luckily for us the new danger was approaching from the westward. so, by dint of the maddest hurryings we got the bodies of the three cherokees hoist upon the horses, and were able to efface in part the signs of the late encounter before the band of riders coming down the indian path was upon us. but there was no time to make an orderly retreat. at most we could only withdraw a little way into the wood, halting when we were well in cover, and hastily stripping coats and waistcoats to muffle the heads of the horses.
so you are to conceive us waiting with nerves upstrung, ready for fight or flight as the event should decide, stifling in such pent-up suspense as any or all of us would gladly have exchanged for the fiercest battle. happily, the breath-scanting interval was short. from behind our thicket screen we presently saw a file of indian horsemen riding at a leisurely footpace down the path. ephraim yeates quickly named these new-comers for us.
"'tis about ez i allowed—some o' the tuckaseges a-scouting down to hold a powwow with the hoss-captain. now, then; if them sharp-nosed ponies o' their'n don't happen to sniff the blood—"
the hope was dashed on the instant by the sudden snorting and shying of two or three of the horses in passing, and we laid hold of our weapons, keying ourselves to the fighting pitch. but, curiously enough, the riders made no move to pry into the cause. so far from it, they flogged the shying ponies into line and rode on stolidly; and thus in a little time that danger was overpast and the evening silence of the mighty forest was ours to keep or break as we chose.
the old frontiersman was the first to speak.
"well, friends, i reckon ez how we mought ez well thank the good lord for all his marcies afore we go any furder," he would say; and he doffed his cap and did it forthwith.
it was as grim a picture as any limner of the weird could wish to look upon. the twilight shadows were empurpling the mountains and gathering in dusky pools here and there where the trees stood thickest in the valley. the hush of nature's mystic hour was abroad, and even the swiftly flowing river, rushing sullenly along its rocky bed no more than a stone's cast beyond the indian path, seemed to pretermit its low thunderings. there was never a breath of air astir in all the wood, and the leaves of the silver poplar that will twinkle and ripple in the lightest zephyr hung stark and motionless.
barring the old borderer, who had gone upon his knees, we stood as we were; the catawba holding the pack horses, and jennifer and i the three that bore the ghastly burdens of mortality. the bodies of the slain had been flung across the saddles to balance as they might; and to the pommel of that saddle which bore the trunk of the five-feathered chieftain, uncanoola had knotted the grisly head by its scalp-lock to dangle and roll about with every restless movement of the horse—a hideous death-mask that seemed to mop and mow and stare fearsomely at us with its wide-open glassy eyes.
with this background fit for the staging of a scene in dante alighieri's tragic comedy, the looming mountains, the upper air graying on to dusk, and the solemn forest aisles full of lurking shadows, you are to picture the old frontiersman, bareheaded and on his knees, pouring forth his soul in all the sonorous phrase of holy writ, now in thanksgiving, and now in most terrible beseechings that all the vials of heaven's wrath might be poured out upon our enemies.
his face, commonly a leather mask to hide the man behind it, was now ablaze with the fire of zealotry; and, truly, in these his spasm-fits of supplication he stood for all that is most awe-inspiring and unnerving, asking but a little stretch of the imagination to figure him as one of those old iron-hard prophets of denunciation come back to earth to be the herald of the wrath of god.
'twas close upon actual nightfall when the old man rose from his knees and, with the rising, put off the beadsman and put on the shrewd old indian fighter. followed some hurried counselings as to how we should proceed, and in these the hunter set the pace for us as his age and vast experience in woodcraft gave him leave.
his plan had all the merit of simplicity. now that we had the horses, richard's notion of an approach from the head of the sunken valley became at once the most hopeful of any. so ephraim yeates proposed that we betake ourselves to the mountain top and to the head of that ravine which the catawba and i had discovered. here we should leave the horses well hidden and secured, make our way down the ravine, and, with the stream for a guide, follow the sunken valley to the camp at its lower end. once on the ground without having given the alarm, we might hope to free the captives under cover of the darkness; and our retreat up the valley would be far less hazardous than any open flight by way of the unexplored road the powder train had used.
so said the old backwoodsman; but neither dick nor i would agree to this in toto. dick argued that while we were killing time in the roundabout advance we should be leaving margery wholly at the mercy of the baronet, and that every hour of delay was full of hideous menace to her. hence he proposed that three of us should carry out the hunter's plan, leaving the fourth to take the hint given by the charred stick and the swimming ambush crew, and so penetrating to the valley by the stream cavern, be at hand to strike a blow for our dear lady's honor in case of need.
"'tis a thing to be done, and i am with you, dick," said i. this before ephraim yeates could object. "should there be need for any, two blades will be better than one. if it come to blows and we are killed or taken, yeates and the chief must make the shift to do without our help."
as you would guess, the old hunter demurred to this halving of our slender force, but we over-persuaded him. if all went well, we were to rendezvous on the scene of action to carry out the plan of rescue. but if our adventure should prove disastrous, yeates and uncanoola were to bide their time, striking in when and how they might.
touching this contingency, i drew the old man aside for a word in private.
"if aught befall us, ephraim,—if we should be nabbed as we are like to be,—you are not to let any hope of helping us lessen by a feather's weight the rescue chance of the women. you'll promise me this?"
"sartain sure; ye can rest easy on that, cap'n john. but don't ye go for to let that rampaging boy of our'n upsot the fat in the fire with any o' his foolishness. he's love-sick, he is; and there ain't nothing in this world so ridic'lous foolish ez a love-sick boy—less'n 'tis a love-sick gal."
i promised on my part and so we went our separate ways in the gathering darkness; though not until the lashings of the packs had been cut and the powder and lead, save such spoil of both as ephraim yeates and uncanoola would reserve, had been spilled into the river. as for the bodies of the dead indians, the old hunter said he would let them ride till he should come to some convenient chasm for a sepulcher; but i mistrusted that he and the catawba would scalp and leave them once we were safely out of sight.
at the parting we took the river's edge for it, richard and i, keeping well under the bank and working our way cautiously down the gorge until we were stopped by the pouring cross-torrent of the underground tributary. here we turned short to the left along the margin of the barrier stream, and tracing its course across the gorge came presently to the northern cliff at the lip of the spewing cavern mouth.
by now the night was fully come and in the wooded defile we could place ourselves only by the sense of touch.
"are you ready, dick?" said i.
"as ready as a man with a shaking ague can be," he gritted out. "this dog's work we have been doing of late has brought my old curse upon me and i am like to rattle my teeth loose."
"let me go alone then. another cold plunge may be the death of you."
"no," said he, stubbornly. "wait but a minute and the fever will be on me; then i shall be fighting-fit for anything that comes."
so we waited, and i could hear his teeth clicking like castanets. having had a tertian fever more than once in the turkish campaigning, i had a fellow-feeling for the poor lad, knowing well how the thought of a plunge into cold water would make him shrink.
in a little time he felt for my hand and grasped it.
"i'm warm enough now, in all conscience," he said; and with that we slipped into the stream.
'twas a disappointment of the grateful sort to find the water no more than mid-thigh deep. the current was swift and strong, but with the pebbly bottom to give good footing 'twas possible to stem it slowly. laying hold of each other for the better breasting of the flood we felt our way warily to the middle of the pool; felt for the low-sprung cavern arch, and for that scanty lifting of it where we hoped to find head room between stone above and stream below.
we found the highest part of the arch after some blind groping, and making lowly obeisance to the gods of the underworld began a snail-like progress into the gurgling throat of the spewing rock-monster.
i here confess to you, my dears, that, had i loved my sweet lady less, no earthly power could have driven me into that dismal stifling place. all my life long i have had a most unspeakable horror of low-roofed caverns and squeezing passages that cramp a man for breath and for the room to draw it in; and when the suffocating madness came upon me, as it did when we were well jammed in this cursed horror-hole, i was right glad to have my love for margery to make an outward-seeming man of me; glad, too, that my dear lad was close behind to shame me into going on.
yet, after all, the passage through the throat of the rock dragon was vastly more terrifying than difficult. once well within the closely drawn upper lip we could brace our backs against the roof and so have a purchase for the foothold. better still, when we had passed a pike's-length beyond the lip the breathing space above the water grew wider and higher till at length we could stand erect and come abreast to lock arms and push on side by side.
from that the stream broadened and grew shallower with every step, and presently we could hear it on ahead babbling over the stones like any peaceful woodland brook. then suddenly the dank and noisome air of the cavern gave place to the pine-scented breath of the forest; and, looking straight up, we could see the twinkling stars shining down upon us from a narrow breadth of sky.
