Nick of the Woods Part 27

But, whilst he spoke, Doe, urged on by his own impetuous feelings, had cut the thong from his wrists, and was even proceeding to divide those that bound his ankles, disregarding all his protestations and averments, or perhaps drowning them in his own eager exclamations of "The gal, captain,--the word, jist one word!" when a dozen or more savages burst into the hut, and sprang upon the Virginian, yelling, cursing, and flourishing their knives and hatchets, as if they would have torn him to pieces on the spot. And such, undoubtedly, was the aim of some of the younger men, who struck at him several furious blows, that were only averted by the older warriors at the expense of some of their own blood shed in the struggle, which was, for a moment, as fiercely waged over the prisoner as the conflict of enraged hounds over the body of a disabled panther, that are all emulous to worry and tear. One instant of dreadful confusion, of shrieks, blows, and maledictions, and the Virginian was s.n.a.t.c.hed up in the arms of two or three of the strongest men, and dragged from the hut; but only to find himself surrounded by a herd of villagers, men, women, and children, who fell upon him with as much fury as the young warriors had done, beating him with bludgeons, wounding him with their knives, so that it seemed impossible the older braves could protect him much longer. But others ran to their a.s.sistance; and forming a circle around him, so as to exclude the mob, he was borne onwards, in temporary security, but destined to a fate to which murder on the spot would have been gentleness and mercy.

The tumult had roused Edith also from her painful slumbers; and the more necessarily, since, although removed from the tent in which she was first imprisoned, she was still confined in Wenonga's wigwam. It was the scream of the hag, the chieftain's wife, who had discovered his body, that first gave the alarm; and the villagers all rushing to the cabin, and yelling their astonishment and terror, there arose an uproar, almost in her ears, that was better fitted to fright her to death than to lull her again to repose. She started from her couch of furs, and with a woman's weakness, cowered away in the furthest corner of the lodge, to escape the pitiless fees, whom her fears represented as already seeking her life. Nor was this chimera banished from her mind when a man, rushing in, s.n.a.t.c.hed her from her ineffectual concealment and hurried her towards the door. But her terrors ran in another channel, when the ravisher, conquering the feeble resistance she attempted, replied to her wild entreaties "not to kill her," in the well-remembered voice of Braxley:

"Kill you, indeed!" he muttered, but with agitated tones; "I come to save you; even _you_ are in danger from the maddened villains: they are murdering all! We must fly,--ay, and fast. My horse is saddled,--the woods are open--I will yet save you."

"Spare me!--for my uncle's sake, who was your benefactor, spare me!"

cried Edith, struggling to free herself from his grasp. But she struggled in vain. "I aim to save you," cried Braxley; and without uttering another word, bore her from the hut; and, still grasping her with an arm of iron, sprang upon a saddled horse,--the identical animal that had once sustained the weight of the unfortunate Pardon Dodge,--which stood under the elm-tree, trembling with fright at the scene of horror then represented on the square.

Upon this vacant s.p.a.ce was now a.s.sembled the whole population of the village, old and young, the strong and the feeble, all agitated alike by those pa.s.sions, which, when let loose in a mob, whether civilised or savage, almost enforce the conviction that there is something essentially demoniac in the human character and composition; as if, indeed, the earth of which man is framed had been gathered only after it had been trodden by the foot of the Prince of Darkness.

Even Edith forgot for a moment her fears of Braxley,--nay, she clung to him for protection,--when her eye fell upon the savage herd, of whom the chief number were crowded together in the centre of the square, surrounding some object rendered invisible by their bodies, while others were rushing tumultuously hither and thither, driven by causes she could not divine, brandishing weapons, and uttering howls without number. One large party was pa.s.sing from the wigwam itself, their cries not less loud or ferocious than the others, but changing occasionally into piteous lamentations. They bore in their arms the body of the murdered chief,--an object of such horror, that when Edith's eye; had once fallen upon it, it seemed as if her enthralled spirit would never have recovered strength to remove them.

But there was a more fearful spectacle yet to be seen. The wife of Wenonga suddenly rushed from the lodge, bearing a fire-brand in her hand.

She ran to the body of the chief, eyed it, for a moment, with such a look as a tigress might cast upon her slaughtered cub, and then, uttering a scream that was heard over the whole square, and whirling the brand round her head, until it was in a flame, fled with frantic speed towards the centre of the area, the mob parting before her, and replying to her shrieks, which were uttered at every step, with outcries scarce less wild and thrilling. As they parted thus, opening a vista to the heart of the square, the object which seemed the centre of attraction to all was fully revealed to the maiden's eyes. Bound to two strong posts near the Council-house, their arms drawn high above their heads, a circle of brush-wood, prairie-gra.s.s, and other combustibles heaped around them, were two wretched captives,--white men, from whose persons a dozen savage hands were tearing their garments, while as many more were employed heaping additional fuel on the pile. One of these men, as Edith could see full well, for the spectacle was scarce a hundred paces removed, was Roaring Ralph, the captain of horse-thieves. The other--and _that_ was a sight to rend her eye-b.a.l.l.s from their sockets,--was her unfortunate kinsman, the playmate of her childhood, the friend and lover of maturer years,--her cousin,--brother,--her all,--Roland Forrester. It was no error of sight, no delusion of mind: the spectacle was too palpable to be doubted: it was Roland Forrester whom she saw, chained to the stake, surrounded by yelling and pitiless barbarians, impatient for the commencement of their infernal pastime, while the wife of the chief, kneeling at the pile, was already endeavouring, with her brand, to kindle it into flame.

The shriek of the wretched maiden, as she beheld the deplorable, the maddening sight, might have melted hearts of stone, had there been even such among the Indians. But Indians, engaged in the delights of torturing a prisoner, are, as the dead chief had boasted himself, _without_ heart.

Pity, which the Indian can feel at another moment, as deeply, perhaps, and benignly as a white man, seems then, and is, entirely unknown, as much so, indeed, as if it had never entered into his nature. His mind is then voluntarily given tip to the drunkenness of pa.s.sion; and cruelty, in its most atrocious and fiendish character, reigns predominant. The familiar of a Spanish Inquisition has sometimes moistened the lips of a heretic stretched upon the rack,--the Buccaneer of the tropics has relented over the contumacious prisoner gasping to death under his lashes and heated pincers; but we know of no instance where an Indian, torturing a prisoner at the stake, the torture once begun, has ever been moved to compa.s.sionate, to regard with any feelings but those of exultation and joy, the agonies of the thrice-wretched victim.

The shriek of the maiden was unheard, or unregarded; and Braxley,--himself so horrified by the spectacle that, while pausing to give it a glance, he forgot the delay was also disclosing it to Edith,--grasping her tighter in his arms, from which she had half leaped in her frenzy, turned his horse's head to fly, without seeming to be regarded or observed by the savages, which was perhaps in part owing to his having resumed his Indian attire. But, as he turned, he could not resist the impulse to s.n.a.t.c.h one more look at his doomed rival. A universal yell of triumph sounded over the square; the flames were already bursting from the pile, and the torture was begun.

The torture was begun,--but it was not destined long to endure. The yell of triumph was yet resounding over the square, and awakening responsive echoes among the surrounding hills, when the explosion of at least fifty rifles, sharp, rattling, and deadly, like the war-note of the rattle-snake, followed by a mighty hurrah of Christian voices, and the galloping of horse into the village from above, converted the whole scene into one of amazement and terror. The volley was repeated, and by as many more guns; and in an instant there was seen rushing into the square a body of at least a hundred mounted white men, their horses covered with foam and staggering with exhaustion, yet spurred on by their riders with furious ardour; while twice as many footmen were beheld rushing after, in mad rivalry, cheering and shouting, in reply to their leader, whose voice was heard in front of the hors.e.m.e.n thundering out,--"Small change for the Blue Licks! Charge 'em, the brutes! give it to 'em handsome!"

The yells of dismay of the savages, taken thus by surprise, and, as it seemed, by a greatly superior force, whose approach, rapid and tumultuous as it must have been, their universal devotion to the Saturnalia of blood had rendered them incapable of perceiving; the shouts of the mounted a.s.sailants, as they dashed into the square and among the mob, shooting as they came, or handling their rifles like maces, and battle-axes; the trampling and neighing of the horses; and the thundering hurrahs of the footmen charging into the town with almost the speed of the horse, made a din too horrible for description. The shock of the a.s.sault was not resisted by the Indians even for a moment. Some rushed to the neighbouring wigwams for their guns, but the majority, like the women and children, fled to seek refuge among the rocks and bushes of the overhanging hill; from which, however, as they approached it, a deadly volley was shot upon them by foemen who already occupied its tangled sides. Others again fled towards the meadows and corn-fields, where, in like manner, they were intercepted by bands of mounted Long-knives, who seemed pouring into the valley from every hill. In short, it was soon made apparent that the village of the Black-Vulture was a.s.sailed from all sides, and by such an army of avenging white men as had never before penetrated into the Indian territory.

All the savages,--all, at least, who were not shot or struck down in the square,--fled from the village; and among the foremost of them was Braxley, who, as much astounded as his Indian confederates, but better prepared for flight, struck the spurs into his horse, and still retaining his helpless prize, dashed across the river, to escape as he might.

In the meanwhile, the victims at the stake, though roused to hope and life by the sudden appearance of their countrymen, were neither released from bonds nor perils. Though the savages fled, as described, from the charge of the white men, there were some who remembered the prisoners, and were resolved that they should never taste the sweets of liberty. The beldam, who was still busy kindling the pile, roused from her toil by the shouts of the enemy and the shrieks of her flying people, looked up a moment, and then s.n.a.t.c.hing at a knife dropped by some fugitive, rushed upon Stackpole, who was nearest her, with a wild scream of revenge. The horse-thief, avoiding the blow as well as he could, saluted the hag with a furious kick, his feet being entirely at liberty; and such was its violence that the woman was tossed into the air, as if from the horns of a bull, and then fell, stunned and apparently lifeless, to perish in the flames she had kindled with her own breath.

A tall warrior, hatchet in hand, with a dozen more at his back, rushed upon the Virginian. But before he could strike, there came leaping with astonishing bounds over the bodies of the wounded and dying, and into the circle of fire, a figure that might have filled a better and braver warrior with dread. It was the medicine-man, and former captive, the Indian habiliments and paint still on his body and visage, though both were flecked and begrimed with blood. In his left hand was a bundle of scalps, the same he had taken from the tent of Wenonga; the grizzled scalp-lock of the chief, known by the vulture-feathers, beak, and talons, still attached to it, was hanging to his girdle; while the steel battle-axe, so often wielded by Wenonga, was gleaming aloft in his right hand.

The savage recoiled, and with loud yells of "The Jibbenainosay! the Jibbenainosay!" turned to fly, while even those behind him staggered back at the apparition of the destroyer, thus tangibly presented to their eyes; nor was their awe lessened, when the supposed fiend, taking one step after the retreating leader of the gang, drove the fatal hatchet into his brain, with as l.u.s.ty a whoop of victory as ever came from the lungs of a warrior. At the same moment he was hidden from their eyes by a dozen hors.e.m.e.n that came rushing up, with tremendous huzzas, some darting against the band, while others sprung from their horses to liberate the prisoners. But this duty had been already rendered, at least in the case of Captain Forrester. The axe of Wenonga, dripping with blood to the hilt, divided the rope at a single blow, and then Roland's fingers were crushed in the grasp of his preserver, as the latter exclaimed, with a strange, half-frantic chuckle of triumph and delight,--

"Thee sees, friend! Thee thought I had deserted thee? Truly, truly, thee was mistaken!"

"Hurrah for old Tiger Nathan! I'll never say Q to a quaker agin as long as I live!" exclaimed another voice, broken, feeble, and vainly aiming to raise a huzza; and the speaker, seizing Nathan with one hand, while the other grasped tremulously at Captain Forrester's, displayed to the latter's eyes the visage of Tom Bruce the younger, pale, sickly, emaciated, his once gigantic proportions wasted away, and his whole appearance indicating anything but fitness for a field of battle.

"Strannger!" cried the youth, pressing the soldier's hand with what strength he could, and laughing faintly, "we've done the handsome thing by you, me and dad, thar's no denying! But we went your security agin all sorts of danngers in our beat; and thar's just the occasion. But h'yar's dad to speak for himself: as for me, I rather think breath's too short for wasting."

"Hurrah for Kentucky!" roared Colonel Bruce, as he sprang from his horse, and seized the hand of Roland, wringing and twisting it with a fury of friendship and gratulation, which, at another moment, would have caused the soldier to grin with pain. "H'yar we are, captain!" he cried: "picked you out of the yambers!--Swore to follow you and young madam to the end of creation,--beat up for recruits, sung out 'Blue Lick' to the people, roused the General from the Falls,--whole army, a thousand men; double quick step; found Tiger Nathan in the woods--whar's the creatur'? told of your fixin'; beat to arms, flew ahead, licked the enemy,--and ha'n't we extarminated 'em?"

With these hurried, half-incoherent expressions, the gallant Kentuckian explained, or endeavoured to explain, the mystery of his timely and most happy appearance; an explanation, however, of which the soldier, bewildered by the whirl of events, the tumult of his own feelings, and not less by the uproarious congratulations of his friends, of whom the captain of horse-thieves, released from his post of danger, was not the least noisy or affectionate, heard, or understood not a word. To these causes of confusion were to be added the din and tumult of conflict, the screams of the flying Indians, and the shouts of pursuing and opposing white-men, rising from every point of the compa.s.s; for from every point they seemed rushing in upon the foe, whom they appeared to have completely environed. Was there no other cause for the distraction of mind which left the young soldier, while thus beset by friendly hands and voices, incapable of giving them his whole attention? His thoughts were upon his kinswoman, of whose fate he was still in ignorance. But before he could ask the question prompted by his anxieties, it was answered by a cheery hurrah from Bruce's youngest son, Richard, who came galloping into the square and up to the place of torture, whirling his cap into the air, in a frenzy of boyish triumph and rapture. At his heels, and mounted upon the steed so lately bestridden by Braxley, the very animal, which, notwithstanding its uncommon swimming virtues, had left its master, Pardon Dodge, at the bottom of Salt River, was--could Roland believe his eyes?--the identical Pardon Dodge himself, looking a hero, he was so begrimed with blood and gunpowder, and whooping and hurrahing, as he came, with as much spirit as if he had been born on the border, and accustomed all his life to fighting Indians. But Roland did not admire long at the unlooked-for resurrection of his old ally of the ruin. In his arms, sustained with an air of infinite pride and exultation, was an apparition that blinded the Virginian's eyes to every other object;--it was Edith Forrester; who, extending her own arms, as the soldier sprang to meet her, leaped to his embrace with such wild cries of delight, such abandonment of spirit to love and happiness, as stirred up many a womanish emotion in the breast of the surrounding Kentuckians.

"There!" cried Dodge, "there, capting! Seed the everlasting Injun feller carrying her off on the hoss; knowed the crittur at first sight; took atter, and brought the feller to: seed it was the young lady, and was jist as glad to find her as to find my hoss,--if I wa'n't, it a'n't no matter."

"Thar, dad!" cried Tom Bruce, grasping his father's arm, and pointing, but with unsteady finger and glistening eye, at the two cousins,--"that, that's a sight worth dying for!" with which words he fell suddenly to the earth.

"Dying, you brute!" cried the father in surprise and concern: "you ar'n't had a hit, Tom?"

"Not an iota," replied the youth, faintly, "except them etarnal slugs I fetched from old Salt; but, I reckon, they've done for me: I felt 'em a dropping, a dropping inside, all night. And so, father, if you'll jist say I've done as much as my duty, I'll not make no fuss about going."

"Going, you brute!" iterated the father, clasping the hand of his son, while the others, startled by the young man's sudden fall, gathered around, to offer help, or to gaze with alarm on his fast changing countenance; "why, Tom, my boy, you don't mean to make a die of it?"

"If--if you think I've done my duty to the strannger and the young lady,"

said the young man; and added, feebly pressing the father's hand,--"and to _you_, dad, to you, and mother, and the rest of 'em."

"You have, Tom," said the colonel, with somewhat a husky voice--"to the travelling strannger, to mother, father, and all--"

"And to Kentucky?" murmured the dying youth,

"To Kentucky," replied the father.

"Well, then, it's no great matter--You'll jist put d.i.c.k in my place: he's the true grit; thar'll be no mistake in d.i.c.k, for all he's only a young blubbering boy; and then it'll be jist all right, as before. And it's my notion, father--"

"Well, Tom, what is it?" demanded Bruce, as the young man paused as if from mingled exhaustion and hesitation.

"I don't mean no offence, father," said he,--"but it's my notion, if you'll never let a poor traveller go into the woods without some dependable body to take care of him--"

"You're right, Tom; and I an't mad at you for saying so; and I won't."

"And don't let the boys abuse Nathan,--for, I reckon he'll fight, if you let him take it in his own way. And,--and, father, don't mind Captain Ralph's stealing a hoss or two out of our pound!"

"He may steal the lot of 'em, the villain!" said Bruce, shaking his head to dislodge the tears that were starting in his eyes; "and he shall be none the wuss of it."

"Well, father,--" the young man spoke with greater animation, and with apparently reviving strength,--"and you think we have pretty considerably licked the Injuns h'yar, jist now?"

"We have, Tom,--thar's no doubting it. And we'll lick 'em over and over again, till they've had enough of it."

"Hurrah for Kentucky!" cried the young man, exerting his remaining strength to give energy to the cry, so often uplifted, in succeeding years, among the wild woodlands around. It was the last effort of his sinking powers. He fell back, pressed his father's and his brother's hands, and almost immediately expired,--a victim not so much of his wounds, which were not in themselves necessarily fatal, nor perhaps even dangerous, had they been attended to, as of the heroic efforts, so overpowering and destructive in his disabled condition, which he had made to repair his father's fault; for such he evidently esteemed the dismissing the travellers from the Station without sufficient guides and protection.

CHAPTER x.x.xV.

Thus fell the young Kentuckian,--a youth endeared to all who knew him, by his courage and good humour; and whose fall would, at a moment of less confusion, have created a deep and melancholy sensation. But he fell amid the roar and tempest of battle, when there was occasion for other thoughts and other feelings than those of mere individual grief.

The Indians had been driven from their village, as described, aiming not to fight, but fly; but being intercepted at all points by the a.s.sailants, and met, here by furious volleys poured from the bushy sides of the hill, there by charges of hors.e.m.e.n galloping through the meadows and cornfields, they were again driven back into the town, where, in sheer desperation, they turned upon their foes to sell their lives as dearly as they might. They were met at the edge of the village by the party of horse and footmen that had first dislodged them, with whom, being driven pell-mell among them by the shock of the intercepting bands, they waged a fierce and b.l.o.o.d.y, but brief conflict; and still urged onwards by the a.s.sailants behind, fought their way back to the square, which, deserted almost entirely at the period of young Bruce's fall, was now suddenly seen, as he drew his last gasp, scattered over with groups of men flying for their lives, or struggling together in mortal combat; while the screams of terror-struck women and children gave a double horror to the din.

The return of the battle to their own immediate vicinity produced its effects upon the few who had remained by the dying youth. It fired, in especial, the blood of Captain Ralph, who, s.n.a.t.c.hing up a fallen axe, rushed towards the nearest combatants, roaring, by way of consolation, or sympathy, to the bereaved father, "Don't take it hard, Cunnel,--I'll have a scalp for Tom's sake in no time!" As for Tiger Nathan, he had disappeared long before, with most of the hors.e.m.e.n, who had galloped up to the stake with the younger Bruce and his father, being evidently too fiercely excited to remain idle any longer. The father and brother of the deceased, the two cousins and Pardon Dodge, who lingered by the latter, still on his horse, as if old companionship with the soldier and the service just rendered the maid had attached him to all their interests, were all that remained on the spot. But all were driven from a contemplation of the dead, as the surge of battle again tossed its b.l.o.o.d.y spray into the square.

"Thar's no time for weeping," muttered Bruce, softly laying the body of the youth (for Tom had expired in his arms) upon the earth: "he died like a man, and thar's the end of it,--Up, d.i.c.k, and stand by the lady--Thar's more work for us."

"Everlasting bad work, Cunnel!" cried Dodge; "they're a killing the squaws! hark, dunt you hear 'em squeaking? Now, Cunnel, I can kill your tarnal _man_ fellers, for they've riz my ebenezer, and I've kinder got my hand in; but, I rather calkilate, I han't no disposition to kill wimming!"

"Close round the lady!" shouted Bruce, as a sudden movement in the ma.s.s of combatants, and the parting from it of a dozen or more wild Indian figures, flying in their confusion, for they were pursued by thrice their number of white men, right towards the little party at the stake, threatened the latter with unexpected danger.

"I'm the feller for 'em, now that my hand's in!" cried Pardon Dodge; and taking aim with his rifle,--the only one in the group that was charged, at the foremost of the Indians, he shot him dead on the spot,--a feat that instantly removed all danger from the party; for the savages, yelling at the fall of their leader and the discovery of antagonists thus drawn up in front, darted off to the right hand at the wildest speed, as wildly pursued by the greater number of Kentuckians.