For his life Stuart could not control his countenance; the color flared to the roots of his hair; his eyes flashed; his hand trembled; he could not find his voice; and yet angry as he was, he was both amazed and daunted.
Oconostota broke in upon his speechless agitation in a smooth, soothing voice to remind him of the clemency he enjoyed in that his life had been spared, and only yesterday, even at the supreme moment of the discovery of the treachery of his garrison in the concealment of the powder. They had not acquainted Willinawaugh with their designs, for Oconostota himself would lead the expedition. (Stuart as a military man realized a necessity, that sometimes supervenes in more sophisticated organizations, which they felt of curbing the power of a possibly too successful and a too aspiring subordinate.) How generous, declared Oconostota, had been the intercession of the n.o.ble Atta-Kulla-Kulla,--half-king of the Cherokees,--who had given in effect all his wealth to ransom him, a mere _eeankke_, a prisoner, from his warlike captor, the great Willinawaugh, that this military service might be rendered in exchange for his life.
Stuart"s eyes turned away; he sought to veil their expression; he looked through the tall narrow door of the red clay walls at the waters of the Tennessee River, silver-shotted and blue as ever, still flowing down and down beyond the site of Fort Loudon--unmindful of its tragic fate, unmindful! The august domes of the Great Smoky Mountains showed now a dull velvet blue against the hard blue of the turquoise sky, and anon drew a silver shimmer of mists about them. Chilhowee Mountain, richly bronze and green, rose in the middle distance, and he was vaguely reminiscent of the day when he watched the young soldier rocking in his boat on the shallows close to the sh.o.r.e, the red coat giving a bright spot of color to the harmonious duller tones of the landscape, and wondered were it possible among these friendly people that the lad could be in danger of a stealthy rifle shot. Now there were no red coats,--nevermore were they to be seen here! Between himself and the water he watched only the white swaying of a tall cl.u.s.ter of the great ethereally delicate snowy blossoms, since known as the Chilhowee lily.
He kept his eyes still averted, his voice deepening with the seriousness of his sentiment as he replied that this was impossible--he could not undertake the command of the Cherokee artillery against Fort Prince George; he was bound by his oath of fidelity which he had sworn to the English government; he could not bear arms against it.
A choking chuckle recalled his gaze to the dusky red interior of the council-chamber. Oconostota"s countenance was distorted with derision, and his twinkling eyes were swimming in the tears of the infrequent laughter of the grave Indian--even Atta-Kulla-Kulla"s face wore a protesting smile of scorn as of a folly.
Twice Oconostota sought to speak, and he sputtered, and choked, and could not, for his relish of the thought in his mind. Then with a deep mock-seriousness he demanded slowly if it were fireproof. And relapsed into his shaking chuckle.
"What?" demanded Stuart, uncomprehending.
"This oath of yours--to the English government. Does this fidelity so clothe your body that it will not burn and crisp and crinkle in the anguish as of your h.e.l.l? Does your oath harden your flesh as a rock, that arrows and knives shall not pierce it and sting and ache as they stick there waiting for the slow fires to do their work? Will your oath restore sight to your eyes when a red-hot iron has seared them?" He could say no more for the chuckling delight that shook and shook his lean old body.
Atta-Kulla-Kulla spoke in reproach. The Cherokee kings had offered Captain Stuart life and practically liberty in exchange for this service. If he denied it and talked of his oath, it was but just that vengeance should take its way. Many a Cherokee had fallen dead from the fire of his garrison of Loudon, both of great guns and small, and their blood called still from the ground. A wise man was Captain Stuart, and he would choose wisely.
He was a hearty man, still young, and in full vigor, and, although his life had been but little worth of late, he was loath to throw it away.
He began to temporize, to try to gain time. He sought to talk discontentedly of the project, as if he found it infeasible. The commandant, he said, as if he contemplated him only as the leader of an opposing force, would fight at an infinite advantage within the strong defenses of Fort Prince George, while he outside, without intrenchments except such hasty works as could be thrown up in a night, and beaten down by the enemy"s cannonade in the morning, could but expect to have his guns soon silenced. A regular approach would be impracticable. The Indians were not used to fight unscreened. They would never open a parallel under fire, and a vigilant defense would make havoc among the working parties.
He noted the effect of the unfamiliar military theories upon the Indians, as they both seemed to anxiously canva.s.s them.
"You cannot skulk behind a tree with cannon," he continued. "The artillery, to be able to command the fort with its fire, would be within range of the enemy"s batteries, and without efficient cover it would be necessary, in serving each piece, for the gunners to be exposed to fire all the time."
An interval of deep, pondering silence ensued. At length Atta-Kulla-Kulla said he believed there would be little or no fight on account of the prisoners.
"What prisoners?" demanded Stuart, shortly.
Then Oconostota explained, with his blandest circ.u.mlocutions, that, partly as a check upon his dear brother"s good faith, bound as he was by his oath of fidelity to the English government,--and he almost choked with the relish of his derision every time he mentioned it,--and to make sure that he should handle the guns properly, and fire them with due effect,--not aiming them wildly, so that the b.a.l.l.s might fly over the fort, or fall short, not spiking the guns, or otherwise demolishing them, all of which his great knowledge of the arm rendered possible, and the ignorance of the poor red man unpreventable, they had determined to take with them the remnant of the garrison, their lives to be pledges of his good conduct and effective marksmanship; and if at last his earnest and sincere efforts should prove unavailing, and the commandant should continue to hold out and refuse to surrender when finally summoned, these, the countrymen and fellow-soldiers of that officer, should be singly tortured and burned before his eyes, within full sight and hearing of Fort Prince George.
As the fiendish ingenuity of this scheme was gradually unfolded, Stuart sat stunned. All the anguish he had suffered seemed naught to this prospect. He staggered under the weight of responsibility. The lives of the poor remnant of his garrison,--more, their death by fire and torture,--hung upon such discretion as he could summon to aid his exhausted powers in these repeated and tormented ordeals. He said nothing; he could not see and he did not care for the succession of chuckles in which Oconostota was resolved at the delightful spectacle of his dismay. The Cherokee had beaten this man of resource at his little game of war, and now had outmaneuvered him at his mastercraft of scheming!
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote J: Tooth!]
[Footnote K: Very excellent.]
[Footnote L: Three.]
[Footnote M: Four--six.]
[Footnote N: The great hawk is at home!]
CHAPTER XIII
Stuart seemed utterly vanquished--his spirit gone. In silence he was conducted back to his quarters in Demere"s house at Fort Loudon. And as there he sat in the spare, clean room, in the single chair it contained, with one elbow on the queer, rough little table, constructed according to a primitive scheme by the post carpenter, he stared forward blankly at the inevitable prospect so close before him. He had not now the solace of solitude in which he might have rallied his faculties. On the buffalo rug on the floor Atta-Kulla-Kulla reclined and smoked his long-stemmed pipe and watched him with impenetrable eyes. Once he spoke to him of the preparations making without, selecting the men for the gunners of the expedition. Stuart lifted his head abruptly.
"I will not go!" he cried in sudden pa.s.sion. "So help me, G.o.d! I will die first!--a thousand deaths. So help me, G.o.d!" He lifted his clinched right hand in attestation and shook it wildly in the air.
[Ill.u.s.tration: "He stared forward blankly at the inevitable prospect."]
He had a momentary shame in thus giving way to his surcharged feelings, but as he rose mechanically from his chair his restless eyes, glancing excitedly about the room, surprised an expression of sympathy in the face of the Cherokee as he lay coiled up on the rug.
"Atta-Kulla-Kulla!" Stuart exclaimed impulsively, holding out both arms, "feel for me! Think of me! The poor remnant of the garrison! My "young men"! My own command! I will die first, myself, a thousand deaths!"
Atta-Kulla-Kulla began to argue, speaking partly in Cherokee and now and again in fragmentary English. Neither the one nor the other might be the victim. The commandant at Fort Prince George would yield under this strong coercion.
"Never! Never!" cried Stuart. "His duty is to hold the fort. He will defend it to the last man and the last round of ammunition and the last issuance of rations. For his countrymen to be tortured and burned in his sight and hearing would doubtless give him great pain. But his duty is to his own command, and he will do it."
Atta-Kulla-Kulla seemed doubtful. "And then," argued Stuart, "would such torturing and burning of the surrendered garrison of Fort Loudon before the eyes of the garrison of Fort Prince George be an inducement to them to surrender too, and perhaps meet the same fate? Be sure they will sell their lives more dearly! Be sure they will have heard of the ma.s.sacre of the soldiers under the Cherokees" pledge of safe-conduct on the plains of Taliquo."
"_To-e-u-hah!_" Atta-Kulla-Kulla broke out furiously. "_To-e-u-hah!_ It is most true!"
His countenance had changed to extreme anger. He launched out into a bitter protest that he had always contemned, and deprecated, and sought to prevent this continual violation of their plighted word and the obligations of their treaties on the part of the Cherokee nation. It invariably hampered their efforts afterward, as it was hampering them now. It took from their hand the tool of negotiation, the weapon of the head-men, and left only the tomahawk, the brute force of the tribe.
_Wahkane, wahkane!_ Was it not so when the treaty of Lyttleton was broken and Montgomery, the Terrible, came in his stead? And when the Cherokees had driven him out, and had taken their revenge on him for the blood which had been shed in his first foray, of what avail to ma.s.sacre the garrison evacuating Fort Loudon, the possession of which had been for so long a coveted boon, and thus preclude a peaceful rendering of Fort Prince George and the expulsion of all English soldiery from Cherokee soil!
Stuart, cautiously reticent, let him dilate upon all the wrongs wrought in council by the disregard of his advice, only now and again dropping a word as fuel to the flame. Cautiously, too, he led to the topic of the regard and the admiration which the acute mind and the more enlightened moral sentiment of this chief had excited in the English authorities, and the service this official esteem would have been to the headstrong nation if they had availed themselves of it. For was not Montgomery instructed to offer them terms on _his_ account only? Their cruelty Atta-Kulla-Kulla was brought to perceive had despoiled them of the fruits of their victory; they might have, for all their patience and all their valor, and all their statecraft, only a few more scalps here and there; for presently the great English nation would be pressing again from the south, with Fort Prince George as a base, and the war would be to begin anew.
Deep into the night Atta-Kulla-Kulla dwelt on the treachery toward him,--for he had known naught of the enterprise of the ma.s.sacre--that had so metamorphosed victory into disaster. The moonlight was coming in at the window, reminding Stuart of that night when he lay at length on the rug and consulted with Demere and anxiously foreboded events, the news of Montgomery"s departure from the country having fallen upon them like a crushing blow. How prescient of disaster they had felt--but how little they had appraised its force! Paler now was the moon, more melancholy, desolate to the last degree as it glimmered on the white-washed walls of the bare, sparely furnished room. His attention had relaxed with fatigue as he still sat with his elbow on the table, his head on his hand, vaguely hearing the Indian councillor droning out his griefs of disregarded statesmanship and of the preferable att.i.tude of affairs, so rudely, so disastrously altered. Suddenly his tone changed to a personal note.
"But it was ill with you, starving with your young men, in this place--long days, heap hungry."
"They seem happy days, now," said Stuart drearily, rousing himself.
"And to-morrow--and yet next day?" asked Atta-Kulla-Kulla.
Stuart stirred uneasily. "I can only die with what grace and courage I can muster," he said reluctantly. He glanced about him with restless eyes, like a hunted creature. "I cannot escape."
He looked up in sudden surprise. The Indian was standing now, gazing down at him with a benignity of expression which warranted the character of bold and forceful mind, and broad and even humane disposition, which this Cherokee had won of his enemies in the midst of the bloodshed and the treachery and the hideous cruelty of the warfare in which he was so much concerned.
"John Stuart," he said, "have I not called you my friend? Have I not given all I possess of wealth to save your life? Do I not value it, and yet it is yours!"
Stuart had forgotten the chief"s words that Christmas night at the great gates, but they came back to him as Atta-Kulla-Kulla repeated them, anew.
"I know your heart, and I do not always forget! I do not _always_ forget!"
In Stuart"s amazement, in the abrupt reaction, he could hardly master the details of the unfolded plan. The Cherokee declared he had made up his mind to a stratagem, such as might baffle even the designs of Oconostota. He doubted his own power to protect his prisoner, should the king learn that Stuart still refused his services in the expedition to Fort Prince George. Oconostota"s heart was set upon the reduction of this stronghold, and so was that of all the Cherokee nation. And yet Atta-Kulla-Kulla could but perceive the flagrant futility of the expectation of the surrender of the garrison on the coercion that Oconostota had devised, especially as Fort Prince George was so much nearer than Fort Loudon to communication with the white settlements. "I contemplate the fact before it happens, they only afterward," he said.
On the pretext of diverting Stuart"s mind after his glut of horrors, and in affording him this recreation to secure an influence over him, eminently in character with the wiles of the Cherokee statesman, he gave out that he intended to take his prisoner with him for a few days on a hunting expedition. The deer were now in prime condition, and Captain Stuart was known by the Indians to be specially fond of venison. In the old days at Fort Loudon they had often taken note of this preference, and stopped there to leave as a gift a choice haunch, or saddle, or to crave the privilege of nailing a gigantic pair of antlers to vie with the others on the walls of the great hall. Stuart himself was a famous shot, and was often called by them in compliment _A-wah-ta-how-we_, the "great deer-killer." The project created no surprise, and Stuart saw with amazement the door of his prison ajar. One might have thought in such a crisis of deliverance no other consideration could appeal to him.
But his attachment to the British interest seems to have been like the marrow in his bones. He demanded of Atta-Kulla-Kulla the privilege of being accompanied by two men of the garrison of his own choice.
The chief cast upon him a look of deep reproach. Did he fear treachery?