Metipom's Hostage/Chapter 11
CHAPTER XI
THE CAVE IN THE FOREST
When the light that came in by the narrow cleft in the ledge had grown dim, the Indians produced food, dried fish that smelled none too good and parched corn, and shared them with the captive. David was not hungry, but ate as he might, for the idea of making his escape ere the night was over had come to him, and should he find an opportunity to make the attempt he would be better for food in his stomach. After the brief meal one of the Indians disappeared and presently returned with water in a fold of birch bark. By then the cave was utterly black and David could no longer see his companions. The latter, who had spoken to each other but seldom during the afternoon, now became talkative, and David amused himself in trying to understand something of their conversation. But it was no use, for, although now and then a sound that was familiar came to him, the most of it was gibberish. Perhaps two hours passed, and then once more the entrance to the cave was illumined, though but dimly, as the starlight flooded the open wood. David was resolved to let no chance go by, and for that reason fought hard against the sleep that weighted his eyelids. If, he reasoned, he could in some manner get past the Indians and through the entrance without their knowledge, he might elude them in the gloom of the forest and, by traveling eastward, discover the trail leading to Sudbury and there lie in wait for the returning party of his friends. The Indians gradually ceased their talk and silence fell again. At last one of them stirred and spoke briefly. The other responded with a grunt and the entrance was darkened momentarily as the first speaker slipped out of the cavern.
David lay down then and simulated slumber, breathing regularly. He would have given much to have known whither the other savage had gone; whether back to the village or only to some post of watching near by. Peering across the cave, he saw the glow of the Indian’s pipe at intervals. Then it went out and silence settled more deeply. After a long while the Indian muttered, sighed, and then began to breathe heavily and with a rasping sound. David’s heart beat fast while he waited for his jailer to sink more deeply in slumber. Ten minutes passed, and then, with only such sound as was caused by his knees and toes on the gravel floor, he started to creep toward the entrance. To reach it he must pass close to the Indian, for the latter was near the middle of the cave, his form discernible against the faint light of the opening. He had not laid himself down, but had fallen asleep where he sat, his head fallen forward on his chest.
A few inches at a time was all David dared attempt, ready to sink to the ground and pretend sleep at the first token of wakefulness on the part of the savage. When he had brought himself to within arm’s reach of the sleeper, the latter’s breathing broke in a mutter and the boy dropped to the floor and lay very still. The Indian stirred, changed his position slightly, it seemed, and then, when a long moment had passed, sank back to sleep. David’s heart was beating so hard and so fast that the sound of it, like the ticking of a great clock, seemed to fill the cavern, and he almost expected that the noise of it would awaken the Indian.
At last he was well past and the ground sloped upward to the narrow crevice beyond which the purple night sky lay. He paused long and listened. The Indian still breathed regularly. He took a deep breath and went forward, rising now to his feet and guiding himself by his hands along the narrowing walls. Once a stone, disturbed by his tread, trickled downward with a noise that, to David, sounded loud enough to wake the very dead, and it was only by a great effort of will that he held himself silent there and did not, in a sudden panic, rush up the rest of the ascent.
The noise failed to disturb the sleeper. An Indian, although David did not know it then, sleeps deeply and is difficult to awake, and to that fact he doubtless owed the moment’s escape. After an instant, during which his heart gradually sank back from his throat, or seemed to, he went on. By turning sidewise he had no great difficulty in getting through the mouth of the crevice, and as his body brushed the ferns aside a flood of warm air enveloped him. He crouched motionless at the entrance and gazed sharply about him in the confusion of starlight and shadow.
Under the great oaks which were spaced well apart as though planted by man, the gloom was deep and impenetrable. In the open spaces the light of a million twinkling stars made blue pools of dim radiance wherein David could make out the shapes of fern patches or the crouching form of a rock. Somewhere in the higher branches of a tree a bird twittered sleepily. Afar off an owl hooted. For the rest only the silence of a hot, breathless night.
He dared not stay where he was for long lest the Indian behind should awake and, seeking him, discover his flight, while to move forward meant risking recapture in case the other savage, he who had gone from the cave earlier in the evening, was on guard near by. But once well away from his prison, David believed he would be safe so long as darkness lasted, and to get away he must risk the presence of the second savage. Moving cautiously, testing each step that he took, he drew himself away from the cavern entrance and the edge of the shadowed patch beneath the twisted oak. Monapikot had taught him the skill that takes one through the woods in silence, even in the night when the other senses must make up for sight, and David caused scarce the swaying of a fern frond as he made his slow way up the gentle slope, keeping always to the shadows. Fortunately there was little underbrush save patches of fern and brake, and the ground was soft in most places with its carpet of dead and rotting leaves and took his footfalls in silence. Only once ere he drew nigh the edge of the oak forest did he make a sound. Then, for the moment neglecting caution, he set his foot on a dead twig and it snapped beneath his weight with the sudden report of a tiny pistol. He stopped short and crouched back amongst the black shadows and listened anxiously. And it was well that he did so, for when an instant had passed there came to him the sound of a man’s sleepy yawn from some spot not many paces away to his left!
The Indian who had left the cave was watching from above, watching, perhaps, lest the English find the tracks they had left and approach by the open ground!
David, appalled by the narrow margin of his escape from walking almost straight into the hands of the enemy, trembled a little as he sank back on his heels and, scarcely daring to breathe, stared intently in the direction of the sound. But the Indian was not visible to him, although he searched every foot of gloomy forest above the cave until his eyes ached. He had meant to gain the open space whereby they had approached in the afternoon, and thus, following, as well as memory would allow, their trail, come within distant sight of the palisade and then dip down the lower slope of the mountain and so reach the trail to the south. But to do that now he must pass below the cave and keep to the forest until well beyond the position of the sentinel and not until then emerge into the open. At all hazards, he told himself, he would put much space between himself and the Indian there, even if in so doing he lost all sense of direction. It were better to risk being lost than recapture.
Acting on this resolve, he slipped around the great bole of an oak and, keeping it between him and the spot from whence the sound of the yawn had come, stole obliquely down the slope. He made but slow progress, for in the hush of the woods even the flicking of a branch or the crunch of an acorn might arouse the suspicions of the sentinel. The Indian hearing is very acute and David had heard amazing instances of it. Slowly, stealthily he went, and not until a full two hundred paces had been traversed did he turn at something less than a right angle to his course and make along the hill well below the cave. The forest was less park-like here, and saplings, whether of oak or maple he was not able to say, made travel more difficult. Low branches must be felt for and carefully bent aside and as carefully released, while the earth beneath held more litter of fallen twigs. Absolute silence was well-nigh impossible now, and he must trust to the distance between him and his foe. It was warm in the forest, warm and humid, and the boy’s body was soon bathed in perspiration and his hands sweated so that his grasp on the impeding branches sometimes slipped and they whipped his face cruelly and seemed determined to reveal his presence. But after a while he breathed more freely and stopped to rest.
He was very weary now and would have asked nothing better than to have lain himself down and slept. But in spite of all his painful travel, he was still but a short distance from the cave, and had he failed to awaken before dawn would of a certainty been soon found. He reckoned on at least four hours yet before the light and in those four hours meant to put as many miles between him and his Indian guards. That they would find him eventually, unless he were fortunate enough to intercept the English party on their way back, was certain, for they would find his tracks in the forest and follow them as a hound follows the scent of a fox. His hope, therefore, lay in reaching the Indian trail to the south while darkness still held and there lying in wait for his friends. After that his fate was in the hands of Providence. If his pursuers came first, his efforts would have been in vain.
Midges or some other small insects annoyed him while he rested, and once a prowling animal, no larger than a small dog, slunk out of the gloom but a pace away and startled him with the green fires of its staring eyes. David moved but his foot and the beast was gone with a snarl. Up the slope he went then, from shadow patch to shadow patch, the trees thinning, and presently the open ground, rock-strewn, bush-grown, lay before him in the soft radiance of the stars. He heaved a deep sigh of relief, for somehow emerging from the gloom of the forest seemed like stepping from a dark prison into freedom. But freedom was not yet his, as he well knew, and, glancing uneasily to the left toward where, perhaps a quarter of a mile away, the sentinel watched, he made off with swift steps toward the village, keeping always to the dark marge of the forest.
He speedily found that haste and quiet would not agree, for in the gloom he caught a foot in a tangle of root or vine and measured his length, exclaiming in spite of himself when his chin came rudely down on a stone. Thereafter he went more slowly. When a half-hour had gone by, a faint flush of light met his sight. It was, he believed, the dim yellow glare of a fire in the village showing above the wall. He went on more cautiously, the light drawing nearer yet becoming more faint, as if the fire were dying. At last he imagined that he could when crouching to the ground make out the fort perhaps a quarter of a mile away. He dared go no closer lest there be guards set outside the palisade, and so he turned into the forest, first fixing his gaze on a great star more brilliant than its fellows and burning with a redder light that hung in the heavens to the southeast. He would be guided by that, he thought. But once in the forest the orb was instantly lost to him, for here there were pines and hemlocks growing so closely together that only now and again could he glimpse a bit of the sky between their clustering branches. Smaller trees and bushes fought for life beneath the evergreens and ever he must step aside this way or that until before long all sense of direction had left him and he went on in a blackness that had no relief, trusting to fortune.
That he would know the trail should he come to it seemed too much to hope for now. It seemed far more likely that, if his progress, indeed, led him in the right direction, he would cross the forest path without knowledge. And so, when some time had passed, he became doubly watchful for a thinning out of the underbrush, and when the trees seemed less closely set he went no farther until he had satisfied himself that he had not reached the trail. It was difficult going for more reasons than the forest growth, for fallen trees barred his way and clutched at his clothing with stark and splintered hands. He had lost all knowledge of time. It seemed to him that he had been fighting through the woods for hours and that daylight must now be no more than just beyond the world’s rim. But the thick, velvety blackness continued and the sky, when infrequently seen, looked no lighter than before. He grew hopeless and despondent, certain that he had fallen into the easy error of circling, not sure that the trail was not behind him instead of before. Weariness took toll of hope. Every muscle in his body ached and his lungs grew sore. Pauses for rest, during which he leaned against a tree or subsided on a fallen log, fighting for breath and against the languor that threatened to bring sleep upon him, became more and more frequent.
In the end he grew to care no whit what fate befell him if only he might sleep. And yet some voice at the back of his tired brain called him awake whenever his eyes closed and sent him staggering on again. And thus, at length, what wits remained to him stayed his steps and sent him feeling about in the darkness, while hope surged back to his heart. Behind him were trees, but to the right and to the left were none until he had twice stepped forward! Turning to the right he went cautiously ahead. Nothing impeded him. More, his feet trod hard earth between the crawling roots of the pines. He dropped to his knees and felt the ground. Clean it was, and the roots that crossed it were worn with many feet. He had found the trail!