“Love rules the court, the camp, the grove.”
--Lay of the Last Minstrel.
“IT would have been sad, indeed, to lose you in such manner, my old
friend,” said Oliver, catching his breath for utterance. “Up and away!
even now we may be too late; the flames are circling round the point of
the rock below, and, unless we can pass there, our only chance must be
over the precipice. Away! away! shake off your apathy, John; now is the
time of need.”
Mohegan pointed toward Elizabeth, who, forgetting her danger, had sunk
back to a projection of the rock as soon as she recognized the sounds of
Edwards' voice, and said with something like awakened animation:
“Save her--leave John to die.”
“Her! whom mean you?” cried the youth, turning quickly to the place the
other indicated; but when he saw the figure of Elizabeth bending toward
him in an attitude that powerfully spoke terror, blended with reluctance
to meet him in such a place, the shock deprived him of speech.
“Miss Temple!” he cried, when he found words; “you here! is such a death
reserved for you!”
“No, no, no--no death, I hope, for any of us, Mr. Edwards,” she replied,
endeavoring to speak calmly; there is smoke, but no fire to harm us. “Let
us endeavor to retire.”
“Take my arm,” said Edwards; “there must be an opening in some direction
for your retreat. Are you equal to the effort?”
“Certainly. You surely magnify the danger, Mr. Edwards. Lead me out the
way you came.”
“I will--I will,” cried the youth, with a kind of hysterical utterance.
“No, no--there is no danger--I have alarmed you unnecessarily.”
“But shall we leave the Indian--can we leave him, as he says, to die?”
An expression of painful emotion crossed the face of the young man; he
stopped and cast a longing look at Mohegan but, dragging his companion
after him, even against her will, he pursued his way with enormous
strides toward the pass by which he had just entered the circle of
flame.
“Do not regard him,” he said, in those tones that de note a desperate
calmness; “he is used to the woods, and such scenes; and he will escape
up the mountain--over the rock--or he can remain where he is in safety.”
“You thought not so this moment, Edwards! Do not leave him there to meet
with such a death,” cried Elizabeth, fixing a look on the countenance of
her conductor that seemed to distrust his sanity.
“An Indian born! who ever heard of an Indian dying by fire? An Indian
cannot burn; the idea is ridiculous. Hasten, hasten, Miss Temple, or the
smoke may incommodate you.”
“Edwards! your look, your eye, terrifies me! Tell me the danger; is it
greater than it seems? I am equal to any trial.”
“If we reach the point of yon rock before that sheet of fire, we are
safe, Miss Temple,” exclaimed the young man in a voice that burst
without the bounds of his forced composure. “Fly! the struggle is for
life!”
The place of the interview between Miss Temple and the Indian has
already been described as one of those platforms of rock, which form a
sort of terrace in the mountains of that country, and the face of it,
we have said, was both high and perpendicular. Its shape was nearly
a natural arc, the ends of which blended with the mountain, at points
where its sides were less abrupt in their descent. It was round one of
these terminations of the sweep of the rock that Edwards had ascended,
and it was toward the same place that he urged Elizabeth to a desperate
exertion of speed.
Immense clouds of white smoke had been pouring over the summit of the
mountain, and had concealed the approach and ravages of the element;
but a crackling sound drew the eyes of Miss Temple, as she flew over the
ground supported by the young man, toward the outline of smoke where she
already perceived the waving flames shooting forward from the vapor, now
flaring high in the air, and then bending to the earth, seeming to light
into combustion every stick and shrub on which they breathed. The sight
aroused them to redoubled efforts; but, unfortunately, a collection of
the tops of trees, old and dried, lay directly across their course; and
at the very moment when both had thought their safety insured, the warm
current of the air swept a forked tongue of flame across the pile, which
lighted at the touch; and when they reached the spot, the flying pair
were opposed by the surly roaring of a body of fire, as if a furnace
were glowing in their path. They recoiled from the heat, and stood on a
point of the rock, gazing in a stupor at the flames which were spreading
rap idly down the mountain, whose side, too, became a sheet of living
fire. It was dangerous for one clad in the light and airy dress of
Elizabeth to approach even the vicinity of the raging element; and those
flowing robes, that gave such softness and grace to her form, seemed now
to be formed for the instruments of her destruction.
The villagers were accustomed to resort to that hill, in quest of timber
and fuel; in procuring which, it was their usage to take only the
bodies of the trees, leaving the tops and branches to decay under the
operations of the weather. Much of the hill was, consequently, covered
with such light fuel, which, having been scorched under the sun for the
last two months, was ignited with a touch. Indeed, in some cases, there
did not appear to be any contact between the fire and these piles, but
the flames seemed to dart from heap to heap, as the fabulous fire of the
temple is represented to reillumine its neglected lamp.
There was beauty as well as terror in the sight, and Edwards and
Elizabeth stood viewing the progress of the desolation, with a strange
mixture of horror and interest. The former, however, shortly roused
himself to new exertions, and, drawing his companion after him, they
skirted the edge of the smoke, the young man penetrating frequently into
its dense volumes in search of a passage, but in every instance without
success. In this manner they proceeded in a semicircle around the
upper part of the terrace, until arriving at the verge of the precipice
opposite to the point where Edwards had ascended, the horrid conviction
burst on both, at the same instant, that they were completely
encircled by fire. So long as a single pass up or down the mountain was
unexplored, there was hope: but when retreat seemed to be absolutely
impracticable, the horror of their situation broke upon Elizabeth as
powerfully as if she had hitherto considered the danger light.
“This mountain is doomed to be fatal to me!” she whispered; “we shall
find our graves on it!”
“Say not so, Miss Temple; there is yet hope,” returned the youth, in
the same tone, while the vacant expression of his eye contradicted his
words; “let us return to the point of the rock--there is--there must
be--some place about it where we can descend.
“Lead me there,” exclaimed Elizabeth; “let us leave no effort untried.”
She did not wait for his compliance, but turning, retraced her steps
to the brow of the precipice, murmuring to herself, in suppressed,
hysterical sobs, “My father! my poor, my distracted father!”
Edwards was by her side in an instant, and with aching eyes he examined
every fissure in the crags in quest of some opening that might offer
facilities for flight. But the smooth, even surface of the rocks
afforded hardly a resting-place for a foot, much less those continued
projections which would have been necessary for a descent of nearly a
hundred feet. Edwards was not slow in feeling the conviction that this
hope was also futile, and, with a kind of feverish despair that still
urged him to action, he turned to some new expedient.
“There is nothing left, Miss Temple,” he said, “but to lower you from
this place to the rock beneath. If Natty were here, or even that Indian
could be roused, their ingenuity and long practice would easily devise
methods to do it; but I am a child at this moment in everything but
daring. Where shall I find means? This dress of mine is so light, and
there is so little of it--then the blanket of Mohegan; we must try--we
must try--anything is better than to see you a victim to such a death!”
“And what will become of you?” said Elizabeth. “In deed, indeed, neither
you nor John must be sacrificed to my safety.”
He heard her not, for he was already by the side of Mohegan, who yielded
his blanket without a question, retaining his seat with Indian dignity
and composure, though his own situation was even more critical than
that of the others. The blanket was cut into shreds, and the fragments
fastened together: the loose linen jacket of the youth and the light
muslin shawl of Elizabeth were attached to them, and the whole thrown
over the rocks with the rapidity of lightning; but the united Pieces did
not reach half-way to the bottom.
“It will not do--it will not do!” cried Elizabeth; “for me there is no
hope! The fire comes slowly, but certainly. See, it destroys the very
earth before it!”
Had the flames spread on that rock with half the quickness with which
they leaped from bush to tree in other parts of the mountain, our
painful task would have soon ended; for they would have consumed already
the captives they inclosed. But the peculiarity of their situation
afforded Elizabeth and her companion the respite of which they had
availed themselves to make the efforts we have recorded.
The thin covering of earth on the rock supported but a scanty and faded
herbage, and most of the trees that had found root in the fissures had
already died, during the in tense heats of preceding summers. Those
which still retained the appearance of life bore a few dry and withered
leaves, while the others were merely the wrecks of pines, oaks, and
maples. No better materials to feed the fire could be found, had there
been a communication with the flames; but the ground was destitute of
the brush that led the destructive element, like a torrent, over the
remainder of the hill. As auxiliary to this scarcity of fuel, one of the
large springs which abound in that country gushed out of the side of
the ascent above, and, after creeping sluggishly along the level land,
saturating the mossy covering of the rock with moisture, it swept around
the base of the little cone that formed the pinnacle of the mountain,
and, entering the canopy of smoke near one of the terminations of the
terrace, found its way to the lake, not by dashing from rock to rock,
but by the secret channels of the earth. It would rise to the surface,
here and there, in the wet seasons, but in the droughts of summer it was
to be traced only by the bogs and moss that announced the proximity of
water. When the fire reached this barrier, it was compelled to pause,
until a concentration of its heat could overcome the moisture, like an
army awaiting the operations of a battering train, to open its way to
desolation.
That fatal moment seemed now to have arrived, for the hissing steams of
the spring appeared to be nearly exhausted, and the moss of the rocks
was already curling under the intense heat, while fragments of bark,
that yet clung to the dead trees, began to separate from their trunks,
and fall to the ground in crumbling masses. The air seemed quivering
with rays of heat, which might be seen playing along the parched stems
of the trees. There were moments when dark clouds of smoke would sweep
along the little terrace; and, as the eye lost its power, the other
senses contributed to give effect to the fearful horror of the scene.
At such moments, the roaring of the flames, the crackling of the furious
element, with the tearing of falling branches, and occasionally the
thundering echoes of some falling tree, united to alarm the victims.
Of the three, however, the youth appeared much the most agitated.
Elizabeth, having relinquished entirely the idea of escape, was fast
obtaining that resigned composure with which the most delicate of her
sex are sometimes known to meet unavoidable evils; while Mohegan, who
was much nearer to the danger, maintained his seat with the invincible
resignation of an Indian warrior. Once or twice the eye of the aged
chief, which was ordinarily fixed in the direction of the distant hills,
turned toward the young pair, who seemed doomed to so early a death,
with a slight indication of pity crossing his composed features, but it
would immediately revert again to its former gaze, as if already looking
into the womb of futurity. Much of the time he was chanting a kind of
low dirge in the Delaware tongue, using the deep and remarkable guttural
tones of his people.
“At such a moment, Mr. Edwards, all earthly distinctions end,” whispered
Elizabeth; “persuade John to move nearer to us--let us die together.”
“I cannot--he will not stir,” returned the youth, in the same horridly
still tones. “He considers this as the happiest moment of his life,
he is past seventy, and has been decaying rapidly for some time; he
received some injury in chasing that unlucky deer, too, on the lake, Oh!
Miss Temple, that was an unlucky chase, indeed! it has led, I fear, to
this awful scene.”
The smile of Elizabeth was celestial. “Why name such a trifle now?--at
this moment the heart is dead to all earthly emotions!”
“If anything could reconcile a man to this death,” cried the youth, “it
would be to meet it in such company!”
“Talk not so, Edwards; talk not so,” interrupted Miss Temple. “I am
unworthy of it, and it is unjust to your self. We must die; yes--yes--we
must die--it is the will of God, and let us endeavor to submit like his
own children.”
“Die!” the youth rather shrieked than exclaimed, “no--no--no--there must
yet be hope--you, at least, must-not, shall not die.”
“In what way can we escape?” asked Elizabeth, pointing with a look of
heavenly composure toward the fire “Observe! the flame is crossing the
barrier of wet ground--it comes slowly, Edwards, but surely. Ah! see!
the tree! the tree is already lighted!”
Her words were too true. The heat of the conflagration had at length
overcome the resistance of the spring, and the fire was slowly stealing
along the half-dried moss; while a dead pine kindled with the touch of a
forked flame, that, for a moment, wreathed around the stem of the tree,
as it whined, in one of its evolutions, under the influence of the air.
The effect was instantaneous, The flames danced along the parched trunk
of the pine like lightning quivering on a chain, and immediately a
column of living fire was raging on the terrace. It soon spread from
tree to tree, and the scene was evidently drawing to a close. The log
on which Mohegan was seated lighted at its further end, and the Indian
appeared to be surrounded by fire. Still he was unmoved. As his body was
unprotected, his sufferings must have been great; but his fortitude was
superior to all. His voice could yet be heard even in the midst of these
horrors. Elizabeth turned her head from the sight, and faced the valley
Furious eddies of wind were created by the heat, and, just at the
moment, the canopy of fiery smoke that overhung the valley was cleared
away, leaving a distinct view of the peaceful village beneath them. “My
father!----my father!” shrieked Elizabeth “Oh! this--surely might have
been spared me--but I submit.”
The distance was not so great but the figure of Judge Temple could be
seen, standing in his own grounds, and apparently contemplating, in
perfect unconsciousness of the danger of his child, the mountain in
flames. This sight was still more painful than the approaching danger;
and Elizabeth again faced the hill.
“My intemperate warmth has done this!” cried Edwards, in the accents of
despair. “If I had possessed but a moiety of your heavenly resignation,
Miss Temple, all might yet have been well.”
“Name it not--name it not,” she said. “It is now of no avail. We must
die, Edwards, we must die--let us do so as Christians. But--no--you may
yet escape, perhaps. Your dress is not so fatal as mine. Fly! Leave me,
An opening may yet be found for you, possibly--certainly it is worth
the effort. Fly! leave me--but stay! You will see my father! my poor,
my bereaved father! Say to him, then, Edwards, say to him, all that can
appease his anguish. Tell him that I died happy and collected; that I
have gone to my beloved mother; that the hours of this life are nothing
when balanced in the scales of eternity. Say how we shall meet again.
And say,” she continued, dropping her voice, that had risen with her
feelings, as if conscious of her worldly weakness, “how clear, how very
dear, was my love for him; that it was near, too near, to my love for
God.”
The youth listened to her touching accents, but moved not. In a moment
he found utterance, and replied:
“And is it me that you command to leave you! to leave you on the edge
of the grave? Oh! Miss Temple, how little have you known me!” he cried,
dropping on his knees at her feet, and gathering her flowing robe in
his arms as if to shield her from the flames. “I have been driven to the
woods in despair, but your society has tamed the lion within me. If I
have wasted my time in degradation, 'twas you that charmed me to it.
If I have forgotten my name and family, your form supplied the place of
memory. If I have forgotten my wrongs, 'twas you that taught me charity.
No--no--dearest Elizabeth, I may die with you, but I can never leave
you!”
Elizabeth moved not, nor answered. It was plain that her thoughts had
been raised from the earth, The recollection of her father, and her
regrets at their separation, had been mellowed by a holy sentiment, that
lifted her above the level of earthly things, and she was fast losing
the weakness of her sex in the near view of eternity. But as she
listened to these words she became once more woman. She struggled
against these feelings, and smiled, as she thought she was shaking
off the last lingering feeling of nature, when the world, and all its
seductions, rushed again to her heart, with the sounds of a human,
voice, crying in piercing tones:
“Gal! where be ye, gal! gladden the heart of an old man, if ye yet
belong to 'arth!”
“Hist!” said Elizabeth; “'tis the Leather-Stocking; he seeks me!”
“'Tis Natty!” shouted Edwards, “and we may yet be saved!”
A wide and circling flame glared on their eyes for a moment, even above
the fire of the woods, and a loud report followed.
“'Tis the canister, 'tis the powder,” cried the same voice, evidently
approaching them. “'Tis the canister, and the precious child is lost.”
At the next instant Natty rushed through the steams of the spring, and
appeared on the terrace, without his deerskin cap, his hair burnt to his
head, his shirt, of country check, black and filled with holes, and
his red features of a deeper color than ever, by the heat he had
encountered.