Charles Egbert Craddock

“ Without there was more light than within. She could see the glistening surface of the parade in the moonbeams, shining like darkly lustrous glass with the rainfall, and beyond, the guard-house, near the gate. Its door stood broadly aflare, and the yellow radiance of the firelight fell on the sodden and soaked ground. But what surprised her at this hour was the number of figures astir.—Could there really be a demonstration of the Cherokees impending? she wondered, with a clutch of fear at the heart, hearing always the ominous chant from within—“Indians—Indians!” ”

“ Annandale. “They are ill at ease here at the fort,—the presence of the soldiers abashes and depresses them; they are much embittered by their late defeat.”
Mrs. Annandale shuddered. She was afraid of wind and lightning; of waters and ghosts; of signs and omens; of savages and mice; of the dark and of the woods; of gun-powder and a sword-blade.
“And are you not frightened of them, Mr. Raymond?” she quavered.
He stared in amazement, and Captain Howard, restored to good temper, cocked up his eyes humorously [10] at the young soldier. ”

“ Every word could be heard—every facial change discriminated. Mr. Morton stood as if half amused, one thumb thrust in his fob, his grizzled eye-brows elevated, his thin wisps of hair tossed about his bare poll, a smile on his face, listening with an indulgent meditative air to the inquiries of Rolloweh propounded in Cherokee, which, of course, he understood, and the sturdy cautious response of the British commandant. Captain Howard had not thought so much about Biblical matters since he sat and swung his feet in his callow days to be catechised by the nursery governess. ”

“ Mrs. Annandale had already turned to descend the ramp, and the captain-lieutenant remembered with a start to offer her his hand. He himself filled now the field of vision of the little schemer, though he had only eyes for Arabella. She came lightly down the steep incline without assistance, and once more he noted the pallid suspense in her face, the dilation of anxiety in her beautiful eyes. He had long ago been inured to the fierce suspense of frontier life, but he appreciated that to her untried heart it had all the poignancy of a realized grief. ”

“ The sun-rise gun smote the air with all its dull echoes booming after. The flag rose buoyantly to the tip of the staff. The Indian town of Old Keowee, on the opposite bank of the river, was all astir, and now and again the sonorous note of the conch-shell, a detail of the matutinal savage worship, blended oddly with the martial resonance of the British drums beating for roll-call as the garrison of Fort Prince George lined up in front of the barracks. ”

“ Human beings have a hard bargain in their vaunted reason.
There was none of the delight in the spring; none of the bliss of sheer existence in days so redundant of soft sheen, of sweet sound, of fragrant winds, of the stirring pulse of universal revivification; none of that trust in the future which is itself the logic of gratitude for the boons of the past, expressed in the hard-bitten faces of the head-men and in the serious eyes of the young officer when they sat in a circle around the fire in the centre of the council-house at Choté. ”

“ These were but the natural incidents of a soldier’s life; blows and bruises must needs be cogeners. She divined that his education and his commission were all of value at his command,—the younger son of a good family, but poor and proud,—and it was hard to live in a world of lace and powder on so slender an endowment. She began to hate the precise and priggish George Mervyn who roused him so, although the provocation came from Raymond, and she was already wondering at her father that this dashing man, who had a thousand appeals to a poetic imagination, stood no higher in favor. ”

“ Mrs. Annandale was not near enough to give her niece a warning pinch; from such admonitions against girlish candor Miss Howard’s delicate arm sometimes showed blue tokens. Like Mervyn, but with a different intent, the schemer tried to catch the young lady’s eye. Now she felt she could no longer contain her displeasure, and her anxiety lest the matter go further than prudence might warrant impaired her judgment.
“Dear me, Arabella,” she said, with an icy inflection, “one would think you are in love with the man.” ”

“ Raymond’s first feeling was an infinite relief. No illness menaced him, no obscure affection of the nerves or brain. Some art of conjuring,—some mechanical contrivance, was it?—they were employing to distract [327] his attention. In their folly and fatuity did they dream that they might thus undermine his purpose, or weaken his intellect, or destroy his sight, or work a spell upon him? He marked how they watched his every motion.
He looked vaguely, uncertainly, about the shadowy place, with its red wall. The decorated buffalo hides suspended on it showed dully against its rich uniform tint. ”

“ There was a guttural sarcastic laugh around the square, ceasing as Rolloweh resumed:
“But this is the religion for the Cherokees—that they may be meek and broken, and after the land fling the weapon, and wear the yoke and drag the chain. Men and brothers, the spirits of the dead will rise against you if you suffer this. It is not agreeable to the old beloved rites that we tolerate this serpent of the forked tongue to scoff at our ancient worship and bring in a new religion, manufactured for the free [162] and independent Cherokee, which means British rule.” ”

“ He accosted the old man in a cheery voice, speaking in English, that the crowd might catch no chance word of offence.
“Captain Howard presents his compliments, Reverend sir, and wishes me to say that we have a place in our boat, which is at your service, and we shall feel much honored if you will occupy it,” he said.
The old man, turning from the revilings and the insults heaped upon him by the savage rabble, must have felt an attraction toward the young, spirited face, and have softened to the sympathy in the ensign’s eyes, the respect that vibrated in every inflection of his voice. ”

“ Arabella clapped her hands like a child as she burst into melodious peals of laughter, and Raymond’s amusement at this travesty of archery was hardly less spontaneous. Though vastly superior, they showed themselves not grudging of their proficiency; they undertook to instruct Jerrold in correct methods, one standing on either side of him and both talking at once. Suddenly Raymond called out sharply to Arabella, cautioning her lest she pass between the archer and the target. ”

“ Annandale was not sentimental herself, but she was familiar with sentiment in others, and its proclivities for the destruction of peace. Aided by the fortuitous circumstances of the man’s absence and Mervyn’s monopoly of Arabella’s society, she had been as thoughtful, as far-sighted, as cautious as if she had custody of the treasure of a kingdom, but she determined that she would be more on her guard hereafter, and never let the mention of the man’s name intrude into the conversation. ”

“ To Mervyn’s amazement, the commandant met at the gates of Fort Prince George the first intimation of the burning of the granary, and the spirit in which Captain Howard received it might indicate that he expected to live exclusively on Indian meal for the rest of his life. His quick, keen glance as entering, he paused under the archway of the gate, taking a cursory view of the whole place, fell upon a vacancy where the gable of the granary used to show from over the sheds of the stables. ”

“ He had a prophetic intimation of the proffer even before it came.
“Since you scorn my necklace,” Tus-ka-sah said in Cherokee, “this—this—the nation will give you if you go not to Choté, beloved town.”
Raymond had never dreamed that his loyalty could be tempted by any treasure. He did not pique himself on his fidelity. It was too nearly the essence of his individuality, the breath of his life. An honest man cannot levy tribute for his integrity—he feels it a matter of course, impossible to be otherwise. ”

“ He had a wistful, pained look as he sought to justify himself, to explain the misunderstanding, and it cut Raymond to the heart. He was of the temperament which throws itself with ardor into the joys and griefs of others—especially he deprecated infinitely the sight of sorrow in the aged. Let the young wrestle with the woes of life—not when strength, and hope, and illusion are all gone! ”

“ Raymond’s mind bent to the conviction that there was no admixture of fancy in the sentry’s story. Whatever was the intent of the demonstration on the part of the Indians,—whether to rush the gate and overpower the guard, or merely the malicious joy in creating an alarm and a fierce relish of being an object of terror, or even, simpler still, a childish curiosity in the military routine of going the rounds—it was certainly a genuine fact and no vision, drowsy or drunken. ”

“ Many feet had trampled the snow hard on the parade, and there was as yet no sign of thaw. Feathery tufts hung between the points of the high stockade surmounting the ramparts and choked the wheels of the four small cannon that were mounted on each of the four bastions. The cheeks of the deep embrasures out of which their black muzzles pointed were blockaded with drifts, and the scarp and counterscarp were smooth, and white, and untrodden. ”

“ Thus it came about that when these two walked on the ramparts together on a fair afternoon, or when lights began to glimmer from the parlor windows in the purple dusk, there was a realization in the mess-room that the welcome might be scant even for well-meaning intruders, so in those precincts the cards were cut for Loo, and the punch was brewed, and the evening spent much as before there was ever a lovely lady and a lute’s sweet vibrations to gladden the air at Fort Prince George. ”

“ She set her cap to rights with both her white, delicate, wrinkled, trembling hands, and stared with wild half-comprehending eyes as the man presented the compliments of Lieutenants Bolt and Jerrold, and Ensigns Lawrence and Innis, who felt themselves vastly honored by her invitation to a game of Quadrille, and would have the pleasure of waiting upon her this evening at the hour Captain Howard had named.
She made an appropriate rejoinder, and she waited until the door had closed upon the messenger, for she rarely “capered,” as her maid called her angry antics, in the presence of outsiders. ”

“ The people of Keowee Town were not altogether proof against curiosity. From the vantage ground of the second men’s cabin Captain Howard could see stealthy figures, chiefly of women and children, peering out from doors or skulking behind bushes, all eyes directed toward the shallop rocking in a steely gleam of light [220] aslant upon a steely ripple of water, the only vivid chromatic tone in the neutral tinted scene.
There is a certain temperament which is incapable of sustaining success. ”

“ Mervyn had courteously offered his hand to assist her.
“Throttle him!” muttered the fierce little duenna. But the folds of the pelisse swung back in place as Arabella stood erect on the rampart and looked about her with interest. A violet-hued cloth was the fabric of this garment, and it was trimmed about the edges with a narrow band of swan’s-down. A hood of like material was on her head, and the glitter of her golden hair, rolled high, was framed by white down like some lingering wreath of the snow. It had indeed disappeared; the ramparts were clear; the foot-path hard-trodden ”

“ The lengthened discourse would be drawn out long after tattoo had sounded, and when the soldiers, constrained to keep to fixed hours, lay around the glowing coals like the spokes of a wheel, they still furtively watched the figure of the gay young commander, erect, alert, very wide awake in his dapper trim uniform, and his blanketed feather-tufted visitors, their eager faces shown by the fitful flicker and flare of the ensign’s fire. An icy bough would wave above them, and so chill was the intervening atmosphere that the leaping flames wrought no change in its glittering pendants. ”

“ The great strong timbers, capable of turning a musket-ball, the heavy low beams, all clear of cobwebs, for these military wights were great housekeepers, came first into view as she slowly ascended the rude stair; then she caught a glimpse of a star shining through a loop-hole in the wall, and she stood still for a moment in the cavernous place, with the candle in one hand and the other on the rough stair-rail, while she watched its white glister, and listened to the sullen drops falling from the eaves, and the continuous sobbing of the unreconciled wind ”

“ Arabella declared.
“You see nothing of it—this is absolutely nothing.”
“Why, I tremble to think even of the others,” said Arabella, and Mrs. Annandale had a sudden recollection of the distant figure of Raymond in a gallant pose as he stood in the bow of the foremost boat, taking off his cocked hat and bowing low to Arabella as he glimpsed her standing by the cannon at the embrasure, while the boat passed slowly beyond the range of the bastion. ”