CHAPTER XI.
THE END OF THE BATTLE.
Turkey-foot was the first to regain his composure, and consequently the first to speak.
“Watchemenetoc aids the young She-wolf,” he said, as calm as the zenith of a summer’s sky, “but we are strong enough to vanquish both. Three of our band lie stiff and cold in her den, and shall she advance, though all the beings of darkness aid her, and shoot us down like sheep? Shall the Death League be exterminated ere the dawn of light? Shall none live to meet the Black Snake on the field of battle? Let my brothers answer. ’Tis Turkey-foot, the Ottawa, that speaks.”
By Leather-lips, the sorcerer, the chief’s speech was answered.
“We shall not die ignobly,” he cried. “If we can, let us escape and hunt her down at another time. Now she stands by the small hole ready to strike us down, one at a time, before our arms can reach her. She can not long escape us; we can, we will hunt her down before we meet the Black Snake. Let us escape.”
But now arose the question by what avenue should they gain freedom?
The Girl Avenger did not press her new success; she seemed confident of ultimate triumph—that every fleeting moment brought the quartette nearer the dark river. She stood with ready rifle, knife and tomahawk, at the orifice and awaited with strange patience for the approach of the doomed band. Around her, easily distinguishable in the light of a number of dying brands, lay the forms of three members of the League of Death, and not far away stood as many more suffering from wounds that laid bones bare. Her right foot rested upon Speckled Snake, whose warm scalp bled in her girdle beside those of his red brethren whose brains the butt of her avenging rifle had dashed against the limestone walls. Her escape from the corridor that now confined the remainder of the League was easily accomplished. The cave, as I have before mentioned, was far below the surface of the cliffs, and consisted of gloomy apartments above one another like the rooms of some great hotel. All of the dark passages had never been explored by the Girl Avenger; but she had examined enough for utility and comfort. In the roof of the particular corridor above mentioned, was the orifice of a passage whose tortuous track brought the traverser to the main cave through one of the somber niches. With a view to future use in times of danger, the Girl Avenger, by means of strong wooden levers, had rolled a loose stone to the edge of the opening, over which it could be pushed with the strength of her slender arms. When she reached the termination of the corridor she threw herself up into the higher passage, gave the stone a trial of her strength, and heard—for it was too dark to see—it settle down over the cavity.
Then taking the right corridor, for others led different ways from the aperture, she gained the cave again, and gave forth the shout which drove the color from the faces of her foes.
By excessive manipulation Turkey-foot’s torch burned with a bright flame, and revealed to their eyes the avenue by which their bitter enemy had escaped; but the great stone completely blocked it now.
The next moment Leather-lips, the Hercules of his nation, sprung forward, put his shoulders against the bowlder, and exerted all his strength, which did nothing more than to move it a hair’s breadth. With a cry of anger he struck it with his tomahawk, and the sound of the blows were wafted to the ears of the avenger in the cave.
The stone must be moved: without its removal the League of Death would become extinct. They knew that a passage above them led to the main cave, for events had just demonstrated this, and could they gain the passage they could assail the Girl Avenger from two points, and the battle would result favorably to them, after all.
“Now all hands to the stone!” cried Joe Girty, who had observed the result of Leather-lips’ performance. “Leather-lips moved it a bit, and can we not throw it entirely back? I can throw near half a ton over my head, or could a short time since, though now I may be even stronger than ever. Now, braves, for your lives summon all the strength you ever possessed. If we move that stone our hands will grow redder than ever in her heart; if we fail, her hands will bathe in ours. Now! Snakes! I wish I was Samson!”
The band exerted all its strength, and the result was almost unexpected—the stone was raised, and before it could settle down again, a second putting forth of strong hands had rolled it from the aperture.
In the glare of the torch every sweaty face glowed with triumph and revenge.
“Now!” said Turkey-foot, “she is ours, the Manitou put new strength into our limbs, and the power of Watchemenetoc could not prevail against it. We must now fight her. Wacomet and Leather-lips will creep back and crouch in the gloom beyond her eyes and the fires, in this dark hole. Turkey-foot and the white Ottawa will climb up into the hole over our heads, and attack her in the rear. Now go. She knows not that we have moved the stone; and when the hoot of the owl pierces your ears, spring from the blackness upon her.”
Before Wacomet and Leather-lips turned to their mission, they saw the chief and the renegade draw themselves up into the opening, after extinguishing the torch.
In the darkness near the orifice of the lower corridor crouched Wacomet and the sorcerer, waiting for the attacking signal. They knew that the Girl Avenger still occupied her post, for they could distinguish the barrel of her rifle between them and the torches. Once or twice Wacomet was on the point of rushing forth, but Leather-lips restrained him and bade him wait for the signal.
At last it came, seemingly from the wooded banks of the stream beyond the cave, which circumstance the twain did not pause to note, but darted forward.
Leather-lips was in the advance and grasped the glittering rifle-barrel as he bounded from the corridor. It fell on easy prey; there was no hand to contend with him for the possession of it, and no form, save those of his slaughtered countrymen, greeted him in the great cave.
Where was the Girl Avenger, and where Girty and the Ottawa chief? Surely the latter had given the signal, for it had pierced their ears and impelled them forward. In the center of the cave, splendid targets for the unerring aim of the Girl Avenger, and statues of indecision, stood the two chiefs gazing into each other’s faces. The torches—or rather the brands which had now assumed the office of torches—bathed the entire cave in a mellow light and revealed every object to the statuary pair.
While thus they stood, the signal—the hoot of the night-owl—was thrice repeated, now in an imperative and half-angry tone, and a cry of astonishment mingled with the darkly mysterious, parted the chief’s lips. Why did not the others show themselves, and cease repeating the signals which had been obeyed? Were they to fight the She-wolf alone, or had Turkey-foot and his white friend wandered off into other dark passages in which the twain believed the earth overhead to abound?
Suddenly the peculiar scream of the white heron came to their ears, and a few minutes later a footstep faintly sounded in the main corridor. Leather-lips clutched his companion’s arm, and drew him back into the niche, where they crouched with eyes fixed upon the main passage.
Presently a head—a human cranium—no further from the ground than the head of a cur, became visible in the corridor, and the two chiefs almost uttered a cry when they recognized it as the head ofKenowatha! It appeared to them but for a moment—just long enough for the keen eyes of the white Indian to take a quick survey of the cave—then was withdrawn. The red watchers held their breath, and waited further developments, believing that fate intended to play the boy into their hands. If he had not encountered the Girl Avenger, he would become more bold after a spell, and enter the cave. For this they waited, and in their eagerness to secure the boy, forgot their brethren wandering about in unexplored passages, which might lead to death too horrible to contemplate.
At length the head again appeared, and this time it was followed by the entire figure of Kenowatha. He crept forward on all fours, his rifle clutched in his right hand, and dragging at his side his tomahawk in his left. Presently, seemingly satisfied that no foes lurked near enough to take his life, the White Fox rose to his feet and stood over the dead Indians. He had gazed upon them long enough to see the scarlet crescent upon their brows, when the two chiefs darted forward. The great hand of the red sorcerer gripped the boy’s arm; but with an agility and strength entirely unexpected by the savages, he tore himself away, sprung to the further side of the cave, and threw his rifle to his shoulder. Instantaneous with this latter action on the part of the youth Leather-lips darted forward; but the rifle broke the demi-silence and the sorcerer measured his giant length on the stones.
The chief had scarcely touched the floor of the cave when Kenowatha sprung upon Wacomet. The fire of vengeance flashed from the youth’s eyes, and the Indian upon first thought felt disposed to meet him. But when his mind recurred to the prisoners he had borne from the cave a short time previous—to the reward he could obtain for the stricken soldier—to the prize in the person of Effie St. Pierre which he would lose should the battle prove disastrous to him, he retreated to the main corridor, into which he darted, as Kenowatha’s gun tore a ghastly furrow down his naked back.
Knowing that it would be useless to follow Wacomet, Kenowatha turned to place his mark—the bloody cross—upon Leather-lips’ brow, to behold the spot where the sorcerer had fallen untenanted!
“Kenowatha’s bullet did not find his heart,” he said, in a tone of bitter disappointment, “and the red sorcerer has fled. But Kenowatha will meet him again—when the broad sunlight falls upon his face, and then—then the mark shall crown his head. Ha!” and the speaker suddenly sprung to the opposite wall, his eyes fastened upon something thereon.
Suddenly he paused before that which had excited his curiosity, and read, in French, the words that Effie had traced upon the limestone with the keil:
“We are the prisoners of Wacomet, the Ottawa—destined for a hidden place somewhere.”
The handwriting on the wall sent a thrill to Kenowatha’s heart. Who were included in the word “we?” If Nanette was a prisoner why had she been permitted to mark the dead Indians—still more, why were they still lying in the cave? The information was enveloped in mystery to Kenowatha, and the longer he gazed upon the words the more mysterious they grew. Prisoners of Wacomet alone! Why not of the entire League of Death, and why was Wacomet present but a moment since, and not with his prisoners?
Unconscious, in the attempt to solve the mystery, that he was exposing his person to the balls and tomahawks of those who sought his life, Kenowatha stood before the wall until a footstep suddenly aroused him and caused him to face the niche in his rear. Immediately upon the precipitate retreat of Wacomet, the White Fox had rammed a bullet home, and now his rifle was directed at a spot just below a tuft of feathers in the niche. There he knew was a face, and whose face save that of one of his bitterest foes?
A moment later might have sealed the doom of the person, when his name, pronounced as softly as woman ever spoke, came from the niche:
“Kenowatha.”
He sprung forward, a figure darted from the niche, and in the center of the cave he met the Girl Avenger!
“The battle is ended, Kenowatha,” she said, touching the trio of fresh scalps in her girdle. “They dreamed of an easy victory, not of a disastrous defeat. The Death League will never forget this night. But a moment since I saw Turkey-foot, the white Ottawa and Wacomet meet on the edge of the stream. The great chief and the white Ottawa got lost in the many dark paths above our heads, and at last found their way through passages which they could never traverse again, to the water. I heard them lift the stone away, and I glided to a spot which they could not reach. Ah! Kenowatha, I wished for you at my side when the red devils surrounded me. Oh, we would have annihilated the red League; but, boy, their time is fast coming. They may fill up their ranks whenever we strike, but soon there will be no ranks to fill. See! where are my string of scalps? where the guns I tore from hands cold in death, where all my trophies? Gone, boy, gone! Oh, I’ll have a terrible revenge now: for every scalp the demons burned to-night I will have two, and I swear that the League of Death shall melt away before my rifle.”
“Beforeourrifles say, girl,” said Kenowatha, clutching her arm as he looked up into her face.
“Ours, then, be it,” she cried. “But, Kenowatha, where’s the White Rose and the bad red-coat?”
Kenowatha pointed to the writing on the pale wall, and Nanette soon mastered it.
“I read the past through those words,” she said, turning to the youth, who waited with impatience for her to speak. “Wacomet must have entered the cave in advance of his brethren. Seeking the honor promised by his tribe to the Indian who should rid the world of me, he came hither alone, I say, found the girl and the major here, and took them captives. ‘Destined to a hidden spot somewhere,’ writes the pale girl on the stones. That place must be discovered, boy—ay, discovered before the white spy returns, else what will he think of us—of our promise, that we would watch the girl and well. I know you are with me, Kenowatha,” and her little hand stole into his, which action sent a thrill to his heart, “and when I swear that I will give my feet no rest until Effie is torn from the snares of the red snake, I know that your heart, beating in unison with mine, responds, amen.”
“Yes, yes, our lives have grown into one existence, Nanette, and we will rescue the girl that she may receive the kiss of pure love when her brave lover returns. But, girl, how long will your vengeance last?”
The eyes of the Girl Avenger sought the stones, and wandered over them with a listless stare.
“I don’t know, Kenowatha,” she said, at length, a pearl-drop glistening upon her cheek. “Why did you ask?”
It was his turn now to avert his eyes, and in his silence she read what he would yet feared to speak.
“Boy,” she said, breaking the silence that reigned in the cave, “I know all that you would say, and, for your sake, I promise this one thing—that whenyousheathe the knife of vengeance in your girdle, I will say, ‘enough!’”
He turned his eyes upon her with a flash of joy, gently drew her to his heart, and rained warm kisses on her dimpled cheek.
“Have no fears that you shall not have your fill of vengeance, girl,” he said; “for not until the Death League is exterminated—not until the Indians have made bloody reparation for the loss you have sustained to-night, will I sheathe the blade of vengeance. Only I wanted some one to love me, girl—some bright future to look ahead to, beyond these dark days. I have it, I am happy!”
After awhile she said to him:
“Were you to the British fort?”
“No. In the dark wood, something told me that all was not right here. The further I went, the stronger that something’s voice grew, and my mind knew no peace until I turned my face toward you. I gave our signal, which did not reach you in your hiding-place, I suppose.”
“I heard it not, boy,” she answered, and her lips moved to speak on, when the cry of the heron—twice repeated, came from beyond the cave to their ears.
Undoubtedly it was a signal.
“Come,” said Nanette; “we might as well commence our hunt for the white Rose to-night as any other time. Wacomet will not return to his people without visiting his prisoners. He is playing a double game, and unless yon words were read by the White Ottawa during the fight—which I think improbable—the secret of captivity remains with Wacomet and ourselves. Ha! the white heron again. Come! The red demons can have this cave now; thank God, ’tis the only hiding-place on earth.”
A minute later, the twain glided from the cave, now tenanted by the three corpses that formed a ghastly group in the center.