Throwing on his clothes he proceeded to the spot, and beheld the individual, with whom he had held the preceding conference, in the precise situation in which he had first been found.
The miserable wretch had fallen a victim to his intemperance.
This revolting fact was sufficiently proclaimed by his obtruding eye-balls, his bloated countenance, and the nearly insufferable odours that were even then exhaling from his carcass.
Disgusted with the odious spectacle, the youth was turning from the sight, after ordering the corpse to be removed, when the position of one of the dead man’s hands struck him.
On examination, he found the fore-finger extended, as if in the act of writing in the sand, with the following incomplete sentence, nearly illegible, but yet in a state to be deciphered:
“Captain, it is true, as I am a gentle—” He had either died, or fallen into a sleep, the forerunner of his death, before the latter word was finished.
Concealing this fact from the others, Middleton repeated his orders and departed.
The pertinacity of the deceased, and all the circumstances united, induced him to set on foot some secret enquiries.
He found that a family answering the description which had been given him, had in fact passed the place the day of his nuptials.
They were traced along the margin of the Mississippi, for some distance, until they took boat and ascended the river to its confluence with the Missouri.
Here they had disappeared like hundreds of others, in pursuit of the hidden wealth of the interior.
Furnished with these facts, Middleton detailed a small guard of his most trusty men, took leave of Don Augustin, without declaring his hopes or his fears, and having arrived at the indicated point, he pushed into the wilderness in pursuit.
It was not difficult to trace a train like that of Ishmael, until he was well assured its object lay far beyond the usual limits of the settlements.
This circumstance, in itself, quickened his suspicions, and gave additional force to his hopes of final success.
After getting beyond the assistance of verbal directions, the anxious husband had recourse to the usual signs of a trail, in order to follow the fugitives.
This he also found a task of no difficulty, until he reached the hard and unyielding soil of the rolling prairies.
Here, indeed, he was completely at fault.
He found himself, at length, compelled to divide his followers, appointing a place of rendezvous at a distant day, and to endeavour to find the lost trail by multiplying, as much as possible, the number of his eyes.
He had been alone a week, when accident brought him in contact with the trapper and the bee-hunter.
Part of their interview has been related, and the reader can readily imagine the explanations that succeeded the tale he recounted, and which led, as has already been seen, to the recovery of his bride.
CHAPTER XVI
These likelihoods confirm her flight from hence,
Therefore, I pray you, stay not to discourse,
But mount you presently.
—Shakspeare.
An hour had slid by, in hasty and nearly incoherent questions and answers, before Middleton, hanging over his recovered treasure with that sort of jealous watchfulness with which a miser would regard his hoards, closed the disjointed narrative of his own proceedings by demanding—
“And you, my Inez; in what manner were you treated?”
“In every thing, but the great injustice they did in separating me so forcibly from my friends, as well perhaps as the circumstances of my captors would allow.
I think the man, who is certainly the master here, is but a new beginner in wickedness.
He quarrelled frightfully in my presence, with the wretch who seized me, and then they made an impious bargain, to which I was compelled to acquiesce, and to which they bound me as well as themselves by oaths. Ah! Middleton, I fear the heretics are not so heedful of their vows as we who are nurtured in the bosom of the true church!”
“Believe it not; these villains are of no religion: did they forswear themselves?”
“No, not perjured: but was it not awful to call upon the good God to witness so sinful a compact?”
“And so we think, Inez, as truly as the most virtuous cardinal of Rome.
But how did they observe their oath, and what was its purport?”
“They conditioned to leave me unmolested, and free from their odious presence, provided I would give a pledge to make no effort to escape; and that I would not even show myself, until a time that my masters saw fit to name.”
“And that time?” demanded the impatient Middleton, who so well knew the religious scruples of his wife—“that time?”
“It is already passed.
I was sworn by my patron saint, and faithfully did I keep the vow, until the man they call Ishmael forgot the terms by offering violence.
I then made my appearance on the rock, for the time too was passed; though I even think father Ignatius would have absolved me from the vow, on account of the treachery of my keepers.”
“If he had not,” muttered the youth between his compressed teeth, “I would have absolved him for ever from his spiritual care of your conscience!”
“You, Middleton!” returned his wife looking up into his flushed face, while a bright blush suffused her own sweet countenance; “you may receive my vows, but surely you can have no power to absolve me from their observance!”
“No, no, no.
Inez, you are right.
I know but little of these conscientious subtilties, and I am any thing but a priest: yet tell me, what has induced these monsters to play this desperate game—to trifle thus with my happiness?”
“You know my ignorance of the world, and how ill I am qualified to furnish reasons for the conduct of beings so different from any I have ever seen before.
But does not love of money drive men to acts even worse than this?
I believe they thought that an aged and wealthy father could be tempted to pay them a rich ransom for his child; and, perhaps,” she added, stealing an enquiring glance through her tears, at the attentive Middleton, “they counted something on the fresh affections of a bridegroom.”
“They might have extracted the blood from my heart, drop by drop!”
“Yes,” resumed his young and timid wife, instantly withdrawing the stolen look she had hazarded, and hurriedly pursuing the train of the discourse, as if glad to make him forget the liberty she had just taken, “I have been told, there are men so base as to perjure themselves at the altar, in order to command the gold of ignorant and confiding girls; and if love of money will lead to such baseness, we may surely expect it will hurry those, who devote themselves to gain, into acts of lesser fraud.”
“It must be so; and now, Inez, though I am here to guard you with my life, and we are in possession of this rock, our difficulties, perhaps our dangers, are not ended.