The attack, so wholly unexpected, so sudden and so violent, was as irresistible as astounding; and Braxley, unnerved by the surprise and by fear, succumbing as to the stroke of an avenging angel, the protector of innocence, whom his villany had conjured from the air, lay gasping upon the earth without attempting the slightest resistance, while the assailant, dropping his knife and producing a long cord of twisted leather, proceeded, with inexpressible dexterity and speed, to bind his limbs, which he did in a manner none the less effectual for being so hasty. An instant sufficed to secure him hand and foot; in another, a gag was clapped in his mouth and secured by a turn of the rope round his neck; at the third, the conqueror, thrusting his hand into his bosom, tore from it the stolen will, which he immediately after buried in his own. Then, spurning the baffled villain into a corner, and flinging over his body a pile of skins and blankets, until he was entirely hidden from sight, he left him to the combined agonies of fear, darkness, and suffocation.
Such was the rapidity, indeed, with which the whole affair was conducted, that Braxley had scarce time to catch a glimpse of his assailant's countenance; and that glimpse, without abating his terror, took but little from his amazement. It was the countenance of an Indian,—or such it seemed,—grimly and hideously painted over with figures of snakes, lizards, skulls, and other savage devices, which were repeated upon the arms, the half-naked bosom, and even the squalid shirt of the victor. One glance, in the confusion and terror of the moment, Braxley gave to his extraordinary foe; and then the mantles piled upon his body concealed all objects from his eyes.
In the meanwhile, Edith, not less confounded, sat cowering with terror, until the victor, having completed his task, sprang to her side,—a movement, however, that only increased her dismay,—crying, with warning gestures, "Fear not and speak not;—up and away!" when, perceiving she recoiled from him with all her feeble strength, and was indeed unable to rise, he caught her in his arms, muttering, "Thee is safe—thee friends is nigh!" and bore her swiftly, yet noiselessly, from the tent.
CHAPTER XXXI.
The night was even darker than before, the fire of the Wyandotts on the square had burned so low as no longer to send even a ray to the hut of Wenonga, and the wind, though subsiding, still kept up a sufficient din to drown the ordinary sound of footsteps. Under such favourable circumstances, Nathan (for, as may be supposed, it was this faithful friend who had snatched the forlorn Edith from the grasp of the betrayer) stalked boldly from the hut, bearing the rescued maiden in his arms, and little doubting that, having thus so successfully accomplished the first and greatest step in the enterprise, he could now conclude it in safety, if not with ease.
But there were perils yet to be encountered, which the man of peace had not taken into anticipation, and which, indeed, would not have existed, had his foreboding doubts of the propriety of admitting either of his associates, and honest Stackpole especially, to a share of the exploit, been suffered to influence his counsels to the exclusion of that worthy but unlucky personage altogether. He had scarce stepped from the tent-door before there arose on the sudden, and at no great distance from the square over which he was hurrying his precious burden, a horrible din,—a stamping, snorting, galloping and neighing of horses, as if a dozen famished bears or wolves had suddenly made their way into the Indian pinfold, carrying death and distraction into the whole herd. And this alarming omen was almost instantly followed by an increase of all the uproar, as if the animals had broken loose from the pound, and were rushing, mad with terror, towards the centre of the village.
At the first outbreak of the tumult, Nathan had dropped immediately into the bushes before the wigwam; but perceiving that the sounds increased, and were actually drawing nigh, and that the sleepers were waking on the square, he sprang again to his feet, and, flinging his blanket around Edith, who was yet incapable of aiding herself, resolved to make a bold effort to escape, while darkness and the confusion of the enemy permitted. There was, in truth, not a moment to be lost. The slumbers of the barbarians, proverbially light at all times, and readily broken even when the stupor of intoxication has steeped their faculties, were not proof against sounds at once so unusual and so uproarious. A sudden yell of surprise, bursting from one point, was echoed by another, and another voice; and, in a moment, the square resounded with these signals of alarm, added to the wilder screams which some of them set up, of "Long-knives! Long-knives!" as if the savages supposed themselves suddenly beset by a whole army of charging Kentuckians.
It was at this moment of dismay and confusion, that Nathan rose from the earth, and, all other paths being now cut off, darted across a corner of the square towards the river, which was in a quarter opposite to that whence the sounds came, in hopes to reach the alder-thicket on its banks, before being observed. And this, perhaps, he would have succeeded in reaching, had not Fortune, which seemed this night to give a loose to all her fickleness, prepared a new and greater difficulty.
As he rose from the bushes, some savage, possessed of greater presence of mind than his fellows, cast a decaying brand from the fire into the heap of dried grass and maize-husks, designed for their couches, which, bursting immediately into a furious flame, illuminated the whole square and village, and revealed, as it was designed to do, the cause of the wondrous uproar. A dozen or more horses were instantly seen galloping into the square, followed by a larger and denser herd behind, all agitated by terror, all plunging, rearing, prancing, and kicking, as if possessed by a legion of evil spirits, though driven, as was made apparent by the yells which the Indians set up on seeing him, by nothing more than the agency of a human being.
At the first flash of the flames seizing upon the huge bed of straw, and whirling up in the gust in a prodigious volume, Nathan gave up all for lost, not doubting that he would be instantly seen and assailed. But the spectacle of their horses dashing madly into the square, with the cause of the tumult seen struggling among them, in the apparition of a white man, sitting aloft, entangled inextricably in the thickest of the herd, and evidently borne forward with no consent of his own, was metal more attractive for Indian eyes; and Nathan perceived that he was not only neglected in the confusion by all, but was likely to remain so, long enough to enable him to put the thicket betwixt him and the danger of discovery.