Kitobni o'qish: «Всадник без головы / The Headless Horseman»

Shrift:

Chapter One

On the great plain of Texas, about a hundred miles southward from the old Spanish town of San Antonio de Bejar, the noonday sun is shedding his beams from a sky of cerulean brightness. Under the golden light appears a group of objects.

The objects in question are easily identified – even at a great distance. They are waggons. Slowly crawling across the savannah, it could scarce be told that they are in motion.

There’re ten large waggons, each hauled by eight mules; their contents are: plenteous provisions, articles of costly furniture, live stock in the shape of coloured women and children; the groups of black and yellow bondsmen, walking alongside; the light travelling carriage in the lead, drawn by a span of Kentucky mules, and driven by a black Jehu.

The train¹ is the property of a planter who has landed at Indianola, on the Gulf of Matagorda; and is now travelling overland.

In the cortège that accompanies it, riding at its head, is the planter himself – Woodley Poindexter – a tall thin man of fifty, with a slightly sallowish complexion, and aspect proudly severe. He is simply though not inexpensively dressed. His features are shaded by a broad-brimmed hat.

Two horsemen are riding alongside – one on his right, the other on the left – a stripling scarce twenty, and a young man six or seven years older. The former is his son – a youth, whose open cheerful countenance contrasts, not only with the severe aspect of his father, but with the somewhat sinister features on the other side, and which belong to his cousin.

There is another horseman riding near. The keel-coloured “cowhide” clutched in his right hand, and flirted with such evident skill, proclaim him the overseer.

The travelling carriage, which is a “carriole”,² has two occupants. One is a young lady of the whitest skin; the other a girl of the blackest. The former is the daughter of Woodley Poindexter – his only daughter. The latter is the young lady’s handmaid.

The emigrating party is from the “coast” of the Mississippi – from Louisiana. The planter is not himself a native of this State. Woodley Poindexter is a grand sugar planter of the South; one of the highest of his class.

The sun is almost in the zenith. Slowly the train moves on. There is no regular road. The route is indicated by the wheel-marks of some vehicles that have passed before – barely conspicuous, by having crushed the culms of the shot grass.

Notwithstanding the slow progress, the teams are doing their best. The planter hopes to reach the end of his journey before night: hence the march continued through the mid-day heat.

Unexpectedly the drivers are directed to pull up, by a sign from the overseer; who has been riding a hundred yards in the advance, and who is seen to make a sudden stop – as if some obstruction had presented itself.

“What is it, Mr Sansom?” asked the planter, as the man rode up.

“The grass is burnt. The prairie’s been afire.”

“Been on fire! Is it on fire now?” hurriedly inquired the owner of the waggons. “Where? I see no smoke!”

“No, sir – no,” stammered the overseer, becoming conscious that he had caused unnecessary alarm; “I didn’t say it is afire now: only that it has been, and the whole ground is as black as the ten of spades.”³

“What of that? I suppose we can travel over a black prairie, as safely as a green one? What nonsense of you, Josh Sansom, to raise such a row about nothing!”

“But, Captain Calhoun,” protested the overseer, in response to the gentleman who had reproached him; “how are we to find the way?”

“Find the way! What are you talking about? We haven’t lost it – have we?”

“I’m afraid we have, though. The wheel-tracks are no longer to be seen. They’re burnt out, along with the grass.”

“What matters that? I reckon we can cross a piece of scorched prairie, without wheel-marks to guide us? We’ll find them again on the other side. Whip up, niggers!” shouted Calhoun, spurring onwards, as a sign that the order was to be obeyed.

The teams are again set in motion; and, after advancing to the edge of the burnt tract, are once more brought to a stand.

Far as the eye can reach the country is of one uniform colour – black. There is nothing green!

In front – on the right and left – extends the scene of desolation. Over it the cerulean sky is changed to a darker blue; the sun, though clear of clouds, seems to scowl rather than shine.

The overseer has made a correct report – there is no trail visible. The action of the fire has eliminated the impression of the wheels hitherto indicating the route.

“What are we to do?”

The planter himself put this inquiry, in a tone that told of a vacillating spirit.

“What else but keep straight on, uncle Woodley? The river must be on the other side? If we don’t hit the crossing, to a half mile or so, we can go up, or down the bank – as the case may require.”

“Well, nephew, you know best: I shall be guided by you.”

The ex-officer of volunteers with confident air trots onward. The waggon-train is once more in motion.

A mile or more is made, apparently in a direct line from the point of starting. Then there is a halt. The self-appointed guide has ordered it. He appears to be puzzled about the direction.

“You’ve lost the way, nephew?” said the planter, riding rapidly up.

“Damned if I don’t believe I have, uncle!” responded the nephew, in a tone of not very respectful mistrust. “No, no!” he continued, reluctant to betray his embarrassment as the carriole came up. “I see now. We’re all right yet. The river must be in this direction. Come on!”

Once more they are stretching their teams along a travelled road – where a half-score⁴ of wheeled vehicles must have passed before them. And not long before: the hoof-prints of the animals fresh as if made within the hour. A train of waggons, not unlike their own, must have passed over the burnt prairie!

Like themselves, it could only be going towards the Leona. In that case they have only to keep in the same track.

For a mile or more the waggon-tracks are followed. The countenance of Cassius Calhoun, for a while wearing a confident look, gradually becomes clouded. It assumes the profoundest expression of despondency, on discovering that the four-and-forty wheel-tracks he is following, have been made by ten Pittsburgh waggons, and a carriole – the same that are now following him, and in whose company he has been travelling all the way from the Gulf of Matagorda!

***

Beyond doubt, the waggons of Woodley Poindexter were going over ground already traced by the tiring of their wheels.

“Our own tracks!” muttered Calhoun on making the discovery.

“Our own tracks! What mean you, Cassius? You don’t say we’ve been travelling—”

“On our own tracks. I do, uncle; that very thing. That’s the very hill we went down as we left our last stopping place. We’ve made a couple of miles for nothing.”

Embarrassment is no longer the only expression upon the face of the speaker. It has deepened to chagrin, with an admixture of shame. He feels it keenly as the carriole comes up, and bright eyes become witnesses of his discomfiture.

There is a general halt, succeeded by an animated conversation among the white men. The situation is serious: the planter himself believes it to be so. He cannot that day reach the end of his journey – a thing upon which he had set his mind.

How are they to find their way?

Calhoun no longer volunteers to point out the path.

A ten minutes’ discussion terminates in nothing. No one can suggest a feasible plan of proceeding.

Another ten minutes is spent in the midst of moral and physical gloom. Then, as if by a benignant mandate from heaven, does cheerfulness resume its sway. The cause? A horseman riding in the direction of the train!

An unexpected sight: who could have looked for human being in such a place? All eyes simultaneously sparkle with joy; as if, in the approach of the horseman, they beheld the advent of a saviour!

“A Mexican!” whispered Henry, drawing his deduction from the habiliments of the horseman.

“So much the better,” replied Poindexter, in the same tone of voice; “he’ll be all the more likely to know the road.”

“Not a bit of Mexican about him,” muttered Calhoun,” excepting the rig. I’ll soon see. Buenos dias, cavallero! Esta V. Mexicano?” (Good day, sir! are you a Mexican?)

“No, indeed,” replied the stranger, with a protesting smile. “I can speak to you in Spanish, if you prefer it; but I dare say you will understand me better in English: which, I presume, is your native tongue?”

“American, sir,” replied Poindexter. Then, as if fearing to offend the man from whom he intended asking a favour, he added: “Yes, sir; we are all Americans – from the Southern States.”

“That I can perceive by your following.” An expression of contempt showed itself upon the countenance of the speaker, as his eye rested upon the groups of black bondsmen. “I can perceive, too,” he added, “that you are strangers to prairie travelling. You have lost your way?”

“We have, sir; and have very little prospect of recovering it, unless we may count upon your kindness to direct us.”

“Not much kindness in that. By chance I came upon your trail, as I was crossing the prairie. I saw you were going astray; and have ridden this way to set you right.”

“It is very good of you. We shall be most thankful, sir. My name is Woodley Poindexter, of Louisiana. I have purchased a property on the Leona river, near Fort Inge. We were in hopes of reaching it before nightfall. Can we do so?”

“There is nothing to hinder you: if you follow the instructions I shall give.”

On saying this, the stranger rode a few paces apart; and appeared to scrutinise the country – as if to determine the direction which the travellers should take.

A blood-bay⁵ steed, such as might have been ridden by an Arab sheik. On his back a rider – a young man of not more than five-and-twenty – of noble form and features, dressed in the picturesque costume of a Mexican rancher⁶. Thus looked the horseman, upon whom the planter and his people were gazing.

Through the curtains of the travelling carriage he was regarded with glances that spoke of a singular sentiment. For the first time in her life, Louise Poindexter looked upon that – hitherto known only to her imagination—a man of heroic mould.⁷ Proud might he have been, could he have guessed the interest which his presence was exciting in the breast of the young Creole.⁸

“By my faith!” he declared, facing round to the owner of the waggons, “I can discover no landmarks for you to steer by. For all that, I can find the way myself. You will have to cross the Leona five miles below the Fort; and, as I have to go by the crossing myself, you can follow the tracks of my horse. But you may not be able to distinguish them”, said the horseman after a pause, “the more so, that in these dry ashes all horse-tracks are so nearly alike.”

“What are we to do?” despairingly asked the planter.

“I am sorry, Mr Poindexter, I cannot stay to conduct you, I am riding express, with a despatch for the Fort. If you should lose my trail, keep the sun on your right shoulders: so that your shadows may fall to the left, at an angle of about fifteen degrees to your line of march. Go straight forward for about five miles. You will then come in sight of the top of a tall tree – a cypress.⁹ Head direct for this tree. It stands on the bank of the river; and close by is the crossing.”

The young horseman, once more drawing up his reins, was about to ride off; when something caused him to linger. It was a pair of dark lustrous eyes – observed by him for the first time – glancing through the curtains of the travelling carriage.

He perceived, moreover, that they were turned upon himself – fixed, as he fancied, in an expression that betokened interest – almost tenderness!

He returned it with an involuntary glance of admiration, which he made but an awkward attempt to conceal.

“You are very kind, sir,” said Poindexter; “but with the directions you have given us, I think we shall be able to manage. The sun will surely show us —”

“No: now I look at the sky, it will not. There are clouds looming up on the north. In an hour, the sun may be obscured – at all events, before you can get within sight of the cypress. It will not do. Stay!” he continued, after a reflective pause, “I have a better plan still: follow the trail of my lazo!”

While speaking, he had lifted the coiled rope and flung the loose end to the earth – the other being secured to a ring in the pommel. Then raising his hat in graceful salutation – more than half directed towards the travelling carriage – he gave the spur to his steed.

The lazo, lengthening out, tightened over the hips of his horse; and, dragging a dozen yards behind, left a line upon the cinereous surface.

Answer the following questions:

1) Who is the owner of the train? Where is he from? Where is he going to?

2) Who accompanies the planter?

3) Why is it hard to find the way?

4) Why did the overseer stop? Who becomes a new guide?

5) Who had left those wheel-tracks that Cassius Calhoun decided to follow?

6) Why did Calhoun’s confident look become clouded?

7) Who helped the travellers find the way? How did he do it?

8) Why didn’t the horseman stay with the travellers to conduct them?

Chapter Two

“An exceedingly curious fellow!” remarked the planter, as they stood gazing after the horseman. “I ought to have asked him his name?”

“An exceedingly conceited fellow, I should say,” muttered Calhoun; who had not failed to notice the glance sent by the stranger in the direction of the carriole, nor that which had challenged it.

“Come, cousin Cash,” protested young Poindexter; “you are unjust to the stranger. He appears to be educated – in fact, a gentleman.”

During this brief conversation, the fair occupant of the carriole was seen to bend forward; and direct a look of evident interest, after the form of the horseman fast receding from her view.

To this, perhaps, might have been traced the acrimony observable in the speech of Calhoun.

“What is it, Loo?” he inquired, riding close up to the carriage, and speaking in a voice not loud enough to be heard by the others. “You appear impatient to go forward? Perhaps you’d like to ride off along with that fellow? It isn’t too late: I’ll lend you my horse.”

The young girl threw herself back upon the seat – evidently displeased, both by the speech and the tone in which it was delivered. A clear ringing laugh was her only reply.

“So, so! I thought there must be something – by the way you behaved yourself in his presence. You looked as if you would have relished a tete-a-tete with this despatch-bearer. No doubt the letter carrier, employed by the officers at the Fort!”

“A letter carrier, you think? Oh, how I should like to get love letters by such a postman!”

“You had better hasten on, and tell him so. My horse is at your service.”

“Ha! ha! ha! What a simpleton you show yourself! Suppose, I did have a fancy to overtake this prairie postman! It couldn’t be done upon that dull steed of yours: not a bit of it! Oh, no! he’s not to be overtaken by me, however much I might like it; and perhaps I might like it!”

“Don’t let your father hear you talk in that way.”

“Don’t let him hear you talk in that way,” retorted the young lady, for the first time speaking in a serious strain. “Though you are my cousin, and papa may think you the pink of perfection,¹⁰ I don’t! I never told you I did – did I?” A frown, evidently called forth by some unsatisfactory reflection, was the only reply to this interrogative.

“You are my cousin,” she continued, “but you are nothing more – nothing more – Captain Cassius Calhoun! You have no claim to be my counsellor. I shall remain mistress of my own thoughts – and actions, too – till I have found a master who can control them. It is not you!”

The closing curtains indicated that further conversation was not desired.

***

The travellers felt no further uneasiness about the route. The snake-like trail was continuous; and so plain that a child might have followed it.

Cheered by the prospect of soon terminating a toilsome journey – as also by the pleasant anticipation of beholding his new purchase – the planter was in one of his happiest moods. The planter’s high spirits were shared by his party, Calhoun alone excepted.

However this joyfulness should was after a time interrupted by causes and circumstances over which they had not the slightest control.

“Look, father! don’t you see them?” said Henry in a voice that betokened alarm.

“Where, Henry – where?”

“Behind the waggons. You see them now?”

“I do – though I can’t say what they are. They look like – like – I really don’t know what.”

Against the northern horizon had suddenly lifted a number of dark columns – half a score of them – unlike anything ever seen before. They were constantly changing size, shape, and place.

In the proximity of phenomena never observed before – unknown to every individual of the party – it was but natural these should be inspired with alarm.

A general halt had been made on first observing the strange objects: the negroes on foot, as well as the teamsters, giving utterance to shouts of terror. The animals – mules as well as horses, had come instinctively to a stand. The danger, whatever it might be, was drawing nearer!

Consternation became depicted on the countenances of the travellers. The eyes of all were turned towards the lowering sky, and the band of black columns that appeared coming on to crush them!

At this crisis a shout, reaching their ears from the opposite side, was a source of relief – despite the unmistakable accent of alarm in which it was uttered.

Turning, they beheld a horseman in full gallop – riding direct towards them.

The horse was black as coal: the rider of like hue, even to the skin of his face. For all that he was recognised: as the stranger, upon the trail of whose lazo they had been travelling.

“Onward!” he cried, as soon as within speaking distance. “On – on! as fast as you can drive!”

“What is it?” demanded the planter, in bewildered alarm. “Is there a danger?”

“There is. I did not anticipate it, as I passed you. It was only after reaching the river, I saw the sure signs of it.”

“Of what, sir?”

“The norther.”¹¹

“I never heard of its being dangerous,” interposed Calhoun, “except to vessels at sea. It’s precious cold, I know; but—”

“You’ll find it worse than cold, sir,” interrupted the young horseman, “if you’re not quick in getting out of its way. Mr Poindexter,” he continued, turning to the planter, and speaking with impatient emphasis, “I tell you, that you and your party are in peril. A norther is not always to be dreaded. Those black pillars are nothing – only the precursors of the storm. Look beyond! Don’t you see a black cloud spreading over the sky? That’s what you have to dread. You have no chance to escape it, except by speed. If you do not make haste, it will be too late. Order your drivers to hurry forward as fast as they can!”

The planter did not think of refusing compliance, with an appeal urged in such energetic terms. The order was given for the teams to be set in motion, and driven at top speed.

The travelling carriage moved in front, as before. The stranger alone threw himself in the rear – as if to act as a guard against the threatening danger.

At intervals he was observed to rein up his horse, and look back: each time by his glances betraying increased apprehension.

Perceiving it, the planter approached, and asked him:

“Is there still a danger?”

“I am sorry to answer you in the affirmative,” said he: “Are your mules doing their best?”

“They are: they could not be driven faster.”

“I fear we shall be too late, then!”

“Good God, sir! is the danger so great? Can we do nothing to avoid it?”

The stranger did not make immediate reply. For some seconds he remained silent, as if reflecting – his glance no longer turned towards the sky, but wandering among the waggons.

“There is!” joyfully responded the horseman, as if some hopeful thought had at length suggested itself. “There is a chance. I did not think of it before. We cannot shun the storm – the danger we may. Quick, Mr Poindexter! Order your men to muffle the mules – the horses too – otherwise the animals will be blinded, and go mad. When that’s done, let all seek shelter within the waggons.”

The planter and his son sprang together to the ground; and retreated into the travelling carriage.

Calhoun, refusing to dismount, remained stiffly seated in his saddle.

“Once again, sir, I adjure you to get inside! If you do not you’ll have cause to repent it. Within ten minutes’ time, you may be a dead man!”

The ex-officer was unable to resist the united warnings of earth and heaven; and, slipping out of his saddle with a show of reluctance – intended to save appearances – he clambered into the carriage.

To describe what followed is beyond the power of the pen. No eye beheld the spectacle: for none dared look upon it. In five minutes after the muffling of the mules, the train was enveloped in worse than Cimmerian darkness¹².

In another instant the norther was around them; and the waggon train was enveloped in an atmosphere, akin to that which congeals the icebergs of the Arctic Ocean! Nothing more was seen – nothing heard, save the whistling of the wind, or its hoarse roaring.

For over an hour did the atmosphere carry this cinereous cloud.

At length a voice, speaking close by the curtains of the carriole, announced their release.

“You can come forth!” said the stranger. “You will still have the storm to contend against. But you have nothing further to fear. The ashes are all swept off.”

“Sir!” said the planter, hastily descending the steps of the carriage, “we have to thank you for – for—”

“Our lives, father!” cried Henry, supplying the proper words. “I hope, sir, you will favour us with your name?”

“Maurice Gerald!” returned the stranger; “though, at the Fort, you will find me better known as Maurice the mustanger”.¹³

“A mustanger!” scornfully muttered Calhoun, but only loud enough to be heard by Louise.

“For guide, you will no longer need either myself, or my lazo,” said the hunter of wild horses. “The cypress is in sight: keep straight towards it. After crossing, you will see the flag over the Fort. I must say goodbye.”

Satan himself, astride a Tartarean steed,¹⁴ could not have looked more like the devil than did Maurice the Mustanger, as he separated for the second time from the planter and his party. But neither his ashy envelope, nor the announcement of his humble calling, could damage him in the estimation of one, whose thoughts were already predisposed in his favour – Louise Poindexter.

“Maurice Gerald!” muttered the young Creole, “whoever you are – whence you have come – whither you are going – what you may be – henceforth there is a fate between us! I feel it – I know it– sure as there’s a sky above!”