A to Z Classics - Bram Stoker - The Complete Novels

“Why have we chosen this spot to camp in? Suppose a high wind were to come, wouldn’t it blow the tent over the precipice?”

“That’s true enough, Little Missy, but there ain’t no high wind a-comin’ up the canon to-night — nothin’ more than the sea-wind which is keepin’ the smoke off this here camp. An’ even if it did come, well, we’ve got fixin’s on to these trees that I reckon’ll see the night through. As to choosin’ this spot, where is there a better? See, we’ve shelter from the big trees, an’ water here to hand, so with a fire across the neck of this rock, and one man to watch it, where’s the harm to come from, and how’s it goin’ to reach us?”

“I see,” said Esse, and was silent for a while, taking in and assimilating her first lesson in woodcraft.

After a little bit she strolled away to the northern side of the precipice, and stood at the edge, wrapt in the glorious silence. A little way off the great fire, which the Indians had heaped with branches, leaped and threw lurid lights on its own smoke, which, taken by the west wind, seemed to bend over and disappear into the darkness of the valley like falling water. Overhead was the deep dark blue of the night, spangled with stars that seemed through the clear air as if one had only to stretch out a hand to touch them; and high away to the south rose the snow-cap of Shasta gleaming ghostly white.

After a while the silence itself became oppressive, as though the absence of sound were something positive which could touch the nervous system. Esse listened and listened, straining her ears for any sound, and at length the myriad and mystic sounds of the night began to be revealed; the creaking of branches and the whispering rustle of many leaves; the fall of distant water; and now and then the far away sound of some beast of the night began to come through the silence. And so, little by little, the life of the night, which is as ample and multitudinous as the life of the day, had one but knowledge to recognise its voices, became manifest; and as the experience went into Esse’s mind, as it must ever go into the mind of man or woman when it is once realised, the girl to whom the new life was coming felt that she had learned her second lesson in woodcraft.

And so she sat thinking and thinking, weaving from the very fabric of the night such dreams as are ever the elixir of a young maiden’s life, till she forgot where she was, and all about the wonders of the day that had passed, and wandered at will through such starlit ways as the future opened for her.

She was recalled to her surroundings by some subtle sense of change around her. The noises of the night and the forest seemed to have ceased. At first she thought that this was because her ears had become accustomed to the sounds; but in a few seconds later she realised the true cause; the moon was rising, and in the growing light the sounds, which up to then had been the only evidence of Nature’s might, became at once of merely ordinary importance. And then, all breathless with delight, Esse, from her high coign of vantage on the brow of the great precipice, saw what looked like a ghostly dawn.

Above the tree-tops, which became articulated from the black mass of a distant hill as the light shone through the rugged edge, sailed slowly the great silver moon. With its coming the whole of Nature seemed to become transformed. The dark limit of forest, where hill and valley were lost in mere expanse, became resolved in some uncertain way into its elements. The pale light fell down great slopes, so that the waves of verdure seemed to roll away from the light and left the depths of the valleys wrapped in velvety black. Hill-tops unthought of rose in points of light, and the great ghostly dome of Shasta seemed to gleam out with a new, silent power.

Esse had begun to lose herself again in this fresh manifestation of Nature’s beauty when her mother’s voice recalled her to herself. She went over to the tent and found her busily engaged with Miss Gimp in arranging matters for the night. The tent was so tiny that there was just room for the three women to lie comfortably on the piles of buffalo and bear rugs which were laid about; and Esse having seen her own corner fixed, went out and stood by the fire where Dick and Le Maistre still sat smoking and talking. She had taken a bearskin robe with her, and this she spread on the ground, near enough to hear the men talk, and sat on it, leaning back on one elbow, and gazed into the fire. She did not feel sleepy; but sleep had been for many a day an almost unknown luxury. For hours every night had she lain awake and heard the clocks chime, and sometimes had seen the dark meet with the dawn, but when sleep had come, it had come unwillingly, with lagging and uncertain step. But for very long she had not known that natural, healthy sleep which comes with silent footstep, and makes no declaration of his intent. The bright firelight flickered over her face, now and again making her instinctively draw back her head as a collapsing branch threw out a fresh access of radiance. And she thought and thought, and her wishes and imaginings became wrought into her strange surroundings. All at once she sat up with sudden impulse as she heard Dick’s voice in tones of startling clearness:

“Guess Little Missy’s fallen asleep. You’d better tell her mother to get her off to bed!”

With the instinctive obedience of youth and womanhood to the voice of authority she rose, swaying with sleep, and saying good-night passed into the tent. Here she found her mother wrapping herself in her blanket for the night. Esse made her simple toilet, and in a few minutes she too was wrapped in her blanket and was settling down to sleep. Then Miss Gimp put out the dark lantern which was close to her hand, and in a very few minutes, what she would have denied as being a snore, proclaimed that she slept. Mrs. Elstree was lying still, and breathed with long, gentle breaths. Esse could not go to sleep at once, but lay awake listening. She heard some sounds as of men moving, but nothing definite enough to help her imagination in trying to follow what was happening outside. She raised herself softly, and unlooping one of the flaps of the tent looked out.

The fire still blazed but with the strong settled redness, that shows that there is a solid base of glowing embers underneath the flame, and round it were stretched several dark figures wrapped in gaily coloured blankets. In the whole camp was only one figure upright) at the neck of the little rocky promontory stood a tall figure leaning on a Winchester rifle, seeming to keep guard over the camp. He was too far off to be touched by the firelight, but the moonlight fell on the outline of his body and showed the long fair hair falling on the shoulders of his embroidered buckskin shirt. When he turned she could see the keen eagle eyes looking out watchfully.

Esse crept back to her bed, and, with a contented sigh, fell asleep.

Esse became awake all at once, and, throwing off the buffalo robe which covered her, opened the flap of the tent and looked out. Over everything was the cold light of the coming dawn. The Indians were moving about and piling up again the fire, which was beginning to answer their attention with spluttering crackles, and Grizzly Dick was blowing a tin mug of steaming coffee which Le Maistre had just handed to him. Esse hurried her toilet in a manner which would have filled Miss Gimp with indignant concern, had she been awake, and stole out of the tent. She went over to the eastern side of the plateau, and stood there, looking expectantly for the coming dawn. It was something of a shock when Dick handed to her a mug of hot coffee saying:

“Catch hold! Guess, Little Missy, ye’d better rastle this or the cold of the morning’ll get ye, sure!”