Page:Southern Life in Southern Literature.djvu/141

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been validated.
JOHN ESTEN COOKE
123

woman had been quite too sudden, her nerves too firm, and her strength too great, to suffer him to succeed. The jagged splinters of the broken limb were thrust up, lacerating and tearing through flesh and skin, while a howl of the acutest agony attested the severity of that suffering which could extort such an acknowledgment from the American savage. He fainted in his pain, and as the weight increased upon the arm of the woman, the nature of her sex began to resume its sway. With a shudder of every fiber, she released her hold upon him. The effort of her soul was over, a strange sickness came upon her, and she was just conscious of a crashing fall of the heavy body among the branches of the tree at the foot of the window, when she staggered back fainting into the arms of her husband, who just at that moment ascended to her relief.

[Under the leadership of Harrison relief comes to the be sieged in the blockhouse, and the Indians are driven off.

After the defeat of the Indians Chorley attempts to carry Bess Matthews away on his ship, but is shot in his canoe by Captain Harrison, and Bess Matthews is rescued. Bess Matthews consents to make her rescuer happy with the hand which she had hitherto denied him. It is disclosed that Harrison is really the governor of the colony, Charles Craven, and the story closes with an account of how the colonists drove the Indians back further from the coast and defeated them in a final battle.]

JOHN ESTEN COOKE

[John Esten Cooke was born in Winchester, Virginia, in 1830, and died in Clarke County, Virginia, in 1886. He left school early in order to study law, but preferring literature, he devoted himself largely to writing. He saw service in the Confederate army. When the war was over he returned to his literary pursuits and continued