The Story of Old Fort Loudon Read online

  CHAPTER IX

  With a great effort Hamish dragged O'Flynn, who was a heavy, muscularfellow, out of the reach of the wolf. Fortunately there chanced to be aspring branch near at hand, and the ice-cold water hurriedly dashed intothe corporal's face, together with an earnest reminder of the hideousdanger of death and torture by the Indians, and a sense of thepossibility of escape, served to sufficiently restore him to enable himto get upon his feet, unsteadily enough, however, and with Hamish's helpmake his way toward the fort at a pretty fair speed. He fainted afterthey crossed the ditch, and the great gates closed. These two were thelast of the hunters who found rescue; the others who had straggled inpreviously, reported having been fired upon by Indians, and that severaldead soldiers were left upon the ground.

  The parade was a scene of wild turmoil, far different from its usualorderly military aspect. The settlers and their families, alarmed atlast, had fled for refuge to the fort, bringing only a small portion oftheir scanty possessions. Women were weeping in agitation and terror ofthe dangers passed, and in despair because of the loss of their littlehomes, which the Indians were even now pillaging; children were clingingabout their mothers and peevishly plaining, their nerves unstrung by therush and commotion, and the unaccustomed aspect of the place; bundles ofclothing and bedding lay about on the ground; the pioneers moved hitherand thither, now seeking to adjust discomforts and clear the domesticatmosphere, now aiding in the preparations for an expected attack.

  Odalie, who had braced up her heart, found little to encourage her asshe went from one to another of the matrons and sought to comfort themwith the reflection that it might have been worse. "For my own part,"she declared, "I think of what might have been. If my household gearwere not sacrificed we should have been at home last night when theIndians came and found us gone and sacked and fired the house. And sucha little thing to save us--Fifine's talk of seeing Willinawaugh."

  "Him top-feathers, him head, an' him ugly mouf," reiterated Fifine, whohad become impressed with the belief that she had done something veryclever indeed, and was enchanted to hear it celebrated.

  Odalie's exertions were more appreciated at the hospital, where sheassisted in dressing the wounds and caring for the comfort of thesoldiers who had been shot. Afterward, still determined to make the bestof things and to help all she could, she discovered a mission to tax herpowers in offering to assist in what manner she might thequarter-master-sergeant. That functionary looked as if the conundrum ofthe created world had suddenly been propounded to him. He was a short,square, red-faced man, with light, staring, gray eyes, and they seemedabout to pop out of his head whenever the finding of quarters foranother family was required of him.

  "Why couldn't they have brought some conveniences, such as knives andforks and cups and platters, instead of fool trifles?" he demandedfiercely, aside, as he turned away from one group who were as destituteof all appliances as if they had expected to peck off the ground, ordrink out of the bubbles of the spring branch. "I have got none to spareexcept those of the poor fellows who were killed and Corporal O'Flynn's,for he will be equal to nothing but spoon-meat for one while."

  "Oh, the poor settlers,--I pity them,--and poor Mr. Green,--I feel veryguilty, for I came here just such a charge on the resources of the fort,myself."

  He paused pudgily, as if he were mentally in full run and had brought upwith a short stop.

  "Oh, you--" he exclaimed, in the tone of making an exception, "you areyou."

  He felt equal to any arrangements for merely military mortals, but the"squaw question," as he mentally called it, overwhelmed him. With a lotof anxious, troubled, houseless women and querulous, distraught,frightened children, and difficult half-grown boys,--and thecommandant's general orders to quarter them all to their satisfactionand to furnish whatever was necessary,--the strain might have proved toogreat for the old bustling sergeant, and like undue pressure on theboiler of one of our modern locomotives, which he much resembled, as hewent back and forth puffingly, might have exploded his valuablefaculties, but for Odalie's well-meant hints.

  "I should give Mrs. Halsing the larger room if I were you," shesuggested. "Mrs. Beedie is a friend of mine and I will answer for itthat she won't mind." Or--"If I might suggest, I wouldn't put Mrs. Deanand the twin babies next to Mrs. Rush. Nervous headaches and otherpeople's twin babies won't keep step--not one bit. Put them next to me.I am conveniently deaf at times."

  And Mrs. Halsing said, "That French thing flirts with every man in thefort, from the commandant down to Mrs. Dean's one-year-old boy twin!"For Odalie was presently conveying this juvenile personage about in herarms, and he left off a whimper, characteristic of no particular age orsex, to exhibit a truly masculine interest in the big soldiers withtheir bright uniforms and clanking accouterments, and althoughconstrained by the force of the concussion to blink and close his eyeswhenever the great guns were fired, he fairly wheezed and squealed withmanly ecstasy in the sound--for a cannonade had begun, seeking to deterthe plunder of the deserted houses in the settlement.

  The din suddenly ceased; the active military figures paused in the swiftpreparations that were in progress to meet the expected attack; theconfusion and stir of the groups of settlers' families in the paradewere petrified in a sort of aghast disarray; amongst them appeared halfa dozen stalwart fellows bearing a stretcher, on which lay the body ofthe dead soldier whom the horse had brought into the fort, his youngboyish face all smooth again and serenely upturned to the serene sky. Hewas dressed in his uniform, with his belt and gloves freshly pipeclayedand glittering white. His melancholy progress from the crowded barracksto a vacant building where were kept the spare arms,--called thearmory,--there to wait the few remaining hours of his sojourn in thesefamiliar scenes, served to deepen the gloom with the thought of theothers of the little band, lying out in the woods, who would not receiveeven such simple honors of sepulture as the fort could bestow.

  But after the next day, when the poor young soldier was buried (thechildren wept dreadfully at the sound of the muffled drum, the troopsbeing touched by their sympathetic tears, and Captain Demere read theburial service and alluded feelingly to the other dead of the garrison,to whom they could only do reverence in the heart and keep their memorygreen)--after all this the place took on an air of brisk cheerfulnessand the parade ground presented somewhat the appearance of the esplanadeof a watering-place, minus the wealth and show and fashion.

  In the evenings after the dress-parade and the boom of the sunset-gun,the elder women sat about in the doors and porches, and knitted andgossiped, and the men walked up and down and discussed the stale warnews from Europe--for the triumphs of British arms were then rife in allthe world--or sat upon the grass and played dominoes or cards; thesoldiers near the barracks threw horseshoes for quoits; the childrenrollicked about, shrill but joyous; Odalie and Belinda Rush in theircool fresh linen dresses, arm in arm, the admiration of all beholders,strolled up and down with measured step and lissome grace; and the flagwould slip down, and the twilight come on, and a star tremble in theblue summer sky; and the sweet fern that overhung the deep clear spring,always in the shadow of the oaks near one of the block-houses, wouldgive out a fresh, pungent fragrance. Presently the moon would shed herbland benediction over all the scene, and the palisades would drawsharp-pointed shadows on the dark interior slope, and beside each cannonthe similitude of another great gun would be mounted; a pearly glisterwould intimate where the river ran between the dense glossy foliage ofthe primeval woods, and only the voice of the chanting cicada, or thelong dull drone of the frogs, or the hooting of an owl, would come fromthe deserted village, lying there so still and silent, guarded by theguns of the fort.

  And after a little Odalie would be strolling on her husband's arm in themoonlight, and would silently gaze about with long, doubting, diplomaticeyelashes and inquiring eyes when asked where was Belinda Rush,--whichconduct induced Mrs. Halsing's comment as to Mrs. MacLeod's proclivitytoward matchmaking. For in the neighborhood of the northwestern bastionone might see, if one were very keen, sitting in the moonlight on thetread of the banquette, Belinda Rush and Ensign Whitson--talking andtalking--of what?--so much!--in fact so much that at other times EnsignWhitson had little to say, and Lieutenant Gilmore pined for lack ofcontradiction, and his powers of argument fell away.

  Captain Demere and Captain Stuart, on their way to a post of observationin the block-house tower, came near running over these young peopleseated thus one moonlight night--to Captain Demere's manifest confusionand Captain Stuart's bluff delight, although both passed with seriousmien, doffing their hats with some casual words of salutation. Despitehis relish of the episode, Stuart glanced down at them afterward fromthe block-house tower and said, in a tone of commiseration, "Poor littlelove-story!"

  "Why preempt ill-fortune for them, John?" broke out Demere, irritably.

  "Bless you, my boy, I'm no prophet!" exclaimed Stuart easily.

  Belinda and the Ensign on the moonlit rampart.]

  The expected attack by the Indians took place one night late, in thedead hour, after the sinking of the moon, and with all the cunning of adesigned surprise. The shadowy figures, that one might imagine would beindistinguishable from the darkness, had crept forward, encompassing thefort, approaching nearly to the glacis, when the crack of a sentry'sfirelock rang out, splitting the dead silence, and every cannon of thetwelve roared in hideous unison, for the gunners throughout the nightlay ready beside the pieces. A fusillade ill-directed upon the works,for the besiegers encountered the recoil of the surprise they hadplanned, met a furious response from the loop-holes where the firelocksof the garrison were reenforced by the rifles of the backwoodsmen. Everyman had been assigned his post, and it seemed that the wild alarum ofthe drum had hardly begun to vibrate on the thrilling air when each,standing aside from the loop-hole according to orders, leveled hisweapon without sighting and fired. Wild screams from without, now andagain, attested the execution of these blind volleys into the blacknight, and the anguish that overcame the stoical fortitude of thewarlike Cherokee. The crashing of the trees, as the cannon on all sidessent the heavy balls thundering beyond the open space into the forest,seemed to indicate that the retreat of the assailants was cut off, orthat it must needs be made under the open fire of the artillery.

  How the movement fared the defenders could ill judge, because of thetumult of their own rapidly delivered volleys--all firing to the word,the "fencibles" adopting the tactics of the garrison in which they hadbeen so well drilled--and the regular reverberations of the rapidlyserved cannon. They only knew when the ineffectual fire of theassailants slackened, then ceased; the crash of riving timber, and nowand again a hideous yell from the forest, told of the grim deed wroughtbeyond the range of the firelock by the far-reaching great guns.

  It was soon over, and although the garrison stood ready at their postsfor an hour or more afterward, till the night was wearing into dawn, nofurther demonstration was made.

  "Vastly fine! They will not return to the attack,--the fun's over,"Captain Stuart cried hilariously;--his face and hands were as black withpowder "as if he had been rubbing noses with the cannon," CorporalO'Flynn said, having crawled out of the hospital on his hands and kneesto participate in the fight in some wise, if only as spectator.

  "They have had a lesson," said Demere, with grim triumph, "how severe,we can't judge till we see the ground."

  This satisfaction, however, was to be denied them, for the corporal ofthe guard presently brought the report of a sentinel whose sharp eyeshad descried, in the first faint gray siftings of the dawn through theblack night, parties of Indians, chiefly women, carrying off the deadand disabled, and now and then a wild, shuddering groan or ahalf-smothered cry of the wounded attested their errand of mercy.

  "They ought to show a white flag," said Demere, exactingly, like themartinet he was.

  "And they ought to wear top-boots on their feet, and Steinkirks aroundtheir gullets, and say their prayers, but they don't," retorted Stuartin high good humor, for his rigorous discipline and persistent formalitywere exerted only on his own forces; he cared not to require suchpunctiliousness of the enemy since it did not serve his interest. "Letthem take the carrion away. We don't want to play scavenger forthem--from an ambuscade they could make it mighty hot for us! And weshould be compelled to do it for sanitary reasons--too close to the fortto let the bodies lie there and rot."

  And with this prosaic reminder Captain Demere was content to dispensewith the polite formality of a flag of truce. They never knew what theloss might be on the Indian side, nor did the braves again venturewithin gunshot. Now and then the cannon sought to search the woods andlocate the line, but no sound followed the deep-voiced roar, save theheavy reverberations of the echo from up and down the river and thesullen response of the craggy hills. The cannonade had served toacquaint the Cherokees with an accurate estimate of the range of theguns. The fact that a strong cordon was maintained just beyond this, wasdiscovered when the post hunters were again sent out, on the theory thatthe repulse of the Indians had been sufficiently decisive to induce asuspension of hostilities and a relinquishment of their designs tocapture the fort, if not a relapse into the former pacific relations.The hunters were driven back by a smart fire, returning with one manshot through the leg, brought in by a comrade on horseback, and fourothers riding double, leaving their slain horses on the ground. Itbecame very evident that the Cherokees intended to maintain a blockade,since the fort obviously could not be carried by storm, and thecommandant was proof against surprise. To send the hunters out again wasbut to incur the futile loss of life and thus weaken the garrison. Thesupply of fresh game already in the fort being exhausted, the few headof cattle and the reserves of the smoke-house came into use.

  The very fact that such reserves had been provided put new heart intothe soldiers and roused afresh the confidence of the settlers, who hadbegun to quake at the idea of standing a siege so suddenly begun,without warning or preparation, save indeed for the forethought for allemergencies manifested by the senior officers. Both Demere and Stuartbecame doubly popular, and when there was a call for volunteers to runthe blockade and severally carry dispatches to Colonel Montgomery, theyhad but to choose among all the men in the fort. The tenor of thesedispatches was to apprise Colonel Montgomery of the blockade of FortLoudon and ask relief, urging him to push forward at once and attackthe Ottare towns, when valuable assistance could be rendered him by theordnance of the fort, as well as by a detachment of infantry from theforces of the garrison attacking the Indians on the flank in support ofthe aggressions of his vanguard.

  Gilfillan was selected as the earliest express sent out, and loud andwoeful was Fifine's outcry when she discovered that her precious "Dill"was to be withdrawn from her sight. But when he declared that he needsmust go to keep the Indians from cutting off her curls and starving outthe garrison--Mrs. Dean's twin babies were represented as the mostimminent victims, so much more precious than one, "being philopenas" asO'Flynn admonished her--she consented, and tearfully bade him adieu. Andhe kissed her very gravely, and very gravely at her request kissed thecat. So with these manifestations of his simple affection he goes out ofthese pages beyond all human ken, and into the great unknown. For Dillreturned no more.

  His long backwoods experience, his knowledge of Indian character, hiswide familiarity with the face of the country, and many by-ways andunfrequented routes, his capacity to speak the Cherokee language, allcombined to suggest his special fitness for the dangerous part he hadundertaken to play.

  The next express, going two days later and following the beaten track,was a man who had frequently served in this capacity and knew half theIndians of the Lower Towns and Middle Settlements by name--aquick-witted pioneer, "half-trader, half-hunter, and half-packman," ashe often described himself, and he had been in the country, he boasted,"ever since it was built."

  The choice of these two men was evidently specially judicious, and afterthe mysterious disappearance of each, being smuggled out of the fort indead silence and the darkest hour of the deep night, the garrisonsettled down to a regular routine, to wear away the time till they mightwake some morning to hear the crack of Montgomery's musketry on thehorizon, or the hissing of his grenades burning out their fuses andbursting among the dense jungles, where the Cherokees lay in ambush andblockaded Fort Loudon.

  The military precision and order maintained continued as strict asheretofore. It argued no slight attention to detail and adroit handlingof small opportunities that the comfort of the soldiers was in no wisereduced by the intrusion into their restricted domain of so considerablea number of people, many unprovided with the most ordinary conveniencesof life. Even in such a matter as table and cooking utensils the food ofthe companies was served as heretofore, and only after the military hadbreakfasted or dined, or supped, could their precious pewter plattersand cups be borrowed by the families, to be rigorously cleaned andrestored before the preparations began for the next meal. Every utensilin the place did double duty, yet not one failed to be ready for servicewhen required. Mrs. Halsing ventured to cavil, and suggested that shehad always heard elsewhere that it was polite to serve ladies andchildren first, instead of giving a lot of hulking soldiers precedence.

  "Why, madam," Demere said, with rebuking severity, "the men are themuscles of our defense, and must be kept in the best possible physicalcondition."

  Nothing was allowed to interfere with the regular hours of the troops orbreak their rest. Tattoo and "lights out" had the same meaning for thewomen and children and wild young boys as for the soldiery; noboisterous callow cries and juvenile racing and chasing were permittedon the parade; no belated groups of gossipers; no nocturnal wailing ofwickedly wakeful infants in earshot.

  "A-body would think the men was cherubim or seraphim the way thecommandant cares for them," plained Mrs. Halsing.

  The supplies were regulated by the same careful supervision and servedout duly by weight and allowance. Somewhat frugal seemed this dole,especially to those who had lived on the unlimited profusion of thewoodland game, yet it was sufficient. No violent exercise, to which themen had been accustomed, required now the restoring of exhausted tissuesby a generous food supply. There was ample provision, too, made for theoccupation of the men's attention and their amusement. The regularcleaning of quarters, inspection, drill and guard duties, anddress-parades went on as heretofore, with the "fencibles" as anauxiliary body. The rude games of ball, ring toss, leap-frog were variedsometimes by an exhibition, given under the auspices of the officers, offeats of strength; certain martial Samsons lifted great weights, madeastonishing leaps, ran like greyhounds competing with one another in amarked-off course, or engaged in wrestling-matches--to the unboundedapplause of the audience, except the compassionate Fifine, who weptloudly and inconsolably whenever a stalwart fellow caught a fall. Onerainy evening, in the officers' mess-hall, the society of the fort wasinvited to hear the performance of a clever but rascally fellow, moreused to ride the wooden horse than to any other occupation, who was abit of a ventriloquist. Among other feats he made Fifine's cat talk, andtell about Willinawaugh with "him top-feathers, him head, an' him uglymouf," to the great relish of his comrades (who resented the fact thatthe Indians, exceedingly vain of their own personal appearance,[12] wereaccustomed to speak of the paleface as the "ugly white people"); to theintense, shrieking delight of the elder children; and to the amazementof Fifine, who could not understand afterward why the _douce mignonne_would not talk to her. When the pretended conversation of the cat grewfunnily profane, Captain Demere only called out "Time's up," from theback of the hall, and the fellow came sheepishly down from the platform,holding the borrowed kitty by the nape of the neck, and half theaudience did not catch the funny swear that he attributed to theexemplary feline. Then there was a shadow-pantomime, where immaterialroisterers "played Injun," and went through the horrid details ofscalping and murders, with grotesque concomitant circumstances,--such asthe terrifying ricochet effects on an unsophisticated red-man of rivinga buzz-wig from the head of his victim in lieu of a real scalp, and theconsequent sudden exchange of the characters of pursued andpursuer,--all of which, oddly enough, the people who stood in imminentdanger of a horrible fate thought very funny indeed.

  One evening the commandant devised a new plan to pass the time. All weresummoned to the parade ground to share in an entertainment designated as"Songs of all nations."

  "An' I could find it in my stommick to wish it was to share in 'Soups ofall nations,'" said Corporal O'Flynn to a comrade. For it seemed thatthe quartermaster-sergeant had docked his rations by an ounce or two, adifference that made itself noted in so slender a dole and aconvalescent's appetite.

  It was a night long to be remembered. The great coils of Scorpio seemedcovered with scintillating scales, so brilliant were the stars. No cloudwas in the sky, unless one might so call that seeming glittering vapor,the resplendent nebulose clusters of the Galaxy. A wind was movingthrough the upper atmosphere, for the air was fresh and cool, but belowwas the soft, sweet stillness of the summer night, full of fragrantodors from the woods, the sound of the swift-flowing river, the outpourof the melody of a mocking-bird that had alighted on the tip of thegreat flagstaff, and seemed to contribute thence his share to the songsof all nations. He caught upon his white wing and tail-feathers, as heflirted them, the clear radiance of the moon,--not a great orb, butsending forth a light fair enough to be felt in all that siderealglitter of the cloudless sky, to show the faces of Odalie and Belindaand others less comely, as the ladies sat in chairs under the line oftrees on one side of the parade with a group of officers near them, andthe soldiers and "single men" and children of the settlers filling thebenches of the post which were brought out for the occasion. So they allsang, beginning with a great chorus of "Rule Britannia," into which theythrew more force and patriotism than melody. Then came certain soloperformances, some of which were curious enough. Odalie's Frenchchansonnettes acquired from her grand'maman, drifting out in a mellowcontralto voice, and a big booming proclamation concerning the"Vaterland," by the drum-major, were the least queerly foreign. Mrs.Halsing, after much pressing, sang an outlandish, repetitious melodythat was like an intricate wooden recitative, and the words weresuspected of being Icelandic,--though she averred they were High Dutch,to the secret indignation of the drum-major, who, as O'Flynn afterwardremarked, when discussing the details of the evening, felt himselfqualified by descent to judge, his own father-in-law having been aGerman. The men who had sung in the Christmas carols remembered oldEnglish ditties,--

  "How now, shepherd, what means that, Why that willow in thy hat?"

  and "Barbara Allen." Corporal O'Flynn, in the most incongruouslysentimental and melancholy of tenors, sang "Savourneen Deelish eileenogg." The sober Sandy gave a rollicking Scotch drinking-song that seemedto show the very bead on the liquor, "Hey the browst, and hey thequaigh!". The officers' cook, a quaint old African, seated cross-leggedon the ground, on the outskirts of the crowd, piped up at thecommandant's bidding, and half sang, half recited, in a wide, deep,musical voice, and an unheard-of language that excited great interestfor a time; but interpreting certain manifestations of applause amongthe soldiers as guying, he took himself and his ear-rings and a gaykerchief, which he wore, to the intense delight of the garrison, as abelt around the waistband of his knee-breeches, to his kitchen, replyingwith cavalier insubordination,--pioneer of the domestic manners of thesedays,--to Captain Stuart's remonstrances by the assertion that he had towash his kettle.

  There were even cradle songs, for Mrs. Dean, who certainly had amplefield for efforts in that line, sang a sweet little theme, saying sheknew nothing else, and a big grenadier, whose hair was touched withgray, and who spoke in a deep sonorous voice (the Cherokees had alwayscalled him _Kanoona_, "the bull-frog"), respectfully requested to knowof the lady if she could sing one that he had not heard for forty years,in fact, not since his mother sang it to him. One or two of thesettlers, hailing originally from England, remembered it too, and somediscussion ensued touching the words and the exact turn of the tune. Inthe midst of this a wag among the younger pioneers mischievouslysuggested that the grenadier should favor them with a rendition of hisversion, and the big soldier, in the simplicity of his heart and hisfond old memories, in a great bass voice that fairly trembled with itsown weight, began "Bye-low, bye-low"; and the ventriloquist who had madethe cat swear, and who so often rode the wooden horse, was compelledduring the performance to wear his hat adjusted over his face, for hisgrin was of a distention not to be tolerated in polite society.

  Perhaps because of the several contradictory phases of interest involvedin this contribution to the entertainment, it held the general attentionmore definitely than worthier vocal efforts that had preceded it, andthe incident passed altogether unnoticed, except by Captain Stuart, whenthe corporal of the guard appeared in the distance, his metal buttonsglimmering from afar in the dusk as he approached, and Captain Demeresoftly signaled to him to pause, and rising quietly vanished in theshadow of the block-house. He encountered Stuart at the door, for he hadalso slipped away from the crowd, himself, like a shadow.

  "Dispatches?" he asked.

  "The express from Fort Prince George," Demere replied, his voice tense,excited, with the realization of an impending crisis.