THE ISLAND GRAVE
The morning broke, with a quiet, holy light, through the thicket of
crab-apple and wild-cherry trees which overlaced the spring in the
centre of the island; and there, upon the blooming turf beneath, lay the
form of Catharine Montour. Her eyes were closed, and the violet tint of
exhaustion lay about them. The feathers which composed her coronet were
crushed in a gorgeous mass beneath her pale temple, and her forehead was
contracted with a slight frown, as if the serpent coiled around it were
girding her brow too tightly. Ever and anon her pale hands clutched
themselves deep into the moss, and her limbs writhed in the agony of her
wounds. The pale, haggard face of Grenville Murray lay upon the moss
where he had fallen when she dropped away from his arms, as it had done
the whole night; and Varnham, the missionary, sat a little way off,
looking mournfully on them both. There was a solemn and awful sorrow in
his silence; yet something of cold sternness. He could not look on that
pale, haughty man so near his wife, without some thought of the evil
that had been done him.
On the swell of the bank, a short distance from the spring, crouched
another miserable being. Tahmeroo sat upon the ground, looking upon her
mother, in dreary desolation.
The expression of pain gradually cleared from Catharine Montour’s face,
and at last her eyes unclosed and turned upon Murray. She saw the
death-drops on his forehead, and, struggling to her elbow, took his cold
hand.
“Lady Granby, speak to me! In the name of God, I pray you, speak before
it is too late. Say that I am forgiven!” he murmured.
There was a depth of agony in that voice which might have won
forgiveness from the dead. Catharine Montour strove to speak, her lips
moved, and her eyes filled with solemn light. Murray fell back and gave
up her hand. Must he go into eternity with a doubt upon his soul!
“Caroline,” said a low, broken voice, and a face full of anguish bent
over her, “forgive this man, as I do, before he dies.”
The hand which Varnham took was cold, but it moved with a faint clasp,
and her eyes, which had opened again, turned with a confident and gentle
expression upon the missionary’s. A soft and almost holy smile, like
that which slumbers about the sweet mouth of an infant, fell upon the
lips of Catharine Montour, and a pleasant murmur, which was more than
forgiveness, reached the dying man’s ear.
“Great God, I thank thee that thou hast vouchsafed me the grace to
forgive this man!” burst from the missionary; his face fell forward upon
his bosom, and he wept aloud, as one who had found the great wish of a
lifetime.
Murray turned his eyes, now freezing with death, upon Catharine’s face;
he saw that smile, and over his own features came a light that for one
moment threw back the ashen shadows gathering there.
Varnham moved gently to his side, took the cold hand, and held it till
it stiffened into the marble of death. Catharine watched his face as it
saddened, shade by shade with the ebbing pulses that quivered under his
touch. When she saw that all was over, a cold chill crept through her
frame, the lids closed heavily over her eyes, and she was almost as
lifeless as the man who had been her destiny.
Varnham laid the hands of the dead reverently down, and, lifting
Catharine Montour in his arms, rested her head upon his bosom, while he
called on Tahmeroo for water. She ran down to the spring, formed a cup
with her two hands, and sprinkled the deathly face. But there came no
signs of consciousness. She seemed utterly gone. Varnham knew that her
heart was beating, for he felt it against his own, and for the moment a
faintness crept over him; he forgot where he was, and that death lay
close by; all the years and events that had separated those two souls
floated away like mist; he bent down and whispered: “Caroline, my
Caroline!” as he had done a thousand times when she was insane and
unconscious as then of the love which had not died, which never could
die.
“Caroline, my Caroline.”
His head was bent, and his trembling lips almost touched her forehead;
he heard nothing, saw nothing; an exclamation of surprise and alarm
broke from Tahmeroo, but he was all unconscious of it till the form of
Catharine Montour was torn from his arms by the chief, Gi-en-gwa-tah,
who folded her to his broad chest, casting a look of sovereign disdain
over his shoulder as he bore her away. A company of fifty Indians had
followed him to the island, and when Varnham rose, dizzy with the sudden
attack, they swarmed around him, offering no violence, but cutting off
his retreat. When they left him at liberty again, he was alone with the
body of his forgiven enemy.
In a little out-house that had escaped the flames Varnham found a spade
and pickaxe. He left the body with Tahmeroo, and, going down to the old
cedars, dug a grave with his own hands. Then, with the assistance of the
Indian girl, he bore the body away, and laid it in the cold earth with
unuttered prayers and awful reverence. The sods with which they heaped
the earth that covered him were green, and the night dew was still upon
them. But a drop fell upon that grave more pure than all the dew that
trembled there. It was the tear of a man who had learned to forgive, as
he hoped to be forgiven.
There was no hope for the people of Forty Fort, the stockade at Pittston
had surrendered, Fort Jenkins was already taken, and from Wilkesbarre
the inhabitants were fleeing to the hills. Thus, helpless and hopeless,
the fugitives who had succeeded in reaching the fort with the women and
children already there, had no choice between the terms of capitulation
offered by Colonel John Butler and another massacre.
While the plain was strewn with the dead bodies of men who had marched
forth from those gates so valiantly the day before, they were thrown
open that the triumphant enemy might pass in. At the command of their
colonel, the patriots came slowly forward and stacked their arms in the
centre of the stockade. The women and children clustered in miserable
groups, and stood in dead silence, waiting for the murderers of their
sons and husbands.
The victors approached with beating drums and flying colors, divided in
two columns. The Tories were headed by the Butlers, while in at the
south gate marched the savages, with Queen Esther and Gi-en-gwa-tah at
their head.
The faces of the Whigs were marked by the Indians with black paint, in
order to insure their safety. The children retreated from this savage
kindness with loud outcries; the pallid women passed before their
captors, shrinking with horror from their touch.
“Ain’t you ashamed, wimmen of Wyoming?” cried Aunt Polly Carter,
marching boldly up to the tall savage who distributed the war-paint.
“What are ye skeered at? I never expected to have the mark of Cain sat
on my forehead by a wild Injun; but if I must, I must! Here, Mr.
Copperhead, make it good and black. I don’t want no mistake, if any of
your chiefs should take a notion for more scalps; and I say, Mr. Injun,
hold your head down here, while I whisper something. If you could just
put an extra dab on, to let your men folks know I’m engaged, if they
should want to marry any of our wimmen, I’d be much obleeged to you.”
The Indian, who did not comprehend a word of all this, crossed his
blackened stick on her cheek, gave her a push, and was ready for the
next trembling creature that presented herself. As Aunt Polly took her
place among the marked women, a little boy pulled her by the dress, and
whispered that he had just seen Gineral Washington with an Injun on his
back.
“Gineral Washington—my hoss—you don’t say so?”
“Yes, Aunt Polly, his own self, with a big Injun a-riding him.”
“He shan’t ride him out of the fort, anyhow,” exclaimed Polly.
“Captain—Captain Walter Butler—I call on you to help me get my hoss
back. One of them ’ere red fellers has stole Gineral Washington right
afore my two eyes.”
“I am afraid you will have to buy him back,” replied Butler, laughing.
“What can you give?”
“Give! I shan’t give nothing for what’s my own now I tell you.”
“Then, I am afraid, you and the General will have to part.”
The savages began to march out of the fort, and Aunt Polly followed in
hot haste.
“Captain! captain!” she shrieked, “make the bargain for me—do; that’s a
good soul!”
Butler addressed a savage near him in his own tongue, and turned again
to the old maid.
“Give him some money, Miss Carter, and you can have the horse.”
“Money! pay money for a hoss that I’ve owned these twen—this long time!—
Wal, that is a purty how-de-do, I must say.”
But Butler’s remonstrances and the sullen look of the Indian proved that
she could not obtain the faithful animal on any other terms. That
moment, the General looked towards his mistress, and, recognizing her
with a low neigh of delight, Aunt Polly could not withstand that appeal.
She put her hand in her bosom and drew forth an old shot-bag, as
ruefully as if it had been her own heart, untied it, and took out the
two guineas, her chief treasures. She eyed them ruefully, and was about
to thrust them into the bag again, when the General, sagacious animal,
whinnied. Aunt Polly grasped one of the pieces, and thrust the rest into
her bosom.
“Perhaps you could persuade him to take a string of beads, or some
gew-gaw instead,” whispered Butler, rather pitying her distress.
“Lawful sakes,” cried the old maid, joyfully. “I’ve got just the
purtiest string; stand in front of me, captain, and turn your back,
while I loosen my dress, so as to get ’em off.”
Butler obeyed, laughing heartily, and Aunt Polly hurriedly untied a
string of bright blue glass beads, and held them up before the Indian,
who gave a humph of delight, and snatched them from her hand, at the
same moment. Aunt Polly darted towards the General, slipped the bridle
over her arm, and rushed back into the fort with the old horse trotting
behind her; she reached a safe corner, and sat down on the ground,
fairly hysterical with tears and laughter.
“Oh, Gin’ral, Gin’ral Washington, I should have died if I’d lost you—I
know I should! He! he! only to think how I cheated the feller—poor old
Gin’ral, you’re thin as a shad! A string of old blue beads, that wasn’t
worth ten coppers—try agin, when you want to cheat a born Connecticut
woman, you red varmint you.”
When the Tories and savages had fairly disappeared Aunt Polly was among
the first to leave the fort.
“Wal,” she said to the bystanders, as she mounted on the General, with
the aid of a broken bench, “I’ve lost my saddle; but, thank goodness, I
can ride bare-back. But where’s Captain Slocum? he hain’t said a word
about that ’ere rum.”
The unhappy inmates of the fort were too much occupied with their own
griefs to heed these pathetic lamentations, and Aunt Polly rode briskly
away, muttering confusedly of her losses, and her delight at rescuing
the General at so little cost.
Her heart sank when she drew near her own house, for she had passed
nothing but smoking cabins all the way; but a sudden rise of ground
revealed it, standing and unharmed. As she galloped up to the door, Sim
White, looking really glad, came out to meet her, while Mother Derwent
and Jane appeared in the doorway.
“All safe!” cried Aunt Polly, springing to the ground. “Where’s Mary,
and the minister?”
“Mary is on the bed, worn out with last night’s work,” began the old
lady, but Aunt Polly did not pause to hear her out.
“Sim, take the Gin’ral, feed him well—and, Sim—you may kiss me. I don’t
care if Grandmother Derwent and Jane do see you.”
Sim gave her a hearty embrace, and they all entered the house, where
Aunt Polly related all that had happened, and, bringing out a
blacking-brush, insisted on marking all their faces like her own.
But this quiet lasted only a few hours. The Indians, in total disregard
of the terms of the capitulation, began plundering and setting on fire
all the houses in the district.