by John Buchan
CHAPTER XXI.
A HAWK SCREAMS IN THE EVENING
Those two days in the stockade were like a rift of sun in a stormy day,and the next morn the clouds descended. The face of nature seemed to bea mirror of our fortunes, for when I woke the freshness had gone out ofthe air, and in the overcast sky there was a forewarning of storm. Butthe little party in the camp remained cheerful enough. Donaldson andBertrand went off to their trapping; Elspeth was braiding her hair, thehandsomest nymph that ever trod these woodlands, and trying in vain todiscover from the discreet Ringan where he came from, and what was hiscalling. The two Borderers knew well who he was; Grey, I think, had asuspicion; but it never entered the girl's head that this debonairgentleman bore the best known name in all the Americas. She fancied hewas some exiled Jacobite, and was ready to hear a pitiful romance. Thisat another time she would have readily got; but Ringan for the noncewas in a sober mood, and though he would talk of Breadalbane, was charyof touching on more recent episodes. All she learned was that he was agreat traveller, and had tried most callings that merit a gentleman'sinterest.
The day before, Shalah and I had explored the range to the south,keeping on the west side where we thought the enemy were likely togather. This day we looked to the side facing the Tidewater, adifficult job, for it was eaten into by the upper glens of many rivers.The weather grew hot and oppressive, and over the lowlands of Virginiathere brooded a sullen thundercloud. It oppressed my spirits, and Ifound myself less able to keep up with Shalah. The constant sight ofthe lowlands filled me with anxiety for what might be happening inthose sullen blue flats. Gone was the glad forgetfulness of yesterday.The Promised Land might smile as it pleased, but we were still on theflanks of Pisgah with the Midianites all about us.
My recollection of that day is one of heavy fatigue and a pressinghopelessness. Shalah behaved oddly, for he was as restive as afrightened stag. No covert was unsuspected by him, and if I ventured toraise my head on any exposed ground a long brown arm pulled me down. Hewould make no answer to my questions except a grunt. All this gave methe notion that the hills were full of the enemy, and I grew as restiveas the Indian. The crackle of a branch startled me, and the movement ofa scared beast brought my heart to my throat.
Then from a high place he saw something which sent us both crawlinginto the thicket. We made a circuit of several miles round the head ofa long ravine, and came to a steep bank of red screes. Up this wewormed our way, as flat as snakes, with our noses in the dusty earth. Iwas dripping with sweat, and cursing to myself this new madness ofShalah's. Then I found a cooler air blowing on the top of my prostrateskull, and I judged that we were approaching the scarp of a ridge.Shalah's hand held me motionless. He wriggled on a little farther, andwith immense slowness raised his head. His hand now beckoned meforward, and in a few seconds I was beside him and was lifting my eyesover the edge of the scarp.
Below us lay a little plain, wedged in between two mountains, andbreaking off on one side into a steep glen. It was just such a shelf asI had seen in the Carolinas, only a hundred times greater, and it laysome five hundred feet below us. Every part of the hollow was filledwith men. Thousands there must have been, around their fires andteepees, and coming or going from the valley. They were silent, likeall savages, but the low hum rose from the place which told of humanlife.
I tried to keep my eyes steady, though my heart was beating like afanner. The men were of the same light colour and slimness as those Ihad seen on the edge of the mist in Clearwater Glen. Indeed, they werenot unlike Shalah, except that he was bigger than the most of them. Iwas not learned in Indian ways, but a glance told me that these folknever came out of the Tidewater, and were no Cherokees of the hills orTuscaroras from the Carolinas. They were a new race from the west orthe north, the new race which had so long been perplexing us. Somewhereamong them was the brain which had planned for the Tidewater a suddendestruction.
Shalah slipped noiselessly backward, and I followed him down the screeslope, across the ravine, and then with infinite caution through thesparse woods till we had put a wide shoulder of hill between us and theenemy. After that we started running, such a pace as made the rush backto the Rappahannock seem an easy saunter. Shalah would avoid short-cutsfor no reason that I could see, and make long circuits in places whereI had to go on hands and feet. I was weary before we set out, and soonI began to totter like a drunken man. The Indian's arm pulled me upcountless times, and his face, usually so calm, was now sharp withcare. "You cannot fail here, brother," he would say, "On our speed hangthe lives of all." That put me on my mettle, for it was Elspeth'ssafety I now strove for, and the thought gave life to my leaden limbs.Every minute the air grew heavier, and the sky darker, so that whenabout five in the afternoon we passed the Gap and struggled up the lasthill to the stockade, it seemed as if night had already fallen.
Elspeth and Ringan were there, and the two trappers had just returned.I could do nothing but pant on the ground, but Shalah cried out fornews of Grey. He heard that he had gone into the woods with his muskettwo hours past. At this he flung up his hands with a motion of despair."We cannot wait," he said to Ringan. "Close the gate and put every manto his post, for the danger is at hand."
Ringan gave his orders. The big log gate was barred, the fire trampledout, and we waited in that thunderous darkness. A long draught of coldwater had revived me, and I could think clearly of Elspeth. Her bowerwas in the safest part of the stockade, but she would not stay there, Icould see terror in her eyes, but she gave no sign of it. She madeready our supper of cold meat as if she had no other thought in theworld.
Waiting on an attack is a hard trial for mortal nerves. I am notashamed to confess that in those minutes my courage was little to boastof. I envied Ringan his ease, and Bertrand his light cheerfulness, andDonaldson his unshaken gravity, and especially I envied Shalah hisgodlike calm. But most of all I envied Elspeth the courage which couldknow desperate fear and never show it. Most likely I did myself somewrong. Most likely my own face was firm enough, but, if it were, 'twasa poor clue to the brain behind it. I fell to wondering about Greystill travelling in the woods. Was there any hope for him? Was therehope, indeed, for any one of us penned in a wooden palisade fifty milesfrom aid, a handful against an army?
Presently in the lowering silence came the scream of a hawk.
An uncommon sound, half croak, half cry, which only hill dwellers know,but 'tis an eery noise in the wilderness. It came again, less near, anda third time from a great distance. I thought it queer, for a hawk doesnot scream twice in the same hour. I looked at Shalah, who stood by thegate, every sinew in his body taut with expectation. He caught my eye.
"That hawk never flew on wings," he said.
Then an owl hooted, and from near at hand came the cough of a deer. Thethicket was alive with life, which mimicked the wild things of thewoods.
Then came a sound which drowned all others. From the inky sky descendeda jagged line of light, and in the same second the crash of the thunderbroke. Never have I seen such a storm. Down in the Tidewater we hadthunderstorms in plenty during the summer-time, but they growled andpassed and scarce ruffled the even blue of the sky. But here it lookedas if we had found the home of the lightnings, where all thethunderbolts were forged. It blazed around us like a steady fire. By amiracle the palisade was not struck, but I heard a rending andsplintering in the forest where tall trees had met their doom. Thenoise deafened me, and confused my senses. Out of the loophole I couldsee the glade that sloped down to the Gap, and it was as bright as ifit had been high noonday. The clumps of fern and grass stood out yellowand staring against the inky background of the trees. I remember Inoted a rabbit run confusedly into the open, and then at a fresh flareof lightning scamper back.
Something was crouching and shivering at my side. I found it wasElspeth, whose courage was no match for the terrors of the heavens. Shesnuggled against me for companionship, and hid her face in the sleeveof my coat.
Suddenly came a cry from Shalah on my lef
t. He pointed his hand to theglade, and in it I saw a man running. A new burst of light sprang up,for some dry tindery creepers had caught fire, and were blazing toheaven. It lit a stumbling figure which I saw was Grey, and behind himwas a lithe Indian running on his trail.
"Open the gate," I cried, and I got my musket in the loophole.
The fugitive was all but spent. He ran, bowed almost to the ground,with a wild back glance ever and again over his shoulder. His pursuergained on him with great strides, and in his hand he carried a bareknife. I dared not shoot, for Grey was between me and his enemy.
'Twas as well I could not, for otherwise Grey would never have reachedus alive. We cried to him to swerve, and the sound of our voicesbrought up that last flicker of hope which waits till the end in everyman. He seemed actually to gain a yard, and now he was near enough forus to see his white face and staring eyes. Then he stumbled, and theman with the knife was almost on him. But he found his feet again, andswerved like a hunted hare in one desperate bound. This gave me mychance: my musket cracked, and the Indian pitched quietly to theground. The knife flew out of his hand and almost touched Grey's heel.
With the sound Shalah had leaped from the gate, picked up Grey like achild, and in a second had him inside the palisade and the bars down.He was none too soon, for as his pursuer fell a flight of arrows brokefrom the thicket, and had I shot earlier Grey had died of them. As itwas they were too late. The bowmen rushed into the glade, and fivemuskets from our side took toll of them. My last vision was of leapingyellow devils capering from among blazing trees.
Then without warning it was dark again, and from the skies fell adeluge of rain. In a minute the burning creepers were quenched, and thewhole world was one pit of ink, with the roar as of a thousand torrentsabout our ears. As the vividness of the lightning, so was the weight ofthe rain. Ringan cried to us to stand to our places, for now was thelikely occasion for attack; but no human being could have fought insuch weather. Indeed, we could not hear him, and he had to staggerround and shout his command into each several ear. The might of thedeluge almost pressed me to the earth, I carried Elspeth into herbower, but the roof of branches was speedily beaten down, and it was nobetter than a peat bog.
That overwhelming storm lasted for maybe a quarter of an hour, and thenit stopped as suddenly as it came. Inside the palisade the ground swamlike a loch, and from the hill-side came the rumour of a thousandswollen streams. That, with the heavy drip of laden branches, madesound enough, but after the thunder and the downpour it seemed silenceitself. Presently when I looked up I saw that the black wrack wasclearing from the sky, and through a gap there shone a watery star.
Ringan took stock of our defences, and doled out to each a portion ofsodden meat. Grey had found his breath by this time, and had got aspare musket, for his own had been left in the woods. Elspeth had hadher wits sorely jangled by the storm, and in the revulsion was on thebrink of tears. She was very tender towards Grey's condition, and thesight gave me no jealousy, for in that tense hour all things wereforgotten but life and death. Donaldson, at Ringan's bidding, saw tothe feeding of the horses as if he were in his own stable on theRappahannock. It takes all sorts of men to make a world, but I thoughtat the time that for this business the steel nerves of the Bordererwere worth many quicker brains and more alert spirits.
The hours marched sombrely towards midnight, while we stayed every manby his post. I asked Shalah if the enemy had gone, and he shook hishead. He had the sense of a wild animal to detect danger in the forestwhen the eye and ear gave no proof. He stood like a stag, sniffing thenight air, and peering with his deep eyes into the gloom. Fortunately,though the moon was all but full, the sky was so overcast that only thefaintest yellow glow broke into the darkness of the hill-tops.
It must have been an hour after midnight when we got our next warningof the enemy. Suddenly a firebrand leaped from farther up the hill, andflew in a wide curve into the middle of the stockade. It fell on thepartition between the horses and ourselves and hung crackling there. Ashower of arrows followed it, which missed us, for we were close to theedges of the palisade. But the sputtering torch was a danger, forpresently it would show our position; so Bertrand very gallantly pulledit down, stamped it out, and got back to his post unscathed.
Yet the firebrand had done its work, for it had showed the savageswhere the horses stood picketed. Another followed, lighting in theirvery midst, and setting them plunging at their ropes.
I heard Ringan curse deeply, for we had not thought of this stratagem.And the next second I became aware that there was some one among thehorses. At first I thought that the palisade had been stormed, and thenI heard a soft voice which was no Indian's. Heedless of orders, I flungmyself at the rough gate, and in a trice was beside the voice.
Elspeth was busy among the startled beasts. She had a passion forhorses, and had, as we say, the "cool" hand with them, for she wouldsoothe a frightened stallion by rubbing his nose and whispering in hisear. By the time I got to her she had stamped out the torch, and wasstroking Grey's mare, which was the worst scared. Her own fear hadgone, and in that place of plunging hooves and tossing manes she was ascalm as in a summer garden. "Let me be, Andrew," she said. "I am betterat this business than you."
She had the courage of a lion, but 'twas a wild courage, withoutforesight. Another firebrand came circling through the darkness, andbroke on the head of Donaldson's pony. I caught the girl and swung heroff her feet into safety. And then on the heels of the torch came aflight of arrows, fired from near at hand.
By the mercy of God she was unharmed. I had one through the sleeve ofmy coat, but none reached her. One took a horse in the neck, and thepoor creature screamed pitifully. Presently there was a wild confusionof maddened beasts, with the torch burning on the ground and lightingthe whole place for the enemy. I had Elspeth in my arms, and wascarrying her to the gate, when over the palisade I saw yellow limbs andfierce faces.
They saw it too--Ringan and the rest--and it did not need his cry tokeep our posts to tell us the right course. The inner palisade whichshut off the horses must now be our line of defence, and the poorbeasts must be left to their fate. But Elspeth and I had still to getinside it.
Her ankle had caught in a picket rope, which in another second wouldhave wrenched it cruelly, had I not slashed it free with my knife. Thissent the horse belonging to it in wild career across the corral, and Ithink 'twas that interruption which saved our lives. It held back thesavages for an instant of time, and prevented them blocking our escape.It all took place in the flutter of an eye-lid, though it takes long inthe telling. I pushed Elspeth through the door, and with all mystrength tore at the bars.
But they would not move. Perhaps the rain had swollen the logs, andthey had jammed too tightly to let the bar slide in the groove. So Ifound myself in that gate, the mad horses and the savages before me,and my friends at my back, with only my arm to hold the post.
I had my musket and my two pistols--three shots, for there would be notime to reload. A yellow shadow slipped below a horse's belly, andthere came the cry of an animal's agony. Then another and another, andyet more. But no one came near me in the gateway. I could not seeanything to shoot at--only lithe shades and mottled shadows, for thetorch lay on the wet ground, and was sputtering to its end. The moaningof the horses maddened me, and I sent a bullet through the head of myown poor beast, which was writhing horribly. Elspeth's horse got thecontents of my second pistol.
And then it seemed that the raiders had gone. There was one bit of thefar palisade which was outlined for me dimly against a gap in thetrees. I saw a figure on it, and whipped my musket to my shoulder.Something flung up its arms and toppled back among the dying beasts.
Then a hand--Donaldson's, I think--clutched me and pulled me back. Witha great effort the bars were brought down, and I found myself besideElspeth. All her fortitude had gone now, and she was sobbing like achild.
Gradually the moaning of the horses ceased, and the whole world seemedcold and silent as a
stone. We stood our watch till a wan sunrisestruggled up the hill-side.
