Without pursuing the conversation further, it may suffice to remark that Wau-nan-gee left not Mrs. Ronayne until he had exacted her promise to meet him on the following afternoon in the summer-house, when he said he would be enabled to show her a place where, with her husband, she might be concealed as soon as it was known on what day the Indians should have decided on their attack. This he pledged himself to have arranged in the course of the morning, so that by the afternoon she should be enabled to judge of the convenience it afforded. The trunks seen by Ronayne at Hardscrabble, were hastily packed by Mrs. Ronayne with articles of clothing for both, and conveyed by Wau-nan-gee that night through his secret entrance to the summer-house, and subsequently removed.
Not liking to call attention to the circumstance of her crossing the water unaccompanied, and moreover, really desiring the presence of one of her own sex to sustain her in the course that had been forced upon her, she had requested Mrs. Headley to bear her company. On her entering the summer-house, the trap-door, which appeared to have been made that very morning, was open; but instead of Wau-nan-gee, she beheld standing near its entrance another dark Indian whom she had too much reason to fear and dread.
It has already been remarked that Pee-to-tum was not a genuine Pottowatomie, but one of that race whose very name is a synonym with treachery and falsehood—a Chippewa. With low, heavy features; a dark, scowling brow; coarse, long, dark hair, shading the restless, ever-moving eye that, like that of the serpent, seemed to fascinate where most the cold and slimy animal sought to sting; the broad, coarse nose; the skin partaking more in the Chippewa, of that offensive, rank odor peculiar to the Indian, than any others of the race; with all these loathsome attributes of person, yet with a soul swelling with the most unbounded vanity and self-sufficiency, based on ignorance and assumption; this man, although having a wife and children grown up, had dared to cast the eye of desire on Mrs. Ronayne. Long had he watched her, not as the gentle, the pure, the self-sacrificing Wau-nan-gee, but as a tiger gloating for his prey. To possess her had been one of his leading motives in urging the alliance with the tribes in the British interests—to hasten the moment she might become a prisoner in his hands, his chief aim in stirring up the young warriors into a determination of early attack.
Only two days prior to the return of Wau-nan-gee he had been in the fort, and passing near Mrs. Ronayne as she was amusing herself at battledore with her friend, Mrs. Elmsley, remarked to a companion as he bent his eyes insolently upon her: “The white chiefs' wives are amusing themselves. They are wise. In a few days we shall have them in our wigwams.”
No notice was taken of the remark at the time. Mrs. Ronayne had more than once noticed the eyes of the loathsome Chippewa fixed upon her with an expression she shuddered at but could not define, and she had attributes his words on that occasion to impotent anger and disappointment, at the dislike she had conceived for him.
This was the loathsome being she now met, and knowing, as she did from Wau-nan-gee, all that he meditated in regard to himself and friend, the horror she experienced may be conceived. Rapidly, and in time to suppress in a great measure the scream she attempted to give, the savage placed one hand upon her mouth, and clasping her tightly round the waist, bore her to the opening through which he made her rudely descend, still keeping his hand upon her mouth.
When the feet of Mrs. Ronayne touched the bottom of that seemingly living tomb, she was so paralysed by fear that she had not strength to support herself, and but for the arm of the dark chief still clasped around her waist, she must have fallen. The very sight of her weakness inflamed the Chippewa the more. He removed her hat and threw it on the ground. The vast volume of her brown hair he unfastened from the comb. It fell, enveloping her figure to her knees. The eyes of the brutal Chippewa flashed fire in the half darkness that prevailed around. The hand hitherto held upon her mouth, now fell upon and fiercely pressed her bosom, and his hideous lips sought hers. With a violent effort she tore them from the pollution of his touch, and uttering a fault cry of despair, sank fainting from his now loosening grasp. What followed she could not tell; but when some minutes afterwards she came to her senses, weak and exhausted from excitement, Wau-nan-gee was sitting at her side chafing her palms with his own, and with the large tears coursing down his cheeks.
At the first sight of the boy Mrs. Ronayne started, for she fancied that she must have been laboring under the influence of a dream, and that not Pee-to-tum, but himself, had used the violence she experienced; but when she recalled all that had passed, perceived her own disorder of dress, and remarked the unfeigned affliction of the youth, she knew that it could not be so. Still deeply agitated, she asked him anxiously where the Chippewa was, and wherefore, he and not Wau-nan-gee had been in the summer-house as promised, when she came in. With every appearance of profound sorrow and sincerity, the youth replied that he knew not how Pee-to-tum had got there—that he himself, after leaving the trap-door open ready for the descent of Mrs. Ronayne, had gone to the further extremity of the vault for the purpose of removing a large stone which blocked up a hole admitting the fresh air from above near the cottage, and that he was returning by this passage, which was narrow but nearly six feet in height, when he heard the cry for aid, and knowing it to be hers he had flown to her assistance, but that the sound of his approaching footsteps must have alarmed the Chippewa and caused him to fly—stopping motionless, perhaps, till he, Wau-nan-gee, had passed him, and then escaping by the same outlet. He it must have been whom Mrs. Headley had remarked stealing across the garden just before she entered it with Maria.
Once reassured of the fidelity and truth of the boy, Mrs. Ronayne, although painfully, distractingly ignorant of the extent to which the insolence of Pee-to-tum had been carried, was too much absorbed in the consideration of her husband's safety to lose sight of the subject more immediately at her heart, in mere personal regrets that now were of little avail. She said to Wau-nan-gee that the place in which she then was would certainly have been well suited to the purpose intended but for two reasons; firstly, that now having been discovered by Pee-to-tum, it would no longer be secure; and secondly, that her husband would never consent to abandon his comrades to secure his own safety. She proposed, instead, that a plan should be arranged to make them both prisoners while out on the following day, and in such manner that it should be supposed in the garrison that the capture had been effected by hostile Indians; and to this the youth joyfully assented, stating that a number of his friends less hostile in their intentions might be procured to aid him in the matter. It was arranged that this should be done on the following day, and this at so great a distance from the encampment that Pee-to-tum should know nothing of the occurrence till both husband and wife were beyond his reach.
“It is a strange and a wild project,” she remarked, “but the crisis is desperate, and anything to save my husband's life. But now I must go, dear Wau-nan-gee; Mrs. Headley is in the garden waiting for me.”