The Death Shot: A Story Retold

Not long have they to listen. From the shadowed surface comes the shout, “Saved!”

Then, a rough boatman’s voice, saying:

“All right! We’ve got ’em both. Throw us a rope.”

It is thrown by ready hands, after which is heard the command, “Haul in!”

A light, held high upon the steamer, flashes its beams down into, the boat. Lying along its thwarts can be perceived a female form, in a dress once white, now discoloured and dripping. Her head is held up by a man, whose scant garments show similarly stained.

It is Helen Armstrong, supported by Dupré.

She appears lifeless, and the first sight of her draws anxious exclamations from those standing on the steamer. Her sister gives out an agonised cry; while her father trembles on taking her into his arms, and totters as he carries her to her state-room – believing he bears but a corpse!

But no! She breathes; her pulse beats; her lips move in low murmur; her bosom’s swell shows sign of returning animation.

By good fortune there chances to be a medical man among the passengers; who, after administering restoratives, pronounces her out of danger.

The announcement causes universal joy on board the boat – crew and passengers alike sharing it.

With one alone remains a thought to sadden. It is Jessie: her heart is sore with the suspicion, that her sister has attempted suicide!

Chapter Twenty Three.

The sleep of the assassin

On the night after killing Clancy, Richard Darke does not sleep soundly – indeed scarce at all.

His wakefulness is not due to remorse; there is no such sentiment in his soul. It comes from two other causes, in themselves totally, diametrically distinct; for the one is fear, the other love.

While dwelling on the crime he has committed, he only dreads its consequences to himself; but, reflecting on what led him to commit it, his dread gives place to dire jealousy; and, instead of repentance, spite holds possession of his heart. Not the less bitter, that the man and woman who made him jealous can never meet more. For, at that hour, he knows Charles Clancy to be lying dead in the dank swamp; while, ere dawn of the following day, Helen Armstrong will be starting upon a journey which must take her away from the place, far, and for ever.

The only consolation he draws from her departure is, that she, too, will be reflecting spitefully and bitterly as himself. Because of Clancy not having kept his appointment with her; deeming the failure due to the falsehood by himself fabricated – the story of the Creole girl.

Withal, it affords him but scant solace. She will be alike gone from him, and he may never behold her again. Her beauty will never belong to his rival; but neither can it be his, even though chance might take him to Texas, or by design he should proceed thither. To what end should he? No more now can he build castles in the air, basing them on the power of creditor over debtor. That bubble has burst, leaving him only the reflection, how illusory it has been. Although, for his nefarious purpose, it has proved weak as a spider’s web, it is not likely Colonel Armstrong will ever again submit himself to be so ensnared. Broken men become cautious, and shun taking credit a second time.

And yet Richard Darke does not comprehend this. Blinded by passion, he cannot see any impossibility, and already thoughts of future proceedings begin to flit vaguely through his mind. They are too distant to be dwelt upon now. For this night he has enough to occupy heart and brain – keeping both on the rack and stretch, so tensely as to render prolonged sleep impossible. Only for a few seconds at a time does he know the sweet unconsciousness of slumber; then, suddenly starting awake, to be again the prey of galling reflections.

Turn to which side he will, rest his head on the pillow as he may, two sounds seem ever ringing in his ears – one, a woman’s voice, that speaks the denying word, “Never!” – the other, a dog’s bark, which seems persistently to say, “I demand vengeance for my murdered master!”

If, in the first night after his nefarious deed, fears and jealous fancies chase one another through the assassin’s soul, on the second it is different. Jealousy has no longer a share in his thoughts, fear having full possession of them. And no trifling fear of some far off danger, depending on chances and contingencies, but one real and near, seeming almost certain. The day’s doings have gone all against him. The behaviour of Clancy’s hound has not only directed suspicion towards him, but given evidence, almost conclusive, of his guilt; as though the barking of the dumb brute were words of truthful testimony, spoken in a witness-box!

The affair cannot, will not, be allowed to rest thus. The suspicions of the searchers will take a more definite shape, ending in accusation, if not in the actual deed of his arrest. He feels convinced of this.

Therefore, on this second night, it is no common apprehension which keeps him awake, but one of the intensest kind, akin to stark terror. For, added to the fear of his fellow man, there is something besides – a fear of God; or, rather of the Devil. His soul is now disturbed by a dread of the supernatural. He saw Charles Clancy stretched dead, under the cypress – was sure of it, before parting from the spot. Returning to it, what beheld he?

To him, more than any other, is the missing body a mystery. It has been perplexing, troubling him, throughout all the afternoon, even when his blood was up, and nerves strung with excitement. Now, at night, in the dark, silent hours, as he dwells ponderingly upon it, it more than perplexes, more than troubles – it awes, horrifies him.

In vain he tries to compose himself, by shaping conjectures based on natural causes. Even these could not much benefit him; for, whether Clancy be dead or still living – whether he has walked away from the ground, or been carried from it a corpse – to him, Darke, the danger will be almost equal. Not quite. Better, of course, if Clancy be dead, for then there will be but circumstantial evidence against, and, surely, not sufficient to convict him?

Little suspects he, that in the same hour, while he is thus distractedly cogitating, men are weighing evidence he knows not of; or that, in another hour, they will be on the march to make him their prisoner.

For all his ignorance of it, he has a presentiment of danger, sprung from the consciousness of his crime. This, and no sentiment of remorse, or repentance, wrings from him the self-interrogation, several times repeated: —

“Why the devil did I do it?”

He regrets the deed, not because grieving at its guilt, but the position it has placed him in – one of dread danger, with no advantage derived, nothing to compensate him for the crime. No wonder at his asking, in the name of the Devil, why he has done it!

He is being punished for it now; if not through remorse of conscience, by coward craven fear. He feels what other criminals have felt before – what, be it hoped, they will ever feel – how hard it is to sleep the sleep of the assassin, or lie awake on a murderer’s bed.

On the last Richard Darke lies; since this night he sleeps not at all. From the hour of retiring to his chamber, till morning’s dawn comes creeping through the window, he has never closed eye; or, if so, not in the sweet oblivion of slumber.

He is still turning upon his couch, chafing in fretful apprehension, when daylight breaks into his bedroom, and shows its shine upon the floor. It is the soft blue light of a southern morn, which usually enters accompanied by bird music – the songs of the wild forest warblers mingling with domestic voices not so melodious. Among these the harsh “screek” of the guinea-fowl; the more sonorous call of the turkey “gobbler;” the scream of the goose, always as in agony; the merrier cackle of the laying hen, with the still more cheerful note of her lord – Chanticleer.

All these sounds hears Dick Darke, the agreeable as the disagreeable. Both are alike to him on this morning, the second after the murder.

Far more unpleasant than the last are some other sounds which salute his ear, as he lies listening. Noises which, breaking out abruptly, at once put an end to the singing of the forest birds, and the calling of the farm-yard fowls.

They are of two kinds; one, the clattering of horses’ hoofs, the other, the clack and clangour of men’s voices. Evidently there are several, speaking at the same time, and all in like tone – this of anger, of vengeance!

At first they seem at some distance off, but evidently drawing nigh.

Soon they are close up to the dwelling, their voices loudly reverberating from its walls.

The assassin cannot any longer keep to his couch. Too well knows he what the noise is, his guilty heart guessing it.

Springing to his feet, he glides across the room, and approaches the window – cautiously, because in fear.

His limbs tremble, as he draws the curtain and looks out. Then almost refusing to support him: for, in the courtyard he sees a half-score of armed horsemen, and hears them angrily discoursing. One at their head he knows to be the Sheriff of the county; beside him his Deputy, and behind a brace of constables. In rear of these, two men he has reason to believe will be his most resolute accusers.

He has no time to discriminate; for, soon as entering the enclosure, the horsemen dismount, and make towards the door of the dwelling.

In less than sixty seconds after, they knock against that of his sleeping chamber, demanding admission.

No use denying them, as its occupant is well aware – not even to ask —

“Who’s there?”

Instead, he says, in accent tremulous —

“Come in.”

Instantly after, he sees the door thrown open, and a form filling up its outlines – the stalwart figure of a Mississippi sheriff; who, as he stands upon the threshold, says, in firm voice, with tone of legal authority:

“Richard Darke, I arrest you!”

“For what?” mechanically demands the culprit, shivering in his shirt.

“For the murder of Charles Clancy!”