CHAPTER XVII. I RETRACE MY STEPS.

CHAPTER XVII.

I RETRACE MY STEPS.

Next morning we passed through the foothills into an open meadow country. As I lifted up my eyes I saw for the first time the mountains near at hand. There they lay, not more than ten miles distant, woody almost to the summit, but with here and there a bold finger of rock pointing skywards. They looked infinitely high and rugged, far higher than any hills I had ever seen before, for my own Tinto or Cairntable would to these have been no more than a footstool. I made out a clear breach in the range, which I took to be old Studd's Clearwater Gap. The whole sight intoxicated me. I might dream of horrors in the low coast forests among their swampy creeks, but in that clear high world of the hills I believed lay safety. I could have gazed at them for hours, but Shalah would permit of no delay. He hurried us across the open meadows, and would not relax his pace till we were on a low wooded ridge with the young waters of the Rapidan running in a shallow vale beneath.

Here we halted in a thick clump of cedars, while he and Ringan went forward to spy out the land. In that green darkness, save by folk travelling along the ridge, we could not be detected, and I knew enough of Indian ways to believe that any large party would keep the stream sides. We lit a fire without fear, for the smoke was hid in the cedar branches, and some of us roasted corn-cakes. Our food in the saddle-bags would not last long, and I foresaw a ticklish business when it came to hunting for the pot. A gunshot in these narrow glens would reverberate like a cannon.

We dozed peacefully in the green shade, and smoked our pipes, waiting for the return of our envoys. They came towards sundown, slipping among us like ghosts.

Ringan signalled to me, and we put our coats over the horses' heads to prevent their whinnying. He stamped out the last few ashes of the fire, and Shalah motioned us all flat on our faces. Then I crawled to the edge of the ridge, and looked down through a tangle of vines on the little valley.

Our precautions had been none too soon, for a host was passing below, as stealthily as if it had been an army of the sheeted dead. Most were mounted, and it was marvellous to see the way in which they managed their horses, so that the beasts seemed part of the riders, and partook of their vigilance. Some were on foot, and moved with the long, loping, in-toed Indian stride. I guessed their number at three hundred, but what awed me was their array. This was no ordinary raid, but an invading army. My sight, as I think I have said, is as keen as a hawk's, and I could see that most of them carried muskets as well as knives and tomahawks. The war-paint glistened on each breast and forehead, and in the oiled hair stood the crested feathers, dyed scarlet for battle. My spirits sank as I reflected that now we were cut off from the Tidewater.

When the last man had gone we crawled back to the clump, now gloomy with the dusk of evening. I saw that Ringan was very weary, but Shalah, after stretching his long limbs, seemed fresh as ever.

"Will you come with me, brother?" he said. "We must warn the Rappahannock."

"Who are they?" I asked.

"Cherokees. More follow them. The assault is dearly by the line of the Rappahannock. If we hasten we may yet be in time."

I knew what Shalah's hastening meant. I suppose I was the one of us best fitted for a hot-foot march, and that that was the reason why the Indian chose me. All the same my heart misgave me. He ate a little food, while I stripped off the garments I did not need, carrying only the one pistol. I bade the others travel slowly towards the mountains, scouting carefully ahead, and promised that we should join them before the next sundown. Then Shalah beckoned me, and I plunged after him into the forest.

On our first visit to Ringan at the land-locked Carolina harbour I had thought Shalah's pace killing, but that was but a saunter to what he now showed me. We seemed to be moving at right angles to the Indian march. Once out of the woods of the ridge, we crossed the meadows, mostly on our bellies, taking advantage of every howe and crinkle. I followed him as obediently as a child. When he ran so did I; when he crawled my forehead was next his heel. After the grass-lands came broken hillocks with little streams in the bottoms. Through these we twisted, moving with less care, and presently we had left the hills and were looking over a wide, shadowy plain.

The moon was three-quarters full, and was just beginning to climb the sky. Shalah sniffed the wind, which blew from the south-west, and set off at a sharp angle towards the north. We were now among the woods again, and the tangled undergrowth tried me sore. We had been going for about three hours, and, though I was hard and spare from much travel in the sun, my legs were not used to this furious foot marching. My feet grew leaden, and, to make matters worse, we dipped presently into a big swamp, where we mired to the knees and often to the middle. It would have been no light labour at any time to cross such a place, pulling oneself by the tangled shrubs on to the rare patches of solid ground. But now, when I was pretty weary, the toil was about the limit of my strength. When we emerged on hard land I was sobbing like a stricken deer. But Shalah had no mercy. He took me through the dark cedars at the same tireless pace, and in the gloom I could see him flitting ahead of me, his shoulders squared, and his limbs as supple as a race-horse's. I remember I said over in my head all the songs and verses I knew, to keep my mind from my condition. I had long ago got and lost my second wind and whatever other winds there be, and was moving less by bodily strength than by sheer doggedness of spirit. Weak tears were running down my cheeks, my breath rasped in my throat, but I was in the frame of mind that if death had found me next moment my legs would still have twitched in an effort to run.

At an open bit of the forest Shalah stopped and looked at the sky. I blundered into him, and then from sheer weakness rolled on the ground. He grunted and turned to me. I felt his cool hand passing over my brow and cheek, and his fingers kneading the muscles of my forlorn legs. 'Twas some Indian device, doubtless, but its power was miraculous. Under his hands my body seemed to be rested and revived. New strength stole into my sinews, new vigour into my blood. The thing took maybe five minutes--not more; but I scrambled to my feet a man again. Indeed I was a better man than when I started, for this Indian wizardry had given me an odd lightness of head and heart. When we took up the running, my body, instead of a leaden clog, seemed to be a thing of air and feathers.

It was now hard on midnight, and the moon was high in the heavens. We bore somewhat to the right, and I judged that our circuit was completed, and that the time had come to steal in front of the Indian route. The forest thinned, and we traversed a marshy piece, of country with many single great trees. Often Shalah would halt for a second, strain his ears, and sniff the light wind like a dog. He seemed to find guidance, but I got none, only the hoot of an owl or the rooty smell of the woodland.

At last we struck a little stream, and followed its course between high banks of pine. Suddenly Shalah's movements became stealthy. Crouching in every patch of shade, and crossing open spaces on our bellies, we turned from the stream, surmounted a knoll, and came down on a wooded valley. Shalah looked westwards, held up his hand, and stood poised for a minute like a graven image. Then he grunted and spoke. "We are safe," he said. "They are behind us, and are camped for the night," How he knew that I cannot tell; but I seemed to catch on the breeze a whiff of the rancid odour of Indian war-paint.

For another mile we continued our precautions, and then moved more freely in the open. Now that the chief peril was past, my fatigue came back to me worse than ever. I think I was growing leg-weary, as I had seen happen to horses, and from that ailment there is no relief. My head buzzed like a beehive, and when the moon set I had no power to pick my steps, and stumbled and sprawled in the darkness. I had to ask Shalah for help, though it was a sore hurt to my pride, and, leaning on his arm, I made the rest of the journey.

I found myself splashing in a strong river. We crossed by a ford, so we had no need to swim, which was well for me, for I must have drowned. The chill of the water revived me somewhat, and I had the strength to climb the other bank. And then suddenly before me I saw a light, and a challenge rang out into the night.

The voice was a white man's, and brought me to my bearings. Weak as I was, I had the fierce satisfaction that our errand had not been idle. I replied with the password, and a big fellow strode out from a stockade.

"Mr. Garvald!" he said, staring. "What brings you here? Where are the rest of you?" He looked at Shalah and then at me, and finally took my arm and drew me inside.

There were a score in the place--Rappahannock farmers, a lean, watchful breed, each man with his musket. One of them, I mind, wore a rusty cuirass of chain armour, which must have been one of those sent out by the King in the first days of the dominion. They gave me a drink of rum and water, and in a little I had got over my worst weariness and could speak.

"The Cherokees are on us," I said, and I told them of the army we had followed.

"How many?" they asked.

"Three hundred for a vanguard, but more follow."

One man laughed, as if well pleased. "I'm in the humour for Cherokees just now. There's a score of scalps hanging outside, if you could see them, Mr. Garvald."

"What scalps?" I asked, dumbfoundered.

"The Rapidan murderers. We got word of them in the woods yesterday, and six of us went hunting. It was pretty shooting. Two got away with some lead in them, the rest are in the Tewawha pools, all but their topknots. I've very little notion of Cherokees."

Somehow the news gave me intense joy. I thought nothing of the barbarity of it, or that white men should demean themselves to the Indian level. I remembered only the meadow by the Rapidan, and the little lonely water-wheel. Our vow was needless, for others had done our work.

"Would I had been with you!" was all I said. "But now you have more than a gang of Meebaw raiders to deal with. There's an invasion coming down from the hills, and this is the first wave of it, I want word sent to Governor Nicholson at James Town. I was to tell him where the trouble was to be feared, and in a week you'll have a regiment at your backs. Who has the best horse? Simpson? Well, let Simpson carry the word down the valley. If my plans are working well, the news should be at James Town by dawn to-morrow."

The man called Simpson got up, saddled his beast, and waited my bidding. "This is the word to send," said I. "Say that the Cherokees are attacking by the line of the Rappahannock. Say that I am going into the hills to find if my fears are justified. Never mind what that means. Just pass on the words. They will understand them at James Town. So much for the Governor. Now I want word sent to Frew's homestead on the South Fork. Who is to carry it?"

One old fellow, who chewed tobacco without intermission, spat out the leaf, and asked me what news I wanted to send.

"Just that we are attacked," I said.

"That's a simple job," he said cheerfully. "All down the Border posts we have a signal. Only yesterday we got word of it from the place you speak of. A mile from here is a hillock within hearing of the stockade at Robertson's Ford. One shot fired there will tell them what you want them to know. Robertson's will fire twice for Appleby's to hear, and Appleby's will send on the message to Dopple's. There are six posts between here and the South Fork, so when the folk at Frew's hear seven shots they will know that the war is on the Rappahannock."

I recognized old Lawrence's hand in this. It was just the kind of device that he would contrive. I hoped it would not miscarry, for I would have preferred a messenger; but after all the Border line was his concern.

Then I spoke aside to Shalah. In his view the Cherokees would not attack at dawn. They were more likely to wait till their supports overtook them, and then, to make a dash for the Rappahannock farms. Plunder was more in the line of these gentry than honest fighting. I spoke to the leader of the post, and he was for falling upon them in the narrows of the Rapidan. Their victory over the Meebaws had fired the blood of the Borderers, and made them contemptuous of the enemy. Still, in such a predicament, when we had to hold a frontier with a handful, the boldest course was likely to be the safest. I could only pray that Nicholson's levies would turn up in time to protect the valley.

"Time passes, brother," said Shalah. "We came by swiftness, but we return by guile. In three hours it will be dawn. Sleep till then, for there is much toil before thee."

I saw the wisdom of his words, and went promptly to bed in a corner of the stockade. As I was lying down a man spoke to me, one Rycroft, at whose cabin I had once sojourned for a day.

"What brings the parson hereaways in these times?" he asked.

"What parson?" I asked.

"The man they call Doctor Blair."

"Great God!" I cried, "what about him?"

"He was in Stafford county when I left, hunting for schoolmasters. Ay, and he had a girl with him."

I sat upright with a start. "Where is he now?" I asked.

"I saw him last at Middleton's Ford. I think he was going down the river. I warned him this was no place for parsons and women, but he just laughed at me. It's time he was back in the Tidewater."

So long as they were homeward-bound I did not care; but it gave me a queer fluttering of the heart to think that Elspeth but yesterday should have been near this perilous Border. I soon fell asleep, for I was mighty tired, but I dreamed evilly. I seemed to see Doctor Blair hunted by Cherokees, with his coat-tails flying and his wig blown away, and what vexed me was that I could not find Elspeth anywhere in the landscape.

“One work. Many languages. One reading experience.”