Jack scarcely saw him fall. The earth swayed round him in a mighty tourbillon; moon and stars danced in the sky in bewildering convolutions; the primeval trees beside the farmhouse rocked, cutting mighty zigzags across the milky-way. Half-fainting he clung to his saddle, while beneath him the bay panted and wheezed, worn out by the stress of the fight.
Slowly the mists cleared. Out of them shone Alagwa’s face, white, but glad with a great gladness. Behind her the two men, crouched against the house, their staring, terror-filled eyes glistening in the moonlight.
Jack’s fingers wagged toward the muskets at their feet. “Give me those guns,” he breathed.
Alagwa obeyed silently. He was in the ascendant now. He was the warrior; she the squaw, docile and obedient. Her hour would come later and she was content to wait.
The men shrank back as Jack took the guns, muttering pleas for mercy. The women came stumbling from the house, shrieking. Jack did not heed them. He fired the guns into the air; then smashed them against the corner of the house. Then he turned to Alagwa and pointed to Brito’s horse. “Come,” he ordered. “The fight is done. We must go.”
Silently Alagwa mounted and silently the two rode up the slope, across the moon-drenched woods upon the crest, and down the long backward trail to where the British and Indian power had been shattered.
Jack did not speak. He dared not. A sudden wondering panic had fallen upon him. He had won his bride at last. He had won her with his heart; he had earned her with his sword. He had shown her the thoughts of his heart at dawn beside Tecumseh’s fire; he had shown her the work of his sword at dusk beside the farmhouse. She was his; he had only to put out his hand to claim her.
But he did not dare. Love had throned her immeasurably above him. Scarcely he dared look at her as she rode beside him in the white moonlight, swaying to the rhythm of her horse’s pace, mystic, strange—no woodland boy, no “sweet, gentle lady,” no Indian maid—but all of these at once, all and more, a woman, his woman, his mate, born for him, foreordained for him since the first dawn that had silvered the world. Speechless he rode on, glancing at her from sidelong eyes.
Alagwa, too, was silent, waiting. This was her hour, and she knew it. But he must tell her—tell her what she already knew. Not one sweet word of the telling would she spare him. And the worse he boggled the telling the more she would love him. Love—woman’s love—pardons all but silence.
At last Jack found his tongue. He spoke hurriedly, gaspingly, trying to hide the ferment of his soul. “The war here is over,” he said. “I did not stay to see the end of the battle, but I know the British power in the west is shattered. Most of the army will go home. And we will go to Alabama. Father is waiting to welcome you. I wrote him of you and he wrote me that if I did not bring you with me I might stay away myself. You will like father. He is fierce, like yourself, and tender-hearted, too—like yourself. Ah! Yes! You will like him and you will like Alabama. Alabama! I told you once what the word meant. It’s Creek: a-la-ba-ma, here we rest. There we will rest. Later we will go to France to see your inheritance—yours no more. Father writes that Napoleon has confiscated the Telfair estates. But we can spare them. Cato will go with us—father writes that the two girls he humbugged have husbands of their own and will not trouble him, and that the third—the one he is fond of—is waiting for him. Rogers and Fantine will make a match of it, I think. He says now that he likes to hear women’s talk. Tecumseh—I do not know what his fate may be. But he swore he would win or leave his bones on the field today—and he did not win. I—I have read that letter; there was nothing in it—nothing. I fainted because of my illness and not because of anything I read.”