EVENTS ON THE HILL-SIDE.
My body was too sore to suffer me to sleep dreamlessly, but my dreams
were pleasant. I thought I was in a sunny place with Elspeth, and that
she had braided a coronet of wild flowers for her hair. They were
simple flowers, such as I had known in childhood and had not found in
Virginia--yarrow, and queen of the meadow, and bluebells, and the
little eyebright. A great peace filled me, and Ringan came presently to
us and spoke in his old happy speech. 'Twas to the accompaniment of
Elspeth's merry laughter that I wakened, to find myself in a dark,
strange-smelling place, with a buffalo robe laid over me, and no stitch
of clothing on my frame.
That wakening was bitter indeed. I opened my eyes to another day of
pain and peril, with no hope of deliverance. For usual I am one of
those who rise with a glad heart and a great zest for whatever the
light may bring. Now, as I moved my limbs, I found aches everywhere,
and but little strength in my bones. Slowly the events of the last day
came back to me--the journey in the dripping woods, the fight in the
ravine, the death of my comrade, the long horror of the hours of
torture. No man can be a hero at such an awakening. I had not the
courage of a chicken in my soul, and could have wept with weakness and
terror.
I felt my body over, and made out that I had taken no very desperate
hurt. My joints were swollen with the bonds, and every sinew seemed as
stiff as wire. The skin had been scorched on my shins and feet, and was
peeling off in patches, but the ointment which had been rubbed on it
had taken the worst ache out of the wounds. I tottered to my feet, and
found that I could stand, and even move slowly like an old man. My
clothes had been brought back and laid beside me, and with much
difficulty I got into them; but I gave up the effort to get my
stockings and boots over my scorched legs. My pistols, too, had been
restored, and Ringan's sword, and the gold amulet he had entrusted to
me. Somehow, in the handling of me, my store of cartouches had
disappeared from my pockets. My pistols were loaded and ready for use,
but that was the extent of my defences, for I was no more good with
Ringan's sword than with an Indian bow.
A young lad brought me some maize porridge and a skin of water. I could
eat little of the food, but I drank the water to the last drop, for my
throat was as dry as the nether pit. After that I lay down on my couch
again, for it seemed to me that I would need to treasure every atom of
my strength. The meal had put a little heart in me--heart enough to
wait dismally on the next happening.
Presently the chief whom they called Onotawah stood at the tent door,
and with him a man who spoke the Powhatan tongue.
"Greeting, brother," he said.
"Greeting," I answered, in the stoutest tone I could muster.
"I come from the council of the young men, where the blood of our kin
cries for the avenger. The Sons of the West Wind have seen the courage
of the stranger, and would give him the right of combat as a free man
and a brave. Is my brother ready to meet our young men in battle?"
I was about as fit to right as an old horse to leap a fence, but I had
the wit to see that my only hope lay in a bold front. At any rate, a
clean death in battle was better than burning, and my despair was too
deep to let me quibble about the manner of leaving this world.
"You see my condition," I said. "I am somewhat broken with travel and
wounds, but, such as I am, I am willing to meet your warriors. Send
them one at a time or in battalions, and I am ready for them."
It was childish brag, but I think I must have delivered it with some
spirit, for I saw approbation in his eye.
"When we fight, we fight not as butchers but as men-at-arms," he said.
"The brother of one of the dead will take on himself the cause of our
tribe. If he slay you, our honour is avenged. If he be slain, we save
you alive, and carry you with us as we march to the rising sun."
"I am content," I said, though I was very little content. What earthly
chance stood I against a lithe young brave, accustomed from his
childhood to war? I thought of a duel hand-to-hand with knives or
tomahawks, for I could not believe that I would be allowed to keep my
pistols. It was a very faint-hearted combatant who rose and staggered
after Onotawah into the clear morning. The cloudy weather had gone, and
the glen where we lay was filled with sun and bright colours. Even in
my misery I saw the fairness of the spectacle, and the cool plunge of
the stream was grateful to my throbbing eyes.
The whole clan was waiting, a hundred warriors as tall and clean-limbed
as any captain could desire. I bore no ill-will to my captors; indeed,
I viewed them with a respect I had never felt for Indians before. They
were so free in their walk, so slim and upstanding, so hawklike in eye
and feature, and withal so grave, that I could not but admire them. If
the Tidewater was to perish, 'twould be at the hands of no unworthy
foes.
A man stood out from the others, a tall savage with a hard face, who
looked at me with eyes of hate. I recognized my opponent, whom the
chief called by some name like Mayoga.
Before us on the hill-side across the stream was a wood, with its
limits cut as clear on the meadow as a coppice in a nobleman's park.
'Twas maybe half a mile long as it stretched up the slope, and about
the same at its greatest width. The shape was like a stout bean with a
hollow on one side, and down the middle ran the gorge of a mountain
stream.
Onotawah pointed to the wood. "Hearken, brother, to the customs of our
race in such combats. In that thicket the twain of you fight. Mayoga
will enter at one end and you at the other, and once among the trees it
is his business to slay you as he pleases and as he can."
"What, are the weapons?" I asked.
"What you please. You have a sword and your little guns."
Mayoga laughed loud. "My bow is sufficient," he cried. "See, I leave
knife and tomahawk behind," and he cast them on the grass.
Not to be outdone, I took off my sword, though that was more an
encumbrance than a weapon.
"I have but the two shots," I said.
"Then I will take but the two arrows," cried my opponent, shaking the
rest out of his quiver; and at this there was a murmur of applause.
There were some notions of decency among these Western Indians.
I bade him take a quiverful. "You will need them," said I, looking as
truculent as my chicken heart would permit me.
They took me to the eastern side of the wood, and there we waited for
the signal, which was a musket shot, telling me that Mayoga was ready
to enter at the opposite end. My companions were friendly enough, and
seemed to look on the duel as a kind of sport. I could not understand
their tongue, but I fancy that they wagered among themselves on the
issue, if, indeed, that was in doubt, or, at any rate, on the time
before I should fall. They had forgotten that they had tortured me the
night before, and one clapped me on the shoulder and seemed to
encourage me. Another pointed to my raw shins, and wound some kind of
soft healing fibre round my feet and ankles. I did my best to keep a
stout face, and when the shot came, I waved my hand to them and plunged
boldly into the leafy darkness.
But out of the presence of men my courage departed, and I became the
prey of dismal fear. How was I, with my babyish woodcraft, to contend
for a moment against an Indian who was as subtle and velvet-footed as a
wild beast? The wood was mostly of great oaks and chestnuts, with a
dense scrub of vines and undergrowth, and in the steepest parts of the
hill-side many mossgrown rocks. I found every movement painful in that
rough and matted place. For one thing, I made an unholy noise. My
tender limbs shrank from every stone and twig, and again and again I
rolled over with the pain of it. Sweat blinded my eyes, and the
fatigues of yesterday made my breath labour like a foundered horse.
My first plan--if the instinct of blind terror can be called a plan--
was to lie hid in some thick place and trust to getting the first shot
at my enemy when he found me. But I realized that I could not do this.
My broken nerves would not suffer me to lie hidden. Better the torture
of movement than such terrible patience. So I groped my way on,
starting at every movement in the thicket. Once I roused a deer, which
broke off in front of me towards my adversary. That would tell him my
whereabouts, I thought, and for some time I lay still with a
palpitating heart. But soon the silence resumed its sway, a deathlike
silence, with far off the faint tinkle of water.
By and by I reached the stream, the course of which made an open space
a few yards wide in the trees. The sight of its cool foaming current
made me reckless. I dipped my face in it, drank deep of it, and let it
flow over my burning legs. Then I scrambled up the other bank, and
entered my enemy's half of the wood. He had missed a fine chance, I
thought, in not killing me by the water's edge; and this escape, and
the momentary refreshment of the stream, heartened me enough to carry
me some way into his territory.
The wood was thinner here, and the ground less cumbered. I moved from
tree to tree, crawling in the open bits, and scanning each circle of
green dusk before I moved. A red-bird fluttered on my right, and I lay
long watching its flight. Something moved ahead of me, but 'twas only a
squirrel.
Then came a mocking laugh behind me. I turned sharply, but saw nothing.
Far up in the branches there sounded the slow flap of an owl's flight.
Many noises succeeded, and suddenly came one which froze my blood--the
harsh scream of a hawk. My enemy was playing with me, and calling the
wild things to mock me.
I went on a little, and then turned up the hill to where a clump of
pines made a darker patch in the woodland. All was quiet again, and my
eyes searched the dusk for the sign of human life. Then suddenly I saw
something which stiffened me against a trunk.
Forty paces off in the dusk a face was looking from behind a tree. It
was to the west of me, and was looking downhill towards a patch of
undergrowth. I noted the long feather, the black forelock, the red skin
of the forehead.
At the sight for the first time the zest of the pursuit filled me, and
I forgot my pain. Had I outwitted my wily foe, and by some miracle
stolen a march on him? I dared not believe it; but yet, as I rubbed my
eyes, I could not doubt it. I had got my chance, and had taken him
unawares. The face still peered intently downhill. I lifted a pistol,
took careful aim, and fired at the patch of red skin.
A thousand echoes rang through the wood. The bullet had grazed the tree
trunk, and the face was gone. But whither? Did a dead man lie behind
the trunk, or had a wounded man crawled into cover?
I waited breathlessly for a minute or two, and then went forward, with
my second pistol at the cock.
There was nothing behind the tree. Only a piece of red bark with a
bullet hole through it, some greasy horsehair, and a feather. And then
from many quarters seemed to come a wicked laughter, I leaned against
the trunk, with a deadly nausea clutching at my heart. Poor fool, I had
rejoiced for a second, only to be dashed into utter despair!
I do not think I had ever had much hope, but now I was convinced that
all was over. The water had made my burns worse, and disappointment had
sapped the little remnants of my strength. My one desire was to get out
of this ghoulish thicket and die by the stream-side. The cool sound of
it would be a fitting dirge for a foolish fellow who had wandered far
from his home.
I could hear the plunge of it, and struggled towards it. I was long
past taking any care. I stumbled and slipped along the hill-side, my
breath labouring, and a moaning at my lips from sheer agony and
weakness. If an arrow sped between my ribs I would still reach the
water, for I was determined to die with my legs in its flow.
Suddenly it was before me. I came out on a mossy rock above a deep,
clear pool, into which a cascade tumbled. I knelt feebly on the stone,
gazing at the blue depths, and then I lifted my eyes.
There on a rock on the other side stood my enemy.
He had an arrow fitted to his bow, and as I looked he shot. It struck
me on the right arm, pinning it just above the elbow. The pistol, which
I had been carrying aimlessly, slipped from my nerveless hand to the
moss on which I kneeled.
That sudden shock cleared my wits. I was at his mercy, and he knew it.
I could see every detail of him twenty yards off across the water. He
stood there as calm and light as if he had just arisen from rest, his
polished limbs shining in the glow of the sun, the muscles on his right
arm rippling as he moved his bow. Madman that I was, ever to hope to
contend with such dauntless youth, such tireless vigour! There was a
cruel, thin-lipped smile on his face. He had me in his clutches like a
cat with a mouse, and he was going to get the full zest of it. I
kneeled before him, with my strength gone, my right arm crippled. He
could choose his target at his leisure, for I could not resist. I saw
the gloating joy in his eyes. He knew his power, and meant to miss
nothing of its savour.
Yet in that fell predicament God gave me back my courage. But I took a
queer way of showing it. I began to whimper as if in abject fear. Every
limb was relaxed in terror, and I grovelled on my knees before him. I
made feeble plucks at the arrow in my right arm, and my shoulder
drooped almost to the sod. But all the time my other hand was behind my
back, edging its way to the pistol. My fingers clutched at the butt,
and slowly I began to withdraw it till I had it safe in the shadow of
my pocket.
My enemy did not know that I was left-handed.
He fitted a second arrow to his bow, while his lips curved maliciously.
All the demoniac, pantherlike cruelty of his race looked at me out of
his deep eyes. He was taking his time about it, unwilling to lose the
slightest flavour of his vengeance. I played up to him nobly, squirming
as if in an agony of terror. But by this time I had got a comfortable
posture on the rock, and my left shoulder was towards him.
At last he made his choice, and so did I. I never thought that I could
miss, for if I had had any doubt I should have failed. I was as
confident in my sureness as any saint in the mercy of God.
He raised his bow, but it never reached his shoulder. My left arm shot
out, and my last bullet went through his brain.
He toppled forward and plunged into the pool. The grease from his body
floated up, and made a scum on the surface.
Then I broke off the arrow and pulled it out of my arm, putting the
pieces in my pocket. The water cleared, and I could see him lying in
the cool blue depths, his eyes staring, his mouth open, and a little
dark eddy about his forehead.