Works of Robert W Chambers

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Works of Robert W Chambers Page 725

by Robert W. Chambers

“Lord!” said Boyd. “If she complains of us to her Commissary husband, there’ll be a new issue not included in his department!”

  And it doubled us with laughter to think on’t, so that for lack o’ breath I sat down upon a log to hold my aching sides.

  “Now, she’ll be ever on their heels,” muttered Boyd, “hen-like, malevolent, and unaccountable. No man dare face and flout that lady, whose husband also is utterly subjected. It was Betty Bleecker who set her on me. Well, so no more of yonder ladies save in her bristling presence.”

  Yet, as it happened, one thing barred Mistress Sabin from a perpetual domination and sleepless supervision of her charges, and that was the trap-door. Through it she could not force herself, nor could she come around by the guard-door, for the covered way would not admit her ample proportions. She could but mount her guard at the ladder’s foot. And there were two exits to that garret room.

  That day I would have messed with my own people, Major Parr inviting me, but that our General had all the Otsego officers to dine with him at headquarters, and a huge punch afterward, from which I begged to be excused, as it was best that I look to my Indians when any rum was served in camp.

  Boyd came later to the bush-hut, overflushed with punch, saying that he had drawn sixty pair of shoes for his men, to spite old Sabin, and meant to distribute them with music playing; and that afterward I was to join him at the fort as he had orders for himself and for me from the General, and desired to confer with me concerning them.

  Later came word from him that he had a headache and would confer with me on the morrow. Neither did I see Lois again that evening, a gill of rum having been issued to every man, and I sticking close as a wood-tick to my red comrades — indeed, I had them out after sunset to watch the cattle-guard, who were in a sorry pickle, sixty head having strayed and two soldiers missing. And the manoeuvres of that same guard did ever sicken me.

  It proved another bloody story, too, for first we found an ox with throat cut; and, it being good meat, we ordered it taken in. And then, in the bushes ahead, a soldier begins a-bawling that the devil is in his horses, and that they have run back into the woods.

  I heard him chasing them, and shouted for him to wait, but the poor fool pays no heed, but runs on after his three horses; and soon he screams out:

  “God a’mighty!” And, “Christ have mercy!”

  With that I blow my ranger’s whistle, and my Indians pass me like phantoms in the dusk, and I hot-foot after them; but it was too late to save young Elliott, who lay there dead and already scalped, doubled up in the bed of a little brook, his clenched hand across his eyes and a Seneca knife in his smooth, boyish throat.

  Late that night the Sagamore started, chased, and quickly cornered something in a clump of laurel close to the river bank; and my Indians gathered around like fiercely-whining hounds. It was starlight, but too dark to see, except what was shadowed against the river; so we all lay flat, waiting, listening for whatever it was, deer or bear or man.

  Then the Night Hawk, who stood guard at the river, uttered the shrill Oneida view-halloo; and into the thicket we all sprang crashing, and strove to catch the creature alive; but the Sagamore had to strike to save his own skull; and out of the bushes we dragged one of Amochol’s greasy-skinned assassins, still writhing, twisting, and clawing as we flung him heavily and like a scotched snake upon the river sand, where the Mohican struck him lifeless and ripped the scalp from his oiled and shaven head.

  The Erie’s lifeless fist still clutched the painted casse-tete with which he had aimed a silently murderous blow at the Sagamore. Grey-Feather drew the death-maul from the dead warrior’s grasp, and handed it to the Siwanois.

  Then Tahoontowhee, straightening his slim, naked figure to its full and graceful height, raised himself on tiptoe and, placing his hollowed hands to his cheeks, raised the shuddering echoes with the most terrific note an Indian can utter.

  As the forest rang with the fierce Oneida scalp-yell, very far away along the low-browed mountain flank we could hear the far tinkle of hoof and pebble, where the stolen horses moved; and out of the intense blackness of the hills came faintly the answering defiance of the Senecas, and the hideous miauling of the Eries, quavering, shuddering, dying into the tremendous stillness of the Dark Empire which we had insulted, challenged, and which we were now about to brave.

  Once more Tahoontowhee’s piercing defiance split the quivering silence; once more the whining panther cry of the Cat-People floated back through the far darkness.

  Then we turned away toward our pickets; and, as we filed into our lines, I could smell the paint and oil on the scalp that the Siwanois had taken. And it smelled rank enough, God wot!

  About nine on Monday morning the entire camp was alarmed by irregular and heavy firing along the river; but it proved to be my riflemen clearing their pieces; which did mortify General Clinton, and was the subject of a blunt order from headquarters, and a blunter rebuke from Major Parr to Boyd, who, I am inclined to think, did do this out of sheer deviltry. For that schoolboy delight of mischief which never, while he lived, was entirely quenched, was ever sparkling in those handsome and roving eyes of his. For which our riflemen adored him, being by every instinct reckless and irresponsible themselves, and only held to discipline by their worship of Daniel Morgan, and the upright character and the iron rigour of Major Parr.

  Not that the 11th Virginia ever shrank from duty. No regiment in the Continental army had a prouder record. But the men of that corps were drawn mostly from those free-limbed, free-thinking, powerful, headlong, and sometimes ruthless backwoodsmen who carried law into regions where none but Nature’s had ever before existed. And the law they carried was their own.

  It was a reproach to us that we scalped our red enemies. No officer in the corps could prevent these men from answering an Indian’s insult with another of the same kind. And there remained always men in that command who took their scalps as carelessly as they clipped a catamount of ears and pads.

  As for my special detail, I understood perfectly that I could no more prevent my Indians from scalping enemies of their own race than I could whistle a wolf-pack up wind. But I could stop their lifting the hair from a dead man of my own race, and had made them understand very plainly that any such attempt would be instantly punished as a personal insult to myself. Which every warrior understood. And I have often wondered why other officers commanding Indians, and who were ever complaining that they could not prevent scalping of white enemies, did not employ this argument, and enforce it, too. For had one of my men, no matter which one, disobeyed, I would have had him triced up in a twinkling and given a hundred lashes.

  Which meant, also, that I would have had to kill him sooner or later.

  There was a stink of rum in camp that morning and it is a quaffing beverage which while I like to drink it in punch, the smell of it abhors me. And ever and anon my Indians lifted their noses, sniffling the tainted air; so that I was glad when a note was handed me from Boyd saying that we were to take a forest stroll with my Indians around the herd-guard, during which time he would unfold to me his plans.

  So I started for the fort, my little party carrying rifles and sidearms but no packs; and there waited across the ditch in the sunshine my Indians, cross-legged in a row on the grass, and gravely cracking and munching the sweet, green hazelnuts with which these woods abound.

  On the parade inside the fort, and out o’ the tail of my eye, I saw Mistress Sabin knitting on a rustic settle at the base of Block-house No. 2, and Captain Sabin beside her writing fussily in a large, leather-bound book.

  She did not know that the dovecote overhead was now empty, and that the pigeons had flown; nor did I myself suspect such a business, even when from the woods behind me came the low sound of a ranger’s whistle blown very softly. I turned my head and saw Boyd beckoning; and arose and went thither, my Indians trotting at my heels.

  Then, as I came up and stood to offer the officer’s salute, Lois stepped from behind a tree, la
ughing and laying her finger across her lips, but extending her other hand to me.

  And there was Lana, too, paler it seemed to me than ever, yet sweet and simple in her greeting.

  “The ladies desire to see our cattle,” said Boyd, “The herd-guard is doubled, our pickets trebled, and the rounds pass every half hour. So it is safe enough, I think.”

  “Yet, scarce the country for a picnic,” I said, looking uneasily at Lois.

  “Oh, Broad-brim, Broad-brim!” quoth she. “Is there any spice in life to compare to a little dash o’ danger?”

  Whereat I smiled at her heartily, and said to Boyd:

  “We pass not outside our lines, of course.”

  “Oh, no!” he answered carelessly. Which left me still reluctant and unconvinced. But he walked forward with Lana through the open forest, and I followed beside Lois; and, without any signal from me my Indians quietly glided out ahead, silently extending as flankers on either side.

  “Do you notice what they are about?” said I sourly. “Even here within whisper of the fort?”

  “Are you not happy to see me, Euan?” she cooed close to my ear.

  “Not here; inside that log curtain yonder.”

  “But there is a dragon yonder,” she whispered, with mischief adorable in her sparkling eyes; then slipped hastily beyond my reach, saying: “Oh, Euan! Forget not our vows, but let our conduct remain seemly still, else I return.”

  I had no choice, for we were now passing our inner pickets, where a line of bush-huts, widely set, circled the main camp. There were some few people wandering along this line — officers, servants, boatmen, soldiers off duty, one or two women.

  Just within the lines there was a group of people from which a fiddle sounded; and I saw Boyd and Lana turn thither; and we followed them.

  Coming up to see who was making such scare-crow music, Lana said in a low voice to us:

  “It’s an old, old man — more than a hundred years old, he tells us — who has lived on the Ouleout undisturbed among the Indians until yesterday, when we burnt the village. And now he has come to us for food and protection. Is it not pitiful?”

  I had a hard dollar in my pouch, and went to him and offered it. Boyd had Continental money, and gave him a handful.

  He was not very feeble, this ancient creature, yet, except among Indians who live sometimes for more than a hundred years, I think I never before saw such an aged visage, all cracked into a thousand wrinkles, and his little, bluish eyes peering out at us through a sort of film.

  To smile, he displayed his shrivelled gums, then picked up his fiddle with an agility somewhat surprising, and drew the bow harshly, saying in his cracked voice that he would, to oblige us, sing for us a ballad made in 1690; and that he himself had ridden in the company of horse therein described, being at that time thirteen years of age.

  And Lord! But it was a doleful ballad, yet our soldiers listened, fascinated, to his squeaking voice and fiddle; and I saw the tears standing in Lois’s eyes, and Lana’s lips a-quiver. As for Boyd, he yawned, and I most devoutly wished us all elsewhere, yet lost no word of his distressing tale:

  “God prosper long our King and Queen,

  Our lives and safeties all;

  A sad misfortune once there did

  Schenectady befall.

  “From forth the woods of Canady

  The Frenchmen tooke their way,

  The people of Schenectady

  To captivate and slay.

  “They march for two and twenty daies,

  All thro’ ye deepest snow;

  And on a dismal winter night

  They strucke ye cruel blow.

  “The lightsome sunne that rules the day

  Had gone down in the West;

  And eke the drowsie villagers

  Had sought and found their reste.

  “They thought they were in safetie all,

  Nor dreamt not of the foe;

  But att midnight they all swoke

  In wonderment and woe.

  “For they were in their pleasant beddes,

  And soundlie sleeping, when

  Each door was sudden open broke

  By six or seven menne!

  “The menne and women, younge and olde,

  And eke the girls and boys,

  All started up in great affright

  Att the alarming noise.

  “They then were murthered in their beddes

  Without shame or remorse;

  And soon the floors and streets were strew’d

  With many a bleeding corse.

  “The village soon began to blaze,

  Which shew’d the horrid sight;

  But, O, I scarce can beare to tell

  The mis’ries of that night.

  “They threw the infants in the fire,

  The menne they did not spare;

  But killed all which they could find,

  Tho’ aged or tho’ fair.

  . . . . . .

  . . . . . .

  “But some run off to Albany

  And told the doleful tale;

  Yett, tho’ we gave our chearful aid,

  It did not much avail.

  “And we were horribly afraid,

  And shook with terror, when

  They gave account the Frenchmen were

  More than a thousand menne.

  “The news came on a Sabbath morn,

  Just att ye break o’ day;

  And with my companie of horse

  I galloped away.

  “Our soldiers fell upon their reare,

  And killed twenty-five;

  Our young menne were so much enrag’d

  They took scarce one alive.

  “D’Aillebout them did command,

  Which were but thievish rogues,

  Else why did they consent to goe

  With bloodye Indian dogges?

  “And here I end my long ballad,

  The which you just heard said;

  And wish that it may stay on earth

  Long after I be dead.”

  The old man bowed his palsied head over his fiddle, struck with his wrinkled thumb a string or two; and I saw tears falling from his almost sightless eyes.

  Around him, under the giant trees, his homely audience stood silent and spellbound. Many of his hearers had seen with their own eyes horrors that compared with the infamous butchery at Schenectady almost a hundred years ago. Doubtless that was what fascinated us all.

  But Boyd, on whom nothing doleful made anything except an irritable impression, drew us away, saying that it was tiresome enough to fight battles without being forced to listen to the account of ’em afterward; at which, it being true enough, I laughed. And Lois looked up winking away her tears with a quick smile. As for Lana, her face was tragic and colourless as death itself. Seeing which, Boyd said cheerfully:

  “What is there in all the world to sigh about, Lanette? Death is far away and the woods are green.”

  “The woods are green,” repeated Lana under her breath, “yet, there are many within call who shall not live to see one leaf fall.”

  “Why, what a very dirge you sing this sunny morning!” he protested, still laughing; and I, too, was surprised and disturbed, for never had I heard Lana Helmer speak in such a manner.

  “’Twas that dreary old fiddler,” he added with a shrug. “Now, God save us all, from croaking birds of every plumage, and give us to live for the golden moment.”

  “And for the future,” said Lois.

  “The devil take the future,” said Boyd, his quick, careless laugh ringing out again. “Today I am lieutenant, and Loskiel, here, is ensign. Tomorrow we may be captains or corpses. But is that a reason for pulling a long face and confessing every sin?”

  “Have you, then, aught to confess?” asked Lois, in pretense of surprise.

  “I? Not a peccadillo, my pretty maid — not a single one. What I do, I do; and ask no leniency for the doing. Therefore, I have nothing to confess.”

&
nbsp; Lana stopped, bent low over a forest blossom, and touched her face to it. Her cheeks were burning. All about us these frail, snowy blossoms grew, and Lois gathered one here and yonder while Boyd and I threw ourselves down on a vast, deep bed of moss, under which a thread of icy water trickled.

  Ahead of us, in plain view, stood one of our outer picket guards, and below in a wide and bowl-shaped hollow, running south to the river, we could see cattle moving amid the trees, and the rifle-barrel of a herd guard shining here and there.

  My Indians on either flank advanced to the picket line, and squatted there, paying no heed to the challenge of the sentinels, until Boyd was obliged to go forward and satisfy the sullen Pennsylvania soldiery on duty there.

  He came back in his graceful, swinging stride, chewing a twig of black-birch, his thumbs hooked in his belt, damning all Pennsylvanians for surly dogs.

  I pointed out that many of them were as loyal as any man among us; and he said he meant the Quakers only, and cursed them for rascals, every one. Again I reminded him that Alsop Hunt was a Quaker; and he said that he meant not the Westchester folk, but John Penn’s people, Tories, every one, who would have hired ruffians to do to the Connecticut people in Forty Fort what later was done to them by Indians and Tory rangers.

  Lana protested in behalf of the Shippens in Philadelphia, but Boyd said they were all tarred with the same brush, and all were selfish and murderous, lacking only the courage to bite — yes, every Quaker in Penn’s Proprietary — the Shippens, Griscoms, Pembertons, Norrises, Whartons, Baileys, Barkers, Storys—”’Every damned one o’ them!” he said, “devised that scheme for the wanton and cruel massacre of the Wyoming settlers, and meant to turn it to their own pecuniary profit!”

  He was more than partly right; yet, knowing many of these to be friends and kinsmen to Lana Helmer, he might have more gracefully remained silent. But Boyd had not that instinctive dread of hurting others with ill-considered facts; he blurted out all truths, whether timely or untimely, wherever and whenever it suited him.

  For the Tory Quakers he mentioned I had no more respect than had he, they being neither fish, flesh, nor fowl, but a smooth, sanctimonious and treacherous lot, more calculated to work us mischief because of their superior education and financial means. Indeed, they generally remained undisturbed by the ferocious Iroquois allies of our late and gentle King; secure in their property and lives while all around them men, women, and little children fell under the dripping hatchets.

 

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