University of Virginia Library

21. CHAPTER XXI.

Let us go back once more to the Block House, and
look into the condition of its defenders. We remember
the breaking of the ladder, the only one in their
possession, which led to the upper story of the building.
This accident left them in an ugly predicament,
since some time must necessarily be taken up in its

repair, and in the meanwhile, the forces of the garrison
were divided in the different apartments, above
and below. In the section devoted to the women and
children, and somewhat endangered, as we have seen,
from the exposed window and the fallen tree, they
were its exclusive occupants. The opposite chamber
held a few of the more sturdy and common sense defenders,
while in the great hall below a miscellaneous
group of fifteen or twenty—the inferior spirits—were
assembled. Two or three of these were busied in
patching up the broken ladder, which was to renew
the communication between the several parties, thus,
of necessity, thrown asunder.

The watchers of the fortress, from their several
loop-holes, looked forth, east and west, yet saw no
enemy. All was soft in the picture, all was silent in
the deep repose of the forest. The night was clear
and lovely, and the vague and dim beauty with which,
in the imperfect moonlight, the foliage of the woods
spread away in distant shadows, or clung and clustered
together as in groups, shrinking for concealment from
her glances, touched the spirits even of those rude foresters.
With them, its poetry was a matter of feeling
—with the refined, it is an instrument of art. Hence it
is, indeed, that the poetry of the early ages speaks in the
simplest language, while that of civilization, becoming
only the agent for artificial enjoyment, is ornate in its
dress, and complex in its form and structure. Far away
in the distance, like glimpses of a spirit, little sweeps
of the river, in its crooked windings, flashed upon the
eye, streaking, with a sweet relief, the sombre foliage
of the swampy forest through which it stole. A single
note—the melancholy murmur of the chuck-will's-widow—the
Carolina whippoorwill, broke fitfully upon
the silence, to which it gave an added solemnity. That
single note indicated to the keepers of the fortress a
watchfulness, corresponding with their own, of another
living creature. Whether it were human or not—
whether it were the deceptive lure and signal of the
savage, or, in reality, the complaining cry of the

solitary and sad bird which it so resembled, was, however,
matter of nice question with those who listened
to the strain.

“They are there—they are there,” cried Grayson—
“I'll swear it. I've heard them quite too often not to
know their cunning now. Hector was right, after all,
boys.”

“What! where?”—asked Nichols.

“There, in the bush to the left of the blasted oak—
now, down to the bluff—and now, by the bay on the
right. They are all round us.”

“By what do you know, Wat?”

“The whippoorwill—that is their cry—their signal.”

“It is the whippoorwill,” said Nichols,—“there is
but one of them; you never hear more than one at a
time.”

“It is the Indian,” responded Grayson—“for though
there is but one note, it comes, as you perceive, from
three different quarters. Now it is to the Chief's Bluff
—and now—it comes immediately from the old grove
of scrubby oak. A few shot there would get an
answer.”

“Good! that is just my thought—let us give them
a broadside, and disperse the scoundrels,” cried
Nichols.

“Not so fast, Nichols—you swallow your enemy
without asking leave of your teeth. Have you inquired
first whether we have powder and shot to throw
away upon bushes that may be empty?” now exclaimed
the blacksmith, joining in the question.

“A prudent thought, that, Grimstead,” said Grayson
—“we have no ammunition to spare in that way. But
I have a notion that may prove of profit. Where is the
captain's straw man—here, Granger, bring out Dugdale's
trainer.”

The stuffed figure already described was brought
forward, the window looking in the direction of the
grove supposed to shelter the savages thrown open,
and the perfectly indifferent head of the automaton
thrust incontinently through the opening. The ruse

was completely successful. The foe could not well
resist this temptation, and a flight of arrows, penetrating
the figure in every portion of its breast and face,
attested the presence of the enemy and the truth of his
aim. A wild and shivering cry rung through the
forest at the same instant—that cry, well known as the
fearful war-whoop, the sound of which made the marrow
curdle in the bones of the frontier settler, and
prompted the mother with a nameless terror to hug
closer to her bosom the form of her unconscious infant.
It was at once answered from side to side, wherever
their several parties had been stationed, and it struck
terror even into the sheltered garrison which heard it
—such terror as the traveller feels by night, when the
shrill rattle of the lurking serpent, with that ubiquity
of sound which is one of its fearful features, vibrates
all around him, leaving him at a loss to say in what
quarter his enemy lies in waiting, and teaching him to
dread that the very next step which he takes may
place him within that coil which is death.

“Ay, there they are, sure enough—fifty of them at
least, and we shall have them upon us, after this, monstrous
quick, in some way or other,” was the speech
of Grayson, while a brief pause in all the party marked
the deep influence upon them of the summons which
they had heard.

“True—and we must be up and doing,” said the
smith; “we can now give them a shot, Hugh Grayson,
for they will dance out from the cover now, thinking
they have killed one of us. The savages—they
have thrown away some of their powder at least.”
As Grimstead spoke, he drew three arrows with no
small difficulty from the bosom of the figure in which
they were buried.

“Better there than in our ribs. But you are right.
Stand back for a moment, and let me have that loop
—I shall waste no shot. Ha! I see—there is one—
I see his arm and the edge of his hatchet—it rests
upon his shoulder, I reckon, but that is concealed by
the brush. He moves—he comes out, and slaps his

hands against his thigh. The red devil, but he shall
have it. Get ready, now, each at his loop, for if I hurt
him they will rush out in a fury.”

The sharp click of the cock followed the words of
Grayson, who was an able shot, and the next moment
the full report came burdened with a dozen echoes from
the crowding woods around. A cry of pain—then a
shout of fury, and the reiterated whoop followed; and
as one of their leaders reeled and sunk under the unerring
bullet, the band in that station, as had been predicted
by Grayson, rushed forth to where he stood,
brandishing their weapons with ineffectual fury, and
lifting their wounded comrade, as is their general
custom, to bear him to a place of concealment, and
preserve him from being scalped, by secret burial, in
the event of his being dead. They paid for their temerity.
Following the direction of their leader, whose
decision necessarily commanded their obedience, the
Carolinians took quite as much advantage of the exposure
of their enemies, as the number of the loop-holes
in that quarter of the building would admit.
Five muskets told among the group, and a reiterated
shout of fury indicated the good service which the discharge
had done, and taught the savages a lesson of
prudence, which, in the present instance, they had
been too ready to disregard. They sunk back into
cover, taking care however to remove their hurt companions,
so that, save by the peculiar cry which with
them marks a loss, the garrison were unable to determine
what had been the success of their discharges.
Having driven them back into the brush, however, without
loss to themselves, the latter were now sanguine,
where, before, their confined and cheerless position
had taught them a feeling of despondency not calculated
to improve the comforts of their case.

The Indians had made their arrangements on the
other hand with no little precaution. But they had
been deceived and disappointed. Their scouts, who
had previously inspected the fortress, had given a very
different account of the defences and the watchfulness

of their garrison, to what was actually the fact upon
their appearance. The scouts, however, had spoken
truth, and but for the discovery made by Hector, the
probability is that the Block House would have been
surprised with little or no difficulty. Accustomed to
obey Harrison as their only leader, the foresters present
never dreamed of preparation for conflict unless
under his guidance; and but for the advice of the
trader's wife, and the confident assumption of command
on the part of Walter Grayson, a confusion of
councils, not less than of tongues, would have neutralized
all action, and left them an easy prey, without
head or direction, to the knives of their insidious
enemy. Calculating upon surprise and cunning as the
only means by which they could hope to balance the
numerous advantages possessed by European warfare
over their own, the Indians had relied rather
more in the suddenness of their onset, and the craft
peculiar to their education, than on the force of their
valour. They felt themselves baffled, therefore, in
their main hope, by the sleepless caution of the garrison,
and now prepared themselves for other means.
They had made their disposition of force with no little
judgment. Small bodies, at equal distances, under
cover, had been stationed all about the fortress. With
the notes of the whippoorwill they had carried on their
signals, and indicated the several stages of their preparation;
while, in addition to this, another band—a
sort of forlorn hope, consisting of the more desperate,
who had various motives for signalizing their valour—
creeping singly, from cover to cover, now reposing in
the shadow of a log along the ground, now half buried
in a clustering bush, made their way at length so
closely under the walls of the log house as to be completely
concealed from the garrison, which, unless by
the window, had no mode of looking directly down
upon them. As the windows were well watched by
their comrades—having once attained their place of
concealment—it followed that their position remained
entirely concealed from those within. They lay in
waiting for the favourable moment—silent as the grave,
and sleepless—ready, when the garrison should determine
upon a sally, to fall upon their rear, and in
the meanwhile quietly preparing dry fuel in quantity,
gathered from time to time, and piling it against the
logs of the fortress, they prepared thus to fire the
defences that shut them out from their prey.

There was yet another mode of finding entrance,
which has been partially glimpsed at already. The
scouts had done their office diligently in more than the
required respects. Finding a slender pine twisted by
a late storm, and scarcely sustained by a fragment of
its shaft, they applied fire to the rich turpentine oozing
from the wounded part of the tree, and carefully directing
its fall, as it yielded to the fire, they lodged its extremest
branches, as we have already seen, against the
wall of the Block House and just beneath the window—
the only one looking from that quarter of the fortress.
Three of the bravest of their warriors were assigned
for scaling this point and securing their entrance, and
the attack was forborne by the rest of the band, while
their present design, upon which they built greatly, was
in progress.

Let us then turn to this quarter. We have already
seen that the dangers of this position were duly estimated
by Grayson, under the suggestion of Granger's
wife. Unhappily for its defence, the fate of the ladder
prevented that due attention to the subject, at first,
which had been imperatively called for; and the subsequent
excitement following the discovery of the immediate
proximity of the Indians, had turned the consideration
of the defenders to the opposite end of the
building, from whence the partial attack of the enemy,
as described, had come. It is true that the workmen
were yet busy with the ladder; but the assault had suspended
their operations, in the impatient curiosity which
such an event would necessarily induce, even in the
bosom of fear.

The wife of Grayson, fully conscious of the danger,
was alone sleepless in that apartment. The rest of the

women, scarcely apprehensive of attack at all, and perfectly
ignorant of the present condition of affairs, with
all that heedlessness which marks the unreflecting
character, had sunk to the repose, without an effort at
watchfulness, which previous fatigues had, perhaps,
made absolutely necessary. She alone sat thoughtful
and silent, musing over present prospects—perhaps of
the past—but still unforgetful of the difficulties and
the dangers before her. With a calm temper she
awaited the relief which, with the repair of the ladder,
she looked for from below. In the meantime, hearing
something of the alarm, together with the distant war-whoop,
she had looked around her for some means of
defence, in the event of any attempt being made upon
the window before the aid promised could reach her.
But a solitary weapon met her eye, in the long heavy
hatchet, a clumsy instrument, rather more like the cleaver
of the butcher than the light and slender tomahawk
so familiar to the Indians. Having secured
this, with the composure of that courage which had
been in great part taught her by the necessities of
fortune, she prepared to do without other assistance,
and to forego the sentiment of dependance, which is
perhaps one of the most marked characteristics of her
sex. Calmly looking round upon the sleeping and
defenceless crowd about her, she resumed her seat
upon a low bench in a corner of the apartment, from
which she had risen to secure the hatchet, and, extinguishing
the only light in the room, fixed her eye
upon the accessible window, while every thought of
her mind prepared her for the danger which was at
hand. She had not long been seated when she fancied
that she heard a slight rustling of the branches of the
fallen tree just beneath the window. She could not
doubt her senses, and her heart swelled and throbbed
with the consciousness of approaching danger. But
still she was firm—her spirit grew more confirmed
with the coming trial; and coolly throwing the slippers
from her feet, grasping firmly her hatchet at the
same time, she softly arose, and keeping close in the
shadow of the wall, she made her way to a recess, a
foot or so from the entrance, to which it was evident
some one was cautiously approaching along the attenuated
body of the yielding pine. In a few moments
and a shadow darkened the opening. She edged
more closely to the point, and prepared for the intruder.
She now beheld the head of the enemy—a fierce
and foully painted savage—the war-tuft rising up into a
ridge, something like a comb, and his face smeared
with colours in a style the most ferociously grotesque.
Still she could not strike, for, as he had not penetrated
the window, and as its entrance was quite too small
to enable her to strike with any hope of success at
any distance through it, she felt that it would be folly;
and though excited with doubt and determination alike,
she saw the error of any precipitation. But, the next
moment, he laid his hand upon the sill of the window,
the better to raise himself to his level. In that instant
she struck at the broad arm lying across the wood.
The blow was given with all her force, and would certainly
have separated the hand from the arm had it
taken effect. But the quick eye of the Indian caught
a glimpse of her movement at the very moment in
which it was made, and the hand was withdrawn before
the hatchet descended. The steel sunk deep into
the soft wood—so deeply that she could not disengage
it. To try at this object would have exposed
her at once to his weapon, and leaving it where it
stuck, she sunk back again into shadow.

What now was she to do? To stay where she was
would be of little avail; but to cry out and to fly, equally
unproductive of good, besides warning the enemy of
the defencelessness of their condition, and thus inviting
a renewal of the attack. The thought came to her with
the danger, and, without a word, she maintained her position,
in waiting for the progress of events. As the
Indian had also sunk from sight, and some moments had
now elapsed without his reappearance, she determined
to make another effort for the recovery of the hatchet.
She grasped it by the handle, and in the next moment

the hand of the savage was upon her own. He felt that
it was that of a woman, and in a brief word and something
of a chuckle, while he still maintained his hold
on it, conveyed intelligence of the fact to those below.
But it was a woman with a man's spirit with whom he
contended, and her endeavour was successful to disengage
herself. The same success did not attend her
effort to recover the weapon. In the brief struggle with
her enemy it had become disengaged from the wood,
and while both strove to seize it, it slipped from their
mutual hands, and sliding over the sill, in another instant
was heard rattling through the intervening bushes.
Descending upon the ground below, it became the
spoil of those without, whose murmurs of gratulation
she distinctly heard. But now came the tug of difficulty.
The Indian, striving at the entrance, necessarily
encouraged by the discovery that his opponent
was not a man, and assured, at the same time, by the
forbearance, on the part of those within, to strike him
effectually down from the tree, now resolutely endeavoured
to effect his entrance. His head was again fully
in sight of the anxious woman—then his shoulders, and
at length, resting his hand upon the sill, he strove to
elevate himself by its muscular strength, so as to secure
him sufficient purchase for the object at which
he aimed. What could she do—weaponless, hopeless?
The prospect was startling and terrible enough;
but she was a strong-minded woman, and impulse
served her when reflection would most probably have
taught her to fly. She had but one resource; and as
the Indian gradually thrust one hand forward for the
hold upon the sill, and raised the other up to the side
of the window, she grasped the one nighest to her
own. She grasped it firmly and to advantage, as, having
lifted himself on tiptoe for the purpose of ascent,
he had necessarily lost much of the control which a
secure hold for his feet must have given him. Her
grasp sufficiently assisted him forward, to lessen still
more greatly the security of his feet, while, at the
same time, though bringing him still farther into the
apartment, placing him in such a position as to defeat
much of the muscular exercise which his limbs would
have possessed in any other situation. Her weapon
now would have been all-important; and the strong
woman mentally deplored the precipitancy with which
she had acted in the first instance, and which had so
unhappily deprived her of its use. But self-reproach
was unavailing now, and she was satisfied if she could
retain her foe in his present position, by which, keeping
him out, or in and out, as she did, she necessarily
excluded all other foes from the aperture which he so
completely filled up. The intruder, though desirous
enough of entrance before, was rather reluctant to obtain
it now, under existing circumstances. He strove
desperately to effect a retreat, but had advanced too
far, however, to be easily successful; and, in his confusion
and disquiet, he spoke to those below in their
own language, explaining his difficulty and directing
their movement to his assistance. A sudden rush along
the tree indicated to the conscious sense of the woman
the new danger, in the approach of additional enemies,
who must not only sustain but push forward the one
with whom she contended. This warned her at once
of the necessity of some sudden procedure, if she hoped
to do any thing for her own and the safety of those
around her, who, amid all the contest, she had never
once alarmed. Putting forth all her strength, therefore,
though nothing in comparison with that of him
whom she opposed, had he been in a condition to
exert it, she strove to draw him still farther across
the entrance, so as to exclude, if possible, the approach
of those coming behind him. She hoped to gain time
—sufficient time for those preparing the ladder to come
to her relief; and with this hope, for the first time, she
called aloud to Grayson and her husband. The Indian,
in the meanwhile, derived the support for his person as
well from the grasp of the woman, as from his own
hold upon the sill of the window. Her effort necessarily
drawing him still farther forward, placed him so
completely in the way of his allies that they could do
him little service while things remained in this situation;
and, to complete the difficulties of his predicament,
while they busied themselves in several efforts
at his extrication, the branches of the little tree, resting
against the dwelling, yielding suddenly to the unusual
weight upon it—trembling and sinking away at
last—cracked beneath the burden, and snapping off
from their several holds, fell from under them, dragging
against the building in their progress down, thus breaking
their fall, and finally settling heavily upon the
ground. Down went the three savages who had so
readily ascended to the assistance of their comrade—
bruised and very much hurt;—while he, now without
any support but that which he derived from the sill,
and what little his feet could secure from the irregular
crevices between the logs of which the house had been
built, was hung in air, unable to advance except at the
will of his woman opponent, and dreading a far worse
fall from his eminence than that which had already
happened to his allies. Desperate with his situation,
he thrust his arm, as it was still held by the woman,
still farther into the window, and thus enabled her with
both hands to secure and strengthen the grasp which
she had originally taken upon it. This she did with
a new courage, and strength derived from the voices
below, by which she understood a promise of assistance.
Excited and nerved, she drew the extended
arm of the Indian, in spite of all his struggles, directly
over the sill, so as to turn the elbow completely down
upon it. With her whole weight employed, bending
down to the floor to strengthen herself to the task,
she pressed the arm across the window until her ears
heard the distinct, clear, crack of the bone—until she
heard the groan, and felt the awful struggles of the suffering
wretch, twisting himself round with all his effort
to obtain for it a natural and relaxed position, and, with
this object, leaving his hold upon every thing, only sustained,
indeed, by the grasp of his enemy. But the
movement of the woman had been quite too sudden, her
nerves too firm, and her strength too great to suffer him
to succeed. The jagged splinters of the broken limb
were thrust up, lacerating and tearing through flesh and
skin, while a howl of the acutest agony attested the severity
of that suffering which could extort such an acknowledgment
from the American savage. He fainted
in his pain, and as the weight increased upon her
arm, the nature of her sex began to resume its sway.
With a shudder of every fibre, she released her hold
upon him. The effort of her soul was over—a strange
sickness came upon her, and she was just conscious of
a crashing fall of the heavy body among the branches
at the foot of the window, when she staggered back,
fainting, into the arms of her husband, who, just at that
moment, ascended to her relief.