"A halter!" cried Ralph, in dudgeon; "you ar'n't for doing all, and the hoss-stealing too?"
"Friend," said Nathan, "with this halter I must bind one that sits in watch over the maiden; and, truly, it is better it should be so, seeing that these hands of mine have never been stained with the blood of woman."
"And you have found my mistress?" said Ralph, in a rapture. "Jist call the Captain, and let's be a doing!"
"He is a brave youth, and a youth of a mighty heart," said Nathan; "but this is no work for them that has never seen the ways of an Injun village. Now, friend, does thee hear me? The town is alive with fighting-men, and there is a war-party of fourteen painted Wyandotts sleeping on the Council-square. But don't thee be dismayed thereupon; for, truly, these assassin creatures is all besotted with drink; and were there with us but ten stout young men of Kentucky, I do truly believe we could knock every murdering dog of an on the head, and nobody the wiser. Does thee hear, friend? Do but thee own part in this endeavour well, and we will save the young and tender maid thee calls madam. Take theeself to the pound, which thee may do safely, by following the hill: pick out four good horses, fleet and strong, and carry them safely away, going up the valley,—mind, friend, thee must go up, as if thee was speeding thee way to the Big Lake, instead of to Kentucky: then, when thee has ridden a mile, thee may cross the brook, and follow the hills, till thee has reached the hiding-place that we did spy from out upon this village. Thee hears, friend? There thee will find the fair maid, Edith; which I will straightway fetch out of her bondage. And, truly, it may be, I have learned that, this night, which will make both her and the young man thee calls Captain, which is a brave young man, both rich and happy. And now, friend, thee has heard me; and thee must do thee duty."
"If I don't fetch her the beautifullest hoss that war ever seed in the woods," said Ralph, "thar's no reason, except because the Injuns ar'n't had good luck this year in grabbing! And I'll fetch him round up the holler, jist as you say too, and round about till I strike the snuggery, jist the same way; for thar's the way you show judgematical, and I'm cl'ar of your way of thinking. And so now, h'yar's my fo'-paw, in token thar's no two ways about me, Ralph Stackpole, a hoss to my friends, and a niggur to them that sarves me!"
With these words, the two associates, equally zealous in the cause in which they had embarked, parted, each to achieve his own particular share of the adventure, in which they had left so little to be done by the young Virginian.
But, as it happened, neither Roland's inclination nor fate was favourable to his playing so insignificant a part in the undertaking. He had remained in the place of concealment assigned him, tortured with suspense, and racked by self-reproach, for more than an hour: until, his impatience getting the better of his judgment, he resolved to creep nigher the village, to ascertain, if possible, the state of affairs. He had arrived within earshot of the pair, and without overhearing all, had gathered enough of their conversation to convince him that Edith was at last found, and that the blow was now to be struck for her deliverance. His two associates separated before he could reach them; Ralph plunging among the bushes that covered the hill, while Nathan, as before, stalked boldly into the village. He called softly after the latter, to attract his notice; but his voice was lost in the gusts sweeping along the hill; and Nathan proceeded onwards, without heeding him. He hesitated a moment whether to follow, or return to his station, where little Peter, more obedient, or more prudent than himself, still lay, having resolutely refused to stir at the soldier's invitation to accompany him; until finally, surrendering his discretion to his anxiety, he resolved to pursue after Nathan,—a measure of imprudence, if not of folly, which, at a less exciting moment, no one would have been more ready to condemn than himself. But the image of Edith in captivity, and perhaps of Braxley standing by, the master of her fate, was impressed upon his heart, as if pricked into it with daggers; and to remain longer at a distance, and in inaction, was impossible. Imitating Nathan's mode of advance as well as he could, guided by his dusky figure, and hoping soon to overtake him, he pushed forward and was soon in the dreaded village.
CHAPTER XXX.
In the meanwhile, Edith sat in the tent abandoned to despair, her mind not yet recovered from the stunning effect of her calamity, struggling confusedly with images of blood and phantasms of fear, the dreary recollections of the past mingling with the scarce less dreadful anticipations of the future. Of the battle on the hill-side she remembered nothing save the fall of her kinsman, shot down at her feet,—all she had herself witnessed, and all she could believe; for Telie Doe's assurances, contradicted in effect by her constant tears and agitation, that he had been carried off to captivity like herself, conveyed no conviction to her mind: from that moment, events were pictured on her memory as the records of a feverish dream, including all the incidents of her wild and hurried journey to the Indian village. But with these broken and dream-like reminiscences, there were associated recollections, vague, yet not the less terrifying, of a visage that had haunted her presence by day and by night, throughout the whole journey, watching, over her with the pertinacity of an evil genius; and which, as her faculties woke slowly from their trance, assumed every moment a more distinct and dreaded appearance in her imagination.
It was upon these hated features, seen side by side with the blood-stained aspect of her kinsman, she now pondered in mingled grief and terror; starting occasionally from the horror of her thoughts only to be driven back to them again by the scowling eyes of the old crone; who, still crouching over the fire, as if its warmth could never strike deep enough into her frozen veins, watched every movement and every look with the vigilance, and as it seemed, the viciousness of a serpent. No ray of pity shone even for a moment from her forbidding, and even hideous countenance; she offered no words, she made no signs, of sympathy; and, as if to prove her hearty disregard, or profound contempt for the prisoner's manifest distress, she by and by, to while the time, began to drone out a succession of grunting sounds, such as make up a red-man's melody, and such indeed as any village urchin can drum with his heels out of an empty hogshead. The song, thus barbarously chanted, at first startled and affrighted the captive; but its monotony had at last an effect which the beldam was far from designing. It diverted the maiden's mind in a measure from its own harassing thoughts, and thus introduced a kind of composure where all had been before painful agitation. Nay, as the sounds, which were at no time very loud, mingled with the piping of the gale without and the rustling of the old elm at the door, they lost their harshness, and were softened into a descant that was lulling to the senses, and might, like a gentler nepenthe, have, in time, cheated the over-weary mind to repose. Such, perhaps, was beginning to be its effect. Edith ceased to bend upon the hag the wild, terrified looks that at first rewarded the music; she sunk her head upon her bosom, and sat as if gradually giving way to a lethargy of spirit, which, if not sleep, was sleep's most beneficent substitute.