CHAPTER VIII
IN WHICH SIMON GLASS MAKES A VERY STRANGE REMARK
Little wonder that the lad shivered; that cold sweat started on cheeksand brow; that, at first, he knew not whether he was awake or dreaming!For the face in the moonlight was Godfrey Spencer's, and so were thestep and figure as the intruder crept stealthily nearer.
The camp was in deep shadow, and Nathan himself could not be seen. For afew seconds he watched and trembled in mute horror, unable to utter asound. "I am not asleep," he decided, feeling the night breeze on hishot temples. "Am I going mad? That can't be Godfrey. Yes, it is--"
Just then the spell was broken by the snap of a dry twig under thesupposed Godfrey's tread. He slipped to one side of the glade, showing ashort, thick-set man behind him, and both darted back into the shadowas Nathan sprang up with a cry that echoed far through the forest. Atthe same instant the missing sentry scrambled to his feet from the leftof the camp, where he had fallen asleep, and down he went again, almostas quickly, as a musket-shot rang out of the darkness. Barnabas and hiscompanions, now fully roused, ran this way and that in confusion,inquiring the cause of the alarm. "They're gone now," exclaimed Nathan,and he briefly told what he had seen.
There was a rush to the spot where the sentry had fallen. RobertLindsay, who had taken the second watch, lay dead with a bullet throughhis heart. A clay pipe, long since cold, was still clutched between histeeth, and near by a little patch of dry grass and pine-needles wasburnt close to the ground. A shuddering fear fell on the men as theylooked at the body of their comrade and fierce were the threats ofvengeance.
"It's plain as daylight what happened," said the keen-witted Barnabas."The British have a camp over yonder by the bridle-road," pointingnorthward. "They traveled slow yesterday, an' we just about caught upwith 'em at midnight. Then poor Lindsay here lights his pipe for asmoke, and sets fire to the grass. Before he kin outen it the enemy seethe blaze an' come creepin' over. By that time Lindsay had fell asleep,an' small blame to him arter the march we made."
"He was sort of drowsy when I roused him for his turn," said Atwood. "Iwish I'd let him sleep."
"He's sleepin' now," Abel Cutbush answered, softly, "and I reckon righthere will have to be his grave for the present. We couldn't bury him inthis hard ground, even if we had the tools."
"Or the time," said Barnabas, "which we can't spare. He was a bravesoldier an' a true friend, an' I say it who knows. God rest his soul!"
"We'd better be seeking his murderer," grumbled Collum McNicol, and therest approved warmly.
"Have a bit of patience, men," replied Barnabas. "It's no use to pursuenow." Turning to Nathan he added: "The little man was surely SimonGlass, lad. Are you certain about the other?"
"The one in front was Godfrey Spencer," declared Nathan.
"The fellow who looks summat like you?" asked Barnabas. "I seen him atDe Vries's house two years ago, when I brought a letter from yourfather."
"Yes," replied Nathan. "He's a lieutenant in the British army now, and Ibelieve he is attached to Major Langdon's staff."
"Major Langdon?" exclaimed Barnabas. "That's the name of the prisoner Ilost! I wonder if he is with the party."
"Very likely, since Godfrey is here," Nathan suggested.
Barnabas scratched his head thoughtfully for a moment, seeing in thisaffair a relation to certain other things that had puzzled himconsiderably of late.
"I'm forgetting my duty," he said. "It ain't safe to stay here a minutelonger. Forward, now, an' make no noise."
With loaded muskets, the men fell in behind their leader, leaving thebody of poor Lindsay to stiffen on the grass. Barnabas led the partyabout a hundred yards to the northeast and halted them in a cluster ofpine trees.
"You're safe from attack here," he said. "Don't stir till I come back.I'm going forward a bit to reconnoiter."
Several volunteered for this duty, but Barnabas knew that he was bestfitted for it, and he had his way. He crept off as noiselessly as aserpent, and the shadows hid him from view.
Nathan and his companions waited anxiously in the dark cover, not daringto speak above a whisper, and expecting at any moment to hear a shot.Fully half an hour elapsed, and dawn was beginning to break whenBarnabas returned.
"I've been to the enemy's camp," he announced, eagerly. "They're lessthan a mile due north from here, across a creek that flows through adeep an' narrow ravine. An' just on the other side of the creek an' thecamp is the bridle-road. There's a big pine tree fell across the chasm,formin' a natural bridge from bank to bank, an' I crept over that topeek an' listen."
"Are they going to attack us?" asked Reuben Atwood.
"They're thinkin' more of gettin' away," replied Barnabas. "From what Ikin make out they're in a hurry to reach Wyoming, an' they propose tostart as soon as they've had breakfast. They're at the cookin' now, justas though we wasn't in the neighborhood to be reckoned with. The spiesdidn't learn our strength a bit ago, an' that's why they're doubtfulabout attackin'."
"Is Major Langdon there?" inquired Nathan.
"No, lad, he ain't; but unless my ears deceived me, it was him give theparty their orders. I seen young Godfrey Spencer sittin' by the fire.An' Simon Glass was there, as big as life, waitin' for the bullet that'sin my pouch to reach his black heart. There's nine in the party--allBritish cavalrymen, except Glass--but they're wearin' plain clothesinstead of uniforms. The horses are the same way--no brass nor polishedleather fixin's."
"I reckon they want to pass for Americans," said Evan Jones.
"That's just it," assented Barnabas. "An' now look to your flints, men,an' your powder an' ball. I'm going to lead you straight agin' theenemy. We'll shin over the tree, and fall on 'em by surprise. If theyexpect us at all, they're countin' on our comin' round to thebridle-road by the ford, which is five hundred yards further up thecreek."
"We're six to nine, Barnabas," McNicol suggested in a dubious tone.
"We're worth a dozen Britishers, man," stoutly declared Barnabas. "We'llhave the first fire, an' that ought to drop five or six of the enemy.The rest will run--if I knows 'em right--and then we'll grab the horses.It's the horses we want most. They'll take us gallopin' over thebridle-road, and into Wyoming early in the morning."
Barnabas had struck the right chord. The hope of reaching theirimperiled families within a few hours was a stronger inducement to themen than vengeance for poor Lindsay. Without a dissenting voice theyapproved their leader's plan, and examined their loadings and flints.Five minutes later they were following Barnabas in single file throughthe thick wood, now cold and gray in the breaking light of dawn.
Nathan alone was gloomy and sad. At every step he saw before his eyes amental picture that made him shudder. "Godfrey will be there," hereflected. "He may kill me, or I may have to fire at him. Somebody elsewill likely shoot him if I don't. He is a Tory and an enemy, and hebetrayed me that night in Philadelphia; but I can't forget that we wereold friends. I must do my duty, though. And I will do it, come whatmay."
He compressed his lips, and marched on resolutely.
With a warning gesture Barnabas halted; and the men behind him, halfhidden in the laurel scrub, shifted their muskets noiselessly, andpeered past their leader with strained, intent faces.
There was danger in the still air. Tragedy and death brooded over thisdense woody spot in the mountainous solitudes of Pennsylvania. The brinkof the chasm was three yards away--a chasm that dropped seventy feet,between narrow, hollowed-out walls of rock, to the deep and sluggishwaters of the creek. Through the vistas of foliage and timber could beseen the trunk of the fallen pine, with many a bushy offshoot, thatspanned the gorge from bank to bank. But there was no sound of enemy'svoices on the farther side; no evidence of the camp save a curl of graysmoke drifting upward to the blue sky, now rosy-flushed with the firstlight of day.
"Looks like they'd finished their breakfast an' gone," Barnabas said, ina low voice; "but then, ag'in, they may be layin' a trap fur us. Itain't safe ter calkerlate when Sim
on Glass is around."
"We'll do no good tarrying here, man," grumbled McNicol. "Yonder's thetree, and we're ready to follow."
Barnabas thought of poor Lindsay and then of the horses, and suddenlyflung prudence to the winds. "Forward!" he whispered, and startingquickly through the scrub he planted his feet on the fallen pine. Nathanfollowed with a beating heart, and the next man had just stepped outwhen a musket-barrel was poked from the bushes across the chasm.
"Back, men," roared Barnabas. "Get to cover," and as he turned aroundand gained the rear bank by an agile spring, a thunderous report wokethe echoes of the gorge.
Nathan tried to leap also, but it was too late. He saw the flash and thepuff and felt a stinging pain on the right side of his head. All grewdark before him. He tottered, lost his balance, and fell. His hands,clutching at the empty air, caught a projecting limb, and he held to itwith desperate strength. As he hung dangling over the gulf, dizzy andstupefied, he heard a harsh voice above cry out: "You fired too soon,you fool. Let the rebels have it now, men. Blaze away at the bushes."
A straggling discharge of musketry followed the words, and then Nathan'sfingers slipped. He shot downward forty feet to the bushy top of a treethat grew slantwise from the wall of the gorge. This broke the violenceof his fall, but it did not stop him. He bounded from branch to branch,and fell the remaining distance to the creek, plunging head firstbeneath the surface.
The instinct of life was strong within the lad, and his struggles soonbrought him to the surface, choking and gasping. He was too bruised andstunned to swim a fair stroke, but by feeble paddling he managed to keephis head above water.
That was all he thought about in his dazed condition, and without makingan attempt to reach either shore he drifted with the sluggish currentfor twenty yards or so. Then he saw a conical rock close ahead, risingseveral feet out of mid-stream, and by an effort he reached it andclasped both arms around the top.
There he clung for fully five minutes, while strength returned and hismind cleared. He had not heard a sound since he fell, and he wondered ifall his companions were dead. He listened in vain, looking up at thedistant blue vault of the sky. The silence of death rested on wood andstream.
A sharp pain suddenly recalled the fact that he had been shot, and heput one hand to his head in a fever of apprehension. His fingers werered with blood when he looked at them, but his fear was gone. The bullethad merely grazed his brow, leaving a narrow skin wound.
This discovery put new life into Nathan, and he determined to get toshore and search for his friends, if they were still alive. But as hewas about to let go of the rock he heard a noise from the north bank, inwhich direction he was facing. Here the slope was less precipitous thanabove, and was heavily timbered.
Some person was descending toward the stream at a recklessly rapidspeed. Loosened stones rolled down to the water with a splash. Here andthere amid the trees and bushes a dark form showed at intervals. Was itfriend or foe? Nathan asked himself, and all too soon the question wasanswered.
The noise suddenly ceased, and from out the fringe of laurel at the baseof the slope peered a man's face--a hideous countenance with but oneeye, and with skin like wrinkled parchment slashed by a quillful ofpurple ink. It needed not a glimpse of a dingy buckskin jacket with hornbuttons to tell Nathan that this was the terrible Simon Glass.
The face was followed by a long-barrelled musket, but the ruffian didnot at once raise it to his shoulder. He stared keenly at the lad for amoment, and then grinned like a fiend.
"No mistake about it, that's him," he muttered aloud. "Die, you dirtyrebel," he added, levelling the gun and squinting along the tube withhis one eye.
Nathan heard the first words so indistinctly that they caused him nowonder, but the sentence that followed chilled his very blood. He couldneither move nor utter a sound as he faced the death that seemedcertain. A spell was upon him. He was charmed into helplessness by themusket's black mouth--by the ghastly grin on the one-eyed Tory's face.
A few seconds slipped by, and they were like so many minutes to thetortured lad. Then, just as Glass pressed the trigger, a fusillade ofmusketry rang out from some point up the bluff. Bang! went the Tory'sgun, but the surprise of the shooting overhead had fortunately spoilthis aim. The bullet hit the rock within two inches of Nathan's face, anda shower of splintered chips flew around him.
Crack!--crack!--crack!--crack!--crack! The muskets were blazing merrily,and there was a din of yells and cheers. Nathan looked up, and saw twofigures dart across the pine-tree bridge. A third had gained the centrewhen a bullet sent him plunging down to the creek.
The lad let go of the rock, dived, and came to the surface. Over on thebank Simon Glass was reloading. He had driven the powder in, when thefiring suddenly ceased, and now he seemed to hesitate.
"Help! help!" Nathan yelled loudly. There was an answering shout fromthe summit of the gorge, and then a crashing noise. The Tory glancedabove him, tossed his partly loaded musket over his shoulder, and ranswiftly down the edge of the stream. He was soon hidden from sight inthe bushes.
"That you, Nathan?" called a familiar voice. Nathan answered lustily,and a dozen strokes brought him to shore just as Barnabas Otter reachedthe foot of the bluff.
"Thank God! lad," cried the old man. "I gave you up for dead when youfell off the tree."
When Nathan had told his story, Barnabas declared that it would be bothuseless and perilous to pursue Simon Glass. "We'll settle with theruffian another time," he said. "To think of his creepin' down here tomake sure you was dead! But that's jist like him. An' now, if you'reable, we'll be gettin' back to the party."
Nathan was all right except for a slight weakness, and with a littleassistance he made fair progress up the bank. As they climbed, Barnabastold what had happened. "We got under cover too quick for the enemy," heexplained, "an' while they thought we was hiding in the wood we weremaking for the ford on a trot. It was round a bend of the creek, andluckily we got across without bein' seen. Then we circled around to thecamp, and surprised the British from the rear as they were getting tosaddle. We dropped three in their tracks, an' shot another on thebridge, an' the rest cut an' run fur life. It's a pity Simon Glasswasn't there then."
"Any of our men killed?" asked Nathan.
"Evan Jones," Barnabas answered, soberly. "He was shot by a little chapthat fired as he run."
By this time they were at the captured camp, and Nathan was warmlygreeted. He examined the four dead dragoons, but Godfrey was not amongthem.
"What did the man look like who was shot on the tree?" he asked.
"He was my age, and had a heavy mustache," replied Reuben Atwood; andthe lad's mind was relieved.
It was considered expedient to start while the five survivors of theenemy were scattered, and before they could get together. Three horseshad been killed in the assault--they being in direct range--and a fourthwas so badly crippled as to be useless. The five that remained were justenough for the party, now reduced by two.
While the men gathered up what muskets, ammunition, and other stuff hadfallen into their hands, Barnabas dressed Nathan's skin-wound andsqueezed his clothes partly dry. Once in the saddle the lad felt quitehimself again, though he shuddered frequently to think of his narrowescape.
The victory was not without its sting. Poor Lindsay and Jones hadanswered their last summons, and the bodies had to be left where theyhad fallen. Their comrades would gladly have buried them, but duty tothe imperiled settlers at Wyoming forbade a moment's delay.
The sun was just peeping above the horizon when the little band mountedthe captured horses and rode away from the scene of death and bloodshed.For the first two miles they kept close watch as they trotted along thebridle-road, and then, the chance of a surprise being now past, theyurged their steeds to a gallop.
But the country was very rugged, and the road winding, and it wasnecessary to walk or trot the horses much of the way. So it was close tonine o'clock of the morning when the travelers rode out on the e
levatedcrest of the mountainous plateau, and beheld the lovely Wyoming Valleyspread out before them in the soft July sunlight.
Here was the Susquehanna winding in a silver loop from mountain gap tomountain gap. There, a little to the westward, the hamlet ofWilkesbarre nestled at the base of the hills. Farther east the stockadeof Forty Fort rose from the opposite lying bank of the river, and theflag was still fluttering from its staff.
In the Days of Washington: A Story of the American Revolution Page 8
