Nick of the Woods Part 13

CHAPTER XV.

The enemy, twice repulsed, and on both occasions with severe loss, had been taught the folly of exposing themselves too freely to the fire of the travellers; but although driven back, they manifested little inclination to fly further than was necessary to obtain shelter, and as little to give over their fierce purposes. Concealing themselves severally behind logs, rocks, and bushes, and so disposing their force as to form a line around the ruin, open only towards the river, where escape was obviously impracticable, they employed themselves keeping a strict watch upon the hovel, firing repeated volleys, and as often uttering yells, with which they sought to strike terror into the hearts of the besieged. Occasionally some single warrior, bolder than the rest, would creep near the ruins, and obtaining such shelter as he could, discharge his piece at any mouldering beam, or other object, which his fancy converted into the exposed body of a defender. But the travellers had taken good care to establish themselves in such positions among the ruins as offered the best protection; and although the bullets whistled sharp and nigh, not a single one had yet received a wound; nor was there much reason to apprehend injury so long as the darkness of night befriended them.

Yet it was obvious to all that this state of security could not last long, and that it existed only because the enemy was not yet aware of his advantage. The condition of the ruins was such that a dozen men of sufficient spirit, dividing themselves, and creeping along the earth, might at any moment make their way to any and every part of the hovel without being seen, when a single rush must put it in their power. An open a.s.sault indeed from the whole body of besiegers, whose number was reckoned by Nathan at full fifteen or twenty, must have produced the same success, though with the loss of several lives. A random shot might at any moment destroy or disable one of the little garrison, and thus rob one important corner of the hovel, which, from its dilapidated state was wholly indefensible from within of defence. It was indeed, as Roland felt, more than folly to hope that all should escape unharmed for many hours longer. But the worst fear of all was that previously suggested by Nathan: all might survive the perils of the night; but what fate was to be expected when the coming of day should expose the party, in all its true weakness, to the eyes of the enemy? If relief came not before morning, Roland's heart whispered him, it must come in vain. But the probabilities of relief, what were they? The question was asked of Nathan, and the answer went like iron through Roland's soul. They were in the deepest and most solitary part of the forest, twelve miles from Bruce's Station, and at least eight from that at which the emigrants were to lodge; with no other places within twice the distance, from which help could be obtained. They had left, three or four miles behind, the main and only road on which volunteers, summoned from the Western Stations to repel the invasion, of which the news had arrived before Roland's departure from Bruce's village, could be expected to pa.s.s; if indeed the strong force of the enemy posted at the Upper Ford had not cut off all communication between the two districts. From Bruce's Station little or no a.s.sistance could be hoped, the entire strength of its garrison, as Roland well knew, having long since departed to share in the struggle on the north side of Kentucky. a.s.sistance could be looked for only from his late companions, the emigrants, from whom he had parted in an evil hour.

But how were they to be made acquainted with his situation?

The discussion of these questions almost distracted the young man. Help could only come from themselves. Would it not be possible to cut their way through the besiegers? He proposed a thousand wild schemes of escape; now he would mount his trusty steed, and das.h.i.+ng among the enemy, receive their fire, distract their attention, and perhaps draw them in pursuit, while Nathan and the others galloped off with the women in another quarter; and again, he would plunge with them into the boiling torrent below, trusting to the strength of the horses to carry them through in safety.

To these and other frantic proposals, uttered in the intervals of combat, which was still maintained, with occasional demonstrations on the part of the enemy of advancing to a third a.s.sault, Nathan replied only by representing the certain death they would bring upon all, especially "the poor helpless women," whose condition, with the reflection that he had brought them into it, seemed ever to dwell upon his mind, producing feelings of remorseful excitement not inferior even to the compunctions which he expressed at every shot discharged by him at the foe. Indeed his conscience seemed sorely distressed and perplexed; now he upbraided himself with being the murderer of the two poor women, and now of his Shawnee fellow-creatures; now he wrung the soldier by the hand, begging him to bear witness that he was shedding blood, not out of malice or wantonness, or even self-defence, but purely to save the innocent scalps of poor women, whose blood would be otherwise on his head; and now beseeching the young man with equal fervour to let the world know of his doings, that the blame might fall, not upon the faith of which he was an unworthy professor, but upon him, the evil-doer and backslider. But with all his remorse and contrition, he manifested no inclination to give over the work of fighting; but, on the contrary, fired away with extreme good-will at every evil Shawnee creature that showed himself, encouraging Roland to do the same, and exhibiting throughout the whole contest the most exemplary courage and good conduct.

But courage and good conduct, although so unexpectedly manifested in the time of need by all his companions, Roland felt could only serve to defer for a few hours the fate of his party. The night wore away fast, the a.s.sailants grew bolder; and from the louder yells and more frequent shots coming from them, it seemed as if their numbers, instead of diminis.h.i.+ng under his own fire, were gradually increasing by the dropping in of their scouts from the forest. At the same time, he became sensible that his stores of ammunition were fast decreasing.

"Friend," said Nathan, wringing the soldier's hand for the twentieth time, when made acquainted with the deficiency, "it is written, that thee women shall be murdered before thee eyes! Nevertheless I will do my best to save them. Friend, I must leave thee! Thee shall have a.s.sistance. Can thee hold out the hovel till morning? But it is foolish to ask thee: thee _must_ hold it out, and with none save the coloured person and the man Dodge to help thee; for I say to thee, it has come to this at last, as I thought it would: I must break through the lines of thee Injun foes, and find thee a.s.sistance."

"It is impossible," said Roland in despair; "you will only provoke your destruction."

"It may be, friend, as thee says," responded Nathan; "nevertheless, friend, for thee women's sake, I will adventure it; for it is I, miserable sinner that I am, that have brought them to this pa.s.s, and that must bring them out of it again, if man can do it."

At a moment of less grief and desperation, Roland would have better appreciated the magnitude of the service which Nathan thus offered to attempt, and even hesitated to permit what must have manifestly seemed the throwing away of a human life. But the emergency was too great to allow the operation of any but selfish feelings. The existence of his companions, the life of his Edith, depended upon procuring relief, and this could be obtained in no other way. If the undertaking was dangerous in the extreme, he saw it with the eyes of a soldier as well as a lover: it was a feat he would himself have dared without hesitation, could it have promised, in his hands, any relief to his followers.

"Go, then, and G.o.d be with you," he muttered, eagerly "you have our lives in your hand. But it will be long, long before you can reach the band on foot. Yet do not weary or pause by the way. I have but little wealth; but with what I have I will reward you."

"Friend," said Nathan proudly, "what I do I do for no lucre of reward, but for pity of thee poor women; for truly I have seen the murdering and scalping of poor women before, and the seeing of the same has left blood upon my head, which is a mournful thing to think of."

"Well, be not offended: do what you can--our lives may rest on a single minute."

"I _will_ do what I can, friend," replied Nathan; "and if I can but pa.s.s safely through thee foes, there is scarce a horse in thee company, were it even thee war-horse, that shall run to thee friends more fleetly. But, friend, do thee hold out the house: use thee powder charily; keep up the spirits of thee two men, and be of good heart theeself, fighting valiantly, and slaying according to thee conscience; and then, friend, if it be Heaven's will, I will return to thee, and help thee out of thee troubles."

With these words, Nathan turned from the soldier, setting out upon his dangerous duty with a courage and self-devotion of which Roland did not yet know all the merit. He threw himself upon the earth, and muttering to little Peter, "Now, Peter, as thee ever served thee master well and truly, serve him well and truly now," began to glide away amongst the ruins, making his way from log to log, and bush to bush, close behind the animal, who seemed to determine the period and direction of every movement. His course was down the river, the opposite of that by which the party had reached the ruin, in which quarter the woods were highest, and promised the most accessible, as well as the best shelter; though that could be reached only in the event of his successfully avoiding the different barbarians hidden among the bushes on its border. He soon vanished, with his dog, from the eyes of the soldier; who now, in pursuance of instructions previously given him by Nathan, caused his two followers to let fly a volley among the trees, which had the expected effect of drawing another in return from the foes, accompanied by their loudest whoops of menace and defiance. In this manner Nathan, as he drew nigh the wood, was enabled to form correct opinions as to the different positions of the besiegers, and to select that point in the line which seemed the weakest; while the attention of the foe was in a measure drawn off, so as to give him the better opportunity of advancing on them un.o.bserved. With this object in view, a second and third volley were fired by the little garrison; after which they ceased making such feints of hostility, and left him, as he had directed, to his fate.

It was then that, with a beating heart, Roland awaited the event; and as he began to figure to his imagination the perils which Nathan must necessarily encounter in the undertaking, he listened for the shout of triumph that he feared would, each moment, proclaim the capture or death of his messenger. But he listened in vain,--at least, in vain for such sounds as his skill might interpret into evidences of Nathan's fate: he heard nothing but the occasional crack of a rifle aimed at the ruin, with the yell of the savage that fired it, the rush of the breeze, the rumbling of the thunder, and the deep-toned echoes from the river below.

There was nothing whatever occurred, at least for a quarter of an hour, by which he might judge what was the issue of the enterprise; and he was beginning to indulge the hope that Nathan had pa.s.sed safely through the besiegers, when a sudden yell of a peculiarly wild and thrilling character was uttered in the wood in the quarter in which Nathan had fled; and this, exciting, as it seemed to do, a prodigious sensation among his foes, filled him with anxiety and dread. To his ears the shout expressed fury and exultation such as might well be felt at the sudden discovery and capture of the luckless messenger; and his fear that such had been the end of Nathan's undertaking was greatly increased by what followed. The shots and whoops suddenly ceased, and, for ten minutes or more, all was silent, save the roar of the river, and the whispering of the fitful breeze. "They have taken him alive, poor wretch!" muttered the soldier, "and now they are forcing from him a confession of our weakness!"

It seemed as if there might be some foundation for the suspicion; for presently a great shout burst from the enemy, and the next moment a rush was made against the ruin as if by the whole force of the enemy. "Fire!"

shouted Roland to his companions: "if we must die, let it be like men;"

and no sooner did he behold the dark figures of the a.s.sailants leaping among the ruins, than he discharged his rifle and a pair of pistols which he had reserved in his own hands, the other pair having been divided between Dodge and the negro, who used them with equal resolution, and with an effect that Roland had not antic.i.p.ated; the a.s.sailants, apparently daunted by the weight of the volley, seven pieces having been discharged in rapid succession, instantly beat a retreat, resuming their former positions. From these, however, they now maintained an almost incessant fire; and by and by several of them, stealing cautiously up, effected a lodgment in a distant part of the ruins, whence, without betraying any especial desire to come to closer quarters, they began to carry on the war in a manner that greatly increased Roland's alarm, their bullets flying about and into the hovel so thickly that he became afraid lest some of them should reach its hapless inhabitants. He was already debating within himself the propriety of transferring Edith and her companion from this ruinous and now dangerous abode to the ravine, where they might be sheltered from all danger, at least for a time, when a bolt of lightning, as he at first thought it, shot from the nearest group of foes, flashed over his head, and striking what remained of the roof, stood trembling in it, an arrow of blazing fire. The appearance of this missile, followed, as it immediately was, by several others discharged from the same tow, confirmed the soldier's resolution to remove the females, while it greatly increased his anxiety; for although there was little fear that the flames could be communicated from the arrows to the roof so deeply saturated by the late rains, yet each, while burning, served, like a flambeau, to illuminate the ruins below, and must be expected before long to reveal the helplessness of the party, and to light the besiegers to their prey.

With such fears on his mind, he hesitated no longer to remove his cousin and her companion to the ravine; which was effected with but little risk or difficulty, the ravine heading, as was mentioned before, under the floor of the hovel itself, and its borders being so strewn with broken timbers and planks, as to screen the party from observation. He concealed them both among the rocks and brambles with which the hollow abounded, listened a moment to the rush of the flood as it swept the precipitous bank, and the roar with which it seemed struggling among rocky obstructions above, and smiling with the grim thought, that, when resistance was no longer availing, there was yet a refuge for his kinswoman within the dark bosom of those troubled waters, to which he felt, with the stern resolution of a Roman father rather than of a Christian lover, that he could, when nothing else remained, consign her with his own hands, he returned to the ruins, to keep up the appearance of still defending it, and to preserve the entrance of the ravine.

CHAPTER XVI.

The flaming arrows were still shot in vain at the water-soaked roof, and the combustibles with which they were armed, burning out very rapidly, produced hut little of that effect in illuminating the ruins which Roland had apprehended, and for which they had been perhaps in part designed; and, in consequence, the savages soon ceased to shoot them. A more useful ally to the besiegers was promised in the moon, which was now rising over the woods, and occasionally revealing her wan and wasted crescent through gaps in the clouds. Waning in her last quarter, and struggling amid banks of vapour, she yet retained sufficient, magnitude and l.u.s.tre, when risen a few more degrees, to dispel the almost sepulchral darkness that had hitherto invested the ruins, and thus proved a more effectual protection to the travellers than their own courage. Of this Roland was well aware; and he watched the increasing light with sullen and gloomy forebodings; though still exhorting his two supporters to hope and courage, and setting them a constant example of vigilance and resolution. But neither hope nor courage, neither vigilance nor resolution, availed to deprive the foe of the advantage he had gained in effecting a lodgment among the ruins, where four or five different warriors still maintained a hot fire upon the hovel, doing, of course, little harm, as it was entirely deserted, but threatening mischief enough, when it should fall into their hands,--a catastrophe that was deferred only in consequence of the extreme cautiousness with which they now conducted hostilities, the travellers making only a show of defending it, though sensible that it almost entirely commanded the ravine.

It was now more than an hour and a half since Nathan had departed, and Roland was beginning himself to feel the hope he encouraged in the others, that the man of peace had actually succeeded in effecting his escape, and that the wild whoop which he at first esteemed the evidence of his capture or death, and the a.s.sault that followed it, had been caused by some circ.u.mstance having no relation to Nathan whatever,--perhaps by the arrival of a reinforcement, whose coming had infused new spirit into the b.r.e.a.s.t.s of the so long baffled a.s.sailants.

"If he _have_ escaped," he muttered, "he must already be near the camp:--a strong man and fleet runner might reach it in an hour. In another hour,--nay, perhaps in half an hour, for there are good horses and bold hearts in the band,--I shall hear the rattle of their hoofs in the wood, and the yells of these cursed bandits, scattered like dust under their footsteps. If I can but hold the ravine for an hour! Thank Heaven, the moon is a second time lost in clouds, the thunder is again rolling through the sky! A tempest now were better than gales of Araby,--a thunder-gust were our salvation."

The wishes of the soldier seemed about, to be fulfilled. The clouds, which for half an hour had been breaking up, again gathered, producing thicker darkness than before; and heavy peals of thunder, heralded by pale sheets of lightning that threw a ghastly but insufficient light over objects, were again heard rattling at a distance over the woods. The fire of the savages began to slacken, and by and by entirely ceased. They waited perhaps for the moment when the increasing glare of the lightning should enable them better to distinguish between the broken timbers, the objects of so many wasted volleys, and the crouching bodies of the defenders.

The soldier took advantage of this moment of tranquillity to descend to the river to quench his thirst, and to bear back some of the liquid element to his fainting followers. While engaged in this duty he cast his eyes upon the scene, surveying with sullen interest the flood that cut off his escape from the fatal hovel. The mouth of the ravine was wide and scattered over with rocks and bushes, that even projected for some little s.p.a.ce into the water, the latter vibrating up and down in a manner that proved the strength and irregularity of the current. The river was here bounded by frowning cliffs, from which, a furlong or two above, had fallen huge blocks of stone that greatly contracted its narrow channel; and among these the swollen waters surged and foamed with the greatest violence, producing that hollow roar, which was so much in keeping with the solitude of the ruin, and so proper an accompaniment to the growling thunder and the wild yells of the warriors. Below these ma.s.sive obstructions, and opposite the mouth of the ravine, the channel had expanded into a pool; in which the waters might have regained their tranquillity and rolled along in peace, but for the presence of an island, which, growing up in the centre of the expanse, consolidated by the roots of a thousand willows and other trees that delight in such humid soils, and, in times of flood, covered by a raft of drift timber entangled among its trees, presented a barrier, on either side of which the current swept with speed and fury, though, as it seemed, entirely unopposed by rocks. In such a current, as Roland thought, there was nothing unusually formidable; a daring swimmer might easily make his way to the island opposite, where, if difficulties were presented by the second channel, he might as easily find shelter from enemies firing on him from the banks. He gazed again on the island, which, viewed in the gloom, revealed to his eyes only a ma.s.s of shadowy boughs, resting in peace and security. His heart beat high with hope, and he was beginning to debate the chances of success in an attempt to swim his party across the channel on the horses, when a flash of lightning, brighter than usual, disclosed the fancied island a cl.u.s.ter of shaking tree-tops, whose trunks as well as the soil that supported them, were buried fathoms deep in the flood. At the same moment, he heard coming on a gust that repelled and deadened for a time the louder tumult from the rocks above, other roaring sounds, indicating the existence of other rocky obstructions at the foot of the island, among which as he could now see, the same flash having shown him the strength of the current in the centre of the channel, the swimmer must be dashed, who failed to find footing on the island.

"We are imprisoned, indeed," he muttered, bitterly: "Heaven itself has deserted us."

As he uttered these repining words, stooping to dip the canteen with which he was provided, in the water, a little canoe, darting forward with a velocity that seemed produced by the combined strength of the current and the rower, shot suddenly among the rocks and bushes at the entrance of the ravine, wedging itself fast among them, and a human figure leaped from it to the sh.o.r.e. The soldier started back aghast, as if from a dweller of another world; but recovering his courage in an instant, and not doubting that he beheld in the unexpected visitor a Shawnee and foe, who had thus found means of a.s.sailing his party on the rear, he rushed upon the stranger with drawn sword, for he had laid his rifle aside, and taking him at a disadvantage, while stooping to drag the boat further ash.o.r.e, he smote him such a blow over the head, as brought him instantly to the ground, a dead man to all appearance, since, while his body fell upon the earth, his head,--or at least a goodly portion of it, sliced away by the blow,--went skimming into the water.

"Die, dog!" said Roland, as he struck the blow; and not content with that, he clapped his foot on the victim's breast, to give him the _coup-de-grace_ when, wonder of wonders, the supposed Shawnee and dead man opened his lips, and cried aloud, in good choice Salt-River English,--"'Tarnal death to you, white man! what are you after?"

It was the voice, the never-to-be-forgotten voice, of the captain of horse-thieves; and as Roland's sword dropped from his hand in the surprise, up rose Roaring Ralph himself, his eyes rolling, as Roland saw by a second flash of lightning, with thrice their usual obliquity, his left hand scratching among the locks of hair exposed by the blow of the sabre, which had carried off a huge slice of his hat, without doing other mischief, while his right brandished a rifle, which he handled as if about to repay the favour with interest. But the same flash that revealed his visage to the astonished soldier, disclosed also Roland's features to him, and he fairly yelled with joy at the sight. "'Tarnal death to me!"

he roared, first leaping into the air and cracking' his heels together, then s.n.a.t.c.hing at Roland's hand, which he clutched and twisted with the gripe of a bear, and then cracking his heels together again, "'tarnal death to me, sodger, but I know'd it war _you_ war in a squabblification!

I heard the cracking and the squeaking; "'Tarnal death to me!' says I, 'thar's Injuns!' And then I thought, and says I, '"Tarnal death to me, who are they after?' and then, 'tarnal death to me, it came over me like a strick of lightning, and says I, 'Tarnal death to me, but its anngelliferous madam that helped me out of the halter!' Strannger!" he roared, executing another demivolte, "h'yar am I, come to do anngelliferous madam's fighting ag'in all critturs human and inhuman, Christian and Injun, white, red, black, and party-coloured. Show me anngelliferous madam, and then show me the abbregynes; and if you ever seed fighting, 'tarnal death to me, but you'll say it war only the squabbling of seed-ticks and blue-bottle flies! I say, sodger, show me anngelliferous madam: you cut the halter, and you cut the tug; but it war madam the anngel that set you on: wharfo', I'm her dog and her niggur from now to etarnity, and I'm come to fight for her, and lick her enemies till you shall see nothing left of 'em but ha'rs and nails!"

Of these expressions, uttered with extreme volubility and the most extravagant gestures, Roland took no notice; his astonishment at the horse-thief's appearance was giving way to new thoughts and hopes, and he eagerly demanded of Ralph how he had got there.

"In the dug-out,"[9] said Ralph; "found her floating among the bushes, ax'd me out a flopper[10] with my tom-axe in no time, jumped in, thought of anngelliferous madam, and came down the falls like a cob in a corn-van--ar'n't I the leaping trout of the waters? Strannger, I don't want to sw'ar; but I reckon if there ar'n't h.e.l.l up thar among the big stones, thar's h.e.l.l no other whar all about Salt River! But I say, sodger, I came here not to talk nor cavort[11], but to show that I'm the man, Ralph Stackpole, to die dog for them that pats me. So, whar's anngelliferous madam? Let me see her, sodger, that I may feel wolfish when I jumps among the redskins; for I'm all for a fight, and thar ar'n't no run in me."

[Footnote 9: _Dug-out_--a canoe--because _dug out_ or hollowed with the axe.]

[Footnote 10: _Flopper_--a flapper, a paddle.]

[Footnote 11: _Cavort_--to play pranks, to gasconade.]

"It is well, indeed, if it shall prove so," said Roland, not without bitterness; "for it is to you alone we owe all our misfortunes."

With these words, he led the way to the place, where, among the horses, concealed among brambles and stones, lay the unfortunate females, cowering on the bare earth. The pale sheets of lightning, flas.h.i.+ng now with greater frequency, revealed them to Ralph's eyes, a ghastly and melancholy pair, whose situation and appearance were well fitted to move the feelings of a manly bosom; Edith lying almost insensible across Telie's knees, while the latter, weeping bitterly, yet seemed striving to forget her own distresses, while ministering to those of her companion.

"'Tarnal death to me!" cried Stackpole, looking upon Edith's pallid visage and rayless eyes with more emotion than would have been expected from his rude character, or than was expressed in his uncouth phrases, "if that don't make me eat a niggur, may I be tetotaciously chawed up myself! Oh, you anngelliferous madam! jist look up and say the word, for I'm now ready to mount a wild-cat: jist look up, and don't make a die of it, for thar's no occasion: for ar'n't I your niggur-slave, Ralph Stackpole? and ar'n't I come to lick all that's agin you, Mingo, Shawnee, Delaware, and all! Oh, you anngelliferous crittur! don't swound away, but look up, and see how I'll wallop 'em!"

And here the worthy horse-thief, seeing that his exhortations produced no effect upon the apparently dying Edith, dropped upon his knees, and began to blubber and lament over her, as if overcome by his feelings, promising her a world of Indian scalps, and a whole Salt River full of Shawnee blood, if she would only look up and see how he went about it.

"Show your grat.i.tude by actions, not by words," said Roland, who, whatever his cause for disliking the zealous Ralph, was not unrejoiced at his presence, as that of a valuable auxiliary: "rise up, and tell me, in the name of heaven, how you succeeded in reaching this place, and what hope there is of leaving it?"

But Ralph was too much afflicted by the wretched condition of Edith, whom his grat.i.tude for the life she had bestowed had made the mistress paramount of his soul, to give much heed to any one but herself; and it was only by dint of hard questioning that Roland drew from him, little by little, an account of the causes which had kept him in the vicinity of the travellers, and finally brought him to the scene of combat.

It had been, it appeared, an eventful and unlucky day with the horse-thief, as well as the soldier. Aside from his adventure on the beech-tree, enough in all truth to mark the day for him with a black stone, he had been peculiarly unfortunate with the horses to which he had so unceremoniously helped himself. The gallant Briareus, after sundry trials of strength with his new master, had at last succeeded in throwing him from his back; and the two-year-old pony, after obeying him the whole day with the docility of a dog, even when the halter was round his neck, and carrying him in safety until within a few miles of Jackson's Station, had attempted the same exploit, and succeeded, galloping off on the back track towards his home. This second loss was the more intolerable, since Stackpole, having endured the penalty for stealing him, considered himself as having a legal, Lynch-like right to the animal, which no one could now dispute. He therefore returned in pursuit of the pony, until night arrested his footsteps on the banks of the river, which, the waters still rising, he did not care to cross in the dark. He had, therefore, built a fire by the road-side, intending to camp-out till morning.

"And it was your fire, then, that checked us?" cried Roland, at this part of the story,--"it was _your_ light we took for the watch-fire of Indians?"

"Injuns you may say," quoth Stackpole, innocently, "for thar war a knot of 'em I seed sneaking over the ford; and jist as I was squinting a long aim at 'em, hoping I might smash two of 'em at alick, slam-bang goes a feller that had got behind me, 'tarnal death to him, and roused me out of my snuggery. Well, sodger, then I jumps into the cane, and next into the timber; for I reckoned all Injun creation war atter me. And so I sticks fast in a lick; and then to sumtotalise, I wallops down a rock, eend foremost, like a bull-toad: and, 'tarnal death to me, while I war scratching my head, and wondering whar I came from, I heerd the crack of the guns across the river, and thought of anngelliferous madam. 'Tarnal death to me, sodger, it turned me wrong side out! and while I war axing all natur' how I war to get over, what should I do but see the old sugar-trough floating in the bushes,--I seed her in a strick of lightning. So pops I in, and paddles I down, till I comes to the rocks,--and ar'n't they beauties? 'H'yar goes for grim death and ma.s.sacreation,' says I, and tuck the shoot; and if I didn't fetch old dug-out through slicker than snakes, and faster than a well-greased thunderbolt, niggurs ar'n't niggurs, nor Injuns Injuns: and, strannger, if you axes me why, h'yar's the wharfo'--'twar because I thought of anngelliferous madam! Strannger, I am the gentleman to see her out of a fight; and so jist tell her thar's no occasion for being uneasy; for, 'tarnal death to me, I'll mount Shawnees, and die for her, jist like nothing."

"Wretch that you are," cried Roland, whose detestation of the unlucky cause of his troubles, revived by the discovery that it was to _his_ presence at the ford they owed their last and most fatal disappointment, rendered him somewhat insensible to the good feelings and courage which had brought the grateful fellow to his a.s.sistance,--"you were born for our destruction; every way you have proved our ruin: but for you my poor kinswoman would have been now in safety among her friends. Had she left you hanging on the beech, you would not have been on the river, to cut off her only escape, when pursued close at hand by murderous savages."

The reproach, now for the first time acquainting Stackpole with the injury he had, though so unintentionally and innocently, inflicted upon his benefactress; and the sight of her, lying apparently half-dead at his feet, wrought up the feelings of the worthy horse-thief to a pitch of desperate compunction, mingled with fury.