Whereupon I straightened up and saw the little maid of Askalege beside me, looking at me very strangely.
At the same instant I heard a great roaring and cursing and a crash among the river-side willows, and was horrified to see Nick down on his back a-clawing and tearing and cuffing a Mohawk warrior, who was clinging to him and striving to use his hatchet.
We made but a dozen leaps of it, Thiohero and I, and were in a wasp-nest of Mohawks ere we knew it.
I heard Nick roar again with pain and fury, but had my hands too full to succor him, for a wild beast painted yellow was choking me and wrestling me off my feet, and little Thiohero was fighting like a demon with her knife, on the water's edge.
The naked warrior I clutched was so vilely oiled that my fingers slipped over him as though it were an eel I plucked at, and his foul and stinking breath in my face was like a full fed bear's.
Then, as he strangled me, out of darkening eyes I saw his arm lifted--glimpsed the hatchet's sparkle--saw an arm seize his, saw a broad knife pass into his belly as though it had been butter--pass thrice, slowly, ripping upward so that he stood there, already gralloched, yet still breathing horribly and no bowels in him.... His falling hatchet clinked among the stones. Then he sank like a stricken bull, bellowed, and died.
And, as he fell, I heard my Saguenay gabbling, "Brother! brother!" in my ears, and felt his hand timidly seeking mine.
Breath came back, and eyesight, too, in time to see Nick and his Mohawk enemy on their feet again, and the Indian strike my comrade with clubbed rifle, turn, and dart into the willows.
My God, what a crack! And down went Nick, like a felled pine in the thicket.
But now in my ears rang a distressful crying, like a gentle wild thing wounded to the death; and I saw two Mohawks had got the little maid of Askalege between them, and were drowning her in the Big Eddy.
I ran out into the water, but Tahioni, her brother, came in a flying leap from the bank above me, and all four went down under water as I reached them.
They came up blinded, staggering, one by one, and I got Thiohero by the hair, where she lay in shallow water, and dragged her ashore behind me.
Then I saw her brother clear his eyes of water and swing his hatchet like swift lightning, and heard the smashing skull stroke.
