"I will not, father;—I will not be silent, I will not away!" cried the girl, resisting his efforts, and speaking with a voice that mingled the bitterest reproach with imploring entreaty, "you are a white man, father, and not an Indian; yes, father, you are no Indian; and you promised no harm should be done,—you did, father, you did promise!"
"Away, gal, I tell you!" thundered the renegade parent; and he again strove to drag her from the prisoner. But Telie, as if driven frantic by the act, flung her arms round Roland's body, from which she was drawn only by an effort of strength which her weak powers were unable to resist. But even then she did not give over her purpose; but starting from her father's arms, she ran screaming back to Roland, and would have again clasped him in her own; when the renegade, driven to fury by her opposition, arrested her with one hand, and with the other catching up a knife that lay in the grass, he made as if, in his fit of passion, he would have actually plunged it into her breast. His malevolent visage and brutal threat awoke the terrors of the woman in her heart, and she sank on her knees, crying-with a piercing voice, "Oh, father, don't kill me! don't kill your own daughter!"
"Kill you, indeed!" muttered the outlaw, with a laugh of scorn; "even Injuns don't kill their own children." And taking advantage of her terror, he beckoned to the Piankeshaw, who, as well as all the other Indians, seemed greatly astounded and scandalised at the indecorous interference of a female in the affairs of warriors, to remove the prisoner; which he did by immediately beginning to drag him down the hill. The action was not unobserved by the girl, whose struggles to escape from her father's arms, to pursue, as it seemed, after the soldier, Roland could long see, while her wild and piteous cries were still longer brought to his ears.
As for Roland himself, the words and actions of the girl,—though they might have awakened suspicions, not before-experienced, of her good faith, and even appeared to show that it was less to unlucky accident than to foul conspiracy he owed his misfortunes,—did not, and could not, banish the despair that absorbed his mind, to the exclusion of every other feeling. He seemed even to himself to be in a dream the sport of an incubus, that oppressed every faculty and energy of spirit, while yet presenting the most dreadful phantasms to his imagination. His tongue had lost its function; he strove several times to speak, but tongue and spirit were alike paralysed. The nightmare oppressed mind and body together.
It was in this unhappy condition, the result of overwrought, feelings and intolerable bodily suffering, that he was led by his Piankeshaw masters down the hill to the river, which they appeared to be about to pass; whilst the chief body of marauders were left to seek another road from the field of battle. Here the old warrior descended from his horse, and leaving Roland in charge of the two juniors, stepped a little aside to a place where was a ledge of rocks, in the face of which seemed to be the entrance to a cavern, although carefully blocked up by masses of stone, that had been but recently removed from its foot. The Piankeshaw, taking post directly in front of the hole, began to utter many mournful ejaculations, which were addressed to the insensate rock, or perhaps to the equally insensate corpse of a comrade concealed within. He drew also from a little pouch,—his medicine-bag,—divers bits of bone, wood, and feathers, the most valued idols of his fetich, which he scattered about the rock, singing the while, in a highly lugubrious tone, the praises of the dead, and shedding tears that might have been supposed the outpourings of genuine sorrow. But if sorrow it was that thus affected the spirits of the warrior, as it seemed to have done on several previous occasions, it proved to be as easily consolable as before, as the event showed; for having finished his lamentations, and left the rock, he advanced towards Roland, whom he threatened for the third time with his knife; when one of the younger Indians muttering a few words of remonstrance, and pointing at the same time to the keg of fire-water on the horse's back, his grief and rage expired together in a haw-haw, ten times more obstreperous and joyous than any he had indulged before. Then mounting the horse, seemingly in the best humour in the world, and taking the end of the cord by which Roland was bound, he rode into the water, dragging the unfortunate prisoner along at his horse's heels; while the younger Piankeshaws brought up the rear, ready to prevent resistance on the soldier's part, should he prove in any degree refractory.
In this ignominious manner the unhappy Forrester passed the river, to do which had, for twenty-four hours, been the chief object of his wishes. The ford was wide, deep, and rocky, and the current strong, so that he was several times swept from his feet, and being unable to rise would have perished,—happy could he have thus escaped his tormentors—had not the young warriors been nigh to give him assistance. Assistance, in such cases, was indeed always rendered; but his embarrassments and perils only afforded food for mirth to his savage attendants, who, at every fall and dip in the tide, made the hills resound with their vociferous laughter. It is only among children (we mean, of course, bad ones) and savages, who are but grown children, after all, that we find malice and mirth go hand in hand,—the will to create misery and the power to see it invested in ludicrous colours.
The river was at last crossed, and the bank being ascended, the three warriors paused a moment to send their last greeting across to their allies, who were seen climbing the hill, taking their own departure from the battle-ground. Even Roland was stirred from his stupefaction, as he beheld the train, some on foot, some on the captured horses, winding up the narrow road to the hill-top. He looked among them for his Edith, and saw her,—or fancied he saw her, for the distance was considerable,—supported on one of the animals, grasped in the arms of a tall savage, the guard of the grove, whose scarlet turban glittering in the sunshine, and his ample white blanket flowing over the flanks of the horse, made the most conspicuous objects in the train. But while he looked, barbarian and captive vanished together behind the hill, for they were at the head of the train. There remained a throng of footmen, who paused an instant on the crest of the ridge to return the farewell whoop of the three Piankeshaws. This being done, they likewise disappeared; and the Piankeshaws, turning their faces towards the west, dragging the prisoner after them, resumed their journey.
CHAPTER XXI.
The agony which Roland suffered from the thong so tightly secured upon his wrists, was so far advantageous as it distracted his mind from the subject which had been at first the chief source of his distress: for it was impossible to think long even of his kinswoman, while enduring tortures that were aggravated by every jerk of the rope, by which he was dragged along; these growing more insupportable every moment. His sufferings, however, seemed to engage little of the thoughts of his conductors; who, leaving the buffalo road, and striking into the pathless forest, pushed onward at a rapid pace, compelling him to keep up with them; and it was not until he had twice fainted from pain and exhaustion, that, after some discussion, they thought fit to loosen the thong, which they afterwards removed altogether. Then, whether it was that they were touched at last with compassion, or afraid that death might snatch the prisoner from their hands, if too severely treated, they proceeded even to take other measures of a seemingly friendly kind, to allay his pangs; washing his lacerated wrists in a little brook, on whose banks they paused to give him rest, and then binding them up, as well as the two or three painful, though not dangerous, wounds he had received, with green leaves, which one of the juniors plucked, bruised, and applied with every appearance of the most brotherly interest; while the other, to equal, or surpass him in benevolence, took the keg of whisky from the horse's back, and filling a little wooden bowl that he drew from a pack, insisted that the prisoner should swallow it. In this recommendation the old Piankeshaw also concurred; but finding that Roland recoiled with disgust, after an attempt to taste the fiery liquid, he took the bowl into his own hands, and despatched its contents at a draught. "Good! great good!" he muttered, smacking his lips with high gusto; "white man make good drink!—Piankeshaw great friend white-man's liquor."
Having thus opened their hearts, nothing could be, to appearance, more friendly and affectionate than the bearing of the savages, at least so long as they remained at the brook; and even when the journey was resumed, which it soon was, their deportment was but little less loving. It is true, that the senior, before mounting his horse, proceeded very coolly to clap the noose, which had previously been placed on Roland's arms, around his neck, where it bade fair to strangle him, at the first false step of the horse; but the young Indians walked at his side, chattering in high good humour; though, as their stock of English extended only to the single phrase, "Bozhoo, brudder," which was not in itself very comprehensible, though repeated at least twice every minute, it may be supposed their conversation had no very enlivening effect on the prisoner.