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The day before, Shalah and I had explored the range to the south, keeping on the west side where we thought the enemy were likely to gather. This day we looked to the side facing the Tidewater, a difficult job, for it was eaten into by the upper glens of many rivers. The weather grew hot and oppressive, and over the lowlands of Virginia there brooded a sullen thundercloud.
It's because we differ much, and so fit together like opposite halves of an apple.... Is your traveller still in the land of the living?" he asked Shalah. But the Indian had slipped away from the fireside circle, and I saw him without in the moonlight standing rigid on a knoll and gazing at the skies. Next day dawned cloudless, and Shalah and I spent it in a long journey along the range.
If I couldn't sing on a spring morning or say a hearty grace over a good dinner I'd be content to be put away in a graveyard." And that, I think, is the truth. But at the time I was feeling pretty youthful, too, though my dour face and hard voice were a bad clue to my sentiments. Next day on the Rappahannock we found Shalah, who had gone on to warn the two men I proposed to enlist.
We kept very still, but now and again Elspeth's laugh rang out at his fooling, and it did my heart good to hear it. After midday the glen seemed to grow darker, and I saw that the blue sky, which I had thought changeless, was becoming overcast. As I looked upwards I saw the high ridge blotted out and a white mist creeping down. I had noticed for some time that Shalah was growing uneasy.
My sorrow, but we are far enough from our desires all but Andrew, who is a prosaic soul. And here comes Shalah with ugly news!" The Indian spoke rapidly to me. "The woods are full of men. I do not think we are discovered, but we cannot stay here. Our one hope is to gain the cover of the mist. There is an open space beyond this thicket, and we must ride our swiftest. Quick, brother." "The men?"
He was a Seneca Indian, and I wondered what one of that house was doing in the Tidewater. Mercer told me his name. "Shalah will take you to the man you ken. Do whatever he tells you, Mr. Garvald, for this is a job in which you're nothing but a bairn." We pushed off, the Indian taking the oars, and in five minutes James Town was lost in the haze.
They were common seamen from the pirate vessels, and, as far as I could judge, they had no officer among them. I remarked their fierce, dark faces, and the long knives with which they slashed and trimmed the flesh for their boucanning. Shalah touched my hand, and I followed him into the wood.
Our eyes were hollow with suspense, and all but Shalah had the hunted look of men caught in a trap. Not till the sun had got above the tree-tops did we venture to leave our posts and think of food. It was now that Elspeth's spirit showed supreme. The courage of that pale girl put us all to the blush. She alone carried her head high and forced an air of cheerfulness.
The shallow glen was full of folk, most of them going on foot. I recognized the Cherokee head-dress and the long hickory bows which those carried who had no muskets. 'Twas by far the biggest party we had seen, and, though in that moment I had no wits to count them, Shalah told me afterwards they must have numbered little short of a thousand.
A pocket of flat land lay between two rocky knolls, with a ring of good-sized trees around it. The spot was dry and hidden, and what especially took my fancy was a spring of water which welled up in the centre, and from which a tiny stream ran down the hill. 'Twas a fine site for a stockade, and so thought Shalah and the two Borderers.
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