"Captain Renault! Captain Renault!" called out a militiaman, as I turned from the log rampart.
The man came hastening toward me, firelock trailing, pack and sack bouncing and flopping.
"My wife has news of your lady," he said, pointing to a slim, pale young woman who stood in the doorway, a shawl over her wind-blown hair.
I turned as she advanced, looking me earnestly in the face.
"Your lady was in the fort late last night, sir," she began. A fit of coughing choked her; overhead the dreadful clangor of the bell dinned and dinned.
Dumb, stunned, I waited while she fumbled in her soiled apron, and at last drew out a crumpled letter.
"I'll tell you what I know," she said weakly. "We had been to the Hall; the sky was all afire. My little boy grew frightened, and she--your sweet lady--she lifted him and carried him for me--I was that sick and weak from fright, sir----"
A fit of coughing shook her. She handed me the letter, unable to continue.
And there, brain reeling, ears stunned by the iron din of the bell which had never ceased, I read her last words to me: "Carus, my darling, I don't know where you are. Please God, you are not at Oswaya, where they tell me the Indians have appeared above Varicks. Dearest lad, your Oneida came with your letter. I could not reply, for there were no expresses to go to you. Colonel Willett had news of the enemy toward Fort Hunter, and marched the next day. We hoped he might head them, but last night there was an alarm, and we all went out into the street. People were hastening to the Hall, and I went, too, being anxious, now that you are out there alone somewhere in the darkness.
"Oh, Carus, the sky was all red and fiery behind Tribes Hill; and women were crying and children sobbing all around me. I asked the Ranger, Mount, if he had news of you, and he was gentle and kind, and strove to comfort me, but he went away with his company on a run, and I saw the militia assembling where the drummers stood beating their drums in the torchlight.
"Somebody--a woman--said: 'It's hatchet and scalping again, and we women will catch it now.'
"And then a child screamed, and its mother was too weak to carry it, so I took it back for her to the jail.
"I sat in the jailer's room, thinking and thinking. Outside the barred window I heard a woman telling how Butler's men had already slain a whole family at Caughnawaga--an express having arrived with news of horrors unspeakable.