The Story of Old Fort Loudon Read online

  CHAPTER X

  Demere was not a man to consider an omen and attach weight to triflingchances, yet he was in some sort prepared for disaster. Within the halla pair of candles stood on the table where it was the habit to transactofficial business,--to write letters; to construct maps of the countryfrom the resources of the information of the officers and thedescriptions of the Indians; to make out reports and the accounts of thepost. Writing materials were kept in readiness here for thesepurposes--a due array of quills, paper, inkhorn, wafers, sealing-wax,sand-box, and lights. As the door was opened the candles flickered inthe sudden draught, bowed to the wicks grown long and unsnuffed, and inanother moment were extinguished, leaving the place in total darkness,with the papers on which hung such weighty interests of life and death,of rescue or despair, unread in his hand.

  "The tinder-box--the flint--where are they? Cannot you strike a spark?"he demanded, in agitated suspense, of Stuart, who made more than onefruitless effort before the timorous flame was started anew on the oldand drooping wicks, which had to be smartly snuffed before they wouldafford sufficient light to discern the hasty characters, that looked asif they might have been written on a drumhead--as in fact they were.

  "Here--read them, John--I can't," said Demere, handing the package toStuart, and throwing himself into a chair to listen.

  Although the suspense had been of the kind that does not usually heraldsurcease of anxiety, he was not prepared for the face of consternationwith which Stuart silently perused the scrawled lines.

  "From Montgomery!" he exclaimed. "But our dispatches evidently havenever reached him."

  For in the bold strain of triumph Colonel Montgomery acquainted thecommandant of Fort Loudon with the successful issue of his campaign,having lost only four men, although he had burned a number of Indiantowns, destroyed incalculable quantities of provisions, killed andwounded many braves, and was carrying with him a train of prisoners,men, women, and children. He was now on the march to the relief of FortPrince George, which the savages had invested, where the garrison was inmuch distress, not for the want of provisions but for fuel to cook food,since the enemy was in such force that no sortie could be made to thewoods to procure a supply. Two of his prisoners he had set at liberty,Fiftoe, and the old warrior of Estatoe, that they might acquaint thenation of his further intentions, for, if the Indians did notimmediately sue for peace and deliver up the principal transgressors tojustice, he would sally forth from Fort Prince George on another foray,and he would not hold his hand till he had burned every Cherokee town ofthe whole nation. He deputed Captain Stuart and Captain Demere to offerthese terms to the Upper towns, and let them know that they wereadmitted to this clemency solely in consideration of the regard of thegovernment for Atta-Kulla-Kulla. This chieftain, the half-king of theCherokee tribe, had deprecated, it was understood, the renewal of thewar, since he had signed the last treaty at the Congarees, and havingshown himself friendly on several occasions to the British people hismajesty's government esteemed him as he deserved.

  The two officers gazed silently at one another. Montgomery was obviouslyentirely unaware of their situation. Here they were, penned up in thisrestricted compass, besieged by an enemy so furious that even a hatshowing but for one moment above the palisades,--for the soldiers hadtried the experiment of poising an old busby on the point of abayonet,--would be riddled in an instant. Often a well-directed bulletwould enter the small loop-holes for musketry, and thus, firing fromambush, endanger the sentinel as he stood within the strong defenses.More than once arrows, freighted with inflammable substances, allablaze, had been shot into the fort with the effort to fire the houses;it was dry weather mostly, with a prospect of a long drought, and theflames thus started threatened a conflagration, and required theexertions of the entire garrison to extinguish them. This proclivitynecessitated eternal vigilance. Ever and anon it was requisite that thecannon should renew their strong, surly note of menace, and again sendthe balls crashing through the forest, and about the ears of thepersistent besiegers. Only the strength of the primitive work saved thegarrison from instant massacre, with the women and children and thesettlers who had sought safety behind those sturdy ramparts. Of theultimate danger of starvation the officers did not dare to think. Andfrom this situation to be summoned to send forth threats of sword andfire, and to offer arrogant terms of peace, and to demand the surrender,to the justice of the gibbet, of the principal transgressors in theviolation of the treaty!

  There were no words that could express what they felt. They could onlylook at one another, each conscious of the other's sympathy, and saynothing.

  Outside, Odalie, Belinda, and Ensign Whitson were singing a trio, theparts somewhat at haphazard, the fugue-like effects coming in like thecadences of the wind, now high, now low, and in varying strength. Thestars still glittered down into the parade; the moon cast a gentleshadow along the palisades; the sentries in the block-house towers, thegunners lying flat beneath their great cannon, feeling the dew on theirfaces, looking toward the moon, the guard ready to turn out at theword,--all listened languorously, and drank in the sweets of the summernight with the music. A scene almost peaceful, despite the guardedwalls, and the savage hordes outside, balked, and furious, and thirstingfor blood.

  "Let us see the express, Paul," said Stuart at last.

  The express had repeatedly served as a means of communication betweenFort Loudon and Fort Prince George, and as he came in he cautiouslyclosed the door. He was a man of war, himself, in some sort, and wasaware that a garrison is hardly to be included in the conference betweencommanders of a frontier force and their chosen emissary. With theinside of his packet his brain was presumed to have no concern, but insuch a time and such a country his eyes and ears, on his missions to andfro, did such stalwart service in the interests of his own safety thathe was often able to give the officers at the end of his route far moreimportant news, the fruits of his observation, than his dispatches werelikely to unfold. He was of stalwart build, and clad in the fringedbuckskin shirt and leggings of the hunter, and holding his coonskin capin his hand. He had saluted after the military fashion, and hadevidently been enough the inmate of frontier posts to have some regardfor military rank. He waited, despite his look of having much of momentto communicate, until the question had been casually propounded byStuart: "Well, what can you tell us of the state of the country?" thenin disconnected sentences the details came in torrents.

  Montgomery's campaign had been something unheard of. His "feet werewinged with fire and destruction,"--that was what Oconostota said. Oh,yes, the express had seen Oconostota. But for Oconostota he could nothave made Fort Loudon. He had let him come with the two warriors, setfree by Montgomery to suggest terms of peace and spread the news of thedevastation, as a safe-guard against any straggling white people theymight chance to meet, and in return they afforded him safe-conduct fromthe Cherokees. The devastation was beyond belief,--dead and dyingIndians lying all around the lower country, and many were burned alivein their houses when the towns were fired. Many were now pitifullydestitute. As the fugitives stood on the summits of distant hills andwatched their blazing homes and great granaries of corn--"I could but besorry for them a little," declared Major Grant of Montgomery's command.

  But the result was not to be what Montgomery hoped. The Cherokees werearming anew everywhere. They would fight now to the death, toextermination,--even Atta-Kulla-Kulla, who had been opposed to breakingthe treaty. Oh, yes, he had seen Atta-Kulla-Kulla. The chief said hewould not strike a blow with a feather to break a treaty and his solemnword. But to avenge the blood of his kindred that cried out from theground he would give his life, if he had as many years to live as therewere hairs on his head! The express added that Atta-Kulla-Kulla had beensitting on the ground in his old blanket, with ashes on his head, afterthe council agreed to break the treaty. But now he was going round withhis scalp-lock dressed out with fresh eagle-feathers, and armed with hisgun, and tomahawk, and scalp-knife, and wearing his finest gear, andwith
all his war-paint on--one side of his face red, and the otherblack, with big white circles around his eyes,--"looks mighty keen," theman exclaimed with a sort of relish of the fine barbaric effect of thefighting trim of the great warrior.

  Then his face fell.

  "And I told Oconostota that I would not deliver his message to you,Captain Stuart and Captain Demere, sir," he hesitated; "it was not fitfor your worshipful presence; and he said that the deed might go beforethe word, then."

  "What message did he send?" asked Demere, with flashing eyes.

  "Well, sir, he said Fort Loudon was theirs,--that it was built for theCherokees, and they had paid the English nation for it in the blood theyhad shed in helping the Virginians defend their frontier against theFrench and their Indian allies. But you English had possessed the fort;you had claimed it; and now he would say that it was yours,--yours to beburnt in,--to be starved in,--to die in,--to leave your bones in, tillthey are thrust forth by the rightful owner to be gnawed by the wolf ofthe wilderness."

  There was a momentary silence.

  "Vastly polite!" exclaimed Captain Stuart, with a rollicking laugh.

  "Lord, sir," said the man, as if the sound grated upon him, "they are adreadful people. I wouldn't go through again what I have had to risk toget here for--any money! It has been full three weeks since I leftOconostota's camp. He is with the Lower towns--him and Atta-Kulla-Kulla,but Willinawaugh is the head-man of the force out here. They seemed tothink I was spying,--but they have got so many men that I just doubtsbut what they want you should know their strength."

  "You will go back to Colonel Montgomery at Fort Prince George withdispatches?" said Demere.

  The man's expression hardened. "Captain Demere," he said, "and CaptainStuart, sir, I have served you long and faithful. You know I bean't nocoward. But it is certain death for me to go out of that sally-port. Icouldn't have got in except for that message from Oconostota. He wantedyou to hear that. I believe 'Old Hop' thinks Willinawaugh can terrifyyou out of this place if they can't carry it by storm. I misdoubts butthey expects Frenchmen to join them. They talk so sweet on the French!Every other word is Louis Latinac! That French officer has made thembelieve that the English intend to exterminate the Cherokees from offthe face of the earth."

  He paused a moment in rising discontent,--to have done so much, yetrefuse aught! "I wouldn't have undertook to bring that message fromOconostota except I thought it was important for you to have yourdispatches; it ain't my fault if they ain't satisfactory." He cast aglance of the keenest curiosity at the papers, and Captain Stuart,lazily filling his pipe, took one of the candles in his hand and kindledthe tobacco at the blaze.

  "Nothing is satisfactory that is one-sided," he said easily. "We don'twant Colonel Montgomery to do all the talking, and to have to receivehis letters as orders. We propose to say a word ourselves."

  A gleam of intelligence was in the scout's eyes. It was a time whenthere was much professional jealousy rife in the various branches of theservice, and he had been cleverly induced to fancy that here was a casein point. These men had a command altogether independent of ColonelMontgomery, it was true, but he was of so much higher rank thatdoubtless this galled them, and rendered them prone to assert their ownposition. He bent his energies now, however, to a question touching hispay, and answering a seemingly casual inquiry relative to the fact thathe had heard naught of Gilfillan and the other express, was dismissedwithout being subjected to greater urgency.

  The two maintained silence for a time, the coal dying in CaptainStuart's pipe as he absently contemplated the fireless chimney-placefilled now with boughs of green pine.

  Demere spoke first. "If we can get no communication with ColonelMontgomery it means certain death to all the garrison."

  "Sooner or later," assented Stuart.

  The problem stayed with them all that night. They were forced tomaintain a cheerful casual guise in the presence of their little public,and the appearance of the express put great heart into the soldiery. Thefact that the commandant was in the immediate receipt of advices fromColonel Montgomery and his victorious army seemed itself a pledge ofsafety. The express was turned loose among them to rehearse the exploitsof Montgomery's troops,--the splendid forced marches they made; theexecution of their marksmanship; the terror that the Cherokeesmanifested of their sputtering grenades, hurled exploding into theambuscades by the stalwart grenadiers at the word,--"Fall on"; theinterest of the Indians in the sound of the bagpipes and in the nationaldress, the plaid and philibeg, of the Highlanders, which, although nowgenerally proscribed by law, was continued as a privilege granted tothose enlisted in regiments in the British army. He told of the delightof the Highlanders in the sight of the Great Smoky Mountains, how theyrejoiced to climb the crags and steep ravines even of the foothills. Herepeated jokes and gibes of the camp outside Fort Prince George, forMontgomery had overtaken him and raised the siege before he reached thefort, so difficult was the slow progress of the express among theinimical Cherokees. He detailed Colonel Montgomery's relish of the sightof a piece of field artillery which Ensign Milne showed him; thatofficer had mounted it one day before the siege when he was with adetail that he had ordered into the woods to get fuel for the post, anda band of Cherokees had descended upon him,--"a Quaker," he called it;you might have heard Colonel Montgomery laugh two hundred miles to FortLoudon, for of course it wouldn't fight,--a very powerful Friend,indeed,--only a black log mounted between two wheels, which the soldiershad been in the habit of using to ease up the loads of wood. But theIndians were deceived, and with their terror of artillery got out ofrange in short order, and the soldiers made their way back into the fortunder the protection of their "little Quaker."

  When the barracks were lost in slumber, and the parade was deserted butfor the moon, and the soft wind, and the echo of the tramp of thesentry, Captain Stuart went over to Captain Demere's house, and thereuntil late the two discussed the practicabilities, that each, like ablind trail, promised thoroughfare and led but to confusion. Theofficers did not dare to call for volunteers to carry dispatches toMontgomery, in the face of the fact that the express just arrived couldnot be prevailed on to return. Without, moreover, some assurance of thesafety of the messengers previously sent out, no man would now solightly venture his life as to seek to slip through the vigilant savagehordes. To explain the terrors of the crisis to the garrison would beto have the ferocious Cherokees without, and panic, mutiny, and violencewithin. Yet a man must go; a man who would return; a man who would risktorture and death twice. "For we must have some assurance of thedelivery of our dispatches," Stuart argued. "I am anxious as to thehoming qualities of our dove that we are about to send out of this arkof ours," he said, as he lay stretched out at full length on the buffalorug on the floor, in the moonlight that fell so peacefully in at thewindow of his friend's bedroom. Demere was recumbent on his narrowcamp-bed, so still, so silent, that more than once Stuart asked him ifhe slept.

  "How can I sleep,--with this sense of responsibility?" Demere returned,reproachfully.

  But Stuart slept presently, waking once to reply to Demere's remark thata married man would have the homing quality desired, the fort holdinghis family; Stuart declared that no one would be willing to leave wifeand children to such protection as other men might have presence of mindto give them in a desperate crisis. The mere communication might createa panic.

  "Of all things," said Stuart, as he lay at his stalwart length, hislong, fair hair blowsing in the wind over the rug, "I am most afraid offear."

  When Demere presently asked him if he were quite comfortable down there,his unceremonious presence placing him somewhat in the position ofguest, his silence answered for him, and he did not again speak or stiruntil the drums were sounding without and the troops were falling inline for roll-call.

  Neither gave sign of their vigil; they both were exceedingly spruce, andfresh, and well set up, to sustain the covert scrutiny of the garrison,who regarded them as a sort of moral barometer of the situation,
andsought to discern in their appearance the tenor of Montgomery's officialdispatches.

  That morning, when Stuart went with his spy-glass to reconnoiter fromthe tower of one of the block-houses, he noted, always keenly observant,a trifle of confusion, as he entered, in the manner of thesentinel,--the smart, fair-haired, freckled-faced young soldier whoseservices were sometimes used as orderly, and whose name was Daniel Eske.The boy immediately sought to appear unconcerned. The officer asked noquestion. He raised the glass to his eye and in one moment discerned,amongst the laurel jungles close to the river, an Indian, a young girl,who suddenly lifted her arm and gracefully waved her hand toward thebastion. Stuart lowered the glass and gravely looked a grim inquiry atthe young soldier.

  Daniel Eske answered precipitately: "For God's sake, sir, don't let thisgo against me. I'm not holding any communication with the enemy,--thered devils. That baggage, sir, has been twice a-waving her hand to mewhen I have been on guard here. I never took no notice, so help meGod,--Captain,--I--"

  The distance being minimized by the lens, Stuart could discern all thecoquettish details of the apparition; the garb of white dressed doeskin--a fabric as soft and flexible, the writers of that day tell us, as"velvet cloth"--the fringed borders of which were hung with shells andbits of tinkling metal; the hair, duly anointed, black and lustrous,dressed high on the head and decorated with small wings of the red bird;many strings of red beads dangled about the neck, and the moccasons werethose so highly valued by the Indians, painted an indelible red. With adefinite realization of the menace of treachery in her presence,Stuart's face was stern indeed as he looked at her. All at once hisexpression changed.

  "Do as I bid you," he said to the sentry, suddenly remembering"Wing-of-the-Flying-Whip-poor-will," and her talk of the handsome youngorderly with his gold hair and freckles, and his gossip touching theScotchman's beautiful French wife, whom she regarded merely as acaptive. "Wait till she waves again. But no,--she is going,--showyourself at the window,--must risk a shot now and then."

  The loop-hole here attained the size of a small window, being commandedonly by the river, which would expose any marksman to a direct returnfire.

  "Now, she sees you," exclaimed Stuart, as the young fellow's faceappeared in the aperture, gruff, sheepish, consciously punished andridiculous,--how could he dream of Stuart's scheme! "Take off your hat.Wave it to her. Wave it with a will, man! There,--she responds. Thatwill do." Then, with a change of tone, "I advise you, for your own good,to stay away from that window, for if any man in this garrison isdetected in engaging in sign language with the enemy he will certainlybe court-martialed and shot."

  "Captain," protested the boy, with tears in his eyes, "I'd as lieve beshot now, sir, as to have you think I would hold any communication withthe enemy,--the warriors. As to that girl,--the forward hussy came thereherself. I took no notice of her waving her hand. I'd--"

  But Captain Stuart was half down the ladder, and, despite young Eske'sred coat, and the fact that he smelled powder with more satisfactionthan perfume, and could hear bullets whizzing about his head withoutdodging, and had made forced marches without flinching, when he couldscarce bear his sore feet to the ground, the tears in his eyesoverflowed upon the admired freckles on his cheek, and he shed them forthe imputation of Captain Stuart's warning as to communicating with theenemy.

  That officer had forgotten him utterly, except as a factor in his plan.He sat so jocund and cheerful beside the table in the great hall thatOdalie, summoned thither, looked at him in surprise, thinking he musthave received some good news,--a theory corrected in another moment bythe downcast, remonstrant, doubtful expression on Demere's face. He roseto offer her a chair, and Stuart, closing the door behind her, repliedto something he had already said:--

  "At all events it is perfectly safe to lay the matter before Mrs.MacLeod."

  To this Demere responded disaffectedly, "Oh, certainly, beyond a doubt."

  "Mrs. MacLeod," said Stuart deliberately, and growing very grave, as hesat opposite to her with one hand on the table, "we are trusting verydeeply to your courage and discretion when I tell you that our situationhere is very dangerous, and the prospect nearly desperate."

  She looked at him silently in startled dismay. She thought of her own,of all that she loved. And for a moment her heart stood still.

  "You know that all received methods, all military usages, fail asapplied to Indian warfare. You can be of the greatest service to us inthis emergency. Will you volunteer?" There was a little smile at thecorner of Stuart's lip as he looked at her steadily.

  "No, no, I protest," cried Demere. "Tell her first what she is to do."

  "No," said Stuart, "when you agreed to the plan you expressly stipulatedthat you were to have no responsibility. Now if Mrs. MacLeod volunteersit is as a soldier and unquestioningly under orders."

  "It is sudden," hesitated Odalie. "May I tell my husband?"

  "Would he allow you to risk yourself?" asked Stuart. "And yet it is foryourself, your husband, your child, the garrison,--to save all ourlives, God willing."

  Odalie's color rose, her eyes grew bright. "I know I can trust you tomake the risk as slight as it may be,--to place me in no useless danger.I volunteer."

  The two men looked at her for one moment, their hearts in their eyes.

  Then Captain Stuart broke out with his reassuring raillery. "I alwaysknew it,--such a proclivity for the military life! In the king's serviceat last."

  Odalie laughed, but Captain Demere could not compass a smile.

  Stuart's next question she thought a bit of his fun. "Have you here," hesaid, with deep gravity, "some stout gown, fashioned with plaits andfullness in the skirt, and a cape or fichu,--is that what you callit,--about the shoulders? And, yes,--that large red hood, calash, thatyou wore the first day you arrived at the fort,"--his ready smileflickered,--"on an understanding so little pleasing to your taste. Goget them on, and meet me at the northwestern bastion."

  The young soldier, Daniel Eske, still standing guard in the block-housetower, looked out on a scene without incident. The river shone in theclear June daylight; the woods were dark, and fresh with dew and deeplygreen, and so dense that they showed no token of broken boughs and rivenhole, results of the cannonade they had sustained, which still served tokeep at a distance, beyond the range of the guns, the beleagueringcordon of savages, and thus prevent surprise or storm. Neverthelessthere were occasional lurking Indians, spies, or stragglers from themain line, amongst the dense boughs of the blooming rhododendron; he sawfrom time to time skulking painted faces and feathers fluttering fromlordly scalp-locks, which rendered so much the more serious and probablethe imputation of communicating with the enemy that the presence andgestures of Choo-qualee-qualoo, still lingering there, had contrived tothrow upon him. Her folly might have cost him his life. He might havebeen sentenced to be shot by his own comrades, discovered to be holdingcommunication with the enemy, and that enemy the Cherokees,--good sooth!

  Suddenly rampant in his mind was a wild strange suspicion of treachery.His abrupt cry, "Halt, or I fire!" rang sharply on the air, and hismusket was thrust through the window, aiming in intimidation downalongside the parapet, where upon the exterior slope of the rampart thebeautiful Carolina girl, the French wife of the Scotch settler, hadcontrived to creep through the embrasure below the muzzle of the cannon,for the ground had sunk a trifle there with the weight of the piece orthrough some defect of the gabions that helped build up the "cheek," andshe now stood at full height on the berm, above the red clay slope ofthe scarp, signing to Choo-qualee-qualoo with one hand, and with theother motioning toward the muzzle of his firelock, mutely imploring himto desist.

  How did she dare! The light tint of her gray gown rendered her distinctagainst the deep rich color of the red clay slope; her calash, of adifferent, denser red, was a mark for a rifle that clear day a long wayoff. He was acutely conscious of those skulking braves in the woods,all mute and motionless now, watching with keen eyes the altercationwith the s
entry, and he shuddered at her possible fate, even while, withan unrealized mental process, doubts arose of her loyalty to theinterests of the garrison, which her French extraction aided herstrange, suspicious demonstration to foster. He flushed with a violentrush of resentment when he became aware that Choo-qualee-qualoo wassigning to him also, with entreating gestures, and so keen-eyed had theIndian warfare rendered him that he perceived that she was prompted tothis action by a brave,--he half fancied him Willinawaugh,--who knelt inthe pawpaw bushes a short distance from the Cherokee girl and spoke toher ever and anon.

  "One step further and I fire!" he called out to Odalie, flinchingnevertheless, as he looked down into her clear, hazel, upturned eyes.Then overwhelmed by a sense of responsibility he raised the weapon tofire into the air and lifted the first note of a wild hoarse cry for"Corporal of the guard,"--and suddenly heard O'Flynn's voice behindhim:--

  "Shet up, ye blethering bull-calf! The leddy's actin' under orders."

  And not only was O'Flynn behind him but Stuart.

  "Sign to Mrs. MacLeod that she may go," said that officer, "but not forlong. Shake your head,--seem doubtful. Then take your hat and wave itto the Cherokee wench, as if you relent for her sake!"

  "Oh, sir,--I can't," exclaimed the young soldier even while he obeyed,expressing the revolt in his mind against the action of his muscles.

  "It's mighty hard to kape the girls away from ye, but we will lend ye astick nex' time," said Corporal O'Flynn, in scornful ridicule of hisreluctance, not aware of the imputation of colloguing with the enemy towhich the long-range flirtation with Choo-qualee-qualoo had seemed toexpose him in Captain Stuart's mind.

  Captain Stuart had placed in a loop-hole the muzzle of a firelock, whichhe sighted himself. O'Flynn leveled another, both men being of courseinvisible from without; as the young sentinel obeyed the order to openlylounge in the window and look toward Choo-qualee-qualoo he could seewithin the parapet that the gunners of the battery were standing totheir shotted pieces, Captain Demere, himself, in command. With thisprovision against capture, or for revenge, one might fear, rather thanprotection, Odalie took her way down the steep slope amongst theimpeding stakes of the fraises, thickly sown, and looking, it mightseem, like dragons' teeth in process of sprouting. More than once shepaused and glanced up at the sentinel leaning in the window with hisfirelock and entreated by signs his forbearance, which he seemed toaccord qualified, doubtful, and limited. She soon crossed the ditch, theglacis, so swift she was, so sure and free of step, and paused in theopen space beyond; then Choo-qualee-qualoo, too, began to advance.Better protected was the Cherokee girl, for she carried in her hand, andnow and again waved, laughingly, as if for jest, a white flag, a lengthof fluttering cambric and lace.

  "By the howly poker!" exclaimed Corporal O'Flynn, beneath his breath,"that is the cravat of a man of quality,--some British officer of rank,belike."

  He glanced with anxiety at Captain Stuart, whose every faculty seemedconcentrated on the matter in hand.

  "The Cherokees know that a white flag is a sign which we respect, andthat that squaw is as safe with it as if she were the commandant of thepost. I only wish Mrs. MacLeod could have a like security." Thisaspiration had the effect of fastening O'Flynn's eye and mind to thesighting of his firelock and obliterating his speculations concerningthe cravat as spoil stripped from some slain officer of rank.

  The two women met in the open space, with the rifles of how manykeen-sighted, capricious savages leveled toward the spot Demere hardlydared to think, as he watched Odalie in a sort of agony of terror thathe might have felt had she been a cherished sister. They stood talkingfor a time in the attitudes and the manner of their age, which was nearthe same, swinging a little apart now and then, and coming together withsuddenly renewed interest, and again, with free, casual gestures, andgraceful, unconstrained pose, they both laughed, and seemed to take acongenial pleasure in their meeting. They sat down for a time on a bitof grass,--the sward springing anew, since it was so little trodden inthese days, and with a richness that blood might have added to itsvigor. Odalie answered, with apparent unsuspiciousness, certain shrewdquestions concerning the armament of the fort, the store of ammunition,the quantity of provisions, the manner in which Stuart and Demerecontinued to bear themselves, the expectation held out to the garrisonof relief from any quarter,--questions which she was sure had neveroriginated in the brain of Choo-qualee-qualoo, but had been prompted bythe craft of Willinawaugh. Odalie, too, had been carefully prompted, andStuart's anticipatory answers were very definitely delivered, as of herown volition. Then they passed to casual chatting, to the presentationof a bauble which Odalie had brought, and which seemed to touchChoo-qualee-qualoo to the point of detailing as gossip the fact thatthe attack on the white people had been intended to begin at MacLeodStation, Willinawaugh retaining so much resentment against the Scotchmanto whom he had granted safe-conduct, thinking him French, when he onlyhad a French squaw as a captive. Savanukah, who really spoke French, hadmade capital of it, and had rendered Willinawaugh's pretensionsridiculous in the eyes of the nation, for Willinawaugh had alwaysboasted, to Savanukah at least, that he understood French, although itwas beneath his dignity to speak it. This was done to reduce Savanukah'slinguistic achievements, and to put him in the position of a mereinterpreter of such people, when Savanukah was a great warrior, and yetcould speak many languages, like the famous Baron Des Johnnes. And whatwas there now at MacLeod Station? Nothing: stockade, houses, fields, allburnt! Great was the wrath of Willinawaugh!

  This talk, however, was less to the taste of Choo-qualee-qualoo thanquestions and answers concerning the young sentinel, whom the Cherokeeshad named _Sekakee_, "the grasshopper," as he was so loquacious; sheoften paused to put the strings of red beads into her mouth, and to gazeaway at the glittering reaches of the river with large liquid eyes,sending now and then a glance at the window where that gruff youngperson leaned on his firelock. Savanukah's wife said _Sekakee_ must behungry, Choo-qualee-qualoo told Odalie. Was _Sekakee_ hungry? She wouldbring him some beans. Savanukah said they would all be hungry soon. Andthe fort would be the Indians', and there would be nobody in the landbut the Cherokees, and the French to carry on trade with them--wasOdalie not glad that she was French?--for there had been great fightingwith the English colonel's men, and Willinawaugh had told her to tellthe captains English both that fact: much blood did they shed of theirown blood, as red as their own red coats!

  Odalie regarded this merely as an empty boast, the triumphs ofMontgomery's campaign rife this day in the garrison, but it made hertremble to listen. Nevertheless, she had the nerve to walk withChoo-qualee-qualoo almost to the water-side, near the shadowy covert ofthe dense woods. Nothing lurked there now,--no flickering feather, nofiercely gay painted face. Her confidence seemed the ally of theIndians. The French captive of the Carolina Scotchman would be to themlike a spy in the enemy's camp!

  Perhaps the ordeal made the greater draughts on the courage of the menwho stood in the shelter of the works and sighted the guns. The tensiongrew so great as she lingered there in the shadows that cold drops stoodon Demere's face, and the hand with which Stuart held the firelocktrembled.

  "It's a woman that can't get enough of anything," O'Flynn muttered tohimself. "I'll have the lockjaw in me lungs, for I'm gittin' so as Ican't move me chist to catch me breath."

  But Odalie turned at last, and still signaling anxiously to the sentry,as if to implore silence and forbearance, she crossed the open spacewith her swift, swinging step, climbed the red clay slope among thespiked staves of the fraises, knelt down, slipped through the embrasure,and was lifted to her feet by Demere, while the gunners stood by lookingon, and smiling and ready to cry over her.

  Twice afterward, the same detail, all enjoined to secrecy, loaded theircannon, and stood with burning matches ready to fire at the word, whilethe maneuver was repeated; an interval of a day or so was allowed toelapse on each occasion, and the hour was variously chosen--when it waspossible for the French woman t
o escape, as Choo-qualee-qualoo was givento understand. Both times Demere protested, although he had accorded theplan his countenance, urging the capricious temper of the Indians, whomight permit Mrs. MacLeod's exit from the fort one day, and the next,for a whim, or for revenge toward her husband, who had incurred theirspecial enmity for outwitting them on his journey hither, shoot herthrough the heart as she stood on the crest of the counterscarp. And ofwhat avail then the shotted cannon, the firelocks in the loop-holes!

  "You know they are for our own protection," he argued. "Otherwise wecould not endure to see the risk. The utmost we can do for her is toprevent capture, or if she is shot to take quick vengeance. Loading thecannon only saves _our_ nerves."

  "I admit it," declared Stuart,--"a species of military sal-volatile. Inever pretended to her that she was protected at all, or safe in anyway,--she volunteered for a duty of great hazard."

  Demere, although appreciating the inestimable value to the garrison ofthe opportunity, was relieved after the third occasion, when AlexanderMacLeod, by an accident, discovered the fact of these dangerous sortiesin the face of a savage enemy, no less capriciously wicked andmischievous than furious and blood-thirsty. His astonished rageprecluded speech for a moment, and the two officers found an opportunityto get him inside the great hall, and turning the key Stuart put it inhis pocket.

  "Now, before you expend your wrath in words that we may all regret," hesaid, sternly, "you had best understand the situation. Your wife is nota woman to play the fool under any circumstances, and for ourselves weare not in heart for practical jokes. Mr. MacLeod, we have here morethan three hundred mouths to feed daily, nearly three hundred the mouthsof hearty, hungry men, and we have exhausted our supply of corn and havein the smoke-house barely enough salted meat to sustain us for anotherfortnight. Then we shall begin to eat the few horses. We are so closelybeleaguered that it has proved impossible to get an express through thatcordon of savages to the country beyond. To communicate with ColonelMontgomery as early as practicable is the only hope of saving our lives.Mrs. MacLeod's sorties from the fort are a part of our scheme--theessential part. You may yet come to think the dearest boon that fatecould have given her would have been a ball through her brain as shestood on the escarp--so little her chances are worth!"

  This plain disclosure staggered MacLeod. He had thought the place amplyvictualed. A rising doubt of the officers' capacity to manage thesituation showed in his face.

  Stuart interpreted the expression. "You see,--the instant disaster issuggested you can't rely on us,--even you! And if that spirit wereabroad in the garrison and among the settlers, we should have a thousandschemes in progress, manipulated by people not so experienced as we, tosave themselves first and--_perhaps_ the others. The ammunition mightbe traded to the Cherokees for a promise of individual security. Thegates might be opened and the garrison delivered into the enemy's handsby two or three as the price of their own lives. Such a panic or mutinymight arise as would render a defense of the place impracticable, andthe fort be taken by storm and all put to the sword, or death bytorture. We are keeping our secret as well as we can, hoping for relieffrom Montgomery, and scheming to receive assurance of it. We asked Mrs.MacLeod's help, and she gave it!"

  The logic of this appeal left MacLeod no reply. "How could you!" he onlyexclaimed, glancing reproachfully at his wife.

  "That is what I have always said," cried Stuart, gayly, perceiving thatthe crisis was overpast. "How _could_ she!"

  There was no more that Odalie could do, and that fact partiallyreconciled the shuddering MacLeod to the past, although he felt he couldhardly face the ghastly front of the future. And he drew back wincinglyfrom the unfolding plans. As for Odalie, the next day she spent in herroom, the door barred, her hair tossed out of its wonted perfection ofarray, her dress disordered, her face and eyes swollen with weeping, andwhen she heard the great guns of the fort begin to send forth theirthunder, and the heavy shot crashing among the boughs of the forestbeyond, she fell upon her knees, then rose, wild and agitated, springingto the door, yet no sooner letting down the bar than again replacing it,to fall anew upon her knees and rise once more, too distraught for theframing of a prayer.

  Yet at this same moment Mrs. MacLeod, in her familiar gray serge gownand red calash, was seen, calm and decorous, walking slowly across theparade in the direction of the great hall of the northwest bastion. Thesoldiers who met her doffed their hats with looks of deep respect. Nowand again she bowed to a settler with her pretty, statelygrace,--somewhat too pronounced an elegance for the wife of so poor aman as MacLeod, it was thought, he being of less ornamental clay. Shehesitated at the door of the block-house, with a little air ofdiffidence, as might befit a lady breaking in upon the time of menpresumed to be officially busy. The door opened, and with a bow ofmingled dignity and deprecation she entered, and as the door closed,Hamish dropped the imitation of her manner, and bounded into the middleof the room with a great gush of boyish laughter, holding out both armsand crying, "Don't I look enticing! To see the fellows salaaming to thevery ground as I came across the parade!--what are you doing to myfrock, Captain Demere?" he broke off, suddenly. "It's just right.Odalie fixed it herself."

  "Don't scuffle up these frills so," Captain Demere objected. "Mrs.MacLeod is wont to wear her frock precisely."

  "Did O'Flynn mistake you for Mrs. MacLeod?" asked Stuart, relishing thesituation despite his anxiety.

  "I wish you could have seen the way he drew down that red Irish mouth ofhis," said Hamish, with a guffaw, "looking so genteel and pious!"

  "I think it passes," said Demere, who was not optimistic; but now he toowas smiling a little.

  "It passes!" cried Stuart, triumphantly.

  For the height of Odalie and Hamish was exactly the same--five feeteight inches. Hamish, destined to attain upward of six feet, had not yetall his growth. The full pleated skirt with the upper portion drawn upat the hips, and the cape about the shoulders, obviated the differencebetween Odalie's delicately rounded slenderness and Hamish's lankangularity. The cape of the calash, too, was thrown around the throatand about the chin and mouth, and as she was wont to hold her head downand look up at you from out the dusky red tunnel of its depths thedifference in the complexion and the expression of the hazel eyes ofeach was hardly to be noticed in passing. To speak would have beenfatal, but Hamish had been charged not to speak. His chestnut curls,brushed into a glossy similarity, crept out and lay on the folds of thered cape of the calash with a verisimilitude that seemed almost profane.

  Admonished by Stuart to have heed of long steps, and the dashing swingof his habitual gait, he was leaning on Sandy's arm, as they went out,in an imitation of Odalie's graceful manner. The young sentry, DanielEske,--no one else was permitted at these times to stand guard in thisblock-house tower,--noted this, with the usual maneuver of Mrs.MacLeod's escape through the embrasure, and he was filled with ire. Hehad fancied that her husband did not know of this recklessness, as hewas half inclined to think it, although evidently some fine-spun schemeof Captain Stuart's; it seemed especially futile this evening, so nearsunset, and the odd circumstance of the cannonade having sufficed toclear every Indian out of the forest and the range of the guns. Mrs.MacLeod could not speak to Choo-qualee-qualoo now, he argued withinhimself; the girl would not be there in the face of this hot fire! Howrapidly Mrs. MacLeod walked; only once she paused and glanced about heras if looking for the Cherokee girl,--what folly!--for with a flash offire and a puff of white smoke, and a great sweeping curve too swift tofollow with the eye, each successive ball flew from the cannon's mouthover her head and into the woods beyond.

  From the opposite bank of the river an Indian, crouched in the cleft ofa rock, yet consciously out of the range, watched her progress for onemoment, then suddenly set off at a swift pace, doubtless to fetch theyoung squaw, so that when the firing should cease she could ascertainfrom the French woman what the unusual demonstration of the cannonademight signify.

  It was only for a moment that the
sentry's attention was thus diverted,but when he looked again the gray gown, the red calash, the swiftlymoving figure had disappeared. The gunners had been ordered to ceasefiring, and the usual commotion of sponging out the bore, and reloadingthe guns, and replacing all the appliances of their service, wasinterrupted now and again by the men looking anxiously through theembrasure for Mrs. MacLeod's return. They presently called up an inquiryto the sentinel in the tower, presuming upon the utility of the secretservice to excuse this breach of discipline. "Why," said the soldier, "Itook my eye off her for one minute and she disappeared."

  "You mean you shut your eyes for five minutes," said Corporal O'Flynn,gruffly, having just entered. "Captain Stuart told me that he himselfopened the little gate and let her in by the sally-port. And there sheis now, all dressed out fresh again, walking with her husband on theparade under the trees. An' yonder is the Injun colleen,--got here toolate! Answer her, man, according to your orders."

  Against his will the young sentinel leaned out of the window with amade-to-order smile, and as Choo-qualee-qualoo waved her hand andpointed to the empty path along which Odalie was wont to come, heintimated by signs that she had waited but was obliged to return to thefort and was now within, and he pointed down to the gorge of thebastion. To-morrow when there should be an eastern sky she would comeout, and Choo-qualee-qualoo signed that she would meet her. Then shelingered, waving her hand now and again on her own account, and hedutifully flourished his hat.

  "Gosh," he exclaimed, "if treachery sticks in the gizzard like thispretense there is no use in cord or shot,--the fellow does for himself!"

  He was glad when the lingering twilight slipped down at last and put anend to the long-range flirtation, for however alert an interest he mighthave developed, were it voluntary, its utility as a military maneuverblunted its zest. Choo-qualee-qualoo had sped away to her home up theriver; the stars were in the sky, and in broken glimmers reflected inthe ripples of the current. The head-men among the cordon, drawn aroundFort Loudon, sat in circles and discussed the possible reasons of thesudden furious cannonade, and the others of minor tribal importancelistened and adjusted their own theories to the views advanced; the onlystragglers were the spies whom the cannonade had driven from the woodsthat afternoon, now venturing back into the neighborhood, looking at thelights of the fort, hearing often hilarious voices full of the triumphof Montgomery's foray, and sometimes finding on the ground the spentballs of the cannonade.

  It had so cleared the nearer spaces that it had enabled Hamish, in aguise become familiar to them, to gain the little thicket whereChoo-qualee-qualoo and Odalie were wont to conclude their talks. Closeby was the mouth of the cavernous passage that led to MacLeod's Station,which no Indians knew the white people had discovered. With a suddenplunge the boy was lost to sight in its labyrinthine darkness, and whenHamish MacLeod emerged at the further end five miles away, in his owngarb, which he had worn beneath the prim feminine attire,--this he hadcarefully rolled into a bundle and stowed in a cleft in the rocks of theunderground passage,--he issued into a night as sweet, as lonely, and asstill, in that vast woodland, as if there were no wars or rumors of warsin all the earth. But, alas! for the sight of Odalie's home that she hadloved and made so happy, and where he had been as cherished as Fifineherself,--all grim, charred ashes; and poor Dill's cabin!--he knew bythis time that Dill was dead, very dead, or he would have come back tothem. The fields, too, that they had sown, and that none would reap,trampled and torn, and singed and burnt! Hamish gave but one sigh,bursting from an overcharged heart; then he was away at full speed inthe darkness that was good to him, and the only friend he had in theworld with the power to help him and his.

  Captain Demere that night was more truly cheerful than he had been for along time, despite his usual port of serene, although somewhat austere,dignity.

  "The boy has all the homing qualities you desired in an express," hesaid to Stuart. "He will come back to his brother's family as certainlyas a man with wife and children, and yet in quitting them he leaves noduty to devolve on others."

  "Moreover," said Stuart, "we have the satisfaction of knowing that hesafely reached the mouth of the underground passage without detection.He could not have found the place in a dark night. In the moonlight hewould have been seen, and even if we had protected his entrance by acannonade, and cleared the woods, his exit at the other end of thepassage would have been intercepted. Disguised as Mrs. MacLeod, seekingto meet Choo-qualee-qualoo in bold daylight, he passed without asuspicion on the part of the Indians. And we know that the exit of thepassage at MacLeod Station is fully three miles in the rear of theIndian line. I feel sure that the other two expresses never got beyondthe Indian line. This is the best chance we have had."

  "And a very good chance," said Demere.

  Stuart could but laugh a little, remembering that Demere had thought theplan impracticable, and, although there was no other opportunitypossible, had protested against it on the point of danger involved toMrs. MacLeod. Stuart, himself, had quaked on this score, and had seizedon this ingenious device only as a last resort.

  "Mrs. MacLeod is fine timber for a forlorn hope," he said reflectively.

  The matter had been so sedulously guarded from the knowledge of thegarrison, save such share as was of necessity divulged to the men whofired the guns, the young sentinel, and Corporal O'Flynn,--and even theywere not aware that there had been a sortie of any other person thanMrs. MacLeod,--that Hamish's absence passed unnoticed for several days,and when it was announced that he had been smuggled out of the fort,charged with dispatches to Colonel Montgomery, no one dreamed ofidentifying him with the apparition in the gray gown whom the gunnershad seen to issue forth and return no more. Even Corporal O'Flynnaccepted the statement, without suspicion, that Captain Stuart had letMrs. MacLeod in at the sally-port. These excursions, he imagined, wereto secure information from Choo-qualee-qualoo.

  The announcement that an express was now on the way was made toencourage the men, for the daily ration had dwindled to a most meagerportion, and complaints were rife on every hand both among the soldieryand the families of the settlers. A wild, startled look appeared in manyeyes, as if some ghastly possibility had come within the range ofvision, undreamed-of before. The facts, however, that the commandant wasable to still maintain a connection beyond the line of blockadingCherokees, that Hamish had been gone for more than a week, that decisivedevelopments of some sort must shortly ensue, that the officersthemselves kept a cheerful countenance, served to stimulate an effort tosustain the suspense and the gnawing privation. Continual exertions weremade in this direction.

  "Try to keep up the spirits of the men," said Demere to O'Flynn one day.

  "I do, sor," returned O'Flynn, his cheek a trifle pale and sunken. "Ioffer meself to 'm as an example. I says to the guard only to-day, sor,says I,--'Now in affliction ye see the difference betune a person ofquality, and a common spalpeen.' An' they wants to know who is thisperson of quality, sor. And I names meself, sor, being descended fromkings of Oirland. An', would ye belave me, sor, not one of thembog-trotting teagues but what was kings of Oirland, too, sor."

  Corporal O'Flynn might have thought his superior officer needed cheeringtoo, for the twinkle in his eye had lost none of its alluring Celticquality.

  The distressing element of internecine strife and bickerings waspresently added to the difficulties of the officers, who evidently faceda situation grievous enough in itself without these auxiliary troubles.Certain turbulent spirits opined loudly that they, the humbler people,had advantage taken of them,--that the officers' mess was served in aprofusion never abated, while the rest starved. Captain Stuart andCaptain Demere would not notice this report, but the junior officerswere vehement in their protestations that they and their superiors hadhad from the beginning of the scarcity the identical rations served outto the others, and that their gluttony had not reduced the generalsupply. The quartermaster-sergeant confirmed this, yet who believed him,as Mrs. Halsing said, for he carried the key
s and could favor whom hewould. That he did not favor himself was obvious from the fact that hisonce red face had grown an ashen gray, and the cheeks hung in visiblecords and ligaments under the thrice-folded skin, the flesh betweenhaving gradually vanished. The African cook felt his honor so touched bythis aspersion on his master's methods that he carried his kettles andpans out into the center of the parade one day and there, ininsubordinate disregard of orders, cooked in public the scanty materialsof the officers' dinner. And having thus expressed his indignant rage hesat down on the ground among his kettles and pans and wept aloud in along lugubrious howl, thus giving vent to his grief, and requiring thekind offices of every friend he had in the fort to pacify him and inducehim to remove himself, his pans, and his kettles from this unseemlyconspicuousness.

  At the height of the trouble, when Stuart and Demere, themselves anxiousand nervous, and greatly reduced by the poor quality and scarcity offood, sat together and speculated on the problem of Montgomery'ssilence, and the continued absence of the express, and wondered how longthis state of things could be maintained, yearning for, yet fearing theend,--talking as they dared not talk to any human being but each to theother,--Ensign Whitson burst into the room with an excited face and thenews that there had been a fight over in the northeast bastion at thefurther side of the terrepleine.

  Captain Stuart rose, bracing his nerves for the endurance of still more.

  "A food riot? I have expected it. Have they broken into thesmoke-house?"

  Whitson looked wild for one moment. "Oh, no, sir,--not that!--not that!Two Irishmen at fisticuffs,--about the Battle of the Boyne!--CorporalO'Flynn and a settler."

  For the first time in a week Stuart laughed with genuine hilarity."Mighty well!" he exclaimed. "Let us settle the important questionsbetween the Irish Catholics and the Irish Protestants before we go astep further!"

  But Demere was writhing under the realization of a relaxed discipline,although when O'Flynn presented himself in response to summons he was socrest-fallen and woe-begone and reduced, that Demere had not the heartto take summary measures with the half-famished boxer.

  "O'Flynn," he said, "do you deem this a fitting time to set the exampleof broils between the settlers and soldiers? Truly, I think we need butthis to precipitate our ruin."

  Stuart hastily checked the effect of this imprudent phrase by breakingin upon a statement of Corporal O'Flynn's, which seemed to represent hisright arm as in some sort a free agent, mechanically impelled throughthe air, the hand in a clinched posture, in disastrous juxtapositionwith the skulls of other people, and that he was not thinking, and wouldnot have had it happen for nothing, and--

  "But _is_ the man an Irishman?" asked Stuart. "He has no brogue."

  "Faith, sor," said the repentant O'Flynn, glad of the diversion, "hehits loike an Oirishman,--I don't think he is an impostor. My nose feelsrather limber."

  O'Flynn having been of great service in the crisis, they were both gladto pass over his breach of discipline as lightly as they might; and hedoubtless reaped the benefit of their relief that the matter was lessserious than they had feared.

  The next day, however, the expected happened. The unruly element, partlyof soldiers with a few of the settlers, broke into the smoke-house anddiscovered there what the commandant was sedulously trying toconceal,--_nothing_!

  It stunned them for the moment. It tamed them. The more prudential soulsbegan now to fear the attitude of the officers, to turn to them, to relyagain upon their experience and capacity.

  When the two captains came upon the scene, Demere wearing the affronted,averse, dangerous aspect which he always bore upon any breach ofdiscipline, and Stuart his usual cool, off-hand look as if the matterdid not greatly concern him, they listened in silence to the clamor ofexplanations and expostulations, of criminations and recriminationswhich greeted them. Only a single sentence was spoken by either ofthem,--a terse low-toned order. Upon the word, Corporal O'Flynn with asquad of soldiers rushed briskly into the crowd, and in less than twominutes the rioters were in irons.

  "Jedburgh justice!" said Stuart aside to Demere, as they took their wayback across the parade. "Hang 'em first, and try 'em afterward."

  The bystanders might argue little from Demere's reticent soldierlydignity, but Stuart's ringing laugh, as he spoke aside to his brotherofficer, his cheerful, buoyant, composed mien, restored confidence asnaught less than the sound of Montgomery's bugles outside the worksmight have done. Doubtless he was apprised of early relief. Surely hedid not look like a man who expected to live on horse-flesh in the midstof a mutinous garrison, with the wild savages outside, and within thatterrible strain upon the courage,--the contemplation of the sufferingsof non-combatants, the women and children, who had entered into nocovenant and received no compensation to endure the varying chances ofwar.

  Yet this prospect seemed close upon him before that day was done. Theorderly routine had slipped again into its grooves. The hungry men,brisk, spruce, were going about their various military duties with analacrity incongruous with their cadaverous aspect. The sentinels wereposted as usual, and Captain Stuart, repairing according to his wont toa post of observation in the block-house tower of the northwest bastion,turned his glass upon the country beyond, lowered it suddenly, lookingkeenly at the lens, as if he could not believe his eyes, and againlifted it. There was no mistake. On the opposite side of the river,looking like some gigantic monkey capering along on a pair of thin barelegs, was a stalwart Indian, arrayed for the upper part of his person ina fine scarlet coat, richly laced, evidently the spoil from some Britishofficer of high rank. Perhaps no apparition so grotesque ever sent achill to so stout a heart. Stuart was no prophet, quotha. But he couldsee the worst when it came and stared him in the eyes.