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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d7b82bc --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,4 @@ +*.txt text eol=lf +*.htm text eol=lf +*.html text eol=lf +*.md text eol=lf diff --git a/76105-0.txt b/76105-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..94ad437 --- /dev/null +++ b/76105-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,13661 @@ + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 76105 *** + + + + + + BOOKS BY + + “Charles Egbert Craddock.” + + (MARY N. MURFREE.) + + + A SPECTRE OF POWER. Crown 8vo, $1.50. + + THE CHAMPION. With a Frontispiece. 12mo, + $1.20, _net_. Postpaid, $1.31. + + IN THE TENNESSEE MOUNTAINS. Short + Stories. 16mo, $1.25. + + DOWN THE RAVINE. For Young People. Illustrated. + 16mo, $1.00. + + THE PROPHET OF THE GREAT SMOKY + MOUNTAINS. A Novel. 16mo, $1.25. + + IN THE CLOUDS. A Novel. 16mo, $1.25. + + THE STORY OF KEEDON BLUFFS. For + Young People. 16mo, $1.00. + + THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. A + Novel. 16mo, $1.25. + + WHERE THE BATTLE WAS FOUGHT. A + Novel. 16mo, $1.25. + + HIS VANISHED STAR. A Novel. 16mo, $1.25. + + THE MYSTERY OF WITCH-FACE MOUNTAIN. + 16mo, $1.25. + + THE YOUNG MOUNTAINEERS. Illustrated. + 12mo, $1.50. + + THE JUGGLER. A Novel. 16mo, $1.25. + + + HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY, + BOSTON AND NEW YORK. + + + + + A SPECTRE OF POWER + + + + + A SPECTRE + OF POWER + + + CHARLES EGBERT CRADDOCK + + + + + BOSTON AND NEW YORK + HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY + The Riverside Press, Cambridge + 1903 + + + + + COPYRIGHT, 1903, BY MARY N. MURFREE + ALL RIGHTS RESERVED + + _Published May, 1903_ + + + + + A SPECTRE OF POWER + + + + + CONTENTS + + PAGE + + Chapter I 1 + + Chapter II 23 + + Chapter III 49 + + Chapter IV 75 + + Chapter V 101 + + Chapter VI 118 + + Chapter VII 133 + + Chapter VIII 150 + + Chapter IX 175 + + Chapter X 192 + + Chapter XI 213 + + Chapter XII 227 + + Chapter XIII 255 + + Chapter XIV 279 + + Chapter XV 302 + + Chapter XVI 324 + + Chapter XVII 334 + + Chapter XVIII 344 + + Chapter XIX 357 + + Chapter XX 368 + + Chapter XXI 380 + + Chapter XXII 396 + + + + + A SPECTRE OF POWER + + + + + I + + +IT so chanced that Eve, with all her primeval curiosity, dwelt in +the Cherokee town of Great Tellico. Hence came disaster. To the +inquisitiveness of the woman it was always imputed, although the +undisciplined heart of man, the turbulent impulses of ambition, and the +serpentine supersubtlety of a covetous political scheme were potent +elements. Little, indeed, such as she might seem concerned with matters +of high import. From afar, unindividualized among scores of the other +subservient Cherokee women standing on the banks of the glittering +Tennessee River, she had watched the approach of the herald of the +embassy. A Choctaw Indian he was revealed as he ran holding broadly +outstretched in each hand the great white wing of a swan, streaked with +symbolic lines of white clay. The headmen of Tellico, the warriors +of note, and the “beloved men” swiftly assembled in the “beloved +square” to greet the arrival of the ambassador himself, and with no +presentiment of personal significance in the event, she beheld the +entry of the splendidly bedight Choctaw chief, Mingo Push-koosh. + +Through the forests he had elected to come, and as he advanced with +that wonderful, running gait of the Choctaw Indian, who could outwind, +it was said in that day, a swift horse, he sustained impassively the +eager, fixed gaze of the hundreds of Cherokees assembled in his honor. + +The iconoclast, who was not born yesterday, was here and there in the +crowd, and had a word of covert scoffing at his neglect of the great +advantages of water carriage afforded by the numerous fine rivers of +the Cherokee country; for the Choctaws had but little familiarity with +navigation, owing to the few and very limited streams of their own +region, and notoriously, of all nations of Indians, they could not swim. + +Envy, however, could hardly spare a fling at so imperious a figure as +the Mingo presented as he stood in the “beloved square” and delivered +in rapid, fervid, poetic diction his oration of greeting to the headmen +of Tellico. The afternoon sunlight glittered on the silver wrist-plates +on his muscular, bare arms, his gorget and “earbobs” of the same metal, +and a half dozen strands of the glossily white, fresh-water pearls of +the region, exceedingly large and regularly shaped, which hung about +the neck of his white, dressed doeskin hunting-shirt. His head was not +polled after the fashion of the Cherokees, and his hair grew thick +and long. A great cluster of scarlet flamingo feathers stood high in +the midst of the straight, black locks, and he wore a broad, silver +band on the backward slant of his forehead, artificially flattened +thus in infancy, according to the tribal custom. His leggings and +moccasins were also scarlet. He bore no arms except a pair of handsome, +silver-mounted pistols in his embroidered belt. + +The gentle breeze carried his full, rich, guttural tones to the +uttermost outskirts of the crowd, and suddenly it was swayed by a new +sensation and a straining of necks to see. For although the Choctaws +beyond all tribes were most addicted to the punctilio of ceremonial +observances, and scorned and resisted innovation, the voice which +followed his words, substituting the familiar Cherokee equivalents, +was the voice of no Indian interpreter. It was suave and fluent and +easy of comprehension, but now and again an idiom occurred, a method +of construction essentially French. For beside the Mingo, and in front +of his escort of a dozen Choctaw braves, stood a glittering object, a +white man, a French officer in full uniform, and with his hair curled +and plaited and powdered. + +The headmen of Tellico, all decorously listening to the ambassador, +all respectfully gazing upon his bright animated face, as he declaimed +his plea for welcome and his pleasure in beholding them, could not +altogether cloak their surprised interest and covert glances at this +resplendent apparition in the lowly functions of an interpreter. It +was a relief when Push-koosh openly alluded to his companion, and he +himself repeated in Cherokee the explanation of his appearance in this +capacity, and they were free to let their eyes rest unrestrainedly upon +him. + +In his clear, ringing, military enunciation, he stated that the +official Choctaw interpreter with whom they had set forth on the long +journey from Fort Condé de la Mobile had sickened by the way, and +sinking very low they had been obliged to strangle him, death being +inevitable. But they had left his body on a scaffold out of reach of +wild animals, whither the official “bone-picker” should be sent on +their return to the southern country to perform the last sad rites +of the Choctaw religion (which seems to have had few rites other +than these frightful funeral observances). For these reasons they +were fain to crave the indulgence of the great Cherokee chiefs for +appearing without that essential functionary, an interpreter, since +the lieutenant, Jean Marie Edouard Bodin de Laroche, was but scantily +acquainted with the charming Cherokee language, so musical and of so +elegant a construction, and Mingo Push-koosh, to his infinite regret, +had of it no knowledge save a few scattered phrases. + +The discerning and thoughtful Tanaesto, standing in the group of +brilliantly arrayed Cherokee headmen, silently eyeing them both, noted +naught significant in the face of the Mingo as the untoward fate of the +strangled interpreter was recounted. This assistance in shuffling off +the mortal coil would have been to the Choctaw a matter of course and +a national custom. But Tanaesto knew that the white man was not used +to so summary a disposition of the inconvenient dying. He was subject, +like all the Catholic French, to many stringent religious restrictions, +chiefly pertaining to the precise method in which he might take life, +and although he looked as stanch as steel, and as glittering, his +face was young and bland and as unmoved as if he were reciting a +fiction,--which indeed he was! The heart of Tanaesto weighed very light +with the thought,--there had been no interpreter to die. + +“My brother,” he said in a low voice to Colonnah, to test his joyful +suspicion, “why does a French officer speaking but indifferent Cherokee +come to us with a Choctaw embassy without an interpreter from the +governor of Louisiana?” + +The wary Colonnah replied instantly. “That the Choctaw embassy may go +back no wiser in certain things than the French officer may desire.” + +The disclosure of a scheme within a scheme was thus promised. The +series of notable successes which the Cherokees had achieved in 1760, +in their war against the British, had been nullified in the campaign of +the succeeding year by the inability of the French to convey to them +adequate ammunition at the crisis of their final defeat. Doubtless +some new plan was now imminent, some fresh attempt in contemplation +to aid them to throw off the British yoke. Tanaesto’s heart leaped at +the thought, although a solemn treaty of peace had just been signed at +Charlestown with the Royal Governor of South Carolina, and a deputation +of Cherokee chiefs now, in the early spring of 1762, were on the way +to England as guests invited to visit his majesty King George in +London.[1] + +The craft of the Indians rendered craft difficult to disguise, and +Tanaesto could but wonder if Mingo Push-koosh knew or suspected aught +of the limitations of his powers or the secrets of his mission thus +withheld from him. + +His fine voice died away at last on the bland air; the oratorical +display in which the Indians all delighted and the Choctaws so much +excelled had been elaborately exploited; the stir of the wind, the +lapsing currents of the river, were barely audible in the silence that +seemed still to vibrate with the pulsings of his eloquent periods. + +Then another voice arose, deep, full, impressive, as Moy Toy, the great +chief of Tellico, pronounced the stereotyped sentences of welcome and +protestations of a desire of friendship. + +The Choctaw responded sonorously, “_Aharattle-la phena +chemanumbole!_”[2] (I shall firmly shake hands with your discourse.) +Whereupon Moy Toy, with eagle feathers upon his head and a splendid +garb of feather-woven fabrics, advanced and grasped with both hands the +Choctaw’s arm around the wrist; then seized him anew about the elbow; +and again with the like fervent pressure around the arm close to the +shoulder, as being near the heart. He drew back from the visitor for +one silent moment. Then he waved a great fan of eagle feathers above +the head of the ambassador, the plumes stroking him gently, and his +formal reception was complete. + +The Choctaw turned smilingly to the crowd, which was presently in +motion dispersing along the river bank and among the scattered +dwellings of the town. The official group of headmen had broken up +into informal knots, and among them Push-koosh moved with a suave but +princely arrogation, as tolerating the adulation which was equally +his custom and his expectation. He had several claims to special +consideration, of none of which was he oblivious, and all of which +exerted a marked influence upon his personality. He enjoyed a certain +distinction because of his well-known acuteness, his employment in the +French interest, his war record, and his undoubted courage, which was +the more noted because the Choctaws were not always considered brave; +for although fighting furiously in defense of their own territory, +they were accounted half-hearted and even timorous in invasion and +aggression. Moreover, he had much family influence, having four elder +brothers, all noted warriors, who championed his every plan and took +that prideful, solicitous, censorious, half-paternal account of +him characteristic of the fraternal senior, and often resented and +ill-requited by the sophisticated Benjamins even of civilized tribes. +To this simple trait of family affection is doubtless due the name by +which he was known; for throughout his life and to the day of his death +he was called Push-koosh, “Baby.” If he had any other name, it is not +of record in the history of his times, in which, although cruel as +death, hard as steel, and cunning as craft itself, this Choctaw warrior +always incongruously appears as “Prince Baby,” Mingo Push-koosh. + +The suavity and politic amiability of the carriage of the French +toward the savage, which had so marked an influence on the earlier +stages of the development of this country, were never more definitely +illustrated than in the face of the young officer, Laroche. Its +intelligence, its alertness, the military arrogance in the pose +of the head, rendered the sudden, bright softness of his smile as +flattering as a personal tribute. From an athletic point of view, +his slender, erect, sinewy figure coerced the respect of his hosts, +and in securing their friendship and confidence, he had a great +advantage in his very tolerable command of the Cherokee language. His +linguistic accomplishments were already considerable, but before he +left Fort Condé de la Mobile, he was set to work under the instruction +of the official interpreter, by the order of his superior officer, +and he had acquired a colloquial facility as a military duty with +the diligence which he would have manifested in mastering military +theories and tactical problems. He talked continually, with much ease +and good-fellowship, and a sort of elastic, volatile gayety. But he +showed a deeply emotional impressionability. He manifested great and +genuine pleasure in the aspect of the country. He gazed long and +silently upon the azure summits and infinite lengths of the Great Smoky +Mountains, as they received the last suffusion of the red, western +sunlight like a benediction, and glowed to purer, higher, finer phases +of color, becoming densely purple, then delicately amethystine, then +all transparent and roseate. As they grew so crystalline of effect as +to realize to the imagination the splendid jeweled luminosities of the +Apocalyptic jasper, he caught his breath, exclaiming, “_Nanne-Yah! +Nanne-Yah!_” (The mountains of God!) He declared to his entertainers +that in Old France he was born near mountains such as these (for he +was not of the Canadian French, who since the days of Iberville had so +heavily recruited the ranks of the soldiery in Louisiana), and that he +had no doubt that this mutual nativity to the heights was the reason +why he already felt toward them as to brothers. Yet he was not bent +upon flattery; for he was alone with Push-koosh when he said again and +again, as they walked beside the Tennessee River, and he noted the +swift flow of its currents all bedight in red and gold under the sunset +sky, “_Ookka chookoma intaa!_” (How the beautiful water glides +along!) + +He broke presently from the pensive contemplation of its charms +and stopped short with a crisp ringing cry, “_Holà! là! là!_” +Push-koosh, glancing about for the cause of this excitement, perceived +at a little distance some Cherokee youths, who were leaping from the +heights of a craggy eminence and diving into the rippling depths with a +temerity and facility alike admirable. But Push-koosh had no affinity +with amphibian traits, being himself, in common with the rest of his +tribe, unable to swim. He resented the interest and approval which the +Frenchman accorded the divers, sundry of whom were now breasting the +current with great speed, strength, and skill, and declared that it was +beneath his ambassadorial dignity to waste the time in watching a half +score specimens of the Cherokee Ka-noona (bullfrog), as they called the +creature in their jargon, swim a race. He could not wait for this! Did +the officer not see that the fires of split cane were already alight +in the great state-house, whither they must at once repair to drink of +the cacina (“the black drink”) with the headmen, as became visitors of +distinction? Nevertheless, as they resumed their progress, Push-koosh +himself, with the interest which a man of an active, outdoor life must +needs feel in athletic feats, glanced again and again over his shoulder +at the expert divers. + +“I wonder they don’t drown!” he said at last sincerely. Then perhaps +equally sincerely, “I wish they would!” + +“_Mon tendre Bébé!_” cried the mercurial Frenchman in delight. +The incongruity daily illustrated between the cruel, savage traits of +the chief and his gentle, infantile sobriquet was of an unceasing and +engaging drollery to Laroche’s mind, and doubtless often proved of +service in keeping amicable relations between them. + +Wending their way through the scattered dwellings of the town, and +skirting the rows of log cabins on each side of the “beloved square,” +they approached the state-house or rotunda hard by, built on the summit +of a high, artificial mound of earth. The circuit of the fifteen +Cherokee towns[3] burned by Colonel Grant, commanding the British +forces, in the punitive measures following his victory at Etchoee +the previous year, the Indians being powerless to resist, as their +ammunition was exhausted, did not extend so far as Tellico Great, and +therefore its aspect was as before the war, save indeed for the tokens +of the prowess of the Cherokees themselves--the great dismantled Fort +Loudon, still standing a massive, lonely shadow in the distance, which +they had blockaded and reduced, massacring the garrison, and here +and there down the river the stark chimneys of the burned dwellings +of the murdered British colonists. A white glimmer stole out of the +tall, narrow portal of the conical state-house, which showed dark and +solid against the ethereal shadows of the atmosphere. For the blue +dusk had fallen on the enchanted land. The wooded mountains loomed dim +and sombre on the clear horizon; the encompassing primeval forests +were thronged with glooms; the river was now a gray shadow, and now +an elusive, silver glister; the many lowly roofs of the dwellings of +the Indian town were dully glimpsed here and there in the light that +flickered out through the open doors from hearthstones all aglow; +and as the officer paused on the high mound at the portal of the +state-house, and looked back over the clare-obscure of the unaccustomed +scene, he caught the scintillations of a star a-glitter in the pallid +expanse of the pearly skies. It was like a signal to him. Aldebaran! +how long since he had seen it, poised over a craggy mountain summit, +sending its brilliant, red lustres down through the fringes of the +evergreen pine. Not thus, not thus had he seen it since the star and +he were together at home! It was like the sudden greeting of a friend +in a far and foreign land. He responded instantly as to a personal +appeal. He turned suddenly and airily kissed his hand, the brilliant +star shattered into a thousand stars among the tears in his eyes. +Push-koosh, accustomed to ebullitions of his emotional, susceptible +nature, gave him but one glance of superficial surprise, and together +they entered the dome-like building. The red clay walls of its interior +were illumined by the white light of the burning split canes, while the +dim, blue scene beneath the home-star lay outside in the darkness. + +Only for one moment did Laroche realize the poignancy of exile, +although the homesick pang for the recollection of his kindred and +his far-distant birthplace was supplemented by another hardly less +acute, with a spurious domiciliary sense, for the scenes at the +fort, his quarters, the presence of his brother officers. The more +valid cause of troublous thought and sense of solitude,--that he +was apart from them all, alone among wild and bloody savages, the +Choctaws of the French alliance hardly less to be feared in their +alert dissimulation and treacherous habit than the open ferocity of +the Cherokees of the British faction, the only man of his country in +a hundred miles of these dense and sombre wildernesses, in a torn +and distracted region subject to a national enemy,--these practical +considerations did not smite him at all. Even his æsthetic griefs +were all forgotten in another instant, and with his swift, volatile +transitions he was absorbed in the interior of the building. It was +large enough to accommodate an audience of several hundred people, and +ample illumination was afforded by the split cane, which, arranged in +lines and serpentine convolutions along a low mound of earth in the +centre of the clay floor and burning only at one end, was consumed +very gradually, and would furnish light for a considerable time. The +cane gave out but little smoke, ethereal, hazy, vaguely blue, mounting +into the shadowy vault of the lofty dome above the heads of the crowd. +Around the interior of the building, some four feet distant from the +wall and supporting the unseen timbers of the roof, was a series of +columns, and in the space between this colonnade and the wall was a +continuous divan or bench, deftly made of cane, artificially whitened, +and extending all around the circular structure. Here on the further +side, opposite the door, were seated the headmen of the town, while +those of lower grade were ranged according to rank, to the right and +to the left. The more insignificant or younger tribesmen stood in the +open spaces nearest the entrance, and seated on the floor on either +side of the narrow portal were groups of women, admitted in lenient +indulgence of feminine curiosity. + +The two strangers were conducted as visitors of distinction to seats, +one on either side of Moy Toy. The barbarous Choctaw, with his quick, +racial adaptation to all the minutiæ of ceremonial, peculiarly +elaborate in its observance, with his grace, his fitting words, his +proud yet affable demeanor, was hardly more acceptable to the Indian +scheme of etiquette than the Frenchman, foreign, white, strange, +though he was. There was something about this officer that appealed +singularly to the vivid imagination of the Cherokees,--the silken +softness of his courtesy, his easily stirred and obvious sentimental +emotions, his volatile pleasure in the passing moment, his quick +changeableness in every current of the air, and yet incongruously, a +certain bellicose keenness, and steadiness, and hardness in the glance +of his bland eyes. He was like a military butterfly, if one could +but attribute the potentiality of danger and venom and antagonism +to so aerial and brilliant a flutterer. His very gestures riveted +their attention as he expressively shrugged his shoulders or lifted +his eyebrows in gay surprise, or contracted them in frowning doubt. +These eyebrows were dark and distinctly marked, and he had long, dark +lashes, but his eyes were of a light brown tint such as gravel shows +when clear water runs above a sunlit channel. He wore his own light +brown hair in lieu of a fashionable wig, but the long queue and the +curls on the temples were heavily powdered, which was of complimentary +significance; for it was by no means the habit of the French officers +to submit to the _gêne_ of such vanities while on the march in +the wilderness, although in New Orleans the Marquis de Vaudreuil had +long sought to maintain some state, since indeed he had first succeeded +Bienville as governor of Louisiana, and fostered manners of ceremony, +as he afterwards did in Canada, whither he was now transferred. The +suggestion that Laroche was charged with a secret mission within a +mission added importance to his personality, which Push-koosh obviously +resented, now and again assertively flaunting his few Cherokee phrases, +even in addressing his _quasi_ interpreter, and more than once +essaying some very queer French. The men looked at the officer with +intense curiosity, and the women, as ever addicted to novelty, with +open-eyed admiration, as he smoked the “friend-pipe” while he sat +beside Moy Toy, who in his finest otter-skin robe was all a-glitter +with many swaying fringes of “roanoke,” with a broad, gleaming collar +of white swan’s down, and with streaks of white clay across his +forehead. If Laroche dreamed of the approaching ordeal, he awaited it +with the calm of a philosopher and the courage of a soldier. + +Presently there entered two “beloved men,” each bearing a conch shell +high in the right hand. They first crossed the apartment, one going to +the right, the other to the left, singing mystic words in a low tone as +they came; then once more taking a transverse course, they met in front +of Moy Toy and the two guests of distinction, to whom they presented, +with both hands, the two shells full of the so-called consecrated +beverage. As these were lifted, with both hands, to the lips of +the guests, the two “beloved men” broke forth with a sonorous bass +note, “_Yo!_” then with a tenor effect they sang the syllable, +“_He!_” prolonged to the utmost possibility of holding the breath, +during which sound the visitor must continue to drink the cacina. It +required, perhaps, all the strength of mind and stomach which the +French officer could muster, but he did not desist nor lower the shell +till the gasping “_Wah!_” placed a period to his torments. + +Others then partook of the black drink in turn, and presently amidst +the wreaths of blue smoke and the white flare of the burning cane, +while the earthen drums began to beat sonorously, sinuous, leaping +shadows were flung across the hard, clay floor and on the red walls of +the circular building; for the eagle-tail dance was in progress in the +presence of the honored guests, the great fans of feathers waving high +in the uplifted hands of the agile warriors, as they sprang elastically +into the air, exhibiting many intricate steps and difficult attitudes. + +These solemn politico-religious ceremonies of welcome concluded, +the Cherokees gave themselves over to various devices to amuse and +entertain their guests, for this was a characteristic trait of their +hospitality. There would be horse-races on the morrow and dances +again, but without significance either political or religious, and +long and elaborate feastings, for they could set forth a table with +“fifty different viands.” The Cherokees had not at this period begun +the downward course,--the relinquishment of their national customs, +primitive manufactures, religion, method of government, habits of +extreme cleanliness,--the wholesale degeneration which seems inevitable +before new standards, new customs, new religion, a new nationality, can +be adjusted to a people in a state of transition. The night being as +yet but little spent, one of their ancient pantomimes[4] was essayed +for the entertainment of the guests; and during its performance the +frequency of the ringing laugh of the French officer, and the grunt of +approval of the Choctaw chief, brought the same expression of gratified +complacency and chastened thankfulness to the anxious faces of Moy +Toy and the other headmen of Tellico Great that sophisticated hosts +now wear upon the success of an entertainment upon which important +interests depend. It began with a surprise. Suddenly a bulky shadow +fell within the doorway,--the women clustering about the entrance +shrieked in a sort of delighted affright and scuttled aside. The +heavy, guttural laugh of the Indian--a merry soul at his sports--fell +iteratively on the air. A bear had entered, clumsy, heavily shuffling, +snuffing tentatively about, evidently to be imagined as ranging the +woods, and with now and then a glance over his shoulder to see another +bear ponderously lumbering in. So close was the imitation of the ursine +gait and ungainliness, so crafty the disguise in the beast’s paws and +hide, distended to full proportions by concealed wooden hoops, that +one might have believed the manifestation genuine but for a lamenting +“stage-whisper,” as it were, delivered in plaintive Cherokee, touching +a bit of the burning cane which had lodged upon the slant of a too +inquisitive snout nosing about the fire. It was hastily brushed off +by one of the young tribesmen of the audience, all of whom laughed +gleefully at the mischance and the helpless plight of the singed Bruin. + +And now entered two hunters in full sylvan array. The bears skulked, +chiefly among the audience; the nimrods stalked them; the bears fled; +the hunters pursued; the beasts turned at bay,--when the hunters +themselves fled frantically, amidst howls of derision from the younger +people. This mockery seemed to restore the nerve of the hunters, +who presently returned to the effort and with such ardor that they +finally “treed” the bears, who nimbly climbed the sleek, round columns +that supported the roof of the edifice. Thence they were pulled down +forcibly, first by one foot, then the others; at last all fell, hunters +and bears together, in an undiscriminated heap on the floor, where +after a terrific mock struggle, the bears were dispatched by the +expedient of cutting their throats, with a vast effusion of blood and +howls of remonstrance from the beasts, expressed in excellent Cherokee. + +The two vanquished animals as early as practicable crept out of their +skins, left weltering in the blood on the floor, and mingled with their +admirers in the audience, laughing a great deal and discussing the +play:--how the struggle might have been prolonged but for this and +that; how one bear, according to his own account, need not have been +killed at all, so expert a beast was he, except that he had yielded +himself at last a sacrifice to the popular entertainment; and how one +hunter could have easily slain this same boastful bear at the very +outset by a single blow on the head, to which his more than bearish +awkwardness exposed him, but was moved to spare him and thus extend his +career, also from the disinterested motive of promoting and conserving +the sport of the indulgent audience. + +It was all indeed very cleverly done, as even Laroche thought, who had +seen pantomimes in Paris, and Push-koosh manifested as much hilarious +good will as the Choctaw “Prince Baby” ever permitted himself to +experience. The French officer, however, despite his absorption in +the histrionic display, had not been unmindful of the notables in the +audience either in Paris or here. More than once to-night his gaze +was caught by a pair of eyes large and gentle, luminous as a deer’s +and as untamed in expression, appropriately set in the face of one of +the Cherokee women. She was hardly in her first youth, although she +seemed singularly fresh, alert, spirited, enjoying the pantomime with +childish delight. She was evidently not less than twenty-two or three +years of age, and he being rather elderly himself,--some twenty-eight +years,--thought this well advanced in life and an age of wisdom. She +was slender and, like all the Cherokees, of notable height, and when +the crowd was out of the state-house he saw her again, glimmering with +willowy grace in the moonlight. The distorted, gibbous sphere of pearl +was high above the violet mountains and the gray and misty valleys, and +he thought the woman beautiful and picturesquely placed in the solemn +and splendid environment of the ranges, for he was accustomed to the +bizarre details of savage raiment. The skirt of her tunic-like garb +of white, dressed doeskin reached a trifle below the knee, and she +wore the long, white, doeskin buskin, fitting closely, that came half +as high; around each leg, below the knee, was tied a soft, dressed +otter-skin, hung with glittering, metal “bell buttons,” that tinkled as +she walked. Her hair, anointed and glossy in the moonlight, was tied +and dressed high on the head, and was stuck full of the quills of the +white pigeon. Her head was clearly defined against the dark blue of the +instarred sky, as she threw it backward and gazed at the moon as if to +verify some calculation of time, its light full in her lustrous eyes. +Then she turned, and running swiftly past, disappeared in the violet +shadows. + +He did not soon think of her again. She was only a picturesque element +in this state of quaint barbarity, a momentary incident in the scenes +of an evening overcrowded with impressive grotesqueries. He had no +idea to whom Mingo Push-koosh alluded when he said suddenly, “_Eho +in-ta-na-ah!_” (The woman has mourned the appointed time!) + +The two French emissaries were alone now; they had been conducted to a +building called the stranger-house, designed for the accommodation of +casual guests, and which was assigned to them to be their headquarters +during their stay. It too was furnished with the row of cane divans +around the walls, which served as benches during the day and as beds +at night. The house was the usual cabin of the Indians, built without +nails, or a hinge, or a bit of metal in any sort, yet “genteel and +convenient and so very secure, as if it were to screen them from an +approaching hurricane,” says an old British trader, who lived for +many years in one of them. The posts were of the most durable wood +and deeply set in the ground, the timbers were accurately fitted to +one another, the wall plates, rafters, and eave boards had been all +stanchly bound together with the elastic splints of white oak or +hickory, and with strips of wet buffalo hide, which tighten and harden +as they dry. A partition separated the room from another, wherein was +disposed the Choctaw escort. Within and without, the building was +whitewashed with the coarse, marly clay of the region, and the walls +sent back with responsive, silver glimmers the moonlight, falling +through the narrow door and into the face of the officer, who had +stretched himself at length in full uniform on the divan, to rest a bit +before divesting himself of his military finery and disposing himself +to slumber. The ceremonies and excitements of the evening, following a +day of exertion and hard marching, had resulted in making his eyelids +heavy. + +“_Omeh!_” (Yes!) he assented, hardly hearing the remark, and +answering at random. + +Push-koosh sat upright on the opposite side of the room as if he could +know no fatigue, and gazed loweringly across at the Frenchman. + +“_Che-a-sa-ah!_” (I am displeased with you!) the Choctaw hissed +out. “What makes your lying tongue so strong?” + +The French lieutenant roused himself. “_Mon cher enfant_,” he +declared, “I know you consider a lie no disgrace, it being your daily +food, but I have told you once, and I tell you again, that if you throw +it into my teeth I will beat that flat head of yours flatter than it +is!” + +“You don’t even know of whom I am speaking--you answer like a child!” +said Push-koosh in a mollified tone. + +Something had come to him out of the night, the moonlight, the soft +lustre of dark eyes,--something as intangible as the flickering +illusions of the heat lightning, as inexplicable as the fleeting wind, +as tenuous as the wing of a moth,--a fancy!--and he must needs talk of +it. Therefore he would concede. He would forego his resentment for this +cavalier inattention. He smiled as if he had been in jest. + +“_Unta?_” (Well?) said Laroche interrogatively. + +“_Eho in-ta-na-ah!_” Push-koosh repeated. + +The versatile Frenchman was sore smitten with sleep. “What woman?” he +said drowsily. “What mourning?” + +“Her husband is dead! The Muscogee killed him three years ago!” said +Push-koosh, with stalwart satisfaction in the fact. “And she has +mourned the appointed time. You could have seen, but that you are a +blind French mole, that her hair is no longer flowing loose, but is +anointed and tied and dressed full of white quills!” + +Sleep suddenly quitted its hold on the French lieutenant. He lifted +himself alertly on one elbow and looked animatedly at Push-koosh. +“_Eho chookoma!_” (The beautiful woman!) he cried with enthusiasm. +“Not so much of a mole as you think! _Pas si bête, mon bijou. Pas +cette espèce de bête!!_” + +He shook his wise head with emphasis and laid himself down again. +Push-koosh glowered at him with a sudden, angry fear. This fervor of +admiration on the part of the French lieutenant boded ill to that +ethereal fancy which had fallen about the Choctaw chief as lightly as +a gossamer web of the weaving spider, and now held him like a network +of steel chains. He said abruptly, with seeming irrelevance and his +infantile candor, “I wish you had killed yourself last week!” + +For the mercurial Frenchman had often seizures of deep despondency, in +which he sometimes announced with sincerity that he designed to place +a period to his existence. Such a crisis had supervened on the journey +hither, in which, however, Push-koosh was concerned as little as might +be. True, there had been some peculiarly irritating incidents in their +relations; they baited each other, and bickered on slight occasion, and +argued violently on untenable grounds, for which neither cared an iota, +and conducted themselves generally as young men do when constrained +to work together with but scant personal sympathy. But Laroche’s +discontent had a far more serious source. He was disappointed of the +distinction which he had hoped to attain in this mission. + +Apart from the diplomatic and secret details with which he was +intrusted, and the check that he was expected to maintain upon the +loyalty, or rather the suspected disloyalty of Push-koosh, whose +personal presence was necessary to reconcile certain ancient enmities +between the Choctaws and Cherokees, and thus facilitate and set forth +the special values of the French alliance, Laroche was charged with +an affair of professional importance which Push-koosh imagined was +the only reason that he had been ordered to accompany the Choctaw +embassy,--so crafty were the methods of the French with the crafty +savages. Laroche’s open instructions contemplated the investigation +of certain obstructions in the _Rivière des Chéraquis_ (since +called the Great Tennessee), which had hitherto proved an insuperable +bar to the continuous transportation of goods from New Orleans to the +Cherokee Nation by means of that great waterway. Not trinkets, the +Indians craved, not paints, nor beads, nor even cutlery, but those +costly treasures of arms, powder, and lead which the Cherokees valued +beyond all things, because without constant and adequate supplies of +such munitions of war they could never hope to take the field again, +eventually throw off the yoke of the British, and keep foothold on the +land which was their own, and which they loved with all the fervent +devotion of the mountaineer to his native heights. Therefore they +had hitherto listened to the counsels of the French, who were now +especially eager to meet all expectations, perhaps because they were +still involved themselves in hostilities with the English elsewhere, +perhaps because they still cherished that old scheme of so many +visionaries--from the logical plans of Iberville, futilely projected +so long ago, to the subtle intrigues of the German Jesuit, Christian +Priber, only twenty-five years previous--to invade the Carolinas and +Georgia at the head of twelve thousand warriors of confederated Indian +tribes. + +But the transportation of supplies to the Cherokees by pack-train +overland was impracticable, since the intervening country was held by +the hostile Chickasaws, ever devoted to the British, and the French had +still a lively recollection of their defeats by this intrepid tribe at +the towns of Ash-wick-boo-ma, where D’Artaguette met his cruel fate, +and Ackia, the scene of the discomfiture of Bienville. Therefore in the +Cherokee War, a large pettiaugre laden with warlike stores was sent up +the Mississippi from New Orleans, armed with swivel guns to repress the +Chickasaws, who in flying squads nevertheless harassed the progress +of the boat by a sharp musketry delivered from the river bluffs. +This danger passed, the expedition failed for a different reason. It +returned bootless, having abandoned the attempt on account of the +insurmountable obstructions to navigation in the Cherokee River. + +The French authorities at New Orleans had good reason to doubt the +report of the extent of these difficulties, for hitherto their boats +had ascended occasionally to Great Tellico,--perhaps in a different +stage of the water. They ordered a survey of the locality with a view +of such removal of the reefs as might afford a practicable channel +at all seasons,--a second earnest effort to meet the needs of the +Cherokees, with a systematic and continuous supply of stores, being in +contemplation. + +Laroche, who had served as a lieutenant of engineers as well as of +artillery, had been charged with the duty of removing the obstruction +if practicable, and a pettiaugre laden with such means as were deemed +fitted to further this design had been dispatched up the Mississippi +and Ohio in advance of the expedition overland from Fort Tombecbé to +meet him at the point where the navigation of the Cherokee River became +difficult. The young officer had expected to encounter some reefs, a +goodish stretch of rapids perhaps, a few dangerous, troublesome rocks. +He found vast whirlpools, and endless vistas of maddened waters, +and shoals, shoals, shoals,--twenty miles of muscle shoals, three +miles wide. Even Push-koosh had cried out in amaze at the phenomenon +of the turbulent rapids, declaring that the devils, the _hottuk +ookproose_, were dancing under the waters, for he had heard for ten +miles the devil’s own song that they sung, _tarooa ookpro’sto_ +(the tune of the accursed one). + +As Laroche realized the total impossibility of the undertaking, and +saw vanishing all his hopes of distinction in this valid and valuable +service, he forthwith sat down on a rock beside the rioting waters, +bowed his head on his hands, and cried out to a “_juste ciel_” +that this was really too strong, that there was no use in trying to +live any longer, and that he was minded to kill himself. + +Suicide is always more or less fashionable among Frenchmen. Perhaps the +passionate grief of his utterance was not wholly devoid of intention. +But as he lifted his dreary eyes, the animated interest and curiosity +to see him take his life which the face of Push-koosh expressed +effectually deterred him. The spectacle would be too delightfully +gratifying to the Choctaw! The humor of the situation appealed to the +mercurial French lieutenant, and the pendulum swung back again. + +The thought of self-destruction had not recurred to his mind until +to-night, when Push-koosh mentioned his bootless threat. + +“But why, _mon pauvre Bébé, mon petit chou_,--why should you wish +that I had killed myself?” Laroche demanded. + +Push-koosh hesitated. He felt that his jealousy was a derogation, and +was glad that his hasty words had not betrayed it to the officer, whom +he esteemed a dull, inattentive fellow at best, continually occupied +with his little idols, which he carried in a box and would let no one +else touch,--his spy-glass, his spirit-level, his quadrant, and his +compass, which last he declared knew the north, and without which he +could not draw a map, as Push-koosh could on a gourd or a bit of bark +or a stretch of clear sand,--he knew little, very little, that French +officer, Laroche! + +“_Unta--Illet minte!_” (Well--Death is coming!) the Choctaw said +casually, as if he spoke generally and at random. + +“Not yet! not yet!” cried the officer, remembering the diabolic tumult +of the waters. “Let the devils dance! I can be merry too! I have a +scheme to outwit them. A great thing, my Baby, to outwit the devils!” + +Twice he paused to think of it in laying aside his sword and drawing +off his coat. Push-koosh made no move toward preparing for slumber. +Long after the lieutenant was still, quite still, beneath the +delicately dressed and softened panther skins that sufficed for bedding +on the elastic cane-wrought mattresses, Push-koosh sat upright on the +couch on the opposite side of the room gazing steadfastly at him,--the +long, thin figure suggested beneath the folds of the drapery of the +primitive bed; the white powdered hair that had lost much of its frosty +touches streaming backward, long, loose, the ends slightly curling; +the eyes meekly closed; the moonlight in the white, tired, sleeping +face, youthful, but grave, pensive, saddened vaguely. That was the +way, perhaps, he would have looked had he taken his life as he had +threatened. And Push-koosh, still intently eyeing him, wished again +that he had. + + + + + II + + +TOWARD dawn the frogs, antiphonally chanting down by the water-side, +ceased their chorusing clamors. Now and again a croaking voice sounded +raucously alone,--then came silence. The moon was all solitary in the +“beloved square,”--not even an errant gust of wind to bear her company. +In broad, still, white effulgence the radiance rested unbroken on the +sandy stretch and the dark, narrow row of cabins, devoted to public and +official business, on each side of the quadrangular space. The more +remote dwellings cast shadows wherever the boughs of the overhanging +trees left the ground clear. Here too was silence, save in one hut +whence issued the voice of a wakeful infant, as boldly bawling as if it +were some cherished scion of civilization. Gradually, insensibly, the +world took on an aspect of gray dimness. The mountains looming around +began to definitely darken. The stars had all grown faint; for the +sun would not await the moon’s descent, and presently, driving hard, +his chariot was on the steep eastern summits; the song of birds, the +trumpet-blast of the wind, the whispering voice of rustling pines, the +dash of glancing waters, and human cries of joy and cheer were elicited +as if these matutinal sounds partook of the quality of light. + +The French officer, dead beat, still slumbered, but Push-koosh rose, +stretched himself, and still arrayed in his splendid ambassadorial +attire went out into the freshness of the dawning day and the renewing +possibilities of the world. A man who hoped to make naught of dancing +devils should have been earlier astir. + +There was a scene of activity down at the river bank. The pettiaugre +of their expedition, which had been brought to the Muscle Shoals of +the Cherokee River laden with powder to aid in the removal of the +barriers to free navigation, had been steered with great difficulty +and at considerable risk through the rapids, repeatedly grazing the +bottom, although it was a much smaller craft of the kind than was usual +for the conveyance of freight. Proceeding thence up the stream, it had +succeeded in passing safely the “whirl,” the “boiling pot,”--known +now to modern engineers as the “mountain obstructions,”--and albeit +somewhat the worse for the hard wear of its experiment, it had finally +reached the smoother waters of the Little Tennessee, and continuing a +placid progress along its curves, was coming in to land at the town of +Great Tellico. + +It was the intention to present the cargo as a token of amity from +the French governor to the town of Tellico, such being Laroche’s +instructions from Kerlerec in case the powder could not be used in the +removal of the reefs. + +Only a few of the Cherokees were on the bank, and in obedience to their +signaled advice, the Choctaws on the pettiaugre had sheered off from +the shallows, where a landing had been at first contemplated, and where +the craft would have gotten aground at an inconvenient distance from +the shore, to seek a deeper haven indicated by the Cherokees, who, as +they ran up and down, gesticulated violently in the sign language, and, +in lieu of comprehensible, articulate phrases, uttered wild cries, +curiously unmusical, like the voice of the dumb. + +There on the bank was Eve (her Indian name was Akaluka, which signifies +“a whirlwind”). Overpowered with curiosity as to the arrival of the +boat, she had repaired to the scene. Being as elaborately appareled as +on the preceding evening, it is fair to conclude that the two handsome +strangers had not been altogether forgotten. They were now, however, +far from her thoughts. Like a frugal female, she was wholly absorbed +in anxiety,--not lest an awkward landing should endanger or submerge +many pounds of precious gunpowder, a princely gift from the French +government to its secret friend, the important municipality of Great +Tellico, especially at that time and in this region, but there were in +the cargo sundry trifles originally intended as presents to individuals +for the personal propitiation of certain warriors, and she was +solicitous as to the fate of one of these gauds. It was a scarf of thin +silk, a deep red, with a golden glimmer of broidery, and it had fallen +over the gunwale as the Choctaws, no great boatmen at best, awkwardly +shifted the cargo in the imminence of the peril of the precious +freight. All unheeded, the scarf, escaping from its flimsy wrapping, +was now floating away to deck the insensate wave. + +Standing on the peak of a high rock, and distinct against the blue +sky, like some delineation in white crayon, arrayed in her white, +dressed doeskin garb, her white buskins, the white quills in her black +hair, she shrieked again and again to the laboring Choctaws, as they +wearily trimmed the boat, seeking to acquaint them with their loss, +and adjuring the rescue of the property. They heard her, doubtless; +but if they understood they did not heed. Their freight of gunpowder, +meaning much to the Cherokees of valiant alliance, and even the hope +of emancipation from the rule of the hated British, and always to all +Indians the equivalent of money, of food, of life itself, rendered +infinitely unimportant the gewgaws of the cargo, such as the red scarf +so rapidly floating away on the steel-gray water. Flesh and blood could +no longer endure the harrowing sight,--at least the flesh and blood of +Eve. She suddenly held up both arms above her head, the palms pressed +together; she brought them downward in a great, sweeping curve, as she +bowed forward, and with an alert spring plunged from the crag into the +deep water far below. + +Push-koosh noted the resounding plash and held his breath for a moment, +so daring the feat seemed to the unaquatic Choctaw. He watched half +skeptically the successive silver circles elastically expanding over +the spot where the gray water had closed over her head, as if he +scarcely expected to see it rise again. Presently he caught a glimpse +of it, very black and glossy still, but far out toward the middle +of the river. She was swimming strongly in the silver gray floods +and approaching the red scarf, that had now a wanton wind astir in +its folds and threw up a curving edge like a sail. She carefully +intercepted its course on the current, and holding it aloft out of the +water, began to swim with one hand, still strongly and deftly but more +slowly, toward the pettiaugre. + +Push-koosh’s dark, sombrely lustrous eyes followed her with admiration. +This method of progression seemed no longer the exercise of frogs. She +lifted her head and her body half out of the water as she swam almost +under the bow of the pettiaugre, and held the scarf aloft that one of +the Choctaw boatmen might take it. The one nearest at hand desisted +from his work and looked over the gunwale at her in surprise. Then +suddenly he lifted his head, for a sharp halloo came from the bank. +He understood the words shouted to him, recognized the authority of +Push-koosh, and giving the woman only a shake of his head, by way of +refusing to receive the bauble, fell once more to working the boat, +and Akaluka, with the rescued scarf still in one hand, was obliged to +paddle smartly to keep from being drawn under the pettiaugre by the +suction, as the craft once more drove swiftly forward, cleaving the +sunlit waves. + +There was nothing further for the Cherokee girl but to swim for the +bank. She was bewildered, a little startled, full of wonder, for she +had just perceived the presence of Push-koosh upon the scene. She +laid her course for a point distant from the rock upon which he had +been standing while shouting his command to the boatman to refuse to +receive the scarf, but when, still swimming with one arm and holding +the delicate fabric out of the water with the other, she came alongside +a ledge above a deep, still pool, he was here, waiting for her, and +gazing down at her. + +She threw her head far back as, all clad in white, she lifted her +body half out of the water, and looking up at him held up her arm and +offered the scarf. + +He made no motion to take it. “_Ook-kak!_” (Swan!) he said. +“_Che awalas!_” (I shall marry you!) + +He said no more, and walked away instantly. She scrambled out of the +deep water and stood on the rock, looking after him for a moment with +the scarf still in her hand. Then with it still in her hand she ran +home,--ran so fast, that with the wind and the sun and the speed, her +hair and garments were almost dry when she reached her house, and but +for the trophy there would have been little to confirm the details of +this strange event when she recounted it to the man who said afterward, +“You must blame the woman!” + +Now this personage was one of the “mad young men” of the Cherokee +Nation who always craved war,--which, however, seems to be the +normal attitude of mind of the young officer even of civilized +armies and accounted sane. He perceived propitious signs in the +evidently impending proposition of a Choctaw-Cherokee alliance. This +combination aided by the French government would indeed be able to +strike a crushing blow to the British power in the Indian country. The +experiment was obviously to be made. Intermarriages would strengthen +the Choctaw-Cherokee bonds of amity. “You love the present,” he said in +definite affirmation. + +But Eve, ever the woman, tossed her head. Was there no man in all +the Cherokee Nation to marry her, she asked in laughing mockery and +coquettish humility, drawing the scarf back and forth through her +hands, and looking far more beautiful than her wont with that curious +embellishment of beauty which a realization of admiration confers,--no +man at all, that she must needs marry a foreign Choctaw who spoke no +language that a sensible person could understand, and who lived far +away, who could say--indeed, where?--in the moon, perhaps! + +Whereupon this mad young warrior, who was of her own kindred, the house +of Ahowwe, the Deer family, told her that she spoke as a fool, since +she was already committed, for she had taken the Choctaw’s present, a +sign that she loved it, which was according to inflexible etiquette an +acceptance of his suit. + +Then she grew grave and a little frightened, and very voluble. She +explained that she had had no intention of taking his present, and had +kept it only because he would not receive it again, and she had no +words that he could understand. But she would not marry a man to whom +she could not speak her mind (one of the noblest prerogatives of a +wife) and live with him in the moon! + +As she said this, she looked upward with her great, dark, liquid eyes +to the moon, still white in the western sky, but lace-like, tenuous, a +most unsubstantial presentment of a dwelling-place. + +The young man of the house of Ahowwe would not follow her wandering +gaze as they stood together under a tree in front of her house,--no +longer her dead husband’s war-pole marked its entrance, the peeled +sapling, on the boughs of which the weapons of the warrior were hung +until the stake rotted in the ground and fell. The young kinsman was +experiencing a sudden and extreme agitation because of her perversity, +for if it became necessary to explain the misunderstanding to the +Choctaw at this crisis, before the proposals of the French authorities +were made to the headmen of Tellico, it would doubtless greatly +anger Mingo Push-koosh, and might frustrate the full disclosure of +the measures of his embassy. Essential details might be perverted or +entirely withheld in malice or revenge. And thus the French alliance, +long sought by both nations, might fall to the ground. It was a +complicated train of reflection that he followed, but he said quite +simply, and with a cheerful air, that after all it was no great matter. +To be sure she should have laid the scarf at the feet of the Choctaw +chief, as he did not receive it when offered, to show him that she did +not love his present and that his suit was rejected. But it was likely +that Mingo Push-koosh had half forgotten it by now; he was of so great +esteem in his own country, a prince and a most valiant red warrior! He +was even sent to the Cherokee nation by the great French father with a +splendid French officer as his interpreter! Such a man as that would +not care--he had too much to think of. He himself, her young kinsman, +would make it all right. He would see Mingo Push-koosh and return the +scarf, and explain that she was only one of those stupid people who +did not understand aught, and he would also lie and say that she was +shortly to be married to a man who had no war-title and had never taken +but a single scalp. Mingo Push-koosh would not care for her after such +a description as that! + +As he offered to lay hold on the scarf she drew back, shook her head, +breathed very fast, and finally burst into tears. Whereupon this wise +young man, who was only called “mad,” demanded of her in affected +surprise why she wasted her tears. Surely she did not want to live in +the moon and marry a Choctaw chief, even though he had achieved the +distinction of a dozen “warrior’s marks” for his prowess in battle! +Why did she not give up the scarf?--he, her kinsman, would return +it for her, and the great chief would not care; for he would tell +Mingo Push-koosh of a handsomer squaw than she, and younger by four +years, more appropriate to make a splendid marriage such as this. +Then Eve gave herself to argument, as she always does, and smartly +demanded to be told the name of this squaw more beautiful than she, +and most pertinently required of him to disclose the reason, since her +attractions were so easily eclipsed, that the two strangers, the French +officer as well as the Choctaw chief, must always gaze at her in the +merrymaking last night,--why did not their eyes seek those younger and +more beautiful squaws, as all were present? She declared, moreover, +that she would not give her scarf to him. He doubtless desired to +make himself fine in it for the horse-races (in fact, it had never +been designed as a gift to a mere woman, but as propitiation for some +goodly warrior, to rivet his affections to the French interest, and to +be worn as a sash, or scarf, or turban, or in any way that his savage +fancy for decoration might dictate). As to the scarf, she averred that +it was hers, and she would keep it, and she would hear no more of his +sharp speeches, which made her heart very heavy. The day was wearing on +and her work was awaiting her. So she seated herself on the protruding +roots of the great tree in front of her dwelling, giving the final deft +touches to a large mat which she had been weaving. + +The “mad young man” flung away, secretly satisfied, but with a +discontented and affectedly scornful mien, after the manner of his +kind, and meeting presently a congenial spirit he paused to detail the +demonstration of the Choctaw chief and its reception by the woman. The +listener, too, was of the Deer family, and not insensible of the value +and distinction of the proposed matrimonial alliance. But he forthwith +freely stigmatized the ambassador as a “mad young man” to be thinking +of women and marriage in a crucial national crisis such as this. As +he contemplated the political juncture, he could not sufficiently +applaud the wisdom of the other’s course in preventing the return of +the scarf and the consequent affronting of the Choctaw chief, for +since the present had been received his suit was accepted according +to etiquette. They agreed that she must marry him,--as at heart she +was no doubt willing to do, but must needs affect reluctance after the +tiresome fashion of women, and talk about living in the moon! And with +a scoff at such feminine follies, which they declared made their hearts +weigh[5] very heavy to contemplate, these “mad young men” separated, +each going his own way cheerfully,--neither of them being threatened +with a doom of living far away, among strangers in a foreign tribe, in +a speechless marriage. + +As Akaluka sat under the tree and worked at her mat her own heart grew +heavier still, and in fact she hardly knew what to make of it. Now +and then the realization of the admiration of her suitor brought a +curve of pride to her lips, and then her eyes would fill with tears in +doubt, and dismay, and anxiety,--all those troublous vacillations of +sentiment which a woman naturally experiences in such circumstances; +for she was, perhaps, not the first woman, and certainly not the last, +who has accepted a suitor without intending to marry him, and cannot +perceive definitely how to recede from an engagement that has become +unexpectedly binding. + +The man in her thoughts suddenly passed,--the Choctaw chief with +the French officer. Both paused as their eyes fell upon her. She +was tremulous, perturbed, appealing as she looked up from her lowly +posture. A mottling of darkness and sunlight was about the verges of +the shadow of the great, wide-spreading tree, but only a dim, green, +subdued atmosphere where she sat and in her white attire and with +her fishbone needle in her hand wrought an added embellishment of +embroidery in the borders of her painted mat. + +Both men perceived her agitation. The officer, unaware of the incident +of the morning, did not comprehend it. With that suave Gallic civility, +always solicitous of the _entente cordiale_, he exclaimed aloud +in Cherokee his admiration of the fabric. It was one of those carpets, +described as “two fathoms long,” woven of the wild hemp, and painted +with indelible dyes and designs of the figures of beasts and birds, +always the same on both sides. Laroche expressed an interest in the +plan of its barbaric decoration and effort at delineation, while +Push-koosh stood and silently looked on. Here Laroche traced out a lion +(the panther or American cougar), which evidently signified strength, +and here were feathers, many and various, so dexterously imitated that +he declared they seemed real, which suggested softness, and love, +and nesting,--the symbolism was of the guardianship of home,--truly +an appropriate mat to lay before a hearthstone! Secure in his +interpretation, he looked straight at her with a smile in his handsome +brown eyes. She must needs speak in response; yet with Push-koosh +loftily looking on she sought by her phrase to include them both as, +gazing up, she faltered that she had kept it quite smooth despite its +complicated design,--it was quite smooth to walk upon. + +It was too pretty to walk upon, the Frenchman declared in facile +compliment, and as she drew out the roll flat, to exhibit its +smoothness of texture, he dropped on one knee and tried its sleek, +evenly wrought fibres with his hand. But Push-koosh, turning away, +walked across it with a lordly air like a husband, and as the Frenchman +rose from his kneeling posture and joined him, Akaluka looked after +them both, with the fishbone needle motionless in her hand, extended to +the limit of its hempen thread, and destined to be very idle that day. +She was best accustomed to the attitude of mind of the Indian,--and +yet the Frenchman, how quick of interpretation he was!--how well he +understood all things! Strange, strange, that there should be such +difference in men! She would not have been afraid to go with him--to +the moon. + +They conducted themselves at the horse-races that day like other “mad +young men;” they shouted, and bet more than they could afford to lose, +and argued much, and talked very loud, and were tumultuously and +heavily self-important. But that afternoon, seated in secret conclave +on buffalo rugs on the floor of the council-house, with half a dozen +chiefs of the towns of the vicinage summoned to join Moy Toy and the +headmen of Tellico at the conference, they seemed to have experienced +a sudden recurrence to sanity, a lucid interval, and each deported +himself much like a man of this world. + +These deliberations, although expected to result in a treaty, were not +conducted as a formal council, since the will of the Cherokee nation +could only be expressed in a general congress, and much consideration +must needs precede so important a step as a renunciation of the +British alliance and firmly grasping the hand of the great French +father. The pipe was solemnly smoked, and although none arose as usual +in addressing the assembly, their habitual courtesy to one another +in council was observed, each speaking in turn, and punctiliously +refraining from interruption. When a subject was mentioned on which the +speaker desired a categorical reply from any one present, he handed +that person a small stick, at the end of the paragraph as it were, to +keep the remark in mind, and then went on to the other heads of his +discourse. When he had finished all he had to say, specific responses +to the details of his speech were made in turn by those to whom he had +handed sticks. + +As Moy Toy thoughtfully canvassed the advantages proposed by the French +alliance, he remarked that Atta-Kulla-Kulla--a noted chief not present +at this time--had always advocated adherence to the British treaty, +since the trade which it provided and protected, albeit a monopoly, +afforded the Cherokees a means to keep under arms and adequately +supplied with ammunition, which was essential for hunting, and also in +view of war; even to enforce against the British with the arms they +themselves had supplied the observance of every jot and tittle of the +compact with the Cherokees. This advantage the French did not furnish +to the Indian tribes under their control. + +He paused and solemnly handed a stick to Push-koosh, and then another +to Laroche. + +It was the fashion, he continued, among the “mad young men” of the +nation, to comment upon Atta-Kulla-Kulla’s desire to avoid causes +of war with the British, calling him “an old woman;” but the great +chief was a wise man, for the object of prime importance was to keep +the warriors of the tribe under arms in the European fashion, since +bows and arrows were of no avail against powder and lead, and on the +supply of guns and ammunition actually depended the continuance of the +national existence of the Cherokees. + +Push-koosh held his stick, attentively listening as Laroche interpreted +these words, and in answering said that it was even for such reason +the French father furnished the Choctaw tribe fully with arms and +ammunition only in times of war against a common enemy--so that, on +other occasions, their own “mad young men,” caviling thus at the +superior wisdom of their elders, might not have the means of embroiling +themselves and thrusting nations into hostilities when the great +warriors and “beloved men” were all for peace. But for chiefs and +headmen the armories of the great French father were always open. + +He deftly touched the handsome pistols at his belt with a casual +gesture, and hardly seemed to listen to the voice of the French officer +repeating his words in Cherokee. + +The Indian councilors experienced a tumult of excitement, which their +faces, however, stolidly repressed when Laroche, replying without +regard apparently to the presence of the Choctaw, said, as he held +his stick in his hand, that it was by no means the intention of the +French authorities to ignore the different status of the Cherokees +from the tribes under their control. The Cherokees, as the French +government well understood, were in effect an absolute integer in the +sum of nations, a free, independent, unified people, and they would be +armed and equipped in accordance with that fact. Whereas the Choctaws, +and Choccomaws, and others were nearly akin to the Chickasaws, all +sub-tribes of the Chickemicas of old; and although the Chickasaws, +always adhering firmly to the British and inimical to the French, had +often warred bitterly against their kindred Choctaws, still in view +of ties of consanguinity, similar customs, and above all a common +language, a friendly compact between them at some period, while not +probable, was eminently possible, especially when promoted by the +machinations of the British. Under these circumstances the French +father felt indisposed to keep the Choctaws fully under arms while +their brothers, the Chickasaws, held the knife at his throat. Surely +the great and wise chiefs could perceive a reason for a difference in +his attitude toward the Cherokees. + +The great and wise chiefs could and did! They were also moved by a +recollection that the most notable of the Choctaws, the great chief +Shulashummashtabe (Red Shoes), long entertained designs to detach his +whole tribe from the interest of the French, being instrumental in +their defeat at the battle of Ackia, where he stood aloof with his own +command of Choctaw braves while the French troops charged to the cry of +“_Vive le roi_!” and afterward he fled in a simulated panic. He +later openly deserted to the English, and a reward being offered for +his head by the dear French father, he was treacherously slain by one +of his own tribe, during the governorship of the Marquis de Vaudreuil. + +The Cherokee chiefs in council felt much as if they were treading on +mined ground, as they listened to the French officer’s voice while he +rendered into Choctaw his long speech for the benefit of Push-koosh; +for as the ambassador was blandly smiling, they must needs be sure that +the interpretation tendered him was to an entirely different effect. + +The Indians were so crafty that they seemed to love a device for its +own shifty sake. They secretly admired this keen double-dealing of +the French authorities, without reflecting that a two-edged blade is +made to cut both ways. With a heightened sense of the sagacity of the +French officer, they all bent an attentive ear to his account of the +obstruction to navigation in the _Rivière des Chéraquis_ and his +disappointment to find that it was not to be overcome in the manner +expected by the French governor Kerlerec,--in fact it was there for all +time. + +Mingo Push-koosh had been himself disappointed, both as a soldier and +a statesman, but his mien had an element of pride as he said that the +variegated merchandise--_al-poo-e-ack_--could not be forwarded. +Perhaps he resented the fact that he had been forced to discuss the +clipped-claw condition of the unarmed Choctaw tribe, whom Kerlerec had +nevertheless the art so to propitiate that he was called preëminently +the “Father of the Choctaws.” Mingo Push-koosh was evidently secretly +triumphant in the realization that the French alliance which he +possessed so easily, and the Cherokees coveted so strenuously, was +not to be had by them; for without the privileges of trade and a base +of supply, the Cherokees must adhere to the repugnant treaty with the +British to be able to keep under arms at all, even in war with other +tribes. + +Moy Toy’s countenance fell. + +“_To e u_?” (Is this true?) he asked sternly, as if he suspected +dissimulation, for from time to time there had been traffic more or +less by way of the Cherokee River. + +“_To e u hah_!” (It is true indeed!) replied the French officer +definitely. + +The chiefs looked from one to another silently, their countenances +expressing much that their pride would fain have hidden. If this +were true, a species of vassalage was the best hope of the free and +independent Cherokee people. Laroche begged to be permitted to explain +his views in reference to the obstructions to navigation. + +Canoes, he went on to say, could pass of course, a few light craft +occasionally, perhaps even large pettiaugres at long intervals in +some especially favorable stage of the water, but for the free, +systematic transportation of the fleets of a great and continuous +trade, the passage was forever impracticable. In the distant future +the difficulties of navigation might be nullified by the construction +of a parallel artificial channel (he could find no Cherokee equivalent +for the word “canal”), the method of which he alertly explained with +that relish of technical details characteristic of the very young +in science,--all as carefully heeded by the Indian statesmen as if +entirely comprehensible. But at present he desired to lay before the +wise chiefs a plan of his own, which, should it meet their approval, he +would elaborate and submit to the governor at New Orleans. + +There was an interval of silence as he arranged his thoughts. The +anxious, deliberative faces of the chiefs all turned toward him, their +eyes keenly studying his expression of countenance, seemed oddly +incongruous with the puerile decoration of beads and great earrings, +and feathers poised upright on each polled head. The vague light of the +smouldering council-fire flickered upon them; the sombre interior of +the windowless building was but dimly glimpsed in the deep red glow; +the glare from the brilliant day outside filled the narrow portal as +with some transparency, some illuminated segment of a painted landscape +unnaturally bright,--an emerald mountain aglow, a silver shimmering +river, a bit of sapphire sky, intense. Voices, faint in the distance, +of jovial intimations, came from where the young people were dancing +in three circles after the races and the feastings. The sound was +far alien to this atmosphere of thought and anxious care, this dim +council-house, where were concocted the measures of statecraft that +kept the people free and happy. Even Push-koosh, whom the envious +shadows could not bereave of the brilliant effect of his white raiment, +asserted albeit in the dimness, his glossy pearls, the glitter of his +silver ornaments, did not heed the joyous clamor. As to Laroche, he did +not hear it at all. + +It was not to be contemplated, he said, that this perverse obstruction +to navigation should withhold the Cherokee nation from firmly +grasping the hand of the French father who loved them; but since it +was absolutely impracticable to send valuable cargoes of arms and +ammunition, as well as cloths, cutlery, tools, and paints, all those +necessities of the Indian trade, so expensive and difficult to be +obtained, through those twenty miles of roaring rapids, to say nothing +of the whirlpools further up the current, the merchandise might be +thence transferred, under strong guard, by land with pack-horses to +the comparatively near point of the reopening of easy navigation, were +there a barrier town settled at each extremity of the overland route to +receive and distribute the goods by the various waterways throughout +the Cherokee nation. + +“_Seohsta-quo_!” (Good!) cried Moy Toy of Tellico. + +The others in great excitement but in definite order, observing +their usual courtesy in deliberation, with much rapid bestowal of +sticks, bespeaking categorical answers on the various details, +began the discussion of this bold project,--the extension of their +settlements for more than a hundred miles rather than fail to secure +the advantage of the French alliance. The details of the diplomatic +scheme illustrated the Frenchman’s fertility in device, and Push-koosh +was not slow to perceive that Laroche presently had both hands full +of sticks, while he himself held but two, evidently tendered only as +an afterthought and _pro forma_. The Indian statesmen wished to +hear the French officer speak. The coherence and cogency of his plan +commended it. Indeed, afterward they contemplated the removal of the +town of Tellico Great itself, one of the “seven Mother Towns” of the +Cherokee nation, far enough down the Cherokee River to be within easy +access of the large French pettiaugres. Even as it was, the nation +subsequently extended its frontier on this basis, and a series of new +towns was settled below the “mountain obstructions,” the “whirl,” the +“boiling pot,” and still beyond, near the upper end of the Muscle +Shoals, serving as the “barrier towns” of the tribe. The Cherokees +craftily explained to the English the necessity for this move by +the statement that the site of some of their upper towns had become +infested with witches!--it may safely be presumed that they were +British witches! + +The questions relative to the proposed new location,--the number of +warriors requisite for the barrier towns; the possibility that, if +supported by a sufficient force of braves in the neighborhood, the +French government would settle a garrison at the Muscle Shoals; the +number of horses and men necessary for the pack-trains and the guard +for the overland transportation; the most desirable point for the +resumption of the water carriage of the merchandise up the Cherokee +River, and thence by way of the Eupharsee (Hiwassee), the Tennessee, +the Agiqué (French Broad), throughout the Cherokee country; the +measures to be taken for the protection of French traders and their +mercantile assistants against the British,--all these points Laroche +intelligently discussed, continually receiving and returning sticks, +while the transparent landscape in the doorway shimmered to a change: +the blue sky grew red, the green mountain turned purple, the silver +river dulled to steel, and a star began to flicker in the west. + +Moy Toy would have talked on through the descending darkness, +regardless of the night and the dying of the last ember of the +council-fire, save for the admonition of one of the minor chiefs, +on whom the duty of caring for the creature comforts of the guests +had devolved, and who contrived to intimate presently that it was +long since the strangers had eaten and drunk. On this account the +council was adjourned, Moy Toy still wearing a thoughtful aspect and +meditatively saying, “We will talk of this again to-morrow.” And as +they left him in the gloom of the state-house, and began the descent of +the steps of earth that led down from the high mound, they heard him +still mechanically repeating in the solitary darkness, “We will talk of +this again to-morrow.” + +Now Push-koosh, like some other infants, even when not Choctaw chiefs +nor warriors, was of a proud, implacable, and pompous self-opinion. +It required little to wound his vanity and nettle his temper, but +indeed he had ample cause for affront in that this officer had talked +unceasingly in his presence to the Cherokee chiefs without pausing +to translate what was said, although in their excitement no one had +noticed the fact. At first Push-koosh had essayed to speak in Cherokee, +but his knowledge of the tongue would not sustain the subtleties of +his meaning. He had even humbled himself once to seek recourse in the +sign language, comprehensive enough for all needs, but every eye was +fixed upon Laroche, every ear intent. He felt his pride touched that +this absorbing interest, which the chiefs had manifested in diplomatic +matters, sprang from naught that he had disclosed in his ambassadorial +capacity,--in fact he did not even know the subject of their excitement +or its importance. He thought it derogatory to his position to inquire +of Laroche, or to seem to realize that he had been overlooked--he, the +head of the embassy! But the incident roused him to the assertion of +his own importance. + +He saw, with pleasure in the contrast, that Laroche was exhausted by +the mental stress of the discussion, while he had been refreshed by +the long hours of rest in the quiet seclusion of the state-house. +When they were seated in one of the piazza-like cabins at one side +of the “beloved square,” where the banquet had been spread after the +races, Laroche was still absorbed and silent, ate little, and drank +only of the decoction from the “flint corn” made by boiling the grain +and straining the result, the beverage when cooled said to have been +refreshing and nutritive and “much liked even by genteel strangers.” A +fire was alight in the centre of the “beloved square,” but the other +public buildings were all vacant, and their open piazza-like fronts +showed dark and deserted in the deepening dusk. The festivities were +over for the nonce; the Indian guests from the neighboring villages +had departed; the strangers’ share of the evening banquet, with which +the merrymaking in their honor had ended, having been reserved for +them till the close of the protracted session of the council. The town +seemed drowsy, already half asleep; only a few occasional passers set +the echo of a footfall astir; an owl was hooting in the woods; a vague +sense of dreariness had descended with the twilight, and suddenly +Laroche became cognizant, with a start as if he had seen a ghost, +that there was a presence at the meal of which he had been hitherto +unaware,--Akaluka herself, meekly seated by the Choctaw chief while he +silently ate and drank. + +There was a bold, open triumph in the face of Push-koosh, as he noted +the manifestation of surprise. He looked at the French officer as +arrogantly as if he had already that luxuriant Gallic scalp hanging to +his favorite pipe. Perhaps he himself had never seemed so assertive, so +lordly, as in the blended light of the bland moonrise and a flickering +pine torch with which the table was lighted by the old woman who +served it,--his strings of pearls, his glittering pistols, his white +and scarlet garb, the red flamingo feathers in his hair, the broad +silver band across his forehead, his perfect physical condition; while +Laroche, pale from mental exertion, the mathematical calculation, the +evolution of plans of public polity, the arrangement of intricate and +antagonistic details in the problems of the Indian trade, wiped his +forehead, felt his eyes ache, and was too tired to eat. + +These plans were the more precious since they were suddenly beset with +a new danger; he realized the menace, although he did not appreciate +that he himself was an element in it; he did not know how admiringly +the girl had gazed at him the previous evening at the pantomime, while +Push-koosh, who could have killed him for it, gazed at her. Even +Push-koosh had noted his unconsciousness of this fact,--but Laroche had +not been equally oblivious of her attractions. “_Eho chookoma_!” +quotha. She might now gaze at her peril,--and so might he! Laroche had +not noticed this evening the Choctaw as he beckoned the girl to sit +beside him as he ate, but he knew enough of Indian etiquette to be +aware that this is the method by which the suitor formally recognizes +and emphasizes the fact that his addresses are accepted. + +Laroche had learned that this woman was the sister of Moy Toy, and +while a Choctaw match for her might be approved by him as a means +of strengthening the alliance between the tribes, still there was +of necessity great doubt as to the completion of this national +compact, the Choctaws and Cherokees having many ancient enmities to +reconcile, and the offer of intermarriage must needs be approached with +precaution. And above all things at some future day! To hamper at this +crisis so important and promising a negotiation between the French +government and the Cherokee nation, so difficult of arrangement, with a +nettling trifle like this,--a personal matter of so alien and doubtful +a character,--Laroche trembled with impatience at the very thought. + +He was once more all alert. When Push-koosh rose at last from the meal +and flung casually away, taking his path along the river bank where a +cool breeze was stirring, the lieutenant followed. For although the +woman must sit beside her suitor when he eats if he beckons to her, +still the match is not yet irretrievably made. He must needs give +her the foot of a deer as an admonition how brisk she must be on his +errands, whereupon she must bake and offer him a cake of rockahominy +meal, as token of willing subservience. He must also break an ear of +corn in half, and in the presence of witnesses give her one portion, +retaining the other himself, which completes the symbolic Indian +marriage ceremonies. + +“Push-koosh,” said Laroche gravely, as he approached,--the Indian +slackened his pace, welcoming from his position of vantage as an +accepted suitor the prospect of a quarrel with a jealous lover,--“the +commandant did not send us here to make love to women!” + +Push-koosh turned to glance aside at him. “Take care that you don’t do +it, then,” he admonished the officer. + +“Our mission is a matter far too important to jeopardize with such +considerations,” declared Laroche. He slipped his arm through the +Choctaw’s in a friendly way and detailed at length his scheme, his +clever scheme, apologizing that he had not interpreted it at the +council. “But it was not a part of our instructions,--only a plan of my +own.” + +“You did not want my suggestions,--I do not want yours,” retorted +Push-koosh, deeply angered to perceive the importance of the +discussion, through which he had sat silent, carried on over his head. + +“But you can see surely that there must be no talk of women and +marriage till all this is settled,--wait till you come again,” urged +Laroche, holding his temper well in hand. + +“_Eho chookoma_!” quoted Push-koosh significantly. “Meantime there +might be another man!” + +That fatal “other man”--was ever a lover’s dream which he did not haunt? + +“But, _Bébé_, Push-koosh,” argued the Frenchman suavely, “what +would you do hampered with a Cherokee wife if, after all, this tribe +continues to adhere to the British, and should take part in their war +with the French and their Choctaw allies?” + +Push-koosh, animated with the jealous conviction, yet full of triumph +in the fact, that the French officer was himself in love with this +charming swan and therefore sought to interpose obstacles, retorted +as if to strike him to the heart, “Do?--comply with the tribal +custom! _Kill her!_ In the last war with the Muscogee, did not +the Choctaw braves who had married Muscogee wives kill the women and +their children, they being also Muscogee, for the children inherit the +nationality of the mother? I should, of course, kill her!” + +He had turned to face the officer, who stood for one moment speechless, +realizing the strange world in which he was living, the curious medley +of devil and man, of savagery and civilization. + +The moon was well up over the river, and where the light struck with +full effulgence the water was all a shining violet hue; the banks were +of an invisible green, too dark for color, but somehow still sensibly +verdant. All along the shore the frogs were piping, hardly noticed; +for in the budding rhododendron close at hand a mocking-bird sang with +wonderful _élan_ and elasticity, the multitude of exquisitely +sweet notes springing one from another with a definite effect of +rebound. + +“Push-koosh,” the lieutenant said at length, “_mon Bébé +bien-aimé_, you always betray your tender infant heart!” + +He seemed to laugh, but his hand trembled on the hilt of his sword, +as he stood as if irresolute and gazed at Push-koosh with a threat in +his intent eyes hardly less fierce than the look with which only last +night Push-koosh had menacingly, nay murderously gazed at him while he +slept. Suddenly the officer turned aside, and alone took his way back +to the Indian town. + +Yet Laroche did not love the woman. Perhaps he was merely civilized by +virtue of his nationality and his religion; for although as a soldier +he would have coolly taken the life of a man and an enemy, he felt all +a coward in the secret danger that menaced the Cherokee girl, unaware, +doubtless, of her peril. He himself was not unaware of it, and therein +he perceived an irksome responsibility. The Cherokees were so far in +advance of the other Indian tribes in point of character, sentiment, +civilization, that Laroche doubted if this mode of ridding one’s +self of a wife, who, through no fault of her own, but for political +reasons, had incurred disfavor, would suggest itself to them more +readily than it had to him. With their evident intention to accept +the proffer of the French alliance, it was more than likely that the +Cherokee authorities, with their characteristic lack of foresight, +would treat the match with the Choctaw chief as if the compact with +the French were already made fast. Yet should it fail,--and from +Laroche’s post on the seamy side he saw many a rent in the web of the +probabilities,--Push-koosh had said it,--he had decreed her fate. + +Laroche had so longed for the success of his scheme! It was so great, +so clever, so promissory of personal and professional advancement! He +felt that he would hardly hazard an item of its development for his +own life,--much less then for the life of a creature like this--hardly +more human than a deer! Besides, why should he interfere?--all might +yet go well with the alliance. When he began to argue thus, he suddenly +stopped short. Would he weigh a human life in the balance of his +personal interest--become, albeit indirectly, accessory to a murder +of the innocent? He grew a trifle pale at the thought and devoutly +crossed himself. He would assume no such responsibility. He would keep +no such secret. And then he began to see the matter in the light of +an official duty. He represented the French interest, and should the +Cherokees ever learn that he had been cognizant of this threat and had +withheld it from them, it would alienate them, as naught else could, +from the power that so earnestly sought their conciliation. In every +point of view he determined that he would not hesitate. He would lay +the matter before Moy Toy, as in civilization he would instantly report +a threatened murder to the police. + +Now Moy Toy was a man of family affection. Years earlier, in 1730, he +had given indications of this fact when a Cherokee delegation, favored +by royal invitation, were on the point of setting forth to visit +King George II. in London; Moy Toy, although he was to be the chief +delegate, at the last moment relinquished the distinguished opportunity +because his wife had fallen dangerously ill and he could not leave +her. Therefore he remained at the little Indian village, while several +other chiefs made the wonderful journey to England, and had audience +of the sovereign at his palace, and were the recipients of innumerable +presents and attentions, being the lions of the day. + +He now took instant alarm at this menace to his sister, and to +Laroche’s surprise presently summoned to his aid and counsel the other +chiefs of Tellico Great. The Indian scheme of succession follows +the collateral female line, and therefore Moy Toy’s possible future +nephew would inherit his office as chief of Tellico Great, to the +exclusion of his own son. Hence his sister was a personage of as +much consequence in Tellico Great as a mere woman could be, and the +council agreed that in view of this circumstance they would not trust +the Franco-Choctaw-Cherokee alliance until it was an accomplished +fact. Yet even now it was in jeopardy, for Mingo Push-koosh, the +French ambassador, bearing also the assurances of the Choctaw nation, +angered with so good a reason might work mischief. And then began the +accusation of the woman! + +Why had she kept his present, and involved them in all this difficulty? +the sage councilors assembled in the state-house demanded of her when +summoned before them. For this very reason, she declared, had she kept +his present, although not loving it, for the young men had said that +she must not on any account anger the Choctaw ambassador of the great +French father. Then poor Moy Toy, roused from cogitation on such deep +and intricate problems as had occupied the day, to fill the dark hours +of the night with vacillations and agitations touching the political +effects of so ill-starred a flirtation, asked her bitterly had she +no more sense than to listen to the “mad young men!” Whereupon she +protested with tears that the “mad young men” had but spoken the words +that even now were on his own sage lips,--the ambassador must not be +angered! + +With daylight came new resolutions. Moy Toy, arguing that the +ambassador was not empowered to treat for a Cherokee wife, and to exact +compliance with his demand as a condition of his mission, concluded +that he sustained no official affront in the ceremonious return of the +scarf with an intimation that so great and flattering an intermarriage +could only be made after the compact with the two tribes. + +Now it is possible that Push-koosh might have acquiesced with +appropriate docility in this obviously just reasoning of his elders, +requiring, however, promises of Moy Toy on his sister’s behalf, +conditioned on the completion of the tribal compact, had it not been +for his jealousy of the French lieutenant. Akaluka, again summoned, was +also at the state-house, wild-eyed, tremulous, visibly terrified, eager +to return the present, which, having been made acquainted with her +possible fate, she was far indeed from loving. + +As the Choctaw ambassador received the scarf which she tendered +him, the cogent reasons for delay that had been urged, the political +interests involved, so prominent in the apologies of the Cherokee +chiefs,--all were merged in a sense of sustaining the curious disgrace +of a personal and public rejection in the presence of a rival,--for +Mingo Push-koosh caught the eyes of the French lieutenant fixed +hopefully upon him. + +Why then, the Choctaw asked quite calmly, had she received the present +if she did not love it? Why had she sat beside him as he ate? For +himself,--neither did he love the present! + +He held up the gauzy red scarf and with sundry swift passes of a scalp +knife severed the fabric into dozens of shreds, sent lightly flying +about the state-house like a flock of redbirds. Then whirling on his +heel, he quitted the council-chamber and followed by all his tribesmen +ran across the “beloved square” to the river bank, where the pettiaugre +lay defenseless at his mercy. All the kegs of the precious powder were +emptied into the stream before his design was dreamed of, and still he +deemed he had sufficient margin for a running start from the pursuit +he expected, for he paused in the woods to hang up the “war-brand.” +This being, however, in a secluded place, it was not early discovered, +and the first intimation that the Cherokees received of the depth of +his resentment was the massacre almost to a man of a peaceful party +of their tribesmen, offering no resistance, taken wholly by surprise, +owing to the pacific character of the Franco-Choctaw mission to Great +Tellico. This exploit achieved, Mingo Push-koosh and his escort, +adorned with scalps and singing war-songs, made good their escape, with +the wonderful Choctaw speed in marching, leaving the deserted Laroche +alone and at the mercy of the frantic and infuriated Cherokees. + + + + + III + + +LAROCHE, abandoned thus among the Cherokees, was in the extremity of +peril. Apart from their spirit of tribal cohesion, the strongest of +national sentiments, all those more intimate ties of family affection, +of municipal unity, and of neighborly custom, in which they were +peculiarly bound, were insistently asserted in the calamity, as the +massacred braves were all of Tellico Great. When the gory figures of +the unarmed, unpainted youths, still limp and warm, not yet stiffened +into the starkness of death, were borne into the precincts of the town, +the wailing of the women and children, and the hoarse cries of fury and +despair and grief of the men, filled all the bland, sunlit spaces of +the morning, and were a heavy burden to the air. + +It was with no definite sense of the wisest course that Laroche had not +moved from the portal of the great state-house whence he had beheld +Mingo Push-koosh, followed by all his braves, rush across the “beloved +square” to the pettiaugre and accomplish the destruction of the powder. +He was stunned, bewildered, as by the fall of a thunderbolt. Only +afterward he realized that he had no choice. The craft still lay at +her moorings, but his single strength could not have sufficed to float +her, even if in the confusion he had escaped. He had a shrewd surmise +of the secret source of the wrath of the Mingo, and he doubted if the +jealousy of the Choctaw, once unleashed and dipped in blood, were less +formidable than the wild frenzy of the Cherokees. Moreover, at their +freest pace, speeding for their lives, he knew that he could never have +sustained the gait of the marching Choctaws, and must eventually have +fallen by the wayside or lagged to certain capture. + +He began to appreciate, as he stood, an aspect in the accident of his +posture which his craft recognized as savoring of more wisdom than +he could have attained by his own mental processes. His isolation +implied that he was no accessory to the crimes in which the mission had +terminated. The desertion of him by the Choctaws augured scant value +of his functions in the embassy, and still less friendship for him +personally,--his safety, indeed, they disregarded. He began to hope +preposterously, as his heart swung into more normal palpitations, that +his nationality, his secret mission within the Franco-Choctaw mission, +his obvious freedom from any conspiracy with the Indian ambassador who +had so conspicuously abused his trust, might serve to protect him. + +Then he perceived suddenly that he was arguing from the probabilities +on a civilized system of ratiocination. For himself, he did not love +the spectacle of suffering nor the smell of blood, albeit so skilled in +the designing of lines of _tenailles_ and _en crémaillère_, +in which men were to lay down their lives in much agony. His own +development of barbarity was on a different basis and had a vocabulary +quite distinct and scientific, his jargon of _trou-de-loup_ and +_cheval-de-frise_ and _chausse-trappe_; and he watched with +a very definite sentiment of reprehension and mental disapproval, as +well as a deep and numb despair, the approach of a half dozen fierce, +lowering-eyed braves, full-armed, who stood for a moment looking up at +him and then seated themselves, obviously to remain, at the base of the +mound, assuming the functions of a permanent guard. + +In fact, Laroche had been unobserved at first in the clamors and +confusion of the disaster, the departure of the horsemen on the heels +of the flying Choctaw pedestrians, the ghastly return of the young +Indians of the massacre, who had gone forth with all the imponderable +lightness of life and joy in the morning and now were brought back +in weight with death and woe. The first vague suggestion of the +alleviation of the public calamity came with the stern thought of +vengeance and its opportunity. In that moment the eye of one of the +headmen chanced to be lifted to Laroche. The guard was dispatched in an +instant, and whatever might have been the issue of an effort to escape, +the possibility was now gone forever. He began to perceive that they +would take no thought of an absence of conspiracy. He was one of the +embassy--its accredited interpreter; he was also a Frenchman, and the +Cherokees were still in open alliance with the British. Moreover, he +was in their power, and _blood for blood_ was ever the Cherokee +rule. + +For a time he made no effort to appeal to his guards, even by a glance +or a gesture. Hour after hour passed away. He heard the vague sounds, +in the distance, of the chanting of the funeral songs; he perceived, +undistinguished, colorless, meaningless, like shadows through a +dark glass, the passing of the funeral processions here and there +around the houses of the dead. Again and again there smote on the air +wild outbursts of the protesting woe of the mourning, the note of +incredulity, the appeal against injustice, and that pathetic plaint of +a heart all bruised and tender--and yet in a sense he heard naught. He +was conscious of a degree of quietude when the actual details of the +interment were in progress within the houses, for with the Cherokees +the dead were always buried deep, deep under the floor of their own +homes, and a sense of extreme fatigue ached in his muscles. He realized +how long he had maintained a standing posture there without a motion--a +sentinel who habitually mounted guard his eight hours out of the +twenty-four would hardly have been capable of such resolution. As his +eye met that of one of the guards, he saw in the inexpressive face of +the Indian a sort of appreciation of his strength of will that coerced +the endurance of the flesh, and at last he spoke:-- + +“Moy Toy cannot think me to blame--why does he guard me here?” + +They all gazed at him with a sort of concentrated fury. The racial +hatred against the white man--ineradicable, unappeasable, now +and again only pretermitted for a time in favor of some special +individual--showed in their strongly marked, savage features, with the +primitive passions of the rule of force and the thirst for revenge +painted upon them in a breadth of expression that pigments could not +emulate. + +“Blood for blood,” one of them said, and spat upon the ground. + +“If I were one of the Choctaws--yes! But I am French. I have done +naught. They have deserted me. I am entrapped here. It would please +them that you should shed my blood.” + +There was a momentary silence under this logic. Then another of +the Indians, always of a far greater intellectual pride than might +be readily imagined, and keen and quick in argument, came to the +spokesman’s rescue. He was the man whose eyes had applauded the +prisoner’s endurance--a mere tribesman, of the rank and file only; he +had a broad, animated countenance, a high, aquiline nose, a long, upper +lip, and a distinct accentuation of the lines of his features. He wore +the scanty raiment of the lower grades of the Indian, but the careful +and elaborate tattooing of blue, red, and green indelible paints +disposed about his limbs, in which he must have spent much arduous +labor, had almost the effect of long and elaborately embroidered hose +and gloves. He had a shirt of buckskin, devoid of beads or ornaments, +save a fringe about its edge, but which seemed remarkably plain in +contrast with the decorations of his arms and legs. He leaned upon +a gun of very doubtful intentions, unlike the smart, British “Brown +Bess,” with which the tribe, however, was generally armed. With +a vivacious air, he demanded of the Frenchman if he had forgotten +“Ablaham” so soon. + +“Abraham?” said Laroche vaguely. + +“The white man’s poor memory! It was his treaty he forgot, usually, but +now he had forgotten too his religion. He had forgot Ablaham--the great +white chief whom he was telling Moy Toy about yesterday!” + +Laroche remembered, with a pang as for a folly, an effort at the +conversion of the ignorant savage. Yesterday--only yesterday!--he had +sought to explain to Moy Toy the plan of salvation and to enlist his +interest. He laughed aloud in bitter mirth--a short, hollow note, +and then must come contrition and a mutter of prayer. Abraham and +Isaac--how far away they seemed! + +“But, my friend,” he said, “the injunction to shed innocent blood was +for a purpose--to test the faith of the great chief; and the blood of +the innocent was not exacted. I have done nothing. I only am deserted, +caught here as in a trap.” + +“Likewise was the ram whose blood was shed,” declared the specious +Indian, his eyes flashing fire,--“caught as in a trap by the horns in a +thicket. And the ram had done nothing.” + +The Frenchman was fairly silenced; the others, hardly comprehending +the discourse, not having burdened their minds with Abraham and his +experiences, conceiving him to be an Indian agent, or in some other +position near the governor of Louisiana, Georgia, or South Carolina, +only discerned from the facial expression of the two men that the +Cherokee’s keen wits had come off victorious in the encounter, and +despite their gloom, they made shift to smile at each other in +ostentatious amusement, and in derision of the purblind white man. + +Laroche’s anxiety and apprehension were hardly assuaged by the +recollection of the blood-offerings among the religious observances of +the Cherokees, intimately connected with their system of government and +warfare, which had recalled strongly to his mind associations with the +Mosaic dispensation. Many minute requirements and ceremonies savored +of the Hebraic ritual, and in their distortions had impressed him as +survivals of actual customs, and were thus more significant than the +legends found among the tribes betokening Scriptural suggestions and +supposed to be the result, _disjecta membra_, of the teachings +and traditions of Catholic truths which Cabeza de Vaca left among the +Southern Indians. + +Laroche sought to compose his mind. He was a soldier, and would muster +all a soldier’s courage,--a Christian, whose hope was in no help of +man. He would calm himself and await the worst or the best, as God +should choose to send it, with the serenity of one whose life is, +after all, not his own. As he stood there in the wide glare of the +sun, it seemed to have grown speedily and strangely very hot. His +eyes were on the mountains far away, that through the silvery, vernal +mists, forever shifting, belied their stanch and massive solidities +by a shimmer like some wavering, blue sea; not a breath of air was +in the deep, green shadows of the darkling ranges close at hand; the +river, a wide blade of steel without flaw, bore the polish of a mirror +and a blinding glitter. Suddenly a cold chill struck through him. At +first it crept along his spinal column, slight, insidious, vaguely +shivering; then in its icy thrall he shuddered again and again; the +drops that fell from his brow upon his hands were ice cold, and as he +looked down, wondering, at his long, thin fingers he saw that they were +blue under the nails to the first joint. Some change in his face had +attracted the attention of the Indians. They were all gazing up at him +in surprise, as shudder after shudder went over his features, pallid +even to blueness. He instinctively put up his hand to his brow, and he +found that even to his cold fingers its touch was like marble. He was +obviously very near death, done with the world and with worldly pride, +but he was still a soldier, and his pulses beat to a martial point of +honor. He could have died with shame, albeit the spectators were but +savages; for he thought this manifestation purported the subjection of +fear, and that thus the staring Indians recognized it. + +Averse as they were, they accounted him no coward. In truth, his +stanch, compact physique and his bold spirit promised good sport at the +torture, and they had discussed with one another from time to time the +various details of the anguish which his strength and courage would +enable him to sustain, and which sometimes weaker and fainter hearted +men eluded and despoiled by dying prematurely. They could hardly +explain the change in his complexion and expression of countenance, and +only wondered while they looked, and presently it passed away, leaving +the flesh of a ghastly, uniform pallor, flabby and listless. + +But Laroche had hardly recovered his normal temperature. He was +suddenly weak and tremulous. He could no longer sustain the standing +posture. In another moment he would have fallen. With his winning +affability and gay grace, that became his ghastly, stricken face as a +wreath of flowers might a death’s head, he remarked that since they +were all sitting he would take the liberty of sitting too, and ran down +two or three of the grassy steps of the mound and there dropped upon +the turf, half reclining, one elbow on the step above him, supporting +his head in his hand, and with his limbs stretched out at length +across the stairs below. The Indian guard at the foot of the mound +did not stir, save that the acquaintance of “Ablaham” placed a finger +ostentatiously on the trigger of his loaded gun. Laroche looked at him +with a laughing sneer that taunted him to do his worst. The slug of the +charge would have been too merciful.[6] There was no intention in the +threat, and the Indian laughed like a roguish child detected in a bit +of mischief. + +The sky was reddening at last and Laroche, looking over to the far +west, felt as if that incarnadined glow in the heavens was rising +in his veins as the sun went down. It was not the red reflection on +his face, but the blood mustering close under the skin when he again +changed color. He felt it racing and rushing through his veins, ever +quickening, ever wilder. + +His mood changed. He had been saying to himself that it was no +matter when or how painfully he died. He wished that he might see a +priest--the good Père François; he caught himself hastily, remembering +that piteous death of the father. Alas, when and how painfully have +died many, many of the Order of Jesus, here, there, in every clime! +He said to himself that he should be proud that it fell to his lot to +emulate the mortuary example of those undying missionaries, that yet in +the flesh died so hardily. + +“_Quibus dignus non erat mundus_!” he declared in swelling phrase, +_ore rotundo_. + +But with the sudden surging of his fevered blood he protested. +They,--God knew he wished to detract no whit from their credit,--but +they were spiritual-minded men, many convent-bred, ascetic, he had +almost said superstitious, solicitous for the martyr’s crown, with a +talent for dying, and a positive genius for remitting to everlasting +opprobrium throughout all the ages their misguided murderers. + +He broke off from these reflections with a sudden, loud, hilarious +laugh that echoed far through the quiet town on whose death-stricken +ways the dusk was gradually descending, and brought his Indian guard +to their feet with an abrupt spring, staring at him with vague wonder +through the gloom. + +His eyes, meeting theirs, were large, dilated, curiously bright. There +seemed no recognition in them. He did not answer when they spoke, but +shifting his posture slightly went on muttering to himself; his mind +thus beyond the control of his will, he formulated more candor than his +disciplined judgment was wont to recognize. They were spiritual-minded +men, he reiterated, the Jesuit martyrs. For himself,--he was a soldier, +not a martyr. Dying was the last thing a soldier should do,--and +once more his foolish, frivolous laugh rang through the melancholy +glooms of the bereaved town. He was not fitted to die thus,--the +prey of unreasoning devils called by complaisance savages, to whom +he had been sent on a mission of importance to French politics. His +grave, his honorable grave, awaited him on some stricken field of +battle. He had thought a hundred times how it might come,--in the +rebuilding of some destroyed bridge which the enemy--_peste_! he +always destroys the good bridges!--or perhaps in pushing a parallel +closer and closer to the lines of the doomed defenses,--a ball from +the _chemin convert_ of the fort might find a vital spot. Would +he shun it?--fear death?--“_Je te fais mes compliments_!” He +stood suddenly erect and saluted. Then he collapsed upon the ground. +A soldier’s hasty grave on the field of battle,--he coveted it. For +shrift,--the pressure of a good comrade’s hand might bid him Godspeed. +A soldier has few sins to confess. Little is required of him--he is +merely a soldier--all body and heart--a mere bit of a soul! But these +priests--these spiritual men--they who can profess so much, why should +they fail? + +A light was presently glimmering in the dusk,--clear, luminous, a +pyramidal flare approaching rapidly, then pausing as in uncertainty, +flickering through the blue darkness, and once more drawing near. + +“The lanthorns of the burial parties,” he said, contemplating with a +gentle melancholy the battlefield of his fancy. “Many a fine fellow +coming to-day that must be carried to-morrow.” + +Then swiftly repeating a series of measurements and mathematical +calculations, he rose as the light paused at the foot of the mound and +the flare of the torch fell upon the face of Moy Toy, summoned hither +by the weird sound of that strange, hilarious laughter, and minded to +advance the hour for the prisoner’s torture and death, since he must +needs be so obtrusively merry in the face of their distresses and +disasters. + +Laroche recognized him vaguely, but naught of the circumstances which +environed him. He lifted his voice as he pursued his train of remarks, +expressing the jumble of his ideas. + +“Un bastion, Moy Toy, avec un ravelin,--et une fraise d’épine ne serait +pas inutile!--là,--là,--sur le bord de la rivière,--quatre-vingts +toises de distance,--pour enfiler les colonnes,--la fosse,--à la portée +du canon,--donnez dix-huit pieds de large au parapet,--et puis,--et +puis,”-- + +He ran down the steps and laid his hot hand upon the arm of the +Cherokee chief, who stared aghast at this manifestation of a strange +distemper. + +It was well for Laroche that the Cherokees did not feel it incumbent +upon them to preserve the grace of consistency. If he had continued +in health, he would assuredly have been put to death with tortures, +in satisfaction of the iniquities of the embassy of which he was a +member, but his wandering mind, his evident delirium, precluded his +knowledge of his own fate, and thus robbed the torture of its choicest +delight, the fear and mental misery of the victim, as well as his +bodily agony. A postponement of the sentence was hastily agreed upon, +and the patient, still declaiming upon the advantage of one system +of fortification and contemptuously disparaging others, was gently +conveyed, for he could no longer walk, to the stranger-house which he +and Push-koosh had occupied, put to bed on the elastic cane-wrought +mattress, and the medicine-men were summoned to exorcise this strange +demon of fever which had possessed the guest. + +The skill of these primitive people in the art of healing was said to +be very considerable. But in this instance the Cherokee physicians +found themselves at a loss. Laroche had duly absorbed the atmospheric +miasma of the swampy country near Mobile and New Orleans, which, had he +remained there, might have occasioned no trouble. But upon his sudden +removal it instantly manifested itself in a virulent type of malarial +fever, all its poison elicited by the pure, clear air of this mountain +region. Hence this salubrious clime has been called “the unhealthiest +country in the world” by suffering subtropical wights who would not be +at rest at home and could not be well elsewhere. This theory, exploited +long since those times, was not familiar to the two cheerataghe, who +rattled their calabashes at the fever demon with hearty good will. +They administered the varied decoctions of herbs famous as febrifuges. +They repeated aloud their ancient incantations, both mandatory and +contemptuous, bidding the malign spirit depart. They arrayed and +painted themselves in frightful guise to terrify the fever demon, and +decorated with buffalo horns and buffalo tails, they rushed roaring +from right to left in front of the bed, and when this proved futile, +from left to right. They subjected the patient to sudden immersion in +hot water, and then in cold, and again to a steaming process, placing +him in an oven-like structure of heated rocks, over which water was +poured,--all without avail. The Cherokee magicians began to look very +grave and ill at ease, for a dark cloud was ominously gathering on +the brow of Moy Toy. All at once Moy Toy had come to covet the life +of this man. It must be captured from death. He must be snatched from +the already open grave. Not for the satisfaction of exacting that +terrible penalty, as one of the treacherous Choctaw embassy; not for +the keen delight of the spectacle of his death by torture. Any unlucky +French wight captured from the Illinois country; or some helpless +English body, unknown or of scant note, wandering away from a kindly +colonial settlement and heard of never again; or even a stanch Indian +of one of the inimical tribes,--Muscogee, Tuscarora, Seneca,--any +mere man, in short, who had blood to spill, and bones to break, and +nerves to writhe might furnish this sport. With this man’s death +more was lost,--a subtle, keen brain, technical military knowledge, +practical military experience, a tongue of wondrous craft trained in +various speech, a secret cogent influence with the French authorities +at New Orleans,--all calculated to subserve the Cherokees, and this a +trifling kindliness would reinforce by the claims of gratitude, a claim +paramount in the Indian scheme of ethics. + +So overwhelmed had been the wary Moy Toy’s brain by the surprise, the +fury, the grief attending the catastrophe of the massacre of his young +tribesmen, that these considerations were not even dimly presented to +his alert perceptions till the moment that Laroche dashed down the +stairs of the mound and impetuously flung himself into his host’s arms +with his delirious babble of military works and munitions of war. It +was at first but a vague impression, a doubtful suggestion. The crafty +Indian mind dwelt upon it in the days that came and went. Time seemed +to embellish, to perfect it. And now it had become the dearest boon of +fate, and the Indian could not, would not forego it. For this man could +design and build a fort that could withstand a British assault! He +could so dispose the Indian facilities as to enable them to defend it. +He could by reason of his connection with the French government secure +such munitions of war as would complete its armament. An impregnable +stronghold in the wilderness, with scientifically handled artillery, +could set at naught British aggression and hold the country. + +Turned in whatever light, the idea presented a perfect symmetry. +It was like a many faceted gem. And thus the two magicians, men of +herbs and simples, found their equanimity shaken and their capacities +seriously hampered by the continual presentation of Moy Toy’s imperious +countenance at the door of the stranger-house, and the sight of his +agitation and anger that the cheerataghe had failed to exorcise the +demon of fever and work a cure. Therefore they besought him to leave +the sufferer to their ministrations; for his angry countenance caused +their hearts to weigh very heavy within them, and his sharp speeches +gave great offense to the demon of fever, who had never within all +their experience conducted himself in the wayward, troublous manner of +his present manifestations. + +“But the man will die!” said Moy Toy, looking down in angry despair at +the wasted face and form, as the restless head of the patient turned +from side to side, always weary, vainly seeking rest. + +“Is he the first?” asked one of the cheerataghe. For like a physician +of civilization, he by no means guaranteed the continuance of life by +virtue of his science. + +It was very honestly and earnestly exerted, and both he and his +colleague felt all the virtuous rage of sustaining a grievous injustice +when Moy Toy said, with a rancor that surprised them (for quarrels and +unkindness to one another were almost unknown in the tribe, the utmost +placidity of temper and mutual forbearance being _de rigueur_), +“You promised rain,--and behold at this season of the year a drought +lasting six weeks, and the planting of corn delayed till a famine +threatens, and not a drop till to-day.” + +“A visitation! a visitation! because of the sins of the people and +their hardness of heart!” cried the two magi in a breath. + +Wherein they improved an advantage over the faculty of to-day. + +Moy Toy silently gazed down at the rolling head and the fixed, +absorbed eyes bent steadily on some phantasmagoria of the fever. He +noted the weakness of the once clear, strong voice,--the definite, +trained enunciation had sunk to a husky mutter. Still Laroche babbled +of military operations, for now and again Moy Toy caught the phrases +“quatre mortiers--Coehorn--champ de bataille--barils de poudre,” +although the rest was unintelligible, for now he spoke continuously in +French. + +“He must live! He must live for the Cherokee nation!” exclaimed the +chief, with the insistence of hoping against hope. + +One of the cheerataghe had a fine, steady, acute eye, a hideously +painted face, with the aspect of a bedlamite, arrayed as he was with +buffalo horns and tail, and with his body stuck over with wings of +owls, the calves of his legs hung with a dozen garters of rattling bell +buttons, and a long-handled gourd filled with pebbles in his hands, +which were covered with bear’s paws. Perhaps the patient’s delirium +could present nothing more grotesquely, absurdly frightful. + +“You, Moy Toy,” he said, in his grave, sonorous, sane voice, “you have +given offense to the demon of fever. For when the sun is rising the +man revives; he will take drink, although he cannot eat; he will speak +Cherokee, softly, softly; he will close his eyes and sleep. And then +come you!--with a troubled face, and a harsh voice, and an eager step, +and a fierce hurry! And the demon of fever is angered, and the fever +grows quicker, and more eager, and harsh, and angrier than you! And it +rises and rises till the man will not drink and cannot see, and has no +speech but a shred of French and screams for dreams that are without +sleep!” + +He looked to his colleague, who gravely nodded his fantastic head in +corroboration. + +Moy Toy silently studied the face first of one of the magicians, then +of the other. Although immeasurably superstitious and credulous, he +was yet grounded in craft and suspicion. And, in truth, perhaps he was +not without justification; the cheerataghe, like more modern disciples +of Æsculapius, doubtless often attributed to other causes disasters +consequent upon a lack of skill or its misdirection. In this instance, +however, the value of the stake at hazard, the imputation of the malign +personal influence of his presence, a vague indignation that he should +be esteemed obnoxious to any being--even a demon of fever--rendered Moy +Toy peculiarly alert, watchful, disposed to exact to the extremity of +the possibilities. + +The two cheerataghe, as his glance once more sought the pallid face, +the ever-turning head on the pillow, looked anxiously at each other. +For the face seemed death-stricken. The next moment they took sudden +hope. A change, a vague, indefinable change, quivered over it. The +jumble of French words faltered on Laroche’s feeble tongue. With +unexampled resolution, he pressed firmly his silent lips together. +And in that silence the wary Indians heard what had come first to his +ears. Even in the dullness of fever and the frenzy of delirium, he +had interpreted its significance, so momentous it was to him. A voice +it was in the broad spaces of the “beloved square” without, a bold, +hearty, roaring voice, speaking the English language with a blatant +Scotch accent. + +The three Cherokees gazed at one another in tumultuous and contending +emotions. They experienced much gratitude that the spark of perception +intimated they might still hope. They could hardly repress their +admiration of the finesse, the courage, the mental balance, that +enabled Laroche to perceive the crisis, interpret its meaning, and +meet it with a sane judgment,--his self-control, which even in the +thrall of fever could curb the infirmities of that weakly, babbling +tongue, and silence the self-betrayal of the French speech upon it. All +their excitement, however, was subordinated to the triumph in his craft +that stimulated their own emulous resources. He was indeed in great +danger. Emissaries of the French among the Indians, having done so +much to instigate and maintain the late Cherokee War, were peculiarly +obnoxious to the British authorities. In fact, rewards had been offered +for their scalps, and by the late treaty the Cherokees themselves were +pledged to arrest and surrender these enemies of the English. Moy Toy, +making a gesture imposing secrecy, stepped out of the door to meet the +visitor, who was clamoring as loudly and boldly in the “beloved square” +as if he were in his own byre. + +“Hegh, Moy Toy!” he cried bluffly, breaking away from the “second men,” +as the subordinate authorities of the town were called, “how’s a’ wi’ +ye, man?” + +He was a tall, heavy, awkward fellow, with a boisterous, assured +address, a broad, red face, light almost flaxen hair, plaited and tied +with a leather thong in a queue, arrayed in buckskins but with long +cowhide boots, and enveloped in a great match-coat, for it had been +raining heavily, and the drops still clung upon the tufts and fibres +of the cloth. His cap of coonskin, with the tail as a pendant, was +pushed back from his brow, revealing remarkably straight, regular, and +well-formed features and shrewd, blue eyes. He held under his arm a +stout horsewhip as a companion rather than a weapon, for his pistols +were in the holsters on the saddle of his nag, which, drenched to the +skin, hung down its head where it stood unceremoniously hitched to a +stake whereto was sometimes bound a victim for the torture. The guest +made no pretense of adapting to the Indian ceremonials the manners in +which he had been bred, as was the custom of strangers and traders +generally, or of recognizing any princely arrogations on the part of +Moy Toy. He advanced with great, muscular strides toward his averse +host,--who visibly winced from the overpowering redundancy, as it were, +of his presence,--seized upon the limp hand of the Indian, and crushed +it in his cordial grasp as if Moy Toy had been also a bold Briton. + +“How’s a’ wi’ ye?--an’ what d’ ye hear frae Charlestoun?” + +There was scarce similarity between this hearty, warm-blooded entity +and a snake, but Moy Toy, of his own volition, would have touched +neither except upon necessity or in the way of business. The fibres of +his hand tingled with the consciousness of the detested impact long +after the trader’s unwelcome grasp had relaxed and his manual energy +was expending itself in aimlessly cracking his whip at the sand of the +smooth spaces of the “beloved square.” There was a spark of smouldering +fire in the eyes of the Indian, a tense restraint in the muscles of his +shoulders and his straight back, as if he would fain hold himself under +strong control. Albeit his interlocutor spoke English he understood +Cherokee, and Moy Toy replied in his native tongue; thus each talked +without solicitude, for each was comprehensible to the other. The +Indian said that he had no news from Carolina and inquired in turn, but +with scant show of interest, “as to the Muscogee?” + +“I begin to think a’ thae carles are dead!” exclaimed Jock Lesly, +with a vigorous snap of the whip. “They were looked for to join the +Chickasaw and the English agen the French away yon to the south. But +deil ane o’ them hae minted a word yet!” + +The Cherokee’s stately dignity, his cautious, reserved speech, +contrasted strongly with the Scotchman’s unsuspicious plainness, as +he waited with an air of expectation. If the Indian had had news, +he would not have bartered it with the trader, nor indeed had the +trader repaired hither for what he could hear. This mutual realization +embarrassed the pause, yet Jock Lesly still sharply cracked his whip at +the sand and hesitated as to what he should say. + +With all the thrifty instincts of the canny Scotch pioneer of that day, +with all the bold, bluff courage of his vigorous personality, Jock +Lesly had been the first, and as yet the only trader to venture back +within the remote mountain region, whence the fury of the terrible +Cherokee War had driven all mercantile enterprise. Indeed, the treaty +was hardly signed before he was again in the place that had known him +of yore, his trading-house rebuilt, depending for his safety partly on +the treaty and partly on his utility to the savages, his popularity +among them, and his conscience void of offense against them. + +“I hae had as muckle o’ the rack an’ rief o’ the war as ye,” he was +wont to say, “an’ the Lard kens I wad wuss to be canty and quiet enow.” + +As he stood looking aimlessly about, he noted that the ranges were all +full of mist between the domes, and from the soft densities of its +white, fluffy masses those eminences rose in sombre, purple hues and +massive effects against a pale gray sky, along which lay horizontal +clouds, of a darker, denser gray. The river, with lace-like films of +mist hanging in the budding green willows and pawpaws of its banks, +had the tint of burnished copper. The great trees of the limitless +forests, and those gigantic growths around the town, dripped with +moisture as they hung down their sodden branches about the newly washed +boles, the bark so dense of color as to suggest the effect of being +freshly painted. A dull day it was, and the atmosphere, devoid of all +elasticity, seemed almost too lifeless to breathe. He broke at last +from his dubitation and began in his neighborly wise:-- + +“A-weel, a-weel, Moy Toy, there hae been a wheen idle, feckless loons +frae your toun o’ Tellico down to Ioco Town aboot my trading-house. An’ +there they lifted a few trifles frae the stock,--but I’se no grudge +that,--a few bit duds. But then they slartered a couple o’ sheep,--an +auld yowe and a yearlin’.” + +Moy Toy’s face grew dark with anger, and yet almost kind with concern. + +The good-natured Scotchman hastened to qualify. “They never carried aff +the meat nor yet the pelts,--they scalpit the twa puir beastises first, +an’ then cut their throats. I’m no the waur for the lack o’ mutton, +but”-- + +Moy Toy’s countenance of amazed disfavor, astounded at the account of +this curious emprise, coerced sudden intelligibility. + +“Jus’ a wheen feckless laddies aping their elders,” explained Jock +Lesly, doubtfully. Then with an uneasy laugh he added, “An’ the bairns +cam hame wearin’ the scalps at their belts. I chased them a’ the way +with the powney.” + +Moy Toy did not laugh. Indian children play as do children of other +nations, reducing to the circuit of their narrow round--a juvenile +microcosm--all the methods and events of the elder world. But this +exploit transcended the limit of verisimilitude and entered on the +realms of the verities. The small banditti unchecked would soon venture +further and bring upon their elders anger, retaliation, embroilment, +with the trader, and premature fracture of the treaty. + +“They shall be dry-scratched,” said Moy Toy promptly. + +“Oh, wow, man!” exclaimed Jock Lesly sharply, as if he had been +suddenly pinched. “Na,--na,--not dry-scratched! Odd! I could na sleep +in my bed if the hempies were dry-scratched for me!--they ran sae +supple--the knaves! It is an unchancy, ugly thing, that dry-scratching! +Cuff the bairns weel--or gie them a flogging they’ll remember. Man +alive! flogging is healthy for boy or beast! I’ve had it a thousand +times frae my auld daddy, God bless him! Flogging is what’s made the +British nation what it is,--but dry-scratching,--I’d die of it mysel’, +now. Oh, man,--oh, man,--flog ’em a little,--but dry-scratched--oh, +wow, wow!” + +He caught at the arm of the august Moy Toy, who was more accustomed to +order the torture and burning of Christian captives than the punishment +of a few children who had offended against the municipal law. He made +no sign and stood as adamant, but other Cherokees, who had joined them, +were smiling and looking at each other with the softened countenances +that express a gentle ridicule. Despite their friendly scorn, the +kindly trader’s deprecation of the punishment of the children and his +wild and earnest plea in their behalf could not fail to commend him to +their tolerance, and went far to explain a sort of popularity that he +had enjoyed among them. They knew that the little drama of the storming +of the sheep-fold and massacre of its inmates was too significant to +pass without notice, and for this very significance the punishment +decreed was to be immediate and sharp, to teach the youngsters where +fun ends and serious fact begins. Indeed Moy Toy himself saw to the +preparations for the capture and condign penance of the miscreants, +who, having returned from the war-path scathless, were now in full +swing of a mimic celebration of victory, the triumphant scalps in +evidence, and all the wide-eyed children of the town in joyful +participation. + +“Deil hae ye, then, for a fause-hearted, unceevilized tyke as ever +lived!” exclaimed Lesly, as the chief drew off from his grasp. “Egad! +I can ne’er abide to hear ’em skreigh like that,--wow,--wow!” And +clapping his hands to his ears, the Scotch trader fairly ran off as the +first shrill plaint of protest rose upon the air. + +Now it was a point of juvenile honor to bear this kind of punishment +as stoically as might be, and a severe dry-scratching, always carefully +adapted in ferocity to the age of the delinquent and his capacity to +support pain, usually drew forth a tear or two and sometimes only +murmuring sighs. The habitual gentleness of the savages with their +children doubtless convinced the rising generation that the punishment +was only intended for their benefit and no whit administered in anger +or tyranny. Therefore in submitting with a good grace they were +contributing so far as in them lay to their own moral culture, and were +ambitious of the stoical poise, perhaps to make the penalty as salutary +as possible and go as far in reform as it would. + +The two little Indians were easily stripped of such semblance of +garments as they wore, and as they were being bound to the stake they +craftily set up a wild and poignant shriek upon seeing the Scotchman in +full flight across the “beloved square,” being apprised by the comments +of the laughing bystanders of his intercession in their behalf and his +aversion to the sight and sound of their woe. This had considerable +justification, for thus bound and helpless they were sharply scratched +from head to foot repeatedly with an instrument formed of snake’s teeth +fastened in the end of a stick. + +Because of the unusual commotion with which the affair had been +invested, no one noticed that the refuge to which the Scotchman, +familiar enough with the place, bent his steps was the stranger-house. +He burst in, and started back astounded at the figures of the +cheerataghe arrayed to frighten the fever in such manner as might have +frightened the devil. Then the trader’s eyes fell upon the white man +lying helpless on the brink of the grave, as it were, the victim of the +fever. + +“Lord save us!” exclaimed Lesly, with a sudden change of countenance, +“wha hae we here?” + +The two cheerataghe, unaware of the very disconcerting effect of their +own professional appearance, themselves showed every sign of fear, +incongruous enough with their terrifying aspect. In fact they could +scarcely have been more alarmed had Satan himself appeared, for they +were unacquainted with him and his reputation, while quite well aware +who and what was Jock Lesly. The presence of the French emissary here +was a breach of the treaty lately renewed, under which the Cherokee +tribe traded with the British, and a menace to the privileges promised +to the Indians under its stipulations. They hardly knew how to reply, +and the abrupt entrance of Moy Toy was like a rescue from mortal peril. +The chief had bethought himself suddenly of the possible suspicion of +the stranger’s presence here that might be casually conveyed to Jock +Lesly’s perceptions, while free in the town unguarded and unwatched. +Anything so complete, so inexplicable, so irrefutable as his intrusion +and the evidence of his own eyes the chief had not anticipated for a +moment, and his ready resources of subterfuge failed him for the nonce. + +“Puir chield! I doubt na he is in the dead thraw!” the trader muttered, +his compassionate instincts uppermost. Then impressed by something +unfamiliar in the cast of the features, he asked doubtfully, “Is he +frae the colonies,--or overseas?” + +Laroche had been divested of his fine French uniform when he had been +brought here ill; it had been carefully put away in view of its future +use by his captors, being an official garb, for the crafty Moy Toy +fancied some occasion might arise when it would serve a diplomatic +turn. Moreover the gold lace and fine cloth were much too dazzling, +considered merely as booty, to be spared to the prisoner as habiliments +in which to be ill or tortured or buried. In the varied experiments +of the cheerataghe, contending with the rigors of the chill following +the fever, Laroche had been clad in buckskins, supplemented now and +then in the convulsions of the shudders and shivers by one of those +feather-wrought mantles that attracted so much attention from the +early travelers in this region, the effect of which was pronounced +“extraordinary charming.” There was naught to indicate his nationality +or his estate as captive. Every evidence of care and solicitude +environed the patient, and Moy Toy’s explanation seemed obviously +genuine. + +The sick man had come to Great Tellico, the chief said, with some of +the Cherokee tribesmen who had been up to Virginia, and being taken +ill they had left him to recover while they went their various ways +homeward. He did not ask the man’s name of them, thinking to learn it +from himself. He had been only a little ailing at first, but now one +hardly knew what to make of him. + +Jock Lesly seated on one side of the cabin on the divan, with his +hands on his ponderous knees, his head bent a trifle forward, gazed +thoughtfully across the room at the fevered patient, as not so long +ago the Choctaw Mingo had sat and glowered at the recumbent frame then +sunken in sleep. + +“He is gaun to dee!” the trader remarked dolorously, at length, and the +words, bespeaking his own fear, fell with a crushing force on the hopes +of Moy Toy. + +Jock Lesly drew a long and labored sigh. If the sorrows of the little +dry-scratched Indians--wicked varlets--could take such hold upon the +sympathies of that frank, compassionate heart of his, how the sight of +this tragedy racked him,--this valuable life going out in exile, among +savages, with not one intelligent, civilized effort made to save it. + +“Gin I had him ance at hame!” he cried, in futile aspiration, “I doubt +but what Jeemes’s powder might wark a cure!” + +“Carry him there! The demon of the fever may not dare to cross a +stranger’s threshold!” cried Moy Toy, with a sudden inspiration. He +was thinking very rapidly. If some untoward chance should reveal +the secret of the nationality of the man, which even in delirium +he instinctively guarded, why Jock Lesly and his household were +practically alone here, hundreds of miles from any English settlements, +and accidents were lamentably common in the distracted Cherokee +country at present,--so frequent, indeed, that the discovery might go +no farther! “The Cherokees will aid their guest. The brothers of the +tribe will rejoice to bear the burden of a litter,” he continued. “The +demon of the fever maybe does not know the way to Ioco Town and cannot +follow!” + +Jock Lesly, heeding little of these hopeful schemes for confounding the +demon of the fever, sat doubtful nevertheless and dumfounded. A vague +sentiment of suspicion had been lurking in his mind,--first, that the +Indians had not expected him to discover so unusual an inmate of their +stranger-house as this white man, and that he and his status were not +as represented. Then as Moy Toy so freely and instantly relinquished +his custody, the trader experienced as vague a doubt if the patient had +had fair play among them, since they were eager to get rid of him and +of such responsibility as his care imposed. + +“The puir Injun!” Jock Lesly said to himself reproachfully, “if I’ll +suspicion him o’ ane thing I’ll e’en doubt him o’ the contrary.” + +The man lay as in a “dwam,” to use Lesly’s expression. The trader +crossed the room, felt the temperature of the forehead, noted the dull, +opaque eyes, and laid his hand almost paternally upon the light brown +hair of a fine, silky quality, dense and curling. + +The trader was an unsophisticated man, unlearned and of a scanty +experience of the world, his life having been spent for the last ten +years in the treadmill round of a British factory in the Cherokee +country. He realized his responsibility and he shrank from it. He +looked at the impassive cheerataghe and received no light upon his +course. He glanced out of the door. + +A change had come over the landscape. The wind was astir,--the clouds +were flying before it. Between their dense white masses the sky showed +intensely blue, inconceivably high. The sun shone with a vernal +brilliance,--it would not be unduly chilly by noon. Fragrance was in +the air, so fine, so fresh, so illusive. One might say that it was the +scent of the budding wild cherry; or, no,--the early blooming grape; +or, stay,--the delicate aroma of the bark of a tree, touched to this +distillation of incense by some happy combination of sun and wind and +rain. The whole scene beckoned, lured, besought. + +“An’ what for no?” cried Jock Lesly, his resolution taken at last. “As +weel dee under the canopy o’ heaven as in an Injun’s cabin!” + +Every precaution that could be devised was taken. The litter, fashioned +under his directions, was furnished by Moy Toy munificently, freely, +with the softest skins for mattress, with fine fur mantles for covering +that were impervious to water in view of sudden rain, and with others, +feather-wrought, light, and warm, to fend off all deleterious effects +of exposure. A dozen tribesmen bore it, stepping lightly, easily, on +their springy feet, unshod save for the elastic moccasins, and a dozen +more mounted men accompanied it to act as relays, and, thus relieving +one another, suffer no fatigue to retard their progress. + +“A body wad think the creature was a Christian instead of a doited +heathen!” Lesly said to himself, impressed by Moy Toy’s liberality and +anxiety in this work of mercy. + +For Moy Toy had despaired of the efforts of the cheerataghe to exorcise +the demon of fever and save this life to the utilities of the Cherokee +nation. + +“It is some devil of the paleface that has taken hold of him,” the +chief said sagely to the cheerataghe. “Let him have the white man’s +charm worked on him!” + +For if the French officer should die on the way to Ioco Town, would he +not also have died at Tellico? + + + + + IV + + +THE moment that Laroche was recalled to life was never very accurately +defined in his mind, so gradually did a full consciousness return. Nor +was he sure how entirely delirium had held him in its delusions. His +speculations were of a metaphysical tendency when he afterward dwelt, +with a microscopic scrutiny, upon those phenomena of involved cerebral +processes manifested in the sudden silencing of the French words upon +his dreaming tongue, as it vaguely shaped the confused thoughts of a +stupefied brain,--all upon one coherent impulse, on the sound of an +English phrase spoken in an English voice! + +That salutary monition abode with him, whether he slept, whether he +waked, whether he lay in that dim border world of swoons between +sleeping and waking. He was stricken dumb, although he could hardly +be said to have heard, for he consciously heard naught. And if, he +argued, these perceptions could have been so alert to the mere vocal +vibrations of the air, the instinct of danger so keenly receptive, +the will so strangely responsive to the demands of those supersubtle, +unclassified faculties, although every voluntary function of the +muscles lay prostrate, and every recognized process of the brain +was paralyzed, did not this imply some curious duality of identity, +an absolute independence of the intellectual life, unrelated to the +bodily functions, since so complete a solution of continuity had +supervened? It might have been that, though he accounted himself a mere +blunt soldier and upbraided his mismanagement that had jeopardized +the interests of the French mission, he was so complete a diplomat +at heart that he could withhold with a nerveless hand, hear with a +deaf ear, plot albeit with a swooning brain, and hush the babblings +of delirium to keep a secret, of which at the moment he had no +consciousness! + +Thus, although his pulses ran riot, he continued to maintain a tense +silence. When the tumultuous phantasmagoria of frenzy gave place +to visions as vain but calmer, he found himself still mute, quiet, +orderly, exact, mentally verifying with mathematical accuracy the +relative measurements of a line of field fortifications, so designed +that an attacking column might be enfiladed thence. “For nothing,” he +said to himself again and again, “can stop an attacking column that is +not enfiladed.” Later, he was considering the possibility of defending +effectively a certain salient angle of an imaginary redoubt. + +To prevent the enemy from carrying the redoubt by storming this too +acute angle he began to mount a battery _en barbette_ in the dead +salient. The doubt that now and again seized him as to the necessity of +these labors was dispelled by the actual sight of the canvas walls of +his tent about him, and therefore he would busily absorb himself once +more in these duties, and actively prepared to defend the ditch of the +redoubt by constructing there a solid _caponnière_. + +The placid peace of the man who is consciously doing his best in his +chosen vocation pervaded his whole system, mental, moral, and physical, +and brought refreshing, curative sleep to his pillow. So definite a +hold had this impression taken upon his mind, sleeping and waking, that +one morning he lifted his head with a start of alarm. There upon the +sloping canvas walls was a yellow streak, all the more vivid for the +white glare of the cloth in the rising sun,--and how had he not heard +the reveille? The echo of the bugle was in his ears, the molten, golden +notes of the old French call. + +A strong tremor ran through the elbow on which he had supported his +head. Alack! no stirring, martial strain had summoned him. He lay back +on his pillow, realizing in dismay and yet in surprise that the walls +of the tent of his fancy were the dimity curtains of a bed, and he +began to remember vaguely the chances that had befallen him and to seek +the grace to be thankful. + +“I will wait and see what cause for gratitude I may have,” said +the unsubdued inner man, while his lips framed the verbal show of +a thanksgiving. His state of mind might have furnished still more +suggestive details of the possibility of a dual life in one identity. + +Nevertheless he recognized the fact that as far as the bodily entity +was concerned it was distinctly comfortable. Now and again he dropped +off into short, luxurious naps, even between the stages of his +investigation of his surroundings. In one waking interval he took +account of the furnishings of the bed: it bore sheets, a rarity of +the place and time so unexpected, so inexplicable, that it roused new +doubts and anxieties as to where he was, what had befallen him, and +what might yet betide. Still he could but finger them in pleasure and +with a childish relish of luxury;--snow-white they were, of a heavy, +fine linen smoothly woven, with the fragrance of the wood violets of +the bleaching ground, and the freshness of the wind yet in their folds, +as it seemed,--and once more he closed his eyes. + +When he wakened again he had so far accustomed himself to the homely +opulence of blankets and bedding that he was prepared in a measure for +the night-rail in which he found himself clad, but not for its size. +As he stretched out the voluminous length of its great sleeve and took +account of its breadth of shoulder, “A big man in good earnest this was +made for,--I shall take care to be friends with the monster!” he said. + +He bethought himself suddenly of the English words that he had +heard,--a mere sound and locution,--yet this was the only definite +recollection that had stayed in his mind since the moment he had +beheld the flying figures of the Choctaws speeding across the “beloved +square” to the pettiaugre. He must bear a caution,--a Frenchman, and +possibly liable to be accused as a spy! He lifted his wasted hands to +his head: it was enveloped in a red nightcap, with a gay tassel swaying +on its fez-like peak; and much he needed it, for the whole head had +been shaved, sometime since evidently, for delicate tendrils of a new +growth were starting there and he felt fibres moist and soft about his +forehead. + +A step sounded suddenly outside, heavy but cautious; a stealthy hand +was laid upon the curtain; and as it was drawn aside the red face of +a man of middle age, tall, powerful, flaxen-haired, with high cheek +bones, a man whom Laroche had never before seen, looked in upon him. +Grave, astonished, delighted, the stranger seemed,--with a sudden +twinkle of comprehension in his blue eyes and an outburst of joy in his +big voice that made the bedstead tremble on the uneven puncheons of the +floor. + +“Hegh, callant!” he cried, as their eyes met, “but this dings a’! +Lilias! Callum!” he began to call over his shoulder to other inmates +of the house in so stalwart a roar that it might have been heard half +a mile. It easily penetrated the flimsy partitions of the primitive +building, and the feet of those summoned were audible rapidly +approaching. “Here’s the callant!” he exclaimed, as the door opened. +“Here he is,--a’ himsel’ again!” + +He had the manner of announcing the arrival of a guest, and Laroche +easily divined, from the hiatus in his recollections, that he could +hardly have been considered present hitherto, although visible in the +flesh. + +A young man, with less enthusiasm, but still an air of proper pleasure, +partly induced by genuine gratulation upon so happy an augury of +the termination of a serious illness, and partly in propitiation of +the elder, whom it was evident he would have crossed upon no slight +occasion, advanced to the bedside and declared that he was glad to see +that the patient had recovered his consciousness and doubted not that +he would soon be on his feet. This young man wore the Highland garb, +from which Laroche inferred, somewhat quakingly, that he was of the +British soldiery who had been active in this region during the previous +two years, in the campaigns conducted by Montgomerie and afterward by +Grant against the Cherokees, in which the Montgomerie Highlanders (the +Seventy-Seventh Regiment) and others had participated, for at this time +the national dress was proscribed except for those enlisted in British +regiments. A barbarous garb the Frenchman considered it, hardly a whit +in advance of the savage decorations he had been called upon to note at +Tellico Great,--so strong were the international prejudices of those +days. For in truth it was a manly and graceful figure appropriately +bedight,--with swaying kilt, the short coat, the blue bonnet, with +its bit of bearskin decoration. The young Highlander’s fair hair hung +down thick and half curling from beneath this blue bonnet and lay in +an effectively contrasting tint upon the collar of the red jacket, +which constituted at that time part of the dress of the Forty-Second +Regiment, and was worn with a red waistcoat. The latter, we are +informed, was made over, in the governmental thriftiness, from the +red coat after a year’s wear, while the plaid, furnished biennially, +subsequently did duty cut down and frugally reconstructed into the +filibeg. But if the wildernesses of the Great Smoky of that day at all +resembled the tangled forest densities which still remain, the military +tailor who refashioned any garments whatever from the gear that +survived the marches through those brambly mountain jungles deserved +immortalizing above all other knights of the shears. + +The dark blues and greens of the sombre “Black Watch” tartan in +Callum’s plaid and kilt afforded an added fairness to his locks. His +florid complexion showed a fluctuating red and white. His blue eyes +were large and well set, with lashes and eyebrows much darker than the +shade of his hair. He had high cheek bones and an expressive mouth, +with finely cut lips, red and mobile, often parted in the blithest +laughter for very slight cause, and exhibiting two unbroken rows of +strong, white teeth. His smiling face was as frank and honest as the +sun. + +Laroche’s sudden dislike of this young stranger surprised himself and +dismayed him as well. For would he have experienced this emotion were +the third member of the little group that stood by the bed different +from what she was? Her likeness to her father might have served as an +illustration of the apotheosis of humanity in a spiritual miracle. +Jock Lesly’s flaxen hair, half gray, half tow, was golden in the +glistening soft skeins of silk that swept upward from her brow in heavy +undulations. The blue veins that showed so definitely in the temples +could not have vaunted their delicate tracery through a skin less fine +and fair. Here and there was a freckle, but a faint blush-rose bloomed +over the whole cheek as if it sweetened the air. Her figure, draped in +a sober, gray gown, was tall and strong, but a trifle angular, denoting +more bone and muscle than exuberance of flesh. In fact she was frankly +thin, although her face was so delicately rounded. No small rosebud +mouth, but shapely, dainty, red lips, the upper deeply indented in the +centre like the curve of a bow, opened over white, regularly formed +teeth,--a mouth of beauty but of character also, whence might proceed +sage household counsels, and words full of judgment, just reproof, +and deserved applause. She was the ideal of a helpmeet. She seemed to +Laroche the thought God had in mind when He made woman, before she so +whimsically refashioned herself after her own feminine ideal. And if +any man deemed that he needed help it was Callum MacIlvesty, and that +the woman to assist him on the path of life was Lilias Lesly. + +If aught of the cynical reflections that this discernment of the +persons and predilections of the group afforded Laroche appeared in +his worn and wasted countenance it went undiscovered, so great was +their pleasure in the success of their ministrations and his happy +prospect of a speedy recovery. They were all aimlessly laughing from +sheer triumph; only there was a suggestion of moisture in the eyes of +Lilias,--or were they always so liquid, so luminous, so deeply blue, so +heavily lashed with those long, dark fringes. + +“And ye’ll breakfast enow!” roared Jock Lesly heartily. “Lay the cloth +here, Lilias. We’se all take potluck wi’ him!” + +The young Highlander pleasantly seconded the hospitable motion, and +the objection advanced by Lilias that the invalid was not equal to +entertaining so much company was drowned and overborne in her father’s +imperative orders. + +“Aye, lass, ye ken how to care for a sick man, but this fallow is weel +now an’ a proper lad, strong enough. D’ye think ye’ll hae him doun on +spoon meat an’ gruel an’ sic like fripperies a’ his days! That’s aye +the trouble wi’ the wimmin. They want to master ye! If ye are weel, +they drive ye! An’ if ye are ill, they own ye! Na,--na,--lay the +cloth,--an’ we’ll hear him tell his name an’ business.” + +This suggestion placed Laroche upon his guard, but being of a quick +and keen imagination and having a good sense of verisimilitude, he had +his account of himself ready long before he was called upon to render +it. In fact Jock Lesly was graciously disposed to be autobiographical +himself, and in the course of his prelection was explained the unusual +presence of a white woman in these regions at present; for the Scotch +or English traders did not risk their families here, but left them +far away in the safe precincts of the small white settlements or the +coast towns. His daughter, Jock Lesly said, had heard,--and who could +not hear anything “in sic a wild, ambiguous country” (to use his own +expression), “where the news is carried by wild Injuns, wha lie, it +seems, for the sheer purpose of provin’ themsel’s the children o’ the +deil, wha is the father o’ lies an’ liars,--an’ a monstrous progeny +he hae, to be sure!--a-weel, the lassie heard that her father--an’ +that’s mysel’ an’ not the deil--had been ta’en doun wi’ the smallpox, +an’ the bairn was worrited out o’ her life, mair especially as sae +mony people--thae wild Injuns in particular--were deein’ wi’ the +distemper, havin’ nae proper sense how it suld be treated. An’ sae +the lassie started out for Ioco Town,--not that I hae forgiven +Lilias for puttin’ hersel’ in sic a danger, forbye makin’ a fule +o’ me, as weel as of Callum MacIlvesty also,--though _that’s_ +a smaller matter. A-weel--Callum heard o’ her intention an’ hired +a wheen o’ young packmen in Charlestoun--they being mostly idle at +this season,--_he_ ca’s ’em ‘gillies,’--an’ started out with +her, havin’ leave o’ absence to veesit his ’Merican relations, Callum +bein’ a far awa’ cousin,--my mither was sibb to his mither,--an’ he +overtook Lilias as she was about to come alane frae Charlestoun wi’ +the under-trader an’ a packman or twa, an’ a lot o’ dour red deils of +Injuns that could hae scalpit the haill party, gin the mind had ta’en +them. An’ I as hearty an’ thrivin’ as e’er I was in a’ my life!” + +He paused to emphasize the incongruity. + +“But, lad,” resumed the joyous host, “a’ the bairn’s preparations for +the sick that she fetched wi’ her on the pack-horse were na wasted at +last,--for the Jeemes’s powder an’ the pills an’ the lotions an’ a’ +thae dinged things she meant for me hae a’ gane into your inside, man, +an’ the sheets an’ the curtains an’ sic-like were nae sooner unpacked +than we clappit ye intill ’em!” + +“An’ now will ye no tak a dish o’ your ain chocolate?” said Lilias, +with a smile curving her red lips, “that we fetched a’ the way frae +Charlestoun for ye, expressly, Mr.--” + +Her father remarked her hesitation. + +“Aye,” he exclaimed, with his mouth full of bread and meat. “Gie us +your name, sir,--Maister--what?” + +“Wilson,--Thomas Wilson,” replied Laroche, relying on the perfection +of his English. But albeit an excellent linguist, he rejoiced in the +discovery of their nationality as an additional pledge of safety, +realizing that his English would better pass muster since they +themselves spoke the language so ill. + +“A proper name,--Tam Wilson,--I hae known a score of ’em,” said +Jock Lesly, setting down the glass in which, following the old +fashion, he drank something far stronger for breakfast than tea. He +interpolated at this crisis a remonstrance with his daughter against +the chocolate as a foreign kickshaw, protesting it “ower flimsy for a +gude British stamach;” but the foreigner was secretly truly grateful +for her persistence, for with the rising yet squeamish appetite of a +convalescent, he doubted his capacity, even in the interests of his +disguise, to forego the chocolate in favor of the ale and brandy with +which the two Scotchmen moistened the meal. + +“An’ whaur do ye hail frae?” Jock Lesly asked. + +The question was sufficiently difficult of reply. Louisiana or the +Illinois, in the French occupation, was obviously out of the question. +Yet should the guest say Georgia or South Carolina, he might be exposed +to conversation touching localities familiar to them which he did not +know: people--citizens, as well as officials--with whom he must needs +seem acquainted as were they; the names of ships or rivers or towns, +all necessarily household words to one of the more southern provinces, +yet of which he was densely ignorant. + +“Virginia,” he said at a venture, “about Williamsburg.” + +To his consternation Jock Lesly laid down his knife and fork, and he +knew instinctively it was no slight matter that could check their +activity. But for the fictitious glow that the hot chocolate had set up +in his veins he might have succumbed to a rigor that had no relation to +the vicissitudes of his disease. + +“Now I hope ye are nane o’ thae Firginians[7] that latterly hae been +tampering wi’ our Injuns, an’ invitin’ ’em to come for their goods +to Firginia, an’ seekin’ to coup our trade out o’ our ain hands. Hae +ye seen Governor Bull’s letter--Lieutenant-Governor Bull o’ South +Carolina--Governor Bull’s ain letter to the governor o’ Firginia, man?” + +It was well for Laroche that his cadaverous aspect, as he lay in bed, +propped by pillows into a half sitting posture, his face almost as +ghastly white as the voluminous folds of the night-rail--the scarlet +flannel nightcap, with its gay and flaunting tassel accentuating his +pallor--was ascribed altogether to the effects of illness. Much of +it was doubtless due to his perturbation of mind and the conscious +jeopardy of his position, although he managed to hold with a steady +hand the cup containing his chocolate and to maintain a quiet, +interrogative gaze as his eyes met the Scotchman’s eager blue orbs, and +he replied succinctly, but definitely, in the negative. + +“A-weel, man,” said Jock Lesly, the importance of the subject +precluding the resumption of his knife and fork, “Governor Bull did +set forth and make known unto his Excellency of Firginia that we of +the king’s province o’ South Carolina had suffered much in the auld +Proprietary days with thae bloody loons o’ Injuns, an’ had warked +wi’ ’em an’ wrastled sair wi’ ’em, an’ had made unco gude friends +wi’ several strong tribes on our borders,--Creeks, Chickasaws, an’ +mair especially the Cherokees, till this late war,--all through the +privileeges o’ the trade we had wi’ them an’ the restrictions an’ +facilities of the licensed traders the government establishes an’ +mainteens amang them, to furnish them wi’ a’ their needcessities, an’ +powder an’ lead--a deal mair than is gude for them! An’ if Firginia +draws aff this trade frae these distant tribes, for the sake o’ the bit +profit to be had frae it, Georgia an’ South Carolina hae nae means o’ +keepin’ thae blackguards o’ Injuns in order close on our settlements, +whilk will be left to their mercies. Thae provinces would like be +destroyed.” + +He paused with earnest, convincing eyes, while the guest held his cup +motionless and listened. + +“Cain in the old days jaloosed his brother an’ for rivalry killed him, +but I’se warrant even he wad na hae sold him fur a shillin’. It’s later +times hae taught us better--or waur!” + +“My dear sir,” exclaimed Tam Wilson, “you may rest assured that I am +seeking no Indian trade for Virginia.” + +Jock Lesly drew a long breath of relief. + +“A-weel,” he said, easily placated, “his Excellency of Firginia +answered and promised to let the Injun trade be as it was built. He had +na seen the matter in sic a serious light, he said. No man could speak +fairer. But I thought--I dooted--leastwise--hegh, man, what errand did +bring you then to Great Tellico?” + +“A matter of business,” said the French officer quickly. “Some of the +Cherokees sold a lot of horses to our neighborhood near a year ago, and +this spring most of them disappeared. It is said always that horses +bred in the Indian country go back yearly to their old grass.” + +Jock Lesly nodded his head in confirmation, his mouth again full, knife +and fork plying. + +“Is it true?--I doubted it. But I came with some neighbors as far as +Tellico. I fell ill at Tellico,--and I remember no more.” + +“They went off and left you!” exclaimed the young Highlander, with a +touch of indignation. + +“Wow, man,--what fearsome looking worriecows be thae +medicine-men,--thae cheerataghe! But Moy Toy was kind and helpful, +though fine he liked to get rid of ye! That was what made me jaloose +that mebbe you were meddlin’ wi’ the trade.” Lesly recurred to the +subject. + +“How do thae Injuns come by sic prodigious fine horses?” demanded +Callum MacIlvesty, effecting a diversion with more delicate tact than +might have been anticipated from his lowly station and coarse garb as +a common soldier. Laroche began to understand that the Highlander, +despite his position and rude dialect, was of a higher social grade +in his own country than these compatriots of his, and that their “far +awa” connection with his family was a source of pride to them, albeit +the relation of wooer and wooed had compassed a certain reversal of the +natural order of precedence. It occurred to his quick mind immediately +that one of the many individual disasters involved in the national +calamities of the Scotch rebellions of 1715 and 1745 was represented +in the impoverishment and exile of this scion of a family of degree, +perhaps even of high birth, for the young man used their vernacular +evidently by reason of association and lack of education rather than +station. He had sundry unmistakable marks of a highly bred gentleman, +despite his evident poverty. Laroche knew that certain such, serving +as soldiers of fortune, held commissions in the foreign armies of +Europe, while a few others, more destitute of money and influence, +could be found as “private men” in those Highland regiments recruited +by the British government for service in America against the French and +Indians, and officered in several instances, strangely enough, by men +who had recently themselves been arrayed in arms against the dynasty +they now supported. + +“Their horses come frae the Spanish barbs that De Soty an’ his men left +amang them--an’ I wuss we had naething waur frae the dooms meddlin’ +Spanish than their cattle. Lord, sir, the lies they tell the puir +Injuns!--that the British are determinate to sweep them aff the face o’ +the warld!” + +“The Spaniards are na sae kittle as the French,” said Callum MacIlvesty. + +“The French,” rejoined Jock Lesly, bringing his clenched fist down on +the table,--“the French are the deevil! Did ye notice, lad, how mony o’ +the Cherokees can speak a little French,--nae mair than a ‘polly voo’ +or sic like,--but sae mony!” + +Laroche was conscious and out of countenance. So weak he was he could +ill resist the strain of anxiety. “I did not notice--I was there at +Tellico so short a time--what am I saying?--I do not know how long I +was there nor how you happened to find me!” But he could not divert his +host from the subject. + +“As sure as you are an unsanctified sinner thae gabbling, blackguard +French bodies hae been again meddlin’ wi’ the Cherokees an’ their +trade,” declared Lesly solemnly. “Moy Toy was too polite by +half,--onything to be rid o’ me,--dry-scratchin’ the weans that kilt my +sheep till their screechings wad hae melted a heart o’ stane! An’ when +I begged him to let me ha’ the loan o’ ye for a while, he happed ye in +a’ his fine furs. I had to be gey carefu’ in returnin’ them a’.” + +So they were within reach of Moy Toy and the town of Great Tellico +by an hour’s travel, perhaps, or two. Laroche felt his heart sink. +He had not counted on this possibility nor on the capacity of the +Indians to keep his secret. Nay, so capricious was the temper of the +Cherokees that he could not be sure of their will to conceal the fact +of his nationality and his connection with the Franco-Choctaw embassy. +Even his own mission, the confidential and private assurances of +the French government which he had conveyed to Great Tellico, might +now be maliciously divulged as a means of currying favor with the +British,--since the utility of the promises he had made seemed a thing +of the past and the prospect which they had presented had faded like +a mirage into thin air. His face, with these thoughts in his mind, +showed so sharp a change that Lilias, alarmed, rose with a protest. +Even Jock Lesly permitted himself to be convinced that the session of +breakfast should not be unduly prolonged, and Callum MacIlvesty shook +up the pillows and drew the curtains, and the Frenchman sank down in +silence--not to sleep, he stipulated within himself, but to ponder, to +devise, to plot. + +He slept unaware, unadvisedly, peacefully as a three years’ child. And +he dreamed placidly and in satisfaction. Moy Toy came and drew the +curtains, he thought, and looked at him with keen and friendly eyes, +and with a significant finger on his lips. When he woke at length, so +far had the bodily man got the better of the intellectual entity which +led together a dual existence that he felt scant care for aught,--his +detention, the French interest, Moy Toy’s possible disclosures,--if +but he had a sup of that mutton broth, the enticing odors of which +permeated the whole house. As he himself, with his thin hand, pulled +aside the curtain that he might call to Callum MacIlvesty to beseech +a share in that delectable burden of the family board, he burnt his +wasted fingers against the hot bowl which Lilias was in the act of +bringing to the bedside, and he hardly could wait to join in the laugh +which the two Scotchmen set up in triumph on the recovery of his +appetite. + +If it could make them happy to see another man eat, he ministered +lavishly to their felicity in the days that ensued. + +At first he was unsteady enough on his feet when he was permitted to +quit the haven of the bed. He could only make short voyages, as it +were, from one chair to another, catching at everything that came in +his way for support. But although of no great strength or stature he +was of a good, compact physique, and once “on the mend,” as Jock Lesly +expressed it, he progressed rapidly. He developed to his surprise a +sort of luxurious inertia; he would fall asleep after dinner on the +shady porch, his head against the doorpost. Naught in Ioco Town was so +lazy save an old collie sleeping at his feet in the sun. His inaction +extended to his mental processes,--he revolted from thought. He would +not address himself to consider his plight, his jeopardy, the future of +his mission. In fact all his faculties were instinctively quiescent, +facilitating recovery. He felt even that he had joyfully dispensed +with his old troublous identity. As Tam Wilson he was a new man, with +no plans, no past, no obligations, no imperative military duty. The +pioneer garb of buckskin, with its many fringes and leather belt and +coonskin cap, that he was constrained to wear aided his release from +himself. It was like being in some new world, this freedom of the ways +of the household, this transition into the identity of a man who had no +past, no secrets, no duties, no future. A joyous, kindly fellow he was, +too, and all who looked on him liked him. + +“This is what I should have been, uninfluenced, unhindered; Tam Wilson +is really I,--unhampered by circumstance,” he said to himself. + +His haunts were chiefly about the dwelling, which was situated near +the trading-house and in the very centre of the Indian town. The +traders--of whom there had been but very few in the whole region, each +always in great isolation, none of whom had now returned except Jock +Lesly--were allowed by the Indian municipal authorities, so to speak, +the “second men,” the choice of erecting dwellings at a little distance +from the towns or in their midst, if this were deemed to conduce to +the greater safety of the white inmates of the house, thus under the +immediate protection of the headmen of the village, for whose behoof +the trader was licensed. The Indians being often at war with other +tribes, especially the northern savages, this method of hovering +under the wing of the Cherokee strength, both civil and martial, +commended itself to the prudence of the trading folk. But the aspect +of the little Scotch home, with all its suggestions of exile, devoid +of a loophole within or a palisade outside, with no defense save the +uncertain faith of the red savages who swarmed through the surrounding +village, was pathetic in its isolation, its unique dissimilarity, its +effect of captivity. + +A vine, only a trumpet vine, hung luxuriant over the eaves and sent +tendrils astir above the lintels of doors and windows. Shining pans +were suspended to take the air and the sun against the posts of the +porch. Piggins, crocks--blue, brown, and yellow--ranged themselves +in vaunting cleanliness on a window shelf outside the sill. Motherly +hens pecked about the steps, and a coop of slats, built in the form of +a peak, restrained the activities of one who might have led too far +a brood of the newly hatched, mere balls of fluffy brown and yellow +down, endowed with motion, that flickered in and out of the crevices. +Often in her gray-green dress the golden haired Lilias sat here at her +homely flax wheel, while in the “beloved square” a company of braves +were marshaling for a northern expedition against the Shawnees, singing +their war-songs, painted for the war-path, the fullest expression of +the terrible upon which the eye might rest. Sometimes there would be +races or exhibitions of strength in the game of “ball play,” when +hundreds would assemble from other towns to witness these diversions. +The visitors, lured by the report of something uncommon at the trader’s +dwelling, would come after the more exciting events of the day and +stand outside and gaze upon her with insatiable curiosity. They would +watch the revolutions of the whirling wheel and the flying thread. +Her deft white hand, her unfamiliar, smiling face, her strange, golden +hair were all points of interest. They would listen to the whir of the +spinning and the vague sound of her voice, as she hummed low a weird +old song which she often sang about a “gyre-carline” and her witchlike +doings of “lang syne.” The men expressed no surprise, it being a point +of honor with the Indians to have known all things always. They would +invariably turn away without a word or a sign. Not so the women! The +fashion of attire it was that served in an instant to denationalize +them. From silent amazement they passed to whispered comments as +they stood in buzzing groups; then to open questions; to shrill +exclamations; to an unmannerly yet kindly frenzy of inquisitiveness. +Sometimes a girl would step gingerly forward, touch the slipper and +the stocking on the slender foot,--then fall back with a hysterical +twitter of mingled delight and ridicule. The vagaries of the mode, as +it was understood in Charlestown, the fashion of the white kerchief +about the shoulders of Lilias, the pleated folds of her dress, were of +endless interest to the young Cherokee coquettes, and kept them grouped +long about the porch, and Lilias’s pink and white dimples continually +playing in her cheek. + +Somehow this curiosity concerning her was displeasing to Laroche. +He wished Lilias were at home in Carolina. This was no place for +the rooftree and the ingleside. He always distrusted the savages’ +protestations of peace and professions of friendship. He was happier +when they were all gone and the little spinning wheel with its tuft of +flax stood close by the window in the “spence,” as the Scotch household +called the living-room. There the puncheon benches and the “creepies,” +as the stools of blocks of wood were dignified, had a gossiping way +of clustering around the hearth of flagstones, where an ember was +always kept alive in the great chimney place, being renewed night and +morning, as a fire was deemed salutary for the invalid. Its glamour +held gay Tam Wilson loitering there as long as the little wheel whirled +and the green shadows of the newly leaved trees without flickered +across the sunshine of her hair. Sometimes her knitting needles clicked +and shimmered in the firelight. Sometimes she compounded and stirred +with a long spoon and a burning red cheek the contents of saucepans +for his behoof, then laughed with frolicsome scoffings at the celerity +with which he disposed of them. He and the two Scotchmen exchanged +experiences and argued on political or religious themes, and throughout +Tam Wilson supported his character with a verisimilitude that would +have won him credit in the histrionic profession, and like the others +took in good part the trenchant remarks having a personal application +with which she saw fit to comment. He fell into the habit of holding +the skeins of yarn while she wound the thread for her knitting. So +adroit and persistent was he in thrusting himself forward for this duty +that he almost supplanted the young Highlander whose coveted boon it +had been. Indeed Callum MacIlvesty openly sulked, taking no blame that +he was the slower or the more inexpert swain of the two in the proffer +of assistance. And so far had the identity of Tam Wilson submerged that +of the diplomat, the soldier, the ambassador, that he felt a great and +irrelevant joy in the sight of the young Highlander, thrown back on +the opposite settle, each arm extended at full length along its back, +his eyes fixed dully, blankly, on the rafters, that he might meet +no glance of Lilias to win him from his just displeasure, his long, +muscular legs stretched out to the fire, his plaid, his sporran, his +belt, his kilt,--mentally designated “ses jupons” by Laroche,--all +in unpicturesque and careless disarray. So painful to Callum was the +spectacle of the dual industry that one day, unable to endure it +longer, he sprang up to leave the house, encountering Jock Lesly at the +door, where his horse stood saddled. + +“Are ye gaen aff enow?” he interrogated Callum. “I am na willin’ to +leave the house wi’ Lilias.” + +“Oh, Tam is there,” replied Callum impatiently. “An’ I am na goin’ +further than the spring,”--which was scarcely ten steps from the door. + +“Sae lang as there’s twa men about,” said her father, and he rode off +on his errand. + +But Lilias had overheard Callum’s first phrase and no more, and Tam +Wilson’s quick ears were hardly less alert. Her face turned crimson. +The young Scotchman had won much sincere gratitude and a very tender +appreciation of his interest in her by his instant expedition to join +her in her journey hither to her father’s rescue from the smallpox, +a disease then so dreaded, his adequate, thoughtful measures for her +safety and protection, and yet the swift forwarding of the succor she +brought. Odd that a thoughtless phrase could work such wreck! It was +but a fancy, a freak that had taken him, she said to herself. She had +thought too much of it, rated its significance too high. As for the +distance, the danger, the fatigue--were the men not all and always +louping hither and thither through this wild country, like the ranting, +gangrel chiels they were, where five hundred miles seemed a less +journey to them than fifty at hame in the gude po’ shay. He came wi’ +her because he maun aye be ganging--and now he was content to commend +her to the protection o’ Tam Wilson. She wad na gainsay him. She was +not seeking Callum MacIlvesty or his help, good sooth! Tam Wilson was a +welcome substitute for his presence and guard. + +She held her head high and proud on her delicate, white neck. Her eyes, +half cast down on the skeins as she disentangled the thread, glowed +and flashed, and Tam Wilson, the personification of demure mischief, +gazed discerningly at close quarters at them. Her sensitiveness was the +keener for the fact that Callum on his father’s side, the MacIlvestys, +was kin to “gret folk,” and the relationship of Jock Lesly and his +daughter to the young Highlander’s mother was so distant as to baffle +any ordinary computation, despite their pride in the fact and its +frequent mention. At that time in the colonies women were few and much +in the ascendant, and Lilias Lesly felt all the importance of her +position and the strength of her power to make Callum rue the slight if +he really cared aught for her, and to show him her own indifference if +he cared naught. + +Tam Wilson, in his idleness, his enforced inactivity, had developed a +domestic proclivity. He was seldom out of the house, and as the days +wore on the desire to go vanished. He was promoted to many domestic +duties. He was permitted to stem the wild strawberries that graced the +evening meal, and felt a stealthy joy to be berated that he should be +so slow, and to be accused of taking toll of the fruit too heartily to +solace his labor. It was he who went back and forth in pride to the +spring with the pail, who was set to guard the bannocks that they did +not burn, and when all was done who lounged on the settle and idly +watched her smilingly lay the cloth that he might dine. It was he who +beguiled the tedium of the sudden storms in the spring evenings when +the clouds shut out the stars and the door shut out the mists and +the roof rang with the marshaling of the hosts of the rain and the +wind sang like a trump. Then Tam Wilson would stir the fire and tell +wonderful stories and sing songs--military songs, gay clashes of the +cannikin, and stories of the camp and the field, showing a knowledge +so intimate as to cause the lowering Highlander to ask suddenly one +night,-- + +“Ye hae seen service, sir?” + +“Aye, sir,” answered Tam Wilson, instantly on his guard. “Foreign +service, sir, some years ago. I was at Hastenbeck in ’57, sir, fighting +with the Duke of Cumberland.” + +Which was true, but as one of the victorious French, and not, as the +phrase implied, among the defeated allied forces of the famous English +commander. + +“And two years later,” Tam Wilson continued with less animation, “I was +at the battle of Minden. I have participated in several campaigns.” + +Having thus unwittingly enhanced his rival’s consequence, the young +Highlander asked no more, but fell back to lower savagely and bite his +lips, as perhaps an outward figure of how he was eating his own heart +within. + +But it was the glamour of the clear vernal moon that bewitched +the unstable Tam Wilson, himself with as many phases. He would +fall suddenly silent, as under a spell, when its rays aslant, just +discerned, would drop down through the window from the west, where it +hung little more than a crescent in a pink haze, and draw the outline +of a leaf of a chestnut oak, an acorn half developed, and a bare twig +upon the rugged puncheon floor of the spence. The girl’s fair face +would be vague, ethereal; her hair dimly a-glimmer; her white homespun +dress of linen a poetic suggestion in the gloom; her rich voice full +of undreamed-of vibrations that he could study with a quickened +perception lacking in the bold light of day. The ember faded to ashes; +the candles, with the canny Scotch thrift, were not lighted, since the +moon lent a torch; the sense of home, of simple, domestic habitudes, +was in abeyance with the eclipse of the visible exponents. With its +sights and sounds annulled, the abstract interpretations prevailed. The +mind rose to loftier conceits. One felt the forces of life--not merely +living; the endowment of absolute entity--not sheer individuality, with +its limitations, its crippled past, its doubtful, hampered, anxious +future. The wind stirred the foliage without and reminded one of the +wilderness, the vastness of the world that was made for man; the spring +floods of the Tennessee River lifted a voice into the air and thundered +primeval truths. + +Through this window they could see the mountains--far, near, always in +massive majesty. Now a pearly, opalescent mist would glimmer among the +domes with the witchery of the moon, and again after it had sunk the +skies would be clear and densely instarred. Once a planet, so brilliant +as to annul all lesser glories, showed through a great chasm, whose +rugged, craggy slopes seemed illuminated in the surrounding gloom with +a weird, unaccustomed luster, so different from the familiar light +of the moon was the quality of the radiance shed by a star alone. +Poetry was in the night--no lyric, no vague, murmurous rune, but with +a splendid majesty of rhythm, with an epic grandeur and a meaning of +awe that might be felt by the pulses of the heart and suggested to the +brain--baffling language, never to be set forth in the paltry medium of +mere words. + +In differing degrees they all felt its influence, perhaps. Jock Lesly, +smoking his pipe with an assiduity which he had learned from the +Indians, talked, it is true, but casually, fragmentarily; and Callum +heeded enough to respond in kind, with sedulous care for the respect +he always maintained toward his host and far awa’ kinsman, but often +the matter and manner of his replies showed that thought and heart were +not in them. For the others they were silent, save now and again at +long intervals a murmur of assent or negation,--a dangerous silence, +instinct with a meaning no words might adequately interpret. As one +night succeeded another and the moon waxed to fuller splendors and all +the woods without were pervaded with that magic sheen which showed +such silvery vistas in the dark umbrageous forest, which idealized the +aboriginal architecture of Ioco, which made the feathered head and +straight form of an Indian passing now and again adown the bosky ways +of the woodland town so meet, so apt an incident of the picture, even +the Europeans felt an irking in walls and restraint and longed for the +freer air, a moonlight stroll, to stand unbonneted beneath the zenith. + +“Eh--the wearying wa’s!” exclaimed Lilias one evening, her elbow on the +sill of the window and the moonlight in her upturned eyes, with all the +wistfulness of a prisoner in their sweet longing. “How thae flowers +scent the air!” + +“Whist--whist--bairn; oh fie! Ye maun bide here,” said her father in +gentle reproof. “The moon will last our time. They’ll hae the moon yet +in the lift at Charlestoun, an’ gowans to pu’, I’se warrant, by the +time we get there.” + +What was this pang in Tam Wilson’s unmannerly heart! He dared not, +even in his most remote consciousness, attribute its pain to the +French officer, the Sieur de Laroche. And even as the Virginia drover +and herdsman he affected to be, did he expect Jock Lesly to keep his +daughter here indefinitely? He was almost stunned by the discovery +of the sentimental anguish occasioned him by the mere idea of her +withdrawal from his sight. He wondered now, however, since his mind was +drawn to the subject, that as the object of her wild-goose chase--her +father’s supposed illness--was removed she had not already returned. +So vital an interest he felt that he was moved to steady his voice, +which--oh, how preposterously--trembled in the first words, to ask of +her father a definite question concerning her departure, albeit his +inquisitiveness in his host’s family affairs ill accorded with his +position as a guest laden with many favors. And in fact the query gave +rise to some embarrassment. + +“The lassie might hae gane back at once,” Jock Lesly said, +“but”--taking his pipe out of his mouth and glancing cautiously over +his shoulder at the dusky room, still in the brown shadow, although +the light of the moon lay in a broad silver square on the floor, so +high had it climbed into the sky--“but”--evidently he hardly dared +to put his prudence into words; only fragmentarily he explained that +Callum and he had agreed that it would be injudicious to suggest the +idea of fear or flight by leaving Ioco earlier than was the custom +every spring. The Indians--“thae dour deevils”--so delighted in the +terror they inspired that they could scarcely refrain from the exercise +of its power. The little guard could be easily taken, overcome; and +mischievous malice, originating perhaps with the mere intention of +giving them a fright, might with the realization culminate in a +massacre. The journey was fraught with much peril at best. The Indians +always requited every grudge with the utmost rigor, and certainly to +pass by those blackened charred skeletons of towns in the ashes of +Grant’s fires, still tenantless for the lack of hands to rebuild them, +would be a pertinent reminder. The bones of cattle and horses were +bleaching along the watercourses. Other and human bones were even yet +being slowly gathered from the débris of the battlefields, or on the +site of remote hand-to-hand conflicts, and identified and conveyed to +the town of their nativity, till one was forever in danger of stumbling +on communities in all the gloom of funeral ceremonies when no death was +recent--oh, there were grudges on every hand to claim requital, and +the Cherokees never considered the identity of the individual who had +wrought disaster. + +Whereas, Jock Lesly reasoned, if Lilias remained here until the usual +time of his semiannual pilgrimage to Charlestown, with all his force +of packmen and pack-horses, laden with buckskins for the exchange of +British goods, any demonstration on the pack-train would be associated +with injury to the trade, the interests of which the Cherokees were +always solicitous to conserve; hence it was hardly to be anticipated. +The murder of an unofficial party, so to speak, would create scant +stir; but an assault upon the pack-train of a licensed trader in his +semiannual passage through the country would paralyze the trade for +years to come, and necessitate investigation and retribution at the +hands of the government. + +And this result, the paralysis of the trade and the disaffection of +the Cherokees, was precisely what that scheming Laroche had come to +the town of Great Tellico on the Tennessee River in the earnest hope +of compassing for the French interest. Had he been as true to it as +he was accounted, he said to himself, he might have found means to +promote this emprise of pursuit and capture and massacre. But it was +with the sentiments that properly appertained to Tam Wilson that he +perceived the wisdom and applauded the prudence of the proposed course. +He resented that Callum MacIlvesty should have aught of weight in these +councils, and began to grudge him, with all a lover’s niggardliness, +the poor boon of having been her escort hither, and the torment of +anxiety Callum must have experienced in his prayerful care in planning +for her safety, and his generous courage, prepared to spill the last +drop of his blood in her defense. + +“That’s why we no keep the door open after dark,” Callum briskly +explained. “The Injuns are used to seeing the door closed in winter, +an’ they’ll no wonder we hae only the window open now, an’ dinna gae +abroad.” + +“An’ that’s why lassie Lilias hings here at the window sill, as wishfu’ +as ony hempie ahint the bars at a tolbooth,” her father said, reaching +out his hand and passing it over the sheen of her golden hair. “I’m +thinking, Callum lad, its thae lint-white locks--the bairn’s tow +head--that aye gars the Injuns stare. Mind how auld Moy Toy stretched +his big black een?” + +“Moy Toy?” said Laroche, with a sudden wrench at his heart. He felt as +one might, long ago sold to the devil, at the abrupt reappearance of +the fiend. “When was he here?” + +“When ye were ailin’, lad. And now I come to think of it, the devil’s +no sae black as he’s painted, an’ forbye, no sae red.” + +He chuckled as he placed the long stem of his pipe in his mouth and +talked on languidly as he drew at it. “The creatur seemed kindly, an’ +wearyin’ to see you.” + +Tam Wilson could have fallen from the settle. + +“An’ when we wad na let him at ye on no account to speak till ye, he +begged he might hae ae look at ye, an’ when he drew the bed curtains +and he had just a gliff, he was satisfied, an’ went awa cannily enough.” + +So it was no vision that Laroche had remembered amidst the disjointed +phantasmagoria of his delirium. In terrible reality this red savage, +with whom he shared the hidden, subtle scheme of the French government +against the Carolina colonies and trading interests, had come to his +bedside and sought through the mists of his wandering perceptions to +sign to him, to promise silence, to counsel secrecy. More distinct than +aught else of the images of his fevered brain had been the presentment +of that feathered head, that many-lined, keen-featured face, the +white curtain in the firm grasp, the intent, warning eye, the finger, +mysterious, menacing, laid upon the long, flat, compressed lips. More +distinct--since it was real. + +Alack! of what avail the gay snatches of a soldier’s song; the tales of +the tented field; the kind, sweet, homely present of this simple cotter +life; the uplifting awe of nature that must needs follow that fine +sweeping of the horizon line of mountain crest against the blue; the +breath of the aromatic woodland; the mystery, the magic of the moon; +the sheen of the girl’s golden hair--Laroche could not escape his doom. +The past laid imperative hands upon the future. The reminder of Moy Toy +left him the realization that there was no choice. Moy Toy had come--he +would come again, bringing cogent influences of the Franco-Cherokee +scheme, the political promises, the actuality of identity, and all a +subordinate’s thraldom to the will of an official superior. + + + + + V + + +MOY TOY came indeed the next day and laden thus. In fact it was he who +had first thought of the design of falling on the trader’s pack-train +on their return trip to Charlestown and cutting them all off. Thus, +he argued, the country would be rid at one blow of the trade,--for +the others, here, there, everywhere, would never return,--and it was +the trade, the paltry bauble, that had bought the Cherokees, scot and +lot, alienated them from their own best interest, threatened them with +vassalage to the British, and with national annihilation. The vengeance +of the Carolina authorities would scarcely discriminate, scarcely even +seek out so elusive a prey as the immediate offenders; frantic and +furious it would alight like a bolt from heaven on whatever lay within +its orbit. Thus it would serve to unite the upper Cherokees, the Ottare +district, and the Ayrate towns in their own defense--the doubting +must needs be steadfast, the weak-hearted confident and strong, the +politic might scheme only from ambush, and Atta-Kulla-Kulla postpone +his strategic talks of statecraft till the council once more should +have time to heed his plotting and counterplotting. Then the way of the +French would be open. Then might its skilled officer bring the great +guns and build the forts and drive forever from the Cherokee borders +this perfidious foe who sought to enslave a free people by goods and +rum, at ruinous great prices and tolls of trade. + +Despite Laroche’s experience of the inconsistencies and contradictory +traits of the Indian character, this precipitancy surprised him. +He began to see that the patience with which the savages were +credited, their long waiting and scheming for revenge, the illimitable +distances they traversed in war, the innumerable shifts and devices +they practiced, of almost inconceivable ingenuity, to attain their +object--all were exerted only when it lay beyond their immediate reach. +Once within the possibilities, and the leap to seize upon it was like +a panther’s, as swift, as bloodthirsty, and as unreckoning. For the +Indians’ policy of doubting and debating was only when impotence held +their revenge in bounds. Thus it was that their hasty, unguarded, +impulsive seizing upon an opportunity of massacre and robbery so often +recoiled upon the body politic, which suffered as a whole in the +vengeance of the colony, the withdrawal of the trade, and the cutting +off of supplies and ammunition, for the murderous enterprise of some +small band. More than once Moy Toy himself, both earlier and later, +headed a party of these independent warriors, for whose deeds the +Cherokee nation at large paid the reckoning. + +It was well that Laroche had the futility of such raids in mind to +point the moral of the value of delay, of preparation, of acting with +due caution for the attaining of permanent effect. Press the British +back for a moment--that full-armed, embittered, more powerful still, +they might again overrun the Cherokee country! And thus bring to naught +the plans of the great French father to aid and abet the throwing off +of this heavy yoke--all these plans as yet in abeyance,--not a cargo of +ammunition _en route_. + +“I care naught for the desertion of the base Mingo Push-koosh; it is to +me but the freak of a peevish child, as his very name implies,” Laroche +declared. “The Choctaws are ever loyal to the French; the Muscogees, +and their subordinate tribes, all are in amity, all preparing for the +great decisive blow, the simultaneous attack that shall some day drive +the English colonists east and south into the Atlantic ocean and the +Mexico gulf. But the moment must be propitious--the occasion ripe. +Time, Moy Toy, time is the great warrior. Time always wins the long +fight.” + +He had walked out with the Indian, who had declined Jock Lesly’s +invitation to light his pipe at the hearth in the spence, this being +unsanctified fire, kindled by no cheerataghe, and had repaired to the +fire always alight in the centre of the “beloved square,” annually +kindled by the men of the divine fire, distributed amongst the +dwellings, and never suffered to die out till the last day of the +old year. The necessity had occurred to neither of the two men as a +subterfuge, but both eagerly embraced the opportunity that they might +speak apart--Moy Toy to communicate his scheme, and Laroche to contend +with it. + +The spot was solitary at the moment. Rain was threatening; a great +slate-tinted cloud hung above the darkly green mountains in tantalizing +suspension, seeming weighted and surcharged with water above the +drought-smitten cornfields. Day after day they waved with the delicate, +newly sprouting blades, rustling and lisping in the capricious +breaths of the wind, but showing a far-spread yellow tint beneath +murky, purple glooms. Day after day the impending storm passed; the +lightning that had rent the heavens with a stroke like a flashing +blade, and a thunderous crash as of the rivings of a world asunder, +subsided to an aimless flicker with a vague and distant rumble. The +purple-black clouds of weighted portent would grow of lilac hue, and +presently one might see the tint of the blue sky through the fleecy +dispersal of their folds. The wind rushed down from the mountains; +the sun shone out; the cornfields lay parched and sere; and the heart +of a farmer of that day and generation differed in nowise from one of +the present, albeit more than a century apart in time and of an alien +race. Fortunately the laws now are kinder, and the weather prophets +are fended from the wrath of him who plants and does not gather, who +sows and does not reap, because of the rain that is vainly promised +and the thunderhead that deludes and deceives. The cheerataghe of Ioco +Town were playing in very hard luck. The luring of that particular +storm down upon these fertile fields along the Tennessee River devolved +immediately upon them, and although the tribesmen were assured that +the failure was to be attributed to the wickedness of their own hearts +and their frequent misdoings, a farmer at odds with the weather is the +least amiable of the brute creation, and there was an unmistakable +tendency to retort the fault upon the lack of skill of the cheerataghe. + +Moy Toy cast a glance of indifferent interest at the group at the +further side of the square (recent rains had fallen at Tellico, +long, soft, satisfying--what is now known as a “season”), where +the cheerataghe of Ioco were plying their invocations and spells, +surrounded by a number of the agricultural sufferers and several of +the second men; their plumed heads and scantily covered, copper-tinted +bodies were all distinct in the weird, dun light under the purple +cloud, and against the white and gray fleckings of the tortuous river, +and the pallid expanse of the wilting corn. No one was alert to listen +to what might pass between Moy Toy and the foreign white man. What +would a drought-harassed farmer of that region to-day care for issues +of diplomacy if he fancied he had a chance of working a charm on the +weather! + +“Will there be enough of the powder?” Moy Toy asked tentatively. His +experience was limited, but he knew enough of the world to be aware of +the folly of exchanging a small certainty for a large possibility--a +small massacre for a large war of doubtful outcome. + +“Powder!” exclaimed the soldier with a scornful laugh. “I can teach +you to make powder! The country is full of the materials for its +manufacture.” + +With the keen observation of the scientist and the alertness of a +schemer to turn every incident to account, he had taken note in his +short stay of the nitrous caves of the country, of its resources for +sulphur, of the infinite growths of dogwood and of willows along the +streams to furnish the requisite grade of charcoal. In later wars these +yielded their benefits to discerning labor, but even so early Laroche +fully appreciated these opportunities and projected thus using them. + +Moy Toy, standing on the opposite side of the sacred fire, gazed at him +for one moment in blank wonderment, the curiously wrought stone pipe in +his hand, slipping through his nerveless fingers, shattered unheeded +on one of the steatite rocks that supported the fire. And he--Moy Toy, +the fool, the madman, but for an accident, a mere trifle--would have +laid in ashes this fine brain with its curious workings, its many +shifts, its convolutions of knowledge that exceeded the wisdom of all +the men he had ever known from far or near,--all would now be a mere +cinder, the sport of the wind, all lost to the Cherokee nation and the +aggrandizement of the great chief, Moy Toy! With the recollection he +became anxiously apprehensive. That night--that night of woe, while the +slaughtered braves were laid in their hasty graves, and the prisoner +awaited their fair passage to a world beyond in a bitter suspense that +was to inaugurate and augment his destined tortures--would the memory +of those anguished hours, guarded on the summit of the high mound, move +this Frenchman to withhold aught of this vital, this all-important, +this intensely coveted knowledge from the Indian warriors? Moy Toy’s +mental attitude, wistful, repentant, propitiatory, was distinctly meek, +as intently listening he stared at Laroche, who was a trifle surprised +at his agitation. + +“Being a warrior, a soldier, I have learned many things, Moy Toy, that +you would like to know, during my service as an officer of engineers +and artillery,--and that would be of help to you against the English.” + +One could hardly say how many months of work had gone into the +fashioning and polishing of that pipe, a fine bit of carved stone, a +unique specimen of aboriginal art, shattered on the ground, but Moy +Toy’s fingers were unconscious that it had escaped them. + +He essayed some anxious phrases of apology. + +They hardly knew what they did that night--surely they were sorely +tried--an embassy received in peace and honor, and ending in a murder +of unsuspecting and generous hosts--he feared Laroche had been +inconsiderately treated, but prayed he would forgive the ignorance of +the poor Cherokees, and help them against their foe. + +The subtle Frenchman now stared hard at the subtle Indian. + +“Oh,” Laroche said at last, airily, yet still at a loss, “you did the +best you could, no doubt, in turning me over to the care of these white +people who treated my ills in a way to which I and they are accustomed. +No, no; although they are British the quarrel would have been had you +persisted in keeping me at Tellico.” + +Moy Toy shut his mouth so suddenly that his tongue was in some sharp +danger from his teeth. Evidently by reason of his delirium Laroche had +forgotten the aggressions upon his liberty, the length and torment +of his captivity, the preparations for his torture and death in +satisfaction of the crimes of his Choctaw colleague. The happy fantasy! +The blessed fever! + +“There is one boon I shall exact for the service I have already +rendered you,” Laroche continued, seriously, weightily. “It is my +pleasure to ask it, yet it is also your interest to grant it, and as a +pledge of the future. I jeopardized my interest and promotion, I braved +the wrath of Mingo Push-koosh, that a woman’s life--your sister’s +life--should not be placed in peril. Much evil came of this,--but +_I_ risked most.” + +Moy Toy, gazing fixedly at him, thought he little knew how much he had +risked. + +“And now,” continued Laroche, “I ask in return a safe conduct for +another woman--the daughter of the Scotch trader.” + +He paused with some sudden impediment of speech, his eyes seeming +lighter, clearer than their wont, cast upward at the lowering storm +cloud. + +“This British family have saved my life by their care, and I owe them +their lives in recompense. They must go in safety, but--I promise +you”--once more that sudden hiatus in his fluency--“they shall not +return.” + +He was not as observant as usual, or he must have discerned some +extreme and secret joy beneath Moy Toy’s calm exterior. That unique and +quaint phenomenon of knowledge so delighted the crafty Indian!--that he +should hold the key of incidents of great import in the experience of +this man who was himself unconscious of them! And in the excess of his +relief that Laroche remembered naught of his cruel perils, averted by +a mere accident, the chief could have cried out in sheer, inarticulate +joy. But he said, quite simply, that Laroche was his best beloved +friend, whose injunctions should be obeyed, that he loved every hair on +his head, that he should never forget the rescue of his sister, which, +indeed, he felt he should have remembered earlier, for it was his +nephew who should be his heir and hold the sway of Great Tellico. + +“The life of the trader’s daughter, her safety, and the safety of all +the trader’s household I demand for that service,” Laroche repeated +solemnly. “And as it is assured to them so will I requite you. I will +promise you then all the aid that mind and heart and hand can give you +hereafter. I swear it.” + +Moy Toy renewed his protestations of friendship and reiterated his +apologies. The tone and tenor of his remarks implied acquiescence, +and Laroche felt no lack. But Moy Toy looked after him cynically as +he took his way back toward the dwelling of the trader, for the first +large drops of the impending storm were falling slowly through the air. +A breathless cry, like a gasp, went up from the rain enchanters at +the other side of the square; then ensued silence, tense, expectant, +painful. The farmer, poor sport of the skies, was aware that this +limited manifestation of the obedience of the powers of the air rescued +the reputation of the cheerataghe, since rain had fallen at their +bidding, yet did not save the crop, and, reduced to the position of +the only sufferer in the event, hung in desperate suspense upon the +developments of the next few moments. + +The trading-house, with its door broadly aflare, giving a glimpse of +an orderly assortment of merchandise within, had on the roofless porch +or platform a group of the young packmen who had accompanied Callum +MacIlvesty from Charlestown. They were wearying for their return +thither, since so many restrictions had been laid on their conduct and +language, lest they give offense to the Indians and bring down reprisal +while they had in their keeping the precious charge of the young lady, +“little lassie Lilias,” as auld Jock loved to call her. This restraint +greatly irked them, for they were accustomed to giving and receiving +hard knocks, speaking their minds without fear or favor and with a +very rough edge to their tongues. One, fallen a trifle ill, declared +that he would be well in a trice if he were not “just dying of all +these manners!” Sodden themselves in a thousand superstitions, they +had taken a keen interest in the weather bewitchments, in which, from +these motives, they had been forbidden to mingle. They had neither the +time nor the inclination to notice the invalid hastening away out of +the rain to shelter, but his disordered step, his pallid countenance, +his agitated mien did not fail altogether of observation. The door +of the dwelling opened as he approached it, and there stood Lilias +holding it against the wind. So incongruous seemed her fair face and +golden hair and whitely glimmering attire with the sullen aspect of +the approaching storm, the gloom-darkened woods on every hand, that +she suggested an affinity with a sunlit scene that glimmered along the +far perspective of the ranges where a rift in the cloud admitted a +suffusion of ethereal golden light, in which the mountains were azure, +the woods of a fine, intense jade hue, the flash of a cataract like +molten silver,--the very apotheosis of scenery, some transient glimpse +of the fair land of Canaan. + +Laroche’s lip trembled as he looked at her--so beautiful, so good, so +cruelly endangered. + +She noticed his pained expression, but misunderstood its meaning. With +the constant household anxiety as to his health--“Ye hae been lang awa +wi’ that dour carle, Moy Toy, an’ ye look pale. Set ye down by the +fire, an’ I’ll gie ye a posset, before the others get here to beg for +tae half o’ it.” + +He loved to do her bidding, even if it were not blended with many odd +“sups an’ bites,” of a quality peculiarly acceptable to an invalid’s +capricious appetite. He would have drunk poison as readily for her +sake, he said to himself, and added with a grim smile that he might do +that yet. For he had come to a full realization of late. He consciously +recoiled from all his loyal plans, his secret orders, his duties, +his pride of intellect, of achievement, his past, his profession, +his future. He said to himself that he would have liked the life of +a poppet--he could have felt if he had been made of wood or wax--to +be placed thus in a corner; to gaze at her with unwinking eyes; to be +given a bowl of drink, withdrawn in a minute, as she must needs test +with her own lips whether it were not too hot. He sought with sedulous +care the section of the rim her lips had touched. Poison! but the cup +of the present held nectar! He would have been satisfied--would have +kissed the hand of fate had he been only her pet dog. + +A great collie, old, cosmopolitan,--he had come across on the ship with +her father in the days “lang syne,” and exceedingly surprising did he +find the experience of a collie of degree on the ocean,--had deserted +the trading-house, since her arrival, repudiated his master, forgotten +his friends, the packmen, cut his Indian acquaintance dead, to lie by +her hearth, to follow her footsteps, to feed from her hand, to sit with +his head against her knee and his listless body, dislocated, weighing +against her, to whine in jealous disfavor and an effort to attract her +attention had she more than a sentence or two to exchange with any +interlocutor save him. + +“Whist, whist, hinny,”--she would gently smite his lolling head--“ye’ll +talk soon, and then I’ll ken ye’re no canny!” + +For this, even so little as this, Laroche felt at times that he would +barter his learning, his prospects, his identity, his duty. Sometimes +he sought to justify his long, unnecessary lingering here, despite his +consciousness of the fact that his very individuality was a dangerous +secret. Were it known or suspected that he was employed in the French +interest, he could not hope to escape arrest, and thereby injury to +the cause he represented. Whatever might be the will of personal +friends, should he retain them in the stress of these disclosures, +hard usage would he encounter at the hands of the British colonial +authorities--perhaps even death; nay, had there not been a reward +offered for the scalp of every Frenchman busy among the Indians? And +certainly in such an adverse development he could not count on the +adhesion of the fickle Cherokees, especially to their detriment! +But for this one rift in his loyalty, he was wholly devoted to the +Louisiana interests which he had so zealously sought to advance. +This--this was his own personal beguilement. He would have known how +to resist his wonted allurements,--the pride of intellect, the pampered +independence and security of life, the world, the flesh, and the devil. +He was full armed against them; the attack would have been met by hardy +resistance along those lines. But to divert him from his duty, his +loyalty to his political trust, his obedience to his officers by means +of a virtuous attachment to a being so gentle, so fair, so good that +“no man could think on evil seeing her”--this seemed a device worthy +of the devil, and very like him; for this attachment would have done +him honor in any station of life save this, harbored deep, deep in the +subtle, deceitful heart of an enemy in the guise of a friend, a spy +upon his benefactor, the destroyer of their simple and limited and +humble prosperity. + +Not so subtle as he thought--for now the schemer was but the man. Worse +still, for his secret, he was a Frenchman. Sometimes as he looked at +her those keen, eagle-like eyes of his softened suddenly, with his +emotional French susceptibility, and filled with tears. These tears she +saw, and in responsive emotion her own would start, trembling, to the +eyelids. She was not used to the sight of tears in a man’s eyes. Callum +MacIlvesty had not trafficked with such gear since he had first gotten +afoot on his sturdy infant legs and began his long travels through this +weary world. Sometimes, taking a pinch out of the proffered snuffbox of +a merchant of degree in Charlestown, Jock Lesly, who could carry his +liquor well enough, would find this unaccustomed gentility of the mull +culminating in a sneeze and water in the eyes. But such tears as these +of Laroche’s--tears of sheer pleasure, of subtle sorrow, of hopeless +love, of the sweet emotion of looking upon her--she had not witnessed, +and yet, enlightened by a kindred sentiment, she could appreciate; and +the difference of the manifestation for her sake from aught else she +had ever known made it seem the deeper, the truer, the dearer. + +Certainly it was more picturesque than the obvious signs of Callum’s +dissatisfaction in an unhappy love, though, to be sure, she took scant +heed of them. When “ses jupons” swished out of the room in his swinging +stride, she was cognizant neither of the cause nor the circumstance +of his sudden taking of offense. And this brought slowly to his +intelligence the fact that she was equally unmindful of his embarrassed +return, as he sat glowering at Laroche across the fire, well aware +that his watchful rival fully appreciated and rejoiced in the futility +of his show of anger. Once, in awkward inadvertence, Callum stepped +on the collie’s tail, and the shrieks that the doggie sent up to high +heaven would seem to imply that there was no other canine so ruthlessly +afflicted in the universe. Lilias rebuked MacIlvesty’s carelessness in +a tone which conveyed genuine indignation, and he could only protest +in a gruff monosyllable; while the beast, leaning against her knee, +causelessly sobbing for half an hour, would burst forth in a plaintive +yelp whenever his eyes met Callum’s, and her “Whist, hinny, whist” +had all the adverse sentiment that might have been expressed in an +admonition, “I wad not tak ony notice o’ him.” + +Callum could not even mend the fire with wonted deftness, nor keep his +temper when the logs of wood would roll down, but would administer a +kick of such free force as to send the red-hot coals flying about the +puncheon floor and all the family scuttling to catch them up before +the whole “bigging suld be in a low.” Even in the assiduous comity of +his conversations with Jock Lesly he often seemed to forget names of +people and places in Scotland with which he was obviously familiar, +and he was curiously uninformed of all calculated to interest the +elder in the doings of the regiment. Sometimes, indeed, his sentence +broke off in the middle, and he would fall into a revery, from which +he was only roused by the sudden jocularly upbraiding voice of Jock +Lesly, and once more with galvanic earnestness he would essay his +method of propitiation. Matters went better with him when the simple +and unobservant Jock Lesly himself did the talking, which was usually +the case, in great fullness of detail and long, circuitous routes of +narrative, leaving his auditor scant duty save to murmur “Ou!” “Ay!” +“I’se warrant ye!” at intervals, these dicta being uncompromising +and calculated to be generally applicable to any situation. His +supplantation was definite and complete. + +And still Laroche, despite his qualms of conscience, putting aside his +repentance as for indulgence at a more convenient season, interpreted +all the _indicia_ of the young Highlander’s state of mind, felt +the complacence of a favored rival, and experienced all the joys of +triumph over the poor young Callum, as if he had a full intention to +enter a contest against him for this prize. True he was touched with +the generosity of the young mountaineer, who had shown at the first +some definite proclivity to inquire into the stranger’s means as well +as local habitation and association, but becoming impressed from some +casual phrase with the idea that the guest was of meagre resources and +had experienced much financial hardship, he withdrew all his forces +along that line. The reverse, in fact, was the case, for Laroche’s +fortune was not inconsiderable and he enjoyed fair prospects. The +error of his magnanimous rival elicited that æsthetic sentiment, that +prepossession in favor of whatever is noble, which a certain type +delights to admire rather than to emulate. It stimulated a degree of +reciprocal interest in the young Highlander,--a sort of curiosity as to +his status which comprised several incongruities. MacIlvesty’s poverty +was obvious, not merely from his humble estate as a foot-soldier, +but often from allusions to it that escaped him. He had the manner +of a gentleman of a high type,--he was lofty, yet not assuming; kind +without condescension. He was often merry but never clownish, and +by turns grave and dignified without affectation. Yet his education +was most limited; he notably lacked the training appertaining to a +certain social rank, while possessing all its other worthy attributes +and inherent values; his experience of travel was the service of the +Forty-Second, the troop ship, and the forced march of the wilderness. + +Laroche, in his idle interest, had had an intermittent intention of +inquiring directly of Jock Lesly concerning the inconsistency of the +young Highlander’s endowments and position, but the awkwardness of +this display of sheer curiosity was obviated when one day the trader +complained of a freak of taciturnity which he declared Callum had shown. + +“I canna get muckle mair talk out o’ Callum now than when he kenned +naught but the Gaelic.” + +Then in reply to a question which seemed to express but a civil +interest, “Ou, ay,--Callum was near grown when he had the meenister +for a tutor, an’ the callant got to his English. Ou, ay,--the family +hae had hard straits,--but, wow, man! the clan were a’ out in the +Fifteen, an’ then what was left o’ them went out in the Forty-five!” +Though not without sympathy, he spoke with obvious reprehension of this +clan’s misfortunes, for Jock Lesly was of the Lowland Scotch and had +always been well affected to government. “An’ they lost much blood, +an’ a head or twa amang them afterward,--an’ a’ the land was forfeited +to the crown--there were twa or three titles amang them, a yerl an’ a +baronet or twa--I wot na what, but a’ very fine--if it were not for the +attainder. Callum is kin to gre’t folk! But what’s a title--neither +fitten to eat nor to drink, I trow. I wad wuss, though, the callant did +own the land that the government took away from his father,--wha died +in hiding after the Forty-five,--an’ the rents, that he might hae made +a gentleman o’ himsel’ instead o’ just a buirdly foot-sodger.” + +He was a gentleman even without the land or the rents, and the +Frenchman piqued himself upon his subtlety of discernment in having +perceived this fact in so untoward a guise as a “foot-sodger” who +shoulders a musket for pay. + +For these reasons now and again Laroche experienced a compunction +that he should be destroying the prospect of the domestic happiness +of this man, when circumstances--nay, his life was at stake!--forbade +any serious intentions on his own part. And yet, and the thought was +subtly sweet, she loved him--he was sure of it--as he loved her. But +in the dark hours of the night, when the house was silent, all wrapped +in slumber, a certain wakefulness had begun to harass him, like a +Nemesis; a voice of reproof sounded in all his reflections, of warning, +of presentiment, the prophecy of the future. When thus repentance and +doubt fell upon him he would urge in extenuation that if he had idly +won her heart it was but in the interests of that disguise still so +imperative upon him. Yet the thought of their kindness was like coals +of fire. They had brought him back from the verge of the grave. They +had lavished their best upon him, the stranger, for aught they knew +humble of station and penniless. Still, and it was the trifle that +wrung his heart with the most poignant pang, the best room in the house +was his; the graces of the bed curtains; the luxury of the sheets; +the cleanly though rude furnishings; all the little comforts packed +with the view of her father’s illness, and brought so far through the +toilsome wilderness, were for the guest. + +The heavy snoring of Jock Lesly would echo from one of the rooms on +the other side of the spence, but through the flimsy partition of the +adjoining chamber Laroche could often hear the creaking cords of the +bedstead as Callum MacIlvesty, sleepless too, flounced back and forth +in the instability of his feather bed, restless, anxious, reviewing +many trifles fraught with great moment to him, heartsore, weary, and +despairing. Laroche commiserated the young Highlander’s sentimental +anguish, but he had a sentimental anguish of his own, and he dwelt upon +it in alternate pain and pleasure, in an ecstatic torment. + +One night as he lay thus, pondering the events of the day, his +attention was arrested by a stealthy step. He put his hand under his +bolster and grasped the handle of his pistol. He listened hopefully +for the stir of the tortured Callum MacIlvesty, but sleep at last and +some fond and peaceful dream held the young Scotchman, and naught but +the sound of his deep and regular breathing attested his proximity in +the next room. Laroche hardly dared cry out and alarm the house, lest +the impending demonstration be delayed and renewed at some moment when +no one was awake and on guard. Except for the possibility of firing +the building, it was in danger of no calamity that could fall upon it +without noise. The doors were locked, the batten shutters had heavy +bars; therefore he judged it prudent to wait and listen. + +There came again the tread of feet, stealthy, quiet as before; the +impact of a bare sole upon the ground beneath the window was distinct +for a moment. In the blank interval that ensued he heard the continual +rise and fall of the breathing of the night; the chiming and chanting +of woodland cicada, in regular alternations; the rush of the Tennessee +River dashing over the rocks. Once more that sound, as of a bare foot, +and again beneath the window. + +He was exceedingly deft and light and certain in all his movements; +when it had passed he slipped out of his bed and crossed the room +to the window, not a sound attesting his progress, save that once a +puncheon creaked. He stood for a moment motionless, then peered through +the rift between the shutter and the window. + +Outside there was a glare--a sudden glare. He saw a figure so +grotesque as to recall for a moment the associations of his delirium; +then half a dozen figures came into view, all in Indian file, and +strangely bedight. They were making the rounds of the house again and +again, evidently working a charm. Perfect silence waited on their +movements, save always beneath his window the stroke of a bare foot +fell on a sleek and clayey space with that slight sibilance that gave +him warning. Heads surmounted by torches enclosed in great gourds, +hideously painted in the semblance of human faces, showed faces below +still more hideously painted; buffalo horns and tails adorned figures +grotesquely and silently dancing; others wore bears’ claws and hides; +a human panther ran on all fours, now and again leaping so high into +the air that he seemed some inconceivable triumph of mechanism instead +of a living creature. The soldier felt his heart sink. Seldom did the +Indians permit the presence of white strangers in their more national +customs, and thus often the depths of their savagery, their fantastic +barbarism, lay unrevealed. Some strange significance surely marked this +grim pantomime, enacted in the darkest hour of the night about the +silent dwelling, while its unconscious inmates slept. Their lives might +seem to hang by a hair. He bethought himself, with a pang of terror, of +the young packmen quartered in the attic of the trading-house--surely +the glance of a wakeful eye must prelude the crack of a rifle, for +could a sane man imagine this to be aught but the revelings of the +creatures in the midst of an assault. But while he gazed in a terror he +could hardly suppress yet dared not voice, in one instant, while the +panther was in the mid-air trajectory of one of its wild leaps, every +light was extinguished, every figure vanished; and lurk and listen as +he might for the impact of the bare foot upon the clayey soil which +would intimate that in darkness the strange procession continued its +rounds, he heard only the vague sighings of the melancholy woods, a +creak once of the timbers of the house, and again the voice of the +Tennessee River dashing against its rocks. + + + + + VI + + +THE next morning Jock Lesly positively refused to credit the reality of +the remarkable procession that had thrice encircled his house while the +dwellers within, all save one, had slept oblivious and unsuspecting. + +His bushy eyebrows had drawn together in a big blond frown as he +listened, his eyelids contracted over his narrowed eyes, but he shook +his head when all was said. + +“Na--na!--ye were dreaming, lad--just a bit of the fever on ye yet!” + +The futility of the proceeding; its lack of precedent in his +experience; the clear, fresh, reassuring presentment of Ioco Town under +the vernal sky, so peaceful with the dewy matutinal woods hard by, the +flashing river, the mountain ranges suavely blue; the friendly denizens +of the vicinage coming and going in and out of the trading-house; +the clusters of headmen about the buildings of the “beloved square,” +perhaps discussing some point of interest in the cabin of the aged +councilors, or playing the endless but trivial sedentary game of “roll +the bullet”--all combined to discredit it; all was as sane, as seemly +as civilization itself, once adopt a different standard--how could it +be aught but a dream! + +But Laroche continued pale, anxious, distrait. + +“I thought I ought to tell you and Callum,” he said--the young men +affected a friendly familiarity of address. “I know what I know! It was +no dream!” + +Jock Lesly rubbed his hands together as he leaned forward with his +wrists on his knees and looked up at the younger man’s face, with an +expression of kindly but superficial gravity--obviously humoring, as he +thought, a whimsey. + +“If you have no objection, I should like to speak of it to Moy Toy,” +Laroche said. + +“To no one else, then,” said Jock Lesly, for he accounted himself a +great proficient in the subject of Indian traits and manners. “The +Injuns no like to be keeked at an’ spied out when they are at their +high jinks and fandangoes. But Moy Toy’s a kindly soul an’ friendly. I +mind how he wearied to speak wi’ ye while ye lay in a dwam when ye cam +first to Ioco.” + +The instant the revelation passed the lips of Laroche, he saw by the +change in the Indian’s face that the disclosure was unexpected. Moy +Toy, however, caught his features into their wonted stoical calm, and +the flicker of expression was as sudden and as transient as the flash +of light reflected from a bird’s wing on a pool of sombre waters. + +Then he replied casually, almost in the words of the Scotchman,-- + +“It was but a dream!” + +“But, Moy Toy,” urged Laroche, “dreams come true. All the Cherokee +nation believe the dreams that visit the sleep of their ‘beloved men.’” + +The chief smiled with a sort of flouting contempt that the white man +should thus place himself and his paltry sleeping fancies on the +same plane with the “beloved men” of the great Cherokee nation and +the eternal truths, the veiled face of the future, revealed to them +in the sanctities of their priestly visions; he seemed angrier than +even the presumption might warrant. The paleface, he declared, was +not a Cherokee “beloved man,” nor even an adopted tribesman. Why +should Indian visions haunt his slumbers in the sincerities of truth? +Then, once more visibly repressing some secret, rising agitation, he +continued with a specious smile, “I myself have firmly grasped your +hand, and I do not speak with the lying lips nor the snake’s forked +tongue. I am Moy Toy! But these Indians of the dreams--beware of them. +They do not know you to be the best beloved friend of the Cherokee +chief. They may cheat you and deride! No man can lay hands on them--the +dream Indians,--and this makes their lying tongue so strong to the +paleface, even to the ‘beloved man’ of the French king. No Indian of +the vision should delude you to the wreck of your peace of mind.” + +Laroche said no more, resolving that no Indian of the flesh should +delude him, whatever deceptions might be wrought upon his senses by +the immaterial Indians of dreams. He seemed to assent. No man could so +fashion the guise of appearances to the similitude of fact. He laughed +a little, with the suggestion of being a trifle out of countenance, +a little ashamed of his confidences. Moy Toy, from being keenly +observant, grew distrait, and answered presently at random. At length, +as if in justification of the foolish importance he had attached to his +vision, Laroche declared that he had great interest in the significance +of dreams, that he held them to be scenes, as it were, vouchsafed +from the border world beyond, peopled by those who have once lived +here, that he had always longed to be admitted to listen when he saw +the “beloved men” grouped under a tree, or in the “holy cabin” of the +“beloved square,” telling their dreams to each other and conning their +interpretations. + +“And so you shall hear,” Moy Toy interrupted, “when you are adopted +into the Cherokee nation and made a great ‘beloved man,’ after you have +taught us to manufacture the powder, the spirit of death that comes +roaring and rushing with fire and smoke out of the mouth of the gun, +sending the leaden bullet to work his will.” He was still looking about +with a preoccupied mien and eager eyes, and suddenly he said that he +must be gone for a space, as he had matters of some import to discuss +with the headmen of Ioco Town, for he had been summoned from Tellico to +meet them in their council-house. + +The wary Laroche, as he cast his eye over the spaces of the town, +noted that the headmen were presently being sought here, there, and +everywhere, and that a very considerable interval elapsed before, +congregated together, they repaired to the state-house; he inferred +from the fact that the meeting was no matter of previous arrangement, +but altogether impromptu. The coming of Moy Toy had had about it all +the _indicia_ of a mere personal visit to him to make sure of the +state of his health and the date of his possible return to Tellico, +where he was likely to be hardly less a prisoner because he was so +valued as a guest, the prospect of his services being held at so +high a rate. The conclusion was irresistible; the revelation of that +vision of the dead watches of the night, which in his fatuity the +Scotchman called a dream, and the Indian in his craft a delusion, had +a significance, an importance that warranted the exertion of Moy Toy’s +great influence in the nation to summon into council the headmen of a +town, not his own municipality, without the forms, the heralds, the +preambles so habitually required and accorded. + +What did it mean, this dream? Oh for a soothsayer indeed!--for an +interpreter of the masked fact rather than the fantasy of fiction! +Laroche stood for one moment in despair, realizing that the lives +of the trader’s household hung upon the result of the debate now in +progress in that strange, clay-daubed, dome-shaped temple,--upon +the wild will of those malignant beings endowed, as it seemed to +him, merely with the semblance of humanity and yet with the mental +processes, the moral insanity, the malevolent spite of fiends. All was +the more barbaric, the more unholy, the more unearthly, because of the +recollection of the grotesque features of that weird, silent circling +and circling last night about the dwelling of their victims. Since +that dwelling harbored her, of whom Laroche could not think save with +a swelling heart, of whom he could not speak for the candor of words +crowding to his lips which his deceit must disallow him, whom he could +not thank for his life that he owed to her and hers, for gratitude was +all inadequate, he must act, he must seize upon some device. And still +he stood silent, inert, not knowing where to turn. + +Was it as a penalty, he asked himself in sudden affright, that he was +to be called upon to witness without recourse the destruction of this +home, the hideous massacre of the hearthstone circle, to him now as the +treasure of all the earth? Would he, indeed, do no penance till the +leisure he liked awaited him? Was he to find what joy might be in the +hugging of chains till he should choose to rouse his will and smite his +soul free of its cherished shackles? Was he, unscathed, to steep his +consciousness in the intense, sweet delight of this selfish affection, +pure doubtless, but because of the unimpeachable, unapproachable virtue +and innocence of its object, and not because of any restraints exerted +upon himself by the dictates of honor or manly faith or kindness and +tenderness of heart,--he who knowingly, intentionally, had won her love +for naught, to cast away again, had, perhaps, wrecked her happiness, +had certainly supplanted the true, devoted, loyal man fitted and once +destined to be her husband. + +Had he expected to decree his own punishment for his idle cruelty when +surfeited with the semblance of romanticism? Beshrew his leniency!--he +had devised a light one! To return to Great Tellico with an empty heart +and a drear sense of separation from all on earth he loved; to work at +the behests of the government that employed him; to obey the orders of +his superior officers for which even morally he was not responsible; +to dwell in a sad pleasure and a sweet pain upon the memory of a fair +face, a tender parting word--had he thought to hold in the sanctities +of his most secret heart the recollection of a kiss and tears of +farewell? This his prophetic vision had viewed as his unkind fate,--and +he had sighed in the anticipation of this romantic woe! + +He now stood aghast between his trivial fancy of the future and its +harsh face coming so near that it seemed half revealed. Heaven, just +heaven, mindful of retribution, would so smite him, insensible though +he had become, that he should feel its wrath. Was the blow to fall on +him through the woes of others? Was he to see the brave and sturdy +Scotch trader, so kindly and generous, suspicious of naught in his own +open candor, smitten to the ground in his own house, gory, scalped, +disemboweled, the gross flout of what once he was? All a-tremble, +Laroche asked of himself should he who had inflicted much keen pain in +ingenious wise on his young rival be compelled to witness the keener +tortures of the stake? And how should he look on her golden hair that +he had loved--save the mark!--dabbled and dulled with brains and blood! + +Laroche gave vent to a hoarse, inarticulate cry. For this, all this, +would result from his deception and his long lingering here in the +false guise of Tam Wilson. Had he returned to safety at Tellico the +machinations of the French among the inconstant Cherokees must have +been gradually divulged by the fact of his continued presence there, +and his identity as an emissary of that government suspected; thus this +handful of British subjects, warned in time, would have taken prompt +measures for their protection and have compassed their withdrawal from +the country. The menace that now hung over them was his fault, the +result of his treachery, his idle trifling. + +He wondered if the fantastic threats of the previous night might be +explained by the fact that the headmen of Ioco Town were inflated by +the continued presence of the representative of the French government, +the large splendor of his promises transmitted from one council-house +to another, his secret mission to unify the tribes, organize and +command their army. Were they already feeling their emancipation from +the British rule; already emboldened by the knowledge of the great +French king’s strength, as if the promised munitions of war were in +store; already rejoicing in the blood of their earliest victims, even +while it yet coursed with calm pulsations through their veins? + +Would heaven only in its omnipotent goodness avert the blow, turn the +time back, halt the sun in its irresistible march! He laughed in a sort +of bitter scorn that these miracles of mercy must needs be invoked to +undo what he had so willfully done. Yet he must know the full measure +of the menace--and once more the hideous, significant phantasmagoria of +that mystic midnight magic pressed upon his quickened consciousness. + +This was a keen brain, essentially the schemer’s. Laroche was still +standing near the spot where Moy Toy had left him. Close by, hitched +to the bough of a tree, was the horse of the prince of Tellico,--a +fine animal, bearing in his mien and form strong suggestions of his +ancestors, the Spanish barbs. Though fiery he was as gentle, and he +only reared with impatience and displeasure when the Frenchman, with a +sudden thought, laid hold upon his mane, seeking to mount as usual from +the near side. Remembering the habit of the Indians always to mount +on the off side he was quickly in the saddle, and giving the spirited +charger a cut with a whip to which it was unaccustomed he was out of +the town like a flash and galloping at a breakneck speed along the +trading path through the wild woods. + +It was high noon at Great Tellico when he drew rein on the banks of +the Tennessee River. Vernal languors were in the air; the richness of +the waxing season embellished field and forest, the velvet blue of +the Great Smoky Mountains, the intense, almost violet hue of the sky, +the redundancy of the flowering shrubs and the growth of the grass +and weeds underfoot. The river in the recent drought had shrunken +since he last had seen it, revealing here and there a stretch of fine, +amber-tinted sand, and again a rugged, shelving ledge of rock, and yet +again beds of muscle shells, numbers of which, opened and searched for +the fresh-water pearls, lay riven apart, giving an opalescent shimmer +to the casual glance and a whiter margin to the gray and glossy stream. +The shadows were limited, yet dense, so clear was the exquisitely +limpid and fresh mountain air. The sun was not warm, despite its +splendid effusions, yellowing with an effect of burnished glamour, +prophetic of ripening glories. + +The Indians who had marked his arrival gathered in groups at a +distance, now sheltered by a shrub or a stump, now by the corner of a +house, occasionally peeping out at him in the covert way which they +affected to ascribe to their consideration toward guests. For, said +they, openly to study the mien and dress and person of a stranger +savors of discourtesy, but unobserved to mark all his qualities from a +screen gratifies the curiosity and gives no offense. In this instance +they were influenced by interests far deeper than sheer curiosity. +They were all well aware of his identity, the terrible fate for which +he had been destined, his reprieve and transference to the British +trading-station at Ioco, that by the European remedies to which his +system was accustomed he might be cured of his strange fever, which +had defied the skill and magic of the cheerataghe. For what purpose +he had been reserved, however, whether for the torture when his +unconsciousness should not rob it of half its terrors, or as a slave, +or as a hostage, or other ulterior view of Moy Toy and the rest of the +headmen, the rank and file were not informed. Therefore a very genuine +sensation pervaded the several coteries as they marked the free, +independent air, the erect carriage, the easy, deft step with which +Laroche, no longer splendidly arrayed in the dazzling French uniform, +but always of a point-device effect, even bedight in buckskins, crossed +the space in front of the mound where he had awaited his fate in such +weary suspense and dread. Perhaps he might not have been able to +maintain this valiant attitude if that hiatus of recollection had been +once bridged over. The event had passed to him as if it had never been, +and he sustained the gaze of the community as possessed of a unique +interest,--a man who, but for an accident, might now have been, instead +of a man, a handful of ashes, whirling about with no more substance or +identity or cohesion of personality than the grains of sand strewn over +the “beloved square.” + +Laroche flung himself down upon the roots of the tree in front of the +dwelling of Akaluka, and took off his coonskin cap to let the cool +breeze refresh his throbbing temples. Akaluka, glancing suddenly out +of the door, was startled to see him sitting there--startled and not +pleased. She had had a great fright in the complication that had come +so near to the bestowal of her in marriage upon the Choctaw chief, +Mingo Push-koosh, who had slain in such grievous wise the unoffending +braves of the town, whom he had found peacefully spreading their +seines at the confluence of the Tennessee and the Tellico. Often with +a morbid fascination she went to look at the spot where he had hung up +“the war-brand,” a half-burnt stick swaying across the path, suspended +by a grapevine--an open declaration of hostilities, according to the +rules of Indian war. The cruel man! for as he had slain these he would +have slain her; and the trouble all began with the “mad young men” who +counseled the acceptance of the red scarf, and who cared for naught +save that the Mingo should not be angered and that they should soon go +to war again with the British. But they all blamed her, and they talked +and talked with many sharp words, and she was tired of all mad young +men, who were a vain and a vexatious creation, and she wished to see +none ever again, and here was one who had come and had laid himself +at her very door, as she still stood, barely discerned in the depths +of the cabin. Whereupon she lifted her voice in the extremity of her +disfavor and asked him why he was not burned long ago. + +The tenor of the question roused Laroche to his normal mental attitude. + +Perhaps, he said with affected humility in his ignorance that this fate +had seriously menaced him, it might have been that in view of the debt +she owed him she had seen fit to intercede for his life. Hence he had +not yet been burned. + +This politic reply brought Eve at once to the door. “What debt?” she +asked, in frowning curiosity. + +Her face wore a strong expression of racial ferocity strangely +incongruous with feminine physiognomy, which reminded Laroche of the +singular fact that in the crisis of the most exquisite anguish of the +torture, the women and children were permitted and rejoiced to flout +and buffet and sear and cut and aggravate in infinite ingenuity the woe +of the quivering victim. Even thus lowering however, she was not devoid +of beauty, and her dress betokened still a heedful eye to the values of +decoration. The wings in her glossy black hair were alternately the red +of the cardinal bird and the modest brown of his demure little mate. +Her doeskin _jupon_ was also red, dyed deep with the blood-tinted +madder-root. She had a great red sash, such as a pirate might wear or a +major-general. Moy Toy had been constrained by many pleas and domestic +tyranny, in a sort, to confer it upon her from the store of presents +of the French pettiaugre in lieu of the scarf she had been bidden to +restore to the Choctaw Mingo. She wore it like a voluminous cross-belt +diagonally about her body, then passed around her slender waist. Here +and there the silk had come in contact with her smooth, anointed skin, +and the unguents had streaked the sash with a darker hue. Around her +neck, which the arrangement of the sash made visible, being disposed +in what is now called a V shape, a string of white pearls lay against +the clear olive tint of her throat--the gems were large and for the +most part regularly shaped. She was stringing others, which had been +pierced for the purpose with a hot copper spindle--a practice which +the early traders sought to discourage--the application of the heat +discoloring the gem, diminishing its lustre, and spoiling its value +for the European market. Her feet were bare, of an exquisite shape, +small, slender, most delicately made. He had hardly dreamed that her +narrow, liquid, velvet-black eyes, with lashes so long, so straight, +they seemed to cast a shadow, could look upon any object with a stare +so repellent, so infuriated, so brutal. + +Before he could answer she asked another question, so dissimilar that +he was at a loss and fumbled for a reply. + +“Where is your hair?” + +He had been accounted a logician, a mighty wrestler with arguments, +even a subtle trickster with words, but his facility was never so alert +that it could, without bewilderment, make a leap like this. + +“Oh--ah--my hair? Oh--they took off my hair at the trading-station--for +the fever, you know.” + +“You look like a baby--a grown-up baby,” she said, surveying with +objection his short ringlets. + +“My hair is not like a wig. It will grow,” he said, with his gentle +gayety. + +“Your beautiful clothes are at the state-house,” she observed. “Tinegwa +wears them at the dance.” + +For his life Laroche could but change countenance. So is man, the +civilized creature, artificialized by his need and custom of clothes +that they seem actually a part of him. He felt the indignity as a +personal affront, the more acutely since he had not fully realized his +danger after the desertion of him by Mingo Push-koosh. His eyes rested +on the soft shining of her anointed sash. + +“Then I shall wear them no more,” he protested, with covert meaning. +“Moy Toy and I,” he resumed, hastening to cloak his sarcasm lest her +keen perception discern it, “have exchanged all our clothes, in token +of our friendship.” + +She gazed at him steadily. Such swift, radical reversals of policy were +not altogether unknown to the Indian scheme, and it might well have +chanced that beyond her knowledge the chieftain and his captive had +thus, in the formal and accepted manner, the exchange of every garment, +pledged and ratified a reciprocal fraternal bond. + +Her mood was gradually softening. She came forward a few steps, pausing +once in the sun to gaze at the pearls she held in her slender, deft +hand; then, entering the overhanging shadow of the tree, she sank down +in an easy kneeling posture, carefully selected and threaded a pearl +upon a horsehair which she held in her right hand, half a dozen of the +gems dangling at the end of the string, and looking up straight into +his eyes, asked with sudden recurrence,-- + +“What debt?” + +“Oh--ah--to be sure; why, the debt of your life,” said the wily +Laroche. “But for me, Moy Toy might have given you in marriage to the +Choctaw prince, who had boasted that he would slay you, would take your +life, being a Cherokee born, should the two tribes fall to war with the +English and the French. But for me--for I betrayed his counsels--the +Choctaw fiend!” + +Her hand trembled; she let the pearl fall. She searched for it with +patient diligence and a deft finger in the green moss where it +glimmered with a lunar lustre. When she had found and threaded it she +desisted from her labor, although she still held the loose pearls in +one hand, the partially strung thread in the other. + +“I will marry no one,” she said apprehensively. “It is very dangerous.” + +“It is very dangerous to marry Mingo Push-koosh,” assented Laroche, who +had indeed paid dearly for his humanity. + +“And the young men of the Cherokee nation,”--she shook her head +deploringly. “Oh, they are all mad, too,--all quite mad--all dangerous. +I will marry no more.” + +She looked down at the pearls in her left hand, but did not resume the +stringing of them. + +“The warrior I married once,” she continued,--“he was older and very +good--and brought much meat from the winter hunt. He would not scold +with a woman--that was beneath a warrior’s notice. And if a woman +wished to scold, she might go and talk to the Tennessee River. It +would do her good and not hurt the river, and her husband would not be +obliged to leave her. He was very good.” + +She gave a vague glance over her shoulder into the open door of +his house. Laroche, hyper-sensitive with all his recent anxieties, +emotions, sufferings--even morbid--had an uncomfortable realization +that deep beneath the thick clay floor of the dwelling the dead man +sat, buried so close to the life he no longer lived, so intimately +associated with the possessions he no longer owned. + +The Frenchman affected a gayer tone. + +“But all young men are not mad. Am I not young? I am not mad.” + +She evaded the answer. “At their gambols they may well seem mad. One +does not expect more then. But in war, in council, in marriage, it is +not well that young men should be mad.” + +“The gambols of various nations are different, as with their other +customs,” remarked Laroche discursively. “But the young men +participating are much alike. I have seen a game of the Cherokees in +which the young men seemed mad--oh, very mad indeed.” + +“What game was that?” Eve demanded; for in spite of her aversion to +those bereft young persons, and her stern determination to marry no +more, and her grateful recollection of the domestic placidity of an +elderly spouse, her interest in the “mad young men” was very fresh and +ever new, and easily stimulated to a discussion of their unruly traits +and peculiar manners. + +“Why,” began Laroche, shifting his half reclining posture, that he +might support his head upon his hand, his elbow deep in the soft turf, +while he watched her listening face, “what would you say if I should +tell you what happened when I first came here to Tellico Great with the +Choctaw embassy?” + +A slight contraction passed over her features always at the mention +of the delegation, a spasm of wrath, of reminiscent terror, of +indignant and wounded pride that she, a Cherokee princess, holding a +line of royal succession, should ever have been in danger of uncaring +slaughter, as if she were a beast, at the hands of a grossly arrogant +Choctaw, to whom she might have been given as a wife, and for no more +provocation than that she had been born a Cherokee. + +“What would you say, I wonder,” he went on as she bent her dark eyes +anew upon him, “if I should tell you that one night I could not sleep; +I had had dreams that waked me. And if I should tell you that I rose +and walked a long time by the riverside--very quietly, wanting to wake +no one. And when at last, refreshed and the dream forgotten, returning +within view of the stranger-house--where the Mingo and his Choctaw +escort slept.”--He paused and affected to laugh, but the laughter stuck +in his throat. “The maddest, merriest game--the maddest game!” + +She was leaning forward, her eyes shining strangely, the hand that +held the thread moved mechanically, beckoning, beckoning, as if to lure +forth the story; the other hand, holding the pearls, trembled like a +leaf. + +“Around and around the house was circling the strangest procession of +‘mad young men.’ Some wore buffalo horns and tails, and all had gourds +cut like faces, with torches inside, on their heads; their faces were +painted--painted! And one like a panther ran on all fours and leaped +and leaped!”-- + +“Ah--h--h!” A sudden wild scream burst from her lips, which she +struck with the palm of her hand, producing a sound indescribably +nerve-thrilling, and which he had heard from braves on the war-path. +“The spring of Death!” she cried in exultation. And again the wild +scream split the air. “No game; no game!” she exclaimed in convulsive +precipitancy. “That was the mock-rite, the funeral procession, of those +they meant to destroy--and oh, I wish they had! Why did they not! why +did they not!” + +Laroche’s face was as pallid as the baubles in her hand. + +“The Choctaw embassy--was it intended to massacre them?” + +“It must have been--though I know nothing of it. This is the invariable +prelude--the agreement--the seal of the compact. To circle three times +round the house of your enemy, if one rests in your town, as if it were +the house of the dead, and with mock and flout and spells to palsy +resistance, and with lights to prove the path, and with knives to cut +the pledge of friendship, and with the leaping Death to seize them by +the throat--ah--h!--ah--h!” + + + + + VII + + +HOW he fared on his return to Ioco Town, Laroche never knew. The +interval of his transit was a blank in his recollection. He was only +aware of the crisis when he plunged out of the encompassing woods, +still urging the horse to a wild gallop, lashing him at every bound +with his cap, in default of a whip, which he had lost, when or where he +could not say. + +The town lay before him, idealized in a suffusion of roseate purpling +light as the sun was going down beyond those dark, heavily wooded +ranges in the west into which the mountain plateau, even then called +the Cumberland, splits at its southern extremity. The eastern loftier +heights, the Great Smoky, bore an almost visible sentiment of peace on +their slopes, which were of an etherealized azure with a reflection +of the red west in the suave sky above their domes. The Cherokee +dwellings were all solidly dark against the fine, delicate intimations +of color in the opalescent atmosphere. Where a fire was glimpsed in +the “beloved square,” the red and white and yellow of the blaze were +like a crude overlay of coarse pigment on some exquisite mosaic. The +figures of the Indians themselves in groups of varied aspect,--sundry +of them arrayed in aboriginal splendor, feathered and mantled; others +almost nude; still again others clad in the coarse and unpicturesque +buckskin shirt and leggings,--all stood as if petrified at the first +disordered sound of the wildly galloping hoofs of the horse. They +watched in blank surprise the equestrian apparition speeding across +the open spaces until, hardly pausing in front of the trading-house, +Laroche flung himself from the saddle. He took no heed to secure the +creature. With the reins loose on his neck the horse, amazed at this +unwonted liberty and lack of care, reared aimlessly once or twice. +Then motionless, with a gaze of obvious surprise, he turned to look +after his eccentric rider, who had burst into the trading-house with +his warning of the danger upon his lips, that all who cared might hear +and tremble. No more would he trust to the foolhardiness of the sturdy +trader, who had weathered many a gale of disaffection, signs of Indian +displeasure, rumors of massacres impending, and threats of reprisal; +nor to the young Highland soldier’s unquestioning reliance on the +superior judgment of Jock Lesly. The under-trader and the young packmen +responded as alertly with fears and precautions as Laroche could wish. +With his martial habitudes reasserted in the emergency, Laroche gave +the necessary orders with such dispatch, such decision, such obvious +discrimination, that the men, discerning their value and aware that +none other of the group could have originated the plan, as instantly +obeyed as if he had been a military superior entitled to the authority +he wielded. Jock Lesly, coming in at haphazard, found himself a mere +supernumerary in his own trading-house, where his word had been law. He +stared for a moment with stunned surprise, and then at last and after +so long a time, hearing the interpretation of the dream he had derided, +he began to admit to himself that perhaps more mischief was brewing in +the air than he wot of. + +“It’s the French--thae kittle cattle!” he exclaimed; “I wad na vex +mysel’ if it were na for the lassie.” + +He heard with deliberative calmness the preparations which Laroche had +projected for the defense of the little colony, which he instantly +began to detail, so eagerly, so urgently, that amidst the tumultuous +words there came to Jock Lesly’s absorbed sense a fact which he +remembered long afterward rather than noted in that moment of crucial +stress--a vaguely foreign accent. Now he only marked the features of +the plan, and his strong heart was buoyed up by its hopefulness. + +“Eh, callant,” he cried; “it’s gey gleg ye are at this wark! Ye’ll no +hae seen foreign service for naething!” + +The phrase went the rounds of the lads who stood with their lives in +their hands, and, though loath enough to yield them in this petty +strife that had not even a fair quarrel for its justification, were +still more loath to yield first their strong bodies, endowed with +stanchest nerves, to furnish sport to the Cherokees in the delights +of the torture. Foreign service! The words were like magic. It was a +trained mind, with a practiced eye and an experienced judgment, that +disposed their pitiful resources to the best advantage for defense. And +with this reassurance these resources hardly seemed so pitiful. + +In two minutes the trading-house, a temple of peace and built without +the customary loopholes for musketry, had half a dozen sawn through +each of the stanch walls, save on the side nearest the dwelling, where +a dozen slits were fashioned. The emporium of commerce, being a long +and large building in comparison, commanded it on three sides. Around +the home in the early days of its occupation a ditch had been once +dug, intended to drain the slope. This was still deep but now dry, and +in it emergency mines were hastily constructed here and there after a +fashion which Laroche had seen in practice in his military experience +in Europe. There were still many kegs of powder in the store, a +quantity of tow, numerous rude bags and boxes and barrels, half emptied +or altogether thrown aside. Of these boxes and barrels he hastily +contrived fougasses, lining them with tar before placing in each a +heavy charge of powder. The energetic plying of a dozen spades soon +covered them over in the ditch, and several were sunken in deeper pits +with gravel and boulders to fill the space to the surface. He himself +worked diligently with great deftness upon sundry long, thin bags which +he called “saucissons,” fashioned from a bolt of Jock Lesly’s best +linen, filled with powder, tarred externally, to serve as fuses to +convey fire to the fougasses. He was a man of infinite expertness and +a genius in the way of resource, and barricades for doors and windows +were soon contrived of whatever material was at hand. He selected the +guard, the greater number of the packmen, who were to hold out the +trading-house, which, with its outlook and its loopholes, commanded +the dwelling. They were instructed to prevent any possible approach +by picking off the assailants by rifle fire, or, in case of a rush, +by exploding one of the fougasses, the saucissons of several of which +connected with the store, the others with the dwelling itself. The +under-trader, as vigorous, devil-may-care, hard-headed, hard-handed, +hard-hearted a backwoodsman as could have been found in those rude +days, was to take command of the detachment in the trading-house, Jock +Lesly himself, Laroche, Callum, and two of the packmen undertaking to +defend the dwelling. The two buildings were thus enabled to afford +mutual protection, and divide the numbers and break the force of the +assault by the Indians, each offering the garrison of the other, in +case of extremity, the chance of a refuge in flight. + +So swift, so definite, yet so simple were these arrangements that when +Moy Toy was summoned from the perplexities of his consultations with +the headmen of Ioco in the great council-house, by the wild alarum +from the Indians without that warlike preparations were going forward +among the trader folk, he found these precautions already in a state +of completion. Laroche, a pickaxe in his hand; advanced to meet the +chief as he came toward the dwelling that now peered at him, as it +were, suspiciously from loopholes. The sounds of excitement from the +square, of wild cries and eager words, the disorder of swift, flitting +figures hither and thither, the clash of weapons and the hasty tramp +of feet, all implied an unusual activity among the tribesmen. They +too were getting under arms, but were distinctly dismayed to find +themselves surprised--the onset they had planned anticipated, crippled, +perhaps even to be repelled by forethought, adequate preparation, and +a valiant defense. In fact, without those tumultuous concomitants of +the sudden onslaught, the stealthy ambush, the surprise of treachery in +conference, the Indian hardly cared to fight. And although they were so +vastly superior in numbers that calculation of odds was impracticable, +they were aware that they must needs suffer severely from the fire of +the little garrison, whose bulletproof walls would hold a far stronger +force indefinitely at bay. Laroche fixed the period of the enterprise +when he warned Moy Toy and the chief of Ioco Town, advancing with him, +to come no further. + +“The ground is mined with powder,” he explained. “No Indian shall come +one pace nearer.” + +Moy Toy cast an upbraiding glance upon his companion. And Laroche knew +in an instant that his discovery of the inimical midnight mummeries and +the suspicions they had aroused had been the subject of the debate in +the town-house; but for the habitual forbearance of the Indians toward +one another, it might have caused an open rupture that this had been so +conducted as to betray their plans. He had not valued the pledge of the +Indian’s word, but he had thought that Moy Toy realized his interest +was involved in keeping his promise of immunity to the “trader folk.” + +Now he would not trust to this. + +“I have read my dream, Moy Toy!” he cried triumphantly. “Am I not a +soothsayer--even like unto an ‘old beloved man’ myself--simple as I +stand here?” + +The very tones of his sarcastic voice, ringing so jauntily on the air, +daunted the Indians, so assured, so inimical, so subtly menacing his +laughter was. + +From the loopholes of the barricaded trading-house interested +faces peered out to witness the dumb show of this colloquy, the +speakers being so distant that only the sound of their voices was +distinguishable; the men at their several posts commented loudly to +each other. “Eh, sirs, hear till him, now!” “Wow, he had best haud a +care!” “Moy Toy looks gin he wad bite, the fearsome auld carle!” + +Laroche turned as the two Indians, cautious, mute, doubtful, playing +the waiting game, gazed at him. He lifted the pickaxe and struck it +upon the ground. + +“Here,” he cried, drawing the implement along the earth as if tracing +the way, “walked the mock mourners--thrice--thrice around the house +of the living, as if they were already the dead. Following came +the bearers of cords and chains, with charms and spells to hinder +resistance. And so--the lantern bearer, with light to prove the +path. And him with the knife, to cut the bonds of plighted faith and +friendship. And then the leaping Death--quick--quick--to seize his +prey!” + +Between each mystic sequence of this ghastly figurative array Laroche +lifted the pickaxe and drew a stroke along the ground. + +The two chiefs gazed now and again at each other as this recital +proceeded, first with obvious agitation, giving way to sheer wonder, +increasing to awe, and, as the idea became more accustomed, to a fierce +anger that flashed in Moy Toy’s dark eyes like lightnings from out a +storm cloud. + +“Do I not read the dream aright?” Laroche cried at last, leaning on the +pickaxe and surveying them with a smile of glad triumph, infinitely +taunting. + +“The white man reads no Cherokee dream,” said Moy Toy. “You have been +told this.” + +“The great chief knows all things,” flouted Laroche; “I have been told +it.” + +The two Indians looked at him with a keen expectancy that meant woe +indeed to the traitor. + +“The river whispered it in my ear. I read it in the clouds. The winds +are singing it in the pines--I can turn nowhere that it does not cry +out to me from all the voices of the earth. For all day I have been +in the woods--even as far as Great Tellico; your good horse may show +my speed, Moy Toy. All your Cherokee country tells it--the fair land +that was to have been rescued from the British, and with the aid of the +French made the head and front of an independent Indian confederacy of +a dozen tribes!” + +The large scope of this harmonious scheme that, could it have been +realized,--the combination of the tribes, ever warring against each +other, into a union of massed strength against the colonies,--would +doubtless have worked mighty changes in the history of this continent, +appealed to the breathless hope of the Cherokee statesmen. The chief of +Ioco Town hastened to say that Laroche was the cherished friend of the +tribe; the town of Ioco loved to hold, to shelter his honored head; he +was indeed deceived if he imagined from his distorted reading of dreams +of Indians--for dream Indians were mischievous and would not appear +right to white men, and thus loved to delude them--that the Cherokees, +least of all the town of Ioco, sought to do him mischief; they valued +too greatly his promise of instruction, the assurances he had brought +from his government, and the prospects he had unfolded of that large +freedom and independence he would teach the nation to secure. + +“Those prospects are as nothing--as a mere breath--as that mist before +the moon--even the moon’s light will scatter it.” Laroche glanced up +at the great disk slowly rising over the serrated summit line of the +gloomy Smoky Mountains, albeit the western sky was yet red and day +lingered, dusky and doubtful, among the wigwams, and in the opalescent +tints of the river, broken here and there with the tumultuous flashing +of the white foam against the rocks. + +“Nothing will I promise--not even that I will remain amongst you.” + +He detected a significant hardening in the faces of the Indian +chiefs--a sudden tyrannous gleam in the eyes of Moy Toy. + +“You would say I have no choice, Moy Toy.” He took from his belt a +pistol--a fine new weapon, secured from Jock Lesly’s own armament +at the trading-house--primed and loaded. “I hold in my hand the +opportunities of life and death. Unless all at the trading-station go +in peace, go free, and I myself accompany them as far as the Keowee +River, I will not remain with you.” Once more that dangerous gleam in +Moy Toy’s eye. “I will place this at my temple,” he held the muzzle +amidst the loosely curling rings of his light brown hair and deftly +touched the trigger, “and in one moment your league with the great +French king is a thing of the past. His trusted officer, holding his +commission and acting by his authority, will have died in your country, +in your custody, as definitely, in his estimation, slain by your hand +as if your hand had sped the bullet.” + +The two Cherokees, obviously at a loss, gazed at each other and +hesitated. + +“Never will the pettiaugres ascend your demon-infested, rocky +rivers--never will the barrier towns rise above and below those +defiant, malign obstructions and secure the passage of merchandise. +Your vassalage to the British will be an accomplished fact, your +independence a dream; for I who am sent to organize your armies and +perfect your plans and equip your warriors for defense and legitimate +aggression in war--I will do nothing! My mission is at an end, unless +you comply with my conditions. I am a soldier and no murderer. I cannot +and will not be placed in a position to answer to the British colonial +authorities for the innocent blood, for murder, for massacre. I said +to you once as I say to you now--Let the traders go! They shall not +return! Then, with the aid of the French government, I will put into +the field an army of Indian braves, officered by French experts in each +arm of the service, and the very name of it shall strike more terror to +the hearts of the perfidious English than a myriad of border massacres.” + +Laroche had already known something of the swiftness with which the +crafty savage could shift ground, but he was not prepared for the +sudden _volte-face_, without a glance at each other or a sign, +with which both Moy Toy and the chief of Ioco began to protest, albeit +in decorous fugue, notwithstanding their haste,--it being a standing +joke among the Indians, a matter of perennial ridicule, that the white +people would talk at the same time or interrupt one another so that +none could be distinctly heard. The two chiefs instantly declared that +they would respect his words and abide by his promises, which they +cherished like the blood of their own hearts. They admitted that they +ought earlier to have told him the truth--which for shame they wished +to conceal,--that only the mad young men of the town had conceived +the ignoble scheme of revenge for some trivial insults which they +fancied had been offered them by the young packmen--themselves hardly +less insane than the bereft young braves. They had been reproved for +their midnight mummeries and their threats thus expressed, and when +opportunity should offer, after the departure of the trader and his +pack-train, the offenders should be dry-scratched. + +The Frenchman duly appraised the insincerity of all this. He well +understood that the plea of the misdoings of their “mad young men,” so +frequently urged, was now, as often before, merely their scapegoat, +designed to bear the burden of the mischievous device of the headmen, +which some change of policy or mischance in execution caused them to +abandon. He hardly cared, however, to challenge their motive, since +it tended to promote the result he desired to foster,--the peaceful +withdrawal of the trader’s household. He stood decorously listening, +with a face of suave acquiescence, until, in the midst of their +antiphonal series of excuses and explanations, the chiefs stated, among +their reasons for concealing the alleged comparatively innocuous source +of the demonstration, that they had refrained from telling him this +lest he might esteem his own life insecure among such an uproarious, +ill-conditioned troop as their mad young men, and thus desire to leave +them. + +Laroche, at the imputation, could but laugh aloud in his martial +consciousness of courage. The tact of the Indians instantly perceived +the false step. + +They knew, they protested, the great bravery of the French officer, for +no fear had he! His heart was so strong as even to make him contemplate +taking his own life, merely should his plans be crossed. This they +besought that he would consider no more, for they only desired to +know his mind, that they might comply with his every thought. Still +he might well deem that their wild young men could hardly be brought +under reasonable authority, that they could be made the instruments of +winning and wielding such an independence as he had planned for the +splendid future. If he would but observe, he should see how plastic to +command they could become, how rightful authority should reduce their +turbulence and their clamors. + +And indeed as they swarmed over the dusky “beloved square” and through +the spaces among the shadowy cabins and wigwams and along the bank +of the river, still red under the vague dream light of the faintly +tinted sky, the wild excitement that had pervaded the tumultuous groups +subsided upon the instant on the reappearance of the chiefs among them; +whether a word, a look, a sign wrought the miracle one could hardly +say. Laroche, standing gazing after his late interlocutors, could but +admire the address with which they had selected the occasion of their +withdrawal,--not that they had been faced down by argument, nor that +their virulent threats were overborne by counter-threats, nor that +their scheme was again proved foolish, futile, fatal to their own +future prospects, but only to demonstrate how amenable, how subject +to lawful authority were these very “mad young men” when adequate +necessity caused it to be exerted. It seemed incredible how promptly +all the aspects of peace were renewed. The long, lustrous, slanting +rays of the moon, soon falling athwart the town, penetrating the dusky +aisles among the Indian dwellings under the drooping boughs of the +gigantic trees, flashing upon the foam of the river, or resting in +full, unbroken placidity on the “beloved square,” scarcely showed the +shadow of a quiver, or a firelock, or the flicker of a feathered head. +Now and again the quiet echoed to the measured footfall of a sedate +passer-by. An open door here and there might reveal a group about a +fire where fish were frying for supper, and gossip was still stirring +about the events of the day. Dogs clustered around the door and begged +with all the insidious canine wiles of their kindred of civilization. +The council-house, dome-like in its elevation on its mound above the +town, was lighted by a party of young people setting forward some of +their usual evening games or pantomimes for the general diversion. The +two chiefs, respectively of Tellico and Ioco, had parted as if nothing +more of importance were to be discussed, and Moy Toy, in the public +office, as it were, the cabin of the aged councilors, deserted but for +two or three of its frequenters, was talking over old times of hunting +and fishing and was telling a tale of piscatorial captures which could +hardly be matched even in these days of expanded imaginations,--his +civil hosts now and again constrained to laugh with guttural +remonstrance, or to interject an incredulous comment, “Ugh! Ugh!” + +At the trading-house, lights flickered within, but the barricaded +doors continued closed. The little garrison were to sleep upon their +arms in view of possible treachery in some lapse of vigilance. +Even thence, however, came loud, jesting voices, and now and again +hilarious snatches of song; all were very mirthful and with a renewed +sense of security under the double safeguard of adequate precaution +against surprise and the apparent satisfaction and pacification of the +Cherokees. + +In the next few days preparations for an early and orderly departure +were seriously inaugurated. It was not so much in advance of the usual +time for the semiannual journey to Charlestown for the demonstration +to augur undue fear of the Indians or to seem prompted by the recent +suspicious events. With an apparent hardihood, that was yet the craft +of caution, Jock Lesly more than once postponed the date for the +flitting, openly alleging the reason for the delay: now it was the +legitimate one of awaiting a consignment of deerskins which he had +been notified was to be sent from Toquoe; now it seemed that a purely +arbitrary wish of his own induced him to dispatch a messenger on a +long wild-goose chase for a conference with an Indian friend of auld +lang syne, for whom he had undertaken a personal commission to make +sundry purchases in Charlestown,--which gear, when described from the +aboriginal point of view, was found to have no counterpart in the +material world; indeed the demand for it was prompted in the full +faith that whatever wish the heart of man could fashion the great +mart could furnish forth. The remonstrances sent on a second trip by +the runner were productive only of very guarded modifications in the +requisites, and all Ioco Town, in its excess of sophistication, was +laughing both at the simplicity of the old Indian of remote Kanootare +Town--who had never been as far as the Congarees, and who looked upon +Jock Lesly as a master magician in the mechanical arts--and at the +kindly worry and fret of the trader himself. + +“Heard ever onybody the like o’ that--the daft auld carle! And where am +I to find sic gear? And am na I a fule to try? A hammer, that suld hae +a gun, like a pistol, in the eend, wi’ a sharp knife for skelpin’ that +clasps under--sae he’ll be aye ready for wark or war. Ding it a’, I’ll +no fash mysel’!” + +As he strode about the place and discussed the absurdity with the +various braves, all seeking to recognize some modern and simpler +invention in the mists of his elaborate instructions, and the Indians +came and went from the trading-house and loitered about its recesses +with the young packmen, all in complete and obvious amity, there was +not the vaguest suggestion of the antagonism that had threatened the +destruction of the little party. The idea seemed a flout to credulity. +Jock Lesly again doubted its reality at times. “Hegh, lad,” he said to +Laroche, “ye hae gie us an unco stirrin’. I wad na tak a gliff at a +potato-bogle. It’s ower easy to be frighted.” + +For Laroche, albeit aware how thin was this crust of peace that overlay +the seething, fiery crater of conspiracy and murder, was forced to +run the gauntlet in some sort,--to be the butt of the ridicule which +the harbinger of danger that does not materialize always is called +upon to suffer. Now and again he encountered this among the young +packmen poking fun in a sly way. The high value which they had set +upon his views because of his experience in actual encounters in the +continental wars, in which he stated he had served, seemed suddenly +inverted, and for this very reason his measures were derided. It was a +point of almost religious exaction in those days, as indeed sometimes +in these, to decry the regular soldier in aggrandizing the militia +or the volunteer, on the somewhat absurd hypothesis that the entire +devotion of a man’s time to a pursuit renders him necessarily inexpert +at it, or that the more one learns of military science the less one +knows. Whether this comes about from the instinctive arrogation of +the civilian that he is as fit in a fight as any man, and knows by +intuition all that the soldier learns by hard knocks, it is one of the +dearest delusions of the popular mind and is not to be lightly trifled +with. Laroche must needs have been more the diplomat and less the +soldier than he was to have perceived this spirit without the usual +snorting indignation and sentiment of baffled wonder at the presumption +of the comparison. But it is of that grade of intimate persuasion +in which argument or any certainty of demonstration is futile, and +like other military men earlier and since he permitted it to pass +unchallenged, with a secret scorn and a mocking acquiescence. It was +only in the presence of Lilias that he winced under this derision, +knowing that but for him the whole trading-station would be in ashes, +its embers quenched with the blood of its inmates. Yet in the same +instant he was saying to himself that her presence should be naught to +him, and that this guying was a trifle. + +How could her presence be naught, when across the supper table the tiny +flame of the candle showed her blue eyes kindling like sapphires? + +“Ou, ay, ay,”--her father was answering Callum’s inquiry,--“Tam is gaun +wi’ us--Tam’s gaun to haud a care o’ us,--gin he no taks to dreamin’ +agen!” He stopped his chuckle with half a scone. + +Lilias had risen and turned away, for Callum MacIlvesty wanted more +parritch and Laroche had matter other than Jock Lesly’s clumsy jest +to canvass in secret agitation. That blue, jeweled light in her +starry eyes--was it set aglow because the day of parting seemed yet +distant?--how could he care for the trader’s flout! + +The next day he had in some sort a revenge for his installation as +laughing stock. He had repeatedly cautioned the young packmen against +the lurking dangers of the fougasses which he had connected with the +trading-house for its defense. There had supervened so general a +scorn of the warning, the menace--even the sight of the Indian town +under arms had been apparently only the reflex of their own acts of +hostility--that the emergency mines seemed but a part of the whole +invalid hoax until a stout, red-haired young packman, striking his +flint hard by, communicated a spark to a saucisson, and upon the +consequent explosion of the fougasse he was tossed like a feather +into the air and had three fingers blown off. The ground for several +yards was ripped open as if the ditch had never been filled, and the +crags and chasms of the mountains rang and rang with the successive +reverberations of the detonation. + +Great as was the commotion among the trading folk, the incident was +as a revelation to the Indians. Almost palsied by terror, as in some +stupendous convulsion of nature, they no sooner comprehended the +agency of the disaster than their anxiety was increased twofold. At +this period, although the use of firearms was general among them and +the ancient bow and arrow were superseded, save in cases of necessity, +gunpowder was as yet an unaccustomed force except as confined to +musketry. They still entertained great terror of artillery, and the +effects of powder in mining and in so large a quantity seemed little +short of miraculous. Seeing the trader’s band presently clustered +about the scene of the disaster, several of the savages ventured to +approach, suspiciously sniffing the sulphur laden air and eyeing the +deep chasm in the ground with a grave, tentative aspect and a sort of +serious disaffection, which was in itself a most portentous threat. +It seemed to argue that scarcely any advantage was to be neglected +against people who could bring to their aid so potent an auxiliary of +destruction as this. Evidently the town itself might be thus destroyed. +The Indians began to walk about the pit, gazing down at it with the +sort of averse appropriation which one feels toward aught of menace +designed with a personal application. They measured the inimical +capacities of the fougasse, dwelling upon the intention of its device, +and obviously felt that anger experienced when one heartily takes the +ill will for the deed. Their state of mind was all at once so rancorous +that albeit the explosion of the fougasse was only another indication +of the strength of the defenses and the value of the resources of the +white man, and thus would seem to reinforce the dangers of attack, the +fact that it was planned to carry death and destruction to them, who +had as yet given no overt cause of offense and failed in naught of open +friendship, was as a challenge to strategy, invited reprisal, and made +vain all protestations of good will. + +“Eh, we maun be gangin’ the morn’s morn,” said Jock Lesly, wiping his +brow with his great red handkerchief, and gazing down from the window +of the spence at the curious crowds that came and looked silently upon +the snare--riven and exploded and harmless now--that yet had been laid +for them. + +“An’ what for no?” cried Lilias impatiently. “Ye’re aye sayin’ ‘we maun +be gangin’ an’ we maun be gangin’,’ an’ we aye bide here!” + +“Whist, whist, my bairn.” Then perceiving some inconsistency, “The +deil’s in the wimmen folk!” Jock Lesly cried indignantly. “’Twas only +yesterday sennight that ye sat greetin’ on your creepie an’ said your +heart was sair to leave thae grand mountains,--an’ go ye wad na!” + +The girl laughed slyly. So dull he was! So well, too, for a father to +be dull, when he had “sic a fule” for a daughter. She suddenly grew +grave and blushed with a deep, serious, conscious glow. She had caught +MacIlvesty’s eyes, bright, alert, with a world of speculation in them +as they were fixed upon her face. Could it be that he connected her +sudden change of will with the fact that on that tearful yesterday +sennight she had not known that mad Tam Wilson was to join their march? +For he had since announced that, designing to return to Virginia, he +would accompany the trader’s cavalcade as far as the Keowee River,--a +great detour and much out of his way. + + + + + VIII + + +NOR only Tam Wilson, but Moy Toy himself, Quorinnah, a dozen braves +from Tellico, and as many more of Ioco Town joined the escort, the +Cherokee headmen having become impressed definitely with the idea that +their interest was essentially involved in keeping faith with Laroche. + +An early start was made the morn’s morn. The night had not yet revealed +the aspect of the day, whether fair or foul; the world was sunk in +darkness and swathed in mists. Now and again, glancing upward, one +might see a star, augury that the sky was clear, and then the web of +vapor annulled the scintillation and portended the gathering of clouds. +Torches were here, there, everywhere, flaring through the gloom. The +gable of the little home would show for a moment as one sped past, +and anon would collapse into the similitude of a burly shadow. The +trading-house stood forth with continuous distinctness; the light +within streamed through the open doors as the final preparations of +departure were in progress. It gave bizarre glimpses of the heavily +laden train of horses standing--shadowy equine figures--outside, with +now and again one of the packmen moving in the midst, readjusting a +burden or examining the strength of the girths. In the chill matutinal +air the bells on the animals gave out a keen jangling,--all the clamors +of the raucous voices of the packmen crying here and there; the noisy +movement of bales and boxes scraping upon the floors or against each +other; the thud of pawing hoofs; the swift beat of human footsteps to +and fro were punctuated by this continual, metallic vibration, which +somehow was jarring to the senses and added a distinct element of +confusion. Albeit, with the expectation of immediate departure, the +preparations were deemed complete the night before, still, when the +actual moment was at hand, it seemed that all was yet to be done--after +the perverse manner of a journey’s start. Trifles developed into +obstacles; obstacles became immovable; the impracticable asserted its +inelastic limitations; and throughout was heard, from time to time, +Jock Lesly’s half paternal, half petulant, admonitory upbraiding, “Oh +fie!--oh fie!” + +Occasionally he quitted the precincts of the trading-house, leaving +the solution of its problems to his lieutenants, and plunged into the +more dusky and shadowy domain of his own dwelling, where, however, +he acquired no placidity, for now and again his favorite adjuration +issued thence, invested with a sort of pathetic intonation of futility +and associated with the name of Lilias. “Callum,” he would yell from +the door in despair, “Lilias winna ride ahint ye on the pillion!” Then +his stentorian roar, relaxing to domestic exhortation to the rebel of +the interior, seemed in the distance a mere rumble of “Oh fie!” in +conscious defeat; he would lift his voice anon as he was beaten back +from one line of defense to another, “Callum, Lilias winna ride ahint +me on the pillion!” + +Callum’s face, half seen in the flare from the door, grew set and hard, +as he stood saddling with his own well-descended hands the palfrey +destined to bear the weight of the trader’s daughter. His action was +significant, whether or not it was observed. He had begun to take the +pillion off--since she would accompany neither him nor her father she +should not ride behind the saddle of Tam Wilson, if that were her +object. The other men looked at one another, laughing slyly, with a +certain relish in the paternal discomfiture and the hardiness of the +young insurgent, rejoicing in the ultimate victory of “little lassie +Lilias,” after the manner of those who are indulgent to the whims and +desirous of forwarding the power of a spoiled and imperious child--out +of their own household. They discerned nothing more serious in the +discussion, but Tam Wilson, busy in the group, was obviously expectant. + +A longer interval of argument and remonstrance ensued. Then the great +voice, with a hapless quaver in its tones issued forth anew. + +“Callum, Callum! Lilias winna ride on the pillion at a’. Lord save us! +The lassie vows she maun hae a tall horse all for her nainsel’--oh fie! +oh fie!” + +He was fairly beaten, for time was against him, and he must needs come +out and see to the getting of his convoy together. Again and again in +the extremity of his despair he protested that night would find them +still hirpling about Ioco Town. But the first long slant of the sun met +the pack-train in full march, descending one of those steep defiles +among the mountains and the swirls of the Tennessee River, and the wind +itself was not more blithe and free and fain to travel. The pack-horses +swung in single file along the familiar ways of the old trading-path, +now at a brisk trot, now carefully treading a ledge whence a false step +would precipitate the creatures into the torrents below, without rein +or guidance selecting their footing and balancing their burden with +that strong animal intelligence and good will in labor which might seem +to entitle them to be considered conscious factors in the commercial +enterprise. Their chiming bells, blithely echoing from the crags, now +loud, now softly vibrating, as the tones of those in the vanguard or +far away in the rear came to the ear, made no dissonance in the free +open air in their diversity of quality, and smote upon the dash of +waters with the effect of sudden cymbals in the flutings and stringed +vibrations of orchestral music. The mist had taken wings. Far and near +the airy essences were rising from the mountains. The morning star, +luminous, splendid, in her amber cloud, exhaled like a dewdrop in the +glance of the sun. The spirit of May was in the air. The alert breeze +had a keen, matutinal reviviscence, despite the languors of spring, +and upon the mountains was a vague, blue presence, an efflorescence of +haze like the bloom on a grape, that made their tint deeper, richer, +softer, whether it were the azure of the furthest reaches of vision or +the sombre purple of the nearer ranges, or the densely, darkly verdant +slopes closing about the immediate vicinage of the series of cup-like +coves. + +In the distinct light the convolutions of the train became easily +discernible to the eye, as from lower ground one could look back up the +winding slopes of the ravine, so narrow at times as to leave a passage +but for two or three abreast. Several of the stoutest men, fully armed, +rode in the vanguard, and after the pack animals and their drivers +came another close squad of horsemen, for owing to the packmen that +Callum MacIlvesty had brought with him, the guard of the pack-train was +more numerous than it was wont to be. A salient feature of the long, +winding troop was the waving feathers of the braves, themselves riding +together, for albeit most friendly of aspect, it was deemed meet that +they and the young packmen should have as scant opportunity as might be +to fall at loggerheads. + +“They can’t talk thegither, praise God!” said Jock Lesly, who had had +little thought he should ever be in case to be thankful for the impiety +of the builders of the Tower of Babel, that had brought about the +confusion of tongues. “But they are a’ kittle cattle, and I’se no trust +them thegither.” + +As he himself rode between the packmen and the Cherokee braves, his +own companions were Moy Toy and Quorinnah, who had attached themselves +to the chief of the expedition as their only equal in point of rank. +He had anticipated this and had directed Callum to ride at the bridle +rein of Lilias, whose station was between the squad of extra packmen +and the drivers of the pack-train. Tam Wilson had no place assigned to +him in the line of march. He was aware, when he took up his position +on the other side of her palfrey, that he might seem animated by a +sentiment far alien to the spirit of resignation and renunciation +that had lately possessed him, but in reality he was influenced by +the knowledge of the added protection his proximity afforded her. +Nevertheless, with the satisfaction of their safe departure, which +he knew his own exertions had secured, the keen edge of exhilaration +and expectancy that dangers still unmasked may give, the necessity +to support the character he had assumed, the delirious joy that her +presence and his knowledge of her preference could but diffuse through +mind and heart, all overcame for a time his sense of regret for his +idle delay, his disloyalty, his duplicity. He forgot the futile cruelty +to Callum MacIlvesty, and the deceit practiced toward her; and the +identity of Tam Wilson, which he claimed as his own true character, was +never more definite, more consistent than as he fared gayly by her side +down the devious ways of the mountain wilderness. The tinkling of the +bells and the chiming of the echoes were in his ears. He breathed the +fragrance that the herbs of the earth distilled into the rare air; the +colors of the landscape glowed so rich, so fine, so fair; and all the +heart of a beautiful woman who loved him was in her eyes as she looked +at him. + +It was plain to Callum MacIlvesty, and Lilias scarcely cared that it +was. She had no realization of him save that his words, his face, his +very existence irked her, and she would fain be rid of him--being +in the nature of an interruption of the free thought of another. He +wondered afterward that he could be so patient--to watch her fair face +cloud as even casually she turned; to hear the inflection of annoyance +in her voice when she spoke to him, and she did not speak unless she +needs must answer; to mark her appeal to Tam Wilson for the buckling of +her rein anew, and the readjustment of her saddle; for a flower growing +beside the way; for a cluster of wild strawberries, which she ate to +the manifest danger of life and limb, the reins falling on her horse’s +neck as he gingerly picked his way, stumbling now and again down the +rugged descent, until Tam Wilson himself gathered up the lines and +guided the animal. And when the strawberries were eaten she rode on, +laughing like a child, her head bare under the sun, her golden curls +hanging down on her shoulder, and her milk-white face burning red, +although her riding mask swung by its string to her belt. + +Sometimes Laroche was summoned back by the requisition of Moy Toy, Jock +Lesly, and Quorinnah, to give opinions or arbitrate on some moot point +of the trading privileges as established by the treaty, the Cherokees +secretly delighted that it was to a Frenchman, actively employed in the +French interest, to whom the unwitting British trader was appealing, by +whose decision he professed himself willing to abide, and that these +fine-spun theories were to be of consequence no more. + +Then--the two young Scotch people left together--Lilias would gravely +grasp the reins and ride slowly along, gazing up continually at the +massive ranges, for their aspect shifted as the route of the travelers +deviated. When one majestic dome, always in view from the little window +of the spence, seemed on the very border-land of vision, the turn +around a crag about to cut it off forever, she checked her horse and +paused to look her last upon it. + +“I’ll never see it mair!” she cried, in accents of positive pain. “I’ll +ne’er be sae happy again as I hae been, living in the sight. Fare ye +weel, sweet friend. May the warld gae cannily wi’ ye!” + +The blue dome still towered like a mirage in the distance above the +purple of nearer heights and the green of the foothills; then the crag +intervened, and suddenly she laid down the reins on the horse’s neck +and began to tie on her mask. + +“Ye’ll see mountains agen. There’s mountains enough elsewhere, Lilias,” +said Callum, in awkward consolation, as he caught up the reins and held +the horse to a steady gait. + +“Nane like these,” she protested in a husky voice. “There’s mountains +enough in Scotland, an’ that’s nae joy to you nor to me.” + +And this was very true, as the poor exile realized; his heart might +ache vainly for the rugged mountains he remembered and loved, and as +for these mountains of this new land she, whom he loved best, loved +them well for another man’s sake. He gazed upon them with dreary +eyes and an inward protest against them. Happy in their shadow! in +magnitude, in multitude they typified woe, unceasing, immeasurable, +ineradicable. So these two rode on together in silence, save that she +murmured now and again, “Thae sweet mountains!” + +He was none the happier when Tam Wilson came spurring up again, and +Lilias was suddenly blithe and bonny once more. She was as gay as a +child when they reached the first unfordable river, where the singular +methods of ferriage of those days came into requisition. Through the +shallow waters of the fords the knowing pack animals had cheerfully +trudged, scarcely needing and certainly not noticing the halloos and +cracking of whips with which the packmen beguiled the passage. Here, +however, was a river deep enough to threaten damage to the packs and +to require swimming, and the horses lined up on the margin, still with +their tinkling bells fitfully jingling, and staidly awaited, more than +one with expectant whinnies, the removal of their burdens. A delay +ensued, as always, and each section of the guard coming up, kept apart +to this time for reasons of policy, halted in a medley on the high and +rocky banks which resounded and reëchoed with the various calls in +Cherokee and English and braid Scots, with the jangling of bells and +stamping of hoofs. Here and there an active and agitated search was in +progress for the boat, constructed of buffalo skins and always hidden +among the willows or rocks on shore when not in requisition by the +traders and packmen and their Indian coadjutors,--the headmen of Ioco, +the town where the station was situated, being admitted to the secret +of the cache. + +“Gone! gone!”--a frenzied exclamation arose. “Stolen! Carried away!” + +Perhaps hidden anew! A score of active figures dashed hither and +thither, now bursting out of the willows with exclamations of dismay, +now plunging down the bank to a new point of search. Some as they sped +up and down showed above the rocks heads polled and feathered, others, +most genteel, with cocked hats, and again the coonskin cap or Callum’s +Highland bonnet was in evidence. Lilias, in the flickering, glinting +shade of a low-hanging beech tree, her head bare and golden, her face +so fair, looking as some dryad might, captured by this wild and varied +rout, waited like one apart, without a pulse of the impatience that +swayed the whole cavalcade. She was living in the present. For aught +she cared the journey might last forever. The past, it was naught to +her; the future was so strangely veiled--and somehow she trembled at +the thought. To-day! to-day! + +The disaster threatened a long delay; a new boat must be built, new +hides procured, all suitably tanned, and the incident itself suggested +treachery and fomented suspicion. More than once the eyes of Callum +MacIlvesty and Tam Wilson met in secret comment, an interchange +of inquiry, a fraternal interdependence, all other considerations +forgotten in the realization of a common danger. But Moy Toy’s face +was frankly clouded, and Quorinnah was already suggesting ways and +means by which, going into camp here, help might be fetched from Ioco +Town. Only Jock Lesly gave no outward sign of his inward perturbation +as he strode up and down the bank, save that now and again he +admonished his cohorts with a shake of the head and a vehement “Oh fie! +oh fie!” + +And at last and suddenly, quiet descended on all the disordered crew, +bating a word or two of rancorous upbraiding and a retort of raucous +yet sheepish protest, for the boat was found where first it had been +presumed to be. It had been overlooked, so well had it been hidden, +and once declared to be missing the place of its usual and most +obvious bestowal was not searched again till desperation suggested +the retracing of all the various steps that had been taken. And so +it was presently launched. A queer craft we of to-day would deem it, +and perhaps would prefer something more stanch and less picturesque, +seeing how swift and deep and rocky was the river. But the capsizing of +such a boat meant only some slight injury of the goods and the swift +swimming of the hardy passengers ashore, none the worse for the plunge +into the clear waters of the mountain stream. The hides stretched +between stout saplings, serving as gunwale and keel and tightly bound +at each end, were distended toward the centre by crosspieces of the +same fashioning, holding the boat in the conventional canoe shape, +and the structure would convey ten horse loads at once. The method of +progression was still more singular--no oars nor poles were used in +its propulsion. The hardy packmen of the day, being lightly clad in +buckskins, were wont boldly to fling themselves into the river and swim +across, pushing the pettiaugre before them, their horses all gallantly +swimming in the rear. When the first boat’s load had been piled upon +the craft, Lilias was conducted down the steep bank and seated in the +boat, the only passenger, upon the bales of fine dressed deerskins. +Callum MacIlvesty and a number of other young men were instantly in the +water, wading first, then swimming, with the liberated horses following +after. The girl liked the novelty. She smiled down from her high perch +at each strong stroke that sent the curious structure throbbing and +quivering on its way, with its silver wake and a little ripple of foam +at the prow. The river was crystal clear, smooth, and shining in its +centre under the sun, deeply, duskily green beneath the shadow of the +trees on the further shore. Beyond, where the stream rounded a sort +of peninsula, a great glittering stretch of water seemed to extend +indefinitely in a haze that hung about a flat margin and there met the +sun in a vaporous shimmer, dazzling yet soft. All the group on the +hither shore gazed at the progress of the boat, but only the cultivated +imagination of the French officer suggested similitudes of aught that +it was not. Against that green and white and misty background the +shell-shaped craft and the still and smiling golden-haired figure +recalled some legendary sea nymph, some Venus in the gliding shallop; +the sleek heads of the attendant train suggested dolphins and sea +horses, gleaming in the sunset as they swam swiftly after. + +There was scant space for the flattery of illusions, for the deep +shadows of the leafy bank opposite were falling upon this misty +presentment of myths, the necromancy of the sheen and shimmer, and +obliterating it as the little craft was pushed in to the land. Those of +the packmen who had crossed were shaking the water from their dripping +garments with no more care for a drenching than so many shaggy dogs, +and presently were resaddling their horses, while Lilias, quite dry and +fresh, stood apart on a little promontory of rock and with a scornful +wave of the hand bade Callum in his saturated kilt keep his distance. + +It seems incredible that such a man as Laroche should fear a little +guying, but perhaps it was only the spectacle of Callum’s discomfiture +that reconciled him to the knowledge of the scoffs at him, covert and +otherwise, which he knew he should receive from the other young men +when with Jock Lesly and the Indian headmen he should cross in the +boat on its second trip, his condition as a recent invalid entitling +him to share their honors and ease. It was barely possible, however, +that Lilias would have found no occasion, even were he also dripping +from the short swim, to place an embargo on his near approach. Why it +was that this watery quarantine should have roused Callum MacIlvesty’s +spirit of revolt, of self-assertion, of pride, it is difficult to say. +Perhaps merely the limit of his endurance was reached when he was cried +out upon like a too affectionate and dripping water dog. + +“I winna sprinkle your kirtle,” he said with some dignity, despite the +triviality of the theme. And he withdrew himself--not merely till the +hot sun and the reflected heat of sand and rocks should dry off his +garments, which, aided by the swift running to and fro on the errands +of the pack-train, the brisk wind, and the warmth of his own body, was +shortly effected. + +The whole train was in motion again incredibly soon, considering the +abnormal difficulties which these primitive methods of ferriage would +seem to present. The young packmen, by reason of being detailed to +the earliest crossing, were kept separated from the braves, the “mad +young men,” with whom it was feared some quarrel might arise through +their perverse ingenuity, independent of verbal communication. These +tribesmen came last of all, after the dignitaries of both factions, and +thus when once more on the march the original formation of the little +cavalcade was preserved. + +Only Callum MacIlvesty had shifted his position. He no longer rode at +the right hand of Lilias, but ahead with the squad of packmen, and Tam +Wilson succeeded to the position he had occupied; but Lilias appeared +hardly to have noticed Callum’s absence, and certainly did not waste +a thought upon it. Her radiant spirit seemed to shine through her +eyes--she was gay, whimsically, childishly fascinating one moment; +soft, serious, deeply emotional the next; now showing her more earnest +traits, careful, womanly, unselfish; and again the veriest flutterer +of a butterfly. She had never been so protean of mood, so beautiful, +so charming. And yet Laroche looked upon her with changed eyes, a +newly aroused and upbraiding conscience. The frightful bodily danger +in which they had all recently stood from the murderous Cherokees, +his triumphant scheming to avert their impending fate, had been as a +reprieve to thoughts that now in this leisure again clamored for a +hearing. His long, idle lingering amongst them and enforced concealment +of his identity had brought this menace upon them. He had not yet +annulled all its evils. And now--whither was he tending? Daily he +considered the question. + +He was a man of education, having had superior facilities and both the +talent and the will to avail himself of them. He was not without social +culture, and he moved in coteries of refinement. While not of the +higher nobility, he was still a man of good birth, of degree, and of +some fortune, and this had enabled him to tolerate the more kindly the +bourgeois, nay the peasant-like aspect of the Lesly household, since +it was but a matter of contemplation, and by no means of assimilation. +He had regarded it with all its homely traits and habitudes as +impersonally as if it were a scene on a stage. + +In addition he was consumed by professional ambition; he had always +been accounted an efficient, superior officer; he believed that his +military abilities were great. Upon the successful issue of his plans +among the Cherokees and other tribes high preferment would await him +in the gift of the French government. To hamper by a _mésalliance_ +with a simple Scotch girl, the daughter of a bourgeois trader, his +future, his pride of diplomatic achievement, his opportunity to render +great services to his government--he was appalled by the very thought. +He promised himself that he would make no such sacrifice for any woman +on earth! Seriously contemplated, he could not raise her to his level, +and he would not sink to hers. All must be renounced should he dream +of her in any sense but to kiss her hand in gallantry and bless her +goodness in gratitude. + +Yet what was he doing? Separating forever two young people whose +kindness had been so largely instrumental in saving his life. Lapsed +in the luxury of a sweet, delicate, almost abstract emotion, flattered +by the consciousness of her love, he had supplanted her true suitor +by this ghastly simulacrum of a lover, and was wrecking the happiness +of both. He was sentimental enough, in the abstract, to care much +for a sentimental woe. He was conscientious enough to appraise the +unjustified intermeddling of the course he had pursued, and sensitive +enough to shrink from bearing the consciousness of it all his days. +With the policy of the confessional of the faith in which he had been +trained, that restitution must accompany repentance and peace only +follow penance, he was canvassing how to undo in days all that he had +wrought in months. It should not be, he declared arbitrarily. He cared +honestly, kindly, too much for her, loved her too truly, for herself, +as a friend! And toward Callum himself he was not indifferent. Yet how +could he bring them together again? Difficulties hedged him about. He +feared the English in his character of French emissary. Now, daily, he +was approaching the Englishman’s country. He adventured, indeed, much +for the sake of her and hers. Knowing his prejudice, he would not trust +Jock Lesly with his secret. But the girl loved him. He would trust +Lilias! She would doubtless expect him to follow her to Charlestown. +She would watch and wait for him. She would pine. But should he +disclose his nationality, his employ, it must appear that their parting +was final; in all probability, so divided by distance and prejudice, +they would never meet again. It would be a poignant pang to them both, +and Lilias he could never forget! If thus unhampered she could find her +happiness in Callum MacIlvesty--he sighed--but he would not grudge it. +At all events he owed her this: she must not waste her sweet young life +in devotion to an illusion. + +In reaching this resolution he was far too acute, too accustomed to +introspection, not to perceive that he had postponed the shattering of +the romance that had delighted him until its enchantment had at the +most but a few days’ lease. He took some credit, however, that he had +determined to submit to the ordeal and the jeopardy it involved before +these were passed, that he might have space for an earnest effort to +bring the young people to their former understanding. Besides, he +argued, he might easily, in the interests of his own safety, hold +his peace. Surely it was not a part of his duty, in going about the +country, to warn susceptible maidens against losing their hearts to him. + +Notwithstanding the stress of this absorption, he conducted a dual +train of thought, listened to her talk, answered in character, followed +the manifold changing theme, commented on the varying aspects of the +country,--all the region being new to him,--found even space for a keen +notice of her flattered consciousness that it was for her sake that +he made this long and laborious detour in his journey to delay their +parting--if ever they should part again; and only once did he answer at +random, and only once did he fall into silence, to be merrily rallied +and asked when and where did he see that wolf. + +One day the camp was pitched about sunset, the blue twilight yet in +abeyance. This, too, was the first halt since breakfast, dinner having +been eaten on the march. A substantial meal, therefore, was this supper +_al fresco_. Kettles were swung gypsy fashion; venison was broiled +on the coals; some wild ducks, brought down by a volley in the course +of the march, were split and toasted on a long stick at the general +camp, but brandered at the fire of the “gentlefolks” as the contingent +of Moy Toy and Jock Lesly was called,--it boasting a branding iron. The +“gentles” also rejoiced in a case bottle of brandy, while the lower +grades were content with rum, and only Lilias and the Frenchman drank a +“dish of chocolate.” By a watercourse, necessarily, the halt was made +and in the neighborhood of one of those exquisite springs for which the +region is noted. + +It seemed illimitably deep as Laroche and Lilias stood amidst the +sweet-scented ferns on its rocky verge and then sat down on one of +the fractured fragments fallen from the great crag beetling from the +mountain slope above their heads. + +Lured by the fascination that this sort of fountain in the wilderness +seems to exert on all travelers, each of the cavalcade had come to gaze +upon the crystalline depths which were like topaz in the lucent tints +imparted by the golden gravel beneath. The hewing of the circular basin +was almost as symmetrical as if wrought by hand. The down-dropping +branches of the sycamore and beech nearly veiled the crags closing +about them, and the far-away mountains across a stretch of valleys and +lesser ranges were purple and sombre under the light of the sinking and +vermilion sun. Only these two lingered here, quite silent at first, and +Laroche wondered if he could speak at all. He glanced about doubtfully. + +“Lilias,” he said slowly, “I have something to say to you.” + +The shadow of a homing bird sped across the sunlit valley. Down the +current of the river was visible a red reflection that was not a cast +of the western sun, but was caught from a camp-fire on the bluff. At +these he looked, not at her, lest the sight of her face disarm his +resolution; yet somehow he was aware of the sudden flutter of her heart +and the quickening of her pulses, and he knew that for all his art and +all his tact he had begun amiss. He hastened to nullify the impression +she might have taken, nay, nay, must have taken from his words. + +“It is a secret,” he said hurriedly. “You must promise that you will +tell no one--not even your father.” + +He wondered, his eyes still fixed on those furthest western mountains, +if her heart had ceased to beat, so still she suddenly was; then he +realized rather than saw the slow motion of surprise, of protest, as +her head turned toward him on its long and slender white neck. + +“Not even your father,” he reiterated, for he must needs go on. + +So sudden had been the revulsion of feeling, so complete, so +paralyzing, that she could not trust her voice. And this was well, for +he perceived that even in these few steps he had stumbled into a second +pitfall. Exclude the paternal idol, know a secret forbidden to that +paragon of wisdom and crown of creation, Jock Lesly! In another moment +he would have a downright refusal of the trust. He must quickly involve +her in the safety, the confidence of another, and even filial fealty +would not warrant her in breaking faith with him. + +“No,” he qualified hastily, “don’t promise. I will throw myself on +your honor--in the fullest assurance of safety. Lilias, I am not what +I seem; I am an emissary of the French government, an officer of the +army!” + +She recoiled violently, suddenly shaken, shocked; and albeit ghastly +pale she fixed a challenging stare upon him. + +“A spy?” she demanded in a husky voice, impressive with its deliberate +tone and weighty yet incredulous rebuke. + +Laroche hastily collected his faculties. This untoward trend of his +disclosures must needs be checked in sheer consideration of the safety +of his neck. + +“Ah, Lilias, _bien aimée_,” he cried, in half petulant, half +affectionate protest. “How can you misunderstand? Remember how I came +to you--was it of my own intention, my own volition?” + +The recollection of those weeks of illness, of helplessness, when he +lay under their roof unconscious, brought thither by her father, was +supplemented by the thought of the simple domestic routine in which he +had grown a factor and had made the dear sense of home in these savage +wilds so doubly dear, his eager care for their safety, his suspicions +of the Indians, his precautions for the defense of the trading-station, +his oft ridiculed anxieties and prognostications of savage treachery +that had at last proved stern truth,--only foiled by his foresight and +ingenuity and sagacity. As these reflections flitted through her mind, +his eyes read the changing expressions of her face like an open book. +He spoke as if in response. + +“Remember,” he said with emotion, “for believe me I can never forget, +dear heart”-- + +Suddenly, seeing the roseate color at the word beginning to return, to +deepen, to glow in her cheek with a subtle, conscious emotion, he was +admonished of that far more significant secret of his mission which +must be disclosed, and that quickly, for the sake of both. + +“No, not a spy,” he declared deliberately, seeking to quell the wild +plunging of his own heart, as though one should find a gentle palfrey +suddenly metamorphosed into a mighty charger. “My mission was primarily +to survey and report the character of the obstructions to navigation of +the Cherokee River--far away, a hundred miles or more; but I feared to +say as much to your father, because of the international jealousies, +that yet need hamper no friendship between him and me. May we not think +kindly of each other as man to man, even though the nations are at war?” + +He turned questioning eyes upon her--and she, her face so sweetly +flushed, her eyes so gently luminous, looking all her love for him, all +her soft faith in his love for her, silently acceded, for she could not +trust her voice in the consciousness of what she looked to hear, what +his words next promised. + +Oh, how could he speak? Yet how could he dally and delay and torture +both himself and her? The look in her face nearly routed his resolve. +With an effort he went on almost at random, blurting out his revelation +by piecemeal. + +“My mission was primarily merely diplomatic--but I foresaw the +opportunity here and, representing it to the government, I volunteered +for the service; my authority was accordingly extended, and I will +command an army of Indians when it is put into the field in the French +interest.” + +He had plucked off a frond of the fern that grew by the margin and was +tearing it to bits and throwing them from him in the pause. They could +hear the water of the spring softly gurgle. The voices of the camp +beyond sounded distant and a-dream, like half heeded calls to drowsy +ears; the reflection of the camp-fires in the river had mustered a +deeper glow, as if recruited from the crimson clouds so lately parading +through the sky. Now the sky was vacant, a clear, pure, faintly tinted +blue, and in its midst a star gleamed with an incomparable whiteness +above the darkly bronze green of the mountains. And yet the night had +not come. The world was full of this gentle, limpid clarity of light. +He could have seen every line of her face as she sat upon the rock had +he dared glance toward her. + +If the girl had been an image, craftily wrought of stone, she could +have shown no more semblance of life than that silent, motionless +figure. + +She doubtless heard. She could but understand. + +The reserve of her attitude overwhelmed the alert expectation of +the Frenchman, whose mental posture had been, by long and agitated +anticipation, braced for expostulation, for reproaches, for tears, nay +even appeals,--for she loved him as he loved her, and he knew it. This +absolute nullity as the result of a revelation so momentous to them +both reacted on his nerves. Oddly enough he experienced the tumult of +feeling in which he had thought to see her whelmed. He even called out +to her in his agitation, as heretofore he had prefigured her appeal to +him. He had utterly lost his artificial poise--he had become once more +the natural man. + +“Lilias! Lilias!” he cried with a poignant accent. “It is true, lassie, +to my sorrow--to my sorrow! I am a French soldier, but no enemy of you +or of yours, and, God help me, I love you!” + +She lifted her head suddenly and looked at him with stern eyes, which, +even despite the dusk, he could by no means misunderstand. + +“Do you mean,” she said, “that you volunteered to spirit up these +fiends of Indians to fall upon the frontier and massacre women and +children?” + +He drew back, affronted and wounded. + +“Nay, Lilias, war is war, and never play. If women and children suffer, +’tis the fortune of war, and the responsibility is on the men who have +the care of them. And do not the English march savages against the +French? And have not Frenchmen also wives and children, and even hearts +and souls?” + +“If it were your bounden duty,” she stipulated. + +“It is, being my country’s opportunity,” he argued. + +“If it had been that ye could na turn back--that your help had been +pledged--your honor engaged--your own and your hame to defend! But to +_seek_ the foul employ--to lead into the field these merciless +fiends against the peaceful hunter and the patient husbandman, the wife +and the daughter, the grandame and the babe! And for what price, Judas? +Is it gold--or is it place?” + +He could kiss her hand, even if it dealt a blow. + +“Nay, Lilias,” he said, wincing at every thrust. “It is justifiable by +all the rules of war; no honorable soldier need evade the duty. But +I will not have you think of me thus. I mean”--taking the plunge of +irrevocable revolt, to his own amazement--“I will renounce it; I will +resign. I will return to civil life. I will be a planter--a--what you +will, and you shall be my wife.” + +“Your wife!” she exclaimed, and her voice, although steady, rang +uncertain of intonation. “Your wife!” + +She seemed, to his alert receptiveness, to dwell lingeringly, fondly, +on the words. But after a moment she went on unfalteringly,-- + +“Oh, man! you’d break faith with king and country to win favor with a +woman!” + +He was staggered for an instant. + +“It would be no loss to the government. They would only send another +officer to fill my place.” + +He hesitated in a sudden jealous speculation as to who might succeed +to the result of his careful work and the rewards of his hard-earned +opportunity. Then he resumed with eager urgency, “But you think my +orders are revolting and the service unholy. You account my engagements +with the French government inconsistent with my honor”-- + +“It is na what _I_ think, but what are they to +you--naething?--naething?” + +“Nothing in comparison with my love for you; nothing in comparison with +my gratitude for your love for me. For, Lilias, you love me; surely you +love me!” + +She had risen, and still standing, she suddenly put both hands before +her eyes. + +“Oh, puir Tam Wilson!” she cried, and burst into a tumult of tears. + +The irrelevance stunned him as he stood staring at her. + +“But you are na Tam Wilson!” She turned upon him in a sort of fury, +throwing out one hand at arm’s length with a gesture of repudiation. +“Oh, you are na Tam Wilson! Oh, the leal heart _he_ had! He wad +na gie ower his trust and renounce his pledges and quit his country’s +wark for ony lassie alive! He could na be balked by fear, an’ he could +na be bought by favor. And if God prospered him he thankit Him for +his mercies! And if God denied him he thankit Him for his chastening! +And when in the gude time his wife suld come to him, ’t would be as +a helpmeet, as ’t was ordained,--to go hand in hand in an honorable +path, to work together, building up, not throwing down, keeping faith, +not breaking it,--open as the day, hiding naething and with naething +to hide. And she would be dear, but his honor would be dearer! He wad +na win a woman’s heart wi’ vain protestations an’ false names, and wi’ +terrible secret military orders to haud him back,--and then tell her +that his engagements were naught to him for _her_ sake! For she +might tell him, as I tell you, an oath’s an oath, and ill to break! And +I will hae naught to do wi’ a man wha wad break it for the blink o’ a +lassie’s eye! _He_ wad na do that--oh, puir Tam Wilson!” + +He stood aghast, arraigned, conscience-stricken. But she had leaned +against the crag, her soft cheek pressed on the stern gray rock, +relinquishing her reproaches and bewailing her bereavement. + +“Oh, puir, puir Tam Wilson!” she cried again and again. “To think +_he_ never lived! He isna you! He is naebody--naething! Puir Tam +Wilson--to think he never lived!” + +She would not hear remonstrances. She would not look at Laroche. He was +fain presently to leave her in the closing dusk, lest the others might +join them when neither could well explain her emotion. As he slipped +away in the elusive gathering gray shadows, he still heard her sobs +from their midst, bewailing the tenuous estate of puir Tam Wilson, +quite as elusive as they. + +He did not see her again till the next morning. She was pallid as +the result of a sleepless night. Her eyelids, although swollen from +persistent weeping, were still heavy with unshed tears. Her face was +stern, hard, even sullen. She seemed averse to speech and answered her +father’s expressions of alarm because of her grief-stricken manner and +Callum’s eager solicitous inquiries as to her well-being with a curt +explanation, “I hae had dreams.” + +Laroche, who had had time for reflection, appreciated an undercurrent +of a more subtle sincerity in the response than was obvious from the +surface. Dreams indeed--mere dreams! Puir Tam Wilson! + +He was glad of the relief which this apt reply afforded him, for he had +suffered some mundane and most personal anxieties, in view of her youth +and inexperience in diplomatic matters, as to her capability to guard +his disclosure. Indeed he was doubtful of her disposition to shield +him since her emotion had been so strongly elicited and the unexpected +resultant repulsion for him had so completely offset her prepossession +hitherto in his favor, on which he had relied for protection. His +liberty, and even his life, were in her hands, and he could hardly +contain his regret that he had confided aught to her. + +There is no repentance so sharp as that which arises from a mistake +made in a presumable excess of conscientiousness. He told himself now +that acting in the discharge of his political and official duty he +might well have left events to take their own course. If he had parted +with her, revealing naught of the true identity of puir Tam Wilson, +she could hardly have pined more for the man himself than for the +figment of her fancy. Callum had scarcely a more definite rival in the +substance than in the shadow. If the two young people could not come to +an understanding with the memory of the man between them, they could +hardly now have a unity of interest separated by the myth. + +But the dreams that she had had, of which he was acutely conscious of +being a visionary part, and her fractious, imperious temper served +to account for much childish petulance in her conduct toward all who +approached her. She waved away the horse on which she had hitherto +ridden, when the animal was brought forward, ready saddled for her use. +She would not speak, nor would she mount. + +“Oh fie! oh fie!” exclaimed Jock Lesly, as in duty bound. Then in +dulcet solicitude, “Winna ma poppet ride her pillion? Hey, Duncan, +Dougal,--Miss Lilias’s pillion!” + +And then it became evident that on this pillion she would in no wise +ride behind Callum, who was only too officious to proffer his services; +nor Tam Wilson, whose proposition, despite a secret reluctance, was +made with all needful show of alacrity. Therefore the pillion was +strapped behind Jock Lesly’s saddle, and when mounted there Lilias +leaned her head against his broad shoulder and wept silently from time +to time and desisted to clasp both arms as tightly as possible around +his broad girth with a childish but joyless hug, feeling, nevertheless, +that here was the only stanch heart in all the world, the only one +whose love was of any value. Then she would fall to weeping again, and +pause to take pleasure in wiping her eyes on the gray and flaxen wisps +of his plaited hair, hanging down on his shoulders within her reach. +So often was his hair devoted to the sad duty of drying her tears that +the locks came unplaited and escaped from the leather thong that tied +them, so that she needs must plait them over again. This she did, using +both hands and sustaining her weight on the pillion by holding to the +hair of the suffering scalp of her father, who, much tormented lest she +fall, punctuated the performance with adjurations--“Oh fie! oh fie!” + +Presently he would feel her head, once more lying against his shoulder, +shaken by the tumult of her sobs, and in a bewildered effort at +consolation he would admonish her, “Whist--whist, hinny! Dreams are +naething! but maist like sour sowens for supper. Dreams are naething!” + +“Naething!” she would respond ambiguously. “Naething! Oh, that I suld +say so! Dreams are naething at a’!” + +She did not speak to Laroche again except upon the day of his +departure, which he had expedited as far as he might without incurring +comment. She was riding her own horse again, and when she pressed the +animal up abreast with him in the cavalcade, he felt his heart glow +within him. He had loved her, truly and purely, and with a sort of +tender lenient admiration, and he warmed to the thought of bearing +away with him some word of friendship that would make the remembrance +of her less like a flagellation than a grief both sad and sweet and to +be tenderly cherished. For she could not be aware that he had revealed +his military and national status without intending to confess his love +merely to stem the tide of her own. + +There was a touch of pride in the poise of her head. Yet it was always +carried high, in truth. Her eyes flashed. They were always at their +brightest when they looked out thus, gleaming like sapphires upon the +variant blue of the distant mountain ranges. The day was fair, the wind +went by with a rush, and her smile was as bland as the sun on the +expanse of vernal foliage in the valley beneath the verge of the path +as they rode adown the rugged ravines. + +“They tell me you are gaun to quit us the day,” she said suavely. + +“Aye, and sorry am I,” he replied with polite alacrity. + +She made a gesture as of flouting a triviality. + +“Why suld mortals be glad or sorry?” she said. “Their fate is a’ fixed, +whether they will or no. And they go to meet it--ane might a’most +say--without mair knowledge o’ its nearness than kyloes hae o’ the +shambles.” + +She paused for a moment. Then quickly resumed as if she neither +expected nor desired response. + +“But mony folks try to speer out the future, and tak muckle heed o’ +signs an’ sic-like, especial o’ ill luck. Ye hae heard us speak o’ thae +strange warnin’s that appear in the likeness o’ a man’s nainsel’--but +I misdoubts these are only auld wives’ clavers; I misdoubts. I want to +tell you this,”--she turned upon him a casual but radiant smile,--“if +e’er you hap to see a man comin’ till you that looks like yoursel’, +_ye_ needna be frighted, for it winna be Tam Wilson. Tak my word +for it--it winna be Tam Wilson!” + +She reined in her horse and fell back among the others, while he rode +on feeling his heart thrust through with the stabs of her deliberate +cruelty; and these were all the farewell words that passed between +them. + + + + + IX + + +PERHAPS no man ever lived a tragedy of thought and feeling, unrelated +to the conditions and professions of his merely material life, more +consciously than did Laroche. Flung back perforce on his military +character, every pulse ached with the straining against those +professional chains, the fragments of which, had they broken in the +stress, he would with loyal perversity have hugged. Yet since they +held fast, he pined for Jock Lesly, for the simple household, for +the humble domestic habitudes and the hearthside atmosphere, for the +chaste yet alluring presence of Lilias. Many a day after he had seen +the trader’s cavalcade fare downward through the bosky ravine, becoming +dim and diminishing as it went, flickering among the shadows seeming as +immaterial as they, finally vanishing indistinguishably in their midst, +he could behold it anew in freshest tints and near at hand whenever the +wish--or alack, the unruly fancy--brought it to mind again. Long after +the echoes had ceased to repeat the hearty halloo of farewell, the last +of many regretful tokens of parting, he was wont to hear these voices +in song or breezy talk or affectionate greeting as of yore. + +Yet he had scant time for this as he rode back to Ioco Town, for it is +needless to say the projected detour to Virginia was never really in +contemplation. Moy Toy was obviously jealous of his self-absorption +and silence, and had become captious under the enforced relinquishment +of the trader’s party as his lawful prey. He was more impatient still +of the necessary delays that must ensue before the Cherokees could +be in case to strike a blow in revenge for all their disasters, +plainly registered in the charred tenantless towns here and there on +the face of the ravaged landscape. Laroche sought to divert his mind, +to placate him anew, to excite his interest. In devising subjects of +talk the Frenchman often attempted to sound the depths of the Cherokee +character and definitely gauge the capacities of the tribe to receive +and assimilate the values of civilization, that thereby he might deduce +something of the force that their national traits would exert in the +destinies of this great continent. For instance, he would argue with +Moy Toy upon the Indian aversion to the stability and permanence of +architecture. + +“The white man like the Indian can live but a day--why should his house +outlast him?” the chief would protest stolidly. + +“For those who come after,--since houses congregate into cities, and +cities erect nations, and nations continue throughout ages, and ages +are aggregations of strength. What is done in a day lasts but a day,” +retorted the soldier. + +Thus speculatively disposed he would seek to measure the extent and +divine the catastrophe of that ancient prehistoric civilization +of which his keen instinct read much in the scattered fragments +along the shores of Time: in the aboriginal traditions, unique and +indefinitely antique; in the ceremonials, of which the significance +was lost in degeneracy, retaining but the manner without the matter, +the shapeless shadow of an unimagined symmetry; in the language, +absolutely individual, he thought, with copious verbal forms and facile +locutions, with orderly construction, with subtle shades of minutely +diverse meanings, with large and sonorous adaptation to high themes; +in the religion, with its elaborate theory of symbolism without the +vital spark. He wondered how far this definite cult, seeming almost +inherent, would deter the Cherokees from a conversion to Christianity. +He doubted this result because of their earnest observance of the +ritual of their ancient religion and implicit faith in its sanctities. +Yet Moy Toy was himself the suavest of postulants, the most promising +of catechumens. So eagerly he listened to the French officer who +explained the grounds of his own belief and its revolutionizing effects +upon the nations of all the world--not failing to turn and scan the +number of tribesmen in the band from time to time, to make sure that +none had followed with treacherous intentions the trader’s train--that +many another man as discerning as Laroche yet less crafty might have +been deceived. + +Over the camp-fires at night especially Moy Toy seemed to delight in +repeating some of the more simple and discursive details of the day’s +talk, often startling Laroche by his powers of memory, the accuracy +of his comprehension, and his gift of mimicry. Laroche wondered if a +preference which he noted for biographical details might be ascribed +to that fraternizing instinct to realize the conditions of the life +of man in whatever age or country, despite the lapse of time and the +barriers of distance, that attests the universal brotherhood, and if it +was this which had served to invest the narrations with such reality +and had so strengthened the grasp of his mind upon them. The officer +found, however, a curious flavor of speculation in the fact that try +as he might he could not enlist this vivid interest in the incidents +of the New Testament. The sanguinary histories of the Old Testament, +dealing oft with force and fraud, met with no skeptical reservations +or evasions from Moy Toy. The motives they adduced were eminently +comprehensible to him, the result credible, and his attitude of mind +applausive. But with the gospel of love and meekness, the forgiveness +of injuries and succor of enemies, the dictates of self-sacrifice and +self-denial, the savage had no pulse in unison. Moy Toy listened as +his obvious policy required. Sometimes he commented. + +“Christianity is to make the red men good? Then tell me, why has it not +made the white men good?--they have had it so long--seventeen hundred +years, you say, and more!” + +And the French officer, fairly routed, could only answer that the race +had not lived up to its best opportunity. + +The chief’s interest in the ethical phase of the subject often flagged, +however, beyond the power of simulation. It was only held to a pretense +of attention by the inexorable etiquette of the Cherokee, however +prolix his interlocutor, and an occult intention to master certain +knowledge by the ruse of surprise, as it were. But inborn subtlety is +no match for the ratiocination of cultivation, and Moy Toy’s instinct +was fatally at fault when with a child-like blandness and irrelevance +he casually demanded, “How was it, did you say last night, that the +good San Quawl made his powder when he journeyed down to the city of +Damascus?” or “I have forgotten how many pounds of powder you said the +brave chief Samson put under the gates of Gaza when he blew them up to +carry them off.” + +The trail of the earnest dominant desire to discover that seigneurial +secret of civilization that made it the lord of the world, the +conqueror of force, the despot of right, the annihilator of +numbers,--the simple formula for the manufacture of gunpowder, the +materials for which Laroche had already assured him abounded in the +Cherokee country,--lay through all the devious windings of their talk, +and divulged the springs of self-interest in Moy Toy’s affectations of +the dawnings of faith. + +On each occasion the revulsion of the officer’s feeling was so great +that the betrayal of the Indian’s motive in searching the Scriptures, +and his conviction that the ultimate value of the white man’s religion +lay in his superior knowledge of destructive explosives, failed to +excite any cynical amusement in Laroche, and roused in him a very +genuine indignation. For the demonstration always came as a surprise in +its devious methods, half incredulous though he was as to the eventual +conversion of the Indian. + +“Let it be accounted to me for righteousness that I do not instantly +give you over!” Laroche would cry angrily. + +It was essentially the pulse of the church militant which animated the +soldier. His patience was scant, his summons imperative. “Become a +Christian, or I’ll be the death of you!” might be a just translation of +his urgency. + +And in good sooth his easily excited anger was so obviously genuine +on each recurrent presentation of the lure to entrap him into the +disclosure of the secret which he had promised in his own good time to +communicate, that Moy Toy experienced a very definite alarm lest by +his precipitancy the precious knowledge that gave the white man his +supremacy might be snatched from the Indian forever. With his naturally +keen faculties thus whetted, Moy Toy evolved with countercraft a +diversion that appealed irresistibly to the speculative phase of +Laroche’s intellect and for a time led him captive, although he +appreciated fully the trickery of the intention and the treachery of +the heart of his interlocutor. + +This was the recital of the Cherokee traditions of the more ancient +Scriptural events,--the creation, the flood, the exodus,--knowledge of +which the earliest travelers in this region found already implanted +among that singular people, and, with certain analogous customs, +serving to add so much plausibility to the theory of its Hebraic +origin--even yet to be accounted for by vague hypotheses such as the +teachings of Cabeza de Vaca among the more southern tribes, thence +transmitted northward. If this be the source of these traditions, it +is singular, to say the least, that there should be among them none +of the essential truths of the new dispensation nor Roman Catholic +legends of the saints. Laroche could but lend heedful attention to +the variant details of the Cherokee version of the Patriarchal and +Mosaic dispensations, and now and again pointed out to Moy Toy their +divergencies from the true and only word, and much he meditated upon +this strange disclosure as he rode along the woodland ways, listening +in his turn. + +Sometimes he sought to modify or adjust the sacred writings of the +old dispensation to the interpretative temper of the new, always +held in check by the Cherokee version which Moy Toy would repeat +with controversial relish, keeping pace _haud possibles æquis_. +For the savage, obdurate to the wile of civilization, was yet more +steeled against the advance of the Christian religion; and indeed +modern instances are not wanting, sufficiently dispiriting to the +student of human progress, in which after a lifetime of the profession +of Christianity the Cherokee in his dying hours openly discards the +religion of his adoption and departs to the happy hunting-grounds in +the faith of his fathers, going out of the world the pagan that he +entered it. + +Serious as was the subject that absorbed Laroche’s thoughts, the +deep significance of his speculations, comprising the origin of +this race, its perverted destiny, the intentions of the Deity, this +strange glimpse into the mystic past, the darker mystery of the veiled +future,--these mighty interests could not suffice to sustain that human +heart of his when they passed once more the trading-house, silent and +deserted at Ioco Town, and the cottage hard by, where he had lived out +the sweets of the little romance snatched from untoward conditions. He +smiled sadly and tenderly at the thoughts conjured up by the evening +glow so red on the gable against the blue sky. Never again would the +fire flash forth from that deserted hearthstone to lure the wanderer +home. Never again would the gleam of the candle rejoice the hospitable +board that welcomed the stranger. The ingleside was cold and bleak, +and would soon be a wreck, for the Indians were now giving the roof +to the torch, and he watched the blaze with many a sentimental pang, +but did not offer remonstrance. Better thus! Far better thus! It was +well that Jock Lesly should not be tempted back by the knowledge that +his old nest still awaited him here, for the stout heart of the Scotch +trader would credit no less definite a portent of continued danger than +charred timbers and sacked dwelling. And Laroche honestly believed that +the day of the great British trade on the Tennessee and its neighboring +streams was over-past now and forever. + +He did not hesitate when once more at Tellico Great to inaugurate +the scheme, the progress of which had been delayed months ago by the +defection of Mingo Push-koosh. For it was here on the banks of the +Tennessee that he at last recovered his old identity, lost in that +sweet and soft thrall of a hopeless love. He felt again a free man, +albeit the glamours of the evening star in the saffron west moved him +strangely. He threw himself ardently into all those plans so long in +abeyance of equipping an army of the confederated tribes,--the Choctaw, +the Muscogee, the Cherokee, and many minor bands,--and the problems +of securing munitions of war, of the transmission of supplies, and of +the apportionment of forces absorbed his every faculty. Continually +his messengers were going to and fro in the Indian country, and his +pettiaugres dared the currents of those swift difficult rivers, now and +again running the gauntlet of the musketry of the inimical Chickasaws +from some high bluff. Secretly, silently, the preparations went on like +the gathering mute menace of a sullen storm whose ferocity must burst +with an added fury from its long repression. All unsuspected it might +have been, although the expectation was so widely extended, save for +the arrogant boastfulness of some far-away Indian, drunk perhaps, in a +British trading-house or the bloody culmination of an individual feud +between a warrior and a white settler, the savage unable to restrain +his vengeful anticipation and abide the accepted time. + +Fantastic and impotent as this tenuous scheme may seem now, long ago +shredded by the mere wind of the flight of time, a forgotten fantasy, +not to be more considered than the snares of any humble spider of +to-day throwing its fragile enmeshments from crag to crag on the banks +of the Tennessee, it struck cold terror to the hearts of the royal +governors of the adjacent British provinces. The Spaniard, insolent and +powerful, openly menaced them on the south, and with the combination of +the French and Indians they were surrounded and without recourse. They +had little to hope from one another, save perhaps an unacknowledged +aspiration on the part of each that the other might first tempt the +attack of the designing projector of the new Indian alliance and serve +as a sop to Cerberus. Each was in terror of a plea of assistance from +the other, for the colonies themselves lacked that strength which comes +from union and which Laroche sought to instill into the policy of the +tribes. Each province being incapable of self-defense with its weak, +untrained militia, its inadequate supplies of munitions of war, its +vast wildernesses and stretches of unfortified frontier, was averse +to dividing its slight resources. Roused, however, to the terror lest +immediate massacre of outlying stationers ensue, a consultation was +held and a remonstrance, adroit, sugared, promising yet threatening +withal, addressed by the Governor of South Carolina to Cunigacatgoah[8] +of Choté, now the nominal head of the Cherokee government, was framed +and sent by the hand of one of the Kooasahte Indians, who chanced to be +in Charlestown, with whose tribe the Cherokees were now at peace. + +He returned after a swift journey with a most pacific answer, +protesting and reproachful, Cunigacatgoah demanding to be informed +of a single infraction of the terms of the treaty, bating, of course, +wild, irresponsible rumors. If the governor could cite one such for +which the nation could be fairly considered responsible, he would +himself come down to Charlestown to answer for it in person. + +Governor Boone, surprised yet reassured by the unexpected character of +this reply, sought to further assuage his anxiety by catechising his +messenger as to the state of matters in the Cherokee country. He found +the mind of the Kooasahte, never forceful at best, in that flighty, +agitated state to be described as all agog. Obviously the man had been +immensely impressed by what he had seen and been able to learn. By +no means willing to disclose all, still his eyes were opened to new +possibilities of savage ascendancy. Under adroit cross-examination +he divulged extraordinary suggestions of the suddenly developed +magnificence of Moy Toy of Tellico and of the wonderful powers of a +strange magician who was Moy Toy’s friend, yet whom he affirmed was a +white man, and whose nationality he accidentally disclosed as French. + +Whereupon Governor Boone grew more mystified than before. Finally +he bethought himself to send for Jock Lesly as one who, having been +intimately acquainted with the personnel and conditions of the Cherokee +country for years past, might perchance explain the inconsistency of +all these antagonistic details. + +The doughty Scotch trader had accounted the burning of his buildings +and the plunder of his goods, of which he had been informed indirectly +by rumor, as but an accident or a bit of unwarranted and wanton +mischief, and by no means as the definite threat that Laroche had +supposed he would perceive therein. His daughter, however, had insisted +that the demonstration was inimical and in no wise to be braved. Jock +Lesly enjoyed much domestic oratory in these days which his “Whist, +whist, my bairn!” was powerless to silence, and feminine logic won +the battle when she persisted that if he returned, to Ioco Town she +would accompany him, for if it were safe for him it was safe for her! +Thereupon he hauled down his flag; and now as he needs must rebuild +wherever he should go, he was idly awaiting in Charlestown a propitious +opportunity of reëstablishment elsewhere under more permanent +conditions. + +Jock Lesly, cocking his sharp blue eyes at the cringing Kooasahte, a +degenerate specimen of a warlike tribe, obviously regarded the whole +history of his visit as a fable. + +“Gin your excellency wad forgie the freedom, the man is a beautiful +liar!” + +“Was there no white man there when you left?” + +“Nane, sir--that is--forbye a bit chiel o’ a Firginian on his way +hame--he had cam doun wi’ a wheen o’ neighbors to herd up some stray +horses that had been sold to the Williamsburg region and had gane back +to their auld grass in the Cherokee country. He fell ailin’, an’ his +friends went on wi’ the horses an’ lef him amang the Injuns,--an’ he +foregathered wi’ us. He cam part o’ the way hame wi’ us, but struck aff +a considerable way aboon Fort Prince George to go aff to Firginia.” + +“He could not be this man, you think? Does he speak French?” + +“He? Tam Wilson speak French?” exclaimed Jock Lesly, with a hearty +rollicking laugh in his enjoyment of his superior discernment. “Your +excellency disna ken thae carles out on the frontier! Tam Wilson ha’ +enow to do to speer his wull in English,--puir fallow!” + +This seemed definitive; Jock Lesly therefore was presently dismissed, +and the gratuity which the Kooasahte received was of limited value +and quality, which he had not expected nor had the governor intended, +because he had told the truth, which chanced to be unwelcome and +discredited. He went away, his heart hot within him, sending forth +fumes of rum, which the present sufficed to procure, and sedition, +which the present was not adequate to annul. + +Meanwhile life on the banks of the Tennessee at Tellico Great flowed on +as gently as the river. Laroche had received orders to seek adoption +into the Cherokee tribe, according to the wont of the intriguing +French, that he might thereby recruit his influence and improve his +control. Thus he could better restrain their bellicose demonstrations +till the time was ripe for revolt, lest precipitancy annul its values. +Hence he became officially a Cherokee. + +That singular atmosphere of fraternity peculiar to the Indian method +of adoption encompassed Laroche like a native element. It seemed no +longer inspired by self-interest. He was as one of the nation,--theirs +in success or defeat, theirs in weal or woe! He had polled his head +and painted his face and donned their garb. He had been initiated into +their mysteries and had accepted their religion; for the Cherokees +were no idolaters, and without mockery he could bow in worship to a +Great Spirit, albeit with many a mental reservation and evasion in +the ceremonies in which he participated. His suspicions were never +allayed,--but they were in his mind, not in theirs,--and he was not +the more content. Now and again as he danced with the braves in +three circles on the sandy spaces of the “beloved square” to the +shrilling of a flute, fashioned of the tibia of a deer, and to the +thunderous drone of the earthen drums, while strange figures such as +might grace pandemonium whirled about him,--hardly human figures; +some with grotesquely frightful masks of gourds hiding faces scarcely +less hideous; some almost nude; some smeared over with unguents as a +groundcoat to make adhere a medley of feathers and foster the semblance +of gigantic birds,--a great repulsion would seize him; every civilized +pulse would clamor against these uncouth follies, against the sacrifice +of time and identity and wonted usage in this cause; and he would +feel that the destruction of all the British colonies, could it be +compassed, was not worth the price which he paid. The recollection +of the sane, orderly customs of the life to which he was native rose +up before him with a sentiment of reproach, as one might feel in +ascertaining the realities in the lucid interval of some tormenting +mania. He was abashed by the mere contemplation of the mountains rising +on every side, silent, austere, as majestically aloof from the farce +which he enacted as the sky above or the world--the civilized world +that he had known and loved--far, far away. + +To add to his discomforts the interval which he was to spend thus was +destined to be longer than had been anticipated. Aggressive measures +were again postponed, and his activities suspended by orders which he +received from New Orleans. For it had latterly been developed that the +British government contemplated securing a considerable cession of land +from the Cherokees, thinking that in thus increasing its holding in the +Indian country to keep the tribe more definitely under its domination +and influence, and to quiet the title to certain territory, on which +they claimed the government had encroached. The French, with their +resources much exhausted by the Seven Years’ War, now slowly dragging +its length along, were almost crippled in America for the lack of +ready cash, and their plans for the Cherokees would be considerably +recruited by the purchase money of the land thus poured into the tribal +coffers. The wily Indians were enchanted with so hopeful a prospect of +securing the means to purchase sufficient arms and ammunition to repel +the British and attain their old independence anew. Though they had +never doubted the will of the French government in Louisiana to forward +these measures, its capacity to furnish adequate ammunition had failed +signally more than once. + +At this period, while Laroche was awaiting decisive advices from New +Orleans, the progress of events seemed suspended. Hope, anxiety, fear +were in abeyance. He spent much time in the perfecting of the details +of his plan and in the correspondence incident to the enterprise. As he +grew more wearied with the monotonous association with the Indians, he +took advantage of his leisure to send long discursive letters to his +comrades in the southern forts whenever he chanced to have a messenger +going that way,--to Captain Pierre Chabert at Fort Tombecbé or the +Chevalier Lavnoué at Fort Toulouse. + +Cold, wet weather set in late in the summer, a long, dreary, +unseasonable interval. When the rains came down in thin, persistent, +fibrous lines, and the surface of the river palpitated and throbbed +beneath its multitudinous touches, and the gathering gray mists half +shrouded then half revealed those endless lengths of dark-hued solemn +mountains, and the trees dripped drearily, and the wind surged and +sobbed amidst their boughs, the susceptible Frenchman reached the +lowest ebb of his isolation, his dissatisfaction, and his yearning wish +to feel again the throbbing pulse of civilization. + +Thus it was that for many hours of those chill nights in the quaint +winter-house, without window or chimney, while the rain would pour down +the conical earthen roof, resounding like a drum, he would seek for +solace in writing those long letters to his military friends describing +his plight, and commenting on the news of the day received chiefly +through their responses. + +All unmindful of him and his occupations, the other inmates of the +house lay sleeping, stretched in a line, on the couch of cane that +ran along the red clay walls of the circular room, behind the row of +pillars which upheld the conical roof. Even the heads were covered with +the wolfskins and bearskins that formed the drapery of their elastic +cane mattresses. All unmindful of him they were--all except Moy Toy. + +The fire would flare up now and again, showing the colonnade of +pillars, the cane couch, and above, the circular wall of the rich red +hue of the clay of that country, with here and there upon it quaint +hieroglyphics in parti-colored paints, or a decorated buffalo hide +suspended, or a curiously carven pipe of stone with some famous scalp +attached, while the scroll-like thin blue smoke eddied overhead, +pressing closer and closer to its exit at the smoke hole. All gradually +flickered and dulled and blurred into a dusky red glow in which +naught was distinguishable but vague reminiscent shadows, the mass of +smouldering coals in the centre of the floor, and the spirited blond +Gallic face of Laroche with his incongruous Indian garb, bending +intent, eager, absorbed, above the page as he wrote. Not till the +page also grew dim would he rouse himself and throw off the gathering +ashes. Then as the responsive flame leaped up white and vivid, he +would look back along the paper to review the last paragraphs, and +with a freshened brightness of aspect apply himself anew to his task. +Moy Toy’s keen eye had grown to distinguish a certain difference of +expression when the military expert wrought upon the problems of his +enterprise,--the alert, elevated look, puzzled now and then, but +intellectual, powerful, confident, and in contrast the twinkling eye, +the sarcastic curving lip, the sly, devil-may-care, gibing nod, and +yet sometimes the plaintive dejection with which he made those “black +marks” which he sent away to his correspondents in the southern forts. + +“You are my friend, the friend of my heart, and you know everything,” +Moy Toy once said suddenly out of the dreary midnight, when the +dizzy rain was whirling abroad in a witch’s dance with the wind, the +mountains were lost in the density of night, and the river had become +but a voice in the vast voids of the outer atmosphere. + +Laroche looked up suddenly from where he sat on a buffalo rug before +the red glow of the coals. He wrote upon one knee, but the inkhorn +was close by on the floor, and he placed one hand over it, in careful +forethought, that a friendly dog, nosing about with the conviction that +it held refection of worth, might not overturn it. However Laroche’s +hair was clipped it sprang anew and there was a curling fringe under +the edge of his cap, which was fashioned of otter fur and bordered +with white swan’s feathers. His hunting-shirt was of otter fur and +his leggings of buckskin heavily fringed and terminating in a pair of +buskins; these were dyed scarlet and gayly decorated with quills. His +face, with its expression of intellectual absorption, was inconceivably +at variance with his attire and the place. He said nothing, but his +hazel eyes looked an expectant inquiry, and seeing him silent Moy Toy +spoke again. + +“Wonderful friend! though your knowledge is no more to be moved or +shaken than the mountains, yet you have the changeable countenance.” + +“It is you who know everything!” said Laroche, laughing, but very +distinctly embarrassed. + +Moy Toy, encouraged by this appreciation, began to put his impressions +into words. “When you make black marks on those papers which you +treasure, and which I am sure must belong to your beautiful artillery, +or else to make powder, or perhaps to the fine plans for the great fort +which we are to have here one day, your face is the same it has always +been, and as those who love you must love to see it. But when you write +the black marks which you send to the commandants of the forts in the +south, your eyes grow little, and they twinkle, and your mouth is +pursed for lies, and you nod your head with a risky air, and you look +more wicked than clever!” + +Laroche listened in silence. Then suddenly he burst out laughing. He +hastily suppressed the tone of loud hilarity, for one of the sleepers +stirred and turned, but fell a-snoring again. + +“It is the commandants who are wicked,” he said, smiling +retrospectively. “I answer them only in their own vein--sardonic, +witty, half-malicious fellows.” + +“And what makes them so wicked?” + +“They are so close to the English, perhaps,--they learn all they know +from the English.” + +Moy Toy gazed at the smiling face with a doubtful anxiety, some +withheld thought, a half formed purpose in abeyance. + +Laroche had had occasion to note that jealousy of the “black marks” +of civilization which seemed to animate all the Indians of that day, +powerless to restrain this mysterious opportunity of communicating the +most secret thought a thousand miles by the stroke of a pen. He had +been somewhat irked to discover in addition a sort of pettish tribal +jealousy on the part of Moy Toy toward this interest in the southern +forts. The chief desired that the officer’s entire attention should be +concentrated on the welfare of the Cherokee nation, and deprecated that +any advancement or opportunity should be afforded through his means to +the various Alabama tribes congregated about those forts. Laroche was +an adopted Cherokee, and why should he so delight in writing to the +forts _aux Alibamons_! + +It had always seemed to Laroche that the intercepting of a letter was +essentially a civilized emprise, but the process was invented, as it +were, in the brain of this specious Indian. As the commandants of Fort +Tombecbé and Fort Toulouse knew so much about the wicked English, +perhaps it was not well to keep longer between the folds of the soft +panther and wolf skins that formed the furnishings of the couch of the +chief a missive addressed to Lieutenant Jean Marie Edouard Bodin de +Laroche, and sealed with a big official splash of wax. + +“Here,” said Moy Toy, without the least confusion as he produced it, “I +thought too many times you nodded your head toward Fort Toulouse and +you might soon speak with the forked tongue of Lavnoué. But perhaps he +may tell the truth when his heart weighs heavy with the thought of the +English.” + +Laroche stared with amazed displeasure. The color rose indignantly to +his cheeks. He was about to utter a vehement remonstrance, but paused +to break the seal which should have parted under his fingers three +weeks earlier. Then he forgot this encroachment upon his vested rights. + +For the letter was a warning, heralding the approach of British +soldiers. + + + + + X + + +THERE stood a quaint, grotesque figure in the midst of the level spaces +about Chilhowee, Old Town. It maintained its stiff, stanch pose alike +through shadow and sheen; oblivious of night or day; unmindful of +the rain that the sudden mountain storms now and again sent surging +down from over the summit of the Chilhowee Range, looming high above; +disdainful of the wind that fluttered the fringes of its buckskin shirt +and leggings and slanted the feathers of its war-bonnet askew, and +flouted and buffeted its aged, painted, fantastic face. + +So like a grim old warrior in good truth was the adroitly constructed +effigy that Callum MacIlvesty long remembered the day when first he +beheld it upon entering the Cherokee town of Chilhowee, and was moved +to wrath because of its surly, important, inimical attitude and fixed +aggressive stare. Only the closest scrutiny enabled him to realize +that it was but a scarecrow, albeit the cleverest of its type, with +a painted gourd for a head and a gaudily arrayed body of fagots and +straw. But he did not then even vaguely divine that he was ever to hold +a closer association with the image, or that years afterward and far +away the mere recollection of its aspect in his sleeping fancies would +wake him to a breathless fright and dreary reminiscences of a most +troublous episode in a chequered history. + +The scene was bright with the varying luminosity of the azure tints of +the mountains of the distance; nearer the hue of the wooded heights +deepened to the richest autumnal crimson and bronze as they drew +close about the gap where the Tennessee River flows through the +Great Smoky Mountains and pierces the Chilhowee Range to the very +heart. The metallic lustre of the water was now like silver, now like +steel, and again showed a burnished copper glister where its surges +had washed a bank of red clay; occasionally a white drift of swans +was on its current, or a deer swam gallantly across; and once a group +of buffaloes, pausing to drink at the margin, lifted their heads, +apparently as unafraid as tame neat cattle, to gaze with a dull bovine +curiosity at the party of equestrians and the detachment of British +foot-soldiers on the opposite shore. + +All the ancient Cherokee customs were still in vogue, although +destined soon to fall away with a suddenness that confounds history +and almost baffles tradition, suggesting, indeed, the instantaneous +transition to dust of some prehistoric skeleton at the first touch of +the disintegrating air. Even at that date, however, with the obvious +doom of evanescence upon them, a certain curiosity concerning them was +very general among those equipped for the archaic speculations in which +Laroche had found an interest; there was a general quickening of the +pace of the horses as several riders closed about a sedate, middle-aged +personage, spare and tall, of great length of limb and evident strength +and toughness, who wore a suit of buckskin and was a surveyor of long +experience on the frontier, and who proceeded to explain the reason for +the extraordinary _vraisemblance_ of the effigy. + +“The Indians have aye a crafty turn,” he said. In illustrating this +fact he narrated how the “second man” of the town, “a bailiff belike,” +induced the young people to believe that the scarecrow was the +reincarnated spirit of an ancient warrior, an ancestor, who had come +back to overlook their work. Keeping them at a sufficient distance, +the “second man” was wont to tell wonderful stories of the exploits of +the mythical warrior of Chilhowee, the evil influences of his anger +against the idle, and the benefits of pleasing him by industry. The +women and girls would believe this, and thus to song and story the work +would go merrily on. + +The gentleman directly addressed by the surveyor was apparently of a +higher and more fastidious grade. He was sprucely arrayed in brown +cloth of a trim cut and a fine texture, with a cocked hat, dapper yet +sober. His fresh pink cheek and chin were smoothly shaven, the first +slightly wrinkled, the latter cleft with a line that duplicated its +contours. His black “solitaire” was accurately adjusted about his neck. +His bag-wig was the most decorous appendage of that fantastic sort that +ever swung behind a well-furnished and elaborately trained brain. That +he was the exponent of some kind of careful scientific learning was +apparent to the most undiscerning wight at the first glance. Indeed, +the English surveyor in offering this bit of information as to Indian +customs was making but a scant return for the largess of botanical +lore that had strewn the way from Charlestown full five hundred miles +thicker than ever were leaves in Vallombrosa. + +As the botanist contemplated the broad fields in cultivation he +began to speak. “This pompion, now,--the variety of _Cucurbita +Pepo_,--that the Indians grow,”--and at the phrase a British officer +resplendent in scarlet coat, white breeches, cocked hat, and powdered +hair, with a look of shocked revolt checked his horse so suddenly +as to throw the animal back upon the haunches and to discommode the +advance of the infantry escort that followed, consisting of thirty +English soldiers of his own company and a detachment of twenty Scotch +Highlanders. + +If Lieutenant John Francis Everard could, he would have banished from +the memory of man all Latin plant names, for before he was fifty miles +out from Charlestown he was glutted with information concerning the +vegetable products of the earth on which he lived. He felt that had he +a retroactive power in cosmogony this world should have been created +a leafless ball. From the beginning of the march his spirit quailed in +the presentiment of the tortures of learned converse that were destined +to wreck the pleasure and almost the possibility of the expedition. +Indeed, it was only the second day out that he summoned Callum +MacIlvesty from the ranks of the marching Highlanders and bending +down nearly to the saddle bow said in a bated voice of consternation, +“Callum Bane, do you see that old man? Why,” in an appalled staccato, +“he is almost as bad as ex-Governor Ellis of Georgia!” By which he +meant to imply almost as learned, member of almost as many scientific +associations, perhaps even a fellow of the Royal Society, almost as +acute in making observations, atmospheric, botanic, geologic, almost as +industrious in jotting them down, almost as oblivious of the gayer and +more frivolous interests of life. + +To Lieutenant Everard was intrusted the command of this small +military force to escort certain commissioners appointed by the +government to the Cherokee country for the purpose of treating with +the Indians concerning the projected cession of land, which was not +made, however, for several years thereafter, because of an incident +of much significance here chronicled--in fact not until 1768. In view +of the doubtful temper of the Cherokees and the unsettled state of +the country, it was exclusively and comprehensively his duty to see +to it that the heads of these gentlemen were unmolested, with their +brains securely inside and their scalps securely outside, nor were they +expected in return to minister in any degree to his entertainment. +But it is not too much to say that Lieutenant Everard would have +regarded a brisk brush with Indian enemies with less awe, despite his +slight numerical strength, than the ponderous themes, the weighty +presence, the worshipful gravity of the commissioners of the crown. +There was not a conversable person among them, in the estimation +of the gay and dapper lieutenant, and the march thither and back, +with the negotiations at Choté, was calculated to occupy a matter of +many weeks. The surveyor was of the same ultra-sober type, and the +subordinate attendants he considered as unbefitting his society. Of +course familiar association with the men of his company, having only +their noncommissioned officers, was inappropriate, even if their ruder +breeding had not rendered them unacceptable. + +Thus it was that after a day or two of floundering out of his element, +he was thrown upon Callum MacIlvesty for solace. For he knew that +MacIlvesty, although serving in the ranks, was a man better born and +better bred than himself. Of course he was aware that the train of +woes, the attainder for treason and forfeiture of estates, following +the rebellions of 1715 and 1745, wrecking a number of noble families, +brought to the ground the branches as well as the parent stem; and in +this instance Callum’s commanding officer had acquainted Lieutenant +Everard with the “gentleman ranker’s” name and condition just before +their departure from Charlestown, when this small detachment of +Highlanders was ordered to reinforce the escort, as they were familiar +with the wild country, a number of them having served with the British +troops in this region the two preceding years during the Cherokee War. + +The forlorn young officer, so grievously solitary in this expedition, +soon ceased to ride with the commissioners, and fell into the habit +first of riding near the Highlander as Callum MacIlvesty, alert, +active, with a vivid interest in life, strode along in the marching +column whose fluttering tartans played tag with the wind and whose +burnished accoutrements set up a bright kaleidoscopic glitter at the +vanishing point of many a winding woodland perspective. When the talk +grew more animated and the interest keener, Lieutenant Everard would +throw the reins to an orderly and march on foot beside his new-found +friend in his lowly place; whereat the first sergeant of the English +detachment would glance at the nearest corporal with meaning eyes, and +all adown the column the scarlet elbows of the fours called “battle +comrades” would give each other the touch with more emphasis than the +effort to march in due alignment necessitated. Often, however, in +fact most usually, the whole force marched with the route step, when +conversation was admissible and comment freer than before. For it was +obviously a derogation from the dignity of a commissioned officer to +continue this familiar association with a common soldier and in so far +subversive of discipline, and when the crisis came there were those +amply prepared to say “I told you so!” + +“The lieutenant wouldn’t demean himself by walkin’ an’ talkin’ familiar +with a non-com like me,” the first sergeant of the English contingent +averred. “An’ I can’t see as I am a worse man or a less loyal subjec’ +’cause I ain’t got fine, titled kin taken in open rebellion an’ +attainted o’ treason--one of ’em, Callum’s great uncle, was executed +for treason and his head perched up over a city gate--there yet, for +aught I know!” + +For this was the fate of many of the good and noble who had adhered to +the political faith of their fathers. + +The Highlanders of the escort, however, some of whom were rescued from +imbroglio on this theme by a simple incapacity to speak or understand +a word of English, and who clattered away cheerily enough together +in Gaelic, deemed this association no sort of condescension on the +part of Lieutenant Everard. So well aware were they of the claims +to distinction of sundry ancestors of Callum MacIlvesty that this +penniless scion of a line of half mythical Highland princes, extending +back in dim procession into the mists of ages, seemed far superior in +social status to Lieutenant Everard, whose best prospect was some day +to represent a comparatively modern but well-endowed English baronetcy. + +Perhaps Everard might have justified his course by the plea that +the expedition was not strictly military, and thus permitted some +abrogation of strictly military rule. Every detail to insure safety, +however, was rigorously observed. When the tents were pitched sentinels +were posted, the various guards mounted, all the discipline of a +military camp preserved. When on the march scouts were thrown out, and +a baggage and rear guard maintained. But, he argued, surely he could +not be expected to live so long a time without a being with whom to +exchange a congenial word. And if he saw fit to single out a man near +his own age, of his own station in life, only constrained to serve in +the ranks by reason of poverty because of political misfortunes, he did +not conceive that Callum MacIlvesty was lifted out of his place as a +soldier and absolved from the duty of obedience because thus admitted, +unofficially, to the society of his superior in military rank. + +Although both men felt the irking of the anomalous situation, their +mutual relish of congenial companionship rendered them adroit in +nullifying the difficulty. When Everard gave an order he addressed +the Highlander as “MacIlvesty,” who simply and implicitly obeyed it +as a soldier should. But if Everard spoke to him as “Callum Bane,” he +received the request as from a friend and complied or not as he chose, +for the sobriquet had come to be a mark of friendly familiarity, as +it was not necessary on this expedition as a means of identification. +While the regiment had not the disaster in nomenclature that beset +the corps of the Sutherland Fencibles, in which one hundred and +four men answered to the name of “William Mackay,” seventeen being +in one company, still in the Forty-Second there was much patronymic +repetition, and in one company there were three Callum MacIlvestys +severally distinguished as “Callum Roy” (the red-haired) and “Callum +Dhu” (the dark) and “Callum Bane” (the fair). + +This fair-haired Callum seemed an attractive personality to Lieutenant +Everard, who felt a compassionate regret that a youngster of such +good parts should have no better prospects, for these were the days +of the purchase of commissions, and this serious thought was often in +Everard’s mind as they sat alone beside the camp-fire, making so far +as opportunity favored them a convivial night of it. Callum had been +grateful for the recognition of his true quality in the humble guise +of the private soldier and in the coarse tartan. It was as a salve +to his wounded spirit and sense of exile. It had been with a great +effort at self-assertion, as a rallying of forces after a defeat, +that he had been able to regain in a measure his normal poise, a +semblance of his wonted brave cheerfulness, subsequent to his obvious +supplantation in the favor of Lilias. Her indifference had pierced him +with a pain all the keener because of his ardent sincerity. Perhaps +because he had already suffered so much from untoward fate he was +endued with the strength to suffer more without succumbing utterly. +He was fortunate in the stubborn resources of his indomitable pride. +He would not pine like a love-sick girl, he said to himself. He would +nerve himself to bear this latest and bitterest fling of fortune like +a man. He was the better enabled to meet it with a bold front since +the continual exactions of Everard occupied his attention, and left +him little time for that silent brooding so pernicious yet so precious +to the youth crossed in love. There was an element of humiliation +in the situation which seared his sensitive pride like actual fire. +Jock Lesly had found his account in the Indian trade, and thus Lilias +would have no inconsiderable inheritance, while Callum had naught +to offer but his heart, which seemed no great matter after all, and +the hand of an ordinary foot-soldier. He had roused himself with a +loyal feeling that he owed it to his ancestry, his name, his sense of +honor, and of honorable achievements in those who had gone before, +his own unimpeachable record, not to think so meanly of himself; and +thus the warm appreciation of his personal qualities and high descent, +irrespective of his incongruously humble station which Everard had +manifested, the admitted equality of their association, had aided to +restore his mental calm and self-respect, and seemed at this crisis +more valuable than it could be at any other time. + +The responsibility and anxiety consequent upon escorting the party +of the commissioners through the country of savages, so inimical and +treacherous as Everard had discovered that the Cherokees still were, +weighed very sensibly upon the officer’s consciousness. Therefore the +relaxation at intervals afforded by congenial companionship was all the +more acceptable. The tension of the situation augmented the nervous +stress of his intolerance of the learned and inopportune disquisitions +which the botanist forced continually upon him. He sought to dissemble +his displeasure and irritation, however, for he was essentially a +gentleman, according to his lights, notwithstanding his repudiation +of bigwigs and botany. For all their dullness and slow decorum he had +shown every respectful observance to the elderly civilians whom it was +his duty to escort, and they, being civilians, thought his choice of +a companion very appropriate. They all looked upon Lieutenant Everard +with much favor. They could not know, of course, how often he would +pause in his talk with Callum, when the two were alone beside the +camp-fire, and shake his head with an unutterable thought even to hear +the voice of the botanist, the well-known Herbert Taviston, as it was +raised in his guarded tent to call out a string of Latin plant names of +the growths of the Great Smoky region to another of the commissioners +already abed under his own canopy, while the Highlander, whose ills +in life were so much grimmer than boredom, laughed in glee at the +officer’s dismay and disaffection. So often Everard shook his head for +this cause that its decorous powder suffered, and that is saying much. +For so perfect of accoutrement was he, so point-device, so solicitous +in every detail of dress, that one can hardly think of the fop’s dying +save in full uniform, as befitting the importance of the occasion. The +fact that extremes meet is suggested in the thought that the savages, +when going out to battle with another tribe, often importuned the +white traders for such attire as would enable them to “make a genteel +appearance in English cloth when they died.” That the highly civilized +Everard would die in his boots was a foregone conclusion, but one is +sure that they were elaborately polished whatever the emergency, his +burnished sword in his hand, his neckcloth richly laced about his +throat, his hair curled according to its graceful wont. It was a very +fine head of hair, and for that reason he did not wear the fashionable +wig. Of a rich brownish auburn hue, his hair rose up from his forehead +in a natural undulation that gave all the fashionable effect; it curled +crisply at the sides; it was thick, long, and lent itself with every +address to be plaited in a queue at the back. He had brown eyes, darkly +lashed, a large aquiline nose, a curling, disdainful, discontented +mouth, and a complexion sunburned a permanent scarlet, for despite +his fripperies he had seen much service and was by no means a tin +soldier. The dashing young officer was a somewhat dazzling exponent of +a position and a status which Callum felt to be his own by right, and +the simply educated and much denied Highland youth listened greedily to +the stories with which Everard sought to beguile the tedium: stories of +cosmopolitan life, society, the gay world, the gossip of the times in +high circles, London, Paris, Vienna,--for Everard had seen life,--he +had seen the world! Sometimes these choice narratives were military, +and Callum’s pulse would quicken, for he was ambitious of deeds of +valor and the opportunity of command. Sometimes the chronicle of +Everard’s experiences became boastful and coxcombical, and adroitly +suggested other conquests than those of the battlefield. + +Nevertheless to Everard the tedium was intolerable. They could not +gamble at cards, the reigning vice and pleasure of the day, for the +extremity of the poverty of Callum Bane precluded this, and Everard +would have been both ashamed and sorry to win his meagre pay. Now and +again they played a dreary game without hazard, merely “for the fun of +the thing,” but Everard found more genuine amusement in object lessons +with the cards, in which he elucidated the methods and mysteries of +sundry new games, the latest rage, which he had picked up when he was +last in London or Paris. This interest palled too after a time, and +in reverting to the chronicle of his experiences he was even fain to +elaborate questions of the cuisine; he described queer dishes of which +he had partaken in out of the way quarters of the world whither his +military duties had chanced to carry him; he learnedly compared the +abilities of the cooks of different inns and coffee-houses in divers +cities; and he vaunted the discrimination and keen discernment of +his palate as a judge of wines till the “bouquet,” of which he spoke +so knowingly, seemed to dispense an actual fragrance to the alert +senses of the imaginative listener. None of these subtle refinements +appertained to the beverage of which Everard invited Callum’s opinion +one night as the two boon spirits lingered long about the camp-fire, +now and again mending it as it sank, for the hour wore on to the chill +of midnight. + +“You have to go on guard duty anyhow presently, Callum Bane,” the +officer said, “so you might as well stay here till the corporal goes +out with the relief.” + +They had been in high glee, and the lieutenant was loath to lose his +merry company. + +The camp was now pitched at Ioco Town,--by Callum, alack, so well +remembered,--west of the Chilhowee Range, and the English surveyor +had offered the lieutenant some particularly fierce tafia, doubtless +originally distilled for the Indian trade (against the law), the +“fire water” that wrought such woe among the tribes. The sober-minded +civilians had not cared to deviate from their usual refreshment of +brandy and water or wine which they had brought for their consumption +during the journey, but the officer was disposed to experiment. Neither +Everard nor Callum was accustomed to this particular drink nor pleased +with it, and now and again reverted to the officer’s Scotch whiskey, +wherein they demonstrated the fact that they were both Britons and +compatriots. Then once more they essayed the contemned rum, and again +to take the taste out drank the home-brew. + +“My certie! it’s got the smell o’ the peat ontil it!” cried the +Scotchman in his simple joy and bibulous patriotism. + +Despite his exaltation of the Scotch product, however, the rum had no +cause to complain of him when some criticism of the beverage by Everard +required that it should be sampled anew, and then they once more sagely +conferred together. + +That Everard was more irritable than usual was amply manifest in the +expression of his uplifted eyes and the cant of his eyebrows when +suddenly the learned Herbert Taviston issued forth all nightcapped from +his tent, and, snugly wrapped in a gaudy floriated dressing-gown, once +more sought the solace of the fire. + +“You seem very comfortable here, my dear sir,” he said with complacent +sweetness and self-satisfaction, all unaware of the piteous spectacle +his nightcapped well-informed head presented in the estimation of the +military man, who was already alienated by a surfeit of botany, and +whose hair, blowsing in the chill wind about his high forehead, was not +even sheltered by his hat. “I find my tent quite cold. We should have +done better to take up our quarters in this vacant house hard by, as it +seems to be abandoned.” + +He nodded the tassel of his nightcap toward the slumbering town of +Ioco, the nearest conical-roofed houses showing dimly against the +densely black night. Some residue of light seemed held in the Tennessee +River, for now and again came a sidereal glimmer from the reflection +of the stars on the invisible surface, and a mysterious vista opened +between the towering forests on either bank, where the unseen stream +led like some great shadowy roadway into regions of deeper darkness +beyond. Ioco Town, long and narrow, stretched along the bank, still and +silent. Only the wind was abroad. Of the nearest dwellings all seemed +alike, but one quite apart from the others, close at hand in fact, was +vacant, according to the adroitly waving tassel,--doubtless impelled by +previous knowledge rather than present assurance of the circumstance. + +The officer spoke up with only half masked acerbity. He felt +responsible, as he was indeed, for the conduct of the expedition to the +best advantage, and all details as to transportation, lodgment, the +commissariat, passed under his direct supervision. No slight matter +was such a march in that region in those days. Now a river had risen +out of fording depth, and ferriage was to be improvised, from whatever +materials could be had in the dense wilderness, and safely achieved; +now an accident occurred to the baggage train, a horse going hopelessly +lame, or getting astray; now a shortage supervened in certain +provisions for the commissioners that had proved more acceptable than +others which thus outlasted them. All the time the discipline of a +military camp was to be maintained, the soldiers provided for after +their kind, the thousand maladroit incidents of a march of five hundred +miles to be severally met and adjusted, without assistance or advice, +and reconciled to the comfort and safety of an official party of +elderly civilians. + +“You will do me the favor to remember, sir, that since the change in +the weather I have urged you and the other civilian gentlemen to accept +the invitation of the chiefs of Ioco Town and quarter yourselves in +their ‘stranger-house,’ a very commodious lodging and vastly superior +to yonder tumble-down hovel.” + +Everard pointed with the stem of his pipe toward the stove-like +“winter-house,” a mere shadow crouching low in the night and only +revealed because of the far-reaching flare of the freshening camp-fire. +The yellow flames sprang cheerily up with a roar and a jet of leaping +red sparks. The boughs of the tall hickory trees high over their heads +showed fluctuating glimpses of the amber and scarlet hues of the still +redundant leafage; a star scintillated through the fringes of a pine; +the tents of the little encampment glimmered white at regular intervals +in the dusky aisles of the woods; now and again the dull red glow of +a fire at some distance, about which was grouped the guard, asserted +its fervors, “lights out” being an order held not applicable to it nor +to the fire in front of the commissioners’ tents; and continually, +regularly, the tramp of an unseen sentry, walking his beat, smote on +the air with a dull mechanical iteration like the ticking of a clock. + +“I should have placed a strong guard about the building,” Everard went +on, “and as the rest of the escort lies so near Ioco you would have +been as secure certainly if not safer than here as you are.” + +For Everard, not unnaturally, considered the complaint of the +discomforts to which the commissioners were subjected as a reflection +upon his conduct of the march. + +The tassel on the learned nightcap wagged in deprecation. “My dear sir, +most true, most true, but”-- + +“I remember you insisted that you preferred the camp because of +possible infection from smallpox in the Indian dwellings,” the +officer mercilessly went on, with a curl of the upper lip, already +so disdainfully disposed. He had that flouting scorn of the fear of +contagion which a man naturally acquires whose life is in continual +jeopardy from epidemics, constrained to dwell in hordes, and subject +every hour to the chances of the times. “For myself,” he protested, +“except that I am obliged to keep the escort in camp to avoid brawls +between the soldiers and the young Cherokee braves, I should prefer +to billet the whole force upon the town, in the good, cosy, dry +winter-houses, since this unseasonable chilly change in the weather. +There is no more danger from smallpox for you in sleeping in their +‘stranger-house’ than in the handshaking that went on in the powwowing +over the terms of the cession at Choté with the headmen. Shoot me, sir, +but you ought to see an epidemic in an army--something to be afraid +of! Gad, sir, the men died with cholera in India like sheep--and with +scurvy, too, on board ship, both going and coming.” + +The tassel on the nightcap had lost its pliant urbanity. Be a man ever +so scientific, so civilian, so intrusted with peaceful commissional +powers, he cannot admit an inference of fear, even of disease, in +taking ordinary precaution. + +“All, my good sir, within the scope of civilization and the best +deterrent effects of a scientifically applied materia medica. The army +chirurgeons do good service--excellent, excellent. But here, among the +savages, no disinfectant processes obtain, and no intelligent effort +to prevent the spread of the dread scourge. Why, sir, in 1738 the +Cherokees lost almost half their number by the ravages of the smallpox +and their ignorance in dealing with the disease.” + +“And if they had lost _all_ their number I should not hesitate +to sleep in one of their winter-houses twenty-four years later. Ha, +ha, ha!” The rum was evidently getting in its work. “Hey, Benson,” the +lieutenant called to his servant in the one illumined tent hard by, +“make up my bed in that vacant winter-house, and hark ye, build a fire +in the middle of the floor, Injun-wise! Gad! I’ll not be diddled out of +the comforts of life for fear of a Cherokee distemper twenty-four years +gone!” + +The nightcap wished itself where it belonged, on its pillow. To +retire with dignity became the most definite motive in the brain that +it surmounted, and in this emprise it conceived that some aid might +be secured by a few words of casual conversation with the officer’s +companion, who was therefore civilly addressed. + +Now the worshipful Herbert Taviston would have been excited to a frenzy +by a false classification of the meanest herb of the earth, and would +have repudiated it as an unrighteous pretension and a mischievous +effort to subvert the accepted grades and relations of a careful and +accurate system. But if aware that such elements and considerations +existed in matters military, they were in his estimation of no +practical moment, and he turned toward the Highland soldier with as +pliant a grace of his tasseled crest as erstwhile it had borne in +bending before the commander of the force. And in fact he might well be +oblivious of distinctions of rank. The young Highlander had a handsome, +kindly, intelligent face and a manner of refinement and dignity, and +bating his coarse garb and rustic dialect he might have easily seemed +a man of degree. Moreover, he was here hobnobbing familiarly with his +officer. + +“Do you find your pipe a solace, my dear sir?” Mr. Taviston blandly +demanded, for smoking was not then the universal habit that it was +sometime earlier and has been since. + +“Aye, sir,” the Highlander replied politely, a trifle embarrassed by +the obvious mistake as to his rank rather than his quality. “But it +isna sae cantie a crony as a queigh o’ gude browst, neither,” he added +blithely, with an effort to reëstablish the _entente cordiale_. + +The young officer, with sullen, attentive eyes, that held a spark of +red fire in their brown depths, glowered at them. + +“Ah, so indeed!” suavely commented the elderly nightcap. “But have +you observed, sir, that the Indians have another kind of tobacco than +that which is commonly smoked,--which is of course the _Nicotiana +Tabacum_? Now this other tobacco plant is a small-leaved, green, +bitter species which they use exclusively in their religious +ceremonies, their incantations, their necromancy, known as”-- + +“As _Nicotiana diabolica_,” suggested the officer. + +Now had the nightcap housed but a modicum of tact and permitted a +laugh at this fling, all might yet have gone well. But trust a man of +scientific hobbies for serious denseness. + +“Not at all, sir,” he said with asperity. “That name is unknown to +the herbalist. The plant is _Nicotiana rustica_ with us. With +the Cherokees it is _Tsalagayuli_, and the Muskogees call it +_It-chau-chee-le-pue-puggee_, ‘the tobacco of the ancients,’ +and the Delawares, _Lenkschatey_, ‘original tobacco,’--showing +an interest parity of signification; with the coast Indians it is +_Uppowoc_; the Tuscaroras call it _Charho_; the Pamlico +Indians, _Hoohpau_; and the Woccon Indians, _Vucoone_. Now,” +turning back to the Highlander with an air of excluding the ill-starred +jester on subjects of such grave moment, “there is a so-called tobacco, +not even related to the genus _Nicotiana_--it is the _Lobelia +inflata_--which furnishes the Indians with a powerful medicinal +infusion. Have you noticed in your march hither, and perhaps in your +previous campaigns in the Cherokee country, the amazing expertness of +the Cherokees in the matter of simples?” + +“He is too simple himself,” put in the officer, with an airy laugh. + +The Highlander’s face was flushing painfully. He was carrying a goodly +quantity of mixed liquor of the fiercest description, and it had not as +yet shaken a nerve; but the consciousness of his false position between +his two companions was aiding its potency, and his equilibrium was +beginning to tremble. + +The botanist, touched in his sensitive pride, calmly ignored Lieutenant +Everard at his own camp-fire; and the officer, who had borne much from +his idiosyncrasies and had assiduously sought to promote his comfort +and security on the weary march hither, gazed at him with a deepening +glow of that fiery spark in his eyes. + +“The Cherokees’ expert knowledge of toxicology in plant forms is +amazing,” continued the botanist. “They excel all savage nations in +their discoveries of vegetable poisons and their application. And then +their botanical nomenclature--how happy--how apt! Are you conversant, +sir, with their generic plant names?” + +“The title of the parent stem, do you mean?” said the unlearned +Highlander hesitating, fumbling in his mind as to what Cherokee plant +names were considered applicable as to a parent stem. + +“He doesn’t lay much nowadays on the title of parent stems,” +interpolated Everard flippantly. “His own branch has lost its head, +through that head having been so heady as to lose his head.” + +A keen steely glance, as significant as the drawing of a burnished +blade, flashed from the Highlander’s eyes and was received full in the +gaze of the facetiously fleering officer. The subject of the forfeiture +of estates, the loss of titles, the attainder of treason, was not fit +for jesting with one who had suffered so fiercely by them, and except +in his cups no man would have been more definitely and respectfully +aware of this than Everard. And yet the fiery liquor was not altogether +to blame. He was as cruelly hampered by the false position as his +lowly friend, who nevertheless in every essential that he reverenced +was his equal if not his superior. To be ignored, to be talked down, +and meekly submit to keep his mouth closed was more than his patience +could admit. But he was practically helpless. He could not seize that +egregious nightcap by the tassel and punch that learned head. He could +only assert himself by interjecting scoffs and fleering laughter, and +because of the fiery cup these were ill advised. + +“It is singular how very fitting and descriptive is the Cherokee +plant nomenclature!” chirped the botanist. As he sat on a block of +wood beside the fire, his face seemed ludicrously small in its strait +toggery, in comparison with its enlarged and bewigged aspect by day, +and he looked like an elderly infant, if such an anachronism can be +pictured. His gaudy gown was drawn close about his spare figure, but +he had forgotten to be cold, and his smiling eyes were fixed absently +on the face of the young Highlander, as fitting the fingers of his +delicate hands daintily together he continued to speak of the accurate +niceties of Cherokee plant names. + +“_Atali kuli_, ‘the mountain climber,’” he translated, his +lingering tones almost chanting, so great was his pleasure in the +definition; “the mountain ginseng, my good sir.” Then, fairly intoning +the Latin like a priest, he added, “_Panax quinquefolium_, of the +order _Araliaceæ_, also a native of China, sir.” + +“_He_ is not a native of China, sir. He was made out of a peat +bog,” put in Everard flippantly. + +Naturally the nightcap addressed the civil Highlander. + +“Then there is _Ahowwe akata_, ‘deer-eye,’--yes, the word +_ahowwe_ signifying deer,--with us the _Rudbeckia fulgida_. +And again,” dropping his voice now in deprecation of the suggestion +of indelicacy, as if a lowered tone made the allusion more seemly, +“there is _Unistiluisti_, meaning ‘they stick on,’”--in a whisper, +“beggar’s lice,”--then at full voice, as if the Latin would mend the +matter, “_Myosotis Virginiana_.” + +The lieutenant looked ostentatiously disgusted. He had indeed never +heard of the plant, and the Latin did not impose upon him, but the +mention of the insect from which it took its name was an insult to ears +polite. “Oh fie, sir!” he said rebukingly, for he was indeed aweary of +it all. + +The nightcap turned hastily toward the Highlander, who was heavily +harassed between the two, the double discord of their moods jarring +upon his nerves and bringing them more under subjection to his +previous potations. “Then, my dear sir, there is the Indian shot, the +_Canna_,--as you are aware the Celtic word for ‘a cane,’--with us +the ‘headache plant,’ and”-- + +“Come, come, sir, enough of this,” cried Everard, scarcely listening, +and forced to rise. “We have nothing to do with headaches. It grows +late, and your hearer cannot meet your phrase nor match your learning, +although as to the question of heads he knows more about them than you +can ever teach him. Nothing fixes them in the memory like having them +grinning from a city gate.” + +The Highlander had risen too. He had a pictorial imagination, and +there still lingered upon its sensitive retina, so to speak, images +of the night’s talk, before the botanist had come to the fireside: +the aspect of London, the castellated Rhine, the glitter of Paris, +and many a suave and southern scene beneath a blue and tropic sky. +Suddenly these were all obliterated. That woeful land upon which the +cruel hand of Doom had rested so heavily, the sequestered estates, the +beggared gentry, the starving peasants, the scattered clans, the hunted +fugitives, the proscribed national garb, the hopeless exiles, the +prison, the scaffold, the gibbet--all rose up before him as elements in +a stricken gray landscape, in ghastly wintry guise. For one moment he +hesitated. Then stepping aside from the fire, he reached out and struck +the flippant mocker full in the face. + +The officer, taken all unaware, reeled as if he would lose his +balance. Then, for he was of a fine, alert physique, he recovered the +perpendicular, and it seemed as if he would spring like a panther upon +the Highlander, who had thrown himself into a posture of defense. The +next moment Everard’s military identity was fully reasserted, and the +proud Highlander writhed under the realization that the officer would +not return the blow. He would not demean himself by striking so low a +thing,--a man of the ranks. His voice rang out crisp and steady as he +called the corporal of the guard, placed Callum under arrest, and named +the manner and locality of his detention and the details when he should +be brought up “at orders” the following morning. Then wholly sobered, +Everard turned with dignified courtesy upon the botanist, who was now +protesting and squawking like some fluttered fowl instead of a refined +and elegant gentleman in the discharge of a public trust. + +“I must beg your favor, sir,” the lieutenant said, by way of denial of +a wild plea for clemency for the culprit. “I understand my duty and I +shall do it. And may I beg that you will now retire to your tent, as +all this stir may rouse the camp to the prejudice of discipline and +good order? I wish you a very good-night, sir!” + +And the nightcap with a depressed and lankly pendent tassel and the +floriated gown disappeared under the flap of the tent and enlivened the +spaces around the fire no more. + + + + + XI + + +POOR Callum Bane! Sober in good truth and sad as well! As soon as his +guard had quitted his side, he flung himself down on the earth floor +of the Indian winter-house, to which he had been conducted, with his +cheek pressed to the clay. He wished that the day had come when it +might cover him. Then he recoiled with the thought that this might +not be far distant. Striking an officer was a most serious military +offense. Even apart from its military aspect it was an insult for which +only blood could atone. He knew that Lieutenant Everard could never +face his world, the officers of his regiment, his mess, if they were +aware that as man to man he had tamely submitted to receive a blow in +the face. And since he could not challenge one of so low a station as +a common soldier, he had let the matter revert to its normal aspect of +insubordination, and the military law would take its course. + +Yet Callum could have shed the tears that stood hot and smarting in his +eyes for this sad finale to their gay young friendship. He had felt +that it augured a certain magnanimity in Everard to ignore what he was +in station in the knowledge of what he was by descent. Callum would +never have admitted, not even in his most secret thoughts, that he +found aught lacking in Jock Lesly, whose instincts rendered him a man +of intrinsic worth; but this association on equal terms with Everard, a +man of refined manners and gentlemanly phrasings and careful nurture, +was to Callum like a return to the companionship of his earlier life, +and a relief after the ruder comradeship of the boisterous common +soldier and the dull routine of mechanical duty. He had taken a certain +pleasure, too, in the realization that his society was the young +officer’s only solace in the long and dreary march with its peculiar +personal isolation. But it was a pleasure fraught with much pain,--the +contemplation of this man in a position which but for an untoward fling +of fate might have been his own also. The thought often lent a sharp +edge to the close and intimate observation of Everard’s opportunities +and their development, but Callum was not of a jealous temperament, +and did not visit upon the individual, even in secret meditation, the +disasters which national circumstances and conditions had wrought. +Despite the difference in station and habits, wealth and education, the +two had grown fraternally fond of each other, and now there was that +between them which could be washed out only with blood, and the officer +in the direct discharge of his duty had chosen that it should be with +the blood of the soldier. + +The sentinel still stood at the doorway, for there was no door, +but gradually his glances within, prompted by curiosity, had grown +infrequent. There was no guard tent. The men were of the best class, +picked for the expedition, and so far not even a trifling misdemeanor +had sullied the record of their good conduct. Punctual, alert, +efficient, cheerful, invaluable each had seemed in every emergency, +and thus the only unoccupied shelter that might conveniently hold +a culprit was the clay-constructed winter-house, which stood aloof +and vacant on the edge of Ioco Town. The preparations which Everard +had ordered, with the intention of occupying it himself, had gone no +farther than the kindling of a fire on the clay hearth in the centre +of the floor, before it was diverted to the uses of a prison. The +smoke, in thin, shifting, scroll-like forms, circled gray and blue +about the red clay walls without an exit save such crevices as the +wind and rain and neglect had wrought. As Callum had dropped down +on the inner side, the vapors served to screen him somewhat from +the observation of the sentinel, who, he now began to notice, had +become absolutely oblivious of him. This matter riveted his attention +presently. There was evidently some strange stir in the encampment, an +odd circumstance, and Callum reflected in sudden affright that he had +been bound, needlessly and cruelly he considered. The handcuffs, always +carried _pro forma_, were among the baggage, and, it being deemed +unmeet to rouse its custodians to overhaul it at that hour, a stout +rope had been substituted. A vague clamor of voices came to his ears. +He observed that the sentinel at the doorway had become rigid with +suppressed excitement. Could it be that an attack by the Indians was +threatened? Remembering his bonds, Callum’s blood ran cold. The force, +while strong enough for protection against unauthorized vagabonds or +possible bands of robbers, could not resist successfully an organized +assault by the braves of this great tribe. He might well be forgotten +in such a crisis--left here bound and helpless, to be captured and +tortured and burned. The next moment, listening with every pulse tense, +he realized that the voices were those of the soldiers in altercation +or extenuation. One shrilly clamoring in Gaelic, as if the strength +of his lungs and the pitch of the tone could render his gibberish +intelligible to Lieutenant Everard, revealed to Callum’s practised ear +the cause of the disturbance. + +An Indian horse-race had been held in a neighboring town, and albeit +this amusement was one which appealed especially to the tastes of the +pleasure-loving lieutenant, so grievously debarred and deplorably dull +on this uncongenial expedition, he would not attend it himself and +issued positive orders that no man of the force should be present. Nay, +he went so far as to see to it that none had leave of absence from the +camp on any pretext on the day when this diversion took place. He very +definitely appreciated the perils which menaced his little command in +case of any antagonism or open quarrel with the tribesmen of the towns. +Had his mission been strictly military, to make a stanch defense or a +brisk onslaught, it would have been far simpler, in his estimation, +whatever dangers or disasters hostility might involve. But the success +of his mission depended upon the preservation of a strict peace. Apart +from the safe-conduct and guardianship of the commissioners and their +attendants, fully one third of the party being non-combatants,--and no +man believes so implicitly as does the British regular in the absolute +incapacity of the non-professional to do battle in any behalf, or to +be of any belligerent value even in his own defense,--the interests +of the government were at stake. Nothing could so quickly sow the +seeds of dissension, the acute officer argued within himself, as the +winning of the Indians’ money and valuable furs and other choice +gear at the projected horse-race. He did not doubt that charges of +fraud would arise, a fracas ensue, the security of the commissioners’ +camp be placed in jeopardy, and the cession itself imperiled. Hence +his self-denial, for he was a good judge of horseflesh himself, and +dearly loved a show of speed, and the Cherokees of that day owned some +extraordinary animals. + +Everard had felt himself extremely ill used by fate, as he was turning +away from the camp-fire, after his dismissal of the astonished corporal +with the prisoner, and his low bow to salute the disappearance of Mr. +Herbert Taviston. His face was smarting with pain from the blow, his +heart burned hot within him, his pride upbraided his condescension to +this man of low estate, who had so ungratefully requited recognition +of his real quality as a born gentleman. While Everard was beginning +to revolve troublous doubts as to how the course of action upon which +he had resolved in these unprecedented circumstances would be regarded +by his mess and superior officers, a new and unprovoked disaster +was presented. One of the corporals in the functions of officer of +the day appeared, and with a mechanical salute and a look of abject +despair reported that several of the men, three English soldiers and +one Highlander, had run the guard that afternoon and had attended the +horse-race, in which they had found their account. They had smuggled +into camp after dark a quantity of valuable furs, some strings of the +fresh-water pearls of the region, and the Highlander had jingling in +his sporran some French money, several louis d’ors. So successfully +indeed had they managed their enterprise that its discovery was made +only through the anxiety of the Cherokees to repossess themselves of +these pieces of French gold. By no means adepts in banking principles, +they had, nevertheless, with an unassisted natural intelligence evolved +the idea of a premium. As soon as the headmen learned the fact of the +loss of this money, they secretly offered to redeem the louis d’ors +with English currency and pay a guinea extra for the exchange. The +“mad young man,” Wahuhu by name, who had been grievously deprived +by fate of his money, browbeaten by his elders upon discovery of +the circumstances, and sent upon this secret errand to retrieve the +disaster, was greatly perturbed by the unaccustomed restrictions of +the camp. He had himself sought to run the sentry, and being taken in +charge by the officer of the guard, naïvely demanded to see and confer +with a certain Highland soldier. By adroit cross-questioning the facts +had been elicited by the corporal--little by little because of the +Indian’s reluctance to disclose aught and the linguistic deficiencies +of the Highlander. + +“Lord, sir, he is a poor creature!” said the corporal, laying the +matter before his superior officer. “He cannot talk at all.” + +“An enlisted man cannot be dumb,” said the officer with asperity. + +“No, sir, but he can’t be understood, sir. He can talk no English, nor +even the gibberish they call ‘braid Scotch,’ nor yet Cherokee. He has +nothin’ but the Gaelic, sir.” + +“And yet he can run the guard and bet at a horse-race?” + +“Yes, sir; an’ win his sporran full o’ louis d’ors!” + +And with true Scotch thrift the accomplished personage in question +would not be parted from them. Thus it was that his voice was presently +lifted in the midnight. He spoke on his own behalf. He mistrusted +the interpretation of his Scotch comrades, for his ear discerned the +difference in their accent from the speech of the English soldiers and +the lieutenant, and he cherished the conviction that were the Gaelic +but addressed directly and distinctly to the commanding officer, he +being a sensible man could not steel his comprehension against it. +Wherefore the Highlander yelped and shrilly piped into the night air +until the very hem of his kilt quivered with his vocalizations, and the +lieutenant stood as if bewitched before him, gazing at the spectacle he +presented. + +The whole camp was astir. Lights gleamed in sundry tents, all white +and translucent in the darkness. Military figures had ventured out and +stood in the shadows, some bearing weapons on the pretext of having +fancied the tumult a summons to arms. The officer of the guard had +attended with the Indian negotiator, who was instantly set at liberty +by the order of the lieutenant, but who still lingered with wild eyes +and a constant keen turning of the head to and fro to see and to hear; +that he was not altogether unsupported might be inferred from vague +vistas that the camp lights flung down the aisles of the forest, where +shadowy faces and feathered crests showed, flitting like a fancy. And +of all, the central figure was Eachin MacEachin, his red hair rough +from his pillow and his well-earned dreams of wealth; his dress in +disarray, one stocking well-braced and gartered, the other hanging +over his shoe and showing his shapely sturdy leg and his great bare +rough red knee; his kilt fluttering in the wind; his freckled face +eager and distorted with his vociferations to his discerning commander. +And in truth, aided by adroit gesticulations, his words were not so +far from intelligible. He spurned the proposition of an exchange. As +he opened his sporran of badger skin and took therefrom a glittering +gold piece and exhibited it to the lieutenant, then with an ecstatic +leer put it between his strong white teeth and bit hard on it to prove +it genuine, there was no need for a mortified compatriot, who had +volunteered to interpret to the officer, to say,-- + +“She aye threepit she ha’ gotten ta gowd, sir. She mistrust ta English +guinea.” Then with a look of blank distress, “She’ll aye mainteen she +saw muckle French gowd in ta Forty-foive. She’ll no be so well acquent +wi’ ta guinea.” + +The object of his aid, desirous of speaking for himself, now and +again turned upon his interpreter with a furious Gaelic phrase of +repudiation, to which the better soldier, who had run no guard and +consequently had won no money, vouchsafed no retort, only commenting +indirectly by shaking his head and exclaiming, “Hegh, sir, she’s but a +puir creature!” + +“I am not so sure of that,” said the lieutenant dryly, “unless I can +count what he has got in that sporran!” + +Suddenly something in the aspect of the glittering coin which the +Highlander still held in his fingers struck Lieutenant Everard’s +attention. His face changed sharply. He asked for the coin, and calling +for a candle keenly scrutinized the piece by the flickering taper, as +the corporal held it, screening with his hand the feeble flame from the +wind. In another moment the lieutenant demanded the transference of the +remaining five louis d’ors to his custody, sternly insisting, despite +the wild plaintive protests of Eachin MacEachin. + +All this, the Gaelic being as intelligible to Callum as the English, +came to him on the chill night air, and he marveled at Everard’s +persistence in taking custody of the coins, for although it was the +habit of the Highland soldiery to make their officers their bankers, +this trust was altogether voluntary, and not by duress, as in the +case of poor Eachin MacEachin and his ill-gotten “gowd.” As it was +the favor of chance, like fairy gold, its possession may have seemed +equally precarious; or as it was won in direct disobedience of orders, +he may have even entertained doubts of the lieutenant’s intentions +in the matter of its ultimate return to him, for the Highlanders +were as a rule peculiarly averse to the control of any officers save +those of their own regiments and more than once mutinied rather than +serve under strangers. For whatever reason, so valiantly indeed did +Eachin MacEachin resist Lieutenant Everard’s orders that force at +last became necessary, and his voluble insubordination in the pain of +parting with his gold made Callum acquainted with the fact that he +might presently expect company in his imprisonment. This recalled his +mind summarily to his own plight. He realized the importance of the +officer’s efforts to avoid a clash with the Indians, and wondered what +effect this circumstance would have in the discipline of the military +offenders. Suddenly he turned sick and his blood ran cold. The corporal +punishment, then in vogue in the British army, was regarded by the +better class of soldiers as so great a degradation that a man once +brought to the lash was practically ruined, socially and morally. The +indignity came all at once into Callum’s mind as a possible solution +of Everard’s difficulty in his case. He knew that he could not be +shot without a regularly organized court-martial, which, necessarily +delayed, in view of the personnel and conditions of the force, until +their return to Charlestown, would also publish far and wide the +officer’s derogation of his dignity in associating on equal terms with +a private, who had struck him over their drink as an equal might have +done. Everard would flinch from this disclosure, for it would impugn +his fitness for his position. And yet he could not challenge a private +nor submit as man to man to the ignominy of a blow in the face. The +summary punishment of a flogging at the head of the line would dispose +of the matter with the utmost contempt and amply avenge the indignity. +Callum was terrified lest Everard’s authority in this independent +command of a detachment, so remote from superior military jurisdiction, +gave him such latitude, or could be so stretched in view of his +dilemma. With the mere thought Callum sprang from the floor with a +suddenness that loosened every taut strand of the ropes that bound him. +His breath was short; he gasped; the blood almost burst from his veins +as his heart plunged and the arteries throbbed. He must be quick; the +little makeshift prison would soon be recruited; and of captives, one +was a spy on another. He could scarcely see, through the blue swirls +of smoke, the sentry at the door, whose attention was still riveted on +the excited scene without. Callum had caught at the first wild scheme +of release, hardly canvassing its practicability. He did not reckon +with the pain or the danger when he thrust his bound hands into the +flames to burn off the cords. The thought in his brain, the ignominy +that threatened him, seared far tenderer perceptions than appertain to +the flesh. The fire caught at the hemp, and he set his teeth hard. The +ligaments had at last fallen away when discovery suddenly menaced him. + +“Look out for your plaid in there, Callum,” said the sentry abruptly. +“I smell something burning.” + +“’T isna wool,” rejoined Callum promptly. “My plaid isna even +scorching.” + +And the sentinel, thus satisfied, once more turned his attention +without. + +Callum looked about him wildly. His first impulse was to throw himself +upon the sentinel’s back, overturn him, and fly down the dark aisles of +the woods--to what? Certain recapture, and an ignominy that overawed +his proud spirit more than death. + +“Gae cannily--gae cannily,” he said to himself, as he crouched +uncertainly behind the flare of the fire and the veiling tissues of the +smoke. + +The house, like all of its kind, had neither window nor chimney. It +seemed to him of far ampler proportions than such as were used for a +single family, and yet it did not approach in dimensions the great +assembly rotunda, which could contain an audience of several hundred +persons. It occurred to him that it might have been used as a fort at +some date long previous, when perhaps Ioco had served as a barrier +town, and this was its outlying defense. He remembered having noted +the vestiges of an ancient stockade outside, and with the idea that it +might have once held an Indian garrison, his keen eyes searched the +interior. The old cane-wrought divan, that once perchance encircled +the clay-plastered walls, had long ago vanished, leaving only a mark +to suggest it. But above this, on a level with the ground outside, for +the floor was fully two feet lower than the surface of the earth, he +detected a series of vague circles of white chalk. These white circles +indicated where loopholes were concealed beneath the clay of the wall, +to be utilized by the forted party in firing on an approaching enemy. +He rushed to the nearest in a sudden frenzy. The clay gave way in +his blistered baked hands; and suddenly, with an inrush of the sweet +woodland air without and a glimpse of the black night beyond, was +revealed the loophole, adroitly fashioned by savage skill how many +years agone! A limited opening it proved, however, barely sufficient +to admit of the flight of an arrow thence, and just above the surface +of the ground, but it gave a purchase to the frantic clutching of his +strong hands and for the use of a clasp knife of an ordinary sort that +had been stowed in his sporran; for although he had been searched for +concealed weapons, it had been but a cursory investigation, as his +wrists were bound. The blade broke when the work was nearly completed, +but his fingers, although almost nailless and lacerated to bleeding, +finished the enlargement of the aperture, and he dragged himself +through the narrow horizontal space and stood, breathless, exhausted, +in the dark woods without. + +Only for one moment did he pause. The clamors at the scene of action +warned him that a crisis had supervened. Wild cries of “Ohon! Ohon!” +betokened the despair of the erstwhile lucky gambler, the fact that the +five louis d’ors were temporarily transferred to the custody of the +officer, and that the Highlander and his fellow culprits who had so +gallantly run the guard and played the races were being hustled along +to the half demolished prison, which they would find empty. The thought +lent wings to Callum’s feet, for in another moment discovery would +ensue and the pursuit come hot upon his track. + +Yet his spirits revived as he felt the fresh wind, cool and pure upon +his face; his muscles, supple and strong, responded to the demand upon +their activities. Like a deer he sped straight through the town and +along the sloping bank of the watercourse. At that hour he encountered +not a living creature. Only the currents of the Tennessee came to meet +him. All was silent save the flow of the water and the flutter of the +wind. So definite were these sounds in the night as he went that he +began to take heart of grace and hope rebounded anew. The pursuit, +he reflected, had probably gone in the opposite direction, since the +camp lay on the edge of the town. This gave him time to scheme, to +secure some place of concealment, for horsemen, once on his heels, +would soon run him down. For this reason he left the river bank and +took his way among the fields. His pace grew slower, for the rugged +cultivated ground and now and then great masses of weeds in ill-tended +and neglected spaces made the going difficult. Twice he caught his foot +in the vines of pompions and came heavily to the earth, where he lay +for a time stealthily listening before he dared to rise again. He had +great fear of the Indians--the fear of the straggler. They hated the +soldiers now more than ever heretofore, and above all the Highlanders, +so conspicuous in the recent Cherokee War. A wreaking of many grudges +they would find should he fall into their hands while fleeing from the +wrath of his officer. A terrible fate this! a sly, treacherous capture, +torture, the stake, a mysterious and unavenged disappearance from the +knowledge of all the world! Military discipline could threaten no +such horrors save to a man of his proud temperament. Once or twice he +slackened his speed to a walk, swinging onward with a good long stride, +but he could not now continuously run; his strength was spent. Suddenly +he came to a full pause, with the weight of doom on his heart. There +in the space between two rows of corn the figure of a man stood not +three paces distant! Callum in a panic marveled how he had not noticed +this approach. Above, the night was silent, and high over these alien +mountains glittered stars that he had known of yore, that still shone +over the mountains in far, far Scotland as placidly as before ever Woe +came in to sit by her hearth and her sons went forth to exile forever. +Nothing stirred save their palpitant scintillations. He could hear +naught except the pulsations of his own heart beating like a drum. The +figure of the man stood motionless and gazed at him, as motionless, +fascinated, helpless, he stood and stared. + +“_Canawlla!_” (Friendship) Callum at last said softly, although in +the dense darkness he could not have stated why he thought it was an +Indian. + +A moment of suspense passed leaden-weighted. + +There was no response. The world was so silent that he heard the almost +soundless flight of a bat winging past. + +The next instant a strange doubt entered his mind. He put forth his +hand gingerly, and laid it on the figure’s arm. There was no quick +stroke of a tomahawk, as he had half feared. The man’s arm, as he stood +so stiff and silent, was all unresponsive. In fact, it was but a couple +of fagots, and Callum realized that he was in Chilhowee, Old Town, and +that this was the image of the Ancient Warrior he had noted in the +fields. + +“Take that for the leein’, fause face o’ ye!” he said, striking the +gourd in sudden wrath, his cold fear growing hot anger, as he thought +of the waste of time that the fright had cost him, and the imminence of +the danger in which he stood. + +The gourd wavered and dropped suddenly to the earth, and as he +mechanically stooped and picked it up, a strange idea struck him. It +was a great gourd; he lifted it with its bedraggled war-bonnet to his +head, and it slipped easily over and down to his neck. He began in a +fever of haste to disrobe the effigy. It had been of gigantic stature, +and the hunting-shirt even concealed the kilt of the big Highlander; +the leggings went on over his stockings and hid his bare knees; the +sleeves came down over his hands. Half supported by the stake which +had upheld the scarecrow, he took the stiff pose that he remembered. +And why, he asked himself, should he not stand here as safely, thus +masked, as lie all day in some Indian hut, if he could gain admission? +Doubtless every house on the river bank would be searched by Everard’s +orders, and most probably he would be delivered up by treachery to this +demand, if not murdered to settle old scores. At nightfall he would +array the figure anew and slip off, traveling by dark and hiding by +day, and returning thus to Charlestown, surrender to his own captain. +He fancied the officers of the Highland regiment could understand the +situation, and would relish the allusion to scaffolds and grinning +skulls scarcely more than he. If he had been left in his station as a +private soldier, he argued, all would have been well. But he had been +admitted to familiarity and friendship with the officer as a gentleman, +and when over their liquor he had repelled an insult with a blow, as an +equal might, he was suddenly relegated to the status and penalties of +a private soldier. If the members of the court-martial were minded to +account his escape under these circumstances desertion, they could make +the most of it: he would rather choose to be shot on this charge than +flogged for the blow. + +Punctures in the egregious painted physiognomy of the gourd served for +sight and breath. The nostrils, the eyes, the mouth, the ears, had +all been curiously and faithfully delineated by the Indian artist, +according to his lights. Callum tasted the dawn even before he saw that +the night was turning vaguely blue. When in this dim medium figures of +Indians began to appear, he experienced a sudden elation to perceive +that none cast a second glance at the effigy of the Ancient Warrior in +the cornfield. + + + + + XII + + +A FINE outlook at life the Ancient Warrior enjoyed. The sun came +splendidly up from over the blue and misty domes of the Great Smoky +Mountains, and the beautiful Chilhowee Range suddenly sprang from the +nullity of darkness into all the chromatic richness of autumnal color. +A wind went chanting blithely through its dense woods, as if it were +fitting there to be happy where all was so gay. The river, a trifle of +fog blurring its silver sheen here and there, reflected the gorgeous +tints of the red and gold forests on its banks and caught the light +with an added glister. The world was so fresh, so misty sweet, so newly +created! The rocks echoed the barbaric notes of the blasts blown on the +conch shells, as with the joyful cries of the ritual of their ancient +religion the Cherokee braves went down into the water in their symbolic +ablutions. + +Smoke had long been curling up from the hearths of the houses, and +presently the brisk “second man” of the town was marshaling out his +cohorts of women and girls to work in the fields. Callum was surprised +to see the placid and smiling faces that they wore, for field work in +these rich soils is held to be far less drudgery than housework, and +even now a feminine farm laborer is hardly to be found to exchange +willingly. The Indians always protested that their division of labor, +which allotted field work to the woman, favored the weaker vessel, and +by no means implied that indifference and scorn of her attributed to +them by the white people. + +The “second man” in a civilized community would have been accounted a +wag or a buffoon. So very funny he made himself as he sat on the ground +near the effigy of the Ancient Warrior that Callum was more than once +diverted from his own troublous thoughts and moved to wish for a few +additional phrases of Cherokee, that he might more fully understand the +quip and song and tale with which this genius of the field beguiled +the labor. The elder women listened with slow and languid pleasure; +the children sometimes interrupted with a breathless inquiry. He did +not lack his critic to remark, in the course of a twice-told tale, +that last year the fox had not thus replied to the admonition of +the Ancient Warrior, whereupon, with the privilege of response, the +_raconteur_ doubled like the animal in question and averred +that it was not that same fox! One of the women, a girl of eighteen, +perhaps, showed a brilliant, imaginative face as, at the crisis of each +story, she turned toward the Ancient Warrior and gazed spellbound upon +him with dark, lustrous, liquid eyes, until the “second man” had seen +him safely through an adventure of a series for which, had he lived +from the days of Noah, the centuries scarcely held space. Then with a +long-drawn sigh she would fall to work again, reaching up with lissome +ease for the ears of corn which she gathered. Only the children picked +the peas and beans and other small crops that the corn had sheltered. +For the working force comprised all the laborers of Chilhowee, these +being the public fields destined for the common granaries filled for +emergencies, and not the individual gardens adjoining each domicile. +She was notably expert despite the patent fact that her thoughts +were oft so far away; although obviously strong, she was tall and +delicately slender, which made picturesque her garb of ordinary +doeskin, so fashioned as to leave her arms bare; her buskins were +dyed scarlet; and a cascade of red beads, the valueless trinkets of +civilized manufacture, bought at a round price from an English trader, +fell from her neck. But she was not in gala attire, by reason of her +occupation. Her fingers were long and deft and exquisitely shapely; her +feet slender and small. She was endowed with a sort of stately bloom +and a consummate grace, that justified the sobriquet by which she was +distinguished, the “Cherokee Rose.” She obviously cared less for what +was done and said here yesterday than for the discourse of the fox and +the Ancient Warrior some two or three hundred years before, according +to the elastic chronology of the “second man.” For when other Indians, +evidently of a high grade in the tribe, came up and began to discuss +together the commissioners’ expedition, she worked on with far greater +industry, and only occasionally paused to lift her head from where she +stood, half shrouded in the tall maize, to gaze meditatively upon the +Ancient Warrior,--the hero of so many fancies, for she was of the type +of woman who loves the renown of exploits,--with a patent admiration +embarrassing to the fair-haired Callum, even although masked by the +gourd. At times he experienced a more formidable embarrassment. He +was in terror of a strong inclination to cough. As the day had worn +on the smoke and smell of distant burning forests suffused all the +currents of the air, for the weather had lately been singularly dry. +Sometimes he was almost suffocated by the acrid vapor, collecting in +the restricted compass of the gourd mask, and again it was dissipated +by the freshening of the wind. + +As the headmen lingered and talked, the laborers were rapidly moving +on under the directions of the “second man,” for the Cherokees never +permitted women or boys to hear aught of political machinations or +import. Callum began to understand that a runner had brought to +Chilhowes the details of the unlucky winning of the French gold by the +Highlander, and the ineffectual attempt by the Cherokee headmen to +buy it back out of notice with English guineas. So important did the +Chilhowee warriors consider this circumstance that they evidently had +half a mind to assemble in council in their town-house to debate the +matter, but they were deterred by the remonstrances of the runner, who +seemed to give also warning of an approach. Thus Callum was apprised +that Everard was in the saddle and on the road hither. It would never +do, the messenger argued, for the English officer to find the Chilhowee +headmen in solemn consultation,--in effect an official recognition of +the importance which they attached to the incident. While admitting +the justice of this reasoning, they were nevertheless fain to secure +at least a hasty word together as to how they should meet the officer. +Therefore it was that the “second man” urged forward the laborers, +and the councilors gathered about in the field as if they had been +participating, as they often did, in relating the traditions and +legends of the tribe, that were thus handed down from one generation to +another. + +They grouped themselves near the Ancient Warrior, whose pedestal stood +in a heap of fodder that usually concealed certain ungainly posturings +to which his straw-filled moccasins were prone, but that now served +to hide the strong, stanchly planted feet of the hardy infantry-man. +Had Callum’s knowledge of the Cherokee tongue been more complete and +accurate,--in fact it consisted but of sundry fragments caught up at +haphazard in his campaigns in this region the two previous years, and +from the Indian guides of the present expedition, and his short stay +at Jock Lesly’s trading-house,--he might have comprehended all the +subtleties of which this secret discussion was rife. Even as it was, +however, he understood that the Indians feared much from the discovery +of the French money here. + +“The French coins must be taken from the officer--if they were his +eyes, if they were his heart; they must be taken from him,” a fierce, +straight, stiff warrior, Yachtino, the chief of Chilhowee, was +continually saying as he stood pacifically in the midst of the corn, +his feathered crest, his quiver and bow, his garments decorated with +fringes seeming not unlike the growth itself, as if he had been thence +incarnated. + +Another Indian, with a swift, furtive step aside, ever and anon bent to +gaze down the trading-path, interjecting from time to time the phrase, +_“Usinuli! Usinuli!”_ (Quick! Quick!), which agitated the course +of the deliberations, usually so slow and decorous, like the sudden +striking of a flaw of wind on the surface of placid water. + +They all stood in silence and looked stolidly at the ground. + +“But how?” said Tlamehu, the Bat, at last. And then another, “How +_can_ the coins be taken from him?” + +Callum, noting the dismay in their countenances, fumbled mentally for +the significance of the French money. That this currency should be +common among them seemed natural enough, as their intercourse with +the French had been great, even before the Cherokee War against the +British government. During its progress, indeed, it was believed that +in several engagements the Cherokee forces were commanded by French +officers. + +The next words let in the light. + +“And so the coins that had the king’s head, pictured in the fine gold, +spoke with a deceitful forked tongue, and tells the English that it was +made in sixty-two?” + +“The date is stamped on the metal--all, all!” impatiently responded the +informant. + +The words were echoed with an intonation of perplexed despair. Then a +despondent silence ensued until Yachtino, the warrior who had first +spoken, reiterated: “The coins must be taken from the officer--if they +were the breath of his life!” + +“But how?” the question came again. + +Callum wondered no longer at their agitation. The louis d’ors were +of the coinage of 1762, and therefore revealed the fact of renewed +machinations with the French, in direct contravention of the terms +of the treaty of peace of 1761 between the Cherokees and the British +government, which expressly forbade all trade on the part of the +Indians with other nations, especially the French, who, being still +at war with Great Britain, were to be denied admission to any of the +Cherokee towns and intercourse with the tribe, the Cherokees pledging +themselves to surrender or kill such intruders. The Indians, indeed, +had much to fear from the discovery of this breach of the treaty. They +gloomily foreboded therefrom the collapse of the favorable phases of +the cession. This secret hope on their part was to effect from the +purchase money the speedy supply of the tribe with powder, and thus +perpetuate their national existence. The ammunition must needs be +secured before any intimation of renewed hostilities, and thus the +British government actually would furnish the money for another attack +upon its own frontiers. The French would doubtless afford the Cherokees +substantial aid, but despite the fairest promises, they were unable +to fully supply the savages with ammunition in the last campaign of +the furious Cherokee war against the British, failing the Indians at +their utmost need. Thus at the critical juncture all their previous +fierce and bloody successes were brought to naught. For as a nation +the Cherokees were now practically disarmed and at the mercy of any +demand made from a basis of powder and lead. It was a new point of view +from which to contemplate the proposed cession of land, and Callum +felt as if the gourd on his head had spun quite round, since from the +English standpoint the cession was designed to bring the Cherokee tribe +more definitely under the domination of the British government by +strengthening its occupation among them, and thereby monopolizing their +trade. + +And here, in the British officer’s keeping, was the unfortunate French +money of the coinage of 1762, that told so straight a tale amidst +all these subtle and devious windings of savage statecraft. Callum +recognized an imprudence on Everard’s part, against which, however, +only superhuman wisdom could have guarded, in having overlooked, in +the agitation of the moment, the presence of Wahuhu, who had lost the +coins at the races,--the sad Screech-owl, who yet perceived with great +keenness, and argued with an impeccable ratiocination, and witnessed +the transference of the money to official keeping after the lieutenant +had scrutinized the date of the coinage. The mere transference of the +louis d’ors Callum regarded lightly. Their equivalent in “ta guinea” +would undoubtedly be returned, when the force should reach Charlestown, +to the man who had at so many risks won the money, and who would easily +be reconciled to the English currency in the bliss of the exercise of +its purchasing power. Everard intended to reserve the coins themselves +to be shown to the royal governor, with the significance of date and +freshness of mintage, and these facts would be made a part of the +lieutenant’s report to his superior officer, offering in support of his +account of the matter ocular demonstration of the louis d’ors. Anything +that touched upon French machinations among the Cherokees, from whose +atrocities the English had suffered so severely in the Cherokee War, +and who had been subdued at so great a cost of blood and time and +treasure, was of paramount importance in this year of grace 1762, and +not to be lightly argued aside. + +As Callum watched the fiercely reflective faces of the group, he +realized that they contemplated more in the enterprise to serve their +object than the mere recovery of the coins. An accident might adroitly +account for the event. Some opportune misfortune often befell men +charged with disaster to others. + +“But how?” the question came again, as if it voiced a common train of +thought. In fact they all seemed to think in unison, until one of the +group, suddenly looking up, said,-- + +“But the tongues of the ugly commissioners are strong. They eat much +food, they drink much wine, and the British government pays them money +for their wisdom. The many black marks that they put on paper will +report the French money, the coinage of this year, to the governor. And +yet the wings of the eagles overshadow the commissioners, and for the +sake of the cession they must not be touched.” + +“_Usinuli! Usinuli!_” urged the voice of Time, as once more the +self-constituted lookout scanned the reaches of the path. + +“The commissioners have never shaken hands firmly with the speech of +the lieutenant,” replied an authoritative voice, “and the lieutenant +tells _nothing_ to the commissioners.” + +Canting his eye askew, to look through the orifices of the ear of +the image painted on the gourd, Callum saw--to his surprise and +indignation, for his heart was still in the undertaking--the Cherokee +guide of the commissioners’ expedition, whose utilities as a spy for +his own people must have been very marked and duplicated his services. +He went on with great animation to discuss the mutual relations of the +personnel of the expedition. + +“The commissioners have never tied fast the old beloved friend-knot +with the lieutenant, and the lieutenant despises the commissioners. +They are not soldiers, and they look very small in his eyes. And they +talk till his ears are tired. When he is scornful he speaks of them as +‘lady-like old men,’ and when he is angry he calls them ‘gentlemanly +old ladies’! He trusts them not at all--with nothing!” + +“_Usinuli! Usinuli!_” The sound of doom! + +“But though the lieutenant has taken the coins into his own keeping the +soldiers have seen them,” said the Indian, who seemed to evolve all +the objections for the others to combat, that the scheme might thus be +battered, as it were, into solid shape. + +“Only the bird that flies high sees far,” retorted Yachtino quickly. +“The flock of pigeon soldiers see nothing--they would never notice +the date of the coins--the man in command keeps his eyes open and his +thoughts awake. Besides, what are rumors among mere soldiers,--the +chatter of grasshoppers! The French gold that they have seen--what +does French gold signify? It may have been here for years for all they +know,--those years when the true emblem of the French was the white +dressed doeskin, and the British the long scalping knife. Now those +conflicts of the past are wiped out by the treaty, and its strong lying +mouth has said that our tears are dried and our wounds closed. But the +coinage of 1762--that is a far different matter! It proves a direct +breach of the treaty, and that once more we have taken the great French +Father fast by the arm and close to the shoulder. And the path is +straight no more! If the French coins of 1762 were hidden in the heart +of the officer they must be cut out!” + +“_Usinuli! Usinuli!_” The sound was like the beating of a muffled +drum in the ears of Callum MacIlvesty, for he realized that the life +of the officer was forfeited to the knowledge, which he alone had +acquired, of the date of the coins. Should he be permitted to reach +Charlestown, whether with or without the fatal pieces, his disclosure +of the facts would mean added punishment and renewed restrictions for +the Cherokees, already so heavily chastised, the cautious hampering of +the Indian trade, and the rupture of the terms of the land cession, +through the purchase money of which they hoped for ultimate freedom. +It was too plain: the officer with this knowledge in his possession +would be prevented from ever again reaching Charlestown. + +But how--that suspicion might impute naught to the agency of the +Indians? they asked again of one another. How could he be found +accessible and alone? How could he be secured without an attack upon +the whole party, which was not to be contemplated, since this would of +necessity involve the destruction of the proposed scheme of the cession +of land and its financial value to the Cherokee nation--possibly +resulting in the extermination of the whole people. Therefore still, +“But how?” + +“Already they have lost a man,”--once more the current of the common +thought flowed in words,--“this is a wild country. Many paths lead +far--far--with no return. All our little brothers--the panther, the +wolf, the wildcat--are many, many--and they none of them are the little +brothers of the white man. Should he offend the little brothers he +would hardly know how to hide from them! Then there are many wandering +Indians from the French settlements, and knowing that the great French +Father is still at war with the English king, they would rejoice to +slay a man in the British uniform. The British have already lost a man +on this expedition--they may well lose another.” + +Yet how to compass this that the force of the blow might have no +recoil! And once more an interval of deep and silent meditation fell +upon the group. + +The Cherokee spy and guide, whose sensibilities had been evidently +ruffled by the manner of the man who employed and paid him, suddenly +threw himself into an attitude mimicking Everard’s stiff military +carriage. + +“_Agiyahusa asgaya! Agiyahusa asgaya!_” (I have lost a man!) he +cried in Cherokee, but marred with a queer English accent. A slow +smile pervaded the grim circle. “_Agiyahusa asgaya!_ the Capteny +bleats this through every town. His redcoats search every house and +field.” + +The Ancient Warrior trembled. + +“‘Capteny, _asgaya gigagei_?’” (Captain, a red man?--meaning a +British redcoat.) The spy rehearsed this with an affectation of the +bated breath of extreme solicitude and a crouching mockery of his +own manner of respect. Then with a perfect reproduction of Everard’s +petulant arrogance, despite the broken English, “No, no, my good man! +I have lost no red soldier, but my plaid soldier, my tartan man, my +MacIlvesty! Five guineas reward to the man who brings him to the +guard-house before nightfall!” + +The officer evidently would pay roundly for the privilege of the lash. +His vengeance was indeed afire, and Callum’s cheek burned with a flame +to match. They should never take him alive he swore beneath his breath. + +“_Usinuli! Usinuli!_” The words swung back and forth like a +pendulum chronicling the passing of the moments; and suddenly Callum +recognized, blended with the iterative chant, the regular throb of the +hoof-beat of horses approaching along the trading-path at a fair pace. + +In another moment there issued from the forest a dozen of the English +soldiers all mounted, and with Lieutenant Everard riding at their head. +Beside him was Mr. Herbert Taviston, bland, smiling, perceiving in the +stir and the difficulty that beset the officer only a fine opportunity +to browse about a bit in the woods safe from Indians and panthers--the +unique advantage of botanizing with a military escort. The lieutenant’s +keen eyes, falling upon the group around the Ancient Warrior, discerned +at once in them men of station and authority, judging merely from the +expression of their countenances, for the occasion being unofficial, +they wore no insignia of rank. He at once halted his party, and called +out in his crisp, peremptory tones a request to be allowed to search +the town. His guide interpreted, and as the chief, Yachtino, gravely +and ceremoniously assented, Everard thanked him curtly and turned to +admonish the corporal. + +“See to it that the varlets give no offense, Baker,” he said. “If the +man is taken bring him before me at once.” + +“Oh, the poor young man, to be sure!” exclaimed the botanist, his eyes +gloating the while upon Chilhowee Mountain; every leaf of the myriads +it flaunted, red and amber and purple and brown, he could call out of +its name with Latin equivalents as flamboyant as the foliage. “Not +found yet!” + +He had utterly forgotten the provocation that occasioned the arrest +and the object of the search, that it held aught more serious than +the acquisition which he had made of a certain parasitic plant, the +Indian pipe--or let us imitate Mr. Taviston and say _Monotropa +uniflora_--delicate, wax-like stems of which he now held tenderly in +his spare white fingers, not altogether devoid of similarity to that +unique growth. + +“I wish to God I could lay my hands on him! I can give my mind to +nothing else till I take him,” declared the officer fervently, all +unaware that as he looked casually at the effigy he was gazing straight +into the eyes of the man whom he sought, and who returned a look of +fire. + +It was a somewhat fluctuating scrutiny that Everard gave the scarecrow, +as he sat upon his fine bay horse, for the animal, in spirited +impatience of the detention, shifted his position continually, pawing +the ground and tossing his head, despite the rein and spur and curb. +Thus splendidly mounted, Everard presented a gallant aspect, his showy +scarlet coat, white breeches, cocked hat, and polished boots as perfect +and precise in this wilderness as if worn on parade. His fine dark +eyes and expressive features only needed in general a cast of gravity +and dignity to render them imposing, and this his anger and sense of +responsibility had compassed. + +The Indians of the group gazed fixedly at him. They had their own +reasons, intimately associated with the louis d’ors in his pocket, to +regard him with a deep morbid curiosity--very shocking to a civilized +mind--as a living man who must soon in their interest be dead. And once +more the question stirred every brain, “But how?” The Highlander saw +his enemy resplendent in all the regalia and rank equally appropriate +to his own condition by right of descent, and remembered and repeated +in his sore consciousness every word of the foolish, half drunken, +brutal fleer of the night before. And the Indian girl, the Cherokee +Rose, still at her work hard by, unobserved in the midst of the +standing maize, hearing yet unheeding all that had been said, gazed +upon the officer with a dazzled reverence, as one might behold the +glittering martial vision of the archangel Michael. + +Nothing so glorious had ever blazed in her wildest dreams. All her +imaginings of the graces and glamours of the Ancient Warrior in the +charm of his youth and the heyday of his achievement paled and grew dim +and faded out of comparison with this magnificent palpitant reality. +Her hands rested petrified upon the ear of corn which she was about to +wrest from its stalk. Her eyes, dilated, fascinated, glowed upon him. +She scarcely dared to breathe, and for one moment silence encompassed +the group. The breeze only vaguely rustled through the crisp, sere +blades and stalks; the usual sounds of the town were annulled now, with +its “beloved square” vacant, its council-house still, and its women and +girls all away at their labors in the further fields. It sent up a mere +murmur that came drowsily to the ear on the perfumed suave air of this +sunlit autumnal day, for the search, orderly in its conduct, was not +resisted, and made scant stir. The officer’s horse broke an interval +of almost absolute stillness when it once more lowered its head and +fretfully beat the earth with its high-stepping, impatient forefoot. +Suddenly the elderly commissioner started from his saddle with an +exclamation of bland delight. + +“Found, sir, found at last!” + +The officer’s horse executed an abrupt demivolt as its bewildered rider +looked hastily around, expectant of seeing the fugitive. The Ancient +Warrior himself crouched appalled in his flimsy disguise. + +The amiable Mr. Taviston went on in his address to the lieutenant. “Do +you remember last night?” he sweetly queried, while Everard mentally +asked himself would he ever forget it. “I had then the pleasure to +direct your attention to it--the _Nicotiana rustica_.” + +The learned man was afoot now and in the path, and it may be doubted if +a person of his quality, so dapper, so sprucely clad in his fine brown +cloth and silver buckles, ever sustained a glance so surcharged with +contempt as the look which the officer bent upon him, albeit Everard +had just had a sharp lesson touching undue intolerance, and Mr. Herbert +Taviston was of far more worshipful presence in his worldly minded wig +and cocked hat than in his intimate, reclusive, betasseled nightcap. +His trim legs were carrying him briskly into the field, and a beatific +smile of scientific satisfaction was upon his serene, smoothly shaven +cheeks and his slightly doubled chin. He paused where a row of plants +of the “old religious tobacco” had once flourished and one or two had +chanced to escape the garnering knife. Before plucking a leaf he said +with punctilious courtesy to the nearest astounded Cherokee, “May I?” + +The stolid Indians were obviously thrown into confusion by this +unexpected demonstration. It seemed to them that the white people, +even those of the same nationality, were infinitely various, and that +there was no reasoning on the basis of the common customs and traits +of a gens. Here were two Englishmen as unlike, as far apart in every +pulse and every phase of character, as if no national tie bound them +together. The inherent courtesy of the savage aided the botanist, +however, and the nearest Indian vouchsafed a bewildered mutter of +assent. With “A thousand thanks, my dear sir--monstrous obleeged, I’m +sure,” Mr. Taviston plucked some leaves of the old religious tobacco +and still happily ambling, retraced his way to the side of the horse of +the officer, who had hardly yet recovered from the impression that the +sudden cry of discovery heralded the finding of the fugitive and the +appropriate finale of his dilemma. + +“Now, my dear sir,” said the botanist, holding up to the lieutenant a +few of the leaves, “let me beg that you will do me the favor to taste +these. My own tongue is still tingling with the pungency of mint, and +the discernment of my palate thereby blunted.” + +And once more he offered the leaves. + +It is possible that the officer had no fear of a probable tobacco worm +in the unwashed foliage, still lush and green, and he was also strongly +conscious of the inscrutable, attentive faces of the Indians. He had +always given orders that his men should observe caution in the presence +of the savages to show no divisions, no discourtesies, no quarrels +among themselves, thereby bringing each other into contempt or ridicule +which might be shared among the Indians, and the opportunity improved +by their machinations. Therefore, mindful of the observation of sundry +of the soldiers, he practiced his own admonition. Albeit infinitely +against his will, he thrust the leaves, possible tobacco bug and all, +between his strong white teeth, which he brought crunching down upon +them. + +“And how does it compare? how does it taste?” demanded the botanist, +smiling his soft, white shaven benevolence. + +“Nasty, sir, very extremely nasty,” said the disgusted lieutenant. +“And as I am not a browsing animal generally, sir, I have no other +experience of green forage with which to compare it.” + +As, despite his intention, some of the juice went down his throat, he +was suddenly reminded of the botanist’s laudation of the skill and +extraordinary knowledge of the Cherokees in the matter of vegetable +poisons, and felt that he was relying too implicitly upon the +scientific learning and plant identification of this gentleman, of the +justice of whose pretensions he had no means of judging. For aught he +knew the stuff might be poison. It was certainly unlike any tobacco +that he had ever seen. He at once thrust the leaves from his mouth, and +then several times spat copiously upon the ground, the action of the +saliva being stimulated by the tobacco. + +At that moment the corporal came up with the report that the search had +resulted fruitlessly. Everard took leave of the Indians merely with +a ceremonious bow, and the party rode hastily off, straight down the +river and once more toward Choté. + +For one instant the Cherokees stood silent and motionless, watching the +flying horsemen, the sun glittering on their red coats and burnished +arms. Then to Callum’s amazement an elderly Indian, with a sudden sharp +cry such as an animal might utter in seizing upon its prey, sprang +forward, dropped upon his knees in the path, and caught up the dampened +tobacco leaves and the clod of clay upon which the saliva had fallen. +Half articulate exclamations of guttural triumph rang upon the air from +the group, and Callum, glancing from one fiercely joyous illuminated +face to another, felt as if his senses were in the thrall of some +fantastically horrible nightmare. For the possession of the man’s +saliva gave them, according to their savage creed, power over the man’s +life. It would end when the spell should be worked. + +Perhaps because of the superstitions of his native land, in which his +childhood had been deeply imbued and which his nerves still accredited, +while his mind resolutely repudiated them, Callum watched with a sort +of sickened fright the preparations for the necromancy. Far away the +laborers in the fields were working now, even the girl who had lingered +so long, and the sere stalks of the tall corn concealed the secret +ceremony of the schemers from the other denizens of the town. Only +the Ancient Warrior, who had seen so much of yore, was to behold the +calling down of the curse. + +Suddenly--Callum could not believe his eyes--there issued from among +the tall cornstalks the figure of a man, a familiar figure, a face +that he knew well, or was he bereft of his senses? For here was Tam +Wilson, arrayed in buckskin, fantastically beaded and fringed after +the Indian fashion, his head bare and polled like a Cherokee’s and +decorated with feathers. Yachtino, stepping hastily toward him, greeted +him in the Cherokee language, and pointed out the preparations for the +necromancy. Tam Wilson, also speaking in Cherokee, questioned minutely, +and stood for a moment gazing after the cheerataghe. Then as he turned +away--miracle of miracles!--he spoke to himself in French. + +“_Tant pis pour lui!_” he commented upon the working of the spell. +“_À bon chat, bon rat!_” + +He was gone in another moment among the corn, and Callum understood at +last the mystery of his continued presence here,--that this was the +arch-plotter whose machinations threatened the peace of the Cherokee +country. + +Callum was dizzy with the significance of the discovery, the thoughts +of import, that crowded upon him. Only as in a dream he beheld the +group of the scheming headmen of Chilhowee, eager, breathless, +expectant, standing close at hand while one of the cheerataghe, a man +with the frenzy of a fanatic in his eyes and the fury of a savage, came +slowly down the space between two rows of the corn. He was clad in +the usual buckskin garb, but draped above it was a large dressed hide +decorated with painted symbols and strange hieroglyphics. Upon his head +he wore the horns and head of a buffalo, and as Callum listened to the +incantation, delivered in a weird, chanting undertone, with frequent +interpolations of a sonorous, exclamatory “Ha!” and anon pauses of +impressive silence, he felt his blood go cold. + +“_Usuhiyi nunahi wite tsatanu usi gunesa gunage asahalagi. Tsutu +neliga._” (Toward the black grave of the upland in the Darkening +Land your paths shall tend. So shall it be for you.) + +The increasing excitement of the moment showed in the attitude of the +other Indians, motionless, yet with an electrical energy of pose, +as if on the point of springing forward. They looked on, fiery eyed +but silent, from among the cornstalks, save that now and again an +inadvertent “Ku!” breathed out from surcharged lungs, and once Yachtino +muttered “_Nigagi!_” (This ends it!) + +As the magician paced along he carried in his hand, like a sceptre, +a hollow reed of the poisonous wild parsnip, filled with a paste +compounded of earthworms and the spittle-moistened clay, to be buried +at the foot of a lightning-scathed tree in the forest. + +“_Tsudantagi uskalutsiga. Sakani aduniga. Usuhita atanisseti, +ayalatsisesti tsudantagi, tsunanugaisti nigesuna. Sge!_”[9] (Now +your soul has faded away. It has become blue. When darkness comes your +spirit shall grow less and dwindle away, never to reappear. Listen!) + +The wizard had reached the gloomy shades of the dense woods, and the +terrible words of the spell came floating back on the air, dwindling +with the distance like the diminishing thread of the life which it +affected to attenuate and reduce and finally cut short. + +Listen! not even an echo now of that weird voice! Only the river’s +song; the sound of the wind blaring about Chilhowee Mountain; the +vague, far-off tones of the “second man” still at his quips and quirks +in the field; and suddenly the shrill, callow laughter of happy +children. + +But for the icy drops starting on his brow Callum might have thought +he had been dreaming. Yet he stood in the burning sun, and so shivered +that had now the Cherokee Rose gazed upon the hero of her fancies, she +must have deemed the Ancient Warrior stricken with the palsy. He was +alone, however, none near to mark his lapse from the verisimilitude of +deportment. A bee came buzzing by, and crawled up and down the quaint +lines of the gourd vizard for a time, making the Highlander tremble +for a possible entrance through ear or eye spaces, but at last it took +droningly to wing. A lizard basked in the sun, as doubtless it had +done for many a day, on a stone at the feet of the scarecrow. A blue +jay, the sauciest of feathered rufflers, even alighted on the crown of +the dingy old bedraggled war-bonnet, and there preened his brilliant +blue and white plumage, and clanged his wild woodsy cry, and so off +again to the splendors of Chilhowee Mountain, gold and red above the +silver river and against the azure sky. And these wights were all the +passers-by, while Callum shivered and trembled from head to foot and +scarce could stand. He had no need of knowledge of the Indian character +to be aware that the savages would not fail to assist the workings of +the charm by non-magical powers. Everard, undoubtedly, by some crafty +device would be lured to his destruction. + +The tempter, ever present, did not fail to suggest thereby the solution +of Callum’s own problem: with Everard gone, his accuser had vanished. +Even the corporal supposed his incarceration was but the result of some +slight insubordination, or perhaps Everard’s own hasty and arbitrary +whim while in liquor. As to the bewildered Mr. Taviston, his incoherent +impressions were hardly to be considered, so confused was he by the +sudden altercation. Thus Callum might escape the shame of the lash +that he dreaded more than death itself, and also save his own life. He +put the thought from him. He would return now willingly, willingly; he +would in this cause face aught that might menace him--and not for sheer +conscience’ sake, for at heart he loved the fop like a brother. + +Yet should he issue forth and return to camp, he well knew that Everard +would laugh the threat to scorn, and fancy the whole adventure feigned +to win his gratitude and save the culprit from the lash. Callum’s +invention would respond to no goading. How could he forecast and thwart +the strange, savage lure which the Indians would devise? That it would +be apt, efficient, and bold withal, on the strength of their faith in +their own necromancy, thus crediting the spell with the result of their +own efforts, he was sure. And yet strive as he might, he could not +rouse his jaded faculties to divine, to baffle, to counterplot. + +Some time had passed thus, when a sudden movement close at hand caused +him unthinkingly to turn his head. Fortunately the gourd vizard was +so ample as to permit the motion without stirring the mask. There +again was the Indian girl who had gazed so lovingly upon the effigy as +almost to disconcert the fair-haired Callum that it masked,--not gazing +upon him now, however. The same girl it was, he was sure, although +she passed by her ancient hero with so fickle an unconcern. But for +bewitchments! the Cherokee Rose was metamorphosed by a simple splendor +into the rarest bloom. White beads were twined in her long black hair, +where they glistered like pearls. A strand of the large, beautiful, +genuine pearls, still found in the rivers of the region, only slightly +discolored by the heated copper spindle which the Indians used to +pierce them, encircled her round, roseate-tinted throat. Her dress of +fawnskin dappled with white had a belt of many rows of white beads and +a low collar or cape of swans’ feathers. Above her high white buskins +two small skins of otter fur, worn like garters, were each trimmed +with straight stiff swan’s quills that stood out horizontally, and +gave the suggestion of wings to her feet, if one were open to poetical +imagery, or a bantam-like decoration, if prosaically inclined. Her +face was turned toward the road with a wistful, fascinated expression +in her soft, liquid eyes that would have been charming to view if any +but the supplanted Ancient Warrior had beheld her. Now and again, with +an incomparably graceful, lissome gesture, she lifted one bare arm and +silently beckoned the unseen. + +The expectation of an approach along the path reminded Callum of the +sinister consultation of the headmen here to-day, and suddenly the +Ancient Warrior spoke. + +“_Higeya tsusdiga! Higeya tsusdiga!_” (Oh little woman! Oh little +woman!) + +Instantly she was palsied, stricken dumb. Faithfully as she had +believed in the Ancient Warrior, she had never thought to hear him +speak. Human credence has ever its reservations. She gazed wide-eyed at +the image, her lips parted, her hand on her plunging heart. + +Sunset was on the face of the effigy; the soft red light freshened +the effect of his tattered old war-bonnet and gilded the stalks of +the high Indian corn amidst which he stood. Whether or not Callum was +conscious of his enhanced comeliness, the awe and respect in her face +and the obvious simplicity of her mental endowment nerved the young +daredevil to venture further speech. And indeed something must needs be +risked in view of the unwelcome knowledge that had come to him and the +restrictions that hampered its use. He mustered his best Cherokee. + +“Who are you waiting for, little woman?” + +“No Chickasaw, oh good grandfather,” she cried hastily; for one of +the best stories of the “second man” chronicled the hatred which the +Ancient Warrior had cherished against that tribe, and his valor, +which had nearly exterminated them from the face of the earth. His +sentiments were pointed by the fate of a Cherokee maiden who married a +Chickasaw and went to his tribe to dwell, and daily the Ancient Warrior +dispatched the magic messenger bird that lived among the Tuckaleechee +towns in the Cherokee country, on the banks of the Canot River, to +remind her of her home; and as the memories she could not shake off +clung about her, she finally became imprisoned in their convolutions; +and to this day she can be seen in the Chickasaw country, where they +think she is nothing but what she seems,--a tangle of grapevines! + +The Ancient Warrior said nothing in reply. He was making a strenuous +mental endeavor to adjust another Cherokee sentence. His silence +terrified her. His anger was full of spells, as the “second man” +well knew; an _ageya_ lost her garters, for instance, and none +would ever again stay on, and thereafter she presented an appearance +painfully undecorated. The Cherokee Rose abruptly cut short the silent +linguistic toil of the Ancient Warrior by hurriedly explaining of her +own accord. + +“A strange British warrior, oh good grandfather,--a splendid red +captain, most beautiful and brave, who will come up the path and pass +the mountain to-night on the way to Talassee Town. The same, oh good +grandfather, that made the road bright and shining to-day. And even if +he should come after the sun has gone down, one could never miss the +light of the day, but could see him yet ride his horse along the river +bank. For he is like the sun in splendid red, and his hair shines with +a white glister, and the look in his eyes warms the heart.” + +The Ancient Warrior marked how the mental image she had summoned +up diverted her attention from him, for the fascination of the +supernatural had waned as she spoke, and she turned half away from the +effigy, which she had once so reverenced, to gaze along the curving +westward path for the vision of her anticipation. The Ancient Warrior, +all sullen and serious, gazed calculatingly and doubtfully at her. + +The ranges were purpling along the perspectives of the background; +the forests of Chilhowee Mountain flamed gorgeously gold and red in +the middle distance; the sky above was all radiant with a uniform +amber tint. As she stood amidst the sun-suffused Indian corn, the +sere hues of which so harmonized with the deeper shade of her garb of +white-dappled fawnskin, and the dense white of the swan’s feathers +about her shoulders, she looked as might some primeval ideal of the +mystic harvest moon. Half mechanically she still beckoned, as if thus +she might bring the sun of her fancy to meet her upon the horizon line. + +“_Ha, Capteny Gigagei!_” she cried. “_Usinuliyu! Usinuliyu!_” +(Oh great red captain! Haste! Haste!) + +The Ancient Warrior suddenly spoke sternly. “_Higeya, hatu +ganiga!_” (You, woman, come and listen to me!) + +Once more with that unquestioning subjection to the superstitions of +the cult in which she had been reared,--oh wily second man!--she turned +submissively toward the Ancient Warrior, albeit her docile obedience +might cost her eyes the first resplendent glimpse of the Capteny +Gigagei, riding his gallant war-horse straight out of the red west +and the illumined amethystine mountains, whither that humbler scarlet +splendor, the god of day, was now slowly disappearing. She lifted her +appealing child-like eyes to the gourd vizard of the young Highlander, +and well it was that he wore this impassive mask, for his own face +was pallid with exhaustion from a sleepless night and the exertion of +standing all day without food, drawn with the stress of much anxiety, +and lined with the many perplexities of his thoughts. The gourd face, +however, acquiring naught by propinquity, looked as it always did, +as its Indian draughtsman intended that it should,--arrogant, surly, +threatening, and very majestic. + +“Oh good grandfather!” she faltered. + +“_Higeya tsusdiga_ (Oh little woman), how do you know he comes?” + +“Oh, he comes, he comes without doubt!--the headmen said late, but I +hoped early, so that I might see him as he rides his splendid horse +along the river bank. The headmen know he comes; they are ready for +him; he will be received at the house of the chief of Talassee. He +comes because a wicked man--one of his own soldiers--has fled, has +deserted the great red Capteny, and is in hiding at Talassee Town, +and the headmen have sent him the message that he may come and take +him with his own hand, lest the plaid soldiers, the comrades of the +runagate, wreak vengeance on Talassee, should the town deliver him +up to penance. The headmen have only _secretly_ sent messages +where the fugitive can be found. Oh good grandfather, the Capteny +comes, he comes! To-night he will abide at the house of the chief of +Talassee, where a great feast is made in his honor, and the braves +will dance the eagle-tail dance, and then the young girls will dance +in three circles with the braves, and I, too, I am to dance. And +there will be good store of wine at the feast (lowering her voice +mysteriously)--_French_ wine, oh good grandfather, but surely the +Capteny Gigagei cannot taste its _French-ness_! And to-morrow the +army of the commissioners will start back to the Carolina country and +overtake the great red Capteny at Talassee, and he will march at the +head like the king of his tribe.” + +The heart of the Ancient Warrior turned cold and seemed to cease to +beat. The ingenious scheme was thus unwittingly outlined before +him. He knew that the thought of personal danger would never occur +to Everard as the result of the French coins in his keeping and his +knowledge of their significance, since any personal violence offered +to a man of his note would result in instant discovery and speedy +vengeance. From the beginning of the negotiations there had been more +or less interchange of friendly courtesies and mutual hospitalities +between the Cherokee headmen, the commissioners, and the commander of +the military force. Although Everard kept the rank and file close in +camp, in view of the disastrous possibility of clashing between the +boisterous young soldiers and the “mad young men” of the tribe, he +himself went about the country freely enough. He would not hesitate, +Callum was sure, to leave his orders with the first sergeant for the +march of the troops on the following day, and accompanied by a single +orderly, or perhaps by only the Cherokee guide, proceed to the tryst of +the headmen, where he would expect to capture the runaway Highlander, +and rejoin the escort when its vanguard should come in sight from +beyond Chilhowee Mountain. + +No prophet need one be to foretell how the lines would straggle past; +how the sergeant in command would hourly expect his superior for a +while; then being without orders to halt would proceed for a day or so, +Everard’s lingering stay being of course within his own discretion. And +at last anxiety would develop, increase to troublous forecast, to panic +fear; a halt would be called, a detachment sent back, to find--nothing! +A mysterious disappearance,--some crafty, subtle, convincing story to +account for it innocuously. Callum did not dream what this could be; +only afterward its details were made clear to him by another, more +discerning. + +What fate? he speculated--the river? No. The first sergeant, quailing +under his awful responsibility, would drag it for miles and miles in +search of the body. The stake?--a handful of ashes could tell no +tale. Surely the magic compound of earthworms and spittle-moistened +clay, mysteriously potent, buried at the foot of the lightning-scathed +tree, might spare room for the sepulture of so trifling a residuum of +all that gay spirit exhaled in smoke. Perhaps a more stealthy method +still--Everard might be drugged into quick insensibility by some +mysterious poison mixed with the French wine, and buried forever out of +sight somewhere in the infinities of the illimitable wilderness. + +The Ancient Warrior trembled till the pole which aided to support him +shook in the ground. + +One by one the schemes of possible rescue of his erstwhile friend and +his present enemy, and above all and before all his commanding officer, +fell to shreds as he sought to hold up the fabric in contemplation of +its feasibility. He said again that he would surrender himself now most +willingly; he would resign himself to any punishment rather than this +disaster, this treachery, this cowardly massacre, should ensue. But how +would surrender now avail? He could not regain the camp without the +danger of passing Everard, coming hither on another path. He resolved +that as soon as the first beat of the horse’s hoofs should herald an +approach he would rush out from his hiding-place, seize the officer’s +bridle, and compel him to listen. + +Alack, the sun was already down; the dun shadows were on the land; far +away the dim stretch of the sere cornfields held all the fading light +between the slate-hued clouds, coming up from the south over the Great +Smoky Mountains, and the deep purple ranges that loomed close about +and limited the horizon. A dark night was at hand, without a star. How +should he distinguish the hoof-beat of one horse from another? Everard +might well pass without a word. + +As thus the difficulties of the situation baffled his flagging +invention, the Ancient Warrior unwittingly lifted his hands and wrung +them together in the hard stress of his contending emotions. His +grotesque vizard was upturned appealingly to the darkening sky, and he +uttered a deep sigh. + +The Cherokee girl, with a sudden look of appalled discernment on her +face, stepped back abruptly in affright, then stood in the shadows of +the denser stalks of corn, all writhen and twisted about her, and gazed +through the deepening dusk at the effigy. + +In this crisis, this emotional revulsion of loyalty to his officer and +affection to his friend, Callum would not have grudged the sacrifice +had he rushed out blindly in the night and by mischance revealed +himself to Indian horsemen and certain capture, if it would not also +entail the success of their treachery in decoying Everard to his death. + +“Eh, gude God--he maunna come--he maunna ride at a’ the nicht,” he said +aloud in a strained, poignant voice, all oblivious of the Indian girl, +who still stood hidden in the dusk and the tall stalks of the maize, +and silently, breathlessly, stared. + +Much accomplished as she had known the Ancient Warrior to be, not even +his vaunting biographer, the “second man,” had ever claimed that he +spoke English. + +The poor Ancient Warrior! His head drooped quite low, despite the +arrogance of the expression of his vizard. There was something in +his eyes that scalded them, for the Highlander was still very young, +and had been gently reared in a household of sisters; and his great +proficiency in the use of the broadsword, which made him so valued +a soldier, was superimposed upon simple, tender-hearted, ingleside +habitudes. In fact he must needs slip a hand up under his roomy vizard +to wipe off the very genuine tears which were burning his cheek--not +that he acknowledged these tears, no, not even to himself. + +“Hegh, sirs,” he exclaimed, “this singeing reek is fair blindin’ me!” + +As he spoke a new thought struck him. He lifted his head once more and +snuffed the odor of the distant burning woods. + +It was dark now, quite dark. The color of the cloud and the mountain +had blended indissolubly in densest invisibility. Not a star was alight +in the sky. Only to one standing in the cornfield, hardly a yard away, +and with a discernment keenly whetted by previous sight and accurate +knowledge of the surrounding objects, could aught have been perceptible +as Callum straightened himself, and turning, looked carefully around +him. + +“The bit lassock ha’ flitted awa’,” he said, quite satisfied. + +But close at hand, still screened by the darkness and the tangled +growth, she watched the Ancient Warrior fling his vizard into the peas, +strip off his buckskin shirt and leggings, and emerge in the kilt +and plaid of one of the Highlanders of the escort. With the quick, +keen wits of her race she made no doubt that here was the wicked +renegade who had incurred the displeasure of the splendid red sun-god +of a captain, and who was falsely reputed to be lurking in hiding at +Talassee. + +Callum, without a moment’s hesitation, struck off in a long, rapid +stride through the corn. Silently, stealthily, she followed him--not +like a shadow, for not even a shadow could follow thus through the +densities of that dark night. + + + + + XIII + + +AT camp an unusual activity had characterized the closing hours of +the afternoon. It was the eve of the day fixed for the departure of +the commissioners and their escort. The official business had been +concluded. The survey of the land to be ceded was completed. The +last feigning objections on the part of the Cherokee headmen and +the final devious doubtings of the commissioners had been merged in +mutual concession and compliant acquiescence. The gifts brought to +propitiate the Indians had been presented and graciously accepted, and +the official farewell taken with much smoking of the friend-pipe and +saltatory agilities of the eagle-tail dance. + +That no unforeseen mischance might hamper the early start, Everard, +with military prevision, had caused every preparation to be so +completed as to leave as little as possible to be done on the morrow. +The pack-horses had been ranged in due order and tethered, and had but +to be loaded, the fardels of the pack saddles being already made up and +strapped on; the travel rations for several days had been issued to the +men; the personal luggage of the commissioners was also ready, owing +to the repeated insistence of Everard; the final orders had been given +the first sergeant, left in command in his stead till he should join +the line of march at Talassee. He himself in his tent, with hardly a +hand’s turn left to be done, was on the point of setting out to ride to +Talassee Town with his Cherokee guide to capture Callum MacIlvesty. + +The Indians had made a mystery of their information. They had first +sworn Everard to secrecy and then held back as if to disappoint +him finally. They affected fear of the Highland contingent. Oh, +the plaid-men were very terrible warriors! Were the horrors of +Montgomerie’s campaign and the slaughter and the fire-raising of Grant +ever to be forgotten? And since the Cherokees did all in love for +the great red Capteny, it would not be wise or kind of him to allow +the wrath of the plaid-men, for the surrender of their brother, to +fall on Talassee Town, which the Highlanders might sack or burn--well +remembered were their sackings and burnings!--as they marched through +on the morrow upon the peaceful trading-path, which was now so white +and bright from end to end. If the great red Capteny did not wish this +path to be stained with the blood of the Indians, and perhaps of the +plaid-men also, it would be well if he came to Talassee Town himself. +There he might meet his tartan renegade as if by chance, and take him +with his own hand. + +Everard was troubled beyond expression by MacIlvesty’s continued +absence; first, because of a genuine and humane fear that he would +suffer a horrible death at the hands of the treacherous Indians, +especially as the imminent departure of the troops could not be +postponed on the desperate hope of a still further search for the +willful runagate, and Callum would necessarily be left alone and +at their mercy in the savage wilds. Nevertheless, the anger of the +officer burned with great rancor. He believed that he would not have +suffered the least pity had a court-martial gone the extreme length +of sentencing MacIlvesty to be shot. That he should be brought to the +degradation of the lash seemed to the lieutenant most meet and fitting +whenever he felt the smart of that scarlet diagonal line, beginning +to turn slightly blue, across his cheek. Punishment MacIlvesty had +richly deserved, but the accident of torture by savages could not be +accounted retribution for the crime of striking his officer. Nor could +Everard, as his officer, feel justified in abandoning the Highlander +to such a fate except at the last extremity, although he would not +have regretted the righteous exaction of every pang of the penalty to +which a court-martial might sentence the culprit. Therefore, impatient +of the mysterious locutions and doubts, and alternate promises and +withdrawals, by which the Cherokees sought to magnify the importance +of their disclosure, Everard took no heed of personal prudence and +was ready to put foot in the stirrup when suddenly there appeared at +the flap of his tent one of the commissioners, fresh from an outing, +clad in a long and dapper riding “Joseph,” his head cowled with a +comfortable “trot cosy,” a suave smile upon his lips, and a bland “May +I?” upon his tongue. + +Everard in another moment had cause to curse his folly that he did not +refuse the commissioner entrance; but he imputed much importance to a +request which he anticipated, and therefore seated himself upon a stump +of a tree, which had been sawed off smoothly to serve as a table, and +resigned the single camp stool to the guest. + +“The _Magnolia auriculata_,” Mr. Taviston said with a sigh of +pleasure, “the most pompous beauty of the forest.” + +He held forth a leaf of a tree, which a greater botanist has since +rapturously described as “superbly crowned or crested with the fragrant +flower representing a white plume, succeeded by a very large crimson +cone or strobile.” + +The officer gazed at it with uninterested and unrecognizing eyes. The +only magnolia which he could identify was the growth which we call +_grandiflora_, and which he had seen farther south. + +“I have spent the day among the magnolias,” said the botanist, smiling +consciously and with a sort of gloating reminiscence, as if Daphne +herself had entertained him in the boskiest bowers. “And here,” +presenting a gigantic leaf, “is the _Magnolia tripetala_--and +this, the _Magnolia pyramidata--foliis ovatis, oblongis, acuminatis, +basi auriculatis, strobilo oblongo ovato._” + +“Good God, sir!” the petulant officer interposed, hastily rising in +desperation. “I cry you mercy! My duties”--he hesitated, then stopped +short. + +For the trip must needs seem of his own choosing,--to attend a feast +made in his honor by the Cherokees because of his seeming interest in +Indian life and ceremonial. The thought of the postponement of his +ride and its important object greatly perturbed him. He had hoped +to avoid delay by admitting his tormentor. Twice, nay thrice, after +the botanist’s baggage had been consigned to the locality where the +pack-train was to be loaded had the quartermaster sergeant, who +officiated as chief of transportation, reported to the commanding +officer various vexatious requests of the worshipful Herbert Taviston +to be allowed another deposit therein of trophies of bark and leaves, +and, for aught I know, caterpillars and beetles,--natural specimens, +which he did not hesitate in the interests of science to insert amongst +his immaculate and high-minded toggery. The lieutenant, anticipating +the renewal of such requests, had intended to peremptorily refuse +another overhauling of the baggage, because of the confusion entailed +upon the somnolent and orderly camp, and possible delay on the morrow. +Hence he was thrown out of his calculations, and flushed and bit his +lip with vexation. Nevertheless he could not rid himself perfunctorily +of the presence of his unwelcome visitor by the plea of the pressure of +official duties. The preparations for the morrow’s march were obviously +complete, the camp asleep; moreover, his spurs jingled at his heels +and his horse pawed at the door of the tent. The pretext of his own +diversion was necessary to protect or satisfy his Cherokee informants +and to furnish a reason for his quitting the camp. He looked with +sudden hopefulness at Mr. Taviston, who also rose, but the motion was +merely mechanical, without a parting instinct. The smile yet resting +upon the botanist’s face was inattentive, undiscerning. The officer was +a natural specimen the study of which did not allure him in the least. +He scarcely listened to the lieutenant’s words, so absorbed was he in +the subject. + +“The soil of this region is rich, sir, incredibly rich for mountain +slopes. This redundant example of the _Magnolia acuminata_, sir, +hangs positively over a precipice, craggy steeps, imposing and horrid. +If you would but give yourself the trouble to step with me to the door, +I could point out to you, even in the darkness, the height of the +location where I found it,--an altitude of fully two thousand feet. The +precipice is distinctly imposed upon the sky against the constellation +Perseus, which must be well risen now if the clouds--ah--ah--ah!” + +The officer, moving alertly toward the door, following his guest in +the hope of ultimate release outside, had held up the flap that the +botanist might emerge, and frowned heavily as he heard Mr. Taviston’s +voice rising into a quavering exclamation of surprise. + +“What cracker next!” Everard cried impatiently. + +In a moment the words died upon his lips, and he stood staring out into +the night, half dazed with his sudden revulsion of feeling and the +extraordinary sight that met his eyes. + +For the woods of Chilhowee Mountain were not invisible in the purple +night and under the black cloud, but splendidly agleam in the shadows. +All red and gold they showed, and wreathed about with scroll-like +involutions of blue smoke. Volleying here and there at wide intervals +were jets of flame, vivid white, tinged with red at the verges. Now and +then strange meteors flew through the dense forests in airy arabesques, +lace-like in their tenuity, where the blazes caught at sparse series +of dead leaves still hanging sere and dry in wind-denuded areas. The +ranges in the distance were suddenly evoked from the darkness and +stood as in a trance, motionless. Further still, in the ultimate scope +of vision, vague, illusory suggestions of mountain forms continually +trembled and flickered as the flames rose and fell. The fire was fierce +and furious along the lower reaches of Chilhowee where the trading-path +crossed, for much light wood of undergrowth was among the great +trees, and the elastic blazes that could only leap hound-like about +the huge boles, as if seeking to seize their prey in the branches, +easily enveloped the slender saplings, which now and again sent forth +cracklings as of a sudden volley of musketry. All the black cloud above +looked down in sullen dismay at the aghast earth, thus roused out of +the abyss of darkness and night, with a strange, unnatural aspect upon +the familiar contours of the landscape. + +The Cherokee towns along the river were all astir. Here and there upon +the banks flitted scantily clad Indian figures, gazing at the mountain +and speculating upon the mystery of the ignition of the woods; for the +Chilhowee Mountain is many miles in length, and it would seem that +some region nearer to the distant burning forests, unseen and far to +the north, must have been first fired. Although because of the recent +drought the woods were dry, they would never have burned without +extraneous kindling. + +Everard had turned instinctively to his horse, with the intention of +riding forth to investigate. His Cherokee guide checked him. + +“No can ride to Talassee--no can cross mountain fire--fire--all fire!” + +The amazement, the dismay, and something more--the deep, cogitating +speculation on the man’s face--fixed Everard’s attention. The light of +the burning scene was full upon it, glimmering upon the feathers on the +top of the Indian’s head as he bent forward to gaze, but the shadow +annulled the rest of his body, and his aspect in the weird effects of +the flicker was as if he had been decapitated. When Everard next turned +to speak to him the man had disappeared. Inquiry revealed the fact +that he had quitted the camp. For the first time Everard experienced a +sudden doubt of him. What significance did he perceive in the fire? And +why should he look so downcast, so defeated, so despairing--as at the +end? + +The camp had been roused by the crackle and roar of the flames and the +wide, blaring illumination, as if the world were afire. The officer +doubled the camp guard by way of precaution against any disturbance, +lest the kindling of this conflagration be attributed to the agency of +the soldiers as a bit of bravado on their part, and rouse the wrath of +the Indians to reprisal. Then he went back into his tent and sat down +on the camp stool beside the table, rudely fashioned of the stump of a +great tree, and tried to think out some new solution of the problem of +the capture of MacIlvesty. The candle was still burning with a timid, +white, pearly lustre, all pallid and dim against the great yellow +flare outside, which showed through the translucent canvas walls. The +gigantic leaves of the _Magnolia tripetala_ still lay on the +improvised table, and he had his elbows among them and his head in his +hands, when suddenly he was aware of the corporal of the guard standing +and saluting in the doorway. + +“Ready with some new foolery?” Everard demanded tartly. + +“Yes, sir,” the corporal replied with anxious deprecation. “Here’s a +messenger, sir. I can’t make out who she comes from. But she seemed +possessed to get a word with you, sir. She was so excited and hasty +that, though I had no orders, I was afraid of letting important news +slip if I sent her away.” + +“What’s her name?” demanded Everard, in frowning haste. The moments at +this crisis were important. + +“I don’t know the Injun lingo, sir, but they call her the ‘Cherokee +Rose.’” + +“Then hale her off!” cried Everard, bringing his hand down on the +table with a force that made the candle jump in its socket. “I want +no rosaceous specimens here, native or foreign. No--_the Cherokee +Rose_--I have done with botany forever, I swear!” He spoke as if +he had given many years of unrequited and fruitless study to that +ungrateful science. “Send the baggage about her business! _The +Cherokee Rose_, forsooth!” he repeated fleeringly. + +He turned suddenly, hearing a slight scuffle without, and the next +moment the flap of his tent was drawn back and the girl stood in the +doorway, the flaming night behind her, and all her amber and white +attire showing in soft splendor and full detail in the refined, +subdued, pearly light of the single candle. The discomfited corporal, +who had sought to detain her by as much force as he dared to exert, +was vaguely glimpsed in the background, sullenly resigning himself to +wait to conduct her out of camp, as he saw that Everard had a mind now +to give her an audience. Her first words had arrested the lieutenant’s +attention. He could not have constructed the sentences that issued from +her trembling scarlet lips, but the sound of the Cherokee language had +grown familiar in many weeks’ sojourn here, and he understood its drift +and made shift to reply. + +“I have found your plaid-man,” she cried. “Oh, the wicked one!” casting +up her liquid eyes in aspiration. “Cut off his head! Cut it off clean!” + +“But where? when was he found?” Everard exclaimed eagerly. + +“Oh, now you have lent your ear to listen!” she cried triumphantly. She +glanced warily over her shoulder to make sure that the corporal had not +also lent his ear for the same purpose. Then leaning forward, the flap +of the tent still in one hand, her finger now and again cautiously +laid on her lips, she detailed the strange metamorphosis of the Ancient +Warrior into a Highland soldier which she had witnessed, and every word +that he had said she repeated in English as she had heard it, with a +faithful duplication of accent and gesture. + +“You were to come to Talassee, and he would not let you,--you the great +red Capteny, and he the dust of the earth!--where a feast was made +for you, and the headmen waited, and many young and beautiful were to +dance, and I was to dance. See!--was I not to dance?” + +Her anklets of white beads jingled in unison as she moved her slender +restless feet in their buskins of fine white dressed doeskin. + +“And he wept--the plaid-man! and cried for the French gold! and said, +‘He maunna ride at a’ the nicht! He maunna ride--he maunna gang to +Talassee wi’ the French gowd o’ saxty-twa! Ohonari! Ohonari! He maunna +ride at a’ the nicht.’ And then this plaid-man he sobbed much, and +straightway said to himself that the smoke of far-away burning woods +hurt his eyes--when it is because he is a squaw-man that he sheds +tears, and is no great red Capteny and soldier. And does he not wear a +petticoat every day of his life, like the woman that he is? _He sheds +tears!_ And then he crept out, saying all the time, ‘Oh, gude God, +he maunna ride to Talassee--he maunna ride at a’ the nicht!’ And I, all +unseen, followed him like his shadow, like his soul, through the night +to the foot of the mountain where the trading-path skirts Chilhowee, +and there he struck a flint and set the dry leaves afire, and then with +a lighted torch he ran--ran like a deer--firing the woods here, there, +everywhere! Two Indians, coming from a hunt, saw him, but he gave them +the slip. And the headmen are having the woods scoured for him. And +I--I lost him in the night--for he ran very fast!” + +As he stood listening Everard more than once changed color, and finally +sat down, looking very grave. + +The girl with only a momentary pause recommenced: “And then I knew that +you could not go to Talassee through the fiery woods, although the +feast was made, and the headmen waited, and many were to dance, and I, +too, was to dance, because that creature, in his plaid petticoat, said +you had his French gold. Was it his, forsooth? I do not understand! +And I lost him, but I went back from the mountain to Chilhowee Town, +and there--oh, joy!--there he stood once more in the likeness of the +Ancient Warrior,--who must be very wroth, if there ever was any Ancient +Warrior,--in his hunting-shirt and war-crown. And softly, very softly, +like the mist slipping down the mountain-side I crept away here, and +left him there, that the great red Capteny may descend upon him, and +capture him, and wreak vengeance upon him, and break his great ugly +bones, and give his woman’s petticoat to the dogs to tear!” + +“And is he there yet?” demanded Everard eagerly. “Is he unaware that he +is discovered?” + +Her animated diction had left her breathless and speechless. She could +only bow her head in assent, her lustrous eyes still fiery, her lips +trembling with her panting breath. + +Everard sprang up, tense and alert, keen and quick to see his error. + +“You shall have the French gold as a reward for your story if I find my +tartan man as you say at Chilhowee. Say nothing to any one till I send +you the French gold by the hand of Yachtino, the chief of Chilhowee,” +he said, hoping that thus the headmen might think that he had failed to +notice the significant date of the coinage of the louis d’ors, since +he parted so lightly from them. Thus he would avoid further dangerous +machinations, for of course the pieces were not themselves essential to +the validity of his report. + +He was calling out hasty orders to the corporal in the pauses of his +sentences to her, and in the next few moments he rode out of the camp +at the head of a dozen mounted infantry-men, their red coats and +burnished accoutrements showing in the flames still rioting along the +mountain-side. + +A sense of dawn was presently in the air,--the vague, undiscriminated, +indescribable perception of the awakening of nature. It was not night, +let the darkness gloom as it might. It was not night, let the light +delay as it would. It was a new day, and every nerve acclaimed the +fact with a revival of power. Everard met this new day in emerging +from the forests near Chilhowee Town. The flames were dying out upon +the mountain. A thin rain was falling, and misty moisture enveloped +the higher slopes, where nevertheless here and there a pennant of fire +waved through dull gray involutions of vapor. The smell of charred +timber was rife on the air. The slate-tinted sky, the darkly looming +purple mountains of the distance, the black, fire-swept steeps closer +at hand, the Indian town as yet silent and still, the long, level +stretches of the pallid, sere cornfields dimly striped with fine lines +of the misting rain,--all were visible in the dull gray light as the +party halted on the verge of the woods. Everard dismounted and went +forth alone into the cornfields. + +Callum MacIlvesty, facing in the opposite direction, heard naught, +and saw naught but the dreary fire-smirched scene before him and the +rain slowly descending with a steadiness which promised to make a day +of it. He was too exhausted to think, to scheme further. He only knew +that his ruse had succeeded; that Everard had not been decoyed to a +terrible death; that the commissioners and their military escort would +march to-day. But when he sought to forecast how he would fare, left +alone and helpless in the country of the savage Cherokees, the puzzling +problem so baffled his tired brain--without food, as he was, aching +in every muscle, and drenched to the very bones by the persistent +rain--that he would fall asleep, still standing half supported by the +pole, his war-bonnet and gourd head nodding after a fashion which must +have revealed the sham that he was, had any discerning Indian chanced +to pass that way. He dreamed strange things in these meagre snatches +of sleep,--so strange that he thought he was still dreaming when, +recovering his balance with a start and lifting his heavy eyelids, he +saw Lieutenant Everard striding across the wet cornfield and heard his +friendly voice calling, “Callum Bane! Callum Bane!” as of yore. + +Callum’s heart plunged and then stood still, as he perceived the +reality of his impressions. Before he could decide upon his course the +voice sounded anew, with a queer tremor in it:-- + +“For God’s sake, Callum Bane, don’t hide from me! I wouldn’t hurt a +hair of your head for all the Cherokee country!” + +In his rough, young-man fashion Everard had begun to tear off the +Ancient Warrior’s war-bonnet and gourd vizard and hunting-shirt that, +long subject to the weather’s hard usage, had grown ragged and rent +with the climbing in and out of it by the stalwart Highlander, and +before the transformation was complete the story of each was elicited. +As they faced each other, Callum, conscience-stricken at the enormity +of his offense and overwhelmed by the magnanimity of his friend, albeit +debtor for his life, in forgiving him, suddenly burst into tears, +exclaiming, “Ohon! Ohon! I wish you would kill me!” and cast himself, +in all his smoke-grimed, rain-soaked tartans, into the arms of the +smart officer. + +Everard chose to consider the blow as delivered under the extremity +of provocation and in the quality of friend over a convivial bowl, +and therefore his own personal affair. He was willing to risk the +carping comment of his mess, should it ever come to their knowledge +that he had received this insult without requital from a man who had +saved his life with so much forethought and ingenuity, and danger to +his own,--a man who deemed he would have profited immeasurably by the +officer’s destruction, thus escaping the death which menaced him, or an +ignominious punishment more terrible to him than death itself. + +Everard, however, with his larger experience of life and wider outlook, +saw the plot differently, perfectly rounded and in its entirety. He +knew that the Cherokees would not dare to lure him to Talassee had they +not some innocuous device by which to account for his disappearance +thence. Their subtle intelligence had doubtless seized upon the +fortuitous escape of the Highlander from custody as a thread to work +into their web. For it was most natural that to this man, who had +offended the officer and had cause to fear him, should be attributed +his murder and consequent disappearance. The Highlander himself, easily +found, seized, and destroyed after the departure of the troops from the +country, could gainsay naught. + +The lieutenant’s military conscience, however, would not permit +him to forgive so easily the escape from the guard-house and the +lurking in hiding, these being notorious offenses of evil example +and to the prejudice of good order and discipline. For not even the +corporal who had had the custody of the prisoner knew that Callum had +struck the officer, and the only witness, Mr. Taviston, had utterly +forgotten the blow as a matter of no consequence,--being frantic with +excitement concerning a new species of _Stuartia_, here found and +at that time unknown to any catalogue, but since called _Stuartia +montana_. The corporal and the other soldiers supposed only that +Callum had become intoxicated in the society of his superiors and had +drunkenly and foolishly contrived a troublesome escape from custody. +For this breach of discipline, Callum was destined to undergo in due +time extra guard duty. + +Everard was explaining this to him as being a part of his military +obligations and not to gratify a personal grudge. “You are still under +arrest, you know, Callum Bane!” Everard reminded him. + +“I care na, I care na--onything ye will! Only I maun hae a word wi’ ye +the noo, lad.” + +This word, albeit he was faint from fatigue, both ahungered and +athirst, cold and shivering, having been drenched for hours with the +keen chill rain, Callum so clamored to be allowed to speak that Everard +could not constrain him to wait till after he should have been fed and +warmed and clad anew. + +“Na, na!” Callum persisted, waving away the flask which the officer +pressed upon him, but still clutching his friendly hand, “if I tak +but ae sup ye wad say I am drunk when ye hear what I hae to tell ye!” +He paused for a moment to add weight to his words. “I hae seen that +Frenchman wha hae made sic clavers an’ turmoil amang the Cherokees.” + +“Where? when?” Everard asked breathlessly, his face suddenly grave. + +Callum pointed down at the Ancient Warrior lying at his feet in all +the dreary dislocations of disillusionment,--the tattered, befringed +garments, the quaintly painted gourd head, with its ghastly effect of +decapitation, its glorious war-bonnet bedraggled and forlorn. “When I +was that daft gomeril,--that big Injun,” he replied. + +“A white man?” + +Callum nodded and leaned against the officer. He could hardly stand. He +felt too weak almost to speak, unless indeed he must. + +“A Frenchman, Callum Bane?” Everard asked again, vaguely incredulous. +“How did you know he was French?” + +“By the lingo, man!” said Callum impatiently. + +“Did he speak to you?” demanded Everard, looking keenly into the +Highlander’s pale face, all wet and shining with the rain. + +In the mists on one side were vaguely glimpsed the tall cornstalks +of the far-stretching fields, all writhen and bent by the wind, and +with the gleams of sleet on their sere, pallid blades, but despite +their motion he was aware that among them there were other tall, +befringed, betasseled figures not dissimilar, something too distant for +recognition, where doubtless the ever wily Indians were watching the +conference. At the edge of the woods on the other side of the clearing +stood the mounted detail of English soldiers, the glimmer of the sad +gray day flashing back with a live, alert glitter from the burnished +steel of their arms and their scarlet coats, all quick to note the +fraternal, familiar attitude of the officer and soldier, and internally +to comment on this condescension, which had already resulted in a +breach of discipline and threatened continued insubordination. + +“Did the Frenchy speak to me? Na! I was that big Injun, I tell ye!” +pointing at the prideful gourd face now staring up at them from among +the straw. “Na! nane minted a word at me, except yon _ageya_,--the +Injun lass ye know,--an’ she ca’ me ‘Gude-sire!’ _Gude-sire!_” +Callum laughed dreamily, then suddenly put his hand up to his head, in +the effort to recall the importance of the disclosure. + +“A nip of brandy now, Callum,”--the officer pressed the flask, eager +for the detail,--“and then you’ll remember.” + +“I winna taste it,” Callum rejoined sternly, “for then ye’ll say I was +drunk an’ telled ye but idle clavers. What’s your wull?” he added, as +if bewildered. + +“How do you know the man is French?” demanded Everard. + +“He spoke in French,” replied Callum. + +“To the Indians?” + +“He spoke in Cherokee to the Injuns, and then to himsel’ in French,” +responded Callum definitely. + +Everard was silent for a moment. Important interests of the government, +the peace of the colonies, the policy of the cession of land, the +possible permanent repulse of the French, and on the other hand the +triumphant enormous extension of the French empire in America hung +upon this slight incident. Therefore to make sure, to prevent the +possibility of deception or mistake, he asked, thinking the words that +Callum had heard might have other signification, “What did he say, +Callum? What did he say to himself?” + +“_Tong pee per lee. A bong char bong rar_,” Callum solemnly +repeated. + +Everard burst out laughing hysterically. He was convinced. He was all +tremulous at the momentous discovery that it had chanced to one of his +command to make, eager, nay frenzied, to take instant advantage of it; +yet the accent of the solemn Highlander, to which the French of the +Stratford-atte-Bowe variety would have had an eminently Gallic tang, +outmastered his risibles, and he laughed with that curious duality of +entity when he was never so serious before in his life. + +The first duty, however, in putting into execution the plan which had +instantly shaped itself in his mind, with a dozen variant details, +was to take such order with the Highland soldier as should restore +him to his normal mental and physical fitness. He shouted for aid to +the soldiers, and presently Callum, mounted on a horse behind one of +them,--for he was in no condition to guide the animal or even to retain +his posture, save for a horse girth passed around his waist and the +body of the man in the saddle,--was escorted back to camp, and still +under arrest, bestowed in the snug winter-house devoted to the uses of +a military prison. There was no lack of hot lotions applied externally +and internally, and good food and warm clothing; but the surgeon in +attendance upon the party reported a fever, with a touch of delirium +and a “sair hoast,” as the patient himself described the measure of +cold that he had caught. + +To the surprise of all the force and the suspicious dismay of the +Indians, the return to Charlestown was unaccountably delayed. The +soldiers, wearying of their long inaction, the monotony of life +in the Indian country, hampered as they were by the many unusual +restrictions imposed upon conduct and camp to avoid all possible +cause for clashes with the young Indian braves, had been in high +spirits at the prospect of a speedy change, and their hopes were +suddenly dashed by the countermanding of the orders to march. The +commissariat fell into gloom, and as far as they dared remonstrated +with the commander, predicting a famine ere Charlestown could be +reached; and the quartermaster sergeant and his subordinates of the +baggage contingent, foreseeing all the undoing of the more permanent +arrangements of the baggage train, felt that never again could such +triumphs of transportation be achieved--the stowage of large and +unwieldy commodities in small compass, _multum in parvo_--as a +lucky inspiration in packing had permitted in this instance. + +Moreover, the fine days seemed gone. The weather offered an +incalculable menace. Already the air was full of the misting autumnal +rains, and the many turbulent rivers of the country would soon be out +of their channels beyond even the deep crag-girt banks, rendering +fording impossible and ferriage dangerous. Even snows might fall, +early though it was in the season. In fact, one or two domes of the +Great Smoky Range already showed glittering white against an ominous +slate-tinted sky, as the soft, gauzy tissues of the mists parted before +them, and again impenetrably veiled those frigid altitudes. + +The commissioners themselves had grown obviously disaffected and +doubtful; they were disposed to remonstrate, and one of them +reproachfully coughed from time to time, occasionally from genuine +affection and again from patent affectation. Only the meteorologic +and botanic Mr. Taviston welcomed the lengthened opportunity, and +since the flowers had all fallen under the repeated frosts and an +unseasonable nipping freeze, he found a solace in investigating the +climate itself, going about, a comfort to himself, and eke to say a +wellspring of joy to others, with an umbrella above his head, to the +ribs of which was suspended a thermometer at the height of his nose, +taking acute scientific notes of the extraordinary variability of the +temperature and the swift fickleness of the atmospheric changes. He was +even disposed to climb the mountains to the snow line, to press his +inquiries among the white domes of the great range, accompanied only by +an Indian guide; but the stern interdiction of this enterprise by the +commander precluded his wandering so far afield, and he was compelled +to content himself with such specimens of weather as he could collate +nearer at hand. + +To the prevalent dissatisfaction Lieutenant Everard accorded only +the most casual attention, obviously preoccupied, intent on his own +thoughts, sternly determined, but sharing his conclusions with no +adviser. + +The civilians of the party naturally distrusted these _indicia_ +of changes of moment evidently impending, and felt some qualms as to +his comparative youth and heady traits, some curiosity as to possible +details of his instructions to which it might be they were not privy, +some helpless anxiety lest for reasons satisfactory to himself, which +they could not divine, he should venture to deviate from his orders. +The commissioners were in the nature of things more or less men of +consequence, accustomed to command, and to the habit of determining and +shaping their own course in life as the eventuation of circumstance +should seem to require. They had not had the military training to an +unquestioning obedience, the suppression of natural curiosity, the +relinquishment of all responsibility and individual identity, in the +existence of a corporate body, subject to the volition of a superior. +They chafed in the sense of helplessness, and from time to time eyed +him greedily in hopes of catching from his manner some intimation as to +his ultimate plans. In response to more open expressions of curiosity, +he had flatly refused to gratify it, and the courtesy and apparent +consideration in his phrase made him seem only the more inscrutable. + +“You will pardon me, I am sure, but Gad, sir, my duty does not permit +me to be explicit. The march is postponed, but you will not be required +to move without information,” he replied suavely, but with a flash of +the eye which intimated that he would tell them when he could no longer +avoid it, and when all the rest of the world must know. + +While the camp thus settled down to its former routine, grumbling +and speculating variously as to the causes that had necessitated the +countermanding of the orders to march, the Cherokees were alarmed for +the interests of the projected cession of land. Their earlier fears had +been quieted in great measure by the recovery of the French gold, the +louis d’ors of the coinage of the current year, thus falling readily +into the trap which Everard had warily set for them. They concluded +that since he had given the gold pieces so casually to the Indian +girl as a reward for her detection of his runagate soldier he had not +noticed the date with its cogent significance, having them so short a +time in his possession. Certainly it was great munificence, but this +was the more easily accounted for as the louis d’ors really belonged +to another man, and the officer seemed generous without loss, for the +Cherokees did not understand that their value must needs be returned to +Eachin MacEachin. As the Indians were not admitted familiarly within +the camp, and the soldiers were not free to wander without, there could +be only futile surmises as to the reasons for the postponement of the +march. Secret observations of the camp taken from the river and the +opposite bank intimated much activity among the farriers. Perhaps the +horses were all to be reshod. But surely such a necessity could not be +in the nature of a surprise to the Capteny Gigagei. Another day ensued +a great overhauling of the baggage for clothing of heavier weight, in +anticipation of severe weather. The commissioners bargained with the +Indians for some furs fashioned into match-coats, and the lieutenant +himself, being obliged to wear the hated British uniform, ordered +blankets of the fine dressed otter and panther skins, for which he +paid in English guineas: he had no more louis d’ors. The postponement +gradually came to be accepted as the result of the sudden unseasonable +spell of cold weather. + +Therefore it fell like a thunderclap upon the headmen, when suddenly +one day Lieutenant Everard took advantage of a personal visit which the +great chief Tanaesto was making to him in his tent, to declare that +he had certain knowledge that the Cherokees harbored amongst them a +Frenchman who sought to spirit them up against the British government, +despite the fact that they had so lately firmly shaken hands anew with +it. He protested that unless they instantly surrendered to him this +miscreant, chargeable with he knew not how many of the crimes laid at +their door, he would report to the royal governor the fact that he had +ascertained his presence here in the heart of the Cherokee country, and +this would annul the privileges they expected to enjoy under the treaty +thus rendered void, and destroy the possibility of the cession itself. + +But for that single phrase, but for the interests dependent upon the +cession, but for the fact that this purchase money for the lands would +enable the Cherokees to secure the munitions of war to wrench not only +this limited territory but their whole country from the encroaching +British grasp, as well as sustain them in a certain independence in +their relations with their expected French allies,--but for these +obvious dictates of policy, the commissioners’ train and military +escort would have been set upon by unnumbered hundreds and destroyed in +the instant. + +Even as it was, however, their safety was in a great part assured by +the fact that this episode took place only within the knowledge of +the wily chiefs. The populace--those “mad young men,” so difficult +to restrain, whose impetuosity so often cost the nation dear--could +not have been held back had this demand been suddenly publicly urged. +And indeed the chiefs themselves were between two fires; for if aught +should befall the French officer through their pusillanimity or +treachery, it was obvious they could hope for no further aid from the +great French king, without which they could not save their national +existence. + +Admire the collected Tanaesto’s aplomb! Without one moment’s hesitation +he denied the accusation,--utterly oblivious of the future,--so +definitely, so instantly, that Everard himself, closeted in his tent +with three or four Indians who had accompanied Tanaesto, felt a +momentary doubt. Could Callum have been dreaming?--the vision of the +Frenchman only a figment of the fever then laying hold upon him, the +words an echo?--some reminiscence sounding anew in his delirium? + +“But you have a white man, a Frenchman, here in the nation,” Everard +sternly persisted. + +“A white man in the nation? Several here and there in the lower towns. +Oh, yes, the Capteny says the gracious truth. But these are English or +Scotch, never French. Some there are who like the Cherokee methods and +settle in the tribe. But here in the Overhill towns only one white man, +an Englishman--that is to say, a Virginian.” + +Everard, staring fixedly at Tanaesto, shook his head, and the Indian +interpreter mechanically repeated the gesture, as if the parties for +whom he served as a means of communication were blind as well as deaf +to all but him. + +Most unlikely did Everard consider it that an Englishman would dare to +linger here alone in the present disorganized state of the Cherokee +country and the inflamed public sentiment against the British. + +“This man--who I fear is no Englishman--sojourned in Moy Toy’s town of +Great Tellico,” Everard persisted. “This I know. The great chief will +perceive there are no limits to my knowledge.” + +With this corollary, confirmatory of his proposition, the Indians +hardly dared to further deny. A sudden stillness ensued; and this +desperate silence, long unbroken, was an invisible appeal one to the +others, each waiting for some intrepid invention of some one else that +might serve to rescue the situation. + +Everard smiled grimly as his sarcastic eyes traveled the rounds from +one confused, downcast face to the other. “Since he is a Virginian, as +you say, an Englishman so far, I should be glad to see him,” persisted +Everard, relishing their discomfort. “I should not like it to be said +that I left an only countryman in this remote wilderness without an +effort to exchange a word with him, a homelike greeting.” + +“If he is now at Great Tellico, I know not; it has been long since I +saw him,” Tanaesto qualified. Then realizing that this belated negation +could not nullify all that had gone before, “Doubtless he will be glad +to take you by the hand,” he concluded falteringly. + +“Doubtless. I shall do myself the honor to wait upon him there, and +shall also take this occasion to pay my respects to the great Moy Toy.” + +Everard smiled sardonically, grimly triumphant, for the leave-taking +of the graceful, ceremonious Indians was like the hasty scuttling away +of a group of culprits evading the clutch of custody. + +The camp had been hastily broken; all was now gleeful stir and +activity. Everard had waited long, but he had reached the limit of his +patience and the necessity to exercise it simultaneously. MacIlvesty +was sufficiently recovered to have regained the full use of his +faculties, and he depended upon the Highlander’s identification of the +man, whom he had seen in familiar conversation with the Indians at one +of their most secret ceremonies, speaking Cherokee to them and French +in soliloquy. Everard would take no substitute for this man! Lest some +dull under-trader, some runaway apprentice, finding it easier to turn +Cherokee than work at a trade in the colonies, be palmed off on him in +lieu of this forked-tongued schemer, he had awaited the Highlander’s +recovery, despite his impatience. He realized that should he miss his +grip at the opportune moment the chance would be gone and forever. He +would confront Callum MacIlvesty with this sojourner at Tellico whom +he doubted not to be the French emissary who had occasioned a world of +trouble in readjusting the Cherokees on their former basis with the +British government. Unless opportunity should prove amazingly elusive, +he would arrest this man and carry him to Charlestown, where the +consideration of the problems which he embodied could be shifted upon +those more qualified to undertake it, the colonial diplomats. + +Everard’s determination to proceed further into the Cherokee +country necessitated the detail of some portion of his plan to the +commissioners whom he must needs drag with him, since his force was +too slight to divide, and he could not leave them without a guard at +Ioco. Though firm as adamant and steeled against any remonstrance, +he had dreaded their efforts to deter him, their insistence that he +was transcending his instructions, that he was merely the commander +of their bodyguard, and required to act only in the interests of +the cession. The fluttered squawking of the botanist, the deep +basso-profundo rumble of the commissioner whose fad was geology, the +appeal to his official conscience and his oath by the diplomat proper, +the politician, the piercing fife-like note of the surveyor’s voice +in protest,--all sounded coherently in his imagination long before +he made the disclosure, and sooth to say, sounded nowhere else. For +the “gentlemanly old ladies” showed unexpected mettle; they applauded +his determination, belittled the possible danger they might incur, +commended his discretion, and urged the instant setting forward of +the force before the man could be spirited away and the Indians make +head in their schemes to conceal all evidences of his identity and +machinations. + + + + + XIV + + +LAROCHE, however, as far as his safety was concerned, was more secure +at Tellico Great than he could have been elsewhere, and he appreciated +this, for both Moy Toy and he had been speedily advised of the untoward +discovery of the secret of his presence here and the lame and futile +effort of Tanaesto to account for it innocuously. Where the Cherokees +were in force, as in one of the greater “mother towns,” he could more +effectually claim the national protection than if, seeking refuge in +flight, he should be apprehended in some secluded outlying region +where only a few scattered tribesmen would be receptive to his appeal. +Therefore at Tellico he determined to stand his ground, albeit he +doubted both the will and the capacity of the Indians to hold out +against the demand of the English officer. He argued that with so small +a force as the escort of the commissioners, coercion was manifestly +not contemplated, and the British commander was risking the dangers of +the Indian country, disaffected though it was, with no protection save +the ostensible comity of the already jeopardized treaty. Unassisted +reason and logic were hardly to be relied upon in Indian negotiation. +Reproaches for a broken faith needs an unimpeachable counter-record to +render them practicable. Laroche feared, as the last resource, bribes, +large, tempting, irresistible. + +At that moment his stanch scheme of empire, rebuilt on the ruins +of a score of fantastic projections of old, braced and held to +interdependent cohesion in a thousand details, seemed to him also a +mere phantasm, the immaterial outline of the functions of a state, a +spectre of power, to dissolve into nullity at the first cockcrow of +the lordly realities of established rule. He had but expended himself, +his time, his efforts, his liberty, it might even be his life itself, +that the crafty Moy Toy should have the opportunity of driving a more +thrifty bargain with the British interest because of the formidable +character of the threatened defection; or mayhap, indeed, only for the +sake of a personal gift,--a finer rifle, or a trifle of embroidered and +gold-laced suits of apparel,--he would consent to bring anew the nation +under British domination until such time as the yoke grew cumbersome to +his fitful ambition and he was minded to throw it off again. + +Naturally Moy Toy could not read these thoughts in the face of his +friend, but he marked his changing color and partly interpreted his +agitation. Because of the stress of his religion,--a very queer and +inconvenient restriction the savage deemed it,--never would Laroche +lift a weapon against his fellow man, except in legitimate warfare. +And yet he was eminently a proper man, to use the language of the +day, light, active, with muscles like steel wire and strong with a +latent staying power. When personally threatened he would offer no +aggression, save in self-defense, and even now, in this stress of +realized jeopardy, he insisted with all his arts of persuasion that Moy +Toy should give over the idea of a massacre of the advancing party, +with several delectable items of the horrors of a surprise and friendly +lure to merge at last into fierce and wholesale murder, which the chief +planned with many a sly and furtive smile, and which met with open and +applausive assent from his councilors assembled. + +“They come in peace, relying on your honor; let them go in peace,” +urged Laroche, as in duty bound, from the standpoint of soldier, +Christian, and patriot. + +“They have not my honor in their keeping,” Moy Toy lowered. “I do not +love your ugly religion!” + +Nevertheless, he suffered himself to be gainsaid in the paramount +interests of the land cession, and Laroche felt at the end of all +things. + +If Moy Toy were to have no fun out of the rash adventure of the +embassy, the embassy would certainly profit at the expense of the +interloper. He it was who must suffer between the two. He knew +that this sudden unforeseen demonstration against him personally +was obviously fraught with too great danger to the government’s +commissioners for the military commander of the escort to lightly +undertake it or to relinquish it without advantage. Nothing less could +it portend than the arrest of the French emissary and his removal in +the British interest from the Cherokee country. Laroche’s experimental +resourceful mind became suddenly blank in the contemplation of the +vista of long days, nay years, in prison, at the will of a British +colonial magnate or on a quibble of British law. And then this +suggestion opened a new speculation. What if, being without his +uniform, without command, in the discharge of no specific military +duty, he should be held as a spy or as a civil prisoner, and +responsible for certain murders which the Cherokees had committed on +British subjects either with the sanction of Moy Toy or on that system +of personal individual warfare which in modern civilized times is +called feud, and which the Cherokee autonomy countenanced. Brave though +his spirit was, Laroche quailed at the imputed instigation of these +horrors which he had sought to avert and had openly condemned at much +personal risk. + +He was keenly reminiscent of the day when a previous expedition had +arrived at the town of Tellico Great and he had then been of the +embassy. With that strange dual capacity of the mind, albeit his +every faculty might seem otherwise absorbed, he was conscious of all +the details of the event which he now watched as it were from the +inside,--the placing of the appurtenances of the town to the best +advantage, the gathering of the warriors and braves, as well as women +and children, arrayed each in the finest toggery. The “beloved square” +had been swept and resanded, the public buildings were painted anew. +There in each of the four open, piazza-like cabins the incumbents of +the high municipal offices were ranged on the tiers of seats in the +wonted order of their relative rank,--the medicine and religious men, +the war-captains, the aged councilors, and Moy Toy in the place of +chief. Always an impressive figure, he had assumed an added dignity +in the doubly conferred imperial title, from both British and French +powers,[10] superimposed upon his hereditary municipal chieftaincy, +though the latter distinction was the only point of supremacy in which +the Cherokee nation itself now acquiesced. He sat in his place upon +the white divan, his iridescent feather-woven mantle glittering in the +sun, his polled head plumed with eagle quills, about his neck a single +strand of those glossy fresh-water Tennessee pearls, almost as large +as filberts, a size then rare, but even yet taken occasionally from +the _Unio margaritiferus_ of our sandy river banks. A great bead, +which he valued far more, wrought painfully with years of labor from +the conch shell, ivory-like in its polish and tint, was suspended in +the middle of his forehead. His guard of immediately attendant warriors +was about him, and Laroche sat at his side. + +Arrayed too in aboriginal splendor was the French officer. This was +hardly bravado on his part, for he had long ago lost sight of that +uniform which he had worn to Great Tellico, for Moy Toy had sequestered +it, lest it remind him in some inscrutable way of those events when +he had so nearly lost his life at the stake, and thus by exciting +resentment diminish his utility to the nation. This garb would scarcely +have much commended him to the Englishman whose advent he momently +expected, but with that acute Gallic self-consciousness he winced from +the anticipated wonder at his attire, averse yet scornful. But Moy +Toy was not to be withstood, and the adopted tribesman was nearly as +fine as the prince. He too wore a necklace of pearls, that set off the +fairer tints of his throat with less barbaric effect than the Indian’s +own bauble. His face was fantastically streaked with paint, yet its +keen lines and the fine expressiveness of his eyes were definitely +asserted. His trim figure was encased in a shirt and leggings of white +dressed doeskin with long fringes wrought with scarlet feathers; his +buskins were dyed scarlet, and he wore scarlet feathers mounted high +on his blond hair. It seemed to him now, as he sat silent thus and +waited, that the agonies of suspense were decreed to him as a portion. +He could hear the beating of his heart in the absolute stillness of +the assemblage as, with the stoicism of Indian patience and endurance, +the Cherokees, motionless and silent, awaited the appearance of the +commissioners’ party. + +The bland blue sky seemed waiting too, so still it was. Here and there +were cloud masses of a dazzling whiteness and variant density and +depth of tone, as if to illustrate the infinite scope of the possible +interpretations of this tint, technically an absence of color. Bright +as they were, as they swung motionless in the sunlit air, wherever +their shadows fell on the velvet azure of the distant mountains the +hue deepened and dulled to a violet, subdued as with the expunging +of light. The snow on the mountain domes near at hand showed a sharp +contrast to the red and yellow and brown of the brilliant leafage still +on the steep slope below. The haze in the intermediate valleys was +like a silver gauze--of a consistency that suggested a fabric. Even as +close as the willows along the river bank it preserved this illusion, +and now veiled them from sight and now withdrew, revealing their slim +idyllic wands, all leafless and whitely frosted and trembling in some +imperceptible pulsation of the currents of the air. Many a bare bough +with the distinctness of some fine etching was reflected in the +shimmering water, here a smooth and silver expanse, and here a rippling +steely sheen. Upon its surface a flock of swans, glittering white +in the sunshine, floated into view, and then like a fantasy drifted +suddenly into the invisibilities of the mist and the shadow. Far away +the booming note of a herd of buffaloes came to the ear and was silent, +and again one could not so much as hear the throng of waiting Cherokees +draw a breath. It might seem that a spell had fallen upon the town, the +silent assemblage, the loitering clouds, the still mountains, and that +they had thus stood waiting for unnumbered ages till some magic sound +should break their bonds. + +It came suddenly. The dreaming swans lifted their heads to listen, then +with an abrupt unmusical cry began to swim swiftly down toward the +confluence with the Tellico River. A dog barked and was silent once +more. Then distant though it was, indeterminate, merely a pulsing throb +in the air, Laroche recognized the far-away beating of a drum, and +could hardly distinguish it, save by its steadier, more rhythmic throb, +from the agitated beating of his own heart. + +Perhaps it may have been due to the influences of mental solitude, +as it were, and much introspective brooding, always averse to the +prosaic mundane atmosphere; perhaps to that undefined fascination +which the life of the Cherokees of the earlier epochs of our knowledge +of them exerted upon certain temperaments among the strangers who +sojourned with them; perhaps merely to personal antagonism and national +prejudice, but the sound of the British fife and drum, now distinct, +playing a foolish air, the sight of the British flag, the appearance of +the embassy, half military, half civilian, some mounted, some afoot, +partly English, partly Scotch Highlanders, the progress accommodated +ill enough to the beat of the quickstep, affected Laroche as singularly +crass and uncouth. + +The undisguisable contempt of the commander for the Indians and all +that appertained to them, the absolute lack of comprehension of the +subtler elements of their character, the determination to secure the +object he sought without any recognition of the complicated details +of the environment, gave a certain effect of ignorance to the address +and standpoint of the highly civilized man that by contrast made +the aboriginal, with his mystery of antiquity, his symbolism, his +ceremonial, his inscrutability, the gravity of his courtesy, seem to +have profited by the lack of modern education and to be endowed with +learning by inheritance and intuition. + +Without any embellishment of ceremony in his presence, Everard +sauntered casually across the “beloved square” toward the Indian chief, +wreathing his unwilling features into such a smile as he deemed might +answer for the occasion, but he stretched out his hand benignly. In the +service of the king it could not hurt his dignity to shake hands with +an Injun. + +Moy Toy, his beaded and braceleted arms folded across his bosom, took +no notice of the proffered hand, but bowed halfway to the ground. + +Everard, in no wise disconcerted, cared no more for the declination +of this courtesy--nay, not half so much--than if his favorite hound, +Brutus, whom he was training to the observance of this gentility of +greeting, had withheld his paw; for sometimes Brutus would shake, and +sometimes in the exercise of canine freedom the paw of Brutus was his +own, since Everard’s cuff of disappointment was but a half hearted +demonstration, and no dog or horse stood in much fear of cruelty from +him. + +That Everard was a fine, handsome man, and by his profession +accustomed to etiquette and parade, gave additional point to his lack +of ostentation and formality in the present instance. He evidently +did not think it worth his while. But he wagged his well-shaped +head eagerly in serious argument when he forthwith entered upon the +subject of his mission without preamble, dispensing with the usual +ceremonials of eating, drinking, and smoking among the Indians. +Perhaps he truly thought that in view of the slightness of his force +the hospitality of the savages was not to be trusted at so inimical +a juncture. The commissioners, all mounted, looked on at a little +distance, and the soldiers were hard by, drawn up in close order just +without the “beloved square.” Some were in the scarlet gear of the +British foot-soldier and others in the dark blue and green tartan of +the Forty-Second Regiment, and this variation of costume, albeit they +were ranged separately in their respective ranks, gave a sort of motley +guise to the command and impaired the effect of their number. But in +truth, all told, the military escort mustered scarcely threescore, +for the demonstration was essentially a pacific one, and Everard but +expected to wield the weapons of right reason rather than brute force. +He might, however, have done better execution with the latter, for he +was no diplomatist. + +It was Everard’s faithful conviction that the government’s emissaries +habitually treated the Indians too seriously in seeking to adopt their +social methods in conference, and that thus the civilized ambassador +was a fool from his own point of view and a butt of ridicule to the +Indians, who could but mark his failure in aboriginal etiquette in a +thousand undreamed-of details. Simplicity, candor, directness, he held, +became a bold Briton, and he would make no concessions to please the +Indians and foster their sense of their own consequence by letting +them see him play the condemned monkey, aping their fantastic savage +ceremony. + +Wherefore he stood, for he was not invited to sit, but he cared no +more for the implied derogation than for the courtesies of such as +they. He leaned negligently one hand on his sheathed sword, its +point on the ground, and did not even maintain an erect attitude, as +one obviously should in addressing a prince, nay, an emperor twice +crowned by British and French authority. But this dereliction was not +intentional. In truth there was a good deal of Lieutenant Everard in +one piece, and in common with many other tall people he was disposed +at times to loll and make his superfluous length comfortable. Not +thus, however, did he conduct himself on parade or in the presence of +a military superior or his excellency the royal governor, and well +aware was Moy Toy of this. Moreover, his beautiful hair was not so well +powdered as it was wont to be, and even his hat, which he still wore, +was cocked casually askew. + +Perhaps the consciousness of these facts, trivial yet significant, +rendered Moy Toy the less capable of being pricked in conscience by the +long list of fractures which the old treaty had suffered at his hands. + +“And now,” said Everard, stooping to metaphor, “the path, so red with +the blood of the English colonists and British soldiers and the slain +Cherokee braves and made so crooked by the wiles of the pestiferous +Louisiana French, has been whitened and straightened out by the +magnanimity of the great British sovereign, his majesty King George. +He has forgiven the treachery of the Cherokees because like children +they could not reason aright, and like the blind they could not walk +straight. He has intended to purchase large quantities of land from +the tribe, that they might have the means to build up all the former +prosperity of the nation which their wickedness caused to be pulled +down. He expects to send traders once more to the Cherokee country, +that the Indians may be furnished with goods for their necessities +at a low and uniform price. He will maintain a system of weights +and measures amongst them to which the traders will be required to +conform. Armorers will he send to mend their guns free of charge, one +gunsmith to every town, and artisans to instruct them in the methods +and manufactures of civilization. And in return for so much clemency +what did the Cherokees promise in the articles of the new treaty? A +fair and firm friendship, a forbearance of murder and fire-raising on +the frontier, the surrender of any white men of whatever nationality +who aided them in the war against Great Britain, and the solemn promise +that they would not suffer any Frenchman to come into their country to +trade, to plant, or to build, lest they be again spirited up against +the English to subvert this new treaty so faithfully signed and sealed +and witnessed.” + +He paused and silence fell suddenly, save for the far-away booming of +the buffaloes, the murmurous monotone of the river, the vague stir of a +breeze from the mountains beginning to clash the bare boughs together +and lift the folds of the British flag. + +“Moy Toy,” Everard resumed with a weighty manner, “the ink of that +signature is hardly dry, and yet so early I find a Frenchman installed +amongst you. And there,” he threw out his hand at arm’s length, “there +is the man!” + +His eyes roaming around had singled out Laroche and now dwelt upon him +with an expression at once scornful and upbraiding. Then his attention +traveled fleeringly up and down the barbaric details of the garb of the +splendidly decorated white man, who winced under the voiceless jeer +of the “perfide Albion,” and whose gorge rose within him while yet he +quaked to encounter this enmity. + +Moy Toy, visibly hesitant, replied at length. + +It was his desire, he stated, to be at peace with the British king, +although he would not or could not protect from the encroachments of +the colonists the Cherokees whom he had once called his children. +Moy Toy held himself, in fact, as the friend and brother of that +king,--which statement reached such a point of sensitiveness in +Everard’s organization as to cause him to snort suddenly in surprise +and indignation. + +But Moy Toy, although maintaining his dignity of port, was hardly +equal to himself. He could play a double part easily enough, but to +adjust the multiplicity of deceits requisite for this emergency in +good relation to the interest of the tribe, to forfeit nothing of +the expected French support and yet avoid the jeopardy of the price +of the lands to be ceded to the British, passed even his measures +of duplicity. He sought to adopt the wile that Tanaesto had earlier +essayed. + +The stranger was English--so he said; for himself he did not know; +he could not pretend to decide; he was no linguister; he was all for +peace; but the Great Spirit in his unfathomable wisdom had given men +many tongues, with which indeed they talked too much. + +“Ha!” Everard exclaimed sardonically, “they have been at that since the +days of Babel!” + +He paused that the interpreter might repeat his words, the while +Everard transferred his flouting gaze from Laroche to the noble figure +of Moy Toy, with no sort of appreciation of the dignity of its aspect, +the subtle force of its facial expression, the picturesque barbarity +of its ornament and garb. To him, in common with many of the British +soldiers and colonists of the day, Moy Toy represented merely “old +Injun” or “greasy red stick.” Everard had, however, an especial relish +for the perplexity that looked out from among the wrinkles of his eyes, +wrought by many a problem of statecraft, and his pondering, anxious, +outwitted despair. The officer waited for a moment, expectant that Moy +Toy would advance a new argument; then, as the chief remained silent, +Everard proceeded with his own solution of the problem. + +“Perhaps in Charlestown they may know how to tell a Frenchman from an +Englishman. If this man is a loyal subject of King George he will not +grudge the detention in so good a cause, and I pledge my honor that +he shall be put to no charges for the expense of the journey; if a +Frenchman, the colonial authorities may take him in hand then and I +shall be free of him.” + +Whatever his deficiencies as a diplomat, Lieutenant Everard certainly +did not lack courage. He lifted his head suddenly; his sword swung back +with his left hand on its hilt; tense, erect, he strode forward a dozen +resolute paces, and, that the intention of the act might be obvious to +all who witnessed it, struck the cowering Laroche on the shoulder with +the stern cry, “In the king’s name!” + +The sound seemed a spell to raise the devil withal. Elicited like +an echo, dependent on the tone, yet magnified a thousandfold, an +inarticulate cry broke forth from the tribesmen, protesting, frantic, +but menacing. The crowd surged this way and that, and Lieutenant +Everard, suddenly mindful of the safety of his soldiers, turned, +his chin high in the air, and his head still haughtily posed, to +glance where they stood, a thought more compact than before, a scant +threescore, with the savages circling in hundreds tumultuously about +them. + +“You would not dispute his majesty’s authority!” Everard stiffly held +his ground; for Moy Toy, irate, commanding, although visibly agitated, +ordered him in no set phrase to desist. “He is a Frenchman and an +enemy!” urged Everard. “He is no Cherokee!” + +“He has been made a great ‘beloved man’!” protested Moy Toy. “He is a +Cherokee by adoption!” + +The words roused the populace to renewed clamors. No heed took the “mad +young men” of the frowning faces of their elders, the silent gestures +of Moy Toy beseeching a hearing. + +There is in that inarticulate murmur of the wrath of a mob something +so menacing, so daunting, so indefinably terrible, that even Everard +was receptive to an admonition so growlingly enforced. He took his hand +from the Frenchman’s shoulder lest in having it removed for him he +might be torn in pieces. The implacable murmur still rose, the crowds +still surged, and Laroche, half ashamed yet wholly reassured, feared +that he looked as smug as he felt, while a glitter of satisfaction and +triumph shone in Moy Toy’s eyes. They narrowed as he gazed steadily, +threateningly, with a latent devilish thought, at Everard, so entirely +at his mercy. A corner was a very tight fit for Lieutenant John Francis +Everard, but he was fairly in it. He was accustomed to disport himself +freely in the open, and the wriggles incident to a confined space did +not suit his muscles, his size, or his temper. He made an effort to +wrench himself from it. + +“Mighty fine! mighty fine!” he said sneeringly to the Frenchman. “You +are sane enough, sir, and sober enough, to know what poor stuff this +is,--what pitiful dupes you are befooling and befuddling! Faugh! your +deceits sicken me!” + +He looked with a snarl, which he designed to be a withering smile, over +the fantastic apparel of the Frenchman, but Lieutenant Everard was as +much out of countenance as a man of his stamp could well be. + +“Zounds!” he resumed, still seeking to recover the control of the +situation, and shaking off Moy Toy’s restraining hand laid upon his +arm, “we’ll hear the fellow himself. Since you are English, give us +your name, sirrah!” + +He was consciously and blatantly rude, rejoicing in his capacity to be +independent of the varnish with which such occasions are sleeked over. + +Laroche’s blood began to rise, his eye to sparkle. Despite his awful, +imminent jeopardy,--for who could say how the scene might even yet +result,--the spirit of the fray quivered through his blood. “If it may +please your excellency,” he said in his usual clear tones and precise +enunciation, “yonder stands a man in your ranks to whom I am personally +known. Your excellency might prefer to believe his account of me rather +than my own.” + +Everard stared blankly and secretly winced. The man’s politeness had a +whetted edge, that cut like ridicule. The title of “excellency,” so far +above the usage of the lieutenant’s rank and deserts, might have been +conferred in ignorance or propitiation, but taken in conjunction with +his own rude address seemed as apt as a fleer. + +Everard was at once doubtful and bewildered. The stranger’s English, +so far as the construction of his sentences and choice of words went, +was perfect. There was, however, something in his intonation which +grated on the Briton’s ear. Nevertheless, there were many variations +of provincial accent, especially in the colonies. Everard, in fact, +believed that no one here could speak the language with purity, as if +it had suffered a sea change in coming over the water. + +Turning toward the ranks, he perceived a touch of consciousness on +Callum MacIlvesty’s face, and was startled to remember that it was his +original intention to confront the two, that Callum might identify +this man as the French-speaking familiar of the Ancient Warrior of +Chilhowee. By a gesture he summoned the Highlander to his side, and +simultaneously the Frenchman stepped forth and stood beside Moy Toy. +The Indian’s eyes were all a-glitter, and a tremor agitated the +feathers stiffly upright on his polled head. + +“MacIlvesty, did you ever before see this man?” demanded the officer, +while the two eyed each other. + +“Aye, sir, mony a time,” replied Callum MacIlvesty. + +Everard stared. “And where?” + +“At one Jock Lesly’s trading-house at Ioco Town, sir.” + +Whither was this tending? The expression of the officer’s face became +amazed, concerned, intent. The flutter among the head feathers of Moy +Toy was suddenly stilled. + +“When was this?” the military catechist demanded. + +“Nigh on a year ago come Easter, sir.” + +The triumph in the man’s face, its suggestion of covert ridicule, +nettled Everard. Into what fool’s play had he been lured? + +“_Why, Callum!_” he said in a reproachful murmur aside; then +aloud, “What’s his name?” + +Callum shook his head. “I dinna ken, sir; I misdoubt.” + +“What was he called?” the lieutenant mended the phrase. + +“Tam--Tam Wilson.” + +“Oh Callum--Callum Bane!” once more the officer’s admonitory whisper +reached him. “And where was he said to hail from?” Everard added aloud. + +“Firginia, sir,” faltered the Highland soldier. + +It was becoming definite in Everard’s mind that Callum, all agog about +the French, as the Highland soldiery, who had often triumphantly +encountered them, forever were, and hearing much of suspected +machinations among the Indians, had but dreamed of the French enemy +beside the effigy of the Indian Warrior and had heard only in fancy, +perhaps in the inception of the fever, the words that he repeated. For +evidently this man was not only well known to him, but was also long a +familiar of the English trading-station in the Cherokee nation. Perhaps +even yet the young fellow’s mind was not quite clear. + +Nevertheless, since the ordeal had been in his defense and for his +sake, Everard was minded to be gentle with him, although the false +position into which Callum had involved him burned the officer’s pride +like fire. + +“Why did you think he was French, MacIlvesty?” he asked openly. + +“Because,” said Callum, with a keen resentment against himself, the +officer, the arch-deceiver, the untoward facts themselves, that he +could not make the truth as he knew it now, as he was sure of it, +appear as aught but a falsehood or a folly, “he spoke French--he spoke +it to himself!--when I saw him last, a fortnight ago, amang the Injuns.” + +“And, Callum,” said Laroche familiarly, “did you never hear an +Englishman speak French? Why, lad, I myself have e’en heard a +Scotchman’s tongue waggling into it!” + +His eyes twinkled as if in reminiscence, and Everard, remembering the +peculiarities of the Highlander’s accent, was minded to mark anew the +familiarity of this Tam Wilson with him. He himself had not spoken his +Christian name aloud, but the stranger knew it, and with no prompting +called him “Callum.” + +Bewildered, raging internally, humiliated, Callum was ordered to his +former place in the ranks, having only succeeded, because of the +artifice of this arch-strategist and the intractability and paucity of +the perverse facts, in identifying this Frenchman as an Englishman, to +the satisfaction, or rather dissatisfaction, of his superior officer. + +Of all people incompetent to use power without its abuse the Cherokees +were preëminent. The turbulent mob had been quick to discern in the +result of the conference that their adopted tribesman, the French +officer, was obviously triumphant; that Moy Toy, although standing +like a statue, was overjoyed, with gleaming wide eyes and an elated +port. They could ill afford magnanimity toward these people, so many +grudges as a nation and as individuals did they owe the English, +consequent on the slaughters and fire-raising and punitive famine they +had suffered at the hands of the British troops in the warfare of the +preceding years. Their note of comment had lost its tone of appeal, of +indignation, of protest. It was swelling now and again into a savage +roar of awful import, of reprisal, of scorn, of eager brutality. + +Laroche heard in it the knell of all his hopes. This precipitate +action would forever frustrate the fruition of his work here,--the +gathering and organization of the tribal forces, the transportation +of supplies, the plan of his campaign,--and with this, his success, +his promotion, his hard-earned guerdon, for which he had labored so +diligently, so discreetly, so valiantly. He was not ready to strike +yet--not yet! A premature blow now would preclude all those sequences +of aggression so carefully planned, for the forces of the campaign were +as yet unprepared; the English would be first in the field, and the +tribal remnants of the Indian nations taken in detail and succession +would be overwhelmed, intimidated, scattered, before the carefully +aggregated resources of the French expedition could be made effective +and available. + +It was necessary that he should think very fast. And yet when he +spoke his words seemed quite casual, almost irrelevant. “As to Callum +MacIlvesty,” he said to Everard, “why, I hardly know what to make of +Callum! He always seemed jealous of me on account of Jock Lesly’s +beautiful daughter, Miss Lilias,--who was much too good for either of +us!” he stipulated gallantly. “But I should never have suspected Callum +of an invention like this!” + +Everard looked at him keenly. This added another point in favor of his +identity as a Virginian,--his familiarity with the names of the members +of the trader’s household; another reason why his image should intrude +into the troubled delirium of the Highland soldier,--an old romance, +with heart burnings and rivalries. Little wonder that in the distorted +mental images of fever the hated figure of perhaps the fortunate suitor +should appear invested with the added opprobrium of the national enemy. + +The buoyant airy grace of this figure, even in the Indian garb, the +volatile but bated aggressiveness of manner, the joyous, yet capable, +intellectual expression of face, the handsome eyes and regular features +suggested that he might appear to no contemptible advantage in the +estimation of a girl as contrasted with the grave, reserved, proud, and +exacting Highlander, with many an inherited sorrow to make him serious +and many a personal privation to make him bitter. With his youth and +strength and the natural amiability of his nature Callum could on +occasion throw off the consciousness of these weights and be merry. +But this fellow’s element was the air itself, and the necessity to be +serious was like the clipping of wings. + +“Come, sir, let us have an end of this,” said Everard. “Being English +you cannot object to go to Charlestown and make your standing clear to +the authorities. I pledge my honor that you shall be put to no expense +and shall be indemnified for any financial loss you may sustain by +reason of your absence.” + +“If I should agree these people would regard it as if I were taken by +force,” Laroche protested. “Your life would be the forfeit. Indeed, I +am already concerned for your safety. I cannot control the Cherokees. +You know what they are! You must admit that your errand here is futile!” + +It was so contrary to Everard’s temperament to accept defeat in any +form that he could only accede metaphorically. “I’m not half blind!” he +said. + +Laroche pressed the point. “The effusion of blood is threatened. You +must perceive it.” + +“The knife is at my throat,” assented Everard debonairly, as if +scornful of his peril. + +Laroche tried him on a more vulnerable topic. “The commissioners’ party +would never get out of the country. But to save the lives of your brave +soldiers and the civilian commissioners, who have no quarrel with any +one, if you will at once draw off your force I will use what influence +I have with Moy Toy to let you go scot-free through the country.” + +The eyes of Everard were large, but the astonished white showed all +around the iris. He gasped once or twice and caught his breath,--that +the man whom he had come to arrest under the authority of the British +government and bear away captive should engage to see him clear of the +Cherokee country! + +Only after many stormy wrangles with Moy Toy, however, and the other +headmen, did Laroche, secretly urging upon them the jeopardized +interests of the cession and the disastrous effects of precipitancy in +the imminent emprise of the united tribal armies, secure acquiescence +in this plan of permitting the expedition to depart in peace. It was, +nevertheless, a perilous time. The air seemed freighted with treachery. +Along the route among the Overhill towns lying on the Tennessee River, +always reputed the most warlike and implacable and powerful of the +Cherokee nation, through which they must needs pass to retrace their +way, hardly an hour elapsed in which some inimical demonstration did +not seem impending. Now the march was checked by a deputation from some +more remote town desiring to send by their hand a memorial or a present +to Governor Boone. Now a formidable group of savages, splendidly armed +and mounted, rejoicing in the terrible suspicions of sinister designs +and lurking ambuscades in force, which their presence must foster, +begged to take personal and individual leave of the notables of the +expedition. + +Everard, in all his military experience, had never known such anxiety. +He could not have watched a father’s danger with more tender and +self-reproachful solicitude than he felt for the elderly civilians, +with their wrinkled countenances and bewigged heads wagging affably +under the ceremonious ordeal of parting from these friends, who might +at a wanton blow bloody the one and break the other, and account the +deed righteousness and patriotism. Alas, for the point of view! + +“I can never forgive myself for extending and increasing your +jeopardy,” Everard said to them in uncharacteristic dismay one night, +as he sat with the commissioners around the camp-fire, each man with +a sort of automatic motion of looking over the shoulder at intervals, +to descry, perchance, in the shadows something more dangerous than the +green shining of a panther’s eyes or a wolf crouched ready to spring. +The sound of the sentry’s tramp, as unmolested he walked his beat hard +by, was a reassurance that naught else could bestow. “I ought to be +court-martialed, I ought to be broke, I vow and protest!” + +He cared little for the military views of the polite and “lady-like +old men,” but the chorus of indignant negation that rose upon the +suggestion was as salve to a wound. He had moved with the entire +sanction of the commissioners themselves, one of them argued. + +“And if the man had been that fellow Laroche or Louis Latinac, think of +the repose his capture would have insured the frontier!” exclaimed the +member of the council, the diplomat. + +“Either one is worth a regiment to the French cause,” growled the basso +profundo of the geologist. “The mere chance was not to be neglected.” + +“We are not required to achieve the impossible. We are all held down to +metes and bounds, course and distance,” said the surveyor. + +“And the _best_ of us are subject to mistakes. Think of me,” +exclaimed Mr. Taviston, fitting together his waxen-white, knuckly +fingers and casting an aquiline smile at Everard, on one side of the +fire. “I actually sent a misdescription of a specimen to the Botanical +Society, and the mistake, when discovered--so overwhelming, so +important, so humiliating--I took to my bed!” + +Lieutenant Everard did not in his contrition seek this refuge in +recumbency, but as Mr. Taviston entered upon a long, minute, and +learned account of how the error had occurred, and the exact points +of difference, and all the bewigged heads leaned together to hear, to +compare, to comment, to condole, Everard, on the pretext of visiting +the guards, which he did himself at close intervals, quitted the +group. He looked back at them once as they sat around the flare in +the darkness, oblivous for the time of danger, regardless of night, +impervious to cold, eager, agitated, curious, utterly absorbed; and +yet the point of interest, as well as he could make out, was that Mr. +Taviston had actually said by strange inadvertence _filiform_ +instead of _filamentose_. + +“But,” he commented to himself, “if a gang of Cherokees should tomahawk +that party, strange as it may seem, brains would be spilt as well as +blood!” + +Among those denizens of the nation who took ceremonious farewell of +the commissioners’ expedition was gay Tam Wilson, arrayed still in +white dressed deerskin with its flaring fringes, wrought with scarlet +feathers, all floating to the breeze, gallantly mounted, fully armed, +and with a crest of scarlet feathers on his curling light brown hair. +This demonstration impressed Everard as only another intimation that +Tam Wilson was naught but what he seemed,--some colonial wight who had +rather idle and hunt and play among the Indians than work at a more +suitable vocation at home. Callum, however, accounted it the height of +insolent bravado. Albeit his conviction was not susceptible of proof, +he had no doubt that this was the long-sought French emissary who +fomented the discontents of the Cherokees. He was sure that trouble +indeed would soon be brewing along the frontier. + +Laroche had perceived at a glance that the situation was a revelation +to Callum MacIlvesty, who had no thought to find Tam Wilson a French +emissary. Lilias had indeed kept her promise. It was not she who had +betrayed his secret, but only through his own inadvertence had the +Highlander been permitted to discover it. + +He read in Callum’s face the proud indignation that he felt in the +knowledge that for this man, this arch-deceiver, his love had been +scorned, his loyal heart cast aside,--this man, who had accepted their +tendance which brought him back from the verge of the grave, and +who yet burned, by the hand of his myrmidons, the kindly roof that +had sheltered him,--this man, who won a woman’s love under a false +name, a false semblance, a false nationality, a false tongue, idly, +purposelessly, to beguile the tedium of convalescence, slipping cannily +back to his old life again and leaving her to pine,--this man, their +old familiar Tam Wilson, the French emissary who with wily and wicked +instigations spirited up the mischievous Cherokees against the British +colonists. + +The change in his position here, his acceptance of the customs of +barbarism, his amity with the Indians, his adoption into the tribe, +his assumption of the Cherokee garb, had always impressed Laroche +as a military necessity, but he winced as he fancied how the grave, +deliberative, listening face of Lilias would relax to scornful laughter +and contemptuous pity when Callum MacIlvesty should detail to her these +grotesque details in the discovery of Tam Wilson’s identity with the +malignant destroyer of the peace with the Indian tribes. He had never +been so conscious of the tawdry savage foolery of beads and feathers +and paint as when the party were all climbing a steep ascent afoot to +rest the hard-traveled horses, and chance brought him near to Callum +MacIlvesty. Yet it was in bravado, as he strode along with the reins of +his steed thrown over his arm, that he greeted the Highlander. + +“Barley! Barley!” he quoted, smiling. “A truce, lad! Be sure that you +remember, when you tell Miss Lilias of how you found me here still, +the same yet not the same, and of my high place in the esteem of the +imperial Moy Toy, and of my suspected efforts to shake the footstool +of the British throne, to tell her also that but for me you and your +blundering braggadocio of a lieutenant would never have got home alive. +So between us it is even--a life for a life!” + +“Maister Wilson,--though that is not your name,--you may e’en find some +other to bear your messages. I shall tell that young leddy naething; +and but for that you do bestir yoursel’ to save the lives of the +commissioners, I wad strike ye on the mouth for so much as calling her +name!” + +Laroche winced as from a veritable blow; then, with one of his sudden, +mercurial reactions, he cried impulsively, “Tell her all, Callum! Let +her know how it stands now! It will make it the better for you! For +myself, I never hope to see her again!” + +The Highlander doggedly trudged along the verge of the steeps, his +shadow gigantic in the leafy valley below, his picturesque figure with +kilt and plaid and bonnet and long firelock imposed on the varying +azure of the ranges of mountains that she had so loved. He had been +gazing at them all day and for many a day past with that thought in his +mind,--that she had loved them! + +“I sall tell her naething!” he said implacably. “If it makes it better +for me that another man isna what he seemed she is no for me.” + +And then he closed his lips fast. + +In Laroche’s heart blossomed forth suddenly a deep secret joy to know +that in all this time the young lovers were not reconciled. His vanity +plumed itself in the thought. No transient fancy it was that he had +inspired. And this proud fool!--he could have laughed aloud to see the +Highlander, solemnly stalking among his bitter memories and her “sweet +mountains,” resolved to hold his peace and eat out his heart because +he would not deign to profit by the fact that the lady of his love had +cared for a man who proved unworthy, thus liberating her preference, to +be captured anew by himself, catching her heart in the rebound. + +“Choose, you proud peat!” Laroche said to himself, repeating a gibe +that he had often heard at Jock Lesly’s fireside. And when he mounted +anew he rode away right merrily. + + + + + XV + + +THE method in which Lieutenant Everard had compassed his retreat +from the Cherokee country gave rise to much discussion in that day, +especially among military and _quasi_ military men. Particularly +was this of interest at those remote and feeble posts at which small +detachments were stationed on the verge of the Indian country and +among conditions likely at any time to duplicate his dilemma. It was +variously contended that he should have stood his ground even had +his heart been cut out still pulsating, and _per contra_ that +his course was amply justified,--nay, that the obligation to save +the civilian commissioners as well as the men of his command was +imperative, and that it would have been criminal folly to fail to take +advantage of the opportunity to make off thus with something less than +the full honors of war, more especially as the expedition was not of a +strictly military character. + +The licensed British traders, plying their vocation among the Catawbas, +Creeks, and Chickasaws, entertained the high and sanguinary view of +Lieutenant Everard’s duty in the premises, seeming to think that +blood spilled in their interest was well spent, and to resent any +precautionary measures that tended to hoard it. Whereas the officers of +the little flimsy forts believed the effort to protect the mercantile +monopoly of the Indian trade by the British government was not worth +the sacrifice of life and the effusion of blood when it came to the +hopeless odds of a thousand to some threescore. + +The discomfiture of the British embassy to Great Tellico and the +inglorious return of Lieutenant Everard, failing to compass the +arrest he demanded, seemed to have imparted a certain assurance to +Indian prestige. A new and subtle arrogance of mind, covert and yet +perceptible, distinguished the attitude of the warriors toward the +British traders who had the opportunity to observe them. This did +not characterize individuals only, but appertained to a generally +diffused spirit among the tribes. It was peculiarly marked among the +few Cherokees seen in these days beyond their own boundaries, but +extended to the Muscogees and their sub-tribes, also the Choctaws, the +Choccomaws, and went even so far as to touch their inimical kindred +the Chickasaws,--always hitherto friendly to the British and averse +to the French. It suggested some treasured consciousness of latent +strength. As a portent of the quiet biding of an ultimate time of +reckoning, instances of patience and lenience on the part of Indians +under provocation became more menacing than open protest or violent +wrath. A subtle lurking triumph could be discerned, nevertheless, +in their manner,--the proud glance, the arrogant carriage, the +crafty turn of a phrase, charged with a double meaning. Especially +prominent and perceptible were these _indicia_ when many of +various nationalities, some of the tribes now extinct, chanced to be +congregated together at a trading-station such as the one beginning to +be organized anew under the guns of Fort Prince George. + +As yet public confidence in the restoration of peace in the Cherokee +country had not been reëstablished. An outbreak seemed imminent at +any moment, albeit indeterminate, vaguely in the air. Constant rumors +of the machinations of French emissaries, especially the two officers +Latinac and Laroche, deterred capital, always conservative, and the +hideous character of Indian vengeance daunted the hardiest British +trader from essaying a premature effort. Up to this time, therefore, +no trading licenses had been applied for or issued for the towns of +the upper country since the burning of Jock Lesly’s trading-house +on the Tennessee River. In the neighborhood of Fort Prince George, +however, a degree of reassurance was felt since a military defense was +possible and a refuge at hand. Moreover, in case the fort itself should +be besieged, as it lay on the southeastern confines of the Cherokee +country, relief could be sent out from Carolina before famine would +compel a capitulation. It is true that in the war just concluded the +blow fell here first of all, fourteen white men being suddenly murdered +within a mile of the fort. However, the advantages of trade were now +peculiarly great by reason of this absence of marts in the upper +region, and for a season or so the Cherokee village of Keowee, within +gunshot of the fort, attracted a great concourse of Indian hunters bent +on the barter of deerskins, furs, and pearls. + +Jock Lesly, one of the most experienced of the early traders, had +foreseen and seized this advantage, and albeit he still ostentatiously +sighed for his old home on the Tennessee River and fondled his sorrow +as an exile, and was wont in financial pride and vainglory to recount +the value of his stock and “gude will,” on the last of which he laid +particular stress, being so well acquainted with the country,--to use +his phrase, “wi’ baith man an’ beast, wi’ ilka buck on twa legs or +four that roamit the woods,”--he had ample opportunity in the lack of +competition to recoup himself for the losses that he had sustained. +Moreover, he had the trade of the officers and men at the fort, for +those days in no wise differed from these in the necessities suddenly +developed as soon as one is out of reach of the usual sources of supply. + +The trader was cheerful in these fair prospects, rosy and jocund, and +in this connection said “oh fie” many times to call his daughter’s +attention to the fact how “fat and well-liking he was,” needing none of +her care, and to urge her return to the colonies. + +“I’ll e’en bide here,” she averred firmly. “There’s but the twa o’ us. +I maun hae my hame where ye be, for ye are gettin’ auld; your pow is +fu’ gray!” + +“Ye are a graceless bairn to say as muckle!--oh fie!--I was born wi’ a +tow head!” exclaimed Jock Lesly, who although flattered by her filial +affection felt that she would be safer in Charlestown. “I to be ca’d +gray an’ auld!--when I hae ne’er been sae weel-favored,--comelier, I +trow, than ony o’ thae young lads at the fort, though a’ dressed out in +their flim-giskies.” + +He sometimes wondered vaguely if any of them could be the attraction +that held her here, and then reflected sagely that there were more +lads still in Charlestown. He had experienced a vague regret to +notice--and he had often tried to recall when it had first arrested his +attention--that there had been a gradual averse change in her manner +toward MacIlvesty and a certain glum dourness in his reception of it. + +“That’s no the way to win a high-sperited lass like Lilias,” he +reflected impatiently. “I wonder that the callant has na mair sense. He +suld be sonsy an’ gay, an’ mak a braw show wi’ his Hieland coats an’ +kilts that he thinks sae fine, an’ that set off sae weel his buirdly +round handsome legs. Sic a spindle-shanks as that chiel Tam Wilson now +wad aye be glad o’ the fringed leggings.” + +And then he paused again. For why must he be always thinking of Tam +Wilson presently when his mind was busy with the subject of the +differences which he vaguely perceived had arisen between Callum and +Lilias? He frowned heavily to note anew the connection of ideas. +Surely, surely, the Highlander could not think that she preferred this +man,--this stranger, of whom they knew naught save that his name was +Tam Wilson, and that he hailed from some far-away region of Virginia. + +Adventurous, experimental himself, Jock Lesly, in common with many +of the empiric temperament, was the most conservative of men in his +views controlling others. He had scorned and contemned a title as +“fitten neither to eat nor drink,” but he was exceedingly tenacious +of the fact that he himself came of good honest folk, who could trace +their ancestors, although of humble station,--farmers, fishers, and +traders,--for many and many a generation without a reproach or blemish, +and thus he had perceived no incongruity that Callum MacIlvesty with +his gentle blood should become the husband of Lilias. He knew, of +course, that the Highlander’s inherited right to lands and lineage +was in these days of attainder and forfeiture absolutely valueless, +disregarded, and forgotten, but it was a secret delight to him that +these immaterial honors should elevate and embellish the young +soldier’s attachment to Lilias and render him in her father’s eyes +more worthy of her. Being a widower with an only child, Jock Lesly +could afford to care little for Callum’s lack of fortune or prospects. +As he was fond of saying to himself, “Auld Jock hinna warked for +naething!--the little lassie isna sae tocherless!” and in this view he +would redouble his haste to be rich in the increasing opportunities of +the Indian trade. It was this belated realization of a change in the +sentiments of Callum and Lilias that made Jock Lesly observe the young +fellow somewhat keenly when Callum returned from the upper country with +the commissioners’ force and found that she had been domiciled here +with her father. + +It was late on a gray and misty afternoon when the expeditionary +force, pushing on with added speed in the fear of being belated in +such close proximity to the intermediate station in their long march +to Charlestown, came at last within sight and sound of Fort Prince +George,--a grateful sight, the block-houses looking stanch and burly +in the angles of the four bastions, the ramparts surmounted with +tall palisades, all the works trig and stout, having been put in +repair by Colonel Grant the previous year while he lay here with his +army awaiting the overtures of the vanquished Cherokees for peace. +The fife and drum resounded from the works; the light glanced on the +steel bayonets and scarlet uniforms of the men drawn up to welcome +the commissioners with fitting ceremony, for it was but seldom that +the commandant had the opportunity to greet aught but wild Indians, +and he made the most of the occasion; the little cannon, of which +there were four on each bastion, thundered a salute, and the troops +presented arms as the commissioners rode through the gate. The honors +concluded, the escort and the soldiers of the garrison, breaking ranks, +surged this way and that about the parade, interchanging the news from +Charlestown for reports from the Tennessee River, and the gossip of the +barracks for the details of the various chances of the march, while the +officers of the fort, with evident convivial intent, took charge of the +commissioners and Lieutenant Everard. + +Although the barracks of Fort Prince George had accommodations for a +hundred men, the garrison often fell short of the complement. Therefore +it was no surprise to Everard to meet here orders, in view of the +disquiet of the upper country, to leave to reinforce the garrison such +men as he could spare from his command, since the commissioners were +now on the border of the frontier, and the region through which they +were yet to pass was more or less settled with a white population and +with friendly Indian tribes, the Chickasaws and Catawbas. Everard was +instructed to select for this purpose those of the soldiers who could +not soon rejoin their regiments from which they had been detached for +service in the Cherokee country. Into this category fell the Highland +contingent, for the Forty-Second had just landed in New York,--a +winter in garrison at Fort Prince George seemed a bitter contrast. +Everard was reminded of Callum and his equivocal position as he was +going over the roll, and he felt a qualm of regret. It was not merely +because of that partisan Damon-and-Pythias-like friendship to which +young men are prone, soldiers most of all, and that this change would +necessitate their parting, but that upon the lieutenant’s restoration +to the fitting companionship of his brother officers the man of the +ranks had of course sunk back out of notice and into his proper place. +Everard could not feel himself to blame, yet the incongruity pained +him. Despite Callum’s intrinsic equality with the best of the officers, +Everard knew that it would be futile to urge upon them his own example +in the exceptional circumstances, and indeed this had been fraught with +much discomfort not to say danger in his instance. + +Nevertheless, recollecting the episode of the Ancient Warrior’s +disguise and the tender solicitude which the soldier had shown for +his friend’s safety at so great a jeopardy of his own, risking not +only death but the torture, the lieutenant felt very kindly to Callum +and was minded to bestow upon him some parting gift. As he was +canvassing in generous thoughts the character of this testimonial, he +was beset by a sudden monition of the concomitant pride and penury +of the Highlander. Everard would not wound him on either account for +the world. He congratulated himself as on an escape, and as he was +strolling from his quarters to the mess-hall, suddenly meeting Callum, +he abruptly turned about and passed his arm fraternally through the +soldier’s. + +“Come, Callum Bane,” he said gayly. “I’m off to-morrow. Let’s go to the +trader’s and get a keepsake. I’ll give you an Indian pipe if you will +give me one, and as long as the _Nicotiana Tabacum_ holds out to +burn we will never forget the big Injun at Chilhowee.” + +Callum had no sense of supersedure or resentment upon his sudden +dismissal from his friend’s society. He was too entirely the soldier +to cavil at the obligations which the gradations of rank necessarily +impose. He had himself some sharp experience that these restrictions +cannot be ignored without involving a corresponding subversion of +military subordination. Therefore he was not grudging nor envious, but +accepted as the natural sequence of events the fact that Everard should +be happily carousing with the young officers of the garrison while he, +so lately the lieutenant’s chosen friend, stood guard on the ramparts +in the chill midnight. Hence he cordially and smilingly assented, and +the two, arm in arm, set forth together. + +The weather still held lowering and gloomy. On the rampart at Fort +Prince George one could scarce see through the chill mists, and beyond +the bare space encircling the works, to the dense, leafless wilderness. +At the verge of these woods, and looking backward, one could only make +out the fort like a sketch in sepia, with its shadowy block-houses, its +blurred barrack roofs sleek with sleet, its tall palisades surmounting +the rampart with their pointed summits serrating the gray sky. The only +note of color amidst all the dreary neutral tints was the red uniform +of a squad of soldiers returning with several deer from the hunt that +kept the post in fresh meat. + +The trading-house was well within sight of the works and close on +the river bank. The boughs of several leafless trees, white with the +morning’s rime, although it was now past noon, swayed above its high +peaked roof; within this seemed to hold great merchandise and store of +shadows, for however the light might stream in at the broad barn-like +door, or the fire flare on the hearth at the further extremity, only +vague outlines of struts and rafters and interdependent timbers could +be seen, while from the beams below swung various goods appropriate +to the time and trade,--saddles, bridles, ropes, chains, blankets, +cloths of various bright tints of red and yellow, all interwoven and +rich of effect. Arms glittered on the shelves and racks below, and +axes, hatchets, knives,--all sending out a metallic glitter here and +there as the firelight flickered. Always about this fire stood or +crouched at least half a dozen braves of various tribes, reveling in +its luxury, albeit so well inured to the cold elsewhere, their presence +necessitating cautious surveillance from the under-traders. For the +Indians of the lower grades, it is said, considered it no derogation +to steal, but infamy to be caught in stealing. A variety of articles +calculated to attract the favorable regards of the officers and men at +the fort were displayed,--buttons, hose, buckles, brushes, snuffboxes, +ribbons, candlesticks and snuffers, mirrors, gambadoes,--even books, +over the slow sale of which Jock Lesly often shook his head. “The +carles at the fort are no readers.” Some exquisite feather-wrought +mantles, Indian baskets, hemp-woven rugs, and quaint pottery were +offered. There were a number of stone pipes showing an extraordinary +skill in carving, for the material, soft when quarried, hardened on +exposure to the air. The Cherokees excelled all other tribes in this +branch of aboriginal art, and some of their work of this date may now +be seen in museums or decorating the rooms of historical societies. +Before the trader’s collection of pipes the two friends paused. + +Jock Lesly had met Callum with no apparent diminution of their earlier +cordiality when first he had returned to the fort. But it nettled +the proud Highlander now to observe how obsequious was the trader’s +manner to Everard, taking scant notice of his “far awa’ kinsman.” +And why indeed should he not be attentive to the officer? Jock Lesly +cared naught for him but to sell him an Indian pipe, and if the one +found for him did not please him to diligently persuade him that it +did. “Surely, surely, sir, a bonny bauble. Here, sir, is a fearsome +cur’osity if you favor the heejus in Injun carving. That, sir,--why it +stays in a corner, bein’ broken. An’ here, sir--look at this--a braw +specimen, a real bit of sculpchur.” As far as Jock Lesly was concerned +John Francis Everard was born and brought into this world expressly +to buy that pipe, for Jock Lesly was essentially a trader--so superior +a salesman, in fact, with an eye so keenly and accurately adjusted to +the main chance, that without the least ceremony he abruptly deserted +them for a matter of more moment, and Callum, angered but an instant +since by the adroit pressure of these small wares by a man able to +care naught whether the sale was made or lost, was inconsistently +irritated, affronted, when Jock Lesly’s attention wavered. A couple +of Indians bargaining their peltry for gear had become embroiled in +rancorous words with the under-trader, who was about to lose his temper +under great provocation and, what was worse in the estimation of Jock +Lesly, the advantages of the trade. As he stepped swiftly to the +rescue, suavely inquiring into the point at issue, the Cherokee words +embellished with his Scotch accent, the two military men at the counter +where the pipes were laid out, in the design of which they each sought +something reminiscent of their experiences together, hesitated, at a +loss, and a trifle out of countenance. Callum trembled lest by reason +of this cavalier treatment aught disrespectful of auld Jock Lesly pass +the lips of the officer, whom he supposed to be entirely ignorant +of any concern or interest that he had in the trader’s household. +But Jock Lesly was amply competent to maintain his own standing, and +Everard, exacting as he might be, was no man to quarrel with a trader +for postponing the sale of a trifle lest he lose the bargain for a +hundredweight of choice peltry. + +As they idly waited the firelight flickered in their faces; the steel +of the weapons in the racks flashed in long, slender lines about the +building; the wind, wet, fragrant with the odor of bark and dead +leaves, came in from the wilderness without at the open door, and set +all the gloomy dusk awavering; and suddenly, as if evolved from the +necromancy of these immaterial elements, a slight shape compounded of +light and shadow, of the sheen of golden hair and a dull brown dress, +a pink and white face, with dark blue eyes and eyelashes still darker, +stood on the other side of the counter with a submissive “What’s your +wull?” + +Everard stared speechless. Doubtless the girl was uncommonly pretty, +but it had been full three months since he had seen a fair white brow +in a woman, a blue eye, and a wealth of curling blond hair. She looked +in the shadow an angel for beauty, a princess for dignity, and a nun +for ascetic gravity. Yet she was only the trader’s daughter, ably +seconding her father, whose heart she knew must be fairly rent for +failure of the opportunity to sell the pipes. “John, Duncan, Malcom,” +he had roared, and they came not; therefore gliding out from some +hidden recess appeared Lilias. + +Once more Callum trembled for the false position, for instantly the +handsome Everard must needs seek to commend himself personally, and +essay the language of gallantry. + +“This represents, you say, an Indian queen with black locks,” he said, +turning over in his hand one of the pipes curiously tinted that she had +offered. “I should not care for that. It seems to me that the only hair +for beauty is yellow, gilded as if with refined gold.” + +He boldly lifted his handsome eyes to her fair tresses devoid of the +concealing cap of the fashion and rolled, richly waving, high up from +her forehead and held with a blue ribbon. + +She did not even change color. It seemed that the image carved on the +stone pipe might have smiled as readily. She only laid it aside with +supreme gravity as a rejected commodity, and he was at once ill at +ease, for he would have liked well to own it. + +“May I ask you to choose one for me and one for my friend,” he +persisted in the personal note, partly to cover his confusion. Then he +added, “You understand the degree of aboriginal art they represent and +what is most worth while.” + +If he had expected to prolong the interview by reason of her +vacillations in the discharge of this commission, he was mistaken. In +two minutes he was furnished with an effigy of the head of a warrior +crowned with a war-bonnet. Through its rudely simulated circle of +feathers the smoke would curl as if merely an extension of their +flamboyant glories. Callum had assigned to him a similitude of a +bird, curiously wrought and with an elaborately decorated stem. Then +she suddenly vanished, as if a vision of such delicate consistency +could hardly withstand the freshening of the breeze. As it came in, +flaring the fire and fluttering the fine show of fabrics swinging from +the beams and circling about the building, it seemed as if it had +extinguished the fair and dainty fancy that she must have been. + +“The trader’s beautiful daughter, Miss Lilias, no doubt,” said Everard +to Callum in a low voice, as they turned to settle for the pipes with +Jock Lesly. + +Although so low a voice, her father heard it. + +“And I should be glad to know, sir, from whom you had her name so pat +upon your tongue?” he demanded surlily. + +He could not have said why, but he was angered by the phrase, “the +trader’s beautiful daughter,” although he was not expected to +overhear it. With his mind averse to Callum as it had lately grown, +he speculated upon the possibility that it was he who had descanted +upon her beauty to this young lordling, and that Everard, perhaps, had +caused himself to be brought here that he might judge for himself. + +For once Callum subjected himself to no misapprehension. “I hae never +mentioned her name,” he said stiffly. + +“No, no, indeed!” protested Everard hastily; for although he revolted +at the pother over so slight a matter as he esteemed it, he wished to +occasion no awkwardness to Callum, whose position seemed to bristle +with unexpected difficulties. “I never heard of her from Callum--nor +from any one at the fort. She--your daughter, Miss Lilias--was +mentioned to me by a Virginian whom we saw in the Overhill towns--who +claimed to be well acquainted with you. His name was--Tam Wilson--was +it not, Callum?” + +“I dinna ken his name,” said the dour Callum shortly. + +“Ou, ay--Tam Wilson--I mind Tam Wilson weel enow,” said the trader +curtly, his red face now blotched with white. + +He took his money for the pipes, and as the two young men trudged +away in the closing mist he took himself to task. He did not know +what he would be at, he said to himself. He could not expect the +trader’s beautiful daughter Lilias never to be mentioned among young +men--why, the girl was celebrated for her beauty wherever she went. +But somehow he knew that if Callum had been seriously in love he was +of that earnest, reserved nature that would have guarded her name from +other lips as if it had been a sacred thing; that her beauty would +have been to him only an incident of her personality, dear because it +characterized her, and never to be vaunted abroad by him. + +Analyzing thus his anger, Jock Lesly discovered that he was not excited +because her name was mentioned, but because he thought that it had come +from Callum. This marked the measure of disappointment and discontent +he experienced, to suspect that Callum’s attachment to Lilias was not +of the serious nature hitherto supposed. + +“But hegh, sirs,” he said to himself, “it’s no for the puir callant’s +betterment that the lassie’s father hae aye a kind heart till him when +Lilias hersel’ looks so glum an’ dour at him. I marked the glance o’ +her eye whilst I was dealin’ with thae carles o’ Injuns. Lord--Lord!” +he exclaimed in dismay, “man is but mortal an’ fitted for mortal wark! +I canna trade wi’ the Injuns an’ yet hae the wisdom an’ leadin’ to +guide the luve affairs o’ that freakish Lilias, that I’se warrant dinna +ken her own mind! I’se e’en commit it a’ to Providence, that dootless +hae mair experience than this puir tradin’ body, that disna even ken +what will become o’ the station if they still hand otters at the price +they are askin’ the noo!” + +Having thus discharged his mind of the responsibility, although now +and again he sighed heavily because of the soreness that the stress of +his anxiety had left in his consciousness, he busied himself in the +multitude of his duties, ever and anon returning to the haranguing of +Duncan and Malcom and John, that they should have all been out of the +way and left him with no one to wait on a wheen o’ callants frae the +fort, it requiring both himself and Dougal to drive a bargain with the +discerning chief of Nequassee. + +This line of thought bringing up again the recollection of Callum’s +offended face and wounded mien because of his ungracious and groundless +suspicions, Jock Lesly grew pricked in conscience and desirous to be +reconciled formally. + +“Zounds!” he muttered, “I maun hae my friends, Lilias or no Lilias, an’ +the man is my far awa’ cousin--sae far awa’ it canna be counted--but +that’s neither here nor there. Hegh, Duncan,” he called out, “ye can +gae ower to the fort an’ ask Callum MacIlvesty if he’ll no sup wi’ me +the night if he isna on duty.” + +It had been Callum’s impression during the few days that he had +now been at the fort that the trader’s domicile must be one of the +unoccupied cabins within the works, for he knew that during the +earlier alarms of the Cherokee War certain houses had been placed at +the disposal of the settlers’ families flocking there for safety. In +his opinion this would have been much the safest method of sheltering +the trader’s family, but his invitation to the domestic board at the +trading-house itself was a definite negation to this supposition. + +“Surely auld Jock is clean wud,” he said to himself as, furnished duly +with leave, he went out from the fort and crossing the bridge of the +fosse took his way over the glacis beyond the fields and those broad +spaces filled with the stumps of the trees which Grant’s troops had +felled while the army lay in camp outside the works. + +He stumbled over one of these, so dim was the light of the chilly, +misty dusk. As he regained his footing he turned to look back at the +fort. It was but dimly outlined against the dreary evening sky; a +steady gleam of light came from the window of the guard-house near the +gate, while hovering above the works was a vague suffusion of rays +that doubtless issued from various undiscriminated sources,--doors +ajar, unseen windows, a lantern perchance swinging here and there,--all +combining in this faint, dimly discerned aureola beneath the dense, +overpowering weight of the blackness of the night. He heard the +sentinel challenge the officer of the day on his rounds and then the +measured tramp as the guard turned out. The lonely wind was sighing +among the sad, rifled woods; the river’s dash over the rocks that +fretted its currents came distinct to his ears; and just as he was +thinking that without more guidance in the darkening gloom he might +walk off its steep bluffs he perceived suddenly a light in front of him +and heard the opening of a door. He was already at the trading-house, +and here was Jock Lesly coming out to speculate on his delay, but +seeing him at hand, he pretermitted this to reprove his tardiness. + +“Hout, man! ye’ll get no sic vivers at the fort as I sail set before +ye! My certie, when I was your age the board ne’er waited for my teeth +to be sharpened.” + +There was, however, no convivial board spread in the trading-house, +where Callum now expected to see it. While he waited for Jock Lesly +to rearrange a barricade at the door which could not be removed from +without except with great clamor, he noted instead that the fire had +died down almost to embers. Only now and again a feeble white flare, +starting up from a mass of red coals, showed the proportions and usage +of the trading-house, and set up such a flicker among the glancing arms +and swaying fabrics as gave an uncomfortable suggestion of half seen +figures lurking and ready to spring. + +“Hegh, callant,” cried Jock Lesly’s voice with a tremor of relish and +triumph in the disclosure he meditated. “Come along, and we’se see +what we’se see!” + +Lighting a lantern he pulled aside a secret door in the counter, and +as he crept into the box-like place, Callum MacIlvesty heard the sound +of another door opening in the flooring. The swaying light in the +hand of the host began to slowly descend, and the young Highlander, +following closely, bidden to slam the door of the counter behind him, +found with his feet the rungs of a ladder but dimly discerned as the +lantern swung. Presently, however, there was scant need of this humble +illumination. A gush of red light from below revealed the long extent +of the ladder, a stone floor at the bottom, the walls of a grotto of +impenetrable unbroken rock, and naught besides. A projection of the +rugged wall like a buttress shielded the apartment from view, while +they themselves were fully visible throughout their descent. Jock Lesly +barely gave the young fellow time to leap down without touching the +last half dozen rungs, and lowered the ladder swiftly by means of a +rope and pulley; the door which it had held open shut quickly, and if +a man should seek to lift it or to descend thence, he could be picked +off by a rifle from below before he could gain a glimpse of the place +beneath or the group in the chamber beyond. If an intrusive foot should +be placed on the ladder when in position, a mere touch from below +would dislodge that structure, and the invader, falling from the great +height, pay for his temerity with his life. + +This was a device put into practice by those constrained to dwell among +the inimical Indians in Tennessee, both before and afterward, but to +Callum it was an undreamed-of expedient, and he must needs pause to +admire the completeness of its features before Jock Lesly, pointing +them out in detail, would permit him to turn to survey the subterranean +home. + +“The conies are but a feeble folk, yet make they their houses in the +rock,” the trader quoted. + +A lofty but narrow chamber had its elements of comfort. Hickory logs +were flaring in a great fireplace, and remembering the plan of the +building above Callum realized that the flue connected with the chimney +of the trading-house, and thus no smoke or light betrayed the cavern +to the Indians or, if it were already known to them, this usage of it. +The walls, roof, and floor, of rock of unimaginable thickness, were +without a break, save that on the side next the river, in a passage +like an anteroom, was a series of apertures high among the shadows and +round like portholes, affording ample ventilation,--a curiosity that +occurs here and there among the bluffs of this region, relics of some +forgotten cataclysmal period when the outbursting waters sculptured +the rocks. Beyond another arch or tunnel seemed a more limited chamber +adjoining the main grotto, whence a golden glow of lamplight betokened +occupation, and a wooden partition and door added to its seclusion. “A +cubby hole yon where Lilias sleeps an’ keeps her bit duds, an’ rins +awa’ to sulk, an’ here on this end is a passage where the gillies +foregather an’ ane always is on watch to guard the door. An’ this +big room is the parlor, an’ we sit here to receive our company like +gentles. Hegh, callant, if we had only had sic a ha’ house on the sweet +Tennessee River!” + +Before the fire now Lilias sat as if she were indeed in some safely +guarded and softly lined parlor. She was arrayed in a brilliant yet +dainty gown of striped sarcenet, blue and white, with pink roses +scattered at intervals down the white stripe. Her shining golden hair +was rolled high from her forehead and a long thick curl hung to her +shoulder at one side. An embroidered cape of sheer cambric made visible +the white neck that it affected to shield. Her feet were cased in +high-heeled red slippers, over one of which the old collie had put a +restraining paw, that she might not move without his knowledge, as he +lay on the rug beside her spinning wheel. She was now busy with this +little flax wheel, while the supper was cooking under the ministrations +of an elderly wrinkled Scotch dame, the mother of one of the gillies, +who officiated in the household in many capacities,--cook, laundress, +dairy woman,--and not the least valued by Jock Lesly as his adviser how +to manage the fractious Lilias, whose nurse she had been. + +“Gude guide us!” she would exclaim. “Maun ye always be harryin’ the +bairn’s life out? Let her alane! Let her alane! or else since ye are +sae cruel jus’ tak your big fist an’ knock her harns out at ance!” + +Thus berated Jock Lesly would feel that he was indeed a disciplinarian +and must needs moderate his severities, or Luckie Meg, as she was +called, would be telling at the fort and elsewhere how he tyrannized +over his household. + +Here Lilias, in the unbounded wisdom of eighteen years, had elected +to set up her staff, and hither had she transported the bulk of her +effects. She ordered her life much as she would if yet in Charlestown, +and seemed incongruously content. If the sight of her in her plain dark +brown serge had been overwhelming to Everard, what would be the effect +of this vision of dainty loveliness Callum wondered. + +Very serious she was when she sat at the table, with a sort of absolute +impervious dignity that was not even impaired when the collie stood +up on his hindlegs beside her chair with his forepaws on the cloth, +looking about him with eager curiosity, and betraying like an ill-bred +child that there were more elaborate “vivers” for this occasion than +he was in the habit of seeing. Callum could hear the rushing of the +river so close outside that he thought their cavern of refuge must +be lower than the surface of the water. The flames flared and roared +up the chimney; the young packmen or gillies laughed and talked with +muttered gibes and boyish sniggers and chuckles in their anteroom; +the shadows flickered over the lofty vault; Jock Lesly was once more +his old genial self, and Callum felt that the fort was so far away +that it was garrisoned in another existence, that the Indians were +extinct, that sorrow and pain and loss were but the untoward incidents +of an old dream called life, and that he had entered into Paradise,--a +bit doubtful, a bit tremulous, a bit prayerful, and very humble, for +Lilias, though quite casual, though only carelessly kind, had smiled at +him! + +“Tam Wilson, now,” said Jock Lesly. + +And all at once this grim old world of troubles and fears, of grief and +gloom, had whisked back again. + +“Now that chiel, Tam Wilson!” reiterated Jock Lesly. + +He was amazingly comfortable, the trader, still sitting at the table +thrown back in a seat, cleverly constructed to imitate a cushioned +armchair, drinking Scotch whiskey till the smell of the peat of the +still fires seemed to fill the room, and then a fine French brandy that +but inflamed his patriotism and insular prejudice. “What’s that callant +doing all this long time in the Cherokee country?” + +Callum glanced down at the firelight flashing through his own glass, +now like a ruby and now like a topaz. He dared not meet the eyes of +Lilias. But when he looked up at last, as he needs must at a repetition +of the question, she was busied with a comfit. + +“I hae my ain thoughts,” he said. + +Jock Lesly was beginning to nod. It had been a long hard day, and now +warmth and comfort and “vivers” and brandy were telling on his powers +of discrimination. + +“Seems strange! Remember Callum,” he said suddenly, “how afeared o’ +Moy Toy the callant was!” He laughed sleepily. “He fairly pined to get +us out o’ reach o’”--He paused, nodding. + +Once more Callum glanced furtively at Lilias. She sat idly toying with +her spoon in the red glow, her blue and white apparel, her golden +head, her glimmering neck and shoulders, half revealed by their sheer +broideries, all indescribably dainty, fairy-like of effect amid +these rude surroundings. Her soft and delicate countenance was calm, +inexpressive, inscrutable. + +“Hegh, Callum,” said Jock Lesly, seizing the subject again in a waking +interval, “that captain-lieutenant--what’s his name? Everard? Aye, +Everard! A-weel, Everard was saying that chiel was bein’ passed off +on him for a Frenchy. Hegh! my certie! Tam Wilson a Frenchy--Johnny +Crapaud”-- + +His head fell more definitely forward--he was gone at last; the low +luxurious susurrus of his breath, almost a snore, filled the room at +regular intervals. + +Afterward Callum could not appraise the impulse, the instinct, that +animated him. The room had dulled to a deep crimson glow; in the waning +light of the fire the gray walls of the cave showed without shadows, +for the light was not so strong as to duplicate an image. Luckie Meg +slept on her stool by the hearth, the collie snored under the table, +the gillies were silent in the antechamber; the only suggestion of the +world outside was the sound of the river rushing on like life to its +ultimate destination, to be lost in the tides of the sea like eternity. +In the red gloom Callum was hardly aware if her face were yet so +distinct, or because in his memory never a shadow could rest upon it. + +He gazed directly into her eyes and beheld them dilate expectantly. + +“_You_ knew that he was French, Lilias. _You_ knew it all the +time!” + +She replied as to an accusation. “No--not all the +time--_no_--Callum!” + +“And you knew how I loved you--so long--so true--never one else--never +another thought! And to cast me aside for him--for _him_! A spy, +an emissary, sent to spirit up the Indians against the frontier--for +the hideous massacres of women and children.” + +“He declared it was not for that. He said his government only sought +to utilize the Indians in the same way that the English hae used them +in our armies, as soldiers. He only obeyed his orders, as you do +yours--being a soldier, forbye an officer.” + +“An officer! O Lilias, war is one thing and this is another!” + +“I think like you, Callum; though after I heard him tell his plan it +didna seem the same; that is--forbye”--Lilias hesitated, sore beset--“I +could see how it all had a different face to him. An’ he was na cruel +to us--he keepit the Injuns aff us.” + +“Because the French plans were not ripe enough for our murder then--and +Lilias, you knew it! And let your father warm this serpent by his +hearth--in his bosom!” + +“I didna ken it at first. No, Callum,” exclaimed Lilias, eager in +self-defense, her own fealty to the hamely ingle-neuk in question. +“No, and not till the last,” she protested, her voice trembling as she +remembered that he had offered to renounce king and country, duty and +honor for her. This was not Tam Wilson, however. Tam Wilson would never +have done this. And it was Tam Wilson who had been so dear! + +“He told me at the last!--the last day but twa or three!--or else I +couldna hae abided him!” + +Callum, fingering his glass, looked off drearily into the glowing +mass of red coals. He was recalling the details of that memorable +journey,--those days when she declared that she had had dreams. +Dreams, dear indeed, since their tenuity warranted the bitter realities +of those hot despairing tears. Dreams, alas, which could not come true! +Callum doubted if his persistence had won for him much of value,--the +certainty that she had wept for Tam Wilson, because he was not--Tam +Wilson! + +Jock Lesly was beginning to stir. He snorted, yawned, stretched his +arms, then sat up straight and opened his eyes. The walls of the +cavern first caught his attention. “Hegh, Callum lad, this is like +thae auld days fowk are sae fond o’ talkin’ about, the Feifteen an’ +the Forty-five, when the attainted Jacobites hid about in caves an’ +hollows, an’ limekilns an’ cellars. Remind ye o’ it?” + +Callum slowly appraised the glowing dream-light, the luxurious warmth, +the comfortable “vivers,” the half emptied decanters, and thought of +the ditch in the moorland and the crevice in the mountain, the cold and +the starvation, the loss of fortune and favor, the end in exile or on +the scaffold. No--he could not just say that he was reminded of it. + +And as Jock Lesly was about to demonstrate the points of similarity in +the situation a sudden iterative throbbing shook the earth, and the +Highlander sprang to his feet, recognizing the vibrations of the drum +beating the tattoo, and saying that he would have a run for it to reach +the fort, the barracks, and bed by taps. + + + + + XVI + + +THE detachment of Highlanders that Lieutenant Everard left to +reinforce Fort Prince George proved of no great interest to the troops +already stationed there pining in the weariness of long inaction. The +natural expectation of the revival of zest in life incident to new +companionship, fresh experiences, stories still untold, and songs as +yet unsung all fell flat in the reality; for few of the newcomers could +speak aught but the Gaelic, and they clung together with a pertinacity +and a suspiciousness of the “Sassenach sidier,” with whom they were +thus unequally yoked, that threatened faction in the little garrison. +Hence, to accustom them to their new comrades and break up the clique +whenever it was possible, the Highlanders were separately detailed to +duty among the English, although on parade, at roll call, and at drill +they were segregated and kept within their own ranks. + +Callum MacIlvesty was one of the few who could speak English; but +although, being a “gentleman ranker,” his lowly station involved +association with his military equals, he seemed hardly likely to +contribute notably to the mirth of nations. He was preoccupied, gravely +brooding much of the time, and even when roused showed a temperament +averse to the familiar horseplay of the jocund Britisher. Among his +Scotch comrades he was little subject to the irksome constraints of +his position as a common soldier. They could gauge and realize his +claims to a higher station, and, more than conceding them, showed him +a consideration and respect to which he had been accustomed from his +earliest youth. He returned their kindness, which thus manifested +a touch of the magnanimous, with earnest fellow feeling, and his +relations with them were affectionate and even fraternal. To the +English contingent at the fort, however, he was merely “a bare-kneed +Sawney who held his head stiff and stepped high,” with no justification +that they could discriminate, for he, like them, shouldered a musket +for pay. + +Even in this humble station it seemed to him that fortune was +singularly adverse, and that his enforced absence from his regiment +had cost him the signal opportunity of his life to achieve distinction +or aught of value. Recovering from a wound, but yet unfit for duty, +he had been granted a furlough early in the year, which he had spent +at Jock Lesly’s trading-house, and afterward, at the moment of eager +expectation of sailing to join the Forty-Second in the West Indies, +he had been ordered with the small detachment of Highlanders in +Charlestown to reinforce the commissioners’ escort because of previous +familiarity with the Cherokee country. While he was engaged in this +distasteful pacific duty, Moro Castle had been carried by storm and the +city of Havanna had capitulated, and the Forty-Second, returning to +America, was flushed with victory and elated with glory. There was to +be no more fighting, it seemed, and in this tame inaction the winter at +Fort Prince George was but a dreary prospect. + +The inglorious return of the commissioners’ force from the Cherokee +country, and the futile arrest which Everard had attempted, were +matters of great moment to the garrison, lying as it did within the +borders of the Cherokee possessions; but since the event had been all +bloodless, the defeat had been esteemed something of a farce. The +English soldiers of the escort, who could understand the fun poked +at them, one of the essential constituents of mirthful ridicule, had +been mercilessly guyed before their departure for Charlestown; and one +memorable night the subject came up anew in the guardroom, when, in +pursuance of the plan of detailing the Highlanders to duty separately +among the English, Callum chanced to be one of the main-guard. + +The firelight from the great stone chimney place flashed on the +whitewashed walls and with a metallic glitter was reflected from the +stack of arms, in the centre of the puncheon floor, ready for instant +use, although the cry “Guard, turn out!” seemed many hours distant down +the watches of the night, unless indeed some unforeseen chance should +betide. There were several bunks against the wall, which were somewhat +superfluous at this hour, for at night the guard were not permitted +to seek repose thereon, although not a vigilant eye should be closed. +A large door led without to the parade, and a smaller one gave upon +an inner apartment which bore the huge lock common to that day and a +curiosity in this. The key was evidently turned upon some wight who +had found liberty joyous while it lasted, and who now and again sent +forth drunken snatches of song, occasionally varied with vociferous +affectations of woe, weeping and sniffing and groaning by merry turns, +till a freshened joyous impulse would set the catch trolling once more. + +The group about the guardroom fire took slight note of these +aberrations from the regulation deportment appropriate to the +rôle of melancholy prisoner. They were all used to these frequent +incarcerations of their jolly comrade, and realized that the rigor +of his punishment would befall him when he should be sober enough to +profit by it. + +A heavy rain beating tumultuously against the walls and splashing from +the eaves added zest to the luxury of the great blazing logs and the +talk of the group ranged around on the broad hearth of flagstones. + +“An’ d’ ye mean to say, Callum,” began a leathern-visaged, +weather-beaten soldier, the corporal of the guard, leaning his elbows +on his knees as he sat on a great billet of wood, “that as soon as +old Moy Toy sneezed three times your Lieutenant Everard give the word +‘_Double-quick while ye can! For’ard, by the rear!_’ and the whole +command faced right about and footed it out of the Cherokee country?” + +He winked jovially at the others as the big Highlander, half reclining +on the floor at one side of the hearth, turned his head slowly and came +gradually to a realization of his surroundings. + +“I said naething o’ the sort, an’ ye ken it full weel,” Callum replied +gruffly. + +“That’s not the way to answer your s’perior officer,” the jolly +corporal admonished him, with a leer. + +“Ye never asked no sic a fule question as my superior officer,” Callum +deigned to respond after a pause. “Ask me now if my firelock is clean +an’ my cartouch box is ready, an’ I’se gie ye a ceevil answer; but my +superior officer hae naught to do wi’ Moy Toy’s sneeshin’.” + +“There!” exclaimed the corporal with the affectation of delighted +triumph and discovery. “He have said it! He said that Moy Toy sneezed +and fairly frighted Lieutenant Everard out of the Cherokee country!” + +A roar of laughter rewarded this pleasantry, and hearing the gay sound, +the incarcerated soldier struck up with rather a dreary quaver, “‘I’ll +ride a cock horse to Banbury Cross!’” + +“You will ride a wooden horse as soon as you are sober enough to mount +one!” called out the corporal. + +A great whining and wheezing and affectations of lamentation ensued on +the other side of the door, at which all the guard laughed uproariously. + +One of the English contingent, a short, stocky fellow, who had been +carefully greasing a pair of feet always kept in the prime order for +marching essential to the regular infantry-man, now presented those +members glistening and perfect on the edge of the hearth, that the +unguents might take full effect by aid of the heat of the fire. He had +just been admonished by the corporal of that regulation which forbids +the guard to lay aside any of their clothing or accoutrements. He first +argued that stockings were neither arms nor garments, then pleaded with +the corporal for a momentary respite that the grease might soak into +the flesh instead of the fabric of his hose. To take full advantage of +the official clemency he sought to create a diversion by resuming with +animation the previous subject. + +“I wonder,” he said, “if that furriner up there in the Cherokee country +is French or a Spaniard. When I was stationed at Gibraltar I learned a +deal o’ the lingo of that country.” + +A long silence ensued. No surprise was intimated at the extent of the +soldier’s service, for so often had he recounted the details of his +experiences at Gibraltar and the observations he had collated from +Spain that they had grown a burden and had earned for him the sobriquet +of “the Señor,”--appropriately, perhaps, mispronounced “the Sinner.” + +The recent hostilities between England and Spain gave additional and +phenomenal interest to his prelections now. + +“The Spaniards are a great people for all that’s come an’ gone,” he +resumed presently. “’Twas them strengthened the fortifications at +Gibraltar so they are now what they be,” he added significantly. + +“They did so! An’ they done it well, begorra!” retorted a big Irishman. +“An’,” with a rollicking laugh from his full red lips, “bedad, by the +same token we tuk it away from ’um.” + +“The Sinner” took no notice of this pertinent corollary of his +proposition. He was looking reflectively at his feet, stretched out +straight before him as he sat flat on the hearth. His hair stood up +straight from his brow and was tied in a thin queue behind. He had +small bright eyes, heavy-lidded and downcast now. His face was clear +and youthful, with a large jowl, that narrowed toward the mouth, and +a short blunt nose. He was a good soldier by line and rule, and of a +particularly clean aspect. In fact he had so fresh, scraped, washed +an appearance that with his porcine resemblance he suggested, as he +sat with his plump pink and white feet and shins bare of hose to the +knee, some punctual pig that had accommodatingly cleaned and scalded +himself--if such a process were ever possible in the lifetime of swine. + +The flames flared furiously up the chimney. Outside the roar of +water that intimated the swift flow of the Keowee River could be +differentiated from the sound of the rain in a fusillade on the roof +and its splashing sweep from the eaves. A roll of thunder far away +shook the earth, unseasonable, seemingly irrelevant to the occasion, +hardly appurtenant to this steady torrent of wintry rain. + +“If that furriner is one of them Dons,” said “the Sinner,” resuming his +speculations, his eyes critically on the contour of his great toe, “he +knows what’s what. He ain’t there among them Injuns for nothin’. They +are the strategists--them Spaniards.” + +“Arrah,” exclaimed the Irishman, blowing out his contempt with a cloud +of strong tobacco as he smoked his little cutty pipe, “it is just as +well, thin, that they have got nothin’ I want. Cubia will contint +me--that is, for the presint,” he added, with a bland air of moderation. + +For this was before the treaty restoring “the Havannah” to Spain. + +“I’m talkin’ about the hold they are takin’ on this country,” argued +“the Sinner.” “They are surrounding us”--an apprehension at that time +entertained by wiser men than he--“amongst all these wildernesses an’ +with no defenses but two or three flimsy mud forts. They will retaliate +for the Havannah an’ Manilla on the frontier of the British colonies +in Ameriky. _Diablo!_ I tell you now, if that man in the Cherokee +country is one o’ them caballeros, what between the Spaniard an’ the +French an’ the Injuns the southern colonies is crushed.” + +He brought his two shining feet together with a clap, the smart impact +denoting the small chance that aught intervening would have of escape. + +The other men looked reflectively at the fire. They were as brave +as soldiers need to be, but the conditions of the frontier were of +various adverse interpretations. While they could march against an open +enemy readily enough, the chances of traps and massacres, of torture +and slavery in captivity, supplemented by the wiles of a civilized +power coalescing with the savages, and the ever recurrent doubt of +the ability of distant superior officers to cope with these untoward +circumstances so far removed from their observation, all combined to +give the soldiery many a more serious thought than appertained to their +humble functions as the hands that execute rather than the brain that +devises. + +The corporal eyed “the Sinner” rancorously. + +“Ye must be gittin’ them feet ready to gallopade up an’ down on extra +drill,” he said. “I’ll report you for spreading discontent among the +troops with your tomfool talk about them Dons.” + +“Why,” said “the Sinner,” with a look of innocent surprise, “I was just +thinkin’ about all this talk o’ silk wums in Carolina an’ Georgia--when +in Spain--why you ought jus’ to see the wum farms amongst the +mulberries on the”-- + +“No--no--ye were talkin’ about that fellow up in the Cherokee country!” +persisted the corporal. + +“Oh, yes,” admitted the wily “Sinner,” perceiving the evasion was +useless. “I was wonderin’ if the lad was a Spaniard to be stirrin’ up +such a commotion. There’s a deal too many o’ them on the continent now +to make it surprisin’ if he is one too!” + +“I’ll tell ye, thin, me bye! ’tis Oirish he is,” declared the Hibernian +genially. “One o’ me own pattern. Whenever ye meet a distinguished +compatriot an’ don’t know wher he comes from, set him down for an’ +Oirishman, bein’ a man o’ ganius!” + +“He is a Scotchman I’ll wager,” said a native South Carolinian, for +already the leaven of disaffection against that nationality that had +helped to make the province strong and thrifty was beginning to work. +“A Scotchman, and not just one too many, either. A Scotch trader, I’ll +be bound, turned Cherokee. Some o’ the French get regularly adopted +into the tribes. I know some Scotch fellows among the Chickasaws that +are trying it, to trade the more handily, and I dare be sworn that this +makebate among the Cherokees is another Injun Sawney!” + +This stirred Callum’s patriotism, the master key of a Scotchman’s heart. + +“The man’s a Frenchman,” he said curtly. + +“Did he sneeze in French?” demanded the jocose corporal. + +Callum did not laugh. His eyes were fixed on the masses of red coals +beneath the flames of the fire that cast their continual flicker over +his dreamy retrospective face. + +“I wad hae thought mysel’ he had been an Englishman, that is, a +Firginian,” he said reflectively, as if speaking to himself. “But no, +the man is French!” + +The corporal scarce drew a breath. “Hey, Callum lad,” he contrived to +say with a casual intonation, “had ye ever seen him afore that day?” + +“Ou, ay, many a time,” replied Callum, intent on his memories. + +“Where, lad? where?” + +Callum roused himself in returning consciousness. + +“In the Cherokee country, man! At Ioco Town, at Jock Lesly’s +trading-house. We a’ took him for a Firginian.” + +“And why do you think now he is French? Lieutenant Everard gave that +p’int up, they tell me.” + +Callum hesitated. “I hae my ain reasons,” he said, but with such +finality of tone that the corporal pressed the matter no further. + +When the guard was relieved the next morning, the officer of the day +found a point of importance noted in the written report of the officer +of the guard, and as a consequence Callum was surprised by a summons to +the presence of the commandant of the fort, to reply to a very queer +and childish question, as it seemed to him. + +“How do you know that that man in the Cherokee country whom Lieutenant +Everard was--about to arrest”--Captain Howard put it as euphemistically +as possible, out of respect to a brother officer--“how do you know that +he is French?” + +“I heard him speak French, sir, to himself--when he thought he was +alane.” + +“But you know that an Englishman, any one who can learn the language, +can speak French.” + +“Not like a Frenchman, sir,” persisted Callum. + +Captain Howard hesitated. Of all things he would like to secure this +makebate, this formidable influence among the Cherokees, nay among +all the tribes, that had rendered the costly peace which had been +so difficult to secure, so long sought, but a hollow semblance, a +menacing sham. Moreover, he would be very glad to succeed where Everard +had failed. A very close clutch on distinction had the dapper young +lieutenant let slip. And here was the man who in the first instance had +afforded information. + +“Have you no other reason for your belief?” Captain Howard asked +anxiously. + +“Aye, sir, I ken he is French frae himsel’,” Callum replied calmly. “He +tauld a woman, sir, an’ she tauld me; but you will no ask me to mention +her name.” + +“Certainly not,” said the officer, thinking that he wished to avoid +implicating others in responsibility; “a noncombatant in any event. +But,” eagerly, “would you know the fellow if you should see him again?” + +“I wad, sir.” + +“In any disguise?” the officer persisted. + +“I wad indeed, sir, fu’ weel.” + +“That is all for the present,” said Captain Howard. Callum gave him +an amazed stare, then saluted and withdrew, wondering at this puerile +futility. Would he know the man indeed! + + + + + XVII + + +WITH all its advantages civilization bears also its disadvantages to +the postulant of culture. Perhaps no one has adequately appreciated +the stress of that period to the mental and moral nature of the Indian +when, detached from his _ancien régime_, its methods and manners, +growing scornful of its sanctities and questioning its values, he was +yet unaccustomed to the new order of things, unversed in its utilities, +incompetent of its comprehension--alienated from the one and not +acclimated to the other. + +Many an Indian roamed about the little mart, beginning to gather under +the guns of Fort Prince George, alike surly with contempt for the old +and aversion for the new, unsettled, dissatisfied, dull, and dangerous. +Now and again, with a dark, restless eye, one would pause and look out +unallured to the forest and river--not the same, never again to be the +same! Then he would turn his gaze, with loathing disgust, to the busy +mercantile Europeans, with their quick trading talk, their bearded +faces, their knee breeches, and the long woolen stockings on their +stout, thick calves. A queer and odious presentment of humanity they +seemed. Even the military did not impress the Indians as the soldiers +whirled and ranged about to the sound of fife and drum in that close +order so favorable to being mowed down by the very musket and ball +with which they themselves were armed. A strange mental atmosphere it +was--charged with the fumes from the embers of the burned-out past and +the miasma exhaled from the poisonous present. No wonder their outlook +was beclouded and drear. + +All the conditions of life hitherto were reversed for many of them. +Never had they met the representatives of certain tribes, immemorial +enemies, save with weapons in their hands. Now, because of the +intrusion of the white man and the diversion of interest that he had +effected, a hollow peace or a simulated indifference had been patched +up. Between many the semblance was fast growing into reality under +the influence of that secret hope, nay, that earnest, triumphant, +almost holy expectation of national independence that had been +held in abeyance of late and which the colonists perceived without +interpreting. It made for a universal friendship among them, and the +traders chafed at its result, for intertribal war sold gunpowder, +utilized the venomous activities of the savages against each other, and +thus gave immunity to the white settlers. This almost visible bond in +the unity of friendship of these hereditary enemies was a menace to all +the English colonies from the mountains to the Atlantic, outnumbered +by their negro slaves, and with the threatening Spaniard on the south +and the inimical French on the west. The frontier traders scanned the +horizon that showed so strange a portent, and muttered much together +and shook their heads. + +To Mingo Push-koosh this prospect of universal brotherhood among the +tribes promised little. He wandered drearily about the world, a vagrant +indeed, almost an outcast. There had been much ill blood between the +Cherokees and Choctaws on his account, although no definite national +war was inaugurated, since the French influence had been exerted +to maintain intertribal peace and secure satisfaction. However, +sundry individual reprisals for the iniquities that celebrated the +_congé_ of Mingo Push-koosh at Great Tellico had resulted in +counter-reprisals till, when two braves of the respective factions +chanced to meet in the settlement about Fort Prince George, nervous +people instinctively dodged in expectation of the smartly sped arrow or +the impulsively hurled tomahawk, and prudent people sought the nearest +shelter. Indeed Mingo Push-koosh would not have ventured here within +the borders of the Cherokee country but for the protection of the guns +of the British fort. He was not safe inside the French boundaries, his +wonted sphere, for he had been bereft of all the honors and privileges +he had once enjoyed. In fact he had been sought with a view to condign +punishment, a price being placed on his head when the authorities at +New Orleans had learned of his betrayal of trust and desertion of +Laroche, leaving him after the massacre in the hands of the Cherokees, +which must have proved fatal to him and the interests he represented +but for his own perseverance and address. + +An exile thus, Mingo Push-koosh affected the English settlements, an +avowed deserter to the British interest, protesting that his eyes were +opened to the French wiles and that the French spoke with the tongue +of a snake _seente soolish_, the mere sound of which made his +heart weigh very heavy within him. These statements were received with +a certain indifference, for by reason of his exile he could not bring +any great personal following to the English flag; in fact, but for the +hope that his presence might decoy others of his tribe to imitate his +example, Mingo Push-koosh[11] would scarcely have been regarded at +all. Proud and ambitious, he realized the necessity of pressing more +efficaciously his own cause, and would have embraced the opportunity of +any military service--but how? and whither? + +Poor Push-koosh! Disregarded by the English, and in actual danger +from the French, the pompous Prince Baby had now naught in hand of +more import than the mercantile venture of selling a dozen or so fine +horses, which he had caused to be driven from his old home at Yowanne, +through the southern country, to Jock Lesly, who desired them for +use in his pack-trains to Charlestown in the spring, laden with the +skins from this winter’s hunt. The sale accomplished to-day, Mingo +Push-koosh strolled about, forlorn, friendless, among the boxes and +bales on the platform of Jock Lesly’s trading-house at Keowee Town. +His thick long hair floated in the breeze; his silver arm-plates and +headband were as bright as of yore, but a deep dejection showed in his +large surly eyes, and he had the effect of a drooping crest, albeit the +flamingo feathers still flaunted high. + +“_Ish la chu, angona?_” (Are you come, friend?) A Chickasaw who +passed offered the conventional salutation, knowing of the Choctaw’s +defection from the French interest, for the sub-tribes (including the +Choccomaw) of the ancient Chicimecas have almost a common language. + +“_Arahre-O angona!_” (I am come indeed, friend!) Push-koosh +replied, although he could hardly refrain from springing upon the +Chickasaw as he passed and tearing the scalp from his head with his +teeth, if need were. + +The incident concluded, he continued to idle about the trading-house, +standing on the platform and gazing at the gray river under a gray sky. +The water was dark--all the light in the landscape seemed concentrated +in the icy flicker in the leafless forests near the Indian town of +Keowee which lay on both banks. Then he shifted his position and stood +on the other end of the platform and gazed silently at the bastions of +the fort. Whenever he saw the British flag he could not refrain from +spitting his disdain openly, obviously, on the ground. Fearing lest +this demonstration be observed, as the flag flaunted from the fort, +he once more turned impatiently and changed his position to the other +end of the platform, as before. He was absorbed in the reflection that +the great coalition of Indian tribes would at last become a triumphant +fact and that he would have no share in it. This fair prospect he had +forfeited, with the favor of the French; as for the English, they would +have none of him, would trust him with no opportunity of value. + +So long he stood there that the under-trader grew a trifle solicitous +as to his designs. The degenerate among the Indians had become most +expert thieves, and it is recorded that while engaged in conversation +with the merchant they could abstract what articles they would from +under his eyes. Alas, poor Push-koosh--whose thoughts were of empire! + +Dougal Micklin, the under-trader, a pursy, unimaginative man, all of +whose mental processes could be discerned in his round face and his +merry dark eyes, with his round, burly body encased in buckskins and +wearing a coonskin cap set rather far back from his placid brow, was +loath to take his eyes from the Choctaw, visible through the wide +barn-like door, and therefore mentioned his identity to Captain Howard, +the commandant of the fort, who chanced to be in the house purchasing +some buttons for his own personal use. + +“Aye, sir, three and sax the dozen, sir,” Dougal Micklin said, as he +glanced again out of the door; then, as if to excuse his evidently +wandering attention, he continued, “That Choctaw buck is an unco gret +prince, Captain,” his red lips curling with good-natured sarcasm at the +idea. “He used to be in high favor wi’ the French, but he fell out wi’ +the mounseers at Tellico Gret, and now seems to have his finger in his +mouth.” + +Captain Howard turned suddenly and surveyed the figure of the Indian, +as Push-koosh, unconscious of this keen scrutiny, stood sullen and +dreary on the platform. The fringes of his saffron-hued buckskin shirt +and leggings were all borne backward in the breeze, his stiff scarlet +flamingo feathers and his long black hair were aslant also without +other stir, as if he might have been pictured thus on a canvas. His +heavily embroidered belt, shot pouch, and tobacco bag, his silver +headband and bracelets, his necklace of pearls and many strings of +“roanoke,” the fine silver-mounted pistols at his side, all seemed to +confirm the truth of the trader’s representations as to his high rank. + +“’Tis Mingo Push-koosh!” the trader added. + +“Call him in,” said Captain Howard. Then with an afterthought, “No, +I’ll speak to him myself!” + +The officer striding out confronted the Choctaw just as again, catching +a glimpse of the British flag, Mingo Push-koosh was about to spit his +disaffection upon the ground. + +“How?” said Captain Howard, smiling agreeably. + +Push-koosh was visibly surprised, but looked inconceivably haughty. + +“How?” he returned with half covert, scornful disapprobation, and +waited in doubt. + +Now Captain Howard’s education was lamentably defective as far as the +Choctaw, practically the Chickasaw language was concerned, although the +latter Indians were those with whom he had had most dealings, as they +had repeatedly served in the campaigns in this region with the British +troops. Nevertheless, in the delicate and tentative bit of business +which he had in contemplation, he did not desire the offices of an +interpreter lest a bird of the air carry the matter. + +Lending himself to the effort to compass speech as it were without +words, he smiled again blandly with a distinctly mollifying effect. + +“Big Mingo!” he said, waving his hand with a free gesture to impart +added grace to his compliment. + +He was a tall, bony, angular man of forty-five, and the demonstration +ill suited the stiff military dignity of his habitual carriage and the +impressive effect of his scarlet uniform. + +“_Capteny Humma Echeto!_” (Great red captain!) responded the +Mingo, complimentary in turn. + +Then they both paused and stared hard at each other. + +“Mingo love British?” demanded the captain at length. + +Nothing could have been more sardonic than the languishing smile with +which Push-koosh laid his hand upon his true heart. + +“Mingo hate French?” the political catechism proceeded. + +The face of Push-koosh suddenly darkened. He spat his contempt on the +ground. + +“_Hottuk ookproose!_” (The accursed people!) + +“Why hate French?” the inquisitor proceeded. + +The heart of Push-koosh swelled. His eyes burned hot in their sockets. +The veins of his throat were distended and tense as cords. He could +hardly speak even fragmentarily, and but for the straining of every +sense to hear, to distinguish, to interpret, Captain Howard might have +made but little of the jargon of broken English that the Choctaw hissed +out in the intervals between his gasps of rage. + +The ugly French “beloved man” had betrayed him, had ruined his +prospects! He had slandered him to the headmen of Great Tellico! And +because he had quitted the Cherokee country on account of their ill +usage, and left the French ugly “beloved man” there,--who had sustained +no harm whatever!--the indescribably ugly French governor in New +Orleans was angry. + +Captain Howard had caught so eagerly at the words “Great Tellico” that +although his ears were not of such a conformation and flexibility that +they could be described as “pricked up,” his countenance had that vivid +accession of intelligence that seems concomitant. + +“Mingo go Tellico?” + +Push-koosh’s face, gradually brightening in the expectation of a +commission of some important sort, fell suddenly. He remembered that +fierce onset upon the unoffending Cherokee tribesmen, that bloody +massacre! No, not to Tellico, as he valued his life! Never again to +Tellico, never again! + +“Capteny much wants Mingo go Tellico!” urged Captain Howard +persuasively. + +The passionate mobile countenance of Push-koosh, with naught firm in +its lines save the determination to go no more to Tellico, was turned +toward the river, the wind blowing backward his long loose hair, so odd +of effect here among the Cherokees, whose heads were all polled, his +great eyes absent and anxious, his earnest hope of employment in the +British interest slipping beyond his reach. But not to Tellico--never +again! + +“Capteny much wants French ‘beloved man’!” Captain Howard murmured +plaintively. + +Push-koosh brought his small even teeth together with so sudden a snap +and gasp that the officer instinctively drew back a step. + +“Does the beast bite?” he said to himself. + +“Fort Prince George? Bring ‘beloved man’? Capteny wants?” Push-koosh +asked, the words coming one after another, one upon another, in the +joyous turbulence of sudden comprehension. + +Push-koosh could do this for the _Capteny Humma Echeto_ without +the necessity to repair to Great Tellico. In that secret knowledge +of the scheme of the now almost united tribes, many details, seeming +of but scant significance, were obvious to those who had with them +but little concern. For instance, the gossip brought by the tribesmen +who had driven hither his horses had not till now seemed of moment +to Push-koosh. A conference was in contemplation, to be held at +_O-tel-who-yau-nau_ (Hurricane Town), in the country of the Lower +Muscogees, and several noted chiefs were to be present, especially +certain disaffected spirits who desired to lay their views before the +French governor through the medium of his “beloved man,” Lieutenant de +Laroche, who with an escort of Cherokees was to come down expressly +from Great Tellico. The choice of Hurricane Town had been in honor and +placation of Padgee (the Pigeon), its mico, for he was well known to +have hesitated and to be grievously ill at ease at the renunciation +of British favor and British trade. The journey of the “beloved man” +Laroche would lie, it is true, through a country especially friendly +to him and his plans, but Push-koosh knew when the fleet of canoes and +pettiaugres would be expected on Flint River, and it might be--lurking +near--some opportunity-- + +His deft fingers trembled upon the trigger of his fine pistol. + +Captain Howard touched his arm. + +“No!” the officer said with the ringing tones of authority. “Alive!” + +“Alive?--the French ‘beloved man’?” Push-koosh faltered. + +Captain Howard was thinking very fast. In those days when rewards were +offered for the scalps of various nationalities of Indians and white +men one could hardly be more certain of the genuineness of a head of +hair than if it were a wig. Captain Howard had some knowledge of a +flaxen scalp riven from the head of an unoffending German colonist and +of the effort to make it pass current for a Spaniard’s jetty hair by an +Indian more disingenuous than discerning. The astute Push-koosh would +never so far disregard the probabilities, but Captain Howard wanted no +cheap English auburn locks from the nearest convenient British station. +He must needs be sure of that subtle brain beneath the thatch. The man +in person--naught else would satisfy him. “Alive--well--the ‘beloved +man’ all in one piece!” he declared slowly, definitely. + +He took his netted silk purse from his pocket and began to +significantly count the golden guineas from one hand to the other. +Push-koosh seemed scarcely to notice. For a moment he was as if in a +daze. The breath came quick from between his parted lips; his teeth +showed slightly, giving him a strange savagery of aspect; his eyes +glanced hither, thither restlessly, as if he were seeking to gauge the +various points of difficulty in the undertaking. He had not moved, but +the wind still fluttered in the fringes of his saffron buckskin suit +and in the crest of scarlet flamingo feathers, and the light of the +dull day gleamed with a white metallic glister upon the silver headband +above his dark flat forehead. + +His eyes seemed suddenly afire when Captain Howard, eager that there +should be no mistake in identity, asked abruptly, “Are you sure that +you would know this French ‘beloved man’ of Tellico if you should see +him again?” + +Push-koosh stared for a moment motionless. Then he bent himself +suddenly backward as if struck by a flaw of wind. He caught both hands +to his lips as if to intercept the cry that escaped,--a fierce, shrill, +tremendous note expanding through all the heavy silence of the gray +day, and seeming to strike with the clamors of its savage joy against +the gates of heaven. + + + + + XVIII + + +WHEN very quietly in the sombre depths of the midnight Callum +MacIlvesty, according to orders communicated abruptly to him by the +commandant, groped down to the river bank, the vague current barely +glimpsed by the scintillation of some star in the ripples soon obscured +by the scudding clouds, he took his seat in a boat with only two dark +figures, motionless, unknown, invisible, for traveling companions. The +river under the shadow of the banks was as black as Styx, and as silent +as Charon was the boat’s crew. On the opposite side, the Indian town of +Keowee lay hushed and absolutely still. Once a dog barked, apprised in +some subtle manner of the enterprise going forward, for there was no +noise of movement, no word spoken. At the fort only the window of the +guardroom was alight, and one listening might hear or fancy the vague +footfall of the sentry walking his limited beat. The gleam from the +window was but a twinkle in the gloom, and only now and again a star +shone out responsive from the clouds. The muffled oars did not rattle +in the locks; there was hardly a perceptible impact as the blades were +immersed in the water. The vague sense of gliding in the darkness away, +swiftly away, from all the familiar world, from all that represented +his experience hitherto and civilized life, whither he hardly knew, +with whom he could not imagine, impressed Callum MacIlvesty’s mind with +a very definite repugnance for his errand, and for all the secrecy and +mystery with which it had been invested. He wondered, as the sense +of distance increased, as the shadow that marked the site of the +town merged indistinguishably into the darkness, as the twinkle that +indicated the fort glimmered afar off, then was extinguished utterly, +whether his invisible and silent companions knew more of him than he of +their identity. + +“Captain Howard needna hae feared I’d set mysel’ a-talkin’,” he said +to himself, realizing that the party had been thus unexpectedly and +silently hustled off in order that naught might transpire of their +mission, nay, that their absence might not even be noticed at the fort, +till the scheme was well on its way to execution. “I’m nane o’ the sort +to be given to idle clavers.” + +His companions might have this failing, however, he reflected, and thus +he drew his plaid about him and wrapped himself in silent cogitation as +in the garment. + +Each of the party was himself too surly, or perhaps too proud, or +it may be too doubtful of the others to express curiosity. Without +a whisper, hearing each other breathe, now and again touching one +another, a knee, an elbow, in moving in the strait quarters, they +slipped like a phantom craft, a crew of shadows, past the wharf and the +trading-house, past the group of canoes and pettiaugres anchored or +beached there, past a great Indian camp of the peltry hunters, down and +down the river, the current aiding the regular strokes of the oars and +bearing them swiftly on. + +Naught was roused along the banks except an owl, that hooting after +them sent a gibing echo full of quaint vocables far along the reaches +of the darkling river; and once a great splash in the water close +at hand startled the oarsman, and the craft shot further out toward +the centre of the stream. It was a wolf marauding in the woods and +springing into the water’s edge, but although he howled for a space +naught seemed to hear save the solitary night and the stars now +venturing forth and now lost in the tumult of the unquiet clouds. The +dank wind grew chillier; the darkness more dense; then came a semblance +of vision in which one realized rather than saw great gusty bursts of +rain and erratic flaws of wind striking across the surface of the river. + +At length two vague pallid strata of dull clear sky revealed to Callum +an old cornfield, a vast plain whose evidence of agriculture was but +a memento of the past; a charred skeleton of a burnt Indian town, now +without a tenant, a relic of the Cherokee War; the brown rain-soaked +forests beyond with voluminous clouds bulging down among the treetops; +the steely expanse of the river swirling under the fall of the torrents +and the rush of the wind; and opposite to him, crouching in the bottom +of the boat, Mingo Push-koosh! + +The Choctaw, too, had been keenly watching for the earliest glimmer +of dawn that should discover to him the faces of his silent comrades, +and Callum, although knowing naught of the name or rank or nature of +the man, recoiled from the look in the Indian’s eye. Push-koosh stared +angrily yet maliciously at his changing expression, then daunted a +trifle by the arsenal of arms which the Highlanders of that day bore, +dirk, claymore, pistols, musket and bayonet, marking the stalwart +strength evinced by the soldier’s attitude as he lay at his ease in the +bow, the Mingo smoothed his ruffled crest, as if he would treacherously +bide his time. + +“Does Captain Howard count me no human that he suld send me campaigning +wi’ a panther?” Callum asked himself in amazement. + +“The big Capteny thinks the two white men will make short work of poor +Prince Baby,” Push-koosh reflected, and when he addressed himself to +rearranging his arms, as he shortly did on the pretext of protecting +them from the weather, he reloaded his pistols with balls previously +dipped in poison and thus rendered deadlier than before, by reason of +the extraordinary aptitude which the Indians possessed in toxicology. + +Only one other was of the party,--the English soldier floutingly +called, from his oft-told experiences in Spain, the Señor,--“Sinner” +Kenney. To him the Highlander seemed hardly less savage than the +Choctaw. The vast wilderness, in this strange and solitary duty, +impressed him as appalling; the character of the hardships and dangers +to be encountered was not what he had expected; his spirits had sunk +immeasurably low. + +All day long they held their course in the chill invisibilities of the +mist and rain, two now rowing continually, with the third to lighten +the labor by alternating regularly with the others. The night passed +in the same dreary fashion, each sleeping by turns, that the craft +might make all the speed possible. Little good-fellowship prevailed. +The Choctaw hated them both alike with the rancor of his race and his +prejudice against aught that was British, which he had acquired from +his service with the French; and yet they were formidable soldiers, and +their prowess awed him. “The Sinner” scorned the Choctaw as altogether +beneath his notice, although he repented swiftly any word or act that +might be accounted overt aggression, for the Indian was obviously +dangerous. Connected conversation was practicable only between the +two white men; but “Sinner” Kenney resented the Highlander’s repute +of superiority to his station, and was by turns flippantly offensive +in manner or surlily rude. There being no solid substratum of +good-heartedness and comradeship in him, Callum felt that there was no +pulse in common between them that might atone for the English soldier’s +boorishness and coarse manners, repugnant to a man of refined breeding. +MacIlvesty therefore had little or nothing to say except as regarded +the expediting of their progress, and “the Sinner’s” alternating +jocularities and impertinences failed for the most part to take effect +by reason of the impassiveness of the Highlander and the lack of +comprehension on the part of the Choctaw. + +After they had entered the Savannah River “the Sinner” began to +flatter himself with the prospect of meeting other river craft--this +broad stream being a highway of trade--and of seeing denizens of +the world hailing from the region below; but his hopes of social +interest and cheery converse were dashed by the rain and the mist +which closed down impenetrably. More than one settlement they passed +wrapped in invisibility in the cloud, as if they themselves were some +undiscriminated element of the atmosphere. When at last the vapors +began to shift and the sun to shine with a warmth all at variance +with the calendar, as it was interpreted at Fort Prince George, where +November, chill and drear, had worn away, they were once more in the +density of the wilderness; and suddenly one day, Push-koosh, who was +steering, gave the boat a deft turn, sent it swiftly shooting in to the +bank, letting it run up a little inlet. Then he sprang out; and as it +was lightened of the weight of Callum, who had stepped on shore, the +Choctaw pulled the craft up on land with the amazed “Sinner” sitting in +it. + +He protested. “_Diablo!_ Are we to leave the boat here?” he cried +aghast, looking about him at the pathless subtropical wilderness. + +“This gude man kens the way,” said Callum with frigid staidness. “Here +is the captain’s chart he gied me his nainsel’.” + +The round head of the experienced English foot-soldier bent over the +paper. There was no mistaking the place. The inflowing of a little +tributary on the Carolina side, the proximity of a ridge hard by, a +series of prehistoric tumuli at no great distance, all sufficiently +identified the locality. And what was that indicated toward the +southwest, across the breadth of what is now the State of Georgia--a +path marked out in red ink? But there was no corresponding suggestion +on the face of the tangled wooded country. + +“_Voto á Dios!_ I wish his ‘nainsel’ was in perdition! An’ this +is the ‘gude man’ who knows the way! He looks ‘gude’ enough to guide +us to hell! _Dios mio!_” suddenly catching himself, “the Injun +doesn’t understand the lingo, does he? _Cielos!_ he is a fearsome +beast!” + +Callum imperiously cut short his complaints by striking off through +the swamp. Push-koosh, whose outlook at life had brightened since +discovering that his comrades were each as obnoxious to the other as +to him, and that all three were of a mind only in antagonism to the +personnel of the expedition, did not hesitate to imitate the example. +With the peculiar easy gait of the Choctaw he set out at a speed that +bade fair to try the mettle of the tall Highlander. + +“Sinner” Kenney lingered. He looked up the broad, sunny expanse of the +brimming river, then over to the Carolina side, noting the bright, +soft aspect of the wintry world that would fain emulate the tender, +restful peace of early spring. The flowers were not dead, it seemed +to say, only asleep, and this bland zephyr might well rouse them with +its sweet blandishments. The ripples played within an oar’s length of +the boat. He could with his single strength slide it down into the +water and in five minutes be rowing briskly on his return trip to Fort +Prince George. He would doubtless be able to devise some plausible +explanation that would pass muster; for instance, that he had been +accidentally separated from his companions; that the Highlander carried +the chart and compass; that thus lost in the trackless wilderness his +only possibility of extrication had been to take the boat and forthwith +return up the river to Fort Prince George. + +And indeed as he gazed adown the shadowy region of the swamp on the +Georgia side, he thought it looked much like a country in which a man +might easily disappear never to return. Albeit heavily wooded, it was +in great part submerged with water of varying depth. At the nearest +verge he marked a long loglike protuberance, which he realized was an +alligator half sunken in mud and ooze. A white heron gleamed amidst +the dusky aisles, standing motionless among those curious roots of the +cypress called “knees,” which projected high above the dim surface +of the black water wherein they grew. The long stately stems of the +tall trees themselves were reflected, pallid and columnar, by myriads +from the glimmering dark expanse of the swamp, thus duplicating the +densities of the half submerged forests, funereally draped with hanging +gray moss in endless festoons. It seemed to stretch out illimitably, +this nondescript world that was neither navigable nor yet practicable +as dry land. And what might be the result of a failure to compass a +fair passage?--and what were the conditions of the region on the other +side? All were dependent upon the accuracy of Captain Howard’s chart +of this untried, unknown world, and the good faith and fair dealing of +Mingo Push-koosh! And still gazing, motionless, intent, “the Sinner” +hesitated. + +Down the vistas of the forest the soldier’s eye was suddenly caught +by the vanishing figures of the Highlander and the Choctaw, and the +extraordinary speed and ease of their gait struck his attention and +roused his emulation. + +“Do they think they can beat me on a forced march--that Sawney, +stepping like a crane, and the Choctaw with his little bandy dogtrot?” + +He critically appraised their powers. His professional pride was +enlisted. He suddenly set his hands one on each side of his trig little +body, and like machinery fell the sure even lengths of the military +double-quick; and so, speedily overhauling his companions, he went with +them down into the depths of the dank forests. + +The sun rose high above the river and gilded the tip of every lustrous +dark wavelet and illumined the live oaks with an emerald splendor. +In the shadowy swamp where the “snowy” heron stood among the cypress +knees, the hanging wealth of gray moss caught the enriching beams and +glistered, fibrous and silver, from the branches of the tall white +marble-like pillars of the trees. The little boat still lay empty, +motionless, within an oar’s length of the dancing water. + +“Sinner” Kenney thought of the craft many times afterward, and sighed +for its relinquishment as for a folly; for the dreary, mutinous, +fatiguing experience set at naught all the numerous previous hardships +of his chequered career. The physical stress in itself was great. The +Choctaw, who set the pace, could keep the same gait all day and cover +the same great distance day after day, a task under which the two +white men languished and flagged and almost succumbed. It would have +been impossible to support the contempt of Mingo Push-koosh in their +failure, and his triumph in his own superiority, had it not been for +the counter-opportunity to jeer in turn, which was afforded them by the +oft recurrence of the watercourses in the Creek country; for Push-koosh +could not swim. Sometimes an opportune tree uprooted by a storm +afforded a footbridge for crossing a stream. More frequently the rivers +were of a breadth that rendered this impossible, especially since the +autumn floods from the mountains had swollen them beyond all precedent. +Push-koosh must have drowned or turned back but for the assistance of +his comrades, unwillingly given, by no means a friendly service, and +only in the interests of the expedition. + +With a hand on the shoulder of each stalwart swimmer, Push-koosh, limp +with terror and horror, was propelled through the water. He was spared +much, however, in that he could speculate only vaguely on the meaning +of “the Sinner’s” fleer while in transit, half intended to frighten the +Choctaw and half from natural and involuntary malice. “_Vamos poco +á poco, amigo!_ Let’s drop him now, Sawney! Here is a deep hole! +_Porqué no?_” + +They suffered much from the weight of their arms and provisions, +for Captain Howard had wisely decreed that each should be his own +commissariat and none the burden bearer of the others, and when +the Highlander lost his salt in the river neither of the other two +would give him of their store, and the food of Callum MacIlvesty was +bitter for a more æsthetic reason, as he ate it unsalted beside the +fire at night, each man cooking for himself. They wrangled much, +despite their lack of verbal facilities; they quarrelled over their +chart, their compass, the possibilities of shortening the way by +deviating from their instructions and essaying a more direct route, +and sometimes their relations during the day would become so strained +that as they lay down by the camp-fire at night, they were fairly +afraid of one another, lest malice develop into menace. The Scotchman +had his national quarrel with the Englishman, and called him “pock +pudding,” and threatened to “knock his harns out.” The Englishman +derided the poverty of the Scots, and told gleeful tales of the lack +of sophistication of “Highland recruities” in his experience, in +comparison with whom, he declared, Push-koosh, the Choctaw, was a +man of the world. Push-koosh laughed alike at the Highlander’s kilt +and the English soldier’s scarlet breeches. “The Sinner” twitted the +Choctaw for his artificially flattened head; and they all would decline +to mend the camp-fire to keep off the wolves until green eyes would +be glistening close at hand in the underbrush, and the growl that +heralds the pouncing spring would sound threateningly on the chill +night air. But the preëminent triumph of Push-koosh came when they +encountered more savage denizens of the woods than wolves. His was the +craft to detect the approach of other Indians; to avoid rencontre; to +erase all trace of their passage through the woods; to slip like a +ghost, invisible as it were, between camps under cover of darkness; +to skirt with infinite skill the verges of Indian towns. Once they +were followed by a dog, baying discovery at every step, at last coming +so close that only the discharge of an arrow stilled his telltale +cry. Once, strangely enough, a little child tottered along the deer +path after them, with some vague mistake of identity in its infantile +brain, and Push-koosh, being minded to thus effectively stop its +approach,--“’Tis but a Muscogee,” he said,--Callum placed his pistol +at the Mingo’s temple, and even “the Sinner” threatened reprisal. In +the midst of the wrangle some aboriginal instinct of danger stirred in +the adventurous three-year-old, and after one long dismayed, open-eyed, +and open-mouthed stare, it turned about on its fat legs and took its +tottering flight homeward, too young to recount what it had seen or to +understand what it feared. + +As they neared the southern confines of the Muscogee country the Indian +towns became more frequent, and detection by bands of Creeks coming +and going through was imminent. This was the extreme crisis of peril, +for naught could save the lives of the two British soldiers and their +Choctaw guide if captured in this expedition through the country of +the inimical Muscogees, who now were impatiently awaiting the signal +of their French liberator to rise with all the united Indian tribes +against the English rule. + +Now it was that the individual traits of each of the party were +asserted in such wise as to demonstrate the wisdom of the commandant’s +choice of the personnel of the expedition,--the long-headed Callum’s +cool and adroit adaptation of even disasters to the common advantage, +and his steady endurance in the face of dangers; the resources of +the pluck and experience of the English soldier; the woodcraft, the +knowledge of Indian wiles and Indian counterwiles of the Mingo. The +hardy, invincible courage of all three animated them like a common +pulse, and they clung together now with a unanimity of sentiment that +might hardly have been expected from their earlier lack of all the +sterling qualities that make up good comradeship. Howard had expected +only one of the two white men to endure to the end, to survive the +hardships of the march, the inimical chances of environment, or +internecine strife amongst the three; but the trio were still together +one afternoon when they emerged from the woods on a bluff overhanging +the Flint River on the east, and there lay prone upon the ground, +silent, not so much as moving a muscle, invisible, save to the floating +American vulture circling high in the air in the majestic curves of its +strong flight. The opposite banks were low and fringed with woods, and +beyond and above, the red sunset of the lonely aboriginal days deployed +through the sky like a pageant. Naught broke the infinite stretch of +the wilderness, no shadow of cloud impinged on the glister of the +river. That the foot of man had ever touched these deep reclusive +solitudes only a great mound, artificially constructed, silent, +imposing, surmounted with forest growths nurtured by the summers of a +thousand years, attested his presence, his hopes, his griefs, and the +futility of all. Somehow its outline, imposed with such significance +against the range of purple hills in the distance, stretching afar +off under the red and amber sky, added a melancholy to the languorous +burnished haze, the slow down-dropping of the royal sun, so splendidly +vermilion, and bespoke a mysterious past and a future to come as +unrevealed. + +The air was bland with all the suavity of a southern winter. The +foliage had changed as the successive stages of their journey had led +them on, as though they bore with them some benignant, embellishing +secret that blessed the world as they advanced. No more the ice-girt +bare bough, the sere leaf flying before the blast. The live oak, the +magnolia, the laurel, lifted splendid redundant foliage to glitter +glossy in the sun’s last rays, and the flutter of the paroquets made +the pecans merry. At a distance a palmetto tree stood out against the +sky, all solitary, as if some invisible sandy beach stretched below. +The subtle, alluring fragrance of the anise-tree was filling the air, +and the mocking-bird sang in the eternal spring, elated, even though +the night was coming on apace. + +The woods had grown a gray purple; the river chanted a sylvan rune; a +star came out in the vermilion sky and shone aloft with a clear white +glister; and suddenly in the red and gray and green crystal lines of +the stream an alien sound was borne. + +A sound it was as of paddles, rythmically striking the water. As it +grew nearer, louder, a deer that had led her fawn down to drink on the +opposite shore lifted her head, snuffed the air, stamped with her feet +all together, and with a bound was off, her fawn beside her, a mile +away, while still the concentric circles that her muzzle had stirred in +the water widened to larger circumference, while still the echo of the +fawn’s vague bleat of alarm and surprise floated softly to the bluff on +the summit of which the three emissaries lay silent. + +And at last, rounding a point, came a fleet of canoes, gaudily +decorated, an incident of vivid color beneath the flaring sunset, and +as vividly reflected in the smooth water, tinged with all the secondary +splendors of the evening glow. Beneath an umbrella-shaped fan of +eagle feathers artificially mottled with crimson reclined the French +officer Laroche, recognizable by his keen Gallic features, his arrogant +military alertness of pose, albeit painted and arrayed with all the +aboriginal splendor appertaining to his adoptive state as a great +“beloved man” of the Cherokee nation. His weapons were a silver-mounted +dirk and ivory-handled pistols, while fully armed stalwart Cherokees +officiated as bodyguard and paddled the boat. The fleet shot so swiftly +along that three cautious heads, craftily lifted, with cautious eyes +keenly peering, could with difficulty distinguish the fact that the +other canoes were manned by Muscogees; the song that they half chanted, +half recited, was a pæan of greeting to the beloved officer of the +great French king and compared him with favor to sundry celebrities of +much note and value of their own tribe. + +The three barely waited till this incident of the sunset was past, +seeming in its swiftness, its unreality, some shimmering illusion +of the haze-freighted air; in its wild chromatic grotesquerie, some +necromancy of the gorgeous zenith of amber and red, and the responsive +dream of the mirroring water. Then without one word they rose, struck +off by a short cut through the dank and darkening woods, and night +had hardly fallen before the chief of Hurricane Town, individually +averse to the French interest, was amazed by the trooping in of these +incongruous and irrelevant figures announcing themselves as the +accredited emissaries of Captain Richard Howard, and producing letters +from that officer in support of their assertion, duly confirmed when +read by the interpreter. + + + + + XIX + + +THE crash seemed afterward to Laroche like the fall of a castle of +cards, like the wreck wrought by the wind in the gossamer symmetries +of a cobweb, like a sudden awakening to the conditions of reality from +the allurements of a dream, so potent seemed the force, so tenuous the +fine-spun scheme when all its fibres were rent apart. + +So unprescient had he been! + +It was at _O-tel-you-yau-nau_ (Hurricane Town) that he met his +fate. + +Following the many windings of the river, pausing at sundry villages +by the way to receive the protestations and rivet the adherence of the +gladly harkening Muscogees, he came to his objective point late the +next afternoon. A great black cloud seemed to have accompanied him; in +its midst were vivid darting lightnings, frequent and menacing for a +time, ever and anon showing convolutions of the vapor lighter in hue +and texture, superimposed, as it were, upon the denser darker masses. +Then all was dulled to a uniform consistency of tone and portent. The +huts of the town, the public square, the _chooc-ofau-thluc-co_, +or rotunda, the fields, whence the late harvests had been gathered, +all were overshadowed thus, and the forest surrounding them seemed to +support this canopy amongst its branches. + +From out the town the mico and headmen had come to greet him when as +their heralded guest he had approached. With white swans’ wings they +had gently stroked his face on either side a hundred times or more +as he entered the public square; they had placed him beside the mico +on the great white seat of the chief’s council-room, _mic-ul-gee +in-too-pau_; they had smoked with him the friend-pipe, and the +cacina was brewed. Now and again sudden peals of thunder shook the +earth, and the yellow lightnings illumined the dreary gray stretches +of the forest and cloud and river and the humble little town, all +crouching, as it were, amidst these harbingers of the wrath of the +great elements. + +So confident, so thoroughly at ease was Laroche that he could +not afterward remember when those vague _indicia_ of mental +disquietude first became perceptible in the manner of the mico Padgee +(the Pigeon). The French officer had known that this chief entertained +doubts as to the policy of an intertribal peace, as a constructive +constraint upon the powers and independence of the Creek Confederacy. +Laroche’s mission to Hurricane Town was partly to set at rest these +doubts and to present in contrast the great advantages which the +Muscogees would secure in the aid of all the tribal forces against +the English. Only united strength and united action could avail aught +against British encroachment. The national heads of the Muscogee +Confederacy had formally acceded to this view, but Padgee was a man +of influence, and his unreserved support was desired. A scrupulous +heed the mico seemed to give to Laroche’s talk of the advantages of +the great Indian coalition, which was to be the subject of official +discussion on the morrow upon the arrival of two other chiefs of the +vicinity, whose wavering allegiance he desired to confirm by personal +influence. Padgee seemed to ponder in dubitation upon every head of the +discourse when, the ceremonies of welcome concluded, the two talked +the matter over as they sat apart in the great assembly rotunda. Once +the Indian said that the plan of Iberville many years ago was not then +new. The Muscogee was a union of many adoptive tribes, the great Creek +Confederacy, long before Iberville’s idea of the force of a united +people was ever promulgated. It was the Creek policy,--absorption and +consolidation. It was also the policy of the Six Nations, the Long +House. + +“It is unique and new in its aims and power,” Laroche argued, “the +union of all the tribes for common aggression and common defense, to +maintain aboriginal independence against European intrusion; whereas +the scheme of the Creek Confederacy was to protect Creek interests +only.” + +Padgee made haste to nod his feathered head with a mutter of +acquiescence; then he fixed his eyes attentively upon the circling +figures of the tadpole dance, _Toc-co-yula-gau_, performed by four +Indian braves and four squaws on the hard-trodden floor of the great +assembly rotunda. The shadows duplicated their feathered heads upon the +red painted earthen walls, and beyond the mad whirl of substance and +semblance Laroche could look forth through the great portal opposite +and see the night lowering, purple and black, and note how the storm +gathered and bided its time, while the yellow lightnings now and again +keenly flashed. He began to fancy that some deft hand had sown seeds +of dissatisfaction more formidable in their upspringing than dragon’s +teeth. He was sure some English suggestion had drawn the parallel +between the limited policy of the Creek Confederacy and the universal +brotherhood promised by the union of all tribes. Still more definite +was the echo of an intrusive voice in the councils when Padgee opined, +with many an involution, that he loved old times and old ideas best. +Said they of earlier years,--wiser than the men of to-day,--that it +was well that the British and French should fight each other. Thus the +Muscogees between, courted by both, had much peace--except when it +pleased them to conquer and absorb smaller tribes. + +This was impossible now, Laroche argued, since the Cherokees had joined +fortunes once and for all with the French, who also commanded the +Choctaw allegiance. The Muscogees could not alone maintain neutrality. + +He spoke sharply, and then checked himself that he should be so +definitely nettled. Hurricane Town was at best inconsiderable. Padgee +was not a representative man. To-morrow would bring the important +chiefs whose suspected dissatisfaction could be obviated by conceding +their reasonable desires. This was no official occasion, and Padgee +doubtless was taking advantage of the _tête-à-tête_ to bring +forward his discontents that he might be remembered when lubricating +presents were in order, to make the project run the more smoothly. He +was obviously talking to hear himself talk! Nevertheless, Laroche was +conscious of an increase of impatience when the voice of Padgee, more +like a hawk than a dove, was once more rising on the air with a queer +blending of plaint and discontent and apology. + +He meant no harm, said Padgee. He loved the officer of the great French +king like a brother. But the British goods were well named, being good! +And he sighed, as being loath to relinquish the values of a trade so +long enjoyed. + +Floutingly, as if he hardly cared to reply at all, Laroche averred that +French merchandise was famous for its quality all the world over, and +more than that, it was cheap. + +Once more Padgee caught himself and protested that it was not for him +to say; the Creek national headmen would decide the question. + +“They _have_ decided it long ago,” Laroche interrupted him. + +Certainly, Padgee was aware of that, but he felt the loss. +_O-tel-you-yau-nau_ (Hurricane Town) had been a favorite stand of +the British traders in times past, and the people loved them. + +The long serpentine lines of the lighted cane burning upon the floor +were growing dim, flickering, dying out gradually. The dreary night +without in the quick keen flashes of the lightning was brighter, more +distinct, than the dome-shaped rotunda sinking into shadow. The dance +was over, the place nearly empty of people. Laroche rose suddenly with +a more indubitable monition of treachery. He looked about him for his +Cherokee bodyguard. Secure among friends, he had dismissed them to +enjoy the hospitalities and return the courtesies of their coadjutors +of the new alliance. Padgee, noting the movement, rose too, speaking +very rapidly, as if there were scant time to be lost, while the great +spaces of the _chooc-ofau-thluc-co_ darkened yet more duskily +and the vague lights of the cane trembled to extinction. Outside, the +lightning unsheathed its vivid blades, flashing athwart the sky, and +the thunder pealed and burst explosively and rolled away, muttering, to +the further hills. + +It was a long time, said Padgee plaintively, since a British trader had +been able to ply his kind and beneficent vocation in Hurricane Town for +fear of the martial French at Fort Toulouse; and since the French sent +no traders to the villages, save now and then a mere peddler, slipping +back and forth from his fort, afraid of his shadow, the Indians of +Hurricane Town were often utterly destitute of all those artificial +supplies which they needed, so civilized had they come to be. They were +fit to die of shame should any one observe how far behind the fashion +of the day had they trailed. Only very recently a Chickasaw chief had +come to Hurricane Town in a splendid embroidered suit from a British +trader, and he, the great mico, Padgee, had naught in which to meet him +that was of European manufacture but a cocked hat and a pair of silver +shoe buckles. + +He paused impressively. Doubtless he felt, as one might say in the +artistic jargon of this day, that these articles did not “compose well” +with the rest of his attire, a shirt of bead-wrought buckskin and +leggings decorated with turkey-cock spurs and fawn’s trotters. Laroche +made no reply. Somehow the crisis tingled in his nerves like some +electrical current before the event was precipitated. + +Therefore, Padgee resumed very swiftly, some folk of a town far off--he +could not just say where--had come up to-night to meet the great French +officer and--confer with him concerning the condition of the British +trade. + +Laroche turned upon him. + +“Padgee!” he exclaimed, “is this well? I have eaten your bread, I have +eaten your salt!” + +The mico hesitated at the last moment, but half hearted in his deceit. +Perhaps the appeal to the sanctions of his rude hospitality might have +availed even now, but its force was abrogated by the possibilities. The +British soldiers awaited no longer the preconcerted signal. Military +figures, barely distinguishable in the gloom from other shadows of +the darksome place, were climbing down from behind the tiers of seats +of the primitive amphitheatre; and although one, “the Sinner,” lost +his footing and fell rolling down the descent with great thumps, the +Highlander was upon Laroche so quickly, so powerfully, that his strong +hand stifled the cry for help. + +It was managed with infinite address and secrecy, for the two British +soldiers would have fallen victims to their own temerity had they dared +to show themselves openly and alone, among the Indians, if unprotected +and at their mercy. As to the Choctaw, the mere revelation of his +personality, with a price upon his head, would have meant his death. +Therefore Padgee, armed with his authority as mico, headed the guard +of Muscogee braves, his own attendants, whom he designed to send with +the captors to Fort Prince George, and accompanied them several miles +on the return march. As he had long been inimical to the coalition +so earnestly advocated by the French, this fact was the reason that +Laroche had appointed Hurricane Town as the rendezvous of the lukewarm, +that he might be sure of gaining the ear of Padgee and confirming his +allegiance by argument and the example of others. It had needed but a +word from Push-koosh to acquaint Captain Howard with this important +circumstance, and the British officer in treating with the chief of +Hurricane Town had held out prospects of high advancement. Thereafter +Padgee had no need to complain of the lack of gold and European gewgaws +when visited by strangers; in fact, he was in case to disport himself +with a pride in apparel that might better befit a peacock than the +humble pigeon whose name he bore. + +When the populace outside of the rotunda learned that the great +French “beloved man” had been arrested mysteriously in the British +interest, they received the news with a wild outcry of despair and +muttered threats and even efforts at rescue. More than one, especially +in the neighboring towns, suspected that the indifference of Padgee +to the success of the French schemes might have contributed to the +catastrophe, but none dreamed that the hospitality of Hurricane Town +had been violated, that Padgee had renounced the guest within the gates +and delivered him up to his enemies, to be dragged away by force to a +cruel doom. Hours had passed--indeed it was near day--before the news +transpired, and although the Cherokee bodyguard set out at once upon +the trail of the captors, they soon found that time itself could not +overtake the party. For themselves they were few, unprepared, in a +country bristling with hostile conditions, for the commandant at Fort +Toulouse, as soon as apprised of the catastrophe, sent out a detachment +to attempt a rescue, and the Cherokees feared to be held accountable +for the capture of the French officer as for a lapse of vigilance. They +therefore relinquished the effort, took moodily to their boat, refusing +the tearful condolences of Hurricane Town, and pulled up the Flint +River again, lamenting loudly all the way, to the Cherokee country. + +What thoughts came to Laroche that stormy night as he half toiled and +was half dragged among his captors through the tangled ways of the +wilderness! A thousand vain regrets tortured him. The recapitulation +of events that might have been ordered otherwise trailed in long +sequences through his mind. A vision constantly recurred of a result +so different, seeming so real, that only a slight wrench of will would +be requisite to tear him from this oppressive dream which surely must +needs presently dissolve in obvious fact. + +Nevertheless his intellectual faculties, heedful of cause and effect, +perceived that the flight was ordered with a craft that bade fair +to eliminate all chance of rescue or escape. That they should take +their way to the north or diagonally across Georgia was so obviously +their proper policy that Padgee turned their steps directly to the +south, whence none would dream of following. To increase the distance +more effectually and obliterate the traces of their passage through +the country, he availed himself of his own boat, hidden among the +saw-grass of the marshy borders of a neighboring watercourse, down +which they rowed and drifted out of all calculations of pursuit. Indeed +this deviation took them so far to the south that they could discern +the tang of salt water on the breeze, and hear the voice of the surf +singing the iterative song of the sea. Only then did they disembark and +take up the line of march toward the Savannah River once more. + +Their progress was infinitely laborious; the weather had clouded, +and rain filled the marshes and overflowed the streams. Often a fire +was impracticable, and without shelter, short of food, in terror of +capture, and now and again endangered by faction, the sufferings of the +captors were hardly discounted by the anguish of the prisoner. Only +once did a chance of escape present itself. + +Laroche had observed that the Highlander, now taking command of the +party, according to his orders, studiously prevented any opportunity +for the prisoner to speak apart with any single individual. MacIlvesty +had of course disarmed Laroche and taken from him all such valuables +as might tempt the integrity of the others. + +“Is this a’ your gowd?” he asked. + +“Untie my hands and receive my parole, or else run your own risks,” +retorted the French officer. + +“An’ fine wad I like to do that, but it is contrary to my orders,” said +Callum kindly, “sae I maun e’en look to you mysel’.” + +This he did with a vigilance that showed no possibility of relaxation +till one stormy night when they gained once more the banks of the +Savannah River and found their further progress barred; for their boat, +left there, to serve their return, had vanished. + +It was near dawn when they made this discovery. The rain had ceased +at last, though the clouds were still scudding through the gusty +sky. A late waning moon showed in the east, infinitely melancholy in +the cloud-rack of the tempest. The simple voices of the denizens of +the swamp, overawed to silence by the violence of the storm, resumed +their vague indiscriminate nocturne, the shrilling of a screech-owl, +at intervals the noisy clangor of cranes, and once the bloodcurdling +scream, of a catamount. The party had halted on the crest of a ridge +overlooking the swollen watercourse, lashed to a swifter current +by the turbulence of the wind. The boat, which they had left with +every security in this solitary place, had been yet more definitely +concealed. A tricksy gust had upset it, and in the glimmering light, as +it floated bottom upward, it was not recognized. + +As the two British soldiers patroled the banks, and now consulted +together, and again hastily resumed the search, Push-koosh, standing +near the prisoner, looking backward over his shoulder again and again, +murmured against this loss of time. Then once more he scanned the +woodsy track by which they had come, all glistening with moisture, +and illumined by the drear light of the waning moon. He so obviously +feared a rescue, that Laroche’s heart could but plunge at the prospect. +A heron cried out dismally from the dense cane and marshy tangles +beside the river, attesting the solitude. If but the rope that bound +his hands were cut! The two men on the margin below passed the boat and +repassed it, as held by its sheet-chain tangled about the submerged +roots of a tree, its capsized bottom seemed but a boulder washed by +the ripples as it lay in the shadow. As once more Push-koosh glanced +warily, impatiently, over his shoulder, Laroche suddenly bethought +himself of the peculiarities of his character and the details of their +long service together. There was no mistaking his identity,--it was +sufficiently attested by the contour of his head, with the silver band +on his flat forehead, the red flamingo feathers all tipped with silver +by the moon, and the beautiful tones of his velvet voice as he muttered +his Choctaw imprecations. + +“Ah, Push-koosh,” cried Laroche softly, a vibration of hope and joy +in his tone, “_mon Bébé, mon petit chou! Je reconnais bien ton bon +cœur._” + +Push-koosh turned instantly and looked straight at the French officer. +The moonlight was full in the Indian’s dark inscrutable eyes. + +“There is gold in the bottom of my tobacco bag, Prince Baby,--much +gold. Cut this rope and it is yours!” + +An instant of doubt, and then the Choctaw approached with that sly +supple motion so like the step of a catamount. One stroke of his knife +and Laroche would be free to flee through the marshy forests, while the +two British soldiers and the Muscogee tribesmen hunted for the boat +that was before their eyes, and wrangled till the echoes were loud and +discordant. + +The Choctaw’s touch was laid, not upon the pouch with its treasure +amidst the tobacco that had escaped the search of the Highlander, but +upon the bound hands held out to him with a piteous eagerness of +entreaty. Then looking the captive directly in the eye, Push-koosh +said with an indescribable fullness of significant reminder, “_Eho +chookoma!_” (the beautiful woman!) + + + + + XX + + +THE snow lay deep at Fort Prince George when they returned.[12] The air +was now clear of flakes, invested with that strange absolute funereal +stillness characteristic of the muffled world, but the sky was still +darkly gray and with a menace in its motionless solemnity. The roofs +of the block-houses and barracks showed densely white against the +slate-colored clouds; not even about the great smoking chimneys was a +trace of thaw. The palisades that surmounted the unbroken white walls +of the rampart upheld fluffy drifts lodged among the sharp-pointed +stakes. The glacis was only such a faint outline as might remain in +vague traces of a prehistoric work. The prickly branches of a strong +abatis on two sides of the fort thrust out darkly from the overwhelming +banks like the protest of a buried forest. The thousand stumps, relics +of the encampment of Colonel Grant’s army here the preceding year, were +utterly submerged, and gave more than one of the approaching party a +headlong fall as the two British soldiers, the Choctaw Mingo, and the +Muscogee guard, with their prisoner, all half frozen, dead beat, and +nearly starved, came within view from the gates. The ditch was half +full of ice, solid as a rock, but the heart of the sentry was all aglow +to behold them at a distance, and his jubilant call, “Corporal of the +guard!” reached them as they struggled across the intervening spaces +with the grateful realization that they were not to be kept waiting for +identification, while the last resources of endurance gave way at the +moment of rescue and the portal of refuge. + +A clangor of weapons, keen and clear on the icy air, the tramp of +marching feet, the glitter of steel and scarlet cloth, came to them +through the great gate, following hard on the cry to turn out the +guard. In less than five minutes the red glow of great fires, ardent +spirits unsparingly administered, hot food, and the comforts of +beds and blankets invested the recollection of the struggle through +the snow, the tramp of more than two hundred miles, the dangers and +vicissitudes of the journey with a certain unreality, seeming rather +something they had wildly dreamed, were it not for the testimony of +each to reinforce the memory of the others. + +Exhaustion limited their capacity for expression, but the whole fort +rejoiced in their stead. The news flew abroad like the flocks of +snowbirds all undaunted by the temperature. The tale of the notable +capture was told over and again in the guardroom, in the officers’ +mess-room, in the barracks, and the farrier’s smithy; over the making +of the clumsy cartridges of that day for the little cannon on the +bastions, and around the mending of guns in the armorer’s forge; in the +wigwams of the Indian hunters and camp followers of whatever sort whose +temporary habitations were on the outside of the works; in the Cherokee +town of Keowee, hard by, and at Jock Lesly’s trading-house. Even down +into the depths of the earth to the Scotchman’s subterranean ingle-neuk +it penetrated, and there it found Lilias sitting on a buffalo rug +before the red fire, her hands clasped tightly, her eyes wildly +dilated, pale to the lips, and with her heart fluttering frantically, +painfully, hopelessly, like one of the many birds perishing without, +whose wings, swift though they were, had beat futilely against the +infinite forces of destiny embodied in the storm; for she--and she +only--saw aught beyond cause of gratulation in the capture of the +turbulent French emissary, the destroyer of the peace of the frontier, +the arch-plotter, the organizer of Indian armies, the reconciler of +Indian feuds, the confederator of all Indian tribes into one great +united, potent structure of government financed and armed through +Spanish and French aid, before which British colonial occupation could +hardly stand for a day. + +“Callum took the man! It was Callum, and he maun hae the credit!” Jock +Lesly jubilantly declared as he sat rubbing his hands by the fire, his +snowy match-coat sending up a steam as the drifts melted from it, for +he was just returned from the fort. “Captain Howard is as gleg as a +grig! He hae won his majority by this bit o’ wark, I mak nae dout!” + +“What will be the Frenchman’s name?” demanded Lilias, her lips dry as +she stared, dismayed, startled, forlorn, into the fire. + +“A-weel--a-weel--hinny, and that’s the curious part of it! It’s that +Tam Wilson, the loon we nursed clear of the fever! And I misdoubts it’s +misprision o’ treason, or some o’ thae unchancy crimes--only we kenned +naught aboot him!” And Jock Lesly’s rich rollicking laughter filled the +room. + +“He helped us out o’ the kentry, an’ kep’ Moy Toy frae takin’ our +scalps!” she replied reproachfully. + +Jock Lesly paused to look down at her gravely, his big eyes round. +“Hout, fie!” he ejaculated. “Ony French chiel protect _me_! An’ +frae auld Moy Toy, that I have foregathered wi’ ever since the kentry +was built! Mair likely he spirited up the chief to trouble us an’ +to burn my tradin’-house an’ a’ my gear! It seems to me I jaloosed +su’thin’ o’ the sort at ane time! Na, na, Lilias; if he helped us at +a’, it was lest our murder hurt the French interest an’ set the British +at the Injuns afore the chiels were ready for their bluidy wark.” + +She gazed, deeply serious, at the fire. She too thought this more than +likely, in the light of what she had known earlier, and knew more +certainly now. She gave a long sigh of pity for the captive; but these +were the fortunes of war that every soldier must needs risk, and with +which women had no concern. + +“Na, bairn, na!” her father boasted. “Auld Jock Lesly can tak care o’ +his ain, an’ hae dune it this mony a day! He needna hae Tam Wilson +cluttered up wi’ heed o’ him an’ his! But, lass!” he broke into a roar +of jovial laughter, “to see up yon at the fort the major--hegh, sirs, +it’s for luck that I suld sae miscall the captain--ter see him gloat +ower Everard. He canna be quit o’ glorifying that he tuk him in sae +hard a measure when Everard had him like a bird in a trap.” + +“What for did Lieutenant Everard let him slip?” she asked, turning her +head upward to look at her father’s face. + +“A fule needs no reason, lass, for bein’ a fule, but he wadna believe +Callum, because the lad could urge naething except that the man spoke +French--which Callum himsel’ can do, though that wad never prove him a +toad.” + +“An’ how is it that this captain was sae muckle wiser?” persisted +Lilias. “Lieutenant Everard is a finer lookin’ man than Captain Howard, +an’ his hair curls amaist as weel as mine.” + +“Oh, ho!” shouted Jock Lesly, smiting his thigh in the fervor of his +relish, “that only proves he has the better thatch, not the bigger +house! A-weel, now--a-weel--ilka man suld hae his due! ’Twas not +till lately--an’ Lieutenant Everard was gone--that Callum learned +for _sure_ that the man is French,--for you see the fallow +himsel’,--and he is a fule too, for all his hair curls,--he tauld a +woman that he is French and gave her his name and employ, and the woman +tauld Callum! My certie, in ilka mischief there’s aye a woman at wark!” +Then with a changed note, “Hegh, Lilias!” he exclaimed sharply. + +For Lilias, screaming, had sprung to her feet. It was she--and she saw +it now--who had delivered him bound and helpless into the hands of +his enemy! She cared not for him now as Tam Wilson, but for the awful +responsibility she had taken. Her habitual candor was beaten back +upon her lips by the untoward effects of her recent disclosure. She +restrained with difficulty the child-like impulse to reveal the mystery +to her father, who was alarmed, amazed, agitated. She protested that +the fire had burned her, flinging out a spark, and demanded peevishly +why he must needs be always sending such crackling and splitting +varieties of wood to their hearth in the cave-house. With wisps of his +frowzy light hair falling over his florid face as he bent his head, +he was presently stepping about to find the blazing splinter in the +buffalo rug, and although he now and again desisted, with the comment +“A-weel, it will no set _this_ biggin’ in a low!” he shortly, with +the force of habit, commenced the search anew. + +It was the custom of Lilias to avoid the trading-house, for she was +more fastidious and exacting than her simple opportunities might seem +to imply. But Jock Lesly was by no means poor, and it had been his +delight to lavish such luxuries as in his limited apprehension he +accounted desirable upon his only child, and thus she had been reared +in a degree beyond her station. To-day, however, she was here, there, +and everywhere, listening to the loud jocular comments of a few of +the soldiers from the fort, who were now and again in the store and +disposed to talk of the capture. The transition thence was obviously +to gossip about the prisoner. A hearty, well-favored lad he was, so +they understood from the detail that had captured him. He had given +them little trouble, and they liked him well. He was a proper lad and +active afoot, and bore the hardships of the march finely. They hardly +knew what to do with him at the fort till he could be sent forward to +Charlestown. They thought Captain Howard himself was puzzled as to the +method of his disposition. Certainly,--in reply to a question from +Jock Lesly,--military prisoners, that is, French officers, had been +in times past kept in the hospital, and giving their parole had been +permitted occasionally the freedom of the parade ground. This fellow, +however, was captured out of uniform and without ostensible military +employ, and would be held as a civil prisoner, though they had him +now hard and fast in the guard-house. The talk of peace negotiations +with France would do him no good,--the stirrer-up of savages on the +frontier, just subdued by the English at so great a cost of blood and +treasure, and at peace with the colonies, would never lack for a charge +in Charlestown that would stick. He would be accused of murders, and of +the instigation of those massacres that had already violated the peace +negotiated with the Cherokees. And then one of the soldiers passed his +hand across his throat with an ugly gesture, rolled up his eyes with a +leer, and gave a click of the tongue inexpressibly loathsome, at which, +unaccountably, they all laughed. + +Lilias, hovering about among the swaying fabrics depending from the +beams, turned sick and faint. She it was who had done this, in her +foolish inadvertence thinking that all was now known to Callum,--she, +who had the man’s secret that she had promised never to tell--nay, he +had voluntarily trusted himself to her honor! + +Her face was drawn and white. The chill of the day was in her heart. As +one of the Indians whisked a hand mirror into which he was gazing with +gurgling rapture at his hideous countenance, she caught sight of her +own reflection, so wan, so appealing, so agonized, that she braced her +nerves anew that her face might not betray her grief, although she felt +at the end and hoped naught. + +A number of the braves of the Muscogee escort who had participated +in the march subsequent to the capture of the prisoner had repaired, +although exhausted and half drunk, to the trading-house as inevitably +as the needle to the pole, and were engaged in delightedly rummaging +such of its trifles as were accessible. They were meeting with special +welcome at Fort Prince George, at the officers’ quarters, the barracks, +the kitchen, the trading-house being generously treated, their +services having proved available in so serious an emergency. Naturally +with such subjects, their instinct was to impose upon this disposition, +and to magnify the obligations it betokened. + +“Haud a care, Dougal,” Jock Lesly charged the under-trader. “Thae +chiels covet ilka bawbee’s worth in the house, an’ Providence +permittin’ I suld like fine to save the roof!” + +Perhaps it was this absorption that caused him to be more oblivious of +Lilias to-day than usual, though even in its midst he had a heedful +notice of her. “Hegh, lass,” he stopped her once in passing, “but ye +hae a’ the snaw in your face the day, an’ your bonny blue e’en are a +wee dreary. I misdoots the climate here wi’ a’ its changes an’ cantrips +isna suited to ye like Charlestoun. Gae doun to the fire in the ha’ +house; it’s warmer there.” + +When she quitted the trading-house he did not know. She was all alone, +attended only by the old collie, who would not be driven back, although +she childishly pinched his ears and pulled his tail and put him to all +the pain she could. Her visit to the fort was a very distinct surprise +to Captain Howard and contravened his impressions of her hitherto. +Being a man of about forty-five years of age, and having daughters of +his own far away, he entertained rather strict ideas of the becoming +in maidenly conduct. It may have been her own natural dignity, or the +arrogance of a girl reared beyond her station, or the indifference of +one perceiving the raw material of suitors apparently inexhaustible +in the garrisons of the frontier, but she had been hitherto somewhat +unapproachable by the men at the post, averse to those of the ruder +social level of her father’s daughter, and suspicious and cold to +those above. Therefore when she cast upon Captain Howard a smile, the +radiance of which might have thawed out all Fort Prince George, he was +mystified and expectant. + +Her first words, however, put him at ease as he sat at the table in the +orderly room with an ensign opposite and two or three noncommissioned +officers with their reports standing at attention. + +“I’m fu’ glad to catchit you at your wark, Captain,” she said with her +most dulcet intonation, swaying the half open door, and looking against +the snowy expanse of the parade without like some clear fine painting +on a pearly surface. “I wad like ill to harry ye out o’ your hour o’ +ease, wi’ a’ thae bodies,” she glanced about at the orderlies and the +sentry and a squad of men outside, “to weigh sae heavy on your mind.” + +She hesitated as she stood in her puce-colored serge skirt, from which +the snow dripped, a heavy red rokelay thrown around her, and one of +those “screens,” half shawl, half veil, worn by women in the lowlands +as well as the highlands of Scotland, brought over her head in the +muffling manner usual in wintry weather. Beneath its loosened folds +her golden hair, her pink and white dimpled face, her glittering teeth +and red lips, showed captivatingly, and Captain Howard must have been +something more than military and human had he not offered her a chair. + +“I canna sit, for I hinna a moment,” she replied, but she came toward +the fire, and an orderly, mindful of the blast, promptly shut the +door as she relinquished her hold upon it. “I wad hae sent somebody, +but thae chiels of Injuns are fair crowding out the packmen at the +trading-house, and my daddy winna spare a man to leave there till the +Muscogees are far awa’--twal mile or more.” + +Her eyes twinkled alluringly, in ridicule of auld Jock’s thrifty bent, +and Captain Howard smiled responsively. + +“Sae fur the lack of a better messenger I maun e’en do my ain errand. +You see, Captain,”--she leaned against the back of a chair, and he +opposite, having taken a seat with the anticipation of her acceptance +of his proffer, gazed at her expectantly,--“the soldiers are making +much o’ Callum, an’ my daddy is looking after the Muscogees, an’ I was +minded to consider that naebody is like to care much for the prisoner. +So knowin’ you hinna too much beddin’ gear at the fort, an’ the weather +bein’ freakish cauld, I thought I wad roll up a blanket or twa an’ some +furs for the creatur’s bed.” + +He was surprised for a moment, vaguely suspicious, doubtful. + +“Just for a loan, ye maun understand,” she stipulated primly. “When the +weather breaks I sall look to hae them a’ again.” + +This thrifty afterthought was so characteristic of Jock Lesly and his +household that the officer’s mind instantly cleared. He remembered +previous instances of such thoughtfulness on her part, but manifested +then toward the hospital. Indeed in a passing illness he had himself +been the pleased recipient of wine whey, arrowroot gruel, mulled port, +chocolate, and calves’ foot jelly. + +He hastened to express his appreciation of the timeliness of her +offering. “The usual arrangements are somewhat scant for such weather, +and I have no doubt it is needed. The guard-house prison has no fire, +and it must be pretty chilly there, though there is a great chimney in +the next room.” + +“Will ye no look at the gear?” She produced from under her cloak a +bundle compactly made up, from the edges of which otter fur showed. + +The officer politely waived the precaution. + +“Not at all necessary.” Then somewhat wearied with these details, which +the fairest face could not commend for indefinite contemplation,--at +least to one having attained forty-five years,--“Will you be so good as +to give them to the orderly? Nevins, take them to the guard-house.” + +But Lilias, turning upon the advancing soldier, clasped her bundle in a +closer clutch. “I’m no sae clear that the prisoner-body will e’er see +them--an’ sall I get them a’ again? Thae bit duds are unco gude,” she +added, as if loath to part from them. + +The soldier reddened to the eyebrows under this imputation, and the +officer, disillusioned of his admiration by this crafty, untimely, +ignoble, unfounded suspiciousness, sought to rid himself of the whole +affair. + +“Take them yourself to the prisoner, then, and count them before +leaving them, so that you may be sure of having them all returned. +Baker, see to it that the sentry at the guard-house passes her.” + +As she went out, “‘Aye be getting and aye be having,’” he quoted, “a +chip of the old block.” He said this as if to himself, but aloud, +partly to assuage the lacerated feelings of the man whom he had called +Nevins, and as if her suspiciousness were not a personal flout, but +merely appertained to the cautious thrift of her canny Scotch nature. + +The guard had turned out upon the advance from the woods of a +considerable body of Indians, who, however, proved to be only +neighboring tribesmen without organization, but eager and curious +concerning the excitements at the fort, of which they had heard in the +adjacent Cherokee town of Keowee. They were not to be permitted to +enter, as they evidently desired, but their pertinacity to this end +detained the officer of the guard for a few minutes, while he sought +to pacify them by giving them authentic details on those points about +which they were most inquisitive. Meantime the guard, lined up, stood +in a glittering rank of scarlet and steel on the snowy spaces just in +front of the gate. + +The guardroom was thus empty when Lilias, admitted by the sentry at the +outer door of the building, made her way with hasty, disordered steps +through the apartment. She hesitated at the inner door for an instant, +not recognizing the beating of her own heart, which at first she +mistook for some turbulent alarum outside, drumming the whole garrison +to arms. The next moment she plunged into the room, and there was Tam +Wilson! oh puir Tam Wilson! so pinched, so blue, so cold, sitting in +this frostbound cell, with his head upon the table, and his face in his +hands,--all his plans congealed in this hard freeze of fate and dead +like other transient blooms of the year under the snow. + +As he looked up at the sound of her step, he recognized her upon the +instant. A faint wan smile quivered in his face. He was about to +speak, but she laid her finger warningly upon her lips. Then with one +hasty glance at the closed door behind her, she tore her bundle open +and rushed at him. She had another skirt such as she herself wore--of +brown serge, but little to choose between the shades--and slipped it +over his head in one moment. Then as she vainly sought to make her +slender waistband meet about his middle, although he too was slim, +she commented in a whisper, “My certie! to be built like a cask! I’ll +een pin it in the plaits, but it will no hing straight in the hem!” +She doffed her red cloak to throw it about him; her screen was on his +head, and realizing her intention, he could but kiss her hands as she +adjusted it under his chin, muffling his face and shoulders as she had +herself worn it, and taking the precaution to pin it here and there. +“For ye’ll get it aff afore ye are to the woods if I dinna haud a +care; an’ once in the woods by the river ye’ll find under that big +crag a canoe, an’ below the seat a gude store of food an’ wine. An’ +to Charlestoun, lad, straight down the Keowee River and the Savannah +an’ out to sea! Some French ship will tak ye up, I mak nae doubt. The +pursuit will set the other way--to the Cherokee country.” + +“And you?” + +“Never fear! I’ll bide here--safe--amang my friends. Walk like me if ye +can; but be aff, callant, if ye luve your life!” + +She sank into his chair; and mercurial though he was, he could +scarcely take up the rôle with the spirit with which she had laid it +down. As he opened the door into the guardroom he saw that the soldiers +had not yet returned. He barely glanced at the sentry whom he passed +on the outer step; and although the notice of the soldier was but the +casual attention of recognition and expectation, he felt the man’s +look as if it had been red-hot steel laid on a tender nerve. He walked +down slowly into the snow, blessing its depth that should make any +eccentricity of gait, except a long stride, seem the incident of its +impeding medium. In meeting the guard halfway returning from the gate, +he had but to mince modestly along, not lifting his eyes, the screen +drawn quite over his face; and since Miss Lilias was an uncommonly tall +woman and the Frenchman of but medium height, the difference was not +immediately apparent. + +A sudden swift rush behind him just before he reached the gate--that +great envious portal that barred him from all his world, from safety, +from life itself--and he felt that he must drop here in the snow and +die, if so happy a fate as a death thus he might crave. + +He had not had time to cry aloud in terror, in nervous stress, in +absolute despair, when the pursuing presence whizzed past, then +returning, leaped and fawned and wheezed about him with such evident +blissful recognition that if Miss Lilias Lesly had no other point of +identification to the eye of the sentry it would have been supplied +in the jovial manner of her companion, the faithful old collie. The +soldier presented arms as her semblance passed, to which extravagant +compliment the figure returned a bow of marked courtesy, and then +followed over the snow the frantically bounding collie, that was fairly +frenzied with joy to see and recognize anew, despite his feminine +frippery of attire, his friend of auld lang syne, Tam Wilson; for +the instinct of the collie was not so limited an endowment as the +intelligence of the sentry and the main guard. + + + + + XXI + + +IN her after life Lilias often reviewed her sentiments as she sat +there in the blue cold, with that curious suggestion of grit in the +air common to a low temperature, the repulsion to the dust of the +place more pronounced and apparent to the sensitive finger-tips than +if it were summer. She had wrapped herself in the otter-fur mantle +that she had carried in view of the relinquishment of her red rokelay +to the fugitive. Presently she put both feet on the rungs of the chair +and crouched forward like some tiny animal, her golden hair barely +glimpsed beneath the light brown tints of the fur. Sometimes she put +her blue hands to her mouth to feel how chill they were, and blew her +warm breath upon them; then again she clenched the trembling fingers +and drew her mantle closer. How cold it was! How had he endured it! It +might be colder still on the river, but he was speeding toward freedom, +and there was genial warmth in the mere suggestion. How cruel men were +to each other! And he was but obeying the behests of his government, as +Captain Howard regarded as sacred every scrawl that reached him from +headquarters. + +Now and again the sounds from the guardroom caught her attention,--a +tramp of feet with a measured swinging gait, a snatch of song, and +presently a droning deep voice going on and on, as one should say for +an hour or more, with but little interruption, telling a long story. + +How cold it was! how cold! She wondered how long she could sustain +it. The longer she sat here in her wrap of otter fur the farther he +would be on his way down the Keowee River. If only she could know +that he had made good his escape! that she had atoned for the dreadful +evil she had wrought in revealing his secret! Then indeed she would +be happy! In liberating him, she argued, she had promoted no massacre +of women and children. If aught that he had planned threatened them +it was frustrated, for he was off and on his way out of the country, +and she had aided his flight, nay, made it possible. If only she could +know that he had won the river bank and found the canoe! Down and +down the Savannah he would paddle the canoe, and a man in buckskins, +the usual garb of the country,--for he would soon doff the woman’s +habiliments,--would attract no attention from casual observers on +the banks; and some night--some dark night soon--he would float +out of Charlestown harbor, and finally be picked up by some French +man-of-war or merchantman, so many there were then in the southern +waters. The pursuit would undoubtedly take head in the opposite +direction. Few would imagine it safer to flee directly toward the +enemy’s stronghold rather than from it. They would follow him back +into the Indian country, where he had friends, influence, the French +prestige--a thousand reasons to command succor and concealment. But to +Charlestown--into the lion’s mouth? In this instance the lion slept +with his mouth open. Somehow she was sure no one would think of this +resource but herself. She would give him all the time she could, a good +start ahead of all possible pursuit. Six hours it might be, if she +could so long endure the cruel cold, before the noise of his escape +should be bruited abroad. The noonday meal was just concluded. The +British soldier was presumed to eat no supper; at least, only two meals +were furnished him, except on the frontier, where to content him the +better, perhaps, on the theory that the road to his heart lay through +his stomach, a third was served. This came a little before the hour of +retreat. She wondered if the prisoners shared in this extra refection. +She had an idea that then at all events she must needs call in the +guard; she would be able to endure it no longer. + +As she sat crouching and still in the only chair of the bleak and +bare apartment, her attention was attracted by a crystalline tinkle +against the glass of the window. She thought it must be snowing +afresh. Presently she rose, stood upon the chair, for the window was +exceedingly high, to be out of the reach of any enterprising prisoner, +and then she stepped noiselessly upon the table. Looking upward through +the grimy glass she could see the whirl of dizzy flakes against the +sky. A tumultuous storm it was. A man fleeing through it would be +invisible. It would render pursuit impracticable, so long as it should +continue. Her heart gave a great throb of triumph. The afternoon was +wearing on. The light was dulling fast, and unless a barricade of ice +should impede the flow of the river these few hours’ start would mean +freedom to a man fleeing for his life! + +Reassured, invigorated, she stepped slowly, softly down from the table +to the chair, and then from the chair to the floor. She seated herself +anew in silence, in loneliness, muffled to her eyebrows in her otter +furs, and listening to the gay snatches of song about the great flaring +hearth in the guardroom. + +And it was cold, it was very cold! + +During the afternoon Jock Lesly decided to tramp over to the fort. +He had a desire to compare views with Captain Howard and expatiate +on the incident of the capture, so full of import to them both,--to +the soldier as representing the military element, and the trader +the mercantile interests of the post. He had scarcely stretched out +his smoking boots to the fire, seated in the officer’s comfortable +quarters, than Captain Howard introduced the subject of the weather +in reference to the prisoner, intending to thank the trader for the +consideration he had manifested in sending blankets to the fort, in +view of the arctic temperature. + +“We ought to consider our obligations to the helpless,” said the +officer, “but, as far as I am concerned, Gad, sir, I’m kept so short +for funds that it is often like letting a faithful soldier and servant +of the king go cold in order to house and blanket and warm some +miscreant enemy to the whole community.” + +“Ou, aye, weel,” said auld Jock, a trifle out of countenance, “I’m +obleeged for your sarmon, sir. D’ye mean ye think I ought to blanket +an’ mainteen the king’s prisoners at bed an’ board?” + +“No, oh no,” exclaimed the officer. “I only meant to thank you for the +blankets and furs and so on that your daughter brought over to-day, +kindly bethinking herself of the likelihood that the prisoner would +be neglected. In truth we have been surprisingly short, and if the +soldiers were not young and strong and had not a good deal of red blood +in their veins, I should expect to hear that some of them had frozen +stiff.” + +“Wow, man, to be plain, I never heard o’ thae blankets afore!” Jock +Lesly confessed. “The lassie helpit her nainsel’, as she has a perfect +right to do, and I sall ne’er say her nay. All my gear an’ hoardings +will be hers ane day. An’ I doubt not she’ll find some feckless +ne’er-do-weel of a husband ter fling it a’ awa’. But it’s hers, it’s +a’ hers. I wark for nane else, but,” with an anxious pause and a keen +glance, “did ye notice whether it was the lamb’s wool or the yowe’s +wool blankets that the bairn had?” + +“I did not see them at all,” said the officer hastily. “I only assured +her that she should have them all back safe, and bade her distribute +them to her own satisfaction.” + +Jock Lesly rose to his feet. This was a topic on which he could not +rest in uncertainty. She might give away the blankets as she would, but +his curiosity as to which quality she had seen fit to take actually +burned him. He presently went tramping across the parade, and Captain +Howard, looking after him smilingly, little dreamed of the errand that +was to bring him back again. + +The dull dreary evening, with the snow still dizzily whirling, was +closing in. Indeed but for the ghastly illumination of the reflection +from the snow on the ground, it would now be dark. The peaked roof of +the trading-house looming up among the flakes before Jock Lesly knew +that he was near it, so stanchly he strode through the deep drifts, was +of a benignant aspect to his mind, and he loved it. As he sounded a +whistle, that Duncan or Dougal or whatever henchman awaited his coming +should perceive his arrival and admit him to the domestic fortress, +he noticed how the smoke was flaring up from that flue of the chimney +devoted to the hearth so craftily hidden below. His heart warmed at the +thought of his ingleside in his subterranean home. + +“I hinna seen my bairn a’ the day but by a wee gliff here awa’ an’ +there awa’. If the lassie were in Charlestoun now I couldna believe +it,” he said to himself as he heard the clatter of the bars falling +within. “I’ll mak her sing some o’ thae auld sangs the nicht, when her +voice sounds sae like her mither’s, an’ then me an’ the gillie-packmen +an’ Luckie Meg will a’ sing the chorus an’ drink some flip. An’ it can +snaw an’ sleet, an’ the wind can blaw an’ bleat, an’ awa’ doun there by +the red ingle-neuk we’se never ken it at a’.” + +Nevertheless when he was inside and the door secured anew, he said to +the under-trader, who stood swinging the lantern, “Dougal, whilk o’ +thae bales o’ blankets did Miss Lilias open the morn,--the lamb’s wool +or the yowe’s wool? An’ how mony did she send to the fort?” + +Dougal Micklin opened his eyes wide. “Neither the ane nor the t’ +other!” he exclaimed jealously. “An’ what for suld she send blankets to +the fort?” + +But Jock Lesly would not believe this. Had he not the word of the +recipient of her bounty, that is the commandant of the fort,--and he +truly thought that Howard must have suggested it!--that she had given +him the trader’s blankets to wrap up his prisoner? + +“For whether it’s the lamb’s wool or the yowe’s wool, they are baith +verra gude, and ower gude to be given awa’ gratis,” Jock Lesly +argued. “For sic-like emergencies we brought them out frae Carolina, +not for the summer time! We forecast that cauld weather might catch +thae carles at the fort without kiver, and Captain Howard might buy +them, not beg them. He is the commandant of his majesty’s fort, not a +gaberlunzie man! It’s his bounden duty, even suld it cost him a wee +penny o’ thae short funds he bleats about, to protect his captives +frae suffering frae the inclement weather as a humane man, and as a +commandant it’s in the reg’lar way o’ business. I never heard o’ sic +a request onless it was made o’ Providence. We’se a’ ask Providence +for _onything_,--even to forgie us our debts that we made +oursel’s,--an’ I’ll be bound Captain Howard wad say, ‘Forgie us our +debts, _an’ interest on same_!’” + +He began to laugh satirically, then became suddenly silent, for as the +lantern swung before a row of shelves, the light revealed the blankets +in question, duly baled, with not a cord cut nor a fold shaken out. + +He did not wait for the under-trader to complete a laudatory account of +them, upon which Dougal had launched out as if he sought to sell them +to auld Jock himself, but which was purely mechanical, declaring that +they were of a fine quality and a heavy weight and could not be had +cheaper in Charlestown, notwithstanding the great expense of carriage +to the trader; that they were no designed for the Indian trade but for +such gentles as might-- + +“Be at the fort an’ afeard o’ freezin’,” interrupted Jock Lesly +sardonically. “But thae gentles would rather warm their taes at a +guinea than in a blanket that they have to pay for, man! ‘Forgie us +interest on same!’” And down Jock Lesly went upon the rungs of his +ladder and into his ain ha’ house. + +Very cheerful it looked. The supper was already on the board, the +hearth swept, and the fire flaring. The little flax-wheel at which +Lilias sat so often at night was at one side, silent and motionless, +and great buffalo-skins lay before the hearth. No lamp glowed from the +little chamber beyond, and Jock Lesly stopped short at the sight of the +black darkness within. + +“Where is Miss Lilias, Luckie?” he asked of old Meg, busied in brewing +the tea. + +“I dinna ken,” she replied casually; then looking up, she added, “In +the tradin’-house maist likely. She has been flittin’ in an’ out a’ the +day, except for the last twa hours or sae.” + +“There is not a soul in the trading-house!” cried Jock Lesly, with a +sudden cold clutch at his heart. + +Snatching a candle from the table he quickly searched her little +chamber, the passage, the anteroom, all in vain! It was but a small +place after all, this ha’ house, and easily traversed. + +Then he called her, his great rich resonant voice sounding from ceiling +to floor, from wall to wall, evoking a train of echoes, and alack with +so grievous a tremor in it that in listening the tears could but start. +The gillies, the under-trader had scoured every nook and cranny in the +trading-house and found naught. They looked at each other with white +scared faces, each repeating in astonishment at intervals, as if they +could not credit the marvel, “She isna here! She isna here!” + +Jock Lesly, with an awful sense of responsibility, thought of his wife, +dead so long ago,--had he thus discharged the sacred trust of the care +of their only child! + +There was not a moment to be lost, although perhaps hours had +already been wasted. Jock Lesly’s stanch courage rallied to meet the +emergency. All his life hereafter he might expend in grief, but the +present belonged to Lilias, and every force it could compass should be +consecrated to her service. He plunged through the whirl of snow, still +falling in the dense darkness; the tears that had poured unrestrained, +unheeded, shed unconsciously down his white cheeks, froze upon them, +and tiny icicles trembled upon his eyelashes. But he did not sob; his +breath held steady; his teeth were set, his every nerve was tense, +controlling his great physical strength that it might better seize +any opportunity of her rescue. The under-trader distinctly remembered +having seen her early in the afternoon returning from the fort and +walking with her collie toward the river. The collie had since reached +home, and with this testimony that she was no longer in the securities +of Fort Prince George they gathered the little group of packmen +about them in a close squad, and looking grimly to the priming of +their pistols they forcibly searched the Muscogee camp just outside +the works, thinking those troublous half-drunken wights might have +intercepted her as she came from the fort with the intention of holding +her for ransom when the terror at her disappearance should be at the +maximum. + +Although taken by surprise and obviously astounded by the accusation, +the Muscogees could furnish no information, and their camp betrayed +not a trace of her presence. This hope dashed, the party followed +successively every glimmering _ignis fatuus_ of a possibility that +each could suggest; one remembered that a settler’s wife had a child +named in compliment “Lilias,” and as it was suddenly ill and near to +death, she might have visited it; another recounted the fact that an +old Indian woman near Keowee fascinated her with antiquated fables, +which she valued and loved to hear; another, upheld by superstition, +insisted on repairing to Keowee to consult the cheerataghe and have +them work a spell to reveal her whereabouts; and while this was in +progress Jock Lesly required the headmen to search the town and the +adjacent series of Cherokee habitations, once almost consecutive, +from Kulsage (Sugar Town), about a mile above and even at that time +extending far down the valley, toward the site of Sinica, burned by +the British during the Cherokee War. Hours passed in these fruitless +efforts, and at last, when each lure had finally flickered out in the +darkness of despair, Jock Lesly turned again as a final hope to the +fort. He would consult the last man who saw her there, the sentry at +the gate, for perchance she might have expressed to him some inkling +of her intention to go elsewhere than home. The gillies all eager, +zealous, plunging through the drifts followed him; now and again +they fell over the submerged stumps of the clearing and wandered out +of their course and far afield, but Jock Lesly as if by instinct +avoided every impediment, and albeit the whirl of flakes obscured all +intimation of that blended glimmer and hazy aureola that were wont to +mark the site of the fort by night, he reached the gate as unerringly +as if the bastions, the barracks, the flag on the tower of the +block-house were flaunting in the bold light of day. + +None was so swift as he of all the light young fellows, but a moment +after the sentry’s challenge rang upon the chill night air he heard the +ice of the broad moat crack with a great splash, as Duncan, mistaking +the direction of the gate, fell into the frozen water of the ditch, +and much splutter and torrid exclamations as he scrambled out. The +noise attracted the attention of the sentinel in the tower of the +block-house, and the sharp report of his musket, as he fired a warning +into the air, brought out the main-guard before the corporal could +reach the sentry at the gate. + +In another moment there was a great commotion upon the parade, +erstwhile so dark and silent. A shifting of lanterns here and there +threw long cone-shaped shafts of light down the snowy expanse, +illuminating in limited sections a log building near at hand, with its +drift-laden eaves and window-sills, and all the atmosphere a silent, +palpitating mysterious motion as the flakes still whirled. The glitter +of the scarlet and steel of the armed guard, its expectant aggressive +mien, its quick tramp and alert bearing might seem to offer a sort of +reassurance with its note of ready confidence. And indeed Jock Lesly’s +hope revived, albeit the jaunty military manner of the young officer of +the day was at variance with his anxious intent troubled face, revealed +by the lantern held aloft that he might descry his visitor’s care-worn +white lineaments. + +“Help you to find a trace? See the last man who saw her? That must be +the sentry at the gate--and the next, the prisoner himself.” + +As to learn from the officer of the guard the name of the sentinel +who had been posted at the gate at that hour and since relieved was a +work of more or less time, the interval could obviously be employed +in interrogating the prisoner himself as to the possible intimations +of her immediate intentions that Lilias might have expressed when +she quitted his cell. The permission of the commandant would be +necessary,--but here suddenly was the commandant himself, roused from +sleep by the stir, and with his voice kind and reassuring. + +“Never fear, dear fellow,” he said, passing his arm fraternally through +the quaking Lesly’s, “we’ll find her if we have to search the Indian +country inch by inch. They’ll never dare to harm her, for they will +hold her for ransom. I can feel for you, for have I not two daughters +of my own?” + +But as they strode together through the guardroom, with its flaring +fire and its tramping, thronging, military inmates, and opened the +inner door to the dark and chill military prison beyond, Captain +Howard’s sentiments fell far the other side of friendly, for there, her +golden head pillowed on the hard table, her mantle of otter fur drawn +close about her ears, her feet perched upon the rung of the chair, +sat fast asleep the trader’s daughter, while the great flakes of snow +jingled crystalline and keen against the glass of the window, and the +dark hours merged deep into the mid-glooms of the night. + +And Captain Howard’s valuable prisoner was gone! His prisoner--whom +valiant men had risked their lives to secure. His prisoner--whom +hundreds of miles of cruel forced marches, privations incredible, and +dangers unnumbered had brought at last to his door. His prisoner--whom +other commanders had tried in vain to take, for whose capture many +other plans of specious wiles had failed and fallen short. His +prisoner--on whose triumphant delivery to the military and civil +authorities in Charlestown his majority depended. This prisoner--gone, +gone! And in his stead, in his secure cell with not a bar broken, not +a sentry bribed, no vigilance relaxed, was a girl, just awakened, half +frozen, all bewildered and beginning to cry. + +Jock Lesly caught the officer’s first outburst of dismay and surprise +and rage as a man might a blow, putting up his arm to guard his face. + +“Hegh, Captain,” he said, his hand clasping the girl’s as she cowered +and blinked before the light that coldly fell upon the bare walls, the +high window, the dusty floor, all infinitely bleak and gloomy. “I’se +gae nae furder in a’ this gear! Let but the bairn get to the fire! I +confess! I’m bound to confess! My heart can haud sic a care o’ deceit +nae langer! ’Twas me that planned to liberate the callant! I sent the +lassie here to win ye by a trick an’ to turn him loose drest in sic +gear as hers an’ to tak his place. ’Twas _me_, Captain, an’ I +surrender!” + +Great as were the variant urgencies of the situation, the cold coerced +the group mechanically toward the fire in the guardroom, and they stood +on the broad hearth, the soldiers withdrawing a few paces to give them +space. The glittering muskets had been all stacked anew; the open door +showed a broad lane of light gleaming down the snowy parade outside, +the flakes still madly whirling. Captain Howard in his hastily assumed +military uniform, with his ungartered hose wrinkled and loose, and +evidently unconscious that he still wore a red flannel nightcap with +a queer tassel, had a touch of the grotesque, in contrast with the +dapper perfection of the ensign’s regimentals with his up-all-night +expectation as officer of the day. All looked in dismay, in growing +anger, in gathering doubt at Jock Lesly. + +The trader stanchly returned their gaze. The shoulders of his great +match-coat were covered with snow, which was beginning to drip as it +thawed with the heat of the fire, and he held pressed close to his side +his golden-haired daughter. She was fully awake now, and looking out +with alert, wide-eyed expectation from her mantle of otter fur drawn +partially over her head. + +“Jock Lesly,” cried the captain, “you are lying! Why should you, always +a loyal subject, with the interest of your trade dependent upon the +preservation of the peace with the Cherokees, set free this turbulent +Laroche, this stirrer-up of strife along the frontier?” + +“Ou,--ay,” said Jock Lesly, holding up his chin and gazing about him +speculatively as if he looked for his inspiration in the air, “a’ that +is verra true; but this lad hae eat o’ my salt up in the Tennessee +country, an’”-- + +“You are lying!” cried the officer angrily, “and if you were not, it +would be as much as my life is worth to tell you so, even with my guard +around me! You know, and I know, that the child did it of her own +accord,--and for what, missy? Why did you liberate the man?” + +“Ye’ll no ask the bairn questions, Captain Howard!” interposed Jock +Lesly angrily. “I stand here ready to tak the responsibility an’ answer +for the deed! The lassie is no accountable for what she says! She’s +cauld, half starved! I surrender! I surrender! It’s no the lassie’s +will that brought her here! I sent her! ’Twas me, her cruel father! She +is cauld! I surrender! I”-- + +“I let the prisoner out!” said Lilias suddenly, and her voice rang in +that grim guardroom like some sweet string of a harp, keyed so high +above any vibrations to which it was accustomed, yet rich and resonant +with its fullness of tone. “I let him out because he was betrayed by my +word. I tauld Callum MacIlvesty that he was French, for he had avowed +it to me; but I was thinkin’ then ’twas known to a’ the warld, an’ sae +Callum MacIlvesty tauld you, Captain Howard, that he was no Tam Wilson, +as Lieutenant Everard took him to be, but French, and ye sent to tak +him. An’ now since I hae nae treachery to answer for,--for _I_’m +no keeper o’ the guard-house here,--I’ll gae to gaol or where ye will +wi’ a free heart. I care na for naught!” + +She turned her face and golden head against her father’s great snowy +coat as he once more futilely ejaculated, “The bairn’s cauld! it’s gey +cauld weather! and she disna ken what she is sayin’!” + +But Captain Howard, after an eager consultation aside with several +officers of the garrison, summoned by the unusual commotion, and +a survey of the conditions of the raging storm, returned to the +questioning of Lilias. + +“And at what time did this happen, mistress? What hour was it when you +saw fit to turn the king’s prisoner loose upon the country?” + +“Five minutes scant after you gave me leave to speak wi’ the callant; +an’ after he was gone I stude the cauld as lang as I could, thinking +to gie him a fair start, an’ then I drapped aff in a wee bit nap. It’s +ower cauld comfort ye gie to your puir prisoners, Captain Howard.” + +“And what direction did he take?” the officer asked eagerly. + +“Ah-h!” she cried, her red lips showing her white teeth, her nodding +head setting her golden hair to glimmering beneath the brown otter fur, +her eyes shining with triumph, “it’s _him_ that didna say! He is +the sodger-man to keep his plans in the sole o’ his boot.” + +Her father pressed her head smotheringly against the folds of his great +coat. “Whist, hinny, whist!” he exclaimed vacuously; “I surrender, +Captain! I surrender! The bairn’s but a bairn when a’ is said! She kens +na what she is sayin’; an’ I mak nae doubt, too, she is tellin’ lees.” + +“I make no doubt that _you_ are telling lies!” said the captain in +despair. + +For with full ten hours’ start, the escaped prisoner, himself a +military man of much experience, of tried courage, of crafty resource, +and moreover singularly well acquainted with the conditions of the +country, could set at defiance any pursuer who should enter upon the +chase in darkness, in intense cold, in a furious snowstorm, and in +absolute ignorance of the direction which the fugitive had taken. The +passage of the night with the late wintry dawn would add some seven +hours to the fair start she had contrived for him. The commandant +was nettled by the consciousness that this advantage might have been +somewhat abridged by a trifle more precaution; for although no supper +was served the prisoner, he being expected to reserve such portion as +he desired from his dinner for that purpose, as was the habit, for +which an allowance was duly made, the cell had been visited by the +officer of the day when making his rounds. The girl was still soundly +sleeping, and doubtless did not hear the opening of the door as the +officer of the day unlocked it and glanced in. It was already dark, and +by the faint glimmerings of the lantern held outside for him by the +corporal accompanying him upon his rounds, he saw the bare walls and +floor, and in the single chair a muffled figure leaning upon the table, +presumably asleep or plunged in deep dejection, the head bowed upon the +arms. It never occurred to him that this shadowy presence in the bleak +gloom could be other than the exhausted and travel-worn prisoner, whom +he did not wish to rouse unnecessarily. The officer’s duties were many +and pressing at this hour and called him elsewhere. Therefore, closing +the door and turning the key, he thought no more of the captive till he +saw the golden head of the changeling when the mystery was revealed. + +Captain Howard, who had given the girl access to the cell, could ill +accuse the subaltern of neglect of duty, and the commandant himself +could hardly have been expected to guard against masterly strategy in +the quarter whence it had emanated. + +Messengers were presently ready to start out with the first intimation +of a lull in the storm or the peep of day to warn all the Cherokee +towns of reprisal should they dare to harbor the fugitive, for that +Laroche would return to the friendly Cherokee strongholds hardly +admitted of a doubt in the mind of Captain Howard. He had not +sufficient troops at command to awe the Indians into surrendering the +fugitive, but he hoped that the passive force of the treaty and its +advantages, otherwise annulled, might avail. + +Captain Howard was a man of magnanimity. Even with the cup of +well-earned success dashed from his lips he had the good feeling to +pity the father,--his own daughters were far away in England,--as Jock +Lesly continually ejaculated, “_I_ surrender, Captain! The wean’s +no responsible! _I_ surrender!” + +“Jock,” he said, “you need not forswear yourself. We all know that +you would not have jeopardized the fair interests of the Indian trade +for all the Johnny Crapauds who ever passed the tongue of a buckle +through a sword-belt,--not even if instead of your salt he had eaten +your whole station! Miss Lilias Lesly here, for reasons seeming to +herself good and fitting”--he cast upon her an acrid glance--“set the +man free,--for which she is under arrest, and”--intercepting a wild +bleat of paternal protest--“will remain so in your ain ha’ house under +your watch and ward; and we have no doubt she will be produced when +summoned, and you will give your faithful recognizance to that effect.” + +He was reflecting that it would answer every purpose to detain the +girl thus, for while her punishment might result should the matter +continue of importance, it would otherwise hardly be contemplated by +the colonial authorities in view of the unpopularity of such a step. + +Jock Lesly was in such haste to sign and seal a paper betokening this +clemency that he could hardly hold the sputtering quill; and during +this solemn ceremony the irrepressible Lilias broke out laughing with +hysterical glee, and requested Captain Howard to put into a wee corner +o’ that paper the promise he had given her that she “suld hae a’ thae +blankets that were ne’er brought to the fort, afore the sodgers suld +steal them a’.” + +“Thae bit duds were unco gude duds,” she remarked fleeringly of these +immaterial comforts. + + + + + XXII + + +CALLUM MACILVESTY had been soon at Jock Lesly’s side to afford him +such succor and countenance as was possible under the circumstances. +He asked for leave to aid him in transporting Lilias, so stiff with +the cold was she, back to the cave house, where she sat on the buffalo +rug before the flaring fire, her glittering hair all tumbling about +her shoulders, her eyes shining with triumph, and laughing with gay +outbursts of flattered joy to learn how wretched they had all been +because of her absence, and how wrong and wicked they esteemed her +sudden arbitrary release of the prisoner. + +“_I_ amna sorry,” she protested, “except for that the callant hae +on my gude red rokelay, an’ my best puce-colored serge gownd, an’ my +gude murrey screen, wi’ only ae wee tear in the weft o’ it,--an’ I’se +warrant I’ll no see a’ that braw gear again!” + +It was Callum who sought to impress her with the magnitude of the +offense that she had committed, for Jock Lesly cared for naught else on +earth save that she was safe and sat once more on the rug before the +blazing fire of the ha’ house. + +“An’ what care I how far ye went an’ how hard ye fared to tak him, +Callum!” she cried indignantly. “Gin I hadna tauld you the callant +was French, you wad ne’er hae kenned it. An’ ye tauld yon Captain +Howard--that bluidy-minded chiel! I wuss he was in his ain cauld +tolbooth to freeze stiff like my nainsell!” + +“Whist, whist, hinny!” remonstrated Jock Lesly. “Callum wadna hae tauld +the lad was French had he kenned you wad wuss to keep it secret; wad +ye, Callum?” + +With this direct appeal the Highland soldier, sitting in his armchair +opposite Jock Lesly at the fire, with Lilias between them on the rug, +gazed steadily into the glowing coals. He could not evade the question. + +“Yes,” he answered, “I wad! I wad ha’ tauld e’en if Lilias had bid me +keep a quiet sough aboot it!” + +“Na, Callum! surely na!” exclaimed Jock Lesly irritably. “Ye wadna vex +the bairn!” For Lilias had lifted her head with its wealth of flaring +hair, and was gazing at Callum with intent, questioning, speculative +eyes. “Ye care too muckle for Lilias for that!” Jock Lesly prompted him. + +“I care more for my oath, for my duty, than for any lassie alive!” +protested the blunt soldier. + +There was a moment’s silence, while the fire roared and the smoke +rushed up the chimney into the wild wintry storm without, of which they +here heard naught. Jock Lesly, with a knitted brow, filled his pipe and +said no more. Callum, his glass poised upon his knee, gazed steadfastly +into the flames, and Lilias, with dewy, gleaming eyes fixed upon him, +suddenly exclaimed, as if in delighted reminiscence, “Ou, ay, that was +what Tam Wilson said! His oath, his honor aboon a’! No woman’s wile, no +woman’s smile could win him awa’! Ah, the leal heart he had! That is +what Tam Wilson aye said!” + +“I care na for Tam Wilson, nor for what he said!” declared the dour +Callum glumly. + +“Not the ane you kenned!” cried Lilias. “_This_ Tam Wilson ye +never saw!” + +The Highland soldier thought the cold and excitement and anxiety had +shaken her balance a trifle. + +“But Callum,” she persisted, “suppose it wad gar me like you better if +you had hid that the puir lad is French?” + +“I wadna hae dune it! I wadna hae hid it!” He shook his head sadly, +and her father stared at him in amazement. Inch by inch he teemed +renouncing his chance for the girl’s good graces. + +“A-weel, a-weel,” she said slowly. “But since a’s come an’ gane, an’ +the march was for naething, an’ the prisoner is flitted, an’ I was +frozen wi’ cauld an’ misery, an’ am like to be sent to Charlestoun to +answer for my crimes, ye can say now, lad, that ye are verra sorry that +ye disclosed my gossip to your officer, an’ ye wadna do it again if it +were to be done anew! Ye will say that?” She looked at him with keen +expectant eyes. + +“I wad do it all the same,” he protested deliberately. Then, “Lilias, +why wad ye torment me wi’ a’ these questions? They tear out my heart!” + +“I sall ne’er forget it!” she cried. “Ye did it against my wull. An’ +now ye say that if ye had the chance anew ye wad e’en do it agen, +though I suld _hate_ ye for it!” + +“It’s my oath, Lilias! My duty! I canna look to you instead o’ thae +great obligations. I suld do it again an’ again, whate’er ye might say +or feel, an’ keep my oath till death!” + +She suddenly broke out laughing afresh, in shrill sweet ecstatic joy. +“That Tam Wilson! Wha wad think! That Tam Wilson at last!” + +She seemed enigmatic to them both, but they hardly had space to read +the riddle, for Callum, recognising the passage of time, sprang up to +return to the fort before his limited leave expired. He ran briskly +up the ladder with Jock Lesly clambering after him to take down the +barricade to let him out, and to secure the bars subsequent to his +exit. There was still fire upon the hearth of the great trading-house, +and a dull red glow suffused its dusky brown spaces. It was only as +Lesly turned to close the door of the counter that he noticed that +Lilias, agile enough despite the congealed condition she so graphically +described, had followed also, and after the soldier had sprung down +the front steps and strode off through the snow the two, father +and daughter, stood for a moment gazing into the vast dark stormy +wilderness, permeated by the sense of silent unseen motion in the +whirling flakes, of which only the nearest were visible in the red glow +of the dying fire from within. + +“Hegh, come, bairnie, we’se e’en steek the door,” Lesly said. + +The lantern in his hand showed her face to be all sweetly smiling. She +was looking into the blank voids of the snowy gloom and carrying first +one hand and then the other to her lips with an engaging free curve and +tossing each toward the wilderness. + +“And what now?” he demanded, staring owlishly down at her in amaze. + +“Just throwing a wheen kisses to Tam Wilson,--oh puir Tam Wilson! Wha +wad hae thought he wad e’er win hame agen!” + +“Wow!” said her father glumly. “Tam Wilson!--drat Tam Wilson, I say! We +hae had an unco pother ower Tam Wilson, now!” + +But she ran in ahead of him laughing in great glee, and he overheard +her in her little chamber while she disrobed for bed talking about Tam +Wilson and Tam Wilson to Luckie Meg, who answered acquiescently to +whatever she said, “Ou,--ay! I’se warrant!” and apparently gave scant +heed, even if she heard at all. + +For some weeks Callum MacIlvesty felt anew that he was admitted into +a sort of Paradise in frequenting the ha’ house, albeit his heart was +sore. The rescue that she had planned and achieved for the prisoner +at such risk and suffering to herself argued much for the strength of +her attachment to Laroche, and this forbade hope even when hope seemed +most possible. She herself was so gay, so whimsically cheery, so blithe +about the hearth, where the Highlander loved to sit as of yore with her +father. She noted Callum’s depressed mien, and ascribing it to the +fruitless result of the long laborious march and triumphant capture, +argued that he had done all that he could and more than any other man +would, his whole duty, and the sequence was the affair of Captain +Howard,--and then remarked most pertinently that if she were that +officer and had no better a tassel to a nightcap than that frayed thing +he sported in public at the guard-house, she would resign from the army! + +In order to prove that Captain Howard had himself sustained no +damage in the loss of his notable prisoner, she cited the fact that +the war with France was now over, cessation of hostilities had been +announced on the 21st of January, and since the treaty had been signed +in February, it had become known that the French forts, Toulouse, +Tombecbé, Condé, were to be surrendered as early as English officers +could be detailed to receive the transfer. All prisoners were to be +released,--among those specially demanded she had seen in the Gazette +the name of Lieutenant de Laroche,--already escaped though he was! + +But all this, though so prettily urged, did not suffice to lift the +gloom that weighed on Callum’s mind. He was soon to say farewell, to +rejoin the Forty-Second, to go he knew not whither, nor when to return! + +It was one day when he was thus a-mope, as Lilias was wont to describe +his state of mind, that Callum discovered her secret, if so candid an +emotion can be so called. The ha’ house had fallen into its ancient +habitudes cannily enough, as if sorrows had never menaced it, and +Lilias in her brilliant blue gown with roses scattered adown its white +stripes sat at her wheel spinning as heedfully and dexterously as if +she had never fashioned toils of more significance. Callum on the +settle, his arms folded, his head a little bent, gazed into the red +coals. All that he had once hoped, nay expected, was annulled by the +sentiments implied in her release of Laroche, and the resentment she +had expressed toward himself for revealing aught that she had told +him, albeit she had not bespoken secrecy. Therefore he experienced +a revulsion of feeling so complete, so acute, as almost to resemble +pain in its breathless keenness. He had suddenly lifted his eyes and +caught hers fixed upon him with an expression he had never seen in +them before, wistful, smiling, yet serious, and deeply tender. His +heart gave a great plunge and every nerve was tense. He rose, and +still looking at her, as if he feared she might vanish like some +lovely dream, advanced across the hearth. He sat down beside her in +her father’s chair, still seeking to read--the dullard!--the obvious +mystery of the sapphire light in her eyes. + +“Lilias,” he said clumsily and all tremulous, “have you something to +tell me?” + +“I trow not!” she exclaimed, her face roseate with smiles and blushes, +but giving a lofty nod of her golden head. “I was thinking, man, you +may hae something to tell to me!” + +“Ah, Lilias, I hae tauld it sae often!” he cried bewildered. + +“An’ sae you are tired o’ telling it?” she retorted. “Eh, sirs, to be +tired sae early!” + +“I can never be tired of telling it, Lilias, if only you will listen to +it,--how I love you more and more day by day!” + +“It’s just as weel, then,”--she cast a radiant smile upon him as +she bent anew to her wheel,--“for I expect to listen to it--that +is--whiles--at orra times--when I hae naething better to do--as lang as +I live.” + +It was not in Callum’s scheme of love-making to suggest the suddenness +of this acceptability of a suit so long urged. Luckie Meg herself could +not have assented more acquiescently than he in every detail that +Lilias chose to propound. It was only once, in the course of those long +sunless afternoons in the cavern, with the red glow of the fire about +them and the impenetrable walls to fend off the alien world so far +away from their consciousness, when all their talk was of their mutual +experience of the sentiment that swayed them, what each had felt and +thought, that Callum showed symptoms of rebellion--being informed that +she looked upon him and he might consider himself as “Tam Wilson.” + +“But I will not!” cried Callum, ready to put the question to the +torture at once. Jealousy is not so easily vanquished. Indeed it hardly +dies even under the heel of victory! + +“Not the ane that you knew,” she stipulated. “Just ane auld love o’ my +ain! He wad put his oath before all. An’ he loved a woman well, but +honor mair! an’ he had no deceit nor guile in his heart (though I hinna +forgot about your report to Captain Howard, neither, an’ I’ll sort ye +weel for it some day), an’ he had no false nations nor false tongues +(he had mickle ado to speak his ain), an’ no false names (‘Tam Wilson’ +bein’ laid to him because he was sae like ‘Tam Wilson’). An’ I suld hae +kenned ye earlier for him,--though your hair hae aye got a place that +is streakit wi’ brown an’ lighter brown an’ I think it wadna show gin +it were brushed backward,--but I aye loved the look o’ ye, only I never +saw ye put to the test, and sae I thought ye were just plain ‘Callum +McIlvesty.’ But now I ken ye are Tam Wilson!” + +And smiling at him with lips so joyous, so red and sweet, Callum +yielded the point and assumed in this wise the sobriquet which +personified her girlish ideal. + +Still it nettled him grievously. She might have called her ideal +“Callum.” + +“Whist, lad, whist,” said her father to him one day, “an’ I’se tell ye +something ye will ne’er find out frae her.” + +Then with much solemnity, with circumspection, he pulled out a paper +from his wallet, to which he could not have paid more respectful and +close attention if it had been a schedule of prices current. It was a +letter from Laroche, dated on the French man-of-war L’Aigle, and was +addressed jointly to Jock Lesly and his daughter. It was an offer of +marriage to Lilias, and begged that they would fix a date to meet him +in Charlestown, where the ceremony might be performed by both Catholic +and Protestant clergy. It set forth his rank, means, and expectations, +which were very considerable, and gave references which were both +accessible and unimpeachable. + +“An’, lad,” said Jock Lesly, looking owlishly at Callum while leaning +over the counter at the trading-house where he had driven so many +bargains, “seeing that she is my only child, and that ensigncy of +yours is gey far to seek, and this man is a sure enough lieutenant, +not o’ red Injuns but of the French army, and is a chevalier or a +sieur,--there’s no rebate on that,--and has lands an’ a château and +some income, and the lassie seemed fond o’ him on the Tennessee, and +here she set him free when they had him by the heels at the fort,--why +I downa say, but I advised her--weel, to marry the fallow, when we go +down this spring, an’ gae to live in France. It’s far awa’, is France, +but they hae gude glimmerings o’ sense about their weaving there. I hae +seen some gude camlets frae France, an’ ye ken there’s no place like +Lyons for silk--though that’s na for my trade neither.” + +Callum’s heart sank for the mere consciousness that his happiness had +trembled in such jeopardy. “And what did she say?” + +“Lilias?--why, she said ae sentence, ‘He isna Tam Wilson!’ Sae, lad, if +ye will be advised by me, ye’ll be Tam Wilson as near as ye can find +out how!” + +About this time an ensigncy was secured for Callum through his family’s +influence, and when he returned shortly to Charlestown he met there +Everard, who was in a state of exuberant and facetious triumph in the +manner of the escape of Captain Howard’s prisoner, having earlier +eluded him also, and who was the first to congratulate the young +Highlander upon the attainment of his commission and the near approach +of his wedding day. For in the early summer Callum and Lilias were +married in Charlestown and sailed away, leaving auld Jock still deeply +immersed in the problems of the Indian trade. These problems became +much simplified by the withdrawal of the French from the country, +and soon the Cherokees began to present those curious symptoms of +degeneracy which seem the inevitable incident of the first stages of +civilization, an interregnum, so to speak, which ensues upon the last +vestiges of the ancient status. Thereafter they were only formidable +locally and in small predatory bands, and represented no more a +definitely organized menace to the British provinces. In the course of +some years a great happiness and source of pride fell to the lot of +Jock Lesly. The reversal of the attainder had restored the chief of the +ancient house of MacIlvesty to his pristine position with others of his +kinsmen of minor rank. By reason of several deaths Callum MacIlvesty +succeeded to a baronetcy, and Jock Lesly, despite his quondam bluff +expressions of scorn of a title, found its taste exceedingly sweet as +applied to his daughter; he was proud too of Callum’s rise in the army +through successive promotions for gallant conduct in the field. + +“He smacks his lips ower ‘Captain Sir Callum an’ Leddy MacIlvesty’ as +if the words were fitten to eat,” Dougal commented dourly, “an’ somehow +he says ’em fifty times a day!” + +There was another who heartily rejoiced in this advance of fortune when +it came to his ears, for Lady MacIlvesty’s beauty and what were called +her “eccentricities” made her of some social note in her day. Laroche +had loved the girl very truly for herself, and although he had sought +to look upon her rejection of his suit as in a certain sense an escape +for himself, in view of her humble station, her plebeian father, her +simple education and limited experience, and their incongruity with his +objects of ambition and the sphere of his association, he could not +entertain the reminiscence without a keen sentimental regret, albeit +blended with tender pleasure to know that the world had gone well with +her. He too had reached, as he deserved, promotion, and at no small +danger, as the sabre slashes received in the hand-to-hand warfare of +that day, and which disfigured his bland handsome face, might betoken. +He lived several years after his retirement from active service. One +who had known him in those halcyon days on the Tennessee River might +hardly have recognized him later, so scarred, gray-haired, wrinkled, +and very thin he had become,--a mere rack on which to hang his +decorations and the ribbons of his orders. He had always been esteemed +a man of unique ability, and his conversation was long valued by the +judicious in the cafés and salons of Paris which he frequented. When he +reached the discursive and reminiscent stage of advancing age, often, +as the night would wear on in a choice company, he would discourse +of high themes of national possibilities, and regretfully rehearse +disastrous phases of the country’s past that had fallen within his +personal knowledge,--of the great territories that France had developed +and forfeited; plans of empire that she had failed to utilize; strange +peoples of martial values who had sought her protectorate in vain. Then +he would revert to his own life among them,--reciting details of their +curious customs and mysterious antiquity; telling thrilling stories of +personal adventure, now of an escape from the menace of the torture and +the stake, and now of his release from the trebly guarded stronghold of +a British fort by the aid of a beautiful English lady of rank who loved +him and whom he adored. + +And although as he grew older and his audiences younger they believed +this unnamed English lady of rank to be entirely apocryphal, the tear +was obviously genuine with which he sweetened his glass as he told that +she was dead now,--years ago--ah yes--dead! + +“_Il y a une autre vie! C’est une belle espérance!_” he would +sigh, for he was always deeply religious. “But alas, that the sweets of +this life are transitory!” + +And presently he would be talking of the triumphs of engineering +possible in that vast America. Sometimes he would trace out on the +tablecloth with the aid of the scroll-like pattern of the damask the +outline of the great bend of a river which he affirmed had singly +saved that country to the English and reft it from the French, as +its extraordinary obstructions to navigation prevented all adequate +conveyance of munitions of war to the Cherokees, who held the balance +of power. He would mark off the canal which he had purposed to +build in the fullness of time, and the site he had selected for the +barrier towns to guard the region of the portages, necessary to evade +the obstructions, as a temporary substitute. The technical terms +of the oft-told tale, the abstruse calculations of the elaborately +demonstrated problem, would finally wear out the interest of his +auditors; they would slip away one by one, and leave him bending over +the table, gloating upon the symmetrical possibilities of his plan, +bewailing its untimely frustration, seeing, instead of the blank cloth, +that rich new land with its gigantic growths of primeval forests and +those dizzy whirls of turbulent waters, that stretch out miles and +miles impassably, where even now, despite the advance of modern science +and the exorcising appropriations of Congress, the devils, _hottuk +ookproose_, still dance in the riotous rapids and sing tumultuously +as of yore. + + + + + NOTES + + + + + NOTES + + +[Footnote 1: Page 4. A detail of the incidents of this visit to the +king in London and the consequent impressions made upon the minds of +the Indians would be of much interest to the student of civilization. +It is to be regretted that Lieutenant Henry Timberlake of Virginia, +who accompanied the Cherokees to England, should have devoted so great +a space in his “Memoirs” of that event (published in London in 1765) +to plaintive accounts of his wrangling with governmental officials +concerning his reimbursement for sundry expenses on their account, +with which it seems he burdened himself without sufficient warrant, +and to the effort to repel the insinuation that he undertook the +enterprise of conducting them thither for his own personal profit, as +impresario so to speak; for the people of that city pressed in hordes +to see them, many of the nobility as well as citizens of lower rank, +and some, evidently without the knowledge of Lieutenant Timberlake, +paid for the privilege. Beyond the strange dirge-like chant which +Ostenaco sang on landing; their indifference to the architecture of +the Cathedral of Exeter; their terror of the statue of Hercules with +uplifted club which they saw at Wilton (they begged to be taken away +immediately); their relish of the entertainments at Ranelegh, Vauxhall, +and especially of the pantomimes at Sadler’s Wells; their admiration of +the youth, personal beauty, and affability of the king, there is naught +to indicate their attitude of mind. A contemporary account, however, in +the “Annual Register” for 1762 gives a personal glimpse of them. + +“Three Cherokee chiefs, lately arrived from South Carolina, in order +to settle a lasting peace with the English, had their first audience +of his majesty. The head chief called Outacite or Man-killer, on +account of his many gallant actions, was introduced by Lord Eglinton, +and conducted by Sir Clement Cottrell, master of ceremonies. They were +upwards of an hour and a half with his majesty, who received them +with great goodness, and they behaved in his presence with remarkable +decency and mildness. The man who assisted as interpreter on this +occasion, instead of one who set out with them, but died on his +passage, was so confused that the king could ask but few questions. + +“These chiefs are well-made men, near six feet high, their faces and +necks coarsely painted of a copper colour, and they seem to have no +hair on their heads. They came over in the dress of their country, +consisting of a shirt, trowzers, and mantle, their heads covered with +skull-caps and adorned with shells, feathers, earrings, and other +trifling ornaments. On their arrival in London they were conducted +to a house taken for them in Suffolk street, and habited more in the +English manner. When introduced to his majesty the head chief wore a +blue mantle covered with lace, and had his head richly ornamented. +On his breast hung a silver gorget with his majesty’s arms engraved. +The other two chiefs were in scarlet, richly adorned with gold lace, +and gorgets of plate on their breasts. During their stay in England +of about two months they were invited to the tables of several of the +nobility, and were shown by a gentleman, appointed for that purpose, +the tower, the camps, and everything else that could serve to impress +them with proper ideas of the power and grandeur of the nation; but it +is hard to say what impression these sights made upon them, as they had +no other way of communicating their sentiments but by their gestures. +They were likewise conducted every day to one or another of the places +of amusement, in and about London, where they constantly drew after +them innumerable crowds of spectators, to the no small emolument of +the owners of these places, some of which raised their prices to make +the most of such unusual guests. Here they behaved in general with +great familiarity, shaking hands very freely with all those who thought +proper to accept that honour. They carried home with them articles of +peace between his majesty and their nation, with a handsome present of +warlike instruments and such other things as they seemed to place the +greatest value on.”] + +[Footnote 2: Page 5. The Indian phrases given in this volume are +studied from sources as nearly contemporaneous as may be with the +events herein narrated, both for the sake of verisimilitude and because +of the multitudinous changes to which the aboriginal languages have +since been subjected, for the purpose of classification in view of +the diverse orthography of the earlier philologists, which varied, of +course, according to nationality, French, German, or English. + +It is interesting to note the differing estimate of the value which +the learned place on this singular jetsam and flotsam of the seas of +Time. The study of the aboriginal languages, apart from historical +considerations, possesses great interest in the revelation of “new +plans of ideas,” as Monsieur Maupertuis felicitously phrases methods +of grammatical construction. “The Greek is admired for its compounds, +yet what are they to those of the Indians!” exclaims the eminent +philologist, Mr. Duponceau. “What would Tibullus or Sappho have +given to have had at their command a word at once so tender and so +expressive--_wulamalessohalian_, ‘thou who makest me happy’? How +delighted would be Moore, the poet of the loves and graces, if his +language, instead of five or six tedious words, had furnished him with +an expression like this in which the lover, the object beloved, and the +delicious sentiment are blended and fused together in one comprehensive +and appellative term. And is it in the language of savages that these +beautiful forms are found!” + +And yet in the learned work on America by Mr. Edward John Payne of +University College, Oxford, still in course of publication, it is +stated that “the majority of these languages, if not absolutely +the lowest in the glossological scale, are as near the bottom as +the student of the origin of speech could well desire.” Of their +polysynthetic features, which Mr. Duponceau so much admires, Mr. +Payne speaks as of merely bunched words, regarding the holophrase as +the primitive and simplest form of ignorant language, which in the +development and weight of meaning is broken finally, producing in its +disintegration parts of speech. + +Lord Monboddo, in his “Origin and Progress of Language,” founding his +opinion partly on the testimony of Father Sagard’s work, “Le Grand +Voyage du Pays des Hurons,” says of the Huron language, “It is the +most imperfect of any that has ever been discovered;” whereas Mr. +Duponceau finds it “rich in grammatical forms,” and permits himself the +expression “pompous ignorance” in alluding to the conclusions of his +learned confrère. + +The fact that Dr. Adam Smith as well as Lord Monboddo perceived in the +tendency to incorporate in one word the meaning of a whole sentence an +evidence of barbarism induces Mr. Duponceau to support the contrary +opinion with “a lively example from Suetonius, _Ave Imperator, +morituri_ (those-who-are-going-to-die) _te salutant_. Since it +has been discovered that the barbarous dialects of savage nations are +formed on the same principles with classical idioms, it has been found +easier to ascribe the beautiful organization of these languages to +stupidity and barbarism than to acknowledge our ignorance of the manner +in which it has been produced.” + +Humboldt says: “It is acknowledged that almost everywhere the Indian +idioms display greater richness and more delicate gradations than might +be supposed from the uncultivated state of the people by whom they are +spoken.” Adair, who had forty years’ personal experience among them, +writing in 1775, claims that their languages give evidence of culture +and scope of expression impossible to have originated with uncivilized +tribes such as they were found. A singular circumstance concerning the +“syllabic alphabet,” presumed to have been invented by the Cherokee +Sequoyah (John Guest) about 1820, would imply an origin at a far more +ancient date. A stone engraved with this character was found by an +agent of the Bureau of Ethnology in 1889 lying under the skull of a +skeleton buried in an Indian mound, with every evidence of antiquity, +on the north side of the Tennessee River, in the immediate vicinity +of one of the old Cherokee towns. This is of more special interest as +Adair and also Buttrick, in his “Antiquities,” record that the Indians +always claim to have once had scriptures, or a book, which for their +sins they had lost to the white race. May not these quaint characters +bear some relation to this tradition? + +The “particular plural” for “we,” which it seems occurs in all these +languages, even found in the extinct Taensa dialect,--concerning the +genuineness of the grammar of which so much interest was elicited +some years ago on its publication, edited by Messieurs Adam and +Parisot,--seems hardly worth the discussion bestowed upon it, as +parallels exist in so many modern European languages,--_noi altri_, +_nous autres_, _nosotros_,--and even the vernacular may offer a +counterpart in “we-all” and “we-uns.” + +Lord Monboddo’s idea, first presented to his attention by the blind +poet, the Reverend Thomas Blacklock, “that the first language among men +was music,” has an interesting suggestion of confirmation in the speech +of the Cherokees as described by Timberlake. “Their language is vastly +aspirated, and the accents so many and various you would often imagine +them to be singing in their common discourse.” Bartram says of the +sound of the Muscogulge (Muscogee) language, “The women in particular +speak so fine and musical as to represent the singing of birds.” +Gayarre states that the word “Choctaw” means “charming voice,” and was +hence applied to the tribe.] + +[Footnote 3: Page 8. A letter from General Sir Jeffrey Amherst dated +Albany, August 13, 1761, gives a particularized account of these +destructive measures. “The country would have been impenetrable had it +been well defended. Fifteen towns and all the plantations have been +burned; above 1400 acres of corn, beans, and pease, etc., destroyed; +about 5000 people, men, women, and children, driven into the woods and +mountains, where having nothing to subsist upon they must either starve +or sue for peace.” + +The fury of these measures after resistance had ceased is partly to be +explained as retaliation for the Cherokees’ breach of faith during the +preceding year, in the massacre of the garrison of Fort Loudon after +its capitulation, while on the march to Fort Prince George under the +safe conduct and escort of the principal chiefs. All the officers, +including the commandant, the unfortunate Captain Paul Demeré, fell +in this indiscriminate slaughter except one, Captain John Stuart, +who escaped and was afterward rewarded by a crown office for his +courage and constancy in the siege. He was of the family of Stuart of +Kincardine, Strathspey, Scotland, married into a South Carolina family, +and previous to the American Revolution lived in Charlestown, where +was born his son, who became an officer in the British army, General +Sir John Stuart, Count of Maida, winning the signal victory of Maida +over the French general Reynier, in Calabria in 1806. The garrison +of Fort Loudon has a special interest as the first military force of +civilization giving battle on the soil which is now Tennessee, its +earliest sacrifice in the cause of human progress.] + +[Footnote 4: Page 13. Several of the elder writers describe such +clever pastimes among the Indians. Timberlake records that while in +the Cherokee country he witnessed this favorite pantomime, as well as +another equally diverting, called “Taking the pigeons at roost.”] + +[Footnote 5: Page 31. It is said that the Indians when discovered had +among them no methods of ascertaining weight, and bought and sold +exclusively by measure. Hence the incongruity of this locution in their +speech has furnished an additional argument to the supporters of the +theory of their Hebraic origin, suggesting an idiomatic survival of +forgotten customs.] + +[Footnote 6: Page 56. So extreme and well founded was the prevalent +terror of the torture by the Indians that once captured no immediate +sacrifice was too great to evade the grimmer possibility. General David +Stewart of Garth gives an instance in this region among the British +troops at this time. “Montgomerie’s Highlanders were often employed +in small detached expeditions. In these marches they had numberless +skirmishes with the Indians and with the irregular troops of the enemy. +Several soldiers of this and other regiments fell into the hands of +the Indians, being taken in an ambush. Allan Macpherson, one of these +soldiers, witnessing the miserable fate of several of his fellow +prisoners, who had been tortured to death by the Indians, and seeing +them preparing to commence the same operations upon himself, made signs +that he had something to communicate. An interpreter was brought. +Macpherson told them that provided his life was spared for a few +minutes he would communicate the secret of an extraordinary medicine +which, if applied to the skin, would cause it to resist the strongest +blow of a tomahawk or sword, and if they would allow him to go to the +woods with a guard to collect the plants proper for this medicine, +he would prepare it and allow the experiment to be tried on his own +neck by the strongest and most expert warrior among them. This story +easily gained upon the superstitious credulity of the Indians, and +the request of the Highlander was instantly complied with. Being sent +into the woods he soon returned with such plants as he chose to pick +up. Having boiled these herbs, he rubbed his neck with their juice, +and laying his head upon a log of wood desired the strongest man among +them to strike at his neck with his tomahawk, when he would find that +he could not make the slightest impression. An Indian, leveling a blow +with all his might, cut with such force that the head flew off to the +distance of several yards. The Indians were fixed in amazement at their +own credulity and the address with which the prisoner had escaped the +lingering death prepared for him; but instead of being enraged at the +escape of their victim, they were so pleased with his ingenuity that +they refrained from inflicting further cruelties on their remaining +prisoners.”] + +[Footnote 7: Page 84. The disposition to compete for the Cherokee trade +had earlier been the occasion of much remonstrance from Governor Glen +of South Carolina to Lieutenant-Governor Dinwiddie of Virginia during +their respective incumbency. The vexed question then seeming set at +rest was revived later by Lieutenant-Governor Fauquier of Virginia. In +his allusion to the subject, Jock Lesly possibly included Lieutenant +Henry Timberlake of Byrd’s Virginia Regiment, who had recently been on +a visit to the Cherokee country, quitting it in the early spring, on +March 10, 1762. But it is only fair to Lieutenant Timberlake to say +that the Indians were pressing him to induce Virginia to open a trade +with the Cherokees.] + +[Footnote 8: Page 182. Timberlake uses the spelling “Kanagatucko;” the +name appears otherwise signed to the Articles of Capitulation of Fort +Loudon, but of course in each instance the spelling is phonetic.] + +[Footnote 9: Page 244. This incantation is an extract from one of the +most singular of the ancient Sacred Formulæ of the Cherokees collected +by Mr. James Mooney for the Smithsonian Institution.] + +[Footnote 10: Page 282. The title of Emperor of the Cherokee Nation +was conferred by British authority on Moy Toy through Sir Alexander +Cuming in 1730, but this proved no hindrance to the chief’s acceptance +of the same high title under the authority of the French government +in 1736 through its emissary among the tribe, Christian Priber, a +German Jesuit. Adair recounts some details of the latter’s efforts to +materialize Iberville’s old scheme of unifying the Indian tribes, which +were similar to the experiences in the same emprise of the earlier +emissaries, and the futile ventures of Baron Dejean, Louis Latinac, and +Laroche a score of years later.] + +[Footnote 11: Page 336. The history of the Indians is not a little +complicated by the repetition of their names from one generation to +another and of their war-titles, sometimes to be differentiated only +by the names of their respective towns as a suffix, as Outacite (the +Man-killer), of Citico, or Quorinnah (the Raven), of Huwhassee. Even +their sobriquets are not to be relied upon for further identification. +Another Mingo Push-koosh flourished among the Choctaws a generation +earlier, and was the half brother of the celebrated Shulashummashtabe +(Red Shoes), who is himself often confounded with the chief of the +Coosawdas, also known as “Red Shoes,” long afterward, being active in +Indian politics as late as 1789. The Choctaw “Red Shoes” enjoyed great +esteem among the British, as did also the Cherokee “Little Carpenter” +(more accurately translated as “Superlative Wood-carver”), in whose +honor, indeed, an English ship was named and a British stronghold, +before the Cherokee War, Fort Atta-Kulla-Kulla.] + +[Footnote 12: Page 368. The climate of this southern region at this +period seems to have won some renown for its extremes. An officer’s +letter from Fort Prince George, dated January 9, 1761, says: “I have +been several winters in the north of Scotland and do not think I +have ever felt it colder there than here at this time; the snow is +in general three quarters of a yard deep, attended with very sharp +frosts.” As to the summer temperature, Governor Ellis has left it of +record in a letter to John Ellis, Esq., F.R.S., dated Georgia, July +17, 1758, that he thought the inhabitants of this section “breathed +hotter air than any other people upon earth.” He takes pains to state +that he made his observations with the same thermometer that he had had +with him in the equatorial parts of Africa and in the Leeward Islands. +Hewatt, the historian, ventures to protest, albeit deferring to the +accuracy and learning of the erudite and traveled governor, and says +that the mercury never so far exceeded the bounds of reason in South +Carolina, and implies that he believed that these eccentricities were +very rare in Georgia.] + + + The Riverside Press + _Electrotyped and printed by H. O. Houghton & Co. + Cambridge, Mass., U. S. A._ + + + + + =TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES= + +Simple typographical errors have been silently corrected; unbalanced +quotation marks were remedied when the change was obvious, and +otherwise left unbalanced. + +Punctuation and spelling were made consistent when a predominant +preference was found in the original book; otherwise they were not +changed. + +A table of contents was added for convenience. + +Inconsistent hyphens left as printed. + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 76105 *** diff --git a/76105-h/76105-h.htm b/76105-h/76105-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..ac46be9 --- /dev/null +++ b/76105-h/76105-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,14517 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html> +<html lang="en"> +<head> + <meta charset="UTF-8"> + <title> + A Spectre of Power | Project Gutenberg + </title> + <link rel="icon" href="images/cover.jpg" type="image/x-cover"> + <style> + +body { + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; +} + +/* General headers */ + +h1 { + text-align: center; + clear: both; +} + +h2, h3 { + text-align: center; + font-weight: bold; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; + } + +p { + margin-top: .51em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .49em; + text-indent: 1.5em; +} + +.nind {text-indent:0;} + +.nindc {text-align:center; text-indent:0;} + +.large {font-size: 125%;} + +.space-above2 { margin-top: 2em; } +.space-below2 { margin-bottom: 2em; } + +.allsmcap {font-variant: small-caps; text-transform: lowercase;} + +.spa1 { + margin-top: 1em + } + +.toc { + margin: 1em auto; + max-width: 25em; + border: 2px solid black; + text-indent: 0%; + text-align: center + } + +hr { + width: 33%; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + margin-left: 33.5%; + margin-right: 33.5%; + clear: both; +} + +hr.tb {width: 45%; margin-left: 27.5%; margin-right: 27.5%;} +hr.chap {width: 65%; margin-left: 17.5%; margin-right: 17.5%;} +@media print { hr.chap {display: none; visibility: hidden;} } + +div.chapter {page-break-before: always;} +h2.nobreak {page-break-before: avoid;} + +ul {margin-left: 3em; padding-left: 0;} +li {list-style-type: none; padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2.5em; text-align: left;} + +.flex-center {display: flex; justify-content: center;} + +table { + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; +} +table.autotable { border-collapse: collapse; } +table.autotable td { padding: 0.25em; } + +.tdl {text-align: left;} +.tdr {text-align: right;} + +.pagenum { /* uncomment the next line for invisible page numbers */ + /* visibility: hidden; */ + position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: small; + text-align: right; + font-style: normal; + font-weight: normal; + font-variant: normal; + text-indent: 0; +} /* page numbers */ + +.allsmcap {font-variant: small-caps; text-transform: lowercase;} + +/* Images */ + +img { + max-width: 100%; + width: 100%; + height: auto + } + +.width500 { + max-width: 500px + } + +.x-ebookmaker img { + width: 80% + } + +.x-ebookmaker .width500 { + width: 100% + } + + +.figcenter { + margin: auto; + text-align: center; + page-break-inside: avoid; +} + +/* Footnotes */ + +.footnotes {border: 1px dashed;} + +.footnote {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-size: 0.9em;} + +.footnote .label {position: absolute; right: 84%; text-align: right;} + +.fnanchor { + vertical-align: super; + font-size: .8em; + text-decoration: + none; +} + +/* Transcriber's notes */ +.transnote {background-color: #E6E6FA; + color: black; + font-size:small; + padding:0.5em; + margin-bottom:5em; + font-family:sans-serif, serif; +} + + </style> +</head> +<body> +<div style='text-align:center'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 76105 ***</div> + +<figure class="figcenter width500" id="cover" style="width: 1569px;"> +<img src="images/cover.jpg" width="1569" height="2624" alt="A historical novel set in Appalachia, weaving themes of ambition, mystery, and social change as mountain communities confront outside political forces and shifting traditions."> +</figure> + + +<div class="chapter"> +<div class="toc"> +<p class="nindc">BOOKS BY</p> + +<p class="nindc">“Charles Egbert Craddock.”</p> + +<p class="nindc">(MARY N. MURFREE.)</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + + +<div class="flex-center"> +<ul><li> A SPECTRE OF POWER. Crown 8vo, $1.50.</li> + +<li> THE CHAMPION. With a Frontispiece. 12mo,</li> +<li><span style="margin-left: 1em;">$1.20, <i>net</i>. Postpaid, $1.31.</span></li> + +<li> IN THE TENNESSEE MOUNTAINS. Short</li> +<li><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Stories. 16mo, $1.25.</span></li> + +<li> DOWN THE RAVINE. For Young People. Illustrated.</li> +<li><span style="margin-left: 1em;">16mo, $1.00.</span></li> + +<li> THE PROPHET OF THE GREAT SMOKY</li> +<li><span style="margin-left: 1em;">MOUNTAINS. A Novel. 16mo, $1.25.</span></li> + +<li> IN THE CLOUDS. A Novel. 16mo, $1.25.</li> + +<li> THE STORY OF KEEDON BLUFFS. For</li> +<li><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Young People. 16mo, $1.00.</span></li> + +<li> THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. A</li> +<li><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Novel. 16mo, $1.25.</span></li> + +<li> WHERE THE BATTLE WAS FOUGHT. A</li> +<li><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Novel. 16mo, $1.25.</span></li> + +<li> HIS VANISHED STAR. A Novel. 16mo, $1.25.</li> + +<li> THE MYSTERY OF WITCH-FACE MOUNTAIN.</li> +<li><span style="margin-left: 1em;">16mo, $1.25.</span></li> + +<li> THE YOUNG MOUNTAINEERS. Illustrated.</li> +<li><span style="margin-left: 1em;">12mo, $1.50.</span></li> + +<li> THE JUGGLER. A Novel. 16mo, $1.25.</li> +</ul> +</div> + +<p class="nindc"> +HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY,<br> +<span class="allsmcap">BOSTON AND NEW YORK</span>.<br> +</p> +</div> +</div> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="A_SPECTRE_OF_POWER">A SPECTRE OF POWER</h2> +</div> + + +<figure class="figcenter width500" id="i001" style="width: 976px;"> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><img src="images/i001.jpg" width="976" height="1694" alt="Title page of the book A Spectre of Power."></span><br> +</figure> + + +<h1>A SPECTRE<br> +OF POWER</h1> + + +<p class="nindc space-above2 space-below2"><span class="large">CHARLES EGBERT CRADDOCK</span></p> + + +<figure class="figcenter width500" id="i002" style="width: 200px;"> + <img src="images/i002.jpg" width="200" height="265" alt="decorative"> +</figure> + + +<p class="nindc space-above2 space-below2"> +BOSTON AND NEW YORK<br> +HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY<br> +The Riverside Press, Cambridge<br> +1903 +</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + + +<div class="chapter"> +<p class="nindc space-above2 space-below2"> +<span class="allsmcap">COPYRIGHT, 1903, BY MARY N. MURFREE<br> +ALL RIGHTS RESERVED<br> +<br> +<i>Published May, 1903</i><br> +</span></p> +</div> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="A_SPECTRE">A SPECTRE OF POWER</h2> +</div> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CONTENTS">CONTENTS</h2> +</div> + +<table class="autotable"> +<tbody><tr> +<td class="tdl"> </td> +<td class="tdr"> <span class="allsmcap">PAGE</span></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="tdl">Chapter I</td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_1">1</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="tdl">Chapter II</td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_23">23</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="tdl">Chapter III</td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_49">49</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="tdl">Chapter IV</td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_75">75</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="tdl">Chapter V</td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_101">101</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="tdl">Chapter VI</td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_118">118</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="tdl">Chapter VII</td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_133">133</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="tdl">Chapter VIII</td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_150">150</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="tdl">Chapter IX</td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_175">175</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="tdl">Chapter X</td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_192">192</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="tdl">Chapter XI</td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_213">213</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="tdl">Chapter XII</td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_227">227</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="tdl">Chapter XIII</td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_255">255</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="tdl">Chapter XIV</td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_279">279</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="tdl">Chapter XV</td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_302">302</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="tdl">Chapter XVI</td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_324">324</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="tdl">Chapter XVII</td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_334">334</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="tdl">Chapter XVIII</td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_344">344</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="tdl">Chapter XIX</td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_357">357</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="tdl">Chapter XX</td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_368">368</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="tdl">Chapter XXI</td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_380">380</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="tdl">Chapter XXII</td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_396">396</a></td> +</tr> +</tbody> +</table> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="A_SPECTRE_2">A SPECTRE OF POWER</h2> +</div> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="I">I</h2> +</div> + + +<p>IT so chanced that Eve, with all her primeval curiosity, dwelt in +the Cherokee town of Great Tellico. Hence came disaster. To the +inquisitiveness of the woman it was always imputed, although the +undisciplined heart of man, the turbulent impulses of ambition, and the +serpentine supersubtlety of a covetous political scheme were potent +elements. Little, indeed, such as she might seem concerned with matters +of high import. From afar, unindividualized among scores of the other +subservient Cherokee women standing on the banks of the glittering +Tennessee River, she had watched the approach of the herald of the +embassy. A Choctaw Indian he was revealed as he ran holding broadly +outstretched in each hand the great white wing of a swan, streaked with +symbolic lines of white clay. The headmen of Tellico, the warriors +of note, and the “beloved men” swiftly assembled in the “beloved +square” to greet the arrival of the ambassador himself, and with no +presentiment of personal significance in the event, she beheld the +entry of the splendidly bedight Choctaw chief, Mingo Push-koosh.</p> + +<p>Through the forests he had elected to come, and as he advanced with +that wonderful, running gait of the Choctaw Indian, who could outwind, +it was said in that day, a swift horse, he sustained impassively the +eager, fixed gaze of the hundreds of Cherokees assembled in his honor.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_2">[Pg 2]</span></p> + +<p>The iconoclast, who was not born yesterday, was here and there in the +crowd, and had a word of covert scoffing at his neglect of the great +advantages of water carriage afforded by the numerous fine rivers of +the Cherokee country; for the Choctaws had but little familiarity with +navigation, owing to the few and very limited streams of their own +region, and notoriously, of all nations of Indians, they could not swim.</p> + +<p>Envy, however, could hardly spare a fling at so imperious a figure as +the Mingo presented as he stood in the “beloved square” and delivered +in rapid, fervid, poetic diction his oration of greeting to the headmen +of Tellico. The afternoon sunlight glittered on the silver wrist-plates +on his muscular, bare arms, his gorget and “earbobs” of the same metal, +and a half dozen strands of the glossily white, fresh-water pearls of +the region, exceedingly large and regularly shaped, which hung about +the neck of his white, dressed doeskin hunting-shirt. His head was not +polled after the fashion of the Cherokees, and his hair grew thick +and long. A great cluster of scarlet flamingo feathers stood high in +the midst of the straight, black locks, and he wore a broad, silver +band on the backward slant of his forehead, artificially flattened +thus in infancy, according to the tribal custom. His leggings and +moccasins were also scarlet. He bore no arms except a pair of handsome, +silver-mounted pistols in his embroidered belt.</p> + +<p>The gentle breeze carried his full, rich, guttural tones to the +uttermost outskirts of the crowd, and suddenly it was swayed by a new +sensation and a straining of necks to see. For although the Choctaws +beyond all tribes were most addicted to the punctilio of ceremonial +observances, and scorned and resisted innovation, the voice which +followed his words, substituting the familiar Cherokee equivalents, +was the voice of no Indian interpreter. It was suave and fluent and +easy of comprehension, but now and again an idiom occurred, a method +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</span> +of construction essentially French. For beside the Mingo, and in front +of his escort of a dozen Choctaw braves, stood a glittering object, a +white man, a French officer in full uniform, and with his hair curled +and plaited and powdered.</p> + +<p>The headmen of Tellico, all decorously listening to the ambassador, +all respectfully gazing upon his bright animated face, as he declaimed +his plea for welcome and his pleasure in beholding them, could not +altogether cloak their surprised interest and covert glances at this +resplendent apparition in the lowly functions of an interpreter. It +was a relief when Push-koosh openly alluded to his companion, and he +himself repeated in Cherokee the explanation of his appearance in this +capacity, and they were free to let their eyes rest unrestrainedly upon +him.</p> + +<p>In his clear, ringing, military enunciation, he stated that the +official Choctaw interpreter with whom they had set forth on the long +journey from Fort Condé de la Mobile had sickened by the way, and +sinking very low they had been obliged to strangle him, death being +inevitable. But they had left his body on a scaffold out of reach of +wild animals, whither the official “bone-picker” should be sent on +their return to the southern country to perform the last sad rites +of the Choctaw religion (which seems to have had few rites other +than these frightful funeral observances). For these reasons they +were fain to crave the indulgence of the great Cherokee chiefs for +appearing without that essential functionary, an interpreter, since +the lieutenant, Jean Marie Edouard Bodin de Laroche, was but scantily +acquainted with the charming Cherokee language, so musical and of so +elegant a construction, and Mingo Push-koosh, to his infinite regret, +had of it no knowledge save a few scattered phrases.</p> + +<p>The discerning and thoughtful Tanaesto, standing in the group of +brilliantly arrayed Cherokee headmen, silently eyeing them both, noted +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</span> +naught significant in the face of the Mingo as the untoward fate of the +strangled interpreter was recounted. This assistance in shuffling off +the mortal coil would have been to the Choctaw a matter of course and +a national custom. But Tanaesto knew that the white man was not used +to so summary a disposition of the inconvenient dying. He was subject, +like all the Catholic French, to many stringent religious restrictions, +chiefly pertaining to the precise method in which he might take life, +and although he looked as stanch as steel, and as glittering, his +face was young and bland and as unmoved as if he were reciting a +fiction,—which indeed he was! The heart of Tanaesto weighed very light +with the thought,—there had been no interpreter to die.</p> + +<p>“My brother,” he said in a low voice to Colonnah, to test his joyful +suspicion, “why does a French officer speaking but indifferent Cherokee +come to us with a Choctaw embassy without an interpreter from the +governor of Louisiana?”</p> + +<p>The wary Colonnah replied instantly. “That the Choctaw embassy may go +back no wiser in certain things than the French officer may desire.”</p> + +<p>The disclosure of a scheme within a scheme was thus promised. The +series of notable successes which the Cherokees had achieved in 1760, +in their war against the British, had been nullified in the campaign of +the succeeding year by the inability of the French to convey to them +adequate ammunition at the crisis of their final defeat. Doubtless +some new plan was now imminent, some fresh attempt in contemplation +to aid them to throw off the British yoke. Tanaesto’s heart leaped at +the thought, although a solemn treaty of peace had just been signed at +Charlestown with the Royal Governor of South Carolina, and a deputation +of Cherokee chiefs now, in the early spring of 1762, were on the way +to England as guests invited to visit his majesty King George in +London.<a id="FNanchor_1" href="#Footnote_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a></p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</span></p> + +<p>The craft of the Indians rendered craft difficult to disguise, and +Tanaesto could but wonder if Mingo Push-koosh knew or suspected aught +of the limitations of his powers or the secrets of his mission thus +withheld from him.</p> + +<p>His fine voice died away at last on the bland air; the oratorical +display in which the Indians all delighted and the Choctaws so much +excelled had been elaborately exploited; the stir of the wind, the +lapsing currents of the river, were barely audible in the silence that +seemed still to vibrate with the pulsings of his eloquent periods.</p> + +<p>Then another voice arose, deep, full, impressive, as Moy Toy, the great +chief of Tellico, pronounced the stereotyped sentences of welcome and +protestations of a desire of friendship.</p> + +<p>The Choctaw responded sonorously, “<i>Aharattle-la phena +chemanumbole!</i>”<a id="FNanchor_2" href="#Footnote_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a> (I shall firmly shake hands with your discourse.) +Whereupon Moy Toy, with eagle feathers upon his head and a splendid +garb of feather-woven fabrics, advanced and grasped with both hands the +Choctaw’s arm around the wrist; then seized him anew about the elbow; +and again with the like fervent pressure around the arm close to the +shoulder, as being near the heart. He drew back from the visitor for +one silent moment. Then he waved a great fan of eagle feathers above +the head of the ambassador, the plumes stroking him gently, and his +formal reception was complete.</p> + +<p>The Choctaw turned smilingly to the crowd, which was presently in +motion dispersing along the river bank and among the scattered +dwellings of the town. The official group of headmen had broken up +into informal knots, and among them Push-koosh moved with a suave but +princely arrogation, as tolerating the adulation which was equally +his custom and his expectation. He had several claims to special +consideration, of none of which was he oblivious, and all of which +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</span> +exerted a marked influence upon his personality. He enjoyed a certain +distinction because of his well-known acuteness, his employment in the +French interest, his war record, and his undoubted courage, which was +the more noted because the Choctaws were not always considered brave; +for although fighting furiously in defense of their own territory, +they were accounted half-hearted and even timorous in invasion and +aggression. Moreover, he had much family influence, having four elder +brothers, all noted warriors, who championed his every plan and took +that prideful, solicitous, censorious, half-paternal account of +him characteristic of the fraternal senior, and often resented and +ill-requited by the sophisticated Benjamins even of civilized tribes. +To this simple trait of family affection is doubtless due the name by +which he was known; for throughout his life and to the day of his death +he was called Push-koosh, “Baby.” If he had any other name, it is not +of record in the history of his times, in which, although cruel as +death, hard as steel, and cunning as craft itself, this Choctaw warrior +always incongruously appears as “Prince Baby,” Mingo Push-koosh.</p> + +<p>The suavity and politic amiability of the carriage of the French +toward the savage, which had so marked an influence on the earlier +stages of the development of this country, were never more definitely +illustrated than in the face of the young officer, Laroche. Its +intelligence, its alertness, the military arrogance in the pose +of the head, rendered the sudden, bright softness of his smile as +flattering as a personal tribute. From an athletic point of view, +his slender, erect, sinewy figure coerced the respect of his hosts, +and in securing their friendship and confidence, he had a great +advantage in his very tolerable command of the Cherokee language. His +linguistic accomplishments were already considerable, but before he +left Fort Condé de la Mobile, he was set to work under the instruction +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</span> +of the official interpreter, by the order of his superior officer, +and he had acquired a colloquial facility as a military duty with +the diligence which he would have manifested in mastering military +theories and tactical problems. He talked continually, with much ease +and good-fellowship, and a sort of elastic, volatile gayety. But he +showed a deeply emotional impressionability. He manifested great and +genuine pleasure in the aspect of the country. He gazed long and +silently upon the azure summits and infinite lengths of the Great Smoky +Mountains, as they received the last suffusion of the red, western +sunlight like a benediction, and glowed to purer, higher, finer phases +of color, becoming densely purple, then delicately amethystine, then +all transparent and roseate. As they grew so crystalline of effect as +to realize to the imagination the splendid jeweled luminosities of the +Apocalyptic jasper, he caught his breath, exclaiming, “<i>Nanne-Yah! +Nanne-Yah!</i>” (The mountains of God!) He declared to his entertainers +that in Old France he was born near mountains such as these (for he +was not of the Canadian French, who since the days of Iberville had so +heavily recruited the ranks of the soldiery in Louisiana), and that he +had no doubt that this mutual nativity to the heights was the reason +why he already felt toward them as to brothers. Yet he was not bent +upon flattery; for he was alone with Push-koosh when he said again and +again, as they walked beside the Tennessee River, and he noted the +swift flow of its currents all bedight in red and gold under the sunset +sky, “<i>Ookka chookoma intaa!</i>” (How the beautiful water glides +along!)</p> + +<p>He broke presently from the pensive contemplation of its charms +and stopped short with a crisp ringing cry, “<i>Holà! là! là!</i>” +Push-koosh, glancing about for the cause of this excitement, perceived +at a little distance some Cherokee youths, who were leaping from the +heights of a craggy eminence and diving into the rippling depths with a +temerity and facility alike admirable. But Push-koosh had no affinity +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</span> +with amphibian traits, being himself, in common with the rest of his +tribe, unable to swim. He resented the interest and approval which the +Frenchman accorded the divers, sundry of whom were now breasting the +current with great speed, strength, and skill, and declared that it was +beneath his ambassadorial dignity to waste the time in watching a half +score specimens of the Cherokee Ka-noona (bullfrog), as they called the +creature in their jargon, swim a race. He could not wait for this! Did +the officer not see that the fires of split cane were already alight +in the great state-house, whither they must at once repair to drink of +the cacina (“the black drink”) with the headmen, as became visitors of +distinction? Nevertheless, as they resumed their progress, Push-koosh +himself, with the interest which a man of an active, outdoor life must +needs feel in athletic feats, glanced again and again over his shoulder +at the expert divers.</p> + +<p>“I wonder they don’t drown!” he said at last sincerely. Then perhaps +equally sincerely, “I wish they would!”</p> + +<p>“<i>Mon tendre Bébé!</i>” cried the mercurial Frenchman in delight. +The incongruity daily illustrated between the cruel, savage traits of +the chief and his gentle, infantile sobriquet was of an unceasing and +engaging drollery to Laroche’s mind, and doubtless often proved of +service in keeping amicable relations between them.</p> + +<p>Wending their way through the scattered dwellings of the town, and +skirting the rows of log cabins on each side of the “beloved square,” +they approached the state-house or rotunda hard by, built on the summit +of a high, artificial mound of earth. The circuit of the fifteen +Cherokee towns<a id="FNanchor_3" href="#Footnote_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a> burned by Colonel Grant, commanding the British +forces, in the punitive measures following his victory at Etchoee +the previous year, the Indians being powerless to resist, as their +ammunition was exhausted, did not extend so far as Tellico Great, and +therefore its aspect was as before the war, save indeed for the tokens +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</span> +of the prowess of the Cherokees themselves—the great dismantled Fort +Loudon, still standing a massive, lonely shadow in the distance, which +they had blockaded and reduced, massacring the garrison, and here +and there down the river the stark chimneys of the burned dwellings +of the murdered British colonists. A white glimmer stole out of the +tall, narrow portal of the conical state-house, which showed dark and +solid against the ethereal shadows of the atmosphere. For the blue +dusk had fallen on the enchanted land. The wooded mountains loomed dim +and sombre on the clear horizon; the encompassing primeval forests +were thronged with glooms; the river was now a gray shadow, and now +an elusive, silver glister; the many lowly roofs of the dwellings of +the Indian town were dully glimpsed here and there in the light that +flickered out through the open doors from hearthstones all aglow; +and as the officer paused on the high mound at the portal of the +state-house, and looked back over the clare-obscure of the unaccustomed +scene, he caught the scintillations of a star a-glitter in the pallid +expanse of the pearly skies. It was like a signal to him. Aldebaran! +how long since he had seen it, poised over a craggy mountain summit, +sending its brilliant, red lustres down through the fringes of the +evergreen pine. Not thus, not thus had he seen it since the star and +he were together at home! It was like the sudden greeting of a friend +in a far and foreign land. He responded instantly as to a personal +appeal. He turned suddenly and airily kissed his hand, the brilliant +star shattered into a thousand stars among the tears in his eyes. +Push-koosh, accustomed to ebullitions of his emotional, susceptible +nature, gave him but one glance of superficial surprise, and together +they entered the dome-like building. The red clay walls of its interior +were illumined by the white light of the burning split canes, while the +dim, blue scene beneath the home-star lay outside in the darkness.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</span></p> + +<p>Only for one moment did Laroche realize the poignancy of exile, +although the homesick pang for the recollection of his kindred and +his far-distant birthplace was supplemented by another hardly less +acute, with a spurious domiciliary sense, for the scenes at the +fort, his quarters, the presence of his brother officers. The more +valid cause of troublous thought and sense of solitude,—that he +was apart from them all, alone among wild and bloody savages, the +Choctaws of the French alliance hardly less to be feared in their +alert dissimulation and treacherous habit than the open ferocity of +the Cherokees of the British faction, the only man of his country in +a hundred miles of these dense and sombre wildernesses, in a torn +and distracted region subject to a national enemy,—these practical +considerations did not smite him at all. Even his æsthetic griefs +were all forgotten in another instant, and with his swift, volatile +transitions he was absorbed in the interior of the building. It was +large enough to accommodate an audience of several hundred people, and +ample illumination was afforded by the split cane, which, arranged in +lines and serpentine convolutions along a low mound of earth in the +centre of the clay floor and burning only at one end, was consumed +very gradually, and would furnish light for a considerable time. The +cane gave out but little smoke, ethereal, hazy, vaguely blue, mounting +into the shadowy vault of the lofty dome above the heads of the crowd. +Around the interior of the building, some four feet distant from the +wall and supporting the unseen timbers of the roof, was a series of +columns, and in the space between this colonnade and the wall was a +continuous divan or bench, deftly made of cane, artificially whitened, +and extending all around the circular structure. Here on the further +side, opposite the door, were seated the headmen of the town, while +those of lower grade were ranged according to rank, to the right and +to the left. The more insignificant or younger tribesmen stood in the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</span> +open spaces nearest the entrance, and seated on the floor on either +side of the narrow portal were groups of women, admitted in lenient +indulgence of feminine curiosity.</p> + +<p>The two strangers were conducted as visitors of distinction to seats, +one on either side of Moy Toy. The barbarous Choctaw, with his quick, +racial adaptation to all the minutiæ of ceremonial, peculiarly +elaborate in its observance, with his grace, his fitting words, his +proud yet affable demeanor, was hardly more acceptable to the Indian +scheme of etiquette than the Frenchman, foreign, white, strange, +though he was. There was something about this officer that appealed +singularly to the vivid imagination of the Cherokees,—the silken +softness of his courtesy, his easily stirred and obvious sentimental +emotions, his volatile pleasure in the passing moment, his quick +changeableness in every current of the air, and yet incongruously, a +certain bellicose keenness, and steadiness, and hardness in the glance +of his bland eyes. He was like a military butterfly, if one could +but attribute the potentiality of danger and venom and antagonism +to so aerial and brilliant a flutterer. His very gestures riveted +their attention as he expressively shrugged his shoulders or lifted +his eyebrows in gay surprise, or contracted them in frowning doubt. +These eyebrows were dark and distinctly marked, and he had long, dark +lashes, but his eyes were of a light brown tint such as gravel shows +when clear water runs above a sunlit channel. He wore his own light +brown hair in lieu of a fashionable wig, but the long queue and the +curls on the temples were heavily powdered, which was of complimentary +significance; for it was by no means the habit of the French officers +to submit to the <i>gêne</i> of such vanities while on the march in +the wilderness, although in New Orleans the Marquis de Vaudreuil had +long sought to maintain some state, since indeed he had first succeeded +Bienville as governor of Louisiana, and fostered manners of ceremony, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</span> +as he afterwards did in Canada, whither he was now transferred. The +suggestion that Laroche was charged with a secret mission within a +mission added importance to his personality, which Push-koosh obviously +resented, now and again assertively flaunting his few Cherokee phrases, +even in addressing his <i>quasi</i> interpreter, and more than once +essaying some very queer French. The men looked at the officer with +intense curiosity, and the women, as ever addicted to novelty, with +open-eyed admiration, as he smoked the “friend-pipe” while he sat +beside Moy Toy, who in his finest otter-skin robe was all a-glitter +with many swaying fringes of “roanoke,” with a broad, gleaming collar +of white swan’s down, and with streaks of white clay across his +forehead. If Laroche dreamed of the approaching ordeal, he awaited it +with the calm of a philosopher and the courage of a soldier.</p> + +<p>Presently there entered two “beloved men,” each bearing a conch shell +high in the right hand. They first crossed the apartment, one going to +the right, the other to the left, singing mystic words in a low tone as +they came; then once more taking a transverse course, they met in front +of Moy Toy and the two guests of distinction, to whom they presented, +with both hands, the two shells full of the so-called consecrated +beverage. As these were lifted, with both hands, to the lips of +the guests, the two “beloved men” broke forth with a sonorous bass +note, “<i>Yo!</i>” then with a tenor effect they sang the syllable, +“<i>He!</i>” prolonged to the utmost possibility of holding the breath, +during which sound the visitor must continue to drink the cacina. It +required, perhaps, all the strength of mind and stomach which the +French officer could muster, but he did not desist nor lower the shell +till the gasping “<i>Wah!</i>” placed a period to his torments.</p> + +<p>Others then partook of the black drink in turn, and presently amidst +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</span> +the wreaths of blue smoke and the white flare of the burning cane, +while the earthen drums began to beat sonorously, sinuous, leaping +shadows were flung across the hard, clay floor and on the red walls of +the circular building; for the eagle-tail dance was in progress in the +presence of the honored guests, the great fans of feathers waving high +in the uplifted hands of the agile warriors, as they sprang elastically +into the air, exhibiting many intricate steps and difficult attitudes.</p> + +<p>These solemn politico-religious ceremonies of welcome concluded, +the Cherokees gave themselves over to various devices to amuse and +entertain their guests, for this was a characteristic trait of their +hospitality. There would be horse-races on the morrow and dances +again, but without significance either political or religious, and +long and elaborate feastings, for they could set forth a table with +“fifty different viands.” The Cherokees had not at this period begun +the downward course,—the relinquishment of their national customs, +primitive manufactures, religion, method of government, habits of +extreme cleanliness,—the wholesale degeneration which seems inevitable +before new standards, new customs, new religion, a new nationality, can +be adjusted to a people in a state of transition. The night being as +yet but little spent, one of their ancient pantomimes<a id="FNanchor_4" href="#Footnote_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a> was essayed +for the entertainment of the guests; and during its performance the +frequency of the ringing laugh of the French officer, and the grunt of +approval of the Choctaw chief, brought the same expression of gratified +complacency and chastened thankfulness to the anxious faces of Moy +Toy and the other headmen of Tellico Great that sophisticated hosts +now wear upon the success of an entertainment upon which important +interests depend. It began with a surprise. Suddenly a bulky shadow +fell within the doorway,—the women clustering about the entrance +shrieked in a sort of delighted affright and scuttled aside. The +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</span> +heavy, guttural laugh of the Indian—a merry soul at his sports—fell +iteratively on the air. A bear had entered, clumsy, heavily shuffling, +snuffing tentatively about, evidently to be imagined as ranging the +woods, and with now and then a glance over his shoulder to see another +bear ponderously lumbering in. So close was the imitation of the ursine +gait and ungainliness, so crafty the disguise in the beast’s paws and +hide, distended to full proportions by concealed wooden hoops, that +one might have believed the manifestation genuine but for a lamenting +“stage-whisper,” as it were, delivered in plaintive Cherokee, touching +a bit of the burning cane which had lodged upon the slant of a too +inquisitive snout nosing about the fire. It was hastily brushed off +by one of the young tribesmen of the audience, all of whom laughed +gleefully at the mischance and the helpless plight of the singed Bruin.</p> + +<p>And now entered two hunters in full sylvan array. The bears skulked, +chiefly among the audience; the nimrods stalked them; the bears fled; +the hunters pursued; the beasts turned at bay,—when the hunters +themselves fled frantically, amidst howls of derision from the younger +people. This mockery seemed to restore the nerve of the hunters, +who presently returned to the effort and with such ardor that they +finally “treed” the bears, who nimbly climbed the sleek, round columns +that supported the roof of the edifice. Thence they were pulled down +forcibly, first by one foot, then the others; at last all fell, hunters +and bears together, in an undiscriminated heap on the floor, where +after a terrific mock struggle, the bears were dispatched by the +expedient of cutting their throats, with a vast effusion of blood and +howls of remonstrance from the beasts, expressed in excellent Cherokee.</p> + +<p>The two vanquished animals as early as practicable crept out of their +skins, left weltering in the blood on the floor, and mingled with their +admirers in the audience, laughing a great deal and discussing the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</span> +play:—how the struggle might have been prolonged but for this and +that; how one bear, according to his own account, need not have been +killed at all, so expert a beast was he, except that he had yielded +himself at last a sacrifice to the popular entertainment; and how one +hunter could have easily slain this same boastful bear at the very +outset by a single blow on the head, to which his more than bearish +awkwardness exposed him, but was moved to spare him and thus extend his +career, also from the disinterested motive of promoting and conserving +the sport of the indulgent audience.</p> + +<p>It was all indeed very cleverly done, as even Laroche thought, who had +seen pantomimes in Paris, and Push-koosh manifested as much hilarious +good will as the Choctaw “Prince Baby” ever permitted himself to +experience. The French officer, however, despite his absorption in +the histrionic display, had not been unmindful of the notables in the +audience either in Paris or here. More than once to-night his gaze +was caught by a pair of eyes large and gentle, luminous as a deer’s +and as untamed in expression, appropriately set in the face of one of +the Cherokee women. She was hardly in her first youth, although she +seemed singularly fresh, alert, spirited, enjoying the pantomime with +childish delight. She was evidently not less than twenty-two or three +years of age, and he being rather elderly himself,—some twenty-eight +years,—thought this well advanced in life and an age of wisdom. She +was slender and, like all the Cherokees, of notable height, and when +the crowd was out of the state-house he saw her again, glimmering with +willowy grace in the moonlight. The distorted, gibbous sphere of pearl +was high above the violet mountains and the gray and misty valleys, and +he thought the woman beautiful and picturesquely placed in the solemn +and splendid environment of the ranges, for he was accustomed to the +bizarre details of savage raiment. The skirt of her tunic-like garb +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</span> +of white, dressed doeskin reached a trifle below the knee, and she +wore the long, white, doeskin buskin, fitting closely, that came half +as high; around each leg, below the knee, was tied a soft, dressed +otter-skin, hung with glittering, metal “bell buttons,” that tinkled as +she walked. Her hair, anointed and glossy in the moonlight, was tied +and dressed high on the head, and was stuck full of the quills of the +white pigeon. Her head was clearly defined against the dark blue of the +instarred sky, as she threw it backward and gazed at the moon as if to +verify some calculation of time, its light full in her lustrous eyes. +Then she turned, and running swiftly past, disappeared in the violet +shadows.</p> + +<p>He did not soon think of her again. She was only a picturesque element +in this state of quaint barbarity, a momentary incident in the scenes +of an evening overcrowded with impressive grotesqueries. He had no +idea to whom Mingo Push-koosh alluded when he said suddenly, “<i>Eho +in-ta-na-ah!</i>” (The woman has mourned the appointed time!)</p> + +<p>The two French emissaries were alone now; they had been conducted to a +building called the stranger-house, designed for the accommodation of +casual guests, and which was assigned to them to be their headquarters +during their stay. It too was furnished with the row of cane divans +around the walls, which served as benches during the day and as beds +at night. The house was the usual cabin of the Indians, built without +nails, or a hinge, or a bit of metal in any sort, yet “genteel and +convenient and so very secure, as if it were to screen them from an +approaching hurricane,” says an old British trader, who lived for +many years in one of them. The posts were of the most durable wood +and deeply set in the ground, the timbers were accurately fitted to +one another, the wall plates, rafters, and eave boards had been all +stanchly bound together with the elastic splints of white oak or +hickory, and with strips of wet buffalo hide, which tighten and harden +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</span> +as they dry. A partition separated the room from another, wherein was +disposed the Choctaw escort. Within and without, the building was +whitewashed with the coarse, marly clay of the region, and the walls +sent back with responsive, silver glimmers the moonlight, falling +through the narrow door and into the face of the officer, who had +stretched himself at length in full uniform on the divan, to rest a bit +before divesting himself of his military finery and disposing himself +to slumber. The ceremonies and excitements of the evening, following a +day of exertion and hard marching, had resulted in making his eyelids +heavy.</p> + +<p>“<i>Omeh!</i>” (Yes!) he assented, hardly hearing the remark, and +answering at random.</p> + +<p>Push-koosh sat upright on the opposite side of the room as if he could +know no fatigue, and gazed loweringly across at the Frenchman.</p> + +<p>“<i>Che-a-sa-ah!</i>” (I am displeased with you!) the Choctaw hissed +out. “What makes your lying tongue so strong?”</p> + +<p>The French lieutenant roused himself. “<i>Mon cher enfant</i>,” he +declared, “I know you consider a lie no disgrace, it being your daily +food, but I have told you once, and I tell you again, that if you throw +it into my teeth I will beat that flat head of yours flatter than it +is!”</p> + +<p>“You don’t even know of whom I am speaking—you answer like a child!” +said Push-koosh in a mollified tone.</p> + +<p>Something had come to him out of the night, the moonlight, the soft +lustre of dark eyes,—something as intangible as the flickering +illusions of the heat lightning, as inexplicable as the fleeting wind, +as tenuous as the wing of a moth,—a fancy!—and he must needs talk of +it. Therefore he would concede. He would forego his resentment for this +cavalier inattention. He smiled as if he had been in jest.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</span></p> + +<p>“<i>Unta?</i>” (Well?) said Laroche interrogatively.</p> + +<p>“<i>Eho in-ta-na-ah!</i>” Push-koosh repeated.</p> + +<p>The versatile Frenchman was sore smitten with sleep. “What woman?” he +said drowsily. “What mourning?”</p> + +<p>“Her husband is dead! The Muscogee killed him three years ago!” said +Push-koosh, with stalwart satisfaction in the fact. “And she has +mourned the appointed time. You could have seen, but that you are a +blind French mole, that her hair is no longer flowing loose, but is +anointed and tied and dressed full of white quills!”</p> + +<p>Sleep suddenly quitted its hold on the French lieutenant. He lifted +himself alertly on one elbow and looked animatedly at Push-koosh. +“<i>Eho chookoma!</i>” (The beautiful woman!) he cried with enthusiasm. +“Not so much of a mole as you think! <i>Pas si bête, mon bijou. Pas +cette espèce de bête!!</i>”</p> + +<p>He shook his wise head with emphasis and laid himself down again. +Push-koosh glowered at him with a sudden, angry fear. This fervor of +admiration on the part of the French lieutenant boded ill to that +ethereal fancy which had fallen about the Choctaw chief as lightly as +a gossamer web of the weaving spider, and now held him like a network +of steel chains. He said abruptly, with seeming irrelevance and his +infantile candor, “I wish you had killed yourself last week!”</p> + +<p>For the mercurial Frenchman had often seizures of deep despondency, in +which he sometimes announced with sincerity that he designed to place +a period to his existence. Such a crisis had supervened on the journey +hither, in which, however, Push-koosh was concerned as little as might +be. True, there had been some peculiarly irritating incidents in their +relations; they baited each other, and bickered on slight occasion, and +argued violently on untenable grounds, for which neither cared an iota, +and conducted themselves generally as young men do when constrained +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</span> +to work together with but scant personal sympathy. But Laroche’s +discontent had a far more serious source. He was disappointed of the +distinction which he had hoped to attain in this mission.</p> + +<p>Apart from the diplomatic and secret details with which he was +intrusted, and the check that he was expected to maintain upon the +loyalty, or rather the suspected disloyalty of Push-koosh, whose +personal presence was necessary to reconcile certain ancient enmities +between the Choctaws and Cherokees, and thus facilitate and set forth +the special values of the French alliance, Laroche was charged with +an affair of professional importance which Push-koosh imagined was +the only reason that he had been ordered to accompany the Choctaw +embassy,—so crafty were the methods of the French with the crafty +savages. Laroche’s open instructions contemplated the investigation +of certain obstructions in the <i>Rivière des Chéraquis</i> (since +called the Great Tennessee), which had hitherto proved an insuperable +bar to the continuous transportation of goods from New Orleans to the +Cherokee Nation by means of that great waterway. Not trinkets, the +Indians craved, not paints, nor beads, nor even cutlery, but those +costly treasures of arms, powder, and lead which the Cherokees valued +beyond all things, because without constant and adequate supplies of +such munitions of war they could never hope to take the field again, +eventually throw off the yoke of the British, and keep foothold on the +land which was their own, and which they loved with all the fervent +devotion of the mountaineer to his native heights. Therefore they +had hitherto listened to the counsels of the French, who were now +especially eager to meet all expectations, perhaps because they were +still involved themselves in hostilities with the English elsewhere, +perhaps because they still cherished that old scheme of so many +visionaries—from the logical plans of Iberville, futilely projected +so long ago, to the subtle intrigues of the German Jesuit, Christian +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</span> +Priber, only twenty-five years previous—to invade the Carolinas and +Georgia at the head of twelve thousand warriors of confederated Indian +tribes.</p> + +<p>But the transportation of supplies to the Cherokees by pack-train +overland was impracticable, since the intervening country was held by +the hostile Chickasaws, ever devoted to the British, and the French had +still a lively recollection of their defeats by this intrepid tribe at +the towns of Ash-wick-boo-ma, where D’Artaguette met his cruel fate, +and Ackia, the scene of the discomfiture of Bienville. Therefore in the +Cherokee War, a large pettiaugre laden with warlike stores was sent up +the Mississippi from New Orleans, armed with swivel guns to repress the +Chickasaws, who in flying squads nevertheless harassed the progress +of the boat by a sharp musketry delivered from the river bluffs. +This danger passed, the expedition failed for a different reason. It +returned bootless, having abandoned the attempt on account of the +insurmountable obstructions to navigation in the Cherokee River.</p> + +<p>The French authorities at New Orleans had good reason to doubt the +report of the extent of these difficulties, for hitherto their boats +had ascended occasionally to Great Tellico,—perhaps in a different +stage of the water. They ordered a survey of the locality with a view +of such removal of the reefs as might afford a practicable channel +at all seasons,—a second earnest effort to meet the needs of the +Cherokees, with a systematic and continuous supply of stores, being in +contemplation.</p> + +<p>Laroche, who had served as a lieutenant of engineers as well as of +artillery, had been charged with the duty of removing the obstruction +if practicable, and a pettiaugre laden with such means as were deemed +fitted to further this design had been dispatched up the Mississippi +and Ohio in advance of the expedition overland from Fort Tombecbé to +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</span> +meet him at the point where the navigation of the Cherokee River became +difficult. The young officer had expected to encounter some reefs, a +goodish stretch of rapids perhaps, a few dangerous, troublesome rocks. +He found vast whirlpools, and endless vistas of maddened waters, +and shoals, shoals, shoals,—twenty miles of muscle shoals, three +miles wide. Even Push-koosh had cried out in amaze at the phenomenon +of the turbulent rapids, declaring that the devils, the <i>hottuk +ookproose</i>, were dancing under the waters, for he had heard for ten +miles the devil’s own song that they sung, <i>tarooa ookpro’sto</i> +(the tune of the accursed one).</p> + +<p>As Laroche realized the total impossibility of the undertaking, and +saw vanishing all his hopes of distinction in this valid and valuable +service, he forthwith sat down on a rock beside the rioting waters, +bowed his head on his hands, and cried out to a “<i>juste ciel</i>” +that this was really too strong, that there was no use in trying to +live any longer, and that he was minded to kill himself.</p> + +<p>Suicide is always more or less fashionable among Frenchmen. Perhaps the +passionate grief of his utterance was not wholly devoid of intention. +But as he lifted his dreary eyes, the animated interest and curiosity +to see him take his life which the face of Push-koosh expressed +effectually deterred him. The spectacle would be too delightfully +gratifying to the Choctaw! The humor of the situation appealed to the +mercurial French lieutenant, and the pendulum swung back again.</p> + +<p>The thought of self-destruction had not recurred to his mind until +to-night, when Push-koosh mentioned his bootless threat.</p> + +<p>“But why, <i>mon pauvre Bébé, mon petit chou</i>,—why should you wish +that I had killed myself?” Laroche demanded.</p> + +<p>Push-koosh hesitated. He felt that his jealousy was a derogation, and +was glad that his hasty words had not betrayed it to the officer, whom +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</span> +he esteemed a dull, inattentive fellow at best, continually occupied +with his little idols, which he carried in a box and would let no one +else touch,—his spy-glass, his spirit-level, his quadrant, and his +compass, which last he declared knew the north, and without which he +could not draw a map, as Push-koosh could on a gourd or a bit of bark +or a stretch of clear sand,—he knew little, very little, that French +officer, Laroche!</p> + +<p>“<i>Unta—Illet minte!</i>” (Well—Death is coming!) the Choctaw said +casually, as if he spoke generally and at random.</p> + +<p>“Not yet! not yet!” cried the officer, remembering the diabolic tumult +of the waters. “Let the devils dance! I can be merry too! I have a +scheme to outwit them. A great thing, my Baby, to outwit the devils!”</p> + +<p>Twice he paused to think of it in laying aside his sword and drawing +off his coat. Push-koosh made no move toward preparing for slumber. +Long after the lieutenant was still, quite still, beneath the +delicately dressed and softened panther skins that sufficed for bedding +on the elastic cane-wrought mattresses, Push-koosh sat upright on the +couch on the opposite side of the room gazing steadfastly at him,—the +long, thin figure suggested beneath the folds of the drapery of the +primitive bed; the white powdered hair that had lost much of its frosty +touches streaming backward, long, loose, the ends slightly curling; +the eyes meekly closed; the moonlight in the white, tired, sleeping +face, youthful, but grave, pensive, saddened vaguely. That was the +way, perhaps, he would have looked had he taken his life as he had +threatened. And Push-koosh, still intently eyeing him, wished again +that he had.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="II">II</h2> +</div> + + +<p>TOWARD dawn the frogs, antiphonally chanting down by the water-side, +ceased their chorusing clamors. Now and again a croaking voice sounded +raucously alone,—then came silence. The moon was all solitary in the +“beloved square,”—not even an errant gust of wind to bear her company. +In broad, still, white effulgence the radiance rested unbroken on the +sandy stretch and the dark, narrow row of cabins, devoted to public and +official business, on each side of the quadrangular space. The more +remote dwellings cast shadows wherever the boughs of the overhanging +trees left the ground clear. Here too was silence, save in one hut +whence issued the voice of a wakeful infant, as boldly bawling as if it +were some cherished scion of civilization. Gradually, insensibly, the +world took on an aspect of gray dimness. The mountains looming around +began to definitely darken. The stars had all grown faint; for the +sun would not await the moon’s descent, and presently, driving hard, +his chariot was on the steep eastern summits; the song of birds, the +trumpet-blast of the wind, the whispering voice of rustling pines, the +dash of glancing waters, and human cries of joy and cheer were elicited +as if these matutinal sounds partook of the quality of light.</p> + +<p>The French officer, dead beat, still slumbered, but Push-koosh rose, +stretched himself, and still arrayed in his splendid ambassadorial +attire went out into the freshness of the dawning day and the renewing +possibilities of the world. A man who hoped to make naught of dancing +devils should have been earlier astir.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</span></p> + +<p>There was a scene of activity down at the river bank. The pettiaugre +of their expedition, which had been brought to the Muscle Shoals of +the Cherokee River laden with powder to aid in the removal of the +barriers to free navigation, had been steered with great difficulty +and at considerable risk through the rapids, repeatedly grazing the +bottom, although it was a much smaller craft of the kind than was usual +for the conveyance of freight. Proceeding thence up the stream, it had +succeeded in passing safely the “whirl,” the “boiling pot,”—known +now to modern engineers as the “mountain obstructions,”—and albeit +somewhat the worse for the hard wear of its experiment, it had finally +reached the smoother waters of the Little Tennessee, and continuing a +placid progress along its curves, was coming in to land at the town of +Great Tellico.</p> + +<p>It was the intention to present the cargo as a token of amity from +the French governor to the town of Tellico, such being Laroche’s +instructions from Kerlerec in case the powder could not be used in the +removal of the reefs.</p> + +<p>Only a few of the Cherokees were on the bank, and in obedience to their +signaled advice, the Choctaws on the pettiaugre had sheered off from +the shallows, where a landing had been at first contemplated, and where +the craft would have gotten aground at an inconvenient distance from +the shore, to seek a deeper haven indicated by the Cherokees, who, as +they ran up and down, gesticulated violently in the sign language, and, +in lieu of comprehensible, articulate phrases, uttered wild cries, +curiously unmusical, like the voice of the dumb.</p> + +<p>There on the bank was Eve (her Indian name was Akaluka, which signifies +“a whirlwind”). Overpowered with curiosity as to the arrival of the +boat, she had repaired to the scene. Being as elaborately appareled as +on the preceding evening, it is fair to conclude that the two handsome +strangers had not been altogether forgotten. They were now, however, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</span> +far from her thoughts. Like a frugal female, she was wholly absorbed +in anxiety,—not lest an awkward landing should endanger or submerge +many pounds of precious gunpowder, a princely gift from the French +government to its secret friend, the important municipality of Great +Tellico, especially at that time and in this region, but there were in +the cargo sundry trifles originally intended as presents to individuals +for the personal propitiation of certain warriors, and she was +solicitous as to the fate of one of these gauds. It was a scarf of thin +silk, a deep red, with a golden glimmer of broidery, and it had fallen +over the gunwale as the Choctaws, no great boatmen at best, awkwardly +shifted the cargo in the imminence of the peril of the precious +freight. All unheeded, the scarf, escaping from its flimsy wrapping, +was now floating away to deck the insensate wave.</p> + +<p>Standing on the peak of a high rock, and distinct against the blue +sky, like some delineation in white crayon, arrayed in her white, +dressed doeskin garb, her white buskins, the white quills in her black +hair, she shrieked again and again to the laboring Choctaws, as they +wearily trimmed the boat, seeking to acquaint them with their loss, +and adjuring the rescue of the property. They heard her, doubtless; +but if they understood they did not heed. Their freight of gunpowder, +meaning much to the Cherokees of valiant alliance, and even the hope +of emancipation from the rule of the hated British, and always to all +Indians the equivalent of money, of food, of life itself, rendered +infinitely unimportant the gewgaws of the cargo, such as the red scarf +so rapidly floating away on the steel-gray water. Flesh and blood could +no longer endure the harrowing sight,—at least the flesh and blood of +Eve. She suddenly held up both arms above her head, the palms pressed +together; she brought them downward in a great, sweeping curve, as she +bowed forward, and with an alert spring plunged from the crag into the +deep water far below.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</span></p> + +<p>Push-koosh noted the resounding plash and held his breath for a moment, +so daring the feat seemed to the unaquatic Choctaw. He watched half +skeptically the successive silver circles elastically expanding over +the spot where the gray water had closed over her head, as if he +scarcely expected to see it rise again. Presently he caught a glimpse +of it, very black and glossy still, but far out toward the middle +of the river. She was swimming strongly in the silver gray floods +and approaching the red scarf, that had now a wanton wind astir in +its folds and threw up a curving edge like a sail. She carefully +intercepted its course on the current, and holding it aloft out of the +water, began to swim with one hand, still strongly and deftly but more +slowly, toward the pettiaugre.</p> + +<p>Push-koosh’s dark, sombrely lustrous eyes followed her with admiration. +This method of progression seemed no longer the exercise of frogs. She +lifted her head and her body half out of the water as she swam almost +under the bow of the pettiaugre, and held the scarf aloft that one of +the Choctaw boatmen might take it. The one nearest at hand desisted +from his work and looked over the gunwale at her in surprise. Then +suddenly he lifted his head, for a sharp halloo came from the bank. +He understood the words shouted to him, recognized the authority of +Push-koosh, and giving the woman only a shake of his head, by way of +refusing to receive the bauble, fell once more to working the boat, +and Akaluka, with the rescued scarf still in one hand, was obliged to +paddle smartly to keep from being drawn under the pettiaugre by the +suction, as the craft once more drove swiftly forward, cleaving the +sunlit waves.</p> + +<p>There was nothing further for the Cherokee girl but to swim for the +bank. She was bewildered, a little startled, full of wonder, for she +had just perceived the presence of Push-koosh upon the scene. She +laid her course for a point distant from the rock upon which he had +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</span> +been standing while shouting his command to the boatman to refuse to +receive the scarf, but when, still swimming with one arm and holding +the delicate fabric out of the water with the other, she came alongside +a ledge above a deep, still pool, he was here, waiting for her, and +gazing down at her.</p> + +<p>She threw her head far back as, all clad in white, she lifted her +body half out of the water, and looking up at him held up her arm and +offered the scarf.</p> + +<p>He made no motion to take it. “<i>Ook-kak!</i>” (Swan!) he said. +“<i>Che awalas!</i>” (I shall marry you!)</p> + +<p>He said no more, and walked away instantly. She scrambled out of the +deep water and stood on the rock, looking after him for a moment with +the scarf still in her hand. Then with it still in her hand she ran +home,—ran so fast, that with the wind and the sun and the speed, her +hair and garments were almost dry when she reached her house, and but +for the trophy there would have been little to confirm the details of +this strange event when she recounted it to the man who said afterward, +“You must blame the woman!”</p> + +<p>Now this personage was one of the “mad young men” of the Cherokee +Nation who always craved war,—which, however, seems to be the +normal attitude of mind of the young officer even of civilized +armies and accounted sane. He perceived propitious signs in the +evidently impending proposition of a Choctaw-Cherokee alliance. This +combination aided by the French government would indeed be able to +strike a crushing blow to the British power in the Indian country. The +experiment was obviously to be made. Intermarriages would strengthen +the Choctaw-Cherokee bonds of amity. “You love the present,” he said in +definite affirmation.</p> + +<p>But Eve, ever the woman, tossed her head. Was there no man in all +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</span> +the Cherokee Nation to marry her, she asked in laughing mockery and +coquettish humility, drawing the scarf back and forth through her +hands, and looking far more beautiful than her wont with that curious +embellishment of beauty which a realization of admiration confers,—no +man at all, that she must needs marry a foreign Choctaw who spoke no +language that a sensible person could understand, and who lived far +away, who could say—indeed, where?—in the moon, perhaps!</p> + +<p>Whereupon this mad young warrior, who was of her own kindred, the house +of Ahowwe, the Deer family, told her that she spoke as a fool, since +she was already committed, for she had taken the Choctaw’s present, a +sign that she loved it, which was according to inflexible etiquette an +acceptance of his suit.</p> + +<p>Then she grew grave and a little frightened, and very voluble. She +explained that she had had no intention of taking his present, and had +kept it only because he would not receive it again, and she had no +words that he could understand. But she would not marry a man to whom +she could not speak her mind (one of the noblest prerogatives of a +wife) and live with him in the moon!</p> + +<p>As she said this, she looked upward with her great, dark, liquid eyes +to the moon, still white in the western sky, but lace-like, tenuous, a +most unsubstantial presentment of a dwelling-place.</p> + +<p>The young man of the house of Ahowwe would not follow her wandering +gaze as they stood together under a tree in front of her house,—no +longer her dead husband’s war-pole marked its entrance, the peeled +sapling, on the boughs of which the weapons of the warrior were hung +until the stake rotted in the ground and fell. The young kinsman was +experiencing a sudden and extreme agitation because of her perversity, +for if it became necessary to explain the misunderstanding to the +Choctaw at this crisis, before the proposals of the French authorities +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</span> +were made to the headmen of Tellico, it would doubtless greatly +anger Mingo Push-koosh, and might frustrate the full disclosure of +the measures of his embassy. Essential details might be perverted or +entirely withheld in malice or revenge. And thus the French alliance, +long sought by both nations, might fall to the ground. It was a +complicated train of reflection that he followed, but he said quite +simply, and with a cheerful air, that after all it was no great matter. +To be sure she should have laid the scarf at the feet of the Choctaw +chief, as he did not receive it when offered, to show him that she did +not love his present and that his suit was rejected. But it was likely +that Mingo Push-koosh had half forgotten it by now; he was of so great +esteem in his own country, a prince and a most valiant red warrior! He +was even sent to the Cherokee nation by the great French father with a +splendid French officer as his interpreter! Such a man as that would +not care—he had too much to think of. He himself, her young kinsman, +would make it all right. He would see Mingo Push-koosh and return the +scarf, and explain that she was only one of those stupid people who +did not understand aught, and he would also lie and say that she was +shortly to be married to a man who had no war-title and had never taken +but a single scalp. Mingo Push-koosh would not care for her after such +a description as that!</p> + +<p>As he offered to lay hold on the scarf she drew back, shook her head, +breathed very fast, and finally burst into tears. Whereupon this wise +young man, who was only called “mad,” demanded of her in affected +surprise why she wasted her tears. Surely she did not want to live in +the moon and marry a Choctaw chief, even though he had achieved the +distinction of a dozen “warrior’s marks” for his prowess in battle! +Why did she not give up the scarf?—he, her kinsman, would return +it for her, and the great chief would not care; for he would tell +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</span> +Mingo Push-koosh of a handsomer squaw than she, and younger by four +years, more appropriate to make a splendid marriage such as this. +Then Eve gave herself to argument, as she always does, and smartly +demanded to be told the name of this squaw more beautiful than she, +and most pertinently required of him to disclose the reason, since her +attractions were so easily eclipsed, that the two strangers, the French +officer as well as the Choctaw chief, must always gaze at her in the +merrymaking last night,—why did not their eyes seek those younger and +more beautiful squaws, as all were present? She declared, moreover, +that she would not give her scarf to him. He doubtless desired to +make himself fine in it for the horse-races (in fact, it had never +been designed as a gift to a mere woman, but as propitiation for some +goodly warrior, to rivet his affections to the French interest, and to +be worn as a sash, or scarf, or turban, or in any way that his savage +fancy for decoration might dictate). As to the scarf, she averred that +it was hers, and she would keep it, and she would hear no more of his +sharp speeches, which made her heart very heavy. The day was wearing on +and her work was awaiting her. So she seated herself on the protruding +roots of the great tree in front of her dwelling, giving the final deft +touches to a large mat which she had been weaving.</p> + +<p>The “mad young man” flung away, secretly satisfied, but with a +discontented and affectedly scornful mien, after the manner of his +kind, and meeting presently a congenial spirit he paused to detail the +demonstration of the Choctaw chief and its reception by the woman. The +listener, too, was of the Deer family, and not insensible of the value +and distinction of the proposed matrimonial alliance. But he forthwith +freely stigmatized the ambassador as a “mad young man” to be thinking +of women and marriage in a crucial national crisis such as this. As +he contemplated the political juncture, he could not sufficiently +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</span> +applaud the wisdom of the other’s course in preventing the return of +the scarf and the consequent affronting of the Choctaw chief, for +since the present had been received his suit was accepted according +to etiquette. They agreed that she must marry him,—as at heart she +was no doubt willing to do, but must needs affect reluctance after the +tiresome fashion of women, and talk about living in the moon! And with +a scoff at such feminine follies, which they declared made their hearts +weigh<a id="FNanchor_5" href="#Footnote_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a> very heavy to contemplate, these “mad young men” separated, +each going his own way cheerfully,—neither of them being threatened +with a doom of living far away, among strangers in a foreign tribe, in +a speechless marriage.</p> + +<p>As Akaluka sat under the tree and worked at her mat her own heart grew +heavier still, and in fact she hardly knew what to make of it. Now +and then the realization of the admiration of her suitor brought a +curve of pride to her lips, and then her eyes would fill with tears in +doubt, and dismay, and anxiety,—all those troublous vacillations of +sentiment which a woman naturally experiences in such circumstances; +for she was, perhaps, not the first woman, and certainly not the last, +who has accepted a suitor without intending to marry him, and cannot +perceive definitely how to recede from an engagement that has become +unexpectedly binding.</p> + +<p>The man in her thoughts suddenly passed,—the Choctaw chief with +the French officer. Both paused as their eyes fell upon her. She +was tremulous, perturbed, appealing as she looked up from her lowly +posture. A mottling of darkness and sunlight was about the verges of +the shadow of the great, wide-spreading tree, but only a dim, green, +subdued atmosphere where she sat and in her white attire and with +her fishbone needle in her hand wrought an added embellishment of +embroidery in the borders of her painted mat.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</span></p> + +<p>Both men perceived her agitation. The officer, unaware of the incident +of the morning, did not comprehend it. With that suave Gallic civility, +always solicitous of the <i>entente cordiale</i>, he exclaimed aloud +in Cherokee his admiration of the fabric. It was one of those carpets, +described as “two fathoms long,” woven of the wild hemp, and painted +with indelible dyes and designs of the figures of beasts and birds, +always the same on both sides. Laroche expressed an interest in the +plan of its barbaric decoration and effort at delineation, while +Push-koosh stood and silently looked on. Here Laroche traced out a lion +(the panther or American cougar), which evidently signified strength, +and here were feathers, many and various, so dexterously imitated that +he declared they seemed real, which suggested softness, and love, +and nesting,—the symbolism was of the guardianship of home,—truly +an appropriate mat to lay before a hearthstone! Secure in his +interpretation, he looked straight at her with a smile in his handsome +brown eyes. She must needs speak in response; yet with Push-koosh +loftily looking on she sought by her phrase to include them both as, +gazing up, she faltered that she had kept it quite smooth despite its +complicated design,—it was quite smooth to walk upon.</p> + +<p>It was too pretty to walk upon, the Frenchman declared in facile +compliment, and as she drew out the roll flat, to exhibit its +smoothness of texture, he dropped on one knee and tried its sleek, +evenly wrought fibres with his hand. But Push-koosh, turning away, +walked across it with a lordly air like a husband, and as the Frenchman +rose from his kneeling posture and joined him, Akaluka looked after +them both, with the fishbone needle motionless in her hand, extended to +the limit of its hempen thread, and destined to be very idle that day. +She was best accustomed to the attitude of mind of the Indian,—and +yet the Frenchman, how quick of interpretation he was!—how well he +understood all things! Strange, strange, that there should be such +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</span> +difference in men! She would not have been afraid to go with him—to +the moon.</p> + +<p>They conducted themselves at the horse-races that day like other “mad +young men;” they shouted, and bet more than they could afford to lose, +and argued much, and talked very loud, and were tumultuously and +heavily self-important. But that afternoon, seated in secret conclave +on buffalo rugs on the floor of the council-house, with half a dozen +chiefs of the towns of the vicinage summoned to join Moy Toy and the +headmen of Tellico at the conference, they seemed to have experienced +a sudden recurrence to sanity, a lucid interval, and each deported +himself much like a man of this world.</p> + +<p>These deliberations, although expected to result in a treaty, were not +conducted as a formal council, since the will of the Cherokee nation +could only be expressed in a general congress, and much consideration +must needs precede so important a step as a renunciation of the +British alliance and firmly grasping the hand of the great French +father. The pipe was solemnly smoked, and although none arose as usual +in addressing the assembly, their habitual courtesy to one another +in council was observed, each speaking in turn, and punctiliously +refraining from interruption. When a subject was mentioned on which the +speaker desired a categorical reply from any one present, he handed +that person a small stick, at the end of the paragraph as it were, to +keep the remark in mind, and then went on to the other heads of his +discourse. When he had finished all he had to say, specific responses +to the details of his speech were made in turn by those to whom he had +handed sticks.</p> + +<p>As Moy Toy thoughtfully canvassed the advantages proposed by the French +alliance, he remarked that Atta-Kulla-Kulla—a noted chief not present +at this time—had always advocated adherence to the British treaty, +since the trade which it provided and protected, albeit a monopoly, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</span> +afforded the Cherokees a means to keep under arms and adequately +supplied with ammunition, which was essential for hunting, and also in +view of war; even to enforce against the British with the arms they +themselves had supplied the observance of every jot and tittle of the +compact with the Cherokees. This advantage the French did not furnish +to the Indian tribes under their control.</p> + +<p>He paused and solemnly handed a stick to Push-koosh, and then another +to Laroche.</p> + +<p>It was the fashion, he continued, among the “mad young men” of the +nation, to comment upon Atta-Kulla-Kulla’s desire to avoid causes +of war with the British, calling him “an old woman;” but the great +chief was a wise man, for the object of prime importance was to keep +the warriors of the tribe under arms in the European fashion, since +bows and arrows were of no avail against powder and lead, and on the +supply of guns and ammunition actually depended the continuance of the +national existence of the Cherokees.</p> + +<p>Push-koosh held his stick, attentively listening as Laroche interpreted +these words, and in answering said that it was even for such reason +the French father furnished the Choctaw tribe fully with arms and +ammunition only in times of war against a common enemy—so that, on +other occasions, their own “mad young men,” caviling thus at the +superior wisdom of their elders, might not have the means of embroiling +themselves and thrusting nations into hostilities when the great +warriors and “beloved men” were all for peace. But for chiefs and +headmen the armories of the great French father were always open.</p> + +<p>He deftly touched the handsome pistols at his belt with a casual +gesture, and hardly seemed to listen to the voice of the French officer +repeating his words in Cherokee.</p> + +<p>The Indian councilors experienced a tumult of excitement, which their +faces, however, stolidly repressed when Laroche, replying without +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</span> +regard apparently to the presence of the Choctaw, said, as he held +his stick in his hand, that it was by no means the intention of the +French authorities to ignore the different status of the Cherokees +from the tribes under their control. The Cherokees, as the French +government well understood, were in effect an absolute integer in the +sum of nations, a free, independent, unified people, and they would be +armed and equipped in accordance with that fact. Whereas the Choctaws, +and Choccomaws, and others were nearly akin to the Chickasaws, all +sub-tribes of the Chickemicas of old; and although the Chickasaws, +always adhering firmly to the British and inimical to the French, had +often warred bitterly against their kindred Choctaws, still in view +of ties of consanguinity, similar customs, and above all a common +language, a friendly compact between them at some period, while not +probable, was eminently possible, especially when promoted by the +machinations of the British. Under these circumstances the French +father felt indisposed to keep the Choctaws fully under arms while +their brothers, the Chickasaws, held the knife at his throat. Surely +the great and wise chiefs could perceive a reason for a difference in +his attitude toward the Cherokees.</p> + +<p>The great and wise chiefs could and did! They were also moved by a +recollection that the most notable of the Choctaws, the great chief +Shulashummashtabe (Red Shoes), long entertained designs to detach his +whole tribe from the interest of the French, being instrumental in +their defeat at the battle of Ackia, where he stood aloof with his own +command of Choctaw braves while the French troops charged to the cry of +“<i>Vive le roi</i>!” and afterward he fled in a simulated panic. He +later openly deserted to the English, and a reward being offered for +his head by the dear French father, he was treacherously slain by one +of his own tribe, during the governorship of the Marquis de Vaudreuil.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</span></p> + +<p>The Cherokee chiefs in council felt much as if they were treading on +mined ground, as they listened to the French officer’s voice while he +rendered into Choctaw his long speech for the benefit of Push-koosh; +for as the ambassador was blandly smiling, they must needs be sure that +the interpretation tendered him was to an entirely different effect.</p> + +<p>The Indians were so crafty that they seemed to love a device for its +own shifty sake. They secretly admired this keen double-dealing of +the French authorities, without reflecting that a two-edged blade is +made to cut both ways. With a heightened sense of the sagacity of the +French officer, they all bent an attentive ear to his account of the +obstruction to navigation in the <i>Rivière des Chéraquis</i> and his +disappointment to find that it was not to be overcome in the manner +expected by the French governor Kerlerec,—in fact it was there for all +time.</p> + +<p>Mingo Push-koosh had been himself disappointed, both as a soldier and +a statesman, but his mien had an element of pride as he said that the +variegated merchandise—<i>al-poo-e-ack</i>—could not be forwarded. +Perhaps he resented the fact that he had been forced to discuss the +clipped-claw condition of the unarmed Choctaw tribe, whom Kerlerec had +nevertheless the art so to propitiate that he was called preëminently +the “Father of the Choctaws.” Mingo Push-koosh was evidently secretly +triumphant in the realization that the French alliance which he +possessed so easily, and the Cherokees coveted so strenuously, was +not to be had by them; for without the privileges of trade and a base +of supply, the Cherokees must adhere to the repugnant treaty with the +British to be able to keep under arms at all, even in war with other +tribes.</p> + +<p>Moy Toy’s countenance fell.</p> + +<p>“<i>To e u</i>?” (Is this true?) he asked sternly, as if he suspected +dissimulation, for from time to time there had been traffic more or +less by way of the Cherokee River.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</span></p> + +<p>“<i>To e u hah</i>!” (It is true indeed!) replied the French officer +definitely.</p> + +<p>The chiefs looked from one to another silently, their countenances +expressing much that their pride would fain have hidden. If this +were true, a species of vassalage was the best hope of the free and +independent Cherokee people. Laroche begged to be permitted to explain +his views in reference to the obstructions to navigation.</p> + +<p>Canoes, he went on to say, could pass of course, a few light craft +occasionally, perhaps even large pettiaugres at long intervals in +some especially favorable stage of the water, but for the free, +systematic transportation of the fleets of a great and continuous +trade, the passage was forever impracticable. In the distant future +the difficulties of navigation might be nullified by the construction +of a parallel artificial channel (he could find no Cherokee equivalent +for the word “canal”), the method of which he alertly explained with +that relish of technical details characteristic of the very young +in science,—all as carefully heeded by the Indian statesmen as if +entirely comprehensible. But at present he desired to lay before the +wise chiefs a plan of his own, which, should it meet their approval, he +would elaborate and submit to the governor at New Orleans.</p> + +<p>There was an interval of silence as he arranged his thoughts. The +anxious, deliberative faces of the chiefs all turned toward him, their +eyes keenly studying his expression of countenance, seemed oddly +incongruous with the puerile decoration of beads and great earrings, +and feathers poised upright on each polled head. The vague light of the +smouldering council-fire flickered upon them; the sombre interior of +the windowless building was but dimly glimpsed in the deep red glow; +the glare from the brilliant day outside filled the narrow portal as +with some transparency, some illuminated segment of a painted landscape +unnaturally bright,—an emerald mountain aglow, a silver shimmering +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</span> +river, a bit of sapphire sky, intense. Voices, faint in the distance, +of jovial intimations, came from where the young people were dancing +in three circles after the races and the feastings. The sound was +far alien to this atmosphere of thought and anxious care, this dim +council-house, where were concocted the measures of statecraft that +kept the people free and happy. Even Push-koosh, whom the envious +shadows could not bereave of the brilliant effect of his white raiment, +asserted albeit in the dimness, his glossy pearls, the glitter of his +silver ornaments, did not heed the joyous clamor. As to Laroche, he did +not hear it at all.</p> + +<p>It was not to be contemplated, he said, that this perverse obstruction +to navigation should withhold the Cherokee nation from firmly +grasping the hand of the French father who loved them; but since it +was absolutely impracticable to send valuable cargoes of arms and +ammunition, as well as cloths, cutlery, tools, and paints, all those +necessities of the Indian trade, so expensive and difficult to be +obtained, through those twenty miles of roaring rapids, to say nothing +of the whirlpools further up the current, the merchandise might be +thence transferred, under strong guard, by land with pack-horses to +the comparatively near point of the reopening of easy navigation, were +there a barrier town settled at each extremity of the overland route to +receive and distribute the goods by the various waterways throughout +the Cherokee nation.</p> + +<p>“<i>Seohsta-quo</i>!” (Good!) cried Moy Toy of Tellico.</p> + +<p>The others in great excitement but in definite order, observing +their usual courtesy in deliberation, with much rapid bestowal of +sticks, bespeaking categorical answers on the various details, +began the discussion of this bold project,—the extension of their +settlements for more than a hundred miles rather than fail to secure +the advantage of the French alliance. The details of the diplomatic +scheme illustrated the Frenchman’s fertility in device, and Push-koosh +was not slow to perceive that Laroche presently had both hands full +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</span> +of sticks, while he himself held but two, evidently tendered only as +an afterthought and <i>pro forma</i>. The Indian statesmen wished to +hear the French officer speak. The coherence and cogency of his plan +commended it. Indeed, afterward they contemplated the removal of the +town of Tellico Great itself, one of the “seven Mother Towns” of the +Cherokee nation, far enough down the Cherokee River to be within easy +access of the large French pettiaugres. Even as it was, the nation +subsequently extended its frontier on this basis, and a series of new +towns was settled below the “mountain obstructions,” the “whirl,” the +“boiling pot,” and still beyond, near the upper end of the Muscle +Shoals, serving as the “barrier towns” of the tribe. The Cherokees +craftily explained to the English the necessity for this move by +the statement that the site of some of their upper towns had become +infested with witches!—it may safely be presumed that they were +British witches!</p> + +<p>The questions relative to the proposed new location,—the number of +warriors requisite for the barrier towns; the possibility that, if +supported by a sufficient force of braves in the neighborhood, the +French government would settle a garrison at the Muscle Shoals; the +number of horses and men necessary for the pack-trains and the guard +for the overland transportation; the most desirable point for the +resumption of the water carriage of the merchandise up the Cherokee +River, and thence by way of the Eupharsee (Hiwassee), the Tennessee, +the Agiqué (French Broad), throughout the Cherokee country; the +measures to be taken for the protection of French traders and their +mercantile assistants against the British,—all these points Laroche +intelligently discussed, continually receiving and returning sticks, +while the transparent landscape in the doorway shimmered to a change: +the blue sky grew red, the green mountain turned purple, the silver +river dulled to steel, and a star began to flicker in the west.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</span></p> + +<p>Moy Toy would have talked on through the descending darkness, +regardless of the night and the dying of the last ember of the +council-fire, save for the admonition of one of the minor chiefs, +on whom the duty of caring for the creature comforts of the guests +had devolved, and who contrived to intimate presently that it was +long since the strangers had eaten and drunk. On this account the +council was adjourned, Moy Toy still wearing a thoughtful aspect and +meditatively saying, “We will talk of this again to-morrow.” And as +they left him in the gloom of the state-house, and began the descent of +the steps of earth that led down from the high mound, they heard him +still mechanically repeating in the solitary darkness, “We will talk of +this again to-morrow.”</p> + +<p>Now Push-koosh, like some other infants, even when not Choctaw chiefs +nor warriors, was of a proud, implacable, and pompous self-opinion. +It required little to wound his vanity and nettle his temper, but +indeed he had ample cause for affront in that this officer had talked +unceasingly in his presence to the Cherokee chiefs without pausing +to translate what was said, although in their excitement no one had +noticed the fact. At first Push-koosh had essayed to speak in Cherokee, +but his knowledge of the tongue would not sustain the subtleties of +his meaning. He had even humbled himself once to seek recourse in the +sign language, comprehensive enough for all needs, but every eye was +fixed upon Laroche, every ear intent. He felt his pride touched that +this absorbing interest, which the chiefs had manifested in diplomatic +matters, sprang from naught that he had disclosed in his ambassadorial +capacity,—in fact he did not even know the subject of their excitement +or its importance. He thought it derogatory to his position to inquire +of Laroche, or to seem to realize that he had been overlooked—he, the +head of the embassy! But the incident roused him to the assertion of +his own importance.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</span></p> + +<p>He saw, with pleasure in the contrast, that Laroche was exhausted by +the mental stress of the discussion, while he had been refreshed by +the long hours of rest in the quiet seclusion of the state-house. +When they were seated in one of the piazza-like cabins at one side +of the “beloved square,” where the banquet had been spread after the +races, Laroche was still absorbed and silent, ate little, and drank +only of the decoction from the “flint corn” made by boiling the grain +and straining the result, the beverage when cooled said to have been +refreshing and nutritive and “much liked even by genteel strangers.” A +fire was alight in the centre of the “beloved square,” but the other +public buildings were all vacant, and their open piazza-like fronts +showed dark and deserted in the deepening dusk. The festivities were +over for the nonce; the Indian guests from the neighboring villages +had departed; the strangers’ share of the evening banquet, with which +the merrymaking in their honor had ended, having been reserved for +them till the close of the protracted session of the council. The town +seemed drowsy, already half asleep; only a few occasional passers set +the echo of a footfall astir; an owl was hooting in the woods; a vague +sense of dreariness had descended with the twilight, and suddenly +Laroche became cognizant, with a start as if he had seen a ghost, +that there was a presence at the meal of which he had been hitherto +unaware,—Akaluka herself, meekly seated by the Choctaw chief while he +silently ate and drank.</p> + +<p>There was a bold, open triumph in the face of Push-koosh, as he noted +the manifestation of surprise. He looked at the French officer as +arrogantly as if he had already that luxuriant Gallic scalp hanging to +his favorite pipe. Perhaps he himself had never seemed so assertive, so +lordly, as in the blended light of the bland moonrise and a flickering +pine torch with which the table was lighted by the old woman who +served it,—his strings of pearls, his glittering pistols, his white +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</span> +and scarlet garb, the red flamingo feathers in his hair, the broad +silver band across his forehead, his perfect physical condition; while +Laroche, pale from mental exertion, the mathematical calculation, the +evolution of plans of public polity, the arrangement of intricate and +antagonistic details in the problems of the Indian trade, wiped his +forehead, felt his eyes ache, and was too tired to eat.</p> + +<p>These plans were the more precious since they were suddenly beset with +a new danger; he realized the menace, although he did not appreciate +that he himself was an element in it; he did not know how admiringly +the girl had gazed at him the previous evening at the pantomime, while +Push-koosh, who could have killed him for it, gazed at her. Even +Push-koosh had noted his unconsciousness of this fact,—but Laroche had +not been equally oblivious of her attractions. “<i>Eho chookoma</i>!” +quotha. She might now gaze at her peril,—and so might he! Laroche had +not noticed this evening the Choctaw as he beckoned the girl to sit +beside him as he ate, but he knew enough of Indian etiquette to be +aware that this is the method by which the suitor formally recognizes +and emphasizes the fact that his addresses are accepted.</p> + +<p>Laroche had learned that this woman was the sister of Moy Toy, and +while a Choctaw match for her might be approved by him as a means +of strengthening the alliance between the tribes, still there was +of necessity great doubt as to the completion of this national +compact, the Choctaws and Cherokees having many ancient enmities to +reconcile, and the offer of intermarriage must needs be approached with +precaution. And above all things at some future day! To hamper at this +crisis so important and promising a negotiation between the French +government and the Cherokee nation, so difficult of arrangement, with a +nettling trifle like this,—a personal matter of so alien and doubtful +a character,—Laroche trembled with impatience at the very thought.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</span></p> + +<p>He was once more all alert. When Push-koosh rose at last from the meal +and flung casually away, taking his path along the river bank where a +cool breeze was stirring, the lieutenant followed. For although the +woman must sit beside her suitor when he eats if he beckons to her, +still the match is not yet irretrievably made. He must needs give +her the foot of a deer as an admonition how brisk she must be on his +errands, whereupon she must bake and offer him a cake of rockahominy +meal, as token of willing subservience. He must also break an ear of +corn in half, and in the presence of witnesses give her one portion, +retaining the other himself, which completes the symbolic Indian +marriage ceremonies.</p> + +<p>“Push-koosh,” said Laroche gravely, as he approached,—the Indian +slackened his pace, welcoming from his position of vantage as an +accepted suitor the prospect of a quarrel with a jealous lover,—“the +commandant did not send us here to make love to women!”</p> + +<p>Push-koosh turned to glance aside at him. “Take care that you don’t do +it, then,” he admonished the officer.</p> + +<p>“Our mission is a matter far too important to jeopardize with such +considerations,” declared Laroche. He slipped his arm through the +Choctaw’s in a friendly way and detailed at length his scheme, his +clever scheme, apologizing that he had not interpreted it at the +council. “But it was not a part of our instructions,—only a plan of my +own.”</p> + +<p>“You did not want my suggestions,—I do not want yours,” retorted +Push-koosh, deeply angered to perceive the importance of the +discussion, through which he had sat silent, carried on over his head.</p> + +<p>“But you can see surely that there must be no talk of women and +marriage till all this is settled,—wait till you come again,” urged +Laroche, holding his temper well in hand.</p> + +<p>“<i>Eho chookoma</i>!” quoted Push-koosh significantly. “Meantime there +might be another man!”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</span></p> + +<p>That fatal “other man”—was ever a lover’s dream which he did not haunt?</p> + +<p>“But, <i>Bébé</i>, Push-koosh,” argued the Frenchman suavely, “what +would you do hampered with a Cherokee wife if, after all, this tribe +continues to adhere to the British, and should take part in their war +with the French and their Choctaw allies?”</p> + +<p>Push-koosh, animated with the jealous conviction, yet full of triumph +in the fact, that the French officer was himself in love with this +charming swan and therefore sought to interpose obstacles, retorted +as if to strike him to the heart, “Do?—comply with the tribal +custom! <i>Kill her!</i> In the last war with the Muscogee, did not +the Choctaw braves who had married Muscogee wives kill the women and +their children, they being also Muscogee, for the children inherit the +nationality of the mother? I should, of course, kill her!”</p> + +<p>He had turned to face the officer, who stood for one moment speechless, +realizing the strange world in which he was living, the curious medley +of devil and man, of savagery and civilization.</p> + +<p>The moon was well up over the river, and where the light struck with +full effulgence the water was all a shining violet hue; the banks were +of an invisible green, too dark for color, but somehow still sensibly +verdant. All along the shore the frogs were piping, hardly noticed; +for in the budding rhododendron close at hand a mocking-bird sang with +wonderful <i>élan</i> and elasticity, the multitude of exquisitely +sweet notes springing one from another with a definite effect of +rebound.</p> + +<p>“Push-koosh,” the lieutenant said at length, “<i>mon Bébé +bien-aimé</i>, you always betray your tender infant heart!”</p> + +<p>He seemed to laugh, but his hand trembled on the hilt of his sword, +as he stood as if irresolute and gazed at Push-koosh with a threat in +his intent eyes hardly less fierce than the look with which only last +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</span> +night Push-koosh had menacingly, nay murderously gazed at him while he +slept. Suddenly the officer turned aside, and alone took his way back +to the Indian town.</p> + +<p>Yet Laroche did not love the woman. Perhaps he was merely civilized by +virtue of his nationality and his religion; for although as a soldier +he would have coolly taken the life of a man and an enemy, he felt all +a coward in the secret danger that menaced the Cherokee girl, unaware, +doubtless, of her peril. He himself was not unaware of it, and therein +he perceived an irksome responsibility. The Cherokees were so far in +advance of the other Indian tribes in point of character, sentiment, +civilization, that Laroche doubted if this mode of ridding one’s +self of a wife, who, through no fault of her own, but for political +reasons, had incurred disfavor, would suggest itself to them more +readily than it had to him. With their evident intention to accept +the proffer of the French alliance, it was more than likely that the +Cherokee authorities, with their characteristic lack of foresight, +would treat the match with the Choctaw chief as if the compact with +the French were already made fast. Yet should it fail,—and from +Laroche’s post on the seamy side he saw many a rent in the web of the +probabilities,—Push-koosh had said it,—he had decreed her fate.</p> + +<p>Laroche had so longed for the success of his scheme! It was so great, +so clever, so promissory of personal and professional advancement! He +felt that he would hardly hazard an item of its development for his +own life,—much less then for the life of a creature like this—hardly +more human than a deer! Besides, why should he interfere?—all might +yet go well with the alliance. When he began to argue thus, he suddenly +stopped short. Would he weigh a human life in the balance of his +personal interest—become, albeit indirectly, accessory to a murder +of the innocent? He grew a trifle pale at the thought and devoutly +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</span> +crossed himself. He would assume no such responsibility. He would keep +no such secret. And then he began to see the matter in the light of +an official duty. He represented the French interest, and should the +Cherokees ever learn that he had been cognizant of this threat and had +withheld it from them, it would alienate them, as naught else could, +from the power that so earnestly sought their conciliation. In every +point of view he determined that he would not hesitate. He would lay +the matter before Moy Toy, as in civilization he would instantly report +a threatened murder to the police.</p> + +<p>Now Moy Toy was a man of family affection. Years earlier, in 1730, he +had given indications of this fact when a Cherokee delegation, favored +by royal invitation, were on the point of setting forth to visit +King George II. in London; Moy Toy, although he was to be the chief +delegate, at the last moment relinquished the distinguished opportunity +because his wife had fallen dangerously ill and he could not leave +her. Therefore he remained at the little Indian village, while several +other chiefs made the wonderful journey to England, and had audience +of the sovereign at his palace, and were the recipients of innumerable +presents and attentions, being the lions of the day.</p> + +<p>He now took instant alarm at this menace to his sister, and to +Laroche’s surprise presently summoned to his aid and counsel the other +chiefs of Tellico Great. The Indian scheme of succession follows +the collateral female line, and therefore Moy Toy’s possible future +nephew would inherit his office as chief of Tellico Great, to the +exclusion of his own son. Hence his sister was a personage of as +much consequence in Tellico Great as a mere woman could be, and the +council agreed that in view of this circumstance they would not trust +the Franco-Choctaw-Cherokee alliance until it was an accomplished +fact. Yet even now it was in jeopardy, for Mingo Push-koosh, the +French ambassador, bearing also the assurances of the Choctaw nation, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</span> +angered with so good a reason might work mischief. And then began the +accusation of the woman!</p> + +<p>Why had she kept his present, and involved them in all this difficulty? +the sage councilors assembled in the state-house demanded of her when +summoned before them. For this very reason, she declared, had she kept +his present, although not loving it, for the young men had said that +she must not on any account anger the Choctaw ambassador of the great +French father. Then poor Moy Toy, roused from cogitation on such deep +and intricate problems as had occupied the day, to fill the dark hours +of the night with vacillations and agitations touching the political +effects of so ill-starred a flirtation, asked her bitterly had she +no more sense than to listen to the “mad young men!” Whereupon she +protested with tears that the “mad young men” had but spoken the words +that even now were on his own sage lips,—the ambassador must not be +angered!</p> + +<p>With daylight came new resolutions. Moy Toy, arguing that the +ambassador was not empowered to treat for a Cherokee wife, and to exact +compliance with his demand as a condition of his mission, concluded +that he sustained no official affront in the ceremonious return of the +scarf with an intimation that so great and flattering an intermarriage +could only be made after the compact with the two tribes.</p> + +<p>Now it is possible that Push-koosh might have acquiesced with +appropriate docility in this obviously just reasoning of his elders, +requiring, however, promises of Moy Toy on his sister’s behalf, +conditioned on the completion of the tribal compact, had it not been +for his jealousy of the French lieutenant. Akaluka, again summoned, was +also at the state-house, wild-eyed, tremulous, visibly terrified, eager +to return the present, which, having been made acquainted with her +possible fate, she was far indeed from loving.</p> + +<p>As the Choctaw ambassador received the scarf which she tendered +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</span> +him, the cogent reasons for delay that had been urged, the political +interests involved, so prominent in the apologies of the Cherokee +chiefs,—all were merged in a sense of sustaining the curious disgrace +of a personal and public rejection in the presence of a rival,—for +Mingo Push-koosh caught the eyes of the French lieutenant fixed +hopefully upon him.</p> + +<p>Why then, the Choctaw asked quite calmly, had she received the present +if she did not love it? Why had she sat beside him as he ate? For +himself,—neither did he love the present!</p> + +<p>He held up the gauzy red scarf and with sundry swift passes of a scalp +knife severed the fabric into dozens of shreds, sent lightly flying +about the state-house like a flock of redbirds. Then whirling on his +heel, he quitted the council-chamber and followed by all his tribesmen +ran across the “beloved square” to the river bank, where the pettiaugre +lay defenseless at his mercy. All the kegs of the precious powder were +emptied into the stream before his design was dreamed of, and still he +deemed he had sufficient margin for a running start from the pursuit +he expected, for he paused in the woods to hang up the “war-brand.” +This being, however, in a secluded place, it was not early discovered, +and the first intimation that the Cherokees received of the depth of +his resentment was the massacre almost to a man of a peaceful party +of their tribesmen, offering no resistance, taken wholly by surprise, +owing to the pacific character of the Franco-Choctaw mission to Great +Tellico. This exploit achieved, Mingo Push-koosh and his escort, +adorned with scalps and singing war-songs, made good their escape, with +the wonderful Choctaw speed in marching, leaving the deserted Laroche +alone and at the mercy of the frantic and infuriated Cherokees.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="III">III</h2> +</div> + + +<p>LAROCHE, abandoned thus among the Cherokees, was in the extremity of +peril. Apart from their spirit of tribal cohesion, the strongest of +national sentiments, all those more intimate ties of family affection, +of municipal unity, and of neighborly custom, in which they were +peculiarly bound, were insistently asserted in the calamity, as the +massacred braves were all of Tellico Great. When the gory figures of +the unarmed, unpainted youths, still limp and warm, not yet stiffened +into the starkness of death, were borne into the precincts of the town, +the wailing of the women and children, and the hoarse cries of fury and +despair and grief of the men, filled all the bland, sunlit spaces of +the morning, and were a heavy burden to the air.</p> + +<p>It was with no definite sense of the wisest course that Laroche had not +moved from the portal of the great state-house whence he had beheld +Mingo Push-koosh, followed by all his braves, rush across the “beloved +square” to the pettiaugre and accomplish the destruction of the powder. +He was stunned, bewildered, as by the fall of a thunderbolt. Only +afterward he realized that he had no choice. The craft still lay at +her moorings, but his single strength could not have sufficed to float +her, even if in the confusion he had escaped. He had a shrewd surmise +of the secret source of the wrath of the Mingo, and he doubted if the +jealousy of the Choctaw, once unleashed and dipped in blood, were less +formidable than the wild frenzy of the Cherokees. Moreover, at their +freest pace, speeding for their lives, he knew that he could never have +sustained the gait of the marching Choctaws, and must eventually have +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</span> +fallen by the wayside or lagged to certain capture.</p> + +<p>He began to appreciate, as he stood, an aspect in the accident of his +posture which his craft recognized as savoring of more wisdom than +he could have attained by his own mental processes. His isolation +implied that he was no accessory to the crimes in which the mission had +terminated. The desertion of him by the Choctaws augured scant value +of his functions in the embassy, and still less friendship for him +personally,—his safety, indeed, they disregarded. He began to hope +preposterously, as his heart swung into more normal palpitations, that +his nationality, his secret mission within the Franco-Choctaw mission, +his obvious freedom from any conspiracy with the Indian ambassador who +had so conspicuously abused his trust, might serve to protect him.</p> + +<p>Then he perceived suddenly that he was arguing from the probabilities +on a civilized system of ratiocination. For himself, he did not love +the spectacle of suffering nor the smell of blood, albeit so skilled in +the designing of lines of <i>tenailles</i> and <i>en crémaillère</i>, +in which men were to lay down their lives in much agony. His own +development of barbarity was on a different basis and had a vocabulary +quite distinct and scientific, his jargon of <i>trou-de-loup</i> and +<i>cheval-de-frise</i> and <i>chausse-trappe</i>; and he watched with +a very definite sentiment of reprehension and mental disapproval, as +well as a deep and numb despair, the approach of a half dozen fierce, +lowering-eyed braves, full-armed, who stood for a moment looking up at +him and then seated themselves, obviously to remain, at the base of the +mound, assuming the functions of a permanent guard.</p> + +<p>In fact, Laroche had been unobserved at first in the clamors and +confusion of the disaster, the departure of the horsemen on the heels +of the flying Choctaw pedestrians, the ghastly return of the young +Indians of the massacre, who had gone forth with all the imponderable +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</span> +lightness of life and joy in the morning and now were brought back +in weight with death and woe. The first vague suggestion of the +alleviation of the public calamity came with the stern thought of +vengeance and its opportunity. In that moment the eye of one of the +headmen chanced to be lifted to Laroche. The guard was dispatched in an +instant, and whatever might have been the issue of an effort to escape, +the possibility was now gone forever. He began to perceive that they +would take no thought of an absence of conspiracy. He was one of the +embassy—its accredited interpreter; he was also a Frenchman, and the +Cherokees were still in open alliance with the British. Moreover, he +was in their power, and <i>blood for blood</i> was ever the Cherokee +rule.</p> + +<p>For a time he made no effort to appeal to his guards, even by a glance +or a gesture. Hour after hour passed away. He heard the vague sounds, +in the distance, of the chanting of the funeral songs; he perceived, +undistinguished, colorless, meaningless, like shadows through a +dark glass, the passing of the funeral processions here and there +around the houses of the dead. Again and again there smote on the air +wild outbursts of the protesting woe of the mourning, the note of +incredulity, the appeal against injustice, and that pathetic plaint of +a heart all bruised and tender—and yet in a sense he heard naught. He +was conscious of a degree of quietude when the actual details of the +interment were in progress within the houses, for with the Cherokees +the dead were always buried deep, deep under the floor of their own +homes, and a sense of extreme fatigue ached in his muscles. He realized +how long he had maintained a standing posture there without a motion—a +sentinel who habitually mounted guard his eight hours out of the +twenty-four would hardly have been capable of such resolution. As his +eye met that of one of the guards, he saw in the inexpressive face of +the Indian a sort of appreciation of his strength of will that coerced +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</span> +the endurance of the flesh, and at last he spoke:—</p> + +<p>“Moy Toy cannot think me to blame—why does he guard me here?”</p> + +<p>They all gazed at him with a sort of concentrated fury. The racial +hatred against the white man—ineradicable, unappeasable, now +and again only pretermitted for a time in favor of some special +individual—showed in their strongly marked, savage features, with the +primitive passions of the rule of force and the thirst for revenge +painted upon them in a breadth of expression that pigments could not +emulate.</p> + +<p>“Blood for blood,” one of them said, and spat upon the ground.</p> + +<p>“If I were one of the Choctaws—yes! But I am French. I have done +naught. They have deserted me. I am entrapped here. It would please +them that you should shed my blood.”</p> + +<p>There was a momentary silence under this logic. Then another of +the Indians, always of a far greater intellectual pride than might +be readily imagined, and keen and quick in argument, came to the +spokesman’s rescue. He was the man whose eyes had applauded the +prisoner’s endurance—a mere tribesman, of the rank and file only; he +had a broad, animated countenance, a high, aquiline nose, a long, upper +lip, and a distinct accentuation of the lines of his features. He wore +the scanty raiment of the lower grades of the Indian, but the careful +and elaborate tattooing of blue, red, and green indelible paints +disposed about his limbs, in which he must have spent much arduous +labor, had almost the effect of long and elaborately embroidered hose +and gloves. He had a shirt of buckskin, devoid of beads or ornaments, +save a fringe about its edge, but which seemed remarkably plain in +contrast with the decorations of his arms and legs. He leaned upon +a gun of very doubtful intentions, unlike the smart, British “Brown +Bess,” with which the tribe, however, was generally armed. With +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</span> +a vivacious air, he demanded of the Frenchman if he had forgotten +“Ablaham” so soon.</p> + +<p>“Abraham?” said Laroche vaguely.</p> + +<p>“The white man’s poor memory! It was his treaty he forgot, usually, but +now he had forgotten too his religion. He had forgot Ablaham—the great +white chief whom he was telling Moy Toy about yesterday!”</p> + +<p>Laroche remembered, with a pang as for a folly, an effort at the +conversion of the ignorant savage. Yesterday—only yesterday!—he had +sought to explain to Moy Toy the plan of salvation and to enlist his +interest. He laughed aloud in bitter mirth—a short, hollow note, +and then must come contrition and a mutter of prayer. Abraham and +Isaac—how far away they seemed!</p> + +<p>“But, my friend,” he said, “the injunction to shed innocent blood was +for a purpose—to test the faith of the great chief; and the blood of +the innocent was not exacted. I have done nothing. I only am deserted, +caught here as in a trap.”</p> + +<p>“Likewise was the ram whose blood was shed,” declared the specious +Indian, his eyes flashing fire,—“caught as in a trap by the horns in a +thicket. And the ram had done nothing.”</p> + +<p>The Frenchman was fairly silenced; the others, hardly comprehending +the discourse, not having burdened their minds with Abraham and his +experiences, conceiving him to be an Indian agent, or in some other +position near the governor of Louisiana, Georgia, or South Carolina, +only discerned from the facial expression of the two men that the +Cherokee’s keen wits had come off victorious in the encounter, and +despite their gloom, they made shift to smile at each other in +ostentatious amusement, and in derision of the purblind white man.</p> + +<p>Laroche’s anxiety and apprehension were hardly assuaged by the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</span> +recollection of the blood-offerings among the religious observances of +the Cherokees, intimately connected with their system of government and +warfare, which had recalled strongly to his mind associations with the +Mosaic dispensation. Many minute requirements and ceremonies savored +of the Hebraic ritual, and in their distortions had impressed him as +survivals of actual customs, and were thus more significant than the +legends found among the tribes betokening Scriptural suggestions and +supposed to be the result, <i>disjecta membra</i>, of the teachings +and traditions of Catholic truths which Cabeza de Vaca left among the +Southern Indians.</p> + +<p>Laroche sought to compose his mind. He was a soldier, and would muster +all a soldier’s courage,—a Christian, whose hope was in no help of +man. He would calm himself and await the worst or the best, as God +should choose to send it, with the serenity of one whose life is, +after all, not his own. As he stood there in the wide glare of the +sun, it seemed to have grown speedily and strangely very hot. His +eyes were on the mountains far away, that through the silvery, vernal +mists, forever shifting, belied their stanch and massive solidities +by a shimmer like some wavering, blue sea; not a breath of air was +in the deep, green shadows of the darkling ranges close at hand; the +river, a wide blade of steel without flaw, bore the polish of a mirror +and a blinding glitter. Suddenly a cold chill struck through him. At +first it crept along his spinal column, slight, insidious, vaguely +shivering; then in its icy thrall he shuddered again and again; the +drops that fell from his brow upon his hands were ice cold, and as he +looked down, wondering, at his long, thin fingers he saw that they were +blue under the nails to the first joint. Some change in his face had +attracted the attention of the Indians. They were all gazing up at him +in surprise, as shudder after shudder went over his features, pallid +even to blueness. He instinctively put up his hand to his brow, and he +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</span> +found that even to his cold fingers its touch was like marble. He was +obviously very near death, done with the world and with worldly pride, +but he was still a soldier, and his pulses beat to a martial point of +honor. He could have died with shame, albeit the spectators were but +savages; for he thought this manifestation purported the subjection of +fear, and that thus the staring Indians recognized it.</p> + +<p>Averse as they were, they accounted him no coward. In truth, his +stanch, compact physique and his bold spirit promised good sport at the +torture, and they had discussed with one another from time to time the +various details of the anguish which his strength and courage would +enable him to sustain, and which sometimes weaker and fainter hearted +men eluded and despoiled by dying prematurely. They could hardly +explain the change in his complexion and expression of countenance, and +only wondered while they looked, and presently it passed away, leaving +the flesh of a ghastly, uniform pallor, flabby and listless.</p> + +<p>But Laroche had hardly recovered his normal temperature. He was +suddenly weak and tremulous. He could no longer sustain the standing +posture. In another moment he would have fallen. With his winning +affability and gay grace, that became his ghastly, stricken face as a +wreath of flowers might a death’s head, he remarked that since they +were all sitting he would take the liberty of sitting too, and ran down +two or three of the grassy steps of the mound and there dropped upon +the turf, half reclining, one elbow on the step above him, supporting +his head in his hand, and with his limbs stretched out at length +across the stairs below. The Indian guard at the foot of the mound +did not stir, save that the acquaintance of “Ablaham” placed a finger +ostentatiously on the trigger of his loaded gun. Laroche looked at him +with a laughing sneer that taunted him to do his worst. The slug of the +charge would have been too merciful.<a id="FNanchor_6" href="#Footnote_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a> There was no intention in the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</span> +threat, and the Indian laughed like a roguish child detected in a bit +of mischief.</p> + +<p>The sky was reddening at last and Laroche, looking over to the far +west, felt as if that incarnadined glow in the heavens was rising +in his veins as the sun went down. It was not the red reflection on +his face, but the blood mustering close under the skin when he again +changed color. He felt it racing and rushing through his veins, ever +quickening, ever wilder.</p> + +<p>His mood changed. He had been saying to himself that it was no +matter when or how painfully he died. He wished that he might see a +priest—the good Père François; he caught himself hastily, remembering +that piteous death of the father. Alas, when and how painfully have +died many, many of the Order of Jesus, here, there, in every clime! +He said to himself that he should be proud that it fell to his lot to +emulate the mortuary example of those undying missionaries, that yet in +the flesh died so hardily.</p> + +<p>“<i>Quibus dignus non erat mundus</i>!” he declared in swelling phrase, +<i>ore rotundo</i>.</p> + +<p>But with the sudden surging of his fevered blood he protested. +They,—God knew he wished to detract no whit from their credit,—but +they were spiritual-minded men, many convent-bred, ascetic, he had +almost said superstitious, solicitous for the martyr’s crown, with a +talent for dying, and a positive genius for remitting to everlasting +opprobrium throughout all the ages their misguided murderers.</p> + +<p>He broke off from these reflections with a sudden, loud, hilarious +laugh that echoed far through the quiet town on whose death-stricken +ways the dusk was gradually descending, and brought his Indian guard +to their feet with an abrupt spring, staring at him with vague wonder +through the gloom.</p> + +<p>His eyes, meeting theirs, were large, dilated, curiously bright. There +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</span> +seemed no recognition in them. He did not answer when they spoke, but +shifting his posture slightly went on muttering to himself; his mind +thus beyond the control of his will, he formulated more candor than his +disciplined judgment was wont to recognize. They were spiritual-minded +men, he reiterated, the Jesuit martyrs. For himself,—he was a soldier, +not a martyr. Dying was the last thing a soldier should do,—and +once more his foolish, frivolous laugh rang through the melancholy +glooms of the bereaved town. He was not fitted to die thus,—the +prey of unreasoning devils called by complaisance savages, to whom +he had been sent on a mission of importance to French politics. His +grave, his honorable grave, awaited him on some stricken field of +battle. He had thought a hundred times how it might come,—in the +rebuilding of some destroyed bridge which the enemy—<i>peste</i>! he +always destroys the good bridges!—or perhaps in pushing a parallel +closer and closer to the lines of the doomed defenses,—a ball from +the <i>chemin convert</i> of the fort might find a vital spot. Would +he shun it?—fear death?—“<i>Je te fais mes compliments</i>!” He +stood suddenly erect and saluted. Then he collapsed upon the ground. +A soldier’s hasty grave on the field of battle,—he coveted it. For +shrift,—the pressure of a good comrade’s hand might bid him Godspeed. +A soldier has few sins to confess. Little is required of him—he is +merely a soldier—all body and heart—a mere bit of a soul! But these +priests—these spiritual men—they who can profess so much, why should +they fail?</p> + +<p>A light was presently glimmering in the dusk,—clear, luminous, a +pyramidal flare approaching rapidly, then pausing as in uncertainty, +flickering through the blue darkness, and once more drawing near.</p> + +<p>“The lanthorns of the burial parties,” he said, contemplating with a +gentle melancholy the battlefield of his fancy. “Many a fine fellow +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</span> +coming to-day that must be carried to-morrow.”</p> + +<p>Then swiftly repeating a series of measurements and mathematical +calculations, he rose as the light paused at the foot of the mound and +the flare of the torch fell upon the face of Moy Toy, summoned hither +by the weird sound of that strange, hilarious laughter, and minded to +advance the hour for the prisoner’s torture and death, since he must +needs be so obtrusively merry in the face of their distresses and +disasters.</p> + +<p>Laroche recognized him vaguely, but naught of the circumstances which +environed him. He lifted his voice as he pursued his train of remarks, +expressing the jumble of his ideas.</p> + +<p>“Un bastion, Moy Toy, avec un ravelin,—et une fraise d’épine ne serait +pas inutile!—là,—là,—sur le bord de la rivière,—quatre-vingts +toises de distance,—pour enfiler les colonnes,—la fosse,—à la portée +du canon,—donnez dix-huit pieds de large au parapet,—et puis,—et +puis,”—</p> + +<p>He ran down the steps and laid his hot hand upon the arm of the +Cherokee chief, who stared aghast at this manifestation of a strange +distemper.</p> + +<p>It was well for Laroche that the Cherokees did not feel it incumbent +upon them to preserve the grace of consistency. If he had continued +in health, he would assuredly have been put to death with tortures, +in satisfaction of the iniquities of the embassy of which he was a +member, but his wandering mind, his evident delirium, precluded his +knowledge of his own fate, and thus robbed the torture of its choicest +delight, the fear and mental misery of the victim, as well as his +bodily agony. A postponement of the sentence was hastily agreed upon, +and the patient, still declaiming upon the advantage of one system +of fortification and contemptuously disparaging others, was gently +conveyed, for he could no longer walk, to the stranger-house which he +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</span> +and Push-koosh had occupied, put to bed on the elastic cane-wrought +mattress, and the medicine-men were summoned to exorcise this strange +demon of fever which had possessed the guest.</p> + +<p>The skill of these primitive people in the art of healing was said to +be very considerable. But in this instance the Cherokee physicians +found themselves at a loss. Laroche had duly absorbed the atmospheric +miasma of the swampy country near Mobile and New Orleans, which, had he +remained there, might have occasioned no trouble. But upon his sudden +removal it instantly manifested itself in a virulent type of malarial +fever, all its poison elicited by the pure, clear air of this mountain +region. Hence this salubrious clime has been called “the unhealthiest +country in the world” by suffering subtropical wights who would not be +at rest at home and could not be well elsewhere. This theory, exploited +long since those times, was not familiar to the two cheerataghe, who +rattled their calabashes at the fever demon with hearty good will. +They administered the varied decoctions of herbs famous as febrifuges. +They repeated aloud their ancient incantations, both mandatory and +contemptuous, bidding the malign spirit depart. They arrayed and +painted themselves in frightful guise to terrify the fever demon, and +decorated with buffalo horns and buffalo tails, they rushed roaring +from right to left in front of the bed, and when this proved futile, +from left to right. They subjected the patient to sudden immersion in +hot water, and then in cold, and again to a steaming process, placing +him in an oven-like structure of heated rocks, over which water was +poured,—all without avail. The Cherokee magicians began to look very +grave and ill at ease, for a dark cloud was ominously gathering on +the brow of Moy Toy. All at once Moy Toy had come to covet the life +of this man. It must be captured from death. He must be snatched from +the already open grave. Not for the satisfaction of exacting that +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</span> +terrible penalty, as one of the treacherous Choctaw embassy; not for +the keen delight of the spectacle of his death by torture. Any unlucky +French wight captured from the Illinois country; or some helpless +English body, unknown or of scant note, wandering away from a kindly +colonial settlement and heard of never again; or even a stanch Indian +of one of the inimical tribes,—Muscogee, Tuscarora, Seneca,—any +mere man, in short, who had blood to spill, and bones to break, and +nerves to writhe might furnish this sport. With this man’s death +more was lost,—a subtle, keen brain, technical military knowledge, +practical military experience, a tongue of wondrous craft trained in +various speech, a secret cogent influence with the French authorities +at New Orleans,—all calculated to subserve the Cherokees, and this a +trifling kindliness would reinforce by the claims of gratitude, a claim +paramount in the Indian scheme of ethics.</p> + +<p>So overwhelmed had been the wary Moy Toy’s brain by the surprise, the +fury, the grief attending the catastrophe of the massacre of his young +tribesmen, that these considerations were not even dimly presented to +his alert perceptions till the moment that Laroche dashed down the +stairs of the mound and impetuously flung himself into his host’s arms +with his delirious babble of military works and munitions of war. It +was at first but a vague impression, a doubtful suggestion. The crafty +Indian mind dwelt upon it in the days that came and went. Time seemed +to embellish, to perfect it. And now it had become the dearest boon of +fate, and the Indian could not, would not forego it. For this man could +design and build a fort that could withstand a British assault! He +could so dispose the Indian facilities as to enable them to defend it. +He could by reason of his connection with the French government secure +such munitions of war as would complete its armament. An impregnable +stronghold in the wilderness, with scientifically handled artillery, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</span> +could set at naught British aggression and hold the country.</p> + +<p>Turned in whatever light, the idea presented a perfect symmetry. +It was like a many faceted gem. And thus the two magicians, men of +herbs and simples, found their equanimity shaken and their capacities +seriously hampered by the continual presentation of Moy Toy’s imperious +countenance at the door of the stranger-house, and the sight of his +agitation and anger that the cheerataghe had failed to exorcise the +demon of fever and work a cure. Therefore they besought him to leave +the sufferer to their ministrations; for his angry countenance caused +their hearts to weigh very heavy within them, and his sharp speeches +gave great offense to the demon of fever, who had never within all +their experience conducted himself in the wayward, troublous manner of +his present manifestations.</p> + +<p>“But the man will die!” said Moy Toy, looking down in angry despair at +the wasted face and form, as the restless head of the patient turned +from side to side, always weary, vainly seeking rest.</p> + +<p>“Is he the first?” asked one of the cheerataghe. For like a physician +of civilization, he by no means guaranteed the continuance of life by +virtue of his science.</p> + +<p>It was very honestly and earnestly exerted, and both he and his +colleague felt all the virtuous rage of sustaining a grievous injustice +when Moy Toy said, with a rancor that surprised them (for quarrels and +unkindness to one another were almost unknown in the tribe, the utmost +placidity of temper and mutual forbearance being <i>de rigueur</i>), +“You promised rain,—and behold at this season of the year a drought +lasting six weeks, and the planting of corn delayed till a famine +threatens, and not a drop till to-day.”</p> + +<p>“A visitation! a visitation! because of the sins of the people and +their hardness of heart!” cried the two magi in a breath.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</span></p> + +<p>Wherein they improved an advantage over the faculty of to-day.</p> + +<p>Moy Toy silently gazed down at the rolling head and the fixed, +absorbed eyes bent steadily on some phantasmagoria of the fever. He +noted the weakness of the once clear, strong voice,—the definite, +trained enunciation had sunk to a husky mutter. Still Laroche babbled +of military operations, for now and again Moy Toy caught the phrases +“quatre mortiers—Coehorn—champ de bataille—barils de poudre,” +although the rest was unintelligible, for now he spoke continuously in +French.</p> + +<p>“He must live! He must live for the Cherokee nation!” exclaimed the +chief, with the insistence of hoping against hope.</p> + +<p>One of the cheerataghe had a fine, steady, acute eye, a hideously +painted face, with the aspect of a bedlamite, arrayed as he was with +buffalo horns and tail, and with his body stuck over with wings of +owls, the calves of his legs hung with a dozen garters of rattling bell +buttons, and a long-handled gourd filled with pebbles in his hands, +which were covered with bear’s paws. Perhaps the patient’s delirium +could present nothing more grotesquely, absurdly frightful.</p> + +<p>“You, Moy Toy,” he said, in his grave, sonorous, sane voice, “you have +given offense to the demon of fever. For when the sun is rising the +man revives; he will take drink, although he cannot eat; he will speak +Cherokee, softly, softly; he will close his eyes and sleep. And then +come you!—with a troubled face, and a harsh voice, and an eager step, +and a fierce hurry! And the demon of fever is angered, and the fever +grows quicker, and more eager, and harsh, and angrier than you! And it +rises and rises till the man will not drink and cannot see, and has no +speech but a shred of French and screams for dreams that are without +sleep!”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</span></p> + +<p>He looked to his colleague, who gravely nodded his fantastic head in +corroboration.</p> + +<p>Moy Toy silently studied the face first of one of the magicians, then +of the other. Although immeasurably superstitious and credulous, he +was yet grounded in craft and suspicion. And, in truth, perhaps he was +not without justification; the cheerataghe, like more modern disciples +of Æsculapius, doubtless often attributed to other causes disasters +consequent upon a lack of skill or its misdirection. In this instance, +however, the value of the stake at hazard, the imputation of the malign +personal influence of his presence, a vague indignation that he should +be esteemed obnoxious to any being—even a demon of fever—rendered Moy +Toy peculiarly alert, watchful, disposed to exact to the extremity of +the possibilities.</p> + +<p>The two cheerataghe, as his glance once more sought the pallid face, +the ever-turning head on the pillow, looked anxiously at each other. +For the face seemed death-stricken. The next moment they took sudden +hope. A change, a vague, indefinable change, quivered over it. The +jumble of French words faltered on Laroche’s feeble tongue. With +unexampled resolution, he pressed firmly his silent lips together. +And in that silence the wary Indians heard what had come first to his +ears. Even in the dullness of fever and the frenzy of delirium, he +had interpreted its significance, so momentous it was to him. A voice +it was in the broad spaces of the “beloved square” without, a bold, +hearty, roaring voice, speaking the English language with a blatant +Scotch accent.</p> + +<p>The three Cherokees gazed at one another in tumultuous and contending +emotions. They experienced much gratitude that the spark of perception +intimated they might still hope. They could hardly repress their +admiration of the finesse, the courage, the mental balance, that +enabled Laroche to perceive the crisis, interpret its meaning, and +meet it with a sane judgment,—his self-control, which even in the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</span> +thrall of fever could curb the infirmities of that weakly, babbling +tongue, and silence the self-betrayal of the French speech upon it. All +their excitement, however, was subordinated to the triumph in his craft +that stimulated their own emulous resources. He was indeed in great +danger. Emissaries of the French among the Indians, having done so +much to instigate and maintain the late Cherokee War, were peculiarly +obnoxious to the British authorities. In fact, rewards had been offered +for their scalps, and by the late treaty the Cherokees themselves were +pledged to arrest and surrender these enemies of the English. Moy Toy, +making a gesture imposing secrecy, stepped out of the door to meet the +visitor, who was clamoring as loudly and boldly in the “beloved square” +as if he were in his own byre.</p> + +<p>“Hegh, Moy Toy!” he cried bluffly, breaking away from the “second men,” +as the subordinate authorities of the town were called, “how’s a’ wi’ +ye, man?”</p> + +<p>He was a tall, heavy, awkward fellow, with a boisterous, assured +address, a broad, red face, light almost flaxen hair, plaited and tied +with a leather thong in a queue, arrayed in buckskins but with long +cowhide boots, and enveloped in a great match-coat, for it had been +raining heavily, and the drops still clung upon the tufts and fibres +of the cloth. His cap of coonskin, with the tail as a pendant, was +pushed back from his brow, revealing remarkably straight, regular, and +well-formed features and shrewd, blue eyes. He held under his arm a +stout horsewhip as a companion rather than a weapon, for his pistols +were in the holsters on the saddle of his nag, which, drenched to the +skin, hung down its head where it stood unceremoniously hitched to a +stake whereto was sometimes bound a victim for the torture. The guest +made no pretense of adapting to the Indian ceremonials the manners in +which he had been bred, as was the custom of strangers and traders +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</span> +generally, or of recognizing any princely arrogations on the part of +Moy Toy. He advanced with great, muscular strides toward his averse +host,—who visibly winced from the overpowering redundancy, as it were, +of his presence,—seized upon the limp hand of the Indian, and crushed +it in his cordial grasp as if Moy Toy had been also a bold Briton.</p> + +<p>“How’s a’ wi’ ye?—an’ what d’ ye hear frae Charlestoun?”</p> + +<p>There was scarce similarity between this hearty, warm-blooded entity +and a snake, but Moy Toy, of his own volition, would have touched +neither except upon necessity or in the way of business. The fibres of +his hand tingled with the consciousness of the detested impact long +after the trader’s unwelcome grasp had relaxed and his manual energy +was expending itself in aimlessly cracking his whip at the sand of the +smooth spaces of the “beloved square.” There was a spark of smouldering +fire in the eyes of the Indian, a tense restraint in the muscles of his +shoulders and his straight back, as if he would fain hold himself under +strong control. Albeit his interlocutor spoke English he understood +Cherokee, and Moy Toy replied in his native tongue; thus each talked +without solicitude, for each was comprehensible to the other. The +Indian said that he had no news from Carolina and inquired in turn, but +with scant show of interest, “as to the Muscogee?”</p> + +<p>“I begin to think a’ thae carles are dead!” exclaimed Jock Lesly, +with a vigorous snap of the whip. “They were looked for to join the +Chickasaw and the English agen the French away yon to the south. But +deil ane o’ them hae minted a word yet!”</p> + +<p>The Cherokee’s stately dignity, his cautious, reserved speech, +contrasted strongly with the Scotchman’s unsuspicious plainness, as +he waited with an air of expectation. If the Indian had had news, +he would not have bartered it with the trader, nor indeed had the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</span> +trader repaired hither for what he could hear. This mutual realization +embarrassed the pause, yet Jock Lesly still sharply cracked his whip at +the sand and hesitated as to what he should say.</p> + +<p>With all the thrifty instincts of the canny Scotch pioneer of that day, +with all the bold, bluff courage of his vigorous personality, Jock +Lesly had been the first, and as yet the only trader to venture back +within the remote mountain region, whence the fury of the terrible +Cherokee War had driven all mercantile enterprise. Indeed, the treaty +was hardly signed before he was again in the place that had known him +of yore, his trading-house rebuilt, depending for his safety partly on +the treaty and partly on his utility to the savages, his popularity +among them, and his conscience void of offense against them.</p> + +<p>“I hae had as muckle o’ the rack an’ rief o’ the war as ye,” he was +wont to say, “an’ the Lard kens I wad wuss to be canty and quiet enow.”</p> + +<p>As he stood looking aimlessly about, he noted that the ranges were all +full of mist between the domes, and from the soft densities of its +white, fluffy masses those eminences rose in sombre, purple hues and +massive effects against a pale gray sky, along which lay horizontal +clouds, of a darker, denser gray. The river, with lace-like films of +mist hanging in the budding green willows and pawpaws of its banks, +had the tint of burnished copper. The great trees of the limitless +forests, and those gigantic growths around the town, dripped with +moisture as they hung down their sodden branches about the newly washed +boles, the bark so dense of color as to suggest the effect of being +freshly painted. A dull day it was, and the atmosphere, devoid of all +elasticity, seemed almost too lifeless to breathe. He broke at last +from his dubitation and began in his neighborly wise:—</p> + +<p>“A-weel, a-weel, Moy Toy, there hae been a wheen idle, feckless loons +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</span> +frae your toun o’ Tellico down to Ioco Town aboot my trading-house. An’ +there they lifted a few trifles frae the stock,—but I’se no grudge +that,—a few bit duds. But then they slartered a couple o’ sheep,—an +auld yowe and a yearlin’.”</p> + +<p>Moy Toy’s face grew dark with anger, and yet almost kind with concern.</p> + +<p>The good-natured Scotchman hastened to qualify. “They never carried aff +the meat nor yet the pelts,—they scalpit the twa puir beastises first, +an’ then cut their throats. I’m no the waur for the lack o’ mutton, +but”—</p> + +<p>Moy Toy’s countenance of amazed disfavor, astounded at the account of +this curious emprise, coerced sudden intelligibility.</p> + +<p>“Jus’ a wheen feckless laddies aping their elders,” explained Jock +Lesly, doubtfully. Then with an uneasy laugh he added, “An’ the bairns +cam hame wearin’ the scalps at their belts. I chased them a’ the way +with the powney.”</p> + +<p>Moy Toy did not laugh. Indian children play as do children of other +nations, reducing to the circuit of their narrow round—a juvenile +microcosm—all the methods and events of the elder world. But this +exploit transcended the limit of verisimilitude and entered on the +realms of the verities. The small banditti unchecked would soon venture +further and bring upon their elders anger, retaliation, embroilment, +with the trader, and premature fracture of the treaty.</p> + +<p>“They shall be dry-scratched,” said Moy Toy promptly.</p> + +<p>“Oh, wow, man!” exclaimed Jock Lesly sharply, as if he had been +suddenly pinched. “Na,—na,—not dry-scratched! Odd! I could na sleep +in my bed if the hempies were dry-scratched for me!—they ran sae +supple—the knaves! It is an unchancy, ugly thing, that dry-scratching! +Cuff the bairns weel—or gie them a flogging they’ll remember. Man +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</span> +alive! flogging is healthy for boy or beast! I’ve had it a thousand +times frae my auld daddy, God bless him! Flogging is what’s made the +British nation what it is,—but dry-scratching,—I’d die of it mysel’, +now. Oh, man,—oh, man,—flog ’em a little,—but dry-scratched—oh, +wow, wow!”</p> + +<p>He caught at the arm of the august Moy Toy, who was more accustomed to +order the torture and burning of Christian captives than the punishment +of a few children who had offended against the municipal law. He made +no sign and stood as adamant, but other Cherokees, who had joined them, +were smiling and looking at each other with the softened countenances +that express a gentle ridicule. Despite their friendly scorn, the +kindly trader’s deprecation of the punishment of the children and his +wild and earnest plea in their behalf could not fail to commend him to +their tolerance, and went far to explain a sort of popularity that he +had enjoyed among them. They knew that the little drama of the storming +of the sheep-fold and massacre of its inmates was too significant to +pass without notice, and for this very significance the punishment +decreed was to be immediate and sharp, to teach the youngsters where +fun ends and serious fact begins. Indeed Moy Toy himself saw to the +preparations for the capture and condign penance of the miscreants, +who, having returned from the war-path scathless, were now in full +swing of a mimic celebration of victory, the triumphant scalps in +evidence, and all the wide-eyed children of the town in joyful +participation.</p> + +<p>“Deil hae ye, then, for a fause-hearted, unceevilized tyke as ever +lived!” exclaimed Lesly, as the chief drew off from his grasp. “Egad! +I can ne’er abide to hear ’em skreigh like that,—wow,—wow!” And +clapping his hands to his ears, the Scotch trader fairly ran off as the +first shrill plaint of protest rose upon the air.</p> + +<p>Now it was a point of juvenile honor to bear this kind of punishment +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</span> +as stoically as might be, and a severe dry-scratching, always carefully +adapted in ferocity to the age of the delinquent and his capacity to +support pain, usually drew forth a tear or two and sometimes only +murmuring sighs. The habitual gentleness of the savages with their +children doubtless convinced the rising generation that the punishment +was only intended for their benefit and no whit administered in anger +or tyranny. Therefore in submitting with a good grace they were +contributing so far as in them lay to their own moral culture, and were +ambitious of the stoical poise, perhaps to make the penalty as salutary +as possible and go as far in reform as it would.</p> + +<p>The two little Indians were easily stripped of such semblance of +garments as they wore, and as they were being bound to the stake they +craftily set up a wild and poignant shriek upon seeing the Scotchman in +full flight across the “beloved square,” being apprised by the comments +of the laughing bystanders of his intercession in their behalf and his +aversion to the sight and sound of their woe. This had considerable +justification, for thus bound and helpless they were sharply scratched +from head to foot repeatedly with an instrument formed of snake’s teeth +fastened in the end of a stick.</p> + +<p>Because of the unusual commotion with which the affair had been +invested, no one noticed that the refuge to which the Scotchman, +familiar enough with the place, bent his steps was the stranger-house. +He burst in, and started back astounded at the figures of the +cheerataghe arrayed to frighten the fever in such manner as might have +frightened the devil. Then the trader’s eyes fell upon the white man +lying helpless on the brink of the grave, as it were, the victim of the +fever.</p> + +<p>“Lord save us!” exclaimed Lesly, with a sudden change of countenance, +“wha hae we here?”</p> + +<p>The two cheerataghe, unaware of the very disconcerting effect of their +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</span> +own professional appearance, themselves showed every sign of fear, +incongruous enough with their terrifying aspect. In fact they could +scarcely have been more alarmed had Satan himself appeared, for they +were unacquainted with him and his reputation, while quite well aware +who and what was Jock Lesly. The presence of the French emissary here +was a breach of the treaty lately renewed, under which the Cherokee +tribe traded with the British, and a menace to the privileges promised +to the Indians under its stipulations. They hardly knew how to reply, +and the abrupt entrance of Moy Toy was like a rescue from mortal peril. +The chief had bethought himself suddenly of the possible suspicion of +the stranger’s presence here that might be casually conveyed to Jock +Lesly’s perceptions, while free in the town unguarded and unwatched. +Anything so complete, so inexplicable, so irrefutable as his intrusion +and the evidence of his own eyes the chief had not anticipated for a +moment, and his ready resources of subterfuge failed him for the nonce.</p> + +<p>“Puir chield! I doubt na he is in the dead thraw!” the trader muttered, +his compassionate instincts uppermost. Then impressed by something +unfamiliar in the cast of the features, he asked doubtfully, “Is he +frae the colonies,—or overseas?”</p> + +<p>Laroche had been divested of his fine French uniform when he had been +brought here ill; it had been carefully put away in view of its future +use by his captors, being an official garb, for the crafty Moy Toy +fancied some occasion might arise when it would serve a diplomatic +turn. Moreover the gold lace and fine cloth were much too dazzling, +considered merely as booty, to be spared to the prisoner as habiliments +in which to be ill or tortured or buried. In the varied experiments +of the cheerataghe, contending with the rigors of the chill following +the fever, Laroche had been clad in buckskins, supplemented now and +then in the convulsions of the shudders and shivers by one of those +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</span> +feather-wrought mantles that attracted so much attention from the +early travelers in this region, the effect of which was pronounced +“extraordinary charming.” There was naught to indicate his nationality +or his estate as captive. Every evidence of care and solicitude +environed the patient, and Moy Toy’s explanation seemed obviously +genuine.</p> + +<p>The sick man had come to Great Tellico, the chief said, with some of +the Cherokee tribesmen who had been up to Virginia, and being taken +ill they had left him to recover while they went their various ways +homeward. He did not ask the man’s name of them, thinking to learn it +from himself. He had been only a little ailing at first, but now one +hardly knew what to make of him.</p> + +<p>Jock Lesly seated on one side of the cabin on the divan, with his +hands on his ponderous knees, his head bent a trifle forward, gazed +thoughtfully across the room at the fevered patient, as not so long +ago the Choctaw Mingo had sat and glowered at the recumbent frame then +sunken in sleep.</p> + +<p>“He is gaun to dee!” the trader remarked dolorously, at length, and the +words, bespeaking his own fear, fell with a crushing force on the hopes +of Moy Toy.</p> + +<p>Jock Lesly drew a long and labored sigh. If the sorrows of the little +dry-scratched Indians—wicked varlets—could take such hold upon the +sympathies of that frank, compassionate heart of his, how the sight of +this tragedy racked him,—this valuable life going out in exile, among +savages, with not one intelligent, civilized effort made to save it.</p> + +<p>“Gin I had him ance at hame!” he cried, in futile aspiration, “I doubt +but what Jeemes’s powder might wark a cure!”</p> + +<p>“Carry him there! The demon of the fever may not dare to cross a +stranger’s threshold!” cried Moy Toy, with a sudden inspiration. He +was thinking very rapidly. If some untoward chance should reveal +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</span> +the secret of the nationality of the man, which even in delirium +he instinctively guarded, why Jock Lesly and his household were +practically alone here, hundreds of miles from any English settlements, +and accidents were lamentably common in the distracted Cherokee +country at present,—so frequent, indeed, that the discovery might go +no farther! “The Cherokees will aid their guest. The brothers of the +tribe will rejoice to bear the burden of a litter,” he continued. “The +demon of the fever maybe does not know the way to Ioco Town and cannot +follow!”</p> + +<p>Jock Lesly, heeding little of these hopeful schemes for confounding the +demon of the fever, sat doubtful nevertheless and dumfounded. A vague +sentiment of suspicion had been lurking in his mind,—first, that the +Indians had not expected him to discover so unusual an inmate of their +stranger-house as this white man, and that he and his status were not +as represented. Then as Moy Toy so freely and instantly relinquished +his custody, the trader experienced as vague a doubt if the patient had +had fair play among them, since they were eager to get rid of him and +of such responsibility as his care imposed.</p> + +<p>“The puir Injun!” Jock Lesly said to himself reproachfully, “if I’ll +suspicion him o’ ane thing I’ll e’en doubt him o’ the contrary.”</p> + +<p>The man lay as in a “dwam,” to use Lesly’s expression. The trader +crossed the room, felt the temperature of the forehead, noted the dull, +opaque eyes, and laid his hand almost paternally upon the light brown +hair of a fine, silky quality, dense and curling.</p> + +<p>The trader was an unsophisticated man, unlearned and of a scanty +experience of the world, his life having been spent for the last ten +years in the treadmill round of a British factory in the Cherokee +country. He realized his responsibility and he shrank from it. He +looked at the impassive cheerataghe and received no light upon his +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</span> +course. He glanced out of the door.</p> + +<p>A change had come over the landscape. The wind was astir,—the clouds +were flying before it. Between their dense white masses the sky showed +intensely blue, inconceivably high. The sun shone with a vernal +brilliance,—it would not be unduly chilly by noon. Fragrance was in +the air, so fine, so fresh, so illusive. One might say that it was the +scent of the budding wild cherry; or, no,—the early blooming grape; +or, stay,—the delicate aroma of the bark of a tree, touched to this +distillation of incense by some happy combination of sun and wind and +rain. The whole scene beckoned, lured, besought.</p> + +<p>“An’ what for no?” cried Jock Lesly, his resolution taken at last. “As +weel dee under the canopy o’ heaven as in an Injun’s cabin!”</p> + +<p>Every precaution that could be devised was taken. The litter, fashioned +under his directions, was furnished by Moy Toy munificently, freely, +with the softest skins for mattress, with fine fur mantles for covering +that were impervious to water in view of sudden rain, and with others, +feather-wrought, light, and warm, to fend off all deleterious effects +of exposure. A dozen tribesmen bore it, stepping lightly, easily, on +their springy feet, unshod save for the elastic moccasins, and a dozen +more mounted men accompanied it to act as relays, and, thus relieving +one another, suffer no fatigue to retard their progress.</p> + +<p>“A body wad think the creature was a Christian instead of a doited +heathen!” Lesly said to himself, impressed by Moy Toy’s liberality and +anxiety in this work of mercy.</p> + +<p>For Moy Toy had despaired of the efforts of the cheerataghe to exorcise +the demon of fever and save this life to the utilities of the Cherokee +nation.</p> + +<p>“It is some devil of the paleface that has taken hold of him,” the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</span> +chief said sagely to the cheerataghe. “Let him have the white man’s +charm worked on him!”</p> + +<p>For if the French officer should die on the way to Ioco Town, would he +not also have died at Tellico?</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="IV">IV</h2> +</div> + + +<p>THE moment that Laroche was recalled to life was never very accurately +defined in his mind, so gradually did a full consciousness return. Nor +was he sure how entirely delirium had held him in its delusions. His +speculations were of a metaphysical tendency when he afterward dwelt, +with a microscopic scrutiny, upon those phenomena of involved cerebral +processes manifested in the sudden silencing of the French words upon +his dreaming tongue, as it vaguely shaped the confused thoughts of a +stupefied brain,—all upon one coherent impulse, on the sound of an +English phrase spoken in an English voice!</p> + +<p>That salutary monition abode with him, whether he slept, whether he +waked, whether he lay in that dim border world of swoons between +sleeping and waking. He was stricken dumb, although he could hardly +be said to have heard, for he consciously heard naught. And if, he +argued, these perceptions could have been so alert to the mere vocal +vibrations of the air, the instinct of danger so keenly receptive, +the will so strangely responsive to the demands of those supersubtle, +unclassified faculties, although every voluntary function of the +muscles lay prostrate, and every recognized process of the brain +was paralyzed, did not this imply some curious duality of identity, +an absolute independence of the intellectual life, unrelated to the +bodily functions, since so complete a solution of continuity had +supervened? It might have been that, though he accounted himself a mere +blunt soldier and upbraided his mismanagement that had jeopardized +the interests of the French mission, he was so complete a diplomat +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</span> +at heart that he could withhold with a nerveless hand, hear with a +deaf ear, plot albeit with a swooning brain, and hush the babblings +of delirium to keep a secret, of which at the moment he had no +consciousness!</p> + +<p>Thus, although his pulses ran riot, he continued to maintain a tense +silence. When the tumultuous phantasmagoria of frenzy gave place +to visions as vain but calmer, he found himself still mute, quiet, +orderly, exact, mentally verifying with mathematical accuracy the +relative measurements of a line of field fortifications, so designed +that an attacking column might be enfiladed thence. “For nothing,” he +said to himself again and again, “can stop an attacking column that is +not enfiladed.” Later, he was considering the possibility of defending +effectively a certain salient angle of an imaginary redoubt.</p> + +<p>To prevent the enemy from carrying the redoubt by storming this too +acute angle he began to mount a battery <i>en barbette</i> in the dead +salient. The doubt that now and again seized him as to the necessity of +these labors was dispelled by the actual sight of the canvas walls of +his tent about him, and therefore he would busily absorb himself once +more in these duties, and actively prepared to defend the ditch of the +redoubt by constructing there a solid <i>caponnière</i>.</p> + +<p>The placid peace of the man who is consciously doing his best in his +chosen vocation pervaded his whole system, mental, moral, and physical, +and brought refreshing, curative sleep to his pillow. So definite a +hold had this impression taken upon his mind, sleeping and waking, that +one morning he lifted his head with a start of alarm. There upon the +sloping canvas walls was a yellow streak, all the more vivid for the +white glare of the cloth in the rising sun,—and how had he not heard +the reveille? The echo of the bugle was in his ears, the molten, golden +notes of the old French call.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</span></p> + +<p>A strong tremor ran through the elbow on which he had supported his +head. Alack! no stirring, martial strain had summoned him. He lay back +on his pillow, realizing in dismay and yet in surprise that the walls +of the tent of his fancy were the dimity curtains of a bed, and he +began to remember vaguely the chances that had befallen him and to seek +the grace to be thankful.</p> + +<p>“I will wait and see what cause for gratitude I may have,” said +the unsubdued inner man, while his lips framed the verbal show of +a thanksgiving. His state of mind might have furnished still more +suggestive details of the possibility of a dual life in one identity.</p> + +<p>Nevertheless he recognized the fact that as far as the bodily entity +was concerned it was distinctly comfortable. Now and again he dropped +off into short, luxurious naps, even between the stages of his +investigation of his surroundings. In one waking interval he took +account of the furnishings of the bed: it bore sheets, a rarity of +the place and time so unexpected, so inexplicable, that it roused new +doubts and anxieties as to where he was, what had befallen him, and +what might yet betide. Still he could but finger them in pleasure and +with a childish relish of luxury;—snow-white they were, of a heavy, +fine linen smoothly woven, with the fragrance of the wood violets of +the bleaching ground, and the freshness of the wind yet in their folds, +as it seemed,—and once more he closed his eyes.</p> + +<p>When he wakened again he had so far accustomed himself to the homely +opulence of blankets and bedding that he was prepared in a measure for +the night-rail in which he found himself clad, but not for its size. +As he stretched out the voluminous length of its great sleeve and took +account of its breadth of shoulder, “A big man in good earnest this was +made for,—I shall take care to be friends with the monster!” he said.</p> + +<p>He bethought himself suddenly of the English words that he had +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</span> +heard,—a mere sound and locution,—yet this was the only definite +recollection that had stayed in his mind since the moment he had +beheld the flying figures of the Choctaws speeding across the “beloved +square” to the pettiaugre. He must bear a caution,—a Frenchman, and +possibly liable to be accused as a spy! He lifted his wasted hands to +his head: it was enveloped in a red nightcap, with a gay tassel swaying +on its fez-like peak; and much he needed it, for the whole head had +been shaved, sometime since evidently, for delicate tendrils of a new +growth were starting there and he felt fibres moist and soft about his +forehead.</p> + +<p>A step sounded suddenly outside, heavy but cautious; a stealthy hand +was laid upon the curtain; and as it was drawn aside the red face of +a man of middle age, tall, powerful, flaxen-haired, with high cheek +bones, a man whom Laroche had never before seen, looked in upon him. +Grave, astonished, delighted, the stranger seemed,—with a sudden +twinkle of comprehension in his blue eyes and an outburst of joy in his +big voice that made the bedstead tremble on the uneven puncheons of the +floor.</p> + +<p>“Hegh, callant!” he cried, as their eyes met, “but this dings a’! +Lilias! Callum!” he began to call over his shoulder to other inmates +of the house in so stalwart a roar that it might have been heard half +a mile. It easily penetrated the flimsy partitions of the primitive +building, and the feet of those summoned were audible rapidly +approaching. “Here’s the callant!” he exclaimed, as the door opened. +“Here he is,—a’ himsel’ again!”</p> + +<p>He had the manner of announcing the arrival of a guest, and Laroche +easily divined, from the hiatus in his recollections, that he could +hardly have been considered present hitherto, although visible in the +flesh.</p> + +<p>A young man, with less enthusiasm, but still an air of proper pleasure, +partly induced by genuine gratulation upon so happy an augury of +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</span> +the termination of a serious illness, and partly in propitiation of +the elder, whom it was evident he would have crossed upon no slight +occasion, advanced to the bedside and declared that he was glad to see +that the patient had recovered his consciousness and doubted not that +he would soon be on his feet. This young man wore the Highland garb, +from which Laroche inferred, somewhat quakingly, that he was of the +British soldiery who had been active in this region during the previous +two years, in the campaigns conducted by Montgomerie and afterward by +Grant against the Cherokees, in which the Montgomerie Highlanders (the +Seventy-Seventh Regiment) and others had participated, for at this time +the national dress was proscribed except for those enlisted in British +regiments. A barbarous garb the Frenchman considered it, hardly a whit +in advance of the savage decorations he had been called upon to note at +Tellico Great,—so strong were the international prejudices of those +days. For in truth it was a manly and graceful figure appropriately +bedight,—with swaying kilt, the short coat, the blue bonnet, with +its bit of bearskin decoration. The young Highlander’s fair hair hung +down thick and half curling from beneath this blue bonnet and lay in +an effectively contrasting tint upon the collar of the red jacket, +which constituted at that time part of the dress of the Forty-Second +Regiment, and was worn with a red waistcoat. The latter, we are +informed, was made over, in the governmental thriftiness, from the +red coat after a year’s wear, while the plaid, furnished biennially, +subsequently did duty cut down and frugally reconstructed into the +filibeg. But if the wildernesses of the Great Smoky of that day at all +resembled the tangled forest densities which still remain, the military +tailor who refashioned any garments whatever from the gear that +survived the marches through those brambly mountain jungles deserved +immortalizing above all other knights of the shears.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</span></p> + +<p>The dark blues and greens of the sombre “Black Watch” tartan in +Callum’s plaid and kilt afforded an added fairness to his locks. His +florid complexion showed a fluctuating red and white. His blue eyes +were large and well set, with lashes and eyebrows much darker than the +shade of his hair. He had high cheek bones and an expressive mouth, +with finely cut lips, red and mobile, often parted in the blithest +laughter for very slight cause, and exhibiting two unbroken rows of +strong, white teeth. His smiling face was as frank and honest as the +sun.</p> + +<p>Laroche’s sudden dislike of this young stranger surprised himself and +dismayed him as well. For would he have experienced this emotion were +the third member of the little group that stood by the bed different +from what she was? Her likeness to her father might have served as an +illustration of the apotheosis of humanity in a spiritual miracle. +Jock Lesly’s flaxen hair, half gray, half tow, was golden in the +glistening soft skeins of silk that swept upward from her brow in heavy +undulations. The blue veins that showed so definitely in the temples +could not have vaunted their delicate tracery through a skin less fine +and fair. Here and there was a freckle, but a faint blush-rose bloomed +over the whole cheek as if it sweetened the air. Her figure, draped in +a sober, gray gown, was tall and strong, but a trifle angular, denoting +more bone and muscle than exuberance of flesh. In fact she was frankly +thin, although her face was so delicately rounded. No small rosebud +mouth, but shapely, dainty, red lips, the upper deeply indented in the +centre like the curve of a bow, opened over white, regularly formed +teeth,—a mouth of beauty but of character also, whence might proceed +sage household counsels, and words full of judgment, just reproof, +and deserved applause. She was the ideal of a helpmeet. She seemed to +Laroche the thought God had in mind when He made woman, before she so +whimsically refashioned herself after her own feminine ideal. And if +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</span> +any man deemed that he needed help it was Callum MacIlvesty, and that +the woman to assist him on the path of life was Lilias Lesly.</p> + +<p>If aught of the cynical reflections that this discernment of the +persons and predilections of the group afforded Laroche appeared in +his worn and wasted countenance it went undiscovered, so great was +their pleasure in the success of their ministrations and his happy +prospect of a speedy recovery. They were all aimlessly laughing from +sheer triumph; only there was a suggestion of moisture in the eyes of +Lilias,—or were they always so liquid, so luminous, so deeply blue, so +heavily lashed with those long, dark fringes.</p> + +<p>“And ye’ll breakfast enow!” roared Jock Lesly heartily. “Lay the cloth +here, Lilias. We’se all take potluck wi’ him!”</p> + +<p>The young Highlander pleasantly seconded the hospitable motion, and +the objection advanced by Lilias that the invalid was not equal to +entertaining so much company was drowned and overborne in her father’s +imperative orders.</p> + +<p>“Aye, lass, ye ken how to care for a sick man, but this fallow is weel +now an’ a proper lad, strong enough. D’ye think ye’ll hae him doun on +spoon meat an’ gruel an’ sic like fripperies a’ his days! That’s aye +the trouble wi’ the wimmin. They want to master ye! If ye are weel, +they drive ye! An’ if ye are ill, they own ye! Na,—na,—lay the +cloth,—an’ we’ll hear him tell his name an’ business.”</p> + +<p>This suggestion placed Laroche upon his guard, but being of a quick +and keen imagination and having a good sense of verisimilitude, he had +his account of himself ready long before he was called upon to render +it. In fact Jock Lesly was graciously disposed to be autobiographical +himself, and in the course of his prelection was explained the unusual +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</span> +presence of a white woman in these regions at present; for the Scotch +or English traders did not risk their families here, but left them +far away in the safe precincts of the small white settlements or the +coast towns. His daughter, Jock Lesly said, had heard,—and who could +not hear anything “in sic a wild, ambiguous country” (to use his own +expression), “where the news is carried by wild Injuns, wha lie, it +seems, for the sheer purpose of provin’ themsel’s the children o’ the +deil, wha is the father o’ lies an’ liars,—an’ a monstrous progeny +he hae, to be sure!—a-weel, the lassie heard that her father—an’ +that’s mysel’ an’ not the deil—had been ta’en doun wi’ the smallpox, +an’ the bairn was worrited out o’ her life, mair especially as sae +mony people—thae wild Injuns in particular—were deein’ wi’ the +distemper, havin’ nae proper sense how it suld be treated. An’ sae +the lassie started out for Ioco Town,—not that I hae forgiven +Lilias for puttin’ hersel’ in sic a danger, forbye makin’ a fule +o’ me, as weel as of Callum MacIlvesty also,—though <i>that’s</i> +a smaller matter. A-weel—Callum heard o’ her intention an’ hired +a wheen o’ young packmen in Charlestoun—they being mostly idle at +this season,—<i>he</i> ca’s ’em ‘gillies,’—an’ started out with +her, havin’ leave o’ absence to veesit his ’Merican relations, Callum +bein’ a far awa’ cousin,—my mither was sibb to his mither,—an’ he +overtook Lilias as she was about to come alane frae Charlestoun wi’ +the under-trader an’ a packman or twa, an’ a lot o’ dour red deils of +Injuns that could hae scalpit the haill party, gin the mind had ta’en +them. An’ I as hearty an’ thrivin’ as e’er I was in a’ my life!”</p> + +<p>He paused to emphasize the incongruity.</p> + +<p>“But, lad,” resumed the joyous host, “a’ the bairn’s preparations for +the sick that she fetched wi’ her on the pack-horse were na wasted at +last,—for the Jeemes’s powder an’ the pills an’ the lotions an’ a’ +thae dinged things she meant for me hae a’ gane into your inside, man, +an’ the sheets an’ the curtains an’ sic-like were nae sooner unpacked +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</span> +than we clappit ye intill ’em!”</p> + +<p>“An’ now will ye no tak a dish o’ your ain chocolate?” said Lilias, +with a smile curving her red lips, “that we fetched a’ the way frae +Charlestoun for ye, expressly, Mr.—”</p> + +<p>Her father remarked her hesitation.</p> + +<p>“Aye,” he exclaimed, with his mouth full of bread and meat. “Gie us +your name, sir,—Maister—what?”</p> + +<p>“Wilson,—Thomas Wilson,” replied Laroche, relying on the perfection +of his English. But albeit an excellent linguist, he rejoiced in the +discovery of their nationality as an additional pledge of safety, +realizing that his English would better pass muster since they +themselves spoke the language so ill.</p> + +<p>“A proper name,—Tam Wilson,—I hae known a score of ’em,” said +Jock Lesly, setting down the glass in which, following the old +fashion, he drank something far stronger for breakfast than tea. He +interpolated at this crisis a remonstrance with his daughter against +the chocolate as a foreign kickshaw, protesting it “ower flimsy for a +gude British stamach;” but the foreigner was secretly truly grateful +for her persistence, for with the rising yet squeamish appetite of a +convalescent, he doubted his capacity, even in the interests of his +disguise, to forego the chocolate in favor of the ale and brandy with +which the two Scotchmen moistened the meal.</p> + +<p>“An’ whaur do ye hail frae?” Jock Lesly asked.</p> + +<p>The question was sufficiently difficult of reply. Louisiana or the +Illinois, in the French occupation, was obviously out of the question. +Yet should the guest say Georgia or South Carolina, he might be exposed +to conversation touching localities familiar to them which he did not +know: people—citizens, as well as officials—with whom he must needs +seem acquainted as were they; the names of ships or rivers or towns, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</span> +all necessarily household words to one of the more southern provinces, +yet of which he was densely ignorant.</p> + +<p>“Virginia,” he said at a venture, “about Williamsburg.”</p> + +<p>To his consternation Jock Lesly laid down his knife and fork, and he +knew instinctively it was no slight matter that could check their +activity. But for the fictitious glow that the hot chocolate had set up +in his veins he might have succumbed to a rigor that had no relation to +the vicissitudes of his disease.</p> + +<p>“Now I hope ye are nane o’ thae Firginians<a id="FNanchor_7" href="#Footnote_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a> that latterly hae been +tampering wi’ our Injuns, an’ invitin’ ’em to come for their goods +to Firginia, an’ seekin’ to coup our trade out o’ our ain hands. Hae +ye seen Governor Bull’s letter—Lieutenant-Governor Bull o’ South +Carolina—Governor Bull’s ain letter to the governor o’ Firginia, man?”</p> + +<p>It was well for Laroche that his cadaverous aspect, as he lay in bed, +propped by pillows into a half sitting posture, his face almost as +ghastly white as the voluminous folds of the night-rail—the scarlet +flannel nightcap, with its gay and flaunting tassel accentuating his +pallor—was ascribed altogether to the effects of illness. Much of +it was doubtless due to his perturbation of mind and the conscious +jeopardy of his position, although he managed to hold with a steady +hand the cup containing his chocolate and to maintain a quiet, +interrogative gaze as his eyes met the Scotchman’s eager blue orbs, and +he replied succinctly, but definitely, in the negative.</p> + +<p>“A-weel, man,” said Jock Lesly, the importance of the subject +precluding the resumption of his knife and fork, “Governor Bull did +set forth and make known unto his Excellency of Firginia that we of +the king’s province o’ South Carolina had suffered much in the auld +Proprietary days with thae bloody loons o’ Injuns, an’ had warked +wi’ ’em an’ wrastled sair wi’ ’em, an’ had made unco gude friends +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</span> +wi’ several strong tribes on our borders,—Creeks, Chickasaws, an’ +mair especially the Cherokees, till this late war,—all through the +privileeges o’ the trade we had wi’ them an’ the restrictions an’ +facilities of the licensed traders the government establishes an’ +mainteens amang them, to furnish them wi’ a’ their needcessities, an’ +powder an’ lead—a deal mair than is gude for them! An’ if Firginia +draws aff this trade frae these distant tribes, for the sake o’ the bit +profit to be had frae it, Georgia an’ South Carolina hae nae means o’ +keepin’ thae blackguards o’ Injuns in order close on our settlements, +whilk will be left to their mercies. Thae provinces would like be +destroyed.”</p> + +<p>He paused with earnest, convincing eyes, while the guest held his cup +motionless and listened.</p> + +<p>“Cain in the old days jaloosed his brother an’ for rivalry killed him, +but I’se warrant even he wad na hae sold him fur a shillin’. It’s later +times hae taught us better—or waur!”</p> + +<p>“My dear sir,” exclaimed Tam Wilson, “you may rest assured that I am +seeking no Indian trade for Virginia.”</p> + +<p>Jock Lesly drew a long breath of relief.</p> + +<p>“A-weel,” he said, easily placated, “his Excellency of Firginia +answered and promised to let the Injun trade be as it was built. He had +na seen the matter in sic a serious light, he said. No man could speak +fairer. But I thought—I dooted—leastwise—hegh, man, what errand did +bring you then to Great Tellico?”</p> + +<p>“A matter of business,” said the French officer quickly. “Some of the +Cherokees sold a lot of horses to our neighborhood near a year ago, and +this spring most of them disappeared. It is said always that horses +bred in the Indian country go back yearly to their old grass.”</p> + +<p>Jock Lesly nodded his head in confirmation, his mouth again full, knife +and fork plying.</p> + +<p>“Is it true?—I doubted it. But I came with some neighbors as far as +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</span> +Tellico. I fell ill at Tellico,—and I remember no more.”</p> + +<p>“They went off and left you!” exclaimed the young Highlander, with a +touch of indignation.</p> + +<p>“Wow, man,—what fearsome looking worriecows be thae +medicine-men,—thae cheerataghe! But Moy Toy was kind and helpful, +though fine he liked to get rid of ye! That was what made me jaloose +that mebbe you were meddlin’ wi’ the trade.” Lesly recurred to the +subject.</p> + +<p>“How do thae Injuns come by sic prodigious fine horses?” demanded +Callum MacIlvesty, effecting a diversion with more delicate tact than +might have been anticipated from his lowly station and coarse garb as +a common soldier. Laroche began to understand that the Highlander, +despite his position and rude dialect, was of a higher social grade +in his own country than these compatriots of his, and that their “far +awa” connection with his family was a source of pride to them, albeit +the relation of wooer and wooed had compassed a certain reversal of the +natural order of precedence. It occurred to his quick mind immediately +that one of the many individual disasters involved in the national +calamities of the Scotch rebellions of 1715 and 1745 was represented +in the impoverishment and exile of this scion of a family of degree, +perhaps even of high birth, for the young man used their vernacular +evidently by reason of association and lack of education rather than +station. He had sundry unmistakable marks of a highly bred gentleman, +despite his evident poverty. Laroche knew that certain such, serving +as soldiers of fortune, held commissions in the foreign armies of +Europe, while a few others, more destitute of money and influence, +could be found as “private men” in those Highland regiments recruited +by the British government for service in America against the French and +Indians, and officered in several instances, strangely enough, by men +who had recently themselves been arrayed in arms against the dynasty +they now supported.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</span></p> + +<p>“Their horses come frae the Spanish barbs that De Soty an’ his men left +amang them—an’ I wuss we had naething waur frae the dooms meddlin’ +Spanish than their cattle. Lord, sir, the lies they tell the puir +Injuns!—that the British are determinate to sweep them aff the face o’ +the warld!”</p> + +<p>“The Spaniards are na sae kittle as the French,” said Callum MacIlvesty.</p> + +<p>“The French,” rejoined Jock Lesly, bringing his clenched fist down on +the table,—“the French are the deevil! Did ye notice, lad, how mony o’ +the Cherokees can speak a little French,—nae mair than a ‘polly voo’ +or sic like,—but sae mony!”</p> + +<p>Laroche was conscious and out of countenance. So weak he was he could +ill resist the strain of anxiety. “I did not notice—I was there at +Tellico so short a time—what am I saying?—I do not know how long I +was there nor how you happened to find me!” But he could not divert his +host from the subject.</p> + +<p>“As sure as you are an unsanctified sinner thae gabbling, blackguard +French bodies hae been again meddlin’ wi’ the Cherokees an’ their +trade,” declared Lesly solemnly. “Moy Toy was too polite by +half,—onything to be rid o’ me,—dry-scratchin’ the weans that kilt my +sheep till their screechings wad hae melted a heart o’ stane! An’ when +I begged him to let me ha’ the loan o’ ye for a while, he happed ye in +a’ his fine furs. I had to be gey carefu’ in returnin’ them a’.”</p> + +<p>So they were within reach of Moy Toy and the town of Great Tellico +by an hour’s travel, perhaps, or two. Laroche felt his heart sink. +He had not counted on this possibility nor on the capacity of the +Indians to keep his secret. Nay, so capricious was the temper of the +Cherokees that he could not be sure of their will to conceal the fact +of his nationality and his connection with the Franco-Choctaw embassy. +Even his own mission, the confidential and private assurances of +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</span> +the French government which he had conveyed to Great Tellico, might +now be maliciously divulged as a means of currying favor with the +British,—since the utility of the promises he had made seemed a thing +of the past and the prospect which they had presented had faded like +a mirage into thin air. His face, with these thoughts in his mind, +showed so sharp a change that Lilias, alarmed, rose with a protest. +Even Jock Lesly permitted himself to be convinced that the session of +breakfast should not be unduly prolonged, and Callum MacIlvesty shook +up the pillows and drew the curtains, and the Frenchman sank down in +silence—not to sleep, he stipulated within himself, but to ponder, to +devise, to plot.</p> + +<p>He slept unaware, unadvisedly, peacefully as a three years’ child. And +he dreamed placidly and in satisfaction. Moy Toy came and drew the +curtains, he thought, and looked at him with keen and friendly eyes, +and with a significant finger on his lips. When he woke at length, so +far had the bodily man got the better of the intellectual entity which +led together a dual existence that he felt scant care for aught,—his +detention, the French interest, Moy Toy’s possible disclosures,—if +but he had a sup of that mutton broth, the enticing odors of which +permeated the whole house. As he himself, with his thin hand, pulled +aside the curtain that he might call to Callum MacIlvesty to beseech +a share in that delectable burden of the family board, he burnt his +wasted fingers against the hot bowl which Lilias was in the act of +bringing to the bedside, and he hardly could wait to join in the laugh +which the two Scotchmen set up in triumph on the recovery of his +appetite.</p> + +<p>If it could make them happy to see another man eat, he ministered +lavishly to their felicity in the days that ensued.</p> + +<p>At first he was unsteady enough on his feet when he was permitted to +quit the haven of the bed. He could only make short voyages, as it +were, from one chair to another, catching at everything that came in +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</span> +his way for support. But although of no great strength or stature he +was of a good, compact physique, and once “on the mend,” as Jock Lesly +expressed it, he progressed rapidly. He developed to his surprise a +sort of luxurious inertia; he would fall asleep after dinner on the +shady porch, his head against the doorpost. Naught in Ioco Town was so +lazy save an old collie sleeping at his feet in the sun. His inaction +extended to his mental processes,—he revolted from thought. He would +not address himself to consider his plight, his jeopardy, the future of +his mission. In fact all his faculties were instinctively quiescent, +facilitating recovery. He felt even that he had joyfully dispensed +with his old troublous identity. As Tam Wilson he was a new man, with +no plans, no past, no obligations, no imperative military duty. The +pioneer garb of buckskin, with its many fringes and leather belt and +coonskin cap, that he was constrained to wear aided his release from +himself. It was like being in some new world, this freedom of the ways +of the household, this transition into the identity of a man who had no +past, no secrets, no duties, no future. A joyous, kindly fellow he was, +too, and all who looked on him liked him.</p> + +<p>“This is what I should have been, uninfluenced, unhindered; Tam Wilson +is really I,—unhampered by circumstance,” he said to himself.</p> + +<p>His haunts were chiefly about the dwelling, which was situated near +the trading-house and in the very centre of the Indian town. The +traders—of whom there had been but very few in the whole region, each +always in great isolation, none of whom had now returned except Jock +Lesly—were allowed by the Indian municipal authorities, so to speak, +the “second men,” the choice of erecting dwellings at a little distance +from the towns or in their midst, if this were deemed to conduce to +the greater safety of the white inmates of the house, thus under the +immediate protection of the headmen of the village, for whose behoof +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</span> +the trader was licensed. The Indians being often at war with other +tribes, especially the northern savages, this method of hovering +under the wing of the Cherokee strength, both civil and martial, +commended itself to the prudence of the trading folk. But the aspect +of the little Scotch home, with all its suggestions of exile, devoid +of a loophole within or a palisade outside, with no defense save the +uncertain faith of the red savages who swarmed through the surrounding +village, was pathetic in its isolation, its unique dissimilarity, its +effect of captivity.</p> + +<p>A vine, only a trumpet vine, hung luxuriant over the eaves and sent +tendrils astir above the lintels of doors and windows. Shining pans +were suspended to take the air and the sun against the posts of the +porch. Piggins, crocks—blue, brown, and yellow—ranged themselves +in vaunting cleanliness on a window shelf outside the sill. Motherly +hens pecked about the steps, and a coop of slats, built in the form of +a peak, restrained the activities of one who might have led too far +a brood of the newly hatched, mere balls of fluffy brown and yellow +down, endowed with motion, that flickered in and out of the crevices. +Often in her gray-green dress the golden haired Lilias sat here at her +homely flax wheel, while in the “beloved square” a company of braves +were marshaling for a northern expedition against the Shawnees, singing +their war-songs, painted for the war-path, the fullest expression of +the terrible upon which the eye might rest. Sometimes there would be +races or exhibitions of strength in the game of “ball play,” when +hundreds would assemble from other towns to witness these diversions. +The visitors, lured by the report of something uncommon at the trader’s +dwelling, would come after the more exciting events of the day and +stand outside and gaze upon her with insatiable curiosity. They would +watch the revolutions of the whirling wheel and the flying thread. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</span> +Her deft white hand, her unfamiliar, smiling face, her strange, golden +hair were all points of interest. They would listen to the whir of the +spinning and the vague sound of her voice, as she hummed low a weird +old song which she often sang about a “gyre-carline” and her witchlike +doings of “lang syne.” The men expressed no surprise, it being a point +of honor with the Indians to have known all things always. They would +invariably turn away without a word or a sign. Not so the women! The +fashion of attire it was that served in an instant to denationalize +them. From silent amazement they passed to whispered comments as +they stood in buzzing groups; then to open questions; to shrill +exclamations; to an unmannerly yet kindly frenzy of inquisitiveness. +Sometimes a girl would step gingerly forward, touch the slipper and +the stocking on the slender foot,—then fall back with a hysterical +twitter of mingled delight and ridicule. The vagaries of the mode, as +it was understood in Charlestown, the fashion of the white kerchief +about the shoulders of Lilias, the pleated folds of her dress, were of +endless interest to the young Cherokee coquettes, and kept them grouped +long about the porch, and Lilias’s pink and white dimples continually +playing in her cheek.</p> + +<p>Somehow this curiosity concerning her was displeasing to Laroche. +He wished Lilias were at home in Carolina. This was no place for +the rooftree and the ingleside. He always distrusted the savages’ +protestations of peace and professions of friendship. He was happier +when they were all gone and the little spinning wheel with its tuft of +flax stood close by the window in the “spence,” as the Scotch household +called the living-room. There the puncheon benches and the “creepies,” +as the stools of blocks of wood were dignified, had a gossiping way +of clustering around the hearth of flagstones, where an ember was +always kept alive in the great chimney place, being renewed night and +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</span> +morning, as a fire was deemed salutary for the invalid. Its glamour +held gay Tam Wilson loitering there as long as the little wheel whirled +and the green shadows of the newly leaved trees without flickered +across the sunshine of her hair. Sometimes her knitting needles clicked +and shimmered in the firelight. Sometimes she compounded and stirred +with a long spoon and a burning red cheek the contents of saucepans +for his behoof, then laughed with frolicsome scoffings at the celerity +with which he disposed of them. He and the two Scotchmen exchanged +experiences and argued on political or religious themes, and throughout +Tam Wilson supported his character with a verisimilitude that would +have won him credit in the histrionic profession, and like the others +took in good part the trenchant remarks having a personal application +with which she saw fit to comment. He fell into the habit of holding +the skeins of yarn while she wound the thread for her knitting. So +adroit and persistent was he in thrusting himself forward for this duty +that he almost supplanted the young Highlander whose coveted boon it +had been. Indeed Callum MacIlvesty openly sulked, taking no blame that +he was the slower or the more inexpert swain of the two in the proffer +of assistance. And so far had the identity of Tam Wilson submerged that +of the diplomat, the soldier, the ambassador, that he felt a great and +irrelevant joy in the sight of the young Highlander, thrown back on +the opposite settle, each arm extended at full length along its back, +his eyes fixed dully, blankly, on the rafters, that he might meet +no glance of Lilias to win him from his just displeasure, his long, +muscular legs stretched out to the fire, his plaid, his sporran, his +belt, his kilt,—mentally designated “ses jupons” by Laroche,—all +in unpicturesque and careless disarray. So painful to Callum was the +spectacle of the dual industry that one day, unable to endure it +longer, he sprang up to leave the house, encountering Jock Lesly at the +door, where his horse stood saddled.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</span></p> + +<p>“Are ye gaen aff enow?” he interrogated Callum. “I am na willin’ to +leave the house wi’ Lilias.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, Tam is there,” replied Callum impatiently. “An’ I am na goin’ +further than the spring,”—which was scarcely ten steps from the door.</p> + +<p>“Sae lang as there’s twa men about,” said her father, and he rode off +on his errand.</p> + +<p>But Lilias had overheard Callum’s first phrase and no more, and Tam +Wilson’s quick ears were hardly less alert. Her face turned crimson. +The young Scotchman had won much sincere gratitude and a very tender +appreciation of his interest in her by his instant expedition to join +her in her journey hither to her father’s rescue from the smallpox, +a disease then so dreaded, his adequate, thoughtful measures for her +safety and protection, and yet the swift forwarding of the succor she +brought. Odd that a thoughtless phrase could work such wreck! It was +but a fancy, a freak that had taken him, she said to herself. She had +thought too much of it, rated its significance too high. As for the +distance, the danger, the fatigue—were the men not all and always +louping hither and thither through this wild country, like the ranting, +gangrel chiels they were, where five hundred miles seemed a less +journey to them than fifty at hame in the gude po’ shay. He came wi’ +her because he maun aye be ganging—and now he was content to commend +her to the protection o’ Tam Wilson. She wad na gainsay him. She was +not seeking Callum MacIlvesty or his help, good sooth! Tam Wilson was a +welcome substitute for his presence and guard.</p> + +<p>She held her head high and proud on her delicate, white neck. Her eyes, +half cast down on the skeins as she disentangled the thread, glowed +and flashed, and Tam Wilson, the personification of demure mischief, +gazed discerningly at close quarters at them. Her sensitiveness was the +keener for the fact that Callum on his father’s side, the MacIlvestys, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</span> +was kin to “gret folk,” and the relationship of Jock Lesly and his +daughter to the young Highlander’s mother was so distant as to baffle +any ordinary computation, despite their pride in the fact and its +frequent mention. At that time in the colonies women were few and much +in the ascendant, and Lilias Lesly felt all the importance of her +position and the strength of her power to make Callum rue the slight if +he really cared aught for her, and to show him her own indifference if +he cared naught.</p> + +<p>Tam Wilson, in his idleness, his enforced inactivity, had developed a +domestic proclivity. He was seldom out of the house, and as the days +wore on the desire to go vanished. He was promoted to many domestic +duties. He was permitted to stem the wild strawberries that graced the +evening meal, and felt a stealthy joy to be berated that he should be +so slow, and to be accused of taking toll of the fruit too heartily to +solace his labor. It was he who went back and forth in pride to the +spring with the pail, who was set to guard the bannocks that they did +not burn, and when all was done who lounged on the settle and idly +watched her smilingly lay the cloth that he might dine. It was he who +beguiled the tedium of the sudden storms in the spring evenings when +the clouds shut out the stars and the door shut out the mists and +the roof rang with the marshaling of the hosts of the rain and the +wind sang like a trump. Then Tam Wilson would stir the fire and tell +wonderful stories and sing songs—military songs, gay clashes of the +cannikin, and stories of the camp and the field, showing a knowledge +so intimate as to cause the lowering Highlander to ask suddenly one +night,—</p> + +<p>“Ye hae seen service, sir?”</p> + +<p>“Aye, sir,” answered Tam Wilson, instantly on his guard. “Foreign +service, sir, some years ago. I was at Hastenbeck in ’57, sir, fighting +with the Duke of Cumberland.”</p> + +<p>Which was true, but as one of the victorious French, and not, as the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</span> +phrase implied, among the defeated allied forces of the famous English +commander.</p> + +<p>“And two years later,” Tam Wilson continued with less animation, “I was +at the battle of Minden. I have participated in several campaigns.”</p> + +<p>Having thus unwittingly enhanced his rival’s consequence, the young +Highlander asked no more, but fell back to lower savagely and bite his +lips, as perhaps an outward figure of how he was eating his own heart +within.</p> + +<p>But it was the glamour of the clear vernal moon that bewitched +the unstable Tam Wilson, himself with as many phases. He would +fall suddenly silent, as under a spell, when its rays aslant, just +discerned, would drop down through the window from the west, where it +hung little more than a crescent in a pink haze, and draw the outline +of a leaf of a chestnut oak, an acorn half developed, and a bare twig +upon the rugged puncheon floor of the spence. The girl’s fair face +would be vague, ethereal; her hair dimly a-glimmer; her white homespun +dress of linen a poetic suggestion in the gloom; her rich voice full +of undreamed-of vibrations that he could study with a quickened +perception lacking in the bold light of day. The ember faded to ashes; +the candles, with the canny Scotch thrift, were not lighted, since the +moon lent a torch; the sense of home, of simple, domestic habitudes, +was in abeyance with the eclipse of the visible exponents. With its +sights and sounds annulled, the abstract interpretations prevailed. The +mind rose to loftier conceits. One felt the forces of life—not merely +living; the endowment of absolute entity—not sheer individuality, with +its limitations, its crippled past, its doubtful, hampered, anxious +future. The wind stirred the foliage without and reminded one of the +wilderness, the vastness of the world that was made for man; the spring +floods of the Tennessee River lifted a voice into the air and thundered +primeval truths.</p> + +<p>Through this window they could see the mountains—far, near, always in +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</span> +massive majesty. Now a pearly, opalescent mist would glimmer among the +domes with the witchery of the moon, and again after it had sunk the +skies would be clear and densely instarred. Once a planet, so brilliant +as to annul all lesser glories, showed through a great chasm, whose +rugged, craggy slopes seemed illuminated in the surrounding gloom with +a weird, unaccustomed luster, so different from the familiar light +of the moon was the quality of the radiance shed by a star alone. +Poetry was in the night—no lyric, no vague, murmurous rune, but with +a splendid majesty of rhythm, with an epic grandeur and a meaning of +awe that might be felt by the pulses of the heart and suggested to the +brain—baffling language, never to be set forth in the paltry medium of +mere words.</p> + +<p>In differing degrees they all felt its influence, perhaps. Jock Lesly, +smoking his pipe with an assiduity which he had learned from the +Indians, talked, it is true, but casually, fragmentarily; and Callum +heeded enough to respond in kind, with sedulous care for the respect +he always maintained toward his host and far awa’ kinsman, but often +the matter and manner of his replies showed that thought and heart were +not in them. For the others they were silent, save now and again at +long intervals a murmur of assent or negation,—a dangerous silence, +instinct with a meaning no words might adequately interpret. As one +night succeeded another and the moon waxed to fuller splendors and all +the woods without were pervaded with that magic sheen which showed +such silvery vistas in the dark umbrageous forest, which idealized the +aboriginal architecture of Ioco, which made the feathered head and +straight form of an Indian passing now and again adown the bosky ways +of the woodland town so meet, so apt an incident of the picture, even +the Europeans felt an irking in walls and restraint and longed for the +freer air, a moonlight stroll, to stand unbonneted beneath the zenith.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</span></p> + +<p>“Eh—the wearying wa’s!” exclaimed Lilias one evening, her elbow on the +sill of the window and the moonlight in her upturned eyes, with all the +wistfulness of a prisoner in their sweet longing. “How thae flowers +scent the air!”</p> + +<p>“Whist—whist—bairn; oh fie! Ye maun bide here,” said her father in +gentle reproof. “The moon will last our time. They’ll hae the moon yet +in the lift at Charlestoun, an’ gowans to pu’, I’se warrant, by the +time we get there.”</p> + +<p>What was this pang in Tam Wilson’s unmannerly heart! He dared not, +even in his most remote consciousness, attribute its pain to the +French officer, the Sieur de Laroche. And even as the Virginia drover +and herdsman he affected to be, did he expect Jock Lesly to keep his +daughter here indefinitely? He was almost stunned by the discovery +of the sentimental anguish occasioned him by the mere idea of her +withdrawal from his sight. He wondered now, however, since his mind was +drawn to the subject, that as the object of her wild-goose chase—her +father’s supposed illness—was removed she had not already returned. +So vital an interest he felt that he was moved to steady his voice, +which—oh, how preposterously—trembled in the first words, to ask of +her father a definite question concerning her departure, albeit his +inquisitiveness in his host’s family affairs ill accorded with his +position as a guest laden with many favors. And in fact the query gave +rise to some embarrassment.</p> + +<p>“The lassie might hae gane back at once,” Jock Lesly said, +“but”—taking his pipe out of his mouth and glancing cautiously over +his shoulder at the dusky room, still in the brown shadow, although +the light of the moon lay in a broad silver square on the floor, so +high had it climbed into the sky—“but”—evidently he hardly dared +to put his prudence into words; only fragmentarily he explained that +Callum and he had agreed that it would be injudicious to suggest the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</span> +idea of fear or flight by leaving Ioco earlier than was the custom +every spring. The Indians—“thae dour deevils”—so delighted in the +terror they inspired that they could scarcely refrain from the exercise +of its power. The little guard could be easily taken, overcome; and +mischievous malice, originating perhaps with the mere intention of +giving them a fright, might with the realization culminate in a +massacre. The journey was fraught with much peril at best. The Indians +always requited every grudge with the utmost rigor, and certainly to +pass by those blackened charred skeletons of towns in the ashes of +Grant’s fires, still tenantless for the lack of hands to rebuild them, +would be a pertinent reminder. The bones of cattle and horses were +bleaching along the watercourses. Other and human bones were even yet +being slowly gathered from the débris of the battlefields, or on the +site of remote hand-to-hand conflicts, and identified and conveyed to +the town of their nativity, till one was forever in danger of stumbling +on communities in all the gloom of funeral ceremonies when no death was +recent—oh, there were grudges on every hand to claim requital, and +the Cherokees never considered the identity of the individual who had +wrought disaster.</p> + +<p>Whereas, Jock Lesly reasoned, if Lilias remained here until the usual +time of his semiannual pilgrimage to Charlestown, with all his force +of packmen and pack-horses, laden with buckskins for the exchange of +British goods, any demonstration on the pack-train would be associated +with injury to the trade, the interests of which the Cherokees were +always solicitous to conserve; hence it was hardly to be anticipated. +The murder of an unofficial party, so to speak, would create scant +stir; but an assault upon the pack-train of a licensed trader in his +semiannual passage through the country would paralyze the trade for +years to come, and necessitate investigation and retribution at the +hands of the government.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</span></p> + +<p>And this result, the paralysis of the trade and the disaffection of +the Cherokees, was precisely what that scheming Laroche had come to +the town of Great Tellico on the Tennessee River in the earnest hope +of compassing for the French interest. Had he been as true to it as +he was accounted, he said to himself, he might have found means to +promote this emprise of pursuit and capture and massacre. But it was +with the sentiments that properly appertained to Tam Wilson that he +perceived the wisdom and applauded the prudence of the proposed course. +He resented that Callum MacIlvesty should have aught of weight in these +councils, and began to grudge him, with all a lover’s niggardliness, +the poor boon of having been her escort hither, and the torment of +anxiety Callum must have experienced in his prayerful care in planning +for her safety, and his generous courage, prepared to spill the last +drop of his blood in her defense.</p> + +<p>“That’s why we no keep the door open after dark,” Callum briskly +explained. “The Injuns are used to seeing the door closed in winter, +an’ they’ll no wonder we hae only the window open now, an’ dinna gae +abroad.”</p> + +<p>“An’ that’s why lassie Lilias hings here at the window sill, as wishfu’ +as ony hempie ahint the bars at a tolbooth,” her father said, reaching +out his hand and passing it over the sheen of her golden hair. “I’m +thinking, Callum lad, its thae lint-white locks—the bairn’s tow +head—that aye gars the Injuns stare. Mind how auld Moy Toy stretched +his big black een?”</p> + +<p>“Moy Toy?” said Laroche, with a sudden wrench at his heart. He felt as +one might, long ago sold to the devil, at the abrupt reappearance of +the fiend. “When was he here?”</p> + +<p>“When ye were ailin’, lad. And now I come to think of it, the devil’s +no sae black as he’s painted, an’ forbye, no sae red.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</span></p> + +<p>He chuckled as he placed the long stem of his pipe in his mouth and +talked on languidly as he drew at it. “The creatur seemed kindly, an’ +wearyin’ to see you.”</p> + +<p>Tam Wilson could have fallen from the settle.</p> + +<p>“An’ when we wad na let him at ye on no account to speak till ye, he +begged he might hae ae look at ye, an’ when he drew the bed curtains +and he had just a gliff, he was satisfied, an’ went awa cannily enough.”</p> + +<p>So it was no vision that Laroche had remembered amidst the disjointed +phantasmagoria of his delirium. In terrible reality this red savage, +with whom he shared the hidden, subtle scheme of the French government +against the Carolina colonies and trading interests, had come to his +bedside and sought through the mists of his wandering perceptions to +sign to him, to promise silence, to counsel secrecy. More distinct than +aught else of the images of his fevered brain had been the presentment +of that feathered head, that many-lined, keen-featured face, the +white curtain in the firm grasp, the intent, warning eye, the finger, +mysterious, menacing, laid upon the long, flat, compressed lips. More +distinct—since it was real.</p> + +<p>Alack! of what avail the gay snatches of a soldier’s song; the tales of +the tented field; the kind, sweet, homely present of this simple cotter +life; the uplifting awe of nature that must needs follow that fine +sweeping of the horizon line of mountain crest against the blue; the +breath of the aromatic woodland; the mystery, the magic of the moon; +the sheen of the girl’s golden hair—Laroche could not escape his doom. +The past laid imperative hands upon the future. The reminder of Moy Toy +left him the realization that there was no choice. Moy Toy had come—he +would come again, bringing cogent influences of the Franco-Cherokee +scheme, the political promises, the actuality of identity, and all a +subordinate’s thraldom to the will of an official superior.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="V">V</h2> +</div> + + +<p>MOY TOY came indeed the next day and laden thus. In fact it was he who +had first thought of the design of falling on the trader’s pack-train +on their return trip to Charlestown and cutting them all off. Thus, +he argued, the country would be rid at one blow of the trade,—for +the others, here, there, everywhere, would never return,—and it was +the trade, the paltry bauble, that had bought the Cherokees, scot and +lot, alienated them from their own best interest, threatened them with +vassalage to the British, and with national annihilation. The vengeance +of the Carolina authorities would scarcely discriminate, scarcely even +seek out so elusive a prey as the immediate offenders; frantic and +furious it would alight like a bolt from heaven on whatever lay within +its orbit. Thus it would serve to unite the upper Cherokees, the Ottare +district, and the Ayrate towns in their own defense—the doubting +must needs be steadfast, the weak-hearted confident and strong, the +politic might scheme only from ambush, and Atta-Kulla-Kulla postpone +his strategic talks of statecraft till the council once more should +have time to heed his plotting and counterplotting. Then the way of the +French would be open. Then might its skilled officer bring the great +guns and build the forts and drive forever from the Cherokee borders +this perfidious foe who sought to enslave a free people by goods and +rum, at ruinous great prices and tolls of trade.</p> + +<p>Despite Laroche’s experience of the inconsistencies and contradictory +traits of the Indian character, this precipitancy surprised him. +He began to see that the patience with which the savages were +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</span> +credited, their long waiting and scheming for revenge, the illimitable +distances they traversed in war, the innumerable shifts and devices +they practiced, of almost inconceivable ingenuity, to attain their +object—all were exerted only when it lay beyond their immediate reach. +Once within the possibilities, and the leap to seize upon it was like +a panther’s, as swift, as bloodthirsty, and as unreckoning. For the +Indians’ policy of doubting and debating was only when impotence held +their revenge in bounds. Thus it was that their hasty, unguarded, +impulsive seizing upon an opportunity of massacre and robbery so often +recoiled upon the body politic, which suffered as a whole in the +vengeance of the colony, the withdrawal of the trade, and the cutting +off of supplies and ammunition, for the murderous enterprise of some +small band. More than once Moy Toy himself, both earlier and later, +headed a party of these independent warriors, for whose deeds the +Cherokee nation at large paid the reckoning.</p> + +<p>It was well that Laroche had the futility of such raids in mind to +point the moral of the value of delay, of preparation, of acting with +due caution for the attaining of permanent effect. Press the British +back for a moment—that full-armed, embittered, more powerful still, +they might again overrun the Cherokee country! And thus bring to naught +the plans of the great French father to aid and abet the throwing off +of this heavy yoke—all these plans as yet in abeyance,—not a cargo of +ammunition <i>en route</i>.</p> + +<p>“I care naught for the desertion of the base Mingo Push-koosh; it is to +me but the freak of a peevish child, as his very name implies,” Laroche +declared. “The Choctaws are ever loyal to the French; the Muscogees, +and their subordinate tribes, all are in amity, all preparing for the +great decisive blow, the simultaneous attack that shall some day drive +the English colonists east and south into the Atlantic ocean and the +Mexico gulf. But the moment must be propitious—the occasion ripe. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</span> +Time, Moy Toy, time is the great warrior. Time always wins the long +fight.”</p> + +<p>He had walked out with the Indian, who had declined Jock Lesly’s +invitation to light his pipe at the hearth in the spence, this being +unsanctified fire, kindled by no cheerataghe, and had repaired to the +fire always alight in the centre of the “beloved square,” annually +kindled by the men of the divine fire, distributed amongst the +dwellings, and never suffered to die out till the last day of the +old year. The necessity had occurred to neither of the two men as a +subterfuge, but both eagerly embraced the opportunity that they might +speak apart—Moy Toy to communicate his scheme, and Laroche to contend +with it.</p> + +<p>The spot was solitary at the moment. Rain was threatening; a great +slate-tinted cloud hung above the darkly green mountains in tantalizing +suspension, seeming weighted and surcharged with water above the +drought-smitten cornfields. Day after day they waved with the delicate, +newly sprouting blades, rustling and lisping in the capricious +breaths of the wind, but showing a far-spread yellow tint beneath +murky, purple glooms. Day after day the impending storm passed; the +lightning that had rent the heavens with a stroke like a flashing +blade, and a thunderous crash as of the rivings of a world asunder, +subsided to an aimless flicker with a vague and distant rumble. The +purple-black clouds of weighted portent would grow of lilac hue, and +presently one might see the tint of the blue sky through the fleecy +dispersal of their folds. The wind rushed down from the mountains; +the sun shone out; the cornfields lay parched and sere; and the heart +of a farmer of that day and generation differed in nowise from one of +the present, albeit more than a century apart in time and of an alien +race. Fortunately the laws now are kinder, and the weather prophets +are fended from the wrath of him who plants and does not gather, who +sows and does not reap, because of the rain that is vainly promised +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</span> +and the thunderhead that deludes and deceives. The cheerataghe of Ioco +Town were playing in very hard luck. The luring of that particular +storm down upon these fertile fields along the Tennessee River devolved +immediately upon them, and although the tribesmen were assured that +the failure was to be attributed to the wickedness of their own hearts +and their frequent misdoings, a farmer at odds with the weather is the +least amiable of the brute creation, and there was an unmistakable +tendency to retort the fault upon the lack of skill of the cheerataghe.</p> + +<p>Moy Toy cast a glance of indifferent interest at the group at the +further side of the square (recent rains had fallen at Tellico, +long, soft, satisfying—what is now known as a “season”), where +the cheerataghe of Ioco were plying their invocations and spells, +surrounded by a number of the agricultural sufferers and several of +the second men; their plumed heads and scantily covered, copper-tinted +bodies were all distinct in the weird, dun light under the purple +cloud, and against the white and gray fleckings of the tortuous river, +and the pallid expanse of the wilting corn. No one was alert to listen +to what might pass between Moy Toy and the foreign white man. What +would a drought-harassed farmer of that region to-day care for issues +of diplomacy if he fancied he had a chance of working a charm on the +weather!</p> + +<p>“Will there be enough of the powder?” Moy Toy asked tentatively. His +experience was limited, but he knew enough of the world to be aware of +the folly of exchanging a small certainty for a large possibility—a +small massacre for a large war of doubtful outcome.</p> + +<p>“Powder!” exclaimed the soldier with a scornful laugh. “I can teach +you to make powder! The country is full of the materials for its +manufacture.”</p> + +<p>With the keen observation of the scientist and the alertness of a +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</span> +schemer to turn every incident to account, he had taken note in his +short stay of the nitrous caves of the country, of its resources for +sulphur, of the infinite growths of dogwood and of willows along the +streams to furnish the requisite grade of charcoal. In later wars these +yielded their benefits to discerning labor, but even so early Laroche +fully appreciated these opportunities and projected thus using them.</p> + +<p>Moy Toy, standing on the opposite side of the sacred fire, gazed at him +for one moment in blank wonderment, the curiously wrought stone pipe in +his hand, slipping through his nerveless fingers, shattered unheeded +on one of the steatite rocks that supported the fire. And he—Moy Toy, +the fool, the madman, but for an accident, a mere trifle—would have +laid in ashes this fine brain with its curious workings, its many +shifts, its convolutions of knowledge that exceeded the wisdom of all +the men he had ever known from far or near,—all would now be a mere +cinder, the sport of the wind, all lost to the Cherokee nation and the +aggrandizement of the great chief, Moy Toy! With the recollection he +became anxiously apprehensive. That night—that night of woe, while the +slaughtered braves were laid in their hasty graves, and the prisoner +awaited their fair passage to a world beyond in a bitter suspense that +was to inaugurate and augment his destined tortures—would the memory +of those anguished hours, guarded on the summit of the high mound, move +this Frenchman to withhold aught of this vital, this all-important, +this intensely coveted knowledge from the Indian warriors? Moy Toy’s +mental attitude, wistful, repentant, propitiatory, was distinctly meek, +as intently listening he stared at Laroche, who was a trifle surprised +at his agitation.</p> + +<p>“Being a warrior, a soldier, I have learned many things, Moy Toy, that +you would like to know, during my service as an officer of engineers +and artillery,—and that would be of help to you against the English.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</span></p> + +<p>One could hardly say how many months of work had gone into the +fashioning and polishing of that pipe, a fine bit of carved stone, a +unique specimen of aboriginal art, shattered on the ground, but Moy +Toy’s fingers were unconscious that it had escaped them.</p> + +<p>He essayed some anxious phrases of apology.</p> + +<p>They hardly knew what they did that night—surely they were sorely +tried—an embassy received in peace and honor, and ending in a murder +of unsuspecting and generous hosts—he feared Laroche had been +inconsiderately treated, but prayed he would forgive the ignorance of +the poor Cherokees, and help them against their foe.</p> + +<p>The subtle Frenchman now stared hard at the subtle Indian.</p> + +<p>“Oh,” Laroche said at last, airily, yet still at a loss, “you did the +best you could, no doubt, in turning me over to the care of these white +people who treated my ills in a way to which I and they are accustomed. +No, no; although they are British the quarrel would have been had you +persisted in keeping me at Tellico.”</p> + +<p>Moy Toy shut his mouth so suddenly that his tongue was in some sharp +danger from his teeth. Evidently by reason of his delirium Laroche had +forgotten the aggressions upon his liberty, the length and torment +of his captivity, the preparations for his torture and death in +satisfaction of the crimes of his Choctaw colleague. The happy fantasy! +The blessed fever!</p> + +<p>“There is one boon I shall exact for the service I have already +rendered you,” Laroche continued, seriously, weightily. “It is my +pleasure to ask it, yet it is also your interest to grant it, and as a +pledge of the future. I jeopardized my interest and promotion, I braved +the wrath of Mingo Push-koosh, that a woman’s life—your sister’s +life—should not be placed in peril. Much evil came of this,—but +<i>I</i> risked most.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</span></p> + +<p>Moy Toy, gazing fixedly at him, thought he little knew how much he had +risked.</p> + +<p>“And now,” continued Laroche, “I ask in return a safe conduct for +another woman—the daughter of the Scotch trader.”</p> + +<p>He paused with some sudden impediment of speech, his eyes seeming +lighter, clearer than their wont, cast upward at the lowering storm +cloud.</p> + +<p>“This British family have saved my life by their care, and I owe them +their lives in recompense. They must go in safety, but—I promise +you”—once more that sudden hiatus in his fluency—“they shall not +return.”</p> + +<p>He was not as observant as usual, or he must have discerned some +extreme and secret joy beneath Moy Toy’s calm exterior. That unique and +quaint phenomenon of knowledge so delighted the crafty Indian!—that he +should hold the key of incidents of great import in the experience of +this man who was himself unconscious of them! And in the excess of his +relief that Laroche remembered naught of his cruel perils, averted by +a mere accident, the chief could have cried out in sheer, inarticulate +joy. But he said, quite simply, that Laroche was his best beloved +friend, whose injunctions should be obeyed, that he loved every hair on +his head, that he should never forget the rescue of his sister, which, +indeed, he felt he should have remembered earlier, for it was his +nephew who should be his heir and hold the sway of Great Tellico.</p> + +<p>“The life of the trader’s daughter, her safety, and the safety of all +the trader’s household I demand for that service,” Laroche repeated +solemnly. “And as it is assured to them so will I requite you. I will +promise you then all the aid that mind and heart and hand can give you +hereafter. I swear it.”</p> + +<p>Moy Toy renewed his protestations of friendship and reiterated his +apologies. The tone and tenor of his remarks implied acquiescence, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</span> +and Laroche felt no lack. But Moy Toy looked after him cynically as +he took his way back toward the dwelling of the trader, for the first +large drops of the impending storm were falling slowly through the air. +A breathless cry, like a gasp, went up from the rain enchanters at +the other side of the square; then ensued silence, tense, expectant, +painful. The farmer, poor sport of the skies, was aware that this +limited manifestation of the obedience of the powers of the air rescued +the reputation of the cheerataghe, since rain had fallen at their +bidding, yet did not save the crop, and, reduced to the position of +the only sufferer in the event, hung in desperate suspense upon the +developments of the next few moments.</p> + +<p>The trading-house, with its door broadly aflare, giving a glimpse of +an orderly assortment of merchandise within, had on the roofless porch +or platform a group of the young packmen who had accompanied Callum +MacIlvesty from Charlestown. They were wearying for their return +thither, since so many restrictions had been laid on their conduct and +language, lest they give offense to the Indians and bring down reprisal +while they had in their keeping the precious charge of the young lady, +“little lassie Lilias,” as auld Jock loved to call her. This restraint +greatly irked them, for they were accustomed to giving and receiving +hard knocks, speaking their minds without fear or favor and with a +very rough edge to their tongues. One, fallen a trifle ill, declared +that he would be well in a trice if he were not “just dying of all +these manners!” Sodden themselves in a thousand superstitions, they +had taken a keen interest in the weather bewitchments, in which, from +these motives, they had been forbidden to mingle. They had neither the +time nor the inclination to notice the invalid hastening away out of +the rain to shelter, but his disordered step, his pallid countenance, +his agitated mien did not fail altogether of observation. The door +of the dwelling opened as he approached it, and there stood Lilias +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</span> +holding it against the wind. So incongruous seemed her fair face and +golden hair and whitely glimmering attire with the sullen aspect of +the approaching storm, the gloom-darkened woods on every hand, that +she suggested an affinity with a sunlit scene that glimmered along the +far perspective of the ranges where a rift in the cloud admitted a +suffusion of ethereal golden light, in which the mountains were azure, +the woods of a fine, intense jade hue, the flash of a cataract like +molten silver,—the very apotheosis of scenery, some transient glimpse +of the fair land of Canaan.</p> + +<p>Laroche’s lip trembled as he looked at her—so beautiful, so good, so +cruelly endangered.</p> + +<p>She noticed his pained expression, but misunderstood its meaning. With +the constant household anxiety as to his health—“Ye hae been lang awa +wi’ that dour carle, Moy Toy, an’ ye look pale. Set ye down by the +fire, an’ I’ll gie ye a posset, before the others get here to beg for +tae half o’ it.”</p> + +<p>He loved to do her bidding, even if it were not blended with many odd +“sups an’ bites,” of a quality peculiarly acceptable to an invalid’s +capricious appetite. He would have drunk poison as readily for her +sake, he said to himself, and added with a grim smile that he might do +that yet. For he had come to a full realization of late. He consciously +recoiled from all his loyal plans, his secret orders, his duties, +his pride of intellect, of achievement, his past, his profession, +his future. He said to himself that he would have liked the life of +a poppet—he could have felt if he had been made of wood or wax—to +be placed thus in a corner; to gaze at her with unwinking eyes; to be +given a bowl of drink, withdrawn in a minute, as she must needs test +with her own lips whether it were not too hot. He sought with sedulous +care the section of the rim her lips had touched. Poison! but the cup +of the present held nectar! He would have been satisfied—would have +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</span> +kissed the hand of fate had he been only her pet dog.</p> + +<p>A great collie, old, cosmopolitan,—he had come across on the ship with +her father in the days “lang syne,” and exceedingly surprising did he +find the experience of a collie of degree on the ocean,—had deserted +the trading-house, since her arrival, repudiated his master, forgotten +his friends, the packmen, cut his Indian acquaintance dead, to lie by +her hearth, to follow her footsteps, to feed from her hand, to sit with +his head against her knee and his listless body, dislocated, weighing +against her, to whine in jealous disfavor and an effort to attract her +attention had she more than a sentence or two to exchange with any +interlocutor save him.</p> + +<p>“Whist, whist, hinny,”—she would gently smite his lolling head—“ye’ll +talk soon, and then I’ll ken ye’re no canny!”</p> + +<p>For this, even so little as this, Laroche felt at times that he would +barter his learning, his prospects, his identity, his duty. Sometimes +he sought to justify his long, unnecessary lingering here, despite his +consciousness of the fact that his very individuality was a dangerous +secret. Were it known or suspected that he was employed in the French +interest, he could not hope to escape arrest, and thereby injury to +the cause he represented. Whatever might be the will of personal +friends, should he retain them in the stress of these disclosures, +hard usage would he encounter at the hands of the British colonial +authorities—perhaps even death; nay, had there not been a reward +offered for the scalp of every Frenchman busy among the Indians? And +certainly in such an adverse development he could not count on the +adhesion of the fickle Cherokees, especially to their detriment! +But for this one rift in his loyalty, he was wholly devoted to the +Louisiana interests which he had so zealously sought to advance. +This—this was his own personal beguilement. He would have known how +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</span> +to resist his wonted allurements,—the pride of intellect, the pampered +independence and security of life, the world, the flesh, and the devil. +He was full armed against them; the attack would have been met by hardy +resistance along those lines. But to divert him from his duty, his +loyalty to his political trust, his obedience to his officers by means +of a virtuous attachment to a being so gentle, so fair, so good that +“no man could think on evil seeing her”—this seemed a device worthy +of the devil, and very like him; for this attachment would have done +him honor in any station of life save this, harbored deep, deep in the +subtle, deceitful heart of an enemy in the guise of a friend, a spy +upon his benefactor, the destroyer of their simple and limited and +humble prosperity.</p> + +<p>Not so subtle as he thought—for now the schemer was but the man. Worse +still, for his secret, he was a Frenchman. Sometimes as he looked at +her those keen, eagle-like eyes of his softened suddenly, with his +emotional French susceptibility, and filled with tears. These tears she +saw, and in responsive emotion her own would start, trembling, to the +eyelids. She was not used to the sight of tears in a man’s eyes. Callum +MacIlvesty had not trafficked with such gear since he had first gotten +afoot on his sturdy infant legs and began his long travels through this +weary world. Sometimes, taking a pinch out of the proffered snuffbox of +a merchant of degree in Charlestown, Jock Lesly, who could carry his +liquor well enough, would find this unaccustomed gentility of the mull +culminating in a sneeze and water in the eyes. But such tears as these +of Laroche’s—tears of sheer pleasure, of subtle sorrow, of hopeless +love, of the sweet emotion of looking upon her—she had not witnessed, +and yet, enlightened by a kindred sentiment, she could appreciate; and +the difference of the manifestation for her sake from aught else she +had ever known made it seem the deeper, the truer, the dearer.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</span></p> + +<p>Certainly it was more picturesque than the obvious signs of Callum’s +dissatisfaction in an unhappy love, though, to be sure, she took scant +heed of them. When “ses jupons” swished out of the room in his swinging +stride, she was cognizant neither of the cause nor the circumstance +of his sudden taking of offense. And this brought slowly to his +intelligence the fact that she was equally unmindful of his embarrassed +return, as he sat glowering at Laroche across the fire, well aware +that his watchful rival fully appreciated and rejoiced in the futility +of his show of anger. Once, in awkward inadvertence, Callum stepped +on the collie’s tail, and the shrieks that the doggie sent up to high +heaven would seem to imply that there was no other canine so ruthlessly +afflicted in the universe. Lilias rebuked MacIlvesty’s carelessness in +a tone which conveyed genuine indignation, and he could only protest +in a gruff monosyllable; while the beast, leaning against her knee, +causelessly sobbing for half an hour, would burst forth in a plaintive +yelp whenever his eyes met Callum’s, and her “Whist, hinny, whist” +had all the adverse sentiment that might have been expressed in an +admonition, “I wad not tak ony notice o’ him.”</p> + +<p>Callum could not even mend the fire with wonted deftness, nor keep his +temper when the logs of wood would roll down, but would administer a +kick of such free force as to send the red-hot coals flying about the +puncheon floor and all the family scuttling to catch them up before +the whole “bigging suld be in a low.” Even in the assiduous comity of +his conversations with Jock Lesly he often seemed to forget names of +people and places in Scotland with which he was obviously familiar, +and he was curiously uninformed of all calculated to interest the +elder in the doings of the regiment. Sometimes, indeed, his sentence +broke off in the middle, and he would fall into a revery, from which +he was only roused by the sudden jocularly upbraiding voice of Jock +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</span> +Lesly, and once more with galvanic earnestness he would essay his +method of propitiation. Matters went better with him when the simple +and unobservant Jock Lesly himself did the talking, which was usually +the case, in great fullness of detail and long, circuitous routes of +narrative, leaving his auditor scant duty save to murmur “Ou!” “Ay!” +“I’se warrant ye!” at intervals, these dicta being uncompromising +and calculated to be generally applicable to any situation. His +supplantation was definite and complete.</p> + +<p>And still Laroche, despite his qualms of conscience, putting aside his +repentance as for indulgence at a more convenient season, interpreted +all the <i>indicia</i> of the young Highlander’s state of mind, felt +the complacence of a favored rival, and experienced all the joys of +triumph over the poor young Callum, as if he had a full intention to +enter a contest against him for this prize. True he was touched with +the generosity of the young mountaineer, who had shown at the first +some definite proclivity to inquire into the stranger’s means as well +as local habitation and association, but becoming impressed from some +casual phrase with the idea that the guest was of meagre resources and +had experienced much financial hardship, he withdrew all his forces +along that line. The reverse, in fact, was the case, for Laroche’s +fortune was not inconsiderable and he enjoyed fair prospects. The +error of his magnanimous rival elicited that æsthetic sentiment, that +prepossession in favor of whatever is noble, which a certain type +delights to admire rather than to emulate. It stimulated a degree of +reciprocal interest in the young Highlander,—a sort of curiosity as to +his status which comprised several incongruities. MacIlvesty’s poverty +was obvious, not merely from his humble estate as a foot-soldier, +but often from allusions to it that escaped him. He had the manner +of a gentleman of a high type,—he was lofty, yet not assuming; kind +without condescension. He was often merry but never clownish, and +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</span> +by turns grave and dignified without affectation. Yet his education +was most limited; he notably lacked the training appertaining to a +certain social rank, while possessing all its other worthy attributes +and inherent values; his experience of travel was the service of the +Forty-Second, the troop ship, and the forced march of the wilderness.</p> + +<p>Laroche, in his idle interest, had had an intermittent intention of +inquiring directly of Jock Lesly concerning the inconsistency of the +young Highlander’s endowments and position, but the awkwardness of +this display of sheer curiosity was obviated when one day the trader +complained of a freak of taciturnity which he declared Callum had shown.</p> + +<p>“I canna get muckle mair talk out o’ Callum now than when he kenned +naught but the Gaelic.”</p> + +<p>Then in reply to a question which seemed to express but a civil +interest, “Ou, ay,—Callum was near grown when he had the meenister +for a tutor, an’ the callant got to his English. Ou, ay,—the family +hae had hard straits,—but, wow, man! the clan were a’ out in the +Fifteen, an’ then what was left o’ them went out in the Forty-five!” +Though not without sympathy, he spoke with obvious reprehension of this +clan’s misfortunes, for Jock Lesly was of the Lowland Scotch and had +always been well affected to government. “An’ they lost much blood, +an’ a head or twa amang them afterward,—an’ a’ the land was forfeited +to the crown—there were twa or three titles amang them, a yerl an’ a +baronet or twa—I wot na what, but a’ very fine—if it were not for the +attainder. Callum is kin to gre’t folk! But what’s a title—neither +fitten to eat nor to drink, I trow. I wad wuss, though, the callant did +own the land that the government took away from his father,—wha died +in hiding after the Forty-five,—an’ the rents, that he might hae made +a gentleman o’ himsel’ instead o’ just a buirdly foot-sodger.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</span></p> + +<p>He was a gentleman even without the land or the rents, and the +Frenchman piqued himself upon his subtlety of discernment in having +perceived this fact in so untoward a guise as a “foot-sodger” who +shoulders a musket for pay.</p> + +<p>For these reasons now and again Laroche experienced a compunction +that he should be destroying the prospect of the domestic happiness +of this man, when circumstances—nay, his life was at stake!—forbade +any serious intentions on his own part. And yet, and the thought was +subtly sweet, she loved him—he was sure of it—as he loved her. But +in the dark hours of the night, when the house was silent, all wrapped +in slumber, a certain wakefulness had begun to harass him, like a +Nemesis; a voice of reproof sounded in all his reflections, of warning, +of presentiment, the prophecy of the future. When thus repentance and +doubt fell upon him he would urge in extenuation that if he had idly +won her heart it was but in the interests of that disguise still so +imperative upon him. Yet the thought of their kindness was like coals +of fire. They had brought him back from the verge of the grave. They +had lavished their best upon him, the stranger, for aught they knew +humble of station and penniless. Still, and it was the trifle that +wrung his heart with the most poignant pang, the best room in the house +was his; the graces of the bed curtains; the luxury of the sheets; +the cleanly though rude furnishings; all the little comforts packed +with the view of her father’s illness, and brought so far through the +toilsome wilderness, were for the guest.</p> + +<p>The heavy snoring of Jock Lesly would echo from one of the rooms on +the other side of the spence, but through the flimsy partition of the +adjoining chamber Laroche could often hear the creaking cords of the +bedstead as Callum MacIlvesty, sleepless too, flounced back and forth +in the instability of his feather bed, restless, anxious, reviewing +many trifles fraught with great moment to him, heartsore, weary, and +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</span> +despairing. Laroche commiserated the young Highlander’s sentimental +anguish, but he had a sentimental anguish of his own, and he dwelt upon +it in alternate pain and pleasure, in an ecstatic torment.</p> + +<p>One night as he lay thus, pondering the events of the day, his +attention was arrested by a stealthy step. He put his hand under his +bolster and grasped the handle of his pistol. He listened hopefully +for the stir of the tortured Callum MacIlvesty, but sleep at last and +some fond and peaceful dream held the young Scotchman, and naught but +the sound of his deep and regular breathing attested his proximity in +the next room. Laroche hardly dared cry out and alarm the house, lest +the impending demonstration be delayed and renewed at some moment when +no one was awake and on guard. Except for the possibility of firing +the building, it was in danger of no calamity that could fall upon it +without noise. The doors were locked, the batten shutters had heavy +bars; therefore he judged it prudent to wait and listen.</p> + +<p>There came again the tread of feet, stealthy, quiet as before; the +impact of a bare sole upon the ground beneath the window was distinct +for a moment. In the blank interval that ensued he heard the continual +rise and fall of the breathing of the night; the chiming and chanting +of woodland cicada, in regular alternations; the rush of the Tennessee +River dashing over the rocks. Once more that sound, as of a bare foot, +and again beneath the window.</p> + +<p>He was exceedingly deft and light and certain in all his movements; +when it had passed he slipped out of his bed and crossed the room +to the window, not a sound attesting his progress, save that once a +puncheon creaked. He stood for a moment motionless, then peered through +the rift between the shutter and the window.</p> + +<p>Outside there was a glare—a sudden glare. He saw a figure so +grotesque as to recall for a moment the associations of his delirium; +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</span> +then half a dozen figures came into view, all in Indian file, and +strangely bedight. They were making the rounds of the house again and +again, evidently working a charm. Perfect silence waited on their +movements, save always beneath his window the stroke of a bare foot +fell on a sleek and clayey space with that slight sibilance that gave +him warning. Heads surmounted by torches enclosed in great gourds, +hideously painted in the semblance of human faces, showed faces below +still more hideously painted; buffalo horns and tails adorned figures +grotesquely and silently dancing; others wore bears’ claws and hides; +a human panther ran on all fours, now and again leaping so high into +the air that he seemed some inconceivable triumph of mechanism instead +of a living creature. The soldier felt his heart sink. Seldom did the +Indians permit the presence of white strangers in their more national +customs, and thus often the depths of their savagery, their fantastic +barbarism, lay unrevealed. Some strange significance surely marked this +grim pantomime, enacted in the darkest hour of the night about the +silent dwelling, while its unconscious inmates slept. Their lives might +seem to hang by a hair. He bethought himself, with a pang of terror, of +the young packmen quartered in the attic of the trading-house—surely +the glance of a wakeful eye must prelude the crack of a rifle, for +could a sane man imagine this to be aught but the revelings of the +creatures in the midst of an assault. But while he gazed in a terror he +could hardly suppress yet dared not voice, in one instant, while the +panther was in the mid-air trajectory of one of its wild leaps, every +light was extinguished, every figure vanished; and lurk and listen as +he might for the impact of the bare foot upon the clayey soil which +would intimate that in darkness the strange procession continued its +rounds, he heard only the vague sighings of the melancholy woods, a +creak once of the timbers of the house, and again the voice of the +Tennessee River dashing against its rocks.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="VI">VI</h2> +</div> + + +<p>THE next morning Jock Lesly positively refused to credit the reality of +the remarkable procession that had thrice encircled his house while the +dwellers within, all save one, had slept oblivious and unsuspecting.</p> + +<p>His bushy eyebrows had drawn together in a big blond frown as he +listened, his eyelids contracted over his narrowed eyes, but he shook +his head when all was said.</p> + +<p>“Na—na!—ye were dreaming, lad—just a bit of the fever on ye yet!”</p> + +<p>The futility of the proceeding; its lack of precedent in his +experience; the clear, fresh, reassuring presentment of Ioco Town under +the vernal sky, so peaceful with the dewy matutinal woods hard by, the +flashing river, the mountain ranges suavely blue; the friendly denizens +of the vicinage coming and going in and out of the trading-house; +the clusters of headmen about the buildings of the “beloved square,” +perhaps discussing some point of interest in the cabin of the aged +councilors, or playing the endless but trivial sedentary game of “roll +the bullet”—all combined to discredit it; all was as sane, as seemly +as civilization itself, once adopt a different standard—how could it +be aught but a dream!</p> + +<p>But Laroche continued pale, anxious, distrait.</p> + +<p>“I thought I ought to tell you and Callum,” he said—the young men +affected a friendly familiarity of address. “I know what I know! It was +no dream!”</p> + +<p>Jock Lesly rubbed his hands together as he leaned forward with his +wrists on his knees and looked up at the younger man’s face, with an +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</span> +expression of kindly but superficial gravity—obviously humoring, as he +thought, a whimsey.</p> + +<p>“If you have no objection, I should like to speak of it to Moy Toy,” +Laroche said.</p> + +<p>“To no one else, then,” said Jock Lesly, for he accounted himself a +great proficient in the subject of Indian traits and manners. “The +Injuns no like to be keeked at an’ spied out when they are at their +high jinks and fandangoes. But Moy Toy’s a kindly soul an’ friendly. I +mind how he wearied to speak wi’ ye while ye lay in a dwam when ye cam +first to Ioco.”</p> + +<p>The instant the revelation passed the lips of Laroche, he saw by the +change in the Indian’s face that the disclosure was unexpected. Moy +Toy, however, caught his features into their wonted stoical calm, and +the flicker of expression was as sudden and as transient as the flash +of light reflected from a bird’s wing on a pool of sombre waters.</p> + +<p>Then he replied casually, almost in the words of the Scotchman,—</p> + +<p>“It was but a dream!”</p> + +<p>“But, Moy Toy,” urged Laroche, “dreams come true. All the Cherokee +nation believe the dreams that visit the sleep of their ‘beloved men.’”</p> + +<p>The chief smiled with a sort of flouting contempt that the white man +should thus place himself and his paltry sleeping fancies on the +same plane with the “beloved men” of the great Cherokee nation and +the eternal truths, the veiled face of the future, revealed to them +in the sanctities of their priestly visions; he seemed angrier than +even the presumption might warrant. The paleface, he declared, was +not a Cherokee “beloved man,” nor even an adopted tribesman. Why +should Indian visions haunt his slumbers in the sincerities of truth? +Then, once more visibly repressing some secret, rising agitation, he +continued with a specious smile, “I myself have firmly grasped your +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</span> +hand, and I do not speak with the lying lips nor the snake’s forked +tongue. I am Moy Toy! But these Indians of the dreams—beware of them. +They do not know you to be the best beloved friend of the Cherokee +chief. They may cheat you and deride! No man can lay hands on them—the +dream Indians,—and this makes their lying tongue so strong to the +paleface, even to the ‘beloved man’ of the French king. No Indian of +the vision should delude you to the wreck of your peace of mind.”</p> + +<p>Laroche said no more, resolving that no Indian of the flesh should +delude him, whatever deceptions might be wrought upon his senses by +the immaterial Indians of dreams. He seemed to assent. No man could so +fashion the guise of appearances to the similitude of fact. He laughed +a little, with the suggestion of being a trifle out of countenance, +a little ashamed of his confidences. Moy Toy, from being keenly +observant, grew distrait, and answered presently at random. At length, +as if in justification of the foolish importance he had attached to his +vision, Laroche declared that he had great interest in the significance +of dreams, that he held them to be scenes, as it were, vouchsafed +from the border world beyond, peopled by those who have once lived +here, that he had always longed to be admitted to listen when he saw +the “beloved men” grouped under a tree, or in the “holy cabin” of the +“beloved square,” telling their dreams to each other and conning their +interpretations.</p> + +<p>“And so you shall hear,” Moy Toy interrupted, “when you are adopted +into the Cherokee nation and made a great ‘beloved man,’ after you have +taught us to manufacture the powder, the spirit of death that comes +roaring and rushing with fire and smoke out of the mouth of the gun, +sending the leaden bullet to work his will.” He was still looking about +with a preoccupied mien and eager eyes, and suddenly he said that he +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</span> +must be gone for a space, as he had matters of some import to discuss +with the headmen of Ioco Town, for he had been summoned from Tellico to +meet them in their council-house.</p> + +<p>The wary Laroche, as he cast his eye over the spaces of the town, +noted that the headmen were presently being sought here, there, and +everywhere, and that a very considerable interval elapsed before, +congregated together, they repaired to the state-house; he inferred +from the fact that the meeting was no matter of previous arrangement, +but altogether impromptu. The coming of Moy Toy had had about it all +the <i>indicia</i> of a mere personal visit to him to make sure of the +state of his health and the date of his possible return to Tellico, +where he was likely to be hardly less a prisoner because he was so +valued as a guest, the prospect of his services being held at so +high a rate. The conclusion was irresistible; the revelation of that +vision of the dead watches of the night, which in his fatuity the +Scotchman called a dream, and the Indian in his craft a delusion, had +a significance, an importance that warranted the exertion of Moy Toy’s +great influence in the nation to summon into council the headmen of a +town, not his own municipality, without the forms, the heralds, the +preambles so habitually required and accorded.</p> + +<p>What did it mean, this dream? Oh for a soothsayer indeed!—for an +interpreter of the masked fact rather than the fantasy of fiction! +Laroche stood for one moment in despair, realizing that the lives +of the trader’s household hung upon the result of the debate now in +progress in that strange, clay-daubed, dome-shaped temple,—upon +the wild will of those malignant beings endowed, as it seemed to +him, merely with the semblance of humanity and yet with the mental +processes, the moral insanity, the malevolent spite of fiends. All was +the more barbaric, the more unholy, the more unearthly, because of the +recollection of the grotesque features of that weird, silent circling +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</span> +and circling last night about the dwelling of their victims. Since +that dwelling harbored her, of whom Laroche could not think save with +a swelling heart, of whom he could not speak for the candor of words +crowding to his lips which his deceit must disallow him, whom he could +not thank for his life that he owed to her and hers, for gratitude was +all inadequate, he must act, he must seize upon some device. And still +he stood silent, inert, not knowing where to turn.</p> + +<p>Was it as a penalty, he asked himself in sudden affright, that he was +to be called upon to witness without recourse the destruction of this +home, the hideous massacre of the hearthstone circle, to him now as the +treasure of all the earth? Would he, indeed, do no penance till the +leisure he liked awaited him? Was he to find what joy might be in the +hugging of chains till he should choose to rouse his will and smite his +soul free of its cherished shackles? Was he, unscathed, to steep his +consciousness in the intense, sweet delight of this selfish affection, +pure doubtless, but because of the unimpeachable, unapproachable virtue +and innocence of its object, and not because of any restraints exerted +upon himself by the dictates of honor or manly faith or kindness and +tenderness of heart,—he who knowingly, intentionally, had won her love +for naught, to cast away again, had, perhaps, wrecked her happiness, +had certainly supplanted the true, devoted, loyal man fitted and once +destined to be her husband.</p> + +<p>Had he expected to decree his own punishment for his idle cruelty when +surfeited with the semblance of romanticism? Beshrew his leniency!—he +had devised a light one! To return to Great Tellico with an empty heart +and a drear sense of separation from all on earth he loved; to work at +the behests of the government that employed him; to obey the orders of +his superior officers for which even morally he was not responsible; +to dwell in a sad pleasure and a sweet pain upon the memory of a fair +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</span> +face, a tender parting word—had he thought to hold in the sanctities +of his most secret heart the recollection of a kiss and tears of +farewell? This his prophetic vision had viewed as his unkind fate,—and +he had sighed in the anticipation of this romantic woe!</p> + +<p>He now stood aghast between his trivial fancy of the future and its +harsh face coming so near that it seemed half revealed. Heaven, just +heaven, mindful of retribution, would so smite him, insensible though +he had become, that he should feel its wrath. Was the blow to fall on +him through the woes of others? Was he to see the brave and sturdy +Scotch trader, so kindly and generous, suspicious of naught in his own +open candor, smitten to the ground in his own house, gory, scalped, +disemboweled, the gross flout of what once he was? All a-tremble, +Laroche asked of himself should he who had inflicted much keen pain in +ingenious wise on his young rival be compelled to witness the keener +tortures of the stake? And how should he look on her golden hair that +he had loved—save the mark!—dabbled and dulled with brains and blood!</p> + +<p>Laroche gave vent to a hoarse, inarticulate cry. For this, all this, +would result from his deception and his long lingering here in the +false guise of Tam Wilson. Had he returned to safety at Tellico the +machinations of the French among the inconstant Cherokees must have +been gradually divulged by the fact of his continued presence there, +and his identity as an emissary of that government suspected; thus this +handful of British subjects, warned in time, would have taken prompt +measures for their protection and have compassed their withdrawal from +the country. The menace that now hung over them was his fault, the +result of his treachery, his idle trifling.</p> + +<p>He wondered if the fantastic threats of the previous night might be +explained by the fact that the headmen of Ioco Town were inflated by +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</span> +the continued presence of the representative of the French government, +the large splendor of his promises transmitted from one council-house +to another, his secret mission to unify the tribes, organize and +command their army. Were they already feeling their emancipation from +the British rule; already emboldened by the knowledge of the great +French king’s strength, as if the promised munitions of war were in +store; already rejoicing in the blood of their earliest victims, even +while it yet coursed with calm pulsations through their veins?</p> + +<p>Would heaven only in its omnipotent goodness avert the blow, turn the +time back, halt the sun in its irresistible march! He laughed in a sort +of bitter scorn that these miracles of mercy must needs be invoked to +undo what he had so willfully done. Yet he must know the full measure +of the menace—and once more the hideous, significant phantasmagoria of +that mystic midnight magic pressed upon his quickened consciousness.</p> + +<p>This was a keen brain, essentially the schemer’s. Laroche was still +standing near the spot where Moy Toy had left him. Close by, hitched +to the bough of a tree, was the horse of the prince of Tellico,—a +fine animal, bearing in his mien and form strong suggestions of his +ancestors, the Spanish barbs. Though fiery he was as gentle, and he +only reared with impatience and displeasure when the Frenchman, with a +sudden thought, laid hold upon his mane, seeking to mount as usual from +the near side. Remembering the habit of the Indians always to mount +on the off side he was quickly in the saddle, and giving the spirited +charger a cut with a whip to which it was unaccustomed he was out of +the town like a flash and galloping at a breakneck speed along the +trading path through the wild woods.</p> + +<p>It was high noon at Great Tellico when he drew rein on the banks of +the Tennessee River. Vernal languors were in the air; the richness of +the waxing season embellished field and forest, the velvet blue of +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</span> +the Great Smoky Mountains, the intense, almost violet hue of the sky, +the redundancy of the flowering shrubs and the growth of the grass +and weeds underfoot. The river in the recent drought had shrunken +since he last had seen it, revealing here and there a stretch of fine, +amber-tinted sand, and again a rugged, shelving ledge of rock, and yet +again beds of muscle shells, numbers of which, opened and searched for +the fresh-water pearls, lay riven apart, giving an opalescent shimmer +to the casual glance and a whiter margin to the gray and glossy stream. +The shadows were limited, yet dense, so clear was the exquisitely +limpid and fresh mountain air. The sun was not warm, despite its +splendid effusions, yellowing with an effect of burnished glamour, +prophetic of ripening glories.</p> + +<p>The Indians who had marked his arrival gathered in groups at a +distance, now sheltered by a shrub or a stump, now by the corner of a +house, occasionally peeping out at him in the covert way which they +affected to ascribe to their consideration toward guests. For, said +they, openly to study the mien and dress and person of a stranger +savors of discourtesy, but unobserved to mark all his qualities from a +screen gratifies the curiosity and gives no offense. In this instance +they were influenced by interests far deeper than sheer curiosity. +They were all well aware of his identity, the terrible fate for which +he had been destined, his reprieve and transference to the British +trading-station at Ioco, that by the European remedies to which his +system was accustomed he might be cured of his strange fever, which +had defied the skill and magic of the cheerataghe. For what purpose +he had been reserved, however, whether for the torture when his +unconsciousness should not rob it of half its terrors, or as a slave, +or as a hostage, or other ulterior view of Moy Toy and the rest of the +headmen, the rank and file were not informed. Therefore a very genuine +sensation pervaded the several coteries as they marked the free, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</span> +independent air, the erect carriage, the easy, deft step with which +Laroche, no longer splendidly arrayed in the dazzling French uniform, +but always of a point-device effect, even bedight in buckskins, crossed +the space in front of the mound where he had awaited his fate in such +weary suspense and dread. Perhaps he might not have been able to +maintain this valiant attitude if that hiatus of recollection had been +once bridged over. The event had passed to him as if it had never been, +and he sustained the gaze of the community as possessed of a unique +interest,—a man who, but for an accident, might now have been, instead +of a man, a handful of ashes, whirling about with no more substance or +identity or cohesion of personality than the grains of sand strewn over +the “beloved square.”</p> + +<p>Laroche flung himself down upon the roots of the tree in front of the +dwelling of Akaluka, and took off his coonskin cap to let the cool +breeze refresh his throbbing temples. Akaluka, glancing suddenly out +of the door, was startled to see him sitting there—startled and not +pleased. She had had a great fright in the complication that had come +so near to the bestowal of her in marriage upon the Choctaw chief, +Mingo Push-koosh, who had slain in such grievous wise the unoffending +braves of the town, whom he had found peacefully spreading their +seines at the confluence of the Tennessee and the Tellico. Often with +a morbid fascination she went to look at the spot where he had hung up +“the war-brand,” a half-burnt stick swaying across the path, suspended +by a grapevine—an open declaration of hostilities, according to the +rules of Indian war. The cruel man! for as he had slain these he would +have slain her; and the trouble all began with the “mad young men” who +counseled the acceptance of the red scarf, and who cared for naught +save that the Mingo should not be angered and that they should soon go +to war again with the British. But they all blamed her, and they talked +and talked with many sharp words, and she was tired of all mad young +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</span> +men, who were a vain and a vexatious creation, and she wished to see +none ever again, and here was one who had come and had laid himself +at her very door, as she still stood, barely discerned in the depths +of the cabin. Whereupon she lifted her voice in the extremity of her +disfavor and asked him why he was not burned long ago.</p> + +<p>The tenor of the question roused Laroche to his normal mental attitude.</p> + +<p>Perhaps, he said with affected humility in his ignorance that this fate +had seriously menaced him, it might have been that in view of the debt +she owed him she had seen fit to intercede for his life. Hence he had +not yet been burned.</p> + +<p>This politic reply brought Eve at once to the door. “What debt?” she +asked, in frowning curiosity.</p> + +<p>Her face wore a strong expression of racial ferocity strangely +incongruous with feminine physiognomy, which reminded Laroche of the +singular fact that in the crisis of the most exquisite anguish of the +torture, the women and children were permitted and rejoiced to flout +and buffet and sear and cut and aggravate in infinite ingenuity the woe +of the quivering victim. Even thus lowering however, she was not devoid +of beauty, and her dress betokened still a heedful eye to the values of +decoration. The wings in her glossy black hair were alternately the red +of the cardinal bird and the modest brown of his demure little mate. +Her doeskin <i>jupon</i> was also red, dyed deep with the blood-tinted +madder-root. She had a great red sash, such as a pirate might wear or a +major-general. Moy Toy had been constrained by many pleas and domestic +tyranny, in a sort, to confer it upon her from the store of presents +of the French pettiaugre in lieu of the scarf she had been bidden to +restore to the Choctaw Mingo. She wore it like a voluminous cross-belt +diagonally about her body, then passed around her slender waist. Here +and there the silk had come in contact with her smooth, anointed skin, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</span> +and the unguents had streaked the sash with a darker hue. Around her +neck, which the arrangement of the sash made visible, being disposed +in what is now called a V shape, a string of white pearls lay against +the clear olive tint of her throat—the gems were large and for the +most part regularly shaped. She was stringing others, which had been +pierced for the purpose with a hot copper spindle—a practice which +the early traders sought to discourage—the application of the heat +discoloring the gem, diminishing its lustre, and spoiling its value +for the European market. Her feet were bare, of an exquisite shape, +small, slender, most delicately made. He had hardly dreamed that her +narrow, liquid, velvet-black eyes, with lashes so long, so straight, +they seemed to cast a shadow, could look upon any object with a stare +so repellent, so infuriated, so brutal.</p> + +<p>Before he could answer she asked another question, so dissimilar that +he was at a loss and fumbled for a reply.</p> + +<p>“Where is your hair?”</p> + +<p>He had been accounted a logician, a mighty wrestler with arguments, +even a subtle trickster with words, but his facility was never so alert +that it could, without bewilderment, make a leap like this.</p> + +<p>“Oh—ah—my hair? Oh—they took off my hair at the trading-station—for +the fever, you know.”</p> + +<p>“You look like a baby—a grown-up baby,” she said, surveying with +objection his short ringlets.</p> + +<p>“My hair is not like a wig. It will grow,” he said, with his gentle +gayety.</p> + +<p>“Your beautiful clothes are at the state-house,” she observed. “Tinegwa +wears them at the dance.”</p> + +<p>For his life Laroche could but change countenance. So is man, the +civilized creature, artificialized by his need and custom of clothes +that they seem actually a part of him. He felt the indignity as a +personal affront, the more acutely since he had not fully realized his +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</span> +danger after the desertion of him by Mingo Push-koosh. His eyes rested +on the soft shining of her anointed sash.</p> + +<p>“Then I shall wear them no more,” he protested, with covert meaning. +“Moy Toy and I,” he resumed, hastening to cloak his sarcasm lest her +keen perception discern it, “have exchanged all our clothes, in token +of our friendship.”</p> + +<p>She gazed at him steadily. Such swift, radical reversals of policy were +not altogether unknown to the Indian scheme, and it might well have +chanced that beyond her knowledge the chieftain and his captive had +thus, in the formal and accepted manner, the exchange of every garment, +pledged and ratified a reciprocal fraternal bond.</p> + +<p>Her mood was gradually softening. She came forward a few steps, pausing +once in the sun to gaze at the pearls she held in her slender, deft +hand; then, entering the overhanging shadow of the tree, she sank down +in an easy kneeling posture, carefully selected and threaded a pearl +upon a horsehair which she held in her right hand, half a dozen of the +gems dangling at the end of the string, and looking up straight into +his eyes, asked with sudden recurrence,—</p> + +<p>“What debt?”</p> + +<p>“Oh—ah—to be sure; why, the debt of your life,” said the wily +Laroche. “But for me, Moy Toy might have given you in marriage to the +Choctaw prince, who had boasted that he would slay you, would take your +life, being a Cherokee born, should the two tribes fall to war with the +English and the French. But for me—for I betrayed his counsels—the +Choctaw fiend!”</p> + +<p>Her hand trembled; she let the pearl fall. She searched for it with +patient diligence and a deft finger in the green moss where it +glimmered with a lunar lustre. When she had found and threaded it she +desisted from her labor, although she still held the loose pearls in +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</span> +one hand, the partially strung thread in the other.</p> + +<p>“I will marry no one,” she said apprehensively. “It is very dangerous.”</p> + +<p>“It is very dangerous to marry Mingo Push-koosh,” assented Laroche, who +had indeed paid dearly for his humanity.</p> + +<p>“And the young men of the Cherokee nation,”—she shook her head +deploringly. “Oh, they are all mad, too,—all quite mad—all dangerous. +I will marry no more.”</p> + +<p>She looked down at the pearls in her left hand, but did not resume the +stringing of them.</p> + +<p>“The warrior I married once,” she continued,—“he was older and very +good—and brought much meat from the winter hunt. He would not scold +with a woman—that was beneath a warrior’s notice. And if a woman +wished to scold, she might go and talk to the Tennessee River. It +would do her good and not hurt the river, and her husband would not be +obliged to leave her. He was very good.”</p> + +<p>She gave a vague glance over her shoulder into the open door of +his house. Laroche, hyper-sensitive with all his recent anxieties, +emotions, sufferings—even morbid—had an uncomfortable realization +that deep beneath the thick clay floor of the dwelling the dead man +sat, buried so close to the life he no longer lived, so intimately +associated with the possessions he no longer owned.</p> + +<p>The Frenchman affected a gayer tone.</p> + +<p>“But all young men are not mad. Am I not young? I am not mad.”</p> + +<p>She evaded the answer. “At their gambols they may well seem mad. One +does not expect more then. But in war, in council, in marriage, it is +not well that young men should be mad.”</p> + +<p>“The gambols of various nations are different, as with their other +customs,” remarked Laroche discursively. “But the young men +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</span> +participating are much alike. I have seen a game of the Cherokees in +which the young men seemed mad—oh, very mad indeed.”</p> + +<p>“What game was that?” Eve demanded; for in spite of her aversion to +those bereft young persons, and her stern determination to marry no +more, and her grateful recollection of the domestic placidity of an +elderly spouse, her interest in the “mad young men” was very fresh and +ever new, and easily stimulated to a discussion of their unruly traits +and peculiar manners.</p> + +<p>“Why,” began Laroche, shifting his half reclining posture, that he +might support his head upon his hand, his elbow deep in the soft turf, +while he watched her listening face, “what would you say if I should +tell you what happened when I first came here to Tellico Great with the +Choctaw embassy?”</p> + +<p>A slight contraction passed over her features always at the mention +of the delegation, a spasm of wrath, of reminiscent terror, of +indignant and wounded pride that she, a Cherokee princess, holding a +line of royal succession, should ever have been in danger of uncaring +slaughter, as if she were a beast, at the hands of a grossly arrogant +Choctaw, to whom she might have been given as a wife, and for no more +provocation than that she had been born a Cherokee.</p> + +<p>“What would you say, I wonder,” he went on as she bent her dark eyes +anew upon him, “if I should tell you that one night I could not sleep; +I had had dreams that waked me. And if I should tell you that I rose +and walked a long time by the riverside—very quietly, wanting to wake +no one. And when at last, refreshed and the dream forgotten, returning +within view of the stranger-house—where the Mingo and his Choctaw +escort slept.”—He paused and affected to laugh, but the laughter stuck +in his throat. “The maddest, merriest game—the maddest game!”</p> + +<p>She was leaning forward, her eyes shining strangely, the hand that +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</span> +held the thread moved mechanically, beckoning, beckoning, as if to lure +forth the story; the other hand, holding the pearls, trembled like a +leaf.</p> + +<p>“Around and around the house was circling the strangest procession of +‘mad young men.’ Some wore buffalo horns and tails, and all had gourds +cut like faces, with torches inside, on their heads; their faces were +painted—painted! And one like a panther ran on all fours and leaped +and leaped!”—</p> + +<p>“Ah—h—h!” A sudden wild scream burst from her lips, which she +struck with the palm of her hand, producing a sound indescribably +nerve-thrilling, and which he had heard from braves on the war-path. +“The spring of Death!” she cried in exultation. And again the wild +scream split the air. “No game; no game!” she exclaimed in convulsive +precipitancy. “That was the mock-rite, the funeral procession, of those +they meant to destroy—and oh, I wish they had! Why did they not! why +did they not!”</p> + +<p>Laroche’s face was as pallid as the baubles in her hand.</p> + +<p>“The Choctaw embassy—was it intended to massacre them?”</p> + +<p>“It must have been—though I know nothing of it. This is the invariable +prelude—the agreement—the seal of the compact. To circle three times +round the house of your enemy, if one rests in your town, as if it were +the house of the dead, and with mock and flout and spells to palsy +resistance, and with lights to prove the path, and with knives to cut +the pledge of friendship, and with the leaping Death to seize them by +the throat—ah—h!—ah—h!”</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="VII">VII</h2> +</div> + + +<p>HOW he fared on his return to Ioco Town, Laroche never knew. The +interval of his transit was a blank in his recollection. He was only +aware of the crisis when he plunged out of the encompassing woods, +still urging the horse to a wild gallop, lashing him at every bound +with his cap, in default of a whip, which he had lost, when or where he +could not say.</p> + +<p>The town lay before him, idealized in a suffusion of roseate purpling +light as the sun was going down beyond those dark, heavily wooded +ranges in the west into which the mountain plateau, even then called +the Cumberland, splits at its southern extremity. The eastern loftier +heights, the Great Smoky, bore an almost visible sentiment of peace on +their slopes, which were of an etherealized azure with a reflection +of the red west in the suave sky above their domes. The Cherokee +dwellings were all solidly dark against the fine, delicate intimations +of color in the opalescent atmosphere. Where a fire was glimpsed in +the “beloved square,” the red and white and yellow of the blaze were +like a crude overlay of coarse pigment on some exquisite mosaic. The +figures of the Indians themselves in groups of varied aspect,—sundry +of them arrayed in aboriginal splendor, feathered and mantled; others +almost nude; still again others clad in the coarse and unpicturesque +buckskin shirt and leggings,—all stood as if petrified at the first +disordered sound of the wildly galloping hoofs of the horse. They +watched in blank surprise the equestrian apparition speeding across +the open spaces until, hardly pausing in front of the trading-house, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</span> +Laroche flung himself from the saddle. He took no heed to secure the +creature. With the reins loose on his neck the horse, amazed at this +unwonted liberty and lack of care, reared aimlessly once or twice. +Then motionless, with a gaze of obvious surprise, he turned to look +after his eccentric rider, who had burst into the trading-house with +his warning of the danger upon his lips, that all who cared might hear +and tremble. No more would he trust to the foolhardiness of the sturdy +trader, who had weathered many a gale of disaffection, signs of Indian +displeasure, rumors of massacres impending, and threats of reprisal; +nor to the young Highland soldier’s unquestioning reliance on the +superior judgment of Jock Lesly. The under-trader and the young packmen +responded as alertly with fears and precautions as Laroche could wish. +With his martial habitudes reasserted in the emergency, Laroche gave +the necessary orders with such dispatch, such decision, such obvious +discrimination, that the men, discerning their value and aware that +none other of the group could have originated the plan, as instantly +obeyed as if he had been a military superior entitled to the authority +he wielded. Jock Lesly, coming in at haphazard, found himself a mere +supernumerary in his own trading-house, where his word had been law. He +stared for a moment with stunned surprise, and then at last and after +so long a time, hearing the interpretation of the dream he had derided, +he began to admit to himself that perhaps more mischief was brewing in +the air than he wot of.</p> + +<p>“It’s the French—thae kittle cattle!” he exclaimed; “I wad na vex +mysel’ if it were na for the lassie.”</p> + +<p>He heard with deliberative calmness the preparations which Laroche had +projected for the defense of the little colony, which he instantly +began to detail, so eagerly, so urgently, that amidst the tumultuous +words there came to Jock Lesly’s absorbed sense a fact which he +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</span> +remembered long afterward rather than noted in that moment of crucial +stress—a vaguely foreign accent. Now he only marked the features of +the plan, and his strong heart was buoyed up by its hopefulness.</p> + +<p>“Eh, callant,” he cried; “it’s gey gleg ye are at this wark! Ye’ll no +hae seen foreign service for naething!”</p> + +<p>The phrase went the rounds of the lads who stood with their lives in +their hands, and, though loath enough to yield them in this petty +strife that had not even a fair quarrel for its justification, were +still more loath to yield first their strong bodies, endowed with +stanchest nerves, to furnish sport to the Cherokees in the delights +of the torture. Foreign service! The words were like magic. It was a +trained mind, with a practiced eye and an experienced judgment, that +disposed their pitiful resources to the best advantage for defense. And +with this reassurance these resources hardly seemed so pitiful.</p> + +<p>In two minutes the trading-house, a temple of peace and built without +the customary loopholes for musketry, had half a dozen sawn through +each of the stanch walls, save on the side nearest the dwelling, where +a dozen slits were fashioned. The emporium of commerce, being a long +and large building in comparison, commanded it on three sides. Around +the home in the early days of its occupation a ditch had been once +dug, intended to drain the slope. This was still deep but now dry, and +in it emergency mines were hastily constructed here and there after a +fashion which Laroche had seen in practice in his military experience +in Europe. There were still many kegs of powder in the store, a +quantity of tow, numerous rude bags and boxes and barrels, half emptied +or altogether thrown aside. Of these boxes and barrels he hastily +contrived fougasses, lining them with tar before placing in each a +heavy charge of powder. The energetic plying of a dozen spades soon +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</span> +covered them over in the ditch, and several were sunken in deeper pits +with gravel and boulders to fill the space to the surface. He himself +worked diligently with great deftness upon sundry long, thin bags which +he called “saucissons,” fashioned from a bolt of Jock Lesly’s best +linen, filled with powder, tarred externally, to serve as fuses to +convey fire to the fougasses. He was a man of infinite expertness and +a genius in the way of resource, and barricades for doors and windows +were soon contrived of whatever material was at hand. He selected the +guard, the greater number of the packmen, who were to hold out the +trading-house, which, with its outlook and its loopholes, commanded +the dwelling. They were instructed to prevent any possible approach +by picking off the assailants by rifle fire, or, in case of a rush, +by exploding one of the fougasses, the saucissons of several of which +connected with the store, the others with the dwelling itself. The +under-trader, as vigorous, devil-may-care, hard-headed, hard-handed, +hard-hearted a backwoodsman as could have been found in those rude +days, was to take command of the detachment in the trading-house, Jock +Lesly himself, Laroche, Callum, and two of the packmen undertaking to +defend the dwelling. The two buildings were thus enabled to afford +mutual protection, and divide the numbers and break the force of the +assault by the Indians, each offering the garrison of the other, in +case of extremity, the chance of a refuge in flight.</p> + +<p>So swift, so definite, yet so simple were these arrangements that when +Moy Toy was summoned from the perplexities of his consultations with +the headmen of Ioco in the great council-house, by the wild alarum +from the Indians without that warlike preparations were going forward +among the trader folk, he found these precautions already in a state +of completion. Laroche, a pickaxe in his hand; advanced to meet the +chief as he came toward the dwelling that now peered at him, as it +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</span> +were, suspiciously from loopholes. The sounds of excitement from the +square, of wild cries and eager words, the disorder of swift, flitting +figures hither and thither, the clash of weapons and the hasty tramp +of feet, all implied an unusual activity among the tribesmen. They +too were getting under arms, but were distinctly dismayed to find +themselves surprised—the onset they had planned anticipated, crippled, +perhaps even to be repelled by forethought, adequate preparation, and +a valiant defense. In fact, without those tumultuous concomitants of +the sudden onslaught, the stealthy ambush, the surprise of treachery in +conference, the Indian hardly cared to fight. And although they were so +vastly superior in numbers that calculation of odds was impracticable, +they were aware that they must needs suffer severely from the fire of +the little garrison, whose bulletproof walls would hold a far stronger +force indefinitely at bay. Laroche fixed the period of the enterprise +when he warned Moy Toy and the chief of Ioco Town, advancing with him, +to come no further.</p> + +<p>“The ground is mined with powder,” he explained. “No Indian shall come +one pace nearer.”</p> + +<p>Moy Toy cast an upbraiding glance upon his companion. And Laroche knew +in an instant that his discovery of the inimical midnight mummeries and +the suspicions they had aroused had been the subject of the debate in +the town-house; but for the habitual forbearance of the Indians toward +one another, it might have caused an open rupture that this had been so +conducted as to betray their plans. He had not valued the pledge of the +Indian’s word, but he had thought that Moy Toy realized his interest +was involved in keeping his promise of immunity to the “trader folk.”</p> + +<p>Now he would not trust to this.</p> + +<p>“I have read my dream, Moy Toy!” he cried triumphantly. “Am I not a +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</span> +soothsayer—even like unto an ‘old beloved man’ myself—simple as I +stand here?”</p> + +<p>The very tones of his sarcastic voice, ringing so jauntily on the air, +daunted the Indians, so assured, so inimical, so subtly menacing his +laughter was.</p> + +<p>From the loopholes of the barricaded trading-house interested +faces peered out to witness the dumb show of this colloquy, the +speakers being so distant that only the sound of their voices was +distinguishable; the men at their several posts commented loudly to +each other. “Eh, sirs, hear till him, now!” “Wow, he had best haud a +care!” “Moy Toy looks gin he wad bite, the fearsome auld carle!”</p> + +<p>Laroche turned as the two Indians, cautious, mute, doubtful, playing +the waiting game, gazed at him. He lifted the pickaxe and struck it +upon the ground.</p> + +<p>“Here,” he cried, drawing the implement along the earth as if tracing +the way, “walked the mock mourners—thrice—thrice around the house +of the living, as if they were already the dead. Following came +the bearers of cords and chains, with charms and spells to hinder +resistance. And so—the lantern bearer, with light to prove the +path. And him with the knife, to cut the bonds of plighted faith and +friendship. And then the leaping Death—quick—quick—to seize his +prey!”</p> + +<p>Between each mystic sequence of this ghastly figurative array Laroche +lifted the pickaxe and drew a stroke along the ground.</p> + +<p>The two chiefs gazed now and again at each other as this recital +proceeded, first with obvious agitation, giving way to sheer wonder, +increasing to awe, and, as the idea became more accustomed, to a fierce +anger that flashed in Moy Toy’s dark eyes like lightnings from out a +storm cloud.</p> + +<p>“Do I not read the dream aright?” Laroche cried at last, leaning on the +pickaxe and surveying them with a smile of glad triumph, infinitely +taunting.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</span></p> + +<p>“The white man reads no Cherokee dream,” said Moy Toy. “You have been +told this.”</p> + +<p>“The great chief knows all things,” flouted Laroche; “I have been told +it.”</p> + +<p>The two Indians looked at him with a keen expectancy that meant woe +indeed to the traitor.</p> + +<p>“The river whispered it in my ear. I read it in the clouds. The winds +are singing it in the pines—I can turn nowhere that it does not cry +out to me from all the voices of the earth. For all day I have been +in the woods—even as far as Great Tellico; your good horse may show +my speed, Moy Toy. All your Cherokee country tells it—the fair land +that was to have been rescued from the British, and with the aid of the +French made the head and front of an independent Indian confederacy of +a dozen tribes!”</p> + +<p>The large scope of this harmonious scheme that, could it have been +realized,—the combination of the tribes, ever warring against each +other, into a union of massed strength against the colonies,—would +doubtless have worked mighty changes in the history of this continent, +appealed to the breathless hope of the Cherokee statesmen. The chief of +Ioco Town hastened to say that Laroche was the cherished friend of the +tribe; the town of Ioco loved to hold, to shelter his honored head; he +was indeed deceived if he imagined from his distorted reading of dreams +of Indians—for dream Indians were mischievous and would not appear +right to white men, and thus loved to delude them—that the Cherokees, +least of all the town of Ioco, sought to do him mischief; they valued +too greatly his promise of instruction, the assurances he had brought +from his government, and the prospects he had unfolded of that large +freedom and independence he would teach the nation to secure.</p> + +<p>“Those prospects are as nothing—as a mere breath—as that mist before +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</span> +the moon—even the moon’s light will scatter it.” Laroche glanced up +at the great disk slowly rising over the serrated summit line of the +gloomy Smoky Mountains, albeit the western sky was yet red and day +lingered, dusky and doubtful, among the wigwams, and in the opalescent +tints of the river, broken here and there with the tumultuous flashing +of the white foam against the rocks.</p> + +<p>“Nothing will I promise—not even that I will remain amongst you.”</p> + +<p>He detected a significant hardening in the faces of the Indian +chiefs—a sudden tyrannous gleam in the eyes of Moy Toy.</p> + +<p>“You would say I have no choice, Moy Toy.” He took from his belt a +pistol—a fine new weapon, secured from Jock Lesly’s own armament +at the trading-house—primed and loaded. “I hold in my hand the +opportunities of life and death. Unless all at the trading-station go +in peace, go free, and I myself accompany them as far as the Keowee +River, I will not remain with you.” Once more that dangerous gleam in +Moy Toy’s eye. “I will place this at my temple,” he held the muzzle +amidst the loosely curling rings of his light brown hair and deftly +touched the trigger, “and in one moment your league with the great +French king is a thing of the past. His trusted officer, holding his +commission and acting by his authority, will have died in your country, +in your custody, as definitely, in his estimation, slain by your hand +as if your hand had sped the bullet.”</p> + +<p>The two Cherokees, obviously at a loss, gazed at each other and +hesitated.</p> + +<p>“Never will the pettiaugres ascend your demon-infested, rocky +rivers—never will the barrier towns rise above and below those +defiant, malign obstructions and secure the passage of merchandise. +Your vassalage to the British will be an accomplished fact, your +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</span> +independence a dream; for I who am sent to organize your armies and +perfect your plans and equip your warriors for defense and legitimate +aggression in war—I will do nothing! My mission is at an end, unless +you comply with my conditions. I am a soldier and no murderer. I cannot +and will not be placed in a position to answer to the British colonial +authorities for the innocent blood, for murder, for massacre. I said +to you once as I say to you now—Let the traders go! They shall not +return! Then, with the aid of the French government, I will put into +the field an army of Indian braves, officered by French experts in each +arm of the service, and the very name of it shall strike more terror to +the hearts of the perfidious English than a myriad of border massacres.”</p> + +<p>Laroche had already known something of the swiftness with which the +crafty savage could shift ground, but he was not prepared for the +sudden <i>volte-face</i>, without a glance at each other or a sign, +with which both Moy Toy and the chief of Ioco began to protest, albeit +in decorous fugue, notwithstanding their haste,—it being a standing +joke among the Indians, a matter of perennial ridicule, that the white +people would talk at the same time or interrupt one another so that +none could be distinctly heard. The two chiefs instantly declared that +they would respect his words and abide by his promises, which they +cherished like the blood of their own hearts. They admitted that they +ought earlier to have told him the truth—which for shame they wished +to conceal,—that only the mad young men of the town had conceived +the ignoble scheme of revenge for some trivial insults which they +fancied had been offered them by the young packmen—themselves hardly +less insane than the bereft young braves. They had been reproved for +their midnight mummeries and their threats thus expressed, and when +opportunity should offer, after the departure of the trader and his +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</span> +pack-train, the offenders should be dry-scratched.</p> + +<p>The Frenchman duly appraised the insincerity of all this. He well +understood that the plea of the misdoings of their “mad young men,” so +frequently urged, was now, as often before, merely their scapegoat, +designed to bear the burden of the mischievous device of the headmen, +which some change of policy or mischance in execution caused them to +abandon. He hardly cared, however, to challenge their motive, since +it tended to promote the result he desired to foster,—the peaceful +withdrawal of the trader’s household. He stood decorously listening, +with a face of suave acquiescence, until, in the midst of their +antiphonal series of excuses and explanations, the chiefs stated, among +their reasons for concealing the alleged comparatively innocuous source +of the demonstration, that they had refrained from telling him this +lest he might esteem his own life insecure among such an uproarious, +ill-conditioned troop as their mad young men, and thus desire to leave +them.</p> + +<p>Laroche, at the imputation, could but laugh aloud in his martial +consciousness of courage. The tact of the Indians instantly perceived +the false step.</p> + +<p>They knew, they protested, the great bravery of the French officer, for +no fear had he! His heart was so strong as even to make him contemplate +taking his own life, merely should his plans be crossed. This they +besought that he would consider no more, for they only desired to +know his mind, that they might comply with his every thought. Still +he might well deem that their wild young men could hardly be brought +under reasonable authority, that they could be made the instruments of +winning and wielding such an independence as he had planned for the +splendid future. If he would but observe, he should see how plastic to +command they could become, how rightful authority should reduce their +turbulence and their clamors.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</span></p> + +<p>And indeed as they swarmed over the dusky “beloved square” and through +the spaces among the shadowy cabins and wigwams and along the bank +of the river, still red under the vague dream light of the faintly +tinted sky, the wild excitement that had pervaded the tumultuous groups +subsided upon the instant on the reappearance of the chiefs among them; +whether a word, a look, a sign wrought the miracle one could hardly +say. Laroche, standing gazing after his late interlocutors, could but +admire the address with which they had selected the occasion of their +withdrawal,—not that they had been faced down by argument, nor that +their virulent threats were overborne by counter-threats, nor that +their scheme was again proved foolish, futile, fatal to their own +future prospects, but only to demonstrate how amenable, how subject +to lawful authority were these very “mad young men” when adequate +necessity caused it to be exerted. It seemed incredible how promptly +all the aspects of peace were renewed. The long, lustrous, slanting +rays of the moon, soon falling athwart the town, penetrating the dusky +aisles among the Indian dwellings under the drooping boughs of the +gigantic trees, flashing upon the foam of the river, or resting in +full, unbroken placidity on the “beloved square,” scarcely showed the +shadow of a quiver, or a firelock, or the flicker of a feathered head. +Now and again the quiet echoed to the measured footfall of a sedate +passer-by. An open door here and there might reveal a group about a +fire where fish were frying for supper, and gossip was still stirring +about the events of the day. Dogs clustered around the door and begged +with all the insidious canine wiles of their kindred of civilization. +The council-house, dome-like in its elevation on its mound above the +town, was lighted by a party of young people setting forward some of +their usual evening games or pantomimes for the general diversion. The +two chiefs, respectively of Tellico and Ioco, had parted as if nothing +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</span> +more of importance were to be discussed, and Moy Toy, in the public +office, as it were, the cabin of the aged councilors, deserted but for +two or three of its frequenters, was talking over old times of hunting +and fishing and was telling a tale of piscatorial captures which could +hardly be matched even in these days of expanded imaginations,—his +civil hosts now and again constrained to laugh with guttural +remonstrance, or to interject an incredulous comment, “Ugh! Ugh!”</p> + +<p>At the trading-house, lights flickered within, but the barricaded +doors continued closed. The little garrison were to sleep upon their +arms in view of possible treachery in some lapse of vigilance. +Even thence, however, came loud, jesting voices, and now and again +hilarious snatches of song; all were very mirthful and with a renewed +sense of security under the double safeguard of adequate precaution +against surprise and the apparent satisfaction and pacification of the +Cherokees.</p> + +<p>In the next few days preparations for an early and orderly departure +were seriously inaugurated. It was not so much in advance of the usual +time for the semiannual journey to Charlestown for the demonstration +to augur undue fear of the Indians or to seem prompted by the recent +suspicious events. With an apparent hardihood, that was yet the craft +of caution, Jock Lesly more than once postponed the date for the +flitting, openly alleging the reason for the delay: now it was the +legitimate one of awaiting a consignment of deerskins which he had +been notified was to be sent from Toquoe; now it seemed that a purely +arbitrary wish of his own induced him to dispatch a messenger on a +long wild-goose chase for a conference with an Indian friend of auld +lang syne, for whom he had undertaken a personal commission to make +sundry purchases in Charlestown,—which gear, when described from the +aboriginal point of view, was found to have no counterpart in the +material world; indeed the demand for it was prompted in the full +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</span> +faith that whatever wish the heart of man could fashion the great +mart could furnish forth. The remonstrances sent on a second trip by +the runner were productive only of very guarded modifications in the +requisites, and all Ioco Town, in its excess of sophistication, was +laughing both at the simplicity of the old Indian of remote Kanootare +Town—who had never been as far as the Congarees, and who looked upon +Jock Lesly as a master magician in the mechanical arts—and at the +kindly worry and fret of the trader himself.</p> + +<p>“Heard ever onybody the like o’ that—the daft auld carle! And where am +I to find sic gear? And am na I a fule to try? A hammer, that suld hae +a gun, like a pistol, in the eend, wi’ a sharp knife for skelpin’ that +clasps under—sae he’ll be aye ready for wark or war. Ding it a’, I’ll +no fash mysel’!”</p> + +<p>As he strode about the place and discussed the absurdity with the +various braves, all seeking to recognize some modern and simpler +invention in the mists of his elaborate instructions, and the Indians +came and went from the trading-house and loitered about its recesses +with the young packmen, all in complete and obvious amity, there was +not the vaguest suggestion of the antagonism that had threatened the +destruction of the little party. The idea seemed a flout to credulity. +Jock Lesly again doubted its reality at times. “Hegh, lad,” he said to +Laroche, “ye hae gie us an unco stirrin’. I wad na tak a gliff at a +potato-bogle. It’s ower easy to be frighted.”</p> + +<p>For Laroche, albeit aware how thin was this crust of peace that overlay +the seething, fiery crater of conspiracy and murder, was forced to +run the gauntlet in some sort,—to be the butt of the ridicule which +the harbinger of danger that does not materialize always is called +upon to suffer. Now and again he encountered this among the young +packmen poking fun in a sly way. The high value which they had set +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</span> +upon his views because of his experience in actual encounters in the +continental wars, in which he stated he had served, seemed suddenly +inverted, and for this very reason his measures were derided. It was a +point of almost religious exaction in those days, as indeed sometimes +in these, to decry the regular soldier in aggrandizing the militia +or the volunteer, on the somewhat absurd hypothesis that the entire +devotion of a man’s time to a pursuit renders him necessarily inexpert +at it, or that the more one learns of military science the less one +knows. Whether this comes about from the instinctive arrogation of +the civilian that he is as fit in a fight as any man, and knows by +intuition all that the soldier learns by hard knocks, it is one of the +dearest delusions of the popular mind and is not to be lightly trifled +with. Laroche must needs have been more the diplomat and less the +soldier than he was to have perceived this spirit without the usual +snorting indignation and sentiment of baffled wonder at the presumption +of the comparison. But it is of that grade of intimate persuasion +in which argument or any certainty of demonstration is futile, and +like other military men earlier and since he permitted it to pass +unchallenged, with a secret scorn and a mocking acquiescence. It was +only in the presence of Lilias that he winced under this derision, +knowing that but for him the whole trading-station would be in ashes, +its embers quenched with the blood of its inmates. Yet in the same +instant he was saying to himself that her presence should be naught to +him, and that this guying was a trifle.</p> + +<p>How could her presence be naught, when across the supper table the tiny +flame of the candle showed her blue eyes kindling like sapphires?</p> + +<p>“Ou, ay, ay,”—her father was answering Callum’s inquiry,—“Tam is gaun +wi’ us—Tam’s gaun to haud a care o’ us,—gin he no taks to dreamin’ +agen!” He stopped his chuckle with half a scone.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</span></p> + +<p>Lilias had risen and turned away, for Callum MacIlvesty wanted more +parritch and Laroche had matter other than Jock Lesly’s clumsy jest +to canvass in secret agitation. That blue, jeweled light in her +starry eyes—was it set aglow because the day of parting seemed yet +distant?—how could he care for the trader’s flout!</p> + +<p>The next day he had in some sort a revenge for his installation as +laughing stock. He had repeatedly cautioned the young packmen against +the lurking dangers of the fougasses which he had connected with the +trading-house for its defense. There had supervened so general a +scorn of the warning, the menace—even the sight of the Indian town +under arms had been apparently only the reflex of their own acts of +hostility—that the emergency mines seemed but a part of the whole +invalid hoax until a stout, red-haired young packman, striking his +flint hard by, communicated a spark to a saucisson, and upon the +consequent explosion of the fougasse he was tossed like a feather +into the air and had three fingers blown off. The ground for several +yards was ripped open as if the ditch had never been filled, and the +crags and chasms of the mountains rang and rang with the successive +reverberations of the detonation.</p> + +<p>Great as was the commotion among the trading folk, the incident was +as a revelation to the Indians. Almost palsied by terror, as in some +stupendous convulsion of nature, they no sooner comprehended the +agency of the disaster than their anxiety was increased twofold. At +this period, although the use of firearms was general among them and +the ancient bow and arrow were superseded, save in cases of necessity, +gunpowder was as yet an unaccustomed force except as confined to +musketry. They still entertained great terror of artillery, and the +effects of powder in mining and in so large a quantity seemed little +short of miraculous. Seeing the trader’s band presently clustered +about the scene of the disaster, several of the savages ventured to +approach, suspiciously sniffing the sulphur laden air and eyeing the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</span> +deep chasm in the ground with a grave, tentative aspect and a sort of +serious disaffection, which was in itself a most portentous threat. +It seemed to argue that scarcely any advantage was to be neglected +against people who could bring to their aid so potent an auxiliary of +destruction as this. Evidently the town itself might be thus destroyed. +The Indians began to walk about the pit, gazing down at it with the +sort of averse appropriation which one feels toward aught of menace +designed with a personal application. They measured the inimical +capacities of the fougasse, dwelling upon the intention of its device, +and obviously felt that anger experienced when one heartily takes the +ill will for the deed. Their state of mind was all at once so rancorous +that albeit the explosion of the fougasse was only another indication +of the strength of the defenses and the value of the resources of the +white man, and thus would seem to reinforce the dangers of attack, the +fact that it was planned to carry death and destruction to them, who +had as yet given no overt cause of offense and failed in naught of open +friendship, was as a challenge to strategy, invited reprisal, and made +vain all protestations of good will.</p> + +<p>“Eh, we maun be gangin’ the morn’s morn,” said Jock Lesly, wiping his +brow with his great red handkerchief, and gazing down from the window +of the spence at the curious crowds that came and looked silently upon +the snare—riven and exploded and harmless now—that yet had been laid +for them.</p> + +<p>“An’ what for no?” cried Lilias impatiently. “Ye’re aye sayin’ ‘we maun +be gangin’ an’ we maun be gangin’,’ an’ we aye bide here!”</p> + +<p>“Whist, whist, my bairn.” Then perceiving some inconsistency, “The +deil’s in the wimmen folk!” Jock Lesly cried indignantly. “’Twas only +yesterday sennight that ye sat greetin’ on your creepie an’ said your +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</span> +heart was sair to leave thae grand mountains,—an’ go ye wad na!”</p> + +<p>The girl laughed slyly. So dull he was! So well, too, for a father to +be dull, when he had “sic a fule” for a daughter. She suddenly grew +grave and blushed with a deep, serious, conscious glow. She had caught +MacIlvesty’s eyes, bright, alert, with a world of speculation in them +as they were fixed upon her face. Could it be that he connected her +sudden change of will with the fact that on that tearful yesterday +sennight she had not known that mad Tam Wilson was to join their march? +For he had since announced that, designing to return to Virginia, he +would accompany the trader’s cavalcade as far as the Keowee River,—a +great detour and much out of his way.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="VIII">VIII</h2> +</div> + + +<p>NOR only Tam Wilson, but Moy Toy himself, Quorinnah, a dozen braves +from Tellico, and as many more of Ioco Town joined the escort, the +Cherokee headmen having become impressed definitely with the idea that +their interest was essentially involved in keeping faith with Laroche.</p> + +<p>An early start was made the morn’s morn. The night had not yet revealed +the aspect of the day, whether fair or foul; the world was sunk in +darkness and swathed in mists. Now and again, glancing upward, one +might see a star, augury that the sky was clear, and then the web of +vapor annulled the scintillation and portended the gathering of clouds. +Torches were here, there, everywhere, flaring through the gloom. The +gable of the little home would show for a moment as one sped past, +and anon would collapse into the similitude of a burly shadow. The +trading-house stood forth with continuous distinctness; the light +within streamed through the open doors as the final preparations of +departure were in progress. It gave bizarre glimpses of the heavily +laden train of horses standing—shadowy equine figures—outside, with +now and again one of the packmen moving in the midst, readjusting a +burden or examining the strength of the girths. In the chill matutinal +air the bells on the animals gave out a keen jangling,—all the clamors +of the raucous voices of the packmen crying here and there; the noisy +movement of bales and boxes scraping upon the floors or against each +other; the thud of pawing hoofs; the swift beat of human footsteps to +and fro were punctuated by this continual, metallic vibration, which +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</span> +somehow was jarring to the senses and added a distinct element of +confusion. Albeit, with the expectation of immediate departure, the +preparations were deemed complete the night before, still, when the +actual moment was at hand, it seemed that all was yet to be done—after +the perverse manner of a journey’s start. Trifles developed into +obstacles; obstacles became immovable; the impracticable asserted its +inelastic limitations; and throughout was heard, from time to time, +Jock Lesly’s half paternal, half petulant, admonitory upbraiding, “Oh +fie!—oh fie!”</p> + +<p>Occasionally he quitted the precincts of the trading-house, leaving +the solution of its problems to his lieutenants, and plunged into the +more dusky and shadowy domain of his own dwelling, where, however, +he acquired no placidity, for now and again his favorite adjuration +issued thence, invested with a sort of pathetic intonation of futility +and associated with the name of Lilias. “Callum,” he would yell from +the door in despair, “Lilias winna ride ahint ye on the pillion!” Then +his stentorian roar, relaxing to domestic exhortation to the rebel of +the interior, seemed in the distance a mere rumble of “Oh fie!” in +conscious defeat; he would lift his voice anon as he was beaten back +from one line of defense to another, “Callum, Lilias winna ride ahint +me on the pillion!”</p> + +<p>Callum’s face, half seen in the flare from the door, grew set and hard, +as he stood saddling with his own well-descended hands the palfrey +destined to bear the weight of the trader’s daughter. His action was +significant, whether or not it was observed. He had begun to take the +pillion off—since she would accompany neither him nor her father she +should not ride behind the saddle of Tam Wilson, if that were her +object. The other men looked at one another, laughing slyly, with a +certain relish in the paternal discomfiture and the hardiness of the +young insurgent, rejoicing in the ultimate victory of “little lassie +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</span> +Lilias,” after the manner of those who are indulgent to the whims and +desirous of forwarding the power of a spoiled and imperious child—out +of their own household. They discerned nothing more serious in the +discussion, but Tam Wilson, busy in the group, was obviously expectant.</p> + +<p>A longer interval of argument and remonstrance ensued. Then the great +voice, with a hapless quaver in its tones issued forth anew.</p> + +<p>“Callum, Callum! Lilias winna ride on the pillion at a’. Lord save us! +The lassie vows she maun hae a tall horse all for her nainsel’—oh fie! +oh fie!”</p> + +<p>He was fairly beaten, for time was against him, and he must needs come +out and see to the getting of his convoy together. Again and again in +the extremity of his despair he protested that night would find them +still hirpling about Ioco Town. But the first long slant of the sun met +the pack-train in full march, descending one of those steep defiles +among the mountains and the swirls of the Tennessee River, and the wind +itself was not more blithe and free and fain to travel. The pack-horses +swung in single file along the familiar ways of the old trading-path, +now at a brisk trot, now carefully treading a ledge whence a false step +would precipitate the creatures into the torrents below, without rein +or guidance selecting their footing and balancing their burden with +that strong animal intelligence and good will in labor which might seem +to entitle them to be considered conscious factors in the commercial +enterprise. Their chiming bells, blithely echoing from the crags, now +loud, now softly vibrating, as the tones of those in the vanguard or +far away in the rear came to the ear, made no dissonance in the free +open air in their diversity of quality, and smote upon the dash of +waters with the effect of sudden cymbals in the flutings and stringed +vibrations of orchestral music. The mist had taken wings. Far and near +the airy essences were rising from the mountains. The morning star, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</span> +luminous, splendid, in her amber cloud, exhaled like a dewdrop in the +glance of the sun. The spirit of May was in the air. The alert breeze +had a keen, matutinal reviviscence, despite the languors of spring, +and upon the mountains was a vague, blue presence, an efflorescence of +haze like the bloom on a grape, that made their tint deeper, richer, +softer, whether it were the azure of the furthest reaches of vision or +the sombre purple of the nearer ranges, or the densely, darkly verdant +slopes closing about the immediate vicinage of the series of cup-like +coves.</p> + +<p>In the distinct light the convolutions of the train became easily +discernible to the eye, as from lower ground one could look back up the +winding slopes of the ravine, so narrow at times as to leave a passage +but for two or three abreast. Several of the stoutest men, fully armed, +rode in the vanguard, and after the pack animals and their drivers +came another close squad of horsemen, for owing to the packmen that +Callum MacIlvesty had brought with him, the guard of the pack-train was +more numerous than it was wont to be. A salient feature of the long, +winding troop was the waving feathers of the braves, themselves riding +together, for albeit most friendly of aspect, it was deemed meet that +they and the young packmen should have as scant opportunity as might be +to fall at loggerheads.</p> + +<p>“They can’t talk thegither, praise God!” said Jock Lesly, who had had +little thought he should ever be in case to be thankful for the impiety +of the builders of the Tower of Babel, that had brought about the +confusion of tongues. “But they are a’ kittle cattle, and I’se no trust +them thegither.”</p> + +<p>As he himself rode between the packmen and the Cherokee braves, his +own companions were Moy Toy and Quorinnah, who had attached themselves +to the chief of the expedition as their only equal in point of rank. +He had anticipated this and had directed Callum to ride at the bridle +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</span> +rein of Lilias, whose station was between the squad of extra packmen +and the drivers of the pack-train. Tam Wilson had no place assigned to +him in the line of march. He was aware, when he took up his position +on the other side of her palfrey, that he might seem animated by a +sentiment far alien to the spirit of resignation and renunciation +that had lately possessed him, but in reality he was influenced by +the knowledge of the added protection his proximity afforded her. +Nevertheless, with the satisfaction of their safe departure, which +he knew his own exertions had secured, the keen edge of exhilaration +and expectancy that dangers still unmasked may give, the necessity +to support the character he had assumed, the delirious joy that her +presence and his knowledge of her preference could but diffuse through +mind and heart, all overcame for a time his sense of regret for his +idle delay, his disloyalty, his duplicity. He forgot the futile cruelty +to Callum MacIlvesty, and the deceit practiced toward her; and the +identity of Tam Wilson, which he claimed as his own true character, was +never more definite, more consistent than as he fared gayly by her side +down the devious ways of the mountain wilderness. The tinkling of the +bells and the chiming of the echoes were in his ears. He breathed the +fragrance that the herbs of the earth distilled into the rare air; the +colors of the landscape glowed so rich, so fine, so fair; and all the +heart of a beautiful woman who loved him was in her eyes as she looked +at him.</p> + +<p>It was plain to Callum MacIlvesty, and Lilias scarcely cared that it +was. She had no realization of him save that his words, his face, his +very existence irked her, and she would fain be rid of him—being +in the nature of an interruption of the free thought of another. He +wondered afterward that he could be so patient—to watch her fair face +cloud as even casually she turned; to hear the inflection of annoyance +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</span> +in her voice when she spoke to him, and she did not speak unless she +needs must answer; to mark her appeal to Tam Wilson for the buckling of +her rein anew, and the readjustment of her saddle; for a flower growing +beside the way; for a cluster of wild strawberries, which she ate to +the manifest danger of life and limb, the reins falling on her horse’s +neck as he gingerly picked his way, stumbling now and again down the +rugged descent, until Tam Wilson himself gathered up the lines and +guided the animal. And when the strawberries were eaten she rode on, +laughing like a child, her head bare under the sun, her golden curls +hanging down on her shoulder, and her milk-white face burning red, +although her riding mask swung by its string to her belt.</p> + +<p>Sometimes Laroche was summoned back by the requisition of Moy Toy, Jock +Lesly, and Quorinnah, to give opinions or arbitrate on some moot point +of the trading privileges as established by the treaty, the Cherokees +secretly delighted that it was to a Frenchman, actively employed in the +French interest, to whom the unwitting British trader was appealing, by +whose decision he professed himself willing to abide, and that these +fine-spun theories were to be of consequence no more.</p> + +<p>Then—the two young Scotch people left together—Lilias would gravely +grasp the reins and ride slowly along, gazing up continually at the +massive ranges, for their aspect shifted as the route of the travelers +deviated. When one majestic dome, always in view from the little window +of the spence, seemed on the very border-land of vision, the turn +around a crag about to cut it off forever, she checked her horse and +paused to look her last upon it.</p> + +<p>“I’ll never see it mair!” she cried, in accents of positive pain. “I’ll +ne’er be sae happy again as I hae been, living in the sight. Fare ye +weel, sweet friend. May the warld gae cannily wi’ ye!”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</span></p> + +<p>The blue dome still towered like a mirage in the distance above the +purple of nearer heights and the green of the foothills; then the crag +intervened, and suddenly she laid down the reins on the horse’s neck +and began to tie on her mask.</p> + +<p>“Ye’ll see mountains agen. There’s mountains enough elsewhere, Lilias,” +said Callum, in awkward consolation, as he caught up the reins and held +the horse to a steady gait.</p> + +<p>“Nane like these,” she protested in a husky voice. “There’s mountains +enough in Scotland, an’ that’s nae joy to you nor to me.”</p> + +<p>And this was very true, as the poor exile realized; his heart might +ache vainly for the rugged mountains he remembered and loved, and as +for these mountains of this new land she, whom he loved best, loved +them well for another man’s sake. He gazed upon them with dreary +eyes and an inward protest against them. Happy in their shadow! in +magnitude, in multitude they typified woe, unceasing, immeasurable, +ineradicable. So these two rode on together in silence, save that she +murmured now and again, “Thae sweet mountains!”</p> + +<p>He was none the happier when Tam Wilson came spurring up again, and +Lilias was suddenly blithe and bonny once more. She was as gay as a +child when they reached the first unfordable river, where the singular +methods of ferriage of those days came into requisition. Through the +shallow waters of the fords the knowing pack animals had cheerfully +trudged, scarcely needing and certainly not noticing the halloos and +cracking of whips with which the packmen beguiled the passage. Here, +however, was a river deep enough to threaten damage to the packs and +to require swimming, and the horses lined up on the margin, still with +their tinkling bells fitfully jingling, and staidly awaited, more than +one with expectant whinnies, the removal of their burdens. A delay +ensued, as always, and each section of the guard coming up, kept apart +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</span> +to this time for reasons of policy, halted in a medley on the high and +rocky banks which resounded and reëchoed with the various calls in +Cherokee and English and braid Scots, with the jangling of bells and +stamping of hoofs. Here and there an active and agitated search was in +progress for the boat, constructed of buffalo skins and always hidden +among the willows or rocks on shore when not in requisition by the +traders and packmen and their Indian coadjutors,—the headmen of Ioco, +the town where the station was situated, being admitted to the secret +of the cache.</p> + +<p>“Gone! gone!”—a frenzied exclamation arose. “Stolen! Carried away!”</p> + +<p>Perhaps hidden anew! A score of active figures dashed hither and +thither, now bursting out of the willows with exclamations of dismay, +now plunging down the bank to a new point of search. Some as they sped +up and down showed above the rocks heads polled and feathered, others, +most genteel, with cocked hats, and again the coonskin cap or Callum’s +Highland bonnet was in evidence. Lilias, in the flickering, glinting +shade of a low-hanging beech tree, her head bare and golden, her face +so fair, looking as some dryad might, captured by this wild and varied +rout, waited like one apart, without a pulse of the impatience that +swayed the whole cavalcade. She was living in the present. For aught +she cared the journey might last forever. The past, it was naught to +her; the future was so strangely veiled—and somehow she trembled at +the thought. To-day! to-day!</p> + +<p>The disaster threatened a long delay; a new boat must be built, new +hides procured, all suitably tanned, and the incident itself suggested +treachery and fomented suspicion. More than once the eyes of Callum +MacIlvesty and Tam Wilson met in secret comment, an interchange +of inquiry, a fraternal interdependence, all other considerations +forgotten in the realization of a common danger. But Moy Toy’s face +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</span> +was frankly clouded, and Quorinnah was already suggesting ways and +means by which, going into camp here, help might be fetched from Ioco +Town. Only Jock Lesly gave no outward sign of his inward perturbation +as he strode up and down the bank, save that now and again he +admonished his cohorts with a shake of the head and a vehement “Oh fie! +oh fie!”</p> + +<p>And at last and suddenly, quiet descended on all the disordered crew, +bating a word or two of rancorous upbraiding and a retort of raucous +yet sheepish protest, for the boat was found where first it had been +presumed to be. It had been overlooked, so well had it been hidden, +and once declared to be missing the place of its usual and most +obvious bestowal was not searched again till desperation suggested +the retracing of all the various steps that had been taken. And so +it was presently launched. A queer craft we of to-day would deem it, +and perhaps would prefer something more stanch and less picturesque, +seeing how swift and deep and rocky was the river. But the capsizing of +such a boat meant only some slight injury of the goods and the swift +swimming of the hardy passengers ashore, none the worse for the plunge +into the clear waters of the mountain stream. The hides stretched +between stout saplings, serving as gunwale and keel and tightly bound +at each end, were distended toward the centre by crosspieces of the +same fashioning, holding the boat in the conventional canoe shape, +and the structure would convey ten horse loads at once. The method of +progression was still more singular—no oars nor poles were used in +its propulsion. The hardy packmen of the day, being lightly clad in +buckskins, were wont boldly to fling themselves into the river and swim +across, pushing the pettiaugre before them, their horses all gallantly +swimming in the rear. When the first boat’s load had been piled upon +the craft, Lilias was conducted down the steep bank and seated in the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</span> +boat, the only passenger, upon the bales of fine dressed deerskins. +Callum MacIlvesty and a number of other young men were instantly in the +water, wading first, then swimming, with the liberated horses following +after. The girl liked the novelty. She smiled down from her high perch +at each strong stroke that sent the curious structure throbbing and +quivering on its way, with its silver wake and a little ripple of foam +at the prow. The river was crystal clear, smooth, and shining in its +centre under the sun, deeply, duskily green beneath the shadow of the +trees on the further shore. Beyond, where the stream rounded a sort +of peninsula, a great glittering stretch of water seemed to extend +indefinitely in a haze that hung about a flat margin and there met the +sun in a vaporous shimmer, dazzling yet soft. All the group on the +hither shore gazed at the progress of the boat, but only the cultivated +imagination of the French officer suggested similitudes of aught that +it was not. Against that green and white and misty background the +shell-shaped craft and the still and smiling golden-haired figure +recalled some legendary sea nymph, some Venus in the gliding shallop; +the sleek heads of the attendant train suggested dolphins and sea +horses, gleaming in the sunset as they swam swiftly after.</p> + +<p>There was scant space for the flattery of illusions, for the deep +shadows of the leafy bank opposite were falling upon this misty +presentment of myths, the necromancy of the sheen and shimmer, and +obliterating it as the little craft was pushed in to the land. Those of +the packmen who had crossed were shaking the water from their dripping +garments with no more care for a drenching than so many shaggy dogs, +and presently were resaddling their horses, while Lilias, quite dry and +fresh, stood apart on a little promontory of rock and with a scornful +wave of the hand bade Callum in his saturated kilt keep his distance.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</span></p> + +<p>It seems incredible that such a man as Laroche should fear a little +guying, but perhaps it was only the spectacle of Callum’s discomfiture +that reconciled him to the knowledge of the scoffs at him, covert and +otherwise, which he knew he should receive from the other young men +when with Jock Lesly and the Indian headmen he should cross in the +boat on its second trip, his condition as a recent invalid entitling +him to share their honors and ease. It was barely possible, however, +that Lilias would have found no occasion, even were he also dripping +from the short swim, to place an embargo on his near approach. Why it +was that this watery quarantine should have roused Callum MacIlvesty’s +spirit of revolt, of self-assertion, of pride, it is difficult to say. +Perhaps merely the limit of his endurance was reached when he was cried +out upon like a too affectionate and dripping water dog.</p> + +<p>“I winna sprinkle your kirtle,” he said with some dignity, despite the +triviality of the theme. And he withdrew himself—not merely till the +hot sun and the reflected heat of sand and rocks should dry off his +garments, which, aided by the swift running to and fro on the errands +of the pack-train, the brisk wind, and the warmth of his own body, was +shortly effected.</p> + +<p>The whole train was in motion again incredibly soon, considering the +abnormal difficulties which these primitive methods of ferriage would +seem to present. The young packmen, by reason of being detailed to +the earliest crossing, were kept separated from the braves, the “mad +young men,” with whom it was feared some quarrel might arise through +their perverse ingenuity, independent of verbal communication. These +tribesmen came last of all, after the dignitaries of both factions, and +thus when once more on the march the original formation of the little +cavalcade was preserved.</p> + +<p>Only Callum MacIlvesty had shifted his position. He no longer rode at +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</span> +the right hand of Lilias, but ahead with the squad of packmen, and Tam +Wilson succeeded to the position he had occupied; but Lilias appeared +hardly to have noticed Callum’s absence, and certainly did not waste +a thought upon it. Her radiant spirit seemed to shine through her +eyes—she was gay, whimsically, childishly fascinating one moment; +soft, serious, deeply emotional the next; now showing her more earnest +traits, careful, womanly, unselfish; and again the veriest flutterer +of a butterfly. She had never been so protean of mood, so beautiful, +so charming. And yet Laroche looked upon her with changed eyes, a +newly aroused and upbraiding conscience. The frightful bodily danger +in which they had all recently stood from the murderous Cherokees, +his triumphant scheming to avert their impending fate, had been as a +reprieve to thoughts that now in this leisure again clamored for a +hearing. His long, idle lingering amongst them and enforced concealment +of his identity had brought this menace upon them. He had not yet +annulled all its evils. And now—whither was he tending? Daily he +considered the question.</p> + +<p>He was a man of education, having had superior facilities and both the +talent and the will to avail himself of them. He was not without social +culture, and he moved in coteries of refinement. While not of the +higher nobility, he was still a man of good birth, of degree, and of +some fortune, and this had enabled him to tolerate the more kindly the +bourgeois, nay the peasant-like aspect of the Lesly household, since +it was but a matter of contemplation, and by no means of assimilation. +He had regarded it with all its homely traits and habitudes as +impersonally as if it were a scene on a stage.</p> + +<p>In addition he was consumed by professional ambition; he had always +been accounted an efficient, superior officer; he believed that his +military abilities were great. Upon the successful issue of his plans +among the Cherokees and other tribes high preferment would await him +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</span> +in the gift of the French government. To hamper by a <i>mésalliance</i> +with a simple Scotch girl, the daughter of a bourgeois trader, his +future, his pride of diplomatic achievement, his opportunity to render +great services to his government—he was appalled by the very thought. +He promised himself that he would make no such sacrifice for any woman +on earth! Seriously contemplated, he could not raise her to his level, +and he would not sink to hers. All must be renounced should he dream +of her in any sense but to kiss her hand in gallantry and bless her +goodness in gratitude.</p> + +<p>Yet what was he doing? Separating forever two young people whose +kindness had been so largely instrumental in saving his life. Lapsed +in the luxury of a sweet, delicate, almost abstract emotion, flattered +by the consciousness of her love, he had supplanted her true suitor +by this ghastly simulacrum of a lover, and was wrecking the happiness +of both. He was sentimental enough, in the abstract, to care much +for a sentimental woe. He was conscientious enough to appraise the +unjustified intermeddling of the course he had pursued, and sensitive +enough to shrink from bearing the consciousness of it all his days. +With the policy of the confessional of the faith in which he had been +trained, that restitution must accompany repentance and peace only +follow penance, he was canvassing how to undo in days all that he had +wrought in months. It should not be, he declared arbitrarily. He cared +honestly, kindly, too much for her, loved her too truly, for herself, +as a friend! And toward Callum himself he was not indifferent. Yet how +could he bring them together again? Difficulties hedged him about. He +feared the English in his character of French emissary. Now, daily, he +was approaching the Englishman’s country. He adventured, indeed, much +for the sake of her and hers. Knowing his prejudice, he would not trust +Jock Lesly with his secret. But the girl loved him. He would trust +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</span> +Lilias! She would doubtless expect him to follow her to Charlestown. +She would watch and wait for him. She would pine. But should he +disclose his nationality, his employ, it must appear that their parting +was final; in all probability, so divided by distance and prejudice, +they would never meet again. It would be a poignant pang to them both, +and Lilias he could never forget! If thus unhampered she could find her +happiness in Callum MacIlvesty—he sighed—but he would not grudge it. +At all events he owed her this: she must not waste her sweet young life +in devotion to an illusion.</p> + +<p>In reaching this resolution he was far too acute, too accustomed to +introspection, not to perceive that he had postponed the shattering of +the romance that had delighted him until its enchantment had at the +most but a few days’ lease. He took some credit, however, that he had +determined to submit to the ordeal and the jeopardy it involved before +these were passed, that he might have space for an earnest effort to +bring the young people to their former understanding. Besides, he +argued, he might easily, in the interests of his own safety, hold +his peace. Surely it was not a part of his duty, in going about the +country, to warn susceptible maidens against losing their hearts to him.</p> + +<p>Notwithstanding the stress of this absorption, he conducted a dual +train of thought, listened to her talk, answered in character, followed +the manifold changing theme, commented on the varying aspects of the +country,—all the region being new to him,—found even space for a keen +notice of her flattered consciousness that it was for her sake that +he made this long and laborious detour in his journey to delay their +parting—if ever they should part again; and only once did he answer at +random, and only once did he fall into silence, to be merrily rallied +and asked when and where did he see that wolf.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</span></p> + +<p>One day the camp was pitched about sunset, the blue twilight yet in +abeyance. This, too, was the first halt since breakfast, dinner having +been eaten on the march. A substantial meal, therefore, was this supper +<i>al fresco</i>. Kettles were swung gypsy fashion; venison was broiled +on the coals; some wild ducks, brought down by a volley in the course +of the march, were split and toasted on a long stick at the general +camp, but brandered at the fire of the “gentlefolks” as the contingent +of Moy Toy and Jock Lesly was called,—it boasting a branding iron. The +“gentles” also rejoiced in a case bottle of brandy, while the lower +grades were content with rum, and only Lilias and the Frenchman drank a +“dish of chocolate.” By a watercourse, necessarily, the halt was made +and in the neighborhood of one of those exquisite springs for which the +region is noted.</p> + +<p>It seemed illimitably deep as Laroche and Lilias stood amidst the +sweet-scented ferns on its rocky verge and then sat down on one of +the fractured fragments fallen from the great crag beetling from the +mountain slope above their heads.</p> + +<p>Lured by the fascination that this sort of fountain in the wilderness +seems to exert on all travelers, each of the cavalcade had come to gaze +upon the crystalline depths which were like topaz in the lucent tints +imparted by the golden gravel beneath. The hewing of the circular basin +was almost as symmetrical as if wrought by hand. The down-dropping +branches of the sycamore and beech nearly veiled the crags closing +about them, and the far-away mountains across a stretch of valleys and +lesser ranges were purple and sombre under the light of the sinking and +vermilion sun. Only these two lingered here, quite silent at first, and +Laroche wondered if he could speak at all. He glanced about doubtfully.</p> + +<p>“Lilias,” he said slowly, “I have something to say to you.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</span></p> + +<p>The shadow of a homing bird sped across the sunlit valley. Down the +current of the river was visible a red reflection that was not a cast +of the western sun, but was caught from a camp-fire on the bluff. At +these he looked, not at her, lest the sight of her face disarm his +resolution; yet somehow he was aware of the sudden flutter of her heart +and the quickening of her pulses, and he knew that for all his art and +all his tact he had begun amiss. He hastened to nullify the impression +she might have taken, nay, nay, must have taken from his words.</p> + +<p>“It is a secret,” he said hurriedly. “You must promise that you will +tell no one—not even your father.”</p> + +<p>He wondered, his eyes still fixed on those furthest western mountains, +if her heart had ceased to beat, so still she suddenly was; then he +realized rather than saw the slow motion of surprise, of protest, as +her head turned toward him on its long and slender white neck.</p> + +<p>“Not even your father,” he reiterated, for he must needs go on.</p> + +<p>So sudden had been the revulsion of feeling, so complete, so +paralyzing, that she could not trust her voice. And this was well, for +he perceived that even in these few steps he had stumbled into a second +pitfall. Exclude the paternal idol, know a secret forbidden to that +paragon of wisdom and crown of creation, Jock Lesly! In another moment +he would have a downright refusal of the trust. He must quickly involve +her in the safety, the confidence of another, and even filial fealty +would not warrant her in breaking faith with him.</p> + +<p>“No,” he qualified hastily, “don’t promise. I will throw myself on +your honor—in the fullest assurance of safety. Lilias, I am not what +I seem; I am an emissary of the French government, an officer of the +army!”</p> + +<p>She recoiled violently, suddenly shaken, shocked; and albeit ghastly +pale she fixed a challenging stare upon him.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</span></p> + +<p>“A spy?” she demanded in a husky voice, impressive with its deliberate +tone and weighty yet incredulous rebuke.</p> + +<p>Laroche hastily collected his faculties. This untoward trend of his +disclosures must needs be checked in sheer consideration of the safety +of his neck.</p> + +<p>“Ah, Lilias, <i>bien aimée</i>,” he cried, in half petulant, half +affectionate protest. “How can you misunderstand? Remember how I came +to you—was it of my own intention, my own volition?”</p> + +<p>The recollection of those weeks of illness, of helplessness, when he +lay under their roof unconscious, brought thither by her father, was +supplemented by the thought of the simple domestic routine in which he +had grown a factor and had made the dear sense of home in these savage +wilds so doubly dear, his eager care for their safety, his suspicions +of the Indians, his precautions for the defense of the trading-station, +his oft ridiculed anxieties and prognostications of savage treachery +that had at last proved stern truth,—only foiled by his foresight and +ingenuity and sagacity. As these reflections flitted through her mind, +his eyes read the changing expressions of her face like an open book. +He spoke as if in response.</p> + +<p>“Remember,” he said with emotion, “for believe me I can never forget, +dear heart”—</p> + +<p>Suddenly, seeing the roseate color at the word beginning to return, to +deepen, to glow in her cheek with a subtle, conscious emotion, he was +admonished of that far more significant secret of his mission which +must be disclosed, and that quickly, for the sake of both.</p> + +<p>“No, not a spy,” he declared deliberately, seeking to quell the wild +plunging of his own heart, as though one should find a gentle palfrey +suddenly metamorphosed into a mighty charger. “My mission was primarily +to survey and report the character of the obstructions to navigation of +the Cherokee River—far away, a hundred miles or more; but I feared to +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</span> +say as much to your father, because of the international jealousies, +that yet need hamper no friendship between him and me. May we not think +kindly of each other as man to man, even though the nations are at war?”</p> + +<p>He turned questioning eyes upon her—and she, her face so sweetly +flushed, her eyes so gently luminous, looking all her love for him, all +her soft faith in his love for her, silently acceded, for she could not +trust her voice in the consciousness of what she looked to hear, what +his words next promised.</p> + +<p>Oh, how could he speak? Yet how could he dally and delay and torture +both himself and her? The look in her face nearly routed his resolve. +With an effort he went on almost at random, blurting out his revelation +by piecemeal.</p> + +<p>“My mission was primarily merely diplomatic—but I foresaw the +opportunity here and, representing it to the government, I volunteered +for the service; my authority was accordingly extended, and I will +command an army of Indians when it is put into the field in the French +interest.”</p> + +<p>He had plucked off a frond of the fern that grew by the margin and was +tearing it to bits and throwing them from him in the pause. They could +hear the water of the spring softly gurgle. The voices of the camp +beyond sounded distant and a-dream, like half heeded calls to drowsy +ears; the reflection of the camp-fires in the river had mustered a +deeper glow, as if recruited from the crimson clouds so lately parading +through the sky. Now the sky was vacant, a clear, pure, faintly tinted +blue, and in its midst a star gleamed with an incomparable whiteness +above the darkly bronze green of the mountains. And yet the night had +not come. The world was full of this gentle, limpid clarity of light. +He could have seen every line of her face as she sat upon the rock had +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</span> +he dared glance toward her.</p> + +<p>If the girl had been an image, craftily wrought of stone, she could +have shown no more semblance of life than that silent, motionless +figure.</p> + +<p>She doubtless heard. She could but understand.</p> + +<p>The reserve of her attitude overwhelmed the alert expectation of +the Frenchman, whose mental posture had been, by long and agitated +anticipation, braced for expostulation, for reproaches, for tears, nay +even appeals,—for she loved him as he loved her, and he knew it. This +absolute nullity as the result of a revelation so momentous to them +both reacted on his nerves. Oddly enough he experienced the tumult of +feeling in which he had thought to see her whelmed. He even called out +to her in his agitation, as heretofore he had prefigured her appeal to +him. He had utterly lost his artificial poise—he had become once more +the natural man.</p> + +<p>“Lilias! Lilias!” he cried with a poignant accent. “It is true, lassie, +to my sorrow—to my sorrow! I am a French soldier, but no enemy of you +or of yours, and, God help me, I love you!”</p> + +<p>She lifted her head suddenly and looked at him with stern eyes, which, +even despite the dusk, he could by no means misunderstand.</p> + +<p>“Do you mean,” she said, “that you volunteered to spirit up these +fiends of Indians to fall upon the frontier and massacre women and +children?”</p> + +<p>He drew back, affronted and wounded.</p> + +<p>“Nay, Lilias, war is war, and never play. If women and children suffer, +’tis the fortune of war, and the responsibility is on the men who have +the care of them. And do not the English march savages against the +French? And have not Frenchmen also wives and children, and even hearts +and souls?”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</span></p> + +<p>“If it were your bounden duty,” she stipulated.</p> + +<p>“It is, being my country’s opportunity,” he argued.</p> + +<p>“If it had been that ye could na turn back—that your help had been +pledged—your honor engaged—your own and your hame to defend! But to +<i>seek</i> the foul employ—to lead into the field these merciless +fiends against the peaceful hunter and the patient husbandman, the wife +and the daughter, the grandame and the babe! And for what price, Judas? +Is it gold—or is it place?”</p> + +<p>He could kiss her hand, even if it dealt a blow.</p> + +<p>“Nay, Lilias,” he said, wincing at every thrust. “It is justifiable by +all the rules of war; no honorable soldier need evade the duty. But +I will not have you think of me thus. I mean”—taking the plunge of +irrevocable revolt, to his own amazement—“I will renounce it; I will +resign. I will return to civil life. I will be a planter—a—what you +will, and you shall be my wife.”</p> + +<p>“Your wife!” she exclaimed, and her voice, although steady, rang +uncertain of intonation. “Your wife!”</p> + +<p>She seemed, to his alert receptiveness, to dwell lingeringly, fondly, +on the words. But after a moment she went on unfalteringly,—</p> + +<p>“Oh, man! you’d break faith with king and country to win favor with a +woman!”</p> + +<p>He was staggered for an instant.</p> + +<p>“It would be no loss to the government. They would only send another +officer to fill my place.”</p> + +<p>He hesitated in a sudden jealous speculation as to who might succeed +to the result of his careful work and the rewards of his hard-earned +opportunity. Then he resumed with eager urgency, “But you think my +orders are revolting and the service unholy. You account my engagements +with the French government inconsistent with my honor”—</p> + +<p>“It is na what <i>I</i> think, but what are they to +you—naething?—naething?”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</span></p> + +<p>“Nothing in comparison with my love for you; nothing in comparison with +my gratitude for your love for me. For, Lilias, you love me; surely you +love me!”</p> + +<p>She had risen, and still standing, she suddenly put both hands before +her eyes.</p> + +<p>“Oh, puir Tam Wilson!” she cried, and burst into a tumult of tears.</p> + +<p>The irrelevance stunned him as he stood staring at her.</p> + +<p>“But you are na Tam Wilson!” She turned upon him in a sort of fury, +throwing out one hand at arm’s length with a gesture of repudiation. +“Oh, you are na Tam Wilson! Oh, the leal heart <i>he</i> had! He wad +na gie ower his trust and renounce his pledges and quit his country’s +wark for ony lassie alive! He could na be balked by fear, an’ he could +na be bought by favor. And if God prospered him he thankit Him for +his mercies! And if God denied him he thankit Him for his chastening! +And when in the gude time his wife suld come to him, ’t would be as +a helpmeet, as ’t was ordained,—to go hand in hand in an honorable +path, to work together, building up, not throwing down, keeping faith, +not breaking it,—open as the day, hiding naething and with naething +to hide. And she would be dear, but his honor would be dearer! He wad +na win a woman’s heart wi’ vain protestations an’ false names, and wi’ +terrible secret military orders to haud him back,—and then tell her +that his engagements were naught to him for <i>her</i> sake! For she +might tell him, as I tell you, an oath’s an oath, and ill to break! And +I will hae naught to do wi’ a man wha wad break it for the blink o’ a +lassie’s eye! <i>He</i> wad na do that—oh, puir Tam Wilson!”</p> + +<p>He stood aghast, arraigned, conscience-stricken. But she had leaned +against the crag, her soft cheek pressed on the stern gray rock, +relinquishing her reproaches and bewailing her bereavement.</p> + +<p>“Oh, puir, puir Tam Wilson!” she cried again and again. “To think +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</span> +<i>he</i> never lived! He isna you! He is naebody—naething! Puir Tam +Wilson—to think he never lived!”</p> + +<p>She would not hear remonstrances. She would not look at Laroche. He was +fain presently to leave her in the closing dusk, lest the others might +join them when neither could well explain her emotion. As he slipped +away in the elusive gathering gray shadows, he still heard her sobs +from their midst, bewailing the tenuous estate of puir Tam Wilson, +quite as elusive as they.</p> + +<p>He did not see her again till the next morning. She was pallid as +the result of a sleepless night. Her eyelids, although swollen from +persistent weeping, were still heavy with unshed tears. Her face was +stern, hard, even sullen. She seemed averse to speech and answered her +father’s expressions of alarm because of her grief-stricken manner and +Callum’s eager solicitous inquiries as to her well-being with a curt +explanation, “I hae had dreams.”</p> + +<p>Laroche, who had had time for reflection, appreciated an undercurrent +of a more subtle sincerity in the response than was obvious from the +surface. Dreams indeed—mere dreams! Puir Tam Wilson!</p> + +<p>He was glad of the relief which this apt reply afforded him, for he had +suffered some mundane and most personal anxieties, in view of her youth +and inexperience in diplomatic matters, as to her capability to guard +his disclosure. Indeed he was doubtful of her disposition to shield +him since her emotion had been so strongly elicited and the unexpected +resultant repulsion for him had so completely offset her prepossession +hitherto in his favor, on which he had relied for protection. His +liberty, and even his life, were in her hands, and he could hardly +contain his regret that he had confided aught to her.</p> + +<p>There is no repentance so sharp as that which arises from a mistake +made in a presumable excess of conscientiousness. He told himself now +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</span> +that acting in the discharge of his political and official duty he +might well have left events to take their own course. If he had parted +with her, revealing naught of the true identity of puir Tam Wilson, +she could hardly have pined more for the man himself than for the +figment of her fancy. Callum had scarcely a more definite rival in the +substance than in the shadow. If the two young people could not come to +an understanding with the memory of the man between them, they could +hardly now have a unity of interest separated by the myth.</p> + +<p>But the dreams that she had had, of which he was acutely conscious of +being a visionary part, and her fractious, imperious temper served +to account for much childish petulance in her conduct toward all who +approached her. She waved away the horse on which she had hitherto +ridden, when the animal was brought forward, ready saddled for her use. +She would not speak, nor would she mount.</p> + +<p>“Oh fie! oh fie!” exclaimed Jock Lesly, as in duty bound. Then in +dulcet solicitude, “Winna ma poppet ride her pillion? Hey, Duncan, +Dougal,—Miss Lilias’s pillion!”</p> + +<p>And then it became evident that on this pillion she would in no wise +ride behind Callum, who was only too officious to proffer his services; +nor Tam Wilson, whose proposition, despite a secret reluctance, was +made with all needful show of alacrity. Therefore the pillion was +strapped behind Jock Lesly’s saddle, and when mounted there Lilias +leaned her head against his broad shoulder and wept silently from time +to time and desisted to clasp both arms as tightly as possible around +his broad girth with a childish but joyless hug, feeling, nevertheless, +that here was the only stanch heart in all the world, the only one +whose love was of any value. Then she would fall to weeping again, and +pause to take pleasure in wiping her eyes on the gray and flaxen wisps +of his plaited hair, hanging down on his shoulders within her reach. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</span> +So often was his hair devoted to the sad duty of drying her tears that +the locks came unplaited and escaped from the leather thong that tied +them, so that she needs must plait them over again. This she did, using +both hands and sustaining her weight on the pillion by holding to the +hair of the suffering scalp of her father, who, much tormented lest she +fall, punctuated the performance with adjurations—“Oh fie! oh fie!”</p> + +<p>Presently he would feel her head, once more lying against his shoulder, +shaken by the tumult of her sobs, and in a bewildered effort at +consolation he would admonish her, “Whist—whist, hinny! Dreams are +naething! but maist like sour sowens for supper. Dreams are naething!”</p> + +<p>“Naething!” she would respond ambiguously. “Naething! Oh, that I suld +say so! Dreams are naething at a’!”</p> + +<p>She did not speak to Laroche again except upon the day of his +departure, which he had expedited as far as he might without incurring +comment. She was riding her own horse again, and when she pressed the +animal up abreast with him in the cavalcade, he felt his heart glow +within him. He had loved her, truly and purely, and with a sort of +tender lenient admiration, and he warmed to the thought of bearing +away with him some word of friendship that would make the remembrance +of her less like a flagellation than a grief both sad and sweet and to +be tenderly cherished. For she could not be aware that he had revealed +his military and national status without intending to confess his love +merely to stem the tide of her own.</p> + +<p>There was a touch of pride in the poise of her head. Yet it was always +carried high, in truth. Her eyes flashed. They were always at their +brightest when they looked out thus, gleaming like sapphires upon the +variant blue of the distant mountain ranges. The day was fair, the wind +went by with a rush, and her smile was as bland as the sun on the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</span> +expanse of vernal foliage in the valley beneath the verge of the path +as they rode adown the rugged ravines.</p> + +<p>“They tell me you are gaun to quit us the day,” she said suavely.</p> + +<p>“Aye, and sorry am I,” he replied with polite alacrity.</p> + +<p>She made a gesture as of flouting a triviality.</p> + +<p>“Why suld mortals be glad or sorry?” she said. “Their fate is a’ fixed, +whether they will or no. And they go to meet it—ane might a’most +say—without mair knowledge o’ its nearness than kyloes hae o’ the +shambles.”</p> + +<p>She paused for a moment. Then quickly resumed as if she neither +expected nor desired response.</p> + +<p>“But mony folks try to speer out the future, and tak muckle heed o’ +signs an’ sic-like, especial o’ ill luck. Ye hae heard us speak o’ thae +strange warnin’s that appear in the likeness o’ a man’s nainsel’—but +I misdoubts these are only auld wives’ clavers; I misdoubts. I want to +tell you this,”—she turned upon him a casual but radiant smile,—“if +e’er you hap to see a man comin’ till you that looks like yoursel’, +<i>ye</i> needna be frighted, for it winna be Tam Wilson. Tak my word +for it—it winna be Tam Wilson!”</p> + +<p>She reined in her horse and fell back among the others, while he rode +on feeling his heart thrust through with the stabs of her deliberate +cruelty; and these were all the farewell words that passed between +them.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="IX">IX</h2> +</div> + + +<p>PERHAPS no man ever lived a tragedy of thought and feeling, unrelated +to the conditions and professions of his merely material life, more +consciously than did Laroche. Flung back perforce on his military +character, every pulse ached with the straining against those +professional chains, the fragments of which, had they broken in the +stress, he would with loyal perversity have hugged. Yet since they +held fast, he pined for Jock Lesly, for the simple household, for +the humble domestic habitudes and the hearthside atmosphere, for the +chaste yet alluring presence of Lilias. Many a day after he had seen +the trader’s cavalcade fare downward through the bosky ravine, becoming +dim and diminishing as it went, flickering among the shadows seeming as +immaterial as they, finally vanishing indistinguishably in their midst, +he could behold it anew in freshest tints and near at hand whenever the +wish—or alack, the unruly fancy—brought it to mind again. Long after +the echoes had ceased to repeat the hearty halloo of farewell, the last +of many regretful tokens of parting, he was wont to hear these voices +in song or breezy talk or affectionate greeting as of yore.</p> + +<p>Yet he had scant time for this as he rode back to Ioco Town, for it is +needless to say the projected detour to Virginia was never really in +contemplation. Moy Toy was obviously jealous of his self-absorption +and silence, and had become captious under the enforced relinquishment +of the trader’s party as his lawful prey. He was more impatient still +of the necessary delays that must ensue before the Cherokees could +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</span> +be in case to strike a blow in revenge for all their disasters, +plainly registered in the charred tenantless towns here and there on +the face of the ravaged landscape. Laroche sought to divert his mind, +to placate him anew, to excite his interest. In devising subjects of +talk the Frenchman often attempted to sound the depths of the Cherokee +character and definitely gauge the capacities of the tribe to receive +and assimilate the values of civilization, that thereby he might deduce +something of the force that their national traits would exert in the +destinies of this great continent. For instance, he would argue with +Moy Toy upon the Indian aversion to the stability and permanence of +architecture.</p> + +<p>“The white man like the Indian can live but a day—why should his house +outlast him?” the chief would protest stolidly.</p> + +<p>“For those who come after,—since houses congregate into cities, and +cities erect nations, and nations continue throughout ages, and ages +are aggregations of strength. What is done in a day lasts but a day,” +retorted the soldier.</p> + +<p>Thus speculatively disposed he would seek to measure the extent and +divine the catastrophe of that ancient prehistoric civilization +of which his keen instinct read much in the scattered fragments +along the shores of Time: in the aboriginal traditions, unique and +indefinitely antique; in the ceremonials, of which the significance +was lost in degeneracy, retaining but the manner without the matter, +the shapeless shadow of an unimagined symmetry; in the language, +absolutely individual, he thought, with copious verbal forms and facile +locutions, with orderly construction, with subtle shades of minutely +diverse meanings, with large and sonorous adaptation to high themes; +in the religion, with its elaborate theory of symbolism without the +vital spark. He wondered how far this definite cult, seeming almost +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</span> +inherent, would deter the Cherokees from a conversion to Christianity. +He doubted this result because of their earnest observance of the +ritual of their ancient religion and implicit faith in its sanctities. +Yet Moy Toy was himself the suavest of postulants, the most promising +of catechumens. So eagerly he listened to the French officer who +explained the grounds of his own belief and its revolutionizing effects +upon the nations of all the world—not failing to turn and scan the +number of tribesmen in the band from time to time, to make sure that +none had followed with treacherous intentions the trader’s train—that +many another man as discerning as Laroche yet less crafty might have +been deceived.</p> + +<p>Over the camp-fires at night especially Moy Toy seemed to delight in +repeating some of the more simple and discursive details of the day’s +talk, often startling Laroche by his powers of memory, the accuracy +of his comprehension, and his gift of mimicry. Laroche wondered if a +preference which he noted for biographical details might be ascribed +to that fraternizing instinct to realize the conditions of the life +of man in whatever age or country, despite the lapse of time and the +barriers of distance, that attests the universal brotherhood, and if it +was this which had served to invest the narrations with such reality +and had so strengthened the grasp of his mind upon them. The officer +found, however, a curious flavor of speculation in the fact that try +as he might he could not enlist this vivid interest in the incidents +of the New Testament. The sanguinary histories of the Old Testament, +dealing oft with force and fraud, met with no skeptical reservations +or evasions from Moy Toy. The motives they adduced were eminently +comprehensible to him, the result credible, and his attitude of mind +applausive. But with the gospel of love and meekness, the forgiveness +of injuries and succor of enemies, the dictates of self-sacrifice and +self-denial, the savage had no pulse in unison. Moy Toy listened as +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</span> +his obvious policy required. Sometimes he commented.</p> + +<p>“Christianity is to make the red men good? Then tell me, why has it not +made the white men good?—they have had it so long—seventeen hundred +years, you say, and more!”</p> + +<p>And the French officer, fairly routed, could only answer that the race +had not lived up to its best opportunity.</p> + +<p>The chief’s interest in the ethical phase of the subject often flagged, +however, beyond the power of simulation. It was only held to a pretense +of attention by the inexorable etiquette of the Cherokee, however +prolix his interlocutor, and an occult intention to master certain +knowledge by the ruse of surprise, as it were. But inborn subtlety is +no match for the ratiocination of cultivation, and Moy Toy’s instinct +was fatally at fault when with a child-like blandness and irrelevance +he casually demanded, “How was it, did you say last night, that the +good San Quawl made his powder when he journeyed down to the city of +Damascus?” or “I have forgotten how many pounds of powder you said the +brave chief Samson put under the gates of Gaza when he blew them up to +carry them off.”</p> + +<p>The trail of the earnest dominant desire to discover that seigneurial +secret of civilization that made it the lord of the world, the +conqueror of force, the despot of right, the annihilator of +numbers,—the simple formula for the manufacture of gunpowder, the +materials for which Laroche had already assured him abounded in the +Cherokee country,—lay through all the devious windings of their talk, +and divulged the springs of self-interest in Moy Toy’s affectations of +the dawnings of faith.</p> + +<p>On each occasion the revulsion of the officer’s feeling was so great +that the betrayal of the Indian’s motive in searching the Scriptures, +and his conviction that the ultimate value of the white man’s religion +lay in his superior knowledge of destructive explosives, failed to +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</span> +excite any cynical amusement in Laroche, and roused in him a very +genuine indignation. For the demonstration always came as a surprise in +its devious methods, half incredulous though he was as to the eventual +conversion of the Indian.</p> + +<p>“Let it be accounted to me for righteousness that I do not instantly +give you over!” Laroche would cry angrily.</p> + +<p>It was essentially the pulse of the church militant which animated the +soldier. His patience was scant, his summons imperative. “Become a +Christian, or I’ll be the death of you!” might be a just translation of +his urgency.</p> + +<p>And in good sooth his easily excited anger was so obviously genuine +on each recurrent presentation of the lure to entrap him into the +disclosure of the secret which he had promised in his own good time to +communicate, that Moy Toy experienced a very definite alarm lest by +his precipitancy the precious knowledge that gave the white man his +supremacy might be snatched from the Indian forever. With his naturally +keen faculties thus whetted, Moy Toy evolved with countercraft a +diversion that appealed irresistibly to the speculative phase of +Laroche’s intellect and for a time led him captive, although he +appreciated fully the trickery of the intention and the treachery of +the heart of his interlocutor.</p> + +<p>This was the recital of the Cherokee traditions of the more ancient +Scriptural events,—the creation, the flood, the exodus,—knowledge of +which the earliest travelers in this region found already implanted +among that singular people, and, with certain analogous customs, +serving to add so much plausibility to the theory of its Hebraic +origin—even yet to be accounted for by vague hypotheses such as the +teachings of Cabeza de Vaca among the more southern tribes, thence +transmitted northward. If this be the source of these traditions, it +is singular, to say the least, that there should be among them none +of the essential truths of the new dispensation nor Roman Catholic +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</span> +legends of the saints. Laroche could but lend heedful attention to +the variant details of the Cherokee version of the Patriarchal and +Mosaic dispensations, and now and again pointed out to Moy Toy their +divergencies from the true and only word, and much he meditated upon +this strange disclosure as he rode along the woodland ways, listening +in his turn.</p> + +<p>Sometimes he sought to modify or adjust the sacred writings of the +old dispensation to the interpretative temper of the new, always +held in check by the Cherokee version which Moy Toy would repeat +with controversial relish, keeping pace <i>haud possibles æquis</i>. +For the savage, obdurate to the wile of civilization, was yet more +steeled against the advance of the Christian religion; and indeed +modern instances are not wanting, sufficiently dispiriting to the +student of human progress, in which after a lifetime of the profession +of Christianity the Cherokee in his dying hours openly discards the +religion of his adoption and departs to the happy hunting-grounds in +the faith of his fathers, going out of the world the pagan that he +entered it.</p> + +<p>Serious as was the subject that absorbed Laroche’s thoughts, the +deep significance of his speculations, comprising the origin of +this race, its perverted destiny, the intentions of the Deity, this +strange glimpse into the mystic past, the darker mystery of the veiled +future,—these mighty interests could not suffice to sustain that human +heart of his when they passed once more the trading-house, silent and +deserted at Ioco Town, and the cottage hard by, where he had lived out +the sweets of the little romance snatched from untoward conditions. He +smiled sadly and tenderly at the thoughts conjured up by the evening +glow so red on the gable against the blue sky. Never again would the +fire flash forth from that deserted hearthstone to lure the wanderer +home. Never again would the gleam of the candle rejoice the hospitable +board that welcomed the stranger. The ingleside was cold and bleak, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</span> +and would soon be a wreck, for the Indians were now giving the roof +to the torch, and he watched the blaze with many a sentimental pang, +but did not offer remonstrance. Better thus! Far better thus! It was +well that Jock Lesly should not be tempted back by the knowledge that +his old nest still awaited him here, for the stout heart of the Scotch +trader would credit no less definite a portent of continued danger than +charred timbers and sacked dwelling. And Laroche honestly believed that +the day of the great British trade on the Tennessee and its neighboring +streams was over-past now and forever.</p> + +<p>He did not hesitate when once more at Tellico Great to inaugurate +the scheme, the progress of which had been delayed months ago by the +defection of Mingo Push-koosh. For it was here on the banks of the +Tennessee that he at last recovered his old identity, lost in that +sweet and soft thrall of a hopeless love. He felt again a free man, +albeit the glamours of the evening star in the saffron west moved him +strangely. He threw himself ardently into all those plans so long in +abeyance of equipping an army of the confederated tribes,—the Choctaw, +the Muscogee, the Cherokee, and many minor bands,—and the problems +of securing munitions of war, of the transmission of supplies, and of +the apportionment of forces absorbed his every faculty. Continually +his messengers were going to and fro in the Indian country, and his +pettiaugres dared the currents of those swift difficult rivers, now and +again running the gauntlet of the musketry of the inimical Chickasaws +from some high bluff. Secretly, silently, the preparations went on like +the gathering mute menace of a sullen storm whose ferocity must burst +with an added fury from its long repression. All unsuspected it might +have been, although the expectation was so widely extended, save for +the arrogant boastfulness of some far-away Indian, drunk perhaps, in a +British trading-house or the bloody culmination of an individual feud +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</span> +between a warrior and a white settler, the savage unable to restrain +his vengeful anticipation and abide the accepted time.</p> + +<p>Fantastic and impotent as this tenuous scheme may seem now, long ago +shredded by the mere wind of the flight of time, a forgotten fantasy, +not to be more considered than the snares of any humble spider of +to-day throwing its fragile enmeshments from crag to crag on the banks +of the Tennessee, it struck cold terror to the hearts of the royal +governors of the adjacent British provinces. The Spaniard, insolent and +powerful, openly menaced them on the south, and with the combination of +the French and Indians they were surrounded and without recourse. They +had little to hope from one another, save perhaps an unacknowledged +aspiration on the part of each that the other might first tempt the +attack of the designing projector of the new Indian alliance and serve +as a sop to Cerberus. Each was in terror of a plea of assistance from +the other, for the colonies themselves lacked that strength which comes +from union and which Laroche sought to instill into the policy of the +tribes. Each province being incapable of self-defense with its weak, +untrained militia, its inadequate supplies of munitions of war, its +vast wildernesses and stretches of unfortified frontier, was averse +to dividing its slight resources. Roused, however, to the terror lest +immediate massacre of outlying stationers ensue, a consultation was +held and a remonstrance, adroit, sugared, promising yet threatening +withal, addressed by the Governor of South Carolina to Cunigacatgoah<a id="FNanchor_8" href="#Footnote_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a> +of Choté, now the nominal head of the Cherokee government, was framed +and sent by the hand of one of the Kooasahte Indians, who chanced to be +in Charlestown, with whose tribe the Cherokees were now at peace.</p> + +<p>He returned after a swift journey with a most pacific answer, +protesting and reproachful, Cunigacatgoah demanding to be informed +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</span> +of a single infraction of the terms of the treaty, bating, of course, +wild, irresponsible rumors. If the governor could cite one such for +which the nation could be fairly considered responsible, he would +himself come down to Charlestown to answer for it in person.</p> + +<p>Governor Boone, surprised yet reassured by the unexpected character of +this reply, sought to further assuage his anxiety by catechising his +messenger as to the state of matters in the Cherokee country. He found +the mind of the Kooasahte, never forceful at best, in that flighty, +agitated state to be described as all agog. Obviously the man had been +immensely impressed by what he had seen and been able to learn. By +no means willing to disclose all, still his eyes were opened to new +possibilities of savage ascendancy. Under adroit cross-examination +he divulged extraordinary suggestions of the suddenly developed +magnificence of Moy Toy of Tellico and of the wonderful powers of a +strange magician who was Moy Toy’s friend, yet whom he affirmed was a +white man, and whose nationality he accidentally disclosed as French.</p> + +<p>Whereupon Governor Boone grew more mystified than before. Finally +he bethought himself to send for Jock Lesly as one who, having been +intimately acquainted with the personnel and conditions of the Cherokee +country for years past, might perchance explain the inconsistency of +all these antagonistic details.</p> + +<p>The doughty Scotch trader had accounted the burning of his buildings +and the plunder of his goods, of which he had been informed indirectly +by rumor, as but an accident or a bit of unwarranted and wanton +mischief, and by no means as the definite threat that Laroche had +supposed he would perceive therein. His daughter, however, had insisted +that the demonstration was inimical and in no wise to be braved. Jock +Lesly enjoyed much domestic oratory in these days which his “Whist, +whist, my bairn!” was powerless to silence, and feminine logic won +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</span> +the battle when she persisted that if he returned, to Ioco Town she +would accompany him, for if it were safe for him it was safe for her! +Thereupon he hauled down his flag; and now as he needs must rebuild +wherever he should go, he was idly awaiting in Charlestown a propitious +opportunity of reëstablishment elsewhere under more permanent +conditions.</p> + +<p>Jock Lesly, cocking his sharp blue eyes at the cringing Kooasahte, a +degenerate specimen of a warlike tribe, obviously regarded the whole +history of his visit as a fable.</p> + +<p>“Gin your excellency wad forgie the freedom, the man is a beautiful +liar!”</p> + +<p>“Was there no white man there when you left?”</p> + +<p>“Nane, sir—that is—forbye a bit chiel o’ a Firginian on his way +hame—he had cam doun wi’ a wheen o’ neighbors to herd up some stray +horses that had been sold to the Williamsburg region and had gane back +to their auld grass in the Cherokee country. He fell ailin’, an’ his +friends went on wi’ the horses an’ lef him amang the Injuns,—an’ he +foregathered wi’ us. He cam part o’ the way hame wi’ us, but struck aff +a considerable way aboon Fort Prince George to go aff to Firginia.”</p> + +<p>“He could not be this man, you think? Does he speak French?”</p> + +<p>“He? Tam Wilson speak French?” exclaimed Jock Lesly, with a hearty +rollicking laugh in his enjoyment of his superior discernment. “Your +excellency disna ken thae carles out on the frontier! Tam Wilson ha’ +enow to do to speer his wull in English,—puir fallow!”</p> + +<p>This seemed definitive; Jock Lesly therefore was presently dismissed, +and the gratuity which the Kooasahte received was of limited value +and quality, which he had not expected nor had the governor intended, +because he had told the truth, which chanced to be unwelcome and +discredited. He went away, his heart hot within him, sending forth +fumes of rum, which the present sufficed to procure, and sedition, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</span> +which the present was not adequate to annul.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile life on the banks of the Tennessee at Tellico Great flowed on +as gently as the river. Laroche had received orders to seek adoption +into the Cherokee tribe, according to the wont of the intriguing +French, that he might thereby recruit his influence and improve his +control. Thus he could better restrain their bellicose demonstrations +till the time was ripe for revolt, lest precipitancy annul its values. +Hence he became officially a Cherokee.</p> + +<p>That singular atmosphere of fraternity peculiar to the Indian method +of adoption encompassed Laroche like a native element. It seemed no +longer inspired by self-interest. He was as one of the nation,—theirs +in success or defeat, theirs in weal or woe! He had polled his head +and painted his face and donned their garb. He had been initiated into +their mysteries and had accepted their religion; for the Cherokees +were no idolaters, and without mockery he could bow in worship to a +Great Spirit, albeit with many a mental reservation and evasion in +the ceremonies in which he participated. His suspicions were never +allayed,—but they were in his mind, not in theirs,—and he was not +the more content. Now and again as he danced with the braves in +three circles on the sandy spaces of the “beloved square” to the +shrilling of a flute, fashioned of the tibia of a deer, and to the +thunderous drone of the earthen drums, while strange figures such as +might grace pandemonium whirled about him,—hardly human figures; +some with grotesquely frightful masks of gourds hiding faces scarcely +less hideous; some almost nude; some smeared over with unguents as a +groundcoat to make adhere a medley of feathers and foster the semblance +of gigantic birds,—a great repulsion would seize him; every civilized +pulse would clamor against these uncouth follies, against the sacrifice +of time and identity and wonted usage in this cause; and he would +feel that the destruction of all the British colonies, could it be +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</span> +compassed, was not worth the price which he paid. The recollection +of the sane, orderly customs of the life to which he was native rose +up before him with a sentiment of reproach, as one might feel in +ascertaining the realities in the lucid interval of some tormenting +mania. He was abashed by the mere contemplation of the mountains rising +on every side, silent, austere, as majestically aloof from the farce +which he enacted as the sky above or the world—the civilized world +that he had known and loved—far, far away.</p> + +<p>To add to his discomforts the interval which he was to spend thus was +destined to be longer than had been anticipated. Aggressive measures +were again postponed, and his activities suspended by orders which he +received from New Orleans. For it had latterly been developed that the +British government contemplated securing a considerable cession of land +from the Cherokees, thinking that in thus increasing its holding in the +Indian country to keep the tribe more definitely under its domination +and influence, and to quiet the title to certain territory, on which +they claimed the government had encroached. The French, with their +resources much exhausted by the Seven Years’ War, now slowly dragging +its length along, were almost crippled in America for the lack of +ready cash, and their plans for the Cherokees would be considerably +recruited by the purchase money of the land thus poured into the tribal +coffers. The wily Indians were enchanted with so hopeful a prospect of +securing the means to purchase sufficient arms and ammunition to repel +the British and attain their old independence anew. Though they had +never doubted the will of the French government in Louisiana to forward +these measures, its capacity to furnish adequate ammunition had failed +signally more than once.</p> + +<p>At this period, while Laroche was awaiting decisive advices from New +Orleans, the progress of events seemed suspended. Hope, anxiety, fear +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</span> +were in abeyance. He spent much time in the perfecting of the details +of his plan and in the correspondence incident to the enterprise. As he +grew more wearied with the monotonous association with the Indians, he +took advantage of his leisure to send long discursive letters to his +comrades in the southern forts whenever he chanced to have a messenger +going that way,—to Captain Pierre Chabert at Fort Tombecbé or the +Chevalier Lavnoué at Fort Toulouse.</p> + +<p>Cold, wet weather set in late in the summer, a long, dreary, +unseasonable interval. When the rains came down in thin, persistent, +fibrous lines, and the surface of the river palpitated and throbbed +beneath its multitudinous touches, and the gathering gray mists half +shrouded then half revealed those endless lengths of dark-hued solemn +mountains, and the trees dripped drearily, and the wind surged and +sobbed amidst their boughs, the susceptible Frenchman reached the +lowest ebb of his isolation, his dissatisfaction, and his yearning wish +to feel again the throbbing pulse of civilization.</p> + +<p>Thus it was that for many hours of those chill nights in the quaint +winter-house, without window or chimney, while the rain would pour down +the conical earthen roof, resounding like a drum, he would seek for +solace in writing those long letters to his military friends describing +his plight, and commenting on the news of the day received chiefly +through their responses.</p> + +<p>All unmindful of him and his occupations, the other inmates of the +house lay sleeping, stretched in a line, on the couch of cane that +ran along the red clay walls of the circular room, behind the row of +pillars which upheld the conical roof. Even the heads were covered with +the wolfskins and bearskins that formed the drapery of their elastic +cane mattresses. All unmindful of him they were—all except Moy Toy.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</span></p> + +<p>The fire would flare up now and again, showing the colonnade of +pillars, the cane couch, and above, the circular wall of the rich red +hue of the clay of that country, with here and there upon it quaint +hieroglyphics in parti-colored paints, or a decorated buffalo hide +suspended, or a curiously carven pipe of stone with some famous scalp +attached, while the scroll-like thin blue smoke eddied overhead, +pressing closer and closer to its exit at the smoke hole. All gradually +flickered and dulled and blurred into a dusky red glow in which +naught was distinguishable but vague reminiscent shadows, the mass of +smouldering coals in the centre of the floor, and the spirited blond +Gallic face of Laroche with his incongruous Indian garb, bending +intent, eager, absorbed, above the page as he wrote. Not till the +page also grew dim would he rouse himself and throw off the gathering +ashes. Then as the responsive flame leaped up white and vivid, he +would look back along the paper to review the last paragraphs, and +with a freshened brightness of aspect apply himself anew to his task. +Moy Toy’s keen eye had grown to distinguish a certain difference of +expression when the military expert wrought upon the problems of his +enterprise,—the alert, elevated look, puzzled now and then, but +intellectual, powerful, confident, and in contrast the twinkling eye, +the sarcastic curving lip, the sly, devil-may-care, gibing nod, and +yet sometimes the plaintive dejection with which he made those “black +marks” which he sent away to his correspondents in the southern forts.</p> + +<p>“You are my friend, the friend of my heart, and you know everything,” +Moy Toy once said suddenly out of the dreary midnight, when the +dizzy rain was whirling abroad in a witch’s dance with the wind, the +mountains were lost in the density of night, and the river had become +but a voice in the vast voids of the outer atmosphere.</p> + +<p>Laroche looked up suddenly from where he sat on a buffalo rug before +the red glow of the coals. He wrote upon one knee, but the inkhorn +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</span> +was close by on the floor, and he placed one hand over it, in careful +forethought, that a friendly dog, nosing about with the conviction that +it held refection of worth, might not overturn it. However Laroche’s +hair was clipped it sprang anew and there was a curling fringe under +the edge of his cap, which was fashioned of otter fur and bordered +with white swan’s feathers. His hunting-shirt was of otter fur and +his leggings of buckskin heavily fringed and terminating in a pair of +buskins; these were dyed scarlet and gayly decorated with quills. His +face, with its expression of intellectual absorption, was inconceivably +at variance with his attire and the place. He said nothing, but his +hazel eyes looked an expectant inquiry, and seeing him silent Moy Toy +spoke again.</p> + +<p>“Wonderful friend! though your knowledge is no more to be moved or +shaken than the mountains, yet you have the changeable countenance.”</p> + +<p>“It is you who know everything!” said Laroche, laughing, but very +distinctly embarrassed.</p> + +<p>Moy Toy, encouraged by this appreciation, began to put his impressions +into words. “When you make black marks on those papers which you +treasure, and which I am sure must belong to your beautiful artillery, +or else to make powder, or perhaps to the fine plans for the great fort +which we are to have here one day, your face is the same it has always +been, and as those who love you must love to see it. But when you write +the black marks which you send to the commandants of the forts in the +south, your eyes grow little, and they twinkle, and your mouth is +pursed for lies, and you nod your head with a risky air, and you look +more wicked than clever!”</p> + +<p>Laroche listened in silence. Then suddenly he burst out laughing. He +hastily suppressed the tone of loud hilarity, for one of the sleepers +stirred and turned, but fell a-snoring again.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</span></p> + +<p>“It is the commandants who are wicked,” he said, smiling +retrospectively. “I answer them only in their own vein—sardonic, +witty, half-malicious fellows.”</p> + +<p>“And what makes them so wicked?”</p> + +<p>“They are so close to the English, perhaps,—they learn all they know +from the English.”</p> + +<p>Moy Toy gazed at the smiling face with a doubtful anxiety, some +withheld thought, a half formed purpose in abeyance.</p> + +<p>Laroche had had occasion to note that jealousy of the “black marks” +of civilization which seemed to animate all the Indians of that day, +powerless to restrain this mysterious opportunity of communicating the +most secret thought a thousand miles by the stroke of a pen. He had +been somewhat irked to discover in addition a sort of pettish tribal +jealousy on the part of Moy Toy toward this interest in the southern +forts. The chief desired that the officer’s entire attention should be +concentrated on the welfare of the Cherokee nation, and deprecated that +any advancement or opportunity should be afforded through his means to +the various Alabama tribes congregated about those forts. Laroche was +an adopted Cherokee, and why should he so delight in writing to the +forts <i>aux Alibamons</i>!</p> + +<p>It had always seemed to Laroche that the intercepting of a letter was +essentially a civilized emprise, but the process was invented, as it +were, in the brain of this specious Indian. As the commandants of Fort +Tombecbé and Fort Toulouse knew so much about the wicked English, +perhaps it was not well to keep longer between the folds of the soft +panther and wolf skins that formed the furnishings of the couch of the +chief a missive addressed to Lieutenant Jean Marie Edouard Bodin de +Laroche, and sealed with a big official splash of wax.</p> + +<p>“Here,” said Moy Toy, without the least confusion as he produced it, “I +thought too many times you nodded your head toward Fort Toulouse and +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</span> +you might soon speak with the forked tongue of Lavnoué. But perhaps he +may tell the truth when his heart weighs heavy with the thought of the +English.”</p> + +<p>Laroche stared with amazed displeasure. The color rose indignantly to +his cheeks. He was about to utter a vehement remonstrance, but paused +to break the seal which should have parted under his fingers three +weeks earlier. Then he forgot this encroachment upon his vested rights.</p> + +<p>For the letter was a warning, heralding the approach of British +soldiers.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="X">X</h2> +</div> + + +<p>THERE stood a quaint, grotesque figure in the midst of the level spaces +about Chilhowee, Old Town. It maintained its stiff, stanch pose alike +through shadow and sheen; oblivious of night or day; unmindful of +the rain that the sudden mountain storms now and again sent surging +down from over the summit of the Chilhowee Range, looming high above; +disdainful of the wind that fluttered the fringes of its buckskin shirt +and leggings and slanted the feathers of its war-bonnet askew, and +flouted and buffeted its aged, painted, fantastic face.</p> + +<p>So like a grim old warrior in good truth was the adroitly constructed +effigy that Callum MacIlvesty long remembered the day when first he +beheld it upon entering the Cherokee town of Chilhowee, and was moved +to wrath because of its surly, important, inimical attitude and fixed +aggressive stare. Only the closest scrutiny enabled him to realize +that it was but a scarecrow, albeit the cleverest of its type, with +a painted gourd for a head and a gaudily arrayed body of fagots and +straw. But he did not then even vaguely divine that he was ever to hold +a closer association with the image, or that years afterward and far +away the mere recollection of its aspect in his sleeping fancies would +wake him to a breathless fright and dreary reminiscences of a most +troublous episode in a chequered history.</p> + +<p>The scene was bright with the varying luminosity of the azure tints of +the mountains of the distance; nearer the hue of the wooded heights +deepened to the richest autumnal crimson and bronze as they drew +close about the gap where the Tennessee River flows through the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</span> +Great Smoky Mountains and pierces the Chilhowee Range to the very +heart. The metallic lustre of the water was now like silver, now like +steel, and again showed a burnished copper glister where its surges +had washed a bank of red clay; occasionally a white drift of swans +was on its current, or a deer swam gallantly across; and once a group +of buffaloes, pausing to drink at the margin, lifted their heads, +apparently as unafraid as tame neat cattle, to gaze with a dull bovine +curiosity at the party of equestrians and the detachment of British +foot-soldiers on the opposite shore.</p> + +<p>All the ancient Cherokee customs were still in vogue, although +destined soon to fall away with a suddenness that confounds history +and almost baffles tradition, suggesting, indeed, the instantaneous +transition to dust of some prehistoric skeleton at the first touch of +the disintegrating air. Even at that date, however, with the obvious +doom of evanescence upon them, a certain curiosity concerning them was +very general among those equipped for the archaic speculations in which +Laroche had found an interest; there was a general quickening of the +pace of the horses as several riders closed about a sedate, middle-aged +personage, spare and tall, of great length of limb and evident strength +and toughness, who wore a suit of buckskin and was a surveyor of long +experience on the frontier, and who proceeded to explain the reason for +the extraordinary <i>vraisemblance</i> of the effigy.</p> + +<p>“The Indians have aye a crafty turn,” he said. In illustrating this +fact he narrated how the “second man” of the town, “a bailiff belike,” +induced the young people to believe that the scarecrow was the +reincarnated spirit of an ancient warrior, an ancestor, who had come +back to overlook their work. Keeping them at a sufficient distance, +the “second man” was wont to tell wonderful stories of the exploits of +the mythical warrior of Chilhowee, the evil influences of his anger +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</span> +against the idle, and the benefits of pleasing him by industry. The +women and girls would believe this, and thus to song and story the work +would go merrily on.</p> + +<p>The gentleman directly addressed by the surveyor was apparently of a +higher and more fastidious grade. He was sprucely arrayed in brown +cloth of a trim cut and a fine texture, with a cocked hat, dapper yet +sober. His fresh pink cheek and chin were smoothly shaven, the first +slightly wrinkled, the latter cleft with a line that duplicated its +contours. His black “solitaire” was accurately adjusted about his neck. +His bag-wig was the most decorous appendage of that fantastic sort that +ever swung behind a well-furnished and elaborately trained brain. That +he was the exponent of some kind of careful scientific learning was +apparent to the most undiscerning wight at the first glance. Indeed, +the English surveyor in offering this bit of information as to Indian +customs was making but a scant return for the largess of botanical +lore that had strewn the way from Charlestown full five hundred miles +thicker than ever were leaves in Vallombrosa.</p> + +<p>As the botanist contemplated the broad fields in cultivation he +began to speak. “This pompion, now,—the variety of <i>Cucurbita +Pepo</i>,—that the Indians grow,”—and at the phrase a British officer +resplendent in scarlet coat, white breeches, cocked hat, and powdered +hair, with a look of shocked revolt checked his horse so suddenly +as to throw the animal back upon the haunches and to discommode the +advance of the infantry escort that followed, consisting of thirty +English soldiers of his own company and a detachment of twenty Scotch +Highlanders.</p> + +<p>If Lieutenant John Francis Everard could, he would have banished from +the memory of man all Latin plant names, for before he was fifty miles +out from Charlestown he was glutted with information concerning the +vegetable products of the earth on which he lived. He felt that had he +a retroactive power in cosmogony this world should have been created +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</span> +a leafless ball. From the beginning of the march his spirit quailed in +the presentiment of the tortures of learned converse that were destined +to wreck the pleasure and almost the possibility of the expedition. +Indeed, it was only the second day out that he summoned Callum +MacIlvesty from the ranks of the marching Highlanders and bending +down nearly to the saddle bow said in a bated voice of consternation, +“Callum Bane, do you see that old man? Why,” in an appalled staccato, +“he is almost as bad as ex-Governor Ellis of Georgia!” By which he +meant to imply almost as learned, member of almost as many scientific +associations, perhaps even a fellow of the Royal Society, almost as +acute in making observations, atmospheric, botanic, geologic, almost as +industrious in jotting them down, almost as oblivious of the gayer and +more frivolous interests of life.</p> + +<p>To Lieutenant Everard was intrusted the command of this small +military force to escort certain commissioners appointed by the +government to the Cherokee country for the purpose of treating with +the Indians concerning the projected cession of land, which was not +made, however, for several years thereafter, because of an incident +of much significance here chronicled—in fact not until 1768. In view +of the doubtful temper of the Cherokees and the unsettled state of +the country, it was exclusively and comprehensively his duty to see +to it that the heads of these gentlemen were unmolested, with their +brains securely inside and their scalps securely outside, nor were they +expected in return to minister in any degree to his entertainment. +But it is not too much to say that Lieutenant Everard would have +regarded a brisk brush with Indian enemies with less awe, despite his +slight numerical strength, than the ponderous themes, the weighty +presence, the worshipful gravity of the commissioners of the crown. +There was not a conversable person among them, in the estimation +of the gay and dapper lieutenant, and the march thither and back, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</span> +with the negotiations at Choté, was calculated to occupy a matter of +many weeks. The surveyor was of the same ultra-sober type, and the +subordinate attendants he considered as unbefitting his society. Of +course familiar association with the men of his company, having only +their noncommissioned officers, was inappropriate, even if their ruder +breeding had not rendered them unacceptable.</p> + +<p>Thus it was that after a day or two of floundering out of his element, +he was thrown upon Callum MacIlvesty for solace. For he knew that +MacIlvesty, although serving in the ranks, was a man better born and +better bred than himself. Of course he was aware that the train of +woes, the attainder for treason and forfeiture of estates, following +the rebellions of 1715 and 1745, wrecking a number of noble families, +brought to the ground the branches as well as the parent stem; and in +this instance Callum’s commanding officer had acquainted Lieutenant +Everard with the “gentleman ranker’s” name and condition just before +their departure from Charlestown, when this small detachment of +Highlanders was ordered to reinforce the escort, as they were familiar +with the wild country, a number of them having served with the British +troops in this region the two preceding years during the Cherokee War.</p> + +<p>The forlorn young officer, so grievously solitary in this expedition, +soon ceased to ride with the commissioners, and fell into the habit +first of riding near the Highlander as Callum MacIlvesty, alert, +active, with a vivid interest in life, strode along in the marching +column whose fluttering tartans played tag with the wind and whose +burnished accoutrements set up a bright kaleidoscopic glitter at the +vanishing point of many a winding woodland perspective. When the talk +grew more animated and the interest keener, Lieutenant Everard would +throw the reins to an orderly and march on foot beside his new-found +friend in his lowly place; whereat the first sergeant of the English +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</span> +detachment would glance at the nearest corporal with meaning eyes, and +all adown the column the scarlet elbows of the fours called “battle +comrades” would give each other the touch with more emphasis than the +effort to march in due alignment necessitated. Often, however, in +fact most usually, the whole force marched with the route step, when +conversation was admissible and comment freer than before. For it was +obviously a derogation from the dignity of a commissioned officer to +continue this familiar association with a common soldier and in so far +subversive of discipline, and when the crisis came there were those +amply prepared to say “I told you so!”</p> + +<p>“The lieutenant wouldn’t demean himself by walkin’ an’ talkin’ familiar +with a non-com like me,” the first sergeant of the English contingent +averred. “An’ I can’t see as I am a worse man or a less loyal subjec’ +’cause I ain’t got fine, titled kin taken in open rebellion an’ +attainted o’ treason—one of ’em, Callum’s great uncle, was executed +for treason and his head perched up over a city gate—there yet, for +aught I know!”</p> + +<p>For this was the fate of many of the good and noble who had adhered to +the political faith of their fathers.</p> + +<p>The Highlanders of the escort, however, some of whom were rescued from +imbroglio on this theme by a simple incapacity to speak or understand +a word of English, and who clattered away cheerily enough together +in Gaelic, deemed this association no sort of condescension on the +part of Lieutenant Everard. So well aware were they of the claims +to distinction of sundry ancestors of Callum MacIlvesty that this +penniless scion of a line of half mythical Highland princes, extending +back in dim procession into the mists of ages, seemed far superior in +social status to Lieutenant Everard, whose best prospect was some day +to represent a comparatively modern but well-endowed English baronetcy.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</span></p> + +<p>Perhaps Everard might have justified his course by the plea that +the expedition was not strictly military, and thus permitted some +abrogation of strictly military rule. Every detail to insure safety, +however, was rigorously observed. When the tents were pitched sentinels +were posted, the various guards mounted, all the discipline of a +military camp preserved. When on the march scouts were thrown out, and +a baggage and rear guard maintained. But, he argued, surely he could +not be expected to live so long a time without a being with whom to +exchange a congenial word. And if he saw fit to single out a man near +his own age, of his own station in life, only constrained to serve in +the ranks by reason of poverty because of political misfortunes, he did +not conceive that Callum MacIlvesty was lifted out of his place as a +soldier and absolved from the duty of obedience because thus admitted, +unofficially, to the society of his superior in military rank.</p> + +<p>Although both men felt the irking of the anomalous situation, their +mutual relish of congenial companionship rendered them adroit in +nullifying the difficulty. When Everard gave an order he addressed +the Highlander as “MacIlvesty,” who simply and implicitly obeyed it +as a soldier should. But if Everard spoke to him as “Callum Bane,” he +received the request as from a friend and complied or not as he chose, +for the sobriquet had come to be a mark of friendly familiarity, as +it was not necessary on this expedition as a means of identification. +While the regiment had not the disaster in nomenclature that beset +the corps of the Sutherland Fencibles, in which one hundred and +four men answered to the name of “William Mackay,” seventeen being +in one company, still in the Forty-Second there was much patronymic +repetition, and in one company there were three Callum MacIlvestys +severally distinguished as “Callum Roy” (the red-haired) and “Callum +Dhu” (the dark) and “Callum Bane” (the fair).</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</span></p> + +<p>This fair-haired Callum seemed an attractive personality to Lieutenant +Everard, who felt a compassionate regret that a youngster of such +good parts should have no better prospects, for these were the days +of the purchase of commissions, and this serious thought was often in +Everard’s mind as they sat alone beside the camp-fire, making so far +as opportunity favored them a convivial night of it. Callum had been +grateful for the recognition of his true quality in the humble guise +of the private soldier and in the coarse tartan. It was as a salve +to his wounded spirit and sense of exile. It had been with a great +effort at self-assertion, as a rallying of forces after a defeat, +that he had been able to regain in a measure his normal poise, a +semblance of his wonted brave cheerfulness, subsequent to his obvious +supplantation in the favor of Lilias. Her indifference had pierced him +with a pain all the keener because of his ardent sincerity. Perhaps +because he had already suffered so much from untoward fate he was +endued with the strength to suffer more without succumbing utterly. +He was fortunate in the stubborn resources of his indomitable pride. +He would not pine like a love-sick girl, he said to himself. He would +nerve himself to bear this latest and bitterest fling of fortune like +a man. He was the better enabled to meet it with a bold front since +the continual exactions of Everard occupied his attention, and left +him little time for that silent brooding so pernicious yet so precious +to the youth crossed in love. There was an element of humiliation +in the situation which seared his sensitive pride like actual fire. +Jock Lesly had found his account in the Indian trade, and thus Lilias +would have no inconsiderable inheritance, while Callum had naught +to offer but his heart, which seemed no great matter after all, and +the hand of an ordinary foot-soldier. He had roused himself with a +loyal feeling that he owed it to his ancestry, his name, his sense of +honor, and of honorable achievements in those who had gone before, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</span> +his own unimpeachable record, not to think so meanly of himself; and +thus the warm appreciation of his personal qualities and high descent, +irrespective of his incongruously humble station which Everard had +manifested, the admitted equality of their association, had aided to +restore his mental calm and self-respect, and seemed at this crisis +more valuable than it could be at any other time.</p> + +<p>The responsibility and anxiety consequent upon escorting the party +of the commissioners through the country of savages, so inimical and +treacherous as Everard had discovered that the Cherokees still were, +weighed very sensibly upon the officer’s consciousness. Therefore the +relaxation at intervals afforded by congenial companionship was all the +more acceptable. The tension of the situation augmented the nervous +stress of his intolerance of the learned and inopportune disquisitions +which the botanist forced continually upon him. He sought to dissemble +his displeasure and irritation, however, for he was essentially a +gentleman, according to his lights, notwithstanding his repudiation +of bigwigs and botany. For all their dullness and slow decorum he had +shown every respectful observance to the elderly civilians whom it was +his duty to escort, and they, being civilians, thought his choice of +a companion very appropriate. They all looked upon Lieutenant Everard +with much favor. They could not know, of course, how often he would +pause in his talk with Callum, when the two were alone beside the +camp-fire, and shake his head with an unutterable thought even to hear +the voice of the botanist, the well-known Herbert Taviston, as it was +raised in his guarded tent to call out a string of Latin plant names of +the growths of the Great Smoky region to another of the commissioners +already abed under his own canopy, while the Highlander, whose ills +in life were so much grimmer than boredom, laughed in glee at the +officer’s dismay and disaffection. So often Everard shook his head for +this cause that its decorous powder suffered, and that is saying much. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</span> +For so perfect of accoutrement was he, so point-device, so solicitous +in every detail of dress, that one can hardly think of the fop’s dying +save in full uniform, as befitting the importance of the occasion. The +fact that extremes meet is suggested in the thought that the savages, +when going out to battle with another tribe, often importuned the +white traders for such attire as would enable them to “make a genteel +appearance in English cloth when they died.” That the highly civilized +Everard would die in his boots was a foregone conclusion, but one is +sure that they were elaborately polished whatever the emergency, his +burnished sword in his hand, his neckcloth richly laced about his +throat, his hair curled according to its graceful wont. It was a very +fine head of hair, and for that reason he did not wear the fashionable +wig. Of a rich brownish auburn hue, his hair rose up from his forehead +in a natural undulation that gave all the fashionable effect; it curled +crisply at the sides; it was thick, long, and lent itself with every +address to be plaited in a queue at the back. He had brown eyes, darkly +lashed, a large aquiline nose, a curling, disdainful, discontented +mouth, and a complexion sunburned a permanent scarlet, for despite +his fripperies he had seen much service and was by no means a tin +soldier. The dashing young officer was a somewhat dazzling exponent of +a position and a status which Callum felt to be his own by right, and +the simply educated and much denied Highland youth listened greedily to +the stories with which Everard sought to beguile the tedium: stories of +cosmopolitan life, society, the gay world, the gossip of the times in +high circles, London, Paris, Vienna,—for Everard had seen life,—he +had seen the world! Sometimes these choice narratives were military, +and Callum’s pulse would quicken, for he was ambitious of deeds of +valor and the opportunity of command. Sometimes the chronicle of +Everard’s experiences became boastful and coxcombical, and adroitly +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</span> +suggested other conquests than those of the battlefield.</p> + +<p>Nevertheless to Everard the tedium was intolerable. They could not +gamble at cards, the reigning vice and pleasure of the day, for the +extremity of the poverty of Callum Bane precluded this, and Everard +would have been both ashamed and sorry to win his meagre pay. Now and +again they played a dreary game without hazard, merely “for the fun of +the thing,” but Everard found more genuine amusement in object lessons +with the cards, in which he elucidated the methods and mysteries of +sundry new games, the latest rage, which he had picked up when he was +last in London or Paris. This interest palled too after a time, and +in reverting to the chronicle of his experiences he was even fain to +elaborate questions of the cuisine; he described queer dishes of which +he had partaken in out of the way quarters of the world whither his +military duties had chanced to carry him; he learnedly compared the +abilities of the cooks of different inns and coffee-houses in divers +cities; and he vaunted the discrimination and keen discernment of +his palate as a judge of wines till the “bouquet,” of which he spoke +so knowingly, seemed to dispense an actual fragrance to the alert +senses of the imaginative listener. None of these subtle refinements +appertained to the beverage of which Everard invited Callum’s opinion +one night as the two boon spirits lingered long about the camp-fire, +now and again mending it as it sank, for the hour wore on to the chill +of midnight.</p> + +<p>“You have to go on guard duty anyhow presently, Callum Bane,” the +officer said, “so you might as well stay here till the corporal goes +out with the relief.”</p> + +<p>They had been in high glee, and the lieutenant was loath to lose his +merry company.</p> + +<p>The camp was now pitched at Ioco Town,—by Callum, alack, so well +remembered,—west of the Chilhowee Range, and the English surveyor +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</span> +had offered the lieutenant some particularly fierce tafia, doubtless +originally distilled for the Indian trade (against the law), the +“fire water” that wrought such woe among the tribes. The sober-minded +civilians had not cared to deviate from their usual refreshment of +brandy and water or wine which they had brought for their consumption +during the journey, but the officer was disposed to experiment. Neither +Everard nor Callum was accustomed to this particular drink nor pleased +with it, and now and again reverted to the officer’s Scotch whiskey, +wherein they demonstrated the fact that they were both Britons and +compatriots. Then once more they essayed the contemned rum, and again +to take the taste out drank the home-brew.</p> + +<p>“My certie! it’s got the smell o’ the peat ontil it!” cried the +Scotchman in his simple joy and bibulous patriotism.</p> + +<p>Despite his exaltation of the Scotch product, however, the rum had no +cause to complain of him when some criticism of the beverage by Everard +required that it should be sampled anew, and then they once more sagely +conferred together.</p> + +<p>That Everard was more irritable than usual was amply manifest in the +expression of his uplifted eyes and the cant of his eyebrows when +suddenly the learned Herbert Taviston issued forth all nightcapped from +his tent, and, snugly wrapped in a gaudy floriated dressing-gown, once +more sought the solace of the fire.</p> + +<p>“You seem very comfortable here, my dear sir,” he said with complacent +sweetness and self-satisfaction, all unaware of the piteous spectacle +his nightcapped well-informed head presented in the estimation of the +military man, who was already alienated by a surfeit of botany, and +whose hair, blowsing in the chill wind about his high forehead, was not +even sheltered by his hat. “I find my tent quite cold. We should have +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</span> +done better to take up our quarters in this vacant house hard by, as it +seems to be abandoned.”</p> + +<p>He nodded the tassel of his nightcap toward the slumbering town of +Ioco, the nearest conical-roofed houses showing dimly against the +densely black night. Some residue of light seemed held in the Tennessee +River, for now and again came a sidereal glimmer from the reflection +of the stars on the invisible surface, and a mysterious vista opened +between the towering forests on either bank, where the unseen stream +led like some great shadowy roadway into regions of deeper darkness +beyond. Ioco Town, long and narrow, stretched along the bank, still and +silent. Only the wind was abroad. Of the nearest dwellings all seemed +alike, but one quite apart from the others, close at hand in fact, was +vacant, according to the adroitly waving tassel,—doubtless impelled by +previous knowledge rather than present assurance of the circumstance.</p> + +<p>The officer spoke up with only half masked acerbity. He felt +responsible, as he was indeed, for the conduct of the expedition to the +best advantage, and all details as to transportation, lodgment, the +commissariat, passed under his direct supervision. No slight matter +was such a march in that region in those days. Now a river had risen +out of fording depth, and ferriage was to be improvised, from whatever +materials could be had in the dense wilderness, and safely achieved; +now an accident occurred to the baggage train, a horse going hopelessly +lame, or getting astray; now a shortage supervened in certain +provisions for the commissioners that had proved more acceptable than +others which thus outlasted them. All the time the discipline of a +military camp was to be maintained, the soldiers provided for after +their kind, the thousand maladroit incidents of a march of five hundred +miles to be severally met and adjusted, without assistance or advice, +and reconciled to the comfort and safety of an official party of +elderly civilians.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</span></p> + +<p>“You will do me the favor to remember, sir, that since the change in +the weather I have urged you and the other civilian gentlemen to accept +the invitation of the chiefs of Ioco Town and quarter yourselves in +their ‘stranger-house,’ a very commodious lodging and vastly superior +to yonder tumble-down hovel.”</p> + +<p>Everard pointed with the stem of his pipe toward the stove-like +“winter-house,” a mere shadow crouching low in the night and only +revealed because of the far-reaching flare of the freshening camp-fire. +The yellow flames sprang cheerily up with a roar and a jet of leaping +red sparks. The boughs of the tall hickory trees high over their heads +showed fluctuating glimpses of the amber and scarlet hues of the still +redundant leafage; a star scintillated through the fringes of a pine; +the tents of the little encampment glimmered white at regular intervals +in the dusky aisles of the woods; now and again the dull red glow of +a fire at some distance, about which was grouped the guard, asserted +its fervors, “lights out” being an order held not applicable to it nor +to the fire in front of the commissioners’ tents; and continually, +regularly, the tramp of an unseen sentry, walking his beat, smote on +the air with a dull mechanical iteration like the ticking of a clock.</p> + +<p>“I should have placed a strong guard about the building,” Everard went +on, “and as the rest of the escort lies so near Ioco you would have +been as secure certainly if not safer than here as you are.”</p> + +<p>For Everard, not unnaturally, considered the complaint of the +discomforts to which the commissioners were subjected as a reflection +upon his conduct of the march.</p> + +<p>The tassel on the learned nightcap wagged in deprecation. “My dear sir, +most true, most true, but”—</p> + +<p>“I remember you insisted that you preferred the camp because of +possible infection from smallpox in the Indian dwellings,” the +officer mercilessly went on, with a curl of the upper lip, already +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_206">[Pg 206]</span> +so disdainfully disposed. He had that flouting scorn of the fear of +contagion which a man naturally acquires whose life is in continual +jeopardy from epidemics, constrained to dwell in hordes, and subject +every hour to the chances of the times. “For myself,” he protested, +“except that I am obliged to keep the escort in camp to avoid brawls +between the soldiers and the young Cherokee braves, I should prefer +to billet the whole force upon the town, in the good, cosy, dry +winter-houses, since this unseasonable chilly change in the weather. +There is no more danger from smallpox for you in sleeping in their +‘stranger-house’ than in the handshaking that went on in the powwowing +over the terms of the cession at Choté with the headmen. Shoot me, sir, +but you ought to see an epidemic in an army—something to be afraid +of! Gad, sir, the men died with cholera in India like sheep—and with +scurvy, too, on board ship, both going and coming.”</p> + +<p>The tassel on the nightcap had lost its pliant urbanity. Be a man ever +so scientific, so civilian, so intrusted with peaceful commissional +powers, he cannot admit an inference of fear, even of disease, in +taking ordinary precaution.</p> + +<p>“All, my good sir, within the scope of civilization and the best +deterrent effects of a scientifically applied materia medica. The army +chirurgeons do good service—excellent, excellent. But here, among the +savages, no disinfectant processes obtain, and no intelligent effort +to prevent the spread of the dread scourge. Why, sir, in 1738 the +Cherokees lost almost half their number by the ravages of the smallpox +and their ignorance in dealing with the disease.”</p> + +<p>“And if they had lost <i>all</i> their number I should not hesitate +to sleep in one of their winter-houses twenty-four years later. Ha, +ha, ha!” The rum was evidently getting in its work. “Hey, Benson,” the +lieutenant called to his servant in the one illumined tent hard by, +“make up my bed in that vacant winter-house, and hark ye, build a fire +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</span> +in the middle of the floor, Injun-wise! Gad! I’ll not be diddled out of +the comforts of life for fear of a Cherokee distemper twenty-four years +gone!”</p> + +<p>The nightcap wished itself where it belonged, on its pillow. To +retire with dignity became the most definite motive in the brain that +it surmounted, and in this emprise it conceived that some aid might +be secured by a few words of casual conversation with the officer’s +companion, who was therefore civilly addressed.</p> + +<p>Now the worshipful Herbert Taviston would have been excited to a frenzy +by a false classification of the meanest herb of the earth, and would +have repudiated it as an unrighteous pretension and a mischievous +effort to subvert the accepted grades and relations of a careful and +accurate system. But if aware that such elements and considerations +existed in matters military, they were in his estimation of no +practical moment, and he turned toward the Highland soldier with as +pliant a grace of his tasseled crest as erstwhile it had borne in +bending before the commander of the force. And in fact he might well be +oblivious of distinctions of rank. The young Highlander had a handsome, +kindly, intelligent face and a manner of refinement and dignity, and +bating his coarse garb and rustic dialect he might have easily seemed +a man of degree. Moreover, he was here hobnobbing familiarly with his +officer.</p> + +<p>“Do you find your pipe a solace, my dear sir?” Mr. Taviston blandly +demanded, for smoking was not then the universal habit that it was +sometime earlier and has been since.</p> + +<p>“Aye, sir,” the Highlander replied politely, a trifle embarrassed by +the obvious mistake as to his rank rather than his quality. “But it +isna sae cantie a crony as a queigh o’ gude browst, neither,” he added +blithely, with an effort to reëstablish the <i>entente cordiale</i>.</p> + +<p>The young officer, with sullen, attentive eyes, that held a spark of +red fire in their brown depths, glowered at them.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_208">[Pg 208]</span></p> + +<p>“Ah, so indeed!” suavely commented the elderly nightcap. “But have +you observed, sir, that the Indians have another kind of tobacco than +that which is commonly smoked,—which is of course the <i>Nicotiana +Tabacum</i>? Now this other tobacco plant is a small-leaved, green, +bitter species which they use exclusively in their religious +ceremonies, their incantations, their necromancy, known as”—</p> + +<p>“As <i>Nicotiana diabolica</i>,” suggested the officer.</p> + +<p>Now had the nightcap housed but a modicum of tact and permitted a +laugh at this fling, all might yet have gone well. But trust a man of +scientific hobbies for serious denseness.</p> + +<p>“Not at all, sir,” he said with asperity. “That name is unknown to +the herbalist. The plant is <i>Nicotiana rustica</i> with us. With +the Cherokees it is <i>Tsalagayuli</i>, and the Muskogees call it +<i>It-chau-chee-le-pue-puggee</i>, ‘the tobacco of the ancients,’ +and the Delawares, <i>Lenkschatey</i>, ‘original tobacco,’—showing +an interest parity of signification; with the coast Indians it is +<i>Uppowoc</i>; the Tuscaroras call it <i>Charho</i>; the Pamlico +Indians, <i>Hoohpau</i>; and the Woccon Indians, <i>Vucoone</i>. Now,” +turning back to the Highlander with an air of excluding the ill-starred +jester on subjects of such grave moment, “there is a so-called tobacco, +not even related to the genus <i>Nicotiana</i>—it is the <i>Lobelia +inflata</i>—which furnishes the Indians with a powerful medicinal +infusion. Have you noticed in your march hither, and perhaps in your +previous campaigns in the Cherokee country, the amazing expertness of +the Cherokees in the matter of simples?”</p> + +<p>“He is too simple himself,” put in the officer, with an airy laugh.</p> + +<p>The Highlander’s face was flushing painfully. He was carrying a goodly +quantity of mixed liquor of the fiercest description, and it had not as +yet shaken a nerve; but the consciousness of his false position between +his two companions was aiding its potency, and his equilibrium was +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_209">[Pg 209]</span> +beginning to tremble.</p> + +<p>The botanist, touched in his sensitive pride, calmly ignored Lieutenant +Everard at his own camp-fire; and the officer, who had borne much from +his idiosyncrasies and had assiduously sought to promote his comfort +and security on the weary march hither, gazed at him with a deepening +glow of that fiery spark in his eyes.</p> + +<p>“The Cherokees’ expert knowledge of toxicology in plant forms is +amazing,” continued the botanist. “They excel all savage nations in +their discoveries of vegetable poisons and their application. And then +their botanical nomenclature—how happy—how apt! Are you conversant, +sir, with their generic plant names?”</p> + +<p>“The title of the parent stem, do you mean?” said the unlearned +Highlander hesitating, fumbling in his mind as to what Cherokee plant +names were considered applicable as to a parent stem.</p> + +<p>“He doesn’t lay much nowadays on the title of parent stems,” +interpolated Everard flippantly. “His own branch has lost its head, +through that head having been so heady as to lose his head.”</p> + +<p>A keen steely glance, as significant as the drawing of a burnished +blade, flashed from the Highlander’s eyes and was received full in the +gaze of the facetiously fleering officer. The subject of the forfeiture +of estates, the loss of titles, the attainder of treason, was not fit +for jesting with one who had suffered so fiercely by them, and except +in his cups no man would have been more definitely and respectfully +aware of this than Everard. And yet the fiery liquor was not altogether +to blame. He was as cruelly hampered by the false position as his +lowly friend, who nevertheless in every essential that he reverenced +was his equal if not his superior. To be ignored, to be talked down, +and meekly submit to keep his mouth closed was more than his patience +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_210">[Pg 210]</span> +could admit. But he was practically helpless. He could not seize that +egregious nightcap by the tassel and punch that learned head. He could +only assert himself by interjecting scoffs and fleering laughter, and +because of the fiery cup these were ill advised.</p> + +<p>“It is singular how very fitting and descriptive is the Cherokee +plant nomenclature!” chirped the botanist. As he sat on a block of +wood beside the fire, his face seemed ludicrously small in its strait +toggery, in comparison with its enlarged and bewigged aspect by day, +and he looked like an elderly infant, if such an anachronism can be +pictured. His gaudy gown was drawn close about his spare figure, but +he had forgotten to be cold, and his smiling eyes were fixed absently +on the face of the young Highlander, as fitting the fingers of his +delicate hands daintily together he continued to speak of the accurate +niceties of Cherokee plant names.</p> + +<p>“<i>Atali kuli</i>, ‘the mountain climber,’” he translated, his +lingering tones almost chanting, so great was his pleasure in the +definition; “the mountain ginseng, my good sir.” Then, fairly intoning +the Latin like a priest, he added, “<i>Panax quinquefolium</i>, of the +order <i>Araliaceæ</i>, also a native of China, sir.”</p> + +<p>“<i>He</i> is not a native of China, sir. He was made out of a peat +bog,” put in Everard flippantly.</p> + +<p>Naturally the nightcap addressed the civil Highlander.</p> + +<p>“Then there is <i>Ahowwe akata</i>, ‘deer-eye,’—yes, the word +<i>ahowwe</i> signifying deer,—with us the <i>Rudbeckia fulgida</i>. +And again,” dropping his voice now in deprecation of the suggestion +of indelicacy, as if a lowered tone made the allusion more seemly, +“there is <i>Unistiluisti</i>, meaning ‘they stick on,’”—in a whisper, +“beggar’s lice,”—then at full voice, as if the Latin would mend the +matter, “<i>Myosotis Virginiana</i>.”</p> + +<p>The lieutenant looked ostentatiously disgusted. He had indeed never +heard of the plant, and the Latin did not impose upon him, but the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_211">[Pg 211]</span> +mention of the insect from which it took its name was an insult to ears +polite. “Oh fie, sir!” he said rebukingly, for he was indeed aweary of +it all.</p> + +<p>The nightcap turned hastily toward the Highlander, who was heavily +harassed between the two, the double discord of their moods jarring +upon his nerves and bringing them more under subjection to his +previous potations. “Then, my dear sir, there is the Indian shot, the +<i>Canna</i>,—as you are aware the Celtic word for ‘a cane,’—with us +the ‘headache plant,’ and”—</p> + +<p>“Come, come, sir, enough of this,” cried Everard, scarcely listening, +and forced to rise. “We have nothing to do with headaches. It grows +late, and your hearer cannot meet your phrase nor match your learning, +although as to the question of heads he knows more about them than you +can ever teach him. Nothing fixes them in the memory like having them +grinning from a city gate.”</p> + +<p>The Highlander had risen too. He had a pictorial imagination, and +there still lingered upon its sensitive retina, so to speak, images +of the night’s talk, before the botanist had come to the fireside: +the aspect of London, the castellated Rhine, the glitter of Paris, +and many a suave and southern scene beneath a blue and tropic sky. +Suddenly these were all obliterated. That woeful land upon which the +cruel hand of Doom had rested so heavily, the sequestered estates, the +beggared gentry, the starving peasants, the scattered clans, the hunted +fugitives, the proscribed national garb, the hopeless exiles, the +prison, the scaffold, the gibbet—all rose up before him as elements in +a stricken gray landscape, in ghastly wintry guise. For one moment he +hesitated. Then stepping aside from the fire, he reached out and struck +the flippant mocker full in the face.</p> + +<p>The officer, taken all unaware, reeled as if he would lose his +balance. Then, for he was of a fine, alert physique, he recovered the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_212">[Pg 212]</span> +perpendicular, and it seemed as if he would spring like a panther upon +the Highlander, who had thrown himself into a posture of defense. The +next moment Everard’s military identity was fully reasserted, and the +proud Highlander writhed under the realization that the officer would +not return the blow. He would not demean himself by striking so low a +thing,—a man of the ranks. His voice rang out crisp and steady as he +called the corporal of the guard, placed Callum under arrest, and named +the manner and locality of his detention and the details when he should +be brought up “at orders” the following morning. Then wholly sobered, +Everard turned with dignified courtesy upon the botanist, who was now +protesting and squawking like some fluttered fowl instead of a refined +and elegant gentleman in the discharge of a public trust.</p> + +<p>“I must beg your favor, sir,” the lieutenant said, by way of denial of +a wild plea for clemency for the culprit. “I understand my duty and I +shall do it. And may I beg that you will now retire to your tent, as +all this stir may rouse the camp to the prejudice of discipline and +good order? I wish you a very good-night, sir!”</p> + +<p>And the nightcap with a depressed and lankly pendent tassel and the +floriated gown disappeared under the flap of the tent and enlivened the +spaces around the fire no more.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_213">[Pg 213]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="XI">XI</h2> +</div> + + +<p>POOR Callum Bane! Sober in good truth and sad as well! As soon as his +guard had quitted his side, he flung himself down on the earth floor +of the Indian winter-house, to which he had been conducted, with his +cheek pressed to the clay. He wished that the day had come when it +might cover him. Then he recoiled with the thought that this might +not be far distant. Striking an officer was a most serious military +offense. Even apart from its military aspect it was an insult for which +only blood could atone. He knew that Lieutenant Everard could never +face his world, the officers of his regiment, his mess, if they were +aware that as man to man he had tamely submitted to receive a blow in +the face. And since he could not challenge one of so low a station as +a common soldier, he had let the matter revert to its normal aspect of +insubordination, and the military law would take its course.</p> + +<p>Yet Callum could have shed the tears that stood hot and smarting in his +eyes for this sad finale to their gay young friendship. He had felt +that it augured a certain magnanimity in Everard to ignore what he was +in station in the knowledge of what he was by descent. Callum would +never have admitted, not even in his most secret thoughts, that he +found aught lacking in Jock Lesly, whose instincts rendered him a man +of intrinsic worth; but this association on equal terms with Everard, a +man of refined manners and gentlemanly phrasings and careful nurture, +was to Callum like a return to the companionship of his earlier life, +and a relief after the ruder comradeship of the boisterous common +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_214">[Pg 214]</span> +soldier and the dull routine of mechanical duty. He had taken a certain +pleasure, too, in the realization that his society was the young +officer’s only solace in the long and dreary march with its peculiar +personal isolation. But it was a pleasure fraught with much pain,—the +contemplation of this man in a position which but for an untoward fling +of fate might have been his own also. The thought often lent a sharp +edge to the close and intimate observation of Everard’s opportunities +and their development, but Callum was not of a jealous temperament, +and did not visit upon the individual, even in secret meditation, the +disasters which national circumstances and conditions had wrought. +Despite the difference in station and habits, wealth and education, the +two had grown fraternally fond of each other, and now there was that +between them which could be washed out only with blood, and the officer +in the direct discharge of his duty had chosen that it should be with +the blood of the soldier.</p> + +<p>The sentinel still stood at the doorway, for there was no door, +but gradually his glances within, prompted by curiosity, had grown +infrequent. There was no guard tent. The men were of the best class, +picked for the expedition, and so far not even a trifling misdemeanor +had sullied the record of their good conduct. Punctual, alert, +efficient, cheerful, invaluable each had seemed in every emergency, +and thus the only unoccupied shelter that might conveniently hold +a culprit was the clay-constructed winter-house, which stood aloof +and vacant on the edge of Ioco Town. The preparations which Everard +had ordered, with the intention of occupying it himself, had gone no +farther than the kindling of a fire on the clay hearth in the centre +of the floor, before it was diverted to the uses of a prison. The +smoke, in thin, shifting, scroll-like forms, circled gray and blue +about the red clay walls without an exit save such crevices as the +wind and rain and neglect had wrought. As Callum had dropped down +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_215">[Pg 215]</span> +on the inner side, the vapors served to screen him somewhat from +the observation of the sentinel, who, he now began to notice, had +become absolutely oblivious of him. This matter riveted his attention +presently. There was evidently some strange stir in the encampment, an +odd circumstance, and Callum reflected in sudden affright that he had +been bound, needlessly and cruelly he considered. The handcuffs, always +carried <i>pro forma</i>, were among the baggage, and, it being deemed +unmeet to rouse its custodians to overhaul it at that hour, a stout +rope had been substituted. A vague clamor of voices came to his ears. +He observed that the sentinel at the doorway had become rigid with +suppressed excitement. Could it be that an attack by the Indians was +threatened? Remembering his bonds, Callum’s blood ran cold. The force, +while strong enough for protection against unauthorized vagabonds or +possible bands of robbers, could not resist successfully an organized +assault by the braves of this great tribe. He might well be forgotten +in such a crisis—left here bound and helpless, to be captured and +tortured and burned. The next moment, listening with every pulse tense, +he realized that the voices were those of the soldiers in altercation +or extenuation. One shrilly clamoring in Gaelic, as if the strength +of his lungs and the pitch of the tone could render his gibberish +intelligible to Lieutenant Everard, revealed to Callum’s practised ear +the cause of the disturbance.</p> + +<p>An Indian horse-race had been held in a neighboring town, and albeit +this amusement was one which appealed especially to the tastes of the +pleasure-loving lieutenant, so grievously debarred and deplorably dull +on this uncongenial expedition, he would not attend it himself and +issued positive orders that no man of the force should be present. Nay, +he went so far as to see to it that none had leave of absence from the +camp on any pretext on the day when this diversion took place. He very +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_216">[Pg 216]</span> +definitely appreciated the perils which menaced his little command in +case of any antagonism or open quarrel with the tribesmen of the towns. +Had his mission been strictly military, to make a stanch defense or a +brisk onslaught, it would have been far simpler, in his estimation, +whatever dangers or disasters hostility might involve. But the success +of his mission depended upon the preservation of a strict peace. Apart +from the safe-conduct and guardianship of the commissioners and their +attendants, fully one third of the party being non-combatants,—and no +man believes so implicitly as does the British regular in the absolute +incapacity of the non-professional to do battle in any behalf, or to +be of any belligerent value even in his own defense,—the interests +of the government were at stake. Nothing could so quickly sow the +seeds of dissension, the acute officer argued within himself, as the +winning of the Indians’ money and valuable furs and other choice +gear at the projected horse-race. He did not doubt that charges of +fraud would arise, a fracas ensue, the security of the commissioners’ +camp be placed in jeopardy, and the cession itself imperiled. Hence +his self-denial, for he was a good judge of horseflesh himself, and +dearly loved a show of speed, and the Cherokees of that day owned some +extraordinary animals.</p> + +<p>Everard had felt himself extremely ill used by fate, as he was turning +away from the camp-fire, after his dismissal of the astonished corporal +with the prisoner, and his low bow to salute the disappearance of Mr. +Herbert Taviston. His face was smarting with pain from the blow, his +heart burned hot within him, his pride upbraided his condescension to +this man of low estate, who had so ungratefully requited recognition +of his real quality as a born gentleman. While Everard was beginning +to revolve troublous doubts as to how the course of action upon which +he had resolved in these unprecedented circumstances would be regarded +by his mess and superior officers, a new and unprovoked disaster +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_217">[Pg 217]</span> +was presented. One of the corporals in the functions of officer of +the day appeared, and with a mechanical salute and a look of abject +despair reported that several of the men, three English soldiers and +one Highlander, had run the guard that afternoon and had attended the +horse-race, in which they had found their account. They had smuggled +into camp after dark a quantity of valuable furs, some strings of the +fresh-water pearls of the region, and the Highlander had jingling in +his sporran some French money, several louis d’ors. So successfully +indeed had they managed their enterprise that its discovery was made +only through the anxiety of the Cherokees to repossess themselves of +these pieces of French gold. By no means adepts in banking principles, +they had, nevertheless, with an unassisted natural intelligence evolved +the idea of a premium. As soon as the headmen learned the fact of the +loss of this money, they secretly offered to redeem the louis d’ors +with English currency and pay a guinea extra for the exchange. The +“mad young man,” Wahuhu by name, who had been grievously deprived +by fate of his money, browbeaten by his elders upon discovery of +the circumstances, and sent upon this secret errand to retrieve the +disaster, was greatly perturbed by the unaccustomed restrictions of +the camp. He had himself sought to run the sentry, and being taken in +charge by the officer of the guard, naïvely demanded to see and confer +with a certain Highland soldier. By adroit cross-questioning the facts +had been elicited by the corporal—little by little because of the +Indian’s reluctance to disclose aught and the linguistic deficiencies +of the Highlander.</p> + +<p>“Lord, sir, he is a poor creature!” said the corporal, laying the +matter before his superior officer. “He cannot talk at all.”</p> + +<p>“An enlisted man cannot be dumb,” said the officer with asperity.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_218">[Pg 218]</span></p> + +<p>“No, sir, but he can’t be understood, sir. He can talk no English, nor +even the gibberish they call ‘braid Scotch,’ nor yet Cherokee. He has +nothin’ but the Gaelic, sir.”</p> + +<p>“And yet he can run the guard and bet at a horse-race?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, sir; an’ win his sporran full o’ louis d’ors!”</p> + +<p>And with true Scotch thrift the accomplished personage in question +would not be parted from them. Thus it was that his voice was presently +lifted in the midnight. He spoke on his own behalf. He mistrusted +the interpretation of his Scotch comrades, for his ear discerned the +difference in their accent from the speech of the English soldiers and +the lieutenant, and he cherished the conviction that were the Gaelic +but addressed directly and distinctly to the commanding officer, he +being a sensible man could not steel his comprehension against it. +Wherefore the Highlander yelped and shrilly piped into the night air +until the very hem of his kilt quivered with his vocalizations, and the +lieutenant stood as if bewitched before him, gazing at the spectacle he +presented.</p> + +<p>The whole camp was astir. Lights gleamed in sundry tents, all white +and translucent in the darkness. Military figures had ventured out and +stood in the shadows, some bearing weapons on the pretext of having +fancied the tumult a summons to arms. The officer of the guard had +attended with the Indian negotiator, who was instantly set at liberty +by the order of the lieutenant, but who still lingered with wild eyes +and a constant keen turning of the head to and fro to see and to hear; +that he was not altogether unsupported might be inferred from vague +vistas that the camp lights flung down the aisles of the forest, where +shadowy faces and feathered crests showed, flitting like a fancy. And +of all, the central figure was Eachin MacEachin, his red hair rough +from his pillow and his well-earned dreams of wealth; his dress in +disarray, one stocking well-braced and gartered, the other hanging +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_219">[Pg 219]</span> +over his shoe and showing his shapely sturdy leg and his great bare +rough red knee; his kilt fluttering in the wind; his freckled face +eager and distorted with his vociferations to his discerning commander. +And in truth, aided by adroit gesticulations, his words were not so +far from intelligible. He spurned the proposition of an exchange. As +he opened his sporran of badger skin and took therefrom a glittering +gold piece and exhibited it to the lieutenant, then with an ecstatic +leer put it between his strong white teeth and bit hard on it to prove +it genuine, there was no need for a mortified compatriot, who had +volunteered to interpret to the officer, to say,—</p> + +<p>“She aye threepit she ha’ gotten ta gowd, sir. She mistrust ta English +guinea.” Then with a look of blank distress, “She’ll aye mainteen she +saw muckle French gowd in ta Forty-foive. She’ll no be so well acquent +wi’ ta guinea.”</p> + +<p>The object of his aid, desirous of speaking for himself, now and +again turned upon his interpreter with a furious Gaelic phrase of +repudiation, to which the better soldier, who had run no guard and +consequently had won no money, vouchsafed no retort, only commenting +indirectly by shaking his head and exclaiming, “Hegh, sir, she’s but a +puir creature!”</p> + +<p>“I am not so sure of that,” said the lieutenant dryly, “unless I can +count what he has got in that sporran!”</p> + +<p>Suddenly something in the aspect of the glittering coin which the +Highlander still held in his fingers struck Lieutenant Everard’s +attention. His face changed sharply. He asked for the coin, and calling +for a candle keenly scrutinized the piece by the flickering taper, as +the corporal held it, screening with his hand the feeble flame from the +wind. In another moment the lieutenant demanded the transference of the +remaining five louis d’ors to his custody, sternly insisting, despite +the wild plaintive protests of Eachin MacEachin.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_220">[Pg 220]</span></p> + +<p>All this, the Gaelic being as intelligible to Callum as the English, +came to him on the chill night air, and he marveled at Everard’s +persistence in taking custody of the coins, for although it was the +habit of the Highland soldiery to make their officers their bankers, +this trust was altogether voluntary, and not by duress, as in the +case of poor Eachin MacEachin and his ill-gotten “gowd.” As it was +the favor of chance, like fairy gold, its possession may have seemed +equally precarious; or as it was won in direct disobedience of orders, +he may have even entertained doubts of the lieutenant’s intentions +in the matter of its ultimate return to him, for the Highlanders +were as a rule peculiarly averse to the control of any officers save +those of their own regiments and more than once mutinied rather than +serve under strangers. For whatever reason, so valiantly indeed did +Eachin MacEachin resist Lieutenant Everard’s orders that force at +last became necessary, and his voluble insubordination in the pain of +parting with his gold made Callum acquainted with the fact that he +might presently expect company in his imprisonment. This recalled his +mind summarily to his own plight. He realized the importance of the +officer’s efforts to avoid a clash with the Indians, and wondered what +effect this circumstance would have in the discipline of the military +offenders. Suddenly he turned sick and his blood ran cold. The corporal +punishment, then in vogue in the British army, was regarded by the +better class of soldiers as so great a degradation that a man once +brought to the lash was practically ruined, socially and morally. The +indignity came all at once into Callum’s mind as a possible solution +of Everard’s difficulty in his case. He knew that he could not be +shot without a regularly organized court-martial, which, necessarily +delayed, in view of the personnel and conditions of the force, until +their return to Charlestown, would also publish far and wide the +officer’s derogation of his dignity in associating on equal terms with +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_221">[Pg 221]</span> +a private, who had struck him over their drink as an equal might have +done. Everard would flinch from this disclosure, for it would impugn +his fitness for his position. And yet he could not challenge a private +nor submit as man to man to the ignominy of a blow in the face. The +summary punishment of a flogging at the head of the line would dispose +of the matter with the utmost contempt and amply avenge the indignity. +Callum was terrified lest Everard’s authority in this independent +command of a detachment, so remote from superior military jurisdiction, +gave him such latitude, or could be so stretched in view of his +dilemma. With the mere thought Callum sprang from the floor with a +suddenness that loosened every taut strand of the ropes that bound him. +His breath was short; he gasped; the blood almost burst from his veins +as his heart plunged and the arteries throbbed. He must be quick; the +little makeshift prison would soon be recruited; and of captives, one +was a spy on another. He could scarcely see, through the blue swirls +of smoke, the sentry at the door, whose attention was still riveted on +the excited scene without. Callum had caught at the first wild scheme +of release, hardly canvassing its practicability. He did not reckon +with the pain or the danger when he thrust his bound hands into the +flames to burn off the cords. The thought in his brain, the ignominy +that threatened him, seared far tenderer perceptions than appertain to +the flesh. The fire caught at the hemp, and he set his teeth hard. The +ligaments had at last fallen away when discovery suddenly menaced him.</p> + +<p>“Look out for your plaid in there, Callum,” said the sentry abruptly. +“I smell something burning.”</p> + +<p>“’T isna wool,” rejoined Callum promptly. “My plaid isna even +scorching.”</p> + +<p>And the sentinel, thus satisfied, once more turned his attention +without.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_222">[Pg 222]</span></p> + +<p>Callum looked about him wildly. His first impulse was to throw himself +upon the sentinel’s back, overturn him, and fly down the dark aisles of +the woods—to what? Certain recapture, and an ignominy that overawed +his proud spirit more than death.</p> + +<p>“Gae cannily—gae cannily,” he said to himself, as he crouched +uncertainly behind the flare of the fire and the veiling tissues of the +smoke.</p> + +<p>The house, like all of its kind, had neither window nor chimney. It +seemed to him of far ampler proportions than such as were used for a +single family, and yet it did not approach in dimensions the great +assembly rotunda, which could contain an audience of several hundred +persons. It occurred to him that it might have been used as a fort at +some date long previous, when perhaps Ioco had served as a barrier +town, and this was its outlying defense. He remembered having noted +the vestiges of an ancient stockade outside, and with the idea that it +might have once held an Indian garrison, his keen eyes searched the +interior. The old cane-wrought divan, that once perchance encircled +the clay-plastered walls, had long ago vanished, leaving only a mark +to suggest it. But above this, on a level with the ground outside, for +the floor was fully two feet lower than the surface of the earth, he +detected a series of vague circles of white chalk. These white circles +indicated where loopholes were concealed beneath the clay of the wall, +to be utilized by the forted party in firing on an approaching enemy. +He rushed to the nearest in a sudden frenzy. The clay gave way in +his blistered baked hands; and suddenly, with an inrush of the sweet +woodland air without and a glimpse of the black night beyond, was +revealed the loophole, adroitly fashioned by savage skill how many +years agone! A limited opening it proved, however, barely sufficient +to admit of the flight of an arrow thence, and just above the surface +of the ground, but it gave a purchase to the frantic clutching of his +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_223">[Pg 223]</span> +strong hands and for the use of a clasp knife of an ordinary sort that +had been stowed in his sporran; for although he had been searched for +concealed weapons, it had been but a cursory investigation, as his +wrists were bound. The blade broke when the work was nearly completed, +but his fingers, although almost nailless and lacerated to bleeding, +finished the enlargement of the aperture, and he dragged himself +through the narrow horizontal space and stood, breathless, exhausted, +in the dark woods without.</p> + +<p>Only for one moment did he pause. The clamors at the scene of action +warned him that a crisis had supervened. Wild cries of “Ohon! Ohon!” +betokened the despair of the erstwhile lucky gambler, the fact that the +five louis d’ors were temporarily transferred to the custody of the +officer, and that the Highlander and his fellow culprits who had so +gallantly run the guard and played the races were being hustled along +to the half demolished prison, which they would find empty. The thought +lent wings to Callum’s feet, for in another moment discovery would +ensue and the pursuit come hot upon his track.</p> + +<p>Yet his spirits revived as he felt the fresh wind, cool and pure upon +his face; his muscles, supple and strong, responded to the demand upon +their activities. Like a deer he sped straight through the town and +along the sloping bank of the watercourse. At that hour he encountered +not a living creature. Only the currents of the Tennessee came to meet +him. All was silent save the flow of the water and the flutter of the +wind. So definite were these sounds in the night as he went that he +began to take heart of grace and hope rebounded anew. The pursuit, +he reflected, had probably gone in the opposite direction, since the +camp lay on the edge of the town. This gave him time to scheme, to +secure some place of concealment, for horsemen, once on his heels, +would soon run him down. For this reason he left the river bank and +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_224">[Pg 224]</span> +took his way among the fields. His pace grew slower, for the rugged +cultivated ground and now and then great masses of weeds in ill-tended +and neglected spaces made the going difficult. Twice he caught his foot +in the vines of pompions and came heavily to the earth, where he lay +for a time stealthily listening before he dared to rise again. He had +great fear of the Indians—the fear of the straggler. They hated the +soldiers now more than ever heretofore, and above all the Highlanders, +so conspicuous in the recent Cherokee War. A wreaking of many grudges +they would find should he fall into their hands while fleeing from the +wrath of his officer. A terrible fate this! a sly, treacherous capture, +torture, the stake, a mysterious and unavenged disappearance from the +knowledge of all the world! Military discipline could threaten no +such horrors save to a man of his proud temperament. Once or twice he +slackened his speed to a walk, swinging onward with a good long stride, +but he could not now continuously run; his strength was spent. Suddenly +he came to a full pause, with the weight of doom on his heart. There +in the space between two rows of corn the figure of a man stood not +three paces distant! Callum in a panic marveled how he had not noticed +this approach. Above, the night was silent, and high over these alien +mountains glittered stars that he had known of yore, that still shone +over the mountains in far, far Scotland as placidly as before ever Woe +came in to sit by her hearth and her sons went forth to exile forever. +Nothing stirred save their palpitant scintillations. He could hear +naught except the pulsations of his own heart beating like a drum. The +figure of the man stood motionless and gazed at him, as motionless, +fascinated, helpless, he stood and stared.</p> + +<p>“<i>Canawlla!</i>” (Friendship) Callum at last said softly, although in +the dense darkness he could not have stated why he thought it was an +Indian.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_225">[Pg 225]</span></p> + +<p>A moment of suspense passed leaden-weighted.</p> + +<p>There was no response. The world was so silent that he heard the almost +soundless flight of a bat winging past.</p> + +<p>The next instant a strange doubt entered his mind. He put forth his +hand gingerly, and laid it on the figure’s arm. There was no quick +stroke of a tomahawk, as he had half feared. The man’s arm, as he stood +so stiff and silent, was all unresponsive. In fact, it was but a couple +of fagots, and Callum realized that he was in Chilhowee, Old Town, and +that this was the image of the Ancient Warrior he had noted in the +fields.</p> + +<p>“Take that for the leein’, fause face o’ ye!” he said, striking the +gourd in sudden wrath, his cold fear growing hot anger, as he thought +of the waste of time that the fright had cost him, and the imminence of +the danger in which he stood.</p> + +<p>The gourd wavered and dropped suddenly to the earth, and as he +mechanically stooped and picked it up, a strange idea struck him. It +was a great gourd; he lifted it with its bedraggled war-bonnet to his +head, and it slipped easily over and down to his neck. He began in a +fever of haste to disrobe the effigy. It had been of gigantic stature, +and the hunting-shirt even concealed the kilt of the big Highlander; +the leggings went on over his stockings and hid his bare knees; the +sleeves came down over his hands. Half supported by the stake which +had upheld the scarecrow, he took the stiff pose that he remembered. +And why, he asked himself, should he not stand here as safely, thus +masked, as lie all day in some Indian hut, if he could gain admission? +Doubtless every house on the river bank would be searched by Everard’s +orders, and most probably he would be delivered up by treachery to this +demand, if not murdered to settle old scores. At nightfall he would +array the figure anew and slip off, traveling by dark and hiding by +day, and returning thus to Charlestown, surrender to his own captain. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_226">[Pg 226]</span> +He fancied the officers of the Highland regiment could understand the +situation, and would relish the allusion to scaffolds and grinning +skulls scarcely more than he. If he had been left in his station as a +private soldier, he argued, all would have been well. But he had been +admitted to familiarity and friendship with the officer as a gentleman, +and when over their liquor he had repelled an insult with a blow, as an +equal might, he was suddenly relegated to the status and penalties of +a private soldier. If the members of the court-martial were minded to +account his escape under these circumstances desertion, they could make +the most of it: he would rather choose to be shot on this charge than +flogged for the blow.</p> + +<p>Punctures in the egregious painted physiognomy of the gourd served for +sight and breath. The nostrils, the eyes, the mouth, the ears, had +all been curiously and faithfully delineated by the Indian artist, +according to his lights. Callum tasted the dawn even before he saw that +the night was turning vaguely blue. When in this dim medium figures of +Indians began to appear, he experienced a sudden elation to perceive +that none cast a second glance at the effigy of the Ancient Warrior in +the cornfield.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_227">[Pg 227]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="XII">XII</h2> +</div> + + +<p>A FINE outlook at life the Ancient Warrior enjoyed. The sun came +splendidly up from over the blue and misty domes of the Great Smoky +Mountains, and the beautiful Chilhowee Range suddenly sprang from the +nullity of darkness into all the chromatic richness of autumnal color. +A wind went chanting blithely through its dense woods, as if it were +fitting there to be happy where all was so gay. The river, a trifle of +fog blurring its silver sheen here and there, reflected the gorgeous +tints of the red and gold forests on its banks and caught the light +with an added glister. The world was so fresh, so misty sweet, so newly +created! The rocks echoed the barbaric notes of the blasts blown on the +conch shells, as with the joyful cries of the ritual of their ancient +religion the Cherokee braves went down into the water in their symbolic +ablutions.</p> + +<p>Smoke had long been curling up from the hearths of the houses, and +presently the brisk “second man” of the town was marshaling out his +cohorts of women and girls to work in the fields. Callum was surprised +to see the placid and smiling faces that they wore, for field work in +these rich soils is held to be far less drudgery than housework, and +even now a feminine farm laborer is hardly to be found to exchange +willingly. The Indians always protested that their division of labor, +which allotted field work to the woman, favored the weaker vessel, and +by no means implied that indifference and scorn of her attributed to +them by the white people.</p> + +<p>The “second man” in a civilized community would have been accounted a +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_228">[Pg 228]</span> +wag or a buffoon. So very funny he made himself as he sat on the ground +near the effigy of the Ancient Warrior that Callum was more than once +diverted from his own troublous thoughts and moved to wish for a few +additional phrases of Cherokee, that he might more fully understand the +quip and song and tale with which this genius of the field beguiled +the labor. The elder women listened with slow and languid pleasure; +the children sometimes interrupted with a breathless inquiry. He did +not lack his critic to remark, in the course of a twice-told tale, +that last year the fox had not thus replied to the admonition of +the Ancient Warrior, whereupon, with the privilege of response, the +<i>raconteur</i> doubled like the animal in question and averred +that it was not that same fox! One of the women, a girl of eighteen, +perhaps, showed a brilliant, imaginative face as, at the crisis of each +story, she turned toward the Ancient Warrior and gazed spellbound upon +him with dark, lustrous, liquid eyes, until the “second man” had seen +him safely through an adventure of a series for which, had he lived +from the days of Noah, the centuries scarcely held space. Then with a +long-drawn sigh she would fall to work again, reaching up with lissome +ease for the ears of corn which she gathered. Only the children picked +the peas and beans and other small crops that the corn had sheltered. +For the working force comprised all the laborers of Chilhowee, these +being the public fields destined for the common granaries filled for +emergencies, and not the individual gardens adjoining each domicile. +She was notably expert despite the patent fact that her thoughts +were oft so far away; although obviously strong, she was tall and +delicately slender, which made picturesque her garb of ordinary +doeskin, so fashioned as to leave her arms bare; her buskins were +dyed scarlet; and a cascade of red beads, the valueless trinkets of +civilized manufacture, bought at a round price from an English trader, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_229">[Pg 229]</span> +fell from her neck. But she was not in gala attire, by reason of her +occupation. Her fingers were long and deft and exquisitely shapely; her +feet slender and small. She was endowed with a sort of stately bloom +and a consummate grace, that justified the sobriquet by which she was +distinguished, the “Cherokee Rose.” She obviously cared less for what +was done and said here yesterday than for the discourse of the fox and +the Ancient Warrior some two or three hundred years before, according +to the elastic chronology of the “second man.” For when other Indians, +evidently of a high grade in the tribe, came up and began to discuss +together the commissioners’ expedition, she worked on with far greater +industry, and only occasionally paused to lift her head from where she +stood, half shrouded in the tall maize, to gaze meditatively upon the +Ancient Warrior,—the hero of so many fancies, for she was of the type +of woman who loves the renown of exploits,—with a patent admiration +embarrassing to the fair-haired Callum, even although masked by the +gourd. At times he experienced a more formidable embarrassment. He +was in terror of a strong inclination to cough. As the day had worn +on the smoke and smell of distant burning forests suffused all the +currents of the air, for the weather had lately been singularly dry. +Sometimes he was almost suffocated by the acrid vapor, collecting in +the restricted compass of the gourd mask, and again it was dissipated +by the freshening of the wind.</p> + +<p>As the headmen lingered and talked, the laborers were rapidly moving +on under the directions of the “second man,” for the Cherokees never +permitted women or boys to hear aught of political machinations or +import. Callum began to understand that a runner had brought to +Chilhowes the details of the unlucky winning of the French gold by the +Highlander, and the ineffectual attempt by the Cherokee headmen to +buy it back out of notice with English guineas. So important did the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_230">[Pg 230]</span> +Chilhowee warriors consider this circumstance that they evidently had +half a mind to assemble in council in their town-house to debate the +matter, but they were deterred by the remonstrances of the runner, who +seemed to give also warning of an approach. Thus Callum was apprised +that Everard was in the saddle and on the road hither. It would never +do, the messenger argued, for the English officer to find the Chilhowee +headmen in solemn consultation,—in effect an official recognition of +the importance which they attached to the incident. While admitting +the justice of this reasoning, they were nevertheless fain to secure +at least a hasty word together as to how they should meet the officer. +Therefore it was that the “second man” urged forward the laborers, +and the councilors gathered about in the field as if they had been +participating, as they often did, in relating the traditions and +legends of the tribe, that were thus handed down from one generation to +another.</p> + +<p>They grouped themselves near the Ancient Warrior, whose pedestal stood +in a heap of fodder that usually concealed certain ungainly posturings +to which his straw-filled moccasins were prone, but that now served +to hide the strong, stanchly planted feet of the hardy infantry-man. +Had Callum’s knowledge of the Cherokee tongue been more complete and +accurate,—in fact it consisted but of sundry fragments caught up at +haphazard in his campaigns in this region the two previous years, and +from the Indian guides of the present expedition, and his short stay +at Jock Lesly’s trading-house,—he might have comprehended all the +subtleties of which this secret discussion was rife. Even as it was, +however, he understood that the Indians feared much from the discovery +of the French money here.</p> + +<p>“The French coins must be taken from the officer—if they were his +eyes, if they were his heart; they must be taken from him,” a fierce, +straight, stiff warrior, Yachtino, the chief of Chilhowee, was +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_231">[Pg 231]</span> +continually saying as he stood pacifically in the midst of the corn, +his feathered crest, his quiver and bow, his garments decorated with +fringes seeming not unlike the growth itself, as if he had been thence +incarnated.</p> + +<p>Another Indian, with a swift, furtive step aside, ever and anon bent to +gaze down the trading-path, interjecting from time to time the phrase, +<i>“Usinuli! Usinuli!”</i> (Quick! Quick!), which agitated the course +of the deliberations, usually so slow and decorous, like the sudden +striking of a flaw of wind on the surface of placid water.</p> + +<p>They all stood in silence and looked stolidly at the ground.</p> + +<p>“But how?” said Tlamehu, the Bat, at last. And then another, “How +<i>can</i> the coins be taken from him?”</p> + +<p>Callum, noting the dismay in their countenances, fumbled mentally for +the significance of the French money. That this currency should be +common among them seemed natural enough, as their intercourse with +the French had been great, even before the Cherokee War against the +British government. During its progress, indeed, it was believed that +in several engagements the Cherokee forces were commanded by French +officers.</p> + +<p>The next words let in the light.</p> + +<p>“And so the coins that had the king’s head, pictured in the fine gold, +spoke with a deceitful forked tongue, and tells the English that it was +made in sixty-two?”</p> + +<p>“The date is stamped on the metal—all, all!” impatiently responded the +informant.</p> + +<p>The words were echoed with an intonation of perplexed despair. Then a +despondent silence ensued until Yachtino, the warrior who had first +spoken, reiterated: “The coins must be taken from the officer—if they +were the breath of his life!”</p> + +<p>“But how?” the question came again.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_232">[Pg 232]</span></p> + +<p>Callum wondered no longer at their agitation. The louis d’ors were +of the coinage of 1762, and therefore revealed the fact of renewed +machinations with the French, in direct contravention of the terms +of the treaty of peace of 1761 between the Cherokees and the British +government, which expressly forbade all trade on the part of the +Indians with other nations, especially the French, who, being still +at war with Great Britain, were to be denied admission to any of the +Cherokee towns and intercourse with the tribe, the Cherokees pledging +themselves to surrender or kill such intruders. The Indians, indeed, +had much to fear from the discovery of this breach of the treaty. They +gloomily foreboded therefrom the collapse of the favorable phases of +the cession. This secret hope on their part was to effect from the +purchase money the speedy supply of the tribe with powder, and thus +perpetuate their national existence. The ammunition must needs be +secured before any intimation of renewed hostilities, and thus the +British government actually would furnish the money for another attack +upon its own frontiers. The French would doubtless afford the Cherokees +substantial aid, but despite the fairest promises, they were unable +to fully supply the savages with ammunition in the last campaign of +the furious Cherokee war against the British, failing the Indians at +their utmost need. Thus at the critical juncture all their previous +fierce and bloody successes were brought to naught. For as a nation +the Cherokees were now practically disarmed and at the mercy of any +demand made from a basis of powder and lead. It was a new point of view +from which to contemplate the proposed cession of land, and Callum +felt as if the gourd on his head had spun quite round, since from the +English standpoint the cession was designed to bring the Cherokee tribe +more definitely under the domination of the British government by +strengthening its occupation among them, and thereby monopolizing their +trade.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_233">[Pg 233]</span></p> + +<p>And here, in the British officer’s keeping, was the unfortunate French +money of the coinage of 1762, that told so straight a tale amidst +all these subtle and devious windings of savage statecraft. Callum +recognized an imprudence on Everard’s part, against which, however, +only superhuman wisdom could have guarded, in having overlooked, in +the agitation of the moment, the presence of Wahuhu, who had lost the +coins at the races,—the sad Screech-owl, who yet perceived with great +keenness, and argued with an impeccable ratiocination, and witnessed +the transference of the money to official keeping after the lieutenant +had scrutinized the date of the coinage. The mere transference of the +louis d’ors Callum regarded lightly. Their equivalent in “ta guinea” +would undoubtedly be returned, when the force should reach Charlestown, +to the man who had at so many risks won the money, and who would easily +be reconciled to the English currency in the bliss of the exercise of +its purchasing power. Everard intended to reserve the coins themselves +to be shown to the royal governor, with the significance of date and +freshness of mintage, and these facts would be made a part of the +lieutenant’s report to his superior officer, offering in support of his +account of the matter ocular demonstration of the louis d’ors. Anything +that touched upon French machinations among the Cherokees, from whose +atrocities the English had suffered so severely in the Cherokee War, +and who had been subdued at so great a cost of blood and time and +treasure, was of paramount importance in this year of grace 1762, and +not to be lightly argued aside.</p> + +<p>As Callum watched the fiercely reflective faces of the group, he +realized that they contemplated more in the enterprise to serve their +object than the mere recovery of the coins. An accident might adroitly +account for the event. Some opportune misfortune often befell men +charged with disaster to others.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_234">[Pg 234]</span></p> + +<p>“But how?” the question came again, as if it voiced a common train of +thought. In fact they all seemed to think in unison, until one of the +group, suddenly looking up, said,—</p> + +<p>“But the tongues of the ugly commissioners are strong. They eat much +food, they drink much wine, and the British government pays them money +for their wisdom. The many black marks that they put on paper will +report the French money, the coinage of this year, to the governor. And +yet the wings of the eagles overshadow the commissioners, and for the +sake of the cession they must not be touched.”</p> + +<p>“<i>Usinuli! Usinuli!</i>” urged the voice of Time, as once more the +self-constituted lookout scanned the reaches of the path.</p> + +<p>“The commissioners have never shaken hands firmly with the speech of +the lieutenant,” replied an authoritative voice, “and the lieutenant +tells <i>nothing</i> to the commissioners.”</p> + +<p>Canting his eye askew, to look through the orifices of the ear of +the image painted on the gourd, Callum saw—to his surprise and +indignation, for his heart was still in the undertaking—the Cherokee +guide of the commissioners’ expedition, whose utilities as a spy for +his own people must have been very marked and duplicated his services. +He went on with great animation to discuss the mutual relations of the +personnel of the expedition.</p> + +<p>“The commissioners have never tied fast the old beloved friend-knot +with the lieutenant, and the lieutenant despises the commissioners. +They are not soldiers, and they look very small in his eyes. And they +talk till his ears are tired. When he is scornful he speaks of them as +‘lady-like old men,’ and when he is angry he calls them ‘gentlemanly +old ladies’! He trusts them not at all—with nothing!”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_235">[Pg 235]</span></p> + +<p>“<i>Usinuli! Usinuli!</i>” The sound of doom!</p> + +<p>“But though the lieutenant has taken the coins into his own keeping the +soldiers have seen them,” said the Indian, who seemed to evolve all +the objections for the others to combat, that the scheme might thus be +battered, as it were, into solid shape.</p> + +<p>“Only the bird that flies high sees far,” retorted Yachtino quickly. +“The flock of pigeon soldiers see nothing—they would never notice +the date of the coins—the man in command keeps his eyes open and his +thoughts awake. Besides, what are rumors among mere soldiers,—the +chatter of grasshoppers! The French gold that they have seen—what +does French gold signify? It may have been here for years for all they +know,—those years when the true emblem of the French was the white +dressed doeskin, and the British the long scalping knife. Now those +conflicts of the past are wiped out by the treaty, and its strong lying +mouth has said that our tears are dried and our wounds closed. But the +coinage of 1762—that is a far different matter! It proves a direct +breach of the treaty, and that once more we have taken the great French +Father fast by the arm and close to the shoulder. And the path is +straight no more! If the French coins of 1762 were hidden in the heart +of the officer they must be cut out!”</p> + +<p>“<i>Usinuli! Usinuli!</i>” The sound was like the beating of a muffled +drum in the ears of Callum MacIlvesty, for he realized that the life +of the officer was forfeited to the knowledge, which he alone had +acquired, of the date of the coins. Should he be permitted to reach +Charlestown, whether with or without the fatal pieces, his disclosure +of the facts would mean added punishment and renewed restrictions for +the Cherokees, already so heavily chastised, the cautious hampering of +the Indian trade, and the rupture of the terms of the land cession, +through the purchase money of which they hoped for ultimate freedom. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_236">[Pg 236]</span> +It was too plain: the officer with this knowledge in his possession +would be prevented from ever again reaching Charlestown.</p> + +<p>But how—that suspicion might impute naught to the agency of the +Indians? they asked again of one another. How could he be found +accessible and alone? How could he be secured without an attack upon +the whole party, which was not to be contemplated, since this would of +necessity involve the destruction of the proposed scheme of the cession +of land and its financial value to the Cherokee nation—possibly +resulting in the extermination of the whole people. Therefore still, +“But how?”</p> + +<p>“Already they have lost a man,”—once more the current of the common +thought flowed in words,—“this is a wild country. Many paths lead +far—far—with no return. All our little brothers—the panther, the +wolf, the wildcat—are many, many—and they none of them are the little +brothers of the white man. Should he offend the little brothers he +would hardly know how to hide from them! Then there are many wandering +Indians from the French settlements, and knowing that the great French +Father is still at war with the English king, they would rejoice to +slay a man in the British uniform. The British have already lost a man +on this expedition—they may well lose another.”</p> + +<p>Yet how to compass this that the force of the blow might have no +recoil! And once more an interval of deep and silent meditation fell +upon the group.</p> + +<p>The Cherokee spy and guide, whose sensibilities had been evidently +ruffled by the manner of the man who employed and paid him, suddenly +threw himself into an attitude mimicking Everard’s stiff military +carriage.</p> + +<p>“<i>Agiyahusa asgaya! Agiyahusa asgaya!</i>” (I have lost a man!) he +cried in Cherokee, but marred with a queer English accent. A slow +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_237">[Pg 237]</span> +smile pervaded the grim circle. “<i>Agiyahusa asgaya!</i> the Capteny +bleats this through every town. His redcoats search every house and +field.”</p> + +<p>The Ancient Warrior trembled.</p> + +<p>“‘Capteny, <i>asgaya gigagei</i>?’” (Captain, a red man?—meaning a +British redcoat.) The spy rehearsed this with an affectation of the +bated breath of extreme solicitude and a crouching mockery of his +own manner of respect. Then with a perfect reproduction of Everard’s +petulant arrogance, despite the broken English, “No, no, my good man! +I have lost no red soldier, but my plaid soldier, my tartan man, my +MacIlvesty! Five guineas reward to the man who brings him to the +guard-house before nightfall!”</p> + +<p>The officer evidently would pay roundly for the privilege of the lash. +His vengeance was indeed afire, and Callum’s cheek burned with a flame +to match. They should never take him alive he swore beneath his breath.</p> + +<p>“<i>Usinuli! Usinuli!</i>” The words swung back and forth like a +pendulum chronicling the passing of the moments; and suddenly Callum +recognized, blended with the iterative chant, the regular throb of the +hoof-beat of horses approaching along the trading-path at a fair pace.</p> + +<p>In another moment there issued from the forest a dozen of the English +soldiers all mounted, and with Lieutenant Everard riding at their head. +Beside him was Mr. Herbert Taviston, bland, smiling, perceiving in the +stir and the difficulty that beset the officer only a fine opportunity +to browse about a bit in the woods safe from Indians and panthers—the +unique advantage of botanizing with a military escort. The lieutenant’s +keen eyes, falling upon the group around the Ancient Warrior, discerned +at once in them men of station and authority, judging merely from the +expression of their countenances, for the occasion being unofficial, +they wore no insignia of rank. He at once halted his party, and called +out in his crisp, peremptory tones a request to be allowed to search +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_238">[Pg 238]</span> +the town. His guide interpreted, and as the chief, Yachtino, gravely +and ceremoniously assented, Everard thanked him curtly and turned to +admonish the corporal.</p> + +<p>“See to it that the varlets give no offense, Baker,” he said. “If the +man is taken bring him before me at once.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, the poor young man, to be sure!” exclaimed the botanist, his eyes +gloating the while upon Chilhowee Mountain; every leaf of the myriads +it flaunted, red and amber and purple and brown, he could call out of +its name with Latin equivalents as flamboyant as the foliage. “Not +found yet!”</p> + +<p>He had utterly forgotten the provocation that occasioned the arrest +and the object of the search, that it held aught more serious than +the acquisition which he had made of a certain parasitic plant, the +Indian pipe—or let us imitate Mr. Taviston and say <i>Monotropa +uniflora</i>—delicate, wax-like stems of which he now held tenderly in +his spare white fingers, not altogether devoid of similarity to that +unique growth.</p> + +<p>“I wish to God I could lay my hands on him! I can give my mind to +nothing else till I take him,” declared the officer fervently, all +unaware that as he looked casually at the effigy he was gazing straight +into the eyes of the man whom he sought, and who returned a look of +fire.</p> + +<p>It was a somewhat fluctuating scrutiny that Everard gave the scarecrow, +as he sat upon his fine bay horse, for the animal, in spirited +impatience of the detention, shifted his position continually, pawing +the ground and tossing his head, despite the rein and spur and curb. +Thus splendidly mounted, Everard presented a gallant aspect, his showy +scarlet coat, white breeches, cocked hat, and polished boots as perfect +and precise in this wilderness as if worn on parade. His fine dark +eyes and expressive features only needed in general a cast of gravity +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_239">[Pg 239]</span> +and dignity to render them imposing, and this his anger and sense of +responsibility had compassed.</p> + +<p>The Indians of the group gazed fixedly at him. They had their own +reasons, intimately associated with the louis d’ors in his pocket, to +regard him with a deep morbid curiosity—very shocking to a civilized +mind—as a living man who must soon in their interest be dead. And once +more the question stirred every brain, “But how?” The Highlander saw +his enemy resplendent in all the regalia and rank equally appropriate +to his own condition by right of descent, and remembered and repeated +in his sore consciousness every word of the foolish, half drunken, +brutal fleer of the night before. And the Indian girl, the Cherokee +Rose, still at her work hard by, unobserved in the midst of the +standing maize, hearing yet unheeding all that had been said, gazed +upon the officer with a dazzled reverence, as one might behold the +glittering martial vision of the archangel Michael.</p> + +<p>Nothing so glorious had ever blazed in her wildest dreams. All her +imaginings of the graces and glamours of the Ancient Warrior in the +charm of his youth and the heyday of his achievement paled and grew dim +and faded out of comparison with this magnificent palpitant reality. +Her hands rested petrified upon the ear of corn which she was about to +wrest from its stalk. Her eyes, dilated, fascinated, glowed upon him. +She scarcely dared to breathe, and for one moment silence encompassed +the group. The breeze only vaguely rustled through the crisp, sere +blades and stalks; the usual sounds of the town were annulled now, with +its “beloved square” vacant, its council-house still, and its women and +girls all away at their labors in the further fields. It sent up a mere +murmur that came drowsily to the ear on the perfumed suave air of this +sunlit autumnal day, for the search, orderly in its conduct, was not +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_240">[Pg 240]</span> +resisted, and made scant stir. The officer’s horse broke an interval +of almost absolute stillness when it once more lowered its head and +fretfully beat the earth with its high-stepping, impatient forefoot. +Suddenly the elderly commissioner started from his saddle with an +exclamation of bland delight.</p> + +<p>“Found, sir, found at last!”</p> + +<p>The officer’s horse executed an abrupt demivolt as its bewildered rider +looked hastily around, expectant of seeing the fugitive. The Ancient +Warrior himself crouched appalled in his flimsy disguise.</p> + +<p>The amiable Mr. Taviston went on in his address to the lieutenant. “Do +you remember last night?” he sweetly queried, while Everard mentally +asked himself would he ever forget it. “I had then the pleasure to +direct your attention to it—the <i>Nicotiana rustica</i>.”</p> + +<p>The learned man was afoot now and in the path, and it may be doubted if +a person of his quality, so dapper, so sprucely clad in his fine brown +cloth and silver buckles, ever sustained a glance so surcharged with +contempt as the look which the officer bent upon him, albeit Everard +had just had a sharp lesson touching undue intolerance, and Mr. Herbert +Taviston was of far more worshipful presence in his worldly minded wig +and cocked hat than in his intimate, reclusive, betasseled nightcap. +His trim legs were carrying him briskly into the field, and a beatific +smile of scientific satisfaction was upon his serene, smoothly shaven +cheeks and his slightly doubled chin. He paused where a row of plants +of the “old religious tobacco” had once flourished and one or two had +chanced to escape the garnering knife. Before plucking a leaf he said +with punctilious courtesy to the nearest astounded Cherokee, “May I?”</p> + +<p>The stolid Indians were obviously thrown into confusion by this +unexpected demonstration. It seemed to them that the white people, +even those of the same nationality, were infinitely various, and that +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_241">[Pg 241]</span> +there was no reasoning on the basis of the common customs and traits +of a gens. Here were two Englishmen as unlike, as far apart in every +pulse and every phase of character, as if no national tie bound them +together. The inherent courtesy of the savage aided the botanist, +however, and the nearest Indian vouchsafed a bewildered mutter of +assent. With “A thousand thanks, my dear sir—monstrous obleeged, I’m +sure,” Mr. Taviston plucked some leaves of the old religious tobacco +and still happily ambling, retraced his way to the side of the horse of +the officer, who had hardly yet recovered from the impression that the +sudden cry of discovery heralded the finding of the fugitive and the +appropriate finale of his dilemma.</p> + +<p>“Now, my dear sir,” said the botanist, holding up to the lieutenant a +few of the leaves, “let me beg that you will do me the favor to taste +these. My own tongue is still tingling with the pungency of mint, and +the discernment of my palate thereby blunted.”</p> + +<p>And once more he offered the leaves.</p> + +<p>It is possible that the officer had no fear of a probable tobacco worm +in the unwashed foliage, still lush and green, and he was also strongly +conscious of the inscrutable, attentive faces of the Indians. He had +always given orders that his men should observe caution in the presence +of the savages to show no divisions, no discourtesies, no quarrels +among themselves, thereby bringing each other into contempt or ridicule +which might be shared among the Indians, and the opportunity improved +by their machinations. Therefore, mindful of the observation of sundry +of the soldiers, he practiced his own admonition. Albeit infinitely +against his will, he thrust the leaves, possible tobacco bug and all, +between his strong white teeth, which he brought crunching down upon +them.</p> + +<p>“And how does it compare? how does it taste?” demanded the botanist, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_242">[Pg 242]</span> +smiling his soft, white shaven benevolence.</p> + +<p>“Nasty, sir, very extremely nasty,” said the disgusted lieutenant. +“And as I am not a browsing animal generally, sir, I have no other +experience of green forage with which to compare it.”</p> + +<p>As, despite his intention, some of the juice went down his throat, he +was suddenly reminded of the botanist’s laudation of the skill and +extraordinary knowledge of the Cherokees in the matter of vegetable +poisons, and felt that he was relying too implicitly upon the +scientific learning and plant identification of this gentleman, of the +justice of whose pretensions he had no means of judging. For aught he +knew the stuff might be poison. It was certainly unlike any tobacco +that he had ever seen. He at once thrust the leaves from his mouth, and +then several times spat copiously upon the ground, the action of the +saliva being stimulated by the tobacco.</p> + +<p>At that moment the corporal came up with the report that the search had +resulted fruitlessly. Everard took leave of the Indians merely with +a ceremonious bow, and the party rode hastily off, straight down the +river and once more toward Choté.</p> + +<p>For one instant the Cherokees stood silent and motionless, watching the +flying horsemen, the sun glittering on their red coats and burnished +arms. Then to Callum’s amazement an elderly Indian, with a sudden sharp +cry such as an animal might utter in seizing upon its prey, sprang +forward, dropped upon his knees in the path, and caught up the dampened +tobacco leaves and the clod of clay upon which the saliva had fallen. +Half articulate exclamations of guttural triumph rang upon the air from +the group, and Callum, glancing from one fiercely joyous illuminated +face to another, felt as if his senses were in the thrall of some +fantastically horrible nightmare. For the possession of the man’s +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_243">[Pg 243]</span> +saliva gave them, according to their savage creed, power over the man’s +life. It would end when the spell should be worked.</p> + +<p>Perhaps because of the superstitions of his native land, in which his +childhood had been deeply imbued and which his nerves still accredited, +while his mind resolutely repudiated them, Callum watched with a sort +of sickened fright the preparations for the necromancy. Far away the +laborers in the fields were working now, even the girl who had lingered +so long, and the sere stalks of the tall corn concealed the secret +ceremony of the schemers from the other denizens of the town. Only +the Ancient Warrior, who had seen so much of yore, was to behold the +calling down of the curse.</p> + +<p>Suddenly—Callum could not believe his eyes—there issued from among +the tall cornstalks the figure of a man, a familiar figure, a face +that he knew well, or was he bereft of his senses? For here was Tam +Wilson, arrayed in buckskin, fantastically beaded and fringed after +the Indian fashion, his head bare and polled like a Cherokee’s and +decorated with feathers. Yachtino, stepping hastily toward him, greeted +him in the Cherokee language, and pointed out the preparations for the +necromancy. Tam Wilson, also speaking in Cherokee, questioned minutely, +and stood for a moment gazing after the cheerataghe. Then as he turned +away—miracle of miracles!—he spoke to himself in French.</p> + +<p>“<i>Tant pis pour lui!</i>” he commented upon the working of the spell. +“<i>À bon chat, bon rat!</i>”</p> + +<p>He was gone in another moment among the corn, and Callum understood at +last the mystery of his continued presence here,—that this was the +arch-plotter whose machinations threatened the peace of the Cherokee +country.</p> + +<p>Callum was dizzy with the significance of the discovery, the thoughts +of import, that crowded upon him. Only as in a dream he beheld the +group of the scheming headmen of Chilhowee, eager, breathless, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_244">[Pg 244]</span> +expectant, standing close at hand while one of the cheerataghe, a man +with the frenzy of a fanatic in his eyes and the fury of a savage, came +slowly down the space between two rows of the corn. He was clad in +the usual buckskin garb, but draped above it was a large dressed hide +decorated with painted symbols and strange hieroglyphics. Upon his head +he wore the horns and head of a buffalo, and as Callum listened to the +incantation, delivered in a weird, chanting undertone, with frequent +interpolations of a sonorous, exclamatory “Ha!” and anon pauses of +impressive silence, he felt his blood go cold.</p> + +<p>“<i>Usuhiyi nunahi wite tsatanu usi gunesa gunage asahalagi. Tsutu +neliga.</i>” (Toward the black grave of the upland in the Darkening +Land your paths shall tend. So shall it be for you.)</p> + +<p>The increasing excitement of the moment showed in the attitude of the +other Indians, motionless, yet with an electrical energy of pose, +as if on the point of springing forward. They looked on, fiery eyed +but silent, from among the cornstalks, save that now and again an +inadvertent “Ku!” breathed out from surcharged lungs, and once Yachtino +muttered “<i>Nigagi!</i>” (This ends it!)</p> + +<p>As the magician paced along he carried in his hand, like a sceptre, +a hollow reed of the poisonous wild parsnip, filled with a paste +compounded of earthworms and the spittle-moistened clay, to be buried +at the foot of a lightning-scathed tree in the forest.</p> + +<p>“<i>Tsudantagi uskalutsiga. Sakani aduniga. Usuhita atanisseti, +ayalatsisesti tsudantagi, tsunanugaisti nigesuna. Sge!</i>”<a id="FNanchor_9" href="#Footnote_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a> (Now +your soul has faded away. It has become blue. When darkness comes your +spirit shall grow less and dwindle away, never to reappear. Listen!)</p> + +<p>The wizard had reached the gloomy shades of the dense woods, and the +terrible words of the spell came floating back on the air, dwindling +with the distance like the diminishing thread of the life which it +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_245">[Pg 245]</span> +affected to attenuate and reduce and finally cut short.</p> + +<p>Listen! not even an echo now of that weird voice! Only the river’s +song; the sound of the wind blaring about Chilhowee Mountain; the +vague, far-off tones of the “second man” still at his quips and quirks +in the field; and suddenly the shrill, callow laughter of happy +children.</p> + +<p>But for the icy drops starting on his brow Callum might have thought +he had been dreaming. Yet he stood in the burning sun, and so shivered +that had now the Cherokee Rose gazed upon the hero of her fancies, she +must have deemed the Ancient Warrior stricken with the palsy. He was +alone, however, none near to mark his lapse from the verisimilitude of +deportment. A bee came buzzing by, and crawled up and down the quaint +lines of the gourd vizard for a time, making the Highlander tremble +for a possible entrance through ear or eye spaces, but at last it took +droningly to wing. A lizard basked in the sun, as doubtless it had +done for many a day, on a stone at the feet of the scarecrow. A blue +jay, the sauciest of feathered rufflers, even alighted on the crown of +the dingy old bedraggled war-bonnet, and there preened his brilliant +blue and white plumage, and clanged his wild woodsy cry, and so off +again to the splendors of Chilhowee Mountain, gold and red above the +silver river and against the azure sky. And these wights were all the +passers-by, while Callum shivered and trembled from head to foot and +scarce could stand. He had no need of knowledge of the Indian character +to be aware that the savages would not fail to assist the workings of +the charm by non-magical powers. Everard, undoubtedly, by some crafty +device would be lured to his destruction.</p> + +<p>The tempter, ever present, did not fail to suggest thereby the solution +of Callum’s own problem: with Everard gone, his accuser had vanished. +Even the corporal supposed his incarceration was but the result of some +slight insubordination, or perhaps Everard’s own hasty and arbitrary +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_246">[Pg 246]</span> +whim while in liquor. As to the bewildered Mr. Taviston, his incoherent +impressions were hardly to be considered, so confused was he by the +sudden altercation. Thus Callum might escape the shame of the lash +that he dreaded more than death itself, and also save his own life. He +put the thought from him. He would return now willingly, willingly; he +would in this cause face aught that might menace him—and not for sheer +conscience’ sake, for at heart he loved the fop like a brother.</p> + +<p>Yet should he issue forth and return to camp, he well knew that Everard +would laugh the threat to scorn, and fancy the whole adventure feigned +to win his gratitude and save the culprit from the lash. Callum’s +invention would respond to no goading. How could he forecast and thwart +the strange, savage lure which the Indians would devise? That it would +be apt, efficient, and bold withal, on the strength of their faith in +their own necromancy, thus crediting the spell with the result of their +own efforts, he was sure. And yet strive as he might, he could not +rouse his jaded faculties to divine, to baffle, to counterplot.</p> + +<p>Some time had passed thus, when a sudden movement close at hand caused +him unthinkingly to turn his head. Fortunately the gourd vizard was +so ample as to permit the motion without stirring the mask. There +again was the Indian girl who had gazed so lovingly upon the effigy as +almost to disconcert the fair-haired Callum that it masked,—not gazing +upon him now, however. The same girl it was, he was sure, although +she passed by her ancient hero with so fickle an unconcern. But for +bewitchments! the Cherokee Rose was metamorphosed by a simple splendor +into the rarest bloom. White beads were twined in her long black hair, +where they glistered like pearls. A strand of the large, beautiful, +genuine pearls, still found in the rivers of the region, only slightly +discolored by the heated copper spindle which the Indians used to +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_247">[Pg 247]</span> +pierce them, encircled her round, roseate-tinted throat. Her dress of +fawnskin dappled with white had a belt of many rows of white beads and +a low collar or cape of swans’ feathers. Above her high white buskins +two small skins of otter fur, worn like garters, were each trimmed +with straight stiff swan’s quills that stood out horizontally, and +gave the suggestion of wings to her feet, if one were open to poetical +imagery, or a bantam-like decoration, if prosaically inclined. Her +face was turned toward the road with a wistful, fascinated expression +in her soft, liquid eyes that would have been charming to view if any +but the supplanted Ancient Warrior had beheld her. Now and again, with +an incomparably graceful, lissome gesture, she lifted one bare arm and +silently beckoned the unseen.</p> + +<p>The expectation of an approach along the path reminded Callum of the +sinister consultation of the headmen here to-day, and suddenly the +Ancient Warrior spoke.</p> + +<p>“<i>Higeya tsusdiga! Higeya tsusdiga!</i>” (Oh little woman! Oh little +woman!)</p> + +<p>Instantly she was palsied, stricken dumb. Faithfully as she had +believed in the Ancient Warrior, she had never thought to hear him +speak. Human credence has ever its reservations. She gazed wide-eyed at +the image, her lips parted, her hand on her plunging heart.</p> + +<p>Sunset was on the face of the effigy; the soft red light freshened +the effect of his tattered old war-bonnet and gilded the stalks of +the high Indian corn amidst which he stood. Whether or not Callum was +conscious of his enhanced comeliness, the awe and respect in her face +and the obvious simplicity of her mental endowment nerved the young +daredevil to venture further speech. And indeed something must needs be +risked in view of the unwelcome knowledge that had come to him and the +restrictions that hampered its use. He mustered his best Cherokee.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_248">[Pg 248]</span></p> + +<p>“Who are you waiting for, little woman?”</p> + +<p>“No Chickasaw, oh good grandfather,” she cried hastily; for one of +the best stories of the “second man” chronicled the hatred which the +Ancient Warrior had cherished against that tribe, and his valor, +which had nearly exterminated them from the face of the earth. His +sentiments were pointed by the fate of a Cherokee maiden who married a +Chickasaw and went to his tribe to dwell, and daily the Ancient Warrior +dispatched the magic messenger bird that lived among the Tuckaleechee +towns in the Cherokee country, on the banks of the Canot River, to +remind her of her home; and as the memories she could not shake off +clung about her, she finally became imprisoned in their convolutions; +and to this day she can be seen in the Chickasaw country, where they +think she is nothing but what she seems,—a tangle of grapevines!</p> + +<p>The Ancient Warrior said nothing in reply. He was making a strenuous +mental endeavor to adjust another Cherokee sentence. His silence +terrified her. His anger was full of spells, as the “second man” +well knew; an <i>ageya</i> lost her garters, for instance, and none +would ever again stay on, and thereafter she presented an appearance +painfully undecorated. The Cherokee Rose abruptly cut short the silent +linguistic toil of the Ancient Warrior by hurriedly explaining of her +own accord.</p> + +<p>“A strange British warrior, oh good grandfather,—a splendid red +captain, most beautiful and brave, who will come up the path and pass +the mountain to-night on the way to Talassee Town. The same, oh good +grandfather, that made the road bright and shining to-day. And even if +he should come after the sun has gone down, one could never miss the +light of the day, but could see him yet ride his horse along the river +bank. For he is like the sun in splendid red, and his hair shines with +a white glister, and the look in his eyes warms the heart.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_249">[Pg 249]</span></p> + +<p>The Ancient Warrior marked how the mental image she had summoned +up diverted her attention from him, for the fascination of the +supernatural had waned as she spoke, and she turned half away from the +effigy, which she had once so reverenced, to gaze along the curving +westward path for the vision of her anticipation. The Ancient Warrior, +all sullen and serious, gazed calculatingly and doubtfully at her.</p> + +<p>The ranges were purpling along the perspectives of the background; +the forests of Chilhowee Mountain flamed gorgeously gold and red in +the middle distance; the sky above was all radiant with a uniform +amber tint. As she stood amidst the sun-suffused Indian corn, the +sere hues of which so harmonized with the deeper shade of her garb of +white-dappled fawnskin, and the dense white of the swan’s feathers +about her shoulders, she looked as might some primeval ideal of the +mystic harvest moon. Half mechanically she still beckoned, as if thus +she might bring the sun of her fancy to meet her upon the horizon line.</p> + +<p>“<i>Ha, Capteny Gigagei!</i>” she cried. “<i>Usinuliyu! Usinuliyu!</i>” +(Oh great red captain! Haste! Haste!)</p> + +<p>The Ancient Warrior suddenly spoke sternly. “<i>Higeya, hatu +ganiga!</i>” (You, woman, come and listen to me!)</p> + +<p>Once more with that unquestioning subjection to the superstitions of +the cult in which she had been reared,—oh wily second man!—she turned +submissively toward the Ancient Warrior, albeit her docile obedience +might cost her eyes the first resplendent glimpse of the Capteny +Gigagei, riding his gallant war-horse straight out of the red west +and the illumined amethystine mountains, whither that humbler scarlet +splendor, the god of day, was now slowly disappearing. She lifted her +appealing child-like eyes to the gourd vizard of the young Highlander, +and well it was that he wore this impassive mask, for his own face +was pallid with exhaustion from a sleepless night and the exertion of +standing all day without food, drawn with the stress of much anxiety, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_250">[Pg 250]</span> +and lined with the many perplexities of his thoughts. The gourd face, +however, acquiring naught by propinquity, looked as it always did, +as its Indian draughtsman intended that it should,—arrogant, surly, +threatening, and very majestic.</p> + +<p>“Oh good grandfather!” she faltered.</p> + +<p>“<i>Higeya tsusdiga</i> (Oh little woman), how do you know he comes?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, he comes, he comes without doubt!—the headmen said late, but I +hoped early, so that I might see him as he rides his splendid horse +along the river bank. The headmen know he comes; they are ready for +him; he will be received at the house of the chief of Talassee. He +comes because a wicked man—one of his own soldiers—has fled, has +deserted the great red Capteny, and is in hiding at Talassee Town, +and the headmen have sent him the message that he may come and take +him with his own hand, lest the plaid soldiers, the comrades of the +runagate, wreak vengeance on Talassee, should the town deliver him +up to penance. The headmen have only <i>secretly</i> sent messages +where the fugitive can be found. Oh good grandfather, the Capteny +comes, he comes! To-night he will abide at the house of the chief of +Talassee, where a great feast is made in his honor, and the braves +will dance the eagle-tail dance, and then the young girls will dance +in three circles with the braves, and I, too, I am to dance. And +there will be good store of wine at the feast (lowering her voice +mysteriously)—<i>French</i> wine, oh good grandfather, but surely the +Capteny Gigagei cannot taste its <i>French-ness</i>! And to-morrow the +army of the commissioners will start back to the Carolina country and +overtake the great red Capteny at Talassee, and he will march at the +head like the king of his tribe.”</p> + +<p>The heart of the Ancient Warrior turned cold and seemed to cease to +beat. The ingenious scheme was thus unwittingly outlined before +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_251">[Pg 251]</span> +him. He knew that the thought of personal danger would never occur +to Everard as the result of the French coins in his keeping and his +knowledge of their significance, since any personal violence offered +to a man of his note would result in instant discovery and speedy +vengeance. From the beginning of the negotiations there had been more +or less interchange of friendly courtesies and mutual hospitalities +between the Cherokee headmen, the commissioners, and the commander of +the military force. Although Everard kept the rank and file close in +camp, in view of the disastrous possibility of clashing between the +boisterous young soldiers and the “mad young men” of the tribe, he +himself went about the country freely enough. He would not hesitate, +Callum was sure, to leave his orders with the first sergeant for the +march of the troops on the following day, and accompanied by a single +orderly, or perhaps by only the Cherokee guide, proceed to the tryst of +the headmen, where he would expect to capture the runaway Highlander, +and rejoin the escort when its vanguard should come in sight from +beyond Chilhowee Mountain.</p> + +<p>No prophet need one be to foretell how the lines would straggle past; +how the sergeant in command would hourly expect his superior for a +while; then being without orders to halt would proceed for a day or so, +Everard’s lingering stay being of course within his own discretion. And +at last anxiety would develop, increase to troublous forecast, to panic +fear; a halt would be called, a detachment sent back, to find—nothing! +A mysterious disappearance,—some crafty, subtle, convincing story to +account for it innocuously. Callum did not dream what this could be; +only afterward its details were made clear to him by another, more +discerning.</p> + +<p>What fate? he speculated—the river? No. The first sergeant, quailing +under his awful responsibility, would drag it for miles and miles in +search of the body. The stake?—a handful of ashes could tell no +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_252">[Pg 252]</span> +tale. Surely the magic compound of earthworms and spittle-moistened +clay, mysteriously potent, buried at the foot of the lightning-scathed +tree, might spare room for the sepulture of so trifling a residuum of +all that gay spirit exhaled in smoke. Perhaps a more stealthy method +still—Everard might be drugged into quick insensibility by some +mysterious poison mixed with the French wine, and buried forever out of +sight somewhere in the infinities of the illimitable wilderness.</p> + +<p>The Ancient Warrior trembled till the pole which aided to support him +shook in the ground.</p> + +<p>One by one the schemes of possible rescue of his erstwhile friend and +his present enemy, and above all and before all his commanding officer, +fell to shreds as he sought to hold up the fabric in contemplation of +its feasibility. He said again that he would surrender himself now most +willingly; he would resign himself to any punishment rather than this +disaster, this treachery, this cowardly massacre, should ensue. But how +would surrender now avail? He could not regain the camp without the +danger of passing Everard, coming hither on another path. He resolved +that as soon as the first beat of the horse’s hoofs should herald an +approach he would rush out from his hiding-place, seize the officer’s +bridle, and compel him to listen.</p> + +<p>Alack, the sun was already down; the dun shadows were on the land; far +away the dim stretch of the sere cornfields held all the fading light +between the slate-hued clouds, coming up from the south over the Great +Smoky Mountains, and the deep purple ranges that loomed close about +and limited the horizon. A dark night was at hand, without a star. How +should he distinguish the hoof-beat of one horse from another? Everard +might well pass without a word.</p> + +<p>As thus the difficulties of the situation baffled his flagging +invention, the Ancient Warrior unwittingly lifted his hands and wrung +them together in the hard stress of his contending emotions. His +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_253">[Pg 253]</span> +grotesque vizard was upturned appealingly to the darkening sky, and he +uttered a deep sigh.</p> + +<p>The Cherokee girl, with a sudden look of appalled discernment on her +face, stepped back abruptly in affright, then stood in the shadows of +the denser stalks of corn, all writhen and twisted about her, and gazed +through the deepening dusk at the effigy.</p> + +<p>In this crisis, this emotional revulsion of loyalty to his officer and +affection to his friend, Callum would not have grudged the sacrifice +had he rushed out blindly in the night and by mischance revealed +himself to Indian horsemen and certain capture, if it would not also +entail the success of their treachery in decoying Everard to his death.</p> + +<p>“Eh, gude God—he maunna come—he maunna ride at a’ the nicht,” he said +aloud in a strained, poignant voice, all oblivious of the Indian girl, +who still stood hidden in the dusk and the tall stalks of the maize, +and silently, breathlessly, stared.</p> + +<p>Much accomplished as she had known the Ancient Warrior to be, not even +his vaunting biographer, the “second man,” had ever claimed that he +spoke English.</p> + +<p>The poor Ancient Warrior! His head drooped quite low, despite the +arrogance of the expression of his vizard. There was something in +his eyes that scalded them, for the Highlander was still very young, +and had been gently reared in a household of sisters; and his great +proficiency in the use of the broadsword, which made him so valued +a soldier, was superimposed upon simple, tender-hearted, ingleside +habitudes. In fact he must needs slip a hand up under his roomy vizard +to wipe off the very genuine tears which were burning his cheek—not +that he acknowledged these tears, no, not even to himself.</p> + +<p>“Hegh, sirs,” he exclaimed, “this singeing reek is fair blindin’ me!”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_254">[Pg 254]</span></p> + +<p>As he spoke a new thought struck him. He lifted his head once more and +snuffed the odor of the distant burning woods.</p> + +<p>It was dark now, quite dark. The color of the cloud and the mountain +had blended indissolubly in densest invisibility. Not a star was alight +in the sky. Only to one standing in the cornfield, hardly a yard away, +and with a discernment keenly whetted by previous sight and accurate +knowledge of the surrounding objects, could aught have been perceptible +as Callum straightened himself, and turning, looked carefully around +him.</p> + +<p>“The bit lassock ha’ flitted awa’,” he said, quite satisfied.</p> + +<p>But close at hand, still screened by the darkness and the tangled +growth, she watched the Ancient Warrior fling his vizard into the peas, +strip off his buckskin shirt and leggings, and emerge in the kilt +and plaid of one of the Highlanders of the escort. With the quick, +keen wits of her race she made no doubt that here was the wicked +renegade who had incurred the displeasure of the splendid red sun-god +of a captain, and who was falsely reputed to be lurking in hiding at +Talassee.</p> + +<p>Callum, without a moment’s hesitation, struck off in a long, rapid +stride through the corn. Silently, stealthily, she followed him—not +like a shadow, for not even a shadow could follow thus through the +densities of that dark night.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_255">[Pg 255]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="XIII">XIII</h2> +</div> + + +<p>AT camp an unusual activity had characterized the closing hours of +the afternoon. It was the eve of the day fixed for the departure of +the commissioners and their escort. The official business had been +concluded. The survey of the land to be ceded was completed. The +last feigning objections on the part of the Cherokee headmen and +the final devious doubtings of the commissioners had been merged in +mutual concession and compliant acquiescence. The gifts brought to +propitiate the Indians had been presented and graciously accepted, and +the official farewell taken with much smoking of the friend-pipe and +saltatory agilities of the eagle-tail dance.</p> + +<p>That no unforeseen mischance might hamper the early start, Everard, +with military prevision, had caused every preparation to be so +completed as to leave as little as possible to be done on the morrow. +The pack-horses had been ranged in due order and tethered, and had but +to be loaded, the fardels of the pack saddles being already made up and +strapped on; the travel rations for several days had been issued to the +men; the personal luggage of the commissioners was also ready, owing +to the repeated insistence of Everard; the final orders had been given +the first sergeant, left in command in his stead till he should join +the line of march at Talassee. He himself in his tent, with hardly a +hand’s turn left to be done, was on the point of setting out to ride to +Talassee Town with his Cherokee guide to capture Callum MacIlvesty.</p> + +<p>The Indians had made a mystery of their information. They had first +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_256">[Pg 256]</span> +sworn Everard to secrecy and then held back as if to disappoint +him finally. They affected fear of the Highland contingent. Oh, +the plaid-men were very terrible warriors! Were the horrors of +Montgomerie’s campaign and the slaughter and the fire-raising of Grant +ever to be forgotten? And since the Cherokees did all in love for +the great red Capteny, it would not be wise or kind of him to allow +the wrath of the plaid-men, for the surrender of their brother, to +fall on Talassee Town, which the Highlanders might sack or burn—well +remembered were their sackings and burnings!—as they marched through +on the morrow upon the peaceful trading-path, which was now so white +and bright from end to end. If the great red Capteny did not wish this +path to be stained with the blood of the Indians, and perhaps of the +plaid-men also, it would be well if he came to Talassee Town himself. +There he might meet his tartan renegade as if by chance, and take him +with his own hand.</p> + +<p>Everard was troubled beyond expression by MacIlvesty’s continued +absence; first, because of a genuine and humane fear that he would +suffer a horrible death at the hands of the treacherous Indians, +especially as the imminent departure of the troops could not be +postponed on the desperate hope of a still further search for the +willful runagate, and Callum would necessarily be left alone and +at their mercy in the savage wilds. Nevertheless, the anger of the +officer burned with great rancor. He believed that he would not have +suffered the least pity had a court-martial gone the extreme length +of sentencing MacIlvesty to be shot. That he should be brought to the +degradation of the lash seemed to the lieutenant most meet and fitting +whenever he felt the smart of that scarlet diagonal line, beginning +to turn slightly blue, across his cheek. Punishment MacIlvesty had +richly deserved, but the accident of torture by savages could not be +accounted retribution for the crime of striking his officer. Nor could +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_257">[Pg 257]</span> +Everard, as his officer, feel justified in abandoning the Highlander +to such a fate except at the last extremity, although he would not +have regretted the righteous exaction of every pang of the penalty to +which a court-martial might sentence the culprit. Therefore, impatient +of the mysterious locutions and doubts, and alternate promises and +withdrawals, by which the Cherokees sought to magnify the importance +of their disclosure, Everard took no heed of personal prudence and +was ready to put foot in the stirrup when suddenly there appeared at +the flap of his tent one of the commissioners, fresh from an outing, +clad in a long and dapper riding “Joseph,” his head cowled with a +comfortable “trot cosy,” a suave smile upon his lips, and a bland “May +I?” upon his tongue.</p> + +<p>Everard in another moment had cause to curse his folly that he did not +refuse the commissioner entrance; but he imputed much importance to a +request which he anticipated, and therefore seated himself upon a stump +of a tree, which had been sawed off smoothly to serve as a table, and +resigned the single camp stool to the guest.</p> + +<p>“The <i>Magnolia auriculata</i>,” Mr. Taviston said with a sigh of +pleasure, “the most pompous beauty of the forest.”</p> + +<p>He held forth a leaf of a tree, which a greater botanist has since +rapturously described as “superbly crowned or crested with the fragrant +flower representing a white plume, succeeded by a very large crimson +cone or strobile.”</p> + +<p>The officer gazed at it with uninterested and unrecognizing eyes. The +only magnolia which he could identify was the growth which we call +<i>grandiflora</i>, and which he had seen farther south.</p> + +<p>“I have spent the day among the magnolias,” said the botanist, smiling +consciously and with a sort of gloating reminiscence, as if Daphne +herself had entertained him in the boskiest bowers. “And here,” +presenting a gigantic leaf, “is the <i>Magnolia tripetala</i>—and +this, the <i>Magnolia pyramidata—foliis ovatis, oblongis, acuminatis, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_258">[Pg 258]</span> +basi auriculatis, strobilo oblongo ovato.</i>”</p> + +<p>“Good God, sir!” the petulant officer interposed, hastily rising in +desperation. “I cry you mercy! My duties”—he hesitated, then stopped +short.</p> + +<p>For the trip must needs seem of his own choosing,—to attend a feast +made in his honor by the Cherokees because of his seeming interest in +Indian life and ceremonial. The thought of the postponement of his +ride and its important object greatly perturbed him. He had hoped +to avoid delay by admitting his tormentor. Twice, nay thrice, after +the botanist’s baggage had been consigned to the locality where the +pack-train was to be loaded had the quartermaster sergeant, who +officiated as chief of transportation, reported to the commanding +officer various vexatious requests of the worshipful Herbert Taviston +to be allowed another deposit therein of trophies of bark and leaves, +and, for aught I know, caterpillars and beetles,—natural specimens, +which he did not hesitate in the interests of science to insert amongst +his immaculate and high-minded toggery. The lieutenant, anticipating +the renewal of such requests, had intended to peremptorily refuse +another overhauling of the baggage, because of the confusion entailed +upon the somnolent and orderly camp, and possible delay on the morrow. +Hence he was thrown out of his calculations, and flushed and bit his +lip with vexation. Nevertheless he could not rid himself perfunctorily +of the presence of his unwelcome visitor by the plea of the pressure of +official duties. The preparations for the morrow’s march were obviously +complete, the camp asleep; moreover, his spurs jingled at his heels +and his horse pawed at the door of the tent. The pretext of his own +diversion was necessary to protect or satisfy his Cherokee informants +and to furnish a reason for his quitting the camp. He looked with +sudden hopefulness at Mr. Taviston, who also rose, but the motion was +merely mechanical, without a parting instinct. The smile yet resting +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_259">[Pg 259]</span> +upon the botanist’s face was inattentive, undiscerning. The officer was +a natural specimen the study of which did not allure him in the least. +He scarcely listened to the lieutenant’s words, so absorbed was he in +the subject.</p> + +<p>“The soil of this region is rich, sir, incredibly rich for mountain +slopes. This redundant example of the <i>Magnolia acuminata</i>, sir, +hangs positively over a precipice, craggy steeps, imposing and horrid. +If you would but give yourself the trouble to step with me to the door, +I could point out to you, even in the darkness, the height of the +location where I found it,—an altitude of fully two thousand feet. The +precipice is distinctly imposed upon the sky against the constellation +Perseus, which must be well risen now if the clouds—ah—ah—ah!”</p> + +<p>The officer, moving alertly toward the door, following his guest in +the hope of ultimate release outside, had held up the flap that the +botanist might emerge, and frowned heavily as he heard Mr. Taviston’s +voice rising into a quavering exclamation of surprise.</p> + +<p>“What cracker next!” Everard cried impatiently.</p> + +<p>In a moment the words died upon his lips, and he stood staring out into +the night, half dazed with his sudden revulsion of feeling and the +extraordinary sight that met his eyes.</p> + +<p>For the woods of Chilhowee Mountain were not invisible in the purple +night and under the black cloud, but splendidly agleam in the shadows. +All red and gold they showed, and wreathed about with scroll-like +involutions of blue smoke. Volleying here and there at wide intervals +were jets of flame, vivid white, tinged with red at the verges. Now and +then strange meteors flew through the dense forests in airy arabesques, +lace-like in their tenuity, where the blazes caught at sparse series +of dead leaves still hanging sere and dry in wind-denuded areas. The +ranges in the distance were suddenly evoked from the darkness and +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_260">[Pg 260]</span> +stood as in a trance, motionless. Further still, in the ultimate scope +of vision, vague, illusory suggestions of mountain forms continually +trembled and flickered as the flames rose and fell. The fire was fierce +and furious along the lower reaches of Chilhowee where the trading-path +crossed, for much light wood of undergrowth was among the great +trees, and the elastic blazes that could only leap hound-like about +the huge boles, as if seeking to seize their prey in the branches, +easily enveloped the slender saplings, which now and again sent forth +cracklings as of a sudden volley of musketry. All the black cloud above +looked down in sullen dismay at the aghast earth, thus roused out of +the abyss of darkness and night, with a strange, unnatural aspect upon +the familiar contours of the landscape.</p> + +<p>The Cherokee towns along the river were all astir. Here and there upon +the banks flitted scantily clad Indian figures, gazing at the mountain +and speculating upon the mystery of the ignition of the woods; for the +Chilhowee Mountain is many miles in length, and it would seem that +some region nearer to the distant burning forests, unseen and far to +the north, must have been first fired. Although because of the recent +drought the woods were dry, they would never have burned without +extraneous kindling.</p> + +<p>Everard had turned instinctively to his horse, with the intention of +riding forth to investigate. His Cherokee guide checked him.</p> + +<p>“No can ride to Talassee—no can cross mountain fire—fire—all fire!”</p> + +<p>The amazement, the dismay, and something more—the deep, cogitating +speculation on the man’s face—fixed Everard’s attention. The light of +the burning scene was full upon it, glimmering upon the feathers on the +top of the Indian’s head as he bent forward to gaze, but the shadow +annulled the rest of his body, and his aspect in the weird effects of +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_261">[Pg 261]</span> +the flicker was as if he had been decapitated. When Everard next turned +to speak to him the man had disappeared. Inquiry revealed the fact +that he had quitted the camp. For the first time Everard experienced a +sudden doubt of him. What significance did he perceive in the fire? And +why should he look so downcast, so defeated, so despairing—as at the +end?</p> + +<p>The camp had been roused by the crackle and roar of the flames and the +wide, blaring illumination, as if the world were afire. The officer +doubled the camp guard by way of precaution against any disturbance, +lest the kindling of this conflagration be attributed to the agency of +the soldiers as a bit of bravado on their part, and rouse the wrath of +the Indians to reprisal. Then he went back into his tent and sat down +on the camp stool beside the table, rudely fashioned of the stump of a +great tree, and tried to think out some new solution of the problem of +the capture of MacIlvesty. The candle was still burning with a timid, +white, pearly lustre, all pallid and dim against the great yellow +flare outside, which showed through the translucent canvas walls. The +gigantic leaves of the <i>Magnolia tripetala</i> still lay on the +improvised table, and he had his elbows among them and his head in his +hands, when suddenly he was aware of the corporal of the guard standing +and saluting in the doorway.</p> + +<p>“Ready with some new foolery?” Everard demanded tartly.</p> + +<p>“Yes, sir,” the corporal replied with anxious deprecation. “Here’s a +messenger, sir. I can’t make out who she comes from. But she seemed +possessed to get a word with you, sir. She was so excited and hasty +that, though I had no orders, I was afraid of letting important news +slip if I sent her away.”</p> + +<p>“What’s her name?” demanded Everard, in frowning haste. The moments at +this crisis were important.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_262">[Pg 262]</span></p> + +<p>“I don’t know the Injun lingo, sir, but they call her the ‘Cherokee +Rose.’”</p> + +<p>“Then hale her off!” cried Everard, bringing his hand down on the +table with a force that made the candle jump in its socket. “I want +no rosaceous specimens here, native or foreign. No—<i>the Cherokee +Rose</i>—I have done with botany forever, I swear!” He spoke as if +he had given many years of unrequited and fruitless study to that +ungrateful science. “Send the baggage about her business! <i>The +Cherokee Rose</i>, forsooth!” he repeated fleeringly.</p> + +<p>He turned suddenly, hearing a slight scuffle without, and the next +moment the flap of his tent was drawn back and the girl stood in the +doorway, the flaming night behind her, and all her amber and white +attire showing in soft splendor and full detail in the refined, +subdued, pearly light of the single candle. The discomfited corporal, +who had sought to detain her by as much force as he dared to exert, +was vaguely glimpsed in the background, sullenly resigning himself to +wait to conduct her out of camp, as he saw that Everard had a mind now +to give her an audience. Her first words had arrested the lieutenant’s +attention. He could not have constructed the sentences that issued from +her trembling scarlet lips, but the sound of the Cherokee language had +grown familiar in many weeks’ sojourn here, and he understood its drift +and made shift to reply.</p> + +<p>“I have found your plaid-man,” she cried. “Oh, the wicked one!” casting +up her liquid eyes in aspiration. “Cut off his head! Cut it off clean!”</p> + +<p>“But where? when was he found?” Everard exclaimed eagerly.</p> + +<p>“Oh, now you have lent your ear to listen!” she cried triumphantly. She +glanced warily over her shoulder to make sure that the corporal had not +also lent his ear for the same purpose. Then leaning forward, the flap +of the tent still in one hand, her finger now and again cautiously +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_263">[Pg 263]</span> +laid on her lips, she detailed the strange metamorphosis of the Ancient +Warrior into a Highland soldier which she had witnessed, and every word +that he had said she repeated in English as she had heard it, with a +faithful duplication of accent and gesture.</p> + +<p>“You were to come to Talassee, and he would not let you,—you the great +red Capteny, and he the dust of the earth!—where a feast was made +for you, and the headmen waited, and many young and beautiful were to +dance, and I was to dance. See!—was I not to dance?”</p> + +<p>Her anklets of white beads jingled in unison as she moved her slender +restless feet in their buskins of fine white dressed doeskin.</p> + +<p>“And he wept—the plaid-man! and cried for the French gold! and said, +‘He maunna ride at a’ the nicht! He maunna ride—he maunna gang to +Talassee wi’ the French gowd o’ saxty-twa! Ohonari! Ohonari! He maunna +ride at a’ the nicht.’ And then this plaid-man he sobbed much, and +straightway said to himself that the smoke of far-away burning woods +hurt his eyes—when it is because he is a squaw-man that he sheds +tears, and is no great red Capteny and soldier. And does he not wear a +petticoat every day of his life, like the woman that he is? <i>He sheds +tears!</i> And then he crept out, saying all the time, ‘Oh, gude God, +he maunna ride to Talassee—he maunna ride at a’ the nicht!’ And I, all +unseen, followed him like his shadow, like his soul, through the night +to the foot of the mountain where the trading-path skirts Chilhowee, +and there he struck a flint and set the dry leaves afire, and then with +a lighted torch he ran—ran like a deer—firing the woods here, there, +everywhere! Two Indians, coming from a hunt, saw him, but he gave them +the slip. And the headmen are having the woods scoured for him. And +I—I lost him in the night—for he ran very fast!”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_264">[Pg 264]</span></p> + +<p>As he stood listening Everard more than once changed color, and finally +sat down, looking very grave.</p> + +<p>The girl with only a momentary pause recommenced: “And then I knew that +you could not go to Talassee through the fiery woods, although the +feast was made, and the headmen waited, and many were to dance, and I, +too, was to dance, because that creature, in his plaid petticoat, said +you had his French gold. Was it his, forsooth? I do not understand! +And I lost him, but I went back from the mountain to Chilhowee Town, +and there—oh, joy!—there he stood once more in the likeness of the +Ancient Warrior,—who must be very wroth, if there ever was any Ancient +Warrior,—in his hunting-shirt and war-crown. And softly, very softly, +like the mist slipping down the mountain-side I crept away here, and +left him there, that the great red Capteny may descend upon him, and +capture him, and wreak vengeance upon him, and break his great ugly +bones, and give his woman’s petticoat to the dogs to tear!”</p> + +<p>“And is he there yet?” demanded Everard eagerly. “Is he unaware that he +is discovered?”</p> + +<p>Her animated diction had left her breathless and speechless. She could +only bow her head in assent, her lustrous eyes still fiery, her lips +trembling with her panting breath.</p> + +<p>Everard sprang up, tense and alert, keen and quick to see his error.</p> + +<p>“You shall have the French gold as a reward for your story if I find my +tartan man as you say at Chilhowee. Say nothing to any one till I send +you the French gold by the hand of Yachtino, the chief of Chilhowee,” +he said, hoping that thus the headmen might think that he had failed to +notice the significant date of the coinage of the louis d’ors, since +he parted so lightly from them. Thus he would avoid further dangerous +machinations, for of course the pieces were not themselves essential to +the validity of his report.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_265">[Pg 265]</span></p> + +<p>He was calling out hasty orders to the corporal in the pauses of his +sentences to her, and in the next few moments he rode out of the camp +at the head of a dozen mounted infantry-men, their red coats and +burnished accoutrements showing in the flames still rioting along the +mountain-side.</p> + +<p>A sense of dawn was presently in the air,—the vague, undiscriminated, +indescribable perception of the awakening of nature. It was not night, +let the darkness gloom as it might. It was not night, let the light +delay as it would. It was a new day, and every nerve acclaimed the +fact with a revival of power. Everard met this new day in emerging +from the forests near Chilhowee Town. The flames were dying out upon +the mountain. A thin rain was falling, and misty moisture enveloped +the higher slopes, where nevertheless here and there a pennant of fire +waved through dull gray involutions of vapor. The smell of charred +timber was rife on the air. The slate-tinted sky, the darkly looming +purple mountains of the distance, the black, fire-swept steeps closer +at hand, the Indian town as yet silent and still, the long, level +stretches of the pallid, sere cornfields dimly striped with fine lines +of the misting rain,—all were visible in the dull gray light as the +party halted on the verge of the woods. Everard dismounted and went +forth alone into the cornfields.</p> + +<p>Callum MacIlvesty, facing in the opposite direction, heard naught, +and saw naught but the dreary fire-smirched scene before him and the +rain slowly descending with a steadiness which promised to make a day +of it. He was too exhausted to think, to scheme further. He only knew +that his ruse had succeeded; that Everard had not been decoyed to a +terrible death; that the commissioners and their military escort would +march to-day. But when he sought to forecast how he would fare, left +alone and helpless in the country of the savage Cherokees, the puzzling +problem so baffled his tired brain—without food, as he was, aching +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_266">[Pg 266]</span> +in every muscle, and drenched to the very bones by the persistent +rain—that he would fall asleep, still standing half supported by the +pole, his war-bonnet and gourd head nodding after a fashion which must +have revealed the sham that he was, had any discerning Indian chanced +to pass that way. He dreamed strange things in these meagre snatches +of sleep,—so strange that he thought he was still dreaming when, +recovering his balance with a start and lifting his heavy eyelids, he +saw Lieutenant Everard striding across the wet cornfield and heard his +friendly voice calling, “Callum Bane! Callum Bane!” as of yore.</p> + +<p>Callum’s heart plunged and then stood still, as he perceived the +reality of his impressions. Before he could decide upon his course the +voice sounded anew, with a queer tremor in it:—</p> + +<p>“For God’s sake, Callum Bane, don’t hide from me! I wouldn’t hurt a +hair of your head for all the Cherokee country!”</p> + +<p>In his rough, young-man fashion Everard had begun to tear off the +Ancient Warrior’s war-bonnet and gourd vizard and hunting-shirt that, +long subject to the weather’s hard usage, had grown ragged and rent +with the climbing in and out of it by the stalwart Highlander, and +before the transformation was complete the story of each was elicited. +As they faced each other, Callum, conscience-stricken at the enormity +of his offense and overwhelmed by the magnanimity of his friend, albeit +debtor for his life, in forgiving him, suddenly burst into tears, +exclaiming, “Ohon! Ohon! I wish you would kill me!” and cast himself, +in all his smoke-grimed, rain-soaked tartans, into the arms of the +smart officer.</p> + +<p>Everard chose to consider the blow as delivered under the extremity +of provocation and in the quality of friend over a convivial bowl, +and therefore his own personal affair. He was willing to risk the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_267">[Pg 267]</span> +carping comment of his mess, should it ever come to their knowledge +that he had received this insult without requital from a man who had +saved his life with so much forethought and ingenuity, and danger to +his own,—a man who deemed he would have profited immeasurably by the +officer’s destruction, thus escaping the death which menaced him, or an +ignominious punishment more terrible to him than death itself.</p> + +<p>Everard, however, with his larger experience of life and wider outlook, +saw the plot differently, perfectly rounded and in its entirety. He +knew that the Cherokees would not dare to lure him to Talassee had they +not some innocuous device by which to account for his disappearance +thence. Their subtle intelligence had doubtless seized upon the +fortuitous escape of the Highlander from custody as a thread to work +into their web. For it was most natural that to this man, who had +offended the officer and had cause to fear him, should be attributed +his murder and consequent disappearance. The Highlander himself, easily +found, seized, and destroyed after the departure of the troops from the +country, could gainsay naught.</p> + +<p>The lieutenant’s military conscience, however, would not permit +him to forgive so easily the escape from the guard-house and the +lurking in hiding, these being notorious offenses of evil example +and to the prejudice of good order and discipline. For not even the +corporal who had had the custody of the prisoner knew that Callum had +struck the officer, and the only witness, Mr. Taviston, had utterly +forgotten the blow as a matter of no consequence,—being frantic with +excitement concerning a new species of <i>Stuartia</i>, here found and +at that time unknown to any catalogue, but since called <i>Stuartia +montana</i>. The corporal and the other soldiers supposed only that +Callum had become intoxicated in the society of his superiors and had +drunkenly and foolishly contrived a troublesome escape from custody. +For this breach of discipline, Callum was destined to undergo in due +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_268">[Pg 268]</span> +time extra guard duty.</p> + +<p>Everard was explaining this to him as being a part of his military +obligations and not to gratify a personal grudge. “You are still under +arrest, you know, Callum Bane!” Everard reminded him.</p> + +<p>“I care na, I care na—onything ye will! Only I maun hae a word wi’ ye +the noo, lad.”</p> + +<p>This word, albeit he was faint from fatigue, both ahungered and +athirst, cold and shivering, having been drenched for hours with the +keen chill rain, Callum so clamored to be allowed to speak that Everard +could not constrain him to wait till after he should have been fed and +warmed and clad anew.</p> + +<p>“Na, na!” Callum persisted, waving away the flask which the officer +pressed upon him, but still clutching his friendly hand, “if I tak +but ae sup ye wad say I am drunk when ye hear what I hae to tell ye!” +He paused for a moment to add weight to his words. “I hae seen that +Frenchman wha hae made sic clavers an’ turmoil amang the Cherokees.”</p> + +<p>“Where? when?” Everard asked breathlessly, his face suddenly grave.</p> + +<p>Callum pointed down at the Ancient Warrior lying at his feet in all +the dreary dislocations of disillusionment,—the tattered, befringed +garments, the quaintly painted gourd head, with its ghastly effect of +decapitation, its glorious war-bonnet bedraggled and forlorn. “When I +was that daft gomeril,—that big Injun,” he replied.</p> + +<p>“A white man?”</p> + +<p>Callum nodded and leaned against the officer. He could hardly stand. He +felt too weak almost to speak, unless indeed he must.</p> + +<p>“A Frenchman, Callum Bane?” Everard asked again, vaguely incredulous. +“How did you know he was French?”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_269">[Pg 269]</span></p> + +<p>“By the lingo, man!” said Callum impatiently.</p> + +<p>“Did he speak to you?” demanded Everard, looking keenly into the +Highlander’s pale face, all wet and shining with the rain.</p> + +<p>In the mists on one side were vaguely glimpsed the tall cornstalks +of the far-stretching fields, all writhen and bent by the wind, and +with the gleams of sleet on their sere, pallid blades, but despite +their motion he was aware that among them there were other tall, +befringed, betasseled figures not dissimilar, something too distant for +recognition, where doubtless the ever wily Indians were watching the +conference. At the edge of the woods on the other side of the clearing +stood the mounted detail of English soldiers, the glimmer of the sad +gray day flashing back with a live, alert glitter from the burnished +steel of their arms and their scarlet coats, all quick to note the +fraternal, familiar attitude of the officer and soldier, and internally +to comment on this condescension, which had already resulted in a +breach of discipline and threatened continued insubordination.</p> + +<p>“Did the Frenchy speak to me? Na! I was that big Injun, I tell ye!” +pointing at the prideful gourd face now staring up at them from among +the straw. “Na! nane minted a word at me, except yon <i>ageya</i>,—the +Injun lass ye know,—an’ she ca’ me ‘Gude-sire!’ <i>Gude-sire!</i>” +Callum laughed dreamily, then suddenly put his hand up to his head, in +the effort to recall the importance of the disclosure.</p> + +<p>“A nip of brandy now, Callum,”—the officer pressed the flask, eager +for the detail,—“and then you’ll remember.”</p> + +<p>“I winna taste it,” Callum rejoined sternly, “for then ye’ll say I was +drunk an’ telled ye but idle clavers. What’s your wull?” he added, as +if bewildered.</p> + +<p>“How do you know the man is French?” demanded Everard.</p> + +<p>“He spoke in French,” replied Callum.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_270">[Pg 270]</span></p> + +<p>“To the Indians?”</p> + +<p>“He spoke in Cherokee to the Injuns, and then to himsel’ in French,” +responded Callum definitely.</p> + +<p>Everard was silent for a moment. Important interests of the government, +the peace of the colonies, the policy of the cession of land, the +possible permanent repulse of the French, and on the other hand the +triumphant enormous extension of the French empire in America hung +upon this slight incident. Therefore to make sure, to prevent the +possibility of deception or mistake, he asked, thinking the words that +Callum had heard might have other signification, “What did he say, +Callum? What did he say to himself?”</p> + +<p>“<i>Tong pee per lee. A bong char bong rar</i>,” Callum solemnly +repeated.</p> + +<p>Everard burst out laughing hysterically. He was convinced. He was all +tremulous at the momentous discovery that it had chanced to one of his +command to make, eager, nay frenzied, to take instant advantage of it; +yet the accent of the solemn Highlander, to which the French of the +Stratford-atte-Bowe variety would have had an eminently Gallic tang, +outmastered his risibles, and he laughed with that curious duality of +entity when he was never so serious before in his life.</p> + +<p>The first duty, however, in putting into execution the plan which had +instantly shaped itself in his mind, with a dozen variant details, +was to take such order with the Highland soldier as should restore +him to his normal mental and physical fitness. He shouted for aid to +the soldiers, and presently Callum, mounted on a horse behind one of +them,—for he was in no condition to guide the animal or even to retain +his posture, save for a horse girth passed around his waist and the +body of the man in the saddle,—was escorted back to camp, and still +under arrest, bestowed in the snug winter-house devoted to the uses of +a military prison. There was no lack of hot lotions applied externally +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_271">[Pg 271]</span> +and internally, and good food and warm clothing; but the surgeon in +attendance upon the party reported a fever, with a touch of delirium +and a “sair hoast,” as the patient himself described the measure of +cold that he had caught.</p> + +<p>To the surprise of all the force and the suspicious dismay of the +Indians, the return to Charlestown was unaccountably delayed. The +soldiers, wearying of their long inaction, the monotony of life +in the Indian country, hampered as they were by the many unusual +restrictions imposed upon conduct and camp to avoid all possible +cause for clashes with the young Indian braves, had been in high +spirits at the prospect of a speedy change, and their hopes were +suddenly dashed by the countermanding of the orders to march. The +commissariat fell into gloom, and as far as they dared remonstrated +with the commander, predicting a famine ere Charlestown could be +reached; and the quartermaster sergeant and his subordinates of the +baggage contingent, foreseeing all the undoing of the more permanent +arrangements of the baggage train, felt that never again could such +triumphs of transportation be achieved—the stowage of large and +unwieldy commodities in small compass, <i>multum in parvo</i>—as a +lucky inspiration in packing had permitted in this instance.</p> + +<p>Moreover, the fine days seemed gone. The weather offered an +incalculable menace. Already the air was full of the misting autumnal +rains, and the many turbulent rivers of the country would soon be out +of their channels beyond even the deep crag-girt banks, rendering +fording impossible and ferriage dangerous. Even snows might fall, +early though it was in the season. In fact, one or two domes of the +Great Smoky Range already showed glittering white against an ominous +slate-tinted sky, as the soft, gauzy tissues of the mists parted before +them, and again impenetrably veiled those frigid altitudes.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_272">[Pg 272]</span></p> + +<p>The commissioners themselves had grown obviously disaffected and +doubtful; they were disposed to remonstrate, and one of them +reproachfully coughed from time to time, occasionally from genuine +affection and again from patent affectation. Only the meteorologic +and botanic Mr. Taviston welcomed the lengthened opportunity, and +since the flowers had all fallen under the repeated frosts and an +unseasonable nipping freeze, he found a solace in investigating the +climate itself, going about, a comfort to himself, and eke to say a +wellspring of joy to others, with an umbrella above his head, to the +ribs of which was suspended a thermometer at the height of his nose, +taking acute scientific notes of the extraordinary variability of the +temperature and the swift fickleness of the atmospheric changes. He was +even disposed to climb the mountains to the snow line, to press his +inquiries among the white domes of the great range, accompanied only by +an Indian guide; but the stern interdiction of this enterprise by the +commander precluded his wandering so far afield, and he was compelled +to content himself with such specimens of weather as he could collate +nearer at hand.</p> + +<p>To the prevalent dissatisfaction Lieutenant Everard accorded only +the most casual attention, obviously preoccupied, intent on his own +thoughts, sternly determined, but sharing his conclusions with no +adviser.</p> + +<p>The civilians of the party naturally distrusted these <i>indicia</i> +of changes of moment evidently impending, and felt some qualms as to +his comparative youth and heady traits, some curiosity as to possible +details of his instructions to which it might be they were not privy, +some helpless anxiety lest for reasons satisfactory to himself, which +they could not divine, he should venture to deviate from his orders. +The commissioners were in the nature of things more or less men of +consequence, accustomed to command, and to the habit of determining and +shaping their own course in life as the eventuation of circumstance +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_273">[Pg 273]</span> +should seem to require. They had not had the military training to an +unquestioning obedience, the suppression of natural curiosity, the +relinquishment of all responsibility and individual identity, in the +existence of a corporate body, subject to the volition of a superior. +They chafed in the sense of helplessness, and from time to time eyed +him greedily in hopes of catching from his manner some intimation as to +his ultimate plans. In response to more open expressions of curiosity, +he had flatly refused to gratify it, and the courtesy and apparent +consideration in his phrase made him seem only the more inscrutable.</p> + +<p>“You will pardon me, I am sure, but Gad, sir, my duty does not permit +me to be explicit. The march is postponed, but you will not be required +to move without information,” he replied suavely, but with a flash of +the eye which intimated that he would tell them when he could no longer +avoid it, and when all the rest of the world must know.</p> + +<p>While the camp thus settled down to its former routine, grumbling +and speculating variously as to the causes that had necessitated the +countermanding of the orders to march, the Cherokees were alarmed for +the interests of the projected cession of land. Their earlier fears had +been quieted in great measure by the recovery of the French gold, the +louis d’ors of the coinage of the current year, thus falling readily +into the trap which Everard had warily set for them. They concluded +that since he had given the gold pieces so casually to the Indian +girl as a reward for her detection of his runagate soldier he had not +noticed the date with its cogent significance, having them so short a +time in his possession. Certainly it was great munificence, but this +was the more easily accounted for as the louis d’ors really belonged +to another man, and the officer seemed generous without loss, for the +Cherokees did not understand that their value must needs be returned to +Eachin MacEachin. As the Indians were not admitted familiarly within +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_274">[Pg 274]</span> +the camp, and the soldiers were not free to wander without, there could +be only futile surmises as to the reasons for the postponement of the +march. Secret observations of the camp taken from the river and the +opposite bank intimated much activity among the farriers. Perhaps the +horses were all to be reshod. But surely such a necessity could not be +in the nature of a surprise to the Capteny Gigagei. Another day ensued +a great overhauling of the baggage for clothing of heavier weight, in +anticipation of severe weather. The commissioners bargained with the +Indians for some furs fashioned into match-coats, and the lieutenant +himself, being obliged to wear the hated British uniform, ordered +blankets of the fine dressed otter and panther skins, for which he +paid in English guineas: he had no more louis d’ors. The postponement +gradually came to be accepted as the result of the sudden unseasonable +spell of cold weather.</p> + +<p>Therefore it fell like a thunderclap upon the headmen, when suddenly +one day Lieutenant Everard took advantage of a personal visit which the +great chief Tanaesto was making to him in his tent, to declare that +he had certain knowledge that the Cherokees harbored amongst them a +Frenchman who sought to spirit them up against the British government, +despite the fact that they had so lately firmly shaken hands anew with +it. He protested that unless they instantly surrendered to him this +miscreant, chargeable with he knew not how many of the crimes laid at +their door, he would report to the royal governor the fact that he had +ascertained his presence here in the heart of the Cherokee country, and +this would annul the privileges they expected to enjoy under the treaty +thus rendered void, and destroy the possibility of the cession itself.</p> + +<p>But for that single phrase, but for the interests dependent upon the +cession, but for the fact that this purchase money for the lands would +enable the Cherokees to secure the munitions of war to wrench not only +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_275">[Pg 275]</span> +this limited territory but their whole country from the encroaching +British grasp, as well as sustain them in a certain independence in +their relations with their expected French allies,—but for these +obvious dictates of policy, the commissioners’ train and military +escort would have been set upon by unnumbered hundreds and destroyed in +the instant.</p> + +<p>Even as it was, however, their safety was in a great part assured by +the fact that this episode took place only within the knowledge of +the wily chiefs. The populace—those “mad young men,” so difficult +to restrain, whose impetuosity so often cost the nation dear—could +not have been held back had this demand been suddenly publicly urged. +And indeed the chiefs themselves were between two fires; for if aught +should befall the French officer through their pusillanimity or +treachery, it was obvious they could hope for no further aid from the +great French king, without which they could not save their national +existence.</p> + +<p>Admire the collected Tanaesto’s aplomb! Without one moment’s hesitation +he denied the accusation,—utterly oblivious of the future,—so +definitely, so instantly, that Everard himself, closeted in his tent +with three or four Indians who had accompanied Tanaesto, felt a +momentary doubt. Could Callum have been dreaming?—the vision of the +Frenchman only a figment of the fever then laying hold upon him, the +words an echo?—some reminiscence sounding anew in his delirium?</p> + +<p>“But you have a white man, a Frenchman, here in the nation,” Everard +sternly persisted.</p> + +<p>“A white man in the nation? Several here and there in the lower towns. +Oh, yes, the Capteny says the gracious truth. But these are English or +Scotch, never French. Some there are who like the Cherokee methods and +settle in the tribe. But here in the Overhill towns only one white man, +an Englishman—that is to say, a Virginian.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_276">[Pg 276]</span></p> + +<p>Everard, staring fixedly at Tanaesto, shook his head, and the Indian +interpreter mechanically repeated the gesture, as if the parties for +whom he served as a means of communication were blind as well as deaf +to all but him.</p> + +<p>Most unlikely did Everard consider it that an Englishman would dare to +linger here alone in the present disorganized state of the Cherokee +country and the inflamed public sentiment against the British.</p> + +<p>“This man—who I fear is no Englishman—sojourned in Moy Toy’s town of +Great Tellico,” Everard persisted. “This I know. The great chief will +perceive there are no limits to my knowledge.”</p> + +<p>With this corollary, confirmatory of his proposition, the Indians +hardly dared to further deny. A sudden stillness ensued; and this +desperate silence, long unbroken, was an invisible appeal one to the +others, each waiting for some intrepid invention of some one else that +might serve to rescue the situation.</p> + +<p>Everard smiled grimly as his sarcastic eyes traveled the rounds from +one confused, downcast face to the other. “Since he is a Virginian, as +you say, an Englishman so far, I should be glad to see him,” persisted +Everard, relishing their discomfort. “I should not like it to be said +that I left an only countryman in this remote wilderness without an +effort to exchange a word with him, a homelike greeting.”</p> + +<p>“If he is now at Great Tellico, I know not; it has been long since I +saw him,” Tanaesto qualified. Then realizing that this belated negation +could not nullify all that had gone before, “Doubtless he will be glad +to take you by the hand,” he concluded falteringly.</p> + +<p>“Doubtless. I shall do myself the honor to wait upon him there, and +shall also take this occasion to pay my respects to the great Moy Toy.”</p> + +<p>Everard smiled sardonically, grimly triumphant, for the leave-taking +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_277">[Pg 277]</span> +of the graceful, ceremonious Indians was like the hasty scuttling away +of a group of culprits evading the clutch of custody.</p> + +<p>The camp had been hastily broken; all was now gleeful stir and +activity. Everard had waited long, but he had reached the limit of his +patience and the necessity to exercise it simultaneously. MacIlvesty +was sufficiently recovered to have regained the full use of his +faculties, and he depended upon the Highlander’s identification of the +man, whom he had seen in familiar conversation with the Indians at one +of their most secret ceremonies, speaking Cherokee to them and French +in soliloquy. Everard would take no substitute for this man! Lest some +dull under-trader, some runaway apprentice, finding it easier to turn +Cherokee than work at a trade in the colonies, be palmed off on him in +lieu of this forked-tongued schemer, he had awaited the Highlander’s +recovery, despite his impatience. He realized that should he miss his +grip at the opportune moment the chance would be gone and forever. He +would confront Callum MacIlvesty with this sojourner at Tellico whom +he doubted not to be the French emissary who had occasioned a world of +trouble in readjusting the Cherokees on their former basis with the +British government. Unless opportunity should prove amazingly elusive, +he would arrest this man and carry him to Charlestown, where the +consideration of the problems which he embodied could be shifted upon +those more qualified to undertake it, the colonial diplomats.</p> + +<p>Everard’s determination to proceed further into the Cherokee +country necessitated the detail of some portion of his plan to the +commissioners whom he must needs drag with him, since his force was +too slight to divide, and he could not leave them without a guard at +Ioco. Though firm as adamant and steeled against any remonstrance, +he had dreaded their efforts to deter him, their insistence that he +was transcending his instructions, that he was merely the commander +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_278">[Pg 278]</span> +of their bodyguard, and required to act only in the interests of +the cession. The fluttered squawking of the botanist, the deep +basso-profundo rumble of the commissioner whose fad was geology, the +appeal to his official conscience and his oath by the diplomat proper, +the politician, the piercing fife-like note of the surveyor’s voice +in protest,—all sounded coherently in his imagination long before +he made the disclosure, and sooth to say, sounded nowhere else. For +the “gentlemanly old ladies” showed unexpected mettle; they applauded +his determination, belittled the possible danger they might incur, +commended his discretion, and urged the instant setting forward of +the force before the man could be spirited away and the Indians make +head in their schemes to conceal all evidences of his identity and +machinations.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_279">[Pg 279]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="XIV">XIV</h2> +</div> + + +<p>LAROCHE, however, as far as his safety was concerned, was more secure +at Tellico Great than he could have been elsewhere, and he appreciated +this, for both Moy Toy and he had been speedily advised of the untoward +discovery of the secret of his presence here and the lame and futile +effort of Tanaesto to account for it innocuously. Where the Cherokees +were in force, as in one of the greater “mother towns,” he could more +effectually claim the national protection than if, seeking refuge in +flight, he should be apprehended in some secluded outlying region +where only a few scattered tribesmen would be receptive to his appeal. +Therefore at Tellico he determined to stand his ground, albeit he +doubted both the will and the capacity of the Indians to hold out +against the demand of the English officer. He argued that with so small +a force as the escort of the commissioners, coercion was manifestly +not contemplated, and the British commander was risking the dangers of +the Indian country, disaffected though it was, with no protection save +the ostensible comity of the already jeopardized treaty. Unassisted +reason and logic were hardly to be relied upon in Indian negotiation. +Reproaches for a broken faith needs an unimpeachable counter-record to +render them practicable. Laroche feared, as the last resource, bribes, +large, tempting, irresistible.</p> + +<p>At that moment his stanch scheme of empire, rebuilt on the ruins +of a score of fantastic projections of old, braced and held to +interdependent cohesion in a thousand details, seemed to him also a +mere phantasm, the immaterial outline of the functions of a state, a +spectre of power, to dissolve into nullity at the first cockcrow of +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_280">[Pg 280]</span> +the lordly realities of established rule. He had but expended himself, +his time, his efforts, his liberty, it might even be his life itself, +that the crafty Moy Toy should have the opportunity of driving a more +thrifty bargain with the British interest because of the formidable +character of the threatened defection; or mayhap, indeed, only for the +sake of a personal gift,—a finer rifle, or a trifle of embroidered and +gold-laced suits of apparel,—he would consent to bring anew the nation +under British domination until such time as the yoke grew cumbersome to +his fitful ambition and he was minded to throw it off again.</p> + +<p>Naturally Moy Toy could not read these thoughts in the face of his +friend, but he marked his changing color and partly interpreted his +agitation. Because of the stress of his religion,—a very queer and +inconvenient restriction the savage deemed it,—never would Laroche +lift a weapon against his fellow man, except in legitimate warfare. +And yet he was eminently a proper man, to use the language of the +day, light, active, with muscles like steel wire and strong with a +latent staying power. When personally threatened he would offer no +aggression, save in self-defense, and even now, in this stress of +realized jeopardy, he insisted with all his arts of persuasion that Moy +Toy should give over the idea of a massacre of the advancing party, +with several delectable items of the horrors of a surprise and friendly +lure to merge at last into fierce and wholesale murder, which the chief +planned with many a sly and furtive smile, and which met with open and +applausive assent from his councilors assembled.</p> + +<p>“They come in peace, relying on your honor; let them go in peace,” +urged Laroche, as in duty bound, from the standpoint of soldier, +Christian, and patriot.</p> + +<p>“They have not my honor in their keeping,” Moy Toy lowered. “I do not +love your ugly religion!”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_281">[Pg 281]</span></p> + +<p>Nevertheless, he suffered himself to be gainsaid in the paramount +interests of the land cession, and Laroche felt at the end of all +things.</p> + +<p>If Moy Toy were to have no fun out of the rash adventure of the +embassy, the embassy would certainly profit at the expense of the +interloper. He it was who must suffer between the two. He knew +that this sudden unforeseen demonstration against him personally +was obviously fraught with too great danger to the government’s +commissioners for the military commander of the escort to lightly +undertake it or to relinquish it without advantage. Nothing less could +it portend than the arrest of the French emissary and his removal in +the British interest from the Cherokee country. Laroche’s experimental +resourceful mind became suddenly blank in the contemplation of the +vista of long days, nay years, in prison, at the will of a British +colonial magnate or on a quibble of British law. And then this +suggestion opened a new speculation. What if, being without his +uniform, without command, in the discharge of no specific military +duty, he should be held as a spy or as a civil prisoner, and +responsible for certain murders which the Cherokees had committed on +British subjects either with the sanction of Moy Toy or on that system +of personal individual warfare which in modern civilized times is +called feud, and which the Cherokee autonomy countenanced. Brave though +his spirit was, Laroche quailed at the imputed instigation of these +horrors which he had sought to avert and had openly condemned at much +personal risk.</p> + +<p>He was keenly reminiscent of the day when a previous expedition had +arrived at the town of Tellico Great and he had then been of the +embassy. With that strange dual capacity of the mind, albeit his +every faculty might seem otherwise absorbed, he was conscious of all +the details of the event which he now watched as it were from the +inside,—the placing of the appurtenances of the town to the best +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_282">[Pg 282]</span> +advantage, the gathering of the warriors and braves, as well as women +and children, arrayed each in the finest toggery. The “beloved square” +had been swept and resanded, the public buildings were painted anew. +There in each of the four open, piazza-like cabins the incumbents of +the high municipal offices were ranged on the tiers of seats in the +wonted order of their relative rank,—the medicine and religious men, +the war-captains, the aged councilors, and Moy Toy in the place of +chief. Always an impressive figure, he had assumed an added dignity +in the doubly conferred imperial title, from both British and French +powers,<a id="FNanchor_10" href="#Footnote_10" class="fnanchor">[10]</a> superimposed upon his hereditary municipal chieftaincy, +though the latter distinction was the only point of supremacy in which +the Cherokee nation itself now acquiesced. He sat in his place upon +the white divan, his iridescent feather-woven mantle glittering in the +sun, his polled head plumed with eagle quills, about his neck a single +strand of those glossy fresh-water Tennessee pearls, almost as large +as filberts, a size then rare, but even yet taken occasionally from +the <i>Unio margaritiferus</i> of our sandy river banks. A great bead, +which he valued far more, wrought painfully with years of labor from +the conch shell, ivory-like in its polish and tint, was suspended in +the middle of his forehead. His guard of immediately attendant warriors +was about him, and Laroche sat at his side.</p> + +<p>Arrayed too in aboriginal splendor was the French officer. This was +hardly bravado on his part, for he had long ago lost sight of that +uniform which he had worn to Great Tellico, for Moy Toy had sequestered +it, lest it remind him in some inscrutable way of those events when +he had so nearly lost his life at the stake, and thus by exciting +resentment diminish his utility to the nation. This garb would scarcely +have much commended him to the Englishman whose advent he momently +expected, but with that acute Gallic self-consciousness he winced from +the anticipated wonder at his attire, averse yet scornful. But Moy +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_283">[Pg 283]</span> +Toy was not to be withstood, and the adopted tribesman was nearly as +fine as the prince. He too wore a necklace of pearls, that set off the +fairer tints of his throat with less barbaric effect than the Indian’s +own bauble. His face was fantastically streaked with paint, yet its +keen lines and the fine expressiveness of his eyes were definitely +asserted. His trim figure was encased in a shirt and leggings of white +dressed doeskin with long fringes wrought with scarlet feathers; his +buskins were dyed scarlet, and he wore scarlet feathers mounted high +on his blond hair. It seemed to him now, as he sat silent thus and +waited, that the agonies of suspense were decreed to him as a portion. +He could hear the beating of his heart in the absolute stillness of +the assemblage as, with the stoicism of Indian patience and endurance, +the Cherokees, motionless and silent, awaited the appearance of the +commissioners’ party.</p> + +<p>The bland blue sky seemed waiting too, so still it was. Here and there +were cloud masses of a dazzling whiteness and variant density and +depth of tone, as if to illustrate the infinite scope of the possible +interpretations of this tint, technically an absence of color. Bright +as they were, as they swung motionless in the sunlit air, wherever +their shadows fell on the velvet azure of the distant mountains the +hue deepened and dulled to a violet, subdued as with the expunging +of light. The snow on the mountain domes near at hand showed a sharp +contrast to the red and yellow and brown of the brilliant leafage still +on the steep slope below. The haze in the intermediate valleys was +like a silver gauze—of a consistency that suggested a fabric. Even as +close as the willows along the river bank it preserved this illusion, +and now veiled them from sight and now withdrew, revealing their slim +idyllic wands, all leafless and whitely frosted and trembling in some +imperceptible pulsation of the currents of the air. Many a bare bough +with the distinctness of some fine etching was reflected in the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_284">[Pg 284]</span> +shimmering water, here a smooth and silver expanse, and here a rippling +steely sheen. Upon its surface a flock of swans, glittering white +in the sunshine, floated into view, and then like a fantasy drifted +suddenly into the invisibilities of the mist and the shadow. Far away +the booming note of a herd of buffaloes came to the ear and was silent, +and again one could not so much as hear the throng of waiting Cherokees +draw a breath. It might seem that a spell had fallen upon the town, the +silent assemblage, the loitering clouds, the still mountains, and that +they had thus stood waiting for unnumbered ages till some magic sound +should break their bonds.</p> + +<p>It came suddenly. The dreaming swans lifted their heads to listen, then +with an abrupt unmusical cry began to swim swiftly down toward the +confluence with the Tellico River. A dog barked and was silent once +more. Then distant though it was, indeterminate, merely a pulsing throb +in the air, Laroche recognized the far-away beating of a drum, and +could hardly distinguish it, save by its steadier, more rhythmic throb, +from the agitated beating of his own heart.</p> + +<p>Perhaps it may have been due to the influences of mental solitude, +as it were, and much introspective brooding, always averse to the +prosaic mundane atmosphere; perhaps to that undefined fascination +which the life of the Cherokees of the earlier epochs of our knowledge +of them exerted upon certain temperaments among the strangers who +sojourned with them; perhaps merely to personal antagonism and national +prejudice, but the sound of the British fife and drum, now distinct, +playing a foolish air, the sight of the British flag, the appearance of +the embassy, half military, half civilian, some mounted, some afoot, +partly English, partly Scotch Highlanders, the progress accommodated +ill enough to the beat of the quickstep, affected Laroche as singularly +crass and uncouth.</p> + +<p>The undisguisable contempt of the commander for the Indians and all +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_285">[Pg 285]</span> +that appertained to them, the absolute lack of comprehension of the +subtler elements of their character, the determination to secure the +object he sought without any recognition of the complicated details +of the environment, gave a certain effect of ignorance to the address +and standpoint of the highly civilized man that by contrast made +the aboriginal, with his mystery of antiquity, his symbolism, his +ceremonial, his inscrutability, the gravity of his courtesy, seem to +have profited by the lack of modern education and to be endowed with +learning by inheritance and intuition.</p> + +<p>Without any embellishment of ceremony in his presence, Everard +sauntered casually across the “beloved square” toward the Indian chief, +wreathing his unwilling features into such a smile as he deemed might +answer for the occasion, but he stretched out his hand benignly. In the +service of the king it could not hurt his dignity to shake hands with +an Injun.</p> + +<p>Moy Toy, his beaded and braceleted arms folded across his bosom, took +no notice of the proffered hand, but bowed halfway to the ground.</p> + +<p>Everard, in no wise disconcerted, cared no more for the declination +of this courtesy—nay, not half so much—than if his favorite hound, +Brutus, whom he was training to the observance of this gentility of +greeting, had withheld his paw; for sometimes Brutus would shake, and +sometimes in the exercise of canine freedom the paw of Brutus was his +own, since Everard’s cuff of disappointment was but a half hearted +demonstration, and no dog or horse stood in much fear of cruelty from +him.</p> + +<p>That Everard was a fine, handsome man, and by his profession +accustomed to etiquette and parade, gave additional point to his lack +of ostentation and formality in the present instance. He evidently +did not think it worth his while. But he wagged his well-shaped +head eagerly in serious argument when he forthwith entered upon the +subject of his mission without preamble, dispensing with the usual +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_286">[Pg 286]</span> +ceremonials of eating, drinking, and smoking among the Indians. +Perhaps he truly thought that in view of the slightness of his force +the hospitality of the savages was not to be trusted at so inimical +a juncture. The commissioners, all mounted, looked on at a little +distance, and the soldiers were hard by, drawn up in close order just +without the “beloved square.” Some were in the scarlet gear of the +British foot-soldier and others in the dark blue and green tartan of +the Forty-Second Regiment, and this variation of costume, albeit they +were ranged separately in their respective ranks, gave a sort of motley +guise to the command and impaired the effect of their number. But in +truth, all told, the military escort mustered scarcely threescore, +for the demonstration was essentially a pacific one, and Everard but +expected to wield the weapons of right reason rather than brute force. +He might, however, have done better execution with the latter, for he +was no diplomatist.</p> + +<p>It was Everard’s faithful conviction that the government’s emissaries +habitually treated the Indians too seriously in seeking to adopt their +social methods in conference, and that thus the civilized ambassador +was a fool from his own point of view and a butt of ridicule to the +Indians, who could but mark his failure in aboriginal etiquette in a +thousand undreamed-of details. Simplicity, candor, directness, he held, +became a bold Briton, and he would make no concessions to please the +Indians and foster their sense of their own consequence by letting +them see him play the condemned monkey, aping their fantastic savage +ceremony.</p> + +<p>Wherefore he stood, for he was not invited to sit, but he cared no +more for the implied derogation than for the courtesies of such as +they. He leaned negligently one hand on his sheathed sword, its +point on the ground, and did not even maintain an erect attitude, as +one obviously should in addressing a prince, nay, an emperor twice +crowned by British and French authority. But this dereliction was not +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_287">[Pg 287]</span> +intentional. In truth there was a good deal of Lieutenant Everard in +one piece, and in common with many other tall people he was disposed +at times to loll and make his superfluous length comfortable. Not +thus, however, did he conduct himself on parade or in the presence of +a military superior or his excellency the royal governor, and well +aware was Moy Toy of this. Moreover, his beautiful hair was not so well +powdered as it was wont to be, and even his hat, which he still wore, +was cocked casually askew.</p> + +<p>Perhaps the consciousness of these facts, trivial yet significant, +rendered Moy Toy the less capable of being pricked in conscience by the +long list of fractures which the old treaty had suffered at his hands.</p> + +<p>“And now,” said Everard, stooping to metaphor, “the path, so red with +the blood of the English colonists and British soldiers and the slain +Cherokee braves and made so crooked by the wiles of the pestiferous +Louisiana French, has been whitened and straightened out by the +magnanimity of the great British sovereign, his majesty King George. +He has forgiven the treachery of the Cherokees because like children +they could not reason aright, and like the blind they could not walk +straight. He has intended to purchase large quantities of land from +the tribe, that they might have the means to build up all the former +prosperity of the nation which their wickedness caused to be pulled +down. He expects to send traders once more to the Cherokee country, +that the Indians may be furnished with goods for their necessities +at a low and uniform price. He will maintain a system of weights +and measures amongst them to which the traders will be required to +conform. Armorers will he send to mend their guns free of charge, one +gunsmith to every town, and artisans to instruct them in the methods +and manufactures of civilization. And in return for so much clemency +what did the Cherokees promise in the articles of the new treaty? A +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_288">[Pg 288]</span> +fair and firm friendship, a forbearance of murder and fire-raising on +the frontier, the surrender of any white men of whatever nationality +who aided them in the war against Great Britain, and the solemn promise +that they would not suffer any Frenchman to come into their country to +trade, to plant, or to build, lest they be again spirited up against +the English to subvert this new treaty so faithfully signed and sealed +and witnessed.”</p> + +<p>He paused and silence fell suddenly, save for the far-away booming of +the buffaloes, the murmurous monotone of the river, the vague stir of a +breeze from the mountains beginning to clash the bare boughs together +and lift the folds of the British flag.</p> + +<p>“Moy Toy,” Everard resumed with a weighty manner, “the ink of that +signature is hardly dry, and yet so early I find a Frenchman installed +amongst you. And there,” he threw out his hand at arm’s length, “there +is the man!”</p> + +<p>His eyes roaming around had singled out Laroche and now dwelt upon him +with an expression at once scornful and upbraiding. Then his attention +traveled fleeringly up and down the barbaric details of the garb of the +splendidly decorated white man, who winced under the voiceless jeer +of the “perfide Albion,” and whose gorge rose within him while yet he +quaked to encounter this enmity.</p> + +<p>Moy Toy, visibly hesitant, replied at length.</p> + +<p>It was his desire, he stated, to be at peace with the British king, +although he would not or could not protect from the encroachments of +the colonists the Cherokees whom he had once called his children. +Moy Toy held himself, in fact, as the friend and brother of that +king,—which statement reached such a point of sensitiveness in +Everard’s organization as to cause him to snort suddenly in surprise +and indignation.</p> + +<p>But Moy Toy, although maintaining his dignity of port, was hardly +equal to himself. He could play a double part easily enough, but to +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_289">[Pg 289]</span> +adjust the multiplicity of deceits requisite for this emergency in +good relation to the interest of the tribe, to forfeit nothing of +the expected French support and yet avoid the jeopardy of the price +of the lands to be ceded to the British, passed even his measures +of duplicity. He sought to adopt the wile that Tanaesto had earlier +essayed.</p> + +<p>The stranger was English—so he said; for himself he did not know; +he could not pretend to decide; he was no linguister; he was all for +peace; but the Great Spirit in his unfathomable wisdom had given men +many tongues, with which indeed they talked too much.</p> + +<p>“Ha!” Everard exclaimed sardonically, “they have been at that since the +days of Babel!”</p> + +<p>He paused that the interpreter might repeat his words, the while +Everard transferred his flouting gaze from Laroche to the noble figure +of Moy Toy, with no sort of appreciation of the dignity of its aspect, +the subtle force of its facial expression, the picturesque barbarity +of its ornament and garb. To him, in common with many of the British +soldiers and colonists of the day, Moy Toy represented merely “old +Injun” or “greasy red stick.” Everard had, however, an especial relish +for the perplexity that looked out from among the wrinkles of his eyes, +wrought by many a problem of statecraft, and his pondering, anxious, +outwitted despair. The officer waited for a moment, expectant that Moy +Toy would advance a new argument; then, as the chief remained silent, +Everard proceeded with his own solution of the problem.</p> + +<p>“Perhaps in Charlestown they may know how to tell a Frenchman from an +Englishman. If this man is a loyal subject of King George he will not +grudge the detention in so good a cause, and I pledge my honor that +he shall be put to no charges for the expense of the journey; if a +Frenchman, the colonial authorities may take him in hand then and I +shall be free of him.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_290">[Pg 290]</span></p> + +<p>Whatever his deficiencies as a diplomat, Lieutenant Everard certainly +did not lack courage. He lifted his head suddenly; his sword swung back +with his left hand on its hilt; tense, erect, he strode forward a dozen +resolute paces, and, that the intention of the act might be obvious to +all who witnessed it, struck the cowering Laroche on the shoulder with +the stern cry, “In the king’s name!”</p> + +<p>The sound seemed a spell to raise the devil withal. Elicited like +an echo, dependent on the tone, yet magnified a thousandfold, an +inarticulate cry broke forth from the tribesmen, protesting, frantic, +but menacing. The crowd surged this way and that, and Lieutenant +Everard, suddenly mindful of the safety of his soldiers, turned, +his chin high in the air, and his head still haughtily posed, to +glance where they stood, a thought more compact than before, a scant +threescore, with the savages circling in hundreds tumultuously about +them.</p> + +<p>“You would not dispute his majesty’s authority!” Everard stiffly held +his ground; for Moy Toy, irate, commanding, although visibly agitated, +ordered him in no set phrase to desist. “He is a Frenchman and an +enemy!” urged Everard. “He is no Cherokee!”</p> + +<p>“He has been made a great ‘beloved man’!” protested Moy Toy. “He is a +Cherokee by adoption!”</p> + +<p>The words roused the populace to renewed clamors. No heed took the “mad +young men” of the frowning faces of their elders, the silent gestures +of Moy Toy beseeching a hearing.</p> + +<p>There is in that inarticulate murmur of the wrath of a mob something +so menacing, so daunting, so indefinably terrible, that even Everard +was receptive to an admonition so growlingly enforced. He took his hand +from the Frenchman’s shoulder lest in having it removed for him he +might be torn in pieces. The implacable murmur still rose, the crowds +still surged, and Laroche, half ashamed yet wholly reassured, feared +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_291">[Pg 291]</span> +that he looked as smug as he felt, while a glitter of satisfaction and +triumph shone in Moy Toy’s eyes. They narrowed as he gazed steadily, +threateningly, with a latent devilish thought, at Everard, so entirely +at his mercy. A corner was a very tight fit for Lieutenant John Francis +Everard, but he was fairly in it. He was accustomed to disport himself +freely in the open, and the wriggles incident to a confined space did +not suit his muscles, his size, or his temper. He made an effort to +wrench himself from it.</p> + +<p>“Mighty fine! mighty fine!” he said sneeringly to the Frenchman. “You +are sane enough, sir, and sober enough, to know what poor stuff this +is,—what pitiful dupes you are befooling and befuddling! Faugh! your +deceits sicken me!”</p> + +<p>He looked with a snarl, which he designed to be a withering smile, over +the fantastic apparel of the Frenchman, but Lieutenant Everard was as +much out of countenance as a man of his stamp could well be.</p> + +<p>“Zounds!” he resumed, still seeking to recover the control of the +situation, and shaking off Moy Toy’s restraining hand laid upon his +arm, “we’ll hear the fellow himself. Since you are English, give us +your name, sirrah!”</p> + +<p>He was consciously and blatantly rude, rejoicing in his capacity to be +independent of the varnish with which such occasions are sleeked over.</p> + +<p>Laroche’s blood began to rise, his eye to sparkle. Despite his awful, +imminent jeopardy,—for who could say how the scene might even yet +result,—the spirit of the fray quivered through his blood. “If it may +please your excellency,” he said in his usual clear tones and precise +enunciation, “yonder stands a man in your ranks to whom I am personally +known. Your excellency might prefer to believe his account of me rather +than my own.”</p> + +<p>Everard stared blankly and secretly winced. The man’s politeness had a +whetted edge, that cut like ridicule. The title of “excellency,” so far +above the usage of the lieutenant’s rank and deserts, might have been +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_292">[Pg 292]</span> +conferred in ignorance or propitiation, but taken in conjunction with +his own rude address seemed as apt as a fleer.</p> + +<p>Everard was at once doubtful and bewildered. The stranger’s English, +so far as the construction of his sentences and choice of words went, +was perfect. There was, however, something in his intonation which +grated on the Briton’s ear. Nevertheless, there were many variations +of provincial accent, especially in the colonies. Everard, in fact, +believed that no one here could speak the language with purity, as if +it had suffered a sea change in coming over the water.</p> + +<p>Turning toward the ranks, he perceived a touch of consciousness on +Callum MacIlvesty’s face, and was startled to remember that it was his +original intention to confront the two, that Callum might identify +this man as the French-speaking familiar of the Ancient Warrior of +Chilhowee. By a gesture he summoned the Highlander to his side, and +simultaneously the Frenchman stepped forth and stood beside Moy Toy. +The Indian’s eyes were all a-glitter, and a tremor agitated the +feathers stiffly upright on his polled head.</p> + +<p>“MacIlvesty, did you ever before see this man?” demanded the officer, +while the two eyed each other.</p> + +<p>“Aye, sir, mony a time,” replied Callum MacIlvesty.</p> + +<p>Everard stared. “And where?”</p> + +<p>“At one Jock Lesly’s trading-house at Ioco Town, sir.”</p> + +<p>Whither was this tending? The expression of the officer’s face became +amazed, concerned, intent. The flutter among the head feathers of Moy +Toy was suddenly stilled.</p> + +<p>“When was this?” the military catechist demanded.</p> + +<p>“Nigh on a year ago come Easter, sir.”</p> + +<p>The triumph in the man’s face, its suggestion of covert ridicule, +nettled Everard. Into what fool’s play had he been lured?</p> + +<p>“<i>Why, Callum!</i>” he said in a reproachful murmur aside; then +aloud, “What’s his name?”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_293">[Pg 293]</span></p> + +<p>Callum shook his head. “I dinna ken, sir; I misdoubt.”</p> + +<p>“What was he called?” the lieutenant mended the phrase.</p> + +<p>“Tam—Tam Wilson.”</p> + +<p>“Oh Callum—Callum Bane!” once more the officer’s admonitory whisper +reached him. “And where was he said to hail from?” Everard added aloud.</p> + +<p>“Firginia, sir,” faltered the Highland soldier.</p> + +<p>It was becoming definite in Everard’s mind that Callum, all agog about +the French, as the Highland soldiery, who had often triumphantly +encountered them, forever were, and hearing much of suspected +machinations among the Indians, had but dreamed of the French enemy +beside the effigy of the Indian Warrior and had heard only in fancy, +perhaps in the inception of the fever, the words that he repeated. For +evidently this man was not only well known to him, but was also long a +familiar of the English trading-station in the Cherokee nation. Perhaps +even yet the young fellow’s mind was not quite clear.</p> + +<p>Nevertheless, since the ordeal had been in his defense and for his +sake, Everard was minded to be gentle with him, although the false +position into which Callum had involved him burned the officer’s pride +like fire.</p> + +<p>“Why did you think he was French, MacIlvesty?” he asked openly.</p> + +<p>“Because,” said Callum, with a keen resentment against himself, the +officer, the arch-deceiver, the untoward facts themselves, that he +could not make the truth as he knew it now, as he was sure of it, +appear as aught but a falsehood or a folly, “he spoke French—he spoke +it to himself!—when I saw him last, a fortnight ago, amang the Injuns.”</p> + +<p>“And, Callum,” said Laroche familiarly, “did you never hear an +Englishman speak French? Why, lad, I myself have e’en heard a +Scotchman’s tongue waggling into it!”</p> + +<p>His eyes twinkled as if in reminiscence, and Everard, remembering the +peculiarities of the Highlander’s accent, was minded to mark anew the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_294">[Pg 294]</span> +familiarity of this Tam Wilson with him. He himself had not spoken his +Christian name aloud, but the stranger knew it, and with no prompting +called him “Callum.”</p> + +<p>Bewildered, raging internally, humiliated, Callum was ordered to his +former place in the ranks, having only succeeded, because of the +artifice of this arch-strategist and the intractability and paucity of +the perverse facts, in identifying this Frenchman as an Englishman, to +the satisfaction, or rather dissatisfaction, of his superior officer.</p> + +<p>Of all people incompetent to use power without its abuse the Cherokees +were preëminent. The turbulent mob had been quick to discern in the +result of the conference that their adopted tribesman, the French +officer, was obviously triumphant; that Moy Toy, although standing +like a statue, was overjoyed, with gleaming wide eyes and an elated +port. They could ill afford magnanimity toward these people, so many +grudges as a nation and as individuals did they owe the English, +consequent on the slaughters and fire-raising and punitive famine they +had suffered at the hands of the British troops in the warfare of the +preceding years. Their note of comment had lost its tone of appeal, of +indignation, of protest. It was swelling now and again into a savage +roar of awful import, of reprisal, of scorn, of eager brutality.</p> + +<p>Laroche heard in it the knell of all his hopes. This precipitate +action would forever frustrate the fruition of his work here,—the +gathering and organization of the tribal forces, the transportation +of supplies, the plan of his campaign,—and with this, his success, +his promotion, his hard-earned guerdon, for which he had labored so +diligently, so discreetly, so valiantly. He was not ready to strike +yet—not yet! A premature blow now would preclude all those sequences +of aggression so carefully planned, for the forces of the campaign were +as yet unprepared; the English would be first in the field, and the +tribal remnants of the Indian nations taken in detail and succession +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_295">[Pg 295]</span> +would be overwhelmed, intimidated, scattered, before the carefully +aggregated resources of the French expedition could be made effective +and available.</p> + +<p>It was necessary that he should think very fast. And yet when he +spoke his words seemed quite casual, almost irrelevant. “As to Callum +MacIlvesty,” he said to Everard, “why, I hardly know what to make of +Callum! He always seemed jealous of me on account of Jock Lesly’s +beautiful daughter, Miss Lilias,—who was much too good for either of +us!” he stipulated gallantly. “But I should never have suspected Callum +of an invention like this!”</p> + +<p>Everard looked at him keenly. This added another point in favor of his +identity as a Virginian,—his familiarity with the names of the members +of the trader’s household; another reason why his image should intrude +into the troubled delirium of the Highland soldier,—an old romance, +with heart burnings and rivalries. Little wonder that in the distorted +mental images of fever the hated figure of perhaps the fortunate suitor +should appear invested with the added opprobrium of the national enemy.</p> + +<p>The buoyant airy grace of this figure, even in the Indian garb, the +volatile but bated aggressiveness of manner, the joyous, yet capable, +intellectual expression of face, the handsome eyes and regular features +suggested that he might appear to no contemptible advantage in the +estimation of a girl as contrasted with the grave, reserved, proud, and +exacting Highlander, with many an inherited sorrow to make him serious +and many a personal privation to make him bitter. With his youth and +strength and the natural amiability of his nature Callum could on +occasion throw off the consciousness of these weights and be merry. +But this fellow’s element was the air itself, and the necessity to be +serious was like the clipping of wings.</p> + +<p>“Come, sir, let us have an end of this,” said Everard. “Being English +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_296">[Pg 296]</span> +you cannot object to go to Charlestown and make your standing clear to +the authorities. I pledge my honor that you shall be put to no expense +and shall be indemnified for any financial loss you may sustain by +reason of your absence.”</p> + +<p>“If I should agree these people would regard it as if I were taken by +force,” Laroche protested. “Your life would be the forfeit. Indeed, I +am already concerned for your safety. I cannot control the Cherokees. +You know what they are! You must admit that your errand here is futile!”</p> + +<p>It was so contrary to Everard’s temperament to accept defeat in any +form that he could only accede metaphorically. “I’m not half blind!” he +said.</p> + +<p>Laroche pressed the point. “The effusion of blood is threatened. You +must perceive it.”</p> + +<p>“The knife is at my throat,” assented Everard debonairly, as if +scornful of his peril.</p> + +<p>Laroche tried him on a more vulnerable topic. “The commissioners’ party +would never get out of the country. But to save the lives of your brave +soldiers and the civilian commissioners, who have no quarrel with any +one, if you will at once draw off your force I will use what influence +I have with Moy Toy to let you go scot-free through the country.”</p> + +<p>The eyes of Everard were large, but the astonished white showed all +around the iris. He gasped once or twice and caught his breath,—that +the man whom he had come to arrest under the authority of the British +government and bear away captive should engage to see him clear of the +Cherokee country!</p> + +<p>Only after many stormy wrangles with Moy Toy, however, and the other +headmen, did Laroche, secretly urging upon them the jeopardized +interests of the cession and the disastrous effects of precipitancy in +the imminent emprise of the united tribal armies, secure acquiescence +in this plan of permitting the expedition to depart in peace. It was, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_297">[Pg 297]</span> +nevertheless, a perilous time. The air seemed freighted with treachery. +Along the route among the Overhill towns lying on the Tennessee River, +always reputed the most warlike and implacable and powerful of the +Cherokee nation, through which they must needs pass to retrace their +way, hardly an hour elapsed in which some inimical demonstration did +not seem impending. Now the march was checked by a deputation from some +more remote town desiring to send by their hand a memorial or a present +to Governor Boone. Now a formidable group of savages, splendidly armed +and mounted, rejoicing in the terrible suspicions of sinister designs +and lurking ambuscades in force, which their presence must foster, +begged to take personal and individual leave of the notables of the +expedition.</p> + +<p>Everard, in all his military experience, had never known such anxiety. +He could not have watched a father’s danger with more tender and +self-reproachful solicitude than he felt for the elderly civilians, +with their wrinkled countenances and bewigged heads wagging affably +under the ceremonious ordeal of parting from these friends, who might +at a wanton blow bloody the one and break the other, and account the +deed righteousness and patriotism. Alas, for the point of view!</p> + +<p>“I can never forgive myself for extending and increasing your +jeopardy,” Everard said to them in uncharacteristic dismay one night, +as he sat with the commissioners around the camp-fire, each man with +a sort of automatic motion of looking over the shoulder at intervals, +to descry, perchance, in the shadows something more dangerous than the +green shining of a panther’s eyes or a wolf crouched ready to spring. +The sound of the sentry’s tramp, as unmolested he walked his beat hard +by, was a reassurance that naught else could bestow. “I ought to be +court-martialed, I ought to be broke, I vow and protest!”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_298">[Pg 298]</span></p> + +<p>He cared little for the military views of the polite and “lady-like +old men,” but the chorus of indignant negation that rose upon the +suggestion was as salve to a wound. He had moved with the entire +sanction of the commissioners themselves, one of them argued.</p> + +<p>“And if the man had been that fellow Laroche or Louis Latinac, think of +the repose his capture would have insured the frontier!” exclaimed the +member of the council, the diplomat.</p> + +<p>“Either one is worth a regiment to the French cause,” growled the basso +profundo of the geologist. “The mere chance was not to be neglected.”</p> + +<p>“We are not required to achieve the impossible. We are all held down to +metes and bounds, course and distance,” said the surveyor.</p> + +<p>“And the <i>best</i> of us are subject to mistakes. Think of me,” +exclaimed Mr. Taviston, fitting together his waxen-white, knuckly +fingers and casting an aquiline smile at Everard, on one side of the +fire. “I actually sent a misdescription of a specimen to the Botanical +Society, and the mistake, when discovered—so overwhelming, so +important, so humiliating—I took to my bed!”</p> + +<p>Lieutenant Everard did not in his contrition seek this refuge in +recumbency, but as Mr. Taviston entered upon a long, minute, and +learned account of how the error had occurred, and the exact points +of difference, and all the bewigged heads leaned together to hear, to +compare, to comment, to condole, Everard, on the pretext of visiting +the guards, which he did himself at close intervals, quitted the +group. He looked back at them once as they sat around the flare in +the darkness, oblivous for the time of danger, regardless of night, +impervious to cold, eager, agitated, curious, utterly absorbed; and +yet the point of interest, as well as he could make out, was that Mr. +Taviston had actually said by strange inadvertence <i>filiform</i> +instead of <i>filamentose</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_299">[Pg 299]</span></p> + +<p>“But,” he commented to himself, “if a gang of Cherokees should tomahawk +that party, strange as it may seem, brains would be spilt as well as +blood!”</p> + +<p>Among those denizens of the nation who took ceremonious farewell of +the commissioners’ expedition was gay Tam Wilson, arrayed still in +white dressed deerskin with its flaring fringes, wrought with scarlet +feathers, all floating to the breeze, gallantly mounted, fully armed, +and with a crest of scarlet feathers on his curling light brown hair. +This demonstration impressed Everard as only another intimation that +Tam Wilson was naught but what he seemed,—some colonial wight who had +rather idle and hunt and play among the Indians than work at a more +suitable vocation at home. Callum, however, accounted it the height of +insolent bravado. Albeit his conviction was not susceptible of proof, +he had no doubt that this was the long-sought French emissary who +fomented the discontents of the Cherokees. He was sure that trouble +indeed would soon be brewing along the frontier.</p> + +<p>Laroche had perceived at a glance that the situation was a revelation +to Callum MacIlvesty, who had no thought to find Tam Wilson a French +emissary. Lilias had indeed kept her promise. It was not she who had +betrayed his secret, but only through his own inadvertence had the +Highlander been permitted to discover it.</p> + +<p>He read in Callum’s face the proud indignation that he felt in the +knowledge that for this man, this arch-deceiver, his love had been +scorned, his loyal heart cast aside,—this man, who had accepted their +tendance which brought him back from the verge of the grave, and +who yet burned, by the hand of his myrmidons, the kindly roof that +had sheltered him,—this man, who won a woman’s love under a false +name, a false semblance, a false nationality, a false tongue, idly, +purposelessly, to beguile the tedium of convalescence, slipping cannily +back to his old life again and leaving her to pine,—this man, their +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_300">[Pg 300]</span> +old familiar Tam Wilson, the French emissary who with wily and wicked +instigations spirited up the mischievous Cherokees against the British +colonists.</p> + +<p>The change in his position here, his acceptance of the customs of +barbarism, his amity with the Indians, his adoption into the tribe, +his assumption of the Cherokee garb, had always impressed Laroche +as a military necessity, but he winced as he fancied how the grave, +deliberative, listening face of Lilias would relax to scornful laughter +and contemptuous pity when Callum MacIlvesty should detail to her these +grotesque details in the discovery of Tam Wilson’s identity with the +malignant destroyer of the peace with the Indian tribes. He had never +been so conscious of the tawdry savage foolery of beads and feathers +and paint as when the party were all climbing a steep ascent afoot to +rest the hard-traveled horses, and chance brought him near to Callum +MacIlvesty. Yet it was in bravado, as he strode along with the reins of +his steed thrown over his arm, that he greeted the Highlander.</p> + +<p>“Barley! Barley!” he quoted, smiling. “A truce, lad! Be sure that you +remember, when you tell Miss Lilias of how you found me here still, +the same yet not the same, and of my high place in the esteem of the +imperial Moy Toy, and of my suspected efforts to shake the footstool +of the British throne, to tell her also that but for me you and your +blundering braggadocio of a lieutenant would never have got home alive. +So between us it is even—a life for a life!”</p> + +<p>“Maister Wilson,—though that is not your name,—you may e’en find some +other to bear your messages. I shall tell that young leddy naething; +and but for that you do bestir yoursel’ to save the lives of the +commissioners, I wad strike ye on the mouth for so much as calling her +name!”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_301">[Pg 301]</span></p> + +<p>Laroche winced as from a veritable blow; then, with one of his sudden, +mercurial reactions, he cried impulsively, “Tell her all, Callum! Let +her know how it stands now! It will make it the better for you! For +myself, I never hope to see her again!”</p> + +<p>The Highlander doggedly trudged along the verge of the steeps, his +shadow gigantic in the leafy valley below, his picturesque figure with +kilt and plaid and bonnet and long firelock imposed on the varying +azure of the ranges of mountains that she had so loved. He had been +gazing at them all day and for many a day past with that thought in his +mind,—that she had loved them!</p> + +<p>“I sall tell her naething!” he said implacably. “If it makes it better +for me that another man isna what he seemed she is no for me.”</p> + +<p>And then he closed his lips fast.</p> + +<p>In Laroche’s heart blossomed forth suddenly a deep secret joy to know +that in all this time the young lovers were not reconciled. His vanity +plumed itself in the thought. No transient fancy it was that he had +inspired. And this proud fool!—he could have laughed aloud to see the +Highlander, solemnly stalking among his bitter memories and her “sweet +mountains,” resolved to hold his peace and eat out his heart because +he would not deign to profit by the fact that the lady of his love had +cared for a man who proved unworthy, thus liberating her preference, to +be captured anew by himself, catching her heart in the rebound.</p> + +<p>“Choose, you proud peat!” Laroche said to himself, repeating a gibe +that he had often heard at Jock Lesly’s fireside. And when he mounted +anew he rode away right merrily.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_302">[Pg 302]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="XV">XV</h2> +</div> + + +<p>THE method in which Lieutenant Everard had compassed his retreat +from the Cherokee country gave rise to much discussion in that day, +especially among military and <i>quasi</i> military men. Particularly +was this of interest at those remote and feeble posts at which small +detachments were stationed on the verge of the Indian country and +among conditions likely at any time to duplicate his dilemma. It was +variously contended that he should have stood his ground even had +his heart been cut out still pulsating, and <i>per contra</i> that +his course was amply justified,—nay, that the obligation to save +the civilian commissioners as well as the men of his command was +imperative, and that it would have been criminal folly to fail to take +advantage of the opportunity to make off thus with something less than +the full honors of war, more especially as the expedition was not of a +strictly military character.</p> + +<p>The licensed British traders, plying their vocation among the Catawbas, +Creeks, and Chickasaws, entertained the high and sanguinary view of +Lieutenant Everard’s duty in the premises, seeming to think that +blood spilled in their interest was well spent, and to resent any +precautionary measures that tended to hoard it. Whereas the officers of +the little flimsy forts believed the effort to protect the mercantile +monopoly of the Indian trade by the British government was not worth +the sacrifice of life and the effusion of blood when it came to the +hopeless odds of a thousand to some threescore.</p> + +<p>The discomfiture of the British embassy to Great Tellico and the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_303">[Pg 303]</span> +inglorious return of Lieutenant Everard, failing to compass the +arrest he demanded, seemed to have imparted a certain assurance to +Indian prestige. A new and subtle arrogance of mind, covert and yet +perceptible, distinguished the attitude of the warriors toward the +British traders who had the opportunity to observe them. This did +not characterize individuals only, but appertained to a generally +diffused spirit among the tribes. It was peculiarly marked among the +few Cherokees seen in these days beyond their own boundaries, but +extended to the Muscogees and their sub-tribes, also the Choctaws, the +Choccomaws, and went even so far as to touch their inimical kindred +the Chickasaws,—always hitherto friendly to the British and averse +to the French. It suggested some treasured consciousness of latent +strength. As a portent of the quiet biding of an ultimate time of +reckoning, instances of patience and lenience on the part of Indians +under provocation became more menacing than open protest or violent +wrath. A subtle lurking triumph could be discerned, nevertheless, +in their manner,—the proud glance, the arrogant carriage, the +crafty turn of a phrase, charged with a double meaning. Especially +prominent and perceptible were these <i>indicia</i> when many of +various nationalities, some of the tribes now extinct, chanced to be +congregated together at a trading-station such as the one beginning to +be organized anew under the guns of Fort Prince George.</p> + +<p>As yet public confidence in the restoration of peace in the Cherokee +country had not been reëstablished. An outbreak seemed imminent at +any moment, albeit indeterminate, vaguely in the air. Constant rumors +of the machinations of French emissaries, especially the two officers +Latinac and Laroche, deterred capital, always conservative, and the +hideous character of Indian vengeance daunted the hardiest British +trader from essaying a premature effort. Up to this time, therefore, +no trading licenses had been applied for or issued for the towns of +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_304">[Pg 304]</span> +the upper country since the burning of Jock Lesly’s trading-house +on the Tennessee River. In the neighborhood of Fort Prince George, +however, a degree of reassurance was felt since a military defense was +possible and a refuge at hand. Moreover, in case the fort itself should +be besieged, as it lay on the southeastern confines of the Cherokee +country, relief could be sent out from Carolina before famine would +compel a capitulation. It is true that in the war just concluded the +blow fell here first of all, fourteen white men being suddenly murdered +within a mile of the fort. However, the advantages of trade were now +peculiarly great by reason of this absence of marts in the upper +region, and for a season or so the Cherokee village of Keowee, within +gunshot of the fort, attracted a great concourse of Indian hunters bent +on the barter of deerskins, furs, and pearls.</p> + +<p>Jock Lesly, one of the most experienced of the early traders, had +foreseen and seized this advantage, and albeit he still ostentatiously +sighed for his old home on the Tennessee River and fondled his sorrow +as an exile, and was wont in financial pride and vainglory to recount +the value of his stock and “gude will,” on the last of which he laid +particular stress, being so well acquainted with the country,—to use +his phrase, “wi’ baith man an’ beast, wi’ ilka buck on twa legs or +four that roamit the woods,”—he had ample opportunity in the lack of +competition to recoup himself for the losses that he had sustained. +Moreover, he had the trade of the officers and men at the fort, for +those days in no wise differed from these in the necessities suddenly +developed as soon as one is out of reach of the usual sources of supply.</p> + +<p>The trader was cheerful in these fair prospects, rosy and jocund, and +in this connection said “oh fie” many times to call his daughter’s +attention to the fact how “fat and well-liking he was,” needing none of +her care, and to urge her return to the colonies.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_305">[Pg 305]</span></p> + +<p>“I’ll e’en bide here,” she averred firmly. “There’s but the twa o’ us. +I maun hae my hame where ye be, for ye are gettin’ auld; your pow is +fu’ gray!”</p> + +<p>“Ye are a graceless bairn to say as muckle!—oh fie!—I was born wi’ a +tow head!” exclaimed Jock Lesly, who although flattered by her filial +affection felt that she would be safer in Charlestown. “I to be ca’d +gray an’ auld!—when I hae ne’er been sae weel-favored,—comelier, I +trow, than ony o’ thae young lads at the fort, though a’ dressed out in +their flim-giskies.”</p> + +<p>He sometimes wondered vaguely if any of them could be the attraction +that held her here, and then reflected sagely that there were more +lads still in Charlestown. He had experienced a vague regret to +notice—and he had often tried to recall when it had first arrested his +attention—that there had been a gradual averse change in her manner +toward MacIlvesty and a certain glum dourness in his reception of it.</p> + +<p>“That’s no the way to win a high-sperited lass like Lilias,” he +reflected impatiently. “I wonder that the callant has na mair sense. He +suld be sonsy an’ gay, an’ mak a braw show wi’ his Hieland coats an’ +kilts that he thinks sae fine, an’ that set off sae weel his buirdly +round handsome legs. Sic a spindle-shanks as that chiel Tam Wilson now +wad aye be glad o’ the fringed leggings.”</p> + +<p>And then he paused again. For why must he be always thinking of Tam +Wilson presently when his mind was busy with the subject of the +differences which he vaguely perceived had arisen between Callum and +Lilias? He frowned heavily to note anew the connection of ideas. +Surely, surely, the Highlander could not think that she preferred this +man,—this stranger, of whom they knew naught save that his name was +Tam Wilson, and that he hailed from some far-away region of Virginia.</p> + +<p>Adventurous, experimental himself, Jock Lesly, in common with many +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_306">[Pg 306]</span> +of the empiric temperament, was the most conservative of men in his +views controlling others. He had scorned and contemned a title as +“fitten neither to eat nor drink,” but he was exceedingly tenacious +of the fact that he himself came of good honest folk, who could trace +their ancestors, although of humble station,—farmers, fishers, and +traders,—for many and many a generation without a reproach or blemish, +and thus he had perceived no incongruity that Callum MacIlvesty with +his gentle blood should become the husband of Lilias. He knew, of +course, that the Highlander’s inherited right to lands and lineage +was in these days of attainder and forfeiture absolutely valueless, +disregarded, and forgotten, but it was a secret delight to him that +these immaterial honors should elevate and embellish the young +soldier’s attachment to Lilias and render him in her father’s eyes +more worthy of her. Being a widower with an only child, Jock Lesly +could afford to care little for Callum’s lack of fortune or prospects. +As he was fond of saying to himself, “Auld Jock hinna warked for +naething!—the little lassie isna sae tocherless!” and in this view he +would redouble his haste to be rich in the increasing opportunities of +the Indian trade. It was this belated realization of a change in the +sentiments of Callum and Lilias that made Jock Lesly observe the young +fellow somewhat keenly when Callum returned from the upper country with +the commissioners’ force and found that she had been domiciled here +with her father.</p> + +<p>It was late on a gray and misty afternoon when the expeditionary +force, pushing on with added speed in the fear of being belated in +such close proximity to the intermediate station in their long march +to Charlestown, came at last within sight and sound of Fort Prince +George,—a grateful sight, the block-houses looking stanch and burly +in the angles of the four bastions, the ramparts surmounted with +tall palisades, all the works trig and stout, having been put in +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_307">[Pg 307]</span> +repair by Colonel Grant the previous year while he lay here with his +army awaiting the overtures of the vanquished Cherokees for peace. +The fife and drum resounded from the works; the light glanced on the +steel bayonets and scarlet uniforms of the men drawn up to welcome +the commissioners with fitting ceremony, for it was but seldom that +the commandant had the opportunity to greet aught but wild Indians, +and he made the most of the occasion; the little cannon, of which +there were four on each bastion, thundered a salute, and the troops +presented arms as the commissioners rode through the gate. The honors +concluded, the escort and the soldiers of the garrison, breaking ranks, +surged this way and that about the parade, interchanging the news from +Charlestown for reports from the Tennessee River, and the gossip of the +barracks for the details of the various chances of the march, while the +officers of the fort, with evident convivial intent, took charge of the +commissioners and Lieutenant Everard.</p> + +<p>Although the barracks of Fort Prince George had accommodations for a +hundred men, the garrison often fell short of the complement. Therefore +it was no surprise to Everard to meet here orders, in view of the +disquiet of the upper country, to leave to reinforce the garrison such +men as he could spare from his command, since the commissioners were +now on the border of the frontier, and the region through which they +were yet to pass was more or less settled with a white population and +with friendly Indian tribes, the Chickasaws and Catawbas. Everard was +instructed to select for this purpose those of the soldiers who could +not soon rejoin their regiments from which they had been detached for +service in the Cherokee country. Into this category fell the Highland +contingent, for the Forty-Second had just landed in New York,—a +winter in garrison at Fort Prince George seemed a bitter contrast. +Everard was reminded of Callum and his equivocal position as he was +going over the roll, and he felt a qualm of regret. It was not merely +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_308">[Pg 308]</span> +because of that partisan Damon-and-Pythias-like friendship to which +young men are prone, soldiers most of all, and that this change would +necessitate their parting, but that upon the lieutenant’s restoration +to the fitting companionship of his brother officers the man of the +ranks had of course sunk back out of notice and into his proper place. +Everard could not feel himself to blame, yet the incongruity pained +him. Despite Callum’s intrinsic equality with the best of the officers, +Everard knew that it would be futile to urge upon them his own example +in the exceptional circumstances, and indeed this had been fraught with +much discomfort not to say danger in his instance.</p> + +<p>Nevertheless, recollecting the episode of the Ancient Warrior’s +disguise and the tender solicitude which the soldier had shown for +his friend’s safety at so great a jeopardy of his own, risking not +only death but the torture, the lieutenant felt very kindly to Callum +and was minded to bestow upon him some parting gift. As he was +canvassing in generous thoughts the character of this testimonial, he +was beset by a sudden monition of the concomitant pride and penury +of the Highlander. Everard would not wound him on either account for +the world. He congratulated himself as on an escape, and as he was +strolling from his quarters to the mess-hall, suddenly meeting Callum, +he abruptly turned about and passed his arm fraternally through the +soldier’s.</p> + +<p>“Come, Callum Bane,” he said gayly. “I’m off to-morrow. Let’s go to the +trader’s and get a keepsake. I’ll give you an Indian pipe if you will +give me one, and as long as the <i>Nicotiana Tabacum</i> holds out to +burn we will never forget the big Injun at Chilhowee.”</p> + +<p>Callum had no sense of supersedure or resentment upon his sudden +dismissal from his friend’s society. He was too entirely the soldier +to cavil at the obligations which the gradations of rank necessarily +impose. He had himself some sharp experience that these restrictions +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_309">[Pg 309]</span> +cannot be ignored without involving a corresponding subversion of +military subordination. Therefore he was not grudging nor envious, but +accepted as the natural sequence of events the fact that Everard should +be happily carousing with the young officers of the garrison while he, +so lately the lieutenant’s chosen friend, stood guard on the ramparts +in the chill midnight. Hence he cordially and smilingly assented, and +the two, arm in arm, set forth together.</p> + +<p>The weather still held lowering and gloomy. On the rampart at Fort +Prince George one could scarce see through the chill mists, and beyond +the bare space encircling the works, to the dense, leafless wilderness. +At the verge of these woods, and looking backward, one could only make +out the fort like a sketch in sepia, with its shadowy block-houses, its +blurred barrack roofs sleek with sleet, its tall palisades surmounting +the rampart with their pointed summits serrating the gray sky. The only +note of color amidst all the dreary neutral tints was the red uniform +of a squad of soldiers returning with several deer from the hunt that +kept the post in fresh meat.</p> + +<p>The trading-house was well within sight of the works and close on +the river bank. The boughs of several leafless trees, white with the +morning’s rime, although it was now past noon, swayed above its high +peaked roof; within this seemed to hold great merchandise and store of +shadows, for however the light might stream in at the broad barn-like +door, or the fire flare on the hearth at the further extremity, only +vague outlines of struts and rafters and interdependent timbers could +be seen, while from the beams below swung various goods appropriate +to the time and trade,—saddles, bridles, ropes, chains, blankets, +cloths of various bright tints of red and yellow, all interwoven and +rich of effect. Arms glittered on the shelves and racks below, and +axes, hatchets, knives,—all sending out a metallic glitter here and +there as the firelight flickered. Always about this fire stood or +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_310">[Pg 310]</span> +crouched at least half a dozen braves of various tribes, reveling in +its luxury, albeit so well inured to the cold elsewhere, their presence +necessitating cautious surveillance from the under-traders. For the +Indians of the lower grades, it is said, considered it no derogation +to steal, but infamy to be caught in stealing. A variety of articles +calculated to attract the favorable regards of the officers and men at +the fort were displayed,—buttons, hose, buckles, brushes, snuffboxes, +ribbons, candlesticks and snuffers, mirrors, gambadoes,—even books, +over the slow sale of which Jock Lesly often shook his head. “The +carles at the fort are no readers.” Some exquisite feather-wrought +mantles, Indian baskets, hemp-woven rugs, and quaint pottery were +offered. There were a number of stone pipes showing an extraordinary +skill in carving, for the material, soft when quarried, hardened on +exposure to the air. The Cherokees excelled all other tribes in this +branch of aboriginal art, and some of their work of this date may now +be seen in museums or decorating the rooms of historical societies. +Before the trader’s collection of pipes the two friends paused.</p> + +<p>Jock Lesly had met Callum with no apparent diminution of their earlier +cordiality when first he had returned to the fort. But it nettled +the proud Highlander now to observe how obsequious was the trader’s +manner to Everard, taking scant notice of his “far awa’ kinsman.” +And why indeed should he not be attentive to the officer? Jock Lesly +cared naught for him but to sell him an Indian pipe, and if the one +found for him did not please him to diligently persuade him that it +did. “Surely, surely, sir, a bonny bauble. Here, sir, is a fearsome +cur’osity if you favor the heejus in Injun carving. That, sir,—why it +stays in a corner, bein’ broken. An’ here, sir—look at this—a braw +specimen, a real bit of sculpchur.” As far as Jock Lesly was concerned +John Francis Everard was born and brought into this world expressly +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_311">[Pg 311]</span> +to buy that pipe, for Jock Lesly was essentially a trader—so superior +a salesman, in fact, with an eye so keenly and accurately adjusted to +the main chance, that without the least ceremony he abruptly deserted +them for a matter of more moment, and Callum, angered but an instant +since by the adroit pressure of these small wares by a man able to +care naught whether the sale was made or lost, was inconsistently +irritated, affronted, when Jock Lesly’s attention wavered. A couple +of Indians bargaining their peltry for gear had become embroiled in +rancorous words with the under-trader, who was about to lose his temper +under great provocation and, what was worse in the estimation of Jock +Lesly, the advantages of the trade. As he stepped swiftly to the +rescue, suavely inquiring into the point at issue, the Cherokee words +embellished with his Scotch accent, the two military men at the counter +where the pipes were laid out, in the design of which they each sought +something reminiscent of their experiences together, hesitated, at a +loss, and a trifle out of countenance. Callum trembled lest by reason +of this cavalier treatment aught disrespectful of auld Jock Lesly pass +the lips of the officer, whom he supposed to be entirely ignorant +of any concern or interest that he had in the trader’s household. +But Jock Lesly was amply competent to maintain his own standing, and +Everard, exacting as he might be, was no man to quarrel with a trader +for postponing the sale of a trifle lest he lose the bargain for a +hundredweight of choice peltry.</p> + +<p>As they idly waited the firelight flickered in their faces; the steel +of the weapons in the racks flashed in long, slender lines about the +building; the wind, wet, fragrant with the odor of bark and dead +leaves, came in from the wilderness without at the open door, and set +all the gloomy dusk awavering; and suddenly, as if evolved from the +necromancy of these immaterial elements, a slight shape compounded of +light and shadow, of the sheen of golden hair and a dull brown dress, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_312">[Pg 312]</span> +a pink and white face, with dark blue eyes and eyelashes still darker, +stood on the other side of the counter with a submissive “What’s your +wull?”</p> + +<p>Everard stared speechless. Doubtless the girl was uncommonly pretty, +but it had been full three months since he had seen a fair white brow +in a woman, a blue eye, and a wealth of curling blond hair. She looked +in the shadow an angel for beauty, a princess for dignity, and a nun +for ascetic gravity. Yet she was only the trader’s daughter, ably +seconding her father, whose heart she knew must be fairly rent for +failure of the opportunity to sell the pipes. “John, Duncan, Malcom,” +he had roared, and they came not; therefore gliding out from some +hidden recess appeared Lilias.</p> + +<p>Once more Callum trembled for the false position, for instantly the +handsome Everard must needs seek to commend himself personally, and +essay the language of gallantry.</p> + +<p>“This represents, you say, an Indian queen with black locks,” he said, +turning over in his hand one of the pipes curiously tinted that she had +offered. “I should not care for that. It seems to me that the only hair +for beauty is yellow, gilded as if with refined gold.”</p> + +<p>He boldly lifted his handsome eyes to her fair tresses devoid of the +concealing cap of the fashion and rolled, richly waving, high up from +her forehead and held with a blue ribbon.</p> + +<p>She did not even change color. It seemed that the image carved on the +stone pipe might have smiled as readily. She only laid it aside with +supreme gravity as a rejected commodity, and he was at once ill at +ease, for he would have liked well to own it.</p> + +<p>“May I ask you to choose one for me and one for my friend,” he +persisted in the personal note, partly to cover his confusion. Then he +added, “You understand the degree of aboriginal art they represent and +what is most worth while.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_313">[Pg 313]</span></p> + +<p>If he had expected to prolong the interview by reason of her +vacillations in the discharge of this commission, he was mistaken. In +two minutes he was furnished with an effigy of the head of a warrior +crowned with a war-bonnet. Through its rudely simulated circle of +feathers the smoke would curl as if merely an extension of their +flamboyant glories. Callum had assigned to him a similitude of a +bird, curiously wrought and with an elaborately decorated stem. Then +she suddenly vanished, as if a vision of such delicate consistency +could hardly withstand the freshening of the breeze. As it came in, +flaring the fire and fluttering the fine show of fabrics swinging from +the beams and circling about the building, it seemed as if it had +extinguished the fair and dainty fancy that she must have been.</p> + +<p>“The trader’s beautiful daughter, Miss Lilias, no doubt,” said Everard +to Callum in a low voice, as they turned to settle for the pipes with +Jock Lesly.</p> + +<p>Although so low a voice, her father heard it.</p> + +<p>“And I should be glad to know, sir, from whom you had her name so pat +upon your tongue?” he demanded surlily.</p> + +<p>He could not have said why, but he was angered by the phrase, “the +trader’s beautiful daughter,” although he was not expected to +overhear it. With his mind averse to Callum as it had lately grown, +he speculated upon the possibility that it was he who had descanted +upon her beauty to this young lordling, and that Everard, perhaps, had +caused himself to be brought here that he might judge for himself.</p> + +<p>For once Callum subjected himself to no misapprehension. “I hae never +mentioned her name,” he said stiffly.</p> + +<p>“No, no, indeed!” protested Everard hastily; for although he revolted +at the pother over so slight a matter as he esteemed it, he wished to +occasion no awkwardness to Callum, whose position seemed to bristle +with unexpected difficulties. “I never heard of her from Callum—nor +from any one at the fort. She—your daughter, Miss Lilias—was +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_314">[Pg 314]</span> +mentioned to me by a Virginian whom we saw in the Overhill towns—who +claimed to be well acquainted with you. His name was—Tam Wilson—was +it not, Callum?”</p> + +<p>“I dinna ken his name,” said the dour Callum shortly.</p> + +<p>“Ou, ay—Tam Wilson—I mind Tam Wilson weel enow,” said the trader +curtly, his red face now blotched with white.</p> + +<p>He took his money for the pipes, and as the two young men trudged +away in the closing mist he took himself to task. He did not know +what he would be at, he said to himself. He could not expect the +trader’s beautiful daughter Lilias never to be mentioned among young +men—why, the girl was celebrated for her beauty wherever she went. +But somehow he knew that if Callum had been seriously in love he was +of that earnest, reserved nature that would have guarded her name from +other lips as if it had been a sacred thing; that her beauty would +have been to him only an incident of her personality, dear because it +characterized her, and never to be vaunted abroad by him.</p> + +<p>Analyzing thus his anger, Jock Lesly discovered that he was not excited +because her name was mentioned, but because he thought that it had come +from Callum. This marked the measure of disappointment and discontent +he experienced, to suspect that Callum’s attachment to Lilias was not +of the serious nature hitherto supposed.</p> + +<p>“But hegh, sirs,” he said to himself, “it’s no for the puir callant’s +betterment that the lassie’s father hae aye a kind heart till him when +Lilias hersel’ looks so glum an’ dour at him. I marked the glance o’ +her eye whilst I was dealin’ with thae carles o’ Injuns. Lord—Lord!” +he exclaimed in dismay, “man is but mortal an’ fitted for mortal wark! +I canna trade wi’ the Injuns an’ yet hae the wisdom an’ leadin’ to +guide the luve affairs o’ that freakish Lilias, that I’se warrant dinna +ken her own mind! I’se e’en commit it a’ to Providence, that dootless +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_315">[Pg 315]</span> +hae mair experience than this puir tradin’ body, that disna even ken +what will become o’ the station if they still hand otters at the price +they are askin’ the noo!”</p> + +<p>Having thus discharged his mind of the responsibility, although now +and again he sighed heavily because of the soreness that the stress of +his anxiety had left in his consciousness, he busied himself in the +multitude of his duties, ever and anon returning to the haranguing of +Duncan and Malcom and John, that they should have all been out of the +way and left him with no one to wait on a wheen o’ callants frae the +fort, it requiring both himself and Dougal to drive a bargain with the +discerning chief of Nequassee.</p> + +<p>This line of thought bringing up again the recollection of Callum’s +offended face and wounded mien because of his ungracious and groundless +suspicions, Jock Lesly grew pricked in conscience and desirous to be +reconciled formally.</p> + +<p>“Zounds!” he muttered, “I maun hae my friends, Lilias or no Lilias, an’ +the man is my far awa’ cousin—sae far awa’ it canna be counted—but +that’s neither here nor there. Hegh, Duncan,” he called out, “ye can +gae ower to the fort an’ ask Callum MacIlvesty if he’ll no sup wi’ me +the night if he isna on duty.”</p> + +<p>It had been Callum’s impression during the few days that he had +now been at the fort that the trader’s domicile must be one of the +unoccupied cabins within the works, for he knew that during the +earlier alarms of the Cherokee War certain houses had been placed at +the disposal of the settlers’ families flocking there for safety. In +his opinion this would have been much the safest method of sheltering +the trader’s family, but his invitation to the domestic board at the +trading-house itself was a definite negation to this supposition.</p> + +<p>“Surely auld Jock is clean wud,” he said to himself as, furnished duly +with leave, he went out from the fort and crossing the bridge of the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_316">[Pg 316]</span> +fosse took his way over the glacis beyond the fields and those broad +spaces filled with the stumps of the trees which Grant’s troops had +felled while the army lay in camp outside the works.</p> + +<p>He stumbled over one of these, so dim was the light of the chilly, +misty dusk. As he regained his footing he turned to look back at the +fort. It was but dimly outlined against the dreary evening sky; a +steady gleam of light came from the window of the guard-house near the +gate, while hovering above the works was a vague suffusion of rays +that doubtless issued from various undiscriminated sources,—doors +ajar, unseen windows, a lantern perchance swinging here and there,—all +combining in this faint, dimly discerned aureola beneath the dense, +overpowering weight of the blackness of the night. He heard the +sentinel challenge the officer of the day on his rounds and then the +measured tramp as the guard turned out. The lonely wind was sighing +among the sad, rifled woods; the river’s dash over the rocks that +fretted its currents came distinct to his ears; and just as he was +thinking that without more guidance in the darkening gloom he might +walk off its steep bluffs he perceived suddenly a light in front of him +and heard the opening of a door. He was already at the trading-house, +and here was Jock Lesly coming out to speculate on his delay, but +seeing him at hand, he pretermitted this to reprove his tardiness.</p> + +<p>“Hout, man! ye’ll get no sic vivers at the fort as I sail set before +ye! My certie, when I was your age the board ne’er waited for my teeth +to be sharpened.”</p> + +<p>There was, however, no convivial board spread in the trading-house, +where Callum now expected to see it. While he waited for Jock Lesly +to rearrange a barricade at the door which could not be removed from +without except with great clamor, he noted instead that the fire had +died down almost to embers. Only now and again a feeble white flare, +starting up from a mass of red coals, showed the proportions and usage +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_317">[Pg 317]</span> +of the trading-house, and set up such a flicker among the glancing arms +and swaying fabrics as gave an uncomfortable suggestion of half seen +figures lurking and ready to spring.</p> + +<p>“Hegh, callant,” cried Jock Lesly’s voice with a tremor of relish and +triumph in the disclosure he meditated. “Come along, and we’se see +what we’se see!”</p> + +<p>Lighting a lantern he pulled aside a secret door in the counter, and +as he crept into the box-like place, Callum MacIlvesty heard the sound +of another door opening in the flooring. The swaying light in the +hand of the host began to slowly descend, and the young Highlander, +following closely, bidden to slam the door of the counter behind him, +found with his feet the rungs of a ladder but dimly discerned as the +lantern swung. Presently, however, there was scant need of this humble +illumination. A gush of red light from below revealed the long extent +of the ladder, a stone floor at the bottom, the walls of a grotto of +impenetrable unbroken rock, and naught besides. A projection of the +rugged wall like a buttress shielded the apartment from view, while +they themselves were fully visible throughout their descent. Jock Lesly +barely gave the young fellow time to leap down without touching the +last half dozen rungs, and lowered the ladder swiftly by means of a +rope and pulley; the door which it had held open shut quickly, and if +a man should seek to lift it or to descend thence, he could be picked +off by a rifle from below before he could gain a glimpse of the place +beneath or the group in the chamber beyond. If an intrusive foot should +be placed on the ladder when in position, a mere touch from below +would dislodge that structure, and the invader, falling from the great +height, pay for his temerity with his life.</p> + +<p>This was a device put into practice by those constrained to dwell among +the inimical Indians in Tennessee, both before and afterward, but to +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_318">[Pg 318]</span> +Callum it was an undreamed-of expedient, and he must needs pause to +admire the completeness of its features before Jock Lesly, pointing +them out in detail, would permit him to turn to survey the subterranean +home.</p> + +<p>“The conies are but a feeble folk, yet make they their houses in the +rock,” the trader quoted.</p> + +<p>A lofty but narrow chamber had its elements of comfort. Hickory logs +were flaring in a great fireplace, and remembering the plan of the +building above Callum realized that the flue connected with the chimney +of the trading-house, and thus no smoke or light betrayed the cavern +to the Indians or, if it were already known to them, this usage of it. +The walls, roof, and floor, of rock of unimaginable thickness, were +without a break, save that on the side next the river, in a passage +like an anteroom, was a series of apertures high among the shadows and +round like portholes, affording ample ventilation,—a curiosity that +occurs here and there among the bluffs of this region, relics of some +forgotten cataclysmal period when the outbursting waters sculptured +the rocks. Beyond another arch or tunnel seemed a more limited chamber +adjoining the main grotto, whence a golden glow of lamplight betokened +occupation, and a wooden partition and door added to its seclusion. “A +cubby hole yon where Lilias sleeps an’ keeps her bit duds, an’ rins +awa’ to sulk, an’ here on this end is a passage where the gillies +foregather an’ ane always is on watch to guard the door. An’ this +big room is the parlor, an’ we sit here to receive our company like +gentles. Hegh, callant, if we had only had sic a ha’ house on the sweet +Tennessee River!”</p> + +<p>Before the fire now Lilias sat as if she were indeed in some safely +guarded and softly lined parlor. She was arrayed in a brilliant yet +dainty gown of striped sarcenet, blue and white, with pink roses +scattered at intervals down the white stripe. Her shining golden hair +was rolled high from her forehead and a long thick curl hung to her +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_319">[Pg 319]</span> +shoulder at one side. An embroidered cape of sheer cambric made visible +the white neck that it affected to shield. Her feet were cased in +high-heeled red slippers, over one of which the old collie had put a +restraining paw, that she might not move without his knowledge, as he +lay on the rug beside her spinning wheel. She was now busy with this +little flax wheel, while the supper was cooking under the ministrations +of an elderly wrinkled Scotch dame, the mother of one of the gillies, +who officiated in the household in many capacities,—cook, laundress, +dairy woman,—and not the least valued by Jock Lesly as his adviser how +to manage the fractious Lilias, whose nurse she had been.</p> + +<p>“Gude guide us!” she would exclaim. “Maun ye always be harryin’ the +bairn’s life out? Let her alane! Let her alane! or else since ye are +sae cruel jus’ tak your big fist an’ knock her harns out at ance!”</p> + +<p>Thus berated Jock Lesly would feel that he was indeed a disciplinarian +and must needs moderate his severities, or Luckie Meg, as she was +called, would be telling at the fort and elsewhere how he tyrannized +over his household.</p> + +<p>Here Lilias, in the unbounded wisdom of eighteen years, had elected +to set up her staff, and hither had she transported the bulk of her +effects. She ordered her life much as she would if yet in Charlestown, +and seemed incongruously content. If the sight of her in her plain dark +brown serge had been overwhelming to Everard, what would be the effect +of this vision of dainty loveliness Callum wondered.</p> + +<p>Very serious she was when she sat at the table, with a sort of absolute +impervious dignity that was not even impaired when the collie stood +up on his hindlegs beside her chair with his forepaws on the cloth, +looking about him with eager curiosity, and betraying like an ill-bred +child that there were more elaborate “vivers” for this occasion than +he was in the habit of seeing. Callum could hear the rushing of the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_320">[Pg 320]</span> +river so close outside that he thought their cavern of refuge must +be lower than the surface of the water. The flames flared and roared +up the chimney; the young packmen or gillies laughed and talked with +muttered gibes and boyish sniggers and chuckles in their anteroom; +the shadows flickered over the lofty vault; Jock Lesly was once more +his old genial self, and Callum felt that the fort was so far away +that it was garrisoned in another existence, that the Indians were +extinct, that sorrow and pain and loss were but the untoward incidents +of an old dream called life, and that he had entered into Paradise,—a +bit doubtful, a bit tremulous, a bit prayerful, and very humble, for +Lilias, though quite casual, though only carelessly kind, had smiled at +him!</p> + +<p>“Tam Wilson, now,” said Jock Lesly.</p> + +<p>And all at once this grim old world of troubles and fears, of grief and +gloom, had whisked back again.</p> + +<p>“Now that chiel, Tam Wilson!” reiterated Jock Lesly.</p> + +<p>He was amazingly comfortable, the trader, still sitting at the table +thrown back in a seat, cleverly constructed to imitate a cushioned +armchair, drinking Scotch whiskey till the smell of the peat of the +still fires seemed to fill the room, and then a fine French brandy that +but inflamed his patriotism and insular prejudice. “What’s that callant +doing all this long time in the Cherokee country?”</p> + +<p>Callum glanced down at the firelight flashing through his own glass, +now like a ruby and now like a topaz. He dared not meet the eyes of +Lilias. But when he looked up at last, as he needs must at a repetition +of the question, she was busied with a comfit.</p> + +<p>“I hae my ain thoughts,” he said.</p> + +<p>Jock Lesly was beginning to nod. It had been a long hard day, and now +warmth and comfort and “vivers” and brandy were telling on his powers +of discrimination.</p> + +<p>“Seems strange! Remember Callum,” he said suddenly, “how afeared o’ +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_321">[Pg 321]</span> +Moy Toy the callant was!” He laughed sleepily. “He fairly pined to get +us out o’ reach o’”—He paused, nodding.</p> + +<p>Once more Callum glanced furtively at Lilias. She sat idly toying with +her spoon in the red glow, her blue and white apparel, her golden +head, her glimmering neck and shoulders, half revealed by their sheer +broideries, all indescribably dainty, fairy-like of effect amid +these rude surroundings. Her soft and delicate countenance was calm, +inexpressive, inscrutable.</p> + +<p>“Hegh, Callum,” said Jock Lesly, seizing the subject again in a waking +interval, “that captain-lieutenant—what’s his name? Everard? Aye, +Everard! A-weel, Everard was saying that chiel was bein’ passed off +on him for a Frenchy. Hegh! my certie! Tam Wilson a Frenchy—Johnny +Crapaud”—</p> + +<p>His head fell more definitely forward—he was gone at last; the low +luxurious susurrus of his breath, almost a snore, filled the room at +regular intervals.</p> + +<p>Afterward Callum could not appraise the impulse, the instinct, that +animated him. The room had dulled to a deep crimson glow; in the waning +light of the fire the gray walls of the cave showed without shadows, +for the light was not so strong as to duplicate an image. Luckie Meg +slept on her stool by the hearth, the collie snored under the table, +the gillies were silent in the antechamber; the only suggestion of the +world outside was the sound of the river rushing on like life to its +ultimate destination, to be lost in the tides of the sea like eternity. +In the red gloom Callum was hardly aware if her face were yet so +distinct, or because in his memory never a shadow could rest upon it.</p> + +<p>He gazed directly into her eyes and beheld them dilate expectantly.</p> + +<p>“<i>You</i> knew that he was French, Lilias. <i>You</i> knew it all the +time!”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_322">[Pg 322]</span></p> + +<p>She replied as to an accusation. “No—not all the +time—<i>no</i>—Callum!”</p> + +<p>“And you knew how I loved you—so long—so true—never one else—never +another thought! And to cast me aside for him—for <i>him</i>! A spy, +an emissary, sent to spirit up the Indians against the frontier—for +the hideous massacres of women and children.”</p> + +<p>“He declared it was not for that. He said his government only sought +to utilize the Indians in the same way that the English hae used them +in our armies, as soldiers. He only obeyed his orders, as you do +yours—being a soldier, forbye an officer.”</p> + +<p>“An officer! O Lilias, war is one thing and this is another!”</p> + +<p>“I think like you, Callum; though after I heard him tell his plan it +didna seem the same; that is—forbye”—Lilias hesitated, sore beset—“I +could see how it all had a different face to him. An’ he was na cruel +to us—he keepit the Injuns aff us.”</p> + +<p>“Because the French plans were not ripe enough for our murder then—and +Lilias, you knew it! And let your father warm this serpent by his +hearth—in his bosom!”</p> + +<p>“I didna ken it at first. No, Callum,” exclaimed Lilias, eager in +self-defense, her own fealty to the hamely ingle-neuk in question. +“No, and not till the last,” she protested, her voice trembling as she +remembered that he had offered to renounce king and country, duty and +honor for her. This was not Tam Wilson, however. Tam Wilson would never +have done this. And it was Tam Wilson who had been so dear!</p> + +<p>“He told me at the last!—the last day but twa or three!—or else I +couldna hae abided him!”</p> + +<p>Callum, fingering his glass, looked off drearily into the glowing +mass of red coals. He was recalling the details of that memorable +journey,—those days when she declared that she had had dreams. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_323">[Pg 323]</span> +Dreams, dear indeed, since their tenuity warranted the bitter realities +of those hot despairing tears. Dreams, alas, which could not come true! +Callum doubted if his persistence had won for him much of value,—the +certainty that she had wept for Tam Wilson, because he was not—Tam +Wilson!</p> + +<p>Jock Lesly was beginning to stir. He snorted, yawned, stretched his +arms, then sat up straight and opened his eyes. The walls of the +cavern first caught his attention. “Hegh, Callum lad, this is like +thae auld days fowk are sae fond o’ talkin’ about, the Feifteen an’ +the Forty-five, when the attainted Jacobites hid about in caves an’ +hollows, an’ limekilns an’ cellars. Remind ye o’ it?”</p> + +<p>Callum slowly appraised the glowing dream-light, the luxurious warmth, +the comfortable “vivers,” the half emptied decanters, and thought of +the ditch in the moorland and the crevice in the mountain, the cold and +the starvation, the loss of fortune and favor, the end in exile or on +the scaffold. No—he could not just say that he was reminded of it.</p> + +<p>And as Jock Lesly was about to demonstrate the points of similarity in +the situation a sudden iterative throbbing shook the earth, and the +Highlander sprang to his feet, recognizing the vibrations of the drum +beating the tattoo, and saying that he would have a run for it to reach +the fort, the barracks, and bed by taps.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_324">[Pg 324]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="XVI">XVI</h2> +</div> + + +<p>THE detachment of Highlanders that Lieutenant Everard left to +reinforce Fort Prince George proved of no great interest to the troops +already stationed there pining in the weariness of long inaction. The +natural expectation of the revival of zest in life incident to new +companionship, fresh experiences, stories still untold, and songs as +yet unsung all fell flat in the reality; for few of the newcomers could +speak aught but the Gaelic, and they clung together with a pertinacity +and a suspiciousness of the “Sassenach sidier,” with whom they were +thus unequally yoked, that threatened faction in the little garrison. +Hence, to accustom them to their new comrades and break up the clique +whenever it was possible, the Highlanders were separately detailed to +duty among the English, although on parade, at roll call, and at drill +they were segregated and kept within their own ranks.</p> + +<p>Callum MacIlvesty was one of the few who could speak English; but +although, being a “gentleman ranker,” his lowly station involved +association with his military equals, he seemed hardly likely to +contribute notably to the mirth of nations. He was preoccupied, gravely +brooding much of the time, and even when roused showed a temperament +averse to the familiar horseplay of the jocund Britisher. Among his +Scotch comrades he was little subject to the irksome constraints of +his position as a common soldier. They could gauge and realize his +claims to a higher station, and, more than conceding them, showed him +a consideration and respect to which he had been accustomed from his +earliest youth. He returned their kindness, which thus manifested +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_325">[Pg 325]</span> +a touch of the magnanimous, with earnest fellow feeling, and his +relations with them were affectionate and even fraternal. To the +English contingent at the fort, however, he was merely “a bare-kneed +Sawney who held his head stiff and stepped high,” with no justification +that they could discriminate, for he, like them, shouldered a musket +for pay.</p> + +<p>Even in this humble station it seemed to him that fortune was +singularly adverse, and that his enforced absence from his regiment +had cost him the signal opportunity of his life to achieve distinction +or aught of value. Recovering from a wound, but yet unfit for duty, +he had been granted a furlough early in the year, which he had spent +at Jock Lesly’s trading-house, and afterward, at the moment of eager +expectation of sailing to join the Forty-Second in the West Indies, +he had been ordered with the small detachment of Highlanders in +Charlestown to reinforce the commissioners’ escort because of previous +familiarity with the Cherokee country. While he was engaged in this +distasteful pacific duty, Moro Castle had been carried by storm and the +city of Havanna had capitulated, and the Forty-Second, returning to +America, was flushed with victory and elated with glory. There was to +be no more fighting, it seemed, and in this tame inaction the winter at +Fort Prince George was but a dreary prospect.</p> + +<p>The inglorious return of the commissioners’ force from the Cherokee +country, and the futile arrest which Everard had attempted, were +matters of great moment to the garrison, lying as it did within the +borders of the Cherokee possessions; but since the event had been all +bloodless, the defeat had been esteemed something of a farce. The +English soldiers of the escort, who could understand the fun poked +at them, one of the essential constituents of mirthful ridicule, had +been mercilessly guyed before their departure for Charlestown; and one +memorable night the subject came up anew in the guardroom, when, in +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_326">[Pg 326]</span> +pursuance of the plan of detailing the Highlanders to duty separately +among the English, Callum chanced to be one of the main-guard.</p> + +<p>The firelight from the great stone chimney place flashed on the +whitewashed walls and with a metallic glitter was reflected from the +stack of arms, in the centre of the puncheon floor, ready for instant +use, although the cry “Guard, turn out!” seemed many hours distant down +the watches of the night, unless indeed some unforeseen chance should +betide. There were several bunks against the wall, which were somewhat +superfluous at this hour, for at night the guard were not permitted +to seek repose thereon, although not a vigilant eye should be closed. +A large door led without to the parade, and a smaller one gave upon +an inner apartment which bore the huge lock common to that day and a +curiosity in this. The key was evidently turned upon some wight who +had found liberty joyous while it lasted, and who now and again sent +forth drunken snatches of song, occasionally varied with vociferous +affectations of woe, weeping and sniffing and groaning by merry turns, +till a freshened joyous impulse would set the catch trolling once more.</p> + +<p>The group about the guardroom fire took slight note of these +aberrations from the regulation deportment appropriate to the +rôle of melancholy prisoner. They were all used to these frequent +incarcerations of their jolly comrade, and realized that the rigor +of his punishment would befall him when he should be sober enough to +profit by it.</p> + +<p>A heavy rain beating tumultuously against the walls and splashing from +the eaves added zest to the luxury of the great blazing logs and the +talk of the group ranged around on the broad hearth of flagstones.</p> + +<p>“An’ d’ ye mean to say, Callum,” began a leathern-visaged, +weather-beaten soldier, the corporal of the guard, leaning his elbows +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_327">[Pg 327]</span> +on his knees as he sat on a great billet of wood, “that as soon as +old Moy Toy sneezed three times your Lieutenant Everard give the word +‘<i>Double-quick while ye can! For’ard, by the rear!</i>’ and the whole +command faced right about and footed it out of the Cherokee country?”</p> + +<p>He winked jovially at the others as the big Highlander, half reclining +on the floor at one side of the hearth, turned his head slowly and came +gradually to a realization of his surroundings.</p> + +<p>“I said naething o’ the sort, an’ ye ken it full weel,” Callum replied +gruffly.</p> + +<p>“That’s not the way to answer your s’perior officer,” the jolly +corporal admonished him, with a leer.</p> + +<p>“Ye never asked no sic a fule question as my superior officer,” Callum +deigned to respond after a pause. “Ask me now if my firelock is clean +an’ my cartouch box is ready, an’ I’se gie ye a ceevil answer; but my +superior officer hae naught to do wi’ Moy Toy’s sneeshin’.”</p> + +<p>“There!” exclaimed the corporal with the affectation of delighted +triumph and discovery. “He have said it! He said that Moy Toy sneezed +and fairly frighted Lieutenant Everard out of the Cherokee country!”</p> + +<p>A roar of laughter rewarded this pleasantry, and hearing the gay sound, +the incarcerated soldier struck up with rather a dreary quaver, “‘I’ll +ride a cock horse to Banbury Cross!’”</p> + +<p>“You will ride a wooden horse as soon as you are sober enough to mount +one!” called out the corporal.</p> + +<p>A great whining and wheezing and affectations of lamentation ensued on +the other side of the door, at which all the guard laughed uproariously.</p> + +<p>One of the English contingent, a short, stocky fellow, who had been +carefully greasing a pair of feet always kept in the prime order for +marching essential to the regular infantry-man, now presented those +members glistening and perfect on the edge of the hearth, that the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_328">[Pg 328]</span> +unguents might take full effect by aid of the heat of the fire. He had +just been admonished by the corporal of that regulation which forbids +the guard to lay aside any of their clothing or accoutrements. He first +argued that stockings were neither arms nor garments, then pleaded with +the corporal for a momentary respite that the grease might soak into +the flesh instead of the fabric of his hose. To take full advantage of +the official clemency he sought to create a diversion by resuming with +animation the previous subject.</p> + +<p>“I wonder,” he said, “if that furriner up there in the Cherokee country +is French or a Spaniard. When I was stationed at Gibraltar I learned a +deal o’ the lingo of that country.”</p> + +<p>A long silence ensued. No surprise was intimated at the extent of the +soldier’s service, for so often had he recounted the details of his +experiences at Gibraltar and the observations he had collated from +Spain that they had grown a burden and had earned for him the sobriquet +of “the Señor,”—appropriately, perhaps, mispronounced “the Sinner.”</p> + +<p>The recent hostilities between England and Spain gave additional and +phenomenal interest to his prelections now.</p> + +<p>“The Spaniards are a great people for all that’s come an’ gone,” he +resumed presently. “’Twas them strengthened the fortifications at +Gibraltar so they are now what they be,” he added significantly.</p> + +<p>“They did so! An’ they done it well, begorra!” retorted a big Irishman. +“An’,” with a rollicking laugh from his full red lips, “bedad, by the +same token we tuk it away from ’um.”</p> + +<p>“The Sinner” took no notice of this pertinent corollary of his +proposition. He was looking reflectively at his feet, stretched out +straight before him as he sat flat on the hearth. His hair stood up +straight from his brow and was tied in a thin queue behind. He had +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_329">[Pg 329]</span> +small bright eyes, heavy-lidded and downcast now. His face was clear +and youthful, with a large jowl, that narrowed toward the mouth, and +a short blunt nose. He was a good soldier by line and rule, and of a +particularly clean aspect. In fact he had so fresh, scraped, washed +an appearance that with his porcine resemblance he suggested, as he +sat with his plump pink and white feet and shins bare of hose to the +knee, some punctual pig that had accommodatingly cleaned and scalded +himself—if such a process were ever possible in the lifetime of swine.</p> + +<p>The flames flared furiously up the chimney. Outside the roar of +water that intimated the swift flow of the Keowee River could be +differentiated from the sound of the rain in a fusillade on the roof +and its splashing sweep from the eaves. A roll of thunder far away +shook the earth, unseasonable, seemingly irrelevant to the occasion, +hardly appurtenant to this steady torrent of wintry rain.</p> + +<p>“If that furriner is one of them Dons,” said “the Sinner,” resuming his +speculations, his eyes critically on the contour of his great toe, “he +knows what’s what. He ain’t there among them Injuns for nothin’. They +are the strategists—them Spaniards.”</p> + +<p>“Arrah,” exclaimed the Irishman, blowing out his contempt with a cloud +of strong tobacco as he smoked his little cutty pipe, “it is just as +well, thin, that they have got nothin’ I want. Cubia will contint +me—that is, for the presint,” he added, with a bland air of moderation.</p> + +<p>For this was before the treaty restoring “the Havannah” to Spain.</p> + +<p>“I’m talkin’ about the hold they are takin’ on this country,” argued +“the Sinner.” “They are surrounding us”—an apprehension at that time +entertained by wiser men than he—“amongst all these wildernesses an’ +with no defenses but two or three flimsy mud forts. They will retaliate +for the Havannah an’ Manilla on the frontier of the British colonies +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_330">[Pg 330]</span> +in Ameriky. <i>Diablo!</i> I tell you now, if that man in the Cherokee +country is one o’ them caballeros, what between the Spaniard an’ the +French an’ the Injuns the southern colonies is crushed.”</p> + +<p>He brought his two shining feet together with a clap, the smart impact +denoting the small chance that aught intervening would have of escape.</p> + +<p>The other men looked reflectively at the fire. They were as brave +as soldiers need to be, but the conditions of the frontier were of +various adverse interpretations. While they could march against an open +enemy readily enough, the chances of traps and massacres, of torture +and slavery in captivity, supplemented by the wiles of a civilized +power coalescing with the savages, and the ever recurrent doubt of +the ability of distant superior officers to cope with these untoward +circumstances so far removed from their observation, all combined to +give the soldiery many a more serious thought than appertained to their +humble functions as the hands that execute rather than the brain that +devises.</p> + +<p>The corporal eyed “the Sinner” rancorously.</p> + +<p>“Ye must be gittin’ them feet ready to gallopade up an’ down on extra +drill,” he said. “I’ll report you for spreading discontent among the +troops with your tomfool talk about them Dons.”</p> + +<p>“Why,” said “the Sinner,” with a look of innocent surprise, “I was just +thinkin’ about all this talk o’ silk wums in Carolina an’ Georgia—when +in Spain—why you ought jus’ to see the wum farms amongst the +mulberries on the”—</p> + +<p>“No—no—ye were talkin’ about that fellow up in the Cherokee country!” +persisted the corporal.</p> + +<p>“Oh, yes,” admitted the wily “Sinner,” perceiving the evasion was +useless. “I was wonderin’ if the lad was a Spaniard to be stirrin’ up +such a commotion. There’s a deal too many o’ them on the continent now +to make it surprisin’ if he is one too!”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_331">[Pg 331]</span></p> + +<p>“I’ll tell ye, thin, me bye! ’tis Oirish he is,” declared the Hibernian +genially. “One o’ me own pattern. Whenever ye meet a distinguished +compatriot an’ don’t know wher he comes from, set him down for an’ +Oirishman, bein’ a man o’ ganius!”</p> + +<p>“He is a Scotchman I’ll wager,” said a native South Carolinian, for +already the leaven of disaffection against that nationality that had +helped to make the province strong and thrifty was beginning to work. +“A Scotchman, and not just one too many, either. A Scotch trader, I’ll +be bound, turned Cherokee. Some o’ the French get regularly adopted +into the tribes. I know some Scotch fellows among the Chickasaws that +are trying it, to trade the more handily, and I dare be sworn that this +makebate among the Cherokees is another Injun Sawney!”</p> + +<p>This stirred Callum’s patriotism, the master key of a Scotchman’s heart.</p> + +<p>“The man’s a Frenchman,” he said curtly.</p> + +<p>“Did he sneeze in French?” demanded the jocose corporal.</p> + +<p>Callum did not laugh. His eyes were fixed on the masses of red coals +beneath the flames of the fire that cast their continual flicker over +his dreamy retrospective face.</p> + +<p>“I wad hae thought mysel’ he had been an Englishman, that is, a +Firginian,” he said reflectively, as if speaking to himself. “But no, +the man is French!”</p> + +<p>The corporal scarce drew a breath. “Hey, Callum lad,” he contrived to +say with a casual intonation, “had ye ever seen him afore that day?”</p> + +<p>“Ou, ay, many a time,” replied Callum, intent on his memories.</p> + +<p>“Where, lad? where?”</p> + +<p>Callum roused himself in returning consciousness.</p> + +<p>“In the Cherokee country, man! At Ioco Town, at Jock Lesly’s +trading-house. We a’ took him for a Firginian.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_332">[Pg 332]</span></p> + +<p>“And why do you think now he is French? Lieutenant Everard gave that +p’int up, they tell me.”</p> + +<p>Callum hesitated. “I hae my ain reasons,” he said, but with such +finality of tone that the corporal pressed the matter no further.</p> + +<p>When the guard was relieved the next morning, the officer of the day +found a point of importance noted in the written report of the officer +of the guard, and as a consequence Callum was surprised by a summons to +the presence of the commandant of the fort, to reply to a very queer +and childish question, as it seemed to him.</p> + +<p>“How do you know that that man in the Cherokee country whom Lieutenant +Everard was—about to arrest”—Captain Howard put it as euphemistically +as possible, out of respect to a brother officer—“how do you know that +he is French?”</p> + +<p>“I heard him speak French, sir, to himself—when he thought he was +alane.”</p> + +<p>“But you know that an Englishman, any one who can learn the language, +can speak French.”</p> + +<p>“Not like a Frenchman, sir,” persisted Callum.</p> + +<p>Captain Howard hesitated. Of all things he would like to secure this +makebate, this formidable influence among the Cherokees, nay among +all the tribes, that had rendered the costly peace which had been +so difficult to secure, so long sought, but a hollow semblance, a +menacing sham. Moreover, he would be very glad to succeed where Everard +had failed. A very close clutch on distinction had the dapper young +lieutenant let slip. And here was the man who in the first instance had +afforded information.</p> + +<p>“Have you no other reason for your belief?” Captain Howard asked +anxiously.</p> + +<p>“Aye, sir, I ken he is French frae himsel’,” Callum replied calmly. “He +tauld a woman, sir, an’ she tauld me; but you will no ask me to mention +her name.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_333">[Pg 333]</span></p> + +<p>“Certainly not,” said the officer, thinking that he wished to avoid +implicating others in responsibility; “a noncombatant in any event. +But,” eagerly, “would you know the fellow if you should see him again?”</p> + +<p>“I wad, sir.”</p> + +<p>“In any disguise?” the officer persisted.</p> + +<p>“I wad indeed, sir, fu’ weel.”</p> + +<p>“That is all for the present,” said Captain Howard. Callum gave him +an amazed stare, then saluted and withdrew, wondering at this puerile +futility. Would he know the man indeed!</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_334">[Pg 334]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="XVII">XVII</h2> +</div> + + +<p>WITH all its advantages civilization bears also its disadvantages to +the postulant of culture. Perhaps no one has adequately appreciated +the stress of that period to the mental and moral nature of the Indian +when, detached from his <i>ancien régime</i>, its methods and manners, +growing scornful of its sanctities and questioning its values, he was +yet unaccustomed to the new order of things, unversed in its utilities, +incompetent of its comprehension—alienated from the one and not +acclimated to the other.</p> + +<p>Many an Indian roamed about the little mart, beginning to gather under +the guns of Fort Prince George, alike surly with contempt for the old +and aversion for the new, unsettled, dissatisfied, dull, and dangerous. +Now and again, with a dark, restless eye, one would pause and look out +unallured to the forest and river—not the same, never again to be the +same! Then he would turn his gaze, with loathing disgust, to the busy +mercantile Europeans, with their quick trading talk, their bearded +faces, their knee breeches, and the long woolen stockings on their +stout, thick calves. A queer and odious presentment of humanity they +seemed. Even the military did not impress the Indians as the soldiers +whirled and ranged about to the sound of fife and drum in that close +order so favorable to being mowed down by the very musket and ball +with which they themselves were armed. A strange mental atmosphere it +was—charged with the fumes from the embers of the burned-out past and +the miasma exhaled from the poisonous present. No wonder their outlook +was beclouded and drear.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_335">[Pg 335]</span></p> + +<p>All the conditions of life hitherto were reversed for many of them. +Never had they met the representatives of certain tribes, immemorial +enemies, save with weapons in their hands. Now, because of the +intrusion of the white man and the diversion of interest that he had +effected, a hollow peace or a simulated indifference had been patched +up. Between many the semblance was fast growing into reality under +the influence of that secret hope, nay, that earnest, triumphant, +almost holy expectation of national independence that had been +held in abeyance of late and which the colonists perceived without +interpreting. It made for a universal friendship among them, and the +traders chafed at its result, for intertribal war sold gunpowder, +utilized the venomous activities of the savages against each other, and +thus gave immunity to the white settlers. This almost visible bond in +the unity of friendship of these hereditary enemies was a menace to all +the English colonies from the mountains to the Atlantic, outnumbered +by their negro slaves, and with the threatening Spaniard on the south +and the inimical French on the west. The frontier traders scanned the +horizon that showed so strange a portent, and muttered much together +and shook their heads.</p> + +<p>To Mingo Push-koosh this prospect of universal brotherhood among the +tribes promised little. He wandered drearily about the world, a vagrant +indeed, almost an outcast. There had been much ill blood between the +Cherokees and Choctaws on his account, although no definite national +war was inaugurated, since the French influence had been exerted +to maintain intertribal peace and secure satisfaction. However, +sundry individual reprisals for the iniquities that celebrated the +<i>congé</i> of Mingo Push-koosh at Great Tellico had resulted in +counter-reprisals till, when two braves of the respective factions +chanced to meet in the settlement about Fort Prince George, nervous +people instinctively dodged in expectation of the smartly sped arrow or +the impulsively hurled tomahawk, and prudent people sought the nearest +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_336">[Pg 336]</span> +shelter. Indeed Mingo Push-koosh would not have ventured here within +the borders of the Cherokee country but for the protection of the guns +of the British fort. He was not safe inside the French boundaries, his +wonted sphere, for he had been bereft of all the honors and privileges +he had once enjoyed. In fact he had been sought with a view to condign +punishment, a price being placed on his head when the authorities at +New Orleans had learned of his betrayal of trust and desertion of +Laroche, leaving him after the massacre in the hands of the Cherokees, +which must have proved fatal to him and the interests he represented +but for his own perseverance and address.</p> + +<p>An exile thus, Mingo Push-koosh affected the English settlements, an +avowed deserter to the British interest, protesting that his eyes were +opened to the French wiles and that the French spoke with the tongue +of a snake <i>seente soolish</i>, the mere sound of which made his +heart weigh very heavy within him. These statements were received with +a certain indifference, for by reason of his exile he could not bring +any great personal following to the English flag; in fact, but for the +hope that his presence might decoy others of his tribe to imitate his +example, Mingo Push-koosh<a id="FNanchor_11" href="#Footnote_11" class="fnanchor">[11]</a> would scarcely have been regarded at +all. Proud and ambitious, he realized the necessity of pressing more +efficaciously his own cause, and would have embraced the opportunity of +any military service—but how? and whither?</p> + +<p>Poor Push-koosh! Disregarded by the English, and in actual danger +from the French, the pompous Prince Baby had now naught in hand of +more import than the mercantile venture of selling a dozen or so fine +horses, which he had caused to be driven from his old home at Yowanne, +through the southern country, to Jock Lesly, who desired them for +use in his pack-trains to Charlestown in the spring, laden with the +skins from this winter’s hunt. The sale accomplished to-day, Mingo +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_337">[Pg 337]</span> +Push-koosh strolled about, forlorn, friendless, among the boxes and +bales on the platform of Jock Lesly’s trading-house at Keowee Town. +His thick long hair floated in the breeze; his silver arm-plates and +headband were as bright as of yore, but a deep dejection showed in his +large surly eyes, and he had the effect of a drooping crest, albeit the +flamingo feathers still flaunted high.</p> + +<p>“<i>Ish la chu, angona?</i>” (Are you come, friend?) A Chickasaw who +passed offered the conventional salutation, knowing of the Choctaw’s +defection from the French interest, for the sub-tribes (including the +Choccomaw) of the ancient Chicimecas have almost a common language.</p> + +<p>“<i>Arahre-O angona!</i>” (I am come indeed, friend!) Push-koosh +replied, although he could hardly refrain from springing upon the +Chickasaw as he passed and tearing the scalp from his head with his +teeth, if need were.</p> + +<p>The incident concluded, he continued to idle about the trading-house, +standing on the platform and gazing at the gray river under a gray sky. +The water was dark—all the light in the landscape seemed concentrated +in the icy flicker in the leafless forests near the Indian town of +Keowee which lay on both banks. Then he shifted his position and stood +on the other end of the platform and gazed silently at the bastions of +the fort. Whenever he saw the British flag he could not refrain from +spitting his disdain openly, obviously, on the ground. Fearing lest +this demonstration be observed, as the flag flaunted from the fort, +he once more turned impatiently and changed his position to the other +end of the platform, as before. He was absorbed in the reflection that +the great coalition of Indian tribes would at last become a triumphant +fact and that he would have no share in it. This fair prospect he had +forfeited, with the favor of the French; as for the English, they would +have none of him, would trust him with no opportunity of value.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_338">[Pg 338]</span></p> + +<p>So long he stood there that the under-trader grew a trifle solicitous +as to his designs. The degenerate among the Indians had become most +expert thieves, and it is recorded that while engaged in conversation +with the merchant they could abstract what articles they would from +under his eyes. Alas, poor Push-koosh—whose thoughts were of empire!</p> + +<p>Dougal Micklin, the under-trader, a pursy, unimaginative man, all of +whose mental processes could be discerned in his round face and his +merry dark eyes, with his round, burly body encased in buckskins and +wearing a coonskin cap set rather far back from his placid brow, was +loath to take his eyes from the Choctaw, visible through the wide +barn-like door, and therefore mentioned his identity to Captain Howard, +the commandant of the fort, who chanced to be in the house purchasing +some buttons for his own personal use.</p> + +<p>“Aye, sir, three and sax the dozen, sir,” Dougal Micklin said, as he +glanced again out of the door; then, as if to excuse his evidently +wandering attention, he continued, “That Choctaw buck is an unco gret +prince, Captain,” his red lips curling with good-natured sarcasm at the +idea. “He used to be in high favor wi’ the French, but he fell out wi’ +the mounseers at Tellico Gret, and now seems to have his finger in his +mouth.”</p> + +<p>Captain Howard turned suddenly and surveyed the figure of the Indian, +as Push-koosh, unconscious of this keen scrutiny, stood sullen and +dreary on the platform. The fringes of his saffron-hued buckskin shirt +and leggings were all borne backward in the breeze, his stiff scarlet +flamingo feathers and his long black hair were aslant also without +other stir, as if he might have been pictured thus on a canvas. His +heavily embroidered belt, shot pouch, and tobacco bag, his silver +headband and bracelets, his necklace of pearls and many strings of +“roanoke,” the fine silver-mounted pistols at his side, all seemed to +confirm the truth of the trader’s representations as to his high rank.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_339">[Pg 339]</span></p> + +<p>“’Tis Mingo Push-koosh!” the trader added.</p> + +<p>“Call him in,” said Captain Howard. Then with an afterthought, “No, +I’ll speak to him myself!”</p> + +<p>The officer striding out confronted the Choctaw just as again, catching +a glimpse of the British flag, Mingo Push-koosh was about to spit his +disaffection upon the ground.</p> + +<p>“How?” said Captain Howard, smiling agreeably.</p> + +<p>Push-koosh was visibly surprised, but looked inconceivably haughty.</p> + +<p>“How?” he returned with half covert, scornful disapprobation, and +waited in doubt.</p> + +<p>Now Captain Howard’s education was lamentably defective as far as the +Choctaw, practically the Chickasaw language was concerned, although the +latter Indians were those with whom he had had most dealings, as they +had repeatedly served in the campaigns in this region with the British +troops. Nevertheless, in the delicate and tentative bit of business +which he had in contemplation, he did not desire the offices of an +interpreter lest a bird of the air carry the matter.</p> + +<p>Lending himself to the effort to compass speech as it were without +words, he smiled again blandly with a distinctly mollifying effect.</p> + +<p>“Big Mingo!” he said, waving his hand with a free gesture to impart +added grace to his compliment.</p> + +<p>He was a tall, bony, angular man of forty-five, and the demonstration +ill suited the stiff military dignity of his habitual carriage and the +impressive effect of his scarlet uniform.</p> + +<p>“<i>Capteny Humma Echeto!</i>” (Great red captain!) responded the +Mingo, complimentary in turn.</p> + +<p>Then they both paused and stared hard at each other.</p> + +<p>“Mingo love British?” demanded the captain at length.</p> + +<p>Nothing could have been more sardonic than the languishing smile with +which Push-koosh laid his hand upon his true heart.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_340">[Pg 340]</span></p> + +<p>“Mingo hate French?” the political catechism proceeded.</p> + +<p>The face of Push-koosh suddenly darkened. He spat his contempt on the +ground.</p> + +<p>“<i>Hottuk ookproose!</i>” (The accursed people!)</p> + +<p>“Why hate French?” the inquisitor proceeded.</p> + +<p>The heart of Push-koosh swelled. His eyes burned hot in their sockets. +The veins of his throat were distended and tense as cords. He could +hardly speak even fragmentarily, and but for the straining of every +sense to hear, to distinguish, to interpret, Captain Howard might have +made but little of the jargon of broken English that the Choctaw hissed +out in the intervals between his gasps of rage.</p> + +<p>The ugly French “beloved man” had betrayed him, had ruined his +prospects! He had slandered him to the headmen of Great Tellico! And +because he had quitted the Cherokee country on account of their ill +usage, and left the French ugly “beloved man” there,—who had sustained +no harm whatever!—the indescribably ugly French governor in New +Orleans was angry.</p> + +<p>Captain Howard had caught so eagerly at the words “Great Tellico” that +although his ears were not of such a conformation and flexibility that +they could be described as “pricked up,” his countenance had that vivid +accession of intelligence that seems concomitant.</p> + +<p>“Mingo go Tellico?”</p> + +<p>Push-koosh’s face, gradually brightening in the expectation of a +commission of some important sort, fell suddenly. He remembered that +fierce onset upon the unoffending Cherokee tribesmen, that bloody +massacre! No, not to Tellico, as he valued his life! Never again to +Tellico, never again!</p> + +<p>“Capteny much wants Mingo go Tellico!” urged Captain Howard +persuasively.</p> + +<p>The passionate mobile countenance of Push-koosh, with naught firm in +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_341">[Pg 341]</span> +its lines save the determination to go no more to Tellico, was turned +toward the river, the wind blowing backward his long loose hair, so odd +of effect here among the Cherokees, whose heads were all polled, his +great eyes absent and anxious, his earnest hope of employment in the +British interest slipping beyond his reach. But not to Tellico—never +again!</p> + +<p>“Capteny much wants French ‘beloved man’!” Captain Howard murmured +plaintively.</p> + +<p>Push-koosh brought his small even teeth together with so sudden a snap +and gasp that the officer instinctively drew back a step.</p> + +<p>“Does the beast bite?” he said to himself.</p> + +<p>“Fort Prince George? Bring ‘beloved man’? Capteny wants?” Push-koosh +asked, the words coming one after another, one upon another, in the +joyous turbulence of sudden comprehension.</p> + +<p>Push-koosh could do this for the <i>Capteny Humma Echeto</i> without +the necessity to repair to Great Tellico. In that secret knowledge +of the scheme of the now almost united tribes, many details, seeming +of but scant significance, were obvious to those who had with them +but little concern. For instance, the gossip brought by the tribesmen +who had driven hither his horses had not till now seemed of moment +to Push-koosh. A conference was in contemplation, to be held at +<i>O-tel-who-yau-nau</i> (Hurricane Town), in the country of the Lower +Muscogees, and several noted chiefs were to be present, especially +certain disaffected spirits who desired to lay their views before the +French governor through the medium of his “beloved man,” Lieutenant de +Laroche, who with an escort of Cherokees was to come down expressly +from Great Tellico. The choice of Hurricane Town had been in honor and +placation of Padgee (the Pigeon), its mico, for he was well known to +have hesitated and to be grievously ill at ease at the renunciation +of British favor and British trade. The journey of the “beloved man” +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_342">[Pg 342]</span> +Laroche would lie, it is true, through a country especially friendly +to him and his plans, but Push-koosh knew when the fleet of canoes and +pettiaugres would be expected on Flint River, and it might be—lurking +near—some opportunity—</p> + +<p>His deft fingers trembled upon the trigger of his fine pistol.</p> + +<p>Captain Howard touched his arm.</p> + +<p>“No!” the officer said with the ringing tones of authority. “Alive!”</p> + +<p>“Alive?—the French ‘beloved man’?” Push-koosh faltered.</p> + +<p>Captain Howard was thinking very fast. In those days when rewards were +offered for the scalps of various nationalities of Indians and white +men one could hardly be more certain of the genuineness of a head of +hair than if it were a wig. Captain Howard had some knowledge of a +flaxen scalp riven from the head of an unoffending German colonist and +of the effort to make it pass current for a Spaniard’s jetty hair by an +Indian more disingenuous than discerning. The astute Push-koosh would +never so far disregard the probabilities, but Captain Howard wanted no +cheap English auburn locks from the nearest convenient British station. +He must needs be sure of that subtle brain beneath the thatch. The man +in person—naught else would satisfy him. “Alive—well—the ‘beloved +man’ all in one piece!” he declared slowly, definitely.</p> + +<p>He took his netted silk purse from his pocket and began to +significantly count the golden guineas from one hand to the other. +Push-koosh seemed scarcely to notice. For a moment he was as if in a +daze. The breath came quick from between his parted lips; his teeth +showed slightly, giving him a strange savagery of aspect; his eyes +glanced hither, thither restlessly, as if he were seeking to gauge the +various points of difficulty in the undertaking. He had not moved, but +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_343">[Pg 343]</span> +the wind still fluttered in the fringes of his saffron buckskin suit +and in the crest of scarlet flamingo feathers, and the light of the +dull day gleamed with a white metallic glister upon the silver headband +above his dark flat forehead.</p> + +<p>His eyes seemed suddenly afire when Captain Howard, eager that there +should be no mistake in identity, asked abruptly, “Are you sure that +you would know this French ‘beloved man’ of Tellico if you should see +him again?”</p> + +<p>Push-koosh stared for a moment motionless. Then he bent himself +suddenly backward as if struck by a flaw of wind. He caught both hands +to his lips as if to intercept the cry that escaped,—a fierce, shrill, +tremendous note expanding through all the heavy silence of the gray +day, and seeming to strike with the clamors of its savage joy against +the gates of heaven.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_344">[Pg 344]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="XVIII">XVIII</h2> +</div> + + +<p>WHEN very quietly in the sombre depths of the midnight Callum +MacIlvesty, according to orders communicated abruptly to him by the +commandant, groped down to the river bank, the vague current barely +glimpsed by the scintillation of some star in the ripples soon obscured +by the scudding clouds, he took his seat in a boat with only two dark +figures, motionless, unknown, invisible, for traveling companions. The +river under the shadow of the banks was as black as Styx, and as silent +as Charon was the boat’s crew. On the opposite side, the Indian town of +Keowee lay hushed and absolutely still. Once a dog barked, apprised in +some subtle manner of the enterprise going forward, for there was no +noise of movement, no word spoken. At the fort only the window of the +guardroom was alight, and one listening might hear or fancy the vague +footfall of the sentry walking his limited beat. The gleam from the +window was but a twinkle in the gloom, and only now and again a star +shone out responsive from the clouds. The muffled oars did not rattle +in the locks; there was hardly a perceptible impact as the blades were +immersed in the water. The vague sense of gliding in the darkness away, +swiftly away, from all the familiar world, from all that represented +his experience hitherto and civilized life, whither he hardly knew, +with whom he could not imagine, impressed Callum MacIlvesty’s mind with +a very definite repugnance for his errand, and for all the secrecy and +mystery with which it had been invested. He wondered, as the sense +of distance increased, as the shadow that marked the site of the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_345">[Pg 345]</span> +town merged indistinguishably into the darkness, as the twinkle that +indicated the fort glimmered afar off, then was extinguished utterly, +whether his invisible and silent companions knew more of him than he of +their identity.</p> + +<p>“Captain Howard needna hae feared I’d set mysel’ a-talkin’,” he said +to himself, realizing that the party had been thus unexpectedly and +silently hustled off in order that naught might transpire of their +mission, nay, that their absence might not even be noticed at the fort, +till the scheme was well on its way to execution. “I’m nane o’ the sort +to be given to idle clavers.”</p> + +<p>His companions might have this failing, however, he reflected, and thus +he drew his plaid about him and wrapped himself in silent cogitation as +in the garment.</p> + +<p>Each of the party was himself too surly, or perhaps too proud, or +it may be too doubtful of the others to express curiosity. Without +a whisper, hearing each other breathe, now and again touching one +another, a knee, an elbow, in moving in the strait quarters, they +slipped like a phantom craft, a crew of shadows, past the wharf and the +trading-house, past the group of canoes and pettiaugres anchored or +beached there, past a great Indian camp of the peltry hunters, down and +down the river, the current aiding the regular strokes of the oars and +bearing them swiftly on.</p> + +<p>Naught was roused along the banks except an owl, that hooting after +them sent a gibing echo full of quaint vocables far along the reaches +of the darkling river; and once a great splash in the water close +at hand startled the oarsman, and the craft shot further out toward +the centre of the stream. It was a wolf marauding in the woods and +springing into the water’s edge, but although he howled for a space +naught seemed to hear save the solitary night and the stars now +venturing forth and now lost in the tumult of the unquiet clouds. The +dank wind grew chillier; the darkness more dense; then came a semblance +of vision in which one realized rather than saw great gusty bursts of +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_346">[Pg 346]</span> +rain and erratic flaws of wind striking across the surface of the river.</p> + +<p>At length two vague pallid strata of dull clear sky revealed to Callum +an old cornfield, a vast plain whose evidence of agriculture was but +a memento of the past; a charred skeleton of a burnt Indian town, now +without a tenant, a relic of the Cherokee War; the brown rain-soaked +forests beyond with voluminous clouds bulging down among the treetops; +the steely expanse of the river swirling under the fall of the torrents +and the rush of the wind; and opposite to him, crouching in the bottom +of the boat, Mingo Push-koosh!</p> + +<p>The Choctaw, too, had been keenly watching for the earliest glimmer +of dawn that should discover to him the faces of his silent comrades, +and Callum, although knowing naught of the name or rank or nature of +the man, recoiled from the look in the Indian’s eye. Push-koosh stared +angrily yet maliciously at his changing expression, then daunted a +trifle by the arsenal of arms which the Highlanders of that day bore, +dirk, claymore, pistols, musket and bayonet, marking the stalwart +strength evinced by the soldier’s attitude as he lay at his ease in the +bow, the Mingo smoothed his ruffled crest, as if he would treacherously +bide his time.</p> + +<p>“Does Captain Howard count me no human that he suld send me campaigning +wi’ a panther?” Callum asked himself in amazement.</p> + +<p>“The big Capteny thinks the two white men will make short work of poor +Prince Baby,” Push-koosh reflected, and when he addressed himself to +rearranging his arms, as he shortly did on the pretext of protecting +them from the weather, he reloaded his pistols with balls previously +dipped in poison and thus rendered deadlier than before, by reason of +the extraordinary aptitude which the Indians possessed in toxicology.</p> + +<p>Only one other was of the party,—the English soldier floutingly +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_347">[Pg 347]</span> +called, from his oft-told experiences in Spain, the Señor,—“Sinner” +Kenney. To him the Highlander seemed hardly less savage than the +Choctaw. The vast wilderness, in this strange and solitary duty, +impressed him as appalling; the character of the hardships and dangers +to be encountered was not what he had expected; his spirits had sunk +immeasurably low.</p> + +<p>All day long they held their course in the chill invisibilities of the +mist and rain, two now rowing continually, with the third to lighten +the labor by alternating regularly with the others. The night passed +in the same dreary fashion, each sleeping by turns, that the craft +might make all the speed possible. Little good-fellowship prevailed. +The Choctaw hated them both alike with the rancor of his race and his +prejudice against aught that was British, which he had acquired from +his service with the French; and yet they were formidable soldiers, and +their prowess awed him. “The Sinner” scorned the Choctaw as altogether +beneath his notice, although he repented swiftly any word or act that +might be accounted overt aggression, for the Indian was obviously +dangerous. Connected conversation was practicable only between the +two white men; but “Sinner” Kenney resented the Highlander’s repute +of superiority to his station, and was by turns flippantly offensive +in manner or surlily rude. There being no solid substratum of +good-heartedness and comradeship in him, Callum felt that there was no +pulse in common between them that might atone for the English soldier’s +boorishness and coarse manners, repugnant to a man of refined breeding. +MacIlvesty therefore had little or nothing to say except as regarded +the expediting of their progress, and “the Sinner’s” alternating +jocularities and impertinences failed for the most part to take effect +by reason of the impassiveness of the Highlander and the lack of +comprehension on the part of the Choctaw.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_348">[Pg 348]</span></p> + +<p>After they had entered the Savannah River “the Sinner” began to +flatter himself with the prospect of meeting other river craft—this +broad stream being a highway of trade—and of seeing denizens of +the world hailing from the region below; but his hopes of social +interest and cheery converse were dashed by the rain and the mist +which closed down impenetrably. More than one settlement they passed +wrapped in invisibility in the cloud, as if they themselves were some +undiscriminated element of the atmosphere. When at last the vapors +began to shift and the sun to shine with a warmth all at variance +with the calendar, as it was interpreted at Fort Prince George, where +November, chill and drear, had worn away, they were once more in the +density of the wilderness; and suddenly one day, Push-koosh, who was +steering, gave the boat a deft turn, sent it swiftly shooting in to the +bank, letting it run up a little inlet. Then he sprang out; and as it +was lightened of the weight of Callum, who had stepped on shore, the +Choctaw pulled the craft up on land with the amazed “Sinner” sitting in +it.</p> + +<p>He protested. “<i>Diablo!</i> Are we to leave the boat here?” he cried +aghast, looking about him at the pathless subtropical wilderness.</p> + +<p>“This gude man kens the way,” said Callum with frigid staidness. “Here +is the captain’s chart he gied me his nainsel’.”</p> + +<p>The round head of the experienced English foot-soldier bent over the +paper. There was no mistaking the place. The inflowing of a little +tributary on the Carolina side, the proximity of a ridge hard by, a +series of prehistoric tumuli at no great distance, all sufficiently +identified the locality. And what was that indicated toward the +southwest, across the breadth of what is now the State of Georgia—a +path marked out in red ink? But there was no corresponding suggestion +on the face of the tangled wooded country.</p> + +<p>“<i>Voto á Dios!</i> I wish his ‘nainsel’ was in perdition! An’ this +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_349">[Pg 349]</span> +is the ‘gude man’ who knows the way! He looks ‘gude’ enough to guide +us to hell! <i>Dios mio!</i>” suddenly catching himself, “the Injun +doesn’t understand the lingo, does he? <i>Cielos!</i> he is a fearsome +beast!”</p> + +<p>Callum imperiously cut short his complaints by striking off through +the swamp. Push-koosh, whose outlook at life had brightened since +discovering that his comrades were each as obnoxious to the other as +to him, and that all three were of a mind only in antagonism to the +personnel of the expedition, did not hesitate to imitate the example. +With the peculiar easy gait of the Choctaw he set out at a speed that +bade fair to try the mettle of the tall Highlander.</p> + +<p>“Sinner” Kenney lingered. He looked up the broad, sunny expanse of the +brimming river, then over to the Carolina side, noting the bright, +soft aspect of the wintry world that would fain emulate the tender, +restful peace of early spring. The flowers were not dead, it seemed +to say, only asleep, and this bland zephyr might well rouse them with +its sweet blandishments. The ripples played within an oar’s length of +the boat. He could with his single strength slide it down into the +water and in five minutes be rowing briskly on his return trip to Fort +Prince George. He would doubtless be able to devise some plausible +explanation that would pass muster; for instance, that he had been +accidentally separated from his companions; that the Highlander carried +the chart and compass; that thus lost in the trackless wilderness his +only possibility of extrication had been to take the boat and forthwith +return up the river to Fort Prince George.</p> + +<p>And indeed as he gazed adown the shadowy region of the swamp on the +Georgia side, he thought it looked much like a country in which a man +might easily disappear never to return. Albeit heavily wooded, it was +in great part submerged with water of varying depth. At the nearest +verge he marked a long loglike protuberance, which he realized was an +alligator half sunken in mud and ooze. A white heron gleamed amidst +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_350">[Pg 350]</span> +the dusky aisles, standing motionless among those curious roots of the +cypress called “knees,” which projected high above the dim surface +of the black water wherein they grew. The long stately stems of the +tall trees themselves were reflected, pallid and columnar, by myriads +from the glimmering dark expanse of the swamp, thus duplicating the +densities of the half submerged forests, funereally draped with hanging +gray moss in endless festoons. It seemed to stretch out illimitably, +this nondescript world that was neither navigable nor yet practicable +as dry land. And what might be the result of a failure to compass a +fair passage?—and what were the conditions of the region on the other +side? All were dependent upon the accuracy of Captain Howard’s chart +of this untried, unknown world, and the good faith and fair dealing of +Mingo Push-koosh! And still gazing, motionless, intent, “the Sinner” +hesitated.</p> + +<p>Down the vistas of the forest the soldier’s eye was suddenly caught +by the vanishing figures of the Highlander and the Choctaw, and the +extraordinary speed and ease of their gait struck his attention and +roused his emulation.</p> + +<p>“Do they think they can beat me on a forced march—that Sawney, +stepping like a crane, and the Choctaw with his little bandy dogtrot?”</p> + +<p>He critically appraised their powers. His professional pride was +enlisted. He suddenly set his hands one on each side of his trig little +body, and like machinery fell the sure even lengths of the military +double-quick; and so, speedily overhauling his companions, he went with +them down into the depths of the dank forests.</p> + +<p>The sun rose high above the river and gilded the tip of every lustrous +dark wavelet and illumined the live oaks with an emerald splendor. +In the shadowy swamp where the “snowy” heron stood among the cypress +knees, the hanging wealth of gray moss caught the enriching beams and +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_351">[Pg 351]</span> +glistered, fibrous and silver, from the branches of the tall white +marble-like pillars of the trees. The little boat still lay empty, +motionless, within an oar’s length of the dancing water.</p> + +<p>“Sinner” Kenney thought of the craft many times afterward, and sighed +for its relinquishment as for a folly; for the dreary, mutinous, +fatiguing experience set at naught all the numerous previous hardships +of his chequered career. The physical stress in itself was great. The +Choctaw, who set the pace, could keep the same gait all day and cover +the same great distance day after day, a task under which the two +white men languished and flagged and almost succumbed. It would have +been impossible to support the contempt of Mingo Push-koosh in their +failure, and his triumph in his own superiority, had it not been for +the counter-opportunity to jeer in turn, which was afforded them by the +oft recurrence of the watercourses in the Creek country; for Push-koosh +could not swim. Sometimes an opportune tree uprooted by a storm +afforded a footbridge for crossing a stream. More frequently the rivers +were of a breadth that rendered this impossible, especially since the +autumn floods from the mountains had swollen them beyond all precedent. +Push-koosh must have drowned or turned back but for the assistance of +his comrades, unwillingly given, by no means a friendly service, and +only in the interests of the expedition.</p> + +<p>With a hand on the shoulder of each stalwart swimmer, Push-koosh, limp +with terror and horror, was propelled through the water. He was spared +much, however, in that he could speculate only vaguely on the meaning +of “the Sinner’s” fleer while in transit, half intended to frighten the +Choctaw and half from natural and involuntary malice. “<i>Vamos poco +á poco, amigo!</i> Let’s drop him now, Sawney! Here is a deep hole! +<i>Porqué no?</i>”</p> + +<p>They suffered much from the weight of their arms and provisions, +for Captain Howard had wisely decreed that each should be his own +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_352">[Pg 352]</span> +commissariat and none the burden bearer of the others, and when +the Highlander lost his salt in the river neither of the other two +would give him of their store, and the food of Callum MacIlvesty was +bitter for a more æsthetic reason, as he ate it unsalted beside the +fire at night, each man cooking for himself. They wrangled much, +despite their lack of verbal facilities; they quarrelled over their +chart, their compass, the possibilities of shortening the way by +deviating from their instructions and essaying a more direct route, +and sometimes their relations during the day would become so strained +that as they lay down by the camp-fire at night, they were fairly +afraid of one another, lest malice develop into menace. The Scotchman +had his national quarrel with the Englishman, and called him “pock +pudding,” and threatened to “knock his harns out.” The Englishman +derided the poverty of the Scots, and told gleeful tales of the lack +of sophistication of “Highland recruities” in his experience, in +comparison with whom, he declared, Push-koosh, the Choctaw, was a +man of the world. Push-koosh laughed alike at the Highlander’s kilt +and the English soldier’s scarlet breeches. “The Sinner” twitted the +Choctaw for his artificially flattened head; and they all would decline +to mend the camp-fire to keep off the wolves until green eyes would +be glistening close at hand in the underbrush, and the growl that +heralds the pouncing spring would sound threateningly on the chill +night air. But the preëminent triumph of Push-koosh came when they +encountered more savage denizens of the woods than wolves. His was the +craft to detect the approach of other Indians; to avoid rencontre; to +erase all trace of their passage through the woods; to slip like a +ghost, invisible as it were, between camps under cover of darkness; +to skirt with infinite skill the verges of Indian towns. Once they +were followed by a dog, baying discovery at every step, at last coming +so close that only the discharge of an arrow stilled his telltale +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_353">[Pg 353]</span> +cry. Once, strangely enough, a little child tottered along the deer +path after them, with some vague mistake of identity in its infantile +brain, and Push-koosh, being minded to thus effectively stop its +approach,—“’Tis but a Muscogee,” he said,—Callum placed his pistol +at the Mingo’s temple, and even “the Sinner” threatened reprisal. In +the midst of the wrangle some aboriginal instinct of danger stirred in +the adventurous three-year-old, and after one long dismayed, open-eyed, +and open-mouthed stare, it turned about on its fat legs and took its +tottering flight homeward, too young to recount what it had seen or to +understand what it feared.</p> + +<p>As they neared the southern confines of the Muscogee country the Indian +towns became more frequent, and detection by bands of Creeks coming +and going through was imminent. This was the extreme crisis of peril, +for naught could save the lives of the two British soldiers and their +Choctaw guide if captured in this expedition through the country of +the inimical Muscogees, who now were impatiently awaiting the signal +of their French liberator to rise with all the united Indian tribes +against the English rule.</p> + +<p>Now it was that the individual traits of each of the party were +asserted in such wise as to demonstrate the wisdom of the commandant’s +choice of the personnel of the expedition,—the long-headed Callum’s +cool and adroit adaptation of even disasters to the common advantage, +and his steady endurance in the face of dangers; the resources of +the pluck and experience of the English soldier; the woodcraft, the +knowledge of Indian wiles and Indian counterwiles of the Mingo. The +hardy, invincible courage of all three animated them like a common +pulse, and they clung together now with a unanimity of sentiment that +might hardly have been expected from their earlier lack of all the +sterling qualities that make up good comradeship. Howard had expected +only one of the two white men to endure to the end, to survive the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_354">[Pg 354]</span> +hardships of the march, the inimical chances of environment, or +internecine strife amongst the three; but the trio were still together +one afternoon when they emerged from the woods on a bluff overhanging +the Flint River on the east, and there lay prone upon the ground, +silent, not so much as moving a muscle, invisible, save to the floating +American vulture circling high in the air in the majestic curves of its +strong flight. The opposite banks were low and fringed with woods, and +beyond and above, the red sunset of the lonely aboriginal days deployed +through the sky like a pageant. Naught broke the infinite stretch of +the wilderness, no shadow of cloud impinged on the glister of the +river. That the foot of man had ever touched these deep reclusive +solitudes only a great mound, artificially constructed, silent, +imposing, surmounted with forest growths nurtured by the summers of a +thousand years, attested his presence, his hopes, his griefs, and the +futility of all. Somehow its outline, imposed with such significance +against the range of purple hills in the distance, stretching afar +off under the red and amber sky, added a melancholy to the languorous +burnished haze, the slow down-dropping of the royal sun, so splendidly +vermilion, and bespoke a mysterious past and a future to come as +unrevealed.</p> + +<p>The air was bland with all the suavity of a southern winter. The +foliage had changed as the successive stages of their journey had led +them on, as though they bore with them some benignant, embellishing +secret that blessed the world as they advanced. No more the ice-girt +bare bough, the sere leaf flying before the blast. The live oak, the +magnolia, the laurel, lifted splendid redundant foliage to glitter +glossy in the sun’s last rays, and the flutter of the paroquets made +the pecans merry. At a distance a palmetto tree stood out against the +sky, all solitary, as if some invisible sandy beach stretched below. +The subtle, alluring fragrance of the anise-tree was filling the air, +and the mocking-bird sang in the eternal spring, elated, even though +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_355">[Pg 355]</span> +the night was coming on apace.</p> + +<p>The woods had grown a gray purple; the river chanted a sylvan rune; a +star came out in the vermilion sky and shone aloft with a clear white +glister; and suddenly in the red and gray and green crystal lines of +the stream an alien sound was borne.</p> + +<p>A sound it was as of paddles, rythmically striking the water. As it +grew nearer, louder, a deer that had led her fawn down to drink on the +opposite shore lifted her head, snuffed the air, stamped with her feet +all together, and with a bound was off, her fawn beside her, a mile +away, while still the concentric circles that her muzzle had stirred in +the water widened to larger circumference, while still the echo of the +fawn’s vague bleat of alarm and surprise floated softly to the bluff on +the summit of which the three emissaries lay silent.</p> + +<p>And at last, rounding a point, came a fleet of canoes, gaudily +decorated, an incident of vivid color beneath the flaring sunset, and +as vividly reflected in the smooth water, tinged with all the secondary +splendors of the evening glow. Beneath an umbrella-shaped fan of +eagle feathers artificially mottled with crimson reclined the French +officer Laroche, recognizable by his keen Gallic features, his arrogant +military alertness of pose, albeit painted and arrayed with all the +aboriginal splendor appertaining to his adoptive state as a great +“beloved man” of the Cherokee nation. His weapons were a silver-mounted +dirk and ivory-handled pistols, while fully armed stalwart Cherokees +officiated as bodyguard and paddled the boat. The fleet shot so swiftly +along that three cautious heads, craftily lifted, with cautious eyes +keenly peering, could with difficulty distinguish the fact that the +other canoes were manned by Muscogees; the song that they half chanted, +half recited, was a pæan of greeting to the beloved officer of the +great French king and compared him with favor to sundry celebrities of +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_356">[Pg 356]</span> +much note and value of their own tribe.</p> + +<p>The three barely waited till this incident of the sunset was past, +seeming in its swiftness, its unreality, some shimmering illusion +of the haze-freighted air; in its wild chromatic grotesquerie, some +necromancy of the gorgeous zenith of amber and red, and the responsive +dream of the mirroring water. Then without one word they rose, struck +off by a short cut through the dank and darkening woods, and night +had hardly fallen before the chief of Hurricane Town, individually +averse to the French interest, was amazed by the trooping in of these +incongruous and irrelevant figures announcing themselves as the +accredited emissaries of Captain Richard Howard, and producing letters +from that officer in support of their assertion, duly confirmed when +read by the interpreter.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_357">[Pg 357]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="XIX">XIX</h2> +</div> + + +<p>THE crash seemed afterward to Laroche like the fall of a castle of +cards, like the wreck wrought by the wind in the gossamer symmetries +of a cobweb, like a sudden awakening to the conditions of reality from +the allurements of a dream, so potent seemed the force, so tenuous the +fine-spun scheme when all its fibres were rent apart.</p> + +<p>So unprescient had he been!</p> + +<p>It was at <i>O-tel-you-yau-nau</i> (Hurricane Town) that he met his +fate.</p> + +<p>Following the many windings of the river, pausing at sundry villages +by the way to receive the protestations and rivet the adherence of the +gladly harkening Muscogees, he came to his objective point late the +next afternoon. A great black cloud seemed to have accompanied him; in +its midst were vivid darting lightnings, frequent and menacing for a +time, ever and anon showing convolutions of the vapor lighter in hue +and texture, superimposed, as it were, upon the denser darker masses. +Then all was dulled to a uniform consistency of tone and portent. The +huts of the town, the public square, the <i>chooc-ofau-thluc-co</i>, +or rotunda, the fields, whence the late harvests had been gathered, +all were overshadowed thus, and the forest surrounding them seemed to +support this canopy amongst its branches.</p> + +<p>From out the town the mico and headmen had come to greet him when as +their heralded guest he had approached. With white swans’ wings they +had gently stroked his face on either side a hundred times or more +as he entered the public square; they had placed him beside the mico +on the great white seat of the chief’s council-room, <i>mic-ul-gee +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_358">[Pg 358]</span> +in-too-pau</i>; they had smoked with him the friend-pipe, and the +cacina was brewed. Now and again sudden peals of thunder shook the +earth, and the yellow lightnings illumined the dreary gray stretches +of the forest and cloud and river and the humble little town, all +crouching, as it were, amidst these harbingers of the wrath of the +great elements.</p> + +<p>So confident, so thoroughly at ease was Laroche that he could +not afterward remember when those vague <i>indicia</i> of mental +disquietude first became perceptible in the manner of the mico Padgee +(the Pigeon). The French officer had known that this chief entertained +doubts as to the policy of an intertribal peace, as a constructive +constraint upon the powers and independence of the Creek Confederacy. +Laroche’s mission to Hurricane Town was partly to set at rest these +doubts and to present in contrast the great advantages which the +Muscogees would secure in the aid of all the tribal forces against +the English. Only united strength and united action could avail aught +against British encroachment. The national heads of the Muscogee +Confederacy had formally acceded to this view, but Padgee was a man +of influence, and his unreserved support was desired. A scrupulous +heed the mico seemed to give to Laroche’s talk of the advantages of +the great Indian coalition, which was to be the subject of official +discussion on the morrow upon the arrival of two other chiefs of the +vicinity, whose wavering allegiance he desired to confirm by personal +influence. Padgee seemed to ponder in dubitation upon every head of the +discourse when, the ceremonies of welcome concluded, the two talked +the matter over as they sat apart in the great assembly rotunda. Once +the Indian said that the plan of Iberville many years ago was not then +new. The Muscogee was a union of many adoptive tribes, the great Creek +Confederacy, long before Iberville’s idea of the force of a united +people was ever promulgated. It was the Creek policy,—absorption and +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_359">[Pg 359]</span> +consolidation. It was also the policy of the Six Nations, the Long +House.</p> + +<p>“It is unique and new in its aims and power,” Laroche argued, “the +union of all the tribes for common aggression and common defense, to +maintain aboriginal independence against European intrusion; whereas +the scheme of the Creek Confederacy was to protect Creek interests +only.”</p> + +<p>Padgee made haste to nod his feathered head with a mutter of +acquiescence; then he fixed his eyes attentively upon the circling +figures of the tadpole dance, <i>Toc-co-yula-gau</i>, performed by four +Indian braves and four squaws on the hard-trodden floor of the great +assembly rotunda. The shadows duplicated their feathered heads upon the +red painted earthen walls, and beyond the mad whirl of substance and +semblance Laroche could look forth through the great portal opposite +and see the night lowering, purple and black, and note how the storm +gathered and bided its time, while the yellow lightnings now and again +keenly flashed. He began to fancy that some deft hand had sown seeds +of dissatisfaction more formidable in their upspringing than dragon’s +teeth. He was sure some English suggestion had drawn the parallel +between the limited policy of the Creek Confederacy and the universal +brotherhood promised by the union of all tribes. Still more definite +was the echo of an intrusive voice in the councils when Padgee opined, +with many an involution, that he loved old times and old ideas best. +Said they of earlier years,—wiser than the men of to-day,—that it +was well that the British and French should fight each other. Thus the +Muscogees between, courted by both, had much peace—except when it +pleased them to conquer and absorb smaller tribes.</p> + +<p>This was impossible now, Laroche argued, since the Cherokees had joined +fortunes once and for all with the French, who also commanded the +Choctaw allegiance. The Muscogees could not alone maintain neutrality.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_360">[Pg 360]</span></p> + +<p>He spoke sharply, and then checked himself that he should be so +definitely nettled. Hurricane Town was at best inconsiderable. Padgee +was not a representative man. To-morrow would bring the important +chiefs whose suspected dissatisfaction could be obviated by conceding +their reasonable desires. This was no official occasion, and Padgee +doubtless was taking advantage of the <i>tête-à-tête</i> to bring +forward his discontents that he might be remembered when lubricating +presents were in order, to make the project run the more smoothly. He +was obviously talking to hear himself talk! Nevertheless, Laroche was +conscious of an increase of impatience when the voice of Padgee, more +like a hawk than a dove, was once more rising on the air with a queer +blending of plaint and discontent and apology.</p> + +<p>He meant no harm, said Padgee. He loved the officer of the great French +king like a brother. But the British goods were well named, being good! +And he sighed, as being loath to relinquish the values of a trade so +long enjoyed.</p> + +<p>Floutingly, as if he hardly cared to reply at all, Laroche averred that +French merchandise was famous for its quality all the world over, and +more than that, it was cheap.</p> + +<p>Once more Padgee caught himself and protested that it was not for him +to say; the Creek national headmen would decide the question.</p> + +<p>“They <i>have</i> decided it long ago,” Laroche interrupted him.</p> + +<p>Certainly, Padgee was aware of that, but he felt the loss. +<i>O-tel-you-yau-nau</i> (Hurricane Town) had been a favorite stand of +the British traders in times past, and the people loved them.</p> + +<p>The long serpentine lines of the lighted cane burning upon the floor +were growing dim, flickering, dying out gradually. The dreary night +without in the quick keen flashes of the lightning was brighter, more +distinct, than the dome-shaped rotunda sinking into shadow. The dance +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_361">[Pg 361]</span> +was over, the place nearly empty of people. Laroche rose suddenly with +a more indubitable monition of treachery. He looked about him for his +Cherokee bodyguard. Secure among friends, he had dismissed them to +enjoy the hospitalities and return the courtesies of their coadjutors +of the new alliance. Padgee, noting the movement, rose too, speaking +very rapidly, as if there were scant time to be lost, while the great +spaces of the <i>chooc-ofau-thluc-co</i> darkened yet more duskily +and the vague lights of the cane trembled to extinction. Outside, the +lightning unsheathed its vivid blades, flashing athwart the sky, and +the thunder pealed and burst explosively and rolled away, muttering, to +the further hills.</p> + +<p>It was a long time, said Padgee plaintively, since a British trader had +been able to ply his kind and beneficent vocation in Hurricane Town for +fear of the martial French at Fort Toulouse; and since the French sent +no traders to the villages, save now and then a mere peddler, slipping +back and forth from his fort, afraid of his shadow, the Indians of +Hurricane Town were often utterly destitute of all those artificial +supplies which they needed, so civilized had they come to be. They were +fit to die of shame should any one observe how far behind the fashion +of the day had they trailed. Only very recently a Chickasaw chief had +come to Hurricane Town in a splendid embroidered suit from a British +trader, and he, the great mico, Padgee, had naught in which to meet him +that was of European manufacture but a cocked hat and a pair of silver +shoe buckles.</p> + +<p>He paused impressively. Doubtless he felt, as one might say in the +artistic jargon of this day, that these articles did not “compose well” +with the rest of his attire, a shirt of bead-wrought buckskin and +leggings decorated with turkey-cock spurs and fawn’s trotters. Laroche +made no reply. Somehow the crisis tingled in his nerves like some +electrical current before the event was precipitated.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_362">[Pg 362]</span></p> + +<p>Therefore, Padgee resumed very swiftly, some folk of a town far off—he +could not just say where—had come up to-night to meet the great French +officer and—confer with him concerning the condition of the British +trade.</p> + +<p>Laroche turned upon him.</p> + +<p>“Padgee!” he exclaimed, “is this well? I have eaten your bread, I have +eaten your salt!”</p> + +<p>The mico hesitated at the last moment, but half hearted in his deceit. +Perhaps the appeal to the sanctions of his rude hospitality might have +availed even now, but its force was abrogated by the possibilities. The +British soldiers awaited no longer the preconcerted signal. Military +figures, barely distinguishable in the gloom from other shadows of +the darksome place, were climbing down from behind the tiers of seats +of the primitive amphitheatre; and although one, “the Sinner,” lost +his footing and fell rolling down the descent with great thumps, the +Highlander was upon Laroche so quickly, so powerfully, that his strong +hand stifled the cry for help.</p> + +<p>It was managed with infinite address and secrecy, for the two British +soldiers would have fallen victims to their own temerity had they dared +to show themselves openly and alone, among the Indians, if unprotected +and at their mercy. As to the Choctaw, the mere revelation of his +personality, with a price upon his head, would have meant his death. +Therefore Padgee, armed with his authority as mico, headed the guard +of Muscogee braves, his own attendants, whom he designed to send with +the captors to Fort Prince George, and accompanied them several miles +on the return march. As he had long been inimical to the coalition +so earnestly advocated by the French, this fact was the reason that +Laroche had appointed Hurricane Town as the rendezvous of the lukewarm, +that he might be sure of gaining the ear of Padgee and confirming his +allegiance by argument and the example of others. It had needed but a +word from Push-koosh to acquaint Captain Howard with this important +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_363">[Pg 363]</span> +circumstance, and the British officer in treating with the chief of +Hurricane Town had held out prospects of high advancement. Thereafter +Padgee had no need to complain of the lack of gold and European gewgaws +when visited by strangers; in fact, he was in case to disport himself +with a pride in apparel that might better befit a peacock than the +humble pigeon whose name he bore.</p> + +<p>When the populace outside of the rotunda learned that the great +French “beloved man” had been arrested mysteriously in the British +interest, they received the news with a wild outcry of despair and +muttered threats and even efforts at rescue. More than one, especially +in the neighboring towns, suspected that the indifference of Padgee +to the success of the French schemes might have contributed to the +catastrophe, but none dreamed that the hospitality of Hurricane Town +had been violated, that Padgee had renounced the guest within the gates +and delivered him up to his enemies, to be dragged away by force to a +cruel doom. Hours had passed—indeed it was near day—before the news +transpired, and although the Cherokee bodyguard set out at once upon +the trail of the captors, they soon found that time itself could not +overtake the party. For themselves they were few, unprepared, in a +country bristling with hostile conditions, for the commandant at Fort +Toulouse, as soon as apprised of the catastrophe, sent out a detachment +to attempt a rescue, and the Cherokees feared to be held accountable +for the capture of the French officer as for a lapse of vigilance. They +therefore relinquished the effort, took moodily to their boat, refusing +the tearful condolences of Hurricane Town, and pulled up the Flint +River again, lamenting loudly all the way, to the Cherokee country.</p> + +<p>What thoughts came to Laroche that stormy night as he half toiled and +was half dragged among his captors through the tangled ways of the +wilderness! A thousand vain regrets tortured him. The recapitulation +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_364">[Pg 364]</span> +of events that might have been ordered otherwise trailed in long +sequences through his mind. A vision constantly recurred of a result +so different, seeming so real, that only a slight wrench of will would +be requisite to tear him from this oppressive dream which surely must +needs presently dissolve in obvious fact.</p> + +<p>Nevertheless his intellectual faculties, heedful of cause and effect, +perceived that the flight was ordered with a craft that bade fair +to eliminate all chance of rescue or escape. That they should take +their way to the north or diagonally across Georgia was so obviously +their proper policy that Padgee turned their steps directly to the +south, whence none would dream of following. To increase the distance +more effectually and obliterate the traces of their passage through +the country, he availed himself of his own boat, hidden among the +saw-grass of the marshy borders of a neighboring watercourse, down +which they rowed and drifted out of all calculations of pursuit. Indeed +this deviation took them so far to the south that they could discern +the tang of salt water on the breeze, and hear the voice of the surf +singing the iterative song of the sea. Only then did they disembark and +take up the line of march toward the Savannah River once more.</p> + +<p>Their progress was infinitely laborious; the weather had clouded, +and rain filled the marshes and overflowed the streams. Often a fire +was impracticable, and without shelter, short of food, in terror of +capture, and now and again endangered by faction, the sufferings of the +captors were hardly discounted by the anguish of the prisoner. Only +once did a chance of escape present itself.</p> + +<p>Laroche had observed that the Highlander, now taking command of the +party, according to his orders, studiously prevented any opportunity +for the prisoner to speak apart with any single individual. MacIlvesty +had of course disarmed Laroche and taken from him all such valuables +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_365">[Pg 365]</span> +as might tempt the integrity of the others.</p> + +<p>“Is this a’ your gowd?” he asked.</p> + +<p>“Untie my hands and receive my parole, or else run your own risks,” +retorted the French officer.</p> + +<p>“An’ fine wad I like to do that, but it is contrary to my orders,” said +Callum kindly, “sae I maun e’en look to you mysel’.”</p> + +<p>This he did with a vigilance that showed no possibility of relaxation +till one stormy night when they gained once more the banks of the +Savannah River and found their further progress barred; for their boat, +left there, to serve their return, had vanished.</p> + +<p>It was near dawn when they made this discovery. The rain had ceased +at last, though the clouds were still scudding through the gusty +sky. A late waning moon showed in the east, infinitely melancholy in +the cloud-rack of the tempest. The simple voices of the denizens of +the swamp, overawed to silence by the violence of the storm, resumed +their vague indiscriminate nocturne, the shrilling of a screech-owl, +at intervals the noisy clangor of cranes, and once the bloodcurdling +scream, of a catamount. The party had halted on the crest of a ridge +overlooking the swollen watercourse, lashed to a swifter current +by the turbulence of the wind. The boat, which they had left with +every security in this solitary place, had been yet more definitely +concealed. A tricksy gust had upset it, and in the glimmering light, as +it floated bottom upward, it was not recognized.</p> + +<p>As the two British soldiers patroled the banks, and now consulted +together, and again hastily resumed the search, Push-koosh, standing +near the prisoner, looking backward over his shoulder again and again, +murmured against this loss of time. Then once more he scanned the +woodsy track by which they had come, all glistening with moisture, +and illumined by the drear light of the waning moon. He so obviously +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_366">[Pg 366]</span> +feared a rescue, that Laroche’s heart could but plunge at the prospect. +A heron cried out dismally from the dense cane and marshy tangles +beside the river, attesting the solitude. If but the rope that bound +his hands were cut! The two men on the margin below passed the boat and +repassed it, as held by its sheet-chain tangled about the submerged +roots of a tree, its capsized bottom seemed but a boulder washed by +the ripples as it lay in the shadow. As once more Push-koosh glanced +warily, impatiently, over his shoulder, Laroche suddenly bethought +himself of the peculiarities of his character and the details of their +long service together. There was no mistaking his identity,—it was +sufficiently attested by the contour of his head, with the silver band +on his flat forehead, the red flamingo feathers all tipped with silver +by the moon, and the beautiful tones of his velvet voice as he muttered +his Choctaw imprecations.</p> + +<p>“Ah, Push-koosh,” cried Laroche softly, a vibration of hope and joy +in his tone, “<i>mon Bébé, mon petit chou! Je reconnais bien ton bon +cœur.</i>”</p> + +<p>Push-koosh turned instantly and looked straight at the French officer. +The moonlight was full in the Indian’s dark inscrutable eyes.</p> + +<p>“There is gold in the bottom of my tobacco bag, Prince Baby,—much +gold. Cut this rope and it is yours!”</p> + +<p>An instant of doubt, and then the Choctaw approached with that sly +supple motion so like the step of a catamount. One stroke of his knife +and Laroche would be free to flee through the marshy forests, while the +two British soldiers and the Muscogee tribesmen hunted for the boat +that was before their eyes, and wrangled till the echoes were loud and +discordant.</p> + +<p>The Choctaw’s touch was laid, not upon the pouch with its treasure +amidst the tobacco that had escaped the search of the Highlander, but +upon the bound hands held out to him with a piteous eagerness of +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_367">[Pg 367]</span> +entreaty. Then looking the captive directly in the eye, Push-koosh +said with an indescribable fullness of significant reminder, “<i>Eho +chookoma!</i>” (the beautiful woman!)</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_368">[Pg 368]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="XX">XX</h2> +</div> + + +<p>THE snow lay deep at Fort Prince George when they returned.<a id="FNanchor_12" href="#Footnote_12" class="fnanchor">[12]</a> The air +was now clear of flakes, invested with that strange absolute funereal +stillness characteristic of the muffled world, but the sky was still +darkly gray and with a menace in its motionless solemnity. The roofs +of the block-houses and barracks showed densely white against the +slate-colored clouds; not even about the great smoking chimneys was a +trace of thaw. The palisades that surmounted the unbroken white walls +of the rampart upheld fluffy drifts lodged among the sharp-pointed +stakes. The glacis was only such a faint outline as might remain in +vague traces of a prehistoric work. The prickly branches of a strong +abatis on two sides of the fort thrust out darkly from the overwhelming +banks like the protest of a buried forest. The thousand stumps, relics +of the encampment of Colonel Grant’s army here the preceding year, were +utterly submerged, and gave more than one of the approaching party a +headlong fall as the two British soldiers, the Choctaw Mingo, and the +Muscogee guard, with their prisoner, all half frozen, dead beat, and +nearly starved, came within view from the gates. The ditch was half +full of ice, solid as a rock, but the heart of the sentry was all aglow +to behold them at a distance, and his jubilant call, “Corporal of the +guard!” reached them as they struggled across the intervening spaces +with the grateful realization that they were not to be kept waiting for +identification, while the last resources of endurance gave way at the +moment of rescue and the portal of refuge.</p> + +<p>A clangor of weapons, keen and clear on the icy air, the tramp of +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_369">[Pg 369]</span> +marching feet, the glitter of steel and scarlet cloth, came to them +through the great gate, following hard on the cry to turn out the +guard. In less than five minutes the red glow of great fires, ardent +spirits unsparingly administered, hot food, and the comforts of +beds and blankets invested the recollection of the struggle through +the snow, the tramp of more than two hundred miles, the dangers and +vicissitudes of the journey with a certain unreality, seeming rather +something they had wildly dreamed, were it not for the testimony of +each to reinforce the memory of the others.</p> + +<p>Exhaustion limited their capacity for expression, but the whole fort +rejoiced in their stead. The news flew abroad like the flocks of +snowbirds all undaunted by the temperature. The tale of the notable +capture was told over and again in the guardroom, in the officers’ +mess-room, in the barracks, and the farrier’s smithy; over the making +of the clumsy cartridges of that day for the little cannon on the +bastions, and around the mending of guns in the armorer’s forge; in the +wigwams of the Indian hunters and camp followers of whatever sort whose +temporary habitations were on the outside of the works; in the Cherokee +town of Keowee, hard by, and at Jock Lesly’s trading-house. Even down +into the depths of the earth to the Scotchman’s subterranean ingle-neuk +it penetrated, and there it found Lilias sitting on a buffalo rug +before the red fire, her hands clasped tightly, her eyes wildly +dilated, pale to the lips, and with her heart fluttering frantically, +painfully, hopelessly, like one of the many birds perishing without, +whose wings, swift though they were, had beat futilely against the +infinite forces of destiny embodied in the storm; for she—and she +only—saw aught beyond cause of gratulation in the capture of the +turbulent French emissary, the destroyer of the peace of the frontier, +the arch-plotter, the organizer of Indian armies, the reconciler of +Indian feuds, the confederator of all Indian tribes into one great +united, potent structure of government financed and armed through +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_370">[Pg 370]</span> +Spanish and French aid, before which British colonial occupation could +hardly stand for a day.</p> + +<p>“Callum took the man! It was Callum, and he maun hae the credit!” Jock +Lesly jubilantly declared as he sat rubbing his hands by the fire, his +snowy match-coat sending up a steam as the drifts melted from it, for +he was just returned from the fort. “Captain Howard is as gleg as a +grig! He hae won his majority by this bit o’ wark, I mak nae dout!”</p> + +<p>“What will be the Frenchman’s name?” demanded Lilias, her lips dry as +she stared, dismayed, startled, forlorn, into the fire.</p> + +<p>“A-weel—a-weel—hinny, and that’s the curious part of it! It’s that +Tam Wilson, the loon we nursed clear of the fever! And I misdoubts it’s +misprision o’ treason, or some o’ thae unchancy crimes—only we kenned +naught aboot him!” And Jock Lesly’s rich rollicking laughter filled the +room.</p> + +<p>“He helped us out o’ the kentry, an’ kep’ Moy Toy frae takin’ our +scalps!” she replied reproachfully.</p> + +<p>Jock Lesly paused to look down at her gravely, his big eyes round. +“Hout, fie!” he ejaculated. “Ony French chiel protect <i>me</i>! An’ +frae auld Moy Toy, that I have foregathered wi’ ever since the kentry +was built! Mair likely he spirited up the chief to trouble us an’ +to burn my tradin’-house an’ a’ my gear! It seems to me I jaloosed +su’thin’ o’ the sort at ane time! Na, na, Lilias; if he helped us at +a’, it was lest our murder hurt the French interest an’ set the British +at the Injuns afore the chiels were ready for their bluidy wark.”</p> + +<p>She gazed, deeply serious, at the fire. She too thought this more than +likely, in the light of what she had known earlier, and knew more +certainly now. She gave a long sigh of pity for the captive; but these +were the fortunes of war that every soldier must needs risk, and with +which women had no concern.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_371">[Pg 371]</span></p> + +<p>“Na, bairn, na!” her father boasted. “Auld Jock Lesly can tak care o’ +his ain, an’ hae dune it this mony a day! He needna hae Tam Wilson +cluttered up wi’ heed o’ him an’ his! But, lass!” he broke into a roar +of jovial laughter, “to see up yon at the fort the major—hegh, sirs, +it’s for luck that I suld sae miscall the captain—ter see him gloat +ower Everard. He canna be quit o’ glorifying that he tuk him in sae +hard a measure when Everard had him like a bird in a trap.”</p> + +<p>“What for did Lieutenant Everard let him slip?” she asked, turning her +head upward to look at her father’s face.</p> + +<p>“A fule needs no reason, lass, for bein’ a fule, but he wadna believe +Callum, because the lad could urge naething except that the man spoke +French—which Callum himsel’ can do, though that wad never prove him a +toad.”</p> + +<p>“An’ how is it that this captain was sae muckle wiser?” persisted +Lilias. “Lieutenant Everard is a finer lookin’ man than Captain Howard, +an’ his hair curls amaist as weel as mine.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, ho!” shouted Jock Lesly, smiting his thigh in the fervor of his +relish, “that only proves he has the better thatch, not the bigger +house! A-weel, now—a-weel—ilka man suld hae his due! ’Twas not +till lately—an’ Lieutenant Everard was gone—that Callum learned +for <i>sure</i> that the man is French,—for you see the fallow +himsel’,—and he is a fule too, for all his hair curls,—he tauld a +woman that he is French and gave her his name and employ, and the woman +tauld Callum! My certie, in ilka mischief there’s aye a woman at wark!” +Then with a changed note, “Hegh, Lilias!” he exclaimed sharply.</p> + +<p>For Lilias, screaming, had sprung to her feet. It was she—and she saw +it now—who had delivered him bound and helpless into the hands of +his enemy! She cared not for him now as Tam Wilson, but for the awful +responsibility she had taken. Her habitual candor was beaten back +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_372">[Pg 372]</span> +upon her lips by the untoward effects of her recent disclosure. She +restrained with difficulty the child-like impulse to reveal the mystery +to her father, who was alarmed, amazed, agitated. She protested that +the fire had burned her, flinging out a spark, and demanded peevishly +why he must needs be always sending such crackling and splitting +varieties of wood to their hearth in the cave-house. With wisps of his +frowzy light hair falling over his florid face as he bent his head, +he was presently stepping about to find the blazing splinter in the +buffalo rug, and although he now and again desisted, with the comment +“A-weel, it will no set <i>this</i> biggin’ in a low!” he shortly, with +the force of habit, commenced the search anew.</p> + +<p>It was the custom of Lilias to avoid the trading-house, for she was +more fastidious and exacting than her simple opportunities might seem +to imply. But Jock Lesly was by no means poor, and it had been his +delight to lavish such luxuries as in his limited apprehension he +accounted desirable upon his only child, and thus she had been reared +in a degree beyond her station. To-day, however, she was here, there, +and everywhere, listening to the loud jocular comments of a few of +the soldiers from the fort, who were now and again in the store and +disposed to talk of the capture. The transition thence was obviously +to gossip about the prisoner. A hearty, well-favored lad he was, so +they understood from the detail that had captured him. He had given +them little trouble, and they liked him well. He was a proper lad and +active afoot, and bore the hardships of the march finely. They hardly +knew what to do with him at the fort till he could be sent forward to +Charlestown. They thought Captain Howard himself was puzzled as to the +method of his disposition. Certainly,—in reply to a question from +Jock Lesly,—military prisoners, that is, French officers, had been +in times past kept in the hospital, and giving their parole had been +permitted occasionally the freedom of the parade ground. This fellow, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_373">[Pg 373]</span> +however, was captured out of uniform and without ostensible military +employ, and would be held as a civil prisoner, though they had him +now hard and fast in the guard-house. The talk of peace negotiations +with France would do him no good,—the stirrer-up of savages on the +frontier, just subdued by the English at so great a cost of blood and +treasure, and at peace with the colonies, would never lack for a charge +in Charlestown that would stick. He would be accused of murders, and of +the instigation of those massacres that had already violated the peace +negotiated with the Cherokees. And then one of the soldiers passed his +hand across his throat with an ugly gesture, rolled up his eyes with a +leer, and gave a click of the tongue inexpressibly loathsome, at which, +unaccountably, they all laughed.</p> + +<p>Lilias, hovering about among the swaying fabrics depending from the +beams, turned sick and faint. She it was who had done this, in her +foolish inadvertence thinking that all was now known to Callum,—she, +who had the man’s secret that she had promised never to tell—nay, he +had voluntarily trusted himself to her honor!</p> + +<p>Her face was drawn and white. The chill of the day was in her heart. As +one of the Indians whisked a hand mirror into which he was gazing with +gurgling rapture at his hideous countenance, she caught sight of her +own reflection, so wan, so appealing, so agonized, that she braced her +nerves anew that her face might not betray her grief, although she felt +at the end and hoped naught.</p> + +<p>A number of the braves of the Muscogee escort who had participated +in the march subsequent to the capture of the prisoner had repaired, +although exhausted and half drunk, to the trading-house as inevitably +as the needle to the pole, and were engaged in delightedly rummaging +such of its trifles as were accessible. They were meeting with special +welcome at Fort Prince George, at the officers’ quarters, the barracks, +the kitchen, the trading-house being generously treated, their +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_374">[Pg 374]</span> +services having proved available in so serious an emergency. Naturally +with such subjects, their instinct was to impose upon this disposition, +and to magnify the obligations it betokened.</p> + +<p>“Haud a care, Dougal,” Jock Lesly charged the under-trader. “Thae +chiels covet ilka bawbee’s worth in the house, an’ Providence +permittin’ I suld like fine to save the roof!”</p> + +<p>Perhaps it was this absorption that caused him to be more oblivious of +Lilias to-day than usual, though even in its midst he had a heedful +notice of her. “Hegh, lass,” he stopped her once in passing, “but ye +hae a’ the snaw in your face the day, an’ your bonny blue e’en are a +wee dreary. I misdoots the climate here wi’ a’ its changes an’ cantrips +isna suited to ye like Charlestoun. Gae doun to the fire in the ha’ +house; it’s warmer there.”</p> + +<p>When she quitted the trading-house he did not know. She was all alone, +attended only by the old collie, who would not be driven back, although +she childishly pinched his ears and pulled his tail and put him to all +the pain she could. Her visit to the fort was a very distinct surprise +to Captain Howard and contravened his impressions of her hitherto. +Being a man of about forty-five years of age, and having daughters of +his own far away, he entertained rather strict ideas of the becoming +in maidenly conduct. It may have been her own natural dignity, or the +arrogance of a girl reared beyond her station, or the indifference of +one perceiving the raw material of suitors apparently inexhaustible +in the garrisons of the frontier, but she had been hitherto somewhat +unapproachable by the men at the post, averse to those of the ruder +social level of her father’s daughter, and suspicious and cold to +those above. Therefore when she cast upon Captain Howard a smile, the +radiance of which might have thawed out all Fort Prince George, he was +mystified and expectant.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_375">[Pg 375]</span></p> + +<p>Her first words, however, put him at ease as he sat at the table in the +orderly room with an ensign opposite and two or three noncommissioned +officers with their reports standing at attention.</p> + +<p>“I’m fu’ glad to catchit you at your wark, Captain,” she said with her +most dulcet intonation, swaying the half open door, and looking against +the snowy expanse of the parade without like some clear fine painting +on a pearly surface. “I wad like ill to harry ye out o’ your hour o’ +ease, wi’ a’ thae bodies,” she glanced about at the orderlies and the +sentry and a squad of men outside, “to weigh sae heavy on your mind.”</p> + +<p>She hesitated as she stood in her puce-colored serge skirt, from which +the snow dripped, a heavy red rokelay thrown around her, and one of +those “screens,” half shawl, half veil, worn by women in the lowlands +as well as the highlands of Scotland, brought over her head in the +muffling manner usual in wintry weather. Beneath its loosened folds +her golden hair, her pink and white dimpled face, her glittering teeth +and red lips, showed captivatingly, and Captain Howard must have been +something more than military and human had he not offered her a chair.</p> + +<p>“I canna sit, for I hinna a moment,” she replied, but she came toward +the fire, and an orderly, mindful of the blast, promptly shut the +door as she relinquished her hold upon it. “I wad hae sent somebody, +but thae chiels of Injuns are fair crowding out the packmen at the +trading-house, and my daddy winna spare a man to leave there till the +Muscogees are far awa’—twal mile or more.”</p> + +<p>Her eyes twinkled alluringly, in ridicule of auld Jock’s thrifty bent, +and Captain Howard smiled responsively.</p> + +<p>“Sae fur the lack of a better messenger I maun e’en do my ain errand. +You see, Captain,”—she leaned against the back of a chair, and he +opposite, having taken a seat with the anticipation of her acceptance +of his proffer, gazed at her expectantly,—“the soldiers are making +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_376">[Pg 376]</span> +much o’ Callum, an’ my daddy is looking after the Muscogees, an’ I was +minded to consider that naebody is like to care much for the prisoner. +So knowin’ you hinna too much beddin’ gear at the fort, an’ the weather +bein’ freakish cauld, I thought I wad roll up a blanket or twa an’ some +furs for the creatur’s bed.”</p> + +<p>He was surprised for a moment, vaguely suspicious, doubtful.</p> + +<p>“Just for a loan, ye maun understand,” she stipulated primly. “When the +weather breaks I sall look to hae them a’ again.”</p> + +<p>This thrifty afterthought was so characteristic of Jock Lesly and his +household that the officer’s mind instantly cleared. He remembered +previous instances of such thoughtfulness on her part, but manifested +then toward the hospital. Indeed in a passing illness he had himself +been the pleased recipient of wine whey, arrowroot gruel, mulled port, +chocolate, and calves’ foot jelly.</p> + +<p>He hastened to express his appreciation of the timeliness of her +offering. “The usual arrangements are somewhat scant for such weather, +and I have no doubt it is needed. The guard-house prison has no fire, +and it must be pretty chilly there, though there is a great chimney in +the next room.”</p> + +<p>“Will ye no look at the gear?” She produced from under her cloak a +bundle compactly made up, from the edges of which otter fur showed.</p> + +<p>The officer politely waived the precaution.</p> + +<p>“Not at all necessary.” Then somewhat wearied with these details, which +the fairest face could not commend for indefinite contemplation,—at +least to one having attained forty-five years,—“Will you be so good as +to give them to the orderly? Nevins, take them to the guard-house.”</p> + +<p>But Lilias, turning upon the advancing soldier, clasped her bundle in a +closer clutch. “I’m no sae clear that the prisoner-body will e’er see +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_377">[Pg 377]</span> +them—an’ sall I get them a’ again? Thae bit duds are unco gude,” she +added, as if loath to part from them.</p> + +<p>The soldier reddened to the eyebrows under this imputation, and the +officer, disillusioned of his admiration by this crafty, untimely, +ignoble, unfounded suspiciousness, sought to rid himself of the whole +affair.</p> + +<p>“Take them yourself to the prisoner, then, and count them before +leaving them, so that you may be sure of having them all returned. +Baker, see to it that the sentry at the guard-house passes her.”</p> + +<p>As she went out, “‘Aye be getting and aye be having,’” he quoted, “a +chip of the old block.” He said this as if to himself, but aloud, +partly to assuage the lacerated feelings of the man whom he had called +Nevins, and as if her suspiciousness were not a personal flout, but +merely appertained to the cautious thrift of her canny Scotch nature.</p> + +<p>The guard had turned out upon the advance from the woods of a +considerable body of Indians, who, however, proved to be only +neighboring tribesmen without organization, but eager and curious +concerning the excitements at the fort, of which they had heard in the +adjacent Cherokee town of Keowee. They were not to be permitted to +enter, as they evidently desired, but their pertinacity to this end +detained the officer of the guard for a few minutes, while he sought +to pacify them by giving them authentic details on those points about +which they were most inquisitive. Meantime the guard, lined up, stood +in a glittering rank of scarlet and steel on the snowy spaces just in +front of the gate.</p> + +<p>The guardroom was thus empty when Lilias, admitted by the sentry at the +outer door of the building, made her way with hasty, disordered steps +through the apartment. She hesitated at the inner door for an instant, +not recognizing the beating of her own heart, which at first she +mistook for some turbulent alarum outside, drumming the whole garrison +to arms. The next moment she plunged into the room, and there was Tam +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_378">[Pg 378]</span> +Wilson! oh puir Tam Wilson! so pinched, so blue, so cold, sitting in +this frostbound cell, with his head upon the table, and his face in his +hands,—all his plans congealed in this hard freeze of fate and dead +like other transient blooms of the year under the snow.</p> + +<p>As he looked up at the sound of her step, he recognized her upon the +instant. A faint wan smile quivered in his face. He was about to +speak, but she laid her finger warningly upon her lips. Then with one +hasty glance at the closed door behind her, she tore her bundle open +and rushed at him. She had another skirt such as she herself wore—of +brown serge, but little to choose between the shades—and slipped it +over his head in one moment. Then as she vainly sought to make her +slender waistband meet about his middle, although he too was slim, +she commented in a whisper, “My certie! to be built like a cask! I’ll +een pin it in the plaits, but it will no hing straight in the hem!” +She doffed her red cloak to throw it about him; her screen was on his +head, and realizing her intention, he could but kiss her hands as she +adjusted it under his chin, muffling his face and shoulders as she had +herself worn it, and taking the precaution to pin it here and there. +“For ye’ll get it aff afore ye are to the woods if I dinna haud a +care; an’ once in the woods by the river ye’ll find under that big +crag a canoe, an’ below the seat a gude store of food an’ wine. An’ +to Charlestoun, lad, straight down the Keowee River and the Savannah +an’ out to sea! Some French ship will tak ye up, I mak nae doubt. The +pursuit will set the other way—to the Cherokee country.”</p> + +<p>“And you?”</p> + +<p>“Never fear! I’ll bide here—safe—amang my friends. Walk like me if ye +can; but be aff, callant, if ye luve your life!”</p> + +<p>She sank into his chair; and mercurial though he was, he could +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_379">[Pg 379]</span> +scarcely take up the rôle with the spirit with which she had laid it +down. As he opened the door into the guardroom he saw that the soldiers +had not yet returned. He barely glanced at the sentry whom he passed +on the outer step; and although the notice of the soldier was but the +casual attention of recognition and expectation, he felt the man’s +look as if it had been red-hot steel laid on a tender nerve. He walked +down slowly into the snow, blessing its depth that should make any +eccentricity of gait, except a long stride, seem the incident of its +impeding medium. In meeting the guard halfway returning from the gate, +he had but to mince modestly along, not lifting his eyes, the screen +drawn quite over his face; and since Miss Lilias was an uncommonly tall +woman and the Frenchman of but medium height, the difference was not +immediately apparent.</p> + +<p>A sudden swift rush behind him just before he reached the gate—that +great envious portal that barred him from all his world, from safety, +from life itself—and he felt that he must drop here in the snow and +die, if so happy a fate as a death thus he might crave.</p> + +<p>He had not had time to cry aloud in terror, in nervous stress, in +absolute despair, when the pursuing presence whizzed past, then +returning, leaped and fawned and wheezed about him with such evident +blissful recognition that if Miss Lilias Lesly had no other point of +identification to the eye of the sentry it would have been supplied +in the jovial manner of her companion, the faithful old collie. The +soldier presented arms as her semblance passed, to which extravagant +compliment the figure returned a bow of marked courtesy, and then +followed over the snow the frantically bounding collie, that was fairly +frenzied with joy to see and recognize anew, despite his feminine +frippery of attire, his friend of auld lang syne, Tam Wilson; for +the instinct of the collie was not so limited an endowment as the +intelligence of the sentry and the main guard.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_380">[Pg 380]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="XXI">XXI</h2> +</div> + + +<p>IN her after life Lilias often reviewed her sentiments as she sat +there in the blue cold, with that curious suggestion of grit in the +air common to a low temperature, the repulsion to the dust of the +place more pronounced and apparent to the sensitive finger-tips than +if it were summer. She had wrapped herself in the otter-fur mantle +that she had carried in view of the relinquishment of her red rokelay +to the fugitive. Presently she put both feet on the rungs of the chair +and crouched forward like some tiny animal, her golden hair barely +glimpsed beneath the light brown tints of the fur. Sometimes she put +her blue hands to her mouth to feel how chill they were, and blew her +warm breath upon them; then again she clenched the trembling fingers +and drew her mantle closer. How cold it was! How had he endured it! It +might be colder still on the river, but he was speeding toward freedom, +and there was genial warmth in the mere suggestion. How cruel men were +to each other! And he was but obeying the behests of his government, as +Captain Howard regarded as sacred every scrawl that reached him from +headquarters.</p> + +<p>Now and again the sounds from the guardroom caught her attention,—a +tramp of feet with a measured swinging gait, a snatch of song, and +presently a droning deep voice going on and on, as one should say for +an hour or more, with but little interruption, telling a long story.</p> + +<p>How cold it was! how cold! She wondered how long she could sustain +it. The longer she sat here in her wrap of otter fur the farther he +would be on his way down the Keowee River. If only she could know +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_381">[Pg 381]</span> +that he had made good his escape! that she had atoned for the dreadful +evil she had wrought in revealing his secret! Then indeed she would +be happy! In liberating him, she argued, she had promoted no massacre +of women and children. If aught that he had planned threatened them +it was frustrated, for he was off and on his way out of the country, +and she had aided his flight, nay, made it possible. If only she could +know that he had won the river bank and found the canoe! Down and +down the Savannah he would paddle the canoe, and a man in buckskins, +the usual garb of the country,—for he would soon doff the woman’s +habiliments,—would attract no attention from casual observers on +the banks; and some night—some dark night soon—he would float +out of Charlestown harbor, and finally be picked up by some French +man-of-war or merchantman, so many there were then in the southern +waters. The pursuit would undoubtedly take head in the opposite +direction. Few would imagine it safer to flee directly toward the +enemy’s stronghold rather than from it. They would follow him back +into the Indian country, where he had friends, influence, the French +prestige—a thousand reasons to command succor and concealment. But to +Charlestown—into the lion’s mouth? In this instance the lion slept +with his mouth open. Somehow she was sure no one would think of this +resource but herself. She would give him all the time she could, a good +start ahead of all possible pursuit. Six hours it might be, if she +could so long endure the cruel cold, before the noise of his escape +should be bruited abroad. The noonday meal was just concluded. The +British soldier was presumed to eat no supper; at least, only two meals +were furnished him, except on the frontier, where to content him the +better, perhaps, on the theory that the road to his heart lay through +his stomach, a third was served. This came a little before the hour of +retreat. She wondered if the prisoners shared in this extra refection. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_382">[Pg 382]</span> +She had an idea that then at all events she must needs call in the +guard; she would be able to endure it no longer.</p> + +<p>As she sat crouching and still in the only chair of the bleak and +bare apartment, her attention was attracted by a crystalline tinkle +against the glass of the window. She thought it must be snowing +afresh. Presently she rose, stood upon the chair, for the window was +exceedingly high, to be out of the reach of any enterprising prisoner, +and then she stepped noiselessly upon the table. Looking upward through +the grimy glass she could see the whirl of dizzy flakes against the +sky. A tumultuous storm it was. A man fleeing through it would be +invisible. It would render pursuit impracticable, so long as it should +continue. Her heart gave a great throb of triumph. The afternoon was +wearing on. The light was dulling fast, and unless a barricade of ice +should impede the flow of the river these few hours’ start would mean +freedom to a man fleeing for his life!</p> + +<p>Reassured, invigorated, she stepped slowly, softly down from the table +to the chair, and then from the chair to the floor. She seated herself +anew in silence, in loneliness, muffled to her eyebrows in her otter +furs, and listening to the gay snatches of song about the great flaring +hearth in the guardroom.</p> + +<p>And it was cold, it was very cold!</p> + +<p>During the afternoon Jock Lesly decided to tramp over to the fort. +He had a desire to compare views with Captain Howard and expatiate +on the incident of the capture, so full of import to them both,—to +the soldier as representing the military element, and the trader +the mercantile interests of the post. He had scarcely stretched out +his smoking boots to the fire, seated in the officer’s comfortable +quarters, than Captain Howard introduced the subject of the weather +in reference to the prisoner, intending to thank the trader for the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_383">[Pg 383]</span> +consideration he had manifested in sending blankets to the fort, in +view of the arctic temperature.</p> + +<p>“We ought to consider our obligations to the helpless,” said the +officer, “but, as far as I am concerned, Gad, sir, I’m kept so short +for funds that it is often like letting a faithful soldier and servant +of the king go cold in order to house and blanket and warm some +miscreant enemy to the whole community.”</p> + +<p>“Ou, aye, weel,” said auld Jock, a trifle out of countenance, “I’m +obleeged for your sarmon, sir. D’ye mean ye think I ought to blanket +an’ mainteen the king’s prisoners at bed an’ board?”</p> + +<p>“No, oh no,” exclaimed the officer. “I only meant to thank you for the +blankets and furs and so on that your daughter brought over to-day, +kindly bethinking herself of the likelihood that the prisoner would +be neglected. In truth we have been surprisingly short, and if the +soldiers were not young and strong and had not a good deal of red blood +in their veins, I should expect to hear that some of them had frozen +stiff.”</p> + +<p>“Wow, man, to be plain, I never heard o’ thae blankets afore!” Jock +Lesly confessed. “The lassie helpit her nainsel’, as she has a perfect +right to do, and I sall ne’er say her nay. All my gear an’ hoardings +will be hers ane day. An’ I doubt not she’ll find some feckless +ne’er-do-weel of a husband ter fling it a’ awa’. But it’s hers, it’s +a’ hers. I wark for nane else, but,” with an anxious pause and a keen +glance, “did ye notice whether it was the lamb’s wool or the yowe’s +wool blankets that the bairn had?”</p> + +<p>“I did not see them at all,” said the officer hastily. “I only assured +her that she should have them all back safe, and bade her distribute +them to her own satisfaction.”</p> + +<p>Jock Lesly rose to his feet. This was a topic on which he could not +rest in uncertainty. She might give away the blankets as she would, but +his curiosity as to which quality she had seen fit to take actually +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_384">[Pg 384]</span> +burned him. He presently went tramping across the parade, and Captain +Howard, looking after him smilingly, little dreamed of the errand that +was to bring him back again.</p> + +<p>The dull dreary evening, with the snow still dizzily whirling, was +closing in. Indeed but for the ghastly illumination of the reflection +from the snow on the ground, it would now be dark. The peaked roof of +the trading-house looming up among the flakes before Jock Lesly knew +that he was near it, so stanchly he strode through the deep drifts, was +of a benignant aspect to his mind, and he loved it. As he sounded a +whistle, that Duncan or Dougal or whatever henchman awaited his coming +should perceive his arrival and admit him to the domestic fortress, +he noticed how the smoke was flaring up from that flue of the chimney +devoted to the hearth so craftily hidden below. His heart warmed at the +thought of his ingleside in his subterranean home.</p> + +<p>“I hinna seen my bairn a’ the day but by a wee gliff here awa’ an’ +there awa’. If the lassie were in Charlestoun now I couldna believe +it,” he said to himself as he heard the clatter of the bars falling +within. “I’ll mak her sing some o’ thae auld sangs the nicht, when her +voice sounds sae like her mither’s, an’ then me an’ the gillie-packmen +an’ Luckie Meg will a’ sing the chorus an’ drink some flip. An’ it can +snaw an’ sleet, an’ the wind can blaw an’ bleat, an’ awa’ doun there by +the red ingle-neuk we’se never ken it at a’.”</p> + +<p>Nevertheless when he was inside and the door secured anew, he said to +the under-trader, who stood swinging the lantern, “Dougal, whilk o’ +thae bales o’ blankets did Miss Lilias open the morn,—the lamb’s wool +or the yowe’s wool? An’ how mony did she send to the fort?”</p> + +<p>Dougal Micklin opened his eyes wide. “Neither the ane nor the t’ +other!” he exclaimed jealously. “An’ what for suld she send blankets to +the fort?”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_385">[Pg 385]</span></p> + +<p>But Jock Lesly would not believe this. Had he not the word of the +recipient of her bounty, that is the commandant of the fort,—and he +truly thought that Howard must have suggested it!—that she had given +him the trader’s blankets to wrap up his prisoner?</p> + +<p>“For whether it’s the lamb’s wool or the yowe’s wool, they are baith +verra gude, and ower gude to be given awa’ gratis,” Jock Lesly +argued. “For sic-like emergencies we brought them out frae Carolina, +not for the summer time! We forecast that cauld weather might catch +thae carles at the fort without kiver, and Captain Howard might buy +them, not beg them. He is the commandant of his majesty’s fort, not a +gaberlunzie man! It’s his bounden duty, even suld it cost him a wee +penny o’ thae short funds he bleats about, to protect his captives +frae suffering frae the inclement weather as a humane man, and as a +commandant it’s in the reg’lar way o’ business. I never heard o’ sic +a request onless it was made o’ Providence. We’se a’ ask Providence +for <i>onything</i>,—even to forgie us our debts that we made +oursel’s,—an’ I’ll be bound Captain Howard wad say, ‘Forgie us our +debts, <i>an’ interest on same</i>!’”</p> + +<p>He began to laugh satirically, then became suddenly silent, for as the +lantern swung before a row of shelves, the light revealed the blankets +in question, duly baled, with not a cord cut nor a fold shaken out.</p> + +<p>He did not wait for the under-trader to complete a laudatory account of +them, upon which Dougal had launched out as if he sought to sell them +to auld Jock himself, but which was purely mechanical, declaring that +they were of a fine quality and a heavy weight and could not be had +cheaper in Charlestown, notwithstanding the great expense of carriage +to the trader; that they were no designed for the Indian trade but for +such gentles as might—</p> + +<p>“Be at the fort an’ afeard o’ freezin’,” interrupted Jock Lesly +sardonically. “But thae gentles would rather warm their taes at a +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_386">[Pg 386]</span> +guinea than in a blanket that they have to pay for, man! ‘Forgie us +interest on same!’” And down Jock Lesly went upon the rungs of his +ladder and into his ain ha’ house.</p> + +<p>Very cheerful it looked. The supper was already on the board, the +hearth swept, and the fire flaring. The little flax-wheel at which +Lilias sat so often at night was at one side, silent and motionless, +and great buffalo-skins lay before the hearth. No lamp glowed from the +little chamber beyond, and Jock Lesly stopped short at the sight of the +black darkness within.</p> + +<p>“Where is Miss Lilias, Luckie?” he asked of old Meg, busied in brewing +the tea.</p> + +<p>“I dinna ken,” she replied casually; then looking up, she added, “In +the tradin’-house maist likely. She has been flittin’ in an’ out a’ the +day, except for the last twa hours or sae.”</p> + +<p>“There is not a soul in the trading-house!” cried Jock Lesly, with a +sudden cold clutch at his heart.</p> + +<p>Snatching a candle from the table he quickly searched her little +chamber, the passage, the anteroom, all in vain! It was but a small +place after all, this ha’ house, and easily traversed.</p> + +<p>Then he called her, his great rich resonant voice sounding from ceiling +to floor, from wall to wall, evoking a train of echoes, and alack with +so grievous a tremor in it that in listening the tears could but start. +The gillies, the under-trader had scoured every nook and cranny in the +trading-house and found naught. They looked at each other with white +scared faces, each repeating in astonishment at intervals, as if they +could not credit the marvel, “She isna here! She isna here!”</p> + +<p>Jock Lesly, with an awful sense of responsibility, thought of his wife, +dead so long ago,—had he thus discharged the sacred trust of the care +of their only child!</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_387">[Pg 387]</span></p> + +<p>There was not a moment to be lost, although perhaps hours had +already been wasted. Jock Lesly’s stanch courage rallied to meet the +emergency. All his life hereafter he might expend in grief, but the +present belonged to Lilias, and every force it could compass should be +consecrated to her service. He plunged through the whirl of snow, still +falling in the dense darkness; the tears that had poured unrestrained, +unheeded, shed unconsciously down his white cheeks, froze upon them, +and tiny icicles trembled upon his eyelashes. But he did not sob; his +breath held steady; his teeth were set, his every nerve was tense, +controlling his great physical strength that it might better seize +any opportunity of her rescue. The under-trader distinctly remembered +having seen her early in the afternoon returning from the fort and +walking with her collie toward the river. The collie had since reached +home, and with this testimony that she was no longer in the securities +of Fort Prince George they gathered the little group of packmen +about them in a close squad, and looking grimly to the priming of +their pistols they forcibly searched the Muscogee camp just outside +the works, thinking those troublous half-drunken wights might have +intercepted her as she came from the fort with the intention of holding +her for ransom when the terror at her disappearance should be at the +maximum.</p> + +<p>Although taken by surprise and obviously astounded by the accusation, +the Muscogees could furnish no information, and their camp betrayed +not a trace of her presence. This hope dashed, the party followed +successively every glimmering <i>ignis fatuus</i> of a possibility that +each could suggest; one remembered that a settler’s wife had a child +named in compliment “Lilias,” and as it was suddenly ill and near to +death, she might have visited it; another recounted the fact that an +old Indian woman near Keowee fascinated her with antiquated fables, +which she valued and loved to hear; another, upheld by superstition, +insisted on repairing to Keowee to consult the cheerataghe and have +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_388">[Pg 388]</span> +them work a spell to reveal her whereabouts; and while this was in +progress Jock Lesly required the headmen to search the town and the +adjacent series of Cherokee habitations, once almost consecutive, +from Kulsage (Sugar Town), about a mile above and even at that time +extending far down the valley, toward the site of Sinica, burned by +the British during the Cherokee War. Hours passed in these fruitless +efforts, and at last, when each lure had finally flickered out in the +darkness of despair, Jock Lesly turned again as a final hope to the +fort. He would consult the last man who saw her there, the sentry at +the gate, for perchance she might have expressed to him some inkling +of her intention to go elsewhere than home. The gillies all eager, +zealous, plunging through the drifts followed him; now and again +they fell over the submerged stumps of the clearing and wandered out +of their course and far afield, but Jock Lesly as if by instinct +avoided every impediment, and albeit the whirl of flakes obscured all +intimation of that blended glimmer and hazy aureola that were wont to +mark the site of the fort by night, he reached the gate as unerringly +as if the bastions, the barracks, the flag on the tower of the +block-house were flaunting in the bold light of day.</p> + +<p>None was so swift as he of all the light young fellows, but a moment +after the sentry’s challenge rang upon the chill night air he heard the +ice of the broad moat crack with a great splash, as Duncan, mistaking +the direction of the gate, fell into the frozen water of the ditch, +and much splutter and torrid exclamations as he scrambled out. The +noise attracted the attention of the sentinel in the tower of the +block-house, and the sharp report of his musket, as he fired a warning +into the air, brought out the main-guard before the corporal could +reach the sentry at the gate.</p> + +<p>In another moment there was a great commotion upon the parade, +erstwhile so dark and silent. A shifting of lanterns here and there +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_389">[Pg 389]</span> +threw long cone-shaped shafts of light down the snowy expanse, +illuminating in limited sections a log building near at hand, with its +drift-laden eaves and window-sills, and all the atmosphere a silent, +palpitating mysterious motion as the flakes still whirled. The glitter +of the scarlet and steel of the armed guard, its expectant aggressive +mien, its quick tramp and alert bearing might seem to offer a sort of +reassurance with its note of ready confidence. And indeed Jock Lesly’s +hope revived, albeit the jaunty military manner of the young officer of +the day was at variance with his anxious intent troubled face, revealed +by the lantern held aloft that he might descry his visitor’s care-worn +white lineaments.</p> + +<p>“Help you to find a trace? See the last man who saw her? That must be +the sentry at the gate—and the next, the prisoner himself.”</p> + +<p>As to learn from the officer of the guard the name of the sentinel +who had been posted at the gate at that hour and since relieved was a +work of more or less time, the interval could obviously be employed +in interrogating the prisoner himself as to the possible intimations +of her immediate intentions that Lilias might have expressed when +she quitted his cell. The permission of the commandant would be +necessary,—but here suddenly was the commandant himself, roused from +sleep by the stir, and with his voice kind and reassuring.</p> + +<p>“Never fear, dear fellow,” he said, passing his arm fraternally through +the quaking Lesly’s, “we’ll find her if we have to search the Indian +country inch by inch. They’ll never dare to harm her, for they will +hold her for ransom. I can feel for you, for have I not two daughters +of my own?”</p> + +<p>But as they strode together through the guardroom, with its flaring +fire and its tramping, thronging, military inmates, and opened the +inner door to the dark and chill military prison beyond, Captain +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_390">[Pg 390]</span> +Howard’s sentiments fell far the other side of friendly, for there, her +golden head pillowed on the hard table, her mantle of otter fur drawn +close about her ears, her feet perched upon the rung of the chair, +sat fast asleep the trader’s daughter, while the great flakes of snow +jingled crystalline and keen against the glass of the window, and the +dark hours merged deep into the mid-glooms of the night.</p> + +<p>And Captain Howard’s valuable prisoner was gone! His prisoner—whom +valiant men had risked their lives to secure. His prisoner—whom +hundreds of miles of cruel forced marches, privations incredible, and +dangers unnumbered had brought at last to his door. His prisoner—whom +other commanders had tried in vain to take, for whose capture many +other plans of specious wiles had failed and fallen short. His +prisoner—on whose triumphant delivery to the military and civil +authorities in Charlestown his majority depended. This prisoner—gone, +gone! And in his stead, in his secure cell with not a bar broken, not +a sentry bribed, no vigilance relaxed, was a girl, just awakened, half +frozen, all bewildered and beginning to cry.</p> + +<p>Jock Lesly caught the officer’s first outburst of dismay and surprise +and rage as a man might a blow, putting up his arm to guard his face.</p> + +<p>“Hegh, Captain,” he said, his hand clasping the girl’s as she cowered +and blinked before the light that coldly fell upon the bare walls, the +high window, the dusty floor, all infinitely bleak and gloomy. “I’se +gae nae furder in a’ this gear! Let but the bairn get to the fire! I +confess! I’m bound to confess! My heart can haud sic a care o’ deceit +nae langer! ’Twas me that planned to liberate the callant! I sent the +lassie here to win ye by a trick an’ to turn him loose drest in sic +gear as hers an’ to tak his place. ’Twas <i>me</i>, Captain, an’ I +surrender!”</p> + +<p>Great as were the variant urgencies of the situation, the cold coerced +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_391">[Pg 391]</span> +the group mechanically toward the fire in the guardroom, and they stood +on the broad hearth, the soldiers withdrawing a few paces to give them +space. The glittering muskets had been all stacked anew; the open door +showed a broad lane of light gleaming down the snowy parade outside, +the flakes still madly whirling. Captain Howard in his hastily assumed +military uniform, with his ungartered hose wrinkled and loose, and +evidently unconscious that he still wore a red flannel nightcap with +a queer tassel, had a touch of the grotesque, in contrast with the +dapper perfection of the ensign’s regimentals with his up-all-night +expectation as officer of the day. All looked in dismay, in growing +anger, in gathering doubt at Jock Lesly.</p> + +<p>The trader stanchly returned their gaze. The shoulders of his great +match-coat were covered with snow, which was beginning to drip as it +thawed with the heat of the fire, and he held pressed close to his side +his golden-haired daughter. She was fully awake now, and looking out +with alert, wide-eyed expectation from her mantle of otter fur drawn +partially over her head.</p> + +<p>“Jock Lesly,” cried the captain, “you are lying! Why should you, always +a loyal subject, with the interest of your trade dependent upon the +preservation of the peace with the Cherokees, set free this turbulent +Laroche, this stirrer-up of strife along the frontier?”</p> + +<p>“Ou,—ay,” said Jock Lesly, holding up his chin and gazing about him +speculatively as if he looked for his inspiration in the air, “a’ that +is verra true; but this lad hae eat o’ my salt up in the Tennessee +country, an’”—</p> + +<p>“You are lying!” cried the officer angrily, “and if you were not, it +would be as much as my life is worth to tell you so, even with my guard +around me! You know, and I know, that the child did it of her own +accord,—and for what, missy? Why did you liberate the man?”</p> + +<p>“Ye’ll no ask the bairn questions, Captain Howard!” interposed Jock +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_392">[Pg 392]</span> +Lesly angrily. “I stand here ready to tak the responsibility an’ answer +for the deed! The lassie is no accountable for what she says! She’s +cauld, half starved! I surrender! I surrender! It’s no the lassie’s +will that brought her here! I sent her! ’Twas me, her cruel father! She +is cauld! I surrender! I”—</p> + +<p>“I let the prisoner out!” said Lilias suddenly, and her voice rang in +that grim guardroom like some sweet string of a harp, keyed so high +above any vibrations to which it was accustomed, yet rich and resonant +with its fullness of tone. “I let him out because he was betrayed by my +word. I tauld Callum MacIlvesty that he was French, for he had avowed +it to me; but I was thinkin’ then ’twas known to a’ the warld, an’ sae +Callum MacIlvesty tauld you, Captain Howard, that he was no Tam Wilson, +as Lieutenant Everard took him to be, but French, and ye sent to tak +him. An’ now since I hae nae treachery to answer for,—for <i>I</i>’m +no keeper o’ the guard-house here,—I’ll gae to gaol or where ye will +wi’ a free heart. I care na for naught!”</p> + +<p>She turned her face and golden head against her father’s great snowy +coat as he once more futilely ejaculated, “The bairn’s cauld! it’s gey +cauld weather! and she disna ken what she is sayin’!”</p> + +<p>But Captain Howard, after an eager consultation aside with several +officers of the garrison, summoned by the unusual commotion, and +a survey of the conditions of the raging storm, returned to the +questioning of Lilias.</p> + +<p>“And at what time did this happen, mistress? What hour was it when you +saw fit to turn the king’s prisoner loose upon the country?”</p> + +<p>“Five minutes scant after you gave me leave to speak wi’ the callant; +an’ after he was gone I stude the cauld as lang as I could, thinking +to gie him a fair start, an’ then I drapped aff in a wee bit nap. It’s +ower cauld comfort ye gie to your puir prisoners, Captain Howard.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_393">[Pg 393]</span></p> + +<p>“And what direction did he take?” the officer asked eagerly.</p> + +<p>“Ah-h!” she cried, her red lips showing her white teeth, her nodding +head setting her golden hair to glimmering beneath the brown otter fur, +her eyes shining with triumph, “it’s <i>him</i> that didna say! He is +the sodger-man to keep his plans in the sole o’ his boot.”</p> + +<p>Her father pressed her head smotheringly against the folds of his great +coat. “Whist, hinny, whist!” he exclaimed vacuously; “I surrender, +Captain! I surrender! The bairn’s but a bairn when a’ is said! She kens +na what she is sayin’; an’ I mak nae doubt, too, she is tellin’ lees.”</p> + +<p>“I make no doubt that <i>you</i> are telling lies!” said the captain in +despair.</p> + +<p>For with full ten hours’ start, the escaped prisoner, himself a +military man of much experience, of tried courage, of crafty resource, +and moreover singularly well acquainted with the conditions of the +country, could set at defiance any pursuer who should enter upon the +chase in darkness, in intense cold, in a furious snowstorm, and in +absolute ignorance of the direction which the fugitive had taken. The +passage of the night with the late wintry dawn would add some seven +hours to the fair start she had contrived for him. The commandant +was nettled by the consciousness that this advantage might have been +somewhat abridged by a trifle more precaution; for although no supper +was served the prisoner, he being expected to reserve such portion as +he desired from his dinner for that purpose, as was the habit, for +which an allowance was duly made, the cell had been visited by the +officer of the day when making his rounds. The girl was still soundly +sleeping, and doubtless did not hear the opening of the door as the +officer of the day unlocked it and glanced in. It was already dark, and +by the faint glimmerings of the lantern held outside for him by the +corporal accompanying him upon his rounds, he saw the bare walls and +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_394">[Pg 394]</span> +floor, and in the single chair a muffled figure leaning upon the table, +presumably asleep or plunged in deep dejection, the head bowed upon the +arms. It never occurred to him that this shadowy presence in the bleak +gloom could be other than the exhausted and travel-worn prisoner, whom +he did not wish to rouse unnecessarily. The officer’s duties were many +and pressing at this hour and called him elsewhere. Therefore, closing +the door and turning the key, he thought no more of the captive till he +saw the golden head of the changeling when the mystery was revealed.</p> + +<p>Captain Howard, who had given the girl access to the cell, could ill +accuse the subaltern of neglect of duty, and the commandant himself +could hardly have been expected to guard against masterly strategy in +the quarter whence it had emanated.</p> + +<p>Messengers were presently ready to start out with the first intimation +of a lull in the storm or the peep of day to warn all the Cherokee +towns of reprisal should they dare to harbor the fugitive, for that +Laroche would return to the friendly Cherokee strongholds hardly +admitted of a doubt in the mind of Captain Howard. He had not +sufficient troops at command to awe the Indians into surrendering the +fugitive, but he hoped that the passive force of the treaty and its +advantages, otherwise annulled, might avail.</p> + +<p>Captain Howard was a man of magnanimity. Even with the cup of +well-earned success dashed from his lips he had the good feeling to +pity the father,—his own daughters were far away in England,—as Jock +Lesly continually ejaculated, “<i>I</i> surrender, Captain! The wean’s +no responsible! <i>I</i> surrender!”</p> + +<p>“Jock,” he said, “you need not forswear yourself. We all know that +you would not have jeopardized the fair interests of the Indian trade +for all the Johnny Crapauds who ever passed the tongue of a buckle +through a sword-belt,—not even if instead of your salt he had eaten +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_395">[Pg 395]</span> +your whole station! Miss Lilias Lesly here, for reasons seeming to +herself good and fitting”—he cast upon her an acrid glance—“set the +man free,—for which she is under arrest, and”—intercepting a wild +bleat of paternal protest—“will remain so in your ain ha’ house under +your watch and ward; and we have no doubt she will be produced when +summoned, and you will give your faithful recognizance to that effect.”</p> + +<p>He was reflecting that it would answer every purpose to detain the +girl thus, for while her punishment might result should the matter +continue of importance, it would otherwise hardly be contemplated by +the colonial authorities in view of the unpopularity of such a step.</p> + +<p>Jock Lesly was in such haste to sign and seal a paper betokening this +clemency that he could hardly hold the sputtering quill; and during +this solemn ceremony the irrepressible Lilias broke out laughing with +hysterical glee, and requested Captain Howard to put into a wee corner +o’ that paper the promise he had given her that she “suld hae a’ thae +blankets that were ne’er brought to the fort, afore the sodgers suld +steal them a’.”</p> + +<p>“Thae bit duds were unco gude duds,” she remarked fleeringly of these +immaterial comforts.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_396">[Pg 396]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="XXII">XXII</h2> +</div> + + +<p>CALLUM M<span class="allsmcap">AC</span>ILVESTY had been soon at Jock Lesly’s side to afford him +such succor and countenance as was possible under the circumstances. +He asked for leave to aid him in transporting Lilias, so stiff with +the cold was she, back to the cave house, where she sat on the buffalo +rug before the flaring fire, her glittering hair all tumbling about +her shoulders, her eyes shining with triumph, and laughing with gay +outbursts of flattered joy to learn how wretched they had all been +because of her absence, and how wrong and wicked they esteemed her +sudden arbitrary release of the prisoner.</p> + +<p>“<i>I</i> amna sorry,” she protested, “except for that the callant hae +on my gude red rokelay, an’ my best puce-colored serge gownd, an’ my +gude murrey screen, wi’ only ae wee tear in the weft o’ it,—an’ I’se +warrant I’ll no see a’ that braw gear again!”</p> + +<p>It was Callum who sought to impress her with the magnitude of the +offense that she had committed, for Jock Lesly cared for naught else on +earth save that she was safe and sat once more on the rug before the +blazing fire of the ha’ house.</p> + +<p>“An’ what care I how far ye went an’ how hard ye fared to tak him, +Callum!” she cried indignantly. “Gin I hadna tauld you the callant +was French, you wad ne’er hae kenned it. An’ ye tauld yon Captain +Howard—that bluidy-minded chiel! I wuss he was in his ain cauld +tolbooth to freeze stiff like my nainsell!”</p> + +<p>“Whist, whist, hinny!” remonstrated Jock Lesly. “Callum wadna hae tauld +the lad was French had he kenned you wad wuss to keep it secret; wad +ye, Callum?”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_397">[Pg 397]</span></p> + +<p>With this direct appeal the Highland soldier, sitting in his armchair +opposite Jock Lesly at the fire, with Lilias between them on the rug, +gazed steadily into the glowing coals. He could not evade the question.</p> + +<p>“Yes,” he answered, “I wad! I wad ha’ tauld e’en if Lilias had bid me +keep a quiet sough aboot it!”</p> + +<p>“Na, Callum! surely na!” exclaimed Jock Lesly irritably. “Ye wadna vex +the bairn!” For Lilias had lifted her head with its wealth of flaring +hair, and was gazing at Callum with intent, questioning, speculative +eyes. “Ye care too muckle for Lilias for that!” Jock Lesly prompted him.</p> + +<p>“I care more for my oath, for my duty, than for any lassie alive!” +protested the blunt soldier.</p> + +<p>There was a moment’s silence, while the fire roared and the smoke +rushed up the chimney into the wild wintry storm without, of which they +here heard naught. Jock Lesly, with a knitted brow, filled his pipe and +said no more. Callum, his glass poised upon his knee, gazed steadfastly +into the flames, and Lilias, with dewy, gleaming eyes fixed upon him, +suddenly exclaimed, as if in delighted reminiscence, “Ou, ay, that was +what Tam Wilson said! His oath, his honor aboon a’! No woman’s wile, no +woman’s smile could win him awa’! Ah, the leal heart he had! That is +what Tam Wilson aye said!”</p> + +<p>“I care na for Tam Wilson, nor for what he said!” declared the dour +Callum glumly.</p> + +<p>“Not the ane you kenned!” cried Lilias. “<i>This</i> Tam Wilson ye +never saw!”</p> + +<p>The Highland soldier thought the cold and excitement and anxiety had +shaken her balance a trifle.</p> + +<p>“But Callum,” she persisted, “suppose it wad gar me like you better if +you had hid that the puir lad is French?”</p> + +<p>“I wadna hae dune it! I wadna hae hid it!” He shook his head sadly, +and her father stared at him in amazement. Inch by inch he teemed +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_398">[Pg 398]</span> +renouncing his chance for the girl’s good graces.</p> + +<p>“A-weel, a-weel,” she said slowly. “But since a’s come an’ gane, an’ +the march was for naething, an’ the prisoner is flitted, an’ I was +frozen wi’ cauld an’ misery, an’ am like to be sent to Charlestoun to +answer for my crimes, ye can say now, lad, that ye are verra sorry that +ye disclosed my gossip to your officer, an’ ye wadna do it again if it +were to be done anew! Ye will say that?” She looked at him with keen +expectant eyes.</p> + +<p>“I wad do it all the same,” he protested deliberately. Then, “Lilias, +why wad ye torment me wi’ a’ these questions? They tear out my heart!”</p> + +<p>“I sall ne’er forget it!” she cried. “Ye did it against my wull. An’ +now ye say that if ye had the chance anew ye wad e’en do it agen, +though I suld <i>hate</i> ye for it!”</p> + +<p>“It’s my oath, Lilias! My duty! I canna look to you instead o’ thae +great obligations. I suld do it again an’ again, whate’er ye might say +or feel, an’ keep my oath till death!”</p> + +<p>She suddenly broke out laughing afresh, in shrill sweet ecstatic joy. +“That Tam Wilson! Wha wad think! That Tam Wilson at last!”</p> + +<p>She seemed enigmatic to them both, but they hardly had space to read +the riddle, for Callum, recognising the passage of time, sprang up to +return to the fort before his limited leave expired. He ran briskly +up the ladder with Jock Lesly clambering after him to take down the +barricade to let him out, and to secure the bars subsequent to his +exit. There was still fire upon the hearth of the great trading-house, +and a dull red glow suffused its dusky brown spaces. It was only as +Lesly turned to close the door of the counter that he noticed that +Lilias, agile enough despite the congealed condition she so graphically +described, had followed also, and after the soldier had sprung down +the front steps and strode off through the snow the two, father +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_399">[Pg 399]</span> +and daughter, stood for a moment gazing into the vast dark stormy +wilderness, permeated by the sense of silent unseen motion in the +whirling flakes, of which only the nearest were visible in the red glow +of the dying fire from within.</p> + +<p>“Hegh, come, bairnie, we’se e’en steek the door,” Lesly said.</p> + +<p>The lantern in his hand showed her face to be all sweetly smiling. She +was looking into the blank voids of the snowy gloom and carrying first +one hand and then the other to her lips with an engaging free curve and +tossing each toward the wilderness.</p> + +<p>“And what now?” he demanded, staring owlishly down at her in amaze.</p> + +<p>“Just throwing a wheen kisses to Tam Wilson,—oh puir Tam Wilson! Wha +wad hae thought he wad e’er win hame agen!”</p> + +<p>“Wow!” said her father glumly. “Tam Wilson!—drat Tam Wilson, I say! We +hae had an unco pother ower Tam Wilson, now!”</p> + +<p>But she ran in ahead of him laughing in great glee, and he overheard +her in her little chamber while she disrobed for bed talking about Tam +Wilson and Tam Wilson to Luckie Meg, who answered acquiescently to +whatever she said, “Ou,—ay! I’se warrant!” and apparently gave scant +heed, even if she heard at all.</p> + +<p>For some weeks Callum MacIlvesty felt anew that he was admitted into +a sort of Paradise in frequenting the ha’ house, albeit his heart was +sore. The rescue that she had planned and achieved for the prisoner +at such risk and suffering to herself argued much for the strength of +her attachment to Laroche, and this forbade hope even when hope seemed +most possible. She herself was so gay, so whimsically cheery, so blithe +about the hearth, where the Highlander loved to sit as of yore with her +father. She noted Callum’s depressed mien, and ascribing it to the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_400">[Pg 400]</span> +fruitless result of the long laborious march and triumphant capture, +argued that he had done all that he could and more than any other man +would, his whole duty, and the sequence was the affair of Captain +Howard,—and then remarked most pertinently that if she were that +officer and had no better a tassel to a nightcap than that frayed thing +he sported in public at the guard-house, she would resign from the army!</p> + +<p>In order to prove that Captain Howard had himself sustained no +damage in the loss of his notable prisoner, she cited the fact that +the war with France was now over, cessation of hostilities had been +announced on the 21st of January, and since the treaty had been signed +in February, it had become known that the French forts, Toulouse, +Tombecbé, Condé, were to be surrendered as early as English officers +could be detailed to receive the transfer. All prisoners were to be +released,—among those specially demanded she had seen in the Gazette +the name of Lieutenant de Laroche,—already escaped though he was!</p> + +<p>But all this, though so prettily urged, did not suffice to lift the +gloom that weighed on Callum’s mind. He was soon to say farewell, to +rejoin the Forty-Second, to go he knew not whither, nor when to return!</p> + +<p>It was one day when he was thus a-mope, as Lilias was wont to describe +his state of mind, that Callum discovered her secret, if so candid an +emotion can be so called. The ha’ house had fallen into its ancient +habitudes cannily enough, as if sorrows had never menaced it, and +Lilias in her brilliant blue gown with roses scattered adown its white +stripes sat at her wheel spinning as heedfully and dexterously as if +she had never fashioned toils of more significance. Callum on the +settle, his arms folded, his head a little bent, gazed into the red +coals. All that he had once hoped, nay expected, was annulled by the +sentiments implied in her release of Laroche, and the resentment she +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_401">[Pg 401]</span> +had expressed toward himself for revealing aught that she had told +him, albeit she had not bespoken secrecy. Therefore he experienced +a revulsion of feeling so complete, so acute, as almost to resemble +pain in its breathless keenness. He had suddenly lifted his eyes and +caught hers fixed upon him with an expression he had never seen in +them before, wistful, smiling, yet serious, and deeply tender. His +heart gave a great plunge and every nerve was tense. He rose, and +still looking at her, as if he feared she might vanish like some +lovely dream, advanced across the hearth. He sat down beside her in +her father’s chair, still seeking to read—the dullard!—the obvious +mystery of the sapphire light in her eyes.</p> + +<p>“Lilias,” he said clumsily and all tremulous, “have you something to +tell me?”</p> + +<p>“I trow not!” she exclaimed, her face roseate with smiles and blushes, +but giving a lofty nod of her golden head. “I was thinking, man, you +may hae something to tell to me!”</p> + +<p>“Ah, Lilias, I hae tauld it sae often!” he cried bewildered.</p> + +<p>“An’ sae you are tired o’ telling it?” she retorted. “Eh, sirs, to be +tired sae early!”</p> + +<p>“I can never be tired of telling it, Lilias, if only you will listen to +it,—how I love you more and more day by day!”</p> + +<p>“It’s just as weel, then,”—she cast a radiant smile upon him as +she bent anew to her wheel,—“for I expect to listen to it—that +is—whiles—at orra times—when I hae naething better to do—as lang as +I live.”</p> + +<p>It was not in Callum’s scheme of love-making to suggest the suddenness +of this acceptability of a suit so long urged. Luckie Meg herself could +not have assented more acquiescently than he in every detail that +Lilias chose to propound. It was only once, in the course of those long +sunless afternoons in the cavern, with the red glow of the fire about +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_402">[Pg 402]</span> +them and the impenetrable walls to fend off the alien world so far +away from their consciousness, when all their talk was of their mutual +experience of the sentiment that swayed them, what each had felt and +thought, that Callum showed symptoms of rebellion—being informed that +she looked upon him and he might consider himself as “Tam Wilson.”</p> + +<p>“But I will not!” cried Callum, ready to put the question to the +torture at once. Jealousy is not so easily vanquished. Indeed it hardly +dies even under the heel of victory!</p> + +<p>“Not the ane that you knew,” she stipulated. “Just ane auld love o’ my +ain! He wad put his oath before all. An’ he loved a woman well, but +honor mair! an’ he had no deceit nor guile in his heart (though I hinna +forgot about your report to Captain Howard, neither, an’ I’ll sort ye +weel for it some day), an’ he had no false nations nor false tongues +(he had mickle ado to speak his ain), an’ no false names (‘Tam Wilson’ +bein’ laid to him because he was sae like ‘Tam Wilson’). An’ I suld hae +kenned ye earlier for him,—though your hair hae aye got a place that +is streakit wi’ brown an’ lighter brown an’ I think it wadna show gin +it were brushed backward,—but I aye loved the look o’ ye, only I never +saw ye put to the test, and sae I thought ye were just plain ‘Callum +McIlvesty.’ But now I ken ye are Tam Wilson!”</p> + +<p>And smiling at him with lips so joyous, so red and sweet, Callum +yielded the point and assumed in this wise the sobriquet which +personified her girlish ideal.</p> + +<p>Still it nettled him grievously. She might have called her ideal +“Callum.”</p> + +<p>“Whist, lad, whist,” said her father to him one day, “an’ I’se tell ye +something ye will ne’er find out frae her.”</p> + +<p>Then with much solemnity, with circumspection, he pulled out a paper +from his wallet, to which he could not have paid more respectful and +close attention if it had been a schedule of prices current. It was a +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_403">[Pg 403]</span> +letter from Laroche, dated on the French man-of-war L’Aigle, and was +addressed jointly to Jock Lesly and his daughter. It was an offer of +marriage to Lilias, and begged that they would fix a date to meet him +in Charlestown, where the ceremony might be performed by both Catholic +and Protestant clergy. It set forth his rank, means, and expectations, +which were very considerable, and gave references which were both +accessible and unimpeachable.</p> + +<p>“An’, lad,” said Jock Lesly, looking owlishly at Callum while leaning +over the counter at the trading-house where he had driven so many +bargains, “seeing that she is my only child, and that ensigncy of +yours is gey far to seek, and this man is a sure enough lieutenant, +not o’ red Injuns but of the French army, and is a chevalier or a +sieur,—there’s no rebate on that,—and has lands an’ a château and +some income, and the lassie seemed fond o’ him on the Tennessee, and +here she set him free when they had him by the heels at the fort,—why +I downa say, but I advised her—weel, to marry the fallow, when we go +down this spring, an’ gae to live in France. It’s far awa’, is France, +but they hae gude glimmerings o’ sense about their weaving there. I hae +seen some gude camlets frae France, an’ ye ken there’s no place like +Lyons for silk—though that’s na for my trade neither.”</p> + +<p>Callum’s heart sank for the mere consciousness that his happiness had +trembled in such jeopardy. “And what did she say?”</p> + +<p>“Lilias?—why, she said ae sentence, ‘He isna Tam Wilson!’ Sae, lad, if +ye will be advised by me, ye’ll be Tam Wilson as near as ye can find +out how!”</p> + +<p>About this time an ensigncy was secured for Callum through his family’s +influence, and when he returned shortly to Charlestown he met there +Everard, who was in a state of exuberant and facetious triumph in the +manner of the escape of Captain Howard’s prisoner, having earlier +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_404">[Pg 404]</span> +eluded him also, and who was the first to congratulate the young +Highlander upon the attainment of his commission and the near approach +of his wedding day. For in the early summer Callum and Lilias were +married in Charlestown and sailed away, leaving auld Jock still deeply +immersed in the problems of the Indian trade. These problems became +much simplified by the withdrawal of the French from the country, +and soon the Cherokees began to present those curious symptoms of +degeneracy which seem the inevitable incident of the first stages of +civilization, an interregnum, so to speak, which ensues upon the last +vestiges of the ancient status. Thereafter they were only formidable +locally and in small predatory bands, and represented no more a +definitely organized menace to the British provinces. In the course of +some years a great happiness and source of pride fell to the lot of +Jock Lesly. The reversal of the attainder had restored the chief of the +ancient house of MacIlvesty to his pristine position with others of his +kinsmen of minor rank. By reason of several deaths Callum MacIlvesty +succeeded to a baronetcy, and Jock Lesly, despite his quondam bluff +expressions of scorn of a title, found its taste exceedingly sweet as +applied to his daughter; he was proud too of Callum’s rise in the army +through successive promotions for gallant conduct in the field.</p> + +<p>“He smacks his lips ower ‘Captain Sir Callum an’ Leddy MacIlvesty’ as +if the words were fitten to eat,” Dougal commented dourly, “an’ somehow +he says ’em fifty times a day!”</p> + +<p>There was another who heartily rejoiced in this advance of fortune when +it came to his ears, for Lady MacIlvesty’s beauty and what were called +her “eccentricities” made her of some social note in her day. Laroche +had loved the girl very truly for herself, and although he had sought +to look upon her rejection of his suit as in a certain sense an escape +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_405">[Pg 405]</span> +for himself, in view of her humble station, her plebeian father, her +simple education and limited experience, and their incongruity with his +objects of ambition and the sphere of his association, he could not +entertain the reminiscence without a keen sentimental regret, albeit +blended with tender pleasure to know that the world had gone well with +her. He too had reached, as he deserved, promotion, and at no small +danger, as the sabre slashes received in the hand-to-hand warfare of +that day, and which disfigured his bland handsome face, might betoken. +He lived several years after his retirement from active service. One +who had known him in those halcyon days on the Tennessee River might +hardly have recognized him later, so scarred, gray-haired, wrinkled, +and very thin he had become,—a mere rack on which to hang his +decorations and the ribbons of his orders. He had always been esteemed +a man of unique ability, and his conversation was long valued by the +judicious in the cafés and salons of Paris which he frequented. When he +reached the discursive and reminiscent stage of advancing age, often, +as the night would wear on in a choice company, he would discourse +of high themes of national possibilities, and regretfully rehearse +disastrous phases of the country’s past that had fallen within his +personal knowledge,—of the great territories that France had developed +and forfeited; plans of empire that she had failed to utilize; strange +peoples of martial values who had sought her protectorate in vain. Then +he would revert to his own life among them,—reciting details of their +curious customs and mysterious antiquity; telling thrilling stories of +personal adventure, now of an escape from the menace of the torture and +the stake, and now of his release from the trebly guarded stronghold of +a British fort by the aid of a beautiful English lady of rank who loved +him and whom he adored.</p> + +<p>And although as he grew older and his audiences younger they believed +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_406">[Pg 406]</span> +this unnamed English lady of rank to be entirely apocryphal, the tear +was obviously genuine with which he sweetened his glass as he told that +she was dead now,—years ago—ah yes—dead!</p> + +<p>“<i>Il y a une autre vie! C’est une belle espérance!</i>” he would +sigh, for he was always deeply religious. “But alas, that the sweets of +this life are transitory!”</p> + +<p>And presently he would be talking of the triumphs of engineering +possible in that vast America. Sometimes he would trace out on the +tablecloth with the aid of the scroll-like pattern of the damask the +outline of the great bend of a river which he affirmed had singly +saved that country to the English and reft it from the French, as +its extraordinary obstructions to navigation prevented all adequate +conveyance of munitions of war to the Cherokees, who held the balance +of power. He would mark off the canal which he had purposed to +build in the fullness of time, and the site he had selected for the +barrier towns to guard the region of the portages, necessary to evade +the obstructions, as a temporary substitute. The technical terms +of the oft-told tale, the abstruse calculations of the elaborately +demonstrated problem, would finally wear out the interest of his +auditors; they would slip away one by one, and leave him bending over +the table, gloating upon the symmetrical possibilities of his plan, +bewailing its untimely frustration, seeing, instead of the blank cloth, +that rich new land with its gigantic growths of primeval forests and +those dizzy whirls of turbulent waters, that stretch out miles and +miles impassably, where even now, despite the advance of modern science +and the exorcising appropriations of Congress, the devils, <i>hottuk +ookproose</i>, still dance in the riotous rapids and sing tumultuously +as of yore.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_407">[Pg 407]</span></p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_409">[Pg 409]</span></p> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="NOTES">NOTES</h2> +</div> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<div class="footnotes"><h3>NOTES</h3> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p class="nind"><a id="Footnote_1" href="#FNanchor_1" class="label">[1]</a> +<a href="#Page_4">Page 4</a>. A detail of the incidents of this visit to the +king in London and the consequent impressions made upon the minds of +the Indians would be of much interest to the student of civilization. +It is to be regretted that Lieutenant Henry Timberlake of Virginia, +who accompanied the Cherokees to England, should have devoted so great +a space in his “Memoirs” of that event (published in London in 1765) +to plaintive accounts of his wrangling with governmental officials +concerning his reimbursement for sundry expenses on their account, +with which it seems he burdened himself without sufficient warrant, +and to the effort to repel the insinuation that he undertook the +enterprise of conducting them thither for his own personal profit, as +impresario so to speak; for the people of that city pressed in hordes +to see them, many of the nobility as well as citizens of lower rank, +and some, evidently without the knowledge of Lieutenant Timberlake, +paid for the privilege. Beyond the strange dirge-like chant which +Ostenaco sang on landing; their indifference to the architecture of +the Cathedral of Exeter; their terror of the statue of Hercules with +uplifted club which they saw at Wilton (they begged to be taken away +immediately); their relish of the entertainments at Ranelegh, Vauxhall, +and especially of the pantomimes at Sadler’s Wells; their admiration of +the youth, personal beauty, and affability of the king, there is naught +to indicate their attitude of mind. A contemporary account, however, in +the “Annual Register” for 1762 gives a personal glimpse of them.</p> + +<p>“Three Cherokee chiefs, lately arrived from South Carolina, in order +to settle a lasting peace with the English, had their first audience +of his majesty. The head chief called Outacite or Man-killer, on +account of his many gallant actions, was introduced by Lord Eglinton, +and conducted by Sir Clement Cottrell, master of ceremonies. They were +upwards of an hour and a half with his majesty, who received them +with great goodness, and they behaved in his presence with remarkable +decency and mildness. The man who assisted as interpreter on this +occasion, instead of one who set out with them, but died on his +passage, was so confused that the king could ask but few questions.</p> + +<p>“These chiefs are well-made men, near six feet high, their faces and +necks coarsely painted of a copper colour, and they seem to have no +hair on their heads. They came over in the dress of their country, +consisting of a shirt, trowzers, and mantle, their heads covered with +skull-caps and adorned with shells, feathers, earrings, and other +trifling ornaments. On their arrival in London they were conducted +to a house taken for them in Suffolk street, and habited more in the +English manner. When introduced to his majesty the head chief wore a +blue mantle covered with lace, and had his head richly ornamented. +On his breast hung a silver gorget with his majesty’s arms engraved. +The other two chiefs were in scarlet, richly adorned with gold lace, +and gorgets of plate on their breasts. During their stay in England +of about two months they were invited to the tables of several of the +nobility, and were shown by a gentleman, appointed for that purpose, +the tower, the camps, and everything else that could serve to impress +them with proper ideas of the power and grandeur of the nation; but it +is hard to say what impression these sights made upon them, as they had +no other way of communicating their sentiments but by their gestures. +They were likewise conducted every day to one or another of the places +of amusement, in and about London, where they constantly drew after +them innumerable crowds of spectators, to the no small emolument of +the owners of these places, some of which raised their prices to make +the most of such unusual guests. Here they behaved in general with +great familiarity, shaking hands very freely with all those who thought +proper to accept that honour. They carried home with them articles of +peace between his majesty and their nation, with a handsome present of +warlike instruments and such other things as they seemed to place the +greatest value on.”</p> + +</div> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_410">[Pg 410]</span></p> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p class="nind"><a id="Footnote_2" href="#FNanchor_2" class="label">[2]</a> +<a href="#Page_5">Page 5</a>. The Indian phrases given in this volume are +studied from sources as nearly contemporaneous as may be with the +events herein narrated, both for the sake of verisimilitude and because +of the multitudinous changes to which the aboriginal languages have +since been subjected, for the purpose of classification in view of +the diverse orthography of the earlier philologists, which varied, of +course, according to nationality, French, German, or English.</p> + +<p>It is interesting to note the differing estimate of the value which +the learned place on this singular jetsam and flotsam of the seas of +Time. The study of the aboriginal languages, apart from historical +considerations, possesses great interest in the revelation of “new +plans of ideas,” as Monsieur Maupertuis felicitously phrases methods +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_411">[Pg 411]</span> +of grammatical construction. “The Greek is admired for its compounds, +yet what are they to those of the Indians!” exclaims the eminent +philologist, Mr. Duponceau. “What would Tibullus or Sappho have +given to have had at their command a word at once so tender and so +expressive—<i>wulamalessohalian</i>, ‘thou who makest me happy’? How +delighted would be Moore, the poet of the loves and graces, if his +language, instead of five or six tedious words, had furnished him with +an expression like this in which the lover, the object beloved, and the +delicious sentiment are blended and fused together in one comprehensive +and appellative term. And is it in the language of savages that these +beautiful forms are found!”</p> + +<p>And yet in the learned work on America by Mr. Edward John Payne of +University College, Oxford, still in course of publication, it is +stated that “the majority of these languages, if not absolutely +the lowest in the glossological scale, are as near the bottom as +the student of the origin of speech could well desire.” Of their +polysynthetic features, which Mr. Duponceau so much admires, Mr. +Payne speaks as of merely bunched words, regarding the holophrase as +the primitive and simplest form of ignorant language, which in the +development and weight of meaning is broken finally, producing in its +disintegration parts of speech.</p> + +<p>Lord Monboddo, in his “Origin and Progress of Language,” founding his +opinion partly on the testimony of Father Sagard’s work, “Le Grand +Voyage du Pays des Hurons,” says of the Huron language, “It is the +most imperfect of any that has ever been discovered;” whereas Mr. +Duponceau finds it “rich in grammatical forms,” and permits himself the +expression “pompous ignorance” in alluding to the conclusions of his +learned confrère.</p> + +<p>The fact that Dr. Adam Smith as well as Lord Monboddo perceived in the +tendency to incorporate in one word the meaning of a whole sentence an +evidence of barbarism induces Mr. Duponceau to support the contrary +opinion with “a lively example from Suetonius, <i>Ave Imperator, +morituri</i> (those-who-are-going-to-die) <i>te salutant</i>. Since it +has been discovered that the barbarous dialects of savage nations are +formed on the same principles with classical idioms, it has been found +easier to ascribe the beautiful organization of these languages to +stupidity and barbarism than to acknowledge our ignorance of the manner +in which it has been produced.”</p> + +<p>Humboldt says: “It is acknowledged that almost everywhere the Indian +idioms display greater richness and more delicate gradations than might +be supposed from the uncultivated state of the people by whom they are +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_412">[Pg 412]</span> +spoken.” Adair, who had forty years’ personal experience among them, +writing in 1775, claims that their languages give evidence of culture +and scope of expression impossible to have originated with uncivilized +tribes such as they were found. A singular circumstance concerning the +“syllabic alphabet,” presumed to have been invented by the Cherokee +Sequoyah (John Guest) about 1820, would imply an origin at a far more +ancient date. A stone engraved with this character was found by an +agent of the Bureau of Ethnology in 1889 lying under the skull of a +skeleton buried in an Indian mound, with every evidence of antiquity, +on the north side of the Tennessee River, in the immediate vicinity +of one of the old Cherokee towns. This is of more special interest as +Adair and also Buttrick, in his “Antiquities,” record that the Indians +always claim to have once had scriptures, or a book, which for their +sins they had lost to the white race. May not these quaint characters +bear some relation to this tradition?</p> + +<p>The “particular plural” for “we,” which it seems occurs in all these +languages, even found in the extinct Taensa dialect,—concerning the +genuineness of the grammar of which so much interest was elicited +some years ago on its publication, edited by Messieurs Adam and +Parisot,—seems hardly worth the discussion bestowed upon it, as +parallels exist in so many modern European languages,—<i>noi +altri</i>, <i>nous autres</i>, <i>nosotros</i>,—and even the +vernacular may offer a counterpart in “we-all” and “we-uns.”</p> + +<p>Lord Monboddo’s idea, first presented to his attention by the blind +poet, the Reverend Thomas Blacklock, “that the first language among men +was music,” has an interesting suggestion of confirmation in the speech +of the Cherokees as described by Timberlake. “Their language is vastly +aspirated, and the accents so many and various you would often imagine +them to be singing in their common discourse.” Bartram says of the +sound of the Muscogulge (Muscogee) language, “The women in particular +speak so fine and musical as to represent the singing of birds.” +Gayarre states that the word “Choctaw” means “charming voice,” and was +hence applied to the tribe.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p class="nind"><a id="Footnote_3" href="#FNanchor_3" class="label">[3]</a> +<a href="#Page_8">Page 8</a>. A letter from General Sir Jeffrey Amherst dated +Albany, August 13, 1761, gives a particularized account of these +destructive measures. “The country would have been impenetrable had it +been well defended. Fifteen towns and all the plantations have been +burned; above 1400 acres of corn, beans, and pease, etc., destroyed; +about 5000 people, men, women, and children, driven into the woods and +mountains, where having nothing to subsist upon they must either starve +or sue for peace.”</p> + +<p>The fury of these measures after resistance had ceased is partly to be +explained as retaliation for the Cherokees’ breach of faith during the +preceding year, in the massacre of the garrison of Fort Loudon after +its capitulation, while on the march to Fort Prince George under the +safe conduct and escort of the principal chiefs. All the officers, +including the commandant, the unfortunate Captain Paul Demeré, fell +in this indiscriminate slaughter except one, Captain John Stuart, +who escaped and was afterward rewarded by a crown office for his +courage and constancy in the siege. He was of the family of Stuart of +Kincardine, Strathspey, Scotland, married into a South Carolina family, +and previous to the American Revolution lived in Charlestown, where +was born his son, who became an officer in the British army, General +Sir John Stuart, Count of Maida, winning the signal victory of Maida +over the French general Reynier, in Calabria in 1806. The garrison +of Fort Loudon has a special interest as the first military force of +civilization giving battle on the soil which is now Tennessee, its +earliest sacrifice in the cause of human progress.</p> + +</div> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_413">[Pg 413]</span></p> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p class="nind"><a id="Footnote_4" href="#FNanchor_4" class="label">[4]</a> +<a href="#Page_13">Page 13</a>. Several of the elder writers describe such +clever pastimes among the Indians. Timberlake records that while in +the Cherokee country he witnessed this favorite pantomime, as well as +another equally diverting, called “Taking the pigeons at roost.”</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p class="nind"><a id="Footnote_5" href="#FNanchor_5" class="label">[5]</a> +<a href="#Page_31">Page 31</a>. It is said that the Indians when discovered had +among them no methods of ascertaining weight, and bought and sold +exclusively by measure. Hence the incongruity of this locution in their +speech has furnished an additional argument to the supporters of the +theory of their Hebraic origin, suggesting an idiomatic survival of +forgotten customs.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p class="nind"><a id="Footnote_6" href="#FNanchor_6" class="label">[6]</a> +<a href="#Page_56">Page 56</a>. So extreme and well founded was the prevalent +terror of the torture by the Indians that once captured no immediate +sacrifice was too great to evade the grimmer possibility. General David +Stewart of Garth gives an instance in this region among the British +troops at this time. “Montgomerie’s Highlanders were often employed +in small detached expeditions. In these marches they had numberless +skirmishes with the Indians and with the irregular troops of the enemy. +Several soldiers of this and other regiments fell into the hands of +the Indians, being taken in an ambush. Allan Macpherson, one of these +soldiers, witnessing the miserable fate of several of his fellow +prisoners, who had been tortured to death by the Indians, and seeing +them preparing to commence the same operations upon himself, made signs +that he had something to communicate. An interpreter was brought. +Macpherson told them that provided his life was spared for a few +minutes he would communicate the secret of an extraordinary medicine +which, if applied to the skin, would cause it to resist the strongest +blow of a tomahawk or sword, and if they would allow him to go to the +woods with a guard to collect the plants proper for this medicine, +he would prepare it and allow the experiment to be tried on his own +neck by the strongest and most expert warrior among them. This story +easily gained upon the superstitious credulity of the Indians, and +the request of the Highlander was instantly complied with. Being sent +into the woods he soon returned with such plants as he chose to pick +up. Having boiled these herbs, he rubbed his neck with their juice, +and laying his head upon a log of wood desired the strongest man among +them to strike at his neck with his tomahawk, when he would find that +he could not make the slightest impression. An Indian, leveling a blow +with all his might, cut with such force that the head flew off to the +distance of several yards. The Indians were fixed in amazement at their +own credulity and the address with which the prisoner had escaped the +lingering death prepared for him; but instead of being enraged at the +escape of their victim, they were so pleased with his ingenuity that +they refrained from inflicting further cruelties on their remaining +prisoners.”</p> + +</div> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_414">[Pg 414]</span></p> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p class="nind"><a id="Footnote_7" href="#FNanchor_7" class="label">[7]</a> +<a href="#Page_84">Page 84</a>. The disposition to compete for the Cherokee trade +had earlier been the occasion of much remonstrance from Governor Glen +of South Carolina to Lieutenant-Governor Dinwiddie of Virginia during +their respective incumbency. The vexed question then seeming set at +rest was revived later by Lieutenant-Governor Fauquier of Virginia. In +his allusion to the subject, Jock Lesly possibly included Lieutenant +Henry Timberlake of Byrd’s Virginia Regiment, who had recently been on +a visit to the Cherokee country, quitting it in the early spring, on +March 10, 1762. But it is only fair to Lieutenant Timberlake to say +that the Indians were pressing him to induce Virginia to open a trade +with the Cherokees.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p class="nind"><a id="Footnote_8" href="#FNanchor_8" class="label">[8]</a> +<a href="#Page_182">Page 182</a>. Timberlake uses the spelling “Kanagatucko;” the +name appears otherwise signed to the Articles of Capitulation of Fort +Loudon, but of course in each instance the spelling is phonetic.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p class="nind"><a id="Footnote_9" href="#FNanchor_9" class="label">[9]</a> +<a href="#Page_244">Page 244</a>. This incantation is an extract from one of the +most singular of the ancient Sacred Formulæ of the Cherokees collected +by Mr. James Mooney for the Smithsonian Institution.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p class="nind"><a id="Footnote_10" href="#FNanchor_10" class="label">[10]</a> +<a href="#Page_282">Page 282</a>. The title of Emperor of the Cherokee Nation +was conferred by British authority on Moy Toy through Sir Alexander +Cuming in 1730, but this proved no hindrance to the chief’s acceptance +of the same high title under the authority of the French government +in 1736 through its emissary among the tribe, Christian Priber, a +German Jesuit. Adair recounts some details of the latter’s efforts to +materialize Iberville’s old scheme of unifying the Indian tribes, which +were similar to the experiences in the same emprise of the earlier +emissaries, and the futile ventures of Baron Dejean, Louis Latinac, and +Laroche a score of years later.</p> + +</div> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_415">[Pg 415]</span></p> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p class="nind"><a id="Footnote_11" href="#FNanchor_11" class="label">[11]</a> +<a href="#Page_336">Page 336</a>. The history of the Indians is not a little +complicated by the repetition of their names from one generation to +another and of their war-titles, sometimes to be differentiated only +by the names of their respective towns as a suffix, as Outacite (the +Man-killer), of Citico, or Quorinnah (the Raven), of Huwhassee. Even +their sobriquets are not to be relied upon for further identification. +Another Mingo Push-koosh flourished among the Choctaws a generation +earlier, and was the half brother of the celebrated Shulashummashtabe +(Red Shoes), who is himself often confounded with the chief of the +Coosawdas, also known as “Red Shoes,” long afterward, being active in +Indian politics as late as 1789. The Choctaw “Red Shoes” enjoyed great +esteem among the British, as did also the Cherokee “Little Carpenter” +(more accurately translated as “Superlative Wood-carver”), in whose +honor, indeed, an English ship was named and a British stronghold, +before the Cherokee War, Fort Atta-Kulla-Kulla.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p class="nind"><a id="Footnote_12" href="#FNanchor_12" class="label">[12]</a> +<a href="#Page_368">Page 368</a>. The climate of this southern region at this +period seems to have won some renown for its extremes. An officer’s +letter from Fort Prince George, dated January 9, 1761, says: “I have +been several winters in the north of Scotland and do not think I +have ever felt it colder there than here at this time; the snow is +in general three quarters of a yard deep, attended with very sharp +frosts.” As to the summer temperature, Governor Ellis has left it of +record in a letter to John Ellis, Esq., F.R.S., dated Georgia, July +17, 1758, that he thought the inhabitants of this section “breathed +hotter air than any other people upon earth.” He takes pains to state +that he made his observations with the same thermometer that he had had +with him in the equatorial parts of Africa and in the Leeward Islands. +Hewatt, the historian, ventures to protest, albeit deferring to the +accuracy and learning of the erudite and traveled governor, and says +that the mercury never so far exceeded the bounds of reason in South +Carolina, and implies that he believed that these eccentricities were +very rare in Georgia.</p> + +</div> +</div> + + +<p class="nindc space-above2"> +The Riverside Press<br> +<i>Electrotyped and printed by H. O. Houghton & Co.<br> +Cambridge, Mass., U. S. 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