had been previously practised, of posting sentinels and keeping their
arms ready, were for the moment forgotten; but after the first startle
of surprise at being so unexpectedly attacked passed over, there was a
general rush to cover of all the members of the party, behind the
breastwork of earth that the young engineer had caused to be thrown up
round the spot facing the river all along its right bank, the men
catching up their rifles and cartridge-pouches--which lay here and there
about as they had dropped them in their expectancy while waiting the
result of the weighing--as they ran to shelter themselves and prepared
to return the fire of their foes.
All the miners rushed to the breastwork save one, and that was Seth.
At the instant he turned, like his comrades, to seek the protection of
the rampart, towards which the others hastened, an arrow struck Sailor
Bill slanting-wise across his forehead, and, tossing up his hands, the
poor boy, who was standing on the timber which led to the wheel, tumbled
over into the foaming water below that was seething like a whirlpool.
Uttering a frenzied ejaculation of anguish and grief, Seth plunged into
the flood, and an instant after dragged forth Sailor Bill's body,
heedless of the arrows and bullets of the Indians, the former of which
darkened the air in their passage around him, while the latter whistled
through his garments.
The intrepid fellow seemed to bear a charmed life, for not a shot nor a
barbed head of the savages' feathered missiles reached him as he pulled
the poor boy's apparently lifeless body from the water, Seth not being
content until he had hauled it up beneath the breastwork; when with a
shout of vengeance he seized his rifle and set to work to aid the others
in dealing death on those who had, as he thought, killed his protege.
It was a terrific fight whilst it lasted.
Mingled with the war-whoop of the Sioux, which was repeated ever and
anon, as if to excite them anew to the carnage, came the fierce
exclamations of the miners, and the calm word of command from Mr
Rawlings occasionally, to restrain the men from getting too flurried.--
He certainly showed himself worthy of the post of leader then!
"Steady, boys! Don't waste your fire. Aim low; and don't shoot too
quickly!"
"Ping! ping!" flew the bullets through the smoky medium with which they
were surrounded, while an occasional "thud" evinced the fact that one of
their assailants had fallen:--"ping, ping, ping!" it was a regular
fusillade;--and the miners delivered their fire like trained soldiers
from behind the breastwork that had so providentially been erected in
time!
Presently there was a rush of the redskins, and the besieged party could
hear the voice of Rising Cloud encouraging his warriors, and taunting
those he attacked.
"Dogs of palefaces!" cried the chief, "your bones shall whiten the
prairie, and your blood colour the buffalo grass, for your treatment of
Rising Cloud in the morn of the melting of the snow! I said I would
come before the scarlet sumach should spring again on the plains; and
Rising Cloud and his warriors are here!"
Then came the fearful war-whoop again, with that terrible iteration at
its end "Who--ah--ah--ah--ah--oop!" like the howl of a laughing hyaena.
The river alone interposed between the whites and their enemy, and gave
them a spell of breathing time, but in spite of this protection, the
odds were heavy against them; for what could even sixteen resolute men,
as the party now numbered--for one had been mortally wounded by a chance
shot, and although Josh the negro cook could tight bravely and did,
Jasper was not of much use--do in a hand-to-hand struggle with hundreds
of red-skinned human devils thirsting for their blood?
The river, however, was a great help, especially now that it had been
converted into a mill-race, and flooded beyond its usual proportions;
for, when the Indians rushed into the water to wade across and assault
the camp at close quarters, as the shallowness of the stream at that
season of the year would previously have easily enabled them to have
done, they found, to their astonishment, first that the current, which
they did not expect to be more than a foot deep, rose above their
waist-belts, then above their armpits, and finally above their heads,
as, pushed onwards by their companions behind, they were submerged in
the flood; while the miners, still sheltered by Ernest Wilton's trenched
rampart above, rained down a pitiless hail of bullets into the
half-drowned mob, whose very strength now proved their principal
weakness.
"Give it 'em, b'ys: remember poor Sailor Bill!" shouted Seth, his blood
up to fever heat with passion, and the murderous spirit of revenge
strong in his heart. "Give 'em goss, an' let nary a one go back to tell
the story!"
"Steady, men, and fire low!" repeated Mr Rawlings.
And the miners mowed the redskins down by the score with regular volleys
from their repeating rifles, although twenty fresh Indians seemed to
spring up in the place of every one killed.
The fight was too severe to last long, and soon a diversion came.
As Rising Cloud, raising his tomahawk on high, and, leading the van of
his warriors, was bringing them on for a decisive charge, several sharp
discharges, as if from platoon firing, were heard in the rear of the
Indians.
Just then, a bullet from Ernest Wilton's rifle penetrated the chief's
brain, and he fell dead right across the earth rampart in front of the
young engineer. The platoon firing in the rear of the savages was again
repeated; the United States troops had evidently arrived to the rescue;
and, taken now between two fires, and disheartened by the fall of Rising
Cloud, the Sioux broke, and fled in a tumultuous mass towards the gorge
by which they had entered the valley of Minturne Creek.
The struggle over, the miners had time to count casualties, and see who
amongst their number had fallen in the fray.
Thanks to Ernest Wilton's breastwork, their losses had not been very
heavy.
Noah Webster was slightly wounded, and Black Harry badly; while the only
one killed outright was Tom Cannon, the whilom keen-sighted topman of
the _Susan Jane_, who would never sight wreck or sail more, for Sailor
Bill was only wounded, and not dead, after all.
Jasper, who had been hiding beneath the embankment beside the boy's
supposed lifeless body, had perceived signs of returning animation in
it, to which he immediately called the attention of Seth and also Mr
Rawlings, and the three were bending over the figure in a moment. Just
almost a year before they were bending over Sailor Bill in precisely the
same way in the cabin of the _Susan Jane_. The Indian's arrow had
ploughed under the skin of the boy's forehead nearly at the same place
that bore the scar of his former wound when he had been picked up at
sea, and could not have inflicted any dangerous injury; it was evidently
the shock of falling into the foaming torrent from the tunnel, as it
rushed into the river, that had rendered Sailor Bill senseless for the
time being.
He was now coming back to himself, for his limbs twitched convulsively,
and there was a faint tremor about the eyelids.
Just then Ernest Wilton came up and stood by the side of Mr Rawlings,
while Seth was rubbing the boy's bared chest vigorously with his brawny
hand to hasten the restoration of the circulation; and at that moment
Sailor Bill opened his eyes--eyes that were expressionless no longer,
but with the light of reason in their hidden intelligence--and fixed his
gaze on the young engineer as if he recognised him at once.
"Ernest!" the boy exclaimed wonderingly, "what brings you here? Why,
where am I?"
And he looked from one to the other of the group around him in a
half-puzzled way, "Jerusalem!" ejaculated Seth, jumping to his feet and
turning to the young engineer. "He knows you, mister. Ken you rec'lect
him?"
"By Jove!" said Ernest, "I do believe it's my cousin, Frank Lester, now
I hear his voice. Frank!"
"Yes, Ernest," answered the boy, heaving a sigh of relief. "Then it is
you after all. I thought I was dreaming."
And he sank back into a calm sleep as if he were in bed.
STORY ONE, CHAPTER TWENTY THREE.
AFTER THE BATTLE.
"Now didn't I say so, Rawlings?" said Seth triumphantly, turning to that
gentleman. "I leave it to any one if I didn't diagnose the boy's
symptoms correctly! I said ef he can meet with a similar shock to that
which cost him his reason, he'd get it back again. I told you that from
the first on board the _Susan Jane_."
"You certainly did," replied Mr Rawlings. "It's the most curious case
I ever heard or read of! Do you think, Seth, when he wakes up he'll be
still all right here?" tapping his forehead expressively.
"Sartain as thaar's snakes in Virginny!" said the ex-mate, returning for
a moment to his vernacular mode of speech; although, his medical
instincts asserting themselves again presently, he spoke more formally
and in professional style in continuation of his reply to Mr Rawlings.
"He is still in a semi-comatose condition, as that somnolent fit assures
us; but he will sleep it off, and rouse up by and by in the proper
possession of his faculties, a glimpse of which we observed just now."
"I'm right glad to hear it," said Mr Rawlings. "What a difference that
look of intelligence in his eyes made in him! I declare I would hardly
have known him to be the same boy!"
"You're right there," said Seth. "I've read in some book of the eyes
bein' called `the windows of the soul;' an' I believe it's pretty near
the mark."
"Golly, massa Rawlings," put in Jasper at this juncture--the darkey had
been dying to speak for a long time--"p'raps him turn out to be gran'
fine genelmun, for sure, 'sides bein' massa Willerton's cuzzing, hey?"
"P'raps I'll souse you in the river if you don't make tracks and bring
down somethin' as we can take poor Sailor Bill up to the hut in," said
Seth, speaking again in his customary way and in a manner that Jasper
plainly understood, for he disappeared at once, returning shortly in
company with Josh, the two bearing a mattress between them, on which the
boy was placed, still asleep, and carried up to the house, where he was
softly put down on Mr Rawlings' bed and left, with Seth watching by his
side until he should wake up, as the latter expected, in his proper
senses.
The camp was in a state of tremendous excitement, as may be supposed,
for no less than three thrilling episodes of interest had occurred all
in one day, any one of which would have been sensational enough in
itself to have afforded matter for gossip for a month.
The starting of the stamps--the attack and repulse of the long-dreaded
Indian band--the fact of Sailor Bill recovering his lost senses--all
happening at once, all coming together!
It was too much for even the most apathetic of the miners to contemplate
calmly. And when, after the final departure of the American soldiery--
whose commander returned, after pursuing the Sioux for some distance
amongst the Black Hills, to report that no further attack need be feared
from the band, which was now thoroughly dispersed and incapable of
assailing the camp a second time, that year at least--Minturne Creek
resumed its normal quietude, and seemed duller than ever after such
stirring events as had recently been witnessed, the excited gold-diggers
gathered together in twos and threes, thinking over and talking about
what had happened.
Beyond the stirring events that had happened they had also to mourn the
loss of two of their number, as gallant comrades as men ever had--for,
ere long, Black Harry had followed the smart foretopman to the silent
land, succumbing to the dangerous wound he had received towards the end
of the struggle from an Indian tomahawk wielded by a powerful arm, which
had almost cleft the poor fellow's skull in twain; and, after so many
months of close companionship, the death of the two sailors was keenly
felt.
The best way to banish painful thoughts, however, as Mr Rawlings knew
from sad experience, was to engage in active employment; so he did not
allow the men to remain idle, although he gave them ample time for a
rest after the fight was over.
Summoning to his aid Noah Webster, who, like some of the others who had
received trivial wounds, made light of the bullet hole through his arm,
he mustered the hands late in the afternoon of the eventful day, and
delivered a short practical address to them before resuming operations--
a speech which, being to the point, had the desired effect of making the
men go back to their work with a will.
"Now, lads," said he, "we must be up and going. Sitting there talking
will not bring back the poor fellows that have gone. I mourn our
comrades just as much as you do, for they worked steadfastly, like the
honest, true-hearted men they were, through the hard time of toil and
trouble we had till recently, and at the last fought and died bravely in
the defence of the camp. But, crying over them won't help them now; all
we can do is to bury them where they so nobly fell, and then turn our
hands to carry on our work to the end that is now so near in view, just
as they would have insisted on doing if they had been alive still and
with us!"
There was no more lethargy after Mr Rawlings' exhortation: as Solomon
says,--"A word in season, how good it is!"
The men sprang up with alacrity to set about what he had suggested
rather than ordered; and, as soon as graves had been dug in the shelter
trench of the rampart that Tom Cannon and Black Harry had held so
courageously against the Indians, and their bodies interred with all
proper solemnity, Mr Rawlings himself reading the burial service over
their remains, the miners grasped their picks and shovels with one hand
as they wiped away a tear with the other, and went back to the mine,
some of them possibly with the reflection that, all things considered,
their slain mates were perhaps after all now better off than themselves!
STORY ONE, CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR.
SAILOR BILL'S STORY.
After the sad ceremony which he had just performed, Mr Rawlings did not
feel much inclined for gold-seeking or any worldly affairs, although he
went towards the mine as a matter of duty; and when he reached the
stamps he found Ernest Wilton already standing there, but looking pale
and perturbed, as if anxious about something.
"What is the matter?" said Mr Rawlings. "You seem out of sorts, beyond
what the loss of these poor fellows would have affected you?"
"Yes, I am," replied the other. "I can't help thinking of that cousin
of mine, and why I did not recognise him when I first saw him; but then
he was quite a little boy at school, and who would have dreamt of your
picking him up at sea?"
"Strange things do happen sometimes," said Mr Rawlings. "When was it
that you last saw him in England?"
"Four years ago last Christmas, if I recollect aright. He was then a
little schoolboy not half his present size. How on earth did he manage
to get to sea? my aunt had a perfect horror of a sailor's life, and
would never have let him go willingly. But, there, it only serves me
right for my selfish neglect! As you told me before, I ought to have
kept up my communication with my family, and then I should have known
all about it. I can't help now fancying all sorts of queer things that
may have occurred. My poor aunt, who used to be so fond of me, may be
dead; and my uncle, who was of a roving nature kindred to mine, may--"
"Nonsense!" said Mr Rawlings, good-naturedly, interrupting him. "If
you go on like that, you'll imagine you're the man in the moon, or
something else! Sailor Bill, or rather your cousin Frank, as we must
now call him, will wake up presently and enlighten us as to how he came
to be in his present position--or rather in the Bay of Biscay, where we
picked him up; for we all know his subsequent history; and then you'll
learn what you are now puzzling your brains about, without any bother.
I confess I am curious in the matter too, for I wish to know the secret
of that mysterious packet round his neck; but we must both wait with
patience, and dismiss the subject for the present from our minds. Come
along with me now, my boy," he added, as the body of the miners hastened
up after paying their last tribute of respect at their comrades' graves.
"I'm just going to have a look at your sluices, and see whether the
stuff is coming out as rich as before."
This invitation at once caused the young engineer to brighten up, as the
idea of action had aroused the miners from dwelling on what had
happened.
The yield upon being examined proved fully as rich as before the first
experiment.
"You see, Mr Rawlings," said Ernest, cordially holding out his hand for
a friendly grip, "the lead has turned out just as I fancied it would do,
and my efforts to open it out proved successful. You are now, as I told
you would be the case, the richest man in this State, or in Montana
either, for that matter, with all their talk of Bonanza Kings there."
"You bet," chimed in Noah Webster, who felt equally proud and delighted
with the young engineer at the result of their joint operations; but Mr
Rawlings could say little.
The Indian attack had hitherto prevented his realising this sudden
change of fortune, and now that he was fully conscious of it, all he
could do was to silently shake Ernest Wilton's hand first, and then Noah
Webster's; and after that each of those of the miners who pressed near
him for the purpose, full of sympathy with "the good luck of the boss,"
and forgetting already the fate of their lost comrades in the sight of
the glittering metal before them--their natural good spirits being
perfectly restored a little later on, when Mr Rawlings assured them, on
his recovering his speech, that he fully intended now keeping to the
promise he had given when the venture was first undertaken, and would
divide half the proceeds of the mine, share and share alike, among the
men, in addition to paying them the wages he had engaged to do.
The ringing hurrahs with which the jubilant miners gave vent to their
gladness on the reiteration of Mr Rawlings' promise, were so loud that
they reached the ears of Seth, who was watching by the sleeping boy, and
the latter woke up immediately with a frightened air, as if suffering
from the keenest terror.
"It's all right, my b'y, all right," said Seth soothingly; and at the
same time Wolf, who had entered the house and crept up by the side of
the bed, leapt up on the boy and licked his face.
"Where am I, Sam?" he said to Seth, the dog's greeting having apparently
calmed him down as well as the ex-mate's kindly manner; "are they after
me still, Sam?"
"You are here with us," saith Seth, puzzled at the boy's addressing him
so familiarly; "but my name arn't Sam, leastways, not as I knows on."
The boy looked in his face, and seemed disappointed.
"No, you are not Sam, though you are like him. Oh, now I recollect
all?" and he hid his face in his hands and burst into a passionate fit
of crying, as if his heart would break.
"There, there," said Seth, patting him on the back, "it's all right, I
tell you, my b'y; an' when Seth says so I guess he means it!"
But the boy would not stop weeping; and Seth, thinking that some harm
might result to his newly-awakened reason if he went on like that,
strode to the door and summoned help, with a stentorian hail that rang
through the valley as loudly as the cheer of the miners had done one
instant before.
"Ahoy there, all hands on deck!" he shouted, hardly knowing what he was
saying, adding a moment afterwards, "Wilton, you're wanted! Look
sharp."
"Here I am," cried Wilton, hurrying up, with Mr Rawlings after him.
"What is the matter now, Seth?"
"I can't make him do nothing" said that worthy hopelessly. "He takes me
to be some coon or other called Sam, an' then when I speaks he turns on
the water-power and goes on dreadful, that I'm afeard he'll do himself
harm. Can't you quiet him, Wilton; he kinder knowed you jest now?"
"I'll try," said Ernest; and kneeling by the boy's side, he drew his
hands away from his face and gently spoke to him.
"Frank! look at me: don't you know me?"
"Ye-e-es," sobbed he, "you--_you_ are Ernest. But how did you come
here? you weren't on board the ship. Oh, father! where are you, and all
the rest?"
And the boy burst out crying again, in an agony of grief which was quite
painful to witness.
Presently, however, he grew more composed; and, in a broken way, Ernest
managed to get his story from him--a terrible tale of mutiny, and
robbery, and murder on the high seas.
This was his story, as far as could be gathered from his disconnected
details.
Frank Lester, much against his mother's wishes, had persuaded his father
to take him with him in the early part of the previous year to the
diamond fields in South Africa, whither Mr Lester was going for the
purpose of purchasing some of the best stones he could get for a large
firm who intrusted him with the commission. The object of the journey
had been safely accomplished, and Mr Lester and Frank reached Cape
Town, where they took their return passage to England in a vessel called
the _Dragon King_.
Seth nudged Mr Rawlings at this point.
"Didn't I say that was the name of the desarted ship?" he asked in a
whisper.
And Mr Rawlings nodded his assent.
The _Dragon King_--to continue Frank's, or Sailor Bill's story--was
commanded by a rough sort of captain, who was continually swearing at
the men and ill-treating them; and, in the middle of the voyage a mutiny
broke out on board, started originally by some of the hands who wished
merely to deprive the captain of his authority, and put the first mate,
who was much liked by the men, in his place; but the outbreak was taken
advantage of by a parcel of desperadoes and ne'er-do-weels, who were
returning home empty handed from the diamond diggings, and were glad of
the opportunity of plundering the ship and passengers--whence the
mutiny, from being first of an almost peaceful character, degenerated
into a scene of bloodshed and violence which it made Frank shudder to
speak about.
His father, fearing what was about to happen, and that, as he was known
as having been up the country and in the possession of jewels of great
value, the desperadoes would attempt to rob him first, placed round
Frank's neck, in the original parchment-covered parcel in which he had
received them from the bank at the diamond fields, the precious stones
he had bought, with all his own available capital as well as his
employers' money, thinking that that would be the last place where the
thieves would search for them.
"And now they are lost," added the boy with another stifled sob, "and
poor mother will be penniless."
"Nary a bit," said Seth; and pulling out the little packet by the silken
string attached round his neck--which the poor boy had not thought of
feeling for even, he was so confident of his loss--he disclosed it to
his gaze. "Is that the consarn, my b'y?" he asked.
"Oh!" exclaimed Frank in delighted surprise. "It is, with the bank seal
still unbroken, I declare!"
And opening the parchment cover he showed Ernest and the rest some
diamonds of the first water, that must have been worth several thousand
pounds.
After his father had given the parcel into his care, Frank went on to
say, events transpired exactly as he had anticipated. Most of the
passengers were robbed, and those that objected to being despoiled
tranquilly, murdered. Amongst these were his father, whom the ruffians
killed more out of spite from not finding the valuables they expected on
him. He, Frank, escaped through the kindness of one of the sailors, who
took a fancy to him, and hid him up aloft in the ship's foretop when the
men who had possession of the ship would have killed him.
"This sailor," said Frank, "was just like that gentleman there,"
pointing to Seth.
"Waal neow, that's curious," said Seth. "Was his name Sam?"
"It was," said the boy.
"This is curious," said Seth, looking round at the rest; "it is really.
I wouldn't be at all surprised as how that's my brother Sam I haven't
heerd on for this many a year, or seed, although he's a seafarin' man
like myself, an' I oughter to 'ave run across his jib afore now. Depend
on it, Rawlings, that the reason the boy stuck to me so when he hadn't
got his wits, and came for to rescue me aboard the _Susan Jane_, and
arterwards, was on account of my likeness to Sam."
And as nobody could say him nay, it may be mentioned here that that was
Seth's fervent belief ever after.