"Take the gal! jist say the word, and I'll save you, or die with you, I will, d——n me!" exclaimed Doe, with fierce energy. "There's hosses grazing in the pastures; there's halters swinging above us: I'll mount you and save you. Say the word, captain, and I'll cut you loose and save you—say it, and be quick; your life depends on it—Hark! the dogs is coming! Hold out your arms till I cut the tug—"
"Anything for my life!" cried the Virginian; "but if it can be only bought at the price of marrying the girl, it is lost."
And the soldier would have resisted the effort Doe was making for his deliverance.
"You'll be murdered, I tell you!" re-echoed Doe, with increased vehemence, holding the knife ready in his hand: "they're coming on us: I don't want to see you butchered like an ox. One word, captain!—I'll take your word; you're an honest fellow, and I'll believe in you;—jist one word, captain; I'll help you; I'll fight the dogs for you; I'll give you weapons. The gal, captain! life and the fortun, captain!—The gal! the gal!"
"Never, I tell you, never!" cried Roland, who, faithful to the honour and integrity of spirit which conducted the men of that day, the mighty fathers of the republic, through the vicissitudes of revolution to the rewards of liberty, would not stoop to the meanness of falsehood and deception even in that moment of peril and fear;—"anything but that—but that, never!"
But, whilst he spoke, Doe, urged on by his own impetuous feelings, had cut the thong from his wrists, and was even proceeding to divide those that bound his ankles, disregarding all his protestations and averments, or perhaps drowning them in his own eager exclamations of "The gal, captain,—the word, jist one word!" when a dozen or more savages burst into the hut, and sprang upon the Virginian, yelling, cursing, and flourishing their knives and hatchets, as if they would have torn him to pieces on the spot. And such, undoubtedly, was the aim of some of the younger men, who struck at him several furious blows, that were only averted by the older warriors at the expense of some of their own blood shed in the struggle, which was, for a moment, as fiercely waged over the prisoner as the conflict of enraged hounds over the body of a disabled panther, that are all emulous to worry and tear. One instant of dreadful confusion, of shrieks, blows, and maledictions, and the Virginian was snatched up in the arms of two or three of the strongest men, and dragged from the hut; but only to find himself surrounded by a herd of villagers, men, women, and children, who fell upon him with as much fury as the young warriors had done, beating him with bludgeons, wounding him with their knives, so that it seemed impossible the older braves could protect him much longer. But others ran to their assistance; and forming a circle around him, so as to exclude the mob, he was borne onwards, in temporary security, but destined to a fate to which murder on the spot would have been gentleness and mercy.
The tumult had roused Edith also from her painful slumbers; and the more necessarily, since, although removed from the tent in which she was first imprisoned, she was still confined in Wenonga's wigwam. It was the scream of the hag, the chieftain's wife, who had discovered his body, that first gave the alarm; and the villagers all rushing to the cabin, and yelling their astonishment and terror, there arose an uproar, almost in her ears, that was better fitted to fright her to death than to lull her again to repose. She started from her couch of furs, and with a woman's weakness, cowered away in the furthest corner of the lodge, to escape the pitiless fees, whom her fears represented as already seeking her life. Nor was this chimera banished from her mind when a man, rushing in, snatched her from her ineffectual concealment and hurried her towards the door. But her terrors ran in another channel, when the ravisher, conquering the feeble resistance she attempted, replied to her wild entreaties "not to kill her," in the well-remembered voice of Braxley:
"Kill you, indeed!" he muttered, but with agitated tones; "I come to save you; even you are in danger from the maddened villains: they are murdering all! We must fly,—ay, and fast. My horse is saddled,—the woods are open—I will yet save you."
"Spare me!—for my uncle's sake, who was your benefactor, spare me!" cried Edith, struggling to free herself from his grasp. But she struggled in vain. "I aim to save you," cried Braxley; and without uttering another word, bore her from the hut; and, still grasping her with an arm of iron, sprang upon a saddled horse,—the identical animal that had once sustained the weight of the unfortunate Pardon Dodge,—which stood under the elm-tree, trembling with fright at the scene of horror then represented on the square.
Upon this vacant space was now assembled the whole population of the village, old and young, the strong and the feeble, all agitated alike by those passions, which, when let loose in a mob, whether civilised or savage, almost enforce the conviction that there is something essentially demoniac in the human character and composition; as if, indeed, the earth of which man is framed had been gathered only after it had been trodden by the foot of the Prince of Darkness.