Already it was getting dusk. We passed by farm houses at short distances apart now, so I knew the town must be near. There was no sign of life in any of the dwellings, however, and in fancy I saw within them such a scene as I had first come upon. At other places there were household articles scattered about, which showed how the families must have fled at the first alarm of the Indians.
Copper kettles, warming-pans, a spinning wheel, now and then a chest of linen, strewn along the road, told how the colonists had packed whatever of their possessions they could in a cart and hurried off to the block house, to be safe from attack. What they did not take with them the Indians carried off or burned.
I glanced on all sides of us. It was so dark that I could scarce see, though I made out the village a short distance ahead. The log block house stood on top of a little hill, and a fire burned on one corner of the roof, a signal to refugees.
My eye had no sooner caught sight of this, and I turned to tell Lucille that our journey was at an end, than Simon gave a cry. He pointed behind us, terror in his face.
I looked, and there, on the brow of the hill we had just descended were the figures of a score of Indians!
They were a quarter of a mile behind us, and we were half a mile from the fort.
I gave Kit a blow across the flank with my sword scabbard. She sprang forward. At the same time Simon and I broke into a run. A yell from the savages told us we had been observed, and that they were in hot pursuit.
They were afoot, and I knew that Lucille was safe from them, for Kit would carry her to the block.
“Ride on ahead,” I called to her. “Simon and I will hold them in play until you are safe, Lucille. Ride on for your life!”
“I will not leave you, Edward,” she called back, and she tried to pull the mare up.