For some seconds Clancy is invisible, the sulphurous smoke forming a nimbus around him. When it ascends, he is seen prostrate upon the earth; the blood gushing from a wound in his breast, and spurting over his waistcoat.

He appears writhing in his death agony.

And evidently thinks so himself, from his words spoken in slow, choking utterance,--

"Richard Darke--you have killed--murdered me!"

"I meant to do it," is the unpitying response.

"O Heavens! You horrid wretch! Why--why--"

"Bah! what are you blubbering about? You know why. If not, I shall tell you--_Helen Armstrong_, After all, it isn't jealousy that's made me kill you; only your impudence, to suppose you had a chance with her.

You hadn't; she never cared a straw for you. Perhaps, before dying, it may be some consolation for you to know she didn't. I've got the proof.

Since it isn't likely you'll ever see herself again, it may give you a pleasure to look at her portrait. Here it is! The sweet girl sent it me this very morning, with her autograph attached, as you see. A capital likeness, isn't it?"

The inhuman wretch stooping down, holds the photograph before the eyes of the dying man, gradually growing dim.

But only death could hinder them from turning towards that sun-painted picture--the portrait of her who has his heart.

He gazes on it lovingly, but not long. For the script underneath claims his attention. In this he recognises her handwriting, well-known to him. Terrible the despair that sweeps through his soul, as he deciphers it:--

"_Helen Armstrong_.--_For him she loves_."

The picture is in the possession of Richard Darke. To him have the sweet words been vouchsafed!

"A charming creature!" Darke tauntingly continues, kissing the carte, and pouring the venomous speech into his victim's ear. "It's the very counterpart of her sweet self. As I said, she sent it me this morning.

Come, Clancy! Before giving up the ghost, tell me what you think of it.

Isn't it an excellent likeness?"

To the inhuman interrogatory Clancy makes no response--either by word, look, or gesture. His lips are mute, his eyes without light of life, his limbs and body motionless as the mud on which they lie.

A short, but profane, speech terminates the terrible episode; four words of most heartless signification:--

"d.a.m.n him; he's dead!"

CHAPTER SIX.

A c.o.o.n-CHASE INTERRUPTED.

Notwithstanding the solitude of the place where the strife, apparently fatal, has occurred, and the slight chances of its being seen, its sounds have been heard. The shots, the excited speeches, and angry exclamations, have reached the ears of one who can well interpret them.

This is a c.o.o.n-hunter.

There is no district in the Southern States without its c.o.o.n-hunter. In most, many of them; but in each, one who is noted. And, notedly, he is a negro. The pastime is too tame, or too humble, to tempt the white man. Sometimes the sons of "poor white trash" take part in it; but it is usually delivered over to the "darkey."

In the old times of slavery every plantation could boast of one, or more, of these sable Nimrods; and they are not yet extinct. To them c.o.o.n-catching is a profit, as well as sport; the skins keeping them in tobacco--and whisky, when addicted to drinking it. The flesh, too, though little esteemed by white palates, is a _bonne-bouche_ to the negro, with whom animal food is a scarce commodity. It often furnishes him with the substance for a savoury roast.

The plantation of Ephraim Darke is no exception to the general rule.

It, too, has its c.o.o.n-hunter--a negro named, or nicknamed, "Blue Bill;"

the qualifying term bestowed, from a cerulean tinge, that in certain lights appears upon the surface of his sable epidermis. Otherwise he is black as ebony.

Blue Bill is a mighty hunter of his kind, pa.s.sionately fond of the c.o.o.n-chase--too much, indeed, for his own personal safety. It carries him abroad, when the discipline of the plantation requires him to be at home; and more than once, for so absenting himself, have his shoulders been scored by the "cowskin."

Still the punishment has not cured him of his proclivity. Unluckily for Richard Darke, it has not. For on the evening of Clancy's being shot down, as described, Blue Bill chances to be abroad; and, with a small cur, which he has trained to his favourite chase, is scouring the timber near the edge of the cypress swamp.

He has "treed" an old he-c.o.o.n, and is just preparing to ascend to the creature's nest--a cavity in a sycamore high up--when a deer comes dashing by. Soon after a shot startles him. He is more disturbed at the peculiar crack, than by the mere fact of its being the report of a gun. His ear, accustomed to such sounds, tells him the report has proceeded from a fowling-piece, belonging to his young master--just then the last man he would wish to meet. He is away from the "quarter"

without "pa.s.s," or permission of any kind.

His first impulse is, to continue the ascent of the sycamore, and conceal himself among its branches.

But his dog, remaining below--that will betray him?

While hurriedly reflecting on what he had best do, he hears a second shot. Then a third, coming quickly after; while preceding, and mingling with the reports are men's voices, apparently in mad expostulation. He hears, too, the angry growling of a hound, at intervals barking and baying.

"Gorramity!" mutters Blue Bill; "dar's a skrimmage goin' on dar--a _fight_, I reck'n, an' seemin' to be def! Clar enuf who dat fight's between. De fuss shot wa' Ma.s.s' d.i.c.k's double-barrel; de oder am Charl Clancy rifle. By golly! 'taint safe dis child be seen hya, no how.

Whar kin a hide maseff?"

Again he glances upward, scanning the sycamore: then down at his dog; and once more to the trunk of the tree. This is embraced by a creeper-- a gigantic grape-vine--up which an ascent may easily be made; so easily, there need be no difficulty in carrying the cur along. It was the ladder he intended using to get at the treed c.o.o.n.

With the fear of his young master coming past--and if so, surely "cow-hiding" him--he feels there is no time to be wasted in vacillation.

Nor does he waste any. Without further stay, he flings his arm around the c.o.o.n-dog: raises the unresisting animal from the earth; and "swarms"

up the creeper, like a she-bear carrying her cub.

In ten seconds after, he is snugly ensconced in a crotch of the sycamore; screened from observation of any one who may pa.s.s underneath, by the profuse foliage of the parasite.

Feeling fairly secure, he once more sets himself to listen. And, listening attentively, he hears the same voices as before. But not any longer in angry e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n. The tones are tranquil, as though the two men were now quietly conversing. One says but a word or two; the other all. Then the last alone appears to speak, as if in soliloquy, or from the first failing to make response.

The sudden transition of tone has in it something strange--a contrast inexplicable.

The c.o.o.n-hunter can tell, that he continuing to talk is his young master, Richard Darke; though he cannot catch, the words, much less make out their meaning. The distance is too great, and the current of sound interrupted by the thick standing trunks of the cypresses.

At length, also, the monologue ends; soon after, succeeded by a short exclamatory phrase, in voice louder and more earnest.

Then there is silence; so profound, that Blue Bill hears but his own heart, beating in loud sonorous thumps--louder from his ribs being contiguous to the hollow trunk of the tree.

CHAPTER SEVEN.

MURDER WITHOUT REMORSE.

The breathless silence, succeeding Darke's profane speech, is awe-inspiring; death-like, as though every living creature in the forest had been suddenly struck dumb, or dead, too.

Unspeakably, incredibly atrocious is the behaviour of the man who has remained master of the ground. During the contest, d.i.c.k Darke has shown the cunning of the fox, combined with the fiercer treachery of the tiger; victorious, his conduct seems a combination of the jackal and vulture.

Stooping over his fallen foe, to a.s.sure himself that the latter no longer lives, he says,--