A STRANGE SERVICE.
Adrian Schuyler sat up, with some difficulty, owing to his bonds, and
looked around him. There lay the dead bodies, five in number, and every
one was that of an Indian. Strange to say, not a white man had fallen.
Each body was lying flat on its back, with a ghastly gash right over
the heart, that stretched across the whole length of the rib, leaving a
gaping red pit in the side.
The javelins with which death had been inflicted had vanished, and the
footprints of some creature with _a cloven foot_ were plainly visible
by the side of the corpses.
The light of day, instead of dispelling the mystery, only served to
render it deeper. The hussar could not tell where he was, for the thick
woods, but he noticed that the ground rose to the right of the camp,
with a steepness that told he was at the foot of a mountain.
Now, unwatched by human eye, he rolled himself near the body of an
Indian, and using the latter’s knife with his own fettered hands, soon
cut the cords that bound his feet together. His own handcuffs remained,
but they were not an incumbrance to his further escape. Moreover, it
was not hard to find weapons. They lay by the bodies, or scattered in
terror over the ground, and a heap of abandoned horse equipments,
at the foot of a tree, showed where the demoralized rangers had fled
on barebacked horses. Lying among these equipments he found his own
weapons as they had been thrown there, and it was with great joy that
he resumed them, one by one.
Putting on a sword-belt, when the person is handcuffed, is by no means
an easy operation, but Adrian managed it somehow, and then took his
departure for the mountain, presenting the strange spectacle of a fully
armed hussar roaming the woods, handcuffed like a prisoner.
The irons were decidedly inconvenient, but he had no means to unlock
them. The key in his saber-tasche had been taken by his captors of the
evening to extricate their chief, and the latter had fled, carrying it
with him.
In a short time the young officer had reached the ascent which he
judged to be the side of a mountain, and beheld his expectations
verified. A lofty mountain indeed was before him, and a break in the
woods, higher up, promised him a prospect of the surroundings.
After some minutes of hard climbing he reached a flat rock that jutted
out many feet from the mountain-side, and around which the trees had
gradually thinned away, leaving a view of the usual sea of mountains
and valleys.
Something in the scene seemed familiar to the hussar, who yet could not
exactly ascertain where he was. Casting his eyes to the right, over a
sea of foliage, he caught sight of a thin wreath of blue smoke curling
in the air, and at the same time, beheld a peculiar shaped cliff,
with a stream falling over its side, which he instantly recognized,
ejaculating:
“_By heavens, it is the Haunted Hill!_”
It was indeed, but the other side from that which he had seen the day
before.
“The mystery is solved,” mused the hussar. “No wonder the Indians
fled. It must have been the Mountain Demon that saved me last night.
But, surely, it can not be possible that demon’s really in it. There
was none here yesterday, and the savages must have grown bold from its
absence. Who can it be, then?”
As he thus mused, the clear silvery notes of a horn echoed from the
rocks overhead on the mountain-side, and soon after came the flying
feet of some creature rapidly approaching.
Instinctively, Adrian Schuyler drew one of his pistols and cocked it,
ready to defend himself against any attack.
The next moment one of the large bloodhounds he had seen the day
before, dashed over the rock at some distance, without noticing him,
and then came the graceful figure of the girl Diana, who bounded past
him within ten feet, and suddenly stopped, dumb with amazement, staring
at the handsome stranger.
Adrian was the first to break the silence.
“Fairest Diana,” he said, in his most winning tones, “well met once
more on the mountain.”
“How came you here, rash man?” asked the girl, hastily, and turning
pale as she spoke. “Do you not know that this is fatal ground? Are you
tired of your life? If _he_ finds you here, he will kill you.”
Schuyler smiled.
“As to why I came here, it is easily answered. I was brought here a
prisoner, by a party of Indians and Tories, who camped with me in the
woods at the foot of the hill. Last night a strange apparition entered
our camp, killed or frightened away all the Indians, and released me. I
am trying now to find my way back to Derryfield.”
Diana listened to his words with apparent wonder.
“A strange apparition! What! is he here again?”
“I know not to whom you refer, lady, but a creature in the likeness of
a man, but with cloven feet and horns, created such a panic among my
captors as I never saw paralleled.”
“And still you dare stay here,” said the girl, in a tone of wonder.
“Oh, sir, if you value your life, let me entreat you to fly. The road
to Derryfield is straight and easy.”
“And yet _you_ stay here,” said the hussar, meaningly. “Why should I
fear what you do not?”
“Oh, sir, that is different. I am--I can not tell you what. But I
entreat you to fly.”
“Madam,” said Schuyler, gravely, “I should be glad to do so, for my
duty calls me away. But I have no horse, and the woods are full of
enemies. If I go on foot, the chances are that I never get there.”
“What then? You can not stay here--you say you saw _him_--what is to be
done? You must go back whence you came.”
“I can not do it,” said Schuyler. “The scouts of Burgoyne’s army are
between me and home. I _must_ get to Derryfield, if I have to steal a
horse.”
Diana wrung her hands in agony.
“Man, man, I tell you he will kill you if you stay here. You _must_ go
away.”
“I have a choice of deaths, then,” said the hussar, coolly. “I am safe
from the Indians, on this mountain, and as for the demon, if he kills
me, he will serve his enemies. On my mission to Derryfield depends the
whole future of a campaign.”
As he spoke, the sound of another horn, deep, hoarse and bellowing,
echoed from the top of the hill, and the girl turned deadly pale,
ejaculating:
“It is too late! He is here! You are lost!”
In spite of his general courage and coolness, an involuntary thrill
of terror gathered over the heart of Adrian Schuyler, as he listened
to the mysterious sounds of the phantom horn. It echoed from hill to
hill in deep reverberations, and when it died away, left him with an
indescribable sense of awe.
At the same moment, as if the mysterious demon had waited to sound
his horn till the aspects of nature were in harmony with diabolical
influences, a sudden shadow swept over the sun, and Adrian, looking
up, beheld a deep thundercloud, hitherto hidden behind the mountains,
swallow up the sun, and rush across the sky with wonderful swiftness,
while a powerful gust of wind shook and bowed the trees on the
mountain-side in a groaning chorus.
He turned to Diana, and behold, she was gone! He just caught a glimpse
of her white deer-skin tunic vanishing in the upper woods on the
mountain-side, whence the sound of the horn had come, and he realized
that it had been a summons.
“Man or demon--girl or spirit,” muttered Schuyler, as he entered the
woods in pursuit, “I’ll follow you, and find the mystery of this
mountain, if it costs me my life. I’ll _know_ the secret, at least.”
He ran through the forest in swift pursuit of the vanishing girl, but
quickly realized that she was far swifter than he, for he soon lost
sight of her entirely, and came to a standstill.
Not for long, however.
The storm that was already brewing became more threatening every
moment, the clouds thicker and thicker, and a few drops began to patter
on the leaves overhead. Remembering the direction of the mountain
clearing, the hussar directed his course thereto, and pushed steadily
through the woods toward it.
He had not far to go to reach it, and ten minutes brought him there,
but the storm had already set in, with rattle and crash of thunder, and
intense gloom, only broken by the vivid flashes of the lightning.
As he looked into the clearing, a gray sheet of rain came driving down
over every thing, shutting out mountain and valley from sight, and
threatening to drench him to the skin.
Schuyler was a bold, decided young fellow, as we have seen, and he
hesitated not to run across the clearing, and dash headlong into the
hut, where he found the door as open as on his former visit, and every
thing silent.
Looking round, as soon as he had shaken himself clear of water, he
found himself in a circular room of rough stones, without plastering of
any sort, with a conical roof, supported by a central post of hemlock
with the bark on. At one side of the apartment was a huge fireplace, in
which blazed a big fire of logs, but the cabin was perfectly bare of
furniture, save for the two square blocks of stone, roughly trimmed,
one on each side of the fireplace.
The hussar took his seat on one of these, and dried himself at the
fire, not without some trepidation, it must be owned. He was in the
supposed stronghold of the very demon that he had seen with his own
eyes the night before, and he knew not at what moment he might behold
that terrible form darken the doorway, and be engaged in a contest for
life with the terrible enigma.
But as time wore on, and nothing appeared, while the rain descended in
torrents overhead, and the fire hissed and sputtered as it struggled
against the tempest, the hussar’s spirits insensibly rose, and with
them his curiosity. He began to long to see the fairy form of Diana,
and even caught himself wishing that the demon himself might appear.
But still the solemn rain poured down amid peals of thunder without
cessation, and nothing came. The fire hissed and sputtered, and finally
roared up the wide chimney in triumph, the soldier dried his steaming
garments, and at last the storm slowly abated, and passed off, settling
into a gentle, drizzling rain, with a cold, gray sky, that looked as if
it had set in for a gloomy day.
Then Adrian Schuyler began to cogitate within himself what was best
to do. He knew that if he could not get to Derryfield, his labor was
in vain, and he was equally aware that without a horse he could never
expect to get there alive. Puzzling over his future course, he was
startled by the footsteps of a horse outside, and clutching his carbine
with his manacled hands, he started up and turned to the door. The
chain that connected his irons just gave him sufficient play for his
hands to fire a gun, and he expected an enemy.
What was his surprise at the group that met his view?
A horse without a rider, but saddled and bridled, was being led to the
door of the hut by a huge black bear, the very creature that he had
beheld gamboling with the girl the day before. The bear walked sedately
forward, holding the bridle in his mouth, and the horse followed as if
he was perfectly content with his clumsy conductor.
Full of amazement, Schuyler stepped out of the hut and looked around.
Not a human creature was to be seen, either in the clearing or at the
edge of the woods, but even as he stood there an arrow rose in the air
from the forest in a diagonal line, described a curve in the air, and
fell at his feet.
A little white note was attached to the arrow.
Instinctively Schuyler picked it up, just as the tame bear stopped in
front of him and stood rubbing his head against him, in a friendly and
confiding manner. The hussar opened the note and read as follows:
“Ride the horse in sight of Derryfield. Then strip off his
bridle, and turn him loose. I have ventured much for your sake.
Keep our secret for mine.
“DIANA.”
“Ay, by heavens, I will, sweet Diana,” cried the hussar, in loud
tones, intended to catch the ear of a person concealed in the woods.
“A thousand blessings on your head. You have saved your country one
disaster.”
Without a moment’s delay he took the bridle of the horse, cast it over
the animal’s head, and mounted.
The horse was a nobly formed creature, but Schuyler could not help
noticing its strange appearance and trappings. The animal was
coal-black, without a white hair, and its housings were of the same
somber color, with a shabracque of black velvet, worked with a skull
and cross-bones on the covers. The same ghastly emblem was repeated on
the frontlet of the bridle in white, and the curb was shaped like a
human finger-bone.
The hussar was too much rejoiced, however, to find any fault with his
equivocal mount. It was evidently a fine horse; and a moment later, he
was galloping through the woods to Derryfield.