The Gypsy Queen's Vow

“I’m off now,” said Bart at length, as soon as he had recovered from this last paroxysm; and wiping the tears from his eyes, he started at a Flora Temple pace down the street, pausing, however, now and then, as his lively sense of the ridiculous overcame him, to indulge in another terrifying peal of laughter, till affrighted pedestrians fled from him in horror, thinking a dangerous lunatic had somewhere broken loose.

He reached a low, smoky, obscure drinking den, near the end of the town, at last, and passing through the bar-room he entered another low, dirty, dingy apartment, where the first individual on whom his eyes rested, was our some-time friend, Mr. Rozzel Garnet.

“Well, Bart,” asked that gentleman, eagerly, “what did Judge Lawless want of you in such haste?”

“Oh! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha!” roared Black Bart, in a perfect agony of enjoyment. “If it isn’t about the best fun I’ve ever heard tell on. Why, man alive, you’d never guess if you were to try from this to doomsday. Judge Lawless, the saint, the angel, the parson, has fell in love, and wants the girl carried off! Oh! ha! ha! ha! ha! I’ll split my sides!”

Mr. Rozzel Garnet did not join in Black Bart’s merriment. He opened his eyes to their widest extent, and indulged in a long, low whistle, expressive of any amount of astonishment.

“Who’s the girl?” he asked, at length.

“That wonderful beauty at Old Barrens Cottage – nothing shorter. Everything arranged, and the square will come down like a prince – or if he doesn’t, we’ll make him. I don’t know her; so you’re to come with me, and together we’ll carry off the girl the first chance. The judge has gone to Baltimore to keep out of harm’s way, and won’t be back for three or four weeks. Ain’t it beautiful? The old judge in love! Ha! ha! ha!”

Like lightning there flashed a project of revenge across the mind of Rozzel Garnet. None of the smugglers knew either Erminie or Pet Lawless – why not carry off Pet instead of the other, and thus gratify his own passions, disappoint the judge, and have revenge. The blood flashed fiercely and hotly to his face as he thought of it; and he rose and walked to the window to hide his emotion from the keen eyes of his fellow-smuggler – for Garnet had joined them in their roving life after leaving the judge’s.

“Well, old fellow, what do you say to it?” asked Black Bart.

“I’m your man!” exclaimed Garnet, turning from the window, all his customary cool composure restored. “We will start immediately, and keep watch until night; it is more than probable we will see her before then, and, as the judge says, the sooner the better. Come along.”

Had Petronilla’s lucky star set? had her good angel deserted her? had Satan come to the assistance of his earthly myrmidons? had the Fates willed it, that her pony “Starlight” should on that eventful day cast a shoe, lame himself, and so be unfit to ride?

Pet rambled restlessly about the house, one minute terrifying rooks, and bats, and swallows from their homes in the eaves and chimneys, by banging away at some new polka on the piano; the next, seizing the bellows for a partner, and going waltzing round the room; the next, rushing like a mad thing as she was, up stairs, and then sliding down the banisters.

“For,” said Pet, “exercise is good for the health; and as Aunt Deb won’t let me ride the clothes-horse, I’m going to try this.”

And try it she did, till she tore the dress nearly off her back; and then, getting tired of this, she determined to go over to the Old Barrens Cottage, and see Erminie.

The day was beautiful; so Pet determined to walk. Throwing a light muslin cape over her shoulders, and pulling a broad straw flat down over her eyes, the dark-eyed “heiress, beauty, and belle,” set out, singing as she went.

Somehow, since the return of Ray, Pet had visited the cottage much less frequently than usual and in all probability would not have gone now, only she knew he had gone to Judestown that morning and was not expected back until the next day. Pet saw that he shunned and avoided her: and no matter how easy and natural he had been a moment before, the instant she entered he wrapped himself in his very coldest mantle of reserve, and looked more like a banished prince than common Christian. Pet saw this; and her own heart, as proud as his in another way, swelled with wounded feeling and indignation; and she inwardly vowed to let him see that she cared just as little for him as he could possibly care for her. Poor Pet! this conviction and resolution cost her the first bitter tears she had ever shed in her whole sunshiny life; but as she felt them falling warm and fast, she sprung quickly up, dashed them indignantly away, as if ashamed to own even to her own heart how much she cared for him.

“No; he shall never know that I cared two pins about him!” exclaimed Pet, with flashing eyes and flushing cheeks. “He dislikes me; I can see that plainly enough; and if he was a prince of the blood royal, I would not stoop to sue for his favor. I don’t care for him; I won’t care for him. I just hate him – a stiff, haughty, young Turk – there now!”

And then having relieved her mind by a “real good cry,” Pet got up and whistled to her dogs, and set off for a scamper round the yard, to the great detriment of her gaiters, and the alarming increase of her appetite. Pet wasn’t sentimental; so she neither took to sighing nor star-gazing, nor writing poetry; but pursued the even, or rather uneven, tenor of her way, and inwardly vowed that, “if nobody cared for her, she would care for nobody.”

Little did Pet know the real cause of Ray’s avoidance. High-spirited and proud, almost morbid in his pride at times, and loving this dazzling, sparkling vision of beauty and brightness more and more every time he saw her, he felt it his duty to shun her as much as possible. To know this star-eyed, dazzling, dancing fay without loving her was a simple impossibility; and Ray Germaine, with his passionate admiration of beauty, and fiery gipsy blood, loved her with an intensity that only hot, passionate, Southern natures like his can feel. And with this mad love was the certain conviction that he might as well love a “bright, particular star,” and hope to win it, as the wealthy heiress of Judge Lawless, who was soon destined to make her début in the gilded salons of Washington city, where all the lions of the capital would soon be in adoration at her feet. And he – what was he? The grandson of a gipsy woman, educated by the bounty of a stranger. What was he that he should dare to lift his eyes to this peerless beauty and belle? Proud, as we have said he was, to excess, he shunned and avoided her for whom he would have given up the wide world and all it contained, has he possessed it, lest in some unguarded moment he should divulge the one secret of his fierce and daily increasing love.

And in this unpleasant way matters stood on the day when Pet set out from Heath Hill to Old Barrens Cottage. Pet was a good walker; but, owing to the intense heat, she was completely tired out by the time she reached the cottage. Erminie alone was there, ready to welcome her friend with her own peculiar sunshiny smile.

It was very pleasant, that cool, breezy sitting-room, that scorchingly hot day, with its plain straw matting, its cool, green, Venetian blinds, its plump, tempting, cushioned rocking-chairs, and fragrant bouquets of flowers in glasses of pure, sparkling water. But the prettiest, pleasantest sight of all was its lovely young mistress in her simple, beautifully-fitting dress of blue gingham, with its snowy collar and little black silk apron boasting the cunningest pockets in the world; her shiny hair floating twined in broad damp braids round her superb little head; and where the sunshine lingered lovingly upon it, seeming like a shining glory over her smooth white brow. Yes, it was very pleasant – the pretty cottage-room; the lovely cottage maiden; and yet the dark, bright, dazzling brunette in her glancing shot silk, with her flashing jetty curls, her lustrous, splendid Syrian eyes, of midnight blackness; her whole vivacious, restless, glittering, entrancing face and form lost nothing by contrast with any one in the world.

“Well, I declare, Ermie, I don’t know any place in the wide world half as cool and pleasant as this cottage of yours. Now, at Heath Hill it’s enough to roast an African. Goodness! how hot I am!” said Pet, commencing to fan herself vigorously.

“The sea-breeze makes this cool,” said Erminie; “that is the reason. I am so glad you came over this afternoon, for Ray, you know, is not coming home to-night. It is really too bad, I think, that he should leave us and go back again to that tiresome New York so soon.”

“Ah! when is he going?” said Pet, still violently fanning herself, though her bright bloom of color was far less vivid then it had been a moment before.

“The day after to-morrow, he says; and not to return for perhaps a year. I will feel dreadfully lonesome, I know, and grandmother will miss him so much. But young men are so headstrong and self-willed that there is no doing anything with them – don’t you think so, Pet?” said Erminie, smiling.

“Never thought on the subject as I know of; but I dare say they are. They’re not to be blamed for it, though; it runs in man’s wretched nature. Ah! I never was properly thankful for not being a man till one day I went and dressed myself in a suit of their clothes. Such wretchedly feeling things as they were, to be sure! I’ve never been in the stock, or the pillory, or stretched on a rack, or walking through a treadmill, or any of those other disagreeable things; but even since then I’ve a pretty good notion of what they must be like. It was a regular martyrdom while I had them on, and how the mischief anybody ever can survive in them is more than I know. Think of descending to posterity in a pair of pants!”

Erminie laughed, and Pet rattled on till tea was ready. Then they drank Lucy’s fragrant black tea, and ate her delicate nice waffles, and praised her jam; and then, when the sun had long set, and the dark, cool, evening shadows began to fall, Pet got up, put on her hat, kissed Erminie, and set out on her return to Heath Hill.

“You ought to have told some of the servants to come for you,” said Erminie. “It is rather far for you to go alone.”

“Oh, there is no danger,” said Pet; “on the forest road and the shore there may be; but here on the heath all is safe enough. Good night.” And Pet started off at a brisk walk.

Two men, crouching behind a clump of stunted spruce bushes, were watching her with lynx eyes, as her slight, graceful form approached. It was not quite dark, but what the Scotch call “the gloaming,” and the bright draped figure was plainly conspicuous on the brown, bare heath.

“There she comes at last,” whispered the younger of the two, in a quick fierce tone, breathing hotly and quickly while he spoke; “I will spring out as she passes and throw this shawl over her head, while you tie her hands and feet.”

“All right,” said the other, in the same low tone. “Jupiter! how she goes it! Can’t she walk Spanish, though! I tell you, Garnet, she’s a regular stunner, and no mistake.”

The other made no reply. His lurid, burning eyes were fixed on the dark, brilliant face of Petronilla.

All unconscious she passed on. Scarcely had she done so when, with the quick, noiseless spring of a panther, Garnet darted from behind the bushes, and flung a large plaid over the head of Pet, and grasped her firmly in his arms. With equal agility the other followed; and Pet was securely bound hand and foot before she had sufficiently recovered from her surprise to make the slightest struggle.

“Mine! Mine! at last!” whispered a voice she knew too well, as his arms enfolded her in a fierce embrace. “Beautiful eaglet, caged at last!”

In vain she struggled – in vain she strove to cry out for help. Feet and hands were securely bound; the heavy shawl was half-smothering her, and her captor’s arms held her like a vise.

“Now for the cave! On! on! there’s no time to lose!” cried Garnet, with fierce impatience, starting forward as though he were carrying an infant over the heath.

CHAPTER XXXI.

THE OUTLAW’S WIFE

For some moments Pet continued to struggle violently, but finding all her efforts vain – worse than vain – and being half-suffocated for want of air, she fell back in her captor’s arms, and lay perfectly still and quiet.

In that dreadful moment, she lost not one particle of her customary self-possession. She realized all her danger and peril vividly. She knew she was completely in the power of her worst enemy, and beyond all hope of extricating herself. Her whole appalling danger burst upon her at once; and though for one instant her very heart seemed to cease its beating, she neither fainted nor gave herself up to useless tears or hysterics, according to the usual custom of young ladies, when in real or imaginary danger. Not she, indeed! Pet’s thoughts as she lay quietly in her captive’s arms, ran somewhat after the following fashion:

“Well, Pet, child, you’ve went and put your foot in it beautifully, haven’t you? Ain’t you ashamed of yourself, to let Rozzel Garnet catch you, and lug you along like this? I wonder where they’re going to bring me to, anyway, and what they’re going to do with me next? Oh! won’t there be weeping and gnashing of teeth, and pulling off of wigs at home when they find I’ve gone, vanished, evaporated, made myself ‘thin air,’ and no clue to my whereabouts to be found? Phew! this villainous shawl is fairly smothering me. I wish I could slip it off for about five minutes; and the way I’d yell would slightly astonish Mr. Garnet. I suppose papa will have flaming posters stuck up all around Judestown, in every color of the rainbow. I fancy I’m reading one of them: ‘Lost, strayed, stolen, or run off with some deluded young man, a small, brown, yellow and black girl, not quite right in her head, wearing a red-and-green silk dress, with black eyes, a pair of gaiter boots, and black hair. Any person or persons giving information concerning the above will be liberally rewarded with from five to ten cents, and possess the everlasting gratitude of the community generally.’ That’s it! I wonder where they’re taking me to? We’re down on the beach now, for I can hear the waves on the shore. Good gracious! If they should carry me off to sea, the matter would be searious. ’Pon my word and honor! if I ever get out of this scrape, if I don’t make Mr. Rozzel Garnet mind what he’s up to, then my name’s not Pet – Ur-r-r! I’m strangling, I declare. Suffocation must be a pleasant death, if I may judge by this specimen!”

While Pet was thus cogitating, Rozzel Garnet and his companion were rapidly striding over the wet, slippery beach. A being more perfectly guileless than Pet, in some ways, never existed, and this may in some measure account for the light manner in which she treated her captivity. Saucy, spirited, daring, full of exuberant life, fun, freedom and frolic, she was; but, withal, in some matters her simplicity was perfectly wonderful. For instance, she knew now she was a prisoner; she fancied she might be taken off somewhere, or held captive for a while. But she had the most perfect faith in her own wit, cunning and courage to ultimately escape. She feared no worse fate; she knew of none; she never even dreamed of any. She knew Rozzel Garnet pretended to love her – might urge her again to marry him; but that gave her not the slightest uneasiness in the world. In fact, Pet’s love of adventure made her almost like this scrape she had got into. It would be something to talk about for the rest of her life; it made her quite a heroine, this being carried off; it was really like something she had so often read of in novels, or like a tragedy in a play.

With these sentiments, Pet lay quite still, listening intently, and wondering what was to come next. It seemed to her they must have walked nearly half an hour, when they came to a dead halt, and she heard Rozzel Garnet say:

“Now, Bart, give the signal quick!”

A low, shrill, peculiar whistle followed; and then Pet, whose ears would have run themselves into points to hear the better, if she could, heard a rustling, as if of bushes pushed aside; a heavy sound, as if of rocks removing; and then Garnet, gathering her tighter in his hated embrace, stooped down, and passed through something which she knew must be a narrow aperture, and thence, carefully guiding himself with one hand while he held her with the other, he descended a short flight of steps. Then he paused, and, to the great relief of our half-stifled heroine, removed the thick shawl in which he had enveloped her. Pet’s first use of her breath was to burst out angrily with:

“Well, it’s a wonder you took the blamed thing off until you choked me dead! You ought to be ashamed of yourself, Mr. Garnet, smothering a young lady this way, in a big blanket like that. I wish you’d let me go. I don’t want to be carried like a baby any longer.”

“Not so fast, pretty one,” said Garnet, in a low tone of of mocking exultation. “Be in no haste to quit these arms, for they are to be your home for the future.”

“Humph! a pretty home they would be!” said Pet, contemptuously. “You’ll have to consult me about that, Mr. Rozzel Garnet. Let me go, I tell you! I want to walk. A body might as well let a bear carry them as you!”

“As you please, my pretty lady-love!” said Garnet. “I do not think you will escape so easily this time as you did the last! That was your hour of victory: this is mine. Then you said neither earth, air, fire, nor water could hold you. Perhaps stout walls of rock can?”

“Don’t be too sure, Mr. Garnet. There is such a thing as blowing up rocks, or an earthquake might happen, or the sea might overflow, or you and all your brothers in villainy might get paralytic strokes, or Satan might come and carry off the whole of you bodily to your future home. I’m sure I wish he would. You’ll be an ornament to it when you get there – a ‘burning and shining light,’ in every sense of the word! Ain’t you proud of yourself to have carried off a little girl so beautifully? When you found you couldn’t do it alone you got another to help you, and so you bravely won the battle. Two great, big men to carry off one little girl! What an achievement! What a victory! You ought to have a leather medal and a service of tin plate presented to each of you! Oh my!” said Pet, in tones of withering irony.

Had it not been pitch dark where they stood, Pet would have seen his sallow face blanch with anger; but subduing his rage in the comforting thought that this little double-refined essence of audacity was completely in his power, he smiled an evil and most sinister smile, and replied:

“Jet, flash, and sparkle, little grenade! Dart fire, little stiletto, but you can do no more! Snarl and show your white teeth, little kitten; but your claws are shielded – you cannot bite now. Expand your wings, my bright little humming-bird; but you will find them clipped. Try to soar to your native heaven, my dazzling, glorious bird of paradise; and your drooping plumes will fall, fluttering and earth-stained, to the dust.”

“Well, that all sounds mighty fine, Mr. Garnet, and is a grand flourish of rhetoric on your part. I made no doubt but you’ll excuse me if I don’t understand a single blessed word of it. You’re a schoolmaster, and, of course, ought to understand what’s proper; but your grand tropes and figures of speech are all a waste of powder and shot when addressed to me. Just talk in plain English, and don’t keep calling me names, and I’ll feel greatly obliged. What a grenade and all them other things are I haven’t the remotest idea; but I expect they’re something dreadful bad, or you wouldn’t keep calling me them. It’s real impolite in you to talk so; and I wonder you ain’t ashamed of yourself, Rozzel Garnet!”

“No, you don’t understand, Miss Lawless,” he said slowly, and with the same evil smile. “Shall I tell you in plainer words my meaning?”

“No, you needn’t bother yourself,” said Pet, shortly. “The less you say to me the better I’ll like it. I’m not in the habit of talking to the offcasts of society, such as you are, Mr. Garnet; and, like frog-soup, though it does well enough for a time, one doesn’t like it as a constant thing.”

“Here, push on! push on!” said the gruff voice of Black Bart behind them. “No use standing palavering here all night. Get along, Rozzy, boy, and taking this little snapping-turtle along with you. Up with the glim, Jack, till ma’m’selle sees where she’s going.”

All this time they had been wrapped in the blackness of Tartarus, but now the two men descended the stone steps, and one of them, holding up a dark-lantern, let its rays stream round. Pet curiously cast her eyes about and saw she was in a narrow, rocky passage, with her head not more than an inch from the top. How far it led she could not tell, for the rays of light penetrated but a few feet, and beyond that stretched a black, yawning chasm that might have been the entrance into Pandemonium itself.

“Now, in we goes,” said Black Bart, giving Pet a slight push forward. “Go first, Rozzy, lad, and show little mustard-seed, here, the way. Jack and I will keep in your wake.”

“Mustard-seed and snapping-turtle,” muttered Pet, as she prepared to follow Garnet. “Pet, my dear, you will have as many aliases before long as the most notorious blackleg from here to the Cannibal Islands. Well, if I’m not in a fix to-night! What will they say at home?”

As they went on the passage grew wider and broader, until at last Pet found herself in a spacious rock-bound apartment, well lighted, rudely furnished, and occupied by some half-dozen rough, hard-looking men in the garb of sailors. They were lying in various attitudes about the floor, with the exception of two, who sat at a rough deal-table playing cards.

They turned their eyes carelessly enough as Rozzel Garnet entered; but as their eyes fell upon Pet each man sprung to his feet, and stared at her in undisguised wonder.

There she stood, in the full glare of the light; her slender, girlish form drawn up to its full height; her brilliant silk dress flashing and glittering in the light; her short, dancing, flashing curls of jet falling around her crimson cheeks; her bright, undaunted black eyes wide open, and returning every stare as composedly as though she were sitting in her father’s hall, and these men were her servants. Very much out of place looked Pet, in her rich, sheeny robes and dazzling beauty, amid those roughly-clad, savage-looking men, and in that dismal under-ground apartment.

“Where is she?” asked Rozzel Garnet, unheeding their blank stare of surprise.

“Who? – the missis?” asked one of the men, without removing his eyes from Pet.

“Yes – of course.”

The man pointed to the remote end of the room; and Pet, turning her eyes in that direction saw a sort of opening in the wall, serving evidently for a door, and covered by a screen of thick, dark baize.

Garnet went toward it and called:

“Madame Marguerite.”

“Well,” said a woman’s voice from within, with a strong foreign accent.

“Can I see you a moment, on business?”

“Yes – enter.” And Pet saw a small, delicate-looking hand push aside the screen, and Garnet disappeared within.

“Here, little nettle, sit down,” said Black Bart, pushing a stool toward Pet, gallantly, with his foot. “How do you like the looks of this here place, young woman?”

“Well,” said Pet, “I should say there was no danger of thieves breaking in at night; and by the look of things, I don’t expect they would find much for their pains, if they did break in. There’s no danger of its blowing down windy nights – is there?”

“Well, no, I reckon there isn’t,” said Black Bart with a grin, “seeing it’s right under a hill, and nothing but solid rocks above and below.”

“A strong foundation,” said Pet; “Like the true Church it’s built on a rock. I should think it would be damp, though, when the tide rises and fills it; and I am subject to rheumatism – ”

“No danger,” said Bart. “I’ll risk your drowning. There! Garnet’s calling you. Go in there.”

Pet arose, and Garnet, holding back the baize screen, motioned her to enter. She obeyed and looked curiously around.

The room was smaller than the one she had left and better furnished. The rocky floor was covered with India matting, and chairs, couches, and tables were strewn indiscriminately around. A bed with heavy curtains stood in one corner, and a stand containing books, writing materials, and drawing utensils stood opposite. Pet gave all these but a fleeting glance, and then her whole attention was caught and occupied by the person who stood between them, with one hand resting on the back of a chair, and her eyes fixed with a sort of stem, haughty scrutiny on Pet.