Lyttleton and Nell were in the gayest spirits that morning as they
sped briskly onward through forest and over prairie, talking cheerily
of the sweetness of the air, the beauty of the woods, and exchanging
many a little harmless jest, no thought of danger troubling them.
They were several miles out from the town when they espied a small
cloud of dust far ahead which seemed to be rapidly drawing nearer.
"What is it?" cried Nell, reining in her pony, while she sent an
anxious gaze in the direction of the approaching cloud. "Ah, I see,
it is a man riding as if for life."
"After a doctor, I suspect," observed Lyttleton; "some one hurt,
perhaps."
"But he must have passed Dr. Clendenin," returned Nell, "so it can
hardly be that." And as the man at that moment came dashing up she
turned her pony aside to let him pass.
Instead he halted close beside them with a suddenness that nearly
threw his horse upon his haunches.
"Go back," he panted; "turn right around and go back to the town as
fast as you can make your beasts move; don't spare whip nor spur, for
there's no tellin' but the woods may be full of Injuns this minute.
They've found Captain Herrod lyin' dead and scalped in the woods,
and I'm out to rouse the neighborhood; for of course it's altogether
likely to have been the doin's o' the redskins."
"Captain Herrod!" exclaimed Nell, tears starting to her eyes; "can it
be? It is not more than a week since he dined at my brother's table,
and we all liked him so much."
"Yes, miss, he was a fine man, liked by a'most everybody," said Coe.
"But we'd best be moving on. We'll put the lady in between us, sir,
for her better protection. And now for Chillicothe!"
As the three came galloping furiously into the town, people rushed
to their doors and windows, and Coe, checking his horse, and calling
aloud that he was the bearer of important tidings, an eager,
questioning crowd quickly gathered about him, and the news spread
like wildfire through the place.
Lyttleton dashed up to the major's door, and only waiting to assist
Nell to alight, he remounted and hurried back to the spot where they
had left Coe; then giving his horse into his servant's care, he
followed the crowd and was present at the town meeting.
"What a precious pack of fools, to be caught so!" he muttered on
hearing the announcement that there was no ammunition in the place.
"I say, captain," to his friend Bernard, who stood by his side, "I
wish we were well out of this, I've no mind to stay here and be
butchered by the wild Indians."
"Better go at once, then," sneered the captain.
"Go? through the woods where they are probably swarming? Thank you,
no; 'twould be a greater risk than to stay where I am."
"Suppose then you go with the party in the pirogue, down the river to
Cincinnati?"
"Nonsense! that would be scarcely safer; the savages might easily
pursue it in a canoe, or fire on us from the shore."
"Then my advice to you is to stay and meet the danger like a man."
"Of course, of course," stammered Lyttleton; "but I wish I'd never
come. I shouldn't, if I hadn't understood that all danger of
hostilities was entirely past. I've no mind to go home to old England
without my scalp."
"If that's your only concern," returned the captain dryly, "you
may set your mind at rest; there's no danger that you will go back
without your scalp."
"You mean that they'll finish me if they get the chance," muttered
Lyttleton, turning away with a look of intense disgust.
"He's a coward!" said the captain to himself; and Nell Lamar was
at that very moment expressing the same opinion to Clare at the
conclusion of a breathless narration of the events of the last hour.
"Perhaps not, don't be too ready to judge him hardly," returned
Clara, who was partial to the Englishman's handsome person, winning
address, and apparently full purse, and would have been more than
willing to bestow Nell's hand upon him.
"I have no wish to be unjust or uncharitable," said Nell, "but he
was so pale and so agitated from the moment he heard the news till
he left me here at the door that I was even forced to the conclusion
that he was afraid."
The afternoon was full of excitement. Dale ran in for a moment to say
good-by. He was one of the party detailed to go for ammunition.
"You will be in danger?" Nell said inquiringly, as they shook hands.
"Yes, probably: yet perhaps not more so than those who stay behind.
I'm not specially uneasy on that score, in fact, have but one
objection to going upon the errand, that in case of an attack during
our absence I shall not be here to help defend you."
He seemed excited but full of a cheerful courage. "Don't be too
anxious, ladies, I cannot help hoping the whole thing will blow
over," were his last words as he hurried away.
An unspoken fear lay heavy at Nell's heart, Dr. Clendenin, where was
he? Coe had told of his warning to him, but that he had gone on his
way all the same as if no danger lay in it, and Nell reflected with a
feeling of exultant admiration, that he would never desert the post
of duty through fear of consequences to himself.
But should she ever see him again? He might be even now lying dead
and scalped by the roadside or in the woods, as Captain Herrod had
been found, or perchance wounded and bleeding, dying for lack of help.
How she shuddered and turned pale at the very thought, while now and
again a wild impulse seized her to mount her pony and away in search
of him.
At length the suspense and anxiety were unendurable, and hastily
tying on her garden hat, she hurried out into the street.
She had gone scarcely a square when at no great distance she
descried, glad sight, Romeo and his master surrounded by a little
crowd of eager, excited men, and with a sigh of intense relief she
turned a corner and walked briskly on, her heart full of joy and
thankfulness.
But Kenneth could never have guessed her feelings from her quiet,
almost indifferent greeting that evening, and indeed was sorely
pained by the contrast of her manner to him and to Lyttleton, whom in
her heart she despised.
The latter hovered about her all the evening, admiring the delicate
embroidery growing beneath her white, taper fingers, paying her
graceful compliments and indulging in witticisms that now and then
provoked a saucy reply or a ripple of silvery laughter.
Apparently they were full of careless mirth, while the others,
sitting together about the fire, discussed with grave and anxious
faces the present threatening posture of affairs. Kenneth bore his
share in the conversation, being frequently appealed to by the major,
as one whose opinion was worthy of all consideration, yet furtively
watched Nell and her vis-a-vis; the seeming favor in which Lyttleton
was held pained him, yet Nell was not consciously coquetting.
Both the major and the captain had seen something of Indian warfare,
and the transition was natural and easy from the threatened danger
of the present to the perils and exploits of the past, each having
something to tell of the daring and bravery of the other.
At first the stories were of encounters with the red men of the
woods, then revolutionary scenes were recalled.
"Major," exclaimed the captain, "do you remember your big Hessian?"
"Yes, perfectly: that is, his general appearance; he was not near
enough for his features to be very strongly impressed upon my memory."
"And he has never appeared to you?" queried the captain with a laugh.
"No," returned the major, gazing meditatively into the fire; "what
right would he have to haunt me, captain, seeing he was killed in
battle?"
"None, of course; and he shows his sense of justice in refraining."
"What were the circumstances?" inquired Kenneth, with interest which
seemed to be shared by all present.
"It was on one occasion when our forces and those of the British
were drawn up in line of battle in full view of each other," said
the captain, "that a big Hessian officer stepped out in front of
his men and with a good deal of angry, excited gesticulation and
loud vociferation in his barbarous tongue, seemed to be defying the
American army much as Goliath defied the armies of Israel.
"The impudence and effrontery of the thing roused my ire; I turned
with an indignant remark to the major here, he was only captain then,
by the way, but before the words had left my lips he had taken a gun
from a soldier and shot the fellow down where he stood."
"Some of those Hessians were very brutal," remarked Kenneth.
"Yes," said the captain, "war was their trade, and what better could
one expect from men who fought, not for country or for principle, but
simply for hire; the more shame to the government that employed them
against freemen battling for their liberties!"
"Yet preferable, I should say, to the wily and treacherous savages
the Americans have been accustomed to fighting." Lyttleton's tone was
flippant. "I'd sooner encounter an infuriated Hessian, Frenchman, any
kind of white man, or even ghost, than a whooping, yelling painted
savage on the war path, as they call it."
"That's an acknowledgment," remarked the captain dryly; "especially
in view of the fact that they, too, were employed against us by the
mother country, as Americans once delighted to call her."
"However, that is all past, and certainly we owe no grudge to you,
Lyttleton," he added turning toward the latter with a genial smile.
"All Indians are not cruel and treacherous," observed Nell, her
fair cheek flushing and her violet eyes kindling; "Tecumseh is a
noble exception; Wawillaway also; I would trust my life in his hands
without the slightest hesitation."
"Yes, Wawillaway is a good Indian," assented her brother; "has always
been friendly to the whites. Nor shall I ever forget his good service
to you, Nell."
The major referred to the adventure with the panther, which he had
related to his guests on a former occasion; of the more recent and
greater service rendered her by her Indian friend, he knew nothing.
But Nell was thinking of it, recalling with a slight shudder Wolf's
lecherous stare; her eyes were on her needle-work.
Kenneth could not see their expression, but he wondered at the
trembling of her slender fingers as she drew the needle in and out,
and the varying color on her cheek.
A moment of silence following the major's last remark, was suddenly
broken by a thundering rap upon the outer door.
All started to their feet, with the common thought that the
threatened danger had come, and Kenneth turned with a quick,
protecting gesture toward Nell, while Lyttleton glanced hurriedly
around, as if in search of some hiding place.
Neither movement was lost upon the young girl; she saw and
appreciated both; more afterward than at the moment.
But their alarm was groundless. Tig had gone to the door and a voice
was heard asking for Dr. Clendenin. "What is it, Gotlieb?" he asked,
stepping out to the hall, and recognizing in the messenger a German
lad whose parents lived next door to the Barbours.
"Mine mudder she send me for you, doctor, to goame right quick to
Meeses Barbour; she pees ferry seeck."
Kenneth had his doubts about the correctness of the report, yet
nevertheless, bidding a hasty good-night to his friends, hurried away
with the messenger.
He found the patient again in violent hysterics, which Gotlieb's
mother was vainly trying to relieve.
"O doctor," she cried, "it is goot you haf come. I know not what to
do for dis womans. She schream and she laf and she gry, and I can't
do notings mit her."
"What caused this attack, Mrs. Hedwig?" he asked.
"Vell, doctor, I prings mine work to sit mit her, and I zay 'I must
make dese flannel tings for mine childer pefore de Injuns comes;
pecause it pees very cold in de woods for mine Lena, and mine
Gotlieb, and mine Karl, when dose Injuns take 'em.' And just so soon
I say dat, she pegins to schream and to laf and to gry lige--lige von
grazy womans."
She seemed much disturbed, and alarmed, inquiring anxiously, "Do you
dinks she fery bad sick, doctor? vil she die?"
"Oh no," he said, "she'll be over it directly."
"She might have known better than to talk about the Indians coming.
It frightens me to death," sobbed the invalid; "and Tom was
shamefully thoughtless to send such a person in to sit with me. He
ought to have stayed himself; there are plenty of other men to work
at fortifying the town. But nobody ever thinks of poor me."
"It would be far better for you if you could forget yourself, Mrs.
Barbour," said Kenneth. "Drink this, if you please, and then go to
sleep."
"Go to sleep, indeed, and she sitting there working on those flannel
garments, just as if the Indians would let her children live to wear
them, if they come."
It was late when Kenneth returned to his office, and he was weary
in mind and body; yet hours passed before he retired to rest. His
thoughts were full of Nell, going over and over each scene in his
life in which she had borne a part, recalling every look she had
given him in which he had read the sweet secret of her love, his
features now lighted up with joy, now distorted with pain, cold drops
of agony standing on his brow.
"What a heartless wretch must I appear to her!" he groaned, pacing
his office with folded arms and head bowed upon his breast. "Oh my
darling! I would die to save you a single pang, and yet I dare not
tell you that I love you. I must stand by in silence and see another
win you. Perhaps even now your love is turned to hate, and if it be
so I cannot blame you."