The Master of Ballantrae

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But if human nature is even in the worst of men occasionally kind,
it is still, and before all things, greedy; and they soon turned
from the mourner to their own concerns. The cache of the treasure
being hard by, although yet unidentified, it was concluded not to
break camp; and the day passed, on the part of the voyagers, in
unavailing exploration of the woods, Secundra the while lying on
his master's grave. That night they placed no sentinel, but lay
altogether about the fire, in the customary woodman fashion, the
heads outward, like the spokes of a wheel. Morning found them in
the same disposition; only Pinkerton, who lay on Mountain's right,
between him and Hastie, had (in the hours of darkness) been
secretly butchered, and there lay, still wrapped as to his body in
his mantle, but offering above that ungodly and horrific spectacle
of the scalped head. The gang were that morning as pale as a
company of phantoms, for the pertinacity of Indian war (or to speak
more correctly, Indian murder) was well known to all. But they
laid the chief blame on their unsentinelled posture; and fired with
the neighbourhood of the treasure, determined to continue where
they were. Pinkerton was buried hard by the Master; the survivors
again passed the day in exploration, and returned in a mingled
humour of anxiety and hope, being partly certain they were now
close on the discovery of what they sought, and on the other hand
(with the return of darkness) were infected with the fear of
Indians. Mountain was the first sentry; he declares he neither
slept nor yet sat down, but kept his watch with a perpetual and
straining vigilance, and it was even with unconcern that (when he
saw by the stars his time was up) he drew near the fire to awaken
his successor. This man (it was Hicks the shoemaker) slept on the
lee side of the circle, something farther off in consequence than
those to windward, and in a place darkened by the blowing smoke.
Mountain stooped and took him by the shoulder; his hand was at once
smeared by some adhesive wetness; and (the wind at the moment
veering) the firelight shone upon the sleeper, and showed him, like
Pinkerton, dead and scalped.

It was clear they had fallen in the hands of one of those matchless
Indian bravos, that will sometimes follow a party for days, and in
spite of indefatigable travel, and unsleeping watch, continue to
keep up with their advance, and steal a scalp at every resting-
place. Upon this discovery, the treasure-seekers, already reduced
to a poor half dozen, fell into mere dismay, seized a few
necessaries, and deserting the remainder of their goods, fled
outright into the forest. Their fire they left still burning, and
their dead comrade unburied. All day they ceased not to flee,
eating by the way, from hand to mouth; and since they feared to
sleep, continued to advance at random even in the hours of
darkness. But the limit of man's endurance is soon reached; when
they rested at last it was to sleep profoundly; and when they woke,
it was to find that the enemy was still upon their heels, and death
and mutilation had once more lessened and deformed their company.

By this they had become light-headed, they had quite missed their
path in the wilderness, their stores were already running low.
With the further horrors, it is superfluous that I should swell
this narrative, already too prolonged. Suffice it to say that when
at length a night passed by innocuous, and they might breathe again
in the hope that the murderer had at last desisted from pursuit,
Mountain and Secundra were alone. The trader is firmly persuaded
their unseen enemy was some warrior of his own acquaintance, and
that he himself was spared by favour. The mercy extended to
Secundra he explains on the ground that the East Indian was thought
to be insane; partly from the fact that, through all the horrors of
the flight and while others were casting away their very food and
weapons, Secundra continued to stagger forward with a mattock on
his shoulder, and partly because, in the last days and with a great
degree of heat and fluency, he perpetually spoke with himself in
his own language. But he was sane enough when it came to English.

"You think he will be gone quite away?" he asked, upon their blest
awakening in safety.

"I pray God so, I believe so, I dare to believe so," Mountain had
replied almost with incoherence, as he described the scene to me.

And indeed he was so much distempered that until he met us, the
next morning, he could scarce be certain whether he had dreamed, or
whether it was a fact, that Secundra had thereupon turned directly
about and returned without a word upon their footprints, setting
his face for these wintry and hungry solitudes, along a path whose
every stage was mile-stoned with a mutilated corpse.

CHAPTER XII. - THE JOURNEY IN THE WILDERNESS (continued).

Mountain's story, as it was laid before Sir William Johnson and my
lord, was shorn, of course, of all the earlier particulars, and the
expedition described to have proceeded uneventfully, until the
Master sickened. But the latter part was very forcibly related,
the speaker visibly thrilling to his recollections; and our then
situation, on the fringe of the same desert, and the private
interests of each, gave him an audience prepared to share in his
emotions. For Mountain's intelligence not only changed the world
for my Lord Durrisdeer, but materially affected the designs of Sir
William Johnson.

These I find I must lay more at length before the reader. Word had
reached Albany of dubious import; it had been rumoured some
hostility was to be put in act; and the Indian diplomatist had,
thereupon, sped into the wilderness, even at the approach of
winter, to nip that mischief in the bud. Here, on the borders, he
learned that he was come too late; and a difficult choice was thus
presented to a man (upon the whole) not any more bold than prudent.
His standing with the painted braves may be compared to that of my
Lord President Culloden among the chiefs of our own Highlanders at
the 'forty-five; that is as much as to say, he was, to these men,
reason's only speaking trumpet, and counsels of peace and
moderation, if they were to prevail at all, must prevail singly
through his influence. If, then, he should return, the province
must lie open to all the abominable tragedies of Indian war - the
houses blaze, the wayfarer be cut off, and the men of the woods
collect their usual disgusting spoil of human scalps. On the other
side, to go farther forth, to risk so small a party deeper in the
desert, to carry words of peace among warlike savages already
rejoicing to return to war: here was an extremity from which it
was easy to perceive his mind revolted.

"I have come too late," he said more than once, and would fall into
a deep consideration, his head bowed in his hands, his foot patting
the ground.

At length he raised his face and looked upon us, that is to say
upon my lord, Mountain, and myself, sitting close round a small
fire, which had been made for privacy in one corner of the camp.

"My lord, to be quite frank with you, I find myself in two minds,"
said he. "I think it very needful I should go on, but not at all
proper I should any longer enjoy the pleasure of your company. We
are here still upon the water side; and I think the risk to
southward no great matter. Will not yourself and Mr. Mackellar
take a single boat's crew and return to Albany?"

My lord, I should say, had listened to Mountain's narrative,
regarding him throughout with a painful intensity of gaze; and
since the tale concluded, had sat as in a dream. There was
something very daunting in his look; something to my eyes not
rightly human; the face, lean, and dark, and aged, the mouth
painful, the teeth disclosed in a perpetual rictus; the eyeball
swimming clear of the lids upon a field of blood-shot white. I
could not behold him myself without a jarring irritation, such as,
I believe, is too frequently the uppermost feeling on the sickness
of those dear to us. Others, I could not but remark. were scarce
able to support his neighbourhood - Sir William eviting to be near
him, Mountain dodging his eye, and, when he met it, blenching and
halting in his story. At this appeal, however, my lord appeared to
recover his command upon himself.

"To Albany?" said he, with a good voice.

"Not short of it, at least," replied Sir William. "There is no
safety nearer hand."

"I would be very sweir (11) to return," says my lord. "I am not
afraid - of Indians," he added, with a jerk.

"I wish that I could say so much," returned Sir William, smiling;
"although, if any man durst say it, it should be myself. But you
are to keep in view my responsibility, and that as the voyage has
now become highly dangerous, and your business - if you ever had
any," says he, "brought quite to a conclusion by the distressing
family intelligence you have received, I should be hardly justified
if I even suffered you to proceed, and run the risk of some obloquy
if anything regrettable should follow."

My lord turned to Mountain. "What did he pretend he died of?" he
asked.

"I don't think I understand your honour," said the trader, pausing
like a man very much affected, in the dressing of some cruel frost-
bites.

For a moment my lord seemed at a full stop; and then, with some
irritation, "I ask you what he died of. Surely that's a plain
question," said he.

"Oh! I don't know," said Mountain. "Hastie even never knew. He
seemed to sicken natural, and just pass away."

"There it is, you see!" concluded my lord, turning to Sir William.

"Your lordship is too deep for me," replied Sir William.

"Why," says my lord, "this in a matter of succession; my son's
title may be called in doubt; and the man being supposed to be dead
of nobody can tell what, a great deal of suspicion would be
naturally roused."

"But, God damn me, the man's buried!" cried Sir William.

"I will never believe that," returned my lord, painfully trembling.
"I'll never believe it!" he cried again, and jumped to his feet.
"Did he LOOK dead?" he asked of Mountain.

"Look dead?" repeated the trader. "He looked white. Why, what
would he be at? I tell you, I put the sods upon him."

My lord caught Sir William by the coat with a hooked hand. "This
man has the name of my brother," says he, "but it's well understood
that he was never canny."

"Canny?" says Sir William. "What is that?"

"He's not of this world," whispered my lord, "neither him nor the
black deil that serves him. I have struck my sword throughout his
vitals," he cried; "I have felt the hilt dirl (12) on his
breastbone, and the hot blood spirt in my very face, time and
again, time and again!" he repeated, with a gesture indescribable.
"But he was never dead for that," said he, and I sighed aloud.
"Why should I think he was dead now? No, not till I see him
rotting," says he.

Sir William looked across at me with a long face. Mountain forgot
his wounds, staring and gaping.

"My lord," said I, "I wish you would collect your spirits." But my
throat was so dry, and my own wits so scattered, I could add no
more.

"No," says my lord, "it's not to be supposed that he would
understand me. Mackellar does, for he kens all, and has seen him
buried before now. This is a very good servant to me, Sir William,
this man Mackellar; he buried him with his own hands - he and my
father - by the light of two siller candlesticks. The other man is
a familiar spirit; he brought him from Coromandel. I would have
told ye this long syne, Sir William, only it was in the family."
These last remarks he made with a kind of a melancholy composure,
and his time of aberration seemed to pass away. "You can ask
yourself what it all means," he proceeded. "My brother falls sick,
and dies, and is buried, as so they say; and all seems very plain.
But why did the familiar go back? I think ye must see for yourself
it's a point that wants some clearing."

"I will be at your service, my lord, in half a minute," said Sir
William, rising. "Mr. Mackellar, two words with you;" and he led
me without the camp, the frost crunching in our steps, the trees
standing at our elbow, hoar with frost, even as on that night in
the Long Shrubbery. "Of course, this is midsummer madness," said
Sir William, as soon as we were gotten out of bearing.

"Why, certainly," said I. "The man is mad. I think that
manifest."

"Shall I seize and bind him?" asked Sir William. "I will upon your
authority. If these are all ravings, that should certainly be
done."

I looked down upon the ground, back at the camp, with its bright
fires and the folk watching us, and about me on the woods and
mountains; there was just the one way that I could not look, and
that was in Sir William's face.

"Sir William," said I at last, "I think my lord not sane, and have
long thought him so. But there are degrees in madness; and whether
he should be brought under restraint - Sir William, I am no fit
judge," I concluded.

"I will be the judge," said he. "I ask for facts. Was there, in
all that jargon, any word of truth or sanity? Do you hesitate?" he
asked. "Am I to understand you have buried this gentleman before?"

"Not buried," said I; and then, taking up courage at last, "Sir
William," said I, "unless I were to tell you a long story, which
much concerns a noble family (and myself not in the least), it
would be impossible to make this matter clear to you. Say the
word, and I will do it, right or wrong. And, at any rate, I will
say so much, that my lord is not so crazy as he seems. This is a
strange matter, into the tail of which you are unhappily drifted."

"I desire none of your secrets," replied Sir William; "but I will
be plain, at the risk of incivility, and confess that I take little
pleasure in my present company."

"I would be the last to blame you," said I, "for that."

"I have not asked either for your censure or your praise, sir,"
returned Sir William. "I desire simply to be quit of you; and to
that effect, I put a boat and complement of men at your disposal."

"This is fairly offered," said I, after reflection. "But you must
suffer me to say a word upon the other side. We have a natural
curiosity to learn the truth of this affair; I have some of it
myself; my lord (it is very plain) has but too much. The matter of
the Indian's return is enigmatical."

"I think so myself," Sir William interrupted, "and I propose (since
I go in that direction) to probe it to the bottom. Whether or not
the man has gone like a dog to die upon his master's grave, his
life, at least, is in great danger, and I propose, if I can, to
save it. There is nothing against his character?"

"Nothing, Sir William," I replied.

"And the other?" he said. "I have heard my lord, of course; but,
from the circumstances of his servant's loyalty, I must suppose he
had some noble qualities."

"You must not ask me that!" I cried. "Hell may have noble flames.
I have known him a score of years, and always hated, and always
admired, and always slavishly feared him."

"I appear to intrude again upon your secrets," said Sir William,
"believe me, inadvertently. Enough that I will see the grave, and
(if possible) rescue the Indian. Upon these terms, can you
persuade your master to return to Albany?"

"Sir William," said I, "I will tell you how it is. You do not see
my lord to advantage; it will seem even strange to you that I
should love him; but I do, and I am not alone. If he goes back to
Albany, it must be by force, and it will be the death-warrant of
his reason, and perhaps his life. That is my sincere belief; but I
am in your hands, and ready to obey, if you will assume so much
responsibility as to command."

"I will have no shred of responsibility; it is my single endeavour
to avoid the same," cried Sir William. "You insist upon following
this journey up; and be it so! I wash my hands of the whole
matter."

With which word, he turned upon his heel and gave the order to
break camp; and my lord, who had been hovering near by, came
instantly to my side.

"Which is it to be?" said he.

"You are to have your way," I answered. "You shall see the grave."

The situation of the Master's grave was, between guides, easily
described; it lay, indeed, beside a chief landmark of the
wilderness, a certain range of peaks, conspicuous by their design
and altitude, and the source of many brawling tributaries to that
inland sea, Lake Champlain. It was therefore possible to strike
for it direct, instead of following back the blood-stained trail of
the fugitives, and to cover, in some sixteen hours of march, a
distance which their perturbed wanderings had extended over more
than sixty. Our boats we left under a guard upon the river; it
was, indeed, probable we should return to find them frozen fast;
and the small equipment with which we set forth upon the
expedition, included not only an infinity of furs to protect us
from the cold, but an arsenal of snow-shoes to render travel
possible, when the inevitable snow should fall. Considerable alarm
was manifested at our departure; the march was conducted with
soldierly precaution, the camp at night sedulously chosen and
patrolled; and it was a consideration of this sort that arrested
us, the second day, within not many hundred yards of our
destination - the night being already imminent, the spot in which
we stood well qualified to be a strong camp for a party of our
numbers; and Sir William, therefore, on a sudden thought, arresting
our advance.

Before us was the high range of mountains toward which we had been
all day deviously drawing near. From the first light of the dawn,
their silver peaks had been the goal of our advance across a
tumbled lowland forest, thrid with rough streams, and strewn with
monstrous boulders; the peaks (as I say) silver, for already at the
higher altitudes the snow fell nightly; but the woods and the low
ground only breathed upon with frost. All day heaven had been
charged with ugly vapours, in the which the sun swam and glimmered
like a shilling piece; all day the wind blew on our left cheek
barbarous cold, but very pure to breathe. With the end of the
afternoon, however, the wind fell; the clouds, being no longer
reinforced, were scattered or drunk up; the sun set behind us with
some wintry splendour, and the white brow of the mountains shared
its dying glow.

It was dark ere we had supper; we ate in silence, and the meal was
scarce despatched before my lord slunk from the fireside to the
margin of the camp; whither I made haste to follow him. The camp
was on high ground, overlooking a frozen lake, perhaps a mile in
its longest measurement; all about us, the forest lay in heights
and hollows; above rose the white mountains; and higher yet, the
moon rode in a fair sky. There was no breath of air; nowhere a
twig creaked; and the sounds of our own camp were hushed and
swallowed up in the surrounding stillness. Now that the sun and
the wind were both gone down, it appeared almost warm, like a night
of July: a singular illusion of the sense, when earth, air, and
water were strained to bursting with the extremity of frost.

My lord (or what I still continued to call by his loved name) stood
with his elbow in one hand, and his chin sunk in the other, gazing
before him on the surface of the wood. My eyes followed his, and
rested almost pleasantly upon the frosted contexture of the pines,
rising in moonlit hillocks, or sinking in the shadow of small
glens. Hard by, I told myself, was the grave of our enemy, now
gone where the wicked cease from troubling, the earth heaped for
ever on his once so active limbs. I could not but think of him as
somehow fortunate to be thus done with man's anxiety and weariness,
the daily expense of spirit, and that daily river of circumstance
to be swum through, at any hazard, under the penalty of shame or
death. I could not but think how good was the end of that long
travel; and with that, my mind swung at a tangent to my lord. For
was not my lord dead also? a maimed soldier, looking vainly for
discharge, lingering derided in the line of battle? A kind man, I
remembered him; wise, with a decent pride, a son perhaps too
dutiful, a husband only too loving, one that could suffer and be
silent, one whose hand I loved to press. Of a sudden, pity caught
in my windpipe with a sob; I could have wept aloud to remember and
behold him; and standing thus by his elbow, under the broad moon, I
prayed fervently either that he should be released, or I
strengthened to persist in my affection.

"Oh God," said I, "this was the best man to me and to himself, and
now I shrink from him. He did no wrong, or not till he was broke
with sorrows; these are but his honourable wounds that we begin to
shrink from. Oh, cover them up, oh, take him away, before we hate
him!"

I was still so engaged in my own bosom, when a sound broke suddenly
upon the night. It was neither very loud, nor very near; yet,
bursting as it did from so profound and so prolonged a silence, it
startled the camp like an alarm of trumpets. Ere I had taken
breath, Sir William was beside me, the main part of the voyagers
clustered at his back, intently giving ear. Methought, as I
glanced at them across my shoulder, there was a whiteness, other
than moonlight, on their cheeks; and the rays of the moon reflected
with a sparkle on the eyes of some, and the shadows lying black
under the brows of others (according as they raised or bowed the
head to listen) gave to the group a strange air of animation and
anxiety. My lord was to the front, crouching a little forth, his
hand raised as for silence: a man turned to stone. And still the
sounds continued, breathlessly renewed with a precipitate rhythm.

Suddenly Mountain spoke in a loud, broken whisper, as of a man
relieved. "I have it now," he said; and, as we all turned to hear
him, "the Indian must have known the cache," he added. "That is he
- he is digging out the treasure."

"Why, to be sure!" exclaimed Sir William. "We were geese not to
have supposed so much."

"The only thing is," Mountain resumed, "the sound is very close to
our old camp. And, again, I do not see how he is there before us,
unless the man had wings!"

"Greed and fear are wings," remarked Sir William. "But this rogue
has given us an alert, and I have a notion to return the
compliment. What say you, gentlemen, shall we have a moonlight
hunt?"

It was so agreed; dispositions were made to surround Secundra at
his task; some of Sir William's Indians hastened in advance; and a
strong guard being left at our headquarters, we set forth along the
uneven bottom of the forest; frost crackling, ice sometimes loudly
splitting under foot; and overhead the blackness of pine-woods, and
the broken brightness of the moon. Our way led down into a hollow
of the land; and as we descended, the sounds diminished and had
almost died away. Upon the other slope it was more open, only
dotted with a few pines, and several vast and scattered rocks that
made inky shadows in the moonlight. Here the sounds began to reach
us more distinctly; we could now perceive the ring of iron, and
more exactly estimate the furious degree of haste with which the
digger plied his instrument. As we neared the top of the ascent, a
bird or two winged aloft and hovered darkly in the moonlight; and
the next moment we were gazing through a fringe of trees upon a
singular picture.

A narrow plateau, overlooked by the white mountains, and
encompassed nearer hand by woods, lay bare to the strong radiance
of the moon. Rough goods, such as make the wealth of foresters,
were sprinkled here and there upon the ground in meaningless
disarray. About the midst, a tent stood, silvered with frost: the
door open, gaping on the black interior. At the one end of this
small stage lay what seemed the tattered remnants of a man.
Without doubt we had arrived upon the scene of Harris's encampment;
there were the goods scattered in the panic of flight; it was in
yon tent the Master breathed his last; and the frozen carrion that
lay before us was the body of the drunken shoemaker. It was always
moving to come upon the theatre of any tragic incident; to come
upon it after so many days, and to find it (in the seclusion of a
desert) still unchanged, must have impressed the mind of the most
careless. And yet it was not that which struck us into pillars of
stone; but the sight (which yet we had been half expecting) of
Secundra ankle deep in the grave of his late master. He had cast
the main part of his raiment by, yet his frail arms and shoulders
glistered in the moonlight with a copious sweat; his face was
contracted with anxiety and expectation; his blows resounded on the
grave, as thick as sobs; and behind him, strangely deformed and
ink-black upon the frosty ground, the creature's shadow repeated
and parodied his swift gesticulations. Some night birds arose from
the boughs upon our coming, and then settled back; but Secundra,
absorbed in his toil; heard or heeded not at all.

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