The Maid-At-Arms Part 62

"I am ... your superior ... officer!" I panted, advancing on him; "I order you to go!"

He looked me narrowly in the eyes. "And I refuse obedience," he said, hoa.r.s.ely. "You are out of your mind!"

"Then, by G.o.d!" I shrieked, "I'll force you!"

Billy Bones, Francy McCraw, and a Seneca came hastening up. I leaped on McCraw and dealt him a blow full in his bony face, splitting the lean cheek open.

They overpowered me before I could repeat the blow; they flung me down, kicking and pounding me as I lay there, but the death-stroke I awaited was withheld; the castete of the Seneca was jerked from his fist.

Then they seized Sir George and forced him into his saddle, calling on four troopers to pilot him within sight of the manor and shoot him if he attempted to return.

"You tell them that if they refuse to exchange Walter Butler for Ormond, we've torments for Colonel Ormond that won't kill him under a week!"

roared Billy Bones.

McCraw, stupefied with amazement and rage, stood mopping the blood from his blotched face, staring at me out of his crazy blue eyes. For a moment his hand fiddled with his hatchet, then Bones shoved him away, and he strode off towards his hors.e.m.e.n, who were forming in column of fours.

"You tell 'em," shouted Bones, "that before we finish him they'll hear his screams in Albany! If they want Colonel Ormond," he added, his voice rising to a yell, "tell 'em to send a single man into the sugar-bush.

But if they hang Walter Butler, or if you try to catch us with your cavalry, we'll take Ormond where we'll have leisure to see what our Senecas can do with him! Now ride! you d.a.m.ned--"

He struck Sir George's horse with the flat of his hanger; the horse bounded off, followed by four of McCraw's riders, pistols c.o.c.ked and hatchets loosened.

Bruised, dazed, exhausted, I lay there, listening to the receding thudding of their horses' feet on the moss.

The crisis was over, and I had won--not as I might have chosen to win, but by a compromise with death for deliverance from temptation.

If it was the compromise of a crazed creature, insane from mental and physical exhaustion, it was not the compromise of a weak man; I did not desire death as long as she lived. I dreaded to leave her alone in the world. But, though she loved him not--and did love me--I could not accept the future through his sacrifice and live to remember that he had laid down his life for a friend who desired from him more than he had renounced.

I was perfectly sane now; a strange calmness came over me; my mind was clear and composed; my meditations serene. Free at last from hope, from sorrowful pa.s.sion, from troubled desire, I lay there thinking, watching the long, red sun-rays slanting through the woods.

Grat.i.tude to G.o.d for a life ended ere I fell from His grace, ere temptation entangled me beyond deliverance; humble pride in the honorable traditions that I had received and followed untainted; deep, reverent thankfulness for the strength vouchsafed me in this supreme crisis of my life--the strength of a madman, perhaps, but still strength to be true, the power to renounce--these were the meditations that brought me rest and a quietude I had never known when death seemed a long way off and life on earth eternal.

The setting sun crimsoned the pines; the riders were gathered along the hill-side, bending far out in their saddles to scan the valley below.

McCraw, his white face bound with a b.l.o.o.d.y rag, drew his straight claymore and wound the tattered tartan around his wrist, motioning Billy Bones to ride on.

"March!" he cried, in his shrill voice, laying his claymore level; and the long files moved off, spurs and scabbards clanking, horses crowding and trampling in, faster and faster, till a far command set them trotting, then galloping away into the west, where the kindling sky reddened the world.

The world!--it would be the same to-morrow without me: that maple-tree would not have changed a leaf; that tiny, hovering, gauze-winged creature, drifting through the calm air, would be alive when I was dead.

It was difficult to understand. I repeated it to myself again and again, but the phrases had no meaning to me.

The sun set; cool, violet lights lay over the earth; a thrush, awakened by the sweetness of the twilight from his long summer moping, whistled timidly, tentatively; then the silvery, evanescent notes floated away, away, in endless, heavenly serenity.

A soft, leather-shod foot nudged me; I sat up, then rose, holding out my wrists. They tied me loosely; a tall warrior stepped beside me; others fell in behind with a patter of moccasined feet.

Then came an officer, pistol c.o.c.ked and held muzzle up. He was the only white man left.

"Forward," he said, nervously; and we started off through the purple dusk.

Physical weariness and pain had left me; I moved as in a dream. Nothing of apprehension or dismay disturbed the strange calm of my soul; even desire for meditation left me; and a vague content wrapped me, mind and body.

Distance, time, were meaningless to me now; I could go on forever; I could lie down forever; nothing mattered; nothing could touch me now.

The moon came up, flooding the woods with a creamy light; then a little stream, sparkling like molten silver, crossed our misty path; then a bare hill-side stretched away, pale in the moonlight, vanis.h.i.+ng into a luminous veil of vapor, floating over a hollow where unseen water lay.

We entered a grove of still trees standing wide apart--maple-trees, with the sap-pegs still in the bark. I sat down on a log; the Indians seated themselves in a wide circle around me; the renegade officer walked to the fringe of trees and stood there motionless.

Time pa.s.sed serenely; I had fallen drowsing, soothed by the silvered silence; when through a dream I heard a c.o.c.k-crow.

Around me the Indians rose, all listening. Far away a sound grew in the night--the dull blows of horses' hoofs on sod; a shot rang faintly, a distant cry was echoed by a long-drawn yell and a volley.

The renegade officer came running back, calling out, "McCraw has struck the Legion at the grist-mill!" In the intense silence around me the noise of the conflict grew, increasing, then became fainter and fainter until it died out to the westward and all was still.

The Indians came crowding back from the edge of the grove, shoving through the circle of those who guarded me, pus.h.i.+ng, pressing, surging around me.

"Give him to us!" they muttered, under their breath. "The flag has not come; they will hang your Walter Butler! Give him to us! The Legion cavalry is driving your riders into the west! Give him to us! We wish to see how the Oriskany man can die!"

Dragged, pulled from one to another, I scarcely felt their clutch; I scarcely felt the furtive blows that fell on me. The officer clung to me, fighting the savages back with fist and elbow.

"Wait for McCraw!" he panted. "The flag may come yet, you fools! Would you murder him and lose Walter Butler forever? Wait till McCraw comes, I tell you!"

"McCraw is riding for his life!" said a chief, fiercely.

"It's a lie!" said the officer; "he is drawing them to ambus.h.!.+"

"Give the prisoner to us!" cried the savages, closing in. "After all, what do we care for your Walter Butler!" And again they rushed forward with a shout.

Twice the officer drove them back with kicks and blows, cursing their treachery in McCraw's absence; then, as they drew their knives, clamoring, threatening, gathering for a last rush, into their midst bounded an unearthly shape--a squat and hideous figure, fluttering with scarlet rags. Arms akimbo, the thing planted itself before me, mouthing and slavering in fury.

"The Toad-woman! Catrine Montour! The Toad-witch!" groaned the Senecas, shrinking back, huddling together as the hag whirled about and pointed at them.

"I want him! I want him! Give him to me!" yelped the Toad-woman.

"Fools! Do you know where you are? Do you know this grove of maple-trees?"

The Indians, amazed and cowed, slunk farther back. The hag fixed her blazing eyes on them and raised her arms.

"Fools! Fools!" she mouthed, "what madness brought you here to this grove?--to this place where the Stonish Giants have returned, riding out of Biskoona!"

A groan burst from the Indians; a chief raised his arms, making the False-Faces' sign.

"Mother," he stammered, "we did not know! We heard that the Stonish Giants had returned; the Onondagas sent us word, but we did not know this grove was where they gathered from Biskoona! McCraw sent us here to await the flag."

"Liar!" hissed the hag.

"It is the truth," muttered the chief, shuddering. "Witness if I speak the truth, O ensigns of the three clans!"

And a hollow groan burst from the cowering savages. "We witness, mother.

It is the truth!"