A low cry ran through the crowd; then a drawing in of the breath, and a deep hush. Faces, tearful before, became suddenly pale now; the old women locked their withered hands, and sent dumb prayers to Heaven; the children huddled together and began to cry.
“That’s an awful sound,” said Aunt Polly, looking over the crowd. “Let every mother as has got a son up yonder, and every woman as has got a husband tu lose, kneel down with me and say the Lord’s Prayer; we women folks can’t fight, and I don’t know nothing else that we can do. Lord ’a’ massy on us!”
They fell upon their knees—old women, young wives, and little children—uttering broken fragments of prayer, and quaking to the sound of each volley that swept down the forest. At first the shots fell steadily and at intervals; then volley succeeded volley; hoarse cries, the more terrible from their faintness; then the awful war-whoop rose loud and fierce, sweeping all lesser sounds before it.
The words of prayer froze on those ashen lips; wild eyes looked into each other for one awful moment; the horror of that sound struck even anguish dumb; the shots died away, fainter and fainter; a moment’s hush, and then louder, shriller, and approaching the fort, came another whoop, prolonged into a sharp yell.
Old Mrs. Durkee rose from her knees; her voice rang out with tearful clearness over the crowd:
“Mothers, orphans, and widows, lift your faces to Heaven, for nothing but Almighty God can help us now.”
CHAPTER XXVI
THE BATTLE-FIELD
Fired with stern enthusiasm, three hundred men—a large proportion of them grey-haired and beyond their prime, the rest brave boys—had filed out from the fort and organized on the banks of a small stream, which winds its way from the mountains and falls into the Susquehanna, above Kingston. Six companies marched from the fort, and here the civil officers and justices of the court from Wilkesbarre joined them. After a brief consultation, Captain Durkee, Ransom and Lieutenants Ross and Wells, were sent forward to reconnoitre. As their horses thundered off, the Wyoming companies approached separately, and filed into columns; there was the pallor of stern courage in every face; a gleam of desperate energy in every eye.
The march commenced; steadily and eagerly that little body of patriots moved forward; the hot sun poured down upon them; the unequal plain broke the regularity of their march; but the steady tramp of their approach never faltered; the youngest boy in the ranks grew braver as he passed the fort where his mother watched, and turned his face to the enemy; old, grey-headed men lifted their bent frames and grew eagle-eyed as they looked back towards the shelter of their dames, and onward for the foe.
Late in the afternoon they came in sight of Wintermoot’s Fort. The enemy was prepared to receive them: Colonel John Butler and his Rangers occupied the banks of the river between them and the fort, and all the black, marshy plain, stretching to the mountains, was alive with savages, led on by Gi-en-gwa-tah and Queen Esther. Indian marksmen stood at intervals along the line, and Johnson’s Royal Greens formed on Colonel’s Butler’s right.