CHAPTER III
Itwas one of the peculiarities of the officers of the Fort Prince George garrison that they were subject to fits of invisibility, Mrs. Annandale declared. She had been taciturn, even inattentive, over her dish of chocolate at early breakfast. More than once she turned, with a frostily fascinating smile, beamingly expectant, as the door opened. But when the dishes were removed, and the breakfast-room resumed its aspect as parlor, and her niece sat down to her embroidery-frame as if she had been at home in a country house in Kent, and the captain rose and began to get into his outdoor gear, Mrs. Annandale’s sugared and expectant pose gave way to blunt disappointment.
“Where are those villains we wasted our good cheer upon overnight?” she brusquely demanded. “I vow I expected to find them bowing their morning compliments on the door-step!”
“You must make allowances for our rude frontier soldiers,”—the commandant began.
“Were they caught up into the sky or swallowed up by the earth?”
The commandant explained that the tours of service recurred with unwelcome frequency in a garrison so scantily officered as Fort Prince George, and that Mervyn and Raymond were both on duty.
“You should have excused them, dear Brother, since they are our acquaintances, and let some of those rowdy fellows in the mess-hall march, or goose-step, or deploy, or what not, in their stead.”
“Shoot me—no—no!” said the commandant, wagging his head, for this touched his official conscience, and the citadel in which it was ensconced not even this wily strategist could reach. “No, no, each man performs his own duty as it falls to him. I would not exchange or permit an exchange to—to, no, not to be quit forever of Fort Prince George.”
“Poor Arabella—she looks pale.”
“For neither of them,” the niece spoke up, tartly.
“Now that’s hearty,” said her father, approvingly.
“I shall be glad to be quiet a bit, and rest from the journey,” Arabella declared. “I don’t need to be amused to-day.”
“Lord—Lord! I pray I may survive it,” her aunt plained.
Mrs. Annandale was so definitely disconsolate and indignant that the captain held a parley. Lieutenant Bolt, the fort-adjutant, was a man of good station, he said, and also a younger lieutenant and two ensigns; should he not bespeak their company for a game of Quadrille in his quarters this evening?
Truly “dear Brother” was too tediously dense. “A murrain on them all!” she exclaimed angrily. “What are they in comparison with young Mervyn?”
“As good men every way. Trained, tried, valuable officers—worth their weight in gold,” he retorted, aglow withesprit de corps.
She caught herself up sharply, fearing that she was too outspoken; and, realizing that “dear Brother” was an uncontrollable roadster when once he took the bit between his teeth, she qualified hastily. “An old woman loves gossip, Brother. What are these strangers to me? George Mervyn and I will put our heads together and canvass every scandal in the county for the last five years. Lord, he knows every stock and stone of the whole country-side, and all the folks, gentle and simple, from castle to cottage. I looked for some clavers such as old neighbors love.”
“Plenty of time—plenty of time,”—said the commandant. “George Mervyn will last till to-morrow morning.”
“To-morrow—is he in your clutches till to-morrow morning?” the schemer shrieked in dismay.
“He is officer of the day, Claudia, and his tour of duty began at guard-mounting this morning, and will not be concluded till guard-mounting to-morrow morning,” the captain said severely. Then in self-justification, for he was a lenient man, except in his official capacity, he added gravely: “You must reflect, Sister, that though we are a small force in a little mud fort on the far frontier, we cannot afford to be triflers at soldiering. A better fort than ours was compelled to surrender and a better garrison was massacred not one hundred and fifty miles from here. Our duties are insistent and our mutual responsibility is great. We are intrusted with the lives of each other.”
He desired these words to be of a permanent andserious impression. He said no more and went out, leaving Mrs. Annandale fallen back in her chair, holding up her hands to heaven as a testimony against him.
“Oh, the ruffian!” she gasped. “Oh—to remind me of the Indians—the greasy, gawky red-sticks! Oh, the blood-thirsty, truculent brother!”
Arabella was of a pensive pose, with her head bent to her embroidery-frame, her trailing garment, called a sacque, of dark murrey-colored wool, catching higher wine-tinted lights from the fire as the folds opened over a bodice and petticoat of flowered stuff of acanthus leaves on a faint blue ground. She seemed ill at ease under this rodomontade against her father, and roused herself to protest.
“Why, you can’t haveforgottenthe Indians! You were talking about them every step of the way from Charlestown. And if you have seen one you have seen one hundred.”
“Out of sight out of mind—andme—so timid! Oh—and that hideous Fort Loudon massacre! Oh, scorch the tongue that says the word! Oh—the Indians! And me—so timid!”
“Lord, Aunt—” Arabella laid the embroidery-frame on her knees and gazed at her relative with stern, upbraiding eyes, “you know you lamented to discover that we were not to pass Fort Loudon on our journey, for you said it would be ‘a sight to remember, frightful but improving, like a man hung in chains.’”
Mrs. Annandale softly beat her hands together.
“To talk of guarding life with his monkey soldiers against those red painted demons who drink blood and eat people—oh!—and me,so timid!”
She desisted suddenly as a light tap fell on the door and the mess-sergeant entered the room. She set her cap to rights with both her white, delicate, wrinkled, trembling hands, and stared with wild half-comprehending eyes as the man presented the compliments of Lieutenants Bolt and Jerrold, and Ensigns Lawrence and Innis, who felt themselves vastly honored by her invitation to a game of Quadrille, and would have the pleasure of waiting upon her this evening at the hour Captain Howard had named.
She made an appropriate rejoinder, and she waited until the door had closed upon the messenger, for she rarely “capered,” as her maid called her angry antics, in the presence of outsiders. Then she said with low-toned virulence to her niece:—
“The scheming meddler! That father of yours!Thatfather of yours! Talk of treachery! Wilier than any Indian! Quadrille! Invite them! Smite them! Quadrille! Why, Mervyn is not complimented at all. The same grace extended to each and every!”
“And why shouldhebe complimented, Aunt Claudia?”
“No reason in the world, Miss, as far as you are concerned,” retorted her aunt. “Our compliments won’t move such as George Mervyn!” Then recovering her temper,—“I thought a little special distinction as a dear old friend and a lifelong neighbormight be fitting. Poor dear Brother must equalize the whole garrison!”
It seemed to Captain Howard as if with the advent of his feminine guests had entered elements of doubt and difficulty of which he had lately experienced a pleasant surcease. The joy which he had felt as a fond parent in embracing a good and lovely child, after a long absence, was too keen to continue in the intensity of its first moments and was softened to a gentle and tender content, a habitude of the heart, even more pleasurable. He was fond, too, in a way, of his queer sister, and grateful for her fostering care of his motherless children; he had great consideration for her whims and not the most remote appreciation of her peculiar abilities. The abatement of the joy of reunion was manifest in the fact that her whims now seemed to dominate her whole personality and tempered the fervor of his gratitude. He was already ashamed that he had not invited to the dinner of welcome the four other gentlemen who seemed altogether fit for that festivity and made the occasion one of general rejoicing among his brother officers and fellow-exiles, rather than a nettlesome point of exclusion. He was realizing, too, the disproportionate importance such trifles as the opportunity for transient pleasures possess in the estimation of the young, although they have all the years before them, with the continual recurrence of conventional incidents. Perhaps the long interval, debarred from all society of their sphere, rendered the exclusion a positive deprivation. He regretted thathe had submitted to Mrs. Annandale’s arrogation of the privilege of choosing the company invited to celebrate the arrival of the commandant’s daughter at the frontier fort. He seized upon the first moment when the rousing of his official conscience freed him, for the time, to repair the omission. The projected card-party would seem a device for introducing the officers in detail, as if this were deemed less awkward than entertaining them in a body, especially as there were only two ladies to represent the fair sex in the company.
To his satisfaction this implied theory of the appropriate seemed readily adopted. Lieutenant Jerrold was a man of a conventional, assured address, his conversation always strictly in good form and strictly limited. He was little disposed to take offence where the ground of quarrel seemed untenable or, on the other hand, to thrust himself forward where his presence was not warmly encouraged. He welcomed the invitation as enabling him to pay his respects to the ladies, which, indeed, seemed incumbent in the situation, but he had been a trifle nettled by the postponement of the opportunity. He had dark hair and eyes; he was tall, pale, and slender, with a narrow face and a flash of white teeth when he smiled. He was in many respects a contrast to the two ensigns—Innis, blue-eyed, blond, and square visaged, his complexion burned a uniform red by his frontier campaigns, and Lawrence, who had suffered much freckling as the penalty of the extreme fairness of his skin, and who always wore his hairheavily powdered, to disguise in part the red hue, which was greatly out of favor in his day. Bolt, the fort-adjutant, was not likely to add much to the mirth of nations, or even of the garrison—a heavily-built, sedate, taciturn man, who would eat his supper with appreciation and discrimination, and play his cards most judiciously.
Captain Howard left the mess-hall where the recipients of his courtesy discussed its intendment over the remainder of breakfast, and took his way, his square head wagging now and then with an appreciation of its own obstinacy, across the snowy parade.
The gigantic purple slopes of the encompassing mountains showed here and there where the heavy masses of the drifts had slipped down by their own weight, and again the dark foliage of pine and holly and laurel gloomed amongst the snow-laden boughs of the bare deciduous trees. The contour, however, of the great dome-like “balds” was distinct, of an unbroken whiteness against the dark slate-tinted sky, uniform of tone from pole to pole.
Many feet had trampled the snow hard on the parade, and there was as yet no sign of thaw. Feathery tufts hung between the points of the high stockade surmounting the ramparts and choked the wheels of the four small cannon that were mounted on each of the four bastions. The cheeks of the deep embrasures out of which their black muzzles pointed were blockaded with drifts, and the scarp and counterscarp were smooth, and white, and untrodden.The roofs of the block-houses were covered, and all along the northern side of the structures was a thin coating of snow clinging to the logs, save where the protuberant upper story overhung and sheltered the walls beneath. Close about the chimney of the building wherein was situated the mess-hall, the heat of the great fire below had melted the drifts, and a cordon of icicles clung from the stone cap, whence the dark column of smoke rushed up and, with a vigorous swirl through the air, made off into invisibility without casting a shadow in this gray day. He could see the great conical “state-house” on a high mound of the Indian settlement of Old Keowee Town, across the river; it was as smooth and white as a marble rotunda. The huddled dwellings were on a lower level and invisible from his position on the parade. As he glanced toward the main gate he paused suddenly. Before the guard-house the guard had been turned out, a glittering line of scarlet across the snow. The little tower above the gate was built in somewhat the style of a belfry, and through the open window the warder, like the clapper of a bell, stood drooping forward, gazing down at a group of blanketed and feather-crested figures, evidently Indians, desiring admission and now in conference with the officer of the guard. Captain Howard quickened his steps toward the party, and Raymond, perceiving his approach, advanced to meet him. There was a hasty, low-toned colloquy. Then “Damnallthe Indians!” cried Captain Howard, angrily. “Damn themall!”
“The parson says ‘No’!” Raymond submitted, with a glance of raillery.
“This is no occasion for your malapert wit, sir,” the captain retorted acridly.
Ordinarily Captain Howard was accessible to a pleasantry and himself encouraged a jovial insouciance as far as it might promote the general cheerfulness, but this incident threatened a renewal of a long strain of perplexity and dubious diplomacy and doubtful menace. It was impossible to weigh events. A trifle of causeless discontent among the Indians might herald downright murder. A real and aggravated grievance often dragged itself out and died of inanition in long correspondence with the colonial authorities, or the despatch of large and expensive delegations to Charlestown for those diplomatic conferences with the governor of South Carolina which the Indians loved and which flattered the importance of the head-men.
He strove visibly for his wonted self-balanced poise, and noticing that the young officer flushed, albeit silent, as needs must, he felt that he had taken unchivalrous advantage of the military etiquette which prevented a retort. He went on with a grim smile:—
“Where is this missionary now, who won’t give the devil his due.”
“The emissaries don’t tell, sir. Somewhere on the Tugaloo River, they give me to understand.”
“And what the fiend does he there?”
“Converts the Indians to Christianity, sir, if he can.”
“And they resist conversion?”
“They say he plagues them with many words.”
Captain Howard nodded feelingly.
“They say he unsettles the minds of the people, who grow slack in the observance of their ‘old beloved’ worship. He reviles their religion, and offends ‘the Ancient White Fire.’”
“There is no rancor like religious rancor, no deviltry like pious strife,” said Captain Howard, in genuine dismay. “Nothing could so easily rouse the Indians anew.”
He paused in frowning anxiety. “Stop me, sir, this man is monstrous short of a Christian, himself, to jeopardize the peace and put the whole frontier into danger for his zeal—just now when the tribe is fairly pacified. This threatens Fort Prince George first of all.”
He set his square jaw as he thought of his daughter and his sister.
Raymond instinctively knew what was passing in his mind, and forgetful of his sharp criticism volunteered reassurance.
“The delegation speak, sir, as if only the missionary were in danger.”
“Why don’t they burn him, then, sir—kindle the fire with his own prayer-book!” cried Captain Howard, furiously. Danger from the Indians—now! with Arabella and Claudia at Fort Prince George! He could not tolerate the idea. Even in their defeated and disconsolate estate the Cherokees could bring two thousand warriors to the field—andthe garrison of Fort Prince George numbered scant one hundred, rank and file.
“It might be the beginning of trouble,” suggested Raymond, generously disregarding the acerbity with which his unsought remarks had been received. “You know how one burning kindles the fires of others—how one murder begins a massacre.”
“Lord—Lord—yes!” exclaimed Captain Howard. “What ails the wretch?—are there no sinners at Fort Prince George that he must go hammering at the gates of heaven for the vile red fiends? And what a murrain would they do there! I can see Moy Toy having a ‘straight talk’ with Saint Peter, and that one-eyed murderer, Rolloweh, quiring to a gilded harp! Is there no way of getting at the man? Will they not let him come back now?”
“They have asked him to leave the country.”
“And what said he?” demanded Captain Howard.
“The delegation declare that he said, ‘Woe!’”
“Whoa!” echoed Captain Howard, in blank amaze.
“Yes, sir,—that was his answer to them in conclave in their beloved square. ‘Woe!’”
“Whoa!” repeated Captain Howard, stuck fast in misapprehension. “I think he means, Get-up-and-go-’long!”
Raymond had a half-hysteric impulse to laugh, and yet it was independent of any real amusement.
“I fancy he meant, ‘Woe is unto him if he preach not the gospel,’” he said. “The Indians remember one word only—‘Woe!’”
“He shall preach the gospel hereafter at Fort Prince George! Is there no way to quiet the man?”
“You know the Indians’ methods, sir. I think they have some demand to make of you, but they will not enter on it for twenty-four hours. They want accommodations and a conference to-morrow.”
“Zounds!” exclaimed Captain Howard, in the extremity of impatience. In this irregular frontier warfare he had known many a long-drawn, lingering agony of suspense—but he felt as if he could not endure the ordeal with all he now had at stake, his daughter, his sister, as hostages to the fortunes of war. He had an impulse to take the crisis as it were in the grasp of his hand and crush it in the moment. He could not wait—yet wait he must.
“They only vouchsafed as much as I have told you in order to secure the conference,” said Raymond. “I gave them to understand that the time of our ‘beloved man’ was precious and not to be expended on trifles. But they held back the nature of the demand on you and the whereabouts of the parson.”
“I pray God, they have not harmed the poor old man!” exclaimed Captain Howard fervently, with a sudden revulsion of sentiment.
They both glanced toward the gate where the deputation stood under the archway. The sun was shining faintly and the wan light streamed through the portal. The shadows duplicated the number and the attitudes of the blanketed and feather-crested figures, all erect, and stark, and motionless, lookingin blank silence at the conference of the two officers. The shadows had a meditative pose, a sort of pondering attention, and when suddenly the sun darkened and the shadows vanished, the effect was as if some dimly visible councillors had whispered to the Indians and were mysteriously resolved into the medium of the air.
They received Raymond on his return with their characteristic expressionless stolidity, and when the quarter-master appeared, hard on Captain Howard’s withdrawal, with the order for their lodgement in a cluster of huts just without the works, reserved for such occasions and such guests, they repaired thither without a word, and Raymond, looking after them from the gate, soon beheld the smoke ascending from their fires and the purveying out of the good cheer of the hospitality of Fort Prince George. He noticed a trail of blood on the snow, where the quarter-master’s men had laid down for a moment a quarter of beef, and in this he recognized a special compliment, for beef was a rarity with the Indians—venison and wild-fowl being their daily fare.
As the day waxed and waned he often cast his eye thither noting their movements. They came out in a body in the afternoon and repaired together to the trading-house, situated near the bank of the river, and occupied as a home as well as a store by the Scotch trader and his corps of assistants. That fire-water would be in circulation Raymond did not doubt, for to refuse it would work more disturbance than to set it forth in moderation. There were many regulationsin hindrance of its sale, but rarely enforced, and he doubted if the trader would forego his profit even at the risk of the displeasure of the commandant. Some difficulty they evidently encountered, however, in procuring it. They all came back immediately and disappeared in their huts, and there was no sign of life in all the bleak landscape, save the vague smoke from the Indian town across the river and the dark wreaths from the fires of the delegation. The woods stood sheeted and white at the extremity of the space beyond the glacis, cleared to prevent too close an approach of an enemy and the firing into the fort from the branches of trees within range. The river was like rippled steel, its motion undiscerned on its surface, and its flow was silent. The sky was still gray and sombre; at one side of the fort the prongs and boughs of the abattis thrust darkly up through the snow that lodged among them.
Somewhat after the noon hour he noticed a party of Indians, vagrant-like, kindling a fire in a sheltered space in the lee of a rock and feeding on the carcass of a deer lately killed. The feast was long, but when it was ended they sat motionless, fully gorged, all in a row, squatting, huddled in their blankets and eying the fort, seemingly aimless as the time passed and the fire dwindled and died, neither sleeping nor making any sign. When the Indians of the delegation accommodated in the huts issued again and once more hopefully took their way to the trading-house, they must have seen, coming or going, this row of singular objects, like roosting birds, dark against the snow,silently contemplating with unknown, unknowable, savage thoughts the little fort. There was no suggestion of recognition or communication. Each band was for the other as if it did not exist. The delegation wended its way to the trading-house, and presently returned, and once more sought the emporium, and again repaired to the temporary quarters. The snow between the two points began to show a heavily trampled path.
That these migrations were not altogether without result became evident when one of the Indians, zig-zagging unsteadily in the rear, wandered from the beaten track, stumbled over the stump of a tree concealed by a drift, floundered unnoticed for a time, unable to rise, and at last lay there so still and so long that Raymond began to think he might freeze should he remain after the chill of the nightfall. But as the skies darkened two of the Indians came forth and dragged him into one of their huts, which were beginning to show as dull red sparks of light in the gathering dusk. And still beyond the abattis that semblance of birds of ill-omen was discernible against the expanse of white snow, as with their curious, racial, unimagined whim the vagrant savages sat in the cold and watched the fort. They did not stir when the sunset gun sounded and the flag fluttered gently down from the staff. The beat of drums shook the thick air, and the yearning sweetness of the bugle’s tone, as it sounded for retreat, found a responsive vibration even in the snow-muffled rocks. Again and again it was lovingly reiterated, and atender resonance thrilled vaguely a long time down the dim cold reaches of the river.
Lights had sprung up in the windows. A great yellow flare gushed out from the open door of the mess-hall, and the leaping flames of the gigantic fireplace could be seen across the parade. The barracks were loud with jovial voices. Servants bearing trays of dishes were passing back and forth from the kitchen to the commandant’s quarters. The vigorous tramp of the march of soldiers made itself heard even in the snow as the corporal of the guard went out with the relief. A star showed in the dull gray sky that betokened in the higher atmosphere motion and shifting of clouds. A faint, irresolute, roseate tint lay above the purple slope to the west with a hesitant promise of a fair morrow. The light faded, the night slipped down, and the sentries began to challenge.