The enemy, twice repulsed, and on both occasions with severe loss, had
been taught the folly of exposing themselves too freely to the fire of
the travellers; but although driven back, they manifested little
inclination to fly further than was necessary to obtain shelter, and as
little to give over their fierce purposes. Concealing themselves
severally behind logs, rocks, and bushes, and so disposing their force as
to form a line around the ruin, open only towards the river, where escape
was obviously impracticable, they employed themselves keeping a strict
watch upon the hovel, firing repeated volleys, and as often uttering
yells, with which they sought to strike terror into the hearts of the
besieged. Occasionally some single warrior, bolder than the rest, would
creep near the ruins, and obtaining such shelter as he could, discharge
his piece at any mouldering beam, or other object, which his fancy
converted into the exposed body of a defender. But the travellers had
taken good care to establish themselves in such positions among the ruins
as offered the best protection; and although the bullets whistled sharp
and nigh, not a single one had yet received a wound; nor was there much
reason to apprehend injury so long as the darkness of night befriended
them.
Yet it was obvious to all that this state of security could not last
long, and that it existed only because the enemy was not yet aware of his
advantage. The condition of the ruins was such that a dozen men of
sufficient spirit, dividing themselves, and creeping along the earth,
might at any moment make their way to any and every part of the hovel
without being seen, when a single rush must put it in their power. An
open assault indeed from the whole body of besiegers, whose number was
reckoned by Nathan at full fifteen or twenty, must have produced the same
success, though with the loss of several lives. A random shot might at
any moment destroy or disable one of the little garrison, and thus rob
one important corner of the hovel, which, from its dilapidated state was
wholly indefensible from within of defence. It was indeed, as Roland
felt, more than folly to hope that all should escape unharmed for many
hours longer. But the worst fear of all was that previously suggested by
Nathan: all might survive the perils of the night; but what fate was to
be expected when the coming of day should expose the party, in all its
true weakness, to the eyes of the enemy? If relief came not before
morning, Roland's heart whispered him, it must come in vain. But the
probabilities of relief, what were they? The question was asked of
Nathan, and the answer went like iron through Roland's soul. They were in
the deepest and most solitary part of the forest, twelve miles from
Bruce's Station, and at least eight from that at which the emigrants were
to lodge; with no other places within twice the distance, from which help
could be obtained. They had left, three or four miles behind, the main
and only road on which volunteers, summoned from the Western Stations to
repel the invasion, of which the news had arrived before Roland's
departure from Bruce's village, could be expected to pass; if indeed the
strong force of the enemy posted at the Upper Ford had not cut off all
communication between the two districts. From Bruce's Station little or
no assistance could be hoped, the entire strength of its garrison, as
Roland well knew, having long since departed to share in the struggle on
the north side of Kentucky. Assistance could be looked for only from his
late companions, the emigrants, from whom he had parted in an evil hour.
But how were they to be made acquainted with his situation?
The discussion of these questions almost distracted the young man. Help
could only come from themselves. Would it not be possible to cut their
way through the besiegers? He proposed a thousand wild schemes of escape;
now he would mount his trusty steed, and dashing among the enemy, receive
their fire, distract their attention, and perhaps draw them in pursuit,
while Nathan and the others galloped off with the women in another
quarter; and again, he would plunge with them into the boiling torrent
below, trusting to the strength of the horses to carry them through in
safety.
To these and other frantic proposals, uttered in the intervals of combat,
which was still maintained, with occasional demonstrations on the part of
the enemy of advancing to a third assault, Nathan replied only by
representing the certain death they would bring upon all, especially "the
poor helpless women," whose condition, with the reflection that he had
brought them into it, seemed ever to dwell upon his mind, producing
feelings of remorseful excitement not inferior even to the compunctions
which he expressed at every shot discharged by him at the foe. Indeed his
conscience seemed sorely distressed and perplexed; now he upbraided
himself with being the murderer of the two poor women, and now of his
Shawnee fellow-creatures; now he wrung the soldier by the hand, begging
him to bear witness that he was shedding blood, not out of malice or
wantonness, or even self-defence, but purely to save the innocent scalps
of poor women, whose blood would be otherwise on his head; and now
beseeching the young man with equal fervour to let the world know of his
doings, that the blame might fall, not upon the faith of which he was an
unworthy professor, but upon him, the evil-doer and backslider. But with
all his remorse and contrition, he manifested no inclination to give over
the work of fighting; but, on the contrary, fired away with extreme
good-will at every evil Shawnee creature that showed himself, encouraging
Roland to do the same, and exhibiting throughout the whole contest the
most exemplary courage and good conduct.
But courage and good conduct, although so unexpectedly manifested in the
time of need by all his companions, Roland felt could only serve to defer
for a few hours the fate of his party. The night wore away fast, the
assailants grew bolder; and from the louder yells and more frequent shots
coming from them, it seemed as if their numbers, instead of diminishing
under his own fire, were gradually increasing by the dropping in of their
scouts from the forest. At the same time, he became sensible that his
stores of ammunition were fast decreasing.
"Friend," said Nathan, wringing the soldier's hand for the twentieth
time, when made acquainted with the deficiency, "it is written, that thee
women shall be murdered before thee eyes! Nevertheless I will do my best
to save them. Friend, I must leave thee! Thee shall have assistance. Can
thee hold out the hovel till morning? But it is foolish to ask thee: thee
_must_ hold it out, and with none save the coloured person and the man
Dodge to help thee; for I say to thee, it has come to this at last, as I
thought it would: I must break through the lines of thee Injun foes, and
find thee assistance."
"It is impossible," said Roland in despair; "you will only provoke your
destruction."
"It may be, friend, as thee says," responded Nathan; "nevertheless,
friend, for thee women's sake, I will adventure it; for it is I,
miserable sinner that I am, that have brought them to this pass, and that
must bring them out of it again, if man can do it."
At a moment of less grief and desperation, Roland would have better
appreciated the magnitude of the service which Nathan thus offered to
attempt, and even hesitated to permit what must have manifestly seemed
the throwing away of a human life. But the emergency was too great to
allow the operation of any but selfish feelings. The existence of his
companions, the life of his Edith, depended upon procuring relief, and
this could be obtained in no other way. If the undertaking was dangerous
in the extreme, he saw it with the eyes of a soldier as well as a lover:
it was a feat he would himself have dared without hesitation, could it
have promised, in his hands, any relief to his followers.
"Go, then, and God be with you," he muttered, eagerly "you have our lives
in your hand. But it will be long, long before you can reach the band on
foot. Yet do not weary or pause by the way. I have but little wealth; but
with what I have I will reward you."
"Friend," said Nathan proudly, "what I do I do for no lucre of reward,
but for pity of thee poor women; for truly I have seen the murdering and
scalping of poor women before, and the seeing of the same has left blood
upon my head, which is a mournful thing to think of."
"Well, be not offended: do what you can--our lives may rest on a single
minute."
"I _will_ do what I can, friend," replied Nathan; "and if I can but pass
safely through thee foes, there is scarce a horse in thee company, were
it even thee war-horse, that shall run to thee friends more fleetly. But,
friend, do thee hold out the house: use thee powder charily; keep up the
spirits of thee two men, and be of good heart theeself, fighting
valiantly, and slaying according to thee conscience; and then, friend, if
it be Heaven's will, I will return to thee, and help thee out of thee
troubles."
With these words, Nathan turned from the soldier, setting out upon his
dangerous duty with a courage and self-devotion of which Roland did not
yet know all the merit. He threw himself upon the earth, and muttering to
little Peter, "Now, Peter, as thee ever served thee master well and
truly, serve him well and truly now," began to glide away amongst the
ruins, making his way from log to log, and bush to bush, close behind the
animal, who seemed to determine the period and direction of every
movement. His course was down the river, the opposite of that by which
the party had reached the ruin, in which quarter the woods were highest,
and promised the most accessible, as well as the best shelter; though
that could be reached only in the event of his successfully avoiding the
different barbarians hidden among the bushes on its border. He soon
vanished, with his dog, from the eyes of the soldier; who now, in
pursuance of instructions previously given him by Nathan, caused his two
followers to let fly a volley among the trees, which had the expected
effect of drawing another in return from the foes, accompanied by their
loudest whoops of menace and defiance. In this manner Nathan, as he drew
nigh the wood, was enabled to form correct opinions as to the different
positions of the besiegers, and to select that point in the line which
seemed the weakest; while the attention of the foe was in a measure drawn
off, so as to give him the better opportunity of advancing on them
unobserved. With this object in view, a second and third volley were
fired by the little garrison; after which they ceased making such feints
of hostility, and left him, as he had directed, to his fate.
It was then that, with a beating heart, Roland awaited the event; and as
he began to figure to his imagination the perils which Nathan must
necessarily encounter in the undertaking, he listened for the shout of
triumph that he feared would, each moment, proclaim the capture or death
of his messenger. But he listened in vain,--at least, in vain for such
sounds as his skill might interpret into evidences of Nathan's fate: he
heard nothing but the occasional crack of a rifle aimed at the ruin,
with the yell of the savage that fired it, the rush of the breeze, the
rumbling of the thunder, and the deep-toned echoes from the river below.
There was nothing whatever occurred, at least for a quarter of an hour,
by which he might judge what was the issue of the enterprise; and he was
beginning to indulge the hope that Nathan had passed safely through the
besiegers, when a sudden yell of a peculiarly wild and thrilling
character was uttered in the wood in the quarter in which Nathan had
fled; and this, exciting, as it seemed to do, a prodigious sensation
among his foes, filled him with anxiety and dread. To his ears the shout
expressed fury and exultation such as might well be felt at the sudden
discovery and capture of the luckless messenger; and his fear that such
had been the end of Nathan's undertaking was greatly increased by what
followed. The shots and whoops suddenly ceased, and, for ten minutes or
more, all was silent, save the roar of the river, and the whispering of
the fitful breeze. "They have taken him alive, poor wretch!" muttered the
soldier, "and now they are forcing from him a confession of our
weakness!"
It seemed as if there might be some foundation for the suspicion; for
presently a great shout burst from the enemy, and the next moment a rush
was made against the ruin as if by the whole force of the enemy. "Fire!"
shouted Roland to his companions: "if we must die, let it be like men;"
and no sooner did he behold the dark figures of the assailants leaping
among the ruins, than he discharged his rifle and a pair of pistols which
he had reserved in his own hands, the other pair having been divided
between Dodge and the negro, who used them with equal resolution, and
with an effect that Roland had not anticipated; the assailants,
apparently daunted by the weight of the volley, seven pieces having been
discharged in rapid succession, instantly beat a retreat, resuming their
former positions. From these, however, they now maintained an almost
incessant fire; and by and by several of them, stealing cautiously up,
effected a lodgment in a distant part of the ruins, whence, without
betraying any especial desire to come to closer quarters, they began to
carry on the war in a manner that greatly increased Roland's alarm, their
bullets flying about and into the hovel so thickly that he became afraid
lest some of them should reach its hapless inhabitants. He was already
debating within himself the propriety of transferring Edith and her
companion from this ruinous and now dangerous abode to the ravine, where
they might be sheltered from all danger, at least for a time, when a bolt
of lightning, as he at first thought it, shot from the nearest group of
foes, flashed over his head, and striking what remained of the roof,
stood trembling in it, an arrow of blazing fire. The appearance of this
missile, followed, as it immediately was, by several others discharged
from the same tow, confirmed the soldier's resolution to remove the
females, while it greatly increased his anxiety; for although there was
little fear that the flames could be communicated from the arrows to the
roof so deeply saturated by the late rains, yet each, while burning,
served, like a flambeau, to illuminate the ruins below, and must be
expected before long to reveal the helplessness of the party, and to
light the besiegers to their prey.
With such fears on his mind, he hesitated no longer to remove his cousin
and her companion to the ravine; which was effected with but little risk
or difficulty, the ravine heading, as was mentioned before, under the
floor of the hovel itself, and its borders being so strewn with broken
timbers and planks, as to screen the party from observation. He concealed
them both among the rocks and brambles with which the hollow abounded,
listened a moment to the rush of the flood as it swept the precipitous
bank, and the roar with which it seemed struggling among rocky
obstructions above, and smiling with the grim thought, that, when
resistance was no longer availing, there was yet a refuge for his
kinswoman within the dark bosom of those troubled waters, to which he
felt, with the stern resolution of a Roman father rather than of a
Christian lover, that he could, when nothing else remained, consign her
with his own hands, he returned to the ruins, to keep up the appearance
of still defending it, and to preserve the entrance of the ravine.