Murray turned his eyes, now freezing with death, upon Catharine’s face; he saw that smile, and over his own features came a light that for one moment threw back the ashen shadows gathering there.
Varnham moved gently to his side, took the cold hand, and held it till it stiffened into the marble of death. Catharine watched his face as it saddened, shade by shade with the ebbing pulses that quivered under his touch. When she saw that all was over, a cold chill crept through her frame, the lids closed heavily over her eyes, and she was almost as lifeless as the man who had been her destiny.
Varnham laid the hands of the dead reverently down, and, lifting Catharine Montour in his arms, rested her head upon his bosom, while he called on Tahmeroo for water. She ran down to the spring, formed a cup with her two hands, and sprinkled the deathly face. But there came no signs of consciousness. She seemed utterly gone. Varnham knew that her heart was beating, for he felt it against his own, and for the moment a faintness crept over him; he forgot where he was, and that death lay close by; all the years and events that had separated those two souls floated away like mist; he bent down and whispered: “Caroline, my Caroline!” as he had done a thousand times when she was insane and unconscious as then of the love which had not died, which never could die.
“Caroline, my Caroline.”
His head was bent, and his trembling lips almost touched her forehead; he heard nothing, saw nothing; an exclamation of surprise and alarm broke from Tahmeroo, but he was all unconscious of it till the form of Catharine Montour was torn from his arms by the chief, Gi-en-gwa-tah, who folded her to his broad chest, casting a look of sovereign disdain over his shoulder as he bore her away. A company of fifty Indians had followed him to the island, and when Varnham rose, dizzy with the sudden attack, they swarmed around him, offering no violence, but cutting off his retreat. When they left him at liberty again, he was alone with the body of his forgiven enemy.
In a little out-house that had escaped the flames Varnham found a spade and pickaxe. He left the body with Tahmeroo, and, going down to the old cedars, dug a grave with his own hands. Then, with the assistance of the Indian girl, he bore the body away, and laid it in the cold earth with unuttered prayers and awful reverence. The sods with which they heaped the earth that covered him were green, and the night dew was still upon them. But a drop fell upon that grave more pure than all the dew that trembled there. It was the tear of a man who had learned to forgive, as he hoped to be forgiven.
There was no hope for the people of Forty Fort, the stockade at Pittston had surrendered, Fort Jenkins was already taken, and from Wilkesbarre the inhabitants were fleeing to the hills. Thus, helpless and hopeless, the fugitives who had succeeded in reaching the fort with the women and children already there, had no choice between the terms of capitulation offered by Colonel John Butler and another massacre.
While the plain was strewn with the dead bodies of men who had marched forth from those gates so valiantly the day before, they were thrown open that the triumphant enemy might pass in. At the command of their colonel, the patriots came slowly forward and stacked their arms in the centre of the stockade. The women and children clustered in miserable groups, and stood in dead silence, waiting for the murderers of their sons and husbands.
The victors approached with beating drums and flying colors, divided in two columns. The Tories were headed by the Butlers, while in at the south gate marched the savages, with Queen Esther and Gi-en-gwa-tah at their head.
The faces of the Whigs were marked by the Indians with black paint, in order to insure their safety. The children retreated from this savage kindness with loud outcries; the pallid women passed before their captors, shrinking with horror from their touch.