It was nearly noon when the lovers—whose conversation on such an occasion I must leave the reader to imagine—turned from the enchanting prospect, which at this day exceeds any thing in America—to return to the settlement. Two Indians, of the Narragansett tribe, now bounded from the thicket, and before Foster could bring his musketoon to its rest—for he always went armed—they levelled him to the earth. A green withe was speedily twined around his arms, and he was apparently as powerless as a child. Grace sprang to a little path that led to the parapet of the bluff and screamed for help; that scream was her salvation, for the Indian who was binding Foster’s hands, left the withe loose, and sprang toward her. In a moment the rude hand of the red-man rested heavily upon her shoulder, and his grim look sent the blood tingling from her cheeks. Another withe was speedily passed around her arms, and then the two Narragansetts seated themselves to make a hurdle to bear the pale faced maiden away. As they were busily engaged Grace heard a whisper behind her. She turned her head half round—Foster, by great exertions, had got loose from his withe, and was crawling slowly toward his musketoon.
The Narragansetts, suspecting nothing, were sitting behind a little clump of sassafras, and nothing but their brawny chests could be seen through a small bend in the trunks of the trees that composed the thicket.
Stealthily crept the experienced Foster to the tree where his musketoon rested. Not a crackling twig, nor rustling leaf, gave the slightest evidence of his movements. The Indians spoke in their own wild gutterals of the beauty of the pale-faced squaw, and chuckled with delight at the speedy prospect of roasting the young long knife by Philip’s council fire.
The musketoon was just as he had left it: not a grain of powder had left the pan,—the match burned brightly at the butt, and every thing seemed to be as effective as possible. Foster seized it and motioned to Grace to stoop her head, so as to give him a chance to bring the red men in a range through the opening in the thicket.
Grace bent her head to the ground, while her heart beat with fearful anticipation. The young pilgrim aimed his deadly weapon, as a fine opportunity presented itself. The two savages were sitting cross-legged, side by side, and their brawny breasts were seen, one bending slightly before the other. Foster aimed so as to give each a fair proportion of slugs—for he had a charge for a panther in his barrel—and fired. A loud report rang down the aisles of the forest, and rattled in echoes over the settlement, while the two Indians bounded up with a fearful yell, and fell dead upon the half-made hurdle. Foster sprang to the side of Grace, and casting loose the withe that confined her swollen arms, bore her over the bodies of the Narragansetts, whose horrid scowls never were forgotten by the affrighted maid.
A war-whoop now rang in the usual pathway to the settlement, and Foster saw that he must take a shorter cut or die. Grace had fainted, and every thing depended upon his manliness and strength. He therefore approached the brink of the precipice. A wild grape vine, that had grown there since the morning of time, for aught he knew, extended far up the perpendicular rock, from a crag below. He bound the fair girl to his breast with his neckcloth and shot-belt, and grasping the stem of the vine, descended. As he slipped down, the vine began to yield, and just as his foot touched the narrow crag, the whole vine, with a mass of loose earth and stones, gave way with a tremendous crash, and hung, from the crevice where he stood, like a feather quivering beneath his feet. Foster was for a moment dizzy, but he cast his eyes upward, and beheld the eyes of an Indian glaring upon him from the top of the rock. He was nerved in a moment: and seeing a ledge a foot and a half broad, beyond a fissure, about eight feet over, and very deep, he determined to spring for it. Grace Gilman, however, was a dead weight to the young man, and he feared the result. The ledge seemed to run at an angle of forty-five degrees along the front of the rock, to a side hill, formed by fallen rocks and earth. A wild vine hung down over the fissure, covered with tempting fruit. He reached out his hand and grasped the main stem as it waved in the breeze,—it was strong, and its roots seemed firmly imbedded in a crevice above him. Commending himself to that Creator whose tireless eye takes in at a glance his creatures, he made his leap! The damp wind from the fissure rushed by his ears; the vine cracked and rustled above him; rich clusters of luscious fruit came tumbling upon his head; and the birds of night came shrieking out from their dark shelters in the fissure as he swung past. Foster, however, did not waver, his foot struck the ledge and he leaned forward; the vine flew back like a pendulum as he let it go, and he slid down the smooth ridge of the ledge in safety. In a short time he brought up against a heap of earth that had fallen from the mountain top, and springing up, bounded like the chamois hunter from crag to crag, until he stood upon the broad bottom, without a bruise or a scratch upon himself or his fair charge. In twenty minutes the young pilgrim entered the settlement by the forest way, with the almost lifeless form of his beloved buckled to his breast, while savage yells of disappointment came down from the summit of the East Rock, and caused the young mothers of Quinapiack to press their startled babes closer to their trembling hearts.
None had dared to follow the adventurous pilgrim’s course down the mountain’s perpendicular side: and the ledges that jut out like faint shadows from the bluff, are called Foster’s Stepping Stone by those who know the incident to this day.
The report of the musketoon was heard in the settlement. The soldiers of the colony stood to their arms, and when Foster had made his report, several strong parties went out upon a scout; but it was of no use; drops of blood only were discovered sprinkled upon the sassafras-leaves, and a heavy trail leading toward the Long River. The fighting men of Quinapiack, after a weary march, gave up the pursuit of the Narragansetts, and returned leisurely to the settlement. Night now settled like a raven upon the land—the drums beat to prayers—one by one the lights went out in the cottages of the pilgrims; and as the watch-fire sent forth its ruddy blaze from the common—now the college green—the colony slumbered in sweet forgetfulness, or wandered in visions amid the scenes of their childhood by the broad Shannon or the silver Ayr.
Who can tell the strange thoughts that agitated the sleepers’ souls? The old men, had they no pleasures of memory? The young men and the maidens, had they no dreams of joy—no bright pictures of trysting trees and lovely glens where the white lady moved in her noiseless path, or the fairies danced on the moonlight sward? Had the politician no dream of departed power? No sigh for his rapid fall? Had the soldier no dream of glory—no sound of stirring bugles melting upon his ear? Had the minister of God no dream of greatness—when before the kings and princes of the world he stood? and like Nathan of old said in Christ-like majesty to the offending monarch—
“Thou art the man.”