Part 14 (1/2)
”An' I could find it in my stommick to wish it was to share in 'Soups of all nations,'” said Corporal O'Flynn to a coeant had docked his rations by an ounce or two, a difference that made itself noted in so slender a dole and a convalescent's appetite
It was a night long to be rereat coils of Scorpio see scales, so brilliant were the stars No cloud was in the sky, unless onevapor, the resplendent nebulose clusters of the Galaxy A as h the upper atmosphere, for the air was fresh and cool, but beloas the soft, sweet stillness of the surant odors fro river, the outpour of the reat flagstaff, and sees of all nations He caught upon his white wing and tail-feathers, as he flirted thereat orb, but sending forth a light fair enough to be felt in all that sidereal glitter of the cloudless sky, to show the faces of Odalie and Belinda and others less comely, as the ladies sat in chairs under the line of trees on one side of the parade with a group of officers near thelethe benches of the post which were brought out for the occasion So they all sang, beginning with a great chorus of ”Rule Britannia,” into which they threw more force and patriotism than melody Then cah Odalie's French chansonnettes acquired fro out in aprocla the ”Vaterland,” by the dru, afteran outlandish, repetitious melody that was like an intricate wooden recitative, and the words were suspected of being Icelandic,--though she averred they were High Dutch, to the secret indignation of the dru the details of the evening, felt hie, his own father-in-law having been a Ger in the Christlish ditties,--
”Ho, shepherd, what means that, Why thatin thy hat?”
and ”Barbara Allen” Corporal O'Flynn, in the”Savourneen Deelish eileen ogg” The sober Sandy gave a rollicking Scotch drinking-song that seemed to show the very bead on the liquor, ”Hey the browst, and hey the quaigh!” The officers' cook, a quaint old African, seated cross-legged on the ground, on the outskirts of the crowd, piped up at the co, half recited, in a wide, deep, reat interest for a ti the soldiers as guying, he took hiay kerchief, which he wore, to the intense delight of the garrison, as a belt around the waistband of his knee-breeches, to his kitchen, replying with cavalier insubordination,--pioneer of the domestic manners of these days,--to Captain Stuart's remonstrances by the assertion that he had to wash his kettle
There were even cradle songs, for Mrs Dean, who certainly had a a sweet little therenadier, whose hair was touched with gray, and who spoke in a deep sonorous voice (the Cherokees had always called hi”), respectfully requested to know of the lady if she could sing one that he had not heard for forty years, in fact, not since hisoriginally froland, re the words and the exact turn of the tune In the er pioneers renadier should favor the soldier, in the sireat bass voice that fairly trean ”Bye-low, bye-low”; and the ventriloquist who had made the cat swear, and who so often rode the wooden horse, was co the perforrin was of a distention not to be tolerated in polite society
Perhaps because of the several contradictory phases of interest involved in this contribution to the entertaineneral attention more definitely than worthier vocal efforts that had preceded it, and the incident passed altogether unnoticed, except by Captain Stuart, when the corporal of the guard appeared in the distance, hisfrom afar in the dusk as he approached, and Captain De quietly vanished in the shadow of the block-house He encountered Stuart at the door, for he had also slipped away from the crowd, himself, like a shadow
”Dispatches?” he asked
”The express froe,” Demere replied, his voice tense, excited, with the realization of an i crisis
CHAPTER X
Deht to trifling chances, yet he was in some sort prepared for disaster Within the hall a pair of candles stood on the table where it was the habit to transact official business,--to write letters; to construct maps of the country from the resources of the information of the officers and the descriptions of the Indians; tomaterials were kept in readiness here for these purposes--a due array of quills, paper, inkhorn, wafers, sealing-wax, sand-box, and lights As the door was opened the candles flickered in the sudden draught, bowed to the wicks grown long and unsnuffed, and in anotherthe place in total darkness, with the papers on which hung such weighty interests of life and death, of rescue or despair, unread in his hand
”The tinder-box--the flint--where are they? Cannot you strike a spark?”
he deitated suspense, of Stuart, who made more than one fruitless effort before the ti wicks, which had to be sht to discern the hasty characters, that looked as if they ht have been written on a drumhead--as in fact they were
”Here--read thee to Stuart, and throwing hih the suspense had been of the kind that does not usually herald surcease of anxiety, he was not prepared for the face of consternation hich Stuart silently perused the scrawled lines
”Froomery!” he exclaimed ”But our dispatches evidently have never reached hiomery acquainted the commandant of Fort Loudon with the successful issue of his cah he had burned a number of Indian towns, destroyed incalculable quantities of provisions, killed and woundedwith him a train of prisoners, men, women, and children He was now on the es had invested, where the garrison was in much distress, not for the want of provisions but for fuel to cook food, since the enemy was in such force that no sortie could be made to the woods to procure a supply Two of his prisoners he had set at liberty, Fiftoe, and the old warrior of Estatoe, that they ht acquaint the nation of his further intentions, for, if the Indians did not imressors to justice, he would sally forth froe on another foray, and he would not hold his hand till he had burned every Cherokee town of the whole nation He deputed Captain Stuart and Captain Demere to offer these terms to the Upper towns, and let them know that they were adard of the govern of the Cherokee tribe, had deprecated, it was understood, the renewal of the war, since he had signed the last treaty at the Congarees, and having shown himself friendly on several occasions to the British people his overnazed silently at one another Montgomery was obviously entirely unaware of their situation Here they were, penned up in this restricted coed by an ene but for one moment above the palisades,--for the soldiers had tried the experi an old busby on the point of a bayonet,--would be riddled in an instant Often a well-directed bullet would enter the s fro defenses
More than once arrows, freighted with inflammable substances, all ablaze, had been shot into the fort with the effort to fire the houses; it was dry weather ht, and the flaration, and required the exertions of the entire garrison to extinguish theilance Ever and anon it was requisite that the cannon should renew their strong, surly note of h the forest, and about the ears of the persistent besiegers Only the strength of the priarrison from instant massacre, with the woht safety behind those sturdy raer of starvation the officers did not dare to think And from this situation to be summoned to send forth threats of sword and fire, and to offer arrogant terms of peace, and to deibbet, of the principal transgressors in the violation of the treaty!
There were no words that could express what they felt They could only look at one another, each conscious of the other's sy
Outside, Odalie, Belinda, and Ensign Whitson were singing a trio, the parts so in like the cadences of the wind, now high, no, and in varying strength The stars still glittered down into the parade; thethe palisades; the sentries in the block-house towers, the gunners lying flat beneath their great cannon, feeling the dew on their faces, looking toward the uard ready to turn out at the word,--all listened languorously, and drank in the sweets of the suht with the uarded walls, and the savage hordes outside, balked, and furious, and thirsting for blood
”Let us see the express, Paul,” said Stuart at last
The express had repeatedly served as a means of coe, and as he came in he cautiously closed the door He was a arrison is hardly to be included in the conference between commanders of a frontier force and their chosen emissary With the inside of his packet his brain was presumed to have no concern, but in such a time and such a country his eyes and ears, on his missions to and fro, did such stalwart service in the interests of his own safety that he was often able to give the officers at the end of his route far more important news, the fruits of his observation, than his dispatches were likely to unfold He was of stalwart build, and clad in the fringed buckskin shi+rt and leggings of the hunter, and holding his coonskin cap in his hand He had saluted after the h the inard formuch of moment to communicate, until the question had been casually propounded by Stuart: ”Well, what can you tell us of the state of the country?” then in disconnected sentences the details ca unheard of His ”feet inged with fire and destruction,”--that hat Oconostota said Oh, yes, the express had seen Oconostota But for Oconostota he could not have made Fort Loudon He had let hiest terms of peace and spread the news of the devastation, as a safe-guard against any straggling white people they ht chance to meet, and in return they afforded him safe-conduct from the Cherokees The devastation was beyond belief,--dead and dying Indians lying all around the lower country, and many were burned alive in their houses when the toere fired Many were now pitifully destitute As the fugitives stood on the sureat granaries of corn--”I could but be sorry for theoo anew everywhere They would fight now to the death, to extermination,--even Atta-Kulla-Kulla, who had been opposed to breaking the treaty Oh, yes, he had seen Atta-Kulla-Kulla The chief said he would not strike a bloith a feather to break a treaty and his solee the blood of his kindred that cried out froive his life, if he had as many years to live as there were hairs on his head! The express added that Atta-Kulla-Kulla had been sitting on the ground in his old blanket, with ashes on his head, after the council agreed to break the treaty But noas going round with his scalp-lock dressed out with fresh eagle-feathers, and ar his finest gear, and with all his war-paint on--one side of his face red, and the other black, with big white circles around his eyes,--”looks hty keen,” the man exclaimed with a sort of relish of the fine barbaric effect of the fighting trireat warrior
Then his face fell
”And I told Oconostota that I would not deliver his e to you, Captain Stuart and Captain Demere, sir,” he hesitated; ”it was not fit for your worshi+pful presence; and he said that the deed e did he send?” asked De eyes