Part 84 (2/2)

My heart made a deadened rataplan like a m.u.f.fled drum, and seemed to deafen me, so terribly intent was I.

Tahioni stretched out like a panther sunning on a log; and laid his ear flat against the earth. Seconds grew to minutes; n.o.body stirred; no other sound came from the westward.

Presently I turned and signalled in silence; my Indians crawled noiselessly to their allotted intervals, extending our line north and south; then, trailing my rifle, I stole forward through an open forest, beneath the ancient and enormous trees of which no underbrush grew in the eternal twilight.

Nothing stirred. There were no animals here, no birds, no living creature that I could hear or see,--not even an insect.

Under our tread the mat of moist dead leaves gave back no sound; the silence in this dim place was absolute.

We had been creeping forward for more than an hour, I think, before I discovered the first sign of man in that spectral region.

I was breasting a small hillock set with tall walnut trees, in hopes of obtaining a better view ahead, and had just reached the crest, and, lying flat, was lifting my head for a cautious survey, when my eye caught a long, wide streak of sunlight ahead.

My Indians, too, had seen this tell-tale evidence which indicated either a stream or a road. But we all knew it was a road. We could see the suns.h.i.+ne dappling it; and we crawled toward it, belly dragging, like tree-cats stalking a dappled fawn.

Scarce had we come near enough to observe this road plainly, and the crushed ferns and swale gra.s.ses in the new waggon ruts, when we heard horses coming at a great distance.

Down we drop, each to a tree, and lie with levelled pieces, while slop!

thud! clink! come the horses, nearer, nearer; and, to my astonishment and perplexity, from the _east_, and travelling the wrong way.

I cautioned my Oneidas fiercely against firing unless I so signalled them; we lay waiting in an excitement well nigh unendurable, while nearer and nearer came the leisurely sound of the advancing horses.

And now we saw them!--three red-coat dragoons riding very carelessly westward on this wide, well-trodden road which now I knew must lead to Oneida Lake.

I could see the British hors.e.m.e.n plainly. The day was hot; the sun beat down on their red jackets and helmets; they sat their saddles wearily; their faces were wet with perspiration, and they had loosened jacket and neck-cloth, and their pistols were in holster, and their guns slung upon their backs.

It was plain that these troopers had no thought of precaution nor entertained any apprehension of danger on this road, which must lie in the rear of their army, and must also be their route of communication between the Lake and the Mohawk.

Slap, slop, clink! they trampled past us where my Oneidas lay a-tremble like crouched cats to see the rats escaping on their runway.

But my ears had caught another sound,--the distant noise of wheels; and I guessed that this was a waggon which the three hors.e.m.e.n should have escorted, but, feeling entirely secure, had let their horses take their own gait, and so had straggled on far ahead of the convoy with which they should have kept in touch.

The waggon was far away. It approached slowly. Already the hors.e.m.e.n had ridden clear out o' sight; and we crept to the edge of the road and lay flat in the weeds, waiting, listening.

Twice the approaching vehicle halted as though to rest the horses; the dragoons must have been a long way ahead by this time, for it was some minutes since the sound of their horses' hoofs had died away in the woods.

And now, near and ever nearer, creeps the waggon; and now it seems close at hand; and now we see it far away down the road, slowly moving toward us.

But it is no baggage-wain,--no transport cart that approaches us. The two horses are caparisoned in bright harness; the driver wears a red waistcoat and is a negro, and powdered. The vehicle is a private coach which lurches, though driven cautiously.

”Good G.o.d!” said I, ”that is Sir John's family coach! Tahioni, hold your Oneidas! For I mean to find out who rides so carelessly to Oneida Lake, confiding too much in the army which has pa.s.sed this way!”

Slowly, slowly the coach drew near our ambush. I recognized Colas as the coachman _pro tem_; I knew the horses and the family coach; saw the Johnson arms emblazoned on the panels as I rose from the roadside weeds.

”Colas!” I said quietly.

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