Chapter 11

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_ CHAPTER XI

Stuart and Demere argued the matter in their secret conclaves. Both admitted that although Montgomery had had only four or five men killed, among them no officers, on his first expedition, he might have again taken the field, and this was as they hoped. He was advancing; he must be near. The trophy of the fine red coat meant probably that he had lost an officer of value;--perhaps meant less--the personal disaster of the capture of baggage or the necessity of throwing it away. Montgomery had advanced,--that was indubitable. Nevertheless,--and perhaps it was the lowering influence of the scanty fare on which they had so long subsisted,--both officers dreaded the suspense less than the coming disclosure.

Stuart felt all his nerves grow tense late one day in the red July sunset, when there emerged from the copse of pawpaw bushes, close to the river where Odalie had once been wont to repair to talk to Choo-qualee-qualoo, a tall form, arrayed in a gray gown, a trifle ill-adjusted, with a big red calash drawn forward on the head, that walked at a somewhat slashing gait across the open space toward the glacis. He thanked heaven that Mrs. MacLeod was ill in her bed, although he had some twenty minutes ago been sending to her through her husband expressions of polite and heartfelt regret and sympathy.

"Why, I hardly thought Mrs. MacLeod was well enough to take a walk," he observed to the sentry. Daniel Eske naturally supposed that Mrs. MacLeod had slipped out before he had gone on duty, having just been sent to the relief of the previous sentinel. Stuart went down to the embrasure, assisted the supposed lady to her feet as she slipped through, and ceremoniously offered her his arm as she was about to plunge down the steep interior slope in a very boyish fashion. They found Demere in the great hall, and both officers read the brief official dispatch with countenances of dismay.

"This says that you can explain the details," said Demere, with dry lips and brightly gleaming eyes.

"Oh, yes," said Hamish. "All the time that I was at Fort Prince George the commandant was writing letters to Governor Bull--for Lyttleton has been appointed to Jamaica--and hustling off his expresses to South Carolina. He sent three, and said if he heard from none by return he would send more."

For this was the appalling fact that had fallen like a thunderbolt,--Colonel Montgomery had with his command quitted the country and sailed for New York. His orders were to strike a sudden blow for the relief of Carolina and return to head-quarters at Albany at the earliest possible moment. No word of the grievous straits of the garrison of Fort Loudon had reached him. He had, indeed, advanced from Fort Prince George, which he had made the base of his aggressive operations against the Cherokees, but not for the relief of Fort Loudon, for neither he nor the commandant of Fort Prince George knew that that post was in danger. The overtures to the Cherokees for peace having proved fruitless, Colonel Montgomery had sought to make peace by force. In pursuance of this further effort he pushed forward with great energy and spirit, but encountered throughout disasters so serious as to cripple his enterprise, culminating finally in a result equivalent to a repulse. The Indians, in the skulking methods peculiar to their warfare, harassed his march, hanging upon the flanks of the main body, and firing in detail from behind trees and rocks, from the depths of ravines and the summits of hills of the broken, rugged wilderness. Never did they present any front that it was possible to charge and turn. The advance-guard, approaching through a narrow valley, the town of Etchoee, which the Indians had abandoned, fell into an ambuscade of considerable strength, and there he lost Captain Morrison of the Rangers, and ten or twelve men who fell at the first fire. The vanguard, discouraged, began to give way, when the light infantry and grenadiers were detached for its support. They succeeded in locating the chief strength of the Cherokees sufficiently to drive the savages back, despite the disastrous results of their scattered fire. The main body, coming up, encamped near Etchoee, on a level space which proved, however, to be commanded by eminences in the vicinity. Thence the Indians poured destructive volleys into the British ranks, and only after repeated charges the soldiers succeeded in dislodging them. Impetuously attacked on the flank, the Cherokees suffered severely at the hands of the Royal Scots before being able to get out of their reach. The terrible aspect of the painted savages, and their nerve-thrilling whoops with which the woods resounded, failed also to affect the courage of the wild Highlanders, and all the troops fought with great ardor. But Colonel Montgomery deemed it impossible to penetrate further through the wilderness, hampered as he was by seventy wounded men whom he could not leave to the mercies of so savage an enemy, by the loss of many horses, by the necessity--which was yet almost an impossibility--of carrying a train of cattle and other provisions with him in so rugged, trackless, and heavily wooded a region, and relinquished the attempt, thinking the terrible losses which the Indians had sustained would prove sufficient punishment and dispose them to peace. He was even compelled to sacrifice a considerable portion of his stores, throwing away bags of flour in large numbers in order to effect the release of the packhorses to transport his wounded. His dead he sunk heavily weighted into the rivers, that the bodies might not be dragged from their graves and scalped by the Indians. His return march of sixty miles to Fort Prince George, which was accomplished with great regularity, was marked by the same incidents that had characterized his advance,--the nettling fire of the masked enemy, the futile response, and the constant loss of men and horses.

And so he was gone, and all the hopes that had clustered about his advance had gone with him! To Fort Loudon remained only two remote chances,--that Governor Bull of South Carolina might be able to act on the belated information and send out an expedition of relief; yet this was to the last degree improbable, since the province, after its first expensive expedition against the Cherokees, had been compelled to appeal for its own protection to the British commander-in-chief, the militia being practically disabled by the ravages of smallpox. But even at the best could such an expedition reach them in time? The other possibility of succor lay in Virginia, and it was obvious wisdom to embrace both chances. Stuart knew that Demere's quill, scraping over the paper, was fashioning the appeal to the royal governor of that province, even while Hamish was still speaking, and he, himself, wrote supplemental letters to other persons of note, that the news of their desolation, failing to carry in one direction, might be spread in another.

"Now, Hamish," he said, smiling behind the candle as he held the wax in it for the seal, "can you do as much again?"

"Where? When?" demanded Hamish, in surprise.

"To Virginia. To-night."

Hamish's eyes stretched very wide. "You won't wait for Governor Bull? The officers at Fort Prince George said they would lay their lives that Governor Bull would respond."

"We must try Virginia, too. My boy, we are starving. To-morrow we begin to eat the horses,--then there may be a dog or two."

Hamish rose precipitately. "Where is Sandy? Where is Odalie?"

Stuart pushed him back into his chair, sternly giving him to understand that the only possible hope of saving their lives was to get away as quickly as might be with the dispatches for Virginia.

"Without seeing Sandy and Odalie?" said Hamish, his lip quivering.

"We have not the time to spare. Besides, would they let you risk it again, even for them?"

And Hamish was suddenly diverted to telling of his risks, of all the escapes, by flood and fell, that he had made;--how often he had been shot at from ambush; how he had swum rivers; how he had repeatedly hidden from the Indians by dropping himself down into the hollows of trees, and once how nearly he had come to getting out no more, the place being so strait that he could scarcely use his constricted muscles to climb up to the cavity that had let him in. He had not so much trouble on the return trip; Ensign Milne had procured for him a good horse, and a rifle--he had had a brace of pistols--the horse was a free goer--as fresh now as if he had not been a mile to-day.

"And where is he now?" asked Demere, a look of anxiety on his face.

"At MacLeod Station, hitched there with a good saddle on him and saddle-bags half full of corn."

"Come, Hamish," said Stuart, rising, "you must be off; some Indian might find the horse."

Hamish's eyes filled with tears,--to leave Odalie and Sandy without a word! He could not endure for the men to see these tears, although they thought none the less well of him for them.

"Let me drop a tear in farewell for Odalie," he said, trying to be very funny, brushing his right eye with his right hand. "And for Sandy," his left eye with his left hand. "And Fifine," his right eye with his right hand. "And the cat," his left eye with his left hand.

There could be nothing unmanly or girlish in this jovial demonstration!

"Come, you zany!" exclaimed Stuart, affecting to think these tremulous farewells very jocose.

"Yes," said Demere, seriously, "we do not know how soon the Indians may discover our use of that passage,--up to this time it has been our only hope."

Hamish gathered up his calash, and the precise Demere assisted him to adjust it and his disordered dress more after the manner in which Odalie wore it. Hamish, as directed, took Stuart's arm as they went out, his eyes still full of tears, and for his life he could not control the tremor of emotion, not of fear, in the fibers of his hand, which he was sure the officer must note. But Stuart's attention was fixed on the skies. It was later than in those days when Odalie was wont to keep tryst with Choo-qualee-qualoo, now nearly a month ago. Still he fancied that in the afterglow of the sunset the Indians might discern the color and the style of the costume. Now and then a ball flew from the cannon to the woods, to clear the forest of too close observers,--whatever risk there was must needs be dared. The cannoneers summoned to this queer duty looked at "Mrs. MacLeod" curiously, as she slipped through the embrasure and made her way with a swinging agility down the slope amongst the fraises and then off through the gloaming at a fresh, firm pace. Then they gazed at Stuart, who presently bade them cease firing, and they had no excuse to wait to see her return. A queer move, they thought it, a very queer move!

Hope had grown so inelastic because of the taut tension to which its fine fibers had been subjected, that Stuart felt a thrill of merely mechanical apprehension when the next day Daniel Eske, the young soldier, came in, desiring to make a special report to him. While on guard duty he had heard a deep subterranean explosion, which had been reported to the officer of the day. Later, Choo-qualee-qualoo had come, waving her flag of truce, and after waiting vainly for Mrs. MacLeod, she had ventured up the slope of the scarp, knowing full well that she was safe under that white flag. She had brought a bag of beans, which she had given him,--he bit his lip and colored with vexation, consciously ridiculous in speaking of his feminine admirer to his superior officer,--and he had taken the opportunity to ask some questions about affairs outside the fort, upon which she detailed that an Indian--it was Savanukah--had seen Mrs. MacLeod, as he thought, enter the subterranean passage that used to lead to MacLeod Station. At first he had considered it a slight matter, since the Carolinian's French wife had come so often to talk to Choo-qualee-qualoo. But it somehow flashed into his mind how this woman had walked,--with what a long stride, with what strength, and how fast! And suddenly he realized that it was a man, despite the full skirts and flutterings of capes and calash. So Savanukah ran swiftly to his boat and pulled down the river, and made MacLeod Station just in time to see a youth, arrayed in buckskins, issue from the cave and mount a tethered horse. Savanukah fired at him, but without effect, and the young man wheeled in his saddle and returned the fire with such accuracy that even at the distance and in the twilight the ball, although nearly spent, struck Savanukah in the mouth with such force as to knock out a tooth. Then the boy made off with a tremendous burst of speed. And the gray gown and the calash which the youth had worn were found inside the passage. And great was the wrath of Willinawaugh! He had blown up with powder both ends of the passage,--like thunder, een-ta-qua ros-ke,--use could no more be made of it. But some were sorry, wishing the paleface to return by that way, so that he might be stabbed in the dark windings of the passage. This was impossible now, Choo-qualee-qualoo said, for the spring had burst forth, forced in a new direction, and was flooding all that part of the slope, flowing outside instead of within, and Willinawaugh could not now change its disposition if he would.

Stuart breathed more freely. If Hamish should return alone, which God forbid, and not with an armed force, the external changes wrought at MacLeod Station would preclude his effort to enter into the cavern, and force him to devise some other method of approach. He wondered at Willinawaugh--to destroy so promising a trap! But rage may overpower at times the most foxy craft.

The dull days, dragging on, seemed each interminable while the beleaguered garrison watched the impassive horizon and awaited developments, and hoped against hope. The wonted routine came to be abridged of necessity; the men on their reduced fare were incapable of drill duty; the best hope was that they might make shift to stand to their arms should a sudden attack require the exertion of all their reserve force in the imminent peril of their lives. The diet of horse-flesh proved not only unpalatable but insanitary, perhaps because the animals had thus far shared the physical distresses of the siege, and were in miserable plight, and there were as many men on the sick list as the hospital could accommodate; this misfortune was mitigated to a degree when Choo-qualee-qualoo brought another bag of beans to the hero of the long-range flirtation, and he generously offered to share the food with his fellow-sufferers. Odalie suggested its devotion to hospital uses; and a few days of a certain potage which she compounded of the beans and her economic French skill, and administered with her own hands to the invalids, with her own compassionate smiles, and with a sauce of cheering words, put a number of the stouter fellows on their feet again.

The efforts to amuse and entertain had given way under the stress of a misery that could form no compact with mirth, but from time to time the officers made short spirited addresses to the troops to animate and encourage their hope, and continue to the utmost their power of resistance. And the exhalation of every sigh was with a thought of South Carolina, and the respiration of every breath was with a prayer toward Virginia.

As the number of horses had greatly diminished, and the discovery was made that certain lean dogs had gone to the kitchen on an errand far different from the one that used to lure them to the pots, about which they had been wont to greedily and piteously snuff and whine, the quiescent waiting and reliance on the judgment and the capacity of the commandant to extricate the garrison from this perilous plight gave way anew. Criticisms of the management grew rife. The return of Hamish MacLeod, at the moment when starvation seemed imminent, and his instant departure at so great a peril, for the circumstances of his escape had been learned by the soldiers from the confidences of Choo-qualee-qualoo to young Eske, who was always free with his tongue, implied that Hamish's earlier mission had failed, and that no troops were now on the march to their succor. They, too, had seen the capering Indian in the red coat of an officer of rank, the lace cravat of a man of quality which Choo-qualee-qualoo flourished, and they deduced a shrewd surmise of Montgomery's repulse. The men who had earliest revolted against the hardships now entertained rebellious sentiments and sought to foster them in others. Although, as ringleaders in the food riot, they had been summarily placed in irons, their punishment had been too brief perhaps for a salutary moral effect. Demere's severity was always theoretical,--a mental attitude one might say. The hardship of adding shackles to the agonies of slow starvation so preyed upon his heart that he had ordered the prisoners released before a sober reflection had done its full work. The exemplary conduct, for a time, of the culprits had no sufficient counterpart in chastened hearts, for they nourished bitterness and secretly agitated mutiny.

The crisis came one morning when the meager supply of repulsive food had shrunken to the scope of a few days' rations, the quantity always dwindling in a regularly diminishing ratio; it had recently barely enabled the men to sustain the usual guard duty, and they lay about the parade at other times, or at full length on the porches of the barracks, too feeble and dispirited to stir hand or foot without necessity. Corporal O'Flynn, one of the few officers fit for duty, with a shade of pallor on his face a trifle more ghastly than that of starvation, reported that five men had failed to respond to roll-call, and upon investigation it was found that they had burrowed out of the fort in the darkness, seeking to desert to the enemy, but their intentions being mistaken, or their overtures scorned, they had been stabbed and scalped at the edge of the forest, and there their bodies were visible in the early rays of the sun.

"May become unpleasant when the wind shifts," remarked Stuart easily, and without emotion apparently, "but we are spared the duties of punishing deserters according to their deserts."

Demere's face had shown a sudden nervous contraction but resumed its fixed reserved expression, and he said nothing.

Corporal O'Flynn's report, however, was not yet exhausted. He hesitated, almost choked. The blood rushed so scarlet to his face that one might have wondered, at the show it made, that he had so much of that essential element in circulation in his whole thin body. He lifted his voice as if to urge the concentration of Stuart's attention which seemed so casual--he had it the next moment.

"I feel like a traitor in tellin' it, sor," said O'Flynn, "I'm just one of the men meself, an' it breaks me heart intirely to go agin 'em with the officers. But me duty as a soldier is to the commandant of the fort, an' as a man to the poor women an' childer."

He choked again, so reluctant was he in unfolding the fact that this was but the first step, providentially disastrous, of a plan by which the fort and the officers were to be abandoned, the rank and file determining to throw themselves on the mercy of the savages, since even to die at their hands was better than this long and futile waiting for succor. Through Choo-qualee-qualoo some negotiations with the enemy had been set on foot, of which O'Flynn was unaware hitherto, being excluded from their councils as a non-commissioned officer, but after the result of the desertion in the early hours before dawn, Daniel Eske, thoroughly dismayed, had once more reverted to his reliance on the superior wisdom of the commandant, and had seen fit to disclose the state of affairs to the corporal, whose loyalty to his superior officers was always marked.

O'Flynn was commended, cautioned to be silent, and the door closed.

The two captains looked blankly at one another.

"The catastrophe is upon us," said Stuart. "Fort Loudon must fall."

In this extremity a council of war was held. Yet there seemed no course open even to deliberation. On the one hand rose mutiny, starvation, and desertion; but to surrender to such an enemy as the Cherokees meant massacre. Their terrible fate held them in a remorseless clutch! At last, with some desperate hope, such as the unsubstantial illusion with which drowning men catch at straws, that the Indians might make and keep terms, it was agreed that Captain Stuart, at his earnest desire, should be the officer to treat with the enemy and secure such terms of capitulation as they could be induced to hold forth.

It might be imagined that the little band of officers, in their hard stress, had become incapable of any further vivid emotion, but in vicarious terror they watched Stuart step forth boldly and alone from the sally-port, a white flag in his hand, and arrayed, in deference to the Indians' love of ceremony and susceptibility to compliment, in full uniform.

He stood on the parapet of the covered way, motionless and distinct, in the clear light of the morning, against the background of the great red clay embankments. He was evidently seen, for through a spy-glass Demere in the block-house tower noted the instant stillness that fell like a spell upon the Indian line; the figures of the warriors, crouching or erect, seemed petrified in the chance attitude of the moment. That he was instantly recognized by skulking scouts in the woods was as evident. His tall, sinewy figure; his long, dense, blond hair, with its heavy queue hanging on the shoulders of his red coat; a certain daring, martial insouciance of manner, sufficiently individualized him to the far-sighted Cherokees, and the white flag in his hand--a token which they understood, although they did not always respect it--intimated that developments of moment in the conduct of the siege impended.

There was no sudden shrill whistling of a rifle ball, and Demere, thinking of the fate of Coytmore on the river-bank at Fort Prince George, began to breathe more freely. A vague sense of renewed confidence thrilled through the watching group. Stuart had stipulated that he should go alone--otherwise he would not make the essay. The presence of two or three armed men, officers of the fort, intimated suspicion and fear, incurred danger, and yet, helpless among such numbers, afforded no protection. The others had yielded to this argument, for he knew the Indian character by intuition, it would seem. He was relying now, too, upon a certain personal popularity. He had somehow engaged the admiration of the Indians, yet without disarming their prejudice--a sort of inimical friendship. They all realized that any other man would have now been lying dead on the glacis with a bullet through his brain, if but for the sheer temptation to pick him off neatly as a target of uncommon interest, whatever his mission might have betokened.

How to accomplish this mission became a problem of an essential solution, and on the instant. Not a figure stirred of the distant Cherokee braves; not one man would openly advance within range of the great guns that carried such terror to the Indian heart. Stuart stood in momentary indecision, his head thrown back, his chin up, his keen, far-seeing gray-blue eyes fixed on the motionless Indian line. Through the heated August air the leaves of the trees seemed to quiver; the ripples of the river scintillated in the sun; not a breath of wind stirred; on the horizon the solidities of the Great Smoky Mountains shimmered ethereal as a mirage.

Suddenly Stuart was running, lightly, yet at no great speed; he reached the river-bank, thrust a boat out from the gravel, and with the flag of truce waving from the prow he pushed off from the shore, and began to row with long, steady strokes straight up the river. He was going to Chote!

The observers at Fort Loudon, petrified, stared at one another in blank amazement. The observers at the Cherokee camp were freed from their spell. The whole line seemed in motion. All along the river-bank the braves were speeding, keeping abreast of the swift little craft in the middle of the stream. The clamors of the guttural voices with their unintelligible exclamations came across the water.

It was like the passing of a flight of swallows. In less than five minutes the boat, distinctly visible, with those salient points of color, the red coat and the white flag against the silver-gray water, had rounded the bend; every Indian runner was out of sight; and the line of warriors had relapsed into their silent staring at the fort, where the garrison dragged out three hours of such poignant suspense as seldom falls to the lot of even unhappy men.

The sun's rays deepened their intensity; the exhausted, half-famished sentries dripped with perspiration, the effects of extreme weakness as well as of the heat, as they stood shouldering their firelocks and anxiously watching from the loop-holes of the block-house towers, the roofs of which, blistering in the sun, smelled of the wood in a close, breathless, suffocating odor which their nerves, grown sensitive by suffering, discriminated like a pain. The men off duty lay in the shadow of the block-houses, for the rows of trees had vanished to furnish fuel for the kitchen, or on the porches of the barracks, and panted like lizards; the officers looked at one another with the significance of silent despair, and believed Stuart distraught. Demere could not forgive himself that he had been persuaded to agree that Stuart should appear. Beyond the out-works, however, they had had no dream of his adventuring. To try the effect of a personal appearance and invitation to a conference was the extent of the maneuver as it was planned. There was scant expectation in Fort Loudon that he would be again seen alive.

When the tension of the sun began to slacken and the heat to abate; when the wind vaguely flapped the folds of the flag with a drowsing murmur, as if from out of sleep; when the chirr of the cicada from the woods grew vibratory and strident, suggestive of the passing of the day's meridian, and heralding the long, drowsy lengths of the afternoon to come, the little boat, with that bright touch of scarlet, shot out from behind the wooded bend of the river, and in a few minutes was beached on the gravel and Stuart was within the gates of Fort Loudon.

He came with a face of angry, puzzled excitement that surprised his brother officers, whose discrimination may have been blunted in the joy of his safe and unexpected return and the fair promises of the terms of capitulation he had secured. Never had a vanquished enemy been more considerately and cordially entreated than he at Chote. Oconostota and Cunigacatgoah had come down to the river-bank on the news of his approach and had welcomed him like a brother. To the great council-hall he was taken, and not one word would Oconostota hear of his mission till food was placed before him,--fish and fowl, bread, and a flask of wine!

"And when Oconostota saw that I had been so nearly starved that I could hardly eat--Lord!--how his eyes twinkled!" cried Stuart, angrily.

But Oconostota had permitted himself to comment on the fact. He said that it had grieved him to know of the sufferings from famine of his brother and the garrison--for were they not all the children of the same Great Father! But Captain Stuart must have heard of the hideous iniquities perpetrated by the British Colonel in burning the Cherokee towns in the southern region, where many of the inhabitants perished in the flames, and slaying their warriors who did naught but defend their own land from the invaders--the land which the Great Spirit had given to the Cherokees, and which was theirs. And, now that the terrible Colonel Montgomery had been driven out with his hordes, still reeking with Cherokee blood, it was but fit that the Cherokees should take possession of Fort Loudon, which was always theirs, built for them at their request, and paid for with their blood, shed in the English service, against the enemies of the English colonists, the French, who had always dealt fairly with the Cherokees.

Captain Stuart bluntly replied that it did not become him to listen to reflections upon the methods in which British commanders had seen fit to carry out the instructions of the British government. They had, doubtless, acted according to their orders, as was their duty. For his own mission, although Fort Loudon could be held some space longer, in which time reenforcements, which he had reason to think were on the march, might come to its relief, the officers had agreed that the sufferings of the garrison were such that they were not justified in prolonging their distress, provided such terms of capitulation could be had as would warrant the surrender of the fort.

As the interpreter, with the wooden voice, standing behind the chief, gabbled out this rebuke of the Cherokee king's aspersions on Montgomery, Stuart's ever quick eye noted an expression on the man's face, habitually so blank and wooden,--he remembered it afterward,--an expression almost applausive. Then his attention was concentrated on the circumlocutions of Oconostota, who, in winding phrase almost affectionate, intimated the tender truth that, without waiting for these reenforcements, the enfeebled garrison could be overpowered now and destroyed to the last man by a brisk onslaught, the Cherokees taking the place by storm.

Stuart shook his head, and his crafty candor strengthened the negation.

"Not so long as the great guns bark," he declared. "They are the dogs of war that make the havoc."

Then Oconostota, with that greed of the warlike Cherokee for the details concerning this great arm of the British service, the artillery, always coveted by the Indians, yet hardly understood, listened to a description of the process by which these guns could be rendered useless in a few minutes by a despairing garrison.

Their cannoneers could spike them after firing the last round. And of what value would the fort be to the Cherokees without them,--it would be mere intrenchments with a few dead men,--the most useless things under the sun. The English government would bring new guns, and level the works in a single day. The great chief knew the power of England. In the days when Moy Toy sent his delegation to London, of which he and Atta-Kulla-Kulla were members, to visit King George, they had seen the myriads of people and had heard many great guns fired in salute to the princely guests, and had assisted at the review of thousands and thousands of soldiers.

And with the reminder of all these overpowering military splendors of his great enemy, Oconostota began to feel that he would be glad to secure possession of these few of King George's great guns uninjured, fit to bark, and, if occasion should offer, to bite.

From that point the negotiation took a stable footing. With many a crafty recurrence on the part of Stuart to the coveted artillery at every balking doubt or denial, it was agreed that the stronghold should be evacuated;--"That the garrison of Fort Loudon march out with their arms and drums, each soldier having as much powder and ball as their officer shall think necessary for their march, and all the baggage they may chuse to carry: That the garrison be permitted to march to Virginia or Fort Prince George, as the commanding officer shall think proper, unmolested; and that a number of Indians be appointed to escort them and hunt for provisions during their march: That such soldiers as are lame or by sickness disabled from marching, be received into the Indian towns and kindly used until they recover, and then be allowed to return to Fort Prince George: That the Indians do provide for the garrison as many horses as they conveniently can for their march, agreeing with the officers and soldiers for payment: That the fort, great guns, powder, ball, and spare arms, be delivered to the Indians without fraud or further delay on the day appointed for the march of the troops."

These terms of capitulation were signed by Paul Demere, Oconostota, and Cunigacatgoah, and great was the joy the news awoke among the garrison of Fort Loudon. The sick arose from their beds; the lame walked, and were ready to march; almost immediately, in the open space beneath the terrible great guns, were men,--settlers, soldiers, and Indians,--trying the paces of horses, and chaffering over the terms of sale. Provisions were brought in; every chimney sent up a savory reek. Women were getting together their little store of valuables in small compass for the journey. Children, recently good from feeble incapacity to be otherwise, were now healthily bad, fortified by a generous meal or two. And Fifine was stroking the cat's humped back, as the animal munched upon the ground bits of meat thrown prodigally away, and telling her that now she would not be eaten,--so had that terror preyed upon the motherly baby heart! Odalie had some smiling tears to shed for Hamish's sake, in the earnest hope that he might be as well off, and those whom she had consoled in affliction now in their prosperity sought to console her. The officers were hilarious. They could hardly credit their own good fortune--permitted to surrender Fort Loudon, after its gallant defense to the last extremity, to the savage Cherokees, upon just such terms as would have been dictated by a liberal and civilized enemy! Demere, after the first burst of reproach that Stuart should have so recklessly endangered himself, and of joy that his mission had been so successfully accomplished, was cheerfully absorbed in destroying such official papers as, falling into the hands of the French, might be detrimental to the British interest. Of them all, only Stuart was doubtful, angry, disconsolate. Perhaps because some fiber of sensitive pride, buried deep, had been touched to the quick by Oconostota's ill-disguised triumph; or he realized that he had labored long here, and suffered much uselessly, and but for the threatened desertion of the garrison felt that the fort might still be held till relief could reach it; or he was of the temperament that adorns success, or even stalwart effort, but is blighted by failure; or he was only staggered by the completeness of his prosperous negotiations with the Cherokees and doubtful of their good faith,--at all events he had lost his poise. He was gloomy, ruminative, and broke out now and again with futile manifestations of his disaffection.

Demere, burning letter-books and other papers on the hearth of the great chimney-place of the hall, looked up from the table where he sorted them to remind Stuart, as he strode moodily to and fro, not to leave things of value to fall into the hands of the enemy. Stuart paused for a moment with a gloomy face. Then, "They shall not have this," he said angrily. The little red silk riding-mask, that was wont to look down from the wall, null and inexpressive, with no suggestion in its vacant, sightless orbs of the brightness of vanished eyes, with no faint trace of the fair face that it had once sheltered, save as memory might fill the blank contour, began to blaze humbly as he thrust it among the burning papers on the hearth. An odd interpretation of things of value, certainly--a flimsy memento of some bright day, long ago, and far away, when, not all unwelcome, he had ridden at a lady's bridle-rein. Demere looked at him with sudden interest, seemed about to speak, checked himself and said nothing. And thus with this souvenir the romance of Stuart's life perished unstoried.

More characteristic thoughts possessed him later. He came to Demere's bedside that night as he lay sleeping in quiet peace, even his somnolent nerves realizing the prospect of release. Stuart roused him with a new anxiety. There was a very considerable quantity of powder in the fort, far more than the Indians, unacquainted with the large charges required for cannon, suspected that they possessed. By surrendering this great supply of powder, Stuart argued, as well as the guns, they only postponed not precluded their destruction. Brought down with the guns to Fort Prince George in the hands of French cannoneers, this ample supply of artillery would easily level those works with the ground. The French officers, who they had reason to suspect were lurking in the Lower Towns, would be unlikely to have otherwise so large a store of ammunition in reach, capable of maintaining a siege, and before this could be procured for the service of the surrendered cannon some reenforcements to the commandant of Fort Prince George would arrive, or an aggressive expedition be sent out from South Carolina.

"At all events this quantity of powder in the hands of the Cherokees makes it certain that a siege of Fort Prince George will follow close on the fall of Fort Loudon," Stuart declared.

Demere raised himself on his elbow to gaze at Stuart by the light of the flickering candle which the visitor held in his hand.

"I am afraid that you are right," Demere said, after a grave pause. "But how can we help it?"

"Hide the powder,--hide it," said Stuart excitedly. "Bury it!"

"Contrary to the stipulations and our agreement," returned Demere.

Stuart evidently struggled with himself. "If these fiends," he exclaimed,--the triumph of Oconostota had gone very hard with him,--"were like any other enemy we could afford to run the chance. But have we the right to submit the commandant of Fort Prince George and his garrison--to say nothing of ourselves and our garrison, hampered as we are with women and children, taking refuge with him,--to the risk of siege and massacre, fire and torture, compassed by materials practically furnished by us,--on a delicate question of military ethics?"

"If we do not keep our word, how can we expect Oconostota to keep his word?" asked Demere.

"But do we really expect it? Have we any guarantee?"

Once more Stuart hesitated, then suddenly decided. "But if you have scruples"--he broke off with a shrug of the shoulders. "I should leave Oconostota enough powder to amuse him with the guns for a while, but not enough to undertake a siege. The government will surely occupy this place again. I expect to find the powder here when I come back to Fort Loudon."

His words were prophetic, although neither knew it. He cast a hasty glance at Demere, who again objected, and Stuart went out of the door saying nothing further, the draught flickering, then extinguishing, the flame of the candle in his hand.

It was very dark about midnight when the whole place lay locked in slumber. The sentries, watchful as ever in the block-house towers and at the chained and barred gates, noted now and again shadowy figures about the region of the southeast bastion,--the old exhausted smoke-house had been in that locality,--and thence suppressed voices sounded occasionally in low-toned, earnest talk. No light showed save in glimpses for a while through the crevices in the walls of the building itself, and once or twice when the door opened and was suddenly shut. There Corporal O'Flynn and three soldiers and Captain Stuart himself, armed with mattocks, dug a deep trench in the tough red clay, carefully drawing to one side the dead ashes and cinders left by the fires of his earnest preparations against the siege. Then the lights were extinguished, and from the great traverse, in which was the powder magazine, they brought ten heavy bags of powder, and laid them in the trench, covering them over with the utmost caution, lest a mattock strike a spark from a stone here and there in the earth. At last, still observing great care, they tramped the clay hard and level as a floor, and spread again the ashes and cinders over the upturned ground, laying the chunks of wood together, as they had burnt half out after the last fire many weeks ago.

When Captain Stuart inveigled Captain Demere thither the next morning, on some pretext concerning the removal of the troops, he was relieved to see that although Demere was most familiar with the place he had not even the vaguest suspicion of what lay under his feet, for this was the best test as to whether the work had been well done. It was only at the moment of departure, of rendering up the spare arms, and serving out ammunition to the soldiers for the journey, that he was made aware how mysteriously the warlike stores had shrunken, but Oconostota's beadlike eyes glistened with rapture upon attaining the key of the magazine with its hoard of explosives, unwitting that it had ever contained more.

The soldiers went out of the gates in column, in heavy marching order, their flags and uniforms making a very pretty show for the last time on the broad open spaces about Fort Loudon. For the last time the craggy banks and heavily wooded hills of the Tennessee River echoed to the beat of the British drums. Behind, like a train of gypsies, were the horses purchased from the Indians, on which were mounted the women and little girls, with here and there a sick soldier, unable to keep his place in the ranks and guyed by his comrades with reviving jollity, in the face of hope and freedom, as "a squaw-man." The more active of the children, boys chiefly, ran alongside, and next in order came the settlers, now in column as "fencibles," and again one or two quitting the ranks to cuff into his proper place some irrepressible youngster disposed to wander. In the rear were the Indian safe-guards through the Cherokee nation, with their firelocks and feathers and scanty attire that suggested comfort this hot day. For the August sun shone from a sky of cloudless blue; a wind warm but fresh met them going the other way; the dew was soon dried and the temperature rose; the mountains glimmered ethereally azure toward the east with a silver haze amongst the domes and peaks, and toward the west they showed deeply and densely purple, as the summit lines stretched endlessly in long parallel levels.

And so these pioneers and the soldiers set forth on their way out of the land that is now Tennessee, to return no more; wending down among the sun-flooded cane-brakes, and anon following the trail through the dense, dark, grateful shades of the primeval woods. So they went to return no more,--not even in the flickering guise of spectral visitants to the scenes that knew them once,--scarcely as a vague and vagrant memory in the country where they first planted the home that cost them so dearly and that gave them but little.

Nevertheless, a hearty farewell it bestowed this morning,--for they sang presently as they went, so light and blithe of heart they were, and the crags and the hills, and the rocky banks of that lovely river, all cried out to them in varying tones of sweet echoes, and ever and again the boom of the drums beat the time. _

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