True to the Old Flag (Historical Novels - American Cycle). G. A. Henty

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СКАЧАТЬ II.

       An Indian Raid.

       Table of Contents

      That day and the next passed quietly. The first night the man who was on watch up to midnight remarked to Mr. Welch, when he relieved him, that it seemed to him that there were noises in the air.

      "What sort of noises, Jackson—calls of night-birds or animals? If so, the Indians are probably around us."

      "No," the man said; "all is still round here, but I seem to feel the noise rather than hear it. I should say that it was firing, very many miles off."

      "The night is perfectly still, and the sound of a gun would be heard a long way."

      "I cannot say that I have heard a gun; it is rather a tremble in the air than a sound."

      When the man they had relieved had gone down and all was still again, Mr. Welch and Harold stood listening intently.

      "Jackson was right," the farmer said; "there is something in the air. I can feel it rather than hear it. It is a sort of murmur no louder than a whisper. Do you hear it, Harold?"

      "I seem to hear something," Harold said. "It might be the sound of the sea a very long way off, just as one can hear it many miles from the coast, on a still night at home. What do you think it is?"

      "If it is not fancy," Mr. Welch replied, "and I do not think that we should all be deceived, it is an attack upon Gloucester."

      "But Gloucester is thirty-five miles away," Harold answered.

      "It is," Mr. Welch replied; "but on so still a night as this sounds can be heard from an immense distance. If it is not this, I cannot say what it is."

      Upon the following night, just as Mr. Welch's watch was at an end, a low whistle was heard near the gate.

      "Who is there?" Mr. Welch at once challenged.

      "Jack Pearson, and the sooner you open the gate the better. There's no saying where these red devils may be lying round."

      Harold and the farmer instantly ran down and opened the gate.

      "I should advise you to stop down here," the hunter said as they replaced the bars. "If you did not hear me you certainly would not hear the redskins, and they'd all be over the palisade before you had time to fire a shot. I'm glad to see you safe, for I was badly skeared lest I should find nothing but a heap of ashes here."

      The next two men now turned out, and Mr. Welch led his visitor into the house and struck a light.

      "Halloo, Pearson! you must have been in a skirmish," he said, seeing that the hunter's head was bound up with a bloodstained bandage.

      "It was all that," Pearson said, "and wuss. I went down to Gloucester and told 'em what I had heard, but the darned fools tuk it as quiet as if all King George's troops with fixed bayonets had been camped round 'em. The council got together and palavered for an hour, and concluded that there was no chance whatever of the Iroquois venturing to attack such a powerful place as Gloucester. I told 'em that the redskins would go over their stockade at a squirrel's jump, and that as War Eagle alone had at least 150 braves, while there warn't more than 50 able-bodied men in Gloucester and all the farms around it, things would go bad with 'em if they didn't mind. But bless yer, they knew more than I did about it. Most of 'em had moved from the East and had never seen an Injun in his war-paint. Gloucester had never been attacked since it was founded nigh ten years ago, and they didn't see no reason why it should be attacked now. There was a few old frontiersmen like myself among 'em who did their best to stir 'em up, but it was no manner of good. When the council was over we put our heads together, and just went through the township a-talking to the women, and we hadn't much difficulty in getting up such a skear among 'em that before nightfall every one of 'em in the farms around made their husbands move into the stockade of the village.

      "When the night passed off quietly most of the men were just as savage with us as if it had been a false alarm altogether. I p'inted out that it was not because War Eagle had left 'em alone that night that he was bound to do so the next night or any night after. But in spite of the women they would have started out to their farms the fust thing in the morning, if a man hadn't come in with the news that Carter's farm had been burned and the whole of the people killed and scalped. As Carter's farm lay only about fifteen miles off this gave 'em a skear, and they were as ready now to believe in the Injuns as I had tried to make 'em the night before. Then they asked us old hands to take the lead and promised to do what we told 'em, but when it came to it their promises were not worth the breath they had spent upon 'em. There were eight or ten houses outside the stockade, and in course we wanted these pulled down; but they wouldn't hear of it. Howsomever, we got 'em to work to strengthen the stockades, to make loop-holes in the houses near 'em, to put up barricades from house to house, and to prepare generally for a fight. We divided into three watches.

      "Well, just as I expected, about eleven o'clock at night the Injuns attacked. Our watch might just as well have been asleep for any good they did, for it was not till the redskins had crept up to the stockade all round and opened fire between the timbers on 'em that they knew that they were near. I'll do 'em justice to say that they fought stiff enough then, and for four hours they held the line of houses; every redskin who climbed the stockade fell dead inside it. Four fires had been lighted directly they attacked to enable us to keep 'em from scaling the stockade, but they showed us to the enemy, of course.

      "The redskins took possession of the houses which we had wanted to pull down, and precious hot they made it for us. Then they shot such showers of burning arrows into the village that half of the houses were soon alight. We tried to get our men to sally out and to hold the line of stockade, when we might have beaten 'em off if all the village had been burned down; but it were no manner of good; each man wanted to stick to his wife and family till the last. As the flames went up every man who showed himself was shot down, and when at last more than half our number had gone under the redskins brought up fagots, piled 'em against the stockade outside, and then the hull tribe came bounding over. Our rifles were emptied, for we couldn't get the men to hold their fire, but some of us chaps as knew what was coming gave the redskins a volley as they poured in.

      "I don't know much as happened after that. Jack Robins and Bill Shuter, who were old pals of mine, and me made up our minds what to do, and we made a rush for a small gate that there was in the stockade, just opposite where the Injuns came in. We got through safe enough, but they had left men all round. Jack Robins he was shot dead. Bill and I kept straight on. We had a grapple with some of the redskins; two or three on 'em went down, and Bill and I got through and had a race for it till we got fairly into the forest. Bill had a ball in the shoulder, and I had a clip across the head with a tomahawk. We had a council, and Bill went off to warn some of the other settlements and I concluded to take to the water and paddle back to you, not knowing whether I should find that the redskins had been before me. I thought anyway that I might stop your going down to Gloucester, and that if there was a fight you would be none the worse for an extra rifle."

      Mr. Welch told the hunter of the visit of the two Indian spies two nights before.

      "Waal," the hunter said, "I reckon for the present you are not likely to be disturbed. The Injuns have taken a pile of booty and something like two hundred scalps, counting the women and children, and they moved off at daybreak this morning in the direction of Tottenham, which I reckon they'll attack tonight. Howsomever, Bill has gone on there to warn 'em, and after the sack of Gloucester the people of Tottenham won't be caught napping, and there are two or three old frontiersmen who have settled СКАЧАТЬ