Part 39 (1/2)
The renegade spoke a significant truth, and, looking around, he was able to count precisely six Senecas who remained with him. Some of the others who were out hunting in the wood might return, but the chances were against it, and more than likely they had gone off to join in the orgies of which we only dare hint.
Striding across the brief s.p.a.ce, Jake Golcher paused in front of Maggie Brainerd and said:
”You have had more mercy to-night than you had a right to expect, and more than you'll get any longer.”
”Why do you talk to me thus?” asked the scared maiden, who could not fail to understand what he meant; ”why do you feel such hatred of us who have never showed aught but kindness to you?”
”Bah!” interrupted the Tory, angrily; ”why do you get over that stuff to me? I want no more of it. The time for begging mercy has gone by. If you had treated me right a while ago it would have been well--”
”Oh, Jake, how can you?”
The agonized girl was about to rush forward and throw herself on her knees before the man, when her father, with flas.h.i.+ng eye, interposed.
”Maggie, I forbid you to speak a word to such a scoundrel as he. Sit down and keep silence.”
The obedient girl complied, as she would have done had she known that death was to be the penalty.
She placed herself beside Eva, and the two, wrapping their arms about each other, wept in silence.
Aunt Peggy, as if conscious the crisis had come, ceased her cooking and softly seated herself beside them, without a word.
Mr. Brainerd, proud and defiant as ever, sat bolt upright on the fallen tree, with arms folded, looking as keenly as an eagle in the face of the being whom he execrated above any of his kind.
The Senecas watched them all, and it was easy to detect the signs of impatience among them, for they had been baffled too long of their prey.
As Jake Golcher retreated a step or two the Indians uttered a short exclamation of surprise, as well they might, for two figures strode for-toward out of the gloom in the light of the camp-fire.
One of them was Habakkuk McEwen, who led by the arm Lieutenant Fred G.o.dfrey, the latter stepping briskly, while a strange half-smile hovered about his handsome mouth.
Mr. Brainerd and the rest of the fugitives were thunderstruck, and totally at a loss to understand the meaning of the spectacle.
Fortunately, they were not kept long in suspense.
The face of Habakkuk was wreathed in an all-embracing smile, though there was a certain delicacy in his position that prevented his smile becoming contagious.
”Well, Jake, I've brought you your man!” called out Habakkuk, in a voice tremulous with triumph and fear.
”You have done well,” replied Golcher, as soon as he could recover his breath; ”you have done better than I expected.”
”It's all right now, then, ain't it--that is, with me?”
”Certainly; you've earned your freedom and can go. These Injins won't hurt you.”
Golcher made a wave of his hand to the warriors grouped around and uttered an exclamation that insured immunity to the eccentric New Englander.
The latter wheeled about and walked straight toward the woods where his friends were awaiting him.
One of the most difficult things for a brave man to do is to stride deliberately off, without decreasing or augmenting his gait, when he has every reason to believe that someone is taking careful aim at him, and that if he doesn't get beyond range in a brief while he is certain to be punctured.