The night was brilliantly clear, the stars shining with an excess of
lustre, with which Nathan would perhaps, at that moment, have gladly
dispensed, since it was by no means favourable to the achievement he was
now so daringly attempting. Fortunately, however, the Indian village lay,
for the most part, in the shadow of the hill, itself covered with
majestic maples and tulip-trees, that rose in dark and solemn masses
above it, and thus offered the concealment denied in the more open parts
of the valley. With Ralph still at his side, he crept round the
projecting corner of the hill, and, shrouded in its gloom, drew nigh the
village, wherein might be still occasionally heard the halloo of a
drunken savage, followed by an uproarious chorus of barking and howling
curs.
Whether it was that these sounds, or some gloomy forebodings of his own,
awoke the anxieties of Nathan, he did not deign to reveal; but, by and
by, having arrived within but a few paces of a wretched pile of skins and
boughs, the dwelling of some equally wretched and improvident barbarian,
he came to a sudden halt, and withdrawing the captain of horse-thieves
aside from the path, addressed him in the following terms:--
"Thee says, friend, thee has taken horses from this very Village, and
that thee knows it well?"
"As well," replied Ralph, "as I know the step-mothers on my own thumbs
and fingers,--I do, 'tarnal death to me,--that is to say, all the parts,
injacent and outjacent, circum-surrounding the boss-stamp; for thar's the
place of my visiting. The way to fetch it, old boy, is jist to fetch
round this h'yar old skin-pot, whar thar's a whole bee's-nest of young
papooses, the size of bull-toads,--from that, up--(I know it, 'cause how,
I heerd 'em squallin'; and thar war some one a lickin' 'em); or, if you
don't favour taking it so close to the skirmudgeons, then you must claw
up the knob h'yar, and then take and take the shoot, till you fetch right
among the hosses, whar you h'ar them whinnying down the holler; and
thar--"
"Friend," said Nathan, cutting him short, "it is on _thee_ doings, more
than on them of any others, that the hopes of the maid Edith--"
"Call her anngelliferous madam," said Ralph, "for I can't stand any
feller being familiar with her,--I can't, no how."
"Well, friend," said Nathan, "it is on thee doings that her escaping the
Shawnee villains this night depends. If thee does well, it may be we
shall both discover and carry her safe away from captivation: if thee
acts as a foolish imprudent man,--and, truly, friend, I have my fears of
thee,--thee will both fail to help her theeself, and prevent others doing
it, who, it may be, has the power."
"Old boy," said the captain of horse-thieves, with something like a gulp
of emotion, "you ar'n't respectable to a feller's feelings. But I'll
stand anything from you, 'cause how, you down'd my house in a fa'r
tussle, and you helped the captain thar that helped me out of trouble. If
you're atter ginning me a bit of wisdom, and all on madam's account, I'm
jist the gentleman that h'ars you. State the case, and h'yar stands I
confawmable."
"Well, friend," said Nathan, "what I have to advise thee is, that thee
stops where thee is, leaving the rest of this matter entirely to me;
seeing that, as thee knows nothing of this Injun village, excepting the
horse-pound thereof, it will not be safe for thee to enter. Do thee rest
where thee is, and I will spy out the place of the maiden's concealing."
"Old feller," said Captain Ralph, "you won't pretend you knows more of
the place than me? You don't go for to say you ever stole a hoss here?"
"Do thee be content, friend," said Nathan, "to know there is not a cabin
in all the village that is unbeknown to me: do thee be content with that.
Thee must not go near the pound, until thee knows for certain the maid
thee calls madam can be saved. Truly, friend, it may be we cannot help
her to-night, but may do so to-morrow night."
"I see what you're up to," said Ralph: "and thar's no denying it war a
natteral piece of nonsense to steal a hoss, afo' madam war ready to ride
him. And so, old Nathan, if it ar' your qualified opinion I'll sarve
madam better by snuggin' under a log, than by snuffin' atter her among
the cabins, I'm jist the gentleman to knock under, accordin' to reason."
This declaration seemed greatly to relieve the uneasiness of Nathan, who
recommending him to be as good as his word, and ensconce among some logs
lying near the path, awaiting the event of his own visit to the heart of
the village, immediately took his leave; though not with the timid and
skulking step of a spy. Wrapping his blanket about his shoulders, and
assuming the gait of a savage, he stalked boldly forwards; jingling under
his mantle the bundle of hawk's-bells which he carried in his hand, as if
actually to invite the observation of such barbarians as were yet moving
through the village.
But this stretch of audacity, as the listening horse-thief was at first
inclined to esteem it, was soon seen to have been adopted with a wise
foreknowledge of its effects in removing one of the first and greatest
difficulties in the wanderer's way. At the first cabin was a troop of
yelling curs, that seemed somewhat disturbed by the stranger's approach,
and disposed to contest his right of passing scot-free; but a jerk of the
bells settled the difficulty in a moment; and the animals, mute and
crest-fallen, slunk nastily away, as if expecting the crash of a tomahawk
about their ears, in the usual summary Indian way, to punish their
presumption in baying a warrior.
"A right-down natteral, fine conceit!" muttered Captain Ralph,
approvingly: "the next time I come a-grabbin' hosses, if I don't fetch a
bushel of the jinglers, I wish I may be kicked! Them thar Injun dogs is
always the devil."
In the meanwhile, Nathan, though proceeding with such apparent boldness,
and relying upon his disguise as all-sufficient to avert suspicion, was
by no means inclined to court any such dangers as could be really
avoided. If the light of a fire still burning in a wigwam, and watched by
wakeful habitants, shone too brightly from its door, he crept by with the
greatest circumspection; and he gave as wide a berth as possible to every
noisy straggler who yet roamed through the village.
There was indeed necessity for every precaution. It was evident, that the
village was by no means so destitute of defence as he had imagined,--that
the warriors of Wenonga had not generally obeyed the call that carried
the army of the tribes to Kentucky, but had remained in inglorious ease
and sloth in their own cabins. There was no other way, at least, of
accounting for the dozen or more male vagabonds, whom he found at
intervals stretched here before a fire, where they had been carousing in
the open air, and there lying asleep across the path, just where the
demon of good cheer had dropped them. Making his own inferences from
their appearance, and passing them with care, sometimes even, where their
slumbers seemed unsound, crawling by on his face, he succeeded at last in
reaching the central part of the village; where the presence of several
cabins of logs, humble enough in themselves, but far superior to the
ordinary hovels of an Indian village, indicated the abiding place of the
superiors of the clan, or of those apostate white men, renegades from the
States, traitors to their country and to civilisation, who were, at that
day, in so many instances, found uniting their fortunes with the Indians,
following, and even leading them, in their bloody incursions upon the
frontiers. To one of those cabins Nathan made his way with stealthy step;
and peeping through a chink in the logs, beheld a proof that here a
renegade had cast his lot, in the appearance of some half a dozen naked
children, of fairer hue than the savages, yet not so pale as those of his
own race, sleeping on mats round a fire, at which sat, nodding and
dozing, the dark-eyed Indian mother.
One brief, earnest look Nathan gave to this spectacle; then, stealing
away, he bent his steps towards a neighbouring cabin, which he approached
with even greater precautions than before. This was a hovel of logs, like
the other, but of still better construction, having the uncommon
convenience of a chimney, built of sticks and mud, through whose low wide
top ascended volumes of smoke, made ruddy by the glare of the flames
below. A cranny here also afforded the means of spying into the doings
within; and Nathan, who approached it with the precision of one not
unfamiliar with the premises, was not tardy to avail himself of its
advantages. Bare naked walls of logs, the interstices rudely stuffed with
moss and clay,--a few uncouth wooden stools,--a rough table,--a bed of
skins,--and implements of war and the chase hung in various places about
the room, all illuminated more brilliantly by the fire on the hearth than
by the miserable tallow candle, stuck in a lamp of humid clay, that
glimmered on the table,--were not the only objects to attract the
wanderer's eye. Sitting by the fire were two men, both white; though the
blanket and calico shirt of one, and the red shawl which he was just in
the act of removing from his brows, as Nathan peeped through the chink,
with an uncommon darkness of skin and hair, might have well made him pass
for an Indian. His figure was very tall, well proportioned, and athletic;
his visage manly, and even handsome; though the wrinkles of forty winters
furrowed deeply in his brows, and perhaps a certain repelling gleam, the
light of smothered passions shining from the eyes below, might have left
that merit questionable with the beholder.
The other was a smaller man, whom Roland, had he been present, would have
recognised as the supposed half-breed, who, at the partition of spoils,
after the capture of his party, and the defeat of the young Kentuckians,
had given him a prisoner into the hands of the three Piankeshaws,--in a
word, the renegade father of Telie Doe. Nor was his companion less
familiar to Nathan, who beheld in his sombre countenance the features of
that identical stranger, seen with Doe at the fire among the assailants
at the memorable ruin, whose appearance had awakened the first suspicion
that there was more in the attack than proceeded from ordinary causes.
This was a discovery well fitted to increase the interest, and sharpen
the curiosity, of the man of peace: who peering in upon the pair from the
chink, gave all his faculties to the duty of listening and observing. The
visage of Doe, dark and sullen at the best, was now peculiarly moody; and
he sat gazing into the fire, apparently regardless of his companion, who,
as he drew the shawl from his head, and threw it aside, muttered
something into Doe's ears, but in a voice too low for Nathan to
distinguish what he said. The whisper was repeated once and again, but
without seeming to produce any impression upon Doe's ears; at which the
other growing impatient, gave, to Nathan's great satisfaction, a louder
voice to his discourse:
"Hark, you, Jack,--Atkinson,--Doe,--Shanogenaw,--Rattlesnake,--or
whatever you may be pleased to call yourself," he cried, striking the
muser on the shoulder, "are you mad, drunk, or asleep? Get up, man, and
tell me, since you will tell me nothing else, what the devil you are
dreaming about?"
"Why, curse it," said the other, starting up somewhat in anger, but
draining, before he spoke, a deep draught from an earthen pitcher that
stood on the table,--"I was thinking, if you must know, about the
youngster, and the dog's death we have driven him to--Christian work for
Christian men, eh?"
"The fate of war!" exclaimed the renegade's companion, with great
composure; "we have won the battle, boy;--the defeated must bear the
consequences."
"Ondoubtedly," said Doe,--"up to the rack, fodder or no fodder: that's
the word; there's no 'scaping them consequences; they must be taken as
they come,--gantelope, fire-roasting, and all. But, I say, Dick--saving
your pardon for being familiar," he added, "there's the small matter to
be thought on in the case,--and that is, it was not Injuns, but rale
right-down Christian men that brought the younker to the tug. It's a bad
business for white men, and it makes me feel oncomfortable."
"Pooh," said the other, with an air of contemptuous commiseration, "you
are growing sentimental. This comes of listening to that confounded
whimpering Telie."
"No words agin the gal!" cried Doe, sternly; "you may say what you like
of me, for I'm a rascal that desarves it; but I'll stand no barking agin
the gal."
"Why, she's a good girl and a pretty girl,--too good and too pretty to
have so crusty a father,--and I have nothing against her, but her taking
on so about the younker, and so playing the devil with the wits and
good-looks of my own bargain."
"A dear bargain she is like to prove to all of us," said Doe, drowning
his anger, or remorse, in another draught from the pitcher. "She has cost
us eleven men already: it is well the bulk of the whelps was Wabash and
Maumee dogs, or you would have seen her killed and scalped, for all of
your guns and whisky,--you would, there's no two ways about it.
Howsomever, four of 'em was dogs of our own, and two of them was picked
off by the Jibbenainosay. I tell you what, Dick, I'm not the man to skear
at a raw-head-and-bloody-bones; but I do think the coming of this here
cursed Jibbenainosay among us, jist as we was nabbing the girl and
sodger, was as much as to say there was no good could come of it; and so
the Injuns thought too--you saw how hard it was to bring 'em up to the
scratch, when they found he had been knifing a feller right among 'em! I
do believe the crittur's Old Nick himself!"
"So don't I," said the other; "for it is quite unnatural to suppose the
devil would ever take part against his own children."
"Perhaps," said Doe, "you don't believe in the crittur?"
"Good Jack, honest Jack," replied his companion, "I am no such ass."
"Them that don't believe in hell, will natterly go agin the devil,"
muttered the renegade, with strong signs of disapprobation; and then
added earnestly,--"Look you, Squire, you're a man that knows more of
things than me, and the likes of me. You saw that 'ere Injun, dead, in
the woods under the tree, where the five scouters had left him a living
man?"
"Ay," said the man of the turban; "but he had been wounded by the
horseman you so madly suffered to pass the ambush at the ford, and was
obliged to stop from loss of blood and faintness. What so natural as to
suppose the younker fell upon him (we saw the tracks of the whole party
where the body lay), and slashed him in your devil's style, to take
advantage of the superstitious fear of the Indians?"
"There's nothing like being a lawyer, sartain!" grumbled Doe.
"But the warrior right among us, there at the ruin?--you seed him
yourself,--marked right in the thick of us! I reckon you won't say
the sodger, that we had there trapped up fast in the cabin, put the
cross on that Injun too?"
"Nothing more likely," said the sceptic;--"a stratagem a bold man might
easily execute in the dark."
"Well, Squire," said Doe, waxing impatient, "you may jist as well work it
out according to law that this same sodger younker, that never seed
Kentucky afore in his life, has been butchering Shawnees there, ay, and
in this d--d town too, for ten years agone. Ay, Dick, it's true, jist as
I tell you: there has been a dozen or more Injun warriors struck and
scalped in our very wigwams here, in the dead of the night, and nothing,
in the morning, but the mark of the Jibbenainosay to tell who was the
butcher. There's not a cussed warrior of them all that doesn't go to his
bed at night in fear; for none knows when the Jibbenainosay,--the Howl of
the Shawnees,--may be upon him. You must know, there was some bloody
piece of business done in times past (Injuns is the boys for them
things!)--the murdering of a knot of innocent people--by some of the
tribe, with the old villain Wenonga at the head of 'em. Ever since that,
the Jibbenainosay has been murdering among them; and they hold that it's
a judgment on the tribe, as ondoubtedly it is. And now, you see, that's
jist the reason why the old chief has turned such a vagabond; for the
tribe is rifled at him, because of his bringing such a devil on them, and
they won't follow him to battle no more, except some sich riff-raff,
vagabond rascals as them we picked up for this here rascality, no how.
And so, you see, it has a sort of set the old feller mad: he thinks of
nothing but the Jibbenainosay,--(that is, when he's sober, though, cuss
him, I believe it's all one when he's drunk, too.)--of hunting him up and
killing him, for he's jist a feller to fight the devil, there's no two
ways about it. It was because I told him we was going to the woods on
Salt, where the crittur abounds, and where he might get wind of him, that
he smashed his rum-keg, and agreed to go with us."
"Well, well," said Doe's associate, "this is idle talk. We have won the
victory, and must enjoy it. I must see the prize."
"What good can come of it?" demanded Doe, moodily: "the gal's half dead
and whole crazy,--or so Telie says. And as for your gitting any good-will
out of her, cuss me if I believe it. And Telie says--"
"That Telie will spoil all! I told you to keep the girl away from her."
"Well, and didn't I act accordin'? I told her I'd murder her, if she went
near her agin--a full-blooded, rale-grit rascal to talk so to my own
daughter, an't I? But I should like to know where's the good of keeping
the gal from her, since it's all she has for comfort?"
"And that is the very reason she must be kept away," said the stranger,
with a look malignly expressive of self-approving cunning: "there must be
no hope, no thought of security, no consciousness of sympathy, to make me
more trouble than I have had already. She must know where she is, and
what she is, a prisoner among wild savages: a little fright, a little
despair, and the work is over. You understand me, eh? There is a way of
bringing the devil himself to terms; and as for a woman, she is not much
more unmanageable. One week of terrors, real and imagined, does the work;
and then, my jolly Jack, you have won your wages."
"And I have desarved 'em," said Doe, striking his fist upon the table
with violence; "for I have made myself jist the d----dest rascal that was
ever made of a white man. Lying, and cheating, and perjuring, and
murdering--it's nothing better nor murder, that of giving up the younker
that never did harm to me or mine, to the Piankeshaws,--for they'll burn
him, they will, d--n 'em! there's no two ways about it.--There's what
I've done for you; and if you were to give me had the plunder, I reckon
'twould do no more than indamnify me for my rascality. And so, here's the
end on't;--you've made me a rascal, and you shall pay for it."
"It is the only thing the world ever does pay for," said the stranger,
with edifying coolness; "and so, don't be afflicted. To be a rascal is to
be a man of sense,--provided you are a rascal in a sensible way,--that
is, a profitable one."
"Ay," said Doe, "that's the doctrine you have been preaching ever since I
knowed you; and _you_ have made a fortun' by it. But as for me, though
I've toed the track after your own leading, I'm jist as poor as ever, and
ten times more despisable,--I am, d--n me; for I'm a white Injun, and
there's nothing more despisable. But here's the case," he added, working
himself into a rage,--"I won't be a rascla for nothing,--I'm sworn to it:
and this is a job you must pay for to the full vally, or you're none the
better on it."
"It will make your fortune," said his companion in iniquity: "there was
bad luck about us before; but all is now safe--The girl will make us
secure."
"I don't see into it a bit," said Doe, morosely: "you were secure enough
without her. The story of the other gal you know of gave you the grab on
the lands and vall'ables; and I don't see what's the good to come of this
here other one, no how."
"Then have you less brains, my jolly Jack, then I have given you credit
for," said the other. "The story you speak of is somewhat too flimsy to
serve us long. We must have a better claim to the lands than can come of
possession in trust for an heir not to be produced, till we can find the
way to Abraham's bosom. We have now obtained it: the younker, thanks to
your Piankeshaw cut-throats, is on the path to Paradise; the girl is left
alone, sole claimant, and heiress at law. In a word, Jack, I design to
marry her;--ay, faith will-she nill-she, I will marry her: and thereby,
besides gratifying certain private whims and humours not worth
mentioning, I will put the last finish to the scheme, and step into
the estate with a clear conscience."
"But the will, the cussed old will?" cried Doe. "You've got up a cry
about it, and there's them that won't let it drop so easy. What's an heir
at law agin a will? You take the gal back, and the cry is, 'Where's the
true gal, the major's daughter?' I reckon, you'll find you're jist got
yourself into a trap of your own making!"
"In that case," said the stranger, with a grin, "we must e'en act like
honest men, and find (after much hunting and rummaging, mind you!) the
major's _last_ will."
"But you burned it!" exclaimed Doe: "you told me so yourself."
"I told you so, Jack; but that was a little bit of innocent deception, to
make you easy. I told you so; but I kept it, to guard against accidents.
And here it is, Jack," added the speaker, drawing from amid the folds of
his blanket a roll of parchment, which he proceeded very deliberately to
spread upon the table: "The very difficulty you mention occurred to me; I
saw it would not do to raise the devil, without retaining the power to
lay him. Here then is the will, that settles the affair to your liking.
The girl and the younker are co-heirs together; but the latter dying
intestate, you understand, the whole falls into the lap of the former.
Are you easy now, honest Jack? Will this satisfy you all is safe?"
"It is jist the thing to an iota," ejaculated Doe, in whom the sight of
the parchment seemed to awaken cupidity and exultation together: "there's
no standing agin it in any court in Virginnee!"
"Right, my boy," said his associate. "But where is the girl? I must see
her."
"In the cabin with Wenonga's squaw, right over agin the Council-house,"
replied Doe; adding with animation, "but I'm agin your going nigh her,
till we settle up accounts jist as honestly as any two sich d--d rascals
can. I say, by G--, I must know how the book stands, and how I'm to
finger the snacks: for snacks is the word, or the bargain's no go."
"Well,--we can talk of this on the morrow."
"To-night's the time," said Doe: "there's nothing like having an honest
understanding of matters afore-hand. I'm not going to be cheated,--not
meaning no offence in saying so; and I've jist made up my mind to keep
the gal out of your way, till we've settled things to our liking."
"Spoken like a sensible rogue," said the stranger, with a voice all
frankness and approval, but with a lowering look of impatience, which
Nathan, who had watched the proceedings of the pair with equal amazement
and interest, could observe from the chink, though it was concealed from
Doe by the position of the speaker, who had risen from his stool, as if
to depart, but who now sat down again, to satisfy the fears of his
partner in villany. To this he immediately addressed himself, but in
tones lower than before, so that Nathan could no longer distinguish his
words.
But Nathan had heard enough. The conversation, as far as he had
distinguished it, chimed strangely in with all his own and Roland's
suspicions; there was, indeed, not a word uttered that did not confirm
them. The confessions of the stranger, vague and mysterious as they
seemed, tallied in all respects with Roland's account of the villanous
designs imputed to the hated Braxley; and it was no little additional
proof of his identity, that, in addressing Doe, whom he styled throughout
as Jack, he had, once at least, called him by the name of Atkinson,--a
refugee, whose connection with the conspiracy in Roland's story Nathan
had not forgotten. It was not, indeed, surprising that Abel Doe should
possess another name; since it was a common practice among renegades
like himself, from some sentiment of shame or other obvious reasons, to
assume an _alias_ and _nom de guerre_, under which they acquired their
notoriety: the only wonder was, that he should prove to be that person
whose agency in the abduction of Edith would, of all other men in the
world, go furthest to sustain the belief of Braxley being the principal
contriver of the outrage.
Such thoughts as these may have wandered through Nathan's mind; but he
took little time to con them over. He had made a discovery at that moment
of more stirring importance and interest. Allowing that Edith Forrester
was the prisoner of whom the disguised stranger and his sordid
confederate spoke, and there was little reason to doubt it, he had
learned, out of their own mouths, the place of her concealment, to
discover which was the object of his daring visit to the village. Her
prison-house was the wigwam of Wenonga, the chief,--if chief he could
still be called, whom the displeasure of his tribe had robbed of almost
every vestige of authority; and thither Nathan, to whom the vile
bargaining of the white-men no longer offered interest, supposing he
could even have overheard it, instantly determined to make his way.
But how was Nathan to know the cabin of the chief from the dozen other
hovels that surrounded the Council-house. That was a question which,
perhaps Nathan did not ask himself: for creeping softly from Doe's hut,
and turning into the street (if such could be called the irregular
winding space that separated the two lines of cabins composing the
village), he stole forward, with nothing of the hesitation or doubt which
might have been expected from one unfamiliar with the village.