“I can not do it,” said Schuyler. “The scouts of Burgoyne’s army are between me and home. I must get to Derryfield, if I have to steal a horse.”
Diana wrung her hands in agony.
“Man, man, I tell you he will kill you if you stay here. You must go away.”
“I have a choice of deaths, then,” said the hussar, coolly. “I am safe from the Indians, on this mountain, and as for the demon, if he kills me, he will serve his enemies. On my mission to Derryfield depends the whole future of a campaign.”
As he spoke, the sound of another horn, deep, hoarse and bellowing, echoed from the top of the hill, and the girl turned deadly pale, ejaculating:
“It is too late! He is here! You are lost!”
In spite of his general courage and coolness, an involuntary thrill of terror gathered over the heart of Adrian Schuyler, as he listened to the mysterious sounds of the phantom horn. It echoed from hill to hill in deep reverberations, and when it died away, left him with an indescribable sense of awe.
At the same moment, as if the mysterious demon had waited to sound his horn till the aspects of nature were in harmony with diabolical influences, a sudden shadow swept over the sun, and Adrian, looking up, beheld a deep thundercloud, hitherto hidden behind the mountains, swallow up the sun, and rush across the sky with wonderful swiftness, while a powerful gust of wind shook and bowed the trees on the mountain-side in a groaning chorus.
He turned to Diana, and behold, she was gone! He just caught a glimpse of her white deer-skin tunic vanishing in the upper woods on the mountain-side, whence the sound of the horn had come, and he realized that it had been a summons.
“Man or demon—girl or spirit,” muttered Schuyler, as he entered the woods in pursuit, “I’ll follow you, and find the mystery of this mountain, if it costs me my life. I’ll know the secret, at least.”