Robert W. Chambers

“ Sir Henry has placed a packet at our service. Can you not be persuaded—for my sake? It is our fond wish, Carus. How can a man be insensible to such wholesome loveliness as hers?"
"But—but she is a child—she has no heart! She is but a child yet—all caprice, innocence, and artless babble—and she loves not me, madam——"
"You love not her! Shame, sir! Open those brown blind eyes of yours, that look so wise and are so shallow if such sweetness as hers troubles not their depths! Oh, Carus, Carus, you make me too unhappy!"
"Idiot!" added Sir Peter, pinching my arm. ”

“ Right and left the forest sheered off and fell away; field on field, hill on hill, the blessed open stretched to a brimming river, silver and turquoise in the sunshine, and, beyond it, crowning three hills, the haven!—the old Dutch city, high-roofed, red-tiled, glimmering like a jewel in the November haze—Albany!
And now, as we breasted the ascent, far away we heard drums beating. A white cloud shot from the fort, another, another, and after a long while the dull booming of the guns came floating to us, mixed with the noise of bells.
Elsin heard and sat up. ”

“ You have used me, you have used my kin, my friends. Not that I blame you—nay, Mr. Renault, I admire, I applaud, I understand more than you think. I even count him brave who can go out as you have done, scornful of life, pitiless of friendships formed, reckless of pleasure, of what men call their code of honor; indifferent to the shameful death that hovers like a shadow, and the scorn of all, even of friends—for a spy has no friends, if discovered. All this, sir, I comprehend, spite of my few years which once—when we were friends—you in your older wisdom found amusing. ”

“ All must sacrifice to that principle, Carus. Have not the men of New York stood for it? Have not the men of Tryon given their all? I tell you, the army shall eat, but the bread they munch is made from blood-wet grain; and for every loaf they bake a life has been offered. Where is the New Yorker who has not faced what you are facing? At the crack of the ambushed rifle our people drop at the plow, and their dying eyes look upon wife and children falling under knife and hatchet. It must be so if the army is to eat and liberty live in this country we dare call our own. ”

“ I told you, Carus, that there is no happiness in love. And, just now, I love you. It is strange, is it not?—when aught threatens you, straightway I begin to sadden and presently fall in love with you; but when there's no danger anywhere, and I have nothing to sadden me, why, I'm not at all sure that I love you enough to pass the balance of the day in your companionship—only that when you are away I desire to know where you are and what you do, and with whom you walk and talk and laugh. Deary me! deary me! I know not what I want, Carus. Let us go to the Blue Fox and drink a dish of tea. ”

“ Elsin!" stammered Lady Coleville; "have you, too, gone mad?"
"This is my quarrel," she said, turning on me so fiercely that I stepped back. "If any shot is fired in deference to me, I fire it; if any bullet is sped to defend my honor, I speed it, gentlemen. Why"—and she turned like a flash upon Sir Peter—"why do you assume to interfere in this? Is not an honest man's duty to his own wife first? Small honor you do yourself or her!—scant love must you bear her to risk your life to chance in a quarrel that concerns not you!" ”

“ Are you Oneida, or are you a British subject of King George? Are you an Iroquois renegade of the renegade Oneida nation, or are you first of all an Iroquois of the Wolf-Clan? As a white man, you are the King's subject; as an Iroquois, you are still his subject. As an Oneida only, you must be as black a rebel as George Washington himself. That is the limpid logic of the matter, Mr. Renault. A belt to the Oneidas, and you become traitor to the Confederacy and a traitor to your King. ”

“ Lightly, gracefully as a tree-lynx, he stooped and seized his rifle, wheeled, passed noiselessly across the road, turned, and buried himself in the tufted bushes. For an instant the green tops swayed, then not a ripple of the foliage, not a sound marked the swift course of the naked belt-bearer through the uncharted sea of trees.
Mounting my roan, I wheeled him north at a slow walk, preoccupied, morose, sadly absorbed in this new order of things where an Oneida now must needs answer a Mohawk as an Iroquois should once have answered an Erie or an Algonquin. Alas for the great League! ”

“ You are pitifully young; you have life before you—the life of a white woman, with its chances, its desires, its aims, its right to happiness. Take it! I bid you be happy, little sister; I bid you hope!"
She turned her face and looked at me; the ghost of a smile trembled on her lips; then, inclining her head in the sweetest of salutes, she wheeled her horse out into the tremulous starlight. And after her stole the tall Oneida, rifle slanted across his naked shoulders, striding silently at her stirrup as she rode. ”

“ And when Sir Peter had asked me if Walter Butler was married, I had admitted it. Here was the matter already at a head, or close to it. Sudden uneasiness came upon me, as I began to understand how closely the affront touched Sir Peter. What would he do?
"What is it called, and by what name, Carus, when a man whose touch one can not suffer so dominates one's thoughts—as he does mine?"
"It is not love," I said gloomily.
"He swears it is. Do you believe there may lie something compelling in his eyes that charm and sadden—almost terrify, holding one pitiful yet reluctant?" ”

“ He mounted by the tavern window, and I saw him against the pallid sky in silhouette, riding slowly toward the city, Jessop beside him, and their horses' manes whipping the rising sea-wind from the west.
"What a nightmare this has been!" whispered Lady Coleville, her husband's hands imprisoned in her own. And to Elsin: "Child! what scenes have we dragged you through! Heaven forgive us!—for you have learned a sorry wisdom here concerning men!"
"I have learned," she said steadily, "more than you think, madam. Will you forgive me if I ask a word alone with Mr. Renault?" ”

“ I said, gazing in wonder at her ball-gown—pale turquoise silk, with a stomacher of solid brilliants and petticoat of blue and silver. "Elsin, I think I never saw so beautiful a maid in all my life, nor a beautiful gown so nobly borne."
"Do you really think so?" she asked, delighted at my bluntness. "And you, too, Carus—why, you are like a radiant one from the sky! I have ever thought you handsome, but not as flawless as you now reveal yourself. Lord! we should cut a swathe to-night, you and I, sir, blinding all eyes in our proper glitter. I could dance all night, and all day too! ”

“ He has chosen fire to fight fire, I think. Every thought, every nerve in me is directed to the ruin of this man. Waking, sleeping, in sickness, in health, in adversity, in prosperity, soul and body and mind are bent on his undoing. I shall speak to the Oneidas with clan authority; I shall speak to the Iroquois at Thendara; I shall listen to the long roll of the dead; I shall read the record of ages from the sacred belts. The eyes of the forest shall see for me; the ears of the wilderness listen for me; every tree shall whisper for me, every leaf spy for me ”

“ To and fro strode the Cayuga, heavy head bent; to and fro, pacing the circle like a stupefied panther. Once his luminous eyes gleamed on mine, shifted blankly to the Oneida, and thence along the motionless circle of painted faces. Mohawk, Seneca, Onondaga were there, forming half the circle; Oneida, Cayuga, and Tuscarora welded it to a ring. I glanced fearfully from ensign to ensign, but saw no Delaware present; and my heart leaped with hope. Walter Butler had lied to me; the Lenni-Lenape had never sat at this rite; his mongrel clan had no voice here. He had lied. ”

“ Carmody of the brigade staff gave me, unsolicited, his mature opinions upon game-fowl:
"Show me a bird of bold carriage, comb bright red and upright, eye full and bright, beak strong and in good socket, breast full, body broad at shoulder and tapering to tail, thigh short, round, and hard as a nail, leg stout, flat-footed, and spur low—a bird with bright, hard feathers, strong in a quill, warm and firm to the hand—and I care not what breed he be, spangle or black-red, I'll lay my last farthing with you, Mr. Renault, if it shall please you." ”

“ Renault."
"For lack of a Kissing-Bridge I must solve the pons asinorum, I see," said I, imprisoning her hands. There was a delicate hint of a struggle, a little cry, and I had kissed her. Breathless she looked at me; the smile grew fixed on her red lips.
"Your experience in such trifles is a blessing to the untaught," she said. "You have not crumpled a ribbon. Truly, Carus, only long and intense devotion to the art could turn you out a perfect master."
"My compliments to you, Elsin; I take no credit that your gown is smooth and the lace unruffled." ”

“ The Oneida stopped, stared, then drew his blanket around him and sat down at the foot of a great oak.
We had arrived at Thendara! Now, all around us in the dim glade, tall forms moved—spectral shapes of shadowy substance that drifted hither and thither, passing, repassing, melting into the gloom around, until I could scarce tell them from the shreds of marsh fog that rose and floated through the trees around us.
Slowly the heavens turned to palest gold, then to saffron. All about us shadowy throngs arose to face the rising sun. ”

“ Such an exhilaration of savage happiness seized me that I lost my head, and begged the Oneida to stop and let me set a flint and give the Royal Greens a shot or two; but the wily chief refused; and he was wise, for I should have known that the Sacandaga must already be a swarming nest of Johnson's foresters and painted savages.
The heat was terrific in the willows; sweat poured from the half-naked Oneida as he ran, and my hunting-shirt hung soaked, flapping across my thighs. ”

“ As I reached the rough shelter of fringing evergreen Mount and Little Otter stepped out; and I saw the giant forest-runner wink the tears away as he laid his huge finger across his lips.
"She sleeps as sweetly as a child," he whispered. "I told her you were coming. Oh, sir, it will tear your heart out to see her small white feet so bruised, and the soft, baby hands of her raw at the wrists, where they tied her at night.... Is he surely dead, sir, as they say?" ”

“ I said; "never fired a single shot in earnest, never heard the field-horn of the light infantry nor the cavalry-trumpet above the fusillade, never heard the officers shouting, the mad gallop of artillery, the yelling onset—why, I know nothing of the pleasures of strife, only the smooth deceit and bland hypocrisy, only the eavesdropping and the ignoble pretense! At times I can scarcely breathe in my desire to wash my honor in the rifle flames—to be hurled pell-mell among the heaving, straining mêlée, thrusting, stabbing, cutting my fill, till I can no longer hear or see. Four years, Elsin! ”

“ But there they were—those men of White Plains, of Princeton, of Camden, and of the Wilderness—the men of Long Island, and Germantown, and Stony Point!—there they were, wheeling by the right flank, wheeling by the left, marching and countermarching, drilling away, busy as bees in the July sun.
"Ah, Elsin," I said, "when they storm New York the man who misses that splendid climax will miss the best of his life—and never forget that he has missed it as long as he lives to mask his vain regret!" ”

“ And already lands cleared fifty years since have run out to the sandy subsoil; yet still the axes flash, still the great trees groan and fall, crashing through and smashing their helpless fellows; and in God's own garden waters shrink, and fire passes, and the deer flee away, and rain fails, because man passes in his folly, and the path of the fool is destruction.
Where Thendara was, green trees flourish to the glory of the Holder of Heaven.
Where the forest whitens with men, the earth mourns in ashes for the lost Thendara—Thendara! Thendara no more! ”

“ If specters walk, the accursed house must be alive with them—ghosts of the victims of old John Butler, wraiths dripping red from Cherry Valley—children with throats cut; women with bleeding heads and butchered bodies, stabbed through and through—and perhaps the awful specter of Lieutenant Boyd, with eyes and nails plucked out, and tongue cut off, bound to the stake and slowly roasting to death, while Walter Butler watched the agony curiously, interested and surprised to see a disemboweled man live so long! ”

“ I saw the lilacs, the bare-limbed locusts, the orchards, still brilliant with scarlet and yellow fruit, the long stone wall and hedge fence, the lawns intensely green.
"It is deserted," I said in a low voice.
"Hark!" breathed Elerson, ear to the wind. After a moment I heard a deadened report from the direction of the village, then another and another; and, spite of the adverse breeze, a quavering, gentle, sustained sound, scarce more than a vibration, that hung persistently in the air.
"By God!" gasped Elerson, "it's the bell at the jail! The enemy are here! Pull foot, sir! ”

“ I heard some one shout, "Willett has entered the town!" and the next instant the smashing roll of drums broke out in the street, echoing back from façade and palisade, and I heard the fifes and hunting-horns playing "Soldiers' Joy!" and the long double-shuffling of infantry on the run.
The icy current of desperation flowed back into every vein. My mind cleared; I passed a steady hand over my eyes, looked around me, and, drawing the ranger's whistle from my belt, set it to my lips. ”

“ I never did anything, yet they found me good enough for a gun captain, and they gave me a pair o' cannon, too. But, sir, there are other places with few to fill them—far too few, I assure you. Why, what a shame to set you with a noisy, galloping herd of helmets, chasing skinners and cowboys with a brace of gad-a-mercy pistols in your belt!—what a shame, I say, when in you there lie talents we seek in vain for among the thousand and one numskulls who can drill a battalion or maneuver a brigade! ”