Spirit of the age. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1849-1865, 1853-03-30
CHAPTER XIII.
II I Wu5t NItg
/ will encounter darkness as a bride,
And hug it in my arms. SHAKESPEARE

XIII.
fl must die,
/ will encounter darkness as a bride,
And hug it in my arms. SHAKESPEARE.
Come, courteous reader, let US 60 with
Columbine and venture to share her frantic
feelings of wild and distracted fear as she
was led along the narrow, dark and craggy
labyrinths that ended in the u lTories' pris-
on-the haunted cave. Away in the darkest
corner of that gloomy cell, which she had
been taught from a child to fear, she was left
with a jeering laugh by her fendish captor
a dim, gray beam Of the sun, like the last
faint shadow of dusky twilight, stole in thro'
the prison door that WIS yet open and 1t dis
closed a little of the horror with which she
was surrounded. She heard the heavy foot
steps of her foe Fastening from her-leaving
her helpless in her living tomb she heard
him stumbling In the dark rccesses over the
loose stones she saw his athletic frame
darker tho narrow opening as be emerged a
gain into the bright and sunny world, leaving
her in palpable darkness and living night,
surrounded, as she had learned to believe,
with restless spirits that had despised and
escaped the eternity they had found at death;
she heard the heavy stone roll against the
granite portals Of the door, and she felt it's
harsh jar transmitted to the spot where she
stood almost petrifed with fear. She grew
weak, and her physical energies refused to
support her trembling body, and she sank
upon the cold, stony floor other living grave;
and from the deep fountains Of her soul an
agonizing yet speeches. prayer welled up in
mortal earnestness to Heaven and to her God
for aid and for protection in her trying stu
alton. She sat upon q smooth rock near the
wall of the cave, while tears silently glided
5osUrI1 prgyeu FOR aninheritancc in 1.-THE bright
skies away from earth's troubles and its cor
ruptions. A silence, like the falling of the
shadows OF a summer night, reigned in the
cave an unwhispering silence was there, and
: the convulsive throes of her timid heart was
J almost painful to her ears the slightest
! movement OF her feet among the smooth peb-
bles gave rise to an i~nfantile echo that rama
, low and dreary along the dark avenues OF
the loathsome prison a slow and monoto-
nous dripping from some stony icicle high
7 up the side of the cave ceased not for a mo-
, ment, butlike a faithful time-piece it marked
by tardy splashes the time as it fled the
dash of waters over an invisible precipice a
way IN some subterranean ravine gave rise
to q sullen, bowling moan, that aWelled it.
pathetic notes up and down the stony cham
bers, and then died away to a gravelike ST
S lence to be renewed again by like r~estIcs;
LlO@tID SSAA& NOCPhlA 4AiS1S otVO Sy IL DuO1ltS.
y All the marvellous tales she had heard re
lated of the Haunted Cave rushing back t.
memory, and the terror Of their realization
s threatened every moment to dethrone reason
If and leave her a wreck and a gibbering idiot
9 She had occupied this situation in the Cav,
for some time, and though comparatiyel,
short, yet it seemed to her ages ofmisery ar(
r torture. She was endeavoring bya powerful
mental effort to reconcile herself to the un
r welcome position she occupied, when to he
renewed establishment, nay, terror, she hear,
q creature, or a restless spirit from the spirit
land, initiating a living mortal, away in tn
father end of the cave, breathing slow, dis
tinctly and labored and at short intervals
bursting, rending sigh and groans of a mos
s pathetic and despalring nature would be at
tered, as if they gushed unbidden from
e troubled bosom crushed and riven with NOR
tai agony ! The darkness was like that of oil
lowering about the Nile and ~shrouding an
d cient Egypt in a rayless night-palpable nm
'; thick, and no object could be seen in III
" haunted cave and the heaying ofsuch sound
by a person whose mental powers were o
the poised balance, waverine between INTEL
lie gence and hopeless imbecility, it NAV iustl
IS be considered an easy matter for such an or
Id to connect them with She mysterious rite
id of disembodied spirits holding their calali
Id tic councils. Such was the case; the capfi1
ir believed she was surrounded hy scores
ed restless souls, fitting on immaterial win,
is around her, as 1t questioning her Dresenc
in and disputing the right of her advent in
gross and tangible form in their mystie 81
Gle. She threw her slender arms ffantical
IS, around and above her, %circling them throne
darkness, as if to ward off the contact Of Il
- Invisible ghosts whose touch might be mo
tai and terrible death She thought Of Q
cape, but alas it was impossible, and s.
r, crouchcd down beside a projecting rock al
rs trcmbled like the sere leaf when the bros.
We Of the Storm King circles about it.
be Again and again came UP the rroanino
as If the last notes struck from q broke
Ter shattered harp and after a soul-searcIiil
a sigh, that seemed the last convulsive effort
ar- a soul rent and riven within mortal Ella
,le there came up this sentence distinct as
re, from mortal lip
to 30! Columbine! Columline! would
is God | could see thee 'cre l die! 7"
ay The distracted captive would have shrio
,ro cd for help in this moment, but her tonr
refused to obey the will, and it cleayed to t
ne roof of her mouth, dumb and ~listIcss of t
a commands Of the brain. With her float
W. curls dishevelied the cold sweat cushi
from every pore and her ewes strained uu
ing wards the roof of her prison cell, as if 5
it'll would gaze through it and gain 4 farev-
to. glimpse of the sky, she linked the last en-
or gies Of her soul on Heaven and looked III,
the foraid, the only port and an-chor-groundtl
,er- is looked out for, when The sea of life gro
ing storm-tost and tcmpest-torn, and when /
I'D, frail bark Of mortality threatens wreck
the surfy breakers that stud the ftful pa
way along which all mast pass.
Thoughts like these were the c~aptive's D
ing ton when she heard the pathetic senter
be- uttered Away all doubts about the ha,
ted cave have | not heard with mine O
4, ears a voice speaking tome as though it W,
*NoTE BY THE AUTHOR. We would here rem
that the early settlers of North Carolina were, m:
OF them, from old Scotland where the superstiti
my notions prevailed among the honest p~easantry
nm however much the ilnn nf rnnornnAn-0I -.