XXX
HOW EPHRAIM YEATES PRAYED FOR HIS ENEMIES
However much or little the Catawba understood of Richard Jennifer'sgrief or its cause, the faithful Indian had a thing to do and he did it,loosing his grasp of me to turn and fall upon Dick with pullings andhaulings and buffetings, fit to bring a man alive out of a verystiffening rigor of despair.
So, in a hand-space he had him up, and we were pressing on again, inmidnight darkness once we had passed beyond the light of our grillingfires. No word was spoken; under the impatient urging of the Indianthere was little breath to spare for speech. But when Richard'safterthought had set its fangs in him, he called a halt and would not bedenied.
"Go on, you two, if you are set upon it," he said. "I must go back.Bethink you, Jack; what if she be only maimed and not killed outright.'Tis too horrible! I'm going back, I say."
The Catawba grunted his disgust.
"Captain Jennif' talk fas'; no run fas'. What think? White squaw_yonder_--no yonder," pointing first forward and then back in thedirection of the stricken camp.
Richard spun around and gripped the Indian by the shoulders. "Then sheis alive and safe?" he burst out. "Speak, friend, whilst I leave thebreath in you to do it!"
"Ugh!" said the chief, in nowise moved either by Jennifer's vehemence orby the dog-like shake. "What for Captain Jennif' think papoose thinks'bout the Gray Wolf and poor Injun? Catch um white squaw _firs'_; _then_blow um up Chelakee camp and catch um Captain Jennif' and CaptainLong-knife if can. Heap do firs' thing _firs'_, and las' thing _las'_.Wah!"
It was the longest speech this devoted ally of ours was ever known tomake; and having made it he went dumb again save for his urgings of usforward. But presently both he and I had our hands full with the poorlad. The swift transition from despair to joy proved too much for Dick;and, besides, the fever was in his blood and he was grievously burned.
So we went stumbling on through the cloud-darkened wood, locked arm inarm like three drunken men, tripping over root snares and bramble netsspread for our feet, and getting well sprinkled by the dripping foliage.And at the last, when we reached the ravine at the valley's head, Dickwas muttering in the fever delirium and we were well-nigh carrying him adead weight between us.
'Twas a most heart-breaking business, getting the poor lad up thatrock-ladder of escape in the darkness; for though I had come out of thefire with fewer burns than the roasting of me warranted, the battlepreceding it had opened the old sword wound in my shoulder. So, takingit all in all, I was but a short-breathed second to the faithfulCatawba.
None the less, we tugged it through after some laborious fashion, andwere glad enough when the steep ascent gave place to leveler going, andwe could sniff the fragrance of the plateau pines and feel theirwire-like needles under foot.
By this the shower cloud had passed and the stars were coming out, butit was still pitch black under the pines; so dark that I started like anervous woman and went near to panic when a horse snorted at my veryear, and a voice, bodiless, as it seemed, said; "Well, now; the Lord bepraised! if here ain't the whole enduring--"
What Ephraim Yeates would have said, or did say, was lost upon me. Fornow my poor Dick's strength was quite spent, and when the chief and Iwere easing him to lie full length upon the ground, there was a quicklittle cry out of the darkness, a swish of petticoats, and my ladydarted in to fall upon Richard in a very transport of pity.
"Oh, my poor Dick! they have killed you!" she sobbed; "oh, cruel,cruel!" Then she lashed out at us. "Why don't you strike a light? Howcan I find and dress his hurts in the dark?"
"Your pardon, Mistress Margery," I said; "'tis only that the fever hasovercome him. He has no sore hurts, as I believe, save thefire-scorching."
"A light!" she commanded; "I must have a light and see for myself."
We had to humor her, though it was something against prudence. Ephraimfound dry punk in a rotten log, and firing it with the flint and steelof a great king's musket--one of his reavings from the enemy--soon had apine-knot torch for her. She gave it to the Catawba to hold; and whileshe was cooing over her patient and binding up his burns in some simplesgathered near at hand by the Indian, I had the story of the doublerescue from the old hunter.
Set forth in brief, that which had come as a miracle to Dick and mefigured as a daring bit of strategy made possible by the emptying of theIndian camp at our torture spectacle.
Yeates and the Catawba, following out the plan agreed upon, had comewithin spying distance while yet we were in the midst of that hopelessback-to-back battle, and had most wisely held aloof. But later, whenevery Indian of the Cherokee band was busy at our torture trees, theyset to work.
With no watch to give the alarm, 'twas easy to rifle the Indian wigwamsof the firearms and ammunition. The latter they threw into the stream;the muskets they loaded and trained over a fallen tree at the northernedge of the savanna, bringing them to bear pointblank upon thelight-horse guard gathered again around the great fire.
The next step was the cutting out of the women; this was effectedwhilst the baronet-captain was paying his courtesy call on us. Like thelooting of the Indian camp, 'twas quickly planned and daringly done; itasked but the quieting of the two trooper guards on the forest side ofthe tepee-lodge, a warning word to Margery and her woman, and ashadow-like flitting with them over the dead bodies of their latejailers to the shelter of the wood.
Once free of the camp, Yeates had hurried his charges to a place oftemporary safety farther up the valley, leaving the Catawba to cross thestream to lay a train of dampened powder to the makeshift magazine. Whenhe had led the women to a place of safety, the old man left them and ranback to his masked battery of loaded muskets. Here, at an owl-cry signalfrom Uncanoola, he opened fire upon the redcoats.
The outworking of the _coup de main_ was a triumph for the oldborderer's shrewd generalship. At the death-dealing volley theEnglishmen were thrown into confusion; whilst the Indians, summoned bythe firing and the shrilling of the captain's whistle, dashed blindlyinto the trap. At the right moment Uncanoola touched off his powdertrain and cut in with a clear field for his rescue of Dick and me.
Of the complete success of these various climaxings, Ephraim Yeates hadhis first assurance when we three came safely to the rendezvous; for,after firing his masked battery, the old hunter lost no time inrejoining the women and in hastening with them out of the valley. Hadthese three been afoot we might have overtaken them; but Yeates had beenlucky enough to stumble upon the black mare peacefully cropping thegrass in a little glade; and with this mount for Margery and hertire-woman he had easily outpaced us.
All this I had from Yeates what time Margery was pouring the wine andoil of womanly sympathy into Richard's woundings; and I may confess thatwhilst the ear was listening to the hunter's tale, the eye was takingnote of these her tender ministrations, and the heart was setting themdown to the score of a great love which would not be denied. 'Twasaltogether as I would have had it; and yet the thought came unbiddenthat she might spare a niggard moment and the breath to ask me how Idid. And because she would not, I do think my burns smarted the crueler.
It was to have surcease of these extra smartings that I turned my backupon the trio under the flaring torch and took up with Ephraim Yeatesthe pressing question of the moment.
"As I take it, we may not linger here," I said. "Have you marked out aline of retreat?"
The old borderer was busied with his loot of the Indian camp--'twas notin his nature to come off empty-handed, however hard pressed he had beenfor time. In the raffle of it, guns and pistols, dressed skins andwarrior finery, he came upon my good old blade and Richard's greatclaymore--trophies claimed by the head men of the Cherokees after ourtaking, as we made no doubt.
"Found 'em hanging in the lodge that usen to belong to the Great Bear,"said the hunter, and then with grim humor: "'Lowed to keep 'em toricollect ye by if so be ye was foreordained and predestinated to go upin a fiery chariot, like the good old Elijah." The weapons disposed of
,he made answer to my query. "Ez for making tracks immejitly, _if_ notsooner, I allow there ain't no two notions about that. But I'mdad-daddled if I know which-a-way to put out, Cap'n John, and that's thegospil fact."
"Why not strike for the Great Trace, and so go back the way the powderconvoy came?" I asked.
It could be done, he said, but the hazard was great. 'Twas out of allreason to hope that there were no survivors left in the sunken valley tocarry the news of the earthquake massacre. That news once cried abroadin the near-by Cowee Towns, the entire Tuckasege nation would turn outto run us down. Moreover, the avengers would look to find us in the onlypracticable horse-path leading eastward.
"Ez I'm telling you right now, Cap'n John, we made one more blunder inthis here onfall of our'n, owin' to our having ne'er a seventh son of aseventh son amongst us to look a little ways ahead. Where we flashed inthe pan was in not making our rendyvoo down yonder where you and Cap'nDick got in. Ever' last one of 'em able to crawl is a-making straightfor that crivvis dodge-hole right now, and if we was there we could do'em like the Gileadites did the men o' Ephraim at the passages o' theJordan."
Fresh as I was from the torture fire, I could not forbear a shudder atthis old man's savagery.
"Kill them in cold blood?" I would say.
"Anan?" he queried, as not understanding my point of view; and I let thematter rest. He was of those who slay and spare not where an enemy isconcerned.
But when we came to consider of it there seemed to be no alternative tothe eastward flitting by way of the Great Trace. To the west and souththere was only the trackless wilderness; and to the north no whitesettlement nearer than that of the over-mountain folk on the Watauga. Iasked if we might hope to reach this.
"'Tis a long fifty mile ez the crow flies, over e'enabout themountainousest patch o' land that ever laid out o' doors," was thehunter's reply. "And there ain't ne'er a deer-track, ez I knows on, top'int the way."
"Then we must ride eastward and run the risk of pursuit by theTuckaseges," said I.
"Ez I reckon, that's about the long and short of it. And I doeverlastedly despise to make that poor little gal jump her hoss and rideskimper-scamper again, when she's been fair living a-horseback for afortnight."
"She will not fail you," I ventured to say, adding: "But Jennifer is inpoor fettle for making speed."
"It's ride or be skulped for him, and I allow he'll ride," quoth the oldhunter, hastening his preparations for the start. "Reckon we can get himon a hoss right now."
I went to see. Margery rose at my approach, and even in the poor light Icould see her draw herself up as if she would hold me at my properdistance.
"Your patient, Mistress Margery,--We must mount and ride at once. Is hefit?"
"No."
"But we must be far to the eastward before daybreak."
"I can not help it. If you make him ride to-night you will finish whatthose cruel savages began, Captain Ireton."
"We have little choice--none, I should say."
"Oh, you are bitter hard!" she cried, though wherein my offending layjust then I was wholly at a loss to know.
"'Tis your privilege to say so," I rejoined. "But as for making Dickride, that will be but the kindest cruelty. We are only a little wayfrom the nearest Indian towns, and if the daylight find us here--"
"Spare me," she broke in; and with that she turned shortly and askedEphraim Yeates to put her in her saddle.
Richard was still in the fever stupor, but he roused himself at myurging and let us set him upon his beast. Once safe in the saddle, welashed him fast like a prisoner, with a forked tree-branch at his backto hold him erect. This last was the old hunter's invention and 'twasmost ingenious. The forked limb, in shape like a Y, was set astride thecantle, with the lower ends thonged stoutly to Dick's legs and to thegirths. Thus the upright stem of the inverted Y became an easy back-restfor the sick man; and when he was securely lashed thereto there waslittle danger for him save in some stumbling of the beast he rode.
When all was ready we had first to find our way down from the mountaintop; and now even the old borderer and the Indian confessed theirinability to do aught but retrace their steps by the only route theyknew: namely, by that ravine which we had twice traversed in daylight,and up which they had led the captured horses in the dusk.
This route promised all the perils of a gantlet-running, since by it wemust take the risk of meeting the fleeing fugitives from the convoycamp, if the explosion had spared any fit to lift and carry thevengeance-cry. But here again there was no alternative, and we set us inorder for the descent, with Yeates and the Catawba ahead, the women andDick in the midst, and her Apostolic Majesty's late captain of hussars,masquerading as a British trooper, to bring on the rear.
Once in motion beneath the blue-black shadows of the pines, I quicklylost all sense of direction. After we had ridden in wordless silence ashort half hour or less, and I supposed we should be nearing the headof our descending ravine, our little cavalcade was halted suddenly in athickset grove of the pines, and Ephraim Yeates appeared at my stirrupto say:
"H'ist ye off your nag, Cap'n John, and let's take a far'well squinch atthe inimy whilst we can."
"Where? what enemy?" I would ask, slipping from the saddle at his word.
"Why, the hoss-captain's varmints, to be sure; or what-all theabomination o' desolation has left of 'em. We ain't more than a cat'sjump from the edge o' the big rock where we first sot eyes on 'em thismorning."
I saw not what was to be gained by any such long-range espial in thedarkness. None the less, I followed the old man to the cliff's edge. Hewas wiser in his forecastings than I was in mine. There was a thing tolook at, and light enough to see it by. One of the missile stones, itseems, had crashed into the great fire, scattering the brands in alldirections. The pine-bough troop shelters were ablaze, and creepingserpents of fire were worming their way hither and yon over the year-oldleaf beds in the wood. Ever and anon some pine sapling in the path ofthese fiery serpents would go up in a torch-like flare; and so, as Isay, there was light enough.
What we looked down upon was not inaptly pictured out by EphraimYeates's Scripture phrase, the abomination of desolation. Every vestigeof the camp save the glowing skeletons of the troop shelters haddisappeared, and the swarded savanna was become a blackened chaos-bloton the fair woodland scene. I have said that the powder-shelteringboulder was a cliff for size; the mighty upheaval of the explosion hadtoppled it in ruins into the stream, and huge fragments the bigness of awine-butt had been hurled with the storm of lighter debris broadcastupon the camp.
At first we saw no sign of life in all the firelit space. But a momentlater, when three or four of the sapling torches blazed up together, wemade out some half dozen figures of human beings--whether red or whitewe could not tell--stumbling and reeling about among the rocks likeblind men drunken.
At sight of these the old hunter doffed his cap and fell upon his kneeswith hands uplifted to pour out his zealot's soul in the awful sentencesof the Psalmist's imprecation.
"'Let God arise, and let His inimies be scattered; let them also thathate Him flee before Him. Like as the smoke vanisheth, so shalt thoudrive them away; and like as the wax melteth at the fire, so let theungodly perish at the presence of God....'"
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