Murray saw that no time was to be lost. He sprang to her side and steered round the island as rapidly as her impatient spirit could demand, though his superior coolness kept them from danger which she would have braved. By rowing close within the shadows of the island he escaped observation from the Indians; and those two persons who had been a destiny each to the other, sat alone, side by side, without speaking a word, and with scarcely a thought of each other. The lives of more than fifty persons were in peril, and among them Catharine had two children—the Indian girl, already on her path of mercy, and the gentle deformed, whom she was to call child for the first time.
They landed on the eastern shore of the island. Murray was drawing the canoes half on land, while Catharine dashed forward, expecting every instant to meet Tahmeroo with the family she had come to save. But instead of the females she sought, a half dozen men, white as death, with bloodshot eyes and hair erect with terror, dashed by, aiming for the gully on the eastern shore. They were fugitives from the battle, and reeled with the terrible exhaustion of swimming the river as they passed her with wild, staggering bounds.
They saw her Indian dress, swerved with a despairing cry, and fell upon their faces.
“On, on!” cried Catharine, waving her hand as she ran towards the house; “I am no enemy. In the name of heaven, save yourselves!”
They started up again, and rushed to the river—saw the canoes half in the water, half upon the land—pushed them into the stream, dashed Murray aside, and sent him reeling back against the trunk of a tree, when he attempted to interfere, and, tumbling over each other in desperate haste, pushed off, leaving the family on the island, and those who had come to save them, in a more desperate situation than ever.
CHAPTER XXVII
THE WARNING AND FLIGHT
All that day Mary Derwent, her grandmother, and sister remained alone in the house. They heard the mustering battle, the sharp strife, and the scattering horrors of the rout that followed. Towards nightfall the plain grew foggy from the smoke which began to rise and spread from the smouldering fort. The yells and sharp rifle-shots came close to the shore and rang with horrible distinctness over the island.
The two girls were on their knees by the window, looking out between the fragments of prayer which fell from their pale lips, and quaking from soul to limb, as the savage yells came nearer and nearer the shore.
Mother Derwent was affected differently, and, bringing down an old rusty rifle that had belonged to her son, set to work and scoured out the lock, and wiped the muzzle with a piece of oiled deer-skin, which she afterwards wrapped around her bullets when she was ready to load; and such a charge it was—what with powder, wadding, buck-shot, and bullets, the old rifle was as good as a cannon, only it was a great deal more likely to beat the old woman’s brains out by vicious recoil than pour all that amount of lead upon the enemy. Still, Mother Derwent waxed valiant as the danger grew near, and, with every war-whoop, put in a new charge, pushing it down with a stick from her swifts, which was the best ramrod to be found, and waited for another whoop to load again.
“Come, gals, don’t be sitting there, scared to death; that ain’t no way to act in wartime. Don’t you see my ammunition’s give out a’ready? Bring out the pewter tea-pot, and I’ll melt it down. Oh, marcy on us! here they are!”