University of Virginia Library

5. CHAPTER V.

By dint of chafing and bathing in the spring,
still foul and red with the blood of the Piankeshaws,
the limbs of the soldier soon recovered
their strength, and he was able to rise, to survey
the scene of his late sufferings and liberation,
and again recur to the harassing subject of his
kinswoman's fate. Again he beset Bloody Nathan—now
undoubtedly worthy the name—with
questions, which soon recalled the disturbed looks
which his deliverer had worn when first assailed
with interrogatories. He adjured him to complete
the good work he had so bravely begun, by leaving
himself to his fate, and making his way to the
emigrants, or to the nearest inhabited Station,
whence assistance might be procured to pursue
the savages and their captives, before it might be
too late. “Lead the party first to the battle-ground,”
he said: “I am now as a child in
strength, but I can crawl thither to meet you; and
once on a horse again, be assured no one shall
pursue better or faster than I.”

“If thee thinks of rescuing the maiden,” said
Nathan—

“I will do so, or die,” exclaimed Roland, impetuously;
“and would to Heaven I could die
twice over, so I might snatch her from the murdering
monsters. Alas! had you but followed
them, instead of these three curs; and done that
service to Edith you have done to me!”

“Truly,” said Nathan, “thee talks as if ten
men were as easily knocked on the head as ten
rabbits. But, hearken, friend, and do thee have
patience for a while! There is a thing in this
matter that perplexes me; and, verily, there is two
or three. Why did thee desert the ruin? and who
was it led thee through the canes? Let me know
what it was that happened thee; for, of a truth,
there is more in this same matter than thee
thinks.”

Thus called upon, Roland acquainted Nathan
with the events that had succeeded his departure
from the ruin,—the appearance of Ralph Stackpole,
and the flight of the party by the river,—
circumstances that moved the wonder and admiration
of Nathan,—and with all the other occurrences
up to the moment of the defeat of the
Kentuckians, and the division of the plunder
among the victorious Indians. The mention of
these spoils, the rifles, bolts of cloth, beads, bells,
and other gewgaw trinkets, produced an evident
impression on Nathan's mind; which was greatly
increased when Roland related the scene betwixt
Telie Doe and her reprobate father, and repeated
those expressions which seemed to show that the
attack upon the party was by no means accidental,
but the result of a previously formed design,
of which she was not ignorant.

“Where Abel Doe is, there, thee may be sure,
there is knavery!” said Nathan; demanding earnestly
if Roland had seen no other white man in
the party.

“I saw no other,” he replied: “but there was
a tall man in a blanket, wearing a red turban, who
looked at me from a distance; and I thought he
was a half-breed, like Doe,—for so, at first, I supposed
the latter to be.”

“Well, friend! And he seemed to command
the party, did he not?” demanded Nathan, with
interest.

“The leader,” replied Roland, “was a vile,
grim old rascal, that they called Kehauga, or
Kenauga, or—”

“Wenonga!” cried Nathan, with extraordinary
vivacity, his whole countenance, in fact, lighting
up with the animation of intense interest,—“an
old man tall and raw-boned, a scar on his nose
and cheek, a halt in his gait, his left middle-finger
short of a joint, and a buzzard's beak and talons
tied to his hair?—It is Wenonga, the Black-Vulture!—Truly,
little Peter! thee is but a dolt and
a dog, that thee told me nothing about it!”

The soldier remarked with some surprise, the
change in Nathan's visage, and with still more,
his angry reproaches of the trusty animal, the first
he had heard him utter.

“And who then is the old Black-Vulture,” he
asked, “that he should drive from your mind even
the thought of my poor wretched Edith?”

“Thee is but a boy in the woods, if thee never
heard of Wenonga, the Shawnee,” replied Nathan,
hastily,—“a man that has left the mark of
his axe on many a ruined cabin along the frontier,
from the Bloody Run of Bedford to the Kenhawa
and the Holston. He is the chief that boasts he
has no heart: and, truly, he has none, being a
man that has drunk the blood of women and
children—Friend! thee kinswoman's scalp is already
hanging at his girdle!”

This horrible announcement, uttered with a
fierce earnestness that proved the sincerity of the
speaker, froze Roland's blood in his veins, and he
stood speechless and gasping; until Nathan, noting

his agitation, and recovering in part from his
own ferment of spirits, exclaimed, even more
hastily than before—“Truly, I have told thee
what is false—Thee kinswoman is safe,—a prisoner,
but alive and safe.”

“You have told me she is dead—murdered by
the foul assassins,” said Roland; “and if it be so,
it avails not to deny it. If it be so, Nathan,” he
continued, with a look of desperation, “I call
Heaven and earth to witness, that I will pursue
the race of the slayers with thrice the fury of
their own malice,—never to pause, never to rest,
never to be satisfied with vengeance, while an Indian
lives with blood to be shed, and I with
strength to shed it.”

“Thee speaks like a man!” said Nathan, grasping
the soldier's hand, and fairly crushing it in his
gripe,—“that is to say,” he continued, suddenly
letting go his hold, and seeming somewhat abashed
at the fervour of his sympathy, “like a man,
according to thee own sense of matters and
things. But do thee be content; thee poor
maid is alive, and like to be so; and that thee
may be assured of it, I will soon tell thee the
thing that is on my mind. Friend, do thee answer
me a question—Has thee any enemy among
the Injuns?—that is to say, any reprobate white-man
like this Abel Doe,—who would do thee a
wrong?”

The soldier stared with surprise, and replied in
the negative.

“Has thee no foe, then, at home, whom thee
has theeself wronged to that point that he would
willingly league with murdering Injuns to take
thee life?”

“I have my enemies, doubtless, like all other

men,” said Roland, “but none so basely, so improbably
malignant.”

“Verily, then, thee makes me in a perplexity as
before,” said Nathan; “for as truly as thee stands
before me, so truly did I see, that night when I
left thee at the ruins, and crawled through the Injun
lines, a white man that sat at a fire with Abel
Doe, the father of the maid Telie, apart from the
rest, and counselled with him how best to sack
the cabin, without killing the two women.—Truly,
friend, it was a marvel to myself, there being so
many of the murdering villains, that they did us
so little mischief: but, truly, it was because of the
women.—And, truly, there was foul knavery between
these two men; for I heard high words
and chaffering between them, as concerning a
price or reward which Abel Doe claimed of the
other for the help he was rendering him, in snapping
thee up, with thee kinswoman. Truly, thee
must not think I was mistaken; for seeing the
man's red shawl round his head gleaming in the
fire, and not knowing there was any one nigh
him, (for Abel Doe lay flat upon the earth,) a
wicked thought came into my head; `for, truly,'
said I, `this man is the chief, and, being alone, a
man might strike him with a knife from behind
the tree he rests against, and being killed, his people
will fly in fear, without any more bloodshed:'
but creeping nearer, I saw that he was but a
white man in disguise; and so, having listened
awhile, to hear what I could, and hearing what I
have told thee, I crept away on my journey.”

The effect of this unexpected revelation upon
the young Virginian was as if an adder had suddenly
fastened upon his bosom. It awoke a suspicion,
involving indeed an improbability such as
his better reason revolted at, but full of pain

and terror. But wild and incredible as it
seemed, it received a kind of confirmation from
what Nathan added.

“The rifle-guns, the beads, and the cloth,” he
said, “that were distributed after the battle,—
does thee think they were plunder taken from the
young Kentuckians they had vanquished? Friend,
these things were a price with which the white
man in the red shawl paid the assassin villains
for taking thee prisoner,—thee and thee kinswoman.
His hirelings were vagabonds of all the
neighbouring tribes, Shawnees, Wyandots, Delawares,
and Piankeshaws, as I noted well when I
crept among them; and old Wenonga is the
greatest vagabond of all, having long since been
degraded by his tribe for bad luck, drunkenness,
and other follies, natural to an Injun. My own
idea is, that that white man thirsted for thee blood,
having given thee up to the Piankeshaws, who,
thee says, had lost one of their men in the battle;
for which thee would certainly have been burned
alive at their village: but what was his design in
captivating thee poor kinswoman that thee calls
Edith, truly I cannot divine, not knowing much of
thee history.”

“You shall hear it,” said Roland, with hoarse
accents,—“at least so much of it as may enable
you to confirm or disprove your suspicions.
There is indeed one man whom I have always
esteemed my enemy, the enemy also of Edith,—
a knave capable of any extremity, yet never
could I have dreamed, of a villany so daring, so
transcendant as this!”

So saying, Roland, smothering his agitation as
he could, proceeded to acquaint his rude friend,
now necessarily his confidant, with so much of
his history as related to Braxley, his late uncle's

confidential agent and executor;—a man whom
Roland's revelations to the gallant and inquisitive
Colonel Bruce, and still more, perhaps, his conversation
with Edith in the wood, may have introduced
sufficiently to the reader's acquaintance.
But of Braxley, burning with a hatred he no longer
chose to subdue, the feeling greatly exasperated,
also, by the suspicion Nathan's hints had
infused into his mind, he now spoke without restraint;
and assuredly, if one might have judged
by the bitterness of his invectives, the darkness of
the colours with which he traced the detested
portrait, a baser wretch did not exist on the whole
earth. Yet to a dispassionate and judicious hearer
it might have seemed that there was little in the
evidence to bear out an accusation so sweeping
and heavy. Little, indeed, had the soldier to
charge against him save his instrumentality in
defeating hopes and expectations, which had been
too long indulged to be surrendered without anger
and pain. That this instrumentality, considering
all the circumstances, was to be attributed
to base and fraudulent motives, it was natural to
suspect; but the proofs were far from being satisfactory,
as they rested chiefly on surmises and
assumptions.

It will be recollected, that on the death of Major
Forrester, Braxley had brought to light a
testament of undoubted authenticity, but of ancient
date, in which the whole estate of the deceased
was bequeathed to his own infant child,—an unfortunate
daughter, who, however, it had never
been doubted, had perished many years before
among the flames of the cabin of her foster-mother,
but who Braxley had made oath, was, to the best
of his knowledge, still alive. His oath was founded,
he averred, upon the declaration of a man, the

husband of the foster-mother, a certain Atkinson,
whom tory principles and practices, and perhaps
crimes and outrages—for such were charged
against him—had long since driven to seek refuge
on the frontier, but who had privily returned to
the major's house, a few weeks before the latter's
death, and made confession that the girl was still
living; but, being recognised by an old acquaintance,
and dreading the vengeance of his
countrymen he had immediately fled again to the
frontier, without acquainting any one with the
place of the girl's concealment. The story of Atkinson's
return was confirmed by the man who
had seen and recognised him, but who knew
nothing of the cause of his visit; and Braxley
declared he had already taken steps to ferret him
out, and had good hopes through his means of recovering
the lost heiress.

This story Roland affected to believe a vile
fabrication, the result of a deep-laid, and, unfortunately,
too successful design on Braxley's part,
to get possession, in the name of an imaginary
heiress, of the rich estates of his patron. The
authenticity of the will, which had been framed at
a period when the dissentions between Major Forrester
and his brothers were at the highest, Roland
did not doubt; it was the non-existence of the individual
in whose favour it had been executed, a
circumstance which he devoutly believed, that
gave a fraudulent character to its production. He
even accused Braxley of having destroyed a second
will, (by which the former was of course annulled,
even supposing the heiress were still living,) a
testament framed a few months before his uncle's
death; in which the latter had bequeathed all his
possessions to Edith, the child of his adoption.
That such a second will had been framed, appeared

from the testator's own admissions; at
least, he had so informed Edith, repeating the fact
on several different occasions. The fact, indeed,
even Braxley did not deny; but he averred, that
the second instrument had been destroyed by the
deceased himself, as soon as the confession of Atkinson
had acquainted him with the existence of
his own unfortunate daughter. This explanation
Roland rejected entirely, insisting that during the
whole period of Atkinson's visit, and for some
weeks before, his uncle had been in a condition of
mental imbecility and unconsciousness, as incapable
of receiving and understanding the supposed
confession as he was of acting on it. The
story was only an additional device of Braxley to
remove from himself the suspicion of having destroyed
the second will.

But whatever might have been thought of these
imputations, it was evident that the young soldier
had another cause for his enmity,—one, indeed,
that seemed more operative on his mind and feelings
than even the loss of fortune. The robber
and plunderer, for these were the softest epithets
he had for his rival, had added to his crimes the
enormity of aspiring to the affections of his kinswoman,
whom the absence of Roland and the
helpless imbecility of her uncle, left exposed to his
presumption and his arts. Had the maiden smiled
upon his suit, this indeed might have seemed a
legitimate cause of hatred on the part of Roland;
but Edith had repelled the lover with firmness,
perhaps even with contempt. The presumption of
such a rival Roland might perhaps have pardoned;
but he saw in the occurrences that followed, a
bitter and malignant revenge of the maiden's
scorn, which none but the basest of villains could
have attempted. It was this consideration which

gave the sharpest edge to the young man's hatred;
and it was his belief that a wretch capable of such
a revenge, was willing to add to it any other measure
of villany, however daring and fiendish, that
had turned his thoughts upon Braxley, when Nathan's
words first woke the suspicion of a foeman's
design and agency in the attack on his party.
How Braxley, a white-man and Virginian, and
therefore the foe of every western tribe, could
have so suddenly and easily thrown himself into
the arms of the savages, and brought them to his
own plans, it might have been difficult to say.
But anger is credulous, and fury stops not at impossibilities.
“It is Braxley himself!” he cried, at
the close of his narration; “how can it be doubted?
He announced publicly his intention to proceed to
the frontier, to the Kenhawa settlements, in search
of the fabulous heiress, and was gone before our
party had all assembled in Fincastle. Thus, then,
he veiled his designs, thus concealed a meditated
villany. But his objects—It was not my miserable
life he sought—what would that avail him?—they
aimed at my cousin,—and she is now in his
power!”

“Truly, then,” said Nathan, who listened to the
story with great interest, and now commented on
Roland's agitation with equal composure, “thee
doth make a great fuss for nothing; for, truly, the
maid will not be murdered—Truly, thee has
greatly relieved my mind. Thee should not think
the man, being a white man, will kill her.”

“Kill her!” cried Roland—“Would that twenty
bullets had pierced her heart, rather than she
should have fallen alive into the hands of Braxley!
Miserable wretch that I am; what can I do to save
her? We will rescue her, Nathan; we will seek
assistance; we will pursue the ravisher;—it is not

yet too late. Speak to me—I shall go distracted:
what must we do?—what can we do?”

“Truly,” said Nathan, “I fear me, we can do
nothing.—Don't thee look so frantic, friend; I
don't think thee has good sense. Thee talks of
assistance—what is thee thinking about? where
would thee seek assistance? Has thee forgot the
Injun army is on the north side, and all the fighting-men
of the Stations gone to meet them? There
is nobody to help thee.”

“But the emigrants, my friend? they are yet
night at hand—”

“Truly,” said Nathan, “thee is mistaken. The
news of the Injuns, that brought friend Thomas
the younger into the woods, did greatly dismay
them, as the young men reported; and, truly, they
did resolve to delay their journey no longer, but
start again before the break of day, that they
might the sooner reach the Falls, and be in safety
with their wives and little-ones. There is no help
for thee. Thee and me is alone in the wilderness,
and there is no friend with us. Leave wringing
thee hands, for it can do thee no good.”

“I am indeed friendless, and there is no hope,”
said Roland, with the accents of despair; “while
we seek assistance, and seek it vainly, Edith is
lost,—lost for ever! Would that we had perished
together! Hapless Edith! wretched Edith!—Was
ever wretch so miserable as I?”

With such expressions, the young man gave a
loose to his feelings, and Nathan surveyed, first with
surprise and then with a kind of gloomy indignation,
but never, as it seemed, with any thing like
sympathy, the extravagance of his grief.

“Thee is but a madman!” he exclaimed at last,
and with a tone of severity that arrested Roland's
attention: “does thee curse thee fate, and the Providence

that is above thee, because the maid of
thee heart is carried into captivity unharmed? Is
thee wretched, because thee eyes did not see the
Injun axe struck into her brain? Friend, thee
does not know what such a sight is; but I do—
yes, I have looked upon such a thing, and I will
tell thee what it is; for it is good thee should
know. Look, friend,” he continued, grasping Roland
by the arm, as if to command his attention,
and surveying him with a look both wild and
mournful, “thee sees a man before thee who was
once as young and as happy as thee,—yea, friend,
happier, for I had many around me to love me,—
the children of my body, the wife of my bosom,
the mother that gave me birth. Thee did talk of
such things to me in the wood,—thee did mention
them one and all,—wife, parent, and child! Such
things had I; and men spoke well of me—But
thee sees what I am! There is none of them remaining,—none
only but me; and thee sees me
what I am! Ten years ago I was another man,—
a poor man, friend, but one that was happy. I
dwelt upon the frontiers of Bedford—thee may
not know the place; it is among the mountains of
Pennsylvania, and far away. There was the
house that I did build me; and in it there was all
that I held dear, `my gray old mother'—(that's
the way thee did call her, when thee spoke of her
in the wood!)—`the wife of my bosom,' and `the
child of my heart,'—the children, friend,—for
there was five of them, sons and daughters together,—little
innocent babes that had done no
wrong; and, truly, I loved them well. Well,
friend, the Injuns came around us: for being bold,
because of my faith that made me a man of peace,
and the friend of all men, I sat me down far on
the border. But the Shawnees came upon me,
and came as men of war, and their hands were
red with the blood of my neighbours, and they
raised them against my little infants. Thee asked
me in the wood, what I would do in such case,
having arms in my hand? Friend, I had arms in
my hand, at that moment,—a gun that had shot
me the beasts of the mountain for food, and a
knife that had pierced the throats of bears in their
dens. I gave them to the Shawnee chief, that he
might know I was a friend.—Friend! if thee
asks me now for my children, I can tell thee—
With my own knife he struck down my eldest
boy! with my own gun he slew the mother of my
children!—If thee should live till thee is gray,
thee will never see the sight I saw that day!
When thee has children that Injuns murder, as
thee stands by,—a wife that clasps thee legs in
the writhing of death,—her blood, spouting up to
thee bosom, where she has slept,—an old mother
calling thee to help her in the death-struggle:—
then, friend, then thee may see—then thee may
know—then thee may feel—then thee may call
theeself wretched, for thee will be so! Here was
my little boy,—does thee see? there his two sisters—thee
understands?—there—Thee may think
I would have snatched a weapon to help them
then! Well—thee is right:—but it was too late!
—All murdered, friend!—all—all,—all cruelly
murdered!”

It is impossible to convey an idea of the extraordinary
vehemence, the wild accents, the frantic
looks, with which Nathan ended the horrid story,
into which he had been betrayed by his repining
companion. His struggles to subdue the passions
that the dreadful recollections of a whole family's
butchery awoke in his bosom, only served to add

double distortion to his changes of countenance,
which, a better index of the convulsion within
than were his broken, incoherent, half-inarticulate
words, assumed at last an appearance so wild, so
hideous, so truly terrific, that Roland was seized
with horror, deeming himself confronted with a
raging maniac. He raised his hand to remove
that of Nathan, which still clutched his arm, and
clutched it with painful force; but while in the
act, the fingers relaxed of themselves, and Nathan
dropped suddenly to the earth, as if struck down
by a thunderbolt, his mouth foaming, his eyes distorted,
his hands clenched, his body convulsed,—
in short, exhibiting every proof of an epileptic fit,
brought on by overpowering agitation of mind.
As he fell, little Peter sprang to his side, and
throwing his paws on his unconscious master's
breast, stood over him as if to protect
him, growling at Roland; who, though greatly
shocked at the catastrophe, did not hesitate to
offer such relief as was in his power. Disregarding
the menace of the dog, which seemed at last
to understand the purpose was friendly, he raised
Nathan's head upon his knee, loosened the neck-cloth
that bound his throat, and sprinkled his face
with water from the spring. While thus engaged,
the cap of the sufferer fell from his head, and Roland
saw that Nathan carried with him a better
cause for the affliction than could be referred to
any mere temporary emotion, however overwhelming
to the mind. A horrible scar disfigured
the top of his head, which seemed to have been,
many years before, crushed by the blows of a
heavy weapon; and it was equally manifest that
the savage scalping-knife had done its work on
the mangled head.

The soldier had heard that injuries to the head
often resulted in insanity of some species or other;
he could now speculate, on better grounds, and
with better reason, upon some of those singular
points of character which seemed to distinguish
the houseless Nathan from the rest of his fellowmen.