"Who"s there?" demanded Heckewelder.
Thump! Thump!
The heavy blows shook the cabin. The pans rattled on the shelves. No answer came from without.
"Quick! Hide Benny! It"s as much as our lives are worth to have him found here," cried Heckewelder in a fierce whisper, as he darted toward the door.
"All right, all right, in a moment," he called out, fumbling over the bar.
He opened the door a moment later and when Jim Girty and Deering entered he turned to his friends with a dread uncertainty in his haggard face.
Edwards lay on the bed with wide-open eyes staring at the intruders.
Mr. Wells sat with bowed head. Zeisberger calmly whittled a stick, and Jim stood bolt upright, with a hard light in his eyes.
Nell leaned against the side of a heavy table. Wonderful was the change that had transformed her from a timid, appealing, fear-agonized girl to a woman whose only evidence of unusual excitement were the flame in her eyes and the peculiar whiteness of her face.
Benny was gone!
Heckewelder"s glance returned to the visitors. He thought he had never seen such brutal, hideous men.
"Wal, I reckon a preacher ain"t agoin" to lie. Hev you seen any Injun Christians round here?" asked Girty, waving a heavy sledge-hammer.
"Girty, we have hidden no Indians here," answered Heckewelder, calmly.
"Wal, we"ll hev a look, anyway," answered the renegade.
Girty surveyed the room with wolfish eyes. Deering was so drunk that he staggered. Both men, in fact, reeked with the vile fumes of rum.
Without another word they proceeded to examine the room, by looking into every box, behind a stone oven, and in the cupboard. They drew the bedclothes from the bed, and with a kick demolished a pile of stove wood. Then the ruffians pa.s.sed into the other apartments, where they could be heard making thorough search. At length both returned to the large room, when Girty directed Deering to climb a ladder leading to the loft, but because Deering was too much under the influence of liquor to do so, he had to go himself. He rummaged around up there for a few minutes, and then came down.
"Wal, I reckon you wasn"t lyin" about it," said Girty, with his ghastly leer.
He and his companion started to go out. Deering had stood with bloodshot eyes fixed on Nell while Girty searched the loft, and as they pa.s.sed the girl on their way to the open air, the renegade looked at Girty as he motioned with his head toward her. His besotted face expressed some terrible meaning.
Girty had looked at Nell when he first entered, but had not glanced twice at her. As he turned now, before going out of the door, he fixed on her his baleful glance. His aspect was more full of meaning than could have been any words. A horrible power, of which he was boastfully conscious, shone from his little, pointed eyes. His mere presence was deadly. Plainly as if he had spoken was the significance of his long gaze. Any one could have translated that look.
Once before Nell had faced it, and fainted when its dread meaning grew clear to her. But now she returned his gaze with one in which flashed lightning scorn, and repulsion, in which glowed a wonderful defiance.
The cruel face of this man, the boastful barbarity of his manner, the long, dark, b.l.o.o.d.y history which his presence recalled, was, indeed, terrifying without the added horror of his intent toward her, but now the self-forgetfulness of a true woman sustained her.
Girty and Deering backed out of the door. Heckewelder closed it, and dropped the bar in place.
Nell fell over the table with a long, low gasp. Then with one hand she lifted her skirt. Benny walked from under it. His big eyes were bright. The young woman clasped him again in her arms. Then she released him, and, laboring under intense excitement, ran to the window.
"There he goes! Oh, the horrible beast! If I only had a gun and could shoot! Oh, if only I were a man! I"d kill him. To think of poor Kate! Ah! he intends the same for me!"
Suddenly she fell upon the floor in a faint. Mr. Wells and Jim lifted her on the bed beside Edwards, where they endeavored to revive her. It was some moments before she opened her eyes.
Jim sat holding Nell"s hand. Mr. Wells again bowed his head.
Zeisberger continued to whittle a stick, and Heckewelder paced the floor. Christy stood by with every evidence of sympathy for this distracted group. Outside the clamor increased.
"Just listen!" cried Heckewelder. "Did you ever hear the like? All drunk, crazy, fiendish! They drank every drop of liquor the French traders had. Curses on the vagabond dealers! Rum has made these renegades and savages wild. Oh! my poor, innocent Christians!"
Heckewelder leaned his head against the mantle-shelf. He had broken down at last. Racking sobs shook his frame.
"Are you all right again?" asked Jim of Nell.
"Yes."
"I am going out, first to see Williamson, and then the Christians,"
he said, rising very pale, but calm.
"Don"t go!" cried Heckewelder. "I have tried everything. It was all of no use."
"I will go," answered Jim.
"Yes, Jim, go," whispered Nell, looking up into his eyes. It was an earnest gaze in which a faint hope shone.
Jim unbarred the door and went out.
"Wait, I"ll go along," cried Zeisberger, suddenly dropping his knife and stick.
As the two men went out a fearful spectacle met their eyes. The clearing was alive with Indians. But such Indians! They were painted demons, maddened by rum. Yesterday they had been silent; if they moved at all it had been with deliberation and dignity. To-day they were a yelling, running, blood-seeking mob.
"Awful! Did you ever see human beings like these?" asked Zeisberger.
"No, no!"
"I saw such a frenzy once before, but, of course, only in a small band of savages. Many times have I seen Indians preparing for the war-path, in search of both white men and redskins. They were fierce then, but nothing like this. Every one of these frenzied fiends is honest. Think of that! Every man feels it his duty to murder these Christians. Girty has led up to this by cunning, and now the time is come to let them loose."
"It means death for all."
"I have given up any thought of escaping," said Zeisberger, with the calmness that had characterized his manner since he returned to the village. "I shall try to get into the church."
"I"ll join you there as soon as I see Williamson."
Jim walked rapidly across the clearing to the cabin where Captain Williamson had quarters. The frontiersmen stood in groups, watching the savages with an interest which showed little or no concern.
"I want to see Captain Williamson," said Jim to a frontiersman on guard at the cabin door.
"Wal, he"s inside," drawled the man.
Jim thought the voice familiar, and he turned sharply to see the sun-burnt features of Jeff Lynn, the old riverman who had taken Mr.
Wells" party to Fort Henry.
"Why, Lynn! I"m glad to see you," exclaimed Jim.
"Purty fair to middlin"," answered Jeff, extending his big hand.
"Say, how"s the other one, your brother as wus called Joe?"