 | CHAPTER XVI. The King of the Hurons |  |
16. CHAPTER XVI.
The earth is dark, but the heavens are bright;
Nought is seen in the vault on high,
But the moon, and the stars, and the cloudless sky,
And the flood which rolls its milky hue
A river of light on the welkin blue.”
—Drake's Calprit Fay.
With the low monotonous sound of dipping oars, and of the
trickling of water from their blades, did the boat of Henrich, under the
skilful guidance of the Huron, glide rapidly along the stream, keeping
close under the eastern shore, where the shadows of the forest withheld
even the faint starlight from its path. The village of the
Wappenos in which the Lynx had so nearly terminated his career,
was situated near the river, a few miles south of the count's covert
quarters, and it became necessary for the voyagers on approaching
it, to diverge at a wide angle from their course to avoid discovery.
Not that Henrich entertained any fear of hostility from his allies
towards himself, or his present party, but he felt that he could not
answer for their pacific conduct towards Carlton's command, if he
should be unlucky enough to draw them upon the camp. There
was danger, too, if the singular departure of Henrich and his companions
became known to the Wappenos, that some gossipping or
treacherous member of the tribe might divulge it in the city, and
bring pursuit upon them from that quarter, before they had attained
a distance, which would render it harmless. It was an easy matter
to gain the centre of the stream, and thus defy discovery from the
shore, and for a while, they had pursued their new course with a
suddenly ceased rowing, and assumed a listening attitude.
“It is an echo,” said Henrich, as the sound of dipping oars
reached them for a moment, and then suddenly ceased; “we are
nearer to the western shore than I had supposed.”
“It is a boat,” answered the Huron, pointing to the southwest,
where, at the distance of about a hundred yards, the outline of a
canoe could be faintly seen on the water; “it is a boat, rowed by
two Iroquois”—and the Indian, giving more of a shoreward direction
to his skiff, resumed his progress, with a slightly increased
velocity, yet avoiding the appearance of flight.
“Our friend must possess even more than the lynx's power of
vision,” said Blanche, addressing Huntington in a low voice, and
dissembling her fears, “if he can discern the occupants of that boat;
I have been called quick-sighted, and can scarcely see the shape of
the vessel itself.”
“It is not improbable that the Indian sees no more,” replied
Henrich; “but these wild foresters are trained to the active use of
all their faculties; some irregularity in the fall of the oars has told
him the canoe was not propelled by a single person, and it scarcely
requires even Indian sagacity to detect the difference between the
rowing of a white man and a savage.”
“You are at least ingenious in comprehending him,” answered
Blanche; “but did he not even designate the tribe to which the
strangers belonged?”
“Iroquois is a generic name for the whole confederacy of the
Five Nations,” said Henrich; “and there is little likelihood of
finding Indians in this region who do not belong to one or another
of its subdivisions; the word, in the mouth of the Huron, may
almost be considered synonymous with enemy.”
The party had not proceeded far, before it became evident that
they were followed by the strangers, though in a manner that rather
indicated a desire to watch their movements than to commit any
distance from the skiff, which the Lynx found it difficult either to
increase or materially diminish. The very pauses of his boat were
promptly imitated by the other, as if it were but some distant
shadow of its predecessor, thrown back upon the wave.
This was an espionage not patiently to be endured, and, after a
few moments' consultation with Henrich, the Lynx again changed
his course, and rowed rapidly towards the shore, hoping, in the
obscurity of its deeper shadows, to elude further pursuit. But the
phantom canoe was still in their wake, with a celerity equal to their
own, and a silence that gave an air of singular mystery to its movements.
Henrich began to suspect that he was followed from the
city by some one authorized to require the return of Miss Montaigne
and her cousin, and that an Indian canoe, with its oarsmen, had
been employed to ascertain his route, and to pilot a more formidable
foe upon his track; but whatever was the character of the
enemy, he did not exhibit a ready tact in detecting the designs of
the fugitives, who were permitted to enter the shadows at a distance
from the former, that at once buried them from sight.
The Lynx did not fail to take advantage of this error, by changing
his course and increasing his speed, but still maintaining a
northerly direction, enjoining meanwhile the strictest silence upon
his companions, and handling his oars with a delicacy of motion that
seemed scarcely to create a sound. The skiff shot ahead beside the
high bank, and beneath the overhanging boughs, as nearly noiseless
and invisible as anything of material mould could be; and the
closest attention could no longer detect any signs of pursuit. Half
an hour of silent progress brought it to the mouth of a small creek,
which, after a little examination, the Lynx pronounced to be the
one leading to the secret camp; and as the little bark glided into the
opening, embowered with interlacing trees from the opposing shores,
the whole party experienced a sense of relief.
“We have probably had a very useless alarm, after all,” said
doubtless only some belated hunters of the Wappenos, returning to
their village, and attracted by curiosity out of their course.”
“I shall be glad if it proves to be nothing worse,” replied
Blanche, not altogether at ease, yet striving to maintain the appearance
of equanimity; “but you attribute a propensity to the red
men, from which they are usually considered exempt.”
“I know,” answered Henrich, “that the absence of curiosity
forms part of the poetical character of the Indian, yet I have ever
found them a meddling, gossipping race: on state occasions, indeed,
it is different; then, they put on their dignity, like a cloak, and like
some counting-house Christians on Sunday, assume all their cardinal
virtues for the occasion.”
“Which, like Sunday clothes, seem all the fresher for being
seldom worn, I suppose,” said Blanche, laughing; “you are severe
upon your forest friends.”
“Not at all,” replied Huntington; “they have many noble
qualities, to which you will always find me ready to do justice; but
the want of inquisitiveness is not one of them: is it not so, sachem?”
he continued, addressing the Huron—“I speak of the Iroquois, of
course.”
“The Iroquois are dogs,” answered the Lynx, giving but a
moment's heed to the question, and immediately returning to a
close scrutiny of the shore past which they were gliding; at
the next instant he uttered an ejaculation of pleasure, as his eye
rested upon some remembered landmark, and running the skiff into
a little nook, he leaped lightly upon the land, where he was at once
followed by his companions. A hill of no great height, but nearly
perpendicular, rose from the beach, and a slight indentation at its
base, the entrance of which was thickly studded with bushes, had
formed at once a refuge for Carlton's little band, and a place of
concealment for their boats. Into this recess the Lynx hastily
startling announcement that it was vacant.
“The count has heard the foxes bark,” he said, unable wholly to
repress his contempt; “or the drumming bird has come too near;
he has gone, and brave men have gone with him—it is bad!”
The emotions with which this intelligence was received were
various and conflicting. The prospect of being compelled to
abandon their voyage and return to New York, was at first not
unwelcome to the ladies, whose courage was already well nigh
expended; but the reflection that the journey would thus be only
postponed, and not avoided, and the memory of her recent perils in
the city, combined to give preponderance to a feeling of regret in
the mind of Blanche. Some jealousy for the honor of her father's
messenger mingled with these thoughts, and she at once suggested
that Carlton might only have changed his quarters to some more
convenient or safe location in the vicinity, or that he had been
surprised and overpowered by an enemy.
“These are possibilities, certainly,” answered Henrich; “and
only daylight, which is yet three hours distant, can reveal whether
they are probable: it is useless to search by this light, and dangerous
to make signals; but if you are able to pass the remainder of
the night here—”
“It is at least as easy as to return,” Blanche replied; “we should
be ill fitted for our journey if we shrunk from so slight an inconvenience;
a warm night in the open air is no great hardship, and yet
I could wish, for the very romance of the thing, that we had the
tents and hammocks, which the Lynx assures me were brought for
our use.”
“We will try what can be done by way of a substitute,” said
Henrich, gaily; “you have your cloaks, and you shall see that a
forest couch can easily be rigged by hands that are used to expedients:
as for the Lynx and myself, we shall have the honor of
being your sentinels.”
So saying, he signified his wishes to the Huron, and the two,
raising the skiff from the water, transferred it within the cavernous
recess which has been described, where a quantity of light boughs
of pine and hemlock, carefully adjusted within it, constituted a bed
at once soft and elastic. The cloak of the young man was thrown
over the whole, and Blanche and Emily proceeded to examine their
novel resting-place; the latter protesting, in a doleful tone, that it
was altogether delightful, but that she was sure she “could not sleep
a wink with that horrid screech-owl yelling from a neighboring
tree-top.”
“It sounds exactly like what I fancy an Indian war-cry to be,”
she said, “although I dare say it is very different, and I'm sure I
don't wonder if your count what's-his-name was afraid to stay here;
there—there, only listen,” she continued, putting her hands to her
ears, and looking upwards, as the shrill unearthly sounds rang
through the air—“don't you think he could be induced to go
away?”
“I fear not,” answered Henrich, unable to repress a smile at the
words and manner of the speaker, “we dare neither shoot nor shout
at him, and he is far above the reach of any missile sent from the
hand; try to consider him only a serenader; he is, I assure you, a
very small and harmless bird,—less than a robin, and answers
better to the term vox et prœterea nihil, than anything else
in nature.”
“I hope he will answer to nothing here,” said Blanche; “I am
sure I shall ask him no questions—I shall grow dreadfully nervous
myself, since Emily has reminded me of it; is it probable that he
will remain there long?”
“Until morning, undoubtedly,” Henrich replied, “when he will go
to sleep—there—there, that's an extra note, indeed; what say you,
Sachem, is there any way of getting rid of this bird-fiend?”
The Indian uttered a low laugh, and raising his hands to his mouth,
emitted a succession of quick shrill sounds in imitation of a nighthawk,
hovering over the trees. A quick redoubled scream of the owl,
striking the ear with painful acuteness, and then growing fainter
until it died away in the distance, attested the faithfulness of the
mimicry, and showed that the enemy was effectually dislodged.
“That was well done, my brother!” said Henrich, much pleased,
though less surprised than the ladies at the expedient,—“you must
teach me that note, some time; good bye to Mr. Vox; he has pressing
business in some other quarter—and now, ladies, you perceive the
Lynx has taken his station for the night, beneath that elm tree;
mine is at the foot of this oak, where his Huron highness gives me
permission to sleep; you must take our bearings, as a sailor would
say, from your cot, and you'll know where to find us, if you should
be frightened in the night.”
“We will endeavor not to disturb the slumbers of so vigilant
a sentinel as you are like to prove,” replied Blanche—“but here,
Emily, give Sachem the second his blanket; he will certainly
need it on the ground, more than we in the boat, where we have
our own cloaks and shawls.”
The reasonableness of this assertion was too apparent to admit of
contest, and Henrich, receiving his cloak, quietly disposed himself
to sleep, while the ladies, laughing not a little at their various
ineffectual attempts to gain a comfortable reclining position, finally
triumphed over all difficulties, and followed his example. One pair
of restless eyes alone remained open through the remaining hours of
the night, revolving in every direction from which an enemy could
possibly approach, with a vigilance that betokened the consciousness
of an important trust, and which was, perhaps, increased by the
unforgotten horrors of the gantlet and the stake.
| CHAPTER XVI. The King of the Hurons | |