The pain of my cramped and scorched limbs was horrible, but I had just enough sense left to shut my teeth and make no sound.
The chief looked at me long and calmly as I drooped before him, for there was no power in my legs. He was an eagle-faced savage, with the most grave and searching eyes.
“Sleep, brother,” he said. “At dawn we will take further counsel.”
I forced some kind of lightness into my voice, “Sleep will be grateful,” I said, “for I have come many miles this day, and the welcome I have got this evening has been too warm for a weary man.”
The Indian nodded. The jest was after his own taste.
I was carried to a teepee and shown a couch of dry fern. A young man rubbed some oil on my scorched legs, which relieved the pain of them. But no pain on earth could have kept me awake. I did not glide but pitched headforemost into sleep.
CHAPTER XXV.
EVENTS ON THE HILL-SIDE.
My body was too sore to suffer me to sleep dreamlessly, but my dreams were pleasant. I thought I was in a sunny place with Elspeth, and that she had braided a coronet of wild flowers for her hair. They were simple flowers, such as I had known in childhood and had not found in Virginia–yarrow, and queen of the meadow, and bluebells, and the little eyebright. A great peace filled me, and Ringan came presently to us and spoke in his old happy speech. ‘Twas to the accompaniment of Elspeth’s merry laughter that I wakened, to find myself in a dark, strange-smelling place, with a buffalo robe laid over me, and no stitch of clothing on my frame.
That wakening was bitter indeed. I opened my eyes to another day of pain and peril, with no hope of deliverance. For usual I am one of those who rise with a glad heart and a great zest for whatever the light may bring. Now, as I moved my limbs, I found aches everywhere, and but little strength in my bones. Slowly the events of the last day came back to me–the journey in the dripping woods, the fight in the ravine, the death of my comrade, the long horror of the hours of torture. No man can be a hero at such an awakening. I had not the courage of a chicken in my soul, and could have wept with weakness and terror.
I felt my body over, and made out that I had taken no very desperate hurt. My joints were swollen with the bonds, and every sinew seemed as stiff as wire. The skin had been scorched on my shins and feet, and was peeling off in patches, but the ointment which had been rubbed on it had taken the worst ache out of the wounds. I tottered to my feet, and found that I could stand, and even move slowly like an old man. My clothes had been brought back and laid beside me, and with much difficulty I got into them; but I gave up the effort to get my stockings and boots over my scorched legs. My pistols, too, had been restored, and Ringan’s sword, and the gold amulet he had entrusted to me. Somehow, in the handling of me, my store of cartouches had disappeared from my pockets. My pistols were loaded and ready for use, but that was the extent of my defences, for I was no more good with Ringan’s sword than with an Indian bow.
A young lad brought me some maize porridge and a skin of water. I could eat little of the food, but I drank the water to the last drop, for my throat was as dry as the nether pit. After that I lay down on my couch again, for it seemed to me that I would need to treasure every atom of my strength. The meal had put a little heart in me–heart enough to wait dismally on the next happening.
Presently the chief whom they called Onotawah stood at the tent door, and with him a man who spoke the Powhatan tongue.
“Greeting, brother,” he said.
“Greeting,” I answered, in the stoutest tone I could muster.
“I come from the council of the young men, where the blood of our kin cries for the avenger. The Sons of the West Wind have seen the courage of the stranger, and would give him the right of combat as a free man and a brave. Is my brother ready to meet our young men in battle?”
I was about as fit to right as an old horse to leap a fence, but I had the wit to see that my only hope lay in a bold front. At any rate, a clean death in battle was better than burning, and my despair was too deep to let me quibble about the manner of leaving this world.
“You see my condition,” I said. “I am somewhat broken with travel and wounds, but, such as I am, I am willing to meet your warriors. Send them one at a time or in battalions, and I am ready for them.”
It was childish brag, but I think I must have delivered it with some spirit, for I saw approbation in his eye.
“When we fight, we fight not as butchers but as men-at-arms,” he said. “The brother of one of the dead will take on himself the cause of our tribe. If he slay you, our honour is avenged. If he be slain, we save you alive, and carry you with us as we march to the rising sun.”
“I am content,” I said, though I was very little content. What earthly chance stood I against a lithe young brave, accustomed from his childhood to war? I thought of a duel hand-to-hand with knives or tomahawks, for I could not believe that I would be allowed to keep my pistols. It was a very faint-hearted combatant who rose and staggered after Onotawah into the clear morning. The cloudy weather had gone, and the glen where we lay was filled with sun and bright colours. Even in my misery I saw the fairness of the spectacle, and the cool plunge of the stream was grateful to my throbbing eyes.
The whole clan was waiting, a hundred warriors as tall and clean-limbed as any captain could desire. I bore no ill-will to my captors; indeed, I viewed them with a respect I had never felt for Indians before. They were so free in their walk, so slim and upstanding, so hawklike in eye and feature, and withal so grave, that I could not but admire them. If the Tidewater was to perish, ‘twould be at the hands of no unworthy foes.
A man stood out from the others, a tall savage with a hard face, who looked at me with eyes of hate. I recognized my opponent, whom the chief called by some name like Mayoga.
Before us on the hill-side across the stream was a wood, with its limits cut as clear on the meadow as a coppice in a nobleman’s park. ‘Twas maybe half a mile long as it stretched up the slope, and about the same at its greatest width. The shape was like a stout bean with a hollow on one side, and down the middle ran the gorge of a mountain stream.
Onotawah pointed to the wood. “Hearken, brother, to the customs of our race in such combats. In that thicket the twain of you fight. Mayoga will enter at one end and you at the other, and once among the trees it is his business to slay you as he pleases and as he can.”
“What, are the weapons?” I asked.
“What you please. You have a sword and your little guns.”
Mayoga laughed loud. “My bow is sufficient,” he cried. “See, I leave knife and tomahawk behind,” and he cast them on the grass.
Not to be outdone, I took off my sword, though that was more an encumbrance than a weapon.
“I have but the two shots,” I said.
“Then I will take but the two arrows,” cried my opponent, shaking the rest out of his quiver; and at this there was a murmur of applause. There were some notions of decency among these Western Indians.
I bade him take a quiverful. “You will need them,” said I, looking as truculent as my chicken heart would permit me.
They took me to the eastern side of the wood, and there we waited for the signal, which was a musket shot, telling me that Mayoga was ready to enter at the opposite end. My companions were friendly enough, and seemed to look on the duel as a kind of sport. I could not understand their tongue, but I fancy that they wagered among themselves on the issue, if, indeed, that was in doubt, or, at any rate, on the time before I should fall. They had forgotten that they had tortured me the night before, and one clapped me on the shoulder and seemed to encourage me. Another pointed to my raw shins, and wound some kind of soft healing fibre round my feet and ankles. I did my best to keep a stout face, and when the shot came, I waved my hand to them and plunged boldly into the leafy darkness.
But out of the presence of men my courage departed, and I became the prey of dismal fear. How was I, with my babyish woodcraft, to contend for a moment against an Indian who was as subtle and velvet-footed as a wild beast? The wood was mostly of great oaks and chestnuts, with a dense scrub of vines and undergrowth, and in the steepest parts of the hill-side many mossgrown rocks. I found every movement painful in that rough and matted place. For one thing, I made an unholy noise. My tender limbs shrank from every stone and twig, and again and again I rolled over with the pain of it. Sweat blinded my eyes, and the fatigues of yesterday made my breath labour like a foundered horse.
My first plan–if the instinct of blind terror can be called a plan– was to lie hid in some thick place and trust to getting the first shot at my enemy when he found me. But I realized that I could not do this. My broken nerves would not suffer me to lie hidden. Better the torture of movement than such terrible patience. So I groped my way on, starting at every movement in the thicket. Once I roused a deer, which broke off in front of me towards my adversary. That would tell him my whereabouts, I thought, and for some time I lay still with a palpitating heart. But soon the silence resumed its sway, a deathlike silence, with far off the faint tinkle of water.
By and by I reached the stream, the course of which made an open space a few yards wide in the trees. The sight of its cool foaming current made me reckless. I dipped my face in it, drank deep of it, and let it flow over my burning legs. Then I scrambled up the other bank, and entered my enemy’s half of the wood. He had missed a fine chance, I thought, in not killing me by the water’s edge; and this escape, and the momentary refreshment of the stream, heartened me enough to carry me some way into his territory.
The wood was thinner here, and the ground less cumbered. I moved from tree to tree, crawling in the open bits, and scanning each circle of green dusk before I moved. A red-bird fluttered on my right, and I lay long watching its flight. Something moved ahead of me, but ’twas only a squirrel.
Then came a mocking laugh behind me. I turned sharply, but saw nothing. Far up in the branches there sounded the slow flap of an owl’s flight. Many noises succeeded, and suddenly came one which froze my blood–the harsh scream of a hawk. My enemy was playing with me, and calling the wild things to mock me.
I went on a little, and then turned up the hill to where a clump of pines made a darker patch in the woodland. All was quiet again, and my eyes searched the dusk for the sign of human life. Then suddenly I saw something which stiffened me against a trunk.
Forty paces off in the dusk a face was looking from behind a tree. It was to the west of me, and was looking downhill towards a patch of undergrowth. I noted the long feather, the black forelock, the red skin of the forehead.
At the sight for the first time the zest of the pursuit filled me, and I forgot my pain. Had I outwitted my wily foe, and by some miracle stolen a march on him? I dared not believe it; but yet, as I rubbed my eyes, I could not doubt it. I had got my chance, and had taken him unawares. The face still peered intently downhill. I lifted a pistol, took careful aim, and fired at the patch of red skin.
A thousand echoes rang through the wood. The bullet had grazed the tree trunk, and the face was gone. But whither? Did a dead man lie behind the trunk, or had a wounded man crawled into cover?
I waited breathlessly for a minute or two, and then went forward, with my second pistol at the cock.
There was nothing behind the tree. Only a piece of red bark with a bullet hole through it, some greasy horsehair, and a feather. And then from many quarters seemed to come a wicked laughter, I leaned against the trunk, with a deadly nausea clutching at my heart. Poor fool, I had rejoiced for a second, only to be dashed into utter despair!
I do not think I had ever had much hope, but now I was convinced that all was over. The water had made my burns worse, and disappointment had sapped the little remnants of my strength. My one desire was to get out of this ghoulish thicket and die by the stream-side. The cool sound of it would be a fitting dirge for a foolish fellow who had wandered far from his home.
I could hear the plunge of it, and struggled towards it. I was long past taking any care. I stumbled and slipped along the hill-side, my breath labouring, and a moaning at my lips from sheer agony and weakness. If an arrow sped between my ribs I would still reach the water, for I was determined to die with my legs in its flow.
Suddenly it was before me. I came out on a mossy rock above a deep, clear pool, into which a cascade tumbled. I knelt feebly on the stone, gazing at the blue depths, and then I lifted my eyes.
There on a rock on the other side stood my enemy.
He had an arrow fitted to his bow, and as I looked he shot. It struck me on the right arm, pinning it just above the elbow. The pistol, which I had been carrying aimlessly, slipped from my nerveless hand to the moss on which I kneeled.
That sudden shock cleared my wits. I was at his mercy, and he knew it. I could see every detail of him twenty yards off across the water. He stood there as calm and light as if he had just arisen from rest, his polished limbs shining in the glow of the sun, the muscles on his right arm rippling as he moved his bow. Madman that I was, ever to hope to contend with such dauntless youth, such tireless vigour! There was a cruel, thin-lipped smile on his face. He had me in his clutches like a cat with a mouse, and he was going to get the full zest of it. I kneeled before him, with my strength gone, my right arm crippled. He could choose his target at his leisure, for I could not resist. I saw the gloating joy in his eyes. He knew his power, and meant to miss nothing of its savour.
Yet in that fell predicament God gave me back my courage. But I took a queer way of showing it. I began to whimper as if in abject fear. Every limb was relaxed in terror, and I grovelled on my knees before him. I made feeble plucks at the arrow in my right arm, and my shoulder drooped almost to the sod. But all the time my other hand was behind my back, edging its way to the pistol. My fingers clutched at the butt, and slowly I began to withdraw it till I had it safe in the shadow of my pocket.
My enemy did not know that I was left-handed.
He fitted a second arrow to his bow, while his lips curved maliciously. All the demoniac, pantherlike cruelty of his race looked at me out of his deep eyes. He was taking his time about it, unwilling to lose the slightest flavour of his vengeance. I played up to him nobly, squirming as if in an agony of terror. But by this time I had got a comfortable posture on the rock, and my left shoulder was towards him.
At last he made his choice, and so did I. I never thought that I could miss, for if I had had any doubt I should have failed. I was as confident in my sureness as any saint in the mercy of God.
He raised his bow, but it never reached his shoulder. My left arm shot out, and my last bullet went through his brain.
He toppled forward and plunged into the pool. The grease from his body floated up, and made a scum on the surface.
Then I broke off the arrow and pulled it out of my arm, putting the pieces in my pocket. The water cleared, and I could see him lying in the cool blue depths, his eyes staring, his mouth open, and a little dark eddy about his forehead.
CHAPTER XXVI.
SHALAH.
I came out of the wood a new being. My wounded arm and my torn and inflamed limbs were forgotten. I held my head high, and walked like a free man. It was not that I had slain my enemy and been delivered from deadly peril, nor had I any clearer light on my next step. But I had suddenly got the conviction that God was on my side, and that I need not fear what man could do unto me. You may call it the madness of a lad whose body and spirit had been tried to breaking-point. But, madness or no, it gave me infinite courage, and in that hour I would have dared every savage on earth.
I found some Indians at the edge of the wood, and told one who spoke Powhatan the issue of the fight. I flung the broken arrow on the ground.
“That is my token,” I said. “You will find the other in the pool below the cascade.”
Then I strode towards the tents, looking every man I passed squarely in the eyes. No one spoke, no one hindered me; every face was like a graven image.
I reached the teepee in which I had spent the night, and flung myself down on the rude couch. In a minute I was sunk in a heavy sleep.
I woke to see two men standing in the tent door. One was the chief Onotawah, and the other a tall Indian who wore no war paint.
They came towards me, and the light fell on the face of the second. To my amazement I recognized Shalah. He put a finger on his lip, and, though my heart clamoured for news, I held my peace.
They squatted on a heap of skins and spoke in their own tongue. Then Shalah addressed me in English.
“The maiden is safe, brother. There will be no more fighting at the stockade. Those who assaulted us were of my own tribe, and yesterday I reasoned with them.”
Then he spoke to the chief, and translated for me.
“He says that you have endured the ordeal of the stake, and have slain your enemy in fight, and that now you will go before the great Sachem for his judgment. That is the custom of our people.”
He turned to Onotawah again, and his tone was high and scornful. He spoke as if he were the chief and the other were the minion, and, what was strangest of all, Onotawah replied meekly. Shalah rose to his feet and strode to the door, pointing down the glen with his hand. He seemed to menace the other, his nostrils quivered with contempt, and his voice was barbed with passion. Onotawah bowed his head and said nothing.
Then he seemed to dismiss him, and the proud chief walked out of the teepee like a disconsolate schoolboy.
Instantly Shalah turned to me and inquired about my wounds. He looked at the hole in my arm and at my scorched legs, and from his belt took a phial of ointment, which he rubbed on the former. He passed his cool hands over my brow, and felt the beating of my heart.
“You are weary, brother, and somewhat scarred, but there is no grave hurt. What of the Master?”
I told him of Ringan’s end. He bent his head, and then sprang up and held his hands high, speaking in a strange tongue. I looked at his eyes, and they were ablaze with fire.
“My people slew him,” he cried. “By the shades of my fathers, a score shall keep him company as slaves in the Great Hunting-ground.”
“Talk no more of blood,” I said. “He was amply avenged. ‘Twas I who slew him, for he died to save me. He made a Christian end, and I will not have his memory stained by more murders. But oh, Shalah, what a man died yonder!”
He made me tell every incident of the story, and he cried out, impassive though he was, at the sword-play in the neck of the gorge.
“I have seen it,” he cried. “I have seen his bright steel flash and men go down like ripe fruit. Tell me, brother, did he sing all the while, as was his custom? Would I had been by his side!”
Then he told me of what had befallen at the stockade.
“The dead man told me a tale, for by the mark on his forehead I knew that he was of my own house. When you and the Master had gone I went into the woods and picked up the trail of our foes. I found them in a crook of the hills, and went among them in peace. They knew me, and my word was law unto them. No living thing will come near the stockade save the wild beasts of the forest. Be at ease in thy mind, brother.”
The news was a mighty consolation, but I was still deeply mystified.
“You speak of your tribe. But these men were no Senecas.”
He smiled gravely. “Listen, brother,” he said. “The white men of the Tidewater called me Seneca, and I suffered the name. But I am of a greater and princelier house than the Sons of the Cat. Some little while ago I spoke to you of the man who travelled to the Western Seas, and of his son who returned to his own people. I am the son of him who returned. I spoke of the doings of my own kin.”
“But what is your nation, then?” I cried.
“One so great that these little clanlets of Cherokee and Monacan, and even the multitudes of the Long House, are but slaves and horseboys by their side. We dwelt far beyond these mountains towards the setting sun, in a plain where the rivers are like seas, and the cornlands wider than all the Virginian manors. But there came trouble in our royal house, and my father returned to find a generation which had forgotten the deeds of their forefathers. So he took his own tribe, who still remembered the House of the Sun, and, because his heart was unquiet with longing for that which is forbidden to man, he journeyed eastward, and found a new home in a valley of these hills. Thine eyes have seen it. They call it the Shenandoah.”
I remembered that smiling Eden I had seen from that hill-top, and how Shalah had spoken that very name.
“We dwelt there,” he continued, “while I grew to manhood, living happily in peace, hunting the buffalo and deer, and tilling our cornlands. Then the time came when the Great Spirit called for my father, and I was left with the kingship of the tribe. Strange things meantime had befallen our nation in the West. Broken clans had come down from the north, and there had been many battles, and there had been blight, and storms, and sickness, so that they were grown poor and harassed. Likewise men had arisen who preached to them discontent, and other races of a lesser breed had joined themselves to them. My own tribe had become fewer, for the young men did not stay in our valley, but drifted back to the West, to that nation we had come from, or went north to the wars with the white man, or became lonely hunters in the hills. Then from the south along the mountain crests came another people, a squat and murderous people, who watched us from the ridges and bided their chance.”
“The Cherokees?” I asked.
“Even so. I speak of a hundred moons back, when I was yet a stripling, with little experience in war. I saw the peril, but I could not think that such a race could vie with the Children of the Sun. But one black night, in the Moon of Wildfowl, the raiders descended in a torrent and took us unprepared. What had been a happy people dwelling with full barns and populous wigwams became in a night a desolation. Our wives and children were slain or carried captive, and on every Cherokee belt hung the scalps of my warriors. Some fled westwards to our nation, but they were few that lived, and the tribe of Shalah went out like a torch in a roaring river.
“I slew many men that night, for the gods of my fathers guided my arm. Death I sought, but could not find it; and by and by I was alone in the woods, with twenty scars and a heart as empty as a gourd. Then I turned my steps to the rising sun and the land of the white man, for there was no more any place for me in the councils of my own people.
“All this was many moons ago, and since then I have been a wanderer among strangers. While I reigned in my valley I heard of the white man’s magic and of the power of his gods, and I longed to prove them. Now I have learned many things which were hid from the eyes of our oldest men. I have learned that a man may be a great brave, and yet gentle and merciful, as was the Master, I have learned that a man may be a lover of peace and quiet ways and have no lust of battle in his heart, and yet when the need comes be more valiant than the best, even as you, brother. I have learned that the God of the white men was Himself a man who endured the ordeal of the stake for the welfare of His enemies. I have seen cruelty and cowardice and folly among His worshippers; but I have also seen that His faith can put spirit into a coward’s heart, and make heroes of mean men. I do not grudge my years of wandering. They have taught me such knowledge as the Sachems of my nation never dreamed of, and they have given me two comrades after my own heart. One was he who died yesterday, and the other is now by my side.”
These words of Shalah did not make me proud, for things were too serious for vanity. But they served to confirm in me my strange exaltation. I felt as one dedicated to a mighty task.
“Tell me, what is the invasion which threatens the Tidewater?”
“The whole truth is not known to me; but from the speech of my tribesmen, it seems that the Children of the West Wind, twelve moons ago, struck their tents and resolved to seek a new country. There is a restlessness comes upon all Indian peoples once in every five generations. It fell upon my grandfather, and he travelled towards the sunset, and now it has fallen upon the whole race of the Sun. As they were on the eve of journeying there came to them a prophet, who told them that God would lead them not towards the West, as was the tradition of the elders, but eastwards to the sea and the dwellings of the Palefaces.”
“Is that the crazy white man we have heard of?”
“He is of your race, brother. What his spell is I know not, but it works mightily among my people. They tell me that he hath bodily converse with devils, and that God whispers His secrets to him in the night-watches. His God hath told him–so runs the tale–that He hath chosen the Children of the Sun for His peculiar people, and laid on them the charge of sweeping the white men off the earth and reigning in their stead from the hills to the Great Waters.”
“Do you believe in this madman, Shalah?” I asked.
“I know not,” he said, with a troubled face. “I fear one possessed of God. But of this I am sure, that the road of the Children of the West Wind lies not eastward but westward, and that no good can come of war with the white man. This Sachem hath laid his magic on others than our people, for the Cherokee nation and all the broken clans of the hills acknowledge him and do his bidding. He is a soldier as well as a prophet, for he has drilled and disposed his army like a master of war.”
“Will your tribe ally themselves with Cherokee murderers?”
“I asked that question of this man Onotawah, and he liked it little. He says that his people distrust this alliance with a race they scorn, and I do not think they pine for the white man’s war. But they are under the magic of this prophet, and presently, when blood begins to flow, they will warm to their work. In time they will be broken, but that time will not be soon, and meanwhile there will be nothing left alive between the hills and the bay of Chesapeake.”
“Do you know their plans?” I asked.
“The Cherokees have served their purpose,” he said. “Your forecast was right, brother. They have drawn the fire of the Border, and been driven in a rabble far south to the Roanoke and the Carolina mountains. That is as the prophet planned. And now, while the white men hang up their muskets and rejoice heedlessly in their triumph, my nation prepares to strike. To-night the moon is full, and the prophet makes intercession with his God. To-morrow at dawn they march, and by twilight they will have swarmed across the Border.”
“Have you no power over your own people?”
“But little,” he answered. “I have been too long absent from them, and my name is half forgotten. Yet, were they free of this prophet, I think I might sway them, for I know their ways, and I am the son of their ancient kings. But for the present his magic holds them in thrall. They listen in fear to one who hath the ear of God.”
I arose, stretched my arms, and yawned.
“They carry me to this Sachem,” I said. “Well and good. I will outface this blasphemous liar, whoever he may be. If he makes big magic, I will make bigger. The only course is the bold course. If I can humble this prophet man, will you dissuade your nation from war and send them back to the sunset?”
“Assuredly,” he said wonderingly. “But what is your plan, brother?”
“None,” I answered. “God will show me the way. Honesty may trust in Him as well as madness.”
“By my father’s shade, you are a man, brother,” and he gave me the Indian salute.
“A very weary, feckless cripple of a man,” I said, smiling. “But the armies of Heaven are on my side, Shalah. Take my pistols and Ringan’s sword. I am going into this business with no human weapons.” And as they set me on an Indian horse and the whole tribe turned their eyes to the higher glens, I actually rejoiced. Light-hearted or light-headed, I know not which I was, but I know that I had no fear.
CHAPTER XXVII.
HOW I STROVE ALL NIGHT WITH THE DEVIL.
It was late in the evening ere we reached the shelf in the high glens which was the headquarters of the Indian host. I rode on a horse, between Onotawah and Shalah, as if I were a chief and no prisoner. On the road we met many bands of Indians hastening to the trysting-place, for the leader had flung his outposts along the whole base of the range, and the chief warriors returned to the plateau for the last ritual. No man spoke a word, and when we met other companies the only greeting was by uplifted hands.
The shelf was lit with fires, and there was a flare of torches in the centre. I saw an immense multitude of lean, dark faces–how many I cannot tell, but ten thousand at the least. It took all my faith to withstand the awe of the sight. For these men were not the common Indian breed, but a race nurtured and armed for great wars, disciplined to follow one man, and sharpened to a needle-point in spirit. Perhaps if I had been myself a campaigner I should have been less awed by the spectacle; but having nothing with which to compare it, I judged this a host before which the scattered Border stockades and Nicholson’s scanty militia would go down like stubble before fire.
At the head of the plateau, just under the brow of the hill, and facing the half-circle of level land, stood a big tent of skins. Before it was a square pile of boulders about the height of a man’s waist, heaped on the top with brushwood so that it looked like a rude altar. Around this the host had gathered, sitting mostly on the ground with knees drawn to the chin, but some few standing like sentries under arms. I was taken to the middle of the half-circle, and Shalah motioned me to dismount, while a stripling led off the horses. My legs gave under me, for they were still very feeble, and I sat hunkered up on the sward like the others. I looked for Shalah and Onotawah, but they had disappeared, and I was left alone among those lines of dark, unknown faces.
I waited with an awe on my spirits against which I struggled in vain. The silence of so vast a multitude, the sputtering torches, lighting the wild amphitheatre of the hills, the strange clearing with its altar, the mystery of the immense dusky sky, and the memory of what I had already endured–all weighed on me with the sense of impending doom. I summoned all my fortitude to my aid. I told myself that Ringan believed in me, and that I had the assurance that God would not see me cast down. But such courage as I had was now a resolve rather than any exhilaration of spirits. A brooding darkness lay on me like a cloud.
Presently the hush grew deeper, and from the tent a man came. I could not see him clearly, but the flickering light told me that he was very tall, and that, like the Indians, he was naked to the middle. He stood behind the altar, and began some incantation.
It was in the Indian tongue which I could not understand. The voice was harsh and discordant, but powerful enough to fill that whole circle of hill. It seemed to rouse the passion of the hearers, for grave faces around me began to work, and long-drawn sighs came from their lips.
Then at a word from the figure four men advanced, bearing something between them, which they laid on the altar. To my amazement I saw that it was a great yellow panther, so trussed up that it was impotent to hurt. How such a beast had ever been caught alive I know not. I could see its green cat’s eyes glowing in the dark, and the striving of its muscles, and hear the breath hissing from its muzzled jaws.
The figure raised a knife and plunged it into the throat of the great cat. The slow lapping of blood broke in on the stillness. Then the voice shrilled high and wild. I could see that the man had marked his forehead with blood, and that his hands were red and dripping. He seemed to be declaiming some savage chant, to which my neighbours began to keep time with their bodies. Wilder and wilder it grew, till it ended in a scream like a seamew’s. Whoever the madman was, he knew the mystery of Indian souls, for in a little he would have had that host lusting blindly for death. I felt the spell myself, piercing through my awe and hatred of the spell-weaver, and I won’t say but that my weary head kept time with the others to that weird singing.
A man brought a torch and lit the brushwood on the altar. Instantly a flame rose to heaven, through which the figure of the magician showed fitfully like a mountain in mist. That act broke the wizardry for me. To sacrifice a cat was monstrous and horrible, but it was also uncouthly silly. I saw the magic for what it was, a maniac’s trickery. In the revulsion I grew angry, and my anger heartened me wonderfully. Was this stupendous quackery to bring ruin to the Tidewater? Though I had to choke the life with my own hands out of that warlock’s throat, I should prevent it.
Then from behind the fire the voice began again. But this time I understood it. The words were English. I was amazed, for I had forgotten that I knew the wizard to be a white man.
“_Thus saith the Lord God_,” it cried, “_Woe to the bloody city! I will make the pile great for fire. Heap on wood, kindle the fire, consume the flesh, and spice it well, and let the bones be burned_.”
He poked the beast on the altar, and a bit of burning yellow fur fell off and frizzled on the ground.
It was horrid beyond words, lewd and savage and impious, and desperately cruel. And the strange thing was that the voice was familiar.
“_O thou that dwellest upon many waters_,” it went on again, “_abundant in treasures, thine end is come, and the measure of thy covetousness. The Lord of Hosts hath sworn by Himself, saying, Surely I will fill thee with men as with caterpillars_….”
With that last word there came over me a flood of recollection. It was spoken not in the common English way, but in the broad manner of my own folk…. I saw in my mind’s eye a wet moorland, and heard a voice inveighing against the wickedness of those in high places…. I smelled the foul air of the Canongate Tolbooth, and heard this same man testifying against the vanity of the world…. “_Cawterpillars!_” It was the voice that had once bidden me sing “Jenny Nettles.”
Harsh and strident and horrible, it was yet the voice I had known, now blaspheming Scripture words behind that gruesome sacrifice. I think I laughed aloud. I remembered the man I had pursued my first night in Virginia, the man who had raided Frew’s cabin. I remembered Ringan’s tale of the Scots redemptioner that had escaped from Norfolk county, and the various strange writings which had descended from the hills. Was it not the queerest fate that one whom I had met in my boyish scrapes should return after six years and many thousand miles to play once more a major part in my life! The nameless general in the hills was Muckle John Gib, once a mariner of Borrowstoneness, and some time leader of the Sweet-Singers. I felt the smell of wet heather, and the fishy odours of the Forth; I heard the tang of our country speech, and the swirl of the gusty winds of home.
But in a second all thought of mirth was gone, and a deep solemnity fell upon me. God had assuredly directed my path, for He had brought the two of us together over the widest spaces of earth. I had no fear of the issue. I should master Muckle John as I had mastered him before. My awe was all for God’s mysterious dealing, not for that poor fool posturing behind his obscene sacrifice. His voice rose and fell in eldritch screams and hollow moans. He was mouthing the words of some Bible Prophet.
“_A Sword is upon her horses, and upon her chariots, and upon all the mingled people that are in the midst of her, and they shall become as women. A Sword is upon her treasures, and they shall be robbed; a drought is upon her waters, and they shall be dried up; for it is the land of graven images, and they are mad upon their idols_.”
Every syllable brought back some memory. He had the whine and sough in his voice that our sectaries prized, and I could shut my eyes and imagine I was back in the little kirk of Lesmahagow on a hot summer morn. And then would come the scream of madness, the high wail of the Sweet-Singer.
“_Thus saith the Lord God: Behold, I will bring a King of kings from the north, with horses and with chariots, and with horsemen and companies and muck people. He shall slay with the sword thy daughters in the field_….”
“Fine words,” I thought; “but Elspeth laid her whip over your shoulders, my man.”
“… _With the hoofs of his horses shall he tread down all thy streets. He shall slay thy people by the sword, and thy strong garrisons shall go down to the ground…. And I will cause the music of thy songs to cease, and the sound of thy harps shall no more be heard.”_
I had a vision of Elspeth’s birthday party when we sat round the Governor’s table, and I had wondered dismally how long it would be before our pleasant songs would be turned to mourning.
The fires died down, the smoke thinned, and the full moon rising over the crest of the hills poured her light on us. The torches flickered insolently in that calm radiance. The voice, too, grew lower and the incantation ceased. Then it began again in the Indian tongue, and the whole host rose to their feet. Muckle John, like some old priest of Diana, flung up his arms to the heavens, and seemed to be invoking his strange gods. Or he may have been blessing his flock–I know not which. Then he turned and strode back to his tent, just as he had done on that night in the Cauldstaneslap….
A hand was laid on my arm and Onotawah stood by me. He motioned me to follow him, and led me past the smoking altar to a row of painted white stones around the great wigwam. This he did not cross, but pointed to the tent door, I pushed aside the flap and entered.
An Indian lamp–a wick floating in oil–stood on a rough table. But its thin light was unneeded, for the great flood of moonshine, coming through the slits of the skins, made a clear yellow twilight. By it I marked the figure of Muckle John on his knees.
“Good evening to you, Mr. Gib,” I said.
The figure sprang to its feet and strode over to me.
“Who are ye,” it cried, “who speaks a name that is no more spoken on earth?”
“Just a countryman of yours, who has forgathered with you before. Have you no mind of the Cauldstaneslap and the Canongate Tolbooth?”
He snatched up the lamp and peered into my face, but he was long past recollection.
“I know ye not. But if ye be indeed one from that idolatrous country of Scotland, the Lord hath sent you to witness the triumph of His servant, Know that I am no longer the man John Gib, but the chosen of the Lord, to whom He hath given a new name, even Jerubbaal, saying let Baal plead against him, because he hath thrown down his altar.”
“That’s too long a word for me to remember, Mr. Gib, so by your leave I’ll call you as you were christened.”
I had forced myself to a slow coolness, and my voice seemed to madden him.
“Ye would outface me,” he cried. “I see ye are an idolater from the tents of Shem, on whom judgment will be speedy and surprising. Know ye not what the Lord hath prepared for ye? Down in your proud cities ye are feasting and dicing and smiling on your paramours, but the writing is on the wall, and in a little ye will be crying like weaned bairns for a refuge against the storm of God. Your strong men shall be slain, and your virgins shall be led captive, and your little children shall be dashed against a stone. And in the midst of your ruins I, even I, will raise a temple to the God of Israel, and nations that know me not will run unto me because of the Lord my God.”
I had determined on my part, and played it calmly.
“And what will you do with your Indian braves?” I asked.
“Sharon shall be a fold of flocks, and the valley of Achor a place to lie down in, for my people that have sought me,” he answered.
“A bonny spectacle,” I said. “Man, if you dare to cross the Border you will be whipped at a cart-tail and clapped into Bedlam as a crazy vagabond.”
“Blasphemer,” he shrieked, and ran at me with the knife he had used on the panther.
It took all my courage to play my game. I stood motionless, looking at him, and his head fell. Had I moved he would have struck, but to his mad eyes my calmness was terrifying.
“It sticks in my mind,” I said, “that there is a commandment, Do no murder. You call yourself a follower of the Lord. Let me tell you that you are no more than a bloody-minded savage, a thousandfold more guilty than those poor creatures you are leading astray. You serve Baal, not God, John Gib, and the devil in hell is banking his fires and counting on your company.”
He gibbered at me like a bedlamite, but I knew what I was doing. I raised my voice, and spoke loud and clear, while my eyes held his in that yellow dusk.
“Priest of Baal,” I cried, “lying prophet! Go down on your knees and pray for mercy. By the living God, the flames of hell are waiting for you. The lightnings tremble in the clouds to scorch you up and send your black soul to its own place.”
His hands pawed at my throat, but the horror was descending on him. He shrieked like a wild beast, and cast fearful eyes behind him. Then he rushed into the dark corners, stabbing with his knife, crying that the devils were loosed. I remember how horribly he frothed at the mouth.
“Avaunt,” he howled. “Avaunt, Mel and Abaddon! Avaunt, Evil-Merodach and Baal-Jezer! Ha! There I had ye, ye muckle goat. The stink of hell is on ye, but ye shall not take the elect of the Lord.”
He crawled on his belly, stabbing his knife into the ground. I easily avoided him, for his eyes saw nothing but his terrible phantoms. Verily Shalah had spoken truth when he said that this man had bodily converse with the devils.
Then I threw him–quite easily, for his limbs were going limp in the extremity of his horror. He lay gasping and foaming, his eyes turning back in his head, while I bound his arms to his sides with my belt. I found some cords in the tent, and tied his legs together. He moaned miserably for a little, and then was silent.
* * * * *
I think I must have sat by him for three hours. The world was very still, and the moon set, and the only light was the flickering lamp. Once or twice I heard a rustle by the tent door. Some Indian guard was on the watch, but I knew that no Indian dared to cross the forbidden circle.
I had no thoughts, being oppressed with a great stupor of weariness. I may have dozed a little, but the pain of my legs kept me from slumbering.
Once or twice I looked at him, and I noticed that the madness had gone out of his face, and that he was sleeping peacefully. I wiped the froth from his lips, and his forehead was cool to my touch.
By and by, as I held the lamp close, I observed that his eyes were open. It was now time for the gamble I had resolved on. I remembered that morning in the Tolbooth, and how the madness had passed, leaving him a simple soul. I unstrapped the belt, and cut the cords about his legs.
“Do you feel better now, Mr. Gib?” I asked, as if it were the most ordinary question in the world.
He sat up and rubbed his eyes. “Was it a dwam?” he inquired. “I get them whiles.”
“It was a dwam, but I think it has passed.”
He still rubbed his eyes, and peered about him, like a big collie dog that has lost its master.
“Who is it that speirs?” he said. “I ken the voice, but I havena heard it this long time.”
“One who is well acquaint with Borrowstoneness and the links of Forth,” said I.
I spoke in the accent of his own country-side, and it must have woke some dim chord in his memory, I made haste to strike while the iron was hot.
“There was a woman at Cramond…” I began.
He got to his feet and looked me in the face. “Ay, there was,” he said, with an odd note in his voice. “What about her?” I could see that his hand was shaking.
“I think her name was Alison Steel.”
“What ken ye of Alison Steel?” he asked fiercely. “Quick, man, what word have ye frae Alison?”
“You sent me with a letter to her. D’you not mind your last days in Edinburgh, before they shipped you to the Plantations?”
“It comes back to me,” he cried. “Ay, it comes back. To think I should live to hear of Alison! What did she say?”
“Just this. That John Gib was a decent man if he would resist the devil of pride. She charged me to tell you that you would never be out of her prayers, and that she would live to be proud of you. ‘John will never shame his kin,’ quoth she.”
“Said she so?” he said musingly. “She was aye a kind body. We were to be married at Martinmas, I mind, if the Lord hadna called me.”
“You’ve need of her prayers,” I said, “and of the prayers of every Christian soul on earth. I came here yestereen to find you mouthing blasphemies, and howling like a mad tyke amid a parcel of heathen. And they tell me you’re to lead your savages on Virginia, and give that smiling land to fire and sword. Think you Alison Steel would not be black ashamed if she heard the horrid tale?”
“‘Twas the Lord’s commands,” he said gloomily, but there was no conviction in his words.
I changed my tone. “Do you dare to speak such blasphemy?” I cried. “The Lord’s commands! The devil’s commands! The devil of your own sinful pride! You are like the false prophets that made Israel to sin. What brings you, a white man, at the head of murderous savages?”
“Israel would not hearken, so I turned to the Gentiles,” said he.
“And what are you going to make of your Gentiles? Do you think you’ve put much Christianity into the heart of the gentry that were watching your antics last night?”
“They have glimmerings of grace,” he said.
“Glimmerings of moonshine! They are bent on murder, and so are you, and you call that the Lord’s commands. You would sacrifice your own folk to the heathen hordes. God forgive you, John Gib, for you are no Christian, and no Scot, and no man.”
“Virginia is an idolatrous land,” said he; but he could not look up at me.
“And are your Indians not idolaters? Are you no idolater, with your burnt offerings and heathen gibberish? You worship a Baal and a Moloch worse than any Midianite, for you adore the devils of your own rotten heart.”
The big man, with all the madness out of him, put his towsy head in his hands, and a sob shook his great shoulders.
“Listen to me, John Gib. I am come from your own country-side to save you from a hellish wickedness, I know the length and breadth of Virginia, and the land is full of Scots, men of the Covenant you have forsworn, who are living an honest life on their bits of farms, and worshipping the God you have forsaken. There are women there like Alison Steel, and there are men there like yourself before you hearkened to the devil. Will you bring death to your own folk, with whom you once shared the hope of salvation? By the land we both have left, and the kindly souls we both have known, and the prayers you said at your mother’s knee, and the love of Christ who died for us, I adjure you to flee this great sin. For it is the sin against the Holy Ghost, and that knows no forgiveness.”
The man was fairly broken down. “What must I do?” he cried. “I’m all in a creel. I’m but a pipe for the Lord to sound through.”
“Take not that Name in vain, for the sounding is from your own corrupt heart. Mind what Alison Steel said about the devil of pride, for it was that sin by which the angels fell.”
“But I’ve His plain commands,” he wailed. “He hath bidden me cast down idolatry, and bring the Gentiles to His kingdom.”
“Did He say anything about Virginia? There’s plenty idolatry elsewhere in America to keep you busy for a lifetime, and you can lead your Gentiles elsewhere than against your own kin. Turn your face westward, John Gib. I, too, can dream dreams and see visions, and it is borne in on me that your road is plain before you. Lead this great people away from the little shielings of Virginia, over the hills and over the great mountains and the plains beyond, and on and on till you come to an abiding city. You will find idolaters enough to dispute your road, and you can guide your flock as the Lord directs you. Then you will be clear of the murderer’s guilt who would stain his hands in kindly blood.”
He lifted his great head, and the marks of the sacrifice were still on his brow.
“D’ye think that would be the Lord’s will?” he asked innocently.
“I declare it unto you,” said I. “I have been sent by God to save your soul. I give you your marching orders, for though you are half a madman you are whiles a man. There’s the soul of a leader in you, and I would keep you from the shame of leading men to hell. To-morrow morn you will tell these folk that the Lord has revealed to you a better way, and by noon you will be across the Shenandoah. D’you hear my word?”
“Ay,” he said. “We will march in the morning.”
“Can you lead them where you will?”
His back stiffened, and the spirit of a general looked out of his eyes.
“They will follow where I bid. There’s no a man of them dare cheep at what I tell them.”
“My work is done,” I said. “I go to whence I came. And some day I shall go to Cramond and tell Alison that John Gib is no disgrace to his kin.”
“Would you put up a prayer?” he said timidly. “I would be the better of one.”
Then for the first and last time in my life I spoke aloud to my Maker in another’s presence, and it was surely the strangest petition ever offered.
“Lord,” I prayed, “Thou seest Thy creature, John Gib, who by the perverseness of his heart has come to the edge of grievous sin. Take the cloud from his spirit, arrange his disordered wits, and lead him to a wiser life. Keep him in mind of his own land, and of her who prays for him. Guide him over hills and rivers to an enlarged country, and make his arm strong against his enemies, so be they are not of his own kin. And if ever he should hearken again to the devil, do Thou blast his body with Thy fires, so that his soul may be saved.”
“Amen,” said he, and I went out of the tent to find the grey dawn beginning to steal up the sky.
Shalah was waiting at the entrance, far inside the white stones. ‘Twas the first time I had ever seen him in a state approaching fear.
“What fortune, brother?” he asked, and his teeth chattered.
“The Tidewater is safe. This day they march westwards to look for their new country.”
“Thy magic is as the magic of Heaven,” he said reverently. “My heart all night has been like water, for I know no charm which hath prevailed against the mystery of the Panther.”
“‘Twas no magic of mine,” said I. “God spoke to him through my lips in the night watches.”
We took our way unchallenged through the sleeping host till we had climbed the scarp of the hills.
“What brought you to the tent door?” I asked.
“I abode there through the night, I heard the strife with the devils, and my joints were loosened. Also I heard thy voice, brother, but I knew not thy words.”
“But what did you mean to do?” I asked again.
“It was in my mind to do my little best to see that no harm befell thee. And if harm came, I had the thought of trying my knife on the ribs of yonder magician.”
CHAPTER XXVIII.
HOW THREE SOULS FOUND THEIR HERITAGE.
In that hour I had none of the exhilaration of success. So strangely are we mortals made that, though I had won safety for myself and my people, I could not get the savour of it. I had passed too far beyond the limits of my strength. Now that the tension of peril was gone, my legs were like touchwood, which a stroke would shatter, and my foolish head swam like a merry-go-round. Shalah’s arm was round me, and he lifted me up the steep bits till we came to the crown of the ridge. There we halted, and he fed me with sops of bread dipped in eau-de-vie, for he had brought Ringan’s flask with him. The only result was to make me deadly sick. I saw his eyes look gravely at me, and the next I knew I was on his back. I begged him to set me down and leave me, and I think I must have wept like a bairn. All pride of manhood had flown in that sharp revulsion, and I had the mind of a lost child.
As the light grew some strength came back to me, and presently I was able to hobble a little on my rickety shanks. We kept the very crest of the range, and came by and by to a promontory of clear ground, the same, I fancy, from which I had first seen the vale of the Shenandoah. There we rested in a nook of rock, while the early sun warmed us, and the little vapours showed, us in glimpses the green depths and the far-shining meadows.
Shalah nudged my shoulder, and pointed to the south, where a glen debouched from the hills. A stream of mounted figures was pouring out of it, heading for the upper waters of the river where the valley broadened again. For all my sickness my eyes were sharp enough to perceive what manner of procession it was. All were on horseback, riding in clouds and companies without the discipline of a march, but moving as swift as a flight of wildfowl at twilight. Before the others rode a little cluster of pathfinders, and among them I thought I could recognize one taller than the rest.
“Your magic hath prevailed, brother,” Shalah said. “In an hour’s time they will have crossed the Shenandoah, and at nightfall they will camp on the farther mountains.”
That sight gave me my first assurance of success. At any rate, I had fulfilled my trust, and if I died in the hills Virginia would yet bless her deliverer.
And yet my strongest feeling was a wild regret. These folk were making for the untravelled lands of the sunset. You would have said I had got my bellyful of adventure, and should now have sought only a quiet life. But in that moment of bodily weakness and mental confusion I was shaken with a longing to follow them, to find what lay beyond the farthest cloud-topped mountain, to cross the wide rivers, and haply to come to the infinite and mystic Ocean of the West.
“Would to God I were with them!” I sighed.
“Will you come, brother?” Shalah whispered, a strange light in his eyes. “If we twain joined the venture, I think we should not be the last in it. Shalah would make you a king. What is your life in the muddy Tidewater but a thing of little rivalries and petty wrangles and moping over paper? The hearth will soon grow cold, and the bright eyes of the fairest woman will dull with age, and the years will find you heavy and slow, with a coward’s shrinking from death. What say you, brother? While the blood is strong in the veins shall we ride westward on the path of a king?”
His eyes were staring like a hawk’s over the hills, and, light-headed as I was, I caught the infection of his ardour. For, remember, I was so low in spirit that all my hopes and memories were forgotten, and I was in that blank apathy which is mastered by another’s passion. For a little the life of Virginia seemed unspeakably barren, and I quickened at the wild vista which Shalah offered. I might be a king over a proud people, carving a fair kingdom out of the wilderness, and ruling it justly in the fear of God. These western Indians were the stuff of a great nation. I, Andrew Garvald, might yet find that empire of which the old adventurers dreamed.
With shame I set down my boyish folly. It did not last, long, for to my dizzy brain there came the air which Elspeth had sung, that song of Montrose’s which had been, as it were, the star of all my wanderings.
“For, if Confusion have a part,
Which virtuous souls abhor–“
Surely it was confusion that had now overtaken me. Elspeth’s clear voice, her dark, kind eyes, her young and joyous grace, filled again my memory. Was not such a lady better than any savage kingdom? Was not the service of my own folk nobler than any principate among strangers? Could the rivers of Damascus vie with the waters of Israel?
“Nay, Shalah,” I said. “Mine is a quieter destiny. I go back to the Tidewater, but I shall not stay there. We have found the road to the hills, and in time I will plant the flag of my race on the Shenandoah.”
He bowed his head. “So be it. Each man to his own path, but I would ours had run together. Your way is the way of the white man. You conquer slowly, but the line of your conquest goes not back. Slowly it eats its way through the forest, and fields and manors appear in the waste places, and cattle graze in the coverts of the deer. Listen, brother. Shalah has had his visions when his eyes were unsealed in the night watches. He has seen the white man pressing up from the sea, and spreading over the lands of his fathers. He has seen the glens of the hills parcelled out like the meadows of Henricus, and a great multitude surging ever on to the West. His race is doomed by God to perish before the stranger; but not yet awhile, for the white man comes slowly. It hath been told that the Children of the West Wind must seek their cradle, and while there is time he would join them in that quest. The white men follow upon their heels, but in his day and in that of his son’s sons they will lead their life according to the ancient ways. He hath seen the wisdom of the stranger, and found among them men after his own heart; but the Spirit of his fathers calls, and now he returns to his own people.”
“What will you do there?” I asked.
“I know not. I am still a prince among them, and will sway their councils. It may be fated that I slay yonder magician and reign in his stead.”
He got to his feet and looked proudly westward.
“In a little I shall overtake them. But I would my brother had been of my company.”
Slowly we travelled north along the crests, for though my mind was now saner, I had no strength in my body. The hill mists came down on us, and the rain drove up from the glens. I was happy now for all my weakness, for I was lapped in a great peace. The raw weather, which had once been a horror of darkness to me, was now something kindly and homelike. The wet smells minded me of my own land, and the cool buffets of the squalls were a tonic to my spirit. I wandered into pleasant dreams, and scarce felt the roughness of the ground on my bare feet and the aches in every limb.
Long ere we got to the Gap I was clean worn out. I remember that I fell constantly, and could scarcely rise. Then I stumbled, and the last power went out of will and sinew. I had a glimpse of Shalah’s grave face as I slipped into unconsciousness.
I woke in a glow of firelight. Faces surrounded me, dim wraith-like figures still entangled in the meshes of my dreams. Slowly the scene cleared, and I recognized Grey’s features, drawn and constrained, and yet welcoming. Bertrand was weeping after his excitable fashion.
But there was a face nearer to me, and with that face in my memory I went off into pleasant dreams. Somewhere in them mingled the words of the old spaewife, that I should miss love and fortune in the sunshine and find them in the rain.
The strength of youth is like a branch of yew, for if it is bent it soon straightens. By the third day I was on my feet again, with only the stiffness of healing wounds to remind me of those desperate passages. When I could look about me I found that men had arrived from the Rappahannock, and among them Elspeth’s uncle, who had girded on a great claymore, and looked, for all his worn face and sober habit, a mighty man of war. With them came news of the rout of the Cherokees, who had been beaten by Nicholson’s militia in Stafford county and driven down the long line of the Border, paying toll to every stockade. Midway Lawrence had fallen upon them and driven the remnants into the hills above the head waters of the James. It would be many a day, I thought, before these gentry would bring war again to the Tidewater. The Rappahannock men were in high feather, convinced that they had borne the brunt of the invasion. ‘Twas no business of mine to enlighten them, the more since of the three who knew the full peril, Shalah was gone and Ringan was dead. My tale should be for the ear of Lawrence and the Governor, and for none else. The peace of mind of Virginia should not be broken by me.
Grey came to me on the third morning to say good-bye. He was going back to the Tidewater with some of the Borderers, for to stay longer with us had become a torture to him. There was no ill feeling in his proud soul, and he bore defeat as a gentleman should.
“You have fairly won, Mr. Garvald,” he said. “Three nights ago I saw clearly revealed the inclination of the lady, and I am not one to strive with an unwilling maid. I wish you joy of a great prize. You staked high for it, and you deserve your fortune. As for me, you have taught me much for which I owe you gratitude. Presently, when my heart is less sore, I desire that we should meet in friendship, but till then I need a little solitude to mend broken threads.”
There was the true gentleman for you, and I sorrowed that I should ever have misjudged him. He shook my hand in all brotherliness, and went down the glen with Bertrand, who longed to see his children again.
Elspeth remained, and concerning her I fell into my old doubting mood. The return of my strength had revived in me the passion which had dwelt somewhere in my soul from, the hour she first sang to me in the rain. She had greeted me as girl greets her lover, but was that any more than the revulsion from fear and the pity of a tender heart? Doubts oppressed me, the more as she seemed constrained and uneasy, her eyes falling when she met mine, and her voice full no longer of its frank comradeship.
One afternoon we went to a place in the hills where the vale of the Shenandoah could be seen. The rain had gone, and had left behind it a taste of autumn. The hill berries were ripening, and a touch of flame had fallen on the thickets.
Soon the great valley lay below us, running out in a golden haze to the far blue mountains.
“Ah!” she sighed, like one who comes from a winter night into a firelit room. She was silent, while her eyes drank in its spacious comfort.
“That is your heritage, Elspeth. That is the birthday gift to which old Studd’s powder-flask is the key.”
“Nay, yours,” she said, “for you won it.”
The words died on her lips, for her eyes were abstracted. My legs were still feeble, and I had leaned a little on her strong young arm as we came up the hill, but now she left me and climbed on a rock, where she sat like a pixie. The hardships of the past had thinned her face and deepened her eyes, but her grace was the more manifest. Fresh and dewy as morning, yet with a soul of steel and fire–surely no lovelier nymph ever graced a woodland. I felt how rough and common was my own clay in contrast with her bright spirit.
“Elspeth,” I said hoarsely, “once I told you what was in my heart.”
Her face grew grave. “And have you not seen what is in mine?” she asked.
“I have seen and rejoiced, and yet I doubt.”
“But why?” she asked again. “My life is yours, for you have preserved it. I would be graceless indeed if I did not give my best to you who have given all for me.”
“It is not gratitude I want. If you are only grateful, put me out of your thoughts, and I will go away and strive to forget you. There were twenty in the Tidewater who would have done the like.”
She looked down on me from the rock with the old quizzing humour in her eyes.
“If gratitude irks you, sir, what would you have?”
“All,” I cried; “and yet, Heaven knows, I am not worth it. I am no man to capture a fair girl’s heart. My face is rude and my speech harsh, and I am damnably prosaic. I have not Ringan’s fancy, or Grey’s gallantry; I am sober and tongue-tied and uncouth, and my mind runs terribly on facts and figures. O Elspeth, I know I am no hero of romance, but a plain body whom Fate has forced into a month of wildness. I shall go back to Virginia, and be set once more at my accompts and ladings. Think well, my dear, for I will have nothing less than all. Can you endure to spend your days with a homely fellow like me?”
“What does a woman desire?” she asked, as if from herself, and her voice was very soft as she gazed over the valley. “Men think it is a handsome face or a brisk air or a smooth tongue. And some will have it that it is a deep purse or a high station. But I think it is the honest heart that goes all the way with a woman’s love. We are not so blind as to believe that the glitter is the gold. We love romance, but we seek it in its true home. Do you think I would marry you for gratitude, Andrew?”
“No,” I said.
“Or for admiration?”
“No,” said I.
“Or for love?”
“Yes,” I said, with a sudden joy.
She slipped from the rock, her eyes soft and misty. Her arms were about my neck, and I heard from her the words I had dreamed of and yet scarce hoped for, the words of the song sung long ago to a boy’s ear, and spoken now with the pure fervour of the heart–“My dear and only love.”
Years have flown since that day on the hills, and much has befallen; but the prologue is the kernel of my play, and the curtain which rose after that hour revealed things less worthy of chronicle. Why should I tell of how my trade prospered mightily, and of the great house we built at Middle Plantation; of my quarrels with Nicholson, which were many; of how we carved a fair estate out of Elspeth’s inheritance, and led the tide of settlement to the edge of the hills? These things would seem a pedestrian end to a high beginning. Nor would I weary the reader with my doings in the Assembly, how I bearded more Governors than one, and disputed stoutly with His Majesty’s Privy Council in London. The historian of Virginia–now by God’s grace a notable land–may, perhaps, take note of these things, but it is well for me to keep silent. It is of youth alone that I am concerned to write, for it is a comfort to my soul to know that once in my decorous progress through life I could kick my heels and forget to count the cost; and as youth cries farewell, so I end my story and turn to my accounts.
Elspeth and I have twice voyaged to Scotland. The first time my uncle and mother were still in the land of the living, but they died in the same year, and on our second journey I had much ado in settling their estates. My riches being now considerable, I turned my attention to the little house of Auchencairn, which I enlarged and beautified, so that if we have the wish we may take up our dwelling there. We have found in the West a goodly heritage, but there is that in a man’s birth place which keeps tight fingers on his soul, and I think that we desire to draw our last breath and lay our bones in our own grey country-side. So, if God grants us length of days, we may haply return to Douglasdale in the even, and instead of our noble forests and rich meadows, look upon the bleak mosses and the rainy uplands which were our childhood’s memory.
That is the fancy at the back of both our heads. But I am very sure that our sons will be Virginians.
THE END.