The guard knew that there was no chance of escape; and perhaps even their cruel natures shrank from hurling that noble creature so rudely to death. After a moment's pause they released her arms, and fell back.
Slowly and firmly she walked forward. The ice cracked under her feet, sending out bright, silvery lines, with each tread. Then it swelled upward with a sudden heave, broke, and with one plunge hurled her into the vortex of a wave that leaped upon her like a wild beast, and carried her off.
All this had been so sudden that the multitude could hardly believe that she was gone. Some, who had been near enough to look upon her face, wept, and crowded back, shrinking at the very last from a sight they had courted an hour before. Others grumbled that the agony of the scene had been so brief; and some cursed the witch aloud, hoping that the waves would toss her well before she died. These hard-hearted ones seemed for a time to have their wish, for when the disturbed waters swelled back, the fragment of ice on which the wretched woman had fallen was hurled out to sea. Her face was turned upward to the sunshine, and it seemed as if unseen spirits were guiding her frail support.
"Look! look how the witch floats!" shouted the crowd. "Devils are holding her up; you can see them buffet the water."
Sure enough, two dark objects rose on each side of the woman, and seemed to be guiding her frail support through the turbulent waves.
"Shoot! shoot! Has any one a silver ball? else the witch will escape!" cried a voice from the crowd. But the soldiers, appalled by what they believed to be the close presence of the evil one, stood dumb and motionless.
While the general attention was fixed upon this one object, a boat shot out from the right hand promontory, rowed by six men, and, struggling fiercely against the waves, moved toward the fragment of ice to which the woman was clinging.
"Look! look! A boat rowed by Indians! The red devils will save her! Fire upon them—fire on her!"
A dozen guns were uplifted. The click of their ponderous locks sounded fearfully distinct, for a deadly stillness had fallen on the multitude. But on the moment a tumult arose in the crowd, from which the Indians had cautiously separated themselves. With the leap of panthers they sprung upon the soldiers, and failing to wrench the muskets from their hands, flung them headlong to the ice. Then making a sudden dash through the crowd the savages plunged into the forest, leaving wild commotion behind. While the tumult raged fiercest, half a dozen guns went off at random, and others were fired blindly as the soldiers scrambled up from the ice. But they failed to reach the boat, which moved steadily toward the mass of black drapery, now visible, now submerged in the water. An almost superhuman sweep of the oars brought that toiling craft close to the wretched woman, who clung, cold and senseless, to that crumbling fragment of ice. While the boat rocked like an egg-shell on the waves, the tall figure of a man rose upright among the oarsmen, made a desperate leap into the water, and tore that deathly form from its hold on the ice. Aided by the two Indians who had swam from their covert under the sheeted ice, and bravely kept the fragment which bore Barbara Stafford from submerging, he lifted her to the strong arms stretched down to help him, and clambered into the boat. There, upon a pile of blankets, she lay, white as snow, and cold as the ice that clung to her wet garments. The young man stooped to make sure that she was not quite dead, when a bullet hurtled out from the shore and struck him in the side. A wild leap in the air—a cry, sharp and clear as the yell of a wounded eagle, and Metacomet fell, bathed in blood, by the woman he had served so faithfully.
Now the tumult on the shore raged with fearful vehemence. Shouts and shrieks of cruel triumph swept over the waters. A boat was pushed across the ice, and shot out into the harbor, giving chase to the fugitives. The dying chief lifted himself up and saw this new danger. He struggled for speech, but fell back gasping for breath.