The White Squaw

Here was vengeance for Oluski, had the chief only been alive to witness it.

Too weak to get away from the spot, Rody groaned in the bitterness of his spirit.

“Ten thousand times may I be accursed for all this! Fool – blind, infatuated fool – that I have been. Every aspiration might have been gratified, every hope fulfilled, had not my impatience blinded me against caution. May the fiend of darkness overtake these red – ”

How long this tirade of blasphemous repentance of his villainy might have lasted it is impossible to say. It was stopped, however, by a physical pain, and with a faint voice, he cried —

“Water! water!”

Blood there was in plenty around him, but not one drop of water.

Others had yelled for it through the long, dreadful night, as agonisingly as he, but had been answered by the same solemn silence. They had died in their agony. Why should not he?

“Well, then, let death come! The full accumulation of mortal torment has fallen on myself; it cannot be greater?”

Wrong in this, as in everything else.

See! Skulking along the brow of the hill, stooping over and examining corpse after corpse, with a look of demoniac joy upon his hideous features, something in human shape, and yet scarce a man, appears.

Horror of horrors! he is robbing the dead.

Rody saw him not, for he had again fainted.

With a harsh voice, rivalling the vulture’s croak, the skulker continued his hideous task.

“Ha! ha! ha!” chuckled he to himself, “there am nice pickings after all for dis chile, boaf from de bodies of white man and de red. Bress de chances what set ’em agin’ each oder! Oh, but de ole nigger am glad – so glad! But where am he? – where am he? If dis chile don’t find him, why den his work ain’t more den half done!”

Diligently did Crookleg, for it was he, continue to search, turning over dead bodies, snatching some bauble from their breasts, and so passing to others, as if still unsatisfied.

For whom was he seeking?

As he proceeded in his work, a voice that came from among a heap of ruins, was heard feebly calling for “water!”

The negro started on hearing it, sending forth a shout of triumph.

He had recognised it as the voice of Elias Rody, the man for whom he had been searching.

As the latter recovered consciousness, he saw a hideous face close to his own, that caused him to start up, at the same time uttering a cry of horror.

Chapter Twenty Nine.

An Exulting Fiend

“I has found you, has I?”

“Crookleg!”

“Yes, it am Crookleg.”

“A drop of water, for the love of God; a drop of water!”

“If de whole place war a lake, dis chile wouldn’t sprinkle you parched lips with a drop out ob it.”

“What do you mean, Crookleg?”

“Ha! the time I been waitin’ for has come at last. It hab been long, but it am come! Do you know war you son Warren am?”

“Thank heaven! away from this, and in safety.”

“Ha! ha! ha! Safe; yes, he am safe enough wid a big bullet through his brain!”

Elias Rody, with an effort, raised himself into a sitting posture, and glared upon the speaker.

“Dead!”

“Yes, dead; and it war me dat bro’t him to it. Ha! ha! ha!”

“Who are you? Has hell let loose its fiends to mock me?”

“Perhaps it have. Who am I? Don’t you know me yet, Rody —Massa Rody?”

“No, devil! I know you not. My son dead – oh, God! what have I done to deserve all this?”

“What hab you done? What hab you not done? You had done ebery ting that de black heart ob a white man do, and de day of recknin’ am come at last. So you don’t know me, don’t you?”

“Away, fiend, and let me die in peace!”

“In peace – no; you shall die as you hab made oders live – in pain! When you can’t hear dis nigga’s voice plainly, he’ll hiss it in at your ear, so it may reach your infernal soul, in de last minutes of you life!”

“Who – who are you?”

“I am Reuben, de son of Esther.”

“Esther!”

“Yes, Esther, your father’s slave. You was de cause ob her death. Do you know me now?”

Rody groaned.

“Dey call me Crookleg, kase I was lame. Who made me lame?”

Still no answer.

“It war you dat put de ball in my leg for sport, when you war a boy, and I war de same. I have been close to you for years, but you didn’t know me. I war too mean – too much below de notice of a proud gentleman like you. But I hab a good memory, and de oath I’d taken to be even wid ye, am kept. My mother war a slave, but she war my mother for all dat, an’ if I war a black man I war still a human bein’, although you and de likes of you didn’t think so. Do you know me now?”

Rody uttered not a word.

“When I war forced to limp away from your father’s plantation, I war but a boy, but de boy had de same hate for de cruel massa dat de lame nigga hab now for Elias Rody. Days and years hab passed since den, but de hate war kept hot as ever; and I’se happy now when I knows dat de dyin’ planter am at de mercy of de mean slave. Don’t be skear’d, I wouldn’t lift dis hand to help you eider die or live. All I’se a going to do is to sit hyar an’ watch ober you till you am cold and stiff. Every flutter you wicked soul makes to get free from you ugly body, will be a joy to me!”