He was cheerful and hilarious now as he sat in the stern, listening to the orders to the crews. The voices carried far on the water, echoed by the crags on either bank, then striking back from the foothills of the mountains, which were marshalled in close defiles on each side further and further along the reaches of the river. He took scant notice of other echoes—the mouthings and mockings of young braves of the Indian town of Keowee on the opposite bank, as they ran glibly along in a line with the craft, yelling in their broken English,—“Let fall!—Give way!—Back oars!—Keep stroke!” as the orders successively rang over the water.
On shore to the two watching women on the bastion, gazing through the embrasure, this demonstration seemed queerly rancorous, and as inimical as uncouth. They noted that the delegation in the boat, who had been so honored, so generously entreated, took up the fantastic flout and continued it even after the mockings from along shore had flagged and failed. When the crew of soldiers began to sing, after the time-honored custom of the pettiaugre afloat, and the crude young voices rang out not inharmoniously in a strong and hearty chorus, the Indian guests interpolated derisive comments as they followed—now a short howl, now a cry of Hala! Hala! now a bleat, as of sheep, now the crowing of cocks—a raillery little suggestive of mirth or rollicking good-humor. The soldiers seemed as disregardful as if they did not hear, and bent to the oars with a will. The commandant never turned his head. But his sister and daughter looked at each other with an aghast questioning stare, to which neither could suggest a consolatory response.
Arabella seemed all the more slender and willowy in her long violet pelisse, with its edge of soft white down, as she stood beside the little lady, who was bundled in a thick coat of gray, lined and bordered with squirrel fur. She had a great calash to match, and as she peered out with her preternaturally sharp eyes with their furtive glance, she looked not unlike some keen little animal of no great strength, perhaps, but capable of some sharp exploit of mischief.
The craft of the expedition became visible once more far across the wooded spur of a hill which the steely river rounded. The sun on the stream was so bright that the three boats, skimming the dazzling surface, seemed as if they were airily afloat on floods of light instead of the denser medium of water. Still the singing sounded, richly, still the echoes answered clear, and once and again the harsh note of derision marred the harmony. Then they were gone, and the woods were silent. The fragment of a stave—a hesitant echo—the vague impact of an oar on water—! No more.
“They are gone!” said Arabella, turning to her aunt, a sort of desolation in her fair young face.
“Yes—I don’t see them now.” Mrs. Annandale had already turned to descend the ramp, and the captain-lieutenant remembered with a start to offer her his hand. He himself filled now the field of vision of the little schemer, though he had only eyes for Arabella. She came lightly down the steep incline without assistance, and once more he noted the pallid suspense in her face, the dilation of anxiety in her beautiful eyes. He had long ago been inured to the fierce suspense of frontier life, but he appreciated that to her untried heart it had all the poignancy of a realized grief. He sought to divert her attention.
“I have a favor to ask of you, ladies.”
Mrs. Annandale paused as she trudged stoutly along on the miry ground and glanced up keenly from out her fur.
“An invitation to dine and spend the evening with you,” he continued.
The old lady, a benign glow stirring in her stanch heart, had yet the tact to plod silently for a few minutes.