THE HIDDEN MENACE
Neither Kingswell nor Trigget found time for sleep that night. D'Antons
also kept awake, though he spent only a few hours out-of-doors. His
candle burned until daylight. Ouenwa experienced a restless night beside
Black Feather's couch. From ten o'clock until two Tom Bent, John
Trigget, and the younger Donnelly were on guard, with cutlasses on their
hips and half-pikes in their hands--for a musket would have proved but
an unsatisfactory weapon to a man engaged in a sudden scuffle in the
dark. One man was placed on the gun-platform, another at the gate, and a
third on the roof of the storehouse. Kingswell and William Trigget moved
continually from one point to another. At two o'clock the elder
Donnelly, Clotworthy, and Harding relieved their companions. But the two
officers remained at their self-imposed duty.
At last dawn outlined the eastern horizon. Kingswell, who had been
pacing the length of the riverward stockade for the past hour, sighed
with relief, yawned, and was about to retire to D'Antons' cabin, when
William Trigget approached him at a run. The master mariner's face was
ghastly above his bushy whiskers.
"Come this way, sir," he murmured, huskily.
Kingswell followed him to the storehouse and up to the roof, by way of a
rough ladder that leaned against the wall. There, on the outward slope
of the roof, where the snow was trampled and broken, sprawled the body
of Peter Clotworthy.
"What! Asleep!" exclaimed Kingswell, peering close. The light was not
strong enough to disclose the features of the recumbent sentinel.
"Ay, an' sound enough, God knows," replied Trigget, "with no chance o'
wakin' this side o' the Judgment-Seat."
"Dead?" cried the other, sinking to his knees beside the body. He
pressed his hand against the mariner's side, held it there for a moment,
and withdrew it, wet with blood. He raised it toward the growing
illumination of the east, staring at it with wide eyes. "Blood," he
murmured. "Stabbed without a squeal--without a whimper, by Heaven!" Then
he ripped out an oath, and followed it close with a prayer for his dead
comrade's soul. For all his golden curls, this Bernard Kingswell had a
hot and ready tongue--and a temper to suit, when occasion offered.
The two discoverers of the tragedy remained on the roof of the
storehouse for some time. The light strengthened and spread on their
right, and, at last, gave them a clear, gray view of the narrow clearing
and wooded hummocks to the north. On the snow below them, which was
otherwise unmarked, they saw the imprints of one pair of moccasined
feet. The marks did not lead to or from the near cover of the woods, but
to the south, around the fort. The telltale snow showed how Clotworthy's
murderer had approached close under the stockade, and, after his silent
deed of violence, had jumped a distance of about twenty feet, from the
roof of the store, and landed on all fours. A stain of blood, evidently
from the reeking knife in the slayer's hand, smirched the snow where it
was broken by his fall. From there the steps returned by the same
course, but at a distance of about ten paces from the stockade.
Kingswell looked from the tracks in the snow to the colourless,
distorted features of the dead seaman. Then his gaze met Trigget's
deep-set eyes. He was pale, and his lips were drawn in a hard line, as
if the frost had stiffened them.
"Poor Clotworthy," he murmured, and swallowed as if his throat were
dry. "Poor devil, knifed into eternity without a fighting chance. See,
he was clubbed first and then knifed--felled and bled like an ox in a
shambles! Ten nights of this hellishness will account for the whole
garrison."
With a broad, deep-sea oath, Trigget replied that there'd be no ten
nights of it.
They lifted the stiff body that had, so lately, been animated by the
fearless spirit of Richard Clotworthy, able seaman, to the ground and
carried it reverently to the Donnelly cabin. The other inmates of the
little settlement were deeply affected by the sight, and by Kingswell's
story. The younger men were for setting out immediately and driving the
Beothics from the woods on the far side of the river. But the wiser
heads prevailed against such recklessness, arguing that the only thing
to be done was to remain constantly on guard. The women wept. Ouenwa,
trembling with sorrow and rage, placed his fine belt and beaded quiver
beside the body of his dead comrade, and vowed, in English and Beothic,
that he would avenge this murder as he intended to avenge the murders of
his father and his grandfather.
The day passed without any sign of the hidden enemy. Kingswell slept
until noon. By evening Black Feather had recovered enough strength to
enable him to tell his pitiful story to Ouenwa. His lodge, and that of
Montaw, the arrow-maker, had been torn down by the followers of Panounia
shortly after the departure of the _Pelican_ from Wigwam Harbour. Montaw
had died fighting. Black Feather, grievously wounded, had been bound and
carried far up the River of Three Fires. His wife and children also had
been captured and maltreated. The ships in the bay had looked on at the
unequal struggle ashore without demonstrations of any kind. Upon
reaching the village on the river, Black Feather had been driven to the
meanest work--work unbecoming a warrior of his standing--and his wife
and children had been led farther up-stream, very likely to Wind Lake.
Black Feather had seen the body of Soft Hand lying exposed on the top of
a knoll, at the mercy of birds and beasts. He had bided his time. At
last he had gnawed the thongs with which his tormentors bound him at
night, and had safely made his escape. He could not say how long ago
that was. Days and nights had become strangely mixed in his desperate
mind. He had lived on such birds and hares as he had been able to kill
with sticks. Always he had kept up his journey, shaping his course
toward the salt water, in the hope of meeting some tribesmen who might
have remained loyal to the murdered chief. But he had met with nobody
in all that desolate journey, until, only the day before, he had
recovered consciousness in Fort Beatrix.
That night, John Trigget was attacked at his post on the gun-platform,
and in the struggle that ensued was cut shrewdly about the arm. So
sudden and noiseless was the onslaught out of the dark that he fought in
silence, only remembering to shout for help after the savage had
squirmed from his embrace and escaped. His arm was bandaged by Sir
Ralph, and Tom Bent and Ouenwa took his place. But daylight arrived
without any further demonstration on the part of the enemy.
By this time the little garrison was bitten by a restlessness that would
not be denied. Even Kingswell and William Trigget were for making some
sort of attack upon the hidden band beyond the river. D'Antons, contrary
to his habit, had nothing to say either for or against an aggressive
movement. Sir Ralph was for quietly and cautiously awaiting development;
but, seeing the spirit of the men, he agreed that five of the garrison
should sally forth in search of the enemy.
"Whom I have not a doubt you'll find," concluded the baronet, wearily,
"though what the devil you'll do with them then is more than I can
venture to predict."
Under William Trigget's supervision, one of the cannon was taken from
the platform and mounted on a heavy and solid flat of logs, and that, in
turn, was placed on a sled. On the same sled were fastened rammers and
mops and bags of powder and shot. The daring party was made up of Master
Kingswell, William Trigget, Ouenwa, Tom Bent, and the younger Donnelly.
D'Antons did not volunteer his services on the expedition. The men were
all well armed with muskets and cutlasses, and all save Ouenwa had
fastened steel breastplates under their coats. As they marched away,
Mistress Westleigh waved them "Godspeed" with a scarf of Spanish lace,
from where she stood in the open gate between her father and Captain
d'Antons.
The little party moved down the bank and across the river slowly and
with commendable caution. Trigget and Kingswell walked ahead, and kept a
sharp lookout on the dark edges of the forest. Donnelly and Tom Bent
followed about ten paces behind, dragging the gun. Ouenwa scouted along
on the left, with a musket and a lighted match, which he feared far
worse than he did any number of Beothic warriors. The river was crossed
without accident on the wide trail left by the enemy's retreat.