CHAPTER XXXVIII.
“Even from the land of shadows, now
My father’s awful ghost appears.”
—Gertrude Of Wyoming.
For an hour after Louisa Grant was left by Miss Temple, in the situation already mentioned, she continued in feverish anxiety, awaiting the return of her friend.
But as the time passed by without the reappearance of Elizabeth, the terror of Louisa gradually increased, until her alarmed fancy had conjured every species of danger that appertained to the woods, excepting the one that really existed.
The heavens had become obscured by degrees, and vast volumes of smoke were pouring over the valley; but the thoughts of Louisa were still recurring to beasts, without dreaming of the real cause for apprehension.
She was stationed in the edge of the low pines and chestnuts that succeed the first or large growth of the forest, and directly above the angle where the highway turned from the straight course to the village, and ascended the mountain laterally.
Consequently, she commanded a view, not only of the valley, but of the road beneath her.
The few travellers that passed, she observed, were engaged in earnest conversation, and frequently raised their eyes to the hill, and at length she saw the people leaving the court house, and gazing upward also.
While under the influence of the alarm excited by such unusual movements, reluctant to go, and yet fearful to remain, Louisa was startled by the low, cracking, but cautious treads of some one approaching through the bushes.
She was on the eve of flight, when Natty emerged from the cover, and stood at her side.
The old man laughed as he shook her kindly by a hand that was passive with fear.
“I am glad to meet you here, child,” he said; “for the back of the mountain is a-fire, and it would be dangerous to go up it now, till it has been burnt over once, and the dead wood is gone.
There’s a foolish man, the comrade of that varmint who has given me all this trouble, digging for ore on the east side.
I told him that the kearless fellows, who thought to catch a practysed hunter in the woods after dark, had thrown the lighted pine-knots in the brush, and that ‘twould kindle like tow, and warned him to leave the hill.
But he was set upon his business, and nothing short of Providence could move him, if he isn’t burnt and buried in a grave of his own digging, he’s made of salamanders.
Why, what ails the child?
You look as skeary as if you’d seed more painters.
I wish there were more to be found! they’d count up faster than the beaver.
But where’s the good child with a bad father?
Did she forget her promise to the old man?”
“The hill! the hill!” shrieked Louisa; “she seeks you on the hill with the powder!”
Natty recoiled several feet at this unexpected intelligence.
“The Lord of Heaven have mercy on her!
She’s on the Vision, and that’s a sheet of fire agin’ this. Child, if ye love the dear one, and hope to find a friend when ye need it most, to the village, and give the alarm.
The men are used to fighting fire, and there may be a chance left, Fly!
I bid ye fly! nor stop even for breath.”
The Leather-Stocking had no sooner uttered this injunction, than he disappeared in the bushes, and, when last seen by Louisa, was rushing up the mountain, with a speed that none but those who were accustomed to the toil could attain.
“Have I found ye!” the old man exclaimed, when he burst out of the smoke;
“God be praised that I have found ye; but follow—there’s no time for talking.”
“My dress!” said Elizabeth; “it would be fatal to trust myself nearer to the flames in it.”
“I bethought me of your flimsy things,” cried Natty, throwing loose the folds of a covering buckskin that he carried on his arm, and wrapping her form in it, in such a manner as to envelop her whole person; “now follow, for it’s a matter of life and death to us all.”
“But John! what will become of John?” cried Edwards; “can we leave the old warrior here to perish?”
The eyes of Natty followed the direction of Edwards’ finger, where he beheld the Indian still seated as before, with the very earth under his feet consuming with fire.
Without delay the hunter approached the spot, and spoke in Delaware:
“Up and away, Chingachgook! will ye stay here to burn, like a Mingo at the stake?
The Moravians have teached ye better, I hope; the Lord preserve me if the powder hasn’t flashed atween his legs, and the skin of his back is roasting.
Will ye come, I say; will ye follow me?”
“Why should Mohegan go?” returned the Indian, gloomily.
“He has seen the days of an eagle, and his eye grows dim He looks on the valley; he looks on the water; he looks in the hunting-grounds—but he sees no Delawares.
Every one has a white skin.
My fathers say, from the far-off land, Come.
My women, my young warriors, my tribe, say, Come.
The Great Spirit says, Come.
Let Mohegan die.”
“But you forget your friend,” cried Edwards,
“‘Tis useless to talk to an Indian with the death-fit on him, lad,” interrupted Natty, who seized the strips of the blanket, and with wonderful dexterity strapped the passive chieftain to his own back; when he turned, and with a strength that seemed to bid defiance, not only to his years, but to his load, he led the way to the point whence he had issued.
As they crossed the little terrace of rock, one of the dead trees, that had been tottering for several minutes, fell on the spot where they had stood, and filled the air with its cinders.
Such an event quickened the steps of the party, who followed the Leather-Stocking with the urgency required by the occasion.