“If you will give me your promise you will not attempt to escape from the village during the night, I shall be pleased to have you shown to a guest room. The bed is better than what we furnish in the cabins.”
“I have no desire to leave the village tonight. I promise. But I would like to know if my horse—”
“Your horse has been brought in and has received excellent care. I take your promise to save you from a disagreeable death. It is impossible for you to escape. The dogs are out. See here.”
Stepping to the window, he leaned out and whistled shrilly on his fingers.
A wild chorus of baying answered the signal, and in the faint moonlight Sevier beheld a dark patch swerve from between the cabins, running close like wolves. They swept up to the house with two men behind them. Halting beneath the window, they leaped up to caress their master’s hand. For a minute or two McGillivray called them by name and stroked the heads of the milling mass. They were gaunt, tawny brutes, one being more than a match for any man unarmed.
Stepping back from the window, McGillivray remarked:
“It would be hard for one to escape my pets. They are a special breed. A streak of the mastiff, and the rest is pure devil. They’re trained to touch no one in the village; but woe to the man who goes out of bounds against my orders. Give me a thousand such and I’ll chew up the foolish Chickasaws and never lose a warrior.”
Sevier shuddered and followed the servant. His room was on the first floor and at the end of the building. It was large and comfortably furnished. The furnishings were what one would expect in the homes of the seaboard rich but with perhaps more of the Spanish mode than would be found in the North. On a shelf in the corner was a row of books, but Sevier was not overfond of books and gave them scant heed. What did arouse his interest was a wall decoration formed of hunting-knives, arranged so as to suggest the rising sun, the polished blades being the rays. In the collection were home-made weapons of sturdy strength and the more gracefully shaped pieces of European origin.
The windows were open and there was nothing to prevent Sevier from stepping out on to the grass ground. After the servant had left him he remained at the window and looked across the silent, empty grounds to where Jackson was imprisoned in the cabin. How surely had the young Virginian answered to the call of love, even to entering a deadly trap. Such was the drawing-power of love for a maid. Such should be the whole-souled quality of a man’s love for his country.
And where tonight were the Tonpits? Were they alive, and if so, in Red Hajason’s camp? It sickened him to think of the girl in that rough environment, her austere father powerless to protect her. If Jackson hadn’t been captured and could have known of their plight he could have rallied some riflemen—but that was as useless as wishing for last year’s sunshine.