When the rescuing party set forth the following day, Arabella and her
aunt, with much perplexity and disapproval of frontier methods, watched
through an embrasure on the southern bastion the boats pulling down the
river. The men of the escort were evidently in the highest spirits;
great hilarity prevailed amongst those warned for duty as they ran to
and fro on the parade and in and out of the barracks, making their
preparations for the expedition. They were loud of voice, calling
directions, suggestions, admonitions, hither and thither, in clear,
resonant tones; swift of movement, hardly a step taken that was not at
a double-quick. They were notably clean and dapper of aspect, in their
cocked hats, red coats, long leggings, drawn high over the trousers,
and white cross-belts, glittering from the effects of pipe-clay, their
hair in stiff plaited queues, decorously powdered.
“And not one of them knows whether he will have so much as his own
scalp to bring home with him, by the time this fashionable, aboriginal
Drum is over,” remarked Mrs. Annandale. “I always thought that men are
constitutionally knaves, my dear, but I begin to fear, I greatly fear,
they are instead constitutionally fools.”
They were obviously regarded with envy by their stay-at-home comrades,
and there was a sort of sullen plaint in the very glance of the
eye of the silent sentinels at their various posts as the details
of the preparations passed within the range of their vision. The
quarter-master-sergeant and the cooks were enjoying great prominence,
and were the centre of much of the fluster and bustle. The chief of
this department, however, the quarter-master, himself, who conferred
from time to time with Captain Howard, seemed to harbor the only
despondent sentiments entertained pending the packing. It was necessary
to jog his memory more than once touching supplies that were more
luxuries than necessities, which had been required by the commandant,
and especially was this the case in regard to the contents of the
great budgets made up for the presents to Tamotlee Town, which Captain
Howard intended to convey with the party. The quarter-master gave an
irritated shake of his big round head and his big red face, as if this
demonstration were officially necessary to the pained and reluctant
relinquishment of his charge, as he stood in the precincts of his
store-room, a great log building illumined from a skylight that the
walls might be utilized by shelves from top to bottom, and with many
barrels and boxes and sacks of various commodities ranged along the
floor, narrow aisles permitting a passage. More than once, the sergeant
and his assistant, both handsomely be-floured and be-sugared in their
haste, fostering awkward handling, were fain to say--“An’ the terbaccy,
sor?”
“Oh, Gad!--as if they didn’t have tobacco of their own and to spare--”
he cried out. Then in a weakened voice--“How many pounds does the list
call for, Peters?”
“Then the brandied sweetmeats, sor?” The sergeant made toward a series
of jars, brought expressly for the delectation of the officers and by
no means intended for the rank and file.
“Hell!” The quarter-master squeaked out the exclamation as if it had
laid hold on him and half choked out his voice. “_They_ ain’t on the
list? Lord! the commandant is clean crazed! The Injuns have got no
palates. They can’t taste.”
The sergeant cocked up a beguiling eye at his chief and smacked his
lips.
“Them brandied cher’s, sor, is sthrong enough, an’ swate enough to make
’em grow a palate a-purpose,” he said.
“And how do _you_ know?” demanded the quarter-master, suddenly intent.
“Faix, sor, yez remember that one of the jars was bruken in onpackin’,
an’ only half full. An’ though Peters said glass wuz pizin, an’
wouldn’t tech ’em--sure, sor, I thought a man cudn’t die in a sweeter
way!” And once more he smacked his lips.
“There’s a case-bottle of brandy for Rolloweh,”--the quarter-master’s
face fell as he gazed at the list on the head of a barrel. “Why, ’tis
known that the Injuns will drink pepper vinegar as soon as sherry wine!
And a jug of raspberry shrub--the finest ever made, I’ll swear. Get ’em
out. Get ’em out!”--and once more he stood over the commodities, and
eyed them funereally, and shook his head in melancholy farewell.
“And the cheeses, sor. Would ut be convanient fur yer honor to furgit
the cheeses?” suggested the sergeant with a roguish eye.
“What?--not at all--not at all,” said the quarter-master, out of
countenance, nevertheless.
“Thin, sor, if yez be aimin’ to presarve yer memory, there’s a box o’
snuff--fine Rappee--at the top of the list, passed by.”
“Get it out! Get it out!” said the quarter-master, pacing back and
forth, as if preoccupied, in the narrow aisle between the baled goods,
his red face grave and bent, his portly figure erect, his hands clasped
behind him, with the list held carelessly in his fingers.
“I’ll engage the commandant niver thinks how low the sthore is
running,” suggested the sergeant.
“And if we get out--out we will be; for the government will send no
more goods here, and we just awaiting orders to evacuate and march for
Charlestown. Have you finished--the order filled? Then call the boat’s
crew and get it aboard.”
They were embarked at last, the oars striking the water with a
masterful impact, the boats then skimming off like a covey of birds
with wings spread. There went first the commandant and his escort,
followed by the pettiaugre laden with the necessaries for the
expedition, and lastly by the Indian delegation, who had come afoot
of their own motion, and were now going back at the expense of Fort
Prince George with transportation furnished. Very drunk several of them
were, all a trifle unsteadied by the signal success of their mission,
and the fervor of the hospitality of Fort Prince George. To their
own place in his estimation they ascribed Captain Howard’s instant
concession to their demand, the compliment of his official presence
on this mission, their return to their confrères in this triumphant
state, and they pridefully interpreted the desire of the government
to preserve the peace as fear still entertained of the prowess of the
Indian. They took no heed of the commandant’s solicitude for the life
of the old missionary.
Captain Howard felt justified in bestirring himself smartly for the
rescue of the old man.
“It is for the obvious good of the frontier and in the interest of the
government, for one murder now would be the precursor of an outbreak,”
he had said in a council of the officers summoned the previous morning;
“and I am glad that it is thus, for I cannot in conscience, in
humanity, leave the old missionary to his horrible fate. The thought
would not let me sleep a wink last night.”
He was cheerful and hilarious now as he sat in the stern, listening to
the orders to the crews. The voices carried far on the water, echoed by
the crags on either bank, then striking back from the foothills of the
mountains, which were marshalled in close defiles on each side further
and further along the reaches of the river. He took scant notice of
other echoes--the mouthings and mockings of young braves of the Indian
town of Keowee on the opposite bank, as they ran glibly along in a line
with the craft, yelling in their broken English,--“Let fall!--Give
way!--Back oars!--Keep stroke!” as the orders successively rang over
the water.
On shore to the two watching women on the bastion, gazing through the
embrasure, this demonstration seemed queerly rancorous, and as inimical
as uncouth. They noted that the delegation in the boat, who had been
so honored, so generously entreated, took up the fantastic flout and
continued it even after the mockings from along shore had flagged and
failed. When the crew of soldiers began to sing, after the time-honored
custom of the pettiaugre afloat, and the crude young voices rang out
not inharmoniously in a strong and hearty chorus, the Indian guests
interpolated derisive comments as they followed--now a short howl, now
a cry of _Hala! Hala!_ now a bleat, as of sheep, now the crowing of
cocks--a raillery little suggestive of mirth or rollicking good-humor.
The soldiers seemed as disregardful as if they did not hear, and bent
to the oars with a will. The commandant never turned his head. But his
sister and daughter looked at each other with an aghast questioning
stare, to which neither could suggest a consolatory response.
Arabella seemed all the more slender and willowy in her long violet
pelisse, with its edge of soft white down, as she stood beside the
little lady, who was bundled in a thick coat of gray, lined and
bordered with squirrel fur. She had a great calash to match, and as
she peered out with her preternaturally sharp eyes with their furtive
glance, she looked not unlike some keen little animal of no great
strength, perhaps, but capable of some sharp exploit of mischief.
The craft of the expedition became visible once more far across the
wooded spur of a hill which the steely river rounded. The sun on the
stream was so bright that the three boats, skimming the dazzling
surface, seemed as if they were airily afloat on floods of light
instead of the denser medium of water. Still the singing sounded,
richly, still the echoes answered clear, and once and again the harsh
note of derision marred the harmony. Then they were gone, and the woods
were silent. The fragment of a stave--a hesitant echo--the vague impact
of an oar on water--! No more.
“They are gone!” said Arabella, turning to her aunt, a sort of
desolation in her fair young face.
“Yes--I don’t see them now.” Mrs. Annandale had already turned to
descend the ramp, and the captain-lieutenant remembered with a start to
offer her his hand. He himself filled now the field of vision of the
little schemer, though he had only eyes for Arabella. She came lightly
down the steep incline without assistance, and once more he noted the
pallid suspense in her face, the dilation of anxiety in her beautiful
eyes. He had long ago been inured to the fierce suspense of frontier
life, but he appreciated that to her untried heart it had all the
poignancy of a realized grief. He sought to divert her attention.
“I have a favor to ask of you, ladies.”
Mrs. Annandale paused as she trudged stoutly along on the miry ground
and glanced up keenly from out her fur.
“An invitation to dine and spend the evening with you,” he continued.
The old lady, a benign glow stirring in her stanch heart, had yet the
tact to plod silently for a few minutes.
“You want to see how dull an evening can be--for we are in no case to
be merry,” she said.
“I want to show you how we spend the intervals of suspense on the
frontier--how we pass the time as best we may--and hold up our hearts.”
“But we did not bargain for this--for suspense--on the frontier,”
plained Arabella. “Did we, Aunt Claudia?”
The fur head of the little animal in advance wagged in earnest
corroboration. “They told me the war was over,” she said, without
turning, “--and _me_--so timid!”
“You have nothing but your unfounded fears to frighten you,” he urged.
“There is no danger--nothing to frighten you--nothing threatening. You
are not used to the manners of the Indians, that is all!”
“Manners! they have no manners, drat ’m!” exclaimed Mrs. Annandale,
remembering the marred melody of the boat-song.
“You have not been here to agonize over Captain Howard even when there
was real war,” he persisted.
“Ah, but we couldn’t realize how strange--how uncertain--how
dangerous, till we see something of it!” Arabella declared.
“You see nothing of it--this is absolutely nothing.”
“Why, I tremble to think even of the others,” said Arabella, and Mrs.
Annandale had a sudden recollection of the distant figure of Raymond in
a gallant pose as he stood in the bow of the foremost boat, taking off
his cocked hat and bowing low to Arabella as he glimpsed her standing
by the cannon at the embrasure, while the boat passed slowly beyond the
range of the bastion.
“Yes--yes--and that dear good man, the missionary. When the Reverend
Mr. Morton comes to Fort Prince George, precious love, you must
embroider for him a sermon-case or a silk poor-bag.”
“I fancy a man who wants to save Indians’ souls doesn’t care for gauds
of embroidery, and the poor don’t get much comfort from a fine silk
bag,” said Arabella, with sudden contumacy.
Mrs. Annandale swiftly put her in the wrong.
“Oh, my own, don’t reflect on the minister for trying to save the souls
of Indians. God made them, child, God made them. Humanly speaking,
He might have done better. But everything has a purpose. Perhaps
Providence created them with souls, and no manners, to give the Mr.
Mortons of this life something to do, to keep them going up and down in
the waste places where the Indians are safely out of sight of civilized
people--except fools who journey from London to see how near they can
come to being scalped without losing hair or hide. Oh, no, my dear;
realize human limitations and never, _never_ reflect on the purposes of
creation.”
Mervyn, noticing the frowning cogitation on Arabella’s fair brow as she
listened, interposed in his own interest--“All this is aside from the
question. May I come in to dinner?”
Once again Mrs. Annandale vacillated, and Arabella, marking her
hesitation, was a little ashamed of a suspicion she had entertained.
She had fancied that, although her aunt had said that Mervyn was far
too highly placed and too richly endowed with worldly goods to make a
possible parti for her, there had been some scheme in Mrs. Annandale’s
mind, nevertheless, to try for his capture. Now as he fairly begged for
an hour of her society the old lady doubted, and hesitated, and was
hardly hospitable to her old friend’s grandson and her neighbor. She
even began to make terms with him.
“You won’t want to fetch over with you any of the villains at the
mess-hall? For I don’t know what is the state of the larder--or if we
have _anything_ to eat.”
“No--no, only myself, madam. And I’ll bring my own dinner, if you like.”
“What have you got for dinner?” Mrs. Annandale asked as she stood on
the step of the commandant’s quarters, and looked over her shoulder
with a benign jocosity.
“The finest trout you ever tasted, madam,” he protested. “Do let me
send them in to you.”
“I thought you said yesterday that the fish in this river are hardly
worth the taking,” the young lady interrupted, surprised.
Mervyn colored a trifle, remembering his perversity during the morning
walk of the day before.
“Oh, I was sad--and rather bad,” he remarked.
Her aunt had disappeared within, and she put her foot on the step where
her relative had just stood. It brought her face almost on a level with
his, and the gaze of her beautiful eyes at these close quarters was
rather bewildering.
“It is very bad for you to be sad,” she said softly, and his heart beat
so fast and so loud that he feared she might hear it. “And it is very
sad for you to be bad,” she stipulated, and went smiling into the house
with a languid relish of her jest.
He followed into the parlor, begging Mrs. Annandale for the coveted
invitation, protesting that what he wanted was a bit of talk to keep
them all from being lonely, and--with a glance at the lute on the
window-seat--to hear the new songs they were singing at Vauxhall
Gardens and Ranelagh, and to hear the old songs that Arabella used to
sing down in Kent. Might he come? And might he send the fish?
“No supper--no song,” Mrs. Annandale at last assented, and Mervyn went
off in a glow of happiness to confer cautiously with the officer of
the day, to order the great gate closed, to himself inspect the guard
and visit each sentinel, to climb to the warder’s tower and thence
gaze over the great spaces of the picturesque country--the stretches
of mountains looming purple and dark, save where the residuum of
snow still glimmered in a deep ravine, the river between the silent
hills, the fluctuating lights of Keowee Town on the opposite side of
the stream, and the stars whitely a-gleam in the great concave of the
sky, all clear, save to the west, where a dark cloud, voluminous,
of variant degrees of density and with flocculent white verges, was
slowly rising above the horizon. It held rain--mayhap wind. It would
strike the rescue expedition before it would reach Fort Prince George.
But Mervyn’s interests were within the work. He personally looked
to every precaution for its safety before, arrayed anew with great
particularity, he repaired to the commandant’s quarters, whither his
dish of fish had preceded him.
Arabella, sick at heart, nervous and anxious, sitting in her own room
with her aunt before the wood fire, with every detail of its scant
and simple furnishings reminding her of the love and care of her
father and his thought and devices with such meagre materials for her
comfort,--the rose-tinted hangings, the large mirror, so difficult
to transport through the wilderness, the chairs and tables, each
constructed by his orders,--felt that she could hardly support the
ordeal of an evening with a stranger--at least a comparative stranger.
She wished the occasion to be one of scant ceremony. She said to her
aunt that she intended to appear in the dress she had worn throughout
the day.
“I have no mind for bedizenment and festivity,” she complained. “My
head aches. I can hear those savage yells every time I listen.”
“Then--don’t listen,” interpolated her aunt.
“And I can see--” she pressed her hands to her eyes--“can see those
boats pushing out from the shore--taking the soldiers off into the
shining water--who knows where!”
“They tell me the town’s fiendish name is Little Tamotlee,” put in Mrs.
Annandale.
“I can see the first pettiaugre with my father in the stern and Ensign
Raymond standing in the prow, and waving his hat to me and--”
“Captain Howard is able to take care of himself,” Mrs. Annandale
interrupted hastily, “and if Ensign Raymond is not--so much the worse
for him! Has that besom laid out my frock yet?” She lifted her voice
for the edification of Norah in the outer room.
“And you will excuse me, Aunt, if I don’t change my dress?” Arabella
said, plaintively.
“I don’t suppose it would hurt the young man’s feelings,” Mrs.
Annandale affected to consider. “He is too sodden in pride--those
Mervyns all are. I suppose he _might_ think, as we are so poor, that
you have but a frock or two. Well, it is none of _his_ business how
little money Captain Howard can spare for your maintenance.”
“Oh, Aunt Claudia!” cried Arabella, genuinely offended--“if you think
_that_!--And what are you wearing? Your murrey-colored satin?”
Thus it was that the young lady was resplendent in silver-shot gray
paduasoy, shoaling and shimmering with white lights, made with short
puffed sleeves slashed with cerise velvet, and she wore a fillet
of cerise velvet in her golden hair. A delicate fichu of filmy
Mechlin lace was draped over her shining neck and was caught with
shoulder-knots of cerise velvet. She cast a very imperious glance upon
Mervyn as she entered the parlor, which challenged his homage, but she
had no need to assert her pride, for he was again in his old docile
character, assuming naught of pre-eminence because of his worldly
advantages, satisfied to bask in her smiles, yet a trifle conscious of
his personal endowments, and carrying himself with a species of gallant
self-confidence not displeasing in a handsome youth.