Jane unwound her arms from her lover’s neck, and tottered away to the foot of the bed where her sister was kneeling. There she buried her face in her hands and remained motionless; and none would have believed her alive, save that a shudder ran through her frame whenever a rifle-shot was heard from the river. A few moments of intense stillness—then a loud, fierce howl, appallingly near, and several rifles were discharged in quick succession. A paler hue fell on every stern face in that little phalanx; but they were desperate men, and stood ready for the death—pale and resolute.
The door was barricaded, and Edward Clark stationed himself at the window with his musket, and kept his eye steadily fixed on the path which led to the cove. But with all their precaution, one means of entrance had been forgotten. The window of Mary Derwent’s bedroom remained open; and the basket of roses lay in it, shedding perfume abroad, sweetly as if human blood were not about to drench them.
The hush of expectation holding the pulsations of so many brave hearts caused Jane, paralyzed as she was with fear, to raise her face. Her eyes fell on the window—a scream broke from her, she grasped her sister’s shoulder convulsively, and pointed with her right hand to a young Indian woman who stood looking upon them, with one hand on the window-sill. When she saw those two pale faces looking into hers, Tahmeroo beckoned with her fingers; but Jane only shrieked the more wildly, and again buried her face in the bed-clothes.
Mary arose from her knees, and walked firmly to the window, for she recognized Tahmeroo. A few eager whispers passed between them, and Mary went into the next room. There was a stir, the clang of a rifle striking the hearth, then the valorous woman rushed into the bedroom.
Tahmeroo had torn away the sash, and had leapt in—forcing the bewildered girl through the opening. When her charge was on the outer side, the young Indian cleared the window with the bound of an antelope, and dragged her on, calling on the rest to follow.
“Let the fair girl keep a good heart,” whispered the Indian, urging her companion to swifter speed; “if we have a few moments more, all will be saved.”
The words were scarcely uttered, when a blood-thirsty yell broke up from the cove: the war-whoop, the war-whoop!
“The boats are waiting—be quick! more can be done yet,” cried Catharine Montour, as she rushed up from the river towards the house.
Oh, it was a horrid fight—that which raged around Mother Derwent’s dwelling the next moment. A swarm or fiends seemed to have encompassed it, with shouts and yells, and fierce, blood-thirsty howling. The whizz of arrows, the crash of descending tomahawks, and the sharp rifle-shot, mingled horribly with the groans, the cries, and oaths of the murderers and the murdered. The floor of that log-house was heaped with the dying and the dead, yet the fight raged on with a fiercer and more blood-thirsty violence, till the savages prowled among the slain like a host of incarnate fiends, slaking their vengeance on the wounded and the dead, for want of other victims.
Through all this carnage the Moravian missionary passed unscathed, searching for his child. Many a fiery eye glared upon him; many a hatchet flashed over his head; but none descended. Another tall and lordly man there was, who rushed in the midst of the savages and strove in vain to put an end to the massacre. They turned in fury upon him. He snatched arms from a dead Indian, and defended himself bravely. Savage after savage rushed upon him, and he was nearly borne to the ground, when Catharine Montour sprung in the midst, with a bound of a wounded lioness, and flinging her arms about him, shouted: