Читать книгу Gleaner Tales - Robert Sellar - Страница 6

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When Morton opened his eyes he found the dell, or rather gorge, for the sides were almost precipitous though clad with vegetation, was lit up by the moon, and Hemlock by his side, sitting Indian fashion, clasping his knees. Without uttering a word, he rose on perceiving the young officer was awake and lifted his gun to move on. Morton obeyed the mute sign and they began to descend the bed of the stream. It was a task of some difficulty, for it abounded in rocks and often there was no foothold at the sides, the water laving the cliffs that formed the banks. Had it not been that the season was an unusually dry one, leaving the river bed largely bare, Morton could not have kept up with his companion. Chilled by his wet garments, the exercise was rather grateful to him and he exerted himself to overcome the obstacles in his path. As they went on, the banks grew higher and the gorge more narrow, until, turning a bend, Morton perceived the river dashed down a channel cleft out of a rock, which rose a pillared wall on one side and on the other had been rendered concave by the washing down of the debris of ages. High above, shafts of moonlight struggled thru’ the foliage and, falling irregularly on the sides, brought into ghastly relief the nakedness of the walls of the rocky prison. Deeply impressed Morton followed his guide down the gloomy chasm, whence the sound of falling water came, and they passed two small falls. Below the lower one, where the walls drew nearer, as if they grudged the scanty space they had been affording the tumultuous stream for its passage, the cliffs grew loftier. Hemlock halted, and pointing to a water-worn recess in the rocks, that afforded some covering, said, “Sleep there.” Morton lay down, but he was in no humor to sleep again. The magnificence of the rock-hewn chamber in which he lay, with a giant cliff bending over him, had excited his imagination, and his eyes wandered from the foaming falls in front of him to the solemn heights, whose walls were flecked with shrubs and topped by spruce trees. The contrast of the unceasing noise and motion of the river with the eternal silence and imperturbability of the rocks, deeply impressed him. Thus time passed and when he had scanned the scene to his satisfaction, his interest turned to his companion, who had left him and stood beneath a pillar of rock higher than its fellows, where the chasm narrowed into a mere tunnel. Evidently supposing that Morton was sound asleep, he was going through those motions of incantation by which Indian medicine-men profess to evoke the spirits. He writhed until his contortions were horrible, while the working of his features showed he was inwardly striving to induce an exalted and morbid condition of feeling. He smote his breast resounding blows, he flung himself downwards on the rock and shook himself until his body jerked with involuntary twitchings, he shrieked in hollow tones and plucked at his hair, until the sweat rolled down his cheeks. After a fit of hysterical laughter he sank in a swoon, which lasted so long that Morton was debating whether he should not go over to him. All this time the moon had been sailing upward and now stood directly over the chasm, its beams transforming the foaming river into a channel of milky whiteness and, where it broke into curls at the falls, into streams of pearls, while the foliage that tempered the stern outline of the rocks, bedewed by the spray that kept them constantly moist, glistened as if sprinkled with diamond-dust. The moonlight streamed on the prostrate body of the Indian, and as he awoke from his trance and slowly raised himself, Morton read in his face a wonderful change—a look of calmness and of supernatural ecstasy. With great dignity he drew himself up and stepped forward a few paces until he stood directly beneath the pillar of rock. Then he spoke: “Spirit of the wood and stream, who loves this best of all thine abodes, come to me. Hemlock seeks thee to help him. The wounded moose will never breathe again the morning-air, the stricken pine-tree never put forth fresh shoots, and Hemlock is wounded and stricken and growing old. Shall the hand grow feeble before the blow is dealt, the eye grow dim before mine enemy is slain, and my ear grow deaf before it hears his death-groan? The leaves that fall rot and the water that passeth returneth not; therefore, oh Spirit, grant to Hemlock his prayer, that before night comes he may find whom he seeks. Again, this day, has he escaped me, shielded by his medicine. Break the spell, O Spirit; take away the charm that holds my arm when I aim the blow, and pluck away the shield the evil ones hold over him! The eagle has his nest on the hill and the fox his lair in the valley, but Hemlock has no home. The doe fondles its fawn and the tired swallow is helped across the great water on the wings of its sons, but Hemlock has no children. The light of his eyes was taken from him, the joy of his heart was frozen. The Yankee stole his land, slew his brothers, bewitched his only daughter, and drove him away, and now he is a sick-struck man, whom none come near. Spirit, grant the prayer of Hemlock; break the spell that binds me, that I may taste the blood of mine enemy and I shall die happy.”

He paused and assumed a listening attitude as if awaiting an answer. That in his morbid state of mind he fancied he heard the Spirit in reply was evident, for he broke out again:

“I am desolate; my heart is very bitter. The smoke of the wigwams of my clan rises no more; I alone am left. When the north wind tells where are the leaves of last summer I will say where are the warriors of my tribe. As the beaver the white man came among us, but he crushed us like the bear; the serpent sings on the rock but he bites in the grass. We were deceived and robbed of the lands of our fathers. Our destroyer is near, he is on the war-path, his hatchet is raised against the Great Father. Blind his eyes, trip his feet with magic, O Oki, and take the spell from the arm of Hemlock. The eagle soars to the mountain when the loon keeps to the valley; the snow-bird breasts the storm when the moose seeks the cedar-brake: the wolf knows no master and the catamount will not fly, so the Indian clings to his hunting-ground and will not be the slave of the stranger. Spirit, help to destroy the destroyer and to rob the robber. The hunted deer dies of his wounds in the strange forest. The arrows of the Indian are nigh spent and he mourns alone. The glory of our nation has faded as the fire of the forest in the morning-sun, and few live to take revenge. Oki, speak, and strengthen the heart of Hemlock for battle!”

The Indian fell prostrate before the gaunt pillar of stone to which he spoke and lay there for some time. When he rose, there was a weary look in his impassive features. “The Spirit has spoken: he tells Hemlock he will answer him in a dream.” Advancing towards Morton he lay down and fell asleep.

High above him shafts of sunlight were interwoven with the foliage of the trees that overhung the crest of the chasm, forming a radiant ceiling, when Morton awoke. The weirdly romantic gulf in which he lay, coupled with the strange scenes of the night, caused him to think the past was a dream, but going over the several details the sense of reality was restored, and there, a few feet from him, was stretched the sinewy form of the Indian. “Who could fancy that a being so stolid, heavy, and matter-of-fact,” asked Morton of himself, “should show such keenness of feeling and so active an imagination? And, yet, how little we know of what sleeps in the bosoms of our fellows. Mark that sullen pool above the cataract! How dead and commonplace its water appears. It is swept over the brink and, breaking into a hundred new forms, instantly reveals there dwelt dormant beneath its placid surface a life and a beauty undreamt of. We are not all as we seem, and so with this much-tried son of the forest.”

He rose to bathe his stiffened limbs in the river and the motion caused Hemlock to spring to his feet. He glanced at the sky, and remarked that he had slept too long. While Morton bathed, Hemlock busied himself in contriving a scoop of withes and birch bark, with which, standing beneath the fall, he quickly tossed out a number of trout. A flint supplied fire and on the embers the fish as caught were laid to roast, and whether it was so, or was due to his keen appetite, Morton thought they tasted sweeter than when cleaned. With the biscuit in their pouches, though wet, they made a fair breakfast. As they finished, a faint echo of drums and fifes was wafted to them. “We will stay a little while,” said Hemlock, “to let the scouts go back to camp, for they would search the woods again this morning.”

“And what then?” asked Morton.

“We will go back to Perrigo, who is near-by.”

“Would they not fly to Canada after what they did?”

“Indians are like the snake. When it is hunted, it does not fly; it hides. They are waiting for us.”

“Where were you taught to speak English so well, Hemlock?”

“I did not need to be taught; I learnt it with the Iroquois. I was born near an English settlement and my choice companion was an English girl, we played together, and were taught together by the missionary; long after, she became my wife.”

“But you are not a Christian?”

“No; when I saw the white man’s ways I wanted not his religion.”

“And your wife, is she living?”

“Hemlock does not lay his heart open to the stranger; he is alone in the world.”

Respecting his reserve, and tho’ curious to know if the guardian-spirit of the chasm had spoken to him in his dreams, Morton changed the subject, the more so as he did not wish his companion to know that he had been the unwitting witness of his invocation ceremonial. He asked about the chasm in whose solemn depths they found shelter, and Hemlock told how it had been known to all the seven nations of the Iroquois and regarded by them as a chosen abode of the spirits, the more so as its origin was supernatural. There had been a very rainy season and the beavers had their villages flooded and were in danger of being destroyed. Two of them volunteered to visit the spirit-land and beseech the help of their oki, which he promised. He came one dark night and with a single flap of his tail smote the rock, splitting it in two and allowing the waters to drain into the low country beneath. Morton listened gravely, seeing his companion spoke in all seriousness, and thought the tale might be an Indian version of the earthquake, or other convulsion of nature, by which the bed of sandstone had been rent asunder, and a channel thus afforded for the surplus waters of the adjoining heights. The trees and bushes which had found an airy foothold in crevices, and the weather-beaten and lichened faces of the cliffs, told how remote that time must have been.

It was wearing on to noon before Hemlock considered it safe to move. The delay they spent in cleaning their arms, and Morton, to his regret, found that his powder was useless from being wet. The Indian, more provident, had saved some in a water-proof pouch of otter skin, but he had too little to do more than lend a single charge for his gun. Morton took the opportunity to clean and arrange his uniform as he best could and when ready to move felt he looked more as became an officer of the King’s army than when he awoke. Hemlock led the way to where a cleft in the wall of rocks afforded a possibility of ascent, and, with the occasional aid of his outstretched arm, Morton managed to reach the summit. When he had, he perceived he stood on a plain of table-rock, the cleavage of which formed the chasm, of whose existence the explorer could have no intimation until he reached its brink. They had not gone far, until Hemlock halted and looked intently at the ground. “A party of Yankees have passed here within an hour; a dozen or more of them. See the trail of their muskets!”

“How do you know they have just passed?”

“The dew has not been dry here over an hour and they passed when it was gone. They are searching for us, for one went to that bush there to see no one was hiding.”

Morton looked perplexed, for nothing was more distasteful than to be taken prisoner. “Had we not,” he suggested, “better return to the chasm and wait for night?”

“It is too late,” replied Hemlock, “when they come back they would see our trail and follow it. We will have to go on and if we get across the road we are safe,” and without another word he went on until the road was reached. On scanning it, before making a dash across, they perceived, to their dismay, a mounted sentry so posted as to give a clear view of the portion of the road they were standing by. Hemlock gave a grunt of disappointment and returned into the bush and after a few minutes’ rapid walking turned to Morton with the words, “You stay here, until I go and see the road. Over there is the track of a short-cut between Four Corners and the blockhouse, so if Yankees pass they will keep to it and not see you. Do not leave until I come back.”

Morton threw himself on the grass to await his report, and the rest was grateful, for the day was hot and their short tramp fast. The minutes sped without sign of the Indian, who he conjectured was finding it difficult to discover a clear passage. It was now plain that the Americans had discovered their tracks of the preceding evening and had established a cordon to ensure their capture. So absolute was Morton’s faith in Hemlock’s skill that he felt little perturbed and was confident they would be in Perrigo’s camp before long. Then his thoughts wandered to a subject that had come of late to be pleasant to him, to the household by the Chateaugay, and he saw in fancy Maggie bustling about her daily tasks, and he smiled.

“In the name of the United States of America I command you to yield as prisoner,” shouted a voice with a nasal twang.

Morton bounded to his feet. In front of him, within four yards, stood the spy, holding a musket, with his finger on the trigger.

“I mout hev shot ye dead a-laying there,” he said, “but I mean to take game like you alive. I can make more out o’ your skin when you can wag yer tongue. Yield peaceable, young man, and giv up yer arms.”

“Yield! And to a spy! Never!” shouted Morton indignantly, and he sprang like a panther at his foe. Quick as was his movement, the American was not quite taken by surprise, for he fired, but the bullet missed. The next moment Morton was on him and they grappled. Both were strong men, but the American was older and had better staying power, and as they wrestled Morton felt he would be thrown, when he bethought him of a certain trip he had often used successfully in his school days. He made the feint, put out his foot, and the American fell with a crash, underneath him.

“Villain,” he whispered hoarsely, “you twice escaped me, but will not again,” and he grasped his throat with one hand while he held his right arm with the other.

“Quarter,” gasped the American, who was in danger of being choked, “I yield.”

“Quarter to a spy!” exclaimed Morton.

“I ain’t no spy. I’m Major Slocum, brevet-rank, of Ginral Hampton’s staff.”

“Not a spy! You were to have been shot for one.”

“I was on special service, when I was informed on by an ongrateful cuss. I’m an honorable officer and appeal to yer honor as a Britisher. Take my sword; I yield your prisoner.”

“If I let you go; will you lead me in safety across your lines, and release my guide Hemlock, if he has been taken prisoner?”

“Sartainly I will; Slocum’s word is as good as his bond. Take your hands off me and I will set you and your Injun to hum in an hour.”

Morton released his grasp, and stood up, drew his sword, and awaited Slocum’s rising. With a deft movement the American thrust his hand into his belt, drew a heavy, short-bladed knife, and shot it forward from his palm with an ease and dexterity that indicated much practice. Morton’s eye caught the gleam of the steel and he sprang back, and in so doing saved his life, for the point of the blade, which would have pierced his breast, stuck in his right thigh for an instant and dropped out. In a towering passion of indignation, which made him unconscious of the pain and flow of blood, he rushed upon the American, who had sprung to his feet and lifted his sword in time to foil Morton’s thrust. “Vile wretch, you shall die as traitors die!” exclaimed Morton, and the clash of steel was incessant. He was much the better swordsman, but his impetuosity and anger deprived him of the advantage of his skill, and stepping backward, Slocum’s long sword, wielded by his long arm, kept him at bay. Morton’s anger increased with the difficulty in dealing a deadly thrust, until, in making a lunge, he stumbled over a fallen log. Had he been unwounded he would have instantly recovered himself. The wrench to his pierced leg shot a thrill of agony to his heart, and the weakened knee refused its office. In a moment Slocum had him on his back and planting his foot on the bleeding wound, pressed it with all his might, while he placed the point of his sword on his throat. A mocking leer lit up his yellow face as he said composedly: “I don’t see how yer mother let you go out alone; you’re green as garden-sass. Thought Major Slocum would be your obedient servant and lead you and yer infernal Injun past the lines! You poor trash of a Britisher! An you sucked in my talk about honor and let go yer holt on my throat! You poor innocent, its like stabbing a baby to put my sword through yer gizzard. Say, sonny, wouldn’t you like to live?”

The pain of his wound was excruciating, yet Morton answered composedly, “I’d die a thousand times before I would beg my life of you. I am not the first of His Majesty’s service to have lost his life through believing there was honor in an American officer.”

“I’m a citizen of the great Republic and will be doing a patriotic dooty in killing you, and, like Washington, after hanging Andre, will take a good square meal with the satisfactory feeling that there is a red-coat less in the world. But there ain’t no comfort in killing a chick like you. Say, what will ye give, if I let you go? I will take an order on Montreal. Slocum ain’t the man to refuse to earn an honest dollar and do a charitable action. Yer father maybe is a Lord or a Dook, and he can come down handsum. Why don’t yer speak? I ain’t a mind to do all the talking.”

“If I was fool enough to believe you and spare your life it is enough. Torture me not with your dishonorable proposals. I can die as becomes a British soldier.”

“Yer can, eh? Waal, what if I don’t mind to kill you? Perhaps Slocum sees he can make more by toting you into camp. It ain’t every day a British officer is caught and I mout get promotion. Kurnel Slocum would sound well. Come now, hadn’t yer better sign a little order on your father’s agents for a neat little sum, payable to Major Slocum for vally received? Yer wound hurts, don’t it?” enquired Major Slocum with a grin, as he thrust the toe of his boot into it. Involuntarily, Morton gave a stifled shriek of pain and lay gasping, while his tormentor looked down upon him with a smile, enjoying his sufferings. As Morton’s eyes rolled in agony, the sight of Hemlock met their gaze. He was stealing stealthily up behind Slocum, who stood all unconscious of his danger, torturing his victim in the hope he would purchase his release. Nearer the Indian came; his arms now opened out,—he stood behind Slocum,—they closed,—he was in their grasp, and was thrown with a heavy thud on the ground, when, Hemlock bound his arms and legs with his sash. Then, with dreadful calmness, he drew his scalping-knife and knelt, one knee on the breast of the prostrate man. “Many times you have escaped me, Slocum, but you die now. The oki granted what I asked; the spell is gone. I tracked you long, but now you are mine. I will not kill you at once. You shall die by inches, and have a taste, before the dark cloud swallows you, of the bitterness I have drank at your hands for years.”

So saying, with infernal ingenuity, the heritage of his tribe in the art of torture, he stripped Slocum of his clothing and proceeded to draw cuts with his knife on different parts of the body, nowhere making an incision any deeper than requisite to cause the quivering flesh to feel the full pain. The wretched man plied the Indian with all manner of promises to induce him to desist, and on seeing he was relentless in his purpose, was about to shriek in the hope of attracting aid, when Hemlock caught him by the throat, and snatching up handfuls of forest-litter forced them into his mouth. Then he resumed his dreadful task. Morton, who had alternated from a state of semi-stupor to that of insensibility, looked on in his lucid intervals with sickened horror, and begged Hemlock to desist. He paid not the slightest heed but went on for hours, gloating over the agonies of his victim, and adding a fresh wound as the others dulled. Alert even in his dreadful employment, a rustle in the bush caught his ear, and he listened. “It is the Yankee picket going to the blockhouse. If Hemlock could take you with him he would, but you cannot travel. They will make you prisoner and care for your wound. And now Hemlock must finish his revenge.” With one swift sweep of the knife, he cut the throat of his now fainting victim, with another he severed his scalp, and flourishing it above his head, vanished in the woods. Immediately afterwards a body of blue uniformed soldiers appeared, who shouted with surprise at seeing the major, naked, stiff and scalped, and a wounded British officer lying near him. Part hurried to each. As those who went to the side of Morton stooped over him and moved him, he fainted.