The roar of the moving flood, for such, by its noise, it seemed, as they
descended the river-bank, to which Nathan had so skilfully conducted
them, awoke in Roland's bosom a feeling of dismay.
"Fear not," said the guide, to whom he imparted his doubts of the safety
of the ford; "there is more danger in one single skulking Shawnee than
ten thousand such sputtering brooks. Verily, the ford is good enough,
though deep and rough; and if the water should soil thee young women's
garments a little, thee should remember it will not make so ugly a stain
as the bood-mark of a scalping-savage."
"Lead on," said Pardon Dodge, with unexpected spirit; "I am not one of
them 'ere fellers as fears a big river; and my hoss is a dreadful fine
swimmer."
"In that case," said Nathan, "if thee consents to the same; I will
get up behind thee, and so pass over dry-shod; for the feel of wet
leather-breeches is quite uncomfortable."
This proposal, being reasonable enough, was readily acceded to, and
Nathan was in the act of climbing to the crupper of Dodge's horse, when
little Peter began to manifest a prudent desire to pass the ford dry-shod
also, by pawing at his master's heels, and beseeching his notice with
sundry low but expressive whinings. Such, at least, was the
interpretation which Roland, who perceived the animal's motions, was
inclined to put upon them. He was, therefore, not a little surprised when
Nathan, starting from the stirrup into which he had climbed, leaped again
to the ground, staring around him from right to left with every
appearance of alarm.
"Right, Peter!" he at last muttered, fixing his eye upon the further bank
of the river, a dark mass of hill and forest that rose in dim relief
against the clouded sky, overshadowing the whole stream, which lay like a
pitchy abyss betwixt it and the travellers,--"right, Peter! thee eyes is
as good as thee nose--thee is determined the poor women shall not be
murdered!"
"What is it you see?" demanded Forrester, "and why do you talk of
murdering?"
"Speak low, and look across the river," whispered the guide, in reply;
"does thee see the light glimmering among the rocks by the roadside?"
"I see neither rocks nor road--all is to my eyes confused blackness; and
as for a light, I see nothing--stay! No; 'tis the gleam of a fire-fly."
"The gleam of a fire-fly!" murmured Nathan, with tones that seemed to
mingle wonder and derision with feelings of a much more serious
character; "it is such a fire-fly as might burn a house, or roast a
living captive at the stake:--it is a brand in the hands of a 'camping
Shawnee! Look, friend, he is blowing it into a flame; and presently thee
will see the whole bank around it in a glow."
It was even as Nathan said. Almost while he was yet speaking, the light,
which all now clearly beheld, at first a point as small and faint as the
spark of a lampyris, and then a star scarce bigger or brighter than the
torch of a jack-o'-lantern, suddenly grew in magnitude, projecting a long
and lance-like, though broken, reflection over the wheeling current, and
then as suddenly shot into a bright and ruddy blaze, illumining hill and
river, and even the anxious countenances of the travellers. At the same
time, a dark figure, as of a man engaged feeding the flame with fresh
fuel, was plainly seen twice or thrice to pass before it. How many
others, his comrades, might be watching its increasing blaze, or
preparing for their wild slumbers, among the rocks and bushes where it
was kindled, it was impossible to divine. The sight of the fire itself in
such a solitary spot, and under such circumstances, even if no attendant
had been seen by it, would have been enough to alarm the travellers, and
compel the conviction that their enemies had not forgotten to station a
force at this neglected ford, as well as at the other more frequented one
above, and thus to deprive them of the last hope of escape.
This unexpected incident, the climax of a long series of disappointments,
all of a character so painful and exciting, drove the young soldier again
to despair; which feeling the tantalising sense that he was now within
but a few miles of his companions in exile, and separated from them only
by the single obstruction before him, exasperated into a species of fury
bordering almost upon frenzy.
"There is but one way of escape," he exclaimed, without venturing even a
look towards his kinswoman, or seeking by idle words to conceal the
danger of their situation: "we must pass the river, the roar of the water
will drown the noise of our foot-steps; we can cross unheard and unlooked
for; and then, if there be no way of avoiding them, we can pour a volley
among the rascals at their fire, and take advantage of their confusion to
gallop by. Look to the women, Nathan Slaughter; and you, Pardon Dodge,
and Emperor, follow me, and do as you see me do."
"Truly," said Wandering Nathan, with admirable coolness and
complacency, "thee is a courageous young man, and a young man of sense
and spirit,--that is to say, after thee own sense of matters and things:
and, truly, if it were not for the poor women, and for the blazing fire,
thee might greatly confound and harmfully vanquish the evil creatures,
there placed so unluckily on the bank, in the way and manner which thee
thinks of. But, friend, thee plan will not do: thee might pass unheard
indeed, but not unseen. Does thee not see how brightly the fire blazes on
the water? Truly, we should all be seen and fired at, before we reached
the middle of the stream; and, truly, I should not be surprised if the
gleam of the fire on the pale faces of thee poor women should bring a
shot upon us where we stand; and, therefore, friend, the sooner we get us
out of the way, the better."
"And where shall we betake us?" demanded Roland, the sternness of whose
accents but ill-disguised the gloom and hopelessness of his feelings.
"To a place of safety and of rest," replied the guide, "and to one that
is nigh at hand; where we may lodge us, with little fear of Injuns, until
such time as the waters shall bate a little, or the stars give us light
to cross them at a place where are no evil Shawnees to oppose us. And
then, friend as to slipping by these foolish creatures who make such
bright fires on the public highway, truly, with little Peter's
assistance, we can do it with great ease."
"Let us not delay," said Roland; and added sullenly, "though where a
place of rest and safety can be found in these detestable woods, I can no
longer imagine."
"It is a place of rest, at least for the dead," said Nathan, in a low
voice, at the same time leading the party back again up the bank, and
taking care to shelter them as he ascended, as much as possible, from the
light of the fire, which was now blazing with great brilliancy: "nine
human corpses,--father and mother, grandam and children,--sleep under the
threshold at the door; and there are not many, white men or Injuns, that
will, of their free will, step over the bosoms of the poor murdered
creatures, after nightfall; and, the more especially, because there are
them that believe they rise at midnight, and roam round the house and the
clearings, mourning. Yet it is a good hiding-place for them that are in
trouble; and many a night have little Peter and I sheltered us beneath
the ruined roof, with little fear of either ghosts or Injuns; though,
truly, we have sometimes heard strange and mournful noises among the
trees around us. It is but a poor place and a sad one; but it will afford
thee weary women a safe resting-place till such time as we can cross the
river."
These words of Nathan brought to Roland's recollection the story of the
Ashburns, whom Bruce had alluded to, as having been all destroyed at
their Station in a single night by the Indians, and whose tragical fate,
perhaps, more than any other circumstance, had diverted the course of
travel from the ford, near to which they had seated themselves, to the
upper, and, originally, less frequented one.
It was not without reluctance that Roland prepared to lead his
little party to this scene of butchery and sorrow; for, though little
inclined himself to superstitious feelings of any kind, he could easily
imagine what would be the effect of such a scene, with its gloomy and
blood-stained associations, on the harassed mind of his cousin. But
suffering and terror, even on the part of Edith, were not to be thought
of, where they could purchase escape from evils far more real and
appalling; and he therefore avoided all remonstrance and opposition, and
even sought to hasten the steps of his conductor towards the ruined and
solitary pile.
The bank was soon re-ascended; and the party, stealing along in silence,
presently took their last view of the ford, and the yet blazing-fire that
had warned them so opportunely from its dangerous vicinity. In another
moment they had crept a second time into the forest, though in the
opposite quarter from that whence they had come; making their way through
what had once been a broad path, evidently cut by the hands of man,
through a thick cane-brake, though long disused, and now almost choked by
brambles and shrubs; and, by and by, having followed it for somewhat less
than half a mile, they found themselves on a kind of clearing, which, it
was equally manifest, had been once a cultivated field of several acres
in extent. Throughout the whole of this space, the trunks of the old
forest-trees, dimly seen in the light of a clouded sky, were yet
standing, but entirely leafless and dead, and presenting such an aspect
of desolation as is painful to the mind, even when sunshine, and the
flourishing maize at their roots, invest them with a milder and more
cheerful character. Such prospects are common enough in all new American
clearings, where the husbandman is content to deprive the trees of life,
by _girdling_, and then leave them to the assaults of the elements and
the natural course of decay; and where a thousand trunks, of the gigantic
growth of the West, are thus seen rising together in the air, naked and
hoary with age, they impress the imagination with such gloom as is
engendered by the sight of ruined colonnades.
Such was the case with the present prospect; years had passed since the
axe had sapped the strength of the mighty oaks and beeches; bough after
bough, and limb after limb, had fallen to the earth, with here and there
some huge trunk itself, overthrown by the blast, and now rotting among
weeds on the soil which it cumbered. At the present hour, the spectacle
was peculiarly mournful and dreary. The deep solitude of the spot,--the
hour itself,--the gloomy aspect of the sky veiled in clouds,--the
occasional rush of the wind sweeping like a tempest through the woods, to
be succeeded by a dead and dismal calm,--the roll of distant thunder
reverberating among-the hills,--but, more than all, the remembrance of
the tragical event that had consigned the ill-fated settlement to neglect
and desolation, gave the deepest character of gloom to the scene.
As the travellers entered upon the clearing, there occurred one of those
casualties which so often increase the awe of the looker-on, in such
places. In one of the deepest lulls and hushes of the wind, when there
was no apparent cause in operation to produce such an effect, a tall and
majestic trunk was seen to decline from the perpendicular, topple slowly
through the air, and then fall to the earth with a crash like the shock
of an earthquake.
The poet and the moralising philosopher may find food for contemplation
in such a scene and such a catastrophe. He may see, in the lofty and
decaying trunks, the hoary relics and representatives of a generation of
better and greater spirits than those who lead the destinies of his
own,--spirits, left not more as monuments of the past than as models for
the imitation of the present; he may contrast their majestic serenity and
rest, their silence and immovableness, with the turmoil of the greener
growth around, the uproar and collision produced by every gust, and trace
the resemblance to the scene where the storms of party, rising among the
sons, hurtle so indecently around the gray fathers of the republic, whose
presence should stay them; and, finally, he may behold in the trunks, as
they yield at last to decay, and sink one by one to the earth, the fall
of each aged parent of his country,--a fall, indeed, as of an oak of a
thousand generations, shocking the earth around, and producing for a
moment, wonder, awe, grief, and then a long forgetfulness.
But men in the situation of the travellers have neither time nor
inclination for moralising. The fall of the tree only served to alarm the
weaker members of the party, to some of whom, perhaps, it appeared as an
inauspicious omen. Apparently, however, it woke certain mournful
recollections in the brains of both little Peter and his master, the
former of whom, as he passed it by, began to snuffle and whine in a low
and peculiar manner; while Nathan immediately responded, as if in reply
to his counsellor's address, "Ay, truly, Peter!--thee has a good memory
of the matter; though five long years is a marvellous time for thee
little noddle to hold things. It was under this very tree they murdered
the poor old granny, and brained the innocent, helpless babe. Of a truth,
it was a sight that made my heart sink within me."
"What!" asked Roland, who followed close at his heels, and over heard the
half-soliloquised expressions; "were _you_ present at the massacre!"
"Alas, friend," replied Nathan, "it was neither the first nor last
massacre that I have seen with these eyes. I dwelt, in them days, in a
cabin a little distance down the river; and these poor people, the
Ashburns, were my near neighbours; though, truly, they were not to me as
neighbours should be, but held me in dis-favour because of my faith, and
ever repelled me from their doors with scorn and ill-will. Yet was I
sorry for them, because of the little children they had in the house, the
same being far from succour; and when I found the tracks of the Injun
party in the wood, as it was often my fate to do, while rambling in
search of food, and saw that they were bending their way towards my own
little wigwam, I said to myself, 'Whilst they are burning the same, I
will get me to friend Ashburn, that he may be warned and escape to friend
Brace's Station in time, with his people and cattle.' But, verily, they
held my story light, and laughed and derided me: for, in them days, the
people hardened their hearts and closed their ears against me, because I
held it not according to conscience to kill Injuns as they did, and so
refused. And so, friend, they drove me from their doors; seeing which,
and perceiving the poor creatures were in a manner besotted, and bent
upon their own destruction, and the night coming on fast, I turned my
steps and ran with what speed I could to friend Bruce's, telling him the
whole story, and advising that he should despatch a strong body of
horsemen to the place, so as to frighten the evil creatures away; for,
truly, I did not hold it right that there should be bloodshed. But,
truly and alas, friend, I fared no better, and perhaps a little worse, at
the Station than I had fared before at Ashburn's; wherefore, being left
in despair, I said to myself, I will go into the woods, and hide me away,
not returning to the river, lest I should be compelled to look upon the
shedding-of the blood of the women and little babes, which I had no power
to prevent. But it came into my mind, that, perhaps, the Injuns, not
finding me in the wigwam, might lie in wait round about it, expecting my
return, and so delay the attack upon friend Ashburn's house; whereby I
might have time to reach him, and warn him of his danger again; and this
idea prevailed with me, so that I rose me up again, and, with little
Peter at my side, I ran back again, until I had reached this very field;
when Peter gave me to know the Injuns were hard by. Thee don't know
little Peter, friend; truly, he has the strongest nose for an Injun thee
ever saw. Does thee not fear how he whines and snuffs along the grass?
Now, friend, were it not that this is a bloody spot that Peter
remembers well, because of the wicked deeds he saw performed, I would
know by his whining, as truly as if he were to open his mouth and say as
much in words, that there were evil Injuns nigh at hand, and that it
behooved me to be up and a-doing. Well, friend, as I was saying,--it was
with such words as these that little Peter told me that mischief was
nigh; and, truly, I had scarce time to hide me in the corn, which was
then in the ear, before I heard the direful yells with which the
bloodthirsty creatures, who were then round about the house, woke up its
frighted inmates. Verily, friend, I will not shock thee by telling thee
what I heard and saw. There was a fate on the family, and even on the
animals that looked to it for protection. Neither horse nor cow gave them
the alarm; and even the house-dog slept so soundly, that the enemies
dragged loose brush into the porch and fired it, before any one but
themselves dreamed of danger. It was when the flames burst out that the
warwhoop was sounded; and when the eyes of the sleepers opened, it was
only to see themselves surrounded by flames and raging Shawnees. Then,
friend," continued Nathan, speaking with a faltering and low voice,
graduated for the ears of Roland, for whom alone the story was intended,
though others caught here and there some of its dismal revealments,
"then, thee may think, there was rushing out of men, women, and children,
with the cracking of rifles, the crashing of hatchets, the plunge of
knives, with yells and shrieks such as would turn thee spirit into ice
and water to hear. It was a fearful massacre; but, friend, fearful as it
was, these eyes of mine had looked on one more dreadful before: thee
would not believe it, friend, but thee knows not what them see who have
spent their lives on the Injun border.--Well, friend," continued the
narrator, after this brief digression, "while they were murdering the
stronger, I saw the weakest of all,--the old grandam, with the youngest
babe in her arms, come flying into the corn; and she had reached this
very tree that has fallen but now, as if to remind me of the story, when
the pursuer,--for it was but a single man they sent in chase of the poor
feeble old woman, caught up with her, and struck her down with his
tomahawk. Then, friend,--for, truly, I saw it all in the light of the
fire, being scarce two rods off,--he snatched the poor babe from the
dying woman's arms, and struck it with the same bloody hatchet,--"
"And you!" exclaimed Roland, leaning from his horse and clutching the
speaker by the collar, for he was seized with ungovernable indignation,
or rather fury, at what he esteemed the cold-blooded cowardice of Nathan,
"_You_!" he cried, grasping him as if he would have torn him to pieces,
"You, wretch! stood by and saw the child murdered!"
"Friend!" said Nathan, with some surprise at the unexpected assault, but
still with great submissiveness, "thee is as unjust to me as others. Had
I been as free to shed blood as thee theeself, yet could I not have saved
the babe in that way, seeing that my gun was taken from me, and I was
unarmed. Thee forgets,--or rather I forgot to inform thee,--how, when I
told friend Bruce my story, he took my gun from me, saying that 'as I was
not man enough to use it, I should not be allowed to carry it,' and so
turned me out naked from the fort. Truly, it was an ill thing of him to
take from me that which gave me my meat; and truly too, it was doubly
ill of him, as it concerned the child; for I tell thee, friend, when I
stood in the corn and saw the great brutal Injun raise the hatchet to
strike the little child, had there been a gun in my hand, I should--I
can't tell thee, friend, what I might have done; but, truly, I should not
have permitted the evil creature to do the bloody deed!"
"I thought so, by Heaven!" said Roland, who had relaxed his grasp the
moment Nathan mentioned the seizure of the gun, which story was
corroborated by the account Bruce had himself given of that stretch of
authority,--"I thought so: no human creature, not an Indian, unless the
veriest dastard and dog that ever lived, could have had arms in his hand,
and, on such an occasion, failed to use them! But you had humanity,--you
did something?"
"Friend," said Nathan, meekly, "I did what I could,--but, truly, what
could I? Nevertheless, friend, I did, being set beside myself by the
sight, snatch the little babe out of the man's hands, and fly to the
woods, hoping, though it was sore wounded, that it might yet live. But,
alas, before I had run a mile, it died in my arms, and I was covered from
head to foot with its blood. It was a sore sight for friend Bruce, whom I
found with his people galloping to the ford, to see what there might be
in my story: for, it seems, as he told me himself, that after he had
driven me away, he could not sleep for thinking that perhaps I had told
the truth. And truth enough, he soon found, I had spoken; for galloping
immediately to Ashburn's house, he found nothing there but the corses of
the people, and the house partly consumed,--for, being of green timber,
it could not all burn. There was not one of the poor family that
escaped."
"But they were avenged?" muttered the soldier.
"If thee calls killing the killers avenging," replied Nathan, "the poor
deceased people had vengeance enough. Of the fourteen murderers, for that
was the number, eleven were killed before day-dawn, the pursuers having
discovered where they had built their fire, and so taken them by
surprise; and of the three that escaped, it was afterwards said by
returning captives, that only one made his way home, the other two having
perished in the woods, in some way unknown.--But, truly," continued
Nathan, suddenly diverting his attention from the tragic theme to the
motions of his dog, "little Peter is more disturbed than is his wont.
Truly, he has never had a liking to the spot: I have heard them that said
a dog could scent the presence of spirits."
"To my mind," said Roland, who had not forgotten Nathan's eulogium on the
excellence of the animal's nose for scenting Indians, and who was
somewhat alarmed at what appeared to him the evident uneasiness of little
Peter, "he is more like to wind another party of cursed Shawnees than
any harmless, disembodied spirits."
"Friend," said Nathan, "it may be that Injuns have trodden upon this
field this day, seeing that the wood is full of them; and it is like
enough that those very evil creatures at the ford hard by have stolen
hither, before taking their post, to glut their eyes with the sight of
the ruins, where the blood of nine poor white persons was shed by their
brothers in a single night; though, truly, in that case, they must have
also thought of the thirteen murderers that bled for the victims; which
would prove somewhat a drawback to their satisfaction. No, friend; Peter
has his likes and his dislikes, like a human being; and this is a spot he
ever approaches with abhorrence,--as, truly, I do myself, never coming
hither unless when driven, as now, by necessity. But, friend, if thee is
in fear, thee shall be satisfied there is no danger before thee; it shall
never be said that I undertook to lead thee poor women out of mischief
only to plunge them into peril. I will go before thee to the ruin, which
thee sees there by the hollow, and reconnoitre."
"It needs not," said Roland, who now seeing the cabin of which they were
in search close at hand, and perceiving that Peter's uneasiness had
subsided, dismissed his own as being groundless. But notwithstanding, he
thought proper, as Nathan advanced, to ride forward himself, and inspect
the condition of the building, in which he was about to commit the safety
of the being he held most dear, and on whose account, only, he felt the
thousand anxieties and terrors he never could have otherwise experienced.
The building was a low cabin of logs, standing, as it seemed, on the
verge of an abyss, in which the river could be heard rushing
tumultuously, as if among rocks and other obstructions. It was one of
those double cabins so frequently found in the west; that is to say, it
consisted of two separate cots, or wings, standing a little distance
apart, but united by a common roof; which thus afforded shelter to the
open hall, or passage, between them; while the roof, being continued also
from the eaves, both before and behind, in pent-house fashion, it allowed
space for wide porches, in which, and in the open passage, the summer
traveller, resting in such a cabin, will almost always find the most
agreeable quarters.
How little soever of common wisdom and discretion the fate of the
builders might have shown them to possess, they had not forgotten to
provide their solitary dwelling with such defences as were common to all
others in the land at that period. A line of palisades, carelessly and
feebly constructed indeed, but perhaps sufficient for the purpose
intended, enclosed the ground on which the cabin stood; and this being
placed directly in the centre, and joining the palisades at the sides,
thus divided the enclosure into two little yards, one in front, the other
in the rear, in which was space sufficient for horses and cattle, as well
as for the garrison, when called to repel assailants. The space behind
extended to the verge of the river-bank, which, falling down a sheer
precipice of forty or fifty feet, required no defence of stakes, and
seemed never to have been provided with them; while that in front
circumscribed a portion of a cleared field entirely destitute of trees,
and almost of bushes.
Such had been the original plan and condition of a fortified
private-dwelling, a favourable specimen, perhaps, of the _family-forts_
of the day, and which, manned by five or six active and courageous
defenders, might have bidden defiance to thrice the number of barbarians
that had actually succeeded in storming it. Its present appearance was
ruinous and melancholy in the extreme. The stockade was in great part
destroyed, especially in front, where the stakes seemed to have been
rooted up by the winds, or to have fallen from sheer decay; and the right
wing or cot, that had suffered most from the flames, lay a black and
mouldering-pile of logs, confusedly heaped on its floor, or on the earth
beneath. The only part of the building yet standing was the cot on the
left hand, which consisted of but a single room, and that, as Roland
perceived at a glance, almost roofless and ready to fall.
Nothing could be more truly cheerless and forbidding than the appearance
of the ruined pile; and the hoarse and dismal rush of the river below,
heard the more readily by reason of a deep rocky fissure, or ravine,
running from the rear yard to the water's edge, through which the sound
ascended in hollow echoes, added double horror to its appearance. It was,
moreover, obviously insecure and untenable against any resolute enemy, to
whom the ruins of the fallen wing and stockade and the rugged depths of
the ravine offered much more effectual shelter, as well as the best place
of annoyance. The repugnance, however, that Roland felt to occupy it even
for a few hours, was combatted by Nathan, who represented that the ford
at which he designed crossing the river, several miles farther down,
could not be safely attempted until the rise of the waning moon, or
until the clouds should disperse, affording them the benefit of the dim
star-light; that the road to it ran through swamps and hollows, now
submerged, in which could be found no place of rest for the females,
exhausted by fatigue and mental suffering; and that the ruin might be
made as secure as the Station the travellers had left; "for truly," said
he, "it is not according to my ways or conscience to leave anything to
chance or good luck, when there is Injun scent in the forest, though it
be in the forest ten miles off. Truly, friend, I design, when thee poor
tired women is sleeping, to keep watch round the ruin, with Peter to help
me; and if theeself and thee two male persons have strength to do the
same, it will be all the better for the same."
"It shall be done," said Roland, as much relieved by the suggestion as he
was pleased by the humane spirit that prompted it: "my two soldiers can
watch, if they cannot fight, and I shall take care they watch well."
Thus composing the difficulty, preparations were immediately made to
occupy the ruin, into which Roland, having previously entered with the
Emperor, and struck a light, introduced his weary kinswoman with her
companion Telie; while Nathan and Pardon Dodge led the horses into the
ravine, where they could be easily confined, and allowed to browse and
drink at will, being at the same time beyond the reach of observation
from any foe that might yet be prowling through the forest.