When Mrs. Headley entered, unannounced, into the apartment where
the Virginian was sitting, he brushed his hand across his eyes,
but now they wept not only the emotion of grief that he betrayed,
but of joy, of pride, of the fulness of life. He rose, pressed her
hand warmly, and, giving her Maria's note to read, took the letter
which she proffered in return.
"Ah! Ronayne," began the first, "what language can express my
feelings--my fears--my agony. For the last week I have not seemed
to live a human existence. My mind has been all chaos and confusion.
I have been feverish, excited, scarcely conscious of my own acts,
and filled with a strong dread of an evil which I know will come,
must come, although only protracted. And yet, with all the horror
of my position, how much more bitter might have been my self-reproach,
my remorse, in having neglected, in my distraction, to inclose the
packet for Mrs. Headley, which the noble-hearted, the devoted
Wau-nan-gee now conveys. I thought I had given it to Sergeant Nixon,
but Wau-nan-gee found it in the pocket of my saddle only yesterday.
Oh, but for the arrival of Winnebeg with the intelligence he brings,
it would now be too late, and what, then, would have been my
sensations? His appearance has altered the plans of the unfriendly
portion of the Indians, who, presuming that the troops will soon
leave the fort, have determined to wait for the division of the
stores, and attack you on the march. But still they could not
restrain their impatience, and the day of the council was fixed.
All this I learned from Wau-nan-gee, who makes me acquainted
with everything that is going on, and is both hated and suspected
by Pee-to-tum, who would willingly find him guilty of treachery,
and destroy him if he could. I begged him, in my deep sorrow, to
be the bearer to you, even amid all danger of detection, of a few
words of warning which I knew you would sufficiently understand.
He did go, while dashing up seemingly in defiance to the gate; and
with a joy you may well understand, I marked the result. So far,
then, has the step which my great love for you induced me to take,
regardless of minor considerations, been of vital service to you
all; for good and generous as Wau-nan-gee is, nothing short of his
deep and respectful attachment would have led him to reveal the
secrets of his people, and thus defeat their cruel purpose. But,
oh! when I think that the danger is only deferred, not removed,
how poor is the consolation! Dear Ronayne, my heart is sad, sad,
sad! Last night I dreamed you were near, and this morning I awoke
to horror, to know that, perhaps, your hours are numbered, while
for me there is no hope of death, which then would be a blessing,
except from my own hand! Oh, suffer me not to pray in vain if you
would have me live! Once you evaded (oh, how cruelly!) the stratagem
which would have saved your life and honor--which would have made
you an unwilling prisoner with those who, for my own safety, hold
me captive.
"Alas! had I not hoped that you would have been compelled to share
my weary bondage until the dread crisis had passed, I had never
been here; and now that the great object of my heart has failed,
I would return, and share the danger that surrounds you. One more
embrace would give me greater strength to die. One more renewal of
each well-remembered face would make me firmer in resolve to meet
the coming danger, that danger shared by all. But Wau-nan-gee, in
all things else docile as a slave, in this denies me. In his mother's
tent I dwell, disguised from the wretch Pee-to-tum in Indian garb,
and, although she does not seem to do so, she watches my motions
closely. Oh! then, since I may not go to you, come for a brief
period to your adoring wife! Come with the occasion back with
Wau-nan-gee. He will conduct you to the tent where now I am, some
little distance from the general encampment, and never visited but
by Winnebeg and his son. You will say I am but an indifferent
soldier's wife to give such counsel to a husband. I confess it; my
love for you is greater than my regard for your glory. But what
glory do you seek? March with the troops and ingloriously you
perish; for what can avail defence against the strong force I know
to be fully bent upon your destruction. Join me here and you are
saved--saved for a long and future course of glory for your
country--and, oh! far dearer to me, for a long and future course
of wedded happiness. Yet, oh, God! how can my pencil trace this
icy language, while my heart is desolate--longing--pining for your
presence. Oh, beloved Ronayne! by all the vows of love you ever
poured into my willing ear--by all the fires of passion you ever
kindled in my heart, I conjure you to come, for I can endure this
suspense, this cruel uncertainty no longer. To-night I shall count
the long, long hours; and, oh! if Wau-nan-gee return without you,
without one ray of hope to animate this breaking heart, I will not
leave him until I have won his promise to conduct me at midnight
to the secret entrance through which he has so often gained admission
into the fort; or failing in my plea to him, I will make the attempt
to fly myself. But, dear Ronayne, if you come not, the measure
of my grief will be full indeed to overflowing. I can no longer
endure this."
Such was the last note of the unhappy and distracted Maria Ronayne.
The document addressed to Mrs. Headley was more voluminous, and
written of course under the impression that when read by the latter,
her own husband would be secure from the danger it detailed. It
was in substance as follows:
Wau-nan-gee, who had been absent for nearly a month in the immediate
theatre of war near Detroit, and heard rumors of an intended attack
upon Chicago, had hastened back with great expedition to announce
to his friends the approaching danger; but much to his surprise,
he found on his arrival that the news of that event had been known
in the camp several days previously through the agency of certain
emissaries who used every exertion to win the Pottowatomies over
to Tecumseh and the British cause. A council had been secretly held
before the return of Winnebeg with the despatch from General Hull,
and terms had been offered and proposals made on that occasion
which were variously received, according to the humor, interests,
and rapacity of the parties. By the majority of the chiefs, to
their honor be it said, the proposal of treachery to the Americans
was sternly rejected, but there was one of their number--Pee-to-tum--not
a full-blooded Pottowatomie, but a sort of mongrel Chippewa,
adopted in the tribe for his untamably fiendish disposition,
connected with certain other mere animal qualities, who was loud
in his invectives against the Americans for their asserted aggressions
on the Indian territory, and he, by pointing out the advantages
that would accrue to themselves by an alliance with England, won
upon almost all the young warriors to decide in abandoning the
American cause immediately. Thus, although there was no decided
treaty made, there was a tacit understanding that all possible
advantage was to be taken of circumstances, and whenever a favorable
opportunity presented itself, the mask was to be thrown off. In
vain Black Partridge, Kee-po-tah, Waubansee, and other Pottowatomie
chiefs declared they washed their hands of all wrong that might be
perpetrated. The young men, or the great majority of them, wanted
excitement, blood, plunder; and they sustained Pee-to-tum in all
that he advanced. Hoping, however, that the tumult would subside
with the absence of those who first incited it, the chiefs did not
like to alarm the commandant by a knowledge of what was going on
among themselves, but were contented with recommending, as has
already been seen, that he should remain in defence of his own post
rather than confide himself to the safe keeping of those on whom
he depended for an escort.
The night of the arrival of Wau-nan-gee he gleaned all this
information; and filled with anxiety for the danger that threatened
the wife of Ronayne, whom really he loved with a deep passion--yet
one utterly unfed by hope or expectation of any kind whatever--he
determined that night to enter the fort while her husband was on
guard, and acquainting her with her danger, entreat her to allow
him to conceal her until all was over. He succeeded, though not
without some risk of being discovered in consequence of the
exclamation of surprise and almost terror, which Mrs. Ronayne
uttered on his appearance so suddenly and unexpectedly before her;
but the humble manner of the boy--the deprecating yet earnest look
he threw on her, and the lowly posture in which he crouched, soon
satisfied her that there was some important reason for his
appearance at that hour of the night, which it was essential she
should learn. She, therefore, took his hand to reassure him, and
with an attempt at lightness, bade him tell her what brought him
there after so long an absence at that late hour of the night, and
when he must have known that Ronayne was on guard and herself alone?
The boy shook his head with a solemn, sad expression, "Come alone,
come!" he replied; "no speak him Ronayne. Pottowatomie kill him
Wau-nan-gee--oh, Wau-nan-gee very sick!"
Those few brief sentences, delivered in that melancholy and
significant manner, rendered Mrs. Ronayne extremely nervous. She
made him sit on the sofa. She took his hand--she asked him what he
meant. With tears swimming in his large, soft, languishing black
eyes, he told her everything relating to the subject--of his own
return for the express purpose of looking to her safety--of the
secret council of the Indians--of the fierce determination of
Pee-to-tum and the misguided young men whose cupidity and passions
he had so strongly awakened. He said he came to save her, to take
her out of the fort until all the trouble was over, to conceal
herself in a spot, to watch her, and to protect her as a brother.
"And Ronayne--your friend, my husband--what will you do with him?"
exclaimed Mrs. Ronayne, greatly excited and terrified by what she
had heard. "Oh, Wau-nan-gee, can you not save us all? Will it not
be enough to tell Capt Headley what you know, and thus put him on
his guard!"
"Suppose him tell Captain Headley, Ingin knew it--Ingin know
Wau-nan-gee tell him. Kill him Wau-nan-gee like a dog. Save him
Maria!"
"And will you not save Ronayne? If you care for me, Wau-nan-gee,
you will save my husband."
"Spose him love him very much husband?" he said, fixing a penetrating
yet softened look on her.
"Yes, Wau-nan-gee, very much," returned Mrs. Ronayne with emphasis.
"If you save one you must save the other."
Without pursuing the conversation further, it may suffice to remark
that Wau-nan-gee left not Mrs. Ronayne until he had exacted her
promise to meet him on the following afternoon in the summer-house,
when he said he would be enabled to show her a place where, with
her husband, she might be concealed as soon as it was known on what
day the Indians should have decided on their attack. This he pledged
himself to have arranged in the course of the morning, so that by
the afternoon she should be enabled to judge of the convenience it
afforded. The trunks seen by Ronayne at Hardscrabble, were hastily
packed by Mrs. Ronayne with articles of clothing for both, and
conveyed by Wau-nan-gee that night through his secret entrance to
the summer-house, and subsequently removed.
Not liking to call attention to the circumstance of her crossing
the water unaccompanied, and moreover, really desiring the presence
of one of her own sex to sustain her in the course that had been
forced upon her, she had requested Mrs. Headley to bear her company.
On her entering the summer-house, the trap-door, which appeared to
have been made that very morning, was open; but instead of
Wau-nan-gee, she beheld standing near its entrance another dark
Indian whom she had too much reason to fear and dread.
It has already been remarked that Pee-to-tum was not a genuine
Pottowatomie, but one of that race whose very name is a synonym
with treachery and falsehood--a Chippewa. With low, heavy features;
a dark, scowling brow; coarse, long, dark hair, shading the restless,
ever-moving eye that, like that of the serpent, seemed to fascinate
where most the cold and slimy animal sought to sting; the broad,
coarse nose; the skin partaking more in the Chippewa, of that
offensive, rank odor peculiar to the Indian, than any others of
the race; with all these loathsome attributes of person, yet with
a soul swelling with the most unbounded vanity and self-sufficiency,
based on ignorance and assumption; this man, although having a wife
and children grown up, had dared to cast the eye of desire on Mrs.
Ronayne. Long had he watched her, not as the gentle, the pure,
the self-sacrificing Wau-nan-gee, but as a tiger gloating for his
prey. To possess her had been one of his leading motives in urging
the alliance with the tribes in the British interests--to hasten
the moment she might become a prisoner in his hands, his chief aim
in stirring up the young warriors into a determination of early
attack.
Only two days prior to the return of Wau-nan-gee he had been in
the fort, and passing near Mrs. Ronayne as she was amusing herself
at battledore with her friend, Mrs. Elmsley, remarked to a companion
as he bent his eyes insolently upon her: "The white chiefs' wives
are amusing themselves. They are wise. In a few days we shall have
them in our wigwams."
No notice was taken of the remark at the time. Mrs. Ronayne had
more than once noticed the eyes of the loathsome Chippewa fixed
upon her with an expression she shuddered at but could not define,
and she had attributes his words on that occasion to impotent anger
and disappointment, at the dislike she had conceived for him.
This was the loathsome being she now met, and knowing, as she did
from Wau-nan-gee, all that he meditated in regard to himself and
friend, the horror she experienced may be conceived. Rapidly, and
in time to suppress in a great measure the scream she attempted to
give, the savage placed one hand upon her mouth, and clasping her
tightly round the waist, bore her to the opening through which he
made her rudely descend, still keeping his hand upon her mouth.
When the feet of Mrs. Ronayne touched the bottom of that seemingly
living tomb, she was so paralysed by fear that she had not strength
to support herself, and but for the arm of the dark chief still
clasped around her waist, she must have fallen. The very sight of
her weakness inflamed the Chippewa the more. He removed her hat
and threw it on the ground. The vast volume of her brown hair he
unfastened from the comb. It fell, enveloping her figure to her
knees. The eyes of the brutal Chippewa flashed fire in the half
darkness that prevailed around. The hand hitherto held upon her
mouth, now fell upon and fiercely pressed her bosom, and his hideous
lips sought hers. With a violent effort she tore them from the
pollution of his touch, and uttering a fault cry of despair, sank
fainting from his now loosening grasp. What followed she could not
tell; but when some minutes afterwards she came to her senses, weak
and exhausted from excitement, Wau-nan-gee was sitting at her side
chafing her palms with his own, and with the large tears coursing
down his cheeks.
At the first sight of the boy Mrs. Ronayne started, for she fancied
that she must have been laboring under the influence of a dream,
and that not Pee-to-tum, but himself, had used the violence
she experienced; but when she recalled all that had passed, perceived
her own disorder of dress, and remarked the unfeigned affliction
of the youth, she knew that it could not be so. Still deeply
agitated, she asked him anxiously where the Chippewa was, and
wherefore, he and not Wau-nan-gee had been in the summer-house as
promised, when she came in. With every appearance of profound sorrow
and sincerity, the youth replied that he knew not how Pee-to-tum
had got there--that he himself, after leaving the trap-door open
ready for the descent of Mrs. Ronayne, had gone to the further
extremity of the vault for the purpose of removing a large stone
which blocked up a hole admitting the fresh air from above near
the cottage, and that he was returning by this passage, which was
narrow but nearly six feet in height, when he heard the cry for
aid, and knowing it to be hers he had flown to her assistance, but
that the sound of his approaching footsteps must have alarmed the
Chippewa and caused him to fly--stopping motionless, perhaps, till
he, Wau-nan-gee, had passed him, and then escaping by the same
outlet. He it must have been whom Mrs. Headley had remarked stealing
across the garden just before she entered it with Maria.
Once reassured of the fidelity and truth of the boy, Mrs. Ronayne,
although painfully, distractingly ignorant of the extent to which
the insolence of Pee-to-tum had been carried, was too much absorbed
in the consideration of her husband's safety to lose sight of the
subject more immediately at her heart, in mere personal regrets
that now were of little avail. She said to Wau-nan-gee that the
place in which she then was would certainly have been well suited
to the purpose intended but for two reasons; firstly, that now
having been discovered by Pee-to-tum, it would no longer be secure;
and secondly, that her husband would never consent to abandon his
comrades to secure his own safety. She proposed, instead, that a
plan should be arranged to make them both prisoners while out on
the following day, and in such manner that it should be supposed
in the garrison that the capture had been effected by hostile
Indians; and to this the youth joyfully assented, stating that a
number of his friends less hostile in their intentions might be
procured to aid him in the matter. It was arranged that this should
be done on the following day, and this at so great a distance from
the encampment that Pee-to-tum should know nothing of the occurrence
till both husband and wife were beyond his reach.
"It is a strange and a wild project," she remarked, "but the crisis
is desperate, and anything to save my husband's life. But now I
must go, dear Wau-nan-gee; Mrs. Headley is in the garden waiting
for me."
"No, no go," he said; "spose him Mrs. Headley go home. Wau-nan-gee
take Maria home by by. Got canoe here. No let him go home. Pee-to-tum
wicked--Pee-to-tum got Ingin plenty yonder," and he pointed in the
direction of the cottage; "Pee-to-tum carry off Maria--go see where
he is. Shut him door till Wau-nan-gee come back. Mrs. Headley
come, no see him here; no tink him here."
He accordingly ascended, fastened down the trap-door and departed,
as we have said, little anticipating to have been seen by Mrs.
Headley.
He had not been five minutes gone when she heard a dull, heavy
sound which satisfied her that the stone was being rolled from the
orifice spoken of by Wau-nan-gee. Feeling assured that Pee-to-tum
had seen him depart, and knowing her to be there and helpless,
was returning to renew his odious and brutal passion, she sought
to rise in order to force up and escape by the trap-door. This she
did, regardless of her disordered appearance, and without even
thinking of hat or comb; but she had no sooner moved a step forward
when she again fell down, as much paralysed by fear as exhausted
by weakness. In her helplessness she could only sob and moan and
vainly deplore the absence of her late rescuer, while all her
thoughts and feelings were of her husband. The footsteps advanced;
she grew at each moment more nervous, more terrified. She had
scarcely the power to move herself on the spot where she half sat,
half reclined. Presently the trap-door was heard to move, soon it
opened, and there to her astonishment, yet not less to her exceeding
embarrassment, inasmuch as she could not, without compromising the
saviour of her honor--the purposed saviour of her life, explain in
what manner she had been placed in the strange position in which
she had been found, she beheld Mrs. Headley. What followed is known
to the reader. It was not, however, Pee-to-tum whom Mrs. Ronayne
had heard rolling away the stone, but Wau-nan-gee returning to set
her free for the present, as he had seen the soldiers at the gate
and knew that she was safe.