Tried for Her Life. Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth

Table of Contents

Horror wide extends

Her desolate domain!—Thompson.

      The thunder of the explosion, when the old Haunted Chapel was blown up, was heard for many miles around.

      It burst upon the unsheltered wayfarers like the crack of doom!

      It stunned the plantation negroes gathered around their cabin fires!

      It startled the planters' families at their elegant tea-tables!

      Travellers paused panic-stricken on the road!

      Home-dwellers, high and low, rushed with one accord to doors and windows to see what the dreadful matter might be!

      Was it an earthquake?

      Had some unsuspected volcano suddenly burst forth in the mountain? Indeed it seemed so!

      Volumes of black smoke ascended from a certain point of rocks, filling all the evening air with the suffocating smell of sulphur.

      There was a pause of astonishment among the people for about one minute only; and then commenced a general stampede of all the able-bodied men and boys from a circle of several miles in circumference to the centre of attraction; while the women and girls waited at home in dread suspense!

      But the very first on the scene of the catastrophe was a lamed negro.

      Poor Joe! Just as his master had surmised, he had met with an accident. He had, indeed, reached Black Hall in safety, near the dawn of that day; but being quite exhausted with twenty-four hours of watching, working, and fasting, he succumbed to drowsiness, fatigue, and famine. In short, he ate and drank and slept.

      He did not mean, poor faithful creature, to do more than just recruit sufficient strength to take him back, with the tools, to his master.

      But when one, under such circumstances, surrenders to sleep, he loses all control over himself for an indefinite period of time. Joe slept fast and long, and never waked until he was rudely kicked up by a fellow-servant, who demanded to know how he came to be sleeping on the hay in the barn, and if he meant to sleep forever.

      Joe started up, at first confused and delirious, but afterwards, when he came to his senses and found that it was past noon, he was utterly wretched and inconsolable. He did not even resent the rudeness of his comrade, in kicking him up; but, on the contrary, meekly thanked him for his kindness in arousing him.

      And then he went and gathered his tools together, and saddled his horse, and without waiting for bite or sup, he told his mate that he had work to do at a distance, and mounted and rode off towards the ferry, which he had to cross to reach the river road on the other side, because, with, the weight of iron tools he carried, he could not possibly get over the ford.

      All this contributed so to delay Joe's journey, that the sun set while he was still upon the river road, and "the shades of night were falling fast" when he reached the entrance of the thicket path leading to the Haunted Chapel.

      He had not ridden more than a hundred yards up this path, before the thunder of the explosion burst upon his appalled ears. And at the same instant his affrighted horse, with a violent bound, threw him to the earth, jumped forward and fled away.

      Amazed, stunned, bewildered as he was, Joe did not entirely lose his senses. When recovered a little from the shock, he felt himself all over to see what bones were broken; and found to his great relief that all were sound.

      Then he got upon his feet, and looked about him; but a dense, heavy, black vapor was settling down upon the thicket, hiding all things from his view, while the stifling fumes of brimstone took his breath away.

      "I'm——!"—Joe in his consternation swore a very profane oath, which it is not necessary here to repeat—"ef I don't b'leibe as de Debbil has blowed de old Haunted Chapel! And oh! my Hebbenly Marster! ef so, what have become o' Miss Sybil and Marse Lyon, and Nelly?" he cried in a sudden pang of terror and sorrow, as he tried to hurry towards the scene of the tragedy. He set off in a run, but was brought up short by a sharp severe pain in his right ancle.

      "It's sprained! Bress de Lord, ef it an't sprained!" he cried, drawing up and caressing his injured limb.

      "It an't no use! I can't put it to the ground no more!" he groaned.

      Then standing upon his left foot and holding the other in his hand, he looked around and saw the pick lying among the scattered tools, that had fallen from his hold when the horse threw him. He cautiously bent down and took up the pick, and reversed it, and using it as a crutch, he hobbled on through the thicket towards the ruins of the old chapel. But his progress was so slow and painful that it took him nearly an hour to reach the place.

      When at length he emerged from the thicket and entered the old churchyard, a scene of devastation met his view that appalled his soul.

      "Oh, my Lord!" he said, stopping and leaning upon his pick-crutch, as he gazed around, "what an awful sight! Joe, you are like—somebody among the ruins of something," he added, as a vague classic similitude about Scipio and Carthage flitted through his half-dazed brain.

      It was indeed a scene of horror deep enough to dismay the stoutest heart! Nor was that horror less overwhelming for the obscurity that enveloped it. The Haunted Chapel was gone; and in its place was a heap of blackened, burning, and smoking ruins, with here and there the arm or leg of some crushed and mutilated victim protruding from the mass. And in strange contrast to this appalling scene, was a poor little Skye terrier, preserved from destruction, Heaven only knows how, that ran snuffing and whining piteously around and around the wreck.

      "Come, Nelly! pretty Nelly! good Nelly!" called Joe.

      The Skye terrier left off circling around the smouldering ruins, and bounded towards her dusky friend, and leaped upon him with a yelp of welcome and a whine of sorrow.

      "Oh, Nelly! Nelly! what has happened?" cried Joe.

      The little dog howled dismally in answer.

      "Yes, I know what you would say. I understand. The devil has blown up the Haunted Chapel," said Joe.

      She lifted up her nose and her voice in a woe-begone howl of assent.

      "Just so; but oh! Nelly! Nelly Brown! where is the master and the mistress?"

      She answered by a cry of agony, and ran back to the ruins, and re-commenced her pawing and whining.

      "Ah, yes! just so; buried under all that there," groaned Joe.

      But Nelly ran back to him, barking emphatically, and then forward to the ruins, and then, seeing that he still stood there, back to him again, with the most eloquent barks, that seemed to assure him that her master and mistress were under the mass, and at length to ask him what was the use of his being a man, if he could not dig them out.

      Never did man and dog understand each other better. Joe replied to Nelly as if she had spoken in the best approved English.

      "I know it, honey! I know they are; they are there!" he sobbed, "but you see I'm crippled, and can't do nothing."

      But the little Skye terrier could not comprehend such incompetency in a human creature, and so she very irrationally and irritatingly continued her appeals and her reproaches, until Joe hobbled up to the heap of smoking ruins to take a nearer view.

      The first thing that met his sight was the sole of a man's boot, belonging to a leg protruding from the mass.

      "If it should be hizzen! Oh, good gracious! if it should be marster's! But no," he continued, on a closer examination of the limb. "No! there is a spur on the heel. It isn't hizzen. No! thank goodness, it is Master Sheriff Benthwick's, and sarve him right too."

      While Joe was exulting, either wickedly over the destruction of the sheriff, or