XXVI
WE TAKE THE CHARRED STICK FOR A GUIDE
Luckily for us the new danger was approaching from the westward. So, bydint of the maddest hurryings we got the bodies of the three Cherokeeshoist upon the horses, and were able to efface in part the signs of thelate encounter before the band of riders coming down the Indian path wasupon us. But there was no time to make an orderly retreat. At most wecould only withdraw a little way into the wood, halting when we werewell in cover, and hastily stripping coats and waistcoats to muffle theheads of the horses.
So you are to conceive us waiting with nerves upstrung, ready for fightor flight as the event should decide, stifling in such pent-up suspenseas any or all of us would gladly have exchanged for the fiercest battle.Happily, the breath-scanting interval was short. From behind our thicketscreen we presently saw a file of Indian horsemen riding at a leisurelyfootpace down the path. Ephraim Yeates quickly named these new-comersfor us.
"'Tis about ez I allowed--some o' the Tuckaseges a-scouting down tohold a powwow with the hoss-captain. Now, then; if them sharp-nosedponies o' their'n don't happen to sniff the blood--"
The hope was dashed on the instant by the sudden snorting and shying oftwo or three of the horses in passing, and we laid hold of our weapons,keying ourselves to the fighting pitch. But, curiously enough, theriders made no move to pry into the cause. So far from it, they floggedthe shying ponies into line and rode on stolidly; and thus in a littletime that danger was overpast and the evening silence of the mightyforest was ours to keep or break as we chose.
The old frontiersman was the first to speak.
"Well, friends, I reckon ez how we mought ez well thank the good Lordfor all His marcies afore we go any furder," he would say; and he doffedhis cap and did it forthwith.
It was as grim a picture as any limner of the weird could wish to lookupon. The twilight shadows were empurpling the mountains and gatheringin dusky pools here and there where the trees stood thickest in thevalley. The hush of nature's mystic hour was abroad, and even theswiftly flowing river, rushing sullenly along its rocky bed no more thana stone's cast beyond the Indian path, seemed to pretermit its lowthunderings. There was never a breath of air astir in all the wood, andthe leaves of the silver poplar that will twinkle and ripple in thelightest zephyr hung stark and motionless.
Barring the old borderer, who had gone upon his knees, we stood as wewere; the Catawba holding the pack horses, and Jennifer and I the threethat bore the ghastly burdens of mortality. The bodies of the slain hadbeen flung across the saddles to balance as they might; and to thepommel of that saddle which bore the trunk of the five-featheredchieftain, Uncanoola had knotted the grisly head by its scalp-lock todangle and roll about with every restless movement of the horse--ahideous death-mask that seemed to mop and mow and stare fearsomely at uswith its wide-open glassy eyes.
With this background fit for the staging of a scene in Dante Alighieri'stragic comedy, the looming mountains, the upper air graying on to dusk,and the solemn forest aisles full of lurking shadows, you are to picturethe old frontiersman, bareheaded and on his knees, pouring forth hissoul in all the sonorous phrase of Holy Writ, now in thanksgiving, andnow in most terrible beseechings that all the vials of Heaven's wrathmight be poured out upon our enemies.
His face, commonly a leather mask to hide the man behind it, was nowablaze with the fire of zealotry; and, truly, in these his spasm-fits ofsupplication he stood for all that is most awe-inspiring and unnerving,asking but a little stretch of the imagination to figure him as one ofthose old iron-hard prophets of denunciation come back to earth to bethe herald of the wrath of God.
'Twas close upon actual nightfall when the old man rose from his kneesand, with the rising, put off the beadsman and put on the shrewd oldIndian fighter. Followed some hurried counselings as to how we shouldproceed, and in these the hunter set the pace for us as his age and vastexperience in woodcraft gave him leave.
His plan had all the merit of simplicity. Now that we had the horses,Richard's notion of an approach from the head of the sunken valleybecame at once the most hopeful of any. So Ephraim Yeates proposed thatwe betake ourselves to the mountain top and to the head of that ravinewhich the Catawba and I had discovered. Here we should leave the horseswell hidden and secured, make our way down the ravine, and, with thestream for a guide, follow the sunken valley to the camp at its lowerend. Once on the ground without having given the alarm, we might hope tofree the captives under cover of the darkness; and our retreat up thevalley would be far less hazardous than any open flight by way of theunexplored road the powder train had used.
So said the old backwoodsman; but neither Dick nor I would agree to this_in toto_. Dick argued that while we were killing time in the roundaboutadvance we should be leaving Margery wholly at the mercy of the baronet,and that every hour of delay was full of hideous menace to her. Hence heproposed that three of us should carry out the hunter's plan, leavingthe fourth to take the hint given by the charred stick and the swimmingambush crew, and so penetrating to the valley by the stream cavern, beat hand to strike a blow for our dear lady's honor in case of need.
"'Tis a thing to be done, and I am with you, Dick," said I. This beforeEphraim Yeates could object. "Should there be need for any, two bladeswill be better than one. If it come to blows and we are killed or taken,Yeates and the chief must make the shift to do without our help."
As you would guess, the old hunter demurred to this halving of ourslender force, but we over-persuaded him. If all went well, we were torendezvous on the scene of action to carry out the plan of rescue. Butif our adventure should prove disastrous, Yeates and Uncanoola were tobide their time, striking in when and how they might.
Touching this contingency, I drew the old man aside for a word inprivate.
"If aught befall us, Ephraim,--if we should be nabbed as we are like tobe,--you are not to let any hope of helping us lessen by a feather'sweight the rescue chance of the women. You'll promise me this?"
"Sartain sure; ye can rest easy on that, Cap'n John. But don't ye go forto let that rampaging boy of our'n upsot the fat in the fire with any o'his foolishness. He's love-sick, he is; and there ain't nothing in thisworld so ridic'lous foolish ez a love-sick boy--less'n 'tis a love-sickgal."
I promised on my part and so we went our separate ways in the gatheringdarkness; though not until the lashings of the packs had been cut andthe powder and lead, save such spoil of both as Ephraim Yeates andUncanoola would reserve, had been spilled into the river. As for thebodies of the dead Indians, the old hunter said he would let them ridetill he should come to some convenient chasm for a sepulcher; but Imistrusted that he and the Catawba would scalp and leave them once wewere safely out of sight.
At the parting we took the river's edge for it, Richard and I, keepingwell under the bank and working our way cautiously down the gorge untilwe were stopped by the pouring cross-torrent of the undergroundtributary. Here we turned short to the left along the margin of thebarrier stream, and tracing its course across the gorge came presentlyto the northern cliff at the lip of the spewing cavern mouth.
By now the night was fully come and in the wooded defile we could placeourselves only by the sense of touch.
"Are you ready, Dick?" said I.
"As ready as a man with a shaking ague can be," he gritted out. "Thisdog's work we have been doing of late has brought my old curse upon meand I am like to rattle my teeth loose."
"Let me go alone then. Another cold plunge may be the death of you."
"No," said he, stubbornly. "Wait but a minute and the fever will be onme; then I shall be fighting-fit for anything that comes."
So we waited, and I could hear his teeth clicking like castanets.Having had a tertian fever more than once in the Turkish campaigning, Ihad a fellow-feeling for the poor lad, knowing well how the thought of aplunge into cold water would make him shrink.
In a little time he felt for my hand and grasped it.
"I'm warm enough now, in al
l conscience," he said; and with that weslipped into the stream.
'Twas a disappointment of the grateful sort to find the water no morethan mid-thigh deep. The current was swift and strong, but with thepebbly bottom to give good footing 'twas possible to stem it slowly.Laying hold of each other for the better breasting of the flood we feltour way warily to the middle of the pool; felt for the low-sprung cavernarch, and for that scanty lifting of it where we hoped to find head roombetween stone above and stream below.
We found the highest part of the arch after some blind groping, andmaking lowly obeisance to the gods of the underworld began a snail-likeprogress into the gurgling throat of the spewing rock-monster.
I here confess to you, my dears, that, had I loved my sweet lady less,no earthly power could have driven me into that dismal stifling place.All my life long I have had a most unspeakable horror of low-roofedcaverns and squeezing passages that cramp a man for breath and for theroom to draw it in; and when the suffocating madness came upon me, asit did when we were well jammed in this cursed horror-hole, I was rightglad to have my love for Margery to make an outward-seeming man of me;glad, too, that my dear lad was close behind to shame me into going on.
Yet, after all, the passage through the throat of the rock dragon wasvastly more terrifying than difficult. Once well within the closelydrawn upper lip we could brace our backs against the roof and so have apurchase for the foothold. Better still, when we had passed apike's-length beyond the lip the breathing space above the water grewwider and higher till at length we could stand erect and come abreast tolock arms and push on side by side.
From that the stream broadened and grew shallower with every step, andpresently we could hear it on ahead babbling over the stones like anypeaceful woodland brook. Then suddenly the dank and noisome air of thecavern gave place to the pine-scented breath of the forest; and, lookingstraight up, we could see the twinkling stars shining down upon us froma narrow breadth of sky.
The Master of Appleby Page 28