Arriving at the borders of the cultivated grounds, the three adventurers crossed the river, which was neither broad nor deep, and stealing among logs and stumps at the foot of the hill, where some industrious savage had, in former years, begun to clear a field, which, however, his wives had never planted, they lay down in concealment, waiting until the subsiding of the unusual bustle in the village, a consequence manifestly of the excesses which Nathan predicted the victors would indulge in, should render their further advance practicable. But this was not the work of a moment. The savage can drink and dance through the night with as lusty a zeal as his white neighbour; the song, the jest, the merry tale, are as dear to his imagination; and in the retirement of his own village, feeling no longer the restraint of stolid gravity,—assumed in the haunts of the white man, less to play the part of a hero than to cover the nakedness of his own inferiority,—he can give himself up to wild indulgence, the sport of whim and frolic; and, when the fire-water is the soul of the feast, the feast only ends with the last drop of liquor.
It could be scarcely doubted that the Indians of the village were, this night, paying their devotions to the Manito of the rum-keg, and drinking folly and fury together from the enchanted draught, which one of the bravest of the race—its adorer and victim, like Logan the heroic, and Red-Jacket the renowned,—declared could only have been distilled "from the hearts of wild-cats and the tongues of women,—it made him so fierce and so foolish;" nor could it, on the other hand, be questioned that many a sad and gloomy reminiscence, the recollection of wrong, of defeat, of disaster, of the loss of friends and of country, was mingled in the joy of the debauch. From their lurking-place near the village, the three friends could hear many a wild whoop, now fierce and startling, now plaintive and mourning,—the one, as Nathan and Ralph said, the halloo for revenge, the other the whoop of lamentation,—at intervals chiming strangely in with unmeaning shrieks and roaring laughter, the squeaking of women and the gibbering of children, with the barking of curs, the utterance of obstreperous enjoyment, in which the whole village, brute and human, seemed equally to share. For a time, indeed, one might have deemed the little hamlet an outer burgh of Pandemonium itself; and the captain of horse-thieves swore, that, having long been of opinion "the red abbregynes war the rule children of Sattan, and niggers only the grand-boys, he should now hold the matter to be as settled as if booked down in an almanac,—he would, 'tarnal death to him."
But if the festive spirit of the barbarians might have lasted for ever, there was, it appeared, no such exhaustless quality in their liquor; and, that failing at last, the uproar began gradually to decrease; although it was not until within an hour of midnight that Nathan declared the moment had arrived for entering the village.
He then rose from his lair, and repeating his injunctions to Roland to remain where he was, until the issue of his own visit should be known, added a word of parting counsel, which, to Roland's imagination, bore somewhat an ominous character. "The thing that is to come," he said, "neither thee nor me knows anything about; for, truly, an Injun village is a war-trap, which one may sometimes creep into easy enough; but, truly, the getting out again is another matter. And so, friend, if it should be my luck, and friend Ralph's, to be killed or captivated, so that we cannot return to thee again, do thee move by the first blink of day, and do thee best to save thee own life; and, truly, I have some hope that thee may succeed, seeing that, if I should fall, little Peter (which I will leave with thee, for, truly, he would but encumber me among the dogs of the village, having better skill to avoid murdering Injuns than the creatures of his own kind), will make thee his master,—as verily, he can no longer serve a dead one,—and show thee the way back again from the wilderness. Truly, friend, he hath an affection for thee, for thee has used him well; which he can say of no other persons, save only thee and me excepted."
With that, having laid aside his gun, which, as he represented, could be, in such an undertaking, of no service, and directed Stackpole to do the same, he shook Roland by the hand, and, waiting an instant till Ralph had followed his example, and added his farewell in the brief phrase,—"Sodger, I'm atter my mistress; and, for all Nathan's small talk about massacree and captivation, we'll fetch her, with a most beautiful lot of hosses; so thar's no fawwell about it,"—turned to little Peter, whom he addressed quite as gravely as he had done the Virginian. "Now, little dog Peter," said he, "I leave thee to take care of theeself and the young man that is with thee; and do thee be good, and faithful, and obedient, as thee always has been, and have a good care thee keeps out of mischief."
With these words, which Peter, doubtless, perfectly understood, for he squatted himself down upon the ground, without any attempt to follow his master, Nathan departed, with Roaring Ralph at his side, leaving Roland to mutter his anxieties and fears, his doubts and impatience, into the ears of the least presuming of counsellors.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
The night was brilliantly clear, the stars shining with an excess of lustre, with which Nathan would perhaps, at that moment, have gladly dispensed, since it was by no means favourable to the achievement he was now so daringly attempting. Fortunately, however, the Indian village lay, for the most part, in the shadow of the hill, itself covered with majestic maples and tulip-trees, that rose in dark and solemn masses above it, and thus offered the concealment denied in the more open parts of the valley. With Ralph still at his side, he crept round the projecting corner of the hill, and, shrouded in its gloom, drew nigh the village, wherein might be still occasionally heard the halloo of a drunken savage, followed by an uproarious chorus of barking and howling curs.
Whether it was that these sounds, or some gloomy forebodings of his own, awoke the anxieties of Nathan, he did not deign to reveal; but, by and by, having arrived within but a few paces of a wretched pile of skins and boughs, the dwelling of some equally wretched and improvident barbarian, he came to a sudden halt, and withdrawing the captain of horse-thieves aside from the path, addressed him in the following terms:—
"Thee says, friend, thee has taken horses from this very Village, and that thee knows it well?"