“Apt to break at the first stroke from the enemy, you mean, Digby?” Digby nodded assent. “Well, I should like, at any rate, to prove it,” added Everell.
“Time enough this half-dozen years yet, my young master. I should be loath to see that fair skin of thine stained with blood; and, besides, you have yet to get a little more worldly prudence than to trust a young Indian girl, just because she takes your fancy.”
“And why does she take my fancy, Digby? because she is true and noble-minded. I am certain, that if she knows of any danger approaching us, she is seeking to avert it.”
“I don’t know that, Mr Everell; she’ll be first true to her own people. The old proverb holds fast with these savages, as well as with the rest of the world – ‘hawks won’t pick out hawks’ eyes.’ Like to like, throughout all nature. I grant you, she hath truly a fair seeming.”
“And all that’s foul is our own suspicion, is it not, Digby?”
“Not exactly; there’s plainly some mystery between Magawisca and the old woman, and we know these Pequods were famed above all the Indian tribes for their cunning.”
“And what is superior cunning among savages but superior sense?”
“You may out-talk me, Mr Everell,” replied Digby, with the impatience that a man feels when he is sure he is right, without being able to make it appear. “You may out-talk me, but you will never convince me. Was not I in the Pequod war? I ought to know, I think.”
“Yes, and I think you have told me they shewed more resolution than cunning there; in particular, that the brother of Magawisca, whom she so piteously bemoans to this day, fought like a young lion.”
“Yes, he did, poor dog! – and he was afterwards cruelly cut off; and it is this that makes me think they will take some terrible revenge for his death. I often hear Magawisca talking to Oneco of her brother, and I think it is to stir his spirit; but this boy is no more like to him than a spaniel to a bloodhound.”
Nothing Digby said had any tendency to weaken Everell’s confidence in Magawisca.
The subject of the Pequod war once started, Digby and Everell were in no danger of sleeping at their post. Digby loved, as well as another man, and particularly those who have had brief military experience, to fight his battles o’er again; and Everell was at an age to listen with delight to tales of adventure, and danger. They thus wore away the time till the imaginations of both relater and listener were at that pitch, when every shadow is embodied, and every passing sound bears a voice to the quickened sense. “Hark!” said Digby, “did you not hear footsteps?”
“I hear them now,” replied Everell; “they seem not very near. Is it not Magawisca returning?”
“No; there is more than one; and it is the heavy, though cautious, tread of men. Ha! Argus scents them.” The old house dog now sprang from his rest on a mat at the door stone, and gave one of those loud inquiring barks, by which this animal first hails the approach of a strange footstep. “Hush, Argus, hush,” cried Everell; and the old dog, having obeyed his instinct, seemed satisfied to submit to his master’s voice, and crept lazily back to his place of repose.
“You have hushed Argus, and the footsteps too,” said Digby; but it is well, perhaps, if there really is an enemy near, that he should know we are on guard.”
“If there really is, Digby!” said Everell, who, terrific as the apprehended danger was, felt the irrepressible thirst of youth for adventure; “do you think we could both have been deceived?”
“Nothing easier, Mr Everell, than to deceive senses on the watch for alarm. We heard something, but it might have been the wolves that even now prowl about the very clearing here at night. Ha!” he exclaimed, “there they are” – and starting forward he levelled his musket towards the wood.
“You are mad,” said Everell, striking down Digby’s musket with the butt end of his own. “It is Magawisca.” Magawisca at that moment emerged from the wood.
Digby appeared confounded. “Could I have been so deceived?” he said; “could it have been her shadow – I thought I saw an Indian beyond that birch tree; you see the white bark? well, just beyond in the shade. It could not have been Magawisca, nor her shadow, for you see there are trees between the footpath and that place; and yet, how should he have vanished without motion or sound?”
“Our senses deceive us, Digby,” said Everell, reciprocating Digby’s own argument.
“In this tormenting moonlight they do; but my senses have been well schooled in their time, and should have learned to know a man from a woman, and a shadow from a substance.”
Digby had not a very strong conviction of the actual presence of an enemy, as was evident from his giving no alarm to his auxiliaries in the house; and he believed that if there were hostile Indians prowling about them, they were few in number, and fearful; still he deemed it prudent to persevere in their precautionary measures. “I will remain here,” he said, “Mr Everell, and do you follow Magawisca; sift what you can from her. Depend on’t, there’s something wrong. Why should she have turned away on seeing us? and did you not observe her hide something beneath her mantle?”
Everell acceded to Digby’s proposition; not with the expectation of confirming his suspicions, but in the hope that Magawisca would shew they were groundless. He followed her to the front of the house, to which she seemed involuntarily to have bent her steps on perceiving him.
“You have taken the most difficult part of our duty on yourself, Magawisca,” he said, on coming up to her. “You have acted as vidette, while I have been quiet at my post.”
Perhaps Magawisca did not understand him, at any rate she made no reply.
“Have you met an enemy in your reconnoitring? Digby and I fancied that we both heard and saw the foe.”
“When and where?” exclaimed Magawisca, in a hurried, alarmed tone.
“Not many minutes since, and just at the very edge of the wood.”
“What! when Digby raised his gun? I thought that had been in sport to startle me.”
“No – Magawisca. Sporting does not suit our present case. My mother and her little ones are in peril, and Digby is a faithful servant.”
“Faithful!” echoed Magawisca, as if there were more in Everell’s expression than met the ear; “he surely may walk straight who hath nothing to draw him aside. Digby hath but one path, and that is plain before him – but one voice from his heart, and why should he not obey it?” The girl’s voice faltered as she spoke, and as she concluded she burst into tears. Everell had never before witnessed this expression of feeling from her. She had an habitual self-command that hid the motions of her heart from common observers, and veiled them even from those who most narrowly watched her. Everell’s confidence in Magawisca had not been in the least degree weakened by all the appearances against her. He did not mean to imply suspicion by his commendation of Digby, but merely to throw out a leading observation which she might follow if she would.
He felt reproached and touched by her distress, but struck by the clew, which, as he thought, her language afforded to the mystery of her conduct, and confident that she would in no way aid or abet any mischief that her own people might be contriving against them, he followed the natural bent of his generous temper, and assured her again, and again, of his entire trust in her. This seemed rather to aggravate than abate her distress. She threw herself on the ground, drew her mantle over her face, and wept convulsively. He found he could not allay the storm he had raised, and he seated himself beside her. After a little while, either exhausted by the violence of her emotion, or comforted by Everell’s silent sympathy, she became composed; and raised her face from her mantle, and as she did so,