Chapter XIV: The Flight

And there was mounting in hot haste.—BYRON.

Then Corsoni seized her hand and drew her into the yard, where the men already mounted awaited their chief.

Corsoni placed his wife on her horse and then mounted his own.

Alberta, turning around, saw Elfie bound hand and foot behind Goldsborough, who was firmly seated on one of the most powerful roadsters she had ever seen.

Elfie could no longer fight or struggle, but she scolded and remonstrated as vigorously as ever.

“Men—if you _are_ men and not monsters—how _dare_ you look on and see such an outrage as this accomplished!” she cried, addressing the band at large.

But the men were busy with their curbs, restraining restive horses, that were as eager to fly as their masters; and they had no attention to bestow on Elfie.

“Colonel Corsoni, are you a gentleman, and will you permit this violence to be done me?” she demanded of the Free Sword.

But the guerrilla chief was marshaling his band, and did not even hear her words.

“Alberta, Alberta, why do you not interfere? You promised that no wrong should be done me that you could prevent!” she screamed, turning her head—the only part of her person she could move—towards Madame Corsoni.

“Would to heaven I could prevent this, Elfie!” exclaimed the guerrilla’s wife. Then turning to her cousin, she said, sharply:

“Albert Goldsborough, if you have a spark of manhood left, release the girl and leave her here. The Federals will find her when they come, and protect her, until they can send her to her friends.”

“Ha, ha, ha! Quite right, Alberta,” laughed Colonel Goldsborough. “As lady and chieftainess you could not say less. Though, of course, your interference was a mere form; for you know as well as I do that Elfie would not thank you for hindering me; because at heart she is just as willing to be carried off as I am to take her.”

“Oh, you—you—you _unutterably_, contemptible miscreant!” cried Elfie, at a loss for names base enough to bestow on her captor.

But at that instant the order was given to move forward; and Goldsborough put spurs to his horse and bounded away.

The troop started—very much as a company of fox hunters start when the fox has broken cover—all in wildest haste and disorder, the first object being to get away as quickly as possible—the great difference that in this case the party were the hunted instead of the hunters.

They galloped, without drawing rein, until they had put miles and miles between themselves and their late encampment.

Then, on the edge of another great forest, they slackened pace to breathe their horses.

When all the troop—the men and horses covered with dust and reeking with sweat—rode up, their chief lifted his hand and spoke to them;

“ATTENTION! Scatter yourselves through the forest, and rendezvous to-night at the Black Bear’s Pass, where we join Colonel Goldsborough’s force.”

Then they entered the forest by different paths, and scattered themselves according to order.

Some little distance into the forest Colonel Corsoni and Alberta rode side by side.

“So we go to Goldsborough’s encampment,” she said.

“Yes. This morning, when the scouts brought in the news that the enemy’s cavalry, informed by the little spy Gill, was after us, we called a hasty council of war—Goldsborough, myself, Mutchison, and Abershaw; when it was decided that we should consolidate the remnant of our bands, at the Black Bear’s Pass, there to wait for Monck, who is expected down from the Shenandoah Valley, to plan another raid into Pennsylvania or Maryland. Ah, what a hard life this for you, my tenderly reared love!” said the guerrilla chief, suddenly breaking off from his talk of rapine and bloodshed, to gaze with ineffable tenderness upon his companion.

“My Free Sword,” exclaimed his wife, fondly and proudly, “it is the life of my heart’s choosing. I am happy—oh, believe me—I am _always_ happy by your side! only miserable when absent from you. And you never wish me absent, do you, Vittorio?”

“God knows, never!” exclaimed the Free Sword, fervently. “I am such an egotist as to want you always with me, cost you what it may.”

“‘Such an egotist’ are you, in making me so happy? Listen, my chief—oh, my dearest, listen: I am orthodox and I believe in Heaven and in hell. But I will have no Heaven that you do not share, my own! And death and hell are less terrible to me than the thought of parting from you,” she murmured, still fondly and proudly, as she had spoken before.

“Then by the splendor of Heaven we will never part again—no, not for a day!”

Their hands met in a clasp as fervent as the pledge of a first betrothal, and then they rode on again in silence for some moments, until the clatter of a horse’s feet was heard behind them, and Goldsborough galloped up, with Elfie still bound behind him. He lifted his hat gallantly as he passed Madam Corsoni.

“Oh, Vittorio!” exclaimed Alberta, as the horseman and his captive sped out of sight.

“What is it, love?” inquired Colonel Corsoni.

“Elfie! nothing can be done for her until we reach our destination, I suppose. But, oh, when we do, pray try to effect the deliverance of Elfie. It is shameful in Albert Goldsborough to carry her off against her will.”

“My dearest, do you suppose for a moment that it is really against her will? I do not,” laughed the Free Sword.

“It is bitterly against her will! I do not understand how it can be so; since I know that she loved him once! but I see that it is!” said his wife, earnestly.

Colonel Corsoni gayly shook his head.

“It is, indeed, as I say! Strange as it may sound, she seems really to hate the lover she once loved so fondly!”

“And for no personal offence against her? For a mere difference of opinion in regard to this war? Impossible! Dearest, you should know that no woman who truly loved, ever discarded her lover for a mere difference of opinion in religion or politics! And that Elfie truly loved Albert, and even sought to win his love, I had an opportunity of proving! Oh, I watched them with too much interest in the play to be mistaken! I was too anxious that the little black-eyed witch should win him, and so remove a troublesome suitor to yourself and a hateful rival from my path; not to have discovered the truth!”

“Oh yes, I know that she did once love him, and seek to win and succeed in winning his heart! But all that is over now!”

“And has a woman the right, do you think, to win a man’s heart and then throw it away?”

“No, certainly!”

“See here, dearest; she not only loved him and won his love; but she betrothed herself to him. And he at least has been faithful to that betrothal. Listen, my own! If Elfrida were not the promised wife of Goldsborough, I would not look on for an instant and permit her to be carried off by him; or, being his promised wife, if her feelings had really changed towards him, I would not interfere to deliver her from his power. But neither of these hypotheses exist. At heart she loves him still; loves him more than ever, that he has proved _his_ love, by daring so much for her sake! But Elfie is given to heroics—real heroics and mock heroics. She has embraced the cause of the Union! It is her cue to hate ‘treason’ and to love ‘patriotism.’ And left to herself she will sacrifice her lover, whom she adores, for her country that she only thinks she adores! But let Goldsborough succeed in carrying her off, and making her his wife, by force if you like to call it so, and Elfie will be as happy as a queen in the greenwood.”

“But only see how she resisted her abduction! See how she wounded her captor in her struggles to escape!”

“All done to deceive _herself_, as well as her lover, into the idea that she hates him as a ‘traitor’ ought to be hated—according to her creed! Ha, ha, ha! We shall have a stormy wedding at the Black Bear’s Pass to-morrow; but in a day or two the storm will have passed and all will be sunshine!” laughed Vittorio, gayly.

“But how, in heaven’s name, is any marriage to take place without the woman’s consent? Elfie may be carried off and kept prisoner by physical force; but no physical force on earth can make her the _wife_ of Albert Goldsborough!”

“He will find a way to make her consent to marry him, and make her confess that she loves him, too!” laughed Vittorio.

“Judging from what I had seen, I should think she would tear him to pieces first!”

“She can’t! He’s tough! She’ll tear him frightfully, no doubt! But he will stand a great deal of tearing from those pretty hands, with the certainty that it will all end in their caressing him. But this path is becoming very narrow and obstructed. Let me go before, dearest, and put aside the branches for you,” said Colonel Corsoni, taking the lead.

So they journeyed on until sometime in the afternoon, when once more they encountered Goldsborough and Elfie. He was pausing at a forest rivulet to let his horse drink.

“We need something to drink as well as our beasts. What do you think, Colonel?” inquired Goldsborough.

In reply Corsoni handed the speaker a flask of brandy, from which Goldsborough took a deep draught.

“That is a genuine article, Colonel, where ever you got it from,” he said, handing back the flask to its owner.

“A present from Mutchison,” said Corsoni.

“Oh! spoils from the picnic—just so!” answered Albert. Then turning to his companion, he said—“Mrs. Goldsborough, I am aware that you never touch anything stronger than tea or lemonade. Unfortunately we have neither to offer you. However, the clearest of springs sparkles below us, and if you would like a draught of fresh water——”

“Hold your tongue! Don’t speak to me, miscreant!” flashed Elfie, losing her patience.

Meanwhile Colonel Corsoni had leaped from his saddle, and dipped up from the spring a can of water, which he now held to Elfie’s lips.

She was choking with thirst, so she drank it all and bowed her head in thanks.

“Now I think we want foddering as well as watering. Corsoni, my friend, what is the condition of the subsistence department?”

The Free Sword, who was about to render the same service to his wife that he had just rendered to Elfie, handed the can of water to Alberta, and then took from some depository about his horse a tin box of ham sandwiches, which he delivered to Colonel Goldsborough.

“More spoils from the picnic, I suppose,” said Albert, as he received them.

“Yes, I judge so, since they came from Mutchison,” answered Corsoni.

“Exactly. Well, Mrs. Goldsborough, if you would like some of these sandwiches, and will promise not to scalp me, I will free your hands long enough for you to satisfy your hunger,” said Elfie’s lover.

“You poltroon! I would see _you_ eaten up by snakes sooner than I would touch a morsel of food from your thievish and blood-stained hands! If I cannot free myself in any other way, I can by starving myself to death!” exclaimed Elfie.

“Two words to that, Mrs. Albert Goldsborough! You may think you have a right to destroy yourself. But I’m dashed if you have any right to destroy my wife, after all the trouble I have had to get her,” said Albert, as he put spurs to his horse and bounded away.

Some little time Corsoni and Alberta lingered to take a light luncheon, and then they also followed after him.

They continued their way through the forest, which grew thicker and darker as they penetrated deeper into its recesses. At length, however, they reached higher ground, where the trees grew thinner.

And just as the moon arose they began to ascend that almost inaccessible part of the mountains known as the Black Bear’s Pass.

Steep, winding, difficult and dangerous was the way.

The side of the mountain up which the path wound was nearly perpendicular, broken into rocks, cut up with torrents and obstructed with a ragged, scrubby copsewood of evergreen. The precipice towered a thousand feet above them on their right hand, and fell a thousand feet below them on their left. A single false step must have precipitated horses and riders to death.

Corsoni went in advance and Alberta followed on her sure-footed animal. Neither the guerrilla chief nor his devoted wife thought or cared for the present imminent danger; for oh! a more horrible fate threatened them daily in Corsoni’s possible re-arrest than could be braved in a quick and merciful death by falling over this precipice. Indeed, the more terrible the dangers of the path the more assured was the heart of the guerrilla’s wife, since the perils of the way seemed to promise them immunity from pursuit.

They went on, slowly ascending this “devil’s ladder,” as Corsoni laughingly characterized it, until at last they heard voices in advance.

They had once more come unexpectedly upon Goldsborough and Elfie. The former was saying:

“Now, if your hands were free, my fair wife, you would have a fine opportunity of rolling us both down to destruction.”

“No matter, wretch. ‘What’s not paid is but delayed.’ I shall be in at your death yet. The one burning aspiration of my soul is to live to see you hanged, Albert Goldsborough!” she exclaimed.

“So you shall, Mrs. Albert—around your pretty neck, my sweet wife, as I said before,” retorted Goldsborough.

It was while this tender interchange of affection was going on that Corsoni and Alberta rode up and halted behind the party.

“What’s the matter ahead there?” inquired the Free Sword. “Can’t you get on?”

“Yes, but very slowly. My horse carries double, you may remember. Besides, Mrs. Goldsborough is timid, and does not like me to go any faster,” replied Albert.

“It is false, you caitiff! I don’t care how fast you go—the faster the better, so that you go to the old Nick!” flashed Elfie.

“And take you with me?” queried Albert.

“Hold your tongue!” snapped Elfie.

“Go on, my dear Goldsborough, do,” recommended Corsoni.

“I am going. I only stop once in a way for a little love making with my bonny bride here, which is but natural in the honeymoon, you know,” said Albert, as he carefully proceeded on his way.

Corsoni and Alberta followed.

The pass became more and more steep, winding, difficult and dangerous. The rocks were more broken, the torrents more swollen, the copsewood more tangled and treacherous.

The precipice now rose five hundred feet on their right hand, and fell fifteen hundred on their left. The false step which might precipitate horses and riders to death seemed imminent.

Alberta’s spirits actually rose with the perils and perplexities of the ascent, for these seemed absolutely to insure the fugitives against pursuit.

“I do not think the Yankee heroes will care to track us up this path,” said Alberta, exultingly.

“No, I do not think they will. Besides, one single resolute and well armed man, stationed at the head of this pass, could keep it against an advancing army,” replied the Free Sword.

An hour more of toilsome and terrible climbing brought them to the top of the mountain.

The full moon was now at the zenith, and shone brightly down upon a scene which was as great a curiosity in its way as the Natural Bridge itself. It seemed a fort of Nature’s own forming. Saucer-shaped was the top of the mountain, and surrounded by a natural breastwork of earth and rocks, in the clefts of which grew sturdy evergreens. Within this naturally enclosed space, which was about a mile in circumference, was a picturesque spectacle—groups of men, droves of horses, and many campfires. But here seemed no sign of shelter for man or beast.

Colonel Goldsborough had arrived just before Corsoni and Alberta. He had unbound his captive, who was seated in sulky silence on the ground, and he now turned to receive the Free Sword.

“Welcome to the Devil’s Retreat, for such is the delectable name by which this natural fortification goes. See, your men are here before you, and they are already preparing for the comfort of Madam,” he said.

Corsoni laughed and thanked his host, and then alighted and lifted his wife off her horse.

“You must be nearly dead with fatigue, beloved,” he whispered, tenderly, as he took a blanket from one of his men, threw it to the ground, and gently seated Alberta on it.

Meanwhile, some of Corsoni’s band busied themselves with cutting down saplings, driving stakes into the ground, weaving walls, and roofing in a temporary shelter for Corsoni’s beloved wife—beloved by all the band for her devotion to their chief and their cause.

“Come sit on this blanket with me, Elfie. You will take cold on the bare ground, child,” said Alberta, kindly.

And the captive, who felt a sort of limited sense of safety in the presence of the chieftainess, came and sat down beside her.

When Alberta’s pretty, picturesque hut of fragrant evergreens was finished, Haddycraff came to her and said:

“Your shelter is ready, lady. Come into it. Abershaw will bring you tea.”

Alberta thanked her faithful follower, and gave her hand to her female companion, saying:

“Come, Elfie; you shall share my hut, and rest under my protection to-night as last night.”

And Elfie, whose young joints, to be sure, were stiff with long constraint and hard riding, gladly availed herself of Alberta’s aid in rising.

“Ah, the wretch! what pain he has put me to, with all the rest of my wrongs! Every bone in my body aches as if I were a hundred years old. Oh! that fate would turn the tables and give that man over to _my_ tender mercies for one day!” she cried, as she struggled painfully to her feet.

“Fate may well do so, Elfie, and if it should, you will remember nothing of Albert but that he was the lover and the beloved of your earliest youth,” said Alberta, in a low and gentle voice, as she led the way taken by Haddycraff towards her hut.

It was built against the highest part of that natural wall of rocks, and it was sheltered from the north wind by a thick clump of cedars that grew above them.

The walls were built of stakes driven into the ground, with cedar boughs woven thickly between them; and the roof was made of sticks laid across the top, with cedar boughs piled and pressed down on them. The flooring, which was also the bedding, was made of dry leaves, with a large, clean camp blanket laid over them. The door was just a simple opening left large enough for a woman to go in and out, and before it hung a small, clean piece of a camp blanket, fastened with wooden pins to the roof.

Beside this door stood Abershaw, another of Alberta’s devoted followers, and at his feet lay a large bundle wrapped in a McIntosh water-proof covering.

“I was the last to leave the encampment, Madam. I lingered behind, with the colonel’s leave, to load two mules with the camp furniture of your room. Here is a part of it,” he said, stooping and beginning to open the bundle.

“And so you ran the risk of capture for the sake of securing these comforts for me, Abershaw?” said the colonel’s wife, with some emotion.

“Danger and duty seems to be the same thing in our wild life, Madam; and I am only too glad to meet the one and brave the other in your services,” said this gallant guerrilla, lifting his hat.

“Warmest thanks, Abershaw. But the colonel will know better than I do how to return such kindness.”

Again the man lifted his hat, and then, pointing to the opposite side of the area, he said:

“The supper is nearly ready at the fire over there, Madam. Will you and the young lady join the colonel and his guest there, or will you have your tea brought here?”

“We will join the colonel’s party, Abershaw,” said Corsoni’s wife.

“Alberta, you will do as you please; but as for me, I will starve sooner than break bread in Albert Goldsborough’s detestable company!” indignantly exclaimed Elfie.

Abershaw turned with an involuntary gaze of amazement at the enraged girl; for he, like most of the men, naturally supposed the young lady to be the willing companion of her lover’s flight.

But Alberta calmly replied:

“Very well, Abershaw. You hear what Miss Fielding says. Bring our suppers here.”

The man bowed and turned away.

“I am sorry if I have disconcerted you, Alberta; but if my life depended on my doing so, I could not eat and drink with that dastardly kidnapper!” said Elfie.

“It does not matter much to me, dear. Let’s drop the subject for the present. We will speak of it presently,” said Alberta, who was stooping over and examining the contents of the bundle that Abershaw had brought.

It proved to contain a supply of pillows, clean sheets and blankets, from Alberta’s press in the old plantation house.

“How kind and thoughtful of that man! How truly bound he is to the colonel and myself!” murmured Alberta.

“He seems to be a very superior person, that Abershaw. Very superior to his condition, I mean,” said Elfie.

“There are several such among the devoted followers of the Free Sword,” proudly answered Alberta.

“And you—you are like a queen, with your court about you, here in the green wood,” continued Elfie.

“As you may be, if you like the sovereignty,” replied the chieftainess, who was now engaged in spreading the clean sheets and blankets, and placing the pillows upon the fragrant bed of dried leaves in her hut.

When this was done, she came out of the hut, and sat down with Elfie before the door.

And presently was seen approaching a small procession across the area.

First came Abershaw, with a table-cloth thrown over his right arm, and a sugar bowl hugged under his left; a teapot in one hand, and a milk jug in the other. After him followed Haddycraff with a large plate of bread and butter and a big dish of stewed rabbits. Behind them came another man, loaded with cups, saucers, plates, spoons, knives and forks.

When Abershaw reached the front of the hut, he spread the table-cloth over the ground, and arranged the supper upon it, and then dismissed his assistants, and remained to wait on the wife of his chief and her companion.

The two young women sat down to the feast.

Nothing on earth ever took away Elfie’s appetite, and as she was now very hungry—not having eaten a morsel since the morning—she fell to with great gusto.

Not so Alberta. For one thing, the guerrilla’s wife had broken her fast with those ham sandwiches in the afternoon; and for another, she was troubled with many subjects of anxiety. So she ate but little, and talked a great deal.

“Abershaw, is it certain, do you think, that Gill really _did_ betray us?”

“Not a doubt of it, Madam. He was a spy from the first. Tubman swears _now_, though it did not occur to him at first, that he is the same boy he has seen in attendance upon Major Rosenthal. Tubman, you know, Madam, was a conscript in the Union army, and deserted to us.”

“No, I didn’t know it. But I think it is a pity Tubman did not recognize the boy at first,” said Alberta.

“I don’t think he saw much of the boy, ma’am.”

“Abershaw! You were the last to leave the encampment! Did you see any sign of the nearer approach of the enemy’s cavalry, before you left?”

“Yes, Madam. I went up into the attic and climbed through the skylight on to the roof of the house, and with my field-glass I saw their approach. Their advance was just rising up from the other side to the top of the Hogsback hill—not two miles off. I got away with my loaded mules as fast as I could; and thanks to the thickness of the forest, eluded pursuit.”

“Do you think, Abershaw, that we are quite safe from pursuit here?”

“Safe from surprise at least, Madam. The pass is strongly picketed at short intervals for two miles down.”

“Is Monck’s battalion expected soon, do you know?”

“Hourly, Madam.”

“Will they come up by the same way that we did?”

“No, Madam; by the opposite side, which is much easier of ascent. _Our_ straggling men are also arriving by scores; the Colonel will soon re-organize his whole force; and when Monck’s men join us, we shall be able to hold this post against any number that may be brought against it.”

“But we are not to remain here.”

“No, Madam. As soon as our whole force, including the three independent commands, is mustered, there is to be another great raid into Pennsylvania or Maryland, before the winter sets in.”

Alberta clasped her hands together, with a look of woe unutterable and indescribable.

“Will you have anything more, Madam?” inquired her attendant, who had not seen the misery on her face.

“No, Abershaw. Take all those things away!—You have finished, I believe, Elfie?”

“Yes; ever so long ago!”

“Remove them, Abershaw; and pray ask Colonel Corsoni if he will step here and see me before I retire.”

The man promptly obeyed the order by piling up as much of the cracked crockery and broken cutlery as he could carry, and walking off with his arms full.

He came back a second time with an assistant who helped him to take away all that was left; and he gave message to Madam Corsoni to the effect that the colonel would attend her immediately.

When the two men had finally left the spot, and the Free Sword was seen approaching it, Elfie retired within the hut leaving the husband and wife together.