Salute to Adventurers Part 28

"The Sons of the West Wind," he spoke again, "have need of warriors.

You can atone for the slaughter you have caused, and the blood feud will be forgotten. In the s.p.a.ce of five suns we shall sweep the Palefaces into the sea, and rule all the land to the Eastern waters. My brother is a man of his hands, and valour is dear to the heart of Onotawah. If he casts in his lot with the Children of the West Wind a wigwam shall be his, and a daughter of our race to wife, and six of our young men shall follow his commands. Will my brother march with us against those whom G.o.d has delivered to us for our prey?"

"Does the eagle make terms with the kite?" I asked, "and fly with them to raid his own eyrie? Yes, I will join with you, and march with you till I have delivered you to, perhaps, a score of the warriors of my own people. Then I will aid them in making carrion of you."

Heaven knows what wrought on me to speak like this, I, a poor, broken fellow, face to face with a hundred men-at-arms. I think my mind had forsaken me altogether, and I spoke like a drunken man with a tongue not my own. I had only the one idea in my foolish head--to be true to Ringan, and to meet the death of which I was a.s.sured with an unflinching face. Yet perhaps my very madness was the course of discretion. You cannot move an Indian by pity, and he will show mercy only to one who, like a gamec.o.c.k, asks nothing less.

The chief heard me gravely, and spoke to the others. One cried out something in a savage voice, and for a moment a fierce argument was raised, which the chief settled with uplifted hand.

"My brother speaks bold words," he said. "The spirits of his fathers cry out for the companionship of such a hero. When the wrongs of our race have been avenged, I wish him good hunting in the Kingdom of the Sunset."

They took me and stripped me mother naked. Has any man who reads this tale ever faced an enemy in his bare feet? If so, he will know that the heart of man is more in his boots than philosophers wot of. Without them he feels lost and unprepared, and the edge gone from his spirit.

But without his clothes he is in a far worse case. The winds of heaven play round his nakedness; every thorn and twig is his a.s.sailant, and the whole of him seems a mark for the arrows of his foes. That stripping was the thing that brought me to my senses. I recognized that I was to be the subject of those h.e.l.lish tortures which the Indians use, the tales of which are on every Borderer's lips.

And yet I did not recognize it fully, or my courage must have left me then and there. My imagination was still limping, and I foresaw only a death of pain, not the horrid incidents of its preparation. Death I could face, and I summoned up every shred of my courage. Ringan's voice was still in my ear, his airy songs still sang themselves in my brain.

I would not shame him, but oh! how I envied him lying, all troubles past, in his quiet grave!

The night was mild, and the yellow radiance of the moon seemed almost warmth-giving. I sat on that log in a sort of stupor, watching my enemies preparing my entertainment. One thing I noted, that there were no women in the camp. I remembered that I had heard that the most devilish tortures were those which the squaws devised, and that the Indian men were apt to be quicker and more merciful in their murderings.

Then I was lifted up and carried to a flat s.p.a.ce beside the stream, where the trunk of a young pine had been set upright in the ground. A man, waving a knife, and singing a wild song, danced towards me. He seized me by the hair, and I actually rejoiced, for I knew that the pain of scalping would make me oblivious of all else. But he only drew the sharp point of the knife in a circle round my head, scarce breaking the skin.

I had grace given me to keep a stout face, mainly because I was relieved that this was to be my fate. He put the knife back in his girdle, and others laid hold on me.

They smeared my lower limbs with some kind of grease which smelt of resin. One savage who had picked up a brand from one of the little fires dropped some of the stuff on it, and it crackled merrily. He grinned at me--a slow, diabolical grin.

They lashed me to the stake with ropes of green vine. Then they piled dry hay a foot deep around me, and laid above it wood and green branches. To make the fuel still greener, they poured water on it. At the moment I did not see the object of these preparations, but now I can understand it. The dry hay would serve to burn my legs, which had already been anointed with the inflammable grease. So I should suffer a gradual torture, for it would be long ere the flames reached a vital part. I think they erred, for they a.s.sumed that I had the body of an Indian, which does not perish till a blow is struck at its heart; whereas I am confident that any white man would be dead of the anguish long ere the fire had pa.s.sed beyond his knees.

I think that was the most awful moment of my life. Indeed I could not have endured it had not my mind been drugged and my body stupid with fatigue. Men have often asked me what were my thoughts in that hour, while the f.a.ggots were laid about my feet. I cannot tell, for I have no very clear memory. The Power which does not break the bruised reed tempered the storm to my frailty. I could not envisage the future, and so was mercifully enabled to look only to the moment. I knew that pain was coming; but I was already in pain, and the sick man does not trouble himself about degrees of suffering. Death, too, was coming; but for that I had been long ready. The hardest thing that man can do is to endure, but this was to me no pa.s.sive endurance; it was an active struggle to show a fort.i.tude worthy of the gallant dead.

So I must suppose that I hung there in my bonds with a motionless face and a mouth which gave out no cry. They brought the f.a.ggots, and poured on water, and I did not look their way. Some score of braves began a war dance, circling round me, waving their tomahawks, and singing their wild chants. For me they did not break the moonlit silence, I was hearing other sounds and seeing far other sights. An old sad song of Ringan's was in my ears, something about an exile who cried out in France for the red heather and the salt winds of the Isles.

"_Nevermore the deep fern_," it ran, "_or the bell of the dun deer, far my castle is wind-blown sands, and my homelands are a stranger's."_

And the air brought back in a flash my own little house on the grey hill-sides of Douglasdale, the cluck of hens about the doors on a hot summer morn, the crying of plovers in the windy Aprils, the smell of peatsmoke when the snow drifted over Cairntable. Home-sickness has never been my failing, but all at once I had a vision of my own land, the cradle of my race, well-beloved and unforgotten over the leagues of sea. Somehow the thought strengthened me. I had now something besides the thought of Ringan to keep my heart firm. If all h.e.l.l laid hold on me, I must stand fast for the honour of my own folk.

The edge of the pile was lit, and the flames crackled through the hay below the f.a.ggots. The smoke rose in clouds, and made me sneeze.

Suddenly there came a desperate tickling in my scalp where the knife had p.r.i.c.ked. Little things began to tease me, notably the ache of my swollen wrists, and the intolerable cramp in my legs.

Then came a sharp burst of pain as a tongue of flame licked on my anointed ankles. Anguish like h.e.l.l-fire ran through my frame. I think I would have cried out if my tongue had had the power. Suddenly I envisaged the dreadful death which was coming. All was wiped from my mind, all thought of Ringan, and home, and honour; everything but this awful fear. Happily the smoke hid my face, which must have been distraught with panic. The seconds seemed endless. I prayed that unconsciousness would come. I prayed for death, I prayed for respite. I was mad with the furious madness of a tortured animal, and the immortal soul had fled from me and left only a husk of pitiful and shrinking flesh.

Suddenly there came a lull. A dozen buckets of water were flung on the pile, and the flames fell to smouldering ashes. The smoke thinned, and I saw the circle of my tormentors.

The chief spoke, and asked me if my purpose still held.

With the cool shock of the water one moment of bodily comfort returned to me, and with it a faint revival of my spirit. But it was of no set intention that I answered as I did. My bones were molten with fright, and I had not one ounce of bravery in me. Something not myself took hold on me, and spoke for me. Ringan's tunes, a brisk one this time, lilted in my ear.

I could not believe my own voice. But I rejoice to say that my reply was to consign every Indian in America to the devil.

I shook with fear when I had spoken. I looked to see them bring dry fuel and light the pile again. But I had played a wiser part than I knew. The chief gave an order, the f.a.ggots were cleared, my bonds were cut, and I was led away from the stake.

The pain of my cramped and scorched limbs was horrible, but I had just enough sense left to shut my teeth and make no sound.

The chief looked at me long and calmly as I drooped before him, for there was no power in my legs. He was an eagle-faced savage, with the most grave and searching eyes.

"Sleep, brother," he said. "At dawn we will take further counsel."

I forced some kind of lightness into my voice, "Sleep will be grateful," I said, "for I have come many miles this day, and the welcome I have got this evening has been too warm for a weary man."

The Indian nodded. The jest was after his own taste.

I was carried to a teepee and shown a couch of dry fern. A young man rubbed some oil on my scorched legs, which relieved the pain of them.

But no pain on earth could have kept me awake. I did not glide but pitched headforemost into sleep.

CHAPTER XXV.

EVENTS ON THE HILL-SIDE.

My body was too sore to suffer me to sleep dreamlessly, but my dreams were pleasant. I thought I was in a sunny place with Elspeth, and that she had braided a coronet of wild flowers for her hair. They were simple flowers, such as I had known in childhood and had not found in Virginia--yarrow, and queen of the meadow, and bluebells, and the little eyebright. A great peace filled me, and Ringan came presently to us and spoke in his old happy speech. 'Twas to the accompaniment of Elspeth's merry laughter that I wakened, to find myself in a dark, strange-smelling place, with a buffalo robe laid over me, and no st.i.tch of clothing on my frame.

That wakening was bitter indeed. I opened my eyes to another day of pain and peril, with no hope of deliverance. For usual I am one of those who rise with a glad heart and a great zest for whatever the light may bring. Now, as I moved my limbs, I found aches everywhere, and but little strength in my bones. Slowly the events of the last day came back to me--the journey in the dripping woods, the fight in the ravine, the death of my comrade, the long horror of the hours of torture. No man can be a hero at such an awakening. I had not the courage of a chicken in my soul, and could have wept with weakness and terror.

I felt my body over, and made out that I had taken no very desperate hurt. My joints were swollen with the bonds, and every sinew seemed as stiff as wire. The skin had been scorched on my shins and feet, and was peeling off in patches, but the ointment which had been rubbed on it had taken the worst ache out of the wounds. I tottered to my feet, and found that I could stand, and even move slowly like an old man. My clothes had been brought back and laid beside me, and with much difficulty I got into them; but I gave up the effort to get my stockings and boots over my scorched legs. My pistols, too, had been restored, and Ringan's sword, and the gold amulet he had entrusted to me. Somehow, in the handling of me, my store of cartouches had disappeared from my pockets. My pistols were loaded and ready for use, but that was the extent of my defences, for I was no more good with Ringan's sword than with an Indian bow.

A young lad brought me some maize porridge and a skin of water. I could eat little of the food, but I drank the water to the last drop, for my throat was as dry as the nether pit. After that I lay down on my couch again, for it seemed to me that I would need to treasure every atom of my strength. The meal had put a little heart in me--heart enough to wait dismally on the next happening.

Presently the chief whom they called Onotawah stood at the tent door, and with him a man who spoke the Powhatan tongue.

"Greeting, brother," he said.

"Greeting," I answered, in the stoutest tone I could muster.

"I come from the council of the young men, where the blood of our kin cries for the avenger. The Sons of the West Wind have seen the courage of the stranger, and would give him the right of combat as a free man and a brave. Is my brother ready to meet our young men in battle?"

I was about as fit to right as an old horse to leap a fence, but I had the wit to see that my only hope lay in a bold front. At any rate, a clean death in battle was better than burning, and my despair was too deep to let me quibble about the manner of leaving this world.

"You see my condition," I said. "I am somewhat broken with travel and wounds, but, such as I am, I am willing to meet your warriors. Send them one at a time or in battalions, and I am ready for them."

It was childish brag, but I think I must have delivered it with some spirit, for I saw approbation in his eye.

"When we fight, we fight not as butchers but as men-at-arms," he said.

"The brother of one of the dead will take on himself the cause of our tribe. If he slay you, our honour is avenged. If he be slain, we save you alive, and carry you with us as we march to the rising sun."

"I am content," I said, though I was very little content. What earthly chance stood I against a lithe young brave, accustomed from his childhood to war? I thought of a duel hand-to-hand with knives or tomahawks, for I could not believe that I would be allowed to keep my pistols. It was a very faint-hearted combatant who rose and staggered after Onotawah into the clear morning. The cloudy weather had gone, and the glen where we lay was filled with sun and bright colours. Even in my misery I saw the fairness of the spectacle, and the cool plunge of the stream was grateful to my throbbing eyes.

The whole clan was waiting, a hundred warriors as tall and clean-limbed as any captain could desire. I bore no ill-will to my captors; indeed, I viewed them with a respect I had never felt for Indians before. They were so free in their walk, so slim and upstanding, so hawklike in eye and feature, and withal so grave, that I could not but admire them. If the Tidewater was to perish, 'twould be at the hands of no unworthy foes.