Up to this hour the storm had steadily increased in violence, and the ship, though still safe, was surging heavily at her cables. At the same time but a single figure was in motion on her decks, and he was creeping forward as stealthily as though fearful of being discovered. Gaining the bow undetected, he bent for a minute over one of the straining cables, and when he arose two of its hempen strands had been severed. Then he stepped quickly to the other, drew his keen blade across it once, twice, three times, and with the last stroke it parted. The one first cut gave way almost at the same moment, and the freed ship started up the bay like a restive steed just given a loose rein.
With his long-meditated design thus successfully accomplished, Nahma darted back to his place of hiding and awaited developments. He had long since discovered that he was destined to be sold into slavery among those white men who had settled far to the southward of his own country. Tales of their injustice and cruelty towards the natives had reached Montaup even before he left there, and had filled his boyish heart with a fierce indignation. Now he was determined not to fall alive into their hands, and believed that on this night or never he must effect an escape. He could not swim to shore because of the distance and the heavy seas. All the ship's boats were inboard and securely lashed, so that he could not make off in one of them. Consequently his only feasible plan seemed to be to let the ship herself drift until she fetched up on some beach, from which he might gain the safe cover of the woods. He had never experienced a shipwreck and knew nothing of its terrors. Even if he had he would not have hesitated to carry out his desperate plan.
The captain of the drifting ship, too hard-headed to be overcome by any amount of liquor, was the first to become aware that her cables had parted. He stumbled on deck, bawling out orders that were mingled with strange oaths, and, gaining the wheel, put his vessel's head before the wind that she might scud without danger of being thrown on her beam ends. Then he bellowed for assistance, but it came tardily, and was of slight avail. There was but one spare anchor, and when finally it was broken out, bent on, and got overboard, the ship was so far in the open that it could not hold.
So the helpless vessel drifted for several hours, and shortly before daybreak struck with such force that all of her masts went by the board. Then ensued a period of horrible crashing, grinding, and pounding, with which were mingled the shrieks of drowning men. Some of the strongest swimmers reached the shore, bruised and breathless but still alive, and foremost among them was the almost naked form of him who had caused the disaster.
Battered and beaten by roaring breakers, weak and nearly perished with cold, Nahma was at the same time upheld by such a spirit of exultation as he had never before known. He was once more free and once more lying on the beloved soil of his native land. No sooner had he regained his breath after being flung on the beach than he struggled to his feet and staggered to the safe shelter of a forest that grew almost to the water's edge. He did not look back nor give a thought to what was taking place behind him. The white men who would have sold him into slavery might care for themselves, as might those who had so recently degraded him by their blows and curses.
An hour later our young Indian was seated by a camp-fire of the Saganaga or Delawares, and telling them in sign language, supplemented by the few words they had in common, of the wonderful treasure that the sea had brought to their very doors.
They, recognizing the splendid belt of wampum that he wore, listened to him with closest attention; and when he had finished, all the able-bodied men of the village hastened to the scene of the wreck, leaving Nahma to the kindly hospitality of those who remained behind.
That night there was no village in the Delaware nation, nor probably on the entire Atlantic coast, so rich in scalps and plunder as the one in which the son of Longfeather was an honored guest.