Corporal O'Flynn's report, however, was not yet exhausted. He hesitated, almost choked. The blood rushed so scarlet to his face that one might have wondered, at the show it made, that he had so much of that essential element in circulation in his whole thin body. He lifted his voice as if to urge the concentration of Stuart's attention which seemed so casual—he had it the next moment.
"I feel like a traitor in tellin' it, sor," said O'Flynn, "I'm just one of the men meself, an' it breaks me heart intirely to go agin 'em with the officers. But me duty as a soldier is to the commandant of the fort, an' as a man to the poor women an' childer."
He choked again, so reluctant was he in unfolding the fact that this was but the first step, providentially disastrous, of a plan by which the fort and the officers were to be abandoned, the rank and file determining to throw themselves on the mercy of the savages, since even to die at their hands was better than this long and futile waiting for succor. Through Choo-qualee-qualoo some negotiations with the enemy had been set on foot, of which O'Flynn was unaware hitherto, being excluded from their councils as a non-commissioned officer, but after the result of the desertion in the early hours before dawn, Daniel Eske, thoroughly dismayed, had once more reverted to his reliance on the superior wisdom of the commandant, and had seen fit to disclose the state of affairs to the corporal, whose loyalty to his superior officers was always marked.
O'Flynn was commended, cautioned to be silent, and the door closed.
The two captains looked blankly at one another.
"The catastrophe is upon us," said Stuart. "Fort Loudon must fall."
In this extremity a council of war was held. Yet there seemed no course open even to deliberation. On the one hand rose mutiny, starvation, and desertion; but to surrender to such an enemy as the Cherokees meant massacre. Their terrible fate held them in a remorseless clutch! At last, with some desperate hope, such as the unsubstantial illusion with which drowning men catch at straws, that the Indians might make and keep terms, it was agreed that Captain Stuart, at his earnest desire, should be the officer to treat with the enemy and secure such terms of capitulation as they could be induced to hold forth.
It might be imagined that the little band of officers, in their hard stress, had become incapable of any further vivid emotion, but in vicarious terror they watched Stuart step forth boldly and alone from the sally-port, a white flag in his hand, and arrayed, in deference to the Indians' love of ceremony and susceptibility to compliment, in full uniform.
He stood on the parapet of the covered way, motionless and distinct, in the clear light of the morning, against the background of the great red clay embankments. He was evidently seen, for through a spy-glass Demeré in the block-house tower noted the instant stillness that fell like a spell upon the Indian line; the figures of the warriors, crouching or erect, seemed petrified in the chance attitude of the moment. That he was instantly recognized by skulking scouts in the woods was as evident. His tall, sinewy figure; his long, dense, blond hair, with its heavy queue hanging on the shoulders of his red coat; a certain daring, martial insouciance of manner, sufficiently individualized him to the far-sighted Cherokees, and the white flag in his hand—a token which they understood, although they did not always respect it—intimated that developments of moment in the conduct of the siege impended.
There was no sudden shrill whistling of a rifle ball, and Demeré, thinking of the fate of Coytmore on the river-bank at Fort Prince George, began to breathe more freely. A vague sense of renewed confidence thrilled through the watching group. Stuart had stipulated that he should go alone—otherwise he would not make the essay. The presence of two or three armed men, officers of the fort, intimated suspicion and fear, incurred danger, and yet, helpless among such numbers, afforded no protection. The others had yielded to this argument, for he knew the Indian character by intuition, it would seem. He was relying now, too, upon a certain personal popularity. He had somehow engaged the admiration of the Indians, yet without disarming their prejudice—a sort of inimical friendship. They all realized that any other man would have now been lying dead on the glacis with a bullet through his brain, if but for the sheer temptation to pick him off neatly as a target of uncommon interest, whatever his mission might have betokened.