The Riflemen of the Ohio Part 39

The _Independence_ slowed just a little, and Henry and Shif'less Sol sprang upon her. The other three remained in the boat. Bullets struck near them as they boarded the _Independence_, but none touched them. It was still raining hard, with the vivid accompaniment of wind, thunder, and lightning. Another thunderbolt had struck close by, but fortunately n.o.body had been hurt.

"We've a plan to suggest, if you should think good of it, sir," shouted Henry in Adam Colfax's ear--he was compelled to shout just then because of the thunder.

"What is it?" Adam Colfax shouted back.

"How far away would you say that bonfire is?" asked Henry, pointing to one of the great fires on the southern sh.o.r.e.

"Not more than four hundred yards."

"Then, sir, we can put it out."

"Put it out?" exclaimed Adam Colfax in amazement. "I would not dare to land men for such a purpose!"

"It is not necessary. We must shoot it out. You've got good gunners, and the cannon can then do it. They might put a lot of the warriors there out of the fight at the same time."

One of the bra.s.s twelve pounders was mounted on the _Independence_, and Adam Colfax was taken at once with the idea.

"I should have thought of that before," he said. "I hate to lose any of our cannon b.a.l.l.s, but we must spare a few. Uncover the gun and aim at the nearest fire, hitting it at the base if you can."

This to the gunners, who obeyed eagerly. They had been chafing throughout the running of the gantlet as they stood beside their beloved but idle piece.

The tompion was drawn from the gun, the polished bra.s.s of which gleamed through the night and the rain. It was a splendid piece, and the chief gunner, as well as Adam Colfax, looked at it with pride.

"You are to shoot that fire out, and at the same time shoot out as much else with it as you can," the leader said to the gunner.

"I can do it," replied the gunner with pride and confidence. "I shall load with grape shot, triple charge."

Adam Colfax nodded. The triple charge of grape was rammed into the mouth of the bra.s.s piece. The muzzle was raised, and the gunner took long aim at the base of the blazing pyramid. Henry and the shiftless one stood by, watching eagerly, and the three in the boat at a little distance were also watching eagerly. Every one of them ran water from head to toe, but they no longer thought about rain, thunder, or lightning.

"He'll do it," the shiftless one said in the ear of Henry.

The gun was fired. A great blaze of flame leaped from its muzzle, and the _Independence_ shook with the concussion. But the bonfire seemed to spring into the air. It literally went up in a great shower of timber and coals, like fireworks, and when it sank darkness blotted out the s.p.a.ce where it had been.

"A hit fa'r an' squar'!" exclaimed Shif'less Sol.

From the fleet came a thunder of applause, which matched the thunder from the heavens, while from the sh.o.r.e rose a fierce yell of rage and execration.

"Well done! Well done!" shouted Adam Colfax to the gunner, who said nothing, but whose smile showed how much he was pleased at this just praise.

"It's likely that some warriors went out with their fire," said Henry.

"A lot of them were bound to be around it, feeding it and making it go in all this rain."

"They can be well spared," said Adam Colfax. "G.o.d knows I am not a seeker of human life, but I am resolved to do my errand. Now for the opposite bonfire on the northern bank."

The _Independence_ swung through the fleet, which parted to let her pa.s.s, quickly closing up again. The boat came within seventy or eighty yards of the northern sh.o.r.e, all those aboard her sheltering themselves by one means or another from the Indian bullets, one of which struck upon the brazen muzzle of the twelve pounder, but which did no damage.

The triple load of grape was used again, and the first shot was not successful, but the second seemed to strike fairly at the base of the bonfire, and it was extinguished as the first had been. The two further up were soon put out in the same manner.

The thunder of applause rose in the fleet at every successful shot, and then it swung forward with increased speed. The river at this point sank into darkness, save when the lightning flared across it, and the Indian bullets, which still came like the rain itself, were of necessity fired at random, doing, therefore, little damage.

Shif'less Sol laughed in sheer delight.

"It was a good trick they played on us," he said, "worthy uv a great chief, but we hev met it with another jest ez good. I s'pose it's a new way to put out fires with a cannon, but it's fine when you know how to shoot them big guns straight. A-kill-us an' Hannibal an' Homer an' all them old soldiers Paul talks about wuz never ez smart ez that."

But the battle was not over, nor had they yet forced all the watery pa.s.s. The northern Indians were numerous, hardy, and wild for triumph.

The great mind and spirit of Timmendiquas, the White Lightning of the Wyandots, urged them on, and they swarmed in hundreds along either sh.o.r.e, standing in the water among the bushes and sending in an incessant rifle fire. Others waded beyond the bushes, and still others darted out in their light canoes, from which they sent bullets at the two dark lines of boats in the middle of the river.

The rain came in gusts, and mingled with it was a wind which shrieked now and then like a human being, as it swept over the forests and the water. The thunder formed a ba.s.s note to all these noises, and the lightning at times fairly danced upon the water with dazzling brilliancy. It was a confused and terrible advance, in which the boats were in imminent danger from one another. Every one was compelled to move slowly lest it be sunk by the one behind it, and half the fighting force of the fleet was forced to pay its whole attention to the oars and sweeps and steering gear.

Paul was dazed a little by the tremendous confusion and mingling of sights and sounds. He saw an Indian near the southern bank aiming his rifle at their boat, and he sought to aim his own in return, but the flash of lightning that had disclosed the warrior was gone, and for the moment he looked only into blank darkness. He shut his eyes, rubbed his hands over them, and then opened them again. The darkness was still there. He did not at that time feel fear. It was too unreal, too much like a hideous nightmare, and he did not realize its full import until afterward.

"Shall we ever get through?" he asked, raising his voice above the tumult.

"Some o' us will! most o' us, I hope!" shouted Shif'less Sol in reply.

"Jumpin' Jehoshephat, but that bullet was close! I think I got a free shave on my left cheek. Did you ever hear sech a yellin' an' shriekin'

an' whizzin' o' bullets!"

"They are certainly making a determined attack," said Henry. "If they had the fires to go by they'd get us yet. Look, there goes a new fire that they've lighted on the southern bank."

A high flame flared among the bushes, but the bra.s.s twelve pounder was promptly turned upon it, and after the second shot it disappeared.

"It ain't healthy, lightin' fires to-night," said Long Jim grimly.

The boats swung forward now at a slightly increased pace. On the _Independence_, Adam Colfax, Adolphe Drouillard, Thrale, Lyon and the others half stood, half knelt, looking steadily ahead, their minds attuned as only the minds of men can be concentrated at such a crisis.

In this hour of darkness and danger the souls of the New Hampshire Puritan and of the Louisiana Frenchman were the same. One prayed to his Protestant G.o.d and the other to his Catholic G.o.d with like fervor and devotion, each praying that He would lead them through this danger, not for themselves, but for their suffering country.

The five in their own boat were not less devoted. They, too, felt that a Mighty Presence which was above wind, rain, and fire, alone could save them. Their hands were not on the trigger now. Instead they bent over the oars. Every one of them knew that bullets could do little the rest of the way, and it was for Providence to say whether they should reach the end of the watery pa.s.s.

The river narrowed still further. They were now at the point where the high banks came closest together and the danger would be greatest. But there was no flinching. The fire from either sh.o.r.e increased. Thunder and lightning, wind and rain raged about them, but they merely bent a little lower over the oars and sent their boats straight toward the flaming gate.

CHAPTER XX

THE TRUMPET'S PEAL

Major George Augustus Braithwaite, scholar of William and Mary College, man of refinement and experience, commissioned officer who had been in the a.s.sault at Ticonderoga, and who had stood victoriously with Wolfe on the Plains of Abraham, leaned upon a bastion at Fort Prescott and watched one of the wildest nights that he had ever seen. He wore his three-cornered military hat, but the rain flowed steadily in a little stream from every corner. He was wrapped in an old military coat, badge of distinguished service, but the rain, too, ran steadily from every fringe of its hem and gathered in puddles about the military boots that enclosed his feet.

He thought nothing of rain, or hat, or cloak, or boots. The puddles grew without his notice. The numerous flashes of lightning disclosed his face, worn and anxious, and with lines that had deepened perceptibly in the last few days. Beside him stood the second in command at Fort Prescott, Gregory Wilmot, a middle-aged man, and the brave scout, Seth Cole. They, too, seemed unconscious of the rain, and looked only at the river that flowed beneath them, a dark and troubled stream.

The storm had gone on long and it showed no signs of abating. It was the fiercest that any of them had ever seen in the Ohio Valley, and the lightning was often so brilliant and so near that they were compelled to shrink back in fear.

"How long has it been since the boy Henry Ware left us?" asked Major Braithwaite.

"A week to-day," replied the scout.

"And the fleet has not yet come," said the Major, as much to himself as to the others. "I've always believed until to-night that it would come.