While Lieutenant Elmsley was occupied as acting adjutant--a duty
which he was called upon to perform, as well as that of regimental
subaltern--Ronayne sauntered mechanically towards the gate.
Notwithstanding the seeming indifference he had at first manifested
in regard to the absence of his wife, there were few among the men
who, whatever their surprise at his language, were not afterwards
made sensible that he was profoundly affected; and as he somewhat
sternly passed each soldier on his way, they silently and with
unusual deference--a deference that indicated their own strong
sympathy--touched their caps to him. Arrived at the gate, he looked
long and anxiously, almost incessantly, even as one without an
object, towards Hardscrabble, the forest road to which was dotted,
here and there, with occasional openings, enabling the eye to
distinguish the serpentine course of the silver river. All around
and before him were the lounging Indians to whom allusion has just
been made. There appeared to be unusual excitement in their manner,
and groups of the younger warriors particularly were to be seen in
animated conversation. He was about to retire from the gate and
join Lieutenant Elmsley, who had now nearly finished distributing
his guard, but anxious to take one last look of the neighborhood
of Hardscrabble, his eyes suddenly fell upon the outline of a horse
just emerging from a wooded part of the road upon the plain, and
partially concealed by the figure of an Indian that stood at the
side of the horse. He looked again--the distance was too great
to enable him to judge distinctly, but he felt convinced the rider
was a woman. There was A telescope kept in the bastion near the
flagstaff, for the use principally of the officer of the guard. He
walked rapidly to this, and drew the instrument to its proper focus,
but when he looked in the direction in which he had before gazed
nothing was to be seen. Vexed and annoyed beyond all measure, he
descended again rapidly to the gate, but with no better success.
He could not doubt that it was his wife whom he had seen, yet
unwilling to breathe the knowledge even to himself, his heart was
a prey to the most contradictory feelings. In a few moments, however,
the horse he had before remarked again appeared emerging from the
same point of road, but this time he no longer carried a woman but
a warrior, so that all means of identifying the former were denied
to him. But still there was evidence sufficient. The horse was
evidently Maria's, though with its tail twisted and plaited as for
disguise; and as Ronayne with the glass brought fully to bear upon
him, saw the rider throw over his shoulders and fasten round his
neck, a blanket, and place on his head a colored calico turban,
such as was in common use among the Pottowatomies, he felt satisfied
that it was the same youth who, in the disguise of a Miami, had
pressed him so closely in the chase of the preceding day.
Strange to say, he entertained no feeling of enmity towards the
youth, even when he turned away with feelings of mingled bitterness
and mortification, and silently ascended the bastion to replace
the glass. Never was his mind more unsettled--never had he entertained
so perfect a sentiment of indifference for everything around him.
It was very well to talk of pride, and scorn, and fortitude, but
existence to him had become a dull weight, a rayless future, and
nothing would have pleased him better at that moment, than the
sudden announcement of a British force being at hand. In the stirring
excitement of action only could he hope to find distraction, and
the ball aimed at his heart, the sword pointed to his throat, he
would have scarcely deemed it worth his while to seek to turn aside.
The roar of artillery and of musquetry would, he felt, be music to
his ears, provided it shut out from memory the recollection of what
had been. But the idea of a long and monotonous march to Fort Wayne,
even provided it should be effected without interruption, bringing
with it at each moment recollections of the past was a horror not
to be endured; and he determined, by every means in his power, to
oppose the resolution of the commanding officer to the uttermost.
He was already under the ban of one threatened court-martial, and
it mattered little to him what steps Captain Headley might adopt
in regard to him for the future.
He had passed some moments in these reflections--fitful, varied,
and broken as those of a disconnected dream--when turning his eyes
again towards the gate where the sentinels had been posted, he saw
one of them bring his musket to the charge as if to prevent the
ingress of some one seeking admittance. Struck by the circumstance,
Ronayne hastened below, and as he advanced he saw the same sentinel
pick up a piece of paper, the superscription of which he was
endeavoring to examine. Before he had time to do this, however,
the officer had come up, and the sentinel promptly handed it to
him.
"Good God! what does this mean?" It was the handwriting of his
wife. Ronayne looked forward upon the common, and saw at about a
hundred yards before him, and retiring rapidly, the horseman whom
he had just before remarked. There was no necessity for asking any
questions. The whole thing explained itself.
"What can she have to say to me?" he mused to himself, as he broke
the bark string with which the note was tied; his competitor of
yesterday, too, the bearer! Hastily he unfolded it. It contained
these few words, hastily written in pencil on a leaf torn from her
memorandum book--"Go not to the council!" He examined the paper
closely--he could find no more.
The feelings of Ronayne, on reading these few words, traced by his
wife's well-remembered hand, may be comprehended. All the stubbornness
of his indifference was shaken; and sinking every consideration of
self he found a strange, wild pleasure in the knowledge that she
was free from personal restraint, and had power to command the
services of those whom she willed to do her bidding. What the
meaning of the caution was, in regard to the council, he could not
divine, neither wherefore it had been couched in such laconic terms;
but it was evident that, as the new wife of Wau-nan-gee, she had
obtained information of some danger of which they in the garrison
knew not, and that the recollection of those she had left behind
was not so weakened as to prevent her from imparting to those most
interested what she had learned.
Feeling the necessity of communicating instantly with Elmsley on
the subject, yet scarcely knowing how, without exposing Maria, to
account to him for the manner in which he had received the singular
warning, he sought his friend, who had now finally disposed of his
men at their several posts, and told him that, without feeling
himself at liberty to reveal to him the medium through which the
suspicion had been awakened in his breast, he had every reason to
believe that some treachery was intended at the council called by
Headley, and that he had come to consult with him accordingly.
With infinite good taste and tact, Elmsley utterly abstained from
making the slightest allusion to Mrs. Ronayne, not only because he
had perceived that her husband did not seem to encourage any approach
to a subject which gave him pain, but because he felt that the
consolation of those words, on an occasion of such bereavement,
was rather a mockery than a sympathy. Without, therefore, making
the slightest allusion to the past, he answered gravely--
"If you have reason to apprehend this, Ronayne, we can take our
precautions accordingly. As the whole object and intent of the
council is to _seem_ to hold a consultation as to the course we
ought to pursue in this emergency, whereas it is simply in fact to
enable Headley, who is becoming stubborn and pompous as of old, to
tell the chiefs that he intends at once to distribute the public
stores among themselves and warriors, and then march with little
more than the men can carry on their backs; as this only, I repeat,
is his object in holding a council at all, I see no great reason
why either you or I, who have already given our opinions on the
matter, should attend it. We may do the 'state some service' by
remaining within."
"Would it not be well," returned the Virginian thoughtfully, "to
give Headley some hint of false dealing on the part of the
Pottowatomies? not such as to lead him to believe that any
direct intelligence has been received of that fact, but simply that
some loose hints have been thrown out."
"My dear fellow," returned the lieutenant, with a faint smile, "do
you think there is anything under the sun--scarcely even the tomahawk
in his own brain--that could persuade Headley to mistrust his pet
Pottowatomies? No, not even his long experience of the treachery
of the race--not all his knowledge of the fickleness of their
character--of the facility with which they turn over in a single
day from the American to the British flag--would convince him."
"And yet," pursued Ronayne, musingly, "they know nothing of the
war. What could be their motives, where their immediate interests
will be rather retarded than promoted by the maintenance of peaceful
relations?"
"How do we know what passes without the fort? They may have had
their runners and news brought to them of the war before Winnebeg
returned."
A sudden thought flashed across the brain of Ronayne. Could tidings
of the event in any way be connected with the flight of his wife?
and had that, at the instigation of Wau-nan-gee, accelerated the
moment of her departure? But Elmsley knew not what _he_ knew, and
he offered no remark on the subject.
"It wants now an hour," resumed Lieutenant Elmsley, looking at his
watch, "to the time named for the council which is to be held on
the glacis immediately in front of the southern bastion, and,
therefore, immediately under the flag. Join me here then, Ronayne,
and I shall have made the necessary arrangements. All the
responsibility I take upon myself, my friend, not only as your
senior, but as one who is perfectly willing to take the lion's
share of the anger that has been showered so plentifully upon both
this day. Now I must hasten and regulate the '_imperium in imperio_'
for I am afraid that if, as you say, we trust alone to Headley's
reading of Pottowatomie faith, we shall have rather a Flemish
account of satisfaction to render to ourselves. Goodbye. In half
an hour--not later."
Ronayne, having nothing in the meantime to do, sauntered towards
his own apartments. When he entered his chamber, Catharine, the
faithful servant of his wife, was leaning along the foot of the
bed, her face buried in the covering and sobbing violently. The
depth of her sorrow was anguish to him. He shuffled his feet along
the floor to make her sensible of his presence. The girl heard him;
she looked up--her face and eyes were so swollen with tears that
she could scarcely see. She started to her feet, and raising her
apron with both hands to her eyes, left the room sobbing even more
violently than before.
"Poor girl--poor girl!" murmured Ronayne, while a tear forced itself
into his own; "indeed I feel for your grief; but it will soon
subside; you will soon be well, while I ---"
He threw himself, dressed as he was, even without removing his
sword, upon, the bed--he took out Maria's hasty note--he read the
words "Go not to the council" at least fifty times over. There was
not the minutest particle of each letter of each word that he did
not typify in his heart. Her delicate and expressive, yet faithless
hand had traced the whole. It was enough. It was the last relic of
herself.