"By thine infinite of woe,
All we know not, all we know;
If there be what dieth not,
Thine, affection, is its lot."
Deep in the wilderness of woods and waters encircling the mouth of a small
inlet, at the extreme northwestern end of the picturesque Maguntic, there
lay encamped, at the point of a low headland, on one of the first nights of
May, the three trappers, whose expedition had been the subject of so many
gloomy speculations, and whose unexpectedly prolonged absence had caused,
as we have seen, so much anxiety in the settlement to which they belonged.
They had extended their outward journey more than double the distance
contemplated by the Elwoods, at least when they left home; the mover of the
expedition, Gaut Gurley, having proposed to make the shores of the
Maguntic, and its feeding streams only, the range of their operations. But
when they arrived there, as they did, on the ice, which was still firm and
solid on the lakes, Gaut pretended to believe that the rich beaver-haunts,
to which he had promised to lead them, could not be identified, much less
reached, until the ice had broken up in the streams and lake. He,
therefore, now proposed that they should first proceed over to the chief
inlet of the Oquossak, stay one night in the camp, which was left in the
great snowstorm of the fall before, dig out the steel-traps buried there,
and, the next day, slide over the boats, also left there, on the glare
ice,--as all agreed could easily be done on some light and simple
contrivance,--and land them on the west shore of the Maguntic, where they
could be concealed, and found ready for use when the lake opened. He would
then, he said, lead them to a place among the head-water streams of the
Magalloway, only a day's journey distant, where he once "trapped it"
himself, and where, as the rivers there broke up early, he could promise
them immediate success.
All this had been done; and the party, having spent nearly three weeks
among the lakelets and interweaving streams going to make up the sources of
the Magalloway and Connecticut rivers, with occasional recourse to the
nearest habitations on the upper Magalloway, for provisions, but with very
indifferent success in taking furs, had now, on the urging of young Elwood,
returned to the Maguntic,--which, after a hard day's journey, they had
reached, at the point where we have introduced them, about sunset the day
but one preceding, thrown up a temporary shanty, and encamped for the
night. On rising the next morning, Gaut had proposed that Claud remain at
camp that day, to build a better shanty, and hunt in the near vicinity;
while he and Mark Elwood should explore the stream, to a pond some miles
above, where his previously discovered beaver-haunts, he said, were mostly
to be found, and where, the snow and ice having wholly disappeared, they
could now operate to good advantage. With this arrangement, however, the
young man, whose secret suspicions had been aroused by one or two previous
attempts made by Gaut to separate him from his father, plausibly refused to
comply; and the consequence was, that they had all made the proposed
explorations together, returned to camp without discovering any indications
of the promised beaver, and laid down for the night, with the
understanding, reluctantly agreed to by the moody and morose Gaut, that
they should proceed down the lake to their boats the next morning, and
embark for an immediate return to their homes, where the Elwoods felt
conscious they must, by this time, be anxiously expected.
Such were the circumstances under which we have brought this
singularly-assorted party of trappers to the notice of the reader, as they
lay sleeping in their bough-constructed tents,--Gaut and Mark Elwood under
one cover, and Claud under another, which he had fixed up for himself on
the opposite side of their fire,--on the ominous night which was destined
to prelude the most tragic and melancholy scene of our variously eventful
story.
It was the hour of nature's deepest repose, and the bright midnight moon,
stealing through the gently-swaying boughs of the dark pines that rose
heavenward, like pinnacles, along the silent shores around, was throwing
her broken beams fitfully down upon the faces of the unconscious sleepers,
faintly revealing the impress which the thoughts and purposes of the last
waking hours had left on the countenance of each. And these impresses were
as variant as the characters of those on whose features they rested: that
lingering on the sternly-compressed lips and dark, beetling brows of Gaut
Gurley, ever sinister, was doubly so now; that on the face of Mark Elwood,
whose vacillations of thought and feeling, through life, had exempted his
features from any stamp betokening fixed peculiarity of character, was one
of fatuous security; and that resting on the intellectual and guileless
face of Claud Elwood was one of simple care and inquietude.
But what is that light, shadowy form, hovering near the sylvan couch of
Claud, like some unsubstantial being of the air; now advancing, now
shrinking away, and now again flitting forward to the head of the youthful
sleeper, and there pausing and preventing the light from longer revealing
his features? Yes, what is it? would ask a doubting spectator of this
singular night-scene. A passing cloud come over the moon? No, there is none
in the heavens. But why the useless speculation? for it is gone now,
leaving the sleeper's face again visible, and wearing a more unquiet and
disturbed air than before. His features twitch nervously, and expressions
of terror and surprise flit over them. He dreams, and his dream is a
troubled one. Let the novelist's license be invoked to interpret it.
He was alone with his father on a boundless plain, when suddenly a dark,
whirlwind tempest-cloud fell upon the earth around them, and soon separated
him from the object of his care. As he was anxiously pressing on through
the thickly-enveloping vapors, in the direction in which the latter had
disappeared, he was suddenly confronted by a monstrous, black, and fearful
living apparition, who stood before him in all the horrid paraphernalia
ascribed to the prince of darkness, apparently ready to crush him to the
earth, when a bright angel form swiftly interposed. Starting back, with the
rapidly-chasing sensations of terror and surprise, he looked again, and the
fiend stood stript of his infernal guise, and suddenly transformed into the
person of Gaut Gurley, who, with a howl of dismay, quickly turned and fled
in confusion. The amazed dreamer then turned to his deliverer, who had been
transformed into the beauteous Fluella, whose image, he was conscious, was
no longer a stranger among the lurking inmates of his heart. A sweet,
benignant smile was breaking over her lovely features; and, under the
sudden impulse of the grateful surprise, he eagerly stretched out his arms
towards her, and, in the effort, awoke.
"Where, where is she?" he exclaimed, springing to his feet, and glaring
wildly around him. "Why!" he continued, after a pause, in which he appeared
to be rallying his bewildered senses,--"why! what is this? a dream, nothing
but a dream? It must be so. But what a strange one! and what could have
caused it? Was there not some one standing over me, just now, darkening my
face like a shadow? I feel a dim consciousness of something like it. But
that, probably, was part of the same dream. Yes, yes, all a mere dream; all
nothing; so, begone with you, miserable phantoms! I will not suffer--"
But, as if not satisfied with his own reasoning, he stopped short, and, for
many minutes, stood motionless, with his head dropped in deep thought;
when, arousing himself, he returned to his rude resting-place, and laid
down again, but only to toss and turn, in the restless excitement which he
obviously found himself unable to allay. After a while spent in this
tantalizing unrest, he rose and slowly made his way down to the edge of the
lake, a few rods distant, where, scooping up water with his hands, he first
drank eagerly, then, bathed his fevered brow, and then, rising, he stood
some time silent on the shore,--now pensively gazing out on the
darkly-bright expanse of the moon-lit lake; and now listening to the
mysterious voices of night in the wilderness, which, in low, soft,
whispering undulations of sound, came, at varied intervals, gently
murmuring along the wooded shores, to die away into silence in the remote
recesses of the forest. These phenomena of the wilds he had once or twice
before noted, and tried to account for, without, however, attaching much
consequence to them. But now they became invested with a strange
significance, and seemed to him, in his present excited and apprehensive
state of mind, portentous of impending evil. While his thoughts were taking
this channel, the possibility of what might be done in his absence suddenly
appeared to occur to him; and he hastened back to camp, where he slightly
replenished the fire, and, taking a recumbent position, with his loaded
rifle within reach, kept awake, and on the watch, till morning.
After daylight Claud arose, as if nothing unusual had occurred to disturb
him, bustled about, built a good fire, and began to prepare a morning meal
from the fine string of trout he had taken during yesterday's excursion.
The noise of these preparations soon awoke the two sleepers; who,
complimenting him on his early rising, also arose, and soon joined him in
partaking the repast, which, by this time, he had in readiness.
As soon as they had finished their meal, which was enlivened by no other
than an occasional brief, commonplace remark, the thoughts of each of them
being evidently engrossed by his own peculiar schemes and anxieties, the
trappers, by common consent, set about their preparations to depart; and,
having completed them, leisurely took their way down the western shore of
the lake towards the spot at which they had hauled up and concealed their
canoe, and which, if they followed the deep indentures of the shore in this
part of the lake, must be four or five miles distant.
For the first mile or two of their progress nothing noticeable to an
indifferent observer occurred to vary the monotony of their walk, as they
tramped steadily and silently forward, in the usual, and, indeed, almost
the only practicable mode of travelling in the forest, appropriately
denominated Indian file. But young Elwood, whose feelings had been deeply
stirred by the fancies of the night, which, to say the least, had the
effect to make him more keenly apprehensive and vigilant, had noted several
little circumstances, that, to him, wore a questionable appearance. Gaut,
who at first led the way, soon manoeuvred to get Mark Elwood, the next in
the order of their march, in front; and then urged him forward at a much
faster pace than before, at the same time often casting furtive glances
behind him, as if to see whether Claud, who seemed inclined to walk more
slowly than the rest, would not fall behind, and soon be out of sight. And,
when the latter quickened his pace, he showed signs of vexation, which had
not passed unnoticed. All this Claud had noted, together with the singular
expression which Gaut's countenance assumed, and which filled him with an
undefinable dread, and a lively suspicion that the man was on the eve of
attempting the execution of foul purposes. Consequently he resolved to
follow up closely, having no fears for himself, and believing his presence
would prevent any attempt that might be meditated against his father. This
precaution, for some time, the young man was careful to observe; but, as he
was passing over a small brook that crossed his path, his eye caught the
appearance of a slight trail, a few rods up the stream, and curiosity
prompted him to turn aside to examine it. When he reached the place, he
soon detected indications which convinced him that some person had recently
been there; and, forgetful of his resolution, in the interest the
circumstance excited, he commenced a closer inspection, which resulted in
discovering a fresh imprint, in the soft mud on one side of the brook, of a
small moccasined foot. This curious and unexpected discovery, uncertain as
were its indications of any identity of the person, or even of the age or
sex of the person, by whom that delicate footprint was made, at once
diverted his attention, from the particular care by which it had been
engrossed, and started that other of the two trains of thought, which, for
the last month, but especially since his singular awakening the past night,
had constituted the chief burden of his mind,--his increasing apprehensions
for his father's safety, and his lurking but irrepressible regard for the
chief's beautiful daughter, whose image, since his dream, had haunted him
with a pertinacity for which a resort to reason alone would fail to
account.
"If music be the food of love,"
dreams, we apprehend, whatever the immortal bard might have thought of the
matter, have often proved the more exciting stimulus of the tender passion;
many of whose happiest consummations might be traced back to an origin in
some peopled scene of a dreaming fancy, whose peculiar effect on the
sympathies has frequently been felt by the sternest and most sceptical,
though never very clearly explained in any of our written systems of the
philosophy of the soul and its affections.
In the pleasing indulgence of the feelings and fancies which had been thus
freshly kindled, Claud stood, for some minutes, quite unconscious of the
lapse of time, though it had been long enough to place his companions far
out of sight and hearing. From this reverie he was suddenly aroused by the
sharp report of a rifle, bursting on his ear from the woods, about a
quarter of a mile off, in the direction just taken by his companions.
Starting at the sound, which sent a boding chill through his heart, and
bitterly taxing himself for his inadvertent loitering, he sprang back to
the trail he had left, and made his way along over it towards the place
indicated by the firing, with all the speed which excited nerves and
agonizing anxiety could bring to his aid. But, before reaching the spot at
which he was aiming, and just as he was beginning to slacken his pace, to
look around for it, Gaut Gurley burst through the bushes, a few rods ahead,
and, running towards him with all the manifestations of a man in hasty
retreat before a pursuing foe, eagerly exclaimed:
"Run, Claud! run for your life! We have just been beset by hostile Indians,
who fired on us, and, I fear, have killed your father. I have misled them a
little; but they will soon be on our trail. Run! run!" he added, seizing
the other by the arm to start him into instant flight.
"What!" exclaimed the astonished young man, hanging back, and by degrees
recovering from the surprise with which he was at first overwhelmed by the
strange and startling announcement. "What! hostile Indians?--hostile to
whom, to my father, or to me, that I should run from them? Gaut Gurley,
what, O what does this mean?"
"Why, it means," said the other, keeping up all the motions and flourishes
naturally used by one urging another to flee,--"it means, as I say, our
lives are in danger. Let us escape while we can. Come, come, there's not a
moment to lose!"
"I will _know_," said Claud, with a quick, searching glance at the face of
the other,--"yes, I _will know_ for myself what has happened," he sternly
added, suddenly breaking from the grasp on his arm, and bounding forward to
execute his purpose with a quickness and rapidity that made pursuit
useless.
"Hold!" cried Gaut, in an increasingly fierce and angry tone, "hold,
instantly,--on your life, hold! I warn you, sir, to stop, instantly to
stop!"
But, heeding neither the entreaties nor the threats which, his ear told
him, were strangely mingled in the tones of the words thus thundered after
him, Claud, in his agony of apprehension, eagerly rushed on towards the
forbidden scene, which could not now be thirty rods distant, and had
proceeded, perhaps, forty yards; when, just as he was straightening up,
after stooping to pass under an obstructing limb of a tree, extending
across his path, he became conscious of the sound of the sudden hitting of
the limb, and partly so of the concussion of a shot, still farther in his
rear. But he neither heard nor knew more; and, the next moment, lay
stretched senseless on the ground.
When he awoke to consciousness, after, he knew not what lapse of time, he
found himself in a different place; lying, as he felt conscious, badly
wounded, on a soft, elastic bed of boughs, within a dense thicket of low
evergreens, through which his opening eye caught the gleams of
widely-surrounding waters. A ministering angel, in the shape of the
peerless daughter of the wilds, who had lately so much occupied his
thoughts, was wistfully bending over him, with a countenance in which
commiseration and woe had found an impersonation which no artist's pencil
could have equalled.
"Fluella!" he feebly murmured,--"how came you here, Fluella?"
She saw that the effort to speak caused him a pang, and, without replying
to the question, motioned him to silence; when, being no longer able to
master her emotions, she sat down by his side, and, covering her face with
both hands, began to grieve and sob like a child. Poor girl! who could
measure the depth of her heart's anguish? She could not answer, had she
deemed it best. We must answer the question for her. But, to do so, to the
full understanding of the reader, we must again recur to the events of the
past,--her troubled past, at least,--during the three or four days
preceding the time of her appearance as an actor in the sad scene before
us.
She had learned from Mrs. Elwood that Claud had pledged himself to her that
he would return from his expedition within the month of April; and to
Fluella, with her undoubting confidence in his word, a failure to redeem
that pledge would be but little less than certain intelligence that some
evil had befallen either him or his father, in their unknown place of
sojourn in the wilderness. Consequently her solicitude--growing out of her
secretly nourished but overmastering love for him--became, as the time
approached which was to relieve or realize her fears for the result of an
expedition undertaken under such dreadful auspices, each day more deep and
absorbing. And, the last morning but one of the expiring month, she went
out early on to the rock-bound shore of the lake, on which her father's
cabin was situated, and commenced her watch from the most commanding
points, for the appearance of the expected party, on their way homeward
from the upper lakes. And during that anxious day, and the still more
anxious one that followed, she kept up her vigils, with no other cessation
than what her brief absences for her hastily-snatched meals at the house
required; sometimes standing, for an hour at a time, in one spot, intently
gazing out into the lake, and sometimes moving restlessly about, and
hurrying from cliff to cliff along the beetling shore, to obtain a better
observation. But, no appearance or indications of their coming rewarding
her vigils during all that time, she retired from the shore, at the
approach of night, on the last day of April, sad and sick at heart from
disappointment, and painfully oppressed with apprehension for the fate of
one for whose safety she felt she would have given her own worthless life
as a willing sacrifice. But, her feelings still allowing her neither peace
nor quietude, she left the house after supper; and, in the light of the
nearly full moon, that was now throwing its mellow beams over the wild
landscape, unconsciously took her way to the lake-shore, where she had
already spent so many weary hours in her fruitless vigils. Here, climbing a
tall rock on the bluff shore, she resumed her watch, and long stood,
straining both eye and ear to catch sight of some moving thing, or the
sound of some plashing oar, out on the lake, that might indicate the
coming, even at this late hour, of the objects of her solicitude. But no
such sight or sound came up from the sleeping waters, to greet and gladden
her aching senses. All there was as motionless and silent as the plains of
the dead.
"The time is past!" she at length despairingly muttered, slowly withdrawing
her gaze, and standing as if to collect her thoughts and ponder. "Yes,
passed by, now. He will not come!"
And her ideas immediately reverted to the other alternative for which she
had before made up her mind, in case the party did not return within the
month; but which, having been kept in the background of her thoughts, by
her hope of their coming, now occurred to her with startling effect. She
fancied Claud the victim of outrage or misfortune,--perhaps wounded and
dying, by the same hand that might have previously struck down his
father,--perhaps taken sick on his way home alone, and now lying helpless
in the woods, where none could witness his sufferings or hear his cries for
assistance. The thought sent a pang through her bosom, the more painful
because, being something like a legitimate conclusion of her previous
reasoning, she could not divest herself of it. She stood bewildered in the
woes of her thick-coming fancies. The images thus conjured up from her
distracting anxieties and excited brain, all heightened by the natural
inspirations of the place and the hour, soon became to her vivid realities.
And her burning thoughts at once insensibly ran into the form and spirit of
one of the many beautiful plaints of England's gifted poetess:
"I heard a song upon the wandering wind,
A song of many tones, though one full soul
Breathed through them all imploringly; and made
All nature, as they pass'd,--all quivering leaves,
And low responsive reeds and waters,--thrill,
As with the consciousness of human prayer.
------the tones
Were of a suppliant. '_Leave me not_' was still
The burden of their music."
"I will _not_ leave you!" she exclaimed, startling the silent glens and
grottos around by the wild energy of her tones, and eagerly stretching out
her hands towards the imagined scene, and the suppliant for her ministering
services, "O Claud, I will come to you. My love, my life, my more than
life, I will soon be with you! Go after him?" she resumed, after a sudden
pause, to which she seemed to be brought by recalling her thoughts to their
wonted channel, and being startled at the sober import of her own words.
"Go in search of him in the woods! Yes," she added, after another long and
thoughtful pause,--"yes, why not? I cannot, O, I _cannot_ stay here another
day, with these but too prophetic words, I fear, ringing in my ears. To be
in the same wilderness with him were a pleasure, to the insupportable
suspense I must suffer here. If I discover all to be well, I need not show
myself; but, if it be as I fear, O, what happiness to be near him! Yes, it
is decided; I will start in the morning."
And, hastily descending from her stand, with the firm, quick step and
decisive air of one whose purpose is fixed, she struck off directly for the
house; where, after a few hasty preparations, she retired to her bed, and,
happily, after the exhausting cares of the day, was soon quieted into sound
and refreshing slumber.
In accordance with her still unaltered resolution, she rose early the next
morning; and with an indefinite intimation to her family of her intention
to be absent among friends a day or two, swung to her side a small square
basket of nutritious provisions, took a thick shawl to protect her from the
damps of the night, proceeded directly to her canoe at the landing,
embarked, and struck out vigorously along the winding shore, on her way to
the next upper lake. A steady but quiet row of a couple of hours took her
out of the great lake on which she had embarked, up the principal inlet,
and into the Maguntic, whose western shores, she had understood, were to be
the base of the operations of the absent party. Here she turned short to
the left, and, drawing in close to land, rowed slowly and cautiously along
the western shore, following round all the numerous indentations, and
continually sending her searching glances up its wooded shores, that no
appearance of the trail of human beings might escape her observation.
After rowing two or three miles in this manner, and without noticing any
thing that particularly attracted her attention, she reached the first of
the three headlands, making out from this side a considerable distance into
the lake, beyond the average line of the shore. As she was rounding this
point, her eye fell on a dark protuberance, in a dense thicket a few rods
in-shore, which appeared of a more oblong and regular form than is usual in
such places. And, scanning the appearance more closely, she soon discerned
a small piece of wrought wood, resembling a part of the blade of an oar,
slightly projecting from one side of the apparent brush-heap. Starting at
the sight, she immediately ran her canoe ashore, and proceeded at once to
the spot; when, closely peering under the brush-wood, she discovered three
canoes, with their oars, concealed beneath a deep covering of boughs,
surmounted by a scraggy treetop lying carelessly over them, as if blown
from some neighboring tree.
This, to her, was an important discovery; for it told her--after she had
carefully examined the place, and found that no one had been to the boats
since they were concealed, which she thought must have been done several
weeks before--it told her, at once, that the trappers had gone to some
distant locality among the streams and mountains, to the west or north,
from which they had not yet returned to the lake; but doubtless would so
return before proceeding homeward, provided the Elwoods had not both been
slain or disabled by their suspected companion. The discovery,
notwithstanding the light it had thrown on the first movements of the
trappers, and much as it narrowed the range of her search for them, but
little relieved her harrowing apprehensions; and she resolved to proceed up
the lake with her observations, which might now as well be confined to this
side of it, and the larger streams which should here be found entering it,
and down some of which the company, if they came at all, would probably now
soon come, on their way to the canoes. And, accordingly, she again set
forth on her solitary journey. But, being conscious that the trappers might
now at any time suddenly make their appearance, she proceeded more
cautiously, keeping as far as possible out of the views that might be taken
from distant points of the lake, and from time to time turning a watchful
eye and ear on the shores around and before her. Thus, slowly and timidly
advancing, she at length reached and rounded the second headland in her
course, where another and still more interesting discovery was in store for
her. As she came out from the overhanging trees beneath which she had shot
along the point, she unexpectedly gained a clear view of the extreme end of
the lake, with what appeared to be the mouth of a considerable stream, and
suddenly backed her oar, to pause and reconnoitre; when she soon noticed
one spot, near the supposed inlet, which wore a different hue from the
rest, and which, a closer inspection told her, must be imparted by the
lingering of undissipated smoke, from a fire kindled there as late, at
least, as that morning. Her heart beat violently at the discovery; for she
felt assured that the trappers had reached the lake, had encamped there the
night before, and could not now be many miles distant. Fearing she should
be seen, if she remained longer on the water, she at once resolved to
conceal her canoe in some place near by, and proceed by land through the
woods to the spot of the supposed encampment, or near enough to ascertain
how far her conjectures were true, and how far her new-lit hopes were to be
realized. All this--after many a misgiving and many an alarm, from the
sudden movements of the smaller animals of the forest, started out from
their coverts by her stealthy advance--had been by her, at length,
successfully accomplished; the camp detected from a neighboring thicket;
cautiously approached, finally entered, and the joyful discovery made that
three persons had slept there the night before. Hieing back, like a
frighted bird, into the screening forest, she selected a covert in a dense
thicket on an elevation about an hundred yards distant, where, unseen by
the most searching eye, she could look down into the camp; and there she
lay down and anxiously awaited the approach of night, and, with it, the
expected return of the party, who, she felt confident, could be no others
than those of whom she was in search. And it was not all a dream with
Claud, when he fancied some one standing by his couch of repose. A flitting
form had, that night, indeed, for a moment hovered over him, looking down,
with the sleepless eye of love, on his broken slumbers, and trying to
divine, perhaps, the very dreams which, through some mysterious agency of
the mental sympathies, her presence was inciting.
Although the maiden had now the unspeakable satisfaction of knowing that
none of her fears had thus far been realized, yet she felt keenly sensible
that the danger was not over; and she therefore determined that she would
not lose sight of the objects of her vigilance and anxiety, at least until
she had seen them embarked for home on the open lake, where deeds of
darkness would be less likely to be attempted than in the screening forest.
She had, therefore, started from her uneasy slumbers, the next morning, at
daybreak; watched from her covert, with lively concern, the movements in
the camp; and no sooner seen them packed up for a start, and headed towards
their boats, then she shrank noiselessly away from her concealment, which
was situated so as to give her considerably the start of them; and fled
rapidly down the lake, in a line parallel to the one along the shore which
the trappers would naturally take, and so near it that, from chosen stands,
she could see them as they came along. And thus, for miles, like the timid
antelope, she hovered on their flank,--now pausing to get a glance of them
through the trees as they came in sight, and now fleeing forward again, for
a new position, to repeat the observation. Up to this time she had kept
considerably in advance of the moving party; but now, suddenly missing
Claud, she sought a covert, and stood watching for him, till Mark Elwood,
followed by Gaut Gurley, came abreast of the spot she occupied; when,
suddenly, the forest shook and trembled from the report of a gun, bursting
from the bushes, seemingly, almost beneath her feet. A single wild glance
revealed to her appalled senses Gaut Gurley, clenching his smoking rifle,
and, with the look of an exulting fiend, glaring out from behind a tree,
towards his prostrate, convulsed, and dying victim. On recovering from the
deeply paralyzing effect of the horrid spectacle, her first thought was for
Claud; and, with the distracting thought, her eye involuntarily sought for
the murderer of his father, who had shrunk back from his position, but whom
she soon detected hastily reloading his rifle, and then starting, with a
quick step, along back the path in which he had just come,--in search, as
her alarmed heart suggested, of another victim for his infernal malice.
With a sharp, smothered cry of anguish, she bounded out from her covert,
and flew back, in a line parallel with that of the retreating murderer,
till she saw him meet the alarmed young man hurrying forward to the rescue;
when she suddenly paused, and listened with breathless interest to the
dialogue we have already related as occurring between them. She heard--and
her heart bounded with pride as she did so--she heard the manly and
determined language of the young man; she saw him rush by the wretch who
was trying to mislead him, to conceal his own crime. But she saw, also, the
next moment, with a dismay that transfixed her to the spot, the murderous
rifle raised, and the retreating, unconscious object of its aim stumble
forward to the ground; then the monster, as if uncertain of the execution
of his bullet, rush forward, with gleaming knife, apparently to finish his
work; and then disappear in the direction of the concealed canoes, now less
than a half-mile beyond. All this she had witnessed, with an agony which no
pen can describe; and then, with the last glimpse of the retiring assassin,
flown, to the side of his second victim, badly but not fatally wounded;
staunched, as she best could, the blood pouring from his wounds; hurried
off for her canoe, luckily hid near by; brought it up to the shore, within
a few yards of the spot where he had fallen; drawn him gently down to it,
and got him into it, she knew not how; and then, after obliterating the
trail, entered herself, and rowed off to the thickly wooded little island,
a furlong to the northeast, but hid by an intervening point from the view
of the foe, now supposed to be on his way to the boats. Here she had
contrived to draw Claud up, in the light canoe, on the farthest shore, and,
by degrees, got both him and the boat on the dry, mossy ground, safely
within a thicket wholly impervious to outward view. Still fearful of Gaut's
return, she crept to the south end of the island, which she had scarcely
reached when she saw him come round the point, land, drag down the body of
Mark Elwood, take it out some distance from the shore, and sink it, by
steel-traps and stones tied to it, deep in the lake. She then, with lively
concern, saw him return and proceed towards the spot where Claud had
fallen, but soon reappear, evidently much disturbed at not finding the
body, yet not seeming to suspect how it had been disposed of, though
several times coming down to the edge of the water and peering anxiously up
and down the lake; but she was soon relieved from her fears by seeing him
take to his boat, row rapidly round the point, there take in tow two other
canoes,--which, it appeared, he had brought up and left there,--and then
row down the lake, in the direction of the great outlet; under the belief,
doubtless, that Claud had revived, struck down through the woods for the
upper end of the lake below, where, if he had not before sunk down and died
of his wounds, he might be waylaid and finished. Thus relieved of this
pressing apprehension, she hurried back to her charge, and carefully
examined his wounds; when she found that the bullet, whose greatest force
had been broken by the obstructing limb, had struck near the top of his
head, and ploughed over the skull without breaking it; that, of the two
stabs inflicted, one had been turned by the collar-bone, making only a
long, surface wound, the other had passed through the fleshy part of the
arm and terminated on a rib beneath, producing a flow of blood, which, but
for the timely and plentiful application of beaver-fur, pulled from a skin
which she saw protruding from his pack, must have soon terminated his life.
With the drinking-cup she found slung to his side, she brought water,
washed the wounds, laid the ruptured parts in place, and, with plasters of
cloth cut from her handkerchief, and made adhesive by balsam taken from a
tree at hand, covered and protected them; and thus, by the application of a
skill she learned from her father, placed them in a situation where nature,
with proper care, would, of herself, complete the sanatory operation. She
then resumed the process of bathing his head and face, and, within another
hour, was thrilled with joy in witnessing his return to consciousness, in
the manner we described before leaving him for this long but necessary,
digression.
After giving vent to her painfully laboring emotions a while, the maiden
softly arose, and, creeping down under the overhanging boughs to the edge
of the water, sat down on a stone and bathed her throbbing brow, for some
time, in the limpid wave; after which, having in a good measure regained
her usual firmness and tranquillity, she returned to the side of her
wounded friend, whom she found wrapt in the deep slumber generally produced
by exhaustion from loss of blood. After gazing a while on his face, with
the sad and yearning look of a mother on a disease-smitten child, a new
thought seemed suddenly to occur to her, and she noiselessly stole away to
her former lookout, at the south end of the island, where, with a
brightening eye, she caught sight of the loathed and dreaded homicide, just
entering the distant outlet. Waiting no longer than to feel assured that he
had disappeared with the real intention of descending the stream, she
returned to her still sleeping charge, slowly and carefully slid the canoe
down into the water, headed it round with her hands, gained her seat in the
stern, and pushed out into the lake, shaping her course obliquely down it
towards the mouth of a small river entering from the eastern side, at the
lower end of the lake, but still nearly a mile distant from the outlet in
which the murderer had disappeared. Softly and smoothly as a gently-rocking
cradle, the light canoe, under the skillfully plied oar of the careful
maiden, glided through the waveless waters on her destined course, and, for
more than an hour, steadily kept on its noiseless way, without once
appearing to disturb the repose of the slumbering invalid. But, as the
hitherto low-looking forest bordering the eastern shore began to loom up,
and thus apprise the fair rower that she was now nearing the point to which
she had been directing her course, she noticed, with concern, that the lake
was beginning to be agitated, even where she then was, from a gathering
breeze; while a long, light, advancing line, extending across the lake in
the distance behind her, plainly told of the rapid approach of wind, which
must soon greatly increase the disturbance of the waters, and the
consequent rocking of the canoe. Knowing how injuriously such motion of the
boat might affect the invalid, she put forth her utmost strength in
propelling the canoe forward to reach the quiet haven before her, in season
to escape the threatened roughness of the water. But her best exertions
could secure only a partial immunity from the trouble she thus sought to
avoid. The wind struck her long before gaining the place; when, in spite of
all her endeavors to steady it, the canoe began to lurch and toss among the
gathering waves; while the almost immediate awakening of the disturbed
invalid, his twinges of pain and suppressed groans, told her, as they sent
responsive thrills of anguish through her bosom, how much he was suffering
from the motion. To her great relief, however, she now soon reached and
shot into the still waters of the stream, and this trouble, at least, was
over. Here, after passing in out of sight of the lake, she drew up her oar,
and paused to reflect and conclude what should be her next movement; when
Claud, whose head was pillowed in the bow of the boat, and whose eye was
resting tenderly on her downcast countenance, soon read her perplexity, and
again asked to be informed of all that had happened, and the object of her
present movement. She told him,--with such reservations as maidenly modesty
and pride suggested,--she told him all she had seen, and in conclusion
proposed, as their enemy might ambush them, and as it was now drawing
towards night, and the lake would not be quiet enough for some hours, at
least, to permit them to proceed, that they should row up the river till
they found an eligible spot, and encamp for the night. To this Claud
readily assented; and they again set forth up the gentle stream, that, as
before intimated, here came in from the southeast; and, after proceeding
some distance, the anxious eye of the maiden fell on a place on the left
bank, where a temporary shelter could easily be rigged up, under the
wide-spreading and low-set limbs of a thick-topped evergreen, which, of
itself, would be ample protection against the dews of heaven. Drawing up
the canoe on land near the tree, in the same manner as at the island, she
proceeded to gather large quantities of fine hemlock boughs, and dry,
elastic mosses, arrange them under the tree, in the form of bed and pillow,
and over the whole to spread Claud's blanket; thus making a couch as safe
and comfortable as ever received the limbs of a suffering invalid. Upon
this, partly by his own exertions and partly by her assistance, he was
then, without much difficulty, soon transferred from the canoe; when, with
his light hatchet (she having brought all his implements along with him in
the boat), she soon erected neat, closely-woven wicker walls of boughs,
from the ground to the limbs above, on both sides, providing within one of
them a space for herself. She then brought fuel, kindled a small fire in
front, and took her position at his side, to be ready for such ministering
offices as his case might seem to require. She found that he had again
fallen into a profound slumber, which she at first regarded as a favorable
omen; and, in the conscious security of the spot, in the belief that he had
received none of the injuries she had apprehended from the motion of the
boat, and, above all, in the indulgence of that overweening pride of
affection which covets all pains and sacrifices for the loved one, she felt
a satisfaction which was almost happiness, in her situation. But it was not
destined to be of very long duration. She at length began to perceive a
gradual reddening of his cheeks, and then, soon after, an increasing
shortness of respiration, and a general restlessness of the system. Alarmed
at these symptoms, she felt his pulse, and at once discovered that he was
in a high fever, supervening from his wounds, and caused, or much
aggravated, doubtless, by the jostling of the boat on his way hither.
Starting back, as if some unexpected calamity had suddenly fallen upon her,
she stood some minutes absorbed in earnest self-consultation. What should
she do? She could not, dare not, even were it daytime, leave him to go
miles away for her father, or others, for aid or advice. No; she must stay
by him. And, having seen the alleviating effects of cold water in fevers
and inflammations, and knowing that there were no other remedies within
reach, she at once decided on its application. Accordingly, with her cup of
water at her side, and a piece of soft, clean moss in her hand, she began
sponging his face, neck, and the flesh around his wounds; and repeating
this process at short intervals, she continued the tender assiduities, with
only occasional snatches of repose, till the welcome morning light broke
over the forest. She then rose, and, with a miniature camp-kettle found
among her patient's effects, prepared some gruel from the pounded parched
corn which she had brought with her. This he mechanically took from her
hand, when aroused for the purpose, but immediately relapsed again into the
same state of unconsciousness and stupor in which he had lain through the
night. Through the day and night that followed, but little variation was
discernible in his condition, and as little was made in his treatment, by
his fair, anxious nurse. Through the next day and night it was still the
same; but towards night, on the third day after his attack, he began to
show signs of amendment, and before dark his fever had entirely subsided.
Perceiving this, the rejoiced maiden prepared him some more stimulating
nourishment, in the shape of broth made from jerked venison. Having
partaken freely of this, he then, with a whispered "_I am much better,
Fluella_," sank back on his couch, and was soon buried in a sweet and
tranquil slumber. Having carefully adjusted his blanket around him, and
added her own shawl to the covering, and being now once more relieved of
her most pressing fears for his fate, the exhausted girl laid down on her
own rude couch, and, before she was aware, fell into a slumber so deep and
absorbing that she never once awoke till the sun was peering over the
eastern mountains the next morning. Her first waking glance was directed to
the couch of the invalid. It was empty. Starting to her feet, with a
countenance almost wild with concern, she hurriedly ran her eye through the
forest around her; when, with a suppressed exclamation of joyful surprise,
she soon caught sight of his form, slowly making his way back from a short
walk, which he had, on awakening, an hour before, found himself able to
take, along a smooth and level path on the bank of the river.
But we have not the space, nor even the ability, to portray adequately the
restrained but lively emotions of joy and the charming embarrassment that
thrilled the tumultuously-beating bosom of the one, and the deep gratitude
and silent admiration that took possession of the other, of this singularly
situated young couple, during the succeeding scenes of Claud's now rapid
convalescence. Suffice it to say, that, on the afternoon of the second day
but one from this auspicious morning, they were on their happy way down
through the lakes and the connecting river, to the chief's residence, where
they safely arrived some hours before night, and where they were greeted
with demonstrations of delight which told what anxieties had been suffered
on their account. Here, for the first time, they learned that the murderer
had been taken and carried to the village for his preliminary trial; that
the examination had been postponed, to allow the prisoner time to send for
his counsel; and that the hearing was to commence that very evening, though
the hunter, who had that day made a hurried journey to the chief's, to see
if Fluella had returned or Claud been heard from, had expressed great fears
that the evidence yet discovered might not be deemed sufficient to convict
him of murder, and perhaps not to imprison him for a final trial. Claud,
perceiving at once the importance of Fluella's testimony, as well as of his
own, proposed that they should immediately proceed that evening down the
lakes to the place of trial. But neither the chief nor his daughter would
suffer him to undertake the journey that night. At her earnest suggestion,
however, it was at length arranged that she, accompanied by her
half-brother, a lad of fifteen, should go down that evening, and that the
chief, with Claud, should follow early the next morning.
In pursuance of this arrangement, the resolute girl and her attendant, as
soon as she had changed her dress and refreshed herself with a meal,
embarked on the lake, and, at the end of the next hour, they reached the
Great Rapids, leading, as before described, down into the Umbagog. Here her
brother, whose eye and ear, ever since they started, had often been turned
suspiciously to a dark, heavy cloud, which, seeming to hang over the upper
portions of the Magalloway, had been continually sending forth peals of
heavy thunder, hesitated about proceeding any farther, and warned his
unheeding sister of their liability of being overtaken by the
thunder-storm. But, finding her determined to proceed, if she was compelled
to do so alone, he yielded, and, landing their canoe at the usual carrying
places, they shot rapidly down the stream, and in less than another hour
came out on the broad Umbagog, just as darkness was beginning to enshroud
its waters, and cut off their view of the distant shores for which they
were destined. But for the light of day they found an ample substitute in
the electric displays, which, lighting up the lake to the blaze of noonday,
were every instant leaping from, the black, angry clouds, now evidently
passing off, with one almost continued roar of reverberating thunders, but
a few miles to the north of them. A rapid row of about three miles now
brought them to the foot of the lake, where the maiden had proposed to
enter the river, and row down it to the swift water, a short distance above
the village, and then proceed by land. Here, however, her course was
unexpectedly impeded by one of those paradoxical occurrences which is
peculiar to the spot, and which often happens on great and sudden rises of
the Magalloway, that, though entering the Androscoggin a mile down its
course, thus becomes higher than the level of the Umbagog, and pours its
surplus waters along up its stream in the channel of the river last named,
with a strong, rushing current into the lake. And our adventurers now found
that masses of tangled trees, mill-logs, and all sorts of flood-wood, were
driving so strongly and thickly up this channel that it would be in vain
for them to attempt to proceed in that direction. But the purpose of the
heroic girl to reach the village, by some means or other, was not to be
thus shaken. She directed the boat to be rowed back to the Elwood Landing,
where, leaving it, she with her attendant took the path to the cottage; and
reaching this, and finding all dark within she boldly led the way down the
long road to the bridge, miles below, with no other light than the still
lingering flashes of lightning afforded to her hurrying footsteps. But it
was not till after an exhausting walk, and some time past midnight, that
she reached the bridge leading over the river to the tavern, where the
trial was proceeding; and then only to encounter another great obstacle to
her progress. On coming up to the bridge, she perceived, with astonishment
and dismay, that one-half of the structure, with the exception of a single
string-piece, the only connection now remaining between the two sides of
the river, had been swept away by the sudden flood, or the revolving trees
it bore on its rushing surface. She also ascertained, from a woman still
up, watching with a sick child, in a house near by, that every boat on that
side the river had been either carried off by the unexpected freshet, or
taken since the bridge went off, by persons still coming in, to get over to
the exciting trial, which, it was understood, would occupy the whole night.
After pausing a moment, the still unshaken maiden borrowed and lighted a
lantern, when, without disclosing her purpose, she left the house and
proceeded directly to the end of the string-piece. She first examined it
carefully, and finding it broad, level, and fixed in its bed, she then
mounted the dizzy beam, and stood for a moment glancing down on the wild
rush of roaring waters beneath. Her movements, to which the light she
carried had attracted attention, were by this time seen and comprehended by
the crowd around the tavern, on the opposite side, who now came rushing to
the other end of the bridge, to deter her from the bold attempt. But she
heeded them not; and in a moment more was seen, with a quick, firm step,
gliding over the awful chasm; in another, she had reached the end, and
stood in safety on the planks beyond,--where she was greeted by the throng,
who had witnessed with amazement the perilous passage, in a shout of
exultation at her escape, that rose loud and wild above the roar of the
waters around them.