Obrázky stránek
PDF
ePub
[ocr errors]

"T'ink that too; then stay where you be blockhouse good got no scalp."

[ocr errors]

"You believe, then, that I am safe here, at least until my father and his people return?

[ocr errors]

"Know so. No dare touch block-house in morning. Hark! all still now drink rum till head fall down, and

sleep like log."

"Might I not escape? Are there not several canoes on the island?-might I not get one, and go and give my father notice of what has happened?"

"Know how to paddle?" demanded June, glancing her eye furtively at her companion.

"Not so well as yourself, perhaps; but enough to get out of sight before morning."

"What do then?-could n't paddle six ten mile!"

[ocr errors][merged small]

"I do not know; I would do much to warn my father. and the excellent Pathfinder, and all the rest, of the danger they are in.”

"Like Pathfinder?"

"All like him who know him; you would like him, nay, love him, if you only knew his heart!"

"No like him at all. Too good rifle

too good eye

too much shoot Iroquois, and June's people. his scalp if can.'

99

Must get

In this respect,

"And I must save it if I can, June. then, we are opposed to each other. I will go and find a canoe the instant they are all asleep, and quit the island."

"No can - June won't let you. Call Arrowhead."

[ocr errors]

"June! you could not betray me; you would not give me up, after all you have done for me?"

"Just so," returned June, making a backward gesture with her hand, and speaking with a warmth and earnestness Mabel had never witnessed in her before. "Call Arrowhead in loud voice. One call from wife wake a warrior up. June no let Lily help enemy - no let Injin

hurt Lily."

"I understand you, June, and feel the nature and

justice of your sentiments; and after all, it were better that I should remain here, for I have most probably overrated my strength. But tell me one thing; if my uncle come in the night and ask to be admitted, you will let me open the door of the block-house that he may enter?"

"Sartain; he prisoner here, and June like prisoner better than scalp; scalp good for honor, prisoner good for feeling. But Salt-water hide so close, he don't know where he be himself."

Here June laughed in her girlish, mirthful way, for to her scenes of violence were too familiar to leave impressions sufficiently deep to change her natural character. A long and discursive dialogue now followed, in which Mabel endeavored to obtain clearer notions of her actual situation, under a faint hope that she might possibly be enabled to turn some of the facts she thus learned to advantage. June answered all her interrogatories simply, but with a caution which showed she fully distinguished between that which was immaterial, and that which might endanger the safety or embarrass the future operations of her friends. Our heroine was incapable of making an attempt to entrap her companion, though she plainly perceived that, could she have been guilty of the meanness, she would have found the undertaking one of extreme difficulty. June, however, was not required to exercise. more than a discreet discrimination about what she revealed; and the substance of the information she gave may be summed up as follows.

Arrowhead had long been in communication with the French, though this was the first occasion on which he had ever entirely thrown aside the mask. He no longer intended to trust himself among the English, for he had discovered traces of distrust, particularly in Pathfinder; and with Indian bravado he now rather wished to blazon than to conceal his treachery. He had led the party of warriors, in the attack on the island, subject, however, to the supervision of the Frenchman who has been mentioned, though June declined saying whether he had

been the means of discovering the position of a place that had been thought to be so concealed from the eyes of the enemy or not. On this point she would say nothing; but she admitted that she and her husband had been watching the departure of the Scud, at the time they were overtaken and captured by the cutter. The French had obtained their information of the precise position of the station but very recently; and Mabel felt a pang like that of some sharp instrument piercing her heart, when she thought that there were covert allusions of the Indian woman, which would convey the meaning that the intelligence had come from a paleface in the employment of Duncan of Lundie. This was intimated, however, rather than said. - and when Mabel had time to reflect on her companion's words, and to remember how sententious and brief her periods were, she found room to hope that she had misunderstood her, and that Jasper Western would yet come out of the affair freed from every injurious imputation.

June did not hesitate to confess that she had been sent to the island to ascertain the precise number, and the occupations of those who had been left on it; though she also betrayed, in her naïve way, that the wish to serve Mabel had induced her principally to consent to come. In consequence of her report, and information otherwise obtained, the enemy was aware of precisely the force that could be brought against them; they also knew the number of men that had gone with Sergeant Dunham, and were acquainted with the object he had in view, though they were ignorant of the spot where he expected to meet the French boats. It would have been a pleasant sight to witness the eager desire of each of these two sincere females to ascertain all that might be of consequence to their respective friends, and yet the native delicacy with which each refrained from pressing the other to make revelations that would have been improper, as well as the sensitive, almost intuitive feeling with which each avoided saying aught that might prove injurious to her own nation: as respects each other,

there was perfect confidence; as regarded their respective people, entire fidelity. June was quite as anxious as Mabel could be on any other point, to know where the sergeant had gone, and when he was expected to return; but she abstained from putting the question, with a delicacy that would have done honor to the highest civilization; nor did she once frame any other inquiry, in a way to lead, indirectly, to a betrayal of the much desired information, on that particular point; though, when Mabel, of her own accord, touched on any matter that might, by possibility, throw a light on the subject, she listened with an intentness that almost suspended respira

tion.

In this manner, the hours passed away unheeded; for both were too much interested to think of rest. Nature asserted her rights, however, towards morning; and Mabel was persuaded to lie down on one of the straw beds provided for the soldiers, where she soon fell into a deep sleep. June lay near her; and a quiet reigned on the whole island, as profound as if the dominion of the forest had never been invaded by man.

When Mabel awoke, the light of the sun was streaming in through the loop-holes; and she found that the day was considerably advanced. June still lay near her, sleeping as tranquilly as if she reposed on we will not say down, for the superior civilization of our own times repudiates the simile but on a French mattress; and as profoundly as if she had never experienced concern. The movements of Mabel, notwithstanding, soon awakened one so accustomed to vigilance; and then the two took a survey of what was passing around them, by means of the friendly apertures.

CHAPTER XXIII.

What had the Eternall Maker need of thee,
The world in his continuall course to keepe,
That doest all things deface? ne lettest see
The beautie of his worke? Indeede in sleepe,
The slouthfull body that doth love to steepe
His lustlesse limbs, and drowne his baser mind,
Doth praise thee oft, and oft from Stygian deepe,
Calles thee his goddesse, in his errour blind,

And great dame Nature's hand-maide, chearing every kind.
SPENSER: The Faerie Queene.

[ocr errors]

THE tranquillity of the previous night was not contradicted by the movements of the day. Although Mabel and June went to every loop-hole, not a sign of the presence of a living being on the island was at first to be seen, themselves excepted. There was a smothered fire on the spot where McNab and his comrades had cooked, as if the smoke that curled upwards from it was intended as a lure to the absent, and all around the huts had been restored to former order and arrangement. Mabel started involuntarily, when her eye at length fell on a group of three men, dressed in the scarlet of the 55th, seated on the grass, in lounging attitudes, as if they chatted in listless security; and her blood curdled, as, on a second look, she traced the bloodless faces and glassy eyes of the dead. They were quite near the blockhouse; so near, indeed, as to have been overlooked at the first eager inquiry; and there was a mocking levity in their postures and gestures, for their limbs were stiffening in different attitudes, intended to resemble life, at which the soul revolted. Still, horrible as these objects were to those near enough to discover the frightful discrepancy between their assumed and their real characters, the arrangement had been made with an art that would have deceived a negligent observer, at the distance of a hundred yards. After carefully examining the shores of the island, June pointed out to her companion the fourth soldier, seated with his feet hanging over the water, his back fastened to a sapling, and holding a fish

« PředchozíPokračovat »