Cardigan Part 40

Then a rifle went bang! among the trees; another report rang out, followed instantly by twenty more in a volley.

Down a low oak ridge, close by, I saw an Indian tumbling like a stone till he fell with a splash into a mossy hollow full of rain-water and dead leaves. After him bounded a hunter in buckskins, long knife flas.h.i.+ng.

"Cresap!" I panted, "don't let him take that scalp! Have your men gone mad? You can stop this war! It is not too late yet, but a scalp taken means war--G.o.d in heaven! a scalp means war to the death!"

"Don't touch that scalp!" roared Cresap, hurrying towards the ranger, who was kneeling on one knee beside the dead Cayuga. "Nathan Giles! Do you hear me? Let that scalp alone, you b.l.o.o.d.y fool!"

It was too late; the ranger squatted, wrenching the scalp free with a ripping sound, just as Cresap ran up in a towering rage.

"They take ours," remonstrated the ranger, tying the ghastly trophy to his belt by its braided lock of hair; "I guess I have a right to scalp my own game!" he added, sullenly.

Cresap turned to me with a gesture of despair.

"You see," he said; and walked slowly away towards the river, where the rifles were ringing out shot on shot across the shoals below the shallow camp-ford on the edge of the roaring riffles.

So now, at last, Lord Dunmore's war had begun without hope of mediation. Too late now for emba.s.sy of peace, too late for truce or promises or the arbitration of fair speech. There is nothing on earth to compensate for a scalp taken, save a scalp taken in return. I had failed--failed totally, and without hope of retrieving failure. The first attempt must be the last. A scalp had been taken. My mission was at an end.

Ay, ended irrevocably now, for all around me firelocks and rifles were banging; the woods swam in smoke; the war-yelp sounded nearer and nearer; the white cross-belts of the soldiers glimmered through the trees.

Too miserable to shun danger, I sat down on a stone in the trail, my head in my hands, rifle across my knees. Presently a soldier who had been standing near me, firing across the river, fell down with a grunt and lay there flat on his back.

I stared at him stupidly, not realizing that the man was dead, though out of his head crawled a sluggish, dark red stream, dropping steadily onto the withered leaves. It was only when a swift, dusky shape came creeping out of the brush towards the dead man that I came to my senses and dropped behind the stone I had been resting on, barely in time, too, for a bullet came smack! against my rock, and after it, bounding and yelping, flew an Indian. He was on me ere I could fire, one sinewy fist twisted in my hair, but his knife snapped off short on my rifle-stock, and together, over and over we rolled, down a ravine among the willows, clawing, clutching, strangling each other, till of a sudden my head struck a tree, crack! And I knew nothing after that until the cool rain beating in my face awoke me. I lay very still, listening.

Somebody near by was trying to light a fire; I smelled the flint and the glowing tinder. Another odour hung heavily in the moist night air, the wild, rank scent of savage men, strong and unmistakable as the odour of a dog-fox in March.

I began to move noiselessly, working my head around so that I might see. My head was aching heavily; I could scarce stir it. At length I raised myself on my hands, and saw the spark from a flint fly into a ball of dry moss and hang there like a fire-fly until the tiny circle of light spread slowly into a glow, ringed with little flames that ate their way through the tinder-moss.

A tufted head bobbed down beside the flame; unseen lips blew the fire into a sudden blaze which brightened and flashed up, throwing ruddy shadows over bush and earth.

Then I saw that I lay on a hill-top in the rain, with dark, s.h.a.ggy bushes hedging me. And under every bush crouched an Indian, whose dusky, half-naked body glistened with paint, over which rain-drops stood in brilliant beads.

Leggings, clouts, sporrans, and moccasins were soaked; the slippery, wet buckskins glistened like the hides of serpents; fringes, beaded belts, and sheaths shone as tinted frost sparkles at sunrise.

In the luminous shadow of the bushes I saw brilliant eyes watching me as I dragged myself nearer the fire. The red embers' glow fell on steel blades of hatchets, bathing them with blood-colour to the hilts.

Once, when I attempted to sit up, an arm shot out of the shadow, making the sign for silence; and mechanically I repeated the signal and laid my head down again on the cool, wet ground.

All night I lay, perfectly conscious, beside the Cayuga fire, yet not alarmed, although a prisoner.

The Cayugas knew me as a belt-bearer from Sir William; they could not ill-treat me. Tamarack, Yellow Hand, and Sowanowane would vouch for me to this party of young men who had taken me. I had harmed none of them; I had barely defended my life when attacked.

As I lay there on the windy hill-top, through the rain across the dim valley I could see the battle-lanthorns hanging on Cresap's fort, and I could hear the preparations for a siege, the hammering and chopping and cries of teamsters, the rumble of wagons over the drawbridge, the distant challenge of guards, the murmur and dulled tumult of many people hastening urgent business.

Beside me, on their haunches, crouched my captors, alert and curious, dressing their ears to the distant noises. There were eleven of them, young men with all their lives before them in which to win the eagle's plume; eleven lithe, muscular young savages, stripped to the belt, well oiled, crowns shaved save for the lock, and every man freshly painted for war. All wore the Wolf.

He who had taken me, now carried my pouch and powder-horn and bore my rifle. A scalp hung at his yellow girdle, doubtless the scalp of the soldier who had been shot beside me in the trail. I could smell the pomatum on the queue.

I spoke to them calmly, and at first they seemed inclined to listen, appearing surprised at my knowledge of their tongue. But they would reply to none of my questions, and finally they silenced me with sullen threats, which, however, did not disturb me, as I knew their sachems must set me free.

My head ached a great deal from the blow I had suffered; I was willing enough to lie quietly and watch the lights in the fort through the slow veil of falling rain; and presently I fell asleep.

The hot glare of a torch awoke me. All around me crowded ma.s.ses of savages, young and old, women and youths and children. The woods vomited barbarians; they came in packs, moving swiftly, muttering to each other, and hastening as though on some pressing affair.

Women near me were digging a hole, and presently came a strong young girl, bearing a post of buckeye, and set it heavily in the hole, fitting it while the others stamped in the mud around it with naked feet.

The main crowd, however, had surged down into a hollow to the left, and, as I lay on the ground, watching the shadowy, retreating throng, of a sudden came three Indians driving before them a white man, arms tied, bloodless face stamped with horror indescribable.

As he pa.s.sed the fire where I lay, I thought his starting eyes met mine, but he staggered on without speaking, down into the darkness of the hollow. I knew him. He was Nathan Giles, who had taken the first scalp in Lord Dunmore's war.

Shuddering, I sat up, turning my head towards the gloom below. There was not a sound. I waited, straining eyes and ears. My heart drummed on my ribs. I caught my breath and clinched my hands.

Without the slightest warning, the black pit below burst out in a sheet of light, s.h.i.+ning on a thousand motionless savages; and in the centre of the glare I saw a naked figure, bound to a tree, twisting through smoke-shot flames.

For a second only the scene wavered before me; then I gripped my temples and pressed my face down into the cool, wet gra.s.s. Awful cries rang in my ears; the garrison at the fort heard them, too, for they fired a cannon, and I heard distant drums beating to arms.

"Thus you are to die," repeated the Indians beside me. "Thus you will die here on this hill at dawn. Thus you will suffer in plain view of the fort! This for the death of Logan's children!"

And one to another they said: "He is weeping. He is a woman. He will weep thus when he burns."

I heard them, but what they said left my mind numbed and cold. For me there was no meaning in their words; none at all. My ears shrank from the awful cries, now piercing the very clouds above me, h.e.l.l's own solo accompanied by the ceaseless, solemn murmur of the rain.

Into my nostrils crept the stench of burnt flesh; it grew stronger and stronger. Silence fell, soothed by the whispering rain; then out of the night came the dull noise of many people stirring. They were coming!

As I rose, a Cayuga youth seized me and threw me heavily against the post I had seen the woman embed in the mud. I fought and strained and writhed, but they tied me, bracing me up stiff against the wet stake, trussed like a fowl for basting.

Around me the crowd was thickening; hundreds of tongues loaded me with insults; thrice a young girl reached out and struck me in the face.

They had begun piling wood around my feet, and stuffing the s.p.a.ces full of dry moss, but before the heap reached my knees they decided to face me towards the fort, so the work accomplished had to be undone, my bonds loosened and retied, and my body s.h.i.+fted to breast the south.

Through the falling rain I saw morning lurking behind the eastern hills, and I cursed it, for the shock and terror had driven me out of my senses. I remember hearing a voice calling on G.o.d, but for a long time I did not know the voice was mine. It was only when the same young girl who had struck me lighted a splinter of yellow pine and thrust it through my arm that my senses returned. I opened my eyes as from a swoon, seeing clearly the faces around me, red under the torches. And foremost among those in front stood Tamarack in his scarlet robes, just as I had seen him at dawn through the smoke of the sacred fire. Now my voice came back, seeking my lips; my parched tongue moved, and I called on Tamarack to hear me, but he shook his head, though I adjured him by the belts I had borne and received, by the sanctuary of the council-fire whose smoke I had sweetened, and by the three tribes I had raised up.

"Lies," he said; "you come not from Johnstown! Your belts are lies; your words lie; your tongue is forked! You come from Cresap! Cresap shall see how you can die for him!"

"I speak the truth!" I cried out, in my agony. "I am a belt-bearer! I have laid the ghosts of your slain ones! Who dares send my spirit to teach your dead that you betray their ashes?"

There was a dead silence. Presently somebody in the throng said, distinctly: "If he speaks the truth, let him go. We honour our dead."

And other voices repeated:

"We honour our dead."

"He lies," said Tamarack.

"I speak truth!" I groaned. "If you honour your dead, if you honour those whom I have raised up in their places, free me, brothers of the Cayugas!"

"Free him!" cried many.

For a s.p.a.ce the throng was quiet, then a distant movement to my left made me turn hopefully. The throng wavered, parted, opened, and a white man came elbowing his way to the stake.