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The company of scouts traveled in single file and, having no need to follow the wood-road on which the army was marching, they soon left that out of view. 'Siah found an Indian path which suited him far better than the broader trail, for it would bring them much sooner to the lake, and for hour after hour he strode on with scarce a look behind him to see how his companions kept up.
This island and these perilous rocks were dead to leeward of the Waldo, and hardly a mile distant. With the aid of the staysail Captain 'Siah hoped and only hoped that he should be able to work his vessel out of the range of these dangers. But before the staysail could be set, and before the fore-topsail could be furled, a violent squall struck the brig.
"Did mother say I could go, 'Siah?" cried the youngster, with undoubted satisfaction in his voice. "You're the best man that I know to get her to say 'yes'!" Bolderwood looked up from his work with much gravity. "This ain't no funnin' we're goin' on, Nuck. It's serious business. You kin shoot straight, an' that's why I begged for ye.
The Governor of New York is a powerful man and is friendly to men high in the King's councils, they say. This Sheriff Ten Eyck may bring real soldiers against us some day." "You don't believe that, 'Siah?" cried the boy. "Indeed and I do, lad," returned the ranger, rising now with the carcass of the doe flayed and ready for hanging up. "But we'll fight for our lands!" cried Enoch.
'Siah Bolderwood found him," Enoch sadly admitted. "Then we look see how Hawknose kill him." "But Crow Wing, it was four years ago " The Indian stopped him with a gesture of disdain. "Does my brother think we look for trail? No, no! The white man not find trail?" "Of course not. There were only marks of the buck's hoofs." Crow Wing pointed to the spoor of the dead buck made the night before.
Massy had observed from the Siah Sung heights that the Asmai heights, overhanging the Cabul suburb of Deh Afghan, were held by a large body of Afghan soldiery, a force, it was afterwards learned, composed of the remnants of the regiments defeated at Charasiah, three fresh regiments from the Kohistan, and the rabble of the city and adjacent villages, having a total strength of nearly 3000 men, with twelve guns, under the leadership of Mahomed Jan, who later was to figure prominently as the ablest of our Afghan enemies.
"Can I do anything, Captain 'Siah?" asked Wallbridge, who had been aroused from his lethargy by the energy of the captain. "Yes; let go the peak-halyards of the spanker!" answered the captain, sharply, as he sprang to the throat-halyards himself.
I wasn't 'zactly 'fraid of him," added Enoch, thinking some explanation necessary, "but I saw if I fought him it would bring the man at the fire to help, and I couldn't fight two of 'em, anyway. The pesky Injin made me walk to the crick with him an' then he told me to go home and not come back. I wish 'Siah Bolderwood was here. We'd fix 'em!" "The Indian threatened you!" cried the widow.
We must have boats and plenty of them to cross to the fort." "That's what struck me last night, Colonel. So I left the others ter watch the fort an' a sarpint that wriggled into aour han's yesterday and come kitin' down here for orders." "A serpent, 'Siah?" said Warner. "Who is it?" "One o' them Yorkers, an' one that I've not had my eyes on let alone my hands for a good many months.
The fugitives were scourged with artillery and rifle fire, and Massy led out the cavalry, swept the plain, and drove the lingering Afghans from the slopes of Siah Sung. The false attack on the southern face from the King's Garden and the Mahomed Shereef fort never made any head.
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