University of Virginia Library

12. CHAPTER XII.

With the repose to slumber of the warrior—the
cricket and the bee, the mock-bird and the woodpecker,
at once, grew silent. A few moments only had elapsed,
when, cautious in approach, they made their simultaneous
appearance from the bush in the person of Matiwan.
It was her skill that had charmed the spirit of
the watcher into sleep, by the employment of associations
so admirably adapted to the spirit of the scene.
With that ingenuity which is an instinct with the
Indians, she had imitated, one after another, the various
agents, whose notes, duly timed, had first won, then
soothed, and then relaxed and quieted the senses of
the prison-keeper. She had rightly judged in the employment
of her several arts. The gradual beatitude
of mind and lassitude of body, brought about with
inevitable certainty, when once we have lulled the
guardian watchers of the animal, must always precede
their complete unconsciousness; and the art of the
Indian, in this way, is often employed, in cases of
mental excitation and disease, with a like object. The
knowledge of the power of soothing, sweet sounds over
the wandering mind, possessed, as the Hebrew strongly
phrased it, of devils, was not confined to that people,
nor to the melodious ministerings of their David.
The Indian claims for it a still greater influence, when,
with a single note, he bids the serpent uncoil from his
purpose, and wind unharmingly away from the bosom
of his victim.

She emerged from her place of concealment with a
caution which marked something more of settled purpose

than she had yet exhibited. She approached in
the dim, flickering light, cast from the decaying torches
which lay scattered without order along the ground. A
few paces only divided her from the watchers, and she
continued to approach, when one of them turned with
a degree of restlessness, which led her to apprehend
that he had awakened. She sunk back like a shadow,
as fleet and silently, once more into the cover of the
brush. But he still slept. She again approached—and
the last flare of the torch burning most brightly before,
quivered, sent up a little gust of flame, and then went
out, leaving her only the star-light for her farther
guidance. This light was imperfect, as the place of
imprisonment lay under a thickly branching tree, and
her progress was therefore more difficult. But, with
added difficulty, to the strong mood, comes added
determination. To this determination the mind of
Matiwan brought increased caution; and treading with
the lightness of some melancholy ghost, groping at
midnight among old and deserted chambers of the
heart, the Indian woman stepped onward to her purpose
over a spot as silent, if not so desolate. Carefully
placing her feet so as to avoid the limbs of the sleeping
guard—who lay side by side and directly across
the door-way—a design only executed with great
difficulty, she at length reached the door; and drawing
from her side a knife, she separated the thick thongs
of skin which had otherwise well secured it. In
another moment she was in the centre of the apartment
and in the presence of the captive.

He lay at length, though not asleep, upon the damp
floor of the dungeon. Full of melancholy thought,
and almost prostrate with despair, his mind and
imagination continued to depict before his eyes the
thousand forms of horror to which savage cruelty was
probably, at that very moment, subjecting the form
most dear to his affections, and the people at large,
for whose lives he would freely have given up his own.
He saw the flames of their desolation—he heard the
cries of their despair. Their blood gushed along

before his eyes, in streams that spoke to him appealingly,
at least, for vengeance. How many veins, the
dearest in his worship, had been drained perchance
to give volume to their currents. The thought was
horrible, the picture too trying and too terrible for the
contemplation of a spirit, which, fearless and firm,
was yet gentle and affectionate. He covered his eyes
with his extended palms, as if to shut from his physical
what was perceptible only to his mental vision.

A gust aroused him. The person of Matiwan was
before him, a dim outline, undistinguishable in feature
by his darkened and disordered sight. Her voice, like
a murmuring water lapsing away among the rushes,
fell soothingly upon his senses. Herself half dreaming—for
her proceeding had been a matter rather of
impulse than premeditation—the single word, so gently
yet so clearly articulated, with which she broke in
upon the melancholy musings of the captive, and first
announced her presence, proved sufficiently the characteristic
direction of her own maternal spirit.

“Occonestoga!”

“Who speaks?” was the reply of Harrison, starting
to his feet, and assuming an attitude of defiance and
readiness, not less than doubt; for he had now no
thought but that of fight, in connexion with the Yemassees.
“Who speaks?”

“Ha!” and in the exclamation, we see the restored
consciousness which taught her that not Occonestoga,
but the son of another mother, stood before her.

“Ha! the Coosah-moray-te shall go,” she said, in
broken English.

“Who—what is this?” responded the captive, as he
felt rather than understood the kindness of the tones
that met his ear; and he now more closely approached
the speaker.

“Hush,”—she placed her hand upon his wrist, and
looked to the door with an air of anxiety—then whisperingly,
urged him to caution.

“Big warriors—tomahawks—they lie in the grass
for the English.”

“And who art thou,—woman? Is it freedom—life?
cut the cords, quick, quick—let me feel my liberty.”
And as she busied herself in cutting the sinews that
tightly secured his wrists, he scarcely forbore his show
of impatience.

“I am free—I am free. I thank thee, God—great,
good Father, this is thy providence! I thank—I praise
thee! And thou—who art thou, my preserver—but
wherefore ask? Thou art—”

“It is Matiwan!” she said humbly.

“The wife of Sanutee—how shall I thank—how
reward thee, Matiwan!”

“Matiwan is the woman of the great chief, Sanutee
—she makes free the English, that has a look and a
tongue like the boy Occonestoga.”

“And where is he, Matiwan—where is the young
warrior? I came to see after him, and it is this brought
me into my present difficulty.”

“Take the knife, English—take the knife. Look!
the blood is on the hand of Matiwan. It is the blood
of the boy.”

“Woman, thou hast not slain him—thou hast not
slain the child of thy bosom!”

“Matiwan saved the boy,” she said proudly.

“Then he lives.”

“In the blessed valley with the Manneyto. He will
build a great lodge for Matiwan.”

“Give me the knife.”

He took it hurriedly from her grasp, supposing
her delirious, and failing utterly to comprehend the
seeming contradiction in her language. She handed
it to him with a shiver as she gave it up; then, telling
him to follow, and at the same time pressing her hand
upon his arm by way of caution, she led the way to
the entrance, which she had carefully closed after her
on first entering. With as much, if not more caution
than before, slowly unclosing it, she showed him, in
the dim light of the stars, the extended forms of the
two keepers. They still slept, but not soundly; and
in the momentary glance which she required the

captive to take, with all Indian deliberateness, she
seemed desirous of familiarizing his glance with the
condition of the scene, and with all those difficulties
in the aspect of surrounding objects with which he
was probably destined to contend. With the strong
excitement of renewed hope, coupled with his consciousness
of freedom, Harrison would have leaped
forward; but she restrained him, and just at that
moment, a sudden, restless movement of one of the
sleepers warned them to be heedful. Quick as thought,
in that motion, Matiwan sunk back into the shadow
of the dungeon, closing the door with the same impulse.
Pausing, for a few moments, until the renewed
and deep breathings from without reassured her, she
then again led the way; but, as she half opened the
door, turning quietly, she said in a whisper to the impatient
Harrison,

“The chief of the English—the pale mother loves
him over the water?”

“She does, Matiwan—she loves him very much.”

“And the chief—he keeps her here—” pointing to
her heart.

“Always—deeply. I love her too, very much.”

“It is good. The chief will go on the waters—he
will go to the mother that loves him. She will sing
like a green bird for him, when the young corn comes
out of the ground. So Matiwan sings for Occonestoga.
Go, English—but look!—for the arrow of Yemassee
runs along the path.”

He pressed her hand warmly, but his lips refused all
other acknowledgment. A deep sigh attested her own
share of feeling in those references which she had
made to the son in connexion with the mother. Then,
once more unclosing the entrance, she stepped fearlessly
and successfully over the two sleeping sentinels.

He followed her, but with less good fortune. Whether
it was that he saw not distinctly in that unaccustomed
light, and brushed one of the men with his foot, or whether
he had been restless before, and only in an imperfect
slumber just then broken, may not now be said; but at

that inauspicious moment he awakened. With waking
comes instant consciousness to the Indian, who
differs in this particular widely from the negro. He
knew his prisoner at a glance, and grappled him, as he
lay, by the leg. Harrison, with an instinct quite as
ready, dashed his unobstructed heel into the face of the
warrior, and though released, would have followed up
his blow by a stroke from his uplifted and bared knife;
but his arm was held back by Matiwan. Her instinct
was gentler and wiser. In broken English, she bade
him fly for his life. His own sense taught him in an
instant the propriety of this course, and before the
aroused Indian could recover from the blow of his
heel, and while he strove to waken his comrade, the
Englishman bounded down, with a desperate speed,
along the great thoroughfare leading to the river.
The warriors were soon at his heels, but the generous
mood of Matiwan did not rest with what she had
already done. She threw herself in their way, and
thus gained him some little additional time. But they
soon put her aside, and their quick tread in the pathway
taken by the fugitive warned him to the exercise
of all his efforts. At the same time he coolly calculated
his course and its chances. As he thought thus
he clutched the knife given him by Matiwan, with an
emotion of confidence which the warrior must always
feel, having his limbs, and grasping a weapon with
which his hand has been familiar. “At least,” thought
he, fiercely,—“they must battle for the life they take.
They gain no easy prey.” Thus did he console himself
in his flight with his pursuers hard behind him.
In his confidence he gained new strength; and thus
the well-exercised mind gives strength to the body
which it informs. Harrison was swift of foot, also,—
few of the whites were better practised or more admirably
formed for the events and necessities of forest
life. But the Indian has a constant exercise which
makes him a prodigy in the use of his legs. In a
journey of day after day, he can easily outwind any
horse. Harrison knew this,—but then he thought of
his knife. They gained upon him, and, as he clutched
the weapon firmly in his grasp, his teeth grew tightly
fixed, and he began to feel the rapturous delirium
which prefaces the desire for the strife. Still the
river was not far off, and though galled at the necessity
of flight, he yet felt what was due to his people, at
that very moment, most probably, under the stroke of
their savage butchery. He had no time for individual
conflict, in which nothing might be done for them.
The fresh breeze now swelled up from the river, and
re-encouraged him.

“Could I gain that,” he muttered to himself,—
“could I gain that, I were safe. Of God's surety, I may.”

A look over his shoulder, and a new start. They
were behind him, but not so close as he had thought.
Coolly enough he bounded on, thinking aloud:—

“They cannot touch, but they may shoot. Well—
if they do, they must stop, and a few seconds more
will give me a cover in the waters. Let them shoot—
let them shoot. The arrow is better than the stake;”
and thus muttering to himself, but in tones almost audible
to his enemies, he kept his way with a heart
something lighter from his momentary effort at philosophy.
He did not perceive that his pursuers had
with them no weapon but the tomahawk, or his consolations
might have been more satisfactory.

In another moment he was upon the banks of the
river; and there, propitiously enough, a few paces
from the shore, lay a canoe tied to a pole that stood
upright in the stream. He blessed his stars as he
beheld it, and pausing not to doubt whether a paddle
lay in its bottom or not, he plunged incontinently forward,
wading almost to his middle before he reached
it. He was soon snug enough in its bottom, and had
succeeded in cutting the thong with his knife when
the Indians appeared upon the bank. Dreading their
arrows, for the broad glare of the now rising moon
gave them sufficient light for their use had they been
provided with them, he stretched himself at length
along the bottom of the boat, and left it to the current,

which set strongly downward. But a sudden plunge
into the water of one and then the other of his pursuers,
left him without the hope of getting off so easily. The
danger came in a new shape, and he properly rose to
meet it. Placing himself in a position which would
enable him to turn readily upon any point which they
might assail, he prepared for the encounter. One of
the warriors was close upon him—swimming lustily,
and carrying his tomahawk grasped by the handle in
his teeth. The other came at a little distance, and
promised soon to be up with him. The first pursuer
at length struck the canoe, raised himself sufficiently
on the water for that purpose, and his left hand grasped
one of the sides, while the right prepared to take the
hatchet from his jaws. But with the seizure of the
boat by his foe came the stroke of Harrison. His
knife drove half through the hand of the Indian, who
released his grasp with a howl that made his companion
hesitate. Just at that instant a third plunge
into the water, as of some prodigious body, called for the
attention of all parties anew. The pursuers now became
the fugitives, as their quick senses perceived a
new and dangerous enemy in the black mass surging
towards them, with a power and rapidity which taught
them the necessity of instant flight, and with no half
effort. They well knew the fierce appetite and the
tremendous jaws of the native alligator, the American
crocodile,—one of the largest of which now came
looming towards them. Self-preservation was the
word. The captive was forgotten altogether in their
own danger; and swimming with all their strength, and
with all their skill, in a zigzag manner, so as to compel
their unwieldy pursuer to make frequent and sudden
turns in the chase, occasionally pausing to splash the
water with as much noise as possible—a practice
known to discourage his approach when not over-hungry—they
contrived to baffle his pursuit, and half
exhausted, the two warriors reached and clambered up
the banks, just as their ferocious pursuer, close upon
their heels, had opened his tremendous jaws, with an
awful compass, ready to ingulf them. They were
safe, though actually pursued even upon the shore for a
brief distance by the voracious and possibly half-starved
monster. But so was he safe—their captive. Paddling
as well as he could with a broken flap-oar lying in the
bottom of the boat, he shaped his course to strike at a
point as far down the river as possible, without nearing
the pirate craft of Chorley. In an hour, which seemed
to him an age, he reached the opposite shore, a few
miles from the Block House, not much fatigued, and
in perfect safety.