University of Virginia Library

2. BOOK SECOND.

1. CHAPTER I.
TORY COUNCILS.

Sands.

The calamity which had overtaken the family of
the Hawksnest, the mysterious fate of Miss De
Roos, and the presumed death of one so popular as
young Max Greyslaer, excited the deepest sensation
through the Valley of the Mohawk. The two political
parties which divided the district were as yet
by no means fairly in the field against each other;
and the warfare of words being still carried on for a
season before a final appeal to arms was had, recrimination
rose high between either faction.

The patriots did not hesitate to charge the Tories
with being the instigators of this ruthless attack
upon the peace of a private family, while the loyalists,
affecting to be equally indignant at the outrage,
taunted the Whigs with being the first to bring the
laws of the country into contempt by their own factious
conduct. The catastrophe, however, seemed
in one respect to have a salutary effect. It opened
the eyes of both parties to the horrors of a civil war.

Both seemed willing to pause and await the effect
of circumstance in preventing their being farther
embroiled; and both united with apparent sincerity
in passing public resolutions against the employment
of the Indians to strengthen either side, whatever
the issue might be, and whenever that issue
might be finally joined.

But the ball of Revolution was in motion; and
though its course might be for the time more noiseless,
neither its momentum nor its accumulating
forces were diminished. The organization of party,
and the dangerous tampering with the Indian tribes,
went on as industriously as ever; the Whigs displaying
the greatest coolness, foresight, and address
in the one respect, while the Tories were equally
successful in the other.

Months, in the mean time, passed away, and the
operations of either began to show results which
must produce a crisis. The civil authority passed
into the hands of the patriots, who found an excuse
for a stern exercise of that authority in sending
General Schuyler, with a large body of militia, to
disarm the disaffected, in the same moment that the
predominant influence of the Tories in Indian politics
was fully consummated. The tribe of Oneidas,
after long nobly withstanding both threats and cajoling,
were at length driven, by the intriguing arts of
the latter, to detach themselves from the confederacy
of the Six Nations, and assume that neutral position
which was afterward only abandoned for a
warm espousal of the patriot cause.

It was Christmas morning; and the sun, which
shone through the sacred grove of Onondaga, touched
with gold the pendant icicles which drooped from
the heavy boughs that had wailed for a thousand
winters around the ancient citadel of the Ongi-Honwe.
The adjacent lake, whose frozen surface

was freshly covered with virgin snow, smiled in the
glad light of the morning, whose early rays were
glinted back from bush and thicket, that were all
clothed with the same dazzling mantle. A few
shreds of smoke ascending straight upward into the
clear blue sky was the only object stirring amid the
bright and tranquil scene.

But for this faint indication of the neighbourhood
of man, the lonely stockade, that was dignified with
the name of “The Onondaga Castle,” seemed wholly
deserted; and he who gazed within would have
looked in vain for the imposing assemblage of patriarchal
sachems which, in the previous century,
was likened to the Senate of Rome by Frontenac,
when that adventurous Frenchman, like another
Brennus, intruded with his armed followers into the
great council of the Aganuschion.[1] One lonely female
was the only occupant of the building.

The stranger, who was aware of the consideration
in which the sex were held among the Ongi-Honwe,
and who knew that this rude building contained the
great national altar of their confederacy, might at
first have mistaken the woman now before him for
one of those pious devotees who successively, for
ages, watched the sacred central council-fire of the
Aganuschion. But the mean features and apparel
of the withered old crone, as she sat crouched in the
ashes, would soon, upon a close survey, have proved
that she could not claim to be numbered among “the
principal women of the Six Nations.”

“Wah!” exclaimed the hag, as, with a crooked
stick, she vainly pushed a wet and blackened ember
toward the smouldering ashes; “could not the fools
leave enough of the fire that has burned for a thousand
winters to warm these old bones with? May
the Evil One broil them on his own for meddling in
the quarrel of Corlear[2] with the Sagernash! May
their tribes be dispersed like these scattered embers!
May they, like them, be trampled upon by—”
Stopping short in her imprecation as she caught
sight of a half-extinguished branch, which still lay
smoking in the corner where it had been tossed, the
crone hobbled toward it, and thrust it afresh in the
ashes, applying, at the same time, the air from her
wheezy lungs to rekindle the flame.

Her efforts were followed by a momentary ignition,
indicated by a few sparks, that made her mutter
still more angrily, as, to avoid them, she threw
back her head, from which the long gray hair drooped
in the ashes. The dying brand crackled feebly,
sighed like a living thing, and expired.

“A-rai-wah! The Sacred Fire of Onondaga is
extinguished for ever!”

As she spoke the hag gathered her knees toward
her body with one hand, and resting her shrivelled
cheek upon the other, commenced rocking backward
and forward, croaking a harsh song, in which lamentations
and curses were so wildly intermingled
that the eldrich dirge partook equally of the character
of either.

But this wretched remnant of mortality was not
the only mourner for the extinguished pride and
power of the now broken Iroquois confederacy.

The Christmas sun shone merrily upon the frosted
window-panes of Johnson Hall; gleamed upon
the armour that decked its walls, and tinted with
freshness the evergreens that festooned its ancient
portraits. But here, as at Onondaga, its beams
seemed to smile only as in mockery of man and his
doings. Here were men, haggard and worn with
long watching, grouped in disorder throughout the
broad corridor. Some were engaged in anxious or
angry debate together; some, as if wearied out with
action or discussion, were stretched upon the oaken
settles, regarding with dogged indifference the excited
disputes of their comrades; and one, more swarthy
of feature than the rest, a tall man of a fierce
and haughty aspect, was striding impatiently to and
fro, casting ever and anon a hasty look at the staircase,
whose polished banister he repeatedly struck
with his tomahawk in passing.[3] Twice he had ascended
several steps, as if determined to seek above
some person who had exhausted his patience in delaying
an interview; and then pausing a moment as
he thundered anew with his hatchet upon the stairs,
he turned abruptly upon his heel, breathing indignation
against those who appeared not to heed his
savage signal.

At last a strong-framed man, hastily arrayed in a
dressing-gown, accompanied by a Highland officer
in full uniform, presented himself upon the landing
of the staircase. The features of either were clouded;
but of the two the former seemed to be labouring
under the greater emotion. His look was agitated,
but not alarmed; distempered, but not angry.

“Brant!” said he, with some severity, “at any
other time I would not overlook this want of respect;
I would not put up with this rudeness from

any man breathing. But since we are all here
companions in affliction together, a quarrel with so
old a friend of my house would not become me.”

“Companions together, Sir John? You honour
the poor Indian by placing him in such company,
even in your speech, though you can find no room
for him in your writings when making terms with
the enemy!”

“Speak, Alan MacDonald, and dispel these ungenerous
suspicions of our friend! Tell him the
circumstances under which we have been compelled
to treat with the commissioners from Albany.”

“I am wholly at a loss upon what particular
point to answer Captain Brant,” said MacDonald,
coolly. “He seems already to be aware that we
have accepted terms from General Schuyler, who is
marching hitherward with three thousand men;
and, unless report belies them, with a hundred Mohawk
warriors in his train!”

“Yes! a pack of frightened curs from the lower
castle, with a handful of naked renegades from my
own people. The hungry offcasts from my tribe,
who hope, with Schuyler's countenance, to make
spoil of the blankets and provisions that are laid up
here for our projected campaign. But tell me, Sir
John Johnson, is the falling off of these wretches
to excuse this desertion of your Indian friends, after
entangling us in this contemptible quarrel? God
of my people! that the power and glory which thou
hast suffered them to attain should be thus ruinously
perilled in a stranger's brawl! that the league
of our ancient confederacy, cemented by the blood
of a thousand victories, should dissolve like snowflakes
upon the river, because, in an evil moment,
we consented to interfere in a paltry dispute about
a few halfpence of revenue between some peddling
foreigners, who would cut each other's throats for

gain! Nay, sir, never lay your hand upon your
sword! and you, ye prying knaves, unless ye stand
back at mine or your master's bidding, shall be
dealt with less daintily than the rebel general will
handle ye. Back, I say, or my signal call shall fill
this hall with those who'll flood it with your gore!
By the valour of a Mohawk! but it were a good
deed to call in my warriors, and supplant such recreants
with men who will hold these walls against
all odds till they crumble around them!”

And the indignant chieftain strode haughtily to
and fro, as if really balancing in his mind this mad
procedure, while the baronet, too much incensed by
the insolence of Brant to make any concession to
his wrath, was yet too politic to trust himself with
a hasty reply. The cool and discreet MacDonald
now put in a word to sooth the exasperated mood
of the demi-savage, as he considered the chieftain
when thus excited.

“Captain Brant is too experienced a soldier not
to be aware of the impossibility of maintaining our
present position against the overpowering force
which has been unexpectedly sent against us.”

“And could not these heavy-limbed fellows have
taken to the bush, and shared a hunter's fare for a
few weeks, until the first burst of the storm should
have spent its fury? Did you think, in taking up
arms in a forest-land like this, where every rock is
a fortress, every tree a citadel, did you think that
the struggle was to be decided by the capture of a
few towns and villages?”

“We did not, noble Thayendanagea,” said Sir
John, taking the words from the mouth of MacDonald.
“No. do we now believe that one compulsory
compromise like the present is to terminate
the resistance of the king's friends in this rebellious
colony. Had we treated with the rebels for peace

throughout the province, our brave Indian brethren
would never have been forgotten in the treaty; but
our capitulation refers only to the loyalists in this
individual district. Our friends are still in arms in
other parts of the colony; and even here the gallant
gentlemen whom you see around you will yet again
lift up the royal banner, or flock to it upon the first
opportunity, if Thayendanagea keeps it flying in
the field. I—I myself will lead them to—”

“Hold, Sir John! unless you would have your
spoken promise give the lie to your written pledge.
Remember that `Sir John Johnson, having given
his parole of honour not to take up arms against
America,' he can never—”

“Where, where do you find such words as
those?” cried the baronet, hardly knowing what he
said in his confusion.

“The title of the instrument runs thus, please
ye, Sir John,” replied Brant, coolly drawing a written
document from his bosom, the preamble of
which he began to read in a measured, sarcastic
tone: “`Terms offered by the honourable Philip
Schuyler, major-general in the army of the Thirteen
United Colonies, and commanding in the New-York
department, to Sir John Johnson, baronet, and
all such other persons in the county of Tryon as
have evinced their intentions of supporting his majestv's
ministry to carry into effect the unconstitutional
measures of which the Americans so justly
complain:' do you mark the emphasis?” said the
Mohawk, scornfully, while another storm seemed
gathering on his brow, as, repeating the phrase, he
went on, “`of which the Americans so justly complain;
and to prevent which they have been driven
to the dreadful necessity of having recourse to
arms: first, that—' Pshaw! you have it there in
the third article, and may read for yourselves if you

have forgotten the contents of the document, when
your signatures, confirming your acceptance of
these terms, can scarcely be dry upon the original.”

The chieftain, as he spoke, flung the paper contemptuously
at the feet of Sir John, who comprehended,
without looking at it, that it must be a copy
of his terms of surrender, furnished by the politic
Whigs to shake the loyalty of Brant.

“It is in vain, Captain Brant,” said he, with sad
composure, “to conceal from you the extent of our
misfortunes. My poor services, in a military capacity,
are indeed lost to the crown; and these brave
Scottish gentlemen, though suffered to retain their
side-arms, are placed by their parole in the same
unhappy predicament as myself. But the king has
many as capable servants as we, who may still assert
their loyalty in the field; and if the fear of
chilling their zeal in my royal master's cause induced
me to withhold from you the extent of the
rebel triumph, I know I shall be forgiven by so ardent
and generous a partisan as Thayendanagea.”

The tones in which his gallant friend spoke, not
less than the words which he uttered, seemed instantly
to change the mood of the stormy chieftain,
who paced to and fro for a moment before he replied.

“Sir John,” said Brant, with feeling, “I have
nothing to forgive. It is you of whom I should
ask pardon. You are nearer to the great king than
I am, and know best how much of his affairs to suppress
and how much to reveal. I have always
borne you the love of a brother; and for that, if for
nothing else, you will forgive me for thinking you
faithless when you were only unfortunate. But I
have heard that within the last hour,” he added,
with that air of calm fatalism characteristic of the
Iroquois, even while using the language of a European,
“I have heard that which might well dis

temper me: the confederacy of the Aganuschion
is broken. A formal assemblage of Sachems at
Onondaga has dissolved the league of the United
Cantons that existed beyond the traditions of our
race. Our Great Council Fire is extinguished, and
the Six Nations, whose delegates consummated the
fatal ceremony with the peaceful unanimity of a
band of brothers, meet hereafter only as broken
tribes arrayed in deadly hostility to each other.”

“Not so, noble Sachem!” cried the baronet, with
brightening features. “It is only the Oneidas, with
their adopted children, the Mohicans, who have seceded
from the union. The whole Tuscarora tribe,
the greater portion of the Onondagas, the fiery Senecas,
and valiant Cayugas, are even now assembling
under Guy Johnson at Oswego, and wait but for
you, with your indomitable Mohawks, to lead them,
in all their ancient pride of arms, upon the foe.
The delegates of the loyal tribes attended the great
central fire only to gain time and blind the lazy
eyes of the Oneidas, who convoked the council.
Their protest against the confederacy taking any
part on either side in this war was not received.
They declared their secession from the union, and
the sacred fire of the united brethren was extinguished.
But the act was illegal; for, as you know
the Mohawks were not represented in the council;[4]
and the holy flame of union and power may again

be relighted in a blaze of glory which shall illumine
the land.”

The eye of the Indian sagamore flashed with
fierce delight; his mien assumed a lofty bearing, as
of one who felt himself yet destined to be the leader
of armies, while his nostril dilated as if already he
snuffed the battle. These indications of strong emotion,
however, passed away like a flash, even as Sir
John pronounced the last words which seemed to
have kindled them; and then the face of the Mohawk
assumed that immovably stoical expression which
rendered it impossible to surmise what was passing
in his bosom, and which, upon the countenance of
an Iroquois, always covered his deepest and most
earnest thoughts.

It might be that vague dreams of ambition, which
had heretofore passed through the mind of Brant;
that plans of personal elevation at the expense of his
less cultivated countrymen, which, in moments of
temptation, had suggested themselves, and been indignantly
discarded from his thoughts at the generous
call of patriotism, or reluctantly abandoned from
a conviction of their impracticability under the existing
organization of the Aganuschion republic—it
may be that these dark and aspiring schemes were
busy within him now!

It might be—and the loyal, disinterested character
of the man, his romantic love of his doomed
race, and his pertinacious aversion to European civilization,
while evincing in his own conduct many of
its benefits, render this solution by far the most likely—it
might be that that silent mien and fixed expression
of countenance concealed the devotional
communings of his heart—a patriot's thanksgiving
for a people saved.

“Captain Brant looks grave,” said MacDonald;
“he thinks that the responsibility of his part has

increased just in proportion that the chance of his
playing it successfully with our aid has diminished
by that aid being now withdrawn.”

If a taunt were implied in this speech, it was so
slight as to pass unheeded by Brant; but his heart
was not inaccessible to the subtle appeal to his vanity
which it conveyed.

“I see, I see,” said he, casting his eyes in musing
fashion upon the ground, and smiling grimly, as if it
were impossible wholly to suppress the pleasurable
thrill of pride which he wished to conceal. “The
great king depends now upon the Indians to preserve
this colony for him. Our warriors are to keep the
rebels in check until the great king can send over
such an army as shall make it safe for his loyal subjects
once more to rise and help him! Good! very
good! He shall find that WE are to be depended
upon.” The voice and manner of the Sachem suddenly
altered with the last words, as he raised his
eyes and cast a stern and haughty gaze around.
“Yes, gentlemen,” he continued, in a more cool and
lofty tone, “the largest, and the fairest, and most
fertile part of this rich province is now left to the
guardianship of one who, among yourselves, bears
but the rank of an English captain; and I would
have you know that it is not from ignorance of the
value of the pledge, of the cost of protecting it, or
of the opportunity of successfully treating with the
Americans for the heritage which you are compelled
to abandon, that I here, in the name of my
countrymen, assume its charge. With you, Sir
John Johnson, as the official representative of your
sovereign, I might have made my own terms for
the better defined security of our rights under the
British dominion; but a Mohawk chieftain is no
trafficker of loyalty. Your king shall learn how far
he may depend upon the faith and valour of the Iro

quois, and the future will reveal the measure of his
justice to us in return.[5] Our power to serve the
British cause remains to be proved. You at least,
Sir John, can bear witness to the readiness of our
will.”

“He is a slave that doubts either,” cried the baronet.
“Though the terrible Virginian himself should
take the field against you, his wisdom and his valour
will find a match in Thayendanagea. And I, my
noble friend, though prevented by fate from serving
with you as a comrade in arms, I, while watching
your glorious career, will console myself with the
reflection that I have, by temporizing, preserved the
services of these brave followers to my sovereign till
they can be used with a hope of success hereafter.”

The last words, which were addressed as much
to the by-standers as to Brant himself, had their full
influence in reassuring the spirits of the former;
and MacDonald confirmed their effect by immediately
adding,

“Sir John could certainly not better serve our
cause in the present exigency than by securing him
in the midst of the party which we wish to keep together.
We are still strong in numbers throughout
the district, and, while he remains with us, we shall
never want a leader at the proper moment for striking.”

“Your parole of honour!” said Brant, drawing
himself up and looking with a lowering eye upon
the company.

“Though given to outlaws, it shall never be broken
but for cause,” replied Johnson. “But the rebels,
drunken with their first success, will soon supply
us with legitimate grounds for disregarding the
pledge they have wrung from us.”

“Well, you white men know best how far ye may
trust each other,” observed the chief, with a significant
and pitying smile, while, in drawing his mantle
around him to depart, he muttered less audibly beneath
its folds something still more contemptuous.
His precise words were unheard, but their purport
was sufficiently intelligible to rouse the ire of MacDonald,
who mutely folded his arms when the chieftain
stretched out his hand to exchange a parting
salutation with him.

“Nay, Captain MacDonald,” said Brant, “I part
not thus with a brave comrade and tried soldier. It
was of the white man's, and not the Scotchman's,
faith of which I spoke, and you will pardon the prejudices
of the Indian, however you would resent the
suspicions of the friend.”

“I am not so Quixotic, Captain Brant, as to proclaim
myself the champion of my race,” replied the
other. “But, in giving you my hand, as I now do,
I will venture to suggest that, if your knowledge of
our usages disinclines you to practise European urbanity,
you are not fortunate in your mode of recommending
Indian courtesy—by your own example.”

“Good!” said Brant, smiling. “Very good!”
he repeated, shaking again the hand of him who
had chastened him, while MacDonald, whose whimsical
expression of countenance showed how much
he was confounded at the odd impression which his
pithy lecture had made upon his half-savage friend,
followed his retreating figure with his eye as the
Mohawk strode out of the apartment.

“The infernal strange dog!” cried the Scotchman;
“I never know where the devil to find him.”

“What, Alan,” said Johnson, laughing, “is my
red brother Joseph a puzzle to you? An Indian,
man, is like a woman; you must follow his humours
without attempting to regulate them. Brant's
touches of civilization are like grains of wit in a
madman's brain; they just suffice to mislead him
who would discover some regular system of ideas
in the lunatic's disordered senses. But, for all that,
the fellow has sense and courage, and is as true as
steel in matters of moment.”

And thus ended this singular interview, which,
commencing in a scene of passion, that, with its attendant
grouping of strongly contrasted characters,
might well exercise the pen of the dramatist, terminated,
as do most romantic situations in real
life, with commonplace occurrence and discussion;
which, however actual in themselves, detract, it
must be confessed, not a little from the poetic dignity
of their relation. But “these are the days of
fact nor fable;” and the legendary writer of our
time must content himself with detailing mere familiar
tradition, until another Scott shall arise to
revivify the dry bones which it is our humble task
to collect together, clothe them anew with all the
attributes of breathing life, and make them walk
the earth afresh, dignified, exalted, and adorned by
the prodigal drapery of immortal Genius.

2. CHAPTER II.
THE BORDERERS.

—Earl Rupert.

There was a proud complacency upon the brow
of the Indian chief when he found himself alone
beyond the precincts of the Hall. The morning
was cold, and the snow lay deep upon the ground;
but while the latter offered no impediment to his
devouring steps as he rapidly stalked along, the
glowing thoughts within his bosom seemed to make
him insensible to the former. His mantle was indeed
wrapped closely around him, but it was from
the tension of strong emotion that his hands were
clinched in its folds. His open throat and lofty
head, whose plumes tossed in the light breeze that
swept the eminence from which he was descending
betrayed none of that sensibility to the elements
which belittles the mien of the cloaked and
cowering form that now confronts him in his path.

It is a half-frozen horseman, who shrinks in his
saddle, as if he would thus make his weight as
light as possible to his jaded steed. The proportions
of his figure are concealed by a military roquelaire
wrapped closely around him, and his face
is so muffled up with furs as barely to permit his
eyes to see the road before them; yet both are
instantly recognised by the keen-eyed Mohawk.
Some new emotion now agitates his features, and
a look of sudden wrath has succeeded to that of

calm and pleasurable pride. He stops short in his
rapid walk, and plants himself in the centre of a
little bridge that here crosses the highway, just as
the mounted traveller has gained its opposite side.
The horse recoils at the barbaric apparition in his
path, and his rider, looking up for the first time,
beholds the cause of his affright.

“Why, you d—d Indian scarecrow, what mean
you by standing there to frighten cattle on the
king's highway—wae, boy! wa—e—gently, now,
gently—stand out of my path, you stupid blockhead,
or, God help me, I'll ride right over you.” And,
suiting the action to the word, the distempered and
insolent traveller plunged both spurs into his horse,
which bounded forward upon the bridge; but, quick
as light, the sinewy arm of the Indian has grappled
his bridle-rein, and, with starting eye and distended
nostril, the mastered steed stands trembling.

“Why, Joseph Brant, my good fellow! who the
devil expected to meet you here! You must forgive
my haste in speaking as I did, and I'll pardon
this abrupt salutation in so old a friend, if you'll
only loose my rein and let me push ahead to the
Hall.”

“There is time enough for that,” said the chief,
smothering his indignation at the man's insolent familiarity.
“What news bring you from below?”

“Schuyler's within half a day's march, with
three thousand Whig militia; that's all, my good fellow;
and now let me carry the news to our friends.
We must up stakes, I take it, from these parts, and
go and lend a lift to the loyalists in the southern
corner of the province: and now, my dear Joseph,
I wish you a good-morning.”

“Softly, softly, Mr. Bradshawe. There is no
necessity for this great haste. Sir John is is already
in possession of all the news you can give him.”

“He is? The devil! I met that arch-rebel
Duer, with a brace of kindred Whigs, at a roadside
inn last night—Yates and Glen, I think they were;
and I half guessed that their venturing so far in the
valley boded no good to our cause. Surely they
cannot have brought the news, conveyed in the
shape of a threat, from Schuyler?”

“They were commissioners to settle the terms
of Sir John's surrender, and Schuyler's present advance
to take possession of Johnstown shows how
well they succeeded.”

The countenance of the traveller grew dark as
midnight while Brant thus briefly and coolly told
him of the discomfiture of his party. The chief
waited a moment for him to make some comment,
but his astonishment was so great that he had not a
word wherewith to reply; and Brant, in the same
calm tone, went on. “These tidings seem to be
somewhat strange to Mr. Bradshawe. He has kept
himself aloof from his friends of late. It is at least
four months since I heard of him in these parts.”

“Yes, why, yes,” said the other, confusedly.
“Some business took me south last summer about
the time the Hawksnest affair and subsequent disappearance
of young Greyslaer put the country in
hot water. None but you, Joseph, could have been
at the bottom of that hubbub.”

“I heard of Mr. Bradshawe in Schoharie,” said
Brant, dryly, and with an elevation of his eyebrows
so slight as to be almost imperceptible.

“Schoharie? Oh!—ay—yes, I have been in
Schoharie. I've just come, indeed, from down that
way. I heard of this rebel rising while in Schoharie,
and rode for dear life to warn Sir John.”

“It is useless to seek him now upon such an errand;
and if Mr. Bradshawe wishes to give his
reasons for having so long kept out of the way of

his political friends, I would advise him to take some
opportunity when the baronet is in a happier mood.”

“A d—d politic suggestion! Josey, you certainly
are no fool. But where the devil are you leading
my mare to?”

“Why,” said Brant, with a careless laugh, “two
such suspicious characters as we are should not be
seen holding so long a talk here on the highway,
when, by moving a few yards, we can throw that
knoll between us and any travelling impertinents
that may chance to pass. I would confer with you,
too, Mr. Bradshawe,” he added, more gravely, “where
we are not liable to interruption.”

“You are a queer chap, Brant. Leave you alone
to have your own way. But here we are in the
hollow; and now what have you got to say? Be
quick, man, for I'm getting devilish cold.”

“You will be still colder before I have done with
you, Walter Bradshawe, unless you reply promptly
to my questions.”

“Why, my good Joseph, what the h—”

“Hold! no more of that, sir; blasphemous and
vulgar-souled as you are, you can still ape the decorum
of a gentleman when it suits your turn; and
you shall perish here like a crushed hound in the
snow, unless you practise it now.”

“This to me, you d—d Indian dog!” cried Bradshawe,
jerking his rein with one hand, and plucking
a pistol from his holster with the other. But, before
he could cock the piece, a blow from Brant's tomahawk
sent it flying through the air into an adjacent
snowbank, while in the same moment the desperado
was hurled from his saddle, and lay prostrate at the
feet of the Mohawk.

“One motion, one word, a look of insolence, and
I'll brain you on the spot; that snow-wreath shall
be your winding-sheet, and the April thaws will

alone reveal your fate, if the wolves in the mean
time spare that wretched carcass.”

“Who the devil thinks of resisting, with knife
and tomahawk both at his throat? Ugh—ugh, you
have knocked all the breath out of my body. Gad!
Brant, you inherit a white man's brawn from your
Dutch grandfather. Hold! you Indian devil; don't
murder me for squinting at a fact which all the
country believes except yourself.”

“They lie who say I'm other than a Mohawk of
the full blood,” exclaimed the Indian, fiercely, but
drawing back, at the same time, as if stung by an
adder.

“Perhaps they do; but you'll not prove the genuineness
of your blood by spilling mine,” replied the
other, picking himself leisurely from the ground.
“Give me my other pistol, son of Nickus, and we
can dispute the matter more upon an equality.”

“Bradshawe, you are a brave man, and, as such,
I cannot wholly scorn you; and were your honour
but half as bright as your courage, you should—
But enough of this. You will be wise, sir, now, in
fooling no longer with my patience, but reply with
directness to what I have to ask you. You are reputed
to have sense, Bradshawe, and you see I am
not to be trifled with.”

“Why, as to my sense, Sachem, it seems to have
been pretty much at fault in dealing with you. I've
always thought you a devilish shrewd fellow for
one who was only quarter white man—nay, let that
cursed knife alone—I say I've thought you so,
that's a fact; though I may sometimes have laughed
in my sleeve when you got on your high ropes,
and put on quality airs like Sir John. I don't
know how it is, however; I still believe you to be
pretty much of an adventurer like myself; but, if
you are not a lineal chief, as your enemies say, by

G—d, you deserve to be a born aristocrat for the
neat style in which you do the thing. I speak the
truth, I do, by G—d. I could put it in softer phrase,
as you know full well; for you have seen me humouring
the shallow fools who ape nobility here
among us provincials. But I talk to you as a man
that can't be come over by flummery; and now go
ahead with your questions, which, I suppose, relate
to the De Roos girl that Red Wolfert snicked off so
handsomely.”

“Red Wolfert,” said Brant, scornfully. “Wolfert
Valtmeyer dared not have touched captive of mine
but as the instrument of a more powerful scoundrel
than himself; and you, Bradshawe, must answer
for the acts of your creature. Where is Miss De
Roos?”

“Where? Ask Wolfert. If I use the rascal
now and then to farther our political intrigues, does
it follow that I know aught of his amorous doings?
I suspected that you would hold me accountable for
his dealings with this wench; for it certainly was a
bold flight for such a kite as Valtmeyer to strike at
game like her.”

“Beware, Mr. Bradshawe; there are limits to
my patience, and you cannot deceive me. It was
through your aid that Au-neh-yesh escaped from
the hands of the rebels. He repaid you with information
that you valued beyond aught else, for no
scruple could prevent you from availing yourself of
it to tear the young lady from the refuge in which I
had placed her. You, and you only, with the ruffian
Valtmeyer and my wayward and unhappy son
for your instruments, have spirited away this girl,
for whose safety both our friends and our foes hold
me now accountable. Bradshawe, I tell you, if one
hair of her head be injured, I will wreak vengeance
so dire that men shall stand aghast when they hear

of it. The tortures of the Indian stake shall be
merciful to those which you shall suffer, till the
hapless fate of Thayendanagea's captive is forgotten
in the hideous punishment of her destroyer.”

The voice of Brant was calm and low as he pronounced
these words; but the ascendancy of his
mind was now so completely established over that
of Bradshawe, that, daring and reckless as he was,
they fell with withering effect upon his spirit; and
he even, for a moment, shivered like the criminal
who has just heard his awful and irrevocable doom
passing the lips of one who is endowed with all
earthly authority to inflict the final sentence of a
judicial tribunal.

“She is safe—I believe—I know—she is—she
must be safe,” stammered forth the bold borderer,
who, for the first time in his life perhaps, felt conscious
that his heart quailed and his cheek blanched
beneath the eye of a fellow-mortal. “I left her last
where I believed no earthly harm could reach her;
and, so help me Heaven, Sachem, there breathes
no human being whom, with my life, I would sooner
guard from injury than this same lady.”

“Yes! as the cougar would protect the hare from
the wolf that disputes his prey with him. Where
left you Miss De Roos?”

The distressed air of mortification that now marked
Bradshawe's features showed that he would
gladly evade the question. He even turned his
head quickly on one side, as if recourse to flight
suddenly suggested itself upon the emergency. But
the snowdrift that walled in the little hollow in
which he stood shut out the desperate hope on that
side. He turned his eager gaze to the other, but it
straightway fell before the basilisk eye of the Indian,
who, still grasping the bridle of Bradshawe's
horse, stood with one foot advanced, and his right

hand upon his knife, warily watching his victim.
But the hand fell to his side, the foot was drawn
back, and the deadly glare of his eye changed to a
cold and stony gaze in the moment that the crestfallen
borderer slunk back to his former dogged attitude
of unresisting dejection.

“Where is the lady?” repeated Brant, between
his clinched teeth.

“Take my secret, then, if I must speak—the
Cave of Waneonda, where the stream which you
Indians call the River of Ghosts holds its way far
under ground beneath the forests of Schoharie, there
in the—Hah! what sounds are those? May my
tongue be blistered if its swiftness to betray has—”

“'Tis Schuyler's advancing column. I know the
sound of his bugles,” cried Brant, uneasily; and,
even as he spoke, a squadron of troopers, who formed
the advanced guard of the Republican forces,
wheeled around an angle of the road, and came
galloping forward in all the hasty disorder of newly-levied
militia flushed with their first success in
the operations of war.

Their common danger—for Brant and his recent
adversary were, on personal as well as political
grounds, equally obnoxious to the popular party in
their district—impelled them to simultaneous flight.
But even at such an exigency, when his life seemed
on the point of being yielded up to the sabres of
this lawless and hot-headed soldiery, the generosity
of the chieftain did not desert him. “Save yourself,”
cried he to Bradshawe, in the same moment
flinging his bridle into the hand of the royalist officer.
“But remember! if you have deceived me
here, you had better perish on this spot than live to
meet my vengeance.”

The last words were either unheard or unheeded
by Bradshawe. He made no reply, but, leaping

swiftly into his saddle, struck the spurs into his
horse, and dashed across the fields, so as to turn
the right flank of the advancing party, and place a
hill between himself and the threatening danger.
He had emerged from the hollow so suddenly that
he gained a hundred yards almost from his starting-place
before he was observed by the troopers.
And it was well for him that such was the case;
for, as his dark figure swept the snowy waste, it
offered so distinct a mark for the yeomanry sharpshooters,
that the volley which they fired, after vainly
hailing him, must inevitably have proved fatal
but for the distance. The militiamen, as Brant had
perhaps anticipated, instantly wheeled from the
road, and with tumultuous cries launched in pursuit
of the flying officer; and, though the chase was
abandoned with equal suddenness when they found
themselves floundering through deep snowdrifts after
a fugitive as well mounted as themselves, and
who had soon placed a ridge of upland between
himself and their fire, yet the circle which they
made in again recovering the road enabled the
stealthy Indian to glide unseen along a snowy
swale, and shelter himself in a thicket of evergreens,
from which he soon seized an opportunity
to escape into the deep forest.

Brant did not retire, however, until he had first
seen the march of the Congressional army, whose
main body was now at hand. The forces were
newly leyied; but, though exhibiting few of the disciplined
traits of veteran soldiery, yet the sturdy
yeomanry wore individually that martial air which
characterizes Frontiers-men skilled from their boyhood
to the use of arms, alike in the wild forest-hunt
and the Indian foray. The clump of cedars
in which Brant had ensconced himself crowned a
rocky knoll which commanded a turning of the

road; and the stern though dejected mien with which
he looked upon the pageant; the gaze, half sullen,
half admiring, which he fixed upon the serried battalion,
as banner, and plume, and fluttering scarf,
and bright bayonet flashing in the frosty air, swept
beneath his view, might have marked the chief as
the personified genius of his fated race; a warrior
prophet, who gazed admiringly upon the battle
cloud whose thunders he knew must destroy his
people.

3. CHAPTER III.
THE FASTNESS.

Bryant.

Bradshawe, after the interview which had been
so abruptly commenced and broken off with Brant,
lost no time in making his escape from the precincts
of Johnstown, where the presence of the patriot
forces made every moment fraught with peril to
him. Indeed, after escaping so nearly from their
hands, he was obliged more than once to make a
wide circuit in order to avoid the straggling bands
of Whig militia that seemed pouring along the
roads, bent upon making their way to join the main
column of Schuyler's army.

Schoharie was the point which he now aimed at
making as quickly as possible; and as it was long
before he could venture to cross the frozen river and
turn his horse's head upon the direct route he wished
to travel, the noble animal had occasion more
than once to rue the brutal temper of his master, as,
chafing with impatience at each cause of delay that
interposed, he now spurred hotly toward the bank
of the stream, and now wheeled from its brink, or
reined up sharply at some turning of the road.
Here the rapids, or the evident weakness of the ice,

prevented him from crossing; there the deep snowdrifts,
or the steep and slippery banks, prevented
him from descending to the frozen highway; and
now again there were appearances upon the opposite
shore which deterred him from trusting himself
upon the snowy waste, where his dark figure crossing
over might be seen at a long gunshot, and tempt
some idle patriot ranger, or officious “committee-of-safety”
member to bring him to for a parley.

The immediate personal peril weighed not, indeed,
a feather with him. But to be recognised
and tracked in the snow to his ultimate destination
might be fatal to the projects which he had now
most at heart. The truth is, that, though Bradshawe
had, when he found himself so hard pressed by
Brant, designated the Cave of Waneonda as the
present retreat of Alida, he was not himself perfectly
assured that she was really there, though his
last orders to his creature Valtmeyer had been to
make that disposition of his prize; and, believing
that his wishes in this respect had been complied
with, he was actually upon his way to the cavern,
when the rumoured approach of Schuyler induced
him momentarily to change his destination, and
make the best of his way to Sir John Johnson.

Brant, as it appeared, had been misinformed as to
Bradshawe's keeping himself aloof from his political
friends, and attending to his own concerns in Schoharie.
His actual business had been among the
Tories in the neighbourhood of Wyoming, whom
he succeeded in confirming, and drawing off in a
body, to unite their forces with a band of Iroquois
which had established a position about the forks of
the Susquehanna, upon the confines of New-York
and Pennsylvania. And this absence in that then
unsettled country will account for his ignorance of
the projected movement and subsequent march of

the patriots upon Johnstown, until he had reached
the southwestern settlements of Tryon county.

He had unexpectedly, upon an order from Sir
John, started upon his expedition immediately after
planning the abduction of Brant's fair captive,
which was so ruthlessly consummated by his creature
Valtmeyer. He had heard of Valtmeyer's success
only through an Indian runner charged with
letters from Sir John, by whom Valtmeyer also contrived
to transmit intelligence from himself. The
tidings from either spoke of the precarious condition
of their party, and Bradshawe determined that,
whatever course public affairs might take, his own
private views should not necessarily be thwarted.

At present he thought only how he could best
make sure of the prey which Valtmeyer had thus
far secured for him.

That ruffian, immediately upon the seizure of his
victim, had, by the aid of confederates, transported
her to a lonely cabin upon the skirts of the settlements,
where a thrifty innkeeper, privately associated
with the outlaw in certain matters of business
best known to themselves, maintained a small establishment,
which he dignified with the name of his
Dairy Farm.

The inn of mine host lay some miles distant from
this possession upon the public highway. During
the first months of the present troubles it had been
used alike by both parties as a rendezvous for their
public meetings. But as the cause of the Whigs
advanced in popularity, the opposite faction appeared
to have withdrawn their patronage from the house,
though there were some shrewd surmises that the
landlord did not therefore suffer in his coffers. But
when it was whispered that the Dairy Farm harboured
a nest of Tory spies, and served merely as
a sort of scouting-post to collect political gossip

from the inn below, the close inquiry that was at
once instituted, followed by an examination of the
tavern-keeper before a committee of safety, elicited
nothing to inculpate that worthy, and, as every one
thought, much-injured individual.

An old black woman and a strapping mulatto lass,
whose labours in the dairy were superintended, from
time to time, by the pretty daughter of the proprietor,
seemed the only permanent or occasional occupants
of the place. The old woman was deaf and
suffering from rheumatism; the mulatto seemed an
exception to the generality of her quick-witted race,
in being as stolid and stupid of intellect as she was
simple and ignorant; and the pretty Tavy Wingear
was known the country round as a sprightly, frank,
and guileless girl, whom no one would think of making
the depositary of a political secret. All suspicions
about the Dairy Farm were allayed, and it
became nearly as safe a house for the royalist partisans
as ever, until the affair of the Hawksnest,
subsequent to which the Tories had been shy of
holding their secret meetings anywhere in this immediate
neighbourhood.

Such was the spot to which Valtmeyer bore his
prisoner; and here, having the two Africans to attend
upon her, Alida had passed even months, with
no signs of approaching rescue to cheer her solitude.
Valtmeyer was often, though never for any length
of time, absent from the house; and irksome as this
imprisonment became, yet, though he proffered her
the full range of the premises whenever his eye was
there to watch her motions, this was just the season
when confinement to her chamber became most welcome.

Long weeks wore on, and the hope of release became
almost extinct in her bosom. The summer
was gone; autumn, with its varied tints, made the

forests around like one gorgeous bed of tulips to the
eye. Winter was at hand, with all its icy rigours;
yet the lapse of the seasons and the change of the
foliage, as she viewed it from her window, was all
that varied the monotonous hours of the unhappy
Alida. Once, indeed, and only a few days after she
was first immured in this lonely spot, her heart leaped
as she heard the blithe tones of a gay young female
voice beneath her window. But, flying to the
casement, she was scarcely permitted to catch a
glimpse of the young woman from whose lips came
the cheering sound, before Valtmeyer had rushed
into her apartment and rudely drawn her back from
the window.

Upon two other occasions she heard the same
tones at a distance; and once, before the autumn
became sere, she had seen a stranger female afar off,
gathering flowers upon the hillside, while a Canadian
pony stood grazing near her. The next moment
the country damsel leaped into her saddle, and,
galloping gayly past the house, guided her active
pony amid the stumps of the clearing until she had
reached the road, and soon after disappeared to the
view of Alida. The sight of that free-limbed courser,
and the thought of escape which its appearance
suggested, awakened a fresh yearning for freedom
that was all but maddening. But neither the horse
nor the rider ever appeared again.

As the winter set in, however, a change of scene,
if not a release from imprisonment, was soon to be
realized by the unoffending captive. Bradshawe,
alarmed for the security of his prey, had written to
Valtmeyer by the runner who had brought him a
missive from that worthy confederate, giving a glowing
account of his successful adventure. His letter
urged Valtmeyer to lose no time in moving Miss
De Roos from so dangerous a neighbourhood. For

Alida's friends were scouring the country round for
traces of Thayendanagea's captive.

Her fickle-minded but high-spirited brother, so
far from slackening in his endeavour to rescue her
after the first ill-starred attempt already commemorated,
had twice beaten up the Mohawk's quarters
with a strong band of border yeomanry; nor did he
give up dogging the movements of Brant until the
chief had crossed the frontier and passed into Canada
for a season. Despairing, then, of recovering
his sister by the means hitherto used, Derrick had
made his way to the head-quarters of the patriot
army, where, offering his sword to his country, he
lived in the hope of obtaining tidings of the lost Alida
through the medium of the first flag of truce that
should be sent to the royalist generals in Canada.
Balt, too, the humble but zealous friend of the
Hawksnest family, adopting less readily the belief
that Brant had removed his captive across the frontier,
had, after accompanying Derrick in his bootless
wildwood quest at the north, renewed a diligent
search among the haunts of the Tories nearer home.

It was the restless and prying offices of this faithful
fellow—which Valtmeyer, with characteristic hardihood,
seemed to make light of when detailing them to
his employer—that awakened the anxiety of Bradshawe
for the better security of his prize; and his
letter designated a remarkable cavern in Schoharie
county, well known both to the outlaw and his ruffian
principal as the best retreat for security; and it
commanded that, as soon as the winter snows should
allow of easy and rapid transportation, a covered
sleigh should convey Alida, her two attendants, and
such furniture as would be indispensable, to this
dungeon fastness. A valuable farm on the German
Flats, with the promised manumission of the African
servants, who were actually the slaves of Bradshawe,

was the promised reward for these services
if they should be faithfully and effectually rendered.

This letter was the last communication which
Bradshawe had held with the lawless instrument of
his crimes. He was now about to realize how far
his behests had been obeyed. He burned with
impatience to ascertain the result of Valtmeyer's
machinations, and he ground his teeth in wrath at
the thought that the momentary quailing of his spirit
before that of Brant had betrayed his secret, endangered
his final triumph over Alida, and perhaps
compromised the safety alike of his confederate and
himself. His horse had long since become way-worn
and jaded; still it was scarcely possible that
Brant, though he might have taken a more direct
course for the cavern, could on foot accomplish the
journey as soon as himself. His rage and vexation
at the bare possibility were for a moment insupportable;
and then, as he ferociously vented his feelings
upon his tired steed, struggling now with difficulty
through the deep snowdrifts, he became calmer
the next instant upon remembering that Brant was
alone, and that Valtmeyer, in performing his duty
of castellan, might possibly despatch the officious
and insolent Mohawk.

In the mean time, as the short winter's day approached
to a close, Bradshawe himself began to
suffer for the want of refreshment; and he was
compelled to admit, at last, that it was impossible
for his horse to proceed farther, and that he would
prove useless on the morrow unless the wants of
the animal were soon administered to. And, fortunately
for both, an asylum soon presented itself in
the deserted cabin of some fugitive settler, whom
fear of the Indians had driven from his solitary
clearing in the forest to some safer home.

storm of rain and sleet set in a few moments

after the horsemen gained this welcome shelter;
but he heeded not its peltings without, as, after
tethering his horse in one corner of the shanty, he
kindled a fire upon the hearth, and by its light discovered
a pile of unshocked corn, which he soon
laid under contribution, both for himself and his
steed. He foddered the horse, while still heated,
with the dried blades and husks only, busying himself
in the mean time with shelling the ears. The
grain thus procured was partly pounded up, and,
by the aid of snow-water, converted into hoe-cakes,
which were soon roasting by the fire. The rest of
it, with a dozen more loose ears, he placed before
his horse after this frugal supper was served; nor
did Bradshawe resign himself to rest before, like
an experienced trooper, he had well groomed his
noble steed, by using the husks and cobs of the
maize as a substitute for the straw whisp and brush,
to which the animal's glossy coat showed he was
accustomed. His fire, in the mean time, he fed with
an armful of fuel from the same pile which had
supplied him with provisions. It blazed up so as
to fill the whole cabin with a ruddy light as the dry
blades were first ignited, crackled and sputtered for
a few moments as the grains of corn became parched
and split by the heat, and then subsided into a
bed of glowing brands as the dry cobs were seized
upon by the element.

“And why,” thought Bradshawe, as, wrapped in
his cloak, he now stretched himself out for repose,
“why may not the burning of this indigenous plant
be emblematic of the career of the thousands of my
countrymen who are reared almost upon it alone.
Here is the quick flash of their first outbreak of rebellion,
the noisy sputtering far and wide, in which
men more wise than myself thought that it would
vent itself and have an end. And here are the live

coals at the bottom, that will burn on steady through
this long winter's night!—Pshaw! what care I,
though, if men are such asses as to light the fire, so
I only can warm my fingers by the blaze?” And,
concluding his unwonted strain of thought with this
characteristic reflection, the worthy trooper resigned
himself to slumber.

The dawn found Bradshawe again upon his journey.
But the rain of the preceding night, followed
by one of those mild, foggy days which sometimes
occur in midwinter, made his road a difficult
one: the half-thawed snow was converted into slush,
which, yielding and slipping beneath his horse's
feet, made the track at once heavy and insecure.
The rivulets upon the hillside too, released for a
brief period from their icy fetters, were swollen
frequently to torrents, which were absolutely perilous
in the passage. The road he was traversing
could scarcely, indeed, be dignified with the title of
a bridle-path; and though the cavern toward which
he was urging his course has of late years been
frequently visited by the curious, it would be difficult
to designate the route by which Bradshawe
had hitherto approached it by any precise geographical
data of the present day.

4. CHAPTER IV.
THE CAVERN OF WANEONDA.

Mrs. Ellet.

In the hilly region of Schoharie county, where
the Onidegra ridge of the Helderburg mountains
extends its flanking battlements of perpendicular
rock along the lovely vale of the Schoharie kill,
there ran in former days an old Indian pathway.

The principal route between Schoharie court-house
and the hamlets to the east and west of that
settlement, as well as the great Indian trail between
Catskill and Canajoharie, had a course nearly parallel
with this path, and it had therefore been neglected
for so many years as to be nearly forgotten
by every one, save some roving Indian that now
and then straggled into the settlements, or the white
hunter, who, tired with traversing the forest thickets
and rocky defiles of the adjacent mountains, took
his homeward way along this secluded but well-beaten
path.

This trail, where Bradshawe was now travelling
it, was walled by huge buttresses of rock upon the
west, while its terraced edge commanded, through
the leafless trees, a complete view of the vale of the
Schoharie upon the east; and as a burst of sunshine

ever and anon lighted up with smiles that landscape
which even in winter is most lovely, even the heart
of so reckless an adventurer was touched with the
idea of carrying rapine and devastation into a scene
so exquisitely calm and rural; “yet such,” thought
he, with a sternness more in unison with his general
character, “such is our only policy, if the king's
party ever again get the ascendancy in the district.
We must take the hearthstones from under these
people, and then they'll bother us no longer about
their parchment privileges.”

Alas! did Bradshawe mean to prophesy that
Johnson and his bands should sweep, like the besom
of desolation, over this fated region within two
years afterward? Did he foresee the part which
men as ruthless as himself should play in those
dark days of monstrous violence?

But now, as he remembers the devious route that
he has travelled to avoid the settlements, and looks
back upon the road behind him, circling wide to the
east and south of his ultimate destination, the desperado
remembers again that Brant may have reached
it before him. He spurs his horse along the
narrow path, descends toward the valley, approaches
the village, wheels off, skirts the valley, and, ascending
once more, tracks his way through a forest
of walnut and maples, and arrives at last at the
yawning mouth of Waneonda.

A moment sufficed Bradshawe to secure his
horse, and then he impatiently hurried to descend.
The top of the pit, some twenty or thirty feet in diameter,
was wholly hidden from the eye by some
huge trees which had probably been felled across it
purposely to screen the opening. But their roots
were so grown around with thickets, and the trunks
lay tossed about in such disorder, that no design
was apparent in their arrangement; and they might

have been thought to be blown down by the wind,
or fallen from natural decay precisely where they
now lay.

Below this funnel-like cavity, which was not more
than ten feet in depth, there opened a narrow fissure
about half that breadth, but extending downward
into perfect darkness. The top of this black
chasm was likewise crossed by several sticks of
timber; and to the stoutest and longest of these
was attached a perpendicular ladder of rope fifty
feet in length, secured by the lower end to the rocks
below. The ladder was coated with ice, and Bradshawe
was compelled to clutch closely the frozen
rungs as his feet slipped repeatedly in descending.
A sloping declivity of rocks received him; and so
rough and precipitous was his pathway, now rendered
doubly perilous by the mud and half-frozen
slime from the dripping walls above, that he would
scarcely have dared to venture farther amid the
darkness that reigned below. But, groping about
for a few moments, he felt the broken limb of a tree,
and, passing his hand along it toward the trunk,
discovered that a new convenience had been provided
since last he visited the spot, and he readily
perceived that it must have been for the accommodation
of Alida that the ponderous piece of timber
had been plunged down and placed in its present
situation. Lowering himself down the tree in an
oblique direction, he soon entirely lost sight of the
opening above him; and the temperature of the cave
became so mild that traces of ice were no longer
discovered. A ladder of wood then gave him a
firmer foothold down the third descent; and a fourth
declivity of rough rocks brought him to the bottom
of the cavern.

The adventurer was now one hundred and fifty
feet beneath the surface of the soil; and no one, unless

as perfectly familiar with the cave as was Bradshawe,
could have safely effected the descent amid
the darkness which reigned around him. The horizontal
passage in which he now found himself was
about ten or twelve feet in breadth, nearly half of
which space was occupied by a rivulet running in a
southern direction; and, keeping as close to the wall
on his left as possible, Bradshawe followed it for a
few paces, until the roof of the cavern drooped so
low that he could feel it with his outstretched hands
as he placed them before him. Dropping now upon
his knees, he crawled along for several yards, until
his eyes were greeted by a stream of light which
came through a narrow aperture on the left. He
crawled through the opening, and entered an apartment
some thirty feet in diameter by a hundred or
more in height.

Had Bradshawe possessed a taste for the grand
and beautiful in nature, the appearance of this
chamber might have arrested his attention. The
ceiling was fretted with stalactites; the walls hung
with a rich tracery of spar, which likewise, in a
thousand fantastic forms, encumbered the floor upon
which, in the course of ages, its broken fragments
had fallen. But a solitary lamp, fed with bear's fat,
which stood upon a truncated column in the centre,
dimly revealing the glistening objects around, seemed
only to claim his attention as he eagerly advanced
toward it. A bugle lay by the side of the lamp;
and, taking the latter only in his hand, he repassed
through the fissure which had admitted him into
“the Warder's Room,” as it was called by his followers,
and regained the low-arched passage from which
he had temporarily digressed.

Crawling now cautiously a few paces in advance,
he paused and, placing the bugle to his lips, blew
a blast which resounded through the cavern. Several

minutes now elapsed; the last rumbling echoes
seemed to have traversed every chamber of the cavern
which could send back a sound, and died away
at last in some unfathomable abyss remote from them
all. At last a sound like the dip of an Indian paddle
was heard. A shred of light then seemed to flicker
upon the bottom of the cave, like a glow-worm
crawling along its floor toward him. A moment
after the feeble ray became stronger, and separated
itself into two dots of light, which were still approaching;
and then, again, from the brighter reflection
upon the water as the taper now neared
Bradshawe, it could be seen that he was standing
upon the brink of a subterranean lake, and that a
canoe, with one solitary voyager, was approaching
him.

“Valtmeyer, is he here, my good Charon?” asked
Bradshawe of the deformed half-breed that steered
the canoe, as the man turned a rocky promontory
on the left, and suddenly presented his features
in full view by the ruddy torchlight.

“He is here, captain,” replied the Hunchback,
respectfully.

“And the lady?”

“I know nothing of the lady since the first day
she came down among us, when I carried her
along the River of Ghosts to the chamber at the
north end of the cavern, which our men call the
`Chapel.”'

“And has no one else been here?”

“Not a soul but Red Wolfert, and he seems to
go near her as seldom as possible.”

“It is well. Shove off.”

There was a silence for a few moments as the
shallop kept her way over the deep and mysterious
flood; and Bradshawe, as he sat with folded arms
in the stern, seemed busied only in trying to pierce

with his eye the undiscoverable height of the black
vault above him.

“Who of my band are here?” he at length resumed,
abruptly.

“Not those whom you value most; and some,
perhaps, who should never have been trusted with
the secret of the cave. But Syl Stickney says that
things are going so badly above, that we must find
hiding-places for our friends if we'd have them stick
to the cause, and Wolfert therefore forgave him
for bringing them down.”

“Syl Stickney and be d—d to him! I must pistol
that officious rascal some cold morning,” muttered
Bradshawe; and then added aloud, “And have
these fellows seen the lady?”

“Neither they nor Syl. Syl only guesses that
there is some mystery shut up at the other end of
the cave; for Wolfert has forbidden that the newcomers
should be told there is such a place as the
Chapel; and he swears he'll cut Syl's throat if he
approaches it.”

“Admirable Wolfert!” said Bradshawe, mentally;
“thou hast thus far been the truest of ruffians,
and well earned thy reward.”

The boat had now reached the farther shore of
this “Black Acheron,” where a shelving indentation
among the steep rocks affords a landing-place
to the voyager, who, having passed the gulf, proposes
to penetrate the Cimmerian region beyond.
This enterprise, though unattended with danger, is
sufficiently awe-inspiring to any one who has been
ferried over that dark, still river, upon which no
beam of sunshine has ever fallen. But a man less
bold than Bradshawe might have shrunk from adventuring
farther, if unfamiliar with the sounds
which now met his ear as he scaled a rough ascent
leading up from the water side; for never from Tartarus

itself arose a wilder discord of horrid blasphemy,
intermingled with drunken laughter. The
strange, unearthly oaths, echoed from the hollow
depths around, seemed to tremble long in air, as if
it thickened with the damning sounds, and held them
there suspended as in their proper element. The
peals of eldrich merriment were first shrilly reverberated
as in mockery from the vaulted roof; and
then, as if flung back into some lower pit, some
burial-house of mirth, died away in a sullen moan
beneath his very feet.

This strange confusion of sounds, however, lost
its effect upon the ear the moment Bradshawe had
entered the outlaws' banqueting hall, where he suddenly
presented himself in the midst of his men,
who, in every variety of costume, were variously
grouped about the vast circular chamber. Some
were carousing deeply around a board well filled
with flagons; some, seated upon the ground, were
deep in a game of cards together; the rattling of
a dice-box betrayed the not dissimilar occupation
of two others; while some, more remote from the
rest, were amusing themselves with jumping for a
wager, and other feats of strength and agility. The
size of this apartment, which formed a rotunda forty
paces in diameter by fifty feet in height, afforded
ample room for all this diversity of occupation.

Syl Stickney and others of Bradshawe's Tory followers,
who were not willing to identify themselves
completely with Valtmeyer's especial band of outlaws,
though they had long consorted with them,
kept partially aloof; a herd of them being collected
around the worthy Sylla himself, who, with a
tankard by his side and a pipe in his mouth, sat
upon a ponderous fragment of fallen spar, discoursing
much to his own satisfaction, if not to that of
his hearers.

“Why, do tell!” he exclaimed, breaking off in
his discourse, “if there aint the capting now! Did
I ever! Why, capting, I was jist saying to my
brother Marius and these gentlemen—”

“Your brother Marius be d—d. Keep your seats,
gentlemen. Stickney, where's Valtmeyer?”

“I guess, if you follow the turning to the right,
you'll find him in one of the chambers to the north
o' this,” said the cool Syl, without ever moving from
his seat to salute or welcome his officer.

“Nay, my good fellows,” said Bradshawe, turning
to the others, who were beginning to explain how
they had become his guests in his absence, “the
king's friends are always welcome to any shelter I
can afford them; and I ought, perhaps, to thank our
friend Stickney here for gaining such valuable recruits
for my band in times like these.”

“Ought ye, raaly, capting? Well, now, that's
jist what I told Red Wolfert when he showed signs
of kicking up a muss, case, when I went up into
daylight one day to lift a rebel sheep or two, `Wolfert,'
says I—but, by darn, the capting's cleared out
without speaking to one of the company but ourselves.”
And, true enough, Bradshawe, seizing a
torch from a cleft in the rock, had glided out of the
apartment, unobserved by all save those who had
marked his entrance.

Taking now a northern direction, he soon encountered
the outlaw in a long narrow passage leading
from some secret chamber where arms and
munitions were said to be kept, but which Valtmeyer
probably appropriated to the stowage of
booty; a matter which Bradshawe, who did not
care to mix himself up with the predatory doings
of his lieutenant, never inquired into. Valtmeyer,
exchanging but few words with his leader for the
present, led him back to the Outlaws' Hall, where

every one seemed to be too much engaged in their
own pastime to notice them, as, passing along the
wall on one side, Bradshawe entered a narrow aperture
toward the south, leading to a distinct suite of
apartments. Here Valtmeyer soon brought him
the refreshment he so much needed after the toils
he had undergone.

In one of these chambers, where the air was ever
cooled and kept in motion by the dripping of water
from above, a thin plate of stone upon which it fell
emitted a sound not unlike that which proceeds
from the body of a guitar or other stringed instrument
when the wooden part is lightly tapped by the
finger. These monotonous tones, varying only at
times to a higher and wilder key, as if the cords of
the instrument were swept by some unseen hand,
mingled strangely with the low murmur of their
voices as the two adventurers conversed together;
while the huge Cyclopean frame of the freebooter,
and fiery eye and reckless features of the Tory captain—which
looked doubly wan by the blazing torch
that the other held before them while sitting in deep
shadow himself—formed one of those studies which
the old masters so loved to paint.

A few moments sufficed Bradshawe to despatch
his hasty meal, and possess himself of all the information
which his zealous coadjutor had to impart;
and, repassing again through the Outlaws'
Hall, without pausing to make himself known to the
half-drunken revellers who were still grouped about
it much in the same attitudes in which they were
first introduced to the reader, he motioned silently
to the wierd-looking ferryman who had brought him
into these gloomy realms, and once more regained
the shores of the subterranean lake.

The black pool was then again crossed; and,
passing by the Warder's Room on the right, the two

pursued the arched passage which Bradshawe had
before traversed, until they came to the open space
in the cave where he had first reached the bottom
in descending from the region of daylight to these
grim abodes.

The cloistered arches above rose so loftily that
the roof was shrouded in impenetrable darkness;
and here, through a small aperture in the wall on
the left, was again heard the sound of water. It
seemed not to be a still, sullen lake, like that he had
just crossed, but a flowing river, whose waves dashed
heavily and slowly against the cavernous rocks
which confined them on either side; and now, taking
a torch and paddle in his hands, and placing himself
in a recumbent posture in a boat barely large enough
to admit of its being pushed through the crevice,
Bradshawe, by the aid of the half-breed, entered
the opening in the curtain of rock, and launched
upon the stream beyond.

The subterranean voyager, who first pushed himself
along with his hands only, soon found the vault
to enlarge above him, so that he could sit erect in
the boat and use his paddle. The water, so clear
that his torchlight gleamed upon the bottom some
thirty feet below him, was only broken at long intervals
by a mimic cascade scarcely a foot in height,
over which he easily lifted his shallop, and proceeded
upon his errand to the distant chamber where
Alida was immured. In this spacious apartment
Valtmeyer had partitioned off a dry place by erecting
a bark shanty over it, and made other provisions
for the unhappy female, from whom, in the outlaw's
slang, it took its name of “The Lady's Chapel.” But
Bradshawe has now gained the threshold of that the
dreariest bower in which Beauty ever yet received
her suiter, and we must pause before venturing to
describe the strange and painful interview between
them.

5. CHAPTER V.
THE INTERVIEW.

Velasco, by Epes Sargent.

—Willis.

The ruffian Valtmeyer had not, as we have hinted,
been wholly unmindful of the comfort of his
captive when dragging her from the light of day
to become the tenant of this dungeon-like abode.
Whether this considerateness arose from motives
utterly selfish, or whether the outlaw had really
some latent sparks of kindness in his rude bosom,
it is impossible to say. But certainly he had been
at much pains in preparing “the Chapel” for its occupant
before he ever brought her to the cave.

The spot which he had selected for her tent or
wigwam of birchen bark had been smoothed by filling
up its inequalities with dry leaves; and these,
when covered by a piece of Indian matting, afforded
an elastic and comfortable carpet. Hither he
had, too, with much trouble—from the difficulty of
transporting articles of any bulk through these sinuous
vaults—conveyed bedding, a chair or two, a
table—which he was obliged to take to pieces, and

which cost him many an oath in reconstructing
—and other household articles. Nor had he forgotten
even the ordinary kitchen utensils when preparing
one corner of the Chapel for the accommodation
of the two coloured women who were to attend
upon Alida.

It was probably owing to these arrangements
chiefly that the health of Miss De Roos was not
utterly prostrated by the long weeks she was compelled
to pass in the gloomy vaults of Waneonda.
For though the air of this remarkable cavern is said
to be perfectly pure, and the temperature mild and
equable, yet such utter exclusion from the light of
day must always be more or less prejudicial, especially
to one whose anxious spirit is so worn by
emotion that the frame needs all fostering care to
prevent its giving way and releasing the throbbing
tenant.

But the thought of Death, which, to most characters
in her situation, would often have suggested
itself as a refuge, had perhaps never once occurred
to Alida de Roos. She neither wished for it nor
feared it. But she did fear that her bodily strength
might give way; her mind become enfeebled with
the decay of her health; that mind, upon whose inborn
and conscious energies she so haughtily relied
in the last emergency to which she might be driven.
She did fear that the greatest trial of its ascendency
and its powers—for she knew that she was
in Bradshawe's hands—might be deferred till her
faculties were impaired by suffering and her hitherto
indomitable spirit overborne.

The thought that those faculties might fail their
mistress, and that she might fall irretrievably into the
power of Bradshawe, was maddening to her. She
revolted from it whenever it swept athwart her
brain. She tried to forget her sorrows; she refused

to entertain her griefs; she endeavoured to postpone,
as it were, reflecting upon the full horrors of her
situation; and she caught at every object within her
reach that could occupy her attention, if it did not
amuse her mind. She divided their duties with her
attendants, and assumed all those which appertained
immediately to the care of her own person; she borrowed
her needle of the mulatto, who was glad of
an excuse for remaining unemployed, and sleeping
away the indolent and monotonous hours; and, listening
for hours to her dotard prating, she drew
from the elder negress all the superstitious lore
which formed the only furniture wherewith the mind
of the decrepit crone was supplied.

Alida unwittingly thus attached these humble
companions to her; and as their simple-hearted affection
more and more manifested itself, she began
at last to derive a certain solace from their sympathy
which actually approached to pleasure in their
society. The dungeon-doomed captive, who, in
his solitary misery, has made friends of animals
that belong to the very lowest and most loathsome
orders of created beings, can alone, perhaps, appreciate
this growth of friendship between a mind the
most gifted and refined, and those the least tutored
and liberalized.

On the day—if the phrase be allowable in regions
where night alone hath, since creation, reigned—
on the day that Bradshawe came on his stern errand
to the Lady's Chapel, Alida had, from some slight
indisposition, remained withdrawn in her tent; and
the two blacks, for the purpose of washing some
household articles, had kindled a fire upon the brink
of the stream, within a few yards of its door, where
they sat watching a boiling kettle, and chattering
together after the manner of their loquacious race.
The sound of their voices prevented their hearing

Bradshawe's approach; and as he extinguished his
torch the moment he came within the guiding light
of their fire, he was wholly unobserved till he stood
suddenly before them.

The shriek they simultaneously uttered at the
apparition startled Alida from her couch, and she
sprang to her feet, lifting, at the same time, the curtain
of her tent, so that the light of a lamp suspended
from within fell brokenly across her loosely arrayed
person.

Bradshawe, motioning with the back of his hand
as if he would cuff the negroes aside, pushed his
way at once rudely between them. “Shut up, you
squalling black brutes,” cried the ruffian, in a characteristic
tone, which changed on the instant, as if
belonging to another voice, as, bowing low, he saluted
Alida when he had approached a few paces
toward her.

“I have come,” said he, pausing in his advance,
and casting his eyes, as in respect to her, upon the
ground, “I have come, unheralded and unannounced,
I fear, no welcome visiter.”

“Unheralded? Who but the savage Valtmeyer
is your fitting herald? Unannounced? What better
than the terrors of this hideous dungeon could
announce its proper jailer! Waste not the soft
speeches that sit so idly on your lips, and are
thrown away in my ears. But tell me, tell me,
Walter Bradshawe, whence come you, why come
you? Tell me why I am here; for what monstrous
wickedness have I been kidnapped, kept for months
aloof from my friends and family, and brought to
this spot? and why do you stand there blasting
my eyes with your presence? Speak out, man;
out with it all, if words can syllable the foul contrivings
of your heart!”

Thus haughtily did Alida confront her spoiler;

and as she thus, in look as well as words, gave
vent to her outraged feelings, while Bradshawe,
standing on the declivity below her, seemed to stoop
and cower before her presence, she looked—half
emerging from the drapery of the tent, with the
pale light from within brightening the outlines of
her features and person, and leaving the rest in
deep shadow—she looked like some indignant spirit,
who, descending from a brighter world, had pierced
its way into these black realms to rebuke their unhallowed
master.

“By Jove, she'll unhitch lightning against me
next,” said Bradshawe, mentally. “She's a great
girl, and no mistake, this same Mistress Bradshawe;”
and then, still preserving his obsequious and
almost reverential bearing toward her, he rejoined
aloud, “I can bear this from you; this, and more,
Alida. My heart has not now, for the first time,
to be schooled in your unkindness. If you call it
kidnapping to rescue you from the horrors of Indian
captivity; if you call it outrage to provide a secluded
and safe home for you, when the havoc of
civil war has made thousands shelterless, and your
own friends are either scattered or slain; if you
call it wickedness to snatch you from the neighbourhood
of these scenes of horror as they thicken
through the land, and provide you here a retreat
which, rude and gloomy as I confess it is, still is
not without its comforts and advantages; if these
humble, but zealous and unwearying efforts of one
who has long since waived his right as a husband
to win your regard as a friend, can make no amends
for the one rash but well-meant act by which I
would have made you mine—then—then, Alida—
then—”

“Then, sir!” said the lady, scornfully, as he

paused a moment for a word; “well, sir, and what
then?”

“I'm d—d if I know,” said Bradshawe to himself.
“The jade looks so cursed cool that my
stump eloquence fails me. I must go it on some
other touch.”

“Why don't you finish your speech, sir?” repeated
Alida, noticing his hesitation. “Why stop you
so short in your pleadings and specifications? Even
Mr. Bradshawe's enemies allow him the glibness, as
well as the guile, of a county-court attorney.”

He did not reply, and the lady went on. “Bradshawe,
you are a skilful actor, a most specious
hypocrite, though your selfish passions are too fitful
and stormy to make you a consummate one.
But you must deem me credulous indeed when you
claim for yourself motives of disinterested kindness
which would give the lie to all I have known of
your character in long years gone by. The very
attachment with whose declaration this cruel persecution
began, was—”

“Was true, pure, disinterested, by Heaven!” exclaimed
Bradshawe, now really speaking from his
heart; “was earnest and devoted as ever mortal
man bore toward your sex. No, no, Alida, chafe
me not with that. Had you but accepted my honourable
proposals when first I dared to press my suit,
you might have made me what you would. Wild
and reckless as men called me, my mother's gentleness
seemed born anew in my spirit whenever
it turned to you.”

“And where,” said Alida, not wholly untouched
by this natural burst of feeling, yet shuddering as
she spoke the words which followed, “where was
that spirit of gentleness when those horrid nuptials
were forced upon me; when, by your lawless instruments,
I was torn from my home, and my hand

to you in wedlock made the price by which alone
you consented to redeem me from the licentious
hands of that young barbarian with whom you, as
well as Valtmeyer, were colleagued? That fearful
night! oh God! oh God!” And the now agitated
Alida covered her face with her hands, as if shutting
out some hideous spectre which her imagination
had conjured up for the moment.

“You have never had reason,” said Bradshawe,
coldly, “to believe that I was privy to that deed of
violence; and though, for certain valuable political
services he has rendered, I have since taken Valtmeyer
into my confidence, no man has ever dared
to whisper audibly that I was at that time colleagued
with him. No, Alida, though you then disbelieved
the tale, I can now only repeat the same story I told
you then. And what are the circumstances? I
had been some weeks from home in a remote settlement,
and, returning by a short road through the
wilderness, I stop to bait my horse at the solitary
lodge of an Indian missionary. I find the timid
man in the utmost anxiety about a female prisoner
that, within an hour, had been brought to the house
by a ferocious young savage, whose band is hovering
near. His followers have called the spoiler
away for a few hasty moments, and left a white
desperado to stand guard over the captive. I ask
to see her, and, to my horror, discover that it is
Alida; she whom, a short month since, I had hoped
to call my Alida; she for whom still, as her rejected
lover, I cherished the deepest respect, the tenderest
affection. In my wrath I threaten Valtmeyer
for the part he has played in this forced abduction.
He derides my anger, and points to the smoke of
the Indian fires near by, as seen through the window.
I entreat, I conjure him. I add bribes to
my entreaties, and he consents to hear me, but rejects

the alternatives of flight or resistance as equally
hopeless in rescuing the prisoner. There is but
one resort remains. I am not personally unknown
to Au-neh-yesh; I must plead to him. But will he
hear me in such a cause? He has already avowed
to the Catholic missionary his intention to marry
the white woman; will he be dissuaded from his
course by words, when his deeds have just proved
the determination of his character. No! there is
no way of rescuing you from the ruthless hands of
that licentious son of Brant, but by convincing him
that you are already married; that, in a word, you
are my wife. Proofs are wanting; for, as you do
not bear my name, I must make it appear that the
espousals long since took place clandestinely. The
missionary is the only party at hand whose testimony
will be believed; but he refuses to give it falsely.
He will not swear that we are married unless the
rite be solemnized; but he consents, if we accept
his ministry at once, to leave a blank in the marriage
certificate, which I can antedate, so that Au-neh-yesh
shall have no suspicion of being over-reached.
What remains to be told? You startle
from a stupor as you hear the dreadful sound of his
voice approaching from a distance; there is not a
moment to be lost; the service is hurried through;
you faint at the last response, but the ceremony is
finished, and the demi-savage foiled in his claim
before he makes his appearance at the door.”

“God of mercy!” passionately exclaimed Alida,
clasping her hands together, “is Thy truth like human
truth? Not one word which that man has
spoken can I gainsay; yet, while the very scene
he describes passed before my eyes—my own eyes
—I feel, I know, that it was all false; false, fiendishly
false. A LIE; a living, breathing, moving
lie.'

She paused. “Yet I did see that stony-eyed priest;
I did hear Bradshawe pleading with Valtmeyer; I
do remember leaping forward when I heard the
voice of that red barbarian, whose naked arm had
been around my waist an hour before.—More I remember
not till they showed me that fatal certificate;
but even then I did not think that this was
all a cruel inveiglement, and Bradshawe a specious
villain, a most accursed.—When and whence, then,
came this firm conviction that I was foully dealt
with—that I was a blind victim in the toils of demons?”

The ill-starred lady, while speaking thus, with
eyes intensely fixed on vacancy, pushed back with
her fingers the long tresses from her brow, as if her
intellectual as well as physical vision could thus be
cleared. Then shaking her head, from which the
dishevelled hair again fell slowly to her shoulders,
she turned and fixed on Bradshawe a look so mournful
yet so piercing, that even his features of bronze
betrayed the uneasy and painful emotion it awakened.
But whether that emotion was one of alarm
for the future or of remorse for the past; whether
his guilty heart quailed beneath that penetrating
glance, or whether the grief-stricken mien of the
beautiful woman whom he had reduced to this condition
of forlornness touched some latent feeling
of pity and regret, it was impossible to say. The
slight agitation passed rapidly from his countenance,
and, folding his arms with a composed but
dejected air, in which something of dignity was not
unmingled, he said,

“Madam, it is in vain for me to attempt removing
these ungenerous, these monstrous suspicions. I
shall never attempt to combat with them more; nor
would I now have said what I have said, save that
I always attributed your horror of my legal claim

upon your hand to some painful impression upon
your mind, made during the fits of delirium which
marked the long illness that followed those unhappy
nuptials. I therefore suspended that claim till
years should intervene and efface these frightful
imaginings. I for years avoided molesting you with
my hateful presence, though, unseen by you, I was
often hovering near. I kept secret the bond of
union between us. I thought that time might soften
the bitterness of your aversion. I hoped to melt
at last that heart of obduracy. But I have reasoned
vainly. An opportunity such as I have recently
availed myself of to prove my watchful affection
and devotedness, may never again occur; and if it
does, what will be my reward if I embrace it?
Scorn and contempt—ay, those are my wages—
scorn for the feelings that prompted the service,
contempt for the claim I would thus purchase on
your regard.”

The lady bowed her head and wept. The borderer
saw he was gaining an advantage, and determined
to pursue it. She spoke not, and he thus
went on:

“Hear me, Alida: there was a time when, in the
full tide of youth, madly as I loved you, I would
never have taken you as a reluctant partner to my
bosom. But years of care and disappointment have
sobered this arrogance of all-exacting affection. I
am, alas! no longer young; and the freshness of both
our lives has passed away for ever. I never have
loved, I never can love, another than you; and you
—you can never belong to another until my death
shall set you free. Why, then, oh why shall we both
continue to be miserable for our remaining years?
Why will you not make it my privilege, as it is
my right, to minister to your happiness, by crowning
mine? Why not confide in the partner whom

Destiny has, for good or ill, allotted you, and permit
me to announce you to the world as my wife?
These wars must soon be over,” pursued the Tory
captain, gathering confidence as he proceeded; “the
rebels are even now splitting into factions among
themselves; and when the king's friends come in
for honour and offices, and the forfeited estates of
heavy-pursed and rich-landed traitors, Walter Bradshawe's
claims for the spoils that are won by loyalty
and valour will not be the feeblest among them.
Ay, and men do say that titles will not be withheld
when success shall finally entitle us to the full
meed of royal bounty and graciousness. Wilt be
my Lady Bradshawe, fair Alida?” And the wily
suiter, dropping not ungracefully on one knee, tried
that half frank, half humorous smile which had
made more than one village maiden pronounce him
positively handsome when his features wore it, and
which others of the sex, less innocent, had called
“the devil's own trick” when they had learned
to rue its influence upon their hearts. But Alida—
though she too might, in some sense, be numbered
among his victims—was made of different metal
from those whom Bradshawe had often moulded
to his purpose.

“Kneel not to me,” she cried, “thou base and
sordid slave! thou wretched minion of power debauched
and misapplied! thou most fitting tool of
drunken tyranny! Share thy name! thy loyal name,
thy honours, thy titles, forsooth! Vile parricide, I
thank thee for reminding me of my bleeding country,
which even now is convulsed with the throe of
casting out such wretches as thou from her bosom.
By Heaven, Bradshawe, I would rather these rocks
should close together and crush me where I stand,
or that yon black stream should float my senseless
corse to an abyss still lower than that in which your

villany has already buried my living frame; I would,
I would, rather than bear the name of your wife
before men for a single day!”

“There may be a fate reserved for you in these
vaults worse than either,” said Bradshawe, in a voice
husky with passion, as he regained his feet and
stepped a pace or two backward. A sheathed poniard,
unnoticed by himself, slipped from his belt
as he rose, and lay upon the floor of the cavern
midway between him and Alida. Her quick eye
caught sight of the weapon in a moment; and, almost
ere the dreadful import of the last words had
reached her ears, she had sprung forward, plucked
the dirk from the ground, and recovered her former
position. Bradshawe, recoiling first at the impetuous
bound she had made toward him, now actually
turned pale when he saw her slowly draw the
weapon from its sheath, and gaze with a cold smile
upon its gleaming blade. He would have spoken,
but horror kept him tongue-tied; he would have
leaped forward to snatch the deadly steel from her
hand, but the least motion on his part would precipitate
the catastrophe which he verily believed
was impending. But the next movement of Alida
relieved the fearful suspense that agitated him.
She calmly, after feeling its point, passed the naked
dagger through her girdle, so as to secure it to her
person.

“It is small, but it will do,” she said, flinging the
sheath to the feet of Bradshawe. “Your power
over me from this moment has its limit. The instrument
of my deliverance is in my own hands;
and you can do no more than compel me to use it,”
she added, with an air of determination, so quiet as
sufficiently to speak her resolve, even if the words
had not been significant enough to reveal her purpose.

“I meant not—I did not mean—” stammered
Bradshawe.

“Our conference is over, sir; and it has a fitting
end,” interrupted Alida, haughtily, waving her hand.
“I would be alone, Mr. Bradshawe.”

“Another time, then, when my care for your
welfare, so far as I can study it in these dreary retreats,
shall have obliterated these ignominious suspicions,
this most ungenerous and unjust misinterpretation
of every word I utter, I will come, Alida,
and in a few days, perhaps, may venture to—”

“Come, sir, whenever you have made up your
mind to the moment my doom is sealed; but let
the victim be released from the presence of the executioner
for the few hours that may yet be allotted
her.”

The curtain of the tent dropped before her as she
pronounced these words; and Bradshawe, too much
stupified by the sudden turn which events had
taken, and confounded by the position in which he
had placed himself, withdrew sullenly to his boat,
without bestowing the least notice upon his gaping
slaves, who had been the mute and astonished witnesses
of this singular scene.

“What a cursed blockhead I was to threaten a
storm, when I had lots of time to circumvent, and
a thousand other ways to drive the garrison to surrender.
Wat Bradshawe, you are more of an ass
than most men believe you. You great boy you,
to let your blood get above your brain for a moment,
because a theatrical girl is mad enough to scoff at
you! She, too, wholly, at the moment, in your
power! Zounds! but my henhawk made a gallant
thing of it. That cursed dagger, too, slipping away
as it did. Well for me it was not a pistol, or the
Amazon had done for me at five paces. She's a
tall girl; a great piece of woman's flesh, that same

Mistress Bradshawe. I don't know whether it be
love or hatred that drives me on; but something
does drive me. If love, there's certainly a streak of
malice in it. If hatred, there must be some wishy-washy
drippings of tenderness in the bitter waters,
for my heart beat the devil's tattoo when she pointed
that infernal bodkin so near to her bosom. Hallo,
Charon! mongrel half-breed! bowknot of twisted
man's flesh! hither, I say! Ah! my good Charon, I
dreamed not you were so near at hand.”

And Bradshawe, terminating his amiable soliloquy
as his deformed follower joined him at the opening
in the rock where they had before separated,
the two soon afterward regained the Outlaws' Hall.

6. CHAPTER VI.
THE REFUGEES.

—The Bucanier.

An injury may be forgiven by a proud spirit, but
an insult never. And what human being is without
his share of pride? That miserable deformed
half-breed; that crooked mongrel of a man; that
dumb and uncomplaining slave of the gloomy mine
of Waneonda, had yet his human feelings, had still
his modicum of inward self-esteem, which brutal
words could wound and outrage. His vocation in
those tomb-like cells, though toilsome and humble,
was still one of the greatest trust; for he was alike
warder and seneschal of that subterranean castle,
whose moat and drawbridge were the black stream
and tottering skiff of the hunchback ferryman.

With these defences the renegade garrison had
always held themselves safe from hostile intrusion.
They might be starved out of their stronghold, but
it could never be carried by assault. For, however
the secret of the cave might become known, its recesses
could never be penetrated by a stranger,
save through the treachery of the ferryman.

That poor wretch, whom we have only known by
the sobriquet of Charon, as Bradshawe had nick-named
him, had always enjoyed his confidence,
and hitherto not undeservedly; though, while Bradshawe
regarded himself as the patron of the half-breed,

and entitled to his gratitude, the other, perhaps,
had merely viewed their relations toward each
other as a mutual affair of give and take, which left
neither party under special obligations to the other.
The half-breed, who had originally been a fisherman
by occupation, had, in former years, pointed
out the cave to Bradshawe when acting as his guide
to the trout-streams among the hills. Bradshawe,
learning that the spot had been hitherto known only
to the Indians, and, for some motive best known to
himself, wishing that a knowledge of it should be
extended to those white men only to whom he chose
to intrust it, determined instantly to take the half-breed
into his service, upon condition of his keeping
the secret of the place.

Time passed on; the half-breed, carried to another
part of the country, became a useless hanger-on
of Bradshawe's establishment; nominally a provider
for, but really a pensioner upon, Bradshawe's
kitchen; in short, one of that lounging, eel-catching
degenerates of the aborigines that may still be found
near some of the old families on Long Island, incident,
as it were, rather than belonging to the establishment.
The abduction of Miss De Roos, which
made it necessary for Valtmeyer, who played the
part of scapegoat in that affair, to disappear from
among men for a time, was the first thing that called
the half-breed and his secret into actual use.
Since that time he had silently almost passed into
Valtmeyer's service, who sometimes for a month
together retained him in the cavern, of which he
was a perfectly contented tenant, and which grew
more and more like a home to him. Idle by nature,
yet always to be relied upon when any duty was
required of him, this inoffensive, taciturn creature
was one of the few human beings who had never
provoked the imperious insolence of Bradshawe's

nature when brought in familiar contact with him.
But his brutality did break out at last in the hour
that, foaming with rage and vexation, he called for
the service of the ferryman when returning from his
fruitless interview with Alida. The jeer at his deformity
was resented by the half-breed even in the
moment it was uttered; for the means of vengeance
were at hand, and, as we shall soon see, he did not
hesitate to embrace them.

The goodly company to which Bradshawe was
now about to introduce himself in the Outlaws' Hall
might, in the slight glimpse we have had of them
in these deep cavern shades, have passed well
enough as a redoubtable crew of desperadoes, a real
melodramatic set of brigands. But the truth is,
that, though felon-loving old Salvator might have
picked out a head or two among them for his savage
pencil, a majority of these worthies would have
formed a more suitable study for some American
Wilkie—our own Richard Mount, perhaps—whose
canvass, borrowing for the nonce some broader and
bolder shadows, might delight in preserving the grotesque
array of characters.

Among Valtmeyer's immediate crew there were,
indeed, some as hideous-looking gentlemen as ever
said stand and deliver upon the highway. Faces
stolid yet ferocious; looks blended of sinister malice
and sensual audacity; wild, rude, and reckless-featured
men, with that dash of the genuine savage
in their aspect which is only acquired by pursuing
a career of crime upon the extreme borders of society,
where the practitioner incessantly vibrates
between civilized and barbarian life; a variety of
the robber species, in short, such as is only found
upon our Indian frontiers; such as the curious may
occasionally there light upon even at this day; but

such as only existed in perfection when the name
of Red Wolfert Valtmeyer was terrible in the land.

But, though these ill-omened visages glowered
here and there from beneath the wolfskin cap or
checkered handkerchief which swathed around the
brows, and, with some tawdry plume or Indian medal
stuck in its folds, generally formed the headgear
in this portrait-gallery of infernals, yet there was
that both in the guise and features of many which
was hardly in keeping with their present associations.
The complexions and appointments of a few
betrayed them as city-bred and of luxurious nurture;
they were ill-disciplined youths, whom the
mad spirit of loyalty, or some home disgust, or
some silly boyish escapado, had driven from a parent's
roof to the stormy border, where, in the whirl
of events, they had been hurled, with the black-bearded
men around them, into this place of bad
spirits, where so many had huddled together for
safety.

Of others, the faces were coarse, but not weather-beaten,
and bloated in some instances, as if by
the loose debauch of the roadside tippling-house,
from which, perhaps, their swaggering air was likewise
borrowed.

Here a red flannel shirt, breeches of corduroy,
and thick-soled brogans betrayed the quondam village
tradesman; while there the coat of foxy black,
or tattered blue with tarnished metal buttons, and
shrunken underclothes of threadbare gray, might
have bespoken some bankrupt pedler (or travelling
merchant, as the country folk would more reverentially
call him), save that the rusty-hilted small-sword
by his side, bespeaking his oldfashioned claim
to gentility, might induce one to set him down as
an absconding attorney.

All of the motley group, however, notwithstanding

these little discrepances, seemed to be close
confreres, who were upon the choicest terms of fellowship
together; and though Syl Stickney's contribution
of new-comers had been received at first
rather coolly by some members of the company,
they had all, doubtless, in other scenes and places,
often consorted in brotherhood of some kind to establish
the harmonious sympathy which reigned
among them.

The tie of that brotherhood was political faith!
They were all possessed by that spirit which, next
to the old democrat Death, is your only true leveller,
bringing all men on whom it seizes, save only
kings and demagogues, upon the same platform.
Party spirit had made them at first co-labourers,
and then co-mates together. But what mattered the
temporary inconvenience of so incongruous an association?
The disagreeableness and evils of their
state affected only themselves; and what mattered
such transient exposure when the well-being of
countless generations was concerned? Were they
not loyal subjects, banded together to sustain, not
merely the right of a crowned king, but to preserve
and fix the blessed precedence of rank, with all its
orderly succession of prerogative, by which alone
civilization can be sustained?

Thus reasoned some four or five small landed
proprietors or gentlemen farmers of undoubted respectability,
who, having compromised their safety
in the plots of their party by being seen riding home
from more than one Tory rendezvous, were now
compelled “to take earth” for a season, and share
this den with the lowest dregs of the faction to
which they belonged. These suffering partisans of
the royal cause had been now for so many weeks
crowded together in familiar contact with their
present comrades, that there was really little in their

bearing to distinguish them from the rest, though a
gray riding-frock and broad-leafed beaver, with a
feather in it of the same colour, or the uniform of
the royal Greens, in which some of them, who bore
a commission in the yeomanry militia, were dressed,
might have marked them as being better apparalled
than their comrades.

“Ah! Bradshawe,” cried one of these worthies,
“Bradshawe, my ace of trumps, I am rejoiced to
see you; for there are so few faced cards in our pack
here, that some of us would throw up our hands
in very disgust were it not for the royal game we're
playing. But by what devilish legerdemain are we
all shuffled here together?”

“Yes, Bradshawe,” exclaimed another, “tell us,
is there no chance of our breaking away from this
cursed hole till the rebels come to unearth us?”

“If you know of any better hole to creep into,
gentlemen, there is nothing to prevent our parting
company at any moment that suits your pleasure,”
dryly replied Bradshawe, at the same time saluting
the company with a formal courtesy.

His personal retainers, crowding tumultuously
around him the moment they heard the sound of his
voice, prevented any farther parley with the group
of gentlemen who had first accosted him, and with
whom, indeed, Bradshawe seemed disposed to converse
as little as possible. The truth is, that, though
he had been more than once indebted to the hospitality
of some of them, and would on no account
have been so impolitic as to treat any of them with
positive rudeness, yet the presence of these royalists
of the more respectable class put a check upon
his conduct that filled him with chagrin and vexation.

More than one of these gentlemen had, in less
troublous times, been personally acquainted with

the family of the unfortunate Alida; and all of them
were men of that stamp who would not hesitate to
embroil themselves in deadly quarrel to succour a
lady so iniquitously dealt with as Miss De Roos had
been. Nor would his political faith or loyal services
have been any shield to Bradshawe had these country
gentlemen dreamed of the villany he was practising
against the daughter of an old neighbour well
known, and once universally beloved in the county.

Their wrath, had it been once really awakened,
Bradshawe would have laughed to scorn, and would
soon have made them feel, in their present situation,
the folly of chiding the lion when their heads
were in his mouth. But while, for very natural reasons,
not wishing that anything should create disunion
between himself and his brother partisans, he
felt that, however idly their indignation might explode
where they could be so easily overmastered
by his immediate crew, yet, to bring his affair with
Alida to a successful termination, the secret of the
cavern must not be extended to more than were
at present intrusted with it. It was therefore not
without an inward feeling of satisfaction that he listened
to a proposition which one of the Tory gentlemen,
coming forward in behalf of the rest, made
him as soon as he was disengaged from receiving
the boisterous welcome that others gave him in the
Outlaws' Hall.

“We pardon the coldness of your greeting, Captain
Bradshawe,” said this gentleman, “in consideration
of the kindness we have already received
from some of your servants; and because our some
days' experience of the difficulty of providing for
so many months in this place suggests that there
must be limits to your hospitality, and—”

“Nay, my dear Fenton,” said Bradshawe, seizing

both hands of the speaker, “I beg you would not
mention—”

“Pardon me, Captain Bradshawe,” said the Refugee,
bowing somewhat stiffly as he withdrew his
hands from the familiar grasp of the other, “there
are four or five of us here who have made up our
minds where to dispose of ourselves; and all that
we ask is a couple of your retainers, to act as guides
and packmen till we can make our way within the
borders of Ulster county, where we are sure of a
cordial reception at the house of a royalist gentleman
of our acquaintance.”

“The men, Mr. Fenton, are entirely at your service,
if you insist upon thus abruptly taking leave
of the poor entertainment I have to offer you. But
why not, gentlemen, at the least, put off your departure
till the morrow?”

“We had no idea of starting till to-morrow,” rejoined
one of the older royalists, bluntly.

“Not at all, not at all,” said Fenton, rather hurriedly,
and colouring at the same time as he appreciated
Bradshawe's readiness to get rid of himself
and his friends; “we'll be off within the hour if
your men can get ready.”

“Within the hour be it, since you will go,” replied
Bradshawe, turning at once upon his heel to
give the necessary order.

“The churl!” muttered Fenton.

“What can you expect from a hog but a grunt?”
echoed Sylla.

“If you sit down with dogs, you must look for
fleas,” rejoined his brother Marius, as the classic
pair stood listening to this colloquy of their betters.

“I say, Squire Fenton,” pursued Syl, “I mistrust
Marius and I'll make tracks with you out of this
darned hole. A fellow'll turn into a woodchuck if
he burrows here much longer.”

This accession to his party was gladly welcomed
by Fenton at the time, though, as it included several
of Syl's immediate friends and cronies, it proved
subsequently disastrous from the undue confidence
it gave Fenton in his numbers, as will appear in the
sequel.

The arrangements for their departure were soon
completed. But the final exit of Fenton and his
followers was attended by circumstances which can
scarcely be understood unless we recur to other actors
in the scene, athwart whose shadows a new and
strange form is but now flitting to mingle mysteriously
with the rest.

We have already spoken of the feeling of bitter
exasperation which had been excited in the bosom
of the hunchback ferryman by the brutal language
of his master, but we have not told that the hour
which Bradshawe consumed in the Lady's Chapel
had seen a trial of the half-breed's fidelity which,
considering his Indian origin, was of the severest
kind.

Scarcely, indeed, had the Tory captain passed
through the opening in the rock and launched in his
boat upon the river beyond, before the Hunchback
found himself in contact with another authority than
that which had posted him there as sentinel. Hearing
the fall of a pebble on the bottom of the cavern,
he stepped quickly forward, and threw the light of
his torch against the walls of the pit by which you
first descend into the cave. He could discover nothing.
Presently another pebble rolled to his feet.
It seemed to bound from a ledge of rock near him.
Still he could not fix the direction whence it came;
and he climbs half way up the zigzag shaft of the pit
to see if it can have been precipitated from without.
He lifts his torch aloft, so as to throw its light where
the rope ladder is wont to be suspended from the

crossed trees above. But all looks quiet there and
safe. The ladder has been, as usual, drawn in and
secured, a thin tendril of grapevine, passing over a
cross timber above, being left hanging to raise it
from within to its former place, when necessary.
Suddenly he sees the grapevine vibrate. The ladder
begins slowly to uncoil, and rise before his eyes.
He leaps forward, and with one blow of his hunting-knife
severs the vine, and the rope falls by his
side.

“Ugh!” exclaims an Indian voice without, as the
swinging sliver comes burdenless to his hand.

The swart features of the Hunchback become radiant
at the sound as he tosses his torch above his
head, and hails the stranger in the Mohawk tongue.
The vine is again let down. The Hunchback quickly
attaches it anew to the ladder of rope. It is
drawn up from above. A towering figure darkens
the opening for a moment, and then Brant stands
beside the deformed outcast of his tribe.

“My child, how fares he here with his white
father?” said the chief, kindly.

“`The Broken Tomahawk,”' said the man, calling
himself by his Indian name, “has no father.
The Mohawk owns not him, he owns not the white
man. He is here on his own bidding, but will do
the will of Thayendanagea.” And, speaking thus,
he was about to usher the chief farther into the cavern;
for Brant was known to him as the companion
in arms of Bradshawe, and, as such, the Hunchback
had no hesitation in farthering his ingress. The
Sachem, however, was by no means desirous of the
interview which the half-breed thought he was seeking,
and his errand here must be a brief one, if he
would despatch it at all. He ascertained that
Bradshawe had already arrived at Waneonda, and
assumed the personal charge of his captive, Brant's

only chance, then, of rescuing her, depended upon
the aid and connivance of the half-breed; and that
aid could only be secured by awakening the fellow's
Indian sympathies so strongly in favour of the Mohawk
that they should overpower his fidelity to the
white man.

But the Hunchback, though evidently flattered by
the frank confidence which the chief seemed to repose
in him, and listening with mute respect to the
claims which he urged upon his services, was unflinching
in his trust. Brant could wring nothing
from him save a promise not to reveal this secret
visit to Bradshawe; and even this promise was accompanied
with a condition which seemed something
like a threat upon the part of the Hunchback.

“Let the chief go,” said he. “Let Thayendanagea
depart in secret as he has come. No bird shall
whisper that he has been here, and Thayendanagea
will come no more.”

There was nothing, therefore, to be done with
this stanch seneschal, unless Brant had chosen to
strangle him where he stood, or hurl him deathward
down the black pit whose entrance he guarded.
But it was not in the heart of Brant to crush in cold
blood a creature always so inoffensive, and now so
firm when he stood most exposed and defenceless.
Had he debated such a thing in his own mind, however,
there was now hardly time to effect it successfully;
for at this moment the enraged voice of
Bradshawe was heard shouting to the half-breed,
who waved his hand to Brant, as if motioning him
to ascend and leave the cave at once, and then hurried
to wait upon the Tory captain.

Brant seized the opportunity to descend farther
into the cavern, with whose peculiarities he was perfectly
familiar, and gained a recess of the rock not
far from the fallen tree just as Bradshawe brushed

by it in traversing the passage. The hand of the
Mohawk clutched the belt-knife, which was half
drawn from its sheath as the glare of the Hunchback's
torch shone full upon him for a moment.
The life of Bradshawe turned upon a cast. But,
haply, he passed by unheeding the peril at hand;
and the person of Brant being thrown the next instant
into deep shadow, the knife was shot back
into its sheath as he saw the danger of discovery
had passed away. That momentary gleam of light,
however, had revealed to Brant the features of the
Hunchback, and the feelings which agitated them;
for he had overheard the contumelious epithets
which Bradshawe applied to the unfortunate. Brant
scarcely doubted what their effect would be upon
the half-Indian nature of the Hunchback. If not a
provocation to revenge, they would at least cancel
all ties of kindness which bound him as a retainer
of Bradshawe.

Nor did the sagacious Mohawk err in his judgment;
for, following shortly afterward to the spot
where the others embarked upon the black lake to
cross to the threshold of the Outlaws' Hall, the
plashing of the ferryman's paddle had hardly died
away upon his ear before he again heard its faint
dip approach once more the shore from which he
had just parted. The Hunchback, neither by look
nor word, expressed his surprise at finding the chief
awaiting him, but mutely drew up his boat, marshalled
Brant forward to the opening in the curtain
of rock, and aided him in launching upon the River
of Ghosts.

7. CHAPTER VII.
THE RESCUE.

—Sands.

Alida, to whom, haply, the story of her family,
desolated through the agency of Brant, was yet unknown,
did not hesitate to accept the deliverance
proffered at his hands; but the noble-hearted girl insisted
upon the negroes, to whose kindness she was
so much indebted, being first removed from the
reach of Bradshawe's cruelty; for she knew that the
first outbreak of his wrath would be terrible, and that
it was upon these defenceless creatures it would fall.
The little shallop would contain but two persons at
a time, and many precious moments were consumed
in ferrying the whole party to the chamber
where the Hunchback stood a sullen sentry.

The negroes have already found their way to the
outside of the cave without farther peril of discovery;
and now the swarthy chief and the bright lady
have embarked upon those ghostly waters. Their
frail boat has brushed safely through the flinty

chasm which walls in the sinuous tide. They have
reached the crevice in the curtain of rock, and have
gained a footing on the land, when suddenly the
distant reverberations of a horn are heard trembling
through the shadowy cells around. It is a summons
to the Hunchback to assume his office of warder
in facilitating the egress of Fenton and his followers.

In the scene which followed, even the coolness of
Brant, aided as he was by the presence of mind of
his companion, would hardly have availed them,
were it not for the ready offices of the Hunchback
in assisting Alida up the first ascent before the foremost
of Fenton's party had fairly reached the spot
where the danger of discovery was most imminent.

And now, marshalled by torches formed of the
blazing knots of the yellow pine, Bradshawe's parting
guests were congregated in the chamber from
which first commences the ascent to daylight—
Bradshawe himself coming last to bid them farewell
at their exit from the cavern, and make up, if
possible, for previous indifference by the warmth of
his adieus.

The two foremost of the party, who seemed more
closely muffled than the rest, had already, as it appeared,
surmounted the first ascent, and contented
themselves with waving him a backward adieu, as,
mounting beyond his reach, they stepped upon the
ladder which led up the second. The rest successively
gave him each a hand as they passed up the
fallen tree before described.

About half had made the ascent of the first steep,
when the half-breed Hunchback, exclaiming that he
would steady the rope ladder for one of the party
who was somewhat infirm, mounted with the agility
of a cat to the ledge to which its lower end was
attached. Bradshawe took no note of his officiousness,

and the rest followed, till the two brothers
Stickney alone were left at the bottom.

“Ho! treason!” shouted Bradshawe, seizing the
luckless Syl by the collar, and flinging him upon
the flinty floor of the cave, as he was in the act of
moving forward in his turn. “Charon! Valtmeyer!
—ho there! Charon, you humpbacked knave, what
means this? Ten men, the number of Fenton's
party, have already gone up, yet these two Yankee
pedlers are still below.”

“Pedler yourself, Captain Bradshawe,” cried the
sturdy Marius; and, in a moment, the indignant
Syl having sprung to his feet, the two New-Englanders
had rushed together upon the Tory captain,
hurled him against the wall of the cavern, and
scrambled up to the landing-place where stood the
Hunchback, flinging his torchlight over the pit below.
Bradshawe, recovering himself, cocked a pistol
and levelled it at Marius on the instant.

“Hullo! capting,” cried the undismayed Syl,
pressing down the head of his brother, so that the
rays of the torch passed over it, and left only his
own arm to aim at. “Don't be such a darned fool,
capting, as to throw away your shot upon us, who
raaly have had nothing to do with this muss. Humpy
here's your man, I reckon; and, if you wait a
moment, I'll pitch him down to you.”

How far the doughty Syl might have succeeded
in a tussle with the active half-breed in such a spot,
it is impossible now to say; for the Hunchback
was about to prepare himself for the encounter,
which he did by quickly flinging the torch from his
hands into the abyss below. But the movement
that he makes in leaning over to hurl it at Bradshawe
exposes the upper part of his person for an
instant, and the flash of Bradshawe's pistol illuminates
the vault in the moment the blazing missile

leaves the hand of the Hunchback, who instantly follows
it, shot to death, and tumbling from ledge to
ledge, a mangled corpse, at the feet of the Tory
captain.

“Sylla, Marius,” shouted Bradshawe, when the
reverberations had subsided, “halt the party, and
tell them there is treason among us.” But no answer
came from the classic pair, who had already
made their exit from the cavern. Bradshawe, whose
presence of mind seems to have deserted him for a
moment, instead of at once following the retiring
party, groped his way to the Warder's Room, eagerly
seized the lantern which was ever kept burning
there, ferried himself across the lake, summoned
Valtmeyer, with him recrossed the black pool once
more, and, leaving his worthy adjutant in the chamber
where the Hunchback had found a tomb, launched
himself upon the River of Ghosts, and wended
his way to the remote cell where Alida was immured.

The bats were now its only tenants, and the voiceless
spot, with no light save the torch of the gloomy
voyager to illumine its dark walls, seemed dreary
and chill as it had never seemed before to his eyes.

The baffled Bradshawe rejoined his comrade.
“Have that carrion flung out to the wolves; or, stay,
it may remain till to-morrow, when we will all move
away together.”

“Do we carry any woman's baggage with us?”
asked Valtmeyer, keenly eying his superior.

“No, Wolfert. I give you those niggers wherever
you may find them.”

“And the farm?”

“D—n the farm, and you too, sir! Don't you
see, man, you are plucking at my heartstrings?
The girl's gone; lost to me, perhaps, for ever. Is
this a moment to remind me of the price I paid for
her?” And Bradshawe ground another oath between

his teeth that put a summary end to the conversation.

With the morrow's dawn the den of renegades
had vomited forth its tenants, a wierd and ghastly
crew, with beard unshorn and skin cadaverous from
long exclusion from the light of day. A fall of
snow had obliterated the tracks of those who had
departed the night before; and Bradshawe, unwilling
to penetrate with such a body of men into the
settled country, where farther pursuit of Alida
would most probably lead him, made no effort to
recover Fenton's trail, but addressed himself to the
task of getting his band of followers out of this
Whig district as soon as possible. He then laid his
course for Oswego, whither great numbers of Tories
had already flocked together, under the lead of
Colonels Claus and Butler, and where the royal
banner, guarded by a thousand Indian warriors under
Guy Johnson, was still kept flying.

The Cave of Waneonda, which had so lately
rung with the wild peal of outlaw merriment, was
left to echo only the monotonous sound of its black-rolling
waters. And though some hard-hunted refugee,
from time to time, had sought a shelter there
with the handful of outlaws it occasionally harboured,
it was not until after years that its hideous cells
again were fully peopled. Those dungeon vaults,
so silent now, what tales of wo and horror could
they tell? Tales of those times when the Johnsons
came back on their mad errand of vengeance;
when they desolated the vale of Schoharie with fire
and sword, and Waneonda again disgorged a felon
crew to steep the land in crime and blood.

But let us now return to the wanderers who have
last emerged from these shadowy realms.

The surprise of Fenton, when his band was fully
mustered on the mountain's side and at some distance

from the mouth of the cave, may be conceived
at finding strangers among their number. But Brant,
so well known to all the gentlemen of this region
from the civil offices he had held previous to the
present struggle, had only to reveal himself to be
warmly received by his brother partisan.

The winter's night was closing in rapidly, and
Fenton—whose indignation against Bradshawe was
fully roused upon hearing the story of Alida's forcible
detention in the vaults of Waneonda—assisted
her down the mountain as they hurried forward on
their journey. It was determined that she should
at once seek a refuge in the settlement of Schoharie,
which was at hand; and the whole party was
halted to designate some one who could be trusted
with the duty of placing her in the hands of her
friends. It would have been madness for Brant,
even upon such an embassy, to venture himself in
the hands of the patriots; and his own men would
not spare Fenton, who, although almost equally obnoxious
as a virulent Tory, had still not been
charged with any stain of cruelty that would call
out personal vengeance.

While this discussion was taking place, the attention
of the two leaders was distracted by a sudden
outcry near. Several of the more lawless members
of the party, as it seemed, had pushed in advance
of the rest, for the purpose of driving off
some horses that were grazing in a field near by.
The farmhouse to which the field belonged chanced,
at the moment, to be occupied by a patrol of villagers;
for the Whig militia, since Schuyler's march
upon Johnstown, had been industriously employed
in scouring the country and arresting every person
suspected of Toryism upon whom they could
lay their hands. This patrol, hearing the clatter of
hoofs, now sallied out. The moon, which shone

brightly down over the snow-covered fields, showed
that they were a mere handful of men, whom
Fenton's followers outnumbered; and, though provoked
and incensed at the untimely occurrence,
Fenton could not resist the temptation to crush the
gang of rebellious boors, as he termed them. He
sprang from the side of Alida as Brant attempted
to seize his arm to prevent the mad movement,
drew his rapier, and rushed into the fray.

Alida, though now not unused to scenes of blood
and violence, had never stood before with hopes
and fears divided between her friends and countrymen
engaged in personal conflict. She covered
her head with her mantle and cowered toward the
earth. There was a quick, irregular volley of firearms,
the shout of a sudden onset, followed by the
clashing of swords against the barrels of clubbed
rifles; and then came the trampling of many feet,
as of men borne down in a struggle or flying along
the frozen highway near her. She looked up;
Brant had disappeared from her side, and the royalists
had been driven back past the spot where she
stood. Suddenly the Indian warwhoop arose wild
and shrilly from a thicket of evergreens at a turning
of the road; and now the patriots, as if seized by a
sudden panic, came flying back over the road where
they had just pressed the foe.

“That's right, boys; git into kiver as soon as
you can; it's a regular ambush,” exclaimed a well-known
voice near her. “We've peppered 'em
enough for one night's work.” The spokesman,
however, seemed very slow in practising his own
recommendation, as, coolly loading his rifle, he
trudged along behind the rest.

“Run, Balt, run,” shouted a fugitive. “The Redskins
are upon us.”

“They won't lift my head-thatch this time, how

somedever. I'm looking for the chap whose gourd
I smashed so handsomely when he came pushing
his skewer through my jacket. By the Etarnal, if
it be not Squire Fenton,” he suddenly exclaimed,
starting back from the body of that gallant and unfortunate
gentleman.

“Fenton!” faintly ejaculated Alida, who was not
twenty paces distant. But her voice was unheeded
by Balt; unheeded, too, were the exclamations of
the group who quickly gathered around him, retracing
their steps as they saw the last scattered remains
of the Tory party, preserved by the ruse of
Brant, disappear over the hills.

“Yes, boys, that's Squire Fenton, and no mistake,”
said Balt, with something resembling a heavy
sigh; “and he shall have as decent a grave as ever
a Christian laid in, if it took the best acre of ground
in the county to hold him. He was as true a gentleman
as ever sat in the king's commission of the
peace among us. As kind and as brave a heart—”

“He was a d—d Tory,” said a ruffian voice
among the crew, bringing the butt of his rifle heavily
upon the frozen ground as he spoke.

“Mister Bill Murphy,” said Balt, no way perturbed,
“you'll just please to take liberties with the
names of Tories of your own shooting, and let mine
alone. The devil knows that you've sent enough
on 'em to their last account, what with firing on
flags o' truce and sich like, Bill.”[6]

Murphy felt the rude compliment rather than the
reproach that was blended in this speech, and was
silent.

“But who have we here?” said Balt, now for the
first time noticing the crouched form of the half-frozen
Alida. “Who, in the name of the first mother
of gals, is this missus that the Tories have left
behind them?”

Alida, who had shrunk from claiming the protection
of these rude and blood-stained men, while still
chafing around the warm remains of her friend, so
recently slaughtered, now dashed these shuddering
impressions from her mind, and gladly revealed herself
to Balt.

The joy of the worthy woodsman was boundless
at beholding her again, though he would scarcely
trust his senses to believe that it was really Miss
De Roos who stood alive before him. He approached
without uttering a syllable in reply to her,
turned her around as he raised her from the fallen
tree against which she had been reclining, threw
back the hood of the cloak which covered her head,
and bared her fair features to the moon; then releasing
her hand, he stepped back a pace or two,
and, lifting his hat reverentially from his gray head,
made a deep obeisance as he exclaimed, “The great
God be praised, Miss Alida, it is really you!”

END OF VOL. I.