Edgar Huntly; or, Memoirs of a Sleep-Walker

by Charles Brockden Brown

"This was done with speed, but with the utmost circumspection. We shortly gained the road that leads near this hut, and at length gained a view of the building. Many persons were discovered, in a sort of bustling inactivity, before the hut. They were easily distinguished to be friends, and were therefore approached without scruple.

"The objects that presented themselves to a nearer view were five bodies stretched upon the ground. Three of them were savages. The fourth was a girl, who, though alive, seemed to have received a mortal wound. The fifth, breathless and mangled, and his features almost concealed by the blood that overspread his face, was Edgar,--the fugitive for whom I had made such anxious search.

"About the same hour on the last night I had met you hastening into Norwalk. Now were you lying in the midst of savages, at the distance of thirty miles from your home, and in a spot which it was impossible for you to have reached unless by an immense circuit over rocks and thickets. That you had found a rift at the basis of a hill, and thus penetrated its solidities, and thus precluded so tedious and circuitous a journey as must otherwise have been made, was not to be imagined.

"But whence arose this scene? It was obvious to conclude that my associates had surprised their enemies in this house, and exacted from them the forfeit of their crimes; but how you should have been confounded with their foes, or whence came the wounded girl, was a subject of astonishment.

"You will judge how much this surprise was augmented when I was informed that the party whom we found had been attracted hither by the same signals by which we had been alarmed. That on reaching this spot you had been discovered, alive, seated on the ground, and still sustaining the gun with which you had apparently completed the destruction of so many adversaries. In a moment after their arrival you sunk down and expired.

"This scene was attended with inexplicable circumstances. The musket which lay beside you appeared to have belonged to one of the savages. The wound by which each had died was single. Of the four shots we had distinguished at a distance, three of them were therefore fatal to the Indians, and the fourth was doubtless that by which you had fallen; yet three muskets only were discoverable.

"The arms were collected, and the girl carried to the nearest house in the arms of her father. Her situation was deemed capable of remedy, and the sorrow and wonder which I felt at your untimely and extraordinary fate did not hinder me from endeavouring to restore the health of this unfortunate victim. I reflected, likewise, that some light might be thrown upon transactions so mysterious by the information which might be collected from her story. Numberless questions and hints were necessary to extract from her a consistent or intelligible tale. She had been dragged, it seems, for miles, at the heels of her conquerors, who at length stopped in a cavern for the sake of some repose. All slept but one, who sat and watched. Something called him away, and, at the same moment, you appeared at the bottom of the cave, half naked and without arms. You instantly supplied the last deficiency by seizing the gun and tomahawk of him who had gone forth, and who had negligently left his weapons behind. Then, stepping over the bodies of the sleepers, you rushed out of the cavern.

"She then mentioned your unexpected return, her deliverance and flight, and arrival at Deb's hut. You watched upon the hearth, and she fell asleep upon the blanket. From this sleep she was aroused by violent and cruel blows. She looked up: you were gone, and the bed on which she lay was surrounded by the men from whom she had so lately escaped. One dragged her out of the hut and levelled his gun at her breast. At the moment when he touched the trigger, a shot came from an unknown quarter, and he fell at her feet. Of subsequent events she had an incoherent recollection. The Indians were successively slain, and you came to her, and interrogated and consoled her.

"In your journey to the hut you were armed. This in some degree accounted for appearances: but where were your arms? Three muskets only were discovered, and these undoubtedly belonged to your enemies.

"I now had leisure to reflect upon your destiny. I had arrived soon enough on this shore merely to witness the catastrophe of two beings whom I most loved. Both were overtaken by the same fate, nearly at the same hour. The same hand had possibly accomplished the destruction of uncle and nephew.