Necessity presently overcame the dread possessing me; and slowly, seeking to see no more than I must of the awful scenes about me, I struggled to my knees, and peered around cautiously for signs of skulking Indians. Not a living creature was near enough to observe me. To the northward the savages were swarming about the Fort, and it was evident that they had left everything to search for plunder. My uncovered head throbbed under the hot sun, and my hair was thick with clotted blood; scarce a hundred feet away was the blue lake, and on my hands and knees I crawled across the beach to it, forgetful of everything else in my desire to roll in the cool sweet water.
I realized that it would be far safer for me to remain there until darkness shrouded my movements; but I felt so revived by the touch of the water that the old desire for action overcame considerations of personal safety. Before night came I must somehow gain possession of a rifle, with powder and ball; and I must discover, if possible, the fate of Mademoiselle. I cannot describe how, like a frightened child, I shrank from going again amid those mutilated corpses. I started twice, only to crawl back into the water, nerveless and shaking like the leaf of a cottonwood. I knew it must be done, and that the sooner I attempted it the safer would be the trial; so at last, with set teeth and almost superhuman effort, I crept up the beach among the silent, disfigured dead once more.
With little trouble I found the wagon against which I had seen Mademoiselle draw back her horse in that last desperate defence. It was overturned, scorched with flame, its contents widely scattered; while about it lay the bodies of men, women, and children. A single hasty glance at most of these was sufficient; but a few were so huddled and hidden that I was compelled to move them before I thoroughly convinced myself that Mademoiselle was not there. I finally found her horse, several rods away, lying against the sand-ridge; but she whose body I sought with such fond persistency was not among those mangled forms.
Faint and sick from the awful scene, with head throbbing painfully, I sank down upon a slope of sand where I was able to command a clear view in either direction, and thought rapidly. I was alone with the dead. Of all those lying silent before me, none would stir again. Not a savage roamed the stricken field,--though doubtless they would again swarm down upon it as soon as the sacking of the Fort had been completed. I must plan, and plan quickly, if I would preserve my own life and be of service to others. And life was worth preserving now, for there was a possibility,--faint, to be sure, yet a possibility,--that Toinette still lived. How the mere hope thrilled and animated me! how like a trumpet-sound it called to action! She had told me once of friendships between her and these blood-stained warriors; of weeks passed in Indian camps on the great plains, both with her father and alone; of being called the White Queen in the lodges of Sacs, Wyandots, and Pottawattomies. Perchance some such friendship may have intervened to save her, even in that fierce mêlée, that carnival of lust and murder. Some chief, with sufficient power to dare the deed, may have snatched her from out the jaws of death, actuated by motives of mercy,--or, more likely still, have saved her from the stroke of the tomahawk for a far more terrible fate.