The Prairie (28 page)

"It is getting late, my Inez," he said, "and Don Augustin would be apt
to reproach you with inattention to your health, in being abroad at such
an hour. What then am I to do, who am charged with all his authority,
and twice his love?"

"Be like him in every thing," she answered, looking up in his face, with
tears in her eyes, and speaking with emphasis; "in every thing. Imitate
my father, Middleton, and I can ask no more of you."

"Nor for me, Inez? I doubt not that I should be all you can wish, were
I to become as good as the worthy and respectable Don Augustin. But you
are to make some allowances for the infirmities and habits of a soldier.
Now let us go and join this excellent father."

"Not yet," said his bride, gently extricating herself from the arm, that
he had thrown around her slight form, while he urged her from the place.
"I have still another duty to perform, before I can submit so implicitly
to your orders, soldier though you are. I promised the worthy Inesella,
my faithful nurse, she who, as you heard, has so long been a mother to
me, Middleton—I promised her a visit at this hour. It is the last,
as she thinks, that she can receive from her own child, and I cannot
disappoint her. Go you then to Don Augustin; in one short hour I will
rejoin you."

"Remember it is but an hour!"

"One hour," repeated Inez, as she kissed her hand to him; and then
blushing, ashamed at her own boldness, she darted from the arbour, and
was seen for an instant gliding towards the cottage of her nurse, in
which, at the next moment, she disappeared.

Middleton returned slowly and thoughtfully to the house, often bending
his eyes in the direction in which he had last seen his wife, as if he
would fain trace her lovely form, in the gloom of the evening, still
floating through the vacant space. Don Augustin received him with
warmth, and for many minutes his mind was amused by relating to his new
kinsman plans for the future. The exclusive old Spaniard listened to
his glowing but true account of the prosperity and happiness of those
States, of which he had been an ignorant neighbour half his life, partly
in wonder, and partly with that sort of incredulity with which one
attends to what he fancies are the exaggerated descriptions of a too
partial friendship.

In this manner the hour for which Inez had conditioned passed away, much
sooner than her husband could have thought possible, in her absence. At
length his looks began to wander to the clock, and then the minutes were
counted, as one rolled by after another and Inez did not appear. The
hand had already made half of another circuit, around the face of the
dial, when Middleton arose and announced his determination to go and
offer himself, as an escort to the absentee. He found the night dark,
and the heavens charged with threatening vapour, which in that climate
was the infallible forerunner of a gust. Stimulated no less by the
unpropitious aspect of the skies, than by his secret uneasiness, he
quickened his pace, making long and rapid strides in the direction
of the cottage of Inesella. Twenty times he stopped, fancying that he
caught glimpses of the fairy form of Inez, tripping across the grounds,
on her return to the mansion-house, and as often he was obliged to
resume his course, in disappointment. He reached the gate of the
cottage, knocked, opened the door, entered, and even stood in the
presence of the aged nurse, without meeting the person of her he sought.
She had already left the place, on her return to her father's house!
Believing that he must have passed her in the darkness, Middleton
retraced his steps to meet with another disappointment. Inez had
not been seen. Without communicating his intention to any one, the
bridegroom proceeded with a palpitating heart to the little sequestered
arbour, where he had overheard his bride offering up those petitions for
his happiness and conversion. Here, too, he was disappointed; and then
all was afloat, in the painful incertitude of doubt and conjecture.

For many hours, a secret distrust of the motives of his wife caused
Middleton to proceed in the search with delicacy and caution. But as day
dawned, without restoring her to the arms of her father or her husband,
reserve was thrown aside, and her unaccountable absence was loudly
proclaimed. The enquiries after the lost Inez were now direct and open;
but they proved equally fruitless. No one had seen her, or heard of her,
from the moment that she left the cottage of her nurse.

Day succeeded day, and still no tidings rewarded the search that was
immediately instituted, until she was finally given over, by most of her
relations and friends, as irretrievably lost.

An event of so extraordinary a character was not likely to be soon
forgotten. It excited speculation, gave rise to an infinity of rumours,
and not a few inventions. The prevalent opinion, among such of those
emigrants who were over-running the country, as had time, in the
multitude of their employments, to think of any foreign concerns, was
the simple and direct conclusion that the absent bride was no more nor
less than a felo de se. Father Ignatius had many doubts, and much secret
compunction of conscience; but, like a wise chief, he endeavoured to
turn the sad event to some account, in the impending warfare of faith.
Changing his battery, he whispered in the ears of a few of his oldest
parishioners, that he had been deceived in the state of Middleton's
mind, which he was now compelled to believe was completely stranded on
the quicksands of heresy. He began to show his relics again, and was
even heard to allude once more to the delicate and nearly forgotten
subject of modern miracles. In consequence of these demonstrations,
on the part of the venerable priest, it came to be whispered among the
faithful, and finally it was adopted, as part of the parish creed, that
Inez had been translated to heaven.

Don Augustin had all the feelings of a father, but they were smothered
in the lassitude of a Creole. Like his spiritual governor, he began to
think that they had been wrong in consigning one so pure, so young, so
lovely, and above all so pious, to the arms of a heretic: and he was
fain to believe that the calamity, which had befallen his age, was a
judgment on his presumption and want of adherence to established forms.
It is true that, as the whispers of the congregation came to his ears,
he found present consolation in their belief; but then nature was too
powerful, and had too strong a hold of the old man's heart, not to give
rise to the rebellious thought, that the succession of his daughter to
the heavenly inheritance was a little premature.

But Middleton, the lover, the husband, the bridegroom—Middleton was
nearly crushed by the weight of the unexpected and terrible blow.
Educated himself under the dominion of a simple and rational faith, in
which nothing is attempted to be concealed from the believers, he could
have no other apprehensions for the fate of Inez than such as grew out
of his knowledge of the superstitious opinions she entertained of his
own church. It is needless to dwell on the mental tortures that he
endured, or all the various surmises, hopes, and disappointments, that
he was fated to experience in the first few weeks of his misery. A
jealous distrust of the motives of Inez, and a secret, lingering, hope
that he should yet find her, had tempered his enquiries, without however
causing him to abandon them entirely. But time was beginning to deprive
him, even of the mortifying reflection that he was intentionally, though
perhaps temporarily, deserted, and he was gradually yielding to the
more painful conviction that she was dead, when his hopes were suddenly
revived, in a new and singular manner.

The young commander was slowly and sorrowfully returning from an evening
parade of his troops, to his own quarters, which stood at some little
distance from the place of the encampment, and on the same high bluff
of land, when his vacant eyes fell on the figure of a man, who by
the regulations of the place, was not entitled to be there, at that
forbidden hour. The stranger was meanly dressed, with every appearance
about his person and countenance, of squalid poverty and of the most
dissolute habits. Sorrow had softened the military pride of Middleton,
and, as he passed the crouching form of the intruder, he said, in tones
of great mildness, or rather of kindness—

"You will be given a night in the guard-house, friend, should the patrol
find you here;—there is a dollar,—go, and get a better place to sleep
in, and something to eat!"

"I swallow all my food, captain, without chewing," returned the
vagabond, with the low exultation of an accomplished villain, as he
eagerly seized the silver. "Make this Mexican twenty, and I will sell
you a secret."

"Go, go," said the other with a little of a soldier's severity,
returning to his manner. "Go, before I order the guard to seize you."

"Well, go I will;—but if I do go, captain, I shall take my knowledge
with me; and then you may live a widower bewitched till the tattoo of
life is beat off."

"What mean you, fellow?" exclaimed Middleton, turning quickly towards
the wretch, who was already dragging his diseased limbs from the place.

"I mean to have the value of this dollar in Spanish brandy, and then
come back and sell you my secret for enough to buy a barrel."

"If you have any thing to say, speak now," continued Middleton,
restraining with difficulty the impatience that urged him to betray his
feelings.

"I am a-dry, and I can never talk with elegance when my throat is husky,
captain. How much will you give to know what I can tell you; let it be
something handsome; such as one gentleman can offer to another."

"I believe it would be better justice to order the drummer to pay you a
visit, fellow. To what does your boasted secret relate?"

"Matrimony; a wife and no wife; a pretty face and a rich bride: do I
speak plain, now, captain?"

"If you know any thing relating to my wife, say it at once; you need not
fear for your reward."

"Ay, captain, I have drove many a bargain in my time, and sometimes I
have been paid in money, and sometimes I have been paid in promises; now
the last are what I call pinching food."

"Name your price."

"Twenty—no, damn it, it's worth thirty dollars, if it's worth a cent!"

"Here, then, is your money: but remember, if you tell me nothing worth
knowing, I have a force that can easily deprive you of it again, and
punish your insolence in the bargain."

The fellow examined the bank-bills he received, with a jealous eye, and
then pocketed them, apparently well satisfied of their being genuine.

"I like a northern note," he said very coolly; "they have a character
to lose like myself. No fear of me, captain; I am a man of honour, and
I shall not tell you a word more, nor a word less than I know of my own
knowledge to be true."

"Proceed then without further delay, or I may repent, and order you to
be deprived of all your gains; the silver as well as the notes."

"Honour, if you die for it!" returned the miscreant, holding up a hand
in affected horror at so treacherous a threat. "Well, captain, you must
know that gentlemen don't all live by the same calling; some keep what
they've got, and some get what they can."

"You have been a thief."

"I scorn the word. I have been a humanity hunter. Do you know what
that means? Ay, it has many interpretations. Some people think the
woolly-heads are miserable, working on hot plantations under a broiling
sun—and all such sorts of inconveniences. Well, captain, I have been,
in my time, a man who has been willing to give them the pleasures of
variety, at least, by changing the scene for them. You understand me?"

"You are, in plain language, a kidnapper."

"Have been, my worthy captain—have been; but just now a little reduced,
like a merchant who leaves off selling tobacco by the hogshead, to deal
in it by the yard. I have been a soldier, too, in my day. What is said
to be the great secret of our trade, can you tell me that?"

"I know not," said Middleton, beginning to tire of the fellow's
trifling: "courage?"

"No, legs—legs to fight with, and legs to run away with—and therein
you see my two callings agreed. My legs are none of the best just now,
and without legs a kidnapper would carry on a losing trade; but then
there are men enough left, better provided than I am."

"Stolen!" groaned the horror-struck husband.

"On her travels, as sure as you are standing still!"

"Villain, what reason have you for believing a thing so shocking?"

"Hands off—hands off—do you think my tongue can do its work the
better, for a little squeezing of the throat! Have patience, and you
shall know it all; but if you treat me so ungenteelly again, I shall be
obliged to call in the assistance of the lawyers."

"Say on; but if you utter a single word more or less than the truth,
expect instant vengeance!"

"Are you fool enough to believe what such a scoundrel as I am tells
you, captain, unless it has probability to back it? I know you are not:
therefore I will give my facts and my opinions, and then leave you to
chew on them, while I go and drink of your generosity. I know a man who
is called Abiram White.—I believe the knave took that name to show his
enmity to the race of blacks! But this gentleman is now, and has been
for years, to my certain knowledge, a regular translator of the human
body from one State to another. I have dealt with him in my time, and a
cheating dog he is! No more honour in him than meat in my stomach. I saw
him here in this very town, the day of your wedding. He was in company
with his wife's brother, and pretended to be a settler on the hunt for
new land. A noble set they were, to carry on business—seven sons, each
of them as tall as your sergeant with his cap on. Well, the moment I
heard that your wife was lost, I saw at once that Abiram had laid his
hands on her."