. Morton," said an elderly man from St. George, "had you not
better let the warders of the gaol go first; he is a desperate man,
and they will best understand his ways?"
In answer to this Morton said nothing, but he would let no one put a
foot before him. He still pressed forward among the rocks, and at
last came to a spot from whence he might have sprung at one leap
into the ocean. It was a broken cranny on the sea-shore into which
the sea beat, and surrounded on every side but the one by huge
broken fragments of stone, which at first sight seemed as though
they would have admitted of a path down among them to the water's
edge; but which, when scanned more closely, were seen to be so large
in size, that no man could climb from one to another. It was a
singularly romantic spot, but now well known to them all there, for
they had visited it over and over again that morning.
"In there," said Danny Lund, keeping well behind Morton's body, and
pointing at the same time to a cavern high up among the rocks, but
quite on the opposite side of the little inlet of the sea. The
mouth of the cavern was not twenty yards from where they stood, but
at the first sight it seemed as though it must be impossible to
reach it. The precipice on the brink of which they all now stood,
ran down sheer into the sea, and the fall from the mouth of the
cavern on the other side was as steep. But Danny solved the mystery
by pointing upwards, and showing them how he had been used to climb
to a projecting rock over their heads, and from thence creep round
by certain vantages of the stone till he was able to let himself
down into the aperture. But now, at the present moment, he was
unwilling to make essay of his prowess as a cragsman. He had, he
said, been up on that projecting rock thrice, and there had seen the
eyes moving in the cavern. He was quite sure of that fact of the
pair of eyes, and declined to ascend the rock again.
Traces soon became visible to them by which they knew that some one
had passed in and out of the cavern recently. The stone, when
examined, bore those marks of friction which passage and repassage
over it will always give. At the spot from whence the climber left
the platform and commenced his ascent, the side of the stone had
been rubbed by the close friction of a man's body. A light boy like
Danny Lund might find his way in and out without leaving such marks
behind him, but no heavy man could do so. Thus before long they all
were satisfied that Aaron Trow was in the cavern before them.
Then there was a long consultation as to what they would do to carry
on the hunt, and how they would drive the tiger from his lair. That
he should not again come out, except to fall into their hands, was
to all of them a matter of course. They would keep watch and ward
there, though it might be for days and nights. But that was a
process which did not satisfy Morton, and did not indeed well
satisfy any of them. It was not only that they desired to inflict
punishment on the miscreant in accordance with the law, but also
that they did not desire that the miserable man should die in a hole
like a starved dog, and that then they should go after him to take
out his wretched skeleton. There was something in that idea so
horrid in every way, that all agreed that active steps must be
taken. The warders of the prison felt that they would all be
disgraced if they could not take their prisoner alive. Yet who
would get round that perilous ledge in the face of such an
adversary? A touch to any man while climbing there would send him
headlong down among the wave! And then his fancy told to each what
might be the nature of an embrace with such an animal as that,
driven to despair, hopeless of life, armed, as they knew, at any
rate, with a knife! If the first adventurous spirit should succeed
in crawling round that ledge, what would be the reception which he
might expect in the terrible depth of that cavern?
They called to their prisoner, bidding him come out, and telling him
that they would fire in upon him if he did not show himself; but not
a sound was heard. It was indeed possible that they should send
their bullets to, perhaps, every corner of the cavern; and if so, in
that way they might slaughter him; but even of this they were not
sure. Who could tell that there might not be some protected nook in
which he could lay secure? And who could tell when the man was
struck, or whether he were wounded?
"I will get to him," said Morton, speaking with a low dogged voice,
and so saying he clambered up to the rock to which Danny Lund had
pointed. Many voices at once attempted to restrain him, and one or
two put their hands upon him to keep him back, but he was too quick
for them, and now stood upon the ledge of rock. "Can you see him?"
they asked below.
"I can see nothing within the cavern," said Morton.
"Look down very hard, Massa," said Danny, "very hard indeed, down in
deep dark hole, and then see him big eyes moving!"
Morton now crept along the ledge, or rather he was beginning to do
so, having put forward his shoulders and arms to make a first step
in advance from the spot on which he was resting, when a hand was
put forth from one corner of the cavern's mouth,--a hand armed with
a pistol;--and a shot was fired. There could be no doubt now but
that Danny Lund was right, and no doubt now as to the whereabouts of
Aaron Trow.
A hand was put forth, a pistol was fired, and Caleb Morton still
clinging to a corner of the rock with both his arms was seen to
falter. "He is wounded," said one of the voices from below; and
then they all expected to see him fall into the sea. But he did not
fall, and after a moment or two, he proceeded carefully to pick his
steps along the ledge. The ball had touched him, grazing his cheek,
and cutting through the light whiskers that he wore; but he had not
felt it, though the blow had nearly knocked him from his perch. And
then four or five shots were fired from the rocks into the mouth of
the cavern. The man's arm had been seen, and indeed one or two
declared that they had traced the dim outline of his figure. But no
sound was heard to come from the cavern, except the sharp crack of
the bullets against the rock, and the echo of the gunpowder. There
had been no groan as of a man wounded, no sound of a body falling,
no voice wailing in despair. For a few seconds all was dark with
the smoke of the gunpowder, and then the empty mouth of the cave was
again yawning before their eyes. Morton was now near it, still
cautiously creeping. The first danger to which he was exposed was
this; that his enemy within the recess might push him down from the
rocks with a touch. But on the other hand, there were three or four
men ready to fire, the moment that a hand should be put forth; and
then Morton could swim,--was known to be a strong swimmer;--whereas
of Aaron Trow it was already declared by the prison gaolers that he
could not swim. Two of the warders had now followed Morton on the
rocks, so that in the event of his making good his entrance into the
cavern, and holding his enemy at bay for a minute, he would be
joined by aid.
It was strange to see how those different men conducted themselves
as they stood on the opposite platform watching the attack. The
officers from the prison had no other thought but of their prisoner,
and were intent on taking him alive or dead. To them it was little
or nothing what became of Morton. It was their business to
encounter peril, and they were ready to do so;--feeling, however, by
no means sorry to have such a man as Morton in advance of them.
Very little was said by them. They had their wits about them, and
remembered that every word spoken for the guidance of their ally
would be heard also by the escaped convict. Their prey was sure,
sooner or later, and had not Morton been so eager in his pursuit,
they would have waited till some plan had been devised of trapping
him without danger. But the townsmen from St. George, of whom some
dozen were now standing there, were quick and eager and loud in
their counsels. "Stay where you are, Mr. Morton,--stay awhile for
the love of God--or he'll have you down." "Now's your time, Caleb;
in on him now, and you'll have him." "Close with him, Morton, close
with him at once; it's your only chance." "There's four of us here;
we'll fire on him if he as much as shows a limb." All of which
words as they were heard by that poor wretch within, must have
sounded to him as the barking of a pack of hounds thirsting for his
blood. For him at any rate there was no longer any hope in this
world.