"Be gay securely;
Dispel, my fair, with smiles, the tim'rous clouds,
That hang on thy clear brow."
_Death of Agrippina._
The sudden and almost magical change, from the stirring incidents of the
combat to the stillness that now reigned around him, acted on the heated
imagination of Heyward like some exciting dream. While all the images
and events he had witnessed remained deeply impressed on his memory, he
felt a difficulty in persuading himself of their truth. Still ignorant
of the fate of those who had trusted to the aid of the swift current, he
at first listened intently to any signal, or sounds of alarm, which
might announce the good or evil fortune of their hazardous undertaking.
His attention was, however, bestowed in vain; for, with the
disappearance of Uncas, every sign of the adventurers had been lost,
leaving him in total uncertainty of their fate.
In a moment of such painful doubt, Duncan did not hesitate to look about
him, without consulting that protection from the rocks which just before
had been so necessary to his safety. Every effort, however, to detect
the least evidence of the approach of their hidden enemies, was as
fruitless as the inquiry after his late companions. The wooded banks of
the rivers seemed again deserted by everything possessing animal life.
The uproar which had so lately echoed through the vaults of the forest
was gone, leaving the rush of the waters to swell and sink on the
currents of the air, in the unmingled sweetness of nature. A fish-hawk,
which, secure on the topmost branches of a dead pine, had been a distant
spectator of the fray, now stooped from his high and ragged perch, and
soared, in wide sweeps, above his prey; while a jay, whose noisy voice
had been stilled by the hoarser cries of the savages, ventured again to
open his discordant throat, as though once more in undisturbed
possession of his wild domains. Duncan caught from these natural
accompaniments of the solitary scene a glimmering of hope; and he began
to rally his faculties to renewed exertions, with something like a
reviving confidence of success.
"The Hurons are not to be seen," he said, addressing David, who had by
no means recovered from the effects of the stunning blow he had
received; "let us conceal ourselves in the cavern, and trust the rest to
Providence."
"I remember to have united with two comely maidens, in lifting up our
voices in praise and thanksgiving," returned the bewildered
singing-master; "since which time I have been visited by a heavy
judgment for my sins. I have been mocked with the likeness of sleep,
while sounds of discord have rent my ears, such as might manifest the
fulness of time, and that nature had forgotten her harmony."
"Poor fellow! thine own period was, in truth, near its accomplishment!
But arouse, and come with me; I will lead you where all other sounds but
those of your own psalmody shall be excluded."
"There is melody in the fall of the cataract, and the rushing of many
waters is sweet to the senses!" said David, pressing his hand confusedly
on his brow. "Is not the air yet filled with shrieks and cries, as
though the departed spirits of the damned--"
"Not now, not now," interrupted the impatient Heyward, "they have
ceased, and they who raised them, I trust in God, they are gone too!
everything but the water is still and at peace; in, then, where you may
create those sounds you love so well to hear."
David smiled sadly, though not without a momentary gleam of pleasure, at
this allusion to his beloved vocation. He no longer hesitated to be led
to a spot which promised such unalloyed gratification to his wearied
senses; and, leaning on the arm of his companion, he entered the narrow
mouth of the cave. Duncan seized a pile of the sassafras, which he drew
before the passage, studiously concealing every appearance of an
aperture. Within this fragile barrier he arranged the blankets abandoned
by the foresters, darkening the inner extremity of the cavern, while its
outer received a chastened light from the narrow ravine, through which
one arm of the river rushed, to form the junction with its sister
branch, a few rods below.
"I like not that principle of the natives, which teaches them to submit
without a struggle, in emergencies that appear desperate," he said,
while busied in this employment; "our own maxim, which says, 'while life
remains there is hope,' is more consoling, and better suited to a
soldier's temperament. To you, Cora, I will urge no words of idle
encouragement; your own fortitude and undisturbed reason will teach you
all that may become your sex; but cannot we dry the tears of that
trembling weeper on your bosom?"
"I am calmer, Duncan," said Alice, raising herself from the arms of her
sister, and forcing an appearance of composure through her tears; "much
calmer, now. Surely, in this hidden spot we are safe, we are secret,
free from injury; we will hope everything from those generous men who
have risked so much already in our behalf."
"Now does our gentle Alice speak like a daughter of Munro!" said
Heyward, pausing to press her hand as he passed towards the outer
entrance of the cavern. "With two such examples of courage before him, a
man would be ashamed to prove other than a hero." He then seated himself
in the centre of the cavern, grasping his remaining pistol with a hand
convulsively clenched, while his contracted and frowning eye announced
the sullen desperation of his purpose. "The Hurons, if they come, may
not gain our position so easily as they think," he lowly muttered; and
dropping his head back against the rock, he seemed to await the result
in patience, though his gaze was unceasingly bent on the open avenue to
their place of retreat.
With the last sound of his voice, a deep, a long, and almost breathless
silence succeeded. The fresh air of the morning had penetrated the
recess, and its influence was gradually felt on the spirits of its
inmates. As minute after minute passed by, leaving them in undisturbed
security, the insinuating feeling of hope was gradually gaining
possession of every bosom, though each one felt reluctant to give
utterance to expectations that the next moment might so fearfully
destroy.
David alone formed an exception to these varying emotions. A gleam of
light from the opening crossed his wan countenance, and fell upon the
pages of the little volume, whose leaves he was again occupied in
turning, as if searching for some song more fitted to their condition
than any that had yet met his eye. He was, most probably, acting all
this time under a confused recollection of the promised consolation of
Duncan. At length, it would seem, his patient industry found its reward;
for, without explanation or apology, he pronounced aloud the words "Isle
of Wight," drew a long, sweet sound from his pitch-pipe, and then ran
through the preliminary modulations of the air, whose name he had just
mentioned with the sweeter tones of his own musical voice.
"May not this prove dangerous?" asked Cora, glancing her dark eye at
Major Heyward.
"Poor fellow! his voice is too feeble to be heard amid the din of the
falls," was the answer; "besides, the cavern will prove his friend. Let
him indulge his passion, since it may be done without hazard."
"Isle of Wight!" repeated David, looking about him with that dignity
with which he had long been wont to silence the whispering echoes of his
school; "'tis a brave tune, and set to solemn words; let it be sung with
meet respect!"
After allowing a moment of stillness, to enforce his discipline, the
voice of the singer was heard, in low, murmuring syllables, gradually
stealing on the ear, until it filled the narrow vault with sounds
rendered trebly thrilling by the feeble and tremulous utterance produced
by his debility. The melody, which no weakness could destroy, gradually
wrought its sweet influence on the senses of those who heard it. It even
prevailed over the miserable travesty of the song of David which the
singer had selected from a volume of similar effusions, and caused the
sense to be forgotten in the insinuating harmony of the sounds. Alice
unconsciously dried her tears, and bent her melting eyes on the pallid
features of Gamut with an expression of chastened delight that she
neither affected nor wished to conceal. Cora bestowed an approving smile
on the pious efforts of the namesake of the Jewish prince, and Heyward
soon turned his steady, stern look from the outlet of the cavern, to
fasten it, with a milder character, on the face of David, or to meet the
wandering beams which at moments strayed from the humid eyes of Alice.
The open sympathy of the listeners stirred the spirit of the votary of
music, whose voice regained its richness and volume, without losing that
touching softness which proved its secret charm. Exerting his renovated
powers to their utmost, he was yet filling the arches of the cave with
long and full tones, when a yell burst into the air without, that
instantly stilled his pious strains, choking his voice suddenly, as
though his heart had literally bounded into the passage of his throat.
"We are lost!" exclaimed Alice, throwing herself into the arms of Cora.
"Not yet, not yet," returned the agitated but undaunted Heyward; "the
sound came from the centre of the island, and it has been produced by
the sight of their dead companions. We are not yet discovered, and there
is still hope."
Faint and almost despairing as was the prospect of escape, the words of
Duncan were not thrown away, for it awakened the powers of the sisters
in such a manner that they awaited the result in silence. A second yell
soon followed the first, when a rush of voices was heard pouring down
the island, from its upper to its lower extremity, until they reached
the naked rock above the caverns, where, after a shout of savage
triumph, the air continued full of horrible cries and screams, such as
man alone can utter, and he only when in a state of the fiercest
barbarity.
The sounds quickly spread around them in every direction. Some called to
their fellows from the water's edge, and were answered from the heights
above. Cries were heard in the startling vicinity of the chasm between
the two caves, which mingled with hoarser yells that arose out of the
abyss of the deep ravine. In short, so rapidly had the savage sounds
diffused themselves over the barren rock, that it was not difficult for
the anxious listeners to imagine they could be heard beneath, as in
truth they were above and on every side of them.
In the midst of this tumult, a triumphant yell was raised within a few
yards of the hidden entrance to the cave. Heyward abandoned every hope,
with the belief it was the signal that they were discovered. Again the
impression passed away, as he heard the voices collect near the spot
where the white man had so reluctantly abandoned his rifle. Amid the
jargon of the Indian dialects that he now plainly heard, it was easy to
distinguish not only words, but sentences, in the _patois_ of the
Canadas. A burst of voices had shouted simultaneously, "La Longue
Carabine!" causing the opposite woods to re-echo with a name which,
Heyward well remembered, had been given by his enemies to a celebrated
hunter and scout of the English camp, and who, he now learnt for the
first time, had been his late companion.
"La Longue Carabine! La Longue Carabine!" passed from mouth to mouth,
until the whole band appeared to be collected around a trophy which
would seem to announce the death of its formidable owner. After a
vociferous consultation, which was, at times, deafened by bursts of
savage joy, they again separated, filling the air with the name of a
foe, whose body, Heyward could collect from their expressions, they
hoped to find concealed in some crevice of the island.
"Now," he whispered to the trembling sisters, "now is the moment of
uncertainty! if our place of retreat escape this scrutiny, we are still
safe! In every event, we are assured, by what has fallen from our
enemies, that our friends have escaped, and in two short hours we may
look for succor from Webb."
There were now a few minutes of fearful stillness, during which Heyward
well knew that the savages conducted their search with greater vigilance
and method. More than once he could distinguish their footsteps, as they
brushed the sassafras, causing the faded leaves to rustle, and the
branches to snap. At length, the pile yielded a little, a corner of the
blanket fell, and a faint ray of light gleamed into the inner part of
the cave. Cora folded Alice to her bosom in agony, and Duncan sprang to
his feet. A shout was at that moment heard, as if issuing from the
centre of the rock, announcing that the neighboring cavern had at length
been entered. In a minute, the number and loudness of the voices
indicated that the whole party was collected in and around that secret
place.
As the inner passages to the two caves were so close to each other,
Duncan, believing that escape was no longer possible, passed David and
the sisters, to place himself between the latter and the first onset of
the terrible meeting. Grown desperate by his situation, he drew nigh the
slight barrier which separated him only by a few feet from his
relentless pursuers, and placing his face to the casual opening, he even
looked out, with a sort of desperate indifference, on their movements.
Within reach of his arm was the brawny shoulder of a gigantic Indian,
whose deep and authoritative voice appeared to give directions to the
proceedings of his fellows. Beyond him again, Duncan could look into the
vault opposite, which was filled with savages, upturning and rifling the
humble furniture of the scout. The wound of David had dyed the leaves of
sassafras with a color that the natives well knew was anticipating the
season. Over this sign of their success, they set up a howl, like an
opening from so many hounds who had recovered a lost trail. After this
yell of victory, they tore up the fragrant bed of the cavern, and bore
the branches into the chasm, scattering the boughs, as if they suspected
them of concealing the person of the man they had so long hated and
feared. One fierce and wild-looking warrior approached the chief
bearing a load of the brush, and pointing, exultingly, to the deep red
stains with which it was sprinkled, uttered his joy in Indian yells,
whose meaning Heyward was only enabled to comprehend by the frequent
repetition of the name of "La Longue Carabine!" When his triumph had
ceased, he cast the brush on the slight heap that Duncan had made before
the entrance of the second cavern, and closed the view. His example was
followed by others, who, as they drew the branches from the cave of the
scout, threw them into one pile, adding, unconsciously, to the security
of those they sought. The very slightness of the defence was its chief
merit, for no one thought of disturbing a mass of brush, which all of
them believed, in that moment of hurry and confusion, had been
accidentally raised by the hands of their own party.
As the blankets yielded before the outward pressure, and the branches
settled in the fissure of the rock by their own weight, forming a
compact body, Duncan once more breathed freely. With a light step, and
lighter heart, he returned to the centre of the cave, and took the place
he had left, where he could command a view of the opening next the
river. While he was in the act of making this movement, the Indians, as
if changing their purpose by a common impulse, broke away from the
cavern in a body, and were heard rushing up the island again, towards
the point whence they had originally descended. Here another wailing cry
betrayed that they were again collected around the bodies of their dead
comrades.
Duncan now ventured to look at his companions; for, during the most
critical moments of their danger, he had been apprehensive that the
anxiety of his countenance might communicate some additional alarm to
those who were so little able to sustain it.
"They are gone, Cora!" he whispered; "Alice, they are returned whence
they came, and we are saved! To Heaven, that has alone delivered us from
the grasp of so merciless an enemy, be all the praise!"
"Then to Heaven will I return my thanks!" exclaimed the younger sister,
rising from the encircling arms of Cora, and casting herself with
enthusiastic gratitude on the naked rock; "to that Heaven who has spared
the tears of a gray-headed father; has saved the lives of those I so
much love--"
Both Heyward, and the more tempered Cora, witnessed the act of
involuntary emotion with powerful sympathy, the former secretly
believing that piety had never worn a form so lovely as it had now
assumed in the youthful person of Alice. Her eyes radiant with the glow
of grateful feelings; the flush of her beauty was again seated on her
cheeks, and her whole soul seemed ready and anxious to pour out its
thanksgivings, through the medium of her eloquent features. But when her
lips moved, the words they should have uttered appeared frozen by some
new and sudden chill. Her bloom gave place to the paleness of death; her
soft and melting eyes grew hard, and seemed contracting with horror;
while those hands which she had raised, clasped in each other, towards
heaven, dropped in horizontal lines before her, the fingers pointed
forward in convulsed motion. Heyward turned, the instant she gave a
direction to his suspicions, and, peering just above the ledge which
formed the threshold of the open outlet of the cavern, he beheld the
malignant, fierce, and savage features of Le Renard Subtil.
In that moment of surprise, the self-possession of Heyward did not
desert him. He observed by the vacant expression of the Indian's
countenance, that his eye, accustomed to the open air, had not yet been
able to penetrate the dusky light which pervaded the depth of the
cavern. He had even thought of retreating beyond a curvature in the
natural wall, which might still conceal him and his companions, when, by
the sudden gleam of intelligence that shot across the features of the
savage, he saw it was too late, and that they were betrayed.
The look of exultation and brutal triumph which announced this terrible
truth was irresistibly irritating. Forgetful of everything but the
impulses of his hot blood, Duncan levelled his pistol and fired. The
report of the weapon made the cavern bellow like an eruption from a
volcano; and when the smoke it vomited had been driven away before the
current of air which issued from the ravine, the place so lately
occupied by the features of his treacherous guide was vacant. Rushing to
the outlet, Heyward caught a glimpse of his dark figure, stealing around
a low and narrow ledge, which soon hid him entirely from sight.
Among the savages, a frightful stillness succeeded the explosion, which
had just been heard bursting from the bowels of the rock. But when Le
Renard raised his voice in a long and intelligible whoop, it was
answered by a spontaneous yell from the mouth of every Indian within
hearing of the sound. The clamorous noises again rushed down the
island; and before Duncan had time to recover from the shock, his feeble
barrier of brush was scattered to the winds, the cavern was entered at
both its extremities, and he and his companions were dragged from their
shelter and borne into the day, where they stood surrounded by the whole
band of the triumphant Hurons.