“Steady the boat while I dive,” again cried Edwards.
“Gently, lad, gently,” said Natty;
“I’ll spear the creatur’ up in half the time, and no risk to anybody.”
The form of Benjamin was lying about half-way to the bottom, grasping with both hands some broken rushes.
The blood of Elizabeth curdled to her heart, as she saw the figure of a fellow-creature thus extended under an immense sheet of water, apparently in motion by the undulations of the dying waves, with its face and hands, viewed by that light, and through the medium of the fluid, already colored with hues like death.
At the same instant, she saw the shining tines of Natty’s spear approaching the head of the sufferer, and entwinning themselves, rapidly and dexterously, in the hairs of his cue and the cape of his coat.
The body was now raised slowly, looking ghastly and grim as its features turned upward to the light and approached the surface.
The arrival of the nostrils of Benjamin into their own atmosphere was announced by a breathing that would have done credit to a porpoise.
For a moment, Natty held the steward suspended, with his head just above the water, while his eyes slowly opened and stared about him, as if he thought that he had reached a new and unexplored country.
As all the parties acted and spoke together, much less time was consumed in the occurrence of these events than in their narration.
To bring the batteau to the end of the spear, and to raise the form of Benjamin into the boat, and for the whole party to regain the shore, required but a minute.
Kirby, aided by Richard, whose anxiety induced him to run into the water to meet his favorite assistant, carried the motionless steward up the bank, and seated him before the fire, while the sheriff proceeded to order the most approved measures then in use for the resuscitation of the drowned.
“Run, Billy,” he cried, “to the village, and bring up the rum-hogshead that lies before the door, in which I am making vinegar, and be quick, boy, don’t stay to empty the vinegar, and stop at Mr. Le Quoi’s, and buy a paper of tobacco and half a dozen pipes; and ask Remarkable for some salt, and one of her flannel petticoats; and ask Dr. Todd to send his lancet, and to come himself; and—ha!
‘Duke, what are you about? would you strangle a man who is full of water, by giving him rum?
Help me to open his hand, that I may pat it.”
All this time Benjamin sat, with his muscles fixed, his mouth shut, and his hands clinching the rushes which he had seized in the confusion of the moment and which, as he held fast, like a true seaman, had been the means of preventing his body from rising again to the surface.
His eyes, however, were open, and stared wildly on the group about the fire, while his lungs were playing like a blacksmith’s bellows, as if to compensate themselves for the minute of inaction to which they had been subjected.
As he kept his lips compressed, with a most inveterate determination, the air was compelled to pass through his nostrils, and he rather snorted than breathed, and in such a manner that nothing but the excessive agitation of the sheriff could at all justify his precipitous orders.
The bottle, applied to the steward’s lips by Marmaduke, acted like a charm.
His mouth opened instinctively; his hands dropped the rushes, and seized the glass; his eyes raised from their horizontal stare to the heavens; and the whole man was lost, for a moment, in a new sensation.
Unhappily for the propensity of the steward, breath was as necessary after one of these draughts as after his submersion, and the time at length arrived when he was compelled to let go the bottle.
“Why, Benjamin!” roared the sheriff; “you amaze me! for a man of your experience in drownings to act so foolishly!
Just now, you were half full of water, and now you are—”
“Full of grog,” interrupted the steward, his features settling down, with amazing flexibility, into their natural economy.
“But, d’yesee, squire, I kept my hatches chose, and it’s but little water that ever gets into my scuttle-butt.
Harkee, Master Kirby! I’ve followed the salt-water for the better part of a man’s life, and have seen some navigation on the fresh; but this here matter I will say in your favor, and that is, that you’re the awk’ardest green ‘un that ever straddled a boat’s thwart.
Them that likes you for a shipmate, may sail with you and no thanks; but dam’me if I even walk on the lake shore in your company.
For why? you’d as lief drown a man as one of them there fish; not to throw a Christian creature so much as a rope’s end when he was adrift, and no life-buoy in sight!
Natty Bumppo, give us your fist.
There’s them that says you’re an Indian, and a scalper, but you’ve served me a good turn, and you may set me down for a friend; thof it would have been more ship shape like to lower the bight of a rope or running bowline below me, than to seize an old seaman by his head-lanyard; but I suppose you are used to taking men by the hair, and seeing you did me good instead of harm thereby, why, it’s the same thing, d’ye see?”
Marmaduke prevented any reply, and assuming the action of matters with a dignity and discretion that at once silenced all opposition from his cousin, Benjamin was dispatched to the village by land, and the net was hauled to shore in such a manner that the fish for once escaped its meshes with impunity.
The division of the spoils was made in the ordinary manner, by placing one of the party with his hack to the game, who named the owner of each pile.
Bill Kirby stretched his large frame on the grass by the side of the fire, as sentinel until morning, over net and fish; and the remainder of the party embarked in the batteau, to return to the village.
The wood-chopper was seen broiling his supper on the coals as they lost sight of the fire, and when the boat approached the shore, the torch of Mohegan’s canoe was shining again under the gloom of the eastern mountain. Its motion ceased suddenly; a scattering of brands was in the air, and then all remained dark as the conjunction of night, forest, and mountain could render the scene.
The thoughts of Elizabeth wandered from the youth, who was holding a canopy of shawls over herself and Louisa, to the hunter and the Indian warrior; and she felt an awakening curiosity to visit a hut where men of such different habits and temperament were drawn together as by common impulse.
CHAPTER XXV.
“Cease all this parlance about hills and dales.
None listen to thy scenes of boyish frolic.
Fond dotard! with such tickled ears as thou dost
Come to thy tale.”
—Duo.
Mr. Jones arose on the following morning with the sun, and, ordering his own and Marmaduke’s steeds to be saddled, he proceeded, with a countenance big with some business of unusual moment to the apartment of the Judge.
The door was unfastened, and Richard entered, with the freedom that characterized not only the intercourse between the cousins, but the ordinary manners of the sheriff.
“Well, ‘Duke, to horse,” he cried, “and I will explain to you my meaning in the allusions I made last night.
David says, in the Psalms—no, it was Solomon, but it was all in the family—Solomon said there was a time for all things; and, in my humble opinion, a fishing-party is not the moment for discussing important subjects. Ha! why, what the devil ails you, Marmaduke?
Ain’t you well?
Let me feel your pulse; my grandfather, you know—”
“Quite well in the body, Richard,” interrupted the Judge, repulsing his cousin, who was about to assume the functions that rightly belonged to Dr. Todd; “but ill at heart.
I received letters by the post last night, after we returned from the point, and this among the number.”
The sheriff took the letter, but without turning his eyes on the writing, for he was examining the appearance of the other with astonishment.