The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, January 1844

‘By G-d! he’s an ox for strength,’ at last said Frank; ‘if you’d do any thing, Harry, go to the door and sing out for the watch. I’ll hold him.’

It might be that in order to utter these words the Doctor relaxed his grip, or it might be that the knowledge of the increased risk that he would run gave additional strength to the robber, for he made a single desperate effort, tore himself from the iron grasp that held him down, rose to his knee, and striking the Doctor a blow in the face that for a moment bewildered him, sprang to his feet, dashed Harson from the door, bounded across the room between the hall and the street-door, and darted into the street at full speed.

‘D—n me, Harry, he’s off!’ said the Doctor, assuming a sitting posture on the floor. ‘He deserves to escape, for he fought like a devil for it. D—n him, he’s a brave fellow! There’s no use in chasing him, I suppose; you and I ain’t cut out for running. If that last crack had hit me on the nose, it would have smashed it. Come, let’s see after the other fellow; perhaps he’s playing possum, and may be off. If you don’t stop the barking of that d–d dog of yours, I’ll kill him.’ Groping their way back to the upper floor, from which they caught sight of Spite, rapidly retreating as they advanced, they found the house-keeper standing in the room which they had just left, arrayed in a particularly large white night-gown and wearing a particularly high cap, with a particularly fierce white ribbon on the top of it, and bearing in her hand a dim rush-light.

‘Quick! Martha; more lights, and some brandy!’ said Harson, pushing past her. ‘Thank God! you’re not hurt, Annie! Come, Doctor, this poor devil is human,’ said he, pointing to Craig, who lay on the floor apparently dead. ‘Look to him; he breathes. I hear him.’

It needed no second appeal; for before he had finished, the Doctor had turned the robber over, opened his vest, and displayed a wound in his breast. He thrust his finger in it, and then looking up at Harry, shook his head.

‘He’s a case; must go!’

‘Poor fellow! God only knows what may have driven him to this. Help me to put him on the bed.’

Taking him in their arms, they placed him on the bed; and there they sat and watched him until the dawn of day. The bright sunshine came cheerily in at the window; the storm had passed, and the sky looked clear and blue, as if it had never been unruffled. And at that hour, and in that room, with the golden sunbeams streaming in, lay Tim Craig, his head pressed heavily back upon the pillow, bound round with a cloth dabbled in blood. His face was blackened and bruised, and his shirt and the bed-clothes stained with blood. His breath was short and heavy, and at times, gasping; his mouth half open, and his dull eye fixed with a heavy leaden stare at the ceiling. His race was nearly run. He seemed utterly unconscious of the presence of any one, until the door opened, and Harson, who had gone out, came in.

He went to the bed, and leaned over the burglar. As he did so, his shadow falling across the man’s face, attracted his attention, and he turned his heavy eye, and asked, in a husky voice:

‘Will I go? What does he say?’

Harson shook his head. ‘It’s almost over with you, my poor fellow; God help you!’

The man turned his head away and looked at the wall.

‘Do you understand me?’ said Harson, anxiously bending over him.

‘Yes, yes,’ replied the man in the same mumbling tone; ‘yes, I’m come for; my time’s up. I was a strong man yesterday; and now! now–! It’s very strange! very strange!’ He muttered a few inarticulate words, and then resumed his old position, looking at the wall, with no sound escaping him except the low panting of his breath. Suddenly he said, in a louder tone:

‘It’s all very strange here.’ He pointed to his head. ‘Were you ever at sea? Yes; well, well—did you ever see a ship toss and swing to and fro—to and fro—to and fro, and yet keep straight on? Well, my brain reels and swims in that way. There are dim strange things; men, beasts, birds, and ghosts hovering about it; but I see straight on, and they are on all sides of the path; yes, I see it straight, straight, straight and plain. I’m going on it. They can’t make me swerve; but it’s awful to have such company about me on such a journey. Come close to me!’

Harson drew his chair close to the bed and sat down. ‘I’ve sent for a clergyman,’ said he, in a low tone; ‘He’ll be here presently. You must endeavor to chase away these thoughts; they are only dreams.’

Craig’s thin lips contracted into a smile which was horrible, as without moving his eyes from their fixed position, he whispered: ‘No, no; he won’t do it—he’ll not do it. No; I won’t blow on you, Bill. Ha! how hot that bullet was! Lift me up! He’s there! Yes, lift me up, so that I may be above him; up! up! Ha! ha! that’ll do. Bill, do you recollect the old school-master? There! Up! up!’

Harson put his arm under him, and raised him. As he did so, Craig’s head fell against his shoulder, dabbling it with blood. The next instant he stretched himself out at full length, gave a shudder; a long rattling breath followed; and he fell back on the pillow—dead.

LINES TO DEATH

How vain is human strength to flee,Thou mighty One! from thee!Thou hid’st the scenes that lie the grave beyond—Thou hast the secrets of the world unseen;Where the loved ones, the beautiful, the fond,And all who tossed on life’s wild sea have been,Have gone in silence at thy dreadful call,                Great conqueror of all!Empires are crumbled at thy dread command,And nations rise and nourish but to fall;Even earth is thine; and thou e’er long shalt stand,And mark its wealth, and power, and beauty, allFade and depart as sunbeams in the heaven                Vanish and die at even!The midnight storm, the tempest raging high,The sweeping pestilence, and fell disease,Rude winter’s blast, and balmy summer’s sigh,Earth, and the sea whose murmurs never cease,All are but agents of thy sovereign will,                Thy bidding to fulfil.Couldst thou to man’s earth-fettered soul revealThe bliss thou bringest to the pure in heart,Would sudden horror o’er his spirit steal,When called at last with low-born joys to part?Would he not rather sigh for that bless’d shore,                Where death is known no more?Stern Power! though others shudder at thy tread,And vainly seek thy arrow to evade,Before thy stroke I fain would bow my head,Nor grieve to see my transient pleasures fade:In thy embrace my sorrows all shall cease,                For in the grave is peace!H. C.

SKETCHES OF EAST-FLORIDA

NUMBER FOUR

ST. AUGUSTINE: THE LAST LOOK

Our schooner was ‘up’ for Charleston by the first fair wind; but the captain was fastidious, and the only fair wind was directly aft. A point or two off would not do, unless it had been blowing for a day or two and was likely to continue till the captain could land his passengers in Charleston. Running in on the Georgia coast was always very delightful to the passengers, but not at all so to Captain S–. We had taken berths in the schooner about the middle of April, and when the first week in May had passed by, we began to think it would be difficult to find the precise article of air which the captain desired. During this time it seemed to have become coquettish, giving us all kinds of northerly, all varieties of east, and a preponderance of westerly wind, finishing off with a sirocco from the south-west, (‘a Boston east wind boiled,’ and the only unpleasant summer wind on the coast,) after which it stopped short; the sand and the orange blossoms settled again, and every thing hung perpendicular. The next morning a puff came up from the south in a very blustering manner, as though it had an immense capital to back it, but proved very short-winded. Our little craft thinking to beat us, shook its sails out right and left, and dashed out of the harbor, rounding the point in a handsome manner; but before reaching the bar it slacked away, till ‘small by degrees and beautifully less,’ it came to a dead stand; and the same evening we dashed back again with a no’th-east-by-east behind us, to the great delight of promenaders on the sea-wall and the public in general. Ladies rode through the streets at a hard-gallop; little niggers crept under balconies; and an individual who shall be nameless performed a feat with a certain Di. Vernon of that ilk, which resulted in a bill the next morning of some odd dollars for extra motion, and a severe lesson upon the moralities of fast-riding. The mid-day weather at this time was decidedly summerish, the temperature having the feel of about seventy in our latitude, but ranging there from eighty to ninety degrees.

We were beginning the summer custom of gathering every morning to meet the ‘doctor’ (sea-breeze) on the square, only a short walk below, which I prolonged on the sea-wall to the little schooner, examined the labels on the berths, crushed an orange at the corner shop, and lounged up to the nine-pin alley to close up the ‘unfinished business.’ After bowling, if it was too warm to invent any thing that would not be forgotten before dinner, the old routine was the order of the day; and back-gammon or flirtation had it, according as we were nearer the Florida House or the one ‘round the corner.’ The thirty or forty others who had helped make the winter pleasant, had been gone for weeks, and our little parties for bathing or riding, or any other trifling matter which might be better than a cigar on the piazza, had that snug kind of personality which is so much more pleasant than safe, that I half-wished the thirty or forty had gone much sooner than they did.

I was sitting on the piazza one morning with a number of un-appropriated blank hours before me, a little embarrassed whether to tease the big bear in the yard or lean over and give up to it, with the old dog who was snapping at flies on the floor, when it struck me as something very fresh, that as the wind was still two points off, I could make one more sally into the country. Before the thought had time to cool, my horse was brought to the door, and looking about for a companion, I asked Miss H–, who hesitated and declined; but I found one in Lieut. T–, who was that morning going over to Picolata. The distance is eighteen miles, through an unbroken pine-barren, (one opening only, at Fort Searle, twelve miles out,) and an under-growth of palmettos of just sufficient height for Indians to hide in. For a long time the travel over all that portion of the territory lying south of a line fifty miles north of us, was with an escort of fifteen or twenty men, who moved at a slow rate, a hundred yards apart, so as not to present to the Indians more than one or two shots at a time from any one point.

Notwithstanding the precaution of a strong escort every day, out or in, on the Picolata road, there had been more downright murdering there than in any other part of the territory, some having been shot down almost in sight of Augustine. This was not escort-day, but if it had been, our horses were not disposed to be six hours in the sun, in going so short a distance. The little grey steed that I had been using for some weeks was not by any means a lady’s article, but he had been alongside of them in many a ride on the beach, and so learned the trick of combining the playful and gallant in a very pretty manner. His ambition was to be always up to the mark, and a head more if his companion would allow it; but at the least indication of rivalry his head went down, and nothing less than iron muscles could keep him from his twelve-mile gait. If not well-matched it was his delight to dash ahead for a hundred yards, and then stop and look back, or perhaps return, make a short sweep around his companion, jog on sociably for a little, and then repeat the manœuvre; and in doing this my arms were only sufficient to guide him a little in case he attempted the barren, and keep him clear of the saw-palmetto. T–‘s animal belonged at Picolata. The quarter-master at the barracks had sent him up to be taken over, and as we mounted at the Florida House, I could not help smiling as I recognized the same fellow that the quarter-master had politely sent me for a similar purpose some time previous. He was long-bodied and very long-limbed, and having been brought up in camp, his motion had all the stiffness of the marching step. His point, any two points being given, was to make the straight line between them in the shortest possible time, in an unbroken trot; but there was no danger of his breaking it; he was not capable of a gallop; his limbs couldn’t be brought to it.

We passed out of town at an easy pace, talking over the last night’s ball; and while crossing the bridge the lieutenant called my attention to his saddle, a cast-iron frame thinly covered with leather, leaving large rib-spaces on the back, which he commended as being delightfully cool. ‘But, my dear fellow,’ said I, ‘why didn’t you get a blanket?’ He replied that after getting accustomed to it, it was much easier than the padded saddle. ‘Do you know,’ said I, ‘that that horse is a trotter?’ ‘I’m used to trotters,’ said he. ‘You ease up a little in the stirrups?’ ‘No; contrary to rules.’

We now entered the barren, and the moment the horses dipped their hoofs in the sand, the old ‘forker,’ seeing the problem to be solved, took the bit in his teeth and started for Picolata. At the first dash the forker went ahead. He had laid his course, as they say at sea, and no up-helm or down-helm had the slightest effect upon him. His mind was made up; no wavering, no playfulness, no scarishness, no looking to the right or left. Picolata was the point; ‘no two ways’ to Picolata; he was on the right way, and he was the horse to do it in double-quick time. The little grey had evidently thought it was too hot for any thing in his line; but as soon as he noticed any thing like game in his companion, his head went down as usual; and after a little hard running, we brushed by the old fellow, made the requisite heading, wheeled, passing the forker on the larboard quarter, and made the circuit, to his great satisfaction. ‘Here we go!’ said I, as we passed him again; and this time the grey kept ‘head on’ for some miles, till at length I succeeded in stopping him, and looked back. The forker was coming in a bee-line, T– bobbing up and down ‘with a short uneasy motion,’ endeavoring to make a seat of his jacket which he had stripped off; and as he came nearer I noticed that he was trying to look very cool and comfortable. We waited till they came up, but there was no stopping; the forker went by without winking or noticing the grey in the slightest manner.

Easing up on the reins till we came abreast, ‘How are you now?’ said I. ‘Oh, this is nothing’ said T–, turning round a very little with a highly-charged expression of face; ‘a little rough; yes, a little—little rough; but you observe my seat, Sir—West Point?’ ‘O yes,’ said I; ‘very fine—and cool, I suspect.’ But there was not much chance of intelligible conversation. T– kept on talking, but his remarks, meant for the quarter-master, were so barbarously broken, that I could only guess occasionally at some exclamations, which for point and emphasis were highly military. Our rate of travel was not, you observe, from five to ten, or from eight to twelve miles an hour, but exactly ten. That was the forker’s motion, from which there was no deviation. If he was struck, his heels went up suddenly and very high, but it was no impediment. He evidently took the blow as a military order for a rear motion; nothing more, and no occasion for malice. Now, if any body wishes to know about the face of the country; how bounded, what products, etc., between Augustine and Picolata, I am unable to give the slightest information from any notes taken that morning. My perceptions were all in medias res; and I only remember seeing a wild turkey that we scared up, and an alligator that made for the water while we were a quarter of a mile distant, and splashed in in a great fright some time after we had passed him.

In little more than an hour we entered the opening at Fort Searle so suddenly, that I heard the orderly report, as he marched up to the commanding officer: ‘Two gentlemen from Augustine, Sir.’ ‘Very well,’ said the officer; and he turned to receive the lieutenant, but T– was past all dignities. Stretching himself on a bench he ordered brandy-and-water, and as that was not quite the thing, added a little cherry bounce, and finished with old Jamaica, and presently went round a corner with a tumbler of the latter; but whether for external or internal application, I am unable to say. Without stopping long enough to get stiff, we mounted again, and after a few closing flourishes from the little grey entered the city of Picolata, consisting of one house, and were greeted with the chattering of ten thousand black-birds all in full chorus. A boat coming up very opportunely, we took passage in her that night, and next morning were at Pilatka.

A few miles south of that place, there is a small plantation on the river that had been deserted and the house burned down by the Indians during the first winter of the war. Some weeks previous, while at Pilatka, Colonel – had politely offered me a sergeant and nine men to visit the place, but shortly after reaching it they complained of the musquitoes and rode back to the camp, leaving me with the guide and Gen. W– to finish the survey. I now found a young physician who was waiting an escort for Tampa Bay, and we went out alone; and after studying trails for a long time, and taking directions by the compass, we came in sight of the hammock when some miles distant, and entering by a winding road that was arched over so as to be almost dark as night, we emerged, after a quarter of a mile, in a little round spot in the wilderness, which for quiet beauty was beyond any thing I had ever before seen. There were some forty acres in the circle, and yet it looked not unlike a dollar in a tumbler, so high and dense was the forest. The magnolias, a hundred feet in air, were in full blossom, their white tops making an unbroken wreath over the area, while the lower branches of the live-oaks were loaded with the long moss, hanging like curtains, motionless in the bright light, and not a single bird on the tree-tops to break the perfect charm of the place. Beautiful, very beautiful! but how strangely still! A squirrel chattering, or the rat-tat of a woodpecker, would have been something; but there was not a single voice out; not so much as the hum of a musquito, though it was the hottest of summer days.

Why didn’t the oaks speak, or the magnolias? If they had, shaken their white heads, and raising their trailing garments, had all burst out in some grand anthem, I should only have thought it quite in character; and if personally addressed, it would have seemed entirely a matter of course. I should have replied civilly, begged pardon for intruding in so informal a manner, and backed out as soon as possible; and perhaps the click of a rifle would have produced the same effect. We rode around the little gem, and found the charred timbers where the house stood, and a few orange trees that the Indians had left; but the cool spring was so hid in the high grass, that we were forced back with parched lips to the flat water at Pilatka, which place we reached in time for a late dinner; and just as the evening set in I took passage again for Picolata.

All the boats running on the river were in the government service, and ours at this time was loaded fore and aft with a company of dragoons, bound to Black Creek. As we left the dock, another large boat came out in a pompous manner, and gave us chase; and as the day had been intensely hot, a large line of clouds rolled over the bluff at the same time, probably from the gulf en route to the Atlantic, and moving slowly across the river, gathered their black folds around the pine-tops, shutting all up, river and forest, every thing but our chimneys, in utter darkness. And now began a scene which combined little and great in a manner quite fantastic. Boatmen swearing and yelling to each other as the boats came near collision, and that infernal scream sounding off through the pine barrens like some spirit newly damned; horses prancing and threshing on the bows; men growling at cards, and over head thunder and lightning leading off the storm in a very brilliant and point-blank manner; all which was quite rousing and melo-dramatic. While I was noticing the pilot’s manner of steering by flashes, a gentleman came up, whom I recognised as a resident of St. Augustine; and as he had a horse at Picolata, we agreed to go over together that night, as the darkness was rather favorable, and the road being sandy, we could ride rapidly without being heard.

It was late in the evening when we reached Picolata; and with a good deal of uproar, men shouting, steam puffing, and half a dozen blacks gesticulating on shore, we each made a fortunate leap to the dock; and walking up to the camp in a blaze of pitch-pine, we ordered our horses, and at eleven o’clock entered the pine woods for St. Augustine. ‘I wouldn’t go over to-night,’ said the man as he brought up my horse; ‘the rascals have been seen about here within a day or two; for God’s sake, Sir, don’t go over to-night!’ But this only gave a keener zest to the ride. I had carried with me every where a double-barrelled gun, but I had found it an awkward companion, and having been all day in the saddle I concluded to leave it to be sent over, and mean time trust to my friend’s pistols.

The rain had ceased, and the wind had gone down, but the night was still so dark that we could only guess at the road by the strip of light over head, and now and then a flash, which would light up the avenue for a long distance ahead, and then leave it still darker than before. As we entered the barren at an easy trot, I was pleased to notice that the darkness or the storm had tamed my little grey into a very sober humor, and his companion also was in a very moralizing way. There was no starting at the lightning, no attempt at running, but with a noiseless tread they stepped daintily in the sand, pointing their ears hither and yon, and as it seemed to me, affecting a little scarishness, though what they could hear when the forest was so breathless, it was difficult to imagine; but every little while they would both leap some fifteen feet across the road, (which couldn’t be affectation) shiver a little, and then pick their way carefully as before. We could see nothing, hear nothing; but horses are keen snuffers, and they might smell when we couldn’t; but what was singular, the vaulting was done from the same side of the road.

We were still keeping up a little small-talk, when some miles in the forest, both horses, without any jump or start of any kind, stopped suddenly; and looking ahead, we saw something moving stealthily toward us. My companion cocked a pistol and challenged; but we only heard a little grumbling, and I counted him a dead man; but before we had time to guess about it, something brushed by, and by a flash of light we saw a glitter of buttons, and a man on horseback. Whoever or whatever he was, we saw him but a moment, and he was soon out of hearing. With a remark or two upon the fool-hardiness of the man, we quickened our pace, and went on at a dashing rate, abreast and Indian fashion, just as it happened; now one leading and now the other, according to the wind of our horses; and in this manner we were passing the most dangerous part of the road, when there was a sudden whizzing about our ears, and the report of half a dozen rifles. The little grey reared and plunged and I landed—where, I don’t know; but the next that I remember, I was standing alone in the pine barren. I had been running for a long time; how far I couldn’t tell, being conscious only of dodging often from one tree to another. On looking about I remarked that the clouds had opened a little, and that there was nothing to be seen or heard in any direction. Presently I heard a yell, and looking around, a strapping Indian, with his rifle drawn to his eye, fired as I faced him, and the ball parted a lock of my hair in a manner very embarrassing. I levelled upon the rascal, but missed fire; the rain had wet the powder in the tube. The fellow took no pains to hide himself, but was very coolly loading again, and had got his ball ready, when I once more started off at full speed.

It was a sharp race, and a warm one. After running a mile or more, there was a small stream to be crossed; and with a few well-balanced steps on a half-decayed log that lay at the edge of the water, I reached the opposite bank just as my pursuer stepped on at the other end. Hearing a strange kind of shock, I turned and saw the big six-footed animal astride the log, twisting and writhing about in great agony. He had slipped and fallen in such a manner as to pain him almost beyond endurance. I stood on the bank and laughed at him; and—shall I confess it?—I tried half a dozen more caps at the fellow, with a most savage deliberateness; to all which he paid not the slightest attention; but as his strength came gradually back, I took to my heels again, and fortunately reached the highway….