CHAPTER VIII
Indianswere not an entirely new sight to George, but the few who occasionally came to Greenway were quite different from the thriftless, lazy, peaceable individuals and remnants of tribes that remained in remote parts of lower Virginia. There was an Indian village of forty or fifty in a piece of wild country about ten miles from Ferry Farm, but they were not dangerous, except to hen-roosts and pigsties; and although the men talked grandiloquently of the time when their forefathers owned the land and lived by hunting, they seemed perfectly satisfied themselves to sit and bask in the sun, smoking tobacco of the squaws’ raising, and living upon grain raised by the same hard-working squaws.
But the first Indian that he saw at Greenway was altogether unlike these, and in George’s eyes vastly more respectable. He came one morning, just as George and Lord Fairfax had walked out on the porch after breakfast. He strode up the path carrying on his shoulder the dressed carcass of a deer. He was of medium height, but sosuperbly made and muscular that the heavy carcass seemed as light as a feather. He stalked up to the porch, and, throwing the carcass down, folded his arms with an air of supreme indifference, and waited to be addressed.
“For sale?” asked the earl.
The Indian nodded his head without speaking. Lord Fairfax called to Lance to bring his purse. Lance in a few minutes appeared, and the instant his eyes fell upon the Indian his countenance changed. Not so the Indian’s, who stood looking him squarely in the eye with characteristic stolidity.
The earl counted out some money and offered it to the Indian, who took it with a grunt of satisfaction.
“Now,” said the earl, “take the carcass to the kitchen, where you will find something to eat if you wish.”
The Indian showed his familiarity with English by picking up the carcass and disappearing around the corner with it. As soon as he was out of hearing Lance said to the earl:
“If you please, sir, that Injun, who pretends to be a squaw man, is no less than Black Bear, one of the most bloodthirsty devils I ever knew. He was in the thick of the last attack they made on us, and I’ll warrant, sir, if I could turn hisblanket back from his right shoulder I would find a hole made by a musket-ball I sent at him. It disabled him, but I can see the rascal now walking away just as coolly as if I had tickled him with a feather instead of hitting him with a lead bullet. He never in the world brought that carcass over the mountains; that is not in his line. There are more of Black Bear’s sort hereabouts, you may depend on it, sir.”
Lord Fairfax shrugged his shoulders.
“We are prepared for defence if they come at us, but I shall have to depend upon you, Lance, to give us warning.” And the earl went quietly back to his library.
Not so George. He had an intense desire to know more of Black Bear, and went with Lance around to the back of the house.
“You won’t find that Injun eating, sir; he don’t want anything to eat. He wants to sneak into the house and see what sort of a place it is,” said Lance.
Sure enough, when they reached the kitchen there was nothing to be seen of Black Bear, although the deer’s carcass was hung up on a nail high above the ground, out of reach of the dogs. Cæsar, the cook—a fat, jolly negro, with a great white apron on—was standing in the kitchen door looking around.
“Where is the Injun who brought that deer meat here?” asked Lance.
“I’se lookin’ fur him now,” responded Cæsar. “I didn’ heah no soun’, an’ when I tu’n roun’ d’yar was de carkiss hangin’ ’n de nail. Dem Injuns is slicker ’n cats when dey move.”
Lance, followed by George, passed into the kitchen and through a short covered way which led to the lower part of the house. The covered way and the kitchen too were of the same rough stone half-way up. A few steps at the end of the covered way led down into the cellars where the arms and provisions were stored. It was quite dark down there, and Lance struck his flint and made a light. They had not gone far in the underground passage when George instinctively felt some one stealing by him. He turned quickly, and in a moment Black Bear was pinioned to the wall.
“What are you doing here?” asked Lance, gruffly.
The Indian, remaining perfectly still, said, “White man’s house like rabbit-burrow. Injun get lost in it.”
George, at a sign from Lance, let the Indian go, and he stalked solemnly out in front of them. Around outside, Lance said:
“What is your name?”
“Squaw man,” was the Indian’s laconic answer, and as the squaw men had no distinctive names it was answer enough. But Lance grinned openly at this.
“You don’t look like a squaw man, but a warrior, and your name, if I know it, is Black Bear. Now, if you are a squaw man, show me how that carcass ought to be cut up; and here is some money for you if you do it right.” Black Bear looked longingly at the money, but he was evidently not used to cutting up dressed meat, and he made no attempt at it. He grunted out something, and then strode off in the direction of the path up the mountain.
“There you go,” apostrophized Lance, “and we shall see you before long with a firelock and a hatchet, and with a lot of other savages of your own kidney.”
At dinner that day George told Lord Fairfax about finding the Indian prowling about the cellar, and Lance’s suspicions.
The morning had been bright, but it grew so cold and snowy towards the afternoon that Lord Fairfax remained at home, and George took his ride alone. He had not gone but a few miles along the rugged mountain road when a furious snow-storm set in, and he quickly retraced his steps. It grew suddenly dark, but his horse wassure of foot, and George himself knew the way home perfectly. He galloped along through the darkness and the fast-falling snow, which deadened the sound of his horse’s hoofs. He was surprised, though, to see a number of tracks in the snow as he passed along. He instantly recognized moccasin tracks, and remembered Lance’s prediction that the alleged squaw man had some companions with him. At one point on the road George was convinced that he heard a low whistle. He stopped his horse and turned in his saddle, but there was no sound except the crackling of the trees as the wind swept through their bare branches, and the faint sound of falling water in the distance. As he sat his horse, a perfect picture of young manhood, two stealthy eyes were fixed on him, and Black Bear, concealed behind a huge mountain-ash, noiselessly and rapidly raising a firelock, took direct aim at him. The horse, which had stood perfectly still, suddenly started as a shot rang out, and a bullet whizzed past George so close that he felt the current of air it made.
George was too astounded to move for a moment, but not more astounded than was Black Bear. Never in his life had the Indian made such a miss. Half a dozen pairs of beady black eyes had seen it, and the concealed Indians madea sign to each other in dumb-show signifying that the white youth had a charmed life.
In another moment the horse, of its own will, as if flying from danger, started down the rocky road. George let him go on unchecked. He did not think the bullet came from the piece of a sportsman, and he had not forgotten Lance’s warning.
When he reached the house he looked about for Lance, whom he found in the armory, carefully examining the muskets on the rack. Lance listened to George’s story of the shot very attentively.
“As sure as you live, Mr. Washington, there were some red devils skulking about, and when they get a firelock in their hands the first thing they want to do is to kill a white man. The Frenchmen sell them muskets, and give them firewater, and set them against us. I knew, the minute I put my eyes on that copper-colored rascal, that he had murder and arson in his heart; but we’ll be able to keep them off, Mr. Washington.”
“Why is it that you think they want to capture this house?” asked George, thoughtfully.
“Because we have a plenty of arms and ammunition here. It is hard to get either over the mountains, and it would be a small fortune toany Indian to get a musket and a powder-horn. Then we have dried provisions in plenty—enough to last us six months if we get nothing from the outside—and dried provisions is what the Indians fancy. And my lord is opposed to the French, and no doubt they have set the Indians against us; and then the Indians like the killing, just for the fun of the thing. I think I shall sleep with one eye open until I hear that Mr. Black Bear and his friends are no longer in this neighborhood.”
That night, after supper, George and the earl talked over Lance’s suspicions. Lord Fairfax thought they were not ill founded, but he was not a man to excite himself over possibilities. The talk drifted towards marksmanship, and the earl, who was an excellent shot, brought out a pair of silver-mounted pistols, small for the time. He had some bullets made of composition, which flattened out against the rough cast wall without making an indentation. George drew a target on the wall, and the earl, standing at the end of the great, low-ceiled hall, made some wonderful shots. George then took the pistols, and fairly surpassed him. The earl taught him to snuff a candle at twenty paces, and other tricks of the kind. So absorbed were they in their pastime that it was nearly midnight before they parted.
When George went to his room Billy was not to be seen; but when he was called a woolly head was poked out from under the valance of the high-post bed, and Billy chirped out:
“I’se gwi’ sleep under de baid ter-night, Marse George. Mr. Lance, he talk ’bout Injuns, an’ ef dey come, I ain’ gwi’ gin ’em no chance fer to meek a hole in dis heah nigger’s skin. An’ I got de dog wid me, an’ ef he start ter bark, I kin choke him, so dey ain’ never know dee is a dog heah.”
George laughed and went to bed, but it was not to sleep. He was excited, and lay awake for what seemed hours to him. At last, about three o’clock, he noticed by the moonlight that stole in his shutterless window that the snow-storm had ceased, and the moon was shining brilliantly. He got up and looked out. The ground was covered with snow, and the radiance of the great full moon made the whole landscape of a dazzling white; the tall peaks, which reared their heads into the sky, shone like burnished silver, and seemed almost touching the vast dome of heaven. George gazed for a long time, entranced at the scene, until the moving of a faint shadow under the trees attracted his attention. His eyes were keen at all times, and particularly so that night. He waited until he became convincedthat there were Indian forms flitting about under the trees; then, slipping on his clothes and carrying his shoes in his hand, he noiselessly opened the door and went into the hall. As he opened the door he met Lance face to face.
“Have you seen them?” asked George, in a whisper.
“No,” replied Lance; “but I wakened up just now, and something, I know not what, told me to go over the house and see if everything was all right.”
George drew him to the outer door, and pointed to one of the little eye-holes. Lance peered through anxiously.
“I can’t see anything, Mr. Washington; but your eyes are better than mine, and if you say there are Injuns out there I’ll take your word for it.”
At that moment George, who was watching at another eye-hole, saw in a corner near the house a fire smouldering on the ground. A dozen blanketed figures were crouching around it. Presently they rose, and, carrying each a long and heavy fence-rail blazing at the end, made a rush around the back of the house, and, with a thundering crash and a succession of terrific whoops, pounded the stout oaken door of thekitchen with the burning rails. It was as if that barbaric yell in one instant wakened the house and converted it into a fortress. Lights shone at every window, the negroes appearing as if by magic, and Lord Fairfax in a dressing-gown, but with a musket in his hand, opening his door. Lance and George had made a rush for the armory, and each seized an armful of muskets. The negroes were each given a musket, and stationed at an eye-hole. Meanwhile the pounding at the kitchen door continued, and shook the house from end to end. Stout as the oaken planking was, it seemed impossible that it could long withstand such assaults.
“It is the first time the red rascals have ever had sense enough to try and batter that door down. Before this they have tried the front door,” said Lance, as he and George took their station at the end of the short covered way that led to the kitchen.
The earl by this time had put on his clothes and had joined Lance and George.
“I think the door is giving way, sir,” said George, quietly, to Lord Fairfax, as the sound of breaking timbers mingled with the screech of the savages.
“I know it, sir,” added Lance, grimly. “We can keep the scoundrels out of the front door bystationing men in the half-story above; but there is no way of defending the kitchen door from the inside.”
“How many Indians do you think you saw, George?” asked Lord Fairfax, as coolly as if he were asking the number of cabbages in a garden.
“At least a dozen, sir.”
“Then if you saw a dozen there were certainly fifty,” was the earl’s remark. The next moment a louder crash than before showed the door had given way, and in another instant the narrow passageway swarmed with Indians. George, mechanically following Lance’s movements, raised his musket and fired straight at the incoming mob, the first hostile shot of his life. He felt a strange quiver and tremor, and an acute sensitiveness to everything that was happening around him. He stood shoulder to shoulder with Lance, and Lord Fairfax quietly moved in front of him, which he thought strange.
THE FIGHT IN THE KITCHEN PASSAGETHE FIGHT IN THE KITCHEN PASSAGE
THE FIGHT IN THE KITCHEN PASSAGE
THE FIGHT IN THE KITCHEN PASSAGE
“Kneel down,” said Lance, in quite his ordinary voice, kneeling himself so that the armed negroes behind him could fire over his head. Lord Fairfax and George did likewise. The perfect coolness and self-possession of Lance and Lord Fairfax amazed George. He had never seen old soldiers under fire before. For himself, hefelt wildly excited, and was conscious that his features were working convulsively, and his heart thumped so loudly against his ribs that he heard it over the crashing of the musket-balls. It flashed before his mind that any and every moment might be his last, and he thought of his mother and Betty; he thought of everything, in fact, except one: that he might run away. He stood as if nailed to the ground, loading and firing faster than he ever did in his life, and so accurately that both the earl and Lance had time to be astonished; but it was merely the habit of doing things quickly and accurately which kept his hands and brain at work automatically, while his nerves were being racked as those of all creatures are when brought face to face with the red death. He saw the Indians swarming into the narrow passageway, and recognized Black Bear at their head. They had tomahawks as well as muskets, but they did not get near enough to use their hatchets. The steady fusillade checked their advance after the first onset, and they fell back a little, leaving one gaunt body upon the ground.
All at once George’s senses seemed to return to him, and he felt as calm and unshaken as either the earl or Lance. He turned to the earl and said:
“The two swivels are in the cellar directly back of us, and on a level with us. If we had one we could command this passage.”
“Get it,” replied the earl, laconically. “Take Cæsar with you—it is on wheels, you know.”
George darted into the cellar, and directly the rumbling of a small gun upon a rude carriage, with the wheels cut from solid logs of wood, was heard. Cæsar was dragging the swivel out, while George followed with the powder and shot. There was now not a single Indian in the narrow passage except one lying stark before them. Without a moment’s thought, George darted forward to drag the prostrate form out of the way of the gun, lest, if the Indian were dead, it might mutilate him, and if only wounded it might kill him.
As George stooped forward to lift him the Indian, who was bleeding profusely from a wounded leg, suddenly threw his left arm around George’s neck, and with the other hand drew a tomahawk from under him. But George was too quick for him, and, catching his arm, lifted him bodily, and carried him back into the large passageway where they stood.
It was Black Bear.
“Youa squaw man,” was Lance’s comment.
Black Bear said no word, but, raising himselffrom the ground, produced a leather thong, which he tied around his bleeding leg, rudely but not unskilfully checking the flow of blood, after which Lance tied him securely and put him in a corner.
There was now a brief pause, and the guns were reloaded, and all were prepared for a second assault, while the swivel commanded the passageway thoroughly.
“They know what is going on here,” said the earl, “and their next attack will be by the front entrance.”
“True, sir,” responded Lance.
“Shall we leave Mr. Washington here while we reconnoitre the front of the house?” asked Lord Fairfax of Lance, who was the actual commandant of the garrison.
“I think so, sir—with Cæsar and one or two others. But keep your eye on Black Bear, Mr. Washington,” said Lance, “as well as this passage.” Just then the noise of an assault on the other part of the house was heard, and the whole force went over on that side, leaving George, and Cæsar the cook, and Jake the scullion, to watch the passageway.
Occasionally they could see, by the dim light of a lantern hung to the wall, a figure passing to and fro in the kitchen, and the shattered timbersof the door, through which a white light was visible on the kitchen floor. As this part of the building was of stone, it could not be fired, so that the savages were powerless unless they could force their way in by the passage, and that they had tried unsuccessfully to do.
George remembered to have heard that wounded men suffer fearfully from thirst. There was a cedar bucket full of water on a shelf in the larger passage, with a gourd hanging by it. He told Jake to put the bucket by Black Bear, and although the Indian had sat perfectly still, not showing, even by a contraction of the brows, the agony he was suffering from his wound, he gulped the water down eagerly.
The crack of musket-shots on the other side of the house could now be heard, and it was evident that the fight was renewed, but at the same time dark faces appeared at the opening into the covered way. George, loading the swivel himself, pointed it, and, by way of a salutary warning, sent a four-pound shot screaming through the kitchen. Not an Indian showed himself after that. They had met resistance on the other side of the house too, and as the moon went slowly down the horizon in the pale gray of dawn the watchers from the eye-holes saw them draw off and take their way rapidly across the whiteground into the mountains. The snow was blood-stained in many places, showing that the musketry fire had been very effective; but the Indians were so skilful in concealing their losses, and so stoical in regard to their wounds, that it was hard to tell exactly how they had fared, except that they had been driven off.
Just as day was breaking Lord Fairfax came to George.
“You have had your first taste of ball-cartridges,” said he, smiling. “What do you think of it?”
George hesitated and remained silent for a moment.
“At first,” he said, “I hardly knew what I was doing. Afterwards, it seemed to me, I had never thought so quickly in my life.”
“Witness the dragging out of the swivel,” continued Lord Fairfax; “and let me tell you this—the difference between an ordinary general and a great general is that the ordinary man cannot think in a hurry and in the midst of terrible emergencies, but the great man thinks the better for the very things that shake and disconcert an every-day man. You may some day prove a great general, George.”
The boy blushed, but said nothing. Lance had then come up. “Shall I have the carpenters goto work directly, sir, replacing that door? By night we can have as strong a one made and hung as the one they burst in,” he said.
“Certainly,” replied Lord Fairfax. “Have them go all over the house and repair the damages. But first let them have breakfast, for fighting always makes men hungry. And look after that wounded man over yonder.”
Lance, who had some experience in gunshot wounds, went over and examined Black Bear’s injured leg carefully. He then ordered water brought, with some simple dressing, and washed and dressed the wound. Black Bear, through it all, maintained his stolid silence. When, however, Lance had him picked up by two stalwart negroes and carried into their quarters, where a fire was burning, the Indian could not banish a faint expression of surprise from his countenance. He had heard that the white men treated prisoners well, but he had no correct idea of what good treatment to prisoners meant. He was given a good breakfast, at which he was utterly astounded, but which he ate with a true Indian appetite. He gave no sign of feeling, however, except a grunt of approval.
When George was relieved from his post he went to his room. As soon as he entered he saw Billy’s ashy face, with his eyes nearly poppingout of his head, emerging from under the bed, while Rattler gave a yelp of delight.
“Lord a’mighty, Marse George, I never tho’t ter see you ag’in!” exclaimed Billy, fervently. “All de time dem balls was poppin’ me an’ Rattler was thinkin’ ’bout you, an’ when I hear one big gun a-gwine off I jest holler out loud, ‘Marse George done daid—I know he done daid!’”
“I might have been dead a good many times for any help I had from you, you lazy scamp,” responded George, severely, at which Billy burst into tears, and wailed until “Marse George” condescended to be mollified.