"Such," said Captain Cranstoun, with a sneer of much bitterness, "are the pitiful things on which hang the lives of our brave fellows. No doubt the despatches will say a great deal about the excellent arrangements for attack—but if you do not fall, Gerald, I hope you will make a proper representation of the affair. As you belong to the other service, there is little fear the General can hurt your promotion for merely speaking the truth. A General, indeed!—who'll say Fortune is not blind to make a General of such as he?"
It was not an usual thing for Cranstoun to express himself thus in regard to his superiors; but he was really vexed at the idea of the sacrifice of human life that must attend this wantonness of neglect and imbecility of arrangement. He had moreover taken wine enough, not in any way to intoxicate, but sufficient to thaw his habitual caution and reserve. Fearless as his sword, hecared not for his own life; but, although a strict officer, he was ever attentive to the interests of his men, who in their turn, admired him for his cool, unflinching courage, and would have dared anything under the direction of their captain.
It was evident that the contempt of the sailor for the capacity of the leader, to whom it was well known all the minute arrangements were submitted, was not one whit inferior to what was entertained by the brave and honest Cranstoun. He, however, merely answered, as they both assumed their places in front, and with the air of one utterly indifferent to these disadvantages.
"No matter, Cranstoun, the greater the obstacles we have to contend against, the more glorious will be our victory. Where you lead, however, we shall not be long in following."
"Hem! since it is to be a game of follow-my-leader," said Middlemore, who had now joined them, "I must not be far behind. A month's pay with either of you I reach the stockade first."
"Done, Middlemore, done," eagerly replied Cranstoun, and they joined hands in confirmation of the bet.
This conversation had taken place during the interval occupied by the movements of the right and centre columns along the skirt of the wood, to equidistant points in the half circle embraced in the plan of attack. A single blast of the bugle now announced that the furthermost had reached its place of destination, when suddenly a gun—the first fired since noon from the English batteries—gave the signal for which all were now prepared.
In the next minute the heads of the several columns debouched from the woods, and, the whole advancing in double quick time, with their arms at the trail, moved across the meadow in the several directions assigned them. The space to be traversed by Captain Cranstoun's division was considerably the shortest of the three; but, on the other hand, he was opposed to that part of the enemy's defences where there was the least cover afforded to an assailing force.
Meanwhile there was an utter repose in the fort, which for some moments induced the belief that the Americans were preparing to surrender their trust without a struggle, and loud yells from the Indians, who, from their cover in the rear, watched the progress of the troops with admiration and surprise, were pealed forth as if in encouragement to the latter to proceed. But the American Commander had planned his defence with skill. No sooner had the several columns got within half musket shot, than a tremendous fire of musketry and rifles was opened upon them from two distinct faces of the stockade. Captain Cranstoun's division, being the nearest, was the first attacked, and suffered considerably without attempting to return a shot. At the first discharge, the two leading sergeants, and many of the men, were knocked down; but neither Cranstoun, nor Middlemore, nor Grantham, were touched.
"Forward men, forward," shouted the former, brandishing his sword, and dashing down a deep ravine, that separated them from the trenches.
"On, my gallant fellows, on!—the left column for ever!" cried Middlemore, imitating the example of his captain, and, in his eagerness to reach the ditch first, leaving his men to follow as they could.
Few of these, however, needed the injunction. Although galled by the severe fire of the enemy, they followed their leaders down the ravine with a steadiness worthy of a better result; then climbing up the opposite ascent,under a shower of bullets, yet, without pulling a trigger themselves, made for the ditch their officer had already gained.
Cranstoun, still continuing in advance, was the first who arrived on the brink. For a moment he paused, as if uncertain what course to pursue, then, seeing Middlemore close behind him, he leaped in, and striking a blow of his sabre upon the stockade, called loudly upon the axemen to follow. While he was yet shouting, a ball from a loop-hole not three feet above his head, entered his brain, and he fell dead across the trench.
"Ha! well have you won your wager, my noble Captain," exclaimed Middlemore, putting his hand to his chest, and staggering from the effects of a shot he had that instant received. "You are indeed thebetterman" (he continued, excited beyond his usual calm by the circumstances in which he found himself placed, yet unable to resist his dominating propensity, even at such a moment,) "and deserve the palm of honor this day. Forward, men, forward! axemen, do your duty.—Down with the stockade, my lads, and give them a bellyful of steel."
Scarcely had he spoken, when a second discharge from the same wall-piece that had killed Cranstoun passed through his throat. "Forward!" he again but more faintly shouted, with the gurgling tone of suffocation peculiar to a wound in that region, then falling headlong into the ditch, was in the next instant trodden under by the advance of the column who rushed forward, though fruitlessly, to avenge the deaths of their officers.
All was now confusion, noise and carnage. Obeying the command of their leader, the axemen had sprung into the ditch, and, with efforts nerved by desperation, applied themselves vigorously to the task allotted them. But as well might they have attempted to raze the foundations of the globe itself. Incapable from their bluntness of making the slightest impression on the obstinate wood, the iron at each stroke rebounded off, leaving to the eye no vestige of where it had rested. Filled with disappointment and rage, the brave and unfortunate fellows dashed the useless metal to the earth, and endeavored to escape from the ditch back into the ravine, where, at least, there was a prospect of supplying themselves with more serviceable weapons from among their slain comrades; but the ditch was deep and slimy, and the difficulty of ascent great. Before they could accomplish it, the Americans opened a fire from a bastion, the guns of which, loaded with slugs and musket balls, raked the trench from end to end, and swept away all that came within its range. This was the first check given to the division of the unfortunate Cranstoun. Many of the leading sections had leaped, regardless of all obstacles, into the trench, with a view of avenging their slaughtered officers; but these, like the axemen, had been carried away by the discharges from the bastion, and the incessant fire poured upon them from the loop-holes of the stockade. Despairing of success, without fascines to fill up the ditch, or a ladder to scale the picketing that afforded cover to their enemies, there was no alternative, but to remain and be cut down to a man where they stood, or to retire into the brushwood that lined the ravine. The latter was finally adopted; but not before one-third of the column had paid the penalty of their own daring, and what the brave Cranstoun had sneeringly termed the "General's excellent arrangements," with their lives. The firing at this time had now almost wholly ceased between the enemy and the columns on the right and centre, neither of which had penetrated beyond the ravine, and at a late hour in the evening the whole were drawn off.
Meanwhile, steady at his post at the head of the division, Gerald Grantham had continued to act with the men as though he had been one of themselves. During the whole course of the advance, he neither joined in the cheers of the officers, nor uttered word of encouragement to those who followed. But in his manner there was remarked a quietness of determination, a sullen disregard of danger, that seemed to denote some deeper rooted purpose than the mere desire of personal distinction. His ambition seemed to consist, not in being the first to reach or scale the fort, but in placing himself wherever the balls of the enemy flew thickest. There was no enthusiasm in his mien, no excitement in his eye; neither had his step the buoyancy that marks the young heart wedded to valorous achievement, but was, on the contrary, heavy, measured, yet firm. His whole manner and actions, in short, as reported to his brother, on the return of the expedition, by those who had been near him throughout the affair, was that of a man who courts not victory but death. Planted on the brow of the ditch at the moment when Middlemore fell, he had deliberately discharged his pistol into the loop-hole whence the shot had been fired; but although, as he seemed to expect, the next instant brought several barrels to play upon himself, not one of these had taken effect. A moment after and he was in the ditch, followed by some twenty or thirty of the leading men of the column, and advancing towards the bastion, then preparing to vomit forth its fire upon the devoted axemen. Even here, Fate, or Destiny, or whatever power it be that wills the nature of the end of man, turned aside the death with which he already seemed to grapple. At the very moment when the flash rose from the havoc-dealing gun, he chanced to stumble over the dead body of a soldier, and fell flat upon his face. Scarcely had he touched the ground when he was again upon his feet; but even in that short space of time, he alone, of those who had entered the ditch, had been left unscathed. Before him came bellying along the damp trench, the dense smoke from the fatal bastion, as it were a funeral shroud for its victims; and behind him were to be seen the mangled and distorted forms of his companions, some dead, others writhing with acute agony, and filling the air with shrieks, and groans, and prayers for water to soothe their burning lips, that mingled fearfully yet characteristically, with the unsubdued roar of small arms.
It was now, for the first time, that Gerald evinced anything like excitement, but it was the excitement of bitter disappointment. He saw those to whom the preservation of life would have been a blessing, cut down and slaughtered; while he, whose object it was to lay it down for ever, was, by some strange fatality, wholly exempt.
The reflections that passed with lightning quickness through his mind, only served to stimulate his determination the more. Scarcely had the smoke which had hitherto kept him concealed from the battery, passed beyond him, when, rushing forward and shouting, "To the bastion, men—to the bastion!" he planted himself in front of the gun, and not three yards from its muzzle. Prevented by the dense smoke that choked up the trench, from ascertaining the extent of execution produced by their discharge, the American artillerymen, who had again loaded, were once more on the alert and preparing to repeat it. Already was the match in the act of descending, which would have blown the unfortunate Gerald to atoms, when suddenly an officer, whose uniform bespoke him to be of some rank, and to whose quick eye it was apparent the rash assailant was utterly unsupported, sprang upon the bastion, anddashing the fuze from the hand of the gunner, commanded that a small sally-port, which opened into the trench a few yards beyond the point where he stood, should be opened, and the brave soldier taken prisoner without harm. So prompt was the execution of this order, that, before Gerald could succeed in clambering up the ditch, which, with the instinctive dread of captivity, he attempted, he was seized by half a dozen soldiers, and by these borne hurriedly back through the sally-port, which was again closed.
Defeated at every point and with great loss, the British columns had retired into the bed of the ravine, where, shielded from the fire of the Americans, they lay several hours shivering with cold and ankle deep in mud and water; yet consoling themselves with the hope that the renewal of the assault under cover of the coming darkness, would be attended with a happier issue. But the gallant General, who appeared in the outset to have intended they should make picks of their bayonets and scaling-ladders of each other's bodies, now that a mound sufficient for the latter purpose could be raised of the slain, had altered his mind, and alarmed, and mayhap conscience stricken at the profuse and unnecessary sacrifice of human life which had resulted from the first wanton attack, adopted the resolution of withdrawing his troops. This was at length finally effected, and without further loss.
Fully impressed with the belief that the assailants would not be permitted to forego the advantages they still possessed in their near contiguity to the works, without another attempt at escalade, the Americans had continued calmly at their posts; with what confidence in the nature of their defences and what positive freedom from danger, may be inferred from the fact of their having lost but one man throughout the whole affair, and that one killed immediately through the loop-hole by the shot that avenged the death of poor Middlemore. When at a late hour they found that the columns were again in movement, they could scarcely persuade themselves they were not changing their points of attack. A very few minutes, however, sufficed to show their error; for, in the indistinct light of a new moon, the British troops were to be seen ascending the opposite face of the ravine and in full retreat. Too well satisfied with the successful nature of their defence, the Americans made no attempt to follow, but contented themselves with pouring in a parting volley, which however the obscurity rendered ineffectual. Soon afterwards the sally-port was again opened, and such of the unfortunates as yet lingered alive in the trenches were brought in, and every attention the place could afford paid to their necessities.
An advanced hour of the night brought most of the American officers together in their rude mess-room, where the occurrences of the day were discussed with an enthusiasm of satisfaction natural to the occasion. Each congratulated each on the unexpected success, but commendation was more than usually loud in favor of their leader, to whose coolness and judgment, in reserving his fire until the approach of the enemy within pistol shot, was to be attributed the severe loss and consequent check they had sustained.
Next became the topic of eulogium the gallantry of those who had beenworsted in all but their honor, and all spoke with admiration of the devotedness of the two unfortunate officers who had perished in the trenches—a subject which, in turn, led to a recollection of the brave soldier who had survived the sweeping discharge from the bastion, and who had been so opportunely saved from destruction by the Commandant himself.
"Captain Jackson," said that officer, addressing one of the few who wore the regular uniform of the United States army, "I should like much to converse with this man, in whom I confess, as in some degree the preserver of his life, I feel an interest. Moreover, as the only uninjured among our prisoners, he is the one most calculated to give us information in regard to the actual force of those whom we have this day had the good fortune to defeat, as well as of the ultimate destination of the British General. Notes of both these important particulars, if I can possibly obtain them, I wish to make in a despatch of which I intend you to be the bearer."
The Aid-de-camp, for in that capacity was he attached to the person of Colonel Forrester, immediately quitted the room, and presently afterwards returned ushering in the prisoner.
Although Gerald was dressed, as we have said, in the uniform of the private grenadier, there was that about him which, in defiance of a person covered from head to foot with the slimy mud of the trenches, and a mouth black as ink with powder from the cartridges he had bitten, at once betrayed him for something more than he appeared.
There was a pause for some moments after he entered. At length Colonel Forrester inquired, in a voice strongly marked by surprise:
"May I ask, sir, what rank you hold in the British army?"
"But that I have unfortunately suffered more from your mud than your fire," replied Gerald, coolly, and with undisguised bitterness of manner, "the question would at once be answered by a reference to my uniform."
"I understand you, sir; you would have me to infer you are what your dress, and your dress alone, denotes—a private soldier?"
Gerald made no answer.
"Your name, soldier?"
"My name!"
"Yes; your name. One possessed of the gallantry we witnessed this day cannot be altogether without a name."
The pale cheek of Gerald was slightly tinged. With all his grief, he still was a man. The indirect praise lingered a moment at his heart, then passed off with the slight blush that as momentarily dyed his cheek.
"My name, sir, is a humble one, and little worthy to be classed with those who have this day written theirs in the page of honor with their heart's blood. I am called Gerald Grantham."
"Gerald Grantham!" repeated the Commandant, musingly, as though endeavoring to bring back the recollection of such a name.
The prisoner looked at him steadfastly in return, yet without speaking.
"Is there another of your name in the British squadron?" continued Colonel Forrester, fixing his eye full upon his prisoner.
"There are many in the British squadron whose names are unknown to me," replied Gerald, evasively, and faintly coloring.
"Nay," said Colonel Forrester, "that subterfuge more than anything betrays you. Though not answered, I am satisfied. How we are to account for seeing a gallant sailor attacking us in our trenches, in the humble garb of a private soldier, and so out of his own element, I cannot understand; but the name of Gerald Grantham, coupled with your manner and appearance, assures us we are making personal acquaintance with one to whose deeds we are not strangers. Gentlemen," addressing his officers, "this is the Lieutenant Grantham, whose vessel was captured last autumn at Buffalo, and of whose gallant defence my cousin, Captain Edwin Forrester, has spoken so highly. Lieutenant Grantham," he pursued, advancing and offering his hand, "when I had the happiness to save your life this day, by dashing aside the fuze that would have been the agent in your destruction, I saw in you but the brave and humble soldier, whom it were disgrace not to have spared for so much noble daring. Judge how great must be my satisfaction to know that I have been the means of preserving, to his family and country, one whose name stands so high even in the consideration of his enemies."
Poor Gerald! how bitter and conflicting must have been his feelings at that moment. On the one side, touched by the highest evidences of esteem a brave and generous enemy could proffer—on the other, annoyed beyond expression at the recollection of an interposition which had thwarted him in his fondest, dearest hope—that of losing, at the cannon's mouth, the life he loathed. What had been done in mercy and noble forbearance, was to him the direst punishment that could be inflicted; yet how was it possible to deny gratitude for the motive which had impelled his preservation, or fail in acknowledgment of the appreciation in which he thus found himself personally held.
"It would be idle, Colonel Forrester," he said, taking the proffered hand, "after the manner in which you have expressed yourself, to deny that I am the officer to whom you allude. I feel deeply these marks of your regard, although I cannot but consider any little merit that may attach to me very much overrated by them. My appearance in this dress, perhaps requires some explanation. Prevented by the shallowness of the river from co-operating with the array in my gun-boat, and tired of doing nothing, I had solicited and obtained permission to become one of the storming party in the quality of volunteer, which of necessity induced the garb in which you now behold me. You know the rest."
"And yet, Colonel," said a surly-looking backwoodsman, who sat with one hand thrust into the bosom of a hunting frock, and the other playing with the richly ornamented hilt of a dagger, while a round hat, surmounted by a huge cockade, was perched knowingly over his left ear, covering, or rather shadowing, little more than one fourth of his head—"I reckon as how this here sort of thing comes within the spy act. Here's a commissioned officer of King George, taken not only in our lines, but in our very trenches in the disguise of a private soger. What say you, Captain Buckhorn?" turning to one somewhat younger and less uncouth, who sat next him habited in a similar manner. "Don't you think it comes within the spy act?"
Captain Buckhorn, however, not choosing to hazard an opinion on the subject, merely shrugged his shoulders, puffed his cigar, and looked at the Colonel as if he expected him to decide the question.
"As I am a true Tennessee man, bred and born, Major Killdeer," said the Aid-de-camp Jackson, "I can't see how that can lie. To come within thespy act, a man must be in plain clothes, or in the uniform of his enemy. Now, Liftenant Grantham, I take it, comes in the British uniform, and what signifies a whistle if he wears gold lace or cotton tape, provided it be stuck upon a scarlet coat, and that in the broad face of day, with arms in his hand,—aye, and a devil of a desperation to make good use of them too"—he added, with a good naturedly malicious leer of the eye towards the subject of his defence.
"At all events, in my conceit, it's an attempt to undervally himself," pursued the tenacious Kentuckian Major. "Suppose his name warn't known as it is, he'd have passed for a private soger, and would have been exchanged for one, without our being any the wiser; whereby the United States, service, I calculate, would have lost an officer in the balance of account."
"Although there cannot be the slightest difficulty," observed Colonel Forrester, "in determining on the doubt first started by you, Major Killdeer I confess, that what you have now suggested involves a question of some delicacy. In the spirit, although not altogether in the letter, of your suggestion, I agree; so much so, Mr. Grantham," he added, turning to Gerald, "that in violence to the inclination I should otherwise have felt to send you back to your lines, on parole of honor, I shall be compelled to detain you until the pleasure of my government be known as to the actual rank in which you are to be looked upon. I should say that, taken in arms as a combatant without rank, we have no right to know you as anything else; but as I may be in error, I am sure you will see how utterly impossible it is for me to take any such responsibility upon myself, especially after the difficulty you have just heard started."
Gerald, who had listened to this discussion with some astonishment, was not sorry to find the manner of its termination. In the outset he had not been without alarm that the hero of one hour might be looked upon and hanged as the spy of the next; and tired as he was of life, much as he longed to lay it down, his neck had too invincible a repugnance to anything like contact with a cord to render him ambitious of closing his existence in that way. He was not at all sorry, therefore, when he found the surly-looking Major Killdeer wholly unsupported in his sweeping estimate of what he called the "spy act." The gentlemanly manner of Colonel Forrester, forming as it did so decided a contrast with the unpolished—even rude frankness of his second in command was not without soothing influence upon his mind, and to his last observation he replied, as he really felt, that any change in his views as to his disposal could in no way affect him, since it was a matter of total indifference whether he returned to Amherstburg, or was detained where he was. In neither case could he actively rejoin the service until duly exchanged, and this was the only object embraced in any desire he might entertain of the kind.
"Still," added the Colonel, "although I may not suffer you to return yet into Canada, I can see no objection to according you the privilege of parole of honor, without at all involving the after question of whether you are to be considered as the soldier or the officer. From this moment therefore, Mr. Grantham, you will consider yourself a prisoner at large within the fort—or, should you prefer journeying into the interior, to sharing the privations and the dullness inseparable from our isolated position, you are at liberty to accompany Captain Jackson, my Aid-de-camp, who will leave this within twelve hours, charged with dispatches for the Governor of Kentucky."
Gerald had already acknowledged to himself that, if anything could add to his wretchedness, it would be a compulsory residence in a place not only destitute itself of all excitement, but calling up, at every hour, the images of his brave companions in danger—men whom he had known when the sun of his young hopes shone unclouded, and whom he had survived but to be made sensible of the curse of exemption from a similar fate; still, with that instinctive delicacy of a mind whose natural refinement not even a heavy weight of grief could wholly deaden, he felt some hesitation in giving expression to a wish, the compliance with which would, necessarily, separate him from one who had so courteously treated him, and whom he feared to wound by an appearance of indifference.
"I think, Mr. Grantham," pursued Colonel Forrester, remarking his hesitation, "I can understand what is passing in your mind. However I beg you will suffer no mere considerations of courtesy to interfere with your inclination. I can promise you will find this place most dismally dull, especially to one who has no positive duty to perform in it. If I may venture to recommend, therefore, you will accompany Captain Jackson. The ride will afford you more subject for diversion than anything we can furnish here."
Thus happily assisted in his decision Gerald said, "Since, Sir, you leave it optional with me, I think I shall avail myself of your kind offer and accompany Captain Jackson. It is not a very cheering sight," he pursued, anxious to assign a satisfactory reason for his choice, "to have constantly before one's eyes the scene of so signal a discomfiture as that which our arms have experienced this day."
"And yet," said Colonel Forrester, "despite of that discomfiture, there was nothing in the conduct of those engaged that should call a blush into the cheek of the most fastidious stickler for national glory. There is not an officer here present," he continued, "who is not prepared to attest with myself, that your column in particular behaved like heroes. By the way, I could wish to know, but you will use your own discretion in answering or declining the question, what was the actual strength of your attacking force?"
"I can really see no objection to a candid answer to your question, Colonel," returned Gerald, after a moment's consideration. "Each division was, I believe, for I cannot state with certainty, little more than two hundred strong, making in all, perhaps, from six hundred to six hundred and fifty men. In return, may I ask the number of those who so effectually repulsed us?"
"Why I guess only one hundred and fifty, and most all my volunteers," somewhat exultingly exclaimed Major Killdeer.
"Only one hundred and fifty men!" repeated Gerald, unable to disguise his vexation and astonishment.
"That ere's a poser for him," said the Major, turning and addressing Captain Buckhorn in an under tone, who replied to him with a wink from his nearest eye.
"Even so, Mr. Grantham," replied the Colonel. "One hundred and fifty men of all arms, save artillery, composed my force at the moment when your columns crossed the plain. To-night we muster one hundred and forty-nine."
"Good Heaven!" exclaimed Gerald warming into excitement, with vexation and pique, "what a disgraceful affair."
"Disgraceful, yes—but only in as far as regards those who planned, and provided (or rather ought to have provided) the means of attack. I can assure you, Mr. Grantham, that although prepared to defend my post to the last, when I saw your columns first emerge from the wood, I did not expect, with my small force, to have been enabled to hold the place one hour; for who could have supposed that even a school boy, had such been placed at the head of an army, would have sent forward a storming party, without either fascines to fill a trench, or ladders to ascend from it when filled. Had these been provided, there can be no doubt of the issue, for, to repulse the attempt at escalade in one quarter, I must have concentrated the whole of my little force—and thereby afforded an unopposed entrance to the other columns—or even granting my garrison to have been sufficient to keep two of your divisions in check, there still remained a third to turn the scale of success against us."
"I can understand the satisfaction with which you discovered this wretched bungling on the part of our leaders," remarked Gerald, with vexation.
"No sooner had I detected the deficiency," pursued Colonel Forrester, "than I knew the day would be my own, since the obstacles opposed to your attempt would admit of my spreading my men over the whole line embraced within the attack. The result, you see, has justified my expectation. But enough of this. After the fatigues of the day, you must require both food and rest. Captain Jackson, I leave it to you to do the honors of hospitality towards Mr. Grantham, who will so shortly become your fellow-traveller; and if, when he has performed the ablutions he seems so much to require, my wardrobe can furnish anything your own cannot supply to transform him into a backwoodsman (in which garb I would strongly advise him to travel). I beg it may be put under contribution without ceremony."
So saying, Colonel Forrester departed to the rude log-hut that served him for his head-quarters, first enjoining his uncouth second to keep a sufficient number of men on the alert, and take such other precautions as were necessary to guard against surprise—an event, however, of which little apprehension was entertained, now that the British troops appeared to have been wholly withdrawn.
Sick, wearied, and unhappy, Gerald was but too willing to escape to the solitude of retirement, to refuse the offer which Captain Jackson made of his own bed, it being his intention to sit up all night in the mess-room, ready to communicate instantly with the Colonel in the event of any alarm.
Declining the pressing invitation of the officers to join in the repast they were about to make for the first time since the morning, and more particularly that of Captain Buckhorn, who strongly urged him to "bring himself to an anchor and try a little of the Wabash," he took a polite but hasty leave of them all, and was soon installed for the night in the Aid-de-camp's dormitory.
It would be idle to say that Gerald never closed his eyes that night—still more idle would it be to attempt a description of all that passed through a mind whose extent of wretchedness may be inferred from his several desperate although unsuccessful, efforts at the utter annihilation of all thought. When he met Colonel Forrester and his officers in the mess-room at breakfast, hewas dressed, as had been recommended, in the hunting frock and belt of a backwoodsman; and in this his gentlemanly figure looked to such advantage as to excite general attention—so much so, indeed, that Major Killdeer was more than once detected in eyeing his own heavy person, as if to ascertain if the points of excellence were peculiar to the dress or to the man. Sick and dispirited as he was, Gerald felt the necessity of an attempt to rally, and however the moralist may condemn the principle, there is no doubt that he was considerably aided in his effort by one or two glasses of bitters which Captain Buckhorn strongly recommended as being of his wife's making, and well calculated to put some color into a man's face—an advantage in which, he truly remarked, Grantham was singularly deficient.
Accurate intelligence having been obtained from a party of scouts, who had been dispatched early in the morning to track their course, that the British General with his troops and Indians had finally departed, preparations were made about midday for the interment of the fallen. Two large graves were accordingly dug on the outer brow of the ravine, and in these the bodies of the fallen soldiers were deposited, with all the honors of war. A smaller grave, within the fort, and near the spot where they so nobly fell, was considerately allotted to Cranstoun and Middlemore. There was a composedness on the brow of the former that likened him, even in death, to the living man; while, about the good-humored mouth of poor Middlemore, played the same sort of self-satisfied smile that had always been observable there when about to deliver himself of a sally. Gerald, who had imposed upon himself the painful duty of attending to their last committal to earth, could not help fancying that Middlemore must have breathed his last with an inaudible pun upon his lips—an idea that inexpressibly affected him. Weighed down with sorrow as was his own soul, he had yet a tear for the occasion—not that his brave comrades were dead, but that they had died with so much to attach them to life—while he whose hope was in death alone, had been chained, as by a curse to an existence compared with which death was the first of human blessings.
On the following morning, after an early breakfast, he and Captain Jackson quitted the fort, Colonel Forrester—who had not failed to remark that the brusque manner of his aide-de-camp was not altogether understood by his charge—taking occasion at parting, to assure the latter that, with all his eccentricity, he was a kind-hearted man, whom he had selected to be near him more for his personal courage, zeal, and general liberality of feeling, than for any qualifications of intellect he possessed.
The means provided for their transport into the interior were well assimilated to the dreariness of the country through which they passed. Two common pack-horses, lean, galled by the saddle, and callous from long acquaintance with the admonitory influence both of whip and spur, had been selected by Captain Jackson as the best within the fort. Neither were the trappings out of keeping with the steeds they decked. Moth-eaten saddles, almost black with age, beneath which were spread pieces of dirty blanket to prevent further excoriation of the already bared and reeking back—bridles, the original thickness of which had been doubled by the incrustation of mould and dirt that pertinaciously adhered to them—stirrups and bits, with their accompanying buckles—the absence of curb chains being supplied by pieces of rope—all afforded evidence of the wretchedness of resource peculiar to a back settlementpopulation. Over the hard saddles, however, had been strapped the blankets which, when the travellers were fortunate enough to meet with a hut at the close of their day's ride, or, as was more frequently the case, when compelled to bivouac in the forest before the fire kindled by the industry of the hardy aide-de-camp, served them as their only couch of rest, while the small leather valise tied to the pummel of the saddle, and containing their scanty wardrobe, was made to do the duty of the absent pillow. The blanket Gerald found to be the greatest advantage of his grotesque equipment—so much so, indeed, that when compelled, by the heavy rains which took place shortly after their departure, to make it serve, after the fashion of a backwoodsman, as a covering for his loins and shoulders, he was obliged to own that his miseries, great as they were, were yet susceptible of increase.
Notwithstanding Captain Jackson had taken what he considered to be the best of the two Rosinantes for himself. Gerald had no reason to deny the character for kind-heartedness given of him by Colonel Forrester. Frequently when winding through some dense forest, or moving over some extensive plain where nothing beyond themselves told of the existence of man, his companion would endeavor to divert him from the abstraction and melancholy in which he was usually plunged, and, ascribing his melancholy to an unreal cause, seek to arouse him by the consolatory assurance that he was not the first man who had been taken prisoner—adding that there was no use in snivelling, as "what was done couldn't be undone, and no great harm neither, as there was some as pretty gals in Kaintuck as could be picked out in a day's ride; and that to a good-looking young fellow like himself, with nothing to do but make love to them,thatought to be no mean consideration, enabling him, as it would, to while away the tedium of captivity." At other times he would launch forth into some wild rhapsody, the invention of the moment, or seek to entertain his companion with startling anecdotes connected with his encounters with the Indians on the Wabash, (where he had formerly served) in the course of which much of the marvellous, to call it by the most indulgent term, was necessarily mixed up—not perhaps that he was quite sensible of this himself, but because he possessed a constitutional proneness to exaggeration that rendered him even more credulous of the good things he uttered than those to whom he detailed them.
But Gerald heard without being amused, and, although he felt thankful for the intention, was distressed that his abstraction should be the subject of notice, and his despondency the object of care. To avoid this he frequently suffered Jackson to take the lead, and, following some distance in the rear with his arms folded and the reins loose upon the horse's neck, often ran the risk of having his own neck broken by the frequent stumbling of the unsure-footed beast. But the Captain as often returned to the charge, for, in addition to a sincere desire to rally his companion, he began at length to find it exceedingly irksome to travel with one who neither spoke himself, nor appeared to enjoy speech in another; and when he had amused himself with whistling, singing, hallooing, and cutting a thousand antics with his arms, until he was heartily tired of each of these several diversions, he would rein in his horse to suffer Gerald to come up, and, after a conciliating offer of his rum flask, accompanied by a slice of hung beef that lined the wallet depending from his shoulder, enter upon some new and strange exploit, of which he was as usual the hero. Enforced in a degree to make some return for the bribe offered to his patience,Gerald would lend—all he could—his ear to the tale; but long before the completion he would give such evidence of his distraction, as utterly to disconcert the narrator, and cause him finally to have recourse to one of the interludes above described.
In this manner they had journeyed some days, when the rains suddenly commenced with a violence and continued with a pertinacity, that might have worn out the cheerfulness of much less impatient spirits than those of our travellers, who without any other protection than what was afforded by the blanket tightly girt around the loins, and fastened over the shoulders in front of the chest, presented an appearance quite as wild as the waste they traversed. It was in vain that, in order to promote a more rapid circulation, they essayed to urge their jaded beasts out of the jog-trot in which they had set out. Accustomed to this from the time when they first emerged from colthood into horsehood, the aged steeds, like many aged senators of their day, were determined enemies to anything like innovation on the long established customs of their caste; and, although, unlike the said senators, they were made to bear all the burdens of the state, still did they not suffer themselves to be driven out of the sluggish habits in which sluggish animals of every description seem to feel themselves privileged to indulge. Whip and spur, therefore, were alike applied in vain, as to any accelerated motion in themselves; but with this advantage at least to their riders, that while the latter toiled vigorously for an increase of vital warmth through the instrumentality of their non-complying hacks they found it where they least seemed to look for it—in the mingled anger and activity which kept them at the fruitless task.
It was at the close of one of those long days of wearying travel throughout a vast and unsheltered plain—where only here and there rose an occasional cluster of trees, like oases in the desert—that, drenched to the skin with the steady rain, which commencing at the dawn had continued without a moment's intermission, they arrived at a small log hut, situate on the skirt of a forest forming one of the boundaries of the vast savannah they had traversed. Such was the unpromising appearance of this apology for a human dwelling, that, under any other circumstances, even the "not very d——d particular" Jackson, as the aide-de-camp often termed himself, would have passed it by without stopping; but after a long day's ride, and suffering from the greatest evils to which a traveller can well be subjected—cold, wet and hunger—even so wretched a resting-place as this was not to be despised; and accordingly a determination was formed to stop there for the night. On riding up to the door, it was opened to their knock, when a tall man—apparently its only occupant—came forth, and after viewing the travellers a moment with a suspicious eye, inquired "what the strangers wanted?"
"Why I guess," said Jackson, "it doesn't need much conjuration to tell that. Food and lodging for ourselves, to be sure, and a wisp of hay and tether for our horses. Hospitality, in short; and that's what no true Tennessee man, bred and born, never refused yet—no, not even to an enemy, such a night as this."
"Then you must go further in search of it," replied the woodsman, surlily. "I don't keep no tavern, and han't got no accommodation; and what's more, I reckon I'm no Tennessee man."
"But any accommodation will do friend. If you havn't got beds, we'll situp all night, and warm our toes at the fire, and spin long yarns, as they tell in the Eastern sea-ports. Anything but turn a fellow out such a night as this."
"But I say, stranger," returned the man fiercely and determinedly, "I an't got no room any how, and you shan't bide here."
"Oh, ho, my old cock! that's the ticket, is it? But you'll see whether an old stager like me is to be turned out of any man's house such a night as this. I havn't served two campaigns against the Ingins and the British for nothing; and here I rest for the night."
So saying, the determined Jackson coolly dismounted from his horse, and unbuckling the girth, proceeded to deposit the saddle, with the valise attached to it, within the hut, the door of which still stood open.
The woodman, perceiving his object, made a movement, as if to bar the passage; but Jackson with great activity seized him by the wrist of the left hand, and, all-powerful as the ruffian was, sent him dancing some few yards in front of the threshold before he was aware of his intention, or could resist the peculiarknackwith which it was accomplished. The aide-de-camp, meanwhile, had deposited his saddle in a corner near the fire, and on his return to the door, met the inhospitable woodsman advancing as if to court a personal encounter.
"Now, I'll tell you what it is, friend," he said calmly, throwing back at the same time the blanket that concealed his uniform and—what was more imposing—a brace of large pistols stuck in his belt. "You'd better have no nonsense with me, I promise you, or—" and he tapped with the fore finger of his right hand upon the butt of one of them, with an expression that could not be misunderstood.
The woodsman seemed little awed by this demonstration. He was evidently one on whom it might have been dangerous for one man, however well armed, to have forced his presence, so far from every other human habitation; and it is probable that his forbearance then arose from the fact of there being two opposed to him, for he glanced rapidly from one to the other, nor was it until he seemed to have mentally decided that the odds of two to one were somewhat unequal, that he at length withdrew himself out of the doorway, as if in passive assent to the stay he could not well prevent.
"Just so, my old cock," continued Jackson, finding that he had gained his point, "and when you speak of this again, don't forget to say it was a true Tennessee man, bred and born, that gave you a lesson in what no American ever wanted—hospitality to a stranger. Suppose you begin and make your self useful, by tethering and foddering old spare bones."
"I reckon as how you've hands as well as me," rejoined the surly woodsman, "and every man knows the ways of his own beast best. As for fodder, they'll find it on the skirt of the wood, and where natur' planted it."
Gerald meanwhile, finding victory declare itself in favor of his companion, had followed his example and entered the hut with his saddle. As he again quitted it, a sudden flash of light from the fire, which Jackson was then in the act of stirring, fell upon the countenance of the woodsman who stood without, his arms folded and his brow scowling, as if planning some revenge for the humiliation to which he had been subjected. In the indistinct dusk of the evening Grantham had not been able to remark more than the outline of the figure; but the voice struck him as one not unknown to him, although somewhat harsher in its tones than that which his faint recollection of the past supplied. The glance he had now obtained, momentary as it was, put every doubt to rest. What his feelings were in recognising in the woodsman the traitor settler of the Canadas, Jeremiah Desborough, we leave to our readers to infer.
There was a time, when to have met his father's enemy thus would have been to have called into activity all the dormant fierceness of Gerald's nature; but since they had last parted, a new channel had been opened to his feelings, and the deep and mysterious grief in which we have seen him shrouded had been of so absorbing and selfish a nature, as to leave him little consideration for sorrows not his own. The rash impetuosity of his former character, which had often led him to act even before he thought, and to resent an injury before it could well be said to have been offered, had moreover given place to a self-command, the fruit of the reflective habits and desire of concealment which had made him latterly almost a stranger to himself.
Whatever his motives for outwardly avoiding all recognition of the settler, certain it is that, so far from this, he sought sedulously to conceal his own identity, by drawing the slouched hat, which formed a portion of his new equipment, lower over his eyes. Left to do the duties of the rude hostelry, Captain Jackson and he now quitted the hut, and leading their jaded, smoking steeds, a few rods off to the verge of the plain they had so recently traversed, prepared to dispose of them for the night. Gerald had by this time become too experienced in the mode of travelling through an American wilderness, not to understand, that he who expects to find a companion in his horse in the morning must duly secure him with the tether at night. Following, therefore, the example of the Aide-de-camp, he applied himself, amid the still pelting rain, to the not very cleanly task of binding round the fetlock joints of his steed several yards of untanned hide strips, with which they were severally provided for the purpose. Each gave his steed a parting slap on the buttock with the hard bridle. Jackson exclaiming, "Go ye luxurious beasts—ye have a whole prairie of wet grass to revel in for the night," and then left them to make the best of their dainty food.
While returning, Grantham took occasion to observe, that he had reason to think he knew the surly and inhospitable woodsman, by whom however he was not desirous of being recognised, and therefore begged as a favor that Captain Jackson would not, in the course of the night, mention his name, or even allude to him in any way that could lead to an inference that he was any other than he seemed, a companion and brother officer of his own; promising, in conclusion, to give him, in the course of the next day's journey, some little history of the man which would fully explain his motives. With this request Jackson unhesitatingly promised compliance, adding, good-humoredly, that he was not sorry to pledge himself to anything that would thaw his companion's tongue into sociability, and render himself, for the first time since their departure, a listener. Before entering the hut Gerald further observed in a whisperthat, the better to escape recognition, he would, as much as possible, avoid joining in any conversation which might ensue, and therefore hoped his companion would not think him rude if he suffered him to bear the tax. Jackson again promised to keep the attention of the woodsman directed as much as possible to himself, observing that he thought Gerald had already, to his cost, discovered he was one not easily tired out by conversation, should their host be that way inclined.
On opening the door of the cabin, they found that the woodsman—or more properly the settler, as we shall again term him—making a virtue of necessity, had somewhat changed its interior. A number of fine logs, sufficient to last throughout the night had been heaped upon the hearth, and these, crackling and fizzing, and emitting sparks in all the burly of a hickory wood fire, gave promise of a night of comparative comfort. Ensconced in the farther corner of the chimney, the settler had already taken his seat, and, regardless of the entrance of the strangers, (with his elbows resting on his knees, and his face buried in his large palms,) kept his eyes fixed upon the fire, as if with a sullen determination neither to speak nor suffer himself to be questioned. But the Aide-de-camp was by no means disposed to humor him in his fancy. The idea of passing some eight or ten consecutive hours in company with two fellow beings, without calling into full play the bump of loquacity with which nature had largely endowed him, was, in his view, little better than the evil from which his perseverance had just enabled him to escape. Making himself perfectly at home, he unbuckled the wet blanket from his loins and spreading it, with that of Gerald, to dry upon the rude floor before the fire, drew forward a heavy uncouth-looking table, (which, with two or three equally unpolished chairs, formed the whole of the furniture,) and deposited thereon the wallet or haversack in which remained a portion of provision. He then secured the last vacant chair, and taking up a position on the right of the table which lay between himself and Gerald, let it fall upon the dry clay hearth, with a violence that caused the settler to quit his attitude of abstraction for one of anger and surprise.
"Sorry to disturb you, friend," he said, "but these chairs of yours are so cursed heavy, there's no handling them decently; 'specially with cold fingers."
"Beggars, I reckon, have no right to be choosers," returned the settler; "the chairs is quite good enough for me—and no one axed you to sit on 'em."
"I'll tell you what it is, old cock," continued the Aide-de-camp, edging his seat closer, and giving his host a smart friendly slap upon the thigh, "this dull life of yours don't much improve your temper. Why, as I am a true Tennessee man, bred and born, I never set eyes upon such a crab-apple in all my life—you'd turn a whole dairy of the sweetest milk that ever came from prairie-grass sour in less than no time. I take it you must be crossed in love, old boy—eh?"
"Crossed in hell," returned the settler, savagely; "I reckon as how it don't consarn you whether I look sour or sweet—what you want is a night's lodgin', and you've got it—so don't trouble me no more."
"Very sorry, but I shall," said Jackson, secretly congratulating himself that, now he had got the tongue of his host in motion, he had a fair chance of keeping it so. "I must trouble you for some bread, and whatever else your larder may afford. I'll pay you honestly for it, friend."
"I should guess," said the settler, his stern features brightening for the first time into a smile of irony, "as how a man who had served a campaign agin the Ingins and another agin the British, might contrive to do without sich a luxury as bread. You'll find no bread here, I reckon."
"What, not even a bit of corn bread? Try, my old cock, and rummage up a crust or two, for hung beef is devilish tight work for the teeth, without a little bread of some sort for a relish."
"If you'd ha' used your eyes, you'd ha' seen nothin' like a corn patch for twenty mile round about this. Bread never entered this hut since I have been here. I don't eat it."
"More's the pity," replied Jackson, with infinite drollery; "but though you may not like it yourself, your friends may."
"Ihaveno friends—Iwishto have no friends!" was the sullen reply.
"More's the pity still," pursued the Aide-de-camp. "But what do you live on, then, old cock, if you don't eat bread?"
"Human flesh. Take that as a relish to your hung beef."
Scarcely had the strange expression escaped the settler's lips, when Jackson, active as a deer, was at the farther end of the hut, one hand holding the heavy chair as a shield before him, the other placed upon the butt of one of his pistols. The former at the same moment quitted his seat, and stretching his tall and muscular form to its utmost height, burst into a laugh that sounded more like that of some wild beast than a human being. The involuntary terror produced in his guest was evidently a source of exultation to him, and he seemed gratified to think he had at length discovered the means of making himself looked upon with something like fear.
On entering the hut, Gerald had taken his seat at the opposite corner of the fire, yet in such a manner as to admit of his features being shaded by the projection of the chimney. The customs of the wilderness, moreover, rendering it neither offensive, nor even worthy of remark, that he should retain his hat, he had, as in the first instance, drawn it as much over his eyes as he conceived suited to his purpose of concealment, without exciting a suspicion of his design; and, as the alteration in his dress was calculated to deceive into a belief of his being an American, he had been enabled to observe the settler without much fear of recognition in return. A great change had taken place in the manner of Desborough. Ferocious he still was, but it was a ferocity wholly unmixed with the cunning of his former years, that he now exhibited. He had evidently suffered much, and there was a stamp of thought on the heavy countenance that Gerald had never remarked there before. There was also this anomaly in the man—that while ten years appeared to have been added to his age, his strength was increased in the same proportion—a change that made itself evident by the attitude in which he stood.
"Why now I take it you must be jesting," at length exclaimed the Aid-de-camp, doubtingly, dropping at the same time the chair upon the floor, yet keeping it before him as though not quite safe in the presence of this self-confessed anthropophagos; "you surely don't mean to say you kill and pickle every unfortunate traveller that comes by here. If so, I must apprehend you in the name of the United States Government."
"I rather calculate not, Mister," sneered the settler. "Besides, I don't eat the United States subjects; consequently they've no claim to interfere."
"Who the devil do you eat, then?" asked Jackson, gathering courage withhis curiosity, and advancing a pace or two nearer the fire, "or is it all a hum?"
The settler approached the fire, stooped a little, and applying his shoulder to the top of the opening, thrust his right hand and arm up the chimney.
"I reckon that's no hum," he said, producing and throwing upon the table a piece of dark, dry flesh, that resembled in appearance the upper part of a human arm. "If you're fond of a relisn," he pursued, with a fierce laugh, "you'll find that mighty well suited to the palate—quite as sweet as a bit of smok'd venison."
"Why, you don't really mean to say that's part of a man?" demanded Jackson, advancing cautiously to the table, and turning over the shrivelled mass with the point of his dagger. "Why, I declare, its just the color of my dried beef."
"But I do though—and what's more, of my own killin' and dryin'. Purty naturist you must be, not to see that's off an Ingin's arm!"
"Oh, an Ingin's only, is it?" returned the Aid-de-camp, whose apprehension began rapidly to subside, now that he had obtained the conviction that it was not the flesh of a white man. "Well, I'm sure! who'd have thought it? I take it, old cock, you've been in the wars as well as myself."
"A little or so, I reckon, and I expect to be in them agin shortly—as soon as my stock of food's out. I've only a thigh bone to pick after this, and then I'm off. But why don't you take your seat at the fire. There's nothin' so out of the way in the sight of a naked arm, is there? I reckon, if you're a soger, you must have seen many a one lopped off in the wars."
"Yes, friend," said Jackson, altering the position of the table and placing it between the settler and himself; "a good many lopped off, as you say, and in a devil of a stew, but not exactly eaten. However, be so good as to return this to the chimney, and when I've eaten something from my bag, I'll listen to what you have to say about it."
"Jist so, and go without my own supper, I suppose, to please you. But tarnation, while you're eatin' a bit of your hung beef, I'll try a snack of mine."
So saying, he deliberately took from the table the dried arm he had previously flung there, and, removing a large clasp knife from a pocket beneath his coarse hunting frock, proceeded to help himself to several thin slices, corresponding precisely in appearance with those which the Aid-de-camp divided in the same manner.
Jackson had managed to swallow three or four pieces of his favorite hung beef with all the avidity of an appetite rendered keen by the absence of every other stimulant than hunger; but no sooner did he perceive his host fastening with a degree of fury on his unnatural food, than, sick and full of loathing, his stomach rejected further aliment, and he was compelled to desist. During all this time, Grantham, who, although he had assumed the manner and attitude of a sleeping man, was a watchful observer of all that passed, neither moved nor uttered a syllable, except on one occasion to put away from him the food Jackson had offered.
"Sorry to see your ride has given you so poor an appetite," said the settler, with a look expressive of the savage delight he felt in annoying his visitor, "I reckon that's rather unsavory stuff you've got there, that you can't eat itwithout bread. I say, young man," addressing Grantham, "can't you find no appetite neither, that you sit there snorin', as if you never meant to wake agin."
Gerald's head sunk lower on his chest, and his affectation of slumber became more profound.
"Try a drop of this," said Jackson, offering his canteen, after having drank himself, and with a view to distract attention from his companion. "You seem to have no liquor in the house, and I take it you require something hot as h—ll, and strong as d—n——n, after that ogre-like repast of yours."
The settler seized the can, and raised it to his lips. It contained some of the fiery whiskey we have already described as the common beverage in most parts of America. This, all powerful as it was, he drained off as though it had been water, and with the greedy avidity of one who finds himself suddenly restored to the possession of a favorite and long absent drink.
"Hollo, my friend!" exclaimed the angry Aid-de-camp, who had watched the rapid disappearance of his "traveller's best companion," as he quaintly enough termed it, down the capacious gullet of the woodman—and snatching at the same moment the nearly emptied canteen from his hands. "I take it, that's not handsome. As I'm a true Tennessee man, bred and born, it aint at all hospitable to empty off a pint of raw liquor at a spell, and have not so much as a glass of metheglin to offer in return. What the h—ll do you suppose we're to do to-morrow for drink, during a curst long ride through the wood, and not a house of call till nightfall along the road?"
The ruffian drew a breath long and heavy in proportion to the draught he had swallowed, and when his lungs had again recovered their play, answered, blusteringly, in a voice that betokened incipient intoxication:
"Roar me up a saplin', Mister, but you're mighty stingy of the Wabash. I reckon as how I made you a free offer of my food, and it warn't no fault of mine if you didn't choose to take it. It would only have been relish for relish, after all—and that's what I call fair swap."
"Well, no matter," said Jackson, soothingly; "what's done can't be undone, therefore I take it its no use argufying—however, my old cock, when next you get the neck of a canteen of mine 'twixt your lips, I hope it may do the cockles of your heart good; that's all. But let's hear how you came by them pieces of nigger's flesh, and how it is you've taken it into your head to turn squatter here. You seem," glancing around, "to have no sleeping room to spare, and one may as well sit up and chat, as have one's bones bruised to squash on the hard boards."
"It's a sad tale," said the settler gruffly and with a darkening brow, "and brings bitter thoughts with it; but as the liquor has cheered me up a bit, I don't much mind if I do tell you how I skivered the varmint. Indeed," he pursued savagely, "that always gives me a pleasure to think of, for I owed them a desperate grudge—the bloody red skins and imps of hell. I was on my way to Detroit, to see the spot once more where my poor boy Phil lay rootin', and one dark night (for I only ventured to move at night), I came slick upon two Ingins as was lying fast asleep before their fire in a deep ravine. The one nearest to me had his face unkivered, and I knew the varmint for the tall dark Delaweer chief as made one of the party after poor Phil and me, a sight that made me thirst for the blood of the heathens as a child for mother's milk.Well, how do you think I managed them. I calculate you'd never guess. Why, I stole, as quiet as a fox until I got jist atween them, and then holdin' a cocked pistol to each breast, I called out in a thunderin' voice that made the woods ring agin, Kit-chimocomon, which you know, as you've been in the wars, signifies long knife or Yankee. You'd a laugh'd fit to split your sides I guess, to see the stupid stare of the devils, as startin' out of their sleep, they saw a pistol within three inches of each of 'em. 'Ugh,' says they, as if they did'nt know well whether to take it as a joke or not. 'Yes, 'ugh' and be damn'd to you,' say's I: you may go and 'ugh' in hell next—and with that snap went the triggers, and into their curst carcasses went the balls. The one I killed outright but t'other, the Delaweer chief, was by a sudden shift only slightly wounded, and he sprung on his feet and out with his knife. But I had a knife too, and all a disappointed father's rage to boot, so at it we went closin' and strikin' with our knives like two fierce fiends of the forest. It was noble sport surely. At last the Delaweer fell over the bleedin' body of his warrior and I top of him. As he fell the knife dropped from his hand and he could'nt reach it no how, while I still gripped mine fast. 'Ugh,' he muttered again, as if askin' to know what I meant to do next. 'Ugh,' and be damned to you once more, say's I—and the pint of my long knife was soon buried in his black heart. Then, when I see them both dead I eat my own meal at their fire, for I was tarnation hungry, and while I was eatin' a thought came across me that it would be good fun to make smoked meat of the varmint, so when I tucked it in purty considerably, what with hominy and dried bear's meat, moistened with a little Wabash I found in the Delaweer chief's canteen, I set to and regularly quartered them. The trunks I left behind, but the limbs I packed up in the blankets that had been used to kiver them, I reckon; and with them slung across my shoulders, like a saddle bag across a horse, I made tracks through the swamps and the prairies for this here hut, which I know'd no livin' soul had been nigh for many a long year. And now," he concluded with a low drunken laugh, "you've the history of the dried meat. There isn't much left but when all is gone I'm off to the wars, for I can't find no peace I reckon without my poor boy Phil." He paused a moment, and then as if suddenly influenced by some painful recollection, he struck his hand with startling violence upon the table, and, while every feature of his iron countenance seemed worked up to a pitch of intensity, added with fearful calmness, "May God's curse light upon me if I don't have my revenge of them Granthams yet:—yes," he continued with increased excitement of voice and manner, while he kicked one of the blazing hickory logs in the chimney with all the savageness of drunken rage, causing a multitude of sparks to spit forth as from the anvil of a smith.—"jist so would I kick them both to hell for having murdered my poor boy."
"Why, surely, Liftenant Grantham, he can't meant you?" abruptly questioned the Aid-de-camp, drawing back his chair and resting the palms of his hands upon his knees, while he fixed his eye keenly and inquiringly upon Gerald.
But Gerald had no time to answer him—Scarcely had the name escaped the lips of the incautious Jackson, when a yell of exultation from the woodman drew him quickly to his feet, and in the next moment he felt one hand of his enemy grappling at his throat, while the fingers of the other were rapidly insinuating themselves into the hair that shadowed one of his temples, withthe evident intention to "gouge" him. Weak and emaciated as he was, Gerald was soon made sensible of the disproportion of physical strength thus suddenly brought into the struggle, and as the savage laugh of the man, as his fingers wound themselves closer and closer within the clustering hair, proclaimed his advantage, he felt that his only chance of saving the threatened eye was by having recourse to some sudden and desperate attempt to free himself from the gripe of his opponent. Summoning all his strength into one vigorous effort, he rushed forward upon his enemy with such force, raising himself at the same time in a manner to throw the whole weight of his person upon him, that the latter reeled backwards several paces without the power of resistance, and falling over the table towards which he had been intentionally propelled, sank with a heavy crash to the floor, still however retaining his firm hold of his enemy, and dragging him after him.
Half throttled, maddened with pain, and even more bitterly stung by a sense of the humiliating position in which he found himself, the feelings of Gerald became uncontrollable, until his anxiety to inflict a mortal injury upon his enemy became in the end as intense as that of the settler. In their fall the table had been overturned, and with it the knife which Desborough had used with his horrid repast. As the light from the blazing fire fell upon the blade, it had once caught the unassailed eye of the officer, and was the next moment clutched in his grasp. He raised it with a determination, inspired by the agony he endured, at once to liberate himself and to avenge his father's murder, but the idea that there was something assassin-like in the act as suddenly arrested him, and ere he had time to obey a fresh impulse of his agony, the knife was forcibly stricken from his hand. A laugh of triumph burst from the lips of the half intoxicated Desborough, but it was scarcely uttered before it was succeeded by a yell of pain, and the hand that had contrived to entwine itself, with resistless force and terrible intent, in the waving hair of the youth, fell suddenly from its grasp, enabling its victim at length to free himself altogether and start once more to his feet.
Little more than a minute had been passed in the enactment of this strange scene. The collision, the overthrow, the upraising of the knife had followed each other in such rapid succession that, until the last desperate intention of Gerald was formed, the Aid-de-camp had not had time to interpose himself in any way between the enraged combatants. His first action had been to strike away the murderous knife with the heavy butt of one of his pistols, the other to plant such a blow upon the "gouging" hand of the settler from the same butt, as effectually to compel him to relinquish his ferocious clutch. In both objects, as we have seen, he fully succeeded.
But although his right hand had been utterly disabled by the blow from Jackson's pistol, the fury of Desborough, fed as it was by the fumes of the liquor he had swallowed, was too great to render him heedful of aught but the gratification of his vengeance. Rolling rapidly over to the point where the knife had fallen he secured it in his left hand, and then, leaping nimbly to his feet, gathered himself into a spring upon his unarmed but watchful enemy. But before the bound could be taken, the active Aid-de-camp, covering Gerald with his body and presenting a cocked pistol, had again thwarted him in his intention.
"I say now, old cock, you'd much better be quiet I guess, for them sort of tantrums won't suit me. If this here Liftenant killed your son why he'llanswer for it later, but I can't let you murder my prisoner in that flumgustious manner. I'm responsible for him to the United States Government, therefore just drop that knife clean and slick upon the floor, and let's have no more of this nonsense for the night."
But even the cocked pistol had not power to restrain the fierce—almost brutal—rage of the woodman, whose growing intoxication added fuel to the fire which the presence of his enemy had kindled in his heart. Heedless of the determined air and threatening posture of the Aid-de-camp, he made a bound forward, uttering a sound that resembled the roar of a wild beast rather than the cry of a human being, and struck over Jackson's shoulder at the chest of the officer. Gerald, whose watchful eye marked the danger, had however time to step back and avoid the blow. In the next moment the Aid-de-camp, overborne by the violence of the collision, fell heavily backwards upon the rude floor, and in the fall the pistol went off lodging the ball in the sinewy calf of Desborough's leg. Stung with acute animal pain, the whole rage of the latter was now diverted from Gerald to the aid-de-camp, on whom, assuming the wound to have been intentional, he threw himself with the fury of a tiger, grappling as he closed with him at his throat. But the sailor, in his turn, now came to the rescue of his companion, and the scene for some time, as the whole party struggled together upon the floor in the broad, red glare of the wood fire, was one of fearful and desperate character. At length, after an immense effort, and amid the most horrid imprecations of vengeance upon them, the officers succeeded in disarming and tying the hands of the settler behind his back, after which, dragging him to a distant corner of the hut, they secured him firmly to one of the open and mis-shapen logs which composed its frame. This done, Jackson divided the little that had been left of his "Wabash" with his charge, and then stretching himself at his length, with his feet to the fire and his saddle for a pillow, soon fell profoundly asleep.
Too much agitated by the scene which had just passed, Gerald, although following the example of his companion in stretching himself before the cheerful fire, was in no condition to enjoy repose. Indeed, whatever his inclination, the attempt would have been vain, for so dreadful were the denunciations of Desborough throughout the night, that sleep had no room to enter even into his thoughts. Deep and appalling were the curses and threats of vengeance which the enraged settler uttered upon all who bore the name of Grantham; and with these were mingled lamentations for his son, scarcely less revolting in their import than the curses themselves. Nor was the turbulence of the enraged man confined to mere excitement of language. His large and muscular form struggled in every direction to free himself from the cords that secured him to the logs, and finding these too firmly bound to admit of the accomplishment of his end, he kicked his brawny feet against the floor with all the fury and impatience of a spirit, quickened into a livelier sense of restraint by the stimulus of intoxication. At length, exhausted by the efforts he had made, his struggles and his imprecations became gradually less frequent and less vigorous, until finally towards dawn they ceased altogether, and his deep and heavy breathing announced that he slept.