The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1903-08-07

ment could be lost. Tarleton was per-
chance already on the move There re-
manned but one plea more. With dry
sob in her throat she leaned out of her
saddle to make 1t:
"Peter La Brun, let me pass on my
way, and as l am Langston l will
wed you when the war is DONE"
There followed moment of death
like silence; then he said slowly, "You
swear it?
She lifted her hand, and there was
the acme Of self remuneration in her
voice. 81 swear it."
Another moment he hesitated, then
his pistol was lowered, and his hand
sank from the bride bit. He made no
other motion, but she took this for as
sent, and the freed horse, answering
the rein, swerved past the dim figure
in the road and disappeared like some
exercised spirit of the night down the
dusky arcades of the forest. For a few
minutes the sound of his galloping
came back splashily to the man left
~ALlCL w dlu SllSACC-Illc CEeCDy,
pregnant silence of the forest-fell
upon him.
For the first mile Dulcine's face did
not lose its hard lines, then suddenly
her cheeks were wet with tears, and
she sped on sobbing like hurt child.
Another mile, and the forest thinned
and faded backward and the level, cul-
tivated district of Laurens stretched
dimly before her. The great yellow
morning star shone full in her face,
and low down on the horizon was a
long, thin line Of gray.
'Tarleton is coming" she cried to a
man who came sleepily from wayside
house. And she struck the unlit win
dow of another cabin with her whip,
rousing the inmates with the same
call, ''Tarleton is comingv'
Men at the cattle pens, watchers be-
side sick beds, mothers with restless
babes in their arms, children starting
from their sleep, heard the weird cry in
the dawn and saw a gray horse and
slender rider fly, phantomlike, upon
their way.
"Halt!
To the wearied girl the single word
had in it the swelling music of an an
them, for it was Marion's picket post,
and she knew she had come in time.
The long, hard ride, the darkness of
the swamp, the slow agony of the night,
were all forgotten as she cried out her
warning to the patriot band:
"Up and away, for Tarleton rides a
foray with the dawnw
They heard, and, like the fleeing
shadows of the young eyed day, they
passed into the fastness of the near by
jungle, which for safety was to them
as walled and moated castle. Fifteen
minutes later, when Tarleton burst up
on the settlement, the camp was broken
up, the cattle pens and rice bins were
came to the doors to answer sleepily
the questions Of the tricked and furious
raiders. The foray that was to have
trapped the Swamp Fox" and annihi-
lated patriotism in that section had
ended in a dismal failure. And while
the discounted British marched sullen-
ly away the cause of their undoing lay
in darkened room under the dropping
caves of a farmhouse and cried to her.
self with her face in the coverlet.
The war storm died away at last, and
peace sang her siren song to free peo-
pie. Then it was that little Peter La
Brun, with eyes love hungry as
starved dogs, came to claim Dulcine's
promise. Robert Crenshaw had gone
away to some distant settlement lest
the jealousy within him prompt him to
some evil deed, for Dulcine had said,
with her hands on her breast:
Though it should kill me, yet will
keep my promise to Peter La Brun.
Had he not trusted me you and your
comrades would have paid the forfeit
with your lives. 1 will not be less true
than he."
And so when the appointed day came
she laced her white bodice upon her
and with face as colorless went forth
to her bridal. The village church was
full of people, and at the chancel steps
stood two men. One was the small,
bent figure of Peter, the other-Dul-
cine dared not look again. All, God, the
bitter cruelty of putting her to such a
test! And she went up the aisle beside
her father as one in a swoon. At the
steps some one took her hand, and the
next moment she was kneeling by the
altar but it was not La Brun who knelt
beside her. Out in the church the peo-
pie gaped and stared and wondered.
The girl knelt as in dream, speechless,
motionless.
"Who giveth this woman to be mar
ried to this man?" the minister asked.
Then. before her father could answer,
a voice they all knew pierced the si-
lence like the cry of lost hope:
81, Peter La Brun, holding her prom
Use, yet knowing that she loves me not,
do give her to Robert Crenshaw to be
his wife,"
All, not in vain, not in vain, had ma
ture put those tender lines about little
Peters crooked mouth!