The Death Shot: A Story Retold

“Sister!” she says, in soothing tone, her arms extended caressingly, “why do you stay out here? The night is chilly; and they say the atmosphere of this Red River country is full of miasma, with fevers and ague to shake the comb out of one’s hair! Come with me inside! There’s pleasant people in the saloon, and we’re going to have a round game at cards —vingt-un, or something of the sort. Come!”

Helen turns round trembling at the touch, as if she felt herself a criminal, and it was the sheriff’s hand laid upon her shoulder!

Jessie notices the strange, strong emotion. She could not fail to do so. Attributing it to its remotest cause, long since confided to her, she says: —

“Be a woman, Helen! Be true to yourself, as I know you will; and don’t think of him any more. There’s a new world, a new life, opening to both of us. Forget the sorrows of the old, as I shall. Pluck Charles Clancy from your heart, and fling every memory, every thought of him, to the winds! I say again, be a woman – be yourself! Bury the past, and think only of the future —of our father!”

The last words act like a galvanic shock, at the same time soothing as balm. For in the heart of Helen Armstrong they touch a tender chord – that of filial affection.

And it vibrates true to the touch. Flinging her arms around Jessie’s neck, she cries: —

“Sister; you have saved me!”

Chapter Twenty One.

Seized by spectral arms

“Sister, you have saved me!”

On giving utterance to the ill-understood speech, Helen Armstrong imprints a kiss upon her sister’s cheek, at the same time bedewing it with her tears. For she is now weeping – convulsively sobbing.

Returning the kiss, Jessie looks not a little perplexed. She can neither comprehend the meaning of the words, nor the strange tone of their utterance. Equally is she at a loss to account for the trembling throughout her sister’s frame, continued while their bosoms stay in contact.

Helen gives her no time to ask questions.

“Go in!” she says, spinning the other round, and pushing her towards the door of the state-room. Then, attuning her voice to cheerfulness, she adds: —

“In, and set the game of vingt-un going. I’ll join you by the time you’ve got the cards shuffled.”

Jessie, glad to see her sister in spirits unusually gleeful, makes no protest, but glides towards the cabin door.

Soon as her back is turned, Helen once more faces round to the river, again taking stand by the guard-rail. The wheel still goes round, its paddles beating the water into bubbles, and casting the crimson-white spray afar over the surface of the stream.

But now, she has no thought of flinging herself into the seething swirl, though she means to do so with something else.

“Before the game of vingt-un begins,” she says in soliloquy, “I’ve got a pack of cards to be dealt out here – among them a knave.”

While speaking, she draws forth a bundle of letters – evidently old ones – tied in a bit of blue ribbon. One after another, she drags them free of the fastening – just as if dealing out cards. Each, as it comes clear, is rent right across the middle, and tossed disdainfully into the stream.

At the bottom of the packet, after the letters have been all disposed of, is something seeming different. A piece of cardboard – a portrait – in short, a carte de visite. It is the likeness of Charles Clancy, given her on one of those days when he flung himself affectionately at her feet.

She does not tear it in twain, as she has the letters; though at first this is nearest her intent. Some thought restraining her, she holds it up in the moon’s light, her eyes for a time resting on, and closely scanning it. Painful memories, winters of them, pass through her soul, shown upon her countenance, while she makes scrutiny of the features so indelibly graven upon her heart. She is looking her last upon them – not with a wish to remember, but the hope to forget – of being able to erase that image of him long-loved, wildly worshipped, from the tablets of her memory, at once and for ever.

Who can tell what passed through her mind at that impending moment? Who could describe her heart’s desolation? Certainly, no writer of romance.

Whatever resolve she has arrived at, for a while she appears to hesitate about executing it. —

Then, like an echo heard amidst the rippling waves, return to her ear the words late spoken by her sister —

“Let us think only of the future —of our father.”

The thought decides her; and, stepping out to the extremest limit the guard-rail allows, she flings the photograph upon the paddles of the revolving wheel, as she does so, saying —

“Away, image of one once loved – picture of a man who has proved false! Be crushed, and broken, as he has broken my heart!”

The sigh that escapes her, on letting drop the bit of cardboard, more resembles a subdued scream – a stifled cry of anguish, such as could only come from what she has just spoken of – a broken heart.

As she turns to re-enter the cabin, she appears ill-prepared for taking part, or pleasure, in a game of cards.

And she takes not either. That round of vingt-un is never to be played – at least not with her as one of the players.

Still half distraught with the agony through which her soul has passed – the traces of which she fancies must be observable on her face – before making appearance in the brilliantly-lighted saloon, she passes around the corner of the ladies’ cabin, intending to enter her own state-room by the outside door.

It is but to spend a moment before her mirror, there to arrange her dress, the plaiting of her hair – perhaps the expression of her face – all things that to men may appear trivial, but to women important – even in the hour of sadness and despair. No blame to them for this. It is but an instinct – the primary care of their lives – the secret spring of their power.

In repairing to her toilette, Helen Armstrong is but following the example of her sex.

She does not follow it far – not even so far as to get to her looking-glass, or even inside her state-room. Before entering it, she makes stop by the door, and tarries with face turned towards the river’s bank.

The boat, tacking across stream, has sheered close in shore; so close that the tall forest trees shadow her track – the tips of their branches almost touching the hurricane-deck. They are cypresses, festooned with grey-beard moss, that hangs down like the drapery of a death-bed. She sees one blighted, stretching forth bare limbs, blanched white by the weather, desiccated and jointed like the arms of a skeleton.

’Tis a ghostly sight, and causes her weird thoughts, as under the clear moonbeams the steamer sweeps past the place.

It is a relief to her, when the boat, gliding on, gets back into darkness.

Only momentary; for there under the shadow of the cypresses, lit up by the flash of the fire-flies, she sees, or fancies it, a face! It is that of a man – him latest in her thoughts – Charles Clancy!

It is among the trees high up, on a level with the hurricane-deck.

Of course it can be but a fancy? Clancy could not be there, either in the trees, or on the earth. She knows it is but a deception of her senses – an illusive vision – such as occur to clairvoyantes, at times deceiving themselves.

Illusion or not, Helen Armstrong has no time to reflect upon it. Ere the face of her false lover fades from view; a pair of arms, black, sinewy, and stiff, seem reaching towards her!

More than seem; it is a reality. Before she can stir from the spot, or make effort to avoid them, she feels herself roughly grasped around the waist, and lifted aloft into the air.

Chapter Twenty Two.

Up and down

Whatever has lifted Helen Armstrong aloft, for time holds her suspended. Only for a few seconds, during which she sees the boat pass on beneath, and her sister rush out to the stern rail, sending forth a scream responsive to her own.

Before she can repeat the piercing cry, the thing grasping her relaxes its hold, letting her go altogether, and she feels herself falling, as from a great height. The sensation of giddiness is succeeded by a shock, which almost deprives her of consciousness. It is but the fall, broken by a plunge into water. Then there is a drumming in her ears, a choking in the throat; in short, the sensation that precedes drowning.

Notwithstanding her late suicidal thoughts, the instinctive aversion to death is stronger than her weariness of life, and instinctively does she strive to avert it.

No longer crying out; she cannot; her throat is filled with the water of the turbid stream. It stifles, as if a noose were being drawn around her neck, tighter and tighter. She can neither speak nor shout, only plunge and struggle.

Fortunately, while falling, the skirt of her dress, spreading as a parachute, lessened the velocity of the descent. This still extended, hinders her from sinking. As she knows not how to swim, it will not sustain her long; itself becoming weighted with the water.

Her wild shriek, with that of her sister responding – the latter still continued in terrified repetition – has summoned the passengers from the saloon, a crowd collecting on the stern-guards.

“Some one overboard!” is the cry sent all over the vessel.

It reaches the ear of the pilot; who instantly rings the stop-bell, causing the paddles to suspend revolution, and bringing the boat to an almost instantaneous stop. The strong current, against which they are contending, makes the movement easy of execution.

The shout of, “some one overboard!” is quickly followed by another of more particular significance. “It’s a lady!”

This announcement intensifies the feeling of regret and alarm. Nowhere in the world more likely to do so, than among the chivalric spirits sure to be passengers on a Mississippian steamboat. Half a dozen voices are heard simultaneously asking, not “who is the lady?” but “where?” while several are seen pulling off their coats, as if preparing to take to the water.

Foremost among them is the young Creole, Dupré. He knows who the lady is. Another lady has met him frantically, exclaiming —

“’Tis Helen! She has fallen, or leaped overboard.”

The ambiguity of expression appears strange; indeed incomprehensible, to Dupré, as to others who overhear it. They attributed it to incoherence, arising from the shock of the unexpected catastrophe.

This is its cause, only partially: there is something besides.

Confused, half-frenzied, Jessie continues to cry out:

“My sister! Save her! save her!”

“We’ll try; show us where she is,” respond several.

“Yonder – there – under that tree. She was in its branches above, then dropped down upon the water. I heard the plunge, but did not see her after. She has gone to the bottom. Merciful heavens! O Helen! where are you?”

The people are puzzled by these incoherent speeches – both the passengers above, and the boatmen on the under-deck. They stand as if spell-bound.

Fortunately, one of the former has retained presence of mind, and along with it coolness. It is the young planter, Dupré. He stays not for the end of her speech, but springing over the guards, swims towards the spot pointed out.

“Brave fellow!” is the thought of Jessie Armstrong, admiration for her lover almost making her forget her sister’s peril.

She stands, as every one else upon the steamer, watching with earnest eyes. Hers are more; they are flashing with feverish excitement, with glances of anxiety – at times the fixed gaze of fear.

No wonder at its being so. The moon has sunk to the level of the tree-tops, and the bosom of the river is in dark shadow; darker by the bank where the boat is now drifting. But little chance to distinguish an object in the water – less for one swimming upon its surface. And the river is deep, its current rapid, the “reach” they are in, full of dangerous eddies. In addition, it is a spot infested, as all know – the favourite haunt of that hideous reptile the alligator, with the equally-dreaded gar-fish – the shark of the South-western rivers. All these things are in Jessie Armstrong’s thoughts.

Amidst these dangers are the two dearest to her on earth; her sister, her lover. Not strange that her apprehension is almost an agony!

Meanwhile the steamer’s boat has been manned, and set loose as quickly as could be done. It is rowed towards the spot, where the swimmer was last seen; and all eyes are strained upon it – all ears listening to catch any word of cheer.

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