 | CHAPTER XIV. The wept of Wish-ton-Wish |  |
14. CHAPTER XIV.
Quit him not so soon!
Mother, in mercy, stay!
Despair and death are with him; and canst thou,
With that kind, earthward look, go leave him now?”
Dana.
When these precautions were taken, the females
returned to their several look-outs; and Ruth, whose
duty it was in moments of danger to exercise a general
superintendence, was left to her meditations
and to such watchfulness as her fears might excite.
Quitting the inner rooms, she approached the door
that communicated with the court, and for a moment
lost the recollection of her immediate cares
in a view of the imposing scene by which she was
surrounded.
By this time, the whole of the vast range of out-buildings,
which had been constructed, as was usual
in the Colonies, of the most combustible materials
and with no regard to the expenditure of wood, was
wrapt in fire. Notwithstanding the position of the
intermediate edifices, broad flashes of light were
constantly crossing the court itself, on whose surface
she was able to distinguish the smallest object, while
the heavens above her were glaring with a lurid
red. Through the openings between the buildings
of the quadrangle, the eye could look out upon the
on the part of the savages to persevere in
their object. Dark, fierce-looking, and nearly maked
human forms were seen flitting from cover to cover
while there was no stump nor log within arrow's-flight
of the defences, that did not protect the person
of a daring and indefatigable enemy. It was
plain the Indians were there in hundreds, and as
the assaults continued after the failure of a surprise,
it was too evident that they were bent on victory,
at some hazard to themselves. No usual means of
adding to the horrors of the scene were neglected.
Whoops and yells were incessantly ringing around
the place, while the loud and often-repeated tones
of a conch betrayed the artifice by which the savages
had so often endeavored, in the earlier part of
the night, to lure the garrison out of the palisadoes.
A few scattering shot, discharged with deliberation
and from every exposed point within the works,
proclaimed both the coolness and the vigilance of
the defendants. The little gun in the block-house
was silent, for the Puritan knew too well its real
power to lessen its reputation by a too frequent use.
The weapon was therefore reserved for those moments
of pressing danger that would be sure to arrive.
On this spectacle Ruth gazed in fearful sadness.
The long-sustained and sylvan security of her abode
was violently destroyed; and in the place of a quiet
which had approached as near as may be on earth
to that holy peace for which her spirit strove, she
and all she most loved were suddenly confronted to
the most frightful exhibition of human horrors. In
such a moment, the feelings of a mother were likely
to revive; and ere time was given for reflection,
aided by the light of the conflagration, the matron
was moving swiftly through the intricate passages
placed in the security of the chambers.
“Thou hast remembered to avoid looking on the
fields, my children,” said the nearly breathless woman
as she entered the room. “Be thankful, babes;
hitherto the efforts of the savages have been vain,
and we still remain masters of our habitations.”
“Why is the night so red? Come hither, mother;
thou mayest look into the wood as if the sun were
shining!”
“The heathens have fired our granaries, and
what thou seest is the light of the flames. But
happily they cannot put brand into the dwellings,
while thy father and the young men stand to their
weapons. We must be grateful for this security,
frail as it seemeth. Thou hast knelt, my Ruth; and
hast remembered to think of thy father and brother
in thy prayers.”
“I will do so again, mother,” whispered the child,
bending to her knees, and wrapping her young features
in the garments of the matron.
“Why hide thy countenance? One young and
innocent as thou, may lift thine eyes to Heaven with
confidence.”
“Mother, I see the Indian, unless my face be
hid. He looketh at me, I fear, with wish to do us
harm.”
“Thou art not just to Miantonimoh, child,” answered
Ruth, as she glanced her eye rapidly round
to seek the boy, who had modestly withdrawn into
a remote and shaded corner of the room. “I left
him with thee for a guardian, and not as one who
would wish to injure. Now think of thy God, child,”
imprinting a kiss on the cold, marble-like forehead
of her daughter, “and have reliance in his goodness.
Miantonimoh, I again leave you with a charge
to be their protector,” she added, quitting her daughter
and advancing towards the youth.
“Mother!” shrieked the child, “come to me, or
I die!”
Ruth turned from the listening captive, with the
quickness of instinct. A glance showed her the
jeopardy of her offspring. A naked savage, dark,
powerful of frame, and fierce in the frightful masquerade
of his war-paint, stood winding the silken
hair of the girl in one hand, while he already held
the glittering axe above a head that seemed inevitably
devoted to destruction.
“Mercy! mercy!” exclaimed Ruth, hoarse with
horror, and dropping to her knees, as much from
inability to stand as with intent to petition. “Monster,
strike me, but spare the child!”
The eyes of the Indian rolled over the person of
the speaker, but it was with an expression that
seemed rather to enumerate the number of his victims,
than to announce any change of purpose.
With a fiend-like coolness, that bespoke much
knowledge of the ruthless practice, he again swung
the quivering but speechless child in the air, and
prepared to direct the weapon with a fell certainty
of aim. The tomahawk had made its last circuit,
and an instant would have decided the fate of the
victim, when the captive boy stood in front of the
frightful actor in this revolting scene. By a quick,
forward movement of his arm, the blow was arrested.
The deep guttural ejaculation, which betrays
the surprise of an Indian, broke from the chest of
the savage, while his hand fell to his side, and the
form of the suspended girl was suffered again to
touch the floor. The look and gesture with which
the boy had interfered, expressed authority rather
than resentment or horror. His air was calm, collected,
and, as it appeared by the effect, imposing.
“Go,” he said in the language of the fierce people
from whom he had sprung; “the warriors of
the pale men are calling thee by name.”
“The snow is red with the blood of our young
men,” the other fiercely answered; “and not a
scalp is at the belt of my people.”
“These are mine,” returned the boy with dignity,
sweeping his arm, while speaking, in a manner to
show that he extended protection to all present.
The warrior gazed about him grimly, and like
one but half-convinced. He had incurred a danger
too fearful, in entering the stockade, to be easily
diverted from his purpose.
“Listen!” he continued, after a short pause, during
which the artillery of the Puritan had again
bellowed in the uproar, without. “The thunder is
with the Yengeese! Our young women will look
another way and call us Pequots, should there be
no scalps on our pole.”
For a single moment, the countenance of the boy
changed, and his resolution seemed to waver. The
other, who watched his eyes with longing eagerness,
again seized his victim by the hair, when Ruth
shrieked in the accents of despair—
“Boy! boy! if thou art not with us, God hath
deserted us!”
“She is mine,” burst fiercely from the lips of the
lad. “Hear my words, Wompahwisset; the blood
of my father is very warm within me.”
The other paused, and the blow was once more
suspended. The glaring eye-balls of the savage
rested intently on the swelling form and stern countenance
of the young hero, whose uplifted hand
appeared to menace instant punishment, should be
dare to disregard the mediation. The lips of the
warrior severed, and the word `Miantonimoh' was
uttered as softly as if it recalled a feeling of sorrow.
Then, as a sudden burst of yells rose above
the roar of the conflagration, the fierce Indian
turned in his tracks, and, abandoning the trembling
a hound loosened on a fresh scent of blood.
“Boy! boy!” murmured the mother; “heathen
or Christian, there is one that will bless thee!—”
A rapid gesture of the hand interrupted the
fervent expression of her gratitude. Pointing after
the form of the retreating savage, the lad encircled
his own head with a finger, in a manner that could
not be mistaken, as he uttered steadily, but with the
deep emphasis of an Indian—
“The young Pale-face has a scalp!”
Ruth heard no more. With instinctive rapidity,
every feeling of her soul quickened nearly to agony,
she rushed below, in order to warn Mark against
the machinations of so fearful an enemy. Her step
was heard but for a moment in the vacant chambers,
and then the Indian boy, whose steadiness and authority
had just been so signally exerted in favor
of the children, resumed his attitude of mediation,
as quietly as if he took no further interest in the
frightful events of the night.
The situation of the garrison was now, indeed, to
the last degree critical. A torrent of fire had passed
from the further extremity of the out-houses to that
which stood nearest to the defences, and, as building
after building melted beneath its raging power, the
palisadoes became heated nearly to the point of
ignition. The alarm created by this imminent danger
had already been given, and, when Ruth issued
into the court, a female was rushing past her, seemingly
on some errand of the last necessity.
“Hast seen him?” demanded the breathless mother,
arresting the steps of the quick-moving girl.
“Not since the savage made his last onset, but I
warrant me he may be found near the western loops,
making good the works against the enemy!”
“Surely he is not foremost in the fray! Of whom
speakest thou, Faith? I questioned thee of Mark.
seeking a victim.”
“Truly, I thought it had been question of—
the boy is with his father and the stranger soldier,
who does such deeds of valor in our behalf. I have
seen no enemy within the palisadoes, Madam Heathcote,
since the entry of the man who escaped, by
favor of the powers of darkness, from the shot of
Eben Dudley's musket.”
“And is this evil like to pass from us,” resumed
Ruth, breathing more freely, as she learned the
safety of her son; “or does Providence veil its face
in anger?”
“We keep our own, though the savage hath
pressed the young men to extremity. Oh! it gladdened
heart to see how brave a guard Reuben Ring,
and others near him, made in our behalf. I do think
me, Madam Heathcote, that, after all, there is real
manhood in the brawler Dudley! Truly, the youth
hath done marvels in the way of exposure and
resistance. Twenty times this night have I expected
to see him slain.”
“And he that lyeth there?” half-whispered the
alarmed Ruth, pointing to a spot near them, where,
aside from the movements of those who still acted
in the bustle of the combat, one lay stretched on
the earth—“who hath fallen?”
The cheek of Faith blanched to a whiteness that
nearly equalled that of the linen, which, even in
the hurry of such a scene, some friendly hand had
found leisure to throw, in decent sadness, over the
form.
“That!” said the faltering girl; “though hurt
and bleeding, my brother Reuben surely keepeth
the loop at the western angle; nor is Whittal wanting
in sufficient sense to take heed of danger—This
may not be the stranger, for under the covers of the
young captain.”
“Art certain, girl?”
“I saw them both within the minute. Would to
God we could hear the shout of noisy Dudley, Madam
Heathcote: his cry cheereth the heart, in a moment
awful as this!”
“Lift the cloth,” said Ruth with calm solemnity,
“that we may know which of our friends hath been
called to the great account.”
Faith hesitated, and when, by a powerful effort,
in which secret interest had as deep an influence
as obedience, she did comply, it was with a sort of
desperate resolution. On raising the linen, the eyes
of the two women rested on the pallid countenance
of one who had been transfixed by an iron-headed
arrow. The girl dropped the linen, and in a voice
that sounded like a burst of hysterical feeling, she
exclaimed—
“'Tis but the youth that came lately among us!
We are spared the loss of any ancient friend.”
“Tis one who died for our safety. I would give
largely of this world's comforts, that this calamity
might not have been, or that greater leisure for the
last fearful reckoning had been accorded. But we
may not lose the moments in mourning. Hie thee,
girl, and sound the alarm that a savage lurketh
within our walls, and that he skulketh in quest of a
secret blow. Bid all be wary. If the young Mark
should cross thy path, speak to him twice of this
danger; the child hath a froward spirit, and may
not hearken to words uttered in too great hurry.”
With this charge, Ruth quitted her maiden.
While the latter proceeded to give the necessary
notice, the other sought the spot where she had
just learned there was reason to believe her husband
might be found.
Content and the stranger were in fact met in
to their most important means of defence.
The savages themselves appeared to be conscious
that the flames were working in their favor; for
their efforts sensibly slackened, and having already
severely suffered in their attempts to annoy the
garrison, they had fallen back to their covers, and
awaited the moment when their practised cunning
should tell them they might, with more flattering
promises of success, again rally to the onset. A brief
explanation served to make Ruth acquainted with
the imminent jeopardy of their situation. Under a
sense of a more appalling danger, she lost the recollection
of her former purpose, and with a contracted
and sorrowing eye, she stood like her companions,
in impotent helplessness, an entranced spectator
of the progress of the destruction.
“A soldier should not waste words in useless
plaints,” observed the stranger, folding his arms
like one who was conscious that human effort could
do no more, “else should I say, 'tis pity that he who
drew yon line of stockade hath not remembered
the uses of the ditch.”
“I will summon the maidens to the wells,” said
Ruth.
“'Twill not avail us. The arrow would be among
them, nor could mortal long endure the heat of
yon glowing furnace. Thou seest that the timbers
already smoke and blacken, under its fierceness.”
The stranger was still speaking, when a small
quivering flame played on the corners of the palisado
nearest the burning pile. The element fluttered
like a waving line along the edges of the heated
wood, after which it spread over the whole surface
of the timber, from its larger base to the pointed
summit. As if this had merely been the signal of a
general destruction, the flames kindled in fifty places
at the same instant, and then the whole line of
with fire. A yell of triumph arose in the fields,
and a flight of arrows, sailing tauntingly into the
works, announced the fierce impatience of those
who watched the increase of the conflagration.
“We shall be driven to our block,” said Content.
“Assemble thy maidens, Ruth, and make speedy
preparation for the last retreat.”
“I go; but hazard not thy life in any vain endeavor
to retard the flames. There will yet be
time for all that is needful to our security.”
“I know not,” hurriedly observed the stranger.
“Here cometh the assault in a new aspect!”
The feet of Ruth were arrested. On looking upward,
she saw the object which had drawn this
remark from the last speaker. A small bright ball
of fire had arisen out of the fields, and, describing
an arc in the air, it sailed above their heads and
fell on the shingles of a building which formed part
of the quadrangle of the inner court. The movement
was that of an arrow thrown from a distant
bow, and its way was to be traced by a long trail
of light, that followed its course like a blazing meteor.
This burning arrow had been sent with a cool
and practised judgment. It lighted upon a portion
of the combustibles that were nearly as inflammable
as gunpowder, and the eye had scarcely succeeded
in tracing it to its fall, ere the bright flames
were seen stealing over the heated roof.
“One struggle for our habitations!” cried Content—but
the hand of the stranger was placed firmly
on his shoulder. At that instant, a dozen similar
meteor-looking balls shot into the air, and fell in
as many different places on the already half-kindled
pile. Further efforts would have been useless.
Relinquishing the hope of saving his property, every
thought was now given to personal safety.
Ruth recovered from her short trance, and hastened
office. Then came a few minutes of exertion, during
which the females transferred all that was necessary
to their subsistence, and which had not
been already provided in the block, to their little
citadel. The glowing light, which penetrated the
darkest passages among the buildings, prevented
this movement from being made without discovery.
The whoop summoned their enemies to another attack.
The arrows thickened in the air, and the important
duty was not performed without risk, as all
were obliged, in some degree, to expose their persons,
while passing to and fro, loaded with necessaries.
The gathering smoke, however, served in
some measure for a screen; and it was not long before
Content received the welcome tidings that he
might command the retreat of his young men from
the palisadoes. The conch sounded the necessary
signal, and ere the foe had time to understand its
meaning, or profit by the defenceless state of the
works, every individual within them had reached
the door of the block in safety. Still, there was
more of hurry and confusion than altogether comported
with their safety. They who were assigned
to that duty, however, mounted eagerly to the loops,
and stood in readiness to pour out their fire on whoever
might dare to come within its reach, while a
few still lingered in the court, to see that no necessary
provision for resistance, or of safety, was forgotten.
Ruth had been foremost in exertion, and
she now stood pressing her hands to her temples,
like one whose mind was bewildered by her own
efforts.
“Our fallen friend!” she said. “Shall we leave
his remains to be mangled by the savage?”
“Surely not; Dudley, thy hand. We will bear
the body within the lower—ha! death hath
struck another of our family.”
The alarm with which Content made this discovery
passed quickly to all in hearing. It was but
too apparent, by the shape of the linen, that two
bodies lay beneath its folds. Anxious and rapid
looks were cast from face to face, in order to learn
who was missing; and then, conscious of the hazard
of further delay, Content raised the linen, in order
to remove all doubts by certainty. The form of the
young borderer, who was known to have fallen,
was first slowly and reverently uncovered; but even
the most self-restrained among the spectators started
back in horror, as his robbed and reeking head
showed that a savage hand had worked its ruthless
will on the unresisting corpse.
“The other!” Ruth struggled to say, and it was
only as her husband had half removed the linen
that she could succeed in uttering the words—“Beware
the other!”
The warning was not useless, for the linen waved
violently as it rose under the hand of Content, and
a grim Indian sprang into the very centre of the
startled group. Sweeping his armed hand widely
about him, the savage broke through the receding
circle, and, giving forth the appalling whoop of his
tribe, he bounded into the open door of the principal
dwelling, so swiftly as utterly to defeat any design
of pursuit. The arms of Ruth were frantically
extended towards the place where he had disappeared,
and she was about to rush madly on his
footsteps, when the hand of her husband stopped
the movement.
“Wouldst hazard life, to save some worthless
trifle?”
“Husband, release me!” returned the woman,
nearly choked with her agony—“nature hath slept
within me!”
“Fear blindeth thy reason!”
The form of Ruth ceased to struggle. All the
eyes, disappeared in the settled look of an almost
preternatural calm. Collecting the whole of her
mental energy in one desperate effort of self-command,
she turned to her husband, and, as her bosom
swelled with the terror that seemed to stop her
breath, she said in a voice that was frightful by its
composure—
“If thou hast a father's heart, release me!—Our
babes have been forgotten!”
The hand of Content relaxed its hold, and, in
another instant, the form of his wife was lost to
view on the track that had just been taken by the
successful savage. This was the luckless moment
chosen by the foe to push his advantage. A fierce
burst of yells proclaimed the activity of the assailants,
and a general discharge from the loops of the
block-house sufficiently apprised those in the court
that the onset of the enemy was now pushed into
the very heart of the defences. All had mounted,
but the few who lingered to discharge the melancholy
duty to the dead. They were too few to render
resistance prudent, and yet too many to think
of deserting the distracted mother and her offspring
without an effort.
“Enter,” said Content, pointing to the door of
the block. “It is my duty to share the fate of those
nearest my blood.”
The stranger made no answer. Placing his powerful
hands on the nearly stupified husband, he
thrust his person, by an irresistible effort, within
the basement of the building, and then he signed,
by a quick gesture, for all around him to follow.
After the last form had entered, he commanded
that the fastenings of the door should be secured,
remaining himself, as he believed, alone without.
But when by a rapid glance he saw there was
another gazing in dull awe on the features of the
Yells were now rising out of the black smoke, that
was rolling in volumes from the heated buildings,
and it was plain that only a few feet divided them
from their pursuers. Beckoning the man who had
been excluded from the block to follow, the stern
soldier rushed into the principal dwelling, which was
still but little injured by the fire. Guided rather by
chance than by any knowledge of the windings of the
building, he soon found himself in the chambers. He
was now at a loss whither to proceed. At that moment,
his companion, who was no other than Whittal
Ring, took the lead, and in another instant, they
were at the door of the secret apartment.
“Hist!” said the stranger, raising a hand to command
silence as he entered the room. “Our hope is
in secrecy.”
“And how may we escape without detection?”
demanded the mother, pointing about her at objects
illuminated by a light so powerful as to penetrate
every cranny of the ill-constructed building. “The
noon-day sun is scarce brighter than this dreadful
fire!”
“God is in the elements! His guiding hand shall
point the way. But here we may not tarry, for the
flames are already on the shingles. Follow, and
speak not.”
Ruth pressed the children to her side, and the
whole party left the apartment of the attic in a
body. Their descent to a lower room was made
quickly, and without discovery. But here their leader
paused, for the state of things without was one
to demand the utmost steadines of nerve, and great
reflection.
The Indians had by this time gained command of
the whole of Mark Heathcote's possessions, with the
exception of the block-house; and as their first act
had been to apply the brand wherever it might
heard in every direction. The discharge of muskets
and the whoops of the combatants, however, while
they added to the horrible din of such a scene, proclaimed
the unconquered resolution of those who
held the citadel. A window of the room they occupied
enabled the stranger to take a cautious survey
of what was passing without. The court, lighted
to the brilliancy of day, was empty; for the increasing
heat of the fires, no less than the discharges from
the loops, still kept the cautious savages to their
covers. There was barely hope, that the space between
the dwelling and the block-house might yet
be passed in safety.
“I would I had asked that the door of the block
should be held in hand,” muttered Submission; “it
would be death to linger an instant in that fierce
light; nor have we any manner of—”
A touch was laid upon his arm, and turning, the
speaker saw the dark eye of the captive boy looking
steadily in his face.
“Wilt do it?” demanded the other, in a manner
to show that he doubted, while he hoped.
A speaking gesture of assent was the answer, and
then the form of the lad was seen gliding quietly
from the room.
Another instant, and Miantonimoh appeared in
the court. He walked with the deliberation that
one would have shown in moments of the most entire
security. A hand was raised towards the loops,
as if to betoken amity, and then dropping the limb,
he moved with the same slow step into the very
centre of the area. Here the boy stood in the fullest
glare of the conflagration, and turned his face deliberately
on every side of him. The action showed
that he wished to invite all eyes to examine his person.
At this moment the yells ceased in the surrounding
covers, proclaiming alike the common feeling
hazard that any other would have incurred by exposing
himself in that fearful scene. When this
act of exceeding confidence had been performed,
the boy drew a pace nearer to the entrance of the
block.
“Comest thou in peace, or is this another device
of Indian treachery?” demanded a voice, through
an opening in the door left expressly for the purposes
of parley.
The boy raised the palm of one hand towards the
speaker, while he laid the other with a gesture of
confidence on his naked breast.
“Hast aught to offer in behalf of my wife and
babes? If gold will buy their ransom, name thy
price.”
Miantonimoh was at no loss to comprehend the
other's meaning. With the readiness of one whose
faculties had been early schooled in the inventions
of emergencies, he made a gesture that said even
more than his figurative words, as he answered—
“Can a woman of the Pale-faces pass through
wood? An Indian arrow is swifter than the foot of
my mother.”
“Boy, I trust thee,” returned the voice from within
the loop. “If thou deceivest beings so feeble and
so innocent, Heaven will remember the wrong.”
Miantonimoh again made a sign to show that
caution must be used, and then he retired with a
step calm and measured as that used in his advance.
Another pause to the shouts betrayed the interest
of those whose fierce eyes watched his movements
in the distance.
When the young Indian had rejoined the party in
the dwelling, he led them, without being observed
by the lurking band that still hovered in the smoke
of the surrounding buildings, to a spot that commanded
a full view of their short but perilous route. At
and was closed again. Still the stranger hesitated,
for he saw how little was the chance that all should
cross the court unharmed, and to pass it by repeated
trials he knew to be impossible.
“Boy,” he said, “thou, who hast done thus much,
may still do more. Ask mercy for these children,
in some manner that may touch the hearts of thy
people.”
Miantonimoh shook his head, and pointing to the
ghastly corpse that lay in the court, he answered
coldly—
“The red-man has tasted blood.”
“Then must the desperate trial be done! Think
not of thy children, devoted and daring mother, but
look only to thine own safety. This witless youth
and I will charge ourselves with the care of the
innocents.”
Ruth waved him away with her hand, pressing
her mute and trembling daughter to her bosom, in a
manner to show that her resolution was taken. The
stranger yielded, and turning to Whittal, who stood
near him, seemingly as much occupied in vacant admiration
of the blazing piles as in any apprehension
of his own personal danger, he bade him look to the
safety of the remaining child. Moving in front himself,
he was about to offer Ruth such protection as
the case afforded, when a window in the rear of the
house was dashed inward, announcing the entrance
of the enemy, and the imminent danger that their
flight would be intercepted. There was no time to
lose, for it was now certain that only a single room
separated them from their foes. The generous nature
of Ruth was roused, and catching Martha from
the arms of Whittal Ring, she endeavored, by a
desperate effort, in which feeling rather than any
reasonable motive predominated, to envelop both
the children in her robe.
“I am with ye!” whispered the agitated woman;
“hush ye, hush ye, babes! thy mother is nigh!”
The stranger was very differently employed. The
instant the crash of glass was heard, he rushed to
the rear; and he had already grappled with the
savage so often named, and who acted as guide to a
dozen fierce and yelling followers.
“To the block!” shouted the steady soldier,
while with a powerful arm he held his enemy in the
throat of the narrow passage, stopping the approach
of those in the rear by the body of his foe. “For
the love of life and children, woman, to the block!”
The summons rang frightfully in the ears of Ruth,
but in that moment of extreme jeopardy her presence
of mind was lost. The cry was repeated, and
not till then did the bewildered mother catch her
daughter from the floor. With eyes still bent on
the fierce struggle in her rear, she clasped the child
to her heart and fled, calling on Whittal Ring to follow.
The lad obeyed, and ere she had half-crossed
the court, the stranger, still holding his savage shield
between him and his enemies, was seen endeavoring
to take the same direction. The whoops, the flight
of arrows, and the discharges of musquetry, that
succeeded, proclaimed the whole extent of the danger.
But fear had lent unnatural vigor to the limbs
of Ruth, and the gliding arrows themselves scarce
sailed more swiftly through the heated air, than she
darted into the open door of the block. Whittal
Ring was less successful. As he crossed the court,
bearing the child intrusted to his care, an arrow
pierced his flesh. Stung by the pain, the witless
lad turned, in anger, to chide the hand that had inflicted
the injury.
“On, foolish boy!” cried the stranger, as he passed
him, still making a target of the body of the savage
that was writhing in his grasp. “On, for thy
life, and that of the babe!”
The mandate came too late. The hand of an
Indian was already on the innocent victim, and in
the next instant the child was sweeping the air,
while with a short yell the keen axe flourished
above his head. A shot from the loops laid the monster
dead in his tracks. The girl was instantly seized
by another hand, and as the captor with his prize
darted unharmed into the dwelling, there arose in
the block a common exclamation of the name of
“Miantonimoh!” Two more of the savages profited
by the pause of horror that followed, to lay hands
on the wounded Whittal and to drag him within the
blazing building. At the same moment, the stranger
cast the unresisting savage back upon the weapons
of his companions. The bleeding and half-strangled
Indian met the blows which had been aimed at
the life of the soldier, and as he staggered and fell,
his vigorous conqueror disappeared in the block.
The door of the little citadel was instantly closed,
and the savages, who rushed headlong against the
entrance, heard the fitting of the bars which secured
it against their attacks. The yell of retreat was
raised, and in the next instant the court was left to
the possession of the dead.
| CHAPTER XIV. The wept of Wish-ton-Wish | |