University of Virginia Library

16. CHAPTER XVI.

The flaming arrows were still shot in vain at
the water-soaked roof, and the combustibles with
which they were armed, burning out very rapidly,
produced but little of that effect in illuminating
the ruins which Roland had apprehended, and for
which they had been perhaps in part designed;
and, in consequence, the savages soon ceased to
shoot them. A more useful ally to the besiegers
was promised in the moon, which was now rising
over the woods, and occasionally revealing her
wan and wasted crescent through gaps in the
clouds. Waning in her last quarter, and struggling
amid banks of vapour, she yet retained sufficient
magnitude and lustre, when risen a few
more degrees, to dispel the almost sepulchral
darkness that had hitherto invested the ruins, and
thus proved a more effectual protection to the
travellers than their own courage. Of this Roland
was well aware, and he watched the increasing
light with sullen and gloomy forbodings, though
still exhorting his two supporters to hope and
courage, and setting them a constant example of
vigilance and resolution. But neither hope nor
courage, neither vigilance nor resolution, availed
to deprive the foe of the advantage he had gained
in effecting a lodgment among the ruins, where
four or five different warriors still maintained a
hot fire upon the hovel, doing, of course, little
harm, as it was entirely deserted, but threatening

mischief enough, when it should fall into their
hands,—a catastrophe that was deferred only in
consequence of the extreme cautiousness with
which they now conducted hostilities, the travellers
making only a show of defending it, though
sensible that it almost entirely commanded the
ravine.

It was now more than an hour and a half since
Nathan had departed, and Roland was beginning
himself to feel the hope he encouraged in the
others, that the man of peace had actually succeeded
in effecting his escape, and that the wild
whoop which he at first esteemed the evidence of
his capture or death, and the assault that followed
it, had been caused by some circumstance having
no relation to Nathan whatever,—perhaps by the
arrival of a reinforcement, whose coming had infused
new spirit into the breasts of the so long
baffled assailants. “If he have escaped,” he muttered,
“he must already be near the camp:—a
strong man and fleet runner might reach it in an
hour. In another hour,—nay, perhaps in half an
hour, for there are good horses and bold hearts in
the band,—I shall hear the rattle of their hoofs in
the wood, and the yells of these cursed bandits,
scattered like dust under their footsteps. If I can
but hold the ravine for an hour! Thank Heaven,
the moon is a second time lost in clouds, the thunder
is again rolling through the sky! A tempest
now were better than gales of Araby,—a thunder-gust
were our salvation.”

The wishes of the soldier seemed about to be
fulfilled. The clouds, which for half an hour had
been breaking up, again gathered, producing
thicker darkness than before; and heavy peals of
thunder, heralded by pale sheets of lightning that
threw a ghastly but insufficient light over objects,

were again heard rattling at a distance over the
woods. The fire of the savages began to slacken,
and by and by entirely ceased. They waited perhaps
for the moment when the increasing glare
of the lightning should enable them better to distinguish
between the broken timbers, the objects
of so many wasted volleys, and the crouching
bodies of the defenders.

The soldier took advantage of this moment of
tranquillity to descend to the river to quench his
thirst, and to bear back some of the liquid element
to his fainting followers. While engaged in this
duty he cast his eyes upon the scene, surveying
with sullen interest the flood that cut off his escape
from the fatal hovel. The mouth of the ravine
was wide and scattered over with rocks and
bushes, that even projected for some little space
into the water, the latter vibrating up and down
in a manner that proved the strength and irregularity
of the current. The river was here bounded
by frowning cliffs, from which, a furlong or
two above, had fallen huge blocks of stone that
greatly contracted its narrow channel; and among
these the swollen waters surged and foamed with
the greatest violence, producing that hollow roar,
which was so much in keeping with the solitude
of the ruin, and so proper an accompaniment to
the growling thunder and the wild yells of the
warriors. Below these massive obstructions, and
opposite the mouth of the ravine, the channel had
expanded into a pool; in which the waters might
have regained their tranquility and rolled along
in peace, but for the presence of an island, which,
growing up in the centre of the expanse, consolidated
by the roots of a thousand willows and
other trees that delight in such humid soils, and,
in times of flood, covered by a raft of drift timber

entangled among its trees, presented a barrier, on
either side of which the current swept with speed
and fury, though, as it seemed, entirely unopposed
by rocks. In such a current, as Roland thought,
there was nothing unusually formidable; a daring
swimmer might easily make his way to the island
opposite, where, if difficulties were presented by
the second channel, he might as easily find shelter
from enemies firing on him from the banks. He
gazed again on the island, which, viewed in the
gloom, revealed to his eyes only a mass of shadowy
boughs, resting in peace and security. His
heart beat high with hope, and he was beginning
to debate the chances of success in an attempt to
swim his party across the channel on the horses,
when a flash of lightning, brighter than usual, disclosed
the fancied island a cluster of shaking treetops,
whose trunks, as well as the soil that supported
them, were buried fathoms deep in the
flood. At the same moment, he heard, coming on
a gust that repelled and deadened for a time the
louder tumult from the rocks above, other roaring
sounds, indicating the existence of other rocky
obstructions at the foot of the island, among which,
as he could now see, the same flash having shown
him the strength of the current in the centre of
the channel, the swimmer must be dashed, who
failed to find footing on the island.

“We are imprisoned, indeed,” he muttered, bitterly;
“Heaven itself has deserted us.”

As he uttered these repining words, stooping to
dip the canteen with which he was provided, in
the water, a little canoe, darting forward with a
velocity that seemed produced by the combined
strength of the current and the rower, shot suddenly
among the rocks and bushes at the entrance

of the ravine, wedging itself fast among them,
and a human figure leaped from it to the shore.
The soldier started back aghast, as if from a
dweller of another world; but recovering his
courage in an instant, and not doubting that he
beheld in the unexpected visiter a Shawnee and
foe, who had thus found means of assailing his
party on the rear, he rushed upon the stranger
with drawn sword, for he had laid his rifle aside,
and taking him at a disadvantage, while stooping
to drag the boat further ashore, he smote him
such a blow over the head, as brought him instantly
to the ground, a dead man to all appearance,
since, while his body fell upon the earth, his
head,—or at least a goodly portion of it, sliced
away by the blow,—went skimming into the
water.

“Die, dog!” said Roland, as he struck the blow;
and not content with that, he clapped his foot on
the victim's breast, to give him the coup-de-grâce;
when, wonder of wonders, the supposed Shawnee
and dead man opened his lips, and cried aloud, in
good choice Salt-River English,—“'Tarnal death
to you, white man! what are you atter?”

It was the voice, the never-to-be-forgotten voice,
of the captain of horse-thieves; and as Roland's
sword dropped from his hand in the surprise, up
rose Roaring Ralph himself, his eyes rolling, as
Roland saw by a second flash of lightning, with
thrice their usual obliquity, his left hand scratching
among the locks of hair exposed by the blow
of the sabre, which had carried off a huge slice
of his hat, without doing other mischief, while his
right brandished a rifle, which he handled as if
about to repay the favour with interest. But the
same flash that revealed his visage to the astonished

soldier, disclosed also Roland's features
to him, and he fairly yelled with joy at the sight.
“'Tarnal death to me!” he roared, first leaping
into the air and cracking his heels together, then
snatching at Roland's hand, which he clutched and
twisted with the gripe of a bear, and then cracking
his heels together again, “'tarnal death to me,
sodger, but I know'd it war you war in a squabblification!
I heerd the cracking and the squeaking;
`'Tarnal death to me!' says I, `thar's Injuns!' And
then I thought, and says I, `'Tarnal death to me,
who are they atter?' and then, 'tarnal death to
me, it came over me like a strick of lightning, and
says I, `'Tarnal death to me, but it 's anngelliferous
madam that holped me out of the halter!'
Stranger!” he roared, executing another demivolte,
“h'yar am I, come to do anngelliferous
madam's fighting agin all critturs human and inhuman,
Christian and Injun, white, red, black, and
party-coloured. Show me angelliferous madam,
and then show me the abbregynes; and if you ever
seed fighting, 'tarnal death to me, but you 'll say
it war only the squabbling of seed-ticks and bluebottle
flies! I say, sodger, show me anngelliferous
madam: you cut the halter and you cut the
tug; but it war madam the anngel that set you
on: wharfo', I'm her dog and her niggur from
now to etarnity, and I'm come to fight for her,
and lick her enemies till you shall see nothing left
of 'em but ha'rs and nails!”

Of these expressions, uttered with extreme volubility
and the most extravagant gestures, Roland
took no notice; his astonishment at the horse-thief's
appearance was giving way to new thoughts
and hopes, and he eagerly demanded of Ralph
how he had got there.

“In the dug-out,”[1] said Ralph; “found her
floating among the bushes, ax'd me out a flopper [2]  

with my tom-axe in no time, jumped in, thought
of angelliferous madam, and came down the falls
like a cob in a corn-van—ar'n't I the leaping trout
of the waters? Strannger, I don't want to sw'ar;
but I reckon if there ar'n't hell up thar among
the big stones, thar's hell no other whar all about
Salt River! But I say, sodger, I came here not to
talk nor cavort,[3] but to show that I'm the man,
Ralph Stackpole, to die dog for them that pats me.
So, whar's anngelliferous madam? Let me see
her, sodger, that I may feel wolfish when I jumps
among the red-skins; 'for I'm all for a fight, and
thar ar'n't no run in me.”

“It is well indeed, if it shall prove so,” said Roland,
not without bitterness; “for it is to you
alone we owe all our misfortunes.”

With these words, he led the way to the place,
where, among the horses, concealed among brambles
and stones, lay the unfortunate females, cowering
on the bare earth. The pale sheets of lightning,
flashing now with greater frequency, revealed
them to Ralph's eyes, a ghastly and
melancholy pair, whose situation and appearance
were well fitted to move the feelings of a manly
bosom; Edith lying almost insensible across Telie's
knees, while the latter, weeping bitterly, yet seemed
striving to forget her own distresses, while ministering
to those of her companion.

“'Tarnal death to me!” cried Stackpole, looking
upon Edith's pallid visage and rayless eyes

with more emotion than would have been expected
from his rude character, or than was expressed
in his uncouth phrases, “if that don't make
me eat a niggur, may I be tetotaciously chawed
up myself! Oh, you anngelliferous madam! jist
look up and say the word, for I'm now ready to
mount a wild-cat: jist look up, and don't make a
die of it, for thar's no occasion: for ar'n't I your
niggur-slave, Ralph Stackpole? and ar'n't I come
to lick all that's agin you, Mingo, Shawnee, Delaware,
and all! Oh, you anngelliferous crittur!
don't swound away, but look up, and see how I'll
wallop 'em!”

And here the worthy horse-thief, seeing that
his exhortations produced no effect upon the apparently
dying Edith, dropped upon his knees,
and began to blubber and lament over her, as if
overcome by his feelings, promising her a world
of Indian scalps, and a whole Salt-river-full of
Shawnee blood, if she would only look up and
see how he went about it.

“Show your gratitude by actions, not by
words,” said Roland, who, whatever his cause for
disliking the zealous Ralph, was not unrejoiced at
his presence, as that of a valuable auxiliary: “rise
up, and tell me, in the name of heaven, how you
succeeded in reaching this place, and what hope
there is of leaving it?”

But Ralph was too much afflicted by the
wretched condition of Edith, whom his gratitude
for the life she had bestowed had made the
mistress paramount of his soul, to give much heed
to any one but herself; and it was only by dint of
hard questioning that Roland drew from him,
little by little, an account of the causes which had
kept him in the vicinity of the travellers, and
finally brought him to the scene of combat.

It had been, it appeared, an eventful and unlucky
day with the horse-thief, as well as the soldier.
Aside from his adventure on the beech-tree,
enough in all truth to mark the day for him with
a black stone, he had been peculiarly unfortunate
with the horses to which he had so unceremoniously
helped himself. The gallant Briareus,
after sundry trials of strength with his new master,
had at last succeeded in throwing him from
his back; and the two-year-old pony, after obeying
him the whole day with the docility of a
dog, even when the halter was round his neck,
and carrying him in safety until within a few
miles of Jackson's Station, had attempted the
same exploit, and succeeded, galloping off on the
back-track towards his home. This second loss
was the more intolerable, since Stackpole, having
endured the penalty for stealing him, considered
himself as having a legal, Lynch-like right
to the animal, which no one could now dispute. He
therefore returned in pursuit of the pony, until night
arrested his footsteps on the banks of the river,
which, the waters still rising, he did not care to
cross in the dark. He had therefore built a fire
by the road-side, intending to camp-out till morning.

“And it was your fire, then, that checked us?”
cried Roland, at this part of the story,—“it was
your light we took for the watch-fire of Indians?”

“Injuns you may say,” quoth Stackpole, innocently;
“for thar war a knot of 'em I seed
sneaking over the ford: and jist as I was squinting
a long aim at 'em, hoping I might smash two
of 'em at a lick, slam-bang goes a feller that had
got behind me, 'tarnal death to him, and roused
me out of my snuggery. Well, sodger, then I
jumps into the cane, and next into the timber;

for I reckoned all Injun creation war atter me.
And so I sticks fast in a lick; and then, to sum-totalize,
I wallops down a rock, eend foremost,
like a bull-toad: and, 'tarnal death to me, while
I war scratching my head, and wondering whar
I came from, I heerd the crack of the guns
across the river, and thought of anngelliferous
madam. 'Tarnal death to me, sodger, it turned
me wrong side out! and while I war axing all
natur' how I war to get over, what should I do
but see the old sugar-trough floating in the
bushes,—I seed her in a strick of lightning. So
pops I in, and paddles I down, till I comes to the
rocks,—and ar'nt they beauties? `H'yar goes for
grim death and massacreeation,' says I, and tuck
the shoot; and if I did n't fetch old dug-out
through slicker than snakes, and faster than a
well-greased thunderbolt, niggurs ar'n't niggurs,
nor Injuns Injuns: and, strannger, if you axes me
why, h'yar's the wharfo'—'twar because I thought
of anngelliferous madam! Strannger, I am the
gentleman to see her out of a fight; and so jist
tell her thar's no occasion for being uneasy; for,
'tarnal death to me, I'll mount Shawnees, and die
for her, jist like nothing.”

“Wretch that you are,” cried Roland, whose
detestation of the unlucky cause of his troubles, revived
by the discovery that it was to his presence
at the ford they owed their last and most fatal
disappointment, rendered him somewhat insensible
to the good feelings and courage which had
brought the grateful fellow to his assistance,—
“you were born for our destruction; every way
you have proved our ruin: but for you, my poor
kinswoman would have been now in safety
among her friends. Had she left you hanging on
the beech, you would not have been on the river,

to cut off her only escape, when pursued close at
hand by murderous savages.”

The reproach, now for the first time acquainting
Stackpole with the injury he had, though so
unintentionally and innocently, inflicted upon his
benefactress; and the sight of her, lying apparently
half-dead at his feet, wrought up the feelings
of the worthy horse-thief to a pitch of desperate
compunction, mingled with fury.

“If I'm the crittur that holped her into the fix,
I'm the crittur to holp her out of it. 'Tarnal
death to me, whar's the Injuns? H'yar goes to
eat 'em!”

With that, he uttered a yell,—the first human
cry that had been uttered for some time, for the
assailants were still resting on their arms,—and
rushing up the ravine, as if well acquainted with
the localities of the Station, he ran to the ruin,
repeating his cries at every step, with a loudness
and vigour of tone that soon drew a response
from the lurking enemy.

“H'yar, you 'tarnal-temporal, long-legged, 'tater-headed,
paint-faces!” he roared, leaping from
the passage floor to the pile of ruins before the
door of the hovel, (where Emperor yet lay ensconced,
and whither Roland followed him,) as if
in utter defiance of the foemen whom he hailed
with such opprobrious epithets,—“h'yar, you bald-head,
smoke-dried, punkin-eating, red-skins! you
half-niggurs! you 'coon-whelps! you snakes! you
varmints! you raggamuffins what goes about
licking women and children, and scar'ring anngelliferous
madam! git up and show your scalp-locks;
for 'tarnal death to me, I'm the man to
take 'em—cock-a-doodle-doo!”—

And the valiant horse-thief concluded his warlike
defiance with such a crow as might have

struck consternation to the heart not merely of
the best game-cock in Kentucky, but to the bird
of Jove itself. Great was the excitement it produced
among the warriors. A furious hubbub
was heard to arise among them, followed by many
wrathful voices exclaiming in broken English,
with eager haste, “Know him dah! cuss' rascal!
Cappin Stackpole!—steal Injun hoss!” And the
`steal Injun hoss!' iterated and reiterated by a
dozen voices, and always with the most iracund
emphasis, enabled Roland to form a proper conception
of the sense in which his enemies held
that offence, as well as of the great merits and
wide-spread fame of his new ally, whose mere
voice had thrown the red-men into such a ferment.

But it was not with words alone they vented their
displeasure. Rifle-shots and execrations were discharged
together against the notorious enemy of
their pinfolds; who, nothing daunted, and nothing
loath, let fly his own `speechifier,' as he denominated
his rifle, in return, accompanying the salute
with divers yells and maledictions, in which latter,
he showed himself, to say the truth, infinitely
superior to his antagonists. He would even, so
great and fervent was his desire to fight the battles
of his benefactress to advantage, have retained
his exposed stand on the pile of ruins, daring
every bullet, had not Roland dragged him down
by main force, and compelled him to seek a shelter
like the rest, from which, however, he carried
on the war, loading and firing his piece with wonderful
rapidity, and yelling and roaring all the
time with triumphant fury, as if reckoning upon
every shot to bring down an enemy.

But it was not many minutes before Roland began
to fear that the fatality which had marked

all his relations with the intrepid horse-thief, had
not yet lost its influence, and that Stackpole's present
assistance was any thing but advantageous
to his cause. It seemed, indeed, as if the savages
had been driven to increased rage by the discovery
of his presence; and that the hope of capturing
him, the most daring and inveterate of all
the hungerers after Indian horse-flesh, and requiting
his manifold transgressions on the spot,
had infused into them new spirit and fiercer determination.
Their fire became more vigorous,
their shouts more wild and ferocious: those who
had effected a lodgment among the ruins crept
nigher, while others appeared, dealing their shots
from other quarters close at hand; and, in fine,
the situation of his little party became so precarious,
that Roland, apprehending every moment a
general assault, and despairing of being again
able to repel it, drew them secretly off from the
ruin, which he abandoned entirely, and took refuge
among the rocks at the head of the ravine.

It was then,—while, unconscious of the sudden
evacuation of the hovel, but not doubting they
had driven the defenders into its interior, the
enemy poured in half a dozen or more volleys, as
preliminaries to the assault which the soldier apprehended,
—that he turned to the unlucky Ralph;
and arresting him as he was about to fire upon
the foe from his new cover, demanded, with much
agitation, if it were not possible to transport
the hapless females in the little canoe, which his
mind had often reverted to as a probable means
of escape, to a place of safety.

"'Tarnal death to me," said Ralph, "thar's a
boiling-pot above and a boiling-pot below; but
ar'n't I the crittur to shake old Salt by the fo'-paw?

Can take anngelliferous madam down ar a
shoot that war ever seed!"

"And why, in Heaven's name," cried the Virginian,
"did you not say so before, and relieve
her from this horrible situation?"

"'Tarnal death to me, ar'n't I to do her fighting
first?" demanded the honest Ralph. "Jist let's
have another crack at the villians, jist for madam's
satisfaction; and then, sodger, if you're for taking
the shoot, I'm jist the salmon to show you the
way. But I say, sodger, I won't lie," he continued,
finding Roland was bent upon instant escape, while
the savages were yet unaware of their flight from
the hovel,—"I won't lie, sodger;—thar's rather a
small trough to hold madam and the gal, and me
and you and the niggur and the white man;"—
(for Stackpole was already acquainted with the
number of the party;)—"and as for the hosses,
'twill be all crucifixion to git 'em through old
Salt's fingers."

"Think not of horses, nor of us," said Roland.
"Save but the women, and it will be enough. For
the rest of us, we will do our best. We can keep
the hollow till we are relieved; for, if Nathan be
alive, relief must be now on the way." And in a
few hurried words, he acquainted Stackpole with
his having despatched the man of peace to seek
assistance.

"Thar's no trusting the crittur, Bloody Nathan,"
said Ralph; "though at a close hug, a
squeeze on the small ribs, or a kick-up of heels,
he's all splendiferous. Afore you see his ugly pictur'
a'gin, 'tarnal death to me, strannger, you'll be
devoured;—the red niggurs thar won't make two
bites at you. No, sodger,—if we run, we run,—
thar's the principle; we takes the water, the whole
herd together, niggurs, hosses and all, partickelarly

the hosses; for, 'tarnal death to me, it's agin
my conscience to leave so much as a hoof. And
so, sodger, if you conscientiously thinks thar has
been walloping enough done on both sides, I'm
jist the man to help you all out of the bobbery;—
though, cuss me, you might as well have cut me
out of the beech without so much hard axing!"

These words of the worthy horse-thief, uttered
as hurriedly as his own, but far more coolly, animated
the spirits of the young soldier with double
hope; and taking advantage of the busy intentness
with which the enemy still poured their fire
into the ruin, he despatched Ralph down the ravine
to prepare the canoe for the women, while
he himself summoned Dodge and Emperor to
make an effort for their own deliverance.