The Master of Appleby Part 35

"But you?" I would say.

"My place is inside of that soldier-cordon our friend is drawing about his dove-cote. I shall be at hand when she needs me, as I promised."

"Aye, so you may be; but not alone," said I; and with that we fell to running like a pair of doubling foxes through the wood on the steep slope behind the lodge, striving with might and main to gain the laurel thicket whence we had made our first reconnaissance before the converging lines of the redcoat cordon should close and shut us out.

We did it by the skin of our teeth, diving to cover through the closing gap not a second too soon. When we were in and hugging the bare ground under the scanty leafing of the laurel, I take no shame in saying that I would have given a king's ransom to be at large again. Had there been but one of us the covert would have been cramped enough; and I was painfully conscious that my borrowed coat of scarlet was but a poor thing to hide in.

To make it worse, Falconnet, who had lagged behind at the fire, was now heaping fresh fuel on, and this reviving of the blaze made the place as light as day. With the nearest links in the redcoat chain no more than a pike's-length at our backs, we dared not stir or breathe a word; and, all in all, we might have been taken like rats in a trap had any one of the sentries on our side of the circle chanced to look behind him.

Having repaired the fire to his liking, the troop-captain came up to pa.s.s a word or two with his lieutenant. They spoke guardedly, but we could hear--could not help hearing.

"You have seen nothing, Gordon?"

"Nothing, as yet."

"Make the round again and tell the men 'twill be ten gold joes and a double allowance of liquor to the man who first claps eyes on any one of the four."

The subaltern went to carry out the order, and Falconnet fell to pacing back and forth before the little wigwam. I could see his face at the turn where the firelight fell upon him; 'twas the face of a villain at his worst, namely, a villain half in liquor. There was a lurking devil of pa.s.sion peering out of the sensuous eyes; and ever and anon he stopped as if to listen for some sound within the captives' lodge.

When the lieutenant returned to make his report, he was given another order to cap the first.

"Your line is too close-drawn and too conspicuous," said the captain, shortly. "Move the men out fifty paces in advance, and bid them take cover."

"They will scarce be within hail of each other at that," says the lieutenant.

"Near enough, with ten gold pieces to sharpen their eyesight. Go you with them and hold them to their work."

The line was presently extended as the order ran, each link in the cordon chain advancing fifty paces on its front into the forest. d.i.c.k fetched a deep sigh of relief; and I thought less of the thin-leafed cover and the scarlet coat of me.

Falconnet had resumed the pacing of his sentry beat before the lodge, but when his men were out of sight and hearing he stopped short and stole on tiptoe to lay his ear to the flap.

"So, you are awake, Mistress Margery? Send your woman out. I would speak with you--alone."

There was no reply, but we could both hear the low anguished voice of our dear lady praying for help in this her hour of trial. d.i.c.k inched aside to give me room, freeing his weapon, as I did mine. We were not over-quiet about it, but the captain of horse was too hot upon his own devil's business to look behind him.

Having no answer from within, he stooped to loose the flap. It was pegged down on the inside. He rose and whipped out his sword; the firelight fell upon his face again and we saw it as it had been the face of a foul fiend from the pit.

"Open!" he commanded; and when there was neither reply nor obedience, he cut the flap free with his sword and flung it back.

The two women within the wigwam were on their knees before a little crucifix hanging on the lodge wall. So much we saw as we broke cover and ran in upon the despoiler. Then the battle-madness came upon us and I, for one, saw naught but the tense-drawn face of a swordsman fighting for his life--a face in which the hot flush of evil pa.s.sion had given place to the ashen graying of fear.

We drove at him together, d.i.c.k and I, and so must needs fall afoul of each other clumsily, giving him time to spring back and so to miss the claymore stroke which else would have shorn him to the middle. Then ensued as pretty a bit of blade work as any master of the old cut-and-thrust school could wish to see; and through it all this king's captain of horse seemed to bear a charmed life.

There was no punctilio of the code of honor in this duel _a outrance_.

Knowing our time was short, we fought as men who fight with halters round their necks; not to decide a nice point at issue, but to kill this accursed villain as we would kill a mad dog or a venomous reptile whose living on imperiled the life and honor of the woman we loved.

Thrice, whilst I held him in play, d.i.c.k rushed in to end it with a scythe-sweep of the broadsword; and thrice the Scottish death was turned aside by the flashing circle of steel wherewith the man striving shrewdly to gain time made shift to shield himself.

Yet it was not in flesh and blood to fend the double onslaught for more than some brief minute or two. Play as he would--and no _schlagermeister_, of my old field-marshal's picked troop could best him at this game of parry and defense--he must give ground step by step; slowly at the pressing of the Ferara, and in quick backward leaps when the great broadsword bit at him.

For the first few bouts he withstood us in grim silence. But now Richard cut in again and the claymore stroke, less skilfully turned aside, brought him to his knees. This broke his bull courage somewhat, and though he was afoot and on guard before my point could reach him, he began to bellow l.u.s.tily for help.

As you would suppose, the call was all unneeded. At the first clash of steel the outlying troopers were up and swarming to the rescue; and now on all sides came the trampling rush of the in-closing cordon line.

Had Falconnet held his ground a moment longer he would have had us fast in the jaws of the trooper-trap; but 'tis the fatal flaw in mere brute courage that it will break at the pinch. No sooner did the volunteer captain catch a glimpse of his up-coming reinforcements than he must needs show us a clean pair of heels, running like a craven coward and shouting madly to his men to close with us and cut us down.

"After him!" roared d.i.c.k, who was by now as rage-mad as any berserker; and with a cut and thrust to right and left for the nipping trap-jaws we were out and away in chase.

Now you may mark this as you will; that whilst the devil hath need of his bond-servant he will come between with a miracle if need be to keep the villain breath of life in his va.s.sal. Three bounds beyond the closing trap-jaws fetched us, pursued and pursuers, to the open camp field; and here the devil's miracle was wrought. Out of the forest fringe, out of the skirting of undergrowth, out of the very earth, as it seemed, uprose a yelling mob of Cherokees--the detachment we had met in the cavern returned in the very nick of time to cut us off from the pursuit and to ring us in a whooping circle of death.

"Back to back, lad!" I shouted; and 'twas thus we met their onslaught.

In such a fray as that which followed 'tis the trivial things that leave their mark upon the memory. For one, I recall the curious thrill of master-might it gave me to feel the play of Jennifer's great shoulder muscles against my back in his plying of the heavy claymore. For another, I remember the sickening qualm I had when the warm blood of my second--or mayhap 'twas the third--gushed out upon my sword hand, and I remember, too, how the impaled one, driven in upon the blade by the pressure of his fellows behind, would lay hold of the sharp steel and try in the death throe to withdraw it.

But after that sickening qualm I recall only this; that I could not free the sword for another thrust, and whilst I tugged and fought for s.p.a.ce they dragged me down and buried me, these fierce tribesmen, piling so thick upon me that sight and sound and breath went out together, and I was but an atom crushed to earth beneath the human avalanche.

XXIX

IN WHICH, HAVING DANCED, WE PAY THE PIPER

Measured by the sense which takes cognizance of pauses it seemed no more than a moment between the stamping out of breath and its gasping recovery. But in the interval the scene had shifted from the open savanna to a thinly set grove of oaks with the stream brawling through the midst.

To the biggest of the trees I was tightly bound; and a little way apart a fire, newly kindled, smoked and blazed up fitfully. By the light of the fire a good score of the Cherokees were gathering deadfalls and dry branches to heap beside me; and from the camp below, the Indian lodges of which were in plain view beyond the intervening horse meadow, other savages were hurrying to join the wood carriers.

So far as these hasting preliminaries applied to me, their meaning was not difficult to read. I was to be burned at the stake in proper savage fashion. But Richard Jennifer--what had become of him? A sound, half sigh, half groan, told me where to look. Hard by, bound to a tree as I was, and so near that with a free hand I could have touched him, was my poor lad.

"d.i.c.k!" I cried.

He turned his head as the close-drawn thongs permitted and gave me a smile as loving-tender as a woman's.

"Aye, Jack; they have us hard and fast this time. I have been praying you'd never come alive enough to feel the fire."

"We were taken together?" So much I dared ask.

"In the same onset. 'Twas but a question of clock ticks in that back-to-back business. But they paid scot and lot," this with an inching nod toward a row of naked bodies propped sitting against a fallen tree; nine of them in all, one with its severed head between its knees, and three others showing the gaping hacks and hewings of the great broadsword.

"They've fetched them here to see us burn," he went on. "But by the G.o.ds, we have the warrant of two good blades and Ephraim Yeates's hunting-knife that the only fires they'll ever see are those of h.e.l.l."

"Yeates?" I queried. "Then they have taken him and the Catawba, as well?"

"Not alive, you may be sure, else we should have them for company. But it has a black look for our friends that the flying column we met in the stream-cave came back so soon. Moreover, the bodies of the three peace-pipe smokers were found and brought in; that will be the Great Bear holding his head in his hands at the end of yonder b.l.o.o.d.y masquerade."

"I guessed as much. G.o.d rest our poor comrades!"