Great Spirit.
CHAPTER XI.
THE ENCAMPMENT OF THE RENEGADE.
It was about ten o'clock on the evening in question, and Simon Girty was seated by a fire, around which lay stretched at full length some six or eight dark Indian forms, and near him, on the right, two of another sex and race. He was evidently in some deep contemplation; for his hat and rifle were lying by his side, his hands were locked just below his knees, as if for the purpose of balancing his body in an easy position, and his eyes fixed intently on the flame, that, waving to and fro in the wind, threw over his ugly features a ruddy, flickering light, and extended his shadow to the size and shape of some frightful monster. The clouds of the late storm had entirely passed away, and through the checkered openings in the trees overhead could be discerned a few bright stars, which seemed to sparkle with uncommon brilliancy, owing to the clearness of the atmosphere. All beyond the immediate circle lighted by the fire, appeared dark and silent, save the solemn, almost mournful, sighing of the wind, as it swept among the tree-tops and through the branches of the surrounding mighty forest.
What the meditations of the renegade were, we shall not essay to tell; but doubtless they were of a gloomy nature; for after sitting in the position we have described, some moments, without moving, he suddenly started, unclasped his hands, and looked hurriedly around him on every side, as if half expecting, yet fearful of beholding, some frightful phantom; but he apparently saw nothing to confirm his fears; and with a heavy sigh, he resumed his former position.
What were the thoughts of that dark man, as he sat there?—he whose soul had been steeped in crime!—he whose hands had long been made red with the blood of numberless innocent victims! Who shall say what guilty deeds of the past might have been harrowing up his soul to fear and even remorse? Who shall say he was not then and there meditating upon death, and the dread eternity and judgment that must quickly follow dissolution? Who shall say he was not secretly repenting of that life of crime, which had already drawn down the curses of thousands upon his head? Something of the kind, or something equally powerful, must have been at work within him; for his features ever and anon, by their mournful contortions—if we may be allowed the phrase—gave visible tokens of one in deep agony of mind. It would be no pleasant task to analyze and lay bare the secret workings of so dark a spirit, even had we power to do it; and so we will leave his thoughts, whether good or evil, to himself and his God.
By his side, and within two feet of the renegade, lay extended the beautiful form of Ella Barnwell—with nothing but a blanket and her own garments between her and the earth—with none but a similar covering over her—with her head resting upon a stone, and apparently asleep. We say apparently asleep; but the drowsy son of Erebus and Nox had not yet closed her eyelids in slumber; for there were thoughts in her breast more potent than all his persuasive arts of forgetfulness, or those of his prime minister, Morpheus. Was she thinking of her own hard fate—away there in that lonely forest—with not a friend nigh that could render her assistance—with no hope of escape from the awful doom to which she was hastening? Or was she thinking of him, for whom her heart yearned with all the thousand, undefined, indescribable sympathies of affection?—of him who so lately had been her companion?—for the heart of love measures duration, not by the cold mathematical calculation of minutes and hours, and days and weeks, and months and years, but by events and feelings; and the acquaintance of weeks may seem the friend of years, and the acquaintance of years be almost forgotten in weeks;—was she thinking of him, we say—of Algernon? who, even in misery, had been torn from her side, had said perchance his last trembling farewell, and gone to suffer a death at which humanity must shudder! Ay, all these thoughts, and a thousand others, were rushing wildly through her feverish brain. She thought of her own fate—of his—of her relations—pictured out in her imagination the terrible doom of each—and her tender heart became wrung to the most excruciating point of agony.
By the side of Ella, was her adopted mother—buried in that troubled sleep which great fatigue sends to the body, even when the mind is ill at ease, filling it with startling visions—and around the fire, as we said before, lay the dusky forms of the savages, lost to all consciousness of the outer world. The position of Ella was such, that, by slightly turning her head, she could command a view of the features of the renegade; whose strange workings, as before noted, served to fix her attention and divide her thoughts between him, as the cause of her present unhappiness, and that unhappiness itself—and she gazed on his loathsome, contorted countenance, with much the same feeling as one might be supposed to gaze upon a serpent coiling itself around the body, whose deadly fangs, either sooner or later, would assuredly give the fatal stroke of death. She noted the sudden start of Girty, and the wildness with which he peered around him, with feelings of hope and fear—hope, that rescue might be at hand—fear, lest something more dreadful was about to happen. At length Girty started again, and turned his head toward Ella so suddenly, that she had not time to withdraw her eyes ere his were fixed searchingly upon them.