CHAPTER XXI
IN CAPTIVITY
Although the villain knew not that the chief-whose name I learnt hereafter was Anuza, signifying in the Shawnee and Doeg tongue, the Bear-had heard all, his rage was terrible. He gesticulated so before Mary that again I feared for her, he struck at Buck, calling him thief and other opprobrious names, and he kicked at O'Rourke's body as though he would kick in his ribs. Then, swearing and vowing that if Mary spoke before his followers-for so he called them-as she had spoken now he would, instead of taking her for one of his squaws, have her tongue cut out of her mouth so that she should never speak again, he called for the Indians to enter from without. And they, coming in a moment or so afterwards, showed no signs upon their impassive faces of having overheard, or understood, one word that had been uttered.
The dawn had come now, and the light as it crept in to my ruined saloon served but to increase my sense of the horrors of the night. At the side of the window to which they had been pushed by Anuza and the others, so as to allow for easy ingress and exit, lay huddled together numberless dead Indians, two or three of my poor servants, and the bodies of the mastiffs, all of which had been slain after a fierce resistance. The carpets and rugs for which my father had sent to London were torn and slit and drenched with blood, the spinet and the harpsichord were both ruined, ornaments were broken, and the pictures splashed with blood. Oh, what a scene of horror for the sun to rise upon!
"Let all the prisoners who are alive be taken to the woods at once," exclaimed Roderick to Anuza; "to-night we start back to the mountains. Our work is done. Pomfret is destroyed, or destroyed so much that years shall not see it again as it was."
Once more, as at his coming, Anuza and his followers prostrated themselves low before him, whereby I feared that, after all Mary's denunciations, they still might not have understood how vile a creature was this whom they worshipped-and then, addressing us, the impostor said:
"My loves that shall be-my sweet ones of the Wigwam, I leave you now while I go to seek others to accompany you to our homes. For your friends shall be with you, I promise you. You shall, I hope, see cousin Gregory from whom I was once threatened a beating, and Roger Cliborne, who was to have been married a week hence. Ha! ha! And Bertram Pringle; he, too, shall ride with us and we will see if his courage is as great as that of his vaunted fighting cocks. All, all, my fair Joice and you, my Mary, shall you see, and" – coming close to us, while he hissed out the words with incredible fury-"you shall see them all die a hideous, lingering death by tortures such as even no saint in the calendar ever devised for his enemies. Farewell until tonight." After which, calling to his guards, he strode forth into the morning air accompanied by them.
For a moment Anuza the Bear stood where the window once had been while gazing after him, his huge form filling up half the vacant space as he did so. Then slowly, and with that stately grace which the Indian never lacks, he returned to where we were-I being again crouched on the floor with my beloved one's head in my arms-and standing before Mary, he said:
"White woman, were the words that fell from your lips to him the words of truth? Is he all that you have said?"
"He is all that I have said," she answered, "ay, and a thousand times worse. Why do you ask?"
Yet she told me afterwards that she already guessed the reason of his question.
He made no reply but still stood gazing down at her from his great height, while she returned his glance fearlessly; then he turned to one of his warriors behind him and spoke to him in their own tongue, whereon the man vanished and came back a moment afterwards bearing in his hand one of my great bowls full of water.
"Drink," he said to her, "and refresh yourself." When she had done so he passed the bowl to me, bidding me drink also. Likewise he let me bathe my darling's lips with the cool water and lave his temples, and he permitted Mr. Kinchella to drink; while, on Buck and Lamb making signs that they too were thirsty, water was fetched for them by another savage.
Next, he sat himself down upon a couch that stood against the wall opposite to us and, with his chin in his hand, sat meditating long, while we could form no guess as to what shape those meditations were taking. Then once more, when our suspense was intense, he spake again, addressing me this time:
"White maiden, you who rule as mistress of this abode, you and she spoke to him as one whom you had known before. Answer me, and answer truly, what know you of him? And has this, your sister," for so he seemed to deem Mary, "also spoken truly?"
"Alas! alas!" I replied, "only too truly. He came to my father's house a slave bought with his money," here the Bear started and clenched his great hands; "yet was he not made a slave because of our pity for him. He ate my father's bread and, in return, he sought the dishonour of his daughter." Then, being sadly wrought upon by all the misery that had come upon us, I threw myself upon my knees before him as I had done to that other, and, lifting up my hands in supplication, I cried again, "Oh chief of the Shawnee warriors, if in your heart there is any of that noble spirit with which your race is credited, pity me and mine; pity us, pity us! Your fathers, as I have said, ate once of our bread, this house which you have to-night made desolate sheltered them once. Will you show us no more gratitude than that craven whom you, in your delusion, worship as a great medicine chief?"
He bade me rise, even assisting me to do so, and motioned to one of the braves to wheel up another couch on which to seat myself, and all the time he muttered to himself, "A slave! a slave! a drunkard! a cheat!" and his eyes glistened fiercely.
But at last he rose to his feet again, and said with the calm that distinguished all his actions:
"The time has come to set forth to the mountains-"
"No, no!" Mary and I shrieked together, "No! no! Spare us, oh! spare us. Nay, rather slay us here on the spot than let us fall into his hands."
"If," he replied, looking down imperturbably upon us, "you have spoken truth, as from his own manner I deem it to be, no woman will ever fall into his hands again. If he has deceived us as you have said, no punishment he promised for the prisoners of Pomfret will equal that which he himself will endure. I have spoken."
"And our dear ones," I said, "what, what shall become of them? Oh! do not tear us from those we love," while, even as I spoke, I flung myself on Gerald's body and kissed his lips and wept over him. "Those who are alive must journey with us into the forests and towards the mountains-those who are gone to their fathers we war not with. This one," he said, stooping over Gerald, "this one, who was you say to have been your mate, is not dead, but-he will die."
Again I shrieked at his words, though as I did so I saw so strange a look in the chief's eye that the shriek died upon my lips. It was a look I could not understand.
"He will die," he went on, "he will die. Yet he was a brave man; of all white men in this house none last night fought more fiercely. And this other," turning to the body of O'Rourke, "he too still lives, and he too will die. Let him lie here."
His glance rested next on Mr. Kinchella, and, in the same soft impassive voice-the voice in which there was no variance of tone-he said, "You are unharmed?"
"Yes," the other replied, "I am unharmed."
"And you," exclaimed the Bear, striding to where all the others stood bound, "you, too, have escaped our weapons; the great War God has spared you?"
"Ay, noble chief," exclaimed Buck, as though addressing a comrade, "the great War God, as you call him, generally does spare Peter Buck. I was born to good luck, and, noble chief, being so spared I'm going to give you a few revelations about your great medicine man who's just gone out."
"Silence," exclaimed Anuza, "not now; not now. But come, the day has arrived. We must go forth." Then turning to me he said, "Take your last farewell of him you love."
Oh! how I kissed my darling again and again, how I whispered in his ears my love for him in those sad moments of parting, while Mary knelt by my side and comforted me and Mr. Kinchella stood by gazing down on to Gerald's white face. To think that I should have to leave him lying thus, to think that this was our parting when our love was but so newly told!
They took us away very gently, it is true, from my old house, now so wrecked and battered; they let me go back once more to press my lips to his; they even let Mary and me go to our rooms, escorted by a guard, to fetch our cloaks and hoods. But, gentle as these savages were now-far, far more so, indeed, than could ever have been believed, remembering all the stories of their cruelty that we had listened to-their firmness and determination never varied and we were as much prisoners as though we had been shut up in a fortress.
Yet, at that last parting to which I was allowed to run back ere we left the room, there happened a thing that brought some joy to my poor bruised heart. For, as once more I stooped over Gerald to take, or rather give, my last kiss, I heard O'Rourke whisper low-his body lying close to my lord's: "Fear not to leave him. I was but stunned, and I doubt if he is much worse. And believe in me. He shall be my care. As soon as may be, we will follow you. Fear not."
And so I went forth with them, and there was greater peace at my heart than I had dared to hope would ever come again.
All that day we rode towards the forests that lie at the foot of the mountains and, there having been enough horses in my stables, as well as that of O'Rourke, none of us were without one. Ahead of all went Anuza-the Indians themselves being all mounted on horses they had obtained from the village-speaking no word to any one, but shrouded in his impenetrable Indian calm; behind him followed a score or so of his warriors, then we, the prisoners, came, and then the remainder of the band. Speech was not forbidden us-indeed, there was no enemy for our captors to fear if Pomfret was destroyed and all the dwellers thereabouts either driven forth or massacred-and so we conversed in whispers with each other and discussed in melancholy the sad fate that had befallen us all.
"Yet," said Mr. Kinchella who rode by Mary and me, "I cannot fear the worst. The chief's behaviour is not that of the Indian who is taking his victims to a dreadful death. The denunciation of that scoundrel by Mary has caused a terrible revolution in his mind; he seems, indeed, more like one who is carrying witnesses against another than one who is leading forth prisoners."
"And, reverend sir," said Buck, who rode close by, "what's more is that the chief doesn't stomach the business he is about. He knew well enough that neither his lordship nor the captain was badly wounded, and he left 'em there to escape as best they might-any way he gave them a chance."
"Yet he said that he did so," I replied with a sob, "because they must die."
"Ay, mistress," answered Buck, "so they must. All men must die. But they're not a-going to die yet, and he knew it. But I'll tell you who is going to die, and that before long. That's Roderick, the medicine man. He's marked as much as any man ever was when the dead warrant came down to Newgate. Ay! and a good deal more, too, for mine came down once and yet here I am alive and well, while the old judge who tried and sentenced me has gone long ago, I make no doubt."
"What will they do to him?" Mary asked.
"Do? Do, mistress? Why convict him of being an impostor, and then-why, then they'll tear him all to pieces. That's what they'll do with him. And when they've finished with him there won't be as much left of Roderick as will make a meal for a crow. I've spoken with men who have been captured by the Indians and lived to escape from them, and awful tales I've heard of their tortures, but the worst tortures they ever devised were kept for those whom the Indians have trusted and been deceived by. And you had only got to look at this chief's face when you, missy, were denouncing him, to guess what's going to happen to the other."
As he spoke we did, indeed, remember the look on Anuza's face as he stood behind the window frame. Also, I remembered the strange glance he gave me when he said that Gerald and O'Rourke should live though they must die later. So that it verily seemed as if Buck had rightly interpreted all that was going on in our captor's mind.
We halted that night on the skirts of a forest with, to the west of it, a spur of the Alleghany Mountains. The scene itself was picturesque and beautiful, while, to our minds, it had something of the awful and sublime in connection with it. For here it was that, although not more than forty English miles from where I had dwelt all my life, the limit to what we knew of the mysterious unknown land lying to the west of us ceased. Into those mountains, indeed, the rough backwoodsman had penetrated sometimes, bringing back stories of the bands of savages who dwelt within them; we knew that living with these bands were white men and women who, as children, had been torn from their homes and parents in raids and forays, but we knew little more. And for what lay beyond the mountains still farther to the west we knew nothing except that, thousands of miles away, there was another ocean which washed the western shores of the great land in which we dwelt, and that on the coast of that ocean were Spanish settlements, even as on our coasts there were English settlements. But, of all that lay between the two when once the mountains were passed, no man knew anything.
And now it was that into those mountains we were to be taken, those mountains to which Roderick St. Amande had fled from my father's house, and where, to the Indian dwellers within them, he had appeared as a great magician or sorcerer.
The halt for the night was made, as I have said, on the skirts of the forest, with cool grass beneath the trees and, above us, those great trees stretching out their branches so that they were all interlaced together and formed a canopy which would have kept the rain from us had it been the wet instead of the exceeding dry season, and with, sheltering in those branches, innumerable birds twittering and calling to each other. It was, indeed, a strange scene! Around us in a vast circle sat the Indians, speaking never at all to each other, but smoking silently from the pipes they passed from one to the other, their faces still with the war-paint upon them and their bodies, now that the night was coming, wrapped in their blankets. Inside that circle we, the prisoners, were huddled together, Mary being at this time asleep with her head on her lover's shoulder and I lying with mine upon her lap, while the men, now no longer my servants, or, at least, my slaves, talked in whispers to each other.
And near us, in the glade, there stood that which we in our poor hearts regarded as an omen of better things to come. An object which, at least, went far to cheer us up and to inspire us with the earnest hope that, even between us and those in whose hands we were, there might still be a possibility of peace and of mercy from the victor to the vanquished. This thing was a rude stone in the form of a monolith, made smooth on one side and with, upon that smoothness, these words carved: "It was to this spot, in ye yere 1678, that Henry Johnson was brought from the mountains by an Indian woman, he being a boy of ten, and set free to return to Jamestown because, as she said to him, 'she pitied his poor mother.' 'I cried unto Thee in my trouble and Thou heard'st my prayer.'"4
Seeing this stone before us growing whiter in the dusk as the night came on, we, too, in our hearts cried unto the Lord and besought Him to hear our prayers and to give us freedom from our enemies and all dangers that encompassed us about.
CHAPTER XXII
AMONGST THE SAVAGES
The moon was waning and the stars disappearing when the movements of the Indians told us that the journey was to be resumed. All night those who had not acted as a watch over the party had laid like statues folded in their blankets, but now they arose as one man and set about preparations for our departure. With their awakening we, too, roused ourselves. Food had been given us over night, consisting of wheaten cakes and dried deer's flesh, accompanied by gourds of fresh water, and this was again offered to us ere we set out. Mary and I scarce ate on either occasion, though the water was indeed welcome, but Mr. Kinchella made a good meal while Buck and his companions ate heartily, the ex-highwayman contriving as usual to regard all that occurred as something to be made light of.
"'Tis better than prison fare, anyway," he said to his companions in the dawn, as they fell to on the meat and bread, "but the devil take the water! 'Tis cold to the stomach even on so fine a summer morning, and a tass of Nantz or of Kill-devil from the islands would improve it marvellously. However, that we must not look for till we get back to freedom."
"You think, then," Mr. Kinchella asked him, "that to freedom we shall get back?" The man had proved himself so loyal to us that he was now admitted to almost familiarity and indeed, it could not be otherwise. If ever we returned in safety to Pomfret, or to the spot where Pomfret once stood, these men had my word that they were free; they were, therefore, no longer our inferiors, while, at the present moment, all who were prisoners in the hands of the Indians were on a most decided equality. Yet, let me say it to the honour of all who had been my bond-servants but a day or two before, none presumed upon their being so no longer, or treated us with aught but respect.
"I feel sure of it, reverend sir. As I said before, if the chief is thinking of anything it is not of killing or torturing us; while, if I had any money, I would bet it all that there would be a pretty scene when once Roderick is safely back in their encampment."
It seemed, indeed, as though this man had, in his shrewdness, penetrated the innermost thoughts of the Bear, for ere we had been an hour on the march he, halting his horse so as to send the advance party of his warriors on ahead, drew alongside of us and, after a silence of some minutes, said:
"White people who have dwelt for so long on the lands that once were ours, know you why your village, which has been spared by us for now so many moons, has been once more attacked and put to the slaughter by the braves of my tribe?"
No one answered him for some short space of time, but at last I, to whom he seemed particularly to address himself, said:
"We have no knowledge of why this should be, seeing that 'tis now almost two generations since those who were once our forefathers' friends attacked us. We had hoped that never would they do so again, since we have kept to our own lands and never sought to do evil to you or those of your race."
"Never sought to do evil, maiden! Nay, pause. Have 'you not now for more than fifty moons been dreaming of a raid to be made on us, of more red men to be slaughtered, more lands to be seized?"
"Never," I replied. "Never. I know all that has been thought of and every scheme that has been projected in our midst, yet there was never aught of this. Nay, so little did we dream of such an attack as you have made on us that, though we went always armed, 'twas more because of the custom which had grown upon us than for any other reason, and, if Indians came about we thought 'twas to take our cattle and our herds more than to massacre us."
"Yet it was told to us that your men were projecting a great war against us; that even from your other land beyond the deep waters warriors were being sent forth who should come and slay us all. That strange implements of war were being devised for our certain destruction, and that all of us were to be slaughtered and our lands and wives taken from us."
"Then," I replied, "you were told a base lie."
"Ay," exclaimed Buck from behind, "and I'll bet a guinea I know who told it."
The chief's eyes fell on him and rested on his face; then he spoke again, bidding him, since he said he knew who 'twas, to name the person.
"Name him," said Buck, "name him. Ay, that can I in the first guess. Why, 'twas that cursed, cringing hound, Roderick St. Amande, who fled from my pretty mistress's house when her father smote off his ear for daring to insult her. That's who it was, my noble chief."
"Smote off his ear!" exclaimed Anuza, while in his face there came the nearest approach to astonishment that I saw there during the time I was brought into contact with him. "Smote off the ear of the Child of the Sun. Yet he told us-he-is this the word of truth?"
"If that cursed impostor is the Child of the Sun-the Child of the Devil, ho, ho! – then 'tis most certainly the truth. Here's my lady who can tell you 'tis true. She saw it done. And, noble chief, is that the one, that poor, miserable hound, who told you of the attack that was to be made on you and yours?"
The chief replied not but rode on by our side, his eyes bent on his horse's mane and he seemingly wrapped in thought. But he spake no more to us that day, and we knew that he was meditating on how he and all his tribe had been imposed on by the wretch Roderick. So we journeyed on until at last we stood at the foot of the mountains, and with, before us, the town of the Shawnees. 'Twas a strange sight to our eyes!
All around a vast space sheltered or, at least, surrounded by countless trees, amongst which were the long-leaved pine, the great cypress and the greater cedar, with some sweet orange trees as well as myrtles and magnolias, we saw the Indian stockades, their great protections from man or beast. For over those pointed poles, topped in many cases with iron barbs, neither foeman nor fierce animal could spring or make their way through. Then, within these, there came the tents or houses of the ordinary fighting men, the latter being little huts, yet large enough, perhaps, for four or five to repose within. A circle of chiefs' tents succeeded next to these, the sheafs of poles gathered together at the top being decorated sometimes with banners, sometimes with gaudy silken drapery, sometimes, alas! with human heads from which the hair had been torn. That hair had another destination. It was to decorate the interior of the tents-to be gloated over by the savage chiefs within and by their squaws, or wives. In the middle of all was-regardlessly of the health of the encampment-a tomb of the chiefs, a horrid erection of wood in which the shrivelled remains were laid side by side to the number of a dozen, their heads towards the passers-by, their mummified bodies naked, and before them a wood fire burning-perhaps to dispel any vapours. Thus they lay in the exact interior of the camp, each one remaining there through the four seasons and then being buried in the earth. And to guard over and preserve them, as the savages thought, was a hideous painted figure of wood, rudely carved, which they call Kyvash, or the God of the Dead.
And now we were to learn what had been the amount of destruction done to the homes where we had all dwelt so peacefully and happily together; we of our party were to learn that which we had so much longed to know, namely, what had happened to those of our friends and neighbours who dwelt in and around Pomfret. For in that encampment we met other prisoners like ourselves who had been brought away by the detachments of the band who had stormed their houses. We saw, alas! the best of our men captives in the hands of the savages. Seated on a log outside a tent, his hands tied cruelly behind his back, I saw Bertram Pringle, a fair-haired young man who was the leader of all the diversions of our neighbourhood, and the best dancer as well as sportsman for miles around. There, too, was Roger Clibourne, one of our largest estate owners and wealthiest of planters; there was one of the Byrds of Westover (he being sadly wounded) as well as several rough backwoodsmen, who must have fought hard ere they surrendered; and many other owners and white servants were also prisoners. But, I thanked God, there were no other women but ourselves, and my cousin was not, as the wretch Roderick had said, amongst them.
"Why, Joice," said Roger, calling to me as I passed by with the others, "why, my dear" – we had grown up boy and girl together-"this is, indeed, a sorry sight. Oh! Mr. Kinchella, could you not put a bullet in their brains or a knife to their throats ere you let Joice and your sweetheart be captured and brought here."
"Hush! Hush!" I said to him, pausing on my way, as we all did, our guards making no resistance. "Hush! Indeed, I think we are in no such great danger. Anuza, the chief, who stormed my house, has found out that their great medicine man, who was undoubtedly the instigator of the attack upon us all, is none other than that horrid villain, Roderick St. Amande."
"Roderick St. Amande!" the others, including the backwoodsmen, exclaimed, "Roderick St. Amande. Nay, 'tis impossible."
"Indeed, indeed 'tis true. We of our party have all seen him and spoken with him; nay, heard him gloat over all the horrors of the attack and threaten us with what awaits us here. But, but-the chief heard him too, and also heard Mary denounce him, and, I think, he meditates worse against him than any of us because he hath deceived them so."
"Is your chief powerful enough to do thus?" Bertram Pringle asked. "Ours, our captor, is, we have heard, the head of the whole tribe and the greatest friend of their medicine man. Suppose he believes not what your conqueror tells him?"
"Then," said Buck, "we will give him some proofs that shall make him believe. I can do any trick Mr. Roderick St. Amande can, either with cards, palming, or what not, and if they place faith in him for any of his hanky-panky, hocus-pocus passes, why, they'll fall down and worship me! I wasn't the conjurer at many a booth for nothing before I took to more elevating pursuits."
And now the lads asked us how we had parted from that other one of whom I thought hourly and only-though they knew it not! – and when I told them how I had left him wounded and bleeding their sorrow was great. But they said that, if the Indians did not proceed to any violence towards us, a rescue must be attempted before long, since every other hamlet and town would know by now what had befallen us of Pomfret, and doubtless an expedition would soon set out to seek for us.
So we passed on to where our guards led us, namely, to a great tent made of hay and straw, and then we composed ourselves for the night and, after Mr. Kinchella had said a prayer for our safety in which we most fervently joined, got what sleep we might. But once during that night I woke and then screamed aloud, for as I turned my eyes to the opening of the tent I saw, gazing in, the horrid face of Roderick St. Amande, and his own eyes gloating over us. But at my scream, and almost ere the others were aroused, the face was withdrawn, and nothing more was seen at the opening but the figure of the Indian sentry outside as he paced to and fro in the moonlight, and nought heard but the soft fall of his moccasined feet on the earth, or sometimes the cry of an Indian child or dog.
That the next day was to be one of great importance was easy to see from the moment it dawned. Towards a belt of pines which grew upon the rise of the hills there were already proceeding groups of Indians, some bearing in their hands the skins of animals and blankets dyed divers colours; banners, too, were being affixed to the trees as though in preparation for some great feast. We noted, also, that many of the Indian women and maidens-with, alas! amongst them some girls and women who were not Indian born, but white women-were finely dressed as though for a gala. As we ate of the food which our guards brought us-though three, at least, of our little band had no appetite for it-the door was darkened by the form of Anuza, and, a moment later, his great body stood within the tent, while we observed that he, too, was now arrayed in all the handsome trappings that bespoke the rank of a great chief. His short-sleeved tunic of dressed deer-skin was ornamented with the polished claws of his totem, the Grizzly Bear; on the shield he bore were the same emblems; even his long black hair, twisted up now like a coronet beneath his plumed bonnet of feathers, was decorated with one claw set in gold. In his wampum belt, fringed and tasselled with bright shells, he carried a long knife and a pair of pistols richly inlaid with silver and ivory-won, doubtless, in some earlier foray with our race-at his back hung down a bleached bearskin cloak to which, by a sash or loop, were suspended his tomahawk and bow. As I gazed on him I understood, if I had never understood before, what our forefathers meant when sometimes they spoke of the Indian as a splendid, or a noble, savage.
Behind him, borne upon a litter by two other Indians, came one the like of whom I had never seen, an old Indian of surely a hundred years of age; his eyes gone and, in their place, nought but the white balls to be observed. His head, with still some few sparse hairs left on it, bent on his breast, his hands were shrivelled like unto those of the mummies of which I have read, and his body, even on so hot a day as this, was enveloped in a great bearskin adorned with the gay plumage of many bright-coloured birds.
As Anuza strode into the tent, or Wigwam, leaving the old man outside in the sun, he made a grave salutation to us all; but it seemed directed to me more especially, and then he said:
"Peace be with you all. And, white maiden," he went on, addressing me, while to my surprise he bent his knee before me, "though death awaits you and yours to-day, yet it shall not claim you while the Bear is by. Nor, had I known that which he, my father, has told me, should the hand of Anuza have been raised against you or your house, or aught within it." While, as he spoke, I gazed wonderingly at him, not knowing what his words might mean.