The amulet: A novel

by Charles Egbert Craddock

To Arabella’s amazement the other officers looked nettled, even resentful, as if disparaged in some sort. Mervyn indeed wore an expression of blank dismay as if he hardly knew how he should interpret this setting aside of himself in favor of his subordinate. He could not altogether restrain himself, and with a cold smile and a stiff dignity he said presently, “We have all learned more or less of the Cherokee language.”

“Well,—well,—it is no great matter, for of course the official interpreter goes with the party.” Captain Howard, so to speak, shouldered the affair aside. He could well understand, however, the mortification of Mervyn and Jerrold that they should be passed over for a younger officer and only an ensign in rank. But he had had the evidence of his senses to Raymond’s knowledge of the Cherokee language, and this confirmed him in the selection which he had already considered. He was glad to discover this particular fitness in the man of his choice for this delicate and diplomatic mission, one who would be keenly alive to all he might hear or see on festive or informal occasions when no interpreter could be on duty.

Raymond now had not a word to say, and presently he excused himself with a look of importance and the plea that he desired to glance over the roll and select the men for the expedition, to make sure that all were fit, and properly equipped for the march.

When he had quitted the group a silence ensued, heavy with the unspoken reproach of the captain-lieutenant. The commandant felt constrained to some casual comment: “The trouble with very young men is that they are too disposed to underestimate difficulties,—too cock-sure. Raymond would be as well pleased with the assignment if the march were five hundred miles instead of one hundred and fifty!”

“And so should I,” said Mervyn, suggestively.

“Tut! Tut! You young men shouldn’t be so grudging,” said Captain Howard, making the best of the untoward situation. “Give a man a chance to show that he holds his commission for some better reason than the purchase money. Gad, sir, don’t grudge him so!”

As he turned away Jerrold, recovering himself from his disappointment as best he might, thinking it a matter which he could more fittingly deplore in secret and seclusion at another time, sought to obviate the awkwardness of the discussion by inviting Captain Howard’s attention to his daughter’s fine shot, the arrow still sticking in the bull’s-eye. Captain Howard responded alertly, grateful indeed for the opportune digression, and walked briskly down to the target with the fair Arabella hanging on his arm, Jerrold at his side, and Mervyn still sullenly preoccupied, following slowly. But the pleasure of the day for Arabella was done and dead. Her father’s outcry of surprise and approbation and commotion of applause, she felt was fictitious and affected,—the kind of affectionate flattery which one offers a child for some infantile conceit. It was a matter of supreme inutility in his estimation whether she could shoot with a bow or not, and his mind was busied with more important details. Jerrold’s phrases of commendation as the group stood before the target and commented on the position of the arrow were of no value, for he knew naught of the difficulty of the achievement. Mervyn could really appreciate the exploit itself, but Raymond valued it adequately, more than all because it was hers, and he took pride and pleasure in her graceful proficiency. She had had a glow of satisfaction in a good thing in its way well done; she had been proud and pleased and well content with such honestly earned admiration, but now her satisfaction was all wilted; and when her father said, “There now, daughter, run away,—enough for this morning,—run into the house, dear,” she was quite ready to obey, and grateful for her dismissal and the breaking-up of the party. Mervyn, to her infinite relief, did not offer to follow her. His mind was all on the expedition to Choté, which Ensign Raymond was to command, and he walked off with Jerrold and the captain, thinking that even yet something might befall to induce the commandant to countermand his orders and make a change in the personnel of the force.

Arabella was sure she was not tired, for a little exercise such as she had taken was hardly enough to tax her buoyant, youthful vigor, but she felt as she reached the stairs that she had scarcely strength to ascend the flight. She turned back to the room that served as parlor, rejoicing to find it vacant. She sank down in one of the great chairs before the fire, which was dull and slow this bland day; the wood was green, the sap had risen and was slowly oozing out at the ends of the logs and dripping down on the ash below. It had a dulcet sibilance in the heat; it was like some far-off singing, which she could hear but could not catch the melody. As she vaguely listened to this elfin minstrelsy she wondered if Raymond would go without a word of farewell,—she wondered if the expedition were of special danger. She pressed her hands against her eyes to darken her vivid imaginings. Oh, why should such risks be taken! She wondered if he would ever return,—and then she wondered if her heart had ceased to beat with the thought.

Never, never had she imagined she could be so unhappy,—and here, where she had so longed to come. She gazed about the room with its rude construction metamorphosed by its barbaric decorations of feathers, and strange weapons, and curious hangings of aboriginal weavings, and rugs, and draperies of fur, and thought how often she had pictured the place to her mind’s eye in England from her father’s letters, and how she had rejoiced when her aunt had declared that now that the war was over they would visit the commandant in his own fort. And what a tumult of anxiety, and fear, and doubt, and desolation had whelmed her here!—and would he go without a word?

It seemed just and fitting that the sky should be overcast as the day wore on,—that clouds should gather without as the light had failed within. The air continued mild; the fire dully drooled; and when she asked her father at the dinner-table if the expedition would set forth if it should rain, he laughed with great gayety and told her that frontier soldiers were very particular never to get their feet wet—a not altogether felicitous joke, and indeed he was no great wit, for Mrs. Annandale tartly demanded why if they were allowed to be so particular were they not furnished with pattens. This Captain Howard considered very funny indeed, seeing doubtless in his mental vision the garrison of Fort Prince George thus accoutred; he laughed until Arabella admonished him that he should not be so merry when perhaps he was sending a score of men to a dreadful death at the hands of savages, who were eager and thirsting for blood, in a wilderness so dense and sombre and drear that she thought that Milton, or Dante, or anybody who had sought to portray hell, might have found a new expression of desolation in such mysterious, impenetrable, trackless forests. Then truly he became grave.