"Received payment, F. McCRAW."
The ghastly face of the prisoner turned livid, and he shrieked as Mount
caught him by the collar and dragged him to his feet.
"Jack," I said, hoarsely, "the law sends that man before a court."
"Court be damned!" growled Mount, as Elerson uncoiled the pack-rope,
flung one end over a maple limb above, and tied a running noose on the
other end.
Murphy crowded past me to seize the prisoner, but I caught him by the
arm and pushed him aside.
"Men!" I said, angrily; "I don't care whose command you are under. I'm
an officer, and you'll listen to me and obey me with respect. Murphy!"
The Irishman gave me a savage stare.
"By God!" I cried, cocking my rifle, "if one of you dares disobey, I'll
shoot him where he stands! Murphy! Stand aside! Mount, bring that
prisoner here!"
There was a pause; then Murphy touched his cap and stepped back quietly,
nodding to Mount, who shuffled forward, pushing the prisoner and darting
a venomous glance at me.
"Redstock," I said, "where is McCraw?"
A torrent of filthy abuse poured out of the prisoner's writhing mouth.
He cursed us, threatening us with a terrible revenge from McCraw if we
harmed a hair of his head.
Astonished, I saw that he had mistaken my attitude for one of fear. I
strove to question him, but he insolently refused all information. My
men ground their teeth with impatience, and I saw that I could control
them no longer.
So I gave what color I could to the lawless act of justice, partly to
save my waning authority, partly to save them the consequences of
executing a prisoner who might give valuable information to the
authorities in Albany.
I ordered Elerson to hold the prisoner and adjust the noose; Murphy and
Mount to the rope's end. Then I said: "Prisoner, this field-court finds
you guilty of murder and orders your execution. Have you anything to say
before sentence is carried out?"
The wretch did not believe we were in earnest. I nodded to Elerson, who
drew the noose tight; the prisoner's knees gave way, and he screamed;
but Mount and Murphy jerked him up, and the rope strangled the screech
in his throat.
Sickened, I bent my head, striving to count the seconds as he hung
twisting and quivering under the maple limb.
Would he never die? Would those spasms never end?
"Shtep back, sorr, if ye plaze, sorr," said Murphy, gently. "Sure, sorr,
ye're as white as a sheet. Walk away quiet-like; ye're not used to such
things, sorr."
I was not, indeed; I had never seen a man done to death in cold blood.
Yet I fought off the sickening faintness that clutched at my heart; and
at last the dangling thing hung limp and relaxed, turning slowly round
and round in mid-air.
Mount nodded to Murphy and fell to digging with a sharpened stick.
Elerson quietly lighted his pipe and aided him, while Murphy shaved off
a white square of bark on the maple-tree under the slow-turning body,
and I wrote with the juice of an elderberry:
"Daniel Redstock, a child murderer, executed by American Riflemen for
his crimes, under order of George Ormond, Colonel of Rangers, August 19,
1777. Renegades and Outlaws take warning!"
When Mount and Elerson had finished the shallow grave, they laid the
scalps of the murdered in the hole, stamped down the earth, and covered
it with sticks and branches lest a prowling outlaw or Seneca disinter
the remains and reap a ghastly reward for their redemption from General
the Hon. Barry St. Leger, Commander of the British, Hessians, Loyal
Colonials, and Indians, in camp before Fort Stanwix.
As we left that dreadful spot, and before I could interfere to prevent
them, the three riflemen emptied their pieces into the swinging
corpse--a useless, foolish, and savage performance, and I said
so sharply.
They were very docile and contrite and obedient now, explaining that it
was a customary safeguard, as hanged men had been revived more than
once--a flimsy excuse, indeed!
"Very well," I said; "your shots may draw McCraw's whole force down on
us. But doubtless you know much more than your officers--like the
militia at Oriskany."
The reproof struck home; Mount muttered his apology; Murphy offered to
carry my rifle if I was fatigued.
"It was thoughtless, I admit that," said Elerson, looking backward,
uneasily. "But we're close to the patroon's boundary."
"We're within bounds now," said Mount. "Fonda's Bush lies over there to
the southeast, and the Vlaie is yonder below the mountain-notch. This
wagon-track runs into the Fish-House road."
"How far are we from the manor?" I asked.
"About two miles and a half, sir," replied Mount. "Doubtless some of Sir
George Covert's horsemen heard our shots, and we'll meet 'em cantering
out to investigate."
I had not imagined we were as near as that. A painful thrill passed
through me; my heart leaped, beating feverishly in my breast.
Minute after minute dragged as we filed swiftly onward, mechanically
treading in each other's tracks. I strove to consider, to think, to
picture the sad, strange home-coming--to see her as she would stand,
stunned, astounded that I had ignored her appeal to help her by
my absence.
I could not think; my thoughts were chaos; my brain throbbed heavily; I
fixed my hot eyes on the road and strode onward, numbed, seeing,
hearing nothing.
And, of a sudden, a shout rang out ahead; horsemen in line across the
road, rifles on thigh, moved forward towards us; an officer reversed his
sword, drove it whizzing into the scabbard, and spurred forward,
followed by a trooper, helmet flashing in the sun.
"Ormond!" cried the officer, flinging himself from his horse and holding
out both white-gloved hands.
"Sir George, ... I am glad to see you.... I am very--happy," I
stammered, taking his hands.
"Cousin Ormond!" came a timid voice behind me.
I turned; Ruyven, in full uniform of a cornet, flung himself into my
arms.
I could scarce see him for the mist in my eyes; I pressed the boy close
to my breast and kissed him on both cheeks.
Utterly unable to speak, I sat down on a log, holding Sir George's
gloved hand, my arm on Ruyven's laced shoulder. An immense fatigue came
over me; I had not before realized the pace we had kept up for these two
months nor the strain I had been under.
"Singleton!" called out Sir George, "take the men to the barracks; take
my horse, too--I'll walk back. And, Singleton, just have your men take
these fine fellows up behind"--with a gesture towards the riflemen. "And
see that they lack for nothing in quarters!"
Grinning sheepishly, the riflemen climbed up behind the troopers
assigned them; the troop cantered off, and Sir George pointed to
Ruyven's horse, indicating that it was for me when I was rested.
"We heard shots," he said; "I mistrusted it might be a salute from you,
but came ready for anything, you see--Lord! How thin you've
grown, Ormond!"
"I'm cornet, cousin!" burst out Ruyven, hugging me again in his
excitement. "I charged with the squadron when we scattered McDonald's
outlaws! A man let drive at me--"
"Oh, come, come," laughed Sir George, "Colonel Ormond has had more
bullets driven at him than our Legion pouches in their bullet-bags!"
"A man let drive at me!" breathed Ruyven, in rapture. "I was not hit,
cousin! A man let drive at me, and I heard the bullet!"
"Nonsense!" said Sir George, mischievously; "you heard a bumble-bee!"
"He always says that," retorted Ruyven, looking at me. "I know it was a
bullet, for it went zo-o-zip-tsing-g! right past my ear; and Sergeant
West shouted, 'Cut him down, sir!' ... But another trooper did that.
However, I rode like the devil!"
"Which way?" inquired Sir George, in pretended anxiety. And we all
laughed.
"It's good to see you back all safe and sound," said Sir George, warmly.
"Sir Lupus will be delighted and the children half crazed. You should
hear them talk of their hero!"
"Dorothy will be glad, too," said Ruyven. "You'll be in time for the
wedding."
I strove to smile, facing Sir George with an effort. His face, in the
full sunlight, seemed haggard and careworn, and the light had died out
in his eyes.
"For the wedding," he repeated. "We are to be wedded to-morrow. You did
not know that, did you?"
"Yes; I did know it. Dorothy wrote me," I said. A numbed feeling crept
over me; I scarce heard the words I uttered when I wished him happiness.
He held my proffered hand a second, then dropped it listlessly,
thanking me for my good wishes in a low voice.
There was a vague, troubled expression in his eyes, a strange lack of
feeling. The thought came to me like a stab that perhaps he had learned
that the woman he was to wed did not love him.
"Did Dorothy expect me?" I asked, miserably.
"I think not," said Sir George.
"She believed you meant to follow Arnold to Stanwix," broke in Ruyven.
"I should have done it! I regard General Arnold as the most magnificent
soldier of the age!" he added.
"I was ordered to Varick Manor," I said, looking at Sir George.
"Otherwise I might have followed Arnold. As it is I cannot stay for the
wedding; I must report at Stillwater, leaving by nine o'clock in
the morning."
"Lord, Ormond, what a fire-eater you have become!" he said, smiling from
his abstraction. "Are you ready to mount Ruyven's nag and come home to a
good bed and a glass of something neat?"
"Let Ruyven ride," I said; "I need the walk, Sir George."
"Need the walk!" he exclaimed. "Have you not had walks enough?--and your
moccasins and buckskins in rags!"
But I could not endure to ride; a nerve-racking restlessness was on me,
a desire for movement, for utter exhaustion, so that I could no longer
have even strength to think.
Ruyven, protesting, climbed into his dragoon-saddle; Sir George walked
beside him and I with Sir George.
Long, soft August lights lay across the leafy road; the blackberries
were in heavy fruit; scarlet thimble-berries, over-ripe, dropped from
their pithy cones as we brushed the sprays with our sleeves.
Sir George was saying: "No, we have nothing more to fear from
McDonald's gang, but a scout came in, three days since, bringing word of
McCraw's outlaws who have appeared in the west--"
He stopped abruptly, listening to a sound that I also heard; the sudden
drumming of unshod hoofs on the road behind us.
"What the devil--" he began, then cocked his rifle; I threw up mine; a
shrill cock-crow rang out above the noise of tramping horses; a
galloping mass of horsemen burst into view behind us, coming like an
avalanche.
"McCraw!" shouted Sir George. Ruyven fired from his saddle; Sir George's
rifle and mine exploded together; a horse and rider went down with a
crash, but the others came straight on, and the cock-crow rang out
triumphantly above the roar of the rushing horses.
"Ruyven!" I shouted, "ride for your life!"
"I won't!" he cried, furiously; but I seized his bridle, swung his
frightened horse, and struck the animal across the buttocks with clubbed
rifle. Away tore the maddened beast, almost unseating his rider, who
lost both stirrups at the first frantic bound and clung helplessly to
his saddle-pommel while the horse carried him away like the wind.
Then I sprang into the ozier thicket, Sir George at my side, and ran a
little way; but they caught us, even before we reached the timber, and
threw us to the ground, tying us up like basted capons with straps from
their saddles. Maltreated, struck, kicked, mauled, and dragged out to
the road, I looked for instant death; but a lank creature flung me
across his saddle, face downward, and, in a second, the whole band had
mounted, wheeled about, and were galloping westward, ventre à terre.
Almost dead from the saddle-pommel which knocked the breath from my
body, suffocated and strangled with dust, I hung dangling there in a
storm of flying sticks and pebbles. Twice consciousness fled, only to
return with the blood pounding in my ears. A third time my senses left
me, and when they returned I lay in a cleared space in the woods beside
Sir George, the sun shining full in my face, flung on the ground near a
fire, over which a kettle was boiling. And on every side of us moved
McCraw's riders, feeding their horses, smoking, laughing, playing at
cards, or coming up to sniff the camp-kettle and poke the boiling meat
with pointed sticks.
Behind them, squatted in rows, sat two dozen Indians, watching us in
ferocious silence.