Virginia -- History -- Colonial period, ca. 1600-1775 -- Fiction
“Child!” he cried. “Where are the others?”
The child had struggled for a moment, desperately if weakly, but at the
sound of his voice she lay still in his grasp, with her eyes upon his
face. In the moonlight each could see the other quite plainly. Raising
her in his arms, Haward bore her to the brink of the stream, laved her
face and chafed the small, cold hands.
“Now tell me, Audrey,” he said at last. “Audrey is your name, isn’t it?
Cry, if you like, child, but try to tell me.”
Audrey did not cry. She was very, very tired, and she wanted to go to
sleep. “The Indians came,” she told him in a whisper, with her head
upon his breast. “We all waked up, and father fired at them through the
hole in the door. Then they broke the door down, and he went outside,
and they killed him. Mother put me under the bed, and told me to stay
there, and to make no noise. Then the Indians came in at the door,
and killed her and Molly and Robin. I don’t remember anything after
that,--maybe I went to sleep. When I was awake again the Indians were
gone, but there was fire and smoke everywhere. I was afraid of the
fire, and so I crept from under the bed, and kissed mother and Molly
and Robin, and left them lying in the cabin, and came away.”
She sighed with weariness, and the hand with which she put back her
dark hair that had fallen over her face was almost too heavy to lift.
“I sat beside father and watched the fire,” she said. “And then I heard
you and the black man coming over the stones in the stream. I thought
that you were Indians, and I went and hid in the corn.”
Her voice failed, and her eyelids drooped. In some anxiety Haward
watched her breathing and felt for the pulse in the slight brown wrist;
then, satisfied, he lifted the light burden, and, nodding to the negro
to go before, recommenced his progress to the hill which he had left an
hour agone.
It was not far away. He could see the bare summit above the treetops,
and in a little while they were upon its slope. A minute more and they
came to the clump of trees, and found the horses in safety, Haward
paused to take from the roll strapped behind his saddle a riding cloak;
then, leaving the negro with the horses, climbed to the grassy level.
Here he spread the cloak upon the ground, and laid the sleeping child
upon it, which done, he stood and looked at his new-found charge for a
moment; then turning, began to pace up and down upon the hilltop.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account