sir; though for the matter of that, we have little enough now to take or
leave."
"You have given it all to the king?" said I, feeling my way as I had
need to.
His eyes flashed and he drew himself up proudly.
"The king has taken all, sir, as you see," this with a wave of the hand
to point me to the forlorn homestead. "There is naught left me save this
poor hut and my little maid."
"'Taken,' you say? Then you are not of the king's side?"
He came a step nearer and faced me boldly. "Listen, sir: two of my sons
were left on the bloody field of Camden, and the butcher Banastre
Tarleton slew the other two at Fishing Creek. A month since a band of
roving savages, armed with King George's muskets, mind you, sir, came
down upon us at Northby, and this little maid's mother--"
He stopped and choked; and the child looked up into my face with her
blue eyes full of nameless terror. "Oh, I want my mammy!" she said.
"Won't you find her for me, Cappy Jack?"
I slipped from the saddle, still clasping the little one tightly in my
arms.
"Enough, sir," I said, when I could trust myself to speak. "This same
King George's minions have made me a homeless outcast, too. I live but
to give some counter stroke, if I may."
"Ha!" said the old man, starting back; "then you are for our side? But
your uniform--"
"Is that of an Austrian officer, my good sir, which I should right
gladly exchange for the buff and blue, but that I can serve the cause
better in this."
He dropped the Queen's-arm, took the child from me and bade me welcome
to his cabin and all it held. But I was not minded to make him a sharer
in my private peril.
"No," said I. "Tell me how I may find Gilbert Town and Major Ferguson's
rendezvous, and I will ride whilst I can see the way."
He looked at me narrowly. "Ferguson left Gilbert Town some days since.
If 'tis the place you seek, you are gone far out of your way; if 'tis
the man--"
"'Tis the man," I cut in hastily.
The patriarch shook his head.
"If you be of our side, as you say, he will hang you out of hand."
"So I can make my errand good, I care little how soon he hangs me."
"And what may your errand be? Mayhap I can help you."
"It is to bring him to a stand till the mountain men can overtake him."
The old man trembled with excitement like a boy going into his first
battle.
"Ah, if you could--if you could!" he cried. "But 'tis too late, now.
Listen: his present camp is but three miles to the westward on Buffalo
Creek. I was there no longer ago than the Wednesday. I--I made my
submission to him--curse him--so that I might mayhap learn of his plans.
He told me all; how that now he was safe; that the mountaineers were
gone off from the fording of the Broad on a false scent; that Tarleton
with four hundred of the legion would soon be marching to his relief.
"I stole away when I could, and that night took horse and rode twenty
miles to Tom Sumter's camp at Flint Hill--all to little purpose, I fear.
Poor Tom is still desperately sick of his Fishing Creek wounds, and
Colonel Lacey was the only officer fit to go after Shelby and the
mountain men to set them straight. I should have gone myself, but--"
"Stay, my good friend," said I; "you go too fast for me. If Ferguson is
still out of communication with the main at Charlotte, we may halt him
yet."
The old man made a gesture of impatience.
"'Tis a thing done because it is as good as done. The major will break
camp and march to-morrow morning, and he can reach Charlotte at ease in
two days. What with their losing of his trail, the mountain men are
those same two days behind him."
"None the less, we shall halt him," said I. "Have you ever an inkhorn
and a quill in your cabin?"
"Both; at your service, sir. But I can not understand--"
"We may call it the little maid's judgment on those who have made her
fatherless. But for her stopping of me I should have come unprepared
into the camp of the enemy. I am the bearer of a letter from Lord
Cornwallis to this same Major Ferguson."
"You?--a bearer of Lord Cornwallis's despatches?" The old man put a
blade's length between us and held the little one aloft as if he feared
I might do her a mischief. I laughed and bade him be comforted.
"'Tis a long story, and I may not take the time to tell it now. But a
word will suffice. Like yourself, I made my submission--and for the same
purpose. My Lord accepted it and made me his despatch-bearer because he
thought I knew the way to Ferguson when no one else knew it. But enough
of this; time presses. Let me have ink and the quill."
The old man led the way into the cabin and put his writing tools at my
disposal. Left to myself, I should have broken the seal of the packet;
but my wise old ally, cool and collected now, showed me how to split the
paper beneath the wax. Opened and spread before us on the rude slab
table, the letter proved to be the briefest of military commands: a
peremptory order to Ferguson to rejoin the main body at once, proceeding
by forced marches if needful, and on no account to risk engagement with
the over-mountain men.
How to change such an order to reverse it in effect, I knew no more than
a yokel; but here again my ancient ally showed himself a man of parts.
Dressing the pen to make it the fellow of that used by my Lord
Cornwallis, he scanned the handwriting of the letter closely, made a few
practice pot-hooks to get the imitative hang of it, and wrote this
_postscriptum_ at the bottom of the sheet.
_Since writing the foregoing I have your courier, and his
despatches. Lieutenant-colonel Tarleton, with four hundred of the
legion, will take the road for you to-night. If battle is forced
upon you, make a stand and hold the enemy in check till
reinforcements come.
Cornwallis._
The old man sanded the wet penstrokes and bade me say if it would serve.
'Twas a most beautiful forgery. My Lord's crabbed handwriting was copied
to a nicety, and of the two signatures I doubt if the earl himself could
have told which was his own; 'twas the same circle "C," the same
printing "r," the same heavy precision throughout.
"Capital!" said I. "Now, if the lightning would but strike these
pursuers of mine, we should have the Scotsman at bay in a hand's turn."
"How?" said the patriarch; "are you followed?"
I told him I was; told him of my Lord's plot within a plot--that three
light-horse riders, one of them a lieutenant bearing duplicate
despatches, had been hard upon my heels all the way from Charlotte.
At this the old warhorse--I learned afterward that he had fought through
the French and Indian war--wagged his beard and his eye flashed.
"We must stop them," he said. "Three of them, do you say?"
"Three white men and an Indian trailer."
"Ha! If it were not for the little maid.... Let me think."
He fell to pacing up and down before the fire on the hearth, and I took
the small one on my knee to let her chatter to me. 'Twas five full
minutes before my ancient gave me the worth of his cogitations, but when
he did speak it was much to the purpose.
"These marplot rear-guards of yours will spoil it all if they come to
Ferguson's camp either before or after you. Do they know the major's
present whereabouts?"
"No more than I did an hour ago. As I take it, they are depending on me
to show them the way."
"Well, then; dead men tell no tales."
"But, my good friend, you forget there are four of them and only two of
us! We should stand little chance with them in fair fight."
Again the old man's eyes snapped and glowed as if pent-fires were behind
them.
"Was it fair fight when Tarleton's men rode in upon Tom Sumter's rest
camp at Fishing Creek and cut down this little maid's father whilst he
was naked and bathing in the stream? Was it fair fight when King
George's Indian devils came down in the dead of night upon our
defenseless house at Northby? Never talk to me of fairness, sir, whilst
all this bloody tyranny is afoot!"
I thought upon it for a little space. 'Twas none so easy to decide. On
one hand, stern loyalty to the cause I had espoused passed instant
sentence on these four men whose lives stood in the way; on the other,
common humanity cried out and called it murder.
Never smile, my dears, and hint that I had found me a new heart of mercy
since that ambush-killing of the three Cherokee peace-men in the lone
valley of the western mountains. We did but give the savages a dole out
of their own store of cruel cunning and ferocity. But as for these my
trackers, three of them, at least, were soldiers and men of my own race.
I could not do it.
"No," said I, firmly. "These followers of mine must be stopped, as you
say, else there is no need of my going on. But there must be no
butcher's work."
The patriarch frowned and wagged his beard again.
"A true patriot should hold himself ready to give his own life or take
another's," quoth he.
"Truly; and I am most willing on both heads. But we have had enough and
more than enough of midnight massacre."
Where this argument would have led us in the end, I know not, since we
were both waxing warm upon it. But in the midst the little maid came
running from the open door, her blue eyes wide in childish terror.
"Injun man!" was all she could say; but that was enough. At a bound I
reached the door. An Indian was at my horse's head, loosing the halter,
as I thought. Before he could twist to face me the point of the Ferara
was at his back.
Luckily, he had the wit not to move. "No kill Uncanoola," he muttered,
this without the stirring of a muscle. Then, as if he were talking to
the horse: "White squaw, she send 'um word; say 'good by.'"
My point dropped as if another blade had parried the thrust.
"Mistress Margery, you mean? Do you come from her?"
"She send 'um word; say 'good by,'" he repeated.
"What else did she say?" I demanded.
"No say anyt'ing else: say 'good by.'" He turned upon me at that and I
saw why he had kept his face averted. He had on the war paint of a
Cherokee chief.
"Uncanoola good Chelakee now," he grinned. "Help redcoat soldier find
Captain Long-knife. Wah!"
I saw his drift, and though I knew his courage well, the boldness of
the thing staggered me. He, too, had penetrated to the inner lines of
the British encampment at Charlotte; and when they had sought an Indian
tracker to lift my trail, 'twas he who had volunteered. But now my
spirits rose. With this unexpected ally we might hope to deal forcefully
and yet fairly with my rear-guard.
"Where are your masters now?" I asked.
He spat upon the ground. "Catawba chief has no master," he said,
proudly. "Redcoat pale-faces yonder," pointing back the way I had come.
"Make fire, boil tea, sing song, heap smoke pipe."
"We must take them," said I.
He nodded. "Kill 'um all; take scalp. Wah!"
The bloodthirstiness of my two allies was appalling. But I undertook to
cool the Indian's ardor, explaining that the redcoat soldiers were the
Long-knife's brothers, in a way, not to be slain save in honorable
battle. I am not sure whether I earned the Catawba's contempt, or his
pity for my weakness; but since he was loyal to the son of his old
benefactor first, and a savage afterward, he yielded the point.
So now I made him known to my patriarchal host, who all this time had
been standing guard at the cabin door with the old Queen's-arm for a
weapon. So we three sat on the door-stone and planned it out. When the
night was far enough advanced, we would stalk the soldiers in their
camp, sparing life as we could.
When all was settled, the old man gave us a supper of his humble fare,
after which we went into the open again to sit out the hours of waiting.
The rain had ceased, but the night was cloudy and the darkness a soft
black veil to shroud the nearest objects. High overhead the autumn wind
was sighing in the tree-tops, and now and again a sharper gust would
bring down a pattering volley of lodged rain-drops on the fallen leaves.
Uncanoola sat apart in stoical silence, smoking his long-stemmed pipe.
The old man and I talked in low tones, or rather he would tell me of his
past whilst I sat and listened, holding the little maid in my arms.
After a time the child fell asleep, and I craved permission to put her
in the little crib bed in the chimney corner. The flickering light of
the fire fell upon her innocent face when I loosed the clasp of the tiny
hands about my neck and laid her down. Again the wave of softness
submerged me and I bent to leave a kiss upon the sweet unconscious lips.
Ah, my dears, you may smile again, if you will; but at that moment I had
a far-off glimpse of the beatitude of fatherhood; I was no longer the
hard old soldier I have drawn for you; I was but a man, hungering and
thirsting for the love of a wife and trusting, clinging little children
like this sweet maid.
I rose, turning my back upon the chimney corner and its holdings with a
sigh. For now the time was come for action, and I must needs be a man of
blood and iron again.
Lacking the Catawba to guide us, I doubt if either the old man or I
could have found my rearguard's bivouac near the trail I had left. But
Uncanoola led us straight through the pitchy darkness; and when we were
come upon the three soldiers we found them all asleep around the handful
of camp-fire.
'Twould have been murder outright to kill them thus; and now I think the
old patriarch forgot his wrongs and was as merciful as I. But not so the
Catawba. He had armed himself with a stout war-club, and before I was
free to stop him he had knocked two of the three sleepers senseless, and
would have battered out their brains but for the old man's intervention.
As for the officer, I had flung myself upon him in the rush and was
having a pretty handful of him. But though he was broad in the
shoulders, and as agile as a cat, he was taken at a sleeping man's
disadvantage, and so I presently had the better of him.
"Enough, man! 'tis as good as a feast!" he cried, when I had him fast
pinioned; and thereupon I let him have breath and freedom to sit up. In
the act he had his first good sight of me, as I had mine of him. 'Twas
Tybee and no other.
"Gad! my Captain," he said, feeling his throat. "If you have a grip like
that for your friends, I'm damned glad I'm not your enemy."
"But you are," I rejoined, rather shamefacedly, yet thankful to the
finger-tips that I had not consented to a massacre. "I am for the
Congress and the Commonwealth, Lieutenant, and you are my prisoner. May
I trouble you for the despatches you carry?"
He looked up at me with a queer grimace on his boyish face.
"The devil! but you're a cool hand, Captain Ireton! Whatever you were in
that coil at Appleby, you've led the spy's long suit this time. And I'm
not sure whether I like you any the worse for it, if so be you must be a
rebel." And with that, he gave me the sealed packet and asked what I
would do with him.
His query set me thinking. As for the two stunned troopers, I meant to
turn them over to the old man for safe keeping; but I was loath to make
it harder than need be for this good-natured youngster. So I put him
upon his honor.
"Do you know what this packet contains?" I asked.
He laughed. "My Lord did not honor me with his confidence. I was to
follow you in to Major Ferguson's camp, deliver the despatches, and
vanish."
"Good; then you need tell no lies. When the Indian has fetched my horse,
I shall ride to Ferguson's camp, and you may ride with me. I shall ask
no more than this; that you do not fight again till you are exchanged;
and that you will not tell Major Ferguson whose prisoner you are. Do you
accept the terms?"
"Gad! I'd be a fool not to. But what's in the wind, Captain? Surely you
can tell me, now that I am safely out of the running."
"You will know in a day or two; and in the meantime ignorance is your
best safety. You can tell Major Ferguson that you were waylaid on the
road by a party of the enemy, and that you were paroled and fell in with
me."
He looked a little rueful, as a good soldier would, but was disposed to
make the best of a bad bargain.
"Here's my hand on it," he said; and a little later we had dragged the
two troopers to the cabin, where the old man became surety for their
safe keeping, and were feeling our way cautiously westward at the heels
of the Catawba who had taken his directions from our patriarch.
We pressed forward in silence through the shadowy labyrinth of the wood
for a time, but at the crossing of a small runlet where we would stop to
let the horses drink, Tybee burst out a-laughing.
"'Tis as good as a play," he said. "Three several times I've had to
change my mind about you, Captain Ireton, and I'm not cock-sure I have
your measure yet. But I'll say this: if you've strung my Lord
successfully, you'll be the first to do it and come off alive in the
end."
"The end is not yet, my good friend; and I may not come off better than
the others," I rejoined. And with that we fared on again till we could
see the camp-fires of Ferguson's little army twinkling between the tree
trunks.
XXXVIII
IN WHICH WE FIND THE GUN-MAKER
As you may be sure, Major Patrick Ferguson was far too good a soldier to
leave his camp unguarded on any side, and whilst we were yet a far
cannon-shot from the glimmering fires a sentry's challenge halted us.
To the man's "Halt! Who goes there?" I gave the word "Friends," salving
my conscience for the needful lie as I might.
"Advance, friends, and give the countersign."
I confessed my ignorance of the night-word, saying that we were a
paroled prisoner and a bearer of despatches, and asking that we be taken
to Major Ferguson's headquarters. There was some little cautious
demurring on the part of the sentry, but finally he passed the word for
the guard-captain and we were escorted to the tent of the field
commander.
I marked the encampment as I could in passing through it. The little
army was three-fourths made up of Tory militia; and there was drinking
and song-singing and a plentiful lack of discipline around the
camp-fires of these auxiliaries. But a different air was abroad in the
camp of the regulars; you would see a soldierly alertness on the part of
the men, and there was no roistering in that quarter.
Major Ferguson's tent was on a hillock some distance back from the
stream, and thither we were conducted; we, I say, meaning Tybee and
myself, for Uncanoola had disappeared like a whiff of smoke at our
challenging on the sentry line.
Late as it was, the major was up and hard at work. His tent table,
transformed for the time into a mechanic's work-bench, was littered with
gun-barrels and tools and screws and odd-shaped pieces of mechanism--the
disjointed parts of that breech-loading musket of which the ingenious
Scotchman was the inventor.
Being deep in the creative trance when we came upon him, the major gave
us but an absent-minded greeting, listening with the outward ear only
when Tybee reported his mission, and his capture and parole.
"From my Lord, ye say? I hope ye left him well," was all the answer the
Lieutenant got, the inventor fitting away at his gun-puzzle the while.
Tybee made proper rejoinder and stood aside to give me room. I drew a
sealed inclosure from my pocket and laid it on the work-bench table.
"I also have the honor to come from my Lord Cornwallis, bringing
despatches"--so far I got in my cut-and-dried speech, and then my tongue
clave to the roof of my mouth and I could no more finish the sentence
than could a man suddenly nipped in a vise. Instead of the carefully
doctored original, I had given the major the duplicate despatch taken
from Tybee.
Ah, my dears, that was a moment for swift thought and still swifter
action; and 'tis the Ireton genius to be slow and sure and no wise "gleg
at the uptak'," as a Scot would say. Yet for this once my good angel
gave me a prompting and the wit to use it. In that clock-tick of
benumbing despair when the success of the hazardous venture, and much
more that I wist not of, hung suspended by a hair over the abyss of
failure, I minded me of a boyish trick wherewith I used to fright the
timid blacks in the old days at Appleby Hundred. So whilst the major was
reaching for the packet--nay, when he had it in his hand--I started back
with a warning cry, giving that imitation of the ominous _skir-r-r_ of a
rattlesnake which had more than once got me a cuffing from my father.
In any crisis less tremendous I should have roared a-laughing to see the
doughty major and my good friend the lieutenant vie with each other in
their skippings to escape the unseen enemy. But it was no laughing
moment for me. At a flash my sword was out and I was hacking hither and
yon at the imaginary foe. In the hurly-burly I contrived to sprawl all
across the work-bench table, and the packet which would have killed my
plot--and, belike, the plotter as well--was secured and quickly juggled
into hiding.
"Damme! see now what you've done; you've spilt my breech-charger all
about the place!" rasped the major, when all was over. And then: "Who
the devil are ye, anyway; and what do ye want wi' me?"
I clicked my heels, saluted, and gave him the express from my Lord--the
right one, this time. He tore off the wrapping, swore a hearty soldier
oath when he read the fore part of the letter and clapped his leg
joyfully, like the brave gentleman that he was, when he came to the
_postscriptum_.
"Ye're a fine fellow, Captain; ye've brought me good news," he said;
then he bade an aide call Captain de Peyster, his second in command, and
in the same breath gave Tybee and me in charge to an ensign for our
billeting for the night.
You will conceive that I was overjoyed at this seemingly safe and easy
planting of the petard which was to blow my Lord Cornwallis's plans into
the air; and in anticipation I saw the tide-turning battle and heard the
huzzas of the mountaineer victors. But 'tis a good old saw that cautions
against hallooing before you are out of the wood. Captain de Peyster was
come, and Tybee and I were taking our leave of the major, when there was
a sudden commotion among the guards without, and a little man in black,
his wig awry and his clothing torn by the rough man-handling of the
sentries, burst into the tent.
"Seize him! seize him! he is a rebel spy!" he shrieked, pointing at me.
As you would guess, all talk paused at this dramatic interruption, and
all eyes were turned upon me. Had the little viper been content to rest
his charge upon the simple accusation, I know not what might have
happened. But when he got his breath he burst out in a tirade of the
foulest abuse, cursing me up one side and down the other, and ending in
a gibbering fit of rage that left him pallid and foaming at the
lips--and gave me my cue.
"'Tis the little madman of Queensborough," I said, coolly, explaining to
the bluff major. "His mania takes the form of a curious hatred for me,
though I know not why. Two days since, he was put in arrest by my Lord's
authority for threatening my life and that of his master's daughter.
Now, it would seem, he has broken jail and followed me hither."
"A lunatic, eh? He looks it, every inch," said the major; and the
blackguard lawyer, hearing my counter accusation, was doing his best to
give it a savor of likelihood by fighting frantically with the two
soldiers who had followed him into the tent.
"Out wi' him!" commanded the major. "We've no time to foolish away wi' a
Bedlamite. Take him away and peg him out, and gi' him a dash o' water to
cool his head."
Pengarvin fought like a fury, and his venomous rage defeated all his
attempts to say calmly the words which might have got him a hearing. So
he was haled away, spitting and struggling like a trapped wildcat; and
when we were rid of him the major bade us good night again.
Tybee held his peace like a good fellow till we had rolled us in our
blankets before one of the camp-fires. But just as I was dropping asleep
he broke out with, "I would you might tell me what piece of rebel
villainy this is that I've been a winking accomplice to."
I laughed. "'Tis a thing to make Major Ferguson rejoice, as you saw. And
surely, it can be no great villainy to give a man what he's thirsting
for. Bide your time, Lieutenant, and you shall see the outcome."
XXXIX
THE THUNDER OF THE CAPTAINS AND THE SHOUTING
The camp was astir early the next morning, and it soon became noised
about that we were to fall back, but only so far as might be needful to
find a strong position. From this it was evident that a battle was
imminent, though as yet there were no signs of the approach of the
patriots.