“He spoke a few sentences in the Indian tongue. Words of energetic eloquence they must have been to have torn that savage horde from their destined victim’s, for like wild beasts they seemed athirst for blood. When the chief ceased speaking, the tribe arose with a morose gravity that concealed their disappointment, and dispersed among the trees; the mellow tramp of their moccasins died away, and fifty warriors alone stood around their chief, ready to escort the prisoners to a place of safety.
“I drew back beneath the concealment of a tree, and secure in my changed dress, saw them lead forth the prisoners. I heard the sobs of the happy mother as the boy clung, half in joy and half in affright, to her bosom. I saw tears stand on the pale and quivering cheek of the father, as he strove to utter his gratitude. I heard the tramp of the horses, and the measured tread of the fifty warriors come faintly from the distance; then the fire which was to have been the death-flame of Grenville Murray and his household, streamed up into the solitude, and in its red glare I stood before the savage whose slave I had become.”
CHAPTER XI
THE MARRIAGE CONTRACT
Toward sunset, on the same day that witnessed Catharine Montour’s interview with the missionary, Mary Derwent wandered alone into the forest, for her spirit more than ever felt the need of solitude. With a strong religious principle, which had gradually strengthened in her young heart during her daily communion with the high things in nature, she had striven to conquer the sweet impulses of love that are the heritage of womanhood, and to lend all her soul toward that heaven to which the missionary had so tenderly pointed her.
She wandered through the forest, indulging in a tranquil happiness which had never visited her before. The flowers seemed smiling with a new beauty as she turned aside, that they might not be trodden into the moss by her footsteps; the birds seemed vocal with a sweeter music, and the air came balmy to her lips; yet the day, in reality, was no finer than a hundred others had been.
Mary lingered awhile on the shelf of rocks, which we have described in a former chapter, as overhanging the Susquehanna, nearly opposite Monockonok Island, before she went down to the canoe which she had moored at its base. It seemed as if this spot was henceforth to be a scene of adventure to her, for scarcely had she been there a moment, when the copsewood above her head was agitated, as it had been on the previous day, and a young man, of two or three and twenty, stepped cautiously out upon the platform which shot above the shelf on which she stood, and where the Indian girl had previously appeared.
Mary sank back to the birch, where she could command a full view of his person without being herself seen. He was scarcely above the middle height, and of slight person, but muscular, and giving, in every firmly knitted limb, indications of strength greater than his size would have warranted. The face was one which might have been pronounced intellectual and striking. His forehead, low and broad, was shaded by hair of the deepest brown; the nose, a little too prominent for beauty, was thin and finely cut, and the large black eyes full of brilliancy, which was a part of themselves rather than a light from the soul, gave a masculine spirit to his head, which redeemed the more earthly and coarser mould of the mouth and chin.
He was expensively dressed for the period and condition of our country, but his neckcloth was loosened at the throat, as if to refresh himself with air after some severe physical exertion, and his richly laced hand-ruffles hung dripping with water over a pair of wrists which were by far too slender and white ever to have submitted to much labor. His garments throughout were dashed with waterdrops, and he had evidently been rowing hard upon the river. He wiped away the perspiration which stood in large drops on his forehead, and looked cautiously about, till his eyes settled in a long, anxious gaze up the stream.
In its side position Mary obtained a more perfect view of his face, and her heart throbbed with a painful feeling of surprise, for she recognized the matured lineaments of Walter Butler, a Tory officer, who had visited the valley some months before and was the intimate friend of young Wintermoot, the young man who had so cruelly insulted her deformity when both were school-children. In his previous visit Butler had by many a rude outrage and insolent speech shocked the moral sense of the inhabitants, and it was an evil sign when he and the Wintermoots were sheltered under the same roof. The poor girl shrunk timidly behind the birch, for she was terrified and afraid of being discovered, but she did not withdraw so far as to prevent herself watching his movements.
After waiting a few moments, he went down, so as to preclude all possibility of being observed from the island, and uttered the same sharp whistle that had answered the Indian girl’s summons on the previous day. Mary almost started from her concealment with surprise, when the brushwood was again torn back, and a strange woman, singularly attired, stepped down on the platform, and stood directly before the young man as he arose from his stooping position.