It was at a critical period when the travellers effected their escape
from the scene of their late sufferings. The morning was already drawing
nigh, and might, but for the heavy clouds that prolonged the night of
terror, have been seen shooting its first streaks through the eastern
skies. Another half hour, if for that half hour they could have
maintained their position in the ravine, would have seen them exposed in
all their helplessness to the gaze, and to the fire of the determined
foe. It became them to improve the few remaining moments of darkness, and
to make such exertions as might get them, before dawn, beyond the reach
of discovery or pursuit.
Exertions were, accordingly, made; and, although man and horse were alike
exhausted, and the thick brakes and oozy swamps through which Roaring
Ralph led the way, opposed a thousand obstructions to rapid motion, they
had left the fatal ruin at least two miles behind them, or so honest
Stackpole averred, when the day at last broke over the forest. To add to
the satisfaction of the fugitives, it broke in unexpected splendour. The
clouds parted, and, as the floating masses rolled lazily away before a
pleasant morning breeze, they were seen lighted up and tinted with a
thousand glorious dyes of sunshine.
The appearance of the great luminary was hailed with joy, as the omen of
a happier fate than had been heralded by the clouds and storms of
evening. Smiles began to beam from the haggard and care-worn visages of
the travellers; the very horses seemed to feel the inspiring influence of
the change; and as for Roaring Ralph, the sight of his beautiful
benefactress recovering her good looks, and the exulting consciousness
that it was _his_ hand which had snatched her from misery and death,
produced such a fever of delight in his brain as was only to be allayed
by the most extravagant expressions and actions. He assured her a dozen
times over, "he was her dog and her slave, and vowed he would hunt her
so many Injun scalps, and steal her such a 'tarnal chance of Shawnee
hosses, thar shorld'nt be a gal in all Kentucky should come up to her for
stock and glory:" and, finally, not content with making a thousand other
promises of an equally extravagant character, and swearing, that, "if she
axed it, he would go down on his knees and say his prayers to her," he
offered, as soon as he had carried her safely across the river, to "take
the backtrack, and lick, single-handed, all the Injun abbregynes that
might be following." Indeed, to such a pitch did his enthusiasm run,
that, not knowing how otherwise to give vent to his over-charged
feelings, he suddenly turned upon his heel, and shaking his fist in the
direction whence he had come, as if against the enemy who had caused his
benefactress so much distress, he pronounced a formal and emphatic curse
upon their whole race, "from the head-chief to the commoner, from the
whisky-soaking warrior down to the pan-licking squall-a-baby," all of
whom he anathematised with as much originality as fervour of expression;
after which, he proceeded, with more sedateness, to resume his post at
the head of the travellers, and conduct them onwards on their way.
Another hour was now consumed in diving amid cane-brakes and swamps, to
which Roaring Ralph evinced a decidedly greater partiality than to the
open forest, in which the travellers had found themselves at the dawn;
and in this he seemed to show somewhat more of judgment and discretion
than would have been argued from his hair-brained conversation; for the
danger of stumbling upon scouting Indians, of which the country now
seemed so full, was manifestly greater in the open woods than in the dark
and almost unfrequented cane-brakes: and the worthy horse-thief, with all
his apparent love of fight, was not at all anxious that the angel of his
worship should be alarmed or endangered, while entrusted to his zealous
safe-keeping.
But it happened in this case, as it has happened with better and wiser
men, that Stackpole's cunning over-reached itself, as was fully shown in
the event; and it would have been happier for himself and all if his
discretion, instead of plunging him among difficult and almost impassable
bogs, where a precious hour was wasted in effecting a mere temporary
security and concealment from observation, had taught him the necessity
of pushing onwards with all possible speed, so as to leave pursuers, if
pursuit should be attempted, far behind. At the expiration of that hour,
so injudiciously wasted, the fugitives issued from the brake, and
stepping into a narrow path worn by the feet of bisons, among stunted
shrubs and parched grasses, along the face of a lime-stone bed, sparingly
scattered over with a similar barren growth, began to wind their way
downward into a hollow vale, in which they could hear the murmurs, and
perceive the glimmering waters of the river over which they seemed never
destined to pass.
"_Thar_', 'tarnal death to me!" roared Ralph, pointing downwards with
triumph, "arn't that old Salt now, looking as sweet and liquorish as a
whole trough-full of sugar-tree? We'll just take a dip at him,
anngelliferous madam, jist to wash the mud off our shoes; and then,
'tarnal death to me, farewell to old Salt, and the abbregynes
together--cock-a-doodle-doo!"
With this comfortable assurance, and such encouragement as he could
convey in the lustiest gallicantation ever fetched from lungs of man or
fowl, the worthy Stackpole, who had slackened his steps, but without
stopping while he spoke, turned his face again to the descent; when--as
if that war-cry had conjured up enemies from the very air,--a rifle
bullet, shot from a bush not six yards off, suddenly whizzed through
his hair, scattering a handful of it to the winds; and while a dozen or
more were, at the same instant, poured upon other members of the
unfortunate party, fourteen or fifteen savages rushed out from their
concealment among the grass and bushes, three of whom seized upon the
rein of the unhappy Edith, while twice as many sprang upon Captain
Forrester, and, before he could raise an arm in defence, bore him to the
earth, a victim or a prisoner.
So much the astounded horse-thief saw with his own eyes; but before he
could make good any of the numberless promises he had volunteered, during
the morning journey, of killing and eating the whole family of North
American Indians, or exemplify the unutterable gratitude and devotion he
had as often professed to the fair Virginian, four brawny barbarians, one
of them rising at his side and from the very bush whence the bullet had
been discharged at his head, rushed against him, flourishing their guns
and knives, and yelling with transport, "Got you _now_, Cappin Stackpole,
steal-hoss! No go steal no hoss no more! roast on great big fire!"
"'Tarnal death to me!" roared Stackpole, forgetting everything else in
the instinct of self-preservation; and firing his piece at the nearest
enemy, he suddenly leaped from the path into the bushes on its lower
side, where was a precipitous descent, down which he went rolling and
crashing with a velocity almost equal to that of the bullets that were
sent after him. Three of the four assailants immediately darted after in
pursuit, and their shouts growing fainter and fainter as they descended,
were mingled with the loud yell of victory, now uttered by a dozen savage
voices from the hill-side.
It was a victory, indeed, in every sense, complete, almost bloodless, as
it seemed, to the assailants, and effected at a moment when the hopes of
the travellers were at the highest: and so sudden was the attack, so
instantaneous the change from freedom to captivity, so like the juggling
transition of a dream the whole catastrophe, that Forrester, although
overthrown and bleeding from two several wounds received at the first
fire, and wholly in the power of his enemies, who flourished their knives
and axes in his face, yelling with exultation, could scarce appreciate
his situation, or understand what dreadful misadventure had happened,
until his eye, wandering among the dusky arms that grappled him, fell
first upon the body of the negro Emperor, hard by, gored by numberless
wounds, and trampled by the feet of his slayers, and then upon the
apparition, a thousand times more dismal to his eyes, of his kinswoman
snatched from her horse and struggling in the arms of her savage captors.
The frenzy with which he was seized at this lamentable sight endowed him
with a giant's strength; but it was exerted in vain to free himself from
his enemies, all of whom seemed to experience a barbarous delight at his
struggles, some encouraging him, with loud laughter and in broken
English, to continue them, while others taunted and scolded at him more
like shrewish squaws than valiant warriors, assuring him that they were
great Shawnee fighting-men, and he a little Long-knife dog, entirely
beneath their notice: which expressions, though at variance with all his
preconceived notions of the stern gravity of the Indian character, and
rather indicative of a roughly jocose than a darkly ferocious spirit, did
not prevent their taking the surest means to quiet his exertions and
secure their prize, by tying his hands behind him with a thong of buffalo
hide, drawn so tight as to inflict the most excruciating pain. But pain
of body was then, and for many moments after, lost in agony of mind,
which could he conceived only by him who, like the young soldier, has
been doomed, once in his life, to see a tender female, the nearest and
dearest object of his affections, in the hands of enemies, the most
heartless, merciless, and brutal of all the races of men. He saw her pale
visage convulsed with terror and despair,--he beheld her arms stretched
towards him, as if beseeching the help he no longer had the power to
render,--and expected every instant the fall of the hatchet, or the
flash of the knife, that was to pour her blood upon the earth before him.
He would have called upon the wretches around for pity, but his tongue
clove to his mouth, his brain spun round; and such became the intensity
of his feelings, that he was suddenly bereft of sense, and fell like a
dead man to the earth, where he lay for a time, ignorant of all events
passing around, ignorant also of the duration of his insensibility.