XV
IN WHICH A HATCHET SINGS A MAN TO SLEEP
In such a coil as this I'd looped about me there was nothing for it, asit seemed, but to draw the steel and die as a soldier should. So I brokecover on the forest side of the holly thicket with a yell as fierce astheirs, and picked a tree to set my back against, and ran for it.
I never reached the tree. In mid career, when all the Cherokee wolf packwas bursting through the holly tangle at my heels, two men, a white manand an Indian, ran in ahead, as I supposed to cut me off. Just then thedry roof of the hunting lodge roared aflame, reddening the forest farand near. The light was at my back and on the faces of the two who ranto meet me. A great sob swelled in my throat and choked me, but I ranthe faster. For these were my dear lad and the friendly Catawba,charging gallantly to cover my retreat.
It was a ready help in time of need. They ran in bravely, the chiefahead, twirling his tomahawk for the throw, with Dick a pace to rightand rear, his two great pistols brandished and the grandsire of all thebroadswords dangling by a thong at his wrist.
"Follow the chief!" he shouted in passing; and at the word the Catawbastopped short, sent his hatchet whistling into the yapping pack behindme, and swerved to run aside and point the way for me.
Left to myself, I hope I should have had the grace to stand withJennifer. But at the turning point of indecision the quick-witted Indianread my thought, and snatching the sword from my hand, gave me no choicebut to follow him.
So I ran with him; but as I fled I looked behind and saw a sight to putthe ancient hero tales to the blush. One man against two-score my braveDick stood, while through the underwood the mounted soldiery came tomake the odds still greater.
He never flinched for all the hurtling missiles sent on ahead to cut himdown, nor gave a glance aside to where the horsemen were deploying tosurround him. As I looked, the two great pistols belched in the veryfaces of the nearest Cherokees; and in the momentary check the firearmsmade, the basket-hilted claymore went to work, rising and falling like aweaver's beam.
I saw no more; but some heart-bursting minutes later, when Jennifer cameracing on behind to share the flight his heroic stand had made apossibility, the swelling sob choked me once again; and when I thoughtof what this his rescue of me meant to him, I could have blubbered likea boy.
But there was little time or space to give remorse an inning. TheCherokees, checked but for the moment, were storming hotly at our heels.And as we ran I heard the shouted command of Falconnet to his mountedmen: "A rescue! Right oblique, and head them in the road! Gallop, youdevils!"
We ran in Indian file, I at the chief's heels and Jennifer at mine. Ifollowed the Catawba blindly; and being as yet little better than half aman in breath and muscle, was well-nigh spent before we crashed downthrough a tangled briar thicket into the river road.
We were in time, but with no fraction of a minute to spare. We couldhear the _pad-pad-pad_ of the light-footed runners close upon us,following now by the noise we made; and on our left the air wastrembling to the thunder of the mounted men coming at a break-neckgallop down the road.
"Thank God!" says Richard, with a quick eyeshot to right and left in thelesser gloom of the open. "I was afeard even the chief might miss theplace in the dark. Down the bank to the river!--quick, man, andcautious! If they smell us out now, we're no better than buzzard-meat!"And when we reached the water's edge: "You taught me how to paddle apirogue, Jack; I hope you haven't lost the knack of it yourself."
"No," said I; and the three of us slid the hollowed log into the stream.
We were afloat in shortest order, holding the canoe against the currentby clinging to the overhanging trees that fringed the bank; yet withpaddles poised for a second dash for freedom should the need arise. Ishould have dipped forthwith to save the precious minutes, but Jenniferstayed me.
"Hist!" he whispered. "Hold steady and listen. They can not see us fromabove; mayhap we've thrown them off the scent."
I thought it most unlikely; but his guess was right and mine was wrong.Though any of these savages could lift a trail in daylight, following itat top speed like a trained blood-hound, yet now the darkness baffledthem.
So there was some running to and fro in the road above our heads, andthen the troopers galloped down. Followed hastily a labored confabthrough the linguister, broken in the midst by a fury of hot oaths fromFalconnet; and then the chase swept on toward the plantations, and wewere left to make their losing of us sure by whatsoever means we chose.
We paddled slowly up stream in silence, keeping well within the blackershadow of the tree fringe. When we came opposite the glowing ruins ofthe hunting lodge, Jennifer backed upon his paddle.
"You'll go ashore?" said he.
I said I would, adding: "They have slaughtered poor old Darius, and I amloath to leave his bones for the buzzards to pick."
He made no comment other than to swear in sympathy. When the piroguegrounded, the Indian was out like a cat, to vanish phantom-wise amongthe trees. I followed in some clumsier fashion, leaving Jennifer tokeep the canoe; but half way up the hill he joined me, and would notturn back for all my urging. "No; hang me if I'll let you out ofeye-grip again," was all he would say; and so we went together, and weretogether at the seeing of what the glowing ember-heap would show us.
Poor Tomas had his sepulture already. His cord had burned in two and lethim down so close beside the cabin wall that all the blazing debris fromthe overhanging eaves had made his funeral pile. Darius lay as I hadlast seen him; and him we buried in the maize clearing at the back, withthe ember glow for funeral lights.
It was a chanceful thing to do. Since the Cherokees had left their deadand wounded, and Falconnet the body of his trooper who had yielded methe musket, there was small doubt they would return. Yet we had time todig a shallow grave for my old henchman; to dig and fill it up again;and afterward to make a circuit round the burning pile to reach theriver side once more.
When we had launched the canoe, and were afloat and ready for the start,the Catawba was still missing.
"Where is the chief, think you?" I asked; but Dick's answer, if, indeed,he gave me any, was lost in a chorus of ear splitting yells rending thesilence of the night like demon cries. Then a single ululation, longdrawn and fair blood chilling, answered back, and Jennifer swept thepirogue stern to strand with a quick paddle stroke.
"That last was Uncanoola's war cry; they've doubled back in time tocatch him at it!" he cried. "Stand by to drive her when I give the word!Here he comes!"
Down the sloping hillside, looking, in the red glow of the ember heap,more like a flying demon than a man, came the Catawba, one hand grippingthe scalping-knife, the other flung aloft to flaunt his terribletrophies in sight of his pursuers. They were so close upon him thatwaiting promised death for all of us; so Jennifer dipped again to sendthe canoe a broad jump from the bank.
"Ready!" he cried. "He'll take the water like a fish, and we can pickhim up afterward--_Now_!"
I heard the clean-cut dive of the Indian, and struck the paddle deep tobalance Jennifer's stroke. But as I bent to put my back into it, someflying missile caught me fair behind the ear, and but for Jennifer'squick wit I should have swamped the crazy shallop. In a flash he jerkedme flat between his knees and sent the pirogue with a mighty thrustbeyond the zone of fire light.
At that, though all the sense was beaten out of me, I was alive enoughto hear the savage yells of disappointed rage behind us; these and thespitting crackle of a dozen rifles fired at random in the darkness. Butafterward all sounds, save the rhythmic dip and drip of Jennifer'spaddle, faded on the sense of hearing till, as it would seem, thisgentle monody of dipping blade and tinkling drops became a crooninglullaby to blot out all the years that lay between, and make me onceagain a little child sinking asleep in my young mother's arms.
The Master of Appleby Page 17