THE JOURNEY IN THE WILDERNESS.
We made a prosperous voyage up that fine river of the Hudson, the
weather grateful, the hills singularly beautified with the colours of
the autumn. At Albany we had our residence at an inn, where I was not
so blind and my lord not so cunning but what I could see he had some
design to hold me prisoner. The work he found for me to do was not so
pressing that we should transact it apart from necessary papers in the
chamber of an inn; nor was it of such importance that I should be set
upon as many as four or five scrolls of the same document. I submitted
in appearance; but I took private measures on my own side, and had the
news of the town communicated to me daily by the politeness of our
host. In this way I received at last a piece of intelligence for which,
I may say, I had been waiting. Captain Harris (I was told) with “Mr.
Mountain, the trader,” had gone by up the river in a boat. I would have
feared the landlord’s eye, so strong the sense of some complicity upon
my master’s part oppressed me. But I made out to say I had some
knowledge of the Captain, although none of Mr. Mountain, and to inquire
who else was of the party. My informant knew not; Mr. Mountain had come
ashore upon some needful purchases; had gone round the town buying,
drinking, and prating; and it seemed the party went upon some likely
venture, for he had spoken much of great things he would do when he
returned. No more was known, for none of the rest had come ashore, and
it seemed they were pressed for time to reach a certain spot before the
snow should fall.
And sure enough, the next day, there fell a sprinkle even in Albany;
but it passed as it came, and was but a reminder of what lay before us.
I thought of it lightly then, knowing so little as I did of that
inclement province: the retrospect is different; and I wonder at times
if some of the horror of these events which I must now rehearse flowed
not from the foul skies and savage winds to which we were exposed, and
the agony of cold that we must suffer.
The boat having passed by, I thought at first we should have left the
town. But no such matter. My lord continued his stay in Albany where he
had no ostensible affairs, and kept me by him, far from my due
employment, and making a pretence of occupation. It is upon this
passage I expect, and perhaps deserve, censure. I was not so dull but
what I had my own thoughts. I could not see the Master entrust himself
into the hands of Harris, and not suspect some underhand contrivance.
Harris bore a villainous reputation, and he had been tampered with in
private by my lord; Mountain, the trader, proved, upon inquiry, to be
another of the same kidney; the errand they were all gone upon being
the recovery of ill-gotten treasures, offered in itself a very strong
incentive to foul play; and the character of the country where they
journeyed promised impunity to deeds of blood. Well: it is true I had
all these thoughts and fears, and guesses of the Master’s fate. But you
are to consider I was the same man that sought to dash him from the
bulwarks of a ship in the mid-sea; the same that, a little before, very
impiously but sincerely offered God a bargain, seeking to hire God to
be my bravo. It is true again that I had a good deal melted towards our
enemy. But this I always thought of as a weakness of the flesh and even
culpable; my mind remaining steady and quite bent against him. True,
yet again, that it was one thing to assume on my own shoulders the
guilt and danger of a criminal attempt, and another to stand by and see
my lord imperil and besmirch himself. But this was the very ground of
my inaction. For (should I anyway stir in the business) I might fail
indeed to save the Master, but I could not miss to make a byword of my
lord.
Thus it was that I did nothing; and upon the same reasons, I am still
strong to justify my course. We lived meanwhile in Albany, but though
alone together in a strange place, had little traffic beyond formal
salutations. My lord had carried with him several introductions to
chief people of the town and neighbourhood; others he had before
encountered in New York: with this consequence, that he went much
abroad, and I am sorry to say was altogether too convivial in his
habits. I was often in bed, but never asleep, when he returned; and
there was scarce a night when he did not betray the influence of
liquor. By day he would still lay upon me endless tasks, which he
showed considerable ingenuity to fish up and renew, in the manner of
Penelope’s web. I never refused, as I say, for I was hired to do his
bidding; but I took no pains to keep my penetration under a bushel, and
would sometimes smile in his face.
“I think I must be the devil and you Michael Scott,” I said to him one
day. “I have bridged Tweed and split the Eildons; and now you set me to
the rope of sand.”
He looked at me with shining eyes, and looked away again, his jaw
chewing, but without words.
“Well, well, my lord,” said I, “your will is my pleasure. I will do
this thing for the fourth time; but I would beg of you to invent
another task against to-morrow, for by my troth, I am weary of this
one.”
“You do not know what you are saying,” returned my lord, putting on his
hat and turning his back to me. “It is a strange thing you should take
a pleasure to annoy me. A friend—but that is a different affair. It is
a strange thing. I am a man that has had ill-fortune all my life
through. I am still surrounded by contrivances. I am always treading in
plots,” he burst out. “The whole world is banded against me.”
“I would not talk wicked nonsense if I were you,” said I; “but I will
tell you what I _would_ do—I would put my head in cold water, for you
had more last night than you could carry.”
“Do ye think that?” said he, with a manner of interest highly awakened.
“Would that be good for me? It’s a thing I never tried.”
“I mind the days when you had no call to try, and I wish, my lord, that
they were back again,” said I. “But the plain truth is, if you continue
to exceed, you will do yourself a mischief.”
“I don’t appear to carry drink the way I used to,” said my lord. “I get
overtaken, Mackellar. But I will be more upon my guard.”
“That is what I would ask of you,” I replied. “You are to bear in mind
that you are Mr. Alexander’s father: give the bairn a chance to carry
his name with some responsibility.”
“Ay, ay,” said he. “Ye’re a very sensible man, Mackellar, and have been
long in my employ. But I think, if you have nothing more to say to me I
will be stepping. If you have nothing more to say?” he added, with that
burning, childish eagerness that was now so common with the man.
“No, my lord, I have nothing more,” said I, dryly enough.
“Then I think I will be stepping,” says my lord, and stood and looked
at me fidgeting with his hat, which he had taken off again. “I suppose
you will have no errands? No? I am to meet Sir William Johnson, but I
will be more upon my guard.” He was silent for a time, and then,
smiling: “Do you call to mind a place, Mackellar—it’s a little below
Engles—where the burn runs very deep under a wood of rowans. I mind
being there when I was a lad—dear, it comes over me like an old song!—I
was after the fishing, and I made a bonny cast. Eh, but I was happy. I
wonder, Mackellar, why I am never happy now?”
“My lord,” said I, “if you would drink with more moderation you would
have the better chance. It is an old byword that the bottle is a false
consoler.”
“No doubt,” said he, “no doubt. Well, I think I will be going.”
“Good-morning, my lord,” said I.
“Good-morning, good-morning,” said he, and so got himself at last from
the apartment.
I give that for a fair specimen of my lord in the morning; and I must
have described my patron very ill if the reader does not perceive a
notable falling off. To behold the man thus fallen: to know him
accepted among his companions for a poor, muddled toper, welcome (if he
were welcome at all) for the bare consideration of his title; and to
recall the virtues he had once displayed against such odds of fortune;
was not this a thing at once to rage and to be humbled at?
In his cups, he was more excessive. I will give but the one scene,
close upon the end, which is strongly marked upon my memory to this
day, and at the time affected me almost with horror.
I was in bed, lying there awake, when I heard him stumbling on the
stair and singing. My lord had no gift of music, his brother had all
the graces of the family, so that when I say singing, you are to
understand a manner of high, carolling utterance, which was truly
neither speech nor song. Something not unlike is to be heard upon the
lips of children, ere they learn shame; from those of a man grown
elderly, it had a strange effect. He opened the door with noisy
precaution; peered in, shading his candle; conceived me to slumber;
entered, set his light upon the table, and took off his hat. I saw him
very plain; a high, feverish exultation appeared to boil in his veins,
and he stood and smiled and smirked upon the candle. Presently he
lifted up his arm, snapped his fingers, and fell to undress. As he did
so, having once more forgot my presence, he took back to his singing;
and now I could hear the words, which were those from the old song of
the _Twa Corbies_ endlessly repeated:
“And over his banes when they are bare
The wind sall blaw for evermair!”
I have said there was no music in the man. His strains had no logical
succession except in so far as they inclined a little to the minor
mode; but they exercised a rude potency upon the feelings, and followed
the words, and signified the feelings of the singer with barbaric
fitness. He took it first in the time and manner of a rant; presently
this ill-favoured gleefulness abated, he began to dwell upon the notes
more feelingly, and sank at last into a degree of maudlin pathos that
was to me scarce bearable. By equal steps, the original briskness of
his acts declined; and when he was stripped to his breeches, he sat on
the bedside and fell to whimpering. I know nothing less respectable
than the tears of drunkenness, and turned my back impatiently on this
poor sight.
But he had started himself (I am to suppose) on that slippery descent
of self-pity; on the which, to a man unstrung by old sorrows and recent
potations there is no arrest except exhaustion. His tears continued to
flow, and the man to sit there, three parts naked, in the cold air of
the chamber. I twitted myself alternately with inhumanity and
sentimental weakness, now half rising in my bed to interfere, now
reading myself lessons of indifference and courting slumber, until,
upon a sudden, the _quantum mutatus ab illo_ shot into my mind; and
calling to remembrance his old wisdom, constancy, and patience, I was
overborne with a pity almost approaching the passionate, not for my
master alone but for the sons of man.
At this I leaped from my place, went over to his side and laid a hand
on his bare shoulder, which was cold as stone. He uncovered his face
and showed it me all swollen and begrutten [10] like a child’s; and at
the sight my impatience partially revived.
“Think shame to yourself,” said I. “This is bairnly conduct. I might
have been snivelling myself, if I had cared to swill my belly with
wine. But I went to my bed sober like a man. Come: get into yours, and
have done with this pitiable exhibition.”
“Oh, Mackellar,” said he, “my heart is wae!”
“Wae?” cried I. “For a good cause, I think. What words were these you
sang as you came in? Show pity to others, we then can talk of pity to
yourself. You can be the one thing or the other, but I will be no party
to half-way houses. If you’re a striker, strike, and if you’re a
bleater, bleat!”
“Cry!” cries he, with a burst, “that’s it—strike! that’s talking! Man,
I’ve stood it all too long. But when they laid a hand upon the child,
when the child’s threatened”—his momentary vigour whimpering off—“my
child, my Alexander!”—and he was at his tears again.
I took him by the shoulders and shook him. “Alexander!” said I. “Do you
even think of him? Not you! Look yourself in the face like a brave man,
and you’ll find you’re but a self-deceiver. The wife, the friend, the
child, they’re all equally forgot, and you sunk in a mere log of
selfishness.”
“Mackellar,” said he, with a wonderful return to his old manner and
appearance, “you may say what you will of me, but one thing I never
was—I was never selfish.”
“I will open your eyes in your despite,” said I. “How long have we been
here? and how often have you written to your family? I think this is
the first time you were ever separate: have you written at all? Do they
know if you are dead or living?”
I had caught him here too openly; it braced his better nature; there
was no more weeping, he thanked me very penitently, got to bed and was
soon fast asleep; and the first thing he did the next morning was to
sit down and begin a letter to my lady: a very tender letter it was
too, though it was never finished. Indeed all communication with New
York was transacted by myself; and it will be judged I had a thankless
task of it. What to tell my lady and in what words, and how far to be
false and how far cruel, was a thing that kept me often from my
slumber.
All this while, no doubt, my lord waited with growing impatiency for
news of his accomplices. Harris, it is to be thought, had promised a
high degree of expedition; the time was already overpast when word was
to be looked for; and suspense was a very evil counsellor to a man of
an impaired intelligence. My lord’s mind throughout this interval
dwelled almost wholly in the Wilderness, following that party with
whose deeds he had so much concern. He continually conjured up their
camps and progresses, the fashion of the country, the perpetration in a
thousand different manners of the same horrid fact, and that consequent
spectacle of the Master’s bones lying scattered in the wind. These
private, guilty considerations I would continually observe to peep
forth in the man’s talk, like rabbits from a hill. And it is the less
wonder if the scene of his meditations began to draw him bodily.
It is well known what pretext he took. Sir William Johnson had a
diplomatic errand in these parts; and my lord and I (from curiosity,
as was given out) went in his company. Sir William was well attended
and liberally supplied. Hunters brought us venison, fish was taken for
us daily in the streams, and brandy ran like water. We proceeded by
day and encamped by night in the military style; sentinels were set
and changed; every man had his named duty; and Sir William was the
spring of all. There was much in this that might at times have
entertained me; but for our misfortune, the weather was extremely
harsh, the days were in the beginning open, but the nights frosty from
the first. A painful keen wind blew most of the time, so that we sat
in the boat with blue fingers, and at night, as we scorched our faces
at the fire, the clothes upon our back appeared to be of paper. A
dreadful solitude surrounded our steps; the land was quite dispeopled,
there was no smoke of fires, and save for a single boat of merchants
on the second day, we met no travellers. The season was indeed late,
but this desertion of the waterways impressed Sir William himself; and
I have heard him more than once express a sense of intimidation. “I
have come too late, I fear; they must have dug up the hatchet;” he
said; and the future proved how justly he had reasoned.
I could never depict the blackness of my soul upon this journey. I have
none of those minds that are in love with the unusual: to see the
winter coming and to lie in the field so far from any house, oppressed
me like a nightmare; it seemed, indeed, a kind of awful braving of
God’s power; and this thought, which I daresay only writes me down a
coward, was greatly exaggerated by my private knowledge of the errand
we were come upon. I was besides encumbered by my duties to Sir
William, whom it fell upon me to entertain; for my lord was quite sunk
into a state bordering on _pervigilium_, watching the woods with a rapt
eye, sleeping scarce at all, and speaking sometimes not twenty words in
a whole day. That which he said was still coherent; but it turned
almost invariably upon the party for whom he kept his crazy lookout. He
would tell Sir William often, and always as if it were a new
communication, that he had “a brother somewhere in the woods,” and beg
that the sentinels should be directed “to inquire for him.” “I am
anxious for news of my brother,” he would say. And sometimes, when we
were under way, he would fancy he spied a canoe far off upon the water
or a camp on the shore, and exhibit painful agitation. It was
impossible but Sir William should be struck with these singularities;
and at last he led me aside, and hinted his uneasiness. I touched my
head and shook it; quite rejoiced to prepare a little testimony against
possible disclosures.
“But in that case,” cries Sir William, “is it wise to let him go at
large?”
“Those that know him best,” said I, “are persuaded that he should be
humoured.”
“Well, well,” replied Sir William, “it is none of my affairs. But if I
had understood, you would never have been here.”
Our advance into this savage country had thus uneventfully proceeded
for about a week, when we encamped for a night at a place where the
river ran among considerable mountains clothed in wood. The fires were
lighted on a level space at the water’s edge; and we supped and lay
down to sleep in the customary fashion. It chanced the night fell
murderously cold; the stringency of the frost seized and bit me through
my coverings so that pain kept me wakeful; and I was afoot again before
the peep of day, crouching by the fires or trotting to and fro at the
stream’s edge, to combat the aching of my limbs. At last dawn began to
break upon hoar woods and mountains, the sleepers rolled in their
robes, and the boisterous river dashing among spears of ice. I stood
looking about me, swaddled in my stiff coat of a bull’s fur, and the
breath smoking from my scorched nostrils, when, upon a sudden, a
singular, eager cry rang from the borders of the wood. The sentries
answered it, the sleepers sprang to their feet; one pointed, the rest
followed his direction with their eyes, and there, upon the edge of the
forest and betwixt two trees, we beheld the figure of a man reaching
forth his hands like one in ecstasy. The next moment he ran forward,
fell on his knees at the side of the camp, and burst in tears.
This was John Mountain, the trader, escaped from the most horrid
perils; and his first word, when he got speech, was to ask if we had
seen Secundra Dass.
“Seen what?” cries Sir William.
“No,” said I, “we have seen nothing of him. Why?”
“Nothing?” says Mountain. “Then I was right after all.” With that he
struck his palm upon his brow. “But what takes him back?” he cried.
“What takes the man back among dead bodies. There is some damned
mystery here.”
This was a word which highly aroused our curiosity, but I shall be more
perspicacious, if I narrate these incidents in their true order. Here
follows a narrative which I have compiled out of three sources, not
very consistent in all points:
_First_, a written statement by Mountain, in which everything criminal
is cleverly smuggled out of view;
_Second_, two conversations with Secundra Dass; and
_Third_, many conversations with Mountain himself, in which he was
pleased to be entirely plain; for the truth is he regarded me as an
accomplice.
NARRATIVE OF THE TRADER, MOUNTAIN.
The crew that went up the river under the joint command of Captain
Harris and the Master numbered in all nine persons, of whom (if I
except Secundra Dass) there was not one that had not merited the
gallows. From Harris downward the voyagers were notorious in that
colony for desperate, bloody-minded miscreants; some were reputed
pirates, the most hawkers of rum; all ranters and drinkers; all fit
associates, embarking together without remorse, upon this treacherous
and murderous design. I could not hear there was much discipline or any
set captain in the gang; but Harris and four others, Mountain himself,
two Scotchmen—Pinkerton and Hastie—and a man of the name of Hicks, a
drunken shoemaker, put their heads together and agreed upon the course.
In a material sense, they were well enough provided; and the Master in
particular brought with him a tent where he might enjoy some privacy
and shelter.
Even this small indulgence told against him in the minds of his
companions. But indeed he was in a position so entirely false (and even
ridiculous) that all his habit of command and arts of pleasing were
here thrown away. In the eyes of all, except Secundra Dass, he figured
as a common gull and designated victim; going unconsciously to death;
yet he could not but suppose himself the contriver and the leader of
the expedition; he could scarce help but so conduct himself and at the
least hint of authority or condescension, his deceivers would be
laughing in their sleeves. I was so used to see and to conceive him in
a high, authoritative attitude, that when I had conceived his position
on this journey, I was pained and could have blushed. How soon he may
have entertained a first surmise, we cannot know; but it was long, and
the party had advanced into the Wilderness beyond the reach of any
help, ere he was fully awakened to the truth.
It fell thus. Harris and some others had drawn apart into the woods for
consultation, when they were startled by a rustling in the brush. They
were all accustomed to the arts of Indian warfare, and Mountain had not
only lived and hunted, but fought and earned some reputation, with the
savages. He could move in the woods without noise, and follow a trail
like a hound; and upon the emergence of this alert, he was deputed by
the rest to plunge into the thicket for intelligence. He was soon
convinced there was a man in his close neighbourhood, moving with
precaution but without art among the leaves and branches; and coming
shortly to a place of advantage, he was able to observe Secundra Dass
crawling briskly off with many backward glances. At this he knew not
whether to laugh or cry; and his accomplices, when he had returned and
reported, were in much the same dubiety. There was now no danger of an
Indian onslaught; but on the other hand, since Secundra Dass was at the
pains to spy upon them, it was highly probable he knew English, and if
he knew English it was certain the whole of their design was in the
Master’s knowledge. There was one singularity in the position. If
Secundra Dass knew and concealed his knowledge of English, Harris was a
proficient in several of the tongues of India, and as his career in
that part of the world had been a great deal worse than profligate, he
had not thought proper to remark upon the circumstance. Each side had
thus a spy-hole on the counsels of the other. The plotters, so soon as
this advantage was explained, returned to camp; Harris, hearing the
Hindustani was once more closeted with his master, crept to the side of
the tent; and the rest, sitting about the fire with their tobacco,
awaited his report with impatience. When he came at last, his face was
very black. He had overheard enough to confirm the worst of his
suspicions. Secundra Dass was a good English scholar; he had been some
days creeping and listening, the Master was now fully informed of the
conspiracy, and the pair proposed on the morrow to fall out of line at
a carrying place and plunge at a venture in the woods: preferring the
full risk of famine, savage beasts, and savage men to their position in
the midst of traitors.
What, then, was to be done? Some were for killing the Master on the
spot; but Harris assured them that would be a crime without profit,
since the secret of the treasure must die along with him that buried
it. Others were for desisting at once from the whole enterprise and
making for New York; but the appetising name of treasure, and the
thought of the long way they had already travelled dissuaded the
majority. I imagine they were dull fellows for the most part. Harris,
indeed, had some acquirements, Mountain was no fool, Hastie was an
educated man; but even these had manifestly failed in life, and the
rest were the dregs of colonial rascality. The conclusion they reached,
at least, was more the offspring of greed and hope, than reason. It was
to temporise, to be wary and watch the Master, to be silent and supply
no further aliment to his suspicions, and to depend entirely (as well
as I make out) on the chance that their victim was as greedy, hopeful,
and irrational as themselves, and might, after all, betray his life and
treasure.
Twice in the course of the next day Secundra and the Master must have
appeared to themselves to have escaped; and twice they were
circumvented. The Master, save that the second time he grew a little
pale, displayed no sign of disappointment, apologised for the stupidity
with which he had fallen aside, thanked his recapturers as for a
service, and rejoined the caravan with all his usual gallantry and
cheerfulness of mien and bearing. But it is certain he had smelled a
rat; for from thenceforth he and Secundra spoke only in each other’s
ear, and Harris listened and shivered by the tent in vain. The same
night it was announced they were to leave the boats and proceed by
foot, a circumstance which (as it put an end to the confusion of the
portages) greatly lessened the chances of escape.
And now there began between the two sides a silent contest, for life on
the one hand, for riches on the other. They were now near that quarter
of the desert in which the Master himself must begin to play the part
of guide; and using this for a pretext of persecution, Harris and his
men sat with him every night about the fire, and laboured to entrap him
into some admission. If he let slip his secret, he knew well it was the
warrant for his death; on the other hand, he durst not refuse their
questions, and must appear to help them to the best of his capacity, or
he practically published his mistrust. And yet Mountain assures me the
man’s brow was never ruffled. He sat in the midst of these jackals, his
life depending by a thread, like some easy, witty householder at home
by his own fire; an answer he had for everything—as often as not, a
jesting answer; avoided threats, evaded insults; talked, laughed, and
listened with an open countenance; and, in short, conducted himself in
such a manner as must have disarmed suspicion, and went near to stagger
knowledge. Indeed, Mountain confessed to me they would soon have
disbelieved the Captain’s story, and supposed their designated victim
still quite innocent of their designs; but for the fact that he
continued (however ingeniously) to give the slip to questions, and the
yet stronger confirmation of his repeated efforts to escape. The last
of these, which brought things to a head, I am now to relate. And first
I should say that by this time the temper of Harris’s companions was
utterly worn out; civility was scarce pretended; and for one very
significant circumstance, the Master and Secundra had been (on some
pretext) deprived of weapons. On their side, however, the threatened
pair kept up the parade of friendship handsomely; Secundra was all
bows, the Master all smiles; and on the last night of the truce he had
even gone so far as to sing for the diversion of the company. It was
observed that he had also eaten with unusual heartiness, and drank
deep, doubtless from design.
At least, about three in the morning, he came out of the tent into the
open air, audibly mourning and complaining, with all the manner of a
sufferer from surfeit. For some while, Secundra publicly attended on
his patron, who at last became more easy, and fell asleep on the frosty
ground behind the tent, the Indian returning within. Some time after,
the sentry was changed; had the Master pointed out to him, where he lay
in what is called a robe of buffalo: and thenceforth kept an eye upon
him (he declared) without remission. With the first of the dawn, a
draught of wind came suddenly and blew open one side the corner of the
robe; and with the same puff, the Master’s hat whirled in the air and
fell some yards away. The sentry thinking it remarkable the sleeper
should not awaken, thereupon drew near; and the next moment, with a
great shout, informed the camp their prisoner was escaped. He had left
behind his Indian, who (in the first vivacity of the surprise) came
near to pay the forfeit of his life, and was, in fact, inhumanly
mishandled; but Secundra, in the midst of threats and cruelties, stuck
to it with extraordinary loyalty, that he was quite ignorant of his
master’s plans, which might indeed be true, and of the manner of his
escape, which was demonstrably false. Nothing was therefore left to the
conspirators but to rely entirely on the skill of Mountain. The night
had been frosty, the ground quite hard; and the sun was no sooner up
than a strong thaw set in. It was Mountain’s boast that few men could
have followed that trail, and still fewer (even of the native Indians)
found it. The Master had thus a long start before his pursuers had the
scent, and he must have travelled with surprising energy for a
pedestrian so unused, since it was near noon before Mountain had a view
of him. At this conjuncture the trader was alone, all his companions
following, at his own request, several hundred yards in the rear; he
knew the Master was unarmed; his heart was besides heated with the
exercise and lust of hunting; and seeing the quarry so close, so
defenceless, and seeming so fatigued, he vain-gloriously determined to
effect the capture with his single hand. A step or two farther brought
him to one margin of a little clearing; on the other, with his arms
folded and his back to a huge stone, the Master sat. It is possible
Mountain may have made a rustle, it is certain, at least, the Master
raised his head and gazed directly at that quarter of the thicket where
his hunter lay; “I could not be sure he saw me,” Mountain said; “he
just looked my way like a man with his mind made up, and all the
courage ran out of me like rum out of a bottle.” And presently, when
the Master looked away again, and appeared to resume those meditations
in which he had sat immersed before the trader’s coming, Mountain slunk
stealthily back and returned to seek the help of his companions.
And now began the chapter of surprises, for the scout had scarce
informed the others of his discovery, and they were yet preparing their
weapons for a rush upon the fugitive, when the man himself appeared in
their midst, walking openly and quietly, with his hands behind his
back.
“Ah, men!” says he, on his beholding them. “Here is a fortunate
encounter. Let us get back to camp.”
Mountain had not mentioned his own weakness or the Master’s
disconcerting gaze upon the thicket, so that (with all the rest) his
return appeared spontaneous. For all that, a hubbub arose; oaths flew,
fists were shaken, and guns pointed.
“Let us get back to camp,” said the Master. “I have an explanation to
make, but it must be laid before you all. And in the meanwhile I would
put up these weapons, one of which might very easily go off and blow
away your hopes of treasure. I would not kill,” says he, smiling, “the
goose with the golden eggs.”
The charm of his superiority once more triumphed; and the party, in no
particular order, set off on their return. By the way, he found
occasion to get a word or two apart with Mountain.
“You are a clever fellow and a bold,” says he, “but I am not so sure
that you are doing yourself justice. I would have you to consider
whether you would not do better, ay, and safer, to serve me instead of
serving so commonplace a rascal as Mr. Harris. Consider of it,” he
concluded, dealing the man a gentle tap upon the shoulder, “and don’t
be in haste. Dead or alive, you will find me an ill man to quarrel
with.”
When they were come back to the camp, where Harris and Pinkerton stood
guard over Secundra, these two ran upon the Master like viragoes, and
were amazed out of measure when they were bidden by their comrades to
“stand back and hear what the gentleman had to say.” The Master had not
flinched before their onslaught; nor, at this proof of the ground he
had gained, did he betray the least sufficiency.
“Do not let us be in haste,” says he. “Meat first and public speaking
after.”
With that they made a hasty meal: and as soon as it was done, the
Master, leaning on one elbow, began his speech. He spoke long,
addressing himself to each except Harris, finding for each (with the
same exception) some particular flattery. He called them “bold, honest
blades,” declared he had never seen a more jovial company, work better
done, or pains more merrily supported. “Well, then,” says he, “some one
asks me, Why the devil I ran away? But that is scarce worth answer, for
I think you all know pretty well. But you know only pretty well: that
is a point I shall arrive at presently, and be you ready to remark it
when it comes. There is a traitor here: a double traitor: I will give
you his name before I am done; and let that suffice for now. But here
comes some other gentleman and asks me, ‘Why, in the devil, I came
back?’ Well, before I answer that question, I have one to put to you.
It was this cur here, this Harris, that speaks Hindustani?” cries he,
rising on one knee and pointing fair at the man’s face, with a gesture
indescribably menacing; and when he had been answered in the
affirmative, “Ah!” says he, “then are all my suspicions verified, and I
did rightly to come back. Now, men, hear the truth for the first time.”
Thereupon he launched forth in a long story, told with extraordinary
skill, how he had all along suspected Harris, how he had found the
confirmation of his fears, and how Harris must have misrepresented what
passed between Secundra and himself. At this point he made a bold
stroke with excellent effect. “I suppose,” says he, “you think you are
going shares with Harris; I suppose you think you will see to that
yourselves; you would naturally not think so flat a rogue could cozen
you. But have a care! These half idiots have a sort of cunning, as the
skunk has its stench; and it may be news to you that Harris has taken
care of himself already. Yes, for him the treasure is all money in the
bargain. You must find it or go starve. But he has been paid
beforehand; my brother paid him to destroy me; look at him, if you
doubt—look at him, grinning and gulping, a detected thief!” Thence,
having made this happy impression, he explained how he had escaped, and
thought better of it, and at last concluded to come back, lay the truth
before the company, and take his chance with them once more: persuaded
as he was, they would instantly depose Harris and elect some other
leader. “There is the whole truth,” said he: “and with one exception, I
put myself entirely in your hands. What is the exception? There he
sits,” he cried, pointing once more to Harris; “a man that has to die!
Weapons and conditions are all one to me; put me face to face with him,
and if you give me nothing but a stick, in five minutes I will show you
a sop of broken carrion, fit for dogs to roll in.”
It was dark night when he made an end; they had listened in almost
perfect silence; but the firelight scarce permitted any one to judge,
from the look of his neighbours, with what result of persuasion or
conviction. Indeed, the Master had set himself in the brightest place,
and kept his face there, to be the centre of men’s eyes: doubtless on a
profound calculation. Silence followed for awhile, and presently the
whole party became involved in disputation: the Master lying on his
back, with his hands knit under his head and one knee flung across the
other, like a person unconcerned in the result. And here, I daresay,
his bravado carried him too far and prejudiced his case. At least,
after a cast or two back and forward, opinion settled finally against
him. It’s possible he hoped to repeat the business of the pirate ship,
and be himself, perhaps, on hard enough conditions, elected leader; and
things went so far that way, that Mountain actually threw out the
proposition. But the rock he split upon was Hastie. This fellow was not
well liked, being sour and slow, with an ugly, glowering disposition,
but he had studied some time for the church at Edinburgh College,
before ill conduct had destroyed his prospects, and he now remembered
and applied what he had learned. Indeed he had not proceeded very far,
when the Master rolled carelessly upon one side, which was done (in
Mountain’s opinion) to conceal the beginnings of despair upon his
countenance. Hastie dismissed the most of what they had heard as
nothing to the matter: what they wanted was the treasure. All that was
said of Harris might be true, and they would have to see to that in
time. But what had that to do with the treasure? They had heard a vast
of words; but the truth was just this, that Mr. Durie was damnably
frightened and had several times run off. Here he was—whether caught or
come back was all one to Hastie: the point was to make an end of the
business. As for the talk of deposing and electing captains, he hoped
they were all free men and could attend their own affairs. That was
dust flung in their eyes, and so was the proposal to fight Harris. “He
shall fight no one in this camp, I can tell him that,” said Hastie. “We
had trouble enough to get his arms away from him, and we should look
pretty fools to give them back again. But if it’s excitement the
gentleman is after, I can supply him with more than perhaps he cares
about. For I have no intention to spend the remainder of my life in
these mountains; already I have been too long; and I propose that he
should immediately tell us where that treasure is, or else immediately
be shot. And there,” says he, producing his weapon, “there is the
pistol that I mean to use.”
“Come, I call you a man,” cries the Master, sitting up and looking at
the speaker with an air of admiration.
“I didn’t ask you to call me anything,” returned Hastie; “which is it
to be?”
“That’s an idle question,” said the Master. “Needs must when the devil
drives. The truth is we are within easy walk of the place, and I will
show it you to-morrow.”
With that, as if all were quite settled, and settled exactly to his
mind, he walked off to his tent, whither Secundra had preceded him.
I cannot think of these last turns and wriggles of my old enemy except
with admiration; scarce even pity is mingled with the sentiment, so
strongly the man supported, so boldly resisted his misfortunes. Even at
that hour, when he perceived himself quite lost, when he saw he had but
effected an exchange of enemies, and overthrown Harris to set Hastie
up, no sign of weakness appeared in his behaviour, and he withdrew to
his tent, already determined (I must suppose) upon affronting the
incredible hazard of his last expedient, with the same easy, assured,
genteel expression and demeanour as he might have left a theatre withal
to join a supper of the wits. But doubtless within, if we could see
there, his soul trembled.
Early in the night, word went about the camp that he was sick; and the
first thing the next morning he called Hastie to his side, and inquired
most anxiously if he had any skill in medicine. As a matter of fact,
this was a vanity of that fallen divinity student’s, to which he had
cunningly addressed himself. Hastie examined him; and being flattered,
ignorant, and highly auspicious, knew not in the least whether the man
was sick or malingering. In this state he went forth again to his
companions; and (as the thing which would give himself most consequence
either way) announced that the patient was in a fair way to die.
“For all that,” he added with an oath, “and if he bursts by the
wayside, he must bring us this morning to the treasure.”
But there were several in the camp (Mountain among the number) whom
this brutality revolted. They would have seen the Master pistolled, or
pistolled him themselves, without the smallest sentiment of pity; but
they seemed to have been touched by his gallant fight and unequivocal
defeat the night before; perhaps, too, they were even already beginning
to oppose themselves to their new leader: at least, they now declared
that (if the man was sick) he should have a day’s rest in spite of
Hastie’s teeth.
The next morning he was manifestly worse, and Hastie himself began to
display something of humane concern, so easily does even the pretence
of doctoring awaken sympathy. The third the Master called Mountain and
Hastie to the tent, announced himself to be dying, gave them full
particulars as to the position of the cache, and begged them to set out
incontinently on the quest, so that they might see if he deceived them,
and (if they were at first unsuccessful) he should be able to correct
their error.
But here arose a difficulty on which he doubtless counted. None of
these men would trust another, none would consent to stay behind. On
the other hand, although the Master seemed extremely low, spoke scarce
above a whisper, and lay much of the time insensible, it was still
possible it was a fraudulent sickness; and if all went
treasure-hunting, it might prove they had gone upon a wild-goose chase,
and return to find their prisoner flown. They concluded, therefore, to
hang idling round the camp, alleging sympathy to their reason; and
certainly, so mingled are our dispositions, several were sincerely (if
not very deeply) affected by the natural peril of the man whom they
callously designed to murder. In the afternoon, Hastie was called to
the bedside to pray: the which (incredible as it must appear) he did
with unction; about eight at night, the wailing of Secundra announced
that all was over; and before ten, the Indian, with a link stuck in the
ground, was toiling at the grave. Sunrise of next day beheld the
Master’s burial, all hands attending with great decency of demeanour;
and the body was laid in the earth, wrapped in a fur robe, with only
the face uncovered; which last was of a waxy whiteness, and had the
nostrils plugged according to some Oriental habit of Secundra’s. No
sooner was the grave filled than the lamentations of the Indian once
more struck concern to every heart; and it appears this gang of
murderers, so far from resenting his outcries, although both
distressful and (in such a country) perilous to their own safety,
roughly but kindly endeavoured to console him.
But if human nature is even in the worst of men occasionally kind, it
is still, and before all things, greedy; and they soon turned from the
mourner to their own concerns. The cache of the treasure being hard by,
although yet unidentified, it was concluded not to break camp; and the
day passed, on the part of the voyagers, in unavailing exploration of
the woods, Secundra the while lying on his master’s grave. That night
they placed no sentinel, but lay altogether about the fire, in the
customary woodman fashion, the heads outward, like the spokes of a
wheel. Morning found them in the same disposition; only Pinkerton, who
lay on Mountain’s right, between him and Hastie, had (in the hours of
darkness) been secretly butchered, and there lay, still wrapped as to
his body in his mantle, but offering above that ungodly and horrific
spectacle of the scalped head. The gang were that morning as pale as a
company of phantoms, for the pertinacity of Indian war (or to speak
more correctly, Indian murder) was well known to all. But they laid the
chief blame on their unsentinelled posture; and fired with the
neighbourhood of the treasure, determined to continue where they were.
Pinkerton was buried hard by the Master; the survivors again passed the
day in exploration, and returned in a mingled humour of anxiety and
hope, being partly certain they were now close on the discovery of what
they sought, and on the other hand (with the return of darkness) were
infected with the fear of Indians. Mountain was the first sentry; he
declares he neither slept nor yet sat down, but kept his watch with a
perpetual and straining vigilance, and it was even with unconcern that
(when he saw by the stars his time was up) he drew near the fire to
awaken his successor. This man (it was Hicks the shoemaker) slept on
the lee side of the circle, something farther off in consequence than
those to windward, and in a place darkened by the blowing smoke.
Mountain stooped and took him by the shoulder; his hand was at once
smeared by some adhesive wetness; and (the wind at the moment veering)
the firelight shone upon the sleeper, and showed him, like Pinkerton,
dead and scalped.
It was clear they had fallen in the hands of one of those matchless
Indian bravos, that will sometimes follow a party for days, and in
spite of indefatigable travel, and unsleeping watch, continue to keep
up with their advance, and steal a scalp at every resting-place. Upon
this discovery, the treasure-seekers, already reduced to a poor half
dozen, fell into mere dismay, seized a few necessaries, and deserting
the remainder of their goods, fled outright into the forest. Their fire
they left still burning, and their dead comrade unburied. All day they
ceased not to flee, eating by the way, from hand to mouth; and since
they feared to sleep, continued to advance at random even in the hours
of darkness. But the limit of man’s endurance is soon reached; when
they rested at last it was to sleep profoundly; and when they woke, it
was to find that the enemy was still upon their heels, and death and
mutilation had once more lessened and deformed their company.
By this they had become light-headed, they had quite missed their path
in the wilderness, their stores were already running low. With the
further horrors, it is superfluous that I should swell this narrative,
already too prolonged. Suffice it to say that when at length a night
passed by innocuous, and they might breathe again in the hope that the
murderer had at last desisted from pursuit, Mountain and Secundra were
alone. The trader is firmly persuaded their unseen enemy was some
warrior of his own acquaintance, and that he himself was spared by
favour. The mercy extended to Secundra he explains on the ground that
the East Indian was thought to be insane; partly from the fact that,
through all the horrors of the flight and while others were casting
away their very food and weapons, Secundra continued to stagger forward
with a mattock on his shoulder, and partly because, in the last days
and with a great degree of heat and fluency, he perpetually spoke with
himself in his own language. But he was sane enough when it came to
English.
“You think he will be gone quite away?” he asked, upon their blest
awakening in safety.
“I pray God so, I believe so, I dare to believe so,” Mountain had
replied almost with incoherence, as he described the scene to me.
And indeed he was so much distempered that until he met us, the next
morning, he could scarce be certain whether he had dreamed, or whether
it was a fact, that Secundra had thereupon turned directly about and
returned without a word upon their footprints, setting his face for
these wintry and hungry solitudes, along a path whose every stage was
mile-stoned with a mutilated corpse.