Word had come down the Rappahannock. Ringan said he had heard it inAccomac, and had sailed to Sabine to make sure. Men had ridden out fromStafford county, and found no more than a child's toy and some bloodygarments.
"Who did it?" I asked, with fury rising in my heart.
"It's Cherokee work. There's nothing strange in it, except that such a deed should have been dared. But it means the beginning of our business. D'you think the Stafford folk will sleep in their beds after that? And that's precisely what perplexes me. The Governor will be bound to send an expedition against the murderers, and they'll not be easy found. But while the militia are routing about on the Rapidan, what hinders the big invasion to come down the James or the Chickahominy or the Pamunkey or the Mattaponey and find a defenceless Tidewater? As I see it, there's deep guile in this business. A Cherokee murder is nothing out of the way, but these blackguards were not killing for mere pleasure. As I've said before, I would give my right hand to have better information. It's this land business that fickles one. If it were a matter of islands and ocean bays, I would have long ago riddled out the heart of it."
"We're on the way to get news," I said, and I told him of my wager that evening.
"Man, Andrew!" he cried, "it's providential. There's nothing to hinder you and me and a few others to ride clear into the hills, with the Tidewater thinking it no more than a play of daft young men. You must see Nicholson, and get him to hold his hand till we send him word. In two days Lawrence will be here, and we can post our lads on each of the rivers, for it's likely any Indian raid will take one of the valleys. You must see that Governor of yours first thing in the morning, and get him to promise to wait on your news. Then he can get out his militia, and stir up the Tidewater. Will he do it, think you?"
I said I thought he would.
"And there's one other thing. Would he agree to turning a blind eye to Lawrence, if he comes back? He'll not trouble them in James Town, but he's the only man alive to direct our own lads."
I said I would try, but I was far from certain. It was hard to forecast the mind of Governor Francis.
"Well, Lawrence will come whether or no. You can sound the man, and if he's dour let the matter be. Lawrence is now on the Roanoke, and his plan is to send out the word to-morrow and gather in the posts. He'll come to Frew's place on the South Fork River, which is about the middle of the frontier line. To-day is Monday, to-morrow the word will go out, by Friday the men will be ready, and Lawrence will be in Virginia. The sooner you're off the better, Andrew. What do you say to Wednesday?"
"That day will suit me fine," I said; "but what about my company?"
"The fewer the better. Who were you thinking of?"
"You for one," I said, "and Shalah for a second."
He nodded.
"I want two men from the Rappahannock—a hunter of the name ofDonaldson and the Frenchman Bertrand."
"That makes five. Would you like to even the number?"
"Yes," I said. "There's a gentleman of the Tidewater, Mr. Charles Grey, that I've bidden to the venture."
Ringan whistled. "Are you sure that's wise? There'll be little use for braw clothes and fine manners in the hills."
"All the same there'll be a use for Mr. Grey. When will you join us?"
"I've a bit of business to do hereaways, but I'll catch you up. Look for me at Aird's store on Thursday morning."
I was at the Governor's house next day before he had breakfasted. He greeted me laughingly.
"Has the champion come to cry forfeit?" he asked. "It is a long, sore road to the hills, Mr. Garvald."
"I've come to make confession," I said, and I plunged into my story of the work of the last months.
He heard me with lowering brows, "Who the devil made you Governor of this dominion, sir? You have been levying troops without His Majesty's permission. Your offence is no less than high treason. I've a pretty mind to send you to the guard-house."
"I implore you to hear me patiently," I cried. Then I told him what I had learned in the Carolinas and at the outland farms. "You yourself told me it was hopeless to look for a guinea from the Council. I was but carrying out your desires. Can you blame me if I've toiled for the public weal and neglected my own fortunes?"
He was scarcely appeased. "You're a damnable kind of busybody, sir, the breed of fellow that plunges states into revolutions. Why, in Heaven's name, did you not consult me?"
"Because it was wiser not to," I said stoutly. "Half my recruits are old soldiers of Bacon. If the trouble blows past, they go back to their steadings and nothing more is heard of it. If trouble comes, who are such natural defenders of the dominion as the frontier dwellers? All I have done is to give them the sinews of war. But if Governor Nicholson had taken up the business, and it were known that he had leaned on old rebels, what would the Council say? What would have been the view of my lord Howard and the wiseacres in London?"
He said nothing, but knit his brows. My words were too much in tune with his declared opinions for him to gainsay them.
"It comes to this, then," he said at length. "You have raised a body of men who are waiting marching orders. What next, Mr. Garvald?"
"The next thing is to march. After what befell on the Rapidan, we cannot sit still."
He started. "I have heard nothing of it."
Then I told him the horrid tale. He got to his feet and strode up and down the room, with his dark face working.
"God's mercy, what a calamity! I knew the folk. They came here with letters from his Grace of Shrewsbury. Are you certain your news is true?"
"Alas! there is no doubt. Stafford county is in a ferment, and the next post from the York will bring you word."
"Then, by God, it is for me to move. No Council or Assembly will dare gainsay me. I can order a levy by virtue of His Majesty's commission."
"I have come to pray you to hold your hand till I send you better intelligence," I said.
His brows knit again. "But this is too much. Am I to refrain from doing my duty till I get your gracious consent, sir?"
"Nay, nay," I cried. "Do not misunderstand me. This thing is far graver than you think, sir. If you send your levies to the Rapidan, you leave the Tidewater defenceless, and while you are hunting a Cherokee party in the north, the enemy will be hammering at your gates."
"What enemy?" he asked.
"I do not know, and that is what I go to find out." Then I told him all I had gathered about the unknown force in the hills, and the apparent strategy of a campaign which was beyond an Indian's wits. "There is a white man at the back of it," I said, "a white man who talks in Bible words and is mad for devastation."
His face had grown very solemn. He went to a bureau, unlocked it, and took from a drawer a bit of paper, which he tossed to me.
"I had that a week past to-morrow. My servant got it from an Indian in the woods."
It was a dirty scrap, folded like a letter, and bearing the superscription, "To the man Francis Nicholson, presently Governor in Virginia." I opened it and read:—
"Thou comest to me with a sword and with a spear and with a shield: but I come to thee in the name of the Lord of Hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom thou hast defied."
"There," I cried, "there is proof of my fears. What kind of Indian sends a message like that? Trust me, sir, there is a far more hellish mischief brewing than any man wots of."
"It looks not unlike it," he said grimly. "Now let's hear what you propose."
"I can have my men at their posts by the week end. We will string them out along the frontier, and hold especially the river valleys. If invasion comes, then at any rate the Tidewater will get early news of it. Meantime I and my friends, looking for Studd's powder-horn, with a mind to confirm your birthday gift to Miss Elspeth Blair, will push on to the hills and learn what is to be learned there."
"You will never come back," he said tartly. "An Indian stake and a bloody head will be the end of all of you."
"Maybe," I said, "though I have men with me that can play the Indian game. But if in ten days' time from now you get no word, then you can fear the worst, and set your militia going. I have a service of posts which will carry news to you as quick as a carrier pigeon. Whatever we learn you shall hear of without delay, and you can make your dispositions accordingly. If the devils find us first, then get in touch with my men at Frew's homestead on the South Fork River, for that will be the headquarters of the frontier army."
"Who will be in command there when you are gallivanting in the hills?" he asked.
"One whose name had better not be spoken. He lies under sentence of death by Virginian law; but, believe me, he is an honest soul and a good patriot, and he is the one man born to lead these outland troops."
He smiled, "His Christian name is Richard, maybe? I think I know your outlaw. But let it pass. I ask no names. In these bad times we cannot afford to despise any man's aid."
He pulled out a chart of Virginia, and I marked for him our posts, and indicated the line of my own journey.
"Have you ever been in the wars, Mr. Garvald?" he asked.
I told him no.
"Well, you have a very pretty natural gift for the military art. Your men will screen the frontier line, and behind that screen I will get our militia force in order, while meantime you are reconnoitring the enemy. It's a very fair piece of strategy. But I am mortally certain you yourself will never come back."
The odd thing was that at that moment I did not fear for myself. I had lived so long with my scheme that I had come to look upon it almost like a trading venture, in which one calculates risks and gains on paper, and thinks no more of it. I had none of the black fright which I had suffered before my meeting with Grey. Happily, though a young man's thoughts may be long, his fancy takes short views. I was far more concerned with what might happen in my absence in the Tidewater than with our fate in the hills.
"It is a gamble," I said, "but the stakes are noble, and I have a private pride in its success."
"Also the goad of certain bright eyes," he said, smiling. "Little I thought, when I made that offer last night, I was setting so desperate a business in train. There was a good Providence in that. For now we can give out that you are gone on a madcap ploy, and there will be no sleepless nights in the Tidewater. I must keep their souls easy, for once they are scared there will be such a spate of letters to New York as will weaken the courage of our Northern brethren. For the militia I will give the excuse of the French menace. The good folk will laugh at me for it, but they will not take fright. God's truth, but it is a devilish tangle. I could wish I had your part, sir, and be free to ride out on a gallant venture. Here I have none of the zest of war, but only a thousand cares and the carking task of soothing fools."
We spoke of many things, and I gave him a full account of the composition and strength of our levies. When I left he paid me a compliment, which, coming from so sardonic a soul, gave me peculiar comfort.
"I have seen something of men and cities, sir," he said, "and I know well the foibles and the strength of my countrymen; but I have never met your equal for cold persistence. You are a trader, and have turned war into a trading venture. I do believe that when you are at your last gasp you will be found calmly casting up your accounts with life. And I think you will find a balance on the right side. God speed you, Mr. Garvald. I love your sober folly."
* * * * *
I had scarcely left him when I met a servant of the Blairs, who handed me a letter. 'Twas from Elspeth—the first she had ever written me. I tore it open, and found a very disquieting epistle. Clearly she had written it in a white heat of feeling. "You spoke finely of reverence," she wrote, "and how you had never named my name to a mortal soul. But to-night you have put me to open shame. You have offered yourself for a service which I did not seek. What care I for his Excellency's gifts? Shall it be said that I was the means of sending a man into deadly danger to secure me a foolish estate? You have offended me grossly, and I pray you spare me further offence, I command you to give up this journey. I will not have my name bandied about in this land as a wanton who sets silly youth by the ears to gratify her pride. If you desire to retain a shred of my friendship, go to his Excellency and tell him that by my orders you withdraw from the wager."
This letter did not cloud my spirits as it should. For one thing, she signed it "Elspeth," and for another, I had the conceited notion that what moved her most was the thought that I was running into danger. I longed to have speech with her, but I found from the servant that Doctor Blair had left that morning on a journey of pastoral visitation, and had taken her with him. The man did not know their destination, but believed it to be somewhere in the north. The thought vaguely disquieted me. In these perilous times I wished to think of her as safe in the coastlands, where a ship would give a sure refuge.
I met Grey that afternoon at the Half-way Tavern. In the last week he seemed to have aged and grown graver. There was now no hint of the light arrogance of old. He regarded me curiously, but without hostility.
"We have been enemies," I said, "and now, though there may be no friendship, at any rate there is a truce to strife. Last night I begged of you to come with me on this matter of the Governor's wager, but 'twas not the wager I thought of."
Then I told him the whole tale. "The stake is the safety of this land, of which you are a notable citizen. I ask you, because I know you are a brave man. Will you leave your comfort and your games for a season, and play for higher stakes at a more desperate hazard?"
I told him everything, even down to my talk with the Governor. I did not lessen the risks and hardships, and I gave him to know that his companions would be rough folk, whom he may well have despised. He heard me out with his eyes fixed on the ground. Then suddenly he raised a shining face.
"You are a generous enemy, Mr. Garvald. I behaved to you like a peevish child, and you retaliate by offering me the bravest venture that man ever conceived. I am with you with all my heart. By God, sir, I am sick of my cushioned life. This is what I have been longing for in my soul since I was born…."
That night I spent making ready. I took no servant, and in my saddle-bags was stored the little I needed. Of powder and shot I had plenty, and my two pistols and my hunting musket. I gave Faulkner instructions, and wrote a letter to my uncle to be sent if I did not return. Next morning at daybreak we took the road.
'Twas the same high summer weather through which I had ridden a fortnight ago with a dull heart on my way to the duel. Now Grey rode by my side, and my spirits were as light as a bird's. I had forgotten the grim part of the enterprise, the fate that might await me, the horrors we should certainly witness. I thought only of the joys of movement into new lands with tried companions. These last months I had borne a pretty heavy weight of cares. Now that was past. My dispositions completed, the thing was in the hands of God, and I was free to go my own road. Mocking-birds and thrushes cried in the thickets, squirrels flirted across the path, and now and then a shy deer fled before us. There come moments to every man when he is thankful to be alive, and every breath drawn is a delight; so at that hour I praised my Maker for His good earth, and for sparing me to rejoice in it.
Grey had met me with a certain shyness; but as the sun rose and the land grew bright he, too, lost his constraint, and fell into the same happy mood. Soon we were smiling at each other in the frankest comradeship, we two who but the other day had carried ourselves like game-cocks. He had forgotten his fine manners and his mincing London voice, and we spoke of the outland country of which he knew nothing, and of the hunting of game of which he knew much, exchanging our different knowledges, and willing to learn from each other. Long ere we had reached York Ferry I had found that there was much in common between the Scots trader and the Virginian cavalier, and the chief thing we shared was youth.
Mine, to be sure, was more in the heart, while Grey wore his open and fearless. He plucked the summer flowers and set them in his hat. He was full of catches and glees, so that he waked the echoes in the forest glades. Soon I, too, fell to singing in my tuneless voice, and I answered his "My lodging is on the cold ground" with some Scots ballad or a song of Davie Lindsay. I remember how sweetly he sang Colonel Lovelace's ode to Lucasta, writ when going to the wars:—
"True, a new mistress now I chase,The first foe in the field;And with a stronger faith embraceA sword, a horse, a shield."
"Yet this inconstancy is suchAs thou too shalt adore:I could not love thee, dear, so much,Loved I not Honour more."
I wondered if that were my case—if I rode out for honour, and not for the pure pleasure of the riding. And I marvelled more to see the two of us, both lovers of one lady and eager rivals, burying for the nonce our feuds, and with the same hope serving the same cause.
We slept the night at Aird's store, and early the next morning found Ringan. A new Ringan indeed, as unlike the buccaneer I knew as he was unlike the Quaker. He was now the gentleman of Breadalbane, dressed for the part with all the care of an exquisite. He rode a noble roan, in his Spanish belt were stuck silver-hafted pistols, and a long sword swung at his side. When I presented Grey to him, he became at once the cavalier, as precise in his speech and polite in his deportment as any Whitehall courtier. They talked high and disposedly of genteel matters, and you would have thought that that red-haired pirate had lived his life among proud lords and high-heeled ladies. That is ever the way of the Highlander. He alters like a clear pool to every mood of the sky, so that the shallow observer might forget how deep the waters are.
Presently, when we had ridden into the chestnut forests of the Mattaponey, he began to forget his part. Grey, it appeared, was a student of campaigns, and he and Ringan were deep in a discussion of Conde's battles, in which both showed surprising knowledge. But the glory of the weather and of the woodlands, new as they were to a seafarer, set his thoughts wandering, and he fell to tales of his past which consorted ill with his former decorum. There was a madcap zest in his speech, something so merry and wild, that Grey, who had fallen back into his Tidewater manners, became once more the careless boy. We stopped to eat in a glade by a slow stream, and from his saddle-bags Ringan brought out strange delicacies. There were sugared fruits from the Main, and orange sirop from Jamaica, and a kind of sweet punch made by the Hispaniola Indians. As we ate and drank he would gossip about the ways of the world; and though he never mentioned his own doings, there was such an air of mastery about him as made him seem the centre figure of his tales, I could see that Grey was mightily captivated, and all afternoon he plied him with questions, and laughed joyously at his answers. As we camped that night, while Grey was minding his horse Ringan spoke of him to me.
"I like the lad, Andrew. He has the makings of a very proper gentleman, and he has the sense to be young. What I complain of in you is that you're desperate old. I wonder whiles if you ever were a laddie. For me, though I'm ten years the elder of the pair of you, I've no more years than your friend, and I'm a century younger than you. That's the Highland way. There's that in our blood that keeps our eyes young though we may be bent double. With us the heart is aye leaping till Death grips us. To my mind it's a lovable character that I fain would cherish. If I couldn't sing on a spring morning or say a hearty grace over a good dinner I'd be content to be put away in a graveyard."
And that, I think, is the truth. But at the time I was feeling pretty youthful, too, though my dour face and hard voice were a bad clue to my sentiments.
Next day on the Rappahannock we found Shalah, who had gone on to warn the two men I proposed to enlist. One of them, Donaldson, was a big, slow-spoken, middle-aged farmer, the same who had been with Bacon in the fight at Occaneechee Island. He just cried to his wife to expect him back when she saw him, slung on his back an old musket, cast a long leg over his little horse, and was ready to follow. The other, the Frenchman Bertrand, was a quiet, slim gentleman, who was some kin to the murdered D'Aubignys. I had long had my eye on him, for he was very wise in woodcraft, and had learned campaigning under old Turenne. He kissed his two children again and again, and his wife clung to his arms. There were tears in the honest fellow's eyes as he left, and I thought all the more of him, for he is the bravest man who has most to risk. I mind that Ringan consoled the lady in the French tongue, which I did not comprehend, and would not be hindered from getting out his saddle-bags and comforting the children with candied plums. He had near as grave a face as Bertrand when we rode off, and was always looking back to the homestead. He spoke long to the Frenchman in his own speech, and the sad face of the latter began to lighten.
I asked him what he said.
"Just that he was the happy man to have kind hearts to weep for him. A fine thing for a landless, childless fellow like me to say! But it's gospel truth, Andrew. I told him that his bairns would be great folks some day, and that their proudest boast would be that their father had ridden on this errand. Oh, and all the rest of the easy consolations. If it had been me, I would not have been muckle cheered. It's well I never married, for I would not have had the courage to leave my fireside."
We were now getting into a new and far lovelier country. The heavy forests and swamps which line the James and the York had gone, and instead we had rolling spaces of green meadowland, and little hills which stood out like sentinels of the great blue chain of mountains that hung in the west. Instead of the rich summer scents of the Tidewater, we had the clean, sharp smell of uplands, and cool winds relieved the noontide heat. By and by we struck the Rapidan, a water more like our Scots rivers, flowing in pools and currents, very different from the stagnant reaches of the Pamunkey. We were joined for a little bit by two men from Stafford county, who showed us the paths that horses could travel.
It was late in the afternoon that we reached a broad meadow hemmed in by noble cedars. I knew without telling that we were come to the scene of the tragedy, and with one accord we fell silent. The place had been well looked after, for a road had been made through the woods, and had been carried over marshy places on a platform of cedar piles. Presently we came to a log fence with a gate, which hung idly open. Within was a paddock, and beyond another fence, and beyond that a great pile of blackened timber. The place was so smiling and homelike under the westering sun that one looked to see a trim steading with the smoke of hearth fires ascending, and to hear the cheerful sounds of labour and of children's voices. Instead there was this grim, charred heap, with the light winds swirling the ashes.
Every man of us uncovered his head as he rode towards the melancholy place. I noticed a little rosary, which had been carefully tended, but horses had ridden through it, and the blossoms were trailing crushed on the ground. There was a flower garden too, much trampled, and in one corner a little stream of water had been led into a pool fringed with forget-me-nots. A tiny water-wheel was turning in the fall, a children's toy, and the wheel still turned, though its owners had gone. The sight of that simple thing fairly brought my heart to my mouth.
That inspection was a gruesome business. One of the doorposts of the house still stood, and it was splashed with blood. On the edge of the ashes were some charred human bones. No one could tell whose they were, perhaps a negro's, perhaps the little mistress of the water-wheel. I looked at Ringan, and he was smiling, but his eyes were terrible. The Frenchman Bertrand was sobbing like a child.
We took the bones, and made a shallow grave for them in the rosary. We had no spades, but a stake did well enough to dig a resting-place for those few poor remains. I said over them the Twenty-third Psalm: "Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for Thou art with me; Thy rod and Thy staff shall comfort me."
Then suddenly our mood changed. Nothing that we could do could help the poor souls whose bones lay among the ashes. But we could bring their murderers to book, and save others from a like fate.
We moved away from the shattered place to the ford in the river where the road ran north. There we looked back. A kind of fury seized me as I saw that cruel defacement. In a few hours we ourselves should be beyond the pale, among those human wolves who were so much more relentless than any beasts of the field. As I looked round our little company, I noted how deep the thing had bitten into our souls. Ringan's eyes still danced with that unholy blue light. Grey was very pale, and his jaw was set grimly. Bertrand had ceased from sobbing, and his face had the far-away wildness of the fanatic, such a look as his forbears may have worn at the news of St. Bartholomew. The big man Donaldson looked puzzled and sombre. Only Shalah stood impassive and aloof, with no trace of feeling on the bronze of his countenance.
"This is the place for an oath," I said. "We are six men against an army, but we fight for a holy cause. Let us swear to wipe out this deed of blood in the blood of its perpetrators. God has made us the executors of His judgments against horrid cruelty."
We swore, holding our hands high, that, when our duty to the dominion was done, we should hunt down the Cherokees who had done this deed till no one of them was left breathing. At that moment of tense nerves, no other purpose would have contented us.
"How will we find them?" quoth Ringan. "To sift a score of murderers out of a murderous nation will be like searching the ocean for a wave."
Then Shalah spoke.
"The trail is ten suns old, but I can follow it. The men were of the Meebaw tribe by this token." And he held up a goshawk's feather. "The bird that dropped that lives beyond the peaks of Shubash. The Meebaw are quick hunters and gross eaters, and travel slow. We will find them by the Tewawha."
"All in good time," I said. "Retribution must wait till we have finished our task. Can you find the Meebaw men again?"
"Yea," said Shalah, "though they took wings and flew over the seas I should find them."
Then we hastened away from that glade, none speaking to the other. We camped an hour's ride up the river, in a place secure against surprises in a crook of the stream with a great rock at our back. We were outside the pale now, and must needs adopt the precautions of a campaign; so we split the night into watches, I did my two hours sentry duty at that dead moment of the dark just before the little breeze which is the precursor of dawn, and I reflected very soberly on the slender chances of our returning from this strange wild world and its cruel mysteries.
Next morning we passed through the foothills into an open meadow country. As I lifted up my eyes I saw for the first time the mountains near at hand. There they lay, not more than ten miles distant, woody almost to the summit, but with here and there a bold finger of rock pointing skywards. They looked infinitely high and rugged, far higher than any hills I had ever seen before, for my own Tinto or Cairntable would to these have been no more than a footstool. I made out a clear breach in the range, which I took to be old Studd's Clearwater Gap. The whole sight intoxicated me. I might dream of horrors in the low coast forests among their swampy creeks, but in that clear high world of the hills I believed lay safety. I could have gazed at them for hours, but Shalah would permit of no delay. He hurried us across the open meadows, and would not relax his pace till we were on a low wooded ridge with the young waters of the Rapidan running in a shallow vale beneath.
Here we halted in a thick clump of cedars, while he and Ringan went forward to spy out the land. In that green darkness, save by folk travelling along the ridge, we could not be detected, and I knew enough of Indian ways to believe that any large party would keep the stream sides. We lit a fire without fear, for the smoke was hid in the cedar branches, and some of us roasted corn-cakes. Our food in the saddle-bags would not last long, and I foresaw a ticklish business when it came to hunting for the pot. A gunshot in these narrow glens would reverberate like a cannon.
We dozed peacefully in the green shade, and smoked our pipes, waiting for the return of our envoys. They came towards sundown, slipping among us like ghosts.
Ringan signalled to me, and we put our coats over the horses' heads to prevent their whinnying. He stamped out the last few ashes of the fire, and Shalah motioned us all flat on our faces. Then I crawled to the edge of the ridge, and looked down through a tangle of vines on the little valley.
Our precautions had been none too soon, for a host was passing below, as stealthily as if it had been an army of the sheeted dead. Most were mounted, and it was marvellous to see the way in which they managed their horses, so that the beasts seemed part of the riders, and partook of their vigilance. Some were on foot, and moved with the long, loping, in-toed Indian stride. I guessed their number at three hundred, but what awed me was their array. This was no ordinary raid, but an invading army. My sight, as I think I have said, is as keen as a hawk's, and I could see that most of them carried muskets as well as knives and tomahawks. The war-paint glistened on each breast and forehead, and in the oiled hair stood the crested feathers, dyed scarlet for battle. My spirits sank as I reflected that now we were cut off from the Tidewater.
When the last man had gone we crawled back to the clump, now gloomy with the dusk of evening. I saw that Ringan was very weary, but Shalah, after stretching his long limbs, seemed fresh as ever.
"Will you come with me, brother?" he said. "We must warn theRappahannock."
"Who are they?" I asked.
"Cherokees. More follow them. The assault is dearly by the line of theRappahannock. If we hasten we may yet be in time."
I knew what Shalah's hastening meant. I suppose I was the one of us best fitted for a hot-foot march, and that that was the reason why the Indian chose me. All the same my heart misgave me. He ate a little food, while I stripped off the garments I did not need, carrying only the one pistol. I bade the others travel slowly towards the mountains, scouting carefully ahead, and promised that we should join them before the next sundown. Then Shalah beckoned me, and I plunged after him into the forest.
On our first visit to Ringan at the land-locked Carolina harbour I had thought Shalah's pace killing, but that was but a saunter to what he now showed me. We seemed to be moving at right angles to the Indian march. Once out of the woods of the ridge, we crossed the meadows, mostly on our bellies, taking advantage of every howe and crinkle. I followed him as obediently as a child. When he ran so did I; when he crawled my forehead was next his heel. After the grass-lands came broken hillocks with little streams in the bottoms. Through these we twisted, moving with less care, and presently we had left the hills and were looking over a wide, shadowy plain.
The moon was three-quarters full, and was just beginning to climb the sky. Shalah sniffed the wind, which blew from the south-west, and set off at a sharp angle towards the north. We were now among the woods again, and the tangled undergrowth tried me sore. We had been going for about three hours, and, though I was hard and spare from much travel in the sun, my legs were not used to this furious foot marching. My feet grew leaden, and, to make matters worse, we dipped presently into a big swamp, where we mired to the knees and often to the middle. It would have been no light labour at any time to cross such a place, pulling oneself by the tangled shrubs on to the rare patches of solid ground. But now, when I was pretty weary, the toil was about the limit of my strength. When we emerged on hard land I was sobbing like a stricken deer. But Shalah had no mercy. He took me through the dark cedars at the same tireless pace, and in the gloom I could see him flitting ahead of me, his shoulders squared, and his limbs as supple as a race-horse's. I remember I said over in my head all the songs and verses I knew, to keep my mind from my condition. I had long ago got and lost my second wind and whatever other winds there be, and was moving less by bodily strength than by sheer doggedness of spirit. Weak tears were running down my cheeks, my breath rasped in my throat, but I was in the frame of mind that if death had found me next moment my legs would still have twitched in an effort to run.
At an open bit of the forest Shalah stopped and looked at the sky. I blundered into him, and then from sheer weakness rolled on the ground. He grunted and turned to me. I felt his cool hand passing over my brow and cheek, and his fingers kneading the muscles of my forlorn legs. 'Twas some Indian device, doubtless, but its power was miraculous. Under his hands my body seemed to be rested and revived. New strength stole into my sinews, new vigour into my blood. The thing took maybe five minutes—not more; but I scrambled to my feet a man again. Indeed I was a better man than when I started, for this Indian wizardry had given me an odd lightness of head and heart. When we took up the running, my body, instead of a leaden clog, seemed to be a thing of air and feathers.
It was now hard on midnight, and the moon was high in the heavens. We bore somewhat to the right, and I judged that our circuit was completed, and that the time had come to steal in front of the Indian route. The forest thinned, and we traversed a marshy piece, of country with many single great trees. Often Shalah would halt for a second, strain his ears, and sniff the light wind like a dog. He seemed to find guidance, but I got none, only the hoot of an owl or the rooty smell of the woodland.
At last we struck a little stream, and followed its course between high banks of pine. Suddenly Shalah's movements became stealthy. Crouching in every patch of shade, and crossing open spaces on our bellies, we turned from the stream, surmounted a knoll, and came down on a wooded valley. Shalah looked westwards, held up his hand, and stood poised for a minute like a graven image. Then he grunted and spoke. "We are safe," he said. "They are behind us, and are camped for the night," How he knew that I cannot tell; but I seemed to catch on the breeze a whiff of the rancid odour of Indian war-paint.
For another mile we continued our precautions, and then moved more freely in the open. Now that the chief peril was past, my fatigue came back to me worse than ever. I think I was growing leg-weary, as I had seen happen to horses, and from that ailment there is no relief. My head buzzed like a beehive, and when the moon set I had no power to pick my steps, and stumbled and sprawled in the darkness. I had to ask Shalah for help, though it was a sore hurt to my pride, and, leaning on his arm, I made the rest of the journey.
I found myself splashing in a strong river. We crossed by a ford, so we had no need to swim, which was well for me, for I must have drowned. The chill of the water revived me somewhat, and I had the strength to climb the other bank. And then suddenly before me I saw a light, and a challenge rang out into the night.
The voice was a white man's, and brought me to my bearings. Weak as I was, I had the fierce satisfaction that our errand had not been idle. I replied with the password, and a big fellow strode out from a stockade.
"Mr. Garvald!" he said, staring. "What brings you here? Where are the rest of you?" He looked at Shalah and then at me, and finally took my arm and drew me inside.
There were a score in the place—Rappahannock farmers, a lean, watchful breed, each man with his musket. One of them, I mind, wore a rusty cuirass of chain armour, which must have been one of those sent out by the King in the first days of the dominion. They gave me a drink of rum and water, and in a little I had got over my worst weariness and could speak.
"The Cherokees are on us," I said, and I told them of the army we had followed.
"How many?" they asked.
"Three hundred for a vanguard, but more follow."
One man laughed, as if well pleased. "I'm in the humour for Cherokees just now. There's a score of scalps hanging outside, if you could see them, Mr. Garvald."
"What scalps?" I asked, dumbfoundered.
"The Rapidan murderers. We got word of them in the woods yesterday, and six of us went hunting. It was pretty shooting. Two got away with some lead in them, the rest are in the Tewawha pools, all but their topknots. I've very little notion of Cherokees."
Somehow the news gave me intense joy. I thought nothing of the barbarity of it, or that white men should demean themselves to the Indian level. I remembered only the meadow by the Rapidan, and the little lonely water-wheel. Our vow was needless, for others had done our work.
"Would I had been with you!" was all I said. "But now you have more than a gang of Meebaw raiders to deal with. There's an invasion coming down from the hills, and this is the first wave of it, I want word sent to Governor Nicholson at James Town. I was to tell him where the trouble was to be feared, and in a week you'll have a regiment at your backs. Who has the best horse? Simpson? Well, let Simpson carry the word down the valley. If my plans are working well, the news should be at James Town by dawn to-morrow."
The man called Simpson got up, saddled his beast, and waited my bidding. "This is the word to send," said I. "Say that the Cherokees are attacking by the line of the Rappahannock. Say that I am going into the hills to find if my fears are justified. Never mind what that means. Just pass on the words. They will understand them at James Town. So much for the Governor. Now I want word sent to Frew's homestead on the South Fork. Who is to carry it?"
One old fellow, who chewed tobacco without intermission, spat out the leaf, and asked me what news I wanted to send.
"Just that we are attacked," I said.
"That's a simple job," he said cheerfully. "All down the Border posts we have a signal. Only yesterday we got word of it from the place you speak of. A mile from here is a hillock within hearing of the stockade at Robertson's Ford. One shot fired there will tell them what you want them to know. Robertson's will fire twice for Appleby's to hear, and Appleby's will send on the message to Dopple's. There are six posts between here and the South Fork, so when the folk at Frew's hear seven shots they will know that the war is on the Rappahannock."
I recognized old Lawrence's hand in this. It was just the kind of device that he would contrive. I hoped it would not miscarry, for I would have preferred a messenger; but after all the Border line was his concern.
Then I spoke aside to Shalah. In his view the Cherokees would not attack at dawn. They were more likely to wait till their supports overtook them, and then, to make a dash for the Rappahannock farms. Plunder was more in the line of these gentry than honest fighting. I spoke to the leader of the post, and he was for falling upon them in the narrows of the Rapidan. Their victory over the Meebaws had fired the blood of the Borderers, and made them contemptuous of the enemy. Still, in such a predicament, when we had to hold a frontier with a handful, the boldest course was likely to be the safest. I could only pray that Nicholson's levies would turn up in time to protect the valley.
"Time passes, brother," said Shalah. "We came by swiftness, but we return by guile. In three hours it will be dawn. Sleep till then, for there is much toil before thee."
I saw the wisdom of his words, and went promptly to bed in a corner of the stockade. As I was lying down a man spoke to me, one Rycroft, at whose cabin I had once sojourned for a day.
"What brings the parson hereaways in these times?" he asked.
"What parson?" I asked.
"The man they call Doctor Blair."
"Great God!" I cried, "what about him?"
"He was in Stafford county when I left, hunting for schoolmasters. Ay, and he had a girl with him."
I sat upright with a start. "Where is he now?" I asked.
"I saw him last at Middleton's Ford. I think he was going down the river. I warned him this was no place for parsons and women, but he just laughed at me. It's time he was back in the Tidewater."
So long as they were homeward-bound I did not care; but it gave me a queer fluttering of the heart to think that Elspeth but yesterday should have been near this perilous Border. I soon fell asleep, for I was mighty tired, but I dreamed evilly. I seemed to see Doctor Blair hunted by Cherokees, with his coat-tails flying and his wig blown away, and what vexed me was that I could not find Elspeth anywhere in the landscape.
At earliest light, with the dew heavy on the willows and the river line a coil of mist, Shalah woke me for the road. We breakfasted off fried bacon, some of which I saved for the journey, for the Indian was content with one meal a day. As we left the stockade I noted the row of Meebaw scalps hanging, grim and bloody, from the poles. The Borderers were up and stirring, for they looked to take the Indians in the river narrows before the morning was old.
No two Indian war parties ever take the same path, so it was Shalah's plan to work back to the route we had just travelled, by which the Cherokees had come yesterday. This sounds simple enough, but the danger lay in the second party. By striking to right or left we might walk into it, and then good-bye to our hopes of the hills. But the whole thing was easier to me than the cruel toil of yesterday. There was need of stealth and woodcraft, but not of yon killing speed.
For the first hour we went up a northern fork of the Rappahannock, then crossed the water at a ford, and struck into a thick pine forest. I was feeling wonderfully rested, and found no discomfort in Shalah's long strides. My mind was very busy on the defence of the Borders, and I kept wondering how long the Governor's militia would take to reach the Rappahannock, and whether Lawrence could reinforce the northern posts in time to prevent mischief in Stafford county. I cast back to my memory of the tales of Indian war, and could not believe but that the white man, if warned and armed, would roll back the Cherokees. 'Twas not them I feared, but that other force now screened behind the mountains, who had for their leader some white madman with a fire in his head and Bible words on his lips. Were we of Virginia destined to fight with such fanatics as had distracted Scotland—fanatics naming the name of God, but leading in our case the armies of hell?
It was about eleven in the forenoon, I think, that Shalah dropped his easy swing and grew circumspect. The sun was very hot, and the noon silence lay dead on the woodlands. Scarcely a leaf stirred, and the only sounds were the twittering grasshoppers and the drone of flies. But Shalah found food for thought. Again and again he became rigid, and then laid an ear to the ground. His nostrils dilated like a horse's, and his eyes were restless. We were now in a shallow vale, through which a little stream flowed among broad reed-beds. At one point he kneeled on the ground and searched diligently.
"See," he said, "a horse's prints not two hours old—a horse going west."
Presently I myself found a clue. I picked up from a clump of wild onions a thread of coloured wool. This was my own trade, where I knew more than Shalah. I tested the thing in my mouth and between my fingers.
"This is London stuff," I said. "The man who had this on his person bought his clothes from the Bristol merchants, and paid sweetly for them. He was no Rappahannock farmer."
Shalah trailed like a bloodhound, following the hoof-marks out of the valley meadow to a ridge of sparse cedars where they showed clear on the bare earth, and then to a thicker covert where they were hidden among strong grasses. Suddenly he caught my shoulder, and pulled me to the ground. We crawled through a briery place to where a gap opened to the vale on our left.
A party of Indians were passing. They were young men with the fantastic markings of young braves. All were mounted on the little Indian horses. They moved at leisure, scanning the distance with hands shading eyes.
We wormed our way back to the darkness of the covert. "The advance guard of the second party," Shalah whispered. "With good fortune, we shall soon see the rest pass, and then have a clear road for the hills."
"I saw no fresh scalps," I said, "so they seem to have missed our man on the horse." I was proud of my simple logic.
All that Shalah replied was, "The rider was a woman.'
"How, in Heaven's name, can you tell?" I asked.
He held out a long hair. "I found it among the vines at the level of a rider's head."
This was bad news indeed. What folly had induced a woman to ride so far across the Borders? It could be no settler's wife, but some dame from the coast country who had not the sense to be timid. 'Twas a grievous affliction for two men on an arduous quest to have to protect a foolish female with the Cherokees all about them.
There was no help for it, and as swiftly as possible and with all circumspection Shalah trailed the horse's prints. They kept the high ground, in very broken country, which was the reason why the rider had escaped the Indians' notice. Clearly they were moving slowly, and from the frequent halts and turnings I gathered that the rider had not much purpose about the road.
Then we came on a glade where the rider had dismounted and let the beast go. The horse had wandered down the ridge to the right in search of grazing, and the prints of a woman's foot led to the summit of a knoll which raised itself above the trees.
There, knee-deep in a patch of fern, I saw what I had never dreamed of, what sent the blood from my heart in a cold shudder of fear: a girl, pale and dishevelled, was trying to part some vines. A twig crackled and she looked round, showing a face drawn with weariness and eyes large with terror.
It was Elspeth!
At the sight of Shalah she made to scream, but checked herself. It was well, for a scream would have brought all of us to instant death.
For Shalah at that moment dropped to earth and wriggled into a covert overlooking the vale. I had the sense to catch the girl and pull her after him. He stopped dead, and we two lay also like mice. My heart was going pretty fast, and I could feel the heaving of her bosom.
The shallow glen was full of folk, most of them going on foot. I recognized the Cherokee head-dress and the long hickory bows which those carried who had no muskets. 'Twas by far the biggest party we had seen, and, though in that moment I had no wits to count them, Shalah told me afterwards they must have numbered little short of a thousand. Some very old fellows were there, with lean, hollow cheeks, and scanty locks, but the most were warriors in their prime. I could see it was a big war they were out for, since some of the horses carried heavy loads of corn, and it is never the Indian fashion to take much provender for a common raid. In all Virginia's history there had been no such invasion, for the wars of Opechancanough and Berkeley and the fight of Bacon against the Susquehannocks were mere bickers compared with this deliberate downpour from the hills.
As we lay there, scarce daring to breathe, I saw that we were in deadly peril. The host was so great that some marched on the very edge of our thicket. I could see through the leaves the brown Skins not a yard away. The slightest noise would bring the sharp Indian eyes peering into the gloom, and we must be betrayed.
In that moment, which was one of the gravest of my life, I had happily no leisure to think of myself. My whole soul sickened with anxiety for the girl. I knew enough of Indian ways to guess her fate. For Shalah and myself there might be torture, and at the best an arrow in our hearts, but for her there would be things unspeakable. I remembered the little meadow on the Rapidan, and the tale told by the grey ashes. There was only one shot in my pistol, but I determined that it should be saved for her. In such a crisis the memory works wildly, and I remember feeling glad that I had stood up before Grey's fire. The thought gave me a comforting assurance of manhood.
Those were nightmare minutes. The girl was very quiet, in a stupor of fatigue and fear. Shalah was a graven image, and I was too tensely strung to have any of the itches and fervours which used to vex me in hunting the deer when stillness was needful. Through the fretted greenery, I saw the dim shadows of men passing swiftly. The thought of the horse worried me. If the confounded beast grazed peaceably down the other side of the hill, all might be well. So long as he was out of sight any movement he made would be set down by the Indians to some forest beast, for animals' noises are all alike in a wood. But if he returned to us, there would be the devil to pay, for at a glimpse of him our thicket would be alive with the enemy.
In the end I found it best to shut my eyes and commend our case to our Maker. Then I counted very slowly to myself up to four hundred, and looked again. The vale was empty.
We lay still, hardly believing in our deliverance, for the matter of a quarter of an hour, and then Shalah, making a sign to me to remain, turned and glided up lull. I put my hand behind me, found Elspeth's cheek, and patted it. She stretched out a hand and clutched mine feverishly, and thus we remained till, after what seemed an age, Shalah returned.
He was on his feet and walking freely. He had found the horse, too, and had it by the bridle.
"The danger is past," he said gravely. "Let us go back to the glade and rest."
I helped Elspeth to her feet, and on my arm she clambered to the grassy place in the woods. I searched my pockets, and gave her the remnants of the bread and bacon I had brought from the Rappahannock post. Better still, I remembered that I had in my breast a little flask of eau-de-vie, and a mouthful of it revived her greatly. She put her hands to her head, and began to tidy her dishevelled hair, which is a sure sign in a woman that she is recovering her composure.
"What brought you here?" I asked gently.
She had forgotten that I was in her black books, and that in her letter she forbade my journey. Indeed, she looked at me as a child in a pickle may look at an upbraiding parent.
"I was lost," she cried. "I did not mean to go far, but the night came down and I could not find the way back. Oh, it has been a hideous nightmare! I have been almost mad in the dark woods."
"But how did you get here?" I asked, still hopelessly puzzled.
"I was with Uncle James on the Rappahannock. He heard something that made him anxious, and he was going back to the Tidewater yesterday. But a message came for him suddenly, and he left me at Morrison's farm, and said he would be back by the evening. I did not want to go home before I had seen the mountains where my estate is—you know, the land that Governor Francis said he would give me for my birthday. They told me one could see the hills from near at hand, and a boy that I asked said I would get a rare view if I went to the rise beyond the river. So I had Paladin saddled, and crossed the ford, meaning to be back long ere sunset. But the trees were so thick that I could see nothing from the first rise, and I tried to reach a green hill that looked near. Then it began to grow dark, and I lost my head, and oh! I don't know where I wandered. I thought every rustle in the bushes was a bear or a panther. I feared the Indians, too, for they told me they were unsafe in this country. All night long I tried to find a valley running east, but the moonlight deceived me, and I must have come farther away every hour. When day came I tied Paladin to a tree and slept a little, and then I rode on to find a hill which would show me the lie of the land. But it was very hot, and I was very weary. And then you came, and those dreadful wild men. And—and——" She broke down and wept piteously.
I comforted her as best I could, telling her that her troubles were over now, and that I should look after her. "You might have met with us in the woods last night," I said, "so you see you were not far from friends." But the truth was that her troubles were only beginning, and I was wretchedly anxious. My impulse was to try to get her back to the Rappahannock; but, on putting this to Shalah, he shook his head.
"It is too late," he said. "If you seek certain death, go towards the Rappahannock. She must come with us to the mountains. The only safety is in the hill-tops."
This seemed a mad saying. To be safe from Indians we were to go into the heart of Indian country. But Shalah expounded it. The tribes, he said, dwelt only in the lower glens of the range, and never ventured to the summits, believing them to be holy land where a greatmanitoudwelt. The Cherokees especially shunned the peaks. If we could find a way clear to the top we might stay there in some security, till we learned the issue of the war, and could get word to our friends. "Moreover," he said, "we have yet to penetrate the secret of the hills. That was the object of our quest, brother."
Shalah was right, and I had forgotten all about it. I could not suffer my care for Elspeth to prevent a work whose issue might mean the salvation of Virginia. We had still to learn the truth about the massing of Indians in the mountains, of which the Cherokee raids were but scouting ventures. The verse of Grey's song came into my head:—
"I could not love thee, dear, so much,Loved I not Honour more."
Besides—and this was the best reason—there was no other way. We had gone too far to turn back, and, as our proverb says, "It is idle to swallow the cow and choke on the tail."
I put it all to Elspeth.
She looked very scared. "But my uncle will go mad if he does not find me."
"It will be worse for him if he is never to find you again. Shalah says it would be as easy to get you back over the Rappahannock as for a child to cross a winter torrent. I don't say it's pleasant either way, but there's a good hope of safety in the hills, and there's none anywhere else."
She sat for a little with her eyes downcast. "I am in your hands," she said at last, "Oh, the foolish girl I have been! I will be a drag and a danger to you all."
Then I took her hand. "Elspeth," I said, "it's me will be the proud man if I can save you. I would rather be the salvation of you than the King of the Tidewater. And so says Shalah, and so will say all of us."
But I do not think she heard me. She had checked her tears, but her wits were far away, grieving for her uncle's pain, and envisaging the desperate future. At the first water we reached she bathed her face and eyes, and using the pool as a mirror, adjusted her hair. Then she smiled bravely, "I will try to be a true comrade, like a man," she said. "I think I will be stronger when I have slept a little."
All that afternoon we stole from covert to covert. It was hot and oppressive in the dense woods, where the breeze could not penetrate. Shalah's eagle eyes searched every open space before we crossed, but we saw nothing to alarm us. In time we came to the place where we had left our party, and it was easy enough to pick up their road. They had travelled slowly, keeping to the thickest trees, and they had taken no pains to cover their tracks, for they had argued that if trouble came it would come from the front, and that it was little likely that any Indian would be returning thus soon and could take up their back trail.
Presently we came to a place where the bold spurs of the hills overhung us, and the gap we had seen opened up into a deep valley. Shalah went in advance, and suddenly we heard a word pass. We entered a cedar glade, to find our four companions unsaddling the horses and making camp.
The sight of the girl held them staring. Grey grew pale and then flushed scarlet. He came forward and asked me abruptly what it meant. When I told him he bit his lips.
"There is only one thing to be done," he said. "We must take Miss Blair back to the Tidewater. I insist, sir. I will go myself. We cannot involve her in our dangers."
He was once again the man I had wrangled with. His eyes blazed, and he spoke in a high tone of command. But I could not be wroth with him; indeed, I liked him for his peremptoriness. It comforted me to think that Elspeth had so warm a defender.
I nodded to Shalah. "Tell him," I said, and Shalah spoke with him. He took long to convince, but at, the end he said no more, and went to speak to Elspeth. I could see that she lightened his troubled mind a little, for, having accepted her fate, she was resolute to make the best of it, I even heard her laugh.
That night we made her a bower of green branches, and as we ate our supper round our modest fire she sat like a queen among us. It was odd to see the way in which her presence affected each of us. With her Grey was the courtly cavalier, ready with a neat phrase and a line from the poets. Donaldson and Shalah were unmoved; no woman could make any difference to their wilderness silence. The Frenchman Bertrand grew almost gay. She spoke to him in his own tongue, and he told her all about the little family he had left and his days in far-away France. But in Ringan was the oddest change. Her presence kept him tongue-tied, and when she spoke to him he was embarrassed into stuttering. He was eager to serve her in everything, but he could not look her in the face or answer readily when she spoke. This man, so debonair and masterful among his fellows, was put all out of countenance by a wearied girl. I do not suppose he had spoken to a gentlewoman for ten years.
Next morning we came into Clearwater Glen.
Shalah spoke to me of it before we started. He did not fear the Cherokees, who had come from the far south of the range and had never been settled in these parts. But he thought that there might be others from the back of the hills who would have crossed by this gap, and might be lying in the lower parts of the glen. It behoved us, therefore, to go very warily. Once on the higher ridges, he thought we might be safe for a time. An invading army has no leisure to explore the rugged summits of a mountain.
The first sight of the place gave me a strong emotion of dislike. A little river brawled in a deep gorge, falling in pools and linns like one of my native burns. All its course was thickly shaded with bushes and knotted trees. On either bank lay stretches of rough hill pasture, lined with dark and tangled forests, which ran up the hill-side till the steepness of the slope broke them into copses of stunted pines among great bluffs of rock and raw red scaurs. The glen was very narrow, and the mountains seemed to beetle above it so as to shut out half the sunlight. The air was growing cooler, with the queer, acrid smell in it that high hills bring. I am a great lover of uplands, and the sourest peat-moss has a charm for me, but to that strange glen I conceived at once a determined hate. It is the way of some places with some men. The senses perceive a hostility for which the mind has no proof, and in my experience the senses are right.
The youth and gaiety were going out of my quest. I could only plod along dismally, attentive to every movement of Shalah, praying incessantly that we might get well out of it all. To make matters worse, the travelling became desperate hard. In the Tidewater there were bridle paths, and in the vales of the foothills the going had been good, with hard, dry soil in the woods, and no hindrances save a thicket of vines or a rare windfall. But in this glen, where the hill rains beat, there was no end to obstacles. The open spaces were marshy, where our horses sank to the hocks. The woods were one medley of fallen trees, rotting into touchwood, hidden boulders, and matted briers. Often we could not move till Donaldson and Bertrand with their hatchets had hewn some sort of road. All this meant slow progress, and by midday we had not gone half-way up the glen to the neck which meant the ridge of the pass.
This was an occasion when Ringan showed at his best. He had lost his awe of Elspeth, and devoted himself to making the road easy for her. Grey, who would fain have done the same, was no match for the seafarer, and had much ado to keep going himself. Ringan's cheery face was better than medicine. His eyes never lost their dancing light, and he was ready ever with some quip or whimsy to tide over the worst troubles. We kept very still, but now and again Elspeth's laugh rang out at his fooling, and it did my heart good to hear it.
After midday the glen seemed to grow darker, and I saw that the blue sky, which I had thought changeless, was becoming overcast. As I looked upwards I saw the high ridge blotted out and a white mist creeping down. I had noticed for some time that Shalah was growing uneasy. He would halt us often, while he went a little way on, and now he turned with so grim a look that we stopped without bidding.
He slipped into the undergrowth, while we waited in that dark, lonesome place. Even Ringan was sober now.
Elspeth asked in a low voice what was wrong, and I told her that theIndian was uncertain of the best road.
"Best road!" she laughed. "Then pray show me what you call the worst."
Ringan grinned at me ruefully. "Where do you wish yourself at this moment, Andrew?"
"On the top of this damned mountain," I grunted.
"Not for me," he said. "Give me the Dry Tortugas, on a moonlight night when the breaming fires burn along the shore, and the lads are singing 'Spanish Ladies.' Or, better still, the little isle of St. John the Baptist, with the fine yellow sands for careening, and Mother Daria brewing bobadillo and the trades blowing fresh in the tops of the palms. This land is a gloomy sort of business. Give me the bright, changeful sea."
"And I," said Elspeth, "would be threading rowan berries for a necklace in the heather of Medwyn Glen. It must be about four o'clock of a midsummer afternoon and a cloudless sky, except for white streamers over Tinto. Ah, my own kind countryside!"
Ringan's face changed.
"You are right, my lady. No Tortugas or Spanish isles for Ninian Campbell. Give him the steeps of Glenorchy on an October morn when the deer have begun to bell. My sorrow, but we are far enough from our desires—all but Andrew, who is a prosaic soul. And here comes Shalah with ugly news!"
The Indian spoke rapidly to me. "The woods are full of men. I do not think we are discovered, but we cannot stay here. Our one hope is to gain the cover of the mist. There is an open space beyond this thicket, and we must ride our swiftest. Quick, brother."
"The men?" I gasped. "Cherokees?"
"Nay," he said, "not Cherokees. I think they are those you seek from beyond the mountains."
The next half-hour is a mad recollection, wild and confused, and distraught with anxiety. The thought of Elspeth among savages maddened me, the more so as she had just spoken of Medwyn Glen, and had sent my memory back to fragrant hours of youth. We scrambled out of the thicket and put our weary beasts to a gallop. Happily it was harder ground, albeit much studded with clumps of fern, and though we all slipped and stumbled often, the horses kept their feet. I was growing so dizzy in the head that I feared every moment I would fall off. The mist had now come low down the hill, and lay before us, a line, of grey vapour drawn from edge to edge of the vale. It seemed an infinite long way off.
Shalah on foot kept in the rear, and I gathered from him that the danger he feared was behind. Suddenly as I stared ahead something fell ten yards in advance of us in a long curve, and stuck, quivering in the soil.
It was an Indian arrow.
We would have reined up if Shalah had not cried on us to keep on. I do not think the arrow was meant to strike us. 'Twas a warning, a grim jest of the savages in the wood.
Then another fell, at the same distance before our first rider.
Still Shalah cried us on. I fell back to the rear, for if we were to escape I thought there might be need of fighting there. I felt in my belt for my loaded pistols.
We were now in a coppice again, where the trees were short and sparse. Beyond that lay another meadow, and, then, not a quarter-mile distant, the welcome line of the mist, every second drawing down on us.
A third time an arrow fell. Its flight was shorter and dropped almost under the nose of Elspeth's horse, which swerved violently, and would have unseated a less skilled horsewoman.
"On, on," I cried, for we were past the need for silence, and when I looked again, the kindly fog had swallowed up the van of the party.
I turned and gazed back, and there I saw a strange sight. A dozen men or more had come to the edge of the trees on the hill-side. They were quite near, not two hundred yards distant, and I saw them clearly. They carried bows or muskets, but none offered to use them. They were tall fellows, but lighter in the colour than any Indians I had seen. Indeed, they were as fair as many an Englishman, and their slim, golden-brown bodies were not painted in the maniac fashion of the Cherokees. They stood stock still, watching us with a dreadful impassivity which was more frightening to me than violence. Then I, too, was overtaken by the grey screen.
"Will they follow?" I asked Shalah.
"I do not think so. They are not hill-men, and fear the high places where the gods smoke. Further-more, there is no need."
"We have escaped, then?" I asked, with a great relief in my voice.