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The Maid-At-Arms, a novel by Robert W. Chambers |
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Chapter 20. Cock-Crow |
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_ CHAPTER XX. COCK-CROW At dawn we left the road and struck the Oneida trail north of the river, following it swiftly, bearing a little north of east until, towards noon, we came into the wagon-road which runs over the Mayfield hills and down through the outlying bush farms of Mayfield and Kingsborough. Many of the houses were deserted, but not all; here and there smoke curled from the chimney of some lonely farm; and across the stump pasture we could see a woman laboring in the sun-scorched fields and a man, rifle in hand, standing guard on a vantage-point which overlooked his land. Fences and gates became more frequent, crossing the rough road every mile or two, so that we were constantly letting down and replacing cattle-bars, unpinning rude gates, or climbing over snake fences of split rails. Once we came to a cross-roads where the fence had been demolished and a warning painted on a rough pine board above a wayside watering-trough.
All farmers and townsfolk are hereby requested and ordered to remove gates, stiles, cow-bars, and fences, which includes all obstructions to the public highway, in order that the cavalry may pass without difficulty. Any person found felling trees across this road, or otherwise impeding the operations of cavalry by building brush, stump, rail, or stone fences across this road, will be arrested and tried before a court on charge of aiding and giving comfort to the enemy. G. COVERT, "Captain Commanding Legion."
He was going in the same direction that we were, and seemed to be a fur-trader laden with packets of peltry. I said this to Murphy, who laughed and looked at Mount. "Who carries pelts to Quebec in August?" asked Elerson, grinning. "There's the skin of a wolverine dangling from his pack," I said, in a low voice. Murphy touched Mount's arm, and they halted until the man ahead had rounded a turn in the road; then they sprang forward, creeping swiftly to the shelter of the undergrowth at the bend of the road, while Elerson and I followed at an easy pace. "What is it?" I asked, as we rejoined them where they were kneeling, looking after the figure ahead. "Nothing, sir; we only want to see them pelts, Tim and me." "Do you know the man?" I demanded. Murphy gazed musingly at Mount through narrowed eyes. Mount, in a brown study, stared back. "Phwere th' divil have I seen him, I dunnoa!" muttered Murphy. "Jack, 'tis wan mush-rat looks like th' next, an' all thrappers has the same cut to them! Yonder's no thrapper!" "Nor peddler," added Mount; "the strap of the Delaware baskets never bowed his legs." "Thrue, avick! Wisha, lad, 'tis horses he knows better than snow-shoes, bed-plates, an' thrip-sticks! An' I've seen him, I think!" "Where?" I asked. He shook his head, vacantly staring. Moved by the same impulse, we all started forward; the man was not far ahead, but our moccasins made no noise in the dust and we closed up swiftly on him and were at his elbow before he heard us. Under the heavy sunburn the color faded in his cheeks when he saw us. I noted it, but that was nothing strange considering the perilous conditions of the country and the sudden shock of our appearance. "Good-day, friend," cried Mount, cheerily. "Good-day, friends," he replied, stammering as though for lack of breath. "God save our country, friend," added Elerson, gravely. "God save our country, friends," repeated the man. So far, so good. The man, a thick, stocky, heavy-eyed fellow, moistened his broad lips with his tongue, peered furtively at me, and instantly dropped his eyes. At the same instant memory stirred within me; a vague recollection of those heavy, black eyes, of that broad, bow-legged figure set me pondering. "Me fri'nd," purred Murphy, persuasively, "is th' Frinch thrappers balin' August peltry f'r to sell in Canady?" "I've a few late pelts from the lakes," muttered the man, without looking up. "Domned late," cried Murphy, gayly. "Sure they do say, if ye dhraw a summer mink an' turrn th' pelt inside out like a glove, the winther fur will sprout inside--wid fashtin' an' prayer." The man bent his eyes obstinately on the ground; instead of smiling he had paled. "Have you the skin of a wampum bird in that bale?" asked Mount, pleasantly. Elerson struck the pack with the flat of his hand; the mangy wolverine pelt crackled. "Green hides! Green hides!" laughed Mount, sarcastically. "Come, my friend, we're your customers. Down with your bales and I'll buy." Murphy had laid a heavy hand on the man's shoulder, halting him short in his tracks; Elerson, rifle cradled in the hollow of his left arm, poked his forefinger into the bales, then sniffed at the aperture. "There are green hides there!" he exclaimed, stepping back. "Jack, slip that pack off!" The man started forward, crying out that he had no time to waste, but Murphy jerked him back by the collar and Elerson seized his right arm. "Wait!" I said, sharply. "You cannot stop a man like this on the highway!" "You don't know us, sir," replied Mount, impudently. "Come, Colonel Ormond," added Elerson, almost savagely. "You're our captain no longer. Give way, sir. Answer for your own men, and we'll answer to Danny Morgan!" Mount, struggling to unfasten the pack, looked over his huge shoulders at me. "Not that we're not fond of you, sir; but we know this old fox now--" "You lie!" shrieked the man, hurling his full weight at Murphy and tearing his right arm free from Elerson's grip. There came a flash, an explosion; through a cloud of smoke I saw the fellow's right arm stretched straight up in the air, his hand clutching a smoking pistol, and Elerson holding the arm rigid in a grip of steel. Instantly Mount tripped the man flat on his face in the dust, and Murphy jerked his arms behind his back, tying them fast at the wrists with a cord which Elerson cut from the pack and flung to him. "Rip up thim bales, Jack!" said Murphy. "Yell find them full o' powther an' ball an' cutlery, sorr, or I'm a liar!" he added to me. "This limb o' Lucifer is wan o' Francy McCraw's renegados!--Danny Redstock, sorr, th' tirror av the Sacandaga!" Redstock! I had seen him at Broadalbin that evening in May, threatening the angry settlers with his rifle, when Dorothy and the Brandt-Meester and I had ridden over with news of smoke in the hills. Murphy tied the prostrate man's legs, pulled him across the dusty road to the bushes, and laid him on his back under a great maple-tree. Mount, knife in hand, ripped up the bales of crackling peltry, and Elerson delved in among the skins, flinging them right and left in his impatient search. "There's no powder here," he exclaimed, rising to his knees on the road and staring at Mount; "nothing but badly cured beaver and mangy musk-rat." "Well, he baled 'em to conceal something!" insisted Mount. "No man packs in this moth-eaten stuff for love of labor. What's that parcel in the bottom?" "Not powder," replied Elerson, tossing it out, where it rebounded, crackling. "Squirrel pelts," nodded Mount, as I picked up the packet and looked at the sealed cords. The parcel was addressed: "General Barry St. Leger, in camp before Stanwix." I sat down on the grass and began to open it, when a groan from the prostrate prisoner startled me. He had struggled to a sitting posture, and was facing me, eyes bulging from their sockets. Every vestige of color had left his visage. "For God's sake don't open that!" he gasped--"there is naught there, sir--" "Silence!" roared Mount, glaring at him, while Murphy and Elerson, dropping their armfuls of pelts, came across the road to the bank where I sat. "I will not be silent!" screamed the man, rocking to and fro on the ground. "I did not do that!--I know nothing of what that packet holds! A Mohawk runner gave it to me--I mean that I found it on the trail--" The riflemen stared at him in contempt while I cut the strings of the parcel and unrolled the bolt of heavy miller's cloth. At first I did not comprehend what all that mass of fluffy hair could be. A deep gasp from Mount enlightened me, and I dropped the packet in a revulsion of horror indescribable. For the parcel was fairly bursting with tightly packed scalps. In the deathly silence I heard Redstock's hoarse breathing. Mount knelt down and gently lifted a heavy mass of dark, silky hair. At last Elerson broke the silence, speaking in a strangely gentle and monotonous voice. "I think this hair was Janet McCrea's. I saw her many times at Half-moon. No maid in Tryon County had hair like hers." Shuddering, Mount lifted a long braid of dark-brown hair fastened to a hoop painted blue. And Elerson, in that strange monotone, continued speaking: "The hair on this scalp is braided to show that the woman was a mother; the skin stretched on a blue hoop confirms it. "The murderer has painted the skin yellow with red dots to represent tears shed for the dead by her family. There is a death-maul painted below in black; it shows how she was killed." He laid the scalp back very carefully. Under the mass of hair a bit of paper stuck out, and I drew it from the dreadful packet. It was a sealed letter directed to General St. Leger, and I opened and read the contents aloud in the midst of a terrible silence.
"SIR,--I send you under care of Daniel Redstock the first packet of scalps, cured, dried, hooped, and painted; four dozen in all, at twenty dollars a dozen, which will be eighty dollars. This you will please pay to Daniel Redstock, as I need money for tobacco and rum for the men and the Senecas who are with me. "Return invoice with payment acquitted by the bearer, who will know where to find me. Below I have prepared a true invoice. Your very humble servant, "F. MCCRAW.
(2) Two of settlers, surprised and killed in their houses or barns; hoops red; white circle for the sun; a little red foot to show they died fighting. Both marked with bullet symbol. (4) Four of settlers. Two marked by little yellow flames to show how they died. (My Senecas have had no prisoners for burning since August third.) One a rebel clergyman, his band tied to the scalp-hoop, and a little red foot under a red cross painted on the skin. (He killed two of my men before we got him.) One, a poor scalp, the hair gray and thin; the hoop painted brown. (An old man whom we found in bed in a rebel house.) (12) Twelve of militia soldiers; stretched on black hoops four inches in diameter, inside skin painted red; a black circle showing they were outposts surprised at night; hatchet as usual. (12) Twelve of women; one unbraided--a very fine scalp (bought of a Wyandot from Burgoyne's army), which I paid full price for; nine braided, hoops blue, red tear-marks; two very gray; black hoops, plain brown color inside; death-maul marked in red. (6) Six of boys' scalps; small green hoops; red tears; symbols in black of castete, knife, and bullet. (5) Five of girls' scalps; small yellow hoops. Marked with the Seneca symbol to whom they were delivered before scalping. (l) One box of birch-bark containing an infant's scalp; very little hair, but well dried and cured. (I must ask full price for this.)
"Received payment, F. McCRAW."
"Jack," I said, hoarsely, "the law sends that man before a court." "Court be damned!" growled Mount, as Elerson uncoiled the pack-rope, flung one end over a maple limb above, and tied a running noose on the other end. Murphy crowded past me to seize the prisoner, but I caught him by the arm and pushed him aside. "Men!" I said, angrily; "I don't care whose command you are under. I'm an officer, and you'll listen to me and obey me with respect. Murphy!" The Irishman gave me a savage stare. "By God!" I cried, cocking my rifle, "if one of you dares disobey, I'll shoot him where he stands! Murphy! Stand aside! Mount, bring that prisoner here!" There was a pause; then Murphy touched his cap and stepped back quietly, nodding to Mount, who shuffled forward, pushing the prisoner and darting a venomous glance at me. "Redstock," I said, "where is McCraw?" A torrent of filthy abuse poured out of the prisoner's writhing mouth. He cursed us, threatening us with a terrible revenge from McCraw if we harmed a hair of his head. Astonished, I saw that he had mistaken my attitude for one of fear. I strove to question him, but he insolently refused all information. My men ground their teeth with impatience, and I saw that I could control them no longer. So I gave what color I could to the lawless act of justice, partly to save my waning authority, partly to save them the consequences of executing a prisoner who might give valuable information to the authorities in Albany. I ordered Elerson to hold the prisoner and adjust the noose; Murphy and Mount to the rope's end. Then I said: "Prisoner, this field-court finds you guilty of murder and orders your execution. Have you anything to say before sentence is carried out?" The wretch did not believe we were in earnest. I nodded to Elerson, who drew the noose tight; the prisoner's knees gave way, and he screamed; but Mount and Murphy jerked him up, and the rope strangled the screech in his throat. Sickened, I bent my head, striving to count the seconds as he hung twisting and quivering under the maple limb. Would he never die? Would those spasms never end? "Shtep back, sorr, if ye plaze, sorr," said Murphy, gently. "Sure, sorr, ye're as white as a sheet. Walk away quiet-like; ye're not used to such things, sorr." I was not, indeed; I had never seen a man done to death in cold blood. Yet I fought off the sickening faintness that clutched at my heart; and at last the dangling thing hung limp and relaxed, turning slowly round and round in mid-air. Mount nodded to Murphy and fell to digging with a sharpened stick. Elerson quietly lighted his pipe and aided him, while Murphy shaved off a white square of bark on the maple-tree under the slow-turning body, and I wrote with the juice of an elderberry: "Daniel Redstock, a child murderer, executed by American Riflemen for his crimes, under order of George Ormond, Colonel of Rangers, August 19, 1777. Renegades and Outlaws take warning!" When Mount and Elerson had finished the shallow grave, they laid the scalps of the murdered in the hole, stamped down the earth, and covered it with sticks and branches lest a prowling outlaw or Seneca disinter the remains and reap a ghastly reward for their redemption from General the Hon. Barry St. Leger, Commander of the British, Hessians, Loyal Colonials, and Indians, in camp before Fort Stanwix. As we left that dreadful spot, and before I could interfere to prevent them, the three riflemen emptied their pieces into the swinging corpse--a useless, foolish, and savage performance, and I said so sharply. They were very docile and contrite and obedient now, explaining that it was a customary safeguard, as hanged men had been revived more than once--a flimsy excuse, indeed! "Very well," I said; "your shots may draw McCraw's whole force down on us. But doubtless you know much more than your officers--like the militia at Oriskany." The reproof struck home; Mount muttered his apology; Murphy offered to carry my rifle if I was fatigued. "It was thoughtless, I admit that," said Elerson, looking backward, uneasily. "But we're close to the patroon's boundary." "We're within bounds now," said Mount. "Fonda's Bush lies over there to the southeast, and the Vlaie is yonder below the mountain-notch. This wagon-track runs into the Fish-House road." "How far are we from the manor?" I asked. "About two miles and a half, sir," replied Mount. "Doubtless some of Sir George Covert's horsemen heard our shots, and we'll meet 'em cantering out to investigate." I had not imagined we were as near as that. A painful thrill passed through me; my heart leaped, beating feverishly in my breast. Minute after minute dragged as we filed swiftly onward, mechanically treading in each other's tracks. I strove to consider, to think, to picture the sad, strange home-coming--to see her as she would stand, stunned, astounded that I had ignored her appeal to help her by my absence. I could not think; my thoughts were chaos; my brain throbbed heavily; I fixed my hot eyes on the road and strode onward, numbed, seeing, hearing nothing. And, of a sudden, a shout rang out ahead; horsemen in line across the road, rifles on thigh, moved forward towards us; an officer reversed his sword, drove it whizzing into the scabbard, and spurred forward, followed by a trooper, helmet flashing in the sun. "Ormond!" cried the officer, flinging himself from his horse and holding out both white-gloved hands. "Sir George, ... I am glad to see you.... I am very--happy," I stammered, taking his hands. "Cousin Ormond!" came a timid voice behind me. I turned; Ruyven, in full uniform of a cornet, flung himself into my arms. I could scarce see him for the mist in my eyes; I pressed the boy close to my breast and kissed him on both cheeks. Utterly unable to speak, I sat down on a log, holding Sir George's gloved hand, my arm on Ruyven's laced shoulder. An immense fatigue came over me; I had not before realized the pace we had kept up for these two months nor the strain I had been under. "Singleton!" called out Sir George, "take the men to the barracks; take my horse, too--I'll walk back. And, Singleton, just have your men take these fine fellows up behind"--with a gesture towards the riflemen. "And see that they lack for nothing in quarters!" Grinning sheepishly, the riflemen climbed up behind the troopers assigned them; the troop cantered off, and Sir George pointed to Ruyven's horse, indicating that it was for me when I was rested. "We heard shots," he said; "I mistrusted it might be a salute from you, but came ready for anything, you see--Lord! How thin you've grown, Ormond!" "I'm cornet, cousin!" burst out Ruyven, hugging me again in his excitement. "I charged with the squadron when we scattered McDonald's outlaws! A man let drive at me--" "Oh, come, come," laughed Sir George, "Colonel Ormond has had more bullets driven at him than our Legion pouches in their bullet-bags!" "A man let drive at me!" breathed Ruyven, in rapture. "I was not hit, cousin! A man let drive at me, and I heard the bullet!" "Nonsense!" said Sir George, mischievously; "you heard a bumble-bee!" "He always says that," retorted Ruyven, looking at me. "I know it was a bullet, for it went zo-o-zip-tsing-g! right past my ear; and Sergeant West shouted, 'Cut him down, sir!' ... But another trooper did that. However, I rode like the devil!" "Which way?" inquired Sir George, in pretended anxiety. And we all laughed. "It's good to see you back all safe and sound," said Sir George, warmly. "Sir Lupus will be delighted and the children half crazed. You should hear them talk of their hero!" "Dorothy will be glad, too," said Ruyven. "You'll be in time for the wedding." I strove to smile, facing Sir George with an effort. His face, in the full sunlight, seemed haggard and careworn, and the light had died out in his eyes. "For the wedding," he repeated. "We are to be wedded to-morrow. You did not know that, did you?" "Yes; I did know it. Dorothy wrote me," I said. A numbed feeling crept over me; I scarce heard the words I uttered when I wished him happiness. He held my proffered hand a second, then dropped it listlessly, thanking me for my good wishes in a low voice. There was a vague, troubled expression in his eyes, a strange lack of feeling. The thought came to me like a stab that perhaps he had learned that the woman he was to wed did not love him. "Did Dorothy expect me?" I asked, miserably. "I think not," said Sir George. "She believed you meant to follow Arnold to Stanwix," broke in Ruyven. "I should have done it! I regard General Arnold as the most magnificent soldier of the age!" he added. "I was ordered to Varick Manor," I said, looking at Sir George. "Otherwise I might have followed Arnold. As it is I cannot stay for the wedding; I must report at Stillwater, leaving by nine o'clock in the morning." "Lord, Ormond, what a fire-eater you have become!" he said, smiling from his abstraction. "Are you ready to mount Ruyven's nag and come home to a good bed and a glass of something neat?" "Let Ruyven ride," I said; "I need the walk, Sir George." "Need the walk!" he exclaimed. "Have you not had walks enough?--and your moccasins and buckskins in rags!" But I could not endure to ride; a nerve-racking restlessness was on me, a desire for movement, for utter exhaustion, so that I could no longer have even strength to think. Ruyven, protesting, climbed into his dragoon-saddle; Sir George walked beside him and I with Sir George. Long, soft August lights lay across the leafy road; the blackberries were in heavy fruit; scarlet thimble-berries, over-ripe, dropped from their pithy cones as we brushed the sprays with our sleeves. Sir George was saying: "No, we have nothing more to fear from McDonald's gang, but a scout came in, three days since, bringing word of McCraw's outlaws who have appeared in the west--" He stopped abruptly, listening to a sound that I also heard; the sudden drumming of unshod hoofs on the road behind us. "What the devil--" he began, then cocked his rifle; I threw up mine; a shrill cock-crow rang out above the noise of tramping horses; a galloping mass of horsemen burst into view behind us, coming like an avalanche. "McCraw!" shouted Sir George. Ruyven fired from his saddle; Sir George's rifle and mine exploded together; a horse and rider went down with a crash, but the others came straight on, and the cock-crow rang out triumphantly above the roar of the rushing horses. "Ruyven!" I shouted, "ride for your life!" "I won't!" he cried, furiously; but I seized his bridle, swung his frightened horse, and struck the animal across the buttocks with clubbed rifle. Away tore the maddened beast, almost unseating his rider, who lost both stirrups at the first frantic bound and clung helplessly to his saddle-pommel while the horse carried him away like the wind. Then I sprang into the ozier thicket, Sir George at my side, and ran a little way; but they caught us, even before we reached the timber, and threw us to the ground, tying us up like basted capons with straps from their saddles. Maltreated, struck, kicked, mauled, and dragged out to the road, I looked for instant death; but a lank creature flung me across his saddle, face downward, and, in a second, the whole band had mounted, wheeled about, and were galloping westward, ventre a terre. Almost dead from the saddle-pommel which knocked the breath from my body, suffocated and strangled with dust, I hung dangling there in a storm of flying sticks and pebbles. Twice consciousness fled, only to return with the blood pounding in my ears. A third time my senses left me, and when they returned I lay in a cleared space in the woods beside Sir George, the sun shining full in my face, flung on the ground near a fire, over which a kettle was boiling. And on every side of us moved McCraw's riders, feeding their horses, smoking, laughing, playing at cards, or coming up to sniff the camp-kettle and poke the boiling meat with pointed sticks. Behind them, squatted in rows, sat two dozen Indians, watching us in ferocious silence. _ |
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