Works of Robert W Chambers

by Robert W. Chambers

  Godfrey Shew’s own house, just over the knoll to the eastward, was also on fire: I could see the flames from it and a thin brownish smoke which belched out black cinders and shreds of charred bark.

  I did not see a living creature near these fires, but farther toward the east clearing I heard voices and the sound of picks and axes; and my Saguenay and I crept thither along the bank of the flooded hollow.

  Very soon I perceived the new earthwork and log-stockade made the previous summer by our Continentals; and there, to my astonishment, I saw a motley company of white men and Indians, who were chopping down the timbers of the palisades, levelling the earthwork with pick and shovel.

  So near were they across the flooded hollow that I recognized Elias Beacraft, brother to Benjy, who had gone off with McDonald. Also, I saw and knew Captain James Hare, brother to Lieutenant Henry Hare, of Butler’s regiment; and Henry, also, was there; and Captain Nellis, of the forester service. Both the Hares and Nellis were dressed in green uniforms, and there were two other green-coats whom I knew not, but all busy with their work of destruction, and their axes flashing in the sunshine.

  The others I had, of course, taken for very savages, for they were feathered and painted and wore Indian dress; but when one of these came down to the flooded hollow to fill his tin cup and drink, to my horror I saw that the eyes in that hideously-painted face were a light blue!

  “Nai! Yengese!” whispered the Yellow Leaf.

  The painted Tory was not ten yards from where we lay, and, as I gazed intently at those hideously daubed features, all at once I knew the man.

  For this horrid and grotesque figure, all besmeared with ochre and indigo, and wearing Indian dress, was none other than an old neighbour of mine in Tryon County, one George Cuck, who lived near Jan Zuyler and his two buxom daughters, and who had gone off with Sir John last May.

  As I stared at him in ever-rising astonishment and rage, comes another blue-eyed Indian — Barney Cane, — wearing Iroquois paint and feathers, and all gaudy in his beaded war-dress. And, at his belt, I saw a fresh scalp hanging by its hair, — the light brown hair of a white man!

  I could hear Cane speaking with Cuck in English. Beacraft came down to the water; and Billy Newberry and Hare also came down, both wearing the uniform of the forester service. And I was astounded to see Henry Hare back again after his narrow escape at Summer House last autumn, the night I got my hurt.

  But he wore no Valley militia disguise now; all these men were in green-coats, openly flaunting the enemy uniform in County Tryon, — save only those painted beasts Cuck and Cane.

  It was a war party, and it had accomplished a clean job at Fish House; and now they all were coming down to the flooded hollow and looking across it where lay the short route west to Summer House.

  Presently I heard a great splashing to our left, and saw a skiff and two green-coats and two Mohawk Indians in it pulling across the back-water.

  And these latter were real Mohawks, stripped, oiled, their heads shaved, and in their battle-paint, who squatted there in the skiff, scanning with glowing eyes the bank where my Saguenay and I lay concealed.

  It was perfectly plain, now, what they meant to do. Beacraft, Cane, and Cuck went back to the ruined redoubt, and presently returned loaded with packs. Baggage and rifles were laid in the skiff.

  I touched Yellow Leaf on the arm, and we wriggled backward out of sight. Then, rising, we turned and pulled foot for our canoe.

  Now my chiefest anxiety was whether Penelope and Nick had got clean away and were already well on the road to the Mayfield Block House.

  We found our canoe where we had hid it, and we made the still water boil with our two paddles, so that, although it seemed an age to me, we came very swiftly to our landing at Summer House Point.

  Here we sprang out, seized the canoe, ran with it up the grassy slope, then continued over the uncut lawn and down the western slope, where again we launched it and let it swing on the water, held anchored by its nose on shore.

  House, barn, orchard, all were deathly still there in the brilliant sunshine; I ran to the manger and found it empty of cattle. There were no fowls to be seen or heard, either. Then I hastened to the sheep-fold. That, also, was empty.

  Perplexed, I ran down to the gates, found them open, and, in the mud of the Johnstown Road, discovered sheep and cattle tracks, the imprint of Kaya’s sharp-shod hoofs, a waggon mark, and the plain imprint of Nick’s moccasins.

  So it was clear enough what he and Penelope had done. A terrible anxiety seized me, and I wondered how far they had got on the way to Mayfield, with cattle and sheep to drive ahead of a loaded waggon and one horse.

  And now, more than ever, it was certain that my Indian and I must make a desperate stand here to hold back these marauders until our people were safe in Mayfield without a shadow of doubt.

  The Saguenay had gone to the veranda roof with his rifle, where he could see any movement by land or water.

  I called up to him that the destructives might come by both routes; then I went to my room, gathered all the lead bars and bags of bullets, seized our powder keg, and dragged all down to the water, where I stored everything in the canoe.

  That was all I could take, save a sack of ground corn mixed with maple sugar, a flask of rum, and a bag of dry meat.

  These articles, with our fur robes and blankets, a fish-spear, and a spontoon which I discovered, were all I dared attempt to save.

  I stood in the pretty house, gazing desperately about me, sad to leave this place to flames, furious to realize that this little lodge must perish, which once was endeared to me because Sir William loved it, and now had become doubly dear because I had given it to a young girl whom I loved — and tenderly — yet desired not to become enamoured with.

  Sunshine fell through the glazed windows, where chintz curtains stirred in the wind.

  I looked around at the Windsor chairs, the table where we had supped together so often. I went into Penelope’s room and looked at her maple bed, so white and fresh.

  There was a skein of wool yarn on the table. I took it; gazed at it with new and strange emotions a-fiddling at my throat and twitching eyes and lips; and placed it in the breast of my hunting shirt.

  Then I listened; but my Indian overhead remained silent. So I went on through the house, and then down to the kitchen, where I saw all sweetly in order, and pan and china bright; and soupaan still simmering where Penelope had left it.

  There was a bowl of milk there, and the cream thick on it. And she had set a dozen red apples handy, with flour and spices and a crock of lard for to fashion a pie, I think.

  Slowly I went up stairs and then out the kitchen door, across the grass. The Saguenay saw me from above and made a sign that all was still quiet on the Drowned Lands.

  So I went to the manger again, and thence to the barn and around the house.

  The lilacs had bursted their buds, and I could see tiny bunches pushing out on every naked stem where the fragrant, grape-like bunches of bloom should hang in May.

  Then I looked down, and remembered where I had lain in the snow under these same lilacs, and how there Penelope had bullied me and then consented to kiss me on the mouth.... And, as I was thinking sadly of these things, — bang! went my Indian’s rifle from the veranda roof.

  I sprang out upon the west lawn and saw the powder cloud drifting over the house, and my Indian, sheltered by the roof, reloading his piece on one knee.

  “By water!” he called out softly, when he saw me.

  At that I ran into the house by the front door, which faced south; closed and bolted the four heavy green shutters in the two rooms on the ground floor, barred the south door and the west, or kitchen door below; and sprang up the ladder to the low loft chamber, from whence, stooping, I crept out of the south-gable window upon the veranda.

  This piazza promenade was nearly as high as the eaves. The gable ends of the roof, in which were windows, faced north and south, but the promenade ran all around the e
ast end and sides, which, supported by columns, afforded a fine rifle-platform for defense against a water attack, and gave us a wide view out over the mysterious Drowned Lands.

  It was a vast panorama that lay around us — a great misty amphitheatre more than a hundred miles in circumference. At our feet lay that immense marsh of fifteen thousand acres, called the Great Vlaie; mountains walled the Drowned Lands north, east, west; and to the south stretched a wilderness of pine and spectral tamaracks.

  Lying flat on the roof, and peering cautiously between the spindles of the railing, I saw, below on the Vlaie Water, the same skiff I had seen at Fish House.

  In the heavy skiff, the gunwales of which were barricaded with their military packs, lay six green-coats, — Captains Hare and Nellis, Sergeant Newberry, Beacraft, and two strangers in private’s uniform.

  They had a white flag set in the prow.

  But the two blue-eyed Indians, Barney Cane and George Cuck, were not with them, nor were the two Mohawks. And in a whisper I bade my Saguenay go around to the south gable and keep his eye on the gate and the Johnstown Road on the mainland.

  Hare took the white flag from the prow and waved it, the two rowers continuing up creek and heading toward our landing.

  Then I called out to them to halt and back water; and, as they paid no heed, I fired at their white flag, and knocked the staff and rag out of Hare’s hand without wounding him.

  At that two or three cried out angrily, but their rowers ceased and began to back water hastily; and I, reloading, kept an eye on them.

  Then Hare stood up in the skiff and bawled through his hollowed hand:

  “Will you parley? Or do you wish to violate a flag?”

  “Keep your interval, Henry Hare!” I retorted. “If you have anything to say, say it from where you are or I’ll drill you clean!”

  “Is that John Drogue, the Brent-Meester?” he shouted.

  “None other,” said I. “What brings you to Summer House in such fair weather, Harry Hare?”

  “I wish to land and parley,” he replied. “You may blindfold me if you like.”

  “When I put out your lights,” said I, “it will be a quicker job than that. What do you wish to do — count our garrison?”

  Captain Nellis got up from his seat and replied that he knew how many people occupied Summer House, and that, desiring to prevent the useless effusion of blood, he demanded our surrender under promise of kind treatment.

  I laughed at him. “No,” said I, “my hair suits my head and I like it there rather than swinging all red and wet at the girdle of your blue-eyed Indians.”

  As I spoke I saw Newberry and Beacraft bring the butts of their rifles to their shoulders, and I shrank aside as their pieces cracked out sharply across the water.

  Splinters flew from the painted column on the corner of the house; the green-coats all fell flat in their skiff and lay snug there, hidden by their packs.

  Presently, as I watched, I saw an oar poked out.

  Very cautiously somebody was sculling the skiff down stream and across in the direction of the reeds.

  As the craft turned to enter the marsh, I had a fleeting view of the sculler — only his head and arm — and saw it was Eli Beacraft.

  I was perfectly cool when I fired on him. He let go his oar and fell flat on the bottom of the boat. The echo of my shot died away in wavering cadences among the shoreward woods; an intense stillness possessed the place.

  Then, of a sudden, Beacraft fell to kicking his legs and screeching, and so flopped about in the bottom of the boat, like a stranded fish all over blood.

  The boat nosed in between the marsh-grasses and tall sedge, and I could not see it clearly any more.

  But the green-coats in it were no sooner hid than they began firing at Summer House, and the storm of lead ripped and splintered the gallery and eaves, tore off shingles, shattered chimney bricks, and rang out loud on the iron hinges of door and shutter.

  I fired a few shots into their rifle-smoke, then lay watching and waiting, and listening ever for the loud explosion of my Indian’s piece, which would mean that the painted Tories and the Mohawks were stealing upon us from the mainland.

  Every twenty minutes or so the men in the batteau-skiff let off a rifle shot at Summer House, and the powder-cloud rising among the dead weeds, pinxters, and button-ball bushes, discovered the location of their craft.

  Sometimes, as I say, I took a shot at the smoke; but time was the essence of my contract, and God knows it contented me to stand siege whilst Penelope and Nick, with waggon and cattle, were plodding westward toward Mayfield.

  About four o’clock in the afternoon I was hungry and went to get me a piece in the pantry.

  Then I took Yellow Leaf’s place whilst he descended to appease his hunger.

  We ate our bread and meat together on the roof, our rifles lying cocked across our knees.

  “Brother,” said I, munching away, “if, indeed, you be, as they say, a tree-eater, and live on bark and buds when there is no game to kill, then I think your stomach suffers nothing by such diet, for I want no better comrade in a pinch, and shall always be ready to bear witness to your bravery and fidelity.”

  He continued to eat in silence, scraping away at his hot soupaan with a pewter spoon. After he had licked both spoon and pannikin as clean as a cat licks a saucer, he pulled a piece of jerked deer meat in two and gravely chewed the morsel, his small, brilliant eyes ever roving from the water to the mainland.

  Presently, without looking at me, he said quietly:

  “When I was only a poor hunter of the Montagnais, I said to myself, ‘I am a man, yet hardly one.’ I learned that a Saguenay was a real man when my brother told me.

  “My brother cleared my eyes and wiped away the ancient mist of tears. I looked; and lo! I found that I was a real man. I was made like other men and not like a beast to be kicked at and stoned and driven with sticks flung at me in the forest.”

  “The Yellow Leaf is a warrior,” I said. “The Oneida Anowara bear witness to scalps taken in battle by the Yellow Leaf. Tahioni, the Wolf, took no more.”

  “Ni-ha-ron-ta-kowa,” said the Saguenay proudly, “onkwe honwe! Yet it was my white brother who cleared my eyes of mist. Therefore, let him give me a new name — a warrior’s name — meaning that my vision is now clear.”

  “Very well,” said I, “your war name shall be Sak-yen-haton!” — which was as good Iroquois as I could pronounce, and good enough for the Montagnais to comprehend, it seemed, for a gleam shot from his eyes, and I heard him say to himself in a low voice: “Haiah-ya! I am a real warrior now!... Onenh! at last!”

  A shot came from the water; he looked around contemptuously and smiled.

  “My elder brother,” said he, “shall we two strip and set our knives between our teeth, and swim out to scalp those muskrats yonder?”

  “And if they fire at us in the water?” said I, amused at his mad courage, who had once been “hardly a man.”

  “Then we dive like Tchurako, the mink, and swim beneath the water, as swims old ‘long face’ the great wolf-pike! Shall we rush upon them thus, O my elder brother?”

  Absurd as it was, the wild idea began to inflame me, and I was seriously considering our chances at twilight to accomplish such a business, when, of a sudden, I saw on the mainland an officer of the Indian Department, who bore a white rag on the point of his hanger and waved it toward the house.

  He came across the Johnstown Road to our gate, but made no motion to open it, and stood there slowly waving his white flag and waiting to be noticed and hailed.

  “Keep your rifle on that man,” I whispered to my Indian, “for I shall go down to the orchard and learn what are the true intentions of these green-coats and blue-eyed Indians. Find a rest for your piece, hold steadily, and kill that flag if I am fired on.”

  I saw him stretch out flat on his belly and rest his rifle on the veranda rail. Then I crawled into the garret, descended through the darkened house, and, unbolting the do
or, went out and down across the grass to the orchard.

  “What is your errand?” I called out, “you flag there outside our gate?”

  “Is that you, John Drogue?” came a familiar voice.

  I took a long look at him from behind my apple tree, and saw it was Jock Campbell, one of Sir John’s Highland brood and late a subaltern in the Royal Provincials.

  And that he should come here in a green coat with these murderous vagabonds incensed me.

  “What do you want, Jock Campbell!” I demanded, controlling my temper.

  “I want a word with you under a flag!”

  “Say what you have to say, but keep outside that gate!” I retorted.

  “John Drogue,” says he, “we came here to burn Summer House, and mean to do it. We know how many you have to defend the place — —”

  “Oh, do you know that? Then tell me, Jock, if you truly possess the information.”

  “Very well,” said he calmly. “You are two white men, a Montagnais dog, and a girl. And pray tell me, sir, how long do you think you can hold us off?”

  “Well,” said I, “if you are as thrifty with your skins as you have been all day, then we should keep this place a week or two against you.”

  “What folly!” he exclaimed hotly. “Do you think to prevail against us?”

  “Why, I don’t know, Jock. Ask Beacraft yonder, who hath a bullet in his belly. He’s wiser than he was and should offer you good counsel.”

  “I offer you safe conduct if you march out at once!” he shouted.

  “I offer you one of Beacraft’s pills if you do not instantly about face and march into the bush yonder!” I replied.