The amulet: A novel

by Charles Egbert Craddock

“I shall not tell him! No—burst me if I will. It wasn’t the damn fool’s fault. It was just so funny! It was as if Fate had tweaked him by the nose!”

“He was quick enough to report you,” said Ensign Lawrence. “For something not your fault.”

“Child, I never try to measure my duty by other men’s consciences. I shall tell the captain that all his corn is gone and his horses are inquiring about breakfast already, and the cook has no griddle-cakes for Mrs. Annandale—and Indian meal is the only Indian thing she approves of. And that the guard behaved well and stood off the Indians under the command of a gay little ensign, who shall not be nameless, and that the force from the barracks turned out and dealt strenuously with the fire under the orders of Lieutenant Jerrold, officer of the day, till the rain took up the matter and put it out. But unless he asks point-blank of the acting commandant I shall say naught. Let him have all the credit he can get—”

“And the young lady besides?”

“If she will have him.”

But there was a change in Raymond’s voice. He was aware of it himself, for he broke off—“I take it mighty kind of you, Lawrence, to let me have these bullets. I had enough moulded, as I thought, but the captain—queer in an old soldier—went off without any, and I left him all I had. But for you I couldn’t use these pistols at all.”

She could see now in the pallid and uncertain moonlight that they were dividing some small commodities between them, and presently, the transfer complete, she watched them trudge off toward the gates. She stepped cautiously across the loop-holes in the floor and looked through one of the slits high enough for window-like usage. It gave a good range toward the south, and she noted flickering lights at the river-bank. Evidently Raymond was on the point of re-embarkation. Soon the lights were extinguished, there was more the sense of movement on the dark water than visible craft, till suddenly a pettiaugre glided into view in a great slant of white glister on the shining water, with the purple mountains beyond, and the massive wooded foothills on either side, with the tremulous stars, and the skurrying clouds, and the fugitive moon above. And on—and on—and on in this white glister, as in some enchanted progress, the lonely boat glided till it rounded the point, and was lost to view.

CHAPTER IX

It was dawn when Raymond sighted Little Tamotlee, and the early sunshine, of an exquisite crystalline purity, was over all the world—misty mountain, shimmering river, the infinite stretches of the leafless wilderness—as the young officer’s pettiaugre was pulling into the bank, where Captain Howard’s boats were already beached. The Indian town on the shore, an oasis of habitation in the midst of the unpeopled forest, was all astir. Columns of smoke were rising alike from the conical-roofed dwellings of the characteristic Indian architecture and those more modern structures which the Cherokees also affected, and which resembled the log cabins of the European settlers in the provinces to the eastward. The population seemed all afoot, as if some event of moment impended. Knots of braves pressed hither and thither, with feather-crested heads and painted faces, arrayed in buck-skin or fur shirts and leggings with floating fringes, and many tawdry gauds of decorated quivers and bows, carried for ornament only, long ago discarded as a weapon in favor of the British “Brown Bess,” and powder and lead. The chiefs, the cheerataghe or priests, the political head-men, and the warriors of special note were all easily distinguishable to Raymond, as he stood in the bow of the boat, by reason of their splendor of attire, their feather-braided iridescent mantles, or their war bonnets of vertically placed swan’s quills, standing fifteen inches high, above the forehead. On the summit of the tall mound, where the great dome-like rotunda or town-house was perched,—its contour conserved by a thick plaster of the tenacious red clay of the region laid on smoothly, inside and out,—a white flag was flying. Presently a wide sonorous voice sounded thence. The Cherokee town-crier was uttering the “News Hollow.” It was strictly an official demonstration, for the arrival of Captain Howard and his escort in the night, now quartered in the “Stranger house,” was an event that had fallen under the personal observation of all the denizens of Tamotlee. Nevertheless, every man paused where he stood, as if the sound of that great voice possessed gifts of enchantment, and he were bound to the spot.

Raymond, who had caught up some familiarity with the language, was too distant as he stood in the gliding boat, now swiftly approaching the shore, to discriminate the words, but as the proclamation ceased he perceived that all were pressing toward the “beloved square” of the town, a rectangular space, level, and covered with fine white sand, beaten, and trampled, and worn to the hardness and consistency of stone. There was a commodious piazza-like building of logs and bark, having the whole front open, situated at each side of the square, appropriated to the different branches, so to speak, of the primitive government, and these began to fill quickly with the officials of each department,—the ancient councillors on the east, the cheerataghe on the west, the warriors on the north, clanging with martial accoutrement, and on the south the functionaries that the European traders, called “The Second Men,” these being, as it were, “the city fathers,” having control of all municipal affairs,—the building of houses, the planting and garnering of the public crops, the succor of the poor, the conduct of negotiations with other towns, the care of the entertainment of strangers. It was in their charge that Raymond presently perceived, with that amusement which the methods of the savages always excited in European breasts, Captain Howard and his escort. Very funny, in truth, they looked, their fresh British faces adjusted to a sedulous gravity and inexpressiveness and their manner stiffened to conform to Indian etiquette, and manifest neither curiosity nor amusement. This was difficult for one of the young soldiers, a raw Irish boy, whose teeth now and again gleamed inadvertently, giving the effect of being swallowed, so suddenly did his lips snap together as his orders recurred to his mind. His head seemed set on a pivot when first he took his seat with the others on the benches in the booth-like place, but a sudden stroke upon the cranium from a drum-stick in the seemingly awkward handling of Robin Dorn, sitting beside him and moving the instrument as if for added safety, was a sufficient admonition to foster a creditable degree of discretion. Captain Howard’s typically English face, florid, smooth, steadfast-eyed, evidencing a dignity and self-respect that coerced a responsive respect, was indeed curiously out of place seen above the bar of the booth-like piazza, where he sat on the lower settee, his men ranged in tiers behind him. When Raymond, who was met at the water’s edge by a messenger for the purpose, was conducted to a place by Captain Howard, he rather wondered that they had not been given seats beside Rolloweh, the prince of the town, in the western cabin, for it was the habit of the Indians to pay almost royal honors to their guests of official station. He took the place assigned him in silence, and he observed that the occasion was indeed one of special importance, for Captain Howard said not a word, made not an inquiry as to his mission, save by a lifted eyebrow. Raymond answered by a debonair smile, intimating that all was well. Then both turned their eyes to the “beloved square,” and this moment the Reverend Mr. Morton was led out in charge of two Indians and stationed before the great white seat of the “holy cabin.” Captain Howard flushed deeply and darkly red, but made no other sign, and such proceedings began as Rolloweh had elected should take place.