By dint of chafing and bathing in the spring, still foul and red with the
blood of the Piankeshaws, the limbs of the soldier soon recovered their
strength, and he was able to rise, to survey the scene of his late
sufferings and liberation, and again recur to the harassing subject of
his kinswoman's fate. Again he beset Nathan with questions, which soon
recalled the disturbed looks which his deliverer had worn when first
assailed with interrogatories. He adjured him to complete the good work
he had so bravely begun, by leaving himself to his fate, and making his
way to the emigrants, or to the nearest inhabited Station, whence
assistance might be procured to pursue the savages and their captives,
before it might be too late. "Lead the party first to the battleground,"
he said: "I am now as a child in strength, but I can crawl thither to
meet you; and once on a horse again, be assured no one shall pursue
better or faster than I."
"If thee thinks of rescuing the maiden," said Nathan--
"I will do so, or die," exclaimed Roland, impetuously; "and would to
Heaven I could die twice over, so I might snatch her from the murdering
monsters. Alas! had you but followed them, instead of these three curs;
and done that service to Edith you have done to me!"
"Truly," said Nathan, "thee talks as if ten men were as easily knocked on
the head as ten rabbits. But, hearken, friend, and do thee have patience
for a while! There is a thing in this matter that perplexes me; and,
verily, there is two or three. Why did thee desert the ruin? and who was
it led thee through the canes? Let me know what it was that happened
thee; for, of a truth, there is more in this same matter than thee
thinks."
Thus called upon, Roland acquainted Nathan with the events that had
succeeded his departure from the ruin,--the appearance of Ralph
Stackpole, and the flight of the party by the river,--circumstances that
moved the wonder and admiration of Nathan,--and with all the other
occurrences up to the moment of the defeat of the Kentuckians, and the
division of the plunder among the victorious Indians. The mention of
these spoils, the rifles, rolls of cloth, beads, bells, and other gewgaw
trinkets, produced an evident impression on Nathan's mind; which was
greatly increased when Roland related the scene betwixt Telie Doe and her
reprobate father, and repeated those expressions which seemed to show
that the attack upon the party was by no means accidental, but the result
of a previously formed design, of which she was not ignorant.
"Where Abel Doe is, there, thee may be sure, there is knavery!" said
Nathan; demanding earnestly if Roland had seen no other white man in the
party.
"I saw no other," he replied: "but there was a tall man in a blanket,
wearing a red turban, who looked at me from a distance; and I thought he
was a half-breed, like Doe,--for so, at first, I supposed the latter to
be."
"Well, friend! And he seemed to command the party, did he not?" demanded
Nathan, with interest.
"The leader," replied Roland, "was a vile, grim old rascal, that they
called Kenauga, or Kenauga, or--"
"Wenonga!" cried Nathan, with extraordinary vivacity, his whole
countenance, in fact, lighting up with the animation of intense
interest,--"an old man tall and raw-boned, a scar on his nose and
cheek, a halt in his gait, his left middle-finger short of a joint,
and a buzzard's beak and talons tied to his hair?--It is Wenonga, the
Black-Vulture. Truly, little Peter! thee is but a dolt and a dog, that
thee told me nothing about it!"
The soldier remarked, with some surprise, the change of Nathan's visage,
and with still more, his angry reproaches of the trusty animal, the first
he had heard him utter.
"And who then is the old Black-Vulture," he asked, "that he should drive
from your mind even the thought of my poor wretched Edith?"
"Thee is but a boy in the woods, if thee never heard of Wenonga, the
Shawnee," replied Nathan hastily,--"a man that has left the mark of his
axe on many a ruined cabin along the frontier, from the Bloody Run of
Bedford to the Kenhawa and the Holston. He is the chief that boasts he
has no heart: and, truly, he has none, being a man that has drunk the
blood of women and children--Friend! thee kinswoman's scalp is already
hanging at his girdle!"
This horrible announcement, uttered with a fierce earnestness that proved
the sincerity of the speaker, froze Roland's blood in his veins, and he
stood speechless and gasping; until Nathan, noting his agitation, and
recovering in part from his own ferment of spirits, exclaimed, even more
hastily than before--"Truly, I have told thee what is false--thee
kinswoman is safe,--a prisoner, but alive and safe."
"You have told me she is dead--murdered by the foul assassins," said
Roland; "and if it be so, it avails not to deny it. If it be so, Nathan,"
he continued, with a look of desperation, "I call Heaven and earth to
witness, that I will pursue the race of the slayers with thrice the fury
of their own malice,--never to pause, never to rest, never to be
satisfied with vengeance, while an Indian lives with blood to be shed,
and I with strength to shed it."
"Thee speaks like a man!" said Nathan, grasping the soldier's hand, and
fairly crushing it in his gripe,--"that is to say," he continued,
suddenly letting go his hold, and seeming somewhat abashed at the fervour
of his sympathy, "like a man, according to thee own sense of matters and
things. But do thee be content; thee poor maid is alive, and like to be
so; and that thee may be assured of it, I will soon tell thee the thing
that is on my mind. Friend, do thee answer me a question,--Has thee any
enemy among the Injuns?--that is to say, any reprobate white man like
this Abel Doe,--who would do thee a wrong?"
The soldier started with surprise, and replied in the negative.
"Has thee no foe, then, at home, whom thee has theeself wronged to that
point that he would willingly league with murdering Injuns to take thee
life?"
"I have my enemies, doubtless, like all other men," said Roland, "but
none so basely, so improbably malignant."
"Verily, then, thee makes me in a perplexity as before," said Nathan;
"for as truly as thee stands before me, so truly did I see, that night
when I left thee at the ruins, and crawled through the Injun lines, a
white man that sat at a fire with Abel Doe, the father of the maid Telie,
apart from the rest, and counselled with him how best to sack the cabin,
without killing the two women. Truly, friend, it was a marvel to myself,
there being so many of the murdering villains, that they did us so little
mischief: but, truly, it was because of the women. And, truly, there was
foul knavery between these two men; for I heard high words and chaffering
between them, as concerning a price or reward which Abel Doe claimed of
the other for the help he was rendering him, in snapping thee up, with
thee kinswoman. Truly, thee must not think I was mistaken; for seeing the
man's red shawl round his head gleaming in the fire, and not knowing
there was any one nigh him (for Abel Doe lay flat upon the earth), a
wicked thought came into my head; 'for, truly,' said I, 'this man is the
chief, and, being alone, a man might strike him with a knife from behind
the tree he rests against, and being killed, his people will fly in fear,
without any more blood-shed;' but creeping nearer, I saw that he was but
a white man in disguise; and so, having listened awhile, to hear what I
could, and hearing what I have told thee, I crept away on my journey."
The effect of this unexpected revelation upon the young Virginian was as
if an adder had suddenly fastened upon his bosom. It woke a suspicion,
involving indeed an improbability such as his better reason revolted at,
but full of pain and terror. But wild and incredible as it seemed, it
received a kind of confirmation from what Nathan added.
"The rifle-guns, the beads, and the cloth," he said, "that were
distributed after the battle,--does thee think they were plunder taken
from the young Kentuckians they had vanquished? Friend, these things were
a price with which the white man in the red shawl paid the assassin
villains for taking thee prisoner,--thee and thee kinswoman. His
hirelings were vagabonds of all the neighbouring tribes, Shawnees,
Wyandots, Delawares, and Piankeshaws, as I noted well when I crept among
them; and old Wenonga is the greatest vagabond of all, having long since
been degraded by his tribe for bad luck, drunkenness, and other follies,
natural to an Injun. My own idea is, that that white man thirsted for
thee blood, having given thee up to the Piankeshaws, who, thee says, had
lost one of their men in the battle; for which thee would certainly have
been burned alive at their village: but what was his design in
captivating thee poor kinswoman that thee calls Edith, truly I cannot
divine, not knowing much of thee history."
"You shall hear it," said Roland, with hoarse accents,--"at least so much
of it as may enable you to confirm or disprove your suspicions. There is
indeed one man whom I have always esteemed my enemy, the enemy also of
Edith,--a knave capable of any extremity, yet never could I have dreamed
of a villany so daring, so transcendent as this!"
So saying, Roland, smothering his agitation as he could, proceeded to
acquaint his rude friend, now necessarily his confidant, with so much of
his history as related to Braxley, his late uncle's confidential agent
and executor;--a man whom Roland's revelations to the gallant and
inquisitive Colonel Bruce, and still more, perhaps, his conversations
with Edith in the wood, may have introduced sufficiently to the reader's
acquaintance. But of Braxley, burning with a hatred he no longer chose to
subdue, the feeling greatly exasperated, also, by the suspicion Nathan's
hints had infused into his mind, he now spoke without restraint; and
assuredly, if one might have judged by the bitterness of his invectives,
the darkness of the colours with which he traced the detested portrait, a
baser wretch did not exist on the whole earth. Yet to a dispassionate and
judicious hearer it might have seemed that there was little in the
evidence to bear out an accusation so sweeping and heavy. Little, indeed,
had the soldier to charge against him save his instrumentality in
defeating hopes and expectations which had been too long indulged to be
surrendered without anger and pain. That this instrumentality,
considering all the circumstances, was to be attributed to base and
fraudulent motives, it was natural to suspect; but the proofs were far
from being satisfactory, as they rested chiefly on surmises and
assumptions.
It will be recollected, that on the death of Major Forrester, Braxley had
brought to light a testament of undoubted authenticity, but of ancient
date, in which the whole estate of the deceased was bequeathed to his own
infant child,--an unfortunate daughter, who, however, it had never been
doubted, had perished many years before among the flames of the cabin of
her foster-mother, but who Braxley had made oath was, to the best of his
knowledge, still alive. His oath was founded, he averred, upon the
declaration of a man, the husband of the foster-mother, a certain
Atkinson, whom tory principles and practices, and perhaps crimes and
outrages--for such were charged against him--had long since driven to
seek refuge on the frontier, but who had privily returned to the major's
house, a few weeks before the latter's death, and made confession that
the girl was still living; but, being recognised by an old acquaintance,
and dreading the vengeance of his countrymen, he had immediately fled
again to the frontier, without acquainting any one with the place of the
girl's concealment. The story of Atkinson's return was confirmed by
the man who had seen and recognised him, but who knew nothing of the
cause of his visit; and Braxley declared he had already taken steps to
ferret him out, and had good hopes through his means of recovering the
lost heiress.
This story Roland affected to believe a vile fabrication, the result of a
deep-laid, and, unfortunately, too successful design on Braxloy's part to
get possession, in the name of an imaginary heiress, of the rich estates
of his patron. The authenticity of the will, which had been framed at a
period when the dissensions between Major Forrester and his brothers were
at the highest, Roland did not doubt; it was the non-existence of the
individual in whose favour it had been executed, a circumstance which he
devoutly believed, that gave a fraudulent character to its production. He
even accused Braxley of having destroyed a second will (by which the
former was of course annulled, even supposing the heiress were still
living), a testament framed a few months before his uncle's death; in
which the latter had bequeathed all his possessions to Edith, the child
of his adoption. That such a second will had been framed, appeared from
the testator's own admissions; at least, he had so informed Edith,
repeating the fact on several different occasions. The fact, indeed, even
Braxley did not deny; but he averred, that the second instrument had been
destroyed by the deceased himself, as soon as the confession of Atkinson
had acquainted him with the existence of his own unfortunate daughter.
This explanation Roland rejected entirely, insisting that during the
whole period of Atkinson's visit, and for some weeks before, his uncle
had been in a condition of mental imbecility and unconsciousness, as
incapable of receiving and understanding the supposed confession as he
was of acting on it. The story was only an additional device of Braxley
to remove from himself the suspicion of having destroyed the second will.
But whatever might have been thought of these imputations, it was evident
that the young soldier had another cause for his enmity,--one, indeed,
that seemed more operative on his mind and feelings than even the loss of
fortune. The robber and plunderer, for these were the softest epithets he
had for his rival, had added to his crimes the enormity of aspiring to
the affections of his kinswoman; whom the absence of Roland and the
helpless imbecility of her uncle left exposed to his presumption and his
arts. Had the maiden smiled upon his suit, this indeed might have seemed
a legitimate cause of hatred on the part of Roland; but Edith had
repelled the lover with firmness, perhaps even with contempt. The
presumption of such a rival Roland might perhaps have pardoned; but he
saw in the occurrences that followed, a bitter and malignant revenge of
the maiden's scorn, which none but the basest of villains could have
attempted. It was this consideration which gave the sharpest edge to the
young man's hatred: and it was his belief that a wretch capable of such a
revenge, was willing to add to it any other measure of villany, however
daring and fiendish, that had turned his thoughts upon Braxley, when
Nathan's words first woke the suspicion of a foeman's design and agency
in the attack on his party. How Braxley, a white man and Virginian, and
therefore the foe of every western tribe, could have so suddenly and
easily thrown himself into the arms of the savages, and brought them to
his own plans, it might have been difficult to say. But anger is
credulous, and fury stops not at impossibilities. "It is Braxley
himself!" he cried, at the close of his narration; "how can it be
doubted? He announced publicly his intention to proceed to the frontier,
to the Kenhawa settlements, in search of the fabulous heiress, and was
gone before our party had all assembled in Fincastle. Thus, then, he
veiled his designs, thus concealed a meditated villany. But his
objects--it was not my miserable life he sought--what would that avail
him?--they aimed at my cousin,--and she is now in his power!"
"Truly, then," said Nathan, who listened to the story with great
interest, and now commented on Roland's agitation with equal composure,
"thee doth make a great fuss for nothing; for, truly, the maid will not
be murdered--Truly, thee has greatly relieved my mind. Thee should not
think the man, being a white man, will kill her."
"Kill her!" cried Roland--"Would that twenty bullets had pierced her
heart, rather than she should have fallen alive into the hands of
Braxley! Miserable wretch that I am! what can I do to save her? We will
rescue her, Nathan; we will seek assistance; we will pursue the
ravisher;--it is not yet too late. Speak to me--I shall go distracted:
what must we do?--what _can_ we do?"
"Truly," said Nathan, "I fear me, we can do nothing.--Don't thee look so
frantic, friend; I don't think thee has good sense. Thee talks of
assistance--what is thee thinking about? where would thee seek
assistance? Has thee forgot the Injun army is on the north side, and all
the fighting-men of the Stations gone to meet them? There is nobody to
help thee."
"But the emigrants, my friends? they are yet nigh at hand--"
"Truly," said Nathan, "thee is mistaken. The news of the Injuns, that
brought friend Thomas the younger into the woods, did greatly dismay
them, as the young men reported; and, truly, they did resolve to delay
their journey no longer, but start again before the break of day, that
they might the sooner reach the Falls, and be in safety with their wives
and little ones. There is no help for thee. Thee and me is alone in the
wilderness, and there is no friend with us. Leave wringing thee hands,
for it can do thee no good."
"I am indeed friendless, and there is no hope," said Roland, with the
accents of despair; "while we seek assistance, and seek it vainly, Edith
is lost,--lost for ever! Would that we had perished together! Hapless
Edith! wretched Edith!--Was ever wretch so miserable as I?"
With such expressions, the young man gave a loose to his feelings, and
Nathan surveyed, first with surprise and then with a kind of gloomy
indignation, but never, as it seemed, with anything like sympathy, the
extravagance of his grief.
"Thee is but a madman!" he exclaimed at last, and with a tone of severity
that arrested Roland's attention: "does thee curse thee fate, and the
Providence that is above thee, because the maid of thee heart is carried
into captivity unharmed? Is thee wretched, because thee eyes did not see
the Injun axe struck into her brain? Friend, thee does not know what such
a sight is; but _I_ do--yes, I have looked upon such a thing, and I will
tell thee what it is; for it is good thee should know. Look, friend," he
continued, grasping Roland by the arm, as if to command his attention,
and surveying him with a look both wild and mournful, "thee sees a man
before thee who was once as young and as happy as thee,--yea, friend,
happier, for I had many around me to love me,--the children of my body,
the wife of my bosom, the mother that gave me birth. Thee did talk of
such things to me in the wood,--thee did mention them one and all,--wife,
parent, and child! Such things had I; and men spoke well of me--But thee
sees what I am! There is none of them remaining,--none only but _me_;
and thee sees me what I am! Ten years ago I was another man,--a poor
man, friend, but one that was happy. I dwelt upon the frontiers of
Bedford--thee may not know the place; it is among the mountains of
Pennsylvania, and far away. _There_ was the house that I did build me;
and in it there was all that I held dear, 'my gray old mother,'--(that's
the way thee did call her, when thee spoke of her in the wood!)--'the
wife of my bosom,' and 'the child of my heart,'--the _children_,
friend,--for there was five of them, sons and daughters together,--little
innocent babes that had done no wrong; and, truly, I loved them well.
Well, friend, the Injuns came around us: for being bold, because of my
faith that made me a man of peace and the friend of all men, I sat me
down far on the border. But the Shawnees came upon me, and came as men of
war, and their hands were red with the blood of my neighbours, and they
raised them against my little infants. Thee asked me in the wood, what I
would do in such case, having arms in my hand? Friend, I _had_ arms in my
hand, at that moment,--a gun that had shot me the beasts of the mountain
for food, and a knife that had pierced the throats of bears in their
dens. I gave them to the Shawnee chief, that he might know I was a
friend.--Friend! if thee asks me now for my children, I can tell
thee--With my own knife he struck down my eldest boy! with my own gun
he slew the mother of my children!--If thee should live till thee is
gray, thee will never see the sight I saw that day! When thee has
children that Injuns murder, as thee stands by,--a wife that clasps thee
legs in the writhing of death,--her blood, spouting up to thee bosom,
where she has slept,--an old mother calling thee to help her in the
death-struggle:--then, friend, _then_ thee may see--then thee
may know--then thee may feel--then thee may call theeself wretched, for
thee will be so! Here was my little boy,--does thee see? there his two
sisters--thee understands?--there--Thee may think I would have snatched a
weapon to help them _then_! Well, thee is right:--but it was too
late!--All murdered, friend!--all--all,--all cruelly murdered!"
It is impossible to convey an idea of the extraordinary vehemence, the
wild accents, the frantic looks, with which Nathan ended the horrid
story, into which he had been betrayed by his repining companion. His
struggles to subdue the passions that the dreadful recollections of a
whole family's butchery awoke in his bosom, only served to add double
distortion to his changes of countenance, which, a better index of the
convulsion within than were his broken, incoherent, half-inarticulate
words, assumed at last an appearance so wild, so hideous, so truly
terrific, that Roland was seized with horror, deeming himself confronted
with a raging maniac. He raised his hand to remove that of Nathan, which
still clutched his arm, and clutched it with painful force; but while in
the act, the fingers relaxed of themselves, and Nathan dropped suddenly
to the earth, as if struck down by a thunderbolt, his mouth foaming, his
eyes distorted, his hands clenched, his body convulsed,--in short,
exhibiting every proof of an epileptic fit, brought on by overpowering
agitation of mind. As he fell, little Peter sprang to his side, and
throwing his paws on his unconscious master's breast, stood over him as
if to protect him, growling at Roland; who, though greatly shocked at the
catastrophe, did not hesitate to offer such relief as was in his power.
Disregarding the menace of the dog, which seemed at last to understand
the purpose was friendly, he raised Nathan's head upon his knee, loosened
the neckcloth that bound his throat, and sprinkled his face with water
from the spring. While thus engaged, the cap of the sufferer fell from
his head, and Roland saw that Nathan carried with him a better cause for
the affliction than could be referred to any mere temporary emotion,
however overwhelming to the mind. A horrible scar disfigured the top of
his head, which seemed to have been, many years before, crushed by the
blows of a heavy weapon; and it was equally manifest that the savage
scalping-knife had done _its_ work on the mangled head.
The soldier had heard that injuries to the head often resulted in
insanity of some species or other; he could now speculate, on better
grounds, and with better reason, upon some of those singular points of
character which seemed to distinguish the houseless Nathan from the rest
of his fellow-men.