The Cryptogram Part 21

"I hope at least that I have hit none of our own men," he answered with a touch of humor. "I confess I am more handy with a quill than a musket.

I have friends in London, sir, who will not believe me when I relate my adventures in this barbarous country. But, alas! I may not live to see England again."

I thought this more than likely, but did not tell him so.

"Come, come, Mr. Burley!" I replied, "keep up your spirits; don't yield to depression. You will be spared to stamp many a blue doc.u.ment--to entangle scores of luckless litigants in the meshes of the law."

I clipped on without waiting to see how he took this sally, and went as far as the northwest angle of the fort. Here I stopped to talk with some comrades who were drinking hot coffee flavored with a dash of rum.

Close by, other men were watching alertly at the loopholes. Occasionally they would fire at some partly exposed Indians, and then dodge back as a straggling volley of bullets pelted the stockade. Over on the east side muskets were cracking in the same desultory fas.h.i.+on. The storm showed no signs of abating. On the contrary, the snow was falling more thickly and in finer flakes, and a bitter wind was constantly heaping it in higher drifts, and blowing it in blinding, eddying showers about the inclosure.

I was about to return to my post, warmed and strengthened by a pannikin of coffee, when a couple of shots rang out. One of the very men to whom I had been talking--a young Scotchman named Blair--reeled and fell heavily, hit by a ball that had entered at a loophole. I bent over him, and saw at once that he was badly hurt. He was shot in the left breast, and blood was oozing from his lips.

"It's all up with me, Carew," he moaned. "Let me lie here."

"Not a bit of it," I replied. "You'll pull through, take my word for it.

But you must be in the doctor's hands without delay."

Three of us picked the wounded man up, and bore him across the yard to the hospital. At the door I relinquished my share of the burden, for the firing had suddenly recommenced so briskly that I feared the savages were meditating a rush.

But the fusillade dwindled to a few shots before I was halfway to the east side, and the next instant, as I was pus.h.i.+ng along leisurely, I saw a dark object looming out of the snow twenty feet to my right. It was the figure of a woman. Her back was toward me, and she seemed to have halted in perplexity.

Suddenly she moved forward a little, and with that I was in pursuit, my heart beating fast. As I overtook her she turned round with a start.

"Denzil!" she gasped.

As I had suspected, it was Flora Hatherton. She was m.u.f.fled in a cloak, a fur cap crowned her pretty face, and in her gloved hands she held a light musket.

"You here!" I exclaimed. "Are you mad, to expose yourself to such danger? Go back!"

"I don't want to go back," she said. "Please don't make me, Denzil."

"You must," I answered sharply. "Is it possible that Mrs. Menzies allowed you to do this rash thing?"

"I came without her permission. She thinks I have retired," Flora replied in a spirited tone. "Let me help to defend the fort, Denzil. I can fire a gun, and I am not a bit afraid, and it is my duty, I feel like a coward these brave men fighting and dying."

What could I say? The girl's rashness angered me, but I admired her pluck and courage. I had never loved her so much as I loved her that instant--never so fully realized what the barrenness of my life would be without her. And she was Griffith Hawke's!

"Flora--" I began.

She seemed to divine my feelings, and of a sudden she shrank a little from me.

"Hus.h.!.+" she said. "I have been foolish and impulsive, Denzil. I am going back to Mrs. Menzies."

The mad words were checked on my lips.

"Yes, go!" I answered hoa.r.s.ely. "Go at once--"

There was the sound of a footfall to one side, and I glanced around to see the factor. How much he had heard I could only surmise; but he stood in silence for a moment, looking from one to the other of us.

"Flora, why are you here?" he asked, and to me his voice seemed cold and harsh.

"I wanted to help to defend the fort," she answered in faltering tones, "but Mr. Carew stopped me--"

"I fortunately met Miss Hatherton," I broke in, "and urged her to go back."

"Quite right," said the factor. "It is not a woman's part to fight. Your place is in the house, Flora."

Without a word she turned and glided rapidly through the snow. Griffith Hawke hesitated, and then started to follow her; but he had not made two steps when a cry rang loudly from the northeast watch-tower:

"The redskins are coming! The clearing is alive with them! Every man to his post!"

The alarm was not a false one, for immediately a fiendish clamor and whooping broke out and scores of musket shots blended in a rattling din.

The attack seemed to be directed entirely against the east side, and to that quarter the two of us ran fleetly.

"Spare guns this way!" the factor shouted at the top of his voice.

"Stand firm, men!"

The scene that followed baffles description. There was no panic or fright, nor did the men entirely desert the other sides of the fort for the threatened point; but all who could be spared rallied to the north.

I felt sure that this second rush would be a more serious business than the first, and I was not mistaken.

I quickly reached the stockade--I did not see what had become of Griffith Hawke--and managed to squeeze my way through to one of the loopholes. At grave risk--for the fire was already heavy on both sides--I peered briefly out. Through the smoke and snow I saw the dusky warriors advancing in great numbers and at close quarters, filling the air with their infernal yells. Some carried felled saplings with the branches lopped off short, the purpose of which was plain.

One glimpse was enough. I began to fire with my comrades, reckless of the bullets that whizzed about me. From angle to angle of the north stockade, from the embrasures of the tower, poured a deadly sheet of flame. A howitzer crashed, and then a swivel gun. I fired three times--spare muskets were pa.s.sed to me--and I drew back from the loophole to reload. By the ruddy flashes I recognized friends--Baptiste and Captain Rudstone, Griffith Hawke and Andrew Menzies, the excited countenance of Christopher Burley in the rear.

"Rake them down," the factor cried shrilly. "Beat them off if you can.

Don't let them get a footing inside!"

The words were hardly uttered when the stockade groaned and rattled. The savages had reared their rude scaling ladders against it, and by these means some gained the top, while others clambered up with the agility of cats.

It was a most desperate and daring a.s.sault, but we met it with the dogged pluck of men who fight for a last chance. We shot half a score of the devils as they clung to the top of the stockade, and speedily finished others who dropped down among us.

They poured over thicker and faster, screeching like fiends, and now we were driven back a little. We fired as long as we could load, and then made an onset with clubbed muskets. The advantage was on our side, the Indians being mostly armed with tomahawks, and though more than a score of them were inside at once, we soon sent them scrambling back, and so checked the incoming tide.

A little handful stuck out to the last, disdaining to flee. They came at us ferociously, and nearly broke through our line. I finished one, and Captain Rudstone and Baptiste killed two more. A fourth Indian--a stalwart, hideously painted savage--carried a musket. He suddenly leveled it and fired, and I heard a sharp cry behind me. I looked round in time to see Griffith Hawke stagger, clutch at the rail and fall heavily.

CHAPTER XXIV.

A BLACK NIGHT.

At the time, so exciting and dangerous was the situation, I scarcely realized what had happened. The fight was still raging, and I was in the thick of it. Leaving others to render aid to the factor, I sprang with clubbed musket at the redskin who had shot him. I struck hard and true, and I yelled hoa.r.s.ely as he dropped with a shattered skull. My comrades finished several more, and now the survivors--four in number--turned and fled. One scrambled safely over the stockade; the other three were cut down as they ran.

That ended the struggle. Again, and with terrible loss, our desperate foes had been repulsed. The moaning of the wounded was drowned in hearty cheers, and the musketry fire had dwindled to a few straggling shots.

There was a sudden cry from the watch-tower that the enemy were in full retreat, and I ran to a loophole to see if this good news could be verified. It was true enough! The Indians were fading away into the curtain of snow, and in a manner that showed they had no intention of stopping short cf the forest, since none took to shelter in the clearing.

I peered out for a few moments, until not a savage was in sight. Then the triumphant clamor within the fort seemed to change to an angry and mournful key, and I heard the factors name called from mouth to mouth.