Ella Barnwell: A historical romance of border life

by Emerson Bennett

The feelings in the breasts of Algernon and Ella, as they reluctantly moved onward, captives to a savage, bloodthirsty foe, are impossible to be described. To what awful end had fate destined them? and in what place were they to drain the last bitter dregs of woe? How much anguish of heart, how much racking of soul, and how much bodily suffering was to be their portion, ere death, almost their only hope, would set them free? True, they might be rescued by friends—such things had been done—but the probability thereof was as ten to one against them; and when they perceived the care with which the renegade sought to destroy all vestiges of their course, their last gleam of hope became nearly extinguished.

We have previously stated that Ella was left unbound; but wherefore, would perhaps be hard to conjecture; unless we suppose that the renegade—feeling for her that selfish affection which pervades the breasts of all beings, however base or criminal, to a greater or less degree—fancied it would be adding unnecessary cruelty to bind heir delicate hands. Whatever the cause, matters but little; but the fact itself was of considerable importance to Ella; who took advantage of her freedom, in passing the bushes before noticed, to snatch a leaf unperceived, whereon, by great adroitness, she managed to trace with a pin a few almost illegible characters; and also, in ascending the bank, which she was allowed to do in her own way, to throw down with her foot the stone, break the twig at the same instant, and pin the leaf to it, in the faint hope that an old hunter might follow on the trail, who, if he came to the spot, would hardly fail to notice it.

The freedom thus given to Ella, and the deference shown her by the renegade and his allies—who appeared to treat her with the same respect they would have done the wife of their chief—were in striking contrast with their manners toward Algernon, on whom they seemed disposed to vent their scorn by petty insults. Believing that his doom was sealed, he became apparently resigned to his fate, nor seemed to notice, save with stoical indifference, any thing that took place around him. This quiet, inoffensive manner, was far from pleasing to Girty, who would much rather have seen him chafing under his bondage, and manifesting a desire to escape its toil. But if this was the outward appearance, not so was the inward feelings of our hero. He knew his fate—unless he could effect an escape, of which he had little hope—and he nerved himself to meet and seem to his captors careless of it; but his soul was already on the rack of torture. This was not for himself alone; for Algernon was a brave man, and in reality feared not death; though, like many another brave man, be had no desire to die at his time of life, especially with all the tortures of the stake, which he knew, from Girty's remark, would be his assignment; but his soul was harrowed at the thought of Ella—her awful doom—and what she might be called upon to undergo: perhaps a punishment a thousand times worse than death—that of being the pretended wife, but in reality the mistress, of the loathsome renegade. This thought to him was torture—almost madness—and it was only by the most powerful struggle with himself, that he could avoid exposing his feelings.

For a time, after ascending the rocky bank of the stream and gaining the hill, the renegade and his Indian allies, with their captives, moved silently onward at a fast pace; but at length, slackening his speed somewhat, Girty approached the side of Algernon, who was bound in a manner similar to Younker, with his wrists corded to a cross bar behind his back; and apparently examining them a moment or two, in a sneering tone, said:

"How-comes it that the bully fighter of the British, under the cowardly General Gates, should be so tightly bound, away out in this Indian country, and a captive to a renegade agent?—ha, ha, ha!"

The pale features of Algernon, as he heard this taunt, grew suddenly crimson, and then more deadly white than ever—his fingers fairly worked in their cords, and his respiration seemed almost to stifle him—so powerfully were his passions wrought upon by the cowardly insults of his adversary; but at last all became calm and stoical again; when turning to Girty, he coolly examined him from head to heel, from heel to head; and then moving away his eyes, as if the sight were offensive to him, quietly said:

"An honest man would be degraded by condescending to hold discourse with so mean a thing as Simon Girty the renegade."

At these words Girty started, as if bit by a serpent—the aspect of his dark sinister features changed to one concentrated expression of hellish rage—his eyes seemed to turn red—his lips quivered—the nostrils of his flat ugly nose distended—froth issued from his mouth—while his fingers worked convulsively at the handle of his tomahawk, and his whole frame trembled like a tree shaken by a whirlwind. For some time he essayed to speak, in vain; but at last he hissed forth, as he whirled the tomahawk aloft:

"Die!—dog!—die!"

Ella uttered a piercing shriek of fear, and sprung forward to arrest the blow; but ere she could have reached the renegade; the axe would have been buried to the helve in the brain of Algernon, had not a tall, powerful Indian suddenly interposed his rifle between it and the victim.