XXVIII
IN WHICH I SADDLE THE BLACK MARE
Having so good a disguise, the thing I had set myself to do would seemto ask for little more than peaceful boldness held in check by commoncaution.
The point where I had broken cover to step into the circle of fire lightwas nearly equidistant from the Englishmen's camp on the right and thehorse meadow on the left, so I had not to pass within recognition rangeof the great fire; indeed, I might have skulked in the laurel cover allthe way, thus coming to the horses unseen by any, but that I was afraidFalconnet might miss his trooper. So I thought it best to show myselfdiscreetly.
Copying our captive's lounging stride, I first held a sauntering coursedown to the stream's edge, keeping the great camp-fire and the droningIndian hive well to the right and far enough aloof to baffle anyover-curious eye at either. Coming to the stream without mishap, Istopped and made a feint of drinking; after which I crossed and climbedslowly toward the makeshift powder magazine.
As I have said, the camp was pitched in a small savanna or naturalclearing on the right bank of the little river. This clearing washedged about by the forest on three sides, and backed by the denselywooded steeps and crags of the western cliff. I guessed the compass ofit to be something more than an acre; not greatly more, since the fireat the troop camp lighted all its boundaries.
On the left or opposite bank of the stream there was no intervale atall. The ground rose sharply from the water's edge in a rough hillsidethickly studded and bestrewn with boulders great and small; fallencleavings and hewings from the crags of the eastern cliff. 'Twas at thefoot of one of the boulders, a huge overhanging mass of weather-rivenrock facing the camp, that the powder cargo was sheltered; so isolatedto be out of danger from the camp-fires.
From the hillside just below this powder rock I could look back upon thecamp _en enfilade_, as an artilleryman would say. Nearest at hand wasthe half-moon of Indian lodges with the hollow of the crescent facingthe stream, and a caldron fire burning in the midst. Around the fire aring of warriors naked to the breech-clout kept time in a slow shufflingdance to a monotonous chanting; and for onlookers there was an outerring of squatting figures--the visiting Tuckaseges, as I supposed.
Beyond the Indian lodges, and a little higher up the gentle slope of thesavanna, were the troop shelters; and beyond these, half concealed inthe fringing of the boundary forest, was the tepee-lodge of the women.
On the bare hillside beneath the powder magazine I made no doubt I wasin plainest view from the great fire, and the proof of this conclusioncame shortly in a bellowing hail from Falconnet.
"Ho, Jack Warden!" he called, making a speaking-trumpet of his hands tolift the hail above the chanting of the Indian dancers. "Have a look atthat shelter whilst you are over there and make sure 'twill shed rain ifthe weather shifts."
Now some such long-range marking down as this was what I had beenangling for. So I came to attention and saluted in soldierly fashion,thereby raising a great laugh among my pseudo-comrades around thetrooper fire--a laugh that pointed shrewdly to the baronet-captain'slack of proper discipline. But that is neither here nor there. Having mymaster's order for it, I climbed to the foot of the powder rock.
Here the bare sight of all the stored-up devastation set me athirst witha fierce longing for leave to snap a pistol in the well-laid mine. Forif these enemies of ours had planned their own undoing they could neverhave given a desperate foeman a better chance. To hold the pine boughsof the rude shelter in place they had piled a great loose wall of stonesaround and over the cargo; and the firing of the powder, heaped as itwas against the backing cliff of the boulder, would hurl these weightingstones in a murderous broadside upon the camp across the stream.
But since my dear lady would also share the hazard of such a broadside,I had no leave to blow myself and the powder convoy to kingdom come, asI thirsted to--could not, you will say, having neither pistol to snapnor flint and steel to fire a train. Nay, nay, my dears, I would nothave you think so lightly of my invention. Had this been the onlyobstacle, you may be sure I should have found a way to grind a firingspark out of two bits of stone.
But being otherwise enjoined, as I say, I turned my back upon thetemptation and held to the business in hand, which was to reach andrecross the stream higher up and so to come among the horses.
As I had hoped to find them, the saddles were hung upon the branches ofthe nearest trees, Margery's horse-furnishings among them. At first theblack mare was shy of me, but a gentling word or two won her over, andshe let me take her by the forelock and lead her deeper into the herdwhere I could saddle and bridle her in greater safety.
My plan to cut her out was simple enough. Trusting to the darkness--thehorse meadow was far enough from the fires to make a murky twilight ofthe ruddy glow--I thought to lead the mare quietly away up the streamand thus on to the foot of that ravine by which we hoped to climb to theold borderer's rendezvous on the plateau. But when all was ready and Isought to set this plan in action, an unforeseen obstacle barred theway. To keep the horses from straying up the valley an Indian sentryline was strung above the grazing meadow, and into this I blundered likeany unlicked knave of a raw recruit.
Had I been armed, the warrior who rose before me phantom-like in thelaurel edging of the meadow would have had a most sharp-pointed answerto his challenge. As it was,--I had left my sword with Jennifer becausethe captured trooper whose understudy I was had left his sword incamp,--I tried to parley with the sentry. He knew no word of English,nor I of Cherokee; but that deadlock was speedily broken. A gutturalcall summoned others of the horse-keepers, and among them one who spokea little English.
"Ugh! What for take white squaw horse?" he demanded.
"'Tis the captain's order," I replied, lying boldly to fit the crisis.
At that they gave me room; and had I hastened, I had doubtless gone atlarge without more ado. But at this very apex point of hazard I mustneeds play out the part of unalarm to the fool's _envoi_, taking time topart the mare's forelock under the head-stall, and looking leisurely tothe lacings of the saddle-girth.
This foolhardy delay cost me all, and more than all. I was stillfiddle-faddling with the girth strap, the better to impose upon myIndian horse-guards, when suddenly there arose a yelling hubbub oflaughter in the camp behind. I turned to look and beheld a thinglaughable enough, no doubt, and yet it broke no bubble of mirth in me.Half-way from the nearest forest fringe to the great fire a man, whiteof skin, and clothed only in a pair of trooper boots, was runningswiftly for cover to the nearest pine-bough shelter, shouting like anescaped Bedlamite as he fled. It asked for no second glance, thisapparition of the yelling madman; 'twas our captive soldier, foot-looseand racing in to raise the hue and cry.
Now you may always count upon this failing in a cautious man, that at acrisis he is like to do the unwisest thing that offers. This cutting outof Margery's mare was none so vital a matter that I should have riskedthe marring of Ephraim Yeates's plan upon it. Yet having done this verything, I must needs make a bad matter infinitely worse.
Instead of mounting to ride a charge through the camp, and so to drawthe pursuit after me toward the cavern entrance, as I should, I slappedthe mare to send her bounding through the guard line, snatched a saddlefrom its oak-branch peg to hurl it in the faces of the sentry group, anddarting aside, plunged into the laurel thicket to come by running whereI could and creeping where I must to that place where I had left RichardJennifer.
All hot and exasperated as I was, 'twas something less than cooling tofind Dick a-double on the ground, holding his sides and laughing like ayokel at his first pantomime.
"Oh, ho, ho! did you--did you twig him, Jack?" he gasped. "Saw you eversuch a mincing puss-in-boots since the Lord made you? Ah! ha! ha!"
"The devil take your ill-timed humor!" I cried. "Up with you, man, andlet us vanish while we may!"
By this the camp was in a pretty ferment, as you would guess--our latecaptive having had space enough to tell his tale. Drun
k or sober,Falconnet was afoot and alert, shouting his orders to the Englishmen whowere scrambling for their arms, and to the Indians who came swarming upfrom the lodges.
Whilst we looked, the Cherokees scattered like a company of trainedgillies to beat us out of cover; and when the hunt was fairly up, thebaronet-captain set his men in marching order to surround the wigwam ofthe captives.
As yet there was time for a swift retreat up the valley, or at least forthe choosing of some battle-field of our own where the enemy need notoutnumber us twenty to one; and again I urged Richard to bestir himself.But it was the sight of Falconnet's troopers deploying to surround thetepee-lodge, and not any word of mine, that broke his merriment in themidst.
At a bound he was up and handing me my sword.
"Good by, Jack; go you whilst you can. You'll be like to meet Eph andthe Catawba coming in; turn them back and tell them to bide their time."
"But you?" I would say.
"My place is inside of that soldier-cordon our friend is drawing abouthis dove-cote. I shall be at hand when she needs me, as I promised."
"Aye, so you may be; but not alone," said I; and with that we fell torunning like a pair of doubling foxes through the wood on the steepslope behind the lodge, striving with might and main to gain the laurelthicket whence we had made our first reconnaissance before theconverging lines of the redcoat cordon should close and shut us out.
We did it by the skin of our teeth, diving to cover through the closinggap not a second too soon. When we were in and hugging the bare groundunder the scanty leafing of the laurel, I take no shame in saying that Iwould have given a king's ransom to be at large again. Had there beenbut one of us the covert would have been cramped enough; and I waspainfully conscious that my borrowed coat of scarlet was but a poorthing to hide in.
To make it worse, Falconnet, who had lagged behind at the fire, was nowheaping fresh fuel on, and this reviving of the blaze made the place aslight as day. With the nearest links in the redcoat chain no more than apike's-length at our backs, we dared not stir or breathe a word; and,all in all, we might have been taken like rats in a trap had any one ofthe sentries on our side of the circle chanced to look behind him.
Having repaired the fire to his liking, the troop-captain came up topass a word or two with his lieutenant. They spoke guardedly, but wecould hear--could not help hearing.
"You have seen nothing, Gordon?"
"Nothing, as yet."
"Make the round again and tell the men 'twill be ten gold joes and adouble allowance of liquor to the man who first claps eyes on any one ofthe four."
The subaltern went to carry out the order, and Falconnet fell to pacingback and forth before the little wigwam. I could see his face at theturn where the firelight fell upon him; 'twas the face of a villain athis worst, namely, a villain half in liquor. There was a lurking devilof passion peering out of the sensuous eyes; and ever and anon hestopped as if to listen for some sound within the captives' lodge.
When the lieutenant returned to make his report, he was given anotherorder to cap the first.
"Your line is too close-drawn and too conspicuous," said the captain,shortly. "Move the men out fifty paces in advance, and bid them takecover."
"They will scarce be within hail of each other at that," says thelieutenant.
"Near enough, with ten gold pieces to sharpen their eyesight. Go youwith them and hold them to their work."
The line was presently extended as the order ran, each link in thecordon chain advancing fifty paces on its front into the forest. Dickfetched a deep sigh of relief; and I thought less of the thin-leafedcover and the scarlet coat of me.
Falconnet had resumed the pacing of his sentry beat before the lodge,but when his men were out of sight and hearing he stopped short andstole on tiptoe to lay his ear to the flap.
"So, you are awake, Mistress Margery? Send your woman out. I would speakwith you--alone."
There was no reply, but we could both hear the low anguished voice ofour dear lady praying for help in this her hour of trial. Dick inchedaside to give me room, freeing his weapon, as I did mine. We were notover-quiet about it, but the captain of horse was too hot upon his owndevil's business to look behind him.
Having no answer from within, he stooped to loose the flap. It waspegged down on the inside. He rose and whipped out his sword; thefirelight fell upon his face again and we saw it as it had been the faceof a foul fiend from the pit.
"Open!" he commanded; and when there was neither reply nor obedience, hecut the flap free with his sword and flung it back.
The two women within the wigwam were on their knees before a littlecrucifix hanging on the lodge wall. So much we saw as we broke cover andran in upon the despoiler. Then the battle-madness came upon us and I,for one, saw naught but the tense-drawn face of a swordsman fighting forhis life--a face in which the hot flush of evil passion had given placeto the ashen graying of fear.
We drove at him together, Dick and I, and so must needs fall afoul ofeach other clumsily, giving him time to spring back and so to miss theclaymore stroke which else would have shorn him to the middle. Thenensued as pretty a bit of blade work as any master of the oldcut-and-thrust school could wish to see; and through it all this king'scaptain of horse seemed to bear a charmed life.
There was no punctilio of the code of honor in this duel _a outrance_.Knowing our time was short, we fought as men who fight with haltersround their necks; not to decide a nice point at issue, but to kill thisaccursed villain as we would kill a mad dog or a venomous reptile whoseliving on imperiled the life and honor of the woman we loved.
Thrice, whilst I held him in play, Dick rushed in to end it with ascythe-sweep of the broadsword; and thrice the Scottish death was turnedaside by the flashing circle of steel wherewith the man strivingshrewdly to gain time made shift to shield himself.
Yet it was not in flesh and blood to fend the double onslaught for morethan some brief minute or two. Play as he would--and no_schlaegermeister_, of my old field-marshal's picked troop could best himat this game of parry and defense--he must give ground step by step;slowly at the pressing of the Ferara, and in quick backward leaps whenthe great broadsword bit at him.
For the first few bouts he withstood us in grim silence. But now Richardcut in again and the claymore stroke, less skilfully turned aside,brought him to his knees. This broke his bull courage somewhat, andthough he was afoot and on guard before my point could reach him, hebegan to bellow lustily for help.
As you would suppose, the call was all unneeded. At the first clash ofsteel the outlying troopers were up and swarming to the rescue; and nowon all sides came the trampling rush of the in-closing cordon line.
Had Falconnet held his ground a moment longer he would have had us fastin the jaws of the trooper-trap; but 'tis the fatal flaw in mere brutecourage that it will break at the pinch. No sooner did the volunteercaptain catch a glimpse of his up-coming reinforcements than he mustneeds show us a clean pair of heels, running like a craven coward andshouting madly to his men to close with us and cut us down.
"After him!" roared Dick, who was by now as rage-mad as any berserker;and with a cut and thrust to right and left for the nipping trap-jaws wewere out and away in chase.
Now you may mark this as you will; that whilst the devil hath need ofhis bond-servant he will come between with a miracle if need be to keepthe villain breath of life in his vassal. Three bounds beyond theclosing trap-jaws fetched us, pursued and pursuers, to the open campfield; and here the devil's miracle was wrought. Out of the forestfringe, out of the skirting of undergrowth, out of the very earth, as itseemed, uprose a yelling mob of Cherokees--the detachment we had met inthe cavern returned in the very nick of time to cut us off from thepursuit and to ring us in a whooping circle of death.
"Back to back, lad!" I shouted; and 'twas thus we met their onslaught.
In such a fray as that which followed 'tis the trivial things that leavetheir mark upon the memory. For one, I recall the curious thri
ll ofmaster-might it gave me to feel the play of Jennifer's great shouldermuscles against my back in his plying of the heavy claymore. Foranother, I remember the sickening qualm I had when the warm blood of mysecond--or mayhap 'twas the third--gushed out upon my sword hand, and Iremember, too, how the impaled one, driven in upon the blade by thepressure of his fellows behind, would lay hold of the sharp steel andtry in the death throe to withdraw it.
But after that sickening qualm I recall only this; that I could not freethe sword for another thrust, and whilst I tugged and fought for spacethey dragged me down and buried me, these fierce tribesmen, piling sothick upon me that sight and sound and breath went out together, and Iwas but an atom crushed to earth beneath the human avalanche.
The Master of Appleby Page 30