"We can escape, Roland!" exclaimed Edith, anticipating the soldier's news from his countenance; "the good man can save us?"
"I hope, I trust so," replied the kinsman: "we are in no immediate danger. Be composed, and for your lives, all now preserve silence."
A few words served to explain the posture of affairs, and a few seconds to transfer the party from its ignoble hiding-place to the open wood behind it; when Roland, casting his eyes to where Nathan lay motionless on the hill, awaited impatiently the expected signal. Fortunately, it was soon given; and, in a few moments more, the party, moving briskly but stealthily over the eminence, had plunged into the dark forest beyond, leaving the baffled pursuers to follow afterwards as they might.
"Now," said Nathan, taking post at Roland's side, and boldly directing his course across the track of the enemy, "we have the evil creatures behind us, and, truly, there we will keep them. And now, friend soldier, since such thee is, thee must make thee horses do duty, tired or not; for if we reach not the Old Ford before darkness closes on us, we may find but ill fortune crossing the waters. Hark, friend! does thee hear?" he exclaimed, coming to a pause, as a sudden and frightful yell suddenly rose in the forest beyond the ridge, obviously proceeding from the five foes, and expressing at once surprise, horror, and lamentation: "Did thee not say thee found a dead Injun in the wood?"
"We did," replied the soldier, "the body of an Indian horribly mangled; and, if I am to believe the strange story I have heard of the Jibbenainosay, it was some of his bloody work."
"It is good for thee, then, and the maidens that is with thee," said Nathan; "for, truly, the evil creatures have found that same dead man, being doubtless one of their own scouting companions; and, truly, they say the Injuns, in such cases made and provided, give over their evil designs in terror and despair; in which case, as I said, it will be good for thee and thee companions. But follow, friends, and tarry not to ask questions. Thee poor women shall come to no harm, if Nathan Slaughter or little Dog Peter can help them."
With these words of encouragement, Nathan, bounding along with an activity that kept him ever in advance of the mounted wanderers, led the way from the open forest into a labyrinth of brakes and bogs, through paths traced rather by wolves and bears than any nobler animals, so wild, so difficult, and sometimes, in appearance, so impracticable to be pursued, that Roland, bewildered from the first, looked every moment to find himself plunged into difficulties from which neither the zeal of Nathan nor the sagacity of the unpretending Peter could extricate his weary followers. The night was coming fast, and coming with clouds and distant peals of thunder, the harbingers of new tempests; and how the journey was to be continued, when darkness should at last invest them, through the wild mazes of vine and brake in which they now wandered, was a question which he scarce durst answer. But night came, and still Nathan led the way with unabated confidence and activity, professing a very hearty contempt for all perils and difficulties of the woods, except such as proceeded from "evil-minded Shawnee creatures;" and, indeed, averring that there was scarce a nook in the forest, for miles around, with which he was not as well acquainted as with the patches of his own leathern garments. "Truly," said he, "when I first came to this land, I did make me a little cabin in a place hard by; but the Injuns burned the same; and, verily, had it not been for little Peter, who gave me a hint of their coming, I should have been burned with it. Be of good heart, friend: if thee will keep the ill-meaning Injun-men out of my way, I will adventure to lead thee anywhere thee will, within twenty miles of this place, on the darkest night, and that through the thickest cane, or deepest swamp, thee can lay eyes on,—that is, if I have but little dog Peter to help me. Courage, friend; thee is now coming fast to the river; and, if we have but good luck in crossing it, thee shall, peradventure, find theeself nearer thee friends than thee thinks for."
This agreeable assurance was a cordial to the spirits of all, and the travellers now finding themselves, though still in profound darkness, moving through the open woodlands again, instead of the maze of copses that had so long confined them, Roland took advantage of the change to place himself at Nathan's side, and endeavour to draw from him some account of his history, and the causes that had brought him into a position and way of life so ill suited to his faith and peaceful habits. To his questions, however, Nathan seemed little disposed to return satisfactory answers, except in so far as they related to his adventures since the period of his coming to the frontier; of which he spoke very freely, though succinctly. He had built him cabins, like other lonely settlers, and planted cornfields, from which he had been driven, time after time, by the evil Shawnees, incurring frequent perils and hardships; which, with the persecutions he endured from his more warlike and intolerant neighbours, gradually drove him into the forest to seek a precarious subsistence from the spoils of the chase. As to his past life, and the causes that had made him a dweller of the wilderness, he betrayed so little inclination to satisfy the young man's curiosity, that Roland dropped the subject entirely, not however without suspecting, that the imputations Bruce had cast upon his character might have had some foundation in truth.
But while conning these things over in his mind, on a sudden the soldier stepped from the dark forest into a broad opening, canopied only by the sky, sweeping like a road through the wood, in which it was lost behind him; while, in front, it sank abruptly into a deep hollow or gulf, in which was heard the sullen rush of an impetuous river.