The Maid-At-Arms

"Look you, Visscher," said the old General; "it iss I who am here to answer for your safety. Now comes Spencer, my Oneida, mit a pelt, who svears to me dot Brant und Butler an ambuscade haff made for me. Vat I do? Eh? I vait for dot sortie? Gewiss!"

He waved his short pipe.

"For vy am I an ass to march me py dot ambuscade? Such a foolishness iss dot talk! I stay me py Oriskany till I dem cannon hear."

A storm of insolent protest from the mob of soldiers greeted his decision; the officers gesticulated and shouted insultingly, shoving forward to the edge of the porch. Fists were shaken at him, cries of impatience and contempt rose everywhere. Colonel Paris flung his sword on the ground. Colonel Cox, crimson with anger, roared: "If you delay another moment the blood of Gansevoort's men be on your head!"

Then, in the tumult, a voice called out: "He's a Tory! We are betrayed!" And Colonel Cox shouted: "He dares not march! He is a coward!"

White to the lips, the old man sprang from his chair, narrow eyes ablaze, hands trembling. Colonel Bellinger and Major Frey caught him by the arm, begging him to remain firm in his decision.

"Py Gott, no!" he thundered, drawing his sword. "If you vill haff it so, your blood be on your heads! Vorwärts!"

It is not for me to blame him in his wrath, when, beside himself with righteous fury, he gave the bellowing yokels their heads and swept on with them to destruction. The mutinous fools who had called him coward and traitor fell back as their outraged commander strode silently through the disordered ranks, noticing neither the proffered apologies of Colonel Paris nor the stammered excuses of Colonel Cox. Behind him stalked the tall Oneida, silent, stern, small eyes flashing. And now began the immense uproar of departure;  confused officers ran about cursing and shouting;

the smashing roll of the drums broke out, beating the assembly; teamsters rushed to harness horses; dismayed soldiers pushed and struggled through the mass, searching for their regiments and companies.

Mounted on a gaunt, gray horse, the General rode through the disorder, quietly directing the incompetent militia officers in their tasks of collecting their men; and behind him, splendidly horsed and caparisoned, cantered the tall Oneida, known as Thomas Spencer the Interpreter, calm, composed, inscrutable eyes fixed on his beloved leader and friend.

The drums of the Canajoharie regiment were beating as the drummers swung past me, sleeves rolled up to the elbows, sweat pouring down their sunburned faces; then came Herkimer, all alone, sitting his saddle like a rock, the flush of anger still staining his weather-ravaged visage, his small, wrathful eyes fixed on the north.

Behind him rode Colonels Cox and Paris, long, heavy swords drawn, heading the Canajoharie regiment, which pressed forward excitedly. The remaining regiments of Tryon County militia followed, led by Colonel Seeber, Colonel Bellenger, Majors Frey, Eisenlord, and Van Slyck. Then came the baggage-wagons, some drawn by oxen, some by four horses; and in the rear of these rode Colonel Visscher, leading the Caughnawaga regiment, closing the dusty column.

"Damn them!" growled Elerson to Murphy, "they're advancing without flanking-parties or scouts. I wish Dan'l Morgan was here."

"'Tis th' Gineral's jooty to luk out f'r his throops, not Danny Morgan's or mine," replied the big rifleman in disgust.

The column halted. I signalled my men to follow me and hastened along the flanks under a fire of chaff: "Look at young buckskins! There go Morgan's macaronis! God help the red-coats this day! How's the scalp trade, son?"

Herkimer was sitting his horse in the middle of the road as I came up; and he scowled down at me when I gave him the officer's salute and stood at attention beside his stirrup.

"Veil, you can shpeak," he said, bluntly; "efery-body shpeaks but me!"

I said that I and my riflemen were at his disposal if he desired leaders for flanking-parties or scouts; and his face softened as he listened, looking down at me in silence.

"Sir," he said, "it iss to my shame I say dot my sodgers command me, not I my sodgers."

Then, looking back at Colonel Cox, he added, bitterly:

"I haff ordered flanking-parties and scouts, but my officers, who know much more than I, haff protested against dot useless vaste of time. I thank you, sir; I can your offer not accept."

The drums began again; the impatient Palatine regiment moved forward, yelling their approval, and we fell back to the roadside, while the boisterous troops tramped past, cheering, singing, laughing in their excitement. Mechanically we fell in behind the Caughnawagas, who formed the rear-guard, and followed on through the dust; meaning to go with them only a mile or so before we started back across country with the news which I was now at liberty to take in person to General Schuyler.

For I considered my mission at an end. In one thing only had I failed: Walter Butler was still free; but now that he commanded a company of outlaws and savages in St. Leger's army, I, of course, had no further hope of arresting him or of dealing with him in any manner save on the battle-field.

So at last I felt forced to return to Varick Manor; but the fear of the dread future was in me, and all the hopeless misery of a hopeless passion made of me a coward, so that I shrank from the pain I must surely inflict and endure. Kinder for her, kinder for me, that we should never meet again.

Not that I desired to die. I was too young in life and love to wish for death as a balm. Besides, I knew it could not bring us peace. Still, it was one solution of a problem otherwise so utterly hopeless that I, heartsick, had long since wearied of the solving and carried my hurt buried deep, fearful lest my prying senses should stir me to disinter the dead hope lying there.

Absence renders passion endurable. But at sight of her I loved I knew I could not endure it; and, uncertain of myself, having twice nigh failed under the overwhelming provocations of a love returned, I shrank from the coming duel 'twixt love and duty which must once more be fought within my breast.

Nor could my duty, fighting blindly, expect encouragement from her I loved, save at the last gasp and under the heel of love. Then, only, at the very last would she save me; for there was that within her which revolted at a final wrong, and I knew that not even our twin passion could prevail to stamp out the last spark of conscience and slay our souls forever.

Brooding, as I trudged forward through the dust, I became aware that the drums had ceased their beating, and that the men were marching quietly with little laughter or noise of song.

The heat was intense, although a black cloud had pushed up above the west, veiling the sun. Flies swarmed about the column; sweat poured from men and horses; the soldiers rolled back their sleeves and plodded on, muskets a-trail and coats hanging over their shoulders. Once, very far away, the looming horizon was veined with lightning; and, after a long time, thunder sounded.

We had marched northward on a rutty road some two miles or more from our camp at Oriska, and I was asking Mount how near we were to the old Algonquin-Iroquois trail which runs from the lakes across the wilderness to the healing springs at Saratoga, when the column halted and I heard an increasing confusion of voices from the van.

"There's a ravine ahead," said Elerson. "I'm thinking they'll have trouble with these wagons, for there's a swamp at the bottom and only a log-road across."

"Tis the proper shpot f'r to ambuscade us," observed Murphy, craning his neck and standing on tiptoe to see ahead.

We walked forward and sat down on the bank close to the brow of the hill. Directly ahead a ravine, shaped like a half-moon, cut the road, and the noisy Canajoharie regiment was marching into it. The bottom of the ravine appeared to be a swamp, thinly timbered with tamarack and blue-beech saplings, where the reeds and cattails grew thick, and little, dark pools of water spread, all starred with water-lilies, shining intensely white in the gloom of the coming storm.

"There do be wild ducks in thim rushes," said Murphy, musingly. "Sure I count it sthrange, Jack Mount, that thim burrds sit quiet-like an' a screechin' rigiment marchin' acrost that log-road."

"You mean that somebody has been down there before and scared the ducks away?" I asked.

"Maybe, sorr," he replied, grimly.

Instinctively we leaned forward to scan the rising ground on the opposite side of the ravine. Nothing moved in the dense thickets. After a moment Mount said quietly: "I'm a liar or there's a barked twig showing raw wood alongside of that ledge."

He glanced at the pan of his rifle, then again fixed his keen, blue eyes on the tiny glimmer of white which even I could distinguish now, though Heaven only knows how his eyes had found it in all that tangle.

"That's raw wood," he repeated.

"A deer might bark a twig," said I.

"Maybe, sorr," muttered Murphy; "but there's divil a deer w'ud nibble sheep-laurel."

The men of the Canajoharie regiment were climbing the hill on the other side of the ravine now. Colonel Cox came galloping back, shouting: "Bring up those wagons! The road is clear! Move your men forward there!"

Whips cracked; the vehicles rattled off down hill, drivers yelling, soldiers pushing the heavy wheels forward over the log-road below which spurted water as the bumping wagons struck the causeway.

I remember that Colonel Cox had just drawn bridle, half-way up the opposite incline, and was leaning forward in his saddle to watch the progress of an ox-team, when a rifle-shot rang out and he tumbled clean out of his saddle, striking the shallow water with a splash.

Then hell itself broke loose in that black ravine; volley on volley poured into the Canajoharie regiment; officers fell from their horses; drivers reeled and pitched forward under the heels of their plunging teams; wagons collided and broke down, choking the log-road. Louder and louder the terrific yells of the outlaws and savages rang out on our flanks; I saw our soldiers in the ravine running frantically in all directions, falling on the log-road, floundering waist-deep in the water and mud, slipping, stumbling, staggering; while faster and faster cracked the hidden rifles, and the pitiless bullets pelted them from the heights above.

"Stand! Stand! you fools!" bawled Elerson. "Take to the timber! Every man to a tree! For God's sake remember Braddock!"

"Look out!" shouted Mount, dragging me with him to a rock. "Close up, Elerson! Close up, Murphy!"

Straight into the stupefied ranks of the Caughnawaga company came leaping the savages, shooting, stabbing, clubbing the dazed men, dragging them from the ranks with shrieks of triumph. I saw one half-naked creature, awful in his paint, run up and strike a soldier full in the face with his fist, then dash out his brains with a death-maul and tear his scalp off.

Murphy and Mount were loading and firing steadily; Elerson and I kept our rifles ready for a rush. I was perfectly stunned; the spectacle did not seem real to me.

The Caughnawaga men, apparently roused from their momentary stupor, fell back into small squads, shooting in every direction; and the savages, unable to withstand a direct fire, sheered off and came bounding past us to cover, yelping like timber-wolves. Three darted directly at us; a young warrior, painted in bars of bright yellow, raised his hatchet to hurl it; but Murphy's bullet spun him round like a top till he crashed against a tree and fell in a heap, quivering all over.