Home > Authors Index > Robert W. Chambers > Maid-At-Arms > This page
The Maid-At-Arms, a novel by Robert W. Chambers |
||
Chapter 21. The Crisis |
||
| < Previous |
Table of content |
Next > |
|
________________________________________________
_ CHAPTER XXI. THE CRISIS For a while I lay there stupefied, limp-limbed, lifeless, closing my aching eyes under the glittering red rays of the westering sun. My parched throat throbbed and throbbed; I could scarcely stir, even to close my swollen hands where they had tied my wrists, although somebody had cut the cords that bound me. "Sir George," I said, in a low voice. "Yes, I am here," he replied, instantly. "Are you hurt?" "No, Ormond. Are you?" "No; very tired; that is all." I rolled over; my head reeled and I held it in my benumbed hands, looking at Sir George, who lay on his side, cheek pillowed on his arms. "This is a miserable end of it all," he said, with calm bitterness. "But that it involves you, I should not dare blame fortune for the fool I acted. I have my deserts; but it's cruel for you." The sickening whirling in my head became unendurable. I lay down, facing him, eyes closed. "It was not your fault," I said, dully. "There is no profit in discussing that," he muttered. "They took us alive instead of scalping us; while there's life there's hope, ... a little hope.... But I'd sooner they'd finish me here than rot in their stinking prison-ships.... Ormond, are you awake?" "Yes, Sir George." "If they--if the Indians get us, and--and begin their--you know--" "Yes; I know." "If they begin ... that ... insult them, taunt them, sneer at them, laugh at them!--yes, laugh at them! Do anything to enrage them, so they'll--they'll finish quickly.... Do you understand?" "Yes," I muttered; and my voice sounded miles away. He lay brooding for a while; when I opened my eyes he broke out fretfully: "How was I to dream that McCraw could be so near!--that he dared raid us within a mile of the house! Oh, I could die of shame, Ormond! die of shame!... But I won't die that way; oh no," he added, with a frightful smile that left his face distorted and white. He raised himself on one elbow. "Ormond," he said, staring at vacancy, "what trivial matters a man thinks of in the shadow of death. I can't consider it; I can't be reconciled to it; I can't even pray. One absurd idea possesses me--that Singleton will have the Legion now; and he's a slack drill-master--he is, indeed!... I've a million things to think of--an idle life to consider, a misspent career to repent, but the time is too short, Ormond.... Perhaps all that will come at the instant of--of--" "Death," I said, wearily. "Yes, yes; that's it, death. I'm no coward; I'm calm enough--but I'm stunned. I can't think for the suddenness of it!... And you just home; and Ruyven there, snuggled close to you as a house-cat--and then that sound of galloping, like a fly-stung herd of cattle in a pasture!" "I think Ruyven is safe," I said, closing my eyes. "Yes, he's safe. Nobody chased him; they'll know at the manor by this time; they knew long ago.... My men will be out.... Where are we, Ormond?" "I don't know," I murmured, drowsily. The months of fatigue, the unbroken strain, the feverish weeks spent in endless trails, the constant craving for movement to occupy my thoughts, the sleepless nights which were the more unendurable because physical exhaustion could not give me peace or rest, now told on me. I drowsed in the very presence of death; and the stupor settled heavily, bringing, for the first time since I left Varick Manor, rest and immunity from despair or even desire. I cared for nothing: hope of her was dead; hope of life might die and I was acquiescent, contented, glad of the end. I had endured too much. My sleep--or unconsciousness--could not have lasted long; the sun was not yet level with my eyes when I roused to find Sir George tugging at my sleeve and a man in a soiled and tarnished scarlet uniform standing over me. But that brief respite from the strain had revived me; a bucket of cold water stood near the fire, and I thrust my burning face into it, drinking my fill, while the renegade in scarlet bawled at me and fumed and cursed, demanding my attention to what he was saying. "You damned impudent rebel!" he yelled; "am I to stand around here awaiting your pleasure while you swill your skin full?" I wiped my lips with my torn hands, and got to my feet painfully, a trifle dizzy for a moment, but perfectly able to stand and to comprehend. "I'm asking you," he snarled, "why we can't send a flag to your people without their firing on it?" "I don't know what you mean," I said. "I do," said Sir George, blandly. "Oh, you do, eh?" growled the renegade, turning on him with a scowl. "Then tell me why our flag of truce is not respected, if you can." "Nobody respects a flag from outlaws," said Sir George, coolly. The fellow's face hardened and his eyes blazed. He started to speak, then shut his mouth with a snap, turned on his heel, and strode across the treeless glade to where his noisy riders were saddling up, tightening girths, buckling straps, and examining the unshod feet of their horses or smoothing out the burrs from mane and tail. The red sun glittered on their spurs, rifles, and the flat buckles of their cross-belts. Their uniform was scarlet and green, but some wore beaded shirts of scarlet holland, belted in with Mohawk wampum, and some were partly clothed like Cayuga Indians and painted with Seneca war-symbols--a grewsome sight. There were savages moving about the fire--or I took them for savages, until one half-naked lout, lounging near, taunted me with a Scotch burr in his throat, and I saw, in his horribly painted face, a pair of flashing eyes fixed on me. And the eyes were blue. There was something in that ghastly masquerade so horrible, so unspeakably revolting, that a shiver of pure fear touched me in every nerve. Except for the voice and the eyes, he looked the counterpart of the Senecas moving about near us; his skin, bare to the waist, was stained a reddish copper hue; his black hair was shaved except for the knot; war-paint smeared visage and chest, and two crimson quills rose from behind his left ear, tied to the scalp-lock. "Let him alone; don't answer him; he's worse than the Indians," whispered Sir George. Among the savages I saw two others with light eyes, and a third I never should have suspected had not Sir George pointed out his feet, which were planted on the ground like the feet of a white man when he walked, and not parallel or toed-in. But now the loud-voiced riders were climbing into their saddles; the officer in scarlet, who had cursed and questioned us, came towards us leading a horse. "You treacherous whelps!" he said, fiercely; "if a flag can't go to you safely, we must send one of you with it. By Heaven! you're both fit for roasting, and it sickens me to send you! But one of you goes and the other stays. Now fight it out--and be quick!" An amazed silence followed; then Sir George asked why one of us was to be liberated and the other kept prisoner. "Because your sneaking rebel friends fire on the white flag, I tell you!" cried the fellow, furiously; "and we've got to get a message to them. You are Captain Sir George Covert, are you not? Very good. Your rebel friends have taken Captain Walter Butler and mean to hang him. Now you tell your people that we've got Colonel Ormond and we'll exchange you both, a colonel and a captain, for Walter Butler. Do you understand? That's what we value you at; a rebel colonel and a rebel captain for a single loyal captain." Sir George turned to me. "There is not the faintest chance of an exchange," he said, in French. "Stop that!" threatened the man in scarlet, laying his hand on his hanger. "Speak English or Delaware, do you hear?" "Sir George," I said, "you will go, of course. I shall remain and take the chance of exchange." "Pardon," he said, coolly; "I remain here and pay the piper for the tune I danced to. You will relieve me of my obligations by going," he added, stiffly. "No," I said; "I tell you I don't care. Can't you understand that a man may not care?" "I understand," he replied, staring at me; "and I am that man, Ormond. Come, get into your saddle. Good-bye. It is all right; it is perfectly just, and--it doesn't matter." A shrill voice broke out across the cleared circle. "Billy Bones! Billy Bones! Hae ye no flints f'r the lads that ride? Losh, mon, we'll no be ganging north the day, an' ye bide droolin' there wi' the blitherin' Jacobites!" "The flints are in McBarron's wagon! Wait, wait, Francy McCraw!" And he hurried away, bawling for the teamster McBarron. "Sir George," I said, "take the chance, in Heaven's name, for I shall not go. Don't dispute; don't stand there! Man, man, don't delay, I tell you, or they'll change their plan!" "I won't go," he said, sharply. "Ormond, am I a contemptible poltroon that I should leave you here to endure the consequences of my own negligence? Do you think I could accept life at that price?" "I tell you to go!" I said, harshly. A horrid hope, a terrible and unworthy temptation, had seized me like a thing from hell. I trembled; sweat broke out on me, and I set my teeth, striving to think as the woman I had lost would have had me think. "Quick!" I muttered, "don't wait, don't delay; don't talk to me, I tell you! Go! Go! Get out of my sight--" And all the time, pounding in my brain, the pulse beat out a shameful thought; and mad temptations swarmed, whispering close to my ringing ears that his death was my only chance, my only possible salvation--and hers! "Go!" I stammered, pushing him towards the horse; "get into your saddle! Quick, I tell you--I--I can't endure this! I am not made to endure everything, I tell you! Can't you have a little mercy on me and leave me?" "I refuse," he said, sullenly. "You refuse!" I stammered, beside myself with the torture I could no longer bear. "Then stand aside! I'll go--I'll go if it costs me--No! No! I can't; I can't, I tell you; it costs too much!... Damn you, you may have the woman I love, but you shall leave me her respect!" "Ormond! Ormond!" he cried, in sorrowful amazement; but I was clean out of my head now, and I closed with him, dragging him towards the horse. He shook himself free, glaring at me. "I am ... your superior ... officer!" I panted, advancing on him; "I order you to go!" He looked me narrowly in the eyes. "And I refuse obedience," he said, hoarsely. "You are out of your mind!" "Then, by God!" I shrieked, "I'll force you!" Billy Bones, Francy McCraw, and a Seneca came hastening up. I leaped on McCraw and dealt him a blow full in his bony face, splitting the lean cheek open. They overpowered me before I could repeat the blow; they flung me down, kicking and pounding me as I lay there, but the death-stroke I awaited was withheld; the castete of the Seneca was jerked from his fist. Then they seized Sir George and forced him into his saddle, calling on four troopers to pilot him within sight of the manor and shoot him if he attempted to return. "You tell them that if they refuse to exchange Walter Butler for Ormond, we've torments for Colonel Ormond that won't kill him under a week!" roared Billy Bones. McCraw, stupefied with amazement and rage, stood mopping the blood from his blotched face, staring at me out of his crazy blue eyes. For a moment his hand fiddled with his hatchet, then Bones shoved him away, and he strode off towards his horsemen, who were forming in column of fours. "You tell 'em," shouted Bones, "that before we finish him they'll hear his screams in Albany! If they want Colonel Ormond," he added, his voice rising to a yell, "tell 'em to send a single man into the sugar-bush. But if they hang Walter Butler, or if you try to catch us with your cavalry, we'll take Ormond where we'll have leisure to see what our Senecas can do with him! Now ride! you damned--" He struck Sir George's horse with the flat of his hanger; the horse bounded off, followed by four of McCraw's riders, pistols cocked and hatchets loosened. Bruised, dazed, exhausted, I lay there, listening to the receding thudding of their horses' feet on the moss. The crisis was over, and I had won--not as I might have chosen to win, but by a compromise with death for deliverance from temptation. If it was the compromise of a crazed creature, insane from mental and physical exhaustion, it was not the compromise of a weak man; I did not desire death as long as she lived. I dreaded to leave her alone in the world. But, though she loved him not--and did love me--I could not accept the future through his sacrifice and live to remember that he had laid down his life for a friend who desired from him more than he had renounced. I was perfectly sane now; a strange calmness came over me; my mind was clear and composed; my meditations serene. Free at last from hope, from sorrowful passion, from troubled desire, I lay there thinking, watching the long, red sun-rays slanting through the woods. Gratitude to God for a life ended ere I fell from His grace, ere temptation entangled me beyond deliverance; humble pride in the honorable traditions that I had received and followed untainted; deep, reverent thankfulness for the strength vouchsafed me in this supreme crisis of my life--the strength of a madman, perhaps, but still strength to be true, the power to renounce--these were the meditations that brought me rest and a quietude I had never known when death seemed a long way off and life on earth eternal. The setting sun crimsoned the pines; the riders were gathered along the hill-side, bending far out in their saddles to scan the valley below. McCraw, his white face bound with a bloody rag, drew his straight claymore and wound the tattered tartan around his wrist, motioning Billy Bones to ride on. "March!" he cried, in his shrill voice, laying his claymore level; and the long files moved off, spurs and scabbards clanking, horses crowding and trampling in, faster and faster, till a far command set them trotting, then galloping away into the west, where the kindling sky reddened the world. The world!--it would be the same to-morrow without me: that maple-tree would not have changed a leaf; that tiny, hovering, gauze-winged creature, drifting through the calm air, would be alive when I was dead. It was difficult to understand. I repeated it to myself again and again, but the phrases had no meaning to me. The sun set; cool, violet lights lay over the earth; a thrush, awakened by the sweetness of the twilight from his long summer moping, whistled timidly, tentatively; then the silvery, evanescent notes floated away, away, in endless, heavenly serenity. A soft, leather-shod foot nudged me; I sat up, then rose, holding out my wrists. They tied me loosely; a tall warrior stepped beside me; others fell in behind with a patter of moccasined feet. Then came an officer, pistol cocked and held muzzle up. He was the only white man left. "Forward," he said, nervously; and we started off through the purple dusk. Physical weariness and pain had left me; I moved as in a dream. Nothing of apprehension or dismay disturbed the strange calm of my soul; even desire for meditation left me; and a vague content wrapped me, mind and body. Distance, time, were meaningless to me now; I could go on forever; I could lie down forever; nothing mattered; nothing could touch me now. The moon came up, flooding the woods with a creamy light; then a little stream, sparkling like molten silver, crossed our misty path; then a bare hill-side stretched away, pale in the moonlight, vanishing into a luminous veil of vapor, floating over a hollow where unseen water lay. We entered a grove of still trees standing wide apart--maple-trees, with the sap-pegs still in the bark. I sat down on a log; the Indians seated themselves in a wide circle around me; the renegade officer walked to the fringe of trees and stood there motionless. Time passed serenely; I had fallen drowsing, soothed by the silvered silence; when through a dream I heard a cock-crow. Around me the Indians rose, all listening. Far away a sound grew in the night--the dull blows of horses' hoofs on sod; a shot rang faintly, a distant cry was echoed by a long-drawn yell and a volley. The renegade officer came running back, calling out, "McCraw has struck the Legion at the grist-mill!" In the intense silence around me the noise of the conflict grew, increasing, then became fainter and fainter until it died out to the westward and all was still. The Indians came crowding back from the edge of the grove, shoving through the circle of those who guarded me, pushing, pressing, surging around me. "Give him to us!" they muttered, under their breath. "The flag has not come; they will hang your Walter Butler! Give him to us! The Legion cavalry is driving your riders into the west! Give him to us! We wish to see how the Oriskany man can die!" Dragged, pulled from one to another, I scarcely felt their clutch; I scarcely felt the furtive blows that fell on me. The officer clung to me, fighting the savages back with fist and elbow. "Wait for McCraw!" he panted. "The flag may come yet, you fools! Would you murder him and lose Walter Butler forever? Wait till McCraw comes, I tell you!" "McCraw is riding for his life!" said a chief, fiercely. "It's a lie!" said the officer; "he is drawing them to ambush!" "Give the prisoner to us!" cried the savages, closing in. "After all, what do we care for your Walter Butler!" And again they rushed forward with a shout. Twice the officer drove them back with kicks and blows, cursing their treachery in McCraw's absence; then, as they drew their knives, clamoring, threatening, gathering for a last rush, into their midst bounded an unearthly shape--a squat and hideous figure, fluttering with scarlet rags. Arms akimbo, the thing planted itself before me, mouthing and slavering in fury. "The Toad-woman! Catrine Montour! The Toad-witch!" groaned the Senecas, shrinking back, huddling together as the hag whirled about and pointed at them. "I want him! I want him! Give him to me!" yelped the Toad-woman. "Fools! Do you know where you are? Do you know this grove of maple-trees?" The Indians, amazed and cowed, slunk farther back. The hag fixed her blazing eyes on them and raised her arms. "Fools! Fools!" she mouthed, "what madness brought you here to this grove?--to this place where the Stonish Giants have returned, riding out of Biskoona!" A groan burst from the Indians; a chief raised his arms, making the False-Faces' sign. "Mother," he stammered, "we did not know! We heard that the Stonish Giants had returned; the Onondagas sent us word, but we did not know this grove was where they gathered from Biskoona! McCraw sent us here to await the flag." "Liar!" hissed the hag. "It is the truth," muttered the chief, shuddering. "Witness if I speak the truth, O ensigns of the three clans!" And a hollow groan burst from the cowering savages. "We witness, mother. It is the truth!" "Witch!" cried the officer, in a shaking voice, "what would you do with my prisoner? You shall not have him, by the living God!" "Senecas, take him!" howled the hag, pointing at the officer. The fellow strove to draw his claymore, but staggered and sank to the ground, covered under a mass of savages. Then, dragged to his feet, they pulled him back, watching the Toad-woman for a sign. "To purge this grove! To purge the earth of the Stonish Giants!" she howled. "For this I ask this prisoner. Give him to me!--to me, priestess of the six fires! Tiyanoga calls from behind the moon! What Seneca dares disobey? Give him to me for a sacrifice to Biskoona, that the Stonish ghosts be laid and the doors of fire be closed forever!" "Take him! Spare us the dreadful rites, O mother!" answered the chief, in a quivering voice. "Slay him before us now and let us see the color of his blood, so that we may depart in peace ere the Stonish Giants ride forth from Biskoona and leave not one among us!" "Neah!" cried the hag, furiously. "He dies in secret!" There was a silence of astonishment. Spite of their superstitious terror, the Senecas knew that a sacrificial death, to close Biskoona, could not occur in secret. Suddenly the chief leaped forward and dealt me a blow with his castete. I fell, but staggered to my feet again. "Mother!" began the chief, "let him die quickly--" "Silence!" screamed the hag, supporting me. "I hear, far off, the gates of Biskoona opening! Hark! Ta-ho-ne-ho-ga-wen! The doors open--the doors of flame! The Stonish Giants ride forth! O chief, for your sacrilege you die!" A horrified silence followed; the chief reeled back, dropping the death-maul. Suddenly a horse's iron-shod foot rang out on a stone, close at hand. Straight through the moonlight, advancing steadily, came a snorting horse; and, towering in the saddle, a magic shape clad in complete steel, glittering in the moonlight. "Oonah!" shrieked the hag, seizing me in both arms. With an unearthly howl the Senecas fled; the Toad-woman dropped me and bounded on the dazed renegade; he turned, crying out in horror, stumbled, and fell headlong down the bushy slope. Then, as the hag halted, she seemed to grow, straightening up, tall, broad, superb; towering into a supple shape from which the scarlet rags fell fluttering around her like painted maple-leaves. "Magdalen Brant!" I gasped, swaying where I stood, the blood almost blinding me. From behind two steel-clad arms seized me and dragged me backward; I stumbled against the horse; the armored figure bent swiftly, caught me up, swung me clear into the saddle in front, while the armor creaked and strained and clashed with the effort. Then my head was drawn gently back, falling on a steel shoulder; two arms were thrust under mine, seizing the bridle. The horse wheeled towards the north, stepping quietly through the moonlight, steadily, slowly northward, through misty woodlands and ferny glades and deep fields swimming under the moon, across a stony stream, up through wet meadows, into a silvery road, and across a bridge which echoed mellow thunder under the trample of the iron-shod horse. The stockade gate was shut; an old slave opened it--a trembling black man, who shot the bolts and tottered beside us, crying and pressing my hand to his eyes. Men came from the stables, men ran from the quarters, lanterns glimmered, windows in the house opened, and I heard a vague clamor growing around me, fainter now, yet dinning in my ears until a soft, dense darkness fell, weighing on my lids till they closed. _ |
||