CHAPTER XIV

CHAPTER XIV

Manyan anxious perplexity had harassed Captain Howard’s repose in the night watches during his tour of duty at Fort Prince George. Never one like this, he thought. Try as he might, the problem seemed to have no possible solution. Every plan bristled with difficulties. Every chance seemed arrayed against his eager hopes. The British cannon were in the Cherokee country, withheld, in defiance of the terms of the treaty, capable of incalculable harm both to the garrison as matters now stood, and to the frontier settlements in the future. The moral effect of supinely permitting the Indians to overreach and outwit the government was in itself of disastrous possibilities, reinstating their self-confidence, renewing theiresprit de corps, and fostering that contempt for the capacities of their enemy, from which the Cherokees always suffered as well as inflicted so many futile calamities. The cannon must be surrendered in accordance with the terms of the treaty, or he would be obliged to call down the retributive wrath of the British War Office upon the recalcitrant and perfidious Cherokee nation. But while with his handful of troops he awaited British aid,—an expeditionary force sent out to compel compliance with the treaty and to discipline the Indians,—he must needs expectto sustain the preliminary violence of such wars. Fort Prince George might well be razed to the ground by the very cannon in contention, the settlers to the southward would certainly be massacred as of old, and all the dearly-bought fruits of the late terrible conflict would be lost and brought to naught. If it were only possible to secure the cannon without an appeal to the government, without jeopardizing the peace of the frontier!

Captain Howard held himself no great tactician, but when he rose in the morning from a sleepless pillow he believed he had formulated a scheme to compass these ends which might possibly stand the strain of execution. True, it had its special and great dangers, against which he would provide as far as he was able, but he feared nevertheless it would cost some lives. And then a new and troublous doubt rose in his mind. It would not be consonant with his duty to again absent himself from Fort Prince George at this crisis. He must needs delegate the active execution of his scheme, and somehow the material on which he could depend impressed him as strangely unavailable when it came to such a test. Mervyn, by virtue of his rank, might seem best fitted for the enterprise, and he had been considered a steady and capable officer. The matter was extra hazardous. It necessitated a clear judgment, an absolute obedience to orders if possible, great physical endurance, and a cool head. In many respects he thought Mervyn filled these requirements, but a mistaken appraisement of his qualities by his commandingofficer would be an error of fatal results, and somehow Captain Howard found on sifting his convictions that he had, albeit for slight cause, lost confidence in Mervyn. To be sure, Mervyn had in his formal report rectified the false impression under which he had permitted the commandant to rest for a time, but Captain Howard was a straightforward man himself and he could not easily recover from the impression created by the captain-lieutenant’s duplicity in standing by and receiving commendations for the acts of another man—the fact of being in that other man’s presence made it a futile folly, which implied a lack of logic. Oddly enough, logic was one of the essential requisites on an expedition among the Indians. Such emergencies might arise that the officer could only act on his own initiative, and Mervyn seemed not capable of striking out the most effective course and holding to it at all odds.

Captain Howard groaned under the weight of responsibility. He was compelled to trust the lives of a score of his men to the wisdom or unwisdom of his selection of an officer to command them. While Mervyn, by virtue of his rank, had the first claim to the conduct of an important matter requiring tact, discretion, mental poise, he was ruled out of the possibilities. He was too self-conscious, too uncertain, too slack in judgment, too obtuse to fine distinctions. Ensign Innis also was out of the question. He was too young, too inexperienced, and Ensign Lawrence was too young, not only in years, but in mind,—a mere blundering boy. It would be suicidal to matchhis unthinking faculties against the subtle wiles of the sages of the upper towns. Lieutenant Jerrold then it must be,—but Jerrold was the most literal-minded of men! He was absolutely devoid of imagination, of speculation, of that capacity to see through the apparent fact to the lurking truth beyond. He was a very efficient man in his place, but his place was a subordinate station. He would do with thoroughness the obviously necessary, but he would not be conscious of an emergency till it was before his feet as a pitfall, or immediately in his path as an enemy. He would take the regulation precautions, but he would not divine a danger, nor detect duplicity, nor realize a subtlety which he did not share. He was the predestined victim of ambush. He was a martinet on the drill ground and a terror at inspection. He laid great stress on pipe-clay and rotten-stone, and whatever the stress of the situation the men of his immediate command always showed up preternaturally smart. Captain Howard was no prophet, but he felt he could view with the eye of accomplished fact the return of Jerrold in ten days with the calm announcement that there were no British cannon in the Cherokee country, for he had been given this solemn assurance by no less a personage than Cunigacatgoah.

Captain Howard did not even consider Bolt for the enterprise; he was a military machine, incapable of devising an expedient in emergency or acting on his own initiative. Besides, his duties as fort-adjutant were particularly pressing just now in view of thepreparations for the early evacuation of the post and they could not be delegated. Therefore there remained only Raymond,—Captain Howard was in despair as he thought of Raymond and his interpretation of his orders to “persuade” the missionary to return. Impulsive, headstrong, eager, quick, indefatigable, emotional, imaginative,—what room was there for prudence in this fiery temperament! Still, he had shown a degree of coolness at the encounter of the boat with the Tamotlee Indians, and had given the soldiers an excellent example of imperturbability under the stress of exciting circumstances. But this was his element,—the contact of actual contention,—the shock of battle so to speak. How would he restrain himself when outwitted,—how would he gather few and feeble resources and make the best of them,—how might he see fit to tamper with his instructions and obey or not as he liked,—or if a right judgment found those orders based on fallacious premises, unknown to the commandant, how should he have discretion to modify them and act on his own initiative, or would he, like Bolt, persist in following the letter if it destroyed the spirit of his instructions? Oh, it was hard to be reduced to a choice of a madcap ensign, in this matter of paramount importance? He could not, he would not, send Raymond—his impetuosity was enough to bring the whole Cherokee country about their ears.

He shook his head, scowling unwittingly, as he chanced to catch sight of Raymond while crossing the parade, and still uncertain and morosely cogitating,he took his way to the commandant’s office and disappeared from vision.

On the space beyond the parade Raymond and Arabella were greatly exercised in marking out a course for her archery practice. The promise of a fair day had been joyously fulfilled. The breeze was fresh, but bland and straight from the south; despite the leafless forests the sun shone with a vernal brilliance; a flock of wild geese going northward passed high over the fort, the cry, unfamiliar to Arabella, floating down to her ears, and she stood as long as she could see them, her head upturned, her hat fallen on the ground, her eyes following their flight as the wedge-shaped battalion deployed through the densely blue sky: there seemed even a swifter movement in the current of the river, and through the great gate one could from the parade catch sight of a white glister on the face of the waters where the ripples reflected the sun.

So soft was the air that the young lady wore no cloak. Her close-fitting gown of hunter’s green cloth, opening over a vest and petticoat of sage-tinted paduasoy, brocaded in darker shades of green, was not out of keeping with the woodland suggestions of the bow which she held in her hand and the quiver already slung over her shoulder, its gorgeous polychromatic tints rendering her an object of mark in the brilliant sunshine from far across the parade. But she paused in her preparations to lament the lack of the uniform of the archery club which she had left in the oak press of her room at home, and Raymondlistened as she described it, with her picture, thus arrayed, as vivid in his mind as the actual sight of her standing there, her golden hair glimmering in the sun, her white hands waving to and fro as she illustrated the features of the uniform and recounted the contentions of taste, the cabals and heart-burnings, the changes and counter-changes which the club had shared before at length the triumph of costume was devised, and made and worn before the acclaiming plaudits of half the county.

“Faint green,” she said, “the very shade for a Diana,—”

“I like a darker green,—Diana wears a hunter’s green,” he interrupted.

“Why do you think that?” she asked, nonplussed, her satisfaction a trifle wilted.

“I know it,” he said, a little consciously; and as she still stared at him, he went on: “hunter’s green is the shade of the forest verdure,—it is a tint selected not only for beauty but to deceive the keen vision of game. It stands to reason that Diana should wear a hunter’s green.”

She meditated on this view for a few moments in silence, and the eyes of Lieutenant Jerrold, as he loitered in the door of the mess-hall, noted their eager absorption as they stood in the grassy space between the commandant’s quarters and the block-house in the bastion, in which was situated the mess-hall. There were a few trees here, still leafless, and a number of the evergreen shrubs of the region, either spared for shade where they originally grew, or transplantedby some earlier commandant, voicing as clearly as words a yearning homesickness for a colonial or an English garden, and now attaining a considerable height and a redundant spread of boughs. An English rose, now but leafless brambles, clambered over the doorway of the commandant’s quarters, and along a hedgerow of rhododendron, which reached the proportions of a wind-break, protruded some imported bulbous plants of a simple sort, whether crocus or hyacinth, one could hardly judge from so slight a tip piercing the mould. The bare parade was quiet now; earlier in the morning there had been roll-call and guard-mounting; and Mervyn, released from duty as officer of the day, could also see from where he sat in the mess-hall the interested attitudes of the two as they paused in their preparations for target practice to enjoy the pleasures of conversation.

“The benighted ninny!” Mrs. Annandale, commenting on Mervyn, said to herself in pettish despair, watching thetête-à-têtefrom the window of the commandant’s parlor,—she had promised Arabella to witness her proficiency from this coigne of vantage, for the outer air was too brisk without the off-set of active exercise, “Whydoesn’tGeorge Mervyn join them?” For she had observed Mervyn as he had quitted the orderly room, and marked his start of surprise and relaxed pace as his eyes fell upon the two,—then his dogged affectation of indifference as he briskly crossed to the block-house in the bastion.

“Hunter’s green is the wood-nymph’s wear forever,” Raymond declared, eying Arabella as shestood in distinct relief against the darker green of the rhododendron hedge, in the flickering sunshine and shade under the branches of a balsam fir. “But I have no doubt,” he continued, with a sudden courteous afterthought, “that the archery uniform, though not designed with a strict view of sylvan utility, was very smart in faint green.”

“Oh, it was,—it was,”—she acceded, with ready good-humor. “It was relieved with white—”

“Oh, another tone of green, by all means,” he blurted out impulsively, and now he had some ado to catch himself in this inadvertence—was he dull enough, he asked himself, to openly worship in set phrase the gown she now wore? “Was the relief a dead white,—like our pipe-clay gear?” he critically demanded.

“No-o—what they call a white silver cloth, now-a-days, and with a little cap of white silver cloth, with a tinsel half-moon.”

“Oh, a lady is so fair,—the caps ought to have been a dark green to set off an exquisite fairness,—and a broad hat, a furry beaver hat, would have been prettier in my eyes than a cap.”

Oh, fool! seeming much confused now, and just remembering that it is her hat—her broad furry beaver hat—in your mind, lying there in the sand, with its drooping feather and its long strings of wide sage-green ribbon to tie under her delicate chin. No wonder you turn deeply red, and begin to try the bow-line of a great unstrung Indian bow with all your strength.

“But all ladies are not fair,” she protested. “That white silver cloth cap was Eva Golightly’s selection to set off her black hair,—she wears no powder,—that is, not on her hair!”

He laughed gayly at the imputation, and the roguish glance of her eyes encountered in his a candid mutual enjoyment of the little fling.

“But it is a charming costume,” she went on, “and so convenient,—with no hanging sleeves, nor lappets or frills to catch at the bow and arrow as one shoots,—everything laid on in plain bands,—I wish I had not left it at home, but of course I did not dream I should have any such lovely chance to shoot here.”

“And why not, pray?—the land of the bow and arrow!”

“How could I imagine I should be furnished with these adorable toys—just the proper weight and size. I could not handle a real bow like yours, for instance. It is a weapon in truth!”

She suddenly held out her bow to exchange for experiment, and lifting the long, straight, heavy weapon, she sought to bend it from the perpendicular to string it. The stout wood resisted her force, and she paused to admire its smooth grain, which had a sheen like satin. He did not think its history worth telling,—a grewsome recollection for so fair a day! He had taken it from a Cherokee warrior whom he had slain during the late war in a hand-to-hand conflict—a desperate encounter, for the Indian had held him half doubled by a clutch on his powderedand perfumed hair, and the scalp-knife had grazed his forehead before he could make shift to fire his pistol, twice flashing in the pan, into his captor’s heart. He had no time to reload, and snatching up the bow of his adversary he had fitted and shot an arrow with fatal effect at a tribesman who was coming up to his comrade’s assistance; then Raymond made good his retreat, carrying the bow as a trophy.

It was indeed a weapon. “Terrible was the clanging of the silver bow” as he strung it and then drew back the cord to try it, and then let it fly again. Arabella exclaimed with a shrilly sweet delight at the unexpected resonance of the taut bow-line. He fitted an arrow and drew back, sighting carefully at the target. This was a board painted white, with several dark circles about a bull’s-eye, affixed against a tree, beyond which was the blank interior slope of the rampart, and above, the red clay parapet surmounted by the long line of the stakes of the tall stockade. Captain Howard, himself, had selected the spot. In common with all regulars he believed—and fire cannot scorch this faith out of them—that only the trained soldier can fight, or shoot, or acquire any accuracy of aim. He had therefore placed the flower of the archery club where her quartz-tipped arrows, if wide of the mark, could only pierce the heavy clay embankment and endanger the life and welfare of neither man nor beast. Suddenly Raymond let fly the shaft, testing the wind. It had fallen now to the merest zephyr, and did not swervethe arrow a hair’s breadth from the mark. It struck fair and full in the bull’s-eye, for these frontier officers often were called upon to defend their lives with their own hands, and sought skill in marksmanship, a steady hand, a trained eye, and a cool head as zealously as did the rank and file.

The youthful Diana, her draperies flying in the motion as she sped through shadow and sheen, gained the target as quickly as he. As he recovered his arrow he was laughing with flattered pleasure noting her eagerness to assure herself of the accuracy of his aim, while she uttered little exclamations of wonder and delight at his efficiency.

“Wouldn’t you make them stare in Kent?” she cried breathlessly, as the two raced together swiftly to the starting-point.

Then she selected an arrow from her gorgeous little quiver, hanging over her shoulder, and fitted the shaft to the bow. It was the prettiest attitude imaginable as she stood in the mingled shadow and sheen, her golden hair glimmering in the sun, and drawing the cord took careful aim. Her arrow sprang smartly from the string, sped through the air, and entered one of the circles so close to the centre as to justify Raymond’s joyous cry of congratulation, echoing through the parade.

“Gad! I think I’ll see this thing through!” Jerrold exclaimed, as he still stood in the mess-room door. He turned to the wall, and took down a bow that had been used there for ornament rather than a weapon. As he approached across the parade henoticed that the face of every passer-by was turned with smiling eyes toward the spirited and handsome young couple, and when he came up and was greeted genially by Raymond, and with a gracious word of welcome by the lady, he thought sagely that the best archer on the ground was invisible, and that the prettiest shots were not registered on the target.

The absence of Mervyn seemed the more significant now, since the other young officers not on duty were occupied in the gallant endeavor to make the archery practice of the young lady more interesting and exciting by competition. As he dully sulked in the deserted mess-hall, he had the cold comfort of perceiving that his presence was by no means essential to the young lady’s enjoyment of the occasion. Her musical, ringing laughter, now much heartier than either Mrs. Annandale or Mervyn thought becoming or consonant with the simpering ideals of the times, was blended with the very definite merriment of the young officers, who by no means had been taught to “laugh by note.” Jerrold’s entrance to the pastime had added greatly to its gayety. He was a fair shot with fire-arms, but he entertained, of course, great contempt for the bow and arrow as a weapon. He had no sort of appreciation of its grace in usage nor interest in the romantic details of its archaic history, either in civilized countries of eld or in this new and savage world. In his literal mind the mighty bow-men of whatever sort were a set of inefficient varlets, whom a pinch of gun-powder might justly put to rout. Hence he scarcely knew how to takehold of the weapon. He had not even taxed his observation with its methods, although he had often seen Indian hunters use it in shooting at game, and more than once, since the scarcity of powder among the Cherokees, a forlorn destitute wight seek to defend his life with its dubious and precarious aid. Therefore there was much glee on the part of the two experts when Jerrold claimed his turn; after several efforts he awkwardly contrived to draw the bow and sent an arrow feebly fluttering through the air to fall to the ground a few paces distant. Arabella clapped her hands like a child as she burst into melodious peals of laughter, and Raymond’s amusement at this travesty of archery was hardly less spontaneous. Though vastly superior, they showed themselves not grudging of their proficiency; they undertook to instruct Jerrold in correct methods, one standing on either side of him and both talking at once. Suddenly Raymond called out sharply to Arabella, cautioning her lest she pass between the archer and the target. “For heaven’s sake,—for mercy’s sake,” he adjured her solemnly, “pray be careful!”

She flushed deeply at the tone; it thrilled in her heart; the next moment her heart was aching with the realization that it was of no special significance. Any one might caution another with a reckless exposure to danger.

“I fancy the safest place is between the archer and the target when Mr. Jerrold shoots,” she said laughing.

Then again ensued the farce of Jerrold’s efforts,the faltering shaft falling far short of the mark,—with such wide divergence, indeed, even from the line of aim, that Captain Howard’s disposition of the target in so remote a spot was amply justified. As once more the joyous laughter rang forth in which Jerrold, himself, readily bore a sonorous part, Mervyn suddenly joined the group. He had gained nothing by his absence, and indeed he could no longer nurse his anger in secret to keep it warm.

“What is all this?” he asked curtly, glancing about him with an air of disparagement.

“Can’t you see?” returned Jerrold. “It is archery practice.”

“Will you shoot?” Raymond suggested, civilly offering him the bow which he had used himself.

Mervyn hesitated. He thought himself a fair bowman, but he fancied from the state of the target and what he had heard of the acclaim of success that Raymond had made some very close hits. He feared lest he might come off a poor second. He was not willing to be at a disadvantage in Arabella’s presence even in so small a matter. He resented, too, the sight of her use of Raymond’s gift,—the beautiful bow in her hand, the decorated quiver, with its crystal-tipped arrows, hanging from its embroidered strap over her dainty shoulder. He could not refrain from a word that might serve to disparage them.

“No,” he refused, “I don’t care for archery. It is a childish pastime.”

“I am beholden to you, sir!” exclaimed Arabella, exceedingly stiffly.

She really was so expert as to render her proficiency almost an accomplishment, and she was of a spirit to resent the contemptuous disparagement of a pastime which she so ardently affected.

“I mean, of course, for men and soldiers,” Mervyn qualified, with a deep flush, for her tone had brought him suddenly to book.

“The bow-men of Old England?” she said, with her chin in the air.

“They had no better weapons,” he reminded her, with an air of instruction. “And their victories were not child’s play. It was the best they could do.”

“And this is the best that I can do!” she said, fitting an arrow to the bow and throwing herself into that attitude of incomparable grace.

Whether it was an accident, whether she had made an extraordinary effort, whether the discord, the nettled displeasure, the roused pride, served to steady her nerves, as self-assertion sometimes will do, the arrow, springing from the string, cleft the air with a musical sibilance that was like a measure of song, and flying straight to the mark struck the bull’s-eye fairly and stuck there, rendering the feat absolutely impossible of disallowance.

Raymond’s delight knew no bounds. He sympathized so in her pleasure. They looked at each other with wide, brilliant eyes full of mutual joy, and ran together to the target to make sure of what was already assured. As they came back both were laughing excitedly, and Raymond was loudly talking.“Let us leave it there to show to Captain Howard. He will never believe it else. Let not another arrow be shot till then, lest somebody strike the target and the jar bring this arrow down.”

“Except Mr. Jerrold!” Arabella stipulated, with a gush of laughter. “There is no danger of his hitting the target, far or near.”

“Yes,—yes,—” exclaimed Raymond, adopting the suggestion. “Here, Jerrold, value your special privileges! You only may draw the bow.”

Jerrold braced himself to the endeavor, good-naturedly adopting the advice of each in turn as they took up their station, one on either side.

“Slip your left hand lower!” Raymond urged.

“Oh, youmusthold the arrow steady!” Arabella admonished him.

“Now aim,—aim,—man!” Raymond prompted.

“Why don’t you take sight, Mr. Jerrold?” Arabella queried.

Mervyn, looking on disaffectedly as all were so merrily busy, noticed that two or three soldiers who passed near enough to see down the little grassy glade among the trees sensibly slackened their pace in their interest in the commotion, and, indeed, the whole scene was visible to the sentries at the gate, the warder in the tower, and to a certain extent from the galleries of the barracks.

“Don’t you think it is injudicious, Jerrold,” he remarked, with distant displeasure, “to make yourself ridiculous in the eyes of the men of your command?”

“Oh, no!” said Jerrold, lightly. “They know itis capital punishment to ridicule me. Make your mind easy.”

“It must lessen your influence!” Mervyn persisted. He hardly knew what he wanted in this argument. He did not care a fig for Jerrold’s influence over the men. He only desired some subterfuge to break up the merry-making in which he did not choose to share.

Jerrold did not even answer. Arabella on one side was offering a dozen suggestions tending to improve his aim, and Raymond was by precept and example endeavoring to get him into the right posture.

“Now,—hold steady for a minute before you shoot,” said Raymond.

“If you only could count ten in that position without moving,” suggested Arabella.

“Or better still, repeat the Cherokee invocation for good aim,” Raymond proposed. “Might improve your luck.” And he continued sonorously: “Usinuli yu Selagwutsi Gigagei getsu neliga tsudandag gihi ayeliyu, usinuliyu. Yu!” (Instantly may the Great Red magic arrow strike you in the very centre of your soul.)

“Oh, repeat it! repeat it!” cried Arabella. “Try it, and see if it will really mend your aim! What strange, strange words!”

Jerrold was haltingly repeating this after Raymond when Captain Howard came out of his office, and seeing the group took his way toward it. Raymond’s back being toward him, he did not perceive the commandant’sapproach and continued the invocation, delivering itore rotundoin imitation of the sonorous elocution of the Indians.

It sounded very clever to Captain Howard, who always declared he envied the facility with which the young officers picked up the colloquial use of the Indian languages. He took no trouble himself to that end, however. In his adoption of the adage with reference to the difficulty of teaching an old dog new tricks, he did not adequately consider the disinclination of the dog to the acquisition of fresh lore. The younger men were more plastic to new impressions; they exerted a keener observation; and felt a fresher interest, and few there were who had not some familiarity with the tongue and traditions of the tribe of Indians about the fort, and those among whom their extensive campaigns had taken them.

“What does all that mean?” Captain Howard asked curtly.

Raymond translated, and explained Jerrold’s predicament and his need of luck in default of skill. Then he turned with animation toward the target, to celebrate the famous hit of Miss Howard’s arrow in the bull’s-eye while she stood flushing and smiling and prettily conscious beside him. But Captain Howard laid a constraining hand on his arm and looking at him with earnest eyes, demanded, “Where did you get all that Cherokee stuff?”

“Oh, in the campaigns in the Cherokee country,” Raymond answered, “I picked up a deal of theirlingo.” For Raymond had served both in Montgomery’s campaign and Grant’s subsequent forays through this region two years ago, and his active mind had amassed much primitive lore, which, however, he had never expected to use in any valuable sort.

“Were you ever in Choté, Old Town?” queried the captain.

“I was there on one occasion, sir” said Raymond now surprised and expectant.

“Then go there again,—take twenty picked men,—your own choice,—and set out to-morrow at daybreak. Report for final orders this evening at retreat.”

Arabella, dismayed and startled, felt her heart sink. She turned pale and tremulous; she did not know if a cloud passed over the sun, but for her the light of the day was quenched. She could not understand Raymond. His face was transfigured with a glow of delight. She could not imagine the zest of such an employ to a young officer, brave, ardent, eager to show his mettle, ambitious of any occasion of distinction. This was his first opportunity. A distant march,—a separate command of experienced soldiers,—even if only twenty! The dignity of the prospect set Raymond all a-quiver. What cared he for the jungles of the wild mountains, the distance, the toils, the danger! As to the Indians,—it behooved the nations to look to their safety when he was on the march with twenty men at his back! His cheek was scarlet; his eyes flashed fire; he respondedwith a staid decorum of acquiescence, but it was obvious that in his enthusiasm for the opportunity he could have fallen at the feet of the commandant and kissed his hands in gratitude.

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