Chapter Forty. “Fighting Gallagher.”
The prisoner was confined in a strong, windowless blockhouse. Access to him would be easy enough, especially to those who wore epaulets. It was my design to visit him; but, for certain reasons, I forbore putting it in execution, so long as daylight lasted. I was desirous that my interview should be as private as possible and therefore waited for the night.
I was influenced by other reasons; my hands were full of business; I had not yet done with Arens Ringgold.
I had a difficulty in deciding how to act. My mind was a chaos of emotions; hatred for the conspirators – indignation at the unjust behaviour of the agent towards Osceola – love for Maümee – now fond and trusting – anon doubting and jealous. Amid such confusion, how could I think with clearness?
Withal, one of these emotions had precedence – anger against the villain who intended to take my life was at that moment the strongest passion in my breast.
Hostility so heartless, so causeless, so deadly, had not failed to imbue me with a keen desire for vengeance; and I resolved to punish my enemy at all hazards.
He only, whose life has been aimed at by an assassin, can understand the deadly antipathy I felt towards Arens Ringgold. An open enemy, who acts under the impulse of anger, jealousy, or fancied wrong, you may respect. Even the two white wretches, and the yellow runaway, I regarded only with contempt, as tools pliant for any purpose; but the arch-conspirator himself I now both hated and despised. So acute was my sense of injury, that I could not permit it to pass without some act of retaliation, some effort to punish my wronger.
But how? Therein lay the uncertainty! How? A duel?
I could think of no other way. The criminal was still inside the law. I could not reach him, otherwise than by my own arm.
I well weighed the words of my sable counsellor; but the faithful fellow had spoken in vain, and I resolved to act contrary to his advice, let the hazard fall as it might. I made up my mind to the challenge.
One consideration still caused me to hesitate: I must give Ringgold my reasons.
He should have been welcome to them as a dying souvenir; but if I succeeded in only half-killing him, or he in half-killing me, how about the future? I should be showing my hand to him, by which he would profit; whereas, unknown to him, I now knew his, and might easily foil his designs.
Such calculations ran rapidly through my mind, though I considered them with a coolness that in after-thought surprises me. The incidents that I had lately encountered – combined with angry hatred of this plausible villain – had made me fierce, cold and cruel. I was no longer myself; and, wicked as it may appear, I could not control my longings for vengeance.
I needed a friend to advise me. Who could I make the confidant of my terrible secret?
Surely my ears were not deceiving me? No; it was the voice of my old school-fellow, Charley Gallagher. I heard it outside, and recognised the ring of his merry laugh. A detachment of rifles had just entered the fort with Charley at their head. In another instant we had “embraced.”
What could have been more opportune? Charley had been my “chum” at college – my bosom companion. He deserved my confidence, and almost upon the instant, I made known to him the situation of affairs.
It required much explanation to remove his incredulity; he was disposed to treat the whole thing as a joke – that is, the conspiracy against my life. But the rifle shot was real, and Black Jake was by to confirm my account of it: so that my friend was at length induced to take a serious view of the matter.
“Bad luck to me!” said he, in Irish accent: “it’s the quarest case that ever came accrast your humble frind’s experience. Mother o’ Moses! the fellow must be the divil incarnate. Geordie, my boy, have ye looked under his instip?”
Despite the name and “brogue,” Charley was not a Hibernian – only the son of one. He was a New-Yorker by birth, and could speak good English when he pleased; but from some freak of eccentricity or affectation, he had taken to the brogue, and used it habitually, when among friends, with all the rich garniture of a true Milesian, fresh from the “sod.”
He was altogether an odd fellow, but with a soul of honour, and a heart true as steel. He was no dunce either, and the man above all others upon whose coat tail it would not have been safe to “trid.” He was already notorious for having been engaged in two or three “affairs,” in which he had played both principal and second, and had earned the bellicose appellation of “Fighting Gallagher.” I knew what his advice would be before asking it – “Call the schoundrel out by all manes.”
I stated the difficulty as to my reasons for challenging Ringgold.
“Thrue, ma bohill! You’re right there; but there need be no throuble about the matther.”
“How?”
“Make the spalpeen challenge you. That’s betther – besides, it gives you the choice of waypons.”
“In what way can I do this?”
“Och! my innocent gossoon! Shure that’s as asy as tumblin’ from a haycock. Call him a liar; an’ if that’s not sufficiently disagraable, twake his nose, or squirt your tobacco in his ugly countenance. That’ll fetch him out, I’ll be bail for ye.
“Come along, my boy!” continued my ready counsellor, moving towards the door. “Where is this Mister Ringgowld to be sarched for? Find me the gint, and I’ll shew you how to scratch his buttons. Come along wid ye!”
Not much liking the plan of procedure, but without the moral strength to resist, I followed this impetuous son of a Celt through the doorway.