Bermuda Islands -- Fiction; Prisoners -- Fiction; Short stories
upon his young doe in her solitude, and striven with such brutal violence
to tear her heart from her bosom.
He got to his assistance early in the morning some of the constables from
St. George, and before the day was over, he was joined by two or three of
the warders from the convict establishment. There was with him also a
friend or two, and thus a party was formed, numbering together ten or
twelve persons. They were of course all armed, and therefore it might be
thought that there would be but small chance for the wretched man if they
should come upon his track. At first they all searched together,
thinking from the tidings which had reached them that he must be near to
them; but gradually they spread themselves along the rocks between St.
George and the ferry, keeping watchman on the road, so that he should not
escape unnoticed into the island.
Ten times during the day did Anastasia send from the cottage up to
Morton, begging him to leave the search to others, and come down to her.
But not for a moment would he lose the scent of his prey. What! should
it be said that she had been so treated, and that others had avenged her?
He sent back to say that her father was with her now, and that he would
come when his work was over. And in that job of work the life-blood of
Aaron Trow was counted up.
Towards evening they were all congregated on the road near to the spot at
which the path turns off towards the cottage, when a voice was heard
hallooing to them from the summit of a little hill which lies between the
road and the sea on the side towards the ferry, and presently a boy came
running down to them full of news. “Danny Lund has seen him,” said the
boy, “he has seen him plainly in among the rocks.” And then came Danny
Lund himself, a small negro lad about fourteen years of age, who was
known in those parts as the idlest, most dishonest, and most useless of
his race. On this occasion, however, Danny Lund became important, and
every one listened to him. He had seen, he said, a pair of eyes moving
down in a cave of the rocks which he well knew. He had been in the cave
often, he said, and could get there again. But not now; not while that
pair of eyes was moving at the bottom of it. And so they all went up
over the hill, Morton leading the way with hot haste. In his waist-band
he held a pistol, and his hand grasped a short iron bar with which he had
armed himself. They ascended the top of the hill, and when there, the
open sea was before them on two sides, and on the third was the narrow
creek over which the ferry passed. Immediately beneath their feet were
the broken rocks; for on that side, towards the sea, the earth and grass
of the hill descended but a little way towards the water. Down among the
rocks they all went, silently, Caleb Morton leading the way, and Danny
Lund directing him from behind.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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