The Pioneers (61 page)

“Do not regard him,” he said, in those tones that denote a desperate calmness; “he is used to the woods, and such scenes; and he will escape up the mountain—over the rock—or he can remain where he is in safety.”

“You thought not so this moment, Edwards! Do not leave him there to meet with such a death,” cried Elizabeth, fixing a look on the countenance of her conductor that seemed to distrust his sanity.

“An Indian burn! Who ever heard of an Indian dying by fire? An Indian cannot burn; the idea is ridiculous. Hasten, hasten, Miss Temple, or the smoke may incommode you.”

“Edwards! Your look, your eye, terrifies me! Tell me the danger; is it greater than it seems? I am equal to any trial?”

“If we reach the point of yon rock before that sheet of fire, we are safe, Miss Temple!” exclaimed the young man, in a voice that burst without the bounds of his forced composure. “Fly! The struggle is for life!”

The place of the interview between Miss Temple and the Indian has already been described as one of those platforms of rock, which form a sort of terrace in the mountains of that country, and the face of it, we have said, was both high and perpendicular. Its shape was nearly a natural arc, the ends of which blended with the mountain, at points where its sides were less abrupt in their descent. It was round one of these terminations of the sweep of the rock that Edwards had ascended, and it was towards the same place that he urged Elizabeth to a desperate exertion of speed.

Immense clouds of white smoke had been pouring over the summit of the mountain, and had concealed the approach and ravages of the element; but a crackling sound drew the eyes of Miss Temple, as she flew over the ground, supported by the young man, towards the outline of smoke, where she already perceived the waving flames shooting forward from the vapor, now flaring high in the air, and then bending to the earth, seeming to light into combustion every stick and shrub on which they breathed. The sight aroused them to redoubled efforts; but, unfortunately, a collection of the tops of trees, old and dried, lay directly across their course; and, at the very moment when both had thought their safety ensured, the warm currents of the air swept a forked tongue of flame across the pile, which lighted at the touch; and when they reached the spot, the flying pair were opposed by the surly roaring of a body of fire, as if a furnace were glowing in their path. They recoiled from the heat and stood on a point of the rock, gazing in a stupor at the flames, which were spreading rapidly down the mountain, whose side soon became a sheet of living fire. It was dangerous for one clad in the light and airy dress of Elizabeth to approach even the vicinity of the raging element; and those flowing robes that gave such softness and grace to her form seemed now to be formed for the instruments of her destruction.

The villagers were accustomed to resort to that hill in quest of timber and fuel; in procuring which, it was their usage to take only the bodies of the trees, leaving the tops and branches to decay under the operations of the weather. Much of the hill was, consequently, covered with such light fuel, which, having been scorched under the sun for the last two months, was ignited with a touch. Indeed, in some cases, there did not appear to be any contact between the fire and these piles, but the flames seemed to dart from heap to heap, as the fabulous fire of the temple is represented to reillume its neglected lamp.

There was beauty as well as terror in the sight, and Edwards and Elizabeth stood viewing the progress of the desolation, with a strange mixture of horror and interest. The former, however, shortly roused himself to new exertions, and drawing his companion after him, they skirted the edge of the smoke, the young man penetrating frequently into its dense volumes in search of a passage, but in every instance without success. In this manner they proceeded in a semicircle around the upper part of the terrace, until, arriving at the verge of the precipice, opposite to the point where Edwards had ascended, the horrid conviction burst on both at the same instant that they were completely encircled by the fire. So long as a single pass up or down the mountain was unexplored, there was hope; but when retreat seemed to be absolutely impracticable, the horror of their situation broke upon Elizabeth as powerfully as if she had hitherto considered the danger light.

“This mountain is doomed to be fatal to me!” she whispered. “We shall find our graves on it!”

“Say not so, Miss Temple; there is yet hope,” returned the youth, in the same tone, while the vacant expression of his eye contradicted his words. “Let us return to the point of the rock; there is—there must be—some place about it where we can descend.”

“Lead me there,” exclaimed Elizabeth; “let us leave no effort untried.” She did not wait for his compliance, but, turning, retraced her steps to the brow of the precipice, murmuring to herself, in suppressed, hysterical sobs, “My father! My poor, my distracted father!”

Edwards was by her side in an instant, and with aching eyes he examined every fissure in the crags, in quest of some opening that might offer facilities for flight. But the smooth, even surface of the rocks afforded hardly a resting place for a foot, much less those continued projections which would have been necessary for a descent of nearly a hundred feet. Edwards was not slow in feeling the conviction that this hope was also futile, and, with a kind of feverish despair that still urged him to action, he turned to some new expedient.

“There is nothing left, Miss Temple,” he said, “but to lower you from this place to the rock beneath. If Natty were here, or even that Indian could be roused, their ingenuity and long practice would easily devise methods to do it; but I am a child at this moment in everything but daring. Where shall I find means? This dress of mine is so light, and there is so little of it—then the blanket of Mohegan;—we must try—we must try—anything is better than to see you a victim to such a death!”

“And what will become of you?” said Elizabeth. “Indeed, indeed, neither you nor John must be sacrificed to my safety.”

He heard her not, for he was already by the side of Mohegan, who yielded his blanket without a question, retaining his seat with Indian dignity and composure, though his own situation was even more critical than that of the others. The blanket was cut into shreds, and the fragments fastened together; the loose linen jacket of the youth and the light muslin shawl of Elizabeth were attached to them, and the whole thrown over the rocks, with the rapidity of lightning; but the united pieces did not reach halfway to the bottom.

“It will not do—it will not do!” cried Elizabeth. “For me there is no hope! The fire comes slowly, but certainly. See, it destroys the very earth before it!”

Had the flames spread on that rock with half the quickness with which they leaped from bush to tree, in other parts of the mountain, our painful task would have soon ended; for they would have consumed already the captives they enclosed. But the peculiarity of their situation afforded Elizabeth and her companion the respite of which they had availed themselves to make the efforts we have recorded.

The thin covering of earth on the rock supported but a scanty and faded herbage, and most of the trees that had found root in the fissures had already died during the intense heats of preceding summers. Those which still retained the appearance of life bore a few dry and withered leaves, while the others were merely the wrecks of pines, oaks, and maples. No better materials to feed the fire could be found had there been a communication with the flames; but the ground was destitute of the brush that led the destructive element, like a torrent, over the remainder of the hill. As auxiliary to this scarcity of fuel, one of the large springs which abound in that country gushed out of the side of the ascent above, and, after creeping sluggishly along the level land, saturating the mossy covering of the rock with moisture, it swept round the base of the little cone that formed the pinnacle of the mountain, and, entering the canopy of smoke near one of the terminations of the terrace, found its way to the lake, not by dashing from rock to rock, but by the secret channels of the earth. It would rise to the surface, here and there, in the wet seasons, but in the droughts of summer it was to be traced only by the bogs and moss that announced the proximity of water. When the fire reached this barrier, it was compelled to pause until a concentration of its heat could overcome the moisture, like an army waiting the operations of a battering train, to open its way to desolation.

That fatal moment seemed now to have arrived, for the hissing steams of the spring appeared to be nearly exhausted, and the moss of the rocks was already curling under the intense heat, while fragments of bark that yet clung to the dead trees began to separate from their trunks and fall to the ground in crumbling masses. The air seemed quivering with rays of heat, which might be seen playing along the parched stems of the trees. There were moments when dark clouds of smoke would sweep along the little terrace; and, as the eye lost its power, the other senses contributed to give effect to the fearful horror of the scene. At such moments, the roaring of the flames, the crackling of the furious element, with the tearing of falling branches, and, occasionally, the thundering echoes of some falling tree, united to alarm the victims. Of the three, however, the youth appeared much the most agitated. Elizabeth, having relinquished entirely the idea of escape, was fast obtaining that resigned composure with which the most delicate of her sex are sometimes known to meet unavoidable evils; while Mohegan, who was much nearer to the danger, maintained his seat with the invincible resignation of an Indian warrior. Once or twice the eye of the aged chief, which was ordinarily fixed in the direction of the distant hills, turned towards the young pair, who seemed doomed to so early a death, with a slight indication of pity crossing his composed features, but it would immediately revert again to its former gaze, as if already looking into the womb of futurity. Much of the time he was chanting a kind of low dirge, in the Delaware tongue, using the deep and remarkably guttural tones of his people.

“At such a moment, Mr. Edwards, all earthly distinctions end,” whispered Elizabeth; “persuade John to move nearer to us—let us die together.”

“I cannot—he will not stir,” returned the youth, in the same horridly still tones. “He considers this as the happiest moment of his life. He is past seventy, and has been decaying rapidly for some time: he received some injury in chasing that unlucky deer, too, on the lake. Oh! Miss Temple that was an unlucky chase indeed! It has led, I fear, to this awful scene.”

The smile of Elizabeth was celestial. “Why name such a trifle now—at this moment the heart is dead to all earthly emotions!”

“If anything could reconcile a man to this death,” cried the youth, “it would be to meet it in such company!”

“Talk not so, Edwards, talk not so,” interrupted Miss Temple. “I am unworthy of it; and it is unjust to yourself. We must die; yes—yes—we must die—it is the will of God, and let us endeavor to submit like his own children.”

“Die!” the youth rather shrieked than exclaimed, “No—no—no—there must yet be hope—you at least must not, shall not die.”

“In what way can we escape?” asked Elizabeth, pointing with a look of heavenly composure towards the fire. “Observe! The flame is crossing the barrier of wet ground—it comes slowly Edwards, but surely.—Ah! see! The tree! the tree is already lighted!”

Her words were too true. The heat of the conflagration had at length overcome the resistance of the spring, and the fire was slowly stealing along the half-dried moss; while a dead pine kindled with the touch of a forked flame that, for a moment, wreathed around the stem of the tree, as it whirled, in one of its evolutions, under the influence of the air. The effect was instantaneous. The flames danced along the parched trunk of the pine like lightning quivering on a chain, and immediately a column of living fire was raging on the terrace. It soon spread from tree to tree: and the scene was evidently drawing to a close. The log on which Mohegan was seated lighted at its further end, and the Indian appeared to be surrounded by fire. Still he was unmoved. As his body was unprotected, his sufferings must have been great; but his fortitude was superior to all. His voice could yet be heard even in the midst of these horrors. Elizabeth turned her head from the sight, and faced the valley. Furious eddies of wind were created by the heat, and just at the moment, the canopy of fiery smoke that overhung the valley was cleared away, leaving a distinct view of the peaceful village beneath them.

“My father! My father!” shrieked Elizabeth. “Oh! this—this surely might have been spared me—but I submit.”

The distance was not so great but the figure of Judge Temple could be seen, standing in his own grounds, and apparently contemplating, in perfect unconsciousness of the danger of his child, the mountain in flames. This sight was still more painful than the approaching danger, and Elizabeth again faced the hill.

“My intemperate warmth has done this!” cried Edwards, in the accents of despair. “If I had possessed but a moiety of your heavenly resignation, Miss Temple, all might yet have been well.”

“Name it not—name it not,” she said. “It is now of no avail. We must die, Edwards, we must die—let us do so as Christians. But—-no—you may yet escape, perhaps. Your dress is not so fatal as mine. Fly! Leave me. An opening may yet be found for you, possibly—certainly it is worth the effort. Fly! Leave me—but stay! You will see my father; my poor, my bereaved father! Say to him, then, Edwards, say to him all that can appease his anguish. Tell him that I died happy and collected; that I have gone to my beloved mother; that the hours of this life are as nothing when balanced in the scales of eternity. Say how we shall meet again. And say,” she continued, dropping her voice, that had risen with her feelings, as if conscious of her worldly weaknesses, “how dear, how very dear, was my love for him; that it was near, too near, to my love for God.”