“In the name of Him, who commandeth all, I implore you to pause—both you, who so madly incur the risk, and you, who so rashly offer to take that which you never can return!” said a voice, in a slightly foreign accent, that instantly drew all eyes upward.
“Inez!” cried the officer, “do I again see you! mine shall you now be, though a million devils were posted on this rock.
Push up, brave woodsman, and give room for another!”
The sudden appearance of the figure from the tent had created a momentary stupor among the defendants of the rock, which might, with suitable forbearance, have been happily improved; but startled by the voice of Middleton, the surprised Phoebe discharged her musket at the female, scarcely knowing whether she aimed at the life of a mortal or at some being which belonged to another world.
Ellen uttered a cry of horror, and then sprang after her alarmed or wounded friend, she knew not which, into the tent.
During this moment of dangerous by-play, the sounds of a serious attack were very distinctly audible beneath.
Paul had profited by the commotion over his head to change his place so far, as to make room for Middleton.
The latter was followed by the naturalist, who, in a state of mental aberration, produced by the report of the musket, had instinctively rushed towards the rocks for cover.
The trapper remained where he was last seen, an unmoved but close observer of the several proceedings.
Though averse to enter into actual hostilities, the old man was, however, far from being useless.
Favoured by his position, he was enabled to apprise his friends of the movements of those who plotted their destruction above, and to advise and control their advance accordingly.
In the mean time, the children of Esther were true to the spirit they had inherited from their redoubtable mother.
The instant they found themselves delivered from the presence of Ellen and her unknown companion, they bestowed an undivided attention on their more masculine and certainly more dangerous assailants, who by this time had made a complete lodgment among the crags of the citadel.
The repeated summons to surrender, which Paul uttered in a voice that he intended should strike terror in their young bosoms, were as little heeded as were the calls of the trapper to abandon a resistance, which might prove fatal to some among them, without offering the smallest probability of eventual success.
Encouraging each other to persevere, they poised the fragments of rocks, prepared the lighter missiles for immediate service, and thrust forward the barrels of the muskets with a business-like air, and a coolness, that would have done credit to men practised in warfare.
“Keep under the ledge,” said the trapper, pointing out to Paul the manner in which he should proceed; “keep in your foot more, lad—ah! you see the warning was not amiss! had the stone struck it, the bees would have had the prairies to themselves.
Now, namesake of my friend; Uncas, in name and spirit! now, if you have the activity of Le Cerf Agile, you may make a far leap to the right, and gain twenty feet, without danger.
Beware the bush—beware the bush! ‘twill prove a treacherous hold!
Ah! he has done it; safely and bravely has he done it!
Your turn comes next, friend; that follows the fruits of natur’.
Push you to the left, and divide the attention of the children. Nay, girls, fire,—my old ears are used to the whistling of lead; and little reason have I to prove a doe-heart, with fourscore years on my back.” He shook his head with a melancholy smile, but without flinching in a muscle, as the bullet, which the exasperated Hetty fired, passed innocently at no great distance from the spot where he stood. “It is safer keeping in your track than dodging when a weak finger pulls the trigger,” he continued “but it is a solemn sight to witness how much human natur’ is inclined to evil, in one so young!
Well done, my man of beasts and plants!
Another such leap, and you may laugh at all the squatter’s bars and walls.
The Doctor has got his temper up!
I see it in his eye, and something good will come of him!
Keep closer, man—keep closer.”
The trapper, though he was not deceived as to the state of Dr. Battius’ mind, was, however, greatly in error as to the exciting cause.
While imitating the movements of his companions, and toiling his way upward with the utmost caution, and not without great inward tribulation, the eye of the naturalist had caught a glimpse of an unknown plant, a few yards above his head, and in a situation more than commonly exposed to the missiles which the girls were unceasingly hurling in the direction of the assailants.
Forgetting, in an instant, every thing but the glory of being the first to give this jewel to the catalogues of science, he sprang upward at the prize with the avidity with which the sparrow darts upon the butterfly.
The rocks, which instantly came thundering down, announced that he was seen; and for a moment, while his form was concealed in the cloud of dust and fragments which followed the furious descent, the trapper gave him up for lost; but the next instant he was seen safely seated in a cavity formed by some of the projecting stones which had yielded to the shock, holding triumphantly in his hand the captured stem, which he was already devouring with delighted, and certainly not unskilful, eyes.
Paul profited by the opportunity.
Turning his course, with the quickness of thought, he sprang to the post which Obed thus securely occupied, and unceremoniously making a footstool of his shoulder, as the latter stooped over his treasure, he bounded through the breach left by the fallen rock, and gained the level.
He was followed by Middleton, who joined him in seizing and disarming the girls.
In this manner a bloodless and complete victory was obtained over that citadel which Ishmael had vainly flattered himself might prove impregnable.
CHAPTER XV
So smile the heavens upon this holy act,
That after-hours with sorrow chide us not!
—Shakspeare.
It is proper that the course of the narrative should be stayed, while we revert to those causes, which have brought in their train of consequences, the singular contest just related.
The interruption must necessarily be as brief as we hope it may prove satisfactory to that class of readers, who require that no gap should be left by those who assume the office of historians, for their own fertile imaginations to fill.
Among the troops sent by the government of the United States, to take possession of its newly acquired territory in the west, was a detachment led by a young soldier who has become so busy an actor in the scenes of our legend.
The mild and indolent descendants of the ancient colonists received their new compatriots without distrust, well knowing that the transfer raised them from the condition of subjects, to the more enviable distinction of citizens in a government of laws.
The new rulers exercised their functions with discretion, and wielded their delegated authority without offence.
In such a novel intermixture, however, of men born and nurtured in freedom, and the compliant minions of absolute power, the catholic and the protestant, the active and the indolent, some little time was necessary to blend the discrepant elements of society.
In attaining so desirable an end, woman was made to perform her accustomed and grateful office.
The barriers of prejudice and religion were broken through by the irresistible power of the master-passion, and family unions, ere long, began to cement the political tie which had made a forced conjunction, between people so opposite in their habits, their educations, and their opinions.
Middleton was among the first, of the new possessors of the soil, who became captive to the charms of a Louisianian lady.
In the immediate vicinity of the post he had been directed to occupy, dwelt the chief of one of those ancient colonial families, which had been content to slumber for ages amid the ease, indolence, and wealth of the Spanish provinces.
He was an officer of the crown, and had been induced to remove from the Floridas, among the French of the adjoining province, by a rich succession of which he had become the inheritor.
The name of Don Augustin de Certavallos was scarcely known beyond the limits of the little town in which he resided, though he found a secret pleasure himself in pointing it out, in large scrolls of musty documents, to an only child, as enrolled among the former heroes and grandees of Old and of New Spain.