The morning-star, peeping into the hollow den of the wanderers, was yet
bright on the horizon, when Roland was roused from his slumbers by
Nathan, who had already risen and prepared a hasty meal resembling in all
respects that of the preceding evening. To this the soldier did better
justice than to the other: for, although feeling sore and stiff in every
limb, he experienced none of the feverish consequences Nathan had
predicted from his wounds; and his mind, invigorated by so many hours of
rest, was more tranquil and cheerful. The confidence Nathan seemed to
feel in the reasonableness and practicability of their enterprise,
however wild and daring it might have seemed to others, was his own
best assurance of its success; and hope thus enkindled and growing with
his growing strength, it required no laborious effort to summon the
spirits necessary to sustain him during the coming trials.
This change for the better was not unnoticed by Nathan, who exhorted him
to eat freely, as a necessary prelude to the labours of the day; and the
rude meal being quickly and satisfactorily despatched, and little Peter
receiving his due share, the companions, without further delay, seized
their arms, and recommenced their journey. Crossing the river at the
buffalo-ford above, and exchanging the road to which it led for wilder
and lonelier paths traced by smaller animals, they made their way through
the forest, travelling with considerable speed, which was increased, as
the warmth of exercise gradually restored their native suppleness to the
soldier's limbs.
And now it was, that, as the opening of a glorious dawn, flinging
sunshine and life over the whole wilderness, infused still brighter hopes
into his spirit, he began to divide his thoughts between his kinswoman
and his guide, bestowing more upon the latter than he had previously
found time or inclination to do. His strange appearance, his stranger
character, his sudden metamorphosis from a timid and somewhat
over-conscientious professor of the doctrines of peace and good-will,
into a highly energetic and unremorseful, not to say, valiant man of war,
were all subjects to provoke the soldier's curiosity; which was still
further increased when he pondered over the dismal story Nathan had so
imperfectly told him on the past day. Of those dreadful calamities which,
in Nathan's own language, "had made him what he was," a houseless
wanderer of the wilderness, the Virginian would gladly have known more;
but his first allusion to the subject produced such evident disorder in
Nathan's mind, as if the recollection were too harrowing to be borne,
that the young man immediately repressed his inquiries, and diverted his
guide's thoughts into another channel. His imagination supplied the
imperfect links in the story: he could well believe that the same hands
which had shed the blood of every member of the poor borderer's family,
might have struck the hatchet into the head of the resisting husband and
father; and that the effects of that blow, with the desolation of heart
and fortune which the heavier ones, struck at the same time, had
entailed, might have driven him to the woods, an idle, and perhaps
aimless, wanderer.
How far these causes might have operated in leading Nathan into those
late acts of blood which were at such variance with his faith and
professions, it remained also for Roland to imagine; and, in truth, he
imagined they had operated deeply and far; though nothing in Nathan's own
admissions could be found to sanction any belief save that they were the
results, partly of accident, and partly of sudden and irresistible
impulse.
At all events, it was plain that his warlike feats, however they might
at first have shocked his sense of propriety, now sat but lightly on
his conscience; and, indeed, since his confession at the Piankeshaw
camp, he ceased even to talk of them, perhaps resting upon that as an
all-sufficient explanation and apology. It is certain from that moment he
bore himself more freely and boldly, entered no protest whatever against
being called on to do his share of such fighting as might occur--a
stipulation made with such anxious forethought when he first consented
to accompany the lost travellers--nor betrayed any tenderness of
invective against the Indians, whom, having first spoken of them only as
"evil-minded poor Shawnee creatures," he now designated, conformably
to established usage among his neighbours of the Stations, as "thieves
and dogs," "bloody villains, and rapscallions;" all which expressions he
bestowed with as much ease and emphasis as if he had been accustomed to
use them all his life.
With this singular friend and companion Roland pursued his way through
the wilderness, committing life, and the hopes that were dearer than
life, to his sole guidance and protection; nor did anything happen to
shake his faith in either the zeal or ability of Nathan to conduct to a
prosperous issue the cause he had so freely and disinterestedly espoused.
As they thridded the lonely forest-paths together, Nathan explained at
length the circumstances upon which he founded his hopes of success in
their project; and, in doing so, convinced the soldier, not only that his
sagacity was equal to the enterprise, but that his acquaintance with the
wilderness was by no means confined to the region south of the Ohio; the
northern countries, then wholly in the possession of the Indian tribes,
appearing to be just as well known to him, the Miami country in
particular, in which lay the village of the Black-Vulture. How this
knowledge had been obtained was not so evident; for, although he averred
he hunted the deer or trapped the beaver on either side the river, as
appeared to him most agreeable, it was hardly to be supposed he could
carry on such operations in the heart of the Indian nation. But it was
enough for Roland that the knowledge so essential to his own present
plans, was really possessed by his conductor, and he cared not to
question how it had been arrived at; it was an augury of success, of
which he felt the full influence.
The evening of that day found him upon the banks of the Kentucky, the
wild and beautiful river from which the wilderness around derived its
name; and the next morning, crossing it on a raft of logs speedily
constructed by Nathan, he trod upon the soil of the north side, famous
even then for its beauty and for the deeds of bloodshed almost daily
enacted among its scattered settlements, and destined, unhappily, to be
rendered still more famous for a tragedy which that very day witnessed,
far off among the barren ridges of the Licking, where sixty of the
district's best and bravest sons fell the victims less of Indian subtlety
than of their own unparalleled rashness. But of that bloody field the
travellers were to hear thereafter; the vultures were winging their
flight towards the fatal scene; but they alone could snuff, in that
silent desert, the scent of the battle that vexed it.
Sleeping that night in the woods, the next day, being the fourth since
they left the Piankeshaw camp, beheld the travellers upon the banks of
the Ohio; which, seen, for the first time, in the glory of summer, its
crystal waters wheeling placidly along amid hills and forests, ever
reflected in the bright mirror below, and with the air of virgin solitude
which, through so many leagues of its course, it still presents, never
fails to fill the beholder's mind with an enchanting sense of its
loveliness.
Here a raft was again constructed; and the adventurers pushing boldly
across, were soon upon the opposite shore. This feat accomplished, Nathan
took the precaution to launch their frail float adrift in the current,
that no tell-tale memorial of a white man's visit should remain to be
read by returning warriors. The next moment, ascending the bank of the
river, he plunged with his companion into the midst of brake and forest;
neither of them then dreaming that upon the very spot where they toiled
through the tangled labyrinths, a few years should behold the magic
spectacle of a fair city, the Queen of the West, uprisen with the
suddenness, and almost the splendour, of the _Fata-Morgana_, though,
happily, doomed to no such evanescent existence. Then handling their
arms, like men who felt they were in a foe-man's country, and knew that
every further step was to be taken in peril, they resumed their journey,
travelling with such speed and vigour (for Roland's strength had returned
apace), that at the close of the day they were, according to Nathan's
account, scarce twenty miles distant from the Black-Vulture's village,
which they might easily reach the following day. On the following day,
accordingly, they resumed their march, avoiding all paths, and stealing
through the most unfrequented depths of the woods, proceeding with a
caution which was every moment becoming more obviously necessary to the
success of their enterprise.
Up to this period their journey had presented nothing of interest, being
a mere succession of toil, privation, and occasional suffering, naturally
enough to be expected in such an undertaking; but it was now about to be
varied by an adventure of no little interest in itself, and, in its
consequences, destined to exercise a powerful influence on the prospects
of the travellers.
Laying their plans so as to reach the Indian village only about
nightfall, and travelling but slowly and with great circumspection,
they had not, at mid-day, accomplished much more than half the distance;
when they came to a halt in a little dell, extremely wild and
sequestered, where Nathan proposed to rest a few hours, and recruit their
strength with a warm dinner--a luxury they had not enjoyed for the last
two days, during which they had subsisted upon the corn and dried meat
from the Indian wallets. Accident had, a few moments before, provided
them materials for a more palatable meal. They had stumbled upon a deer
that had just fallen under the attack of a catamount; which, easily
driven from its yet warm and palpitating quarry, surrendered the feast to
its unwelcome visitors. An inspection of the carcass showed that the
animal had been first struck by the bullet of some wandering Indian
hunter--a discovery that somewhat concerned Nathan, until, after a more
careful examination of the wound, which seemed neither severe nor mortal,
he was convinced the poor beast had run many long miles, until, in fact,
wholly exhausted, before the panther had finished the work of the
huntsman. This circumstance removing his uneasiness, he helped himself to
the choicest portion of the animal, amputated a hind leg without stopping
to flay it, and clapping this upon his shoulder in a very business-like
way, left the remainder of the carcass to be despatched by the wild-cat
at her leisure.
The little dell, in which Nathan proposed to cook and enjoy his savoury
treasure, at ease and in safety, was enclosed by hills; of which the one
by which they descended into it fell down in a rolling slope densely
covered with trees; while the other, rocky, barren, and almost naked,
rose precipitously up, a grim picture of solitude and desolation. A
scanty brook, oozing along through the swampy bottom of the hollow, and
supplied by a spring near its head, at which the two friends halted to
prepare their meal, ran meandering away among alders and other swampy
plants, to find exit into a larger vale that opened below, though hidden
from the travellers by the winding of the rocky ridge before them.
In this lonely den, Nathan and Roland began straightway to disencumber
themselves of arms and provisions, seeming well satisfied with its
convenience. But not so little Peter; who, having faithfully accompanied
them so far, now following numbly at his master's heels, and now, in
periods of alarm or doubt, taking post in front, the leader of the party,
uplifted his nose, and fell to snuffing about him in a way that soon
attracted his master's notice. Smelling first around the spring, and then
giving a look both up and down the glen, as if to satisfy himself there
was nothing wrong in either of those quarters, he finally began to ascend
the rocky ridge, snuffing as he went, and ever and anon looking back to
his master and soliciting his attention by a wag of his tail.
"Truly, thee did once wag to me in vain!" said Nathan, snatching up his
gun, and looking volumes of sagacious response at his brute ally, "but
thee won't catch me napping again; though, truly, what thee can smell
here, where is neither track of man nor print of beast, truly, Peter, I
have no idea!"
With these words, he crept up the hill himself, following in little
Peter's wake; and Roland, who also grasped his rifle, as Nathan had done,
though without perhaps attaching the same importance to Peter's note of
warning, thought fit to imitate his example.
In this manner, cautiously crawling up, the two friends reached the crest
of the hill; and peering over a precipice of fifty or more feet sheer
descent, with which it suddenly dipped into a wild but beautiful little
valley below, beheld a scene that, besides startling them somewhat out of
their tranquillity, caused both to bless their good fortune they had not
neglected the warning of their brute confederate.
The vale below, like that they had left, opened into a wider bottom-land,
the bed of a creek, which they could see shining among the trees that
overshadowed the rich alluvion; and into this poured a rivulet that
chattered along through the glen at their feet, in which it had its
sources. The hill on the other side of the little vale, which was of an
oval figure, narrowest at its outlet, was rough and precipitous, like
that on which they lay; but the two uniting above, bounded the head of
the vale with a long, bushy, sweeping slope--a fragment of a natural
amphitheatre--which was evidently of an easy ascent, though abrupt and
steep. The valley thus circumscribed, though broken, and here and there
deeply furrowed by the water-course, was nearly destitute of trees,
except at its head, where a few young beeches flung their silver boughs
and rich green foliage abroad over the grassy knolls, and patches of
papaws drooped their loose leaves and swelling fruit over the stream. It
was in this part of the valley, at the distance of three or four hundred
paces from them, that the eyes of the two adventurers, directed by the
sound of voices, which they had heard the instant they reached the crest
of the ridge, fell, first, upon the smoke of a huge fire curling merrily
up into the air, and then upon the bodies of no less than five Indian
warriors, all zealously and uproariously engaged in an amusement highly
characteristic of their race. There was among them a white man, an
unfortunate prisoner, as was seen at a glance, whom they had bound by the
legs to a tree; around which the savages danced and leaped, yelling now
with rage, now in merriment, but all the while belabouring the poor
wretch with rods and switches, which, at every turn round the tree, they
laid about his head and shoulders with uncommon energy and zest. This was
a species of diversion better relished, as it seemed, by the captors than
their captive; who, infuriated by his pangs, and perhaps desiring, in the
desperation of the moment, to provoke them to end his sufferings with the
hatchet, retaliated with his fists, which were at liberty, striking
fiercely at every opportunity, and once with such effect as to tumble one
of the tormentors to the earth--a catastrophe, however, that the others
rewarded with roars of approving laughter, though without for a moment
intermitting their own cruelties.
This spectacle, it may be well supposed, produced a strong effect upon
the minds of the travellers, who, not without alarm on their own account
at the discovery of such dangerous neighbours, could not view without
emotion a fellow white man and countryman helpless in their hands, and
enduring tortures perhaps preliminary to the more dreadful one of the
stake. They looked one another in the face: the Virginian's eyes sparkled
with a meaning which Nathan could not misunderstand; and clutching his
rifle tighter in his hands, and eyeing the young man with an ominous
stare, he muttered,--"Speak, friend,--thee is a man and a soldier--what
does thee think, in the case made and provided?"
"We are but two men, and they five," replied Roland, firmly, though in
the lowest voice; and then repeated, in the same energetic whisper,--"we
are but two men, Nathan; but there is no kinswoman now to unman me!"
Nathan took another peep at the savages before speaking. Then looking
upon the young man with an uneasy countenance, he said,--"We are but two
men, as thee says, and they five; and, truly, to do what thee thinks of,
in open day, is a thing not to be thought on by men that have soft places
in their bosoms. Nevertheless, I think, according to thee own opinion, we
being strong men that have the wind of the villains, and a good cause to
help us, truly, we might snap the poor man they have captivated out of
their hands, with considerable much damage to them besides, the murdering
rapscallions!--But, friend," he added, seeing Roland give way to his
eagerness,--"thee spoke of the fair maid, thee cousin--If thee fights
this battle, truly, thee may never see her more."
"If I fall," said Roland,--but he was interrupted by Nathan:
"It is not _that_ thee is to think of. Truly, friend, thee may fight
these savages, and thee may vanquish them; but unless thee believes in
thee conscience thee can kill them every one--truly, friend, thee can
hardly expect it?"
"And why should we? It is enough if we can rescue the prisoner."
"Friend, thee is mistaken. If thee attacks the villains, and but one of
them escapes alive to the village, sounding the alarm, thee will never
enter the same in search of the maid, thee kinswoman. Thee sees the case:
thee must choose between the captive there and thee cousin!"
This was a view of the case, and as Roland felt, a just one, well
calculated to stagger his resolutions, if not entirely to abate his
sympathy for the unknown sufferer. As his hopes of success in the
enterprise for which he had already dared and endured so much, evidently
depended upon his ability to approach the Indian village without
awakening suspicion, it was undeniable that an attack upon the party in
the vale, unless resulting in its complete destruction, must cause, to be
borne to the Black-Vulture's town, and on the wings of the wind, the
alarm of white men in the woods; and thus not only cut him off from it,
but actually bring upon himself all the fighting men who might be
remaining in the village. To attack the party with the expectation of
wholly destroying it, was, or seemed to be, an absurdity. But to desert a
wretched prisoner whom he had it perhaps in his power to rescue from
captivity, and from a fate still more dreadful, was a dereliction of
duty, of honour, of common humanity, of which he could scarce persuade
himself to be guilty. He cast his eyes up the glen, and once more looked
upon the captive, who had sunk to the ground, as if from exhaustion, and
whom the savages, after beating him awhile longer, as if to force him
again on his feet, that they might still enjoy their amusement, now fell
to securing with thongs. As Roland looked, he remembered his own night of
captivity, and hesitated no longer. Turning to Nathan, who had been
earnestly reading the struggles of his mind, as revealed in his face, he
said, and with unfaltering resolution,--"You say we _can_ rescue that
man.--I was a prisoner, like him, bound too,--a helpless, hopeless
captive--three Indians to guard me, and but one friend to look upon me;
yet did not that friend abandon me to my fate.--God will protect my poor
cousin--we must rescue him!"
"Thee is a man, every inch of thee!" said Nathan, with a look of uncommon
satisfaction and fire: "thee shall have thee will in the matter of these
murdering Shawnee dogs; and, it may be, it will be none the worse for
thee kinswoman."
With that he motioned Roland to creep with him beyond the crest of the
hill, where they straightway held a hurried consultation of war to
determine upon the plan of proceedings in the prosecution of an adventure
so wild and perilous.
The soldier, burning with fierce ardour, proposed that they should take
post respectively the one at the head, the other at the outlet of the
vale, and creeping as nigh the enemy as they could, deliver their fire,
and then rushing on, before the savages could recover from their
surprise, do their best to finish the affair with their hatchets,--a
plan, which, as he justly said, offered the only prospect of cutting off
the retreat of those who might survive the fire. But Nathan had already
schemed the matter otherwise: he had remarked the impossibility of
approaching the enemy from below, the valley offering no concealment
which would make an advance in that quarter practicable; whereas the
bushes on the slope, where the two walls of the glen united, afforded the
most inviting opportunity to creep on the foe without fear of detection.
"Truly," said he, "we will get us as nigh the assassin thieves as we can;
and, truly, it may be our luck, each of us, to get a brace of them in
range together, and so bang them beautiful!"--an idea that was manifestly
highly agreeable to his imagination, from which he seemed to have utterly
banished all those disgusts and gaingivings on the subject of fighting,
which had formerly afflicted it; "or perhaps, if we can do nothing
better," he continued, "we may catch the vagabonds wandering from their
guns, to pick up sticks for their fire; in which case, friend, truly, it
may be our luck to help them to a second volley out of their own pieces:
or, if the worst must come, truly, then, I do know of a device that may
help the villains into our hands, even to their own undoing!"
With these words, having first examined his own and Roland's arms, to see
that all were in proper battle condition, and then directed little Peter
to ensconce in a bush, wherein little Peter straightway bestowed himself,
Tiger Nathan, with an alacrity of motion and ardour of look that
indicated anything rather than distaste to the murderous work in hand,
led the way along the ridge, until he had reached the place where it
dipped down to the valley, covered with the bushes through which he
expected to advance to a desirable position undiscovered.
But a better auxiliary even than the bushes was soon discovered by the
two friends. A deep gully, washed in the side of the hill by the rains,
was here found running obliquely from its top to the bottom, affording a
covered way, by which, as they saw at a glance, they could approach
within twenty or thirty yards of the foe entirely unseen; and, to add to
its advantages, it was the bed of a little water-course, whose murmurs,
as it leaped from rock to rock, assured them they could as certainly
approach unheard.
"Truly," muttered Nathan, with a grim chuckle, as he looked, first, at
the friendly ravine, and then at the savages below, "the Philistine
rascals is in our hands, and we will smite them hip and thigh!"
With this inspiring assurance he crept into the ravine; and Roland
following, they were soon in possession of a post commanding, not only
the spot occupied by the enemy, but the whole valley.
Peeping through the fringe of shrubs that rose, a verdant parapet, on the
brink of the gully, they looked down upon the savage party, now less than
forty paces from the muzzle of their guns, and wholly unaware of the fate
preparing for them. The scene of diversion and torment was over; the
prisoner, a man of powerful frame but squallid appearance, whose hat,--a
thing of shreds and patches,--adorned the shorn pate of one of the
Indians, while his coat, equally rusty and tattered, hung from the
shoulders of a second, lay bound under a tree, but so nigh that they
could mark the laborious heavings of his chest. Two of the Indians sat
near him on the grass keeping watch, their hatchets in their hands, their
guns resting within reach against the trunk of a tree overthrown by some
hurricane of former years, and now mouldering away. A third was engaged
with his tomahawk, lopping away the few dry boughs that remained on the
trunk. Squatting at the fire, which the third was thus labouring to
replenish with fuel, were the two remaining savages, who, holding their
rifles in their hands, divided their attention betwixt a shoulder of
venison roasting on a stick in the fire, and the captive, whom they
seemed to regard as destined to be sooner or later disposed of in a
similar manner.
The position of the parties precluded the hope Nathan had ventured to
entertain of getting them in a cluster, and so doing double execution
with each bullet; but the disappointment neither chilled his ardour nor
embarrassed his plans. His scheme of attack had been framed to embrace
all contingences; and he wasted no further time in deliberation. A
few whispered words conveyed his last instructions to the soldier; who,
reflecting that he was fighting in the cause of humanity, remembering his
own heavy wrongs, and marking the fiery eagerness that flamed from
Nathan's visage, banished from his mind whatever disinclination he might
have felt at beginning the fray in a mode so seemingly treacherous and
ignoble. He laid his axe on the brink of the gully at his side, together
with his foraging cap; and then, thrusting his rifle through the bushes,
took aim at one of the savages at the fire, Nathan directing his piece
against the other. Both of them presented the fairest marks, as they sat
wholly unconscious of their danger, enjoying in imagination the tortures
yet to be inflicted on the prisoner. But a noise in the gully,--the
falling of a stone loosened by the soldier's foot, or a louder than usual
plash of water,--suddenly roused them from their dreams; they started up,
and turned their eyes towards the hill.--"Now, friend!" whispered
Nathan;--"if thee misses, thee loses thee maiden and thee life into the
bargain.--Is thee ready?"
"Ready," was the reply.
"Right, then, through the dog's brain,--fire!"
The crash of the pieces, and the fall of the two victims, both marked by
a fatal aim, and both pierced through the brain, were the first
announcement of peril to their companions; who, springing up, with yells
of fear and astonishment, and snatching at their arms, looked wildly
around them for the unseen foe. The prisoner, also, astounded out of his
despair, raised his head from the grass, and glared around. The wreaths
of smoke curling over the bushes on the hill-side, betrayed the lurking
place of the assailants; and savages and prisoner turning together, they
all beheld at once the spectacle of two human heads,--or, to speak more
correctly, two human caps, for the heads were far below them,--rising in
the smoke, and peering over the bushes, as if to mark the result of the
volley. Loud, furious, and exulting were the screams of the Indians, as
with the speed of thought, seduced by a stratagem often practised among
the wild heroes of the border, they raised and discharged their pieces
against the imaginary foes so incautiously exposed to their vengeance.
The caps fell, and with them the rifles that had been employed to raise
them; and the voice of Nathan thundered through the glen, as he grasped
his tomahawk and sprang from the ditch,--"Now, friend! up with thee axe,
and do thee duty!"
With these words, the two assailants at once leaped into view, and with a
bold hurrah, and bolder hearts, rushed towards the fire, where lay the
undischarged rifles of their first victims. The savages yelled also in
reply, and two of them bounded forward to dispute the prize. The third,
staggered into momentary inaction by the suddenness and amazement of the
attack, rushed forward but a step; but a whoop of exultation was on his
lips, as he raised the rifle which _he_ had not yet discharged, full
against the breast of Tiger Nathan. But, his triumph was short-lived; the
blow, so fatal as it must have proved to the life of Nathan, was averted
by an unexpected incident. The prisoner, near whom he stood, putting
all his vigour into one tremendous effort, burst his bonds, and, with a
yell ten times louder and fiercer than had yet been uttered, added
himself to the combatants. With a furious cry of encouragement to his
rescuers,--"Hurrah for Kentucky!--give it to 'em good!" he threw himself
upon the savage, beat the gun from his hands, and grasping him in his
brawny arms, hurled him to the earth, where, rolling over and over in
mortal struggle, growling and whooping, and rending one another like wild
beasts, the two, still locked in furious embrace, suddenly tumbled down
the banks of the brook, there high and steep, and were immediately lost
to sight.
Before this catastrophe occurred, the other Indians and the assailants
met at the fire; and each singling out his opponent, and thinking no more
of the rifles, they met as men whose only business was to kill or to die.
With his axe flourished over his head, Nathan rushed against the tallest
and foremost enemy, who, as he advanced, swung his tomahawk, in the act
of throwing it. Their weapons parted from their hands at the same moment,
and with perhaps equal accuracy of aim; but meeting with a crash in the
air, they fell together to the earth, doing no harm to either. The Indian
stooped to recover his weapon; but it was too late: the hand of Nathan
was already upon his shoulder: a single effort of his vast strength
sufficed to stretch the savage at his feet; and holding him down with
knee and hand, Nathan snatched up the nearest axe. "If the life of thee
tribe was in thee bosom," he cried, with a look of unrelenting fury, of
hatred deep and ineffaceable, "thee should die the dog's death, as thee
does!" And with a blow furiously struck, and thrice repeated, he
despatched the struggling savage as he lay.
He rose, brandishing the bloody hatchet, and looked for his companion. He
found him upon the earth, lying upon the breast of his antagonist, whom
it had been his good fortune to over-master. Both had thrown their
hatchets, and both without effect, Roland because skill was wanting, and
the Shawnee because, in the act of throwing, he had stumbled over the
body of one of his comrades, so as to disorder his aim, and even to
deprive him of his footing. Before he could recover himself, Roland
imitated Nathan's example, and threw himself upon the unlucky Indian,--a
youth, as it appeared, whose strength, perhaps at no moment equal to his
own, had been reduced by recent wounds,--and found that he had him
entirely at his mercy. This circumstance, and the knowledge that the
other Indians were now overpowered, softened the soldier's wrath; and
when Nathan, rushing to assist him, cried aloud to him to move aside,
that he might "knock the assassin knave's brains out," Roland replied by
begging Nathan to spare his life. "I have disarmed him," he cried--"he
resists no more--Don't kill him."
"To the last man of his tribe!" cried Nathan, with unexampled ferocity;
and, without another word, drove the hatchet into the wretch's brain.
The victors now leaping to their feet, looked round for the fifth savage
and the prisoner; and directed by a horrible din under the bank of the
stream, which was resounding with, curses, groans, heavy blows, and the
plashing of water, ran to the spot, where the last incident of battle was
revealed to them in a spectacle as novel as it was shocking. The Indian
lay on his back suffocating in mire and water; while astride his body sat
the late prisoner, covered from head to foot with mud and gore, furiously
plying his fists, for he had no other weapons, about the head and face of
his foe, his blows falling like sledge-hammers or battering-rams, with
such strength and fury that it seemed impossible any one of them could
fail to crush the skull to atoms; and all the while garnishing them with
a running accompaniment of oaths and maledictions little less emphatic
and overwhelming. "You switches gentlemen, do you, you exflunctified,
perditioned rascal? Ar'n't you got it, you niggur-in-law to old Satan?
you 'tarnal half-imp, you? H'yar's for you, you dog, and thar's for you,
you dog's dog! H'yar's the way I pay you in a small-change of
sogdologers!"
And thus he cried, until Roland and Nathan seizing him by the
shoulders, dragged him by main force from the Indian, who was found, when
they came to examine the body afterwards, actually pommelled to death,
the skull having been beaten in as with bludgeons.--The victor sprang
upon his feet, and roared his triumph aloud:--"Ar'n't I lick'd him
handsome!--Hurrah for Kentucky and old Salt--Cock-a-doodle-doo!"
And with that, turning to his deliverers, he displayed to
their astonished eyes, though disfigured by blood and mire, the
never-to-be-forgotten features of the captain of horse-thieves,
Soaring Ralph Stackpole.