University of Virginia Library

4. CHAPTER IV.

“I RECEIVED, in short, a terrible drubbing,
which was doubtless no more than I merited,
though more than I afterwards found agreeable.
I did not entirely and satisfactorily, indeed,
recover my wits until the next day, when I
found myself in bed, where I had been deposited
by some good-natured souls, and from
which it was more than a week before I found
myself able to rise again—so soundly and thoroughly
had I been threshed for my impertinence.
Nor do I believe I should have
escaped so soon, had it not been for young
Connor, the Secretary, who, with all his
faults, was a very kind and humane youth;
and, although I had no more claim upon him
than I derived from being in the service of

his patron, was very attentive in visiting me
and administering to my wants, during the
time that I lay sick and suffering, and neglected
by every body else. His goodness
made a strong impression upon my feelings,
and I swore I would requite it with my
life-blood, if necessary. In truth, it gained
my heart entirely. I learned from him—a
piece of information which was the more
agreeable to me, as I feared my misfortune
would cause me to lose my commission in
the broad-horn service—that there was no
fear of my being left behind, the voyage
having been put off for a time in consequence
of my commander's sickness, Colonel Storm
being laid upon his back like me, but laid by
a different cause—that is, by a new fit of the
gout. And, indeed, I was entirely restored
before he recovered sufficiently to begin the
voyage; which was not until two weeks after
the day of my enlistment.

“In the mean while, I found myself a second
time with leisure on my hands, and as much
disposition as ever to enjoy it. I made several
new friends, whom, however, warned
by past experience, I did not seek for in a
ball-room, nor among those elegant personages,
who, I began to perceive, were, or were

resolved to consider themselves, my superiors.
At the start, I felt disposed to ask the friendship
of the gallant Captain Sharpe; I was
now content to swear everlasting friendship
with the Captain's man—a scoundrelly fellow,
who met my advances with extreme cordiality,
and immediately gambled me out of all
my money.

“This worthy individual, who had been a
soldier, like his master—a deserter from a
British regiment in the revolution—the evening
before the broad-horns got under way,
treated me to a supper and a bowl of punch;
in the course of which he acquainted me with
sundry interesting particulars in relation to
his master and himself, of which I had been
before entirely ignorant. And, first, he gave
me to understand, that his master, Captain
Sharpe, had volunteered his agreeable society
and valiant assistance to my employer, Colonel
Storm, in the voyage to Kentucky, having
resolved to sail with us, out of pure regard
for the Colonel, his father's friend; and, secondly,
that he himself, Samuel Jones, the
servant, could not countenance his master in
any such doings, having a great aversion to
Indians, and especially to Indians armed with
tomahawks and scalping-knives. In brief, I

found Mr. Samuel Jones was in great dread
of the perils of the voyage, which feeling he
did all he could to infuse into my own mind.
He had picked up every story, true and false,
that was told of Indian atrocities committed
on the Ohio; and to these he added legends
of spectres, devils, and other sepernatural
agents, by whom the voyager was often
haunted and harassed, and, in spite of himself,
driven into the hands of the savages.
Thus, he had a story of a phantom warrior
in a canoe, (supposed to be the ghost of old
Bald Eagle, the Delaware Chief, whose mangled
corse, set afloat by his murderer, forms
a well-known and ghastfully picturesque incident
in border history,) who dogged the
boats of emigrants, and by the mere terror
of his presence, drove them into the ambush
prepared by his living countrymen; and another
legend of a still more frightful spectre,
a gory refugee, who, when the navigators
slept, stole into their boats, and with their
own oars, rowed them silently ashore, into
the midst of their watchful enemies.

“These strange stories, which had, I confess,
the effect of renewing my alarms to a
certain extent, I remembered the more readily
as I found they had made their way

among my fellow-voyagers, and were afterwards
recalled to my mind by events that
occurred during the descent.

“Mr. Samuel Jones, having opened his
heart by repeated applications to the bowl,
did not refuse to carry his confidence still
further; and he told me many curious things
concerning his master and other persons, including
his excellent self, to which I should
have perhaps attached more importance, had
I not supposed the punch had made him poetical.
He told me what I then considered
a very preposterous story about his master;
namely, that this exemplary gentleman and
soldier, having broken his father's heart by
evil courses, and abandoned, after meanly
plundering of her property, a deserving but
unhappy wife, (for, Jones assured me, his
master was married,) had finished his villanies
by debauching the wife of his best friend,
and blowing out the husband's brains by way
of reparation; to which latter exploits he
owed his sudden exile to the back woods, a
further residence in a civilized community
having been thus rendered impossible.

“This account, I repeat, I considered a
mere invention of Mr. Jones. And in this
opinion I was confirmed by his telling me

sundry stories concerning himself, which, had
I believed them, would have proved him as
thorough a rogue as his master. My incredulity,
however, I soon found, was, in this
latter particular, wholly misplaced; for Mr.
Jones, who was so unwilling to dare the
perils of the Ohio voyage, it was early next
morning discovered, had left his master's
service some time during the night, having
previously taken the precaution to rob the
gallant soldier of every valuable he possessed.
The only inconvenience resulting from
this was, that Captain Sharpe was compelled
to borrow all my generous employer's loose
cash, to refit for the voyage, having no leisure
left to look after the robber. Indeed, within
an hour after the discovery of his loss was
made—that is, at sunrise that morning, the
26th of April—we unmoored our boats and
were soon afloat upon the bosom of the Ohio.