Salute to Adventurers

by John Buchan

  CHAPTER XXIV.

  I SUFFER THE HEATHEN'S RAGE

  As I stumbled through the moonlit forest I heard Ringan's tunes evercrooning among the trees. First it was the old mad march of "Bundle andgo," which the pipers play when the clans are rising. Then it changedto the lilt of "Colin's Cattle," which is an air that the fairies made,and sung in the ear of a shepherd who fell asleep in one of their holyplaces. And then it lost all mortal form, and became a thing as faintas the wind in the tree-tops or the humming of bees in clover. My wearylegs stepped out to this wizard music, and the spell of it lulled myfevered thoughts into the dull patience of the desperate.

  At an open space where I could see the sky I tried to take furtherbearings. I must move south-east by east, and in time I must come toLawrence. I do not think I had any hope of getting there, for I knewthat long ere this the man who escaped must have returned with others,and that now they would be hot on my trail. What could one lad do in awide woodland against the cunningest trackers on earth? But Ringan hadpraised my courage, and I could not fail him. I should go on till Idied, and I did not think that would be very long. My pistols,re-loaded, pressed against my side, and Ringan's sword swung by mythigh. I was determined to make a good ending, since that was all nowleft to me. In that hour I had forgotten about everything--about theperil of Virginia, even about Elspeth and the others in the fort on thehill-top. There comes a time to every one when the world narrows for himto a strait alley, with Death at the end of it, and all his thoughts arefixed on that waiting enemy of mankind.

  My senses were blunted, and I took no note of the noises of the forest.As I passed down a ravine a stone dropped behind me, but I did notpause to wonder why. A twig crackled on my left, but it did notdisquiet me, and there was a rustling in the thicket which was not thebreeze. I marked nothing, as I plodded on with vacant mind and eye. Sowhen I tripped on a vine and fell, I was scarcely surprised when Ifound I could not rise. Men had sprung up silently around me, and I waspinned by many hands.

  They trussed me with ropes, binding my hands cruelly behind my back,and swathing my legs till not a muscle could move. My pistols hungidle, and the ropes drove the hafts into my flesh. This is the end,thought I, and I did not even grieve at my impotence. My courage nowwas of the passive kind, not to act but to endure. Always I kepttelling myself that I must be brave, for Ringan had praised my courage,and I had a conviction that nothing that man could do would shake me.Thanks be to God, my quick fancy was dulled, and I did not try to lookinto the future. I lived for the moment, and I was resolved that themoment should find me unmoved.

  They carried me to where their horses were tied up in a glade, andpresently we were galloping towards the hills, myself an inert bundlestrapped across an Indian saddle. The pain of the motion was great, butI had a kind of grim comfort in bearing it. After a time I think mysenses left me, and I slipped into a stupor, from which I woke with afiery ache at every joint and eyes distended with a blinding heat. Someone tossed me on the ground, where I lay with my cheek in a cool, wetpatch of earth. Then I felt my bonds being unloosed, and a strong armpulled me to my feet. When it let go I dropped again, and not till manyhands had raised me and set me on a log could I look round at mywhereabouts.

  I was in a crook of a hill glen, lit with a great radiance ofmoonlight. Fires dotted the flat, and Indian tents, and there seemed tome hundreds of savages crowding in on me. I do not suppose that Ishowed any fear, for my bodily weakness had made me as impassive as anyIndian.

  Presently a voice spoke to me, but I could not understand the words. Ishook my head feebly, and another spoke. This time I knew that thetongue was Cherokee, a speech I could recognize but could not follow.Again I shook my head, and a third took up the parable. This one spokethe Powhatan language, which I knew, and I replied in the same tongue.

  There was a tall man wearing in his hair a single great feather, whom Itook to be the chief. He spoke to me through the interpreter, and askedme whence I came.

  I told him I was a hunter who had strayed in the hills. He asked wherethe other was.

  "He is dead," I said, "dead of your knives. But five of your bravesatoned for him."

  "You speak truth," he said gravely. "But the Children of the West Winddo not suffer the death of, their sons to go unrewarded. For each oneof the five, three Palefaces shall eat the dust in the day of ourtriumph."

  "Be it so," said I stoutly, though I felt a dreadful nausea coming overme. I was determined to keep my head high, if only my frail body wouldnot fail me.

  "The Sons of the West Wind," he spoke again, "have need of warriors.You can atone for the slaughter you have caused, and the blood feudwill be forgotten. In the space of five suns we shall sweep thePalefaces into the sea, and rule all the land to the Eastern waters. Mybrother is a man of his hands, and valour is dear to the heart ofOnotawah. If he casts in his lot with the Children of the West Wind awigwam shall be his, and a daughter of our race to wife, and six of ouryoung men shall follow his commands. Will my brother march with usagainst those whom God has delivered to us for our prey?"

  "Does the eagle make terms with the kite?" I asked, "and fly with themto raid his own eyrie? Yes, I will join with you, and march with youtill I have delivered you to, perhaps, a score of the warriors of myown people. Then I will aid them in making carrion of you."

  Heaven knows what wrought on me to speak like this, I, a poor, brokenfellow, face to face with a hundred men-at-arms. I think my mind hadforsaken me altogether, and I spoke like a drunken man with a tonguenot my own. I had only the one idea in my foolish head--to be true toRingan, and to meet the death of which I was assured with anunflinching face. Yet perhaps my very madness was the course ofdiscretion. You cannot move an Indian by pity, and he will show mercyonly to one who, like a gamecock, asks nothing less.

  The chief heard me gravely, and spoke to the others. One cried outsomething in a savage voice, and for a moment a fierce argument wasraised, which the chief settled with uplifted hand.

  "My brother speaks bold words," he said. "The spirits of his fatherscry out for the companionship of such a hero. When the wrongs of ourrace have been avenged, I wish him good hunting in the Kingdom of theSunset."

  They took me and stripped me mother naked. Has any man who reads thistale ever faced an enemy in his bare feet? If so, he will know that theheart of man is more in his boots than philosophers wot of. Withoutthem he feels lost and unprepared, and the edge gone from his spirit.But without his clothes he is in a far worse case. The winds of heavenplay round his nakedness; every thorn and twig is his assailant, andthe whole of him seems a mark for the arrows of his foes. Thatstripping was the thing that brought me to my senses. I recognized thatI was to be the subject of those hellish tortures which the Indiansuse, the tales of which are on every Borderer's lips.

  And yet I did not recognize it fully, or my courage must have left methen and there. My imagination was still limping, and I foresaw only adeath of pain, not the horrid incidents of its preparation. Death Icould face, and I summoned up every shred of my courage. Ringan's voicewas still in my ear, his airy songs still sang themselves in my brain.I would not shame him, but oh! how I envied him lying, all troublespast, in his quiet grave!

  The night was mild, and the yellow radiance of the moon seemed almostwarmth-giving. I sat on that log in a sort of stupor, watching myenemies preparing my entertainment. One thing I noted, that there wereno women in the camp. I remembered that I had heard that the mostdevilish tortures were those which the squaws devised, and that theIndian men were apt to be quicker and more merciful in theirmurderings.

  Then I was lifted up and carried to a flat space beside the stream,where the trunk of a young pine had been set upright in the ground. Aman, waving a knife, and singing a wild song, danced towards me. Heseized me by the hair, and I actually rejoiced, for I knew that thepain of scalping would make me oblivious of all else. But he only drewthe sharp point of the knife in a circle round my head, scarce breakingthe skin.

  I had gra
ce given me to keep a stout face, mainly because I wasrelieved that this was to be my fate. He put the knife back in hisgirdle, and others laid hold on me.

  They smeared my lower limbs with some kind of grease which smelt ofresin. One savage who had picked up a brand from one of the littlefires dropped some of the stuff on it, and it crackled merrily. Hegrinned at me--a slow, diabolical grin.

  They lashed me to the stake with ropes of green vine. Then they pileddry hay a foot deep around me, and laid above it wood and greenbranches. To make the fuel still greener, they poured water on it. Atthe moment I did not see the object of these preparations, but now Ican understand it. The dry hay would serve to burn my legs, which hadalready been anointed with the inflammable grease. So I should suffer agradual torture, for it would be long ere the flames reached a vitalpart. I think they erred, for they assumed that I had the body of anIndian, which does not perish till a blow is struck at its heart;whereas I am confident that any white man would be dead of the anguishlong ere the fire had passed beyond his knees.

  I think that was the most awful moment of my life. Indeed I could nothave endured it had not my mind been drugged and my body stupid withfatigue. Men have often asked me what were my thoughts in that hour,while the faggots were laid about my feet. I cannot tell, for I have novery clear memory. The Power which does not break the bruised reedtempered the storm to my frailty. I could not envisage the future, andso was mercifully enabled to look only to the moment. I knew that painwas coming; but I was already in pain, and the sick man does nottrouble himself about degrees of suffering. Death, too, was coming; butfor that I had been long ready. The hardest thing that man can do is toendure, but this was to me no passive endurance; it was an activestruggle to show a fortitude worthy of the gallant dead.

  So I must suppose that I hung there in my bonds with a motionless faceand a mouth which gave out no cry. They brought the faggots, and pouredon water, and I did not look their way. Some score of braves began awar dance, circling round me, waving their tomahawks, and singing theirwild chants. For me they did not break the moonlit silence, I washearing other sounds and seeing far other sights. An old sad song ofRingan's was in my ears, something about an exile who cried out inFrance for the red heather and the salt winds of the Isles.

  "_Nevermore the deep fern_," it ran, "_or the bell of the dun deer, farmy castle is wind-blown sands, and my homelands are a stranger's."_

  And the air brought back in a flash my own little house on the greyhill-sides of Douglasdale, the cluck of hens about the doors on a hotsummer morn, the crying of plovers in the windy Aprils, the smell ofpeatsmoke when the snow drifted over Cairntable. Home-sickness hasnever been my failing, but all at once I had a vision of my own land,the cradle of my race, well-beloved and unforgotten over the leagues ofsea. Somehow the thought strengthened me. I had now something besidesthe thought of Ringan to keep my heart firm. If all hell laid hold onme, I must stand fast for the honour of my own folk.

  The edge of the pile was lit, and the flames crackled through the haybelow the faggots. The smoke rose in clouds, and made me sneeze.Suddenly there came a desperate tickling in my scalp where the knifehad pricked. Little things began to tease me, notably the ache of myswollen wrists, and the intolerable cramp in my legs.

  Then came a sharp burst of pain as a tongue of flame licked on myanointed ankles. Anguish like hell-fire ran through my frame. I think Iwould have cried out if my tongue had had the power. Suddenly Ienvisaged the dreadful death which was coming. All was wiped from mymind, all thought of Ringan, and home, and honour; everything but thisawful fear. Happily the smoke hid my face, which must have beendistraught with panic. The seconds seemed endless. I prayed thatunconsciousness would come. I prayed for death, I prayed for respite. Iwas mad with the furious madness of a tortured animal, and the immortalsoul had fled from me and left only a husk of pitiful and shrinkingflesh.

  Suddenly there came a lull. A dozen buckets of water were flung on thepile, and the flames fell to smouldering ashes. The smoke thinned, andI saw the circle of my tormentors.

  The chief spoke, and asked me if my purpose still held.

  With the cool shock of the water one moment of bodily comfort returnedto me, and with it a faint revival of my spirit. But it was of no setintention that I answered as I did. My bones were molten with fright,and I had not one ounce of bravery in me. Something not myself tookhold on me, and spoke for me. Ringan's tunes, a brisk one this time,lilted in my ear.

  I could not believe my own voice. But I rejoice to say that my replywas to consign every Indian in America to the devil.

  I shook with fear when I had spoken. I looked to see them bring dryfuel and light the pile again. But I had played a wiser part than Iknew. The chief gave an order, the faggots were cleared, my bonds werecut, and I was led away from the stake.

  The pain of my cramped and scorched limbs was horrible, but I had justenough sense left to shut my teeth and make no sound.

  The chief looked at me long and calmly as I drooped before him, forthere was no power in my legs. He was an eagle-faced savage, with themost grave and searching eyes.

  "Sleep, brother," he said. "At dawn we will take further counsel."

  I forced some kind of lightness into my voice, "Sleep will begrateful," I said, "for I have come many miles this day, and thewelcome I have got this evening has been too warm for a weary man."

  The Indian nodded. The jest was after his own taste.

  I was carried to a teepee and shown a couch of dry fern. A young manrubbed some oil on my scorched legs, which relieved the pain of them.But no pain on earth could have kept me awake. I did not glide butpitched headforemost into sleep.