by John Buchan
At an open bit of the forest Shalah stopped and looked at the sky. I blundered into him, and then from sheer weakness rolled on the ground. He grunted and turned to me. I felt his cool hand passing over my brow and cheek, and his fingers kneading the muscles of my forlorn legs. ‘Twas some Indian device, doubtless, but its power was miraculous. Under his hands my body seemed to be rested and revived. New strength stole into my sinews, new vigour into my blood. The thing took maybe five minutes — not more; but I scrambled to my feet a man again. Indeed I was a better man than when I started, for this Indian wizardry had given me an odd lightness of head and heart. When we took up the running, my body, instead of a leaden clog, seemed to be a thing of air and feathers.
It was now hard on midnight, and the moon was high in the heavens. We bore somewhat to the right, and I judged that our circuit was completed, and that the time had come to steal in front of the Indian route. The forest thinned, and we traversed a marshy piece, of country with many single great trees. Often Shalah would halt for a second, strain his ears, and sniff the light wind like a dog. He seemed to find guidance, but I got none, only the hoot of an owl or the rooty smell of the woodland.
At last we struck a little stream, and followed its course between high banks of pine. Suddenly Shalah’s movements became stealthy. Crouching in every patch of shade, and crossing open spaces on our bellies, we turned from the stream, surmounted a knoll, and came down on a wooded valley. Shalah looked westwards, held up his hand, and stood poised for a minute like a graven image. Then he grunted and spoke. “We are safe,” he said. “They are behind us, and are camped for the night,” How he knew that I cannot tell; but I seemed to catch on the breeze a whiff of the rancid odour of Indian war-paint.
For another mile we continued our precautions, and then moved more freely in the open. Now that the chief peril was past, my fatigue came back to me worse than ever. I think I was growing leg-weary, as I had seen happen to horses, and from that ailment there is no relief. My head buzzed like a beehive, and when the moon set I had no power to pick my steps, and stumbled and sprawled in the darkness. I had to ask Shalah for help, though it was a sore hurt to my pride, and, leaning on his arm, I made the rest of the journey.
I found myself splashing in a strong river. We crossed by a ford, so we had no need to swim, which was well for me, for I must have drowned. The chill of the water revived me somewhat, and I had the strength to climb the other bank. And then suddenly before me I saw a light, and a challenge rang out into the night.
The voice was a white man’s, and brought me to my bearings. Weak as I was, I had the fierce satisfaction that our errand had not been idle. I replied with the password, and a big fellow strode out from a stockade.
“Mr. Garvald!” he said, staring. “What brings you here? Where are the rest of you?” He looked at Shalah and then at me, and finally took my arm and drew me inside.
There were a score in the place — Rappahannock farmers, a lean, watchful breed, each man with his musket. One of them, I mind, wore a rusty cuirass of chain armour, which must have been one of those sent out by the King in the first days of the dominion. They gave me a drink of rum and water, and in a little I had got over my worst weariness and could speak.
“The Cherokees are on us,” I said, and I told them of the army we had followed.
“How many?” they asked.
“Three hundred for a vanguard, but more follow.”
One man laughed, as if well pleased. “I’m in the humour for Cherokees just now. There’s a score of scalps hanging outside, if you could see them, Mr. Garvald.”
“What scalps?” I asked, dumbfoundered.
“The Rapidan murderers. We got word of them in the woods yesterday, and six of us went hunting. It was pretty shooting. Two got away with some lead in them, the rest are in the Tewawha pools, all but their topknots. I’ve very little notion of Cherokees.”
Somehow the news gave me intense joy. I thought nothing of the barbarity of it, or that white men should demean themselves to the Indian level. I remembered only the meadow by the Rapidan, and the little lonely water-wheel. Our vow was needless, for others had done our work.
“Would I had been with you!” was all I said. “But now you have more than a gang of Meebaw raiders to deal with. There’s an invasion coming down from the hills, and this is the first wave of it, I want word sent to Governor Nicholson at James Town. I was to tell him where the trouble was to be feared, and in a week you’ll have a regiment at your backs. Who has the best horse? Simpson? Well, let Simpson carry the word down the valley. If my plans are working well, the news should be at James Town by dawn to-morrow.”
The man called Simpson got up, saddled his beast, and waited my bidding. “This is the word to send,” said I. “Say that the Cherokees are attacking by the line of the Rappahannock. Say that I am going into the hills to find if my fears are justified. Never mind what that means. Just pass on the words. They will understand them at James Town. So much for the Governor. Now I want word sent to Frew’s homestead on the South Fork. Who is to carry it?”
One old fellow, who chewed tobacco without intermission, spat out the leaf, and asked me what news I wanted to send.
“Just that we are attacked,” I said.
“That’s a simple job,” he said cheerfully. “All down the Border posts we have a signal. Only yesterday we got word of it from the place you speak of. A mile from here is a hillock within hearing of the stockade at Robertson’s Ford. One shot fired there will tell them what you want them to know. Robertson’s will fire twice for Appleby’s to hear, and Appleby’s will send on the message to Dopple’s. There are six posts between here and the South Fork, so when the folk at Frew’s hear seven shots they will know that the war is on the Rappahannock.”
I recognized old Lawrence’s hand in this. It was just the kind of device that he would contrive. I hoped it would not miscarry, for I would have preferred a messenger; but after all the Border line was his concern.
Then I spoke aside to Shalah. In his view the Cherokees would not attack at dawn. They were more likely to wait till their supports overtook them, and then, to make a dash for the Rappahannock farms. Plunder was more in the line of these gentry than honest fighting. I spoke to the leader of the post, and he was for falling upon them in the narrows of the Rapidan. Their victory over the Meebaws had fired the blood of the Borderers, and made them contemptuous of the enemy. Still, in such a predicament, when we had to hold a frontier with a handful, the boldest course was likely to be the safest. I could only pray that Nicholson’s levies would turn up in time to protect the valley.
“Time passes, brother,” said Shalah. “We came by swiftness, but we return by guile. In three hours it will be dawn. Sleep till then, for there is much toil before thee.”
I saw the wisdom of his words, and went promptly to bed in a corner of the stockade. As I was lying down a man spoke to me, one Rycroft, at whose cabin I had once sojourned for a day.
“What brings the parson hereaways in these times?” he asked.
“What parson?” I asked.
“The man they call Doctor Blair.”
“Great God!” I cried, “what about him?”
“He was in Stafford county when I left, hunting for schoolmasters. Ay, and he had a girl with him.”
I sat upright with a start. “Where is he now?” I asked.
“I saw him last at Middleton’s Ford. I think he was going down the river. I warned him this was no place for parsons and women, but he just laughed at me. It’s time he was back in the Tidewater.”
So long as they were homeward-bound I did not care; but it gave me a queer fluttering of the heart to think that Elspeth but yesterday should have been near this perilous Border. I soon fell asleep, for I was mighty tired, but I dreamed evilly. I seemed to see Doctor Blair hunted by Cherokees, with his coat-tails flying and his wig blown away, and what vexed me was that I could not find Elspeth anywhere in the landscape.
CHAPTER
18. OUR ADVENTURE RECEIVES A RECRUIT
At earliest light, with the dew heavy on the willows and the river line a coil of mist, Shalah woke me for the road. We breakfasted off fried bacon, some of which I saved for the journey, for the Indian was content with one meal a day. As we left the stockade I noted the row of Meebaw scalps hanging, grim and bloody, from the poles. The Borderers were up and stirring, for they looked to take the Indians in the river narrows before the morning was old.
No two Indian war parties ever take the same path, so it was Shalah’s plan to work back to the route we had just travelled, by which the Cherokees had come yesterday. This sounds simple enough, but the danger lay in the second party. By striking to right or left we might walk into it, and then good-bye to our hopes of the hills. But the whole thing was easier to me than the cruel toil of yesterday. There was need of stealth and woodcraft, but not of yon killing speed.
For the first hour we went up a northern fork of the Rappahannock, then crossed the water at a ford, and struck into a thick pine forest. I was feeling wonderfully rested, and found no discomfort in Shalah’s long strides. My mind was very busy on the defence of the Borders, and I kept wondering how long the Governor’s militia would take to reach the Rappahannock, and whether Lawrence could reinforce the northern posts in time to prevent mischief in Stafford county. I cast back to my memory of the tales of Indian war, and could not believe but that the white man, if warned and armed, would roll back the Cherokees. ‘Twas not them I feared, but that other force now screened behind the mountains, who had for their leader some white madman with a fire in his head and Bible words on his lips. Were we of Virginia destined to fight with such fanatics as had distracted Scotland — fanatics naming the name of God, but leading in our case the armies of hell?
It was about eleven in the forenoon, I think, that Shalah dropped his easy swing and grew circumspect. The sun was very hot, and the noon silence lay dead on the woodlands. Scarcely a leaf stirred, and the only sounds were the twittering grasshoppers and the drone of flies. But Shalah found food for thought. Again and again he became rigid, and then laid an ear to the ground. His nostrils dilated like a horse’s, and his eyes were restless. We were now in a shallow vale, through which a little stream flowed among broad reed-beds. At one point he kneeled on the ground and searched diligently.
“See,” he said, “a horse’s prints not two hours old — a horse going west.”
Presently I myself found a clue. I picked up from a clump of wild onions a thread of coloured wool. This was my own trade, where I knew more than Shalah. I tested the thing in my mouth and between my fingers.
“This is London stuff,” I said. “The man who had this on his person bought his clothes from the Bristol merchants, and paid sweetly for them. He was no Rappahannock farmer.”
Shalah trailed like a bloodhound, following the hoof-marks out of the valley meadow to a ridge of sparse cedars where they showed clear on the bare earth, and then to a thicker covert where they were hidden among strong grasses. Suddenly he caught my shoulder, and pulled me to the ground. We crawled through a briery place to where a gap opened to the vale on our left.
A party of Indians were passing. They were young men with the fantastic markings of young braves. All were mounted on the little Indian horses. They moved at leisure, scanning the distance with hands shading eyes.
We wormed our way back to the darkness of the covert. “The advance guard of the second party,” Shalah whispered. “With good fortune, we shall soon see the rest pass, and then have a clear road for the hills.”
“I saw no fresh scalps,” I said, “so they seem to have missed our man on the horse.” I was proud of my simple logic.
All that Shalah replied was, “The rider was a woman.’
“How, in Heaven’s name, can you tell?” I asked.
He held out a long hair. “I found it among the vines at the level of a rider’s head.”
This was bad news indeed. What folly had induced a woman to ride so far across the Borders? It could be no settler’s wife, but some dame from the coast country who had not the sense to be timid. ‘Twas a grievous affliction for two men on an arduous quest to have to protect a foolish female with the Cherokees all about them.
There was no help for it, and as swiftly as possible and with all circumspection Shalah trailed the horse’s prints. They kept the high ground, in very broken country, which was the reason why the rider had escaped the Indians’ notice. Clearly they were moving slowly, and from the frequent halts and turnings I gathered that the rider had not much purpose about the road.
Then we came on a glade where the rider had dismounted and let the beast go. The horse had wandered down the ridge to the right in search of grazing, and the prints of a woman’s foot led to the summit of a knoll which raised itself above the trees.
There, knee-deep in a patch of fern, I saw what I had never dreamed of, what sent the blood from my heart in a cold shudder of fear: a girl, pale and dishevelled, was trying to part some vines. A twig crackled and she looked round, showing a face drawn with weariness and eyes large with terror.
It was Elspeth!
At the sight of Shalah she made to scream, but checked herself. It was well, for a scream would have brought all of us to instant death.
For Shalah at that moment dropped to earth and wriggled into a covert overlooking the vale. I had the sense to catch the girl and pull her after him. He stopped dead, and we two lay also like mice. My heart was going pretty fast, and I could feel the heaving of her bosom.
The shallow glen was full of folk, most of them going on foot. I recognized the Cherokee head-dress and the long hickory bows which those carried who had no muskets. ‘Twas by far the biggest party we had seen, and, though in that moment I had no wits to count them, Shalah told me afterwards they must have numbered little short of a thousand. Some very old fellows were there, with lean, hollow cheeks, and scanty locks, but the most were warriors in their prime. I could see it was a big war they were out for, since some of the horses carried heavy loads of corn, and it is never the Indian fashion to take much provender for a common raid. In all Virginia’s history there had been no such invasion, for the wars of Opechancanough and Berkeley and the fight of Bacon against the Susquehannocks were mere bickers compared with this deliberate downpour from the hills.
As we lay there, scarce daring to breathe, I saw that we were in deadly peril. The host was so great that some marched on the very edge of our thicket. I could see through the leaves the brown Skins not a yard away. The slightest noise would bring the sharp Indian eyes peering into the gloom, and we must be betrayed.
In that moment, which was one of the gravest of my life, I had happily no leisure to think of myself. My whole soul sickened with anxiety for the girl. I knew enough of Indian ways to guess her fate. For Shalah and myself there might be torture, and at the best an arrow in our hearts, but for her there would be things unspeakable. I remembered the little meadow on the Rapidan, and the tale told by the grey ashes. There was only one shot in my pistol, but I determined that it should be saved for her. In such a crisis the memory works wildly, and I remember feeling glad that I had stood up before Grey’s fire. The thought gave me a comforting assurance of manhood.
Those were nightmare minutes. The girl was very quiet, in a stupor of fatigue and fear. Shalah was a graven image, and I was too tensely strung to have any of the itches and fervours which used to vex me in hunting the deer when stillness was needful. Through the fretted greenery, I saw the dim shadows of men passing swiftly. The thought of the horse worried me. If the confounded beast grazed peaceably down the other side of the hill, all might be well. So long as he was out of sight any movement he made would be set down by the Indians to some forest beast, for animals’ noises are all alike in a wood. But if he returned to us, there would be the devil to pay, for at a glimpse of him our thicket would be alive with the enemy.
In the end I found it best to shut my eyes and commend our case to our Maker.
Then I counted very slowly to myself up to four hundred, and looked again. The vale was empty.
We lay still, hardly believing in our deliverance, for the matter of a quarter of an hour, and then Shalah, making a sign to me to remain, turned and glided up lull. I put my hand behind me, found Elspeth’s cheek, and patted it. She stretched out a hand and clutched mine feverishly, and thus we remained till, after what seemed an age, Shalah returned.
He was on his feet and walking freely. He had found the horse, too, and had it by the bridle.
“The danger is past,” he said gravely. “Let us go back to the glade and rest.”
I helped Elspeth to her feet, and on my arm she clambered to the grassy place in the woods. I searched my pockets, and gave her the remnants of the bread and bacon I had brought from the Rappahannock post. Better still, I remembered that I had in my breast a little flask of eau-de-vie, and a mouthful of it revived her greatly. She put her hands to her head, and began to tidy her dishevelled hair, which is a sure sign in a woman that she is recovering her composure.
“What brought you here?” I asked gently.
She had forgotten that I was in her black books, and that in her letter she forbade my journey. Indeed, she looked at me as a child in a pickle may look at an upbraiding parent.
“I was lost,” she cried. “I did not mean to go far, but the night came down and I could not find the way back. Oh, it has been a hideous nightmare! I have been almost mad in the dark woods.”
“But how did you get here?” I asked, still hopelessly puzzled.
