The Knight of the Golden Melice Part 49

"Is, then, thy resolution fixed beyond change? Will no prayers, no entreaties change thee?"

"It is better thus: the poor Sister Celestina knows how to suffer and to die, but not how to desert the post entrusted to her by her superiors."

At this moment Joy and Sa.s.sacus entered, and the former, approaching the Knight, informed him that all was ready for a start.

"I am ready," said the Knight. "Yet, once again, before I hasten away, O, Celestina, come! I cannot bear to leave thee with these men with natures rougher than the savage."

"If I were to tell thee all," she said, moved by his importunities, "thou thyself wouldst bid me remain. n.o.ble gentleman! unfortunate and slandered Knight, save thyself from thine enemies. Hasten away; there is danger in every moment's delay. Whatever may become of me, no fault is thine."

She took his hand in hers, and as she pressed it to her lips, the Knight felt a tear trickling over its surface.

"Farewell, then," he said, "since it must be so; but I will hover near to a.s.sist thee, shouldst thou change thy resolution."

He turned away, greeted the Sagamore, and, with his followers, began to leave the cabin. As he pa.s.sed the jailer, he stooped, and, removing the gag from his mouth, looked at him steadily an instant, and then placed two broad gold pieces on the floor before him.

The lady pursued with her eyes the retreating figures till swallowed up by the darkness. "I will bear my cross as I may," she said to herself, "for I deserve it for all my unhappy suspicions of his generous nature. But I will do nothing which may give further color to the malignant charge devised by the justly-slain Spikeman, and taken up by his a.s.sociates. An escape with him were sure to do that. The tongue of calumny would wag, and the finger of scorn be universally pointed at me, and all would cry, 'aha! we said it.' Such triumph shall not mine enemies have over me."

Her meditations were interrupted by Bars, who now begged her to release him from bondage, or call his wife to do the friendly office for him.

"I desire to take you to witness," said the lady, "that, though flight was in my power, I have not availed myself of the opportunity. Say that to my oppressors, to increase the guilt of their cruelty."

"I will say what you please," Answered Bars, peevishly, "an' you will untie me."

"I will do so, if you promise to make no hue and cry."

"What should I want of tramping after Indians in the dark, and perhaps catch an arrow in my paunch for my pains?" groaned the jailer; "though I have some notions of my own about the Indian part of the business."

"Trusting thy promise, I will relieve thee from thy bonds," said the lady, cutting the cords.

"I made no promise," said Bars, as soon as he was set at liberty, "though I will behave as if I had. These be brave Indians," he said to himself, slyly taking up the gold, "and pay handsomely for their right to be considered such. An' it be thy pleasure that it should be so,"

he added aloud, "these golden Indians shall remain Indians till the day of judgment, for all Bars--"

Dame Bars, now, from her nook, made her appearance on the scene.

"O, Sam!" she exclaimed, "be they gone, and have not they scalped you?"

"You can look for yourself, wife," answered Sam, pa.s.sing his fingers through his shock of hair, as if to satisfy any doubts of his own.

"But what should they want with my scalp, I wonder."

"I am sure I can't tell what they do with such things," said the dame, "unless to cover their own heads when they get bald."

"A pretty figure," grunted Bars, "my red crop would make on the top of one of them salvages. It never will come to that, goody. But I must not stay here talking about scalps, when, perhaps, the poor sentinel may have lost his." And he started toward the door.

"O do not go, do not go, Sam!" said his wife, throwing her arms around him; "they may be watching for thee on the outside."

"Women be always cowards," said the jailer; "but thou need not hug me so tight now. I warrant, having got what they wanted, they are in the woods before this time."

"Yet stay a little longer," persisted his wife. "If the poor soldier be murdered, thou canst do him no good."

"You forget, goody, that I am a public officer, and must do my duty,"

said Sam, extricating himself from her grasp; and, lighting a lantern, he went out of doors.

Bars directed his course straight to the door of the prison, which he found open.

"It is as I expected," he thought, "There is no use in going in. The Indian's long legs are loping far away in the forest, be sure.

Cowlson! friend Cowlson!" he asked, "art thou dead, or only scalped?"

He listened for an answer, but none was returned. Proceeding round the little building, he soon found what he sought--the soldier, tied by the neck and heels, in a most uncomfortable posture, and soaked with the rain.

"Humph!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Bars; "these salvages be learning civilization fast. An' I had done it myself, I could not have tied the knot with more judgment."

The soldier (to add to whose misfortunes, his musket was gone, together with the powder and ball wherewith he had been furnished) felt in no talking humor, and sulkily followed the jailer into the house, where he recovered his speech, and recounted his portion of the adventures of the night. Bars pretended to believe that the party consisted entirely of Indians; of which, however, Cowlson could by no means be persuaded; "for how," asked he, "could they learn our countersign?"

"They be cunning vermin," said Bars. "But now, that I recollect, methinks that when they deceived me it sounded a little heathenish."

"Then, why did you admit them?" demanded Cowlson.

"A fine question for you to ask, Jim Cowlson. An' I had not, the chance is they would have bowled you off with them, as a hostage for the sachem, and like as not burned us up besides. But the fact is, I was half asleep. An' I had been wide awake, perhaps I would have discovered the trick. And who would have guessed that Indians knew anything about countersigns? I wonder how they found it out."

"I must report this night's work forthwith," said Cowlson, rising; "but I had almost as lief have lost my scalp as my musket."

The disconsolate soldier accordingly wended on his way, to tell the best story he could to save himself from blame; while Bars, after relocking his empty prison, and barring his door, snuggled himself alongside his partner to busy his rather obtuse brain with schemes of a like nature on his own behalf.

CHAPTER x.x.xII.

"This monument shall utter of the past It hath no tongue; and yet Demosthenes, Or Roman Tully, never stirred the b.r.e.a.s.t.s Of gaping citizens with subtler speech, Than shall this pile of stones the wayfarers.

Who pa.s.s this way."

ANONYMOUS.

While with rapid steps through the tempestuous night the retiring party were seeking the forest, one of them, the only one in the dress of the whites, and who for that reason had not ventured into the cabin of the jailer, but had kept watch on the outside, approaching Sa.s.sacus, said:

"Let the feet of the chief be swift, for many warriors will be after him with the morning light."

"My brother!" said the delighted Sagamore, recognizing the voice of Arundel. "Let not my brother be afraid. The forest loves Sa.s.sacus, and tells him all its secrets."

"Yet remain not here, my friend, my Sa.s.sacus, nor be troubled about Neebin. I will take care of her, and she shall be restored to thee."

"Sa.s.sacus trusts his young white brother," said the Indian, "He hears Neebin singing by the river of the Pequots."

"We part here, and perhaps forever," said Arundel. "Farewell, Sagamore. A n.o.bler heart than thine never beat in savage or Christian bosom. I will never forget you."

He wrung the hand of the chief, and, turning, was instantly lost in the darkness.